diff --git "a/final.txt" "b/final.txt" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/final.txt" @@ -0,0 +1,81028 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Anthem + +This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online +at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, +you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located +before using this eBook. + +Title: Anthem + +Author: Ayn Rand + +Release date: March 1, 1998 [eBook #1250] + Most recently updated: January 21, 2021 + +Language: English + +Credits: An anonymous group of volunteers, and David Widger + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHEM *** + + + + + ANTHEM + + by Ayn Rand + + + CONTENTS + + PART ONE + + PART TWO + + PART THREE + + PART FOUR + + PART FIVE + + PART SIX + + PART SEVEN + + PART EIGHT + + PART NINE + + PART TEN + + PART ELEVEN + + PART TWELVE + + + + + PART ONE + + It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others + think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It + is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears + but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression + blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The + laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations + bid them so. May we be forgiven! + + But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater + crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment + awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has + come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for + it. + + It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air. + Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are + alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws + say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for + this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we + have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one + body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the + ground, and on the wall before us the shadow of our one head. + + The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads + without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle + from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be + sentenced to ten years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if + it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the + light is precious and we should not waste it to write when we + need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save + the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must + also write, for—may the Council have mercy upon us!—we wish to + speak for once to no ears but our own. + + Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron + bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names + upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and + this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet + tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and + frowned and said: + + “There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has + grown beyond the bodies of your brothers.” But we cannot change + our bones nor our body. + + We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts + which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may + not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us + and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret + fear, that we know and do not resist. + + We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be + alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there + are words cut in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves + whenever we are tempted: + + “WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE. + THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT _WE_, + ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER.” + + We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not. + + These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the + grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which + come from more years than men could count. And these words are + the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World + Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has + it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that + no memory can reach. + + But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, + else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective + Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the + evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They whisper many strange + things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those + Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without + horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those + times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the + Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is + no will save the will of all men together. + + All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we + alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our + brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has + ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our + last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden here + under the ground. + + We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were + five years old, together with all the children of the City who + had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls there were + white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. We + were just like all our brothers then, save for the one + transgression: we fought with our brothers. There are few + offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and + for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and + of all the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar + most often. + + When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the + Students, where there are ten wards, for our ten years of + learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year. + Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we arose when + the big bell rang in the tower and we went to our beds when it + rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood in the great + sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all + together with the three Teachers at the head: + + “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are + we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers + who are the State. Amen.” + + Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare + of all things save one hundred beds. + + We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of + the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. + It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be + born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be + different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to + them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked + upon us. + + So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, + but we always remembered. We tried not to understand what the + Teachers taught, but we always understood it before the Teachers + had spoken. We looked upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with + only half a brain, and we tried to say and do as they did, that + we might be like them, like Union 5-3992, but somehow the + Teachers knew that we were not. And we were lashed more often + than all the other children. + + The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the + Councils, and the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they + are the voice of all men. And if sometimes, in the secret + darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our + fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt. We + had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to the words of our + Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all: + + “Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when + you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the + Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of + Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your + brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little + minds. And if you are not needed by your brother man, there is no + reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies.” + + We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse + broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were + guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred + some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well + to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great + Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. + We wished to know about all the things which make the earth + around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade + it. + + We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water + and in the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has + said that there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars + knows all things. And we learned much from our Teachers. We + learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around + it, which causes the day and the night. We learned the names of + all the winds which blow over the seas and push the sails of our + great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all + ailments. + + We loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the + secret hour, when we awoke in the night and there were no + brothers around us, but only their shapes in the beds and their + snores, we closed our eyes, and we held our lips shut, and we + stopped our breath, that no shudder might let our brothers see or + hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to be sent to the + Home of the Scholars when our time would come. + + All the great modern inventions come from the Home of the + Scholars, such as the newest one, which was found only a hundred + years ago, of how to make candles from wax and string; also, how + to make glass, which is put in our windows to protect us from the + rain. To find these things, the Scholars must study the earth and + learn from the rivers, from the sands, from the winds and the + rocks. And if we went to the Home of the Scholars, we could learn + from these also. We could ask questions of these, for they do not + forbid questions. + + And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us + seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It + whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, + and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. + We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We + must know that we may know. + + So we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished it + so much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night, + and we bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not + endure. It was evil and we dared not face our brothers in the + morning. For men may wish nothing for themselves. And we were + punished when the Council of Vocations came to give us our life + Mandates which tell those who reach their fifteenth year what + their work is to be for the rest of their days. + + The Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and + they sat in the great hall. And we who were fifteen and all the + Teachers came into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations + sat on a high dais, and they had but two words to speak to each + of the Students. They called the Students’ names, and when the + Students stepped before them, one after another, the Council + said: “Carpenter” or “Doctor” or “Cook” or “Leader.” Then each + Student raised their right arm and said: “The will of our + brothers be done.” + + Now if the Council has said “Carpenter” or “Cook,” the Students + so assigned go to work and they do not study any further. But if + the Council has said “Leader,” then those Students go into the + Home of the Leaders, which is the greatest house in the City, for + it has three stories. And there they study for many years, so + that they may become candidates and be elected to the City + Council and the State Council and the World Council—by a free and + general vote of all men. But we wished not to be a Leader, even + though it is a great honor. We wished to be a Scholar. + + So we awaited our turn in the great hall and then we heard the + Council of Vocations call our name: “Equality 7-2521.” We walked + to the dais, and our legs did not tremble, and we looked up at + the Council. There were five members of the Council, three of the + male gender and two of the female. Their hair was white and their + faces were cracked as the clay of a dry river bed. They were old. + They seemed older than the marble of the Temple of the World + Council. They sat before us and they did not move. And we saw no + breath to stir the folds of their white togas. But we knew that + they were alive, for a finger of the hand of the oldest rose, + pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing which + moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said: + “Street Sweeper.” + + We felt the cords of our neck grow tight as our head rose higher + to look upon the faces of the Council, and we were happy. We knew + we had been guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it. We + would accept our Life Mandate, and we would work for our + brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin + against them, which they did not know, but we knew. So we were + happy, and proud of ourselves and of our victory over ourselves. + We raised our right arm and we spoke, and our voice was the + clearest, the steadiest voice in the hall that day, and we said: + + “The will of our brothers be done.” + + And we looked straight into the eyes of the Council, but their + eyes were as cold blue glass buttons. + + So we went into the Home of the Street Sweepers. It is a grey + house on a narrow street. There is a sundial in its courtyard, by + which the Council of the Home can tell the hours of the day and + when to ring the bell. When the bell rings, we all arise from our + beds. The sky is green and cold in our windows to the east. The + shadow on the sundial marks off a half-hour while we dress and + eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where there are five long + tables with twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups on each + table. Then we go to work in the streets of the City, with our + brooms and our rakes. In five hours, when the sun is high, we + return to the Home and we eat our midday meal, for which one-half + hour is allowed. Then we go to work again. In five hours, the + shadows are blue on the pavements, and the sky is blue with a + deep brightness which is not bright. We come back to have our + dinner, which lasts one hour. Then the bell rings and we walk in + a straight column to one of the City Halls, for the Social + Meeting. Other columns of men arrive from the Homes of the + different Trades. The candles are lit, and the Councils of the + different Homes stand in a pulpit, and they speak to us of our + duties and of our brother men. Then visiting Leaders mount the + pulpit and they read to us the speeches which were made in the + City Council that day, for the City Council represents all men + and all men must know. Then we sing hymns, the Hymn of + Brotherhood, and the Hymn of Equality, and the Hymn of the + Collective Spirit. The sky is a soggy purple when we return to + the Home. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to + the City Theatre for three hours of Social Recreation. There a + play is shown upon the stage, with two great choruses from the + Home of the Actors, which speak and answer all together, in two + great voices. The plays are about toil and how good it is. Then + we walk back to the Home in a straight column. The sky is like a + black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst + through. The moths beat against the street lanterns. We go to our + beds and we sleep, till the bell rings again. The sleeping halls + are white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. + + Thus have we lived each day of four years, until two springs ago + when our crime happened. Thus must all men live until they are + forty. At forty, they are worn out. At forty, they are sent to + the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones live. The Old Ones do + not work, for the State takes care of them. They sit in the sun + in summer and they sit by the fire in winter. They do not speak + often, for they are weary. The Old Ones know that they are soon + to die. When a miracle happens and some live to be forty-five, + they are the Ancient Ones, and the children stare at them when + passing by the Home of the Useless. Such is to be our life, as + that of all our brothers and of the brothers who came before us. + + Such would have been our life, had we not committed our crime + which changed all things for us. And it was our curse which drove + us to our crime. We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all + our brother Street Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know. We + looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the + earth. And when we cleaned the yard of the Home of the Scholars, + we gathered the glass vials, the pieces of metal, the dried bones + which they had discarded. We wished to keep these things and to + study them, but we had no place to hide them. So we carried them + to the City Cesspool. And then we made the discovery. + + It was on a day of the spring before last. We Street Sweepers + work in brigades of three, and we were with Union 5-3992, they of + the half-brain, and with International 4-8818. Now Union 5-3992 + are a sickly lad and sometimes they are stricken with + convulsions, when their mouth froths and their eyes turn white. + But International 4-8818 are different. They are a tall, strong + youth and their eyes are like fireflies, for there is laughter in + their eyes. We cannot look upon International 4-8818 and not + smile in answer. For this they were not liked in the Home of the + Students, as it is not proper to smile without reason. And also + they were not liked because they took pieces of coal and they + drew pictures upon the walls, and they were pictures which made + men laugh. But it is only our brothers in the Home of the Artists + who are permitted to draw pictures, so International 4-8818 were + sent to the Home of the Street Sweepers, like ourselves. + + International 4-8818 and we are friends. This is an evil thing to + say, for it is a transgression, the great Transgression of + Preference, to love any among men better than the others, since + we must love all men and all men are our friends. So + International 4-8818 and we have never spoken of it. But we know. + We know, when we look into each other’s eyes. And when we look + thus without words, we both know other things also, strange + things for which there are no words, and these things frighten + us. + + So on that day of the spring before last, Union 5-3992 were + stricken with convulsions on the edge of the City, near the City + Theatre. We left them to lie in the shade of the Theatre tent and + we went with International 4-8818 to finish our work. We came + together to the great ravine behind the Theatre. It is empty save + for trees and weeds. Beyond the ravine there is a plain, and + beyond the plain there lies the Uncharted Forest, about which men + must not think. + + We were gathering the papers and the rags which the wind had + blown from the Theatre, when we saw an iron bar among the weeds. + It was old and rusted by many rains. We pulled with all our + strength, but we could not move it. So we called International + 4-8818, and together we scraped the earth around the bar. Of a + sudden the earth fell in before us, and we saw an old iron grill + over a black hole. + + International 4-8818 stepped back. But we pulled at the grill and + it gave way. And then we saw iron rings as steps leading down a + shaft into a darkness without bottom. + + “We shall go down,” we said to International 4-8818. + + “It is forbidden,” they answered. + + We said: “The Council does not know of this hole, so it cannot be + forbidden.” + + And they answered: “Since the Council does not know of this hole, + there can be no law permitting to enter it. And everything which + is not permitted by law is forbidden.” + + But we said: “We shall go, none the less.” + + They were frightened, but they stood by and watched us go. + + We hung on the iron rings with our hands and our feet. We could + see nothing below us. And above us the hole open upon the sky + grew smaller and smaller, till it came to be the size of a + button. But still we went down. Then our foot touched the ground. + We rubbed our eyes, for we could not see. Then our eyes became + used to the darkness, but we could not believe what we saw. + + No men known to us could have built this place, nor the men known + to our brothers who lived before us, and yet it was built by men. + It was a great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the + touch; it felt like stone, but it was not stone. On the ground + there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron; it felt + smooth and cold as glass. We knelt, and we crawled forward, our + hand groping along the iron line to see where it would lead. But + there was an unbroken night ahead. Only the iron tracks glowed + through it, straight and white, calling us to follow. But we + could not follow, for we were losing the puddle of light behind + us. So we turned and we crawled back, our hand on the iron line. + And our heart beat in our fingertips, without reason. And then we + knew. + + We knew suddenly that this place was left from the Unmentionable + Times. So it was true, and those Times had been, and all the + wonders of those Times. Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men + knew secrets which we have lost. And we thought: “This is a foul + place. They are damned who touch the things of the Unmentionable + Times.” But our hand which followed the track, as we crawled, + clung to the iron as if it would not leave it, as if the skin of + our hand were thirsty and begging of the metal some secret fluid + beating in its coldness. + + We returned to the earth. International 4-8818 looked upon us and + stepped back. + + “Equality 7-2521,” they said, “your face is white.” + + But we could not speak and we stood looking upon them. + + They backed away, as if they dared not touch us. Then they + smiled, but it was not a gay smile; it was lost and pleading. But + still we could not speak. Then they said: + + “We shall report our find to the City Council and both of us will + be rewarded.” + + And then we spoke. Our voice was hard and there was no mercy in + our voice. We said: + + “We shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not + report it to any men.” + + They raised their hands to their ears, for never had they heard + such words as these. + + “International 4-8818,” we asked, “will you report us to the + Council and see us lashed to death before your eyes?” + + They stood straight all of a sudden and they answered: “Rather + would we die.” + + “Then,” we said, “keep silent. This place is ours. This place + belongs to us, Equality 7-2521, and to no other men on earth. And + if ever we surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it + also.” + + Then we saw that the eyes of International 4-8818 were full to + the lids with tears they dared not drop. They whispered, and + their voice trembled, so that their words lost all shape: + + “The will of the Council is above all things, for it is the will + of our brothers, which is holy. But if you wish it so, we shall + obey you. Rather shall we be evil with you than good with all our + brothers. May the Council have mercy upon both our hearts!” + + Then we walked away together and back to the Home of the Street + Sweepers. And we walked in silence. + + Thus did it come to pass that each night, when the stars are high + and the Street Sweepers sit in the City Theatre, we, Equality + 7-2521, steal out and run through the darkness to our place. It + is easy to leave the Theatre; when the candles are blown out and + the Actors come onto the stage, no eyes can see us as we crawl + under our seat and under the cloth of the tent. Later, it is easy + to steal through the shadows and fall in line next to + International 4-8818, as the column leaves the Theatre. It is + dark in the streets and there are no men about, for no men may + walk through the City when they have no mission to walk there. + Each night, we run to the ravine, and we remove the stones which + we have piled upon the iron grill to hide it from the men. Each + night, for three hours, we are under the earth, alone. + + We have stolen candles from the Home of the Street Sweepers, we + have stolen flints and knives and paper, and we have brought them + to this place. We have stolen glass vials and powders and acids + from the Home of the Scholars. Now we sit in the tunnel for three + hours each night and we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix + acids, and we cut open the bodies of the animals which we find in + the City Cesspool. We have built an oven of the bricks we + gathered in the streets. We burn the wood we find in the ravine. + The fire flickers in the oven and blue shadows dance upon the + walls, and there is no sound of men to disturb us. + + We have stolen manuscripts. This is a great offense. Manuscripts + are precious, for our brothers in the Home of the Clerks spend + one year to copy one single script in their clear handwriting. + Manuscripts are rare and they are kept in the Home of the + Scholars. So we sit under the earth and we read the stolen + scripts. Two years have passed since we found this place. And in + these two years we have learned more than we had learned in the + ten years of the Home of the Students. + + We have learned things which are not in the scripts. We have + solved secrets of which the Scholars have no knowledge. We have + come to see how great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will + not bring us to the end of our quest. But we wish no end to our + quest. We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to + feel as if with each day our sight were growing sharper than the + hawk’s and clearer than rock crystal. + + Strange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our + brothers. We are defying the will of our Councils. We alone, of + the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are + doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it. The + evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe. The nature + of our punishment, if it be discovered, is not for the human + heart to ponder. Never, not in the memory of the Ancient Ones’ + Ancients, never have men done that which we are doing. + + And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to + ourselves that we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no + burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to + us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save + those of the sun. And in our heart—strange are the ways of + evil!—in our heart there is the first peace we have known in + twenty years. + + + + PART TWO + + Liberty 5-3000... Liberty five-three thousand ... Liberty + 5-3000.... + + We wish to write this name. We wish to speak it, but we dare not + speak it above a whisper. For men are forbidden to take notice of + women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men. But we + think of one among women, they whose name is Liberty 5-3000, and + we think of no others. The women who have been assigned to work + the soil live in the Homes of the Peasants beyond the City. Where + the City ends there is a great road winding off to the north, and + we Street Sweepers must keep this road clean to the first + milepost. There is a hedge along the road, and beyond the hedge + lie the fields. The fields are black and ploughed, and they lie + like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some + hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide + apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with + thin, green spangles. Women work in the fields, and their white + tunics in the wind are like the wings of sea-gulls beating over + the black soil. + + And there it was that we saw Liberty 5-3000 walking along the + furrows. Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron. + Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, + no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden as the sun; their + hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to + restrain it. They threw seeds from their hand as if they deigned + to fling a scornful gift, and the earth was a beggar under their + feet. + + We stood still; for the first time did we know fear, and then + pain. And we stood still that we might not spill this pain more + precious than pleasure. + + Then we heard a voice from the others call their name: “Liberty + 5-3000,” and they turned and walked back. Thus we learned their + name, and we stood watching them go, till their white tunic was + lost in the blue mist. + + And the following day, as we came to the northern road, we kept + our eyes upon Liberty 5-3000 in the field. And each day + thereafter we knew the illness of waiting for our hour on the + northern road. And there we looked at Liberty 5-3000 each day. We + know not whether they looked at us also, but we think they did. + Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they + turned to us. They turned in a whirl and the movement of their + body stopped, as if slashed off, as suddenly as it had started. + They stood still as a stone, and they looked straight upon us, + straight into our eyes. There was no smile on their face, and no + welcome. But their face was taut, and their eyes were dark. Then + they turned as swiftly, and they walked away from us. + + But the following day, when we came to the road, they smiled. + They smiled to us and for us. And we smiled in answer. Their head + fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin + white neck were stricken suddenly with a great lassitude. They + were not looking upon us, but upon the sky. Then they glanced at + us over their shoulder, as we felt as if a hand had touched our + body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet. + + Every morning thereafter, we greeted each other with our eyes. We + dared not speak. It is a transgression to speak to men of other + Trades, save in groups at the Social Meetings. But once, standing + at the hedge, we raised our hand to our forehead and then moved + it slowly, palm down, toward Liberty 5-3000. Had the others seen + it, they could have guessed nothing, for it looked only as if we + were shading our eyes from the sun. But Liberty 5-3000 saw it and + understood. They raised their hand to their forehead and moved it + as we had. Thus, each day, we greet Liberty 5-3000, and they + answer, and no men can suspect. + + We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second + Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our + brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty + 5-3000. We do not know why we think of them. We do not know why, + when we think of them, we feel all of a sudden that the earth is + good and that it is not a burden to live. We do not think of them + as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have given them a name in our + thoughts. We call them the Golden One. But it is a sin to give + men names which distinguish them from other men. Yet we call them + the Golden One, for they are not like the others. The Golden One + are not like the others. + + And we take no heed of the law which says that men may not think + of women, save at the Time of Mating. This is the time each + spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older + than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of + Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to + them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter, + but women never see their children and children never know their + parents. Twice have we been sent to the Palace of Mating, but it + is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think. + + We had broken so many laws, and today we have broken one more. + Today, we spoke to the Golden One. + + The other women were far off in the field, when we stopped at the + hedge by the side of the road. The Golden One were kneeling alone + at the moat which runs through the field. And the drops of water + falling from their hands, as they raised the water to their lips, + were like sparks of fire in the sun. Then the Golden One saw us, + and they did not move, kneeling there, looking at us, and circles + of light played upon their white tunic, from the sun on the water + of the moat, and one sparkling drop fell from a finger of their + hand held as frozen in the air. + + Then the Golden One rose and walked to the hedge, as if they had + heard a command in our eyes. The two other Street Sweepers of our + brigade were a hundred paces away down the road. And we thought + that International 4-8818 would not betray us, and Union 5-3992 + would not understand. So we looked straight upon the Golden One, + and we saw the shadows of their lashes on their white cheeks and + the sparks of sun on their lips. And we said: + + “You are beautiful, Liberty 5-3000.” + + Their face did not move and they did not avert their eyes. Only + their eyes grew wider, and there was triumph in their eyes, and + it was not triumph over us, but over things we could not guess. + + Then they asked: + + “What is your name?” + + “Equality 7-2521,” we answered. + + “You are not one of our brothers, Equality 7-2521, for we do not + wish you to be.” + + We cannot say what they meant, for there are no words for their + meaning, but we know it without words and we knew it then. + + “No,” we answered, “nor are you one of our sisters.” + + “If you see us among scores of women, will you look upon us?” + + “We shall look upon you, Liberty 5-3000, if we see you among all + the women of the earth.” + + Then they asked: + + “Are Street Sweepers sent to different parts of the City or do + they always work in the same places?” + + “They always work in the same places,” we answered, “and no one + will take this road away from us.” + + “Your eyes,” they said, “are not like the eyes of any among men.” + + And suddenly, without cause for the thought which came to us, we + felt cold, cold to our stomach. + + “How old are you?” we asked. + + They understood our thought, for they lowered their eyes for the + first time. + + “Seventeen,” they whispered. + + And we sighed, as if a burden had been taken from us, for we had + been thinking without reason of the Palace of Mating. And we + thought that we would not let the Golden One be sent to the + Palace. How to prevent it, how to bar the will of the Councils, + we knew not, but we knew suddenly that we would. Only we do not + know why such thought came to us, for these ugly matters bear no + relation to us and the Golden One. What relation can they bear? + + Still, without reason, as we stood there by the hedge, we felt + our lips drawn tight with hatred, a sudden hatred for all our + brother men. And the Golden One saw it and smiled slowly, and + there was in their smile the first sadness we had seen in them. + We think that in the wisdom of women the Golden One had + understood more than we can understand. + + Then three of the sisters in the field appeared, coming toward + the road, so the Golden One walked away from us. They took the + bag of seeds, and they threw the seeds into the furrows of earth + as they walked away. But the seeds flew wildly, for the hand of + the Golden One was trembling. + + Yet as we walked back to the Home of the Street Sweepers, we felt + that we wanted to sing, without reason. So we were reprimanded + tonight, in the dining hall, for without knowing it we had begun + to sing aloud some tune we had never heard. But it is not proper + to sing without reason, save at the Social Meetings. + + “We are singing because we are happy,” we answered the one of the + Home Council who reprimanded us. + + “Indeed you are happy,” they answered. “How else can men be when + they live for their brothers?” + + And now, sitting here in our tunnel, we wonder about these words. + It is forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been explained + to us, men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things + on earth belong to all men; and the will of all men together is + good for all; and so all men must be happy. + + Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments + for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads of + our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our brothers are dull, and + never do they look one another in the eyes. The shoulders of our + brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their + bodies were shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight. And a + word steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that + word is fear. + + There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in + the air of the streets. Fear walks through the City, fear without + name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak. + + We feel it also, when we are in the Home of the Street Sweepers. + But here, in our tunnel, we feel it no longer. The air is pure + under the ground. There is no odor of men. And these three hours + give us strength for our hours above the ground. + + Our body is betraying us, for the Council of the Home looks with + suspicion upon us. It is not good to feel too much joy nor to be + glad that our body lives. For we matter not and it must not + matter to us whether we live or die, which is to be as our + brothers will it. But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. + If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue. + + Yet our brothers are not like us. All is not well with our + brothers. There are Fraternity 2-5503, a quiet boy with wise, + kind eyes, who cry suddenly, without reason, in the midst of day + or night, and their body shakes with sobs they cannot explain. + There are Solidarity 9-6347, who are a bright youth, without fear + in the day; but they scream in their sleep, and they scream: + “Help us! Help us! Help us!” into the night, in a voice which + chills our bones, but the Doctors cannot cure Solidarity 9-6347. + + And as we all undress at night, in the dim light of the candles, + our brothers are silent, for they dare not speak the thoughts of + their minds. For all must agree with all, and they cannot know if + their thoughts are the thoughts of all, and so they fear to + speak. And they are glad when the candles are blown for the + night. But we, Equality 7-2521, look through the window upon the + sky, and there is peace in the sky, and cleanliness, and dignity. + And beyond the City there lies the plain, and beyond the plain, + black upon the black sky, there lies the Uncharted Forest. + + We do not wish to look upon the Uncharted Forest. We do not wish + to think of it. But ever do our eyes return to that black patch + upon the sky. Men never enter the Uncharted Forest, for there is + no power to explore it and no path to lead among its ancient + trees which stand as guards of fearful secrets. It is whispered + that once or twice in a hundred years, one among the men of the + City escape alone and run to the Uncharted Forest, without call + or reason. These men do not return. They perish from hunger and + from the claws of the wild beasts which roam the Forest. But our + Councils say that this is only a legend. We have heard that there + are many Uncharted Forests over the land, among the Cities. And + it is whispered that they have grown over the ruins of many + cities of the Unmentionable Times. The trees have swallowed the + ruins, and the bones under the ruins, and all the things which + perished. And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the + night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times. And we + wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the + world. We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which + many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These + few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires + raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones and all the + things made by the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is + called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where + all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all + the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the + squares of the Cities for three months. Then came the Great + Rebirth. + + The words of the Evil Ones... The words of the Unmentionable + Times... What are the words which we have lost? + + May the Council have mercy upon us! We had no wish to write such + a question, and we knew not what we were doing till we had + written it. We shall not ask this question and we shall not think + it. We shall not call death upon our head. + + And yet... And yet... There is some word, one single word which + is not in the language of men, but which had been. And this is + the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But + sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men + find that word. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or + cut into the fragments of ancient stones. But when they speak it + they are put to death. There is no crime punished by death in + this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word. + + We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the + City. And it was a sight which has stayed with us through the + years, and it haunts us, and follows us, and it gives us no rest. + We were a child then, ten years old. And we stood in the great + square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to + behold the burning. They brought the Transgressor out into the + square and they led them to the pyre. They had torn out the + tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer. + The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and + eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did + not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces + which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, theirs was + the calmest and the happiest face. + + As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and a + flame set to the pyre, the Transgressor looked upon the City. + There was a thin thread of blood running from the corner of their + mouth, but their lips were smiling. And a monstrous thought came + to us then, which has never left us. We had heard of Saints. + There are the Saints of Labor, and the Saints of the Councils, + and the Saints of the Great Rebirth. But we had never seen a + Saint nor what the likeness of a Saint should be. And we thought + then, standing in the square, that the likeness of a Saint was + the face we saw before us in the flames, the face of the + Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word. + + As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours, + else we would not be living today. Perhaps it had only seemed to + us. But it seemed to us that the eyes of the Transgressor had + chosen us from the crowd and were looking straight upon us. There + was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their + body. There was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than + is fit for human pride to be. And it seemed as if these eyes were + trying to tell us something through the flames, to send into our + eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes were + begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and + from the earth. But the flames rose and we could not guess the + word.... + + What—even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the + Pyre—what is the Unspeakable Word? + + + + PART THREE + + We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered a new power of nature. And + we have discovered it alone, and we alone are to know it. + + It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council + of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and + therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But + we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of + this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who + will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to + all our brothers. + + We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know + its nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it + first two years ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of + a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was dead, yet it + moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not + understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer. The + frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the + metal of our knife which had sent the strange power to the copper + through the brine of the frog’s body. We put a piece of copper + and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wire to + them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never + occurred before, a new miracle and a new power. + + This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all + our studies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we + can describe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling + before us. We came to know that we had found the greatest power + on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the + needle move and turn on the compass which we stole from the Home + of the Scholars; but we had been taught, when still a child, that + the loadstone points to the north and that this is a law which + nothing can change; yet our new power defies all laws. We found + that it causes lightning, and never have men known what causes + lightning. In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of iron by the + side of our hole, and we watched it from below. We have seen the + lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metal + draws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it + forth. + + We have built strange things with this discovery of ours. We used + for it the copper wires which we found here under the ground. We + have walked the length of our tunnel, with a candle lighting the + way. We could go no farther than half a mile, for earth and rock + had fallen at both ends. But we gathered all the things we found + and we brought them to our work place. We found strange boxes + with bars of metal inside, with many cords and strands and coils + of metal. We found wires that led to strange little globes of + glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than + a spider’s web. + + These things help us in our work. We do not understand them, but + we think that the men of the Unmentionable Times had known our + power of the sky, and these things had some relation to it. We do + not know, but we shall learn. We cannot stop now, even though it + frightens us that we are alone in our knowledge. + + No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars + who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do. + We have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not + care. We forget all men, all laws and all things save our metals + and our wires. So much is still to be learned! So long a road + lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone! + + + + PART FOUR + + Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again. + But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the sun + had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay + still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the + glow. So the women of the field were weary, and they tarried over + their work, and they were far from the road when we came. But the + Golden One stood alone at the hedge, waiting. We stopped and we + saw that their eyes, so hard and scornful to the world, were + looking at us as if they would obey any word we might speak. + + And we said: + + “We have given you a name in our thoughts, Liberty 5-3000.” + + “What is our name?” they asked. + + “The Golden One.” + + “Nor do we call you Equality 7-2521 when we think of you.” + + “What name have you given us?” They looked straight into our eyes + and they held their head high and they answered: + + “The Unconquered.” + + For a long time we could not speak. Then we said: + + “Such thoughts as these are forbidden, Golden One.” + + “But you think such thoughts as these and you wish us to think + them.” + + We looked into their eyes and we could not lie. + + “Yes,” we whispered, and they smiled, and then we said: “Our + dearest one, do not obey us.” + + They stepped back, and their eyes were wide and still. + + “Speak these words again,” they whispered. + + “Which words?” we asked. But they did not answer, and we knew it. + + “Our dearest one,” we whispered. + + Never have men said this to women. + + The head of the Golden One bowed slowly, and they stood still + before us, their arms at their sides, the palms of their hands + turned to us, as if their body were delivered in submission to + our eyes. And we could not speak. + + Then they raised their head, and they spoke simply and gently, as + if they wished us to forget some anxiety of their own. + + “The day is hot,” they said, “and you have worked for many hours + and you must be weary.” + + “No,” we answered. + + “It is cooler in the fields,” they said, “and there is water to + drink. Are you thirsty?” + + “Yes,” we answered, “but we cannot cross the hedge.” + + “We shall bring the water to you,” they said. + + Then they knelt by the moat, they gathered water in their two + hands, they rose and they held the water out to our lips. + + We do not know if we drank that water. We only knew suddenly that + their hands were empty, but we were still holding our lips to + their hands, and that they knew it, but did not move. + + We raised our head and stepped back. For we did not understand + what had made us do this, and we were afraid to understand it. + + And the Golden One stepped back, and stood looking upon their + hands in wonder. Then the Golden One moved away, even though no + others were coming, and they moved, stepping back, as if they + could not turn from us, their arms bent before them, as if they + could not lower their hands. + + + + PART FIVE + + We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of + the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only. + + We know not what we are saying. Our head is reeling. We look upon + the light which we have made. We shall be forgiven for anything + we say tonight.... + + Tonight, after more days and trials than we can count, we + finished building a strange thing, from the remains of the + Unmentionable Times, a box of glass, devised to give forth the + power of the sky of greater strength than we had ever achieved + before. And when we put our wires to this box, when we closed the + current—the wire glowed! It came to life, it turned red, and a + circle of light lay on the stone before us. + + We stood, and we held our head in our hands. We could not + conceive of that which we had created. We had touched no flint, + made no fire. Yet here was light, light that came from nowhere, + light from the heart of metal. + + We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing + left around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of flame in + it, as a crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to + the wire, and we saw our fingers in the red glow. We could not + see our body nor feel it, and in that moment nothing existed save + our two hands over a wire glowing in a black abyss. + + Then we thought of the meaning of that which lay before us. We + can light our tunnel, and the City, and all the Cities of the + world with nothing save metal and wires. We can give our brothers + a new light, cleaner and brighter than any they have ever known. + The power of the sky can be made to do men’s bidding. There are + no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to + grant us anything if we but choose to ask. + + Then we knew what we must do. Our discovery is too great for us + to waste our time in sweeping the streets. We must not keep our + secret to ourselves, nor buried under the ground. We must bring + it into the sight of all men. We need all our time, we need the + work rooms of the Home of the Scholars, we want the help of our + brother Scholars and their wisdom joined to ours. There is so + much work ahead for all of us, for all the Scholars of the world. + + In a month, the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City. + It is a great Council, to which the wisest of all lands are + elected, and it meets once a year in the different Cities of the + earth. We shall go to this Council and we shall lay before them, + as our gift, this glass box with the power of the sky. We shall + confess everything to them. They will see, understand and + forgive. For our gift is greater than our transgression. They + will explain it to the Council of Vocations, and we shall be + assigned to the Home of the Scholars. This has never been done + before, but neither has a gift such as ours ever been offered to + men. + + We must wait. We must guard our tunnel as we had never guarded it + before. For should any men save the Scholars learn of our secret, + they would not understand it, nor would they believe us. They + would see nothing, save our crime of working alone, and they + would destroy us and our light. We care not about our body, but + our light is... + + Yes, we do care. For the first time do we care about our body. + For this wire is as a part of our body, as a vein torn from us, + glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or + of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these + two? + + We stretch out our arms. For the first time do we know how strong + our arms are. And a strange thought comes to us: we wonder, for + the first time in our life, what we look like. Men never see + their own faces and never ask their brothers about it, for it is + evil to have concern for their own faces or bodies. But tonight, + for a reason we cannot fathom, we wish it were possible to us to + know the likeness of our own person. + + + + PART SIX + + We have not written for thirty days. For thirty days we have not + been here, in our tunnel. We had been caught. It happened on that + night when we wrote last. We forgot, that night, to watch the + sand in the glass which tells us when three hours have passed and + it is time to return to the City Theatre. When we remembered it, + the sand had run out. + + We hastened to the Theatre. But the big tent stood grey and + silent against the sky. The streets of the City lay before us, + dark and empty. If we went back to hide in our tunnel, we would + be found and our light found with us. So we walked to the Home of + the Street Sweepers. + + When the Council of the Home questioned us, we looked upon the + faces of the Council, but there was no curiosity in those faces, + and no anger, and no mercy. So when the oldest of them asked us: + “Where have you been?” we thought of our glass box and of our + light, and we forgot all else. And we answered: + + “We will not tell you.” + + The oldest did not question us further. They turned to the two + youngest, and said, and their voice was bored: + + “Take our brother Equality 7-2521 to the Palace of Corrective + Detention. Lash them until they tell.” + + So we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of Corrective + Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty save for an + iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather + aprons and leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought + us departed, leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner + of the room. The Judges were small, thin men, grey and bent. They + gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones. + + They tore the clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our + knees and they tied our hands to the iron post. The first blow of + the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The second + blow stopped the first, and for a second we felt nothing, then + the pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs + without air. But we did not cry out. + + The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the + blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling + upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A + flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of + nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and + then we knew that we were looking at the squares of the iron + grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on + the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon our + back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh. + + Then we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw + the red froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and the Judge + asked: + + “Where have you been?” + + But we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands, + and bit our lips. + + The lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning + coal dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red twinkling on + the stones around us. + + Then we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one + after the other, even though we knew they were speaking many + minutes apart: + + “Where have you been where have you been where have you been + where have you been?...” + + And our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat, + and the sound was only: + + “The light... The light... The light....” + + Then we knew nothing. + + We opened our eyes, lying on our stomach on the brick floor of a + cell. We looked upon two hands lying far before us on the bricks, + and we moved them, and we knew that they were our hands. But we + could not move our body. Then we smiled, for we thought of the + light and that we had not betrayed it. + + We lay in our cell for many days. The door opened twice each day, + once for the men who brought us bread and water, and once for the + Judges. Many Judges came to our cell, first the humblest and then + the most honored Judges of the City. They stood before us in + their white togas, and they asked: + + “Are you ready to speak?” + + But we shook our head, lying before them on the floor. And they + departed. + + We counted each day and each night as it passed. Then, tonight, + we knew that we must escape. For tomorrow the World Council of + Scholars is to meet in our City. + + It was easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. + The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about. + There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the + Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were + ordered to be. Our body is healthy and strength returns to it + speedily. We lunged against the door and it gave way. We stole + through the dark passages, and through the dark streets, and down + into our tunnel. + + We lit the candle and we saw that our place had not been found + and nothing had been touched. And our glass box stood before us + on the cold oven, as we had left it. What matter they now, the + scars upon our back! + + Tomorrow, in the full light of day, we shall take our box, and + leave our tunnel open, and walk through the streets to the Home + of the Scholars. We shall put before them the greatest gift ever + offered to men. We shall tell them the truth. We shall hand to + them, as our confession, these pages we have written. We shall + join our hands to theirs, and we shall work together, with the + power of the sky, for the glory of mankind. Our blessing upon + you, our brothers! Tomorrow, you will take us back into your fold + and we shall be an outcast no longer. Tomorrow we shall be one of + you again. Tomorrow... + + + + PART SEVEN + + It is dark here in the forest. The leaves rustle over our head, + black against the last gold of the sky. The moss is soft and + warm. We shall sleep on this moss for many nights, till the + beasts of the forest come to tear our body. We have no bed now, + save the moss, and no future, save the beasts. + + We are old now, yet we were young this morning, when we carried + our glass box through the streets of the City to the Home of the + Scholars. No men stopped us, for there were none about from the + Palace of Corrective Detention, and the others knew nothing. No + men stopped us at the gate. We walked through empty passages and + into the great hall where the World Council of Scholars sat in + solemn meeting. + + We saw nothing as we entered, save the sky in the great windows, + blue and glowing. Then we saw the Scholars who sat around a long + table; they were as shapeless clouds huddled at the rise of the + great sky. There were men whose famous names we knew, and others + from distant lands whose names we had not heard. We saw a great + painting on the wall over their heads, of the twenty illustrious + men who had invented the candle. + + All the heads of the Council turned to us as we entered. These + great and wise of the earth did not know what to think of us, and + they looked upon us with wonder and curiosity, as if we were a + miracle. It is true that our tunic was torn and stained with + brown stains which had been blood. We raised our right arm and we + said: + + “Our greeting to you, our honored brothers of the World Council + of Scholars!” + + Then Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the Council, + spoke and asked: + + “Who are you, our brother? For you do not look like a Scholar.” + + “Our name is Equality 7-2521,” we answered, “and we are a Street + Sweeper of this City.” + + Then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the + Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and frightened. + + “A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World + Council of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all + the rules and all the laws!” + + But we knew how to stop them. + + “Our brothers!” we said. “We matter not, nor our transgression. + It is only our brother men who matter. Give no thought to us, for + we are nothing, but listen to our words, for we bring you a gift + such as had never been brought to men. Listen to us, for we hold + the future of mankind in our hands.” + + Then they listened. + + We placed our glass box upon the table before them. We spoke of + it, and of our long quest, and of our tunnel, and of our escape + from the Palace of Corrective Detention. Not a hand moved in that + hall, as we spoke, nor an eye. Then we put the wires to the box, + and they all bent forward and sat still, watching. And we stood + still, our eyes upon the wire. And slowly, slowly as a flush of + blood, a red flame trembled in the wire. Then the wire glowed. + + But terror struck the men of the Council. They leapt to their + feet, they ran from the table, and they stood pressed against the + wall, huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another’s + bodies to give them courage. + + We looked upon them and we laughed and said: + + “Fear nothing, our brothers. There is a great power in these + wires, but this power is tamed. It is yours. We give it to you.” + + Still they would not move. + + “We give you the power of the sky!” we cried. “We give you the + key to the earth! Take it, and let us be one of you, the humblest + among you. Let us all work together, and harness this power, and + make it ease the toil of men. Let us throw away our candles and + our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let us bring a + new light to men!” + + But they looked upon us, and suddenly we were afraid. For their + eyes were still, and small, and evil. + + “Our brothers!” we cried. “Have you nothing to say to us?” + + Then Collective 0-0009 moved forward. They moved to the table and + the others followed. + + “Yes,” spoke Collective 0-0009, “we have much to say to you.” + + The sound of their voices brought silence to the hall and to beat + of our heart. + + “Yes,” said Collective 0-0009, “we have much to say to a wretch + who have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy! + + “How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the + minds of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you + should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be + of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?” + + “How dared you, gutter cleaner,” spoke Fraternity 9-3452, “to + hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of the one and + not of the many?” + + “You shall be burned at the stake,” said Democracy 4-6998. + + “No, they shall be lashed,” said Unanimity 7-3304, “till there is + nothing left under the lashes.” + + “No,” said Collective 0-0009, “we cannot decide upon this, our + brothers. No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not + for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this + creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done.” + + We looked upon them and we pleaded: + + “Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done + upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What will you do + with the light?” + + Collective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled. + + “So you think that you have found a new power,” said Collective + 0-0009. “Do all your brothers think that?” + + “No,” we answered. + + “What is not thought by all men cannot be true,” said Collective + 0-0009. + + “You have worked on this alone?” asked International 1-5537. + + “Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas + in the past,” said Solidarity 8-1164, “but when the majority of + their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their + ideas, as all men must.” + + “This box is useless,” said Alliance 6-7349. + + “Should it be what they claim of it,” said Harmony 9-2642, “then + it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a + great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it + cannot be destroyed by the whim of one.” + + “This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,” said Unanimity + 2-9913, “and without the Plans of the World Council the sun + cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all + the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number + needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of + torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working + in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon.” + + “And if this should lighten the toil of men,” said Similarity + 5-0306, “then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist + save in toiling for other men.” + + Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box. + + “This thing,” they said, “must be destroyed.” + + And all the others cried as one: + + “It must be destroyed!” + + Then we leapt to the table. + + We seized our box, we shoved them aside, and we ran to the + window. We turned and we looked at them for the last time, and a + rage, such as it is not fit for humans to know, choked our voice + in our throat. + + “You fools!” we cried. “You fools! You thrice-damned fools!” + + We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a + ringing rain of glass. + + We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we + ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a + torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before + us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited for + the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew + not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to + the end of the world, to the end of our days. + + Then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that + we had stopped. Trees taller than we had ever seen before stood + over us in great silence. Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted + Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had + carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted + Forest against our will. + + Our glass box lay beside us. We crawled to it, we fell upon it, + our face in our arms, and we lay still. + + We lay thus for a long time. Then we rose, we took our box and + walked on into the forest. + + It mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow + us, for they never enter the Uncharted Forest. We had nothing to + fear from them. The forest disposes of its own victims. This gave + us no fear either. Only we wished to be away, away from the City + and from the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we + walked on, our box in our arms, our heart empty. + + We are doomed. Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them + alone. And we have heard of the corruption to be found in + solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our + brother men, and there is no road back for us, and no redemption. + + We know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on + earth. We are tired. + + Only the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives + us strength. We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this + box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. + It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their + truth. Why wonder about this? We have not many days to live. We + are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great, + silent trees. There is not a thing behind us to regret. + + Then a blow of pain struck us, our first and our only. We thought + of the Golden One. We thought of the Golden One whom we shall + never see again. Then the pain passed. It is best. We are one of + the Damned. It is best if the Golden One forget our name and the + body which bore that name. + + + + PART EIGHT + + It has been a day of wonder, this, our first day in the forest. + + We awoke when a ray of sunlight fell across our face. We wanted + to leap to our feet, as we have had to leap every morning of our + life, but we remembered suddenly that no bell had rung and that + there was no bell to ring anywhere. We lay on our back, we threw + our arms out, and we looked up at the sky. The leaves had edges + of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of green and + fire flowing high above us. + + We did not wish to move. We thought suddenly that we could lie + thus as long as we wished, and we laughed aloud at the thought. + We could also rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again. We were + thinking that these were thoughts without sense, but before we + knew it our body had risen in one leap. Our arms stretched out of + their own will, and our body whirled and whirled, till it raised + a wind to rustle through the leaves of the bushes. Then our hands + seized a branch and swung us high into a tree, with no aim save + the wonder of learning the strength of our body. The branch + snapped under us and we fell upon the moss that was soft as a + cushion. Then our body, losing all sense, rolled over and over on + the moss, dry leaves in our tunic, in our hair, in our face. And + we heard suddenly that we were laughing, laughing aloud, laughing + as if there were no power left in us save laughter. + + Then we took our glass box, and we went on into the forest. We + went on, cutting through the branches, and it was as if we were + swimming through a sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising + and falling and rising around us, and flinging their green sprays + high to the treetops. The trees parted before us, calling us + forward. The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without + thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our + body. + + We stopped when we felt hunger. We saw birds in the tree + branches, and flying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone + and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made + a fire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had ever + tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a + great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need and + obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungry again and + soon, that we might know again this strange new pride in eating. + + Then we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak + of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water + but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, + upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream + and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the + blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the first time. + + We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body + were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers, + for we felt not pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like + the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were straight and thin + and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this + being who looked upon us from the stream, and that we had nothing + to fear with this being. + + We walked on till the sun had set. When the shadows gathered + among the trees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, where + we shall sleep tonight. And suddenly, for the first time this + day, we remembered that we are the Damned. We remembered it, and + we laughed. + + We are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic + together with the written pages we had brought for the World + Council of Scholars, but never given to them. We have much to + speak of to ourselves, and we hope we shall find the words for it + in the days to come. Now, we cannot speak, for we cannot + understand. + + + + PART NINE + + We have not written for many days. We did not wish to speak. For + we needed no words to remember that which has happened to us. + + It was on our second day in the forest that we heard steps behind + us. We hid in the bushes, and we waited. The steps came closer. + And then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees, and a + gleam of gold. + + We leapt forward, we ran to them, and we stood looking upon the + Golden One. + + They saw us, and their hands closed into fists, and the fists + pulled their arms down, as if they wished their arms to hold + them, while their body swayed. And they could not speak. + + We dared not come too close to them. We asked, and our voice + trembled: + + “How did you come to be here, Golden One?” + + But they whispered only: + + “We have found you....” + + “How did you come to be in the forest?” we asked. + + They raised their head, and there was a great pride in their + voice; they answered: + + “We have followed you.” + + Then we could not speak, and they said: + + “We heard that you had gone to the Uncharted Forest, for the + whole City is speaking of it. So on the night of the day when we + heard it, we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the + marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk. So we + followed them, and we went into the forest, and we followed the + path where the branches were broken by your body.” + + Their white tunic was torn, and the branches had cut the skin of + their arms, but they spoke as if they had never taken notice of + it, nor of weariness, nor of fear. + + “We have followed you,” they said, “and we shall follow you + wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it also. + If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we + wish to share your damnation.” + + They looked upon us, and their voice was low, but there was + bitterness and triumph in their voice. + + “Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor + fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft and + humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but + our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with you, rather than + blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do + not send us away from you.” + + Then they knelt, and bowed their golden head before us. + + We had never thought of that which we did. We bent to raise the + Golden One to their feet, but when we touched them, it was as if + madness had stricken us. We seized their body and we pressed our + lips to theirs. The Golden One breathed once, and their breath + was a moan, and then their arms closed around us. + + We stood together for a long time. And we were frightened that we + had lived for twenty-one years and had never known what joy is + possible to men. + + Then we said: + + “Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger + in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their + good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are + together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your + hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, + unknown world, but our own.” + + Then we walked on into the forest, their hand in ours. + + And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms + is neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the + race of men. + + We have walked for many days. The forest has no end, and we seek + no end. But each day added to the chain of days between us and + the City is like an added blessing. + + We have made a bow and many arrows. We can kill more birds than + we need for our food; we find water and fruit in the forest. At + night, we choose a clearing, and we build a ring of fires around + it. We sleep in the midst of that ring, and the beasts dare not + attack us. We can see their eyes, green and yellow as coals, + watching us from the tree branches beyond. The fires smoulder as + a crown of jewels around us, and smoke stands still in the air, + in columns made blue by the moonlight. We sleep together in the + midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden One around us, their + head upon our breast. + + Some day, we shall stop and build a house, when we shall have + gone far enough. But we do not have to hasten. The days before us + are without end, like the forest. + + We cannot understand this new life which we have found, yet it + seems so clear and so simple. When questions come to puzzle us, + we walk faster, then turn and forget all things as we watch the + Golden One following. The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms, + as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the + sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their + shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from + above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which + has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their + neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel. They + approach us, and they stop, laughing, knowing what we think, and + they wait obediently, without questions, till it pleases us to + turn and go on. + + We go on and we bless the earth under our feet. But questions + come to us again, as we walk in silence. If that which we have + found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for + save corruption? If this is the great evil of being alone, then + what is good and what is evil? + + Everything which comes from the many is good. Everything which + comes from one is evil. This have we been taught with our first + breath. We have broken the law, but we have never doubted it. Yet + now, as we walk through the forest, we are learning to doubt. + + There is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of all + their brothers. But we lived not, when we toiled for our + brothers, we were only weary. There is no joy for men, save the + joy shared with all their brothers. But the only things which + taught us joy were the power we created in our wires, and the + Golden One. And both these joys belong to us alone, they come + from us alone, they bear no relation to all our brothers, and + they do not concern our brothers in any way. Thus do we wonder. + + There is some error, one frightful error, in the thinking of men. + What is that error? We do not know, but the knowledge struggles + within us, struggles to be born. Today, the Golden One stopped + suddenly and said: + + “We love you.” + + But they frowned and shook their head and looked at us + helplessly. + + “No,” they whispered, “that is not what we wished to say.” + + They were silent, then they spoke slowly, and their words were + halting, like the words of a child learning to speak for the + first time: + + “We are one... alone... and only... and we love you who are + one... alone... and only.” + + We looked into each other’s eyes and we knew that the breath of a + miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly. + + And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find. + + + + PART TEN + + We are sitting at a table and we are writing this upon paper made + thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we cannot see the + Golden One, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient + bed. This is our home. + + We came upon it today, at sunrise. For many days we had been + crossing a chain of mountains. The forest rose among cliffs, and + whenever we walked out upon a barren stretch of rock we saw great + peaks before us in the west, and to the north of us, and to the + south, as far as our eyes could see. The peaks were red and + brown, with the green streaks of forests as veins upon them, with + blue mists as veils over their heads. We had never heard of these + mountains, nor seen them marked on any map. The Uncharted Forest + has protected them from the Cities and from the men of the + Cities. + + We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones + rolled from under our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks + below, farther and farther down, and the mountains rang with each + stroke, and long after the strokes had died. But we went on, for + we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach us + here. + + Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees, + high on a sheer peak before us. We thought that it was a fire and + stopped. But the flame was unmoving, yet blinding as liquid + metal. So we climbed toward it through the rocks. And there, + before us, on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind + it, stood a house such as we had never seen, and the white fire + came from the sun on the glass of its windows. + + The house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor. + There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows + went on straight around the corners, though how this kept the + house standing we could not guess. The walls were hard and + smooth, of that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our + tunnel. + + We both knew it without words: this house was left from the + Unmentionable Times. The trees had protected it from time and + weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather. + We turned to the Golden One and we asked: + + “Are you afraid?” + + But they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we threw + it open, and we stepped together into the house of the + Unmentionable Times. + + We shall need the days and the years ahead, to look, to learn, + and to understand the things of this house. Today, we could only + look and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the + heavy curtains from the windows and we saw that the rooms were + small, and we thought that not more than twelve men could have + lived here. We thought it strange that men had been permitted to + build a house for only twelve. + + Never had we seen rooms so full of light. The sunrays danced upon + colors, colors, more colors than we thought possible, we who had + seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones and the grey. + There were great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was not + glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and all + the things behind us, as on the face of a lake. There were + strange things which we had never seen and the use of which we do + not know. And there were globes of glass everywhere, in each + room, the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had + seen in our tunnel. + + We found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its + threshold. For it was a small room and there were only two beds + in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we knew that + only two had lived here, and this passes understanding. What kind + of world did they have, the men of the Unmentionable Times? + + We found garments, and the Golden One gasped at the sight of + them. For they were not white tunics, nor white togas; they were + of all colors, no two of them alike. Some crumbled to dust as we + touched them. But others were of heavier cloth, and they felt + soft and new in our fingers. + + We found a room with walls made of shelves, which held rows of + manuscripts, from the floor to the ceiling. Never had we seen + such a number of them, nor of such strange shape. They were not + soft and rolled, they had hard shells of cloth and leather; and + the letters on their pages were so small and so even that we + wondered at the men who had such handwriting. We glanced through + the pages, and we saw that they were written in our language, but + we found many words which we could not understand. Tomorrow, we + shall begin to read these scripts. + + When we had seen all the rooms of the house, we looked at the + Golden One and we both knew the thought in our minds. + + “We shall never leave this house,” we said, “nor let it be taken + from us. This is our home and the end of our journey. This is + your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men + whatever as far as the earth may stretch. We shall not share it + with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor + our hunger. So be it to the end of our days.” + + “Your will be done,” they said. + + Then we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of our home. + We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under + our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh + to be cooked in a strange copper pot we found in a place of + wonders, which must have been the cooking room of the house. + + We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the + Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood + before it and they looked and looked upon their own body. + + When the sun sank beyond the mountains, the Golden One fell + asleep on the floor, amidst jewels, and bottles of crystal, and + flowers of silk. We lifted the Golden One in our arms and we + carried them to a bed, their head falling softly upon our + shoulder. Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the + room of the manuscripts, and we sat by the window, for we knew + that we could not sleep tonight. + + And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock + and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world + that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a + first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor + what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits. + It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us, but it + wishes a greater gift for us. We are to speak. We are to give its + goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and + sky. + + We look ahead, we beg our heart for guidance in answering this + call no voice has spoken, yet we have heard. We look upon our + hands. We see the dust of centuries, the dust which hid the great + secrets and perhaps great evils. And yet it stirs no fear within + our heart, but only silent reverence and pity. + + May knowledge come to us! What is the secret our heart has + understood and yet will not reveal to us, although it seems to + beat as if it were endeavoring to tell it? + + + + PART ELEVEN + + I am. I think. I will. + + My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of + mine.... What must I say besides? These are the words. This is + the answer. + + I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I + spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the + quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. + I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for + being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant + and the sanction. + + It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty + to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my + ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and + the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find + the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will + is the only edict I must respect. + + Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are + false, but only three are holy: “I will it!” + + Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding + star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one + direction. They point to me. + + I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the + universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know + not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me + on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. + My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is + its own goal. It is its own purpose. + + Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. + I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. + I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on + their altars. + + I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine + to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before! + + I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune + of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to + the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my + treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of + these is freedom. + + I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I + ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no + man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet. + + I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of + them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must + do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without + reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I + honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned. + + I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. + And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love + and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our + hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the + temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his + temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with + others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold. + + For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and + as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within + man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils + on earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and of an unspeakable + lie. + + The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens + to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and + that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the + word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which + the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal + the wisdom of the sages. + + What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? + What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is + my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, + are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and + to obey? + + But I am done with this creed of corruption. + + I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of + plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. + + And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the + earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, + this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. + + This god, this one word: + + “I.” + + + PART TWELVE + + It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house + that I saw the word “I.” And when I understood this word, the + book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears. + I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind. + + I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I + understood why the best in me had been my sins and my + transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I + understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the + spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him. + + I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, + and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked + at me and the first words she spoke were: + + “I love you.” + + Then I said: + + “My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. + There was a time when each man had a name of his own to + distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I + have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of + all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He + took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he + taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all + bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus.” + + “It shall be your name,” said the Golden One. + + “And I have read of a goddess,” I said, “who was the mother of + the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be + your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new + kind of gods.” + + “It shall be my name,” said the Golden One. + + Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the + pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the + heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him + and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter + what name they gave to their cause and their truth. + + I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the + earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets + from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the + achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further, + the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my + brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest + ones among them. + + I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long + ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved + their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light which + came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the + engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it + and how to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires + which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires + around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a + barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of + granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For + they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their + numbers. I have my mind. + + Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and + nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is + pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man. He will + be taught to say “I” and to bear the pride of it. He will be + taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught + reverence for his own spirit. + + When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when + my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day, + for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call + to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and + all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, + and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few + others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit + has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of + their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my + fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my + chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter + in the new history of man. + + These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door + of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the + history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I + wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was + the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from + what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, + save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. + That is freedom. That and nothing else. + + At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their + chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their + chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. + But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a + man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take + away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right + of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he + stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the + centuries behind him had been spilled. + + But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his + savage beginning. + + What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away + from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and + submission? The worship of the word “We.” + + When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries + collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come + from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, + from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for + its own sake. Those men who survived those eager to obey, eager + to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate + them—those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had + received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on + earth. Thus did men—men with nothing to offer save their great + number—lost the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, + all the things they had not created and could never keep. + Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the + courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these + men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I + have been answered—and for the same reasons. + + But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years + of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were + going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I + wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the + word “I” could give it up and not know what they lost. But such + has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, + and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. + + Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of + clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. + What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw + coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and + in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, + these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their + banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for + they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my + pity. + + Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to + tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, + and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost + can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never + perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which + men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this + earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but + it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men. + + Here on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall + build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart + of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating + louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the + earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will + carry the best of the world’s blood to my threshold. And all my + brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but + they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I + shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of + the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world + where each man will be free to exist for his own sake. + + For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my + chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his + life. For his honor. + + And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone + the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which + will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can + never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the + meaning and the glory. + + The sacred word: + + EGO + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHEM *** + + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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I cannot say that I feel anything in +particular, except a kind of quiet satisfaction. In this respect, my attitude +toward my writing is best expressed by a statement of Victor Hugo: "If a writer +wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away." +Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of +the moment. Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish +in a month or a year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and +published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest +aspects of today’s literature, and one of the clearest indictments of its +dominant esthetic philosophy: concrete-bound, journalistic Naturalism which has +now reached its dead end in the inarticulate sounds of panic. +Longevity-predominantly, though not exclusively-is the prerogative of a literary +school which is virtually non-existent today: Romanticism. This is not the place +for a dissertation on the nature of Romantic fiction, so let me state--for the +record and for the benefit of those college students who have never been allowed +to discover it--only that Romanticism is the conceptual school of art. It deals, +not with the random trivia of the day, but with the timeless, fundamental, +universal problems and values of human existence. It does not record or +photograph; it creates and projects. It is concerned--in the words of +Aristotle--not with things as they are, but with things as they might be and +ought to be. +And for the benefit of those who consider relevance to one’s own time as of +crucial importance, I will add, in regard to our age, that never has there been +a time when men have so desperately needed a projection of things as they ought +to be. +I do not mean to imply that I knew, when I wrote it, that The Fountainhead would +remain in print for twenty-five years. I did not think of any specific time +period. I knew only that it was a book that ought to live. It did. +But that I knew it over twenty-five years ago--that I knew it while The +1 + + Fountainhead was being rejected by twelve publishers, some of whom declared that +it was "too intellectual," +"too controversial" and would not sell because no audience existed for it--that +was the difficult part of its history; difficult for me to bear. I mention it +here for the sake of any other writer of my kind who might have to face the same +battle--as a reminder of the fact that it can be done. +It would be impossible for me to discuss The Fountainhead or any part of its +history without mentioning the man who made it possible for me to write it: my +husband, Frank O’Connor. +In a play I wrote in my early thirties, Ideal, the heroine, a screen star, +speaks for me when she says: "I want to see, real, living, and in the hours of +my own days, that glory I create as an illusion. I want it real. I want to know +that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of +seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit, +too, needs fuel. It can run dry." +Frank was the fuel. He gave me, in the hours of my own days, the reality of that +sense of life, which created The Fountainhead--and he helped me to maintain it +over a long span of years when there was nothing around us but a gray desert of +people and events that evoked nothing but contempt and revulsion. The essence of +the bond between us is the fact that neither of us has ever wanted or been +tempted to settle for anything less than the world presented in The +Fountainhead. We never will. +If there is in me any touch of the Naturalistic writer who records "real-life" +dialogue for use in a novel, it has been exercised only in regard to Frank. For +instance, one of the most effective lines in The Fountainhead comes at the end +of Part II, when, in reply to Toohey’s question: "Why don’t you tell me what you +think of me?" Roark answers: "But I don’t think of you." That line was Frank’s +answer to a different type of person, in a somewhat similar context. "You’re +casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return," was said by Frank to +me, in regard to my professional position. I gave that line to Dominique at +Roark’s trial. +I did not feel discouragement very often, and when I did, it did not last longer +than overnight. But there was one evening, during the writing of The +Fountainhead, when I felt so profound an indignation at the state of "things as +they are" that it seemed as if I would never regain the energy to move one step +farther toward "things as they ought to be." Frank talked to me for hours, that +night. He convinced me of why one cannot give up the world to those one +despises. By the time he finished, my discouragement was gone; it never came +back in so intense a form. +I had been opposed to the practice of dedicating books; I had held that a book +is addressed to any reader who proves worthy of it. But, that night, I told +Frank that I would dedicate The Fountainhead to him because he had saved it. And +one of my happiest moments, about two years later, was given to me by the look +on his face when he came home, one day, and saw the page-proofs of the book, +headed by the page that stated in cold, clear, objective print: To Frank +O’Connor. +I have been asked whether I have changed in these past twenty-five years. No, I +am the same--only more so. Have my ideas changed? No, my fundamental +convictions, my view of life and of man, have never changed, from as far back as +I can remember, but my knowledge of their applications has grown, in scope and +in precision. What is my present evaluation of The Fountainhead? I am as proud +2 + + of it as I was on the day when I finished writing it. +Was The Fountainhead written for the purpose of presenting my philosophy? Here, +I shall quote from The Goal of My Writing, an address I gave at Lewis and Clark +College, on October 1, 1963: "This is the motive and purpose of my writing; the +projection of an ideal man. The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate +literary goal, as an end in itself--to which any didactic, intellectual or +philosophical values contained in a novel are only the means. +"Let me stress this: my purpose is not the philosophical enlightenment of my +readers...My purpose, first cause and prime mover is the portrayal of Howard +Roark [or the heroes of Atlas Shrugged} as an end in himself... +"I write--and read--for the sake of the story...My basic test for any story is: +’Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is +this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure +of contemplating these characters an end in itself?’... +"Since my purpose is the presentation of an ideal man, I had to define and +present the conditions which make him possible and which his existence requires. +Since man’s character is the product of his premises, I had to define and +present the kinds of premises and values that create the character of an ideal +man and motivate his actions; which means that I had to define and present a +rational code of ethics. Since man acts among and deals with other men, I had to +present the kind of social system that makes it possible for ideal men to exist +and to function--a free, productive, rational system which demands and rewards +the best in every man, and which is, obviously, laissez-faire capitalism. +"But neither politics nor ethics nor philosophy is an end in itself, neither in +life nor in literature. Only Man is an end in himself." +Are there any substantial changes I would want to make in The Fountainhead? +No--and, therefore, I have left its text untouched. I want it to stand as it was +written. But there is one minor error and one possibly misleading sentence which +I should like to clarify, so I shall mention them here. +The error is semantic: the use of the word "egotist" in Roark’s courtroom +speech, while actually the word should have been "egoist." The error was caused +by my reliance on a dictionary which gave such misleading definitions of these +two words that "egotist" seemed closer to the meaning I intended (Webster’s +Daily Use Dictionary, 1933). (Modern philosophers, however, are guiltier than +lexicographers in regard to these two terms.) +The possibly misleading sentence is in Roark’s speech: "From this simplest +necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the +skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single +attribute of man--the function of his reasoning mind." +This could be misinterpreted to mean an endorsement of religion or religious +ideas. I remember hesitating over that sentence, when I wrote it, and deciding +that Roark’s and my atheism, as well as the overall spirit of the book, were so +clearly established that no one would misunderstand it, particularly since I +said that religious abstractions are the product of man’s mind, not of +supernatural revelation. +But an issue of this sort should not be left to implications. What I was +referring to was not religion as such, but a special category of abstractions, +the most exalted one, which, for centuries, had been the near-monopoly of +religion: ethics--not the particular content of religious ethics, but the +3 + + abstraction "ethics," the realm of values, man’s code of good and evil, with the +emotional connotations of height, uplift, nobility, reverence, grandeur, which +pertain to the realm of man’s values, but which religion has arrogated to +itself. +The same meaning and considerations were intended and are applicable to another +passage of the book, a brief dialogue between Roark and Hopton Stoddard, which +may be misunderstood if taken out of context: +"’You’re a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark--in your own way. I can see that +in your buildings.’ +"’That’s true,’ said Roark." +In the context of that scene, however, the meaning is clear: it is Roark’s +profound dedication to values, to the highest and best, to the ideal, that +Stoddard is referring to (see his explanation of the nature of the proposed +temple). The erection of the Stoddard Temple and the subsequent trial state the +issue explicitly. +This leads me to a wider issue which is involved in every line of The +Fountainhead and which has to be understood if one wants to understand the +causes of its lasting appeal. +Religion’s monopoly in the field of ethics has made it extremely difficult to +communicate the emotional meaning and connotations of a rational view of life. +Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against +man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them +outside this earth and beyond man’s reach. "Exaltation" is usually taken to mean +an emotional state evoked by contemplating the supernatural. "Worship" means the +emotional experience of loyalty and dedication to something higher than man. +"Reverence" means the emotion of a sacred respect, to be experienced on one’s +knees. "Sacred" means superior to and not-to-be-touched-by any concerns of man +or of this earth. Etc. +But such concepts do name actual emotions, even though no supernatural dimension +exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without +the self-abasement required by religious definitions. What, then, is their +source or referent in reality? It is the entire emotional realm of man’s +dedication to a moral ideal. Yet apart from the man-degrading aspects introduced +by religion, that emotional realm is left unidentified, without concepts, words +or recognition. +It is this highest level of man’s emotions that has to be redeemed from the murk +of mysticism and redirected at its proper object: man. +It is in this sense, with this meaning and intention, that I would identify the +sense of life dramatized in The Fountainhead as man-worship. +It is an emotion that a few--a very few--men experience consistently; some men +experience it in rare, single sparks that flash and die without consequences; +some do not know what I am talking about; some do and spend their lives as +frantically virulent spark-extinguishers. +Do not confuse "man-worship" with the many attempts, not to emancipate morality +from religion and bring it into the realm of reason, but to substitute a secular +meaning for the worst, the most profoundly irrational elements of religion. For +instance, there are all the variants of modern collectivism (communist, fascist, +Nazi, etc.), which preserve the religious-altruist ethics in full and merely +4 + + substitute "society" for God as the beneficiary of man’s self-immolation. There +are the various schools of modern philosophy which, rejecting the law of +identity, proclaim that reality is an indeterminate flux ruled by miracles and +shaped by whims--not God’s whims, but man’s or "society’s." These neo-mystics +are not man-worshipers; they are merely the secularizers of as profound a hatred +for man as that of their avowedly mystic predecessors. +A cruder variant of the same hatred is represented by those concrete-bound, +"statistical" mentalities who--unable to grasp the meaning of man’s +volition--declare that man cannot be an object of worship, since they have never +encountered any specimens of humanity who deserved it. +The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man’s highest +potential and strive to actualize it. The man-haters are those who regard man as +a helpless, depraved, contemptible creature--and struggle never to let him +discover otherwise. It is important here to remember that the only direct, +introspective knowledge of man anyone possesses is of himself. +More specifically, the essential division between these two camps is: those +dedicated to the exaltation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his +happiness on earth--and those determined not to allow either to become possible. +The majority of mankind spend their lives and psychological energy in the +middle, swinging between these two, struggling not to allow the issue to be +named. This does not change the nature of the issue. +Perhaps the best way to communicate The Fountainhead’s sense of life is by means +of the quotation which had stood at the head of my manuscript, but which I +removed from the final, published book. With this opportunity to explain it, I +am glad to bring it back. +I removed it, because of my profound disagreement with the philosophy of its +author, Friedrich Nietzsche. Philosophically, Nietzsche is a mystic and an +irrationalist. His metaphysics consists of a somewhat "Byronic" and mystically +"malevolent" universe; his epistemology subordinates reason to "will," or +feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character. But, as a poet, he +projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man’s greatness, +expressed in emotional, not intellectual terms. +This is especially true of the quotation I had chosen. I could not endorse its +literal meaning: it proclaims an indefensible tenet--psychological determinism. +But if one takes it as a poetic projection of an emotional experience (and if, +intellectually, one substitutes the concept of an acquired "basic premise" for +the concept of an innate "fundamental certainty"), then that quotation +communicates the inner state of an exalted self-esteem--and sums up the +emotional consequences for which The Fountainhead provides the rational, +philosophical base: +"It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the +order of rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and +deeper meaning,--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about +itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, +also, is not to be lost.--The noble soul has reverence for itself.--" (Friedrich +Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.) +This view of man has rarely been expressed in human history. Today, it is +virtually non-existent. Yet this is the view with which--in various degrees of +longing, wistfulness, passion and agonized confusion--the best of mankind’s +youth start out in life. It is not even a view, for most of them, but a foggy, +groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable happiness. It is a +5 + + sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one’s life is important, that +great achievements are within one’s capacity, and that great things lie ahead. +It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving +up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process +of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first +touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and +lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these +vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that +maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s +values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, +knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, +purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men +seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential. +There are very few guideposts to find. The Fountainhead is one of them. +This is one of the cardinal reasons of The Fountainhead’s lasting appeal: it is +a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming man’s glory, showing how much +is possible. +It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the +full reality of man’s proper stature--and that the rest will betray it. It is +those few that move the world and give life its meaning--and it is those few +that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not +me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls. +AYN RAND New York, May 1968 + +CONTENTS +PART ONE +Peter Keating +PART TWO +Ellsworth M. Toohey +PART THREE +Gail Wynand +PART FOUR +Howard Roark + +I offer my profound gratitude to the great profession of architecture and its +heroes who have given us some of the highest expressions of man’s genius, yet +have remained unknown, undiscovered by the majority of men. And to the +architects who gave me their generous assistance in the technical matters of +this book. +No person or event in this story is intended as a reference to any real person +or event. The titles of the newspaper columns were invented and used by me in +6 + + the first draft of this novel five years ago. They were not taken from and have +no reference to any actual newspaper columns or features. +--AYN RAND March 10, 1943 + +Part One: PETER KEATING + +1. +HOWARD ROARK laughed. +He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen +explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water +seemed immovable, the stone--flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief +moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause +more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays. +The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks +went on into the depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky. So that the +world seemed suspended in space, an island floating on nothing, anchored to the +feet of the man on the cliff. +His body leaned back against the sky. It was a body of long straight lines and +angles, each curve broken into planes. He stood, rigid, his hands hanging at his +sides, palms out. He felt his shoulder blades drawn tight together, the curve of +his neck, and the weight of the blood in his hands. He felt the wind behind him, +in the hollow of his spine. The wind waved his hair against the sky. His hair +was neither blond nor red, but the exact color of ripe orange rind. +He laughed at the thing which had happened to him that morning and at the things +which now lay ahead. +He knew that the days ahead would be difficult. There were questions to be faced +and a plan of action to be prepared. He knew that he should think about it. He +knew also that he would not think, because everything was clear to him already, +because the plan had been set long ago, and because he wanted to laugh. +He tried to consider it. But he forgot. He was looking at the granite. +He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His +face was like a law of nature--a thing one could not question, alter or +implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and +steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a +saint. +He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked +at a tree. To be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on +the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge +as girders against the sky. +These rocks, he thought, are here for me; waiting for the drill, the dynamite +and my voice; waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn; waiting for the +shape my hands will give them. +Then he shook his head, because he remembered that morning and that there were +7 + + many things to be done. He stepped to the edge, raised his arms, and dived down +into the sky below. +He cut straight across the lake to the shore ahead. He reached the rocks where +he had left his clothes. He looked regretfully about him. For three years, ever +since he had lived in Stanton, he had come here for his only relaxation, to +swim, to rest, to think, to be alone and alive, whenever he could find one hour +to spare, which had not been often. In his new freedom the first thing he had +wanted to do was to come here, because he knew that he was coming for the last +time. That morning he had been expelled from the Architectural School of the +Stanton Institute of Technology. He pulled his clothes on: old denim trousers, +sandals, a shirt with short sleeves and most of its buttons missing. He swung +down a narrow trail among the boulders, to a path running through a green slope, +to the road below. +He walked swiftly, with a loose, lazy expertness of motion. He walked down the +long road, in the sun. Far ahead Stanton lay sprawled on the coast of +Massachusetts, a little town as a setting for the gem of its existence--the +great institute rising on a hill beyond. +The township of Stanton began with a dump. A gray mound of refuse rose in the +grass. It smoked faintly. Tin cans glittered in the sun. The road led past the +first houses to a church. The church was a Gothic monument of shingles painted +pigeon blue. It had stout wooden buttresses supporting nothing. It had +stained-glass windows with heavy traceries of imitation stone. It opened the way +into long streets edged by tight, exhibitionist lawns. Behind the lawns stood +wooden piles tortured out of all shape: twisted into gables, turrets, dormers; +bulging with porches; crushed under huge, sloping roofs. White curtains floated +at the windows. A garbage can stood at a side door, flowing over. An old +Pekinese sat upon a cushion on a door step, its mouth drooling. A line of +diapers fluttered in the wind between the columns of a porch. +People turned to look at Howard Roark as he passed. Some remained staring after +him with sudden resentment. They could give no reason for it: it was an instinct +his presence awakened in most people. Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the +streets were empty. He could have walked there naked without concern. He crossed +the heart of Stanton, a broad green edged by shop windows. The windows displayed +new placards announcing: +WELCOME TO THE CLASS OF ’22! GOOD LUCK, CLASS OF ’22! The Class of ’22 of +the Stanton Institute of Technology was holding its commencement exercises that +afternoon. +Roark swung into a side street, where at the end of a long row, on a knoll over +a green ravine, stood the house of Mrs. Keating. He had boarded at that house +for three years. +Mrs. Keating was out on the porch. She was feeding a couple of canaries in a +cage suspended over the railing. Her pudgy little hand stopped in mid-air when +she saw him. She watched him with curiosity. She tried to pull her mouth into a +proper expression of sympathy; she succeeded only in betraying that the process +was an effort. +He was crossing the porch without noticing her. She stopped him. +"Mr. Roark!" +"Yes?" +8 + + "Mr. Roark, I’m so sorry about--" she hesitated demurely, "--about what happened +this morning." +"What?" he asked. +"Your being expelled from the Institute. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I only +want you to know that I feel for you." +He stood looking at her. She knew that he did not see her. No, she thought, it +was not that exactly. He always looked straight at people and his damnable eyes +never missed a thing, it was only that he made people feel as if they did not +exist. He just stood looking. He would not answer. +"But what I say," she continued, "is that if one suffers in this world, it’s on +account of error. Of course, you’ll have to give up the architect profession +now, won’t you? But then a young man can always earn a decent living clerking or +selling or something." +He turned to go. +"Oh, Mr. Roark!" she called. +"Yes?" +"The Dean phoned for you while you were out." +For once, she expected some emotion from him; and an emotion would be the +equivalent of seeing him broken. She did not know what it was about him that had +always made her want to see him broken. +"Yes?" he asked. +"The Dean," she repeated uncertainly, trying to recapture her effect. "The Dean +himself through his secretary." +"Well?" +"She said to tell you that the Dean wanted to see you immediately the moment you +got back." +"Thank you." +"What do you suppose he can want now?" +"I don’t know." +He had said: "I don’t know." She had heard distinctly: "I don’t give a damn." +She stared at him incredulously. +"By the way," she said, "Petey is graduating today." She said it without +apparent relevance. +"Today? Oh, yes." +"It’s a great day for me. When I think of how I skimped and slaved to put my boy +through school. Not that I’m complaining. I’m not one to complain. Petey’s a +brilliant boy." +She stood drawn up. Her stout little body was corseted so tightly under the +9 + + starched folds of her cotton dress that it seemed to squeeze the fat out to her +wrists and ankles. +"But of course," she went on rapidly, with the eagerness of her favorite +subject, "I’m not one to boast. Some mothers are lucky and others just aren’t. +We’re all in our rightful place. You just watch Petey from now on. I’m not one +to want my boy to kill himself with work and I’ll thank the Lord for any small +success that comes his way. But if that boy isn’t the greatest architect of this +U.S.A., his mother will want to know the reason why!" +He moved to go. +"But what am I doing, gabbing with you like that!" she said brightly. "You’ve +got to hurry and change and run along. The Dean’s waiting for you." +She stood looking after him through the screen door, watching his gaunt figure +move across the rigid neatness of her parlor. He always made her uncomfortable +in the house, with a vague feeling of apprehension, as if she were waiting to +see him swing out suddenly and smash her coffee tables, her Chinese vases, her +framed photographs. He had never shown any inclination to do so. She kept +expecting it, without knowing why. +Roark went up the stairs to his room. It was a large, bare room, made luminous +by the clean glow of whitewash. Mrs. Keating had never had the feeling that +Roark really lived there. He had not added a single object to the bare +necessities of furniture which she had provided; no pictures, no pennants, no +cheering human touch. He had brought nothing to the room but his clothes and his +drawings; there were few clothes and too many drawings; they were stacked high +in one comer; sometimes she thought that the drawings lived there, not the man. +Roark walked now to these drawings; they were the first things to be packed. He +lifted one of them, then the next, then another. He stood looking at the broad +sheets. +They were sketches of buildings such as had never stood on the face of the +earth. They were as the first houses built by the first man born, who had never +heard of others building before him. There was nothing to be said of them, +except that each structure was inevitably what it had to be. It was not as if +the draftsman had sat over them, pondering laboriously, piecing together doors, +windows and columns, as his whim dictated and as the books prescribed. It was as +if the buildings had sprung from the earth and from some living force, complete, +unalterably right. The hand that had made the sharp pencil lines still had much +to learn. But not a line seemed superfluous, not a needed plane was missing. The +structures were austere and simple, until one looked at them and realized what +work, what complexity of method, what tension of thought had achieved the +simplicity. No laws had dictated a single detail. The buildings were not +Classical, they were not Gothic, they were not Renaissance. They were only +Howard Roark. +He stopped, looking at a sketch. It was one that had never satisfied him. He had +designed it as an exercise he had given himself, apart from his schoolwork; he +did that often when he found some particular site and stopped before it to think +of what building it should bear. He had spent nights staring at this sketch, +wondering what he had missed. Glancing at it now, unprepared, he saw the mistake +he had made. +He flung the sketch down on the table, he bent over it, he slashed lines +straight through his neat drawing. He stopped once in a while and stood looking +at it, his fingertips pressed to the paper; as if his hands held the building. +10 + + His hands had long fingers, hard veins, prominent joints and wristbones. +An hour later he heard a knock at his door. +"Come in!" he snapped, without stopping. +"Mr. Roark!" gasped Mrs. Keating, staring at him from the threshold. "What on +earth are you doing?" +He turned and looked at her, trying to remember who she was. +"How about the Dean?" she moaned. "The Dean that’s waiting for you?" +"Oh," said Roark. "Oh, yes. I forgot." +"You...forgot?" +"Yes." There was a note of wonder in his voice, astonished by her astonishment. +"Well, all I can say," she choked, "is that it serves you right! It just serves +you right. And with the commencement beginning at four-thirty, how do you expect +him to have time to see you?" +"I’ll go at once, Mrs. Keating." +It was not her curiosity alone that prompted her to action; it was a secret fear +that the sentence of the Board might be revoked. He went to the bathroom at the +end of the hall; she watched him washing his hands, throwing his loose, straight +hair back into a semblance of order. He came out again, he was on his way to the +stairs before she realized that he was leaving. +"Mr. Roark!" she gasped, pointing at his clothes. "You’re not going like this?" +"Why not?" +"But it’s your Dean!" +"Not any more, Mrs. Keating." +She thought, aghast, that he said it as if he were actually happy. +The Stanton Institute of Technology stood on a hill, its crenelated walls raised +as a crown over the city stretched below. It looked like a medieval fortress, +with a Gothic cathedral grafted to its belly. The fortress was eminently suited +to its purpose, with stout, brick walls, a few slits wide enough for sentries, +ramparts behind which defending archers could hide, and corner turrets from +which boiling oil could be poured upon the attacker--should such an emergency +arise in an institute of learning. The cathedral rose over it in lace splendor, +a fragile defense against two great enemies: light and air. +The Dean’s office looked like a chapel, a pool of dreamy twilight fed by one +tall window of stained glass. The twilight flowed in through the garments of +stiff saints, their arms contorted at the elbows. A red spot of light and a +purple one rested respectively upon two genuine gargoyles squatting at the +corners of a fireplace that had never been used. A green spot stood in the +center of a picture of the Parthenon, suspended over the fireplace. +When Roark entered the office, the outlines of the Dean’s figure swam dimly +behind his desk, which was carved like a confessional. He was a short, plumpish +11 + + gentleman whose spreading flesh was held in check by an indomitable dignity. +"Ah, yes, Roark," he smiled. "Do sit down, please." +Roark sat down. The Dean entwined his fingers on his stomach and waited for the +plea he expected. No plea came. The Dean cleared his throat. +"It will be unnecessary for me to express my regret at the unfortunate event of +this morning," he began, "since I take it for granted that you have always known +my sincere interest in your welfare." +"Quite unnecessary," said Roark. +The Dean looked at him dubiously, but continued: +"Needless to say, I did not vote against you. I abstained entirely. But you may +be glad to know that you had quite a determined little group of defenders at the +meeting. Small, but determined. Your professor of structural engineering acted +quite the crusader on your behalf. So did your professor of mathematics. +Unfortunately, those who felt it their duty to vote for your expulsion quite +outnumbered the others. Professor Peterkin, your critic of design, made an issue +of the matter. He went so far as to threaten us with his resignation unless you +were expelled. You must realize that you have given Professor Peterkin great +provocation." +"I do," said Roark. +"That, you see, was the trouble. I am speaking of your attitude towards the +subject of architectural design. You have never given it the attention it +deserves. And yet, you have been excellent in all the engineering sciences. Of +course, no one denies the importance of structural engineering to a future +architect, but why go to extremes? Why neglect what may be termed the artistic +and inspirational side of your profession and concentrate on all those dry, +technical, mathematical subjects? You intended to become an architect, not a +civil engineer." +"Isn’t this superfluous?" Roark asked. "It’s past. There’s no point in +discussing my choice of subjects now." +"I am endeavoring to be helpful, Roark. You must be fair about this. You cannot +say that you were not given many warnings before this happened." +"I was." +The Dean moved in his chair. Roark made him uncomfortable. Roark’s eyes were +fixed on him politely. The Dean thought, there’s nothing wrong with the way he’s +looking at me, in fact it’s quite correct, most properly attentive; only, it’s +as if I were not here. +"Every problem you were given," the Dean went on, "every project you had to +design--what did you do with it? Every one of them done in that--well, I cannot +call it a style--in that incredible manner of yours. It is contrary to every +principle we have tried to teach you, contrary to all established precedents and +traditions of Art. You may think you are what is called a modernist, but it +isn’t even that. It is...it is sheer insanity, if you don’t mind." +"I don’t mind." +"When you were given projects that left the choice of style up to you and you +12 + + turned in one of your wild stunts--well, frankly, your teachers passed you +because they did not know what to make of it. But, when you were given an +exercise in the historical styles, a Tudor chapel or a French opera house to +design--and you turned in something that looked like a lot of boxes piled +together without rhyme or reason--would you say it was an answer to an +assignment or plain insubordination?" +"It was insubordination," said Roark. +"We wanted to give you a chance--in view of your brilliant record in all other +subjects. But when you turn in this--" the Dean slammed his fist down on a sheet +spread before him--"this as a Renaissance villa for your final project of the +year--really, my boy, it was too much!" +The sheet bore a drawing--a house of glass and concrete. In the comer there was +a sharp, angular signature: Howard Roark. +"How do you expect us to pass you after this?" +"I don’t." +"You left us no choice in the matter. Naturally, you would feel bitterness +toward us at this moment, but..." +"I feel nothing of the kind," said Roark quietly. "I owe you an apology. I don’t +usually let things happen to me. I made a mistake this time. I shouldn’t have +waited for you to throw me out. I should have left long ago." +"Now, now, don’t get discouraged. This is not the right attitude to take. +Particularly in view of what I am going to tell you." +The Dean smiled and leaned forward confidentially, enjoying the overture to a +good deed. +"Here is the real purpose of our interview. I was anxious to let you know as +soon as possible. I did not wish to leave you disheartened. Oh, I did, +personally, take a chance with the President’s temper when I mentioned this to +him, but...Mind you, he did not commit himself, but...Here is how things stand: +now that you realize how serious it is, if you take a year off, to rest, to +think it over--shall we say to grow up?--there might be a chance of our taking +you back. Mind you, I cannot promise anything--this is strictly unofficial--it +would be most unusual, but in view of the circumstances and of your brilliant +record, there might be a very good chance." +Roark smiled. It was not a happy smile, it was not a grateful one. It was a +simple, easy smile and it was amused. +"I don’t think you understood me," said Roark. "What made you suppose that I +want to come back?" +"Eh?" +"I won’t be back. I have nothing further to learn here." +"I don’t understand you," said the Dean stiffly. +"Is there any point in explaining? It’s of no interest to you any longer." +"You will kindly explain yourself." +13 + + "If you wish. I want to be an architect, not an archeologist. I see no purpose +in doing Renaissance villas. Why learn to design them, when I’ll never build +them?" +"My dear boy, the great style of the Renaissance is far from dead. Houses of +that style are being erected every day." +"They are. And they will be. But not by me." +"Come, come, now, this is childish." +"I came here to learn about building. When I was given a project, its only value +to me was to learn to solve it as I would solve I a real one in the future. I +did them the way I’ll build them. I’ve | learned all I could learn here--in +the structural sciences of which you don’t approve. One more year of drawing +Italian post cards would give me nothing." ’ +An hour ago the Dean had wished that this interview would proceed as calmly as +possible. Now he wished that Roark would display some emotion; it seemed +unnatural for him to be so quietly natural in the circumstances. +"Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, +when and if you are an architect?" +"Yes." +"My dear fellow, who will let you?" +"That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?" +"Look here, this is serious. I am sorry that I haven’t had a long, earnest talk +with you much earlier...I know, I know, I know, don’t interrupt me, you’ve seen +a modernistic building or two, and it gave you ideas. But do you realize what a +passing fancy that whole so-called modern movement is? You must learn to +understand--and it has been proved by all authorities--that everything beautiful +in architecture has been done already. There is a treasure mine in every style +of the past. We can only choose from the great masters. Who are we to improve +upon them? We can only attempt, respectfully, to repeat." +"Why?" asked Howard Roark. +No, thought the Dean, no, he hasn’t said anything else; it’s a perfectly +innocent word; he’s not threatening me. +"But it’s self-evident!" said the Dean. +"Look," said Roark evenly, and pointed at the window. "Can you see the campus +and the town? Do you see how many men are walking and living down there? Well, I +don’t give a damn what any or all of them think about architecture--or about +anything else, for that matter. Why should I consider what their grandfathers +thought of it?" +"That is our sacred tradition." +"Why?" +"For heaven’s sake, can’t you stop being so naive about it?" +14 + + "But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great +architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon. +"That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon." +"So it is." +"I haven’t the time to waste on silly questions." +"All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked +to the picture. "Shall I tell you what’s rotten about it?" +"It’s the Parthenon!" said the Dean. +"Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!" +The ruler struck the glass over the picture. +"Look," said Roark. "The famous flutings on the famous columns--what are they +there for? To hide the joints in wood--when columns were made of wood, only +these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, +the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your +Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, +because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came +along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here +we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in +marble of copies in wood. Why?" +The Dean sat watching him curiously. Something puzzled him, not in the words, +but in Roark’s manner of saying them. +"Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance +must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on +earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, +the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless +it’s made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is +alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single +theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn’t borrow pieces of his +body. A building doesn’t borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul +and every wall, window and stairway to express it." +"But all the proper forms of expression have been discovered long ago." +"Expression--of what? The Parthenon did not serve the same purpose as its wooden +ancestor. An airline terminal does not serve the same purpose as the Parthenon. +Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. +Why is it so important--what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the +mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right--so long as +it’s not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? +Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic--and only of addition at that? Why +is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be +some reason. I don’t know. I’ve never known it. I’d like to understand." +"For heaven’s sake," said the Dean. "Sit down....That’s better....Would you mind +very much putting that ruler down?...Thank you....Now listen to me. No one has +ever denied the importance of modern technique to an architect. We must learn to +adapt the beauty of the past to the needs of the present. The voice of the past +is the voice of the people. Nothing has ever been invented by one man in +architecture. The proper creative process is a slow, gradual, anonymous, +15 + + collective one, in which each man collaborates with all the others and +subordinates himself to the standards of the majority." +"But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most +of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find +no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I +can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the +best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I +stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of +one." +"How old are you?" asked the Dean. +"Twenty-two," said Roark. +"Quite excusable," said the Dean; he seemed relieved. "You’ll outgrow all that." +He smiled. "The old standards have lived for thousands of years and nobody has +been able to improve upon them. What are your modernists? A transient mode, +exhibitionists trying to attract attention. Have you observed the course of +their careers? Can you name one who has achieved any permanent distinction? Look +at Henry Cameron. A great man, a leading architect twenty years ago. What is he +today? Lucky if he gets--once a year--a garage to remodel. A bum and a drunkard, +who..." +"We won’t discuss Henry Cameron." +"Oh? Is he a friend of yours?" +"No. But I’ve seen his buildings." +"And you found them..." +"I said we won’t discuss Henry Cameron." +"Very well. You must realize that I am allowing you a great deal of...shall we +say, latitude? I am not accustomed to hold a discussion with a student who +behaves in your manner. However, I am anxious to forestall, if possible, what +appears to be a tragedy, the spectacle of a young man of your obvious mental +gifts setting out deliberately to make a mess of his life." +The Dean wondered why he had promised the professor of mathematics to do all he +could for this boy. Merely because the professor had said: "This," and pointed +to Roark’s project, "is a great man." A great man, thought the Dean, or a +criminal. The Dean winced. He did not approve of either. +He thought of what he had heard about Roark’s past. Roark’s father had been a +steel puddler somewhere in Ohio and had died long ago. The boy’s entrance papers +showed no record of nearest relatives. When asked about it, Roark had said +indifferently: "I don’t think I have any relatives. I may have. I don’t know." +He had seemed astonished that he should be expected to have any interest in the +matter. He had not made or sought a single friend on the campus. He had refused +to join a fraternity. He had worked his way through high school and through the +three years here at the Institute. He had worked as a common laborer in the +building trades since childhood. He had done plastering, plumbing, steel work, +anything he could get, going from one small town to another, working his way +east, to the great cities. The Dean had seen him, last summer, on his vacation, +catching rivets on a skyscraper in construction in Boston; his long body relaxed +under greasy overalls, only his eyes intent, and his right arm swinging forward, +once in a while, expertly, without effort, to catch the flying ball of fire at +16 + + the last moment, when it seemed that the hot rivet would miss the bucket and +strike him in the face. +"Look here, Roark," said the Dean gently. "You have worked hard for your +education. You had only one year left to go. There is something important to +consider, particularly for a boy in your position. There’s the practical side of +an architect’s career to think about. An architect is not an end in himself. He +is only a small part of a great social whole. Co-operation is the key word to +our modern world and to the profession of architecture in particular. Have you +thought of your potential clients?" +"Yes," said Roark. +"The Client," said the Dean. "The Client. Think of that above all. He’s the one +to live in the house you build. Your only purpose is to serve him. You must +aspire to give the proper artistic expression to his wishes. Isn’t that all one +can say on the subject?" +"Well, I could say that I must aspire to build for my client the most +comfortable, the most logical, the most beautiful house that can be built. I +could say that I must try to sell him the best I have and also teach him to know +the best. I could say it, but I won’t. Because I don’t intend to build in order +to serve or help anyone. I don’t intend to build in order to have clients. I +intend to have clients in order to build." +"How do you propose to force your ideas on them?" +"I don’t propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me." +Then the Dean understood what had puzzled him in Roark’s manner. +"You know," he said, "you would sound much more convincing if you spoke as if +you cared whether I agreed with you or not." +"That’s true," said Roark. "I don’t care whether you agree with me or not." He +said it so simply that it did not sound offensive, it sounded like the statement +of a fact which he noticed, puzzled, for the first time. +"You don’t care what others think--which might be understandable. But you don’t +care even to make them think as you do?" +"No." +"But that’s...that’s monstrous." +"Is it? Probably. I couldn’t say." +"I’m glad of this interview," said the Dean, suddenly, too loudly. "It has +relieved my conscience. I believe, as others stated at the meeting, that the +profession of architecture is not for you. I have tried to help you. Now I agree +with the Board. You are a man not to be encouraged. You are dangerous." +"To whom?" asked Roark. +But the Dean rose, indicating that the interview was over. +Roark left the room. He walked slowly through the long halls, down the stairs, +out to the lawn below. He had met many men such as the Dean; he had never +understood them. He knew only that there was some important difference between +17 + + his actions and theirs. It had ceased to disturb him long ago. But he always +looked for a central theme in buildings and he looked for a central impulse in +men. He knew the source of his actions; he could not discover theirs. He did not +care. He had never learned the process of thinking about other people. But he +wondered, at times, what made them such as they were. He wondered again, +thinking of the Dean. There was an important secret involved somewhere in that +question, he thought. There was a principle which he must discover. +But he stopped. He saw the sunlight of late afternoon, held still in the moment +before it was to fade, on the gray limestone of a stringcourse running along the +brick wall of the Institute building. He forgot men, the Dean and the principle +behind the Dean, which he wanted to discover. He thought only of how lovely the +stone looked in the fragile light and of what he could have done with that +stone. +He thought of a broad sheet of paper, and he saw, rising on the paper, bare +walls of gray limestone with long bands of glass, admitting the glow of the sky +into the classrooms. In the comer of the sheet stood a sharp, angular +signature--HOWARD ROARK. + +2. +"...ARCHITECTURE, my friends, is a great Art based on two cosmic principles: +Beauty and Utility. In a broader sense, these are but part of the three eternal +entities: Truth, Love and Beauty. Truth--to the traditions of our Art, Love--for +our fellow men whom we are to serve, Beauty--ah, Beauty is a compelling goddess +to all artists, be it in the shape of a lovely woman or a +building....Hm....Yes....In conclusion, I should like to say to you, who are +about to embark upon your careers in architecture, that you are now the +custodians of a sacred heritage....Hm....Yes....So, go forth into the world, +armed with the three eternal entities--armed with courage and vision, loyal to +the standards this great school has represented for many years. May you all +serve faithfully, neither as slaves to the past nor as those parvenus who preach +originality for its own sake, which attitude is only ignorant vanity. May you +all have many rich, active years before you and leave, as you depart from this +world, your mark on the sands of time!" +Guy Francon ended with a flourish, raising his right arm in a sweeping salute; +informal, but with an air, that gay, swaggering air which Guy Francon could +always permit himself. The huge hall before him came to life in applause and +approval. +A sea of faces, young, perspiring and eager, had been raised solemnly--for +forty-five minutes--to the platform where Guy Francon had held forth as the +speaker at the commencement exercises of the Stanton Institute of Technology, +Guy Francon who had brought his own person from New York for the occasion; Guy +Francon, of the illustrious firm of Francon & Heyer, vice-president of the +Architects’ Guild of America, member of the American Academy of Arts and +Letters, member of the National Fine Arts Commission, Secretary of the Arts and +Crafts League of New York, chairman of the Society for Architectural +Enlightenment of the U.S.A.; Guy Francon, knight of the Legion of Honor of +France, decorated by the governments of Great Britain, Belgium, Monaco and Siam; +Guy Francon, Stanton’s greatest alumnus, who had designed the famous Frink +National Bank Building of New York City, on the top of which, twenty-five floors +above the pavements, there burned in a miniature replica of the Hadrian +Mausoleum a wind-blown torch made of glass and the best General Electric bulbs. +18 + + Guy Francon descended from the platform, fully conscious of his timing and +movements. He was of medium height and not too heavy, with just an unfortunate +tendency to stoutness. Nobody, he knew, would give him his real age, which was +fifty-one. His face bore not a wrinkle nor a single straight line; it was an +artful composition in globes, circles, arcs and ellipses, with bright little +eyes twinkling wittily. His clothes displayed an artist’s infinite attention to +details. He wished, as he descended the steps, that this were a co-educational +school. +The hall before him, he thought, was a splendid specimen of architecture, made a +bit stuffy today by the crowd and by the neglected problem of ventilation. But +it boasted green marble dadoes, Corinthian columns of cast iron painted gold, +and garlands of gilded fruit on the walls; the pineapples particularly, thought +Guy Francon, had stood the test of years very well. It is, thought Guy Francon, +touching; it was I who built this annex and this very hall, twenty years ago; +and here I am. +The hall was packed with bodies and faces, so tightly that one could not +distinguish at a glance which faces belonged to which bodies. It was like a +soft, shivering aspic made of mixed arms, shoulders, chests and stomachs. One of +the heads, pale, dark haired and beautiful, belonged to Peter Keating. +He sat, well in front, trying to keep his eyes on the platform, because he knew +that many people were looking at him and would look at him later. He did not +glance back, but the consciousness of those centered glances never left him. His +eyes were dark, alert, intelligent. His mouth, a small upturned crescent +faultlessly traced, was gentle and generous, and warm with the faint promise of +a smile. His head had a certain classical perfection in the shape of the skull, +in the natural wave of black ringlets about finely hollowed temples. He held his +head in the manner of one who takes his beauty for granted, but knows that +others do not. He was Peter Keating, star student of Stanton, president of the +student body, captain of the track team, member of the most important +fraternity, voted the most popular man on the campus. +The crowd was there, thought Peter Keating, to see him graduate, and he tried to +estimate the capacity of the hall. They knew of his scholastic record and no one +would beat his record today. Oh, well, there was Shlinker. Shlinker had given +him stiff competition, but he had beaten Shlinker this last year. He had worked +like a dog, because he had wanted to beat Shlinker. He had no rivals +today....Then he felt suddenly as if something had fallen down, inside his +throat, to his stomach, something cold and empty, a blank hole rolling down and +leaving that feeling on its way: not a thought, just the hint of a question +asking him whether he was really as great as this day would proclaim him to be. +He looked for Shlinker in the crowd; he saw his yellow face and gold-rimmed +glasses. He stared at Shlinker warmly, in relief, in reassurance, in gratitude. +It was obvious that Shlinker could never hope to equal his own appearance or +ability; he had nothing to doubt; he would always beat Shlinker and all the +Shlinkers of the world; he would let no one achieve what he could not achieve. +Let them all watch him. He would give them good reason to stare. He felt the hot +breaths about him and the expectation, like a tonic. It was wonderful, thought +Peter Keating, to be alive. +His head was beginning to reel a little. It was a pleasant feeling. The feeling +carried him, unresisting and unremembering, to the platform in front of all +those faces. He stood--slender, trim, athletic--and let the deluge break upon +his head. He gathered from its roar that he had graduated with honors, that the +Architects’ Guild of America had presented him with a gold medal and that he had +been awarded the Prix de Paris by the Society for Architectural Enlightenment of +the U.S.A.--a four-year scholarship at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. +19 + + Then he was shaking hands, scratching the perspiration off his face with the end +of a rolled parchment, nodding, smiling, suffocating in his black gown and +hoping that people would not notice his mother sobbing with her arms about him. +The President of the Institute shook his hand, booming: "Stanton will be proud +of you, my boy." The Dean shook his hand, repeating: "...a glorious future...a +glorious future...a glorious future..." Professor Peterkin shook his hand, and +patted his shoulder, saying: "...and you’ll find it absolutely essential; for +example, I had the experience when I built the Peabody Post Office..." Keating +did not listen to the rest, because he had heard the story of the Peabody Post +Office many times. It was the only structure anyone had ever known Professor +Peterkin to have erected, before he sacrificed his practice to the +responsibilities of teaching. A great deal was said about Keating’s final +project--a Palace of Fine Arts. For the life of him, Keating could not remember +at the moment what that project was. +Through all this, his eyes held the vision of Guy Francon shaking his hand, and +his ears held the sounds of Francon’s mellow voice: "...as I have told you, it +is still open, my boy. Of course, now that you have this scholarship...you will +have to decide...a Beaux-Arts diploma is very important to a young man...but I +should be delighted to have you in our office...." +The banquet of the Class of ’22 was long and solemn. Keating listened to the +speeches with interest; when he heard the endless sentences about "young men as +the hope of American Architecture" and "the future opening its golden gates," he +knew that he was the hope and his was the future, and it was pleasant to hear +this confirmation from so many eminent lips. He looked at the gray-haired +orators and thought of how much younger he would be when he reached their +positions, theirs and beyond them. +Then he thought suddenly of Howard Roark. He was surprised to find that the +flash of that name in his memory gave him a sharp little twinge of pleasure, +before he could know why. Then he remembered: Howard Roark had been expelled +this morning. He reproached himself silently; he made a determined effort to +feel sorry. But the secret glow came back, whenever he thought of that +expulsion. The event proved conclusively that he had been a fool to imagine +Roark a dangerous rival; at one time, he had worried about Roark more than about +Shlinker, even though Roark was two years younger and one class below him. If he +had ever entertained any doubts on their respective gifts, hadn’t this day +settled it all? And, he remembered, Roark had been very nice to him, helping him +whenever he was stuck on a problem...not stuck, really, just did not have the +time to think it out, a plan or something. Christ! how Roark could untangle a +plan, like pulling a string and it was open...well, what if he could? What did +it get him? He was done for now. And knowing this, Peter Keating experienced at +last a satisfying pang of sympathy for Howard Roark. +When Keating was called upon to speak, he rose confidently. He could not show +that he was terrified. He had nothing to say about architecture. But he spoke, +his head high, as an equal among equals, just subtly diffident, so that no great +name present could take offense. He remembered saying: "Architecture is a great +art...with our eyes to the future and the reverence of the past in our +hearts...of all the crafts, the most important one sociologically...and, as the +man who is an inspiration to us all has said today, the three eternal entities +are: Truth, Love and Beauty...." +Then, in the corridors outside, in the noisy confusion of leave-taking, a boy +had thrown an arm about Keating’s shoulders and whispered: "Run on home and get +out of the soup-and-fish, Pete, and it’s Boston for us tonight, just our own +gang; I’ll pick you up in an hour." Ted Shlinker had urged: "Of course you’re +20 + + coming, Pete. No fun without you. And, by the way, congratulations and all that +sort of thing. No hard feelings. May the best man win." Keating had thrown his +arm about Shlinker’s shoulders; Keating’s eyes had glowed with an insistent kind +of warmth, as if Shlinker were his most precious friend; Keating’s eyes glowed +like that on everybody. He had said: "Thanks, Ted, old man. I really do feel +awful about the A.G.A. medal--I think you were the one for it, but you never can +tell what possesses those old fogies." And now Keating was on his way home +through the soft darkness, wondering how to get away from his mother for the +night. +His mother, he thought, had done a great deal for him. As she pointed out +frequently, she was a lady and had graduated from high school; yet she had +worked hard, had taken boarders into their home, a concession unprecedented in +her family. +His father had owned a stationery store in Stanton. Changing times had ended the +business and a hernia had ended Peter Keating, Sr., twelve years ago. Louisa +Keating had been left with the home that stood at the end of a respectable +street, an annuity from an insurance kept up accurately--she had seen to +that--and her son. The annuity was a modest one, but with the help of the +boarders and of a tenacious purpose Mrs. Keating had managed. In the summers her +son helped, clerking in hotels or posing for hat advertisements. Her son, Mrs. +Keating had decided, would assume his rightful place in the world, and she had +clung to this as softly, as inexorably as a leech....It’s funny, Keating +remembered, at one time he had wanted to be an artist. It was his mother who had +chosen a better field in which to exercise his talent for drawing. +"Architecture," she had said, "is such a respectable profession. Besides, you +meet the best people in it." She had pushed him into his career, he had never +known when or how. It’s funny, thought Keating, he had not remembered that +youthful ambition of his for years. It’s funny that it should hurt him now--to +remember. Well, this was the night to remember it--and to forget it forever. +Architects, he thought, always made brilliant careers. And once on top, did they +ever fail? Suddenly, he recalled Henry Cameron; builder of skyscrapers twenty +years ago; old drunkard with offices on some waterfront today. Keating shuddered +and walked faster. +He wondered, as he walked, whether people were looking at him. He watched the +rectangles of lighted windows; when a curtain fluttered and a head leaned out, +he tried to guess whether it had leaned to watch his passing; if it hadn’t, some +day it would; some day, they all would. +Howard Roark was sitting on the porch steps when Keating approached the house. +He was leaning back against the steps, propped up on his elbows, his long legs +stretched out. A morning-glory climbed over the porch pillars, as a curtain +between the house and the light of a lamppost on the corner. +It was strange to see an electric globe in the air of a spring night. It made +the street darker and softer; it hung alone, like a gap, and left nothing to be +seen but a few branches heavy with leaves, standing still at the gap’s edges. +The small hint became immense, as if the darkness held nothing but a flood of +leaves. The mechanical ball of glass made the leaves seem more living; it took +away their color and gave the promise that in daylight they would be a brighter +green than had ever existed; it took away one’s sight and left a new sense +instead, neither smell nor touch, yet both, a sense of spring and space. +Keating stopped when he recognized the preposterous orange hair in the darkness +of the porch. It was the one person whom he had wanted to see tonight. He was +glad to find Roark alone, and a little afraid of it. +21 + + "Congratulations, Peter," said Roark. +"Oh...Oh, thanks...." Keating was surprised to find that he felt more pleasure +than from any other compliment he had received today. He was timidly glad that +Roark approved, and he called himself inwardly a fool for it. "...I mean...do +you know or..." He added sharply: "Has mother been telling you?" +"She has." +"She shouldn’t have!" +"Why not?" +"Look, Howard, you know that I’m terribly sorry about your being..." +Roark threw his head back and looked up at him. +"Forget it," said Roark. +"I...there’s something I want to speak to you about, Howard, to ask your advice. +Mind if I sit down?" +"What is it?" +Keating sat down on the steps beside him. There was no part that he could ever +play in Roark’s presence. Besides, he did not feel like playing a part now. He +heard a leaf rustling in its fall to the earth; it was a thin, glassy, spring +sound. +He knew, for the moment, that he felt affection for Roark; an affection that +held pain, astonishment and helplessness. +"You won’t think," said Keating gently, in complete sincerity, "that it’s awful +of me to be asking about my business, when you’ve just been...?" +"I said forget about that. What is it?" +"You know," said Keating honestly and unexpectedly even to himself, "I’ve often +thought that you’re crazy. But I know that you know many things about +it--architecture, I mean--which those fools never knew. And I know that you love +it as they never will." +"Well?" +"Well, I don’t know why I should come to you, but--Howard, I’ve never said it +before, but you see, I’d rather have your opinion on things than the Dean’s--I’d +probably follow the Dean’s, but it’s just that yours means more to me myself, I +don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m saying this, either." +Roark turned over on his side, looked at him, and laughed. It was a young, kind, +friendly laughter, a thing so rare to hear from Roark that Keating felt as if +someone had taken his hand in reassurance; and he forgot that he had a party in +Boston waiting for him. +"Come on," said Roark, "you’re not being afraid of me, are you? What do you want +to ask about?" +"It’s about my scholarship. The Paris prize I got." +22 + + "Yes?" +"It’s for four years. But, on the other hand, Guy Francon offered me a job with +him some time ago. Today he said it’s still open. And I don’t know which to +take." +Roark looked at him; Roark’s fingers moved in slow rotation, beating against the +steps. +"If you want my advice, Peter," he said at last, "you’ve made a mistake already. +By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you +know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?" +"You see, that’s what I admire about you, Howard. You always know." +"Drop the compliments." +"But I mean it. How do you always manage to decide?" +"How can you let others decide for you?" +"But you see, I’m not sure, Howard. I’m never sure of myself. I don’t know +whether I’m as good as they all tell me I am. I wouldn’t admit that to anyone +but you. I think it’s because you’re always so sure that I..." +"Petey!" Mrs. Keating’s voice exploded behind them. "Petey, sweetheart! What are +you doing there?" +She stood in the doorway, in her best dress of burgundy taffeta, happy and +angry. +"And here I’ve been sitting all alone, waiting for you! What on earth are you +doing on those filthy steps in your dress suit? Get up this minute! Come on in +the house, boys. I’ve got hot chocolate and cookies ready for you." +"But, Mother. I wanted to speak to Howard about something important," said +Keating. But he rose to his feet. +She seemed not to have heard. She walked into the house. Keating followed. +Roark looked after them, shrugged, rose and went in also. +Mrs. Keating settled down in an armchair, her stiff skirt crackling. +"Well?" she asked. "What were you two discussing out there?" +Keating fingered an ash tray, picked up a matchbox and dropped it, then, +ignoring her, turned to Roark. +"Look, Howard, drop the pose," he said, his voice high. "Shall I junk the +scholarship and go to work, or let Francon wait and grab the Beaux-Arts to +impress the yokels? What do you think?" +Something was gone. The one moment was lost. +"Now, Petey, let me get this straight..." began Mrs. Keating. +"Oh, wait a minute, Mother!...Howard, I’ve got to weigh it carefully. It isn’t +23 + + everyone who can get a scholarship like that. You’re pretty good when you rate +that. A course at the Beaux-Arts--you know how important that is." +"I don’t," said Roark. +"Oh, hell, I know your crazy ideas, but I’m speaking practically, for a man in +my position. Ideals aside for a moment, it certainly is..." +"You don’t want my advice," said Roark. +"Of course I do! I’m asking you!" +But Keating could never be the same when he had an audience, any audience. +Something was gone. He did not know it, but he felt that Roark knew; Roark’s +eyes made him uncomfortable and that made him angry. +"I want to practice architecture," snapped Keating, "not talk about it! Gives +you a great prestige--the old École. Puts you above the rank and file of the +ex-plumbers who think they can build. On the other hand, an opening with +Francon--Guy Francon himself offering it!" +Roark turned away. +"How many boys will match that?" Keating went on blindly. "A year from now +they’ll be boasting they’re working for Smith or Jones if they find work at all. +While I’ll be with Francon & Heyer!" +"You’re quite right, Peter," said Mrs. Keating, rising. "On a question like that +you don’t want to consult your mother. It’s too important. I’ll leave you to +settle it with Mr. Roark." +He looked at his mother. He did not want to hear what she thought of this; he +knew that his only chance to decide was to make the decision before he heard +her; she had stopped, looking at him, ready to turn and leave the room; he knew +it was not a pose--she would leave if he wished it; he wanted her to go; he +wanted it desperately. He said: +"Why, Mother, how can you say that? Of course I want your opinion. What...what +do you think?" +She ignored the raw irritation in his voice. She smiled. +"Petey, I never think anything. It’s up to you. It’s always been up to you." +"Well..." he began hesitantly, watching her, "if I go to the Beaux-Arts..." +"Fine," said Mrs. Keating, "go to the Beaux-Arts. It’s a grand place. A whole +ocean away from your home. Of course, if you go, Mr. Francon will take somebody +else. People will talk about that. Everybody knows that Mr. Francon picks out +the best boy from Stanton every year for his office. I wonder how it’ll look if +some other boy gets the job? But I guess that doesn’t matter." +"What...what will people say?" +"Nothing much, I guess. Only that the other boy was the best man of his class. I +guess he’ll take Shlinker." +"No!" he gulped furiously. "Not Shlinker!" +24 + + "Yes," she said sweetly. "Shlinker." +"But..." +"But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please +yourself." +"And you think that Francon..." +"Why should I think of Mr. Francon? It’s nothing to me." +"Mother, you want me to take the job with Francon?" +"I don’t want anything, Petey. You’re the boss." +He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this +fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and +so he took for granted mat whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know +whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgment. She was his +mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons. +"Yes, of course, Mother....But...Yes, I know, but.. Howard?" +It was a plea for help. Roark was there, on a davenport in the corner, half +lying, sprawled limply like a kitten. It had often astonished Keating; he had +seen Roark moving with the soundless tension, the control, the precision of a +cat; he had seen him relaxed, like a cat, in shapeless ease, as if his body held +no single solid bone. Roark glanced up at him. He said: +"Peter, you know how I feel about either one of your opportunities. Take your +choice of the lesser evil. What will you learn at the Beaux-Arts? Only more +Renaissance palaces and operetta settings. They’ll kill everything you might +have in you. You do good work, once in a while, when somebody lets you. If you +really want to learn, go to work. Francon is a bastard and a fool, but you will +be building. It will prepare you for going on your own that much sooner." +"Even Mr. Roark can talk sense sometimes," said Mrs. Keating, "even if he does +talk like a truck driver." +"Do you really think that I do good work?" Keating looked at him, as if his eyes +still held the reflection of that one sentence--and nothing else mattered. +"Occasionally," said Roark. "Not often." +"Now that it’s all settled..." began Mrs. Keating. +"I...I’ll have to think it over, Mother." +"Now that it’s all settled, how about the hot chocolate? I’ll have it out to you +in a jiffy!" +She smiled at her son, an innocent smile that declared her obedience and +gratitude, and she rustled out of the room. +Keating paced nervously, stopped, lighted a cigarette, stood spitting the smoke +out in short jerks, then looked at Roark. +"What are you going to do now, Howard?" +25 + + "I?" +"Very thoughtless of me, I know, going on like that about myself. Mother means +well, but she drives me crazy....Well, to hell with that. What are you going to +do?" +"I’m going to New York." +"Oh, swell. To get a job?" +"To get a job." +"In...in architecture?" +"In architecture, Peter." +"That’s grand. I’m glad. Got any definite prospects? +"I’m going to work for Henry Cameron." +"Oh, no, Howard!" +Roark smiled slowly, the corners of his mouth sharp, and said nothing. +"Oh, no, Howard!" +"Yes " +"But he’s nothing, nobody any more! Oh, I know he has a name but he’s done for! +He never gets any important buildings, hasn’t had any for years! They say he’s +got a dump for an office. What kind of future will you get out of him? What will +you learn?" +"Not much. Only how to build." +"For God’s sake, you can’t go on like that, deliberately ruining yourself! I +thought...well, yes, I thought you’d learned something today!" +"I have." +"Look, Howard, if it’s because you think that no one else will have you now, no +one better, why, I’ll help you. I’ll work old Francon and I’ll get connections +and..." +"Thank you, Peter. But it won’t be necessary. It’s settled. +"What did he say?" +"Who?" +"Cameron." +"I’ve never met him." +Then a horn screamed outside. Keating remembered, started off to change his +clothes, collided with his mother at the door and knocked a cup off her loaded +tray. +"Petey!" +26 + + "Never mind, Mother!" He seized her elbows. "I’m in a hurry, sweetheart. A +little party with the boys--now, now, don’t say anything--I won’t be late +and--look! We’ll celebrate my going with Francon & Heyer!" +He kissed her impulsively, with the gay exuberance that made him irresistible at +times, and flew out of the room, up the stairs. Mrs. Keating shook her head, +flustered, reproving and happy. +In his room, while flinging his clothes in all directions, Keating thought +suddenly of a wire he would send to New York. That particular subject had not +been in his mind all day, but it came to him with a sense of desperate urgency; +he wanted to send that wire now, at once. He scribbled it down on a piece of +paper: +"Katie dearest coming New York job Francon love ever +"Peter" +That night Keating raced toward Boston, wedged in between two boys, the wind and +the road whistling past him. And he thought that the world was opening to him +now, like the darkness fleeing before the bobbing headlights. He was free. He +was ready. In a few years--so very soon, for time did not exist in the speed of +that car--his name would ring like a horn, ripping people out of sleep. He was +ready to do great things, magnificent things, things unsurpassed in...in...oh, +hell...in architecture. + +3. +PETER KEATING looked at the streets of New York. The people, he observed, were +extremely well dressed. +He had stopped for a moment before the building on Fifth Avenue, where the +office of Francon & Heyer and his first day of work awaited him. He looked at +the men who hurried past. Smart, he thought, smart as hell. He glanced +regretfully at his own clothes. He had a great deal to learn in New York. +When he could delay it no longer, he turned to the door. It was a miniature +Doric portico, every inch of it scaled down to the exact proportions decreed by +the artists who had worn flowing Grecian tunics; between the marble perfection +of the columns a revolving door sparkled with nickel plate, reflecting the +streaks of automobiles flying past. Keating walked through the revolving door, +through the lustrous marble lobby, to an elevator of gilt and red lacquer that +brought him, thirty floors later, to a mahogany door. He saw a slender brass +plate with delicate letters: +FRANCON & HEYER, ARCHITECTS. +The reception room of the office of Francon & Heyer, Architects, looked like a +cool, intimate ballroom in a Colonial mansion. The silver white walls were +paneled with flat pilasters; the pilasters were fluted and curved into Ionic +snails; they supported little pediments broken in the middle to make room for +half a Grecian urn plastered against the wall. Etchings of Greek temples adorned +the panels, too small to be distinguished, but presenting the unmistakable +columns, pediments and crumbling stone. +Quite incongruously, Keating felt as if a conveyor belt was under his feet, from +27 + + the moment he crossed the threshold. It carried him to the reception clerk who +sat at a telephone switchboard behind the white balustrade of a Florentine +balcony. It transferred him to the threshold of a huge drafting room. He saw +long, flat tables, a forest of twisted rods descending from the ceiling to end +in green-shaded lamps, enormous blueprint files, towers of yellow drawers, +papers, tin boxes, sample bricks, pots of glue and calendars from construction +companies, most of them bearing pictures of naked women. The chief draftsman +snapped at Keating, without quite seeing him. He was bored and crackling with +purpose simultaneously. He jerked his thumb in the direction of a locker room, +thrust his chin out toward the door of a locker, and stood, rocking from heels +to toes, while Keating pulled a pearl-gray smock over his stiff, uncertain body. +Francon had insisted on that smock. The conveyor belt stopped at a table in a +corner of the drafting room, where Keating found himself with a set of plans to +expand, the scaggy back of the chief draftsman retreating from him in the +unmistakable manner of having forgotten his existence. +Keating bent over his task at once, his eyes fixed, his throat rigid. He saw +nothing but the pearly shimmer of the paper before him. The steady lines he drew +surprised him, for he felt certain that his hand was jerking an inch back and +forth across the sheet. He followed the lines, not knowing where they led or +why. He knew only that the plan was someone’s tremendous achievement which he +could neither question nor equal. He wondered why he had ever thought of himself +as a potential architect. +Much later, he noticed the wrinkles of a gray smock sticking to a pair of +shoulder blades over the next table. He glanced about him, cautiously at first, +then with curiosity, then with pleasure, then with contempt. When he reached +this last, Peter Keating became himself again and felt love for mankind. He +noticed sallow cheeks, a funny nose, a wart on a receding chin, a stomach +squashed against the edge of a table. He loved these sights. What these could +do, he could do better. He smiled. Peter Keating needed his fellow men. +When he glanced at his plans again, he noticed the flaws glaring at him from the +masterpiece. It was the floor of a private residence, and he noted the twisted +hallways that sliced great hunks of space for no apparent reason, the long, +rectangular sausages of rooms doomed to darkness. Jesus, he thought, they’d have +flunked me for this in the first term. After which, he proceeded with his work +swiftly, easily, expertly--and happily. +Before lunchtime. Keating had made friends in the room, not any definite +friends, but a vague soil spread and ready from which friendship would spring. +He had smiled at his neighbors and winked in understanding over nothing at all. +He had used each trip to the water cooler to caress those he passed with the +soft, cheering glow of his eyes, the brilliant eyes that seemed to pick each man +in turn out of the room, out of the universe, as the most important specimen of +humanity and as Keating’s dearest friend. There goes--there seemed to be left in +his wake--a smart boy and a hell of a good fellow. +Keating noticed that a tall blond youth at the next table was doing the +elevation of an office building. Keating leaned with chummy respect against the +boy’s shoulder and looked at the laurel garlands entwined about fluted columns +three floors high. +"Pretty good for the old man," said Keating with admiration. +"Who?" asked the boy. +"Why, Francon," said Keating. +28 + + "Francon hell," said the boy placidly. "He hasn’t designed a doghouse in eight +years." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, at a glass door behind them. +"Him." +"What?" asked Keating, turning. +"Him," said the boy. "Stengel. He does all these things." +Behind the glass door Keating saw a pair of bony shoulders above the edge of a +desk, a small, triangular head bent intently, and two blank pools of light in +the round frames of glasses. +It was late in the afternoon when a presence seemed to have passed beyond the +closed door, and Keating learned from the rustle of whispers around him that Guy +Francon had arrived and had risen to his office on the floor above. Half an hour +later the glass door opened and Stengel came out, a huge piece of cardboard +dangling between his fingers. +"Hey, you," he said, his glasses stopping on Keating’s face. "You doing the +plans for this?" He swung the cardboard forward. "Take this up to the boss for +the okay. Try to listen to what he’ll say and try to look intelligent. Neither +of which matters anyway." +He was short and his arms seemed to hang down to his ankles; arms swinging like +ropes in the long sleeves, with big, efficient hands. Keating’s eyes froze, +darkening, for one-tenth of a second, gathered in a tight stare at the blank +lenses. Then Keating smiled and said pleasantly: +"Yes, sir." +He carried the cardboard on the tips of his ten fingers, up the crimson-plushed +stairway to Guy Francon’s office. The cardboard displayed a water-color +perspective of a gray granite mansion with three tiers of dormers, five +balconies, four bays, twelve columns, one flagpole and two lions at the +entrance. In the corner, neatly printed by hand, stood: "Residence of Mr. and +Mrs. James S. Whattles. Francon & Heyer, Architects." Keating whistled softly: +James S. Whattles was the multimillionaire manufacturer of shaving lotions. +Guy Francon’s office was polished. No, thought Keating, not polished, but +shellacked; no, not shellacked, but liquid with mirrors melted and poured over +every object. He saw splinters of his own reflection let loose like a swarm of +butterflies, following him across the room, on the Chippendale cabinets, on the +Jacobean chairs, on the Louis XV mantelpiece. He had time to note a genuine +Roman statue in a corner, sepia photographs of the Parthenon, of Rheims +Cathedral, of Versailles and of the Frink National Bank Building with the +eternal torch. +He saw his own legs approaching him in the side of the massive mahogany desk. +Guy Francon sat behind the desk. Guy Francon’s face was yellow and his cheeks +sagged. He looked at Keating for an instant as if he had never seen him before, +then remembered and smiled expansively. +"Well, well, well, Kittredge, my boy, here we are, all set and at home! So glad +to see you. Sit down, boy, sit down, what have you got there? Well, there’s no +hurry, no hurry at all. Sit down. How do you like it here?" +"I’m afraid, sir, that I’m a little too happy," said Keating, with an expression +of frank, boyish helplessness. "I thought I could be businesslike on my first +job, but starting in a place like this...I guess it knocked me out a +29 + + little....I’ll get over it, sir," he promised. +"Of course," said Guy Francon. "It might be a bit overwhelming for a boy, just a +bit. But don’t you worry. I’m sure you’ll make good." +"I’ll do my best, sir." +"Of course you will. What’s this they sent me?" Francon extended his hand to the +drawing, but his fingers came to rest limply on his forehead instead. "It’s so +annoying, this headache....No, no, nothing serious--" he smiled at Keating’s +prompt concern--"just a little mal de tête. One works so hard." +"Is there anything I can get for you, sir?" +"No, no, thank you. It’s not anything you can get for me, it’s if only you could +take something away from me." He winked. "The champagne. Entre nous, that +champagne of theirs wasn’t worth a damn last night. I’ve never cared for +champagne anyway. Let me tell you, Kittredge, it’s very important to know about +wines, for instance when you’ll take a client out to dinner and will want to be +sure of the proper thing to order. Now I’ll tell you a professional secret. Take +quail, for instance. Now most people would order Burgundy with it. What do you +do? You call for Clos Vougeot 1904. See? Adds that certain touch. Correct, but +original. One must always be original....Who sent you up, by the way?" +"Mr. Stengel, sir." +"Oh, Stengel." The tone in which he pronounced the name clicked like a shutter +in Keating’s mind: it was a permission to be stored away for future use. "Too +grand to bring his own stuff up, eh? Mind you, he’s a great designer, the best +designer in New York City, but he’s just getting to be a bit too grand lately. +He thinks he’s the only one doing any work around here, just because he smudges +at a board all day long. You’ll learn, my boy, when you’ve been in the business +longer, that the real work of an office is done beyond its walls. Take last +night, for instance. Banquet of the Clarion Real Estate Association. Two hundred +guests--dinner and champagne--oh, yes, champagne!" He wrinkled his nose +fastidiously, in self-mockery. "A few words to say informally in a little +after-dinner speech--you know, nothing blatant, no vulgar sales talk--only a few +well-chosen thoughts on the responsibility of realtors to society, on the +importance of selecting architects who are competent, respected and well +established. You know, a few bright little slogans that will stick in the mind." +"Yes, sir, like ’Choose the builder of your home as carefully as you choose the +bride to inhabit it.’" +"Not bad. Not bad at all, Kittredge. Mind if I jot it down?" +"My name is Keating, sir," said Keating firmly. "You are very welcome to the +idea. I’m happy if it appeals to you." +"Keating, of course! Why, of course, Keating," said Francon with a disarming +smile. "Dear me, one meets so many people. How did you say it? Choose the +builder...it was very well put." +He made Keating repeat it and wrote it down on a pad, picking a pencil from an +array before him, new, many-colored pencils, sharpened to a professional needle +point, ready, unused. +Then he pushed he pad aside, sighed, patted the smooth waves of his hair and +said wearily: +30 + + "Well, all right, I suppose I’ll have to look at the thing." +Keating extended the drawing respectfully. Francon leaned back, held the +cardboard out at arm’s length and looked at it. He closed his left eye, then his +right eye, then moved the cardboard an inch farther. Keating expected wildly to +see him turn the drawing upside down. But Francon just held it and Keating knew +suddenly that he had long since stopped seeing it. Francon was studying it for +his, Keating’s, benefit; and then Keating felt light, light as air, and he saw +the road to his future, clear and open. +"Hm...yes," Francon was saying, rubbing his chin with the tips of two soft +fingers. "Hm...yes..." +He turned to Keating. +"Not bad," said Francon. "Not bad at all....Well...perhaps...it would have been +more distinguished, you know, but...well, the drawing is done so neatly....What +do you think, Keating?" +Keating thought that four of the windows faced four mammoth granite columns. But +he looked at Francon’s fingers playing with a petunia-mauve necktie, and decided +not to mention it. He said instead: +"If I may make a suggestion, sir, it seems to me that the cartouches between the +fourth and fifth floors are somewhat too modest for so imposing a building. It +would appear that an ornamented stringcourse would be so much more appropriate." +"That’s it. I was just going to say it. An ornamented stringcourse....But...but +look, it would mean diminishing the fenestration, wouldn’t it?" +"Yes," said Keating, a faint coating of diffidence over the tone he had used in +discussions with his classmates, "but windows are less important than the +dignity of a building’s facade." +"That’s right. Dignity. We must give our clients dignity above all. Yes, +definitely, an ornamented stringcourse....Only...look, I’ve approved the +preliminary drawings, and Stengel has had this done up so neatly." +"Mr. Stengel will be delighted to change it if you advise him to." +Francon’s eyes held Keating’s for a moment. Then Francon’s lashes dropped and he +picked a piece of lint off his sleeve. +"Of course, of course..." he said vaguely. "But...do you think the stringcourse +is really important?" +"I think," said Keating slowly, "it is more important to make changes you find +necessary than to okay every drawing just as Mr. Stengel designed it." +Because Francon said nothing, but only looked straight at him, because Francon’s +eyes were focused and his hands limp, Keating knew that he had taken a terrible +chance and won; he became frightened by the chance after he knew he had won. +They looked silently across the desk, and both saw that they were two men who +could understand each other. +"We’ll have an ornamented stringcourse," said Francon with calm, genuine +authority. "Leave this here. Tell Stengel that I want to see him." +31 + + He had turned to go. Francon stopped him. Francon’s voice was gay and warm: +"Oh, Keating, by the way, may I make a suggestion? Just between us, no offense +intended, but a burgundy necktie would be so much better than blue with your +gray smock, don’t you think so?" +"Yes, sir," said Keating easily. "Thank you. You’ll see it tomorrow." +He walked out and closed the door softly. +On his way back through the reception room, Keating saw a distinguished, +gray-haired gentleman escorting a lady to the door. The gentleman wore no hat +and obviously belonged to the office; the lady wore a mink cape, and was +obviously a client. +The gentleman was not bowing to the ground, he was not unrolling a carpet, he +was not waving a fan over her head; he was only holding the door for her. It +merely seemed to Keating that the gentleman was doing all of that. +The Frink National Bank Building rose over Lower Manhattan, and its long shadow +moved, as the sun traveled over the sky, like a huge clock hand across grimy +tenements, from the Aquarium to Manhattan Bridge. When the sun was gone, the +torch of Hadrian’s Mausoleum flared up in its stead, and made glowing red smears +on the glass of windows for miles around, on the top stories of buildings high +enough to reflect it. The Frink National Bank Building displayed the entire +history of Roman art in well-chosen specimens; for a long time it had been +considered the best building of the city, because no other structure could boast +a single Classical item which it did not possess. It offered so many columns, +pediments, friezes, tripods, gladiators, urns and volutes that it looked as if +it had not been built of white marble, but squeezed out of a pastry tube. It +was, however, built of white marble. No one knew that but the owners who had +paid for it. It was now of a streaked, blotched, leprous color, neither brown +nor green but the worst tones of both, the color of slow rot, the color of +smoke, gas fumes and acids eating into a delicate stone intended for clean air +and open country. The Frink National Bank Building, however, was a great +success. It had been so great a success that it was the last structure Guy +Francon ever designed; its prestige spared him the bother from then on. +Three blocks east of the Frink National Bank stood the Dana Building. It was +some stories lower and without any prestige whatever. Its lines were hard and +simple, revealing, emphasizing the harmony of the steel skeleton within, as a +body reveals the perfection of its bones. It had no other ornament to offer. It +displayed nothing but the precision of its sharp angles, the modeling of its +planes, the long streaks of its windows like streams of ice running down from +the roof to the pavements. New Yorkers seldom looked at the Dana Building. +Sometimes, a rare country visitor would come upon it unexpectedly in the +moonlight and stop and wonder from what dream that vision had come. But such +visitors were rare. The tenants of the Dana Building said that they would not +exchange it for any structure on earth; they appreciated the light, the air, the +beautiful logic of the plan in their halls and offices. But the tenants of the +Dana Building were not numerous; no prominent man wished his business to be +located in a building that looked "like a warehouse." +The Dana Building had been designed by Henry Cameron. +In the eighteen-eighties, the architects of New York fought one another for +second place in their profession. No one aspired to the first. The first was +held by Henry Cameron. Henry Cameron was hard to get in those days. He had a +32 + + waiting list two years in advance; he designed personally every structure that +left his office. He chose what he wished to build. When he built, a client kept +his mouth shut. He demanded of all people the one thing he had never granted +anybody: obedience. He went through the years of his fame like a projectile +flying to a goal no one could guess. People called him crazy. But they took what +he gave them, whether they understood it or not, because it was a building "by +Henry Cameron." +At first, his buildings were merely a little different, not enough to frighten +anyone. He made startling experiments, once in a while, but people expected it +and one did not argue with Henry Cameron. Something was growing in him with each +new building, struggling, taking shape, rising dangerously to an explosion. The +explosion came with the birth of the skyscraper. When structures began to rise +not in tier on ponderous tier of masonry, but as arrows of steel shooting upward +without weight or limit, Henry Cameron was among the first to understand this +new miracle and to give it form. He was among the first and the few who accepted +the truth that a tall building must look tall. While architects cursed, +wondering how to make a twenty-story building look like an old brick mansion, +while they used every horizontal device available in order to cheat it of its +height, shrink it down to tradition, hide the shame of its steel, make it small, +safe and ancient--Henry Cameron designed skyscrapers in straight, vertical +lines, flaunting their steel and height. While architects drew friezes and +pediments, Henry Cameron decided that the skyscraper must not copy the Greeks. +Henry Cameron decided that no building must copy any other. +He was thirty-nine years old then, short, stocky, unkempt; he worked like a dog, +missed his sleep and meals, drank seldom but then brutally, called his clients +unprintable names, laughed at hatred and fanned it deliberately, behaved like a +feudal lord and a longshoreman, and lived in a passionate tension that stung men +in any room he entered, a fire neither they nor he could endure much longer. It +was the year 1892. +The Columbian Exposition of Chicago opened in the year 1893. +The Rome of two thousand years ago rose on the shores of Lake Michigan, a Rome +improved by pieces of France, Spain, Athens and every style that followed it. It +was a "Dream City" of columns, triumphal arches, blue lagoons, crystal fountains +and popcorn. Its architects competed on who could steal best, from the oldest +source and from the most sources at once. It spread before the eyes of a new +country every structural crime ever committed in all the old ones. It was white +as a plague, and it spread as such. +People came, looked, were astounded, and carried away with them, to the cities +of America, the seeds of what they had seen. The seeds sprouted into weeds; into +shingled post offices with Doric porticos, brick mansions with iron pediments, +lofts made of twelve Parthenons piled on top of one another. The weeds grew and +choked everything else. +Henry Cameron had refused to work for the Columbian Exposition, and had called +it names that were unprintable, but repeatable, though not in mixed company. +They were repeated. It was repeated also that he had thrown an inkstand at the +face of a distinguished banker who had asked him to design a railroad station in +the shape of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The banker never came back. There +were others who never came back. +Just as he reached the goal of long, struggling years, just as he gave shape to +the truth he had sought--the last barrier fell closed before him. A young +country had watched him on his way, had wondered, had begun to accept the new +grandeur of his work. A country flung two thousand years back in an orgy of +33 + + Classicism could find no place for him and no use. +It was not necessary to design buildings any longer, only to photograph them; +the architect with the best library was the best architect Imitators copied +imitations. To sanction it there was Culture; there were twenty centuries +unrolling in moldering ruins; there was the great Exposition; there was every +European post card in every family album. +Henry Cameron had nothing to offer against this; nothing but a faith he held +merely because it was his own. He had nobody to quote and nothing of importance +to say. He said only that the form of a building must follow its function; that +the structure of a building is the key to its beauty; that new methods of +construction demand new forms; that he wished to build as he wished and for that +reason only. But people could not listen to him when they were discussing +Vitruvius, Michelangelo and Sir Christopher Wren. +Men hate passion, any great passion. Henry Cameron made a mistake: he loved his +work. That was why he fought. That was why he lost. +People said he never knew that he had lost. If he did, he never let them see it. +As his clients became rarer, his manner to them grew more overbearing. The less +the prestige of his name, the more arrogant the sound of his voice pronouncing +it. He had had an astute business manager, a mild, self-effacing little man of +iron who, in the days of his glory, faced quietly the storms of Cameron’s temper +and brought him clients; Cameron insulted the clients, but the little man made +them accept it and come back. The little man died. +Cameron had never known how to face people. They did not matter to him, as his +own life did not matter, as nothing mattered but buildings. He had never learned +to give explanations, only orders. He had never been liked. He had been feared. +No one feared him any longer. +He was allowed to live. He lived to loathe the streets of the city he had +dreamed of rebuilding. He lived to sit at the desk in his empty office, +motionless, idle, waiting. He lived to read in a well-meaning newspaper account +a reference to "the late Henry Cameron." He lived to begin drinking, quietly, +steadily, terribly, for days and nights at a time; and to hear those who had +driven him to it say, when his name was mentioned for a commission: "Cameron? I +should say not. He drinks like a fish. That’s why he never gets any work." He +lived to move from the offices that occupied three floors of a famous building +to one floor on a less expensive street, then to a suite farther downtown, then +to three rooms facing an air shaft, near the Battery. He chose these rooms +because, by pressing his face to the window of his office, he could see, over a +brick wall, the top of the Dana Building. +Howard Roark looked at the Dana Building beyond the windows, stopping at each +landing, as he mounted the six flights of stairs to Henry Cameron’s office; the +elevator was out of order. The stairs had been painted a dirty file-green a long +time ago; a little of the paint remained to grate under shoe soles in crumbling +patches. Roark went up swiftly, as if he had an appointment, a folder of his +drawings under his arm, his eyes on the Dana Building. He collided once with a +man descending the stairs; this had happened to him often in the last two days; +he had walked through the streets of the city, his head thrown back, noticing +nothing but the buildings of New York. +In the dark cubbyhole of Cameron’s anteroom stood a desk with a telephone and a +typewriter. A gray-haired skeleton of a man sat at the desk, in his shirt +sleeves, with a pair of limp suspenders over his shoulders. He was typing +specifications intently, with two fingers and incredible speed. The light from a +34 + + feeble bulb made a pool of yellow on his back, where the damp shirt stuck to his +shoulder blades. +The man raised his head slowly, when Roark entered. He looked at Roark, said +nothing and waited, his old eyes weary, unquestioning, incurious. +"I should like to see Mr. Cameron," said Roark. +"Yeah?" said the man, without challenge, offense or meaning. "About what?" +"About a job." +"What job?" +"Drafting." +The man sat looking at him blankly. It was a request that had not confronted him +for a long time. He rose at last, without a word, shuffled to a door behind him +and went in. +He left the door half open. Roark heard him drawling: +"Mr. Cameron, there’s a fellow outside says he’s looking for a job here." +Then a voice answered, a strong, clear voice that held no tones of age: +"Why, the damn fool! Throw him out...Wait! Send him in!" +The old man returned, held the door open and jerked his head at it silently. +Roark went in. The door closed behind him. +Henry Cameron sat at his desk at the end of a long, bare room. He sat bent +forward, his forearms on the desk, his two hands closed before him. His hair and +his beard were coal black, with coarse threads of white. The muscles of his +short, thick neck bulged like ropes. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves +rolled above the elbows; the bare arms were hard, heavy and brown. The flesh of +his broad face was rigid, as if it had aged by compression. The eyes were dark, +young, living. +Roark stood on the threshold and they looked at each other across the long room. +The light from the air shaft was gray, and the dust on the drafting table, on +the few green files, looked like fuzzy crystals deposited by the light. But on +the wall, between the windows, Roark saw a picture. It was the only picture in +the room. It was the drawing of a skyscraper that had never been erected. +Roark’s eyes moved first and they moved to the drawing. He walked across the +office, stopped before it and stood looking at it. Cameron’s eyes followed him, +a heavy glance, like a long, thin needle held fast at one end, describing a slow +circle, its point piercing Roark’s body, keeping it pinned firmly. Cameron +looked at the orange hair, at the hand hanging by his side, its palm to the +drawing, the fingers bent slightly, forgotten not in a gesture but in the +overture to a gesture of asking or seizing something. +"Well?" said Cameron at last. "Did you come to see me or did you come to look at +pictures?" +Roark turned to him. +35 + + "Both," said Roark. +He walked to the desk. People had always lost their sense of existence in +Roark’s presence; but Cameron felt suddenly that he had never been as real as in +the awareness of the eyes now looking at him. +"What do you want?" snapped Cameron. "I should like to work for you," said Roark +quietly. The voice said: "I should like to work for you." The tone of the voice +said: "I’m going to work for you." +"Are you?" said Cameron, not realizing that he answered the unpronounced +sentence. "What’s the matter? None of the bigger and better fellows will have +you?" +"I have not applied to anyone else." +"Why not? Do you think this is the easiest place to begin? Think anybody can +walk in here without trouble? Do you know who I am?" +"Yes. That’s why I’m here." +"Who sent you?" +"No one." +"Why the hell should you pick me?" +"I think you know that." +"What infernal impudence made you presume that I’d want you? Have you decided +that I’m so hard up that I’d throw the gates open for any punk who’d do me the +honor? ’Old Cameron,’ you’ve said to yourself, ’is a has-been, a drunken..." +come on, you’ve said it!...’a drunken failure who can’t be particular!’ Is that +it?...Come on, answer me! Answer me, damn you! What are you staring at? Is that +it? Go on! Deny it!" +"It’s not necessary." +"Where have you worked before?" +"I’m just beginning." +"What have you done?" +"I’ve had three years at Stanton." +"Oh? The gentleman was too lazy to finish?" +"I have been expelled." +"Great!" Cameron slapped the desk with his fist and laughed. "Splendid! You’re +not good enough for the lice nest at Stanton, but you’ll work for Henry Cameron! +You’ve decided this is the place for refuse! What did they kick you out for? +Drink? Women? What?" +"These," said Roark, and extended his drawings. Cameron looked at the first one, +then at the next, then at every one of them to the bottom. Roark heard the paper +rustling as Cameron slipped one sheet behind another. Then Cameron raised his +head. "Sit down." +36 + + Roark obeyed. Cameron stared at him, his thick fingers drumming against the pile +of drawings. +"So you think they’re good?’ said Cameron. "Well, they’re awful. It’s +unspeakable. It’s a crime. Look," he shoved a drawing at Roark’s face, "look at +that. What in Christ’s name was your idea? What possessed you to indent that +plan here? Did you just want to make it pretty, because you had to patch +something together? Who do you think you are? Guy Francon, God help you?...Look +at this building, you fool! You get an idea like this and you don’t know what to +do with it! You stumble on a magnificent thing and you have to ruin it! Do you +know how much you’ve got to learn?" +"Yes. That’s why I’m here." +"And look at that one! I wish I’d done that at your age! But why did you have to +botch it? Do you know what I’d do with that? Look, to hell with your stairways +and to hell with your furnace room! When you lay the foundations..." +He spoke furiously for a long time. He cursed. He did not find one sketch to +satisfy him. But Roark noticed that he spoke as of buildings that were in +construction. +He broke off abruptly, pushed the drawings aside, and put his fist over them. He +asked: +"When did you decide to become an architect?" +"When I was ten years old." +"Men don’t know what they want so early in life, if ever. You’re lying." +"Am I?" +"Don’t stare at me like that! Can’t you look at something else? Why did you +decide to be an architect?" +"I didn’t know it then. But it’s because I’ve never believed in God." +"Come on, talk sense." +"Because I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things +on this earth. I want to change them." +"For whom?" +"For myself." +"How old are you?" +"Twenty-two." +"When did you hear all that?" +"I didn’t." +"Men don’t talk like that at twenty-two. You’re abnormal." +"Probably." +37 + + "I didn’t mean it as a compliment." +"I didn’t either." +"Got any family?" +"No." +"Worked through school?" +"Yes." +"At what?" +"In the building trades." +"How much money have you got left?" +"Seventeen dollars and thirty cents." +"When did you come to New York?" +"Yesterday." +Cameron looked at the white pile under his fist. +"God damn you," said Cameron softly. +"God damn you!" roared Cameron suddenly, leaning forward. "I didn’t ask you to +come here! I don’t need any draftsmen! There’s nothing here to draft! I don’t +have enough work to keep myself and my men out of the Bowery Mission! I don’t +want any fool visionaries starving around here! I don’t want the responsibility. +I didn’t ask for it. I never thought I’d see it again. I’m through with it. I +was through with that many years ago. I’m perfectly happy with the drooling +dolts I’ve got here, who never had anything and never will have and it makes no +difference what becomes of them. That’s all I want Why did you have to come +here? You’re setting out to ruin yourself, you know that, don’t you? And I’ll +help you to do it. I don’t want to see you. I don’t like you. I don’t like your +face. You look like an insufferable egotist. You’re impertinent. You’re too sure +of yourself. Twenty years ago I’d have punched your face with the greatest of +pleasure. You’re coming to work here tomorrow at nine o’clock sharp." +"Yes," said Roark, rising. +"Fifteen dollars a week. That’s all I can pay you." +"Yes." +"You’re a damn fool. You should have gone to someone else. I’ll kill you if you +go to anyone else. What’s your name?" +"Howard Roark." +"If you’re late, I’ll fire you." +"Yes." +Roark extended his hand for the drawings. +38 + + "Leave these here!" bellowed Cameron. "Now get out!" + +4. +"TOOHEY," said Guy Francon, "Ellsworth Toohey. Pretty decent of him, don’t you +think? Read it, Peter." +Francon leaned jovially across his desk and handed to Keating the August issue +of New Frontiers. New Frontiers had a white cover with a black emblem that +combined a palette, a lyre, a hammer, a screw driver and a rising sun; it had a +circulation of thirty thousand and a following that described itself as the +intellectual vanguard of the country; no one had ever risen to challenge the +description. Keating read from an article entitled "Marble and Mortar," by +Ellsworth M. Toohey: +"...And now we come to another notable achievement of the metropolitan skyline. +We call the attention of the discriminating to the new Melton Building by +Francon & Heyer. It stands in white serenity as an eloquent witness to the +triumph of Classical purity and common sense. The discipline of an immortal +tradition has served here as a cohesive factor in evolving a structure whose +beauty can reach, simply and lucidly, the heart of every man in the street. +There is no freak exhibitionism here, no perverted striving for novelty, no orgy +of unbridled egotism. Guy Francon, its designer, has known how to subordinate +himself to the mandatory canons which generations of craftsmen behind him have +proved inviolate, and at the same time how to display his own creative +originality, not in spite of, but precisely because of the Classical dogma he +has accepted with the humility of a true artist. It may be worth mentioning, in +passing, that dogmatic discipline is the only thing which makes true originality +possible.... +"More important, however, is the symbolic significance of a building such as +this rising in our imperial city. As one stands before its southern facade, one +is stricken with the realization that the stringcourses, repeated with +deliberate and gracious monotony from the third to the eighteenth story, these +long, straight, horizontal lines are the moderating, leveling principle, the +lines of equality. They seem to bring the towering structure down to the humble +level of the observer. They are the lines of the earth, of the people, of the +great masses. They seem to tell us that none may rise too high above the +restraint of the common human level, that all is held and shall be checked, even +as this proud edifice, by the stringcourses of men’s brotherhood...." +There was more. Keating read it all, then raised his head. "Gee!" he said, awed. +Francon smiled happily. +"Pretty good, eh? And from Toohey, no less. Not many people might have heard the +name, but they will, mark my word, they will. I know the signs....So he doesn’t +think I’m so bad? And he’s got a tongue like an icepick, when he feels like +using it. You should see what he says about others, more often than not. You +know Durkin’s latest mousetrap? Well, I was at a party where Toohey said--" +Francon chuckled--"he said: ’If Mr. Durkin suffers under the delusion that he is +an architect, someone should mention to him the broad opportunities offered by +the shortage of skilled plumbers.’ That’s what he said, imagine, in public!" +"I wonder," said Keating wistfully, "what he’ll say about me, when the times +comes." +39 + + "What on earth does he mean by the symbolic significance stuff and the +stringcourses of men’s brotherhood?...Oh, well, if that’s what he praises us +for, we should worry!" +"It’s the critic’s job to interpret the artist, Mr. Francon, even to the artist +himself. Mr. Toohey has merely stated the hidden significance that was +subconsciously in your own mind." +"Oh," said Francon vaguely. "Oh, do you think so?" he added brightly. "Quite +possible....Yes, quite possible....You’re a smart boy, Peter." +"Thank you, Mr. Francon." Keating made a movement to rise. +"Wait. Don’t go. One more cigarette and then we’ll both return to the drudgery." +Francon was smiling over the article, reading it again. Keating had never seen +him so pleased; no drawing in the office, no work accomplished had ever made him +as happy as these words from another man on a printed page to be read by other +eyes. +Keating sat easily in a comfortable chair. His month with the firm had been well +spent. He had said nothing and done nothing, but the impression had spread +through the office that Guy Francon liked to see this particular boy sent to him +whenever anyone had to be sent. Hardly a day passed without the pleasant +interlude of sitting across the desk from Guy Francon, in a respectful, growing +intimacy, listening to Francon’s sighs about the necessity of being surrounded +by men who understood him. +Keating had learned all he could team about Guy Francon, from his fellow +draftsmen. He had teamed that Guy Francon ate moderately and exquisitely, and +prided himself on the title of gourmet; that he had graduated with distinction +from the École des Beaux-Arts; that he had married a great deal of money and +that the marriage had not been a happy one; that he matched meticulously his +socks with his handkerchiefs, but never with his neckties; that he had a great +preference for designing buildings of gray granite; that he owned a quarry of +gray granite in Connecticut, which did a thriving business; that he maintained a +magnificent bachelor apartment done in plum-colored Louis XV; that his wife, of +a distinguished old name, had died, leaving her fortune to their only daughter, +that the daughter, now nineteen, was away at college. +These last facts interested Keating a great deal. He mentioned to Francon, +tentatively in passing, the subject of his daughter. "Oh, yes..." Francon said +thinly. "Yes, indeed..." Keating abandoned all further research into the matter, +for the time being; Francon’s face had declared mat the thought of his daughter +was painfully annoying to him, for some reason which Keating could not discover. +Keating had met Lucius N. Heyer, Francon’s partner, and had seen him come to the +office twice in three weeks, but had been unable to learn what service Heyer +rendered to the firm. Heyer did not have haemophilia, but looked as though he +should have it He was a withered aristocrat, with a long, thin neck, pate, +bulging eyes and a manner of frightened sweetness toward everyone. He was the +relic of an ancient family, and it was suspected mat Francon had taken him into +partnership for the sake of his social connections. People felt sorry for poor +dear Lucius, admired him for the effort of undertaking a professional career, +and thought it would be nice to let him build their homes. Francon built them +and required no further service from Lucius. This satisfied everybody. +The men in the drafting rooms loved Peter Keating. He made them feel as if he +had been there for a long time; he had always known how to become part of any +40 + + place he entered; he came soft and bright as a sponge to be filled, unresisting, +with the air and the mood of the place. His warm smile, his gay voice, the easy +shrug of his shoulders seemed to say that nothing weighed too much within his +soul and so he was not one to blame, to demand, to accuse anything. +As he sat now, watching Francon read the article, Francon raised his head to +glance at him. Francon saw two eyes looking at him with immense approval--and +two bright little points of contempt in the corners of Keating’s mouth, like two +musical notes of laughter visible the second before they were to be heard. +Francon felt a great wave of comfort. The comfort came from the contempt. The +approval, together with that wise half-smile, granted him a grandeur he did not +have to earn; a blind admiration would have been precarious; a deserved +admiration would have been a responsibility; an undeserved admiration was +precious. +"When you go, Peter, give this to Miss Jeffers to put in my scrapbook." +On his way down the stairs, Keating flung the magazine high in the air and +caught it smartly, his lips pursed to whistle without sound. +In the drafting room he found Tim Davis, his best friend, slouched despondently +over a drawing. Tim Davis was the tall, blond boy at the next table, whom +Keating had noticed long ago, because he had known, with no tangible evidence, +but with certainty, as Keating always knew such things, that this was the +favored draftsman of the office. Keating managed to be assigned, as frequently +as possible, to do parts of the projects on which Davis worked. Soon they were +going out to lunch together, and to a quiet little speak-easy after the day’s +work, and Keating was listening with breathless attention to Davis’ talk about +his love for one Elaine Duffy, not a word of which Keating ever remembered +afterward. +He found Davis now in black gloom, his mouth chewing furiously a cigarette and a +pencil at once. Keating did not have to question him. He merely bent his +friendly face over Davis’ shoulder. Davis spit out the cigarette and exploded. +He had just been told that he would have to work overtime tonight, for the third +time this week. +"Got to stay late, God knows how late! Gotta finish this damn tripe tonight!" He +slammed the sheets spread before him. "Look at it! Hours and hours and hours to +finish it! What am I going to do?" +"Well, it’s because you’re the best man here, Tim, and they need you." +"To hell with that! I’ve got a date with Elaine tonight! How’m I going to break +it? Third time! She won’t believe me! She told me so last time! That’s the end! +I’m going up to Guy the Mighty and tell him where he can put his plans and his +job! I’m through!" +"Wait," said Keating, and leaned closer to him. "Wait! There’s another way. I’ll +finish them for you." +"Huh?" +"I’ll stay. I’ll do them. Don’t be afraid. No one’ll tell the difference." +"Pete! Would you?" +"Sure. I’ve nothing to do tonight. You just stay till they all go home, then +skip." +41 + + "Oh, gee, Pete!" Davis sighed, tempted. "But look, if they find out, they’ll can +me. You’re too new for this kind of job." +"They won’t find out." +"I can’t lose my job, Pete. You know I can’t. Elaine and I are going to be +married soon. If anything happens..." +"Nothing will happen." +Shortly after six, Davis departed furtively from the empty drafting room, +leaving Keating at his table. +Bending under a solitary green lamp. Keating glanced at the desolate expanse of +three long rooms, oddly silent after the day’s rush, and he felt that he owned +them, that he would own them, as surely as the pencil moved in his hand. +It was half past nine when he finished the plans, stacked them neatly on Davis’ +table, and left the office. He walked down the street, glowing with a +comfortable, undignified feeling, as though after a good meal. Then the +realization of his loneliness struck him suddenly. He had to share this with +someone tonight. He had no one. For the first time he wished his mother were in +New York. But she had remained in Stanton, awaiting the day when he would be +able to send for her. He had nowhere to go tonight, save to the respectable +little boardinghouse on West Twenty-Eighth Street, where he could climb three +flights of stairs to his clean, airless little room. He had met people in New +York, many people, many girls, with one of whom he remembered spending a +pleasant night, though he could not remember her last name; but he wished to see +none of them. And then he thought of Catherine Halsey. +He had sent her a wire on the night of his graduation and forgotten her ever +since. Now he wanted to see her; the desire was intense and immediate with the +first sound of her name in his memory. He leaped into a bus for the long ride to +Greenwich Village, climbed to the deserted top and, sitting alone on the front +bench, cursed the traffic lights whenever they turned to red. It had always been +like this where Catherine was concerned; and he wondered dimly what was the +matter with him. +He had met her a year ago in Boston, where she had lived with her widowed +mother. He had found Catherine homely and dull, on that first meeting, with +nothing to her credit but her lovely smile, not a sufficient reason ever to see +her again. He had telephoned her the next evening. Of the countless girls he had +known in his student years she was the only one with whom he had never +progressed beyond a few kisses. He could have any girl he met and he knew it; he +knew that he could have Catherine; he wanted her; she loved him and had admitted +it simply, openly, without fear or shyness, asking nothing of him, expecting +nothing; somehow, he had never taken advantage of it. He had felt proud of the +girls whom he escorted in those days, the most beautiful girls, the most +popular, the best dressed, and he had delighted in the envy of his schoolmates. +He had been ashamed of Catherine’s thoughtless sloppiness and of the fact that +no other boy would look at her twice. But he had never been as happy as when he +took her to fraternity dances. He had had many violent loves, when he swore he +could not live without this girl or that; he forgot Catherine for weeks at a +time and she never reminded him. He had always come back to her, suddenly, +inexplicably, as he did tonight. +Her mother, a gentle little schoolteacher, had died last winter. Catherine had +gone to live with an uncle in New York. Keating had answered some of her letters +42 + + immediately, others--months later. She had always replied at once, and never +written during his long silences, waiting patiently. He had felt, when he +thought of her, that nothing would ever replace her. Then, in New York, within +reach of a bus or a telephone, he had forgotten her again for a month. +He never thought, as he hurried to her now, that he should have announced his +visit. He never wondered whether he would find her at home. He had always come +back like this and she had always been there. She was there again tonight. +She opened the door for him, on the top floor of a shabby, pretentious +brownstone house. "Hello, Peter," she said, as if she had seen him yesterday. +She stood before him, too small, too thin for her clothes. The short black skirt +flared out from the slim band of her waist; the boyish shirt collar hung +loosely, pulled to one side, revealing the knob of a thin collarbone; the +sleeves were too long over the fragile hands. She looked at him, her head bent +to one side; her chestnut hair was gathered carelessly at the back of her neck, +but it looked as though it were bobbed, standing, light and fuzzy, as a +shapeless halo about her face. Her eyes were gray, wide and nearsighted; her +mouth smiled slowly, delicately, enchantingly, her lips glistening. "Hello, +Katie," he said. +He felt at peace. He felt he had nothing to fear, in this house or anywhere +outside. He had prepared himself to explain how busy he’d been in New York; but +explanations seemed irrelevant now. +"Give me your hat," she said, "be careful of that chair, it’s not very steady, +we have better ones in the living room, come in." The living room, he noticed, +was modest but somehow distinguished, and in surprisingly good taste. He noticed +the books; cheap shelves rising to the ceiling, loaded with precious volumes; +the volumes stacked carelessly, actually being used. He noticed, over a neat, +shabby desk, a Rembrandt etching, stained and yellow, found, perhaps, in some +junk shop by the eyes of a connoisseur who had never parted with it, though its +price would have obviously been of help to him. He wondered what business her +uncle could be in; he had never asked. +He stood looking vaguely at the room, feeling her presence behind him, enjoying +that sense of certainty which he found so rarely. Then he turned and took her in +his arms and kissed her; her lips met his softly, eagerly; but she was neither +frightened nor excited, too happy to accept this in any way save by taking it +for granted. +"God, I’ve missed you!" he said, and knew that he had, every day since he’d seen +her last and most of all, perhaps, on the days when he had not thought of her. +"You haven’t changed much," she said. "You look a little thinner. It’s becoming. +You’ll be very attractive when you’re fifty, Peter." +"That’s not very complimentary--by implication." +"Why? Oh, you mean I think you’re not attractive now? Oh, but you are." +"You shouldn’t say that right out to me like that." +"Why not? You know you are. But I’ve been thinking of what you’ll look like at +fifty. You’ll have gray temples and you’ll wear a gray suit--I saw one in a +window last week and I thought that would be the one--and you’ll be a very great +architect." +43 + + "You really think so?" +"Why, yes." She was not flattering him. She did not seem to realize that it +could be flattery. She was merely stating a fact, too certain to need emphasis. +He waited for the inevitable questions. But instead, they were talking suddenly +of their old Stanton days together, and he was laughing, holding her across his +knees, her thin shoulders leaning against the circle of his arm, her eyes soft, +contented. He was speaking of their old bathing suits, of the runs in her +stockings, of their favorite ice-cream parlor in Stanton, where they had spent +so many summer evenings together--and he was thinking dimly that it made no +sense at all; he had more pertinent things to tell and to ask her; people did +not talk like that when they hadn’t seen each other for months. But it seemed +quite normal to her; she did not appear to know that they had been parted. +He was first to ask finally: +"Did you get my wire?" +"Oh, yes. Thanks." +"Don’t you want to know how I’m getting along in the city?" +"Sure. How are you getting along in the city?" +"Look here, you’re not terribly interested." +"Oh, but I am! I want to know everything about you." +"Why don’t you ask?" +"You’ll tell me when you want to." +"It doesn’t matter much to you, does it?" +"What?" +"What I’ve been doing." +"Oh...Yes, it does, Peter. No, not too much." +"That’s sweet of you!" +"But, you see, it’s not what you do that matters really. It’s only you." +"Me what?" +"Just you here. Or you in the city. Or you somewhere in the world. I don’t know. +Just that." +"You know, you’re a fool, Katie. Your technique is something awful." +"My what?" +"Your technique. You can’t tell a man so shamelessly, like that, that you’re +practically crazy about him." +"But I am." +44 + + "But you can’t say so. Men won’t care for you." +"But I don’t want men to care for me." +"You want me to, don’t you?" +"But you do, don’t you?" +"I do," he said, his arms tightening about her. "Damnably. I’m a bigger fool +than you are." +"Well, then it’s perfectly all right," she said, her fingers in his hair, "isn’t +it?" +"It’s always been perfectly all right, that’s the strangest part about it....But +look, I want to tell you about what’s happened to me, because it’s important." +"I’m really very interested, Peter." +"Well, you know I’m working for Francon & Heyer and...Oh, hell, you don’t even +know what that means!" +"Yes, I do. I’ve looked them up in Who’s Who in Architecture. It said some very +nice things about them. And I asked Uncle. He said they were tops in the +business." +"You bet they are. Francon--he’s the greatest designer in New York, in the whole +country, in the world maybe. He’s put up seventeen skyscrapers, eight +cathedrals, six railroad terminals and God knows what else....Of course, you +know, he’s an old fool and a pompous fraud who oils his way into everything +and..." He stopped, his mouth open, staring at her. He had not intended to say +that. He had never allowed himself to think that before. +She was looking at him serenely. "Yes?" she asked. "And...?" +"Well...and..." he stammered, and he knew that he could not speak differently, +not to her, "and that’s what I really think of him. And I have no respect for +him at all. And I’m delighted to be working for him. See?" +"Sure," she said quietly. "You’re ambitious, Peter." +"Don’t you despise me for it?" +"No. That’s what you wanted." +"Sure, that’s what I wanted. Well, actually, it’s not as bad as that. It’s a +tremendous firm, the best in the city. I’m really doing good work, and Francon +is very pleased with me. I’m getting ahead. I think I can have any job I want in +the place eventually....Why, only tonight I took over a man’s work and he +doesn’t know that he’ll be useless soon, because...Katie! What am I saying?" +"It’s all right, dear. I understand." +"If you did, you’d call me the names I deserve and make me stop it." +"No, Peter. I don’t want to change you. I love you, Peter." +"God help you!" +45 + + "I know that." +"You know that? And you say it like this? Like you’d say, ’Hello, it’s a +beautiful evening’?" +"Well, why not? Why worry about it? I love you." +"No, don’t worry about it! Don’t ever worry about it!...Katie....I’ll never love +anyone else...." +"I know that too." +He held her close, anxiously, afraid that her weightless little body would +vanish. He did not know why her presence made him confess things unconfessed in +his own mind. He did not know why the victory he came here to share had faded. +But it did not matter. He had a peculiar sense of freedom--her presence always +lifted from him a pressure he could not define--he was alone--he was himself. +All that mattered to him now was the feeling of her coarse cotton blouse against +his wrist. +Then he was asking her about her own life in New York and she was speaking +happily about her uncle. +"He’s wonderful, Peter. He’s really wonderful. He’s quite poor, but he took me +in and he was so gracious about it he gave up his study to make a room for me +and now he has to work here, in the living room. You must meet him, Peter. He’s +away now, on a lecture tour, but you must meet him when he comes back." +"Sure, I’d love to." +"You know, I wanted to go to work, and be on my own, but he wouldn’t let me. ’My +dear child,’ he said, ’not at seventeen. You don’t want me to be ashamed of +myself, do you? I don’t believe in child labor.’ That was kind of a funny idea, +don’t you think? He has so many funny ideas--I don’t understand them all, but +they say he’s a brilliant man. So he made it look as if I were doing him a favor +by letting him keep me, and I think that was really very decent of him." +"What do you do with yourself all day long?" +"Nothing much of anything now. I read books. On architecture. Uncle has tons of +books on architecture. But when he’s here I type his lectures for him. I really +don’t think he likes me to do it, he prefers the typist he had, but I love it +and he lets me. And he pays me her salary. I didn’t want to take it, but he made +me." +"What does he do for a living?" +"Oh, so many things, I don’t know, I can’t keep track of them. He teaches art +history, for one, he’s a kind of professor." +"And when are you going to college, by the way?" +"Oh...Well...well, you see, I don’t think Uncle approves of the idea. I told him +how I’d always planned to go and that I’d work my own way through, but he seems +to think it’s not for me. He doesn’t say much, only: ’God made the elephant for +toil and the mosquito for flitting about, and it’s not advisable, as a rule, to +experiment with the laws of nature, however, if you want to try it, my dear +child...’ But he’s not objecting really, it’s up to me, only..." +46 + + "Well, don’t let him stop you." +"Oh, he wouldn’t want to stop me. Only, I was thinking, I was never any great +shakes in high school, and, darling, I’m really quite utterly lousy at +mathematics, and so I wonder...but then, there’s no hurry, I’ve got plenty of +time to decide." +"Listen, Katie, I don’t like that. You’ve always planned on college. If that +uncle of yours..." +"You shouldn’t say it like this. You don’t know him. He’s the most amazing man. +I’ve never met anyone quite like him. He’s so kind, so understanding. And he’s +such fun, always joking, he’s so clever at it, nothing that you thought was +serious ever seems to be when he’s around, and yet he’s a very serious man. You +know, he spends hours talking to me, he’s never too tired and he’s not bored +with my stupidity, he tells me all about strikes, and conditions in the slums, +and the poor people in the sweatshops, always about others, never about himself. +A friend of his told me that Uncle could be a very rich man if he tried, he’s so +clever, but he won’t, he just isn’t interested in money." +"That’s not human." +"Wait till you see him. Oh, he wants to meet you, too. I’ve told him about you. +He calls you ’the T-square Romeo.’" +"Oh, he does, does he?" +"But you don’t understand. He means it kindly. It’s the way he says things. +You’ll have a lot in common. Maybe he could help you. He knows something about +architecture, too. You’ll love Uncle Ellsworth." +"Who?" said Keating. +"My uncle." +"Say," Keating asked, his voice a little husky, "what’s your +uncle’s name?" +"Ellsworth Toohey. Why?" His hands fell limply. He sat staring at her. "What’s +the matter, Peter?" +He swallowed. She saw the jerking motion of his throat. Then he said, his voice +hard: +"Listen, Katie, I don’t want to meet your uncle." +"But why?" +"I don’t want to meet him. Not through you....You see, Katie, you don’t know me. +I’m the kind that uses people. I don’t want to use you. Ever. Don’t let me. Not +you." +"Use me how? What’s the matter? Why?" +"It’s just this: I’d give my eyeteeth to meet Ellsworth Toohey, that’s all." He +laughed harshly. "So he knows something about architecture, does he? You little +fool! He’s the most important man in architecture. Not yet, maybe, but that’s +what he’ll be in a couple of years--ask Francon, that old weasel knows. He’s on +47 + + his way to becoming the Napoleon of all architectural critics, your Uncle +Ellsworth is, just watch him. In the first place, there aren’t many to bother +writing about our profession, so he’s the smart boy who’s going to comer the +market. You should see the big shots in our office lapping up every comma he +puts out in print! So you think maybe he could help me? Well, he could make me, +and he will, and I’m going to meet him some day, when I’m ready for him, as I +met Francon, but not here, not through you. Understand? Not from you!" +"But, Peter, why not?" +"Because I don’t want it that way! Because it’s filthy and I hate it, all of it, +ray work and my profession, and what I’m doing and what I’m going to do! It’s +something I want to keep you out of. You’re all I really have. Just keep out of +it, Katie!" +"Out of what?" +"I don’t know!" +She rose and stood in the circle of his arms, his face hidden against her hip; +she stroked his hair, looking down at him. +"All right, Peter. I think I know. You don’t have to meet him until you want to. +Just tell me when you want it. You can use me if you have to. It’s all right. It +won’t change anything." +When he raised his head, she was laughing softly. +"You’ve worked too hard, Peter. You’re a little unstrung. Suppose I make you +some tea?" +"Oh, I’d forgotten all about it, but I’ve had no dinner today. Had no time." +"Well, of all things! Well, how perfectly disgusting! Come on to the kitchen, +this minute, I’ll see what I can fix up for you!" +He left her two hours later, and he walked away feeling light, clean, happy, his +fears forgotten, Toohey and Francon forgotten. He thought only that he had +promised to come again tomorrow and that it was an unbearably long time to wait. +She stood at the door, after he had gone, her hand on the knob he had touched, +and she thought that he might come tomorrow--or three months later. +# +"When you finish tonight," said Henry Cameron, "I want to see you in my office." +"Yes," said Roark. +Cameron veered sharply on his heels and walked out of the drafting room. It had +been the longest sentence he had addressed to Roark in a month. +Roark had come to this room every morning, had done his task, and had heard no +word of comment. Cameron would enter the drafting room and stand behind Roark +for a long time, looking over his shoulder. It was as if his eyes concentrated +deliberately on trying to throw the steady hand off its course on the paper. The +two other draftsmen botched their work from the mere thought of such an +apparition standing behind them. Roark did not seem to notice it. He went on, +his hand unhurried, he took his time about discarding a blunted pencil and +picking out another. "Uh-huh," Cameron would grunt suddenly. Roark would turn +his head then, politely attentive. "What is it?" he would ask. Cameron would +48 + + turn away without a word, his narrowed eyes underscoring contemptuously the fact +that he considered an answer unnecessary, and would leave the drafting room. +Roark would go on with his drawing. +"Looks bad," Loomis, the young draftsman, confided to Simpson, his ancient +colleague. "The old man doesn’t like this guy. Can’t say that I blame him, +either. Here’s one that won’t last long." +Simpson was old and helpless; he had survived from Cameron’s three-floor office, +had stuck and had never understood it Loomis was young, with the face of a +drugstore-corner lout; he was here because he had been fired from too many other +places. +Both men disliked Roark. He was usually disliked, from the first sight of his +face, anywhere he went His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; +things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. He +was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his presence had a strange +quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not there; or +perhaps that he was and they weren’t. +After work he walked the long distance to his home, a tenement near the East +River. He had chosen that tenement because he had been able to get, for +two-fifty a week, its entire top floor, a huge room that had been used for +storage: it had no ceiling and the roof leaked between its naked beams. But it +had a long row of windows, along two of its walls, some panes filled with glass, +others with cardboard, and the windows opened high over the river on one side +and the city on the other. +A week ago Cameron had come into the drafting room and had thrown down on +Roark’s table a violent sketch of a country residence. "See if you can make a +house out of this!" he had snapped and gone without further explanation. He had +not approached Roark’s table during the days that followed. Roark had finished +the drawings last night and left them on Cameron’s desk. This morning, Cameron +had come in, thrown some sketches of steel joints to Roark, ordered him to +appear in his office later and had not entered the drafting room again for the +rest of the day. The others were gone. Roark pulled an old piece of oilcloth +over his table and went to Cameron’s office. His drawings of the country house +were spread on the desk. The light of the lamp fell on Cameron’s cheek, on his +beard, the white threads glistening, on his fist, on a corner of the drawing, +its black lines bright and hard as if embossed on the paper. "You’re fired," +said Cameron. +Roark stood, halfway across the long room, his weight on one leg, his arms +hanging by his sides, one shoulder raised. "Am I?" he asked quietly, without +moving. "Come here," said Cameron. "Sit down." Roark obeyed. +"You’re too good," said Cameron. "You’re too good for what you want to do with +yourself. It’s no use, Roark. Better now than later." +"What do you mean?’ +"It’s no use wasting what you’ve got on an ideal that you’ll never reach, that +they’ll never let you reach. It’s no use, taking that marvelous thing you have +and making a torture rack for yourself out of it. Sell it, Roark. Sell it now. +It won’t be the same, but you’ve got enough in you. You’ve got what they’ll pay +you for, and pay plenty, if you use it their way. Accept them, Roark. +Compromise. Compromise now, because you’ll have to later, anyway, only then +you’ll have gone through things you’ll wish you hadn’t. You don’t know. I do. +Save yourself from that. Leave me. Go to someone else." +49 + + "Did you do that?" +"You presumptuous bastard! How good do you think I said you were? Did I tell you +to compare yourself to..." He stopped because he saw that Roark was smiling. +He looked at Roark, and suddenly smiled in answer, and it was the most painful +thing that Roark had ever seen. +"No," said Cameron softly, "that won’t work, huh? No, it won’t...Well, you’re +right. You’re as good as you think you are. But I want to speak to you. I don’t +know exactly how to go about it. I’ve lost the habit of speaking to men like +you. Lost it? Maybe I’ve never had it. Maybe that’s what frightens me now. Will +you try to understand?" +"I understand. I think you’re wasting your time." +"Don’t be rude. Because I can’t be rude to you now. I want you to listen. Will +you listen and not answer me?" +"Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t intend it as rudeness." +"You see, of all men, I’m the last one to whom you should have come. I’ll be +committing a crime if I keep you here. Somebody should have warned you against +me. I won’t help you at all. I won’t discourage you. I won’t teach you any +common sense. Instead, I’ll push you on. I’ll drive you the way you’re going +now. I’ll beat you into remaining what you are, and I’ll make you worse....Don’t +you see? In another month I won’t be able to let you go. I’m not sure I can now. +So don’t argue with me and go. Get out while you can." +"But can I? Don’t you think it’s too late for both of us? It was too late for me +twelve years ago." +"Try it, Roark. Try to be reasonable for once. There’s plenty of big fellows +who’ll take you, expulsion or no expulsion, if I say so. They may laugh at me in +their luncheon speeches, but they steal from me when it suits them, and they +know that I know a good draftsman when I see one. I’ll give you a letter to Guy +Francon. He worked for me once, long ago. I think I fired him, but that wouldn’t +matter. Go to him. You won’t like it at first, but you’ll get used to it. And +you’ll thank me for it many years from now." +"Why are you saying all this to me? That’s not what you want to say. That’s not +what you did." +"That’s why I’m saying it! Because that’s not what I did!...Look, Roark, there’s +one thing about you, the thing I’m afraid of. It’s not just the kind of work you +do; I wouldn’t care, if you were an exhibitionist who’s being different as a +stunt, as a lark, just to attract attention to himself. It’s a smart racket, to +oppose the crowd and amuse it and collect admission to the side show. If you did +that, I wouldn’t worry. But it’s not that. You love your work. God help you, you +love it! And that’s the curse. That’s the brand on your forehead for all of them +to see. You love it, and they know it, and they know they have you. Do you ever +look at the people in the street? Aren’t you afraid of them? I am. They move +past you and they wear hats and they carry bundles. But that’s not the substance +of them. The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his work. That’s +the only kind they fear. I don’t know why. You’re opening yourself up, Roark, +for each and every one of them." +"But I never notice the people in the streets." +50 + + "Do you notice what they’ve done to me?" +"I notice only that you weren’t afraid of them. Why do you ask me to be?" +"That’s just why I’m asking it!" He leaned forward, his fists closing on the +desk before him. "Roark, do you want me to say it? You’re cruel, aren’t you? All +right, I’ll say it: do you want to end up like this? Do you want to be what I +am?" Roark got up and stood against the edge of light on the desk. "If," said +Roark, "at the end of my life, I’ll be what you are today here, in this office, +I shall consider it an honor that I could not have deserved." +"Sit down!" roared Cameron. "I don’t like demonstrations!" Roark looked down at +himself, at the desk, astonished to find himself standing. He said: "I’m sorry. +I didn’t know I got up." +"Well, sit down. Listen. I understand. And it’s very nice of you. But you don’t +know. I thought a few days here would be enough to take the hero worship out of +you. I see it wasn’t. Here you are, saying to yourself how grand old Cameron is, +a noble fighter, a martyr to a lost cause, and you’d just love to die on the +barricades with me and to eat in dime lunch-wagons with me for the rest of your +life. I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of +twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that +sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty +years? Do you know what happens in those days? Roark! Do you know what happens?" +"You don’t want to speak of that." +"No! I don’t want to speak of that! But I’m going to. I want you to hear. I want +you to know what’s in store for you. There will be days when you’ll look at your +hands and you’ll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because +they’ll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them +to do it, and you can’t find that chance, and you can’t bear your living body +because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when a bus +driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he’ll be only asking for a dime, +but that won’t be what you’ll hear; you’ll hear that you’re nothing, that he’s +laughing at you, that it’s written on your forehead, that thing they hate you +for. There will be days when you’ll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to +a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about that work which you +love, and the things he’ll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack +him open between two thumbnails; and then you’ll hear the people applauding him, +and you’ll want to scream, because you won’t know whether they’re real or you +are, whether you’re in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just +emptied your own head, and you’ll say nothing, because the sounds you could +make--they’re not a language in that room any longer; but if you’d want to +speak, you won’t anyway, because you’ll be brushed aside, you who have nothing +to tell them about buildings! Is that what you want?" +Roark sat still, the shadows sharp on his face, a black wedge on a sunken cheek, +a long triangle of black cutting across his chin, his eyes on Cameron. +"Not enough?" asked Cameron. "All right. Then, one day, you’ll see on a piece of +paper before you a building that will make you want to kneel; you won’t believe +that you’ve done it, but you will have done it; then you’ll think that the earth +is beautiful and the air smells of spring and you love your fellow men, because +there is no evil in the world. And you’ll set out from your house with this +drawing, to have it erected, because you won’t have any doubt that it will be +erected by the first man to see it. But you won’t get very far from your house. +Because you’ll be stopped at the door by the man who’s come to turn off the gas. +51 + + You hadn’t had much food, because you saved money to finish your drawing, but +still you had to cook something and you hadn’t paid for it....All right, that’s +nothing, you can laugh at that. But finally you’ll get into a man’s office with +your drawing, and you’ll curse yourself for taking so much space of his air with +your body, and you’ll try to squeeze yourself out of his sight, so that he won’t +see you, but only hear your voice begging him, pleading, your voice licking his +knees; you’ll loathe yourself for it, but you won’t care, if only he’d let you +put up that building, you won’t care, you’ll want to rip your insides open to +show him, because if he saw what’s there he’d have to let you put it up. But +he’ll say that he’s very sorry, only the commission has just been given to Guy +Francon. And you’ll go home, and do you know what you’ll do there? You’ll cry. +You’ll cry like a woman, like a drunkard, like an animal. That’s your future, +Howard Roark. Now, do you want it?" +"Yes," said Roark. +Cameron’s eyes dropped; then his head moved down a little, then a little +farther; his head went on dropping slowly, in long, single jerks, then stopped; +he sat still, his shoulders hunched, his arms huddled together in his lap. +"Howard," whispered Cameron, "I’ve never told it to anyone...." +"Thank you...." said Roark. +After a long time, Cameron raised his head. +"Go home now," said Cameron, his voice flat. "You’ve worked too much lately. And +you have a hard day ahead." He +pointed to the drawings of the country house. "This is all very well, and I +wanted to see what you’d do, but it’s not good enough to build. You’ll have to +do it over. I’ll show you what I want tomorrow." + +5. +A YEAR with the firm of Francon & Heyer had given Keating the whispered title of +crown prince without portfolio. Still only a draftsman, he was Francon’s +reigning favorite. Francon took him out to lunch--an unprecedented honor for an +employee. Francon called him to be present at interviews with clients. The +clients seemed to like seeing so decorative a young man in an architect’s +office. +Lucius N. Heyer had the annoying habit of asking Francon suddenly: "When did you +get the new man?" and pointing to an employee who had been there for three +years. But Heyer surprised everybody by remembering Keating’s name and by +greeting him, whenever they met, with a smile of positive recognition. Keating +had had a long conversation with him, one dreary November afternoon, on the +subject of old porcelain. It was Heyer’s hobby; he owned a famous collection, +passionately gathered. Keating displayed an earnest knowledge of the subject, +though he had never heard of old porcelain till the night before, which he had +spent at the public library. Heyer was delighted; nobody in the office cared +about his hobby, few ever noticed his presence. Heyer remarked to his partner: +"You’re certainly good at picking your men, Guy. There’s one boy I wish we +wouldn’t lose, what’s his name?--Keating." +"Yes, indeed," Francon answered, smiling, "yes, indeed." +52 + + In the drafting room, Keating concentrated on Tim Davis. Work and drawings were +only unavoidable details on the surface of his days; Tim Davis was the substance +and the shape of the first step in his career. +Davis let him do most of his own work; only night work, at first, then parts of +his daily assignments as well; secretly, at first, then openly. Davis had not +wanted it to be known. Keating made it known, with an air of naive confidence +which implied that he was only a tool, no more than Tim’s pencil or T-square, +that his help enhanced Tim’s importance rather than diminished it and, +therefore, he did not wish to conceal it. +At first, Davis relayed instructions to Keating; then the chief draftsman took +the arrangement for granted and began coming to Keating with orders intended for +Davis. Keating was always there, smiling, saying: "I’ll do it; don’t bother Tim +with those little things, I’ll take care of it." Davis relaxed and let himself +be carried along; he smoked a great deal, he lolled about, his legs twisted +loosely over the rungs of a stool, his eyes closed, dreaming of Elaine; he +uttered once in a while: "Is the stuff ready, Pete?" +Davis had married Elaine that spring. He was frequently late for work. He had +whispered to Keating: "You’re in with the old man, Pete, slip a good word for +me, once in a while, will you?--so they’ll overlook a few things. God, do I hate +to have to be working right now!" Keating would say to Francon: "I’m sorry, Mr. +Francon, that the Murray job sub-basement plans were so late, but Tim Davis had +a quarrel with his wife last night, and you know how newlyweds are, you don’t +want to be too hard on them," or "It’s Tim Davis again, Mr. Francon, do forgive +him, he can’t help it, he hasn’t got his mind on his work at all!" +When Francon glanced at the list of his employees’ salaries, he noticed that his +most expensive draftsman was the man least needed in the office. +When Tim Davis lost his job, no one in the drafting room was surprised but Tim +Davis. He could not understand it. He set his lips defiantly in bitterness +against a world he would hate forever. He felt he had no friend on earth save +Peter Keating. +Keating consoled him, cursed Francon, cursed the injustice of humanity, spent +six dollars in a speak-easy, entertaining the secretary of an obscure architect +of his acquaintance and arranged a new job for Tim Davis. +Whenever he thought of Davis afterward, Keating felt a warm pleasure; he had +influenced the course of a human being, had thrown him off one path and pushed +him into another; a human being--it was not Tim Davis to him any longer, it was +a living frame and a mind, a conscious mind--why had he always feared that +mysterious entity of consciousness within others?--and he had twisted that frame +and that mind to his own will. By a unanimous decision of Francon, Heyer and the +chief draftsman, Tim’s table, position and salary were given to Peter Keating. +But this was only part of his satisfaction; there was another sense of it, +warmer and less real--and more dangerous. He said brightly and often: ’Tim +Davis? Oh yes, I got him his present job." +He wrote to his mother about it. She said to her friends: "Petey is such an +unselfish boy." +He wrote to her dutifully each week; his letters were short and respectful; +hers, long, detailed and full of advice which he seldom finished reading. +He saw Catherine Halsey occasionally. He had not gone to her on that following +evening, as he had promised. He had awakened in the morning and remembered the +53 + + things he had said to her, and hated her for his having said them. But he had +gone to her again, a week later; she had not reproached him and they had not +mentioned her uncle. He saw her after that every month or two; he was happy when +he saw her, but he never spoke to her of his career. +He tried to speak of it to Howard Roark; the attempt failed. He called on Roark +twice; he climbed, indignantly, the five flights of stairs to Roark’s room. He +greeted Roark eagerly; he waited for reassurance, not knowing what sort of +reassurance he needed nor why it could come only from Roark. He spoke of his job +and he questioned Roark, with sincere concern, about Cameron’s office. Roark +listened to him, answered all his questions willingly, but Keating felt that he +was knocking against a sheet of iron in Roark’s unmoving eyes, and that they +were not speaking about the same things at all. Before the visit was over, +Keating was taking notice of Roark’s frayed cuffs, of his shoes, of the patch on +the knee of his trousers, and he felt satisfied. He went away chuckling, but he +went away miserably uneasy, and wondered why, and swore never to see Roark +again, and wondered why he knew that he would have to see him. +# +"Well," said Keating, "I couldn’t quite work it to ask her to lunch, but she’s +coming to Mawson’s exhibition with me day after tomorrow. Now what?" +He sat on the floor, his head resting against the edge of a couch, his bare feet +stretched out, a pair of Guy Francon’s chartreuse pyjamas floating loosely about +his limbs. +Through the open door of the bathroom he saw Francon standing at the washstand, +his stomach pressed to its shining edge, brushing his teeth. +"That’s splendid," said Francon, munching through a thick foam of toothpaste. +"That’ll do just as well. Don’t you see?" +"No." +"Lord, Pete, I explained it to you yesterday before we started. Mrs. Dunlop’s +husband’s planning to build a home for her." +"Oh, yeah," said Keating weakly, brushing the matted black curls off his face. +"Oh, yeah...I remember now...Jesus, Guy, I got a head on me!..." +He remembered vaguely the party to which Francon had taken him the night before, +he remembered the caviar in a hollow iceberg, the black net evening gown and the +pretty face of Mrs. Dunlop, but he could not remember how he had come to end up +in Francon’s apartment. He shrugged; he had attended many parties with Francon +in the past year and had often been brought here like this. +"It’s not a very large house," Francon was saying, holding the toothbrush in his +mouth; it made a lump on his cheek and its green handle stuck out. "Fifty +thousand or so, I understand. They’re small fry anyway. But Mrs. Dunlop’s +brother-in-law is Quimby--you know, the big real estate fellow. Won’t hurt to +get a little wedge into that family, won’t hurt at all. You’re to see where that +commission ends up, Pete. Can I count on you, Pete?" +"Sure," said Keating, his head drooping. "You can always count on me, Guy...." +He sat still, watching his bare toes and thinking of Stengel, Francon’s +designer. He did not want to think, but his mind leaped to Stengel +automatically, as it always did, because Stengel represented his next step. +54 + + Stengel was impregnable to friendship. For two years, Keating’s attempts had +broken against the ice of Stengel’s glasses. What Stengel thought of him was +whispered in the drafting rooms, but few dared to repeat it save in quotes; +Stengel said it aloud, even though he knew that the corrections his sketches +bore, when they returned to him from Francon’s office, were made by Keating’s +hand. But Stengel had a vulnerable point: he had been planning for some time to +leave Francon and open an office of his own. He had selected a partner, a young +architect of no talent but of great inherited wealth. Stengel was waiting only +for a chance. Keating had thought about this a great deal He could think of +nothing else. He thought of it again, sitting there on the floor of Francon’s +bedroom. +Two days later, when he escorted Mrs. Dunlop through the gallery exhibiting the +paintings of one Frederic Mawson, his course of action was set. He piloted her +through the sparse crowd, his fingers closing over her elbow once in a while, +letting her catch his eyes directed at her young face more often than at the +paintings. +"Yes," he said as she stared obediently at a landscape featuring an auto dump +and tried to compose her face into the look of admiration expected of her; +"magnificent work. Note the colors, Mrs. Dunlop....They say this fellow Mawson +had a terribly hard time. It’s an old story--trying to get recognition. Old and +heartbreaking. It’s the same in all the arts. My own profession included." +"Oh, indeed?" said Mrs. Dunlop, who quite seemed to prefer architecture at the +moment. +"Now this," said Keating, stopping before the depiction of an old hag picking at +her bare toes on a street curb, "this is art as a social document. It takes a +person of courage to appreciate this." +"It’s simply wonderful," said Mrs. Dunlop. +"Ah, yes, courage. It’s a rare quality....They say Mawson was starving in a +garret when Mrs. Stuyvesant discovered him. It’s glorious to be able to help +young talent on its way." +"It must be wonderful," agreed Mrs. Dunlop. +"If I were rich," said Keating wistfully, "I’d make it my hobby: to arrange an +exhibition for a new artist, to finance the concert of a new pianist, to have a +house built by a new architect...." +"Do you know, Mr. Keating?--my husband and I are planning to build a little home +on Long Island." +"Oh, are you? How very charming of you, Mrs. Dunlop, to confess such a thing to +me. You’re so young, if you’ll forgive my saying this. Don’t you know that you +run the danger of my becoming a nuisance and trying to interest you in my firm? +Or are you safe and have chosen an architect already?" +"No, I’m not safe at all," said Mrs. Dunlop prettily, "and I wouldn’t mind the +danger really. I’ve thought a great deal about the firm of Francon & Heyer in +these last few days. And I’ve heard they are so terribly good." +"Why, thank you, Mrs. Dunlop." +"Mr. Francon is a great architect." +55 + + "Oh, yes." +"What’s the matter?" +"Nothing. Nothing really." +"No, what’s the matter?" +"Do you really want me to tell you?" +"Why, certainly." +"Well, you see, Guy Francon--it’s only a name. He would have nothing to do with +your house. It’s one of those professional secrets that I shouldn’t divulge, but +I don’t know what it is about you that makes me want to be honest. All the best +buildings in our office are designed by Mr. Stengel." +"Who?" +"Claude Stengel. You’ve never heard the name, but you will, when someone has the +courage to discover him. You see, he does all the work, he’s the real genius +behind the scenes, but Francon puts his signature on it and gets all the credit. +That’s the way it’s done everywhere." +"But why does Mr. Stengel stand for it?" +"What can he do? No one will give him a start. You know how most people are, +they stick to the beaten path, they pay three times the price for the same +thing, just to have the trademark. Courage, Mrs. Dunlop, they lack courage. +Stengel is a great artist, but there are so few discerning people to see it. +He’s ready to go on his own, if only he could find some outstanding person like +Mrs. Stuyvesant to give him a chance." +"Really?" said Mrs. Dunlop. "How very interesting! Tell me more about it." +He told her a great deal more about it. By the time they had finished the +inspection of the works of Frederic Mawson, Mrs. Dunlop was shaking Keating’s +hand and saying: +"It’s so kind, so very unusually kind of you. Are you sure that it won’t +embarrass you with your office if you arrange for me to meet Mr. Stengel? I +didn’t quite dare to suggest it and it was so kind of you not to be angry at me. +It’s so unselfish of you and more than anyone else would have done in your +position." +When Keating approached Stengel with the suggestion of a proposed luncheon, the +man listened to him without a word. Then he jerked his head and snapped: +"What’s in it for you?" +Before Keating could answer, Stengel threw his head back suddenly. +"Oh," said Stengel. "Oh, I see." +Then he leaned forward, his mouth drawn thin in contempt: +"Okay. I’ll go to that lunch." +When Stengel left the firm of Francon & Heyer to open his own office and proceed +56 + + with the construction of the Dunlop house, his first commission, Guy Francon +smashed a ruler against the edge of his desk and roared to Keating: +"The bastard! The abysmal bastard! After all I’ve done for him." +"What did you expect?" said Keating, sprawled in a low armchair before him. +"Such is life." +"But what beats me is how did that little skunk ever hear of it? To snatch it +right from under our nose!" +"Well, I’ve never trusted him anyway." Keating shrugged. "Human nature..." +The bitterness in his voice was sincere. He had received no gratitude from +Stengel. Stengel’s parting remark to him had been only: "You’re a worse bastard +than I thought you were. Good luck. You’ll be a great architect some day." +Thus Keating achieved the position of chief designer for Francon & Heyer. +Francon celebrated the occasion with a modest little orgy at one of the quieter +and costlier restaurants. "In a coupla years," he kept repeating, "in a coupla +years you’ll see things happenin’. Pete....You’re a good boy and I like you and +I’ll do things for you....Haven’t I done things for you?...You’re going places, +Pete...in a coupla years...." +"Your tie’s crooked, Guy," said Keating dryly, "and you’re spilling brandy all +over your vest...." +Facing his first task of designing, Keating thought of Tim Davis, of Stengel, of +many others who had wanted it, had struggled for it, had tried, had been +beaten--by him. It was a triumphant feeling. It was a tangible affirmation of +his greatness. Then he found himself suddenly in his glass-enclosed office, +looking down at a blank sheet of paper--alone. Something rolled in his throat +down to his stomach, cold and empty, his old feeling of the dropping hole. He +leaned against the table, closing his eyes. It had never been quite real to him +before that this was the thing actually expected of him--to fill a sheet of +paper, to create something on a sheet of paper. +It was only a small residence. But instead of seeing it rise before him, he saw +it sinking; he saw its shape as a pit in the ground; and as a pit within him; as +emptiness, with only Davis and Stengel rattling uselessly within it. Francon had +said to him about the building: "It must have dignity, you know, +dignity...nothing freaky...a structure of elegance...and stay within the +budget," which was Francon’s conception of giving his designer ideas and letting +him work them out. Through a cold stupor, Keating thought of the clients +laughing in his face; he heard the thin, omnipotent voice of Ellsworth Toohey +calling his attention to the opportunities open to him in the field of plumbing. +He hated every piece of stone on the face of the earth. He hated himself for +having chosen to be an architect. +When he began to draw, he tried not to think of the job he was doing; he thought +only that Francon had done it, and Stengel, even Heyer, and all the others, and +that he could do it, if they could. +He spent many days on his preliminary sketches. He spent long hours in the +library of Francon & Heyer, selecting from Classic photographs the appearance of +his house. He felt the tension melting in his mind. It was right and it was +good, that house growing under his hand, because men were still worshipping the +masters who had done it before him. He did not have to wonder, to fear or to +57 + + take chances; it had been done for him. +When the drawings were ready, he stood looking at them uncertainly. Were he to +be told that this was the best or the ugliest house in the world, he would agree +with either. He was not sure. He had to be sure. He thought of Stanton and of +what he had relied upon when working on his assignments there. He telephoned +Cameron’s office and asked for Howard Roark. +He came to Roark’s room, that night, and spread before him the plans, the +elevations, the perspective of his first building. Roark stood over it, his arms +spread wide, his hands holding the edge of the table, and he said nothing for a +long time. +Keating waited anxiously; he felt anger growing with his anxiety--because he +could see no reason for being so anxious. When he couldn’t stand it, he spoke: +"You know, Howard, everybody says Stengel’s the best designer in town, and I +don’t think he was really ready to quit, but I made him and I took his place. I +had to do some pretty fine thinking to work that, I..." +He stopped. It did not sound bright and proud, as it would have sounded anywhere +else. It sounded like begging. +Roark turned and looked at him. Roark’s eyes were not contemptuous; only a +little wider than usual, attentive and puzzled. He said nothing and turned back +to the drawings. +Keating felt naked. Davis, Stengel, Francon meant nothing here. People were his +protection against people. Roark had no sense of people. Others gave Keating a +feeling of his own value. Roark gave him nothing. He thought that he should +seize his drawings and run. The danger was not Roark. The danger was that he, +Keating, remained. Roark turned to him. +"Do you enjoy doing this sort of thing, Peter?" he asked. "Oh, I know," said +Keating, his voice shrill, "I know you don’t approve of it, but this is +business, I just want to know what you think of this practically, not +philosophically, not..." +"No, I’m not going to preach to you. I was only wondering." +"If you could help me, Howard, if you could just help me with it a little. It’s +my first house, and it means so much to me at the office, and I’m not sure. What +do you think? Will you help me, Howard?" +"All right." +Roark threw aside the sketch of the graceful facade with the fluted pilasters, +the broken pediments, the Roman fasces over the windows and the two eagles of +Empire by the entrance. He picked up the plans. He took a sheet of tracing +paper, threw it over the plan and began to draw. Keating stood watching the +pencil in Roark’s hand. He saw his imposing entrance foyer disappearing, his +twisted corridors, his lightless corners; he saw an immense living room growing +in the space he had thought too limited; a wall of giant windows facing the +garden, a spacious kitchen. He watched for a long time. "And the facade?" he +asked, when Roark threw the pencil down. "I can’t help you with that. If you +must have it Classic, have it good Classic at least. You don’t need three +pilasters where one will do. And take those ducks off the door, it’s too much." +Keating smiled at him gratefully, when he was leaving, his drawings under his +58 + + arm; he descended the stairs, hurt and angry; he worked for three days making +new plans from Roark’s sketches, and a new, simpler elevation; and he presented +his house to Francon with a proud gesture that looked like a flourish. "Well," +said Francon, studying it, "well, I declare!...What an imagination you have, +Peter...I wonder...It’s a bit daring, but I wonder..." He coughed and added: +"It’s just what I had in mind." +"Of course," said Keating. "I studied your buildings, and I tried to think of +what you’d do, and if it’s good, it’s because I think I know how to catch your +ideas." +Francon smiled. And Keating thought suddenly that Francon did not really believe +it and knew that Keating did not believe it, and yet they were both contented, +bound tighter together by a common method and a common guilt. +# +The letter on Cameron’s desk informed him regretfully that after earnest +consideration, the board of directors of the Security Trust Company had not been +able to accept his plans for the building to house the new Astoria branch of the +Company and that the commission had been awarded to the firm of Gould & +Pettingill. A check was attached to the letter, in payment for his preliminary +drawings, as agreed; the amount was not enough to cover the expense of making +those drawings. +The letter lay spread out on the desk. Cameron sat before it, drawn back, not +touching the desk, his hands gathered in his lap, the back of one in the palm of +the other, the fingers tight. It was only a small piece of paper, but he sat +huddled and still, because it seemed to be a supernatural thing, like radium, +sending forth rays that would hurt him if he moved and exposed his skin to them. +For three months, he had awaited the commission of the Security Trust Company. +One after another, the chances that had loomed before him at rare intervals, in +the last two years, had vanished, looming in vague promises, vanishing in firm +refusals. One of his draftsmen had had to be discharged long ago. The landlord +had asked questions, politely at first, then dryly, then rudely and openly. But +no one in the office had minded that nor the usual arrears in salaries: there +had been the commission of the Security Trust Company. The vice-president, who +had asked Cameron to submit drawings, had said: "I know, some of the directors +won’t see it as I do. But go ahead, Mr. Cameron. Take the chance with me and +I’ll fight for you." +Cameron had taken the chance. He and Roark had worked savagely--to have the +plans ready on time, before time, before Gould & Pettingill could submit theirs. +Pettingill was a cousin of the Bank president’s wife and a famous authority on +the ruins of Pompeii; the Bank president was an ardent admirer of Julius Caesar +and had once, while in Rome, spent an hour and a quarter in reverent inspection +of the Coliseum. +Cameron and Roark and a pot of black coffee had lived in the office from dawn +till frozen dawn for many days, and Cameron had thought involuntarily of the +electric bill, but made himself forget it. The lights still burned in the +drafting room in the early hours when he sent Roark out for sandwiches, and +Roark found gray morning in the streets while it was still night in the office, +in the windows facing a high brick wall. On the last day, it was Roark who had +ordered Cameron home after midnight, because Cameron’s hands were jerking and +his knees kept seeking the tall drafting stool for support, leaning against it +with a slow, cautious, sickening precision. Roark had taken him down to a taxi +and in the light of a street lamp Cameron had seen Roark’s face, drawn, the eyes +kept wide artificially, the lips dry. The next morning Cameron had entered the +59 + + drafting room, and found the coffee pot on the floor, on its side over a black +puddle, and Roark’s hand in the puddle, palm up, fingers half closed, Roark’s +body stretched out on the floor, his head thrown back, fast asleep. On the +table, Cameron had found the plans, finished.... +He sat looking at the letter on his desk. The degradation was that he could not +think of those nights behind him, he could not think of the building that should +have risen in Astoria and of the building that would now take its place; it was +that he thought only of the bill unpaid to the electric company.... +In these last two years Cameron had disappeared from his office for weeks at a +time, and Roark had not found him at home, and had known what was happening, but +could only wait, hoping for Cameron’s safe return. Then, Cameron had lost even +the shame of his agony, and had come to his office reeling, recognizing no one, +openly drunk and flaunting it before the walls of the only place on earth he had +respected. +Roark learned to face his own landlord with the quiet statement that he could +not pay him for another week; the landlord was afraid of him and did not insist. +Peter Keating heard of it somehow, as he always heard everything he wanted to +know. He came to Roark’s unheated room, one evening, and sat down, keeping his +overcoat on. He produced a wallet, pulled out five ten-dollar bills, and handed +them to Roark. "You need it, Howard. I know you need it. Don’t start protesting +now. You can pay me back any time." Roark looked at him, astonished, took the +money, saying: "Yes, I need it. Thank you, Peter." Then Keating said: "What in +hell are you doing, wasting yourself on old Cameron? What do you want to live +like this for? Chuck it, Howard, and come with us. All I have to do is say so. +Francon’ll be delighted. We’ll start you at sixty a week." Roark took the money +out of his pocket and handed it back to him. "Oh, for God’s sake, Howard! I...I +didn’t mean to offend you." +"I didn’t either." +"But please, Howard, keep it anyway." +"Good night, Peter." +Roark was thinking of that when Cameron entered the drafting room, the letter +from the Security Trust Company in his hand. He gave the letter to Roark, said +nothing, turned and walked back to his office. Roark read the letter and +followed him. Whenever they lost another commission Roark knew that Cameron +wanted to see him in the office, but not to speak of it; just to see him there, +to talk of other things, to lean upon the reassurance of his presence. +On Cameron’s desk Roark saw a copy of the New York Banner. +It was the leading newspaper of the great Wynand chain. It was a paper he would +have expected to find in a kitchen, in a barbershop, in a third-rate drawing +room, in the subway; anywhere but in Cameron’s office. Cameron saw him looking +at it and grinned. +"Picked it up this morning, on my way here. Funny, isn’t it? I didn’t know +we’d...get that letter today. And yet it seems appropriate together--this paper +and that letter. Don’t know what made me buy it. A sense of symbolism, I +suppose. Look at it, Howard. It’s interesting." +Roark glanced through the paper. The front page carried the picture of an unwed +mother with thick glistening lips, who had shot her lover; the picture headed +the first installment of her autobiography and a detailed account of her trial. +60 + + The other pages ran a crusade against utility companies; a daily horoscope; +extracts from church sermons; recipes for young brides; pictures of girls with +beautiful legs; advice on how to hold a husband; a baby contest; a poem +proclaiming that to wash dishes was nobler than to write a symphony; an article +proving that a woman who had borne a child was automatically a saint. +"That’s our answer, Howard. That’s the answer given to you and to me. This +paper. That it exists and that it’s liked. Can you fight that? Have you any +words to be heard and understood by that? They shouldn’t have sent us the +letter. They should have sent a copy of Wynand’s Banner. It would be simpler and +clearer. Do you know that in a few years that incredible bastard, Gail Wynand, +will rule the world? It will be a beautiful world. And perhaps he’s right." +Cameron held the paper outstretched, weighing it on the palm of his hand. +"To give them what they want, Howard, and to let them worship you for it, for +licking their feet--or...or what? What’s the use?...Only it doesn’t matter, +nothing matters, not even that it doesn’t matter to me any more...." Then he +looked at Roark. He added: +"If only I could hold on until I’ve started you on your own, Howard...." +"Don’t speak of that." +"I want to speak of that.... It’s funny, Howard, next spring it will be three +years that you’ve been here. Seems so much longer, doesn’t it? Well, have I +taught you anything? I’ll tell you: I’ve taught you a great deal and nothing. No +one can teach you anything, not at the core, at the source of it. What you’re +doing--it’s yours, not mine, I can only teach you to do it better. I can give +you the means, but the aim--the aim’s your own. You won’t be a little disciple +putting up anemic little things in early Jacobean or late Cameron. What you’ll +be...if only I could live to see it!" +"You’ll live to see it. And you know it now." Cameron stood looking at the bare +walls of his office, at the white piles of bills on his desk, at the sooty rain +trickling slowly down the windowpanes. +"I have no answer to give them, Howard. I’m leaving you to face them. You’ll +answer them. All of them, the Wynand papers and what makes the Wynand papers +possible and what lies behind that. It’s a strange mission to give you. I don’t +know what our answer is to be. I know only that there is an answer and that +you’re holding it, that you’re the answer, Howard, and some day you’ll find the +words for it." + +6. +SERMONS IN STONE by Ellsworth M. Toohey was published in January of the year +1925. +It had a fastidious jacket of midnight blue with plain silver letters and a +silver pyramid in one corner. It was subtitled "Architecture for Everybody" and +its success was sensational. It presented the entire history of architecture, +from mud hut to skyscraper, in the terms of the man in the street, but it made +these terms appear scientific. Its author stated in his preface that it was an +attempt "to bring architecture where it belongs--to the people." He stated +further that he wished to see the average man "think and speak of architecture +as he speaks of baseball." He did not bore his readers with the technicalities +61 + + of the Five Orders, the post and lintel, the flying buttress or reinforced +concrete. He filled his pages with homey accounts of the daily life of the +Egyptian housekeeper, the Roman shoe-cobbler, the mistress of Louis XIV, what +they ate, how they washed, where they shopped and what effect their buildings +had upon their existence. But he gave his readers the impression that they were +learning all they had to know about the Five Orders and the reinforced concrete. +He gave his readers the impression that there were no problems, no achievements, +no reaches of thought beyond the common daily routine of people nameless in the +past as they were in the present; that science had no goal and no expression +beyond its influence on this routine; that merely by living through their own +obscure days his readers were representing and achieving all the highest +objectives of any civilization. His scientific precision was impeccable and his +erudition astounding; no one could refute him on the cooking utensils of Babylon +or the doormats of Byzantium. He wrote with the flash and the color of a +first-hand observer. He did not plod laboriously through the centuries; he +danced, said the critics, down the road of the ages, as a jester, a friend and a +prophet. +He said that architecture was truly the greatest of the arts, because it was +anonymous, as all greatness. He said that the world had many famous buildings, +but few renowned builders, which was as it should be, since no one man had ever +created anything of importance in architecture, or elsewhere, for that matter. +The few whose names had lived were really impostors, expropriating the glory of +the people as others expropriated its wealth. "When we gaze at the magnificence +of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, we are guilty of +spiritual embezzlement. We forget the army of craftsmen, unknown and unsung, who +preceded him in the darkness of the ages, who toiled humbly--all heroism is +humble--each contributing his small share to the common treasure of his time. A +great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is +merely a condensation of the spirit of a people." +He explained that the decadence of architecture had come when private property +replaced the communal spirit of the Middle Ages, and that the selfishness of +individual owners--who built for no purpose save to satisfy their own bad taste, +"all claim to an individual taste is bad taste"--had ruined the planned effect +of cities. He demonstrated that there was no such thing as free will, since +men’s creative impulses were determined, as all else, by the economic structure +of the epoch in which they lived. He expressed admiration for all the great +historical styles, but admonished against their wanton mixture. He dismissed +modern architecture, stating that: "So far, it has represented nothing but the +whim of isolated individuals, has borne no relation to any great, spontaneous +mass movement, and as such is of no consequence." He predicted a better world to +come, where all men would be brothers and their buildings would become +harmonious and all alike, in the great tradition of Greece, "the Mother of +Democracy." When he wrote this, he managed to convey--with no tangible break in +the detached calm of his style--that the words now seen in ordered print had +been blurred in manuscript by a hand unsteady with emotion. He called upon +architects to abandon their selfish quest for individual glory and dedicate +themselves to the embodiment of the mood of their people. "Architects are +servants, not leaders. They are not to assert their little egos, but to express +the soul of their country and the rhythm of their time. They are not to follow +the delusions of their personal fancy, but to seek the common denominator, which +will bring their work close to the heart of the masses. Architects--ah, my +friends, theirs is not to reason why. Theirs is not to command, but to be +commanded." +The advertisements for Sermons in Stone carried quotations from critics: +"Magnificent!" +62 + + "A stupendous achievement!" +"Unequaled in all art history!" +"Your chance to get acquainted with a charming man and a profound thinker." +"Mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to the title of intellectual." +There seemed to be a great many aspiring to that title. Readers acquired +erudition without study, authority without cost, judgment without effort. It was +pleasant to look at buildings and criticize them with a professional manner and +with the memory of page 439; to hold artistic discussions and exchange the same +sentences from the same paragraphs. In distinguished drawing rooms one could +soon hear it said: "Architecture? Oh, yes, Ellsworth Toohey." +According to his principles, Ellsworth M. Toohey listed no architect by name in +the text of his book--"the myth-building, hero-worshipping method of historical +research has always been obnoxious to me." The names appeared only in footnotes. +Several of these referred to Guy Francon, "who has a tendency to the overornate, +but must be commended for his loyalty to the strict tradition of Classicism." +One note referred to Henry Cameron, "prominent once as one of the fathers of the +so-called modern school of architecture and relegated since to a well-deserved +oblivion. Vox populi vox dei." +In February of 1925 Henry Cameron retired from practice. +For a year, he had known that the day would come. He had not spoken of it to +Roark, but they both knew and went on, expecting nothing save to go on as long +as it was still possible. A few commissions had dribbled into their office in +the past year, country cottages, garages, remodeling of old buildings. They took +anything. But the drops stopped. The pipes were dry. The water had been turned +off by a society to whom Cameron had never paid his bill. +Simpson and the old man in the reception room had been dismissed long ago. Only +Roark remained, to sit still through the winter evenings and look at Cameron’s +body slumped over his desk, arms flung out, head on arms, a bottle glistening +under the lamp. +Then, one day in February, when Cameron had touched no alcohol for weeks, he +reached for a book on a shelf and collapsed at Roark’s feet, suddenly, simply, +finally. Roark took him home and the doctor stated that an attempt to leave his +bed would be all the death sentence Cameron needed. Cameron knew it. He lay +still on his pillow, his hands dropped obediently one at each side of his body, +his eyes unblinking and empty. Then he said: +"You’ll close the office for me, Howard, will you?" +"Yes," said Roark. +Cameron closed his eyes, and would say nothing else, and Roark sat all night by +his bed, not knowing whether the old man slept or not. +A sister of Cameron’s appeared from somewhere in New Jersey. She was a meek +little old lady with white hair, trembling hands and a face one could never +remember, quiet, resigned and gently hopeless. She had a meager little income +and she assumed the responsibility of taking her brother to her home in New +Jersey; she had never been married and had no one else in the world; she was +neither glad nor sorry of the burden; she had lost all capacity for emotion many +years ago. +63 + + On the day of his departure Cameron handed to Roark a letter he had written in +the night, written painfully, an old drawing board on his knees, a pillow +propping his back. The letter was addressed to a prominent architect; it was +Roark’s introduction to a job. Roark read it and, looking at Cameron, not at his +own hands, tore the letter across, folded the pieces and tore it again. "No," +said Roark. "You’re not going to ask them for anything. Don’t worry about me." +Cameron nodded and kept silent for a long time. Then he said: +"You’ll close up the office, Howard. You’ll let them keep the furniture for +their rent. But you’ll take the drawing that’s on the wall in my room there and +you’ll ship it to me. Only that. You’ll burn everything else. All the papers, +the files, the drawings, the contracts, everything." +"Yes," said Roark. +Miss Cameron came with the orderlies and the stretcher, and they rode in an +ambulance to the ferry. At the entrance to the ferry, Cameron said to Roark: +"You’re going back now." He added: "You’ll come to see me, Howard....Not too +often..." +Roark turned and walked away, while they were carrying Cameron to the pier. It +was a gray morning and there was the cold, rotting smell of the sea in the air. +A gull dipped low over the street, gray like a floating piece of newspaper, +against a corner of damp, streaked stone. +That evening, Roark went to Cameron’s closed office. He did not turn on the +lights. He made a fire in the Franklin heater in Cameron’s room, and emptied +drawer after drawer into the fire, not looking down at them. The papers rustled +dryly in the silence, a thin odor of mold rose through the dark room, and the +fire hissed, crackling, leaping in bright streaks. At times a white flake with +charred edges would flutter out of the flames. He pushed it back with the end of +a steel ruler. +There were drawings of Cameron’s famous buildings and of buildings unbuilt; +there were blueprints with the thin white lines that were girders still standing +somewhere; there were contracts with famous signatures; and at times, from out +of the red glow, there flashed a sum of seven figures written on yellowed paper, +flashed and went down, in a thin burst of sparks. +From among the letters in an old folder, a newspaper clipping fluttered to the +floor. Roark picked it up. It was dry, brittle and yellow, and it broke at the +folds, in his fingers. It was an interview given by Henry Cameron, dated May 7, +1892. It said: "Architecture is not a business, not a career, but a crusade and +a consecration to a joy that justifies the existence of the earth." He dropped +the clipping into the fire and reached for another folder. +He gathered every stub of pencil from Cameron’s desk and threw them in also. +He stood over the heater. He did not move, he did not look down; he felt the +movement of the glow, a faint shudder at the edge of his vision. He looked at +the drawing of the skyscraper that had never been built, hanging on the wall +before him. +# +It was Peter Keating’s third year with the firm of Francon & Heyer. He carried +his head high, his body erect with studied uprightness; he looked like the +64 + + picture of a successful young man in advertisements for high-priced razors or +medium-priced cars. +He dressed well and watched people noticing it. He had an apartment off Park +Avenue, modest but fashionable, and he bought three valuable etchings as well as +a first edition of a classic he had never read nor opened since. Occasionally, +he escorted clients to the Metropolitan Opera. He appeared, once, at a +fancy-dress Arts Ball and created a sensation by his costume of a medieval +stonecutter, scarlet velvet and tights; he was mentioned in a society-page +account of the event--the first mention of his name in print--and he saved the +clipping. +He had forgotten his first building, and the fear and doubt of its birth. He had +learned that it was so simple. His clients would accept anything, so long as he +gave them an imposing facade, a majestic entrance and a regal drawing room, with +which to astound their guests. It worked out to everyone’s satisfaction: Keating +did not care so long as his clients were impressed, the clients did not care so +long as their guests were impressed, and the guests did not care anyway. +Mrs. Keating rented her house in Stanton and came to live with him in New York. +He did not want her; he could not refuse--because she was his mother and he was +not expected to refuse. He met her with some eagerness; he could at least +impress her by his rise in the world. She was not impressed; she inspected his +rooms, his clothes, his bank books and said only: "It’ll do, Petey--for the time +being." +She made one visit to his office and departed within a half-hour. That evening +he had to sit still, squeezing and cracking his knuckles, for an hour and a +half, while she gave him advice. "That fellow Whithers had a much more expensive +suit than yours, Petey. That won’t do. You’ve got to watch your prestige before +those boys. The little one who brought in those blueprints--I didn’t like the +way he spoke to you....Oh, nothing, nothing, only I’d keep my eye on him....The +one with the long nose is no friend of yours....Never mind, I just know....Watch +out for the one they called Bennett. I’d get rid of him if I were you. He’s +ambitious. I know the signs...." +Then she asked: +"Guy Francon...has he any children?" +"One daughter." +"Oh..." said Mrs. Keating. "What is she like?" +"I’ve never met her." +"Really, Peter," she said, "it’s downright rude to Mr. Francon if you’ve made no +effort to meet his family." +"She’s been away at college, Mother. I’ll meet her some day. It’s getting late, +Mother, and I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow...." +But he thought of it that night and the following day. He had thought of it +before and often. He knew that Francon’s daughter had graduated from college +long ago and was now working on the Banner, where she wrote a small column on +home decoration. He had been able to learn nothing else about her. No one in the +office seemed to know her. Francon never spoke of her. +On that following day, at luncheon, Keating decided to face the subject. +65 + + "I hear such nice things about your daughter," he said to +Francon. "Where did you hear nice things about her?" Francon asked ominously. +"Oh, well, you know how it is, one hears things. And she writes brilliantly." +"Yes, she writes brilliantly." Francon’s mouth snapped shut. +"Really, Guy, I’d love to meet her." +Francon looked at him and sighed wearily. +"You know she’s not living with me," said Francon. "She has an apartment of her +own--I’m not sure that I even remember the address....Oh, I suppose you’ll meet +her some day. You won’t like her, Peter." +"Now, why do you say that?" +"It’s one of those things, Peter. As a father I’m afraid I’m a total +failure....Say, Peter, what did Mrs. Mannering say about that new stairway +arrangement?" +Keating felt angry, disappointed--and relieved. He looked at Francon’s squat +figure and wondered what appearance his daughter must have inherited to earn her +father’s so obvious disfavor. Rich and ugly as sin--like most of them, he +decided. He thought that this need not stop him--some day. He was glad only that +the day was postponed. He thought, with new eagerness, that he would go to see +Catherine tonight. +Mrs. Keating had met Catherine in Stanton. She had hoped that Peter would +forget. Now she knew that he had not forgotten, even though he seldom spoke of +Catherine and never brought her to his home. Mrs. Keating did not mention +Catherine by name. But she chatted about penniless girls who hooked brilliant +young men, about promising boys whose careers had been wrecked by marriage to +the wrong woman; and she read to him every newspaper account of a celebrity +divorcing his plebeian wife who could not live up to his eminent position. +Keating thought, as he walked toward Catherine’s house that night, of the few +times he had seen her; they had been such unimportant occasions, but they were +the only days he remembered of his whole life in New York. +He found, in the middle of her uncle’s living room, when she let him in, a mess +of letters spread all over the carpet, a portable typewriter, newspapers, +scissors, boxes and a pot of glue. +"Oh dear!" said Catherine, flopping limply down on her knees in the midst of the +litter. "Oh dear!" +She looked up at him, smiling disarmingly, her hands raised and spread over the +crinkling white piles. She was almost twenty now and looked no older than she +had looked at seventeen. +"Sit down, Peter. I thought I’d be through before you came, but I guess I’m not. +It’s Uncle’s fan mail and his press clippings. I’ve got to sort it out, and +answer it and file it and write notes of thanks and...Oh, you should see some of +the things people write to him! It’s wonderful. Don’t stand there. Sit down, +will you? I’ll be through in a minute." +66 + + "You’re through right now," he said, picking her up in his arms, carrying her to +a chair. +He held her and kissed her and she laughed happily, her head buried on his +shoulder. He said: +"Katie, you’re an impossible little fool and your hair smells so nice!" +She said: "Don’t move, Peter. I’m comfortable." +"Katie, I want to tell you, I had a wonderful time today. They opened the +Bordman Building officially this afternoon. You know, down on Broadway, +twenty-two floors and a Gothic spire. Francon had indigestion, so I went there +as his representative. I designed that building anyway and...Oh, well, you know +nothing about it." +"But I do, Peter. I’ve seen all your buildings. I have pictures of them. I cut +them out of the papers. And I’m making a scrap-book, just like Uncle’s. Oh, +Peter, it’s so wonderful!" +"What?" +"Uncle’s scrapbooks, and his letters...all this..." She stretched her hands out +over the papers on the floor, as if she wanted to embrace them. "Think of it, +all these letters coming from all over the country, perfect strangers and yet he +means so much to them. And here I am, helping him, me, just nobody, and look +what a responsibility I have! It’s so touching and so big, what do they +matter--all the little things that can happen to us?--when this concerns a whole +nation!" +"Yeah? Did he tell you that?" +"He told me nothing at all. But you can’t live with him for years without +getting some of that...that wonderful selflessness of his." He wanted to be +angry, but he saw her twinkling smile, her new kind of fire, and he had to smile +in answer. +"I’ll say this, Katie: it’s becoming to you, becoming as hell. You know, you +could look stunning if you learned something about clothes. One of these days, +I’ll take you bodily and drag you down to a good dressmaker. I want you to meet +Guy Francon some day. You’ll like him." +"Oh? I thought you said once that I wouldn’t." +"Did I say that? Well, I didn’t really know him. He’s a grand fellow. I want you +to meet them all. You’d be...hey, where are you going?" She had noticed the +watch on his wrist and was edging away from him. +"I...It’s almost nine o’clock, Peter, and I’ve got to have this finished before +Uncle Ellsworth gets home. He’ll be back by eleven, he’s making a speech at a +labor meeting tonight. I can work while we’re talking, do you mind?" +"I certainly do! To hell with your dear uncle’s fans! Let him untangle it all +himself. You stay just where you are." +She sighed, but put her head on his shoulder obediently. "You mustn’t talk like +that about Uncle Ellsworth. You don’t understand him at all. Have you read his +book?" +67 + + "Yes! I’ve read his book and it’s grand, it’s stupendous, but I’ve heard nothing +but talk of his damn book everywhere I go, so do you mind if we change the +subject?" +"You still don’t want to meet Uncle Ellsworth?" +"Why? What makes you say that? I’d love to meet him." +"Oh..." +"What’s the matter?" +"You said once that you didn’t want to meet him through me." +"Did I? How do you always remember all the nonsense I happen to say?" +"Peter, I don’t want you to meet Uncle Ellsworth." +"Why not?" +"I don’t know. It’s kind of silly of me. But now I just don’t +want you to. I don’t know why." +"Well, forget it then. I’ll meet him when the time comes. Katie, listen, +yesterday I was standing at the window in my room, and I thought of you, and I +wanted so much to have you with me, I almost called you, only it was too late. I +get so terribly lonely for you like that, I..." +She listened, her arms about his neck. And then he saw her looking suddenly past +him, her mouth opened in consternation; she jumped up, dashed across the room, +and crawled on her hands and knees to reach a lavender envelope lying under a +desk. +"Now what on earth?" he demanded angrily. +"It’s a very important letter," she said, still kneeling, the envelope held +tightly in her little fist, "it’s a very important letter and there it was, +practically in the wastebasket, I might have swept it out without noticing. It’s +from a poor widow who has five children and her eldest son wants to be an +architect and Uncle Ellsworth is going to arrange a scholarship for him." +"Well," said Keating, rising, "I’ve had just about enough of this. Let’s get out +of here, Katie. Let’s go for a walk. It’s beautiful out tonight. You don’t seem +to belong to yourself in here." +"Oh, fine! Let’s go for a walk." +Outside, there was a mist of snow, a dry, fine, weightless snow that hung still +in the air, filling the narrow tanks of streets. They walked together, +Catherine’s arm pressed to his, their feet leaving long brown smears on the +white sidewalks. +They sat down on a bench in Washington Square. The snow enclosed the Square, +cutting them off from the houses, from the city beyond. Through the shadow of +the arch, little dots of light rolled past them, steel-white, green and smeared +red. +She sat huddled close to him. He looked at the city. He had always been afraid +68 + + of it and he was afraid of it now; but he had two fragile protections: the snow +and the girl beside him. "Katie," he whispered, "Katie..." +"I love you, Peter...." +"Katie," he said, without hesitation, without emphasis, because the certainty of +his words allowed no excitement, "we’re engaged, aren’t we?" +He saw her chin move faintly as it dropped and rose to form one word. +"Yes," she said calmly, so solemnly that the word sounded indifferent. +She had never allowed herself to question the future, for a question would have +been an admission of doubt. But she knew, when she pronounced the "yes," that +she had waited for this and that she would shatter it if she were too happy. +"In a year or two," he said holding her hand tightly, "we’ll be married. Just as +soon as I’m on my feet and set with the firm for good. I have mother to take +care of, but in another year it will be all right." He tried to speak as coldly, +as practically as he could, not to spoil the wonder of what he felt. "I’ll wait, +Peter," she whispered. "We don’t have to hurry." +"We won’t tell anyone, Katie....It’s our secret, just ours until..." And +suddenly a thought came to him, and he realized, aghast, that he could not prove +it had never occurred to him before; yet he knew, in complete honesty, even +though it did astonish him, that he had never thought of this before. He pushed +her aside. He said angrily: "Katie! You won’t think that it’s because of that +great, damnable uncle of yours?" +She laughed; the sound was light and unconcerned, and he knew that he was +vindicated. +"Lord, no, Peter! He won’t like it, of course, but what do we care?" +"He won’t like it? Why?" +"Oh, I don’t think he approves of marriage. Not that he preaches anything +immoral, but he’s always told me marriage is old-fashioned, an economic device +to perpetuate the institution of private property, or something like that or +anyway that he doesn’t like it." +"Well, that’s wonderful! We’ll show him." +In all sincerity, he was glad of it. It removed, not from his mind which he knew +to be innocent, but from all other minds where it could occur, the suspicion +that there had been in his feeling for her any hint of such considerations as +applied to...to Francon’s daughter, for instance. He thought it was strange that +this should seem so important; that he should wish so desperately to keep his +feeling for her free from ties to all other people. +He let his head fall back, he felt the bite of snowflakes on his lips. Then he +turned and kissed her. The touch of her mouth was soft and cold with the snow. +Her hat had slipped to one side, her lips were half open, her eyes round, +helpless, her lashes glistening. He held her hand, palm up, and looked at it: +she wore a black woolen glove and her fingers were spread out clumsily like a +child’s; he saw beads of melted snow in the fuzz of the glove; they sparkled +radiantly once in the light of a car flashing past. +69 + + 7. +THE BULLETIN of the Architects’ Guild of America carried, in its Miscellaneous +Department, a short item announcing Henry Cameron’s retirement. Six lines +summarized his achievements in architecture and misspelled the names of his two +best buildings. +Peter Keating walked into Francon’s office and interrupted Francon’s well-bred +bargaining with an antique dealer over a snuffbox that had belonged to Madame +Pompadour. Francon was precipitated into paying nine dollars and twenty-five +cents more than he had intended to pay. He turned to Keating testily, after the +dealer had left, and asked: +"Well, what is it, Peter, what is it?" +Keating threw the bulletin down on Francon’s desk, his thumbnail underscoring +the paragraph about Cameron. +"I’ve got to have that man," said Keating. +"What man?" +"Howard Roark." +"Who the hell," asked Francon, "is Howard Roark?" +"I’ve told you about him. Cameron’s designer." +"Oh...oh, yes, I believe you did. Well, go and get him." +"Do you give me a free hand on how I hire him?" +"What the hell? What is there about hiring another draftsman? Incidentally, did +you have to interrupt me for that?" +"He might be difficult. And I want to get him before he decides on anyone else." +"Really? He’s going to be difficult about it, is he? Do you intend to beg him to +come here after Cameron’s? Which is not great recommendation for a young man +anyway." +"Come on, Guy. Isn’t it?" +"Oh well...well, speaking structurally, not esthetically, Cameron does give them +a thorough grounding and...Of course, Cameron was pretty important in his day. +As a matter of fact, I was one of his best draftsmen myself once, long ago. +There’s something to be said for old Cameron when you need that sort of thing. +Go ahead. Get your Roark if you think you need him." +"It’s not that I really need him. But he’s an old friend of mine, and out of a +job, and I thought it would be a nice thing to do for him." +"Well, do anything you wish. Only don’t bother me about it....Say, Peter, don’t +you think this is as lovely a snuffbox as you’ve ever seen?" +That evening, Keating climbed, unannounced, to Roark’s room and knocked, +70 + + nervously, and entered cheerfully. He found Roark sitting on the window sill, +smoking. +"Just passing by," said Keating, "with an evening to kill and happened to think +that that’s where you live, Howard, and thought I’d drop in to say hello, +haven’t seen you for such a long time." +"I know what you want," said Roark. "All right. How much?" +"What do you mean, Howard?" +"You know what I mean." +"Sixty-five a week," Keating blurted out. This was not the elaborate approach he +had prepared, but he had not expected to find that no approach would be +necessary. "Sixty-five to start with. If you think it’s not enough, I could +maybe..." +"Sixty-five will do." +"You...you’ll come with us, Howard?" +"When do you want me to start?" +"Why...as soon as you can! Monday?" +"ALL right." +"Thanks, Howard!" +"On one condition," said Roark. "I’m not going to do any designing. Not any. No +details. No Louis XV skyscrapers. Just keep me off esthetics if you want to keep +me at all. Put me in the engineering department. Send me on inspections, out in +the field. Now, do you still want me?" +"Certainly. Anything you say. You’ll like the place, just wait and see. You’ll +like Francon. He’s one of Cameron’s men himself." +"He shouldn’t boast about it." +"Well..." +"No. Don’t worry. I won’t say it to his face. I won’t say anything to anyone. Is +that what you wanted to know?" +"Why, no, I wasn’t worried, I wasn’t even thinking of that." +"Then it’s settled. Good night. See you Monday." +"Well, yes...but I’m in no special hurry, really I came to see you and..." +"What’s the matter, Peter? Something bothering you?" +"No...I..." +"You want to know why I’m doing it?" Roark smiled, without resentment or +interest. "Is that it? I’ll tell you, if you want to know. I don’t give a damn +where I work next. There’s no architect in town that I’d want to work for. But I +have to work somewhere, so it might as well be your Francon--if I can get what I +71 + + want from you. I’m selling myself, and I’ll play the game that way--for the time +being." +"Really, Howard, you don’t have to look at it like that. There’s no limit to how +far you can go with us, once you get used to it. You’ll see, for a change, what +a real office looks like. After Cameron’s dump..." +"We’ll shut up about that, Peter, and we’ll do it damn fast." +"I didn’t mean to criticize or...I didn’t mean anything." He did not know what +to say nor what he should feel. It was a victory, but it seemed hollow. Still, +it was a victory and he felt that he wanted to feel affection for Roark. +"Howard, let’s go out and have a drink, just sort of to celebrate the occasion." +"Sorry, Peter. That’s not part of the job." +Keating had come here prepared to exercise caution and tact to the limit of his +ability; he had achieved a purpose he had not expected to achieve; he knew he +should take no chances, say nothing else and leave. But something inexplicable, +beyond all practical considerations, was pushing him on. He said unheedingly: +"Can’t you be human for once in your life?" +"What?" +"Human! Simple. Natural." +"But I am." +"Can’t you ever relax?" +Roark smiled, because he was sitting on the window sill, leaning sloppily +against the wall, his long legs hanging loosely, the cigarette held without +pressure between limp fingers. +"That’s not what I mean!" said Keating. "Why can’t you go out for a drink with +me?" +"What for?" +"Do you always have to have a purpose? Do you always have to be so damn serious? +Can’t you ever do things without reason, just like everybody else? You’re so +serious, so old. Everything’s important with you, everything’s great, +significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still. Can’t you ever +be comfortable--and unimportant?" +"No." +"Don’t you get tired of the heroic?" +"What’s heroic about me?" +"Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. It’s not what you do. It’s what you make +people feel around you." +"What?" +"The un-normal. The strain. When I’m with you--it’s always like a choice. +72 + + Between you--and the rest of the world. I don’t want that kind of a choice. I +don’t want to be an outsider. I want to belong. There’s so much in the world +that’s simple and pleasant. It’s not all fighting and renunciation. It is--with +you." +"What have I ever renounced?" +"Oh, you’ll never renounce anything! You’d walk over corpses for what you want. +But it’s what you’ve renounced by never wanting it." +"That’s because you can’t want both." +"Both what?" +"Look, Peter. I’ve never told you any of those things about me. What makes you +see them? I’ve never asked you to make a choice between me and anything else. +What makes you feel that there is a choice involved? What makes you +uncomfortable when you feel that--since you’re so sure I’m wrong?" +"I...I don’t know." He added: "I don’t know what you’re talking about." And then +he asked suddenly: +"Howard, why do you hate me?" +"I don’t hate you." +"Well, that’s it! Why don’t you hate me at least?" +"Why should I?" +"Just to give me something. I know you can’t like me. You can’t like anybody. So +it would be kinder to acknowledge people’s existence by hating them." +"I’m not kind, Peter." +And as Keating found nothing to say, Roark added: +"Go home, Peter. You got what you wanted. Let it go at that. See you Monday." +# +Roark stood at a table in the drafting room of Francon & Heyer, a pencil in his +hand, a strand of orange hair hanging down over his face, the prescribed +pearl-gray smock like a prison uniform on his body. +He had learned to accept his new job. The lines he drew were to be the clean +lines of steel beams, and he tried not to think of what these beams would carry. +It was difficult, at times. Between him and the plan of the building on which he +was working stood the plan of that building as it should have been. He saw what +he could make of it, how to change the lines he drew, where to lead them in +order to achieve a thing of splendor. He had to choke the knowledge. He had to +kill the vision. He had to obey and draw the lines as instructed. It hurt him so +much that he shrugged at himself in cold anger. He thought: difficult?--well, +learn it. +But the pain remained--and a helpless wonder. The thing he saw was so much more +real than the reality of paper, office and commission. He could not understand +what made others blind to it, and what made their indifference possible. He +looked at the paper before him. He wondered why ineptitude should exist and have +its say. He had never known that. And the reality which permitted it could never +73 + + become quite real to him. +But he knew that this would not last--he had to wait--it was his only +assignment, to wait--what he felt didn’t matter--it had to be done--he had to +wait. +"Mr. Roark, are you ready with the steel cage for the Gothic lantern for the +American Radio Corporation Building?" +He had no friends in the drafting room. He was there like a piece of furniture, +as useful, as impersonal and as silent. Only the chief of the engineering +department, to which Roark was assigned, had said to Keating after the first two +weeks: "You’ve got more sense than I gave you credit for, Keating. Thanks." +"For what?" asked Keating. "For nothing that was intentional, I’m sure," said +the chief. +Once in a while, Keating stopped by Roark’s table to say softly: "Will you drop +in at my office when you’re through tonight, Howard? Nothing important." +When Roark came, Keating began by saying: "Well, how do you like it here, +Howard? If there’s anything you want, just say so and I’ll..." Roark interrupted +to ask: "Where is it, this time?" Keating produced sketches from a drawer and +said: "I know it’s perfectly right, just as it is, but what do you think of it, +generally speaking?" Roark looked at the sketches, and even though he wanted to +throw them at Keating’s face and resign, one thought stopped him: the thought +that it was a building and that he had to save it, as others could not pass a +drowning man without leaping in to the rescue. +Then he worked for hours, sometimes all night, while Keating sat and watched. He +forgot Keating’s presence. He saw only a building and his chance to shape it. He +knew that the shape would be changed, torn, distorted. Still, some order and +reason would remain in its plan. It would be a better building than it would +have been if he refused. +Sometimes, looking at the sketch of a structure simpler, cleaner, more honest +than the others, Roark would say: "That’s not so bad, Peter. You’re improving." +And Keating would feel an odd little jolt inside, something quiet, private and +precious, such as he never felt from the compliments of Guy Francon, of his +clients, of all others. Then he would forget it and feel much more substantially +pleased when a wealthy lady murmured over a teacup: "You’re the coming architect +of America, Mr. Keating," though she had never seen his buildings. +He found compensations for his submission to Roark. He would enter the drafting +room in the morning, throw a tracing boy’s assignment down on Roark’s table and +say: "Howard, do this up for me, will you?--and make it fast." In the middle of +the day, he would send a boy to Roark’s table to say loudly: "Mr. Keating wishes +to see you in his office at once." He would come out of the office and walk in +Roark’s direction and say to the room at large: "Where the hell are those +Twelfth Street plumbing specifications? Oh, Howard, will you look through the +files and dig them up for me?" +At first, he was afraid of Roark’s reaction. When he saw no reaction, only a +silent obedience, he could restrain himself no longer. He felt a sensual +pleasure in giving orders to Roark; and he felt also a fury of resentment at +Roark’s passive compliance. He continued, knowing that he could continue only so +long as Roark exhibited no anger, yet wishing desperately to break him down to +an explosion. No explosion came. +74 + + Roark liked the days when he was sent out to inspect buildings in construction. +He walked through the steel hulks of buildings more naturally than on pavements. +The workers observed with curiosity that he walked on narrow planks, on naked +beams hanging over empty space, as easily as the best of them. +It was a day in March, and the sky was a faint green with the first hint of +spring. In Central Park, five hundred feet below, the earth caught the tone of +the sky in a shade of brown that promised to become green, and the lakes lay +like splinters of glass under the cobwebs of bare branches. Roark walked through +the shell of what was to be a gigantic apartment hotel, and stopped before an +electrician at work. +The man was toiling assiduously, bending conduits around a beam. It was a task +for hours of strain and patience, in a space overfilled against all +calculations. Roark stood, his hands in his pockets, watching the man’s slow, +painful progress. +The man raised his head and turned to him abruptly. He had a big head and a face +so ugly that it became fascinating; it was neither old nor flabby, but it was +creased in deep gashes and the powerful jowls drooped like a bulldog’s; the eyes +were startling--wide, round and china-blue. +"Well?" the man asked angrily, "what’s the matter, Brick-top?" +"You’re wasting your time," said Roark. +"Yeah?" +"Yeah." +"You don’t say!" +"It will take you hours to get your pipes around that beam." +"Know a better way to do it?" +"Sure." +"Run along, punk. We don’t like college smarties around here." +"Cut a hole in that beam and put your pipes through." +"What?" +"Cut a hole through the beam." +"The hell I will!" +"The hell you won’t." +"It ain’t done that way." +"I’ve done it." +"You?" +"It’s done everywhere." +"It ain’t gonna be done here. Not by me." +75 + + "Then I’ll do it for you." +The man roared. "That’s rich! When did office boys learn to do a man’s work?" +"Give me your torch." +"Look out, boy! It’ll burn your pretty pink toes!" +Roark took the man’s gloves and goggles, took the acetylene torch, knelt, and +sent a thin jet of blue fire at the center of the beam. The man stood watching +him. Roark’s arm was steady, holding the tense, hissing streak of flame in +leash, shuddering faintly with its violence, but holding it aimed straight. +There was no strain, no effort in the easy posture of his body, only in his arm. +And it seemed as if the blue tension eating slowly through metal came not from +the flame but from the hand holding it. +He finished, put the torch down, and rose. +"Jesus!" said the electrician. "Do you know how to handle a torch!" +"Looks like it, doesn’t it?" He removed the gloves, the goggles, and handed them +back. "Do it that way from now on. Tell the foreman I said so." +The electrician was staring reverently at the neat hole cut through the beam. He +muttered: "Where did you learn to handle it like that, Red?" +Roark’s slow, amused smile acknowledged this concession of victory. "Oh, I’ve +been an electrician, and a plumber, and a rivet catcher, and many other things." +"And went to school besides?" +"Well, in a way." +"Gonna be an architect?" +"Yes." +"Well, you’ll be the first one that knows something besides pretty pictures and +tea parties. You should see the teacher’s pets they send us down from the +office." +"If you’re apologizing, don’t. I don’t like them either. Go back to the pipes. +So long." +"So long, Red." +The next time Roark appeared on that job, the blue-eyed electrician waved to him +from afar, and called him over, and asked advice about his work which he did not +need; he stated that his name was Mike and that he had missed Roark for several +days. On the next visit the day shift was just leaving, and Mike waited outside +for Roark to finish the inspection. "How about a glass of beer, Red?" he +invited, when Roark came out. "Sure," said Roark, "thanks." +They sat together at a table in the corner of a basement speakeasy, and they +drank beer, and Mike related his favorite tale of how he had fallen five stories +when a scaffolding gave way under him, how he had broken three ribs but lived to +tell it, and Roark spoke of his days in the building trades. Mike did have a +real name, which was Sean Xavier Donnigan, but everyone had forgotten it long +76 + + ago; he owned a set of tools and an ancient Ford, and existed for the sole +purpose of traveling around the country from one big construction job to +another. People meant very little to Mike, but their performance a great deal. +He worshipped expertness of any kind. He loved his work passionately and had no +tolerance for anything save for other single-track devotions. He was a master in +his own field and he felt no sympathy except for mastery. His view of the world +was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not +concerned with the latter. He loved buildings. He despised, however, all +architects. +"There was one, Red," he said earnestly, over his fifth beer, "one only and +you’d be too young to know about him, but that was the only man that knew +building. I worked for him when I was your age." +"Who was that?" +"Henry Cameron was his name. He’s dead, I guess, these many years." +Roark looked at him for a long time, then said: "He’s not dead, Mike," and +added: "I’ve worked for him." +"You did?" +"For almost three years." +They looked at each other silently, and that was the final seal on their +friendship. +Weeks later, Mike stopped Roark, one day, at the building, his ugly face +puzzled, and asked: +"Say, Red, I heard the super tell a guy from the contractor’s that you’re +stuck-up and stubborn and the lousiest bastard he’s ever been up against. What +did you do to him?" +"Nothing." +"What the hell did he mean?" +"I don’t know," said Roark. "Do you?" +Mike looked at him, shrugged and grinned. +"No," said Mike. + +8. +EARLY IN May, Peter Keating departed for Washington, to supervise the +construction of a museum donated to the city by a great philanthropist easing +his conscience. The museum building, Keating pointed out proudly, was to be +decidedly different: it was not a reproduction of the Parthenon, but of the +Maison Carrée at Nîmes. +Keating had been away for some time when an office boy approached Roark’s table +and informed him that Mr. Francon wished to see him in his office. When Roark +entered the sanctuary, Francon smiled from behind the desk and said cheerfully: +"Sit down, my friend. Sit down...." but something in Roark’s eyes, which he had +77 + + never seen at close range before, made Francon’s voice shrink and stop, and he +added dryly: "Sit down." Roark obeyed. Francon studied him for a second, but +could reach no conclusion beyond deciding that the man had a most unpleasant +face, yet looked quite correctly attentive. +"You’re the one who’s worked for Cameron, aren’t you?" Francon asked. "Yes," +said Roark. +"Mr. Keating has been telling me very nice things about you," Francon tried +pleasantly and stopped. It was wasted courtesy; Roark just sat looking at him, +waiting. "Listen...what’s your name?" +"Roark." +"Listen, Roark. We have a client who is a little...odd, but he’s an important +man, a very important man, and we have to satisfy him. He’s given us a +commission for an eight-million-dollar office building, but the trouble is that +he has very definite ideas on what he wants it to look like. He wants it--" +Francon shrugged apologetically, disclaiming all blame for the preposterous +suggestion--"he wants it to look like this." He handed Roark a photograph. It +was a photograph of the Dana Building. +Roark sat quite still, the photograph hanging between his fingers. "Do you know +that building?" asked Francon. +"Yes." +"Well, that’s what he wants. And Mr. Keating’s away. I’ve had Bennett and Cooper +and Williams make sketches, but he’s turned them down. So I thought I’d give you +a chance." +Francon looked at him, impressed by the magnanimity of his own offer. There was +no reaction. There was only a man who still looked as if he’d been struck on the +head. +"Of course," said Francon, "it’s quite a jump for you, quite an assignment, but +I thought I’d let you try. Don’t be afraid. Mr. Keating and I will go over it +afterward. Just draw up the plans and a good sketch of it. You must have an idea +of what the man wants. You know Cameron’s tricks. But of course, we can’t let a +crude thing like this come out of our office. We must please him, but we must +also preserve our reputation and not frighten all our other clients away. The +point is to make it simple and in the general mood of this, but also artistic. +You know, the more severe kind of Greek. You don’t have to use the Ionic order, +use the Doric. Plain pediments and simple moldings, or something like that. Get +the idea? Now take this along and show me what you can do. Bennett will give you +all the particulars and...What’s the mat--" +Francon’s voice cut itself off. +"Mr. Francon, please let me design it the way the Dana Building was designed." +"Huh?" +"Let me do it. Not copy the Dana Building, but design it as Henry Cameron would +have wanted it done, as I will." +"You mean modernistic?" +"I...well, call it that." +78 + + "Are you crazy?" +"Mr. Francon, please listen to me." Roark’s words were like the steps of a man +walking a tightwire, slow, strained, groping for the only right spot, quivering +over an abyss, but precise. "I don’t blame you for the things you’re doing. I’m +Working for you, I’m taking your money, I have no right to express objections. +But this time...this time the client is asking for it. You’re risking nothing. +He wants it. Think of it, there’s a man, one man who sees and understands and +wants it and has the power to build it. Are you going to fight a client for the +first time in your life--and fight for what? To cheat him and to give him the +same old trash, when you have so many others asking for it, and one, only one, +who comes with a request like this?" +"Aren’t you forgetting yourself?" asked Francon, coldly. "What difference would +it make to you? Just let me do it my way and show it to him. Only show it to +him. He’s already turned down three sketches, what if he turns down a fourth? +But if he doesn’t...if he doesn’t..." Roark had never known how to entreat and +he was not doing it well; his voice was hard, toneless, revealing the effort, so +that the plea became an insult to the man who was making him plead. Keating +would have given a great deal to see Roark in that moment. But Francon could not +appreciate the triumph he was the first ever to achieve; he recognized only the +insult. +"Am I correct in gathering," Francon asked, "that you are criticizing me and +teaching me something about architecture?" +"I’m begging you," said Roark, closing his eyes. "If you weren’t a protégé of +Mr. Keating’s, I wouldn’t bother to discuss the matter with you any further. But +since you are quite obviously naive and inexperienced, I shall point out to you +that I am not in the habit of asking for the esthetic opinions of my draftsmen. +You will kindly take this photograph--and I do not wish any building as Cameron +might have designed it, I wish the scheme of this adapted to our site--and you +will follow my instructions as to the Classic treatment of the facade." +"I can’t do it," said Roark, very quietly. "What? Are you speaking to me? Are +you actually saying: ’Sorry, I can’t do it’?" +"I haven’t said ’sorry,’ Mr. Francon." +"What did you say?" +"That I can’t do it." +"Why?" +"You don’t want to know why. Don’t ask me to do any designing. I’ll do any other +kind of job you wish. But not that. And not to Cameron’s work." +"What do you mean, no designing? You expect to be an architect some day--or do +you?" +"Not like this." +"Oh...I see...So you can’t do it? You mean you won’t?" +"If you prefer." +"Listen, you impertinent fool, this is incredible!" Roark got up. "May I go, Mr. +79 + + Francon?" +"In all my life," roared Francon, "in all my experience, I’ve never seen +anything like it! Are you here to tell me what you’ll do and what you won’t do? +Are you here to give me lessons and criticize my taste and pass judgment?" +"I’m not criticizing anything," said Roark quietly. "I’m not passing judgment. +There are some things that I can’t do. Let it go at that. May I leave now?" +"You may leave this room and this firm now and from now on! You may go straight +to the devil! Go and find yourself another employer! Try and find him! Go get +your check and get out!" +"Yes, Mr. Francon." +That evening Roark walked to the basement speak-easy where he could always find +Mike after the day’s work. Mike was now employed on the construction of a +factory by the same contractor who was awarded most of Francon’s biggest jobs. +Mike had expected to see Roark on an inspection visit to the factory that +afternoon, and greeted him angrily: +"What’s the matter, Red? Lying down on the job?" +When he heard the news, Mike sat still and looked like a bulldog baring its +teeth. Then he swore savagely. +"The bastards," he gulped between stronger names, "the bastards..." +"Keep still, Mike." +"Well...what now, Red?" +"Someone else of the same kind, until the same thing happens again." +# +When Keating returned from Washington he went straight up to Francon’s office. +He had not stopped in the drafting room and had heard no news. Francon greeted +him expansively: +"Boy, it’s great to see you back! What’ll you have? A whisky-and-soda or a +little brandy?" +"No, thanks. Just give me a cigarette." +"Here....Boy, you look fine! Better than ever. How do you do it, you lucky +bastard? I have so many things to tell you! How did it go down in Washington? +Everything all right?" And before Keating could answer, Francon rushed on: +"Something dreadful’s happened to me. Most disappointing. Do you remember Lili +Landau? I thought I was all set with her, but last time I saw her, did I get the +cold shoulder! Do you know who’s got her? You’ll be surprised. Gail Wynand, no +less! The girl’s flying high. You should see her pictures and her legs all over +his newspapers. Will it help her show or won’t it! What can I offer against +that? And do you know what he’s done? Remember how she always said that nobody +could give her what she wanted most--her childhood home, the dear little +Austrian village where she was born? Well, Wynand bought it, long ago, the whole +damn village, and had it shipped here--every bit of it!--and had it assembled +again down on the Hudson, and there it stands now, cobbles, church, apple trees, +pigsties and all! Then he springs it on Lili, two weeks ago. Wouldn’t you just +know it? If the King of Babylon could get hanging gardens for his homesick lady, +80 + + why not Gail Wynand? Lili’s all smiles and gratitude--but the poor girl was +really miserable. She’d have much preferred a mink coat. She never wanted the +damn village. And Wynand knew it, too. But there it stands, on the Hudson. Last +week, he gave a party for her, right there, in that village--a costume party, +with Mr. Wynand dressed as Cesare Borgia--wouldn’t he, though?--and what a +party!--if you can believe what you hear, but you know how it is, you can never +prove anything on Wynand. Then what does he do the next day but pose up there +himself with little schoolchildren who’d never seen an Austrian village--the +philanthropist!--and plasters the photos all over his papers with plenty of sob +stuff about educational values, and gets mush notes from women’s clubs! I’d like +to know what he’ll do with the village when he gets rid of Lili! He will, you +know, they never last long with him. Do you think I’ll have a chance with her +then?" +"Sure," said Keating. "Sure, you will. How’s everything here in the office?" +"Oh, fine. Same as usual. Lucius had a cold and drank up all of my best Bas +Armagnac. It’s bad for his heart, and a hundred dollars a case!...Besides, +Lucius got himself caught in a nasty little mess. It’s that phobia of his, his +damn porcelain. Seems he went and bought a teapot from a fence. He knew it was +stolen goods, too. Took me quite a bit of bother to save us from a +scandal....Oh, by the way, I fired that friend of yours, what’s his +name?--Roark." +"Oh," said Keating, and let a moment pass, then asked: +"Why?" +"The insolent bastard! Where did you ever pick him up?" +"What happened?" +"I thought I’d be nice to him, give him a real break. I asked him to make a +sketch for the Farrell Building--you know, the one Brent finally managed to +design and we got Farrell to accept, you know, the simplified Doric--and your +friend just up and refused to do it. It seems he has ideals or something. So I +showed him the gate....What’s the matter? What are you smiling at?" +"Nothing. I can just see it." +"Now don’t you ask me to take him back!" +"No, of course not." +For several days, Keating thought that he should call on Roark. He did not know +what he would say, but felt dimly that he should say something. He kept +postponing it. He was gaining assurance in his work. He felt that he did not +need Roark, after all. The days went by, and he did not call on Roark, and he +felt relief in being free to forget him. +Beyond the windows of his room Roark saw the roofs, the water tanks, the +chimneys, the cars speeding far below. There was a threat in the silence of his +room, in the empty days, in his hands hanging idly by his sides. And he felt +another threat rising from the city below, as if each window, each strip of +pavement, had set itself closed grimly, in wordless resistance. It did not +disturb him. He had known and accepted it long ago. +He made a list of the architects whose work he resented least, in the order of +their lesser evil, and he set out upon the search for a job, coldly, +81 + + systematically, without anger or hope. He never knew whether these days hurt +him; he knew only that it was a thing which had to be done. +The architects he saw differed from one another. Some looked at him across the +desk, kindly and vaguely, and their manner seemed to say that it was touching, +his ambition to be an architect, touching and laudable and strange and +attractively sad as all the delusions of youth. Some smiled at him with thin, +drawn lips and seemed to enjoy his presence in the room, because it made them +conscious of their own accomplishment. Some spoke coldly, as if his ambition +were a personal insult. Some were brusque, and the sharpness of their voices +seemed to say that they needed good draftsmen, they always needed good +draftsmen, but this qualification could not possibly apply to him, and would he +please refrain from being rude enough to force them to express it more plainly. +It was not malice. It was not a judgment passed upon his merit. They did not +think he was worthless. They simply did not care to find out whether he was +good. Sometimes, he was asked to show his sketches; he extended them across a +desk, feeling a contraction of shame in the muscles of his hand; it was like +having the clothes torn off his body, and the shame was not, that his body was +exposed, but that it was exposed to indifferent eyes. Once in a while he made a +trip to New Jersey, to see Cameron. They sat together on the porch of a house on +a hill, Cameron in a wheel chair, his hands on an old blanket spread over his +knees. "How is it, Howard? Pretty hard?" +"No." +"Want me to give you a letter to one of the bastards?" +"No." +Then Cameron would not speak of it any more, he did not want to speak of it, he +did not want the thought of Roark rejected by their city to become real. When +Roark came to him, Cameron spoke of architecture with the simple confidence of a +private possession. They sat together, looking at he city in the distance, on +the edge of the sky, beyond the river. The sky was growing dark and luminous as +blue-green glass; the buildings looked like clouds condensed on the glass, +gray-blue clouds frozen for an instant in straight angles and vertical shafts, +with the sunset caught in the spires.... +As the summer months passed, as his list was exhausted and he returned again to +the places that had refused him once, Roark found that a few things were known +about him and he heard the same words--spoken bluntly or timidly or angrily or +apologetically--"You were kicked out of Stanton. You were kicked out of +Francon’s office." All the different voices saying it had one note in common: a +note of relief in the certainty that the decision had been made for them. +He sat on the window sill, in the evening, smoking, his hand spread on the pane, +the city under his fingers, the glass cold against his skin. +In September, he read an article entitled "Make Way For Tomorrow" by Gordon L. +Prescott, A.G.A. in the Architectural Tribune. The article stated that the +tragedy of the profession was the hardships placed in the way of its talented +beginners; that great gifts had been lost in the struggle, unnoticed; that +architecture was perishing from a lack of new blood and new thought, a lack of +originality, vision and courage; that the author of the article made it his aim +to search for promising beginners, to encourage them, develop them and give them +the chance they deserved. Roark had never heard of Gordon L. Prescott, but there +was a tone of honest conviction in the article. He allowed himself to start for +Prescott’s office with the first hint of hope. +82 + + The reception room of Gordon L. Prescott’s office was done in gray, black and +scarlet; it was correct, restrained and daring all at once. A young and very +pretty secretary informed Roark that one could not see Mr. Prescott without an +appointment, but that she would be very glad to make an appointment for next +Wednesday at two-fifteen. On Wednesday at two-fifteen, the secretary smiled at +Roark and asked him please to be seated for just a moment. At four forty-five he +was admitted into Gordon L. Prescott’s office. Gordon L. Prescott wore a brown +checkered tweed jacket and a white turtle-neck sweater of angora wool. He was +tall, athletic and thirty-five, but his face combined a crisp air of +sophisticated wisdom with the soft skin, the button nose, the small, puffed +mouth of a college hero. His face was sun-scorched, his blond hair clipped +short, in a military Prussian haircut. He was frankly masculine, frankly +unconcerned about elegance and frankly conscious of the effect. +He listened to Roark silently, and his eyes were like a stop watch registering +each separate second consumed by each separate word of Roark’s. He let the first +sentence go by; on the second he interrupted to say curtly: "Let me see your +drawings," as if to make it clear that anything Roark might say was quite well +known to him already. +He held the drawings in his bronzed hands. Before he looked down at them, he +said: "Ah, yes, so many young men come to me for advice, so many." He glanced at +the first sketch, but raised his head before he had seen it. "Of course, it’s +the combination of the practical and the transcendental that is so hard for +beginners to grasp." He slipped the sketch to the bottom of the pile. +"Architecture is primarily a utilitarian conception, and the problem is to +elevate the principle of pragmatism into the realm of esthetic abstraction. All +else is nonsense." He glanced at two sketches and slipped them to the bottom. "I +have no patience with visionaries who see a holy crusade in architecture for +architecture’s sake. The great dynamic principle is the common principle of the +human equation." He glanced at a sketch and slipped it under. "The public taste +and the public heart are the final criteria of the artist. The genius is the one +who knows how to express the general. The exception is to tap the +unexceptional." He +weighed the pile of sketches in his hand, noted that he had gone through half of +them and dropped them down on the desk. +"Ah, yes," he said, "your work. Very interesting. But not practical. Not mature. +Unfocused and undisciplined. Adolescent. Originality for originality’s sake. Not +at all in the spirit of the present day. If you want an idea of the sort of +thing for which there is a crying need--here--let me show you." He took a sketch +out of a drawer of the desk. "Here’s a young man who came to me totally +unrecommended, a beginner who had never worked before. When you can produce +stuff like this, you won’t find it necessary to look for a job. I saw this one +sketch of his and I took him on at once, started him at twenty-five a week, too. +There’s no question but that he is a potential genius." He extended the sketch +to Roark. The sketch represented a house in the shape of a grain silo incredibly +merged with the simplified, emaciated shadow of the Parthenon. +"That," said Gordon L. Prescott, "is originality, the new in the eternal. Try +toward something like this. I can’t really say that I predict a great deal for +your future. We must be frank, I wouldn’t want to give you illusions based on my +authority. You have a great deal to learn. I couldn’t venture a guess on what +talent you might possess or develop later. But with hard work, +perhaps...Architecture is a difficult profession, however, and the competition +is stiff, you know, very stiff...And now, if you’ll excuse me, my secretary has +an appointment waiting for me...." +# +83 + + Roark walked home late on an evening in October. It had been another of the many +days that stretched into months behind him, and he could not tell what had taken +place in the hours of that day, whom he had seen, what form the words of refusal +had taken. He concentrated fiercely on the few minutes at hand, when he was in +an office, forgetting everything else; he forgot these minutes when he left the +office; it had to be done, it had been done, it concerned him no longer. He was +free once more on his way home. +A long street stretched before him, its high banks, coming close together ahead, +so narrow that he felt as if he could spread his arms, seize the spires and push +them apart. He walked swiftly, the pavements as a springboard throwing his steps +forward. +He saw a lighted triangle of concrete suspended somewhere hundreds of feet above +the ground. He could not see what stood below, supporting it; he was free to +think of what he’d want to see there, what he would have made to be seen. Then +he thought suddenly that now, in this moment, according to the city, according +to everyone save that hard certainty within him, he would never build again, +never--before he had begun. He shrugged. Those things happening to him, in those +offices of strangers, were only a kind of sub-reality, unsubstantial incidents +in the path of a substance they could not reach or touch. +He turned into side streets leading to the East River. A lonely traffic light +hung far ahead, a spot of red in a bleak darkness. The old houses crouched low +to the ground, hunched under the weight of the sky. The street was empty and +hollow, echoing to his footsteps. He went on, his collar raised, his hands in +his pockets. His shadow rose from under his heels, when he passed a light, and +brushed a wall in a long black arc, like the sweep of a windshield wiper. + +9. +JOHN ERIK SNYTE looked through Roark’s sketches, flipped three of them aside, +gathered the rest into an even pile, glanced again at the three, tossed them +down one after another on top of the pile, with three sharp thuds, and said: +"Remarkable. Radical, but remarkable. What are you doing tonight?" +"Why?" asked Roark, stupefied. +"Are you free? Mind starting in at once? Take your coat off, go to the drafting +room, borrow tools from somebody and do me up a sketch for a department store +we’re remodeling. Just a quick sketch, just a general idea, but I must have it +tomorrow. Mind staying late tonight? The heat’s on and I’ll have Joe send you up +some dinner. Want black coffee or Scotch or what? Just tell Joe. Can you stay?" +"Yes," said Roark, incredulously. "I can work all night." +"Fine! Splendid! that’s just what I’ve always needed--a Cameron man. I’ve got +every other kind. Oh, yes, what did they pay you at Francon’s?" +"Sixty-five." +"Well, I can’t splurge like Guy the Epicure. Fifty’s tops. Okay? Fine. Go right +in. I’ll have Billings explain about the store to you. I want something modern. +Understand? Modern, violent, crazy, to knock their eye out. Don’t restrain +yourself. Go the limit. Pull any stunt you can think of, the goofier the better. +84 + + Come on!" +John Erik Snyte shot to his feet, flung a door open into a huge drafting room, +flew in, skidded against a table, stopped, and said to a stout man with a grim +moon-face: "Billings--Roark. He’s our modernist. Give him the Benton store. Get +him some instruments. Leave him your keys and show him what to lock up tonight. +Start him as of this morning. Fifty. What time was my appointment with Dolson +Brothers? I’m late already. So long, I won’t be back tonight." +He skidded out, slamming the door. Billings evinced no surprise. He looked at +Roark as if Roark had always been there. He spoke impassively, in a weary drawl. +Within twenty minutes he left Roark at a drafting table with paper, pencils, +instruments, a set of plans and photographs of the department store, a set of +charts and a long list of instructions. +Roark looked at the clean white sheet before him, his fist closed tightly about +the thin stem of a pencil. He put the pencil down, and picked it up again, his +thumb running softly up and down the smooth shaft; he saw that the pencil was +trembling. He put it down quickly, and he felt anger at himself for the weakness +of allowing this job to mean so much to him, for the sudden knowledge of what +the months of idleness behind him had really meant. His fingertips were pressed +to the paper, as if the paper held them, as a surface charged with electricity +will hold the flesh of a man who has brushed against it, hold and hurt. He tore +his fingers off the paper. Then he went to work.... +John Erik Snyte was fifty years old; he wore an expression of quizzical +amusement, shrewd and unwholesome, as if he shared with each man he contemplated +a lewd secret which he would not mention because it was so obvious to them both. +He was a prominent architect; his expression did not change when he spoke of +this fact. He considered Guy Francon an impractical idealist; he was not +restrained by an Classic dogma; he was much more skillful and liberal: he built +anything. He had no distaste for modern architecture and built cheerfully, when +a rare client asked for it, bare boxes with flat roofs, which he called +progressive; he built Roman mansions which he called fastidious; he built Gothic +churches which he called spiritual. He saw no difference among any of them. He +never became angry, except when somebody called him eclectic. +He had a system of his own. He employed five designers of various types and he +staged a contest among them on each commission he received. He chose the winning +design and improved it with bits of the four others. "Six minds," he said, "are +better than one." +When Roark saw the final drawing of the Benton Department Store, he understood +why Snyte had not been afraid to hire him. He recognized his own planes of +space, his windows, his system of circulation; he saw, added to it, Corinthian +capitals, Gothic vaulting, Colonial chandeliers and incredible moldings, vaguely +Moorish. The drawing was done in water-color, with miraculous delicacy, mounted +on cardboard, covered with a veil of tissue paper. The men in the drafting room +were not allowed to look at it, except from a safe distance; all hands had to be +washed, all cigarettes discarded. John Erik Snyte attached a great importance to +the proper appearance of a drawing for submission to clients, and kept a young +Chinese student of architecture employed solely upon the execution of these +masterpieces. +Roark knew what to expect of his job. He would never see his work erected, only +pieces of it, which he preferred not to see; but he would be free to design as +he wished and he would have the experience of solving actual problems. It was +less than he wanted and more than he could expect. He accepted it at that. He +met his fellow designers, the four other contestants, and learned that they were +85 + + unofficially nicknamed in the drafting room as "Classic," +"Gothic," +"Renaissance" and "Miscellaneous." He winced a little when he was addressed as +"Hey, Modernistic." +# +The strike of the building-trades unions infuriated Guy Francon. The strike had +started against the contractors who were erecting the Noyes-Belmont Hotel, and +had spread to all the new structures of the city. It had been mentioned in the +press that the architects of the Noyes-Belmont were the firm of Francon & Heyer. +Most of the press helped the fight along, urging the contractors not to +surrender. The loudest attacks against the strikers came from the powerful +papers of the great Wynand chain. +"We have always stood," said the Wynand editorials, "for the rights of the +common man against the yellow sharks of privilege, but we cannot give our +support to the destruction of law and order." It had never been discovered +whether the Wynand papers led the public or the public led the Wynand papers; it +was known only that the two kept remarkably in step. It was not known to anyone, +however, save to Guy Francon and a very few others, that Gail Wynand owned the +corporation which owned the corporation which owned the Noyes-Belmont Hotel. +This added greatly to Francon’s discomfort. Gail Wynand’s real-estate operations +were rumored to be vaster than his journalistic empire. It was the first chance +Francon had ever had at a Wynand commission and he grasped it avidly, thinking +of the possibilities which it could open. He and Keating had put their best +efforts into designing the most ornate of all Rococo palaces for future patrons +who could pay twenty-five dollars per day per room and who were fond of plaster +flowers, marble cupids and open elevator cages of bronze lace. The strike had +shattered the future possibilities; Francon could not be blamed for it, but one +could never tell whom Gail Wynand would blame and for what reason. The +unpredictable, unaccountable shifts of Wynand’s favor were famous, and it was +well known that few architects he employed once were ever employed by him again. +Francon’s sullen mood led him to the unprecedented breach of snapping over +nothing in particular at the one person who had always been immune from +it--Peter Keating. Keating shrugged, and turned his back to him in silent +insolence. Then Keating wandered aimlessly through the halls, snarling at young +draftsmen without provocation. He bumped into Lucius N. Heyer in a doorway and +snapped: "Look where you’re going!" Heyer stared after him, bewildered, +blinking. +There was little to do in the office, nothing to say and everyone to avoid. +Keating left early and walked home through a cold December twilight. +At home, he cursed aloud the thick smell of paint from the overheated radiators. +He cursed the chill, when his mother opened a window. He could find no reason +for his restlessness, unless it was the sudden inactivity that left him alone. +He could not bear to be left alone. +He snatched up the telephone receiver and called Catherine Halsey. The sound of +her clear voice was like a hand pressed soothingly against his hot forehead. He +said: "Oh, nothing important, dear, I just wondered if you’d be home tonight. I +thought I’d drop in after dinner." +"Of course, Peter. I’ll be home." +86 + + "Swell. About eight-thirty?" +"Yes...Oh, Peter, have you heard about Uncle Ellsworth?" +"Yes, God damn it, I’ve heard about your Uncle Ellsworth!...I’m sorry, +Katie...Forgive me, darling, I didn’t mean to be rude, but I’ve been hearing +about your uncle all day long. I know, it’s wonderful and all that, only look, +we’re not going to talk about him again tonight!" +"No, of course not. I’m sorry. I understand. I’ll be waiting for you." +"So long, Katie." +He had heard the latest story about Ellsworth Toohey, but he did not want to +think of it because it brought him back to the annoying subject of the strike. +Six months ago, on the wave of his success with Sermons in Stone, Ellsworth +Toohey had been signed to write "One Small Voice," a daily syndicated column for +the Wynand papers. It appeared in the Banner and had started as a department of +art criticism, but grown into an informal tribune from which Ellsworth M. Toohey +pronounced verdicts on art, literature, New York restaurants, international +crises and sociology--mainly sociology. It had been a great success. But the +building strike had placed Ellsworth M. Toohey in a difficult position. He made +no secret of his sympathy with the strikers, but he had said nothing in his +column, for no one could say what he pleased on the papers owned by Gail Wynand +save Gail Wynand. However, a mass meeting of strike sympathizers had been called +for this evening. Many famous men were to speak, Ellsworth Toohey among them. At +least, Toohey’s name had been announced. +The event caused a great deal of curious speculation and bets were made on +whether Toohey would dare to appear. "He will," Keating had heard a draftsman +insist vehemently, "he’ll sacrifice himself. He’s that kind. He’s the only +honest man in print." +"He won’t," another had said. "Do you realize what it means to pull a stunt like +that on Wynand? Once Wynand gets it in for a man, he’ll break the guy for sure +as hell’s fire. Nobody knows when he’ll do it or how he’ll do it, but he’ll do +it, and nobody’ll prove a thing on him, and you’re done for once you get Wynand +after you." Keating did not care about the issue one way or another, and the +whole matter annoyed him. +He ate his dinner, that evening, in grim silence and when Mrs. Keating began, +with an "Oh, by the way..." to lead the conversation in a direction he +recognized, he snapped: "You’re not going to talk about Catherine. Keep still." +Mrs. Keating said nothing further and concentrated on forcing more food on his +plate. +He took a taxi to Greenwich Village. He hurried up the stairs. He jerked at the +bell. He waited. There was no answer. He stood, leaning against the wall, +ringing, for a long time. Catherine wouldn’t be out when she knew he was coming; +she couldn’t be. He walked incredulously down the stairs, out to the street, and +looked up at the windows of her apartment. The windows were dark. +He stood, looking up at the windows as at a tremendous betrayal. Then came a +sick feeling of loneliness, as if he were homeless in a great city; for the +moment, he forgot his own address or its existence. Then he thought of the +meeting, the great mass meeting where her uncle was publicly to make a martyr of +himself tonight. That’s where she went, he thought, the damn little fool! He +said aloud: "To hell with her!"...And he was walking rapidly in the direction of +87 + + the meeting hall. +There was one naked bulb of light over the square frame of the hall’s entrance, +a small, blue-white lump glowing ominously, too cold and too bright. It leaped +out of the dark street, lighting one thin trickle of rain from some ledge above, +a glistening needle of glass, so thin and smooth that Keating thought crazily of +stories where men had been killed by being pierced with an icicle. A few curious +loafers stood indifferently in the rain around the entrance, and a few +policemen. The door was open. The dim lobby was crowded with people who could +not get into the packed hall, they were listening to a loud-speaker installed +there for the occasion. At the door three vague shadows were handing out +pamphlets to passers-by. One of the shadows was a consumptive, unshaved young +man with a long, bare neck; the other was a trim youth with a fur collar on an +expensive coat; the third was Catherine Halsey. +She stood in the rain, slumped, her stomach jutting forward in weariness, her +nose shiny, her eyes bright with excitement. Keating stopped, staring at her. +Her hand shot toward him mechanically with a pamphlet, then she raised her eyes +and saw him. She smiled without astonishment and said happily: +"Why, Peter! How sweet of you to come here!" +"Katie..." He choked a little. "Katie, what the hell..." +"But I had to, Peter." Her voice had no trace of apology. "You don’t understand, +but I..." +"Get out of the rain. Get inside." +"But I can’t! I have to..." +"Get out of the rain at least, you fool!" He pushed her roughly through the +door, into a corner of the lobby. +"Peter darling, you’re not angry, are you? You see, it was like this: I didn’t +think Uncle would let me come here tonight, but at the last minute he said I +could if I wanted to, and that I could help with the pamphlets. I knew you’d +understand, and I left you a note on the living room table, explaining, and..." +"You left me a note? Inside?" +"Yes...Oh...Oh, dear me, I never thought of that, you couldn’t get in of course, +how silly of me, but I was in such a rush! No, you’re not going to be angry, you +can’t! Don’t you see what this means to him? Don’t you know what he’s +sacrificing by coming here? And I knew he would. I told them so, those people +who said not a chance, it’ll be the end of him--and it might be, but he doesn’t +care. That’s what he’s like. I’m frightened and I’m terribly happy, because what +he’s done--it makes me believe in all human beings. But I’m frightened, because +you see, Wynand will..." +"Keep still! I know it all. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to hear about your +uncle or Wynand or the damn strike. Let’s get out of here." +"Oh, no, Peter! We can’t! I want to hear him and..." +"Shut up over there!" someone hissed at them from the crowd. +"We’re missing it all," she whispered. "That’s Austen Heller speaking. Don’t you +88 + + want to hear Austen Heller?" +Keating looked up at the loud-speaker with a certain respect, which he felt for +all famous names. He had not read much of Austen Heller, but he knew that Heller +was the star columnist of the Chronicle, a brilliant, independent newspaper, +arch-enemy of the Wynand publications; that Heller came from an old, +distinguished family and had graduated from Oxford; that he had started as a +literary critic and ended by becoming a quiet fiend devoted to the destruction +of all forms of compulsion, private or public, in heaven or on earth; that he +had been cursed by preachers, bankers, club-women and labor organizers; that he +had better manners than the social elite whom he usually mocked, and a tougher +constitution than the laborers whom he usually defended; that he could discuss +the latest play on Broadway, medieval poetry or international finance; that he +never donated to charity, but spent more of his own money than he could afford, +on defending political prisoners anywhere. +The voice coming from the loud-speaker was dry, precise, with the faint trace of +a British accent. +"...and we must consider," Austen Heller was saying unemotionally, "that +since--unfortunately--we are forced to live together, the most important thing +for us to remember is that the only way in which we can have any law at all is +to have as little of it as possible. I see no ethical standard to which to +measure the whole unethical conception of a State, except in the amount of time, +of thought, of money, of effort and of obedience, which a society extorts from +its every member. Its value and its civilization are in inverse ratio to that +extortion. There is no conceivable law by which a man can be forced to work on +any terms except those he chooses to set. There is no conceivable law to prevent +him from setting them--just as there is none to force his employer to accept +them. The freedom to agree or disagree is the foundation of our kind of +society--and the freedom to strike is a part of it. I am mentioning this as a +reminder to a certain Petronius from Hell’s Kitchen, an exquisite bastard who +has been rather noisy lately about telling us that this strike represents a +destruction of law and order." +The loud-speaker coughed out a high, shrill sound of approval and a clatter of +applause. There were gasps among the people in the lobby. Catherine grasped +Keating’s arm. "Oh, Peter!" she whispered. "He means Wynand! Wynand was born in +Hell’s Kitchen. He can afford to say that, but Wynand will take it out on Uncle +Ellsworth!" +Keating could not listen to the rest of Heller’s speech, because his head was +swimming in so violent an ache that the sounds hurt his eyes and he had to keep +his eyelids shut tightly. He leaned against the wall. +He opened his eyes with a jerk, when he became aware of the peculiar silence +around him. He had not noticed the end of Heller’s speech. He saw the people in +the lobby standing in tense, solemn expectation, and the blank rasping of the +loud-speaker pulled every glance into its dark funnel. Then a voice came through +the silence, loudly and slowly: +"Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great honor of presenting to you now Mr. +Ellsworth Monkton Toohey!" +Well, thought Keating, Bennett’s won his six bits down at the office. There were +a few seconds of silence. Then the thing which happened hit Keating on the back +of the head; it was not a sound nor a blow, it was something that ripped time +apart, that cut the moment from the normal one preceding it. He knew only the +shock, at first; a distinct, conscious second was gone before he realized what +89 + + it was and that it was applause. It was such a crash of applause that he waited +for the loud-speaker to explode; it went on and on and on, pressing against the +walls of the lobby, and he thought he could feel the walls buckling out to the +street. +The people around him were cheering. Catherine stood, her lips parted, and he +felt certain that she was not breathing at all. +It was a long time before silence came suddenly, as abrupt and shocking as the +roar; the loud-speaker died, choking on a high note. Those in the lobby stood +still. Then came the voice. +"My friends," it said, simply and solemnly. "My brothers," it added softly, +involuntarily, both full of emotion and smiling apologetically at the emotion. +"I am more touched by this reception than I should allow myself to be. I hope I +shall be forgiven for a trace of the vain child which is in all of us. But I +realize--and in that spirit I accept it--that this tribute was paid not to my +person, but to a principle which chance has granted me to represent in all +humility tonight." +It was not a voice, it was a miracle. It unrolled as a velvet banner. It spoke +English words, but the resonant clarity of each syllable made it sound like a +new language spoken for the first time. It was the voice of a giant. +Keating stood, his mouth open. He did not hear what the voice was saying. He +heard the beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the +meaning; he could accept anything, he would be led blindly anywhere. +"...and so, my friends," the voice was saying, "the lesson to be learned from +our tragic struggle is the lesson of unity. We shall unite or we shall be +defeated. Our will--the will of the disinherited, the forgotten, the +oppressed--shall weld us into a solid bulwark, with a common faith and a common +goal. This is the time for every man to renounce the thoughts of his petty +little problems, of gain, of comfort, of self-gratification. This is the time to +merge his self in a great current, in the rising tide which is approaching to +sweep us all, willing or unwilling, into the future. History, my friends, does +not ask questions or acquiescence. It is irrevocable, as the voice of the masses +that determine it. Let us listen to the call. Let us organize, my brothers. Let +us organize. Let us organize. Let us organize." +Keating looked at Catherine. There was no Catherine; there was only a white face +dissolving in the sounds of the loudspeaker. It was not that she heard her +uncle; Keating could feel no jealousy of him; he wished he could. It was not +affection. It was something cold and impersonal that left her empty, her will +surrendered and no human will holding hers, but a nameless thing in which she +was being swallowed. +"Let’s get out of here," he whispered. His voice was savage. He was afraid. +She turned to him, as if she were emerging from unconsciousness. He knew that +she was trying to recognize him and everything he implied. She whispered: "Yes. +Let’s get out." They walked through the streets, through the rain, without +direction. It was cold, but they went on, to move, to feel the movement, to know +the sensation of their own muscles moving. +"We’re getting drenched," Keating said at last, as bluntly and naturally as he +could; their silence frightened him; it proved that they both knew the same +thing and that the thing had been real. "Let’s find some place where we can have +a drink." +90 + + "Yes," said Catherine, "let’s. It’s so cold....Isn’t it stupid of me? Now I’ve +missed Uncle’s speech and I wanted so much to hear it." It was all right. She +had mentioned it. She had mentioned it quite naturally, with a healthy amount of +proper regret. The thing was gone. "But I wanted to be with you, Peter...I want +to be with you always." The thing gave a last jerk, not in the meaning of what +she said, but in the reason that had prompted her to say it. Then it was gone, +and Keating smiled; his fingers sought her bare wrist between her sleeve and +glove, and her skin was warm against his.... +Many days later Keating heard the story that was being told all over town. It +was said that on the day after the mass meeting Gail Wynand had given Ellsworth +Toohey a raise in salary. Toohey had been furious and had tried to refuse it. +"You cannot bribe me, Mr. Wynand," he said. "I’m not bribing you," Wynand had +answered; "don’t flatter yourself." +# +When the strike was settled, interrupted construction went forward with a spurt +throughout the city, and Keating found himself spending days and nights at work, +with new commissions pouring into the office. Francon smiled happily at +everybody and gave a small party for his staff, to erase the memory of anything +he might have said. The palatial residence of Mr. and Mrs. Dale Ainsworth on +Riverside Drive, a pet project of Keating’s, done in Late Renaissance and gray +granite, was complete at last. Mr. and Mrs. Dale Ainsworth gave a formal +reception as a housewarming, to which Guy Francon and Peter Keating were +invited, but Lucius N. Heyer was ignored, quite accidentally, as always happened +to him of late. Francon enjoyed the reception, because every square foot of +granite in the house reminded him of the stupendous payment received by a +certain granite quarry in Connecticut. Keating enjoyed the reception, because +the stately Mrs. Ainsworth said to him with a disarming smile: "But I was +certain that you were Mr. Francon’s partner! It’s Francon and Heyer, of course! +How perfectly careless of me! All I can offer by way of excuse is that if you +aren’t his partner, one would certainly say you were entitled to be!" Life in +the office rolled on smoothly, in one of those periods when everything seemed to +go well. +Keating was astonished, therefore, one morning shortly after the Ainsworth +reception, to see Francon arrive at the office with a countenance of nervous +irritation. "Oh, nothing," he waved his hand at Keating impatiently, "nothing at +all." In the drafting room Keating noticed three draftsmen, their heads close +together, bent over a section of the New York Banner, reading with a guilty kind +of avid interest; he heard an unpleasant chuckle from one of them. When they saw +him the paper disappeared, too quickly. He had no time to inquire into this; a +contractor’s job runner was waiting for him in his office, also a stack of mail +and drawings to be approved. +He had forgotten the incident three hours later in a rush of appointments. He +felt light, clear-headed, exhilarated by his own energy. When he had to consult +his library on a new drawing which he wished to compare with its best +prototypes, he walked out of his office, whistling, swinging the drawing gaily. +His motion had propelled him halfway across the reception room, when he stopped +short; the drawing swung forward and flapped back against his knees. He forgot +that it was quite improper for him to pause there like that in the +circumstances. +A young woman stood before the railing, speaking to the reception clerk. Her +slender body seemed out of all scale in relation to a normal human body; its +lines were so long, so fragile, so exaggerated that she looked like a stylized +91 + + drawing of a woman and made the correct proportions of a normal being appear +heavy and awkward beside her. She wore a plain gray suit; the contrast between +its tailored severity and her appearance was deliberately exorbitant--and +strangely elegant. She let the fingertips of one hand rest on the railing, a +narrow hand ending the straight imperious line of her arm. She had gray eyes +that were not ovals, but two long, rectangular cuts edged by parallel lines of +lashes; she had an air of cold serenity and an exquisitely vicious mouth. Her +face, her pale gold hair, her suit seemed to have no color, but only a hint, +just on the verge of the reality of color, making the full reality seem vulgar. +Keating stood still, because he understood for the first time what it was that +artists spoke about when they spoke of beauty. +"I’ll see him now, if I see him at all," she was saying to the reception clerk. +"He asked me to come and this is the only time I have." It was not a command; +she spoke as if it were not necessary for her voice to assume the tones of +commanding. +"Yes, but..." A light buzzed on the clerk’s switchboard; she plugged the +connection through, hastily. "Yes, Mr. Francon..." She listened and nodded with +relief. "Yes, Mr. Francon." She turned to the visitor: "Will you go right in, +please?" +The young woman turned and looked at Keating as she passed him on her way to the +stairs. Her eyes went past him without stopping. Something ebbed from his +stunned admiration. He had had time to see her eyes; they seemed weary and a +little contemptuous, but they left him with a sense of cold cruelty. +He heard her walking up the stairs, and the feeling vanished, but the admiration +remained. He approached the reception clerk eagerly. +"Who was that?" he asked. +The clerk shrugged: +"That’s the boss’s little girl." +"Why, the lucky stiff!" said Keating. "He’s been holding out on me." +"You misunderstood me," the clerk said coldly. "It’s his daughter. It’s +Dominique Francon." +"Oh," said Keating. "Oh, Lord!" +"Yeah?" the girl looked at him sarcastically. "Have you read this morning’s +Banner?" +"No. Why?" +"Read it." +Her switchboard buzzed and she turned away from him. +He sent a boy for a copy of the Banner, and turned anxiously to the column, +"Your House," by Dominique Francon. He had heard that she’d been quite +successful lately with descriptions of the homes of prominent New Yorkers. Her +field was confined to home decoration, but she ventured occasionally into +architectural criticism. Today her subject was the new residence of Mr. and Mrs. +Dale Ainsworth on Riverside Drive. He read, among many other things, the +following: +92 + + "You enter a magnificent lobby of golden marble and you think that this is the +City Hall or the Main Post Office, but it isn’t. It has, however, everything: +the mezzanine with the colonnade and the stairway with a goitre and the +cartouches in the form of looped leather belts. Only it’s not leather, it’s +marble. The dining room has a splendid bronze gate, placed by mistake on the +ceiling, in the shape of a trellis entwined with fresh bronze grapes. There are +dead ducks and rabbits hanging on the wall panels, in bouquets of carrots, +petunias and string beans. I do not think these would have been very attractive +if real, but since they are bad plaster imitations, it is all right....The +bedroom windows face a brick wall, not a very neat wall, but nobody needs to see +the bedrooms....The front windows are large enough and admit plenty of light, as +well as the feet of the marble cupids that roost on the outside. The cupids are +well fed and present a pretty picture to the street, against the severe granite +of the façade; they are quite commendable, unless you just can’t stand to look +at dimpled soles every time you glance out to see whether it’s raining. If you +get tired of it, you can always look out of the central windows of the third +floor, and into the cast-iron rump of Mercury who sits on top of the pediment +over the entrance. It’s a very beautiful entrance. Tomorrow, we shall visit the +home of Mr. and Mrs. Smythe-Pickering." +Keating had designed the house. But he could not help chuckling through his fury +when he thought of what Francon must have felt reading this, and of how Francon +was going to face Mrs. Dale Ainsworth. Then he forgot the house and the article. +He remembered only the girl who had written it. +He picked three sketches at random from his table and started for Francon’s +office to ask his approval of the sketches, which he did not need. +On the stair landing outside Francon’s closed door he stopped. He heard +Francon’s voice behind the door, loud, angry and helpless, the voice he always +heard when Francon was beaten. +"...to expect such an outrage! From my own daughter! I’m used to anything from +you, but this beats it all. What am I going to do? How am I going to explain? Do +you have any kind of a vague idea of my position?" +Then Keating heard her laughing; it was a sound so gay and so cold that he knew +it was best not to go in. He knew he did not want to go in, because he was +afraid again, as he had been when he’d seen her eyes. +He turned and descended the stairs. When he had reached the floor below, he was +thinking that he would meet her, that he would meet her soon and that Francon +would not be able to prevent it now. He thought of it eagerly, laughing in +relief at the picture of Francon’s daughter as he had imagined her for years, +revising his vision of his future; even though he felt dimly that it would be +better if he never met her again. + +10. +RALSTON HOLCOMBE had no visible neck, but his chin took care of that. His chin +and jaws formed an unbroken arc, resting on his chest. His cheeks were pink, +soft to the touch, with the irresilient softness of age, like the skin of a +peach that has been scalded. His rich white hair rose over his forehead and fell +to his shoulders in the sweep of a medieval mane. It left dandruff on the back +of his collar. +93 + + He walked through the streets of New York, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, a dark +business suit, a pale green satin shirt, a vest of white brocade, a huge black +bow emerging from under his chin, and he carried a staff, not a cane, but a tall +ebony staff surmounted by a bulb of solid gold. It was as if his huge body were +resigned to the conventions of a prosaic civilization and to its drab garments, +but the oval of his chest and stomach sallied forth, flying the colors of his +inner soul. +These things were permitted to him, because he was a genius. He was also +president of the Architects’ Guild of America. Ralston Holcombe did not +subscribe to the views of his colleagues in the organization. He was not a +grubbing builder nor a businessman. He was, he stated firmly, a man of ideals. +He denounced the deplorable state of American architecture and the unprincipled +eclecticism of its practitioners. In any period of history, he declared, +architects built in the spirit of their own time, and did not pick designs from +the past; we could be true to history only in heeding her law, which demanded +that we plant the roots of our art firmly in the reality of our own life. He +decried the stupidity of erecting buildings that were Greek, Gothic or +Romanesque; let us, he begged, be modern and build in the style that belongs to +our days. He had found that style. It was Renaissance. +He stated his reasons clearly. Inasmuch, he pointed out, as nothing of great +historical importance had happened in the world since the Renaissance, we should +consider ourselves still living in that period; and all the outward forms of our +existence should remain faithful to the examples of the great masters of the +sixteenth century. +He had no patience with the few who spoke of a modern architecture in terms +quite different from his own; he ignored them; he stated only that men who +wanted to break with all of the past were lazy ignoramuses, and that one could +not put originality above Beauty. His voice trembled reverently on that last +word. He accepted nothing but stupendous commissions. He specialized in the +eternal and the monumental. He built a great many memorials and capitols. He +designed for International Expositions. +He built like a composer improvising under the spur of a mystic guidance. He had +sudden inspirations. He would add an enormous dome to the flat roof of a +finished structure, or encrust a long vault with gold-leaf mosaic, or rip off a +facade of limestone to replace it with marble. His clients turned pale, +stuttered--and paid. His imperial personality carried him to victory in any +encounter with a client’s thrift; behind him stood the stern, unspoken, +overwhelming assertion that he was an Artist. His prestige was enormous. +He came from a family listed in the Social Register. In his middle years he had +married a young lady whose family had not made the Social Register, but made +piles of money instead, in a chewing-gum empire left to an only daughter. +Ralston Holcombe was now sixty-five, to which he added a few years, for the sake +of his friends’ compliments on his wonderful physique; Mrs. Ralston Holcombe was +forty-two, from which she deducted considerably. +Mrs. Ralston Holcombe maintained a salon that met informally every Sunday +afternoon. "Everybody who is anybody in architecture drops in on us," she told +her friends. "They’d better," she added. +On a Sunday afternoon in March, Keating drove to the Holcombe mansion--a +reproduction of a Florentine palazzo--dutifully, but a little reluctantly. He +had been a frequent guest at these celebrated gatherings and he was beginning to +94 + + be bored, for he knew everybody he could expect to find there. He felt, however, +that he had to attend this time, because the occasion was to be in honor of the +completion of one more capitol by Ralston Holcombe in some state or another. +A substantial crowd was lost in the marble ballroom of the Holcombes, scattered +in forlorn islets through an expanse intended for court receptions. The guests +stood about, self-consciously informal, working at being brilliant. Steps rang +against the marble with the echoing sound of a crypt. The flames of tall candles +clashed desolately with the gray of the light from the street; the light made +the candles seem dimmer, the candles gave to the day outside a premonitory tinge +of dusk. A scale model of the new state capitol stood displayed on a pedestal in +the middle of the room, ablaze with tiny electric bulbs. +Mrs. Ralston Holcombe presided over the tea table. Each guest accepted a fragile +cup of transparent porcelain, took two delicate sips and vanished in the +direction of the bar. Two stately butlers went about collecting the abandoned +cups. +Mrs. Ralston Holcombe, as an enthusiastic girl friend had described her, was +"petite, but intellectual." Her diminutive stature was her secret sorrow, but +she had learned to find compensations. She could talk, and did, of wearing +dresses size ten and of shopping in the junior departments. She wore high-school +garments and short socks in summer, displaying spindly legs with hard blue +veins. She adored celebrities. That was her mission in life. She hunted them +grimly; she faced them with wide-eyed admiration and spoke of her own +insignificance, of her humility before achievement; she shrugged, tight-lipped +and rancorous, whenever one of them did not seem to take sufficient account of +her own views on life after death, the theory of relativity, Aztec architecture, +birth control and the movies. She had a great many poor friends and advertised +the fact. If a friend happened to improve his financial position, she dropped +him, feeling that he had committed an act of treason. She hated the wealthy in +all sincerity: they shared her only badge of distinction. She considered +architecture her private domain. She had been christened Constance and found it +awfully clever to be known as "Kiki," a nickname she had forced on her friends +when she was well past thirty. +Keating had never felt comfortable in Mrs. Holcombe’s presence, because she +smiled at him too insistently and commented on his remarks by winking and +saying: "Why, Peter, how naughty of you!" when no such intention had been in his +mind at all. He bowed over her hand, however, this afternoon as usual, and she +smiled from behind the silver teapot. She wore a regal gown of emerald velvet, +and a magenta ribbon in her bobbed hair with a cute little bow in front. Her +skin was tanned and dry, with enlarged pores showing on her nostrils. She handed +a cup to Keating, a square-cut emerald glittering on her finger in the +candlelight. +Keating expressed his admiration for the capitol and escaped to examine the +model. He stood before it for a correct number of minutes, scalding his lips +with the hot liquid that smelled of cloves. Holcombe, who never looked in the +direction of the model and never missed a guest stopping before it, slapped +Keating’s shoulder and said something appropriate about young fellows learning +the beauty of the style of the Renaissance. Then Keating wandered off, shook a +few hands without enthusiasm, and glanced at his wrist watch, calculating the +time when it would be permissible to leave. Then he stopped. +Beyond a broad arch, in a small library, with three young men beside her, he saw +Dominique Francon. +She stood leaning against a column, a cocktail glass in her hand. She wore a +95 + + suit of black velvet; the heavy cloth, which transmitted no light rays, held her +anchored to reality by stopping the light that flowed too freely through the +flesh of her hands, her neck, her face. A white spark of fire flashed like a +cold metallic cross in the glass she held, as if it were a lens gathering the +diffused radiance of her skin. +Keating tore forward and found Francon in the crowd. "Well, Peter!" said Francon +brightly. "Want me to get you a drink? Not so hot," he added, lowering his +voice, "but the Manhattans aren’t too bad." +"No," said Keating, "thanks." +"Entre nous," said Francon, winking at the model of the capitol, "it’s a holy +mess, isn’t it?" +"Yes," said Keating. "Miserable proportions....That dome looks like Holcombe’s +face imitating a sunrise on the roof...." They had stopped in full view of the +library and Keating’s eyes were fixed on the girl in black, inviting Francon to +notice it; he enjoyed having Francon in a trap. +"And the plan! The plan! Do you see that on the second floor...oh," said +Francon, noticing. +He looked at Keating, then at the library, then at Keating again. +"Well," said Francon at last, "don’t blame me afterward. You’ve asked for it. +Come on." +They entered the library together. Keating stopped, correctly, but allowing his +eyes an improper intensity, while Francon beamed with unconvincing cheeriness: +"Dominique, my dear! May I present?--this is Peter Keating, my own right hand. +Peter--my daughter." +"How do you do," said Keating, his voice soft. +Dominique bowed gravely. +"I have waited to meet you for such a long time, Miss Francon." +"This will be interesting," said Dominique. "You will want to be nice to me, of +course, and yet that won’t be diplomatic." +"What do you mean, Miss Francon?" +"Father would prefer you to be horrible with me. Father and I don’t get along at +all." +"Why, Miss Francon, I..." +"I think it’s only fair to tell you this at the beginning. You may want to +redraw some conclusions." He was looking for Francon, but Francon had vanished. +"No," she said softly, "Father doesn’t do these things well at all. He’s too +obvious. You asked him for the introduction, but he shouldn’t have let me notice +that. However, it’s quite all right, since we both admit it. Sit down." +She slipped into a chair and he sat down obediently beside her. The young men +whom he did not know stood about for a few minutes, trying to be included in the +conversation by smiling blankly, then wandered off. Keating thought with relief +96 + + that there was nothing frightening about her; there was only a disquieting +contrast between her words and the candid innocence of the manner she used to +utter them; he did not know which to trust. +"I admit I asked for the introduction," he said. "That’s obvious anyway, isn’t +it? Who wouldn’t ask for it? But don’t you think that the conclusions I’ll draw +may have nothing to do with your father?" +"Don’t say that I’m beautiful and exquisite and like no one you’ve ever met +before and that you’re very much afraid that you’re going to fall in love with +me. You’ll say it eventually, but let’s postpone it. Apart from that, I think +we’ll get along very nicely." +"But you’re trying to make it very difficult for me, aren’t you?" +"Yes. Father should have warned you." +"He did." +"You should have listened. Be very considerate of Father. I’ve met so many of +his own right hands that I was beginning to be skeptical. But you’re the first +one who’s lasted. And who looks like he’s going to last. I’ve heard a great deal +about you. My congratulations." +"I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for years. And I’ve been reading your +column with so much..." He stopped. He knew he shouldn’t have mentioned that; +and, above all, he shouldn’t have stopped. +"So much...?" she asked gently. +"...so much pleasure," he finished, hoping that she would let it go at that. +"Oh, yes," she said. "The Ainsworth house. You designed it. I’m sorry. You just +happened to be the victim of one of my rare attacks of honesty. I don’t have +them often. As you know, if you’re read my stuff yesterday." +"I’ve read it. And--well, I’ll follow your example and I’ll be perfectly frank. +Don’t take it as a complaint--one must never complain against one’s critics. But +really that capitol of Holcombe’s is much worse in all those very things that +you blasted us for. Why did you give him such a glowing tribute yesterday? Or +did you have to?" +"Don’t flatter me. Of course I didn’t have to. Do you think anyone on the paper +pays enough attention to a column on home decoration to care what I say in it? +Besides, I’m not even supposed to write about capitols. Only I’m getting tired +of home decorations." +"Then why did you praise Holcombe?" +"Because that capitol of his is so awful that to pan it would have been an +anticlimax. So I thought it would be amusing to praise it to the sky. It was." +"Is that the way you go about it?" +"That’s the way I go about it. But no one reads my column, except housewives who +can never afford to decorate their homes, so it doesn’t matter at all." +"But what do you really like in architecture?" +97 + + "I don’t like anything in architecture." +"Well, you know of course that I won’t believe that. Why do you write if you +have nothing you want to say?" +"To have something to do. Something more disgusting than many other things I +could do. And more amusing." +"Come on, that’s not a good reason." +"I never have any good reasons." +"But you must be enjoying your work." +"I am. Don’t you see that I am?" +"You know, I’ve actually envied you. Working for a magnificent enterprise like +the Wynand papers. The largest organization in the country, commanding the best +writing talent and..." +"Look," she said, leaning toward him confidentially, "let me help you. If you +had just met Father, and he were working for the Wynand papers, that would be +exactly the right thing to say. But not with me. That’s what I’d expect you to +say and I don’t like to hear what I expect. It would be much more interesting if +you said that the Wynand papers are a contemptible dump heap of yellow +journalism and all their writers put together aren’t worth two bits." +"Is that what you really think of them?" +"Not at all. But I don’t like people who try to say only what they think I +think." +"Thanks. I’ll need your help. I’ve never met anyone...oh, no, of course, that’s +what you didn’t want me to say. But I really meant it about your papers. I’ve +always admired Gail Wynand. I’ve always wished I could meet him. What is he +like?" +"Just what Austen Heller called him--an exquisite bastard." He winced. He +remembered where he had heard Austen Heller say that. The memory of Catherine +seemed heavy and vulgar in the presence of the thin white hand he saw hanging +over the arm of the chair before him. +"But, I mean," he asked, "what’s he like in person?" +"I don’t know. I’ve never met him." +"You haven’t?" +"No." +"Oh, I’ve heard he’s so interesting!" +"Undoubtedly. When I’m in a mood for something decadent I’ll probably meet him." +"Do you know Toohey?" +"Oh," she said. He saw what he had seen in her eyes before, and he did not like +the sweet gaiety of her voice. "Oh, Ellsworth Toohey. Of course I know him. He’s +wonderful. He’s a man I always enjoy talking to. He’s such a perfect +98 + + black-guard." +"Why, Miss Francon! You’re the first person who’s ever..." +"I’m not trying to shock you. I meant all of it. I admire him. He’s so complete. +You don’t meet perfection often in this world one way or the other, do you? And +he’s just that. Sheer perfection in his own way. Everyone else is so unfinished, +broken up into so many different pieces that don’t fit together. But not Toohey. +He’s a monolith. Sometimes, when I feel bitter against the world, I find +consolation in thinking that it’s all right, that I’ll be avenged, that the +world will get what’s coming to it--because there’s Ellsworth Toohey." +"What do you want to be avenged for?" She looked at him, her eyelids lifted for +a moment, so that her eyes did not seem rectangular, but soft and clear. +"That was very clever of you," she said. "That was the first clever thing you’ve +said." +"Why?" +"Because you knew what to pick out of all the rubbish I uttered. So I’ll have to +answer you. I’d like to be avenged for the fact that I have nothing to be +avenged for. Now let’s go on about Ellsworth Toohey." +"Well, I’ve always heard, from everybody, that he’s a sort of saint, the one +pure idealist, utterly incorruptible and..." +"That’s quite true. A plain grafter would be much safer. But Toohey is like a +testing stone for people. You can learn about them by the way they take him." +"Why? What do you actually mean?" She leaned back in her chair, and stretched +her arms down to her knees, twisting her wrists, palms out, the fingers of her +two hands entwined. She laughed easily. +"Nothing that one should make a subject of discussion at a tea party. Kiki’s +right. She hates the sight of me, but she’s got to invite me once in a while. +And I can’t resist coming, because she’s so obvious about not wanting me. You +know, I told Ralston tonight what I really thought of his capitol, but he +wouldn’t believe me. He only beamed and said that I was a very nice little +girl." +"Well, aren’t you?" +"What?" +"A very nice little girl." +"No. Not today. I’ve made you thoroughly uncomfortable. So I’ll make up for it. +I’ll tell you what I think of you, because you’ll be worrying about that. I +think you’re smart and safe and obvious and quite ambitious and you’ll get away +with it. And I like you. I’ll tell Father that I approve of his right hand very +much, so you see you have nothing to fear from the boss’s daughter. Though it +would be better if I didn’t say anything to Father, because my recommendation +would work the other way with him." +"May I tell you only one thing that I think about you?" +"Certainly. Any number of them." +99 + + "I think it would have been better if you hadn’t told me that you liked me. Then +I would have had a better chance of its being true." +She laughed. +"If you understand that," she said, "then we’ll get along beautifully. Then it +might even be true." +Gordon L. Prescott appeared in the arch of the ballroom, glass in hand. He wore +a gray suit and a turtle-neck sweater of silver wool. His boyish face looked +freshly scrubbed, and he had his usual air of soap, tooth paste and the +outdoors. +"Dominique, darling!" he cried, waving his glass. "Hello, Keating," he added +curtly. "Dominique, where have you been hiding yourself? I heard you were here +and I’ve had a hell of a time looking for you!" +"Hello, Gordon," she said. She said it quite correctly; there was nothing +offensive in the quiet politeness of her voice; but following his high note of +enthusiasm, her voice struck a tone that seemed flat and deadly in its +indifference--as if the two sounds mingled into an audible counterpoint around +the melodic thread of her contempt. +Prescott had not heard. "Darling," he said, "you look lovelier every time I see +you. One wouldn’t think it were possible." +"Seventh time," said Dominique. +"What?" +"Seventh time that you’ve said it when meeting me, Gordon. I’m counting them." +"You simply won’t be serious, Dominique. You’ll never be serious." +"Oh, yes, Gordon. I was just having a very serious conversation here with my +friend Peter Keating." +A lady waved to Prescott and he accepted the opportunity, escaping, looking very +foolish. And Keating delighted in the thought that she had dismissed another man +for a conversation she wished to continue with her friend Peter Keating. +But when he turned to her, she asked sweetly: "What was it we were talking +about, Mr. Keating?" And then she was staring with too great an interest across +the room, at the wizened figure of a little man coughing over a whisky glass. +"Why," said Keating, "we were..." +"Oh, there’s Eugene Pettingill. My great favorite. I must say hello to Eugene." +And she was up, moving across the room, her body leaning back as she walked, +moving toward the most unattractive septuagenarian present. +Keating did not know whether he had been made to join the brotherhood of Gordon +L. Prescott, or whether it had been only an accident. +He returned to the ballroom reluctantly. He forced himself to join groups of +guests and to talk. He watched Dominique Francon as she moved through the crowd, +as she stopped in conversation with others. She never glanced at him again. He +could not decide whether he had succeeded with her or failed miserably. +100 + + He managed to be at the door when she was leaving. +She stopped and smiled at him enchantingly. +"No," she said, before he could utter a word, "you can’t take me home. I have a +car waiting. Thank you just the same." +She was gone and he stood at the door, helpless and thinking furiously that he +believed he was blushing. +He felt a soft hand on his shoulder and turned to find Francon beside him. +"Going home, Peter? Let me give you a lift." +"But I thought you had to be at the club by seven." +"Oh, that’s all right, I’ll be a little late, doesn’t matter, I’ll drive you +home, no trouble at all." There was a peculiar expression of purpose on +Francon’s face, quite unusual for him and unbecoming. +Keating followed him silently, amused, and said nothing when they were alone in +the comfortable twilight of Francon’s car. +"Well?" Francon asked ominously. +Keating smiled. "You’re a pig, Guy. You don’t know how to appreciate what you’ve +got. Why didn’t you tell me? She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen." +"Oh, yes," said Francon darkly. "Maybe that’s the trouble." +"What trouble? Where do you see any trouble?" +"What do you really think of her, Peter? Forget the looks. You’ll see how +quickly you’ll forget that. What do you think?" +"Well, I think she has a great deal of character." +"Thanks for the understatement." +Francon was gloomily silent, and then he said with an awkward little note of +something like hope in his voice: +"You know, Peter, I was surprised. I watched you, and you had quite a long chat +with her. That’s amazing. I fully expected her to chase you away with one nice, +poisonous crack. Maybe you could get along with her, after all. I’ve concluded +that you just can’t tell anything about her. Maybe...You know, Peter, what I +wanted to tell you is this: Don’t pay any attention to what she said about my +wanting you to be horrible with her." +The heavy earnestness of that sentence was such a hint that Keating’s lips moved +to shape a soft whistle, but he caught himself in time. Francon added heavily: +"I don’t want you to be horrible with her at all." +"You know, Guy," said Keating, in a tone of patronizing reproach, "you shouldn’t +have run away like that." +"I never know how to speak to her." He sighed. "I’ve never learned to. I can’t +understand what in blazes is the matter with her, but something is. She just +won’t behave like a human being. You know, she’s been expelled from two +101 + + finishing schools. How she ever got through college I can’t imagine, but I can +tell you that I dreaded to open my mail for four solid years, waiting for word +of the inevitable. Then I thought, well, once she’s on her own I’m through and I +don’t have to worry about it, but she’s worse than ever." +"What do you find to worry about?" +"I don’t. I try not to. I’m glad when I don’t have to think of her at all. I +can’t help it, I just wasn’t cut out for a father. But sometimes I get to feel +that it’s my responsibility after all, though God knows I don’t want it, but +still there it is, I should do something about it, there’s no one else to assume +it." +"You’ve let her frighten you, Guy, and really there’s nothing to be afraid of." +"You don’t think so?" +"No." +"Maybe you’re the man to handle her. I don’t regret your meeting her now, and +you know that I didn’t want you to. Yes, I think you’re the one man who could +handle her. You...you’re quite determined--aren’t you, Peter?--when you’re after +something?" +"Well," said Keating, throwing one hand up in a careless gesture, "I’m not +afraid very often." +Then he leaned back against the cushions, as if he were tired, as if he had +heard nothing of importance, and he kept silent for the rest of the drive. +Francon kept silent also. +# +"Boys," said John Erik Snyte, "don’t spare yourselves on this. It’s the most +important thing we’ve had this year. Not much money, you understand, but the +prestige, the connections! If we do land it, won’t some of those great +architects turn green! You see, Austen Heller has told me frankly that we’re the +third firm he’s approached. He would have none of what those big fellows tried +to sell him. So it’s up to us, boys. You know, something different, unusual, but +in good taste, and you know, different. Now do your best." +His five designers sat in a semicircle before him. "Gothic" looked bored and +"Miscellaneous" looked discouraged in advance; "Renaissance" was following the +course of a fly on the ceiling. Roark asked: +"What did he actually say, Mr. Snyte?" +Snyte shrugged and looked at Roark with amusement, as if he and Roark shared a +shameful secret about the new client, not worth mentioning. +"Nothing that makes great sense--quite between us, boys," said Snyte. "He was +somewhat inarticulate, considering his great command of the English language in +print. He admitted he knew nothing about architecture. He didn’t say whether he +wanted it modernistic or period or what. He said something to the effect that he +wanted a house of his own, but he’s hesitated for a long time about building one +because all houses look alike to him and they all look like hell and he doesn’t +see how anyone can become enthusiastic about any house, and yet he has the idea +that he wants a building he could love. ’A building that would mean something’ +is what he said, though he added that he ’didn’t know what or how.’ There. +That’s about all he said. Not much to go on, and I wouldn’t have undertaken to +102 + + submit sketches if it weren’t Austen Heller. But I grant you that it doesn’t +make sense....What’s the matter, Roark?" +"Nothing," said Roark. +This ended the first conference on the subject of a residence for Austen Heller. +Later that day Snyte crowded his five designers into a train, and they went to +Connecticut to see the site Heller had chosen. They stood on a lonely, rocky +stretch of shore, three miles beyond an unfashionable little town; they munched +sandwiches and peanuts, and they looked at a cliff rising in broken ledges from +the ground to end in a straight, brutal, naked drop over the sea, a vertical +shaft of rock forming a cross with the long, pale horizontal of the sea. +"There," said Snyte. "That’s it." He twirled a pencil in his hand. "Damnable, +eh?" He sighed. "I tried to suggest a more respectable location, but he didn’t +take it so well so I had to shut up." He twirled the pencil. "That’s where he +wants the house, right on top of that rock." He scratched the tip of his nose +with the point of the pencil. "I tried to suggest setting it farther back from +the shore and keeping the damn rock for a view, but that didn’t go so well +either." He bit the eraser between the tips of his teeth. "Just think of the +blasting, the leveling one’s got to do on that top." He cleaned his fingernail +with the lead, leaving a black mark. "Well, that’s that....Observe the grade, +and the quality of the stone. The approach will be difficult....I have all the +surveys and the photographs in the office....Well...Who’s got a +cigarette?...Well, I think that’s about all....I’ll help you with suggestions +anytime....Well...What time is that damn train back?" +Thus the five designers were started on their task. Four of them proceeded +immediately at their drawing boards. Roark returned alone to the site, many +times. +Roark’s five months with Snyte stretched behind him like a blank. Had he wished +to ask himself what he had felt, he would have found no answer, save in the fact +that he remembered nothing of these months. He could remember each sketch he had +made. He could, if he tried, remember what had happened to those sketches; he +did not try. +But he had not loved any of them as he loved the house of Austen Heller. He +stayed in the drafting room through evening after evening, alone with a sheet of +paper and the thought of a cliff over the sea. No one saw his sketches until +they were finished. +When they were finished, late one night, he sat at his table, with the sheets +spread before him, sat for many hours, one hand propping his forehead, the other +hanging by his side, blood gathering in the fingers, numbing them, while the +street beyond the window became deep blue, then pale gray. He did not look at +the sketches. He felt empty and very tired. +The house on the sketches had been designed not by Roark, but by the cliff on +which it stood. It was as if the cliff had grown and completed itself and +proclaimed the purpose for which it had been waiting. The house was broken into +many levels, following the ledges of the rock, rising as it rose, in gradual +masses, in planes flowing together up into one consummate harmony. The walls, of +the same granite as the rock, continued its vertical lines upward; the wide, +projecting terraces of concrete, silver as the sea, followed the line of the +waves, of the straight horizon. +Roark was still sitting at his table when the men returned to begin their day in +103 + + the drafting room. Then the sketches were sent to Snyte’s office. +Two days later, the final version of the house to be submitted to Austen Heller, +the version chosen and edited by John Erik Snyte, executed by the Chinese +artist, lay swathed in tissue paper on a table. It was Roark’s house. His +competitors had been eliminated. It was Roark’s house, but its walls were now of +red brick, its windows were cut to conventional size and equipped with green +shutters, two of its projecting wings were omitted, the great cantilevered +terrace over the sea was replaced by a little wrought-iron balcony, and the +house was provided with an entrance of Ionic columns supporting a broken +pediment, and with a little spire supporting a weather vane. +John Erik Snyte stood by the table, his two hands spread in the air over the +sketch, without touching the virgin purity of its delicate colors. +"That is what Mr. Heller had in mind, I’m sure," he said. "Pretty good...Yes, +pretty good...Roark, how many times do I have to ask you not to smoke around a +final sketch? Stand away. You’ll get ashes on it." +Austen Heller was expected at twelve o’clock. But at half past eleven Mrs. +Symington arrived unannounced and demanded to see Mr. Snyte immediately. Mrs. +Symington was an imposing dowager who had just moved into her new residence +designed by Mr. Snyte; besides, Snyte expected a commission for an apartment +house from her brother. He could not refuse to see her and he bowed her into his +office, where she proceeded to state without reticence of expression that the +ceiling of her library had cracked and the bay windows of her drawing room were +hidden under a perpetual veil of moisture which she could not combat. Snyte +summoned his chief engineer and they launched together into detailed +explanations, apologies and damnations of contractors. Mrs. Symington showed no +sign of relenting when a signal buzzed on Snyte’s desk and the reception clerk’s +voice announced Austen Heller. +It would have been impossible to ask Mrs. Symington to leave or Austen Heller to +wait. Snyte solved the problem by abandoning her to the soothing speech of his +engineer and excusing himself for a moment. Then he emerged into the reception +room, shook Heller’s hand and suggested: "Would you mind stepping into the +drafting room, Mr. Heller? Better light in there, you know, and the sketch is +all ready for you, and I didn’t want to take the chance of moving it." +Heller did not seem to mind. He followed Snyte obediently into the drafting +room, a tall, broad-shouldered figure in English tweeds, with sandy hair and a +square face drawn in countless creases around the ironical calm of the eyes. +The sketch lay on the Chinese artist’s table, and the artist stepped aside +diffidently, in silence. The next table was Roark’s. He stood with his back to +Heller; he went on with his drawing, and did not turn. The employees had been +trained not to intrude on the occasions when Snyte brought a client into the +drafting room. +Snyte’s fingertips lifted the tissue paper, as if raising the veil of a bride. +Then he stepped back and watched Heller’s face. Heller bent down and stood +hunched, drawn, intent, saying nothing for a long time. +"Listen, Mr. Snyte," he began at last. "Listen, I think..." and stopped. +Snyte waited patiently, pleased, sensing the approach of something he didn’t +want to disturb. +"This," said Heller suddenly, loudly, slamming his fist down on the drawing, and +104 + + Snyte winced, "this is the nearest anyone’s ever come to it!" +"I knew you’d like it, Mr. Heller," said Snyte. +"I don’t," said Heller. +Snyte blinked and waited. +"It’s so near somehow," said Heller regretfully, "but it’s not right. I don’t +know where, but it’s not. Do forgive me, if this sounds vague, but I like things +at once or I don’t. I know that I wouldn’t be comfortable, for instance, with +that entrance. It’s a lovely entrance, but you won’t even notice it because +you’ve seen it so often." +"Ah, but allow me to point out a few considerations, Mr. Heller. One wants to be +modern, of course, but one wants to preserve the appearance of a home. A +combination of stateliness and coziness, you understand, a very austere house +like this must have a few softening touches. It is strictly correct +architecturally." +"No doubt," said Heller. "I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never been strictly +correct in my life." +"Just let me explain this scheme and you’ll see that it’s..." +"I know," said Heller wearily. "I know. I’m sure you’re right. Only..." His +voice had a sound of the eagerness he wished he could feel. "Only, if it had +some unity, some...some central idea...which is there and isn’t...if it seemed +to live...which it doesn’t...It lacks something and it has too much....If it +were cleaner, more clear-cut...what’s the word I’ve heard used?--if it were +integrated...." +Roark turned. He was at the other side of the table. He seized the sketch, his +hand flashed forward and a pencil ripped across the drawing, slashing raw black +lines over the untouchable water-color. The lines blasted off the Ionic columns, +the pediment, the entrance, the spire, the blinds, the bricks; they flung up two +wings of stone; they rent the windows wide; they splintered the balcony and +hurled a terrace over the sea. +It was being done before the others had grasped the moment when it began. Then +Snyte jumped forward, but Heller seized his wrist and stopped him. Roark’s hand +went on razing walls, splitting, rebuilding in furious strokes. +Roark threw his head up once, for a flash of a second, to look at Heller across +the table. It was all the introduction they needed; it was like a handshake. +Roark went on, and when he threw the pencil down, the house--as he had designed +it--stood completed in an ordered pattern of black streaks. The performance had +not lasted five minutes. +Snyte made an attempt at a sound. As Heller said nothing, Snyte felt free to +whirl on Roark and scream: "You’re fired, God damn you! Get out of here! You’re +fired!" +"We’re both fired," said Austen Heller, winking to Roark. "Come on. Have you had +any lunch? Let’s go some place. I want to talk to you." +Roark went to his locker to get his hat and coat. The drafting room witnessed a +stupefying act and all work stopped to watch it: Austen Heller picked up the +sketch, folded it over four times, cracking the sacred cardboard, and slipped it +105 + + into his pocket. +"But, Mr. Heller..." Snyte stammered, "let me explain...It’s perfectly all right +if that’s what you want, we’ll do the sketch over...let me explain..." +"Not now," said Heller. "Not now." He added at the door: "I’ll send you a +check." +Then Heller was gone, and Roark with him; and the door, as Heller swung it shut +behind them, sounded like the closing paragraph in one of Heller’s articles. +Roark had not said a word. +In the softly lighted booth of the most expensive restaurant that Roark had ever +entered, across the crystal and silver glittering between them, Heller was +saying: +"...because that’s the house I want, because that’s the house I’ve always +wanted. Can you build it for me, draw up the plans and supervise the +construction?" +"Yes," said Roark. +"How long will it take if we start at once?" +"About eight months." +"I’ll have the house by late fall?" +"Yes." +"Just like that sketch?" +"Just like that." +"Look, I have no idea what kind of a contract one makes with an architect and +you must know, so draw up one and let my lawyer okay it this afternoon, will +you?" +"Yes." +Heller studied the man who sat facing him. He saw the hand lying on the table +before him. Heller’s awareness became focused on that hand. He saw the long +fingers, the sharp joints, the prominent veins. He had the feeling that he was +not hiring this man, but surrendering himself into his employment. "How old are +you," asked Heller, "whoever you are?" +"Twenty-six. Do you want any references?" +"Hell, no. I have them, here in my pocket. What’s your name?" +"Howard Roark." +Heller produced a checkbook, spread it open on the table and reached for his +fountain pen. +"Look," he said, writing, "I’ll give you five hundred dollars on account. Get +yourself an office or whatever you have to get, and go ahead." +He tore off the check and handed it to Roark, between the tips of two straight +106 + + fingers, leaning forward on his elbow, swinging his wrist in a sweeping curve. +His eyes were narrowed, amused, watching Roark quizzically. But the gesture had +the air of a salute. +The check was made out to "Howard Roark, Architect." + +11. +HOWARD ROARK opened his own office. +It was one large room on the top of an old building, with a broad window high +over the roofs. He could see the distant band of the Hudson at his window sill, +with the small streaks of ships moving under his fingertips when he pressed them +to the glass. He had a desk, two chairs, and a huge drafting table. The glass +entrance door bore the words: "Howard Roark, Architect." He stood in the hall +for a long time, looking at the words. Then he went in, and slammed his door, he +picked up a T-square from the table and flung it down again, as if throwing an +anchor. +John Erik Snyte had objected. When Roark came to the office for his drawing +instruments Snyte emerged into the reception room, shook his hand warmly and +said: "Well, Roark! Well, how are you? Come in, come right in, I want to speak +to you!" +And with Roark seated before his desk Snyte proceeded loudly: +"Look, fellow, I hope you’ve got sense enough not to hold it against me, +anything that I might’ve said yesterday. You know how it is, I lost my head a +little, and it wasn’t what you did, but that you had to go and do it on that +sketch, that sketch...well, never mind. No hard feelings?" +"No," said Roark. "None at all." +"Of course, you’re not fired. You didn’t take me seriously, did you? You can go +right back to work here this very minute." +"What for, Mr. Snyte?" +"What do you mean, what for? Oh, you’re thinking of the Heller house? But you’re +not taking Heller seriously, are you? You saw how he is, that madman can change +his mind sixty times a minute. He won’t really give you that commission, you +know, it isn’t as simple as that, it isn’t being done that way." +"We’ve signed the contract yesterday." +"Oh, you have? Well, that’s splendid! Well, look, Roark, I’ll tell you what +we’ll do: you bring the commission back to us and I’ll let you put your name on +it with mine--’John Erik Snyte & Howard Roark.’ And we’ll split the fee. That’s +in addition to your salary--and you’re getting a raise, incidentally. Then we’ll +have the same arrangement on any other commission you bring in. And...Lord, man, +what are you laughing at?" +"Excuse me, Mr. Snyte. I’m sorry." +"I don’t believe you understand," said Snyte, bewildered. "Don’t you see? It’s +your insurance. You don’t want to break loose just yet. Commissions won’t fall +into your lap like this. Then what will you do? This way, you’ll have a steady +107 + + job and you’ll be building toward independent practice, if that’s what you’re +after. In four or five years, you’ll be ready to take the leap. That’s the way +everybody does it. You see?" +"Yes." +"Then you agree?" +"No." +"But, good Lord, man, you’ve lost your mind! To set up alone now! Without +experience, without connections, without...well, without anything at all! I +never heard of such a thing. Ask anybody in the profession. See what they’ll +tell you. It’s preposterous!" +"Probably." +"Listen. Roark, won’t you please listen?" +"I’ll listen if you want me to, Mr. Snyte. But I think I should tell you now +that nothing you can say will make any difference. If you don’t mind that, I +don’t mind listening." +Snyte went on speaking for a long time and Roark listened, without objecting, +explaining or answering. +"Well, if that’s how you are, don’t expect me to take you back when you find +yourself on the pavement." +"I don’t expect it, Mr. Snyte." +"Don’t expect anyone else in the profession to take you in, after they hear what +you’ve done to me." +"I don’t expect that either." +For a few days Snyte thought of suing Roark and Heller. But he decided against +it, because there was no precedent to follow under the circumstances: because +Heller had paid him for his efforts, and the house had been actually designed by +Roark; and because no one ever sued Austen Heller. The first visitor to Roark’s +office was Peter Keating. He walked in, without warning, one noon, walked +straight across the room and sat down on Roark’s desk, smiling gaily, spreading +his arms wide in a sweeping gesture: "Well, Howard!" he said. "Well, fancy +that!" He had not seen Roark for a year. "Hello, Peter," said Roark. +"Your own office, your own name and everything! Already! Just imagine!" +"Who told you, Peter?" +"Oh, one hears things. You wouldn’t expect me not to keep track of your career, +now would you? You know what I’ve always thought of you. And I don’t have to +tell you that I congratulate you and wish you the very best." +"No, you don’t have to." +"Nice place you got here. Light and roomy. Not quite as imposing as it should +be, perhaps, but what can one expect at the beginning? And then, the prospects +are uncertain, aren’t they, Howard?" +108 + + "Quite." +"It’s an awful chance that you’ve taken." +"Probably." +"Are you really going to go through with it? I mean, on your +own?" +"Looks that way, doesn’t it?" +"Well, it’s not too late, you know. I thought, when I heard the story, that +you’d surely turn it over to Snyte and make a smart deal with him." +"I didn’t." +"Aren’t you really going to?" +"No." +Keating wondered why he should experience that sickening feeling of resentment; +why he had come here hoping to find the story untrue, hoping to find Roark +uncertain and willing to surrender. That feeling had haunted him ever since he’d +heard the news about Roark; the sensation of something unpleasant that remained +after he’d forgotten the cause. The feeling would come back to him, without +reason, a blank wave of anger, and he would ask himself: now what the +hell?--what was it I heard today? Then he would remember: Oh, yes, +Roark--Roark’s opened his own office. He would ask himself impatiently: So +what?--and know at the same time that the words were painful to face, and +humiliating like an insult. +"You know, Howard, I admire your courage. Really, you know, I’ve had much more +experience and I’ve got more of a standing in the profession, don’t mind my +saying it--I’m only speaking objectively--but I wouldn’t dare take such a step." +"No, you wouldn’t." +"So you’ve made the jump first. Well, well. Who would have thought it?...I wish +you all the luck in the world." +"Thank you, Peter." +"I know you’ll succeed. I’m sure of it." +"Are you?" +"Of course! Of course, I am. Aren’t you?" +"I haven’t thought of it." +"You haven’t thought of it?" +"Not much." +"Then you’re not sure, Howard? You aren’t?" +"Why do you ask that so eagerly?" +109 + + "What? Why...no, not eagerly, but of course, I’m concerned, Howard, it’s bad +psychology not to be certain now, in your position. So you have doubts?" +"None at all." +"But you said..." +"I’m quite sure of things, Peter." +"Have you thought about getting your registration?" +"I’ve applied for it." +"You’ve got no college degree, you know. They’ll make it difficult for you at +the examination." +"Probably." +"What are you going to do if you don’t get the license?" +"I’ll get it." +"Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you now at the A.G.A., if you don’t go high hat on +me, because you’ll be a full-fledged member and I’m only a junior." +"I’m not joining the A.G.A." +"What do you mean, you’re not joining? You’re eligible now." +"Possibly." +"You’ll be invited to join." +"Tell them not to bother." +"What!" +"You know, Peter, we had a conversation just like this seven years ago, when you +tried to talk me into joining your fraternity at Stanton. Don’t start it again." +"You won’t join the A.G.A. when you have a chance to?" +"I won’t join anything, Peter, at any time." +"But don’t you realize how it helps?" +"In what?" +"In being an architect." +"I don’t like to be helped in being an architect." +"You’re just making things harder for yourself." +"I am." +"And it will be plenty hard, you know." +"I know." +110 + + "You’ll make enemies of them if you refuse such an invitation." +"I’ll make enemies of them anyway." +The first person to whom Roark had told the news was Henry Cameron. Roark went +to New Jersey the day after he signed the contract with Heller. It had rained +and he found Cameron in the garden, shuffling slowly down the damp paths, +leaning heavily on a cane. In the past winter, Cameron had improved enough to +walk a few hours each day. He walked with effort, his body bent. +He looked at the first shoots of green on the earth under his feet. He lifted +his cane, once in a while, bracing his legs to stand firm for a moment; with the +tip of the cane, he touched a folded green cup and watched it spill a glistening +drop in the twilight. He saw Roark coming up the hill, and frowned. He had seen +Roark only a week ago, and because these visits meant too much to both of them, +neither wished the occasion to be too frequent. +"Well?" Cameron asked gruffly. "What do you want here again?" +"I have something to tell you." +"It can wait." +"I don’t think so." +"Well?" +"I’m opening my own office. I’ve just signed for my first building." +Cameron rotated his cane, the tip pressed into the earth, the shaft describing a +wide circle, his two hands bearing down on the handle, the palm of one on the +back of the other. His head nodded slowly, in rhythm with the motion, for a long +time, his eyes closed. Then he looked at Roark and said: +"Well, don’t brag about it." +He added: "Help me to sit down." It was the first time Cameron had ever +pronounced this sentence; his sister and Roark had long since learned that the +one outrage forbidden in his presence was any intention of helping him to move. +Roark took his elbow and led him to a bench. Cameron asked harshly, staring +ahead at the sunset: +"What? For whom? How much?" +He listened silently to Roark’s story. He looked for a long time at the sketch +on cracked cardboard with the pencil lines over the watercolor. Then he asked +many questions about the stone, the steel, the roads, the contractors, the +costs. He offered no congratulations. He made no comment. +Only when Roark was leaving, Cameron said suddenly: +"Howard, when you open your office, take snapshots of it--and show them to me." +Then he shook his head, looked away guiltily, and swore. +"I’m being senile. Forget it." +111 + + Roark said nothing. +Three days later he came back. "You’re getting to be a nuisance," said Cameron. +Roark handed him an envelope, without a word. Cameron looked at the snapshots, +at the one of the broad, bare office, of the wide window, of the entrance door. +He dropped the others, and held the one of the entrance door for a long time. +"Well," he said at last, "I did live to see it." +He dropped the snapshot. +"Not quite exactly," he added. "Not in the way I had wanted to, but I did. It’s +like the shadows some say we’ll see of the earth in that other world. Maybe +that’s how I’ll see the rest of it. I’m learning." +He picked up the snapshot. +"Howard," he said. "Look at it." +He held it between them. +"It doesn’t say much. Only ’Howard Roark, Architect.’ But it’s like those +mottoes men carved over the entrance of a castle and died for. It’s a challenge +in the face of something so vast and so dark, that all the pain on earth--and do +you know how much suffering there is on earth?--all the pain comes from that +thing you are going to face. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it should +be unleashed against you. I know only that it will be. And I know that if you +carry these words through to the end, it will be a victory, Howard, not just for +you, but for something that should win, that moves the world--and never wins +acknowledgment. It will vindicate so many who have fallen before you, who have +suffered as you will suffer. May God bless you--or whoever it is that is alone +to see the best, the highest possible to human hearts. You’re on your way into +hell, Howard." +# +Roark walked up the path to the top of the cliff where the steel hulk of the +Heller house rose into a blue sky. The skeleton was up and the concrete was +being poured; the great mats of the terraces hung over the silver sheet of water +quivering far below; plumbers and electricians had started laying their +conduits. +He looked at the squares of sky delimited by the slender lines of girders and +columns, the empty cubes of space he had torn out of the sky. His hands moved +involuntarily, filling in the planes of walls to come, enfolding the future +rooms. A stone clattered from under his feet and went bouncing down the hill, +resonant drops of sound rolling in the sunny clarity of the summer air. +He stood on the summit, his legs planted wide apart, leaning back against space. +He looked at the materials before him, the knobs of rivets in steel, the sparks +in blocks of stone, the weaving spirals in fresh, yellow planks. +Then he saw a husky figure enmeshed in electric wires, a bulldog face spreading +into a huge grin and china-blue eyes gloating in a kind of unholy triumph. +"Mike!" he said incredulously. +Mike had left for a big job in Philadelphia months ago, long before the +appearance of Heller in Snyte’s office, and Mike had never heard the news--or so +he supposed. +112 + + "Hello, Red," said Mike, much too casually, and added: "Hello, boss." +"Mike, how did you...?" +"You’re a hell of an architect. Neglecting the job like that. It’s my third day +here, waiting for you to show up." +"Mike, how did you get here? Why such a come-down?" He had never known Mike to +bother with small private residences. +"Don’t play the sap. You know how I got here. You didn’t think I’d miss it, your +first house, did you? And you think it’s a come-down? Well, maybe it is. And +maybe it’s the other way around." +Roark extended his hand and Mike’s grimy fingers closed about it ferociously, as +if the smudges he left implanted in Roark’s skin said everything he wanted to +say. And because he was afraid that he might say it, Mike growled: +"Run along, boss, run along. Don’t clog up the works like that." +Roark walked through the house. There were moments when he could be precise, +impersonal, and stop to give instructions as if this were not his house but only +a mathematical problem; when he felt the existence of pipes and rivets, while +his own person vanished. +There were moments when something rose within him, not a thought nor a feeling, +but a wave of some physical violence, and then he wanted to stop, to lean back, +to feel the reality of his person heightened by the frame of steel that rose +dimly about the bright, outstanding existence of his body as its center. He did +not stop. He went on calmly. But his hands betrayed what he wanted to hide. His +hands reached out, ran slowly down the beams and joints. The workers in the +house had noticed it. They said: "That guy’s in love with the thing. He can’t +keep his hands off." +The workers liked him. The contractor’s superintendents did not. He had had +trouble in finding a contractor to erect the house. Several of the better firms +had refused the commission. "We don’t do that kinda stuff." +"Nan, we won’t bother. Too complicated for a small job like that." +"Who the hell wants that kind of house? Most likely we’ll never collect from the +crank afterwards. To hell with it." +"Never did anything like it. Wouldn’t know how to go about it. I’ll stick to +construction that is construction." One contractor had looked at the plans +briefly and thrown them aside, declaring with finality: "It won’t stand." +"It will," said Roark. The contractor drawled indifferently. "Yeah? And who are +you to tell me, Mister?" +He had found a small firm that needed the work and undertook it, charging more +than the job warranted--on the ground of the chance they were taking with a +queer experiment. The construction went on, and the foremen obeyed sullenly, in +disapproving silence, as if they were waiting for their predictions to come true +and would be glad when the house collapsed about their heads. Roark had bought +an old Ford and drove down to the job more often than was necessary. It was +difficult to sit at a desk in his office, to stand at a table, forcing himself +to stay away from the construction site. At the site there were moments when he +113 + + wished to forget his office and his drawing board, to seize the men’s tools and +go to work on the actual erection of the house, as he had worked in his +childhood, to build that house with his own hands. +He walked through the structure, stepping lightly over piles of planks and coils +of wire, he made notes, he gave brief orders in a harsh voice. He avoided +looking in Mike’s direction. But Mike was watching him, following his progress +through the house. Mike winked at him in understanding, whenever he passed by. +Mike said once: +"Control yourself, Red. You’re open like a book. God, it’s indecent to be so +happy!" +Roark stood on the cliff, by the structure, and looked at the countryside, at +the long, gray ribbon of the road twisting past along the shore. An open car +drove by, fleeing into the country. The car was overfilled with people bound for +a picnic. There was a jumble of bright sweaters, and scarves fluttering in the +wind; a jumble of voices shrieking without purpose over the roar of the motor, +and overstressed hiccoughs of laughter; a girl sat sidewise, her legs flung over +the side of the car; she wore a man’s straw hat slipping down to her nose and +she yanked savagely at the strings of a ukulele, ejecting raucous sounds, +yelling "Hey!" These people were enjoying a day of their existence; they were +shrieking to the sky their release from the work and the burdens of the days +behind them; they had worked and carried the burdens in order to reach a +goal--and this was the goal. +He looked at the car as it streaked past. He thought that there was a +difference, some important difference, between the consciousness of this day in +him and in them. He thought that he should try to grasp it. But he forgot. He +was looking at a truck panting up the hill, loaded with a glittering mound of +cut granite. +# +Austen Heller came to look at the house frequently, and watched it grow, +curious, still a little astonished. He studied Roark and the house with the same +meticulous scrutiny; he felt as if he could not quite tell them apart. +Heller, the fighter against compulsion, was baffled by Roark, a man so +impervious to compulsion that he became a kind of compulsion himself, an +ultimatum against things Heller could not define. Within a week, Heller knew +that he had found the best friend he would ever have; and he knew that the +friendship came from Roark’s fundamental indifference. In the deeper reality of +Roark’s existence there was no consciousness of Heller, no need for Heller, no +appeal, no demand. Heller felt a line drawn, which he could not touch; beyond +that line, Roark asked nothing of him and granted him nothing. But when Roark +looked at him with approval, when Roark smiled, when Roark praised one of his +articles, Heller felt the strangely clean joy of a sanction that was neither a +bribe nor alms. +In the summer evenings they sat together on a ledge halfway up the hill, and +talked while darkness mounted slowly up the beams of the house above them, the +last sunrays retreating to the tips of the steel uprights. +"What is it that I like so much about the house you’re building for me, Howard?" +"A house can have integrity, just like a person," said Roark, "and just as +seldom." +"In what way?" +114 + + "Well, look at it. Every piece of it is there because the house needs it--and +for no other reason. You see it from here as it is inside. The rooms in which +you’ll live made the shape. The relation of masses was determined by the +distribution of space within. The ornament was determined by the method of +construction, an emphasis of the principle that makes it stand. You can see each +stress, each support that meets it. Your own eyes go through a structural +process when you look at the house, you can follow each step, you see it rise, +you know what made it and why it stands. But you’ve seen buildings with columns +that support nothing, with purposeless cornices, with pilasters, moldings, false +arches, false windows. You’ve seen buildings that look as if they contained a +single large hall, they have solid columns and single, solid windows six floors +high. But you enter and find six stories inside. Or buildings that contain a +single hall, but with a facade cut up into floor lines, band courses, tiers of +windows. Do you understand the difference? Your house is made by its own needs. +Those others are made by the need to impress. The determining motive of your +house is in the house. The determining motive of the others is in the audience." +"Do you know that that’s what I’ve felt in a way? I’ve felt that when I move +into this house, I’ll have a new sort of existence, and even my simple daily +routine will have a kind of honesty or dignity that I can’t quite define. Don’t +be astonished if I tell you that I feel as if I’ll have to live up to that +house." +"I intended that," said Roark. +"And, incidentally, thank you for all the thought you seem to have taken about +my comfort. There are so many things I notice that had never occurred to me +before, but you’ve planned them as if you knew all my needs. For instance, my +study is the room I’ll need most and you’ve given it the dominant spot--and, +incidentally, I see where you’ve made it the dominant mass from the outside, +too. And then the way it connects with the library, and the living room well out +of my way, and the guest rooms where I won’t hear too much of them--and all +that. You were very considerate of me." +"You know," said Roark. "I haven’t thought of you at all. I thought of the +house." He added: "Perhaps that’s why I knew how to be considerate of you." +# +The Heller house was completed in November of 1926. +In January of 1927 the Architectural Tribune published a survey of the best +American homes erected during the past year. It devoted twelve large, glossy +pages to photographs of the twenty-four houses its editors had selected as the +worthiest architectural achievements. The Heller house was not mentioned. +The real-estate sections of the New York papers presented, each Sunday, brief +accounts of the notable new residences in the vicinity. There was no account of +the Heller house. +The year book of the Architects’ Guild of America, which presented magnificent +reproductions of what it chose as the best buildings of the country, under the +title "Looking Forward," gave no reference to the Heller house. +There were many occasions when lecturers rose to platforms and addressed trim +audiences on the subject of the progress of American architecture. No one spoke +of the Heller house. +In the club rooms of the A.G.A. some opinions were expressed. +115 + + "It’s a disgrace to the country," said Ralston Holcombe, "that a thing like that +Heller house is allowed to be erected. It’s a blot on the profession. There +ought to be a law." +"That’s what drives clients away," said John Erik Snyte. "They see a house like +that and they think all architects are crazy." +"I see no cause for indignation," said Gordon L. Prescott. "I think it’s +screamingly funny. It looks like a cross between a filling station and a +comic-strip idea of a rocket ship to the moon." +"You watch it in a couple of years," said Eugene Pettingill, "and see what +happens. The thing’ll collapse like a house of cards." +"Why speak in terms of years?" said Guy Francon. "Those modernistic stunts never +last more than a season. The owner will get good and sick of it and he’ll come +running home to a good old early Colonial." +The Heller house acquired fame throughout the countryside surrounding it. People +drove out of their way to park on the road before it, to stare, point and +giggle. Gas-station attendants snickered when Heller’s car drove past. Heller’s +cook had to endure the derisive glances of shopkeepers when she went on her +errands. The Heller house was known in the neighborhood as "The Booby Hatch." +Peter Keating told his friends in the profession, with an indulgent smile: "Now, +now, you shouldn’t say that about him. I’ve known Howard Roark for a long time, +and he’s got quite a talent, quite. He’s even worked for me once. He’s just gone +haywire on that house. He’ll learn. He has a future....Oh, you don’t think he +has? You really don’t think he has?" +Ellsworth M. Toohey, who let no stone spring from the ground of America without +his comment, did not know that the Heller house had been erected, as far as his +column was concerned. He did not consider it necessary to inform his readers +about it, if only to damn it. He said nothing. + +12. +A COLUMN entitled "Observations and Meditations" by Alvah Scarret appeared daily +on the front page of the New York Banner. It was a trusted guide, a source of +inspiration and a molder of public philosophy in small towns throughout the +country. In this column there had appeared, years ago, the famous statement: +"We’d all be a heap sight better off if we’d forget the highfalutin notions of +our fancy civilization and mind more what the savages knew long before us: to +honor our mother." Alvah Scarret was a bachelor, had made two millions dollars, +played golf expertly and was editor-in-chief of the Wynand papers. +It was Alvah Scarret who conceived the idea of the campaign against living +conditions in the slums and "Landlord Sharks," which ran in the Banner for three +weeks. This was material such as Alvah Scarret relished. It had human appeal and +social implications. It lent itself to Sunday-supplement illustrations of girls +leaping into rivers, their skirts flaring well above their knees. It boosted +circulation. It embarrassed the sharks who owned a stretch of blocks by the East +River, selected as the dire example of the campaign. The sharks had refused to +sell these blocks to an obscure real-estate company; at the end of the campaign +they surrendered and sold. No one could prove that the real-estate company was +owned by a company owned by Gail Wynand. +116 + + The Wynand papers could not be left without a campaign for long. They had just +concluded one on the subject of modern aviation. They had run scientific +accounts of the history of aviation in the Sunday Family Magazine supplement, +with pictures ranging from Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of flying machines to +the latest bomber; with the added attraction of Icarus writhing in scarlet +flames, his nude body blue-green, his wax wings yellow and the smoke purple; +also of a leprous hag with flaming eyes and a crystal ball, who had predicted in +the XIth century that man would fly; also of bats, vampires and werewolves. +They had run a model plane construction contest; it was open to all boys under +the age of ten who wished to send in three new subscriptions to the Banner. Gail +Wynand, who was a licensed pilot, had made a solo flight from Los Angeles to New +York, establishing a transcontinental speed record, in a small, specially built +craft costing one hundred thousand dollars. He had made a slight miscalculation +on reaching New York and had been forced to land in a rocky pasture; it had been +a hair-raising landing, faultlessly executed; it had just so happened that a +battery of photographers from the Banner were present in the neighborhood. Gail +Wynand had stepped out of the plane. An ace pilot would have been shaken by the +experience. Gail Wynand had stood before the cameras, an immaculate gardenia in +the lapel of his flying jacket, his hand raised with a cigarette held between +two fingers that did not tremble. When questioned about his first wish on +returning to earth, he had expressed the desire to kiss the most attractive +woman present, had chosen the dowdiest old hag from the crowd and bent to kiss +her gravely on the forehead, explaining that she reminded him of his mother. +Later, at the start of the slum campaign, Gail Wynand had said to Alvah Scarret; +"Go ahead. Squeeze all you can out of the thing," and had departed on his yacht +for a world cruise, accompanied by an enchanting aviatrix of twenty-four to whom +he had made a present of his transcontinental plane. +Alvah Scarret went ahead. Among many other steps of his campaign he assigned +Dominique Francon to investigate the condition of homes in the slums and to +gather human material. Dominique Francon had just returned from a summer in +Biarritz; she always took a whole summer’s vacation and Alvah Scarret granted +it, because she was one of his favorite employees, because he was baffled by her +and because he knew that she could quit her job whenever she pleased. +Dominique Francon went to live for two weeks in the hall bedroom of an East-Side +tenement. The room had a skylight, but no windows; there were five flights of +stairs to climb and no running water. She cooked her own meals in the kitchen of +a numerous family on the floor below; she visited neighbors, she sat on the +landings of fire escapes in the evenings and went to dime movies with the girls +of the neighborhood. +She wore frayed skirts and blouses. The abnormal fragility of her normal +appearance made her look exhausted with privation in these surroundings; the +neighbors felt certain that she had TB. But she moved as she had moved in the +drawing room of Kiki Holcombe--with the same cold poise and confidence. She +scrubbed the floor of her room, she peeled potatoes, she bathed in a tin pan of +cold water. She had never done these things before; she did them expertly. She +had a capacity for action, a competence that clashed incongruously with her +appearance. She did not mind this new background; she was indifferent to the +slums as she had been indifferent to the drawing rooms. +At the end of two weeks she returned to her penthouse apartment on the roof of a +hotel over Central Park, and her articles on life in the slums appeared in the +Banner. They were a merciless, brilliant account. +117 + + She heard baffled questions at a dinner party. "My dear, you didn’t actually +write those things?" +"Dominique, you didn’t really live in that place?" +"Oh, yes," she answered. "The house you own on East Twelfth Street, Mrs. +Palmer," she said, her hand circling lazily from under the cuff of an emerald +bracelet too broad and heavy for her thin wrist, "has a sewer that gets clogged +every other day and runs over, all through the courtyard. It looks blue and +purple in the sun, like a rainbow." +"The block you control for the Claridge estate, Mr. Brooks, has the most +attractive stalactites growing on all the ceilings," she said, her golden head +leaning to her corsage of white gardenias with drops of water sparkling on the +lusterless petals. +She was asked to speak at a meeting of social workers. It was an important +meeting, with a militant, radical mood, led by some of the most prominent women +in the field. Alvah Scarret was pleased and gave her his blessing. "Go to it, +kid," he said, "lay it on thick. We want the social workers." She stood in the +speaker’s pulpit of an unaired hall and looked at a flat sheet of faces, faces +lecherously eager with the sense of their own virtue. She spoke evenly, without +inflection. She said, among many other things: "The family on the first floor +rear do not bother to pay their rent, and the children cannot go to school for +lack of clothes. The father has a charge account at a corner speak-easy. He is +in good health and has a good job....The couple on the second floor have just +purchased a radio for sixty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents cash. In the +fourth floor front, the father of the family has not done a whole day’s work in +his life, and does not intend to. There are nine children, supported by the +local parish. There is a tenth one on its way..." When she finished there were a +few claps of angry applause. She raised her hand and said: "You don’t have to +applaud. I don’t expect it." She asked politely: "Are there any questions?" +There were no questions. +When she returned home she found Alvah Scarret waiting for her. He looked +incongruous in the drawing room of her penthouse, his huge bulk perched on the +edge of a delicate chair, a hunched gargoyle against the glowing spread of the +city beyond a solid wall of glass. The city was like a mural designed to +illuminate and complete the room: the fragile lines of spires on a black sky +continued the fragile lines of the furniture; the lights glittering in distant +windows threw reflections on the bare, lustrous floor; the cold precision of the +angular structures outside answered the cold, inflexible grace of every object +within. Alvah Scarret broke the harmony. He looked like a kindly country doctor +and like a cardsharp. His heavy face bore the benevolent, paternal smile that +had always been his passkey and his trademark. He had the knack of making the +kindliness of his smile add to, not detract from his solemn appearance of +dignity; his long, thin, hooked nose did detract from the kindliness, but it +added to the dignity; his stomach, cantilevered over his legs, did detract from +the dignity, but it added to the kindliness. He rose, beamed and held +Dominique’s hand. "Thought I’d drop in on my way home," he said. "I’ve got +something to tell you. How did it go, kid?" +"As I expected it." +She tore her hat off and threw it down on the first chair in sight. Her hair +slanted in a flat curve across her forehead and fell in a straight line to her +shoulders; it looked smooth and tight, like a bathing cap of pale, polished +metal. She walked to the window and stood looking out over the city. She asked +without turning: "What did you want to tell me?" +118 + + Alvah Scarret watched her pleasurably. He had long since given up any attempts +beyond holding her hand when not necessary or patting her shoulder; he had +stopped thinking of the subject, but he had a dim, half-conscious feeling which +he summed up to himself in the words: You never can tell. +"I’ve got good news for you, child," he said. "I’ve been working out a little +scheme, just a bit of reorganization, and I’ve figured where I’ll consolidate a +few things together into a Women’s Welfare Department. You know, the schools, +the home economics, the care of babies, the juvenile delinquents and all the +rest of it--all to be under one head. And I see no better woman for the job than +my little girl." +"Do you mean me?" she asked, without turning. +"No one else but. Just as soon as Gail comes back, I’ll get his okay." +She turned and looked at him, her arms crossed, her hands holding her elbows. +She said: +"Thank you, Alvah. But I don’t want it." +"What do you mean, you don’t want it?" +"I mean that I don’t want it." +"For heaven’s sake, do you realize what an advance that would be?" +"Toward what?" +"Your career." +"I never said I was planning a career." +"But you don’t want to be running a dinky back-page column forever!" +"Not forever. Until I get bored with it." +"But think of what you could do in the real game! Think of what Gail could do +for you once you come to his attention!" +"I have no desire to come to his attention." +"But, Dominique, we need you. The women will be for you solid after tonight." +"I don’t think so." +"Why, I’ve ordered two columns held for a yarn on the meeting and your speech." +She reached for the telephone and handed the receiver to him. She said: +"You’d better tell them to kill it." +"Why?" +She searched through a litter of papers on a desk, found some typewritten sheets +and handed them to him. "Here’s the speech I made tonight," she said. +He glanced through it. He said nothing, but clasped his forehead once. Then he +119 + + seized the telephone and gave orders to run as brief an account of the meeting +as possible, and not to mention the speaker by name. +"All right," said Dominique, when he dropped the receiver. "Am I fired?" +He shook his head dolefully. "Do you want to be?" +"Not necessarily." +"I’ll squash the business," he muttered. "I’ll keep it from Gail." +"If you wish. I don’t really care one way or the other." +"Listen, Dominique--oh I know, I’m not to ask any questions--only why on earth +are you always doing things like that?" +"For no reason on earth." +"Look, you know, I’ve heard about that swank dinner where you made certain +remarks on this same subject. And then you go and say things like these at a +radical meeting." +"They’re true, though, both sides of it, aren’t they?" +"Oh, sure, but couldn’t you have reversed the occasions when you chose to +express them?" +"There wouldn’t have been any point in that." +"Was there any in what you’ve done?" +"No. None at all. But it amused me." +"I can’t figure you out, Dominique. You’ve done it before. You go along so +beautifully, you do brilliant work and just when you’re about to make a real +step forward--you spoil it by pulling something like this. Why?" +"Perhaps that is precisely why." +"Will you tell me--as a friend, because I like you and I’m interested in +you--what are you really after?" +"I should think that’s obvious. I’m after nothing at all." +He spread his hands open, shrugging helplessly. +She smiled gaily. +"What is there to look so mournful about? I like you, too, Alvah, and I’m +interested in you. I even like to talk to you, which is better. Now sit still +and relax and I’ll get you a drink. You need a drink, Alvah." +She brought him a frosted glass with ice cubes ringing in the silence. "You’re +just a nice child, Dominique," he said. +"Of course. That’s what I am." +She sat down on the edge of a table, her hands flat behind her, leaning back on +two straight arms, swinging her legs slowly. She said: +120 + + "You know, Alvah, it would be terrible if I had a job I really wanted." +"Well, of all things! Well, of all fool things to say! What do you mean?" +"Just that. That it would be terrible to have a job I enjoyed and did not want +to lose." +"Why?" +"Because I would have to depend on you--you’re a wonderful person, Alvah, but +not exactly inspiring and I don’t think it would be beautiful to cringe before a +whip in your hand--oh, don’t protest, it would be such a polite little whip, and +that’s what would make it uglier. I would have to depend on our boss Gail--he’s +a great man, I’m sure, only I’d just as soon never set eyes on him." +"Whatever gives you such a crazy attitude? When you know that Gail and I would +do anything for you, and I personally..." +"It’s not only that, Alvah. It’s not you alone. If I found a job, a project, an +idea or a person I wanted--I’d have to depend on the whole world. Everything has +strings leading to everything else. We’re all so tied together. We’re all in a +net, the net is waiting, and we’re pushed into it by one single desire. You want +a thing and it’s precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it +out of your hands? You can’t know, it may be so involved and so far away, but +someone is ready, and you’re afraid of them all. And you cringe and you crawl +and you beg and you accept them--just so they’ll let you keep it. And look at +whom you come to accept." +"If I’m correct in gathering that you’re criticizing mankind in general..." +"You know, it’s such a peculiar thing--our idea of mankind in general. We all +have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big +and important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in our +lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you’d feel big and solemn about? There’s +nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who write dirty +words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual equivalent. +As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They +have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they’re enjoying +themselves? That’s when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money +they’ve slaved for--at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who’re rich +and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. +Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That’s your mankind in general. I don’t +want to touch it." +"But hell! That’s not the way to look at it. That’s not the whole picture. +There’s some good in the worst of us. There’s always a redeeming feature." +"So much the worse. Is it an inspiring sight to see a man commit a heroic +gesture, and then learn that he goes to vaudeville shows for relaxation? Or see +a man who’s painted a magnificent canvas--and learn that he spends his time +sleeping with every slut he meets?" +"What do you want? Perfection?" +"--or nothing. So, you see, I take the nothing." +"That doesn’t make sense." +121 + + "I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom." +"You call that freedom?" +"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing." +"What if you found something you wanted?" +"I won’t find it. I won’t choose to see it. It would be part of that lovely +world of yours. I’d have to share it with all the rest of you--and I wouldn’t. +You know, I never open again any great book I’ve read and loved. It hurts me to +think of the other eyes that have read it and of what they were. Things like +that can’t be shared. Not with people like that." +"Dominique, it’s abnormal to feel so strongly about anything." +"That’s the only way I can feel. Or not at all." +"Dominique, my dear," he said, with earnest, sincere concern, "I wish I’d been +your father. What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood?" +"Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not +bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I’m +used to that." +"I suppose you’re just an unfortunate product of our times. That’s what I’ve +always said. We’re too cynical, too decadent. If we went back in all humility to +the simple virtues..." +"Alvah, how can you start on that stuff? That’s only for your editorials and..." +She stopped, seeing his eyes; they looked puzzled and a little hurt. Then she +laughed. "I’m wrong. You really do believe all that. If it’s actually believing, +or whatever it is you do that takes its place. Oh, Alvah! That’s why I love you. +That’s why I’m doing again right now what I did tonight at the meeting." +"What?" he asked, bewildered. +"Talking as I am talking--to you as you are. It’s nice, talking to you about +such things. Do you know, Alvah, that primitive people made statues of their +gods in man’s likeness? Just think of what a statue of you would look like--of +you nude, your stomach and all." +"Now what’s that in relation to?" +"To nothing at all, darling. Forgive me." She added: "You know, I love statues +of naked men. Don’t look so silly. I said statues. I had one in particular. It +was supposed to be Helios. I got it out of a museum in Europe. I had a terrible +time getting it--it wasn’t for sale, of course. I think I was in love with it, +Alvah. I brought it home with me." +"Where is it? I’d like to see something you like, for a change." +"It’s broken." +"Broken? A museum piece? How did that happen?" +"I broke it." +"How?" +122 + + "I threw it down the air shaft. There’s a concrete floor below." +"Are you totally crazy? Why?" +"So that no one else would ever see it." +"Dominique!" +She jerked her head, as if to shake off the subject; the straight mass of her +hair stirred in a heavy ripple, like a wave through a half-liquid pool of +mercury. She said: +"I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t want to shock you. I thought I could speak to you +because you’re the one person who’s impervious to any sort of shock. I shouldn’t +have. It’s no use, I guess." +She jumped lightly off the table. +"Run on home, Alvah," she said. "It’s getting late. I’m tired. See you +tomorrow." +# +Guy Francon read his daughter’s articles; he heard of the remarks she had made +at the reception and at the meeting of social workers. He understood nothing of +it, but he understood that it had been precisely the sequence of events to +expect from his daughter. It preyed on his mind, with the bewildered feeling of +apprehension which the thought of her always brought him. He asked himself +whether he actually hated his daughter. +But one picture came back to his mind, irrelevantly, whenever he asked himself +that question. It was a picture of her childhood, of a day from some forgotten +summer on his country estate in Connecticut long ago. He had forgotten the rest +of that day and what had led to the one moment he remembered. But he remembered +how he stood on the terrace and saw her leaping over a high green hedge at the +end of the lawn. The hedge seemed too high for her little body; he had time to +think that she could not make it, in the very moment when he saw her flying +triumphantly over the green barrier. He could not remember the beginning nor the +end of that leap; but he still saw, clearly and sharply, as on a square of movie +film cut out and held motionless forever, the one instant when her body hung in +space, her long legs flung wide, her thin arms thrown up, hands braced against +the air, her white dress and blond hair spread in two broad, flat mats on the +wind, a single moment, the flash of a small body in the greatest burst of +ecstatic freedom he had ever witnessed in his life. +He did not know why that moment remained with him, what significance, unheeded +at the time, had preserved it for him when so much else of greater import had +been lost. He did not know why he had to see that moment again whenever he felt +bitterness for his daughter, nor why, seeing it, he felt that unbearable twinge +of tenderness. He told himself merely that his paternal affection was asserting +itself quite against his will. But in an awkward, unthinking way he wanted to +help her, not knowing, not wanting to know what she had to be helped against. +So he began to look more frequently at Peter Keating. He began to accept the +solution which he never quite admitted to himself. He found comfort in the +person of Peter Keating, and he felt that Keating’s simple, stable wholesomeness +was just the support needed by the unhealthy inconstancy of his daughter. +Keating would not admit that he had tried to see Dominique again, persistently +123 + + and without results. He had obtained her telephone number from Francon long ago, +and he had called her often. She had answered, and laughed gaily, and told him +that of course she’d see him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to escape it, but +she was so busy for weeks to come and would he give her a ring by the first of +next month? +Francon guessed it. He told Keating he would ask Dominique to lunch and bring +them together again. "That is," he added, "I’ll try to ask her. She’ll refuse, +of course." Dominique surprised him again: she accepted, promptly and +cheerfully. +She met them at a restaurant, and she smiled as if this were a reunion she +welcomed. She talked gaily, and Keating felt enchanted, at ease, wondering why +he had ever feared her. At the end of a half hour she looked at Francon and +said: +"It was wonderful of you to take time off to see me, Father. Particularly when +you’re so busy and have so many appointments." +Francon’s face assumed a look of consternation. "My God, Dominique, that reminds +me!" +"You have an appointment you forgot?" she asked gently. "Confound it, yes! It +slipped my mind entirely. Old Andrew Colson phoned this morning and I forgot to +make a note of it and he insisted on seeing me at two o’clock, you know how it +is, I just simply can’t refuse to see Andrew Colson, confound it!