To Vera Glarner [Letter 379]

10,000 Tampa Avenue
Chatsworth, California
February 12, 1949

Dear Vera:

Thank you for your letter. I am terribly sorry if I have revived for you all the tragic memories of the past. I will not ask you about it again, unless you have some news about our families or relatives. If or when you have, please let me know. I, too, do not know the married name of my little sister.[*] I suppose, if we can ever inquire about her, it would have to be through Tania, who would know her name.

I will be very interested to know your opinion of my novel, when you have had a chance to read it. I have not read many French books since coming to America. I have not read much of the work of Colette, so I cannot express a real opinion, but the few of her stories which I have read, I found to be very charming and intelligently written.

Thank you for saying that you feel as if we have found each other again. I feel so too, and I think you will find me a better correspondent than I used to be in my youth.

I will write you more about my life as we get better acquainted. Right now, my big event was the preview of the picture, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, made from my novel. Henri has probably told you all about the picture, since I took him on the set in the studio, and he saw one of the scenes being shot. A preview, by the way, is an advance showing of a picture to the public as a test to judge public reaction. Well, we passed the test sensationally. The preview was extremely successful, and the picture is expected to be a big hit. The studio made no changes in it whatever, so that it will be released just as I wrote it. It will probably be at least a year or more before the picture reaches France, but I hope that you will see it when it comes there.

Best wishes from both of us to the three of you,

*In a circa September 15, 1931, letter to AR, her sister Nora announced her marriage and wrote: “Do you remember that I wrote you that I spent last summer at a rest home in Luga? Well, that’s where we met. His name is Fedya. His full name is Fyodor Andreyevitch Drobyshev! . . . So now my name is Eleonora Zinovyevna Drobysheva.” There are 25 other mentions of “Drobysheva” in the 900 letters from her family in Russia that were left by AR at her death and are now housed in the Ayn Rand Archives.