--today of +all..." He added, suspiciously: "How did you know it?" +"Why, I didn’t know it at all. It’s perfectly all right, Father. Mr. Keating and +I will excuse you, and we’ll have a lovely luncheon together, and I have no +appointments at all for the day, so you don’t have to be afraid that I’ll escape +from him." +Francon wondered whether she knew that that had been the excuse he’d prepared in +advance in order to leave her alone with Keating. He could not be sure. She was +looking straight at him; her eyes seemed just a bit too candid. He was glad to +escape. +Dominique turned to Keating with a glance so gentle that it could mean nothing +but contempt. +"Now let’s relax," she said. "We both know what Father is after, so it’s +perfectly all right. Don��t let it embarrass you. It doesn’t embarrass me. It’s +nice that you’ve got Father on a leash. But I know it’s not helpful to you to +have him pulling ahead of the leash. So let’s forget it and eat our lunch." +He wanted to rise and walk out; and knew, in furious helplessness, that he +wouldn’t. She said: +"Don’t frown, Peter. You might as well call me Dominique, because we’ll come to +that anyway, sooner or later. I’ll probably see a great deal of you, I see so +many people, and if it will please Father to have you as one of them--why not?" +For the rest of the luncheon she spoke to him as to an old friend, gaily and +openly; with a disquieting candor which seemed to show that there was nothing to +conceal, but showed that it was best to attempt no probe. The exquisite +kindliness of her manner suggested that their relationship was of no possible +consequence, that she could not pay him the tribute of hostility. He knew that +he disliked her violently. But he watched the shape of her mouth, the movements +124 + + of her lips framing words; he watched the way she crossed her legs, a gesture +smooth and exact, like an expensive instrument being folded; and he could not +escape the feeling of incredulous admiration he had experienced when he had seen +her for the first time. When they were leaving, she said: +"Will you take me to the theater tonight, Peter? I don’t care what play, any one +of them. Call for me after dinner. Tell Father about it. It will please him." +"Though, of course, he should know better than to be pleased," said Keating, +"and so should I, but I’ll be delighted just the same, Dominique." +"Why should you know better?" +"Because you have no desire to go to a theater or to see me tonight." +"None whatever. I’m beginning to like you, Peter. Call for me at half past +eight." +When Keating returned to the office, Francon called him upstairs at once. +"Well?" Francon asked anxiously. +"What’s the matter, Guy?" said Keating, his voice innocent. "Why are you so +concerned?" +"Well, I...I’m just...frankly, I’m interested to see whether you two could get +together at all. I think you’d be a good influence for her. What happened?" +"Nothing at all. We had a lovely time. You know your restaurants--the food was +wonderful...Oh, yes, I’m taking your daughter to a show tonight." +"No!" +"Why, yes." +"How did you ever manage that?" +Keating shrugged. "I told you one mustn’t be afraid of Dominique." +"I’m not afraid, but...Oh, is it ’Dominique’ already? My congratulations, +Peter....I’m not afraid, it’s only that I can’t figure her out. No one can +approach her. She’s never had a single girl friend, not even in kindergarten. +There’s always a mob around her, but never a friend. I don’t know what to think. +There she is now, living all alone, always with a crowd of men around and..." +"Now, Guy, you mustn’t think anything dishonorable about your own daughter." +"I don’t! That’s just the trouble--that I don’t. I wish I could. But she’s +twenty-four, Peter, and she’s a virgin--I know, I’m sure of it. Can’t you tell +just by looking at a woman? I’m no moralist, Peter, and I think that’s abnormal. +It’s unnatural at her age, with her looks, with the kind of utterly unrestricted +existence that she leads. I wish to God she’d get married. I honestly +do....Well, now, don’t repeat that, of course, and don’t misinterpret it, I +didn’t mean it as an invitation." +"Of course not." +"By the way, Peter, the hospital called while you were out. They said poor +Lucius is much better. They think he’ll pull through." Lucius N. Heyer had had a +125 + + stroke, and Keating had exhibited a great deal of concern for his progress, but +had not gone to visit him at the hospital. +"I’m so glad," said Keating. +"But I don’t think he’ll ever be able to come back to work. He’s getting old, +Peter....Yes, he’s getting old....One reaches an age when one can’t be burdened +with business any longer." He let a paper knife hang between two fingers and +tapped it pensively against the edge of a desk calendar. "It happens to all of +us, Peter, sooner or later....One must look ahead...." +# +Keating sat on the floor by the imitation logs in the fireplace of his living +room, his hands clasped about his knees, and listened to his mother’s questions +on what did Dominique look like, what did she wear, what had she said to him and +how much money did he suppose her mother had actually left her. +He was meeting Dominique frequently now. He had just returned from an evening +spent with her on a round of night clubs. She always accepted his invitations. +He wondered whether her attitude was a deliberate proof that she could ignore +him more completely by seeing him often than by refusing to see him. But each +time he met her, he planned eagerly for the next meeting. He had not seen +Catherine for a month. She was busy with research work which her uncle had +entrusted to her, in preparation for a series of his lectures. +Mrs. Keating sat under a lamp, mending a slight tear in the lining of Peter’s +dinner jacket, reproaching him, between questions, for sitting on the floor in +his dress trousers and best formal shirt. He paid no attention to the reproaches +or the questions. But under his bored annoyance he felt an odd sense of relief; +as if the stubborn stream of her words were pushing him on and justifying him. +He answered once in a while: "Yes....No....I don’t know....Oh, yes, she’s +lovely. She’s very lovely....It’s awfully late, Mother. I’m tired. I think I’ll +go to bed...." The doorbell rang. +"Well," said Mrs. Keating. "What can that be, at this hour?" Keating rose, +shrugging, and ambled to the door. It was Catherine. She stood, her two hands +clasped on a large, old, shapeless pocketbook. She looked determined and +hesitant at once. She drew back a little. She said: "Good evening, Peter. Can I +come in? I’ve got to speak to you." +"Katie! Of course! How nice of you! Come right in. Mother, it’s Katie." +Mrs. Keating looked at the girl’s feet which stepped as if moving on the rolling +deck of a ship; she looked at her son, and she knew that something had happened, +to be handled with great caution. +"Good evening, Catherine," she said softly. +Keating was conscious of nothing save the sudden stab of joy he had felt on +seeing her; the joy told him that nothing had changed, that he was safe in +certainty, that her presence resolved all doubts. He forgot to wonder about the +lateness of the hour, about her first, uninvited appearance in his apartment. +"Good evening, Mrs. Keating," she said, her voice bright and hollow. "I hope I’m +not disturbing you, it’s late probably, is it?" +"Why, not at all, child," said Mrs. Keating. +Catherine hurried to speak, senselessly, hanging on to the sound of words: +126 + + "I’ll just take my hat off....Where can I put it, Mrs. Keating? Here on the +table? Would that be all right?...No, maybe I’d better put it on this bureau, +though it’s a little damp from the street, the hat is, it might hurt the +varnish, it’s a nice bureau, I hope it doesn’t hurt the varnish...." +"What’s the matter, Katie?" Keating asked, noticing at last. +She looked at him and he saw that her eyes were terrified. Her lips parted; she +was trying to smile. "Katie!" he gasped. She said nothing. "Take your coat off. +Come here, get yourself warm by the fire." +He pushed a low bench to the fireplace, he made her sit down. She was wearing a +black sweater and an old black skirt, school-girlish house garments which she +had not changed for her visit. She sat hunched, her knees drawn tight together. +She said, her voice lower and more natural, with the first released sound of +pain in it: +"You have such a nice place....So warm and roomy....Can you open the windows any +time you want to?" +"Katie darling," he said gently, "what happened?" +"Nothing. It’s not that anything really happened. Only I had to speak to you. +Now. Tonight." +He looked at Mrs. Keating. "If you’d rather..." +"No. It’s perfectly all right. Mrs. Keating can hear it. Maybe it’s better if +she hears it." She turned to his mother and said very simply: "You see, Mrs. +Keating, Peter and I are engaged." She turned to him and added, her voice +breaking: "Peter, I want to be married now, tomorrow, as soon as possible." +Mrs. Keating’s hand descended slowly to her lap. She looked at Catherine, her +eyes expressionless. She said quietly, with a dignity Keating had never expected +of her: +"I didn’t know it, I am very happy, my dear." +"You don’t mind? You really don’t mind at all?" Catherine asked desperately. +"Why, child, such things are to be decided only by you and my son." +"Katie!" he gasped, regaining his voice. "What happened? Why as soon as +possible?" +"Oh! oh, it did sound as if...as if I were in the kind of trouble girls are +supposed to..." She blushed furiously. "Oh, my God! No! It’s not that! You know +it couldn’t be! Oh, you couldn’t think, Peter, that I...that..." +"No, of course not," he laughed, sitting down on the floor by her side, slipping +an arm around her. "But pull yourself together. What is it? You know I’d marry +you tonight if you wanted me to. Only what happened?" +"Nothing. I’m all right now. I’ll tell you. You’ll think I’m crazy. I just +suddenly had the feeling that I’d never marry you, that something dreadful was +happening to me and I had to escape from it." +"What was happening to you?" +127 + + "I don’t know. Not a thing. I was working on my research notes all day, and +nothing had happened at all. No calls or visitors. And then suddenly tonight, I +had that feeling, it was like a nightmare, you know, the kind of horror that you +can’t describe, that’s not like anything normal at all. Just the feeling that I +was in mortal danger, that something was closing in on me, that I’d never escape +it, because it wouldn’t let me and it was too late." +"That you’d never escape what?" +"I don’t know exactly. Everything. My whole life. You know, like quicksand. +Smooth and natural. With not a thing that you can notice about it or suspect. +And you walk on it easily. When you’ve noticed, it’s too late....And I felt that +it would get me, that I’d never marry you, that I had to run, now, now or never. +Haven’t you ever had a feeling like that, just fear that you couldn’t explain?" +"Yes," he whispered. +"You don’t think I’m crazy?" +"No, Katie. Only what was it exactly that started it? Anything in particular?" +"Well...it seems so silly now." She giggled apologetically. "It was like this: I +was sitting in my room and it was a little chilly, so I didn’t open the window. +I had so many papers and books on the table, I hardly had room to write and +every time I made a note my elbow’d push something off. There were piles of +things on the floor all around me, all paper, and it rustled a little, because I +had the door to the living room half open and there was a little draft, I guess. +Uncle was working too, in the living room. I was getting along fine, I’d been at +it for hours, didn’t even know what time it was. And then suddenly it got me. I +don’t know why. Maybe the room was stuffy, or maybe it was the silence, I +couldn’t hear a thing, not a sound in the living room, and there was that paper +rustling, so softly, like somebody being choked to death. And then I looked +around and...and I couldn’t see Uncle in the living room, but I saw his shadow +on the wall, a huge shadow, all hunched, and it didn’t move, only it was so +huge!" +She shuddered. The thing did not seem silly to her any longer. She whispered: +"That’s when it got me. It wouldn’t move, that shadow, but I thought all that +paper was moving, I thought it was rising very slowly off the floor, and it was +going to come to my throat and I was going to drown. That’s when I screamed. +And, Peter, he didn’t hear. He didn’t hear it! Because the shadow didn’t move. +Then I seized my hat and coat and I ran. When I was running through the living +room, I think he said: ’Why, Catherine, what time is it?--Where are you going?’ +Something like that, I’m not sure. But I didn’t look back and I didn’t answer--I +couldn’t. I was afraid of him. Afraid of Uncle Ellsworth who’s never said a +harsh word to me in his life!...That was all, Peter. I can’t understand it, but +I’m afraid. Not so much any more, not here with you, but I’m afraid...." Mrs. +Keating spoke, her voice dry and crisp: "Why, it’s plain what happened to you, +my dear. You worked too hard and overdid it, and you just got a mite +hysterical." +"Yes...probably..." +"No," said Keating dully, "no, it wasn’t that...." He was thinking of the +loud-speaker in the lobby of the strike meeting. Then he added quickly: "Yes, +Mother’s right. You’re killing yourself with work, Katie. That uncle of +yours--I’ll wring his neck one of these days." +128 + + "Oh, but it’s not his fault! He doesn’t want me to work. He often takes the +books away from me and tells me to go to the movies. He’s said that himself, +that I work too hard. But I like it. I think that every note I make, every +little bit of information--it’s going to be taught to hundreds of young +students, all over the country, and I think it’s me who’s helping to educate +people, just my own little bit in such a big cause--and I feel proud and I don’t +want to stop. You see? I’ve really got nothing to complain about. And +then...then, like tonight...I don’t know what’s the matter with me." +"Look, Katie, we’ll get the license tomorrow morning and then we’ll be married +at once, anywhere you wish." +"Let’s, Peter," she whispered. "You really don’t mind? I have no real reasons, +but I want it. I want it so much. Then I’ll know that everything’s all right. +We’ll manage. I can get a job if you...if you’re not quite ready or..." +"Oh, nonsense. Don’t talk about that. We’ll manage. It doesn’t matter. Only +let’s get married and everything else will take care of itself." +"Darling, you understand? You do understand?" +"Yes, Katie." +"Now that it’s all settled," said Mrs. Keating, "I’ll fix you a cup of hot tea, +Catherine. You’ll need it before you go home." She prepared the tea, and +Catherine drank it gratefully and said, smiling: +"I...I’ve often been afraid that you wouldn’t approve, Mrs. Keating." +"Whatever gave you that idea," Mrs. Keating drawled, her voice not in the tone +of a question. "Now you run on home like a good girl and get a good night’s +sleep." +"Mother, couldn’t Katie stay here tonight? She could sleep with you." +"Well, now, Peter, don’t get hysterical. What would her uncle think?" +"Oh, no, of course not. I’ll be perfectly all right, Peter. I’ll go home." +"Not if you..." +"I’m not afraid. Not now. I’m fine. You don’t think that I’m really scared of +Uncle Ellsworth?" +"Well, all right. But don’t go yet." +"Now, Peter," said Mrs. Keating, "you don’t want her to be running around the +streets later than she has to." +"I’ll take her home." +"No," said Catherine. "I don’t want to be sillier than I am. No, I won���t let +you." +He kissed her at the door and he said: "I’ll come for you at ten o’clock +tomorrow morning and we’ll go for the license." +"Yes, Peter," she whispered. +129 + + He closed the door after her and he stood for a moment, not noticing that he was +clenching his fists. Then he walked defiantly back to the living room, and he +stopped, his hands in his pockets, facing his mother. He looked at her, his +glance a silent demand. Mrs. Keating sat looking at him quietly, without +pretending to ignore the glance and without answering it. +Then she asked: +"Do you want to go to bed, Peter?" +He had expected anything but that. He felt a violent impulse to seize the +chance, to turn, leave the room and escape. But he had to learn what she +thought; he had to justify himself. +"Now, Mother, I’m not going to listen to any objections." +"I’ve made no objections," said Mrs. Keating. +"Mother, I want you to understand that I love Katie, that nothing can stop me +now, and that’s that." +"Very well, Peter." +"I don’t see what it is that you dislike about her." +"What I like or dislike is of no importance to you any more." +"Oh yes, Mother, of course it is! You know it is. How can you say that?" +"Peter, I have no likes or dislikes as far as I’m concerned. I have no thought +for myself at all, because nothing in the world matters to me, except you. It +might be old-fashioned, but that’s the way I am. I know I shouldn’t be, because +children don’t appreciate it nowadays, but I can’t help it." +"Oh, Mother, you know that I appreciate it! You know that I wouldn’t want to +hurt you." +"You can’t hurt me, Peter, except by hurting yourself. And that...that’s hard to +bear." +"How am I hurting myself?" +"Well, if you won’t refuse to listen to me..." +"I’ve never refused to listen to you!" +"If you do want to hear my opinion, I’ll say that this is the funeral of +twenty-nine years of my life, of all the hopes I’ve had for you." +"But why? Why?" +"It’s not that I dislike, Catherine, Peter. I like her very much. She’s a nice +girl--if she doesn’t let herself go to pieces often and pick things out of thin +air like that. But she’s a respectable girl and I’d say she’d make a good wife +for anybody. For any nice, plodding, respectable boy. But to think of it for +you, Peter! For you!" +"But..." +130 + + "You’re modest, Peter. You’re too modest. That’s always been your trouble. You +don’t appreciate yourself. You think you’re just like anybody else." +"I certainly don’t! and I won’t have anyone think that!" +"Then use your head! Don’t you know what’s ahead of you? Don’t you see how far +you’ve come already and how far you’re going? You have a chance to become--well, +not the very best, but pretty near the top in the architectural profession, +and..." +"Pretty near the top? Is that what you think? If I can’t be the very best, if I +can’t be the one architect of this country in my day--I don’t want any damn part +of it!" +"Ah, but one doesn’t get to that, Peter, by falling down on the job. One doesn’t +get to be first in anything without the strength to make some sacrifices." +"But..." +"Your life doesn’t belong to you, Peter, if you’re really aiming high. You can’t +allow yourself to indulge every whim, as ordinary people can, because with them +it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not you or me or what we feel. Peter. It’s your +career. It takes strength to deny yourself in order to win other people’s +respect." +"You just dislike Katie and you let your own prejudice..." +"Whatever would I dislike about her? Well, of course, I can’t say that I approve +of a girl who has so little consideration for her man that she’ll run to him and +upset him over nothing at all, and ask him to chuck his future out the window +just because she gets some crazy notion. That shows what help you can expect +from a wife like that. But as far as I’m concerned, if you think that I’m +worried about myself--well, you’re just blind, Peter. Don’t you see that for me +personally it would be a perfect match? Because I’d have no trouble with +Catherine, I could get along with her beautifully, she’d be respectful and +obedient to her mother-in-law. While, on the other hand, Miss Francon..." +He winced. He had known that this would come. It was the one subject he had been +afraid to hear mentioned. +"Oh yes, Peter," said Mrs. Keating quietly, firmly, "we’ve got to speak of that. +Now, I’m sure I could never manage Miss Francon, and an elegant society girl +like that wouldn’t even stand for a dowdy, uneducated mother like me. She’d +probably edge me out of the house. Oh, yes, Peter. But you see, it’s not me that +I’m thinking of." +"Mother," he said harshly, "that part of it is pure drivel--about my having a +chance with Dominique. That hell-cat--I’m not sure she’d ever look at me." +"You’re slipping, Peter. There was a time when you wouldn’t have admitted that +there was anything you couldn’t get." +"But I don’t want her, Mother." +"Oh, you don’t, don’t you? Well, there you are. Isn’t that what I’ve been +saying? Look at yourself! There you’ve got Francon, the best architect in town, +just where you want him! He’s practically begging you to take a partnership--at +your age, over how many other, older men’s heads? He’s not permitting, he’s +131 + + asking you to marry his daughter! And you’ll walk in tomorrow and you’ll present +to him the little nobody you’ve gone and married! Just stop thinking of yourself +for a moment and think of others a bit. How do you suppose he’ll like that? How +will he like it when you show him the little guttersnipe that you’ve preferred +to his daughter?" +"He won’t like it," Keating whispered. +"You bet your life he won’t! You bet your life he’ll kick you right out on the +street! He’ll find plenty who’ll jump at the chance to take your place. How +about that Bennett fellow?" +"Oh, no!" Keating gasped so furiously that she knew she had struck right. "Not +Bennett!" +"Yes," she said triumphantly. "Bennett! That’s what it’ll be--Francon & Bennett, +while you’ll be pounding the pavements looking for a job! But you’ll have a +wife! Oh, yes, you’ll have a wife!" +"Mother, please..." he whispered, so desperately that she could allow herself to +go on without restraint. +"This is the kind of a wife you’ll have. A clumsy little girl who won’t know +where to put her hands or feet. A sheepish little thing who’ll run and hide from +any important person that you’ll want to bring to the house. So you think you’re +so good? Don’t kid yourself, Peter Keating! No great man ever got there alone. +Don’t you shrug it off, how much the right woman’s helped the best of them. Your +Francon didn’t marry a chambermaid, you bet your life he didn’t! Just try to see +things through other people’s eyes for a bit. What will they think of your wife? +What will they think of you? You don’t make your living building chicken coops +for soda jerkers, don’t you forget that! You’ve got to play the game as the big +men of this world see it. You’ve got to live up to them. What will they think of +a man who’s married to a common little piece of baggage like that? Will they +admire you? Will they trust you? Will they respect you?" +"Shut up!" he cried. +But she went on. She spoke for a long time, while he sat, cracking his knuckles +savagely, moaning once in a while: "But I love her....I can’t, Mother! I +can’t....I love her...." +She released him when the streets outside were gray with the light of morning. +She let him stumble off to his room, to the accompaniment of the last, gentle, +weary sounds of her voice: +"At least, Peter, you can do that much. Just a few months. Ask her to wait just +a few months. Heyer might die any moment and then, once you’re a partner, you +can marry her and you might get away with it. She won’t mind waiting just that +little bit longer, if she loves you....Think it over, Peter....And while you’re +thinking it over, think just a bit that if you do this now, you’ll be breaking +your mother’s heart. It’s not important, but take just a tiny notice of that. +Think of yourself for an hour, but give one minute to the thought of others...." +He did not try to sleep. He did not undress, but sat on his bed for hours, and +the thing clearest in his mind was the wish to find himself transported a year +ahead when everything would have been settled, he did not care how. +He had decided nothing when he rang the doorbell of Catherine’s apartment at ten +o’clock. He felt dimly that she would take his hand, that she would lead him, +132 + + that she would insist--and thus the decision would be made. +Catherine opened the door and smiled, happily and confidently, as if nothing had +happened. She led him to her room, where broad shafts of sunlight flooded the +columns of books and papers stacked neatly on her desk. The room was clean, +orderly, the pile of the rug still striped in bands left by a carpet sweeper. +Catherine wore a crisp organdy blouse, with sleeves standing stiffly, cheerfully +about her shoulders; little fluffy needles glittered through her hair in the +sunlight. He felt a brief wrench of disappointment that no menace met him in her +house; a wrench of relief also, and of disappointment. +"I’m ready, Peter," she said. "Get me my coat." +"Did you tell your uncle?" he asked. +"Oh, yes. I told him last night. He was still working when I got back." +"What did he say?" +"Nothing. He just laughed and asked me what I wanted for a wedding present. But +he laughed so much!" +"Where is he? Didn’t he want to meet me at least?" +"He had to go to his newspaper office. He said he’d have plenty of time to see +more than enough of you. But he said it so nicely!" +"Listen, Katie, I...there’s one thing I wanted to tell you." He hesitated, not +looking at her. His voice was flat. "You see, it’s like this: Lucius Heyer, +Francon’s partner, is very ill and they don’t expect him to live. Francon’s been +hinting quite openly mat I’m to take Heyer’s place. But Francon has the crazy +idea that he wants me to marry his daughter. Now don’t misunderstand me, you +know there’s not a chance, but I can’t tell him so. And I thought...I thought +that if we waited...for just a few weeks...I’d be set with the firm and then +Francon could do nothing to me when I come and tell him that I’m married....But, +of course it’s up to you." He looked at her and his voice was eager. "If you +want to do it now, we’ll go at once." +"But, Peter," she said calmly, serene and astonished. "But of course. We’ll +wait." +He smiled in approval and relief. But he closed his eyes. +"Of course, we’ll wait," she said firmly. "I didn’t know this and it’s very +important. There’s really no reason to hurry at all." +"You’re not afraid that Francon’s daughter might get me?" +She laughed. "Oh, Peter! I know you too well." +"But if you’d rather..." +"No, it’s much better. You see, to tell you the truth, I thought this morning +that it would be better if we waited, but I didn’t want to say anything if you +had made up your mind. Since you’d rather wait, I’d much rather too, because, +you see, we got word this morning that Uncle’s invited to repeat this same +course of lectures at a terribly important university on the West Coast this +summer. I felt horrible about leaving him flat, with the work unfinished. And +then I thought also that perhaps we were being foolish, we’re both so young. And +133 + + Uncle Ellsworth laughed so much. You see, it’s really wiser to wait a little." +"Yes. Well, that’s fine. But, Katie, if you feel as you did last night..." +"But I don’t! I’m so ashamed of myself. I can’t imagine what ever happened to me +last night. I try to remember it and I can’t understand. You know how it is, you +feel so silly afterward. Everything’s so clear and simple the next day. Did I +say a lot of awful nonsense last night?" +"Well, forget it. You’re a sensible little girl. We’re both sensible. And we’ll +wait just a while, it won’t be long." +"Yes, Peter." +He said suddenly, fiercely: +"Insist on it now, Katie." +And then he laughed stupidly, as if he had not been quite serious. +She smiled gaily in answer. "You see?" she said, spreading her hands out. +"Well..." he muttered. "Well, all right, Katie. We’ll wait. It’s better, of +course. I...I’ll run along then. I’ll be late at the office." He felt he had to +escape her room for the moment, for that day. "I’ll give you a ring. Let’s have +dinner together tomorrow." +"Yes, Peter. That will be nice." +He went away, relieved and desolate, cursing himself for the dull, persistent +feeling that told him he had missed a chance which would never return; that +something was closing in on them both and they had surrendered. He cursed, +because he could not say what it was that they should have fought. He hurried on +to his office where he was being late for an appointment with Mrs. Moorehead. +Catherine stood in the middle of the room, after he had left, and wondered why +she suddenly felt empty and cold; why she hadn’t known until this moment that +she had hoped he would force her to follow him. Then she shrugged, and smiled +reproachfully at herself, and went back to the work on her desk. + +13. +ON A DAY in October, when the Heller house was nearing completion, a lanky young +man in overalls stepped out of a small group that stood watching the house from +the road and approached Roark. +"You the fellow who built the Booby Hatch?" he asked, quite diffidently. +"If you mean this house, yes," Roark answered. +"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. It’s only that that’s what they call the place +around here. It’s not what I’d call it. You see, I’ve got a building job...well, +not exactly, but I’m going to build a filling station of my own about ten miles +from here, down on the Post Road. I’d like to talk to you." +Later, on a bench in front of the garage where he worked, Jimmy Gowan explained +in detail. He added: "And how I happened to think of you, Mr. Roark, is that I +134 + + like it, that funny house of yours. Can’t say why, but I like it. It makes sense +to me. And then again I figured everybody’s gaping at it and talking about it, +well, that’s no use to a house, but that’d be plenty smart for a business, let +them giggle, but let them talk about it. So I thought I’d get you to build it, +and then they’ll all say I’m crazy, but do you care? I don’t." +Jimmy Gowan had worked like a mule for fifteen years, saving money for a +business of his own. People voiced indignant objections to his choice of +architect; Jimmy uttered no word of explanation or self-defense; he said +politely: "Maybe so, folks, maybe so," and proceeded to have Roark build his +station. +The station opened on a day in late December. It stood on the edge of the Boston +Post Road, two small structures of glass and concrete forming a semicircle among +the trees: the cylinder of the office and the long, low oval of the diner, with +the gasoline pumps as the colonnade of a forecourt between them. It was a study +in circles; there were no angles and no straight lines; it looked like shapes +caught in a flow, held still at the moment of being poured, at the precise +moment when they formed a harmony that seemed too perfect to be intentional. It +looked like a cluster of bubbles hanging low over the ground, not quite touching +it, to be swept aside in an instant on a wind of speed; it looked gay, with the +hard, bracing gaiety of efficiency, like a powerful airplane engine. +Roark stayed at the station on the day of its opening. He drank coffee in a +clean, white mug, at the counter of the diner, and he watched the cars stopping +at the door. He left late at night. He looked back once, driving down the long, +empty road. The lights of the station winked, flowing away from him. There it +stood, at the crossing of two roads, and cars would be streaming past it day and +night, cars coming from cities in which there was no room for buildings such as +this, going to cities in which there would be no buildings such as this. He +turned his face to the road before him, and he kept his eyes off the mirror +which still held, glittering softly, dots of light that moved away far behind +him.... +He drove back to months of idleness. He sat in his office each morning, because +he knew that he had to sit there, looking at a door that never opened, his +fingers forgotten on a telephone that never rang. The ash trays he emptied each +day, before leaving, contained nothing but the stubs of his own cigarettes. +"What are you doing about it, Howard?" Austen Heller asked him at dinner one +evening. +"Nothing." +"But you must." +"There’s nothing I can do." +"You must learn how to handle people." +"I can’t." +"Why?" +"I don’t know how. I was born without some one particular sense." +"It’s something one acquires." +"I have no organ to acquire it with. I don’t know whether it’s something I lack, +135 + + or something extra I have that stops me. Besides, I don’t like people who have +to be handled." +"But you can’t sit still and do nothing now. You’ve got to go after +commissions." +"What can I tell people in order to get commissions? I can only show my work. If +they don’t hear that, they won’t hear anything I say. I’m nothing to them, but +my work--my work is all we have in common. And I have no desire to tell them +anything else." +"Then what are you going to do? You’re not worried?" +"No. I expected it. I’m waiting." +"For what?" +"My kind of people." +"What kind is that?" +"I don’t know. Yes, I do know, but I can’t explain it. I’ve often wished I +could. There must be some one principle to cover it, but I don’t know what it +is." +"Honesty?" +"Yes...no, only partly. Guy Francon is an honest man, but it isn’t that. +Courage? Ralston Holcombe has courage, in his own manner....I don’t know. I’m +not that vague on other things. But I can tell my kind of people by their faces. +By something in their faces. There will be thousands passing by your house and +by the gas station. If out of those thousands, one stops and sees it--that’s all +I need." +"Then you do need other people, after all, don’t you, Howard?" +"Of course. What are you laughing at?" +"I’ve always thought that you were the most anti-social animal I’ve ever had the +pleasure of meeting." +"I need people to give me work. I’m not building mausoleums. Do you suppose I +should need them in some other way? In a closer, more personal way?" +"You don’t need anyone in a very personal way." +"No." +"You’re not even boasting about it." +"Should I?" +You can’t. You’re too arrogant to boast." +"Is that what I am?" +"Don’t you know what you are?" +"No. Not as far as you’re seeing me, or anyone else." +136 + + Heller sat silently, his wrist describing circles with a cigarette. Then Heller +laughed, and said: +"That was typical." +"What?" +"That you didn’t ask me to tell you what you are as I see you. Anybody else +would have." +"I’m sorry. It wasn’t indifference. You’re one of the few friends I want to +keep. I just didn’t think of asking." +"I know you didn’t. That’s the point. You’re a self-centered monster, Howard. +The more monstrous because you’re utterly innocent about it." +"That’s true." +"You should show a little concern when you admit that." +"Why?" +"You know, there’s a thing that stumps me. You’re the coldest man I know. And I +can’t understand why--knowing that you’re actually a fiend in your quiet sort of +way--why I always feel, when I see you, that you’re the most life-giving person +I’ve ever met." +"What do you mean?" +"I don’t know. Just that." +The weeks went by, and Roark walked to his office each day, sat at his desk for +eight hours, and read a great deal. At five o’clock, he walked home. He had +moved to a better room, near the office; he spent little; he had enough money +for a long time to come. +On a morning in February the telephone rang in his office. A brisk, emphatic +feminine voice asked for an appointment with Mr. Roark, the architect. That +afternoon, a brisk, small, dark-skinned woman entered the office; she wore a +mink coat and exotic earrings that tinkled when she moved her head. She moved +her head a great deal, in sharp little birdlike jerks. She was Mrs. Wayne Wilmot +of Long Island and she wished to build a country house. She had selected Mr. +Roark to build it, she explained, because he had designed the home of Austen +Heller. She adored Austen Heller; he was, she stated, an oracle to all those +pretending just the tiniest bit to the title of progressive intellectual, she +thought--"don’t you?"--and she followed Heller like a zealot, "yes, literally, +like a zealot." Mr. Roark was very young, wasn’t he?--but she didn’t mind that, +she was very liberal and glad to help youth. She wanted a large house, she had +two children, she believed in expressing their individuality--"don’t you?"--and +each had to have a separate nursery, she had to have a library--"I read to +distraction"--a music room, a conservatory--"we grow lilies-of-the-valley, my +friends tell me it’s my flower"--a den for her husband, who trusted her +implicitly and let her plan the house--"because I’m so good at it, if I weren’t +a woman I’m sure I’d be an architect"--servants’ rooms and all that, and a +three-car garage. After an hour and a half of details and explanations, she +said: +"And of course, as to the style of the house, it will be English Tudor. I adore +137 + + English Tudor." +He looked at her. He asked slowly: +"Have you seen Austen Heller’s house?" +"No, though I did want to see it, but how could I?--I’ve never met Mr. Heller, +I’m only his fan, just that, a plain, ordinary fan, what is he like in +person?--you must tell me, I’m dying to hear it--no, I haven’t seen his house, +it’s somewhere up in Maine, isn’t it?" +Roark took photographs out of the desk drawer and handed them to her. +"This," he said, "is the Heller house." +She looked at the photographs, her glance like water skimming off their glossy +surfaces, and threw them down on the desk. +"Very interesting," she said. "Most unusual. Quite stunning. But, of course, +that’s not what I want. That kind of a house wouldn’t express my personality. My +friends tell me I have the Elizabethan personality." +Quietly, patiently, he tried to explain to her why she should not build a Tudor +house. She interrupted him in the middle of a sentence. +"Look here, Mr. Roark, you’re not trying to teach me something, are you? I’m +quite sure that I have good taste, and I know a great deal about architecture, +I’ve taken a special course at the club. My friends tell me that I know more +than many architects. I’ve quite made up my mind that I shall have an English +Tudor house. I do not care to argue about it." +"You’ll have to go to some other architect, Mrs. Wilmot." +She stared at him incredulously. +"You mean, you’re refusing the commission?" +"Yes." +"You don’t want my commission?" +"No." +"But why?" +"I don’t do this sort of thing." +"But I thought architects..." +"Yes. Architects will build you anything you ask for. Any other architect in +town will." +"But I gave you first chance." +"Will you do me a favor, Mrs. Wilmot? Will you tell me why you came to me if all +you wanted was a Tudor house?" +"Well, I certainly thought you’d appreciate the opportunity. And then, I thought +I could tell my friends that I had Austen Heller’s architect." +138 + + He tried to explain and to convince. He knew, while he spoke, that it was +useless, because his words sounded as if they were hitting a vacuum. There was +no such person as Mrs. Wayne Wilmot; there was only a shell containing the +opinions of her friends, the picture post cards she had seen, the novels of +country squires she had read; it was this that he had to address, this +immateriality which could not hear him or answer, deaf and impersonal like a wad +of cotton. +"I’m sorry," said Mrs. Wayne Wilmot, "but I’m not accustomed to dealing with a +person utterly incapable of reason. I’m quite sure I shall find plenty of bigger +men who’ll be glad to work for me. My husband was opposed to my idea of having +you, in the first place, and I’m sorry to see that he was right. Good day, Mr. +Roark." +She walked out with dignity, but she slammed the door. He slipped the +photographs back into the drawer of his desk. +Mr. Robert L. Mundy, who came to Roark’s office in March, had been sent by +Austin Heller. Mr. Mundy’s voice and hair were gray as steel, but his eyes were +blue, gentle and wistful. He wanted to build a house in Connecticut, and he +spoke of it tremulously, like a young bridegroom and like a man groping for his +last, secret goal. +"It’s not just a house, Mr. Roark," he said with timid diffidence, as if he were +speaking to a man older and more prominent than himself, "it’s like...like a +symbol to me. It’s what I’ve been waiting and working for all these years. It’s +so many years now....I must tell you this, so you’ll understand. I have a great +deal of money now, more than I care to think about. I didn’t always have it. +Maybe it came too late. I don’t know. Young people think that you forget what +happens on the way when you get there. But you don’t. Something stays. I’ll +always remember how I was a boy--in a little place down in Georgia, that +was--and how I ran errands for the harness maker, and the kids laughed when +carriages drove by and splashed mud all over my pants. That’s how long ago I +decided that some day I’d have a house of my own, the kind of house that +carriages stop before. After that, no matter how hard it got to be at times, I’d +always think of that house, and it helped. Afterward, there were years when I +was afraid of it--I could have built it, but I was afraid. Well, now the time +has come. Do you understand, Mr. Roark? Austen said you’d be just the man who’d +understand." +"Yes," said Roark eagerly, "I do." +"There was a place," said Mr. Mundy, "down there, near my home town. The mansion +of the whole county. The Randolph place. An old plantation house, as they don’t +build them any more. I used to deliver things there sometimes, at the back door. +That’s the house I want, Mr. Roark. Just like it. But not back there in Georgia. +I don’t want to go back. Right here, near the city. I’ve bought the land. You +must help me to have it landscaped just like the Randolph place. We’ll plant +trees and shrubs, the kind they have in Georgia, the flowers and everything. +We’ll find a way to make them grow. I don’t care how much it costs. Of course, +we’ll have electric lights and garages now, not carriages. But I want the +electric lights made like candles and I want the garages to look like the +stables. Everything, just as it was. I have photographs of the Randolph place. +And I’ve bought some of their old furniture." +When Roark began to speak Mr. Mundy listened, in polite astonishment. He did not +seem to resent the words. They did not penetrate. +139 + + "Don’t you see?" Roark was saying. "It’s a monument you want to build, but not +to yourself. Not to your own life or your own achievement. To other people. To +their supremacy over you. You’re not challenging that supremacy. You’re +immortalizing it. You haven’t thrown it off--you’re putting it up forever. Will +you be happy if you seal yourself for the rest of your life in that borrowed +shape? Or if you strike free, for once, and build a new house, your own? You +don’t want the Randolph place. You want what it stood for. But what it stood for +is what you’ve fought all your life." +Mr. Mundy listened blankly. And Roark felt again a bewildered helplessness +before unreality: there was no such person as Mr. Mundy; there were only the +remnants, long dead, of the people who had inhabited the Randolph place; one +could not plead with remnants or convince them. +"No," said Mr. Mundy, at last. "No. You may be right, but that’s not what I want +at all. I don’t say you haven’t got your reasons, and they sound like good +reasons, but I like the Randolph place." +"Why?" +"Just because I like it. Just because that’s what I like." +When Roark told him that he would have to select another architect, Mr. Mundy +said unexpectedly: +"But I like you. Why can’t you build it for me? What difference would it make to +you?" +Roark did not explain. +Later, Austen Heller said to him: "I expected it. I was afraid you’d turn him +down. I’m not blaming you, Howard. Only he’s so rich. It could have helped you +so much. And, after all, you’ve got to live." +"Not that way," said Roark. +# +In April Mr. Nathaniel Janss, of the Janss-Stuart Real Estate Company, called +Roark to his office. Mr. Janss was frank and blunt. He stated that his company +was planning the erection of a small office building--thirty stories--on lower +Broadway, and that he was not sold on Roark as the architect, in fact he was +more or less opposed to him, but his friend Austen Heller had insisted that he +should meet Roark and talk to him about it; Mr. Janss did not think very much of +Roark’s stuff, but Heller had simply bullied him and he would listen to Roark +before deciding on anyone, and what did Roark have to say on the subject? +Roark had a great deal to say. He said it calmly, and this was difficult, at +first, because he wanted that building, because what he felt was the desire to +wrench that building out of Mr. Janss at the point of a gun, if he’d had one. +But after a few minutes, it became simple and easy, the thought of the gun +vanished, and even his desire for the building; it was not a commission to get +and he was not there to get it; he was only speaking of buildings. +"Mr. Janss, when you buy an automobile, you don’t want it to have rose garlands +about the windows, a lion on each fender and an angel sitting on the roof. Why +don’t you?" +"That would be silly," stated Mr. Janss. +140 + + "Why would it be silly? Now I think it would be beautiful. Besides, Louis the +Fourteenth had a carriage like that and what was good enough for Louis is good +enough for us. We shouldn’t go in for rash innovations and we shouldn’t break +with tradition." +"Now you know damn well you don’t believe anything of the sort!" +"I know I don’t. But that’s what you believe, isn’t it? Now take a human body. +Why wouldn’t you like to see a human body with a curling tail with a crest of +ostrich feathers at the end? And with ears shaped like acanthus leaves? It would +be ornamental, you know, instead of the stark, bare ugliness we have now. Well, +why don’t you like the idea? Because it would be useless and pointless. Because +the beauty of the human body is that it hasn’t a single muscle which doesn’t +serve its purpose; that there’s not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits +one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man. Will you tell me why, when it +comes to a building, you don’t want it to look as if it had any sense or +purpose, you want to choke it with trimmings, you want to sacrifice its purpose +to its envelope--not knowing even why you want that kind of an envelope? You +want it to look like a hybrid beast produced by crossing the bastards of ten +different species until you get a creature without guts, without heart or brain, +a creature all pelt, tail, claws and feathers? Why? You must tell me, because +I’ve never been able to understand it." +"Well," said Mr. Janss, "I’ve never thought of it that way." He added, without +great conviction: "But we want our building to have dignity, you know, and +beauty, what they call real beauty." +"What who calls what beauty?" +"Well-l-l..." +"Tell me, Mr. Janss, do you really think that Greek columns and fruit baskets +are beautiful on a modern, steel office building?" +"I don’t know that I’ve ever thought anything about why a building was +beautiful, one way or another," Mr. Janss confessed, "but I guess that’s what +the public wants." +"Why do you suppose they want it?" +"I don’t know." +"Then why should you care what they want?" +"You’ve got to consider the public." +"Don’t you know that most people take most things because that’s what’s given +them, and they have no opinion whatever? Do you wish to be guided by what they +expect you to think they think or by your own judgment?" +"You can’t force it down their throats." +"You don’t have to. You must only be patient. Because on your side you have +reason--oh, I know, it’s something no one really wants to have on his side--and +against you, you have just a vague, fat, blind inertia." +"Why do you think that I don’t want reason on my side?" +"It’s not you, Mr. Janss. It’s the way most people feel. They have to take a +141 + + chance, everything they do is taking a chance, but they feel so much safer when +they take it on something they know to be ugly, vain and stupid." +"That’s true, you know," said Mr. Janss. +At the conclusion of the interview, Mr. Janss said thoughtfully: "I can’t say +that it doesn’t make sense, Mr. Roark. Let me think it over. You’ll hear from me +shortly." +Mr. Janss called him a week later. "It’s the board of directors that will have +to decide. Are you willing to try, Roark? Draw up the plans and some preliminary +sketches. I’ll submit them to the board. I can’t promise anything. But I’m for +you and I’ll fight them on it." +Roark worked on the plans for two weeks of days and nights. The plans were +submitted. Then he was called before the board of directors of the Janss-Stuart +Real Estate Company. He stood at the side of a long table and he spoke, his eyes +moving slowly from face to face. He tried not to look down at the table, but on +the lower rim of his vision there remained the white spot of his drawings spread +before the twelve men. He was asked a great many questions. Mr. Janss jumped up +at times to answer instead, to pound the table with his fist, to snarl: "Don’t +you see? Isn’t it clear?...What of it, Mr. Grant? What if no one has ever built +anything like it?...Gothic, Mr. Hubbard? Why must we have Gothic?...I’ve a jolly +good mind to resign if you turn this down!" +Roark spoke quietly. He was the only man in the room who felt certain of his own +words. He felt also that he had no hope. The twelve faces before him had a +variety of countenances, but there was something, neither color nor feature, +upon all of them, as a common denominator, something that dissolved their +expressions, so that they were not faces any longer but only empty ovals of +flesh. He was addressing everyone. He was addressing no one. He felt no answer, +not even the echo of his own words striking against the membrane of an eardrum. +His words were falling down a well, hitting stone salients on their way, and +each salient refused to stop them, threw them farther, tossed them from one +another, sent them to seek a bottom that did not exist. +He was told that he would be informed of the board’s decision. He knew that +decision in advance. When he received the letter, he read it without feeling. +The letter was from Mr. Janss and it began: "Dear Mr. Roark, I am sorry to +inform you that our board of directors find themselves unable to grant you the +commission for..." There was a plea in the letter’s brutal, offensive formality: +the plea of a man who could not face him. +# +John Fargo had started in life as a pushcart peddler. At fifty he owned a modest +fortune and a prosperous department store on lower Sixth Avenue. For years he +had fought successfully against a large store across the street, one of many +inherited by a numerous family. In the fall of last year the family had moved +that particular branch to new quarters, farther uptown. They were convinced that +the center of the city’s retail business was shifting north and they had decided +to hasten the downfall of their former neighborhood by leaving their old store +vacant, a grim reminder and embarrassment to their competitor across the street. +John Fargo had answered by announcing that he would build a new store of his +own, on the very same spot, next door to his old one; a store newer and smarter +than any the city had seen; he would, he declared, keep the prestige of his old +neighborhood. +When he called Roark to his office he did not say that he would have to decide +later or think things over. He said: "You’re the architect." He sat, his feet on +142 + + his desk, smoking a pipe, snapping out words and puffs of smoke together. "I’ll +tell you what space I need and how much I want to spend. If you need more--say +so. The rest is up to you. I don’t know much about buildings. But I know a man +who knows when I see him. Go ahead." +Fargo had chosen Roark because Fargo had driven, one day, past Gowan’s Service +Station, and stopped, and gone in, and asked a few questions. After that, he +bribed Heller’s cook to show him through the house in Heller’s absence. Fargo +needed no further argument. +# +Late in May, when the drafting table in Roark’s office was buried deep in +sketches for the Fargo store, he received another commission. +Mr. Whitford Sanborn, the client, owned an office building that had been built +for him many years ago by Henry Cameron. When Mr. Sanborn decided that he needed +a new country residence he rejected his wife’s suggestions of other architects; +he wrote to Henry Cameron. Cameron wrote a ten-page letter in answer; the first +three lines of the letter stated that he had retired from practice; the rest of +it was about Howard Roark. Roark never learned what had been said in that +letter; Sanborn would not show it to him and Cameron would not tell him. But +Sanborn signed him to build the country residence, in spite of Mrs. Sanborn’s +violent objections. +Mrs. Sanborn was the president of many charity organizations and this had given +her an addiction to autocracy such as no other avocation could develop. Mrs. +Sanborn wished a French chateau built upon their new estate on the Hudson. She +wished it to look stately and ancient, as if it had always belonged to the +family; of course, she admitted, people would know that it hadn’t, but it would +appear as if it had. +Mr. Sanborn signed the contract after Roark had explained to him in detail the +kind of a house he was to expect; Mr. Sanborn had agreed to it readily, had not +wished even to wait for sketches. "But of course, Fanny," Mr. Sanborn said +wearily, "I want a modern house. I told you that long ago. That’s what Cameron +would have designed." +"What in heaven’s name does Cameron mean now?" she asked. "I don’t know, Fanny. +I know only that there’s no building in New York like the one he did for me." +The arguments continued for many long evenings in the dark, cluttered, polished +mahogany splendor of the Sanborns’ Victorian drawing room. Mr. Sanborn wavered. +Roark asked, his arm sweeping out at the room around them: "Is this what you +want?" +"Well, if you’re going to be impertinent..." Mrs. Sanborn began, but Mr. Sanborn +exploded: "Christ, Fanny! He’s right! That’s just what I don’t want! That’s just +what I’m sick of!" +Roark saw no one until his sketches were ready. The house--of plain fieldstone, +with great windows and many terraces--stood in the gardens over the river, as +spacious as the spread of water, as open as the gardens, and one had to follow +its lines attentively to find the exact steps by which it was tied to the sweep +of the gardens, so gradual was the rise of the terraces, the approach to and the +full reality of the walls; it seemed only that the trees flowed into the house +and through it; it seemed that the house was not a barrier against the sunlight, +but a bowl to gather it, to concentrate it into brighter radiance than that of +the air outside. +143 + + Mr. Sanborn was first to see the sketches. He studied them, and then he said: +"I...I don’t know quite how to say it, Mr. Roark. It’s great. Cameron was right +about you." +After others had seen the sketches Mr. Sanborn was not certain of this any +longer. Mrs. Sanborn said that the house was awful. And the long evening +arguments were resumed. "Now why, why can’t we add turrets there, on the +corners?" Mrs. Sanborn asked. "There’s plenty of room on those flat roofs." When +she had been talked out of the turrets, she inquired: "Why can’t we have +mullioned windows? What difference would that make? God knows, the windows are +large enough--though why they have to be so large I fail to see, it gives one no +privacy at all--but I’m willing to accept your windows, Mr. Roark, if you’re so +stubborn about it, but why can’t you put mullions on the panes? It will soften +things, and it gives a regal air, you know, a feudal sort of mood." +The friends and relatives to whom Mrs. Sanborn hurried with the sketches did not +like the house at all. Mrs. Walling called it preposterous, and Mrs. +Hooper--crude. Mr. Melander said he wouldn’t have it as a present. Mrs. Applebee +stated that it looked like a shoe factory. Miss Davitt glanced at the sketches +and said with approval: "Oh, how very artistic, my dear! Who designed +it?...Roark?...Roark?...Never heard of him....Well, frankly, Fanny, it looks +like something phony." +The two children of the family were divided on the question. June Sanborn, aged +nineteen, had always thought that all architects were romantic, and she had been +delighted to learn that they would have a very young architect; but she did not +like Roark’s appearance and his indifference to her hints, so she declared that +the house was hideous and she, for one, would refuse to live in it. Richard +Sanborn, aged twenty-four, who had been a brilliant student in college and was +now slowly drinking himself to death, startled his family by emerging from his +usual lethargy and declaring that the house was magnificent. No one could tell +whether it was esthetic appreciation or hatred of his mother or both. +Whitford Sanborn swayed with every new current. He would mutter: "Well, now, not +mullions, of course, that’s utter rubbish, but couldn’t you give her a cornice, +Mr. Roark, to keep peace in the family? Just a kind of a crenelated cornice, it +wouldn’t spoil anything. Or would it?" +The arguments ended when Roark declared that he would not build the house unless +Mr. Sanborn approved the sketches just as they were and signed his approval on +every sheet of the drawings. Mr. Sanborn signed. +Mrs. Sanborn was pleased to learn, shortly afterward, that no reputable +contractor would undertake the erection of the house. "You see?" she stated +triumphantly. Mr. Sanborn refused to see. He found an obscure firm that accepted +the commission, grudgingly and as a special favor to him. Mrs. Sanborn learned +that she had an ally in the contractor, and she broke social precedent to the +extent of inviting him for tea. She had long since lost all coherent ideas about +the house; she merely hated Roark. Her contractor hated all architects on +principle. +The construction of the Sanborn house proceeded through the months of summer and +fall, each day bringing new battles. "But, of course, Mr. Roark, I told you I +wanted three closets in my bedroom, I remember distinctly, it was on a Friday +and we were sitting in the drawing room and Mr. Sanborn was sitting in the big +chair by the window and I was...What about the plans? What plans? How do you +expect me to understand plans?" +"Aunt Rosalie says she can’t possibly climb a circular stairway, Mr. Roark. What +144 + + are we going to do? Select our guests to fit your house?" +"Mr. Hulburt says that kind of ceiling won’t hold....Oh yes, Mr. Hulburt knows a +lot about architecture. He’s spent two summers in Venice." +"June, poor darling, says her room will be dark as a cellar....Well, that’s the +way she feels, Mr. Roark. Even if it isn’t dark, but if it makes her feel dark, +it’s the same thing." Roark stayed up nights, redrafting the plans for the +alterations which he could not avoid. It meant days of tearing down floors, +stairways, partitions already erected; it meant extras piling up on the +contractor’s budget. The contractor shrugged and said: "I told you so. That’s +what always happens when you get one of those fancy architects. You wait and see +what this thing will cost you before he gets through." +Then, as the house took shape, it was Roark who found that he wanted to make a +change. The eastern wing had never quite satisfied him. Watching it rise, he saw +the mistake he had made and the way to correct it; he knew it would bring the +house into a more logical whole. He was making his first steps in building and +they were his first experiments. He could admit it openly. But Mr. Sanborn +refused to allow the change; it was his turn. Roark pleaded with him; once the +picture of that new wing had become clear in Roark’s mind he could not bear to +look at the house as it stood. "It’s not that I disagree with you," Mr. Sanborn +said coldly, "in fact, I do think you’re right. But we cannot afford it. Sorry." +"It will cost you less than the senseless changes Mrs. Sanborn has forced me to +make." +"Don’t bring that up again." +"Mr. Sanborn," Roark asked slowly, "will you sign a paper that you authorize +this change provided it costs you nothing?" +"Certainly. If you can conjure up a miracle to work that." +He signed. The eastern wing was rebuilt. Roark paid for it himself. It cost him +more than the fee he received. Mr. Sanborn hesitated: he wanted to repay it. +Mrs. Sanborn stopped him. "It’s just a low trick," she said, "just a form of +high-pressure. He’s blackmailing you on your better feelings. He expects you to +pay. Wait and see. He’ll ask for it. Don’t let him get away with that." Roark +did not ask for it. Mr. Sanborn never paid him. +When the house was completed, Mrs. Sanborn refused to live in it. Mr. Sanborn +looked at it wistfully, too tired to admit that he loved it, that he had always +wanted a house just like it. He surrendered. The house was not furnished. Mrs. +Sanborn took herself, her husband and her daughter off to Florida for the +winter, "where," she said, "we have a house that’s a decent Spanish, thank +God!--because we bought it ready-made. This is what happens when you venture to +build for yourself, with some half-baked idiot of an architect!" Her son, to +everybody’s amazement, exhibited a sudden burst of savage will power: he refused +to go to Florida; he liked the new house, he would live nowhere else. So three +of the rooms were furnished for him. The family left and he moved alone into the +house on the Hudson. At night, one could see from the river a single rectangle +of yellow, small and lost, among the windows of the huge, dead house. +The bulletin of the Architects’ Guild of America carried a small item: +"A curious incident, which would be amusing if it were not deplorable, is +reported to us about a home recently built by Mr. Whitford Sanborn, noted +industrialist. Designed by one Howard Roark and erected at a cost of well over +145 + + $100,000, this house was found by the family to be uninhabitable. It stands now, +abandoned, as an eloquent witness to professional incompetence." + +14. +LUCIUS N. Heyer stubbornly refused to die. He had recovered from the stroke and +returned to his office, ignoring the objections of his doctor and the solicitous +protests of Guy Francon. Francon offered to buy him out. Heyer refused, his +pale, watering eyes staring obstinately at nothing at all. He came to his office +every two or three days; he read the copies of correspondence left in his letter +basket according to custom; he sat at his desk and drew flowers on a clean pad; +then he went home. He walked, dragging his feet slowly; he held his elbows +pressed to his sides and his forearms thrust forward, with the fingers half +closed, like claws; the fingers shook; he could not use his left hand at all. He +would not retire. He liked to see his name on the firm’s stationery. +He wondered dimly why he was no longer introduced to prominent clients, why he +never saw the sketches of their new buildings, until they were half erected. If +he mentioned this, Francon protested: "But, Lucius, I couldn’t think of +bothering you in your condition. Any other man would have retired, long ago." +Francon puzzled him mildly. Peter Keating baffled him. Keating barely bothered +to greet him when they met, and then as an afterthought; Keating walked off in +the middle of a sentence addressed to him; when Heyer issued some minor order to +one of the draftsmen, it was not carried out and the draftsman informed him that +the order had been countermanded by Mr. Keating. Heyer could not understand it; +he always remembered Keating as the diffident boy who had talked to him so +nicely about old porcelain. He excused Keating at first; then he tried to +mollify him, humbly and clumsily; then he conceived an unreasoning fear of +Keating. He complained to Francon. He said, petulantly, assuming the tone of an +authority he could never have exercised: "That boy of yours, Guy, that Keating +fellow, he’s getting to be impossible. He’s rude to me. You ought to get rid of +him." +"Now you see, Lucius," Francon answered dryly, "why I say that you should +retire. You’re overstraining your nerves and you’re beginning to imagine +things." +Then came the competition for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. +Cosmo-Slotnick Pictures of Hollywood, California, had decided to erect a +stupendous home office in New York, a skyscraper to house a motion-picture +theater and forty floors of offices. A world-wide competition for the selection +of the architect had been announced a year in advance. It was stated that +Cosmo-Slotnick were not merely the leaders in the art of the motion picture, but +embraced all the arts, since all contributed to the creation of the films; and +architecture being a lofty, though neglected, branch of esthetics, +Cosmo-Slotnick were ready to put it on the map. +With the latest news of the casting of I’ll Take a Sailor and the shooting of +Wives for Sale, came stories about the Parthenon and the Pantheon. Miss Sally +O’Dawn was photographed on the steps of the Rheims Cathedral--in a bathing suit, +and Mr. Pratt ("Pardner") Purcell gave an interview, stating that he had always +dreamed of being a master builder, if he hadn’t been a movie actor. Ralston +Holcombe, Guy Francon and Gordon L. Prescott were quoted on the future of +American architecture--in an article written by Miss Dimples Williams, and an +imaginary interview quoted what Sir Christopher Wren would have said about the +146 + + motion picture. In the Sunday supplements there were photographs of +Cosmo-Slotnick starlets in shorts and sweaters, holding T-squares and +slide-rules, standing before drawing boards that bore the legend: +"Cosmo-Slotnick Building" over a huge question mark. +The competition was open to all architects of all countries; the building was to +rise on Broadway and to cost ten million dollars; it was to symbolize the genius +of modern technology and the spirit of the American people; it was announced in +advance as "the most beautiful building in the world." The jury of award +consisted of Mr. Shupe, representing Cosmo, Mr. Slotnick, representing Slotnick. +Professor Peterkin of the Stanton Institute of Technology, the Mayor of the City +of New York, Ralston Holcombe, president of the A.G.A., and Ellsworth M. Toohey. +"Go to it, Peter!" Francon told Keating enthusiastically. "Do your best. Give me +all you’ve got. This is your great chance. You’ll be known the world over if you +win. And here’s what we’ll do: we’ll put your name on our entry, along with the +firm’s. If we win, you’ll get one fifth of the prize. The grand prize is sixty +thousand dollars, you know." +"Heyer will object" said Keating cautiously. +"Let him object. That’s why I’m doing it. He might get it through his head +what’s the decent thing for him to do. And I...well, you know how I feel, Peter. +I think of you as my partner already. I owe it to you. You’ve earned it. This +might be your key to it." +Keating redrew his project five times. He hated it. He hated every girder of +that building before it was born. He worked, his hand trembling. He did not +think of the drawing under his hand. He thought of all the other contestants, of +the man who might win and be proclaimed publicly as his superior. He wondered +what that other one would do, how the other would solve the problem and surpass +him. He had to beat that man; nothing else mattered; there was no Peter Keating, +there was only a suction chamber, like the kind of tropical plant he’d heard +about, a plant that drew an insect into its vacuum and sucked it dry and thus +acquired its own substance. +He felt nothing but immense uncertainty when his sketches were ready and the +delicate perspective of a white marble edifice lay, neatly finished, before him. +It looked like a Renaissance palace made of rubber and stretched to the height +of forty stories. He had chosen the style of the Renaissance because he knew the +unwritten law that all architectural juries liked columns, and because he +remembered Ralston Holcombe was on the jury. He had borrowed from all of +Holcombe’s favorite Italian palaces. It looked good...it might be good...he was +not sure. He had no one to ask. +He heard these words in his own mind and he felt a wave of blind fury. He felt +it before he knew the reason, but he knew the reason almost in the same instant: +there was someone whom he could ask. He did not want to think of that name; he +would not go to him; the anger rose to his face and he felt the hot, tight +patches under his eyes. He knew that he would go. +He pushed the thought out of his mind. He was not going anywhere. When the time +came, he slipped his drawings into a folder and went to Roark’s office. +He found Roark alone, sitting at the desk in the large room that bore no signs +of activity. +"Hello, Howard!" he said brightly. "How are you? I’m not interrupting anything, +am I?" +147 + + "Hello, Peter," said Roark. "You aren’t." +"Not awfully busy, are you?" +"No." +"Mind if I sit down for a few minutes?" +"Sit down." +"Well, Howard, you’ve been doing great work. I’ve seen the Fargo Store. It’s +splendid. My congratulations." +"Thank you." +"You’ve been forging straight ahead, haven’t you? Had three commissions +already?" +"Four." +"Oh, yes, of course, four. Pretty good. I hear you’ve been having a little +trouble with the Sanborns." +"I have." +"Well, it’s not all smooth sailing, not all of it, you know. No new commissions +since? Nothing?" +"No. Nothing." +"Well, it will come. I’ve always said that architects don’t have to cut one +another’s throat, there’s plenty of work for all of us, we must develop a spirit +of professional unity and co-operation. For instance, take that +competition--have you sent your entry in already?" +"What competition?" +"Why, the competition. The Cosmo-Slotnick competition." +"I’m not sending any entry." +"You’re...not? Not at all?" +"No." +"Why?" +"I don’t enter competitions." +"Why, for heaven’s sake?" +"Come on, Peter. You didn’t come here to discuss that." +"As a matter of fact I did think I’d show you my own entry, you understand I’m +not asking you to help me, I just want your reaction, just a general opinion." +He hastened to open the folder. +148 + + Roark studied the sketches. Keating snapped: "Well? Is it all right?" +"No. It’s rotten. And you know it." +Then, for hours, while Keating watched and the sky darkened and lights flared up +in the windows of the city, Roark talked, explained, slashed lines through the +plans, untangled the labyrinth of the theater’s exits out windows, unraveled +halls, smashed useless arches, straightened stairways. Keating stammered once: +"Jesus, Howard! Why don’t you enter the competition, if you can do it like +this?" Roark answered: "Because I can’t. I couldn’t if I tried. I dry up. I go +blank. I can’t give them what they want. But I can straighten someone else’s +damn mess when I see it:" +It was morning when he pushed the plans aside. Keating whispered: +"And the elevation?" +"Oh, to hell with your elevation! I don’t want to look at your damn Renaissance +elevations!" But he looked. He could not prevent his hand from cutting lines +across the perspective. "All right, damn you, give them good Renaissance if you +must and if there is such a thing! Only I can’t do that for you. Figure it out +yourself. Something like this. Simpler. Peter, simpler, more direct, as honest +as you can make of a dishonest thing. Now go home and try to work out something +on this order." +Keating went home. He copied Roark’s plans. He worked out Roark’s hasty sketch +of the elevation into a neat, finished perspective. Then the drawings were +mailed, properly addressed to: +# +"The Most Beautiful Building in the World" Competition +Cosmo-Slotnick Pictures, Inc. +New York City. +# +The envelope, accompanying the entry, contained the names: "Francon & Heyer, +architects, Peter Keating, associated designer." +# +Through the months of that winter Roark found no other chances, no offers, no +prospects of commissions. He sat at his desk and forgot, at times, to turn on +the lights in the early dusk. It was as if the heavy immobility of all the hours +that had flowed through the office, of its door, of its air were beginning to +seep into his muscles. He would rise and fling a book at the wall, to feel his +arm move, to hear the burst of sound. He smiled, amused, picked up the book, and +laid it neatly back on the desk. He turned on the desk lamp. Then he stopped, +before he had withdrawn his hands from the cone of light under the lamp, and he +looked at his hands; he spread his fingers out slowly. Then he remembered what +Cameron had said to him long ago. He jerked his hands away. He reached for his +coat, turned the lights off, locked the door and went home. +As spring approached he knew that his money would not last much longer. He paid +the rent on his office promptly on the first of each month. He wanted the +feeling of thirty days ahead, during which he would still own the office. He +entered it calmly each morning. He found only that he did not want to look at +the calendar when it began to grow dark and he knew that another day of the +thirty had gone. When he noticed this, he made himself look at the calendar. It +149 + + was a race he was running now, a race between his rent money and...he did not +know the name of the other contestant. Perhaps it was every man whom he passed +on the street. +When he went up to his office, the elevator operators looked at him in a queer, +lazy, curious sort of way; when he spoke, they answered, not insolently, but in +an indifferent drawl that seemed to say it would become insolent in a moment. +They did not know what he was doing or why; they knew only that he was a man to +whom no clients ever came. He attended, because Austen Heller asked him to +attend, the few parties Heller gave occasionally; he was asked by guests: "Oh, +you’re an architect? You’ll forgive me, I haven’t kept up with +architecture--what have you built?" When he answered, he heard them say: "Oh, +yes, indeed," and he saw the conscious politeness of their manner tell him that +he was an architect by presumption. They had never seen his buildings; they did +not know whether his buildings were good or worthless; they knew only that they +had never heard of these buildings. +It was a war in which he was invited to fight nothing, yet he was pushed forward +to fight, he had to fight, he had no choice--and no adversary. +He passed by buildings under construction. He stopped to look at the steel +cages. He felt at times as if the beams and girders were shaping themselves not +into a house, but into a barricade to stop him; and the few steps on the +sidewalk that separated him from the wooden fence enclosing the construction +were the steps he would never be able to take. It was pain, but it was a +blunted, unpenetrating pain. It’s true, he would tell himself; it’s not, his +body would answer, the strange, untouchable healthiness of his body. +The Fargo Store had opened. But one building could not save a neighborhood; +Fargo’s competitors had been right, the tide had turned, was flowing uptown, his +customers were deserting him. Remarks were made openly on the decline of John +Fargo, who had topped his poor business judgment by an investment in a +preposterous kind of a building; which proved, it was stated, that the public +would not accept these architectural innovations. It was not stated that the +store was the cleanest and brightest in the city; that the skill of its plan +made its operation easier than had ever been possible; that the neighborhood had +been doomed before its erection. The building took the blame. +Athelstan Beasely, the wit of the architectural profession, the court jester of +the A.G.A., who never seemed to be building anything, but organized all the +charity balls, wrote in his column entitled "Quips and Quirks" in the A.G.A. +Bulletin: +"Well, lads and lassies, here’s a fairy tale with a moral: seems there was, once +upon a time, a little boy with hair the color of a Hallowe’en pumpkin, who +thought that he was better than all you common boys and girls. So to prove it, +he up and built a house, which is a very nice house, except that nobody can live +in it, and a store, which is a very lovely store, except that it’s going +bankrupt. He also erected a very eminent structure, to wit: a dogcart on a mud +road. This last is reported to be doing very well indeed, which, perhaps, is the +right field of endeavor for that little boy." +At the end of March Roark read in the papers about Roger Enright. Roger Enright +possessed millions, an oil concern and no sense of restraint. This made his name +appear in the papers frequently. He aroused a half-admiring, half-derisive awe +by the incoherent variety of his sudden ventures. The latest was a project for a +new type of residential development--an apartment building, with each unit +complete and isolated like an expensive private home. It was to be known as the +Enright House. Enright had declared that he did not want it to look like +150 + + anything anywhere else. He had approached and rejected several of the best +architects in town. +Roark felt as if this newspaper item were a personal invitation; the kind of +chance created expressly for him. For the first time he attempted to go after a +commission. He requested an interview with Roger Enright. He got an interview +with a secretary. The secretary, a young man who looked bored, asked him several +questions about his experience; he asked them slowly, as if it required an +effort to decide just what it would be appropriate to ask under the +circumstances, since the answers would make no difference whatever; he glanced +at some photographs of Roark’s buildings, and declared that Mr. Enright would +not be interested. +In the first week of April, when Roark had paid his last rental for one more +month at the office, he was asked to submit drawings for the new building of the +Manhattan Bank Company. He was asked by Mr. Weidler, a member of the board of +directors, who was a friend of young Richard Sanborn. Weidler told him: "I’ve +had a stiff fight, Mr. Roark, but I think I’ve won. I’ve taken them personally +through the Sanborn house, and Dick and I explained a few things. However, the +board must see the drawings before they make a decision. So it’s not quite +certain as yet, I must tell you frankly, but it’s almost certain. They’ve turned +down two other architects. They’re very much interested in you. Go ahead. Good +luck!" +Henry Cameron had had a relapse and the doctor warned his sister that no +recovery could be expected. She did not believe it. She felt a new hope, because +she saw that Cameron, lying still in bed, looked serene and--almost happy, a +word she had never found it possible to associate with her brother. +But she was frightened, one evening, when he said suddenly: "Call Howard. Ask +him to come here." In the three years since his retirement he had never called +for Roark, he had merely waited for Roark’s visits. +Roark arrived within an hour. He sat by the side of Cameron’s bed, and Cameron +talked to him as usual. He did not mention the special invitation and did not +explain. The night was warm and the window of Cameron’s bedroom stood open to +the dark garden. When he noticed, in a pause between sentences, the silence of +the trees outside, the unmoving silence of late hours, Cameron called his sister +and said: "Fix the couch in the living room for Howard. He’s staying here." +Roark looked at him and understood. Roark inclined his head in agreement; he +could acknowledge what Cameron had just declared to him only by a quiet glance +as solemn as Cameron’s. +Roark remained at the house for three days. No reference was made to his staying +here--nor to how long he would have to stay. His presence was accepted as a +natural fact requiring no comment. Miss Cameron understood--and knew that she +must say nothing. She moved about silently, with the meek courage of +resignation. +Cameron did not want Roark’s continuous presence in his room. He would say: "Go +out, take a walk through the garden, Howard. It’s beautiful, the grass is coming +up." He would lie in bed and watch, with contentment, through the open window, +Roark’s figure moving among the bare trees that stood against a pale blue sky. +He asked only that Roark eat his meals with him. Miss Cameron would put a tray +on Cameron’s knees, and serve Roark���s meal on a small table by the bed. Cameron +seemed to take pleasure in what he had never had nor sought: a sense of warmth +in performing a daily routine, the sense of family. +151 + + On the evening of the third day Cameron lay back on his pillow, talking as +usual, but the words came slowly and he did not move his head. Roark listened +and concentrated on not showing that he knew what went on in the terrible pauses +between Cameron’s words. The words sounded natural, and the strain they cost was +to remain Cameron’s last secret, as he wished. +Cameron spoke about the future of building materials. "Watch the light metals +industry, Howard....In a few...years...you’ll see them do some astounding +things....Watch the plastics, there’s a whole new era...coming from +that....You’ll find new tools, new means, new forms....You’ll have to show...the +damn fools...what wealth the human brain has made for them...what +possibilities....Last week I read about a new kind of composition tile...and +I’ve thought of a way to use it where nothing...else would do...take, for +instance, a small house...about five thousand dollars..." +After a while he stopped and remained silent, his eyes closed. Then Roark heard +him whisper suddenly: +"Gail Wynand..." +Roark leaned closer to him, bewildered. +"I don’t...hate anybody any more...only Gail Wynand...No, I’ve never laid eyes +on him....But he represents...everything that’s wrong with the world...the +triumph...of overbearing vulgarity....It’s Gail Wynand that you’ll have to +fight, Howard...." +Then he did not speak for a long time. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled. +He said: +"I know...what you’re going through at your office just now...." Roark had never +spoken to him of that. "No...don’t deny and...don’t say anything....I +know....But...it’s all right....Don’t be afraid....Do you remember the day when +I tried to fire you?...Forget what I said to you then....It was not the whole +story....This is...Don’t be afraid....It was worth it...." +His voice failed and he could not use it any longer. But the faculty of sight +remained untouched and he could lie silently and look at Roark without effort. +He died half an hour later. +# +Keating saw Catherine often. He had not announced their engagement, but his +mother knew, and it was not a precious secret of his own any longer. Catherine +thought, at times, that he had dropped the sense of significance in their +meetings. She was spared the loneliness of waiting for him; but she had lost the +reassurance of his inevitable returns. +Keating had told her: "Let’s wait for the results of that movie competition, +Katie. It won’t be long, they’ll announce the decision in May. If I win--I’ll be +set for life. Then we’ll be married. And that’s when I’ll meet your uncle--and +he’ll want to meet me. And I’ve got to win." +"I know you’ll win." +"Besides, old Heyer won’t last another month. The doctor told us that we can +expect a second stroke at any time and that will be that. If it doesn’t get him +to the graveyard, it’ll certainly get him out of the office." +"Oh, Peter, I don’t like to hear you talk like that. You mustn’t be so...so +152 + + terribly selfish." +"I’m sorry, dear. Well...yes, I guess I’m selfish. Everybody is." +He spent more time with Dominique. Dominique watched him complacently, as if he +presented no further problem to her. She seemed to find him suitable as an +inconsequential companion for an occasional, inconsequential evening. He thought +that she liked him. He knew that this was not an encouraging sign. +He forgot at times that she was Francon’s daughter; he forgot all the reasons +that prompted him to want her. He felt no need to be prompted. He wanted her. He +needed no reasons now but the excitement of her presence. +Yet he felt helpless before her. He refused to accept the thought that a woman +could remain indifferent to him. But he was not certain even of her +indifference. He waited and tried to guess her moods, to respond as he supposed +she wished him to respond. He received no answer. +On a spring night they attended a ball together. They danced, and he drew her +close, he stressed the touch of his fingers on her body. He knew that she +noticed and understood. She did not withdraw; she looked at him with an unmoving +glance that was almost expectation. When they were leaving, he held her wrap and +let his fingers rest on her shoulders; she did not move or draw the wrap closed; +she waited; she let him lift his hands. Then they walked together down to the +cab. +She sat silently in a corner of the cab; she had never before considered his +presence important enough to require silence. She sat, her legs crossed, her +wrap gathered tightly, her fingertips beating in slow rotation against her knee. +He closed his hand softly about her forearm. She did not resist; she did not +answer; only her fingers stopped beating. His lips touched her hair; it was not +a kiss, he merely let his lips rest against her hair for a long time. +When the cab stopped, he whispered: "Dominique...let me come up...for just a +moment..." +"Yes," she answered. The word was flat, impersonal, with no sound of invitation. +But she had never allowed it before. He followed her, his heart pounding. +There was one fragment of a second, as she entered her apartment, when she +stopped, waiting. He stared at her helplessly, bewildered, too happy. He noticed +the pause only when she was moving again, walking away from him, into the +drawing room. She sat down, and her hands fell limply one at each side, her arms +away from her body, leaving her unprotected. Her eyes were half closed, +rectangular, empty. +"Dominique..." he whispered, "Dominique...how lovely you are!..." +Then he was beside her, whispering incoherently: +"Dominique...Dominique, I love you...Don’t laugh at me, please don’t laugh!...My +whole life...anything you wish...Don’t you know how beautiful you +are?...Dominique...I love you..." +He stopped with his arms around her and his face over hers, to catch some hint +of response or resistance; he saw nothing. He jerked her violently against him +and kissed her lips. +His arms fell open. He let her body fall back against the seat, and he stared at +153 + + her, aghast. It had not been a kiss; he had not held a woman in his arms; what +he had held and kissed had not been alive. Her lips had not moved in answer +against his; her arms had not moved to embrace him; it was not revulsion--he +could have understood revulsion. It was as if he could hold her forever or drop +her, kiss her again or go further to satisfy his desire--and her body would not +know it, would not notice it. She was looking at him, past him. She saw a +cigarette stub that had fallen off a tray on a table beside her, she moved her +hand and slipped the cigarette back into the tray. +"Dominique," he whispered stupidly, "didn’t you want me to kiss you?" +"Yes." She was not laughing at him; she was answering simply and helplessly. +"Haven’t you ever been kissed before?" +"Yes. Many times." +"Do you always act like that?" +"Always. Just like that." +"Why did you want me to kiss you?" +"I wanted to try it." +"You’re not human, Dominique." +She lifted her head, she got up and the sharp precision of the movement was her +own again. He knew he would hear no simple, confessing helplessness in her +voice; he knew the intimacy was ended, even though her words, when she spoke, +were more intimate and revealing than anything she had said; but she spoke as if +she did not care what she revealed or to whom: +"I suppose I’m one of those freaks you hear about, an utterly frigid woman. I’m +sorry, Peter. You see? You have no rivals, but that includes you also. A +disappointment, darling?" +"You...you’ll outgrow it...some day..." +"I’m really not so young, Peter. Twenty-five. It must be an interesting +experience to sleep with a man. I’ve wanted to want it. I should think it would +be exciting to become a dissolute woman. I am, you know, in everything but in +fact....Peter, you look as if you were going to blush in a moment, and that’s +very amusing." +"Dominique! Haven’t you ever been in love at all? Not even a little?" +"I haven’t. I really wanted to fall in love with you. I thought it would be +convenient. I’d have no trouble with you at all. But you see? I can’t feel +anything. I can’t feel any difference, whether it’s you or Alvah Scarret or +Lucius Heyer." +He got up. He did not want to look at her. He walked to a window and stood, +staring out, his hands clasped behind his back. He had forgotten his desire and +her beauty, but he remembered now that she was Francon’s daughter. +"Dominique, will you marry me?" +He knew he had to say it now; if he let himself think of her, he would never say +154 + + it; what he felt for her did not matter any longer; he could not let it stand +between him and his future; and what lie felt for her was growing into hatred. +"You’re not serious?" she asked. +He turned to her. He spoke rapidly, easily; he was lying now, and so he was sure +of himself and it was not difficult: +"I love you, Dominique. I’m crazy about you. Give me a chance. If there’s no one +else, why not? You’ll learn to love me--because I understand you. I’ll be +patient. I’ll make you happy." +She shuddered suddenly, and then she laughed. She laughed simply, completely; he +saw the pale form of her dress trembling; she stood straight, her head thrown +back, like a string shaking with the vibrations of a blinding insult to him; an +insult, because her laughter was not bitter or mocking, but quite simply gay. +Then it stopped. She stood looking at him. She said earnestly: +"Peter, if I ever want to punish myself for something terrible, if I ever want +to punish myself disgustingly--I’ll marry you." She added: "Consider it a +promise." +"I’ll wait--no matter what reason you choose for it." +Then she smiled gaily, the cold, gay smile he dreaded. +"Really, Peter, you don’t have to do it, you know. You’ll get that partnership +anyway. And we’ll always be good friends. Now its time for you to go home. Don’t +forget, you’re taking me to the horse show Wednesday. Oh, yes, we’re going to +the horse show Wednesday. I adore horse shows. Good night, Peter." +He left and walked home through the warm spring night. He walked savagely. If, +at that moment, someone had offered him sole ownership of the firm of Francon & +Heyer at the price of marrying Dominique, he would have refused it. He knew +also, hating himself, that he would not refuse, if it were offered to him on the +following morning. + +15. +THIS was fear. This was what one feels in nightmares, thought Peter Keating, +only then one awakens when it becomes unbearable, but he could neither awaken +nor bear it any longer. It had been growing, for days, for weeks, and now it had +caught him: this lewd, unspeakable dread of defeat. He would lose the +competition, he was certain that he would lose it, and the certainty grew as +each day of waiting passed. He could not work; he jerked when people spoke to +him; he had not slept for nights. +He walked toward the house of Lucius Heyer. He tried not to notice the faces of +the people he passed, but he had to notice; he had always looked at people; and +people looked at him, as they always did. He wanted to shout at them and tell +them to turn away, to leave him alone. They were staring at him, he thought, +because he was to fail and they knew it. +He was going to Heyer’s house to save himself from the coming disaster in the +only way he saw left to him. If he failed in that competition--and he knew he +was to fail--Francon would be shocked and disillusioned; then if Heyer died, as +155 + + he could die at any moment, Francon would hesitate--in the bitter aftermath of a +public humiliation--to accept Keating as his partner; if Francon hesitated, the +game was lost. There were others waiting for the opportunity: Bennett, whom he +had been unable to get out of the office; Claude Stengel, who had been doing +very well on his own, and had approached Francon with an offer to buy Heyer’s +place. Keating had nothing to count on, except Francon’s uncertain faith in him. +Once another partner replaced Heyer, it would be the end of Keating’s future. He +had come too close and had missed. That was never forgiven. +Through the sleepless nights the decision had become clear and hard in his mind: +he had to close the issue at once; he had to take advantage of Francon’s deluded +hopes before the winner of the competition was announced; he had to force Heyer +out and take his place; he had only a few days left. +He remembered Francon’s gossip about Heyer’s character. He looked through the +files in Heyer’s office and found what he had hoped to find. It was a letter +from a contractor, written fifteen years ago; it stated merely that the +contractor was enclosing a check for twenty thousand dollars due Mr. Heyer. +Keating looked up the records for that particular building; it did seem that the +structure had cost more than it should have cost. That was the year when Heyer +had started his collection of porcelain. +He found Heyer alone in his study. It was a small, dim room and the air in it +seemed heavy, as if it had not been disturbed for years. The dark mahogany +paneling, the tapestries, the priceless pieces of old furniture were kept +faultlessly clean, but the room smelt, somehow, of indigence and of decay. There +was a single lamp burning on a small table in a corner, and five delicate, +precious cups of ancient porcelain on the table. Heyer sat hunched, examining +the cups in the dim light, with a vague, pointless enjoyment. He shuddered a +little when his old valet admitted Keating, and he blinked in vapid +bewilderment, but he asked Keating to sit down. +When he heard the first sounds of his own voice, Keating knew he had lost the +fear that had followed him on his way through the streets; his voice was cold +and steady. Tim Davis, he thought, Claude Stengel, and now just one more to be +removed. +He explained what he wanted, spreading upon the still air of the room one short, +concise, complete paragraph of thought, perfect as a gem with clean edges. +"And so, unless you inform Francon of your retirement tomorrow morning," he +concluded, holding the letter by a corner between two fingers, "this goes to the +A.G.A." +He waited. Heyer sat still, with his pale, bulging eyes blank and his mouth open +in a perfect circle. Keating shuddered and wondered whether he was speaking to +an idiot. +Then Heyer’s mouth moved and his pale pink tongue showed, flickering against his +lower teeth. +"But I don’t want to retire." He said it simply, guilelessly, in a little +petulant whine. +"You will have to retire." +"I don’t want to. I’m not going to. I’m a famous architect. I’ve always been a +famous architect. I wish people would stop bothering me. They all want me to +retire. I’ll tell you a secret." He leaned forward; he whispered slyly: "You may +156 + + not know it, but I know, he can’t deceive me; Guy wants me to retire. He thinks +he’s outwitting me, but I can see through him. That’s a good one on Guy." He +giggled softly. +"I don’t think you understood me. Do you understand this?" Keating pushed the +letter into Heyer’s half-closed fingers. +He watched the thin sheet trembling as Heyer held it. Then it dropped to the +table and Heyer’s left hand with the paralyzed fingers jabbed at it blindly, +purposelessly, like a hook. He said, gulping: +"You can’t send this to the A.G.A. They’ll have my license taken away." +"Certainly," said Keating, "they will." +"And it will be in the papers." +"In all of them." +"You can’t do that." +"I’m going to--unless you retire." +Heyer’s shoulders drew down to the edge of the table. His head remained above +the edge, timidly, as if he were ready to draw it also out of sight. +"You won’t do that please you won’t," Heyer mumbled in one long whine without +pauses. "You’re a nice boy you’re a very nice boy you won’t do it will you?" +The yellow square of paper lay on the table. Heyer’s useless left hand reached +for it, crawling slowly over the edge. Keating leaned forward and snatched the +letter from under his hand. +Heyer looked at him, his head bent to one side, his mouth open. He looked as if +he expected Keating to strike him; with a sickening, pleading glance that said +he would allow Keating to strike him. +"Please," whispered Heyer, "you won’t do that, will you? I don’t feel very well. +I’ve never hurt you. I seem to remember, I did something very nice for you +once." +"What?" snapped Keating. "What did you do for me?" +"Your name’s Peter Keating...Peter Keating...I remember...I did something nice +for you....You’re the boy Guy has so much faith in. Don’t trust Guy. I don’t +trust him. But I like you. We’ll make you a designer one of these days." His +mouth remained hanging open on the word. A thin strand of saliva trickled down +from the corner of his mouth. "Please...don’t..." +Keating’s eyes were bright with disgust; aversion goaded him on; he had to make +it worse because he couldn’t stand it. +"You’ll be exposed publicly," said Keating, the sounds of his voice glittering. +"You’ll be denounced as a grafter. People will point at you. They’ll print your +picture in the papers. The owners of that building will sue you. They’ll throw +you in jail." +Heyer said nothing. He did not move. Keating heard the cups on the table +tinkling suddenly. He could not see the shaking of Heyer’s body. He heard a +157 + + thin, glassy ringing in the silence of the room, as if the cups were trembling +of themselves. +"Get out!" said Keating, raising his voice, not to hear that sound. "Get out of +the firm! What do you want to stay for? You’re no good. You’ve never been any +good." +The yellow face at the edge of the table opened its mouth and made a wet, +gurgling sound like a moan. +Keating sat easily, leaning forward, his knees spread apart, one elbow resting +on his knee, the hand hanging down, swinging the letter. +"I..." Heyer choked. "I..." +"Shut up! You’ve got nothing to say, except yes or no. Think fast now. I’m not +here to argue with you." +Heyer stopped trembling. A shadow cut diagonally across his face. Keating saw +one eye that did not blink, and half a mouth, open, the darkness flowing in +through the hole, into the face, as if it were drowning. +"Answer me!" Keating screamed, frightened suddenly. "Why don’t you answer me?" +The half-face swayed and he saw the head lurch forward; it fell down on the +table, and went on, and rolled to the floor, as it cut off; two of the cups fell +after it, cracking softly to pieces on the carpet. The first thing Keating felt +was relief to see that the body had followed the head and lay crumpled in a heap +on the floor, intact. There had been no sound; only the muffled, musical +bursting of porcelain. +He’ll be furious, thought Keating, looking down at the cups. He had jumped to +his feet, he was kneeling, gathering the pieces pointlessly; he saw that they +were broken beyond repair. He knew he was thinking also, at the same time, that +it had come, that second stroke they had been expecting, and that he would have +to do something about it in a moment, but that it was all right, because Heyer +would have to retire now. +Then he moved on his knees closer to Heyer’s body. He wondered why he did not +want to touch it. "Mr. Heyer," he called. His voice was soft, almost respectful. +He lifted Heyer’s head, cautiously. He let it drop. He heard no sound of its +falling. He heard the hiccough in his own throat. Heyer was dead. +He sat beside the body, his buttocks against his heels, his hands spread on his +knees. He looked straight ahead; his glance stopped on the folds of the hangings +by the door; he wondered whether the gray sheen was dust or the nap of velvet +and was it velvet and how old-fashioned it was to have hangings by a door. Then +he felt himself shaking. He wanted to vomit. He rose, walked across the room and +threw the door open, because he remembered that there was the rest of the +apartment somewhere and a valet in it, and he called, trying to scream for help. +# +Keating came to the office as usual. He answered questions, he explained that +Heyer had asked him, that day, to come to his house after dinner; Heyer had +wanted to discuss the matter of his retirement. No one doubted the story and +Keating knew that no one ever would. Heyer’s end had come as everybody had +expected it to come. Francon felt nothing but relief. "We knew he would, sooner +or later," said Francon. "Why regret that he spared himself and all of us a +prolonged agony?" +158 + + Keating’s manner was calmer than it had been for weeks. It was the calm of blank +stupor. The thought followed him, gentle, unstressed, monotonous, at his work, +at home, at night: he was a murderer...no, but almost a murderer...almost a +murderer...He knew that it had not been an accident; he knew he had counted on +the shock and the terror; he had counted on that second stroke which would send +Heyer to the hospital for the rest of his days. But was that all he had +expected? Hadn’t he known what else a second stroke could mean? Had he counted +on that? He tried to remember. He tried, wringing his mind dry. He felt nothing. +He expected to feel nothing, one way or another. Only he wanted to know. He did +not notice what went on in the office around him. He forgot that he had but a +short time left to close the deal with Francon about the partnership. +A few days after Heyer’s death Francon called him to his office. +"Sit down, Peter," he said with a brighter smile than usual. "Well, I have some +good news for you, kid. They read Lucius’s will this morning. He had no +relatives left, you know. Well, I was surprised, I didn’t give him enough +credit, I guess, but it seems he could make a nice gesture on occasion. He’s +left everything to you....Pretty grand, isn’t it? Now you won’t have to worry +about investment when we make arrangements for...What’s the matter, +Peter?...Peter, my boy, are you sick?" +Keating’s face fell upon his arm on the corner of the desk. He could not let +Francon see his face. He was going to be sick; sick, because through the horror, +he had caught himself wondering how much Heyer had actually left.... +The will had been made out five years ago; perhaps in a senseless spurt of +affection for the only person who had shown Heyer consideration in the office; +perhaps as a gesture against his partner; it had been made and forgotten. The +estate amounted to two hundred thousand dollars, plus Heyer’s interest in the +firm and his porcelain collection. +Keating left the office early, that day, not hearing the congratulations. He +went home, told the news to his mother, left her gasping in the middle of the +living room, and locked himself in his bedroom. He went out, saying nothing, +before dinner. He had no dinner that night, but he drank himself into a +ferocious lucidity, at his favorite speak-easy. And in that heightened state of +luminous vision, his head nodding over a glass but his mind steady, he told +himself that he had nothing to regret; he had done what anyone would have done; +Catherine had said it, he was selfish; everybody was selfish; it was not a +pretty thing, to be selfish, but he was not alone in it; he had merely been +luckier than most; he had been, because he was better than most; he felt fine; +he hoped the useless questions would never come back to him again; every man for +himself, he muttered, falling asleep on the table. +The useless questions never came back to him again. He had no time for them in +the days that followed. He had won the Cosmo-Slotnick competition. +# +Peter Keating had known it would be a triumph, but he had not expected the thing +that happened. He had dreamed of a sound of trumpets; he had not foreseen a +symphonic explosion. +It began with the thin ringing of a telephone, announcing the names of the +winners. Then every phone in the office joined in, screaming, bursting from +under the fingers of the operator who could barely control the switchboard; +calls from every paper in town, from famous architects, questions, demands for +interviews, congratulations. Then the flood rushed out of the elevators, poured +159 + + through the office doors, the messages, the telegrams, the people Keating knew, +the people he had never seen before, the reception clerk losing all sense, not +knowing whom to admit or refuse, and Keating shaking hands, an endless stream of +hands like a wheel with soft moist cogs flapping against his fingers. He did not +know what he said at that first interview, with Francon’s office full of people +and cameras; Francon had thrown the doors of his liquor cabinet wide-open. +Francon gulped to all these people that the Cosmo-Slotnick building had been +created by Peter Keating alone; Francon did not care; he was magnanimous in a +spurt of enthusiasm; besides, it made a good story. +It made a better story than Francon had expected. From the pages of newspapers +the face of Peter Keating looked upon the country, the handsome, wholesome, +smiling face with the brilliant eyes and the dark curls; it headed columns of +print about poverty, struggle, aspiration and unremitting toil that had won +their reward; about the faith of a mother who had sacrificed everything to her +boy’s success; about the "Cinderella of Architecture." +Cosmo-Slotnick were pleased; they had not thought that prize-winning architects +could also be young, handsome and poor--well, so recently poor. They had +discovered a boy genius; Cosmo-Slotnick adored boy geniuses; Mr. Slotnick was +one himself, being only forty-three. +Keating’s drawings of the "most beautiful skyscraper on earth" were reproduced +in the papers, with the words of the award underneath: "...for the brilliant +skill and simplicity of its plan...for its clean, ruthless efficiency...for its +ingenious economy of space...for the masterful blending of the modern with the +traditional in Art...to Francon & Heyer and Peter Keating..." +Keating appeared in newsreels, shaking hands with Mr. Shupe and Mr. Slotnick, +and the subtitle announced what these two gentlemen thought of his building. +Keating appeared in newsreels, shaking hands with Miss Dimples Williams, and the +subtitle announced what he thought of her current picture. He appeared at +architectural banquets and at film banquets, in the place of honor, and he had +to make speeches, forgetting whether he was to speak of buildings or of movies. +He appeared at architectural clubs and at fan clubs. Cosmo-Slotnick put out a +composite picture of Keating and of his building, which could be had for a +self-addressed, stamped envelope, and two bits. He made a personal appearance +each evening, for a week, on the stage of the Cosmo Theater, with the first run +of the latest Cosmo-Slotnick special; he bowed over the footlights, slim and +graceful in a black tuxedo, and he spoke for two minutes on the significance of +architecture. He presided as judge at a beauty contest in Atlantic City, the +winner to be awarded a screen test by Cosmo-Slotnick. He was photographed with a +famous prize-fighter, under the caption: "Champions." A scale model of his +building was made and sent on tour, together with the photographs of the best +among the other entries, to be exhibited in the foyers of Cosmo-Slotnick +theaters throughout the country. +Mrs. Keating had sobbed at first, clasped Peter in her arms and gulped that she +could not believe it. She had stammered, answering questions about Petey, and +she had posed for pictures, embarrassed, eager to please. Then she became used +to it. She told Peter, shrugging, that of course he had won, it was nothing to +gape at, no one else could have won. She acquired a brisk little tone of +condescension for the reporters. She was distinctly annoyed when she was not +included in the photographs taken of Petey. She acquired a mink coat. +Keating let himself be carried by the torrent. He needed the people and the +clamor around him. There were no questions and no doubts when he stood on a +platform over a sea of faces; the air was heavy, compact, saturated with a +single solvent--admiration; there was no room for anything else. He was great; +160 + + great as the number of people who told him so. He was right; right at the number +of people who believed it. He looked at the faces, at the eyes; he saw himself +born in them, he saw himself being granted the gift of life. That was Peter +Keating, that, the reflection in those staring pupils, and his body was only its +reflection. +He found time to spend two hours with Catherine, one evening. He held her in his +arms and she whispered radiant plans for their future; he glanced at her with +contentment; he did not hear her words; he was thinking of how it would look if +they were photographed like this together and in how many papers it would be +syndicated. +He saw Dominique once. She was leaving the city for the summer. Dominique was +disappointing. She congratulated him, quite correctly; but she looked at him as +she had always looked, as if nothing had happened. Of all architectural +publications, her column had been the only one that had never mentioned the +Cosmo-Slotnick competition or its winner. +"I’m going to Connecticut," she told him. "I’m taking over Father’s place down +there for the summer. He’s letting me have it all to myself. No, Peter, you +can’t come to visit me. Not even once. I’m going there so I won’t have to see +anybody." He was disappointed, but it did not spoil the triumph of his days. He +was not afraid of Dominique any longer. He felt confident that he could bring +her to change her attitude, that he would see the change when she came back in +the fall. +But there was one thing which did spoil his triumph; not often and not too +loudly. He never tired of hearing what was said about him; but he did not like +to hear too much about his building. And when he had to hear it, he did not mind +the comments on "the masterful blending of the modern with the traditional" in +its facade; but when they spoke of the plan--and they spoke so much of the +plan--when he heard about "the brilliant skill and simplicity...the clean, +ruthless efficiency...the ingenious economy of space..." when he heard it and +thought of...He did not think it. There were no words in his brain. He would not +allow them. There was only a heavy, dark feeling--and a name. +For two weeks after the award he pushed this thing out of his mind, as a thing +unworthy of his concern, to be buried as his doubting, humble past was buried. +All winter long he had kept his own sketches of the building with the pencil +lines cut across them by another’s hands; on the evening of the award he had +burned them; it was the first thing he had done. +But the thing would not leave him. Then he grasped suddenly that it was not a +vague threat, but a practical danger; and he lost all fear of it. He could deal +with a practical danger, he could dispose of it quite simply. He chuckled with +relief, he telephoned Roark’s office, and made an appointment to see him. +He went to that appointment confidently. For the first time in his life he felt +free of the strange uneasiness which he had never been able to explain or escape +in Roark’s presence. He felt safe now. He was through with Howard Roark. +# +Roark sat at the desk in his office, waiting. The telephone had rung once, that +morning, but it had been only Peter Keating asking for an appointment. He had +forgotten now that Keating was coming. He was waiting for the telephone. He had +become dependent on that telephone in the last few weeks. He was to hear at any +moment about his drawings for the Manhattan Bank Company. +His rent on the office was long since overdue. So was the rent on the room where +161 + + he lived. He did not care about the room; he could tell the landlord to wait; +the landlord waited; it would not have mattered greatly if he had stopped +waiting. But it mattered at the office. He told the rental agent that he would +have to wait; he did not ask for the delay; he only said flatly, quietly, that +there would be a delay, which was all he knew how to do. But his knowledge that +he needed his alms from the rental agent, that too much depended on it, and made +it sound like begging in his own mind. That was torture. All right, he thought, +it’s torture. What of it? +The telephone bill was overdue for two months. He had received the final +warning. The telephone was to be disconnected in a few days. He had to wait. So +much could happen in a few days. +The answer of the bank board, which Weidler had promised him long ago, had been +postponed from week to week. The board could reach no decision; there had been +objectors and there had been violent supporters; there had been conferences; +Weidler told him eloquently little, but he could guess much; there had been days +of silence, of silence in the office, of silence in the whole city, of silence +within him. He waited. +He sat, slumped across the desk, his face on his arm, his fingers on the stand +of the telephone. He thought dimly that he should not sit like that; but he felt +very tired today. He thought that he should take his hand off that phone; but he +did not move it. Well, yes, he depended on that phone, he could smash it, but he +would still depend on it; he and every breath in him and every bit of him. His +fingers rested on the stand without moving. It was this and the mail; he had +lied to himself also about the mail; he had lied when he had forced himself not +to leap, as a rare letter fell through the slot in the door, not to run forward, +but to wait, to stand looking at me white envelope on the floor, then to walk to +it slowly and pick it up. The slot in the door and the telephone--there was +nothing else left to him of the world. +He raised his head, as he thought of it, to look down at the door, at the foot +of the door. There was nothing. It was late in the afternoon, probably past the +time of the last delivery. He raised his wrist to glance at his watch; he saw +his bare wrist; the watch had been pawned. He turned to the window; there was a +clock he could distinguish on a distant tower; it was half past four; there +would be no other delivery today. +He saw that his hand was lifting the telephone receiver. His fingers were +dialing the number. +"No, not yet," Weidler’s voice told him over the wire. "We had that meeting +scheduled for yesterday, but it had to be called off....I’m keeping after them +like a bulldog....I can promise you that we’ll have a definite answer tomorrow. +I can almost promise you. If not tomorrow, then it will have to wait over the +week end, but by Monday I promise it for certain....You’ve been wonderfully +patient with us, Mr. Roark. We appreciate it." Roark dropped the receiver. He +closed his eyes. He thought he would allow himself to rest, just to rest blankly +like this for a few minutes, before he would begin to think of what the date on +the telephone notice had been and in what way he could manage to last until +Monday. +"Hello, Howard," said Peter Keating. +He opened his eyes. Keating had entered and stood before him, smiling. He wore a +light tan spring coat, thrown open, the loops of its belt like handles at his +sides, a blue cornflower in his buttonhole. He stood, his legs apart, his fists +on his hips, his hat on the back of his head, his black curls so bright and +162 + + crisp over his pale forehead that one expected to see drops of spring dew +glistening on them as on the cornflower. +"Hello, Peter," said Roark. +Keating sat down comfortably, took his hat off, dropped it in the middle of the +desk, and clasped one hand over each knee with a brisk little slap. +"Well, Howard, things are happening, aren’t they?" +"Congratulations." +"Thanks. What’s the matter, Howard? You look like hell. Surely, you’re not +overworking yourself, from what I hear?" +This was not the manner he had intended to assume. He had planned the interview +to be smooth and friendly. Well, he decided, he’d switch back to that later. But +first he had to show that he was not afraid of Roark, that he’d never be afraid +again. +"No, I’m not overworking." +"Look, Howard, why don’t you drop it?" +That was something he had not intended saying at all. His mouth remained open a +little, in astonishment. +"Drop what?" +"The pose. Oh, the ideals, if you prefer. Why don’t you come down to earth? Why +don’t you start working like everybody else? Why don’t you stop being a damn +fool?" He felt himself rolling down a hill, without brakes. He could not stop. +"What’s the matter, Peter?" +"How do you expect to get along in the world? You have to live with people, you +know. There are only two ways. You can join them or you can fight them. But you +don’t seem to be doing either." +"No. Not either." +"And people don’t want you. They don’t want you! Aren’t you afraid?" +"No." +"You haven’t worked for a year. And you won’t. Who’ll ever give you work? You +might have a few hundreds left--and then it’s the end." +"That’s wrong, Peter. I have fourteen dollars left, and fifty-seven cents." +"Well? And look at me! I don’t care if it’s crude to say that myself. That’s not +the point. I’m not boasting. It doesn’t matter who says it. But look at me! +Remember how we started? Then look at us now. And then think that it’s up to +you. Just drop that fool delusion that you’re better than everybody else--and go +to work. In a year, you’ll have an office that’ll make you blush to think of +this dump. You’ll have people running after you, you’ll have clients, you’ll +have friends, you’ll have an army of draftsmen to order around!...Hell! Howard, +it’s nothing to me--what can it mean to me?--but this time I’m not fishing for +anything for myself, in fact I know that you’d make a dangerous competitor, but +163 + + I’ve got to say this to you. Just think, Howard, think of it! You’ll be rich, +you’ll be famous, you’ll be respected, you’ll be praised, you’ll be +admired--you’ll be one of us!...Well?...Say something! Why don’t you say +something?" +He saw that Roark’s eyes were not empty and scornful, but attentive and +wondering. It was close to some sort of surrender for Roark, because he had not +dropped the iron sheet in his eyes, because he allowed his eyes to be puzzled +and curious--and almost helpless. +"Look, Peter. I believe you. I know that you have nothing to gain by saying +this. I know more than that. I know that you don’t want me to succeed--it’s all +right, I’m not reproaching you, I’ve always known it--you don’t want me ever to +reach these things you’re offering me. And yet you’re pushing me on to reach +them, quite sincerely. And you know that if I take your advice, I’ll reach them. +And it’s not love for me, because that wouldn’t make you so angry--and so +frightened....Peter, what is it that disturbs you about me as I am?" +"I don’t know..." whispered Rearing. +He understood that it was a confession, that answer of his, and a terrifying +one. He did not know the nature of what he had confessed and he felt certain +that Roark did not know it either. But the thing had been bared; they could not +grasp it, but they felt its shape. And it made them sit silently, facing each +other, in astonishment, in resignation. +"Pull yourself together, Peter," said Roark gently, as to a comrade. "We’ll +never speak of that again." +Then Keating said suddenly, his voice clinging in relief to the bright vulgarity +of its new tone: +"Aw hell, Howard, I was only talking good plain horse sense. Now if you wanted +to work like a normal person--" +"Shut up!" snapped Roark. +Keating leaned back, exhausted. He had nothing else to say. He had forgotten +what he had come here to discuss. +"Now," said Roark, "what did you want to tell me about the competition?" +Keating jerked forward. He wondered what had made Roark guess that. And then it +became easier, because he forgot the rest in a sweeping surge of resentment. +"Oh, yes!" said Keating crisply, a bright edge of irritation in the sound of his +voice. "Yes, I did want to speak to you about that. Thanks for reminding me. Of +course, you’d guess it, because you know that I’m not an ungrateful swine. I +really came here to thank you, Howard. I haven’t forgotten that you had a share +in that building, you did give me some advice on it. I’d be the first one to +give you part of the credit." +"That’s not necessary." +"Oh, it’s not that I’d mind, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to say anything +about it. And I’m sure you don’t want to say anything yourself, because you know +how it is, people are so funny, they misinterpret everything in such a stupid +way....But since I’m getting part of the award money, I thought it’s only fair +to let you have some of it. I’m glad that it comes at a time when you need it so +164 + + badly." +He produced his billfold, pulled from it a check he had made out in advance and +put it down on the desk. It read: "Pay to the order of Howard Roark--the sum of +five hundred dollars." +"Thank you, Peter," said Roark, taking the check. +Then he turned it over, took his fountain pen, wrote on the back: "Pay to the +order of Peter Keating," signed and handed the check to Keating. +"And here’s my bribe to you, Peter," he said. "For the same purpose. To keep +your mouth shut." +Keating stared at him blankly. +"That’s all I can offer you now," said Roark. "You can’t extort anything from me +at present, but later, when I’ll have money, I’d like to ask you please not to +blackmail me. I’m telling you frankly that you could. Because I don’t want +anyone to know that I had anything to do with that building." +He laughed at the slow look of comprehension on Keating’s face. +"No?" said Roark. "You don’t want to blackmail me on that?...Go home, Peter. +You’re perfectly safe. I’ll never say a word about it. It’s yours, the building +and every girder of it and every foot of plumbing and every picture of your face +in the papers." +Then Keating jumped to his feet. He was shaking. +"God damn you!" he screamed. "God damn you! Who do you think you are? Who told +you that you could do this to people? So you’re too good for that building? You +want to make me ashamed of it? You rotten, lousy, conceited bastard! Who are +you? You don’t even have the wits to know that you’re a flop, an incompetent, a +beggar, a failure, a failure, a failure! And you stand there pronouncing +judgment! You, against the whole country! You against everybody! Why should I +listen to you? You can’t frighten me. You can’t touch me. I have the whole world +with me!...Don’t stare at me like that! I’ve always hated you! You didn’t know +that, did you? I’ve always hated you! I always will! I’ll break you some day, I +swear I will, if it’s the last thing I do!" +"Peter," said Roark, "why betray so much?" +Keating’s breath failed on a choked moan. He slumped down on a chair, he sat +still, his hands clasping the sides of the seat under him. +After a while he raised his head. He asked woodenly: +"Oh God, Howard, what have I been saying?" +"Are you all right now? Can you go?" +"Howard, I’m sorry. I apologize, if you want me to." His voice was raw and dull, +without conviction. "I lost my head. Guess I’m just unstrung. I didn’t mean any +of it. I don’t know why I said it. Honestly, I don’t." +"Fix your collar. It’s unfastened." +"I guess I was angry about what you did with that check. But I suppose you were +165 + + insulted, too. I’m sorry. I’m stupid like that sometimes. I didn’t mean to +offend you. We’ll just destroy the damn thing." +He picked up the check, struck a match, cautiously watched the paper burn till +he had to drop the last scrap. +"Howard, we’ll forget it?" +"Don’t you think you’d better go now?" +Keating rose heavily, his hands poked about in a few useless gestures, and he +mumbled: +"Well...well, good night, Howard. I...I’ll see you soon....It’s because so +much’s happened to me lately....Guess I need a rest....So long, Howard...." +When he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him, Keating felt +an icy sense of relief. He felt heavy and very tired, but drearily sure of +himself. He had acquired the knowledge of one thing: he hated Roark. It was not +necessary to doubt and wonder and squirm in uneasiness any longer. It was +simple. He hated Roark. The reasons? It was not necessary to wonder about the +reasons. It was necessary only to hate, to hate blindly, to hate patiently, to +hate without anger; only to hate, and let nothing intervene, and not let oneself +forget, ever. +# +The telephone rang late on Monday afternoon. +"Mr. Roark?" said Weidler. "Can you come right over? I don’t want to say +anything over the phone, but get here at once." The voice sounded clear, gay, +radiantly premonitory. +Roark looked at the window, at the clock on the distant tower. He sat laughing +at that clock, as at a friendly old enemy; he would not need it any longer, he +would have a watch of his own again. He threw his head back in defiance to that +pale gray dial hanging high over the city. +He rose and reached for his coat. He threw his shoulders back, slipping the coat +on; he felt pleasure in the jolt of his muscles. +In the street outside, he took a taxi which he could not afford. +The chairman of the board was waiting for him in his office, with Weidler and +with the vice-president of the Manhattan Bank Company. There was a long +conference table in the room, and Roark’s drawings were spread upon it. Weidler +rose when he entered and walked to meet him, his hand outstretched. It was in +the air of the room, like an overture to the words Weidler uttered, and Roark +was not certain of the moment when he heard them, because he thought he had +heard them the instant he entered. +"Well, Mr. Roark, the commission’s yours," said Weidler. +Roark bowed. It was best not to trust his voice for a few minutes. +The chairman smiled amiably, inviting him to sit down. Roark sat down by the +side of the table that supported his drawings. His hand rested on the table. The +polished mahogany felt warm and living under his fingers; it was almost as if he +were pressing his hand against the foundations of his building; his greatest +building, fifty stories to rise in the center of Manhattan. +166 + + "I must tell you," the chairman was saying, "that we’ve had a hell of a fight +over that building of yours. Thank God it’s over. Some of our members just +couldn’t swallow your radical innovations. You know how stupidly conservative +some people are. But we’ve found a way to please them, and we got their consent. +Mr. Weidler here was really magnificently convincing on your behalf." +A great deal more was said by the three men. Roark barely heard it. He was +thinking of the first bite of machine into earth that begins an excavation. Then +he heard the chairman saying: "...and so it’s yours, on one minor condition." He +heard that and looked at the chairman. +"It’s a small compromise, and when you agree to it we can sign the contract. +It’s only an inconsequential matter of the building’s appearance. I understand +that you modernists attach no great importance to a mere facade, it’s the plan +that counts with you, quite rightly, and we wouldn’t think of altering your plan +in any way, it’s the logic of the plan that sold us on the building. So I’m sure +you won’t mind." +"What do you want?" +"It’s only a matter of a slight alteration in the facade. I’ll show you. Our Mr. +Parker’s son is studying architecture and we had him draw us up a sketch, just a +rough sketch to illustrate what we had in mind and to show the members of the +board, because they couldn’t have visualized the compromise we offered. Here it +is." +He pulled a sketch from under the drawings on the table and handed it to Roark. +It was Roark’s building on the sketch, very neatly drawn. It was his building, +but it had a simplified Doric portico in front, a cornice on top, and his +ornament was replaced by a stylized Greek ornament. +Roark got up. He had to stand. He concentrated on the effort of standing. It +made the rest easier. He leaned on one straight arm, his hand closed over the +edge of the table, the tendons showing under the skin of his wrist. +"You see the point?" said the chairman soothingly. "Our conservatives simply +refused to accept a queer stark building like yours. And they claim that the +public won’t accept it either. So we hit upon the middle course. In this way, +though it’s not traditional architecture of course, it will give the public the +impression of what they’re accustomed to. It adds a certain air of sound, stable +dignity--and that’s what we want in a bank, isn’t it? It does seem to be an +unwritten law that a bank must have a Classic portico--and a bank is not exactly +the right institution to parade law-breaking and rebellion. Undermines that +intangible feeling of confidence, you know. People don’t trust novelty. But this +is the scheme that pleased everybody. Personally, I wouldn’t insist on it, but I +really don’t see that it spoils anything. And that’s what the board has decided. +Of course, we don’t mean that we want you to follow this sketch. But it gives +you our general idea and you’ll work it out yourself, make your own adaptation +of the Classic motive to the facade." +Then Roark answered. The men could not classify the tone of his voice; they +could not decide whether it was too great a calm or too great an emotion. They +concluded that it was calm, because the voice moved forward evenly, without +stress, without color, each syllable spaced as by a machine; only the air in the +room was not the air that vibrates to a calm voice. +They concluded that there was nothing abnormal in the manner of the man who was +167 + + speaking, except the fact that his right hand would not leave the edge of the +table, and when he had to move the drawings, he did it with his left hand, like +a man with one arm paralyzed. +He spoke for a long time. He explained why this structure could not have a +Classic motive on its facade. He explained why an honest building, like an +honest man, had to be of one piece and one faith; what constituted the life +source, the idea in any existing thing or creature, and why--if one smallest +part committed treason to that idea--the thing of the creature was dead; and why +the good, the high and the noble on earth was only that which kept its +integrity. +The chairman interrupted him: +"Mr. Roark, I agree with you. There’s no answer to what you’re saying. But +unfortunately, in practical life, one can’t always be so flawlessly consistent. +There’s always the incalculable human element of emotion. We can’t fight that +with cold logic. This discussion is actually superfluous. I can agree with you, +but I can’t help you. The matter is closed. It was the board’s final +decision--after more than usually prolonged consideration, as you know." +"Will you let me appear before the board and speak to them?" +"I’m sorry, Mr. Roark, but the board will not re-open the question for further +debate. It was final. I can only ask you to state whether you agree to accept +the commission on our terms or not. I must admit that the board has considered +the possibility of your refusal. In which case, the name of another architect, +one Gordon L. Prescott, has been mentioned most favorably as an alternative. But +I told the board that I felt certain you would accept." +He waited. Roark said nothing. +"You understand the situation, Mr. Roark?" +"Yes," said Roark. His eyes were lowered. He was looking down at the drawings. +"Well?" +Roark did not answer. +"Yes or no, Mr. Roark?" +Roark’s head leaned back. He closed his eyes. +"No," said Roark. +After a while the chairman asked: +"Do you realize what you’re doing?" +"Quite," said Roark. +"Good God!" Weidler cried suddenly. "Don’t you know how big a commission this +is? You’re a young man, you won’t get another chance like this. And...all right, +damn it, I’ll say it! You need this! I know how badly you need it!" +Roark gathered the drawings from the table, rolled them together and put them +under his arm. +168 + + "It’s sheer insanity!" Weidler moaned. "I want you. We want your building. You +need the commission. Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about +it?" +"What?" Roark asked incredulously. +"Fanatical and selfless." +Roark smiled. He looked down at his drawings. His elbow moved a little, pressing +them to his body. He said: +"That was the most selfish thing you’ve ever seen a man do." +He walked back to his office. He gathered his drawing instruments and the few +things he had there. It made one package and he carried it under his arm. He +locked the door and gave the key to the rental agent. He told the agent that he +was closing his office. He walked home and left the package there. Then he went +to Mike Donnigan’s house. +"No?" Mike asked, after one look at him. +"No," said Roark. +"What happened?" +"I’ll tell you some other time." +"The bastards!" +"Never mind that, Mike." +"How about the office now?" +"I’ve closed the office." +"For good?" +"For the time being." +"God damn them all, Red! God damn them!" +"Shut up. I need a job, Mike. Can you help me?" +"Me?" +"I don’t know anyone in those trades here. Not anyone that would want me. You +know them all." +"In what trades? What are you talking about?" +"In the building trades. Structural work. As I’ve done before." +"You mean--a plain workman’s job?" +"I mean a plain workman’s job." +"You’re crazy, you God-damn fool!" +"Cut it, Mike. Will you get me a job?" +169 + + "But why in hell? You can get a decent job in an architect’s office. You know +you can." +"I won’t, Mike. Not ever again." +"Why?" +"I don’t want to touch it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to help them do +what they’re doing." +"You can get a nice clean job in some other line." +"I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don’t want to think. Not their +way. It will have to be their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I +won’t have to think." +"Architects don’t take workmen’s jobs." +"That’s all this architect can do." +"You can learn something in no time." +"I don’t want to learn anything." +"You mean you want me to get you into a construction gang, here, in town?" +"That’s what I mean." +"No, God damn you! I can’t! I won’t! I won’t do it!" +"Why?" +"Red, to be putting yourself up like a show for all the bastards in this town to +see? For all the sons of bitches to know they brought you down like this? For +all of them to gloat?" +Roark laughed. +"I don’t give a damn about that, Mike. Why should you?" +"Well, I’m not letting you. I’m not giving the sons of bitches that kinda +treat." +"Mike," Roark said softly, "there’s nothing else for me to do." +"Hell, yes, there is. I told you before. You’ll be listening to reason now. I +got all the dough you need until..." +"I’ll tell you what I’ve told Austen Heller: If you ever offer me money again, +that’ll be the end between us." +"But why?" +"Don’t argue, Mike." +"But..." +"I’m asking you to do me a bigger favor. I want that job. You don’t have to feel +170 + + sorry for me. I don’t." +"But...but what’ll happen to you, Red?" +"Where?" +"I mean...your future?" +"I’ll save enough money and I’ll come back. Or maybe someone will send for me +before then." +Mike looked at him. He saw something in Roark’s eyes which he knew Roark did not +want to be there. +"Okay, Red," said Mike softly. +He thought it over for a long time. He said: +"Listen, Red, I won’t get you a job in town. I just can’t. It turns my stomach +to think of it. But I’ll get you something in the same line." +"All right. Anything. It doesn’t make any difference to me." +"I’ve worked for all of that bastard Francon’s pet contractors for so long I +know everybody ever worked for him. He’s got a granite quarry down in +Connecticut. One of the foremen’s a great pal of mine. He’s in town right now. +Ever worked in a quarry before?" +"Once. Long ago." +"Think you’ll like that?" +"Sure." +"I’ll go see him. We won’t be telling him who you are, just a friend of mine, +that’s all." +"Thanks, Mike." +Mike reached for his coat, and then his hands fell back, and he looked at the +floor. +"Red..." +"It will be all right, Mike." +Roark walked home. It was dark and the street was deserted. There was a strong +wind. He could feel the cold, whistling pressure strike his cheeks. It was the +only evidence of the flow ripping the air. Nothing moved in the stone corridor +about him. There was not a tree to stir, no curtains, no awnings; only naked +masses of stone, glass, asphalt and sharp corners. It was strange to feel that +fierce movement against his face. But in a trash basket on a corner a crumpled +sheet of newspaper was rustling, beating convulsively against the wire mesh. It +made the wind real. +# +In the evening, two days later, Roark left for Connecticut. +From the train, he looked back once at the skyline of the city as it flashed +171 + + into sight and was held for some moments beyond the windows. The twilight had +washed off the details of the buildings. They rose in thin shafts of a soft, +porcelain blue, a color not of real things, but of evening and distance. They +rose in bare outlines, like empty molds waiting to be filled. The distance had +flattened the city. The single shafts stood immeasurably tall, out of scale to +the rest of the earth. They were of their own world, and they held up to the sky +the statement of what man had conceived and made possible. They were empty +molds. But man had come so far; he could go farther. The city on the edge of the +sky held a question--and a promise. +# +Little pinheads of light flared up about the peak of one famous tower, in the +windows of the Star Roof Restaurant. Then the train swerved around a bend and +the city vanished. +That evening, in the banquet hall of the Star Roof Restaurant, a dinner was held +to celebrate the admittance of Peter Keating to partnership in the firm to be +known henceforward as Francon & Keating. +At the long table that seemed covered, not with a tablecloth, but with a sheet +of light, sat Guy Francon. Somehow, tonight, he did not mind the streaks of +silver that appeared on his temples; they sparkled crisply against the black of +his hair and they gave him an air of cleanliness and elegance, like the rigid +white of his shirt against his black evening clothes. In the place of honor sat +Peter Keating. He leaned back, his shoulders straight, his hand closed about the +stem of a glass. His black curls glistened against his white forehead. In that +one moment of silence, the guests felt no envy, no resentment, no malice. There +was a grave feeling of brotherhood in the room, in the presence of the pale, +handsome boy who looked solemn as at his first communion. Ralston Holcombe had +risen to speak. He stood, his glass in hand. He had prepared his speech, but he +was astonished to hear himself saying something quite different, in a voice of +complete sincerity. He said: +"We are the guardians of a great human function. Perhaps of the greatest +function among the endeavors of man. We have achieved much and we have erred +often. But we are willing in all humility to make way for our heirs. We are only +men and we are only seekers. But we seek for truth with the best there is in our +hearts. We seek with what there is of the sublime granted to the race of men. It +is a great quest. To the future of American Architecture!" + +Part Two: ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY + +1. +TO HOLD his fists closed tight, as if the skin of his palms had grown fast to +the steel he clasped--to keep his feet steady, pressed down hard, the flat rock +an upward thrust against his soles--not to feel the existence of his body, but +only a few clots of tension: his knees, his wrists, his shoulders and the drill +he held--to feel the drill trembling in a long convulsive shudder--to feel his +stomach trembling, his lungs trembling, the straight lines of the stone ledges +before him dissolving into jagged streaks of trembling--to feel the drill and +his body gathered into the single will of pressure, that a shaft of steel might +sink slowly into granite--this was all of life for Howard Roark, as it had been +172 + + in the days of the two months behind him. +He stood on the hot stone in the sun. His face was scorched to bronze. His shirt +stuck in long, damp patches to his back. The quarry rose about him in flat +shelves breaking against one another. It was a world without curves, grass or +soil, a simplified world of stone planes, sharp edges and angles. The stone had +not been made by patient centuries welding the sediment of winds and tides; it +had come from a molten mass cooling slowly at unknown depth; it had been flung, +forced out of the earth, and it still held the shape of violence against the +violence of the men on its ledges. +The straight planes stood witness to the force of each cut; the drive of each +blow had run in an unswerving line; the stone had cracked open in unbending +resistance. Drills bored forward with a low, continuous drone, the tension of +the sound cutting through nerves, through skulls, as if the quivering tools were +shattering slowly both the stone and the men who held them. +He liked the work. He felt at times as if it were a match of wrestling between +his muscles and the granite. He was very tired at night. He liked the emptiness +of his body’s exhaustion. +Each evening he walked the two miles from the quarry to the little town where +the workers lived. The earth of the woods he crossed was soft and warm under his +feet; it was strange, after a day spent on the granite ridges; he smiled as at a +new pleasure, each evening, and looked down to watch his feet crushing a surface +that responded, gave way and conceded faint prints to be left behind. +There was a bathroom in the garret of the house where he roomed; the paint had +peeled off the floor long ago and the naked boards were gray-white. He lay in +the tub for a long time and let the cool water soak the stone dust out of his +skin. He let his head hang back, on the edge of the tub, his eyes closed. The +greatness of the weariness was its own relief: it allowed no sensation but the +slow pleasure of the tension leaving his muscles. +He ate his dinner in a kitchen, with other quarry workers. He sat alone at a +table in a corner; the fumes of the grease, crackling eternally on the vast gas +range, hid the rest of the room in a sticky haze. He ate little. He drank a +great deal of water; the cold, glittering liquid in a clean glass was +intoxicating. +He slept in a small wooden cube under the roof. The boards of the ceiling +slanted down over his bed. When it rained, he could hear the burst of each drop +against the roof, and it took an effort to realize why he did not feel the rain +beating against his body. +Sometimes, after dinner, he would walk into the woods that began behind the +house. He would stretch down on the ground, on his stomach, his elbows planted +before him, his hands propping his chin, and he would watch the patterns of +veins on the green blades of grass under his face; he would blow at them and +watch the blades tremble then stop again. He would roll over on his back and lie +still, feeling the warmth of the earth under him. Far above, the leaves were +still green, but it was a thick, compressed green, as if the color were +condensed in one last effort before the dusk coming to dissolve it. The leaves +hung without motion against a sky of polished lemon yellow; its luminous pallor +emphasized that its light was failing. He pressed his hips, his back into the +earth under him; the earth resisted, but it gave way; it was a silent victory; +he felt a dim, sensuous pleasure in the muscles of his legs. +Sometimes, not often, he sat up and did not move for a long time; then he +173 + + smiled, the slow smile of an executioner watching a victim. He thought of his +days going by, of the buildings he could have been doing, should have been doing +and, perhaps, never would be doing again. He watched the pain’s unsummoned +appearance with a cold, detached curiosity; he said to himself: Well, here it is +again. He waited to see how long it would last. It gave him a strange, hard +pleasure to watch his fight against it, and he could forget that it was his own +suffering; he could smile in contempt, not realizing that he smiled at his own +agony. Such moments were rare. But when they came, he felt as he did in the +quarry: that he had to drill through granite, that he had to drive a wedge and +blast the thing within him which persisted in calling to his pity. +# +Dominique Francon lived alone, that summer, in the great Colonial mansion of her +father’s estate, three miles beyond the quarry town. She received no visitors. +An old caretaker and his wife were the only human beings she saw, not too often +and merely of necessity; they lived some distance from the mansion, near the +stables; the caretaker attended to the grounds and the horses; his wife attended +to the house and cooked Dominique’s meals. +The meals were served with the gracious severity the old woman had learned in +the days when Dominique’s mother lived and presided over the guests in that +great dining room. At night Dominique found her solitary place at the table laid +out as for a formal banquet, the candles lighted, the tongues of yellow flame +standing motionless like the shining metal spears of a guard of honor. The +darkness stretched the room into a hall, the big windows rose like a flat +colonnade of sentinels. A shallow crystal bowl stood in a pool of light in the +center of the long table, with a single water lily spreading white petals about +a heart yellow like a drop of candle fire. +The old woman served the meal in unobtrusive silence, and disappeared from the +house as soon as she could afterward. When Dominique walked up the stairs to her +bedroom, she found the fragile lace folds of her nightgown laid out on the bed. +In the morning she entered her bathroom and found water in the sunken bathtub, +the hyacinth odor of her bath sails, the aquamarine tiles polished, shining +under her feet, her huge towels spread out like snowdrifts to swallow her +body--yet she heard no steps and felt no living presence in the house. The old +woman’s treatment of Dominique had the same reverent caution with which she +handled the pieces of Venetian glass in the drawing-room cabinets. Dominique had +spent so many summers and winters, surrounding herself with people in order to +feel alone, that the experiment of actual solitude was an enchantment to her and +a betrayal into a weakness she had never allowed herself: the weakness of +enjoying it. She stretched her arms and let them drop lazily, feeling a sweet, +drowsy heaviness above her elbows, as after a first drink. She was conscious of +her summer dresses, she felt her knees, her thighs encountering the faint +resistance of cloth when she moved, and it made her conscious not of the cloth, +but of her knees and thighs. +The house stood alone amidst vast grounds, and the woods stretched beyond; there +were no neighbors for miles. She rode on horseback down long, deserted roads, +down hidden paths leading nowhere. Leaves glittered in the sun and twigs snapped +in the wind of her flying passage. She caught her breath at times from the +sudden feeling that something magnificent and deadly would meet her beyond the +next turn of the road; she could give no identity to what she expected, she +could not say whether it was a sight, a person or an event; she knew only its +quality--the sensation of a defiling pleasure. +Sometimes she started on foot from the house and walked for miles, setting +herself no goal and no hour of return. Cars passed her on the road; the people +of the quarry town knew her and bowed to her; she was considered the chatelaine +174 + + of the countryside, as her mother had been long ago. She turned off the road +into the woods and walked on, her arms swinging loosely, her head thrown back, +watching the tree tops. She saw clouds swimming behind the leaves; it looked as +if a giant tree before her were moving, slanting, ready to fall and crush her; +she stopped; she waited, her head thrown back, her throat pulled tight; she felt +as if she wanted to be crushed. Then she shrugged and went on. She flung thick +branches impatiently out of her way and let them scratch her bare arms. She +walked on long after she was exhausted, she drove herself forward against the +weariness of her muscles. Then she fell down on her back and lay still, her arms +and legs flung out like a cross on the ground, breathing in release, feeling +empty and flattened, feeling the weight of the air like a pressure against her +breasts. +Some mornings, when she awakened in her bedroom, she heard the explosions of +blasting at the granite quarry. She stretched, her arms flung back above her +head on the white silk pillow, and she listened. It was the sound of destruction +and she liked it. +# +Because the sun was too hot, that morning, and she knew it would be hotter at +the granite quarry, because she wanted to see no one and knew she would face a +gang of workers, Dominique walked to the quarry. The thought of seeing it on +that blazing day was revolting; she enjoyed the prospect. +When she came out of the woods to the edge of the great stone bowl, she felt as +if she were thrust into an execution chamber filled with scalding steam. The +heat did not come from the sun, but from that broken cut in the earth, from the +reflectors of flat ridges. Her shoulders, her head, her back, exposed to the +sky, seemed cool while she felt the hot breath of the stone rising up her legs, +to her chin, to her nostrils. The air shimmered below, sparks of fire shot +through the granite; she thought the stone was stirring, melting, running in +white trickles of lava. Drills and hammers cracked the still weight of the air. +It was obscene to see men on the shelves of the furnace. They did not look like +workers, they looked like a chain gang serving an unspeakable penance for some +unspeakable crime. She could not turn away. +She stood, as an insult to the place below. Her dress--the color of water, a +pale green-blue, too simple and expensive, its pleats exact like edges of +glass--her thin heels planted wide apart on the boulders, the smooth helmet of +her hair, the exaggerated fragility of her body against the sky--flaunted the +fastidious coolness of the gardens and drawing rooms from which she came. +She looked down. Her eyes stopped on the orange hair of a man who raised his +head and looked at her. +She stood very still, because her first perception was not of sight, but of +touch: the consciousness, not of a visual presence, but of a slap in the face. +She held one hand awkwardly away from her body, the fingers spread wide on the +air, as against a wall. She knew that she could not move until he permitted her +to. +She saw his mouth and the silent contempt in the shape of his mouth; the planes +of his gaunt, hollow cheeks; the cold, pure brilliance of the eyes that had no +trace of pity. She knew it was the most beautiful face she would ever see, +because it was the abstraction of strength made visible. She felt a convulsion +of anger, of protest, of resistance--and of pleasure. He stood looking up at +her; it was not a glance, but an act of ownership. She thought she must let her +face give him the answer he deserved. But she was looking, instead, at the stone +dust on his burned arms, the wet shirt clinging to his ribs, the lines of his +175 + + long legs. She was thinking of those statues of men she had always sought; she +was wondering what he would look like naked. She saw him looking at her as if he +knew that. She thought she had found an aim in life--a sudden, sweeping hatred +for that man. +She was first to move. She turned and walked away from him. She saw the +superintendent of the quarry on the path ahead, and she waved. The +superintendent rushed forward to meet her. "Why, Miss Francon!" he cried. "Why, +how do you do, Miss Francon!" +She hoped the words were heard by the man below. For the first time in her life, +she was glad of being Miss Francon, glad of her father’s position and +possessions, which she had always despised. She thought suddenly that the man +below was only a common worker, owned by the owner of this place, and she was +almost the owner of this place. +The superintendent stood before her respectfully. She smiled and said: +"I suppose I’ll inherit the quarry some day, so I thought I should show some +interest in it once in a while." +The superintendent preceded her down the path, displayed his domain to her, +explained the work. She followed him far to the other side of the quarry; she +descended to the dusty green dell of the work sheds; she inspected the +bewildering machinery. She allowed a convincingly sufficient time to elapse. +Then she walked back, alone, down the edge of the granite bowl. +She saw him from a distance as she approached. He was working. She saw one +strand of red hair that fell over his face and swayed with the trembling of the +drill. She thought--hopefully--that the vibrations of the drill hurt him, hurt +his body, everything inside his body. +When she was on the rocks above him, he raised his head and looked at her; she +had not caught him noticing her approach; he looked up as if he expected her to +be there, as if he knew she would be back. She saw the hint of a smile, more +insulting than words. He sustained the insolence of looking straight at her, he +would not move, he would not grant the concession of turning away--of +acknowledging that he had no right to look at her in such manner. He had not +merely taken that right, he was saying silently that she had given it to him. +She turned sharply and walked on, down the rocky slope, away from the quarry. +# +It was not his eyes, not his mouth that she remembered, but his hands. The +meaning of that day seemed held in a single picture she had noted: the simple +instant of his one hand resting against granite. She saw it again: his +fingertips pressed to the stone, his long fingers continuing the straight lines +of the tendons that spread in a fan from his wrist to his knuckles. She thought +of him, but the vision present through all her thoughts was the picture of that +hand on the granite. It frightened her; she could not understand it. +He’s only a common worker, she thought, a hired man doing a convict’s labor. She +thought of that, sitting before the glass shelf of her dressing table. She +looked at the crystal objects spread before her; they were like sculptures in +ice--they proclaimed her own cold, luxurious fragility; and she thought of his +strained body, of his clothes drenched in dust and sweat, of his hands. She +stressed the contrast, because it degraded her. She leaned back, closing her +eyes. She thought of the many distinguished men whom she had refused. She +thought of the quarry worker. She thought of being broken--not by a man she +176 + + admired, but by a man she loathed. She let her head fall down on her arm; the +thought left her weak with pleasure. +For two days she made herself believe that she would escape from this place; she +found old travel folders in her trunk, studied them, chose the resort, the hotel +and the particular room in that hotel, selected the train she would take, the +boat and the number of the stateroom. She found a vicious amusement in doing +that, because she knew she would not take this trip she wanted; she would go +back to the quarry. +She went back to the quarry three days later. She stopped over the ledge where +he worked and she stood watching him openly. When he raised his head, she did +not turn away. Her glance told him she knew the meaning of her action, but did +not respect him enough to conceal it. His glance told her only that he had +expected her to come. He bent over his drill and went on with his work. She +waited. She wanted him to look up. She knew that he knew it. He would not look +again. +She stood, watching his hands, waiting for the moments when he touched stone. +She forgot the drill and the dynamite. She liked to think of the granite being +broken by his hands. +She heard the superintendent calling her name, hurrying to her up the path. She +turned to him when he approached. +"I like to watch the men working," she explained. +"Yes, quite a picture, isn’t it?" the superintendent agreed. "There’s the train +starting over there with another load." +She was not watching the train. She saw the man below looking at her, she saw +the insolent hint of amusement tell her that he knew she did not want him to +look at her now. She turned her head away. The superintendent’s eyes traveled +over the pit and stopped on the man below them. +"Hey, you down there!" he shouted. "Are you paid to work or to gape?" +The man bent silently over his drill. Dominique laughed aloud. +The superintendent said: "It’s a tough crew we got down here, Miss +Francon....Some of ’em even with jail records." +"Has that man a jail record?" she asked, pointing down. +"Well, I couldn’t say. Wouldn’t know them all by sight." +She hoped he had. She wondered whether they whipped convicts nowadays. She hoped +they did. At the thought of it, she felt a sinking gasp such as she had felt in +childhood, in dreams of falling down a long stairway; but she felt the sinking +in her stomach. +She turned brusquely and left the quarry. +She came back many days later. She saw him, unexpectedly, on a flat stretch of +stone before her, by the side of the path. She stopped short. She did not want +to come too close. It was strange to see him before her, without the defense and +excuse of distance. +He stood looking straight at her. Their understanding was too offensively +177 + + intimate, because they had never said a word to each other. She destroyed it by +speaking to him. +"Why do you always stare at me?" she asked sharply. +She thought with relief that words were the best means of estrangement. She had +denied everything they both knew by naming it. For a moment, he stood silently, +looking at her. She felt terror at the thought that he would not answer, that he +would let his silence tell her too clearly why no answer was necessary. But he +answered. He said: +"For the same reason you’ve been staring at me." +"I don’t know what you’re talking about." +"If you didn’t, you’d be much more astonished and much less angry, Miss +Francon." +"So you know my name?" +"You’ve been advertising it loudly enough." +"You’d better not be insolent. I can have you fired at a moment’s notice, you +know." +He turned his head, looking for someone among the men below. He asked: "Shall I +call the superintendent?" +She smiled contemptuously. +"No, of course not. It would be too simple. But since you know who I am, it +would be better if you stopped looking at me when I come here. It might be +misunderstood." +"I don’t think so." +She turned away. She had to control her voice. She looked over the stone ledges. +She asked: "Do you find it very hard to work here?" +"Yes. Terribly." +"Do you get tired?" +"Inhumanly." +"How does that feel?" +"I can hardly walk when the day’s ended. I can’t move my arms at night. When I +lie in bed, I can count every muscle in my body to the number of separate, +different pains." +She knew suddenly that he was not telling her about himself; he was speaking of +her, he was saying the things she wanted to hear and telling her that he knew +why she wanted to hear these particular sentences. +She felt anger, a satisfying anger because it was cold and certain. She felt +also a desire to let her skin touch his; to let the length of her bare arm press +against the length of his; just that; the desire went no further., +178 + + She was asking calmly: +"You don’t belong here, do you? You don’t talk like a worker. What were you +before?" +"An electrician. A plumber. A plasterer. Many things." +"Why are you working here?" +"For the money you’re paying me, Miss Francon." +She shrugged. She turned and walked away from him up the path. She knew that he +was looking after her. She did not glance back. She continued on her way through +the quarry, and she left it as soon as she could, but she did not go back down +the path where she would have to see him again. + +2. +DOMINIQUE awakened each morning to the prospect of a day made significant by the +existence of a goal to be reached: the goal of making it a day on which she +would not go to the quarry. +She had lost the freedom she loved. She knew that a continuous struggle against +the compulsion of a single desire was compulsion also, but it was the form she +preferred to accept. It was the only manner in which she could let him motivate +her life. She found a dark satisfaction in pain--because that pain came from +him. +She went to call on he distant neighbors, a wealthy, gracious family who had +bored her in New York; she had visited no one all summer. They were astonished +and delighted to see her. She sat among a group of distinguished people at the +edge of a swimming pool. She watched the air of fastidious elegance around her. +She watched the deference of these people’s manner when they spoke to her. She +glanced at her own reflection in the pool: she looked more delicately austere +than any among them. +And she thought, with a vicious thrill, of what these people would do if they +read her mind in this moment; if they knew that she was thinking of a man in a +quarry, thinking of his body with a sharp intimacy as one does not think of +another’s body but only of one’s own. She smiled; the cold purity of her face +prevented them from seeing the nature of that smile. She came back again to +visit these people--for the same of such thoughts in the presence of their +respect for her. +One evening, a guest offered to drive her back to her house. He was an eminent +young poet. He was pale and slender; he had a soft, sensitive mouth, and eyes +hurt by the whole universe. She had not noticed the wistful attention with which +he had watched her for a long time. As they drove through the twilight she saw +him leaning hesitantly closer to her. She heard his voice whispering the +pleading, incoherent things she had heard from many men. He stopped the car. She +felt his lips pressed to her shoulder. +She jerked away from him. She sat still for an instant, because she would have +to brush against him if she moved and she could not bear to touch him. Then she +flung the door open, she leaped out, she slammed the door behind her as if the +crash of sound could wipe him out of existence, and she ran blindly. She stopped +running after a while, and she walked on shivering, walked down the dark road +179 + + until she saw the roof line of her own house. +She stopped, looking about her with her first coherent thought of astonishment. +Such incidents had happened to her often in the past; only then she had been +amused; she had felt no revulsion; she had felt nothing. +She walked slowly across the lawn, to the house. On the stairs to her room she +stopped. She thought of the man in the quarry. She thought, in clear, formed +words, that the man in the quarry wanted her. She had known it before; she had +known it with his first glance at her. But she had never stated the knowledge to +herself. +She laughed. She looked about her, at the silent splendor of her house. The +house made the words preposterous. She knew that would never happen to her. And +she knew the kind of suffering she could impose on him. +For days she walked with satisfaction through the rooms of her house. It was her +defense. She heard the explosions of blasting from the quarry and smiled. +But she felt too certain and the house was too safe. She felt a desire to +underscore the safety by challenging it. +She chose the marble slab in front of the fireplace in her bedroom. She wanted +it broken. She knelt, hammer in hand, and tried to smash the marble. She pounded +it, her thin arm sweeping high over her head, crashing down with ferocious +helplessness. She felt the pain in the bones of her arms, in her shoulder +sockets. She succeeded in making a long scratch across the marble. +She went to the quarry. She saw him from a distance and walked straight to him. +"Hello," she said casually. +He stopped the drill. He leaned against a stone shelf. He answered: +"Hello." +"I have been thinking of you," she said softly, and stopped, then added, her +voice flowing on in the same tone of compelling invitation, "because there’s a +bit of a dirty job to be done at my house. Would you like to make some extra +money?" +"Certainly, Miss Francon." +"Will you come to my house tonight? The way to the servants’ entrance is off +Ridgewood Road. There’s a marble piece at a fireplace that’s broken and has to +be replaced. I want you to take it out and order a new one made for me." +She expected anger and refusal. He asked: +"What time shall I come?" +"At seven o’clock. What are you paid here?" +"Sixty-two cents an hour." +"I’m sure you’re worth that. I’m quite willing to pay you at the same rate. Do +you know how to find my house?" +"No, Miss Francon." +180 + + "Just ask anyone in the village to direct you." +"Yes, Miss Francon." +She walked away, disappointed. She felt that their secret understanding was +lost; he had spoken as if it were a simple job which she could have offered to +any other workman. Then she felt the sinking gasp inside, that feeling of shame +and pleasure which he always gave her: she realized that their understanding had +been more intimate and flagrant than ever--in his natural acceptance of an +unnatural offer; he had shown her how much he knew--by his lack of astonishment. +She asked her old caretaker and his wife to remain in the house that evening. +Their diffident presence completed the picture of a feudal mansion. She heard +the bell of the servants’ entrance at seven o’clock. The old woman escorted him +to the great front hall where Dominique stood on the landing of a broad +stairway. +She watched him approaching, looking up at her. She held the pose long enough to +let him suspect that it was a deliberate pose deliberately planned; she broke it +at the exact moment before he could become certain of it. She said: "Good +evening." Her voice was austerely quiet. +He did not answer, but inclined his head and walked on up the stairs toward her. +He wore his work clothes and he carried a bag of tools. His movements had a +swift, relaxed kind of energy that did not belong here, in her house, on the +polished steps, between the delicate, rigid banisters. She had expected him to +seem incongruous in her house; but it was the house that seemed incongruous +around him. +She moved one hand, indicating the door of her bedroom. He followed obediently. +He did not seem to notice the room when he entered. He entered it as if it were +a workshop. He walked straight to the fireplace. +"There it is," she said, one finger pointing to the marble slab. +He said nothing. He knelt, took a thin metal wedge from his bag, held its point +against the scratch on the slab, took a hammer and struck one blow. The marble +split in a long, deep cut. +He glanced up at her. It was the look she dreaded, a look of laughter that could +not be answered, because the laughter could not be seen, only felt. He said: +"Now it’s broken and has to be replaced." +She asked calmly: +"Would you know what kind of marble this is and where to order another piece +like it?" +"Yes, Miss Francon." +"Go ahead, then. Take it out." +"Yes, Miss Francon." +She stood watching him. It was strange to feel a senseless necessity to watch +the mechanical process of the work as if her eyes were helping it. Then she knew +that she was afraid to look at the room around them. She made herself raise her +181 + + head. +She saw the shelf of her dressing table, its glass edge like a narrow green +satin ribbon in the semidarkness, and the crystal containers; she saw a pair of +white bedroom slippers, a pale blue towel on the floor by a mirror, a pair of +stockings thrown over the arm of a chair; she saw the white satin cover of her +bed. His shirt had damp stains and gray patches of stone dust; the dust made +streaks on the skin of his arms. She felt as if each object in the room had been +touched by him, as if the air were a heavy pool of water into which they had +been plunged together, and the water that touched him carried the touch to her, +to every object in the room. She wanted him to look up. He worked, without +raising his head. +She approached him and stood silently over him. She had never stood so close to +him before. She looked down at the smooth skin on the back of his neck; she +could distinguish single threads of his hair. She glanced down at the tip of her +sandal. It was there, on the floor, an inch away from his body; she needed but +one movement, a very slight movement of her foot, to touch him. She made a step +back. +He moved his head, but not to look up, only to pick another tool from the bag, +and bent over his work again. +She laughed aloud. He stopped and glanced at her. +"Yes?" he asked. +Her face was grave, her voice gentle when she answered: +"Oh, I’m sorry. You might have thought that I was laughing at you. But I wasn’t, +of course." +She added: +"I didn’t want to disturb you. I’m sure you’re anxious to finish and get out of +here. I mean, of course, because you must be tired. But then, on the other hand, +I’m paying you by the hour, so it’s quite all right if you stretch your time a +little, if you want to make more out of it. There must be things you’d like to +talk about." +"Oh, yes, Miss Francon." +"Well?" +"I think this is an atrocious fireplace." +"Really? This house was designed by my father." +"Yes, of course, Miss Francon." +"There’s no point in your discussing the work of an architect." +"None at all." +"Surely we could choose some other subject." +"Yes, Miss Francon." +She moved away from him. She sat down on the bed, leaning back on straight arms, +182 + + her legs crossed and pressed close together in a long, straight line. Her body, +sagging limply from her shoulders, contradicted the inflexible precision of the +legs; the cold austerity of her face contradicted the pose of her body. +He glanced at her occasionally, as he worked. He was speaking obediently. He was +saying: +"I shall make certain to get a piece of marble of precisely the same quality, +Miss Francon. It is very important to distinguish between the various kinds of +marble. Generally speaking, there are three kinds. The white marbles, which are +derived from the recrystallization of limestone, the onyx marbles which are +chemical deposits of calcium carbonate, and the green marbles which consist +mainly of hydrous magnesium silicate or serpentine. This last must not be +considered as true marble. True marble is a metamorphic form of limestone, +produced by heat and pressure. Pressure is a powerful factor. It leads to +consequences which, once started, cannot be controlled." +"What consequences?" she asked, leaning forward. +"The recrystallization of the particles of limestone and the infiltration of +foreign elements from the surrounding soil. These constitute the colored streaks +which are to be found in most marbles. Pink marble is caused by the presence of +manganese oxides, gray marble is due to carbonaceous matter, yellow marble is +attributed to a hydrous oxide of iron. This piece here is, of course, white +marble. There are a great many varieties of white marble. You should be very +careful, Miss Francon..." +She sat leaning forward, gathered into a dim black huddle; the lamp light fell +on one hand she had dropped limply on her knees, palm up, the fingers +half-closed, a thin edge of fire outlining each finger, the dark cloth of her +dress making the hand too naked and brilliant. +"...to make certain that I order a new piece of precisely the same quality. It +would not be advisable, for instance, to substitute a piece of white Georgia +marble which is not as fine-grained as the white marble of Alabama. This is +Alabama marble. Very high grade. Very expensive." +He saw her hand close and drop down, out of the light. He continued his work in +silence. +When he had finished, he rose, asking: +"Where shall I put the stone?" +"Leave it there. I’ll have it removed." +"I’ll order a new piece cut to measure and delivered to you C.O.D. Do you wish +me to set it?" +"Yes, certainly. I’ll let you know when it comes. How much do I owe you?" She +glanced at a clock on her bedside table. "Let me see, you’ve been here three +quarters of an hour. That’s forty-eight cents." She reached for her bag, she +took out the dollar bill, she handed it to him. "Keep the change," she said. +She hoped he would throw it back in her face. He slipped the bill into his +pocket. He said: +"Thank you, Miss Francon." +183 + + He saw the edge of her long black sleeve trembling over her closed fingers. +"Good night," she said, her voice hollow in anger. +He bowed: "Good night, Miss Francon." +He turned and walked down the stairs, out of the house. +She stopped thinking of him. She thought of the piece of marble he had ordered. +She waited for it to come, with the feverish intensity of a sudden mania; she +counted the days; she watched the rare trucks on the road beyond the lawn. +She told herself fiercely that she merely wanted the marble to come; just that; +nothing else, no hidden reasons; no reasons at all. It was a last, hysterical +aftermath; she was free of everything else. The stone would come and that would +be the end. +When the stone came, she barely glanced at it. The delivery truck had not left +the grounds, when she was at her desk, writing a note on a piece of exquisite +stationery. She wrote: +# +"The marble is here. I want it set tonight." +# +She sent her caretaker with the note to the quarry. She ordered it delivered to: +"I don’t know his name. The redheaded workman who was here." +The caretaker came back and brought her a scrap torn from a brown paper bag, +bearing in pencil: +# +"You’ll have it set tonight." +# +She waited, in the suffocating emptiness of impatience, at the window of her +bedroom. The servants’ entrance bell rang at seven o’clock. There was a knock at +her door. "Come in," she snapped--to hide the strange sound of her own voice. +The door opened and the caretaker’s wife entered, motioning for someone to +follow. The person who followed was a short, squat, middle-aged Italian with bow +legs, a gold hoop in one ear and a frayed hat held respectfully in both hands. +"The man sent from the quarry, Miss Francon," said the caretaker’s wife. +Dominique asked, her voice not a scream and not a question: +"Who are you?" +"Pasquale Orsini," the man answered obediently, bewildered. +"What do you want?" +"Well, I...Well, Red down at the quarry said fireplace gotta be fixed, he said +you wanta I fix her." +"Yes. Yes, of course," she said, rising. "I forgot. Go ahead." +She had to get out of the room. She had to run, not to be seen by anyone, not to +be seen by herself if she could escape it. +184 + + She stopped somewhere in the garden and stood trembling, pressing her fists +against her eyes. It was anger. It was a pure, single emotion that swept +everything clean; everything but the terror under the anger; terror, because she +knew that she could not go near the quarry now and that she would go. +It was early evening, many days later, when she went to the quarry. She returned +on horseback from a long ride through the country, and she saw the shadows +lengthening on the lawn; she knew that she could not live through another night. +She had to get there before the workers left. She wheeled about. She rode to the +quarry, flying, the wind cutting her cheeks. +He was not there when she reached the quarry. She knew at once that he was not +there, even though the workers were just leaving and a great many of them were +filing down the paths from the stone bowl. She stood, her lips tight, and she +looked for him. But she knew that he had left. +She rode into the woods. She flew at random between walls of leaves that melted +ahead in the gathering twilight. She stopped, broke a long, thin branch off a +tree, tore the leaves off, and went on, using the flexible stick as a whip, +lashing her horse to fly faster. She felt as if the speed would hasten the +evening on, force the hours ahead to pass more quickly, let her leap across time +to catch the coming morning before it came. And then she saw him walking alone +on the path before her. +She tore ahead. She caught up with him and stopped sharply, the jolt throwing +her forward then back like the release of a spring. He stopped. +They said nothing. They looked at each other. She thought that every silent +instant passing was a betrayal; this wordless encounter was too eloquent, this +recognition that no greeting was necessary. +She asked, her voice flat: +"Why didn’t you come to set the marble?" +"I didn’t think it would make any difference to you who came. Or did it, Miss +Francon?" +She felt the words not as sounds, but as a blow flat against her mouth. The +branch she held went up and slashed across his face. She started off in the +sweep of the same motion. +# +Dominique sat at the dressing table in her bedroom. It was very late. There was +no sound in the vast, empty house around her. The french windows of the bedroom +were open on a terrace and there was no sound of leaves in the dark garden +beyond. +The blankets on her bed were turned down, waiting for her, the pillow white +against the tall, black windows. She thought she would try to sleep. She had not +seen him for three days. She ran her hands over her head, the curves of her +palms pressing against the smooth planes of hair. She pressed her fingertips, +wet with perfume, to the hollows of her temples, and held them there for a +moment; she felt relief in the cold, contracting bite of the liquid on her skin. +A spilled drop of perfume remained on the glass of the dressing table, a drop +sparkling like a gem and as expensive. +She did not hear the sound of steps in the garden. She heard them only when they +185 + + rose up the stairs to the terrace. She sat up, frowning. She looked at the +french windows. +He came in. He wore his work clothes, the dirty shirt with rolled sleeves, the +trousers smeared with stone dust. He stood looking at her. There was no laughing +understanding in his face. His face was drawn, austere in cruelty, ascetic in +passion, the cheeks sunken, the lips pulled down, set tight. She jumped to her +feet, she stood, her arms thrown back, her fingers spread apart. He did not +move. She saw a vein of his neck rise, beating, and fall down again. +Then he walked to her. He held her as if his flesh had cut through hers and she +felt the bones of his arms on the bones of her ribs, her legs jerked tight +against his, his mouth on hers. +She did not know whether the jolt of terror shook her first and she thrust her +elbows at his throat, twisting her body to escape, or whether she lay still in +his arms, in the first instant, in the shock of feeling his skin against hers, +the thing she had thought about, had expected, had never known to be like this, +could not have known, because this was not part of living, but a thing one could +not bear longer than a second. +She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that +had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He +moved one hand, took her two wrists, pinned them behind her, under his arm, +wrenching her shoulder blades. She twisted her head back. She felt his lips on +her breast. She tore herself free. +She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands +clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He +was laughing. There was the movement of laughter on his face, but no sound. +Perhaps he had released her intentionally. He stood, his legs apart, his arms +hanging at his sides, letting her be more sharply aware of his body across the +space between them than she had been in his arms. She looked at the door behind +him, he saw the first hint of movement, no more than a thought of leaping toward +that door. He extended his arm, not touching her, and fell back. Her shoulders +moved faintly, rising. He took a step forward and her shoulders fell. She +huddled lower, closer to the table. He let her wait. Then he approached. He +lifted her without effort. She let her teeth sink into his hand and felt blood +on the tip of her tongue. He pulled her head back and he forced her mouth open +against his. +She fought like an animal. But she made no sound. She did not call for help. She +heard the echoes of her blows in a gasp of his breath, and she knew that it was +a gasp of pleasure. She reached for the lamp on the dressing table. He knocked +the lamp out of her hand. The crystal burst to pieces in the darkness. +He had thrown her down on the bed and she felt the blood beating in her throat, +in her eyes, the hatred, the helpless terror in her blood. She felt the hatred +and his hands; his hands moving over her body, the hands that broke granite. She +fought in a last convulsion. Then the sudden pain shot up, through her body, to +her throat, and she screamed. Then she lay still. +It was an act that could be performed in tenderness, as a seal of love, or in +contempt, as a symbol of humiliation and conquest. It could be the act of a +lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did it as an act of +scorn. Not as love, but as defilement. And this made her lie still and submit. +One gesture of tenderness from him--and she would have remained cold, untouched +by the thing done to her body. But the act of a master taking shameful, +contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted. Then she +186 + + felt him shaking with the agony of a pleasure unbearable even to him, she knew +that she had given that to him, that it came from her, from her body, and she +bit her lips and she knew what he had wanted her to know. +He lay still across the bed, away from her, his head hanging back over the edge. +She heard the slow, ending gasps of his breath. She lay on her back, as he had +left her, not moving, her mouth open. She felt empty, light and flat. +She saw him get up. She saw his silhouette against the window. He went out, +without a word or a glance at her. She noticed that, but it did not matter. She +listened blankly to the sound of his steps moving away in the garden. +She lay still for a long time. Then she moved her tongue in her open mouth. She +heard a sound that came from somewhere within her, and it was the dry, short, +sickening sound of a sob, but she was not crying, her eyes were held paralyzed, +dry and open. The sound became motion, a jolt running down her throat to her +stomach. It flung her up, she stood awkwardly, bent over, her forearms pressed +to her stomach. She heard the small table by the bed rattling in the darkness, +and she looked at it, in empty astonishment that a table should move without +reason. Then she understood that she was shaking. She was not frightened; it +seemed foolish to shake like that, in short, separate jerks, like soundless +hiccoughs. She thought she must take a bath. The need was unbearable, as if she +had felt it for a long time. Nothing mattered, if only she would take a bath. +She dragged her feet slowly to the door of her bathroom. +She turned the light on in the bathroom. She saw herself in a tall mirror. She +saw the purple bruises left on her body by his mouth. She heard a moan muffled +in her throat, not very loud. It was not the sight, but the sudden flash of +knowledge. She knew that she would not take a bath. She knew that she wanted to +keep the feeling of his body, the traces of his body on hers, knowing also what +such a desire implied. She fell on her knees, clasping the edge of the bathtub. +She could not make herself crawl over that edge. Her hands slipped, she lay +still on the floor. The tiles were hard and cold under her body. She lay there +till morning. +Roark awakened in the morning and thought that last night had been like a point +reached, like a stop in the movement of his life. He was moving forward for the +sake of such stops; like the moments when he had walked through the +half-finished Heller house; like last night. In some unstated way, last night +had been what building was to him; in some quality of reaction within him, in +what it gave to his consciousness of existence. +They had been united in an understanding beyond the violence, beyond the +deliberate obscenity of his action; had she meant less to him, he would not have +taken her as he did; had he meant less to her, she would not have fought so +desperately. The unrepeatable exultation was in knowing that they both +understood this. +He went to the quarry and he worked that day as usual. She did not come to the +quarry and he did not expect her to come. But the thought of her remained. He +watched it with curiosity. It was strange to be conscious of another person’s +existence, to feel it as a close, urgent necessity; a necessity without +qualifications, neither pleasant nor painful, merely final like an ultimatum. It +was important to know that she existed in the world; it was important to think +of her, of how she had awakened this morning, of how she moved, with her body +still his, now his forever, of what she thought. +That evening, at dinner in the sooted kitchen, he opened a newspaper and saw the +name of Roger Enright in the lines of a gossip column. He read the short +187 + + paragraph: +"It looks like another grand project on its way to the wastebasket. Roger +Enright, the oil king, seems to be stumped this time. He’ll have to call a halt +to his latest pipe dream of an Enright House. Architect trouble, we are told. +Seems as if half a dozen of the big building boys have been shown the gate by +the unsatisfiable Mr. Enright. Top-notchers, all of them." +Roark felt the wrench he had tried so often to fight, not to let it hurt him too +much: the wrench of helplessness before the vision of what he could do, what +should have been possible and was closed to him. Then, without reason, he +thought of Dominique Francon. She had no relation to the things in his mind; he +was shocked only to know that she could remain present even among these things. +A week passed. Then, one evening, he found a letter waiting for him at home. It +had been forwarded from his former office to his last New York address, from +there to Mike, from Mike to Connecticut. The engraved address of an oil company +on the envelope meant nothing to him. He opened the letter. He read: +# +"Dear Mr. Roark, +"I have been endeavoring for some time to get in touch with you, but have been +unable to locate you. Please communicate with me at your earliest convenience. I +should like to discuss with you my proposed Enright House, if you are the man +who built the Fargo Store. +"Sincerely yours, +"Roger Enright." +# +Half an hour later Roark was on a train. When the train started moving, he +remembered Dominique and that he was leaving her behind. The thought seemed +distant and unimportant. He was astonished only to know that he still thought of +her, even now. +# +She could accept, thought Dominique, and come to forget in time everything that +had happened to her, save one memory: that she had found pleasure in the thing +which had happened, that he had known it, and more: that he had known it before +he came to her and that he would not have come but for that knowledge. She had +not given him the one answer that would have saved her: an answer of simple +revulsion--she had found joy in her revulsion, in her terror and in his +strength. That was the degradation she had wanted and she hated him for it. +She found a letter one morning, waiting for her on the breakfast table. It was +from Alvah Scarret. "...When are you coming back, Dominique? I can’t tell you +how much we miss you here. You’re not a comfortable person to have around, I’m +actually scared of you, but I might as well inflate your inflated ego some more, +at a distance, and confess that we’re all waiting for you impatiently. It will +be like the homecoming of an Empress." +She read it and smiled. She thought, if they knew...those people...that old life +and that awed reverence before her person...I’ve been raped...I’ve been raped by +some redheaded hoodlum from a stone quarry....I, Dominique Francon....Through +the fierce sense of humiliation, the words gave her the same kind of pleasure +she had felt in his arms. +She thought of it when she walked through the countryside, when she passed +188 + + people on the road and the people bowed to her, the chatelaine of the town. She +wanted to scream it to the hearing of all. +She was not conscious of the days that passed. She felt content in a strange +detachment, alone with the words she kept repeating to herself. Then, one +morning, standing on the lawn in her garden, she understood that a week had +passed and that she had not seen him for a week. She turned and walked rapidly +across the lawn to the road. She was going to the quarry. +She walked the miles to the quarry, down the road, bareheaded in the sun. She +did not hurry. It was not necessary to hurry. It was inevitable. To see him +again....She had no purpose. The need was too great to name a +purpose....Afterward...There were other things, hideous, important things behind +her and rising vaguely in her mind, but first, above all, just one thing: to see +him again... +She came to the quarry and she looked slowly, carefully, stupidly about her, +stupidly because the enormity of what she saw would not penetrate her brain: she +saw at once that he was not there. The work was in full swing, the sun was high +over the busiest hour of the day, there was not an idle man in sight, but he was +not among the men. She stood, waiting numbly, for a long time. +Then she saw the foreman and she motioned for him to approach. +"Good afternoon, Miss Francon....Lovely day, Miss Francon, isn’t it? Just like +the middle of summer again and yet fall’s not far away, yes, fall’s coming, look +at the leaves, Miss Francon." +She asked: +"There was a man you had here...a man with very bright orange hair...where is +he?" +"Oh yes. That one. He’s gone." +"Gone?" +"Quit. Left for New York, I think. Very suddenly too." +"When? A week ago?" +"Why, no. Just yesterday." +"Who was..." +Then she stopped. She was going to ask: "Who was he?" She asked instead: +"Who was working here so late last night? I heard blasting." +"That was for a special order for Mr. Francon’s building. The Cosmo-Slotnick +Building, you know. A rash job." +"Yes...I see...." +"Sorry it disturbed you, Miss Francon." +"Oh, not at all...." +She walked away. She would not ask for his name. It was her last chance of +189 + + freedom. +She walked swiftly, easily, in sudden relief. She wondered why she had never +noticed that she did not know his name and why she had never asked him. Perhaps +because she had known everything she had to know about him from that first +glance. She thought, one could not find some nameless worker in the city of New +York. She was safe. If she knew his name, she would be on her way to New York +now. +The future was simple. She had nothing to do except never to ask for his name. +She had a reprieve. She had a chance to fight. She would break it--or it would +break her. If it did, she would ask for his name. + +3. +WHEN Peter Keating entered the office, the opening of the door sounded like a +single high blast on a trumpet. The door flew forward as if it had opened of +itself to the approach of a man before whom all doors were to open in such +manner. +His day in the office began with the newspapers. There was a neat pile of them +waiting, stacked on his desk by his secretary. He liked to see what new mentions +appeared in print about the progress of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building or the firm +of Francon & Keating. +There were no mentions in the papers this morning, and Keating frowned. He saw, +however, a story about Ellsworth M. Toohey. It was a startling story. Thomas L. +Foster, noted philanthropist, had died and had left, among larger bequests, the +modest sum of one hundred thousand dollars to Ellsworth M. Toohey, "my friend +and spiritual guide--in appreciation of his noble mind and true devotion to +humanity." Ellsworth M. Toohey had accepted the legacy and had turned it over, +intact, to the "Workshop of Social Study," a progressive institute of learning +where he held the post of lecturer on "Art as a Social Symptom." He had given +the simple explanation that he "did not believe in the institution of private +inheritance." He had refused all further comment. "No, my friends," he had said, +"not about this." And had added, with his charming knack for destroying the +earnestness of his own moment: "I like to indulge in the luxury of commenting +solely upon interesting subjects. I do not consider myself one of these." +Peter Keating read the story. And because he knew that it was an action which he +would never have committed, he admired it tremendously. +Then he thought, with a familiar twinge of annoyance, that he had not been able +to meet Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey had left on a lecture tour shortly after the +award in the Cosmo-Slotnick competition, and the brilliant gatherings Keating +had attended ever since were made empty by the absence of the one man he’d been +most eager to meet. No mention of Keating’s name had appeared in Toohey’s +column. Keating turned hopefully, as he did each morning, to "One Small Voice" +in the Banner. But "One Small Voice" was subtitled "Songs and Things" today, and +was devoted to proving the superiority of folk songs over any other forms of +musical art, and of choral singing over any other manner of musical rendition. +Keating dropped the Banner. He got up and paced viciously across the office, +because he had to turn now to a disturbing problem. He had been postponing it +for several mornings. It was the matter of choosing a sculptor for the +Cosmo-Slotnick Building. Months ago the commission for the giant statue of +"Industry" to stand in the main lobby of the building had been +190 + + awarded--tentatively--to Steven Mallory. The award had puzzled Keating, but it +had been made by Mr. Slotnick, so Keating had approved of it. He had interviewed +Mallory and said: "...in recognition of your unusual ability...of course you +have no name, but you will have, after a commission like this...they don’t come +every day like this building of mine." +He had not liked Mallory. Mallory’s eyes were like black holes left after a fire +not quite put out, and Mallory had not smiled once. He was twenty-four years +old, had had one show of his work, but not many commissions. His work was +strange and too violent. Keating remembered that Ellsworth Toohey had said once, +long ago, in "One Small Voice." +"Mr. Mallory’s human figures would have been very fine were it not for the +hypothesis that God created the world and the human form. Had Mr. Mallory been +entrusted with the job, he might, perhaps, have done better than the Almighty, +if we are to judge by what he passes as human bodies in stone. Or would he?" +Keating had been baffled by Mr. Slotnick’s choice, until he heard that Dimples +Williams had once lived in the same Greenwich Village tenement with Steven +Mallory, and Mr. Slotnick could refuse nothing to Dimples Williams at the +moment. Mallory had been hired, had worked and had submitted a model of his +statue of "Industry." When he saw it, Keating knew that the statue would look +like a raw gash, like a smear of fire in the neat elegance of his lobby. It was +a slender naked body of a man who looked as if he could break through the steel +plate of a battleship and through any barrier whatever. It stood like a +challenge. It left a strange stamp on one’s eyes. It made the people around it +seem smaller and sadder than usual. For the first time in his life, looking at +that statue, Keating thought he understood what was meant by the word "heroic." +He said nothing. But the model was sent on to Mr. Slotnick and many people said, +with indignation, what Keating had felt. Mr. Slotnick asked him to select +another sculptor and left the choice in his hands. +Keating flopped down in an armchair, leaned back and clicked his tongue against +his palate. He wondered whether he should give the commission to Bronson, the +sculptor who was a friend of Mrs. Shupe, wife of the president of Cosmo; or to +Palmer, who had been recommended by Mr. Huseby who was planning the erection of +a new five-million-dollar cosmetic factory. Keating discovered that he liked +this process of hesitation; he held the fate of two men and of many potential +others; their fate, their work, their hope, perhaps even the amount of food in +their stomachs. He could choose as he pleased, for any reason, without reasons; +he could flip a coin, he could count them off on the buttons of his vest. He was +a great man--by the grace of those who depended on him. +Then he noticed the envelope. +It lay on top of a pile of letters on his desk. It was a plain, thin, narrow +envelope, but it bore the small masthead of the Banner in one corner. He reached +for it hastily. It contained no letter; only a strip of proofs for tomorrow’s +Banner. He saw the familiar "One Small Voice" by Ellsworth M. Toohey, and under +it a single word as subtitle, in large, spaced letters, a single word, blatant +in its singleness, a salute by dint of omission: +# +"KEATING" +# +He dropped the paper strip and seized it again and read, choking upon great +unchewed hunks of sentences, the paper trembling in his hand, the skin on his +forehead drawing into tight pink spots. Toohey had written: +191 + + # +"Greatness is an exaggeration, and like all exaggerations of dimension it +connotes at once the necessary corollary of emptiness. One thinks of an inflated +toy balloon, does one not? There are, however, occasions when we are forced to +acknowledge the promise of an approach--brilliantly close--to what we designate +loosely by the term of greatness. Such a promise is looming on our architectural +horizon in the person of a mere boy named Peter Keating. +"We have heard a great deal--and with justice--about the superb Cosmo-Slotnick +Building which he has designed. Let us glance, for once, beyond the building, at +the man whose personality is stamped upon it. +"There is no personality stamped upon that building--and in this, my friend, +lies the greatness of the personality. It is the greatness of a selfless young +spirit that assimilates all things and returns them to the world from which they +came, enriched by the gentle brilliance of its own talent. Thus a single man +comes to represent, not a lone freak, but the multitude of all men together, to +embody the reach of all aspirations in his own.... +"...Those gifted with discrimination will be able to hear the message which +Peter Keating addresses to us in the shape of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, to +see that the three simple, massive ground floors are the solid bulk of our +working classes which support all of society; that the rows of identical windows +offering their panes to the sun are the souls of the common people, of the +countless anonymous ones alike in the uniformity of brotherhood, reaching for +the light; that the graceful pilasters rising from their firm base in the ground +floors and bursting into the gay effervescence of their Corinthian capitals, are +the flowers of Culture which blossom only when rooted in the rich soil of the +broad masses.... +"...In answer to those who consider all critics as fiends devoted solely to the +destruction of sensitive talent, this column wishes to thank Peter Keating for +affording us the rare--oh, so rare!--opportunity to prove our delight in our +true mission, which is to discover young talent--when it is there to be +discovered. And if Pete Keating should chance to read these lines, we expect no +gratitude from him. The gratitude is ours." +# +It was when Keating began to read the article for the third time that he noticed +a few lines written in red pencil across the space by its title: +# +"Dear Peter Keating, +"Drop in to see me at my office one of these days. Would love to discover what +you look like. +"E.M.T." +# +He let the clipping flutter down to his desk, and he stood over it, running a +strand of hair between his fingers, in a kind of happy stupor. Then he whirled +around to his drawing of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, that hung on the wall +between a huge photograph of the Parthenon and one of the Louvre. He looked at +the pilasters of his building. He had never thought of them as Culture flowering +from out of the broad masses, but he decided that one could very well think that +and all the rest of the beautiful stuff. +Then he seized the telephone, he spoke to a high, flat voice which belonged to +192 + + Ellsworth Toohey’s secretary, and he made an appointment to see Toohey at +four-thirty of the next afternoon. +In the hours that followed, his daily work assumed a new relish. It was as if +his usual activity had been only a bright, flat mural and had now become a noble +bas-relief, pushed forward, given a three-dimensional reality by the words of +Ellsworth Toohey. +Guy Francon descended from his office once in a while, for no ascertainable +purpose. The subtler shades of his shirts and socks matched the gray of his +temples. He stood smiling benevolently in silence. Keating flashed past him in +the drafting room and acknowledged his presence, not stopping, but slowing his +steps long enough to plant a crackling bit of newspaper into the folds of the +mauve handkerchief in Francon’s breast-pocket, with "Read that when you have +time, Guy." He added, his steps halfway across the next room: "Want to have +lunch with me today, Guy? Wait for me at the Plaza." +When he came back from lunch, Keating was stopped by a young draftsman who +asked, his voice high with excitement: +"Say, Mr. Keating, who’s it took a shot at Ellsworth Toohey?" +Keating managed to gasp out: +"Who is it did what?" +"Shot Mr. Toohey." +"Who?" +"That’s what I want to know, who." +"Shot...Ellsworth Toohey?" +"That’s what I saw in the paper in the restaurant a guy had. Didn’t have time to +get one." +"He’s...killed?" +"That’s what I don’t know. Saw only it said about a shot." +"If he’s dead, does that mean they won’t publish his column tomorrow?" +"Dunno. Why, Mr. Keating?" +"Go get me a paper." +"But I’ve got to..." +"Get me that paper, you damned idiot!" +The story was there, in the afternoon papers. A shot had been fired at Ellsworth +Toohey that morning, as he stepped out of his car in front of a radio station +where he was to deliver an address on "The Voiceless and the Undefended." The +shot had missed him. Ellsworth Toohey had remained calm and sane throughout. His +behavior had been theatrical only in too complete an absence of anything +theatrical. He had said: "We cannot keep a radio audience waiting," and had +hurried on upstairs to the microphone where, never mentioning the incident, he +delivered a half-hour’s speech from memory, as he always did. The assailant had +193 + + said nothing when arrested. +Keating stared--his throat dry--at the name of the assailant. It was Steven +Mallory. +Only the inexplicable frightened Keating, particularly when the inexplicable +lay, not in tangible facts, but in that causeless feeling of dread within him. +There was nothing to concern him directly in what had happened, except his wish +that it had been someone else, anyone but Steven Mallory; and that he didn’t +know why he should wish this. +Steven Mallory had remained silent. He had given no explanation of his act. At +first, it was supposed that he might have been prompted by despair at the loss +of his commission for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, since it was learned that he +lived in revolting poverty. But it was learned, beyond any doubt, that Ellsworth +Toohey had had no connection whatever with his loss. Toohey had never spoken to +Mr. Slotnick about Steven Mallory. Toohey had not seen the statue of "Industry." +On this point Mallory had broken his silence to admit that he had never met +Toohey nor seen him in person before, nor known any of Toohey’s friends. "Do you +think that Mr. Toohey was in some way responsible for your losing that +commission?" he was asked. Mallory had answered: "No." +"Then why?" Mallory said nothing. +Toohey had not recognized his assailant when he saw him seized by policemen on +the sidewalk outside the radio station. He did not learn his name until after +the broadcast. Then, stepping out of the studio into an anteroom full of waiting +newsmen, Toohey said: "No, of course I won’t press any charges. I wish they’d +let him go. Who is he, by the way?" When he heard the name, Toohey’s glance +remained fixed somewhere between the shoulder of one man and the hat brim of +another. Then Toohey--who had stood calmly while a bullet struck an inch from +his face against the glass of the entrance door below--uttered one word and the +word seemed to fall at his feet, heavy with fear: "Why?" +No one could answer. Presently, Toohey shrugged, smiled, and said: "If it was an +attempt at free publicity--well, what atrocious taste!" But nobody believed this +explanation, because all felt that Toohey did not believe it either. Through the +interviews that followed, Toohey answered questions gaily. He said: "I had never +thought myself important enough to warrant assassination. It would be the +greatest tribute one could possibly expect--if it weren’t so much in the style +of an operetta." He managed to convey the charming impression that nothing of +importance had happened because nothing of importance ever happened on earth. +Mallory was sent to jail to await trial. All efforts to question him failed. +The thought that kept Keating uneasily awake for many hours, that night, was the +groundless certainty that Toohey felt exactly as he did. He knows, thought +Keating, and I know, that there is--in Steven Mallory’s motive--a greater danger +than in his murderous attempt. But we shall never know his motive. Or shall +we?...And then he touched the core of fear: it was the sudden wish that he might +be guarded, through the years to come, to the end of his life, from ever +learning that motive. +# +Ellsworth Toohey’s secretary rose in a leisurely manner, when Keating entered, +and opened for him the door into Ellsworth Toohey’s office. +Keating had grown past the stage of experiencing anxiety at the prospect of +meeting a famous man, but he experienced it in the moment when he saw the door +194 + + opening under her hand. He wondered what Toohey really looked like. He +remembered the magnificent voice he had heard in the lobby of the strike +meeting, and he imagined a giant of a man, with a rich mane of hair, perhaps +just turning gray, with bold, broad features of an ineffable benevolence, +something vaguely like the countenance of God the Father. +"Mr. Peter Keating--Mr. Toohey," said the secretary and closed the door behind +him. +At a first glance upon Ellsworth Monkton Toohey one wished to offer him a heavy, +well-padded overcoat--so frail and unprotected did his thin little body appear, +like that of a chicken just emerging from the egg, in all the sorry fragility of +unhardened bones. At a second glance one wished to be sure that the overcoat +should be an exceedingly good one--so exquisite were the garments covering that +body. The lines of the dark suit followed frankly the shape within it, +apologizing for nothing: they sank with the concavity of the narrow chest, they +slid down from the long, thin neck with the sharp slope of the shoulders. A +great forehead dominated the body. The wedge-shaped face descended from the +broad temples to a small, pointed chin. The hair was black, lacquered, divided +into equal halves by a thin white line. This made the skull look tight and trim, +but left too much emphasis to the ears that flared out in solitary nakedness, +like the handles of a bouillon cup. The nose was long and thin, prolonged by the +small dab of a black mustache. The eyes were dark and startling. They held such +a wealth of intellect and of twinkling gaiety that his glasses seemed to be worn +not to protect his eyes but to protect other men from their excessive +brilliance. +"Hello, Peter Keating," said Ellsworth Monkton Toohey in his compelling, magical +voice. "What do you think of the temple of Nike Apteros?" +"How...do you do, Mr. Toohey," said Keating, stopped, stupefied. "What do I +think...of what?" +"Sit down, my friend. Of the temple of Nike Apteros." +"Well...Well...I..." +"I feel certain that you couldn’t have overlooked that little gem. The Parthenon +has usurped the recognition which--and isn’t that usually the case? the bigger +and stronger appropriating all the glory, while the beauty of the +unprepossessing goes unsung--which should have been awarded to that magnificent +little creation of the great free spirit of Greece. You’ve noted, I’m sure, the +fine balance of its mass, the supreme perfection of its modest proportions--ah, +yes, you know, the supreme in the modest--the delicate craftsmanship of detail?" +"Yes, of course," muttered Keating, "that’s always been my favorite--the temple +of Nike Apteros." +"Really?" said Ellsworth Toohey, with a smile which Keating could not quite +classify. "I was certain of it. I was certain you’d say it. You have a very +handsome face, Peter Keating, when you don’t stare like this--which is really +quite unnecessary." +And Toohey was laughing suddenly, laughing quite obviously, quite insultingly, +at Keating and at himself; it was as if he were underscoring the falseness of +the whole procedure. Keating sat aghast for an instant; and then he found +himself laughing easily in answer, as if at home with a very old friend. +"That’s better," said Toohey. "Don’t you find it advisable not to talk too +195 + + seriously in an important moment? And this might be a very important moment--who +knows?--for both of us. And, of course, I knew you’d be a little afraid of me +and--oh, I admit--I was quite a bit afraid of you, so isn’t this much better?" +"Oh, yes, Mr. Toohey," said Keating happily. His normal assurance in meeting +people had vanished; but he felt at ease, as if all responsibility were taken +away from him and he did not have to worry about saying the right things, +because he was being led gently into saying them without any effort on his part. +"I’ve always known it would be an important moment when I met you, Mr. Toohey. +Always. For years." +"Really?" said Ellsworth Toohey, the eyes behind the glasses attentive. "Why?" +"Because I’d always hoped that I would please you, that you’d approve of me...of +my work...when the time came...why, I even..." +"Yes?" +"...I even thought, so often, when drawing, is this the kind of building that +Ellsworth Toohey would say is good? I tried to see it like that, through your +eyes...I...I’ve..." Toohey listened watchfully. "I’ve always wanted to meet you +because you’re such a profound thinker and a man of such cultural distinc--" +"Now," said Toohey, his voice kindly but a little impatient; his interest had +dropped on that last sentence. "None of that. I don’t mean to be ungracious, but +we’ll dispense with that sort of thing, shall we? Unnatural as this may sound, I +really don’t like to hear personal praise." +It was Toohey’s eyes, thought Keating, that put him at ease. There was such a +vast understanding in Toohey’s eyes and such an unfastidious kindness--no, what +a word to think of--such an unlimited kindness. It was as if one could hide +nothing from him, but it was not necessary to hide it, because he would forgive +anything. They were the most unaccusing eyes that Keating had ever seen. +"But, Mr. Toohey," he muttered, "I did want to..." +"You wanted to thank me for my article," said Toohey and made a little grimace +of gay despair. "And here I’ve been trying so hard to prevent you from doing it. +Do let me get away with it, won’t you? There’s no reason why you should thank +me. If you happened to deserve the things I said--well, the credit belongs to +you, not to me. Doesn’t it?" +"But I was so happy that you thought I’m..." +"...a great architect? But surely, my boy, you knew that. Or weren’t you quite +sure? Never quite sure of it?" +"Well, I..." +It was only a second’s pause. And it seemed to Keating that this pause was all +Toohey had wanted to hear from him; Toohey did not wait for the rest, but spoke +as if he had received a full answer, and an answer that pleased him. +"And as for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, who can deny that it’s an extraordinary +achievement? You know, I was greatly intrigued by its plan. It’s a most +ingenious plan. A brilliant plan. Very unusual. Quite different from what I have +observed in your previous work. Isn’t it?" +"Naturally," said Keating, his voice clear and hard for the first time, "the +196 + + problem was different from anything I’d done before, so I worked out that plan +to fit the particular requirements of the problem." +"Of course," said Toohey gently. "A beautiful piece of work. You should be proud +of it." +Keating noticed that Toohey’s eyes stood centered in the middle of the lenses +and the lenses stood focused straight on his pupils, and Keating knew suddenly +that Toohey knew he had not designed the plan of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. +This did not frighten him. What frightened him was that he saw approval in +Toohey’s eyes. +"If you must feel--no, not gratitude, gratitude is such an embarrassing +word--but, shall we say, appreciation?" Toohey continued, and his voice had +grown softer, as if Keating were a fellow conspirator who would know that the +words used were to be, from now on, a code for a private meaning, "you might +thank me for understanding the symbolic implications of your building and for +stating them in words as you stated them in marble. Since, of course, you are +not just a common mason, but a thinker in stone." +"Yes," said Keating, "that was my abstract theme, when I designed the +building--the great masses and the flowers of culture. I’ve always believed that +true culture springs from the common man. But I had no hope that anyone would +ever understand me." +Toohey smiled. His thin lips slid open, his teeth showed. He was not looking at +Keating. He was looking down at his own hand, the long, slender, sensitive hand +of a concert pianist, moving a sheet of paper on the desk. Then he said: +"Perhaps we’re brothers of the spirit, Keating. The human spirit. That is all +that matters in life"--not looking at Keating, but past him, the lenses raised +flagrantly to a line over Keating’s face. +And Keating knew that Toohey knew he had never thought of any abstract theme +until he’d read that article, and more: that Toohey approved again. When the +lenses moved slowly to Keating’s face, the eyes were sweet with affection, an +affection very cold and very real. Then Keating felt as if the walls of the room +were moving gently in upon him, pushing him into a terrible intimacy, not with +Toohey, but with some unknown guilt. He wanted to leap to his feet and run. He +sat still, his mouth half open. +And without knowing what prompted him, Keating heard his own voice in the +silence: +"And I did want to say how glad I was that you escaped that maniac’s bullet +yesterday, Mr. Toohey." +"Oh?...Oh, thanks. That? Well! Don’t let it upset you. Just one of the minor +penalties one pays for prominence in public life." +"I’ve never liked Mallory. A strange sort of person. Too tense. I don’t like +people who’re tense. I’ve never liked his work either." +"Just an exhibitionist. Won’t amount to much." +"It wasn’t my idea, of course, to give him a try. It was Mr. Slotnick’s. Pull, +you know. But Mr. Slotnick knew better in the end." +"Did Mallory ever mention my name to you?" +197 + + "No. Never." +"I haven’t even met him, you know. Never saw him before. Why did he do it?" +And then it was Toohey who sat still, before what he saw on Keating’s face; +Toohey, alert and insecure for the first time. This was it, thought Keating, +this was the bond between them, and the bond was fear, and more, much more than +that, but fear was the only recognizable name to give it. And he knew, with +unreasoning finality, that he liked Toohey better than any man he had ever met. +"Well, you know how it is," said Keating brightly, hoping that the commonplace +he was about to utter would close the subject. "Mallory is an incompetent and +knows it and he decided to take it out on you as a symbol of the great and the +able." +But instead of a smile, Keating saw the shot of Toohey’s sudden glance at him; +it was not a glance, it was a fluoroscope, he thought he could feel it crawling +searchingly inside his bones. Then Toohey’s face seemed to harden, drawing +together again in composure, and Keating knew that Toohey had found relief +somewhere, in his bones or in his gaping, bewildered face, that some hidden +immensity of ignorance within him had given Toohey reassurance. Then Toohey said +slowly, strangely, derisively: +"You and I, we’re going to be great friends, Peter." +Keating let a moment pass before he caught himself to answer hastily: +"Oh, I hope so, Mr. Toohey!" +"Really, Peter! I’m not as old as all that, am I? ’Ellsworth’ is the monument to +my parents’ peculiar taste in nomenclature." +"Yes...Ellsworth." +"That’s better. I really don’t mind the name, when compared to some of the +things I’ve been called privately--and publicly--these many years. Oh, well. +Flattering. When one makes enemies one knows that one’s dangerous where it’s +necessary to be dangerous. There are things that must be destroyed--or they’ll +destroy us. We’ll see a great deal of each other, Peter." The voice was smooth +and sure now, with the finality of a decision tested and reached, with the +certainty that never again would anything in Keating be a question mark to him. +"For instance, I’ve been thinking for some time of getting together a few young +architects--I know so many of them--just an informal little organization, to +exchange ideas, you know, to develop a spirit of co-operation, to follow a +common line of action for the common good of the profession if necessity arises. +Nothing as stuffy as the A.G.A. Just a youth group. Think you’d be interested?" +"Why, of course! And you’d be the chairman?" +"Oh dear, no. I’m never chairman of anything, Peter. I dislike titles. No, I +rather thought you’d make the right chairman for us, can’t think of anyone +better." +"Me?" +"You, Peter. Oh, well, it’s only a project--nothing definite--just an idea I’ve +been toying with in odd moments. We’ll talk about it some other time. There’s +something I’d like you to do--and that’s really one of the reasons why I wanted +to meet you," +198 + + "Oh, sure, Mr. Too--sure, Ellsworth. Anything I can do for you..." +"It’s not for me. Do you know Lois Cook?" +"Lois...who?" +"Cook. You don’t. But you will. That young woman is the greatest literary genius +since Goethe. You must read her, Peter. I don’t suggest that as a rule except to +the discriminating. She’s so much above the heads of the middle-class who love +the obvious. She’s planning to build a house. A little private residence on the +Bowery. Yes, on the Bowery. Just like Lois. She’s asked me to recommend an +architect. I’m certain that it will take a person like you to understand a +person like Lois. I’m going to give her your name--if you’re interested in what +is to be a small, though quite costly, residence." +"But of course! That’s...very kind of you, Ellsworth! You know, I thought when +you said...and when I read your note, that you wanted--well, some favor from me, +you know, a good turn for a good turn, and here you’re..." +"My dear Peter, how naive you are!" +"Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t have said that! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend +you, I..." +"I don’t mind. You must learn to know me better. Strange as it may sound, a +totally selfless interest in one’s fellow men is possible in this world, Peter." +Then they talked about Lois Cook and her three published works--"Novels? No, +Peter, not exactly novels....No, not collections of stories either...that’s just +it, just Lois Cook--a new form of literature entirely..."--about the fortune she +had inherited from a long line of successful tradesmen, and about the house she +planned to build. +It was only when Toohey had risen to escort Keating to the door--and Keating +noted how precariously erect he stood on his very small feet--that Toohey paused +suddenly to say: +"Incidentally, it seems to me as if I should remember some personal connection +between us, though for the life of me I can’t quite place...oh, yes, of course. +My niece. Little Catherine." +Keating felt his face tighten, and knew he must not allow this to be discussed, +but smiled awkwardly instead of protesting. +"I understand you’re engaged to her?" +"Yes." +"Charming," said Toohey. "Very charming. Should enjoy being your uncle. You love +her very much?" +"Yes," said Keating. "Very much." +The absence of stress in his voice made the answer solemn. It was, laid before +Toohey, the first bit of sincerity and of importance within Keating’s being. +"How pretty," said Toohey. "Young love. Spring and dawn and heaven and drugstore +chocolates at a dollar and a quarter a box. The prerogative of the gods and of +199 + + the movies....Oh, I do approve, Peter. I think it’s lovely. You couldn’t have +made a better choice than Catherine. She’s just the kind for whom the world is +well lost--the world with all its problems and all its opportunities for +greatness--oh, yes, well lost because she’s innocent and sweet and pretty and +anemic." +"If you’re going to..." Keating began, but Toohey smiled with a luminous sort of +kindliness. +"Oh, Peter, of course I understand. And I approve. I’m a realist. Man has always +insisted on making an ass of himself. Oh, come now, we must never lose our sense +of humor. Nothing’s really sacred but a sense of humor. Still, I’ve always loved +the tale of Tristan and Isolde. It’s the most beautiful story ever told--next to +that of Mickey and Minnie Mouse." + +4. +"...TOOTHBRUSH in the jaw toothbrush brush brush tooth jaw foam dome in the foam +Roman dome come home home in the jaw Rome dome tooth toothbrush toothpick +pickpocket socket rocket..." +Peter Keating squinted his eyes, his glance unfocused as for a great distance, +but put the book down. The book was thin and black, with scarlet letters +forming: Clouds and Shrouds by Lois Cook. The jacket said that it was a record +of Miss Cook’s travels around the world. +Keating leaned back with a sense of warmth and well-being. He liked this book. +It had made the routine of his Sunday morning breakfast a profound spiritual +experience; he was certain that it was profound, because he didn’t understand +it. +Peter Keating had never felt the need to formulate abstract convictions. But he +had a working substitute. "A thing is not high if one can reach it; it is not +great if one can reason about it; it is not deep if one can see its +bottom"--this had always been his credo, unstated and unquestioned. This spared +him any attempt to reach, reason or see; and it cast a nice reflection of scorn +on those who made the attempt. So he was able to enjoy the work of Lois Cook. He +felt uplifted by the knowledge of his own capacity to respond to the abstract, +the profound, the ideal. Toohey had said: "That’s just it, sound as sound, the +poetry of words as words, style as a revolt against style. But only the fines’ +spirit can appreciate it, Peter." Keating thought he could talk of this book to +his friends, and if they did not understand he would know that he was superior +to them. He would not need to explain that superiority--that’s just it, +"superiority as superiority"--automatically denied to those who asked for +explanations. He loved the book. +He reached for another piece of toast. He saw, at the end of the table, left +there for him by his mother, the heavy pile of the Sunday paper. He picked it +up, feeling strong enough, in this moment, in the confidence of his secret +spiritual grandeur, to face the whole world contained in that pile. He pulled +out the rotogravure section. He stopped. He saw the reproduction of a drawing: +the Enright House by Howard Roark. +He did not need to see the caption or the brusque signature in the corner of the +sketch; he knew that no one else had conceived that house and he knew the manner +of drawing, serene and violent at once, the pencil lines like high-tension wires +on the paper, slender and innocent to see, but not to be touched. It was a +200 + + structure on a broad space by the East River. He did not grasp it as a building, +at first glance, but as a rising mass of rock crystal. There was the same +severe, mathematical order holding together a free, fantastic growth; straight +lines and clean angles, space slashed with a knife, yet in a harmony of +formation as delicate as the work of a jeweler; an incredible variety of shapes, +each separate unit unrepeated, but leading inevitably to the next one and to the +whole; so that the future inhabitants were to have, not a square cage out of a +square pile of cages, but each a single house held to the other houses like a +single crystal to the side of a rock. Keating looked at the sketch. He had known +for a long time that Howard Roark had been chosen to build the Enright House. He +had seen a few mentions of Roark’s name in the papers; not much, all of it to be +summed up only as "some young architect chosen by Mr. Enright for some reason, +probably an interesting young architect." The caption under the drawing +announced that the construction of the project was to begin at once. Well, +thought Keating, and dropped the paper, so what? The paper fell beside the black +and scarlet book. He looked at both. He felt dimly as if Lois Cook were his +defense against Howard Roark. "What’s that, Petey?" his mother’s voice asked +behind him. He handed the paper to her over his shoulder. The paper fell past +him back to the table in a second. "Oh," shrugged Mrs. Keating. "Huh..." She +stood beside him. Her trim silk dress was fitted too tightly, revealing the +solid rigidity of her corset; a small pin glittered at her throat, small enough +to display ostentatiously that it was made of real diamonds. She was like the +new apartment into which they had moved: conspicuously expensive. The +apartment’s decoration had been Keating’s first professional job for himself. It +had been furnished in fresh, new mid-Victorian. It was conservative and stately. +Over the fireplace in the drawing room hung a large old painting of what was not +but looked like an illustrious ancestor. +"Petey sweetheart, I do hate to rush you on a Sunday morning, but isn’t it time +to dress up? I’ve got to run now and I’d hate you to forget the time and be +late, it’s so nice of Mr. Toohey asking you to his house!" +"Yes, Mother." +"Any famous guests coming too?" +"No. No guests. But there will be one other person there. Not famous." She +looked at him expectantly. He added: "Katie will be there." +The name seemed to have no effect on her whatever. A strange assurance had +coated her lately, like a layer of fat through which that particular question +could penetrate no longer. +"Just a family tea," he emphasized. "That’s what he said." +"Very nice of him. I’m sure Mr. Toohey is a very intelligent man." +"Yes, Mother." +He rose impatiently and went to his room. +# +It was Keating’s first visit to the distinguished residential hotel where +Catherine and her uncle had moved recently. He did not notice much about the +apartment, beyond remembering that it was simple, very clean and smartly modest, +that it contained a great number of books and very few pictures, but these +authentic and precious. One never remembered the apartment of Ellsworth Toohey, +only its host. The host, on this Sunday afternoon, wore a dark gray suit, +correct as a uniform, and bedroom slippers of black patent leather trimmed with +201 + + red; the slippers mocked the severe elegance of the suit, yet completed the +elegance as an audacious anticlimax. He sat in a broad, low chair and his face +wore an expression of cautious gentleness, so cautious that Keating and +Catherine felt, at times, as if they were insignificant soap bubbles. +Keating did not like the way Catherine sat on the edge of a chair, hunched, her +legs drawn awkwardly together. He wished she would not wear the same suit for +the third season, but she did. She kept her eyes on one point somewhere in the +middle of the carpet. She seldom looked at Keating. She never looked at her +uncle. Keating found no trace of that joyous admiration with which she had +always spoken of Toohey, which he had expected to see her display in his +presence. There was something heavy and colorless about Catherine, and very +tired. +Toohey’s valet brought in the tea tray. +"You will pour, won’t you please, my dear?" said Toohey to Catherine. "Ah, +there’s nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, +historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to +civilization--this tea ritual and the detective novel. Catherine, my dear, do +you have to grasp that pot handle as if it were a meat axe? But never mind, it’s +charming, it’s really what we love you for, Peter and I, we wouldn’t love you if +you were graceful as a duchess--who wants a duchess nowadays?" +Catherine poured the tea and spilled it on the glass table top, which she had +never done before. +"I did want to see you two together for once," said Toohey, holding a delicate +cup balanced nonchalantly. "Perfectly silly of me, isn’t it? There’s really +nothing to make an occasion of, but then I’m silly and sentimental at times, +like all of us. My compliments on your choice, Catherine. I owe you an apology, +I never suspected you of such good taste. You and Peter make a wonderful couple. +You’ll do a great deal for him. You’ll cook his Cream of Wheat, launder his +handkerchiefs and bear his children, though of course the children will all have +measles at one time or another, which is a nuisance." +"But, after all, you...you do approve of it?" Keating asked anxiously. +"Approve of it? Of what, Peter?" +"Of our marriage...eventually." +"What a superfluous question, Peter! Of course, I approve of it. But how young +you are! That’s the way of young people--they make an issue where none exists. +You asked that as if the whole thing were important enough to disapprove of." +"Katie and I met seven years ago," said Keating defensively. "And it was love at +first sight of course?" +"Yes," said Keating and felt himself being ridiculous. "It must have been +spring," said Toohey. "It usually is. There’s always a dark movie theater, and +two people lost to the world, their hands clasped together--but hands do +perspire when held too long, don’t they? Still, it’s beautiful to be in love. +The sweetest story ever told--and the tritest. Don’t turn away like that, +Catherine. We must never allow ourselves to lose our sense of humor." +He smiled. The kindliness of his smile embraced them both. The kindliness was so +great that it made their love seem small and mean, because only something +contemptible could evoke such immensity of compassion. He asked: +202 + + "Incidentally, Peter, when do you intend to get married?" +"Oh, well...we’ve never really set a definite date, you know how it’s been, all +the things happening to me and now Katie has this work of hers and...And, by the +way," he added sharply, because that matter of Katie’s work irritated him +without reason, "when we’re married, Katie will have to give that up. I don’t +approve of it." +"But of course," said Toohey, "I don’t approve of it either, if Catherine +doesn’t like it." +Catherine was working as day nursery attendant at the Clifford Settlement House. +It had been her own idea. She had visited the settlement often with her uncle, +who conducted classes in economics there, and she had become interested in the +work. +"But I do like it!" she said with sudden excitement. "I don’t see why you resent +it, Peter!" There was a harsh little note in her voice, defiant and unpleasant. +"I’ve never enjoyed anything so much in my life. Helping people who’re helpless +and unhappy. I went there this morning--I didn’t have to, but I wanted to--and +then I rushed so on my way home, I didn’t have time to change my clothes, but +that doesn’t matter, who cares what I look like? And"--the harsh note was gone, +she was speaking eagerly and very fast--"Uncle Ellsworth, imagine! little Billy +Hansen had a sore throat--you remember Billy? And the nurse wasn’t there, and I +had to swab his throat with Argyrol, the poor thing! He had the most awful white +mucus patches down in his throat!" Her voice seemed to shine, as if she were +speaking of great beauty. She looked at her uncle. For the first time Keating +saw the affection he had expected. She went on speaking about her work, the +children, the settlement. Toohey listened gravely. He said nothing. But the +earnest attention in his eyes changed him, his mocking gaiety vanished and he +forgot his own advice, he was being serious, very serious indeed. When he +noticed that Catherine’s plate was empty, he offered her the sandwich tray with +a simple gesture and made it, somehow, a gracious gesture of respect. +Keating waited impatiently till she paused for an instant. He wanted to change +the subject. He glanced about the room and saw the Sunday papers. This was a +question he had wanted to ask for a long time. He asked cautiously: +"Ellsworth...what do you think of Roark?" +"Roark? Roark?" asked Toohey. "Who is Roark?" The too innocent, too trifling +manner in which he repeated the name, with the faint, contemptuous question mark +quite audible at the end, made Keating certain that Toohey knew the name well. +One did not stress total ignorance of a subject if one were in total ignorance +of it. Keating said: +"Howard Roark. You know, the architect. The one who’s doing the Enright House." +"Oh? Oh, yes, someone’s doing that Enright House at last, isn’t he?" +"There’s a picture of it in the Chronicle today." +"Is there? I did glance through the Chronicle." +"And...what do you think of that building?" +"If it were important, I should have remembered it." +203 + + "Of course!" Keating’s syllables danced, as if his breath caught at each one in +passing: "It’s an awful, crazy thing! Like nothing you ever saw or want to see!" +He felt a sense of deliverance. It was as if he had spent his life believing +that he carried a congenital disease, and suddenly the words of the greatest +specialist on earth had pronounced him healthy. He wanted to laugh, freely, +stupidly, without dignity. He wanted to talk. +"Howard’s a friend of mine," he said happily. "A friend of yours? You know him?" +"Do I know him! Why, we went to school together--Stanton, you know--why, he +lived at our house for three years, I can tell you the color of his underwear +and how he takes a shower--I’ve seen him!" +"He lived at your house in Stanton?" Toohey repeated. Toohey spoke with a kind +of cautious precision. The sounds of his voice were small and dry and final, +like the cracks of matches being broken. +It was very peculiar, thought Keating. Toohey was asking him a great many +questions about Howard Roark. But the questions did not make sense. They were +not about buildings, they were not about architecture at all. They were +pointless personal questions--strange to ask about a man of whom he had never +heard before. +"Does he laugh often?" +"Very rarely." +"Does he seem unhappy?" +"Never." +"Did he have many friends at Stanton?" +"He’s never had any friends anywhere." +"The boys didn’t like him?" +"Nobody can like him." +"Why?" +"He makes you feel it would be an impertinence to like him." +"Did he go out, drink, have a good time?" +"Never." +"Does he like money?" +"No." +"Does he like to be admired?" +"No." +"Does he believe in God?" +"No." +204 + + "Does he talk much?" +"Very little." +"Does he listen if others discuss any...ideas with him?" +"He listens. It would be better if he didn’t." +"Why?" +"It would be less insulting--if you know what I mean, when a man listens like +that and you know it hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference to him." +"Did he always want to be an architect?" +"He..." +"What’s the matter, Peter?" +"Nothing. It just occurred to me how strange it is that I’ve never asked myself +that about him before. Here’s what’s strange: you can’t ask that about him. He’s +a maniac on the subject of architecture. It seems to mean so damn much to him +that he’s lost all human perspective. He just has no sense of humor about +himself at all--now there’s a man without a sense of humor, Ellsworth. You don’t +ask what he’d do if he didn’t want to be an architect." +"No," said Toohey. "You ask what he’d do if he couldn’t be an +architect." +"He’d walk over corpses. Any and all of them. All of us. But +he’d be an architect." +Toohey folded his napkin, a crisp little square of cloth on his knee; he folded +it accurately, once across each way, and he ran his fingernail along the edges +to make a sharp crease. +"Do you remember our little youth group of architects, Peter?" he asked. "I’m +making arrangements for a first meeting soon. I’ve spoken to many of our future +members and you’d be flattered by what they said about you as our prospective +chairman." +They talked pleasantly for another half hour. When Keating rose to go, Toohey +declared: +"Oh, yes. I did speak to Lois Cook about you. You’ll hear from her shortly." +"Thank you so much, Ellsworth. By the way, I’m reading Clouds and Shrouds." +"And?" +"Oh, it’s tremendous. You know, Ellsworth, it...it makes you think so +differently about everything you’ve thought before." +"Yes," said Toohey, "doesn’t it?" +He stood at the window, looking out at the last sunshine of a cold, bright +205 + + afternoon. Then he turned and said: +"It’s a lovely day. Probably one of the last this year. Why don’t you take +Catherine out for a little walk, Peter?" +"Oh, I’d love to!" said Catherine eagerly. +"Well, go ahead." Toohey smiled gaily. "What’s the matter, Catherine? Do you +have to wait for my permission?" +When they walked out together, when they were alone in the cold brilliance of +streets flooded with late sunlight, Keating felt himself recapturing everything +Catherine had always meant to him, the strange emotion that he could not keep in +the presence of others. He closed his hand over hers. She withdrew her hand, +took off her glove and slipped her fingers into his. And then he thought +suddenly that hands did perspire when held too long, and he walked faster in +irritation. He thought that they were walking there like Mickey and Minnie Mouse +and that they probably appeared ridiculous to the passers-by. To shake himself +free of these thoughts he glanced down at her face. She was looking straight +ahead at the gold light, he saw her delicate profile and the faint crease of a +smile in the corner of her mouth, a smile of quiet happiness. But he noticed +that the edge of her eyelid was pale and he began to wonder whether she was +anemic. +# +Lois Cook sat on the floor in the middle of her living room, her legs crossed +Turkish fashion, showing large bare knees, gray stockings rolled over tight +garters, and a piece of faded pink drawers. Peter Keating sat on the edge of a +violet satin chaise lounge. Never before had he felt uncomfortable at a first +interview with a client. +Lois Cook was thirty-seven. She had stated insistently, in her publicity and in +private conversation, that she was sixty-four. It was repeated as a whimsical +joke and it created about her name a vague impression of eternal youth. She was +tall, dry, narrow-shouldered and broad-hipped. She had a long, sallow face, and +eyes set close together. Her hair hung about her ears in greasy strands. Her +fingernails were broken. She looked offensively unkempt, with studied +slovenliness as careful as grooming--and for the same purpose. +She talked incessantly, rocking back and forth on her haunches: +"...yes, on the Bowery. A private residence. The shrine on the Bowery. I have +the site, I wanted it and I bought it, as simple as that, or my fool lawyer +bought it for me, you must meet my lawyer, he has halitosis. I don’t know what +you’ll cost me, but it’s unessential, money is commonplace. Cabbage is +commonplace too. It must have three stories and a living room with a tile +floor." +"Miss Cook, I’ve read Clouds and Shrouds and it was a spiritual revelation to +me. Allow me to include myself among the few who understand the courage and +significance of what you’re achieving single-handed while..." +"Oh, can the crap," said Lois Cook and winked at him. +"But I mean it!" he snapped angrily. "I loved your book. I..." +She looked bored. +"It is so commonplace," she drawled, "to be understood by everybody." +206 + + "But Mr. Toohey said..." +"Ah, yes. Mr. Toohey." Her eyes were alert now, insolently guilty, like the eyes +of a child who has just perpetrated some nasty little joke. "Mr. Toohey. I’m +chairman of a little youth group of writers in which Mr. Toohey is very +interested." +"You are?" he said happily. It seemed to be the first direct communication +between them. "Isn’t that interesting! Mr. Toohey is getting together a little +youth group of architects, too, and he’s kind enough to have me in mind for +chairman." +"Oh," she said and winked. "One of us?" +"Of whom?" +He did not know what he had done, but he knew that he had disappointed her in +some way. She began to laugh. She sat there, looking up at him, laughing +deliberately in his face, laughing ungraciously and not gaily. +"What the...!" He controlled himself. "What’s the matter, Miss Cook?" +"Oh my!" she said. "You’re such a sweet, sweet boy and so pretty!" +"Mr. Toohey is a great man," he said angrily. "He’s the most...the noblest +personality I’ve ever..." +"Oh, yes. Mr. Toohey is a wonderful man." Her voice was strange by omission, it +was flagrantly devoid of respect. "My best friend. The most wonderful man on +earth. There’s the earth and there’s Mr. Toohey--a law of nature. Besides, think +how nicely you can rhyme it: Toohey--gooey--phooey--hooey. Nevertheless, he’s a +saint. That’s very rare. As rare as genius. I’m a genius. I want a living room +without windows. No windows at all, remember that when you draw up the plans. No +windows, a tile floor and a black ceiling. And no electricity. I want no +electricity in my house, just kerosene lamps. Kerosene lamps with chimneys, and +candles. To hell with Thomas Edison! Who was he anyway?" +Her words did not disturb him as much as her smile. It was not a smile, it was a +permanent smirk raising the corners of her long mouth, making her look like a +sly, vicious imp. +"And, Keating, I want the house to be ugly. Magnificently ugly. I want it to be +the ugliest house in New York." +"The...ugliest. Miss Cook?" +"Sweetheart, the beautiful is so commonplace!" +"Yes, but...but I...well, I don’t see how I could permit myself to..." +"Keating, where’s your courage? Aren’t you capable of a sublime gesture on +occasion? They all work so hard and struggle and suffer, trying to achieve +beauty, trying to surpass one another in beauty. Let’s surpass them all! Let’s +throw their sweat in their face. Let’s destroy them at one stroke. Let’s be +gods. Let’s be ugly." +He accepted the commission. After a few weeks he stopped feeling uneasy about +it. Wherever he mentioned this new job, he met a respectful curiosity. It was an +207 + + amused curiosity, but it was respectful. The name of Lois Cook was well known in +the best drawing rooms he visited. The titles of her books were flashed in +conversation like the diamonds in the speaker’s intellectual crown. There was +always a note of challenge in the voices pronouncing them. It sounded as if the +speaker were being very brave. It was a satisfying bravery; it never aroused +antagonism. For an author who did not sell, her name seemed strangely famous and +honored. She was the standard-bearer of a vanguard of intellect and revolt. Only +it was not quite clear to him just exactly what the revolt was against. Somehow, +he preferred not to know. +He designed the house as she wished it. It was a three-floor edifice, part +marble, part stucco, adorned with gargoyles and carriage lanterns. It looked +like a structure from an amusement park. +His sketch of it was reproduced in more publications than any other drawing he +had ever made, with the exception of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. One +commentator expressed the opinion that "Peter Keating is showing a promise of +being more than just a bright young man with a knack for pleasing stuffy moguls +of big business. He is venturing into the field of intellectual experimentation +with a client such as Lois Cook." Toohey referred to the house as "a cosmic +joke." +But a peculiar sensation remained in Keating’s mind: the feeling of an +aftertaste. He would experience a dim flash of it while working on some +important structure he liked; he would experience it in the moments when he felt +proud of his work. He could not identify the quality of the feeling; but he knew +that part of it was a sense of shame. +Once, he confessed it to Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey laughed. "That’s good for you, +Peter. One must never allow oneself to acquire an exaggerated sense of one’s own +importance. There’s no necessity to burden oneself with absolutes." + +5. +DOMINIQUE had returned to New York. She returned without purpose, merely because +she could not stay in her country house longer than three days after her last +visit to the quarry. She had to be in the city, it was a sudden necessity, +irresistible and senseless. She expected nothing of the city. But she wanted the +feeling of the streets and the buildings holding her there. In the morning, when +she awakened and heard the muffled roar of traffic far below, the sound was a +humiliation, a reminder of where she was and why. She stood at the window, her +arms spread wide, holding on to each side of the frame; it was as if she held a +piece of the city, all the streets and rooftops outlined on the glass between +her two hands. +She went out alone for long walks. She walked fast, her hands in the pockets of +an old coat, its collar raised. She had told herself that she was not hoping to +meet him. She was not looking for him. But she had to be out in the streets, +blank, purposeless, for hours at a time. +She had always hated the streets of a city. She saw the faces streaming past +her, the faces made alike by fear--fear as a common denominator, fear of +themselves, fear of all and of one another, fear making them ready to pounce +upon whatever was held sacred by any single one they met. She could not define +the nature or the reason of that fear. But she had always felt its presence. She +had kept herself clean and free in a single passion--to touch nothing. She had +liked facing them in the streets, she had liked the impotence of their hatred, +because she offered them nothing to be hurt. +208 + + She was not free any longer. Each step through the streets hurt her now. She was +tied to him--as he was tied to every part of the city. He was a nameless worker +doing some nameless job, lost in these crowds, dependent on them, to be hurt by +any one of them, to be shared by her with the whole city. She hated the thought +of him on the sidewalks people had used. She hated the thought of a clerk +handing to him a package of cigarettes across a counter. She hated the elbows +touching his elbows in a subway train. She came home, after these walks, shaking +with fever. She went out again the next day. +When the term of her vacation expired, she went to the office of the Banner in +order to resign. Her work and her column did not seem amusing to her any longer. +She stopped Alvah Scarret’s effusive greetings. She said: "I just came back to +tell you that I’m quitting, Alvah." He looked at her stupidly. He uttered only: +"Why?" +It was the first sound from the outside world to reach her in a long time. She +had always acted on the impulse of the moment, proud of the freedom to need no +reasons for her actions. Now she had to face a "why?" that carried an answer she +could not escape. She thought: Because of him, because she was letting him +change the course of her life. It would be another violation; she could see him +smiling as he had smiled on the path in the woods. She had no choice. Either +course taken would be taken under compulsion: she could leave her work, because +he had made her want to leave it, or she could remain, hating it, in order to +keep her life unchanged, in defiance of him. The last was harder. +She raised her head. She said: "Just a joke, Alvah. Just wanted to see what +you’d say. I’m not quitting." +# +She had been back at work for a few days when Ellsworth Toohey walked into her +office. +"Hello, Dominique," he said. "Just heard you’re back." +"Hello, Ellsworth." +"I’m glad. You know, I’ve always had the feeling that you’ll walk out on us some +morning without any reason." +"The feeling, Ellsworth? Or the hope?" +He was looking at her, his eyes as kindly, his smile as charming as ever; but +there was a tinge of self-mockery in the charm, as if he knew that she did not +approve of it, and a tinge of assurance, as if he were showing that he would +look kindly and charming just the same. +"You know, you’re wrong there," he said, smiling peacefully. "You’ve always been +wrong about that." +"No. I don’t fit, Ellsworth. Do I?" +"I could, of course, ask: Into what? But supposing I don’t ask it. Supposing I +just say that people who don’t fit have their uses also, as well as those who +do? Would you like that better? Of course, the simplest thing to say is that +I’ve always been a great admirer of yours and always will be." +"That’s not a compliment." +209 + + "Somehow, I don’t think we’ll ever be enemies, Dominique, if that’s what you’d +like." +"No, I don’t think we’ll ever be enemies, Ellsworth. You’re the most comforting +person I know." +"Of course." +"In the sense I mean?" +"In any sense you wish." +On the desk before her lay the rotogravure section of the Sunday Chronicle. It +was folded on the page that bore the drawing of the Enright House. She picked it +up and held it out to him, her eyes narrowed in a silent question. He looked at +the drawing, then his glance moved to her face and returned to the drawing. He +let the paper drop back on the desk. +"As independent as an insult, isn’t it?" he said. +"You know, Ellsworth, I think the man who designed this should have committed +suicide. A man who can conceive a thing as beautiful as this should never allow +it to be erected. He should not want to exist. But he will let it be built, so +that women will hang out diapers on his terraces, so that men will spit on his +stairways and draw dirty pictures on his walls. He’s given it to them and he’s +made it part of them, part of everything. He shouldn’t have offered it for men +like you to look at. For men like you to talk about. He’s defiled his own work +by the first word you’ll utter about it. He’s made himself worse than you are. +You’ll be committing only a mean little indecency, but he��s committed a +sacrilege. A man who knows what he must have known to produce this should not +have been able to remain alive." +"Going to write a piece about this?" he asked. +"No. That would be repeating his crime." +"And talking to me about it?" +She looked at him. He was smiling pleasantly. +"Yes of course," she said, "that’s part of the same crime also." +"Let’s have dinner together one of these days, Dominique," he said. "You really +don’t let me see enough of you." +"All right," she said. "Anytime you wish." +# +At his trial for the assault on Ellsworth Toohey, Steven Mallory refused to +disclose his motive. He made no statement. He seemed indifferent to any possible +sentence. But Ellsworth Toohey created a minor sensation when he appeared, +unsolicited, in Mallory’s defense. He pleaded with the judge for leniency; he +explained that he had no desire to see Mallory’s future and career destroyed. +Everybody in the courtroom was touched--except Steven Mallory. Steven Mallory +listened and looked as if he were enduring some special process of cruelty. The +judge gave him two years and suspended the sentence. +There was a great deal of comment on Toohey’s extraordinary generosity. Toohey +dismissed all praise, gaily and modestly. "My friends," was his remark--the one +210 + + to appear in all the papers--"I refuse to be an accomplice in the manufacturing +of martyrs." +# +At the first meeting of the proposed organization of young architects Keating +concluded that Toohey had a wonderful ability for choosing people who fitted +well together. There was an air about the eighteen persons present which he +could not define, but which gave him a sense of comfort, a security he had not +experienced in solitude or in any other gathering; and part of the comfort was +the knowledge that all the others felt the same way for the same unaccountable +reason. It was a feeling of brotherhood, but somehow not of a sainted or noble +brotherhood; yet this precisely was the comfort--that one felt, among them, no +necessity for being sainted or noble. +Were it not for this kinship, Keating would have been disappointed in the +gathering. Of the eighteen seated about Toohey’s living room, none was an +architect of distinction, except himself and Gordon L. Prescott, who wore a +beige turtle-neck sweater and looked faintly patronizing, but eager. Keating had +never heard the names of the others. Most of them were beginners, young, poorly +dressed and belligerent. Some were only draftsmen. There was one woman architect +who had built a few small private homes, mainly for wealthy widows; she had an +aggressive manner, a tight mouth and a fresh petunia in her hair. There was a +boy with pure, innocent eyes. There was an obscure contractor with a fat, +expressionless face. There was a tall, dry woman who was an interior decorator, +and another woman of no definite occupation at all. +Keating could not understand what exactly was to be the purpose of the group, +though there was a great deal of talk. None of the talk was too coherent, but +all of it seemed to have the same undercurrent. He felt that the undercurrent +was the one thing clear among all the vague generalities, even though nobody +would mention it. It held him there, as it held the others, and he had no desire +to define it. +The young men talked a great deal about injustice, unfairness, the cruelty of +society toward youth, and suggested that everyone should have his future +commissions guaranteed when he left college. The woman architect shrieked +briefly something about the iniquity of the rich. The contractor barked that it +was a hard world and that "fellows gotta help one another." The boy with the +innocent eyes pleaded that "we could do so much good..." His voice had a note of +desperate sincerity which seemed embarrassing and out of place. Gordon L. +Prescott declared that the A.G.A. was a bunch of old fogies with no conception +of social responsibility and not a drop of virile blood in the lot of them, and +that it was time to kick them in the pants anyway. The woman of indefinite +occupation spoke about ideals and causes, though nobody could gather just what +these were. +Peter Keating was elected chairman, unanimously. Gordon L. Prescott was elected +vice-chairman and treasurer. Toohey declined all nominations. He declared that +he would act only as an unofficial advisor. It was decided that the organization +would be named the "Council of American Builders." It was decided that +membership would not be restricted to architects, but would be open to "allied +crafts" and to "all those holding the interests of the great profession of +building at heart." +Then Toohey spoke. He spoke at some length, standing up, leaning on the knuckles +of one hand against a table. His great voice was soft and persuasive. It filled +the room, but it made his listeners realize that it could have filled a Roman +amphitheater; there was something subtly flattering in this realization, in the +sound of the powerful voice being held in check for their benefit. +211 + + "...and thus, my friends, what the architectural profession lacks is an +understanding of its own social importance. This lack is due to a double cause: +to the anti-social nature of our entire society and to your own inherent +modesty. You have been conditioned to think of yourselves merely as breadwinners +with no higher purpose than to earn your fees and the means of your own +existence. Isn’t it time, my friends, to pause and to redefine your position in +society? Of all the crafts, yours is the most important. Important, not in the +amount of money you might make, not in the degree of artistic skill you might +exhibit, but in the service you render to your fellow men. You are those who +provide mankind’s shelter. Remember this and then look at our cities, at our +slums, to realize the gigantic task awaiting you. But to meet this challenge you +must be armed with a broader vision of yourselves and of your work. You are not +hired lackeys of the rich. You are crusaders in the cause of the underprivileged +and the unsheltered. Not by what we are shall we be judged, but by those we +serve. Let us stand united in this spirit. Let us--in all matters--be faithful +to this new, broader, higher perspective. Let us organize--well, my friends, +shall I say--a nobler dream?" +Keating listened avidly. He had always thought of himself as a breadwinner bent +upon earning his fees, in a profession he had chosen because his mother had +wanted him to choose it. It was gratifying to discover that he was much more +than this; that his daily activity carried a nobler significance. It was +pleasant and it was drugging. He knew that all the others in the room felt it +also. +"...and when our system of society collapses, the craft of builders will not be +swept under, it will be swept up to greater prominence and greater +recognition..." +The doorbell rang. Then Toohey’s valet appeared for an instant, holding the door +of the living room open to admit Dominique Francon. +By the manner in which Toohey stopped, on a half-uttered word, Keating knew that +Dominique had not been invited or expected. She smiled at Toohey, shook her head +and moved one hand in a gesture telling him to continue. He managed a faint bow +in her direction, barely more than a movement of his eyebrows, and went on with +his speech. It was a pleasant greeting and its informality included the guest in +the intimate brotherhood of the occasion, but it seemed to Keating that it had +come just one beat too late. He had never before seen Toohey miss the right +moment. +Dominique sat down in a corner, behind the others. Keating forgot to listen for +a while, trying to attract her attention. He had to wait until her eyes had +traveled thoughtfully about the room, from face to face, and stopped on his. He +bowed and nodded vigorously, with the smile of greeting a private possession. +She inclined her head, he saw her lashes touching her cheeks for an instant as +her eyes closed, and then she looked at him again. She sat looking at him for a +long moment, without smiling, as if she were rediscovering something in his +face. He had not seen her since spring. He thought that she looked a little +tired and lovelier than his memory of her. +Then he turned to Ellsworth Toohey once more and he listened. The words he heard +were as stirring as ever, but his pleasure in them had an edge of uneasiness. He +looked at Dominique. She did not belong in this room, at this meeting. He could +not say why, but the certainty of it was enormous and oppressive. It was not her +beauty, it was not her insolent elegance. But something made her an outsider. It +was as if they had all been comfortably naked, and a person had entered fully +clothed, suddenly making them self-conscious and indecent. Yet she did nothing. +212 + + She sat listening attentively. Once, she leaned back, crossing her legs, and +lighted a cigarette. She shook the flame off the match with a brusque little +jerk of her wrist and she dropped the match into an ash tray on a table beside +her. He saw her drop the match into the ash tray; he felt as if that movement of +her wrist had tossed the match into all their faces. He thought that he was +being preposterous. But he noticed that Ellsworth Toohey never looked at her as +he spoke. +When the meeting ended, Toohey rushed over to her. +"Dominique, my dear!" he said brightly. "Shall I consider myself flattered?" +"If you wish." +"Had I known that you were interested, I would have sent you a very special +invitation." +"But you didn’t think I’d be interested?" +"No, frankly, I..." +"That was a mistake, Ellsworth. You discounted my newspaperwoman’s instinct. +Never miss a scoop. It’s not often that one has the chance to witness the birth +of a felony." +"Just exactly what do you mean, Dominique?" asked Keating, his voice sharp. +She turned to him. "Hello, Peter." +"You know Peter Keating, of course?" Toohey smiled at her. +"Oh, yes. Peter was in love with me once." +"You’re using the wrong tense, Dominique," said Keating. +"You must never take seriously anything Dominique chooses to say, Peter. She +does not intend us to take it seriously. Would you like to join our little +group, Dominique? Your professional qualifications make you eminently eligible." +"No, Ellsworth. I wouldn’t like to join your little group. I really don’t hate +you enough to do that." +"Just why do you disapprove of it?" snapped Keating. +"Why, Peter!" she drawled. "Whatever gave you that idea? I don’t disapprove of +it at all. Do I, Ellsworth? I think it’s a proper undertaking in answer to an +obvious necessity. It’s just what we all need--and deserve." +"Can we count on your presence at our next meeting?" Toohey asked. "It is +pleasant to have so understanding a listener who will not be in the way at +all--at our next meeting, I mean." +"No, Ellsworth. Thank you. It was merely curiosity. Though you do have an +interesting group of people here. Young builders. By the way, why didn’t you +invite that man who designed the Enright House--what’s his name?--Howard Roark?" +Keating felt his jaw snap tight. But she looked at them innocently, she had said +it lightly, in the tone of a casual remark--surely, he thought, she did not +mean...what? he asked himself and added: she did not mean whatever it was he’d +213 + + thought for a moment she meant, whatever had terrified him in that moment. +"I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Roark," Toohey answered gravely. +"Do you know him?" Keating asked her. +"No," she answered. "I’ve merely seen a sketch of the Enright House." +"And?" Keating insisted. "What do you think of it?" +"I don’t think of it," she answered. +When she turned to leave, Keating accompanied her. He looked at her in the +elevator, on their way down. He saw her hand, in a tight black glove, holding +the flat corner of a pocket-book. The limp carelessness of her fingers was +insolent and inviting at once. He felt himself surrendering to her again. +"Dominique, why did you actually come here today?" +"Oh, I haven’t been anywhere for a long time and I decided to start in with +that. You know, when I go swimming I don’t like to torture myself getting into +cold water by degrees. I dive right in and it’s a nasty shock, but after that +the rest is not so hard to take." +"What do you mean? What do you really see that’s so wrong with that meeting? +After all, we’re not planning to do anything definite. We don’t have any actual +program. I don’t even know what we were there for." +"That’s it, Peter. You don’t even know what you were there for." +"It’s only a group for fellows to get together. Mostly to talk. What harm is +there in that?" +"Peter, I’m tired." +"Well, did your appearance tonight mean at least that you’re coming out of your +seclusion?" +"Yes. Just that...My seclusion?" +"I’ve tried and tried to get in touch with you, you know." +"Have you?" +"Shall I begin to tell you how happy I am to see you again?" +"No. Let’s consider that you’ve told me." +"You know, you’ve changed, Dominique. I don’t know exactly in what way, but +you’ve changed." +"Have I?" +"Let’s consider that I’ve told you how lovely you are, because I can’t find +words to say it." +The streets were dark. He called a cab. Sitting close to her, he turned and +looked at her directly, his glance compelling like an open hint, hoping to make +the silence significant between them. She did not turn away. She sat studying +his face. She seemed to be wondering, attentive to some thought of her own which +214 + + he could not guess. He reached over slowly and took her hand. He felt an effort +in her hand, he could feel through her rigid fingers the effort of her whole +arm, not an effort to withdraw her hand, but to let him hold it. He raised the +hand, turned it over and pressed his lips to her wrist. +Then he looked at her face. He dropped her hand and it remained suspended in the +air for an instant, the fingers stiff, half closed. This was not the +indifference he remembered. This was revulsion, so great that it became +impersonal, it could not offend him, it seemed to include more than his person. +He was suddenly aware of her body; not in desire or resentment, but just aware +of its presence close to him, under her dress. He whispered involuntarily: +"Dominique, who was he?" +She whirled to face him. Then he saw her eyes narrowing. He saw her lips +relaxing, growing fuller, softer, her mouth lengthening slowly into a faint +smile, without opening. She answered, looking straight at him: +"A workman in the granite quarry." +She succeeded; he laughed aloud. +"Serves me right, Dominique. I shouldn’t suspect the impossible." +"Peter, isn’t it strange? It was you that I thought I could make myself want, at +one time." +"Why is that strange?" +"Only in thinking how little we know about ourselves. Some day you’ll know the +truth about yourself too, Peter, and it will be worse for you than for most of +us. But you don’t have to think about it. It won’t come for a long time." +"You did want me, Dominique?" +"I thought I could never want anything and you suited that so well." +"I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know what you ever think you’re saying. I +know that I’ll always love you. And I won’t let you disappear again. Now that +you’re back..." +"Now that I’m back, Peter, I don’t want to see you again. Oh, I’ll have to see +you when we run into each other, as we will, but don’t call on me. Don’t come to +see me. I’m not trying to offend you, Peter. It’s not that. You’ve done nothing +to make me angry. It’s something in myself that I don’t want to face again. I’m +sorry to choose you as the example. But you suit so well. You--Peter, you’re +everything I despise in the world and I don’t want to remember how much I +despise it. If I let myself remember--I’ll return to it. This is not an insult +to you, Peter. Try to understand that. You’re not the worst of the world. You’re +its best. That’s what’s frightening. If I ever come back to you--don’t let me +come. I’m saying this now because I can, but if I come back to you, you won’t be +able to stop me, and now is the only time when I can warn you." +"I don’t know," he said in cold fury, his lips stiff, "what you’re talking +about." +"Don’t try to know. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just stay away from each other. +Shall we?" +215 + + "I’ll never give you up." +She shrugged. "All right, Peter. This is the only time I’ve ever been kind to +you. Or to anyone." + +6. +ROGER ENRIGHT had started life as a coal miner in Pennsylvania. On his way to +the millions he now owned, no one had ever helped him. "That," he explained, "is +why no one has ever stood in my way." A great many things and people had stood +in his way, however; but he had never noticed them. Many incidents of his long +career were not admired; none was whispered about. His career had been glaring +and public like a billboard. He made a poor subject for blackmailers or +debunking biographers. Among the wealthy he was disliked for having become +wealthy so crudely. +He hated bankers, labor unions, women, evangelists and the stock exchange. He +had never bought a share of stock nor sold a share in any of his enterprises, +and he owned his fortune single-handed, as simply as if he carried all his cash +in his pocket. Besides his oil business he owned a publishing house, a +restaurant, a radio shop, a garage, a plant manufacturing electric +refrigerators. Before each new venture he studied the field for a long time, +then proceeded to act as if he had never heard of it, upsetting all precedent. +Some of his ventures were successful, others failed. He continued running them +all with ferocious energy. He worked twelve hours a day. +When he decided to erect a building, he spent six months looking for an +architect. Then he hired Roark at the end of their first interview, which lasted +half an hour. Later, when the drawings were made, he gave orders to proceed with +construction at once. When Roark began to speak about the drawings, Enright +interrupted him: "Don’t explain. It’s no use explaining abstract ideals to me. +I’ve never had any ideals. People say I’m completely immoral. I go only by what +I like. But I do know what I like." +Roark never mentioned the attempt he had made to reach Enright, nor his +interview with the bored secretary. Enright learned of it somehow. Within five +minutes the secretary was discharged, and within ten minutes he was walking out +of the office, as ordered, in the middle of a busy day, a letter left half typed +in his machine. +Roark reopened his office, the same big room on the top of an old building. He +enlarged it by the addition of an adjoining room--for the draftsmen he hired in +order to keep up with the planned lightning schedule of construction. The +draftsmen were young and without much experience. He had never heard of them +before and he did not ask for letters of recommendation. He chose them from +among many applicants, merely by glancing at their drawings for a few minutes. +In the crowded tension of the days that followed he never spoke to them, except +of their work. They felt, entering the office in the morning, that they had no +private lives, no significance and no reality save the overwhelming reality of +the broad sheets of paper on their tables. The place seemed cold and soulless +like a factory, until they looked at him; then they thought that it was not a +factory, but a furnace fed on their bodies, his own first. +There were times when he remained in the office all night. They found him still +working when they returned in the morning. He did not seem tired. Once he stayed +there for two days and two nights in succession. On the afternoon of the third +216 + + day he fell asleep, half lying across his table. He awakened in a few hours, +made no comment and walked from one table to another, to see what had been done. +He made corrections, his words sounding as if nothing had interrupted a thought +begun some hours ago. +"You’re unbearable when you’re working, Howard," Austen Heller told him one +evening, even though he had not spoken of his work at all. +"Why?" he asked, astonished. +"It’s uncomfortable to be in the same room with you. Tension is contagious, you +know." +"What tension? I feel completely natural only when I’m working." +"That’s it. You’re completely natural only when you’re one inch from bursting +into pieces. What in hell are you really made of, Howard? After all, it’s only a +building. It’s not the combination of holy sacrament, Indian torture and sexual +ecstasy that you seem to make of it." +"Isn’t it?" +# +He did not think of Dominique often, but when he did, the thought was not a +sudden recollection, it was the acknowledgment of a continuous presence that +needed no acknowledgment. He wanted her. He knew where to find her. He waited. +It amused him to wait, because he knew that the waiting was unbearable to her. +He knew that his absence bound her to him in a manner more complete and +humiliating than his presence could enforce. He was giving her time to attempt +an escape, in order to let her know her own helplessness when he chose to see +her again. She would know that the attempt itself had been of his choice, that +it had been only another form of mastery. Then she would be ready either to kill +him or to come to him of her own will. The two acts would be equal in her mind. +He wanted her brought to this. He waited. +# +The construction of the Enright House was about to begin, when Roark was +summoned to the office of Joel Sutton. Joel Sutton, a successful businessman, +was planning the erection of a huge office building. Joel Sutton had based his +success on the faculty of understanding nothing about people. He loved +everybody. His love admitted no distinctions. It was a great leveler; it could +hold no peaks and no hollows, as the surface of a bowl of molasses could not +hold them. +Joe Sutton met Roark at a dinner given by Enright. Joel Sutton liked Roark. He +admired Roark. He saw no difference between Roark and anyone else. When Roark +came to his office, Joel Sutton declared: +"Now I’m not sure, I’m not sure, I’m not sure at all, but I thought that I might +consider you for that little building I have in mind. Your Enright House is sort +of...peculiar, but it’s attractive, all buildings are attractive, love +buildings, don’t you?--and Rog Enright is a very smart man, an exceedingly smart +man, he coins money where nobody else’d think it grew. I’ll take a tip from Rog +Enright any time, what’s good enough for Rog Enright is good enough for me." +Roark waited for weeks after that first interview. Joel Sutton never made up his +mind in a hurry. +On an evening in December Austen Heller called on Roark without warning and +217 + + declared that he must accompany him next Friday to a formal party given by Mrs. +Ralston Holcombe. +"Hell, no, Austen," said Roark. +"Listen, Howard, just exactly why not? Oh, I know, you hate that sort of thing, +but that’s not a good reason. On the other hand, I can give you many excellent +ones for going. The place is a kind of house of assignation for architects and, +of course, you’d sell anything there is to you for a building--oh, I know, for +your kind of building, but still you’d sell the soul you haven’t got, so can’t +you stand a few hours of boredom for the sake of future possibilities?" +"Certainly. Only I don’t believe that this sort of thing ever leads to any +possibilities." +"Will you go this time?" +"Why particularly this time?" +"Well, in the first place, that infernal pest Kiki Holcombe demands it. She +spent two hours yesterday demanding it and made me miss a luncheon date. It +spoils her reputation to have a building like the Enright House going up in town +and not be able to display its architect in her salon. It’s a hobby. She +collects architects. She insisted that I must bring you and I promised I would." +"What for?" +"Specifically, she’s going to have Joel Sutton there next Friday. Try, if it +kills you, to be nice to him. He’s practically decided to give you that +building, from what I hear. A little personal contact might be all that’s needed +to set it. He’s got a lot of others after him. They’ll all be there. I want you +there. I want you to get that building. I don’t want to hear anything about +granite quarries for the next ten years. I don’t like granite quarries." +Roark sat on a table, his hands clasping the table’s edge to keep himself still. +He was exhausted after fourteen hours spent in his office, he thought he should +be exhausted, but he could not feel it. He made his shoulders sag in an effort +to achieve a relaxation that would not come; his arms were tense, drawn, and one +elbow shuddered in a thin, continuous quiver. His long legs were spread apart, +one bent and still, with the knee resting on the table, the other hanging down +straight from the hip over the table’s edge, swinging impatiently. It was so +difficult these days to force himself to rest. +His new home was one large room in a small, modern apartment house on a quiet +street. He had chosen the house because it had no cornices over the windows and +no paneling on the walls inside. His room contained a few pieces of simple +furniture; it looked clean, vast and empty; one expected to hear echoes from its +corners. +"Why not go, just once?" said Heller. "It won’t be too awful. It might even +amuse you. You’ll see a lot of your old friends there. John Erik Snyte, Peter +Keating, Guy Francon and his daughter--you should meet his daughter. Have you +ever read her stuff?" +"I’ll go," said Roark abruptly. +"You’re unpredictable enough even to be sensible at times. I’ll call for you at +eight-thirty Friday. Black tie. Do you own a tux, by the way?" +218 + + "Enright made me get one." +"Enright is a very sensible man." +When Heller left, Roark remained sitting on the table for a long time. He had +decided to go to the party, because he knew that it would be the last of all +places where Dominique could wish to meet him again. +# +"There is nothing as useless, my dear Kiki," said Ellsworth Toohey, "as a rich +woman who makes herself a profession of entertaining. But then, all useless +things have charm. Like aristocracy, for instance, the most useless conception +of all." +Kiki Holcombe wrinkled her nose in a cute little pout of reproach, but she liked +the comparison to aristocracy. Three crystal chandeliers blazed over her +Florentine ballroom, and when she looked up at Toohey the lights stood reflected +in her eyes, making them a moist collection of sparks between heavy, beaded +lashes. +"You say disgusting things, Ellsworth. I don’t know why I keep on inviting you." +"That is precisely why, my dear. I think I shall be invited here as often as I +wish." +"What can a mere woman do against that?" +"Never start an argument with Mr. Toohey," said Mrs. Gillespie, a tall woman +wearing a necklace of large diamonds, the size of the teeth she bared when she +smiled. "It’s no use. We’re beaten in advance." +"Argument, Mrs. Gillespie," he said, "is one of the things that has neither use +nor charm. Leave it to the men of brains. Brains, of course, are a dangerous +confession of weakness. It has been said that men develop brains when they have +failed in everything else." +"Now you don’t mean that at all," said Mrs. Gillespie, while her smile accepted +it as a pleasant truth. She took possession of him triumphantly and led him away +as a prize stolen from Mrs. Holcombe who had turned aside for a moment to greet +new guests. "But you men of intellect are such children. You’re so sensitive. +One must pamper you." +"I wouldn’t do that, Mrs. Gillespie. We’ll take advantage of it. And to display +one’s brain is so vulgar. It’s even more vulgar than to display one’s wealth." +"Oh dear, you would get that in, wouldn’t you? Now of course I’ve heard that +you’re some sort of a radical, but I won’t take it seriously. Not one bit. How +do you like that?" +"I like it very much," said Toohey. +"You can’t kid me. You can’t make me think that you’re one of the dangerous +kind. The dangerous kind are all dirty and use bad grammar. And you have such a +beautiful voice!" +"Whatever made you think that I aspired to be dangerous, Mrs. Gillespie? I’m +merely--well, shall we say? that mildest of all things, a conscience. Your own +conscience, conveniently personified in the body of another person and attending +to your concern for the less fortunate of this world, thus leaving you free not +219 + + to attend to." +"Well, what a quaint idea! I don’t know whether it’s horrible or very wise +indeed." +"Both, Mrs. Gillespie. As all wisdom." +Kiki Holcombe surveyed her ballroom with satisfaction. She looked up at the +twilight of the ceiling, left untouched above the chandeliers, and she noted how +far it was above the guests, how dominant and undisturbed. The huge crowd of +guests did not dwarf her hall; it stood over them like a square box of space, +grotesquely out of scale; and it was this wasted expanse of air imprisoned above +them that gave the occasion an aspect of regal luxury; it was like the lid of a +jewel case, unnecessarily large over a flat bottom holding a single small gem. +The guests moved in two broad, changing currents that drew them all, sooner or +later, toward two whirlpools; at the center of one stood Ellsworth Toohey, of +the other--Peter Keating. Evening clothes were not becoming to Ellsworth Toohey; +the rectangle of white shirt front prolonged his face, stretching him out into +two dimensions; the wings of his tie made his thin neck look like that of a +plucked chicken, pale, bluish and ready to be twisted by a single movement of +some strong fist. But he wore his clothes better than any man present. He wore +them with the careless impertinence of utter ease in the unbecoming, and the +very grotesqueness of his appearance became a declaration of his superiority, a +superiority great enough to warrant disregard of so much ungainliness. +He was saying to a somber young female who wore glasses and a low-cut evening +gown: "My dear, you will never be more than a dilettante of the intellect, +unless you submerge yourself in some cause greater than yourself." +He was saying to an obese gentlemen with a face turning purple in the heat of an +argument: "But, my friend, I might not like it either. I merely said that such +happens to be the inevitable course of history. And who are you or I to oppose +the course of history?" +He was saying to an unhappy young architect: "No, my boy, what I have against +you is not the bad building you designed, but the bad taste you exhibited in +whining about my criticism of it. You should be careful. Someone might say that +you can neither dish it out nor take it." +He was saying to a millionaire’s widow: "Yes, I do think it would be a good idea +if you made a contribution to the Workshop of Social Study. It would be a way of +taking part in the great human stream of cultural achievement, without upsetting +your routine or your digestion." +Those around him were saying: "Isn’t he witty? And such courage!" +Peter Keating smiled radiantly. He felt the attention and admiration flowing +toward him from every part of the ballroom. He looked at the people, all these +trim, perfumed, silk-rustling people lacquered with light, dripping with light, +as they had all been dripping with shower water a few hours ago, getting ready +to come here and stand in homage before a man named Peter Keating. There were +moments when he forgot that he was Peter Keating and he glanced at a mirror, at +his own figure, he wanted to join in the general admiration for it. +Once the current left him face to face with Ellsworth Toohey. Keating smiled +like a boy emerging from a stream on a summer day, glowing, invigorated, +restless with energy. Toohey stood looking at him; Toohey’s hands had slipped +negligently into his trouser pockets, making his jacket flare out over his thin +220 + + hips; he seemed to teeter faintly on his small feet; his eyes were attentive in +enigmatic appraisal. +"Now this, Ellsworth...this...isn’t it a wonderful evening?" said Keating, like +a child to a mother who would understand, and a little like a drunk. +"Being happy, Peter? You’re quite the sensation tonight. Little Peter seems to +have crossed the line into a big celebrity. It happens like this, one can never +tell exactly when or why...There’s someone here, though, who seems to be +ignoring you quite flagrantly, doesn’t she?" +Keating winced. He wondered when and how Toohey had had the time to notice that. +"Oh, well," said Toohey, "the exception proves the rule. Regrettable, however. +I’ve always had the absurd idea that it would take a most unusual man to attract +Dominique Francon. So of course I thought of you. Just an idle thought. Still, +you know, the man who’ll get her will have something you won’t be able to match. +He’ll beat you there." +"No one’s got her," snapped Keating. +"No, undoubtedly not. Not yet. That’s rather astonishing. Oh, I suppose it will +take an extraordinary kind of man." +"Look here, what in hell are you doing? You don’t like Dominique Francon. Do +you?" +"I never said I did." +A little later Keating heard Toohey saying solemnly in the midst of some earnest +discussion: "Happiness? But that is so middle-class. What is happiness? There +are so many things in life so much more important than happiness." +Keating made his way slowly toward Dominique. She stood leaning back, as if the +air were a support solid enough for her thin, naked shoulder blades. Her evening +gown was the color of glass. He had the feeling that he should be able to see +the wall behind her, through her body. She seemed too fragile to exist; and that +very fragility spoke of some frightening strength which held her anchored to +existence with a body insufficient for reality. +When he approached, she made no effort to ignore him; she turned to him, she +answered; but the monotonous precision of her answers stopped him, made him +helpless, made him leave her in a few moments. +When Roark and Heller entered, Kiki Holcombe met them at the door. Heller +presented Roark to her, and she spoke as she always did, her voice like a shrill +rocket sweeping all opposition aside by sheer speed. +"Oh, Mr. Roark, I’ve been so eager to meet you! We’ve all heard so much about +you! Now I must warn you that my husband doesn’t approve of you--oh, purely on +artistic grounds, you understand--but don’t let that worry you, you have an ally +in this household, an enthusiastic ally!" +"It’s very kind, Mrs. Holcombe," said Roark. "And perhaps unnecessary." +"Oh, I adore your Enright House! Of course, I can’t say that it represents my +own esthetic convictions, but people of culture must keep their minds open to +anything, I mean, to include any viewpoint in creative art, we must be +broad-minded above all, don’t you think so?" +221 + + "I don’t know," said Roark. "I’ve never been broad-minded." +She was certain that he intended no insolence; it was not in his voice nor his +manner; but insolence had been her first impression of him. He wore evening +clothes and they looked well on his tall, thin figure, but somehow it seemed +that he did not belong in them; the orange hair looked preposterous with formal +dress; besides, she did not like his face; that face suited a work gang or an +army, it had no place in her drawing room. She said: +"We’ve all been so interested in your work. Your first building?" +"My fifth." +"Oh, indeed? Of course. How interesting." +She clasped her hands, and turned to greet a new arrival. Heller said: +"Whom do you want to meet first?...There’s Dominique Francon looking at us. Come +on." +Roark turned; he saw Dominique standing alone across the room. There was no +expression on her face, not even an effort to avoid expression; it was strange +to see a human face presenting a bone structure and an arrangement of muscles, +but no meaning, a face as a simple anatomical feature, like a shoulder or an +arm, not a mirror of sensate perception any longer. She looked at them as they +approached. Her feet stood posed oddly, two small triangles pointed straight and +parallel, as if there were no floor around her but the few square inches under +her soles and she were safe so long as she did not move or look down. He felt a +violent pleasure, because she seemed too fragile to stand the brutality of what +he was doing; and because she stood it so well. +"Miss Francon, may I present Howard Roark?" said Heller. +He had not raised his voice to pronounce the name; he wondered why it had +sounded so stressed; then he thought that the silence had caught the name and +held it still; but there had been no silence: Roark’s face was politely blank +and Dominique was saying correctly: +"How do you do, Mr. Roark." +Roark bowed: "How do you do, Miss Francon." +She said: "The Enright House..." +She said it as if she had not wanted to pronounce these three words; and as if +they named, not a house, but many things beyond it. +Roark said: "Yes, Miss Francon." +Then she smiled, the correct, perfunctory smile with which one greets an +introduction. She said: +"I know Roger Enright. He is almost a friend of the family." +"I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting many friends of Mr. Enright." +"I remember once Father invited him to dinner. It was a miserable dinner. Father +is called a brilliant conversationalist, but he couldn’t bring a sound out of +222 + + Mr. Enright. Roger just sat there. One must know Father to realize what a defeat +it was for him." +"I have worked for your father"--her hand had been moving and it stopped in +midair--"a few years ago, as a draftsman." +Her hand dropped. "Then you can see that Father couldn’t possibly get along with +Roger Enright." +"No. He couldn’t." +"I think Roger almost liked me, though, but he’s never forgiven me for working +on a Wynand paper." +Standing between them, Heller thought that he had been mistaken; there was +nothing strange in this meeting; in fact, there simply was nothing. He felt +annoyed that Dominique did not speak of architecture, as one would have expected +her to do; he concluded regretfully that she disliked this man, as she disliked +most people she met. +Then Mrs. Gillespie caught hold of Heller and led him away. Roark and Dominique +were left alone. Roark said: +"Mr. Enright reads every paper in town. They are all brought to his office--with +the editorial pages cut out." +"He’s always done that. Roger missed his real vocation. He should have been a +scientist. He has such a love for facts and such contempt for commentaries." +"On the other hand, do you know Mr. Fleming?" he asked. +"No." +"He’s a friend of Heller’s. Mr. Fleming never reads anything but editorial +pages. People like to hear him talk." +She watched him. He was looking straight at her, very politely, as any man would +have looked, meeting her for the first time. She wished she could find some hint +in his face, if only a hint of his old derisive smile; even mockery would be an +acknowledgment and a tie; she found nothing. He spoke as a stranger. He allowed +no reality but that of a man introduced to her in a drawing room, flawlessly +obedient to every convention of deference. She faced this respectful formality, +thinking that her dress had nothing to hide from him, that he had used her for a +need more intimate than the use of the food he ate--while he stood now at a +distance of a few feet from her, like a man who could not possibly permit +himself to come closer. She thought that this was his form of mockery, after +what he had not forgotten and would not acknowledge. She thought that he wanted +her to be first to name it, he would bring her to the humiliation of accepting +the past--by being first to utter the word recalling it to reality; because he +knew that she could not leave it unrecalled. +"And what does Mr. Fleming do for a living?" she asked. +"He’s a manufacturer of pencil sharpeners." +"Really? A friend of Austen’s?" +"Austen knows many people. He says that’s his business." +223 + + "Is he successful?" +"Who, Miss Francon? I’m not sure about Austen, but Mr. Fleming is very +successful. He has branch factories in New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode +Island." +"You’re wrong about Austen, Mr. Roark. He’s very successful. In his profession +and mine you’re successful if it leaves you untouched." +"How does one achieve that?" +"In one of two ways: by not looking at people at all or by looking at everything +about them." +"Which is preferable, Miss Francon?" +"Whichever is hardest." +"But a desire to choose the hardest might be a confession of weakness in +itself." +"Of course, Mr. Roark. But it’s the least offensive form of confession." +"If the weakness is there to be confessed at all." +Then someone came flying through the crowd, and an arm fell about Roark’s +shoulders. It was John Erik Snyte. +"Roark, well of all people to see here!" he cried. "So glad, so glad! Ages, +hasn’t it been? Listen, I want to talk to you! Let me have him for a moment, +Dominique." +Roark bowed to her, his arms at his sides, a strand of hair falling forward, so +that she did not see his face, but only the orange head bowed courteously for a +moment, and he followed Snyte into the crowd. +Snyte was saying: "God, how you’ve come up these last few years! Listen, do you +know whether Enright’s planning to go into real estate in a big way, I mean, any +other buildings up his sleeve?" +It was Heller who forced Snyte away and brought Roark to Joel Sutton. Joel +Sutton was delighted. He felt that Roark’s presence here removed the last of his +doubts; it was a stamp of safety on Roark’s person. Joel Sutton’s hand closed +about Roark’s elbow, five pink, stubby fingers on the black sleeve. Joel Sutton +gulped confidentially: +"Listen, kid, it’s all settled. You’re it. Now don’t squeeze the last pennies +out of me, all you architects are cutthroats and highway robbers, but I’ll take +a chance on you, you’re a smart boy, snared old Rog, didn’t you? So here you’ve +got me swindled too, just about almost, that is, I’ll give you a ring in a few +days and we’ll have a dogfight over the contract!" +Heller looked at them and thought that it was almost indecent to see them +together: Roark’s tall, ascetic figure, with that proud cleanliness peculiar to +long-lined bodies, and beside him the smiling ball of meat whose decision could +mean so much. +Then Roark began to speak about the future building, but Joel Sutton looked up +at him, astonished and hurt. Joel Sutton had not come here to talk about +224 + + buildings; parties were given for the purpose of enjoying oneself, and what +greater joy could there be but to forget the important things of one’s life? So +Joel Sutton talked about badminton; that was his hobby; it was a patrician +hobby, he explained, he was not being common like other men who wasted time on +golf. Roark listened politely. He had nothing to say. +"You do play badminton, don’t you?" Joel Sutton asked suddenly. +"No," said Roark. +"You don’t?" gulped Joel Sutton. "You don’t? Well, what a pity, oh what a rotten +pity! I thought sure you did, with that lanky frame of yours you’d be good, +you’d be a wow, I thought sure we’d beat the pants off of old Tompkins anytime +while that building’s being put up." +"While that building’s being put up, Mr. Sutton, I wouldn’t have the time to +play anyway." +"What d’you mean, wouldn’t have the time? What’ve you got draftsmen for? Hire a +couple extra, let them worry, I’ll be paying you enough, won’t I? But then, you +don’t play, what a rotten shame, I thought sure...The architect who did my +building down on Canal Street was a whiz at badminton, but he died last year, +got himself cracked up in an auto accident, damn him, was a fine architect, too. +And here you don’t play." +"Mr. Sutton, you’re not really upset about it, are you?" +"I’m very seriously disappointed, my boy." +"But what are you actually hiring me for?" +"What am I what?" +"Hiring me for?" +"Why, to do a building of course." +"Do you really think it would be a better building if I played badminton?" +"Well, there’s business and there’s fun, there’s the practical and there’s the +human end of it, oh, I don’t mind, still I thought with a skinny frame like +yours you’d surely...but all right, all right, we can’t have everything...." +When Joel Sutton left him, Roark heard a bright voice saying: "Congratulations, +Howard," and turned to find Peter Keating smiling at him radiantly and +derisively. +"Hello, Peter. What did you say?" +"I said, congratulations on landing Joel Sutton. Only, you know, you didn’t +handle that very well." +"What?" +"Old Joel. Oh, of course, I heard most of it--why shouldn’t I?--it was very +entertaining. That’s no way to go about it, Howard. You know what I would have +done? I’d have sworn I’d played badminton since I was two years old and how it’s +the game of kings and earls and it takes a soul of rare distinction to +appreciate it and by the time he’d put me to the test I’d have made it my +225 + + business to play like an earl, too. What would it cost you?" +"I didn’t think of it." +"It’s a secret, Howard. A rare one. I’ll give it to you free of charge with my +compliments: always be what people want you to be. Then you’ve got them where +you want them. I’m giving it free because you’ll never make use of it. You’ll +never know how. You’re brilliant in some respects, Howard, I’ve always said +that--and terribly stupid in others." +"Possibly." +"You ought to try and learn a few things, if you’re going in for playing the +game through the Kiki Holcombe salon. Are you? Growing up, Howard? Though it did +give me a shock to see you here of all places. Oh, and yes, congratulations on +the Enright job, beautiful job as usual--where have you been all summer?--remind +me to give you a lesson on how to wear a tux, God, but it looks silly on you! +That’s what I like, I like to see you looking silly, we’re old friends, aren’t +we, Howard?" +"You’re drunk, Peter." +"Of course I am. But I haven’t touched a drop tonight, not a drop. What I’m +drunk on--you’ll never learn, never, it’s not for you, and that’s also part of +what I’m drunk on, that it’s not for you. You know, Howard, I love you. I really +do. I do--tonight." +"Yes, Peter. You always will, you know." +Roark was introduced to many people and many people spoke to him. They smiled +and seemed sincere in their efforts to approach him as a friend, to express +appreciation, to display good will and cordial interest. But what he heard was: +"The Enright House is magnificent. It’s almost as good as the Cosmo-Slotnick +Building." +"I’m sure you have a great future, Mr. Roark, believe me, I know the signs, +you’ll be another Ralston Holcombe." He was accustomed to hostility; this kind +of benevolence was more offensive than hostility. He shrugged; he thought that +he would be out of here soon and back in the simple, clean reality of his own +office. +He did not look at Dominique again for the rest of the evening. She watched him +in the crowd. She watched those who stopped him and spoke to him. She watched +his shoulders stooped courteously as he listened. She thought that this, too, +was his manner of laughing at her; he let her see him being delivered to the +crowd before her eyes, being surrendered to any person who wished to own him for +a few moments. He knew that this was harder for her to watch than the sun and +the drill in the quarry. She stood obediently, watching. She did not expect him +to notice her again; she had to remain there as long as he was in this room. +There was another person, that night, abnormally aware of Roark’s presence, +aware from the moment Roark had entered the room. Ellsworth Toohey had seen him +enter. Toohey had never set eyes on him before and did not know him. But Toohey +stood looking at him for a long time. +Then Toohey moved through the crowd, and smiled at his friends. But between +smiles and sentences, his eyes went back to the man with the orange hair. He +looked at the man as he looked occasionally at the pavement from a window on the +thirtieth floor, wondering about his own body were it to be hurled down and what +226 + + would happen when he struck against that pavement. He did not know the man’s +name, his profession or his past; he had no need to know; it was not a man to +him, but only a force; Toohey never saw men. Perhaps it was the fascination of +seeing that particular force so explicitly personified in a human body. +After a while he asked John Erik Snyte, pointing: +"Who is that man?" +"That?" said Snyte. "Howard Roark. You know, the Enright House." +"Oh," said Toohey. +"What?" +"Of course. It would be." +"Want to meet him?" +"No," said Toohey. "No, I don’t want to meet him." +For the rest of the evening whenever some figure obstructed Toohey’s view of the +hall, his head would jerk impatiently to find Roark again. He did not want to +look at Roark; he had to look; just as he always had to look down at that +distant pavement, dreading the sight. +That evening, Ellsworth Toohey was conscious of no one but Roark. Roark did not +know that Toohey existed in the room. +When Roark left, Dominique stood counting the minutes, to be certain that he +would be lost to sight in the streets before she could trust herself to go out. +Then she moved to leave. +Kiki Holcombe’s thin, moist fingers clasped her hand in parting, clasped it +vaguely and slipped up to hold her wrist for a moment. +"And, my dear," asked Kiki Holcombe, "what did you think of that new one, you +know, I saw you talking to him, that Howard Roark?" +"I think," said Dominique firmly, "that he is the most revolting person I’ve +ever met." +"Oh, now, really?" +"Do you care for that sort of unbridled arrogance? I don’t know what one could +say for him, unless it’s that he’s terribly good-looking, if that matters." +"Good-looking! Are you being funny, Dominique?" +Kiki Holcombe saw Dominique being stupidly puzzled for once. And Dominique +realized that what she saw in his face, what made it the face of a god to her, +was not seen by others; that it could leave them indifferent; that what she had +thought to be the most obvious, inconsequential remark was, instead, a +confession of something within her, some quality not shared by others. +"Why, my dear," said Kiki, "he��s not good-looking at all, but extremely +masculine." +"Don’t let it astonish you, Dominique," said a voice behind her. "Kiki’s +227 + + esthetic judgment is not yours--nor mine." +Dominique turned. Ellsworth Toohey stood there, smiling, watching her face +attentively. +"You..." she began and stopped. +"Of course," said Toohey, bowing faintly in understanding affirmative of what +she had not said. "Do give me credit for discernment, Dominique, somewhat equal +to yours. Though not for esthetic enjoyment. I’ll leave that part of it to you. +But we do see things, at times, which are not obvious, don’t we--you and I?" +"What things?" +"My dear, what a long philosophical discussion that would take, and how +involved, and how--unnecessary. I’ve always told you that we should be good +friends. We have so much in common intellectually. We start from opposite poles, +but that makes no difference, because you see, we meet in the same point. It was +a very interesting evening, Dominique." +"What are you driving at?" +"For instance, it was interesting to discover what sort of thing appears +good-looking to you. It’s nice to have you classified firmly, concretely. +Without words--just with the aid of a certain face." +"If...if you can see what you’re talking about, you can’t be what you are." +"No, my dear. I must be what I am, precisely because of what I see." +"You know, Ellsworth, I think you’re much worse than I thought you were." +"And perhaps much worse than you’re thinking now. But useful. We’re all useful +to one another. As you will be to me. As, I think, you will want to be." +"What are you talking about?" +"That’s bad, Dominique. Very bad. So pointless. If you don’t know what I’m +talking about, I couldn’t possibly explain it. If you do--I have you, already, +without saying anything further." +"What kind of a conversation is this?" asked Kiki, bewildered. +"Just our way of kidding each other," said Toohey brightly. "Don’t let it bother +you, Kiki. Dominique and I are always kidding each other. Not very well, though, +because you see--we can’t." +"Some day, Ellsworth," said Dominique, "you’ll make a mistake." +"Quite possible. And you, my dear, have made yours already." +"Good night, Ellsworth." +"Good night, Dominique." +Kiki turned to him when Dominique had gone. +"What’s the matter with both of you, Ellsworth? Why such talk--over nothing at +all? People’s faces and first impressions don’t mean a thing." +228 + + "That, my dear Kiki," he answered, his voice soft and distant, as if he were +giving an answer, not to her, but to a thought of his own, "is one of our +greatest common fallacies. There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor +as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance +at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not +always wise enough to unravel the knowledge. Have you ever thought about the +style of a soul, Kiki?" +"The...what?" +"The style of a soul. Do you remember the famous philosopher who spoke of the +style of a civilization? He called it ’style.’ He said it was the nearest word +he could find for it. He said that every civilization has its one basic +principle, one single, supreme, determining conception, and every endeavor of +men within that civilization is true, unconsciously and irrevocably, to that one +principle....I think, Kiki, that every human soul has a style of its own, also. +Its one basic theme. You’ll see it reflected in every thought, every act, every +wish of that person. The one absolute, the one imperative in that living +creature. Years of studying a man won’t show it to you. His face will. You’d +have to write volumes to describe a person. Think of his face. You need nothing +else." +"That sounds fantastic, Ellsworth. And unfair, if true. It would leave people +naked before you." +"It’s worse than that. It also leaves you naked before them. You betray yourself +by the manner in which you react to a certain face. To a certain kind of +face....The style of your soul...There’s nothing important on earth, except +human beings. There’s nothing as important about human beings as their relations +to one another...." +"Well, what do you see in my face?" +He looked at her, as if he had just noticed her presence. +"What did you say?" +"I said, what do you see in my face?" +"Oh...yes...well, tell me the movie stars you like and I’ll tell you what you +are." +"You know, I just love to be analyzed. Now let’s see. My greatest favorite has +always been..." +But he was not listening. He had turned his back on her, he was walking away +without apology. He looked tired. She had never seen him being rude +before--except by intention. +A little later, from among a group of friends, she heard his rich, vibrant voice +saying: +"...and, therefore, the noblest conception on earth is that of men’s absolute +equality." + +7. +229 + + "...AND there it will stand, as a monument to nothing but the egotism of Mr. +Enright and of Mr. Roark. It will stand between a row of brownstone tenements on +one side and the tanks of a gashouse on the other. This, perhaps, is not an +accident, but a testimonial to fate’s sense of fitness. No other setting could +bring out so eloquently the essential insolence of this building. It will rise +as a mockery to all the structures of the city and to the men who built them. +Our structures are meaningless and false; this building will make them more so. +But the contrast will not be to its advantage. By creating the contrast it will +have made itself a part of the great ineptitude, its most ludicrous part. If a +ray of light falls into a pigsty, it is the ray that shows us the muck and it is +the ray that is offensive. Our structures have the great advantage of obscurity +and timidity. Besides, they suit us. The Enright House is bright and bold. So is +a feather boa. It will attract attention--but only to the immense audacity of +Mr. Roark’s conceit. When this building is erected, it will be a wound on the +face of our city. A wound, too, is colorful." +This appeared in the column "Your House" by Dominique Francon, a week after the +party at the home of Kiki Holcombe. +On the morning of its appearance Ellsworth Toohey walked into Dominique’s +office. He held a copy of the Banner, with the page bearing her column turned +toward her. He stood silently, rocking a little on his small feet. It seemed as +if the expression of his eyes had to be heard, not seen: it was a visual roar of +laughter. His lips were folded primly, innocently. +"Well?" she asked. +"Where did you meet Roark before that party?" +She sat looking at him, one arm flung over the back of her chair, a pencil +dangling precariously between the tips of her fingers. She seemed to be smiling. +She said: +"I had never met Roark before that party." +"My mistake. I was just wondering about..." he made the paper rustle, "...the +change of sentiment." +"Oh, that? Well, I didn’t like him when I met him--at the party." +"So I noticed." +"Sit down, Ellsworth. You don’t look your best standing up." +"Do you mind? Not busy?" +"Not particularly." +He sat down on the corner of her desk. He sat, thoughtfully tapping his knee +with the folded paper. +"You know, Dominique," he said, "it’s not well done. Not well at all." +"Why?" +"Don’t you see what can be read between the lines? Of course, not many will +notice that. He will. I do." +230 + + "It’s not written for him or for you." +"But for the others?" +"For the others." +"Then it’s a rotten trick on him and me." +"You see? I thought it was well done." +"Well, everyone to his own methods." +"What are you going to write about it?" +"About what?" +"About the Enright House." +"Nothing." +"Nothing?" +"Nothing." +He threw the paper down on the desk, without moving, just flicking his wrist +forward. He said: +"Speaking of architecture, Dominique, why haven’t you ever written anything +about the Cosmo-Slotnick Building?" +"Is it worth writing about?" +"Oh, decidedly. There are people whom it would annoy very much." +"And are those people worth annoying?" +"So it seems." +"What people?" +"Oh, I don’t know. How can we know who reads our stuff? That’s what makes it so +interesting. All those strangers we’ve never seen before, have never spoken to, +or can’t speak to--and here’s this paper where they can read our answer, if we +want to give an answer. I really think you should dash off a few nice things +about the Cosmo-Slotnick Building." +"You do seem to like Peter Keating very much." +"I? I’m awfully fond of Peter. You will be, too--eventually, when you know him +better. Peter is a useful person to know. Why don’t you take time, one of these +days, to get him to tell you the story of his life? You’ll learn many +interesting things." +"For instance?" +"For instance, that he went to Stanton." +"I know that." +231 + + "You don’t think it’s interesting? I do, Wonderful place, Stanton. Remarkable +example of Gothic architecture. The stained-glass window in the Chapel is really +one of the finest in this country. And then, think, so many young students. All +so different. Some graduating with high honors. Others being expelled." +"Well?" +"Did you know that Peter Keating is an old friend of Howard Roark?" +"No. Is he?" +"He is." +"Peter Keating is an old friend of everybody." +"Quite true. A remarkable boy. But this is different. You didn’t know that Roark +went to Stanton?" +"No." +"You don’t seem to know very much about Mr. Roark." +"I don’t know anything about Mr. Roark. We weren’t discussing Mr. Roark." +"Weren’t we? No, of course, we were discussing Peter Keating. Well, you see, one +can make one’s point best by contrast, by comparison. As you did in your pretty +little article today. To appreciate Peter as he should be appreciated, let’s +follow up a comparison. Let’s take two parallel lines. I’m inclined to agree +with Euclid, I don’t think these two parallels will ever meet. Well, they both +went to Stanton. Peter’s mother ran a sort of boardinghouse and Roark lived with +them for three years. This doesn’t really matter, except that it makes the +contrast more eloquent and--well--more personal, later on. Peter graduated with +high honors, the highest of his class. Roark was expelled. Don’t look like that. +I don’t have to explain why he was expelled, we understand, you and I. Peter +went to work for your father and he’s a partner now. Roark worked for your +father and got kicked out. Yes, he did. Isn’t that funny, by the way?--he did, +without any help from you at all--that time. Peter has the Cosmo-Slotnick +Building to his credit--and Roark has a hot-dog stand in Connecticut. Peter +signs autographs--and Roark is not known even to all the bathroom fixtures +manufacturers. Now Roark’s got an apartment house to do and it’s precious to him +like an only son--while Peter wouldn’t even have noticed it had he got the +Enright House, he gets them every day. Now, I don’t think that Roark thinks very +much of Peter’s work. He never has and he never will, no matter what happens. +Follow this a step further. No man likes to be beaten. But to be beaten by the +man who has always stood as the particular example of mediocrity in his eyes, to +start by the side of this mediocrity and to watch it shoot up, while he +struggles and gets nothing but a boot in his face, to see the mediocrity snatch +from him, one after another, the chances he’d give his life for, to see the +mediocrity worshipped, to miss the place he wants and to see the mediocrity +enshrined upon it, to lose, to be sacrificed, to be ignored, to be beaten, +beaten, beaten--not by a greater genius, not by a god, but by a Peter +Keating--well, my little amateur, do you think the Spanish Inquisition ever +thought of a torture to equal this?" +"Ellsworth!" she screamed. "Get out of here!" +She had shot to her feet. She stood straight for a moment, then she slumped +forward, her two palms flat on the desk, and she stood, bent over; he saw her +smooth mass of hair swinging heavily, then hanging still, hiding her face. +232 + + "But, Dominique," he said pleasantly, "I was only telling you why Peter Keating +is such an interesting person." +Her hair flew back like a mop, and her face followed, she dropped down on her +chair, looking at him, her mouth loose and very ugly. +"Dominique," he said softly, "you’re obvious. Much too obvious." +"Get out of here." +"Well, I’ve always said that you underestimated me. Call on me next time you +need some help." +At the door, he turned to add: +"Of course, personally, I think Peter Keating is the greatest architect we’ve +got." +# +That evening, when she came home, the telephone rang. +"Dominique, my dear," a voice gulped anxiously over the wire, "did you really +mean all that?" +"Who is this?" +"Joel Sutton. I..." +"Hello, Joel. Did I mean what?" +"Hello, dear, how are you? How is your charming father? I mean, did you mean all +that about the Enright House and that fellow Roark? I mean, what you said in +your column today. I’m quite a bit upset, quite a bit. You know about my +building? Well, we’re all ready to go ahead and it’s such a bit of money, I +thought I was very careful about deciding, but I trust you of all people, I’ve +always trusted you, you’re a smart kid, plenty smart, if you work for a fellow +like Wynand I guess you know your stuff. Wynand knows buildings, why, that man’s +made more in real estate than on all his papers, you bet he did, it’s not +supposed to be known, but I know it. And you working for him, and now I don’t +know what to think. Because, you see, I had decided, yes, I had absolutely and +definitely decided--almost--to have this fellow Roark, in fact I told him so, in +fact he’s coming over tomorrow afternoon to sign the contract, and now...Do you +really think it will look like a feather boa?" +"Listen, Joel," she said, her teeth set tight together, "can you have lunch with +me tomorrow?" +She met Joel Sutton in the vast, deserted dining room of a distinguished hotel. +There were few, solitary guests among the white tables, so that each stood out, +the empty tables serving as an elegant setting that proclaimed the guest’s +exclusiveness. Joel Sutton smiled broadly. He had never escorted a woman as +decorative as Dominique. +"You know, Joel," she said, facing him across a table, her voice quiet, set, +unsmiling, "it was a brilliant idea, your choosing Roark." +"Oh, do you think so?" +233 + + "I think so. You’ll have a building that will be beautiful, like an anthem. A +building that will take your breath away--also your tenants. A hundred years +from now they will write about you in history--and search for your grave in +Potter’s Field." +"Good heavens, Dominique, what are you talking about?" +"About your building. About the kind of building that Roark will design for you. +It will be a great building, Joel." +"You mean, good?" +"I don’t mean good. I mean great." +"It’s not the same thing." +"No, Joel, no, it’s not the same thing." +"I don’t like this ’great’ stuff." +"No. You don’t. I didn’t think you would. Then what do you want with Roark? You +want a building that won’t shock anybody. A building that will be folksy and +comfortable and safe, like the old parlor back home that smells of clam chowder. +A building that everybody will like, everybody and anybody. It’s very +uncomfortable to be a hero, Joel, and you don’t have the figure for it." +"Well, of course I want a building that people will like. What do you think I’m +putting it up for, for my health?" +"No, Joel. Nor for your soul." +"You mean, Roark’s no good?" +She sat straight and stiff, as if all her muscles were drawn tight against pain. +But her eyes were heavy, half closed, as if a hand were caressing her body. She +said: +"Do you see many buildings that he’s done? Do you see many people hiring him? +There are six million people in the city of New York. Six million people can’t +be wrong. Can they?" +"Of course not." +"Of course." +"But I thought Enright..." +"You’re not Enright, Joel. For one thing, he doesn’t smile so much. Then, you +see, Enright wouldn’t have asked my opinion. You did. That’s what I like you +for." +"Do you really like me, Dominique?" +"Didn’t you know that you’ve always been one of my great favorites?" +"I...I’ve always trusted you. I’ll take your word anytime. What do you really +think I should do?" +"It’s simple. You want the best that money can buy--of what money can buy. You +234 + + want a building that will be--what it deserves to be. You want an architect whom +other people have employed, so that you can show them that you’re just as good +as they are." +"That’s right. That’s exactly right....Look, Dominique, you’ve hardly touched +your food." +"I’m not hungry." +"Well, what architect would you recommend?" +"Think, Joel. Who is there, at the moment, that everybody’s talking about? Who +gets the pick of all commissions? Who makes the most money for himself and his +clients? Who’s young and famous and safe and popular?" +"Why, I guess...I guess Peter Keating." +"Yes, Joel. Peter Keating." +# +"I’m so sorry, Mr. Roark, so terribly sorry, believe me, but after all, I’m not +in business for my health...not for my health nor for my soul...that is, I mean, +well, I’m sure you can understand my position. And it’s not that I have anything +against you, quite the contrary, I think you’re a great architect. You see +that’s just the trouble, greatness is fine but it’s not practical. That’s the +trouble, Mr. Roark, not practical, and after all you must admit that Mr. Keating +has much the better name and he’s got that...that popular touch which you +haven’t been able to achieve." +It disturbed Mr. Sutton that Roark did not protest. He wished Roark would try to +argue; then he could bring forth the unanswerable justifications which Dominique +had taught him a few hours ago. But Roark said nothing; he had merely inclined +his head when he heard the decision. Mr. Sutton wanted desperately to utter the +justifications, but it seemed pointless to try to convince a man who seemed +convinced. Still, Mr. Sutton loved people and did not want to hurt anyone. +"As a matter of fact, Mr. Roark, I’m not alone in this decision. As a matter of +fact, I did want you, I had decided on you, honestly I had, but it was Miss +Dominique Francon, whose judgment I value most highly, who convinced me that you +were not the right choice for this commission--and she was fair enough to allow +me to tell you that she did." +He saw Roark looking at him suddenly. Then he saw the hollows of Roark’s cheeks +twisted, as if drawn in deeper, and his mouth open: he was laughing, without +sound but for one sharp intake of breath. +"What on earth are you laughing at, Mr. Roark?" +"So Miss Francon wanted you to tell me this?" +"She didn’t want me to, why should she?--she merely said that I could tell you +if I wished." +"Yes, of course." +"Which only shows her honesty and that she had good reasons for her convictions +and will stand by them openly." +"Yes." +235 + + "Well, what’s the matter?" +"Nothing, Mr. Sutton." +"Look, it’s not decent to laugh like that." +"No." +# +His room was half dark around him. A sketch of the Heller house was tacked, +unframed, on a long, blank wall; it made the room seem emptier and the wall +longer. He did not feel the minutes passing, but he felt time as a solid thing +enclosed and kept apart within the room; time clear of all meaning save the +unmoving reality of his body. +When he heard the knock at the door, he said: "Come in," without rising. +Dominique came in. She entered as if she had entered this room before. She wore +a black suit of heavy cloth, simple like a child’s garment, worn as mere +protection, not as ornament; she had a high masculine collar raised to her +cheeks, and a hat cutting half her face out of sight. He sat looking at her. She +waited to see the derisive smile, but it did not come. The smile seemed implicit +in the room itself, in her standing there, halfway across that room. She took +her hat off, like a man entering a house, she pulled it off by the brim with the +tips of stiff fingers and held it hanging down at the end of her arm. She +waited, her face stern and cold; but her smooth pale hair looked defenseless and +humble. She said: +"You are not surprised to see me." +"I expected you tonight." +She raised her hand, bending her elbow with a tight economy of motion, the bare +minimum needed, and flung her hat across to a table. The hat’s long flight +showed the violence in that controlled jerk of her wrist. +He asked: "What do you want?" +She answered: "You know what I want," her voice heavy and flat. +"Yes. But I want to hear you say it. All of it." +"If you wish." Her voice had the sound of efficiency, obeying an order with +metallic precision. "I want to sleep with you. Now, tonight, and at any time you +may care to call me. I want your naked body, your skin, your mouth, your hands. +I want you--like this--not hysterical with desire--but coldly and +consciously--without dignity and without regrets--I want you--I have no +self-respect to bargain with me and divide me--I want you--I want you like an +animal, or a cat on a fence, or a whore." +She spoke on a single, level tone, as if she were reciting an austere catechism +of faith. She stood without moving, her feet in flat shoes planted apart, her +shoulders thrown back, her arms hanging straight at her sides. She looked +impersonal, untouched by the words she pronounced, chaste like a young boy. +"You know that I hate you, Roark. I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, +for having to want you. I’m going to fight you--and I’m going to destroy +you--and I tell you this as calmly as I told you mat I’m a begging animal. I’m +236 + + going to pray that you can’t be destroyed--I tell you this, too--even though I +believe in nothing and have nothing to pray to. But I will fight to block every +step you take. I will fight to tear every chance you want away from you. I will +hurt you through the only thing that can hurt you--through your work. I will +fight to starve you, to strangle you on the things you won’t be able to reach. I +have done it to you today--and that is why I shall sleep with you tonight." +He sat deep in his chair, stretched out, his body relaxed, and taut in +relaxation, a stillness being filled slowly with the violence of future motion. +"I have hurt you today. I’ll do it again. I’ll come to you whenever I have +beaten you--whenever I know that I have hurt you--and I’ll let you own me. I +want to be owned, not by a lover, but by an adversary who will destroy my +victory over him, not with honorable blows, but with the touch of his body on +mine. That is what I want of you, Roark. That is what I am. You wanted to hear +it all. You’ve heard it. What do you wish to say now?" +"Take your clothes off." +She stood still for a moment; two hard spots swelled and grew white under the +corners of her mouth. Then she saw a movement in the cloth of his shirt, one +jolt of controlled breath--and she smiled in her turn, derisively, as he had +always smiled at her. +She lifted her two hands to her collar and unfastened the buttons of her jacket, +simply, precisely, one after another. She threw the jacket down on the floor, +she took off a thin white blouse, and she noticed the tight black gloves on the +wrists of her naked arms. She took the gloves off, pulling at each finger in +turn. She undressed indifferently, as if she were alone in her own bedroom. +Then she looked at him. She stood naked, waiting, feeling the space between them +like a pressure against her stomach, knowing that it was torture for him also +and that it was as they both wanted it. Then he got up, he walked to her, and +when he held her, her arms rose willingly and she felt the shape of his body +imprinted into the skin on the inside of her arm as it encircled him, his ribs, +his armpit, his back, his shoulder blade under her fingers, her mouth on his, in +a surrender more violent than her struggle had been. +Afterward, she lay in bed by his side, under his blanket, looking at his room, +and she asked: +"Roark, why were you working in that quarry?" +"You know it." +"Yes. Anyone else would have taken a job in an architect’s office." +"And then you’d have no desire at all to destroy me." +"You understand that?" +"Yes. Keep still. It doesn’t matter now." +"Do you know that the Enright House is the most beautiful building in New York?" +"I know that you know it." +"Roark, you worked in that quarry when you had the Enright House in you, and +many other Enright Houses, and you were drilling granite like a..." +237 + + "You’re going to weaken in a moment, Dominique, and then you’ll regret it +tomorrow." +"Yes." +"You’re very lovely, Dominique." +"Don’t." +"You’re lovely." +"Roark, I...I’ll still want to destroy you." +"Do you think I would want you if you didn’t?" +"Roark..." +"You want to hear that again? Part of it? I want you, Dominique. I want you. I +want you." +"I..." She stopped, the word on which she stopped almost audible in her breath. +"No," he said. "Not yet. You won’t say that yet. Go to sleep. +"Here? With you?" +"Here. With me. I’ll fix breakfast for you in the morning. Did you know that I +fix my own breakfast? You’ll like seeing that. Like the work in the quarry. Then +you’ll go home and think about destroying me. Good night, Dominique." + +8. +THE BLINDS raised over the windows of her living room, the lights of the city +rising to a black horizon halfway up the glass panes, Dominique sat at her desk, +correcting the last sheets of an article, when she heard the doorbell. Guests +did not disturb her without warning--and she looked up, the pencil held in +midair, angry and curious. She heard the steps of the maid in the hall, then the +maid came in, saying: "A gentleman to see you, madam," a faint hostility in her +voice explaining that the gentleman had refused to give his name. +A man with orange hair?--Dominique wanted to ask, but didn’t; the pencil jerked +stiffly and she said: "Have him come +Then the door opened; against the light of the hall she saw a long neck and +sloping shoulders, like the silhouette of a bottle; a rich, creamy voice said, +"Good evening, Dominique," and she recognized Ellsworth Toohey whom she had +never asked to her house. +, +She smiled. She said: "Good evening, Ellsworth. I haven’t seen you for such a +long time." +"You should have expected me now, don’t you think so?" He turned to the maid: +"Cointreau, please, if you have it, and I’m sure you do." +The maid glanced at Dominique, wide-eyed; Dominique nodded silently, and the +maid went out, closing the door. +238 + + "Busy, of course?" said Toohey, glancing at the littered desk. "Very becoming, +Dominique. Gets results, too. You’ve been writing much better lately." +She let the pencil fall, and threw an arm over the back of her chair, half +turning to him, watching him placidly. "What do you want, Ellsworth?" +He did not sit down, but stood examining the place with the unhurried curiosity +of an expert. +"Not bad, Dominique. Just about as I’d expect you to have it. A little cold. You +know, I wouldn’t have that ice-blue chair over there. Too obvious. Fits in too +well. Just what people would expect in just that spot. I’d have it carrot red. +An ugly, glaring, outrageous red. Like Mr. Howard Roark’s hair. That’s quite en +passant--merely a convenient figure of speech--nothing personal at all. Just one +touch of the wrong color would make the whole room. The sort of thing that gives +a place elegance. Your flower arrangements are nice. The pictures, too--not +bad." +"All right, Ellsworth, all right, what is it?" +"But don’t you know that I’ve never been here before? Somehow, you’ve never +asked me. I don’t know why." He sat down comfortably, resting an ankle on a +knee, one thin leg stretched horizontally across the other, the full length of a +tight, gunmetal sock exposed under the trouser cuff, and a patch of skin showing +above the sock, bluish-white with a few black hairs. "But then, you’ve been so +unsociable. The past tense, my dear, the past tense. Did you say that we haven’t +seen each other for a long time? That’s true. You’ve been so busy--in such an +unusual way. Visits, dinners, speakeasies and giving tea parties. Haven’t you?" +"I have." +"Tea parties--I thought that was tops. This is a good room for +parties--large--plenty of space to stuff people into--particularly if you’re not +particular whom you stuff it with--and you’re not. Not now. What do you serve +them? Anchovy paste and minced egg cut out like hearts?" +"Caviar and minced onion cut out like stars." +"What about the old ladies?" +"Cream cheese and chopped walnuts--in spirals." +"I’d like to have seen you taking care of things like that. It’s wonderful how +thoughtful you’ve become of old ladies. Particularly the filthy rich--with +sons-in-law in real estate. Though I don’t think that’s as bad as going to see +Knock Me Flat with Commodore Higbee who has false teeth and a nice vacant lot on +the corner of Broadway and Chambers." +The maid came in with the tray. Toohey took a glass and held it delicately, +inhaling, while the maid went out. +"Will you tell me why the secret service department--I won’t ask who--and why +the detailed reports on ray activities?" Dominique said indifferently. +"You can ask who. Anyone and everyone. Don’t you suppose people are talking +about Miss Dominique Francon in the role of a famous hostess--so suddenly? Miss +Dominique Francon as a sort of second Kiki Holcombe, but much better--oh +much!--much subtler, much abler, and then, just think, how much more beautiful. +239 + + It’s about time you made some use of that superlative appearance of yours that +any woman would cut your throat for. It’s still being wasted, of course, if one +thinks of form in relation to its proper function, but at least some people are +getting some good out of it. Your father, for instance. I’m sure he’s delighted +with this new life of yours. Little Dominique being friendly to people. Little +Dominique who’s become normal at last. He’s wrong, of course, but it’s nice to +make him happy. A few others, too. Me, for instance. Though you’d never do +anything just to make me happy, but then, you see, that’s my lucky faculty--to +extract joy from what was not intended for me at all, in a purely selfless way." +"You’re not answering my question." +"But I am. You asked why the interest in your activities--and I answer: because +they make me happy. Besides, look, one could be astonished--though +shortsightedly--if I were gathering information on the activities of my enemies. +But not to be informed about the actions of my own side--really, you know, you +didn’t think I’d be so unskilled a general, and whatever else you might think of +me, you’ve never thought me unskilled." +"Your side, Ellsworth?" +"Look, Dominique, that’s the trouble with your written--and spoken--style: you +use too many question marks. Bad, in any case. Particularly bad when +unnecessary. Let’s drop the quiz technique--and just talk. Since we both +understand and there aren’t any questions to be asked between us. If there +were--you’d have thrown me out. Instead, you gave me a very expensive liqueur." +He held the rim of the glass under his nose and inhaled with a loose kind of +sensual relish, which, at a dinner table, would have been equivalent to a loud +lipsmacking, vulgar there, superlatively elegant here, over a cut-crystal edge +pressed to a neat little mustache. +"All right," she said. "Talk." +"That’s what I’ve been doing. Which is considerate of me--since you’re not ready +to talk. Not yet, for a while. Well, let’s talk--in a purely contemplative +manner--about how interesting it is to see people welcoming you into their midst +so eagerly, accepting you, flocking to you. Why is it, do you suppose? They do +plenty of snubbing on their own, but just let someone who’s snubbed them all her +life suddenly break down and turn gregarious--and they all come rolling on their +backs with their paws folded, for you to rub their bellies. Why? There could be +two explanations, I think. The nice one would be that they are generous and wish +to honor you with their friendship. Only the nice explanations are never the +true ones. The other one is that they know you’re degrading yourself by needing +them, you’re coming down off a pinnacle--every loneliness is a pinnacle--and +they’re delighted to drag you down through their friendship. Though, of course, +none of them knows it consciously, except yourself. That’s why you go through +agonies, doing it, and you’d never do it for a noble cause, you’d never do it +except for the end you’ve chosen, an end viler than the means and making the +means endurable." +"You know, Ellsworth, you’ve said a sentence there that you’d never use in your +column." +"Did I? Undoubtedly. I can say a great many things to you that I’d never use in +my column. Which one?" +"Every loneliness is a pinnacle." +240 + + "That? Yes, quite right. I wouldn’t. You’re welcome to it--though it’s not too +good. Fairly crude. I’ll give you better ones some day, if you wish. Sorry, +however, that that’s all you picked out of my little speech." +"What did you want me to pick?" +"Well, my two explanations, for instance. There’s an interesting question there. +What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility +beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it +makes them comfortable? Kindness being more important than justice, of course." +"I don’t give a damn, Ellsworth." +"Not in a mood for abstract speculation? Interested only in concrete results? +All right. How many commissions have you landed for Peter Keating in the last +three months?" +She rose, walked to the tray which the maid had left, poured herself a drink, +and said: "Four," raising the glass to her mouth. Then she turned to look at +him, standing, glass in hand, and added: "And that was the famous Toohey +technique. Never place your punch at the beginning of a column nor at the end. +Sneak it in where it’s least expected. Fill a whole column with drivel, just to +get in that one important line." +He bowed courteously. "Quite. That’s why I like to talk to you. It’s such a +waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don’t even know that you’re being +subtle and vicious. But the drivel is never accidental, Dominique. Also, I +didn’t know that the technique of my column was becoming obvious. I will have to +think of a new one." +"Don’t bother. They love it." +"Of course. They’ll love anything I write. So it’s four? I missed one. I counted +three." +"I can’t understand why you had to come here if that’s all you wanted to know. +You’re so fond of Peter Keating, and I’m helping him along beautifully, better +than you could, so if you wanted to give me a pep talk about Petey--it wasn’t +necessary, was it?" +"You’re wrong there twice in one sentence, Dominique. One honest error and one +lie. The honest error is the assumption that I wish to help Petey Keating--and, +incidentally, I can help him much better than you can, and I have and will, but +that’s long-range contemplation. The lie is that I came here to talk about Peter +Keating--you knew what I came here to talk about when you saw me enter. And--oh +my!--you’d allow someone more obnoxious than myself to barge in on you, just to +talk about that subject. Though I don’t know who could be more obnoxious to you +than myself, at the moment." +"Peter Keating," she said. +He made a grimace, wrinkling his nose: "Oh, no. He’s not big enough for that. +But let’s talk about Peter Keating. It’s such a convenient coincidence that he +happens to be your father’s partner. You’re merely working your head off to +procure commissions for your father, like a dutiful daughter, nothing more +natural. You’ve done wonders for the firm of Francon & Keating in these last +three months. Just by smiling at a few dowagers and wearing stunning models at +some of our better gatherings. Wonder what you’d accomplish if you decided to go +all the way and sell your matchless body for purposes other than esthetic +241 + + contemplation--in exchange for commissions for Peter Keating." He paused, she +said nothing, and he added: "My compliments, Dominique, you’ve lived up to my +best opinion of you--by not being shocked at this." +"What was that intended for, Ellsworth? Shock value or hint value?" +"Oh, it could have been a number of things--a preliminary feeler, for instance. +But, as a matter of fact, it was nothing at all. Just a touch of vulgarity. Also +the Toohey technique--you know, I always advise the wrong touch at the right +time. I am--essentially--such an earnest, single-toned Puritan that I must allow +myself another color occasionally--to relieve the monotony." +"Are you, Ellsworth? I wonder what you are--essentially. I don’t know." +"I dare say nobody does," he said pleasantly. "Although really, there’s no +mystery about it at all. It’s very simple. All things are simple when you reduce +them to fundamentals. You’d be surprised if you knew how few fundamentals there +are. Only two, perhaps. To explain all of us. It’s the untangling, the reducing +that’s difficult--that’s why people don’t like to bother. I don’t think they’d +like the results, either." +"I don’t mind. I know what I am. Go ahead and say it. I’m just a bitch." +"Don’t fool yourself, my dear. You’re much worse than a bitch. You’re a saint. +Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable." +"And you?" +"As a matter of fact, I know exactly what I am. That alone can explain a great +deal about me. I’m giving you a helpful hint--if you care to use it. You don’t, +of course. You might, though--in the future." +"Why should I?" +"You need me, Dominique. You might as well understand me a little. You see, I’m +not afraid of being understood. Not by you." +"I need you?" +"Oh, come on, show a little courage, too." +She sat up and waited coldly, silently. He smiled, obviously with pleasure, +making no effort to hide the pleasure. +"Let’s see," he said, studying the ceiling with casual attention, "those +commissions you got for Peter Keating. The Cryon office building was mere +nuisance value--Howard Roark never had a chance at that. The Lindsay home was +better--Roark was definitely considered, I think he would have got it but for +you. The Stonebrook Clubhouse also--he had a chance at that, which you ruined." +He looked at her and chuckled softly. "No comments on techniques and punches, +Dominique?" The smile was like cold grease floating over the fluid sounds of his +voice. "You slipped up on the Norris country house--he got that last week, you +know. Well, you can’t be a hundred per cent successful. After all, the Enright +House is a big job; it’s creating a lot of talk, and quite a few people are +beginning to show interest in Mr. Howard Roark. But you’ve done remarkably well. +My congratulations. Now don’t you think I’m being nice to you? Every artist +needs appreciation--and there’s nobody to compliment you, since nobody knows +what you’re doing, but Roark and me, and he won’t thank you. On second thought, +I don’t think Roark knows what you’re doing, and that spoils the fun, doesn’t +242 + + it?" +She asked: "How do you know what I’m doing?"--her voice tired. +"My dear, surely you haven’t forgotten that it was I who gave you the idea in +the first place?" +"Oh, yes," she said absently. "Yes." +"And now you know why I came here. Now you know what I meant when I spoke about +my side." +"Yes," she said. "Of course." +"This is a pact, my dear. An alliance. Allies never trust each other, but that +doesn’t spoil their effectiveness. Our motives might be quite opposite. In fact, +they are. But it doesn’t matter. The result will be the same. It is not +necessary to have a noble aim in common. It is necessary only to have a common +enemy. We have." +"Yes." +"That’s why you need me. I’ve been helpful once." +"Yes." +"I can hurt your Mr. Roark much better than any tea party you’ll ever give." +"What for?" +"Omit the what-fors. I don’t inquire into yours." +"All right." +"Then it’s to be understood between us? We’re allies in this?" +She looked at him, she slouched forward, attentive, her face empty. Then she +said: "We’re allies." +"Fine, my dear. Now listen. Stop mentioning him in your column every other day +or so. I know, you take vicious cracks at him each time, but it’s too much. +You’re keeping his name in print, and you don’t want to do that. Further, you’d +better invite me to those parties of yours. There are things I can do which you +can’t. Another tip: Mr. Gilbert Colton--you know, the California pottery +Coltons--is planning a branch factory in the east. He’s thinking of a good +modernist. In fact, he’s thinking of Mr. Roark. Don’t let Roark get it. It’s a +huge job--with lots of publicity. Go and invent a new tea sandwich for Mrs. +Colton. Do anything you wish. But don’t let Roark get it." +She got up, dragged her feet to a table, her arms swinging loosely, and took a +cigarette. She lighted it, turned to him, and said indifferently: "You can talk +very briefly and to the point--when you want to." +"When I find it necessary." +She stood at the window, looking out over the city. She said: "You’ve never +actually done anything against Roark. I didn’t know you cared quite so much." +"Oh, my dear. Haven’t I" +243 + + "You’ve never mentioned him in print." +"That, my dear, is what I’ve done against Mr. Roark. So far." +"When did you first hear of him?" +"When I saw drawings of the Heller house. You didn’t think I’d miss that, did +you? And you?" +"When I saw drawings of the Enright House." +"Not before?" +"Not before." +She smoked in silence; then she said, without turning to him: +"Ellsworth, if one of us tried to repeat what we said here tonight, the other +would deny it and it could never be proved. So it doesn’t matter if we’re +sincere with each other, does it? It’s quite safe. Why do you hate him?" +"I never said I hated him." +She shrugged. +"As for the rest," he added, "I think you can answer that yourself." +She nodded slowly to the bright little point of her cigarette’s reflection on +the glass plane. +He got up, walked over to her, and stood looking at the lights of the city below +them, at the angular shapes of buildings, at the dark walls made translucent by +the glow of the windows, as if the walls were only a checkered veil of thin +black gauze over a solid mass of radiance. And Ellsworth Toohey said softly: +"Look at it. A sublime achievement, isn’t it? A heroic achievement. Think of the +thousands who worked to create this and of the millions who profit by it. And it +is said that but for the spirit of a dozen men, here and there down the ages, +but for a dozen men--less, perhaps--none of this would have been possible. And +that might be true. If so, there are--again--two possible attitudes to take. We +can say that these twelve were great benefactors, that we are all fed by the +overflow of the magnificent wealth of their spirit, and that we are glad to +accept it in gratitude and brotherhood. Or, we can say that by the splendor of +their achievement which we can neither equal nor keep, these twelve have shown +us what we are, that we do not want the free gifts of their grandeur, that a +cave by an oozing swamp and a fire of sticks rubbed together are preferable to +skyscrapers and neon lights--if the cave and the sticks are the limit of your +own creative capacities. Of the two attitudes, Dominique, which would you call +the truly humanitarian one? Because, you see, I’m a humanitarian." +# +After a while Dominique found it easier to associate with people. She learned to +accept self-torture as an endurance test, urged on by the curiosity to discover +how much she could endure. She moved through formal receptions, theater parties, +dinners, dances--gracious and smiling, a smile that made her face brighter and +colder, like the sun on a winter day. She listened emptily to empty words +uttered as if the speaker would be insulted by any sign of enthusiastic interest +from his listener, as if only boredom were the only bond possible between +244 + + people, the only preservative of their precarious dignity. She nodded to +everything and accepted everything. +"Yes, Mr. Holt, I think Peter Keating is the man of the century--our century." +"No, Mr. Inskip, not Howard Roark, you don’t want Howard Roark....A phony? Of +course, he’s a phony--it takes your sensitive honesty to evaluate the integrity +of a man....Nothing much? No, Mr. Inskip, of course, Howard Roark is nothing +much. It’s all a matter of size and distance--and distance....No, I don’t think +very much, Mr. Inskip--I’m glad you like my eyes--yes, they always look like +that when I’m enjoying myself--and it made me so happy to hear you say that +Howard Roark is nothing much." +"You’ve met Mr. Roark, Mrs. Jones? And you didn’t like him?...Oh, he’s the type +of man for whom one can feel no compassion? How true. Compassion is a wonderful +thing. It’s what one feels when one looks at a squashed caterpillar. An +elevating experience. One can let oneself go and spread--you know, like taking a +girdle off. You don’t have to hold your stomach, your heart or your spirit +up--when you feel compassion. All you have to do is look down. It’s much easier. +When you look up, you get a pain in the neck. Compassion is the greatest virtue. +It justifies suffering. There’s got to be suffering in the world, else how would +we be virtuous and feel compassion?...Oh, it has an antithesis--but such a hard, +demanding one....Admiration, Mrs. Jones, admiration. But that takes more than a +girdle....So I say that anyone for whom we can’t feel sorry is a vicious person. +Like Howard Roark." +Late at night, often, she came to Roark’s room. She came unannounced, certain of +finding him there and alone. In his room, there was no necessity to spare, lie, +agree and erase herself out of being. Here she was free to resist, to see her +resistance welcomed by an adversary too strong to fear a contest, strong enough +to need it; she found a will granting her the recognition of her own entity, +untouched and not to be touched except in clean battle, to win or to be +defeated, but to be preserved in victory or defeat, not ground into the +meaningless pulp of the impersonal. +When they lay in bed together it was--as it had to be, as the nature of the act +demanded--an act of violence. It was surrender, made the more complete by the +force of their resistance. It was an act of tension, as the great things on +earth are things of tension. It was tense as electricity, the force fed on +resistance, rushing through wires of metal stretched tight; it was tense as +water made into power by the restraining violence of a dam. The touch of his +skin against hers was not a caress, but a wave of pain, it became pain by being +wanted too much, by releasing in fulfillment all the past hours of desire and +denial. It was an act of clenched teeth and hatred, it was the unendurable, the +agony, an act of passion--the word born to mean suffering--it was the moment +made of hatred, tension, pain--the moment that broke its own elements, inverted +them, triumphed, swept into a denial of all suffering, into its antithesis, into +ecstasy. +She came to his room from a party, wearing an evening gown expensive and fragile +like a coating of ice over her body--and she leaned against the wall, feeling +the rough plaster under her skin, glancing slowly at every object around her, at +the crude kitchen table loaded with sheets of paper, at the steel rulers, at the +towels smudged by the black prints of five fingers, at the bare boards of the +floor--and she let her glance slide down the length of her shining satin, down +to the small triangle of a silver sandal, thinking of how she would be undressed +here. She liked to wander about the room, to throw her gloves down among a +litter of pencils, rubber erasers and rags, to put her small silver bag on a +stained, discarded shirt, to snap open the catch of a diamond bracelet and drop +245 + + it on a plate with the remnant of a sandwich, by an unfinished drawing. +"Roark," she said, standing behind his chair, her arms over his shoulders, her +hand under his shirt, fingers spread and pressed flat against his chest, "I made +Mr. Symons promise his job to Peter Keating today. Thirty-five floors, and +anything he’ll wish to make it cost, money no objective, just art, free art." +She heard the sound of his soft chuckle, but he did not turn to look at her, +only his fingers closed over her wrist and he pushed her hand farther down under +his shirt, pressing it hard against his skin. Then she pulled his head back, and +she bent down to cover his mouth with hers. +She came in and found a copy of the Banner spread out on his table, open at the +page bearing "Your House" by Dominique Francon. Her column contained the line: +"Howard Roark is the Marquis de Sade of architecture. He’s in love with his +buildings--and look at them." She knew that he disliked the Banner, that he put +it there only for her sake, that he watched her noticing it, with the half-smile +she dreaded on his face. She was angry; she wanted him to read everything she +wrote, yet she would have preferred to think that it hurt him enough to make him +avoid it. Later, lying across the bed, with his mouth on her breast, she looked +past the orange tangle of his head, at that sheet of newspaper on the table, and +he felt her trembling with pleasure. +She sat on the floor, at his feet, her head pressed to his knees, holding his +hand, closing her fist in turn over each of his fingers, closing it tight and +letting it slide slowly down the length of his finger, feeling the hard, small +stops at the joints, and she asked softly: "Roark, you wanted to get the Colton +factory? You wanted it very badly?" +"Yes, very badly," he answered, without smiling and without pain. Then she +raised his hand to her lips and held it there for a long time. +She got out of bed in the darkness, and walked naked across his room to take a +cigarette from the table. She bent to the light of a match, her flat stomach +rounded faintly in the movement. He said: "Light one for me," and she put a +cigarette between his lips; then she wandered through the dark room, smoking, +while he lay in bed, propped up on his elbow, watching her. +Once she came in and found him working at his table. He said: "I’ve got to +finish this. Sit down. Wait." He did not look at her again. She waited silently, +huddled in a chair at the farthest end of the room. She watched the straight +lines of his eyebrows drawn in concentration, the set of his mouth, the vein +beating under the tight skin of his neck, the sharp, surgical assurance of his +hand. He did not look like an artist, he looked like the quarry worker, like a +wrecker demolishing walls, and like a monk. Then she did not want him to stop or +glance at her, because she wanted to watch the ascetic purity of his person, the +absence of all sensuality; to watch that--and to think of what she remembered. +There were nights when he came to her apartment, as she came to his, without +warning. If she had guests, he said: "Get rid of them," and walked into the +bedroom while she obeyed. They had a silent agreement, understood without +mention, never to be seen together. Her bedroom was an exquisite place of glass +and pale ice-green. He liked to come in wearing clothes stained by a day spent +on the construction site. He liked to throw back the covers of her bed, then to +sit talking quietly for an hour or two, not looking at the bed, not mentioning +her writing or buildings or the latest commission she had obtained for Peter +Keating, the simplicity of being at ease, here, like this, making the hours more +sensual than the moments they delayed. +There were evenings when they sat together in her living room, at the huge +246 + + window high over the city. She liked to see him at that window. He would stand, +half turned to her, smoking, looking at the city below. She would move away from +him and sit down on the floor in the middle of the room and watch him. +Once, when he got out of bed, she switched the light on and saw him standing +there, naked; she looked at him, then she said, her voice quiet and desperate +with the simple despair of complete sincerity: "Roark, everything I’ve done all +my life is because it’s the kind of a world that made you work in a quarry last +summer." +"I know that." +He sat down at the foot of the bed. She moved over, she pressed her face against +his thigh, curled up, her feet on the pillow, her arm hanging down, letting her +palm move slowly up the length of his leg, from the ankle to the knee and back +again. She said: "But, of course, if it had been up to me, last spring, when you +were broke and jobless, I would have sent you precisely to that kind of a job in +that particular quarry." +"I know that too. But maybe you wouldn’t have. Maybe you’d have had me as +washroom attendant in the clubhouse of the A.G.A." +"Yes. Possibly. Put your hand on my back, Roark. Just hold it there. Like that." +She lay still, her face buried against his knees, her arm hanging down over the +side of the bed, not moving, as if nothing in her were alive but the skin +between her shoulder blades under his hand. +In the drawing rooms she visited, in the restaurants, in the offices of the +A.G.A. people talked about the dislike of Miss Dominique Francon of the Banner +for Howard Roark, that architectural freak of Roger Enright’s. It gave him a +sort of scandalous fame. It was said: "Roark? You know, the guy Dominique +Francon can’t stand the guts of." +"The Francon girl knows her architecture all right, and if she says he’s no +good, he must be worse than I thought he was." +"God, but these two must hate each other! Though I understand they haven’t even +met." She liked to hear these things. It pleased her when Athelstan Beasely +wrote in his column in the A.G.A. Bulletin, discussing the architecture of +medieval castles: "To understand the grim ferocity of these structures, we must +remember that the wars between feudal lords were a savage business--something +like the feud between Miss Dominique Francon and Mr. Howard Roark." +Austen Heller, who had been her friend, spoke to her about it. He was angrier +than she had ever seen him; his face lost all the charm of his usual sarcastic +poise. +"What in hell do you think you’re doing, Dominique?" he snapped. "This is the +greatest exhibition of journalistic hooliganism I’ve ever seen swilled out in +public print. Why don’t you leave that sort of thing to Ellsworth Toohey?" +"Ellsworth is good, isn’t he?" she said. +"At least, he’s had the decency to keep his unsanitary trap shut about +Roark--though, of course, that too is an indecency. But what’s happened to you? +Do you realize who and what you’re talking about? It was all right when you +amused yourself by praising some horrible abortion of Grandpaw Holcombe’s or +panning the pants off your own father and that pretty butcher’s-calendar boy +that he’s got himself for a partner. It didn’t matter one way or another. But to +247 + + bring that same intellectual manner to the appraisal of someone like +Roark....You know, I really thought you had integrity and judgment--if ever +given a chance to exercise them. In fact, I thought you were behaving like a +tramp only to emphasize the mediocrity of the saps whose works you had to write +about. I didn’t think that you were just an irresponsible bitch." +"You were wrong," she said. +Roger Enright entered her office, one morning, and said, without greeting: "Get +your hat. You’re coming to see it with me." +"Good morning, Roger," she said. "To see what?" +"The Enright House. As much of it as we’ve got put up." +"Why, certainly, Roger," she smiled, rising, "I’d love to see the Enright +House." +On their way, she asked: "What’s the matter, Roger? Trying to bribe me?" +He sat stiffly on the vast, gray cushions of his limousine, not looking at her. +He answered: "I can understand stupid malice. I can understand ignorant malice. +I can’t understand deliberate rottenness. You are free, of course, to write +anything you wish--afterward. But it won’t be stupidity and it won’t be +ignorance." +"You overestimate me, Roger," she shrugged, and said nothing else for the rest +of the ride. +They walked together past the wooden fence, into the jungle of naked steel and +planks that was to be the Enright House. Her high heels stepped lightly over +lime-spattered boards and she walked, leaning back, in careless, insolent +elegance. She stopped and looked at the sky held in a frame of steel, the sky +that seemed more distant than usual, thrust back by the sweeping length of +beams. She looked at the steel cages of future projections, at the insolent +angles, at the incredible complexity of this shape coming to life as a simple, +logical whole, a naked skeleton with planes of air to form the walls, a naked +skeleton on a cold winter day, with a sense of birth and promise, like a bare +tree with a first touch of green. +"Oh, Roger!" +He looked at her and saw the kind of face one should expect to see in church at +Easter. +"I didn’t underestimate either one," he said dryly. "Neither you nor the +building." +"Good morning," said a low, hard voice beside them. +She was not shocked to see Roark. She had not heard him approaching, but it +would have been unnatural to think of this building without him. She felt that +he simply was there, that he had been there from the moment she crossed the +outside fence, that this structure was he, in a manner more personal than his +body. He stood before them, his hand thrust into the pockets of a loose coat, +his hair hatless in the cold. +"Miss Francon--Mr. Roark," said Enright. +248 + + "We have met once," she said, "at the Holcombes. If Mr. Roark remembers." +"Of course, Miss Francon," said Roark. +"I wanted Miss Francon to see it," said Enright. +"Shall I show you around?" Roark asked him. +"Yes, do please," she answered first. +The three of them walked together through the structure, and the workers stared +curiously at Dominique. Roark explained the layout of future rooms, the system +of elevators, the heating plant, the arrangement of windows--as he would have +explained it to a contractor’s assistant. She asked questions and he answered. +"How many cubic feet of space, Mr. Roark?" +"How many tons of steel?" +"Be careful of these pipes, Miss Francon. Step this way." Enright walked along, +his eyes on the ground, looking at nothing. But then he asked: "How’s it going, +Howard?" and Roark smiled, answering: "Two days ahead of schedule," and they +stood talking about the job, like brothers, forgetting her for a moment, the +clanging roar of machines around them drowning out their words. +She thought, standing here in the heart of the building, that if she had nothing +of him, nothing but his body, here it was, offered to her, the rest of him, to +be seen and touched, open to all; the girders and the conduits and the sweeping +reaches of space were his and could not have been anyone else’s in the world; +his, as his face, as his soul; here was the shape he had made and the thing +within him which had caused him to make it, the end and the cause together, the +motive power eloquent in every line of steel, a man’s self, hers for this +moment, hers by grace of her seeing it and understanding. +"Are you tired, Miss Francon?" asked Roark, looking at her face. +"No," she said, "no, not at all. I have been thinking--what kind of plumbing +fixtures are you going to use here, Mr. Roark?" +A few days later, in his room, sitting on the edge of his drafting table, she +looked at a newspaper, at her column and the lines: "I have visited the Enright +construction site. I wish that in some future air raid a bomb would blast this +house out of existence. It would be a worthy ending. So much better than to see +it growing old and soot-stained, degraded by the family photographs, the dirty +socks, the cocktail shakers and the grapefruit rinds of its inhabitants. There +is not a person in New York City who should be allowed to live in this +building." +Roark came to stand beside her, his legs pressed to her knees, and he looked +down at the paper, smiling. +"You have Roger completely bewildered by this," he said. +"Has he read it?" +"I was in his office this morning when he read it. At first, he called you some +names I’d never heard before. Then he said, Wait a minute, and he read it again, +he looked up, very puzzled, but not angry at all, and he said, if you read it +one way...but on the other hand..." +249 + + "What did you say?" +"Nothing. You know, Dominique, I’m very grateful, but when are you going to stop +handing me all that extravagant praise? Someone else might see it. And you won’t +like that." +"Someone else?" +"You know that I got it, from that first article of yours about the Enright +House. You wanted me to get it. But don’t you think someone else might +understand your way of doing things?" +"Oh yes. But the effect--for you--will be worse than if they didn’t. They’ll +like you the less for it. However, I don’t know who’ll even bother to +understand. Unless it’s...Roark, what do you think of Ellsworth Toohey?" +"Good God, why should anyone think of Ellsworth Toohey?" +She liked the rare occasions when she met Roark at some gathering where Heller +or Enright had brought him. She liked the polite, impersonal "Miss Francon" +pronounced by his voice. She enjoyed the nervous concern of the hostess and her +efforts not to let them come together. She knew that the people around them +expected some explosion, some shocking sign of hostility which never came. She +did not seek Roark out and she did not avoid him. They spoke to each other if +they happened to be included in the same group, as they would have spoken to +anyone else. It required no effort; it was real and right; it made everything +right, even this gathering. She found a deep sense of fitness in the fact that +here, among people, they should be strangers; strangers and enemies. She +thought, these people can think of many things he and I are to each +other--except what we are. It made the moments she remembered greater, the +moments not touched by the sight of others, by the words of others, not even by +their knowledge. She thought, it has no existence here, except in me and in him. +She felt a sense of possession, such as she could feel nowhere else. She could +never own him as she owned him in a room among strangers when she seldom looked +in his direction. If she glanced at him across the room and saw him in +conversation with blank, indifferent faces, she turned away, unconcerned; if the +faces were hostile, she watched for a second, pleased; she was angry when she +saw a smile, a sign of warmth or approval on a face turned to him. It was not +jealousy; she did not care whether the face was a man’s or a woman’s; she +resented the approval as an impertinence. +She was tortured by peculiar things: by the street where he lived, by the +doorstep of his house, by the cars that turned the corner of his block. She +resented the cars in particular; she wished she could make them drive on to the +next street. She looked at the garbage pail by the stoop next door, and she +wondered whether it had stood there when he passed by, on his way to his office +this morning, whether he had looked at that crumpled cigarette package on top. +Once, in the lobby of his house, she saw a man stepping out of the elevator; she +was shocked for a second; she had always felt as if he were the only inhabitant +of that house. When she rode up in the small, self-operating elevator, she stood +leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her breast, her hands hugging +her shoulders, feeling huddled and intimate, as in a stall under a warm shower. +She thought of that, while some gentleman was telling her about the latest show +on Broadway, while Roark was sipping a cocktail at the other end of the room, +while she heard the hostess whispering to somebody: "My Lord, I didn’t think +Gordon would bring Dominique--I know Austen will be furious at me, because of +his friend Roark being here, you know." +Later, lying across his bed, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, her lips wet, +250 + + losing the sense of the rules she herself had imposed, losing the sense of her +words, she whispered: "Roark, there was a man talking to you out there today, +and he was smiling at you, the fool, the terrible fool, last week he was looking +at a pair of movie comedians and loving them, I wanted to tell that man: don’t +look at him, you’ll have no right to want to look at anything else, don’t like +him, you’ll have to hate the rest of the world, it’s like that, you damn fool, +one or the other, not together, not with the same eyes, don’t look at him, don’t +like him, don’t approve, that’s what I wanted to tell him, not you and the rest +of it, I can’t bear to see that, I can’t stand it, anything to take you away +from it, from their world, from all of them, anything, Roark..." She did not +hear herself saying it, she did not see him smiling, she did not recognize the +full understanding in his face, she saw only his face close over hers, and she +had nothing to hide from him, nothing to keep unstated, everything was granted, +answered, found. +# +Peter Keating was bewildered. Dominique’s sudden devotion to his career seemed +dazzling, flattering, enormously profitable; everybody told him so; but there +were moments when he did not feel dazzled or flattered; he felt uneasy. +He tried to avoid Guy Francon. "How did you do it, Peter? How did you do it?" +Francon would ask. "She must be crazy about you! Who’d every think that +Dominique of all people would...? And who’d think she could? She’d have made me +a millionaire if she’d done her stuff five years ago. But then, of course, a +father is not the same inspiration as a..." He caught an ominous look on +Keating’s face and changed the end of his sentence to: "as her man, shall we +say?" +"Listen, Guy," Keating began, and stopped, sighing, and muttered: "Please, Guy, +we mustn’t..." +"I know, I know, I know. We mustn’t be premature. But hell, Peter, entre nous, +isn’t it all as public as an engagement? More so. And louder." Then the smile +vanished, and Francon’s face looked earnest, peaceful, frankly aged, in one of +his rare flashes of genuine dignity. "And I’m glad, Peter," he said simply. +"That’s what I wanted to happen. I guess I always did love Dominique, after all. +It makes me happy. I know I’ll be leaving her in good hands. Her and everything +else eventually..." +"Look, old man, will you forgive me? I’m so terribly rushed--had two hours sleep +last night, the Colton factory, you know, Jesus, what a job!--thanks to +Dominique--it’s a killer, but wait till you see it! Wait till you see the check, +too!" +"Isn’t she wonderful? Will you tell me, why is she doing it? I’ve asked her and +I can’t make head or tail of what she says, she gives me the craziest gibberish, +you know how she talks." +"Oh well, we should worry, so long as she’s doing it!" +He could not tell Francon that he had no answer; he couldn’t admit that he had +not seen Dominique alone for months; that she refused to see him. +He remembered his last private conversation with her--in the cab on their way +from Toohey’s meeting. He remembered the indifferent calm of her insults to +him--the utter contempt of insults delivered without anger. He could have +expected anything after that--except to see her turn into his champion, his +press agent, almost--his pimp. That’s what’s wrong, he thought, that I can think +of words like that when I think about it. +251 + + He had seen her often since she started on her unrequested campaign; he had been +invited to her parties--and introduced to his future clients; he had never been +allowed a moment alone with her. He had tried to thank her and to question her. +But he could not force a conversation she did not want continued, with a curious +mob of guests pressing all around them. So he went on smiling blandly--her hand +resting casually on the black sleeve of his dinner jacket, her thigh against his +as she stood beside him, her pose possessive and intimate, made flagrantly +intimate by her air of not noticing it, while she told an admiring circle what +she thought of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. He heard envious comments from all +his friends. He was, he thought bitterly, the only man in New York City who did +not think that Dominique Francon was in love with him. +But he knew the dangerous instability of her whims, and this was too valuable a +whim to disturb. He stayed away from her and sent her flowers; he rode along and +tried not to think of it; the little edge remained--a thin edge of uneasiness. +One day, he met her by chance in a restaurant. He saw her lunching alone and +grasped the opportunity. He walked straight to her table, determined to act like +an old friend who remembered nothing but her incredible benevolence. After many +bright comments on his luck, he asked: "Dominique, why have you been refusing to +see me?" +"What should I have wanted to see you for?" +"But good Lord Almighty!..." That came out involuntarily, with too sharp a sound +of long-suppressed anger, and he corrected it hastily, smiling: "Well, don’t you +think you owed me a chance to thank you?" +"You’ve thanked me. Many times." +"Yes, but didn’t you think we really had to meet alone? Didn’t you think that +I’d be a little...bewildered?" +"I haven’t thought of it. Yes, I suppose you could be." +"Well?" +"Well what?" +"What is it all about?" +"About...fifty thousand dollars by now, I think." +"You’re being nasty." +"Want me to stop?" +"Oh no! That is, not..." +"Not the commissions. Fine. I won’t stop them. You see? What was there for us to +talk about? I’m doing things for you and you’re glad to have me do them--so +we’re in perfect agreement." +"You do say the funniest things! In perfect agreement. That’s +sort of a redundancy and an understatement at the same time, +isn’t it? What else could we be under the circumstances? You +252 + + wouldn’t expect me to object to what you’re doing, would you?" +"No. I wouldn’t." +"But agreeing is not the word for what I feel. I’m so terribly grateful to you +that I’m simply dizzy--I was bowled over--don’t let me get silly now--I know you +don’t like that--but I’m so grateful I don’t know what to do with myself." +"Fine, Peter. Now you’ve thanked me." +"You see, I’ve never flattered myself by thinking that you thought very much of +my work or cared or took any notice. And then you...That’s what makes me so +happy and...Dominique," he asked, and his voice jerked a little, because the +question was like a nook pulling at a line, long and hidden, and he knew that +this was the core of his uneasiness, "do you really think that I’m a great +architect?" +She smiled slowly. She said: "Peter, if people heard you asking that, they’d +laugh. Particularly, asking that of me." +"Yes, I know, but...but do you really mean them, all those things you say about +me?" +"They work." +"Yes, but is that why you picked me? Because you think I’m good?" +"You sell like hot cakes. Isn’t that proof?" +"Yes...No...I mean...in a different way...I mean...Dominique, I’d like to hear +you say once, just once, that I..." +"Listen, Peter, I’ll have to run along in a moment, but before I go I must tell +you that you’ll probably hear from Mrs. Lonsdale tomorrow or the next day. Now +remember that she’s a prohibitionist, loves dogs, hates women who smoke, and +believes in reincarnation. She wants her house to be better than Mrs. +Purdee’s--Holcombe did Purdee’s--so if you tell her that Mrs. Purdee’s house +looks ostentatious and that true simplicity costs much more money, you’ll get +along fine. You might discuss petit point too. That’s her hobby." +He went away, thinking happily about Mrs. Lonsdale’s house, and he forgot his +question. Later, he remembered it resentfully, and shrugged, and told himself +that the best part of Dominique’s help was her desire not to see him. +As a compensation, he found pleasure in attending the meetings of Toohey’s +Council of American Builders. He did not know why he should think of it as +compensation, but he did and it was comforting. He listened attentively when +Gordon L. Prescott made a speech on the meaning of architecture. +"And thus the intrinsic significance of our craft lies in the philosophical fact +that we deal in nothing. We create emptiness through which certain physical +bodies are to move--we shall designate them for convenience as humans. By +emptiness I mean what is commonly known as rooms. Thus it is only the crass +layman who thinks that we put up stone walls. We do nothing of the kind. We put +up emptiness, as I have proved. This leads us to a corollary of astronomical +importance: to the unconditional acceptance of the premise that ’absence’ is +superior to ’presence.’ That is, to the acceptance of non-acceptance. I shall +state this in simpler terms--for the sake of clarity: ’nothing’ is superior to +253 + + ’something.’ Thus it is clear that the architect is more than a +bricklayer--since the fact of bricks is a secondary illusion anyway. The +architect is a metaphysical priest dealing in basic essentials, who has the +courage to face the primal conception of reality as nonreality--since there is +nothing and he creates nothingness. If this sounds like a contradiction, it is +not a proof of bad logic, but of a higher logic, the dialectics of all life and +art. Should you wish to make the inevitable deductions from this basic +conception, you may come to conclusions of vast sociological importance. You may +see that a beautiful woman is inferior to a non-beautiful one, that the literate +is inferior to the illiterate, that the rich is inferior to the poor, and the +able to the incompetent. The architect is the concrete illustration of a cosmic +paradox. Let us be modest in the vast pride of this realization. Everything else +is twaddle." +One could not worry about one’s value or greatness when listening to this. It +made self-respect unnecessary. +Keating listened in thick contentment. He glanced at the others. There was an +attentive silence in the audience; they all liked it as he liked it. He saw a +boy chewing gum, a man cleaning his fingernails with the corner of a match +folder, a youth stretched out loutishly. That, too, pleased Keating; it was as +if they said: We are glad to listen to the sublime, but it’s not necessary to be +too damn reverent about the sublime. +The Council of American Builders met once a month and engaged in no tangible +activity, beyond listening to speeches and sipping an inferior brand of root +beer. Its membership did not grow fast either in quantity or in quality. There +were no concrete results achieved. +The meetings of the Council were held in a huge, empty room over a garage on the +West Side. A long, narrow, unventilated stairway led to a door bearing the +Council’s name; there were folding chairs inside, a table for the chairman, and +a wastebasket. The A.G.A. considered the Council of American Builders a silly +joke. "Why do you want to waste time on those cranks for?" +Francon asked Keating in the rose-lit satin-stuffed rooms of the A.G.A., +wrinkling his nose with fastidious amusement. "Damned if I know," Keating +answered gaily. "I like them." Ellsworth Toohey attended every meeting of the +Council, but did not speak. He sat in a corner and listened. +One night Keating and Toohey walked home together after the meeting, down the +dark, shabby streets of the West Side, and stopped for a cup of coffee at a +seedy drugstore. "Why not a drugstore?" Toohey laughed when Keating reminded him +of the distinguished restaurants made famous by Toohey’s patronage. "At least, +no one will recognize us here and bother us." +He sent a jet of smoke from his Egyptian cigarette at a faded Coca-Cola sign +over their booth, he ordered a sandwich, he nibbled daintily a slice of pickle +which was not flyspecked but looked it, and he talked to Keating. He talked at +random. What he said did not matter, at first; it was his voice, the matchless +voice of Ellsworth Toohey. Keating felt as if he were standing in the middle of +a vast plain, under the stars, held and owned, in assurance, in security. +"Kindness, Peter," said the voice softly, "kindness. That is the first +commandment, perhaps the only one. That is why I had to pan that new play, in my +column yesterday. That play lacked essential kindness. We must be kind, Peter, +to everybody around us. We must accept and forgive--there is so much to be +forgiven in each one of us. If you learn to love everything, the humblest, the +least, the meanest, then the meanest in you will be loved. Then we’ll find the +254 + + sense of universal equality, the great peace of brotherhood, a new world, Peter, +a beautiful new world...." + +9. +ELLSWORTH MONKTON TOOHEY was seven years old when he turned the hose upon Johnny +Stokes, as Johnny was passing by the Toohey lawn, dressed in his best Sunday +suit. Johnny had waited for that suit a year and a half, his mother being very +poor. Ellsworth did not sneak or hide, but committed his act openly, with +systematic deliberation: he walked to the tap, turned it on, stood in the middle +of the lawn and directed the hose at Johnny, his aim faultless--with Johnny’s +mother just a few steps behind him down the street, with his own mother and +father and the visiting minister in full view on the Toohey porch. Johnny Stokes +was a bright kid with dimples and golden curls; people always turned to look at +Johnny Stokes. Nobody had ever turned to look at Ellsworth Toohey. +The shock and amazement of the grownups present were such that nobody rushed to +stop Ellsworth for a long moment. He stood, bracing his thin little body against +the violence of the nozzle jerking in his hands, never allowing it to leave its +objective until he felt satisfied; then he let it drop, the water hissing +through the grass, and made two steps toward the porch, and stopped, waiting, +his head high, delivering himself for punishment. The punishment would have come +from Johnny if Mrs. Stokes had not seized her boy and held him. Ellsworth did +not turn to the Stokeses behind him, but said, slowly, distinctly, looking at +his mother and the minister: "Johnny is a dirty bully. He beats up all the boys +in school." This was true. +The question of punishment became an ethical problem. It was difficult to punish +Ellsworth under any circumstances, because of his fragile body and delicate +health; besides, it seemed wrong to chastise a boy who had sacrificed himself to +avenge injustice, and done it bravely, in the open, ignoring his own physical +weakness; somehow, he looked like a martyr. Ellsworth did not say so; he said +nothing further; but his mother said it. The minister was inclined to agree with +her. Ellsworth was sent to his room without supper. He did not complain. He +remained there meekly--and refused the food his mother sneaked up to him, late +at night, disobeying her husband. Mr. Toohey insisted on paying Mrs. Stokes for +Johnny’s suit. Mrs. Toohey let him do it, sullenly; she did not like Mrs. +Stokes. +Ellsworth’s father managed the Boston branch of a national chain of shoe stores. +He earned a modest, comfortable salary and owned a modest, comfortable home in +an undistinguished suburb of Boston. The secret sorrow of his life was that he +did not head a business of his own. But he was a quiet, conscientious, +unimaginative man, and an early marriage had ended all his ambition. Ellsworth’s +mother was a thin, restless woman who adopted and discarded five religions in +nine years. She had delicate features, the kind that made her look beautiful for +a few years of her life, at the one period of full flower, never before and +never afterward. Ellsworth was her idol. His sister Helen, five years older, was +a good-natured, unremarkable girl, not beautiful but pretty and healthy; she +presented no problem. Ellsworth, however, had been born puny in health. His +mother adored him from the moment the doctor pronounced him unfit to survive; it +made her grow in spiritual stature--to know the extent of her own magnanimity in +her love for so uninspiring an object; the bluer and uglier baby Ellsworth +looked, the more passionate grew her love for him. She was almost disappointed +when he survived without becoming an actual cripple. She took little interest in +Helen; there was no martyrdom in loving Helen. The girl was so obviously more +deserving of love that it seemed just to deny it to her. +255 + + Mr. Toohey, for reasons which he could not explain, was not too fond of his son. +Ellsworth, however, was the ruler of the household, by a tacit, voluntary +submission of both parents, though his father could never understand the cause +of his own share in that submission. +In the evenings, under the lamp of the family sitting room, Mrs. Toohey would +begin, in a tense, challenging voice, angry and defeated in advance: "Horace, I +want a bicycle. A bicycle for Ellsworth. All the boys his age have them, Willie +Lovett just got a new one the other day, Horace. Horace, I want a bicycle for +Ellsworth." +"Not right now, Mary," Mr. Toohey would answer wearily. "Maybe next +summer....Just now we can’t afford..." +Mrs. Toohey would argue, her voice rising in jerks toward a shriek. +"Mother, what for?" said Ellsworth, his voice soft, rich and clear, lower than +the voices of his parents, yet cutting across them, commanding, strangely +persuasive. "There’s many things we need more than a bicycle. What do you care +about Willie Lovett? I don’t like Willie. Willie’s a dumbbell. Willie can afford +it, because his pa’s got his own dry-goods store. His pa’s a showoff. I don’t +want a bicycle." +Every word of this was true, and Ellsworth did not want a bicycle. But Mr. +Toohey looked at him strangely, wondering what had made him say that. He saw his +son’s eyes looking at him blankly from behind the small glasses; the eyes were +not ostentatiously sweet, not reproachful, not malicious; just blank. Mr. Toohey +felt that he should be grateful for his son’s understanding--and wished to hell +the boy had not mentioned that part about the private store. +Ellsworth did not get the bicycle. But he got a polite attention in the house, a +respectful solicitude--tender and guilty, from his mother, uneasy and suspicious +from his father. Mr. Toohey would do anything rather than be forced into a +conversation with Ellsworth--feeling, at the same time, foolish and angry at +himself for his fear. +"Horace, I want a new suit. A new suit for Ellsworth. I saw one in a window +today and I’ve..." +"Mother, I’ve got four suits. What do I need another one for? I don’t want to +look silly like Pat Noonan who changes them every day. That’s because his pa’s +got his own ice-cream parlor. Pat’s stuck up like a girl about his clothes. I +don’t want to be a sissy." +Ellsworth, thought Mrs. Toohey at times, happy and frightened, is going to be a +saint; he doesn’t care about material things at all; not one bit. This was true. +Ellsworth did not care about material things. +He was a thin, pale boy with a bad stomach, and his mother had to watch his +diet, as well as his tendency to frequent colds in the head. His sonorous voice +was astonishing in his puny frame. He sang in the choir, where he had no rivals. +At school he was a model pupil. He always knew his lessons, had the neatest +copybooks, the cleanest fingernails, loved Sunday school and preferred reading +to athletic games, in which he had no chance. He was not too good at +mathematics--which he disliked--but excellent at history. English, civics and +penmanship; later, at psychology and sociology. +He studied conscientiously and hard. He was not like Johnny Stokes, who never +256 + + listened in class, seldom opened a book at home, yet knew everything almost +before the teacher had explained it. Learning came to Johnny automatically, as +did all things: his able little fists, his healthy body, his startling good +looks, his overexuberant vitality. But Johnny did the shocking and the +unexpected: Ellsworth did the expected, better than anyone had ever seen it +done. When they came to compositions, Johnny would stun the class by some +brilliant display of rebellion. Given the theme of "School Days--The Golden +Age," Johnny came through with a masterly essay on how he hated school and why. +Ellsworth delivered a prose poem on the glory of school days, which was +reprinted in a local newspaper. +Besides, Ellsworth had Johnny beaten hollow when it came to names and dates; +Ellsworth’s memory was like a spread of liquid cement: it held anything that +fell upon it. Johnny was a shooting geyser; Ellsworth was a sponge. +The children called him "Elsie Toohey." They usually let him have his way, and +avoided him when possible, but not openly; they could not figure him out. He was +helpful and dependable when they needed assistance with their lessons; he had a +sharp wit and could ruin any child by the apt nickname he coined, the kind that +hurt; he drew devastating cartoons on fences; he had all the earmarks of a +sissy, but somehow he could not be classified as one; he had too much +self-assurance and quiet, disturbingly wise contempt for everybody. He was +afraid of nothing. +He would march right up to the strongest boys, in the middle of the street, and +state, not yell, in a clear voice that carried for blocks, state without +anger--no one had ever seen Ellsworth Toohey angry--"Johnny Stokes’s got a patch +on his ass. Johnny Stokes lives in a rented flat. Willie Lovett is a dunce. Pat +Noonan is a fish eater." Johnny never gave him a beating, and neither did the +other boys, because Ellsworth wore glasses. +He could not take part in ball games, and was the only child who boasted about +it, instead of feeling frustrated or ashamed like the other boys with +substandard bodies. He considered athletics vulgar and said so; the brain, he +said, was mightier than the brawn; he meant it. +He had no close personal friends. He was considered impartial and incorruptible. +There were two incidents in his childhood of which his mother was very proud. +It happened that the wealthy, popular Willie Lovett gave a birthday party on the +same day as Drippy Munn, son of a widowed seamstress, a whining boy whose nose +was always running. Nobody accepted Drippy’s invitation, except the children who +were never invited anywhere. Of those asked for both occasions, Ellsworth Toohey +was the only one who snubbed Willie Lovett and went to Drippy Munn’s party, a +miserable affair from which he expected and received no pleasure. Willie +Lovett’s enemies howled and taunted Willie for months afterward--about being +passed up in favor of Drippy Munn. +It happened that Pat Noonan offered Ellsworth a bag of jelly beans in exchange +for a surreptitious peek at his test paper. Ellsworth took the jelly beans and +allowed Pat to copy his test. A week later, Ellsworth marched up to the teacher, +laid the jelly beans, untouched, upon her desk and confessed his crime, without +naming the other culprit. All her efforts to extract that name could not budge +him; Ellsworth remained silent; he explained only that the guilty boy was one of +the best students, and he could not sacrifice the boy’s record to the demands of +his own conscience. He was the only one punished--kept after school for two +hours. Then the teacher had to drop the matter and let the test marks remain as +they were. But it threw suspicion on the grades of Johnny Stokes, Pat Noonan, +and all the best pupils of the class, except Ellsworth Toohey. +257 + + Ellsworth was eleven years old when his mother died. Aunt Adeline, his father’s +maiden sister, came to live with them and run the Toohey household. Aunt Adeline +was a tall, capable woman to whom the word "horse" clung in conjunction with the +words "sense" and "face." The secret sorrow of her life was that she had never +inspired romance. Helen became her immediate favorite. She considered Ellsworth +an imp out of hell. But Ellsworth never wavered in his manner of grave courtesy +toward Aunt Adeline. He leaped to pick up her handkerchief, to move her chair, +when they had company, particularly masculine company. He sent her beautiful +Valentines on the appropriate day--with paper lace, rosebuds and love poems. He +sang "Sweet Adeline" at the top of his town crier’s voice. "You’re a maggot, +Elsie," she told him once. "You feed on sores." +"Then I’ll never starve," he answered. After a while they reached a state of +armed neutrality. Ellsworth was left to grow up as he pleased. +In high school Ellsworth became a local celebrity--the star orator. For years +the school did not refer to a promising boy as a good speaker, but as "a +Toohey." He won every contest. Afterward, members of the audience spoke about +"that beautiful boy"; they did not remember the sorry little figure with the +sunken chest, inadequate legs and glasses; they remembered the voice. He won +every debate. He could prove anything. Once, after beating Willie Lovett with +the affirmative of "The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword," he challenged Willie to +reverse their positions, took the negative and won again., +Until the age of sixteen Ellsworth felt himself drawn to the career of a +minister. He thought a great deal about religion. He talked about God and the +spirit. He read extensively on the subject. He read more books on the history of +the church than on the substance of faith. He brought his audience to tears in +one of his greatest oratorical triumphs with the theme of "The meek shall +inherit the earth." +At this period he began to acquire friends. He liked to speak of faith and he +found those who liked to listen. Only, he discovered that the bright, the +strong, the able boys of his class felt no need of listening, felt no need of +him at all. But the suffering and ill-endowed came to him. Drippy Munn began to +follow him about with the silent devotion of a dog. Billy Wilson lost his +mother, and came wandering to the Toohey house in the evenings, to sit with +Ellsworth on the porch, listening, shivering once in a while, saying nothing, +his eyes wide, dry and pleading. Skinny Dix got infantile paralysis--and would +lie in bed, watching the street corner beyond the window, waiting for Ellsworth. +Rusty Hazelton failed to pass in his grades, and sat for many hours, crying, +with Ellsworth’s cold, steady hand on his shoulder. It was never clear whether +they all discovered Ellsworth or Ellsworth discovered them. It seemed to work +more like a law of nature: as nature allows no vacuum, so pain and Ellsworth +Toohey drew each other. His rich, beautiful voice said to them: "It’s good to +suffer. Don’t complain. Bear, bow, accept--and be grateful that God has made you +suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy. If +you don’t understand this, don’t try to understand. Everything bad comes from +the mind, because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe, +not to understand. So if you didn’t get passing grades, be glad of it. It means +that you are better than the smart boys who think too much and too easily." +People said it was touching, the way Ellsworth’s friends clung to him. After +they had taken him for a while, they could not do without him. It was like a +drug habit. +Ellsworth was fifteen, when he astonished the Bible-class teacher by an odd +question. The teacher had been elaborating upon the text: "What shall it profit +258 + + a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Ellsworth +asked: "Then in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?" The +teacher was about to ask him what the hell did he mean, but controlled himself +and asked what did he mean. Ellsworth would not elucidate. +At the age of sixteen, Ellsworth lost interest in religion. He discovered +socialism. His transition shocked Aunt Adeline. "In the first place, it is +blasphemous and drivel," she said. "In the second place, it doesn’t make sense. +I’m surprised at you, Elsie. ’The poor in spirit’--that was fine, but just ’the +poor’--that doesn’t sound respectable at all. Besides it’s not like you. You’re +not cut out to make big trouble--only little trouble. Something’s crazy +somewhere, Elsie. It just don’t fit. It’s not like you at all." +"In the first place, my dear aunt," he answered, "don’t call me Elsie. In the +second place, you’re wrong." +The change seemed good for Ellsworth. He did not become an aggressive zealot. He +became gentler, quieter, milder. He became more attentively considerate of +people. It was as if something had taken the nervous edges off his personality +and given him new confidence. Those around him began to like him. Aunt Adeline +stopped worrying. Nothing actual seemed to come of his preoccupation with +revolutionary theories. He joined no political party. He read a great deal and +he attended a few dubious meetings, where he spoke once or twice, not too well, +but mostly sat in a corner, listening, watching, thinking. +Ellsworth went to Harvard. His mother had willed her life insurance for that +specific purpose. At Harvard his scholastic record was superlative. He majored +in history. Aunt Adeline had expected to see him go in for economics and +sociology; she half feared that he would end up as a social worker. He didn’t. +He became absorbed in literature and the fine arts. It baffled her a little; it +was a new trait in him; he had never shown any particular tendency in that +direction. "You’re not the arty kind, Elsie," she stated. "It don’t fit." +"You’re wrong, auntie," he said. +Ellsworth’s relations with his fellow students were the most unusual of his +achievements at Harvard. He made himself accepted. Among the proud young +descendants of proud old names, he did not hide the fact of his humble +background; he exaggerated it. He did not tell them that his father was the +manager of a shoe store; "he said that his father was a shoe cobbler. He said it +without defiance, bitterness or proletarian arrogance; he said it as if it were +a joke on him and--if one looked closely into his smile--on them. He acted like +a snob; not a flagrant snob, but a natural, innocent one who tries very hard not +to be snobbish. He was polite, not in the manner of one seeking favor, but in +the manner of one granting it. His attitude was contagious. People did not +question the reasons of his superiority; they took it for granted that such +reasons existed. It became amusing, at first, to accept "Monk" Toohey; then it +became distinctive and progressive. If this was a victory Ellsworth did not seem +conscious of it as such; he did not seem to care. He moved among all these +unformed youths, with the assurance of a man who has a plan, a long-range plan +set in every detail, and who can spare nothing but amusement for the small +incidentals on his way. His smile had a secret, closed quality, the smile of a +shopkeeper counting profits--even though nothing in particular seemed to be +happening. +He did not talk about God and the nobility of suffering. He talked about the +masses. He proved to a rapt audience, at bull sessions lasting till dawn, that +religion bred selfishness; because, he stated, religion overemphasized the +importance of the individual spirit; religion preached nothing but a single +259 + + concern--the salvation of one’s own soul. +"To achieve virtue in the absolute sense," said Ellsworth Toohey, "a man must be +willing to take the foulest crimes upon his soul--for the sake of his brothers. +To mortify the flesh is nothing. To mortify the soul is the only act of virtue. +So you think you love the broad mass of mankind? You know nothing of love. You +give two bucks to a strike fund and you think you’ve done your duty? You poor +fools! No gift is worth a damn, unless it’s the most precious thing you’ve got. +Give your soul. To a lie? Yes, if others believe it. To deceit? Yes, if others +need it. To treachery, knavery, crime? Yes! To whatever it is that seems lowest +and vilest in your eyes. Only when you can feel contempt for your own priceless +little ego, only then can you achieve the true, broad peace of selflessness, the +merging of your spirit with the vast collective spirit of mankind. There is no +room for the love of others within the tight, crowded miser’s hole of a private +ego. Be empty in order to be filled. ’He that loveth his life shall lose it; and +he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.’ The +opium peddlers of the church had something there, but they didn’t know what they +had. Self-abnegation? Yes, my friends, by all means. But one doesn’t abnegate by +keeping one’s self pure and proud of its own purity. The sacrifice that includes +the destruction of one’s soul--ah, but what am I talking about? This is only for +heroes to grasp and to achieve." +He did not have much success among the poor boys working their way through +college. He acquired a sizable following among the young heirs, the second and +third generation millionaires. He offered them an achievement of which they felt +capable. +He graduated with high honors. When he came to New York, he was preceded by a +small, private fame; a few trickles of rumor had seeped down from Harvard about +an unusual person named Ellsworth Toohey; a few people, among the extreme +intellectuals and the extremely wealthy, heard these rumors and promptly forgot +what they heard, but remembered the name; it remained in their minds with a +vague connotation of such things as brilliance, courage, idealism. +People began to ooze toward Ellsworth Toohey; the right kind of people, those +who soon found him to be a spiritual necessity. The other kind did not come; +there seemed to be an instinct about it. When someone commented on the loyalty +of Toohey’s following--he had no title, program or organization, but somehow his +circle was called a following from the first--an envious rival remarked: "Toohey +draws the sticky kind. You know the two things that stick best: mud and glue." +Toohey overheard it and shrugged, smiling, and said: "Oh, come, come, come, +there are many more: adhesive plaster, leeches, taffy, wet socks, rubber +girdles, chewing gum and tapioca pudding." Moving away, he added over his +shoulder, without smiling: "And cement." +He took his Master’s degree from a New York university and wrote a thesis on +"Collective Patterns in the City Architecture of the XlVth Century." He earned +his living in a busy, varied, scattered way: no one could keep track of all his +activities. He held the post of vocational adviser at the university, he +reviewed books, plays, art exhibitions, he wrote articles, gave a few lectures +to small, obscure audiences. Certain tendencies were apparent in his work. When +reviewing books, he leaned toward novels about the soil rather than the city, +about the average rather than the gifted, about the sick rather than the +healthy; there was a special glow in his writing when he referred to stories +about "little people"; "human" was his favorite adjective; he preferred +character study to action, and description to character study; he preferred +novels without a plot and, above all, novels without a hero. +He was considered outstanding as a vocational adviser. His tiny office at the +260 + + university became an informal confessional where students brought all their +problems, academic as well as personal. He was willing to discuss--with the same +gentle, earnest concentration--the choice of classes, or love affairs, or--most +particularly--the selection of a future career. +When consulted on love affairs, Toohey counseled surrender, if it concerned a +romance with a charming little pushover, good for a few drunken parties--"let us +be modern"; and renunciation, if it concerned a deep, emotional passion--"let us +be grownup." When a boy came to confess a feeling of shame after some unsavory +sexual experience, Toohey told him to snap out of it: "It was damn good for you. +There are two things we must get rid of early in life: a feeling of personal +superiority and an exaggerated reverence for the sexual act." +People noticed that Ellsworth Toohey seldom let a boy pursue the career he had +chosen. "No, I wouldn’t go in for law if I were you. You’re much too tense and +passionate about it. A hysterical devotion to one’s career does not make for +happiness or success. It is wiser to select a profession about which you can be +calm, sane and matter-of-fact. Yes, even if you hate it. It makes for +down-to-earthness."..."No, I wouldn’t advise you to continue with your music. +The fact that it comes to you so easily is a sure sign that your talent is only +a superficial one. That’s just the trouble--that you love it. Don’t you think +that sounds like a childish reason? Give it up. Yes, even if it hurts like +hell."..."No, I’m sorry, I would like so much to say that I approve, but I +don’t. When you thought of architecture, it was a purely selfish choice, wasn’t +it? Have you considered anything but your own egotistical satisfaction? Yet a +man’s career concerns all society. The question of where you could be most +useful to your fellow men comes first. It’s not what you can get out of society, +it’s what you can give. And where opportunities for service are concerned, +there’s no endeavor comparable to that of a surgeon. Think it over." +After leaving college some of his protégés did quite well, others failed. Only +one committed suicide. It was said that Ellsworth Toohey had exercised a +beneficent influence upon them--for they never forgot him: they came to consult +him on many things, years later, they wrote him, they clung to him. They were +like machines without a self-starter, that had to be cranked up by an outside +hand. He was never too busy to give them his full attention. +His life was crowded, public and impersonal as a city square. The friend of +humanity had no single private friend. People came to him; he came close to no +one. He accepted all. His affection was golden, smooth and even, like a great +expanse of sand; there was no wind of discrimination to raise dunes; the sands +lay still and the sun stood high. +Out of his meager income he donated money to many organizations. He was never +known to have loaned a dollar to an individual. He never asked his rich friends +to assist a person in need; but he obtained from them large sums and endowments +for charitable institutions: for settlement houses, recreation centers, homes +for fallen girls, schools for defective children. He served on the boards of all +these institutions--without salary. A great many philanthropic undertakings and +radical publications, run by all sorts of people, had a single connecting link +among them, one common denominator: the name of Ellsworth M. Toohey on their +stationery. He was a sort of one-man holding company of altruism. +Women played no part in his life. Sex had never interested him. His furtive, +infrequent urges drew him to the young, slim, full-bosomed, brainless girls--the +giggling little waitresses, the lisping manicurists, the less efficient +stenographers, the kind who wore pink or orchid dresses and little hats on the +back of their heads with gobs of blond curls in front. He was indifferent to +women of intellect. +261 + + He contended that the family was a bourgeois institution; but he made no issue +of it and did not crusade for free love. The subject of sex bored him. There +was, he felt, too much fuss made over the damn thing; it was of no importance; +there were too many weightier problems in the world. +The years passed, with each busy day of his life like a small, neat coin dropped +patiently into a gigantic slot machine, without a glance at the combination of +symbols, without return. Gradually, one of his many activities began to stand +out among the others: he became known as an eminent critic of architecture. He +wrote about buildings for three successive magazines that limped on noisily for +a few years and failed, one after the other: New Voices, New Pathways, New +Horizons. The fourth, New Frontiers, survived. Ellsworth Toohey was the only +thing salvaged from the successive wrecks. Architectural criticism seemed to be +a neglected field of endeavor; few people bothered to write about buildings, +fewer to read. Toohey acquired a reputation and an unofficial monopoly. The +better magazines began calling upon him whenever they needed anything connected +with architecture. +In the year 1921 a small change occurred in Toohey’s private life; his niece +Catherine Halsey, the daughter of his sister Helen, came to live with him. His +father had long since died, and Aunt Adeline had vanished into the obscure +poverty of some small town; at the death of Catherine’s parents there was no one +else to take care of her. Toohey had not intended to keep her in his own home. +But when she stepped off the train in New York, her plain little face looked +beautiful for a moment, as if the future were opening before her and its glow +were already upon her forehead, as if she were eager and proud and ready to meet +it. It was one of those rare moments when the humblest person knows suddenly +what it means to feel as the center of the universe, and is made beautiful by +the knowledge, and the world--in the eyes of witnesses--looks like a better +place for having such a center. Ellsworth Toohey saw this--and decided that +Catherine would remain with him. +In the year 1925 came Sermons in Stone--and fame. +Ellsworth Toohey became a fashion. Intellectual hostesses fought over him. Some +people disliked him and laughed at him. But there was little satisfaction in +laughing at Ellsworth Toohey, because he was always first to make the most +outrageous remarks about himself. Once, at a party, a smug, boorish businessman +listened to Toohey’s earnest social theories for a while and said complacently: +"Well, I wouldn’t know much about all that intellectual stuff. I play the stock +market." +"I," said Toohey, "play the stock market of the spirit. And I sell short." +The most important consequence of Sermons in Stone was Toohey’s contract to +write a daily column for Gail Wynand’s New York Banner. +The contract came as a surprise to the followers of both sides involved, and, at +first, it made everybody angry. Toohey had referred to Wynand frequently and not +respectfully; the Wynand papers had called Toohey every name fit to print. But +the Wynand papers had no policy, save that of reflecting the greatest prejudices +of the greatest number, and this made for an erratic direction, but a +recognizable direction, nevertheless: toward the inconsistent, the +irresponsible, the trite and the maudlin. The Wynand papers stood against +Privilege and for the Common Man, but in a respectable manner that could shock +nobody; they exposed monopolies, when they wished; they supported strikes, when +they wished, and vice versa. They denounced Wall Street and they denounced +socialism and they hollered for clean movies, all with the same gusto. They were +262 + + strident and blatant--and, in essence, lifelessly mild. Ellsworth Toohey was a +phenomenon much too extreme to fit behind the front page of the Banner. +But the staff of the Banner was as unfastidious as its policy. It included +everybody who could please the public or any large section thereof. It was said: +"Gail Wynand is not a pig. He’ll eat anything." Ellsworth Toohey was a great +success and the public was suddenly interested in architecture; the Banner had +no authority on architecture; the Banner would get Ellsworth Toohey. It was a +simple syllogism. +Thus "One Small Voice" came into existence. +The Banner explained its appearance by announcing: "On Monday the Banner will +present to you a new friend--ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY--whose scintillating book +Sermons in Stone you have all read and loved. The name of Mr. Toohey stands for +the great profession of architecture. He will help you to understand everything +you want to know about the wonders of modern building. Watch for ’ONE SMALL +VOICE’ on Monday. To appear exclusively in the Banner in New York City." The +rest of what Mr. Toohey stood for was ignored. +Ellsworth Toohey made no announcement or explanation to anyone. He disregarded +the friends who cried that he had sold himself. He simply went to work. He +devoted "One Small Voice" to architecture--once a month. The rest of the time it +was the voice of Ellsworth Toohey saying what he wished said--to syndicated +millions. +Toohey was the only Wynand employee who had a contract permitting him to write +anything he pleased. He had insisted upon it. It was considered a great victory, +by everybody except Ellsworth Toohey. He realized that it could mean one of two +things: either Wynand had surrendered respectfully to the prestige of his +name--or Wynand considered him too contemptible to be worth restraining. +"One Small Voice" never seemed to say anything dangerously revolutionary, and +seldom anything political. It merely preached sentiments with which most people +felt in agreement: unselfishness, brotherhood, equality. "I’d rather be kind +than right." +"Mercy is superior to justice, the shallow-hearted to the contrary +notwithstanding." +"Speaking anatomically--and perhaps otherwise--the heart is our most valuable +organ. The brain is a superstition." +"In spiritual matters there is a simple, infallible test: everything that +proceeds from the ego is evil; everything that proceeds from love for others is +good." +"Service is the only badge of nobility. I see nothing offensive in the +conception of fertilizer as the highest symbol of man’s destiny: it is +fertilizer that produces wheat and roses." +"The worst folk song is superior to the best symphony." +"A man braver than his brothers insults them by implication. Let us aspire to no +virtue which cannot be shared." +"I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would +feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother." +263 + + "Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a +disease." +"We are all brothers under the skin--and I, for one, would be willing to skin +humanity to prove it." +In the offices of the Banner Ellsworth Toohey was treated respectfully and left +alone. It was whispered that Gail Wynand did not like him--because Wynand was +always polite to him. Alvah Scarret unbent to the point of cordiality, but kept +a wary distance. There was a silent, watchful equilibrium between Toohey and +Scarret: they understood each other. +Toohey made no attempt to approach Wynand in any way. Toohey seemed indifferent +to all the men who counted on the Banner. He concentrated on the others, +instead. +He organized a club of Wynand employees. It was not a labor union; it was just a +club. It met once a month in the library of the Banner. It did not concern +itself with wages, hours or working conditions; it had no concrete program at +all. People got acquainted, talked, and listened to speeches. Ellsworth Toohey +made most of the speeches. He spoke about new horizons and the press as the +voice of the masses. Gail Wynand appeared at a meeting once, entering +unexpectedly in the middle of a session. Toohey smiled and invited him to join +the club, declaring that he was eligible. Wynand did not join. He sat listening +for half an hour, yawned, got up, and left before the meeting was over. +Alvah Scarret appreciated the fact that Toohey did not try to reach into his +field, into the important matters of policy. As a kind of return courtesy, +Scarret let Toohey recommend new employees, when there was a vacancy to fill, +particularly if the position was not an important one; as a rule, Scarret did +not care, while Toohey always cared, even when it was only the post of copy boy. +Toohey’s selections got the jobs. Most of them were young, brash, competent, +shifty-eyed and shook hands limply. They had other things in common, but these +were not so apparent. +There were several monthly meetings which Toohey attended regularly; the +meetings of: the Council of American Builders, the Council of American Writers, +the Council of American Artists. He had organized them all. +Lois Cook was chairman of the Council of American Writers. It met in the drawing +room of her home on the Bowery. She was the only famous member. The rest +included a woman who never used capitals in her books, and a man who never used +commas; a youth who had written a thousand-page novel without a single letter o, +and another who wrote poems that neither rhymed nor scanned; a man with a beard +who was sophisticated and proved it by using every unprintable four-letter word +in every ten pages of his manuscript; a woman who imitated Lois Cook, except +that her style was less clear; when asked for explanations she stated that this +was the way life sounded to her, when broken by the prism of her +subconscious--"You know what a prism does to a ray of light, don’t you?" she +said. There was also a fierce young man known simply as Ike the Genius, though +nobody knew just what he had done, except that he talked about loving all of +life. The Council signed a declaration which stated that writers were servants +of the proletariat--but the statement did not sound as simple as that; it was +more involved and much longer. The declaration was sent to every newspaper in +the country. It was never published anywhere, except on page 32 of New +Frontiers. The Council of American Artists had, as chairman, a cadaverous youth +who painted what he saw in his nightly dreams. There was a boy who used no +canvas, but did something with bird cages and metronomes, and another who +discovered a new technique of painting: he blackened a sheet of paper and then +264 + + painted with a rubber eraser. There was a stout middle-aged lady who drew +subconsciously, claiming that she never looked at her hand and had no idea of +what the hand was doing; her hand, she said, was guided by the spirit of the +departed lover whom she had never met on earth. Here they did not talk so much +about the proletariat, but merely rebelled against the tyranny of reality and of +the objective. +A few friends pointed out to Ellsworth Toohey that he seemed guilty of +inconsistency; he was so deeply opposed to individualism, they said, and here +were all these writers and artists of his, and every one of them was a rabid +individualist. "Do you really think so?" said Toohey, smiling blandly. +Nobody took these Councils seriously. People talked about them, because they +thought it made good conversation; it was such a huge joke, they said, certainly +there was no harm in any of it. "Do you really think so?" said Toohey. +Ellsworth Toohey was now forty-one years old. He lived in a distinguished +apartment that seemed modest when compared to the size of the income he could +have commanded if he wished. He liked to apply the adjective "conservative" to +himself in one respect only: in his conservative good taste for clothes. No one +had ever seen him lose his temper. His manner was immutable; it was the same in +a drawing room, at a labor meeting, on a lecture platform, in the bathroom or +during sexual intercourse: cool, self-possessed, amused, faintly patronizing. +People admired his sense of humor. He was, they said, a man who could laugh at +himself. "I’m a dangerous person. Somebody ought to warn you against me," he +said to people, in the tone of uttering the most preposterous thing in the +world. +Of all the many titles bestowed upon him, he preferred one: Ellsworth Toohey, +the Humanitarian. + +10. +THE ENRIGHT HOUSE was opened in June of 1929. +There was no formal ceremony. But Roger Enright wanted to mark the moment for +his own satisfaction. He invited a few people he liked and he unlocked the great +glass entrance door, throwing it open to the sun-filled air. Some press +photographers had arrived, because the story concerned Roger Enright and because +Roger Enright did not want to have them there. He ignored them. He stood in the +middle of the street, looking at the building, then he walked through the lobby, +stopping short without reason and resuming his pacing. He said nothing. He +frowned fiercely, as if he were about to scream with rage. His friends knew that +Roger Enright was happy. +The building stood on the shore of the East River, a structure rapt as raised +arms. The rock crystal forms mounted in such eloquent steps that the building +did not seem stationary, but moving upward in a continuous flow--until one +realized that it was only the movement of one’s glance and that one’s glance was +forced to move in that particular rhythm. The walls of pale gray limestone +looked silver against the sky, with the clean, dulled luster of metal, but a +metal that had become a warm, living substance, carved by the most cutting of +all instruments--a purposeful human will. It made the house alive in a strange, +personal way of its own, so that in the minds of spectators five words ran +dimly, without object or clear connection: "...in His image and likeness..." +265 + + A young photographer from the Banner noticed Howard Roark standing alone across +the street, at the parapet of the river. He was leaning back, his hands closed +over the parapet, hatless, looking up at the building. It was an accidental, +unconscious moment. The young photographer glanced at Roark’s face--and thought +of something that had puzzled him for a long time: he had always wondered why +the sensations one felt in dreams were so much more intense than anything one +could experience in waking reality--why the horror was so total and the ecstasy +so complete--and what was that extra quality which could never be recaptured +afterward; the quality of what he felt when he walked down a path through +tangled green leaves in a dream, in an air full of expectation, of causeless, +utter rapture--and when he awakened he could not explain it, it had been just a +path through some woods. He thought of that because he saw that extra quality +for the first time in waking existence, he saw it in Roark’s face lifted to the +building. The photographer was a young boy, new to his job; he did not know much +about it; but he loved his work; he had been an amateur photographer since +childhood. So he snapped a picture of Roark in that one moment. +Later the Art Editor of the Banner saw the picture and barked: "What the hell’s +that?" +"Howard Roark," said the photographer. "Who’s Howard Roark?" +"The architect." +"Who the hell wants a picture of the architect?" +"Well, I only thought..." +"Besides, it’s crazy. What’s the matter with the man?" So the picture was thrown +into the morgue. +The Enright House rented promptly. The tenants who moved in were people who +wanted to live in sane comfort and cared about nothing else. They did not +discuss the value of the building; they merely liked living there. They were the +sort who lead useful, active private lives in public silence. +But others talked a great deal of the Enright House, for about three weeks. They +said that it was preposterous, exhibitionist and phony. They said: "My dear, +imagine inviting Mrs. Moreland if you lived in a place like that! And her home +is in such good taste!" A few were beginning to appear who said: "You know, I +rather like modern architecture, there are some mighty interesting things being +done that way nowadays, there’s quite a school of it in Germany that’s rather +remarkable--but this is not like it at all. This is a freak." +Ellsworth Toohey never mentioned the Enright House in his column. A reader of +the Banner wrote to him: "Dear Mr. Toohey: What do you think of this place they +call the Enright House? I have a friend who is an interior decorator and he +talks a lot about it and he says it’s lousy. Architecture and such various arts +being my hobby, I don’t know what to think. Will you tell us in your column?" +Ellsworth Toohey answered in a private letter: "Dear friend: There are so many +important buildings and great events going on in the world today that I cannot +devote my column to trivialities." +But people came to Roark--the few he wanted. That winter, he had received a +commission to build the Norris house, a modest country home. In May he signed +another contract--for his first office building, a fifty-story skyscraper in the +center of Manhattan. Anthony Cord, the owner, had come from nowhere and made a +fortune in Wall Street within a few brilliant, violent years. He wanted a +266 + + building of his own and he went to Roark. Roark’s office had grown to four +rooms. His staff loved him. They did not realize it and would have been shocked +to apply such a term as love to their cold, unapproachable, inhuman boss. These +were the words they used to describe Roark, these were the words they had been +trained to use by all the standards and conceptions of their past; only, working +with him, they knew that he was none of these things, but they could not +explain, neither what he was nor what they felt for him. +He did not smile at his employees, he did not take them out for drinks, he never +inquired about their families, their love lives or their church attendance. He +responded only to the essence of a man: to his creative capacity. In this office +one had to be competent. There were no alternatives, no mitigating +considerations. But if a man worked well, he needed nothing else to win his +employer’s benevolence: it was granted, not as a gift, but as a debt. It was +granted, not as affection, but as recognition. It bred an immense feeling of +self-respect within every man in that office. +"Oh, but that’s not human," said somebody when one of Roark’s draftsmen tried to +explain this at home, "such a cold, intellectual approach!" One boy, a younger +sort of Peter Keating, tried to introduce the human in preference to the +intellectual in Roark’s office; he did not last two weeks. Roark made mistakes +in choosing his employees occasionally, not often; those whom he kept for a +month became his friends for life. They did not call themselves friends; they +did not praise him to outsiders; they did not talk about him. They knew only, in +a dim way, that it was not loyalty to him, but to the best within themselves. +# +Dominique remained in the city all summer. She remembered, with bitter pleasure, +her custom to travel; it made her angry to think that she could not go, could +not want to go. She enjoyed the anger; it drove her to his room. On the nights +which she did not spend with him she walked through the streets of the city. She +walked to the Enright House or to the Fargo Store, and stood looking at the +building for a long time. She drove alone out of town--to see the Heller house, +the Sanborn house, the Gowan Service Station. She never spoke to him about that. +Once, she took the Staten Island ferry at two o’clock in the morning; she rode +to the island, standing alone at the rail of an empty deck. She watched the city +moving away from her. In the vast emptiness of sky and ocean, the city was only +a small, jagged solid. It seemed condensed, pressed tight together, not a place +of streets and separate buildings, but a single sculptured form. A form of +irregular steps that rose and dropped without ordered continuity, long +ascensions and sudden drops, like the graph of a stubborn struggle. But it went +on mounting--toward a few points, toward the triumphant masts of skyscrapers +raised out of the struggle. +The boat went past the Statue of Liberty--a figure in a green light, with an arm +raised like the skyscrapers behind it. +She stood at the rail, while the city diminished, and she felt the motion of +growing distance as a growing tightness within her, the pull of a living cord +that could not be stretched too far. She stood in quiet excitement when the boat +sailed back and she saw the city growing again to meet her. She stretched her +arms wide. The city expanded, to her elbows, to her wrists, beyond her +fingertips. Then the skyscrapers rose over her head, and she was back. +She came ashore. She knew where she had to go, and wanted to get there fast, but +felt she must get there herself, like this, on her own feet. So she walked half +the length of Manhattan, through long, empty, echoing streets. It was +four-thirty when she knocked at his door. He had been asleep. She shook her +267 + + head. "No," she said. "Go back to sleep. I just want to be here." She did not +touch him. She took off her hat and shoes, huddled into an armchair, and fell +asleep, her arm hanging over the chair’s side, her head on her arm. In the +morning he asked no questions. They fixed breakfast together, then he hurried +away to his office. Before leaving, he took her in his arms and kissed her. He +walked out, and she stood for a few moments, then left. They had not exchanged +twenty words. +There were week ends when they left the city together and drove in her car to +some obscure point on the coast. They stretched out in the sun, on the sand of a +deserted beach, they swam in the ocean. She liked to watch his body in the +water. She would remain behind and stand, the waves hitting her knees, and watch +him cutting a straight line through the breakers. She liked to lie with him at +the edge of the water; she would lie on her stomach, a few feet away from him, +facing the shore, her toes stretched to the waves; she would not touch him, but +she would feel the waves coming up behind them, breaking against their bodies, +and she would see the backwash running in mingled streams off her body and his. +They spent the nights at some country inn, taking a single room. They never +spoke of the things left behind them in the city. But it was the unstated that +gave meaning to the relaxed simplicity of these hours; their eyes laughed +silently at the preposterous contract whenever they looked at each other. +She tried to demonstrate her power over him. She stayed away from his house; she +waited for him to come to her. He spoiled it by coming too soon; by refusing her +the satisfaction of knowing that he waited and struggled against his desire; by +surrendering at once. She would say: "Kiss my hand, Roark." He would kneel and +kiss her ankle. He defeated her by admitting her power; she could not have the +gratification of enforcing it. He would lie at her feet, he would say: "Of +course I need you. I go insane when I see you. You can do almost anything you +wish with me. Is that what you want to hear? Almost, Dominique. And the things +you couldn’t make me do--you could put me through hell if you demanded them and +I had to refuse you, as I would. Through utter hell, Dominique. Does that please +you? Why do you want to know whether you own me? It’s so simple. Of course you +do. All of me that can be owned. You’ll never demand anything else. But you want +to know whether you could make me suffer. You could. What of it?" The words did +not sound like surrender, because they were not torn out of him, but admitted +simply and willingly. She felt no thrill of conquest; she felt herself owned +more than ever, by a man who could say these things, know of them to be true, +and still remain controlled and controlling--as she wanted him to remain. +# +Late in June a man named Kent Lansing came to see Roark. He was forty years old, +he was dressed like a fashion plate and looked like a prize fighter, though he +was not burly, muscular or tough: he was thin and angular. He merely made one +think of a boxer and of other things that did not fit his appearance: of a +battering ram, of a tank, of a submarine torpedo. He was a member of a +corporation formed for the purpose of erecting a luxurious hotel on Central Park +South. There were many wealthy men involved and the corporation was ruled by a +numerous board; they had purchased their site; they had not decided on an +architect. But Kent Lansing had made up his mind that it would be Roark. +"I won’t try to tell you how much I’d like to do it," Roark said to him at the +end of their first interview. "But there’s not a chance of my getting it. I can +get along with people--when they’re alone. I can do nothing with them in groups. +No board has ever hired me--and I don’t think one ever will." +Kent Lansing smiled. "Have you ever known a board to do. anything?" +268 + + "What do you mean?" +"Just that: have you ever known a board to do anything at all?" +"Well, they seem to exist and function." +"Do they? You know, there was a time when everyone thought it self-evident that +the earth was flat. It would be entertaining to speculate upon the nature and +causes of humanity’s illusions. I’ll write a book about it some day. It won’t be +popular. I’ll have a chapter on boards of directors. You see, they don’t exist." +"I’d like to believe you, but what’s the gag?" +"No, you wouldn’t like to believe me. The causes of illusions are not pretty to +discover. They’re either vicious or tragic. This one is both. Mainly vicious. +And it’s not a gag. But we won’t go into that now. All I mean is that a board of +directors is one or two ambitious men--and a lot of ballast. I mean that groups +of men are vacuums. Great big empty nothings. They say we can’t visualize a +total nothing. Hell, sit at any committee meeting. The point is only who chooses +to fill that nothing. It’s a tough battle. The toughest. It’s simple enough to +fight any enemy, so long as he’s there to be fought. But when he isn’t...Don’t +look at me like that, as if I were crazy. You ought to know. You’ve fought a +vacuum all your life." +"I’m looking at you like that because I like you." +"Of course you like me. As I knew I’d like you. Men are brothers, you know, and +they have a great instinct for brotherhood--except in boards, unions, +corporations and other chain gangs. But I talk too much. That’s why I’m a good +salesman. However, I have nothing to sell you. You know. So we’ll just say that +you’re going to build the Aquitania--that’s the name of our hotel--and we’ll let +it go at that." +If the violence of the battles which people never hear about could be measured +in material statistics, the battle of Kent Lansing against the board of +directors of the Aquitania Corporation would have been listed among the greatest +carnages of history. But the things he fought were not solid enough to leave +anything as substantial as corpses on the battlefield. +He had to fight phenomena such as: "Listen, Palmer, Lansing’s talking about +somebody named Roark, how’re you going to vote, do the big boys approve of him +or not?" +"I’m not going to decide till I know who’s voted for or against." +"Lansing says...but on the other hand, Thorpe tells me..."Talbot’s putting up a +swank hotel on Fifth up in the sixties--and he’s got Francon & Keating." "Harper +swears by this young fellow--Gordon Prescott." "Listen, Betsy says we’re crazy." +"I don’t like Roark’s face--he doesn’t look co-operative." "I know, I feel it, +Roark’s the kind that don’t fit in. He’s not a regular fellow." +"What’s a regular fellow?" +"Aw hell, you know very well what I mean: regular." +"Thompson says that Mrs. Pritchett says that she knows for certain because Mr. +Macy told her that if..." +"Well, boys, I don’t give a damn what anybody says, I make up my own mind, and +269 + + I’m here to tell you that I think this Roark is lousy. I don’t like the Enright +House." +"Why?" +"I don’t know why. I just don’t like it, and that’s that. Haven’t I got a right +to an opinion of my own?" +The battle lasted for weeks. Everybody had his say, except Roark. Lansing told +him: "It’s all right. Lay off. Don’t do anything. Let me do the talking. There’s +nothing you can do. When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is +to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say. It’s taken for +granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in +advance as prejudiced--since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. +It’s so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in +hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain +is more than I’ll ever understand. However, that’s how it’s done. You see, +reasons require scales to weigh them. And scales are not made of cotton. And +cotton is what the human spirit is made of--you know, the stuff that keeps no +shape and offers no resistance and can be twisted forward and backward and into +a pretzel. You could tell them why they should hire you so very much better than +I could. But they won’t listen to you and they’ll listen to me. Because I’m the +middleman. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line--it’s +a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter. Such is the psychology of a +pretzel." +"Why are you fighting for me like that?" Roark asked. +"Why are you a good architect? Because you have certain standards of what is +good, and they’re your own, and you stand by them. I want a good hotel, and I +have certain standards of what is good, and they’re my own, and you’re the one +who can give me what I want. And when I fight for you, I’m doing--on my side of +it--just what you’re doing when you design a building. Do you think integrity is +the monopoly of the artist? And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? +The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor’s pocket? No, it’s not as +easy as that. If that were all, I’d say ninety-five percent of humanity were +honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren’t. Integrity is the ability +to stand by an idea. That presupposes the ability to think. Thinking is +something one doesn’t borrow or pawn. And yet, if I were asked to choose a +symbol for humanity as we know it, I wouldn’t choose a cross nor an eagle nor a +lion and unicorn. I’d choose three gilded balls." +And as Roark looked at him, he added: "Don’t worry. They’re all against me. But +I have one advantage: they don’t know what they want. I do." +At the end of July, Roark signed a contract to build the Aquitania. +# +Ellsworth Toohey sat in his office, looking at a newspaper spread out on his +desk, at the item announcing the Aquitania contract. He smoked, holding a +cigarette propped in the corner of his mouth, supported by two straight fingers; +one finger tapped against the cigarette, slowly, rhythmically, for a long time. +He heard the sound of his door thrown open, and he glanced up to see Dominique +standing there, leaning against the doorjamb, her arms crossed on her chest. Her +face looked interested, nothing more, but it was alarming to see an expression +of actual interest on her face. +"My dear," he said, rising, "this is the first time you’ve taken the trouble to +270 + + enter my office--in the four years that we’ve worked in the same building. This +is really an occasion." +She said nothing, but smiled gently, which was still more alarming. He added, +his voice pleasant: "My little speech, of course, was the equivalent of a +question. Or don’t we understand each other any longer?" +"I suppose we don’t--if you find it necessary to ask what brought me here. But +you know it, Ellsworth, you know it; there it is on your desk." She walked to +the desk and flipped a comer of the newspaper. She laughed. "Do you wish you had +it hidden somewhere? Of course you didn’t expect me to come. Not that it makes +any difference. But I just like to see you being obvious for once. Right on your +desk, like that. Open at the real-estate page, too." +"You sound as if that little piece of news had made you happy." +"It did, Ellsworth. It does." +"I thought you had worked hard to prevent that contract." +"I had." +"If you think this is an act you’re putting on right now, Dominique, you’re +fooling yourself. This isn’t an act." +"No, Ellsworth. This isn’t." +"You’re happy that Roark got it?" +"I’m so happy. I could sleep with this Kent Lansing, whoever he is, if I ever +met him and if he asked me." +"Then the pact is off?" +"By no means. I shall try to stop any job that comes his way. I shall continue +trying. It’s not going to be so easy as it was, though. The Enright House, the +Cord Building--and this. Not so easy for me--and for you. He’s beating you, +Ellsworth. Ellsworth, what if we were wrong about the world, you and I?" +"You’ve always been, my dear. Do forgive me. I should have known better than to +be astonished. It would make you happy, of course, that he got it. I don’t even +mind admitting that it doesn’t make me happy at all. There, you see? Now your +visit to my office has been a complete success. So we shall just write the +Aquitania off as a major defeat, forget all about it and continue as we were." +"Certainly, Ellsworth. Just as we were. I’m cinching a beautiful new hospital +for Peter Keating at a dinner party tonight." +Ellsworth Toohey went home and spent the evening thinking about Hopton Stoddard. +Hopton Stoddard was a little man worth twenty million dollars. Three +inheritances had contributed to that sum, and seventy-two years of a busy life +devoted to the purpose of making money. Hopton Stoddard had a genius for +investment; he invested in everything--houses of ill fame, Broadway spectacles +on the grand scale, preferably of a religious nature, factories, farm mortgages +and contraceptives. He was small and bent. His face was not disfigured; people +merely thought it was, because it had a single expression: he smiled. His little +mouth was shaped like a v in eternal good cheer; his eyebrows were tiny v’s +inverted over round, blue eyes; his hair, rich, white and waved, looked like a +271 + + wig, but was real. +Toohey had known Hopton Stoddard for many years and exercised a strong influence +upon him. Hopton Stoddard had never married, had no relatives and no friends; he +distrusted people, believing that they were always after his money. But he felt +a tremendous respect for Ellsworth Toohey, because Toohey represented the exact +opposite of his own life; Toohey had no concern whatever for worldly wealth; by +the mere fact of this contrast, he considered Toohey the personification of +virtue; what this estimate implied in regard to his own life never quite +occurred to him. He was not easy in his mind about his life, and the uneasiness +grew with the years, with the certainty of an approaching end. He found relief +in religion--in the form of a bribe. He experimented with several different +creeds, attended services, donated large sums and switched to another faith. As +the years passed, the tempo of his quest accelerated; it had the tone of panic. +Toohey’s indifference to religion was the only flaw that disturbed him in the +person of his friend and mentor. But everything Toohey preached seemed in line +with God’s law: charity, sacrifice, help to the poor. Hopton Stoddard felt safe +whenever he followed Toohey’s advice. He donated handsomely to the institutions +recommended by Toohey, without much prompting. In matters of the spirit he +regarded Toohey upon earth somewhat as he expected to regard God in heaven. +But this summer Toohey met defeat with Hopton Stoddard for the first time. +Hopton Stoddard decided to realize a dream which he had been planning slyly and +cautiously, like all his other investments, for several years: he decided to +build a temple. It was not to be the temple of any particular creed, but an +interdenominational, non-sectarian monument to religion, a cathedral of faith, +open to all. Hopton Stoddard wanted to play safe. +He felt crushed when Ellsworth Toohey advised him against the project. Toohey +wanted a building to house a new home for subnormal children; he had an +organization set up, a distinguished committee of sponsors, an endowment for +operating expenses--but no building and no funds to erect one. If Hopton +Stoddard wished a worthy memorial to his name, a grand climax of his generosity, +to what nobler purpose could he dedicate his money than to the Hopton Stoddard +Home for Subnormal Children, Toohey pointed out to him emphatically; to the poor +little blighted ones for whom nobody cared. But Hopton Stoddard could not be +aroused to any enthusiasm for a Home nor for any mundane institution. It had to +be "The Hopton Stoddard Temple of the Human Spirit." +He could offer no arguments against Toohey’s brilliant array; he could say +nothing except: "No, Ellsworth, no, it’s not right, not right." The matter was +left unsettled. Hopton Stoddard would not budge, but Toohey’s disapproval made +him uncomfortable and he postponed his decision from day to day. He knew only +that he would have to decide by the end of summer, because in the fall he was to +depart on a long journey, a world tour of the holy shrines of all faiths, from +Lourdes to Jerusalem to Mecca to Benares. +A few days after the announcement of the Aquitania contract Toohey came to see +Hopton Stoddard, in the evening, in the privacy of Stoddard’s vast, overstuffed +apartment on Riverside Drive. +"Hopton," he said cheerfully, "I was wrong. You were right about that temple." +"No!" said Hopton Stoddard, aghast. +"Yes," said Toohey, "you were right. Nothing else would be quite fitting. You +must build a temple. A Temple of the Human Spirit." +272 + + Hopton Stoddard swallowed, and his blue eyes became moist. He felt that he must +have progressed far upon the path of righteousness if he had been able to teach +a point of virtue to his teacher. After that, nothing else mattered; he sat, +like a meek, wrinkled baby, listening to Ellsworth Toohey, nodding, agreeing to +everything. +"It’s an ambitious undertaking, Hopton, and if you do it, you must do it right. +It’s a little presumptuous, you know--offering a present to God--and unless you +do it in the best way possible, it will be offensive, not reverent." +"Yes, of course. It must be right. It must be right. It must be the best. You’ll +help me, won’t you, Ellsworth? You know all about buildings and art and +everything--it must be right." +"I’ll be glad to help you, if you really want me to." +"If I want you to! What do you mean--if I want...! Goodness gracious, what would +I do without you? I don’t know anything about...about anything like that. And it +must be right." +"If you want it right, will you do exactly as I say?" +"Yes. Yes. Yes, of course." +"First of all, the architect. That’s very important." +"Yes, indeed." +"You don’t want one of those satin-lined commercial boys with the dollar sign +all over them. You want a man who believes in his work as--as you believe in +God." +"That’s right. That’s absolutely right." +"You must take the one I name." +"Certainly. Who’s that?" +"Howard Roark." +"Huh?" Hopton Stoddard looked blank. "Who’s he?" +"He’s the man who’s going to build the Temple of the Human Spirit." +"Is he any good?" +Ellsworth Toohey turned and looked straight into his eyes. +"By my immortal soul, Hopton," he said slowly, "he’s the best there is." +"Oh!..." +"But he’s difficult to get. He doesn’t work except on certain conditions. You +must observe them scrupulously. You must give him complete freedom. Tell him +what you want and how much you want to spend, and leave the rest up to him. Let +him design it and build it as he wishes. He won’t work otherwise. Just tell him +frankly that you know nothing about architecture and that you chose him because +you felt he was the only one who could be trusted to do it right without advice +273 + + or interference." +"Okay, if you vouch for him." +"I vouch for him." +"That’s fine. And I don’t care how much it costs me." +"But you must be careful about approaching him. I think he will refuse to do it, +at first. He will tell you that he doesn’t believe in God." +"What!" +"Don’t believe him. He’s a profoundly religious man--in his own way. You can see +that in his buildings." +"Oh." +"But he doesn’t belong to any established church. So you won’t appear partial. +You won’t offend anyone." +"That’s good." +"Now, when you deal in matters of faith, you must be the first one to have +faith. Is that right?" +"That’s right." +"Don’t wait to see his drawings. They will take some time--and you mustn’t delay +your trip. Just hire him--don’t sign a contract, it’s not necessary--make +arrangements for your bank to take care of the financial end and let him do the +rest. You don’t have to pay him his fee until you return. In a year or so, when +you come back after seeing all those great temples, you’ll have a better one of +your own, waiting here for you." +"That’s just what I wanted." +"But you must think of the proper unveiling to the public, the proper +dedication, the right publicity." +"Of course...That is, publicity?" +"Certainly. Do you know of any great event that’s not accompanied by a good +publicity campaign? One that isn’t, can’t be much. If you skimp on that, it will +be downright disrespectful." +"That’s true." +"Now if you want the proper publicity, you must plan it carefully, well in +advance. What you want, when you unveil it, is one grand fanfare, like an opera +overture, like a blast on Gabriel’s horn." +"That’s beautiful, the way you put it." +"Well, to do that you mustn’t allow a lot of newspaper punks to dissipate your +effect by dribbling out premature stories. Don’t release the drawings of the +temple. Keep them secret. Tell Roark that you want them kept secret. He won’t +object to that. Have the contractor put up a solid fence all around the site +while it’s being built. No one’s to know what it’s like until you come back and +274 + + preside at the unveiling in person. Then--pictures in every damn paper in the +country!" +"Ellsworth!" +"I beg your pardon." +"The idea’s right. That’s how we put over The Legend of the Virgin, ten years +ago that was, with a cast of ninety-seven." +"Yes. But in the meantime, keep the public interested. Get yourself a good press +agent and tell him how you want it handled. I’ll give you the name of an +excellent one. See to it that there’s something about the mysterious Stoddard +Temple in the papers every other week or so. Keep ’em guessing. Keep ’em +waiting. They’ll be good and ready when the time comes." +"Right." +"But, above all, don’t let Roark know that I recommended him. Don’t breathe a +word to anyone about my having anything to do with it. Not to a soul. Swear it." +"But why?" +"Because I have too many friends who are architects, and it’s such an important +commission, and I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings." +"Yes. That’s true." +"Swear it." +"Oh, Ellsworth!" +"Swear it. By the salvation of your soul." +"I swear it. By...that." +"All right. Now you’ve never dealt with architects, and he’s an unusual kind of +architect, and you don’t want to muff it. So I’ll tell you exactly what you’re +to say to him." +On the following day Toohey walked into Dominique’s office. He stood at her +desk, smiled and said, his voice unsmiling: +"Do you remember Hopton Stoddard and that temple of all faith that he’s been +talking about for six years?" +"Vaguely." +"He’s going to build it." +"Is he?" +"He’s giving the job to Howard Roark." +"Not really!" +"Really." +"Well, of all the incredible...Not Hopton!" +275 + + "Hopton." +"Oh, all right. I’ll go to work on him." +"No. You lay off. I told him to give it to Roark." +She sat still, exactly as the words caught her, the amusement gone from her +face. He added: +"I wanted you to know that I did it, so there won’t be any tactical +contradictions. No one else knows it or is to know it. I trust you to remember +that." +She asked, her lips moving tightly: "What are you after?" +He smiled. He said: +"I’m going to make him famous." +# +Roark sat in Hopton Stoddard’s office and listened, stupefied. Hopton Stoddard +spoke slowly; it sounded earnest and impressive, but was due to the fact that he +had memorized his speeches almost verbatim. His baby eyes looked at Roark with +an ingratiating plea. For once, Roark almost forgot architecture and placed the +human element first; he wanted to get up and get out of the office; he could not +stand the man. But the words he heard held him; the words did not match the +man’s face or voice. +"So you see, Mr. Roark, though it is to be a religious edifice, it is also more +than that. You notice that we call it the Temple of the Human Spirit. We want to +capture--in stone, as others capture in music--not some narrow creed, but the +essence of all religion. And what is the essence of religion? The great +aspiration of the human spirit toward the highest, the noblest, the best. The +human spirit as the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great +life-giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit. That is your +assignment, Mr. Roark." +Roark rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, helplessly. It was not +possible. It simply was not possible. That could not be what the man wanted; not +that man. It seemed horrible to hear him say that. +"Mr. Stoddard, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake," he said, his voice slow and +tired. "I don’t think I’m the man you want. I don’t think it would be right for +me to undertake it. I don’t believe in God." +He was astonished to see Hopton Stoddard’s expression of delight and triumph. +Hopton Stoddard glowed in appreciation--in appreciation of the clairvoyant +wisdom of Ellsworth Toohey who was always right. He drew himself up with new +confidence, and he said firmly, for the first time in the tone of an old man +addressing a youth, wise and gently patronizing: +"That doesn’t matter. You’re a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark--in your own +way. I can see that in your buildings." +He wondered why Roark stared at him like that, without moving, for such a long +time. +"That’s true," said Roark. It was almost a whisper. +276 + + That he should learn something about himself, about his buildings, from this man +who had seen it and known it before he knew it, that this man should say it with +that air of tolerant confidence implying full understanding--removed Roark’s +doubts. He told himself that he did not really understand people; that an +impression could be deceptive; that Hopton Stoddard would be far on another +continent away; that nothing mattered in the face of such an assignment; that +nothing could matter when a human voice--even Hopton Stoddard’s--was going on, +saying: +"I wish to call it God. You may choose any other name. But what I want in that +building is your spirit. Your spirit, Mr. Roark. Give me the best of that--and +you will have done your job, as I shall have done mine. Do not worry about the +meaning I wish conveyed. Let it be your spirit in the shape of a building--and +it will have that meaning, whether you know it or not." +And so Roark agreed to build the Stoddard Temple of the Human Spirit. + +11. +IN DECEMBER the Cosmo-Slotnick Building was opened with great ceremony. There +were celebrities, flower horseshoes, newsreel cameras, revolving searchlights +and three hours of speeches, all alike. +I should be happy, Peter Keating told himself--and wasn’t. He watched from a +window the solid spread of faces filling Broadway from curb to curb. He tried to +talk himself into joy. He felt nothing. He had to admit that he was bored. But +he smiled and shook hands and let himself be photographed. The Cosmo-Slotnick +Building rose ponderously over the street, like a big white bromide. +After the ceremonies Ellsworth Toohey took Keating away to the retreat of a +pale-orchid booth in a quiet, expensive restaurant. Many brilliant parties were +being given in honor of the opening, but Keating grasped Toohey’s offer and +declined all the other invitations. Toohey watched him as he seized his drink +and slumped in his seat. +"Wasn’t it grand?" said Toohey. ’That, Peter, is the climax of what you can +expect from life." He lifted his glass delicately. "Here’s to the hope that you +shall have many triumphs such as this. Such as tonight." +"Thanks," said Keating, and reached for his glass hastily, without looking, and +lifted it, to find it empty. +"Don’t you feel proud, Peter?" +"Yes. Yes, of course." +"That’s good. That’s how I like to see you. You looked extremely handsome +tonight. You’ll be splendid in those newsreels." +A flicker of interest snapped in Keating’s eyes. "Well, I sure hope so." +"It’s too bad you’re not married, Peter. A wife would have been most decorative +tonight. Goes well with the public. With the movie audiences, too." +"Katie doesn’t photograph well." +277 + + "Oh, that’s right, you’re engaged to Katie. So stupid of me. I keep forgetting +it. No, Katie doesn’t photograph well at all. Also, for the life of me, I can’t +imagine Katie being very effective at a social function. There are a great many +nice adjectives one could use about Katie, but ’poised’ and ’distinguished’ are +not among them. You must forgive me, Peter. I let my imagination run away with +me. Dealing with art as much as I do, I’m inclined to see things purely from the +viewpoint of artistic fitness. And looking at you tonight, I couldn’t help +thinking of the woman who would have made such a perfect picture by your side." +"Who?" +"Oh, don’t pay attention to me. It’s only an esthetic fancy. Life is never as +perfect as that. People have too much to envy you for. You couldn’t add that to +your other achievements." +"Who?" +"Drop it, Peter. You can’t get her. Nobody can get her. You’re good, but you’re +not good enough for that." +"Who?" +"Dominique Francon, of course." +Keating sat up straight and Toohey saw wariness in his eyes, rebellion, actual +hostility. Toohey held his glance calmly. It was Keating who gave in; he slumped +again and he said, pleading: +"Oh, God, Ellsworth, I don’t love her." +"I never thought you did. But I do keep forgetting the exaggerated importance +which the average man attaches to love--sexual love." +"I’m not an average man," said Keating wearily; it was an automatic +protest--without fire. +"Sit up, Peter. You don’t look like a hero, slumped that way." +Keating jerked himself up--anxious and angry. He said: +"I’ve always felt that you wanted me to marry Dominique. Why? What’s it to you?" +"You’ve answered your own question, Peter. What could it possibly be to me? But +we were speaking of love. Sexual love, Peter, is a profoundly selfish emotion. +And selfish emotions are not the ones that lead to happiness. Are they? Take +tonight for instance. That was an evening to swell an egotist’s heart. Were you +happy, Peter? Don’t bother, my dear, no answer is required. The point I wish to +make is only that one must mistrust one’s most personal impulses. What one +desires is actually of so little importance! One can’t expect to find happiness +until one realizes this completely. Think of tonight for a moment. You, my dear +Peter, were the least important person there. Which is as it should be. It is +not the doer that counts but those for whom things are done. But you were not +able to accept that--and so you didn’t feel the great elation that should have +been yours." +"That’s true," whispered Keating. He would not have admitted it to anyone else. +"You missed the beautiful pride of utter selflessness. Only when you learn to +278 + + deny your ego, completely, only when you learn to be amused by such piddling +sentimentalities as your little sex urges--only then will you achieve the +greatness which I have always expected of you." +"You...you believe that about me, Ellsworth? You really do?" +"I wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t. But to come back to love. Personal +love, Peter, is a great evil--as everything personal. And it always leads to +misery. Don’t you see why? Personal love is an act of discrimination, of +preference. It is an act of injustice--to every human being on earth whom you +rob of the affection arbitrarily granted to one. You must love all men equally. +But you cannot achieve so noble an emotion if you don’t kill your selfish little +choices. They are vicious and futile--since they contradict the first cosmic +law--the basic equality of all men." +"You mean," said Keating, suddenly interested, "that in a...in a philosophical +way, deep down, I mean, we’re all equal? All of us?" +"Of course," said Toohey. +Keating wondered why the thought was so warmly pleasant to him. He did not mind +that this made him the equal of every pickpocket in the crowd gathered to +celebrate his building tonight; it occurred to him dimly--and left him +undisturbed, even though it contradicted the passionate quest for superiority +that had driven him all his life. The contradiction did not matter; he was not +thinking of tonight nor of the crowd; he was thinking of a man who had not been +there tonight. +"You know, Ellsworth," he said, leaning forward, happy in an uneasy kind of way, +"I...I’d rather talk to you than do anything else, anything at all. I had so +many places to go tonight--and I’m so much happier just sitting here with you. +Sometimes I wonder how I’d ever go on without you." +"That," said Toohey, "is as it should be. Or else what are friends for?" +# +That winter the annual costume Arts Ball was an event of greater brilliance and +originality than usual. Athelstan Beasely, the leading spirit of its +organization, had had what he called a stroke of genius: all the architects were +invited to come dressed as their best buildings. It was a huge success. +Peter Keating was the star of the evening. He looked wonderful as the +Cosmo-Slotnick Building. An exact papier-mâché replica of his famous structure +covered him from head to knees; one could not see his face, but his bright eyes +peered from behind the windows of the top floor, and the crowning pyramid of the +roof rose over his head; the colonnade hit him somewhere about the diaphragm, +and he wagged a finger through the portals of the great entrance door. His legs +were free to move with his usual elegance, in faultless dress trousers and +patent-leather pumps. +Guy Francon was very impressive as the Frink National Bank Building, although +the structure looked a little squatter than in the original, in order to allow +for Francon’s stomach; the Hadrian torch over his head had a real electric bulb +lit by a miniature battery. Ralston Holcombe was magnificent as a state capitol, +and Gordon L. Prescott was very masculine as a grain elevator. Eugene Pettingill +waddled about on his skinny, ancient legs, small and bent, an imposing Park +Avenue hotel, with horn-rimmed spectacles peering from under the majestic tower. +Two wits engaged in a duel, butting each other in the belly with famous spires, +great landmarks of the city that greet the ships approaching from across the +279 + + ocean. Everybody had lots of fun. +Many of the architects, Athelstan Beasely in particular, commented resentfully +on Howard Roark who had been invited and did not come. They had expected to see +him dressed as the Enright House. +# +Dominique stopped in the hall and stood looking at the door, at the inscription: +"HOWARD ROARK, ARCHITECT." +She had never seen his office. She had fought against coming here for a long +time. But she had to see the place where he worked. +The secretary in the reception room was startled when Dominique gave her name, +but announced the visitor to Roark. "Go right in, Miss Francon," she said. +Roark smiled when she entered his office; a faint smile without surprise. +"I knew you’d come here some day," he said. "Want me to show you the place?" +"What’s that?" she asked. +His hands were smeared with clay; on a long table, among a litter of unfinished +sketches, stood the clay model of a building, a rough study of angles and +terraces. +"The Aquitania?" she asked. +He nodded. +"Do you always do that?" +"No. Not always. Sometimes. There’s a hard problem here. I like to play with it +for a while. It will probably be my favorite building--it’s so difficult." +"Go ahead. I want to watch you doing that. Do you mind?" +"Not at all." +In a moment, he had forgotten her presence. She sat in a corner and watched his +hands. She saw them molding walls. She saw them smash a part of the structure, +and begin again, slowly, patiently, with a strange certainty even in his +hesitation. She saw the palm of his hand smooth a long, straight plane, she saw +an angle jerked across the space in the motion of his hand before she saw it in +clay. +She rose and walked to the window. The buildings of the city far below looked no +bigger than the model on his table. It seemed to her that she could see his +hands shaping the setbacks, the corners, the roofs of all the structures below, +smashing and molding again. Her hand moved absently, following the form of a +distant building in rising steps, feeling a physical sense of possession, +feeling it for him. +She turned back to the table. A strand of hair hung down over his face bent +attentively to the model; he was not looking at her, he was looking at the shape +under his fingers. It was almost as if she were watching his hands moving over +the body of another woman. She leaned against the wall, weak with a feeling of +violent, physical pleasure. +# +280 + + At the beginning of January, while the first steel columns rose from the +excavations that were to become the Cord Building and the Aquitania Hotel, Roark +worked on the drawings for the Temple. +When the first sketches were finished, he said to his secretary: +"Get me Steve Mallory." +"Mallory, Mr. Roark? Who...Oh, yes, the shooting sculptor." +"The what?" +"He took a shot at Ellsworth Toohey, didn’t he?" +"Did he? Yes, that’s right." +"Is that the one you want, Mr. Roark?" +"That’s the one." +For two days the secretary telephoned art dealers, galleries, architects, +newspapers. No one could tell her what had become of Steven Mallory or where he +could be found. On the third day she reported to Roark: "I’ve found an address, +in the Village, which I’m told might be his. There’s no telephone." Roark +dictated a letter asking Mallory to telephone his office. +The letter was not returned, but a week passed without answer. Then Steven +Mallory telephoned. +"Hello?" said Roark, when the secretary switched the call to him. +"Steven Mallory speaking," said a young, hard voice, in a way that left an +impatient, belligerent silence after the words. +"I should like to see you, Mr. Mallory. Can we make an appointment for you to +come to my office?" +"What do you want to see me about?" +"About a commission, of course. I want you to do some work for a building of +mine." There was a long silence. +"All right," said Mallory; his voice sounded dead. He added: "Which building?" +"The Stoddard Temple. You may have heard..." +"Yeah, I heard. You’re doing it. Who hasn’t heard? Will you pay me as much as +you’re paying your press agent?" +"I’m not paying the press agent. I’ll pay you whatever you wish to ask." +"You know that can’t be much." +"What time would it be convenient for you to come here?" +"Oh, hell, you name it. You know I’m not busy." +"Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon?" +281 + + "All right." He added: "I don’t like your voice." Roark laughed. "I like yours. +Cut it out and be here tomorrow at two." +"Okay." Mallory hung up. +Roark dropped the receiver, grinning. But the grin vanished suddenly, and he sat +looking at the telephone, his face grave. +Mallory did not keep the appointment. Three days passed without a word from him. +Then Roark went to find him in person. +The rooming house where Mallory lived was a dilapidated brownstone in an +unlighted street that smelled of a fish market. There was a laundry and a +cobbler on the ground floor, at either side of a narrow entrance. A slatternly +landlady said: "Mallory? Fifth floor rear," and shuffled away indifferently. +Roark climbed sagging wooden stairs lighted by bulbs stuck in a web of pipes. He +knocked at a grimy door. +The door opened. A gaunt young man stood on the threshold; he had disheveled +hair, a strong mouth with a square lower lip, and the most expressive eyes that +Roark had ever seen. "What do you want?" he snapped. "Mr. Mallory?" +"Yeah." +"I’m Howard Roark." +Mallory laughed, leaning against the doorjamb, one arm stretched across the +opening, with no intention of stepping aside. He was obviously drunk. "Well, +well!" he said. "In person." +"May I come in?" +"What for?" +Roark sat down on the stair banister. "Why didn’t you keep your appointment?" +"Oh, the appointment? Oh, yes. Well, I’ll tell you," Mallory said gravely. "It +was like this: I really intended to keep it, I really did, and I started out for +your office, but on my way there I passed a movie theater that was showing Two +Heads on a Pillow, so I went in. I just had to see Two Heads on a Pillow." He +grinned, sagging against his stretched arm. "You’d better let me come in," said +Roark quietly. "Oh, what the hell, come in." +The room was a narrow hole. There was an unmade bed in a corner, a litter of +newspapers and old clothes, a gas ring, a framed landscape from the +five-and-ten, representing some sort of sick brown meadows with sheep; there +were no drawings or figures, no hints of the occupant’s profession. +Roark pushed some books and a skillet off the only chair, and sat down. Mallory +stood before him, grinning, swaying a little. +"You’re doing it all wrong," said Mallory. "That’s not the way it’s done. You +must be pretty hard up to come running after a sculptor. The way it’s done is +like this: You make me come to your office, and the first time I come you +mustn’t be there. The second time you must keep me waiting for an hour and a +half, then come out into the reception room and shake hands and ask me whether I +know the Wilsons of Podunk and say how nice that we have mutual friends, but +you’re in an awful hurry today and you’ll call me up for lunch soon and then +282 + + we’ll talk business. Then you keep this up for two months. Then you give me the +commission. Then you tell me that I’m no good and wasn’t any good in the first +place, and you throw the thing into the ash can. Then you hire Valerian Bronson +and he does the job. That’s the way it’s done. Only not this time." +But his eyes were studying Roark intently, and his eyes had the certainty of a +professional. As he spoke, his voice kept losing its swaggering gaiety, and it +slipped to a dead flatness on the last sentences. +"No," said Roark, "not this time." +The boy stood looking at him silently. +"You’re Howard Roark?" he asked. "I like your buildings. That’s why I didn’t +want to meet you. So I wouldn’t have to be sick every time I looked at them. I +wanted to go on thinking that they had to be done by somebody who matched them." +"What if I do?" +"That doesn’t happen." +But he sat down on the edge of the crumpled bed and slumped forward, his glance +like a sensitive scale weighing Roark’s features, impertinent in its open action +of appraisal. +"Listen," said Roark, speaking clearly and very carefully, "I want you to do a +statue for the Stoddard Temple. Give me a piece of paper and I’ll write you a +contract right now, stating that I will owe you a million dollars damages if I +hire another sculptor or if your work is not used." +"You can speak normal. I’m not drunk. Not all the way. I understand." +"Well?" +"Why did you pick me?" +"Because you’re a good sculptor." +"That’s not true." +"That you’re good?" +"No. That it’s your reason. Who asked you to hire me?" +"Nobody." +"Some woman I laid?" +"I don’t know any women you laid." +"Stuck on your building budget?" +"No. The budget’s unlimited." +"Feel sorry for me?" +"No. Why should I?" +"Want to get publicity out of that shooting Toohey business?" +283 + + "Good God, no!" +"Well, what then?" +"Why did you fish for all that nonsense instead of the simplest reason?" +"Which?" +"That I like your work." +"Sure. That’s what they all say. That’s what we’re all supposed to say and to +believe. Imagine what would happen if somebody blew the lid off that one! So, +all right, you like my work. What’s the real reason?" +"I like your work." +Mallory spoke earnestly, his voice sober. +"You mean you saw the things I’ve done, and you like +them--you--yourself--alone--without anyone telling you that you should like them +or why you should like them--and you decided that you wanted me, for that +reason--only for that reason--without knowing anything about me or giving a +damn--only because of the things I’ve done and...and what you saw in them--only +because of that, you decided to hire me, and you went to the bother of finding +me and coming here, and being insulted--only because you saw--and what you saw +made me important to you, made you want me? Is that what you mean?" +"Just that," said Roark. +The things that pulled Mallory’s eyes wide were frightening to see. Then he +shook his head, and said very simply, in the tone of soothing himself: +"No." +He leaned forward. His voice sounded dead and pleading. +"Listen, Mr. Roark. I won’t be mad at you. I just want to know. All right, I see +that you’re set on having me work for you, and you know you can get me, for +anything you say, you don’t have to sign any million-dollar contract, look at +this room, you know you’ve got me, so why shouldn’t you tell me the truth? It +won’t make any difference to you--and it’s very important to me." +"What’s very important to you?" +"Not to...not to...Look. I didn’t think anybody’d ever want me again. But you +do. All right. I’ll go through it again. Only I don’t want to think again that +I’m working for somebody who...who likes my work. That, I couldn’t go through +any more. I’ll feel better if you tell me, I’ll...I’ll feel calmer. Why should +you put on an act for me? I’m nothing. I won’t think less of you, if that’s what +you’re afraid of. Don’t you see? It’s much more decent to tell me the truth. +Then it will be simple and honest. I’ll respect you more. Really, I will." +"What’s the matter with you, kid? What have they done to you? Why do you want to +say things like that?" +"Because..." Mallory roared suddenly, and then his voice broke, and his head +dropped, and he finished in a flat whisper: "because I’ve spent two years"--his +hand circled limply indicating the room--"that’s how I’ve spent them--trying to +284 + + get used to the fact that what you’re trying to tell me doesn’t exist...." +Roark walked over to him, lifted his chin, knocking it upward, and said: +"You’re a God-damn fool. You have no right to care what I think of your work, +what I am or why I’m here. You’re too good for that. But if you want to know +it--I think you’re the best sculptor we’ve got. I think it, because your figures +are not what men are, but what men could be--and should be. Because you’ve gone +beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through +you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work +I’ve ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. +Because your figures are the heroic in man. And so I didn’t come here to do you +a favor or because I felt sorry for you or because you need a job pretty badly. +I came for a simple, selfish reason--the same reason that makes a man choose the +cleanest food he can find. It’s a law of survival, isn’t it?--to seek the best. +I didn’t come for your sake. I came for mine." +Mallory jerked himself away from him, and dropped face down on the bed, his two +arms stretched out, one on each side of his head, hands closed into fists. The +thin trembling of the shirt cloth on his back showed that he was sobbing; the +shirt cloth and the fists that twisted slowly, digging into the pillow. Roark +knew that he was looking at a man who had never cried before. He sat down on the +side of the bed and could not take his eyes off the twisting wrists, even though +the sight was hard to bear. +After a while Mallory sat up. He looked at Roark and saw the calmest, kindest +face--a face without a hint of pity. It did not look like the countenance of men +who watch the agony of another with a secret pleasure, uplifted by the sight of +a beggar who needs their compassion; it did not bear the cast of the hungry soul +that feeds upon another’s humiliation. Roark’s face seemed tired, drawn at the +temples, as if he had just taken a beating. But his eyes were serene and they +looked at Mallory quietly, a hard, clean glance of understanding--and respect. +"Lie down now," said Roar. "Lie still for a while." +"How did they ever let you survive?" +"Lie down. Rest. We’ll talk afterward." +Mallory got up. Roark took him by the shoulders, forced him down, lifted his +legs off the floor, lowered his head on the pillow. The boy did not resist. +Stepping back, Roark brushed against a table loaded with junk. Something +clattered to the floor. Mallory jerked forward, trying to reach it first. Roark +pushed his arm aside and picked up the object. +It was a small plaster plaque, the kind sold in cheap gift shops. It represented +a baby sprawled on its stomach, dimpled rear forward, peeking coyly over its +shoulder. A few lines, the structure of a few muscles showed a magnificent +talent that could not be hidden, that broke fiercely through the rest; the rest +was a deliberate attempt to be obvious, vulgar and trite, a clumsy effort, +unconvincing and tortured. It was an object that belonged in a chamber of +horrors. +Mallory saw Roark’s hand begin to shake. Then Roark’s arm went back and up, over +his head, slowly, as if gathering the weight of air in the crook of his elbow; +it was only a flash, but it seemed to last for minutes, the arm stood lifted and +still--then it slashed forward, the plaque shot across the room and burst to +pieces against the wall. It was the only time anyone had ever seen Roark +285 + + murderously angry. +"Roark." +"Yes?" +"Roark, I wish I’d met you before you had a job to give me." He spoke without +expression, his head lying back on the pillow, his eyes closed. "So that there +would be no other reason mixed in. Because, you see, I’m very grateful to you. +Not for giving me a job. Not for coming here. Not for anything you’ll ever do +for me. Just for what you are." +Then he lay without moving, straight and limp, like a man long past the stage of +suffering. Roark stood at the window, looking at the wrenched room and at the +boy on the bed. He wondered why he felt as if he were waiting. He was waiting +for an explosion over their heads. It seemed senseless. Then he understood. He +thought, this is how men feel, trapped in a shell hole; this room is not an +accident of poverty, it’s the footprint of a war; it’s the devastation torn by +explosives more vicious than any stored in the arsenals of the world. A +war...against?...The enemy had no name and no face. But this boy was a +comrade-in-arms, hurt in battle, and Roark stood over him, feeling a strange new +thing, a desire to lift him in his arms and carry him to safety...Only the hell +and the safety had no known designations...He kept thinking of Kent Lansing, +trying to remember something Kent Lansing had said... +Then Mallory opened his eyes, and lifted himself up on one elbow. Roark pulled +the chair over to the bed and sat down. +"Now," he said, "talk. Talk about the things you really want said. Don’t tell me +about your family, your childhood, your friends or your feelings. Tell me about +the things you think." +Mallory looked at him incredulously and whispered: +"How did you know that?" +Roark smiled and said nothing. +"How did you know what’s been killing me? Slowly, for years, driving me to hate +people when I don’t want to hate....Have you felt it, too? Have you seen how +your best friends love everything about you--except the things that count? And +your most important is nothing to them, nothing, not even a sound they can +recognize. You mean, you want to hear? You want to know what I do and why I do +it, you want to know what I think! It’s not boring to you? It’s important?" +"Go ahead," said Roark. +Then he sat for hours, listening, while Mallory spoke of his work, of the +thoughts behind his work, of the thoughts that shaped his life, spoke +gluttonously, like a drowning man flung out to shore, getting drunk on huge, +clean snatches of air. +# +Mallory came to Roark’s office on the following morning, and Roark showed him +the sketches of the Temple. When he stood at a drafting table, with a problem to +consider, Mallory changed; there was no uncertainty in him, no remembrance of +pain; the gesture of his hand taking the drawing was sharp and sure, like that +of a soldier on duty. The gesture said that nothing ever done to him could alter +the function of the thing within him that was now called into action. He had an +286 + + unyielding, impersonal confidence; he faced Roark as an equal. +He studied the drawings for a long time, then raised his head. Everything about +his face was controlled, except his eyes. +"Like it?" Roark asked. +"Don’t use stupid words." +He held one of the drawings, walked to the window, stood looking down the sketch +to the street to Roark’s face and back again. +"It doesn’t seem possible," he said. "Not this--and that." He waved the sketch +at the street. +There was a poolroom on the corner of the street below; a rooming house with a +Corinthian portico; a billboard advertising a Broadway musical; a line of +pink-gray underwear fluttering on a roof. +"Not in the same city. Not on the same earth," said Mallory. "But you made it +happen. It’s possible....I’ll never be afraid again." +"Of what?" +Mallory put the sketch down on the table, cautiously. He answered: +"You said something yesterday about a first law. A law demanding that man seek +the best....It was funny....The unrecognized genius--that’s an old story. Have +you ever thought of a much worse one--the genius recognized too well?...That a +great many men are poor fools who can’t see the best--that’s nothing. One can’t +get angry at that. But do you understand about the men who see it and don’t want +it?" +"No." +"No. You wouldn’t. I spent all night thinking about you. I didn’t sleep at all. +Do you know what your secret is? It’s your terrible innocence." +Roark laughed aloud, looking at the boyish face. +"No," said Mallory, "it’s not funny. I know what I’m talking about--and you +don’t. You can’t know. It’s because of that absolute health of yours. You’re so +healthy that you can’t conceive of disease. You know of it. But you don’t really +believe it. I do. I’m wiser than you are about some things, because I’m weaker. +I understand--the other side. That’s what did it to me...what you saw +yesterday." +"That’s over." +"Probably. But not quite. I’m not afraid any more. But I know that the terror +exists. I know the kind of terror it is. You can’t conceive of that kind. +Listen, what’s the most horrible experience you can imagine? To me--it’s being +left, unarmed, in a sealed cell with a drooling beast of prey or a maniac who’s +had some disease that’s eaten his brain out. You’d have nothing then but your +voice--your voice and your thought. You’d scream to that creature why it should +not touch you, you’d have the most eloquent words, the unanswerable words, you’d +become the vessel of the absolute truth. And you’d see living eyes watching you +and you’d know that the thing can’t hear you, that it can’t be reached, not +reached, not in any way, yet it’s breathing and moving there before you with a +287 + + purpose of its own. That’s horror. Well, that’s what’s hanging over the world, +prowling somewhere through mankind, that same thing, something closed, mindless, +utterly wanton, but something with an aim and a cunning of its own. I don’t +think I’m a coward, but I’m afraid of it. And that’s all I know--only that it +exists. I don’t know its purpose, I don’t know its nature." +"The principle behind the Dean," said Roark. +"What?" +"It’s something I wonder about once in a while....Mallory, why did you try to +shoot Ellsworth Toohey?" He saw the boy’s eyes, and he added: "You don’t have to +tell me if you don’t like to talk about it." +"I don’t like to talk about it," said Mallory, his voice tight. "But it was the +right question to ask." +"Sit down," said Roark. "We’ll talk about your commission." +Then Mallory listened attentively while Roark spoke of the building and of what +he wanted from the sculptor. He concluded: +"Just one figure. It will stand here." He pointed to a sketch. "The place is +built around it. The statue of a naked woman. If you understand the building, +you understand what the figure must be. The human spirit. The heroic in man. The +aspiration and the fulfillment, both. Uplifted in its quest--and uplifting by +its own essence. Seeking God--and finding itself. Showing that there is no +higher reach beyond its own form....You’re the only one who can do it for me." +"Yes." +"You’ll work as I work for my clients. You know what I want--the rest is up to +you. Do it any way you wish. I’d like to suggest the model, but if she doesn’t +fit your purpose, choose anyone you prefer." +"Who’s your choice?" +"Dominique Francon." +"Oh, God!" +"Know her?" +"I’ve seen her. If I could have her...Christ! there’s no other woman so right, +for this. She..." He stopped. He added, deflated: "She won’t pose. Certainly not +for you." +"She will." +# +Guy Francon tried to object when he heard of it. +"Listen, Dominique," he said angrily, "there is a limit. There really is a +limit--even for you. Why are you doing it? Why--for a building of Roark’s of all +things? After everything you’ve said and done against him--do you wonder people +are talking? Nobody’d care or notice if it were anyone else. But you--and Roark! +I can’t go anywhere without having somebody ask me about it. What am I to do?" +"Order yourself a reproduction of the statue, Father. It’s going to be +288 + + beautiful." +Peter Keating refused to discuss it. But he met Dominique at a party and he +asked, having intended not to ask it: +"Is it true that you’re posing for a statue for Roark’s temple?" +"Yes." +"Dominique, I don’t like it." +"No?" +"Oh, I’m sorry. I know I have no right...It’s only...It’s only that of all +people, I don’t want to see you being friendly with Roark. Not Roark. Anybody +but Roark." +She looked interested: "Why?" +"I don’t know." +Her glance of curious study worried him. +"Maybe," he muttered, "maybe it’s because it has never seemed right that you +should have such contempt for his work. It made me very happy that you had, +but...but it never seemed right--for you." +"It didn’t, Peter?" +"No. But you don’t like him as a person, do you?" +"No, I don’t like him as a person." +Ellsworth Toohey was displeased. "It was most unwise of you, Dominique," he said +in the privacy of her office. His voice did not sound smooth. +"I know it was." +"Can’t you change your mind and refuse?" +"I won’t change my mind, Ellsworth." +He sat down, and shrugged; after a while he smiled. "All right, my dear, have it +your own way." +She ran a pencil through a line of copy and said nothing. +Toohey lighted a cigarette. "So he’s chosen Steven Mallory for the job," he +said. +"Yes. A funny coincidence, wasn’t it?" +"It’s no coincidence at all, my dear. Things like that are never a coincidence. +There’s a basic law behind it. Though I’m sure he doesn’t know it and nobody +helped him to choose." +"I believe you approve?" +"Wholeheartedly. It makes everything just right. Better than ever." +289 + + "Ellsworth, why did Mallory try to kill you?" +"I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know. I think Mr. Roark does. Or should. +Incidentally, who selected you to pose for that statue? Roark or Mallory?" +"That’s none of your business, Ellsworth." +"I see. Roark." +"Incidentally, I’ve told Roark that it was you who made Hopton Stoddard hire +him." +He stopped his cigarette in midair; then moved again and placed it in his mouth. +"You did? Why?" +"I saw the drawings of the Temple." +"That good?" +"Better, Ellsworth." +"What did he say when you told him?" +"Nothing. He laughed." +"He did? Nice of him. I daresay many people will join him after a while." +# +Through the months of that winter Roark seldom slept more than three hours a +night. There was a swinging sharpness in his movements, as if his body fed +energy to all those around him. The energy ran through the walls of his office +to three points of the city: to the Cord Building, in the center of Manhattan, a +tower of copper and glass; to the Aquitania Hotel on Central Park South; and to +the Temple on a rock over the Hudson, far north on Riverside Drive. +When they had time to meet, Austen Heller watched him, amused and pleased. "When +these three are finished, Howard," he said, "nobody will be able to stop you. +Not ever again. I speculate occasionally upon how far you’ll go. You see, I’ve +always had a weakness for astronomy." +On an evening in March Roark stood within the tall enclosure that had been +erected around the site of the Temple, according to Stoddard’s orders. The first +blocks of stone, the base of future walls, rose above the ground. It was late +and the workers had left. The place lay deserted, cut off from the world, +dissolved in darkness; but the sky glowed, too luminous for the night below, as +if the light had remained past the normal hour, in announcement of the coming +spring. A ship’s siren cried out once, somewhere on the river, and the sound +seemed to come from a distant countryside, through miles of silence. A light +still burned in the wooden shack built as a studio for Steven Mallory, where +Dominique posed for him. +The Temple was to be a small building of gray limestone. Its lines were +horizontal, not the lines reaching to heaven, but the lines of the earth. It +seemed to spread over the ground like arms outstretched at shoulder-height, +palms down, in great, silent acceptance. It did not cling to the soil and it did +not crouch under the sky. It seemed to lift the earth, and its few vertical +shafts pulled the sky down. It was scaled to human height in such a manner that +290 + + it did not dwarf man, but stood as a setting that made his figure the only +absolute, the gauge of perfection by which all dimensions were to be judged. +When a man entered this temple, he would feel space molded around him, for him, +as if it had waited for his entrance, to be completed. It was a joyous place, +with the joy of exaltation that must be quiet. It was a place where one would +come to feel sinless and strong, to find the peace of spirit never granted save +by one’s own glory. +There was no ornamentation inside, except the graded projections of the walls, +and the vast windows. The place was not sealed under vaults, but thrown open to +the earth around it, to the trees, the river, the sun--and to the skyline of the +city in the distance, the skyscrapers, the shapes of man’s achievement on earth. +At the end of the room, facing the entrance, with the city as background, stood +the figure of a naked human body. +There was nothing before him now in the darkness except the first stones, but +Roark thought of the finished building, feeling it in the joints of his fingers, +still remembering the movements of his pencil that had drawn it. He stood +thinking of it. Then he walked across the rough, torn earth to the studio shack. +"Just a moment," said Mallory’s voice when he knocked. +Inside the shack Dominique stepped down from the stand and pulled a robe on. +Then Mallory opened the door. +"Oh, it’s you?" he said. "We thought it was the watchman. What are you doing +here so late?" +"Good evening, Miss Francon," said Roark, and she nodded curtly. "Sorry to +interrupt, Steve." +"It’s all right. We haven’t been doing so well. Dominique can’t get quite what I +want tonight. Sit down, Howard. What the hell time is it?" +"Nine-thirty. If you’re going to stay longer, want me to have some dinner sent +up?" +"I don’t know. Let’s have a cigarette." +The place had an unpainted wooden floor, bare wooden rafters, a cast-iron stove +glowing in a corner. Mallory moved about like a feudal host, with smudges of +clay on his forehead. He smoked nervously, pacing up and down. +"Want to get dressed, Dominique?" he asked. "I don’t think we’ll do much more +tonight." She didn’t answer. She stood looking at Roark. Mallory reached the end +of the room, whirled around, smiled at Roark: "Why haven’t you ever come in +before, Howard? Of course, if I’d been really busy, I’d have thrown you out. +What, by the way, are you doing here at this hour?" +"I just wanted to see the place tonight. Couldn’t get here earlier." +"Is this what you want, Steve?" Dominique asked suddenly. She took her robe off +and walked naked to the stand. Mallory looked from her to Roark and back again. +Then he saw what he had been struggling to see all day. He saw her body standing +before him, straight and tense, her head thrown back, her arms at her sides, +palms out, as she stood for many days; but now her body was alive, so still that +it seemed to tremble, saying what he had wanted to hear: a proud, reverent, +enraptured surrender to a vision of her own, the right moment, the moment before +the figure would sway and break, the moment touched by the reflection of what +291 + + she saw. +Mallory’s cigarette went flying across the room. +"Hold it, Dominique!" he cried. "Hold it! Hold it!" +He was at his stand before the cigarette hit the ground. He worked, and +Dominique stood without moving, and Roark stood facing her, leaning against the +wall. +# +In April the walls of the Temple rose in broken lines over the ground. On +moonlit nights they had a soft, smeared, underwater glow. The tall fence stood +on guard around them. +After the day’s work, four people would often remain at the site--Roark, +Mallory, Dominique and Mike Donnigan. Mike had not missed employment on a single +building of Roark’s. +The four of them sat together in Mallory’s shack, after all the others had left. +A wet cloth covered the unfinished statue. The door of the shack stood open to +the first warmth of a spring night. A tree branch hung outside, with three new +leaves against the black sky, stars trembling like drops of water on the edges +of the leaves. There were no chairs in the shack. Mallory stood at the cast-iron +stove, fixing hot dogs and coffee. Mike sat on the model’s stand, smoking a +pipe. Roark lay stretched out on the floor, propped up on his elbows, Dominique +sat on a kitchen stool, a thin silk robe wrapped about her, her bare feet on the +planks of the floor. +They did not speak about their work. Mallory told outrageous stories and +Dominique laughed like a child. They talked about nothing in particular, +sentences that had meaning only in the sound of the voices, in the warm gaiety, +in the ease of complete relaxation. They were simply four people who liked being +there together. The walls rising in the darkness beyond the open door gave +sanction to their rest, gave them the right to lightness, the building on which +they had all worked together, the building that was like a low, audible harmony +to the sound of their voices. Roark laughed as Dominique had never seen him +laugh anywhere else, his mouth loose and young. +They stayed there late into the night. Mallory poured coffee into a mongrel +assortment of cracked cups. The odor of coffee met the odor of the new leaves +outside. +# +In May work was stopped on the construction of the Aquitania Hotel. +Two of the owners had been cleaned out in the stock market; a third got his +funds attached by a lawsuit over an inheritance disputed by someone; a fourth +embezzled somebody else’s shares. The corporation blew up in a tangle of court +cases that were to require years of untangling. The building had to wait, +unfinished. +"I’ll straighten it out, if I have to murder a few of them," Kent Lansing told +Roark. "I’ll get it out of their hands. We’ll finish it some day, you and I. But +it will take time. Probably a long time. I won’t tell you to be patient. Men +like you and me would not survive beyond their first fifteen years if they did +not acquire the patience of a Chinese executioner. And the hide of a +battleship." +292 + + Ellsworth Toohey laughed, sitting on the edge of Dominique’s desk. "The +Unfinished Symphony--thank God," he said. +Dominique used that in her column. "The Unfinished Symphony on Central Park +South," she wrote. She did not say, "thank God." The nickname was repeated. +Strangers noticed the odd sight of an expensive structure on an important +street, left gaping with empty windows, half-covered walls, naked beams; when +they asked what it was, people who had never heard of Roark or of the story +behind the building, snickered and answered: "Oh, that’s the Unfinished +Symphony." +Late at night Roark would stand across the street, under the trees of the Park, +and look at the black, dead shape among the glowing structures of the city’s +skyline. His hands would move as they had moved over the clay model; at that +distance, a broken projection could be covered by the palm of his hand; but the +instinctive completing motion met nothing but air. +He forced himself sometimes to walk through the building. He walked on shivering +planks hung over emptiness, through rooms without ceilings and rooms without +floors, to the open edges where girders stuck out like bones through a broken +skin. +An old watchman lived in a cubbyhole at the back of the ground floor. He knew +Roark and let him wander around. Once, he stopped Roark on the way out and said +suddenly: "I had a son once--almost. He was born dead." Something had made him +say that, and he looked at Roark, not quite certain of what he had wanted to +say. But Roark smiled, his eyes closed, and his hand covered the old man’s +shoulder, like a handshake, and then he walked away. +It was only the first few weeks. Then he made himself forget the Aquitania. +On an evening in October Roark and Dominique walked together through the +completed Temple. It was to be opened publicly in a week, the day after +Stoddard’s return. No one had seen it except those who had worked on its +construction. +It was a clear, quiet evening. The site of the Temple lay empty and silent. The +red of the sunset on the limestone walls was like the first light of morning. +They stood looking at the Temple, and then stood inside, before the marble +figure, saying nothing to each other. The shadows in the molded space around +them seemed shaped by the same hand that had shaped the walls. The ebbing motion +of light flowed in controlled discipline, like the sentences of a speech giving +voice to the changing facets of the walls. +"Roark..." +"Yes, my dearest?" +"No...nothing..." +They walked back to the car together, his hand clasping her wrist. + +12. +THE OPENING of the Stoddard Temple was announced for the afternoon of November +293 + + first. +The press agent had done a good job. People talked about the event, about Howard +Roark, about the architectural masterpiece which the city was to expect. +On the morning of October 31 Hopton Stoddard returned from his journey around +the world. Ellsworth Toohey met him at the pier. +On the morning of November 1 Hopton Stoddard issued a brief statement announcing +that there would be no opening. No explanation was given. +On the morning of November 2 the New York Banner came out with the column "One +Small Voice" by Ellsworth M. Toohey subtitled "Sacrilege." It read as follows: +# +"The time has come, the walrus said, +To talk of many things: +Of ships--and shoes--and Howard Roark-And cabbages--and kings-And why the sea is boiling hot-And whether Roark has wings. +# +"It is not our function--paraphrasing a philosopher whom we do not like--to be a +fly swatter, but when a fly acquires delusions of grandeur, the best of us must +stoop to do a little job of extermination. +"There has been a great deal of talk lately about somebody named Howard Roark. +Since freedom of speech is our sacred heritage and includes the freedom to waste +one’s time, there would have been no harm in such talk--beyond the fact that one +could find so many endeavors more profitable than discussions of a man who seems +to have nothing to his credit except a building that was begun and could not be +completed. There would have been no harm, if the ludicrous had not become the +tragic--and the fraudulent. +"Howard Roark--as most of you have not heard and are not likely to hear +again--is an architect. A year ago he was entrusted with an assignment of +extraordinary responsibility. He was commissioned to erect a great monument in +the absence of the owner who believed in him and gave him complete freedom of +action. If the terminology of our criminal law could be applied to the realm of +art, we would have to say that what Mr. Roark delivered constitutes the +equivalent of spiritual embezzlement. +"Mr. Hopton Stoddard, the noted philanthropist, had intended to present the City +of New York with a Temple of Religion, a nonsectarian cathedral symbolizing the +spirit of human faith. What Mr. Roark has built for him might be a +warehouse--though it does not seem practical. It might be a brothel--which is +more likely, if we consider some of its sculptural ornamentation. It is +certainly not a temple. +"It seems as if a deliberate malice had reversed in this building every +conception proper to a religious structure. Instead of being austerely enclosed, +this alleged temple is wide open, like a western saloon. Instead of a mood of +deferential sorrow, befitting a place where one contemplates eternity and +294 + + realizes the insignificance of man, this building has a quality of loose, +orgiastic elation. Instead of the soaring lines reaching for heaven, demanded by +the very nature of a temple, as a symbol of man’s quest for something higher +than his little ego, this building is flauntingly horizontal, its belly in the +mud, thus declaring its allegiance to the carnal, glorifying the gross pleasures +of the flesh above those of the spirit. The statue of a nude female in a place +where men come to be uplifted speaks for itself and requires no further comment. +"A person entering a temple seeks release from himself. He wishes to humble his +pride, to confess his unworthiness, to beg forgiveness. He finds fulfillment in +a sense of abject humility. Man’s proper posture in a house of God is on his +knees. Nobody in his right mind would kneel within Mr. Roark’s temple. The place +forbids it. The emotions it suggests are of a different nature: arrogance, +audacity, defiance, self-exaltation. It is not a house of God, but the cell of a +megalomaniac. It is not a temple, but its perfect antithesis, an insolent +mockery of all religion. We would call it pagan but for the fact that the pagans +were notoriously good architects. +"This column is not the supporter of any particular creed, but simple decency +demands that we respect the religious convictions of our fellow men. We felt we +must explain to the public the nature of this deliberate attack on religion. We +cannot condone an outrageous sacrilege. +"If we seem to have forgotten our function as a critic of purely architectural +values, we can say only that the occasion does not call for it. It is a mistake +to glorify mediocrity by an effort at serious criticism. We seem to recall +something or other that this Howard Roark has built before, and it had the same +ineptitude, the same pedestrian quality of an overambitious amateur. All God’s +chillun may have wings, but, unfortunately, this is not true of all God’s +geniuses. "And that, my friends, is that. We are glad today’s chore is over. We +really do not enjoy writing obituaries." +# +On November 3 Hopton Stoddard filed suit against Howard Roark for breach of +contract and malpractice, asking damages; he asked a sum sufficient to have the +Temple altered by another architect. +# +It had been easy to persuade Hopton Stoddard. He had returned from his journey, +crushed by the universal spectacle of religion, most particularly by the various +forms in which the promise of hell confronted him all over the earth. He had +been driven to the conclusion that his life qualified him for the worst possible +hereafter under any system of faith. It had shaken what remained of his mind. +The ship stewards, on his return trip, had felt certain that the old gentleman +was senile. +On the afternoon of his return Ellsworth Toohey took him to see the Temple. +Toohey said nothing. Hopton Stoddard stared, and Toohey heard Stoddard’s false +teeth clicking spasmodically. The place did not resemble anything Stoddard had +seen anywhere in the world; nor anything he had expected. He did not know what +to think. When he turned a glance of desperate appeal upon Toohey, Stoddard’s +eyes looked like Jell-O. He waited. In that moment, Toohey could have convinced +him of anything. Toohey spoke and said what he said later in his column. +"But you told me this Roark was good!" Stoddard moaned in panic. +"I had expected him to be good," Toohey answered coldly. +"But then--why?" +295 + + "I don’t know," said Toohey--and his accusing glance gave Stoddard to understand +that there was an ominous guilt behind it all, and that the guilt was +Stoddard’s. +Toohey said nothing in the limousine, on their way back to Stoddard’s apartment, +while Stoddard begged him to speak. He would not answer. The silence drove +Stoddard to terror. In the apartment, Toohey led him to an armchair and stood +before him, somber as a judge. +"Hopton, I know why it happened." +"Oh, why?" +"Can you think of any reason why I should have lied to you?" +"No, of course not, you’re the greatest expert and the most honest man living, +and I don’t understand, I just simply don’t understand at all!" +"I do. When I recommended Roark, I had every reason to expect--to the best of my +honest judgment--that he would give you a masterpiece. But he didn’t. Hopton, do +you know what power can upset all the calculations of men?" +"W-what power?" +"God has chosen this way to reject your offering. He did not consider you worthy +of presenting Him with a shrine. I guess you can fool me, Hopton, and all men, +but you can’t fool God. He knows that your record is blacker than anything I +suspected." +He went on speaking for a long time, calmly, severely, to a silent huddle of +terror. At the end, he said: +"It seems obvious, Hopton, that you cannot buy forgiveness by starting at the +top. Only the pure in heart can erect a shrine. You must go through many humbler +steps of expiation before you reach that stage. You must atone to your fellow +men before you can atone to God. This building was not meant to be a temple, but +an institution of human charity. Such as a home for subnormal children." +Hopton Stoddard would not commit himself to that. "Afterward, Ellsworth, +afterward," he moaned. "Give me time." He agreed to sue Roark, as Toohey +suggested, for recovery of the costs of alterations, and later to decide what +these alterations would be. +"Don’t be shocked by anything I will say or write about this," Toohey told him +in parting. "I shall be forced to stage a few things which are not quite true. I +must protect my own reputation from a disgrace which is your fault, not mine. +Just remember that you have sworn never to reveal who advised you to hire +Roark." +On the following day "Sacrilege" appeared in the Banner and set the fuse. The +announcement of Stoddard’s suit lighted it. +Nobody would have felt an urge to crusade about a building; but religion had +been attacked; the press agent had prepared the ground too well, the spring of +public attention was wound, a great many people could make use of it. +The clamor of indignation that rose against Howard Roark and his temple +astonished everyone, except Ellsworth Toohey. Ministers damned the building in +296 + + sermons. Women’s clubs passed resolutions of protest. A Committee of Mothers +made page eight of the newspapers, with a petition that shrieked something about +the protection of their children. A famous actress wrote an article on the +essential unity of all the arts, explained that the Stoddard Temple had no sense +of structural diction, and spoke of the time when she had played Mary Magdalene +in a great Biblical drama. A society woman wrote an article on the exotic +shrines she had seen in her dangerous jungle travels, praised the touching faith +of the savages and reproached modern man for cynicism; the Stoddard Temple, she +said, was a symptom of softness and decadence; the illustration showed her in +breeches, one slim foot on the neck of a dead lion. A college professor wrote a +letter to the editor about his spiritual experiences and stated that he could +not have experienced them in a place like the Stoddard Temple. Kiki Holcombe +wrote a letter to the editor about her views on life and death. +The A.G.A. issued a dignified statement denouncing the Stoddard Temple as a +spiritual and artistic fraud. Similar statements, with less dignity and more +slang, were issued by the Councils of American Builders, Writers and Artists. +Nobody had ever heard of them, but they were Councils and this gave weight to +their voice. One man would say to another: "Do you know that the Council of +American Builders has said this temple is a piece of architectural tripe?" in a +tone suggesting intimacy with the best of the art world. The other wouldn’t want +to reply that he had not heard of such a group, but would answer: "I expected +them to say it. Didn’t you?" +Hopton Stoddard received so many letters of sympathy that he began to feel quite +happy. He had never been popular before. Ellsworth, he thought, was right; his +brother men were forgiving him; Ellsworth was always right. +The better newspapers dropped the story after a while. But the Banner kept it +going. It had been a boon to the Banner. Gail Wynand was away, sailing his yacht +through the Indian Ocean, and Alvah Scarret was stuck for a crusade. This suited +him. Ellsworth Toohey needed to make no suggestions; Scarret rose to the +occasion all by himself. +He wrote about the decline of civilization and deplored the loss of the simple +faith. He sponsored an essay contest for high-school students on "Why I Go to +Church." He ran a series of illustrated articles on "The Churches of Our +Childhood." He ran photographs of religious sculpture through the ages--the +Sphinx, gargoyles, totem poles--and gave great prominence to pictures of +Dominique’s statue, with proper captions of indignation, but omitting the +model’s name. He ran cartoons of Roark as a barbarian with bearskin and club. He +wrote many clever things about the Tower of Babel that could not reach heaven +and about Icarus who flopped on his wax wings. +Ellsworth Toohey sat back and watched. He made two minor suggestions: he found, +in the Banner’s morgue, the photograph of Roark at the opening of the Enright +House, the photograph of a man’s face in a moment of exaltation, and he had it +printed in the Banner, over the caption: "Are you happy, Mr. Superman?" He made +Stoddard open the Temple to the public while awaiting the trial of his suit. The +Temple attracted crowds of people who left obscene drawings and inscriptions on +the pedestal of Dominique’s statue. +There were a few who came, and saw, and admired the building in silence. But +they were the kind who do not take part in public issues. Austen Heller wrote a +furious article in defense of Roark and of the Temple. But he was not an +authority on architecture or religion, and the article was drowned in the storm. +Howard Roark did nothing. +297 + + He was asked for a statement, and he received a group of reporters in his +office. He spoke without anger. He said: "I can’t tell anyone anything about my +building. If I prepared a hash of words to stuff into other people’s brains, it +would be an insult to them and to me. But I am glad you came here. I do have +something to say. I want to ask every man who is interested in this to go and +see the building, to look at it and then to use the words of his own mind, if he +cares to speak." +The Banner printed the interview as follows: "Mr. Roark, who seems to be a +publicity hound, received reporters with an air of swaggering insolence and +stated that the public mind was hash. He did not choose to talk, but he seemed +well aware of the advertising angles in the situation. All he cared about, he +explained, was to have his building seen by as many people as possible." +Roark refused to hire an attorney to represent him at the coming trial. He said +he would handle his own defense and refused to explain how he intended to handle +it, in spite of Austen Heller’s angry protests. +"Austen, there are some rules I’m perfectly willing to obey. I’m willing to wear +the kind of clothes everybody wears, to eat the same food and use the same +subways. But there are some things which I can’t do their way--and this is one +of them." +"What do you know about courtrooms and law? He’s going to win." +"To win what?" +"His case." +"Is the case of any importance? There’s nothing I can do to stop him from +touching the building. He owns it. He can blast it off the face of the earth or +make a glue factory out of it. He can do it whether I win that suit or lose it." +"But he’ll take your money to do it with." +"Yes. He might take my money." +Steven Mallory made no comment on anything. But his face looked as it had looked +on the night Roark met him for the first time. +"Steve, talk about it, if it will make it easier for you," Roark said to him one +evening. +"There’s nothing to talk about," Mallory answered indifferently. "I told you I +didn’t think they’d let you survive." +"Rubbish. You have no right to be afraid for me." +"I’m not afraid for you. What would be the use? It’s something else." +Days later, sitting on the window sill in Roark’s room, looking out at the +street, Mallory said suddenly: +"Howard, do you remember what I told you about the beast I’m afraid of? I know +nothing about Ellsworth Toohey. I had never seen him before I shot at him. I had +only read what he writes. Howard, I shot at him because I think he knows +everything about that beast." +Dominique came to Roark’s room on the evening when Stoddard announced his +298 + + lawsuit. She said nothing. She put her bag down on a table and stood removing +her gloves, slowly, as if she wished to prolong the intimacy of performing a +routine gesture here, in his room; she looked down at her fingers. Then she +raised her head. Her face looked as if she knew his worst suffering and it was +hers and she wished to bear it like this, coldly, asking no words of mitigation. +"You’re wrong," he said. They could always speak like this to each other, +continuing a conversation they had not begun. His voice was gentle. "I don’t +feel that." +"I don’t want to know." +"I want you to know. What you’re thinking is much worse than the truth. I don’t +believe it matters to me--that they’re going to destroy it. Maybe it hurts so +much that I don’t even know I’m hurt. But I don’t think so. If you want to carry +it for my sake, don’t carry more than I do. I’m not capable of suffering +completely. I never have. It goes only down to a certain point and then it +stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it’s not really pain. You +mustn’t look like that." +"Where does it stop?" +"Where I can think of nothing and feel nothing except that I designed that +temple. I built it. Nothing else can seem very important." +"You shouldn’t have built it. You shouldn’t have delivered it to the sort of +thing they’re doing." +"That doesn’t matter. Not even that they’ll destroy it. Only that it had +existed." +She shook her head. "Do you see what I was saving you from when I took +commissions away from you?...To give them no right to do this to you....No right +to live in a building of yours...No right to touch you...not in any way...." +# +When Dominique walked into Toohey’s office, he smiled, an eager smile of +welcome, unexpectedly sincere. He forgot to control it while his eyebrows moved +into a frown of disappointment; the frown and the smile remained ludicrously +together for a moment. He was disappointed, because it was not her usual +dramatic entrance; he saw no anger, no mockery; she entered like a bookkeeper on +a business errand. She asked: +"What do you intend to accomplish by it?" +He tried to recapture the exhilaration of their usual feud. He +"Sit down, my dear. I’m delighted to see you. Quite frankly and helplessly +delighted. It really took you too long. I expected you here much sooner. I’ve +had so many compliments on that little article of mine, but, honestly, it was no +fun at all, I wanted to hear what you’d say." +"What do you intend to accomplish by it?" +"Look, darling, I do hope you didn’t mind what I said about that uplifting +statue of yours. I thought you d understand I just couldn’t pass up that one." +"What is the purpose of that lawsuit?" +299 + + "Oh well, you want to make me talk. And I did so want to hear you. But half a +pleasure is better than none. I want to talk. I’ve waited for you so +impatiently. But I do wish you’d sit down, I’ll be more comfortable....No? Well, +as you prefer, so long as you don’t run away. The lawsuit? Well, isn’t it +obvious?" +"How is it going to stop him?" she asked in the tone one would use to recite a +list of statistics. "It will prove nothing, whether he wins or loses. The whole +thing is just a spree for great number of louts, filthy but pointless. I did not +think you wasted your time on stink bombs. All of it will be forgotten before +Christmas." +"My God, but I must be a failure! I never thought of myself as such a poor +teacher. That you should have learned so little in two years of close +association with me! It’s really discouraging. Since you are the most +intelligent woman I know, the fault must be mine. Well, let’s see, you did learn +one thing: that I don’t waste my time. Quite correct. I don’t. Right, my dear, +everything will be forgotten by next Christmas. And that, you see, will be the +achievement. You can fight a live issue. You can’t fight a dead one. Dead +issues, like all dead things, don’t just vanish, but leave some decomposing +matter behind. A most unpleasant thing to carry on your name. Mr. Hopton +Stoddard will be thoroughly forgotten. The Temple will be forgotten. The lawsuit +will be forgotten. But here’s what will remain: ’Howard Roark? Why, how could +you trust a man like that? He’s an enemy of religion. He’s completely immortal. +First thing you know, he’ll gyp you on your construction costs.’ ’Roark? He’s no +good--why, a client had to sue him because he made such a botch of a building.’ +’Roark? Roark? Wait a moment, isn’t that the guy who got into all the papers +over some sort of a mess? Now what was it? Some rotten kind of scandal, the +owner of the building--I think the place was a disorderly house--anyway the +owner had to sue him. You don’t want to get involved with a notorious character +like that. What for, when there are so many decent architects to choose from?’ +Fight that, my dear. Tell me a way to fight it. Particularly when you have no +weapons except your genius, which is not a weapon but a great liability." +Her eyes were disappointing; they listened patiently, an unmoving glance that +would not become anger. She stood before his desk, straight, controlled, like a +sentry in a storm who knows that he has to take it and has to remain there even +when he can take it no longer. +"I believe you want me to continue," said Toohey. "Now you see the peculiar +effectiveness of a dead issue. You can’t talk your way out of it, you can’t +explain, you can’t defend yourself. Nobody wants to listen. It is difficult +enough to acquire fame. It is impossible to change its nature once you’ve +acquired it. No, you can never ruin an architect by proving that he’s a bad +architect. But you can ruin him because he’s an atheist, or because somebody +sued him, or because he slept with some woman, or because he pulls wings off +bottleflies. You’ll say it doesn’t make sense? Of course it doesn’t. That’s why +it works. Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight the +unreasonable? The trouble with you, my dear, and with most people, is that you +don’t have sufficient respect for the senseless. The senseless is the major +factor in our lives. You have no chance if it is your enemy. But if you can make +it become your ally--ah, my dear!...Look, Dominique, I will stop talking the +moment you show a sign of being frightened." +"Go on," she said. +"I think you should now ask me a question, or perhaps you don��t like to be +obvious and feel that I must guess the question myself? I think you’re right. +The question is, why did I choose Howard Roark? Because--to quote my own +300 + + article--it is not my function to be a fly swatter. I quote this now with a +somewhat different meaning, but we’ll let that pass. Also, this has helped me to +get something I wanted from Hopton Stoddard, but that’s only a minor side-issue, +an incidental, just pure gravy. Principally, however, the whole thing was an +experiment. Just a test skirmish, shall we say? The results are most gratifying. +If you were not involved as you are, you’d be the one person who’d appreciate +the spectacle. Really, you know, I’ve done very little when you consider the +extent of what followed. Don’t you find it interesting to see a huge, +complicated piece of machinery, such as our society, all levers and belts and +interlocking gears, the kind that looks as if one would need an army to operate +it--and you find that by pressing your little finger against one spot, the one +vital spot, the center of all its gravity, you can make the thing crumble into a +worthless heap of scrap iron? It can be done, my dear. But it takes a long time. +It takes centuries. I have the advantage of many experts who came before me. I +think I shall be the last and the successful one of the line, because--though +not abler than they were--I see more clearly what we’re after. However, that’s +abstraction. Speaking of concrete reality, don’t you find anything amusing in my +little experiment? I do. For instance, do you notice that all the wrong people +are on the wrong sides? Alvah Scarret, the college professors, the newspaper +editors, the respectable mothers and the Chambers of Commerce should have come +flying to the defense of Howard Roark--if they value their own lives. But they +didn’t. They are upholding Hopton Stoddard. On the other hand I heard that some +screwy bunch of cafeteria radicals called ’The New League of Proletarian Art’ +tried to enlist in support of Howard Roark--they said he was a victim of +capitalism--when they should have known that Hopton Stoddard is their champion. +Roark, by the way, had the good sense to decline. He understands. You do. I do. +Not many others. Oh, well. Scrap iron has its uses." +She turned to leave the room. +"Dominique, you’re not going?" He sounded hurt. "You won’t say anything? Not +anything at all?" +"No." +"Dominique, you’re letting me down. And how I waited for you! I’m a very +self-sufficient person, as a rule, but I do need an audience once in a while. +You’re the only person with whom I can be myself. I suppose it’s because you +have such contempt for me that nothing I say can make any difference. You see, I +know that, but I don’t care. Also, the methods I use on other people would never +work on you. Strangely enough, only my honesty will. Hell, what’s the use of +accomplishing a skillful piece of work if nobody knows that you’ve accomplished +it? Had you been your old self, you’d tell me, at this point, that that is the +psychology of a murderer who’s committed the perfect crime and then confesses +because he can’t bear the idea that nobody knows it’s a perfect crime. And I’d +answer that you’re right. I want an audience. That’s the trouble with +victims--they don’t even know they’re victims, which is as it should be, but it +does become monotonous and takes half the fun away. You’re such a rare treat--a +victim who can appreciate the artistry of its own execution....For God’s sake, +Dominique, are you leaving when I’m practically begging you to remain?" +She put her hand on the doorknob. He shrugged and settled back in his chair. +"All right," he said. "Incidentally, don’t try to buy Hopton Stoddard out. He’s +eating out of my hand just now. He won’t sell." She had opened the door, but she +stopped and pulled it shut again. "Oh, yes, of course I know that you’ve tried, +it’s no use. You’re not that rich. You haven’t enough to buy that temple and you +couldn’t raise enough. Also, Hopton won’t accept any money from you to pay for +the alterations. I know you’ve offered that, too. He wants it from Roark. By the +301 + + way, I don’t think Roark would like it if I let him know that you’ve tried." +He smiled in a manner that demanded a protest. Her face gave no answer. She +turned to the door again. "Just one more question, Dominique. Mr. Stoddard’s +attorney wants to know whether he can call you as a witness. An expert on +architecture. You will testify for the plaintiff, of course?" +"Yes. I will testify for the plaintiff." +# +The case of Hopton Stoddard versus Howard Roark opened in February of 1931. +The courtroom was so full that mass reactions could be expressed only by a slow +motion running across the spread of heads, a sluggish wave like the ripple under +the tight-packed skin of a sea lion. +The crowd, brown and streaked with subdued color, looked like a fruitcake of all +the arts, with the cream of the A.G.A. rich and heavy on top. There were +distinguished men and well-dressed, tight-lipped women; each woman seemed to +feel an exclusive proprietorship of the art practiced by her escort, a monopoly +guarded by resentful glances at the others. Almost everybody knew almost +everybody else. The room had the atmosphere of a convention, an opening night +and a family picnic. There was a feeling of "our bunch," +"our boys," +"our show." +Steven Mallory, Austen Heller, Roger Enright, Kent Lansing and Mike sat together +in one corner. They tried not to look around them. Mike was worried about Steven +Mallory. He kept close to Mallory, insisted on sitting next to him and glanced +at him whenever a particularly offensive bit of conversation reached them. +Mallory noticed it at last, and said: "Don’t worry, Mike. I won’t scream. I +won’t shoot anyone." +"Watch your stomach, kid," said Mike, "just watch your stomach. A man can’t get +sick just because he oughta." +"Mike, do you remember the night when we stayed so late that it was almost +daylight, and Dominique’s car was out of gas, and there were no busses, and we +all decided to walk home, and there was sun on the rooftops by the time the +first one of us got to his house?" +"That’s right. You think about that, and I’ll think about the granite quarry." +"What granite quarry?" +"It’s something made me very sick once, but then it turned out it make no +difference at all, in the long run." +Beyond the windows the sky was white and flat like frosted glass. The light +seemed to come from the banks of snow on roofs and ledges, an unnatural light +that made everything in the room look naked. +The judge sat hunched on his high bench as if he were roosting. He had a small +face, wizened into virtue. He kept his hands upright in front of his chest, the +fingertips pressed together. Hopton Stoddard was not present. He was represented +by his attorney a handsome gentleman, tall and grave as an ambassador. +302 + + Roark sat alone at the defense table. The crowd had stared at him and given up +angrily, finding no satisfaction. He did not look crushed and he did not look +defiant. He looked impersonal and calm. He was not like a public figure in a +public place; he was like a man alone in his own room, listening to the radio. +He took no notes; there were no papers on the table before him, only a large +brown envelope. The crowd would have forgiven anything, except a man who could +remain normal under the vibrations of its enormous collective sneer. Some of +them had come prepared to pity him; all of them hated him after the first few +minutes. +The plaintiff’s attorney stated his case in a simple opening address; it was +true, he admitted, that Hopton Stoddard had given Roark full freedom to design +and build the Temple; the point was, however, that Mr. Stoddard had clearly +specified and expected a temple; the building in question could not be +considered a temple by any known standards; as the plaintiff proposed to prove +with the help of the best authorities in the field. +Roark waived his privilege to make an opening statement to the jury. +Ellsworth Monkton Toohey was the first witness called by the plaintiff. He sat +on the edge of the witness chair and leaned back, resting on the end of his +spine: he lifted one leg and placed it horizontally across the other. He looked +amused--but managed to suggest that his amusement was a well-bred protection +against looking bored. +The attorney went through a long list of questions about Mr. Toohey’s +professional qualifications, including the number of copies sold of his book +Sermons in Stone. Then he read aloud Toohey’s column "Sacrilege" and asked him +to state whether he had written it. Toohey replied that he had. There followed a +list of questions in erudite terms on the architectural merits of the Temple. +Toohey proved that it had none. There followed an historical review. Toohey, +speaking easily and casually, gave a brief sketch of all known civilizations and +of their outstanding religious monuments--from the Incas to the Phoenicians to +the Easter Islanders--including, whenever possible, the dates when these +monuments were begun and the dates when they were completed, the number of +workers employed in the construction and the approximate cost in modern American +dollars. The audience listened punch-drunk. +Toohey proved that the Stoddard Temple contradicted every brick, stone and +precept of history. "I have endeavored to show," he said in conclusion, "that +the two essentials of the conception of a temple are a sense of awe and a sense +of man’s humility. We have noted the gigantic proportions of religious edifices, +the soaring lines, the horrible grotesques of monster-like gods, or, later, +gargoyles. All of it tends to impress upon man his essential insignificance, to +crush him by sheer magnitude, to imbue him with that sacred terror which leads +to the meekness of virtue. The Stoddard Temple is a brazen denial of our entire +past, an insolent ’No’ flung in the face of history. I may venture a guess as to +the reason why this case has aroused such public interest. All of us have +recognized instinctively that it involves a moral issue much beyond its legal +aspects. This building is a monument to a profound hatred of humanity. It is one +man’s ego defying the most sacred impulses of all mankind, of every man on the +street, of every man in this courtroom!" +This was not a witness in court, but Ellsworth Toohey addressing a meeting--and +the reaction was inevitable: the audience burst into applause. The judge struck +his gavel and made a threat to have the courtroom cleared. Order was restored, +but not to the faces of the crowd: the faces remained lecherously +self-righteous. It was pleasant to be singled out and brought into the case as +an injured party. Three-fourths of them had never seen the Stoddard Temple. +303 + + "Thank you, Mr. Toohey," said the attorney, faintly suggesting a bow. Then he +turned to Roark and said with delicate courtesy: "Your witness." +"No questions," said Roark. +Ellsworth Toohey raised one eyebrow and left the stand regretfully. +"Mr. Peter Keating!" called the attorney. Peter Keating’s face looked attractive +and fresh, as if he had had a good night’s sleep. He mounted the witness stand +with a collegiate sort of gusto, swinging his shoulders and arms unnecessarily. +He took the oath and answered the first questions gaily. His pose in the witness +chair was strange: his torso slumped to one side with swaggering ease, an elbow +on the chair’s arm; but his feet were planted awkwardly straight, and his knees +were pressed tight together. He never looked at Roark. +"Will you please name some of the outstanding buildings which you have designed, +Mr. Keating?" the attorney asked. +Keating began a list of impressive names; the first few came fast, the rest +slower and slower, as if he wished to be stopped; the last one died in the air, +unfinished. +"Aren’t you forgetting the most important one, Mr. Keating?" the attorney asked. +"Didn’t you design the Cosmo-Slotnick Building?" +"Yes," whispered Keating. +"Now, Mr. Keating, you attended the Stanton Institute of Technology at the same +period as Mr. Roark?" +"Yes." +"What can you tell us about Mr. Roark’s record there?" +"He was expelled." +"He was expelled because he was unable to live up to the Institute’s high +standard of requirements?" +"Yes. Yes, that was it." +The judge glanced at Roark. A lawyer would have objected to this testimony as +irrelevant. Roark made no objection. +"At that time, did you think that he showed any talent for the profession of +architecture?" +"No." +"Will you please speak a little louder, Mr. Keating?" +"I didn’t...think he had any talent." +Queer things were happening to Keating’s verbal punctuation: some words came out +crisply, as if he dropped an exclamation point after each; others ran together, +as if he would not stop to let himself hear them. He did not look at the +attorney. He kept his eyes on the audience. At times, he looked like a boy out +on a lark, a boy who has just drawn a mustache on the face of a beautiful girl +304 + + on a subway toothpaste ad. Then he looked as if he were begging the crowd for +support--as if he were on trial before them. +"At one time you employed Mr. Roark in your office?" +"Yes." +"And you found yourself forced to fire him?" +"Yes...we did." +"For incompetence?" +"Yes." +"What can you tell us about Mr. Roark’s subsequent career?" +"Well, you know, ’career’ is a relative term. In volume of achievement any +draftsman in our office has done more than Mr. Roark. We don’t call one or two +buildings a career. We put up that many every month or so." +"Will you give us your professional opinion of his work?" +"Well, I think it’s immature. Very startling, even quite interesting at times, +but essentially--adolescent." +"Then Mr. Roark cannot be called a full-fledged architect?" +"Not in the sense in which we speak of Mr. Ralston Holcombe, Mr. Guy Francon, +Mr. Gordon Prescott--no. But, of course, I want to be fair. I think Mr. Roark +had definite potentialities, particularly in problems of pure engineering. He +could have made something of himself. I’ve tried to talk to him about it--I’ve +tried to help him--I honestly did. But it was like talking to one of his pet +pieces of reinforced concrete. I knew that he’d come to something like this. I +wasn’t surprised when I heard that a client had had to sue him at last." +"What can you tell us about Mr. Roark’s attitude toward clients?" +"Well, that’s the point. That’s the whole point. He didn’t care what the clients +thought or wished, what anyone in the world thought or wished. He didn’t even +understand how other architects could care. He wouldn’t even give you that, not +even understanding, not even enough to...respect you a little just the same. I +don’t see what’s so wrong with trying to please people. I don’t see what’s wrong +with wanting to be friendly and liked and popular. Why is that a crime? Why +should anyone sneer at you for that, sneer all the time, all the time, day and +night, not giving you a moment’s peace, like the Chinese water torture, you know +where they drop water on your skull drop by drop?" +People in the audience began to realize that Peter Keating was drunk. The +attorney frowned; the testimony had been rehearsed; but it was getting off the +rails. +"Well, now, Mr. Keating, perhaps you’d better tell us about Mr. Roark’s views on +architecture." +"I’ll tell you, if you want to know. He thinks you should take your shoes off +and kneel, when you speak of architecture. That’s what he thinks. Now why should +you? Why? It’s a business like any other, isn’t it? What’s so damn sacred about +it? Why do we have to be all keyed up? We’re only human. We want to make a +305 + + living. Why can’t things be simple and easy? Why do we have to be some sort of +God-damn heroes?" +"Now, now, Mr. Keating, I think we’re straying slightly from the subject. +We’re..." +"No, we’re not. I know what I’m talking about. You do, too. They all do. Every +one of them here. I’m talking about the Temple. Don’t you see? Why pick a fiend +to build a temple? Only a very human sort of man should be chosen to do that. A +man who understands...and forgives. A man who forgives...That’s what you go to +church for--to be...forgiven..." +"Yes, Mr. Keating, but speaking of Mr. Roark..." +"Well, what about Mr. Roark? He’s no architect. He’s no good. Why should I be +afraid to say that he’s no good? Why are you all afraid of him?" +"Mr. Keating, if you’re not well and wish to be dismissed...?" Keating looked at +him, as if awakening. He tried to control himself. After a while he said, his +voice flat, resigned: +"No. I’m all right. I’ll tell you anything you want. What is it you want me to +say?" +"Will you tell us--in professional terms--your opinion of the structure known as +the Stoddard Temple?" +"Yes. Sure. The Stoddard Temple...The Stoddard Temple has an improperly +articulated plan, which leads to spatial confusion. There is no balance of +masses. It lacks a sense of symmetry. Its proportions are inept." He spoke in a +monotone. His neck was stiff; he was making an effort not to let it drop +forward. "It’s out of scale. It contradicts the elementary principles of +composition. The total effect is that of..." +"Louder please, Mr. Keating." +"The total effect is that of crudeness and architectural illiteracy. It +shows...it shows no sense of structure, no instinct for beauty, no creative +imagination, no..." he closed his eyes, "...artistic integrity..." +"Thank you, Mr. Keating. That is all." +The attorney turned to Roark and said nervously: +"Your witness." +"No questions," said Roark. +This concluded the first day of the trial. +That evening Mallory, Heller, Mike, Enright and Lansing gathered in Roark’s +room. They had not consulted one another, but they all came, prompted by the +same feeling. They did not talk about the trial, but there was no strain and no +conscious avoidance of the subject. Roark sat on his drafting table and talked +to them about the future of the plastics industry. Mallory laughed aloud +suddenly, without apparent reason. "What’s the matter, Steve?" Roark asked. "I +just thought...Howard, we all came here to help you, to cheer you up. But it’s +you who’re helping us, instead. You’re supporting your supporters, Howard." +306 + + That evening, Peter Keating lay half-stretched across a table in a speakeasy, +one arm extending along the table top, his face on his arm. +In the next two days a succession of witnesses testified for the plaintiff. +Every examination began with questions that brought out the professional +achievements of the witness. The attorney gave them leads like an expert press +agent. Austen Heller remarked that architects must have fought for the privilege +of being called to the witness stand, since it was the grandest spree of +publicity in a usually silent profession. +None of the witnesses looked at Roark. He looked at them. He listened to the +testimony. He said: "No questions," to each one. +Ralston Holcombe on the stand, with flowing tie and gold-headed cane, had the +appearance of a Grand Duke or a beer-garden composer. His testimony was long and +scholarly, but it came down to: +"It’s all nonsense. It’s all a lot of childish nonsense. I can’t say that I feel +much sympathy for Mr. Hopton Stoddard. He should have known better. It is a +scientific fact that the architectural style of the Renaissance is the only one +appropriate to our age. If our best people, like Mr. Stoddard, refuse to +recognize this, what can you expect from all sorts of parvenus, would-be +architects and the rabble in general? It has been proved that Renaissance is the +only permissible style for all churches, temples and cathedrals. What about Sir +Christopher Wren? Just laugh that off. And remember the greatest religious +monument of all time--St. Peter’s in Rome. Are you going to improve upon St. +Peter’s? And if Mr. Stoddard did not specifically insist on Renaissance, he got +just exactly what he deserved. It serves him jolly well right." Gordon L. +Prescott wore a turtleneck sweater under a plaid coat, tweed trousers and heavy +golf shoes. +"The correlation of the transcendental to the purely spatial in the building +under discussion is entirely screwy," he said. "If we take the horizontal as the +one-dimensional, the vertical as the two-dimensional, the diagonal as the +three-dimensional, and the interpenetration of spaces as the +fourth-dimensional--architecture being a fourth-dimensional art--we can see +quite simply that this building is homaloidal, or--in the language of the +layman--flat. The flowing life which comes from the sense of order in chaos, or, +if you prefer, from unity in diversity, as well as vice versa, which is the +realization of the contradiction inherent in architecture, is here absolutely +absent. I am really trying to express myself as clearly as I can, but it is +impossible to present a dialectic state by covering it up with an old fig leaf +of logic just for the sake of the mentally lazy layman." +John Erik Snyte testified modestly and unobtrusively that he had employed Roark +in his office, that Roark had been an unreliable, disloyal and unscrupulous +employee, and that Roark had started his career by stealing a client from him. +On the fourth day of the trial the plaintiff’s attorney called his last witness. +"Miss Dominique Francon," he announced solemnly. +Mallory gasped, but no one heard it; Mike’s hand clamped down on his wrist and +made him keep still. +The attorney had reserved Dominique for his climax, partly because he expected a +great deal from her, and partly because he was worried; she was the only +unrehearsed witness; she had refused to be coached. She had never mentioned the +Stoddard Temple in her column; but he had looked up her earlier writings on +307 + + Roark; and Ellsworth Toohey had advised him to call her. +Dominique stood for a moment on the elevation of the witness stand, looking +slowly over the crowd. Her beauty was startling but too impersonal, as if it did +not belong to her; it seemed present in the room as a separate entity. People +thought of a vision that had not quite appeared, of a victim on a scaffold, of a +person standing at night at the rail of an ocean liner. +"What is your name?" +"Dominique Francon." +"And your occupation, Miss Francon?" +"Newspaper woman." +"You are the author of the brilliant column ’Your House’ appearing in the New +York Banner!" +"I am the author of ’Your House.’" +"Your father is Guy Francon, the eminent architect?" +"Yes. My father was asked to come here to testify. He refused. He said he did +not care for a building such as the Stoddard Temple, but he did not think that +we were behaving like gentlemen." +"Well, now, Miss Francon, shall we confine our answers to our questions? We are +indeed fortunate to have you with us, since you are our only woman witness, and +women have always had the purest sense of religious faith. Being, in addition, +an outstanding authority on architecture, you are eminently qualified to give us +what I shall call, with all deference, the feminine angle on this case. Will you +tell us in your own words what you think of the Stoddard Temple?" +"I think that Mr. Stoddard has made a mistake. There would have been no doubt +about the justice of his case if he had sued, not for alteration costs, but for +demolition costs." +The attorney looked relieved. "Will you explain your reasons, Miss Francon?" +"You have heard them from every witness at this trial." +"Then I take it that you agree with the preceding testimony?" +"Completely. Even more completely than the persons who testified. They were very +convincing witnesses." +"Will you...clarify that, Miss Francon? Just what do you mean?" +"What Mr. Toohey said: that this temple is a threat to all of us." +"Oh, I see." +"Mr. Toohey understood the issue so well. Shall I clarify it--in my own words?" +"By all means." +"Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit. He saw man as strong, proud, +clean, wise and fearless. He saw man as a heroic being. And he built a temple to +308 + + that. A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation. He thought that +exaltation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth +and achieving it, of living up to one’s highest possibility, of knowing no shame +and having no cause for shame, of being able to stand naked in full sunlight. He +thought that exaltation means joy and that joy is man’s birthright. He thought +that a place built as a setting for man is a sacred place. That is what Howard +Roark thought of man and of exaltation. But Ellsworth Toohey said that this +temple was a monument to a profound hatred of humanity. Ellsworth Toohey said +that the essence of exaltation was to be scared out of your wits, to fall down +and to grovel. Ellsworth Toohey said that man’s highest act was to realize his +own worthlessness and to beg forgiveness. Ellsworth Toohey said it was depraved +not to take for granted that man is something which needs to be forgiven. +Ellsworth Toohey saw that this building was of man and of the earth--and +Ellsworth Toohey said that this building had its belly in the mud. To glorify +man, said Ellsworth Toohey, was to glorify the gross pleasure of the flesh, for +the realm of the spirit is beyond the grasp of man. To enter that realm, said +Ellsworth Toohey, man must come as a beggar, on his knees. Ellsworth Toohey is a +lover of mankind." +"Miss Francon, we are not really discussing Mr. Toohey, so if you will confine +yourself to..." +"I do not condemn Ellsworth Toohey. I condemn Howard Roark. A building, they +say, must be part of its site. In what kind of world did Roark build his temple? +For what kind of men? Look around you. Can you see a shrine becoming sacred by +serving as a setting for Mr. Hopton Stoddard? For Mr. Ralston Holcombe? For Mr. +Peter Keating? When you look at them all, do you hate Ellsworth Toohey--or do +you damn Howard Roark for the unspeakable indignity which he did commit? +Ellsworth Toohey is right, that temple is a sacrilege, though not in the sense +he meant. I think Mr. Toohey knows that, however. When you see a man casting +pearls without getting even a pork chop in return--it is not against the swine +that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little +that he was willing to fling them into the muck and to let them become the +occasion for a whole concert of grunting, transcribed by the court +stenographer." +"Miss Francon, I hardly think that this line of testimony is relevant or +admissible..." +"The witness must be allowed to testify," the judge declared unexpectedly. He +had been bored and he liked to watch Dominique’s figure. Besides, he knew that +the audience was enjoying it, in the sheer excitement of scandal, even though +their sympathies were with Hopton Stoddard. +"Your Honor, some misunderstanding seems to have occurred," said the attorney. +"Miss Francon, for whom are you testifying? For Mr. Roark or Mr. Stoddard?" +"For Mr. Stoddard, of course. I am stating the reasons why Mr. Stoddard should +win this case. I have sworn to tell the truth." +"Proceed," said the judge. +"All the witnesses have told the truth. But not the whole truth. I am merely +filling in the omissions. They spoke of a threat and of hatred. They were right. +The Stoddard Temple is a threat to many things. If it were allowed to exist, +nobody would dare to look at himself in the mirror. And that is a cruel thing to +do to men. Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, +brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don’t ask them to achieve self-respect. +They will hate your soul. Well, they know best. They must have their reasons. +309 + + They won’t say, of course, that they hate you. They will say that you hate them. +It’s near enough, I suppose. They know the emotion involved. Such are men as +they are. So what is the use of being a martyr to the impossible? What is the +use of building for a world that does not exist?" +"Your Honor, I don’t see what possible bearing this can have on..." +"I am proving your case for you. I am proving why you must go with Ellsworth +Toohey, as you will anyway. The Stoddard Temple must be destroyed. Not to save +men from it, but to save it from men. What’s the difference, however? Mr. +Stoddard wins. I am in full agreement with everything that’s being done here, +except for one point. I didn’t think we should be allowed to get away with that +point. Let us destroy, but don’t let us pretend that we are committing an act of +virtue. Let us say that we are moles and we object to mountain peaks. Or, +perhaps, that we are lemmings, the animals who cannot help swimming out to +self-destruction. I realize fully that at this moment I am as futile as Howard +Roark. This is my Stoddard Temple--my first and my last." She inclined her head +to the judge. "That is all, Your Honor." +"Your witness," the attorney snapped to Roark. +"No questions," said Roark. +Dominique left the stand. +The attorney bowed to the bench and said: "The plaintiff rests." +The judge turned to Roark and made a vague gesture, inviting him to proceed. +Roark got up and walked to the bench, the brown envelope in hand. He took out of +the envelope ten photographs of the Stoddard Temple and laid them on the judge’s +desk. He said: +"The defense rests." + +13. +HOPTON STODDARD won the suit. +Ellsworth Toohey wrote in his column: "Mr. Roark pulled a Phryne in court and +didn’t get away with it. We never believed that story in the first place." +Roark was instructed to pay the costs of the Temple’s alterations. He said that +he would not appeal the case. Hopton Stoddard announced that the Temple would be +remodeled into the Hopton Stoddard Home for Subnormal Children. +On the day after the end of the trial Alvah Scarret gasped when he glanced at +the proofs of "Your House" delivered to his desk: the column contained most of +Dominique’s testimony in court. Her testimony had been quoted in the newspaper +accounts of the case but only in harmless excerpts. Alvah Scarret hurried to +Dominique’s office. +"Darling, darling, darling," he said, "we can’t print that." +She looked at him blankly and said nothing. +310 + + "Dominique, sweetheart, be reasonable. Quite apart from some of the language you +use and some of your utterly unprintable ideas, you know very well the stand +this paper has taken on the case. You know the campaign we’ve conducted. You’ve +read my editorial this morning--’A Victory for Decency.’ We can’t have one +writer running against our whole policy." +"You’ll have to print it." +"But, sweetheart..." +"Or I’ll have to quit." +"Oh, go on, go on, go on, don’t be silly. Now don’t get ridiculous. You know +better than that. We can’t get along without you. We can’t..." +"You’ll have to choose, Alvah." +Scarret knew that he would get hell from Gail Wynand if he printed the thing, +and might get hell if he lost Dominique Francon whose column was popular. Wynand +had not returned from his cruise. Scarret cabled him in Bali, explaining the +situation. +Within a few hours Scarret received an answer. It was in Wynand’s private code. +Translated it read FIRE THE BITCH. G.W. +Scarret stared at the cable, crushed. It was an order that allowed no +alternative, even if Dominique surrendered. He hoped she would resign. He could +not face the thought of having to fire her. +Through an office boy whom he had recommended for the job, Toohey obtained the +decoded copy of Wynand’s cable. He put it in his pocket and went to Dominique’s +office. He had not seen her since the trial. He found her engaged in emptying +the drawers of her desk. +"Hello," he said curtly. "What are you doing?" +"Waiting to hear from Alvah Scarret." +"Meaning?" +"Waiting to hear whether I’ll have to resign." +"Feel like talking about the trial?" +"No." +"I do. I think I owe you the courtesy of admitting that you’ve done what no one +has ever done before: you proved me wrong." He spoke coldly; his face looked +flat; his eyes had no trace of kindness. "I had not expected you to do what you +did on the stand. It was a scurvy trick. Though up to your usual standard. I +simply miscalculated the direction of your malice. However, you did have the +good sense to admit that your act was futile. Of course, you made your point. +And mine. As a token of appreciation, I have a present for you." He laid the +cable on her desk. She read it and stood holding it in her hand. "You can’t even +resign, my dear," he said. "You can’t make that sacrifice to your pearl-casting +hero. Remembering that you attach such great importance to not being beaten +except by your own hand, I thought you would enjoy this." +She folded the cable and slipped it into her purse. +311 + + "Thank you, Ellsworth." +"If you’re going to fight me, my dear, it will take more than speeches." +"Haven’t I always?" +"Yes. Yes, of course you have. Quite right. You’re correcting me again. You have +always fought me--and the only time you broke down and screamed for mercy was on +that witness stand." +"That’s right." +"That’s where I miscalculated." +"Yes." +He bowed formally and left the room. +She made a package of the things she wanted to take home. Then she went to +Scarret’s office. She showed him the cable in her hand, but she did not give it +to him. +"Okay, Alvah," she said. +"Dominique, I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t help it, it was--How the hell did you +get that?" +"It’s all right, Alvah. No, I won’t give it back to you. I want to keep it." She +put the cable back in her bag. "Mail me my check and anything else that has to +be discussed." +"You...you were going to resign anyway, weren’t you?" +"Yes, I was. But I like it better--being fired." +"Dominique, if you knew how awful I feel about it. I can’t believe it. I simply +can’t believe it." +"So you people made a martyr out of me, after all. And that is the one thing +I’ve tried all my life not to be. It’s so graceless, being a martyr. It’s +honoring your adversaries too much. But I’ll tell you this, Alvah--I’ll tell it +to you, because I couldn’t find a less appropriate person to hear it: nothing +that you do to me--or to him--will be worse than what I’ll do myself. If you +think I can’t take the Stoddard Temple, wait till you see what I can take." +# +On an evening three days after the trial Ellsworth Toohey sat in his room, +listening to the radio. He did not feel like working and he allowed himself a +rest, relaxing luxuriously in an armchair, letting his fingers follow the rhythm +of a complicated symphony. He heard a knock at his door. "Co-ome in," he +drawled. +Catherine came in. She glanced at the radio by way of apology for her entrance. +"I knew you weren’t working, Uncle Ellsworth. I want to speak to you." +She stood slumped, her body thin and curveless. She wore a skirt of expensive +tweed, unpressed. She had smeared some makeup on her face; the skin showed +312 + + lifeless under the patches of powder. At twenty-six she looked like a woman +trying to hide the fact of being over thirty. +In the last few years, with her uncle’s help, she had become an able social +worker. She held a paid job in a settlement house, she had a small bank account +of her own; she took her friends out to lunch, older women of her profession, +and they talked about the problems of unwed mothers, self-expression for the +children of the poor, and the evils of industrial corporations. +In the last few years Toohey seemed to have forgotten her existence. But he knew +that she was enormously aware of him in her silent, self-effacing way. He was +seldom first to speak to her. But she came to him continuously for minor advice. +She was like a small motor running on his energy, and she had to stop for +refueling once in a while. She would not go to the theater without consulting +him about the play. She would not attend a lecture course without asking his +opinion. Once she developed a friendship with a girl who was intelligent, +capable, gay and loved the poor, though a social worker. Toohey did not approve +of the girl. Catherine dropped her. +When she needed advice, she asked for it briefly, in passing, anxious not to +delay him: between the courses of a meal, at the elevator door on his way out, +in the living room when some important broadcast stopped for station +identification. She made it a point to show that she would presume to claim +nothing but the waste scraps of his time. +So Toohey looked at her, surprised, when she entered his study. He said: +"Certainly, pet. I’m not busy. I’m never too busy for you, anyway. Turn the +thing down a bit, will you?" +She softened the volume of the radio, and she slumped down in an armchair facing +him. Her movements were awkward and contradictory, like an adolescent’s: she had +lost the habit of moving with assurance, and yet, at times, a gesture, a jerk of +her head, would show a dry, overbearing impatience which she was beginning to +develop. +She looked at her uncle. Behind her glasses, her eyes were still and tense, but +unrevealing. She said: +"What have you been doing, Uncle Ellsworth? I saw something in the papers about +winning some big lawsuit that you were connected with. I was glad. I haven’t +read the papers for months. I’ve been so busy...No, that’s not quite true. I’ve +had the time, but when I came home I just couldn’t make myself do anything, I +just fell in bed and went to sleep. Uncle Ellsworth, do people sleep a lot +because they’re tired or because they want to escape from something?" +"Now, my dear, this doesn’t sound like you at all. None of it." She shook her +head helplessly: "I know." +"What is the matter?" +She said, looking at the toes of her shoes, her lips moving with effort: +"I guess I’m no good, Uncle Ellsworth." She raised her eyes to him. "I’m so +terribly unhappy." +He looked at her silently, his face earnest, his eyes gentle. She whispered: +"You understand?" He nodded. "You’re not angry at me? You don’t despise me?" +313 + + "My dear, how could I?" +"I didn’t want to say it. Not even to myself. It’s not just tonight, it’s for a +long time back. Just let me say everything, don’t be shocked, I’ve got to tell +it. It’s like going to confession as I used to--oh, don’t think I’m returning to +that, I know religion is only a...a device of class exploitation, don’t think +I’d let you down after you explained it all so well. I don’t miss going to +church. But it’s just--it’s just that I’ve got to have somebody listen." +"Katie, darling, first of all, why are you so frightened? You mustn’t be. +Certainly not of speaking to me. Just relax, be yourself and tell me what +happened." +She looked at him gratefully. "You’re...so sensitive, Uncle Ellsworth. That’s +one thing I didn’t want to say, but you guessed. I am frightened. Because--well, +you see, you just said, be yourself. And what I’m afraid of most is of being +myself. Because I’m vicious." +He laughed, not offensively, but warmly, the sound destroying her statement. But +she did not smile. +"No, Uncle Ellsworth, it’s true. I’ll try to explain. You see, always, since I +was a child, I wanted to do right. I used to think everybody did, but now I +don’t think so. Some people try their best, even if they do make mistakes, and +others just don’t care. I’ve always cared. I took it very seriously. Of course I +knew that I’m not a brilliant person and that it’s a very big subject, good and +evil. But I felt that whatever is the good--as much as it would be possible for +me to know--I would do my honest best to live up to it. Which is all anybody can +try, isn’t it? This probably sounds terribly childish to you." +"No, Katie, it doesn’t. Go on, my dear." +"Well, to begin with, I knew that it was evil to be selfish. That much I was +sure of. So I tried never to demand anything for myself. When Peter would +disappear for months...No, I don’t think you approve of that." +"Of what, my dear?" +"Of Peter and me. So I won’t talk about that. It’s not important anyway. Well, +you can see why I was so happy when I came to live with you. You’re as close to +the ideal of unselfishness as anyone can be. I tried to follow you the best I +could. That’s how I chose the work I’m doing. You never actually said that I +should choose it, but I came to feel that you thought so. Don’t ask me how I +came to feel it--it was nothing tangible, just little things you said. I felt +very confident when I started. I knew that unhappiness comes from selfishness, +and that one can find true happiness only in dedicating oneself to others. You +said that. So many people have said that. Why, all the greatest men in history +have been saying that for centuries." +"And?" +"Well, look at me." +His face remained motionless for a moment, then he smiled gaily and said: +"What’s wrong with you, pet? Apart from the fact that your stockings don’t match +and that you could be more careful about your make-up?" +314 + + "Don’t laugh, Uncle Ellsworth. Please don’t laugh. I know you say we must be +able to laugh at everything, particularly at ourselves. Only--I can’t." +"I won’t laugh, Katie. But what is the matter?" +"I’m unhappy. I’m unhappy in such a horrible, nasty, undignified way. In a way +that seems...unclean. And dishonest. I go for days, afraid to think, to look at +myself. And that’s wrong. It’s...becoming a hypocrite. I always wanted to be +honest with myself. But I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!" +"Hold on, my dear. Don’t shout. The neighbors will hear you." +She brushed the back of her hand against her forehead. She shook her head. She +whispered: +"I’m sorry....I’ll be all right...." +"Just why are you unhappy, my dear?" +"I don’t know. I can’t understand it. For instance, it was I who arranged to +have the classes in prenatal care down at the Clifford House--it was my idea--I +raised the money--I found the teacher. The classes are doing very well. I tell +myself that I should be happy about it. But I’m not. It doesn’t seem to make any +difference to me. I sit down and I tell myself: It was you who arranged to have +Marie Gonzales’ baby adopted into a nice family--now, be happy. But I’m not. I +feel nothing. When I’m honest with myself, I know that the only emotion I’ve +felt for years is being tired. Not physically tired. Just tired. It’s as if...as +if there were nobody there to feel any more." +She took off her glasses, as if the double barrier of her glasses and his +prevented her from reaching him. She spoke, her voice lower, the words coming +with greater effort: +"But that’s not all. There’s something much worse. It’s doing something horrible +to me. I’m beginning to hate people, Uncle Ellsworth. I’m beginning to be cruel +and mean and petty in a way I’ve never been before. I expect people to be +grateful to me. I...I demand gratitude. I find myself pleased when slum people +bow and scrape and fawn over me. I find myself liking only those who are +servile. Once...once I told a woman that she didn’t appreciate what people like +us did for trash like her. I cried for hours afterward, I was so ashamed. I +begin to resent it when people argue with me. I feel that they have no right to +minds of their own, that I know best, that I’m the final authority for them. +There was a girl we were worried about, because she was running around with a +very handsome boy who had a bad reputation, I tortured her for weeks about it, +telling her how he’d get her in trouble and that she should drop him. Well, they +got married and they’re the happiest couple in the district. Do you think I’m +glad? No, I’m furious and I’m barely civil to the girl when I meet her. Then +there was a girl who needed a job desperately--it was really a ghastly situation +in her home, and I promised that I’d get her one. Before I could find it, she +got a good job all by herself. I wasn’t pleased. I was sore as hell that +somebody got out of a bad hole without my help. Yesterday, I was speaking to a +boy who wanted to go to college and I was discouraging him, telling him to get a +good job, instead. I was quite angry, too. And suddenly I realized that it was +because I had wanted so much to go to college--you remember, you wouldn’t let +me--and so I wasn’t going to let that kid do it either....Uncle Ellsworth, don’t +you see? I’m becoming selfish. I’m becoming selfish in a way that’s much more +horrible than if I were some petty chiseler pinching pennies off these people’s +wages in a sweatshop!" +315 + + He asked quietly: +"Is that all?" +She closed her eyes, and then she said, looking down at her hands: +"Yes...except that I’m not the only one who’s like that. A lot of them are, most +of the women I work with....I don’t know how they got that way....I don’t know +how it happened to me....I used to feel happy when I helped somebody. I remember +once--I had lunch with Peter that day--and on my way back I saw an old +organ-grinder and I gave him five dollars I had in my bag. It was all the money +I had; I’d saved it to buy a bottle of ’Christmas Night,’ I wanted ’Christmas +Night’ very badly, but afterward every time I thought of that organ-grinder I +was happy....I saw Peter often in those days....I’d come home after seeing him +and I’d want to kiss every ragged kid on our block....I think I hate the poor +now....I think all the other women do, too....But the poor don’t hate us, as +they should. They only despise us....You know, it’s funny: it’s the masters who +despise the slaves, and the slaves who hate the masters. I don’t know who is +which. Maybe it doesn’t fit here. Maybe it does. I don’t know..." +She raised her head with a last spurt of rebellion. +"Don’t you see what it is that I must understand? Why is it that I set out +honestly to do what I thought was right and it’s making me rotten? I think it’s +probably because I’m vicious by nature and incapable of leading a good life. +That seems to be the only explanation. But...but sometimes I think it doesn’t +make sense that a human being is completely sincere in good will and yet the +good is not for him to achieve. I can’t be as rotten as that. But...but I’ve +given up everything, I have no selfish desire left, I have nothing of my +own--and I’m miserable. And so are the other women like me. And I don’t know a +single selfless person in the world who’s happy--except you." +She dropped her head and she did not raise it again; she seemed indifferent even +to the answer she was seeking. +"Katie," he said softly, reproachfully, "Katie darling." +She waited silently. +"Do you really want me to tell you the answer?" She nodded. "Because, you know, +you’ve given the answer yourself, in the things you said." She lifted her eyes +blankly. "What have you been talking about? What have you been complaining +about? About the fact that you are unhappy. About Katie Halsey and nothing else. +It was the most egotistical speech I’ve ever heard in my life." +She blinked attentively, like a schoolchild disturbed by a difficult lesson. +"Don’t you see how selfish you have been? You chose a noble career, not for the +good you could accomplish, but for the personal happiness you expected to find +in it." +"But I really wanted to help people." +"Because you thought you’d be good and virtuous doing it." +"Why--yes. Because I thought it was right. Is it vicious to want to do right?" +"Yes, if it’s your chief concern. Don’t you see how egotistical it is? To hell +with everybody so long as I’m virtuous." +316 + + "But if you have no...no self-respect, how can you be anything?" +"Why must you be anything?" +She spread her hands out, bewildered. +"If your first concern is for what you are or think or feel or have or haven’t +got--you’re still a common egotist." +"But I can’t jump out of my own body." +"No. But you can jump out of your narrow soul." +"You mean, I must want to be unhappy?" +"No. You must stop wanting anything. You must forget how important Miss +Catherine Halsey is. Because, you see, she isn’t. Men are important only in +relation to other men, in their usefulness, in the service they render. Unless +you understand that completely, you can expect nothing but one form of misery or +another. Why make such a cosmic tragedy out of the fact that you’ve found +yourself feeling cruel toward people? So what? It’s just growing pains. One +can’t jump from a state of animal brutality into a state of spiritual living +without certain transitions. And some of them may seem evil. A beautiful woman +is usually a gawky adolescent first. All growth demands destruction. You can’t +make an omelet without breaking eggs. You must be willing to suffer, to be +cruel, to be dishonest, to be unclean--anything, my dear, anything to kill the +most stubborn of roots, the ego. And only when it is dead, when you care no +longer, when you have lost your identity and forgotten the name of your +soul--only then will you know the kind of happiness I spoke about, and the gates +of spiritual grandeur will fall open before you." +"But, Uncle Ellsworth," she whispered, "when the gates fall open, who is it +that’s going to enter?" +He laughed aloud, crisply. It sounded like a laugh of appreciation. "My dear," +he said, "I never thought you could surprise me." +Then his face became earnest again. +"It was a smart crack, Katie, but you know, I hope, that it was only a smart +crack?" +"Yes," she said uncertainly, "I suppose so. Still..." +"We can’t be too literal when we deal in abstractions. Of course it’s you who’ll +enter. You won’t have lost your identity--you will merely have acquired a +broader one, an identity that will be part of everybody else and of the whole +universe." +"How? In what way? Part of what?" +"Now you see how difficult it is to discuss these things when our entire +language is the language of individualism, with all its terms and superstitions. +’Identity’--it’s an illusion, you know. But you can’t build a new house out of +crumbling old bricks. You can’t expect to understand me completely through the +medium of present-day conceptions. We are poisoned by the superstition of the +ego. We cannot know what will be right or wrong in a selfless society, nor what +we’ll feel, nor in what manner. We must destroy the ego first. That is why the +317 + + mind is so unreliable. We must not think. We must believe. Believe, Katie, even +if your mind objects. Don’t think. Believe. Trust your heart, not your brain. +Don’t think. Feel. Believe." +She sat still, composed, but somehow she looked like something run over by a +tank. She whispered obediently: +"Yes, Uncle Ellsworth...I...I didn’t think of it that way. I mean I always +thought that I must think...But you’re right, that is, if right is the word I +mean, if there is a word...Yes, I will believe....I’ll try to understand....No, +not to understand. To feel. To believe, I mean....Only I’m so weak....I always +feel so small after talking to you....I suppose I was right in a way--I am +worthless...but it doesn’t matter...it doesn’t matter...." +# +When the doorbell rang on the following evening Toohey went to open the door +himself. +He smiled when he admitted Peter Keating. After the trial he had expected +Keating to come to him; he knew that Keating would need to come. But he had +expected him sooner. +Keating walked in uncertainly. His hands seemed too heavy for his wrists. His +eyes were puffed, and the skin of his face looked slack. +"Hello, Peter," said Toohey brightly. "Want to see me? Come right in. Just your +luck. I have the whole evening free." +"No," said Keating. "I want to see Katie." +He was not looking at Toohey and he did not see the expression behind Toohey’s +glasses. +"Katie? But of course!" said Toohey gaily. "You know, you’ve never come here to +call on Katie, so it didn’t occur to me, but...Go right in, I believe she’s +home. This way--you don’t know her room?--second door." +Keating shuffled heavily down the hall, knocked on Catherine’s door and went in +when she answered. Toohey stood looking after him, his face thoughtful. +Catherine jumped to her feet when she saw her guest. She stood stupidly, +incredulously for a moment, then she dashed to her bed to snatch a girdle she +had left lying there and stuff it hurriedly under the pillow. Then she jerked +off her glasses, closed her whole fist over them, and slipped them into her +pocket. She wondered which would be worse: to remain as she was or to sit down +at her dressing table and make up her face in his presence. +She had not seen Keating for six months. In the last three years, they had met +occasionally, at long intervals, they had had a few luncheons together, a few +dinners, they had gone to the movies twice. They had always met in a public +place. Since the beginning of his acquaintance with Toohey, Keating would not +come to see her at her home. When they met, they talked as if nothing had +changed. But they had not spoken of marriage for a long time. "Hello, Katie," +said Keating softly. "I didn’t know you wore glasses now." +"It’s just...it’s only for reading....I...Hello, Peter....I guess I look +terrible tonight....I’m glad to see you, Peter...." +He sat down heavily, his hat in his hand, his overcoat on. She stood smiling +318 + + helplessly. Then she made a vague, circular motion with her hands and asked: +"Is it just for a little while or...or do you want to take your coat off?" +"No, it’s not just for a little while." He got up, threw his coat and hat on the +bed, then he smiled for the first time and asked: "Or are you busy and want to +throw me out?" +She pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets, and dropped her +hands again quickly; she had to meet him as she had always met him, she had to +sound light and normal: "No, no, Fin not busy at all." +He sat down and stretched out his arm in silent invitation. She came to him +promptly, she put her hand in his, and he pulled her down to the arm of his +chair. +The lamplight fell on him, and she had recovered enough to notice the appearance +of his face. +"Peter," she gasped, "what have you been doing to yourself? You look awful." +"Drinking." +"Not...like that!" +"Like that. But it’s over now." +"What was it?" +"I wanted to see you, Katie. I wanted to see you." +"Darling...what have they done to you?" +"Nobody’s done anything to me. I’m all right now. I’m all right. Because I came +here...Katie, have you ever heard of Hopton Stoddard?" +"Stoddard?...I don’t know. I’ve seen the name somewhere." +"Well, never mind, it doesn’t matter. I was only thinking how strange it is. You +see, Stoddard’s an old bastard who just couldn’t take his own rottenness any +more, so to make up for it he built a big present to the city. But when I...when +I couldn’t take any more, I felt that the only way I could make up for it was by +doing the thing I really wanted to do most--by coming here." +"When you couldn’t take--what, Peter?" +"I’ve done something very dirty, Katie. I’ll tell you about it some day, but not +now....Look will you say that you forgive me--without asking what it is? I’ll +think...I’ll think that I’ve been forgiven by someone who can never forgive me. +Someone who can’t be hurt and so can’t forgive--but that makes it worse for me." +She did not seem perplexed. She said earnestly: +"I forgive you, Peter." +He nodded his head slowly several times and said: +"Thank you." +319 + + Then she pressed her head to his and she whispered: +"You’ve gone through hell, haven’t you?" +"Yes. But it’s all right now." +He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Then he did not think of the +Stoddard Temple any longer, and she did not think of good and evil. They did not +need to; they felt too clean. +"Katie, why haven’t we married?" +"I don’t know," she said. And added hastily, saying it only because her heart +was pounding, because she could not remain silent and because she felt called +upon not to take advantage of him: "I guess it’s because we knew we don’t have +to hurry," +"But we do. If we’re not too late already." +"Peter, you...you’re not proposing to me again?" +"Don’t look stunned, Katie. If you do, I’ll know that you’ve doubted it all +these years. And I couldn’t stand to think that just now. That’s what I came +here to tell you tonight. We’re going to get married. We’re going to get married +right away." +"Yes, Peter." +"We don’t need announcements, dates, preparations, guests, any of it. We’ve let +one of those things or another stop us every time. I honestly don’t know just +how it happened that we’ve let it all drift like that....We won’t say anything +to anyone. We’ll just slip out of town and get married. We’ll announce and +explain afterward, if anyone wants explanations. And that means your uncle, and +my mother, and everybody." +"Yes, Peter." +"Quit your damn job tomorrow. I’ll make arrangements at the office to take a +month off. Guy will be sore as hell--I’ll enjoy that. Get your things ready--you +won’t need much--don’t bother about the makeup, by the way--did you say you +looked terrible tonight?--you’ve never looked lovelier. I’ll be here at nine +o’clock in the morning, day after tomorrow. You must be ready to start then." +"Yes, Peter." +After he had gone, she lay on her bed, sobbing aloud, without restraint, without +dignity, without a care in the world. +Ellsworth Toohey had left the door of his study open. He had seen Keating pass +by the door without noticing it and go out. Then he heard the sound of +Catherine’s sobs. He walked to her room and entered without knocking. He asked: +"What’s the matter, my dear? Has Peter done something to hurt you?" +She half lifted herself on the bed, she looked at him, throwing her hair back +off her face, sobbing exultantly. She said without thinking the first thing she +felt like saying. She said something which she did not understand, but he did: +"I’m not afraid of you, Uncle Ellsworth!" +320 + + 14. +"WHO?" gasped Keating. +"Miss Dominique Francon," the maid repeated. +"You’re drunk, you damn fool!" +"Mr. Keating!..." +He was on his feet, he shoved her out of the way, he flew into the living room, +and saw Dominique Francon standing there, in his apartment. +"Hello, Peter." +"Dominique!...Dominique, how come?" In his anger, apprehension, curiosity and +flattered pleasure, his first conscious thought was gratitude to God that his +mother was not at home. +"I phoned your office. They said you had gone home." +"I’m so delighted, so pleasantly sur...Oh, hell, Dominique, what’s the use? I +always try to be correct with you and you always see through it so well that +it’s perfectly pointless. So I won’t play the poised host. You know that I’m +knocked silly and that your coming here isn’t natural and anything I say will +probably be wrong." +"Yes, that’s better, Peter." +He noticed that he still held a key in his hand and he slipped it into his +pocket; he had been packing a suitcase for his wedding trip of tomorrow. He +glanced at the room and noted angrily how vulgar his Victorian furniture looked +beside the elegance of Dominique’s figure. She wore a gray suit, a black fur +jacket with a collar raised to her cheeks, and a hat slanting down. She did not +look as she had looked on the witness stand, nor as he remembered her at dinner +parties. He thought suddenly of that moment, years ago, when he stood on the +stair landing outside Guy Francon’s office and wished never to see Dominique +again. She was what she had been then: a stranger who frightened him by the +crystal emptiness of her face. +"Well, sit down, Dominique. Take your coat off." +"No, I shan’t stay long. Since we’re not pretending anything today, shall I tell +you what I came for--or do you want some polite conversation first?" +"No, I don’t want polite conversation." +"All right. Will you marry me, Peter?" +He stood very still; then he sat down heavily--because he knew she meant it. +"If you want to marry me," she went on in the same precise, impersonal voice, +"you must do it right now. My car is downstairs. We drive to Connecticut and we +come back. It will take about three hours." +"Dominique..." He didn’t want to move his lips beyond the effort of her name. He +321 + + wanted to think that he was paralyzed. He knew that he was violently alive, that +he was forcing the stupor into his muscles and into his mind, because he wished +to escape the responsibility of consciousness. +"We’re not pretending, Peter. Usually, people discuss their reasons and their +feelings first, then make the practical arrangements. With us, this is the only +way. If I offered it to you in any other form, I’d be cheating you. It must be +like this. No questions, no conditions, no explanations. What we don’t say +answers itself. By not being said. There is nothing for you to ponder--only +whether you want to do it or not." +"Dominique," he spoke with the concentration he used when he walked down a naked +girder in an unfinished building, "I understand only this much: I understand +that I must try to imitate you, not to discuss it, not to talk, just answer." +"Yes." +"Only--I can’t--quite." +"This is one time, Peter, when there are no protections. Nothing to hide behind. +Not even words." +"If you’d just say one thing..." +"No." +"If you’d give me time..." +"No. Either we go downstairs together now or we forget it." +"You mustn’t resent it if I...You’ve never allowed me to hope that you +could...that you...no, no, I won’t say it...but what can you expect me to think? +I’m here, alone, and..." +"And I’m the only one present to give you advice. My advice is to refuse. I’m +honest with you, Peter. But I won’t help you by withdrawing the offer. You would +prefer not to have had the chance of marrying me. But you have the chance. Now. +The choice will be yours." +Then he could not hold on to his dignity any longer; he let his head drop, he +pressed his fist to his forehead. "Dominique--why?" +"You know the reasons. I told them to you once, long ago. If you haven’t the +courage to think of them, don’t expect me to repeat them." +He sat still, his head down. Then he said: "Dominique, two people like you and +me getting married, it’s almost a front-page event." +"Yes." +"Wouldn’t it be better to do it properly, with an announcement and a real +wedding ceremony?" +"I’m strong, Peter, but I’m not that strong. You can have your receptions and +your publicity afterward." +"You don’t want me to say anything now, except yes or no?" +"That’s all." +322 + + He sat looking up at her for a long time. Her glance was on his eyes, but it had +no more reality than the glance of a portrait. He felt alone in the room. She +stood, patient, waiting, granting him nothing, not even the kindness of +prompting him to hurry. "All right, Dominique. Yes," he said at last. She +inclined her head gravely in acquiescence. He stood up. "I’ll get my coat," he +said. "Do you want to take your car?" +"Yes." +"It’s an open car, isn’t it? Should I wear my fur coat? "No. Take a warm +muffler, though. There’s a little wind." +"No luggage? We’re coming right back to the city?" +"We’re coming right back." +He left the door to the hall open, and she saw him putting on his coat, throwing +a muffler around his throat, with the gesture of flinging a cape over his +shoulder. He stepped to the door of the living room, hat in hand, and invited +her to go, with a silent movement of his head. In the hall outside he pressed +the button of the elevator and he stepped back to let her enter first. He was +precise, sure of himself, without joy, without emotion. He seemed more coldly +masculine than he had ever been before. +He took her elbow firmly, protectively, to cross the street where she had left +her car. He opened the car’s door, let her slide behind the wheel and got in +silently beside her. She leaned over across him and adjusted the glass wind +screen on his side. She said: "If it’s not right, fix it any way you want when +we start moving, so it won’t be too cold for you." He said: "Get to the Grand +Concourse, fewer lights there." She put her handbag down on his lap while she +took the wheel and started the car. There was suddenly no antagonism between +them, but a quiet, hopeless feeling of comradeship, as if they were victims of +the same impersonal disaster, who had to help each other. +She drove fast, as a matter of habit, an even speed without a sense of haste. +They sat silently to the level drone of the motor, and they sat patiently, +without shifting the positions of their bodies, when the car stopped for a +light. They seemed caught in a single streak of motion, an imperative direction +like the flight of a bullet that could not be stopped on its course. There was a +first hint of twilight in the streets of the city. The pavements looked yellow. +The shops were still open. A movie theater had lighted its sign, and the red +bulbs whirled jerkily, sucking the last daylight out of the air, making the +street look darker. +Peter Keating felt no need of speech. He did not seem to be Peter Keating any +longer. He did not ask for warmth and he did not ask for pity. He asked nothing. +She thought of that once, and she glanced at him, a glance of appreciation that +was almost gentle. He met her eyes steadily; she saw understanding, but no +comment. It was as if his glance said: "Of course," nothing else. +They were out of the city, with a cold brown road flying to meet them, when he +said: +"The traffic cops are bad around here. Got your press card with you, just in +case?" +"I’m not the press any longer." +323 + + "You’re not what?" +"I’m not a newspaper woman any more." +"You quit your job?" +"No, I was fired." +"What are you talking about?" +"Where have you been the last few days? I thought everybody knew it." +"Sorry. I didn’t follow things very well the last few days." +Miles later, she said: "Give me a cigarette. In my bag." He opened her bag, and +he saw her cigarette case, her compact, her lipstick, her comb, a folded +handkerchief too white to touch, smelling faintly of her perfume. Somewhere +within him he thought that this was almost like unbuttoning her blouse. But most +of him was not conscious of the thought nor of the intimate proprietorship with +which he opened the bag. He took a cigarette from her case, lighted it and put +it from his lips to hers. "Thanks," she said. He lighted one for himself and +closed the bag. +When they reached Greenwich, it was he who made the inquiries, told her where to +drive, at what block to turn, and said, "Here it is," when they pulled up in +front of the judge’s house. He got out first and helped her out of the car. He +pressed the button of the doorbell. +They were married in a living room that displayed armchairs of faded tapestry, +blue and purple, and a lamp with a fringe of glass beads. The witnesses were the +judge’s wife and someone from next door named Chuck, who had been interrupted at +some household task and smelled faintly of Clorox. +Then they came back to their car and Keating asked: "Want me to drive if you’re +tired?" She said: "No, I’ll drive." +The road to the city cut through brown fields where every rise in the ground had +a shade of tired red on the side facing west. There was a purple haze eating +away the edges of the fields, and a motionless streak of fire in the sky. A few +cars came toward them as brown shapes, still visible; others had their lights +on, two disquieting spots of yellow. +Keating watched the road; it looked narrow, a small dash in the middle of the +windshield, framed by earth and hills, all of it held within the rectangle of +glass before him. But the road spread as the windshield flew forward. The road +filled the glass, it ran over the edges, it tore apart to let them pass, +streaming in two gray bands on either side of the car. He thought it was a race +and he waited to see the windshield win, to see the car hurtle into that small +dash before it had time to stretch. +"Where are we going to live now, at first?" he asked. "Your place or mine?" +"Yours, of course." +"I’d rather move to yours." +"No. I’m closing my place." +"You can’t possibly like my apartment." +324 + + "Why not?" +"I don’t know. It doesn’t fit you." +"I’ll like it." +They were silent for a while, then he asked: "How are we going to announce this +now?" +"In any way you wish. I’ll leave it up to you." +It was growing darker and she switched on the car’s headlights. He watched the +small blurs of traffic signs, low by the side of the road, springing suddenly +into life as they approached, spelling out: "Left turn," +"Crossing ahead," in dots of light that seemed conscious, malevolent, winking. +They drove silently, but there was no bond in their silence now; they were not +walking together toward disaster; the disaster had come; their courage did not +matter any longer. +He felt disturbed and uncertain as he always felt in the presence of Dominique +Francon. +He half turned to look at her. She kept her eyes on the road. Her profile in the +cold wind was serene and remote and lovely in a way that was hard to bear. He +looked at her gloved hands resting firmly, one on each side of the wheel. He +looked down at her slender foot on the accelerator, then his eyes rose up the +line of her leg. His glance remained on the narrow triangle of her tight gray +skirt. He realized suddenly that he had a right to think what he was thinking. +For the first time this implication of marriage occurred to him fully and +consciously. Then he knew that he had always wanted this woman, that it was the +kind of feeling he would have for a whore, only lasting and hopeless and +vicious. My wife, he thought for the first time, without a trace of respect in +the word. He felt so violent a desire that had it been summer he would have +ordered her to drive into the first side lane and he would have taken her there. +He slipped his arm along the back of the seat and encircled her shoulders, his +fingers barely touching her. She did not move, resist or turn to look at him. He +pulled his arm away, and he sat staring straight ahead. +"Mrs. Keating," he said flatly, not addressing her, just as a statement of fact. +"Mrs. Peter Keating," she said. +When they stopped in front of his apartment house, he got out and held the door +for her, but she remained sitting behind the wheel. +"Good night, Peter," she said. "I’ll see you tomorrow." +She added, before the expression of his face had turned into an obscene +swearword: "I’ll send my things over tomorrow and we’ll discuss everything then. +Everything will begin tomorrow, Peter." +"Where are you going?" +"I have things to settle." +325 + + "But what will I tell people tonight?" +"Anything you wish, if at all." +She swung the car into the traffic and drove away. +# +When she entered Roark’s room, that evening, he smiled, not his usual faint +smile of acknowledging the expected, but a smile that spoke of waiting and pain. +He had not seen her since the trial. She had left the courtroom after her +testimony and he had heard nothing from her since. He had come to her house, but +her maid had told him that Miss Francon could not see him. +She looked at him now and she smiled. It was, for the first time, like a gesture +of complete acceptance, as if the sight of him solved everything, answered all +questions, and her meaning was only to be a woman who looked at him. +They stood silently before each other for a moment, and she thought that the +most beautiful words were those which were not needed. +When he moved, she said: "Don’t say anything about the trial. Afterward." +When he took her in his arms, she turned her body to meet his straight on, to +feel the width of his chest with the width of hers, the length of his legs with +the length of hers, as if she were lying against him, and her feet felt no +weight, and she was held upright by the pressure of his body. +They lay in bed together that night, and they did not know when they slept, the +intervals of exhausted unconsciousness as intense an act of union as the +convulsed meetings of their bodies. +In the morning, when they were dressed, she watched him move about the room. She +saw the drained relaxation of his movements; she thought of what she had taken +from him, and the heaviness of her wrists told her that her own strength was now +in his nerves, as if they had exchanged their energy. +He was at the other end of the room, his back turned to her for a moment, when +she said, "Roark," her voice quiet and low. +He turned to her, as if he had expected it and, perhaps, guessed the rest. +She stood in the middle of the floor, as she had stood on her first night in +this room, solemnly composed to the performance of a rite. +"I love you, Roark." +She had said it for the first time. +She saw the reflection of her next words on his face before she had pronounced +them. +"I was married yesterday. To Peter Keating." +It would have been easy, if she had seen a man distorting his mouth to bite off +sound, closing his fists and twisting them in defense against himself. But it +was not easy, because she did not see him doing this, yet knew that this was +being done, without the relief of a physical gesture. +326 + + "Roark..." she whispered, gently, frightened. +He said: "I’m all right." Then he said: "Please wait a moment...All right. Go +on." +"Roark, before I met you, I had always been afraid of seeing someone like you, +because I knew that I’d also have to see what I saw on the witness stand and I’d +have to do what I did in that courtroom. I hated doing it, because it was an +insult to you to defend you--and it was an insult to myself that you had to be +defended....Roark, I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest +for most people: the halfway, the almost, the just-about, the in-between. They +may have their justifications. I don’t know. I don’t care to inquire. I know +that it is the one thing not given me to understand. When I think of what you +are, I can’t accept any reality except a world of your kind. Or at least a world +in which you have a fighting chance and a fight on your own terms. That does not +exist. And I can’t live a life torn between that which exists--and you. It would +mean to struggle against things and men who don’t deserve to be your opponents. +Your fight, using their methods--and that’s too horrible a desecration. It would +mean doing for you what I did for Peter Keating: lie, flatter, evade, +compromise, pander to every ineptitude--in order to beg of them a chance for +you, beg them to let you live, to let you function, to beg them, Roark, not to +laugh at them, but to tremble because they hold the power to hurt you. Am I too +weak because I can’t do this? I don’t know which is the greater strength: to +accept all this for you--or to love you so much that the rest is beyond +acceptance. I don’t know. I love you too much." +He looked at her, waiting. She knew that he had understood this long ago, but +that it had to be said. +"You’re not aware of them. I am. I can’t help it, I love you. The contrast is +too great. Roark, you won’t win, they’ll destroy you, but I won’t be there to +see it happen. I will have destroyed myself first. That’s the only gesture of +protest open to me. What else could I offer you? The things people sacrifice are +so little. I’ll give you my marriage to Peter Keating. I’ll refuse to permit +myself happiness in their world. I’ll take suffering. That will be my answer to +them, and my gift to you. I shall probably never see you again. I shall try not +to. But I will live for you, through every minute and every shameful act I take, +I will live for you in my own way, in the only way I can." +He made a movement to speak, and she said: +"Wait. Let me finish. You could ask, why not kill myself then. Because I love +you. Because you exist. That alone is so much that it won’t allow me to die. And +since I must be alive in order to know that you are, I will live in the world as +it is, in the manner of life it demands. Not halfway, but completely. Not +pleading and running from it, but walking out to meet it, beating it to the pain +and the ugliness, being first to choose the worst it can do to me. Not as the +wife of some half-decent human being, but as the wife of Peter Keating. And only +within my own mind, only where nothing can touch it, kept sacred by the +protecting wall of my own degradation, there will be the thought of you and the +knowledge of you, and I shall say ’Howard Roark to myself once in a while, and I +shall feel that I have deserved to say it." She stood before him, her face +raised; her lips were not drawn, but closed softly, yet the shape of her mouth +was too definite on her face, a shape of pain and tenderness, and resignation. +In his face she saw suffering that was made old, as if it had been part of him +for a long time, because it was accepted, and it looked not like a wound, but +like a scar. +327 + + "Dominique, if I told you now to have that marriage annulled at once--to forget +the world and my struggle--to feel no anger, no concern, no hope--just to exist +for me, for my need of you--as my wife--as my property...?" +He saw in her face what she had seen in his when she told him of her marriage; +but he was not frightened and he watched it calmly. After a while, she answered +and the words did not come from her lips, but as if her lips were forced to +gather the sounds from the outside: "I’d obey you." +"Now you see why I won’t do it. I won’t try to stop you. I love you, Dominique." +She closed her eyes, and he said: +"You’d rather not hear it now? But I want you to hear it. We never need to say +anything to each other when we’re together. This is--for the time when we won’t +be together. I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As +selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel +of my body, for my survival. I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my +ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is +the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become +your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want +yourself--and so you would not love me long. To say ’I love you’ one must know +first how to say the ’I.’ The kind of surrender I could have from you now would +give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why +I won’t stop you. I’ll let you go to your husband. I don’t know how I’ll live +through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the +battle you’ve chosen. A battle is never selfless." +She heard, in the measured tension of his words, that it was harder for him to +speak them than for her to listen. So she listened. +"You must learn not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are +now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom. I must let you learn +it. I can’t help you. You must find your own way. When you have, you’ll come +back to me. They won’t destroy me, Dominique. And they won’t destroy you. You’ll +win, because you’ve chosen the hardest way of fighting for your freedom from the +world. I’ll wait for you. I love you. I’m saying this now for all the years +we’ll have to wait. I love you, Dominique." +Then he kissed her and let her go. + +15. +AT NINE O’CLOCK that morning Peter Keating was pacing the floor of his room, his +door locked. He forgot that it was nine o’clock and that Catherine was waiting +for him. He had made himself forget her and everything she implied. +The door of his room was locked to protect him from his mother. Last night, +seeing his furious restlessness, she had forced him to tell her the truth. He +had snapped that he was married to Dominique Francon, and he had added some sort +of explanation about Dominique going out of town to announce the marriage to +some old relative. His mother had been so busy with gasps of delight and +questions, that he had been able to ’answer nothing and to hide his panic; he +was not certain that he had a wife and that she would come back to him in the +morning. +328 + + He had forbidden his mother to announce the news, but she had made a few +telephone calls last night, and she was making a few more this morning, and now +their telephone was ringing constantly, with eager voices asking: "Is it true?" +pouring out sounds of amazement and congratulations. Keating could see the news +spreading through the city in widening circles, by the names and social +positions of the people who called. He refused to answer the telephone. It +seemed to him that every corner of New York was flooded with celebration and +that he alone, hidden in the watertight caisson of his room, was cold and lost +and horrified. +It was almost noon when the doorbell rang, and he pressed his hands to his ears, +not to know who it was and what they wanted. Then he heard his mother’s voice, +so shrill with joy that it sounded embarrassingly silly: "Petey darling, don’t +you want to come out and kiss your wife?" He flew out into the hall, and there +was Dominique, removing her soft mink coat, the fur throwing to his nostrils a +wave of the street’s cold air touched by her perfume. She was smiling correctly, +looking straight at him, saying: "Good morning, Peter." +He stood drawn up, for one instant, and in that instant he relived all the +telephone calls and felt the triumph to which they entitled him. He moved as a +man in the arena of a crowded stadium, he smiled as if he felt the ray of an arc +light playing in the creases of his smile, and he said: "Dominique my dear, this +is like a dream come true!" +The dignity of their doomed understanding was gone and their marriage was what +it had been intended to be. +She seemed glad of it. She said: "Sorry you didn’t carry me over the threshold, +Peter." He did not kiss her, but took her hand and kissed her arm above the +wrist, in casual, intimate tenderness. +He saw his mother standing there, and he said with a dashing gesture of triumph: +"Mother--Dominique Keating." +He saw his mother kissing her. Dominique returned the kiss gravely. Mrs. Keating +was gulping: "My dear, I’m so happy, so happy, God bless you, I had no idea you +were so beautiful!" +He did not know what to do next, but Dominique took charge, simply, leaving them +no time for wonder. She walked into the living room and she said: "Let’s have +lunch first, and then you’ll show me the place, Peter. My things will be here in +an hour or so." +Mrs. Keating beamed: "Lunch is all ready for three, Miss Fran..." She stopped. +"Oh, dear, what am I to call you, honey? Mrs. Keating or..." +"Dominique, of course," Dominique answered without smiling. +"Aren’t we going to announce, to invite anyone, to...?" Keating began, but +Dominique said: +"Afterwards, Peter. It will announce itself." +Later, when her luggage arrived, he saw her walking into his bedroom without +hesitation. She instructed the maid how to hang up her clothes, she asked him to +help her rearrange the contents of the closets. +Mrs. Keating looked puzzled. "But aren’t you children going to go away at all? +It’s all so sudden and romantic, but--no honeymoon of any kind?" +329 + + "No," said Dominique, "I don’t want to take Peter away from his work." +He said: "This is temporary of course, Dominique. We’ll have to move to another +apartment, a bigger one. I want you to choose it." +"Why, no," she said. "I don’t think that’s necessary. We’ll remain here." +"I’ll move out," Mrs. Keating offered generously, without thinking, prompted by +an overwhelming fear of Dominique. "I’ll take a little place for myself." +"No," said Dominique. "I’d rather you wouldn’t. I want to change nothing. I want +to fit myself into Peter’s life just as it is." +"That’s sweet of you!" Mrs. Keating smiled, while Keating thought numbly that it +was not sweet of her at all. +Mrs. Keating knew that when she had recovered she would hate her +daughter-in-law. She could have accepted snubbing. She could not forgive +Dominique’s grave politeness. +The telephone rang. Keating’s chief designer at the office delivered his +congratulations and said: "We just heard it, Peter, and Guy’s pretty stunned. I +really think you ought to call him up or come over here or something." +Keating hurried to the office, glad to escape from his house for a while. He +entered the office like a perfect figure of a radiant young lover. He laughed +and shook hands in the drafting room, through noisy congratulations, gay shouts +of envy and a few smutty references. Then he hastened to Francon’s office. +For an instant he felt oddly guilty when he entered and saw the smile on +Francon’s face, a smile like a blessing. He tugged affectionately at Francon’s +shoulders and he muttered: "I’m so happy, Guy, I’m so happy..." +"I’ve always expected it," said Francon quietly, "but now I feel right. Now it’s +right that it should be all yours, Peter, all of it, this room, everything, +soon." +"What are you talking about?" +"Come, you always understand. I’m tired, Peter. You know, there comes a time +when you get tired in a way that’s final and then...No, you wouldn’t know, +you’re too young. But hell, Peter, of what use am I around here? The funny part +of it is that I don’t care any more even about pretending to be of any use....I +like to be honest sometimes. It’s a nice sort of feeling....Well, anyway, it +might be another year or two, but then I’m going to retire. Then it’s all yours. +It might amuse me to hang on around here just a little longer--you know, I +actually love the place--it’s so busy, it’s done so well, people respect us--it +was a good firm, Francon & Heyer, wasn’t it?--What the hell am I saying? Francon +& Keating. Then it will be just Keating....Peter," he asked softly, "why don’t +you look happy?" +"Of course I’m happy, I’m very grateful and all that, but why in blazes should +you think of retiring now?" +"I don’t mean that. I mean--why don’t you look happy when I say that it will be +yours? I...I’d like you to be happy about that, Peter." +"For God’s sake, Guy, you’re being morbid, you’re..." +330 + + "Peter, it’s very important to me--that you should be happy at what I’m leaving +you. That you should be proud of it. And you are, aren’t you, Peter? You are?" +"Well, who wouldn’t be?" He did not look at Francon. He could not stand the +sound of pleading in Francon’s voice. +"Yes, who wouldn’t be? Of course....And you are, Peter?" +"What do you want?" snapped Keating angrily. +"I want you to feel proud of me, Peter," said Francon humbly, simply, +desperately. "I want to know that I’ve accomplished something. I want to feel +that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure that it +wasn’t all--for nothing." +"You’re not sure of that? You’re not sure?" Keating’s eyes were murderous, as if +Francon were a sudden danger to him. +"What’s the matter, Peter?" Francon asked gently, almost indifferently. +"God damn you, you have no right--not to be sure! At your age, with your name, +with your prestige, with your..." +"I want to be sure, Peter. I’ve worked very hard." +"But you’re not sure!" He was furious and frightened, and so he wanted to hurt, +and he flung out the one thing that could hurt most, forgetting that it hurt +him, not Francon, that Francon wouldn’t know, had never known, wouldn’t even +guess: "Well, I know somebody who’ll be sure, at the end of his life, who’ll be +so God-damn sure I’d like to cut his damn throat for it!" +"Who?" asked Francon quietly, without interest. "Guy! Guy, what’s the matter +with us? What are we talking about?" +"I don’t know," said Francon. He looked tired. +That evening Francon came to Keating’s house for dinner. He was dressed +jauntily, and he twinkled with his old gallantry as he kissed Mrs. Keating’s +hand. But he looked grave when he congratulated Dominique and he found little to +say to her; there was a pleading look in his eyes when he glanced up at her +face. Instead of the bright, cutting mockery he had expected from her, he saw a +sudden understanding. She said nothing, but bent down and kissed him on the +forehead and held her lips pressed gently to his head a second longer than +formality required. He felt a warm flood of gratitude--and then he felt +frightened. "Dominique," he whispered--the others could not hear him--"how +terribly unhappy you must be...." She laughed gaily, taking his arm: "Why, no, +Father, how can you say that!" +"Forgive me," he muttered, "I’m just stupid....This is really wonderful...." +Guests kept coming in all evening, uninvited and unannounced, anyone who had +heard the news and felt privileged to drop in. Keating did not know whether he +was glad to see them or not. It seemed all right, so long as the gay confusion +lasted. Dominique behaved exquisitely. He did not catch a single hint of sarcasm +in her manner. +It was late when the last guest departed and they were left alone among the +filled ash trays and empty glasses. They sat at opposite ends of the living +331 + + room, and Keating tried to postpone the moment of thinking what he had to think +now. +"All right, Peter," said Dominique, rising, "let’s get it over with." +When he lay in the darkness beside her, his desire satisfied and left hungrier +than ever by the unmoving body that had not responded, not even in revulsion, +when he felt defeated in the one act of mastery he had hoped to impose upon her, +his first whispered words were: "God damn you!" +He heard no movement from her. +Then he remembered the discovery which the moments of passion had wiped off his +mind. +"Who was he?" he asked. +"Howard Roark," she answered. +"All right," he snapped, "you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to!" +He switched on the light. He saw her lying still, naked, her head thrown back. +Her face looked peaceful, innocent, clean. She said to the ceiling, her voice +gentle: "Peter, if I could do this...I can do anything now...." +"If you think I’m going to bother you often, if that’s your idea of..." +# +"As often or as seldom as you wish, Peter." +Next morning, entering the dining room for breakfast, Dominique found a +florist’s box, long and white, resting across her plate. +"What’s that?" she asked the maid. +"It was brought this morning, madam, with instructions to be put on the +breakfast table." +The box was addressed to Mrs. Peter Keating. Dominique opened it. It contained a +few branches of white lilac, more extravagantly luxurious than orchids at this +time of the year. There was a small card with a name written upon it in large +letters that still held the quality of a hand’s dashing movement, as if the +letters were laughing on the pasteboard: "Ellsworth M. Toohey." +"How nice!" said Keating. "I wondered why we hadn’t heard from him at all +yesterday." +"Please put them in water, Mary," said Dominique, handing the box to the maid. +In the afternoon Dominique telephoned Toohey and invited him for dinner. +The dinner took place a few days later. Keating’s mother had pleaded some +previous engagement and escaped for the evening; she explained it to herself by +believing that she merely needed time to get used to things. So there were only +three places set on the dining-room table, candles in crystal holders, a +centerpiece of blue flowers and glass bubbles. +When Toohey entered he bowed to his hosts in a manner proper to a court +reception. Dominique looked like a society hostess who had always been a society +332 + + hostess and could not possibly be imagined as anything else. +"Well, Ellsworth? Well?" Keating asked, with a gesture that included the hall, +the air and Dominique. +"My dear Peter," said Toohey, "let’s skip the obvious." +Dominique led the way into the living room. She wore a dinner dress--a white +satin blouse tailored like a man’s, and a long black skirt, straight and simple +as the polished planes of her hair. The narrow band of the skirt about her +waistline seemed to state that two hands could encircle her waist completely or +snap her figure in half without much effort. The short sleeves left her arms +bare, and she wore a plain gold bracelet, too large and heavy for her thin +wrist. She had an appearance of elegance become perversion, an appearance of +wise, dangerous maturity achieved by looking like a very young girl. +"Ellsworth, isn’t it wonderful?" said Keating, watching Dominique as one watches +a fat bank account. "No less than I expected," said Toohey. "And no more." At +the dinner table Keating did most of the talking. He seemed possessed by a +talking jag. He turned over words with the sensuous abandon of a cat rolling in +catnip. +"Actually, Ellsworth, it was Dominique who invited you. I didn’t ask her to. +You’re our first formal guest. I think that’s wonderful. My wife and my best +friend. I’ve always had the silly idea that you two didn’t like each other. God +knows where I get those notions. But this is what makes me so damn happy--the +three of us, together." +"Then you don’t believe in mathematics, do you, Peter?" said Toohey. "Why the +surprise? Certain figures in combination have to give certain results. Granting +three entities such as Dominique, you and I--this had to be the inevitable sum." +"They say three’s a crowd," laughed Keating. "But that’s bosh. Two are better +than one, and sometimes three are better than two, it all depends." +"The only thing wrong with that old cliché," said Toohey, "is the erroneous +implication that ’a crowd’ is a term of opprobrium. It is quite the opposite. As +you are so merrily discovering. Three, I might add, is a mystic key number. As +for instance, the Holy Trinity. Or the triangle, without which we would have no +movie industry. There are so many variations upon the triangle, not necessarily +unhappy. Like the three of us--with me serving as understudy for the hypotenuse, +quite an appropriate substitution, since I’m replacing my antipode, don’t you +think so, Dominique?" +They were finishing dessert when Keating was called to the telephone. They could +hear his impatient voice in the next room, snapping instructions to a draftsman +who was working late on a rush job and needed help. Toohey turned, looked at +Dominique and smiled. The smile said everything her manner had not allowed to be +said earlier. There was no visible movement on her face, as she held his glance, +but there was a change of expression, as if she were acknowledging his meaning +instead of refusing to understand it. He would have preferred the closed look of +refusal. The acceptance was infinitely more scornful. +"So you’ve come back to the fold, Dominique?" +"Yes, Ellsworth." +"No more pleas for mercy?" +333 + + "Does it appear as if they will be necessary?" +"No. I admire you, Dominique....How do you like it? I should imagine Peter is +not bad, though not as good as the man we’re both thinking of, who’s probably +superlative, but you’ll never have a chance to learn." +She did not look disgusted; she looked genuinely puzzled. +"What are you talking about, Ellsworth?" +"Oh, come, my dear, we’re past pretending now, aren’t we? You’ve been in love +with Roark from that first moment you saw him in Kiki Holcombe’s drawing +room--or shall I be honest?--you wanted to sleep with him--but he wouldn’t spit +at you--hence all your subsequent behavior." +"Is that what you thought?" she asked quietly. "Wasn’t it obvious? The woman +scorned. As obvious as the fact that Roark had to be the man you’d want. That +you’d want him in the most primitive way. And that he’d never know you existed." +"I overestimated you, Ellsworth," she said. She had lost all interest in his +presence, even the need of caution. She looked bored. He frowned, puzzled. +Keating came back. Toohey slapped his shoulder as he passed by on the way to his +seat. +"Before I go, Peter, we must have a chat about the rebuilding of the Stoddard +Temple. I want you to bitch that up, too." +"Ellsworth...!" he gasped. +Toohey laughed. "Don’t be stuffy, Peter. Just a little professional vulgarity. +Dominique won’t mind. She’s an ex-newspaper woman." +"What’s the matter, Ellsworth?" Dominique asked. "Feeling pretty desperate? The +weapons aren’t up to your usual standard." She rose. "Shall we have coffee in +the drawing room?" +# +Hopton Stoddard added a generous sum to the award he had won from Roark, and the +Stoddard Temple was rebuilt for its new purpose by a group of architects chosen +by Ellsworth Toohey: Peter Keating, Gordon L. Prescott, John Erik Snyte and +somebody named Gus Webb, a boy of twenty-four who liked to utter obscenities +when passing well-bred women on the street, and who had never handled an +architectural commission of his own. Three of these men had social and +professional standing; Gus Webb had none; Toohey included him for that reason. +Of the four Gus Webb had the loudest voice and the greatest self-assurance. Gus +Webb said he was afraid of nothing; he meant it. They were all members of the +Council of American Builders. +The Council of American Builders had grown. After the Stoddard trial many +earnest discussions were held informally in the club rooms of the A.G.A. The +attitude of the A.G.A. toward Ellsworth Toohey had not been cordial, +particularly since the establishment of his Council. But the trial brought a +subtle change; many members pointed out that the article in "One Small Voice" +had actually brought about the Stoddard lawsuit; and that a man who could force +clients to sue was a man to be treated with caution. So it was suggested that +Ellsworth Toohey should be invited to address the A.G.A. at one of its +luncheons. Some members objected, Guy Francon among them. The most passionate +objector was a young architect who made an eloquent speech, his voice trembling +334 + + with the embarrassment of speaking in public for the first time; he said that he +admired Ellsworth Toohey and had always agreed with Toohey’s social ideals, but +if a group of people felt that some person was acquiring power over them, that +was the time to fight such a person. The majority overruled him. Ellsworth +Toohey was asked to speak at the luncheon, the attendance was enormous and +Toohey made a witty, gracious speech. Many members of the A.G.A. joined the +Council of American Builders, John Erik Snyte among the first. +The four architects in charge of the Stoddard reconstruction met in Keating’s +office, around a table on which they spread blueprints of the Temple, +photographs of Roark’s original drawings, obtained from the contractor, and a +clay model which Keating had ordered made. They talked about the depression and +its disastrous effect on the building industry; they talked about women, and +Gordon L. Prescott told a few jokes of a bathroom nature. Then Gus Webb raised +his fist and smacked it plump upon the roof of the model which was not quite dry +and spread into a flat mess. "Well, boys," he said, "let’s go to work." +"Gus, you son of a bitch," said Keating, "the thing cost money." +"Balls!" said Gus, "we’re not paying for it." +Each of them had a set of photographs of the original sketches with the +signature "Howard Roark" visible in the corner. They spent many evenings and +many weeks, drawing their own versions right on the originals, remaking and +improving. They took longer than necessary. They made more changes than +required. They seemed to find pleasure in doing it. Afterward, they put the four +versions together and made a cooperative combination. None of them had ever +enjoyed a job quite so much. They had long, friendly conferences. There were +minor dissensions, such as Gus Webb saying: "Hell, Gordon, if the kitchen’s +going to be yours, then the johns’ve got to be mine," but these were only +surface ripples. They felt a sense of unity and an anxious affection for one +another, the kind of brotherhood that makes a man withstand the third degree +rather than squeal on the gang. +The Stoddard Temple was not torn down, but its framework was carved into five +floors, containing dormitories, schoolrooms, infirmary, kitchen, laundry. The +entrance hall was paved with colored marble, the stairways had railings of +hand-wrought aluminum, the shower stalls were glass-enclosed, the recreation +rooms had gold-leafed Corinthian pilasters. The huge windows were left +untouched, merely crossed by floorlines. +The four architects had decided to achieve an effect of harmony and therefore +not to use any historical style in its pure form. Peter Keating designed the +white marble semi-Doric portico that rose over the main entrance, and the +Venetian balconies for which new doors were cut. John Erik Snyte designed the +small semi-Gothic spire surmounted by a cross, and the bandcourses of stylized +acanthus leaves which were cut into the limestone of the walls. Gordon L. +Prescott designed the semi-Renaissance cornice, and the glass-enclosed terrace +projecting from the third floor. Gus Webb designed a cubistic ornament to frame +the original windows, and the modern neon sign on the roof, which read: "The +Hopton Stoddard Home for Subnormal Children." +"Comes the revolution," said Gus Webb, looking at the completed structure, "and +every kid in the country will have a home like that!" +The original shape of the building remained discernible. It was not like a +corpse whose fragments had been mercifully scattered; it was like a corpse +hacked to pieces and reassembled. +335 + + In September the tenants of the Home moved in. A small, expert staff was chosen +by Toohey. It had been harder to find the children who qualified as inmates. +Most of them had to be taken from other institutions. Sixty-five children, their +ages ranging from three to fifteen, were picked out by zealous ladies who were +full of kindness and so made a point of rejecting those who could be cured and +selecting only the hopeless cases. There was a fifteen-year-old boy who had +never learned to speak; a grinning child who could not be taught to read or +write; a girl born without a nose, whose father was also her grandfather; a +person called "Jackie" of whose age or sex nobody could be certain. They marched +into their new home, their eyes staring vacantly, the stare of death before +which no world existed. +On warm evenings children from the slums nearby would sneak into the park of the +Stoddard Home and gaze wistfully at the playrooms, the gymnasium, the kitchen +beyond the big windows. These children had filthy clothes and smudged faces, +agile little bodies, impertinent grins, and eyes bright with a roaring, +imperious, demanding intelligence. The ladies in charge of the Home chased them +away with angry exclamations about "little gangsters." +Once a month a delegation from the sponsors came to visit the Home. It was a +distinguished group whose names were in many exclusive registers, though no +personal achievement had ever put them there. It was a group of mink coats and +diamond clips; occasionally, there was a dollar cigar and a glossy derby from a +British shop among them. Ellsworth Toohey was always present to show them +through the Home. The inspection made the mink coats seem warmer and their +wearers’ rights to them incontestable, since it established superiority and +altruistic virtue together, in a demonstration more potent than a visit to a +morgue. On the way back from such an inspection Ellsworth Toohey received +humbled compliments on the wonderful work he was doing, and had no trouble in +obtaining checks for his other humanitarian activities, such as publications, +lecture courses, radio forums and the Workshop of Social Study. +Catherine Halsey was put in charge of the children’s occupational therapy, and +she moved into the Home as a permanent resident. She took up her work with a +fierce zeal. She spoke about it insistently to anyone who would listen. Her +voice was dry and arbitrary. When she spoke, the movements of her mouth hid the +two lines that had appeared recently, cut from her nostrils to her chin; people +preferred her not to remove her glasses; her eyes were not good to see. She +spoke belligerently about her work not being charity, but "human reclamation." +The most important time of her day was the hour assigned to the children’s art +activities, known as the "Creative Period." There was a special room for the +purpose--a room with a view of the distant city skyline--where the children were +given materials and encouraged to create freely, under the guidance of Catherine +who stood watch over them like an angel presiding at a birth. +She was elated on the day when Jackie, the least promising one of the lot, +achieved a completed work of imagination. Jackie picked up fistfuls of colored +felt scraps and a pot of glue, and carried them to a corner of the room. There +was, in the corner, a slanting ledge projecting from the wall-plastered over and +painted green--left from Roark’s modeling of the Temple interior that had once +controlled the recession of the light at sunset. Catherine walked over to Jackie +and saw, spread out on the ledge, the recognizable shape of a dog, brown, with +blue spots and five legs. Jackie wore an expression of pride. "Now you see, you +see?" Catherine said to her colleagues. "Isn’t it wonderful and moving! There’s +no telling how far the child will go with proper encouragement. Think of what +happens to their little souls if they are frustrated in their creative +instincts! It’s so important not to deny them a chance for self-expression. Did +you see Jackie’s face?" +336 + + Dominique’s statue had been sold. No one knew who bought it. It had been bought +by Ellsworth Toohey. +# +Roark’s office had shrunk back to one room. After the completion of the Cord +Building he found no work. The depression had wrecked the building trade; there +was little work for anyone; it was said that the skyscraper was finished; +architects were closing their offices. +A few commissions still dribbled out occasionally, and a group of architects +hovered about them with the dignity of a bread line. There were men like Ralston +Holcombe among them, men who had never begged, but had demanded references +before they accepted a client. When Roark tried to get a commission, he was +rejected in a manner implying that if he had no more sense than that, politeness +would be a wasted effort. "Roark?" cautious businessmen said. "The tabloid hero? +Money’s too scarce nowadays to waste it on lawsuits afterwards." +He got a few jobs, remodeling rooming houses, an assignment that involved no +more than erecting partitions and rearranging the plumbing. "Don’t take it, +Howard," Austen Heller said angrily. "The infernal gall of offering you that +kind of work! After a skyscraper like the Cord Building. After the Enright +House." +"I’ll take anything," said Roark. +The Stoddard award had taken more than the amount of his fee for the Cord +Building. But he had saved enough to exist on for a while. He paid Mallory’s +rent and he paid for most of their frequent meals together. +Mallory had tried to object. "Shut up, Steve," Roark had said. "I’m not doing it +for you. At a time like this I owe myself a few luxuries. So I’m simply buying +the most valuable thing that can be bought--your time. I’m competing with a +whole country--and that’s quite a luxury, isn’t it? They want you to do baby +plaques and I don’t, and I like having my way against theirs." +"What do you want me to work on, Howard?" +"I want you to work without asking anyone what he wants you to work on." +Austen Heller heard about it from Mallory, and spoke of it to Roark in private. +"If you’re helping him, why don’t you let me help you?" +"I’d let you if you could," said Roark. "But you can’t. All he needs is his +time. He can work without clients. I can’t." +"It’s amusing, Howard, to see you in the role of an altruist." +"You don’t have to insult me. It’s not altruism. But I’ll tell you this: most +people say they’re concerned with the suffering of others. I’m not. And yet +there’s one thing I can’t understand. Most of them would not pass by if they saw +a man bleeding in the road, mangled by a hit-and-run driver. And most of them +would not turn their heads to look at Steven Mallory. But don’t they know that +if suffering could be measured, there’s no suffering in Steven Mallory when he +can’t do the work he wants to do, than in a whole field of victims mowed down by +a tank? If one must relieve the pain of this world, isn’t Mallory the place to +begin?...However, that’s not why I’m doing it." +# +337 + + Roark had never seen the reconstructed Stoddard Temple. On an evening in +November he went to see it. He did not know whether it was surrender to pain or +victory over the fear of seeing it. +It was late and the garden of the Stoddard Home was deserted. The building was +dark, a single light showed in a back window upstairs. Roark stood looking at +the building for a long time. +The door under the Greek portico opened and a slight masculine figure came out. +It hurried casually down the steps--and then stopped. +"Hello, Mr. Roark," said Ellsworth Toohey quietly. +Roark looked at him without curiosity. "Hello," said Roark. +"Please don’t run away." The voice was not mocking, but earnest. +"I wasn’t going to." +"I think I knew that you’d come here some day and I think I wanted to be here +when you came. I’ve kept inventing excuses for myself to hang about this place." +There was no gloating in the voice; it sounded drained and simple. +"Well?" +"You shouldn’t mind speaking to me. You see, I understand your work. What I do +about it is another matter." +"You are free to do what you wish about it." +"I understand your work better than any living person--with the possible +exception of Dominique Francon. And, perhaps, better than she does. That’s a +deal, isn’t it, Mr. Roark? You haven’t many people around you who can say that. +It’s a greater bond than if I were your devoted, but blind supporter." +"I knew you understood." +"Then you won’t mind talking to me." +"About what?" +In the darkness it sounded almost as if Toohey had sighed. After a while he +pointed to the building and asked: +"Do you understand this?" +Roark did not answer. +Toohey went on softly: "What does it look like to you? Like a senseless mess? +Like a chance collection of driftwood? Like an imbecile chaos? But is it, Mr. +Roark? Do you see no method? You who know the language of structure and the +meaning of form. Do you see no purpose here?" +"I see none in discussing it." +"Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any +words you wish. No one will hear us." +338 + + "But I don’t think of you." +Toohey’s face had an expression of attentiveness, of listening quietly to +something as simple as fate. He remained silent, and Roark asked: +"What did you want to say to me?" +Toohey looked at him, and then at the bare trees around them, at the river far +below, at the great rise of the sky beyond the river. +"Nothing," said Toohey. +He walked away, his steps creaking on the gravel in the silence, sharp and even, +like the cracks of an engine’s pistons. +Roark stood alone in the empty driveway, looking at the building. + +Part Three: GAIL WYNAND + +1. +GAIL WYNAND raised a gun to his temple. +He felt the pressure of a metal ring against his skin--and nothing else. He +might have been holding a lead pipe or a piece of jewelry; it was just a small +circle without significance. "I am going to die," he said aloud--and yawned. +He felt no relief, no despair, no fear. The moment of his end would not grant +him even the dignity of seriousness. It was an anonymous moment; a few minutes +ago, he had held a toothbrush in that hand; now he held a gun with the same +casual indifference. +One does not die like this, he thought. One must feel a great joy or a healthy +terror. One must salute one’s own end. Let me feel a spasm of dread and I’ll +pull the trigger. He felt nothing. +He shrugged and lowered the gun. He stood tapping it against the palm of his +left hand. People always speak of a black death or a red death, he thought; +yours, Gail Wynand, will be a gray death. Why hasn’t anyone ever said that this +is the ultimate horror? Not screams, pleas or convulsions. Not the indifference +of a clean emptiness, disinfected by the fire of some great disaster. But +this--a mean, smutty little horror, impotent even to frighten. You can’t do it +like that, he told himself, smiling coldly; it would be in such bad taste. +He walked to the wall of his bedroom. His penthouse was built above the +fifty-seventh floor of a great residential hotel which he owned, in the center +of Manhattan; he could see the whole city below him. The bedroom was a glass +cage on the roof of the penthouse, its walls and ceiling made of huge glass +sheets. There were dust-blue suede curtains to be pulled across the walls and +enclose the room when he wished; there was nothing to cover the ceiling. Lying +in bed, he could study the stars over his head, or see flashes of lightning, or +watch the rain smashed into furious, glittering sunbursts in mid-air above him, +339 + + against the unseen protection. He liked to extinguish the lights and pull all +the curtains open when he lay in bed with a woman. "We are fornicating in the +sight of six million people," he would tell her. +He was alone now. The curtains were open. He stood looking at the city. It was +late and the great riot of lights below him was beginning to die down. He +thought that he did not mind having to look at the city for many more years and +he did not mind never seeing it again. +He leaned against the wall and felt the cold glass through the thin, dark silk +of his pyjamas. A monogram was embroidered in white on his breast pocket: GW, +reproduced from his handwriting, exactly as he signed his initials with a single +imperial motion. +People said that Gail Wynand’s greatest deception, among many, was his +appearance. He looked like the decadent, overperfected end product of a long +line of exquisite breeding--and everybody knew that he came from the gutter. He +was tall, too slender for physical beauty, as if all his flesh and muscle had +been bred away. It was not necessary for him to stand erect in order to convey +an impression of hardness. Like a piece of expensive steel, he bent, slouched +and made people conscious, not of his pose, but of the ferocious spring that +could snap him straight at any moment. This hint was all he needed; he seldom +stood quite straight; he lounged about. Under any clothes he wore, it gave him +an air of consummate elegance. +His face did not belong to modern civilization, but to ancient Rome; the face of +an eternal patrician. His hair, streaked with gray, was swept smoothly back from +a high forehead. His skin was pulled tight over the sharp bones of his face; his +mouth was long and thin; his eyes, under slanting eyebrows, were pale blue and +photographed like two sardonic white ovals. An artist had asked him once to sit +for a painting of Mephistopheles; Wynand had laughed, refusing, and the artist +had watched sadly, because the laughter made the face perfect for his purpose. +He slouched casually against the glass pane of his bedroom, the weight of a gun +on his palm. Today, he thought; what was today? Did anything happen that would +help me now and give meaning to this moment? +Today had been like so many other days behind him that particular features were +hard to recognize. He was fifty-one years old, and it was the middle of October +in the year 1932; he was certain of this much; the rest took an effort of +memory. +He had awakened and dressed at six o’clock this morning; he had never slept more +than four hours on any night of his adult life. He descended to his dining room +where breakfast was served to him. His penthouse, a small structure, stood on +the edge of a vast roof landscaped as a garden. The rooms were a superlative +artistic achievement; their simplicity and beauty would have aroused gasps of +admiration had this house belonged to anyone else; but people were shocked into +silence when they thought that this was the home of the publisher of the New +York Banner, the most vulgar newspaper in the country. +After breakfast he went to his study. His desk was piled with every important +newspaper, book and magazine received that morning from all over the country. He +worked alone at his desk for three hours, reading and making brief notes with a +large blue pencil across the printed pages. The notes looked like a spy’s +shorthand; nobody could decipher them except the dry, middle-aged secretary who +entered the study when Wynand left it. He had not heard her voice in five years, +but no communication between them was necessary. When he returned to his study +in the evening, the secretary and the pile of papers were gone; on his desk he +340 + + found neatly typed pages containing the things he had wished to be recorded from +his morning’s work. +At ten o’clock he arrived at the Banner Building, a plain, grimy structure in an +undistinguished neighborhood of lower Manhattan. When he walked through the +narrow halls of the building, the employees he met wished him a good morning. +The greeting was correct and he answered courteously; but his passage had the +effect of a death ray that stopped the motor of living organisms. +Among the many hard rules imposed upon the employees of all Wynand enterprises, +the hardest was the one demanding that no man pause in his work if Mr. Wynand +entered the room, or notice his entrance. Nobody could predict what department +he would choose to visit or when. He could appear at any moment in any part of +the building--and his presence was as unobtrusive as an electric shock. The +employees tried to obey the rule as best they could; but they preferred three +hours of overtime to ten minutes of working under his silent observation. +This morning, in his office, he went over the proofs of the Banner’s Sunday +editorials. He slashed blue lines across the spreads he wished eliminated. He +did not sign his initials; everybody knew that only Gail Wynand could make quite +that kind of blue slashes, lines that seemed to rip the authors of the copy out +of existence. +He finished the proofs, then asked to be connected with the editor of the Wynand +Herald, in Springville, Kansas. When he telephoned his provinces, Wynand’s name +was never announced to the victim. He expected his voice to be known to every +key citizen of his empire. +"Good morning, Cummings," he said when the editor answered. +"My God!" gasped the editor. "It isn’t..." +"It is," said Wynand. "Listen, Cummings. One more piece of crap like yesterday’s +yarn on the Last Rose of Summer and you can go back to the high school Bugle." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +Wynand hung up. He asked to be connected with an eminent Senator in Washington. +"Good morning, Senator," he said when the gentleman came on the wire within two +minutes. "It is so kind of you to answer this call. I appreciate it. I do not +wish to impose on your time. But I felt I owed you an expression of my deepest +gratitude. I called to thank you for your work in passing the Hayes-Langston +Bill." +"But...Mr. Wynand!" The Senator’s voice seemed to squirm. "It’s so nice of you, +but...the Bill hasn’t been passed." +"Oh, that’s right. My mistake. It will be passed tomorrow." A meeting of the +board of directors of the Wynand Enterprises, Inc., had been scheduled for +eleven-thirty that morning. The Wynand Enterprises consisted of twenty-two +newspapers, seven magazines, three news services and two newsreels. Wynand owned +seventy-five percent of the stock. The directors were not certain of their +functions or purpose. Wynand had ordered meetings of the board always to start +on time, whether he was present or not. Today he entered the board room at +twelve twenty-five. A distinguished old gentleman was making a speech. The +directors were not allowed to stop or notice Wynand’s presence. He walked to the +empty chair at the head of the long mahogany table and sat down. No one turned +to him; it was as if the chair had just been occupied by a ghost whose existence +341 + + they dared not admit. He listened silently for fifteen minutes. He got up in the +middle of a sentence and left the room as he had entered. +On a large table in his office he spread out maps of Stoneridge, his new +real-estate venture, and spent half an hour discussing it with two of his +agents. He had purchased a vast tract of land on Long Island, which was to be +converted into the Stoneridge Development, a new community of small home owners, +every curbstone, street and house to be built by Gail Wynand. The few people who +knew of his real-estate activities had told him that he was crazy. It was a year +when no one thought of building. But Gail Wynand had made his fortune on +decisions which people called crazy. +The architect to design Stoneridge had not been chosen. News of the project had +seeped into the starved profession. For weeks Wynand had refused to read letters +or answer calls from the best architects of the country and their friends. He +refused once more when, at the end of his conference, his secretary informed him +that Mr. Ralston Holcombe most urgently requested two minutes of his time on the +telephone. +When the agents were gone, Wynand pressed a button on his desk, summoning Alvah +Scarret. Scarret entered the office, smiling happily. He always answered that +buzzer with the flattered eagerness of an office boy. +"Alvah, what in hell is the Gallant Gallstone?" +Scarret laughed. "Oh, that? It’s the title of a novel. By Lois Cook." +"What kind of a novel?" +"Oh, just a lot of drivel. It’s supposed to be a sort of prose poem. It’s all +about a gallstone that thinks that it’s an independent entity, a sort of a +rugged individualist of the gall bladder, if you see what I mean, and then the +man takes a big dose of castor oil--there’s a graphic description of the +consequences--I’m not sure it’s correct medically, but anyway that’s the end of +the Gallant Gallstone. It’s all supposed to prove that there’s no such thing as +free will." +"How many copies has it sold?" +"I don’t know. Not very many, I think. Just among the intelligentsia. But I hear +it’s picked up some, lately, and..." +"Precisely. What’s going on around here, Alvah?" +"What? Oh, you mean you noticed the few mentions which..." +"I mean I’ve noticed it all over the Banner in the last few weeks. Very nicely +done, too, if it took me that long to discover that it wasn’t accidental." +"What do you mean?" +"What do you think I mean? Why should that particular title appear continuously, +in the most inappropriate places? One day it’s in a police story about the +execution of some murderer who ’died bravely like the Gallant Gallstone.’ Two +days later it’s on page sixteen, in a state yarn from Albany. ’Senator Hazleton +thinks he’s an independent entity, but it might turn out that he’s only a +Gallant Gallstone.’ Then it’s in the obituaries. Yesterday it was on the women’s +page. Today, it’s in the comics. Snooxy calls his rich landlord a Gallant +Gallstone." +342 + + Scarret chortled peacefully. "Yes, isn’t it silly?" +"I thought it was silly. At first. Now I don’t." +"But what the hell, Gail! It’s not as if it were a major issue and our by-liners +plugged it. It’s just the small fry, the forty-dollar-a-week ones." +"That’s the point. One of them. The other is that the book’s not a famous +bestseller. If it were, I could understand the title popping into their heads +automatically. But it isn’t. So someone’s doing the popping. Why?" +"Oh, come, Gail! Why would anyone want to bother? And what do we care? If it +were a political issue...But hell, who can get any gravy out of plugging for +free will or against free will?" +"Did anyone consult you about this plugging?" +"No. I tell you, nobody’s behind it. It’s just spontaneous. Just a lot of people +who thought it was a funny gag." +"Who was the first one that you heard it from?" +"I don’t know....Let me see....It was...yes, I think it was Ellsworth Toohey." +"Have it stopped. Be sure to tell Mr. Toohey." +"Okay, if you say so. But it’s really nothing. Just a lot of people amusing +themselves." +"I don’t like to have anyone amusing himself on my paper." +"Yes, Gail." +At two o’clock Wynand arrived, as guest of honor, at a luncheon given by a +National Convention of Women’s Clubs. He sat at the right of the chairwoman in +an echoing banquet hall filled with the odors of corsages--gardenias and sweet +peas--and of fried chicken. After luncheon Wynand spoke. The Convention +advocated careers for married women; the Wynand papers had fought against the +employment of married women for many years. Wynand spoke for twenty minutes and +said nothing at all; but he conveyed the impression that he supported every +sentiment expressed at the meeting. Nobody had ever been able to explain the +effect of Gail Wynand on an audience, particularly an audience of women. He did +nothing spectacular; his voice was low, metallic, inclined to sound monotonous; +he was too correct, in a manner that was almost deliberate satire on +correctness. Yet he conquered all listeners. People said it was his subtle, +enormous virility; it made the courteous voice speaking about school, home and +family sound as if he were making love to every old hag present. +Returning to his office, Wynand stopped in the city room. Standing at a tall +desk, a big blue pencil in his hand, he wrote on a huge sheet of plain print +stock, in letters an inch high, a brilliant, ruthless editorial denouncing all +advocates of careers for women. The GW at the end stood like a streak of blue +flame. He did not read the piece over--he never needed to--but threw it on the +desk of the first editor in sight and walked out of the room. Late in the +afternoon, when Wynand was ready to leave his office, his secretary announced +that Ellsworth Toohey requested the privilege of seeing him. "Let him in," said +Wynand. +343 + + Toohey entered, a cautious half-smile on his face, a smile mocking himself and +his boss, but with a delicate sense of balance, sixty percent of the mockery +directed at himself. He knew that Wynand did not want to see him, and being +received was not in his favor. +Wynand sat behind his desk, his face courteously blank. Two diagonal ridges +stood out faintly on his forehead, parallel with his slanting eyebrows. It was a +disconcerting peculiarity which his face assumed at times; it gave the effect of +a double exposure, an ominous emphasis. +"Sit down, Mr. Toohey. Of what service can I be to you?" +"Oh, I’m much more presumptuous than that, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey gaily. "I +didn’t come to ask for your services, but to offer you mine." +"In what matter?" +"Stoneridge." +The diagonal lines stood out sharper on Wynand’s forehead. +"Of what use can a newspaper columnist be to Stoneridge?" +"A newspaper columnist--none, Mr. Wynand. But an architectural expert..." Toohey +let his voice trail into a mocking question mark. +If Toohey’s eyes had not been fixed insolently on Wynand’s, he would have been +ordered out of the office at once. But the glance told Wynand that Toohey knew +to what extent he had been plagued by people recommending architects and how +hard he had tried to avoid them; and that Toohey had outwitted him by obtaining +this interview for a purpose Wynand had not expected. The impertinence of it +amused Wynand, as Toohey had known it would. +"All right, Mr. Toohey. Whom are you selling?" +"Peter Keating." +"Well?" +"I beg your pardon?" +"Well, sell him to me." +Toohey was stopped, then shrugged brightly and plunged in: +"You understand, of course, that I’m not connected with Mr. Keating in any way. +I’m acting only as his friend--and yours." The voice sounded pleasantly +informal, but it had lost some of its certainty. "Honestly, I know it does sound +trite, but what else can I say? It just happens to be the truth." Wynand would +not help him out. "I presumed to come here because I felt it was my duty to give +you my opinion. No, not a moral duty. Call it an esthetic one. I know that you +demand the best in anything you do. For a project of the size you have in mind +there’s not another architect living who can equal Peter Keating in efficiency, +taste, originality, imagination. That, Mr. Wynand, is my sincere opinion." +"I quite believe you." +"You do?" +344 + + "Of course. But, Mr. Toohey, why should I consider your opinion?" +"Well, after all, I am your architectural expert!" He could not keep the edge of +anger out of his voice. +"My dear, Mr. Toohey, don’t confuse me with my readers." After a moment, Toohey +leaned back and spread his hands out in laughing helplessness. +"Frankly, Mr. Wynand, I didn’t think my word would carry much weight with you. +So I didn’t intend trying to sell you Peter Keating." +"No? What did you intend?" +"Only to ask that you give half an hour of your time to someone who can convince +you of Peter Keating’s ability much better than I can." +"Who is that?" +"Mrs. Peter Keating." +"Why should I wish to discuss this matter with Mrs. Peter Keating?" +"Because she is an exceedingly beautiful woman and an extremely difficult one." +Wynand threw his head back and laughed aloud. +"Good God, Toohey, am I as obvious as that?" +Toohey, blinked, unprepared. +"Really, Mr. Toohey, I owe you an apology, if, by allowing my tastes to become +so well known, I caused you to be so crude. But I had no idea that among your +many other humanitarian activities you were also a pimp." +Toohey rose to his feet. +"Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Toohey. I have no desire whatever to meet Mrs. +Peter Keating." +"I didn’t think you would have, Mr. Wynand. Not on my unsupported suggestion. I +foresaw that several hours ago. In fact, as early as this morning. So I took the +liberty of preparing for myself another chance to discuss this with you. I took +the liberty of sending you a present. When you get home tonight, you will find +my gift there. Then, if you feel that I was justified in expecting you to do so, +you can telephone me and I shall come over at once so that you will be able to +tell me whether you wish to meet Mrs. Peter Keating or not." +"Toohey, this is unbelievable, but I believe you’re offering me a bribe." +"I am." +"You know, that’s the sort of stunt you should be allowed to get away with +completely--or lose your job for." +"I shall rest upon your opinion of my present tonight." +"All right, Mr. Toohey, I’ll look at your present." +Toohey bowed and turned to go. He was at the door when Wynand added: +345 + + "You know, Toohey, one of these days you’ll bore me." +"I shall endeavor not to do so until the right time," said Toohey, bowed again +and went out. +When Wynand returned to his home, he had forgotten all about Ellsworth Toohey. +That evening, in his penthouse, Wynand had dinner with a woman who had a white +face, soft brown hair and, behind her, three centuries of fathers and brothers +who would have killed a man for a hint of the things which Gail Wynand had +experienced with her. +The line of her arm, when she raised a crystal goblet of water to her lips, was +as perfect as the lines of the silver candelabra produced by a matchless +talent--and Wynand observed it with the same appreciation. The candlelight +flickering on the planes of her face made a sight of such beauty that he wished +she were not alive, so that he could look, say nothing and think what he +pleased. +"In a month or two, Gail," she said, smiling lazily, "when it gets really cold +and nasty, let’s take the I Do and sail somewhere straight into the sun, as we +did last winter." +I Do was the name of Wynand’s yacht. He had never explained that name to anyone. +Many women had questioned him about it. This woman had questioned him before. +Now, as he remained silent, she asked it again: +"By the way, darling, what does it mean--the name of that wonderful mudscow of +yours?" +"It’s a question I don’t answer," he said. "One of them." +"Well, shall I get my wardrobe ready for the cruise?" +"Green is your best color. It looks well at sea. I love to watch what it does to +your hair and your arms. I shall miss the sight of your naked arms against green +silk. Because tonight is the last time." +Her fingers lay still on the stem of the glass. Nothing had given her a hint +that tonight was to be the last time. But she knew that these words were all he +needed to end it. All of Wynand’s women had known that they were to expect an +end like this and that it was not to be discussed. After a while, she asked, her +voice low: +"What reason, Gail?" +"The obvious one." +He reached into his pocket and took out a diamond bracelet; it flashed a cold, +brilliant fire in the candlelight: its heavy links hung limply in his fingers. +It had no case, no wrapper. He tossed it across the table. +"A memorial, my dear," he said. "Much more valuable than that which it +commemorates." +The bracelet hit the goblet and made it ring, a thin, sharp cry, as if the glass +had screamed for the woman. The woman made no sound. He knew that it was +horrible, because she was the kind to whom one did not offer such gifts at such +346 + + moments, just as all those other women had been; and because she would not +refuse, as all the others had not refused. +"Thank you, Gail," she said, clasping the bracelet about her wrist, not looking +at him across the candles. +Later, when they had walked into the drawing room, she stopped and the glance +between her long eyelashes moved toward the darkness where the stairway to his +bedroom began. "To let me earn the memorial, Gail?" she asked, her voice flat. +He shook his head. +"I had really intended that," he said. "But I’m tired." +When she had gone, he stood in the hall and thought that she suffered, that the +suffering was real, but after a while none of it would be real to her, except +the bracelet. He could no longer remember the time when such a thought had the +power to give him bitterness. When he recalled that he, too, was concerned in +the event of this evening, he felt nothing, except wonder why he had not done +this long ago. +He went to his library. He sat reading for a few hours. Then he stopped. He +stopped short, without reason, in the middle of an important sentence. He had no +desire to read on. He had no desire ever to make another effort. +Nothing had happened to him--a happening is a positive reality, and no reality +could ever make him helpless; this was some enormous negative--as if everything +had been wiped out, leaving a senseless emptiness, faintly indecent because it +seemed so ordinary, so unexciting, like murder wearing a homey smile. +Nothing was gone--except desire; no, more than that--the root, the desire to +desire. He thought that a man who loses his eyes still retains the concept of +sight; but he had heard of a ghastlier blindness--if the brain centers +controlling vision are destroyed, one loses even the memory of visual +perception. +He dropped the book and stood up. He had no wish to remain on that spot; he had +no wish to move from it. He thought that he should go to sleep. It was much too +early for him, but he could get up earlier tomorrow. He went to his bedroom, he +took a shower, he put on his pyjamas. Then he opened a drawer of his dresser and +saw the gun he always kept there. It was the immediate recognition, the sudden +stab of interest, that made him pick it up. +It was the lack of shock, when he thought he would kill himself, that convinced +him he should. The thought seemed so simple, like an argument not worth +contesting. Like a bromide. +Now he stood at the glass wall, stopped by that very simplicity. One could make +a bromide of one’s life, he thought; but not of one’s death. +He walked to the bed and sat down, the gun hanging in his hand. A man about to +die, he thought, is supposed to see his whole life in a last flash. I see +nothing. But I could make myself see it. I could go over it again, by force. Let +me find in it either the will to live on or the reason to end it now. +# +Gail Wynand, aged twelve, stood in the darkness under a broken piece of wall on +the shore of the Hudson, one arm swung back, the fist closed, ready to strike, +waiting. +347 + + The stones under his feet rose to the remnant of a corner; one side of it hid +him from the street; there was nothing behind the other side but a sheer drop to +the river. An unlighted, unpaved stretch of waterfront lay before him, sagging +structures and empty spaces of sky, warehouses, a crooked cornice hanging +somewhere over a window with a malignant light. +In a moment he would have to fight--and he knew it would be for his life. He +stood still. His closed fist, held down and back, seemed to clutch invisible +wires that stretched to every key spot of his lanky, fleshless body, under the +ragged pants and shirt, to the long, swollen tendon of his bare arm, to the taut +cords of his neck. The wires seemed to quiver; the body was motionless. He was +like a new sort of lethal instrument; if a finger were to touch any part of him, +it would release the trigger. +He knew that the leader of the boys’ gang was looking for him and that the +leader would not come alone. Two of the boys he expected fought with knives; one +had a killing to his credit. He waited for them, his own pockets empty. He was +the youngest member of the gang and the last to join. The leader had said that +he needed a lesson. +It had started over the looting of the barges on the river, which the gang was +planning. The leader had decided that the job would be done at night. The gang +had agreed; all but Gail Wynand. Gail Wynand had explained, in a slow, +contemptuous voice, that the Little Plug-Uglies, farther down the river, had +tried the same stunt last week and had left six members in the hands of the +cops, plus two in the cemetery; the job had to be done at daybreak, when no one +would expect it. The gang hooted him. It made no difference. Gail Wynand was not +good at taking orders. He recognized nothing but the accuracy of his own +judgment. So the leader wished to settle the issue once and for all. The three +boys walked so softly that the people behind the thin walls they passed could +not hear their steps. Gail Wynand heard them a block away. He did not move in +his corner; only his wrist stiffened a little. +When the moment was right, he leaped. He leaped straight into space, without +thought of landing, as if a catapult had sent him on a flight of miles. His +chest struck the head of one enemy, his stomach another, his feet smashed into +the chest of the third. The four of them went down. When the three lifted their +faces, Gail Wynand was unrecognizable; they saw a whirl suspended in the air +above them, and something darted at them out of the whirl with a scalding touch. +He had nothing but his two fists; they had five fists and a knife on their side; +it did not seem to count. They heard their blows landing with a thud as on hard +rubber; they felt the break in the thrust of their knife, which told that it had +been stopped and had cut its way out. But the thing they were fighting was +invulnerable. He had no time to feel; he was too fast; pain could not catch up +with him; he seemed to leave it hanging in the air over the spot where it had +hit him and where he was no longer in the next second. +He seemed to have a motor between his shoulder blades to propel his arms in two +circles; only the circles were visible; the arms had vanished like the spokes of +a speeding wheel. The circle landed each time, and stopped whatever it had +landed upon, without a break in its spin. One boy saw his knife disappear in +Wynand’s shoulder; he saw the jerk of the shoulder that sent the knife slicing +down through Wynand’s side and flung it out at the belt. It was the last thing +the boy saw. Something happened to his chin and he did not feel it when the back +of his head struck against a pile of old bricks. +For a long time the two others fought the centrifuge that was now spattering red +348 + + drops against the walls around them. But it was no use. They were not fighting a +man. They were fighting a bodiless human will. +When they gave up, groaning among the bricks, Gail Wynand said in a normal +voice: "We’ll pull it off at daybreak," and walked away. From that moment on, he +was the leader of the gang. +The looting of the barges was done at daybreak, two days later, and came off +with brilliant success. +Gail Wynand lived with his father in the basement of an old house in the heart +of Hell’s Kitchen. His father was a longshoreman, a tall, silent, illiterate man +who had never gone to school. His own father and his grandfather were of the +same kind, and they knew of nothing but poverty in their family. But somewhere +far back in the line there had been a root of aristocracy, the glory of some +noble ancestor and then some tragedy, long since forgotten, that had brought the +descendants to the gutter. Something about all the Wynands--in tenement, saloon +and jail--did not fit their surroundings. Gail’s father was known on the +waterfront as the Duke. +Gail’s mother had died of consumption when he was two years old. He was an only +son. He knew vaguely that there had been some great drama in his father’s +marriage; he had seen a picture of his mother; she did not look and she was not +dressed like the women of their neighborhood; she was very beautiful. All life +had gone out of his father when she died. He loved Gail; but it was the kind of +devotion that did not require two sentences a week. +Gail did not look like his mother or father. He was a throwback to something no +one could quite figure out; the distance had to be reckoned, not in generations, +but in centuries. He was always too tall for his age, and too thin. The boys +called him Stretch Wynand. Nobody knew what he used for muscles; they knew only +that he used it. +He had worked at one job after another since early childhood. For a long while +he sold newspapers on street corners. One day he walked up to the pressroom boss +and stated that they should start a new service--delivering the paper to the +reader’s door in the morning; he explained how and why it would boost +circulation. "Yeah?" said the boss. "I know it will work," said Wynand. "Well, +you don’t run things around here," said the boss. "You’re a fool," said Wynand. +He lost the job. +He worked in a grocery store. He ran errands, he swept the soggy wooden floor, +he sorted out barrels of rotting vegetables, he helped to wait on customers, +patiently weighing a pound of flour or filling a pitcher with milk from a huge +can. It was like using a steamroller to press handkerchiefs. But he set his +teeth and stuck to it. One day, he explained to the grocer what a good idea it +would be to put milk up in bottles, like whisky. "You shut your trap and go wait +on Mrs. Sullivan there," said the grocer, "don’t you tell me nothing I don’t +know about my business. You don’t run things around here." He waited on Mrs. +Sullivan and said nothing. +He worked in a poolroom. He cleaned spittoons and washed up after drunks. He +heard and saw things that gave him immunity from astonishment for the rest of +his life. He made his greatest effort and learned to keep silent, to keep the +place others described as his place, to accept ineptitude as his master--and to +wait. No one had ever heard him speak of what he felt. He felt many emotions +toward his fellow men, but respect was not one of them. +He worked as bootblack on a ferryboat. He was shoved and ordered around by every +349 + + bloated horse trader, by every drunken deck hand aboard. If he spoke, he heard +some thick voice answering: "You don’t run things around here." But he liked +this job. When he had no customers, he stood at the rail and looked at +Manhattan. He looked at the yellow boards of new houses, at the vacant lots, at +the cranes and derricks, at the few towers rising in the distance. He thought of +what should be built and what should be destroyed, of the space, the promise and +what could be made of it. A hoarse shout--"Hey, boy!"--interrupted him. He went +back to his bench and bent obediently over some muddy shoe. The customer saw +only a small head of light brown hair and two thin, capable hands. +On foggy evenings, under a gas lantern on a street corner, nobody noticed the +slender figure leaning against a lamppost, the aristocrat of the Middle Ages, +the timeless patrician whose every instinct cried that he should command, whose +swift brain told him why he had the right to do so, the feudal baron created to +rule--but born to sweep floors and take orders. +He had taught himself to read and write at the age of five, by asking questions. +He read everything he found. He could not tolerate the inexplicable. He had to +understand anything known to anyone. The emblem of his childhood--the +coat-of-arms he devised for himself in place of the one lost for him centuries +ago--was the question mark. No one ever needed to explain anything to him twice. +He learned his first mathematics from the engineers laying sewer pipes. He +learned geography from the sailors on the waterfront. He learned civics from the +politicians at a local club that was a gangsters’ hangout. He had never gone to +church or to school. He was twelve when he walked into a church. He listened to +a sermon on patience and humility. He never came back. He was thirteen when he +decided to see what education was like and enrolled at a public school. His +father said nothing about this decision, as he said nothing whenever Gail came +home battered after a gang fight. +During his first week at school the teacher called on Gail Wynand constantly--it +was sheer pleasure to her, because he always knew the answers. When he trusted +his superiors and their purpose, he obeyed like a Spartan, imposing on himself +the kind of discipline he demanded of his own subjects in the gang. But the +force of his will was wasted: within a week he saw that he needed no effort to +be first in the class. After a month the teacher stopped noticing his presence; +it seemed pointless, he always knew his lesson and she had to concentrate on the +slower, duller children. He sat, unflinching, through hours that dragged like +chains, while the teacher repeated and chewed and rechewed, sweating to force +some spark of intellect from vacant eyes and mumbling voices. At the end of two +months, reviewing the rudiments of history which she had tried to pound into her +class, the teacher asked: "And how many original states were there in the +Union?" No hands were raised. Then Gail Wynand’s arm went up. The teacher nodded +to him. He rose. "Why," he asked, "should I swill everything down ten times? I +know all that." +"You are not the only one in the class," said the teacher. He uttered an +expression that struck her white and made her blush fifteen minutes later, when +she grasped it fully. He walked to the door. On the threshold he turned to add: +"Oh yes. There were thirteen original states." That was the last of his formal +education. There were people in Hell’s Kitchen who never ventured beyond its +boundaries, and others who seldom stepped out of the tenement in which they were +born. But Gail Wynand often went for a walk through the best streets of the +city. He felt no bitterness against the world of wealth, no envy and no fear. He +was simply curious and he felt at home on Fifth Avenue, just as anywhere else. +He walked past the stately mansions, his hands in his pockets, his toes sticking +out of flat-soled shoes. People glared at him, but it had no effect. He passed +by and left behind him the feeling that he belonged on this street and they +didn’t. He wanted nothing, for the time being, except to understand. +350 + + He wanted to know what made these people different from those in his +neighborhood. It was not the clothes, the carriages or the banks that caught his +notice; it was the books. People in his neighborhood had clothes, horse wagons +and money; degrees were inessential; but they did not read books. He decided to +learn what was read by the people on Fifth Avenue. One day, he saw a lady +waiting in a carriage at the curb; he knew she was a lady--his judgment on such +matters was more acute than the discrimination of the Social Register; she was +reading a book. He leaped to the steps of the carriage, snatched the book and +ran away. It would have taken swifter, slimmer men than the cops to catch him. +It was a volume of Herbert Spencer. He went through a quiet agony trying to read +it to the end. He read it to the end. He understood one quarter of what he had +read. But this started him on a process which he pursued with a systematic, +fist-clenched determination. Without advice, assistance or plan, he began +reading an incongruous assortment of books; he would find some passage which he +could not understand in one book, and he would get another on that subject. He +branched out erratically in all directions; he read volumes of specialized +erudition first, and high-school primers afterward. There was no order in his +reading; but there was order in what remained of it in his mind. +He discovered the reading room of the Public Library and he went there for a +while--to study the layout. Then, one day, at various times, a succession of +young boys, painfully combed and unconvincingly washed, came to visit the +reading room. They were thin when they came, but not when they left. That +evening Gail Wynand had a small library of his own in the corner of his +basement. His gang had executed his orders without protest. It was a scandalous +assignment; no self-respecting gang had ever looted anything as pointless as +books. But Stretch Wynand had given the orders--and one did not argue with +Stretch Wynand. He was fifteen when he was found, one morning, in the gutter, a +mass of bleeding pulp, both legs broken, beaten by some drunken longshoreman. He +was unconscious when found. But he had been conscious that night, after the +beating. He had been left alone in a dark alley. He had seen a light around the +corner. Nobody knew how he could have managed to drag himself around that +corner; but he had; they saw the long smear of blood on the pavement afterward. +He had crawled, able to move nothing but his arms. He had knocked against the +bottom of a door. It was a saloon, still open. The saloonkeeper came out. It was +the only time in his life that Gail Wynand asked for help. The saloonkeeper +looked at him with a flat, heavy glance, a glance that showed full consciousness +of agony, of injustice--and a stolid, bovine indifference. The saloonkeeper went +inside and slammed the door. He had no desire to get mixed up with gang fights. +Years later, Gail Wynand, publisher of the New York Banner, still knew the names +of the longshoreman and the saloonkeeper, and where to find them. He never did +anything to the longshoreman. But he caused the saloonkeeper’s business to be +ruined, his home and savings to be lost, and drove the man to suicide. +Gail Wynand was sixteen when his father died. He was alone, jobless at the +moment, with sixty-five cents in his pocket, an unpaid rent bill and a chaotic +erudition. He decided that the time had come to decide what he would make of his +life. He went, that night, to the roof of his tenement and looked at the lights +of the city, the city where he did not run things. He let his eyes move slowly +from the windows of the sagging hovels around him to the windows of the mansions +in the distance. There were only lighted squares hanging in space, but he could +tell from them the quality of the structures to which they belonged; the lights +around him looked muddy, discouraged; those in the distance were clean and +tight. He asked himself a single question: what was there that entered all those +houses, the dim and the brilliant alike, what reached into every room, into +every person? They all had bread. Could one rule men through the bread they +351 + + bought? They had shoes, they had coffee, they had...The course of his life was +set. +Next morning, he walked into the office of the editor of the Gazette, a +fourth-rate newspaper in a rundown building, and asked for a job in the city +room. The editor looked at his clothes and inquired, "Can you spell cat?" +"Can you spell anthropomorphology?" asked Wynand. "We have no jobs here," said +the editor. "I’ll hang around," said Wynand. "Use me when you want to. You don’t +have to pay me. You’ll put me on salary when you’ll feel you’d better." +He remained in the building, sitting on the stairs outside the city room. He sat +there every day for a week. No one paid any attention to him. At night he slept +in doorways. When most of his money was gone, he stole food, from counters or +from garbage pails, before returning to his post on the stairs. +One day a reporter felt sorry for him and, walking down the stairs, threw a +nickel into Wynand’s lap, saying: "Go buy yourself a bowl of stew, kid." Wynand +had a dime left in his pocket. He took the dime and threw it at the reporter, +saying: "Go buy yourself a screw." The man swore and went on down. The nickel +and the dime remained lying on the steps. Wynand would not touch them. The story +was repeated in the city room. A pimply-faced clerk shrugged and took the two +coins. +At the end of the week, in a rush hour, a man from the city room called Wynand +to run an errand. Other small chores followed. He obeyed with military +precision. In ten days he was on salary. In six months he was a reporter. In two +years he was an associate editor. +Gail Wynand was twenty when he fell in love. He had known everything there was +to know about sex since the age of thirteen. He had had many girls. He never +spoke of love, created no romantic illusion and treated the whole matter as a +simple animal transaction; but at this he was an expert--and women could tell +it, just by looking at him. The girl with whom he fell in love had an exquisite +beauty, a beauty to be worshipped, not desired. She was fragile and silent. Her +face told of the lovely mysteries within her, left unexpressed. +She became Gail Wynand’s mistress. He allowed himself the weakness of being +happy. He would have married her at once, had she mentioned it. But they said +little to each other. He felt that everything was understood between them. +One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her, he allowed +his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you wish, anything I am, anything I +can ever be...That’s what I want to offer you--not the things I’ll get for you, +but the thing in me that will make me able to get them. That thing--a man can’t +renounce it--but I want to renounce it--so that it will be yours--so that it +will be in your service--only for you." The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think +I’m prettier than Maggy Kelly?" +He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never saw that girl +again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a lesson twice, did not +fall in love again in the years that followed. +He was twenty-one when his career on the Gazette was threatened, for the first +and only time. Politics and corruption had never disturbed him; he knew all +about it; his gang had been paid to help stage beatings at the polls on election +days. But when Pat Mulligan, police captain of his precinct, was framed, Wynand +could not take it; because Pat Mulligan was the only honest man he had ever met +in his life. +352 + + The Gazette was controlled by the powers that had framed Mulligan. Wynand said +nothing. He merely put in order in his mind such items of information he +possessed as would blow the Gazette into hell. His job would be blown with it, +but that did not matter. His decision contradicted every rule he had laid down +for his career. But he did not think. It was one of the rare explosions that hit +him at times, throwing him beyond caution, making of him a creature possessed by +the single impulse to have his way, because the rightness of his way was so +blindingly total. But he knew that the destruction of the Gazette would be only +a first step. It was not enough to save Mulligan. +For three years Wynand had kept one small clipping, an editorial on corruption, +by the famous editor of a great newspaper. He had kept it, because it was the +most beautiful tribute to integrity he had ever read. He took that clipping and +went to see the great editor. He would tell him about Mulligan and together they +would beat the machine. +He walked far across town, to the building of the famous paper. He had to walk. +It helped to control the fury within him. He was admitted into the office of the +editor--he had a way of getting admitted into places against all rules. He saw a +fat man at a desk, with thin slits of eyes set close together. He did not +introduce himself, but laid the clipping down on the desk and asked: "Do you +remember this?" The editor glanced at the clipping, then at Wynand. It was a +glance Wynand had seen before: in the eyes of the saloonkeeper who had slammed +the door. "How do you expect me to remember every piece of swill I write?" asked +the editor. +After a moment, Wynand said: "Thanks." It was the only time in his life that he +felt gratitude to anyone. The gratitude was genuine--a payment for a lesson he +would never need again. But even the editor knew there was something very wrong +in that short "Thanks," and very frightening. He did not know that it had been +an obituary on Gail Wynand. +Wynand walked back to the Gazette, feeling no anger toward the editor or the +political machine. He felt only a furious contempt for himself, for Pat +Mulligan, for all integrity; he felt shame when he thought of those whose +victims he and Mulligan had been willing to become. He did not think +"victims"--he thought "suckers." He got back to the office and wrote a brilliant +editorial blasting Captain Mulligan. "Why, I thought you kinda felt sorry for +the poor bastard," said his editor, pleased. "I don’t feel sorry for anyone," +said Wynand. +Grocers and deck hands had not appreciated Gail Wynand; politicians did. In his +years on the paper he had learned how to get along with people. His face had +assumed the expression it was to wear for the rest of his life: not quite a +smile, but a motionless look of irony directed at the whole world. People could +presume that his mockery was intended for the particular things they wished to +mock. Besides, it was pleasant to deal with a man untroubled by passion or +sanctity. +He was twenty-three when a rival political gang, intent on winning a municipal +election and needing a newspaper to plug a certain issue, bought the Gazette. +They bought it in the name of Gail Wynand, who was to serve as a respectable +front for the machine. Gail Wynand became editor-in-chief. He plugged the issue, +he won the election for his bosses. Two years later, he smashed the gang, sent +its leaders to the penitentiary, and remained as sole owner of the Gazette. +His first act was to tear down the sign over the door of the building and to +throw out the paper’s old masthead. The Gazette became the New York Banner. His +353 + + friends objected. "Publishers don’t change the name of a paper," they told him. +"This one does," he said. +The first campaign of the Banner was an appeal for money for a charitable cause. +Displayed side by side, with an equal amount of space, the Banner ran two +stories: one about a struggling young scientist, starving in a garret, working +on a great invention; the other about a chambermaid, the sweetheart of an +executed murderer, awaiting the birth of her illegitimate child. One story was +illustrated with scientific diagrams; the other--with the picture of a +loose-mouthed girl wearing a tragic expression and disarranged clothes. The +Banner asked its readers to help both these unfortunates. It received nine +dollars and forty-five cents for the young scientist; it received one thousand +and seventy-seven dollars for the unwed mother. Gail Wynand called a meeting of +his staff. He put down on the table the paper carrying both stories and the +money collected for both funds. "Is there anyone here who doesn’t understand?" +he asked. No one answered. He said: "Now you all know the kind of paper the +Banner is to be." +The publishers of his time took pride in stamping their individual personalities +upon their newspapers. Gail Wynand delivered his paper, body and soul, to the +mob. The Banner assumed the appearance of a circus poster in body, of a circus +performance in soul. It accepted the same goal--to stun, to amuse and to collect +admission. It bore the imprint, not of one, but of a million men. "Men differ in +their virtues, if any," said Gail Wynand, explaining his policy, "but they are +alike in their vices." He added, looking straight into the questioner’s eyes: "I +am serving that which exists on this earth in greatest quantity. I am +representing the majority--surely an act of virtue?" +The public asked for crime, scandal and sentiment. Gail Wynand provided it. He +gave people what they wanted, plus a justification for indulging the tastes of +which they had been ashamed. The Banner presented murder, arson, rape, +corruption--with an appropriate moral against each. There were three columns of +details to one stick of moral. "If you make people perform a noble duty, it +bores them," said Wynand. "If you make them indulge themselves, it shames them. +But combine the two--and you’ve got them." He ran stories about fallen girls, +society divorces, foundling asylums, red-light districts, charity hospitals. +"Sex first," said Wynand. "Tears second. Make them itch and make them cry--and +you’ve got them." +The Banner led great, brave crusades--on issues that had no opposition. It +exposed politicians--one step ahead of the Grand Jury; it attacked +monopolies--in the name of the downtrodden; it mocked the rich and the +successful--in the manner of those who could never be either. It overstressed +the glamour of society--and presented society news with a subtle sneer. This +gave the man on the street two satisfactions: that of entering illustrious +drawing rooms and that of not wiping his feet on the threshold. The Banner was +permitted to strain truth, taste and credibility, but not its readers’ brain +power. Its enormous headlines, glaring pictures and oversimplified text hit the +senses and entered men’s consciousness without any necessity for an intermediary +process of reason, like food shot through the rectum, requiring no digestion. +"News," Gail Wynand told his staff, "is that which will create the greatest +excitement among the greatest number. The thing that will knock them silly. The +sillier the better, provided there’s enough of them." +One day he brought into the office a man he had picked off the street. It was an +ordinary man, neither well-dressed nor shabby, neither tall nor short, neither +dark nor quite blond; he had the kind of face one could not remember even while +looking at it. He was frightening by being so totally undifferentiated; he +354 + + lacked even the positive distinction of a half-wit. Wynand took him through the +building, introduced him to every member of the staff and let him go. Then +Wynand called his staff together and told them: "When in doubt about your work, +remember that man’s face. You’re writing for him." +"But, Mr. Wynand," said a young editor, "one can’t remember his face." +"That’s the point," said Wynand. +When the name of Gail Wynand became a threat in the publishing world, a group of +newspaper owners took him aside--at a city charity affair which all had to +attend--and reproached him for what they called his debasement of the public +taste. "It is not my function," said Wynand, "to help people preserve a +self-respect they haven’t got. You give them what they profess to like in +public. I give them what they really like. Honesty is the best policy, +gentlemen, though not quite in the sense you were taught to believe." +It was impossible for Wynand not to do a job well. Whatever his aim, his means +were superlative. All the drive, the force, the will barred from the pages of +his paper went into its making. An exceptional talent was burned prodigally to +achieve perfection in the unexceptional. A new religious faith could have been +founded on the energy of spirit which he spent upon collecting lurid stories and +smearing them across sheets of paper. +The Banner was always first with the news. When an earthquake occurred in South +America and no communications came from the stricken area, Wynand chartered a +liner, sent a crew down to the scene and had extras on the streets of New York +days ahead of his competitors, extras with drawings that represented flames, +chasms and crushed bodies. When an S.O.S. was received from a ship sinking in a +storm off the Atlantic coast, Wynand himself sped to the scene with his crew, +ahead of the Coast Guard; Wynand directed the rescue and brought back an +exclusive story with photographs of himself climbing a ladder over raging waves, +a baby in his arms. When a Canadian village was cut off from the world by an +avalanche, it was the Banner that sent a balloon to drop food and Bibles to the +inhabitants. When a coal-mining community was paralyzed by a strike, the Banner +opened soup-kitchens and printed tragic stories on the perils confronting the +miners’ pretty daughters under the pressure of poverty. When a kitten got +trapped on the top of a pole, it was rescued by a Banner photographer. +"When there’s no news, make it," was Wynand’s order. A lunatic escaped from a +state institution for the insane. After days of terror for miles around--terror +fed by the Banner’s dire predictions and its indignation at the inefficiency of +the local police--he was captured by a reporter of the Banner. The lunatic +recovered miraculously two weeks after his capture, was released, and sold to +the Banner an expose of the ill-treatment he had suffered at the institution. It +led to sweeping reforms. Afterward, some people said that the lunatic had worked +on the Banner before his commitment. It could never be proved. +A fire broke out in a sweatshop employing thirty young girls. Two of them +perished in the disaster. Mary Watson, one of the survivors, gave the Banner an +exclusive story about the exploitation they had suffered. It led to a crusade +against sweatshops, headed by the best women of the city. The origin of the fire +was never discovered. It was whispered that Mary Watson had once been Evelyn +Drake who wrote for the Banner. It could not be proved. +In the first years of the Banner’s existence Gail Wynand spent more nights on +his office couch than in his bedroom. The effort he demanded of his employees +was hard to perform; the effort he demanded of himself was hard to believe. He +drove them like an army; he drove himself like a slave. He paid them well; he +355 + + got nothing but his rent and meals. He lived in a furnished room at the time +when his best reporters lived in suites at expensive hotels. He spent money +faster than it came in--and he spent it all on the Banner. The paper was like a +luxurious mistress whose every need was satisfied without inquiry about the +price. +The Banner was first to get the newest typographical equipment. The Banner was +last to get the best newspapermen--last, because it kept them. Wynand raided his +competitors’ city rooms; nobody could meet the salaries he offered. His +procedure evolved into a simple formula. When a newspaperman received an +invitation to call on Wynand, he took it as an insult to his journalistic +integrity, but he came to the appointment. He came, prepared to deliver a set of +offensive conditions on which he would accept the job, if at all. Wynand began +the interview by stating the salary he would pay. Then he added: "You might +wish, of course, to discuss other conditions--" and seeing the swallowing +movement in the man’s throat, concluded: "No? Fine. Report to me on Monday." +When Wynand opened his second paper--in Philadelphia--the local publishers met +him like European chieftains united against the invasion of Attila. The war that +followed was as savage. Wynand laughed over it. No one could teach him anything +about hiring thugs to highjack a paper’s delivery wagons and beat up news +vendors. Two of his competitors perished in the battle. The Wynand Philadelphia +Star survived. +The rest was swift and simple like an epidemic. By the time he reached the age +of thirty-five there were Wynand papers in all the key cities of the United +States. By the time he was forty there were Wynand magazines, Wynand newsreels +and most of the Wynand Enterprises, Inc. +A great many activities, not publicized, helped to build his fortune. He had +forgotten nothing of his childhood. He remembered the things he had thought, +standing as a bootblack at the rail of a ferryboat--the chances offered by a +growing city. He bought real estate where no one expected it to become valuable, +he built against all advice--and he ran hundreds into thousands. He bought his +way into a great many enterprises of all kinds. Sometimes they crashed, ruining +everybody concerned, save Gail Wynand. He staged a crusade against a shady +streetcar monopoly and caused it to lose its franchise; the franchise was +granted to a shadier group, controlled by Gail Wynand. He exposed a vicious +attempt to corner the beef market in the Middle West--and left the field clear +for another gang, operating under his orders. +He was helped by a great many people who discovered that young Wynand was a +bright fellow, worth using. He exhibited a charming complaisance about being +used. In each case, the people found that they had been used instead--like the +men who bought the Gazette for Gail Wynand. +Sometimes he lost money on his investments, coldly and with full intention. +Through a series of untraceable steps he ruined many powerful men: the president +of a bank, the head of an insurance company, the owner of a steamship line, and +others. No one could discover his motives. The men were not his competitors and +he gained nothing from their destruction. +"Whatever that bastard Wynand is after," people said, "it’s not after money." +Those who denounced him too persistently were run out of their professions: some +in a few weeks, others many years later. There were occasions when he let +insults pass unnoticed; there were occasions when he broke a man for an +innocuous remark. One could never tell what he would avenge and what he would +forgive. +356 + + One day he noticed the brilliant work of a young reporter on another paper and +sent for him. The boy came, but the salary Wynand mentioned had no effect on +him. "I can’t work for you, Mr. Wynand," he said with desperate earnestness, +"because you...you have no ideals." Wynand’s thin lips smiled. "You can’t escape +human depravity, kid," he said gently. "The boss you work for may have ideals, +but he has to beg money and take orders from many contemptible people. I have no +ideals--but I don’t beg. Take your choice. There’s no other." The boy went back +to his paper. A year later he came to Wynand and asked if his offer were still +open. Wynand said that it was. The boy had remained on the Banner ever since. He +was the only one on the staff who loved Gail Wynand. +Alvah Scarret, sole survivor of the original Gazette, had risen with Wynand. But +one could not say that he loved Wynand--he merely clung to his boss with the +automatic devotion of a rug under Wynand’s feet. Alvah Scarret had never hated +anything, and so was incapable of love. He was shrewd, competent and +unscrupulous in the innocent manner of one unable to grasp the conception of a +scruple. He believed everything he wrote and everything written in the Banner. +He could hold a belief for all of two weeks. He was invaluable to Wynand--as a +barometer of public reaction. +No one could say whether Gail Wynand had a private life. His hours away from the +office had assumed the style of the Banner’s front page--but a style raised to a +grand plane, as if he were still playing circus, only to a gallery of kings. He +bought out the entire house for a great opera performance--and sat alone in the +empty auditorium with his current mistress. He discovered a beautiful play by an +unknown playwright and paid him a huge sum to have the play performed once and +never again; Wynand was the sole spectator at the single performance; the script +was burned next morning. When a distinguished society woman asked him to +contribute to a worthy charity cause, Wynand handed her a signed blank +check--and laughed, confessing that the amount she dared to fill in was less +than he would have given otherwise. He bought some kind of Balkan throne for a +penniless pretender whom he met in a speakeasy and never bothered to see +afterward; he often referred to "my valet, my chauffeur and my king." +At night, dressed in a shabby suit bought for nine dollars, Wynand would often +ride the subways and wander through the dives of slum districts, listening to +his public. Once, in a basement beer joint, he heard a truck driver denouncing +Gail Wynand as the worst exponent of capitalistic evils, in a language of +colorful accuracy. Wynand agreed with him and helped him out with a few +expressions of his own, from his Hell’s Kitchen vocabulary. Then Wynand picked +up a copy of the Banner left by someone on a table, tore his own photograph from +page 3, clipped it to a hundred-dollar bill, handed it to the truck driver and +walked out before anyone could utter a word. +The succession of his mistresses was so rapid that it ceased to be gossip. It +was said that he never enjoyed a woman unless he had bought her--and that she +had to be the kind who could not be bought. +He kept the details of his life secret by making it glaringly public as a whole. +He had delivered himself to the crowd; he was anyone’s property, like a monument +in a park, like a bus stop sign, like the pages of the Banner. His photographs +appeared in his papers more often than pictures of movie stars. He had been +photographed in all kinds of clothes, on every imaginable occasion. He had never +been photographed naked, but his readers felt as if he had. He derived no +pleasure from personal publicity; it was merely a matter of policy to which he +submitted. Every corner of his penthouse had been reproduced in his papers and +magazines. "Every bastard in the country knows the inside of my icebox and +bathtub," he said. +357 + + One phase of his life, however, was little known and never mentioned. The top +floor of the building under his penthouse was his private art gallery. It was +locked. He had never admitted anyone, except the caretaker. A few people knew +about it. Once a French ambassador asked him for permission to visit it. Wynand +refused. Occasionally, not often, he would descend to his gallery and remain +there for hours. The things he collected were chosen by standards of his own. He +had famous masterpieces; he had canvases by unknown artists; he rejected the +works of immortal names for which he did not care. The estimates set by +collectors and the matter of great signatures were of no concern to him. The art +dealers whom he patronized reported that his judgment was that of a master. +One night his valet saw Wynand returning from the art gallery below and was +shocked by the expression of his face; it was a look of suffering, yet the face +seemed ten years younger. "Are you ill, sir?" he asked. Wynand looked at him +indifferently and said: "Go to bed." +"We could make a swell spread for the Sunday scandal sheet out of your art +gallery," said Alvah Scarret wistfully. "No," said Wynand. "But why, Gail?" +"Look, Alvah. Every man on earth has a soul of his own that nobody can stare at. +Even the convicts in a penitentiary and the freaks in a side show. Everybody but +me. My soul is spread in your Sunday scandal sheet--in three-color process. So I +must have a substitute--even if it’s only a locked room and a few objects not to +be pawed." +It was a long process and there had been premonitory signs, but Scarret did not +notice a certain new trait in Gail Wynand’s character until Wynand was +forty-five. Then it became apparent to many. Wynand lost interest in breaking +industrialists and financiers. He found a new kind of victim. People could not +tell whether it was a sport, a mania or a systematic pursuit. They thought it +was horrible, because it seemed so vicious and pointless. +It began with the case of Dwight Carson. Dwight Carson was a talented young +writer who had achieved the spotless reputation of a man passionately devoted to +his convictions. He upheld the cause of the individual against the masses. He +wrote for magazines of great prestige and small circulation, which were no +threat to Wynand. Wynand bought Dwight Carson. He forced Carson to write a +column in the Banner, dedicated to preaching the superiority of the masses over +the man of genius. It was a bad column, dull and unconvincing; it made many +people angry. It was a waste of space and of a big salary. Wynand insisted on +continuing it. +Even Alvah Scarret was shocked by Carson’s apostasy. "Anybody else, Gail," he +said, "but, honest, I didn’t expect it of Carson." Wynand laughed; he laughed +too long, as if he could not stop it; his laughter had an edge of hysteria. +Scarret frowned; he did not like the sight of Wynand being unable to control an +emotion; it contradicted everything he knew of Wynand; it gave Scarret a funny +feeling of apprehension, like the sight of a tiny crack in a solid wall; the +crack could not possibly endanger the wall--except that it had no business being +there. +A few months later Wynand bought a young writer from a radical magazine, a man +known for his honesty, and put him to work on a series of articles glorifying +exceptional men and damning the masses. That, too, made a great many of his +readers angry. He continued it. He seemed not to care any longer about the +delicate signs of effect on circulation. +He hired a sensitive poet to cover baseball games. He hired an art expert to +358 + + handle financial news. He got a socialist to defend factory owners and a +conservative to champion labor. He forced an atheist to write on the glories of +religion. He made a disciplined scientist proclaim the superiority of mystical +intuition over the scientific method. He gave a great symphony conductor a +munificent yearly income, for no work at all, on the sole condition that he +never conduct an orchestra again. +Some of these men had refused, at first. But they surrendered when they found +themselves on the edge of bankruptcy through a series of untraceable +circumstances within a few years. Some of the men were famous, others obscure. +Wynand showed no interest in the previous standing of his prey. He showed no +interest in men of glittering success who had commercialized their careers and +held no particular beliefs of any kind. His victims had a single attribute in +common: their immaculate integrity. +Once they were broken, Wynand continued to pay them scrupulously. But he felt no +further concern for them and no desire to see them again. Dwight Carson became a +dipsomaniac. Two men became drug addicts. One committed suicide. This last was +too much for Scarret. "Isn’t it going too far, Gail?" he asked. "That was +practically murder." +"Not at all," said Wynand, "I was merely an outside circumstance. The cause was +in him. If lightning strikes a rotten tree and it collapses, it’s not the fault +of the lightning." +"But what do you call a healthy tree?" +"They don’t exist, Alvah," said Wynand cheerfully, "they don’t exist." +Alvah Scarret never asked Wynand for an explanation of this new pursuit. By some +dim instinct Scarret guessed a little of the reason behind it. Scarret shrugged +and laughed, telling people that it was nothing to worry about, it was just "a +safety valve." Only two men understood Gail Wynand: Alvah Scarret--partially; +Ellsworth Toohey--completely. +Ellsworth Toohey--who wished, above all, to avoid a quarrel with Wynand at that +time--could not refrain from a feeling of resentment, because Wynand had not +chosen him as a victim. He almost wished Wynand would try to corrupt him, no +matter what the consequences. But Wynand seldom noticed his existence. +Wynand had never been afraid of death. Through the years the thought of suicide +had occurred to him, not as an intention, but as one of the many possibilities +among the chances of life. He examined it indifferently, with polite curiosity, +as he examined any possibility--and then forgot it. He had known moments of +blank exhaustion when his will deserted him. He had always cured himself by a +few hours in his art gallery. +Thus he reached the age of fifty-one, and a day when nothing of consequence +happened to him, yet the evening found him without desire to take a step +farther. +# +Gail Wynand sat on the edge of the bed, slumped forward, his elbows on his +knees, the gun on the palm of his hand. +Yes, he told himself, there’s an answer there somewhere. But I don’t want to +know it. I don’t want to know it. +And because he felt a pang of dread at the root of this desire not to examine +359 + + his life further, he knew that he would not die tonight. As long as he still +feared something, he had a foothold on living; even if it meant only moving +forward to an unknown disaster. The thought of death gave him nothing. The +thought of living gave him a slender alms--the hint of fear. +He moved his hand, weighing the gun. He smiled, a faint smile of derision. No, +he thought, that’s not for you. Not yet. You still have the sense of not wanting +to die senselessly. You were stopped by that. Even that is a remnant--of +something. +He tossed the gun aside on the bed, knowing that the moment was past and the +thing was of no danger to him any longer. He got up. He felt no elation; he felt +tired; but he was back in his normal course. There were no problems, except to +finish this day quickly and go to sleep. He went down to his study to get a +drink. When he switched on the light in the study, he saw Toohey’s present. It +was a huge, vertical crate, standing by his desk. He had seen it earlier in the +evening. He had thought "What the hell," and forgotten all about it. +He poured himself a drink and stood sipping it slowly. The crate was too large +to escape his field of vision, and as he drank he tried to guess what it could +possibly contain. It was too tall and slender for a piece of furniture. He could +not imagine what material property Toohey could wish to send him; he had +expected something less tangible--a small envelope containing a hint at some +sort of blackmail; so many people had tried to blackmail him so unsuccessfully; +he did think Toohey would have more sense than that. +By the time he finished his drink, he had found no plausible explanation for the +crate. It annoyed him, like a stubborn crossword puzzle. He had a kit of tools +somewhere in a drawer of his desk. He found it and broke the crate open. +It was Steven Mallory’s statue of Dominique Francon. Gail Wynand walked to his +desk and put down the pliers he held as if they were of fragile crystal. Then he +turned and looked at the statue again. He stood looking at it for an hour. Then +he went to the telephone and dialed Toohey’s number. "Hello?" said Toohey’s +voice, its hoarse impatience confessing that he had been awakened out of sound +sleep. "All right. Come over," said Wynand and hung up. Toohey arrived half an +hour later. It was his first visit to Wynand’s home. Wynand himself answered the +doorbell, still dressed in his pyjamas. He said nothing and walked into the +study, Toohey following. +The naked marble body, its head thrown back in exaltation, made the room look +like a place that did not exist any longer: like the Stoddard Temple. Wynand’s +eyes rested on Toohey expectantly, a heavy glance of suppressed anger. +"You want, of course, to know the name of the model?" Toohey asked, with just a +hint of triumph in his voice. +"Hell, no," said Wynand. "I want to know the name of the sculptor." +He wondered why Toohey did not like the question; there was something more than +disappointment in Toohey’s face. +"The sculptor?" said Toohey. "Wait...let me see...I think I did know it....It’s +Steven...or Stanley...Stanley something or other....Honestly, I don’t remember." +"If you knew enough to buy this, you knew enough to ask the name and never +forget it." +"I’ll look it up, Mr. Wynand." +360 + + "Where did you get this?" +"In some art shop, you know, one of those places on Second Avenue." +"How did it get there?" +"I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I bought it because I knew the model." +"You’re lying about that. If that were all you saw in it, you wouldn’t have +taken the chance you took. You know that I’ve never let anyone see my gallery. +Did you think I’d allow you the presumption of contributing to it? Nobody has +ever dared offer me a gift of that kind. You wouldn’t have risked it, unless you +were sure, terribly sure, of how great a work of art this is. Sure that I’d have +to accept it. That you’d beat me. And you have." +"I’m glad to hear it, Mr. Wynand." +"If you wish to enjoy that, I’ll tell you also that I hate seeing this come from +you. I hate your having been able to appreciate it. It doesn’t fit you. Though I +was obviously wrong about you: you’re a greater art expert than I thought you +were." +"Such as it is, I’ll have to accept this as a compliment and thank you, Mr. +Wynand." +"Now what was it you wanted? You intended me to understand that you won’t let me +have this unless I grant an interview to Mrs. Peter Keating?" +"Why, no, Mr. Wynand. I’ve made you a present of it. I intended you only to +understand that this is Mrs. Peter Keating." +Wynand looked at the statue, then back at Toohey. +"Oh you damn fool!" said Wynand softly. +Toohey stared at him, bewildered. +"So you really did use this as a red lamp in a window?" Wynand seemed relieved; +he did not find it necessary to hold Toohey’s glance now. "That’s better, +Toohey. You’re not as smart as I thought for a moment." +"But, Mr. Wynand, what...?" +"Didn’t you realize that this statue would be the surest way to kill any +possible appetite I might have for your Mrs. Keating?" +"You haven’t seen her, Mr. Wynand." +"Oh, she’s probably beautiful. She might be more beautiful than this. But she +can’t have what that sculptor has given her. And to see that same face, but +without any meaning, like a dead caricature--don’t you think one would hate the +woman for that?" +"You haven’t seen her." +"Oh, all right, I’ll see her. I told you you should be allowed to get away with +your stunt completely or not at all. I didn’t promise you to lay her, did I? +Only to see her." +361 + + "That is all I wanted, Mr. Wynand." +"Have her telephone my office and make an appointment." +"Thank you, Mr. Wynand." +"Besides, you’re lying about not knowing the name of that sculptor. But it’s too +much bother to make you tell me. She’ll tell me." +"I’m sure she’ll tell you. Though why should I lie?" +"God knows. By the way, if it had been a lesser sculptor, you’d have lost your +job over this." +"But, after all, Mr. Wynand, I have a contract." +"Oh, save that for your labor unions, Elsie! And now I think you should wish me +a good night and get out of here." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand. I wish you a good night." +Wynand accompanied him to the hall. At the door Wynand said: +"You’re a poor businessman, Toohey. I don’t know why you’re so anxious to have +me meet Mrs. Keating. I don’t know what your racket is in trying to get a +commission for that Keating of yours. But whatever it is, it can’t be so +valuable that you should have been willing to part with a thing like this in +exchange." + +2. +"WHY didn’t you wear your emerald bracelet?" asked Peter Keating. "Gordon +Prescott’s so-called fiancee had everybody gaping at her star sapphire." +"I’m sorry, Peter. I shall wear it next time," said Dominique. +"It was a nice party. Did you have a good time?" +"I always have a good time." +"So did I...Only...Oh God, do you want to know the truth?" +"No." +"Dominique, I was bored to death. Vincent Knowlton is a pain in the neck. He’s +such a damn snob. I can’t stand him." He added cautiously: "I didn’t show it, +did I?" +"No. You behaved very well. You laughed at all his jokes--even when no one else +did." +"Oh, you noticed that? It always works." +"Yes, I noticed that." +362 + + "You think I shouldn’t, don’t you?" +"I haven’t said that." +"You think it’s...low, don’t you?" +"I don’t think anything is low." +He slumped farther in his armchair; it made his chin press uncomfortably against +his chest; but he did not care to move again. A fire crackled in the fireplace +of his living room. He had turned out all the lights, save one lamp with a +yellow silk shade; but it created no air of intimate relaxation, it only made +the place look deserted, like a vacant apartment with the utilities shut off. +Dominique sat at the other end of the room, her thin body fitted obediently to +the contours of a straight-backed chair; she did not look stiff, only too poised +for comfort. They were alone, but she sat like a lady at a public function; like +a lovely dress dummy in a public show window--a window facing a busy +intersection. They had come home from a tea party at the house of Vincent +Knowlton, a prominent young society man, Keating’s new friend. They had had a +quiet dinner together, and now their evening was free. There were no other +social engagements till tomorrow. +"You shouldn’t have laughed at theosophy when you spoke to Mrs. Marsh," he said. +"She believes in it." +"I’m sorry. I shall be more careful." +He waited to have her open a subject of conversation. She said nothing. He +thought suddenly that she had never spoken to him first--in the twenty months of +their marriage. He told himself that that was ridiculous and impossible; he +tried to recall an occasion when she had addressed him. Of course she had; he +remembered her asking him: ’"What time will you get back tonight?" and "Do you +wish to include the Dixons for Tuesday’s dinner?" and many things like that. +He glanced at her. She did not look bored or anxious to ignore him. She sat +there, alert and ready, as if his company held her full interest; she did not +reach for a book, she did not stare at some distant thought of her own. She +looked straight at him, not past him, as if she were waiting for a conversation. +He realized that she had always looked straight at him, like this; and now he +wondered whether he liked it. Yes, he did, it allowed him no cause to be +jealous, not even of her hidden thoughts. No, he didn’t, not quite, it allowed +no escape, for either one of them. +"I’ve just finished The Gallant Gallstone," he said. "It’s a swell book. It’s +the product of a scintillating brain, a Puck with tears streaming down his face, +a golden-hearted clown holding for a moment the throne of God." +"I read the same book review. In the Sunday Banner." +"I read the book itself. You know I did." +"That was nice of you." +"Huh?" He heard approval and it pleased him. +"It was considerate toward the author. I’m sure she likes to have people read +her book. So it was kind to take the time--when you knew in advance what you’d +think of it." +363 + + "I didn’t know. But I happened to agree with the reviewer." +"The Banner has the best reviewers." +"That’s true. Of course. So there’s nothing wrong in agreeing with them, is +there?" +"Nothing whatever. I always agree." +"With whom?" +"With everybody." +"Are you making fun of me, Dominique?" +"Have you given me reason to?" +"No. I don’t see how. No, of course I haven’t." +"Then I’m not." +He waited. He heard a truck rumbling past, in the street below, and that filled +a few seconds; "but when the sound died, he had to speak again: +"Dominique, I’d like to know what you think." +"Of what?" +"Of...of..." He searched for an important subject and ended with: "...of Vincent +Knowlton." +"I think he’s a man worth kissing the backside of." +"For Christ’s sake, Dominique!" +"I’m sorry. That’s bad English and bad manners. It’s wrong, of course. Well, +let’s see: Vincent Knowlton is a man whom it’s pleasant to know. Old families +deserve a great deal of consideration, and we must have tolerance for the +opinions of others, because tolerance is the greatest virtue, therefore it would +be unfair to force your views on Vincent Knowlton, and if you just let him +believe what he pleases, he will be glad to help you too, because he’s a very +human person." +"Now, that’s sensible," said Keating; he felt at home in recognizable language. +"I think tolerance is very important, because..." He stopped. He finished, in an +empty voice: "You said exactly the same thing as before." +"Did you notice that," she said. She said it without question mark, +indifferently, as a simple fact. It was not sarcasm; he wished it were; sarcasm +would have granted him a personal recognition--the desire to hurt him. But her +voice had never carried any personal relation to him--not for twenty months. +He stared into the fire. That was what made a man happy--to sit looking dreamily +into a fire, at his own hearth, in his own home; that’s what he had always heard +and read. He stared at the flames, unblinking, to force himself into a complete +obedience to an established truth. Just one more minute of it and I will feel +happy, he thought, concentrating. Nothing happened. +He thought of how convincingly he could describe this scene to friends and make +364 + + them envy the fullness of his contentment. Why couldn’t he convince himself? He +had everything he’d ever wanted. He had wanted superiority--and for the last +year he had been the undisputed leader of his profession. He had wanted +fame--and he had five thick albums of clippings. He had wanted wealth--and he +had enough to insure luxury for the rest of his life. He had everything anyone +ever wanted. How many people struggled and suffered to achieve what he had +achieved? How many dreamed and bled and died for this, without reaching it? +"Peter Keating is the luckiest fellow on earth." How often had he heard that? +This last year had been the best of his life. He had added the impossible to his +possessions--Dominique Francon. It had been such a joy to laugh casually when +friends repeated to him: "Peter, how did you ever do it?" It had been such a +pleasure to introduce her to strangers, to say lightly: "My wife," and to watch +the stupid, uncontrolled look of envy in their eyes. Once at a large party an +elegant drunk had asked him, with a wink declaring unmistakable intentions: +"Say, do you know that gorgeous creature over there?" +"Slightly," Keating had answered, gratified, "she’s my wife." +He often told himself gratefully that their marriage had turned out much better +than he had expected. Dominique had become an ideal wife. She devoted herself +completely to his interests: pleasing his clients, entertaining his friends, +running his home. She changed nothing in his existence: not his hours, not his +favorite menus, not even the arrangement of his furniture. She had brought +nothing with her, except her clothes; she had not added a single book or ash +tray to his house. When he expressed his views on any subject, she did not +argue--she agreed with him. Graciously, as a matter of natural course, she took +second place, vanishing in his background. +He had expected a torrent that would lift him and smash him against some unknown +rocks. He had not found even a brook joining his peaceful river. It was more as +if the river went on and someone came to swim quietly in his wake; no, not even +to swim--that was a cutting, forceful action--but just to float behind him with +the current. Had he been offered the power to determine Dominique’s attitude +after their marriage, he would have asked that she behave exactly as she did. +Only their nights left him miserably unsatisfied. She submitted whenever he +wanted her. But it was always as on their first night: an indifferent body in +his arms, without revulsion, without answer. As far as he was concerned, she was +still a virgin: he had never made her experience anything. Each time, burning +with humiliation, he decided never to touch her again. But his desire returned, +aroused by the constant presence of her beauty. He surrendered to it, when he +could resist no longer; not often. +It was his mother who stated the thing he had not admitted to himself about his +marriage. "I can’t stand it," his mother said, six months after the wedding. "If +she’d just get angry at me once, call me names, throw things at me, it would be +all right. But I can’t stand this." +"What, Mother?" he asked, feeling a cold hint of panic. "It’s no use, Peter," +she answered. His mother, whose arguments, opinions, reproaches he had never +been able to stop, would not say another word about his marriage. She took a +small apartment of her own and moved out of his house. She came to visit him +often and she was always polite to Dominique, with a strange, beaten air of +resignation. He told himself that he should be glad to be free of his mother; +but he was not glad. Yet he could not grasp what Dominique had done to inspire +that mounting dread within him. He could find no word or gesture for which to +reproach her. But for twenty months it had been like tonight: he could not bear +to remain alone with her--yet he did not want to escape her and she did not want +365 + + to avoid him. +"Nobody’s coming tonight?" he asked tonelessly, turning away from the fire. +"No," she said, and smiled, the smile serving as connection to her next words: +"Shall I leave you alone, Peter?" +"No!" It was almost a cry. I must not sound so desperate, he thought, while he +was saying aloud: "Of course not. I’m glad to have an evening with my wife all +to myself." +He felt a dim instinct telling him that he must solve this problem, must learn +to make their moments together endurable, that he dare not run from it, for his +own sake more than hers. +"What would you like to do tonight, Dominique?" +"Anything you wish." +"Want to go to a movie?" +"Do you?" +"Oh, I don’t know. It kills time." +"All right. Let’s kill time.’" +"No. Why should we? That sounds awful." +"Does it?" +"Why should we run from our own home? Let’s stay here." +"Yes, Peter." +He waited. But the silence, he thought, is a flight too, a worse kind of flight. +"Want to play a hand of Russian Bank?" he asked. +"Do you like Russian Bank?" +"Oh, it kills ti--" He stopped. She smiled. +"Dominique," he said, looking at her, "you’re so beautiful. You’re always +so...so utterly beautiful. I always want to tell you how I feel about it." +"I’d like to hear how you feel about it. Peter." +"I love to look at you. I always think of what Gordon Prescott said. He said +that you are God’s perfect exercise in structural mathematics. And Vincent +Knowlton said you’re a spring morning. And Ellsworth--Ellsworth said you’re a +reproach to every other female shape on earth." +"And Ralston Holcombe?" she asked. +"Oh, never mind!" he snapped, and turned back to the fire. +I know why I can’t stand the silence, he thought. It’s because it makes no +difference to her at all whether I speak or not; as if I didn’t exist and never +366 + + had existed...the thing more inconceivable than one’s death--never to have been +born....He felt a sudden, desperate desire which he could identify--a desire to +be real to her. +"Dominique, do you know what I’ve been thinking?" he asked eagerly. +"No. What have you been thinking?" +"I’ve thought of it for some time--all by myself--I haven’t mentioned it to +anyone. And nobody suggested it. It’s my own idea." +"Why, that’s fine. What is it?" +"I think I’d like to move to the country and build a house of our own. Would you +like that?" +"I’d like it very much. Just as you would. You want to design a home for +yourself?" +"Hell, no. Bennett will dash one off for me. He does all our country homes. He’s +a whiz at it." +"Will you like commuting?" +"No, I think that will be quite an awful nuisance. But you know, everybody +that’s anybody commutes nowadays. I always feel like a damn proletarian when I +have to admit that I live in the city." +"Will you like to see trees and a garden and the earth around you?" +"Oh, that’s a lot of nonsense. When will I have the time? A tree’s a tree. When +you’ve seen a newsreel of the woods in spring, you’ve seen it all." +"Will you like to do some gardening? People say it’s very nice, working the soil +yourself." +"Good God, no! What kind of grounds do you think we’d have? We can afford a +gardener, and a good one--so the place will be something for the neighbors to +admire." +"Will you like to take up some sport?" +"Yes, I’ll like that." +"Which one?" +"I think I’ll do better with my golf. You know, belonging to a country club +right where you’re one of the leading citizens in the community is different +from occasional week ends. And the people you meet are different. Much higher +class. And the contacts you make..." He caught himself, and added angrily: +"Also, I’ll take up horseback riding." +"I like horseback riding. Do you?" +"I’ve never had much time for it. Well, it does shake your insides unmercifully. +But who the hell is Gordon Prescott to think he’s the only he-man on earth and +plaster his photo in riding clothes right in his reception room?" +"I suppose you will want to find some privacy?" +367 + + "Well, I don’t believe in that desert-island stuff. I think the house should +stand in sight of a major highway, so people would point out, you know, the +Keating estate. Who the hell is Claude Stengel to have a country home while I +live in a rented flat? He started out about the same time I did, and look where +he is and where I am, why, he’s lucky if two and a half men ever heard of him, +so why should he park himself in Westchester and..." +And he stopped. She sat looking at him, her face serene. +"Oh God damn it!" he cried. "If you don’t want to move to the country, why don’t +you just say so?" +"I want very much to do anything you want, Peter. To follow any idea you get all +by yourself." +He remained silent for a long time. +"What do we do tomorrow night?" he asked, before he could stop himself. +She rose, walked to a desk and picked up her calendar. +"We have the Palmers for dinner tomorrow night," she said. +"Oh, Christ!" he moaned. "They’re such awful bores! Why do we have to have +them?" +She stood holding the calendar forward between the tips of her fingers, as if +she were a photograph with the focus on the calendar and her own figure blurred +in its background. +"We have to have the Palmers," she said, "so that we can get the commission for +their new store building. We have to get that commission so that we can +entertain the Eddingtons for dinner on Saturday. The Eddingtons have no +commissions to give, but they’re in the Social Register. The Palmers bore you +and the Eddingtons snub you. But you have to flatter people whom you despise in +order to impress other people who despise you." +"Why do you have to say things like that?" +"Would you like to look at this calendar, Peter?" +"Well, that’s what everybody does. That’s what everybody lives for." +"Yes, Peter. Almost everybody." +"If you don’t approve, why don’t you say so?" +"Have I said anything about not approving?" +He thought back carefully. "No," he admitted. "No, you haven’t....But it’s the +way you put things." +"Would you rather I put it in a more involved way--as I did about Vincent +Knowlton?" +"I’d rather..." Then he cried: "I’d rather you’d express an opinion, God damn +it, just once!" +368 + + She asked, in the same level monotone: "Whose opinion, Peter? Gordon Prescott’s? +Ralston Holcombe’s? Ellsworth Toohey’s?" +He turned to her, leaning on the arm of his chair, half rising, suddenly tense. +The thing between them was beginning to take shape. He had a first hint of words +that would name it. +"Dominique," he said softly, reasonably, "that’s it. Now I know. I know what’s +been the matter all the time." +"Has anything been the matter?" +"Wait. This is terribly important. Dominique, you’ve never said, not once, what +you thought. Not about anything. You’ve never expressed a desire. Not of any +kind." +"What’s wrong about that?" +"But it’s...it’s like death. You’re not real. You’re only a body. Look, +Dominique, you don’t know it, I’ll try to explain. You understand what death is? +When a body can’t move any more, when it has no...no will, no meaning. You +understand? Nothing. The absolute nothing. Well, your body moves--but that’s +all. The other, the thing inside you, your--oh, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not +talking religion, but there’s no other word for it, so I’ll say: your soul--your +soul doesn’t exist. No will, no meaning. There’s no real you any more." +"What’s the real me?" she asked. For the first time, she looked attentive; not +compassionate; but, at least, attentive. +"What’s the real anyone?" he said, encouraged. "It’s not just the body. +It’s...it’s the soul." +"What is the soul?" +"It’s--you. The thing inside you." +"The thing that thinks and values and makes decisions?" +"Yes! Yes, that’s it. And the thing that feels. You’ve--you’ve given it up." +"So there are two things that one can’t give up: One’s thoughts and one’s +desires?" +"Yes! Oh, you do understand! So you see, you’re like a corpse to everybody +around you. A kind of walking death. That’s worse than any active crime. +It’s..." +"Negation?" +"Yes. Just blank negation. You’re not here. You’ve never been here. If you’d +tell me that the curtains in this room are ghastly and if you’d rip them off and +put up some you like--something of you would be real, here, in this room. But +you never have. You’ve never told the cook what dessert you liked for dinner. +You’re not here, Dominique. You’re not alive. Where’s your I?" +"Where’s yours, Peter?" she asked quietly. +He sat still, his eyes wide. She knew that his thoughts, in this moment, were +clear and immediate like visual perception, that the act of thinking was an act +369 + + of seeing a procession of years behind him. +"It’s not true," he said at last, his voice hollow. "It’s not true." +"What is not true?" +"What you said." +"I’ve said nothing. I asked you a question." +His eyes were begging her to speak, to deny. She rose, stood before him, and the +taut erectness of her body was a sign of life, the life he had missed and begged +for, a positive quality of purpose, but the quality of a judge. +"You’re beginning to see, aren’t you, Peter? Shall I make it clearer. You’ve +never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want +to show it. You wanted an act to help your act--a beautiful, complicated act, +all twists, trimmings and words. All words. You didn’t like what I said about +Vincent Knowlton. You liked it when I said the same thing under cover of +virtuous sentiments. You didn’t want me to believe. You only wanted me to +convince you that I believed. My real soul, Peter? It’s real only when it’s +independent--you’ve discovered that, haven’t you? It’s real only when it chooses +curtains and desserts--you’re right about that--curtains, desserts and +religions, Peter, and the shapes of buildings. But you’ve never wanted that. You +wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them +while they’re reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from +two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. Usually in the more +vulgar kind of hotels. Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No +beginning and no end. No center and no purpose. I gave you what you wanted. I +became what you are, what your friends are, what most of humanity is so busy +being--only with the trimmings. I didn’t go around spouting book reviews to hide +my emptiness of judgment--I said I had no judgment. I didn’t borrow designs to +hide my creative impotence--I created nothing. I didn’t say that equality is a +noble conception and unity the chief goal of mankind--I just agreed with +everybody. You call it death, Peter? That kind of death--I’ve imposed it on you +and on everyone around us. But you--you haven’t done that. People are +comfortable with you, they like you, they enjoy your presence. You’ve spared +them the blank death. Because you’ve imposed it--on yourself." +He said nothing. She walked away from him, and sat down again, waiting. +He got up. He made a few steps toward her. He said: "Dominique..." Then he was +on his knees before her, clutching her, his head buried against her legs. +"Dominique, it’s not true--that I never loved you. I love you, I always have, it +was not...just to show the others--that was not all--I loved you. There were two +people--you and another person, a man, who always made me feel the same +thing--not fear exactly, but like a wall, a steep wall to climb--like a command +to rise--I don’t know where--but a feeling going up--I’ve always hated that +man--but you, I wanted you--always--that’s why I married you--when I knew you +despised me--so you should have forgiven me that marriage--you shouldn’t have +taken your revenge like this--not like this, Dominique--Dominique, I can’t fight +back, I--" +"Who is the man you hated, Peter?" +"It doesn’t matter." +"Who is he?" +370 + + "Nobody. I..." +"Name him." +"Howard Roark." +She said nothing for a long time. Then she put her hand on his hair. The gesture +had the form of gentleness. +"I never wanted to take a revenge on you, Peter," she said softly. +"Then--why?" +"I married you for my own reasons. I acted as the world demands one should act. +Only I can do nothing halfway. Those who can, have a fissure somewhere inside. +Most people have many. They lie to themselves--not to know that. I’ve never lied +to myself. So I had to do what you all do--only consistently and completely. +I’ve probably destroyed you. If I could care, I’d say I’m sorry. That was not my +purpose." +"Dominique, I love you. But I’m afraid. Because you’ve changed something in me, +ever since our wedding, since I said yes to you--even if I were to lose you now, +I couldn’t go back to what I was before--you took something I had..." +"No. I took something you never had. I grant you that’s worse." +"What?" +"It’s said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. +But that’s not true. Self-respect is something that can’t be killed. The worst +thing is to kill a man’s pretense at it." +"Dominique, I...I don’t want to talk." +She looked down at his face resting against her knees, and he saw pity in her +eyes, and for one moment he knew what a dreadful thing true pity is, but he kept +no knowledge of it, because he slammed his mind shut before the words in which +he was about to preserve it. +She bent down and kissed his forehead. It was the first kiss she had ever given +him. +"I don’t want you to suffer, Peter," she said gently. "This, now, is real--it’s +I--it’s my own words--I don’t want you to suffer--I can’t feel anything +else--but I feel that much." +He pressed his lips to her hand. +When he raised his head, she looked at him as if, for a moment, he was her +husband. She said: "Peter, if you could hold on to it--to what you are now--" +"I love you," he said. +They sat silently together for a long time. He felt no strain in the silence. +The telephone rang. +It was not the sound that destroyed the moment; it was the eagerness with which +371 + + Keating jumped up and ran to answer it. She heard his voice through the open +door, a voice indecent in its relief: +"Hello?...Oh, hello, Ellsworth!...No, not a thing....Free as a lark....Sure, +come over, come right over!...Okey-doke!" +"It’s Ellsworth," he said, returning to the living room. His voice was gay and +it had a touch of insolence. "He wants to drop in." +She said nothing. +He busied himself emptying ash trays that contained a single match or one butt, +gathering newspapers, adding a log to the fire that did not need it, lighting +more lamps. He whistled a tune from a screen operetta. +He ran to open the door when he heard the bell. +"How nice," said Toohey, coming in. "A fire and just the two of you. Hello, +Dominique. Hope I’m not intruding." +"Hello, Ellsworth," she said. +"You’re never intruding," said Keating. "I can’t tell you how glad I am to see +you." He pushed a chair to the fire. "Sit down here, Ellsworth. What’ll you +have? You know, when I heard your voice on the phone...well, I wanted to jump +and yelp like a pup." +"Don’t wag your tail, though," said Toohey. "No, no drinks, thanks. How have you +been, Dominique?" +"Just as I was a year ago," she said. +"But not as you were two years ago?" +"No." +"What did we do two years ago this time?" Keating asked idly. +"You weren’t married," said Toohey. "Prehistorical period. Let me see--what +happened then? I think the Stoddard Temple was just being completed." +"Oh that," said Keating. +Toohey asked: "Hear anything about your friend, Roark...Peter?" +"No. I don’t think he’s worked for a year or more. He’s finished, this time." +"Yes, I think so....What have you been doing, Peter?" +"Nothing much....Oh, I’ve just read The Gallant Gallstone." +"Liked it?" +"Yes! You know, I think it’s a very important book. Because it’s true that +there’s no such thing as free will. We can’t help what we are or what we do. +It’s not our fault. Nobody’s to blame for anything. It’s all in your background +and...and your glands. If you’re good, that’s no achievement of yours--you were +lucky in your glands. If you’re rotten, nobody should punish you--you were +unlucky, that’s all." He was saying it defiantly, with a violence inappropriate +372 + + to a literary discussion. He was not looking at Toohey nor at Dominique, but +speaking to the room and to what that room had witnessed. +"Substantially correct," said Toohey. "To be logical, however, we should not +think of punishment for those who are rotten. Since they suffered through no +fault of their own, since they were unlucky and underendowed, they should +deserve a compensation of some sort--more like a reward." +"Why--yes!" cried Keating. "That’s...that’s logical." +"And just," said Toohey. +"Got the Banner pretty much where you want it, Ellsworth?" asked Dominique. +"What’s that in reference to?" +"The Gallant Gallstone." +"Oh. No, I can’t say I have. Not quite. There are always the--imponderables." +"What are you talking about?" asked Keating. "Professional gossip," said Toohey. +He stretched his hands to the fire and flexed his fingers playfully. "By the +way, Peter, are you doing anything about Stoneridge?" +"God damn it," said Keating. "What’s the matter?" +"You know what’s the matter. You know the bastard better than I do. To have a +project like that going up, now, when it’s manna in the desert, and of all +people to have that son of a bitch Wynand doing it!" +"What’s the matter with Mr. Wynand?" +"Oh come, Ellsworth! You know very well if it were anyone else, I’d get that +commission just like that"--he snapped his fingers--"I wouldn’t even have to +ask, the owner’d come to me. Particularly when he knows that an architect like +me is practically sitting on his fanny now, compared to the work our office +could handle. But Mr. Gail Wynand! You’d think he was a holy Lama who’s just +allergic to the air breathed by architects!" +"I gather you’ve tried?" +"Oh, don’t talk about it. It makes me sick. I think I’ve spent three hundred +dollars feeding lunches and pouring liquor into all sorts of crappy people who +said they could get me to meet him. All I got is hangovers. I think it’d be +easier to meet the Pope." +"I gather you do want to get Stoneridge?" +"Are you baiting me, Ellsworth? I’d give my right arm for it." +"That wouldn’t be advisable. You couldn’t make any drawings then--or pretend to. +It would be preferable to give up something less tangible." +"I’d give my soul." +"Would you, Peter?" asked Dominique. "What’s on your mind, Ellsworth?" Keating +snapped. "Just a practical suggestion," said Toohey. "Who has been your most +effective salesman in the past and got you some of your best commissions?" +373 + + "Why--Dominique I guess." +"That’s right. And since you can’t get to Wynand and it wouldn’t do you any good +if you did, don’t you think Dominique is the one who’ll be able to persuade +him?" Keating stared at him. "Are you crazy, Ellsworth?" Dominique leaned +forward. She seemed interested. +"From what I’ve heard," she said, "Gail Wynand does not do favors for a woman, +unless she’s beautiful. And if she’s beautiful, he doesn’t do it as a favor." +Toohey looked at her, underscoring the fact that he offered no denial. +"It’s silly," snapped Keating angrily. "How would Dominique ever get to see +him?" +"By telephoning his office and making an appointment," said Toohey. +"Who ever told you he’d grant it?" +"He did." +"When?!" +"Late last night. Or early this morning, to be exact." +"Ellsworth!" gasped Keating. He added: "I don’t believe it." +"I do," said Dominique, "or Ellsworth wouldn’t have started this conversation." +She smiled at Toohey. "So Wynand promised you to see me?" +"Yes, my dear." +"How did you work that?" +"Oh, I offered him a convincing argument. However, it would be advisable not to +delay it. You should telephone him tomorrow--if you wish to do it." +"Why can’t she telephone now?" said Keating. "Oh, I guess it’s too late. You’ll +telephone first thing in the morning." +She looked at him, her eyes half closed, and said nothing. +"It’s a long time since you’ve taken any active interest in Peter’s career," +said Toohey. "Wouldn’t you like to undertake a difficult feat like that--for +Peter’s sake?" +"If Peter wants me to." +"If I want you to?" cried Keating. "Are you both crazy? It’s the chance of a +lifetime, the..." He saw them both looking at him curiously. He snapped: "Oh, +rubbish!" +"What is rubbish, Peter?" asked Dominique. +"Are you going to be stopped by a lot of fool gossip? Why, any other architect’s +wife’d crawl on her hands and knees for a chance like that to..." +"No other architect’s wife would be offered the chance," said Toohey. "No other +architect has a wife like Dominique. You’ve always been so proud of that, +374 + + Peter." +"Dominique can take care of herself in any circumstances." +"There’s no doubt about that." +"All right, Ellsworth," said Dominique. "I’ll telephone Wynand tomorrow." +"Ellsworth, you’re wonderful!" said Keating, not looking at her. +"I believe I’d like a drink now," said Toohey. "We should celebrate." +When Keating hurried out to the kitchen, Toohey and Dominique looked at each +other. He smiled. He glanced at the door through which Keating had gone, then +nodded to her faintly, amused. +"You expected it," said Dominique. +"Of course." +"Now what’s the real purpose, Ellsworth?" +"Why, I want to help you get Stoneridge for Peter. It’s really a terrific +commission." +"Why are you so anxious to have me sleep with Wynand?" +"Don’t you think it would be an interesting experience for all concerned?" +"You’re not satisfied with the way my marriage has turned out, are you, +Ellsworth?" +"Not entirely. Just about fifty percent. Well, nothing’s perfect in this world. +One gathers what one can and then one tries further." +"You were very anxious to have Peter marry me. You knew what the result would +be, better than Peter or I." +"Peter didn’t know it at all." +"Well, it worked--fifty percent. You got Peter Keating where you wanted him--the +leading architect of the country who’s now mud clinging to your galoshes." +"I’ve never liked your style of expression, but it’s always been accurate. I +should have said: who’s now a soul wagging its tail. Your style is gentler." +"But the other fifty percent, Ellsworth? A failure?" +"Approximately total. My fault. I should have known better than to expect anyone +like Peter Keating, even in the role of husband, to destroy you." +"Well, you’re frank." +"I told you once it’s the only method that will work with you. Besides, surely +it didn’t take you two years to discover what I wanted of that marriage?" +"So you think Gail Wynand will finish the job?" +"Might. What do you think?" +375 + + "I think I’m only a side issue again. Didn’t you call it ’gravy’ once? What have +you got against Wynand?" +He laughed; the sound betrayed that he had not expected the question. She said +contemptuously: "Don’t show that you’re shocked, Ellsworth." +"All right. We’re taking it straight. I have nothing specific against Mr. Gail +Wynand. I’ve been planning to have him meet you, for a long time. If you want +minor details, he did something that annoyed me yesterday morning. He’s too +observant. So I decided the time was right." +"And there was Stoneridge." +"And there was Stoneridge. I knew that part of it would appeal to you. You’d +never sell yourself to save your country, your soul or the life of a man you +loved. But you’ll sell yourself to get a commission he doesn’t deserve for Peter +Keating. See what will be left of you afterward. Or of Gail Wynand. I’ll be +interested to see it, too." +"Quite correct, Ellsworth." +"All of it? Even the part about a man you loved--if you did?" +"Yes." +"You wouldn’t sell yourself for Roark? Though, of course, you don’t like to hear +that name pronounced." +"Howard Roark," she said evenly. +"You have a great deal of courage, Dominique." +Keating returned, carrying a tray of cocktails. His eyes were feverish and he +made too many gestures. +Toohey raised his glass. He said: +"To Gail Wynand and the New York Banner!" + +3. +GAIL WYNAND rose and met her halfway across his office. +"How do you do, Mrs. Keating," he said. +"How do you do, Mr. Wynand," said Dominique. +He moved a chair for her, but when she sat down he did not cross to sit behind +his desk, he stood studying her professionally, appraisingly. His manner implied +a self-evident necessity, as if his reason were known to her and there could be +nothing improper in this behavior. +"You look like a stylized version of your own stylized version," he said. "As a +rule seeing the models of art works tends to make one atheistic. But this time +it’s a close one between that sculptor and God." +376 + + "What sculptor?" +"The one who did that statue of you." +He had felt that there was some story behind the statue and he became certain of +it now, by something in her face, a tightening that contradicted, for a second, +the trim indifference of her self-control. +"Where and when did you see that statue, Mr. Wynand?" +"In my art gallery, this morning." +"Where did you get it?" +It was his turn to show perplexity. "But don’t you know that?" +"No." +"Your friend Ellsworth Toohey sent it to me. As a present." +"To get this appointment for me?" +"Not through as direct a motivation as I believe you’re thinking. But in +substance--yes." +"He hasn’t told me that." +"Do you mind my having that statue?" +"Not particularly." +"I expected you to say that you were delighted."--"I’m not." +He sat down, informally, on the outer edge of his desk, his legs stretched out, +his ankles crossed. He asked: +"I gather you lost track of that statue and have been trying to find it?" +"For two years." +"You can’t have it." He added, watching her: "You might have Stoneridge." +"I shall change my mind. I’m delighted that Toohey gave it to you." +He felt a bitter little stab of triumph--and of disappointment, in thinking that +he could read her mind and that her mind was obvious, after all. He asked: +"Because it gave you this interview?" +"No. Because you’re the person before last in the world whom I’d like to have +that statue. But Toohey is last." +He lost the triumph; it was not a thing which a woman intent on Stoneridge +should have said or thought. He asked: +"You didn’t know that Toohey had it?" +"No." +377 + + "We should get together on our mutual friend, Mr. Ellsworth Toohey. I don’t like +being a pawn and I don’t think you do or could ever be made to. There are too +many things Mr. Toohey chose not to tell. The name of that sculptor, for +instance." +"He didn’t tell you that?" +"No." +"Steven Mallory." +"Mallory?...Not the one who tried to..." He laughed aloud. +"What’s the matter?" +"Toohey told me he couldn’t remember the name. That name." +"Does Mr. Toohey still astonish you?" +"He has, several times, in the last few days. There’s a special kind of subtlety +in being as blatant as he’s been. A very difficult kind. I almost like his +artistry." +"I don’t share your taste." +"Not in any field? Not in sculpture--or architecture?" +"I’m sure not in architecture." +"Isn’t that the utterly wrong thing for you to say?" +"Probably." +He looked at her. He said: "You’re interesting." +"I didn’t intend to be." +"That’s your third mistake." +"Third?" +"The first was about Mr. Toohey. In the circumstances, one would expect you to +praise him to me. To quote him. To lean on his great prestige in matters of +architecture." +"But one would expect you to know Ellsworth Toohey. That should disqualify any +quotations." +"I intended to say that to you--had you given me the chance you won’t give me." +"That should make it more entertaining." +"You expected to be entertained?" +"I am." +"About the statue?" It was the only point of weakness he had discovered. +378 + + "No." Her voice was hard. "Not about the statue." +"Tell me, when was it made and for whom?" +"Is that another thing Mr. Toohey forgot?" +"Apparently." +"Do you remember a scandal about a building called the Stoddard Temple? Two +years ago. You were away at the time." +"The Stoddard Temple....How do you happen to know where I was two years +ago?...Wait, the Stoddard Temple. I remember: a sacrilegious church or some such +object that gave the Bible brigade a howling spree." +"Yes." +"There was..." He stopped. His voice sounded hard and reluctant--like hers. +"There was the statue of a naked woman involved." +"Yes." +"I see." +He was silent for a moment. Then he said, his voice harsh, as if he were holding +back some anger whose object she could not guess: +"I was somewhere around Bali at the time. I’m sorry all New York saw that statue +before I did. But I don’t read newspapers when I’m sailing. There’s a standing +order to fire any man who brings a Wynand paper around the yacht." +"Have you ever seen pictures of the Stoddard Temple?" +"No. Was the building worthy of the statue?" +"The statue was almost worthy of the building." +"It has been destroyed, hasn’t it?" +"Yes. With the help of the Wynand papers." +He shrugged. "I remember Alvah Scarret had a good time with it. A big story. +Sorry I missed it. But Alvah did very well. Incidentally, how did you know that +I was away and why has the fact of my absence remained in your memory?" +"It was the story that cost me my job with you." +"Your job? With me?" +"Didn’t you know that my name was Dominique Francon?" +Under the trim jacket his shoulders made a sagging movement forward; it was +surprise--and helplessness. He stared at her, quite simply. After a while, he +said: "No." +She smiled indifferently. She said: "It appears that Toohey wanted to make it as +difficult for both of us as he could." +"To hell with Toohey. This has to be understood. It doesn’t make sense. You’re +379 + + Dominique Francon?" +"I was." +"You worked here, in this building, for years?" +"For six years." +"Why haven’t I met you before?" +"I’m sure you don’t meet every one of your employees." +"I think you understand what I mean." +"Do you wish me to state it for you?" +"Yes." +"Why haven’t I tried to meet you before?" +"Yes." +"I had no desire to." +"That, precisely, doesn’t make sense." +"Shall I let this go by or understand it?" +"I’ll spare you the choice. With the kind of beauty you possess and with +knowledge of the kind of reputation I am said to possess--why didn’t you attempt +to make a real career for yourself on the Banner!" +"I never wanted a real career on the Banner." +"Why?" +"Perhaps for the same reason that makes you forbid Wynand papers on your yacht." +"It’s a good reason," he said quietly. Then he asked, his voice casual again: +"Let’s see, what was it you did to get fired? You went against our policy, I +believe?" +"I tried to defend the Stoddard Temple." +"Didn’t you know better than to attempt sincerity on the Banner?" +"I intended to say that to you--if you’d given me the chance." +"Are you being entertained?" +"I wasn’t, then. I liked working here." +"You’re the only one who’s ever said that in this building." +"I must be one of two." +"Who’s the other?" +"Yourself, Mr. Wynand." +380 + + "Don’t be too sure of that." Lifting his head, he saw the hint of amusement in +her eyes and asked: "You said it just to trap me into that kind of a statement?" +"Yes, I think so," she answered placidly. "Dominique Francon..." he repeated, +not addressing her. "I used to like your stuff. I almost wish you were here to +ask for your old job." +"I’m here to discuss Stoneridge." +"Ah, yes, of course." He settled back, to enjoy a long speech of persuasion. He +thought it would be interesting to hear what arguments she’d choose and how +she’d act in the role of petitioner. "Well, what do you wish to tell me about +that?" +"I should like you to give that commission to my husband. I understand, of +course, that there’s no reason why you should do so--unless I agree to sleep +with you in exchange. If you consider that a sufficient reason--I am willing to +do it." +He looked at her silently, allowing no hint of personal reaction in his face. +She sat looking up at him, faintly astonished by his scrutiny, as if her words +had deserved no special attention. He could not force on himself, though he was +seeking it fiercely, any other impression of her face than the incongruous one +of undisturbed purity. +He said: +"That is what I was to suggest. But not so crudely and not on our first +meeting." +"I have saved you time and lies." +"You love your husband very much?" +"I despise him." +"You have a great faith in his artistic genius?" +"I think he’s a third-rate architect." +"Then why are you doing this?" +"It amuses me." +"I thought I was the only who acted on such motives." +"You shouldn’t mind. I don’t believe you’ve ever found originality a desirable +virtue, Mr. Wynand." +"Actually, you don’t care whether your husband gets Stoneridge or not?" +"No." +"And you have no desire to sleep with me?" +"None at all." +"I could admire a woman who’d put on an act like that. Only it’s not an act." +381 + + "It’s not. Please don’t begin admiring me. I have tried to avoid it." +Whenever he smiled no obvious movement was required of his facial muscles; the +hint of mockery was always there and it merely came into sharper focus for a +moment, to recede imperceptibly again. The focus was sharper now. +"As a matter of fact," he said, "your chief motive is I, after all. The desire +to give yourself to me." He saw the glance she could not control and added: "No, +don’t enjoy the thought that I have fallen into so gross an error. I didn’t mean +it in the usual sense. But in its exact opposite. Didn’t you say you considered +me the person before last in the world? You don’t want Stoneridge. You want to +sell yourself for the lowest motive to the lowest person you can find." +"I didn’t expect you to understand that," she said simply. +"You want--men do that sometimes, not women--to express through the sexual act +your utter contempt for me." +"No, Mr. Wynand. For myself." +The thin line of his mouth moved faintly, as if his lips had caught the first +hint of a personal revelation--an involuntary one and, therefore, a +weakness--and were holding it tight while he spoke: +"Most people go to very to very great lengths in order to convince themselves of +their self-respect." +"Yes." +"And, of course, a quest for self-respect is proof of its lack." +"Yes." +"Do you see the meaning of a quest for self-contempt?" +"That I lack it?" +"And that you’ll never achieve it." +"I didn’t expect you to understand that either." +"I won’t say anything else--or I’ll stop being the person before last in the +world and I’ll become unsuitable to your purpose." He rose. "Shall I tell you +formally that I accept your offer?" +She inclined her head in agreement. +"As a matter of fact," he said, "I don’t care whom I choose to build Stoneridge. +I’ve never hired a good architect for any of the things I’ve built. I give the +public what it wants. I was stuck for a choice this time, because I’m tired of +the bunglers who’ve worked for me, and it’s hard to decide without standards or +reason. I’m sure you don’t mind my saying this. I’m really grateful to you for +giving me a much better motive than any I could hope to find." +"I’m glad you didn’t say that you’ve always admired the work of Peter Keating." +"You didn’t tell me how glad you were to join the distinguished list of Gail +Wynand’s mistresses." +382 + + "You may enjoy my admitting it, if you wish, but I think we’ll get along very +well together." +"Quite likely. At least, you’ve given me a new experience: to do what I’ve +always done--but honestly. Shall I now begin to give you my orders? I won’t +pretend they’re anything else." +"If you wish." +"You’ll go with me for a two months’ cruise on my yacht. We’ll sail in ten days. +When we come back, you’ll be free to return to your husband--with the contract +for Stoneridge." +"Very well." +"I should like to meet your husband. Will you both have dinner with me Monday +night?" +"Yes, if you wish." +When she rose to leave, he asked: +"Shall I tell you the difference between you and your statue?" +"No." +"But I want to. It’s startling to see the same elements used in two compositions +with opposite themes. Everything about you in that statue is the theme of +exaltation. But your own theme is suffering." +"Suffering? I’m not conscious of having shown that." +"You haven’t. That’s what I meant. No happy person can be quite so impervious to +pain." +# +Wynand telephoned his art dealer and asked him to arrange a private showing of +Steven Mallory’s work. He refused to meet Mallory in person; he never met those +whose work he liked. The art dealer executed the order in great haste. Wynand +bought five of the pieces he saw--and paid more than the dealer had hoped to +ask. "Mr. Mallory would like to know," said the dealer, "what brought him to +your attention." +"I saw one of his works." +"Which one?" +"It doesn’t matter." +Toohey had expected Wynand to call for him after the interview with Dominique. +Wynand had not called. But a few days later, meeting Toohey by chance in the +city room, Wynand asked aloud: +"Mr. Toohey, have so many people tried to kill you that you can’t remember their +names?" +Toohey smiled and said: "I’m sure quite so many would like to." +383 + + "You flatter your fellow men," said Wynand, walking away. +# +Peter Keating stared at the brilliant room of the restaurant. It was the most +exclusive place in town, and the most expensive. Keating gloated, chewing the +thought that he was here as the guest of Gail Wynand. +He tried not to stare at the gracious elegance of Wynand’s figure across the +table. He blessed Wynand for having chosen to give this dinner in a public +place. People were gaping at Wynand--discreetly and with practiced camouflage, +but gaping nevertheless--and their attention included the two guests at Wynand’s +table. +Dominique sat between the two men. She wore a white silk dress with long sleeves +and a cowl neck, a nun’s garment that acquired the startling effect of an +evening gown only by being so flagrantly unsuited to that purpose. She wore no +jewelry. Her gold hair looked like a hood. The dull white silk moved in angular +planes with the movements of her body, revealing it in the manner of cold +innocence, the body of a sacrificial object publicly offered, beyond the need of +concealment or desire. Keating found it unattractive. He noticed that Wynand +seemed to admire it. +Someone at a distant table stared in their direction insistently, someone tall +and bulky. Then the big shape rose to its feet--and Keating recognized Ralston +Holcombe hurrying toward them. +"Peter, my boy, so glad to see you," boomed Holcombe, shaking his hand, bowing +to Dominique, conspicuously ignoring Wynand. "Where have you been hiding? Why +don’t we see you around any more?" They had had luncheon together three days +ago. +Wynand had risen and stood leaning forward a little, courteously. Keating +hesitated; then, with obvious reluctance, said: +"Mr. Wynand--Mr. Holcombe." +"Not Mr. Gail Wynand?" said Holcombe with splendid innocence. +"Mr. Holcombe, if you saw one of the cough-drop Smith brothers in real life, +would you recognize him?" asked Wynand. +"Why--I guess so," said Holcombe, blinking. +"My face, Mr. Holcombe, is just as much of a public bromide." +Holcombe muttered a few benevolent generalities and escaped. +Wynand smiled affectionately. "You didn’t have to be afraid of introducing Mr. +Holcombe to me, Mr. Keating, even though he is an architect." +"Afraid, Mr. Wynand?" +"Unnecessarily, since it’s all settled. Hasn’t Mrs. Keating told you that +Stoneridge is yours?" +"I...no, she hasn’t told me...I didn’t know...." Wynand was smiling, but the +smile remained fixed, and Keating felt compelled to go on talking until some +sign stopped him. "I hadn’t quite hoped...not so soon...of course, I thought +this dinner might be a sign...help you to decide..." He blurted out +384 + + involuntarily: "Do you always throw surprises like that--just like that?" +"Whenever I can," said Wynand gravely. +"I shall do my best to deserve this honor and live up to your expectations, Mr. +Wynand." +"I have no doubt about that," said Wynand. +He had said little to Dominique tonight. His full attention seemed centered on +Keating. +"The public has been kind to my past endeavors," said Keating, "but I shall make +Stoneridge my best achievement." +"That is quite a promise, considering the distinguished list of your works." +"I had not hoped that my works were of sufficient importance to attract your +attention, Mr. Wynand." +"But I know them quite well. The Cosmo-Slotnick Building, which is pure +Michelangelo." Keating’s face spread in incredulous pleasure; he knew that +Wynand was a great authority on art and would not make such comparisons lightly. +"The Prudential Bank Building, which is genuine Palladio. The Slottern +Department Store, which is snitched Christopher Wren." Keating’s face had +changed. "Look what an illustrious company I get for the price of one. Isn’t it +quite a bargain?" +Keating smiled, his face tight, and said: +"I’ve heard about your brilliant sense of humor, Mr. Wynand." +"Have you heard about my descriptive style?" +"What do you mean?" +Wynand half turned in his chair and looked at Dominique, as if he were +inspecting an inanimate object. +"Your wife has a lovely body, Mr. Keating. Her shoulders are too thin, but +admirably in scale with the rest of her. Her legs are too long, but that gives +her the elegance of line you’ll find in a good yacht. Her breasts are beautiful, +don’t you think?" +"Architecture is a crude profession, Mr. Wynand," Keating tried to laugh. "It +doesn’t prepare one for the superior sort of sophistication." +"You don’t understand me, Mr. Keating?" +"If I didn’t know you were a perfect gentleman, I might misunderstand it, but +you can’t fool me." +"That is just what I am trying not to do." +"I appreciate compliments, Mr. Wynand, but I’m not conceited enough to think +that we must talk about my wife." +"Why not, Mr. Keating? It is considered good form to talk of the things one +has--or will have--in common." +385 + + "Mr. Wynand, I...I don’t understand." +"Shall I be more explicit?" +"No, I..." +"No? Shall we drop the subject of Stoneridge?" +"Oh, let’s talk about Stoneridge! I..." +"But we are, Mr. Keating." +Keating looked at the room about them. He thought that things like this could +not be done in such a place; the fastidious magnificence made it monstrous; he +wished it were a dank cellar. He thought: blood on paving stones--all right, but +not blood on a drawing-room rug.... +"Now I know this is a joke, Mr. Wynand," he said. +"It is my turn to admire your sense of humor, Mr. Keating." +"Things like...like this aren’t being done..." +"That’s not what you mean at all, Mr. Keating. You mean, they’re being done all +the time, but not talked about." +"I didn’t think..." +"You thought it before you came here. You didn’t mind. I grant you I’m behaving +abominably. I’m breaking all the rules of charity. It’s extremely cruel to be +honest." +"Please, Mr. Wynand, let’s...drop it. I don’t know what...I’m supposed to do." +"That’s simple. You’re supposed to slap my face." Keating giggled. "You were +supposed to do that several minutes ago." +Keating noticed that his palms were wet and that he was trying to support his +weight by holding on to the napkin on his lap. Wynand and Dominique were eating, +slowly and graciously, as if they were at another table. Keating thought that +they were not human bodies, either one of them; something had vanished; the +light of the crystal fixtures in the room was the radiance of X-rays that ate +through, not the bones, but deeper; they were souls, he thought, sitting at a +dinner table, souls held with evening clothes, lacking the intermediate shape of +flesh, terrifying in naked revelation--terrifying, because he expected to see +torturers, but saw a great innocence. He wondered what they saw, what his own +clothes contained if his physical shape had gone. +"No?" said Wynand. "You don’t want to do that, Mr. Keating? But of course you +don’t have to. Just say that you don’t want any of it. I won’t mind. There’s Mr. +Ralston Holcombe across the room. He can build Stoneridge as well as you could." +"I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Wynand," whispered Keating. His eyes were fixed +upon the tomato aspic on his salad plate; it was soft and shivering; it made him +sick. +Wynand turned to Dominique. +386 + + "Do you remember our conversation about a certain quest, Mrs. Keating? I said it +was a quest at which you would never succeed. Look at your husband. He’s an +expert--without effort. That is the way to go about it. Match that, sometime. +Don’t bother to tell me that you can’t. I know it. You’re an amateur, my dear." +Keating thought that he must speak again, but he couldn’t, not as long as that +salad was there before him. The terror came from that plate, not from the +fastidious monster across the table; the rest of the room was warm and safe. He +lurched forward and his elbow swept the plate off the table. +He made a kind of sound expressing regrets. Somebody’s shape came up, there were +polite voices of apology, and the mess vanished from the carpet. +Keating heard a voice saying: "Why are you doing this?" saw two faces turned to +him and knew that he had said it. +"Mr. Wynand is not doing it to torture you, Peter," said Dominique calmly. "He’s +doing it for me. To see how much I can take." +"That’s true, Mrs. Keating," said Wynand. "Partly true. The other part is: to +justify myself." +"In whose eyes?" +"Yours. And my own, perhaps." +"Do you need to?" +"Sometimes. The Banner is a contemptible paper, isn’t it? Well, I have paid with +my honor for the privilege of holding a position where I can amuse myself by +observing how honor operates in other men." +His own clothes, thought Keating, contained nothing now, because the two faces +did not notice him any longer. He was safe; his place at that table was empty. +He wondered, from a great, indifferent distance, why the two were looking at +each other quietly, not like enemies, not like fellow executioners, but like +comrades. +# +Two days before they were to sail, Wynand telephoned Dominique late in the +evening. +"Could you come over right now?" he asked, and hearing a moment’s silence, +added: "Oh, not what you’re thinking. I live up to my agreements. You’ll be +quite safe. I just would like to see you tonight." +"All right," she said, and was astonished to hear a quiet: "Thank you." +When the elevator door slid open in the private lobby of his penthouse, he was +waiting there, but did not let her step out. He joined her in the elevator. +"I don’t want you to enter my house," he said. "We’re going to the floor below." +The elevator operator looked at him, amazed. +The car stopped and opened before a locked door. Wynand unlocked it and let her +step out first, following her into the art gallery. She remembered that this was +the place no outsider ever entered. She said nothing. He offered no explanation. +387 + + Four hours she walked silently through the vast rooms, looking at the incredible +treasures of beauty. There was a deep carpet and no sound of steps, no sounds +from the city outside, no windows. He followed her, stopping when she stopped. +His eyes went with hers from object to object. At times his glance moved to her +face. She passed, without stopping, by the statue from the Stoddard Temple. +He did not urge her to stay nor to hurry, as if he had turned the place over to +her. She decided when she wished to leave, and he followed her to the door. Then +she asked: +"Why did you want me to see this? It won’t make me think better of you. Worse, +perhaps." +"Yes, I’d expect that," he said quietly, "if I had thought of it that way. But I +didn’t. I just wanted you to see it." + +4. +THE SUN had set when they stepped out of the car. In the spread of sky and sea, +a green sky over a sheet of mercury, tracings of fire remained at the edges of +the clouds and in the brass fittings of the yacht. The yacht was like a white +streak of motion, a sensitive body strained against the curb of stillness. +Dominique looked at the gold letters--I Do--on the delicate white bow. +"What does that name mean?" she asked. +"It’s an answer," said Wynand, "to people long since dead. Though perhaps they +are the only immortal ones. You see, the sentence I heard most often in my +childhood was ’You don’t run things around here.’" +She remembered hearing that he had never answered this question before. He had +answered her at once; he had not seemed conscious of making an exception. She +felt a sense of calm in his manner, strange and new to him, an air of quiet +finality. +When they went aboard, the yacht started moving, almost as if Wynand’s steps on +deck had served as contact. He stood at the rail, not touching her, he looked at +the long, brown shore that rose and fell against the sky, moving away from them. +Then he turned to her. She saw no new recognition in his eyes, no beginning, but +only the continuation of a glance--as if he had been looking at her all the +time. +When they went below he walked with her into her cabin. He said: "Please let me +know if there’s anything you wish," and walked out through an inside door. She +saw that it led to his bedroom. He closed the door and did not return. +She moved idly across the cabin. A smear of reflection followed her on the +lustrous surfaces of the pale satinwood paneling. She stretched out in a low +armchair, her ankles crossed, her arms thrown behind her head, and watched the +porthole turning from green to a dark blue. She moved her hand, switched on a +light; the blue vanished and became a glazed black circle. +The steward announced dinner. Wynand knocked at her door and accompanied her to +the dining salon. His manner puzzled her: it was gay, but the sense of calm in +the gaiety suggested a peculiar earnestness. +388 + + She asked, when they were seated at the table: +"Why did you leave me alone?" +"I thought you might want to be alone." +"To get used to the idea?" +"If you wish to put it that way." +"I was used to it before I came to your office." +"Yes, of course. Forgive me for implying any weakness in you. I know better. By +the way, you haven’t asked me where we’re going." +"That, too, would be weakness." +"True. I’m glad you don’t care. Because I never have any definite destination. +This ship is not for going to places, but for getting away from them. When I +stop at a port, it’s only for the sheer pleasure of leaving it. I always think: +Here’s one more spot that can’t hold me." +"I used to travel a great deal. I always felt just like that. I’ve been told +it’s because I’m a hater of mankind." +"You’re not foolish enough to believe that, are you?" +"I don’t know." +"Surely you’ve seen through that particular stupidity. I mean the one that +claims the pig is the symbol of love for humanity--the creature that accepts +anything. As a matter of fact, the person who loves everybody and feels at home +everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form +of depravity can outrage him." +"You mean the person who says that there’s some good in the worst of us?" +"I mean the person who has the filthy insolence to claim that he loves equally +the man who made that statue of you and the man who makes a Mickey Mouse balloon +to sell on street corners. I mean the person who loves the men who prefer the +Mickey Mouse to your statue--and there are many of that kind. I mean the person +who loves Joan of Arc and the salesgirls in dress shops on Broadway--with an +equal fervor. I mean the person who loves your beauty and the women he sees in a +subway--the kind that can’t cross their knees and show flesh hanging publicly +over their garters--with the same sense of exaltation. I mean the person who +loves the clean, steady, unfrightened eyes of man looking through a telescope +and the white stare of an imbecile--equally, I mean quite a large, generous, +magnanimous company. Is it you who hate mankind, Mrs. Keating?" +"You’re saying all the things that--since I can remember--since I began to see +and think--have been..." She stopped. +"Have been torturing you. Of course. One can’t love man without hating most of +the creatures who pretend to bear his name. It’s one or the other. One doesn’t +love God and sacrilege impartially. Except when one doesn’t know that sacrilege +has been committed. Because one doesn’t know God." +"What will you say if I give you the answer people usually give me--that love is +389 + + forgiveness?" +"I’ll say it’s an indecency of which you’re not capable--even though you think +you’re an expert in such matters." +"Or that love is pity." +"Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you +is revolting--even as a joke." +"What’s your answer?" +"That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a +bandage for dirty sores. But they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most +promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble +stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they +call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it--the +total passion for the total height--you’re incapable of anything less." +"As--you and I--know it?" +"It’s what we feel when we look at a thing like your statue. There’s no +forgiveness in that, and no pity. And I’d want to kill the man who claims that +there should be. But, you see, when he looks at your statue--he feels nothing. +That--or a dog with a broken paw--it’s all the same to him. He even feels that +he’s done something nobler by bandaging the dog’s paw than by looking at your +statue. So if you seek a glimpse of greatness, if you want exaltation, if you +ask for God and refuse to accept the washing of wounds as substitute--you’re +called a hater of humanity, Mrs. Keating, because you’ve committed the crime of +knowing a love humanity has not learned to deserve." +"Mr. Wynand, have you read what I got fired for?" +"No. I didn’t then. I don’t dare to now " +"Why?" +He ignored the question. He said, smiling: "And so, you came to me and said +’You’re the vilest person on earth--take me so that I’ll learn self-contempt. I +lack that which most people live by. They find life endurable, while I can’t.’ +Do you see now what you’ve shown?" +"I didn’t expect it to be seen." +"No. Not by the publisher of the New York Banner, of course. That’s all right. I +expected a beautiful slut who was a friend of Ellsworth Toohey." +They laughed together. She thought it was strange that they could talk without +strain--as if he had forgotten the purpose of this journey. His calm had become +a contagious sense of peace between them. +She watched the unobtrusively gracious way their dinner was served, she looked +at the white tablecloth against the deep red of the mahogany walls. Everything +on the yacht had an air that made her think it was the first truly luxurious +place she had ever entered: the luxury was secondary, a background so proper to +him that it could be ignored. The man humbled his own wealth. She had seen +people of wealth, stiff and awed before that which represented their ultimate +goal. The splendor of this place was not the aim, not the final achievement of +the man who leaned casually across the table. She wondered what his aim had +390 + + been. +"This ship is becoming to you," she said. +She saw a look of pleasure in his eyes--and of gratitude. +"Thank you....Is the art gallery?" +"Yes. Only that’s less excusable." +"I don’t want you to make excuses for me." He said it simply, without reproach. +They had finished dinner. She waited for the inevitable invitation. It did not +come. He sat smoking, talking about the yacht and the ocean. +Her hand came to rest accidentally on the tablecloth, close to his. She saw him +looking at it. She wanted to jerk her hand away, but forced herself to let it +lie still. Now, she thought. +He got up. "Let’s go on deck," he said. +They stood at the rail and looked at a black void. Space was not to be seen, +only felt by the quality of the air against their faces. A few stars gave +reality to the empty sky. A few sparks of white fire in the water gave life to +the ocean. +He stood, slouched carelessly, one arm raised, grasping a stanchion. She saw the +sparks flowing, forming the edges of waves, framed by the curve of his body. +That, too, was becoming to him. +She said: +"May I name another vicious bromide you’ve never felt?" +"Which one?" +"You’ve never felt how small you were when looking at the ocean." +He laughed. "Never. Nor looking at the planets. Nor at mountain peaks. Nor at +the Grand Canyon. Why should I? When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness +of man, I think of man’s magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer +all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks, I think of tunnels and +dynamite. When I look at the planets, I think of airplanes." +"Yes. And that particular sense of sacred rapture men say they experience in +contemplating nature--I’ve never received it from nature, only from..." She +stopped. +"From what?" +"Buildings," she whispered. "Skyscrapers." +"Why didn’t you want to say that?" +"I...don’t know." +"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s +skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The +shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man +391 + + made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about +pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a +crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some +leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense +of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, +look and kneel. When I see the city from my window--no, I don’t feel how small I +am--but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself +into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body." +"Gail, I don’t know whether I’m listening to you or to myself." +"Did you hear yourself just now?" +She smiled. "Actually not. But I won’t take it back, Gail." +"Thank you--Dominique." His voice was soft and amused. "But we weren’t talking +about you or me. We were talking about other people." He leaned with both +forearms on the rail, he spoke watching the sparks in the water. "It’s +interesting to speculate on the reasons that make men so anxious to debase +themselves. As in that idea of feeling small before nature. It’s not a bromide, +it’s practically an institution. Have you noticed how self-righteous a man +sounds when he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I’m so glad to be a +pygmy, that’s how virtuous I am. Have you heard with what delight people quote +some great celebrity who’s proclaimed that he’s not so great when he looks at +Niagara Falls? It’s as if they were smacking their lips in sheer glee that their +best is dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if they were sprawling +on all fours, rubbing their foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. +But that’s not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, electricity, that crossed +oceans in sailing sloops, that built airplanes and dams...and skyscrapers. What +is it they fear? What is they hate so much, those who love to crawl? And why?" +"When I find the answer to that," she said, "I’ll make my peace with the world." +He went on talking--of his travels, of the continents beyond the darkness around +them, the darkness that made of space a soft curtain pressed against their +eyelids. She waited. She stopped answering. She gave him a chance to use the +brief silences for ending this, for saying the words she expected. He would not +say them. +"Are you tired, my dear?" he asked. +"No." +"I’ll get you a deck chair, if you want to sit down." +"No. I like standing here." +"It’s a little cold. But by tomorrow we’ll be far south and then you’ll see the +ocean on fire, at night. It’s very beautiful." +He was silent. She heard the ship’s speed in the sound of the water, the +rustling moan of protest against the thing that cut a long wound across the +water’s surface. +"When are we going below?" she asked. +"We’re not going below." +He had said it quietly, with an odd kind of simplicity, as if he were standing +392 + + helpless before a fact he could not alter. +"Will you marry me?" he asked. +She could not hide the shock; he had seen it in advance, he was smiling quietly, +understanding. +"It would be best to say nothing else." He spoke carefully. "But you prefer to +hear it stated--because that kind of silence between us is more than I have a +right to expect. You don’t want to tell me much, but I’ve spoken for you +tonight, so let me speak for you again. You’ve chosen me as the symbol of your +contempt for men. You don’t love me. You wish to grant me nothing. I’m only your +tool of self-destruction I know all that, I accept it and I want you to marry +me. If you wish to commit an unspeakable act as your revenge against the world, +such an act is not to sell yourself to your enemy, but to marry him. Not to +match your worst against his worst, but your worst against his best. You’ve +tried that once, but your victim wasn’t worthy of your purpose. You see, I’m +pleading my case on your own terms. What mine are, what I want to find in that +marriage is of no importance to you and I shall regard it in that manner. You +don’t have to know about it. You don’t have to consider it. I exact no promises +and impose no obligations on you. You’ll be free to leave me whenever you wish. +Incidentally--since it is of no concern to you--I love you." +She stood, one arm stretched behind her, fingertips pressed to the rail. She +said: +"I did not want that." +"I know. But if you’re curious about it, I’ll tell you that you’ve made a +mistake. You let me see the cleanest person I’ve ever seen." +"Isn’t that ridiculous, after the way we met?" +"Dominique, I’ve spent my life pulling the strings of the world. I’ve seen all +of it. Do you think I could believe any purity--unless it came to me twisted in +some such dreadful shape as the one you chose? But what I feel must not affect +your decision." +She stood looking at him, looking incredulously at all the hours past. Her mouth +had the shape of gentleness. He saw it. She thought that every word he said +today had been of her language, that this offer and the form he gave it were of +her own world--and that he had destroyed his purpose by it, taken away from her +the motive he suggested, made it impossible to seek degradation with a man who +spoke as he did. She wanted suddenly to reach for him, to tell him everything, +to find a moment’s release in his understanding, then ask him never to see her +again. +Then she remembered. +He noticed the movement of her hand. Her fingers were not clinging tensely +against the rail, betraying a need of support, giving importance to the moment; +they relaxed and closed about the rail; as if she had taken hold of some reins, +carelessly, because the occasion required no earnest effort any longer. +She remembered the Stoddard Temple. She thought of the man before her, who spoke +about the total passion for the total height and about protecting skyscrapers +with his body--and she saw a picture on a page of the New York Banner, the +picture of Howard Roark looking up at the Enright House, and the caption: "Are +you happy, Mr. Superman?" +393 + + She raised her face to him. She asked: +"To marry you? To become Mrs. Wynand-Papers?" +She heard the effort in his voice as he answered: "If you wish to call it +that--yes." +"I will marry you." +"Thank you, Dominique." +She waited indifferently. +When he turned to her, he spoke as he had spoken all day, a calm voice with an +edge of gaiety. +"We’ll cut the cruise short. We’ll take just a week--I want to have you here for +a while. You’ll leave for Reno the day after we return. I’ll take care of your +husband. He can have Stoneridge and anything else he wants and may God damn him. +We’ll be married the day you come back." +"Yes, Gail. Now let’s go below." +"Do you want it?" +"No. But I don’t want our marriage to be important." +"I want it to be important, Dominique. That’s why I won’t touch you tonight. Not +until we’re married. I know it’s a senseless gesture. I know that a wedding +ceremony has no significance for either one of us. But to be conventional is the +only abnormality possible between us. That’s why I want it. I have no other way +of making an exception." +"As you wish, Gail." +Then he pulled her to him and he kissed her mouth. It was the completion of his +words, the finished statement, a statement of such intensity that she tried to +stiffen her body, not to respond, and felt her body responding, forced to forget +everything but the physical fact of a man who held her. +He let her go. She knew he had noticed. He smiled and said: +"You’re tired, Dominique. Shall I say good night? I want to remain here for a +while." +She turned obediently and walked alone down to her cabin. + +5. +"WHAT’S the matter? Don’t I get Stoneridge?" snapped Peter Keating. +Dominique walked into the living room. He followed, waiting in the open door. +The elevator boy brought in her luggage, and left. She said, removing her +gloves: +394 + + "You’ll get Stoneridge, Peter. Mr. Wynand will tell you the rest himself. He +wants to see you tonight. At eight-thirty. At his home." +"Why in hell?" +"He’ll tell you." +She slapped her gloves softly against her palm, a small gesture of finality, +like a period at the end of a sentence. She turned to leave the room. He stood +in her way. +"I don’t care," he said. "I don’t give a damn. I can play it your way. You’re +great, aren’t you?--because you act like truck drivers, you and Mr. Gail Wynand? +To hell with decency, to hell with the other fellow’s feelings? Well, I can do +that too. I’ll use you both and I’ll get what I can out of it--and that’s all I +care. How do you like it? No point when the worm refuses to be hurt? Spoils the +fun?" +"I think that’s much better, Peter. I’m glad." He found himself unable to +preserve this attitude when he entered Wynand’s study that evening. He could not +escape the awe of being admitted into Gail Wynand’s home. By the time he crossed +the room to the seat facing the desk he felt nothing but a sense of weight, and +he wondered whether his feet had left prints on the soft carpet; like the leaded +feet of a deep-sea diver. "What I have to tell you, Mr. Keating, should never +have needed to be said or done," said Wynand. Keating had never heard a man +speak in a manner so consciously controlled. He thought crazily that it sounded +as if Wynand held his fist closed over his voice and directed each syllable. +"Any extra word I speak will be offensive, so I shall be brief. I am going to +marry your wife. She is leaving for Reno tomorrow. Here is the contract for +Stoneridge. I have signed it. Attached is a check for two hundred and fifty +thousand dollars. It is in addition to what you will receive for your work under +the contract. I’ll appreciate it if you will now make no comment of any kind. I +realize that I could have had your consent for less, but I wish no discussion. +It would be intolerable if we were to bargain about it. Therefore, will you +please take this and consider the matter settled?" +He extended the contract across the desk. Keating saw the pale blue rectangle of +the check held to the top of the page by a paper clip. The clip flashed silver +in the light of the desk lamp. +Keating’s hand did not reach to meet the paper. He said, his chin moving +awkwardly to frame the words: "I don’t want it. You can have my consent for +nothing." He saw a look of astonishment--and almost of kindness--on Wynand’s +face. +"You don’t want it? You don’t want Stoneridge either?" +"I want Stoneridge!" Keating’s hand rose and snatched the paper. "I want it all! +Why should you get away with it? Why should I care?" +Wynand got up. He said, relief and regret in his voice: "Right, Mr. Keating. For +a moment, you had almost justified your marriage. Let it remain what it was. +Good night." +Keating did not go home. He walked to the apartment of Neil Dumont, his new +designer and best friend. Neil Dumont was a lanky, anemic society youth, with +shoulders stooped under the burden of too many illustrious ancestors. He was not +a good designer, but he had connections; he was obsequious to Keating in the +office, and Keating was obsequious to him after office hours. +395 + + He found Dumont at home. Together, they got Gordon Prescott and Vincent +Knowlton, and started out to make a wild night of it. Keating did not drink +much. He paid for everything. He paid more than necessary. He seemed anxious to +find things to pay for. He gave exorbitant tips. He kept asking: "We’re +friends--aren’t we friends?--aren’t we?" He looked at the glasses around him and +he watched the lights dancing in the liquid. He looked at the three pairs of +eyes; they were blurred, but they turned upon him occasionally with contentment. +They were soft and comforting. +# +That evening, her bags packed and ready in her room, Dominique went to see +Steven Mallory. +She had not seen Roark for twenty months. She had called on Mallory once in a +while. Mallory knew that these visits were breakdowns in a struggle she would +not name; he knew that she did not want to come, that her rare evenings with him +were time torn out of her life. He never asked any questions and he was always +glad to see her. They talked quietly, with a feeling of companionship such as +that of an old married couple; as if he had possessed her body, and the wonder +of it had long since been consumed, and nothing remained but an untroubled +intimacy. He had never touched her body, but he had possessed it in a deeper +kind of ownership when he had done her statue, and they could not lose the +special sense of each other it had given them. +He smiled when he opened the door and saw her. +"Hello, Dominique." +"Hello, Steve. Interrupting you?" +"No. Come in." +He had a studio, a huge, sloppy place in an old building. She noticed the change +since her last visit. The room had an air of laughter, like a breath held too +long and released. She saw second-hand furniture, an Oriental rug of rare +texture and sensuous color, jade ash trays, pieces of sculpture that came from +historical excavations, anything he had wished to seize, helped by the sudden +fortune of Wynand’s patronage. The walls looked strangely bare above the gay +clutter. He had bought no paintings. A single sketch hung over his +studio--Roark’s original drawing of the Stoddard Temple. +She looked slowly about her, noting every object and the reason for its +presence. He kicked two chairs toward the fireplace and they sat down, one at +each side of the fire. +He said, quite simply: +"Clayton, Ohio." +"Doing what?" +"A new building for Janer’s Department Store. Five stories. On Main Street." +"How long has he been there?" +"About a month." +It was the first question he answered whenever she came here, without making her +396 + + ask it. His simple ease spared her the necessity of explanation or pretense; his +manner included no comment. +"I’m going away tomorrow, Steve." +"For long?" +"Six weeks. Reno." +"I’m glad." +"I’d rather not tell you now what I’ll do when I come back. You won’t be glad." +"I’ll try to be--if it’s what you want to do." +"It’s what I want to do." +One log still kept its shape on the pile of coals in the fireplace; it was +checkered into small squares and it glowed without flame, like a solid string of +lighted windows. He reached down and threw a fresh log on the coals. It cracked +the string of windows in half and sent sparks shooting up against the sooted +bricks. +He talked about his own work. She listened, as if she were an emigrant hearing +her homeland’s language for a brief while. +In a pause, she asked: +"How is he, Steve?" +"As he’s always been. He doesn’t change, you know." +He kicked the log. A few coals rolled out. He pushed them back. He said: +"I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality. I don’t +mean in the sense of fame and I don’t mean that he won’t die some day. But he’s +living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people +long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, +they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of +themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict--and they call it growth. At +the end there’s nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had +never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an +unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a +single moment? But Howard--one can imagine him existing forever." +She sat looking at the fire. It gave a deceptive semblance of life to her face. +After a while he asked: "How do you like all the new things I got?" +"I like them. I like your having them." +"I didn’t tell you what happened to me since I saw you last. The completely +incredible. Gail Wynand..." +"Yes, I know about that." +"You do? Wynand, of all people--what on earth made him discover me?" +"I know that too. I’ll tell you when I come back." +397 + + "He has an amazing judgment. Amazing for him. He bought the best." +"Yes, he would." +Then she asked, without transition, yet he knew that she was not speaking of +Wynand: +"Steve, has he ever asked you about me?" +"No." +"Have you told him about my coming here?" +"No." +"Is that--for my sake, Steve?" +"No. For his." +He knew he had told her everything she wanted to know. +She said, rising: +"Let’s have some tea. Show me where you keep your stuff. I’ll fix it." +# +Dominique left for Reno early in the morning. Keating was still asleep and she +did not awaken him to say good-bye. +When he opened his eyes, he knew that she was gone, before he looked at the +clock, by the quality of the silence in the house. He thought he should say +"Good riddance," but he did not say it and he did not feel it. What he felt was +a vast, flat sentence without subject--"It’s no use"--related neither to himself +nor to Dominique. He was alone and there was no necessity to pretend anything. +He lay in bed, on his back, his arms flung out helplessly. His face looked +humble and his eyes bewildered. He felt that it was an end and a death, but he +did not mean the loss of Dominique. +He got up and dressed. In the bathroom he found a hand towel she had used and +discarded. He picked it up, he pressed his face to it and held it for a long +time, not in sorrow, but in nameless emotion, not understanding, knowing only +that he had loved her twice--on that evening when Toohey telephoned, and now. +Then he opened his fingers and let the towel slip down to the floor, like a +liquid running between his fingers. +He went to his office and worked as usual. Nobody knew of his divorce and he +felt no desire to inform anyone. Neil Dumont winked at him and drawled: "I say, +Pete, you look peaked." He shrugged and turned his back. The sight of Dumont +made him sick today. +He left the office early. A vague instinct kept pulling at him, like hunger, at +first, then taking shape. He had to see Ellsworth Toohey. He had to reach +Toohey. He felt like the survivor of a shipwreck swimming toward a distant +light. +That evening he dragged himself to Ellsworth Toohey’s apartment. When he +entered, he felt dimly glad of his self-control, because Toohey seemed to notice +nothing in his face. +398 + + "Oh, hello, Peter," said Toohey airily. "Your sense of timing leaves much to be +desired. You catch me on the worst possible evening. Busy as all hell. But don’t +let that bother you. What are friends for but to inconvenience one? Sit down, +sit down, I’ll be with you in a minute." +"I’m sorry, Ellsworth. But...I had to." +"Make yourself at home. Just ignore me for a minute, will you?" +Keating sat down and waited. Toohey worked, making notes on sheets of +typewritten copy. He sharpened a pencil, the sound grating like a saw across +Keating’s nerves. He bent over his copy again, rustling the pages once in a +while. +Half an hour later he pushed the papers aside and smiled at Keating. "That’s +that," he said. Keating made a small movement forward. "Sit tight," said Toohey, +"just one telephone call I’ve got to make." +He dialed the number of Gus Webb. "Hello, Gus," he said gaily. "How are you, you +walking advertisement for contraceptives?" Keating had never heard that tone of +loose intimacy from Toohey, a special tone of brotherhood that permitted +sloppiness. He heard Webb’s piercing voice say something and laugh in the +receiver. The receiver went on spitting out rapid sounds from deep down in its +tube, like a throat being cleared. The words could not be recognized, only their +quality; the quality of abandon and insolence, with high shrieks of mirth once +in a while. +Toohey leaned back in his chair, listening, half smiling. "Yes," he said +occasionally, "uh-huh....You said it, boy....Surer’n hell...." He leaned back +farther and put one foot in a shining, pointed shoe on the edge of the desk. +"Listen, boy, what I wanted to tell you is go easy on old Bassett for a while. +Sure he likes your work, but don’t shock hell out of him for the time being. No +roughhouse, see? Keep that big facial cavity of yours buttoned up....You know +damn well who I am to tell you....That’s right....That’s the stuff, kid....Oh, +he did? Good, angel-face....Well, bye-bye--oh, say, Gus, have you heard the one +about the British lady and the plumber?" There followed a story. The receiver +yelled raucously at the end. "Well, watch your step and your digestion, +angel-face. Nighty-night." +Toohey dropped the receiver, said: "Now, Peter," stretched, got up, walking to +Keating and stood before him, rocking a little on his small feet, his eyes +bright and kindly. +"Now, Peter, what’s the matter? Has the world crashed about your nose?" +Keating reached into his inside pocket and produced a yellow check, crumpled, +much handled. It bore his signature and the sum of ten thousand dollars, made +out to Ellsworth M. Toohey. The gesture with which he handed it to Toohey was +not that of a donor, but of a beggar. +"Please, Ellsworth...here...take this...for a good cause...for the Workshop of +Social Study...or for anything you wish...you know best...for a good cause..." +Toohey held the check with the tips of his fingers, like a soiled penny, bent +his head to one side, pursing his lips in appreciation, and tossed the check on +his desk. +"Very handsome of you, Peter. Very handsome indeed. What’s the occasion?" +399 + + "Ellsworth, you remember what you said once--that it doesn’t matter what we are +or do, if we help others? That’s all that counts? That’s good, isn’t it? That’s +clean?" +"I haven’t said it once. I’ve said it a million times." +"And it’s really true?" +"Of course it’s true. If you have the courage to accept it." +"You’re my friend, aren’t you? You’re the only friend I’ve got. I...I’m not even +friendly with myself, but you are. With me, I mean, aren’t you, Ellsworth?" +"But of course. Which is of more value than your own friendship with yourself--a +rather queer conception, but quite valid." +"You understand. Nobody else does. And you like me." +"Devotedly. Whenever I have the time." +"Ah?" +"Your sense of humor, Peter, where’s your sense of humor? What’s the matter? A +bellyache? Or a soul-indigestion?" +"Ellsworth, I..." +"Yes?" +"I can’t tell you. Even you." +"You’re a coward, Peter." +Keating stared helplessly: the voice had been severe and gentle, he did not know +whether he should feel pain, insult or confidence. +"You come here to tell me that it doesn’t matter what you do--and then you go to +pieces over something or other you’ve done. Come on, be a man and say it doesn’t +matter. Say you’re not important. Mean it. Show some guts. Forget your little +ego." +"I’m not important, Ellsworth. I’m not important. Oh God, if only everybody’d +say it like you do! I’m not important. I don’t want to be important." +"Where did that money come from?" +"I sold Dominique." +"What are you talking about? The cruise?" +"Only it seems as if it’s not Dominique that I sold." +"What do you care if..." +"She’s gone to Reno." +"What?" +He could not understand the violence of Toohey’s reaction, but he was too tired +400 + + to wonder. He told everything, as it had happened to him; it had not taken long +to happen or to tell. +"You damn fool! You shouldn’t have allowed it." +"What could I do? Against Wynand?" +"But to let him marry her!" +"Why not, Ellsworth? It’s better than..." +"I didn’t think he’d ever...but...Oh, God damn it, I’m a bigger fool than you +are!" +"But it’s better for Dominique if..." +"To hell with your Dominique! It’s Wynand I’m thinking about!" +"Ellsworth, what’s the matter with you?...Why should you care?" +"Keep still, will you? Let me think." +In a moment, Toohey shrugged, sat down beside Keating and slipped his arm about +his shoulders. +"I’m sorry, Peter," he said. "I apologize. I’ve been inexcusably rude to you. It +was just the shock. But I understand how you feel. Only you mustn’t take it too +seriously. It doesn’t matter." He spoke automatically. His mind was far away. +Keating did not notice that. He heard the words. They were the spring in the +desert. "It doesn’t matter. You’re only human. That’s all you want to be. Who’s +any better? Who has the right to cast the first stone? We’re all human. It +doesn’t matter." +# +"My God!" said Alvah Scarret. "He can’t! Not Dominique Francon!" +"He will," said Toohey. "As soon as she returns." +Scarret had been surprised that Toohey should invite him to lunch, but the news +he heard wiped out the surprise in a greater and more painful one. +"I’m fond of Dominique," said Scarret, pushing his plate aside, his appetite +gone. "I’ve always been very fond of her. But to have her as Mrs. Gail Wynand!" +"These, exactly, are my own sentiments," said Toohey. +"I’ve always advised him to marry. It helps. Lends an air. An insurance of +respectability, sort of, and he could do with one. He’s always skated on pretty +thin ice. Got away with it, so far. But Dominique!" +"Why do you find such a marriage unsuitable?" +"Well...well, it’s not...Damn it, you know it’s not right!" +"I know it. Do you?" +"Look, she’s a dangerous kind of woman." +"She is. That’s your minor premise. Your major premise, however, is: he’s a +401 + + dangerous kind of man." +"Well...in some ways...yes." +"My esteemed editor, you understand me quite well. But there are times when it’s +helpful to formulate things. It tends toward future-co-operation. You and I have +a great deal in common-though you have been somewhat reluctant to admit it. We +are two variations on the same theme, shall we say? Or we play two ends against +the same middle, if you prefer your own literary style. But our dear boss is +quite another tune. A different leitmotif entirely-don’t you think so, Alvah? +Our dear boss is an accident in our midst. Accidents are unreliable phenomena. +You’ve been sitting on the edge of your seat for years-haven’t you?-watching Mr. +Gail Wynand. So you know exactly what I’m talking about. You know also that Miss +Dominique Francon is not our tune either. And you do not wish to see that +particular influence enter the life of our boss. Do I have to state the issue +any plainer?" +"You’re a smart man, Ellsworth," said Scarret heavily. +"That’s been obvious for years." +"I’ll talk to him. You’d better not-he hates your guts, if you’ll excuse me. But +I don’t think I’d do much good either. Not if he’s made up his mind." +"I don’t expect you to. You may try, if you wish, though it’s useless. We can’t +stop that marriage. One of my good points is the fact that I admit defeat when +it has to be admitted." +"But then, why did you--" +"Tell you this? In the nature of a scoop, Alvah. Advance information." +"I appreciate it, Ellsworth. I sure do." +"It would be wise to go on appreciating it. The Wynand papers, Alvah, are not to +be given up easily. In unity there is strength. Your style." +"What do you mean?" +"Only that we’re in for a difficult time, my friend. So we’d do better to stick +together." +"Why, I’m with you, Ellsworth. I’ve always been." +"Inaccurate, but we’ll let it pass. We’re concerned only with the present. And +the future. As a token of mutual understanding, how about getting rid of Jimmy +Kearns at the first opportunity?" +"I thought you’ve been driving at that for months! What’s the matter with Jimmy +Kearns? He’s a bright kid. The best drama critic in town. He’s got a mind. Smart +as a whip. Most promising." +"He’s got a mind--of his own. I don’t think you want any whips around the +place--except the one you hold. I think you want to be careful about what the +promise promises." +"Whom’ll I stick in his spot?" +"Jules Fougler." +402 + + "Oh, hell, Ellsworth!" +"Why not?" +"That old son of a...We can’t afford him." +"You can if you want to. And look at the name he’s got." +"But he’s the most impossible old..." +"Well, you don’t have to take him. We’ll discuss it some other time. Just get +rid of Jimmy Kearns." +"Look, Ellsworth, I don’t play favorites; it’s all the same to me. I’ll give +Jimmy the boot if you say so. Only I don’t see what difference it makes and what +it’s got to do with what we were talking about." +"You don’t," said Toohey. "You will." +# +"Gail, you know that I want you to be happy," said Alvah Scarret, sitting in a +comfortable armchair in the study of Wynand’s penthouse that evening. "You know +that. I’m thinking of nothing else." +Wynand lay stretched out on a couch, one leg bent, with the foot resting on the +knee of the other. He smoked and listened silently. +"I’ve known Dominique for years," said Scarret. "Long before you ever heard of +her. I love her. I love her, you might say, like a father. But you’ve got to +admit that she’s not the kind of woman your public would expect to see as Mrs. +Gail Wynand." +Wynand said nothing. +"Your wife is a public figure, Gail. Just automatically. A public property. Your +readers have a right to demand and expect certain things of her. A symbol value, +if you know what I mean. Like the Queen of England, sort of. How do you expect +Dominique to live up to that? How do you expect her to preserve any appearances +at all? She’s the wildest person I know. She has a terrible reputation. But +worst of all--think Gail!--a divorcee! And here we spend tons of good print, +standing for the sanctity of the home and the purity of womanhood! How are you +going to make your public swallow that one? How am I going to sell your wife to +them?" +"Don’t you think this conversation had better be stopped, Alvah?" +"Yes, Gail," said Scarret meekly. +Scarret waited, with a heavy sense of aftermath, as if after a violent quarrel, +anxious to make up. +"I know, Gail!" he cried happily. "I know what we can do. We’ll put Dominique +back on the paper and we’ll have her write a column--a different one--a +syndicated column on the home. You know, household hints, kitchen, babies and +all that. It’ll take the curse off. Show what a good little homebody she really +is, her youthful mistakes notwithstanding. Make the women forgive her. We’ll +have a special department--’Mrs. Gail Wynand’s recipes.’ A few pictures of her +will help--you know, gingham dresses and aprons and her hair done up in a more +403 + + conventional way." +"Shut up, Alvah, before I slap your face," said Wynand without raising his +voice. +"Yes, Gail." +Scarret made a move to get up. +"Sit still. I haven’t finished." +Scarret waited obediently. +"Tomorrow morning," said Wynand, "you will send a memo to every one of our +papers. You will tell them to look through their files and find any pictures of +Dominique Francon they might have in connection with her old column. You will +tell them to destroy the pictures. You will tell them that henceforward any +mention of her name or the use of her picture in any of my papers will cost the +job of the entire editorial staff responsible. When the proper time comes, you +will have an announcement of my marriage appear in all our papers. That cannot +be avoided. The briefest announcement you can compose. No commentaries. No +stories. No pictures. Pass the word around and make sure it’s understood. It’s +any man’s job, yours included, if this is disobeyed." +"No stories--when you marry her?" +"No stories, Alvah." +"But good God! That’s news! The other papers..." +"I don’t care what the other papers do about it." +"But--why, Gail?" +"You wouldn’t understand." +# +Dominique sat at the window, listening to the train wheels under the floor. She +looked at the countryside of Ohio flying past in the fading daylight. Her head +lay back against the seat and her hands lay limply at each side of her on the +seat cushion. She was one with the structure of the car, she was carried forward +just as the window frame, the floor, the walls of the compartment were carried +forward. The corners blurred, gathering darkness; the window remained luminous, +evening light rising from the earth. She let herself rest in that faint +illumination; it entered the car and ruled it, so long as she did not turn on +the light to shut it out. +She had no consciousness of purpose. There was no goal to this journey, only the +journey itself, only the motion and the metal sound of motion around her. She +felt slack and empty, losing her identity in a painless ebb, content to vanish +and let nothing remain defined save that particular earth in the window. +When she saw, in the slowing movement beyond the glass, the name "Clayton" on a +faded board under the eaves of a station building, she knew what she had been +expecting. She knew why she had taken this train, not a faster one, why she had +looked carefully at the timetable of its stops--although it had been just a +column of meaningless names to her then. She seized her suitcase, coat and hat. +She ran. She could not take time to dress, afraid that the floor under her feet +would carry her away from here. She ran down the narrow corridor of the car, +404 + + down the steps. She leaped to the station platform, feeling the shock of winter +cold on her bare throat. She stood looking at the station building. She heard +the train moving behind her, clattering away. +Then she put on her coat and hat. She walked across the platform, into the +waiting room, across a wooden floor studded with lumps of dry chewing gum, +through the heavy billows of heat from an iron stove, to the square beyond the +station. +She saw a last band of yellow in the sky above the low roof lines. She saw a +pitted stretch of paving bricks, and small houses leaning against one another; a +bare tree with twisted branches, skeletons of weeds at the doorless opening of +an abandoned garage, dark shop fronts, a drugstore still open on a corner, its +lighted window dim, low over the ground. +She had never been here before, but she felt this place proclaiming its +ownership of her, closing in about her with ominous intimacy. It was as if every +dark mass exercised a suction like the pull of the planets in space, prescribing +her orbit. She put her hand on a fire hydrant and felt the cold seeping through +her glove into her skin. This was the way the town told her, a direct +penetration which neither her clothes nor her mind could stop. The peace of the +inevitable remained. Only now she had to act, but the actions were simple, set +in advance. She asked a passer-by: "Where is the site of the new building of +Janer’s Department Store?" +She walked patiently through the dark streets. She walked past desolate winter +lawns and sagging porches; past vacant lots where weeds rustled against tin +cans; past closed grocery stores and a steaming laundry; past an uncurtained +window where a man in shirt sleeves sat by a fire, reading a paper. She turned +corners and crossed streets, with the feel of cobblestones under the thin soles +of her pumps. Rare passersby looked, astonished, at her air of foreign elegance. +She noticed it; she felt an answering wonder. She wanted to say: But don’t you +understand?--I belong here more than you do. She stopped, once in a while, +closing her eyes; she found it difficult to breathe. +She came to Main Street and walked slower. There were a few lights, cars parked +diagonally at the curb, a movie theater, a store window displaying pink +underwear among kitchen utensils. She walked stiffly, looking ahead. +She saw a glare of light on the side of an old building, on a blind wall of +yellow bricks showing the sooted floor lines of the neighboring structure that +had been torn down. The light came from an excavation pit. She knew this was the +site. She hoped it was not. If they worked late, he would be here. She did not +want to see him tonight. She had wanted only to see the place and the building; +she was not ready for more; she had wanted to see him tomorrow. But she could +not stop now. She walked to the excavation. It lay on a corner, open to the +street, without fence. She heard the grinding clatter of iron, she saw the arm +of a derrick, the shadows of men on the slanting sides of fresh earth, yellow in +the light. She could not see the planks that led up to the sidewalk, but she +heard the sound of steps and then she saw Roark coming up to the street. He was +hatless, he had a loose coat hanging open. +He stopped. He looked at her. She thought that she was standing straight; that +it was simple and normal, she was seeing the gray eyes and the orange hair as +she had always seen them. She was astonished that he moved toward her with a +kind of urgent haste, that his hand closed over her elbow too firmly and he +said: "You’d better sit down." +Then she saw she could not have stood up without that hand on her elbow. He took +405 + + her suitcase. He led her across the dark side street and made her sit down on +the steps of a vacant house. She leaned back against a closed door. He sat down +beside her. He kept his hand tight on her elbow, not a caress, but an impersonal +hold of control over both of them. +After a while he dropped his hand. She knew that she was safe now. She could +speak. +"That’s your new building?" +"Yes. You walked here from the station?" +"Yes." +"It’s a long walk." +"I think it was." +She thought that they had not greeted each other and that it was right. This was +not a reunion, but just one moment out of something that had never been +interrupted. She thought how strange it would be if she ever said "Hello" to +him; one did not greet oneself each morning. +"What time did you get up today?" she asked. +"At seven." +"I was in New York then. In a cab, going to Grand Central. Where did you have +breakfast?" +"In a lunch wagon." +"The kind that stays open all night?" +"Yes. Mostly for truck drivers." +"Do you go there often?" +"Whenever I want a cup of coffee." +"And you sit at a counter? And there are people around, looking at you?" +"I sit at a counter when I have the time. There are people around. I don’t think +they look at me much." +"And afterward? You walk to work?" +"Yes." +"You walk every day? Down any of these streets? Past any window? So that if one +just wanted to reach and open the window..." +"People don’t stare out of windows here." +From the vantage of the high stoop they could see the excavation across the +street, the earth, the workmen, the rising steel columns in a glare of harsh +light. She thought it was strange to see fresh earth in the midst of pavement +and cobblestones; as if a piece had been torn from the clothing of a town, +showing naked flesh. She said: +406 + + "You’ve done two country homes in the last two years." +"Yes. One in Pennsylvania and one near Boston." +"They were unimportant houses." +"Inexpensive, if that’s what you mean. But very interesting to do." +"How long will you remain here?" +"Another month." +"Why do you work at night?" +"It’s a rush job." +Across the street the derrick was moving, balancing a long girder in the air. +She saw him watching it, and she knew he was not thinking of it, but there was +the instinctive response in his eyes, something physically personal, intimacy +with any action taken for his building. +"Roark..." +They had not pronounced each other’s names. It had the sensuous pleasure of a +surrender long delayed--to pronounce the name and to have him hear it. +"Roark, it’s the quarry again." +He smiled. "If you wish. Only it isn’t." +"After the Enright House? After the Cord Building?" +"I don’t think of it that way." +"How do you think of it?" +"I love doing it. Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable." +He was looking across the street. He had not changed. There was the old sense of +lightness in him, of ease in motion, in action, in thought. She said, her +sentence without beginning or end: +"...doing five-story buildings for the rest of your life..." +"If necessary. But I don’t think it will be like that." +"What are you waiting for?" +"I’m not waiting." +She closed her eyes, but she could not hide her mouth; her mouth held +bitterness, anger and pain. +"Roark, if you’d been in the city, I wouldn’t have come to see you." +"I know it." +"But it was you--in another place--in some nameless hole of a place like this. I +407 + + had to see it. I had to see the place." +"When are you going back?" +"You know I haven’t come to remain?" +"Yes." +"Why?" +"You’re still afraid of lunch wagons and windows." +"I’m not going back to New York. Not at once." +"No?" +"You haven’t asked me anything, Roark. Only whether I walked from the station." +"What do you want me to ask you?" +"I got off the train when I saw the name of the station," she said, her voice +dull. "I didn’t intend coming here. I was on my way to Reno." +"And after that?" +"I will marry again." +"Do I know your fiancé?" +"You’ve heard of him. His name is Gail Wynand." +She saw his eyes. She thought she should want to laugh; she had brought him at +last to a shock she had never expected to achieve. But she did not laugh. He +thought of Henry Cameron; of Cameron saying: I have no answer to give them, +Howard. I’m leaving you to face them. You’ll answer them. All of them, the +Wynand papers and what makes the Wynand papers possible and what lies behind +that. +"Roark." +He didn’t answer. +"That’s worse than Peter Keating, isn’t it?" she asked. +"Much worse." +"Do you want to stop me?" +"No." +He had not touched her since he had released her elbow, and that had been only a +touch proper in an ambulance. She moved her hand and let it rest against his. He +did not withdraw his fingers and he did not pretend indifference. She bent over, +holding his hand, not raising it from his knee, and she pressed her lips to his +hand. Her hat fell off, he saw the blond head at his knees, he felt her mouth +kissing his hand again and again. His fingers held hers, answering, but that was +the only answer. +She raised her head and looked at the street. A lighted window hung in the +408 + + distance, behind a grillwork of bare branches. Small houses stretched off into +the darkness, and trees stood by the narrow sidewalks. +She noticed her hat on the steps below and bent to pick it up. She leaned with +her bare hand flat against the steps. The stone was old, worn smooth, icy. She +felt comfort in the touch. She sat for a moment, bent over, palm pressed to the +stone; to feel these steps--no matter how many feet had used them--to feel them +as she had felt the fire hydrant. +"Roark, where do you live?" +"In a rooming house." +"What kind of a room?" +"Just a room." +"What’s in it? What kind of walls?" +"Some sort of wallpaper. Faded." +"What furniture?" +"A table, chairs, a bed." +"No, tell me in detail." +"There’s a clothes closet, then a chest of drawers, the bed in the corner by the +window, a large table at the other side--" +"By the wall?" +"No, I put it across the corner, to the window--I work there. Then there’s a +straight chair, an armchair with a bridge lamp and a magazine rack I never use. +I think that’s all." +"No rugs? Or curtains?" +"I think there’s something at the window and some kind of rug. The floor is +nicely polished, it’s beautiful old wood." +"I want to think of your room tonight--on the train." +He sat looking across the street. She said: +"Roark, let me stay with you tonight." +"No." +She let her glance follow his to the grinding machinery below. After a while she +asked: +"How did you get this store to design?" +"The owner saw my buildings in New York and liked them." +A man in overalls stepped out of the excavation pit, peered into the darkness at +them and called: "Is that you up there, boss?" +409 + + "Yes," Roark called back. +"Come here a minute, will you?" +Roark walked to him across the street. She could not hear their conversation, +but she heard Roark saying gaily: "That’s easy," and then they both walked down +the planks to the bottom. The man stood talking, pointing up, explaining. Roark +threw his head back, to glance up at the rising steel frame; the light was full +on his face, and she saw his look of concentration, not a smile, but an +expression that gave her a joyous feeling of competence, of disciplined reason +in action. He bent, picked up a piece of board, took a pencil from his pocket. +He stood with one foot on a pile of planks, the board propped on his knee, and +drew rapidly, explaining something to the man who nodded, pleased. She could not +hear the words, but she felt the quality of Roark’s relation to that man, to all +the other men in that pit, an odd sense of loyalty and of brotherhood, but not +the kind she had ever heard named by these words. He finished, handed the board +to the man, and they both laughed at something. Then he came back and sat down +on the steps beside her. +"Roark," she said. "I want to remain here with you for all the years we might +have." +He looked at her, attentively, waiting. +"I want to live here." Her voice had the sound of pressure against a dam. "I +want to live as you live. Not to touch my money--I’ll give it away, to anyone, +to Steve Mallory, if you wish, or to one of Toohey’s organizations, it doesn’t +matter. We’ll take a house here--like one of these--and I’ll keep it for +you--don’t laugh, I can--I’ll cook, I’ll wash your clothes, I’ll scrub the +floor. And you’ll give up architecture." +He had not laughed. She saw nothing but an unmoving attention prepared to listen +on. +"Roark, try to understand, please try to understand. I can’t bear to see what +they’re doing to you, what they’re going to do. It’s too great--you and building +and what you feel about it. You can’t go on like that for long. It won’t last. +They won’t let you. You’re moving to some terrible kind of disaster. It can’t +end any other way. Give it up. Take some meaningless job--like the quarry. We’ll +live here. We’ll have little and we’ll give nothing. We’ll live only for what we +are and for what we know." +He laughed. She heard, in the sound of it, a surprising touch of consideration +for her--the attempt not to laugh; but he couldn’t stop it. +"Dominique." The way he pronounced the name remained with her and made it easier +to hear the words that followed: "I wish I could tell you that it was a +temptation, at least for a moment. But it wasn’t." He added: "If I were very +cruel, I’d accept it. Just to see how soon you’d beg me to go back to building." +"Yes...Probably..." +"Marry Wynand and stay married to him. It will be better than what you’re doing +to yourself right now." +"Do you mind...if we just sit here for a little while longer...and not talk +about that...but just talk, as if everything were right...just an armistice for +half an hour out of years....Tell me what you’ve done every day you’ve been +here, everything you can remember...." +410 + + Then they talked, as if the stoop of the vacant house were an airplane hanging +in space, without sight of earth or sky; he did not look across the street. +Then he glanced at his wrist watch and said: +"There’s a train for the West in an hour. Shall I go with you to the station?" +"Do you mind if we walk there?" +"All right." +She stood up. She asked: +"Until--when, Roark?" +His hand moved over the streets. "Until you stop hating all this, stop being +afraid of it, learn not to notice it." +They walked together to the station. She listened to the sound of his steps with +hers in the empty streets. She let her glance drag along the walls they passed, +like a clinging touch. She loved this place, this town and everything that was +part of it. +They were walking past a vacant lot. The wind blew an old sheet of newspaper +against her legs. It clung to her with a tight insistence that seemed conscious, +like the peremptory caress of a cat. She thought, anything of this town had that +intimate right to her. She bent, picked up the paper and began folding it, to +keep it +"What are you doing?" he asked. +"Something to read on the train," she said stupidly. +He snatched the paper from her, crumpled it and flung it away into the weeds. +She said nothing and they walked on. +A single light bulb hung over the empty station platform. They waited. He stood +looking up the tracks, where the train was to appear. When the tracks rang, +shuddering, when the white ball of a headlight spurted out of the distance and +stood still in the sky, not approaching, only widening, growing in furious +speed, he did not move or turn to her. The rushing beam flung his shadow across +the platform, made it sweep over the planks and vanish. For an instant she saw +the tall, straight line of his body against the glare. The engine passed them +and the car rattled, slowing down. He looked at the windows rolling past. She +could not see his face, only the outline of his cheekbone. +When the train stopped, he turned to her. They did not shake hands, they did not +speak. They stood straight, facing each other for a moment, as if at attention; +it was almost like a military salute. Then she picked up her suitcase and went +aboard the train. The train started moving a minute later. + +6. +"CHUCK: And why not a muskrat? Why should man imagine himself superior to a +muskrat? Life beats in all the small creatures of field and wood. Life singing +411 + + of eternal sorrow. An old sorrow. The Song of Songs. We don’t understand--but +who cares about understanding? Only public accountants and chiropodists. Also +mailmen. We only love. The Sweet Mystery of Love. That’s all there is to it. +Give me love and shove all your philosophers up your stovepipe. When Mary took +the homeless muskrat, her heart broke open and life and love rushed in. Muskrats +make good imitation mink coats, but that’s not the point. Life is the point. +"Jake: (rushing in) Say, folks, who’s got a stamp with a picture of George +Washington on it? +"Curtain." +Ike slammed his manuscript shut and took a long swig of air. His voice was +hoarse after two hours of reading aloud and he had read the climax of his play +on a single long breath. He looked at his audience, his mouth smiling in +self-mockery, his eyebrows raised insolently, but his eyes pleading. +Ellsworth Toohey, sitting on the floor, scratched his spine against a chair leg +and yawned. Gus Webb, stretched out on his stomach in the middle of the room, +rolled over on his back. Lancelot Clokey, the foreign correspondent, reached for +his highball glass and finished it off. Jules Fougler, the new drama critic of +the Banner, sat without moving; he had not moved for two hours. Lois Cook, +hostess, raised her arms, twisting them, stretching, and said: +"Jesus, Ike, it’s awful." +Lancelot Clokey drawled, "Lois, my girl, where do you keep your gin? Don’t be +such a damn miser. You’re the worst hostess I know." +Gus Webb said, "I don’t understand literature. It’s nonproductive and a waste of +time. Authors will be liquidated." +Ike laughed shrilly. "A stinker, huh?" He waved his script. "A real +super-stinker. What do you think I wrote it for? Just show me anyone who can +write a bigger flop. Worst play you’ll ever hear in your life." +It was not a formal meeting of the Council of American Writers, but an +unofficial gathering. Ike had asked a few of his friends to listen to his latest +work. At twenty-six he had written eleven plays, but had never had one produced. +"You’d better give up the theater, Ike," said Lancelot Clokey. "Writing is a +serious business and not for any stray bastard that wants to try it." Lancelot +Clokey’s first book--an account of his personal adventures in foreign +countries--was in its tenth week on the best-seller list. +"Why isn’t it, Lance?" Toohey drawled sweetly. +"All right," snapped Clokey, "all right. Give me a drink." +"It’s awful," said Lois Cook, her head lolling wearily from side to side. "It’s +perfectly awful. It’s so awful it’s wonderful." +"Balls," said Gus Webb. "Why do I ever come here?" +Ike flung his script at the fireplace. It struck against the wire screen and +landed, face down, open, the thin pages crushed. +"If Ibsen can write plays, why can’t I?" he asked. "He’s good and I’m lousy, but +that’s not a sufficient reason." +412 + + "Not in the cosmic sense," said Lancelot Clokey. "Still, you’re lousy." +"You don’t have to say it. I said so first." +"This is a great play," said a voice. +The voice was slow, nasal and bored. It had spoken for the first time that +evening, and they all turned to Jules Fougler. A cartoonist had once drawn a +famous picture of him; it consisted of two sagging circles, a large one and a +small one: the large one was his stomach, the small one--his lower lip. He wore +a suit, beautifully tailored, of a color to which he referred as "merde d’oie." +He kept his gloves on at all times and he carried a cane. He was an eminent +drama critic. +Jules Fougler stretched out his cane, caught the playscript with the hook of the +handle and dragged it across the floor to his feet. He did not pick it up, but +he repeated, looking down at it: +"This is a great play." +"Why?" asked Lancelot Clokey. +"Because I say so," said Jules Fougler. +"Is that a gag, Jules?" asked Lois Cook. +"I never gag," said Jules Fougler. "It is vulgar." +"Send me a coupla seats to the opening," sneered Lancelot Clokey. +"Eight-eighty for two seats to the opening," said Jules Fougler. "It will be the +biggest hit of the season." +Jules Fougler turned and saw Toohey looking at him. Toohey smiled but the smile +was not light or careless; it was an approving commentary upon something he +considered as very serious indeed. Fougler’s glance was contemptuous when turned +to the others, but it relaxed for a moment of understanding when it rested on +Toohey. +"Why don’t you join the Council of American Writers, Jules?" asked Toohey. +"I am an individualist," said Fougler. "I don’t believe in organizations. +Besides, is it necessary?" +"No, not necessary at all," said Toohey cheerfully. "Not for you, Jules. There’s +nothing I can teach you." +"What I like about you, Ellsworth, is that it’s never necessary to explain +myself to you." +"Hell, why explain anything here? We’re six of a kind." +"Five," said Fougler. "I don’t like Gus Webb." +"Why don’t you?" asked Gus. He was not offended. +"Because he doesn’t wash his ears," answered Fougler, as if the question had +been asked by a third party. +413 + + "Oh, that," said Gus. +Ike had risen and stood staring at Fougler, not quite certain whether he should +breathe. +"You like my play, Mr. Fougler?" he asked at last, his voice small. +"I haven’t said I liked it," Fougler answered coldly. "I think it smells. That +is why it’s great." +"Oh," said Ike. He laughed. He seemed relieved. His glance went around the faces +in the room, a glance of sly triumph. +"Yes," said Fougler, "my approach to its criticism is the same as your approach +to its writing. Our motives are identical." +"You’re a grand guy, Jules." +"Mr. Fougler, please." +"You’re a grand guy and the swellest bastard on earth, Mr. Fougler." +Fougler turned the pages of the script at his feet with the tip of his cane. +"Your typing is atrocious, Ike," he said. +"Hell, I’m not a stenographer. I’m a creative artist." +"You will be able to afford a secretary after this show opens. I shall be +obliged to praise it--if for no other reason than to prevent any further abuse +of a typewriter, such as this. The typewriter is a splendid instrument, not to +be outraged." +"All right, Jules," said Lancelot Clokey, "it’s all very witty and smart and +you’re sophisticated and brilliant as all get-out--but what do you actually want +to praise that crap for?" +"Because it is--as you put it--crap." +"You’re not logical, Lance," said Ike. "Not in the cosmic sense, you aren’t. To +write a good play and to have it praised is nothing. Anybody can do that. +Anybody with talent--and talent is only a glandular accident. But to write a +piece of crap and have it praised--well, you match that." +"He has," said Toohey. +"That’s a matter of opinion," said Lancelot Clokey. He upturned his empty glass +over his mouth and sucked at a last piece of ice. +"Ike understands things much better than you do, Lance," said Jules Fougler. "He +has just proved himself to be a real thinker--in that little speech of his. +Which, incidentally, was better than his whole play." +"I’ll write my next play about that," said Ike. +"Ike has stated his reasons," Fougler continued. "And mine. And also yours, +Lance. Examine my case, if you wish. What achievement is there for a critic in +praising a good play? None whatever. The critic is then nothing but a kind of +414 + + glorified messenger boy between author and public. What’s there in that for me? +I’m sick of it. I have a right to wish to impress my own personality upon +people. Otherwise, I shall become frustrated--and I do not believe in +frustration. But if a critic is able to put over a perfectly worthless play--ah, +you do perceive the difference! Therefore, I shall make a hit out of--what’s the +name of your play, Ike?" +"No skin off your ass," said Ike. +"I beg your pardon?" +"That’s the title." +"Oh, I see. Therefore, I shall make a hit out of No Skin Off Your Ass." +Lois Cook laughed loudly. +"You all make too damn much fuss about everything," said Gus Webb, lying flat, +his hands entwined under his head. +"Now if you wish to consider your own case, Lance," Fougler went on. "What +satisfaction is there for a correspondent in reporting on world events? The +public reads about all sorts of international crises and you’re lucky if they +ever notice your by-line. But you’re every bit as good as any general, admiral +or ambassador. You have a right to make people conscious of yourself. So you’ve +done the wise thing. You’ve written a remarkable collection of bilge--yes, +bilge--but morally justified. A clever book. World catastrophes used as a +backdrop for your own nasty little personality. How Lancelot Clokey got drunk at +an international conference. What beauties slept with Lancelot Clokey during an +invasion. How Lancelot Clokey got dysentery in a land of famine. Well, why not, +Lance? It went over, didn’t it? Ellsworth put it over, didn’t he?" +"The public appreciates good human-interest stuff," said Lancelot Clokey, +looking angrily into his glass. +"Oh, can the crap, Lance!" cried Lois Cook. "Who’re you acting for here? You +know damn well it wasn’t any kind of a human interest, but plain Ellsworth +Toohey." +"I don’t forget what I owe Ellsworth," said Clokey sullenly. "Ellsworth’s my +best friend. Still, he couldn’t have done it if he didn’t have a good book to do +it with." +Eight months ago Lancelot Clokey had stood with a manuscript in his hand before +Ellsworth Toohey, as Ike stood before Fougler now, not believing it when Toohey +told him that his book would top the bestseller list. But two hundred thousand +copies sold had made it impossible for Clokey ever to recognize any truth again +in any form. +"Well, he did it with The Gallant Gallstone," said Lois Cook placidly, "and a +worse piece of trash never was put down on paper. I ought to know. But he did +it." +"And almost lost my job doing it," said Toohey indifferently. +"What do you do with your liquor, Lois?" snapped Clokey. "Save it to take a bath +in?" +"All right, blotter," said Lois Cook, rising lazily. +415 + + She shuffled across the room, picked somebody’s unfinished drink off the floor, +drank the remnant, walked out and came back with an assortment of expensive +bottles. Clokey and Ike hurried to help themselves. +"I think you’re unfair to Lance, Lois," said Toohey. "Why shouldn’t he write an +autobiography?" +"Because his life wasn’t worth living, let alone recording." +"Ah, but that is precisely why I made it a bestseller." +"You’re telling me?" +"I like to tell someone." +There were many comfortable chairs around him, but Toohey preferred to remain on +the floor. He rolled over to his stomach, propping his torso upright on his +elbows, and he lolled, pleasurably, switching his weight from elbow to elbow, +his legs spread out in a wide fork on the carpet. He seemed to enjoy +unrestraint. +"I like to tell someone. Next month I’m pushing the autobiography of a +small-town dentist who’s really a remarkable person--because there’s not a +single remarkable day in his life nor sentence in his book. You’ll like it, +Lois. Can you imagine a solid bromide undressing his soul as if it were a +revelation?" +"The little people," said Ike tenderly. "I love the little people. We must love +the little people of this earth." +"Save that for your next play," said Toohey. +"I can’t," said Ike. "It’s in this one." +"What’s the big idea, Ellsworth?" snapped Clokey. +"Why, it’s simple, Lance. When the fact that one is a total nonentity who’s done +nothing more outstanding than eating, sleeping and chatting with neighbors +becomes a fact worthy of pride, of announcement to the world and of diligent +study by millions of readers--the fact that one has built a cathedral becomes +unrecordable and unannounceable. A matter of perspectives and relativity. The +distance permissible between the extremes of any particular capacity is limited. +The sound perception of an ant does not include thunder." +"You talk like a decadent bourgeois, Ellsworth," said Gus Webb. +"Pipe down, Sweetie-pie," said Toohey without resentment. +"It’s all very wonderful," said Lois Cook, "except that you’re doing too well, +Ellsworth. You’ll run me out of business. Pretty soon if I still want to be +noticed, I’ll have to write something that’s actually good." +"Not in this century, Lois," said Toohey. "And perhaps not in the next. It’s +later than you think." +"But you haven’t said...!" Ike cried suddenly, worried. +"What haven’t I said?" +416 + + "You haven’t said who’s going to produce my play!" +"Leave that to me," said Jules Fougler. +"I forgot to thank you, Ellsworth," said Ike solemnly. "So now I thank you. +There are lots of bum plays, but you picked mine. You and Mr. Fougler." +"Your bumness is serviceable, Ike." +"Well, that’s something." +"It’s a great deal." +"How--for instance?" +"Don’t talk too much, Ellsworth," said Gus Webb. "You’ve got a talking jag." +"Shut your face, Kewpie-doll. I like to talk. For instance, Ike? Well, for +instance, suppose I didn’t like Ibsen--" +"Ibsen is good," said Ike. +"Sure he’s good, but suppose I didn’t like him. Suppose I wanted to stop people +from seeing his plays. It would do me no good whatever to tell them so. But if I +sold them the idea that you’re just as great as Ibsen--pretty soon they wouldn’t +be able to tell the difference." +"Jesus, can you?" +"It’s only an example, Ike." +"But it would be wonderful!" +"Yes. It would be wonderful. And then it wouldn’t matter what they went to see +at all. Then nothing would matter--neither the writers nor those for whom they +wrote." +"How’s that Ellsworth?" +"Look, Ike, there’s no room in the theater for both Ibsen and you. You do +understand that, don’t you?" +"In a manner of speaking--yes." +"Well, you do want me to make room for you, don’t you?" +"All of this useless discussion has been covered before and much better," said +Gus Webb. "Shorter. I believe in functional economy." +"Where’s it covered, Gus?" asked Lois Cook. +"’Who had been nothing shall be all,’ sister." +"Gus is crude, but deep," said Ike. "I like him." +"Go to hell," said Gus. +Lois Cook’s butler entered the room. He was a stately, elderly man and he wore +417 + + full-dress evening clothes. He announced Peter Keating. +"Pete?" said Lois Cook gaily. "Why, sure, shove him in, shove him right in." +Keating entered and stopped, startled, when he saw the gathering. +"Oh...hello, everybody," he said bleakly. "I didn’t know you had company, Lois." +"That’s not company. Come in, Pete, sit down, grab yourself a drink, you know +everybody." +"Hello, Ellsworth," said Keating, his eyes resting on Toohey for support. +Toohey waved his hand, scrambled to his feet and settled down in an armchair, +crossing his legs gracefully. Everybody in the room adjusted himself +automatically to a sudden control: to sit straighter, to bring knees together, +to pull in a relaxed mouth. Only Gus Webb remained stretched as before. +Keating looked cool and handsome, bringing into the unventilated room the +freshness of a walk through cold streets. But he was pale, and his movements +were slow, tired. +"Sorry if I intrude, Lois," he said. "Had nothing to do and felt so damn lonely, +thought I’d drop in." He slurred over the word "lonely," throwing it away with a +self-deprecatory smile. "Damn tired of Neil Dumont and the bunch. Wanted more +uplifting company--sort of spiritual food, huh?" +"I’m a genius," said Ike. "I’ll have a play on Broadway. Me and Ibsen. Ellsworth +said so." +"Ike has just read his new play to us," said Toohey. "A magnificent piece of +work." +"You’ll love it, Peter," said Lancelot Clokey. "It’s really great." +"It is a masterpiece," said Jules Fougler. "I hope you will prove yourself +worthy of it, Peter. It is the kind of play that depends upon what the members +of the audience are capable of bringing with them into the theater. If you are +one of those literal-minded people, with a dry soul and a limited imagination, +it is not for you. But if you are a real human being with a big, big heart full +of laughter, who has preserved the uncorrupted capacity of his childhood for +pure emotion--you will find it an unforgettable experience." +"Except as ye become as little children ye shall not enter the Kingdom of +Heaven," said Ellsworth Toohey. +"Thanks, Ellsworth," said Jules Fougler. "That will be the lead of my review." +Keating looked at Ike, at the others, his eyes eager. They all seemed remote and +pure, far above him in the safety of their knowledge, but their faces had hints +of smiling warmth, a benevolent invitation extended downward. +Keating drank the sense of their greatness, that spiritual food he sought in +common here, and felt himself rising through them. They saw their greatness made +real by him. A circuit was established in the room and the circle closed. +Everybody was conscious of that, except Peter Keating. +# +Ellsworth Toohey came out in support of the cause of modern architecture. +418 + + In the past ten years, while most of the new residences continued to be built as +faithful historical copies, the principles of Henry Cameron had won the field of +commercial structures: the factories, the office buildings, the skyscrapers. It +was a pale, distorted victory; a reluctant compromise that consisted of omitting +columns and pediments, allowing a few stretches of wall to remain naked, +apologizing for a shape--good through accident--by finishing it off with an edge +of simplified Grecian volutes. Many stole Cameron’s forms; few understood his +thinking. The sole part of his argument irresistible to the owners of new +structures was financial economy; he won to that extent. +In the countries of Europe, most prominently in Germany, a new school of +building had been growing for a long time: it consisted of putting up four walls +and a flat top over them, with a few openings. This was called new architecture. +The freedom from arbitrary rules, for which Cameron had fought, the freedom that +imposed a great new responsibility on the creative builder, became mere +elimination of all effort, even the effort of mastering historical styles. It +became a rigid set of new rules--the discipline of conscious incompetence, +creative poverty made into a system, mediocrity boastfully confessed. +"A building creates its own beauty, and its ornament is derived from the rules +of its theme and its structure," Cameron had said. "A building needs no beauty, +no ornament and no theme," said the new architects. It was safe to say it. +Cameron and a few men had broken the path and paved it with their lives. Other +men, of whom there were greater numbers, the men who had been safe in copying +the Parthenon, saw the danger and found a way to security: to walk Cameron’s +path and make it lead them to a new Parthenon, an easier Parthenon in the shape +of a packing crate of glass and concrete. The palm tree had broken through; the +fungus came to feed on it, to deform it, to hide it, to pull it back into the +common jungle. +The jungle found its words. +In "One Small Voice," subtitled "I Swim with the Current," Ellsworth Toohey +wrote: +# +"We have hesitated for a long time to acknowledge the powerful phenomenon known +as Modern Architecture. Such caution is requisite in anyone who stands in the +position of mentor to the public taste. Too often, isolated manifestations of +anomaly can be mistaken for a broad popular movement, and one should be careful +not to ascribe to them a significance they do not deserve. But Modern +Architecture has stood the test of time, has answered a demand of the masses, +and we are glad to salute it. +"It is not amiss to offer a measure of recognition to the pioneers of this +movement, such as the late Henry Cameron. Premonitory echoes of the new grandeur +can be found in some of his work. But like all pioneers he was still bound by +the inherited prejudices of the past, by the sentimentality of the middle class +from which he came. He succumbed to the superstition of beauty and ornament, +even though the ornament was of his own devising, and, consequently, inferior to +that of established historical forms. +"It remained for the power of a broad, collective movement to bring Modern +Architecture to its full and true expression. Now it can be seen--growing +throughout the world--not as a chaos of individual fancies, but as a cohesive, +organized discipline which makes severe demands upon the artist, among them the +demand to subordinate himself to the collective nature of his craft. +419 + + "The rules of this new architecture have been formulated by the vast process of +popular creation. They are as strict as the rules of Classicism. They demand +unadorned simplicity--like the honesty of the unspoiled common man. Just as in +the passing age of international bankers every building had to have an +ostentatious cornice, so now the coming age ordains that every building have a +flat roof. Just as the imperialist era of humanity required that every house +have corner windows--symbol of the sunshine distributed equally to all. +"The discriminating will see the social significance eloquent in the forms of +this new architecture. Under the old system of exploitation, the most useful +social elements--the workers--were never permitted to realize their importance; +their practical functions were kept hidden and disguised; thus a master had his +servants dressed up in fancy gold-braided livery. This was reflected in the +architecture of the period: the functional elements of a building--its doors, +windows, stairways--were hidden under the scrolls of pointless ornamentation. +But in a modern building, it is precisely these useful elements--symbols of +toil--that come starkly in the open. Do we not hear in this the voice of a new +world where the worker shall come into his own? +"As the best example of Modern Architecture in America, we call to your +attention the new plant of the Bassett Brush Company, soon to be completed. It +is a small building, but in its modest proportions it embodies all the grim +simplicity of the new discipline and presents an invigorating example of the +Grandeur of the Little. It was designed by Augustus Webb, a young architect of +great promise." +# +Meeting Toohey a few days later, Peter Keating asked, disturbed: +"Say, Ellsworth, did you mean it?" +"What?" +"About modern architecture." +"Of course I meant it. How did you like my little piece?" +"Oh, I thought it was very beautiful. Very convincing. But say, Ellsworth, +why...why did you pick Gus Webb? After all, I’ve done some modernistic things in +the last few years. The Palmer Building was quite bare, and the Mowry Building +was nothing but roof and windows, and the Sheldon Warehouse was..." +"Now, Peter, don’t be a hog. I’ve done pretty well by you, haven’t I? Let me +give somebody else a boost once in a while." +At a luncheon where he had to speak on architecture, Peter Keating stated: +"In reviewing my career to date, I came to the conclusion that I have worked on +a true principle: the principle that constant change is a necessity of life. +Since buildings are an indispensable part of life, it follows that architecture +must change constantly. I have never developed any architectural prejudices for +myself, but insisted on keeping my mind open to all the voices of the times. The +fanatics who went around preaching that all structures must be modern were just +as narrow-minded as the hidebound conservatives who demanded that we employ +nothing but historical styles. I do not apologize for those of my buildings +which were designed in the Classical tradition. They were an answer to the need +of their era. Neither do I apologize for the buildings which I designed in the +modern style. They represent the coming better world. It is my opinion that in +the humble realization of this principle lies the reward and the joy of being an +420 + + architect." +There was gratifying publicity, and many flattering comments of envy in +professional circles, when the news of Peter Keating’s selection to build +Stoneridge was made public. He tried to recapture his old pleasure in such +manifestations. He failed. He still felt something that resembled gladness, but +it was faded and thin. +The effort of designing Stoneridge seemed a load too vast to lift. He did not +mind the circumstances through which he had obtained it; that, too, had become +pale and weightless in his mind, accepted and almost forgotten. He simply could +not face the task of designing the great number of houses that Stoneridge +required. He felt very tired. He felt tired when he awakened in the morning, and +he found himself waiting all day for the time when he would be able to go back +to bed. +He turned Stoneridge over to Neil Dumont and Bennett. "Go ahead," he said +wearily, "do what you want." +"What style, Pete?" Dumont asked. "Oh, make it some sort of period--the small +home owners won’t go for it otherwise. But trim it down a little--for the press +comments. Give it historical touches and a modern feeling. Any way you wish. I +don’t care." +Dumont and Bennett went ahead. Keating changed a few roof lines on their +sketches, a few windows. The preliminary drawings were approved by Wynand’s +office. Keating did not know whether Wynand had approved in person. He did not +see Wynand again. +Dominique had been away a month, when Guy Francon announced his retirement. +Keating had told him about the divorce, offering no explanation. Francon had +taken the news calmly. He had said: "I expected it. It’s all right, Peter. It’s +probably not your fault nor hers." He had not mentioned it since. Now he gave no +explanation of his retirement, only: "I told you it was coming, long ago. I’m +tired. Good luck, Peter." +The responsibility of the firm on his lonely shoulders and the prospect of his +solitary name on the office door left Keating uneasy. He needed a partner. He +chose Neil Dumont. Neil had grace and distinction. He was another Lucius Heyer. +The firm became Peter Keating & Cornelius Dumont. Some sort of drunken +celebration of the event was held by a few friends, but Keating did not attend +it. He had promised to attend, but he forgot about it, went for a solitary +weekend in the snowbound country, and did not remember the celebration until the +morning after it was held, when he was walking alone down a frozen country road. +Stoneridge was the last contract signed by the firm of Francon & Keating. + +7. +WHEN Dominique stepped off the train in New York, Wynand was there to meet her. +She had not written to him nor heard from him during the weeks of her residence +in Reno; she had notified no one of her return. But his figure standing on the +platform, standing calmly, with an air of finality, told her that he had kept in +touch with her lawyers, had followed every step of the divorce proceedings, had +known the date when the decree was granted, the hour when she took the train and +the number of her compartment. +421 + + He did not move forward when he saw her. It was she who walked to him, because +she knew that he wanted to see her walking, if only the short space between +them. She did not smile, but her face had the lovely serenity that can become a +smile without transition. +"Hello, Gail." +"Hello, Dominique." +She had not thought of him in his absence, not sharply, not with a personal +feeling of his reality, but now she felt an immediate recognition, a sense of +reunion with someone known and needed. +He said: "Give me your baggage checks, I’ll have it attended to later; my car is +outside." +She handed him the checks and he slipped them into his pocket. They knew they +must turn and walk up the platform to the exit, but the decisions both had made +in advance broke down in the same instant, because they did not turn, but +remained standing, looking at each other. +He made the first effort to correct the breach. He smiled lightly. +"If I had the right to say it, I’d say that I couldn’t have endured the waiting +had I known that you’d look as you do. But since I have no such right, I’m not +going to say it." +She laughed. "All right, Gail. That was a form of pretense, too--our being too +casual. It makes things more important, not less, doesn’t it? Let’s say whatever +we wish." +"I love you," he said, his voice expressionless, as if the words were a +statement of pain and not addressed to her. +"I’m glad to be back with you, Gail. I didn’t know I would be, but I’m glad." +"In what way, Dominique?" +"I don’t know. In a way of contagion from you, I think. In a way of finality and +peace." +Then they noticed that this was said in the middle of a crowded platform, with +people and baggage racks hurrying past. +They walked out to the street, to his car. She did not ask where they were +going; and did not care. She sat silently beside him. She felt divided, most of +her swept by a wish not to resist, and a small part of her left to wonder about +it. She felt a desire to let him carry her--a feeling of confidence without +appraisal, not a happy confidence, but confidence. After a while, she noticed +that her hand lay in his, the length of her gloved fingers held to the length of +his, only the spot of her bare wrist pressed to his skin. She had not noticed +him take her hand; it seemed so natural and what she had wanted from the moment +of seeing him. But she could not allow herself to want it. +"Where are we going, Gail?" she asked. +"To get the license. Then to the judge’s office. To be married." +422 + + She sat up slowly, turning to face him. She did not withdraw her hand, but her +fingers became rigid, conscious, taken away from him. +"No," she said. +She smiled and held the smile too long, in deliberate, fixed precision. He +looked at her calmly. +"I want a real wedding, Gail. I want it at the most ostentatious hotel in town. +I want engraved invitations, guests, mobs of guests, celebrities, flowers, flash +bulbs and newsreel cameras. I want the kind of wedding the public expects of +Gail Wynand." +He released her fingers, simply, without resentment. He looked abstracted for a +moment, as if he were calculating a problem in arithmetic, not too difficult. +Then he said: +"All right. That will take a week to arrange. I could have it done tonight, but +if it’s engraved invitations, we must give the guests a week’s notice at the +least. Otherwise it would look abnormal and you want a normal Gail Wynand +wedding. I’ll have to take you to a hotel now, where you can live for a week. I +had not planned for this, so I’ve made no reservations. Where would you like to +stay?" +"At your penthouse." +"No." +"The Nordland, then." +He leaned forward and said to the chauffeur: +"The Nordland, John." +In the lobby of the hotel, he said to her: +"I will see you a week from today, Tuesday, at the Noyes-Belmont, at four +o’clock in the afternoon. The invitations will have to be in the name of your +father. Let him know that I’ll get in touch with him. I’ll attend to the rest." +He bowed, his manner unchanged, his calm still holding the same peculiar quality +made of two things: the mature control of a man so certain of his capacity for +control that it could seem casual, and a childlike simplicity of accepting +events as if they were subject to no possible change. +She did not see him during that week. She found herself waiting impatiently. +She saw him again when she stood beside him, facing a judge who pronounced the +words of the marriage ceremony over the silence of six hundred people in the +floodlighted ballroom of the Noyes-Belmont Hotel. +The background she had wished was set so perfectly that it became its own +caricature, not a specific society wedding, but an impersonal prototype of +lavish, exquisite vulgarity. He had understood her wish and obeyed scrupulously; +he had refused himself the relief of exaggeration, he had not staged the event +crudely, but made it beautiful in the exact manner Gail Wynand, the publisher, +would have chosen had he wished to be married in public. But Gail Wynand did not +wish to be married in public. +423 + + He made himself fit the setting, as if he were part of the bargain, subject to +the same style. When he entered, she saw him looking at the mob of guests as if +he did not realize that such a mob was appropriate to a Grand Opera premiere or +a royal rummage sale, not to the solemn climax of his life. He looked correct, +incomparably distinguished. +Then she stood with him, the mob becoming a heavy silence and a gluttonous stare +behind him, and they faced the judge together. She wore a long, black dress with +a bouquet of fresh jasmine, his present, attached by a black band to her wrist. +Her face in the halo of a black lace hat was raised to the judge who spoke +slowly, letting his words hang one by one in the air. +She glanced at Wynand. He was not looking at her nor at the judge. Then she saw +that he was alone in that room. He held this moment and he made of it, of the +glare, of the vulgarity, a silent height of his own. He had not wished a +religious ceremony, which he did not respect, and he could have less respect for +the state’s functionary reciting a formula before him--but he made the rite an +act of pure religion. She thought, if she were being married to Roark in such a +setting, Roark would stand like this. +Afterward, the mockery of the monster reception that followed left him immune. +He posed with her for the battery of press cameras and he complied gracefully +with all the demands of the reporters, a special, noisier mob within the mob. He +stood with her in the receiving line, shaking an assembly belt of hands that +unrolled past them for hours. He looked untouched by the lights, the haystacks +of Easter lilies, the sounds of a string orchestra, the river of people flowing +on and breaking into a delta when it reached the champagne; untouched by these +guests who had come here driven by boredom, by an envious hatred, a reluctant +submission to an invitation bearing his dangerous name, a scandal-hungry +curiosity. He looked as if he did not know that they took his public immolation +as their rightful due, that they considered their presence as the indispensable +seal of sacrament upon the occasion, that of all the hundreds he and his bride +were the only ones to whom the performance was hideous. +She watched him intently. She wanted to see him take pleasure in all this, if +only for a moment. Let him accept and join, just once, she thought, let him show +the soul of the New York Banner in its proper element. She saw no acceptance. +She saw a hint of pain, at times; but even the pain did not reach him +completely. And she thought of the only other man she knew who had spoken about +suffering that went down only to a certain point. +When the last congratulations had drifted past them, they were free to leave by +the rules of the occasion. But he made no move to leave. She knew he was waiting +for her decision. She walked away from him into the currents of guests; she +smiled, bowed and listened to offensive nonsense, a glass of champagne in her +hand. +She saw her father in the throng. He looked proud and wistful; he seemed +bewildered. He had taken the announcement of her marriage quietly; he had said: +"I want you to be happy, Dominique. I want it very much. I hope he’s the right +man." His tone had said that he was not certain. +She saw Ellsworth Toohey in the crowd. He noticed her looking at him and turned +away quickly. She wanted to laugh aloud; but the matter of Ellsworth Toohey +caught off guard did not seem important enough to laugh about now. +Alvah Scarret pushed his way toward her. He was making a poor effort at a +suitable expression, but his face looked hurt and sullen. He muttered something +rapid about his wishes for her happiness, but then he said distinctly and with a +424 + + lively anger: +"But why, Dominique? Why?" +She could not quite believe that Alvah Scarret would permit himself the +crudeness of what the question seemed to mean. She asked coldly: +"What are you talking about, Alvah?" +"The veto, of course." +"What veto?" +"You know very well what veto. Now I ask you, with every sheet in the city here, +every damn one of them, the lousiest tabloid included, and the wire services +too--everything but the Banner! Everything but the Wynand papers! What am I to +tell people? How am I to explain? Is that a thing for you to do to a former +comrade of the trade?" +"You’d better repeat that, Alvah." +"You mean you didn’t know that Gail wouldn’t allow a single one of our guys +here? That we won’t have any stories tomorrow, not a spread, not a picture, +nothing but two lines on page eighteen?" +"No," she said, "I didn’t know it." +He wondered at the sudden jerk of her movement as she turned away from him. She +handed the champagne glass to the first stranger in sight, whom she mistook for +a waiter. She made her way through the crowd to Wynand. +"Let’s go, Gail." +"Yes, my dear." +She stood, incredulously, in the middle of the drawing room of his penthouse, +thinking that this place was now her home and how right it looked to be her +home. +He watched her. He showed no desire to speak or touch her, only to observe her +here, in his house, brought here, lifted high over the city; as if the +significance of the moment were not to be shared, not even with her. +She moved slowly across the room, took off her hat, leaned against the edge of a +table. She wondered why her normal desire to say little, to hold things closed, +broke down before him, why she felt compelled to simple frankness, such as she +could offer no one else. +"You’ve had your way after all, Gail. You were married as you wanted to be +married." +"Yes, I think so." +"It was useless to try to torture you." +"Actually, yes. But I didn’t mind it too much." +"You didn’t?" +425 + + "No. If that’s what you wanted it was only a matter of keeping my promise." +"But you hated it, Gail." +"Utterly. What of it? Only the first moment was hard--when you said it in the +car. Afterward, I was rather glad of it." He spoke quietly, matching her +frankness; she knew he would leave her the choice--he would follow her +manner--he would keep silent or admit anything she wished to be admitted. +"Why?" +"Didn’t you notice your own mistake--if it was a mistake? You wouldn’t have +wanted to make me suffer if you were completely indifferent to me." +"No. It was not a mistake." +"You’re a good loser, Dominique." +"I think that’s also contagion from you, Gail. And there’s something I want to +thank you for." +"What?" +"That you barred our wedding from the Wynand papers." He looked at her, his eyes +alert in a special way for a moment, then he smiled. +"It’s out of character--your thanking me for that." +"It was out of character for you to do it." +"I had to. But I thought you’d be angry." +"I should have been. But I wasn’t. I’m not. I thank you." +"Can one feel gratitude for gratitude? It’s a little hard to express, but that’s +what I feel, Dominique." +She looked at the soft light on the walls around her. That lighting was part of +the room, giving the walls a special texture of more than material or color. She +thought that there were other rooms beyond these walls, rooms she had never seen +which were hers now. And she found that she wanted them to be hers. +"Gail, I haven’t asked you what we are to do now. Are we going away? Are we +having a honeymoon? Funny, I haven’t even wondered about it. I thought of the +wedding and nothing beyond. As if it stopped there and you took over from then +on. Also out of character, Gail." +"But not in my favor, this time. Passivity is not a good sign. Not for you." +"It might be--if I’m glad of it." +"Might. Though it won’t last. No, we’re not going anywhere. Unless you wish to +go." +"No." +"Then we stay here. Another peculiar manner of making an exception. The proper +manner for you and me. Going away has always been running--for both of us. This +time, we don’t run." +426 + + "Yes, Gail." +When he held her and kissed her, her arm lay bent, pressed between her body and +his, her hand at her shoulder--and she felt her cheek touching the faded jasmine +bouquet on her wrist, its perfume still intact, still a delicate suggestion of +spring. +When she entered his bedroom, she found that it was not the place she had seen +photographed in countless magazines. The glass cage had been demolished. The +room built in its place was a solid vault without a single window. It was +lighted and air-conditioned, but neither light nor air came from the outside. +She lay in his bed and she pressed her palms to the cold, smooth sheet at her +sides, not to let her arms move and touch him. But her rigid indifference did +not drive him to helpless anger. He understood. He laughed. She heard him +say--his voice rough, without consideration, amused--"It won’t do, Dominique." +And she knew that this barrier would not be held between them, that she had no +power to hold it. She felt the answer in her body, an answer of hunger, of +acceptance, of pleasure. She thought that it was not a matter of desire, not +even a matter of the sexual act, but only that man was the life force and woman +could respond to nothing else; that this man had the will of life, the prime +power, and this act was only its simplest statement, and she was responding not +to the act nor to the man, but to that force within him. +# +"Well?" asked Ellsworth Toohey. "Now do you get the point?" +He stood leaning informally against the back of Scarret’s chair, and Scarret sat +staring down at a hamper full of mail by the side of his desk. +"Thousands," sighed Scarret, "thousands, Ellsworth. You ought to see what they +call him. Why didn’t he print the story of his wedding? What’s he ashamed of? +What’s he got to hide? Why didn’t he get married in church, like any decent man? +How could he marry a divorcee? That’s what they’re all asking. Thousands. And he +won’t even look at the letters. Gail Wynand, the man they called the seismograph +of public opinion." +"That’s right," said Toohey. "That kind of a man." +"Here’s a sample," Scarret picked up a letter from his desk and read aloud: +"’I’m a respectable woman and mother of five children and I certainly don’t +think I want to bring up my children with your newspaper. Have taken same for +fourteen years, but now that you show that you’re the kind of man that has no +decency and making a mockery of the holy institution of marriage which is to +commit adultery with a fallen woman also another man’s wife who gets married in +a black dress as she jolly well ought to, I won’t read your newspaper any more +as you’re not a man fit for children, and I’m certainly disappointed in you. +Very truly yours. Mrs. Thomas Parker.’ I read it to him. He just laughed." +"Uh-huh," said Toohey. +"What’s got into him?" +"It’s nothing that got into him, Alvah. It’s something that got out at last." +"By the way, did you know that many papers dug up their old pictures of +Dominique’s nude statue from that goddamn temple and ran it right with the +wedding story--to show Mrs. Wynand’s interest in art, the bastards! Are they +427 + + glad to get back at Gail! Are they giving it to him, the lice! Wonder who +reminded them of that one." +"I wouldn’t know." +"Well, of course, it’s just one of those storms in a teacup. They’ll forget all +about it in a few weeks. I don’t think it will do much harm." +"No. Not this incident alone. Not by itself." +"Huh? Are you predicting something?" +"Those letters predict it, Alvah. Not the letters as such. But that he wouldn’t +read them." +"Oh, it’s no use getting too silly either. Gail knows where to stop and when. +Don’t make a mountain out of a mo--" He glanced up at Toohey and his voice +switched to: "Christ, yes, Ellsworth, you’re right. What are we going to do?" +"Nothing, my friend, nothing. Not for a long time yet." Toohey sat down on the +edge of Scarret’s desk and let the tip of his pointed shoe play among the +envelopes in the hamper, tossing them up, making them rustle. He had acquired a +pleasant habit of dropping in and out of Scarret’s office at all hours. Scarret +had come to depend on him. +"Say, Ellsworth," Scarret asked suddenly, "are you really loyal to the Banner!" +"Alvah, don’t talk in dialect. Nobody’s really that stuffy," +"No, I mean it....Well, you know what I mean." +"Haven’t the faintest idea. Who’s ever disloyal to his bread and butter?" +"Yeah, that’s so....Still, you know, Ellsworth, I like you a lot, only I’m never +sure when you’re just talking my language or when it’s really yours." +"Don’t go getting yourself into psychological complexities. You’ll get all +tangled up. What’s on your mind?" +"Why do you still write for the New Frontiers!" +"For money." +"Oh, come, that’s chicken feed to you." +"Well, it’s a prestige magazine. Why shouldn’t I write for them? You haven’t got +an exclusive on me." +"No, and I don’t care who you write for on the side. But the New Frontiers has +been damn funny lately." +"About what?" +"About Gail Wynand." +"Oh, rubbish, Alvah!" +"No sir, this isn’t rubbish. You just haven’t noticed, guess you don’t read it +close enough, but I’ve got an instinct about things like that and I know. I know +428 + + when it’s just some smart young punk taking potshots or when a magazine means +business." +"You’re nervous, Alvah, and you’re exaggerating. The New Frontiers is a liberal +magazine and they’ve always sniped at Gail Wynand. Everybody has. He’s never +been any too popular in the trade, you know. Hasn’t hurt him, though, has it?" +"This is different. I don’t like it when there’s a system behind it, a kind of +special purpose, like a lot of little trickles dribbling along, all innocently, +and pretty soon they make a little stream, and it all fits pat, and pretty +soon..." +"Getting a persecution mania, Alvah?" +"I don’t like it. It was all right when people took cracks at his yachts and +women and a few municipal election scandals--which were never proved," he added +hastily. "But I don’t like it when it’s that new intelligentsia slang that +people seem to be going for nowadays: Gail Wynand, the exploiter, Gail Wynand, +the pirate of capitalism, Gail Wynand, the disease of an era. It’s still crap, +Ellsworth, only there’s dynamite in that kind of crap." +"It’s just the modern way of saying the same old things, nothing more. Besides, +I can’t be responsible for the policy of a magazine just because I sell them an +article once in a while." +"Yeah, but...That’s not what I hear." +"What do you hear?" +"I hear you’re financing the damn thing." +"Who, me? With what?" +"Well, not you yourself exactly. But I hear it was you who got young Ronny +Pickering, the booze hound, to give them a shot in the arm to the tune of one +hundred thousand smackers, just about when New Frontiers was going the way of +all frontiers." +"Hell, that was just to save Ronny from the town’s more expensive gutters. The +kid was going to the dogs. Gave him a sort of higher purpose in life. And put +one hundred thousand smackers to better use than the chorus cuties who’d have +got it out of him anyway." +"Yeah, but you could’ve attached a little string to the gift, slipped word to +the editors that they’d better lay off Gail or else." +"The New Frontiers is not the Banner, Alvah. It’s a magazine of principles. One +doesn’t attach strings to its editors and one doesn’t tell them ’or else.’" +"In this game, Ellsworth? Whom are you kidding?" +"Well, if it will set your mind at rest, I’ll tell you something you haven’t +heard. It’s not supposed to be known--it was done through a lot of proxies. Did +you know that I just got Mitchell Layton to buy a nice fat chunk of the Banner?" +"No!" +"Yes." +429 + + "Christ, Ellsworth, that’s great! Mitchell Layton? We can use a reservoir like +that and...Wait a minute. Mitchell Layton?" +"Yes. What’s wrong with Mitchell Layton?" +"Isn’t he the little boy who couldn’t digest grandpaw’s money?" +"Grandpaw left him an awful lot of money." +"Yeah, but he’s a crackpot. He’s the one who’s been a Yogi, then a vegetarian, +then a Unitarian, then a nudist--and now he’s gone to build a palace of the +proletariat in Moscow." +"So what?" +"But Jesus!--a Red among our stockholders?" +"Mitch isn’t a Red. How can one be a Red with a quarter of a billion dollars? +He’s just a pale tea-rose. Mostly yellow. But a nice kid at heart." +"But--on the Banner!" +"Alvah, you’re an ass. Don’t you see? I’ve made him put some dough into a good, +solid, conservative paper. That’ll cure him of his pink notions and set him in +the right direction. Besides, what harm can he do? Your dear Gail controls his +papers, doesn’t he?" +"Does Gail know about this?" +"No. Dear Gail hasn’t been as watchful in the last five years as he used to be. +And you’d better not tell him. You see the way Gail’s going. He’ll need a little +pressure. And you’ll need the dough. Be nice to Mitch Layton. He can come in +handy." +"That’s so." +"It is. You see? My heart’s in the right place. I’ve helped a puny little +liberal mag like the New Frontiers, but I’ve also brought a much more +substantial hunk of cash to a big stronghold of arch-conservatism such as the +New York Banner." +"So you have. Damn decent of you, too, considering that you’re a kind of radical +yourself." +"Now are you going to talk about any disloyalty?" +"Guess not. Guess you’ll stand by the old Banner." +"Of course I will. Why, I love the Banner. I’d do anything for it. Why, I’d give +my life for the New York Banner." + +8. +WALKING the soil of a desert island holds one anchored to the rest of the earth; +but in their penthouse, with the telephone disconnected, Wynand and Dominique +had no feeling of the fifty-seven floors below them, of steel shafts braced +430 + + against granite--and it seemed to them that their home was anchored in space, +not an island, but a planet. The city became a friendly sight, an abstraction +with which no possible communication could be established, like the sky, a +spectacle to be admired, but of no direct concern in their lives. +For two weeks after their wedding they never left the penthouse. She could have +pressed the button of the elevator and broken these weeks any time she wished; +she did not wish it. She had no desire to resist, to wonder, to question. It was +enchantment and peace. +He sat talking to her for hours when she wanted. He was content to sit silently, +when she preferred, and look at her as he looked at the objects in his art +gallery, with the same distant, undisturbing glance. He answered any question +she put to him. He never asked questions. He never spoke of what he felt. When +she wished to be alone, he did not call for her. One evening she sat reading in +her room and saw him standing at the frozen parapet of the dark roof garden +outside, not looking back at the house, only standing in the streak of light +from her window. +When the two weeks ended, he went back to his work, to the office of the Banner. +But the sense of isolation remained, like a theme declared and to be preserved +through all their future days. He came home in the evening and the city ceased +to exist. He had no desire to go anywhere. He invited no guests. +He never mentioned it, but she knew that he did not want her to step out of the +house, neither with him nor alone. It was a quiet obsession which he did not +expect to enforce. When he came home, he asked: "Have you been out?"--never: +"Where have you been?" It was not jealousy--the "where" did not matter. When she +wanted to buy a pair of shoes, he had three stores send a collection of shoes +for her choice--it prevented her visit to a store. When she said she wanted to +see a certain picture, he had a projection room built on the roof. +She obeyed, for the first few months. When she realized that she loved their +isolation, she broke it at once. She made him accept invitations and she invited +guests to their house. He complied without protest. +But he maintained a wall she could not break--the wall he had erected between +his wife and his newspapers. Her name never appeared in their pages. He stopped +every attempt to draw Mrs. Gail Wynand into public life--to head committees, +sponsor charity drives, endorse crusades. He did not hesitate to open her +mail--if it bore an official letterhead that betrayed its purpose--to destroy it +without answer and to tell her that he had destroyed it. She shrugged and said +nothing. +Yet he did not seem to share her contempt for his papers. He did not allow her +to discuss them. She could not discover what he thought of them, nor what he +felt. Once, when she commented on an offensive editorial, he said coldly: +"I’ve never apologized for the Banner. I never will." +"But this is really awful, Gail." +"I thought you married me as the publisher of the Banner." +"I thought you didn’t like to think of that." +"What I like or dislike doesn’t concern you. Don’t expect me to change the +Banner or sacrifice it. I wouldn’t do that for anyone on earth." +431 + + She laughed. "I wouldn’t ask it, Gail." +He did not laugh in answer. +In his office in the Banner Building, he worked with a new energy, a kind of +elated, ferocious drive that surprised the men who had known him in his most +ambitious years. He stayed in the office all night when necessary, as he had not +done for a long time. Nothing changed in his methods and policy. Alvah Scarret +watched him with satisfaction. "We were wrong about him, Ellsworth," said +Scarret to his constant companion, "it’s the same old Gail, God bless him. +Better than ever." +"My dear Alvah," said Toohey, "nothing is ever as simple as you think--nor as +fast." +"But he’s happy. Don’t you see that he’s happy?" +"To be happy is the most dangerous thing that could have happened to him. And, +as a humanitarian for once, I mean this for his own sake." +Sally Brent decided to outwit her boss. Sally Brent was one of the proudest +possessions of the Banner, a stout, middle-aged woman who dressed like a model +for a style show of the twenty-first century and wrote like a chambermaid. She +had a large personal following among the readers of the Banner. Her popularity +made her overconfident. +Sally Brent decided to do a story on Mrs. Gail Wynand. It was just her type of +story and there it was, simply going to waste. She gained admittance to Wynand’s +penthouse, using the tactics of gaining admittance to places where one is not +wanted which she had been taught as a well-trained Wynand employee. She made her +usual dramatic entrance, wearing a black dress with a fresh sunflower on her +shoulder--her constant ornament that had become a personal trade-mark--and she +said to Dominique breathlessly: "Mrs. Wynand, I’ve come here to help you deceive +your husband!" +Then she winked at her own naughtiness and explained: "Our dear Mr. Wynand has +been unfair to you, my dear, depriving you of your rightful fame, for some +reason which I just simply can’t understand. But we’ll fix him, you and I. What +can a man do when we girls get together? He simply doesn’t know what good copy +you are. So just give me your story, and I’ll write it, and it will be so good +that he just simply won’t be able not to run it." +Dominique was alone at home, and she smiled in a manner which Sally Brent had +never seen before, so the right adjectives did not occur to Sally’s usually +observant mind. Dominique gave her the story. She gave the exact kind of story +Sally had dreamed about. +"Yes, of course I cook his breakfast," said Dominique. "Ham and eggs is his +favorite dish, just plain ham and eggs...Oh yes, Miss Brent, I’m very happy. I +open my eyes in the morning and I say to myself, it can’t be true, it’s not poor +little me who’s become the wife of the great Gail Wynand who had all the +glamorous beauties of the world to choose from. You see, I’ve been in love with +him for years. He was just a dream to me, a beautiful, impossible dream. And now +it’s like a dream come true....Please, Miss Brent, take this message from me to +the women of America: Patience is always rewarded and romance is just around the +corner. I think it’s a beautiful thought and perhaps it will help other girls as +it has helped me....Yes, all I want of life is to make Gail happy, to share his +joys and sorrows, to be a good wife and mother." +432 + + Alvah Scarret read the story and liked it so much that he lost all caution. "Run +it off, Alvah," Sally Brent urged him, "just have a proof run off and leave it +on his desk. He’ll okay it, see if he won’t." That evening Sally Brent was +fired. Her costly contract was bought off--it had three more years to run--and +she was told never to enter the Banner Building again for any purpose +whatsoever. +Scarret protested in panic: "Gail, you can’t fire Sally! Not Sally!" +"When I can’t fire anyone I wish on my paper, I’ll close it and blow up the +God-damn building," said Wynand calmly. +"But her public! We’ll lose her public!" +"To hell with her public." +That night, at dinner, Wynand took from his pocket a crumpled wad of paper--the +proof cut of the story--and threw it, without a word, at Dominique’s face across +the table. It hit her cheek and fell to the floor. She picked it up, unrolled +it, saw what it was and laughed aloud. +Sally Brent wrote an article on Gail Wynand’s love life. In a gay, intellectual +manner, in the terms of sociological study, the article presented material such +as no pulp magazine would have accepted. It was published in the New Frontiers. +# +Wynand bought Dominique a necklace designed at his special order. It was made of +diamonds without visible settings, spaced wide apart in an irregular pattern, +like a handful scattered accidentally, held together by platinum chains made +under a microscope, barely noticeable. When he clasped it about her neck, it +looked like drops of water fallen at random. +She stood before a mirror. She slipped her dressing gown off her shoulders and +let the raindrops glitter on her skin. She said: +"That life story of the Bronx housewife who murdered her husband’s young +mistress is pretty sordid, Gail. But I think there’s something dirtier--the +curiosity of the people who like to read about it. And then there’s something +dirtier still--the people who pander to that curiosity. Actually, it was that +housewife--she has piano legs and such a baggy neck in her pictures--who made +this necklace possible. It’s a beautiful necklace. I shall be proud to wear it." +He smiled; the sudden brightness of his eyes had an odd quality of courage. +"That’s one way of looking at it," he said. "There’s another. I like to think +that I took the worst refuse of the human spirit--the mind of that housewife and +the minds of the people who like to read about her--and I made of it this +necklace on your shoulders. I like to think that I was an alchemist capable of +performing so great a purification." +She saw no apology, no regret, no resentment as he looked at her. It was a +strange glance; she had noticed it before; a glance of simple worship. And it +made her realize that there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper +himself an object of reverence. +She was sitting before her mirror when he entered her dressing room on the +following night. He bent down, he pressed his lips to the back of her neck--and +he saw a square of paper attached to the corner of her mirror. It was the +decoded copy of the cablegram that had ended her career on the Banner. FIRE THE +433 + + BITCH. G W +He lifted his shoulders, to stand erect behind her. He asked: +"How did you get that?" +"Ellsworth Toohey gave it to me. I thought it was worth preserving. Of course, I +didn’t know it would ever become so appropriate." +He inclined his head gravely, acknowledging the authorship, and said nothing +else. +She expected to find the cablegram gone next morning. But he had not touched it. +She would not remove it. It remained on display on the corner of her mirror. +When he held her in his arms, she often saw his eyes move to that square of +paper. She could not tell what he thought. +# +In the spring, a publishers’ convention took him away from New York for a week. +It was their first separation. Dominique surprised him by coming to meet him at +the airport when he returned. She was gay and gentle; her manner held a promise +he had never expected, could not trust, and found himself trusting completely. +When he entered the drawing room of their penthouse and slumped down, half +stretching on a couch, she knew that he wanted to lie still here, to feel the +recaptured safety of his own world. She saw his eyes, open, delivered to her, +without defense. She stood straight, ready. She said: +"You’d better dress, Gail. We’re going to the theater tonight." +He lifted himself to a sitting posture. He smiled, the slanting ridges standing +out on his forehead. She had a cold feeling of admiration for him: the control +was perfect, all but these ridges. He said: +"Fine. Black tie or white?" +"White. I have tickets for No Skin Off Your Nose. They were very hard to get." +It was too much; it seemed too ludicrous to be part of this moment’s contest +between them. He broke down by laughing frankly, in helpless disgust. +"Good God, Dominique, not that one!" +"Why, Gail, it’s the biggest hit in town. Your own critic, Jules Fougler"--he +stopped laughing. He understood--"said it was the great play of our age. +Ellsworth Toohey said it was the fresh voice of the coming new world. Alvah +Scarret said it was not written in ink, but in the milk of human kindness. Sally +Brent--before you fired her--said it made her laugh with a lump in her throat. +Why, it’s the godchild of the Banner. I thought you would certainly want to see +it." +"Yes, of course," he said. +He got up and went to dress. +No Skin Off Your Nose had been running for many months. Ellsworth Toohey had +mentioned regretfully in his column that the title of the play had had to be +changed slightly--"as a concession to the stuffy prudery of the middle class +which still controls our theater. It is a crying example of interference with +434 + + the freedom of the artist. Now don’t let’s hear any more of that old twaddle +about ours being a free society. Originally, the title of this beautiful play +was an authentic line drawn from the language of the people, with the brave, +simple eloquence of folk expression." +Wynand and Dominique sat in the center of the fourth row, not looking at each +other, listening to the play. The things being done on the stage were merely +trite and crass; but the undercurrent made them frightening. There was an air +about the ponderous inanities spoken, which the actors had absorbed like an +infection; it was in their smirking faces, in the slyness of their voices; in +their untidy gestures. It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations and +insolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of innocent presumption, +but of conscious effrontery; as if the author knew the nature of his work and +boasted of his power to make it appear sublime in the minds of his audience and +thus destroy the capacity for the sublime within them. The work justified the +verdict of its sponsors: it brought laughs, it was amusing; it was an indecent +joke, acted out not on the stage but in the audience. It was a pedestal from +which a god had been torn, and in his place there stood, not Satan with a sword, +but a corner lout sipping a bottle of Coca-Cola. +There was silence in the audience, puzzled and humble. When someone laughed, the +rest joined in, with relief, glad to learn that they were enjoying themselves. +Jules Fougler had not tried to influence anybody; he had merely made clear--well +in advance and through many channels--that anyone unable to enjoy this play was, +basically, a worthless human being. "It’s no use asking for explanations," he +had said. "Either you’re fine enough to like it or you aren’t." +In the intermission Wynand heard a stout woman saying: "It’s wonderful. I don’t +understand it, but I have the feeling that it’s something very important." +Dominique asked him: "Do you wish to go, Gail?" He said: "No. We’ll stay to the +end." +He was silent in the car on their way home. When they entered their drawing +room, he stood waiting, ready to hear and accept anything. For a moment she felt +the desire to spare him. She felt empty and very tired. She did not want to hurt +him; she wanted to seek his help. +Then she thought again what she had thought in the theater. She thought that +this play was the creation of the Banner, this was what the Banner had forced +into life, had fed, upheld, made to triumph. And it was the Banner that had +begun and ended the destruction of the Stoddard Temple....The New York Banner, +November 2, 1930--"One Small Voice"--"Sacrilege" by Ellsworth M. Toohey--"The +Churches of our Childhood" by Alvah Scarret--"Are you happy, Mr. +Superman?"...And now that destruction was not an event long since past--this was +not a comparison between two mutually unmeasurable entities, a building and a +play--it was not an accident, nor a matter of persons, of Ike, Fougler, Toohey, +herself...and Roark. It was a contest without time, a struggle of two +abstractions, the thing that had created the building against the things that +made the play possible--two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple +statement--two forces that had fought since the world began--and every religion +had known of them--and there had always been a God and a Devil--only men had +been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil--he was not single and big, he +was many and smutty and small. The Banner had destroyed the Stoddard Temple in +order to make room for this play--it could not do otherwise--there was no middle +choice, no escape, no neutrality--it was one or the other--it had always +been--and the contest had many symbols, but no name and no statement....Roark, +she heard herself screaming inside, Roark...Roark...Roark... +"Dominique...what’s the matter?" +435 + + She heard Wynand’s voice. It was soft and anxious. He had never allowed himself +to betray anxiety. She grasped the sound as a reflection of her own face, of +what he had seen in her face. +She stood straight, and sure of herself, and very silent inside. +"I’m thinking of you, Gail," she said. +He waited. +"Well, Gail? The total passion for the total height?" She laughed, letting her +arms swing sloppily in the manner of the actors they had seen. "Say, Gail, have +you got a two-cent stamp with a picture of George Washington on it?...How old +are you, Gail? How hard have you worked? Your life is more than half over, but +you’ve seen your reward tonight. Your crowning achievement. Of course, no man is +ever quite equal to his highest passion. Now if you strive and make a great +effort, some day you’ll rise to the level of that play!" +He stood quietly, hearing it, accepting. +"I think you should take a manuscript of that play and place it on a stand in +the center of your gallery downstairs. I think you should rechristen your yacht +and call her No Skin Off Your Nose. I think you should take me--" +"Keep still." +"--and put me in the cast and make me play the role of Mary every evening. Mary +who adopts the homeless muskrat and..." +"Dominique, keep still." +"Then talk. I want to hear you talk." +"I’ve never justified myself to anyone." +"Well, boast then. That would do just as well." +"If you want to hear it, it made me sick, that play. As you knew it would. That +was worse than the Bronx housewife." +"Much worse." +"But I can think of something worse still. Writing a great play and offering it +for tonight’s audience to laugh at. Letting oneself be martyred by the kind of +people we saw frolicking tonight." +He saw that something had reached her; he could not tell whether it was an +answer of surprise or of anger. He did not know how well she recognized these +words. He went on: +"It did make me sick. But so have a great many things which the Banner has done. +It was worse tonight, because there was a quality about it that went beyond the +usual. A special kind of malice. But if this is popular with fools, it’s the +Banner’s legitimate province. The Banner was created for the benefit of fools. +What else do you want me to admit?" +"What you felt tonight." +436 + + "A minor kind of hell. Because you sat there with me. That’s what you wanted, +wasn’t it? To make me feel the contrast. Still, you miscalculated. I looked at +the stage and I thought, this is what people are like, such are their spirits, +but I--I’ve found you, I have you--and the contrast was worth the pain. I did +suffer tonight, as you wanted, but it was a pain that went only down to a +certain point and then..." +"Shut up!" she screamed. "Shut up, God damn you!" +They stood for a moment, both astonished. He moved first; he knew she needed his +help; he grasped her shoulders. She tore herself away. She walked across the +room, to the window; she stood looking at the city, at the great buildings +spread in black and fire below her. +After a while she said, her voice toneless: +"I’m sorry, Gail." +He did not answer. +"I had no right to say those things to you." She did not turn, her arms raised, +holding the frame of the window. "We’re even, Gail. I’m paid back, if that will +make it better for you. I broke first." +"I don’t want you to be paid back." He spoke quietly. "Dominique, what was it?" +"Nothing." +"What did I make you think of? It wasn’t what I said. It was something else. +What did the words mean to you?" +"Nothing." +"A pain that went only down to a certain point. It was that sentence. Why?" She +was looking at the city. In the distance she could see the shaft of the Cord +Building. "Dominique, I’ve seen what you can take. It must be something very +terrible if it could do that to you. I must know. There’s nothing impossible. I +can help you against it, whatever it is." She did not answer. "At the theater, +it was not just that fool play. There was something else for you tonight. I saw +your face. And then it was the same thing again here. What is it?" +"Gail," she said softly, "will you forgive me?" +He let a moment pass; he had not been prepared for that. +"What have I to forgive you?" +"Everything. And tonight." +"That was your privilege. The condition on which you married me. To make me pay +for the Banner." +"I don’t want to make you pay for it." +"Why don’t you want it any more?" +"It can’t be paid for." +In the silence she listened to his steps pacing the room behind her. +437 + + "Dominique. What was it?" +"The pain that stops at a certain point? Nothing. Only that you had no right to +say it. The men who have, pay for that right, a price you can’t afford. But it +doesn’t matter now. Say it if you wish. I have no right to say it either." +"That wasn’t all." +"I think we have a great deal in common, you and I. We’ve committed the same +treason somewhere. No, that’s a bad word....Yes, I think it’s the right word. +It’s the only one that has the feeling of what I mean." +"Dominique, you can’t feel that." His voice sounded strange. She turned to him. +"Why?" +"Because that’s what I felt tonight. Treason." +"Toward whom?" +"I don’t know. If I were religious, I’d say ’God.’ But I’m not religious." +"That’s what I meant, Gail." +"Why should you feel it? The Banner is not your child." +"There are other forms of the same guilt." +Then he walked to her across the long room, he held her in his arms, he said: +"You don’t know the meaning of the kind of words you use. We have a great deal +in common, but not that. I’d rather you went on spitting at me than trying to +share my offenses." +She let her hand rest against the length of his cheek, her fingertips at his +temple. +He asked: +"Will you tell me--now--what it was?" +"Nothing. I undertook more than I could carry. You’re tired, Gail. Why don’t you +go on upstairs? Leave me here for a little while. I just want to look at the +city. Then I’ll join you and I’ll be all right." + +9. +DOMINIQUE stood at the rail of the yacht, the deck warm under her flat sandals, +the sun on her bare legs, the wind blowing her thin white dress. She looked at +Wynand stretched in a deck chair before her. +She thought of the change she noticed in him again aboard ship. She had watched +him through the months of their summer cruise. She had seen him once running +down a companionway; the picture remained in her mind; a tall white figure +thrown forward in a streak of speed and confidence; his hand grasped a railing, +438 + + risking deliberately the danger of a sudden break, gaining a new propulsion. He +was not the corrupt publisher of a popular empire. He was an aristocrat aboard a +yacht. He looked, she thought, like what one believes aristocracy to be when one +is young: a brilliant kind of gaiety without guilt. +She looked at him in the deck chair. She thought that relaxation was attractive +only in those for whom it was an unnatural state; then even limpness acquired +purpose. She wondered about him; Gail Wynand, famous for his extraordinary +capacity; but this was not merely the force of an ambitious adventurer who had +created a chain of newspapers; this--the quality she saw in him here--the thing +stretched out under the sun like an answer--this was greater, a first cause, a +faculty out of universal dynamics. +"Gail," she said suddenly, involuntarily. +He opened his eyes to look at her. +"I wish I had taken a recording of that," he said lazily. "You’d be startled to +hear what it sounded like. Quite wasted here. I’d like to play it back in a +bedroom." +"I’ll repeat it there, if you wish." +"Thank you, dearest. And I promise not to exaggerate or presume too much. You’re +not in love with me. You’ve never loved anyone." +"Why do you think that?" +"If you loved a man, it wouldn’t be just a matter of a circus wedding and an +atrocious evening in the theater. You’d put him through total hell." +"How do you know that, Gail?" +"Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I’m not the Gail +Wynand you’d heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If +you were in love you’d want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because +that’s the impossible, the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. +That would be the one gift, the great exception you’d want to offer the man you +loved. But it wouldn’t be easy for you." +"If that’s true, then you..." +"Then I become gentle and humble--to your great astonishment--because I’m the +worst scoundrel living." +"I don’t believe that, Gail." +"No? I’m not the person before last any more?" +"Not any more." +"Well, dearest, as a matter of fact, I am." +"Why do you want to think that?" +"I don’t want to. But I like to be honest. That has been my only private luxury. +Don’t change your mind about me. Go on seeing me as you saw me before we met." +"Gail, that’s not what you want." +439 + + "It doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t want anything--except to own you. +Without any answer from you. It has to be without answer. If you begin to look +at me too closely, you’ll see things you won’t like at all." +"What things?" +"You’re so beautiful, Dominique. It’s such a lovely accident on God’s part that +there’s one person who matches inside and out." +"What things, Gail?" +"Do you know what you’re actually in love with? Integrity. The impossible. The +clean, consistent, reasonable, self-faithful, the all-of-one-style, like a work +of art. That’s the only field where it can be found--art. But you want it in the +flesh. You’re in love with it. Well, you see, I’ve never had any integrity." +"How sure are you of that, Gail?" +"Have you forgotten the Banner?" +"To hell with the Banner." +"All right, to hell with the Banner. It’s nice to hear you say that. But the +Banner’s not the major symptom. That I’ve never practiced any sort of integrity +is not so important. What’s important is that I’ve never felt any need for it. I +hate the conception of it. I hate the presumptuousness of the idea." +"Dwight Carson..." she said. He heard the sound of disgust in her voice. +He laughed. "Yes, Dwight Carson. The man I bought. The individualist who’s +become a mob-glorifier and, incidentally, a dipsomaniac. I did that. That was +worse than the Banner, wasn’t it? You don’t like to be reminded of that?" +"No." +"But surely you’ve heard enough screaming about it. All the giants of the spirit +whom I’ve broken. I don’t think anybody ever realized how much I enjoyed doing +it. It’s a kind of lust. I’m perfectly indifferent to slugs like Ellsworth +Toohey or my friend Alvah, and quite willing to leave them in peace. But just +let me see a man of slightly higher dimension--and I’ve got to make a sort of +Toohey out of him. I’ve got to. It’s like a sex urge." +"Why?" +"I don’t know." +"Incidentally, you misunderstand Ellsworth Toohey." +"Possibly. You don’t expect me to waste mental effort to untangle that snail’s +shell?" +"And you contradict yourself." +"Where?" +"Why didn’t you set out to destroy me?" +"The exception-making, Dominique. I love you. I had to love you. God help you if +440 + + you were a man." +"Gail--why?" +"Why have I done all that?" +"Yes." +"Power, Dominique. The only thing I ever wanted. To know that there’s not a man +living whom I can’t force to do--anything. Anything I choose. The man I couldn’t +break would destroy me. But I’ve spent years finding out how safe I am. They say +I have no sense of honor, I’ve missed something in life. Well, I haven’t missed +very much, have I? The thing I’ve missed--it doesn’t exist." +He spoke in a normal tone of voice, but he noticed suddenly that she was +listening with the intent concentration needed to hear a whisper of which one +can afford to lose no syllable. +"What’s the matter, Dominique? What are you thinking about?" +"I’m listening to you, Gail." +She did not say she was listening to his words and to the reason behind them. It +was suddenly so clear to her that she heard it as an added clause to each +sentence, even though he had no knowledge of what he was confessing. +"The worst thing about dishonest people is what they think of as honesty," he +said. "I know a woman who’s never held to one conviction for three days running, +but when I told her she had no integrity, she got very tight-lipped and said her +idea of integrity wasn’t mine; it seems she’d never stolen any money. Well, +she’s one that’s in no danger from me whatever. I don’t hate her. I hate the +impossible conception you love so passionately, Dominique." +"Do you?" +"I’ve had a lot of fun proving it." +She walked to him and sat down on the deck beside his chair, the planks smooth +and hot under her bare legs. He wondered why she looked at him so gently. He +frowned. She knew that some reflection of what she had understood remained in +her eyes--and she looked away from him. +"Gail, why tell me all that? It’s not what you want me to think of you." +"No. It isn’t. Why tell you now? Want the truth? Because it has to be told. +Because I want to be honest with you. Only with you and with myself. But I +wouldn’t have the courage to tell you anywhere else. Not at home. Not ashore. +Only here--because here it doesn’t seem quite real. Does it?" +"No." +"I think I hoped that here you’d accept it--and still think of me as you did +when you spoke my name in that way I wanted to record." +She put her head against his chair, her face pressed to his knees, her hand +dropped, fingers half-curled, on the glistening planks of the deck. She did not +want to show what she had actually heard him saying about himself today. +# +441 + + On a night of late fall they stood together at the roof-garden parapet, looking +at the city. The long shafts made of lighted windows were like streams breaking +out of the black sky, flowing down in single drops to feed the great pool of +fire below. +"There they are, Dominique--the great buildings. The skyscrapers. Do you +remember? They were the first link between us. We’re both in love with them, you +and I." +She thought she should resent his right to say it. But she felt no resentment. +"Yes, Gail. I’m in love with them." +She looked at the vertical threads of light that were the Cord Building, she +raised her fingers off the parapet, just enough to touch the place of its unseen +form on the distant sky. She felt no reproach from it. +"I like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper," he said. "It makes +him no bigger than an ant--isn’t that the correct bromide for the occasion? The +God-damn fools! It’s man who made it--the whole incredible mass of stone and +steel. It doesn’t dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals +his true dimensions to the world. What we love about these buildings, Dominique, +is the creative faculty, the heroic in man." +"Do you love the heroic in man, Gail?" +"I love to think of it. I don’t believe it." +She leaned against the parapet and watched the green lights stretched in a long +straight line far below. She said: +"I wish I could understand you." +"I thought I should be quite obvious. I’ve never hidden anything from you." +He watched the electric signs that flashed in disciplined spasms over the black +river. Then he pointed to a blurred light, far to the south, a faint reflection +of blue. +"That’s the Banner Building. See, over there?--that blue light. I’ve done so +many things, but I’ve missed one, the most important. There’s no Wynand Building +in New York. Some day I’ll build a new home for the Banner. It will be the +greatest structure of the city and it will bear my name. I started in a +miserable dump, and the paper was called the Gazette. I was only a stooge for +some very filthy people. But I thought, then, of the Wynand Building that would +rise some day. I’ve thought of it all the years since." +"Why haven’t you built it?" +"I wasn’t ready for it." +"Why?" +"I’m not ready for it now. I don’t know why. I know only that it’s very +important to me. It will be the final symbol. I’ll know the right time when it +comes." +He turned to look out to the west, to a path of dim scattered lights. He +pointed: +442 + + "That’s where I was born. Hell’s Kitchen." She listened attentively; he seldom +spoke of his beginning. "I was sixteen when I stood on a roof and looked at the +city, like tonight. And decided what I would be." +The quality of his voice became a line underscoring the moment, saying: Take +notice, this is important. Not looking at him, she thought this was what he had +waited for, this should give her the answer, the key to him. Years ago, thinking +of Gail Wynand, she had wondered how such a man faced his life and his work; she +expected boasting and a hidden sense of shame, or impertinence flaunting its own +guilt. She looked at him. His head lifted, his eyes level on the sky before him, +he conveyed none of the things she had expected; he conveyed a quality +incredible in this connection: a sense of gallantry. +She knew it was a key, but it made the puzzle greater. Yet something within her +understood, knew the use of that key and made her speak. +"Gail, fire Ellsworth Toohey." +He turned to her, bewildered. +"Why?" +"Gail, listen." Her voice had an urgency she had never shown in speaking to him. +"I’ve never wanted to stop Toohey. I’ve even helped him. I thought he was what +the world deserved. I haven’t tried to save anything from him...or anyone. I +never thought it would be the Banner--the Banner which he fits best--that I’d +want to save from him." +"What on earth are you talking about?" +"Gail, when I married you, I didn’t know I’d come to feel this kind of loyalty +to you. It contradicts everything I’ve done, it contradicts so much more than I +can tell you--it’s a sort of catastrophe for me, a turning point--don’t ask me +why--it will take me years to understand--I know only that this is what I owe +you. Fire Ellsworth Toohey. Get him out before it’s too late. You’ve broken many +much less vicious men and much less dangerous. Fire Toohey, go after him and +don’t rest until you’ve destroyed every last bit of him." +"Why? Why should you think of him just now?" +"Because I know what he’s after." +"What is he after?" +"Control of the Wynand papers." +He laughed aloud; it was not derision or indignation; just pure gaiety greeting +the point of a silly joke. +"Gail..." she said helplessly. +"Oh for God’s sake, Dominique! And here I’ve always respected your judgment." +"You’ve never understood Toohey." +"And I don’t care to. Can you see me going after Ellsworth Toohey? A tank to +eliminate a bedbug? Why should I fire Elsie? He’s the kind that makes money for +me. People love to read his twaddle. I don’t fire good booby-traps like that. +443 + + He’s as valuable to me as a piece of flypaper." +"That’s the danger. Part of it." +"His wonderful following? I’ve had bigger and better sob-sisters on my payroll. +When a few of them had to be kicked out, that was the end of them. Their +popularity stopped at the door of the Banner. But the Banner went on." +"It’s not his popularity. It’s the special nature of it. You can’t fight him on +his terms. You’re only a tank--and that’s a very clean, innocent weapon. An +honest weapon that goes first, out in front, and mows everything down or takes +every counterblow. He’s a corrosive gas. The kind that eats lungs out. I think +there really is a secret to the core of evil and he has it. I don’t know what it +is. I know how he uses it and what he’s after." +"Control of the Wynand papers?" +"Control of the Wynand papers--as one of the means to an end." +"What end?" +"Control of the world." +He said with patient disgust: "What is this, Dominique? What sort of gag and +what for?" +"I’m serious, Gail. I’m terribly serious." +"Control of the world, my dear, belongs to men like me. The Tooheys of this +earth wouldn’t know how to dream about it." +"I’ll try to explain. It’s very difficult. The hardest thing to explain is the +glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see. But if you’ll +listen..." +"I won’t listen. You’ll forgive me, but discussing the idea of Ellsworth Toohey +as a threat to me is ridiculous. Discussing it seriously is offensive." +"Gail, I..." +"No. Darling, I don’t think you really understand much about the Banner. And I +don’t want you to. I don’t want you to take any part in it. Forget it. Leave the +Banner to me." +"Is it a demand, Gail?" +"It’s an ultimatum." +"All right." +"Forget it. Don’t go acquiring horror complexes about anyone as big as Ellsworth +Toohey. It’s not like you." +"All right, Gail. Let’s go in. It’s too cold for you here without an overcoat." +He chuckled softly--it was the kind of concern she had never shown for him +before. He took her hand and kissed her palm, holding it against his face. +# +444 + + For many weeks, when left alone together, they spoke little and never about each +other. But it was not a silence of resentment; it was the silence of an +understanding too delicate to limit by words. They would be in a room together +in the evening, saying nothing, content to feel each other’s presence. They +would look at each other suddenly--and both would smile, the smile like hands +clasped. +Then, one evening, she knew he would speak. She sat at her dressing-table. He +came in and stood leaning against the wall beside her. He looked at her hands, +at her naked shoulders, but she felt as if he did not see her; he was looking at +something greater than the beauty of her body, greater than his love for her; he +was looking at himself--and this, she knew, was the one incomparable tribute. +"I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival...I’ve +given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need..." She +heard Roark’s words, Roark’s voice speaking for Gail Wynand--and she felt no +sense of treason to Roark in using the words of his love for the love of another +man. +"Gail," she said gently, "some day I’ll have to ask your forgiveness for having +married you." +He shook his head slowly, smiling. She said: +"I wanted you to be my chain to the world. You’ve become my defense, instead. +And that makes my marriage dishonest." +"No. I told you I would accept any reason you chose." +"But you’ve changed everything for me. Or was it I that changed it? I don’t +know. We’ve done something strange to each other. I’ve given you what I wanted +to lose. That special sense of living I thought this marriage would destroy for +me. The sense of life as exaltation. And you--you’ve done all the things I would +have done. Do you know how much alike we are?" +"I knew that from the first." +"But it should have been impossible. Gail, I want to remain with you now--for +another reason. To wait for an answer. I think when I learn to understand what +you are, I’ll understand myself. There is an answer. There is a name for the +thing we have in common. I don’t know it. I know it’s very important." +"Probably. I suppose I should want to understand it. But I don’t. I can’t care +about anything now. I can’t even be afraid." +She looked up at him and said very calmly: +"I am afraid, Gail." +"Of what, dearest?" +"Of what I’m doing to you." +"Why?" +"I don’t love you, Gail." +"I can’t care even about that." +445 + + She dropped her head and he looked down at the hair that was like a pale helmet +of polished metal. +"Dominique." +She raised her face to him obediently. +"I love you, Dominique. I love you so much that nothing can matter to me--not +even you. Can you understand that? Only my love--not your answer. Not even your +indifference. I’ve never taken much from the world. I haven’t wanted much. I’ve +never really wanted anything. Not in the total, undivided way, not with the kind +of desire that becomes an ultimatum, ’yes’ or ’no,’ and one can’t accept the +’no’ without ceasing to exist. That’s what you are to me. But when one reaches +that stage, it’s not the object that matters, it’s the desire. Not you, but I. +The ability to desire like that. Nothing less is worth feeling or honoring. And +I’ve never felt that before. Dominique, I’ve never known how to say ’mine’ about +anything. Not in the sense I say it about you. Mine. Did you call it a sense of +life as exaltation? You said that. You understand. I can’t be afraid. I love +you, Dominique--I love you--you’re letting me say it now--I love you." +She reached over and took the cablegram off her mirror. She crumpled it, her +fingers twisting slowly in a grinding motion against her palm. He stood +listening to the crackle of the paper. She leaned forward, opened her hand over +the wastebasket, and let the paper drop. Her hand remained still for a moment, +the fingers extended, slanting down, as they had opened. + +Part Four: HOWARD ROARK + +1. +THE LEAVES streamed down, trembling in the sun. They were not green; only a few, +scattered through the torrent, stood out in single drops of a green so bright +and pure that it hurt the eyes; the rest were not a color, but a light, the +substance of fire on metal, living sparks without edges. And it looked as if the +forest were a spread of light boiling slowly to produce this color, this green +rising in small bubbles, the condensed essence of spring. The trees met, bending +over the road, and the spots of sun on the ground moved with the shifting of the +branches, like a conscious caress. The young man hoped he would not have to die. +Not if the earth could look like this, he thought. Not if he could hear the hope +and the promise like a voice, with leaves, tree trunks and rocks instead of +words. But he knew that the earth looked like this only because he had seen no +sign of men for hours; he was alone, riding his bicycle down a forgotten trail +through the hills of Pennsylvania where he had never been before, where he could +feel the fresh wonder of an untouched world. +He was a very young man. He had just graduated from college--in this spring of +the year 1935--and he wanted to decide whether life was worth living. He did not +know that this was the question in his mind. He did not think of dying. He +thought only that he wished to find joy and reason and meaning in life--and that +none had been offered to him anywhere. +He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great +446 + + deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. +Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt +inspired. He had felt nothing at all. +He could not name the thing he wanted of life. He felt it here, in this wild +loneliness. But he did not face nature with the joy of a healthy animal--as a +proper and final setting; he faced it with the joy of a healthy man--as a +challenge; as tools, means and material. So he felt anger that he should find +exultation only in the wilderness, that this great sense of hope had to be lost +when he would return to men and men’s work. He thought that this was not right; +that man’s work should be a higher step, an improvement on nature, not a +degradation. He did not want to despise men; he wanted to love and admire them. +But he dreaded the sight of the first house, poolroom and movie poster he would +encounter on his way. +He had always wanted to write music, and he could give no other identity to the +thing he sought. If you want to know what it is, he told himself, listen to the +first phrases of Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto--or the last movement of +Rachmaninoff’s Second. Men have not found the words for it nor the deed nor the +thought, but they have found the music. Let me see that in one single act of man +on earth. Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that +music. Not servants nor those served; not altars and immolations; but the final, +the fulfilled, innocent of pain. Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it +once, because I need it. Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers--show me +yours--show me that it is possible--show me your achievement--and the knowledge +will give me courage for mine. +He saw a blue hole ahead, where the road ended on the crest of a ridge. The blue +looked cool and clean like a film of water stretched in the frame of green +branches. It would be funny, he thought, if I came to the edge and found nothing +but that blue beyond; nothing but the sky ahead, above and below. He closed his +eyes and went on, suspending the possible for a moment, granting himself a +dream, a few instants of believing that he would reach the crest, open his eyes +and see the blue radiance of the sky below. +His foot touched the ground, breaking his motion; he stopped and opened his +eyes. He stood still. +In the broad valley, far below him, in the first sunlight of early morning, he +saw a town. Only it was not a town. Towns did not look like that. He had to +suspend the possible for a while longer, to seek no questions or explanations, +only to look. +There were small houses on the ledges of the hill before him, flowing down to +the bottom. He knew that the ledges had not been touched, that no artifice had +altered the unplanned beauty of the graded steps. Yet some power had known how +to build on these ledges in such a way that the houses became inevitable, and +one could no longer imagine the hills as beautiful without them--as if the +centuries and the series of chances that produced these ledges in the struggle +of great blind forces had waited for their final expression, had been only a +road to a goal--and the goal was these buildings, part of the hills, shaped by +the hills, yet ruling them by giving them meaning. +The houses were plain field stone--like the rocks jutting from the green +hillsides--and of glass, great sheets of glass used as if the sun were invited +to complete the structures, sunlight becoming part of the masonry. There were +many houses, they were small, they were cut off from one another, and no two of +them were alike. But they were like variations of a single theme, like a +symphony played by an inexhaustible imagination, and one could still hear the +447 + + laughter of the force that had been let loose on them, as if that force had run, +unrestrained, challenging itself to be spent, but had never reached its end. +Music, he thought, the promise of the music he had invoked, the sense of it made +real--there it was before his eyes--he did not see it--he heard it in chords--he +thought that there was a common language of thought, sight and sound--was it +mathematics?--the discipline of reason--music was mathematics--and architecture +was music in stone--he knew he was dizzy because this place below him could not +be real. +He saw trees, lawns, walks twisting up the hillsides, steps cut in the stone, he +saw fountains, swimming pools, tennis courts--and not a sign of life. The place +was uninhabited. +It did not shock him, not as the sight of it had shocked him. In a way, it +seemed proper; this was not part of known existence. For the moment he had no +desire to know what it was. +After a long time he glanced about him--and then he saw that he was not alone. +Some steps away from him a man sat on a boulder, looking down at the valley. The +man seemed absorbed in the sight and had not heard his approach. The man was +tall and gaunt and had orange hair. +He walked straight to the man, who turned his eyes to him; the eyes were gray +and calm; the boy knew suddenly that they felt the same thing, and he could +speak as he would not speak to a stranger anywhere else. +"That isn’t real, is it?" the boy asked, pointing down. +"Why, yes, it is, now," the man answered. +"It’s not a movie set or a trick of some kind?" +"No. It’s a summer resort. It’s just been completed. It will be opened in a few +weeks." +"Who built it?" +"I did." +"What’s your name?" +"Howard Roark." +"Thank you," said the boy. He knew that the steady eyes looking at him +understood everything these two words had to cover. Howard Roark inclined his +head, in acknowledgment. +Wheeling his bicycle by his side, the boy took the narrow path down the slope of +the hill to the valley and the houses below. Roark looked after him. He had +never seen that boy before and he would never see him again. He did not know +that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime. +# +Roark had never understood why he was chosen to build the summer resort at +Monadnock Valley. +It had happened a year and a half ago, in the fall of 1933. He had heard of the +project and gone to see Mr. Caleb Bradley, the head of some vast company that +had purchased the valley and was doing a great deal of loud promotion. He went +448 + + to see Bradley as a matter of duty, without hope, merely to add another refusal +to his long list of refusals. He had built nothing in New York since the +Stoddard Temple. +When he entered Bradley’s office, he knew that he must forget Monadnock Valley +because this man would never give it to him. Caleb Bradley was a short, pudgy +person with a handsome face between rounded shoulders. The face looked wise and +boyish, unpleasantly ageless; he could have been fifty or twenty; he had blank +blue eyes, sly and bored. +But it was difficult for Roark to forget Monadnock Valley. So he spoke of it, +forgetting that speech was useless here. Mr. Bradley listened, obviously +interested, but obviously not in what Roark was saying. Roark could almost feel +some third entity present in the room. Mr. Bradley said little, beyond promising +to consider it and to get in touch with him. But then he said a strange thing. +He asked, in a voice devoid of all clue to the purpose of the question, neither +in approval nor scorn: "You’re the architect who built the Stoddard Temple, +aren’t you, Mr. Roark?" "Yes," said Roark. "Funny that I hadn’t thought of you +myself," said Mr. Bradley. Roark went away, thinking that it would have been +funny if Mr. Bradley had thought of him. +Three days later, Bradley telephoned and invited him to his office. Roark came +and met four other men--the Board of the Monadnock Valley Company. They were +well-dressed men, and their faces were as closed as Mr. Bradley’s. "Please tell +these gentlemen what you told me, Mr. Roark," Bradley said pleasantly. +Roark explained his plan. If what they wished to build was an unusual summer +resort for people of moderate incomes--as they had announced--then they should +realize that the worst curse of poverty was the lack of privacy; only the very +rich or the very poor of the city could enjoy their summer vacations; the very +rich, because they had private estates; the very poor, because they did not mind +the feel and smell of one another’s flesh on public beaches and public dance +floors; the people of good taste and small income had no place to go, if they +found no rest or pleasure in herds. Why was it assumed that poverty gave one the +instincts of cattle? Why not offer these people a place where, for a week or a +month, at small cost, they could have what they wanted and needed? He had seen +Monadnock Valley. It could be done. Don’t touch those hillsides, don’t blast and +level them down. Not one huge ant pile of a hotel--but small houses hidden from +one another, each a private estate, where people could meet or not, as they +pleased. Not one fish-market tank of a swimming pool--but many private swimming +pools, as many as the company wished to afford--he could show them how it could +be done cheaply. Not one stock-farm corral of tennis courts for +exhibitionists--but many private tennis courts. Not a place where one went to +meet "refined company" and land a husband in two weeks--but a resort for people +who enjoyed their own presence well enough and sought only a place where they +would be left free to enjoy it. +The men listened to him silently. He saw them exchanging glances once in a +while. He felt certain that they were the kind of glances people exchange when +they cannot laugh at the speaker aloud. But it could not have been that--because +he signed a contract to build the Monadnock Valley summer resort, two days +later. +He demanded Mr. Bradley’s initials on every drawing that came out of his +drafting rooms; he remembered the Stoddard Temple. Mr. Bradley initialed, +signed, okayed; he agreed to everything; he approved everything. He seemed +delighted to let Roark have his way. But this eager complaisance had a peculiar +undertone--as if Mr. Bradley were humoring a child. +449 + + He could learn little about Mr. Bradley. It was said that the man had made a +fortune in real estate, in the Florida boom. His present company seemed to +command unlimited funds, and the names of many wealthy backers were mentioned as +shareholders. Roark never met them. The four gentlemen of the Board did not +appear again, except on short visits to the construction site, where they +exhibited little interest. Mr. Bradley was in full charge of everything--but +beyond a close watch over the budget he seemed to like nothing better than to +leave Roark in full charge. +In the eighteen months that followed, Roark had no time to wonder about Mr. +Bradley. Roark was building his greatest assignment. +For the last year he lived at the construction site, in a shanty hastily thrown +together on a bare hillside, a wooden enclosure with a bed, a stove and a large +table. His old draftsmen came to work for him again, some abandoning better jobs +in the city, to live in shacks and tents, to work in naked plank barracks that +served as architect’s office. There was so much to build that none of them +thought of wasting structural effort on their own shelters. They did not +realize, until much later, that they had lacked comforts; and then they did not +believe it--because the year at Monadnock Valley remained in their minds as the +strange time when the earth stopped turning and they lived through twelve months +of spring. They did not think of the snow, the frozen clots of earth, wind +whistling through the cracks of planking, thin blankets over army cots, stiff +fingers stretched over coal stoves in the morning, before a pencil could be held +steadily. They remembered only the feeling which is the meaning of spring--one’s +answer to the first blades of grass, the first buds on tree branches, the first +blue of the sky--the singing answer, not to grass, trees and sky, but to the +great sense of beginning, of triumphant progression, of certainty in an +achievement that nothing will stop. Not from leaves and flowers, but from wooden +scaffoldings, from steam shovels, from blocks of stone and sheets of glass +rising out of the earth they received the sense of youth, motion, purpose, +fulfillment. +They were an army and it was a crusade. But none of them thought of it in these +words, except Steven Mallory. Steven Mallory did the fountains and all the +sculpture work of Monadnock Valley. But he came to live at the site long before +he was needed. Battle, thought Steven Mallory, is a vicious concept. There is no +glory in war, and no beauty in crusades of men. But this was a battle, this was +an army and a war--and the highest experience in the life of every man who took +part in it. Why? Where was the root of the difference and the law to explain it? +He did not speak of it to anyone. But he saw the same feeling in Mike’s face, +when Mike arrived with the gang of electricians. Mike said nothing, but he +winked at Mallory in cheerful understanding. "I told you not to worry," Mike +said to him once, without preamble, "at the trial that was. He can’t lose, +quarries or no quarries, trials or no trials. They can’t beat him, Steve, they +just can’t, not the whole goddamn world." +But they had really forgotten the world, thought Mallory. This was a new earth, +their own. The hills rose to the sky around them, as a wall of protection. And +they had another protection--the architect who walked among them, down the snow +or the grass of the hillsides, over the boulders and the piled planks, to the +drafting tables, to the derricks, to the tops of rising walls--the man who had +made this possible--the thought in the mind of that man--and not the content of +that thought, nor the result, not the vision that had created Monadnock Valley, +nor the will that had made it real--but the method of his thought, the rule of +its function--the method and rule which were not like those of the world beyond +the hills. That stood on guard over the valley and over the crusaders within it. +And then he saw Mr. Bradley come to visit the site, to smile blandly and depart +450 + + again. Then Mallory felt anger without reason--and fear. "Howard," Mallory said +one night, when they sat together at a fire of dry branches on the hillside over +the camp, "it’s the Stoddard Temple again." +"Yes," said Roark. "I think so. But I can’t figure out in just what way or what +they’re after." +He rolled over on his stomach and looked down at the panes of glass scattered +through the darkness below; they caught reflections from somewhere and looked +like phosphorescent, self-generated springs of light rising out of the ground. +He said: +"It doesn’t matter, Steve, does it? Not what they do about it nor who comes to +live here. Only that we’ve made it. Would you have missed this, no matter what +price they make you pay for it afterward?" +"No," said Mallory. +# +Roark had wanted to rent one of the houses for himself and spend the summer +there, the first summer of Monadnock Valley’s existence. But before the resort +was open, he received a wire from New York. +"I told you I would, didn’t I? It took five years to get rid of my friends and +brothers, but the Aquitania is now mine--and yours. Come to finish it. Kent +Lansing." +So he went back to New York--to see the rubble and cement dust cleared away from +the hulk of the Unfinished Symphony, to see derricks swing girders high over +Central Park, to see the gaps of windows filled, the broad decks spread over the +roofs of the city, the Aquitania Hotel completed, glowing at night in the Park’s +skyline. +He had been very busy in the last two years. Monadnock Valley had not been his +only commission. From different states, from unexpected parts of the country, +calls had come for him: private homes, small office buildings, modest shops. He +had built them--snatching a few hours of sleep on trains and planes that carried +him from Monadnock Valley to distant small towns. The story of every commission +he received was the same: "I was in New York and I liked the Enright House." "I +saw the Cord Building." "I saw a picture of that temple they tore down." It was +as if an underground stream flowed through the country and broke out in sudden +springs that shot to the surface at random, in unpredictable places. They were +small, inexpensive jobs--but he was kept working. +That summer, with Monadnock Valley completed, he had no time to worry about its +future fate. But Steven Mallory worried about it. "Why don’t they advertise it, +Howard? Why the sudden silence? Have you noticed? There was so much talk about +their grand project, so many little items in print--before they started. There +was less and less while we were doing it. And now? Mr. Bradley and company have +gone deaf-mute. Now, when you’d expect them to stage a press agent’s orgy. Why?" +"I wouldn’t know," said Roark. "I’m an architect, not a rental agent. Why should +you worry? We’ve done our job, let them do theirs in their own way." +"It’s a damn queer way. Did you see their ads--the few they’ve let dribble out? +They say all the things you told them, about rest, peace and privacy--but how +they say it! Do you know what those ads amount to in effect? ’Come to Monadnock +Valley and be bored to death.’ It sounds--it actually sounds as if they were +trying to keep people away." +451 + + "I don’t read ads, Steve." +But within a month of its opening every house in Monadnock Valley was rented. +The people who came were a strange mixture: society men and women who could have +afforded more fashionable resorts, young writers and unknown artists, engineers +and newspapermen and factory workers. Suddenly, spontaneously, people were +talking about Monadnock Valley. There was a need for that kind of a resort, a +need no one had tried to satisfy. The place became news, but it was private +news; the papers had not discovered it. Mr. Bradley had no press agents; Mr. +Bradley and his company had vanished from public life. One magazine, +unsolicited, printed four pages of photographs of Monadnock Valley, and sent a +man to interview Howard Roark. By the end of summer the houses were leased in +advance for the following year. In October, early one morning, the door of +Roark’s reception room flew open and Steven Mallory rushed in, making straight +for Roark’s office. The secretary tried to stop him; Roark was working and no +interruptions were allowed. But Mallory shoved her aside and tore into the +office, slamming the door behind. She noticed that he held a newspaper in his +hand. +Roark glanced up at him, from the drafting table, and dropped his pencil. He +knew that this was the way Mallory’s face had looked when he shot at Ellsworth +Toohey. +"Well, Howard? Do you want to know why you got Monadnock Valley?" +He threw the newspaper down on the table. Roark saw the heading of a story on +the third page: "Caleb Bradley arrested." +"It’s all there," said Mallory. "Don’t read it. It will make you sick." +"All right, Steve, what is it?" +"They sold two hundred percent of it." +"Who did? Of what?" +"Bradley and his gang. Of Monadnock Valley." Mallory spoke with a forced, +vicious, self-torturing precision. "They thought it was worthless--from the +first. They got the land practically for nothing--they thought it was no place +for a resort at all--out of the way, with no bus lines or movie theaters +around--they thought the time wasn’t right and the public wouldn’t go for it. +They made a lot of noise and sold snares to a lot of wealthy suckers--it was +just a huge fraud. They sold two hundred percent of the place. They got twice +what it cost them to build it. They were certain it would fail. They wanted it +to fail. They expected no profits to distribute. They had a nice scheme ready +for how to get out of it when the place went bankrupt. They were prepared for +anything--except for seeing it turn into the kind of success it is. And they +couldn’t go on--because now they’d have to pay their backers twice the amount +the place earned each year. And it’s earning plenty. And they thought they had +arranged for certain failure. Howard, don’t you understand? They chose you as +the worst architect they could find!" +Roark threw his head back and laughed. +"God damn you, Howard! It’s not funny!" +"Sit down, Steve. Stop shaking. You look as if you’d just seen a whole field of +butchered bodies." +452 + + "I have. I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen the root. I’ve seen what makes such fields +possible. What do the damn fools think of as horror? Wars, murders, fires, +earthquakes? To hell with that! This is horror--that story in the paper. That’s +what men should dread and fight and scream about and call the worst shame on +their record. Howard, I’m thinking of all the explanations of evil and all the +remedies offered for it through the centuries. None of them worked. None of them +explained or cured anything. But the root of evil--my drooling beast--it’s +there. Howard, in that story. In that--and in the souls of the smug bastards +who’ll read it and say: ’Oh well, genius must always struggle, it’s good for +’em’--and then go and look for some village idiot to help, to teach him how to +weave baskets. That’s the drooling beast in action. Howard, think of Monadnock. +Close your eyes and see it. And then think that the men who ordered it, believed +it was the worst thing they could build! Howard, there’s something wrong, +something very terribly wrong in the world if you were given your greatest +job--as a filthy joke!" +"When will you stop thinking about that? About the world and me? When will you +learn to forget it? When will Dominique..." +He stopped. They had not mentioned that name in each other’s presence for five +years. He saw Mallory’s eyes, intent and shocked. Mallory realized that his +words had hurt Roark, hurt him enough to force this admission. But Roark turned +to him and said deliberately: +"Dominique used to think just as you do." +Mallory had never spoken of what he guessed about Roark’s past. Their silence +had always implied that Mallory understood, that Roark knew it, and that it was +not to be discussed. But now Mallory asked: +"Are you still waiting for her to come back? Mrs. Gail Wynand--God damn her!" +Roark said without emphasis: +"Shut up, Steve." +Mallory whispered: "I’m sorry." +Roark walked to his table and said, his voice normal again: +"Go home, Steve, and forget about Bradley. They’ll all be suing one another now, +but we won’t be dragged in and they won’t destroy Monadnock. Forget it, and get +out, I have to work." +He brushed the newspaper off the table, with his elbow, and bent over the sheets +of drafting paper. +# +There was a scandal over the revelations of the financing methods behind +Monadnock Valley, there was a trial, a few gentlemen sentenced to the +penitentiary, and a new management taking Monadnock over for the shareholders. +Roark was not involved. He was busy, and he forgot to read the accounts of the +trial in the papers. Mr. Bradley admitted--in apology to his partners--that he +would be damned if he could have expected a resort built on a crazy, unsociable +plan ever to become successful. "I did all I could--I chose the worst fool I +could find." +Then Austen Heller wrote an article about Howard Roark and Monadnock Valley. He +453 + + spoke of all the buildings Roark had designed, and he put into words the things +Roark had said in structure. Only they were not Austen Heller’s usual quiet +words--they were a ferocious cry of admiration and of anger. "And may we be +damned if greatness must reach us through fraud!" +The article started a violent controversy in art circles. +"Howard," Mallory said one day, some months later, "you’re famous." +"Yes," said Roark, "I suppose so." +"Three-quarters of them don’t know what it’s all about, but they’ve heard the +other one-quarter fighting over your name and so now they feel they must +pronounce it with respect. Of the fighting quarter, four-tenths are those who +hate you, three-tenths are those who feel they must express an opinion in any +controversy, two-tenths are those who play safe and herald any ’discovery,’ and +one-tenth are those who understand. But they’ve all found out suddenly that +there is a Howard Roark and that he’s an architect. The A.G.A. Bulletin refers +to you as a great but unruly talent--and the Museum of the Future has hung up +photographs of Monadnock, the Enright House, the Cord Building and the +Aquitania, under beautiful glass--next to the room where they’ve got Gordon L. +Prescott. And still--I’m glad." +Kent Lansing said, one evening: "Heller did a grand job. Do you remember, +Howard, what I told you once about the psychology of a pretzel? Don’t despise +the middleman. He’s necessary. Someone had to tell them. It takes two to make a +very great career: the man who is great, and the man--almost rarer--who is great +enough to see greatness and say so." +Ellsworth Toohey wrote: "The paradox in all this preposterous noise is the fact +that Mr. Caleb Bradley is the victim of a grave injustice. His ethics are open +to censure, but his esthetics were unimpeachable. He exhibited sounder judgment +in matters of architectural merit than Mr. Austen Heller, the outmoded +reactionary who has suddenly turned art critic. Mr. Caleb Bradley was martyred +by the bad taste of his tenants. In the opinion of this column his sentence +should have been commuted in recognition of his artistic discrimination. +Monadnock Valley is a fraud--but not merely a financial one." +There was little response to Roark’s fame among the solid gentlemen of wealth +who were the steadiest source of architectural commissions. The men who had +said: "Roark? Never heard of him," now said: "Roark? He’s too sensational." +But there were men who were impressed by the simple fact that Roark had built a +place which made money for owners who didn’t want to make money; this was more +convincing than abstract artistic discussions. And there was the one-tenth who +understood. In the year after Monadnock Valley Roark built two private homes in +Connecticut, a movie theater in Chicago, a hotel in Philadelphia. +In the spring of 1936 a western city completed plans for a World’s Fair to be +held next year, an international exposition to be known as "The March of the +Centuries." The committee of distinguished civic leaders in charge of the +project chose a council of the country’s best architects to design the fair. The +civic leaders wished to be conspicuously progressive. Howard Roark was one of +the eight architects chosen. +When he received the invitation, Roark appeared before the committee and +explained that he would be glad to design the fair--alone. +"But you can’t be serious, Mr. Roark," the chairman declared. "After all, with a +454 + + stupendous undertaking of this nature, we want the best that can be had. I mean, +two heads are better than one, you know, and eight heads...why, you can see for +yourself--the best talents of the country, the brightest names--you know, +friendly consultation, co-operation and collaboration--you know what makes great +achievements." +"I do." +"Then you realize..." +"If you want me, you’ll have to let me do it all, alone. I don’t work with +councils." +"You wish to reject an opportunity like this, a shot in history, a chance of +world fame, practically a chance of immortality..." +"I don’t work with collectives. I don’t consult, I don’t cooperate, I don’t +collaborate." +There was a great deal of angry comment on Roark’s refusal, in architectural +circles. People said: "The conceited bastard!" The indignation was too sharp and +raw for a mere piece of professional gossip; each man took it as a personal +insult; each felt himself qualified to alter, advise and improve the work of any +man living. +"The incident illustrates to perfection," wrote Ellsworth Toohey, "the +antisocial nature of Mr. Howard Roark’s egotism, the arrogance of the unbridled +individualism which he has always personified." +Among the eight chosen to design "The March of the Centuries" were Peter +Keating, Gordon L. Prescott, Ralston Holcombe. "I won’t work with Howard Roark," +said Peter Keating, when he saw the list of the council, "you’ll have to choose. +It’s he or I." He was informed that Mr. Roark had declined. Keating assumed +leadership over the council. The press stories about the progress of the fair’s +construction referred to "Peter Keating and his associates." +Keating had acquired a sharp, intractable manner in the last few years. He +snapped orders and lost his patience before the smallest difficulty; when he +lost his patience, he screamed at people: he had a vocabulary of insults that +carried a caustic, insidious, almost feminine malice; his face was sullen. +In the fall of 1936 Roark moved his office to the top floor of the Cord +Building. He had thought when he designed that building, that it would be the +place of his office some day. When he saw the inscription: "Howard Roark, +Architect," on his new door, he stopped for a moment; then he walked into the +office. His own room, at the end of a long suite, had three walls of glass, high +over the city. He stopped in the middle of the room. Through the broad panes, he +could see the Fargo Store, the Enright House, the Aquitania Hotel. He walked to +the windows facing south and stood there for a long time. At the tip of +Manhattan, far in the distance, he could see the Dana Building by Henry Cameron. +On an afternoon of November, returning to his office after a visit to the site +of a house under construction on Long Island, Roark entered the reception room, +shaking his drenched raincoat, and saw a look of suppressed excitement on the +face of his secretary; she had been waiting impatiently for his return. +"Mr. Roark, this is probably something very big," she said. "I made an +appointment for you for three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. At his office." +455 + + "Whose office?" +"He telephoned half an hour ago. Mr. Gail Wynand." + +2. +A SIGN hung over the entrance door, a reproduction of the paper’s masthead: +# +THE NEW YORK BANNER +# +The sign was small, a statement of fame and power that needed no emphasis; it +was like a fine, mocking smile that justified the building’s bare ugliness; the +building was a factory scornful of all ornament save the implications of that +masthead. +The entrance lobby looked like the mouth of a furnace; elevators drew a stream +of human fuel and spat it out. The men did not hurry, but they moved with +subdued haste, the propulsion of purpose; nobody loitered in that lobby. The +elevator doors clicked like valves, a pulsating rhythm in their sound. Drops of +red and green light flashed on a wall board, signaling the progress of cars high +in space. +It looked as if everything in that building were run by such control boards in +the hands of an authority aware of every motion, as if the building were flowing +with channeled energy, functioning smoothly, soundlessly, a magnificent machine +that nothing could destroy. Nobody paid any attention to the redheaded man who +stopped in the lobby for a moment. +Howard Roark looked up at the tiled vault. He had never hated anyone. Somewhere +in this building was its owner, the man who had made him feel his nearest +approach to hatred. +Gail Wynand glanced at the small clock on his desk. In a few minutes he had an +appointment with an architect. The interview, he thought, would not be +difficult; he had held many such interviews in his life; he merely had to speak, +he knew what he wanted to say, and nothing was required of the architect except +a few sounds signifying understanding. +His glance went from the clock back to the sheets of proofs on his desk. He read +an editorial by Alvah Scarret on the public feeding of squirrels in Central +Park, and a column by Ellsworth Toohey on the great merits of an exhibition of +paintings done by the workers of the City Department of Sanitation. A buzzer +rang on his desk, and his secretary’s voice said: "Mr. Howard Roark, Mr. +Wynand." +"Okay," said Wynand, flicking the switch off. As his hand moved back, he noticed +the row of buttons at the edge of his desk, bright little knobs with a color +code of their own, each representing the end of a wire that stretched to some +part of the building, each wire controlling some man, each man controlling many +men under his orders, each group of men contributing to the final shape of words +on paper to go into millions of homes, into millions of human brains--these +little knobs of colored plastic, there under his fingers. But he had no time to +let the thought amuse him, the door of his office was opening, he moved his hand +away from the buttons. +456 + + Wynand was not certain that he missed a moment, that he did not rise at once as +courtesy demanded, but remained seated, looking at the man who entered; perhaps +he had risen immediately and it only seemed to him that a long time preceded his +movement. Roark was not certain that he stopped when he entered the office, that +he did not walk forward, but stood looking at the man behind the desk; perhaps +there had been no break in his steps and it only seemed to him that he had +stopped. But there had been a moment when both forgot the terms of immediate +reality, when Wynand forgot his purpose in summoning this man, when Roark forgot +that this man was Dominique’s husband, when no door, desk or stretch of carpet +existed, only the total awareness, for each, of the man before him, only two +thoughts meeting in the middle of the room--"This is Gail Wynand"--"This is +Howard Roark." +Then Wynand rose, his hand motioned in simple invitation to the chair beside his +desk, Roark approached and sat down, and they did not notice that they had not +greeted each other. +Wynand smiled, and said what he had never intended to say. He said very simply: +"I don’t think you’ll want to work for me." +"I want to work for you," said Roark, who had come here prepared to refuse. +"Have you seen the kind of things I’ve built?" +"Yes." +Wynand smiled. "This is different. It’s not for my public. It’s for me." +"You’ve never built anything for yourself before?" +"No--if one doesn’t count the cage I have up on a roof and this old printing +factory here. Can you tell me why I’ve never built a structure of my own, with +the means of erecting a city if I wished? I don’t know. I think you’d know." He +forgot that he did not allow men he hired the presumption of personal +speculation upon him. +"Because you’ve been unhappy," said Roark. +He said it simply, without insolence; as if nothing but total honesty were +possible to him here. This was not the beginning of an interview, but the +middle; it was like a continuation of something begun long ago. Wynand said: +"Make that clear." +"I think you understand." +"I want to hear you explain it." +"Most people build as they live--as a matter of routine and senseless accident. +But a few understand that building is a great symbol. We live in our minds, and +existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it +in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a +statement of his life. If he doesn’t build, when he has the means, it’s because +his life has not been what he wanted." +"You don’t think it’s preposterous to say that to me of all people?" +"No." +457 + + "I don’t either." Roark smiled. "But you and I are the only two who’d say it. +Either part of it: that I didn’t have what I wanted or that I could be included +among the few expected to understand any sort of great symbols. You don’t want +to retract that either?" +"No." +"How old are you?" +"Thirty-six." +"I owned most of the papers I have now--when I was thirty-six." He added: "I +didn’t mean that as any kind of a personal remark. I don’t know why I said that. +I just happened to think of it." +"What do you wish me to build for you?" +"My home." +Wynand felt that the two words had some impact on Roark apart from any normal +meaning they could convey; he sensed it without reason; he wanted to ask: +"What’s the matter?" but couldn’t, since Roark had really shown nothing. +"You were right in your diagnosis," said Wynand, "because you see, now I do want +to build a house of my own. Now I’m not afraid of a visible shape for my life. +If you want it said directly, as you did, now I’m happy." +"What kind of house?" +"In the country. I’ve purchased the site. An estate in Connecticut, five hundred +acres. What kind of a house? You’ll decide that." +"Did Mrs. Wynand choose me for the job?" +"No. Mrs. Wynand knows nothing about this. It was I who wanted to move out of +the city, and she agreed. I did ask her to select the architect--my wife is the +former Dominique Francon; she was once a writer on architecture. But she +preferred to leave the choice to me. You want to know why I picked you? I took a +long time to decide. I felt rather lost, at first. I had never heard of you. I +didn’t know any architects at all. I mean this literally--and I’m not forgetting +the years I’ve spent in real estate, the things I’ve built and the imbeciles who +built them for me. This is not a Stoneridge, this is--what did you call it?--a +statement of my life? Then I saw Monadnock. It was the first thing that made me +remember your name. But I gave myself a long test. I went around the country, +looking at homes, hotels, all sorts of buildings. Every time I saw one I liked +and asked who had designed it, the answer was always the same: Howard Roark. So +I called you." He added: "Shall I tell you how much I admire your work?" +"Thank you," said Roark. He closed his eyes for an instant. +"You know, I didn’t want to meet you." +"Why?" +"Have you heard about my art gallery?" +"Yes." +458 + + "I never meet the men whose work I love. The work means too much to me. I don’t +want the men to spoil it. They usually do. They’re an anticlimax to their own +talent. You’re not. I don’t mind talking to you. I told you this only because I +want you to know that I respect very little in life, but I respect the things in +my gallery, and your buildings, and man’s capacity to produce work like that. +Maybe it’s the only religion I’ve ever had." He shrugged. "I think I’ve +destroyed, perverted, corrupted just about everything that exists. But I’ve +never touched that. Why are you looking at me like this?" +"I’m sorry. Please tell me about the house you want." +"I want it to be a palace--only I don’t think palaces are very luxurious. +They’re so big, so promiscuously public. A small house is the true luxury. A +residence for two people only--for my wife and me. It won’t be necessary to +allow for a family, we don’t intend to have children. Nor for visitors, we don’t +intend to entertain. One guest room--in case we should need it--but not more +than that. Living room, dining room, library, two studies, one bedroom. +Servants’ quarters, garage. That’s the general idea. I’ll give you the details +later. The cost--whatever you need. The appearance--" He smiled, shrugging. +"I’ve seen your buildings. The man who wants to tell you what a house should +look like must either be able to design it better--or shut up. I’ll say only +that I want my house to have the Roark quality." +"What is that?" +"I think you understand." +"I want to hear you explain it." +"I think some buildings are cheap show-offs, all front, and some are cowards, +apologizing for themselves in every brick, and some are the eternal unfit, +botched, malicious and false. Your buildings have one sense above all--a sense +of joy. Not a placid joy. A difficult, demanding kind of joy. The kind that +makes one feel as if it were an achievement to experience it. One looks and +thinks: I’m a better person if I can feel that." +Roark said slowly, not in the tone of an answer: +"I suppose it was inevitable." +"What?" +"That you would see that." +"Why do you say it as if you...regretted my being able to see it?" +"I don’t regret it." +"Listen, don’t hold it against me--the things I’ve built before." +"I don’t." +"It’s all those Stoneridges and Noyes-Belmont Hotels--and Wynand papers--that +made it possible for me to have a house by you. Isn’t that a luxury worth +achieving? Does it matter how? They were the means. You’re the end." +"You don’t have to justify yourself to me." +"I wasn’t jus...Yes, I think that’s what I was doing." +459 + + "You don’t need to. I wasn’t thinking of what you’ve built." +"What were you thinking?" +"That I’m helpless against anyone who sees what you saw in my buildings." +"You felt you wanted help against me?" +"No. Only I don’t feel helpless as a rule." +"I’m not prompted to justify myself as a rule, either. Then--it’s all right, +isn’t it?" +"Yes." +"I must tell you much more about the house I want. I suppose an architect is +like a father confessor--he must know everything about the people who are to +live in his house, since what he gives them is more personal than their clothes +or food. Please consider it in that spirit--and forgive me if you notice that +this is difficult for me to say--I’ve never gone to confession. You see, I want +this house because I’m very desperately in love with my wife....What’s the +matter? Do you think it’s an irrelevant statement?" +"No. Go on." +"I can’t stand to see my wife among other people. It’s not jealousy. It’s much +more and much worse. I can’t stand to see her walking down the streets of a +city. I can’t share her, not even with shops, theaters, taxicabs or sidewalks. I +must take her away. I must put her out of reach--where nothing can touch her, +not in any sense. This house is to be a fortress. My architect is to be my +guard." +Roark sat looking straight at him. He had to keep his eyes on Wynand in order to +be able to listen. Wynand felt the effort in that glance; he did not recognize +it as effort, only as strength; he felt himself supported by the glance; he +found that nothing was hard to confess. +"This house is to be a prison. No, not quite that. A treasury--a vault to guard +things too precious for sight. But it must be more. It must be a separate world, +so beautiful that we’ll never miss the one we left. A prison only by the power +of its own perfection. Not bars and ramparts--but your talent standing as a wall +between us and the world. That’s what I want of you. And more. Have you ever +built a temple?" +For a moment, Roark had no strength to answer; but he saw that the question was +genuine; Wynand didn’t know. +"Yes," said Roark. +"Then think of this commission as you would think of a temple. A, temple to +Dominique Wynand....I want you to meet her before you design it." +"I met Mrs. Wynand some years ago." +"You have? Then you understand." +"I do." +460 + + Wynand saw Roark’s hand lying on the edge of his desk, the long fingers pressed +to the glass, next to the proofs of the Banner. The proofs were folded +carelessly; he saw the heading "One Small Voice" inside the page. He looked at +Roark’s hand. He thought he would like to have a bronze paperweight made of it +and how beautiful it would look on his desk. +"Now you know what I want. Go ahead. Start at once. Drop anything else you’re +doing. I’ll pay whatever you wish. I want that house by summer....Oh, forgive +me. Too much association with bad architects. I haven’t asked whether you want +to do it." +Roark’s hand moved first; he took it off the desk. +"Yes," said Roark. "I’ll do it." +Wynand saw the prints of the fingers left on the glass, distinct as if the skin +had cut grooves in the surface and the grooves were +wet. +"How long will it take you?" Wynand asked. +"You’ll have it by July." +"Of course you must see the site. I want to show it to you myself. Shall I drive +you down there tomorrow morning?" +"If you wish." +"Be here at nine." +"Yes." +"Do you want me to draw up a contract? I have no idea how you prefer to work. As +a rule, before I deal with a man in any matter, I make it a point to know +everything about him from the day of his birth or earlier. I’ve never checked up +on you. I simply forgot. It didn’t seem necessary." +"I can answer any question you wish." +Wynand smiled and shook his head: +"No. There’s nothing I need to ask you. Except about the business arrangements." +"I never make any conditions, except one: if you accept the preliminary drawings +of the house, it is to be built as I designed it, without any alterations of any +kind." +"Certainly. That’s understood. I’ve heard you don’t work otherwise. But will you +mind if I don’t give you any publicity on this house? I know it would help you +professionally, but I want this building kept out of the newspapers." +"I won’t mind that." +"Will you promise not to release pictures of it for publication?" +"I promise." +"Thank you. I’ll make up for it. You may consider the Wynand papers as your +461 + + personal press service. I’ll give you all the plugging you wish on any other +work of yours." +"I don’t want any plugging." +Wynand laughed aloud. "What a thing to say in what a place! I don’t think you +have any idea how your fellow architects would have conducted this interview. I +don’t believe you were actually conscious at any time that you were speaking to +Gail Wynand." +"I was," said Roark. +"This was my way of thanking you. I don’t always like being Gail Wynand." +"I know that." +"I’m going to change my mind and ask you a personal question. You said you’d +answer anything." +"I will." +"Have you always liked being Howard Roark?" +Roark smiled. The smile was amused, astonished, involuntarily contemptuous. +"You’ve answered," said Wynand. +Then he rose and said: "Nine o’clock tomorrow morning," extending his hand. +When Roark had gone, Wynand sat behind his desk, smiling. He moved his hand +toward one of the plastic buttons--and stopped. He realized that he had to +assume a different manner, his usual manner, that he could not speak as he had +spoken in the last half-hour. Then he understood what had been strange about the +interview: for the first time in his life he had spoken to a man without feeling +the reluctance, the sense of pressure, the need of disguise he had always +experienced when he spoke to people; there had been no strain and no need of +strain; as if he had spoken to himself. +He pressed the button and said to his secretary: +"Tell the morgue to send me everything they have on Howard Roark." +# +"Guess what," said Alvah Scarret, his voice begging to be begged for his +information. +Ellsworth Toohey waved a hand impatiently in a brushing-off motion, not raising +his eyes from his desk. +"Go ’way, Alvah. I’m busy." +"No, but this is interesting, Ellsworth. Really, it’s interesting. I know you’ll +want to know." +Toohey lifted his head and looked at him, the faint contraction of boredom in +the corners of his eyes letting Scarret understand that this moment of attention +was a favor; he drawled in a tone of emphasized patience: +"All right. What is it?" +462 + + Scarret saw nothing to resent in Toohey’s manner. Toohey had treated him like +that for the last year or longer. Scarret had not noticed the change, it was too +late to resent it--it had become normal to them both. +Scarret smiled like a bright pupil who expects the teacher to praise him for +discovering an error in the teacher’s own textbook. +"Ellsworth, your private F.B.I. is slipping." +"What are you talking about?" +"Bet you don’t know what Gail’s been doing--and you always make such a point of +keeping yourself informed." +"What don’t I know?" +"Guess who was in his office today." +"My dear Alvah, I have no time for quiz games." +"You wouldn’t guess in a thousand years." +"Very well, since the only way to get rid of you is to play the vaudeville +stooge, I shall ask the proper question: Who was in dear Gail’s office today?" +"Howard Roark." +Toohey turned to him full face, forgetting to dole out his attention, and said +incredulously: +"No!" +"Yes!" said Scarret, proud of the effect. +"Well!" said Toohey and burst out laughing. +Scarret half smiled tentatively, puzzled, anxious to join in, but not quite +certain of the cause for amusement. +"Yes, it’s funny. But...just exactly why, Ellsworth?" +"Oh, Alvah, it would take so long to tell you!" +"I had an idea it might..." +"Haven’t you any sense of the spectacular, Alvah? Don’t you like fireworks? If +you want to know what to expect, just think that the worst wars are religious +wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the +same race." +"I don’t quite follow you." +"Oh, dear, I have so many followers. I brush them out of my hair." +"Well, I’m glad you’re so cheerful about it, but I thought it’s +bad." +463 + + "Of course it’s bad. But not for us." +"But look: you know bow we’ve gone out on a limb, you particularly, on how this +Roark is just about the worst architect in town, and if now our own boss hires +him--isn’t it going to be embarrassing?" +"Oh that?...Oh, maybe..." +"Well, I’m glad you take it that way." +"What was he doing in Wynand’s office? Is it a commission?" +"That’s what I don’t know. Can’t find out. Nobody knows." +"Have you heard of Mr. Wynand planning to build anything lately?" +"No. Have you?" +"No. I guess my F.B.I. is slipping. Oh, well, one does the best one can." +"But you know, Ellsworth, I had an idea. I had an idea where this might be very +helpful to us indeed." +"What idea?" +"Ellsworth, Gail’s been impossible lately." +Scarret uttered it solemnly, with the air of imparting a discovery. Toohey sat +half smiling. +"Well, of course, you predicted it, Ellsworth. You were right. You’re always +right. I’ll be damned if I can figure out just what’s happening to him, whether +it’s Dominique or some sort of a change of life or what, but something’s +happening. Why does he get fits suddenly and start reading every damn line of +every damn edition and raise hell for the silliest reasons? He’s killed three of +my best editorials lately--and he’s never done that to me before. Never. You +know what he said to me? He said: ’Motherhood is wonderful, Alvah, but for God’s +sake go easy on the bilge. There’s a limit even for intellectual depravity.’ +What depravity? That was the sweetest Mother’s Day editorial I ever put +together. Honest, I was touched myself. Since when has he learned to talk about +depravity? The other day, he called Jules Fougler a bargain-basement mind, right +to his face, and threw his Sunday piece into the wastebasket. A swell piece, +too--on the Workers’ Theater. Jules Fougler, our best writer! No wonder Gail +hasn’t got a friend left in the place. If they hated his guts before, you ought +to hear them now!" +"I’ve heard them." +"He’s losing his grip, Ellsworth. I don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for you +and the swell bunch of people you picked. They’re practically our whole actual +working staff, those youngsters of yours, not our old sacred cows who’re writing +themselves out anyway. Those bright kids will keep the Banner going. But +Gail...Listen, last week he fired Dwight Carson. Now you know, I think that was +significant. Of course Dwight was just a deadweight and a damn nuisance, but he +was the first one of those special pets of Gail’s, the boys who sold their +souls. So, in a way, you see, I liked having Dwight around, it was all right, it +was healthy, it was a relic of Gail’s best days. I always said it was Gail’s +safety valve. And when he suddenly let Carson go--I didn’t like it, Ellsworth. I +didn’t like it at all." +464 + + "What is this, Alvah? Are you telling me things I don’t know, or is this just in +the nature of letting off steam--do forgive the mixed metaphor--on my shoulder?" +"I guess so. I don’t like to knock Gail, but I’ve been so damn mad for so long +I’m fit to be tied. But here’s what I’m driving at: This Howard Roark, what does +he make you think of?" +"I could write a volume on that, Alvah. This is hardly the time to launch into +such an undertaking." +"No, but I mean, what’s the one thing we know about him? That’s he’s a crank and +a freak and a fool, all right, but what else? That he’s one of those fools you +can’t budge with love or money or a sixteen-inch gun. He’s worse than Dwight +Carson, worse than the whole lot of Gall’s pets put together. Well? Get my +point? What’s Gail going to do when he comes up against that kind of a man?" +"One of several possible things." +"One thing only, if I know Gail, and I know Gail. That’s why I feel kind of +hopeful. This is what he’s needed for a long time. A swig of his old medicine. +The safety valve. He’ll go out to break that guy’s spine--and it will be good +for Gail. The best thing in the world. Bring him back to normal....That was my +idea, Ellsworth." He waited, saw no complementary enthusiasm on Toohey’s face +and finished lamely: "Well, I might be wrong....I don’t know....It might mean +nothing at all....I just thought that was psychology...." +"That’s what it was, Alvah." +"Then you think it’ll work that way?" +"It might. Or it might be much worse than anything you imagine. But it’s of no +importance to us any more. Because you see, Alvah, as far as the Banner is +concerned, if it came to a showdown between us and our boss, we don’t have to be +afraid of Mr. Gail Wynand any longer." +# +When the boy from the morgue entered, carrying a thick envelope of clippings, +Wynand looked up from his desk and said: +"That much? I didn’t know he was so famous." +"Well, it’s the Stoddard trial, Mr. Wynand." +The boy stopped. There was nothing wrong--only the ridges on Wynand’s forehead, +and he did not know Wynand well enough to know what these meant. He wondered +what made him feel as if he should be afraid. After a moment, Wynand said: +"All right. Thank you." +The boy deposited the envelope on the glass surface of the desk, and walked out. +Wynand sat looking at the bulging shape of yellow paper. He saw it reflected in +the glass, as if the bulk had eaten through the surface and grown roots to his +desk. He looked at the walls of his office and he wondered whether they +contained a power which could save him from opening that envelope. +Then he pulled himself erect, he put both forearms in a straight line along the +edge of the desk, his fingers stretched and meeting, he looked down, past his +465 + + nostrils, at the surface of the desk, he sat for a moment, grave, proud, +collected, like the angular mummy of a Pharaoh, then he moved one hand, pulled +the envelope forward, opened it and began to read. +"Sacrilege" by Ellsworth M. Toohey--"The Churches of our Childhood" by Alvah +Scarret--editorials, sermons, speeches, statements, letters to the editor, the +Banner unleashed full-blast, photographs, cartoons, interviews, resolutions of +protest, letters to the editor. +He read every word, methodically, his hands on the edge of the desk, fingers +meeting, not lifting the clippings, not touching them, reading them as they lay +on top of the pile, moving a hand only to turn a clipping over and read the one +beneath, moving the hand with a mechanical perfection of timing, the fingers +rising as his eyes took the last word, not allowing the clipping to remain in +sight a second longer than necessary. But he stopped for a long time to look at +the photographs of the Stoddard Temple. He stopped longer to look at one of +Roark’s pictures, the picture of exaltation captioned "Are you happy, Mr. +Superman?" He tore it from the story it illustrated, and slipped it into his +desk drawer. Then he continued reading. +The trial--the testimony of Ellsworth M. Toohey--of Peter Keating--of Ralston +Holcombe--of Gordon L. Prescott--no quotations from the testimony of Dominique +Francon, only a brief report. "The defense rests." A few mentions in "One Small +Voice"--then a gap--the next clipping dated three years later--Monadnock Valley. +It was late when he finished reading. His secretaries had left. He felt the +sense of empty rooms and halls around him. But he heard the sound of presses: a +low, rumbling vibration that went through every room. He had always liked +that--the sound of the building’s heart, beating. He listened. They were running +off tomorrow’s Banner. He sat without moving for a long time. + +3. +ROARK and Wynand stood on the top of a hill, looking over a spread of land that +sloped away in a long gradual curve. Bare trees rose on the hilltop and +descended to the shore of a lake, their branches geometrical compositions cut +through the air. The color of the sky, a clear, fragile blue-green, made the air +colder. The cold washed the colors of the earth, revealing that they were not +colors but only the elements from which color was to come, the dead brown not a +full brown but a future green, the tired purple an overture to flame, the gray a +prelude to gold. The earth was like the outline of a great story, like the steel +frame of a building--to be filled and finished, holding all the splendor of the +future in naked simplification. +"Where do you think the house should stand?" asked Wynand. +"Here," said Roark. +"I hoped you’d choose this." +Wynand had driven his car from the city, and they had walked for two hours down +the paths of his new estate, through deserted lanes, through a forest, past the +lake, to the hill. Now Wynand waited, while Roark stood looking at the +countryside spread under his feet. Wynand wondered what reins this man was +gathering from all the points of the landscape into his hand. +466 + + When Roark turned to him, Wynand asked: +"May I speak to you now?" +"Of course," Roark smiled, amused by the deference which he +had not requested. +Wynand’s voice sounded clear and brittle, like the color of the sky above them, +with the same quality of ice-green radiance: "Why did you accept this +commission?" +"Because I’m an architect for hire." +"You know what I mean." +"I’m not sure I do." +"Don’t you hate my guts?" +"No. Why should I?" +"You want me to speak of it first?" +"Of what?" +"The Stoddard Temple." +Roark smiled. "So you did check up on me since yesterday." +"I read our clippings." He waited, but Roark said nothing. "All of them." His +voice was harsh, half defiance, half plea. "Everything we said about you." The +calm of Roark’s face drove him to fury. He went on, giving slow, full value to +each word: "We called you an incompetent fool, a tyro, a charlatan, a swindler, +an egomaniac..." +"Stop torturing yourself." +Wynand closed his eyes, as if Roark had struck him. In a moment, he said: +"Mr. Roark, you don’t know me very well. You might as well learn this: I don’t +apologize. I never apologize for any of my actions." +"What made you think of apology? I haven’t asked for it." +"I stand by every one of those descriptive terms. I stand by every word printed +in the Banner." +"I haven’t asked you to repudiate it." +"I know what you think. You understood that I didn’t know about the Stoddard +Temple yesterday. I had forgotten the name of the architect involved. You +concluded it wasn’t I who led that campaign against you. You’re right, it wasn’t +I, I was away at the time. But you don’t understand that the campaign was in the +true and proper spirit of the Banner. It was in strict accordance with the +Banner’s function. No one is responsible for it but me. Alvah Scarret was doing +only what I taught him. Had I been in town, I would have done the same." +"That’s your privilege." +467 + + "You don’t believe I would have done it?" +"No." +"I haven’t asked you for compliments and I haven’t asked you for pity." +"I can’t do what you’re asking for." +"What do you think I’m asking?" +"That I slap your face." +"Why don’t you?" +"I can’t pretend an anger I don’t feel," said Roark. "It’s not pity. It’s much +more cruel than anything I could do. Only I’m not doing it in order to be cruel. +If I slapped your face, you’d forgive me for the Stoddard Temple." +"Is it you who should seek forgiveness?" +"No. You wish I did. You know that there’s an act of forgiveness involved. +You’re not clear about the actors. You wish I would forgive you--or demand +payment, which is the same thing--and you believe that that would close the +record. But, you see, I have nothing to do with it. I’m not one of the actors. +It doesn’t matter what I do or feel about it now. You’re not thinking of me. I +can’t help you. I’m not the person you’re afraid of just now." +"Who is?" +"Yourself." +"Who gave you the right to say all this?" +"You did." +"Well, go on." +"Do you wish the rest?" +"Go on." +"I think it hurts you to know that you’ve made me suffer. You wish you hadn’t. +And yet there’s something that frightens you more. The knowledge that I haven’t +suffered at all." +"Go on." +"The knowledge that I’m neither kind nor generous now, but simply indifferent. +It frightens you, because you know that things like the Stoddard Temple always +require payment--and you see that I’m not paying for it. You were astonished +that I accepted this commission. Do you think my acceptance required courage? +You needed far greater courage to hire me. You see, this is what I think of the +Stoddard Temple. I’m through with it. You’re not." +Wynand let his fingers fall open, palms out. His shoulders sagged a little, +relaxing. He said very simply: +"All right. It’s true. All of it." +468 + + Then he stood straight, but with a kind of quiet resignation, as if his body +were consciously made vulnerable. +"I hope you know you’ve given me a beating in your own way," he said. +"Yes. And you’ve taken it. So you’ve accomplished what you wanted. Shall we say +we’re even and forget the Stoddard Temple?" +"You’re very wise or I’ve been very obvious. Either is your achievement. +Nobody’s ever caused me to become obvious before." +"Shall I still do what you want?" +"What do you think I want now?" +"Personal recognition from me. It’s my turn to give in, isn’t it?" +"You’re appallingly honest, aren’t you?" +"Why shouldn’t I be? I can’t give you the recognition of having made me suffer. +But you’ll take the substitute of having given me pleasure, won’t you? All +right, then. I’m glad you like me. I think you know this is as much an exception +for me as your taking a beating. I don’t usually care whether I’m liked or not. +I do care this time. I’m glad." +Wynand laughed aloud. "You’re as innocent and presumptuous as an emperor. When +you confer honors you merely exalt yourself. What in hell made you think I liked +you?" +"Now you don’t want any explanations of that. You’ve reproached me once for +causing you to be obvious." +Wynand sat down on a fallen tree trunk. He said nothing; but his movement was an +invitation and a demand. Roark sat down beside him; Roark’s face was sober, but +the trace of a smile remained, amused and watchful, as if every word he heard +were not a disclosure but a confirmation. +"You’ve come up from nothing, haven’t you?" Wynand asked. "You came from a poor +family." +"Yes. How did you know that?" +"Just because it feels like a presumption--the thought of handing you anything: +a compliment, an idea or a fortune. I started at the bottom, too. Who was your +father?" +"A steel puddler." +"Mine was a longshoreman. Did you hold all sorts of funny jobs when you were a +child?" +"All sorts. Mostly in the building trades." +"I did worse than that. I did just about everything. What job did you like +best?" +"Catching rivets, on steel structures." +469 + + "I liked being a bootblack on a Hudson ferry. I should have hated that, but I +didn’t. I don’t remember the people at all. I remember the city. The +city--always there, on the shore, spread out, waiting, as if I were tied to it +by a rubber band. The band would stretch and carry me away, to the other shore, +but it would always snap back and I would return. It gave me the feeling that +I’d never escaped from that city--and it would never escape from me." +Roark knew that Wynand seldom spoke of his childhood, by the quality of his +words; they were bright and hesitant, untarnished by usage, like coins that had +not passed through many hands. +"Were you ever actually homeless and starving?" Wynand asked. +"A few times." +"Did you mind that?" +"No." +"I didn’t either. I minded something else. Did you want to scream, when you were +a child, seeing nothing but fat ineptitude around you, knowing how many things +could be done and done so well, but having no power to do them? Having no power +to blast the empty skulls around you? Having to take orders--and that’s bad +enough--but to take orders from your inferiors! Have you felt that?" +"Yes." +"Did you drive the anger back inside of you, and store it, and decide to let +yourself be torn to pieces if necessary, but reach the day when you’d rule those +people and all people and everything around you?" +"No." +"You didn’t? You let yourself forget?" +"No. I hate incompetence. I think it’s probably the only thing I do hate. But it +didn’t make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want +to do my own work in my own way and let myself be torn to pieces if necessary." +"And you were?" +"No. Not in any way that counts." +"You don’t mind looking back? At anything?" +"No." +"I do. There was one night. I was beaten and I crawled to a door--I remember the +pavement--it was right under my nostrils--I can still see it--there were veins +in the stone and white spots--I had to make sure that that pavement moved--I +couldn’t feel whether I was moving or not--but I could tell by the pavement--I +had to see that those veins and spots changed--I had to reach the next pattern +or the crack six inches away--it took a long time--and I knew it was blood under +my stomach..." +His voice had no tone of self-pity; it was simple, impersonal, with a faint +sound of wonder. Roark said: "I’d like to help you." +Wynand smiled slowly, not gaily. "I believe you could. I even believe that it +470 + + would be proper. Two days ago I would have murdered anyone who’d think of me as +an object for help....You know, of course, that that night’s not what I hate in +my past. Not what I dread to look back on. It was only the least offensive to +mention. The other things can’t be talked about." +"I know. I meant the other things." +"What are they? You name them." +"The Stoddard Temple." +"You want to help me with that?" +"Yes." +"You’re a damn fool. Don’t you realize..." +"Don’t you realize I’m doing it already?" +"How?" +"By building this house for you." +Roark saw the slanting ridges on Wynand’s forehead. Wynand’s eyes seemed whiter +than usual, as if the blue had ebbed from the iris, two white ovals, luminous on +his face. He said: +"And getting a fat commission check for it." +He saw Roark’s smile, suppressed before it appeared fully. The smile would have +said that this sudden insult was a declaration of surrender, more eloquent than +the speeches of confidence; the suppression said that Roark would not help him +over this particular moment. +"Why, of course," said Roark calmly. +Wynand got up. "Let’s go. We’re wasting time. I have more important things to do +at the office." +They did not speak on their way back to the city. Wynand drove his car at ninety +miles an hour. The speed made two solid walls of blurred motion on the sides of +the road; as if they were flying down a long, closed, silent corridor. +He stopped at the entrance to the Cord Building and let Roark out. He said: +"You’re free to go back to that site as often as you wish, Mr. Roark. I don’t +have to go with you. You can get the surveys and all the information you need +from my office. Please do not call on me again until it is necessary. I shall be +very busy. Let me know when the first drawings are ready." +# +When the drawings were ready, Roark telephoned Wynand’s office. He had not +spoken to Wynand for a month. "Please hold the wire, Mr. Roark," said Wynand’s +secretary. He waited. The secretary’s voice came back and informed him that Mr. +Wynand wished the drawings brought to his office that afternoon; she gave the +hour, Wynand would not answer in person. +When Roark entered the office, Wynand said: "How do you do, Mr. Roark," his +voice gracious and formal. No memory of intimacy remained on his blank, +471 + + courteous face. +Roark handed him the plans of the house and a large perspective drawing. Wynand +studied each sheet. He held the drawing for a long time. Then he looked up. +"I am very much impressed, Mr. Roark." The voice was offensively correct. "I +have been quite impressed by you from the first. I have thought it over and I +want to make a special deal with you." +His glance was directed at Roark with a soft emphasis, almost with tenderness; +as if he were showing that he wished to treat Roark cautiously, to spare him +intact for a purpose of his own. He lifted the sketch and held it up between two +fingers, letting all the light hit it straight on; the white sheet glowed as a +reflector for a moment, pushing the black pencil lines eloquently forward. +"You want to see this house erected?" Wynand asked softly. "You want it very +much?" +"Yes," said Roark. +Wynand did not move his hand, only parted his fingers and let the cardboard drop +face down on the desk. +"It will be erected, Mr. Roark. Just as you designed it. Just as it stands on +this sketch. On one condition." +Roark sat leaning back, his hands in his pockets, attentive, waiting. +"You don’t want to ask me what condition, Mr. Roark? Very well, I’ll tell you. I +shall accept this house on condition that you accept the deal I offer you. I +wish to sign a contract whereby you will be sole architect for any building I +undertake to erect in the future. As you realize, this would be quite an +assignment. I venture to say I control more structural work than any other +single person in the country. Every man in your profession has wanted to be +known as my exclusive architect. I am offering it to you. In exchange, you will +have to submit yourself to certain conditions. Before I name them, I’d like to +point out some of the consequences, should you refuse. As you may have heard, I +do not like to be refused. The power I hold can work two ways. It would be easy +for me to arrange that no commission be available to you anywhere in this +country. You have a small following of your own, but no prospective employer can +withstand the kind of pressure I am in a position to exert. You have gone +through wasted periods of your life before. They were nothing, compared to the +blockade I can impose. You might have to go back to a granite quarry--oh yes, I +know about that, summer of 1928, the Francon quarry in +Connecticut--how?--private detectives, Mr. Roark--you might have to go back to a +granite quarry, only I shall see to it that the quarries also will be closed to +you. Now I’ll tell you what I want of you." +In all the gossip about Gail Wynand, no one had ever mentioned the expression of +his face as it was in this moment. The few men who had seen it did not talk +about it. Of these men, Dwight Carson had been the first. Wynand’s lips were +parted, his eyes brilliant. It was an expression of sensual pleasure derived +from agony--the agony of his victim or his own, or both. +"I want you to design all my future commercial structures--as the public wishes +commercial structures to be designed. You’ll build Colonial houses, Rococo +hotels and semi-Grecian office buildings. You’ll exercise your matchless +ingenuity within forms chosen by the taste of the people--and you’ll make money +for me. You’ll take your spectacular talent and make it obedient Originality and +472 + + subservience together. They call it harmony. You’ll create in your sphere what +the Banner is in mine. Do you think it took no talent to create the Banner? Such +will be your future career. But the house you’ve designed for me shall be +erected as you designed it. It will be the last Roark building to rise on earth. +Nobody will have one after mine. You’ve read about ancient rulers who put to +death the architect of their palace, that no others might equal the glory he had +given them. They killed the architect or cut his eyes out. Modern methods are +different. For the rest of your life you’ll obey the will of the majority. I +shan’t attempt to offer you any arguments. I am merely stating an alternative. +You’re the kind of man who can understand plain language. You have a simple +choice: if you refuse, you’ll never build anything again; if you accept, you’ll +build this house which you want so much to see erected, and a great many other +houses which you won’t like, but which will make money for both of us. For the +rest of your life you’ll design rental developments, such as Stoneridge. That is +what I want." +He leaned forward, waiting for one of the reactions he knew well and enjoyed: a +look of anger, or indignation, or ferocious pride. +"Why, of course," said Roark gaily. "I’ll be glad to do it. That’s easy." +He reached over, took a pencil and the first piece of paper he saw on Wynand’s +desk--a letter with an imposing letterhead. He drew rapidly on the back of the +letter. The motion of his hand was smooth and confident. Wynand looked at his +face bent over the paper; he saw the unwrinkled forehead, the straight line of +the eyebrows, attentive, but untroubled by effort. +Roark raised his head and threw the paper to Wynand across the desk. +"Is this what you want?" +Wynand’s house stood drawn on the paper--with Colonial porches, a gambrel roof, +two massive chimneys, a few little pilasters, a few porthole windows. It was not +a parody, it was a serious job of adaptation in what any professor would have +called excellent taste. +"Good God, no!" The gasp was instinctive and immediate. +"Then shut up," said Roark, "and don’t ever let me hear any architectural +suggestions." +Wynand slumped down in his chair and laughed. He laughed for a long time, unable +to stop. It was not a happy sound. +Roark shook his head wearily. "You knew better than that. And it’s such an old +one to me. My antisocial stubbornness is so well known that I didn’t think +anyone would waste time trying to tempt me again." +"Howard. I meant it. Until I saw this." +"I knew you meant it. I didn’t think you could be such a fool." +"You knew you were taking a terrible kind of chance?" +"None at all. I had an ally I could trust." +"What? Your integrity?" +"Yours, Gail." +473 + + Wynand sat looking down at the surface of his desk. After a while he said: +"You’re wrong about that." +"I don’t think so." +Wynand lifted his head; he looked tired; he sounded indifferent. +"It was your method of the Stoddard trial again, wasn’t it? "The defense +rests.’...I wish I had been in the courtroom to hear that sentence....You did +throw the trial back at me again, didn’t you?" +"Call it that." +"But this time, you won. I suppose you know I’m not glad that you won." +"I know you’re not." +"Don’t think it was one of those temptations when you tempt just to test your +victim and are happy to be beaten, and smile and say, well, at last, here’s the +kind of man I want. Don’t imagine that. Don’t make that excuse for me." +"I’m not. I know what you wanted." +"I wouldn’t have lost so easily before. This would have been only the beginning. +I know I can try further. I don’t want to try. Not because you’d probably hold +out to the end. But because I wouldn’t hold out. No, I’m not glad and I’m not +grateful to you for this....But it doesn’t matter...." +"Gail, how much lying to yourself are you actually capable of?" +"I’m not lying. Everything I just told you is true. I thought you understood +it." +"Everything you just told me--yes. I wasn’t thinking of that." +"You’re wrong in what you’re thinking. You’re wrong in remaining here." +"Do you wish to throw me out?" +"You know I can’t." +Wynand’s glance moved from Roark to the drawing of the house lying face down on +his desk. He hesitated for a moment, looking at the blank cardboard, then turned +it over. He asked softly: +"Shall I tell you now what I think of this?" +"You’ve told me." +"Howard, you spoke about a house as a statement of my life. Do you think my life +deserves a statement like this?" +"Yes." +"Is this your honest judgment?" +"My honest judgment, Gail. My most sincere one. My final one. No matter what +474 + + might happen between us in the future." +Wynand put the drawing down and sat studying the plans for a long time. When he +raised his head, he looked calm and normal. +"Why did you stay away from here?" he asked. "You were busy with private +detectives." Wynand laughed. "Oh that? I couldn’t resist my old bad habits and I +was curious. Now I know everything about you--except the women in your life. +Either you’ve been very discreet or there haven’t been many. No information +available on that anywhere." +"There haven’t been many." +"I think I missed you. It was a kind of substitute--gathering the details of +your past. Why did you actually stay away?" +"You told me to." +"Are you always so meek about taking orders?" +"When I find it advisable." +"Well, here’s an order--hope you place it among the advisable ones: come to have +dinner with us tonight. I’ll take this drawing home to show my wife. I’ve told +her nothing about the house so far." +"You haven’t told her?" +"No. I want her to see this. And I want you to meet her. I know she hasn’t been +kind to you in the past--I read what she wrote about you. But it’s so long ago. +I hope it doesn’t matter now." +"No, it doesn’t matter." +"Then will you come?" +"Yes." + +4. +DOMINIQUE stood at the glass door of her room. Wynand saw the starlight on the +ice sheets of the roof garden outside. He saw its reflection touching the +outline of her profile, a faint radiance on her eyelids, on the planes of her +cheeks. He thought that this was the illumination proper to her face. She turned +to him slowly, and the light became an edge around the pale straight mass of her +hair. She smiled as she had always smiled at him, a quiet greeting of +understanding. +"What’s the matter, Gail?" +"Good evening, dear. Why?" +"You look happy. That’s not the word. But it’s the nearest." +"’Light’ is nearer. I feel light, thirty years lighter. Not that I’d want to be +what I was thirty years ago. One never does. What the feeling means is only a +475 + + sense of being carried back intact, as one is now, back to the beginning. It’s +quite illogical and impossible and wonderful." +"What the feeling usually means is that you’ve met someone. A woman as a rule." +"I have. Not a woman. A man. Dominique, you’re very beautiful tonight. But I +always say that. It’s not what I wanted to say. It’s this: I am very happy +tonight that you’re so beautiful." +"What is it, Gail?" +"Nothing. Only a feeling of how much is unimportant and how easy it is to live." +He took her hand and held it to his lips. +"Dominique, I’ve never stopped thinking it’s a miracle that our marriage has +lasted. Now I believe that it won’t be broken. By anything or anyone." She +leaned back against the glass pane. "I have a present for you--don’t remind me +it’s the sentence I use more often than any other. I will have a present for you +by the end of this summer. Our house." +"The house? You haven’t spoken of it for so long, I thought you had forgotten." +"I’ve thought of nothing else for the last six months. You haven’t changed your +mind? You do want to move out of the city?" +"Yes, Gail, if you want it so much. Have you decided on an architect?" +"I’ve done more than that. I have the drawing of the house to show you." +"Oh, I’d like to see it." +"It’s in my study. Come on. I want you to see it." +She smiled and closed her fingers over his wrist, a brief pressure, like a +caress of encouragement, then she followed him. He threw the door of his study +open and let her enter first. The light was on and the drawing stood propped on +his desk, facing the door. +She stopped, her hands behind her, palms flattened against the doorjamb. She was +too far away to see the signature, but she knew the work and the only man who +could have designed that house. +Her shoulders moved, describing a circle, twisting slowly, as if she were tied +to a pole, had abandoned hope of escape, and only her body made a last, +instinctive gesture of protest. +She thought, were she lying in bed in Roark’s arms in the sight of Gail Wynand, +the violation would be less terrible; this drawing, more personal than Roark’s +body, created in answer to a matching force that came from Gail Wynand, was a +violation of her, of Roark, of Wynand--and yet, she knew suddenly that it was +the inevitable. +"No," she whispered, "things like that are never a coincidence." +"What?" +But she held up her hand, softly pushing back all conversation, and she walked +to the drawing, her steps soundless on the carpet. She saw the sharp signature +476 + + in the corner--"Howard Roark." It was less terrifying than the shape of the +house; it was a thin point of support, almost a greeting. +"Dominique?" +She turned her face to him. He saw her answer. He said: +"I knew you’d like it. Forgive the inadequacy. We’re stuck for words tonight." +She walked to the davenport and sat down; she let her back press against the +cushions; it helped to sit straight. She kept her eyes on Wynand. He stood +before her, leaning on the mantelpiece, half turned away, looking at the +drawing. She could not escape that drawing; Wynand’s face was like a mirror of +it. +"You’ve seen him, Gail?" +"Whom?" +"The architect." +"Of course I’ve seen him. Not an hour ago." +"When did you first meet him?" +"Last month." +"You knew him all this time?...Every evening...when you came home...at the +dinner table..." +"You mean, why didn’t I tell you? I wanted to have the sketch to show you. I saw +the house like this, but I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t think anyone would ever +understand what I wanted and design it. He did." +"Who?" +"Howard Roark." +She had wanted to hear the name pronounced by Gail Wynand. +"How did you happen to choose him, Gail?" +"I looked all over the country. Every building I liked had been done by him." +She nodded slowly. +"Dominique, I take it for granted you don’t care about it any more, but I know +that I picked the one architect you spent all your time denouncing when you were +on the Banner." +"You read that?" +"I read it. You had an odd way of doing it. It was obvious that you admired his +work and hated him personally. But you defended him at the Stoddard trial." +"Yes." +"You even worked for him once. That statue, Dominique, it was made for his +temple." +477 + + "Yes." +"It’s strange. You lost your job on the Banner for defending him. I didn’t know +it when I chose him. I didn’t know about that trial. I had forgotten his name. +Dominique, in a way, it’s he who gave you to me. That statue--from his temple. +And now he’s going to give me this house. Dominique, why did you hate him?" +"I didn’t hate him....It was so long ago..." +"I suppose none of that matters now, does it?" He pointed to the drawing. +"I haven’t seen him for years." +"You’re going to see him in about an hour. He’s coming here for dinner." +She moved her hand, tracing a spiral on the arm of the davenport, to convince +herself that she could. +"Here?" +"Yes." +"You’ve asked him for dinner?" +He smiled; he remembered his resentment against the presence of guests in their +house. He said: "This is different. I want him here. I don’t think you remember +him well--or you wouldn’t be astonished." +She got up. +"All right, Gail. I’ll give the orders. Then I’ll get dressed." +# +They faced each other across the drawing room of Gail Wynand’s penthouse. She +thought how simple it was. He had always been here. He had been the motive power +of every step she had taken in these rooms. He had brought her here and now he +had come to claim this place. She was looking at him. She was seeing him as she +had seen him on the morning when she awakened in his bed for the last time. She +knew that neither his clothes nor the years stood between her and the living +intactness of that memory. She thought this had been inevitable from the first, +from the instant when she had looked down at him on the ledge of a quarry--it +had to come like this, in Gail Wynand’s house--and now she felt the peace of +finality, knowing that her share of decision had ended; she had been the one who +acted, but he would act from now on. +She stood straight, her head level; the planes of her face had a military +cleanliness of precision and a feminine fragility; her hands hung still, +composed by her sides, parallel with the long straight lines of her black dress. +"How do you do, Mr. Roark." +"How do you do, Mrs. Wynand." +"May I thank you for the house you have designed for us? It is the most +beautiful of your buildings." +"It had to be, by the nature of the assignment, Mrs. Wynand." +478 + + She turned her head slowly. +"How did you present the assignment to Mr. Roark, Gail?" +"Just as I spoke of it to you." +She thought of what Roark had heard from Wynand, and had accepted. She moved to +sit down; the two men followed her example. Roark said: +"If you like the house, the first achievement was Mr. Wynand’s conception of +it." +She asked: "Are you sharing the credit with a client?" +"Yes, in a way." +"I believe this contradicts what I remember of your professional convictions." +"But supports my personal ones." +"I’m not sure I ever understood that." +"I believe in conflict, Mrs. Wynand." +"Was there a conflict involved in designing this house?" +"The desire not to be influenced by my client." +"In what way?" +"I have liked working for some people and did not like working for others. But +neither mattered. This time, I knew that the house would be what it became only +because it was being done for Mr. Wynand. I had to overcome this. Or rather, I +had to work with it and against it. It was the best way of working. The house +had to surpass the architect, the client and the future tenant. It did." +"But the house--it’s you, Howard," said Wynand. "It’s still you." +It was the first sign of emotion on her face, a quiet shock, when she heard the +"Howard." Wynand did not notice it. Roark did. He glanced at her--his first +glance of personal contact. She could read no comment in it--only a conscious +affirmation of the thought that had shocked her. +"Thank you for understanding that, Gail," he answered. +She was not certain whether she had heard him stressing the name. +"It’s strange," said Wynand. "I am the most offensively possessive man on earth. +I do something to things. Let me pick up an ash tray from a dime-store counter, +pay for it and put it in my pocket--and it becomes a special kind of ash tray, +unlike any on earth, because it’s mine. It’s an extra quality in the thing, like +a sort of halo. I feel that about everything I own. From my overcoat--to the +oldest linotype in the composing room--to the copies of the Banner on +newsstands--to this penthouse--to my wife. And I’ve never wanted to own anything +as much as I want this house you’re going to build for me, Howard. I will +probably be jealous of Dominique living in it--I can be quite insane about +things like that. And yet--I don’t feel that I’ll own it, because no matter what +I do or say, it’s still yours. It will always be yours." +479 + + "It has to be mine," said Roark. "But in another sense, Gail, you own that house +and everything else I’ve built. You own every structure you’ve stopped before +and heard yourself answering." +"In what sense?" +"In the sense of that personal answer. What you feel in the presence of a thing +you admire is just one word--’Yes.’ The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of +admittance. And that ’Yes’ is more than an answer to one thing, it’s a kind of +’Amen’ to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the thought that created +it, to yourself for being able to see it. But the ability to say ’Yes’ or ’No’ +is the essence of all ownership. It’s your ownership of your own ego. Your soul, +if you wish. Your soul has a single basic function--the act of valuing. ’Yes’ or +’No,’ ’I wish’ or ’I do not wish.’ You can’t say ’Yes’ without saying ’I.’ +There’s no affirmation without the one who affirms. In this sense, everything to +which you grant your love is yours." +"In this sense, you share things with others?" +"No. It’s not sharing. When I listen to a symphony I love, I don’t get from it +what the composer got. His ’Yes’ was different from mine. He could have no +concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to +each man But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience. +I’m alone when I design a house, Gail, and you can never know the way in which I +own it. But if you said you own ’Amen’ to it--it’s also yours. And I’m glad it’s +yours." +Wynand said, smiling: +"I like to think that. That I own Monadnock and the Enright House and the Cord +Building..." +"And the Stoddard Temple," said Dominique. +She had listened to them. She felt numb. Wynand had never spoken like this to +any guest in their house; Roark had never spoken like this to any client. She +knew that the numbness would break into anger, denial, indignation later; now it +was only a cutting sound in her voice, a sound to destroy what she had heard. +She thought that she succeeded. Wynand answered, the word dropping heavily: +"Yes." +"Forget the Stoddard Temple, Gail," said Roark. There was such a simple, +careless gaiety in his voice that no solemn dispensation could have been more +effective. +"Yes, Howard," said Wynand, smiling. +She saw Roark’s eyes turned to her. +"I have not thanked you, Mrs. Wynand, for accepting me as your architect. I know +that Mr. Wynand chose me and you could have refused my services. I wanted to +tell you that I’m glad you didn’t." +She thought, I believe it because none of this can be believed; I’ll accept +anything tonight; I’m looking at him. +She said, courteously indifferent: "Wouldn’t it be a reflection on my judgment +480 + + to suppose that I would wish to reject a house you had designed, Mr. Roark?" She +thought that nothing she said aloud could matter tonight. +Wynand asked: +"Howard, that ’Yes’--once granted, can it be withdrawn?" +She wanted to laugh in incredulous anger. It was Wynand’s voice that had asked +this; it should have been hers. He must look at me when he answers, she thought; +he must look at me. +"Never," Roark answered, looking at Wynand. +"There’s so much nonsense about human inconstancy and the transience of all +emotions," said Wynand. "I’ve always thought that a feeling which changes never +existed in the first place. There are books I liked at the age of sixteen. I +still like them." +The butler entered, carrying a tray of cocktails. Holding her glass, she watched +Roark take his off the tray. She thought: At this moment the glass stem between +his fingers feels just like the one between mine; we have this much in +common....Wynand stood, holding a glass, looking at Roark with a strange kind of +incredulous wonder, not like a host, like an owner who cannot quite believe his +ownership of his prize possession....She thought: I’m not insane. I’m only +hysterical, but it’s quite all right, I’m saying something, I don’t know what it +is, but it must be all right, they are both listening and answering, Gail is +smiling, I must be saying the proper things.... +Dinner was announced and she rose obediently; she led the way to the dining +room, like a graceful animal given poise by conditioned reflexes. She sat at the +head of the table, between the two men facing each other at her sides. She +watched the silverware in Roark’s fingers, the pieces of polished metal with the +initials "D W." She thought: I have done this so many times--I am the gracious +Mrs. Gail Wynand--there were Senators, judges, presidents of insurance +companies, sitting at dinner in that place at my right--and this is what I was +being trained for, this is why Gail has been rising through tortured years to +the position of entertaining Senators and judges at dinner--for the purpose of +reaching an evening when the guest facing him would be Howard Roark. +Wynand spoke about the newspaper business; he showed no reluctance to discuss it +with Roark, and she pronounced a few sentences when it seemed necessary. Her +voice had a luminous simplicity; she was being carried along, unresisting, any +personal reaction would be superfluous, even pain or fear. She thought, if in +the flow of conversation Wynand’s next sentence should be: "You’ve slept with +him," she would answer: "Yes, Gail, of course," just as simply. But Wynand +seldom looked at her; when he did, she knew by his face that hers was normal. +Afterward, they were in the drawing room again, and she saw Roark standing at +the window, against the lights of the city. She thought: Gail built this place +as a token of his own victory--to have the city always before him--the city +where he did run things at last. But this is what it had really been built +for--to have Roark stand at that window--and I think Gail knows it +tonight--Roark’s body blocking miles out of that perspective, with only a few +dots of fire and a few cubes of lighted glass left visible around the outline of +his figure. He was smoking and she watched his cigarette moving slowly against +the black sky, as he put it between his lips, then held it extended in his +fingers, and she thought: they are only sparks from his cigarette, those points +glittering in space behind him. +481 + + She said softly: "Gail always liked to look at the city at night. He was in love +with skyscrapers." +Then she noticed she had used the past tense, and wondered why. +She did not remember what she said when they spoke about the new house. Wynand +brought the drawings from his study, spread the plans on a table, and the three +of them stood bent over the plans together. Roark’s pencil moved, pointing, +across the hard geometrical patterns of thin black lines on white sheets. She +heard his voice, close to her, explaining. They did not speak of beauty and +affirmation, but of closets, stairways, pantries, bathrooms. Roark asked her +whether she found the arrangements convenient. She thought it was strange that +they all spoke as if they really believed she would ever live in this house. +When Roark had gone, she heard Wynand asking her: +"What do you think of him?" +She felt something angry and dangerous, like a single, sudden twist within her, +and she said, half in fear, half in deliberate invitation: +"Doesn’t he remind you of Dwight Carson?" +"Oh, forget Dwight Carson!" +Wynand’s voice, refusing earnestness, refusing guilt, had sounded exactly like +the voice that had said: "Forget the Stoddard Temple." +# +The secretary in the reception room looked, startled, at the patrician gentleman +whose face she had seen so often in the papers. +"Gail Wynand," he said, inclining his head in self-introduction. "I should like +to see Mr. Roark. If he is not busy. Please do not disturb him if he is. I had +no appointment." +She had never expected Wynand to come to an office unannounced and to ask +admittance in that tone of grave deference. +She announced the visitor. Roark came out into the reception room, smiling, as +if he found nothing unusual in this call. +"Hello, Gail. Come in." +"Hello, Howard." +He followed Roark to the office. Beyond the broad windows the darkness of late +afternoon dissolved the city; it was snowing; black specks whirled furiously +across the lights. +"I don’t want to interrupt if you’re busy, Howard. This is not important." He +had not seen Roark for five days, since the dinner. +"I’m not busy. Take your coat off. Shall I have the drawings +brought in?" +"No. I don’t want to talk about the house. Actually, I came without any reason +at all. I was down at my office all day, got slightly sick of it, and felt like +482 + + coming here. What are you grinning about?" +"Nothing. Only you said that it wasn’t important." +Wynand looked at him, smiled and nodded. +He sat down on the edge of Roark’s desk, with an ease which he had never felt in +his own office, his hands in his pockets, one leg swinging. +"It’s almost useless to talk to you, Howard. I always feel as if I were reading +to you a carbon copy of myself and you’ve already seen the original. You seem to +hear everything I say a minute in advance. We’re unsynchronized." +"You call that unsynchronized?" +"All right. Too well synchronized." His eyes were moving slowly over the room. +"If we own the things to which we say ’Yes,’ then I own this office?" +"Then you own it." +"You know what I feel here? No, I won’t say I feel at home--I don’t think I’ve +ever felt at home anywhere. And I won’t say I feel as I did in the palaces I’ve +visited or in the great European cathedrals. I feel as I did when I was still in +Hell’s Kitchen--in the best days I had there--there weren’t many. But +sometimes--when I sat like this--only it was some piece of broken wall by the +wharf--and there were a lot of stars above and dump heaps around me and the +river smelt of rotting shells....Howard, when you look back, does it seem to you +as if all your days had rolled forward evenly, like a sort of typing exercise, +all alike? Or were there stops-points reached--and then the typing rolled on +again?" +"There were stops." +"Did you know them at the time--did you know that that’s what they were?" +"Yes." +"I didn’t. I knew afterward. But I never knew the reasons. There was one +moment--I was twelve and I stood behind a wall, waiting to be killed. Only I +knew I wouldn’t be killed. Not what I did afterward, not the fight I had, but +just that one moment when I waited. I don’t know why that was a stop to be +remembered or why I feel proud of it. I don’t know why I have to think of it +here." +"Don’t look for the reason." +"Do you know it?" +"I said don’t look for it." +"I have been thinking about my past--ever since I met you. And I had gone for +years without thinking of it. No, no secret conclusions for you to draw from +that. It doesn’t hurt me to look back this way, and it doesn’t give me pleasure. +It’s just looking. Not a quest, not even a journey. Just a kind of walk at +random, like wandering through the countryside in the evening, when one’s a +little tired....If there’s any connection to you at all, it’s only one thought +that keeps coming back to me. I keep thinking that you and I started in the same +way. From the same point. From nothing. I just think that. Without any comment. +I don’t seem to find any particular meaning in it at all. Just ’we started in +483 + + the same way’...Want to tell me what it means?" +"No." +Wynand glanced about the room--and noticed a newspaper on top of a filing +cabinet. +"Who the hell reads the Banner around here?" +"I do." +"Since when?" +"Since about a month ago." +"Sadism?" +"No. Just curiosity." +Wynand rose, picked up the paper and glanced through the pages. He stopped at +one and chuckled. He held it up: the page that bore photographed drawings of the +buildings for "The March of the Centuries" exposition. +"Awful, isn’t it?" said Wynand. "It’s disgusting that we have to plug that +stuff. But I feel better about it when I think of what you did to those eminent +civic leaders." He chuckled happily. "You told them you don’t co-operate or +collaborate." +"But it wasn’t a gesture, Gail. It was plain common sense. One can’t collaborate +on one’s own job. I can co-operate, if that’s what they call it, with the +workers who erect my buildings. But I can’t help them to lay bricks and they +can’t help me to design the house." +"It was the kind of gesture I’d like to make. I’m forced to give those civic +leaders free space in my papers. But it’s all right. You’ve slapped their faces +for me." He tossed the paper aside, without anger. "It’s like that luncheon I +had to attend today. A national convention of advertisers. I must give them +publicity--all wiggling, wriggling and drooling. I got so sick of it I thought +I’d run amuck and bash somebody’s skull. And then I thought of you. I thought +that you weren’t touched by any of it. Not in any way. The national convention +of advertisers doesn’t exist as far as you’re concerned. It’s in some sort of +fourth dimension that can never establish any communication with you at all. I +thought of that--and I felt a peculiar kind of relief." +He leaned against the filing cabinet, letting his feet slide forward, his arms +crossed, and he spoke softly: +"Howard I had a kitten once. The damn thing attached itself to me--a flea-bitten +little beast from the gutter, just fur, mud and bones--followed me home, I fed +it and kicked it out, but the next day there it was again, and finally I kept +it. I was seventeen then, working for the Gazette, just learning to work in the +special way I had to learn for life. I could take it all right, but not all of +it. There were times when it was pretty bad. Evenings, usually. Once I wanted to +kill myself. Not anger--anger made me work harder. Not fear. But disgust, +Howard. The kind of disgust that made it seem as if the whole world were under +water and the water stood still, water that had backed up out of the sewers and +ate into everything, even the sky, even my brain. And then I looked at that +kitten. And I thought that it didn’t know the things I loathed, it could never +know. It was clean--clean in the absolute sense, because it had no capacity to +484 + + conceive of the world’s ugliness. I can’t tell you what relief there was in +trying to imagine the state of consciousness inside that little brain, trying to +share it, a living consciousness, but clean and free. I would lie down on the +floor and put my face on that cat’s belly, and hear the beast purring. And then +I would feel better....There, Howard. I’ve called your office a rotting wharf +and yourself an alley cat. That’s my way of paying homage." +Roark smiled. Wynand saw that the smile was grateful. "Keep still," Wynand said +sharply. "Don’t say anything." He walked to a window and stood looking out. "I +don’t know why in hell I should speak like that. These are the first happy years +of my life. I met you because I wanted to build a monument to my happiness. I +come here to find rest, and I find it, and yet these are the things I talk +about....Well, never mind....Look, at the filthy weather. Are you through with +your work here? Can you call it a day?" +"Yes. Just about." +"Let’s go and have dinner together somewhere close by." +"All right." +"May I use your phone? I’ll tell Dominique not to expect me for dinner." +He dialed the number. Roark moved to the door of the drafting room--he had +orders to give before leaving. But he stopped at the door. He had to stop and +hear it. +"Hello, Dominique?...Yes....Tired?...No, you just sounded like it....I won’t be +home for dinner, will you excuse me, dearest?...I don’t know, it might be +late....I’m eating downtown....No. I’m having dinner with Howard Roark....Hello, +Dominique?...Yes....What?...I’m calling from his office....So long, dear." He +replaced the receiver. +In the library of the penthouse Dominique stood with her hand on the telephone, +as if some connection still remained. +For five days and nights, she had fought a single desire--to go to him. To see +him alone--anywhere--his home or his office or the street--for one word or only +one glance--but alone. She could not go. Her share of action was ended. He would +come to her when he wished. She knew he would come, and that he wanted her to +wait. She had waited, but she had held on to one thought--of an address, an +office in the Cord Building. +She stood, her hand closed over the stem of the telephone receiver. She had no +right to go to that office. But Gail Wynand had. +# +When Ellsworth Toohey entered Wynand’s office, as summoned, he made a few steps, +then stopped. The walls of Wynand’s office--the only luxurious room in the +Banner Building--were made of cork and copper paneling and had never borne any +pictures. Now, on the wall facing Wynand’s desk, he saw an enlarged photograph +under glass: the picture of Roark at the opening of the Enright House; Roark +standing at the parapet of the river, his head thrown back. +Toohey turned to Wynand. They looked at each other. +Wynand indicated a chair and Toohey sat down. Wynand spoke, smiling: +"I never thought I would come to agree with some of your social theories, Mr. +485 + + Toohey, but I find myself forced to do so. You have always denounced the +hypocrisy of the upper caste and preached the virtue of the masses. And now I +find that I regret the advantages I enjoyed in my former proletarian state. Were +I still in Hell’s Kitchen, I would have begun this interview by saying: Listen, +louse!--but since I am an inhibited capitalist, I shall not do so." +Toohey waited, he looked curious. +"I shall begin by saying: Listen, Mr. Toohey. I do not know what makes you tick. +I do not care to dissect your motives. I do not have the stomach required of +medical students. So I shall ask no questions and I wish to hear no +explanations. I shall merely tell you that from now on there is a name you will +never mention in your column again." He pointed to the photograph. "I could make +you reverse yourself publicly and I would enjoy it, but I prefer to forbid the +subject to you entirely. Not a word, Mr. Toohey. Not ever again. Now don’t +mention your contract or any particular clause of it. It would not be advisable. +Go on writing your column, but remember its title and devote it to commensurate +subjects. Keep it small, Mr. Toohey. Very small." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey easily. "I don’t have to write about Mr. Roark at +present." +"That’s all." +Toohey rose. "Yes, Mr. Wynand." + +5. +GAIL WYNAND sat at his desk in his office and read the proofs of an editorial on +the moral value of raising large families. Sentences like used chewing gum, +chewed and rechewed, spat out and picked up again, passing from mouth to mouth +to pavement to shoe sole to mouth to brain....He thought of Howard Roark and +went on reading the Banner; it made things easier. +"Daintiness is a girl’s greatest asset. Be sure to launder your undies every +night, and learn to talk on some cultured subject, and you will have all the +dates you want." "Your horoscope for tomorrow shows a beneficent aspect. +Application and sincerity will bring rewards in the fields of engineering, +public accounting and romance." "Mrs. Huntington-Cole’s hobbies are gardening, +the opera and early American sugar-bowls. She divides her time between her +little son ’Kit’ and her numerous charitable activities." "I’m jus’ Millie, I’m +jus’ a orphan." "For the complete diet send ten cents and a self-addressed, +stamped envelope."...He turned the pages, thinking of Howard Roark. +He signed the advertising contract with Kream-O Pudding--for five years, on the +entire Wynand chain, two full pages in every paper every Sunday. The men before +his desk sat like triumphal arches in flesh, monuments to victory, to evenings +of patience and calculation, restaurant tables, glasses emptied into throats, +months of thought, his energy, his living energy flowing like the liquid in the +glasses into the opening of heavy lips, into stubby fingers, across a desk, into +two full pages every Sunday, into drawings of yellow molds trimmed with +strawberries and yellow molds trimmed with butterscotch sauce. He looked, over +the heads of the men, at the photograph on the wall of his office: the sky, the +river and a man’s face, lifted. +But it hurts me, he thought. It hurts me every time I think of him. It makes +486 + + everything easier--the people, the editorials, the contracts--but easier because +it hurts so much. Pain is a stimulant also. I think I hate that name. I will go +on repeating it. It is a pain I wish to bear. +Then he sat facing Roark in the study of his penthouse--and he felt no pain; +only a desire to laugh without malice. +"Howard, everything you’ve done in your life is wrong according to the stated +ideals of mankind. And here you are. And somehow it seems a huge joke on the +whole world." +Roark sat in an armchair by the fireplace. The glow of the fire moved over the +study; the light seemed to curve with conscious pleasure about every object in +the room, proud to stress its beauty, stamping approval upon the taste of the +man who had achieved this setting for himself. They were alone. Dominique had +excused herself after dinner. She had known that they wanted to be alone. +"A joke on all of us," said Wynand. "On every man in the street. I always look +at the men in the street. I used to ride in the subways just to see how many of +them carried the Banner. I used to hate them and, sometimes, to be afraid. But +now I look at every one of them and I want to say: ’Why, you poor fool!’ That’s +all." +He telephoned Roark’s office one morning. "Can you have lunch with me, +Howard?...Meet me at the Nordland in half an hour." +He shrugged, smiling, when he faced Roark across the restaurant table. +"Nothing at all, Howard. No special reason. Just spent a revolting half-hour and +wanted to take the taste of it out of my mouth." +"What revolting half-hour?" +"Had my pictures taken with Lancelot Clokey." +"Who’s Lancelot Clokey?" +Wynand laughed aloud, forgetting his controlled elegance, forgetting the +startled glance of the waiter. +"That’s it, Howard. That’s why I had to have lunch with you. Because you can say +things like that." +"Now what’s the matter?" +"Don’t you read books? Don’t you know that Lancelot Clokey is ’our most +sensitive observer of the international scene’? That’s what the critic said--in +my own Banner. Lancelot Clokey has just been chosen author of the year or +something by some organization or other. We’re running his biography in the +Sunday supplement, and I had to pose with my arm around his shoulders. He wears +silk shirts and smells of gin. His second book is about his childhood and how it +helped him to understand the international scene. It sold a hundred thousand +copies. But you’ve never heard of him. Go on, eat your lunch, Howard. I like to +see you eating. I wish you were broke, so that I could feed you this lunch and +know you really needed it." +At the end of a day, he would come, unannounced, to Roark’s office or to his +home. Roark had an apartment in the Enright House, one of the crystal-shaped +units over the East River: a workroom, a library, a bedroom. He had designed the +487 + + furniture himself. Wynand could not understand for a long time why the place +gave him an impression of luxury, until he saw that one did not notice the +furniture at all: only a clean sweep of space and the luxury of an austerity +that had not been simple to achieve. In financial value it was the most modest +home that Wynand had entered as a guest in twenty-five years. +"We started in the same way, Howard," he said, glancing about Roark’s room. +"According to my judgment and experience, you should have remained in the +gutter. But you haven’t. I like this room. I like to sit here." +"I like to see you here." +"Howard, have you ever held power over a single human being?" +"No. And I wouldn’t take it if it were offered to me." +"I can’t believe that." +"It was offered to me once, Gail. I refused it." +Wynand looked at him with curiosity; it was the first time that he heard effort +in Roark’s voice. +"Why?" +"I had to." +"Out of respect for the man?" +"It was a woman." +"Oh, you damn fool! Out of respect for a woman?" +"Out of respect for myself." +"Don’t expect me to understand. We’re as opposite as two men can be." +"I thought that once. I wanted to think that." +"And now you don’t?" +"No." +"Don’t you despise every act I’ve ever committed?" +"Just about every one I know of." +"And you still like to see me here?" +"Yes. Gail, there was a man who considered you the symbol of the special evil +that destroyed him and would destroy me. He left me his hatred. And there was +another reason. I think I hated you, before I saw you." +"I knew you did. What made you change your mind?" +"I can’t explain that to you." +They drove together to the estate in Connecticut where the walls of the house +were rising out of the frozen ground. Wynand followed Roark through the future +488 + + rooms, he stood aside and watched Roark giving instructions. Sometimes, Wynand +came alone. The workers saw the black roadster twisting up the road to the top +of the hill, saw Wynand’s figure standing at a distance, looking at the +structure. His figure always carried with it all the implications of his +position; the quiet elegance of his overcoat, the angle of his hat, the +confidence of his posture, tense and casual together, made one think of the +Wynand empire; of the presses thundering from ocean to ocean, of the papers, the +lustrous magazine covers, the light rays trembling through newsreels, the wires +coiling over the world, the power flowing into every palace, every capital, +every secret, crucial room, day and night, through every costly minute of this +man’s life. He stood still against a sky gray as laundry water, and snowflakes +fluttered lazily past the brim of his hat. +On a day in April he drove alone to Connecticut after an absence of many weeks. +The roadster flew across the countryside, not an object, but a long streak of +speed. He felt no jolting motion inside his small cube of glass and leather; it +seemed to him that his car stood still, suspended over the ground, while the +control of his hands on the wheel made the earth fly past him, and he merely had +to wait until the place he desired came rolling to him. He loved the wheel of a +car as he loved his desk in the office of the Banner: both gave him the same +sense of a dangerous monster let loose under the expert direction of his +fingers. +Something tore past across his vision, and he was a mile away before he thought +how strange it was that he should have noticed it, because it had been only a +clump of weeds by the road; a mile later he realized that it was stranger still: +the weeds were green. Not in the middle of winter, he thought, and then he +understood, surprised, that it was not winter any longer. He had been very busy +in the last few weeks; he had not had time to notice. Now he saw it, hanging +over the fields around him, a hint of green, like a whisper. He heard three +statements in his mind, in precise succession, like interlocking gears: It’s +spring--I wonder if I have many left to see--I am fifty-five years old. +They were statements, not emotions; he felt nothing, neither eagerness nor fear. +But he knew it was strange that he should experience a sense of time; he had +never thought of his age in relation to any measure, he had never defined his +position on a limited course, he had not thought of a course nor of limits. He +had been Gail Wynand and he had stood still, like this car, and the years had +sped past him, like this earth, and the motor within him had controlled the +flight of the years. +No, he thought, I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no +questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of +emptiness, even the unanswered--and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in +my life. But I loved it. +If it were true, that old legend about appearing before a supreme judge and +naming one’s record, I would offer, with all my pride, not any act I committed, +but one thing I have never done on this earth: that I never sought an outside +sanction. I would stand and say: I am Gail Wynand, the man who has committed +every crime except the foremost one: that of ascribing futility to the wonderful +fact of existence and seeking justification beyond myself. This is my pride: +that now, thinking of the end, I do not cry like all the men of my age: but what +was the use and the meaning? I was the use and meaning, I, Gail Wynand. That I +lived and that I acted. +He drove to the foot of the hill and slammed the brakes on, startled, looking +up. In his absence the house had taken shape; it could be recognized now--it +looked like the drawing. He felt a moment of childish wonder that it had really +489 + + come out just as on the sketch, as if he had never quite believed it. Rising +against the pale blue sky, it still looked like a drawing, unfinished, the +planes of masonry like spreads of watercolor filled in, the naked scaffolding +like pencil lines; a huge drawing on a pale blue sheet of paper. +He left the car and walked to the top of the hill. He saw Roark among the men. +He stood outside and watched the way Roark walked through the structure, the way +he turned his head or raised his hand, pointing. He noticed Roark’s manner of +stopping: his legs apart, his arms straight at his sides, his head lifted; an +instinctive pose of confidence, of energy held under effortless control a moment +that gave to his body the structural cleanliness of his own building. Structure, +thought Wynand, is a solved problem of tension, of balance, of security in +counterthrusts. +He thought: There’s no emotional significance in the act of erecting a building; +it’s just a mechanical job, like laying sewers or making an automobile. And he +wondered why he watched Roark, feeling what he felt in his art gallery. He +belongs in an unfinished building, thought Wynand, more than in a completed one, +more than at a drafting table, it’s his right setting; it’s becoming to him--as +Dominique said a yacht was becoming to me. +Afterward Roark came out and they walked together along the crest of the hill, +among the trees. They sat down on a fallen tree trunk, they saw the structure in +the distance through the stems of the brushwood. The stems were dry and naked, +but there was a quality of spring in the cheerful insolence of their upward +thrust, the stirring of a self-assertive purpose. +Wynand asked: +"Howard, have you ever been in love?" +Roark turned to look straight at him and answer quietly: +"I still am." +"But when you walk through a building, what you feel is greater than that?" +"Much greater, Gail." +"I was thinking of people who say that happiness is impossible on earth. Look +how hard they all try to find some joy in life. Look how they struggle for it. +Why should any living creature exist in pain? By what conceivable right can +anyone demand that a human being exist for anything but his own joy? Every one +of them wants it. Every part of him wants it. But they never find it. I wonder +why. They whine and say they don’t understand the meaning of life. There’s a +particular kind of people that I despise. Those who seek some sort of a higher +purpose or ’universal goal,’ who don’t know what to live for, who moan that they +must ’find themselves.’ You hear it all around us. That seems to be the official +bromide of our century. Every book you open. Every drooling self-confession. It +seems to be the noble thing to confess. I’d think it would be the most shameful +one." +"Look, Gail." Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it +in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed +against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. "Now I can make +what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That’s the meaning of +life." +"Your strength?" +490 + + "Your work." He tossed the branch aside. "The material the earth offers you and +what you make of it...What are you thinking of, Gail?" +"The photograph on the wall of my office." +# +To remain controlled, as he wished, to be patient, to make of patience an active +duty executed consciously each day, to stand before Roark and let her serenity +tell him: "This is the hardest you could have demanded of me, but I’m glad, if +it’s what you want"--such was the discipline of Dominique’s existence. +She stood by, as a quiet spectator of Roark and Wynand. She watched them +silently. She had wanted to understand Wynand. This was the answer. +She accepted Roark’s visits to their house and the knowledge that in the hours +of these evenings he was Wynand’s property, not hers. She met him as a gracious +hostess, indifferent and smiling, not a person but an exquisite fixture of +Wynand’s home, she presided at the dinner table, she left them in the study +afterward. +She sat alone in the drawing room, with the lights turned off and the door open; +she sat erect and quiet, her eyes on the slit of light under the door of the +study across the hall. She thought: This is my task, even when alone, even in +the darkness, within no knowledge but my own, to look at that door as I looked +at him here, without complaint....Roark, if it’s the punishment you chose for +me, I’ll carry it completely, not as a part to play in your presence, but as a +duty to perform alone--you know that violence is not hard for me to bear, only +patience is, you chose the hardest, and I must perform it and offer it to +you...my...dearest one... +When Roark looked at her, there was no denial of memory in his eyes. The glance +said simply that nothing had changed and nothing was needed to state it. She +felt as if she heard him saying: Why are you shocked? Have we ever been parted? +Your drawing room, your husband and the city you dread beyond the windows, are +they real now, Dominique? Do you understand? Are you beginning to understand? +"Yes," she would say suddenly, aloud, trusting that the word would fit the +conversation of the moment, knowing that Roark would hear it as his answer. +It was not a punishment he had chosen for her. It was a discipline imposed on +both of them, the last test. She understood his purpose when she found that she +could feel her love for him proved by the room, by Wynand, even by his love for +Wynand and hers, by the impossible situation, by her enforced silence--the +barriers proving to her that no barriers could exist. +She did not see him alone. She waited. +She would not visit the site of construction. She had said to Wynand: "I’ll see +the house when it’s finished." She never questioned him about Roark. She let her +hands lie in sight on the arms of her chair, so that the relief of any violent +motion would be denied her, her hands as her private barometer of endurance, +when Wynand came home late at night and told her that he had spent the evening +at Roark’s apartment, the apartment she had never seen. +Once she broke enough to ask: +"What is this, Gail? An obsession?" +"I suppose so." He added: "It’s strange that you don’t like him." +491 + + "I haven’t said that." +"I can see it. I’m not really surprised. It’s your way. You would dislike +him--precisely because he’s the type of man you should like....Don’t resent my +obsession." +"I don’t resent it." +"Dominique, would you understand it if I told you that I love you more since +I’ve met him? Even--I want to say this--even when you lie in my arms, it’s more +than it was. I feel a greater right to you." +He spoke with the simple confidence they had given each other in the last three +years. She sat looking at him as she always did; her glance had tenderness +without scorn and sadness without pity. +"I understand, Gail." +After a moment she asked: +"What is he to you, Gail? In the nature of a shrine?" +"In the nature of a hair shirt," said Wynand. +When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the +sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he +wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from +what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one’s head. + +6. +"THE BASIC trouble with the modern world," said Ellsworth Toohey, "is the +intellectual fallacy that freedom and compulsion are opposites. To solve the +gigantic problems crushing the world today, we must clarify our mental +confusion. We must acquire a philosophical perspective. In essence, freedom and +compulsion are one. Let me give you a simple illustration. Traffic lights +restrain your freedom to cross a street whenever you wish. But this restraint +gives you the freedom from being run over by a truck. If you were assigned to a +job and prohibited from leaving it, it would restrain the freedom of your +career. But it would give you freedom from the fear of unemployment. Whenever a +new compulsion is imposed upon us, we automatically gain a new freedom. The two +are inseparable. Only by accepting total compulsion can we achieve total +freedom." +"That’s right!" shrieked Mitchell Layton. +It was an actual shriek, thin and high. It had come with the startling +suddenness of a fire siren. His guests looked at Mitchell Layton. +He sat in a tapestry armchair of his drawing room, half lying, legs and stomach +forward, like an obnoxious child flaunting his bad posture. Everything about the +person of Mitchell Layton was almost and not quite, just short of succeeding: +his body had started out to be tall, but changed its mind, leaving him with a +long torso above short, stocky legs; his face had delicate bones, but the flesh +had played a joke on them, puffing out, not enough to achieve obesity, just +492 + + enough to suggest permanent mumps. Mitchell Layton pouted. It was not a +temporary expression nor a matter of facial arrangement. It was a chronic +attribute, pervading his entire person. He pouted with his whole body. +Mitchell Layton had inherited a quarter of a billion dollars and had spent the +thirty-three years of his life trying to make amends for it. +Ellsworth Toohey, in dinner clothes, stood lounging against a cabinet. His +nonchalance had an air of gracious informality and a touch of impertinence, as +if the people around him did not deserve the preservation of rigid good manners. +His eyes moved about the room. The room was not exactly modern, not quite +Colonial and just a little short of French Empire; the furnishings presented +straight planes and swan-neck supports, black mirrors and electric hurricane +lamps, chromium and tapestry; there was unity in a single attribute: in the +expensiveness of everything. +"That’s right," said Mitchell Layton belligerently, as if he expected everyone +to disagree and was insulting them in advance. "People make too damn much fuss +about freedom. What I mean is it’s a vague, overabused word. I’m not even sure +it’s such a God-damn blessing. I think people would be much happier in a +regulated society that had a definite pattern and a unified form--like a folk +dance. You know how beautiful a folk dance is. And rhythmic too. That’s because +it took generations to work it out and they don’t let just any chance fool come +along to change it. That’s what we need. Pattern, I mean, and rhythm. Also +beauty." +"That’s an apt comparison, Mitch," said Ellsworth Toohey. "I’ve always told you +that you had a creative mind." +"What I mean is, what makes people unhappy is not too little choice, but too +much," said Mitchell Layton. "Having to decide, always to decide, torn every +which way all of the time. Now in a society of pattern, a man could feel safe. +Nobody would come to him all the time pestering him to do something. Nobody +would have to do anything. What I mean is, of course, except working for the +common good." +"It’s spiritual values that count," said Homer Slottern. "Got to be up to date +and keep up with the world. This is a spiritual century." +Homer Slottern had a big face with drowsy eyes. His shirt studs were made of +rubies and emeralds combined, like gobs of salad dripping down his starched +white shirt front. He owned three department stores. +"There ought to be a law to make everybody study the mystical secrets of the +ages," said Mitchell Layton. "It’s all been written out in the pyramids in +Egypt." +"That’s true, Mitch," Homer Slottern agreed. "There’s a lot to be said for +mysticism. On the one hand. On the other hand, dialectic materialism..." +"It’s not a contradiction," Mitchell Layton drawled contemptuously. "The world +of the future will combine both." +"As a matter of fact," said Ellsworth Toohey, "the two are superficially varied +manifestations of the same thing. Of the same intention." His eyeglasses gave a +spark, as if lighted from within; he seemed to relish his particular statement +in his own way. +493 + + "All I know is, unselfishness is the only moral principle," said Jessica Pratt, +"the noblest principle and a sacred duty and much more important than freedom. +Unselfishness is the only way to happiness. I would have everybody who refused +to be unselfish shot. To put them out of their misery. They can’t be happy +anyway. +Jessica Pratt spoke wistfully. She had a gentle, aging face; her powdery skin, +innocent of make-up, gave the impression that a finger touching it would be left +with a spot of white dust. +Jessica Pratt had an old family name, no money, and a great passion: her love +for her younger sister Renée. They had been left orphaned at an early age, and +she had dedicated her life to Renee’s upbringing. She had sacrificed everything; +she had never married; she had struggled, plotted, schemed, defrauded through +the years--and achieved the triumph of Renee’s marriage to Homer Slottern. +Renee Slottern sat curled up on a footstool, munching peanuts. Once in a while +she reached up to the crystal dish on a side table and took another. She +exhibited no further exertion. Her pale eyes stared placidly out of her pale +face. +"That’s going too far, Jess," said Homer Slottern. "You can’t expect everybody +to be a saint." +"I don’t expect anything," said Jessica Pratt meekly. "I’ve given up expecting +long ago. But it’s education that we all need. Now I think Mr. Toohey +understands. If everybody were compelled to have the proper kind of education, +we’d have a better world. If we force people to do good, they will be free to be +happy." +"This is a perfectly useless discussion," said Eve Layton. "No intelligent +person believes in freedom nowadays. It’s dated. The future belongs to social +planning. Compulsion is a law of nature. That’s that. It’s self-evident." +Eve Layton was beautiful. She stood under the light of a chandelier, her smooth +black hair clinging to her skull, the pale green satin of her gown alive like +water about to stream off and expose the rest of her soft, tanned skin. She had +the special faculty of making satin and perfume appear as modern as an aluminum +table top. She was Venus rising out of a submarine hatch. +Eve Layton believed that her mission in life was to be the vanguard--it did not +matter of what. Her method had always been to take a careless leap and land +triumphantly far ahead of all others. Her philosophy consisted of one +sentence--"I can get away with anything." In conversation she paraphrased it to +her favorite line: "I? I’m the day after tomorrow." She was an expert +horsewoman, a racing driver, a stunt pilot, a swimming champion. When she saw +that the emphasis of the day had switched to the realm of ideas, she took +another leap, as she did over any ditch. She landed well in front, in the +latest. Having landed, she was amazed to find that there were people who +questioned her feat. Nobody had ever questioned her other achievements. She +acquired an impatient anger against all those who disagreed with her political +views. It was a personal issue. She had to be right, since she was the day after +tomorrow. +Her husband, Mitchell Layton, hated her. +"It’s a perfectly valid discussion," he snapped. "Everybody can’t be as +competent as you, my dear. We must help the others. It’s the moral duty of +intellectual leaders. What I mean is we ought to lose that bugaboo of being +494 + + scared of the word compulsion. It’s not compulsion when it’s for a good cause. +What I mean is in the name of love. But I don’t know how we can make this +country understand it. Americans are so stuffy." +He could not forgive his country because it had given him a quarter of a billion +dollars and then refused to grant him an equal amount of reverence. People would +not take his views on art, literature, history, biology, sociology and +metaphysics as they took his checks. He complained that people identified him +with his money too much; he hated them because they did not identify him enough. +"There’s a great deal to be said for compulsion," stated Homer Slottern. +"Provided it’s democratically planned. The common good must always come first, +whether we like it or not." +Translated into language, Homer Slottern’s attitude consisted of two parts, they +were contradictory parts, but this did not trouble him, since they remained +untranslated in his mind. First, he felt that abstract theories were nonsense, +and if the customers wanted this particular kind, it was perfectly safe to give +it to them, and good business, besides. Second, he felt uneasy that he had +neglected whatever it was people called spiritual life, in the rush of making +money; maybe men like Toohey had something there. And what if his stores were +taken away from him? Wouldn’t it really be easier to live as manager of a +State-owned Department Store? Wouldn’t a manager’s salary give him all the +prestige and comfort he now enjoyed, without the responsibility of ownership? +"Is it true that in the future society any woman will sleep with any man she +wants," asked Renee Slottern. It had started as a question, but it petered out. +She did not really want to know. She merely felt a vapid wonder about how it +felt to have a man one really wanted and how one went about wanting. +"It’s stupid to talk about personal choice," said Eve Layton. "It’s +old-fashioned. There’s no such thing as a person. There’s only a collective +entity. It’s self-evident." +Ellsworth Toohey smiled and said nothing. +"Something’s got to be done about the masses," Mitchell Layton declared. +"They’ve got to be led. They don’t know what’s good for them. What I mean is, I +can’t understand why people of culture and position like us understand the great +ideal of collectivism so well and are willing to sacrifice our personal +advantages, while the working man who has everything to gain from it remains so +stupidly indifferent. I can’t understand why the workers in this country have so +little sympathy with collectivism." +"Can’t you?" said Ellsworth Toohey. His glasses sparkled. +"I’m bored with this," snapped Eve Layton, pacing the room, light streaming off +her shoulders. +The conversation switched to art and its acknowledged leaders of the day in +every field. +"Lois Cook said that words must be freed from the oppression of reason. She said +the stranglehold of reason upon words is like the exploitation of the masses by +the capitalists. Words must be permitted to negotiate with reason through +collective bargaining. That’s what she said. She’s so amusing and refreshing." +"Dee--what’s his name again?--says that the theater is an instrument of love. +It’s all wrong, he says, about a play taking place on the stage--it takes place +495 + + in the hearts of the audience." +"Jules Fougler said in last Sunday’s Banner that in the world of the future the +theater will not be necessary at all. He says that the daily life of the common +man is as much a work of art in itself as the best Shakespearean tragedy. In the +future there will be no need for a dramatist. The critic will simply observe the +life of the masses and evaluate its artistic points for the public. That’s what +Jules Fougler said. Now I don’t know whether I agree with him, but he’s got an +interesting fresh angle there." +"Lancelot Clokey says the British Empire is doomed. He says there will be no +war, because the workers of the world won’t allow it, it’s international bankers +and munitions markers who start wars and they’ve been kicked out of the saddle. +Lancelot Clokey says that the universe is a mystery and that his mother is his +best friend. He says the Premier of Bulgaria eats herring for breakfast." +"Gordon Prescott says that four walls and a ceiling is all there is to +architecture. The floor is optional. All the rest is capitalistic ostentation. +He says nobody should be allowed to build anything anywhere until every +inhabitant of the globe has a roof over his head...Well, what about the +Patagonians? It’s our job to teach them to want a roof. Prescott calls it +dialectic trans-spatial interdependence." +Ellsworth Toohey said nothing. He stood smiling at the vision of a huge +typewriter. Each famous name he heard was a key of its keyboard, each +controlling a special field, each hitting, leaving its mark, and the whole +making connected sentences on a vast blank sheet. A typewriter, he thought, +presupposes the hand that punches its keys. +He snapped to attention when he heard Mitchell Layton’s sulking voice say: +"Oh, yes, the Banner, God damn it!" +"I know," said Homer Slottern. +"It’s slipping," said Mitchell Layton. "It’s definitely slipping A swell +investment it turned out to be for me. It’s the only time Ellsworth’s been +wrong." +"Ellsworth is never wrong," said Eve Layton. +"Well, he was, that time. It was he who advised me to buy a piece of that lousy +sheet." He saw Toohey’s eyes, patient as velvet, and he added hastily: "What I +mean is, I’m not complaining, Ellsworth. It’s all right. It may even help me to +slice something off my damned income tax. But that filthy reactionary rag is +sure going downhill." +"Have a little patience, Mitch," said Toohey. +"You don’t think I should sell and get out from under?" +"No, Mitch, I don’t." +"Okay, if you say so. I can afford it. I can afford anything." +"But I jolly well can’t!" Homer Slottern cried with surprising vehemence. "It’s +coming to where one can’t afford to advertise in the Banner. It’s not their +circulation--that’s okay--but there’s a feeling around--a funny kind of +feeling....Ellsworth, I’ve been thinking of dropping my contract." +496 + + "Why?" +"Do you know about the ’We Don’t Read Wynand’ movement?" +"I’ve heard about it." +"It’s run by somebody named Gus Webb. They paste stickers on parked windshields +and in public privies. They hiss Wynand newsreels in theaters. I don’t think +it’s a large group, but...Last week an unappetizing female threw a fit in my +store--the one on Fifty Avenue--calling us enemies of labor because we +advertised in the Banner. You can ignore that, but it becomes serious when one +of our oldest customers, a mild little old lady from Connecticut and a +Republican for three generations, calls us to say that perhaps maybe she should +cancel her charge account, because somebody told her that Wynand is a dictator." +"Gail Wynand knows nothing about politics except of the most primitive kind," +said Toohey. "He still thinks in terms of the Democratic Club of Hell’s Kitchen. +There was a certain innocence about the political corruption of those days, +don’t you think so?" +"I don’t care. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, the Banner is becoming +a kind of liability. It hurts business. One’s got to be so careful nowadays. You +get tied up with the wrong people and first thing you know there’s a smear +campaign going on and you get splashed too. I can’t afford that sort of thing." +"It’s not entirely an unjustified smear." +"I don’t care. I don’t give a damn whether it’s true or not. Who am I to stick +my neck out for Gail Wynand? If there’s a public sentiment against him, my job +is to get as far away as I can, pronto. And I’m not the only one. There’s a +bunch of us who’re thinking the same. Jim Ferris of Ferris & Symes, Billy Shultz +of Vimo Flakes, Bud Harper of Toddler Togs, and...hell, you know them all, +they’re all your friends, our bunch, the liberal businessmen. We all want to +yank our ads out of the Banner." +"Have a little patience, Homer. I wouldn’t hurry. There’s a proper time for +everything. There’s such a thing as a psychological moment." +"Okay, I’ll take your word for it. But there’s--there’s a kind of feeling in the +air. It will become dangerous some day." +"It might. I’ll tell you when it will." +"I thought Ellsworth worked on the Banner," said Renee Slottern vacantly, +puzzled. +The others turned to her with indignation and pity. +"You’re naive, Renee," shrugged Eve Layton. +"But what’s the matter with the Banner?" +"Now, child, don’t you bother with dirty politics," said Jessica Pratt. "The +Banner is a wicked paper. Mr. Wynand is a very evil man. He represents the +selfish interests of the rich." +"I think he’s good-looking," said Renee. "I think he has sex appeal." +497 + + "Oh, for Christ’s sake!" cried Eve Layton. +"Now, after all, Renee is entitled to express her opinion," Jessica Pratt said +with immediate rage. +"Somebody told me Ellsworth is the president of the Union of Wynand Employees," +drawled Renee. +"Oh dear me, no, Renee. I’m never president of anything. I’m just a +rank-and-file member. Like any copy boy." +"Do they have a Union of Wynand Employees?" asked Homer Slottern. +"It was just a club, at first," said Toohey. "It became a union last year." +"Who organized it?" +"How can one tell? It was more or less spontaneous. Like all mass movements." +"I think Wynand is a bastard," declared Mitchell Layton. "Who does he think he +is anyway? I come to a meeting of stockholders and he treats us like flunkies. +Isn’t my money as good as his? Don’t I own a hunk of his damn paper? I could +teach him a thing or two about journalism. I have ideas. What’s he so damn +arrogant about? Just because he made that fortune himself? Does he have to be +such a damn snob just because he came from Hell’s Kitchen? It isn’t other +people’s fault if they weren’t lucky enough to be born in Hell’s Kitchen to rise +out of! Nobody understands what a terrible handicap it is to be born rich. +Because people just take for granted that because you were born that way you’d +just be no good if you weren’t What I mean is if I’d had Gail Wynand’s breaks, +I’d be twice as rich as he is by now and three times as famous. But he’s so +conceited he doesn’t realize this at all!" +Nobody said a word. They heard the rising inflection of hysteria in Mitchell +Layton’s voice. Eve Layton looked at Toohey, silently appealing for help. Toohey +smiled and made a step forward. +"I’m ashamed of you, Mitch," he said. +Homer Slottern gasped. One did not rebuke Mitchell Layton on this subject; one +did not rebuke Mitchell Layton on any subject. +Mitchell Layton’s lower lip vanished. +"I’m ashamed of you, Mitch," Toohey repeated sternly, "for comparing yourself to +a man as contemptible as Gail Wynand." +Mitchell Layton’s mouth relaxed in the equivalent of something almost as gentle +as a smile. +"That’s true," he said humbly. +"No, you would never be able to match Gail Wynand’s career. Not with your +sensitive spirit and humanitarian instincts. That’s what’s holding you down, +Mitch, not your money. Who cares about money? The age of money is past. It’s +your nature that’s too fine for the brute competition of our capitalistic +system. But that, too, is passing." +"It’s self-evident," said Eve Layton. +498 + + It was late when Toohey left. He felt exhilarated and he decided to walk home. +The streets of the city lay gravely empty around him, and the dark masses of the +buildings rose to the sky, confident and unprotected. He remembered what he had +said to Dominique once: "A complicated piece of machinery, such as our +society...and by pressing your little finger against one spot...the center of +all its gravity...you can make the thing crumble into a worthless heap of scrap +iron..." He missed Dominique. He wished she could have been with him to hear +this evening’s conversation. +The unshared was boiling up within him. He stopped in the middle of a silent +street, threw his head back and laughed aloud, looking at the tops of +skyscrapers. +A policeman tapped him on the shoulder, asking: "Well, Mister?" +Toohey saw buttons and blue cloth tight over a broad chest, a stolid face, hard +and patient; a man as set and dependable as the buildings around them. +"Doing your duty, officer?" Toohey asked, the echoes of laughter like jerks in +his voice. "Protecting law and order and decency and human lives?" The policeman +scratched the back of his head. "You ought to arrest me, officer." +"Okay, pal, okay," said the policeman. "Run along. We all take one too many once +in a while." + +7. +IT WAS only when the last painter had departed that Peter Keating felt a sense +of desolation and a numb weakness in the crook of his elbows. He stood in the +hall, looking up at the ceiling. Under the harsh gloss of paint he could still +see the outline of the square where the stairway had been removed and the +opening closed over. Guy Francon’s old office was gone. The firm Keating & +Dumont had a single floor left now. +He thought of the stairway and how he had walked up its red-plushed steps for +the first time, carrying a drawing on the tips of his fingers. He thought of Guy +Francon’s office with the glittering butterfly reflections. He thought of the +four years when that office had been his own. +He had known what was happening to his firm, in these last years; he had known +it quite well while men in overalls removed the stairway and closed the gap in +the ceiling. But it was that square under the white paint that made it real to +him, and final. +He had resigned himself to the process of going down, long ago. He had not +chosen to resign himself--that would have been a positive decision--it had +merely happened and he had let it happen. It had been simple and almost +painless, like drowsiness carrying one down to nothing more sinister than a +welcome sleep. The dull pain came from wishing to understand why it had +happened. +There was "The March of the Centuries" exposition, but that alone could not have +mattered. "The March of the Centuries" had opened in May. It was a flop. What’s +the use, thought Keating, why not say the right word? Flop. It was a ghastly +flop. "The title of this venture would be most appropriate," Ellsworth Toohey +had written, "if we assumed that the centuries had passed by on horseback." +499 + + Everything else written about the architectural merits of the exposition had +been of the same order. +Keating thought, with wistful bitterness, of how conscientiously they had +worked, he and the seven other architects, designing those buildings. It was +true that he had pushed himself forward and hogged the publicity, but he +certainly had not done that as far as designing was concerned. They had worked +in harmony, through conference after conference, each giving in to the others, +in true collective spirit, none trying to impose his personal prejudices or +selfish ideas. Even Ralston Holcombe had forgotten Renaissance. They had made +the buildings modern, more modem than anything ever seen, more modern than the +show windows of Slottern’s Department Store. He did not think that the buildings +looked like "coils of toothpaste when somebody steps on the tube or stylized +versions of the lower intestine," as one critic had said. But the public seemed +to think it, if the public thought at all. He couldn’t tell. He knew only that +tickets to "The March of the Centuries" were being palmed off at Screeno games +in theaters, and that the sensation of the exposition, the financial savior, was +somebody named Juanita Fay who danced with a live peacock as sole garment. +But what if the Fair did flop? It had not hurt the other architects of its +council. Gordon L. Prescott was going stronger than ever. It wasn��t that, +thought Keating. It had begun before the Fair. He could not say when. +There could be so many explanations. The depression had hit them all; others had +recovered to some extent, Keating & Dumont had not. Something had gone out of +the firm and out of the circles from which it drew its clients, with the +retirement of Guy Francon. Keating realized that there had been art and skill +and its own kind of illogical energy in the career of Guy Francon, even if the +art consisted only of his social charm and the energy was directed at snaring +bewildered millionaires. There had been a twisted sort of sense in people’s +response to Guy Francon. +He could see no hint of rationality in the things to which people responded now. +The leader of the profession--on a mean scale, there was no grand scale left in +anything--was Gordon L. Prescott, Chairman of the Council of American Builders; +Gordon L. Prescott who lectured on the transcendental pragmatism of architecture +and social planning, who put his feet on tables in drawing rooms, attended +formal dinners in knickerbockers and criticized the soup aloud. Society people +said they liked an architect who was a liberal. The A.G.A. still existed, in +stiff, hurt dignity, but people referred to it as the Old Folks’ Home. The +Council of American Builders ruled the profession and talked about a closed +shop, though no one had yet devised a way of achieving that. Whenever an +architect’s name appeared in Ellsworth Toohey’s column, it was always that of +Augustus Webb. At thirty-nine, Keating heard himself described as old-fashioned. +He had given up trying to understand. He knew dimly that the explanation of the +change swallowing the world was of a nature he preferred not to know. In his +youth he had felt an amicable contempt for the works of Guy Francon or Ralston +Holcombe, and emulating them had seemed no more than innocent quackery. But he +knew that Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb represented so impertinent, so vicious +a fraud that to suspend the evidence of his eyes was beyond his elastic +capacity. He had believed that people found greatness in Holcombe and there had +been a reasonable satisfaction in borrowing his borrowed greatness. He knew that +no one saw anything whatever in Prescott. He felt something dark and leering in +the manner with which people spoke of Prescott’s genius; as if they were not +doing homage to Prescott, but spitting upon genius. For once, Keating could not +follow people; it was too clear, even to him, that public favor had ceased being +a recognition of merit, that it had become almost a brand of shame. +500 + + He went on, driven by inertia. He could not afford his large floor of offices +and he did not use half the rooms, but he kept them and paid the deficit out of +his own pocket. He had to go on. He had lost a large part of his personal +fortune in careless stock speculation; but he had enough left to insure some +comfort for the rest of his life. This did not disturb him; money had ceased to +hold his attention as a major concern. It was inactivity he dreaded; it was the +question mark looming beyond, if the routine of his work were to be taken away +from him. +He walked slowly, his arms pressed to his body, his shoulders hunched, as if +drawn against a permanent chill. He was gaining weight. His face was swollen; he +kept it down, and the pleat of a second chin was flattened against the knot of +his necktie. A hint of his beauty remained and made him look worse; as if the +lines of his face had been drawn on a blotter and had spread, blurring. The gray +threads on his temples were becoming noticeable. He drank often, without joy. +He had asked his mother to come back to live with him. She had come back. They +sat through long evenings together in the living room, saying nothing; not in +resentment, but seeking reassurance from each other. Mrs. Keating offered no +suggestions, no reproaches. There was, instead, a new, panic-shaped tenderness +in her manner toward her son. She would cook his breakfast, even though they had +a maid; she would prepare his favorite dish--French pancakes, the kind he had +liked so much when he was nine years old and sick with the measles. If he +noticed her efforts and made some comment of pleasure, she nodded, blinking, +turning away, asking herself why it should make her so happy and if it did, why +should her eyes fill with tears. +She would ask suddenly, after a silence: "it will be all right, Petey? Won’t +it?" And he would not ask what she meant, but answer quietly: "Yes, Mother, it +will be all right," putting the last of his capacity for pity into an effort to +make his voice sound convincing. +Once, she asked him: "You’re happy, Petey? Aren’t you?" He looked at her and saw +that she was not laughing at him; her eyes were wide and frightened. And as he +could not answer, she cried: "But you’ve got to be happy! Petey, you’ve got to! +Else what have I lived for?" He wanted to get up, gather her in his arms and +tell her that it was all right--and then he remembered Guy Francon saying to him +on his wedding day: "I want you to feel proud of me, Peter....I want to feel +that it had some meaning." Then he could not move. He felt himself in the +presence of something he must not grasp, must never allow into his mind. He +turned away from his mother. +One evening, she said without preamble. "Petey, I think you should get married. +I think it would be much better if you were married." He found no answer, and +while he groped for something gay to utter, she added: "Petey, why don’t +you...why don’t you marry Catherine Halsey?" He felt anger filling his eyes, he +felt pressure on his swollen lids, while he was turning slowly to his mother; +then he saw her squat little figure before him, stiff and defenseless, with a +kind of desperate pride, offering to take any blow he wished to deliver, +absolving him in advance--and he knew that it had been the bravest gesture she +had ever attempted. The anger went, because he felt her pain more sharply than +the shock of his own, and he lifted one hand, to let it fall limply, to let the +gesture cover everything, saying only: "Mother, don’t let’s ,.." +On weekends, not often, but once or twice a month, he vanished out of town. No +one knew where he went. Mrs. Keating worried about it, but asked no questions. +She suspected that there was a woman somewhere, and not a nice one, or he would +not be so glumly silent on the subject Mrs. Keating found herself hoping that he +had fallen into the clutches of the worst, greediest slut who would have sense +501 + + enough to make him marry her. +He went to a shack he had rented in the hills of an obscure village. He kept +paints, brushes and canvas in the shack. He spent his days in the hills, +painting. He could not tell why he had remembered that unborn ambition of his +youth, which his mother had drained and switched into the channel of +architecture. He could not tell by what process the impulse had become +irresistible; but he had found the shack and tie liked going there. +He could not say that he liked to paint. It was neither pleasure nor relief, it +was self-torture, but somehow, that didn’t matter. He sat on a canvas stool +before a small easel and he looked at an empty sweep of hills, at the woods and +the sky. He had a quiet pain as sole conception of what he wanted to express, a +humble, unbearable tenderness for the sight of the earth around him--and +something tight, paralyzed, as sole means to express it. He went on. He tried. +He looked at his canvases and knew that nothing was captured in their childish +crudeness. It did not matter. No one was to see them. He stacked them carefully +in a corner of the shack, and he locked the door before he returned to town. +There was no pleasure in it, no pride, no solution; only--while he sat alone +before the easel--a sense of peace. +He tried not to think of Ellsworth Toohey. A dim instinct told him that he could +preserve a precarious security of spirit so long as he did not touch upon that +subject. There could be but one explanation of Toohey’s behavior toward him--and +he preferred not to formulate it. +Toohey had drifted away from him. The intervals between their meetings had grown +longer each year. He accepted it and told himself that Toohey was busy. Toohey’s +public silence about him was baffling. He told himself that Toohey had more +important things to write about. Toohey’s criticism of "The March of the +Centuries" had been a blow. He told himself that his work had deserved it. He +accepted any blame. He could afford to doubt himself. He could not afford to +doubt Ellsworth Toohey. +It was Neil Dumont who forced him to think of Toohey again. Neil spoke +petulantly about the state of the world, about crying over spilt milk, change as +a law of existence, adaptability, and the importance of getting in on the ground +floor. Keating gathered, from a long, confused speech, that business, as they +had known it, was finished, that government would take over whether they liked +it or not, that the building trade was dying and the government would soon be +the sole builder and they might as well get in now, if they wanted to get in at +all. "Look at Gordon Prescott," said Neil Dumont, "and what a sweet little +monopoly he’s got himself in housing projects and post offices. Look at Gus Webb +muscling in on the racket." +Keating did not answer. Neil Dumont was throwing his own unconfessed thoughts at +him; he had known that he would have to face this soon and he had tried to +postpone the moment. +He did not want to think of Cortlandt Homes. +Cortlandt Homes was a government housing project to be built in Astoria, on the +shore of the East River. It was planned as a gigantic experiment in low-rent +housing, to serve as model for the whole country; for the whole world. Keating +had heard architects talking about it for over a year. The appropriation had +been approved and the site chosen; but not the architect. Keating would not +admit to himself how desperately he wanted to get Cortlandt and how little +chance he had of getting it. +502 + + "Listen, Pete, we might as well call a spade a spade," said Neil Dumont. "We’re +on the skids, pal, and you know it. All right, we’ll last another year or two, +coasting on your reputation. And then? It’s not our fault. It’s just that +private enterprise is dead and getting deader. It’s a historical process. The +wave of the future. So we might as well get our surfboard while we can. There’s +a good, sturdy one waiting for the boy who’s smart enough to grab it. Cortlandt +Homes." +Now he had heard it pronounced. Keating wondered why the name had sounded like +the muffled stroke of a bell; as if the sound had opened and closed a sequence +which he would not be able to stop. +"What do you mean, Neil?" +"Cortlandt Homes. Ellsworth Toohey. Now you know what I mean." +"Neil, I..." +"What’s the matter with you, Pete? Listen, everybody’s laughing about it. +Everybody’s saying that if they were Toohey’s special pet, like you are, they’d +get Cortlandt Homes like that"--he snapped his manicured fingers--"just like +that, and nobody can understand what you’re waiting for. You know it’s friend +Ellsworth who’s running this particular housing show." +"It’s not true. He is not. He has no official position. He never has any +official position." +"Whom are you kidding? Most of the boys that count in every office are his boys. +Damned if I know how he got them in, but he did. What’s the matter, Pete? Are +you afraid of asking Ellsworth Toohey for a favor?" +This was it, thought Keating; now there was no retreat. He could not admit to +himself that he was afraid of asking Ellsworth Toohey. +"No," he said, his voice dull, "I’m not afraid, Neil. I’ll...All right, Neil. +I’ll speak to Ellsworth." +# +Ellsworth Toohey sat spread out on a couch, wearing a dressing gown. His body +had the shape of a sloppy letter X-arms stretched over his head, along the edge +of the back pillows, legs open in a wide fork. The dressing gown was made of +silk, bearing the trademarked pattern of Coty’s face powder, white puffs on an +orange background; it looked daring and gay, supremely elegant through sheer +silliness. Under the gown, Toohey wore sleeping pyjamas of pistachio-green +linen, crumpled. The trousers floated about the thin sticks of his ankles. +This was just like Toohey, thought Keating; this pose amidst the severe +fastidiousness of his living room; a single canvas by a famous artist on the +wall behind him--and the rest of the room unobtrusive like a monk’s cell; no, +thought Keating, like the retreat of a king in exile, scornful of material +display. +Toohey’s eyes were warm, amused, encouraging. Toohey had answered the telephone +in person; Toohey had granted him the appointment at once. Keating thought: It’s +good to be received like this, informally. What was I afraid of? What did I +doubt? We’re old friends. +"Oh dear me," said Toohey, yawning, "one gets so tired! There comes a moment +into every man’s day when he gets the urge to relax like a stumble bum. I got +503 + + home and just felt I couldn’t keep my clothes on another minute. Felt like a +damn peasant--just plain itchy--and had to get out. You don’t mind, do you, +Peter? With some people it’s necessary to be stiff and formal, but with you it’s +not necessary at all." +"No, of course not." +"Think I’ll take a bath after a while. There’s nothing like a good hot bath to +make one feel like a parasite. Do you like hot baths, Peter?" +"Why...yes...I guess so..." +"You’re gaining weight, Peter. Pretty soon you’ll look revolting in a bathtub. +You’re gaining weight and you look peaked. That’s a bad combination. Absolutely +wrong aesthetically. Fat people should be happy and jolly." +"I...I’m all right, Ellsworth. It’s only that..." +"You used to have a nice disposition. You mustn’t lose that. People will get +bored with you." +"I haven’t changed, Ellsworth." Suddenly he stressed the words. "I haven’t +really changed at all. I’m just what I was when I designed the Cosmo-Slotnick +Building." +He looked at Toohey hopefully. He thought this was a hint crude enough for +Toohey to understand; Toohey understood things much more delicate than that. He +waited to be helped out. Toohey went on looking at him, his eyes sweet and +blank. +"Why, Peter, that’s an unphilosophical statement. Change is the basic principle +of the universe. Everything changes. Seasons, leaves, flowers, birds, morals, +men and buildings. The dialectic process, Peter." +"Yes, of course. Things change, so fast, in such a funny way. You don’t even +notice how, and suddenly one morning there it is. Remember, just a few years +ago, Lois Cook and Gordon Prescott and Ike and Lance--they were nobody at all. +And now--why, Ellsworth, they’re on top and they’re all yours. Anywhere I look, +any big name I hear--it’s one of your boys. You’re amazing, Ellsworth. How +anybody can do that--in just a few years--" +"It’s much simpler than it appears to you, Peter. That’s because you think in +terms of personalities. You think it’s done piecemeal. But dear me, the +lifetimes of a hundred press agents wouldn’t be enough. It can be done much +faster. This is the age of time-saving devices. If you want something to grow, +you don’t nurture each seed separately. You just spread a certain fertilizer. +Nature will do the rest. I believe you think I’m the only one responsible. But +I’m not. Goodness, no. I’m just one figure out of many, one lever in a very vast +movement. Very vast and very ancient. It just so happened that I chose the field +that interests you--the field of art--because I thought that it focused the +decisive factors in the task we had to accomplish." +"Yes, of course, but I mean, I think you were so clever. I mean, that you could +pick young people who had talent, who had a future. Damned if I know how you +guessed in advance. Remember the awful loft we had for the Council of American +Builders? And nobody took us seriously. And people used to laugh at you for +wasting time on all kinds of silly organizations." +"My dear Peter, people go by so many erroneous assumptions. For instance, that +504 + + old one--divide and conquer. Well, it has its applications. But it remained for +our century to discover a much more potent formula. Unite and rule." +"What do you mean?" +"Nothing that you could possibly grasp. And I must not overtax your strength. +You don’t look as if you had much to spare." +"Oh, I’m all right. I might look a little worried, because..." +"Worry is a waste of emotional reserves. Very foolish. Unworthy of an +enlightened person. Since we are merely the creatures of our chemical metabolism +and of the economic factors of our background, there’s not a damn thing we can +do about anything whatever. So why worry? There are, of course, apparent +exceptions. Merely apparent. When circumstances delude us into thinking that +free action is indicated. Such, for instance, as your coming here to talk about +Cortlandt Homes." +Keating blinked, then smiled gratefully. He thought it was just like Toohey to +guess and spare him the embarrassing preliminaries. +"That’s right, Ellsworth. That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. You’re +wonderful. You know me like a book." +"What kind of a book, Peter? A dime novel? A love story? A crime thriller? Or +just a plagiarized manuscript? No, let’s say: like a serial. A good, long, +exciting serial--with the last installment missing. The last installment got +mislaid somewhere. There won’t be any last installment. Unless, of course, it’s +Cortlandt Homes. Yes, that would be a fitting closing chapter." Keating waited, +eyes intent and naked, forgetting to think of shame, of pleading that should be +concealed. "A tremendous project, Cortlandt Homes. Bigger than Stoneridge. Do +you remember Stoneridge, Peter?" +He’s just relaxed with me, thought Keating, he’s tired, he can’t be tactful all +the time, he doesn’t realize what he... +"Stoneridge. The great residential development by Gail Wynand. Have you ever +thought of Gail Wynand’s career, Peter? From wharf rat to Stoneridge--do you +know what a step like that means? Would you care to compute the effort, the +energy, the suffering with which Gail Wynand has paid for every step of his way? +And here I am, and I hold a project much bigger than Stoneridge in the palm of +my hand, without any effort at all." He dropped his hand and added: "If I do +hold it. Might be only a figure of speech. Don’t take me literally, Peter." +"I hate Wynand," said Keating, looking down at the floor, his voice thick. "I +hate him more than any man living." +"Wynand? He’s a very naive person. He’s naive enough to think that men are +motivated primarily by money." +"You aren’t, Ellsworth. You’re a man of integrity. That’s why I believe in you. +It’s all I’ve got. If I stopped believing in you, there would be +nothing...anywhere." +"Thank you. Peter. That’s sweet of you. Hysterical, but sweet." +"Ellsworth...you know how I feel about you." +"I have a fair idea." +505 + + "You see, that’s why I can’t understand." +"What?" +He had to say it. He had decided, above all, never to say it, but he had to. +"Ellsworth, why have you dropped me? Why don’t you ever write anything about me +any more? Why is it always--in your column and everywhere--and on any commission +you have a chance to swing--why is it always Gus Webb?" +"But, Peter, why shouldn’t it be?" +"But...I..." +"I’m sorry to see that you haven’t understood me at all. In all these years, +you’ve learned nothing of my principles. I don’t believe in individualism, +Peter. I don’t believe that any one man is any one thing which everybody else +can’t be. I believe we’re all equal and interchangeable. A position you hold +today can be held by anybody and everybody tomorrow. Egalitarian rotation. +Haven’t I always preached that to you? Why do you suppose I chose you? Why did I +put you where you were? To protect the field from men who would become +irreplaceable. To leave a chance for the Gus Webbs of this world. Why do you +suppose I fought against--for instance--Howard Roark?" +Keating’s mind was a bruise. He thought it would be a bruise, because it felt as +if something flat and heavy had smashed against it, and it would be black and +blue and swollen later; now he felt nothing except a sweetish numbness. Such +chips of thought as he could distinguish told him that the ideas he heard were +of a high moral order, the ones he had always accepted, and therefore no evil +could come to him from that, no evil could be intended. Toohey’s eyes looked +straight at him, dark, gentle, benevolent. Maybe later...he would know +later...But one thing had pierced through and remained caught on some fragment +of his brain. He had understood that. The name. +And while his sole hope of grace rested in Toohey, something inexplicable +twisted within him, he leaned forward, knowing that this would hurt, wishing it +to hurt Toohey, and his lips curled incredibly into a smile, baring his teeth +and gums: +"You failed there, didn’t you, Ellsworth? Look where he is now--Howard Roark." +"Oh dear me, how dull it is to discuss things with minds devoted to the obvious. +You are utterly incapable of grasping principles, Peter. You think only in terms +of persons. Do you really suppose that I have no mission in life save to worry +over the specific fate of your Howard Roark? Mr. Roark is merely one detail out +of many. I have dealt with him when it was convenient. I am still dealing with +him--though not directly. I do grant you, however, that Mr. Howard Roark is a +great temptation to me. At times I feel it would be a shame if I never came up +against him personally again. But it might not be necessary at all. When you +deal in principles, Peter, it saves you the trouble of individual encounters." +"What do you mean?" +"I mean that you can follow one of two procedures. You can devote your life to +pulling out each single weed as it comes up--and then ten lifetimes won’t be +enough for the job. Or you can prepare your soil in such a manner--by spreading +a certain chemical, let us say--that it will be impossible for weeds to grow. +This last is faster. I say ’weed’ because it is the conventional symbolism and +506 + + will not frighten you. The same technique, of course, holds true in the case of +any other living plant you may wish to eliminate: buckwheat, potatoes, oranges, +orchids or morning glories." +"Ellsworth, I don’t know what you’re talking about." +"But of course you don’t. That’s my advantage I say these things publicly every +single day--and nobody knows what I’m talking about." +"Have you heard that Howard Roark is doing a house, his own home, for Gail +Wynand?" +"My dear Peter, did you think I had to wait to learn it from you?" +"Well, how do you like that?" +"Why should it concern me one way or another?" +"Have you heard that Roark and Wynand are the best of friends? And what +friendship, from what I hear! Well? You know what Wynand can do. You know what +he can make of Roark. Try and stop Roark now! Try and stop him! Try..." +He choked on a gulp and kept still. He found himself staring at Toohey’s bare +ankle between the pyjama trouser and the rich fur of a sheepskin-lined slipper. +He had never visualized Toohey’s nudity; somehow, he had never thought of Toohey +as possessing a physical body. There was something faintly indecent about that +ankle: Just skin, too bluish-white, stretched over bones that looked too +brittle. It made him think of chicken bones left on a plate after dinner, dried +out; if one touches them, it takes no effort at all, they just snap. He found +himself wishing to reach out, to take that ankle between thumb and forefinger, +and just twist the pads of his fingertips. +"Ellsworth, I came here to talk about Cortlandt Homes!" He could not take his +eyes off the ankle. He hoped the words would release him. +"Don’t shout like that. What’s the matter?...Cortlandt Homes? Well, what did you +want to say about it?" +He had to lift his eyes now, in astonishment. Toohey waited innocently. +"I want to design Cortlandt Homes," he said, his voice coming like a paste +strained through a cloth. "I want you to give it to me." +"Why should I give it to you?" +There was no answer. If he were to say now: Because you’ve written that I’m the +greatest architect living, the reminder would prove that Toohey believed it no +longer. He dared not face such proof, nor Toohey’s possible reply. He was +staring at two long black hairs on the bluish knob of Toohey’s ankle; he could +see them quite clearly; one straight, the other twisted into a curlicue. After a +long time, he answered: +"Because I need it very badly, Ellsworth." +"I know you do." +There was nothing further to say. Toohey shifted his ankle, raised his foot and +put it flat upon the arm of the couch, spreading his legs comfortably. +507 + + "Sit up, Peter. You look like a gargoyle." +Keating did not move. +"What made you assume that the selection of an architect for Cortlandt Homes was +up to me?" +Keating raised his head; it was a stab of relief. He had presumed too much and +offended Toohey; that was the reason; that was the only reason. +"Why, I understand...it’s being said...I was told that you have a great deal of +influence on this particular project...with those people...and in +Washington...and places..." +"Strictly in an unofficial capacity. As something of an expert in architectural +matters. Nothing else." +"Yes, of course...That’s...what I meant." +"I can recommend an architect. That’s all. I can guarantee nothing. My word is +not final." +"That’s all I wanted, Ellsworth. A word of recommendation from you..." +"But, Peter, if I recommend someone, I must give a reason. I can’t use such +influence as I might have, just to push a friend, can I?" +Keating stared at the dressing gown, thinking: powder puffs, why powder puffs? +That’s what’s wrong with me, if he’d only take the thing off. +"Your professional standing is not what it used to be, Peter." +"You said to ’push a friend,’ Ellsworth..." It was a whisper. +"Well, of course I’m your friend. I’ve always been your friend. You’re not +doubting that, are you?" +"No...I can’t, Ellsworth..." +"Well, cheer up, then. Look, I’ll tell you the truth. We’re stuck on that damn +Cortlandt. There’s a nasty little sticker involved. I’ve tried to get it for +Gordon Prescott and Gus Webb--I thought it was more in their line, I didn’t +think you’d be so interested. But neither of them could make the grade. Do you +know the big problem in housing? Economy, Peter. How to design a decent modern +unit that could rent for fifteen dollars a month. Ever tried to figure out that +one? Well, that’s what’s expected of the architect who’ll do Cortlandt--if they +ever find him. Of course, tenant selection helps, they stagger the rents, the +families who make twelve hundred a year pay more for the same apartment to help +carry the families who make six hundred a year--you know, underdog milked to +help somebody underdoggier--but still, the cost of the building and the upkeep +must be as low as humanly possible. The boys in Washington don’t want another +one of those--you heard about it, a little government development where the +homes cost ten thousand dollars apiece, while a private builder could have put +them up for two thousand. Cortlandt is to be a model project. An example for the +whole world. It must be the most brilliant, the most efficient exhibit of +planning ingenuity and structural economy ever achieved anywhere. That’s what +the big boys demand. Gordon and Gus couldn’t do it. They tried and were turned +down. You’d be surprised to know how many people have tried. Peter, I couldn’t +sell you to them even at the height of your career. What can I tell them about +508 + + you? All you stand for is plush, gilt and marble, old Guy Francon, the +Cosmo-Slotnick Building, the Frink National Bank, and that little abortion of +the Centuries that will never pay for itself. What they want is a millionaire’s +kitchen for a sharecropper’s income. Think you can do it?" +"I...I have ideas, Ellsworth. I’ve watched the field...I’ve...studied new +methods....I could..." +"If you can, it’s yours. If you can’t, all my friendship won’t help you. And God +knows I’d like to help you. You look like an old hen in the rain. Here’s what +I’ll do for you, Peter: come to my office tomorrow, I’ll give you all the dope, +take it home and see if you wish to break your head over it. Take a chance, if +you care to. Work me out a preliminary scheme. I can’t promise anything. But if +you come anywhere near it, I’ll submit it to the right people and I’ll push it +for all I’m worth. That’s all I can do for you. It’s not up to me. It’s really +up to you." +Keating sat looking at him. Keating’s eyes were anxious, eager and hopeless. +"Care to try, Peter?" +"Will you let me try?" +"Of course I’ll let you. Why shouldn’t I? I’d be delighted if you, of all +people, turned out to be the one to turn the trick." +"About the way I look, Ellsworth," he said suddenly, "about the way I +look...it’s not because I mind so much that I’m a failure...it’s because I can’t +understand why I slipped like that...from the top...without any reason at +all..." +"Well, Peter, that could be terrifying to contemplate. The inexplicable is +always terrifying. But it wouldn’t be so frightening if you stopped to ask +yourself whether there’s ever been any reason why you should have been at the +top....Oh, come, Peter, smile, I’m only kidding. One loses everything when one +loses one’s sense of humor." +On the following morning Keating came to his office after a visit to Ellsworth +Toohey’s cubbyhole in the Banner Building. He brought with him a briefcase +containing the data on the Cortlandt Homes project. He spread the papers on a +large table in his office and locked the door. He asked a draftsman to bring him +a sandwich at noon, and he ordered another sandwich at dinner time. "Want me to +help, Pete?" asked Neil Dumont. "We could consult and discuss it and..." Keating +shook his head. +He sat at his table all night. After a while he stopped looking at the papers; +he sat still, thinking. He was not thinking of the charts and figures spread +before him. He had studied them. He had understood what he could not do. +When he noticed that it was daylight, when he heard steps behind his locked +door, the movement of men returning to work, and knew that office hours had +begun, here and everywhere else in the city--he rose, walked to his desk and +reached for the telephone book. He dialed the number. +"This is Peter Keating speaking. I should like to make an appointment to see Mr. +Roark." +Dear God, he thought while waiting, don’t let him see me. Make him refuse. Dear +God, make him refuse and I will have the right to hate him to the end of my +509 + + days. Don’t let him see me. +"Will four o’clock tomorrow afternoon be convenient for you, Mr. Keating?" said +the calm, gentle voice of the secretary. "Mr. Roark will see you then." + +8. +ROARK knew that he must not show the shock of his first glance at Peter +Keating--and that it was too late: he saw a faint smile on Keating’s lips, +terrible in its resigned acknowledgment of disintegration. +"Are you only two years younger than I am, Howard?" was the first thing Keating +asked, looking at the face of the man he had not seen for six years. +"I don’t know, Peter, I think so. I’m thirty-seven." +"I’m thirty-nine--that’s all." +He moved to the chair in front of Roark’s desk, groping for it with his hand. He +was blinded by the band of glass that made three walls of Roark’s office. He +stared at the sky and the city. He had no feeling of height here, and the +buildings seemed to lie under his toes, not a real city, but miniatures of +famous landmarks, incongruously close and small; he felt he could bend and pick +any one of them up in his hand. He saw the black dashes which were automobiles +and they seemed to crawl, it took them so long to cover a block the size of his +finger. He saw the stone and plaster of the city as a substance that had soaked +up light and was throwing it back, row upon row of flat, vertical planes grilled +with dots of windows, each plane a reflector, rose-colored, gold and purple--and +jagged streaks of smoke-blue running among them, giving them shape, angles and +distance. Light streamed from the buildings into the sky and made of the clear +summer blue a humble second thought, a spread of pale water over living fire. My +God, thought Keating, who are the men that made all this?--and then remembered +that he had been one of them. +He saw Roark’s figure for an instant, straight and gaunt against the angle of +two glass panes behind the desk, then Roark sat down facing him. +Keating thought of men lost in the desert and of men perishing at sea, when, in +the presence of the silent eternity of the sky, they have to speak the truth. +And now he had to speak the truth, because he was in the presence of the earth’s +greatest city. +"Howard, is this the terrible thing they meant by turning the other cheek--your +letting me come here?’ +He did not think of his voice. He did not know that it had dignity. +Roark looked at him silently for a moment; this was a greater change than the +swollen face. +"I don’t know, Peter. No, if they meant actual forgiveness. Had I been hurt, I’d +never forgive it. Yes, if they meant what I’m doing. I don’t think a man can +hurt another, not in any important way. Neither hurt him nor help him. I have +really nothing to forgive you." +"It would be better if you felt you had. It would be less cruel." +510 + + "I suppose so." +"You haven’t changed, Howard." +"I guess not." +"If this is the punishment I must take--I want you to know that I’m taking it +and that I understand. At one time I would have thought I was getting off easy." +"You have changed, Peter." +"I know I have." +"I’m sorry if it has to be punishment." +"I know you are. I believe you. But it’s all right. It’s only the last of it. I +really took it night before last." +"When you decided to come here?" +"Yes." +"Then don’t be afraid now. What is it?" +Keating sat straight, calm, not as he had sat facing a man in a dressing gown +three days ago, but almost in confident repose. He spoke slowly and without +pity: +"Howard, I’m a parasite. I’ve been a parasite all my life. You designed my best +projects at Stanton. You designed the first house I ever built. You designed the +Cosmo-Slotnick Building. I have fed on you and on all the men like you who lived +before we were born. The men who designed the Parthenon, the Gothic cathedrals, +the first skyscrapers. If they hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have known how to put +stone on stone. In the whole of my life, I haven’t added a new doorknob to what +men have done before me. I have taken that which was not mine and given nothing +in return. I had nothing to give. This is not an act, Howard, and I’m very +conscious of what I’m saying. And I came here to ask you to save me again. If +you wish to throw me out, do it now." +Roark shook his head slowly, and moved one hand in silent permission to +continue. +"I suppose you know that I’m finished as an architect. Oh, not actually +finished, but near enough. Others could go on like this for quite a few years, +but I can’t, because of what I’ve been. Or was thought to have been. People +don’t forgive a man who’s slipping. I must live up to what they thought. I can +do it only in the same way I’ve done everything else in my life. I need a +prestige I don’t deserve for an achievement I didn’t accomplish to save a name I +haven’t earned the right to bear. I’ve been given a last chance. I know it’s my +last chance. I know I can’t do it. I won’t try to bring you a mess and ask you +to correct it. I’m asking you to design it and let me put my name on it." +"What’s the job?" +"Cortlandt Homes." +"The housing project?" +511 + + "Yes. You’ve heard about it?" +"I know everything about it." +"You’re interested in housing projects, Howard?" +"Who offered it to you? On what conditions?" +Keating explained, precisely, dispassionately, relating his conversation with +Toohey as if it were the summary of a court transcript he had read long ago. He +pulled the papers out of his briefcase, put them down on the desk and went on +speaking, while Roark looked at them. Roark interrupted him once. "Wait a +moment, Peter. Keep still." He waited for a long time. He saw Roark’s hand +moving the papers idly, but he knew that Roark was not looking at the papers. +Roark said: "Go on," and Keating continued obediently, allowing himself no +questions. +"I suppose there’s no reason why you should do it for me," he concluded. "If you +can solve their problem, you can go to them and do it on your own." +Roark smiled. "Do you think I could get past Toohey?" +"No. No, I don’t think you could." +"Who told you I was interested in housing projects?" +"What architect isn’t?" +"Well, I am. But not in the way you think." +He got up. It was a swift movement, impatient and tense. Keating allowed himself +his first opinion: he thought it was strange to see suppressed excitement in +Roark. +"Let me think this over. Peter. Leave that here. Come to my house tomorrow +night. I’ll tell you then." +"You’re not...turning me down?" +"Not yet." +"You might...after everything that’s happened...?" +"To hell with that." +"You’re going to consider..." +"I can’t say anything now, Peter. I must think it over. Don’t count on it. I +might want to demand something impossible of you." +"Anything you ask, Howard. Anything." +"We’ll talk about it tomorrow." +"Howard, I...how can I try to thank you, even for..." +"Don’t thank me. If I do it, I’ll have my own purpose. I’ll expect to gain as +much as you will. Probably more. Just remember that I don’t do things on any +other terms." +512 + + # +Keating came to Roark’s house on the following evening. He could not say whether +he had waited impatiently or not. The bruise had spread. He could act; he could +weigh nothing. +He stood in the middle of Roark’s room and looked about slowly. He had been +grateful for all the things Roark had not said to him. But he gave voice to the +things himself when he asked: +"This is the Enright House, isn’t it?" +"Yes." +"You built it?" +Roark nodded, and said: "Sit down, Peter," understanding too well. +Keating had brought his briefcase; he put it down on the floor, propping it +against his chair. The briefcase bulged and looked heavy; he handled it +cautiously. Then he spread his hands out and forgot the gesture, holding it, +asking: +"Well?" +"Peter, can you think for a moment that you’re alone in the world?" +"I’ve been thinking that for three days." +"No. That’s not what I mean. Can you forget what you’ve been taught to repeat, +and think, think hard, with your own brain? There are things I’ll want you to +understand. It’s my first condition. I’m going to tell you what I want. If you +think of it as most people do, you’ll say it’s nothing. But if you say that, I +won’t be able to do it. Not unless you understand completely, with your whole +mind, how important it is." +"I’ll try, Howard. I was...honest with you yesterday." +"Yes. If you hadn’t been, I would have turned you down yesterday. Now I think +you might be able to understand and do your part of it." +"You want to do it?" +"I might. If you offer me enough." +"Howard--anything you ask. Anything. I’d sell my soul..." +"That’s the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the +easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. +If I asked you to keep your soul--would you understand why that’s much harder?" +"Yes...Yes, I think so." +"Well? Go on. I want you to give me a reason why I should wish to design +Cortlandt. I want you to make me an offer." +"You can have all the money they pay me. I don’t need it. You can have twice the +money. I’ll double their fee." +513 + + "You know better than that, Peter. Is that what you wish to tempt me with?" +"You would save my life." +"Can you think of any reason why I should want to save your life?" +"No." +"Well?" +"It’s a great public project, Howard. A humanitarian undertaking. Think of the +poor people who live in slums. If you can give them decent comfort within their +means, you’ll have the satisfaction of performing a noble deed." +"Peter, you were more honest than that yesterday." +His eyes dropped, his voice low, Keating said: +"You will love designing it." +"Yes, Peter. Now you’re speaking my language." +"What do you want?" +"Now listen to me. I’ve been working on the problem of low-rent housing for +years. I never thought of the poor people in slums. I thought of the +potentialities of our modern world. The new materials, the means, the chances to +take and use. There are so many products of man’s genius around us today. There +are such great possibilities to exploit. To build cheaply, simply, +intelligently. I’ve had a lot of time to study. I didn’t have much to do after +the Stoddard Temple. I didn’t expect results. I worked because I can’t look at +any material without thinking: What could be done with it? And the moment I +think that, I’ve got to do it. To find the answer, to break the thing. I’ve +worked on it for years. I loved it. I worked because it was a problem I wanted +to solve. You wish to know how to build a unit to rent for fifteen dollars a +month? I’ll show you how to build it for ten." Keating made an involuntary +movement forward. "But first, I want you to think and tell me what made me give +years to this work. Money? Fame? Charity? Altruism?" Keating shook his head +slowly. "All right. You’re beginning to understand. So whatever we do, don’t +let’s talk about the poor people in the slums. They have nothing to do with it, +though I wouldn’t envy anyone the job of trying to explain that to fools. You +see, I’m never concerned with my clients, only with their architectural +requirements. I consider these as part of my building’s theme and problem, as my +building’s material--just as I consider bricks and steel. Bricks and steel are +not my motive. Neither are the clients. Both are only the means of my work. +Peter, before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can +get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the +secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any +possible object of your charity. I’ll be glad if people who need it find a +better manner of living in a house I designed. But that’s not the motive of my +work. Nor my reason. Nor my reward." +He walked to a window and stood looking out at the lights of the city trembling +in the dark river. +"You said yesterday: What architect isn’t interested in housing? I hate the +whole blasted idea of it. I think it’s a worthy undertaking--to provide a decent +apartment for a man who earns fifteen dollars a week. But not at the expense of +other men. Not if it raises the taxes, raises all the other rents and makes the +514 + + man who earns forty live in a rat hole. That’s what’s happening in New York. +Nobody can afford a modern apartment--except the very rich and the paupers. Have +you seen the converted brownstones in which the average self-supporting couple +has to live? Have you seen their closet kitchens and their plumbing? They’re +forced to live like that--because they’re not incompetent enough. They make +forty dollars a week and wouldn’t be allowed into a housing project. But they’re +the ones who provide the money for the damn project. They pay the taxes. And the +taxes raise their own rent. And they have to move from a converted brownstone +into an unconverted one and from that into a railroad flat. I’d have no desire +to penalize a man because he’s worth only fifteen dollars a week. But I’ll be +damned if I can see why a man worth forty must be penalized--and penalized in +favor of the one who’s less competent. Sure, there are a lot of theories on the +subject and volumes of discussion. But just look at the results. Still, +architects are all for government housing. And have you ever seen an architect +who wasn’t screaming for planned cities? I’d like to ask him how he can be so +sure that the plan adopted will be his own. And if it is, what right has he to +impose it on the others? And if it isn’t, what happens to his work? I suppose +he’ll say that he wants neither. He wants a council, a conference, co-operation +and collaboration. And the result will be "The March of the Centuries.’ Peter, +every single one of you on that committee has done better work alone than the +eight of you produced collectively. Ask yourself why, sometime." +"I think I know it...But Cortlandt..." +"Yes. Cortlandt. Well, I’ve told you all the things in which I don’t believe, so +that you’ll understand what I want and what right I have to want it. I don’t +believe in government housing. I don’t want to hear anything about its noble +purposes. I don’t think they’re noble. But that, too, doesn’t matter. That’s not +my first concern. Not who lives in the house nor who orders it built. Only the +house itself. If it has to be built, it might as well be built right." +"You...want to build it?" +"In all the years I’ve worked on this problem, I never hoped to see the results +in practical application. I forced myself not to hope. I knew I couldn’t expect +a chance to show what could be done on a large scale. Your government housing, +among other things, has made all building so expensive that private owners can’t +afford such projects, nor any type of low-rent construction. And I will never be +given any job by any government. You’ve understood that much yourself. You said +I couldn’t get past Toohey. He’s not the only one. I’ve never been given a job +by any group, board, council or committee, public or private, unless some man +fought for me, like Kent Lansing. There’s a reason for that, but we don’t have +to discuss it now. I want you to know only that I realize in what manner I need +you, so that what we’ll do will be a fair exchange." +"You need me?" +"Peter, I love this work. I want to see it erected. I want to make it real, +living, functioning, built. But every living thing is integrated. Do you know +what that means? Whole, pure, complete, unbroken. Do you know what constitutes +an integrating principle? A thought. The one thought, the single thought that +created the thing and every part of it. The thought which no one can change or +touch. I want to design Cortlandt. I want to see it built. I want to see it +built exactly as I design it." +"Howard...I won’t say ’It’s nothing.’" +"You understand?" +515 + + "Yes." +"I like to receive money for my work. But I can pass that up this time. I like +to have people know my work is done by me. But I can pass that up. I like to +have tenants made happy by my work. But that doesn’t matter too much. The only +thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself. +My work done my way. Peter, there’s nothing in the world that you can offer me, +except this. Offer me this and you can have anything I’ve got to give. My work +done my way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That’s the +only way I function. That’s all I am." +"Yes, Howard. I understand. With my whole mind." +"Then here’s what I’m offering you: I’ll design Cortlandt. You’ll put your name +on it. You’ll keep all the fees. But you’ll guarantee that it will be built +exactly as I design it." +Keating looked at him and held the glance deliberately, quietly, for a moment. +"All right, Howard." He added: "I waited, to show you that I know exactly what +you’re asking and what I’m promising." +"You know it won’t be easy?" +"I know it will be very terribly difficult." +"It will. Because it’s such a large project. Most particularly because it’s a +government project. There will be so many people involved, each with authority, +each wanting to exercise it in some way or another. You’ll have a hard battle. +You will have to have the courage of my convictions." +"I’ll try to live up to that, Howard." +"You won’t be able to, unless you understand that I’m giving you a trust which +is more sacred--and nobler, if you like the word--than any altruistic purpose +you could name. Unless you understand that this is not a favor, that I’m not +doing it for you nor for the future tenants, but for myself, and that you have +no right to it except on these terms." +"Yes, Howard." +"You’ll have to devise your own way of accomplishing it. You’ll have to get +yourself an ironclad contract with your bosses and then fight every bureaucrat +that comes along every five minutes for the next year or more. I will have no +guarantee except your word. Wish to give it to me?" +"I give you my word." +Roark took two typewritten sheets of paper from his pocket and handed them to +him. "Sign it." +"What’s that?" +"A contract between us, stating the terms of our agreement A copy for each of +us. It would probably have no legal validity whatever. But I can hold it over +your head. I couldn’t sue you But I could make this public. If it’s prestige you +want, you can’t allow this to become known. If your courage fails you at any +point, remember that you’ll lose everything by giving in. But if you’ll keep +your word--I give you mine--it’s written there--that I’ll never betray this to +516 + + anyone. Cortlandt will be yours. On the day when it’s finished, I’ll send this +paper back to you and you can burn it if you wish." +"All right, Howard." +Keating signed, handed the pen to him, and Roark signed. +Keating sat looking at him for a moment, then said slowly, as if trying to +distinguish the dim form of some thought of his own: +"Everybody would say you’re a fool....Everybody would say I’m getting +everything...." +"You’ll get everything society can give a man. You’ll keep all the money. You’ll +take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You’ll accept such gratitude +as the tenants might feel. And I--I’ll take what nobody can give a man, except +himself. I will have built Cortlandt." +"You’re getting more than I am, Howard." +"Peter!" The voice was triumphant. "You understand that?" +"Yes...." +Roark leaned back against a table, and laughed softly; it was the happiest sound +Keating had ever heard. +"This will work, Peter. It will work. It will be all right. You’ve done +something wonderful. You haven’t spoiled everything by thanking me." +Keating nodded silently. +"Now relax, Peter. Want a drink? We won’t discuss any details tonight. Just sit +there and get used to me. Stop being afraid of me. Forget everything you said +yesterday. This wipes it off. We’re starting from the beginning. We’re partners +now. You have your share to do. It’s a legitimate share. This is my idea of +cooperation, by the way. You’ll handle people. I’ll do the building. We’ll each +do the job we know best, as honestly as we can." +He walked to Keating and extended his hand. +Sitting still, not raising his head, Keating took the hand. His fingers +tightened on it for a moment. +When Roark brought him a drink, Keating swallowed three long gulps and sat +looking at the room. His fingers were closed firmly about the glass, his arm +steady; but the ice tinkled in the liquid once in a while, without apparent +motion. +His eyes moved heavily over the room, over Roark’s body. He thought, it’s not +intentional, not just to hurt me, he can’t help it, he doesn’t even know it--but +it’s in his whole body, that look of a creature glad to be alive. And he +realized he had never actually believed that any living thing could be glad of +the gift of existence. +"You’re...so young, Howard....You’re so young...Once I reproached you for being +too old and serious...Do you remember when you worked for me at Francon’s?" +"Drop it, Peter. We’ve done so well without remembering." +517 + + "That’s because you’re kind. Wait, don’t frown. Let me talk. I’ve got to talk +about something. I know, this is what you didn’t want to mention. God, I didn’t +want you to mention it! I had to steel myself against it, that night--against +all the things you could throw at me. But you didn’t. If it were reversed now +and this were my home--can you imagine what I’d do or say? You’re not conceited +enough." +"Why, no. I’m too conceited. If you want to call it that. I don’t make +comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse +to measure myself as part of anything. I’m an utter egotist." +"Yes. You are. But egotists are not kind. And you are. You’re the most +egotistical and the kindest man I know. And that doesn’t make sense." +"Maybe the concepts don’t make sense. Maybe they don’t mean what people have +been taught to think they mean. But let’s drop that now. If you’ve got to talk +of something, let’s talk of what we’re going to do." He leaned out to look +through the open window. "It will stand down there. That dark stretch--that’s +the site of Cortlandt. When it’s done, I’ll be able to see it from my window. +Then it will be part of the city. Peter, have I ever told you how much I love +this city?" +Keating swallowed the rest of the liquid in his glass. +"I think I’d rather go now, Howard. I’m...no good tonight." +"I’ll call you in a few days. We’d better meet here. Don’t come to my office. +You don’t want to be seen there--somebody might guess. By the way, later, when +my sketches are done, you’ll have to copy them yourself, in your own manner. +Some people would recognize my way of drawing." +"Yes....All right...." +Keating rose and stood looking uncertainly at his briefcase for a moment, then +picked it up. He mumbled some vague words of patting, he took his hat, he walked +to the door, then stopped and looked down at his briefcase. +"Howard...I brought something I wanted to show you." +He walked back into the room and put the briefcase on the table. +"I haven’t shown it to anyone." His fingers fumbled, opening the straps. "Not to +Mother or Ellsworth Toohey...I just want you to tell me if there’s any..." +He handed to Roark six of his canvases. +Roark looked at them, one after another. He took a longer time than he needed. +When he could trust himself to lift his eyes, he shook his head in silent answer +to the word Keating had not pronounced. +"It’s too late, Peter," he said gently. +Keating nodded. "Guess I...knew that." +When Keating had gone, Roark leaned against the door, closing his eyes. He was +sick with pity. +He had never felt this before--not when Henry Cameron collapsed in the office at +518 + + his feet, not when he saw Steven Mallory sobbing on a bed before him. Those +moments had been clean. But this was pity--this complete awareness of a man +without worth or hope, this sense of finality, of the not to be redeemed. There +was shame in this feeling--his own shame that he should have to pronounce such +judgment upon a man, that he should know an emotion which contained no shred of +respect. +This is pity, he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that +there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous +feeling is called a virtue. + +9. +THEY sat on the shore of the lake--Wynand slouched on a boulder--Roark stretched +out on the ground--Dominique sitting straight, her body rising stiffly from the +pale blue circle of her skirt on the grass. +The Wynand house stood on the hill above them. The earth spread out in terraced +fields and rose gradually to make the elevation of the hill. The house was a +shape of horizontal rectangles rising toward a slashing vertical projection; a +group of diminishing setbacks, each a separate room, its size and form making +the successive steps in a series of interlocking floor lines. It was as if from +the wide living room on the first level a hand had moved slowly, shaping the +next steps by a sustained touch, then had stopped, had continued in separate +movements, each shorter, brusquer, and had ended, torn off, remaining somewhere +in the sky. So that it seemed as if the slow rhythm of the rising fields had +been picked up, stressed, accelerated and broken into the staccato chords of the +finale. +"I like to look at it from here," said Wynand. "I spent all day here yesterday, +watching the light change on it. When you design a building, Howard, do you know +exactly what the sun will do to it at any moment of the day from any angle? Do +you control the sun?" +"Sure," said Roark without raising his head. "Unfortunately, I can’t control it +here. Move over, Gail. You’re in my way. I like the sun on my back." +Wynand let himself flop down into the grass. Roark lay stretched on his stomach, +his face buried on his arm, the orange hair on the white shirt sleeve, one hand +extended before him, palm pressed to the ground. Dominique looked at the blades +of grass between his fingers. The fingers moved once in a while, crushing the +grass with lazy, sensuous pleasure. +The lake spread behind them, a flat sheet darkening at the edges, as if the +distant trees were moving in to enclose it for the evening. The sun cut a +glittering band across the water. Dominique looked up at the house and thought +that she would like to stand there at a window and look down and see this one +white figure stretched on a deserted shore, his hand on the ground, spent, +emptied, at the foot of that hill. +She had lived in the house for a month. She had never thought she would. Then +Roark had said: "The house will be ready for you in ten days, Mrs. Wynand," and +she had answered: "Yes, Mr. Roark." +She accepted the house, the touch of the stair railings under her hand, the +walls that enclosed the air she breathed. She accepted the light switches she +519 + + pressed in the evening, and the light firm wires he had laid out through the +walls; the water that ran when she turned a tap, from conduits he had planned; +the warmth of an open fire on August evenings, before a fireplace built stone by +stone from his drawing. She thought: Every moment...every need of my +existence...She thought: Why not? It’s the same with my body--lungs, blood +vessels, nerves, brain--under the same control. She felt one with the house. +She accepted the nights when she lay in Wynand’s arms and opened her eyes to see +the shape of the bedroom Roark had designed, and she set her teeth against a +racking pleasure that was part answer, part mockery of the unsatisfied hunger in +her body, and surrendered to it, not knowing what man gave her this, which one +of them, or both. +Wynand watched her as she walked across a room, as she descended the stairs, as +she stood at a window. She had heard him saying to her: "I didn’t know a house +could be designed for a woman, like a dress. You can’t see yourself here as I +do, you can’t see how completely this house is yours. Every angle, every part of +every room is a setting for you. It’s scaled to your height, to your body. Even +the texture of the walls goes with the texture of your skin in an odd way. It’s +the Stoddard Temple, but built for a single person, and it’s mine. This is what +I wanted. The city can’t touch you here. I’ve always felt that the city would +take you away from me. It gave me everything I have. I don’t know why I feel at +times that it will demand payment some day. But here you’re safe and you’re +mine." She wanted to cry: Gail, I belong to him here as I’ve never belonged to +him. +Roark was the only guest Wynand allowed in their new home. She accepted Roark’s +visits to them on week ends. That was the hardest to accept. She knew he did not +come to torture her, but simply because Wynand asked him and he liked being with +Wynand. She remembered saying to him in the evening, her hand on the stair +railing, on the steps of the stairs leading up to her bedroom: "Come down to +breakfast whenever you wish, Mr. Roark. Just press the button in the dining +room." +"Thank you. Mrs. Wynand. Good night." +Once, she saw him alone, for a moment. It was early morning; she had not slept +all night, thinking of him in a room across the hall; she had come out before +the house was awake. She walked down the hill and she found relief in the +unnatural stillness of the earth around her, the stillness of full light without +sun, of leaves without motion, of a luminous, waiting silence. She heard steps +behind her, she stopped, she leaned against a tree trunk. He had a bathing suit +thrown over his shoulder, he was going down to swim in the lake. He stopped +before her, and they stood still with the rest of the earth, looking at each +other. He said nothing, turned, and went on. She remained leaning against the +tree, and after a while she walked back to the house. +Now, sitting by the lake, she heard Wynand saying to him: +"You look like the laziest creature in the world, Howard." +"I am." +"I’ve never seen anyone relax like that." +"Try staying awake for three nights in succession." +"I told you to get here yesterday." +520 + + "Couldn’t." +"Are you going to pass out right here?" +"I’d like to. This is wonderful." He lifted his head, his eyes laughing, as if +he had not seen the building on the hill, as if he were not speaking of it. +"This is the way I’d like to die, stretched out on some shore like this, just +close my eyes and never come back." +She thought: He thinks what I’m thinking--we still have that together--Gail +wouldn’t understand--not he and Gail, for this once--he and I. +Wynand said: "You damn fool. This is not like you, not even as a joke. You’re +killing yourself over something. What?" +"Ventilator shafts, at the moment. Very stubborn ventilator shafts." +"For whom?" +"Clients....I have all sorts of clients right now." +"Do you have to work nights?" +"Yes--for these particular people. Very special work. Can’t even bring it into +the office." +"What are you talking about?" +"Nothing. Don’t pay any attention. I’m half asleep." +She thought: This is the tribute to Gail, the confidence of surrender--he +relaxes like a cat--and cats don’t relax except with people they like. +"I’ll kick you upstairs after dinner and lock the door," said Wynand, "and leave +you there to sleep twelve hours." +"All right." +"Want to get up early? Let’s go for a swim before sunrise." +"Mr. Roark is tired, Gail," said Dominique, her voice sharp. +Roark raised himself on an elbow to look at her. She saw his eyes, direct, +understanding. +"You’re acquiring the bad habits of all commuters, Gail," she said, "imposing +your country hours on guests from the city who are not used to them." She +thought: Let it be mine--that one moment when you were walking to the +lake--don’t let Gail take that also, like everything else. "You can’t order Mr. +Roark around as if he were an employee of the Banner." +"I don’t know anyone on earth I’d rather order around than Mr. Roark," said +Wynand gaily, "whenever I can get away with it." +"You’re getting away with it." +"I don’t mind taking orders, Mrs. Wynand," said Roark. "Not from a man as +capable as Gail." +521 + + Let me win this time, she thought, please let me win this time--it means nothing +to you--it’s senseless and it means nothing at all--but refuse him, refuse him +for the sake of the memory of a moment’s pause that had not belonged to him. +"I think you should rest, Mr. Roark. You should sleep late tomorrow. I’ll tell +the servants not to disturb you." +"Why, no, thanks, I’ll be all right in a few hours, Mrs. Wynand. I like to swim +before breakfast. Knock at the door when you’re ready, Gail, and we’ll go down +together." +She looked over the spread of lake and hills, with not a sign of men, not +another house anywhere, just water, trees and sun, a world of their own, and she +thought he was right--they belonged together--the three of them. +# +The drawings of Cortlandt Homes presented six buildings, fifteen stories high, +each made in the shape of an irregular star with arms extending from a central +shaft. The shafts contained elevators, stairways, heating systems and all the +utilities. The apartments radiated from the center in the form of extended +triangles. The space between the arms allowed light and air from three sides. +The ceilings were pre-cast; the inner walls were of plastic tile that required +no painting or plastering; all pipes and wires were laid out in metal ducts at +the edge of the floors, to be opened and replaced, when necessary, without +costly demolition; the kitchens and bathrooms were prefabricated as complete +units; the inner partitions were of light metal that could be folded into the +walls to provide one large room or pulled out to divide it; there were few halls +or lobbies to clean, a minimum of cost and labor required for the maintenance of +the place. The entire plan was a composition in triangles. The buildings, of +poured concrete, were a complex modeling of simple structural features; there +was no ornament; none was needed; the shapes had the beauty of sculpture. +Ellsworth Toohey did not look at the plans which Keating had spread out on his +desk. He stared at the perspective drawings. He stared, his mouth open. +Then he threw his head back and howled with laughter. +"Peter," he said, "you’re a genius." +He added: "I think you know exactly what I mean." Keating looked at him blankly, +without curiosity. "You’ve succeeded in what I’ve spent a lifetime trying to +achieve, in what centuries of men and bloody battles behind us have tried to +achieve. I take my hat off to you, Peter, in awe and admiration." +"Look at the plans," said Keating listlessly. "It will rent for ten dollars a +unit." +"I haven’t the slightest doubt that it will. I don’t have to look. Oh yes, +Peter, this will go through. Don’t worry. This will be accepted. My +congratulations, Peter." +# +"You God-damn fool!" said Gail Wynand. "What are you up to?" +He threw to Roark a copy of the Banner, folded at an inside page. The page bore +a photograph captioned: "Architects’ drawing of Cortlandt Homes, the $15,000,000 +Federal Housing Project to be built in Astoria, L. I., Keating & Dumont, +architects." +522 + + Roark glanced at the photograph and asked: "What do you mean?" +"You know damn well what I mean. Do you think I picked the things in my art +gallery by their signatures? If Peter Keating designed this, I’ll eat every copy +of today’s Banner." +"Peter Keating designed this, Gail." +"You fool. What are you after?" +"If I don’t want to understand what you’re talking about, I won’t understand it, +no matter what you say." +"Oh, you might, if I run a story to the effect that a certain housing project +was designed by Howard Roark, which would make a swell exclusive story and a +joke on one Mr. Toohey who’s the boy behind the boys on most of those damn +projects." +"You publish that and I’ll sue hell out of you." +"You really would?" +"I would. Drop it, Gail. Don’t you see I don’t want to discuss it?" +Later, Wynand showed the picture to Dominique and asked: +"Who designed this?" +She looked at it. "Of course," was all she answered. +# +"What kind of ’changing world,’ Alvah? Changing to what? From what? Who’s doing +the changing?" +Parts of Alvah Scarret’s face looked anxious, but most of it was impatient, as +he glanced at the proofs of his editorial on "Motherhood in a Changing World," +which lay on Wynand’s desk. +"What the hell, Gail," he muttered indifferently. +"That’s what I want to know--what the hell?" He picked up the proof and read +aloud: "’The world we have known is gone and done for and it’s no use kidding +ourselves about it. We cannot go back, we must go forward. The mothers of today +must set the example by broadening their own emotional view and raising their +selfish love for their own children to a higher plane, to include everybody’s +little children. Mothers must love every kid in their block, in their street, in +their city, county, state, nation and the whole wide, wide world--just exactly +as much as their own little Mary or Johnny.’" Wynand wrinkled his nose +fastidiously. "Alvah?...It’s all right to dish out crap. But--this kind of +crap?" +Alvah Scarret would not look at him. +"You’re out of step with the times, Gail," he said. His voice was low; it had a +tone of warning--as of something baring its teeth, tentatively, just for future +reference. +This was so odd a behavior for Alvah Scarret that Wynand lost all desire to +pursue the conversation. He drew a line across the editorial, but the blue +523 + + pencil stroke seemed tired and ended in a blur. He said: "Go and bat out +something else, Alvah." +Scarret rose, picked up the strip of paper, turned and left the room without a +word. +Wynand looked after him, puzzled, amused and slightly sick. +He had known for several years the trend which his paper had embraced gradually, +imperceptibly, without any directive from him. He had noticed the cautious +"slanting" of news stories, the half-hints, the vague allusions, the peculiar +adjectives peculiarly placed, the stressing of certain themes, the insertion of +political conclusions where none was needed. If a story concerned a dispute +between employer and employee, the employer was made to appear guilty, simply +through wording, no matter what the facts presented. If a sentence referred to +the past, it was always "our dark past" or "our dead past." If a statement +involved someone’s personal motive, it was always "goaded by selfishness" or +"egged by greed." A crossword puzzle gave the definition of "obsolescent +individuals" and the word came out as "capitalists." +Wynand had shrugged about it, contemptuously amused. His staff, he thought, was +well trained: if this was the popular slang of the day, his boys assumed it +automatically. It meant nothing at all. He kept it off the editorial page and +the rest did not matter. It was no more than a fashion of the moment--and he had +survived many changing fashions. +He felt no concern over the "We Don’t Read Wynand" campaign. He obtained one of +their men’s-room stickers, pasted it on the windshield of his own Lincoln, added +the words: "We don’t either," and kept it there long enough to be discovered and +snapped by a photographer from a neutral paper. In the course of his career he +had been fought, damned, denounced by the greatest publishers of his time, by +the shrewdest coalitions of financial power. He could not summon any +apprehension over the activities of somebody named Gus Webb. +He knew that the Banner was losing some of its popularity. "A temporary fad," he +told Scarret, shrugging. He would run a limerick contest, or a series of coupons +for victrola records, see a slight spurt of circulation and promptly forget the +matter. +He could not rouse himself to full action. He had never felt a greater desire to +work. He entered his office each morning with important eagerness. But within an +hour he found himself studying the joints of the paneling on the walls and +reciting nursery rhymes in his mind. It was not boredom, not the satisfaction of +a yawn, but more like the gnawing pull of wishing to yawn and not quite making +it. He could not say that he disliked his work. It had merely become +distasteful; not enough to force a decision; not enough to make him clench his +fists; just enough to contract his nostrils. +He thought dimly that the cause lay in that new trend of the public taste. He +saw no reason why he should not follow it and play on it as expertly as he had +played on all other fads. But he could not follow. He felt no moral scruples. It +was not a positive stand rationally taken; not defiance in the name of a cause +of importance; just a fastidious feeling, something pertaining almost to +chastity: the hesitation one feels before putting one’s foot down into muck. He +thought: It doesn’t matter--it will not last--I’ll be back when the wave swings +on to another theme--I think I’d rather sit this one out. +He could not say why the encounter with Alvah Scarret gave him a feeling of +uneasiness, sharper than usual. He thought it was funny that Alvah should have +524 + + switched to that line of tripe. But there had been something else; there had +been a personal quality in Alvah’s exit; almost a declaration that he saw no +necessity to consider the boss’s opinion any longer. +I ought to fire Alvah, he thought--and then laughed at himself, aghast: fire +Alvah Scarret?--one might as well think of stopping the earth--or--of the +unthinkable--of closing the Banner. +But through the months of that summer and fall, there were days when he loved +the Banner. Then he sat at this desk, with his hand on the pages spread before +him, fresh ink smearing his palm, and he smiled as he saw the name of Howard +Roark in the pages of the Banner. +The word had come down from his office to every department concerned: Plug +Howard Roark. In the art section, the real-estate section, the editorials, the +columns, mentions of Roark and his buildings began to appear regularly. There +were not many occasions when one could give publicity to an architect, and +buildings had little news value, but the Banner managed to throw Roark’s name at +the public under every kind of ingenious pretext. Wynand edited every word of +it. The material was startling on the pages of the Banner: it was written in +good taste. There were no sensational stories, no photographs of Roark at +breakfast, no human interest, no attempts to sell a man; only a considered, +gracious tribute to the greatness of an artist. +He never spoke of it to Roark, and Roark never mentioned it. They did not +discuss the Banner. +Coming home to his new house in the evening, Wynand saw the Banner on the living +room table every night. He had not allowed it in his home since his marriage. He +smiled, when he saw it for the first time, and said nothing. +Then he spoke of it, one evening. He turned the pages until he came to an +article on the general theme of summer resorts, most of which was a description +of Monadnock Valley. He raised his head to glance at Dominique across the room; +she sat on the floor by the fireplace. He said: +"Thank you, dear." +"For what, Gail?" +"For understanding when I would be glad to see the Banner in my house." +He walked to her and sat down on the floor beside her. He held her thin +shoulders in the curve of his arm. He said: +"Think of all the politicians, movie stars, visiting grand dukes and sash weight +murderers whom the Banner has trumpeted all these years. Think of my great +crusades about street-car companies, red-light districts and home-grown +vegetables. For once, Dominique, I can say what I believe." +"Yes, Gail..." +"All this power I wanted, reached and never used.,. Now they’ll see what I can +do. I’ll force them to recognize him as he should be recognized. I’ll give him +the fame he deserves. Public opinion? Public opinion is what I make it." +"Do you think he wants this?" +"Probably not. I don’t care. He needs it and he’s going to get it. I want him to +525 + + have it. As an architect, he’s public property. He can’t stop a newspaper from +writing about him if it wants to." +"All that copy on him--do you write it yourself?" +"Most of it." +"Gail, what a great journalist you could have been." +The campaign brought results, of a kind he had not expected. The general public +remained blankly indifferent. But in the intellectual circles, in the art world, +in the profession, people were laughing at Roark. Comments were reported to +Wynand: "Roark? Oh yes, Wynand’s pet." +"The Banner’s glamour boy." +"The genius of the yellow press." +"The Banner is now selling art--send two box tops or a reasonable facsimile." +"Wouldn’t you know it? That’s what I’ve always thought of Roark--the kind of +talent fit for the Wynand papers." +"We’ll see," said Wynand contemptuously--and continued his private crusade. +He gave Roark every commission of importance whose owners were open to pressure. +Since spring, he had brought to Roark’s office the contracts for a yacht club on +the Hudson, an office building, two private residences. "I’ll get you more than +you can handle," he said. "I’ll make you catch up with all the years they’ve +made you waste." +Austen Heller said to Roark one evening: "If I may be so presumptuous, I think +you need advice, Howard. Yes, of course, I mean this preposterous business of +Mr. Gail Wynand. You and he as inseparable friends upsets every rational concept +I’ve ever held. After all, there are distinct classes of humanity--no, I’m not +talking Toohey’s language--but there are certain boundary lines among men which +cannot be crossed." +"Yes, there are. But nobody has ever given the proper statement of where they +must be drawn." +"Well, the friendship is your own business. But there’s one aspect of it that +must be stopped--and you’re going to listen to me for once." +"I’m listening." +"I think it’s fine, all those commissions he’s dumping on you. I’m sure he’ll be +rewarded for that and lifted several rungs in hell, where he’s certain to go. +But he must stop that publicity he’s splashing you with in the Banner. You’ve +got to make him stop. Don’t you know that the support of the Wynand papers is +enough to discredit anyone?" Roark said nothing. "It’s hurting you +professionally, Howard." +"I know it is." +"Are you going to make him stop?" +"No." +526 + + "But why in blazes?" +"I said I’d listen, Austen. I didn’t say I’d speak about him." +Late one afternoon in the fall Wynand came to Roark’s office, as he often did at +the end of a day, and when they walked out together, he said: "It’s a nice +evening. Let’s go for a walk, Howard. There’s a piece of property I want you to +see." +He led the way to Hell’s Kitchen. They walked around a great rectangle--two +blocks between Ninth Avenue and Eleventh, five blocks from north to south. Roark +saw a grimy desolation of tenements, sagging hulks of what had been red brick, +crooked doorways, rotting boards, strings of gray underclothing in narrow air +shafts, not as a sign of life, but as a malignant growth of decomposition. +"You own that?" Roark said. +"All of it." +"Why show it to me? Don’t you know that making an architect look at that is +worse than showing him a field of unburied corpses?" +Wynand pointed to the white-tiled front of a new diner across the street: "Let’s +go in there." +They sat by the window, at a clean metal table, and Wynand ordered coffee. He +seemed as graciously at home as in the best restaurants of the city; his +elegance had an odd quality here--it did not insult the place, but seemed to +transform it, like the presence of a king who never alters his manner, yet makes +a palace of any house he enters. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, +watching Roark through the steam of the coffee, his eyes narrowed, amused. He +moved one finger to point across the +street. +"That’s the first piece of property I ever bought, Howard. It was a long time +ago. I haven’t touched it since." +"What were you saving it for?" +"You." +Roark raised the heavy white mug of coffee to his lips, his eyes holding +Wynand’s, narrowed and mocking in answer. He knew that Wynand wanted eager +questions and he waited patiently instead. +"You stubborn bastard," Wynand chuckled, surrendering. "All right. Listen. This +is where I was born. When I could begin to think of buying real estate, I bought +this piece. House by house. Block by block. It took a long time. I could have +bought better property and made money fast, as I did later, but I waited until I +had this. Even though I knew I would make no use of it for years. You see, I had +decided then that this is where the Wynand Building would stand some day....All +right, keep still all you want--I’ve seen what your face looked like just now." +"Oh, God, Gail!..." +"What’s the matter? Want to do it? Want it pretty badly?" +"I think I’d almost give my life for it--only then I couldn’t build it. Is that +527 + + what you wanted to hear?" +"Something like that. I won’t demand your life. But it’s nice to shock the +breath out of you for once. Thank you for being shocked. It means you understood +what the Wynand Building implies. The highest structure in the city. And the +greatest." +"I know that’s what you’d want." +"I won’t build it yet. But I’ve waited for it all these years. And now you’ll +wait with me. Do you know that I really like to torture you, in a way? That I +always want to?" +"I know." +"I brought you here only to tell you that it will be yours when I build it. I +have waited, because I felt I was not ready for it. Since I met you, I knew I +was ready--and I don’t mean because you’re an architect. But we’ll have to wait +a little longer, just another year or two, till the country gets back on its +feet. This is the wrong time for building. Of course, everybody says that the +day of the skyscraper is past. That it’s obsolete. I don’t give a damn about +that. I’ll make it pay for itself. The Wynand Enterprises have offices scattered +all over town. I want them all in one building. And I hold enough over the heads +of enough important people to force them to rent all the rest of the space. +Perhaps, it will be the last skyscraper built in New York. So much the better. +The greatest and the last." +Roark sat looking across the street, at the streaked ruins. +"To be torn down, Howard. All of it. Razed off. The place where I did not run +things. To be supplanted by a park and the Wynand Building....The best +structures of New York are wasted because they can’t be seen, squeezed against +one another in blocks. My building will be seen. It will reclaim the whole +neighborhood. Let the others follow. Not the right location, they’ll say? Who +makes right locations? They’ll see. This might become the new center of the +city--when the city starts living again. I planned it when the Banner was +nothing but a fourth-rate rag. I haven’t miscalculated, have I? I knew what I +would become...A monument to my life, Howard. Remember what you said when you +came to my office for the first time? A statement of my life. There were things +in my past which I have not liked. But all the things of which I was proud will +remain. After I am gone that building will be Gail Wynand....I knew I’d find the +right architect when the time came. I didn’t know he would be much more than +just an architect I hired. I’m glad it happened this way. It’s a kind of reward. +It’s as if I had been forgiven. My last and greatest achievement will also be +your greatest. It will be not only my monument but the best gift I could offer +to the man who means most to me on earth. Don’t frown, you know that’s what you +are to me. Look at that horror across the street. I want to sit here and watch +you looking at it. That’s what we’re going to destroy--you and I. That’s what it +will rise from--the Wynand Building by Howard Roark. I’ve waited for it from the +day I was born. From the day you were born, you’ve waited for your one great +chance. There it is, Howard, across the street. Yours--from me." + +10. +IT HAD stopped raining, but Peter Keating wished it would start again. The +pavements glistened, there were dark blotches on the walls of buildings, and +528 + + since it did not come from the sky, it looked as if the city were bathed in cold +sweat. The air was heavy with untimely darkness, disquieting like premature old +age, and there were yellow puddles of light in windows. Keating had missed the +rain, but he felt wet, from his bones out. +He had left his office early, and he walked home. The office seemed unreal to +him, as it had for a long time. He could find reality only in the evenings, when +he slipped furtively up to Roark’s apartment. He did not slip and it was not +furtive, he told himself angrily--and knew that it was; even though he walked +through the lobby of the Enright House and rode up in an elevator, like any man +on a legitimate errand. It was the vague anxiety,’ the impulse to glance around +at every face, the fear of being recognized; it was a load of anonymous guilt, +not toward any person, but the more frightening sense of guilt without a victim. +He took from Roark rough sketches for every detail of Cortlandt--to have them +translated into working drawings by his own staff. He listened to Roark’s +instructions. He memorized arguments to offer his employers against every +possible objection. He absorbed like a recording machine. Afterward, when he +gave explanations to his draftsmen, his voice sounded like a disk being played. +He did not mind. He questioned nothing. +Now he walked slowly, through the streets full of rain that would not come. He +looked up and saw empty space where the towers of familiar buildings had been; +it did not look like fog or clouds, but like a solid spread of gray sky that had +worked a gigantic, soundless destruction. That sight of buildings vanishing +through the sky had always made him uneasy. He walked on, looking down. +It was the shoes that he noticed first. He knew that he must have seen the +woman’s face, that the instinct of self-preservation had jerked his glance away +from it and let his conscious perception begin with the shoes. They were flat, +brown oxfords, offensively competent, too well shined on the muddy pavement, +contemptuous of rain and of beauty. His eyes went to the brown skirt, to the +tailored jacket, costly and cold like a uniform, to the hand with a hole in the +finger of an expensive glove, to the lapel that bore a preposterous ornament--a +bow-legged Mexican with red-enameled pants--stuck there in a clumsy attempt at +pertness; to the thin lips, to the glasses, to the eyes. +"Katie," he said. +She stood by the window of a bookstore; her glance hesitated halfway between +recognition and a book title she had been examining; then, with recognition +evident in the beginning of a smile, the glance went back to the book title, to +finish and make an efficient note of it. Then her eyes returned to Keating. Her +smile was pleasant; not as an effort over bitterness, and not as welcome; just +pleasant. +"Why, Peter Keating," she said. "Hello, Peter." +"Katie..." He could not extend his hand or move closer to her. +"Yes, imagine running into you like this, why, New York is just like any small +town, though I suppose without the better features." There was no strain in her +voice. +"What are you doing here? I thought...I heard..." He knew she had a good job in +Washington and had moved there two years ago. +"Just a business trip. Have to dash right back tomorrow. Can’t say that I mind +it, either. New York seems so dead, so slow." +529 + + "Well, I’m glad you like your job...if you mean...isn’t that what you mean?" +"Like my job? What a silly thing to say. Washington is the only grownup place in +the country. I don’t see how people can live anywhere else. What have you been +doing, Peter? I saw your name in the paper the other day, it was something +important." +"I...I’m working....You haven’t changed much, Katie, not really, have you?--I +mean, your face--you look like you used to--in a way..." +"It’s the only face I’ve got. Why do people always have to talk about changes if +they haven’t seen each other for a year or two? I ran into Grace Parker +yesterday and she had to go into an inventory of my appearance. I could just +hear every word before she said it--’You look so nice--not a day older, really, +Catherine.’ People are provincial." +"But...you do look nice....It’s...it’s nice to see you..." +"I’m glad to see you, too. How is the building industry?" +"I don’t know....What you read about must have been Cortlandt...I’m doing +Cortlandt Homes, a housing..." +"Yes, of course. That was it. I think it’s very good for you, Peter. To do a +job, not just for private profit and a fat fee, but with a social purpose. I +think architects should stop money grubbing and give a little time to government +work and broader objectives." +"Why, most of them would grab it if they could get it, it’s one of the hardest +rackets to break into, it’s a closed..." +"Yes, yes, I know. It’s simply impossible to make the laymen understand our +methods of working, and that’s why all we hear are all those stupid, boring +complaints. You mustn’t read the Wynand papers, Peter." +"I never read the Wynand papers. What on earth has it got to do with...Oh, I...I +don’t know what we’re talking about. Katie." +He thought that she owed him nothing, or every kind of anger and scorn she could +command; and yet there was a human obligation she still had toward him: she owed +him an evidence of strain in this meeting. There was none. +"We really should have a great deal to talk about, Peter." The words would have +lifted him, had they not been pronounced so easily. "But we can’t stand here all +day." She glanced at her wrist watch. "I’ve got an hour or so, suppose you take +me somewhere for a cup of tea, you could use some hot tea, you look frozen." +That was her first comment on his appearance; that, and a glance without +reaction. He thought, even Roark had been shocked, had acknowledged the change. +"Yes, Katie. That will be wonderful. I..." He wished she had not been the one to +suggest it; it was the right thing for them to do; he wished she had not been +able to think of the right thing; not so quickly. "Let’s find a nice, quiet +place..." +"We’ll go to Thorpe’s. There’s one around the corner. They have the nicest +watercress sandwiches." +530 + + It was she who took his arm to cross the street, and dropped it again on the +other side. The gesture had been automatic. She had not noticed it. +There was a counter of pastry and candy inside the door of Thorpe’s. A large +bowl of sugar-coated almonds, green and white, glared at Keating. The place +smelled of orange icing. The lights were dim, a stuffy orange haze; the odor +made the light seem sticky. The tables were too small, set close together. +He sat, looking down at a paper lace doily on a black glass table top. But when +he lifted his eyes to Catherine, he knew that no caution was necessary: she did +not react to his scrutiny; her expression remained the same, whether he studied +her face or that of the woman at the next table; she seemed to have no +consciousness of her own person. +It was her mouth that had changed most, he thought; the lips were drawn in, with +only a pale edge of flesh left around the imperious line of their opening; a +mouth to issue orders, he thought, but not big orders or cruel orders; just mean +little ones--about plumbing and disinfectants. He saw the fine wrinkles at the +corners of her eyes--a skin like paper that had been crumpled and then smoothed +out. +She was telling him about her work in Washington, and he listened bleakly. He +did not hear the words, only the tone of her voice, dry and crackling. +A waitress in a starched orchid uniform came to take their orders. Catherine +snapped: +"The tea sandwiches special. Please." +Keating said: +"A cup of coffee." He saw Catherine’s eyes on him, and in a sudden panic of +embarrassment, feeling he must not confess that he couldn’t swallow a bite of +food now, feeling that the confession would anger her, he added: "A ham and +swiss on rye, I guess." +"Peter, what ghastly food habits! Wait a minute, waitress. You don’t want that, +Peter. It’s very bad for you. You should have a fresh salad. And coffee is bad +at this time of the day. Americans drink too much coffee." +"All right," said Keating. +"Tea and a combination salad, waitress ... And--oh, waitress!--no bread +with the salad--you’re gaining weight, Peter--some diet crackers. Please." +Keating waited until the orchid uniform had moved away, and then he said, +hopefully: +"I have changed, haven’t I, Katie? I do look pretty awful?" Even a disparaging +comment would be a personal link. +"What? Oh, I guess so. It isn’t healthy. But Americans know nothing whatever +about the proper nutritional balance. Of course, men do make too much fuss over +mere appearance. They’re much vainer than women. It’s really women who’re taking +charge, of all productive work now, and women will build a better world." +"How does one build a better world, Katie?" +"Well, if you consider the determining factor, which is, of course, economic..." +531 + + "No, I...I didn’t ask it that way....Katie, I’ve been very unhappy." +"I’m sorry to hear that. One hears so many people say that nowadays. That’s +because it’s a transition period and people feel rootless. But you’ve always had +a bright disposition, Peter." +"Do you...do you remember what I was like?" +"Goodness, Peter, you talk as if it had been sixty-five years ago." +"But so many things happened. I..." He took the plunge; he had to take it; the +crudest way seemed the easiest. "I was married. And divorced." +"Yes, I read about that. I was glad when you were divorced." He leaned forward. +"If your wife was the kind of woman who could marry Gail Wynand, you were lucky +to get rid of her." +The tone of chronic impatience that ran words together had not altered to +pronounce this. He had to believe it: this was all the subject meant to her. +"Katie, you’re very tactful and kind...but drop the act," he said, knowing in +dread that it was not an act. "Drop it....Tell me what you thought of me +then....Say everything...I don’t mind....I want to hear it....Don’t you +understand? I’ll feel better if I hear it." +"Surely, Peter, you don’t want me to start some sort of recriminations? I’d say +it was conceited of you, if it weren’t so childish." +"What did you feel--that day--when I didn’t come--and then you heard I was +married?" He did not know what instinct drove him, through numbness, to be +brutal as the only means left to him. "Katie, you suffered then?" +"Yes, of course I suffered. All young people do in such situations. It seems +foolish afterward. I cried, and I screamed some dreadful things at Uncle +Ellsworth, and he had to call a doctor to give me a sedative, and then weeks +afterward I fainted on the street one day without any reason, which was really +disgraceful. All the conventional things, I suppose, everybody goes through +them, like measles. Why should I have expected to be exempt?--as Uncle Ellsworth +said." He thought that he had not known there was something worse than a living +memory of pain: a dead one. "And of course we knew it was for the best. I can’t +imagine myself married to you." +"You can’t imagine it, Katie?" +"That is, nor to anyone else. It wouldn’t have worked, Peter. I’m +temperamentally unsuited to domesticity. It’s too selfish and narrow. Of course, +I understand what you feel just now and I appreciate it. It’s only human that +you should feel something like remorse, since you did what is known as jilted +me." He winced. "You see how stupid those things sound. It’s natural for you to +be a little contrite--a normal reflex--but we must look at it objectively, we’re +grownup, rational people, nothing is too serious, we can’t really help what we +do, we’re conditioned that way, we just charge it off to experience and go on +from there." +"Katie! You’re not talking some fallen girl out of her problem. You’re speaking +about yourself." +"Is there any essential difference? Everybody’s problems are the same, just like +532 + + everybody’s emotions." +He saw her nibbling a thin strip of bread with a smear of green, and noticed +that his order had been served. He moved his fork about in his salad bowl, and +he made himself bite into a gray piece of diet cracker. Then he discovered how +strange it was when one lost the knack of eating automatically and had to do it +by full conscious effort; the cracker seemed inexhaustible; he could not finish +the process of chewing; he moved his jaws without reducing the amount of gritty +pulp in his mouth. +"Katie...for six years...I thought of how I’d ask your forgiveness some day. And +now I have the chance, but I won’t ask it. It seems...it seems beside the point. +I know it’s horrible to say that, but that’s how it seems to me. It was the +worst thing I ever did in my life--but not because I hurt you. I did hurt you, +Katie, and maybe more than you know yourself. But that’s not my worst +guilt....Katie, I wanted to marry you. It was the only thing I ever really +wanted. And that’s the sin that can’t be forgiven--that I hadn’t done what I +wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about +insanity, because there’s no sense to it, no dignity, nothing but pain--and +wasted pain....Katie, why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do +what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest +thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of +courage. I mean, what we really want. As I wanted to marry you. Not as I want to +sleep with some woman or get drunk or get my name in the papers. Those +things--they’re not even desires--they’re things people do to escape from +desires--because it’s such a big responsibility, really to want something." +"Peter, what you’re saying is very ugly and selfish." +"Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve always had to tell you the truth. About everything. +Even if you didn’t ask. I had to." +"Yes. You did. It was a commendable trait. You were a charming boy, Peter." +It was the bowl of sugar-coated almonds on the counter that hurt him, he thought +in a dull anger. The almonds were green and white; they had no business being +green and white at this time of the year; the colors of St. Patrick’s Day--then +there was always candy like that in all the store windows--and St. Patrick’s Day +meant spring--no, better than spring, that moment of wonderful anticipation just +before spring is to begin. +"Katie, I won’t say that I’m still in love with you. I don’t know whether I am +or not. I’ve never asked myself. It wouldn’t matter now. I’m not saying this +because I hope for anything or think of trying or...I know only that I loved +you, Katie, I loved you, whatever I made of it, even if this is how I’ve got to +say it for the last time, I loved you, Katie." +She looked at him--and she seemed pleased. Not stirred, not happy, not pitying; +but pleased in a casual way. He thought: If she were completely the spinster, +the frustrated social worker, as people think of those women, the kind who would +scorn sex in the haughty conceit of her own virtue, that would still be +recognition, if only in hostility. But this--this amused tolerance seemed to +admit that romance was only human, one had to take it, like everybody else, it +was a popular weakness of no great consequence--she was gratified as she would +have been gratified by the same words from any other man--it was like that +red-enamel Mexican on her lapel, a contemptuous concession to people’s demand of +vanity. +"Katie...Katie, let’s say that this doesn’t count--this, now--it’s past counting +533 + + anyway, isn’t it? This can’t touch what it was like, can it, Katie?...People +always regret that the past is so final, that nothing can change it--but I’m +glad it’s so. We can’t spoil it. We can think of the past, can’t we? Why +shouldn’t we? I mean, as you said, like grownup people, not fooling ourselves, +not trying to hope, but only to look back at it....Do you remember when I came +to your house in New York for the first time? You looked so thin and small, and +your hair hung every which way. I told you I would never love anyone else. I +held you on my lap, you didn’t weigh anything at all, and I told you I would +never love anyone else. And you said you knew it." +"I remember." +"When we were together...Katie, I’m ashamed of so many things, but not of one +moment when we were together. When I asked you to marry me--no, I never asked +you to marry me--I just said we were engaged--and you said ’yes’--it was on a +park bench--it was snowing..." +"Yes." +"You had funny woolen gloves. Like mittens. I remember--there were drops of +water in the fuzz--round--like crystal--they flashed--it was because a car +passed by." +"Yes, I think it’s agreeable to look back occasionally. But one’s perspective +widens. One grows richer spiritually with the years." +He kept silent for a long time. Then he said, his voice flat: +"I’m sorry." +"Why? You’re very sweet, Peter. I’ve always said men are the sentimentalists." +He thought: It’s not an act--one can’t put on an act like that--unless it’s an +act inside, for oneself, and then there is no limit, no way out, no reality.... +She went on talking to him, and after a while it was about Washington again. He +answered when it was necessary. +He thought that he had believed it was a simple sequence, the past and the +present, and if there was loss in the past one was compensated by pain in the +present, and pain gave it a form of immortality--but he had not known that one +could destroy like this, kill retroactively--so that to her it had never +existed. +She glanced at her wrist watch and gave a little gasp of impatience, +"I’m late already. I must run along." +He said heavily: +"Do you mind if I don’t go with you, Katie? It’s not rudeness. I just think it’s +better." +"But of course. Not at all. I’m quite able to find my way in the streets and +there’s no need for formalities among old friends." She added, gathering her bag +and gloves, crumpling a paper napkin into a ball, dropping it neatly into her +teacup: "I’ll give you a ring next time I’m in town and we’ll have a bite +together again. Though I can’t promise when that will be. I’m so busy, I have to +go so many places, last month it was Detroit and next week I’m flying to St. +534 + + Louis, but when they shoot me out to New York again, I’ll ring you up, so long, +Peter, it was ever so nice." + +11. +GAIL WYNAND looked at the shining wood of the yacht deck. The wood and a brass +doorknob that had become a smear of fire gave him a sense of everything around +him: the miles of space filled with sun, between the burning spreads of sky and +ocean. It was February, and the yacht lay still, her engines idle, in the +southern Pacific. +He leaned on the rail and looked down at Roark in the water. Roark floated on +his back, his body stretched into a straight line, arms spread, eyes closed. The +tan of his skin implied a month of days such as this. Wynand thought that this +was the way he liked to apprehend space and time: through the power of his +yacht, through the tan of Roark’s skin or the sunbrown of his own arms folded +before him on the rail. +He had not sailed his yacht for several years. This time he had wanted Roark to +be his only guest. Dominique was left behind. +Wynand had said: "You’re killing yourself, Howard. You’ve been going at a pace +nobody can stand for long. Ever since Monadnock, isn’t it? Think you’d have the +courage to perform the feat most difficult for you--to rest?" +He was astonished when Roark accepted without argument. Roark laughed: +"I’m not running away from my work, if that’s what surprises you. I know when to +stop--and I can’t stop, unless it’s completely. I know I’ve overdone it. I’ve +been wasting too much paper lately and doing awful stuff." +"Do you ever do awful stuff?" +"Probably more of it than any other architect and with less excuse. The only +distinction I can claim is that my botches end up in my own wastebasket." +"I warn you, we’ll be away for months. If you begin to regret it and cry for +your drafting table in a week, like all men who’ve never learned to loaf, I +won’t take you back. I’m the worst kind of dictator aboard my yacht. You’ll have +everything you can imagine, except paper or pencils. I won’t even leave you any +freedom of speech. No mention of girders, plastics or reinforced concrete once +you step on board. I’ll teach you to eat, sleep and exist like the most +worthless millionaire." +"I’d like to try that." +The work in the office did not require Roark’s presence for the next few months. +His current jobs were being completed. Two new commissions were not to be +started until spring. +He had made all the sketches Keating needed for Cortlandt. The construction was +about to begin. Before sailing, on a day in late December, Roark went to take a +last look at the site of Cortlandt. An anonymous spectator in a group of the +idle curious, he stood and watched the steam shovels biting the earth, breaking +the way for future foundations. The East River was a broad band of sluggish +black water; and beyond, in a sparse haze of snowflakes, the towers of the city +535 + + stood softened, half suggested in watercolors of orchid and blue. +Dominique did not protest when Wynand told her that he wanted to sail on a long +cruise with Roark. "Dearest, you understand that it’s not running away from you? +I just need some time taken out of everything. Being with Howard is like being +alone with myself, only more at peace." +"Of course, Gail. I don’t mind." +But he looked at her, and suddenly he laughed, incredulously pleased. +"Dominique, I believe you’re jealous. It’s wonderful, I’m more grateful to him +than ever--if it could make you jealous of me." +She could not tell him that she was jealous or of whom. +The yacht sailed at the end of December. Roark watched, grinning, Wynand’s +disappointment when Wynand found that he needed to enforce no discipline. Roark +did not speak of buildings, lay for hours stretched out on deck in the sun, and +loafed like an expert. They spoke little. There were days when Wynand could not +remember what sentences they had exchanged. It would have seemed possible to him +that they had not spoken at all. Their serenity was their best means of +communication. +Today they had dived together to swim and Wynand had climbed back first. As he +stood at the rail, watching Roark in the water, he thought of the power he held +in this moment: he could order the yacht to start moving, sail away and leave +that redheaded body to sun and ocean. The thought gave him pleasure: the sense +of power and the sense of surrender to Roark in the knowledge that no +conceivable force could make him exercise that power. Every physical +instrumentality was on his side: a few contractions of his vocal cords giving +the order and someone’s hand opening a valve--and the obedient machine would +move away. He thought: It’s not just a moral issue, not the mere horror of the +act, one could conceivably abandon a man if the fate of a continent depended on +it. But nothing would enable him to abandon this man. He, Gail Wynand, was the +helpless one in this moment, with the solid planking of the deck under his feet. +Roark, floating like a piece of driftwood, held a power greater than that of the +engine in the belly of the yacht. Wynand thought: Because that is the power from +which the engine has come. +Roark climbed back on deck; Wynand looked at Roark’s body, at the threads of +water running down the angular planes. He said: +"You made a mistake on the Stoddard Temple, Howard. That statue should have +been, not of Dominique, but of you." +"No. I’m too egotistical for that." +"Egotistical? An egotist would have loved it. You use words in the strangest +way." +"In the exact way. I don’t wish to be the symbol of anything. I’m only myself." +# +Stretched in a deck chair, Wynand glanced up with satisfaction at the lantern, a +disk of frosted glass on the bulkhead behind him: it cut off the black void of +the ocean and gave him privacy within solid walls of light. He heard the sound +of the yacht’s motion, he felt the warm night air on his face, he saw nothing +but the stretch of deck around him, enclosed and final. +536 + + Roark stood before him at the rail; a tall white figure leaning back against +black space, his head lifted as Wynand had seen it lifted in an unfinished +building. His hands clasped the rail. The short shirt sleeves left his arms in +the light; vertical ridges of shadow stressed the tensed muscles of his arms and +the tendons of his neck. Wynand thought of the yacht’s engine, of skyscrapers, +of transatlantic cables, of everything man had made. +"Howard, this is what I wanted. To have you here with me." +"I know." +"Do you know what it really is? Avarice. I’m a miser about two things on earth: +you and Dominique. I’m a millionaire who’s never owned anything. Do you remember +what you said about ownership? I’m like a savage who’s discovered the idea of +private property and run amuck on it. It’s funny. Think of Ellsworth Toohey." +"Why Ellsworth Toohey?" +"I mean, the things he preaches, I’ve been wondering lately whether he really +understands what he’s advocating. Selflessness in the absolute sense? Why, +that’s what I’ve been. Does he know that I’m the embodiment of his ideal? Of +course, he wouldn’t approve of my motive, but motives never alter facts. If it’s +true selflessness he’s after, in the philosophical sense--and Mr. Toohey is a +philosopher--in a sense much beyond matters of money, why, let him look at me. +I’ve never owned anything. I’ve never wanted anything. I didn’t give a damn--in +the most cosmic way Toohey could ever hope for. I made myself into a barometer +subject to the pressure of the whole world. The voice of his masses pushed me up +and down. Of course, I collected a fortune in the process. Does that change the +intrinsic reality of the picture? Suppose I gave away every penny of it. Suppose +I had never wished to take any money at all, but had set out in pure altruism to +serve the people. What would I have to do? Exactly what I’ve done. Give the +greatest pleasure to the greatest number. Express the opinions, the desires, the +tastes of the majority. The majority that voted me its approval and support +freely, in the shape of a three-cent ballot dropped at the corner newsstand +every morning. The Wynand papers? For thirty-one years they have represented +everybody except Gail Wynand. I erased my ego out of existence in a way never +achieved by any saint in a cloister. Yet people call me corrupt. Why? The saint +in a cloister sacrifices only material things. It’s a small price to pay for the +glory of his soul. He hoards his soul and gives up the world. But I--I took +automobiles, silk pyjamas, a penthouse, and gave the world my soul in exchange. +Who’s sacrificed more--if sacrifice is the test of virtue? Who’s the actual +saint?" +"Gail...I didn’t think you’d ever admit that to yourself." +"Why not? I knew what I was doing. I wanted power over a collective soul and I +got it. A collective soul. It’s a messy kind of concept, but if anyone wishes to +visualize it concretely, let him pick up a copy of the New York Banner." +"Yes..." +"Of course, Toohey would tell me that this is not what he means by altruism. He +means I shouldn’t leave it up to the people to decide what they want I should +decide it. I should determine, not what I like nor what they like, but what I +think they should like, and then ram it down their throats. It would have to be +rammed, since their voluntary choice is the Banner. Well, there are several such +altruists in the world today." +"You realize that?" +537 + + "Of course. What else can one do if one must serve the people? If one must live +for others? Either pander to everybody’s wishes and be called corrupt; or impose +on everybody by force your own idea of everybody’s good. Can you think of any +other way?" +"No." +"What’s left then? Where does decency start? What begins where altruism ends? Do +you see what I’m in love with?" +"Yes, Gail." Wynand had noticed that Roark’s voice had a reluctance that sounded +almost like sadness. +"What’s the matter with you? Why do you sound like that?" +"I’m sorry. Forgive me. It’s just something I thought. I’ve been thinking of +this for a long time. And particularly all these days when you’ve made me lie on +deck and loaf." +"Thinking about me?" +"About you--among many other things." +"What have you decided?" +"I’m not an altruist, Gail. I don’t decide for others." +"You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve sold myself, but I’ve held no illusions +about it. I’ve never become an Alvah Scarret. He really believes whatever the +public believes. I despise the public. That’s my only vindication. I’ve sold my +life, but I got a good price. Power. I’ve never used it. I couldn’t afford a +personal desire. But now I’m free. Now I can use it for what I want. For what I +believe. For Dominique. For you." +Roark turned away. When he looked back at Wynand, he said only: +"I hope so, Gail." +"What have you been thinking about these past weeks?" +"The principle behind the dean who fired me from Stanton." +"What principle?" +"The thing that is destroying the world. The thing you were talking about. +Actual selflessness." +"The ideal which they say does not exist?" +"They’re wrong. It does exist--though not in the way they imagine. It’s what I +couldn’t understand about people for a long time. They have no self. They live +within others. They live second-hand. Look at Peter Keating." +"You look at him. I hate his guts." +"I’ve looked at him--at what’s left of him--and it’s helped me to understand. +He’s paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he’s +been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What +538 + + was his aim in life? Greatness--in other people’s eyes. Fame, admiration, +envy--all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which +he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others +were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn’t want to be great, but to +be thought great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He +borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There’s your +actual selflessness. It’s his ego he’s betrayed and given up. But everybody +calls him selfish." +"That’s the pattern most people follow." +"Yes! And isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but +precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but +preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others +think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The +man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself +to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who +professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to +establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to make +money. Now I don’t see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is +only a means to some end. If a man wants it for a personal purpose--to invest in +his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury--he’s completely +moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is +a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to +entertain, to impress others. They’re second-handers. Look at our so-called +cultural endeavors. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all +that means nothing at all to him--and the people who listen and don’t give a +damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a +lecture by a famous name. All second-handers." +"If I were Ellsworth Toohey, I’d say: aren’t you making out a case against +selfishness? Aren’t they all acting on a selfish motive--to be noticed, liked, +admired?" +"--by others. At the price of their own self-respect. In the realm of greatest +importance--the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought--they place +others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish +man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn’t need it." +"I think Toohey understands that. That’s what helps him spread his vicious +nonsense. Just weakness and cowardice. It’s so easy to run to others. It’s so +hard to stand on one’s own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You +can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. They run from +it. They spend their lives running. It’s easier to donate a few thousand to +charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards +of personal achievement. It’s simple to seek substitutes for competence--such +easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for +competence." +"That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for +facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: ’Is this +true?’ They ask: ’Is this what others think is true?’ Not to judge, but to +repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. +Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world +without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don’t +think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands. When +you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To +stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. +Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one +539 + + human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation--anchored to nothing. +That’s the emptiness I couldn’t understand in people. That’s what stopped me +whenever I faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational +process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The +second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other +living person. It’s everywhere and nowhere and you can’t reason with him. He’s +not open to reason. You can’t speak to him--he can’t hear. You’re tried by an +empty bench. A blind mass running amuck, to crush you without sense or purpose. +Steve Mallory couldn’t define the monster, but he knew. That’s the drooling +beast he fears. The second-hander." +"I think your second-handers understand this, try as they might not to admit it +to themselves. Notice how they’ll accept anything except a man who stands alone. +They recognize him at once. By instinct. There’s a special, insidious kind of +hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and +violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They’ve got to +force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The +independent man kills them--because they don’t exist within him and that’s the +only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment +against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an +independent man. Look back at your own life, Howard, and at the people you’ve +met. They know. They’re afraid. You’re a reproach." +"That’s because some sense of dignity always remains in them. They’re still +human beings. But they’ve been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man +can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self-esteem in any +form. He wouldn’t survive. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine +that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it +could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. +And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful +form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn’t have conceived. And now, +to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we’re asked to destroy the self. +Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You’ve +wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man +stopped and asked himself whether he’s ever held a truly personal desire, he’d +find the answer. He’d see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his +ambitions are motivated by other men. He’s not really struggling even for +material wealth, but for the second-hander’s delusion--prestige. A stamp of +approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has +succeeded. He can’t say about a single thing: ’This is what I wanted because I +wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.’ Then he wonders why +he’s unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are +personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or +precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we +are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To +seek joy in meeting halls. We haven’t even got a word for the quality I +mean--for the self-sufficiency of man’s spirit. It’s difficult to call it +selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they’ve come to mean +Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing +your prime concern within other men. I’ve always demanded a certain quality in +the people I liked. I’ve always recognized it at once--and it’s the only quality +I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A +self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters." +"I’m glad you admit that you have friends." +"I even admit that I love them. But I couldn’t love them if they were my chief +reason for living. Do you notice that Peter Keating hasn’t a single friend left? +Do you see why? If one doesn’t respect oneself one can have neither love nor +540 + + respect for others." +"To hell with Peter Keating. I’m thinking of you--and your friends." +Roark smiled. "Gail, if this boat were sinking, I’d give my life to save you. +Not because it’s any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and +standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn’t and wouldn’t live for +you." +"Howard, what were the reasons and standards?" Roark looked at him and realized +that he had said all the things he had tried not to say to Wynand. He answered: +"That you weren’t born to be a second-hander." Wynand smiled. He heard the +sentence--and nothing else. Afterward, when Wynand had gone below to his cabin, +Roark remained alone on deck. He stood at the rail, staring out at the ocean, at +nothing. +He thought: I haven’t mentioned to him the worst second-hander of all--the man +who goes after power. + +12. +IT WAS April when Roark and Wynand returned to the city. The skyscrapers looked +pink against the blue sky, an incongruous shade of porcelain on masses of stone. +There were small tufts of green on the trees in the streets. +Roark went to his office. His staff shook hands with him and he saw the strain +of smiles self-consciously repressed, until a young boy burst out: "What the +hell! Why can’t we say how glad we are to see you back, boss?" Roark laughed. +"Go ahead. I can’t tell you how damn glad I am to be back." Then he sat on a +table in the drafting room, while they all reported to him on the past three +months, interrupting one another; he played with a ruler in his hands, not +noticing it, like a man with the feel of his farm’s soil under his fingers, +after an absence. +In the afternoon, alone at his desk, he opened a newspaper. He had not seen a +newspaper for three months. He noticed an item about the construction of +Cortlandt Homes. He saw the line: "Peter Keating, architect. Gordon L. Prescott +and Augustus Webb, associate designers." He sat very still. +That evening he went to see Cortlandt. The first building was almost completed. +It stood alone on the large, empty tract. The workers had left for the day; a +small light showed in the shack of the night watchman. The building had the +skeleton of what Roark had designed, with the remnants of ten different breeds +piled on the lovely symmetry of the bones. He saw the economy of plan preserved, +but the expense of incomprehensible features added; the variety of modeled +masses gone, replaced by the monotony of brutish cubes; a new wing added, with a +vaulted roof, bulging out of a wall like a tumor, containing a gymnasium; +strings of balconies added, made of metal stripes painted a violent blue; comer +windows without purpose; an angle cut off for a useless door, with a round metal +awning supported by a pole, like a haberdashery in the Broadway district; three +vertical bands of brick, leading from nowhere to nowhere; the general style of +what the profession called "Bronx Modern"; a panel of bas-relief over the main +entrance, representing a mass of muscle which could be discerned as either three +or four bodies, one of them with an arm raised, holding a screwdriver. +There were white crosses on the fresh panes of glass in the windows, and it +541 + + looked appropriate, like an error X-ed out of existence. There was a band of red +in the sky, to the west, beyond Manhattan, and the buildings of the city rose +straight and black against it. +Roark stood across the space of the future road before the first house of +Cortlandt. He stood straight, the muscles of his throat pulled, his wrists held +down and away from his body, as he would have stood before a firing squad. +# +No one could tell how it had happened. There had been no deliberate intention +behind it. It had just happened. +First, Toohey told Keating one morning that Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb +would be put on the payroll as associate designers. "What do you care, Peter? It +won’t come out of your fee. It won’t cut your prestige at all, since you’re the +big boss. They won’t be much more than your draftsmen. All I want is to give the +boys a boost. It will help their reputation, to be tagged with this project in +some way. I’m very interested in building up their reputation." +"But what for? There’s nothing for them to do. It’s all done." +"Oh, any kind of last-minute drafting. Save time for your own staff. You can +share the expense with them. Don’t be a hog." +Toohey had told the truth; he had no other purpose in mind. +Keating could not discover what connections Prescott and Webb possessed, with +whom, in what office, on what terms--among the dozens of officials involved in +the project. The entanglement of responsibility was such that no one could be +quite certain of anyone’s authority. It was clear only that Prescott and Webb +had friends, and that Keating could not keep them off the job. +The changes began with the gymnasium. The lady in charge of tenant selection +demanded a gymnasium. She was a social worker and her task was to end with the +opening of the project. She acquired a permanent job by getting herself +appointed Director of Social Recreation for Cortlandt. No gymnasium had been +provided in the original plans; there were two schools and a Y.M.C.A. within +walking distance. She declared that this was an outrage against the children of +the poor, Prescott and Webb supplied the gymnasium. Other changes followed, of a +purely esthetic nature. Extras piled on the cost of construction so carefully +devised for economy. The Director of Social Recreation departed for Washington +to discuss the matter of a Little Theater and a Meeting Hall she wished added to +the next two buildings of Cortlandt. +The changes in the drawings came gradually, a few at a time. The others okaying +the changes came from headquarters. "But we’re ready to start!" cried Keating. +"What the hell," drawled Gus Webb, "set ’em back just a coupla thousand bucks +more, that’s all." +"Now as to the balconies," said Gordon L. Prescott, "they lend a certain modern +style. You don’t want the damn thing to look so bare. It’s depressing. Besides, +you don’t understand psychology. The people who’ll live here are used to sitting +out on fire-escapes. They love it. They’ll miss it. You gotta give ’em a place +to sit on in the fresh air....The cost? Hell, if you’re so damn worried about +the cost, I’ve got an idea where we can save plenty. We’ll do without closet +doors. What do they need doors for on closets? It’s old-fashioned." All the +closet doors were omitted. +Keating fought. It was the kind of battle he had never entered, but he tried +542 + + everything possible to him, to the honest limit of his exhausted strength. He +went from office to office, arguing, threatening, pleading. But he had no +influence, while his associate designers seemed to control an underground river +with interlocking tributaries. The officials shrugged and referred him to +someone else. No one cared about an issue of esthetics. "What’s the difference?" +"It doesn’t come out of your pocket, does it?" "Who are you to have it all your +way? Let the boys contribute something." +He appealed to Ellsworth Toohey, but Toohey was not interested. He was busy with +other matters and he had no desire to provoke a bureaucratic quarrel. In all +truth, he had not prompted his protégés to their artistic endeavor, but he saw +no reason for attempting to stop them. He was amused by the whole thing. "But +it’s awful, Ellsworth! You know it’s awful!" "Oh, I suppose so. What do you +care, Peter? Your poor but unwashed tenants won’t be able to appreciate the +finer points of architectural art. See that the plumbing works." +"But what for? What for? What for?" Keating cried to his associate designers. +"Well, why shouldn’t we have any say at all?" asked Gordon L. Prescott. "We want +to express our individuality too." +When Keating invoked his contract, he was told: "All right, go ahead, try to sue +the government. Try it." At times, he felt a desire to kill. There was no one to +kill. Had he been granted the privilege, he could not have chosen a victim. +Nobody was responsible. There was no purpose and no cause. It had just happened. +Keating came to Roark’s house on the evening after Roark’s return. He had not +been summoned. Roark opened the door and said: "Good evening, Peter," but +Keating could not answer. They walked silently into the work room. Roark sat +down, but Keating remained standing in the middle of the floor and asked his +voice dull: +"What are you going to do?" +"You must leave that up to me now." +"I couldn’t help it, Howard....I couldn’t help it!" +"I suppose not." +"What can you do now? You can’t sue the government." +"No." +Keating thought that he should sit down, but the distance to a chair seemed too +great. He felt he would be too conspicuous if he moved. +"What are you going to do to me, Howard?" +"Nothing." +"Want me to confess the truth to them? To everybody?" +"No." +After a while Keating whispered: +"Will you let me give you the fee...everything...and..." +Roark smiled. +543 + + "I’m sorry..." Keating whispered, looking away. +He waited, and then the plea he knew he must not utter came out as: +"I’m scared, Howard..." +Roark shook his head. +"Whatever I do, it won’t be to hurt you, Peter. I’m guilty, too. We both are." +"You’re guilty?" +"It’s I who’ve destroyed you, Peter. From the beginning. By helping you. There +are matters in which one must not ask for help nor give it. I shouldn’t have +done your projects at Stanton. I shouldn’t have done the Cosmo-Slotnick +Building. Nor Cortlandt. I loaded you with more than you could carry. It’s like +an electric current too strong for the circuit. It blows the fuse. Now we’ll +both pay for it. It will be hard on you, but it will be harder on me." +"You’d rather...I went home now, Howard?" +"Yes." +At the door Keating said: +"Howard! They didn’t do it on purpose." +"That’s what makes it worse." +# +Dominique heard the sound of the car rising up the hill road. She thought it was +Wynand coming home. He had worked late in the city every night of the two weeks +since his return. +The motor filled the spring silence of the countryside. There was no sound in +the house; only the small rustle of her hair as she leaned her head back against +a chair cushion. In a moment she was not conscious of hearing the car’s +approach, it was so familiar at this hour, part of the loneliness and privacy +outside. +She heard the car stop at the door. The door was never locked; there were no +neighbors or guests to expect. She heard the door opening, and steps in the hall +downstairs. The steps did not pause, but walked with familiar certainty up the +stairs. A hand turned the knob of her door. +It was Roark. She thought, while she was rising to her feet, that he had never +entered her room before; but he knew every part of this house; as he knew +everything about her body. She felt no moment of shock, only the memory of one, +a shock in the past tense, the thought: I must have been shocked when I saw him, +but not now. Now, by the time she was standing before him, it seemed very +simple. +She thought: The most important never has to be said between us. It has always +been said like this. He did not want to see me alone. Now he’s here. I waited +and I’m ready. +"Good evening, Dominique." +544 + + She heard the name pronounced to fill the space of five years. She said quietly: +"Good evening, Roark." +"I want you to help me." +She was standing on the station platform of Clayton, Ohio, on the witness stand +of the Stoddard trial, on the ledge of a quarry, to let herself--as she had been +then--share this sentence she heard now. +"Yes, Roark." +He walked across the room he had designed for her, he sat down, facing her, the +width of the room between them. She found herself seated too, not conscious of +her own movements, only of his, as if his body contained two sets of nerves, his +own and hers. +"Next Monday night, Dominique, exactly at eleven-thirty, I want you to drive up +to the site of Cortlandt Homes." +She noticed that she was conscious of her eyelids; not painfully, but just +conscious; as if they had tightened and would not move again. She had seen the +first building of Cortlandt. She knew what she was about to hear. +"You must be alone in your car and you must be on your way home from some place +where you had an appointment to visit, made in advance. A place that can be +reached from here only by driving past Cortlandt. You must be able to prove that +afterward. I want your car to run out of gas in front of Cortlandt, at +eleven-thirty. Honk your horn. There’s an old night watchman there. He will come +out. Ask him to help you and send him to the nearest garage, which is a mile +away." +She said steadily, "Yes, Roark." +"When he’s gone, get out of your car. There’s a big stretch of vacant land by +the road, across from the building, and a kind of trench beyond. Walk to that +trench as fast as you can, get to the bottom and lie down on the ground. Lie +flat. After a while, you can come back to the car. You will know when to come +back. See that you’re found in the car and that your condition matches its +condition--approximately." +"Yes, Roark." +"Have you understood?" +"Yes." +"Everything?" +"Yes. Everything." +They were standing. She saw only his eyes and that he was smiling. +She heard him say: "Good night, Dominique," he walked out and she heard his car +driving away. She thought of his smile. +She knew that he did not need her help for the thing he was going to do, he +could find other means to get rid of the watchman; that he had let her have a +part in this, because she would not survive what was to follow if he hadn’t; +545 + + that this had been the test. +He had not wanted to name it; he had wanted her to understand and show no fear. +She had not been able to accept the Stoddard trial, she had run from the dread +of seeing him hurt by the world, but she had agreed to help him in this. Had +agreed in complete serenity. She was free and he knew it. +# +The road ran flat across the dark stretches of Long Island, but Dominique felt +as if she were driving uphill. That was the only abnormal sensation: the +sensation of rising, as if her car were speeding vertically. She kept her eyes +on the road, but the dashboard on the rim of her vision looked like the panel of +an airplane. The clock on the dashboard said 11:10. +She was amused, thinking: I’ve never learned to fly a plane and now I know how +it feels; just like this, the unobstructed space and no effort. And no weight. +That’s supposed to happen in the stratosphere--or is it the interplanetary +space?--where one begins to float and there’s no law of gravity. No law of any +kind of gravity at all. She heard herself laughing aloud. +Just the sense of rising....Otherwise, she felt normal. She had never driven a +car so well. She thought: It’s a dry, mechanical job, to drive a car, so I know +I’m very clearheaded; because driving seemed easy, like breathing or swallowing, +an immediate function requiring no attention. She stopped for red lights that +hung in the air over crossings of anonymous streets in unknown suburbs, she +turned corners, she passed other cars, and she was certain that no accident +could happen to her tonight; her car was directed by remote control--one of +those automatic rays she’d read about--was it a beacon or a radio beam?--and she +only sat at the wheel. +It left her free to be conscious of nothing but small matters, and to feel +careless and...unserious, she thought; so completely unserious. It was a kind of +clarity, being more normal than normal, as crystal is more transparent than +empty air. Just small matters: the thin silk of her short, black dress and the +way it was pulled over her knee, the flexing of her toes inside her pump when +she moved her foot, "Danny’s Diner" in gold letters on a dark window that +flashed past. +She had been very gay at the dinner given by the wife of some banker, important +friends of Gail’s, whose names she could not quite remember now. It had been a +wonderful dinner in a huge Long Island mansion. They had been so glad to see her +and so sorry that Gail could not come. She had eaten everything she had seen +placed before her. She had had a splendid appetite--as on rare occasions of her +childhood when she came running home after a day spent in the woods and her +mother was so pleased, because her mother was afraid that she might grow up to +be anemic. +She had entertained the guests at the dinner table with stories of her +childhood, she had made them laugh, and it had been the gayest dinner party her +hosts could remember. Afterward, in the drawing room with the windows open wide +to a dark sky--a moonless sky that stretched out beyond the trees, beyond the +towns, all the way to the banks of the East River--she had laughed and talked, +she had smiled at the people around her with a warmth that made them all speak +freely of the things dearest to them, she had loved those people, and they had +known they were loved, she had loved every person anywhere on earth, and some +woman had said: "Dominique, I didn’t know you could be so wonderful!" and she +had answered: "I haven’t a care in the world." +But she had really noticed nothing except the watch on her wrist and that she +546 + + must be out of that house by 10:50. She had no idea of what she would say to +take her leave, but by 10:45 it had been said, correctly and convincingly, and +by 10:50 her foot was on the accelerator. +It was a closed roadster, black with red leather upholstery. She thought how +nicely John, the chauffeur, had kept that red leather polished. There would be +nothing left of the car, and it was proper that it should look its best for its +last ride. Like a woman on her first night. I never dressed for my first +night--I had no first night--only something ripped off me and the taste of +quarry dust in my teeth. +When she saw black vertical strips with dots of light filling the glass of the +car’s side window, she wondered what had happened to the glass. Then she +realized that she was driving along the East River and that this was New York, +on the other side. She laughed and thought: No, this is not New York, this is a +private picture pasted to the window of my car, all of it, here, on one small +pane, under my hand, I own it, it’s mine now--she ran one hand across the +buildings from the Battery to Queensboro Bridge--Roark, it’s mine and I’m giving +it to you. +# +The figure of the night watchman was now fifteen inches tall in the distance. +When it gets to be ten inches, I’ll start, thought Dominique. She stood by the +side of her car and wished the watchman would walk faster. +The building was a black mass that propped the sky in one spot. The rest of the +sky sagged, intimately low over a flat stretch of ground. The closest streets +and houses were years away, far on the rim of space, irregular little dents, +like the teeth of a broken saw. +She felt a large pebble under the sole of her pump; it was uncomfortable, but +she would not move her foot; it would make a sound. She was not alone. She knew +that he was somewhere in that building, the width of a street away from her. +There was no sound and no light in the building; only white crosses on black +windows. He would need no light; he knew every hall, every stairwell. +The watchman had shrunk away. She jerked the door of her car open. She threw her +hat and bag inside, and flung the door shut. She heard the slam of sound when +she was across the road, running over the empty tract, away from the building. +She felt the silk of her dress clinging to her legs, and it served as a tangible +purpose of flight, to push against that, to tear past that barrier as fast as +she could. There were pits and dry stubble on the ground. She fell once, but she +noticed it only when she was running again. +She saw the trench in the darkness. Then she was on her knees, at the bottom, +and then stretched flat on her stomach, face down, her mouth pressed to the +earth. +She felt the pounding of her thighs and she twisted her body once in a long +convulsion, to feel the earth with her legs, her breasts, the skin of her arms. +It was like lying in Roark’s bed. +The sound was the crack of a fist on the back of her head. She felt the thrust +of the earth against her, flinging her up to her feet, to the edge of the +trench. The upper part of the Cortlandt building had tilted and hung still while +a broken streak of sky grew slowly across it. As if the sky were slicing the +building in half. Then the streak became turquoise blue light. Then there was no +upper part, but only window frames and girders flying through the air, the +547 + + building spreading over the sky, a long, thin tongue of red shooting from the +center, another blow of a fist, and then another, a blinding flash and the glass +panes of the skyscrapers across the river glittering like spangles. +She did not remember that he had ordered her to lie flat, that she was standing, +that glass and twisted iron were raining around her. In the flash when walls +rose outward and a building opened like a sunburst, she thought of him there, +somewhere beyond, the builder who had to destroy, who knew every crucial point +of that structure, who had made the delicate balance of stress and support; she +thought of him selecting these key spots, placing the blast, a doctor turned +murderer, expertly cracking heart, brain and lungs at once. He was there, he saw +it and what it did to him was worse than what it did to the building. But he was +there and he welcomed it. +She saw the city enveloped in light for half a second, she could see window +ledges and cornices miles away, she thought of dark rooms and ceilings licked by +this fire, she saw the peaks of towers lighted against the sky, her city now and +his. "Roark!" she screamed. "Roark! Roark!" She did not know she screamed. She +could not hear her voice in the blast. +Then she was running across the field to the smoking ruin, running over broken +glass, planting her feet down full with each step, because she enjoyed the pain. +There was no pain left ever to be felt by her again. A spread of dust stood over +the field like an awning. She heard the shriek of sirens starting far away. +It was still a car, though the rear wheels were crushed under a piece of furnace +machinery, and an elevator door lay over the hood. She crawled to the seat. She +had to look as if she had not moved from here. She gathered handfuls of glass +off the floor and poured it over her lap, over her hair. She took a sharp +splinter and slashed the skin of her neck, her legs, her arms. What she felt was +not pain. She saw blood shooting out of her arm, running down on her lap, +soaking the black silk, trickling between her thighs. Her head fell back, mouth +open, panting. She did not want to stop. She was free. She was invulnerable. She +did not know she had cut an artery. She felt so light. She was laughing at the +law of gravity. +When she was found by the men of the first police car to reach the scene, she +was unconscious, a few minutes’ worth of life left in her body. + +13. +DOMINIQUE glanced about the bedroom of the penthouse. It was her first contact +with surroundings she was ready to recognize. She knew she had been brought here +after many days in a hospital. The bedroom seemed lacquered with light. It’s +that clarity of crystal over everything, she thought; that has remained; it will +remain forever. She saw Wynand standing by her bed. He was watching her. He +looked amused. +She remembered seeing him at the hospital. He had not looked amused then. She +knew the doctor had told him she would not survive, that first night. She had +wanted to tell them all that she would, that she had no choice now but to live; +only it did not seem important to tell people anything, ever. +Now she was back. She could feel bandages on her throat, her legs, her left arm. +But her hands lay before her on the blanket, and the gauze had been removed; +there were only a few thin red scars left. +548 + + "You blasted little fool!" said Wynand happily. "Why did you have to make such a +good job of it?" +Lying on the white pillow, with her smooth gold hair and a white, high-necked +hospital gown, she looked younger than she had ever looked as a child. She had +the quiet radiance presumed and never found in childhood: the full consciousness +of certainty, of innocence, of peace. +"I ran out of gas," she said, "and I was waiting there in my car when +suddenly..." +"I’ve already told that story to the police. So has the night watchman. But +didn’t you know that glass must be handled with discretion?" +Gail looks rested, she thought, and very confident. It has changed everything +for him, too; in the same way. +"It didn’t hurt," she said. +"Next time you want to play the innocent bystander, let me coach you." +"They believe it though, don’t they?" +"Oh yes, they believe it. They have to. You almost died. I don’t see why he had +to save the watchman’s life and almost take yours." +"Who?" +"Howard, my dear. Howard Roark." +"What has he to do with it?" +"Darling, you’re not being questioned by the police. You will be, though, and +you’ll have to be more convincing than that. However, I’m sure you’ll succeed. +They won’t think of the Stoddard trial." +"Oh." +"You did it then and you’ll always do it. Whatever you think of him, you’ll +always feel what I feel about his work." +"Gail, you’re glad I did it?" +"Yes." +She saw him looking down at her hand that lay on the edge of the bed. Then he +was on his knees, his lips pressed to her hand, not raising it, not touching it +with his fingers, only with his mouth. That was the sole confession he would +permit himself of what her days in the hospital had cost him. She lifted her +other hand and moved it over his hair. She thought: It will be worse for you +than if I had died, Gail, but it will be all right, it won’t hurt you, there’s +no pain left in the world, nothing to compare with the fact that we exist: he, +you and I--you’ve understood all that matters, though you don’t know you’ve lost +me. +He lifted his head and got up. +"I didn’t intend to reproach you in any way. Forgive me." +549 + + "I won’t die, Gail. I feel wonderful." +"You look it." +"Have they arrested him?" +"He’s out on bail." +"You’re happy?" +"I’m glad you did it and that it was for him. I’m glad he did it. He had to." +"Yes. And it will be the Stoddard trial again." +"Not quite." +"You’ve wanted another chance, Gail? All these years?" +"Yes." +"May I see the papers?" +"No. Not until you’re up." +"Not even the Banner!" +"Particularly not the Banner." +"I love you, Gail. If you stick to the end..." +"Don’t offer me any bribes. This is not between you and me. Not even between him +and me." +"But between you and God?" +"If you want to call it that. But we won’t discuss it. Not until after it’s +over. You have a visitor waiting for you downstairs. He’s been here every day." +"Who?" +"Your lover. Howard Roark. Want to let him thank you now?" +The gay mockery, the tone of uttering the most preposterous thing he could think +of, told her how far he was from guessing the rest. She said: +"Yes. I want to see him. Gail, if I decide to make him my lover?" +"I’ll kill you both. Now don’t move, lie flat, the doctor said you must take it +easy, you’ve got twenty-six assorted stitches all over you." +He walked out and she heard him descending the stairs. +# +When the first policeman had reached the scene of the explosion, he had found, +behind the building, on the shore of the river, the plunger that had set off the +dynamite. Roark stood by the plunger, his hands in his pockets, looking at the +remnants of Cortlandt. +550 + + "What do you know about this, buddy?" the policeman asked. +"You’d better arrest me," said Roark. "I’ll talk at the trial." +He had not added another word in reply to all the official questions that +followed. +It was Wynand who got him released on bail, in the early hours of the morning. +Wynand had been calm at the emergency hospital where he had seen Dominique’s +wounds and had been told she would not live. He had been calm while he +telephoned, got a county judge out of bed and arranged Roark’s bail. But when he +stood in the warden’s office of a small county jail, he began to shake suddenly. +"You bloody fools!" he said through his teeth and there followed every obscenity +he had learned on the waterfront. He forgot all the aspects of the situation +save one: Roark being held behind bars. He was Stretch Wynand of Hell’s Kitchen +again and this was the kind of fury that had shattered him in sudden flashes in +those days, the fury he had felt when standing behind a crumbling wall, waiting +to be killed. Only now he knew that he was also Gail Wynand, the owner of an +empire, and he couldn’t understand why some sort of legal procedure was +necessary, why he didn’t smash this jail, with his fists or through his papers, +it was all one to him at the moment, he wanted to kill, he had to kill, as that +night behind the wall, in defense of his life. +He managed to sign papers, he managed to wait until Roark was brought out to +him. They walked out together, Roark leading him by the wrist, and by the time +they reached the car, Wynand was calm. In the car, Wynand asked: +"You did it, of course?" +"Of course." +"We’ll fight it out together." +"If you want to make it your battle." +"At the present estimate, my personal fortune amounts to forty million dollars. +That should be enough to hire any lawyer you wish or the whole profession." +"I won’t use a lawyer." +"Howard! You’re not going to submit photographs again?" +"No. Not this time." +# +Roark entered the bedroom and sat down on a chair by the bed. Dominique lay +still, looking at him. They smiled at each other. Nothing has to be said, not +this time either, she thought. +She asked: +"You were in jail?" +"For a few hours." +"What was it like?" +"Don’t start acting about it as Gail did." +551 + + "Gail took it very badly?" +"Very." +"I won’t." +"I might have to go back to a cell for years. You knew that when you agreed to +help me." +"Yes. I knew that." +"I’m counting on you to save Gail, if I go." +"Counting on me?’ +He looked at her and shook his head. "Dearest..." It sounded +like a reproach. +"Yes?" she whispered. +"Don’t you know by now that it was a trap I set for you?" +"How?" +"What would you do if I hadn’t asked you to help me?" +"I’d be with you, in your apartment, at the Enright House, right now, publicly +and openly." +"Yes. But now you can’t. You’re Mrs. Gail Wynand, you’re above suspicion, and +everyone believes you were at the scene by accident. Just let it be known what +we are to each other--and it will be a confession that I did it." +"I see." +"I want you to keep quiet. If you had any thoughts of wanting to share my fate, +drop them. I won’t tell you what I intend to do, because that’s the only way I +have of controlling you until the trial. Dominique, if I’m convicted, I want you +to remain with Gail. I’m counting on that, I want you to remain with him, and +never tell him about us, because he and you will need each other." +"And if you’re acquitted?" +"Then..." He glanced about the room, Wynand’s bedroom. "I don’t want to say it +here. But you know it." +"You love him very much?" +"Yes." +"Enough to sacrifice..." +He smiled. "You’ve been afraid of that ever since I came here for the first +time?" +"Yes." +He looked straight at her. "Did you think that possible?" +552 + + "No." +"Not my work nor you, Dominique. Not ever. But I can do this much for him: I can +leave it to him if I have to go." +"You’ll be acquitted." +"That’s not what I want to hear you say." +"If they convict you--if they lock you in jail or put you in a chain gang--if +they smear your name in every filthy headline--if they never let you design +another building--if they never let me see you again--it will not matter. Not +too much. Only down to a certain point." +"That’s what I’ve waited to hear for seven years, Dominique." He took her hand, +he raised it and held it to his lips, and she felt his lips where Wynand’s had +been. Then he got up. +"I’ll wait," she said. "I’ll keep quiet. I won’t come near you. I promise." +He smiled and nodded. Then he left. +# +"It happens, upon rare occasions, that world forces too great to comprehend +become focused in a single event, like rays gathered by a lens to one point of +superlative brightness, for all of us to see. Such an event is the outrage of +Cortlandt. Here, in a microcosm, we can observe the evil that has crushed our +poor planet from the day of its birth in cosmic ooze. One man’s Ego against all +the concepts of mercy, humanity and brotherhood. One man destroying the future +home of the disinherited. One man condemning thousands to the horror of the +slums, to filth, disease and death. When an awakening society, with a new sense +of humanitarian duty, made a mighty effort to rescue the underprivileged, when +the best talents of society united to create a decent home for them--the egotism +of one man blew the achievement of others to pieces. And for what? For some +vague matter of personal vanity, for some empty conceit. I regret that the laws +of our state allow nothing more than a prison sentence for this crime. That man +should forfeit his life. Society needs the right to rid itself of men such as +Howard Roark." +Thus spoke Ellsworth M. Toohey in the pages of the New Frontiers. +Echoes answered him from all over the country. The explosion of Cortlandt had +lasted half a minute. The explosion of public fury went on and on, with a cloud +of powdered plaster filling the air, with rust and refuse raining out of the +cloud. +Roark had been indicted by a grand jury, had pleaded "Not guilty" and had +refused to make any other statement. He had been released on a bond furnished by +Gail Wynand, and he awaited trial. +There were many speculations on his motive. Some said it was professional +jealousy. Others declared that there was a certain similarity between the design +of Cortlandt and Roark’s style of building, that Keating, Prescott and Webb +might have borrowed a little from Roark--"a legitimate adaptation"--"there’s no +property rights on ideas"--"in a democracy, art belongs to all the people"--and +that Roark had been prompted by the vengeance lust of an artist who had believed +himself plagiarized. +553 + + None of it was too clear, but nobody cared too much about the motive. The issue +was simple: one man against many. He had no right to a motive. +A home, built in charity, for the poor. Built upon ten thousand years in which +men had been taught that charity and self-sacrifice are an absolute not to be +questioned, the touchstone of virtue, the ultimate ideal. Ten thousand years of +voices speaking of service and sacrifice--sacrifice is the prime rule of +life--serve or be served--crush or get crushed--sacrifice is noble--make what +you can of it, at the one end or the other--serve and sacrifice--serve and serve +and serve... +Against that--one man who wished neither to serve nor to rule. And had thereby +committed the only unforgivable crime. +It was a sensational scandal, and there was the usual noise and the usual lust +of righteous anger, such as is proper to all lynchings. But there was a fierce, +personal quality in the indignation of every person who spoke about it. +"He’s just an egomaniac devoid of all moral sense"---said the society woman dressing for a charity bazaar, who dared not +contemplate what means of self-expression would be left to her and how she could +impose her ostentation on her friends, if charity were not the all-excusing +virtue---said the social worker who had found no aim in life and could generate no +aim from within the sterility of his soul, but basked in virtue and held an +unearned respect from all, by grace of his fingers on the wounds of others---said the novelist who had nothing to say if the subject of service and +sacrifice were to be taken away from him, who sobbed in the hearing of attentive +thousands that he loved them and loved them and would they please love him a +little in return---said the lady columnist who had just bought a country mansion because she +wrote so tenderly about the little people---said all the little people who wanted to hear of love, the great love, the +unfastidious love, the love that embraced everything, forgave everything and +permitted them everything---said every second-hander who could not exist except as a leech on the +souls of others. +Ellsworth Toohey sat back, watched, listened and smiled. +Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb were entertained at dinners and cocktail +parties; they were treated with tender, curious solicitude, like survivors of +disaster. They said that they could not understand what possible motive Roark +could have had, and they demanded justice. +Peter Keating went nowhere. He refused to see the press. He refused to see +anyone. But he issued a written statement that he believed Roark was not guilty. +His statement contained one curious sentence, the last. It said: "Leave him +alone, please can’t you leave him alone?" +Pickets from the Council of American Builders paced in front of the Cord +Building. It served no purpose, because there was no work in Roark’s office. The +commissions he was to start had been canceled. +This was solidarity. The debutante having her toenails pedicured--the housewife +buying carrots from a pushcart--the bookkeeper who had wanted to be a pianist, +but had the excuse of a sister to support--the businessman who hated his +business--the worker who hated his work--the intellectual who hated +everybody--all were united as brothers in the luxury of common anger that cured +554 + + boredom and took them out of themselves, and they knew well enough what a +blessing it was to be taken out of themselves. The readers were unanimous. The +press was unanimous. +Gail Wynand went against the current. +"Gail!" Alvah Scarret had gasped. "We can’t defend a dynamiter!" +"Keep still, Alvah," Wynand had said, "before I bash your teeth in." +Gail Wynand stood alone in the middle of his office, his head thrown back, glad +to be living, as he had stood on a wharf on a dark night facing the lights of a +city. +"In the filthy howling now going on all around us," said an editorial in the +Banner, signed "Gail Wynand" in big letters, "nobody seems to remember that +Howard Roark surrendered himself of his own free will. If he blew up that +building--did he have to remain at the scene to be arrested? But we don’t wait +to discover his reasons. We have convicted him without a hearing. We want him to +be guilty. We are delighted with this case. What you hear is not +indignation--it’s gloating. Any illiterate maniac, any worthless moron who +commits some revolting murder, gets shrieks of sympathy from us and marshals an +army of humanitarian defenders. But a man of genius is guilty by definition. +Granted that it is vicious injustice to condemn a man simply because he is weak +and small. To what level of depravity has a society descended when it condemns a +man simply because he is strong and great? Such, however, is the whole moral +atmosphere of our century--the century of the second-rater." +"We hear it shouted," said another Wynand editorial, "that Howard Roark spends +his career in and out of courtrooms. Well, that is true. A man like Roark is on +trial before society all his life. Whom does that indict--Roark or society?" +"We have never made an effort to understand what is greatness in man and how to +recognize it," said another Wynand editorial. "We have come to hold, in a kind +of mawkish stupor, that greatness is to be gauged by self-sacrifice. +Self-sacrifice, we drool, is the ultimate virtue. Let’s stop and think for a +moment. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His +freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feelings? The +independence of his thought? But these are a man’s supreme possessions. Anything +he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. They, however, are +above sacrificing to any cause or consideration whatsoever. Should we not, then, +stop preaching dangerous and vicious nonsense? Self-sacrifice? But it is +precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the +unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all." +This editorial was quoted in the New Frontiers and in many newspapers, reprinted +in a box under the heading: "Look who’s talking!" +Gail Wynand laughed. Resistance fed him and made him stronger. This was a war, +and he had not engaged in a real war for years, not since the time when he laid +the foundations of his empire amid cries of protest from the whole profession. +He was granted the impossible, the dream of every man: the chance and intensity +of youth, to be used with the wisdom of experience. A new beginning and a +climax, together. I have waited and lived, he thought, for this. +His twenty-two newspapers, his magazines, his newsreels were given the order: +Defend Roark. Sell Roark to the public. Stem the lynching. +"Whatever the facts," Wynand explained to his staff, "this is not going to be a +555 + + trial by facts. It’s a trial by public opinion. We’ve always made public +opinion. Let’s make it. Sell Roark. I don’t care how you do it. I’ve trained +you. You’re experts at selling. Now show me how good you are." +He was greeted by silence, and his employees glanced at one another. Alvah +Scarret mopped his forehead. But they obeyed. +The Banner printed a picture of the Enright House, with the caption: "Is this +the man you want to destroy?" A picture of Wynand’s home: "Match this, if you +can." A picture of Monadnock Valley: "Is this the man who has contributed +nothing to society?" +The Banner ran Roark’s biography, under the byline of a writer nobody had ever +heard of; it was written by Gail Wynand. The Banner ran a series on famous +trials in which innocent men had been convicted by the majority prejudice of the +moment. The Banner ran articles on man martyred by society: Socrates, Galileo, +Pasteur, the thinkers, the scientists, a long, heroic line--each a man who stood +alone, the man who defied men. +"But, Gail, for God’s sake, Gail, it was a housing project!" wailed Alvah +Scarret. +Wynand looked at him helplessly: "I suppose it’s impossible to make you fools +understand that that has nothing to do with it. All right. We’ll talk about +housing projects." +The Banner ran an expose on the housing racket: the graft, the incompetence, the +structures erected at five times the cost a private builder would have needed, +the settlements built and abandoned, the horrible performance accepted, admired, +forgiven, protected by the sacred cow of altruism. "Hell is said to be paved +with good intentions," said the Banner. "Could it be because we’ve never learned +to distinguish what intentions constitute the good? Is it not time to learn? +Never have there been so many good intentions so loudly proclaimed in the world. +And look at it." +The Banner editorials were written by Gail Wynand as he stood at a table in the +composing room, written as always on a huge piece of print stock, with a blue +pencil, in letters an inch high. He slammed the G W at the end, and the famous +initials had never carried such an air of reckless pride. +Dominique had recovered and returned to their country house. Wynand drove home +late in the evening. He brought Roark along as often as he could. They sat +together in the living room, with the windows open to the spring night. The dark +stretches of the hill rolled gently down to the lake from under the walls of the +house, and the lake glittered through the trees far below. They did not talk of +the case or of the coming trial. But Wynand spoke of his crusade, impersonally, +almost as if it did not concern Roark at all. Wynand stood in the middle of the +room, saying: "All right, it was contemptible--the whole career of the Banner. +But this will vindicate everything. Dominique, I know you’ve never been able to +understand why I’ve felt no shame in my past. Why I love the Banner. Now you’ll +see the answer. Power. I hold a power I’ve never tested. Now you’ll see the +test. They’ll think what I want them to think. They’ll do as I say. Because it +is my city and I do run things around here. Howard, by the time you come to +trial, I’ll have them all twisted in such a way there won’t be a jury who’ll +dare convict you." +He could not sleep at night. He felt no desire to sleep. "Go on to bed," he +would say to Roark and Dominique, "I’ll come up in a few minutes." Then, +Dominique from the bedroom, Roark from the guest room across the hall, would +556 + + hear Wynand’s steps pacing the terrace for hours, a kind of joyous restlessness +in the sound, each step like a sentence anchored, a statement pounded into the +floor. +Once, when Wynand dismissed them, late at night, Roark and Dominique went up the +stairs together and stopped on the first landing; they heard the violent snap of +a match in the living room below, a sound that carried the picture of a hand +jerked recklessly, lighting the first of the cigarettes that would last till +dawn, a small dot of fire crossing and recrossing the terrace to the pounding of +steps. +They looked down the stairs and then looked at each other. +"It’s horrible," said Dominique. +"It’s great," said Roark. +"He can’t help you, no matter what he does." +"I know he can’t. That’s not the point." +"He’s risking everything he has to save you. He doesn’t know he’ll lose me if +you’re saved." +"Dominique, which will be worse for him--to lose you or to lose his crusade?" +She nodded, understanding. He added: "You know that it’s not me he wants to +save. I’m only the excuse." +She lifted her hand. She touched his cheekbone, a faint pressure of her +fingertips. She could allow herself nothing else. She turned and went on to her +bedroom, and heard him closing the guestroom door. +"Is it not appropriate," wrote Lancelot Clokey in a syndicated article, "that +Howard Roark is being defended by the Wynand papers? If anyone doubts the moral +issues involved in this appalling case, here is the proof of what’s what and who +stands where. The Wynand papers--that stronghold of yellow journalism, +vulgarity, corruption and muckraking, that organized insult to public taste and +decency, that intellectual underworld ruled by a man who has less conception of +principles than a cannibal--the Wynand papers are the proper champions of Howard +Roark, and Howard Roark is their rightful hero. After a lifetime devoted to +blasting the integrity of the press, it is only fit that Gail Wynand should now +support a cruder fellow dynamiter." +"All this fancy talk going ’round," said Gus Webb in a public speech, "is a lot +of bull. Here’s the plain dope. That guy Wynand’s salted away plenty, and I mean +plenty, by skinning suckers in the real-estate racket all these years. Does he +like it when the government muscles in and shoves him out, so’s the little +fellows can get a clean roof over their heads and a modern john for their kids? +You bet your boots he don’t like it, not one bit. It’s a put-up job between the +two of them, Wynand and that redheaded boy friend of his, and if you ask me the +boy friend got a good hunk of cash out of Mr. Wynand for pulling the job." +"We have it from an unimpeachable source," wrote a radical newspaper, "that +Cortlandt was only the first step in a gigantic plot to blow up every housing +project, every public power plant, post office and schoolhouse in the U.S.A. The +conspiracy is headed by Gail Wynand--as we can see--and by other bloated +capitalists of his kind, including some of our biggest moneybags." +"Too little attention has been paid to the feminine angle of this case," wrote +557 + + Sally Brent in the New Frontiers. "The part played by Mrs. Gail Wynand is +certainly highly dubious, to say the least. Isn’t it just the cutest coincidence +that it was Mrs. Wynand who just so conveniently sent the watchman away at just +the right time? And that her husband is now raising the roof to defend Mr. +Roark? If we weren’t blinded by a stupid, senseless, old-fashioned sense of +gallantry where a so-called beautiful woman is concerned, we wouldn’t allow that +part of the case to be hushed up. If we weren’t overawed by Mrs. Wynand’s social +position and the so-called prestige of her husband--who’s making an utter fool +of himself--we’d ask a few question about the story that she almost lost her +life in the disaster. How do we know she did? Doctors can be bought, just like +anybody else, and Mr. Gail Wynand is an expert in such matters. If we consider +all this, we might well see the outlines of something that looks like a most +revolting ’design for living.’" +"The position taken by the Wynand press," wrote a quiet, conservative newspaper, +"is inexplicable and disgraceful." +The circulation of the Banner dropped week by week, the speed accelerating in +the descent, like an elevator out of control. Stickers and buttons inscribed "We +Don’t Read Wynand" grew on walls, subway posts, windshields and coat lapels. +Wynand newsreels were booed off the theater screens. The Banner vanished from +corner newsstands; the news vendors had to carry it, but they hid it under their +counters and produced it grudgingly, only upon request. The ground had been +prepared, the pillars eaten through long ago; the Cortlandt case provided the +final impact. +Roark was almost forgotten in the storm of indignation against Gail Wynand. The +angriest protests came from Wynand’s own public: from the Women’s Clubs, the +ministers, the mothers, the small shopkeepers. Alvah Scarret had to be kept away +from the room where hampers of letters to the editor were being filled each day; +he started by reading the letters--and his friends on the staff undertook to +prevent a repetition of the experience, fearing a stroke. +The staff of the Banner worked in silence. There were no furtive glances, no +whispered cuss words, no gossip in washrooms any longer. A few men resigned. The +rest worked on, slowly, heavily, in the manner of men with life belts buckled, +waiting for the inevitable. +Gail Wynand noticed a kind of lingering tempo in every action around him. When +he entered the Banner Building, his employees stopped at sight of him; when he +nodded to them, their greeting came a second too late; when he walked on and +turned, he found them staring after him. The "Yes, Mr. Wynand," that had always +answered his orders without a moment’s cut between the last syllable of his +voice and the first letter of the answer, now came late, and the pause had a +tangible shape, so that the answer sounded like a sentence not followed but +preceded by a question mark. +"One Small Voice" kept silent about the Cortlandt case. Wynand had summoned +Toohey to his office, the day after the explosion, and had said: "Listen, you. +Not a word in your column. Understand? What you do or yell outside is none of my +business--for the time being. But if you yell too much, I’ll take care of you +when this is over." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +"As far as your column is concerned, you’re deaf, dumb and blind. You’ve never +heard of any explosion. You’ve never heard of anyone named Roark. You don’t know +what the word Cortlandt means. So long as you’re in this building." +558 + + "Yes, Mr. Wynand." +"And don’t let me see too much of you around here." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +Wynand’s lawyer, an old friend who had served him for years, tried to stop him. +"Gail, what’s the matter? You’re acting like a child. Like a green amateur. Pull +yourself together, man." +"Shut up," said Wynand. +"Gail, you are...you were the greatest newspaperman on earth. Do I have to tell +you the obvious? An unpopular cause is a dangerous business for anyone. For a +popular newspaper--it’s suicide." +"If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll send you packing and get myself another +shyster." +Wynand began to argue about the case--with the prominent men he met at business +luncheons and dinners. He had never argued before on any subject; he had never +pleaded. He had merely tossed final statements to respectful listeners. Now he +found no listeners. He found no indifferent silence, half boredom, half +resentment. The men who had gathered every word he cared to drop about the stock +market, real estate, advertising, politics, had no interest in his opinion on +art, greatness and abstract justice. +He heard a few answers: +"Yes, Gail, yes, sure. But on the other hand, I think it was damn selfish of the +man. And that’s the trouble with the world today--selfishness. Too much +selfishness everywhere. That’s what Lancelot Clokey said in his book--swell +book, all about his childhood, you read it, saw your picture with Clokey. +Clokey’s been all over the world, he knows what he’s talking about." +"Yes, Gail, but aren’t you kind of old-fashioned about it? What’s all that great +man stuff? What’s great about a glorified bricklayer? Who’s great anyway? We’re +all just a lot of glands and chemicals and whatever we ate for breakfast. I +think Lois Cook explained it very well in that beautiful little--what’s its +name?--yes, The Gallant Gallstone. Yes, sir. Your own Banner plugged like blazes +for that little book." +"But look, Gail, he should’ve thought of other people before he thought of +himself. I think if a man’s got no love in his heart he can’t be much good. I +heard that in a play last night--that was a grand play--the new one by Ike--what +the hell’s his last name?--you ought to see it--your own Jules Fougler said it’s +a brave and tender stage poem." +"You make out a good case, Gail, and I wouldn’t know what to say against it, I +don’t know where you’re wrong, but it doesn’t sound right to me, because +Ellsworth Toohey--now don’t misunderstand me, I don’t agree with Toohey’s +political views at all, I know he’s a radical, but on the other hand you’ve got +to admit that he’s a great idealist with a heart as big as a house--well, +Ellsworth Toohey said..." +These were the millionaires, the bankers, the industrialists, the businessmen +who could not understand why the world was going to hell, as they moaned in all +their luncheon speeches. +559 + + One morning when Wynand stepped out of his car in front of the Banner Building, +a woman rushed up to him as he crossed the sidewalk. She had been waiting by the +entrance. She was fat and middle-aged. She wore a filthy cotton dress and a +crushed hat. She had a pasty, sagging face, a shapeless mouth and black, round, +brilliant eyes. She stood before Gail Wynand and she flung a bunch of rotted +beet leaves at his face. There were no beets, just the leaves, soft and slimy, +tied with a string. They hit his cheek and rolled down to the sidewalk. +Wynand stood still. He looked at the woman. He saw the white flesh, the mouth +hanging open in triumphs, the face of self-righteous evil. Passersby had seized +the woman and she was screaming unspeakable obscenities. Wynand raised his hand, +shook his head, gesturing for them to let the creature go, and walked into the +Banner Building, a smear of greenish-yellow across his cheek. +"Ellsworth, what are we going to do?" moaned Alvah Scarret. "What are we going +to do?" +Ellsworth Toohey sat perched on the edge of his desk, and smiled as if he wished +he could kiss Alvah Scarret. +"Why don’t they drop the damn thing, Ellsworth? Why doesn’t something break to +take it off the front pages? Couldn’t we scare up an international situation or +something? In all my born days I’ve never seen people go so wild over so little. +A dynamiting job! Christ, Ellsworth, it’s a back-page story. We get them every +month, practically with every strike, remember?--the furriers’ strike, the dry +cleaners’ strike...oh what the hell! Why all this fury? Who cares? Why do they +care?" +"There are occasions, Alvah, when the issues at stake are not the ostensible +facts at all. And the public reaction seems out of all proportion, but isn’t. +You shouldn’t be so glum about it. I’m surprised at you. You should be thanking +your stars. You see, this is what I meant by waiting for the right moment. The +right moment always comes. Damned if I expected it to be handed to me on a +platter like that, though. Cheer up, Alvah. This is where we take over." +"Take over what?" +"The Wynand papers." +"You’re crazy, Ellsworth. Like all of them. You’re crazy. What do you mean? Gail +holds fifty-one per cent of..." +"Alvah, I love you. You’re wonderful, Alvah. I love you, but I wish to God you +weren’t such a God-damn fool, so I could talk to you! I wish I could talk to +somebody!" +Ellsworth Toohey tried to talk to Gus Webb, one evening, but it was +disappointing. Gus Webb drawled: +"Trouble with you, Ellsworth, is you’re too romantic. Too God-damn metaphysical. +What’s all the gloating about? There’s no practical value to the thing. Nothing +to get your teeth into, except for a week or two. I wish he’d blasted it when it +was full of people--a few children blown to pieces--then you’d have something. +Then I’d love it. The movement could use it. But this? Hell, they’ll send the +fool to the clink and that’s that. You--a realist? You’re an incurable specimen +of the intelligentsia, Ellsworth, that’s all you are. You think you’re the man +of the future? Don’t kid yourself, sweetheart. I am." +560 + + Toohey sighed. "You’re right, Gus," he said. + +14. +"IT’S kind of you, Mr. Toohey," said Mrs. Keating humbly. "I’m glad you came. I +don’t know what to do with Petey. He won’t see anyone. He won’t go to his +office. I’m scared, Mr. Toohey. Forgive me, I mustn’t whine. Maybe you can help, +pull him out of it. He thinks so much of you, Mr. Toohey." +"Yes, I’m sure. Where is he?" +"Right here. In his room. This way, Mr. Toohey." +The visit was unexpected. Toohey had not been here for years. Mrs. Keating felt +very grateful. She led the way down the hall and opened a door without knocking, +afraid to announce the visitor, afraid of her son’s refusal. She said brightly: +"Look, Petey, look what a guest I have for you!" +Keating lifted his head. He sat at a littered table, bent under a squat lamp +that gave a poor light; he was doing a crossword puzzle torn out of a newspaper. +There was a full glass on the table with a dried red rim that had been tomato +juice; a box containing a jigsaw puzzle; a deck of cards; a Bible. +"Hello, Ellsworth," he said, smiling. He leaned forward to rise, but forgot the +effort, halfway. +Mrs. Keating saw the smile and stepped out hastily, relieved, closing the door. +The smile went, not quite completed. It had been an instinct of memory. Then he +remembered many things which he had tried not to understand. +"Hello, Ellsworth," he repeated helplessly. +Toohey stood before him, examining the room, the table, with curiosity. +"Touching, Peter," he said. "Very touching. I’m sure he’d appreciate it if he +saw it." +"Who?" +"Not very talkative these days, are you, Peter? Not very sociable?" +"I wanted to see you, Ellsworth. I wanted to talk to you." Toohey grasped a +chair by the back, swung it through the air, in a broad circle like a flourish, +planted it by the table and sat down. +"Well, that’s what I came here for," he said. "To hear you talk." +Keating said nothing. +"Well?" +"You mustn’t think I didn’t want to see you, Ellsworth. It was only...what I +told Mother about not letting anyone in...it was on account of the newspaper +people. They won’t leave me alone." +561 + + "My, how times change, Peter. I remember when one couldn’t keep you away from +newspaper people." +"Ellsworth, I haven’t any sense of humor left. Not any at all." +"That’s lucky. Or you’d die laughing." +"I’m so tired, Ellsworth....I’m glad you came." +The light glanced off Toohey’s glasses and Keating could not see his eyes; only +two circles filled with a metallic smear, like the dead headlights of a car +reflecting the approach of something from a distance. +"Think you can get away with it?" asked Toohey. +"With what?" +"The hermit act. The great penance. The loyal silence." +"Ellsworth, what’s the matter with you?" +"So he’s not guilty, is he? So you want us to please leave him alone, do you?" +Keating’s shoulders moved, more an intention than the reality of sitting up +straight, but still an intention, and his jaw moved enough to ask: +"What do you want?" +"The whole story." +"What for?" +"Want me to make it easier for you? Want a good excuse, Peter? I could, you +know. I could give you thirty-three reasons, all noble, and you’d swallow any +one of them. But I don’t feel like making it easier for you. So I’ll just tell +you the truth: to send him to the penitentiary, your hero, your idol, your +generous friend, your guardian angel!" +"I have nothing to tell you, Ellsworth." +"While you’re being shocked out of the last of your wits you’d better hang on to +enough to realize that you’re no match for me. You’ll talk if I want you to talk +and I don’t feel like wasting time. Who designed Cortlandt?" +"I did." +"Do you know that I’m an architectural expert?" +"I designed Cortlandt." +"Like the Cosmo-Slotnick Building?" +"What do you want from me?" +"I want you on the witness stand, Petey. I want you to tell the story in court. +Your friend isn’t as obvious as you are. I don’t know what he’s up to. That +remaining at the scene was a bit too smart. He knew he’d be suspected and he’s +playing it subtle. God knows what he intends to say in court. I don’t intend to +562 + + let him get away with it. The motive is what they’re all stuck on. I know the +motive. Nobody will believe me if I try to explain it. But you’ll state it under +oath. You’ll tell the truth. You’ll tell them who designed Cortlandt and why." +"I designed it." +"If you want to say that on the stand, you’d better do something about your +muscular control. What are you shaking for?" +"Leave me alone." +"Too late, Petey. Ever read Faust?" +"What do you want?" +"Howard Roark’s neck." +"He’s not my friend. He’s never been. You know what I think of him." +"I know, you God-damn fool! I know you’ve worshipped him all your life. You’ve +knelt and worshipped, while stabbing him in the back. You didn’t even have the +courage of your own malice. You couldn’t go one way or the other. You hated +me--oh, don’t you suppose I knew it?--and you followed me. You loved him and +you’ve destroyed him. Oh, you’ve destroyed him all right, Petey, and now there’s +no place to run, and you’ll have to go through with it!" +"What’s he to you? What difference does it make to you?" +"You should have asked that long ago. But you didn’t. Which means that you knew +it. You’ve always known it. That’s what’s making you shake. Why should I help +you lie to yourself? I’ve done that for ten years. That’s what you came to me +for. That’s what they all come to me for. But you can’t get something for +nothing. Ever. My socialistic theories to the contrary notwithstanding. You got +what you wanted from me. It’s my turn now." +"I won’t talk about Howard. You can’t make me talk about Howard." +"No? Why don’t you throw me out of here? Why don’t you take me by the throat and +choke me? You’re much stronger than I am. But you won’t. You can’t. Do you see +the nature of power, Petey? Physical power? Muscle or guns or money? You and +Gail Wynand should get together. You have a lot to tell him. Come on, Peter. Who +designed Cortlandt?" +"Leave me alone." +"Who designed Cortlandt?" +"Let me go!" +"Who designed Cortlandt?" +"It’s worse...what you’re doing...it’s much worse..." +"Than what?" +"Than what I did to Lucius Heyer." +"What did you do to Lucius Heyer?" +563 + + "I killed him." +"What are you talking about?" +"That’s why it was better. Because I let him die." +"Stop raving." +"Why do you want to kill Howard?" +"I don’t want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In jail. In a +cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped--and alive. He’ll get up when they +tell him to. He’ll eat what they give him. He’ll move when he’s told to move and +stop when he’s told. He’ll walk to the jute mill, when he’s told, and he’ll work +as he’s told. They’ll push him, if he doesn’t move fast enough, and they’ll slap +his face when they feel like it, and they’ll beat him with rubber hose if he +doesn’t obey. And he’ll obey. He’ll take orders. He’ll take orders!" +"Ellsworth!" Keating screamed. "Ellsworth!" +"You make me sick. Can’t you take the truth? No, you want your sugar-coating. +That’s why I prefer Gus Webb. There’s one who has no illusions." +Mrs. Keating threw the door open. She had heard the scream. "Get out of here!" +Toohey snapped at her. She backed out, and Toohey slammed the door. Keating +raised his head. "You have no right to talk to Mother that way. She had nothing +to do with you." +"Who designed Cortlandt?" +Keating got up. He dragged his feet to a dresser, opened a drawer, took out a +crumpled piece of paper and handed it to Toohey. It was his contract with Roark. +Toohey read it and chuckled once, a dry snap of sound. Then he looked at +Keating. +"You’re a complete success, Peter, as far as I’m concerned. But at times I have +to want to turn away from the sight of my successes." +Keating stood by the dresser, his shoulders slumped, his eyes empty. +"I didn’t expect you to have it in writing like that, with his signature. So +that’s what he’s done for you--and this is what you do in return....No, I take +back the insults, Peter. You had to do it. Who are you to reverse the laws of +history? Do you know what this paper is? The impossible perfect, the dream of +the centuries, the aim of all of mankind’s great schools of thought. You +harnessed him. You made him work for you. You took his achievement, his reward, +his money, his glory, his name. We only thought and wrote about it. You gave a +practical demonstration. Every philosopher from Plato up should thank you. Here +it is, the philosopher’s stone--for turning gold into lead. I should be pleased, +but I guess I’m human and I can’t help it, I’m not pleased, I’m just sick. The +others, Plato and all the rest, they really thought it would turn lead into +gold. I knew the truth from the first. I’ve been honest with myself, Peter, and +that’s the hardest form of honesty. The one you all run from at any price. And +right now I don’t blame you, it is the hardest one, Peter." +He sat down wearily and held the paper by the corners in both hands. He said: +"If you want to know how hard it is, I’ll tell you: right now I want to burn +564 + + this paper. Make what you wish of that. I don’t claim too great a credit, +because I know that tomorrow I’ll send this to the district attorney. Roark will +never know it--and it would make no difference to him if he knew--but in the +truth of things, there was one moment when I wanted to burn this paper." +He folded the paper cautiously and slipped it into his pocket. Keating followed +his gestures, moving his whole head, like a kitten watching a ball on a string. +"You make me sick," said Toohey. "God, how you make me sick, all you +hypocritical sentimentalists! You go along with me, you spout what I teach you, +you profit by it--but you haven’t the grace to admit to yourself what you’re +doing. You turn green when you see the truth. I suppose that’s in the nature of +your natures and that’s precisely my chief weapon--but God! I get tired of it. I +must allow myself a moment free of you. That’s what I have to put on an act for +all my life--for mean little mediocrities like you. To protect your +sensibilities, your posturings, your conscience and the peace of the mind you +haven’t got. That’s the price I pay for what I want--but at least I know that +I’ve got to pay it. And I have no illusions about the price or the purchase." +"What do you...want...Ellsworth?" +"Power, Petey." +There were steps in the apartment above, someone skipping gaily, a few sounds on +the ceiling as of four or five tap beats. The light fixture jingled and +Keating’s head moved up in obedience. Then it came back to Toohey. Toohey was +smiling, almost indifferently. +"You...always said..." Keating began thickly, and stopped. +"I’ve always said just that. Clearly, precisely and openly. It’s not my fault if +you couldn’t hear. You could, of course. You didn’t want to. Which was safer +than deafness--for me. I said I intended to rule. Like all my spiritual +predecessors. But I’m luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their +efforts and I shall be the one who’ll see the great dream made real. I see it +all around me today. I recognize it. I don’t like it. I didn’t expect to like +it. Enjoyment is not my destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity +permits. I shall rule." +"Whom...?" +"You. The world. It’s only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how +to rule one single man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It’s the soul, +Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That’s why the Caesars, +the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, +Peter, is that which can’t be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get +your fingers on it--and the man is yours. You won’t need a whip--he’ll bring it +to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse--and his own mechanism will do +your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it’s done? See if I +ever lied to you. See if you haven’t heard all this for years, but didn’t want +to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine. There are many ways. Here’s one. Make +man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. +That’s difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted +way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it +toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that +he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one +of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His every living +instinct screams against it. But don’t you see what you accomplish? Man realizes +that he’s incapable of what he’s accepted as the noblest virtue--and it gives +565 + + him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme +ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, +all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he +can’t practice. But one can’t be good halfway or honest approximately. To +preserve one’s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to +be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect. You’ve got him. He’ll +obey. He’ll be glad to obey--because he can’t trust himself, he feels uncertain, +he feels unclean. That’s one way. Here’s another. Kill man’s sense of values. +Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be +ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny the conception of greatness. +Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. +Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most +inept--and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop +all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and +hold Peter Keating as a great architect. You’ve destroyed architecture. Build up +Lois Cook and you’ve destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you’ve destroyed the +theater. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you’ve destroyed the press. Don’t set out +to raze all shrines--you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity--and the shrines +are razed. Then there’s another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument +of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. +It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor +is an unlimited virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul--and +his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in +man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle. He’ll obey and he’ll set no limits to +his obedience--anything goes--nothing is too serious. Here’s another way. This +is most important. Don’t allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and +self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free +men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or +important to them. Never let them have what they want. Make them feel that the +mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying I +want’ is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of +great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They’ll need you. They’ll come +for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man’s +soul--and the space is yours to fill. I don’t see why you should look so +shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. Look at any +great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn’t they all preach the sacrifice +of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven’t they all had a +single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven’t you been able to +catch their theme song--’Give up, give up, give up, give up’? Look at the moral +atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to +the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing +makes men happy--and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied +happiness to guilt. And we’ve got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born +into a sacrificial furnace--lie on a bed of nails--go into the desert to mortify +the flesh--don’t dance--don’t go to the movies on Sunday--don’t try to get +rich--don’t smoke--don’t drink. It’s all the same line. The great line. Fools +think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, +old-fashioned. But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine +a folly--ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that +preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, +you must dress it up. You must tell people that they’ll achieve a superior kind +of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don’t have to be +too clear about it. Use big vague words. ’Universal Harmony’--’Eternal +Spirit’--’Divine Purpose’--’Nirvana’--’Paradise’--’Racial Supremacy’--’The +Dictatorship of the Proletariat.’ Internal corruption, Peter. That’s the oldest +one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. +Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him +speak of sacrifice--run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that +where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where +566 + + there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of +sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if +ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural +right, that your first duty is to yourself--that will be the man who’s not after +your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him +come and you’ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he’s a selfish +monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries. But here you might have +noticed something. I said, ’It stands to reason.’ Do you see? Men have a weapon +against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the +props from under it. But be careful. Don’t deny outright. Never deny anything +outright, you give your hand away. Don’t say reason is evil--though some have +gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. +That there’s something above it. What? You don’t have to be too clear about it +either. The field’s inexhaustible. +’Instinct’--’Feeling’--’Revelation’--’Divine Intuition’--’Dialectic +Materialism.’ If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you +that your doctrine doesn’t make sense--you’re ready for him. You tell him that +there’s something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. +He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in +any manner you wish whenever you need it. You’ve got him. Can you rule a +thinking man? We don’t want any thinking men." +Keating had sat down on the floor, by the side of the dresser; he had felt tired +and he had simply folded his legs. He did not want to abandon the dresser; he +felt safer, leaning against it; as if it still guarded the letter he had +surrendered. +"Peter, you’ve heard all this. You’ve seen me practicing it for ten years. You +see it being practiced all over the world. Why are you disgusted? You have no +right to sit there and stare at me with the virtuous superiority of being +shocked. You’re in on it. You’ve taken your share and you’ve got to go along. +You’re afraid to see where it’s leading. I’m not I’ll tell you. The world of the +future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the +thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of +the brain of his neighbor who’ll have no thought of his own but an attempt to +guess the thought of the next neighbor who’ll have no thought--and so on, Peter, +around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold +a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of +his neighbor who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next +neighbor who’ll have no desires--around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve +all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, +but for that headless monster--prestige. The approval of his fellows--their good +opinion--the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, +all tentacles and no brain. Judgment, Peter! Not judgment, but public polls. An +average drawn upon zeroes--since no individuality will be permitted. A world +with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand--and the +hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you +tick--you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we +called you the average, the little, the common, you who’ve liked and accepted +those names. You’ll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the +absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the +unlimited, God and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the +common, the general. Do you know the proper antonym for Ego? Bromide, Peter. The +rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be originated by someone at some +time. We’ll do the originating. Vox dei. We’ll enjoy unlimited submission--from +men who’ve learned nothing except to submit. We’ll call it ’to serve.’ We’ll +give out medals for service. You’ll fall over one another in a scramble to see +who can submit better and more. There will be no other distinction to seek. No +other form of personal achievement. Can you see Howard Roark in the picture? No? +567 + + Then don’t waste time on foolish questions. Everything that can’t be ruled, must +go. And if freaks persist in being born occasionally, they will not survive +beyond their twelfth year. When their brain begins to function, it will feel the +pressure and it will explode. The pressure gauged to a vacuum. Do you know the +fate of deep-sea creatures brought out to sunlight? So much for future Roarks. +The rest of you will smile and obey. Have you noticed that the imbecile always +smiles? Man’s first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch +of thought. But we’ll have neither God nor thought. Only voting by smiles. +Automatic levers--all saying yes...Now if you were a little more +intelligent--like your ex-wife, for instance--you’d ask: What of us, the rulers? +What of me, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey? And I’d say, Yes, you’re right. I’ll +achieve no more than you will. I’ll have no purpose save to keep you contented. +To lie, to flatter you, to praise you, to inflate your vanity. To make speeches +about the people and the common good. Peter, my poor old friend, I’m the most +selfless man you’ve every known. I have less independence than you, whom I just +forced to sell your soul. You’ve used people at least for the sake of what you +could get from them for yourself. I want nothing for myself. I use people for +the sake of what I can do to them. It’s my only function and satisfaction. I +have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all +live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. +Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All +subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery--without even the dignity of a +master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle--and a total equality. The world of +the future." +"Ellsworth...you’re..." +"Insane? Afraid to say it? There you sit and the world’s written all over you, +your last hope. Insane? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the +headlines. Isn’t it coming? Isn’t it here? Every single thing I told you? Isn’t +Europe swallowed already and we’re stumbling on to follow? Everything I said is +contained in a single word--collectivism. And isn’t that the god of our century? +To act together. To think--together. To feel--together. To unite, to agree, to +obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer--first. But +then--unite and rule. We’ve discovered that one at last. Remember the Roman +Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People +have laughed at him for centuries. But we’ll have the last laugh. We’ve +accomplished what he couldn’t accomplish. We’ve taught men to unite. This makes +one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism. Look at +Europe, you fool. Can’t you see past the guff and recognize the essence? One +country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the +collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass--as God, No motive and +no virtue permitted--except that of service to the proletariat. That’s one +version. Here’s another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no +rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race--as God. No +motive and no virtue permitted--except that of service to the race. Am I raving +or is this the cold reality of two continents already? Watch the pincer +movement. If you’re sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you +coming and going. We’ve closed the doors. We’ve fixed the coin. +Heads--collectivism, and tails--collectivism. Fight the doctrine which +slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give +up your soul to a council--or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it +up, give it up. My technique, Peter. Offer poison as food and poison as +antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the +fools a choice, let them have their fun--but don’t forget the only purpose you +have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man’s soul. The rest will follow +automatically. Observe the state of the world as of the present moment. Do you +still think I’m crazy, Peter?" +568 + + Keating sat on the floor, his legs spread out. He lifted one hand and studied +his fingertips, then put it to his mouth and bit off a hangnail. But the +movement was deceptive; the man was reduced to a single sense, the sense of +hearing, and Toohey knew that no answer could be expected. +Keating waited obediently; it seemed to make no difference; the sounds had +stopped and it was now his function to wait until they started again. +Toohey put his hands on the arms of his chair, then lifted his palms, from the +wrists, and clasped the wood again, a little slap of resigned finality. He +pushed himself up to his feet. +"Thank you, Peter," he said gravely. "Honesty is a hard thing to eradicate. I +have made speeches to large audiences all my life. This was the speech I’ll +never have a chance to make." +Keating lifted his head. His voice had the quality of a down payment on terror; +it was not frightened, but it held the advance echoes of the next hour to come: +"Don’t go, Ellsworth." +Toohey stood over him, and laughed softly. +"That’s the answer, Peter. That’s my proof. You know me for what I am, you know +what I’ve done to you, you have no illusions of virtue left. But you can’t leave +me and you’ll never be able to leave me. You’ve obeyed me in the name of ideals. +You’ll go on obeying me without ideals. Because that’s all you’re good for +now....Good night, Peter." + +15. +"THIS is a test case. What we think of it will determine what we are. In the +person of Howard Roark, we must crush the forces of selfishness and antisocial +individualism--the curse of our modern world--here shown to us in ultimate +consequences. As mentioned at the beginning of this column, the district +attorney now has in his possession a piece of evidence--we cannot disclose its +nature at this moment--which proves conclusively that Roark is guilty. We, the +people, shall now demand justice." +This appeared in "One Small Voice" on a morning late in May. Gail Wynand read it +in his car, driving home from the airport. He had flown to Chicago in a last +attempt to hold a national advertiser who had refused to renew a +three-million-dollar contract. Two days of skillful effort had failed; Wynand +lost the advertiser. Stepping off the plane in Newark, he picked up the New York +papers. His car was waiting to take him to his country house. Then he read "One +Small Voice." +He wondered for a moment what paper he held. He looked at the name on the top of +the page. But it was the Banner, and the column was there, in its proper place, +column one, first page, second section. +He leaned forward and told the chauffeur to drive to his office. He sat with the +page spread open on his lap, until the car stopped before the Banner Building. +He noticed it at once, when he entered the building. In the eyes of two +reporters who emerged from an elevator in the lobby; in the pose of the elevator +569 + + man who fought a desire to turn and stare back at him; in the sudden immobility +of all the men in his anteroom, in the break of a typewriter’s clicking on the +desk of one secretary, in the lifted hand of another--he saw the waiting. Then +he knew that all the implications of the unbelievable were understood by +everyone on his paper. +He felt a first dim shock; because the waiting around him contained wonder in +anyone’s mind about the outcome of an issue between him and Ellsworth Toohey. +But he had no time to take notice of his own reactions. He had no attention to +spare for anything except a sense of tightness, a pressure against the bones of +his face, his teeth, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose--and he knew he must +press back against that, keep it down, hold it. +He greeted no one and walked into his office. Alvah Scarret sat slumped in a +chair before his desk. Scarret had a bandage of soiled white gauze on his +throat, and his cheeks were flushed. Wynand stopped in the middle of the room. +The people outside had felt relieved: Wynand’s face looked calm. Alvah Scarret +knew better. +"Gail, I wasn’t here," he gulped in a cracked whisper that was not a voice at +all. "I haven’t been here for two days. Laryngitis, Gail. Ask my doctor. I +wasn’t here. I just got out of bed, look at me, I’ve got a hundred and three, +fever, I mean, the doctor didn’t want me to, but I...to get up, I mean, Gail, I +wasn’t here, I wasn’t here!" +He could not be certain that Wynand heard. But Wynand let him finish, then +assumed the appearance of listening, as if the sounds were reaching him, +delayed. After a moment, Wynand asked: +"Who was on the copy desk?" +"It...it went through Alien and Falk." +"Fire Harding, Allen, Falk and Toohey. Buy off Harding’s contract. But not +Toohey’s. Have them all out of the building in fifteen minutes." +Harding was the managing editor; Falk, a copy reader; Alien, the slot man, head +of the copy desk; all had worked on the Banner for more than ten years. It was +as if Scarret had heard a news flash announcing the impeachment of a President, +the destruction of New York City by a meteor and the sinking of California into +the Pacific Ocean. +"Gail!" he screamed. "We can’t!" +"Get out of here." +Scarret got out. +Wynand pressed a switch on his desk and said in answer to the trembling voice of +the woman outside: +"Don’t admit anyone." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +He pressed a button and spoke to the circulation manager: +"Stop every copy on the street." +570 + + "Mr. Wynand, it’s too late! Most of them are..." +"Stop them." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +He wanted to put his head down on the desk, lie still and rest, only the form of +rest he needed did not exist, greater than sleep, greater than death, the rest +of having never lived. The wish was like a secret taunt against himself, because +he knew that the splitting pressure in his skull meant the opposite, an urge to +action, so strong that he felt paralyzed. He fumbled for some sheets of clean +paper, forgetting where he kept them. He had to write the editorial that would +explain and counteract. He had to hurry. He felt no right to any minute that +passed with the thing unwritten. +The pressure disappeared with the first word he put on paper. He thought--while +his hand moved rapidly--what a power there was in words; later, for those who +heard them, but first for the one who found them; a healing power, a solution, +like the breaking of a barrier. He thought, perhaps the basic secret the +scientists have never discovered, the first fount of life, is that which happens +when a thought takes shape in words. +He heard the rumble, the vibration in the walls of his office, in the floor. The +presses were running off his afternoon paper, a small tabloid, the Clarion. He +smiled at the sound. His hand went faster, as if the sound were energy pumped +into his fingers. +He had dropped his usual editorial "we." He wrote: "...And if my readers or my +enemies wish to laugh at me over this incident, I shall accept it and consider +it the payment of a debt incurred. I have deserved it." +He thought: It’s the heart of this building, beating--what time is it?--do I +really hear it or is it my own heart?--once, a doctor put the ends of his +stethoscope into my ears and let me hear my own heartbeats--it sounded just like +this--he said I was a healthy animal and good for many years--for +many...years... +"I have foisted upon my readers a contemptible blackguard whose spiritual +stature is my only excuse. I had not reached a degree of contempt for society +such as would have permitted me to consider him dangerous. I am still holding on +to a respect for my fellow men sufficient to let me say that Ellsworth Toohey +cannot be a menace." +They say sound never dies, but travels on in space--what happens to a man’s +heartbeats?--so many of them in fifty-six years--could they be gathered again, +in some sort of condenser, and put to use once more? If they were re-broadcast, +would the result be the beating of those presses? +"But I have sponsored him under the masthead of my paper, and if public penance +is a strange, humiliating act to perform in our modern age, such is the +punishment I impose upon myself hereby." +Not fifty-six years of those soft little drops of sound a man never hears, each +single and final, not like a comma, but like a period, a long string of periods +on a page, gathered to feed those presses--not fifty-six, but thirty-one, the +other twenty-five went to make me ready--I was twenty-five when I raised the new +masthead over the door--Publishers don’t change the name of a paper--This one +does--The New York Banner--Gail Wynand’s Banner... +571 + + "I ask the forgiveness of every man who has ever read this paper." +A healthy animal--and that which comes from me is healthy--I must bring that +doctor here and have him listen to those presses--he’ll grin in his good, smug, +satisfied way, doctors like a specimen of perfect health occasionally, it’s rare +enough--I must give him a treat--the healthiest sound he ever heard--and he’ll +say the Banner is good for many years.... +The door of his office opened and Ellsworth Toohey came in. +Wynand let him cross the room and approach the desk, without a gesture of +protest. Wynand thought that what he felt was curiosity--if curiosity could be +blown into the dimensions of a thing from the abyss--like those drawings of +beetles the size of a house advancing upon human figures in the pages of the +Banner’s Sunday supplement--curiosity, because Ellsworth Toohey was still in the +building, because Toohey had gained admittance past the orders given, and +because Toohey was laughing. +"I came to take my leave of absence, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey. His face was +composed; it expressed no gloating; the face of an artist who knew that +overdoing was defeat and achieved the supreme of offensiveness by remaining +normal. "And to tell you that I’ll be back. On this job, on this column, in this +building. In the interval you will have seen the nature of the mistake you’ve +made. Do forgive me, I know this is in utterly bad taste, but I’ve waited for it +for thirteen years and I think I can permit myself five minutes as a reward. So +you were a possessive man, Mr. Wynand, and you loved your sense of property? Did +you ever stop to think what it rested upon? Did you stop to secure the +foundations? No, because you were a practical man. Practical men deal in bank +accounts, real estate, advertising contracts and gilt-edged securities. They +leave to the impractical intellectuals, like me, the amusements of putting the +gilt edges through a chemical analysis to learn a few things about the nature +and the source of gold. They hang on to Kream-O Pudding, and leave us such +trivia as the theater, the movies, the radio, the schools, the book reviews and +the criticism of architecture. Just a sop to keep us quiet if we care to waste +our time playing with the inconsequentials of life, while you’re making money. +Money is power. Is it, Mr. Wynand? So you were after power, Mr. Wynand? Power +over men? You poor amateur! You never discovered the nature of your own ambition +or you’d have known that you weren’t fit for it. You couldn’t use the methods +required and you wouldn’t want the results. You’ve never been enough of a +scoundrel. I don’t mind handing you that, because I don’t know which is worse: +to be a great scoundrel or a gigantic fool. That’s why I’ll be back. And when I +am, I’ll run this paper." +Wynand said quietly: +"When you are. Now get out of here." +# +The city room of the Banner walked out on strike. +The Union of Wynand Employees walked out in a body. A great many others, +non-members, joined them. The typographical staff remained. +Wynand had never given a thought to the Union. He paid higher wages than any +other publisher and no economic demands had ever been made upon him. If his +employees wished to amuse themselves by listening to speeches, he saw no reason +to worry about it. Dominique had tried to warn him once: "Gail, if people want +to organize for wages, hours or practical demands, it’s their proper right. But +572 + + when there’s no tangible purpose, you’d better watch closely." +"Darling, how many times do I have to ask you? Keep off the Banner." +He had never taken the trouble to learn who belonged to the Union. He found now +that the membership was small--and crucial; it included all his key men, not the +big executives, but the rank below, expertly chosen, the active ones, the small, +indispensable spark plugs: the best leg men, the general assignment men, the +rewrite men, the assistant editors. He looked up their records: most of them had +been hired in the last eight years; recommended by Mr. Toohey. +Non-members walked out for various reasons: some, because they hated Wynand; +others, because they were afraid to remain and it seemed easier than to analyze +the issue. One man, a timid little fellow, met Wynand in the hall and stopped to +shriek: "We’ll be back, sweetheart, and then it’ll be a different tune!" Some +left, avoiding the sight of Wynand. Others played safe. "Mr. Wynand, I hate to +do it, I hate it like hell, I had nothing to do with that Union, but a strike’s +a strike and I can’t permit myself to be a scab." "Honest, Mr. Wynand, I don’t +know who’s right or wrong, I do think Ellsworth pulled a dirty trick and Harding +had no business letting him get away with it, but how can one be sure who’s +right about anything nowadays? And one thing I won’t do is I won’t picket line. +No, sir. The way I feel is, pickets right or wrong." +The strikers presented two demands: the reinstatement of the four men who had +been discharged; a reversal of the Banner’s stand on the Cortlandt case. +Harding, the managing editor, wrote an article explaining his position; it was +published in the New Frontiers. "I did ignore Mr. Wynand’s orders in a matter of +policy, perhaps an unprecedented action for a managing editor to take. I did so +with full realization of the responsibility involved. Mr. Toohey, Alien, Falk +and I wished to save the Banner for the sake of its employees, its stockholders +and its readers. We wished to bring Mr. Wynand to reason by peaceful means. We +hoped he would give in with good grace, once he had seen the Banner committed to +the stand shared by most of the press of the country. We knew the arbitrary, +unpredictable and unscrupulous character of our employer, but we took the +chance, willing to sacrifice ourselves to our professional duty. While we +recognize an owner’s right to dictate the policy of his paper on political, +sociological or economic issues, we believe that a situation has gone past the +limits of decency when an employer expects self-respecting men to espouse the +cause of a common criminal. We wish Mr. Wynand to realize that the day of +dictatorial one-man rule is past. We must have some say in the running of the +place where, we make our living. It is a fight for the freedom of the press. +Mr. Harding was sixty years old, owned an estate on Long Island, and divided his +spare time between skeet-shooting and breeding pheasants. His childless wife was +a member of the Board of Directors of the Workshop for Social Study; Toohey, its +star lecturer, had introduced her to the Workshop. She had written her husband’s +article. +The two men off the copy desk were not members of Toohey’s Union. Alien’s +daughter was a beautiful young actress who starred in all of Ike’s plays. Falk’s +brother was secretary to Lancelot Clokey. +Gail Wynand sat at the desk in his office and looked down at a pile of paper. He +had many things to do, but one picture kept coming back to him and he could not +get rid of it and the sense of it clung to all his actions--the picture of a +ragged boy standing before the desk of an editor: "Can you spell cat?"--"Can you +spell anthropomorphology?" The identities cracked and became mixed, it seemed to +him that the boy stood here, at his desk, waiting, and once he said aloud: "Go +573 + + away!" He caught himself in anger, he thought: You’re cracking, you fool, now’s +not the time. He did not speak aloud again, but the conversation went on +silently while he read, checked and signed papers: "Go away! We have no jobs +here." I’ll hang around. Use me when you want to. You don’t have to pay me." +"They’re paying you, don’t you understand, you little fool? They’re paying you." +Aloud, his voice normal, he said into a telephone: ’Tell Manning that we’ll have +to fill in with mat stuff....Send up the proofs as soon as you can....Send up a +sandwich. Any kind." +A few had remained With him: the old men and the copy boys. They came in, in the +morning, often with cuts on their faces and blood on their collars; one stumbled +in, his skull open, and had to be sent away in an ambulance. It was neither +courage nor loyalty; it was inertia; they had lived too long with the thought +that the world would end if they lost their jobs on the Banner. The old ones did +not understand. The young ones did not care. +Copy boys were sent out on reporter’s beats. Most of the stuff they sent in was +of such quality that Wynand was forced past despair into howls of laughter: he +had never read such highbrow English; he could see the pride of the ambitious +youth who was a journalist at last. He did not laugh when the stories appeared +in the Banner as written; there were not enough rewrite men. +He tried to hire new men. He offered extravagant salaries. The people he wanted +refused to work for him. A few men answered his call, and he wished they hadn’t, +though he hired them. They were men who had not been employed by a reputable +newspaper for ten years; the kind who would not have been allowed, a month ago, +into the lobby of his building. Some of them had to be thrown out in two days; +others remained. They were drunk most of the time. Some acted as if they were +granting Wynand a favor. "Don’t you get huffy, Gail, old boy," said one--and was +tossed bodily down two flights of stairs. He broke an ankle and sat on the +bottom landing, looking up at Wynand with an air of complete astonishment. +Others were subtler; they merely stalked about and looked at Wynand slyly, +almost winking, implying that they were fellow criminals tied together in a +dirty deal. +He appealed to schools of journalism. No one responded. One student body sent +him a resolution signed by all its members: "...Entering our careers with a high +regard for the dignity of our profession, dedicating ourselves to uphold the +honor of the press, we feel that none among us could preserve his self-respect +and accept an offer such as yours." +The news editor had remained at his desk; the city editor had gone. Wynand +filled in as city editor, managing editor, wire man, rewrite man, copy boy. He +did not leave the building. He slept on a couch in his office--as he had done in +the first years of the Banner’s existence. Goalless, tieless, his shirt collar +torn open, he ran up and down the stairs, his steps like the rattle of a machine +gun. Two elevator boys had remained; the others had vanished, no one knew just +when or why, whether prompted by sympathy for the strike, fear or plain +discouragement. +Alvah Scarret could not understand Wynand’s calm. The brilliant machine--and +that, thought Scarret, was really the word which had always stood for Wynand in +his mind--had never functioned better. His words were brief, his orders rapid, +his decisions immediate. In the confusion of machines, lead, grease, ink, waste +paper, unswept offices, untenanted desks, glass crashing in sudden showers when +a brick was hurled from the street below, Wynand moved like a figure in +double-exposure, superimposed on his background, out of place and scale. He +doesn’t belong here, thought Scarret, because he doesn’t look modern--that’s +574 + + what it is--he doesn’t look modern, no matter what kind of pants he’s +wearing--he looks like something out of a Gothic cathedral. The patrician head, +held level, the fleshless face that had shrunk tighter together. The captain of +a ship known by all, save the captain, to be sinking. +Alvah Scarret had remained. He had not grasped that the events were real; he +shuffled about in a stupor; he felt a fresh jolt of bewilderment each morning +when he drove up to the building and saw the pickets. He suffered no injury +beyond a few tomatoes hurled at his windshield. He tried to help Wynand; he +tried to do his work and that of five other men, but he could not complete a +normal day’s task. He was going quietly to pieces, his joints wrenched loose by +a question mark. He wasted everybody’s time, interrupting anything to ask: "But +why? Why? How, just like that all of a sudden?" +He saw a nurse in white uniform walking down the hall--an emergency first-aid +station had been established on the ground floor. He saw her carrying a +wastebasket to the incinerator, with wadded clumps of gauze, bloodstained. He +turned away; he felt sick. It was not the sight, but the greater terror of an +implication grasped by his instinct: this civilized building--secure in the +neatness of waxed floors, respectable with the strict grooming of modern +business, a place where one dealt in such rational matters as written words and +trade contracts, where one accepted ads for baby garments and chatted about +golf--had become, in the span of a few days, a place where one carried bloody +refuse through the halls. Why?--thought Alvah Scarret. +"I can’t understand it," he droned in an accentless monotone to anyone around +him, "I can’t understand how Ellsworth got so much power....And Ellsworth’s a +man of culture, an idealist, not a dirty radical off a soapbox, he’s so friendly +and witty, and what an erudition!--a man who jokes all the time is not a man of +violence--Ellsworth didn’t mean this, he didn’t know what it would lead to, he +loves people, I’d stake my shirt on Ellsworth Toohey." +Once, in Wynand’s office, he ventured to say: +"Gail, why don’t you negotiate? Why don’t you meet with them at least?" +"Shut up." +"But, Gail, there might be a bit of truth on their side, too. They’re +newspapermen. You know what they say, the freedom of the press..." +Then he saw the fit of fury he had expected for days and had thought safely +sidetracked--the blue irises vanishing in a white smear, the blind, luminous +eyeballs in a face that was all cavities, the trembling hands. But in a moment, +he saw what he had never witnessed before: he saw Wynand break the fit, without +sound, without relief. He saw the sweat of the effort on the hollow temples, and +the fists on the edge of the desk. +"Alvah...if I had not sat on the stairs of the Gazette for a week...where would +be the press for them to be free on?" +There were policemen outside, and in the halls of the building. It helped, but +not much. One night acid was thrown at the main entrance. It burned the big +plate glass of the ground floor windows and left leprous spots on the walls. +Sand in the bearings stopped one of the presses. An obscure delicatessen owner +got his shop smashed for advertising in the Banner. A great many small +advertisers withdrew. Wynand delivery trucks were wrecked. One driver was +killed. The striking Union of Wynand Employees issued a protest against acts of +violence; the Union had not instigated them; most of its members did not know +575 + + who had. The New Frontiers said something about regrettable excesses, but +ascribed them to "spontaneous outbursts of justifiable popular anger." +Homer Slottern, in the name of a group who called themselves the liberal +businessmen, sent Wynand a notice canceling their advertising contracts. "You +may sue us if you wish. We feel we have a legitimate cause for cancellation. We +signed to advertise in a reputable newspaper, not in a sheet that has become a +public disgrace, brings pickets to our doors, ruins our business and is not +being read by anybody." The group included most of the Banner’s wealthiest +advertisers. +Gail Wynand stood at the window of his office and looked at his city. +"I have supported strikes at a time when it was dangerous to do so. I have +fought Gail Wynand all my life. I had never expected to see the day or the issue +when I would be forced to say--as I say now--that I stand on the side of Gail +Wynand," wrote Austen Heller in the Chronicle. +Wynand sent him a note: "God damn you, I didn’t ask you to defend me. G W +The New Frontiers described Austen Heller as "A reactionary who has sold himself +to Big Business." Intellectual society ladies said that Austin Heller was +old-fashioned. +Gail Wynand stood at a desk in the city room and wrote editorials as usual. His +derelict staff saw no change in him; no haste, no outbursts of anger. There was +nobody to notice that some of his actions were new: he would go to the pressroom +and stand looking at the white stream shot out of the roaring giants, and listen +to the sound. He would pick up a lead slug off the composing room floor, and +finger it absently on the palm of his hand, like a piece of jade, and lay it +carefully on a table, as if he did not want it to be wasted. He fought other +forms of such waste, not noticing it, the gestures instinctive: he retrieved +pencils, he spent a half-hour, while telephones shrieked unanswered, repairing a +typewriter that had broken down. It was not a matter of economy; he signed +checks without looking at the figures; Scarret was afraid to think of the +amounts each passing day cost him. It was a matter of things that were part of +the building where he loved every doorknob, things that belonged to the Banner +that belonged to him. +Late each afternoon he telephoned Dominique in the country. "Fine. Everything +under control. Don’t listen to panic-mongers....No, to hell with it, you know I +don’t want to talk about the damn paper. Tell me what the garden looks +like....Did you go swimming today?...Tell me about the lake....What dress are +you wearing?...Listen to WLX tonight, at eight, they’ll have your +pet--Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto....Of course I have time to keep informed +about everything....Oh, all right, I see one can’t fool an ex-newspaper woman, I +did go over the radio page....Of course we have plenty of help, it’s just that I +can’t quite trust some of the new boys and I had a moment to spare....Above all, +don’t come to town. You promised me that....Good night, dearest...." +He hung up and sat looking at the telephone, smiling. The thought of the +countryside was like the thought of a continent beyond an ocean that could not +be crossed; it gave him a sense of being locked in a besieged fortress and he +liked that--not the fact, but the feeling. His face looked like a throwback to +some distant ancestor who had fought on the ramparts of a castle. +One evening he went out to the restaurant across the street; he had not eaten a +complete meal for days. The streets were still light when he came back--the +placid brown haze of summer, as if dulled sunrays remained stretched too +576 + + comfortably on the warm air to undertake a movement of withdrawal, even though +the sun had long since gone; it made the sky look fresh and the street dirty; +there were patches of brown and tired orange in the corners of old buildings. He +saw pickets pacing in front of the Banner’s entrance. There were eight of them +and they marched around and around in a long oval on the sidewalk. He recognized +one boy--a police reporter, he had never seen any of the others. They carried +signs: "Toohey, Harding, Alien, Falk..." "The Freedom of the Press..." "Gail +Wynand Tramples Human Rights..." +His eyes kept following one woman. Her hips began at her ankles, bulging over +the tight straps of her shoes; she had square shoulders and a long coat of cheap +brown tweed over a huge square body. She had small white hands, the kind that +would drop things all over the kitchen. She had an incision of a mouth, without +lips, and she waddled as she moved, but she moved with surprising briskness. Her +steps defied the whole world to hurt her, with a malicious slyness that seemed +to say she would like nothing better, because what a joke it would be on the +world if it tried to hurt her, just try it and see, just try it. Wynand knew she +had never been employed on the Banner; she never could be; it did not appear +likely that she could be taught to read; her steps seemed to add that she jolly +well didn’t have to. She carried a sign: "We demand..." +He thought of the nights when he had slept on the couch in the old Banner +Building, in the first years, because the new presses had to be paid for and the +Banner had to be on the streets before its competitors, and he coughed blood one +night and refused to see a doctor, but it turned out to be nothing, just +exhaustion. +He hurried into the building. The presses were rolling. He stood and listened +for a while. +At night the building was quiet. It seemed bigger, as if sound took space and +vacated it; there were panels of light at open doors, between long stretches of +dim hallways. A lone typewriter clicked somewhere, evenly, like a dripping +faucet. Wynand walked through the halls. He thought that men had been willing to +work for him when he plugged known crooks for municipal elections, when he +glamorized red-light districts, when he ruined reputations by scandalous libel, +when he sobbed over the mothers of gangsters. Talented men, respected men had +been eager to work for him. Now he was being honest for the first time in his +career. He was leading his greatest crusade--with the help of finks, drifters, +drunkards, and humble drudges too passive to quit. The guilt, he thought, was +not perhaps with those who now refused to work for him. +# +The sun hit the square crystal inkstand on his desk. It made Wynand think of a +cool drink on a lawn, white clothes, the feel of grass under bare elbows. He +tried not to look at the gay glitter and went on writing. It was a morning in +the second week of the strike. He had retreated to his office for an hour and +given orders not to be disturbed; he had an article to finish; he knew he wanted +the excuse, one hour of not seeing what went on in the building. +The door of his office opened without announcement, and Dominique came in. She +had not been allowed to enter the Banner Building since their marriage. +He got up, a kind of quiet obedience in his movement, permitting himself no +questions. She wore a coral linen suit, she stood as if the lake were behind her +and the sunlight rose from the surface to the folds of her clothes. She said: +"Gail, I’ve come for my old job on the Banner." +577 + + He stood looking at her silently; then he smiled; it was a smile of +convalescence. +He turned to the desk, picked up the sheets he had written, handed them to her +and said: +"Take this to the back room. Pick up the wire flimsies and bring them to me. +Then report to Manning at the city desk." +The impossible, the not to be achieved in word, glance or gesture, the complete +union of two beings in complete understanding, was done by a small stack of +paper passing from his hand to hers. Their fingers did not touch. She turned and +walked out of the office. +Within two days, it was as if she had never left the staff of the Banner. Only +now she did not write a column on houses, but kept busy wherever a competent +hand was needed to fill a gap. "It’s quite all right, Alvah," she said to +Scarret, "it’s a proper feminine job to be a seamstress. I’m here to slap on +patches where necessary--and boy! is this cloth ripping fast! Just call me when +one of your new journalists runs amuck more than usual." +Scarret could not understand her tone, her manner or her presence. "You’re a +lifesaver, Dominique," he mumbled sadly. "It’s like the old days, seeing you +here--and oh! how I wish it were the old days! Only I can’t understand. Gail +wouldn’t allow a photo of you in the place, when it was a decent, respectable +place--and now when it’s practically as safe as a penitentiary during a convict +riot, he lets you work here!" +"Can the commentaries, Alvah. We haven’t the time." +She wrote a brilliant review of a movie she hadn’t seen. She dashed off a report +on a convention she hadn’t attended. She batted out a string of recipes for the +"Daily Dishes" column, when the lady in charge failed to show up one morning. "I +didn’t know you could cook," said Scarret. "I didn’t either," said Dominique. +She went out one night to cover a dock fire, when it was found that the only man +on duty had passed out on the floor of the men’s room. "Good job," Wynand told +her when he read the story, "but try that again and you’ll get fired. If you +want to stay, you’re not to step out of the building." +This was his only comment on her presence. He spoke to her when necessary, +briefly and simply, as to any other employee. He gave orders. There were days +when they did not have time to see each other. She slept on a couch in the +library. Occasionally, in the evening, she would come to his office, for a short +rest, when they could take it, and then they talked, about nothing in +particular, about small events of the day’s work, gaily, like any married couple +gossiping about the normal routine of their common life. +They did not speak of Roark or Cortlandt. She had noticed Roark’s picture on the +wall of his office and asked: "When did you hang that up?" +"Over a year ago." It had been their only reference to Roark. They did not +discuss the growing public fury against the Banner. They did not speculate on +the future. They felt relief in forgetting the question beyond the walls of the +building; it could be forgotten because it stood no longer as a question between +them; it was solved and answered; what remained was the peace of the simplified: +they had a job to do--the job of keeping a newspaper going--and they were doing +it together. +She would come in, unsummoned, in the middle of the night, with a cup of hot +578 + + coffee, and he would snatch it gratefully, not pausing in his work. He would +find fresh sandwiches left on his desk when he needed them badly. He had no time +to wonder where she got things. Then he discovered that she had established an +electric plate and a stock of supplies in a closet. She cooked breakfast for +him, when he had to work all night, she came in carrying dishes on a piece of +cardboard for a tray, with the silence of empty streets beyond the windows and +the first light of morning on the rooftops. +Once he found her, broom in hand, sweeping an office; the maintenance department +had fallen apart, charwomen appeared and disappeared, no one had time to notice. +"Is that what I’m paying you for?" he asked. +"Well, we can’t work in a pigsty. I haven’t asked you what you’re paying me, but +I want a raise." +"Drop this thing, for God’s sake! It’s ridiculous." +"What’s ridiculous? It’s clean now. It didn’t take me long. Is it a good job?" +"It’s a good job." +She leaned on the broom handle and laughed. "I believe you thought, like +everybody else, that I’m just a kind of luxury object, a high-class type of kept +woman, didn’t you, Gail?" +"Is this the way you can keep going when you want to?" +"This is the way I’ve wanted to keep going all my life--if I could find a reason +for it." +He learned that her endurance was greater than his. She never showed a sign of +exhaustion. He supposed that she slept, but he could not discover when. +At any time, in any part of the building, not seeing him for hours, she was +aware of him, she knew when he needed her most. Once, he fell asleep, slumped +across his desk. He awakened and found her looking at him. She had turned off +the lights, she sat on a chair by the window, in the moonlight, her face turned +to him, calm, watching. Her face was the first thing he saw. Lifting his head +painfully from his arm, in the first moment, before he could return fully to +control and reality, he felt a sudden wrench of anger, helplessness and +desperate protest, not remembering what had brought them here, to this, +remembering only that they were both caught in some vast, slow process of +torture and that he loved her. +She had seen it in his face, before he had completed the movement of +straightening his body. She walked to him, she stood by his chair, she took his +head and let it rest against her, she held him, and he did not resist, slumped +in her arms, she kissed his hair, she whispered: "It will be all right, Gail, it +will be all right." +At the end of three weeks Wynand walked out of the building one evening, not +caring whether there would be anything left of it when he returned, and went to +see Roark. +He had not telephoned Roark since the beginning of the siege. Roark telephoned +him often; Wynand answered, quietly, just answering, originating no statement, +refusing to prolong the conversation. He had warned Roark at the beginning: +"Don’t try to come here. I’ve given orders. You won’t be admitted." He had to +579 + + keep out of his mind the actual form which the issue of his battle could take; +he had to forget the fact of Roark’s physical existence; because the thought of +Roark’s person brought the thought of the county jail. +He walked the long distance to the Enright House; walking made the distance +longer and safer; a ride in a cab would pull Roark too close to the Banner +Building. He kept his glance slanted toward a point six feet ahead of him on the +sidewalk; he did not want to look at the city. +"Good evening, Gail," Roark said calmly when he came in. +"I don’t know what’s a more conspicuous form of bad discipline," said Wynand, +throwing his hat down on a table by the door, "to blurt things right out or to +ignore them blatantly. I look like hell. Say it." +"You do look like hell. Sit down, rest and don’t talk. Then I’ll run you a hot +bath--no, you don’t look that dirty, but it will be good for you for a change. +Then we’ll talk." +Wynand shook his head and remained standing at the door. +"Howard, the Banner is not helping you. It’s ruining you." +It had taken him eight weeks to prepare himself to say that. +"Of course," said Roark. "What of it?" +Wynand would not advance into the room. +"Gail, it doesn’t matter, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not counting on public +opinion, one way or the other." +"You want me to give in?" +"I want you to hold out if it takes everything you own." +He saw that Wynand understood, that it was the thing Wynand had tried not to +face, and that Wynand wanted him to speak. +"I don’t expect you to save me. I think I have a chance to win. The strike won’t +make it better or worse. Don’t worry about me. And don’t give in. If you stick +to the end--you won’t need me any longer." +He saw the look of anger, protest--and agreement. He added: +"You know what I’m saying. We’ll be better friends than ever--and you’ll come to +visit me in jail, if necessary. Don’t wince, and don’t make me say too much. Not +now. I’m glad of this strike. I knew that something like that had to happen, +when I saw you for the first time. You knew it long before that." +"Two months ago, I promised you...the one promise I wanted to keep..." +"You’re keeping it." +"Don’t you really want to despise me? I wish you’d say it now. I came here to +hear it." +"All right. Listen. You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be +repeated. There was Henry Cameron who died for my own cause. And you’re the +580 + + publisher of filthy tabloids. But I couldn’t say this to him, and I’m saying it +to you. There’s Steve Mallory who’s never compromised with his soul. And you’ve +done nothing but sell yours in every known way. But I couldn’t say this to him +and I’m saying it to you. Is that what you’ve always wanted to hear from me? But +don’t give in." +He turned away, and added: "That’s all. We won’t talk about your damn strike +again. Sit down, I’ll get you a drink. Rest, get yourself out of looking like +hell." +Wynand returned to the Banner late at night. He took a cab. It did not matter. +He did not notice the distance. +Dominique said, "You’ve seen Roark." +"Yes. How do you know?" +"Here’s the Sunday makeup. It’s fairly lousy, but it’ll have to do. I sent +Manning home for a few hours--he was going to collapse. Jackson quit, but we can +do without him. Alvah’s column was a mess--he can’t even keep his grammar +straight any more--I rewrote it, but don’t tell him, tell him you did." +"Go to sleep. I’ll take Manning’s place. I’m good for hours." +They went on, and the days passed, and in the mailing room the piles of returns +grew, running over into the corridor, white stacks of paper like marble slabs. +Fewer copies of the Banner were run off with every edition, but the stacks kept +growing. The days passed, days of heroic effort to put out a newspaper that came +back unbought and unread. + +16. +IN THE glass-smooth mahogany of the long table reserved for the board of +directors there was a monogram in colored wood--G W--reproduced from his +signature. It had always annoyed the directors. They had no time to notice it +now. But an occasional glance fell upon it--and then it was a glance of +pleasure. +The directors sat around the table. It was the first meeting in the board’s +history that had not been summoned by Wynand. But the meeting had convened and +Wynand had come. The strike was in its second month. +Wynand stood by his chair at the head of the table. He looked like a drawing +from a men’s magazine, fastidiously groomed, a white handkerchief in the breast +pocket of his dark suit. The directors caught themselves in peculiar thoughts: +some thought of British tailors, others--of the House of Lords--of the Tower of +London--of the executed English King--or was it a Chancellor?--who had died so +well. +They did not want to look at the man before them. They leaned upon visions of +the pickets outside--of the perfumed, manicured women who shrieked their support +of Ellsworth Toohey in drawing-room discussions--of the broad, flat face of a +girl who paced Fifth Avenue with a placard "We Don’t Read Wynand"--for support +and courage to say what they were saying. +Wynand thought of a crumbling wall on the edge of the Hudson. He heard steps +581 + + approaching blocks away. Only this time there were no wires in his hand to hold +his muscles ready. +"It’s gone beyond all sense. Is this a business organization or a charitable +society for the defense of personal friends?" +"Three hundred thousand dollars last week....Never mind how I know it, Gail, no +secret about it, your banker told me. All right, it’s your money, but if you +expect to get that back out of the sheet, let me tell you we’re wise to your +smart tricks. You’re not going to saddle the corporation with that one, not a +penny of it, you don’t get away with it this time, it’s too late, Gail, the +day’s past for your bright stunts." +Wynand looked at the fleshy lips of the man making sounds, and thought: You’ve +run the Banner, from the beginning, you didn’t know it, but I know, it was you, +it was your paper, there’s nothing to save now. +"Yes, Slottern and his bunch are willing to come back at once, all they ask is +that we accept the Union’s demands, and they’ll pick up the balance of their +contracts, on the old terms, even without waiting for you to rebuild +circulation--which will be some job, friend, let me tell you--and I think that’s +pretty white of them. I spoke to Homer yesterday and he gave me his word--care +to hear me name the sums involved, Wynand, or do you know it without my help?" +"No, Senator Eldridge wouldn’t see you....Aw, skip it, Gail, we know you flew to +Washington last week. What you don’t know is that Senator Eldridge is going +around saying he wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole. And Boss Craig +suddenly got called out to Florida, did he?--to sit up with a sick aunt? None of +them will pull you out of this one, Gail. This isn’t a road-paving deal or a +little watered-stock scandal. And you ain’t what you used to be." +Wynand thought: I never used to be, I’ve never been here, why are you afraid to +look at me? Don’t you know that I’m the least among you? The half-naked women in +the Sunday supplement, the babies in the rotogravure section, the editorials on +park squirrels, they were your souls given expression, the straight stuff of +your souls--but where was mine? +"I’ll be damned if I can see any sense to it. Now, if they were demanding a +raise in wages, that I could understand, I’d say fight the bastards for all +we’re worth. But what’s this--a God-damn intellectual issue of some kind? Are we +losing our shirts for principles or something?" +"Don’t you understand? The Banner’s a church publication now. Mr. Gail Wynand, +the evangelist. We’re over a barrel, but we’ve got ideals." +"Now if it were a real issue, a political issue--but some fool dynamiter who’s +blown up some dump! Everybody’s laughing at us. Honest, Wynand, I’ve tried to +read your editorials and if you want my honest opinion, it’s the lousiest stuff +ever put in print. You’d think you were writing for college professors!" +Wynand thought: I know you--you’re the one who’d give money to a pregnant slut, +but not to a starving genius--I’ve seen your face before--I picked you and I +brought you in--when in doubt about your work, remember that man’s face, you’re +writing for him--but, Mr. Wynand, one can’t remember his face--one can, child, +one can, it will come back to remind you--it will come back and demand +payment--and I’ll pay--I signed a blank check long ago and now it’s presented +for collection--but a blank check is always made out to the sum of everything +you’ve got. +582 + + "The situation is medieval and a disgrace to democracy." The voice whined. It +was Mitchell Layton speaking. "It’s about time somebody had some say around +here. One man running all those papers as he damn pleases--what is this, the +nineteenth century?" Layton pouted; he looked somewhere in the direction of a +banker across the table. "Has anybody here ever bothered to inquire about my +ideas? I’ve got ideas. We’ve all got to pool ideas. What I mean is teamwork, one +big orchestra. It’s about time this paper had a modem, liberal, progressive +policy! For instance, take the question of the sharecroppers..." +"Shut up, Mitch," said Alvah Scarret. Scarret had drops of sweat running down +his temples; he didn’t know why; he wanted the board to win; there was just +something in the room...it’s too hot in here, he thought, I wish somebody’d open +a window. +"I won’t shut up!" shrieked Mitchell Layton. "I’m just as good as..." +"Please, Mr. Layton," said the banker. +"All right," said Layton, "all right. Don’t forget who holds the biggest hunk of +stock next to Superman here." He jerked his thumb at Wynand, not looking at him. +"Just don’t forget it. Just you guess who’s going to run things around here." +"Gail," said Alvah Scarret, looking up at Wynand, his eyes strangely honest and +tortured, "Gail, it’s no use. But we can save the pieces. Look, if we just admit +that we were wrong about Cortlandt and...and if we just take Harding back, he’s +a valuable man, and...maybe Toohey..." +"No one is to mention the name of Toohey in this discussion," said Wynand. +Mitchell Layton snapped his mouth open and dropped it shut again. +"That’s it, Gail!" cried Alvah Scarret. "That’s great! We can bargain and make +them an offer. We’ll reverse our policy on Cortlandt--that, we’ve got to, not +for the damn Union, but we’ve got to rebuild circulation, Gail--so we’ll offer +them that and we’ll take Harding, Alien and Falk, but not To...not Ellsworth. We +give in and they give in. Saves everybody’s face. Is that it, Gail?" +Wynand said nothing. +"I think that’s it, Mr. Scarret," said the banker. "I think that’s the solution. +After all, Mr. Wynand must be allowed to maintain his prestige. We can +sacrifice...a columnist and keep peace among ourselves." +"I don’t see it!" yelled Mitchell Layton. "I don’t see it at all! Why should we +sacrifice Mr....a great liberal, just because..." +"I stand with Mr. Scarret," said the man who had spoken of Senators, and the +voices of the others seconded him, and the man who had criticized the editorials +said suddenly, in the general noise: "I think Gail Wynand was a hell of a swell +boss after all!" There was something about Mitchell Layton which he didn’t want +to see. Now he looked at Wynand, for protection. Wynand did not notice him. +"Gail?" asked Scarret. "Gail, what do you say?" There was no answer. +"God damn it, Wynand, it’s now or never! This can’t go on!" +"Make up your mind or get out!" +"I’ll buy you out!" shrieked Layton. "Want to sell? Want to sell and get the +583 + + hell out of it?" +"For God’s sake, Wynand, don’t be a fool!" +"Gail, it’s the Banner..." whispered Scarret. "It’s our Banner...." +"We’ll stand by you, Gail, we’ll all chip in, we’ll pull the old paper back on +its feet, we’ll do as you say, you’ll be the boss--but for God’s sake, act like +a boss now!" +"Quiet, gentlemen, quiet! Wynand, this is final: we switch policy on Cortlandt, +we take Harding, Alien and Falk back, and we save the wreck. Yes or no?" +There was no answer. +"Wynand, you know it’s that--or you have to close the Banner. You can’t keep +this up, even if you bought us all out. Give in or close the Banner. You had +better give in." +Wynand heard that. He had heard it through all the speeches. He had heard it for +days before the meeting. He knew it better than any man present. Close the +Banner. +He saw a single picture: the new masthead rising over the door of the Gazette. +"You had better give in." +He made a step back. It was not a wall behind him. It was only the side of his +chair. +He thought of the moment in his bedroom when he had almost pulled a trigger. He +knew he was pulling it now. +"All right," he said. +# +It’s only a bottle cap, thought Wynand looking down at a speck of glitter under +his feet; a bottle cap ground into the pavement. The pavements of New York are +full of things like that--bottle caps, safety pins, campaign buttons, sink +chains; sometimes--lost jewels; it’s all alike now, flattened, ground in; it +makes the pavements sparkle at night. The fertilizer of a city. Someone drank +the bottle empty and threw the cap away. How many cars have passed over it? +Could one retrieve it now? Could one kneel and dig with bare hands and tear it +out again? I had no right to hope for escape. I had no right to kneel and seek +redemption. Millions of years ago, when the earth was being born, there were +living things like me: flies caught in resin that became amber, animals caught +in ooze that became rock. I am a man of the twentieth century and I became a bit +of tin in the pavements, for the trucks of New York to roll over. +He walked slowly, the collar of his topcoat raised. The street stretched before +him, empty, and the buildings ahead were like the backs of books lining a shelf, +assembled without order, of all sizes. The comers he passed led to black +channels; street lamps gave the city a protective cover, but it cracked in +spots. He turned a corner when he saw a slant of light ahead; it was a goal for +three or four blocks. +The light came from the window of a pawnshop. The shop was closed, but a glaring +bulb hung there to discourage looters who might be reduced to this. He stopped +and looked at it. He thought, the most indecent sight on earth, a pawnshop +584 + + window. The things which had been sacred to men, and the things which had been +precious, surrendered to the sight of all, to the pawing and the bargaining, +trash to the indifferent eyes of strangers, the equality of a junk heap, +typewriters and violins--the tools of dreams, old photographs and wedding +rings--the tags of love, together with soiled trousers, coffee pots, ash trays, +pornographic plaster figures; the refuse of despair, pledged, not sold, not cut +off in clean finality, but hocked to a stillborn hope, never to be redeemed. +"Hello, Gail Wynand," he said to the things in the window, and walked on. +He felt an iron grate under his feet and an odor struck him in the face, an odor +of dust, sweat and dirty clothing, worse than the smell of stockyards, because +it had a homey, normal quality, like decomposition made routine. The grating of +a subway. He thought, this is the residue of many people put together, of human +bodies pressed into a mass, with no space to move, with no air to breathe. This +is the sum, even though down there, among the packed flesh, one can find the +smell of starched white dresses, of clean hair, of healthy young skin. Such is +the nature of sums and of quests for the lowest common denominator. What, then, +is the residue of many human minds put together, unaired, unspaced, +undifferentiated? The Banner, he thought, and walked on. +My city, he thought, the city I loved, the city I thought I ruled. +He had walked out of the board meeting, he had said: "Take over, Alvah, until I +come back." He had not stopped to see Manning drunk with exhaustion at the city +desk, nor the people in the city room, still functioning, waiting, knowing what +was being decided in the board room; nor Dominique. Scarret would tell them. He +had walked out of the building and gone to his penthouse and sat alone in the +bedroom without windows. Nobody had come to disturb him. +When he left the penthouse, it was safe to go out: it was dark. He passed a +newsstand and saw late editions of the afternoon papers announcing the +settlement of the Wynand strike. The Union had accepted Scarret’s compromise. He +knew that Scarret would take care of all the rest. Scarret would replate the +front page of tomorrow’s Banner. Scarret would write the editorial that would +appear on the front page. He thought, the presses are rolling right now. +Tomorrow morning’s Banner will be out on the streets in an hour. +He walked at random. He owned nothing, but he was owned by any part of the city. +It was right that the city should now direct his way and that he should be moved +by the pull of chance corners. Here I am, my masters, I am coming to salute you +and acknowledge, wherever you want me, I shall go as I’m told. I’m the man who +wanted power. +That woman sitting on the stoop of an old brownstone house, her fat white knees +spread apart--the man pushing the white brocade of his stomach out of a cab in +front of a great hotel--the little man sipping root beer at a drugstore +counter--the woman leaning over a stained mattress on the sill of a tenement +window--the taxi driver parked on a corner--the lady with orchids, drunk at the +table of a sidewalk cafe--the toothless woman selling chewing gum--the man in +shirt sleeves, leaning against the door of a poolroom--they are my masters. My +owners, my rulers without a face. +Stand here, he thought, and count the lighted windows of a city. You cannot do +it But behind each yellow rectangle that climbs, one over another, to the +sky--under each bulb--down to there, see that spark over the river which is not +a star?--there are people whom you will never see and who are your masters. At +the supper tables, in the drawing rooms, in their beds and in their cellars, in +their studies and in their bathrooms. Speeding in the subways under your feet. +Crawling up in elevators through vertical cracks around you. Jolting past you in +585 + + every bus. Your masters, Gail Wynand. There is a net--longer than the cables +that coil through the walls of this city, larger than the mesh of pipes that +carry water, gas and refuse--there is another hidden net around you; it is +strapped to you, and the wires lead to every hand in the city. They jerked the +wires and you moved. You were a ruler of men. You held a leash. A leash is only +a rope with a noose at both ends. +My masters, the anonymous, the unselected. They gave me a penthouse, an office, +a yacht. To them, to any one of them who wished, for the sum of three cents, I +sold Howard Roark. +He walked past an open marble court, a cave cut deep into a building, filled +with light, spurting the sudden cold of air-conditioning. It was a movie theater +and the marquee had letters made of rainbows: Romeo and Juliet. A placard stood +by the glass column of the box office: "Bill Shakespeare’s immortal classic! But +there’s nothing highbrow about it! Just a simple human love story. A boy from +the Bronx meets a girl from Brooklyn. Just like the folks next door. Just like +you and me." +He walked past the door of a saloon. There was a smell of stale beer. A woman +sat slumped, breasts flattened against the table top. A juke box played Wagner’s +"Song to the Evening Star," adapted, in swing time. +He saw the trees of Central Park. He walked, his eyes lowered. He was passing by +the Aquitania Hotel. +He came to a corner. He had escaped other corners like it, but this one caught +him. It was a dim corner, a slice of sidewalk trapped between the wall of a +closed garage and the pillars of an elevated station. He saw the rear end of a +truck disappearing down the street. He had not seen the name on it, but he knew +what truck it was. A newsstand crouched under the iron stairs of the elevated. +He moved his eyes slowly. The fresh pile was there, spread out for him. +Tomorrow’s Banner. +He did not come closer. He stood, waiting. He thought, I still have a few +minutes in which not to know. +He saw faceless people stopping at the stand, one after another. They came for +different papers, but they bought the Banner also, when they noticed its front +page. He stood pressed to the wall, waiting. He thought, it is right that I +should be the last to learn what I have said. +Then he could delay no longer: no customers came, the stand stood deserted, +papers spread in the yellow light of a bulb, waiting for him. He could see no +vendor in the black hovel beyond the bulb. The street was empty. A long corridor +filled by the skeleton of the elevated. Stone paving, blotched walls, the +interlacing of iron pillars. There were lighted windows, but they looked as if +no people moved inside the walls. A train thundered over his head, a long roll +of clangor that went shuddering down the pillars into the earth. It looked like +an aggregation of metal rushing without human driver through the night. +He waited for the sound to die, then he walked to the stand. "The Banner," he +said. He did not see who sold him the paper, whether it was a man or a woman. He +saw only a gnarled brown hand pushing the copy forward. +He started walking away, but stopped while crossing the street. There was a +picture of Roark on the front page. It was a good picture. The calm face, the +sharp cheekbones, the implacable mouth. He read the editorial, leaning against a +pillar of the elevated. +586 + + "We have always endeavored to give our readers the truth without fear or +prejudice... +"...charitable consideration and the benefit of the doubt even to a man charged +with an outrageous crime... +"...but after conscientious investigation and in the light of new evidence +placed before us, we find ourselves obliged honestly to admit that we might have +been too lenient... +"...A society awakened to a new sense of responsibility toward the +underprivileged..."...We join the voice of public opinion..."...The past, the +career, the personality of Howard Roark seem to support the widespread +impression that he is a reprehensible character, a dangerous, unprincipled, +antisocial type of man... +"...If found guilty, as seems inevitable, Howard Roark must be made to bear the +fullest penalty the law can impose on him." It was signed "Gail Wynand." +When he looked up, he was in a brightly lighted street, on a trim sidewalk, +looking at a wax figure exquisitely contorted on a satin chaise longue in a shop +window; the figure wore a salmon-colored negligee, lucite sandals and a string +of pearls suspended from one raised finger. +He did not know when he had dropped the paper. It was not in his hands any +longer. He glanced back. It would be impossible to find a discarded paper lying +on some street he did not know he had passed. He thought, what for? There are +other papers like it The city is full of them. +"You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated..." +Howard, I wrote that editorial forty years ago. I wrote it one night when I was +sixteen and stood on the roof of a tenement +He walked on. Another street lay before him, a sudden cut of long emptiness and +a chain of green traffic lights strung out to the horizon. Like a rosary without +end. He thought, now walk from green bead to green bead. He thought, these are +not the words; but the words kept ringing with his steps: Mea culpa--mea +culpa--mea maxima culpa. +He went past a window of old shoes corroded by wear--past the door of a mission +with a cross above it--past the peeling poster of a political candidate who ran +two years ago--past a grocery store with barrels of rotting greens on the +sidewalk. The streets were contracting, walls drawing closer together. He could +smell the odor of the river, and there were wads of fog over the rare lights. +He was in Hell’s Kitchen. +The facades of the buildings around him were like the walls of secret backyards +suddenly exposed: decay without reticence, past the need of privacy or shame. He +heard shrieks coming from a saloon on a corner; he could not tell whether it was +joy or brawling. +He stood in the middle of a street. He looked slowly down the mouth of every +dark crevice, up the streaked walls, to the windows, to the roofs. +I never got out of here. +587 + + I never got out. I surrendered to the grocery man--to the deck hands on the +ferryboat--to the owner of the poolroom. You don’t run things around here. You +don’t run things around here. You’ve never run things anywhere, Gail Wynand. +You’ve only added yourself to the things they ran. +Then he looked up, across the city, to the shapes of the great skyscrapers. He +saw a string of lights rising unsupported in black space, a glowing pinnacle +anchored to nothing, a small, brilliant square hanging detached in the sky. He +knew the famous buildings to which these belonged, he could reconstruct their +forms in space. He thought, you’re my judges and witnesses. You rise, +unhindered, above the sagging roofs. You shoot your gracious tension to the +stars, out of the slack, the tired, the accidental. The eyes one mile out on the +ocean will see none of this and none of this will matter, but you will be the +presence and the city. As down the centuries, a few men stand in lonely +rectitude that we may look and say, there is a human race behind us. One can’t +escape from you; the streets change, but one looks up and there you stand, +unchanged. You have seen me walking through the streets tonight. You have seen +all my steps and all my years. It’s you that I’ve betrayed. For I was born to be +one of you. +He walked on. It was late. Circles of light lay undisturbed on the empty +sidewalks under the lampposts. The horns of taxis shrieked once in a while like +doorbells ringing through the corridors of a vacant interior. He saw discarded +newspapers, as he passed: on the pavements, on park benches, in the wire +trash-baskets on corners. Many of them were the Banner. Many copies of the +Banner had been read in the city tonight. He thought, we’re building +circulation, Alvah. +He stopped. He saw a paper spread out in the gutter before him, front page up. +It was the Banner. He saw Roark’s picture. He saw the gray print of a rubber +heel across Roark’s face. +He bent, his body folding itself down slowly, with both knees, both arms, and +picked up the paper. He folded the front page and put it in his pocket. He +walked on. +An unknown rubber heel, somewhere in the city, on an unknown foot that I +released to march. +I released them all. I made every one of those who destroyed me. There is a +beast on earth, dammed safely by its own impotence. I broke the dam. They would +have remained helpless. They can produce nothing. I gave them the weapon. I gave +them my strength, my energy, my living power. I created a great voice and let +them dictate the words. The woman who threw the beet leaves in my face had a +right to do it. I made it possible for her. +Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the +courage of their own greatness. Alvah Scarret can be forgiven. He had nothing to +betray. Mitchell Layton can be forgiven. But not I. I was not born to be a +second-hander. + +17. +IT WAS a summer day, cloudless and cool, as if the sun were screened by an +invisible film of water, and the energy of heat had been transformed into a +sharper clarity, an added brilliance of outline for the buildings of the city. +588 + + In the streets, scattered like scraps of gray foam, there were a great many +copies of the Banner. The city read, chuckling, the statement of Wynand’s +renunciation. +"That’s that," said Gus Webb, chairman of the "We Don’t Read Wynand" Committee. +"It’s slick," said Ike. "I’d like one peek, just one peek, at the great Mr. Gail +Wynand’s face today," said Sally Brent. "It’s about time," said Homer Slottern. +"Isn’t it splendid? Wynand’s surrendered," said a tight-lipped woman; she knew +little about Wynand and nothing about the issue, but she liked to hear of people +surrendering. In a kitchen, after dinner, a fat woman scraped the remnants off +the dishes onto a sheet of newspaper; she never read the front page, only the +installments of a love serial in the second section; she wrapped onion peelings +and lamb-chop bones in a copy of the Banner. +"It’s stupendous," said Lancelot Clokey, "only I’m really sore at that Union, +Ellsworth. How could they double-cross you like that?" +"Don’t be a sap, Lance," said Ellsworth Toohey. "What do you mean?" +"I told them to accept the terms." +"You did?" +"Yep." +"But Jesus! ’One Small Voice’..." +"You can wait for ’One Small Voice’ another month or so, can’t you? I’ve filed +suit with the labor board today, to be reinstated in my job on the Banner. There +are more ways than one to skin a cat, Lance. The skinning isn’t important once +you’ve broken its spine." +That evening Roark pressed the bell button at the door of Wynand’s penthouse. +The butler opened the door and said: "Mr. Wynand cannot see you, Mr. Roark." +From the sidewalk across the street Roark looked up and saw a square of light +high over the roofs, in the window of Wynand’s study. +In the morning Roark came to Wynand’s office in the Banner Building. Wynand’s +secretary told him: "Mr. Wynand cannot see you, Mr. Roark." She added, her voice +polite, disciplined: "Mr. Wynand has asked me to tell you that he does not wish +ever to see you again." +Roark wrote him a long letter: "...Gail, I know. I hoped you could escape it, +but since it had to happen, start again from where you are. I know what you’re +doing to yourself. You’re not doing it for my sake, it’s not up to me, but if +this will help you I want to say that I’m repeating, now, everything I’ve ever +said to you. Nothing has changed for me. You’re still what you were. I’m not +saying that I forgive you, because there can be no such question between us. But +if you can’t forgive yourself, will you let me do it? Let me say that it doesn’t +matter, it’s not the final verdict on you. Give me the right to let you forget +it. Go on just on my faith until you’ve recovered. I know it’s something no man +can do for another, but if I am what I’ve been to you, you’ll accept it. Call it +a blood transfusion. You need it. Take it. It’s harder than fighting that +strike. Do it for my sake, if that will help you. But do it. Come back. There +will be another chance. What you think you’ve lost can neither be lost nor +found. Don’t let it go." +The letter came back to Roark, unopened. +589 + + Alvah Scarret ran the Banner. Wynand sat in his office. He had removed Roark’s +picture from the wall. He attended to advertising contracts, expenses, accounts. +Scarret took care of the editorial policy. Wynand did not read the contents of +the Banner. +When Wynand appeared in any department of the building, the employees obeyed him +as they had obeyed him before. He was still a machine and they knew that it was +a machine more dangerous than ever: a car running downhill, without combustion +or brakes. +He slept in his penthouse. He had not seen Dominique. Scarret had told him that +she had gone back to the country. Once Wynand ordered his secretary to telephone +Connecticut. He stood by her desk while she asked the butler whether Mrs. Wynand +was there. The butler answered that she was. The secretary hung up and Wynand +went back to his office. +He thought he would give himself a few days. Then he’d return to Dominique. +Their marriage would be what she had wanted it to be at first--"Mrs. +Wynand-Papers." He would accept it. +Wait, he thought in an agony of impatience, wait. You must learn to face her as +you are now. Train yourself to be a beggar. There must be no pretense at things +to which you have no right. No equality, no resistance, no pride in holding your +strength against hers. Only acceptance now. Stand before her as a man who can +give her nothing, who will live on what she chooses to grant him. It will be +contempt, but it will come from her and it will be a bond. Show her that you +recognize this. There is a kind of dignity in a renunciation of dignity openly +admitted. Learn it. Wait....He sat in the study of his penthouse, his head on +the arm of his chair. There were no witnesses in the empty rooms around +him....Dominique, he thought, I will have no claim to make except that I need +you so much. And that I love you. I told you once not to consider it. Now I’ll +use it as a tin cup. But I’ll use it. I love you.... +Dominique lay stretched out on the shore of the lake. She looked at the house on +the hill, at the tree branches above her. Flat on her back, hands crossed under +her head, she studied the motion of leaves against the sky. It was an earnest +occupation, giving her full contentment. She thought, it’s a lovely kind of +green, there’s a difference between the color of plants and the color of +objects, this has light in it, this is not just green, but also the living force +of the tree made visible, I don’t have to look down, I can see the branches, the +trunk, the roots just by looking at that color. That fire around the edges is +the sun, I don’t have to see it, I can tell what the whole countryside looks +like today. The spots of light weaving in circles--that’s the lake, the special +kind of light that comes refracted from water, the lake is beautiful today, and +it’s better not to see it, just to guess by these spots. I have never been able +to enjoy it before, the sight of the earth, it’s such great background, but it +has no meaning except as a background, and I thought of those who owned it and +then it hurt me too much. I can love it now. They don’t own it. They own +nothing. They’ve never won. I have seen the life of Gail Wynand, and now I know. +One cannot hate the earth in their name. The earth is beautiful. And it is a +background, but not theirs. +She knew what she had to do. But she would give herself a few days. She thought, +I’ve learned to bear anything except happiness. I must learn how to carry it. +How not to break under it. It’s the only discipline I’ll need from now on. +# +Roark stood at the window of his house in Monadnock Valley. He had rented the +house for the summer; he went there when he wanted loneliness and rest. It was a +590 + + quiet evening. The window opened on a small ledge in a frame of trees, hanging +against the sky. A strip of sunset light stretched above the dark treetops. He +knew that there were houses below, but they could not be seen. He was as +grateful as any other tenant for the way in which he had built this place. +He heard the sound of a car approaching up the road at the other side. He +listened, astonished. He expected no guests. The car stopped. He walked to open +the door. He felt no astonishment when he saw Dominique. +She came in as if she had left this house half an hour ago. She wore no hat, no +stockings, just sandals and a dress intended for back country roads, a narrow +sheath of dark blue linen with short sleeves, like a smock for gardening. She +did not look as if she had driven across three states, but as if she were +returning from a walk down the hill. He knew that this was to be the solemnity +of the moment--that it needed no solemnity; it was not to be stressed and set +apart, it was not this particular evening, but the completed meaning of seven +years behind them. +"Howard." +He stood as if he were looking at the sound of his name in the room. He had all +he had wanted. +But there was one thought that remained as pain, even now. He said: +"Dominique, wait till he recovers." +"You know he won’t recover." +"Have a little pity on him." +"Don’t speak their language." +"He had no choice." +"He could have closed the paper." +"It was his life." +"This is mine." +He did not know that Wynand had once said all love is exception-making; and +Wynand would not know that Roark had loved him enough to make his greatest +exception, one moment when he had tried to compromise. Then he knew it was +useless, like all sacrifices. What he said was his signature under her decision: +"I love you." +She looked about the room, to let the ordinary reality of walls and chairs help +her keep the discipline she had been learning for this moment. The walls he had +designed, the chairs he used, a package of his cigarettes on a table, the +routine necessities of life that could acquire splendor when life became what it +was now. +"Howard, I know what you intend to do at the trial. So it won’t make any +difference if they learn the truth about us." +"It won’t make any difference." +591 + + "When you came that night and told me about Cortlandt, I didn’t try to stop you. +I knew you had to do it, it was your time to set the terms on which you could go +on. This is my time. My Cortlandt explosion. You must let me do it my way. Don’t +question me. Don’t protect me. No matter what I do." +"I know what you’ll do." +"You know that I have to?" +"Yes." +She bent one arm from the elbow, fingers lifted, in a short, backward jolt, as +if tossing the subject over her shoulder. It was settled and not to be +discussed. +She turned away from him, she walked across the room, to let the casual ease of +her steps make this her home, to state that his presence was to be the rule for +ail her coming days and she had no need to do what she wanted most at this +moment: stand and look at him. She knew also what she was delaying, because she +was not ready and would never be ready. She stretched her hand out for his +package of cigarettes on the table. +His fingers closed over her wrist and he pulled her hand back. He pulled her +around to face him, and then he held her and his mouth was on hers. She knew +that every moment of seven years when she had wanted this and stopped the pain +and thought she had won, was not past, had never been stopped, had lived on, +stored, adding hunger to hunger, and now she had to feel it all, the touch of +his body, the answer and the waiting together. +She didn’t know whether her discipline had helped; not too well, she thought, +because she saw that he had lifted her in his arms, carried her to a chair and +sat down, holding her on his knees; he laughed without sound, as he would have +laughed at a child, but the firmness of his hands holding her showed concern and +a kind of steadying caution. Then it seemed simple, she had nothing to hide from +him, she whispered: "Yes, Howard...that much..." and he said: "It was very hard +for me--all these years." And the years were ended. +She slipped down, to sit on the floor, her elbows propped on his knees, she +looked up at him and smiled, she knew that she could not have reached this white +serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known. +"Howard...willingly, completely, and always...without reservations, without fear +of anything they can do to you or me...in any way you wish...as your wife or +your mistress, secretly or openly...here, or in a furnished room I’ll take in +some town near a jail where I’ll see you through a wire net...it won’t +matter....Howard, if you win the trial--even that won’t matter too much. You’ve +won long ago....I’ll remain what I am, and I’ll remain with you--now and +ever--in any way you want...." +He held her hands in his, she saw his shoulders sagging down to her, she saw him +helpless, surrendered to this moment, as she was--and she knew that even pain +can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the +witness, yet they could let each other see it without need of protection. It was +growing dark, the room was indistinguishable, only the window remained and his +shoulders against the sky in the window. +She awakened with the sun in her eyes. She lay on her back, looking at the +ceiling as she had looked at the leaves. Not to move, to guess by hints, to see +everything through the greater intensity of implication. The broken triangles of +light on the angular modeling of the ceiling’s plastic tiles meant that it was +592 + + morning and that this was a bedroom at Monadnock, the geometry of fire and +structure above her designed by him. The fire was white--that meant it was very +early and the rays came through clean country air, with nothing anywhere in +space between this bedroom and the sun. The weight of the blanket, heavy and +intimate on her naked body, was everything that had been last night. And the +skin she felt against her arm was Roark asleep beside her. +She slipped out of bed. She stood at the window, her arms raised, holding on to +the frame at each side. She thought if she looked back she would see no shadow +of her body on the floor, she felt as if the sunlight went straight through her, +because her body had no weight. +But she had to hurry before he awakened. She found his pyjamas in a dresser +drawer and put them on. She went to the living room, closing the door carefully +behind her. She picked up the telephone and asked for the nearest sheriff’s +office. +"This is Mrs. Gail Wynand," she said. "I am speaking from the house of Mr. +Howard Roark at Monadnock Valley. I wish to report that my star-sapphire ring +was stolen here last night....About five thousand dollars....It was a present +from Mr. Roark....Can you get here within an hour?...Thank you." +She went to the kitchen, made coffee and stood watching the glow of the electric +coil under the coffee pot, thinking that it was the most beautiful light on +earth. +She set the table by the large window in the living room. He came out, wearing +nothing but a dressing gown, and laughed at the sight of her in his pyjamas. She +said: "Don’t dress. Sit down. Let’s have breakfast." +They were finishing when they heard the sound of the car stopping outside. She +smiled and walked to open the door. +There were a sheriff, a deputy and two reporters from local papers. +"Good morning," said Dominique. "Come in." +"Mrs....Wynand?" said the sheriff. +"That’s right. Mrs. Gail Wynand. Come in. Sit down." +In the ludicrous folds of the pyjamas, with dark cloth bulging over a belt wound +tightly, with sleeves hanging over her fingertips, she had all the poised +elegance she displayed in her best hostess gown. She was the only one who seemed +to find nothing unusual in the situation. +The sheriff held a notebook as if he did not know what to do with it. She helped +him to find the right questions and answered them precisely like a good +newspaper woman. +"It was a star-sapphire ring set in platinum. I took it off and left it here, on +this table, next to my purse, before going to bed....It was about ten o’clock +last night....When I got up this morning, it was gone....Yes, this window was +open....No, we didn’t hear anything....No, it was not insured, I have not had +the time, Mr. Roark gave it to me recently....No, there are no servants here and +no other guests....Yes, please look through the house....Living room, bedroom, +bathroom and kitchen....Yes, of course, you may look too, gentlemen. The press, +I believe? Do you wish to ask me any questions?" +593 + + There were no questions to ask. The story was complete. The reporters had never +seen a story of this nature offered in this manner. +She tried not to look at Roark after her first glance at his face. But he kept +his promise. He did not try to stop her or protect her. When questioned, he +answered, enough to support her statements. +Then the men departed. They seemed glad to leave. Even the sheriff knew that he +would not have to conduct a search for that ring. +Dominique said: +"I’m sorry. I know it was terrible for you. But it was the only way to get it +into the papers." +"You should have told me which one of your star sapphires I gave you." +"I’ve never had any. I don’t like star sapphires." +"That was a more thorough job of dynamiting than Cortlandt." +"Yes. Now Gail is blasted over to the side where he belongs. So he thinks you’re +an ’unprincipled, antisocial type of man’? Now let him see the Banner smearing +me also. Why should he be spared that? Sorry. Howard, I don’t have your sense of +mercy. I’ve read that editorial. Don’t comment on this. Don’t say anything about +self-sacrifice or I’ll break and...and I’m not quite as strong as that sheriff +is probably thinking. I didn’t do it for you. I’ve made it worse for you--I’ve +added scandal to everything else they’ll throw at you. But, Howard, now we stand +together--against all of them. You’ll be a convict and I’ll be an adulteress. +Howard, do you remember that I was afraid to share you with lunch wagons and +strangers’ windows? Now I’m not afraid to have this past night smeared all over +their newspapers. My darling, do you see why I’m happy and why I’m free?" +He said: +"I’ll never remind you afterward that you’re crying, Dominique." +# +The story, including the pyjamas, the dressing gown, the breakfast table and the +single bed, was in all the afternoon papers of New York that day. +Alvah Scarret walked into Wynand’s office and threw a newspaper down on his +desk. Scarret had never discovered how much he loved Wynand, until now, and he +was so hurt that he could express it only in furious abuse. He gulped: +"God damn you, you blasted fool! It serves you right! It serves you right and +I’m glad, damn your witless soul! Now what are we going to do?" +Wynand read the story and sat looking at the paper. Scarret stood before the +desk. Nothing happened. It was just an office, a man sat at a desk holding a +newspaper. He saw Wynand’s hands, one at each side of the sheet, and the hands +were still. No, he thought, normally a man would not be able to hold his hands +like that, lifted and unsupported, without a tremor. +Wynand raised his head. Scarret could discover nothing in his eyes, except a +kind of mild astonishment, as if Wynand were wondering what Scarret was doing +here. Then, in terror, Scarret whispered: +"Gail, what are we going to do?" +594 + + "We’ll run it," said Wynand. "It’s news." +"But...how?" +"In any way you wish." +Scarret’s voice leaped ahead, because he knew it was now or never, he would not +have the courage to attempt this again; and because he was caught here, he was +afraid to back toward the door. +"Gail, you must divorce her." He found himself still standing there, and he went +on, not looking at Wynand, screaming in order to get it said: "Gail, you’ve got +no choice now! You’ve got to keep what’s left of your reputation! You’ve got to +divorce her and it’s you who must file the suit!" +"All right." +"Will you? At once? Will you let Paul file the papers at once?" +"All right." +Scarret hurried out of the room. He rushed to his own office, slammed the door, +seized the telephone and called Wynand’s lawyer. He explained and went on +repeating: "Drop everything and file it now, Paul, now, today, hurry, Paul, +before he changes his mind!" +Wynand drove to his country house. Dominique was there, waiting for him. +She stood up when he entered her room. She stepped forward, so that there would +be no furniture between them; she wished him to see her whole body. He stood +across the empty space and looked at her as if he were observing them both at +once, an impartial spectator who saw Dominique and a man facing her, but no Gail +Wynand. +She waited, but he said nothing. +"Well, I’ve given you a story that will build circulation, Gail." +He had heard, but he looked as if nothing of the present were relevant. He +looked like a bank teller balancing a stranger’s account that had been overdrawn +and had to be closed. He said: +"I would like only to know this, if you’ll tell me: that was the first time +since our marriage?" +"Yes." +"But it was not the first time?" +"No. He was the first man who had me." +"I think I should have understood. You married Peter Keating. Right after the +Stoddard trial." +"Do you wish to ’know everything? I want to tell you. I met him when he was +working in a granite quarry. Why not? You’ll put him in a chain gang or a jute +mill. He was working in a quarry. He didn’t ask my consent. He raped me. That’s +how it began. Want to use it? Want to run it in the Banner?" +595 + + "He loved you." +"Yes." +"Yet he built this house for us." +"Yes." +"I only wanted to know." +He turned to leave. +"God damn you!" she cried. "If you can take it like this, you had no right to +become what you became!" +"That’s why I’m taking it." +He walked out of the room. He closed the door softly. +Guy Francon telephoned Dominique that evening. Since his retirement he had lived +alone on his country estate near the quarry town. She had refused to answer +calls today, but she took the receiver when the maid told her that it was Mr. +Francon. Instead of the fury she expected, she heard a gentle voice saying: +"Hello, Dominique." +"Hello, Father." +"You’re going to leave Wynand now?" +"Yes." +"You shouldn’t move to the city. It’s not necessary. Don’t overdo it. Come and +stay here with me. Until...the Cortlandt trial." +The things he had not said and the quality of his voice, firm, simple and with a +note that sounded close to happiness, made her answer, after a moment: +"All right, Father." It was a girl’s voice, a daughter’s voice, with a tired, +trusting, wistful gaiety. "I’ll get there about midnight. Have a glass of milk +for me and some sandwiches." +"Try not to speed as you always do. The roads aren’t too good." +When she arrived, Guy Francon met her at the door. They both smiled, and she +knew that there would be no questions, no reproaches. He led her to the small +morning room where he had set the food on a table by a window open to a dark +lawn. There was a smell of grass, candles on the table and a bunch of jasmine in +a silver bowl. +She sat, her fingers closed about a cold glass, and he sat across the table, +munching a sandwich peacefully. +"Want to talk, Father?" +"No. I want you to drink your milk and go to bed." +"All right." +596 + + He picked up an olive and sat studying it thoughtfully, twisting it on a colored +toothpick. Then he glanced up at her. +"Look, Dominique. I can’t attempt to understand it all. But I know this +much--that it’s the right thing for you. This time, it’s the right man." +"Yes, Father." +"That’s why I’m glad." +She nodded. +"Tell Mr. Roark that he can come here any time he wants." +She smiled. ’Tell whom, Father?" +"Tell...Howard." +Her arm lay on the table; her head dropped down on her arm. He looked at the +gold hair in the candlelight. She said, because it was easier to control a +voice: "Don’t let me fall asleep here. I’m tired." +But he answered: +"He’ll be acquitted, Dominique." +# +All the newspapers of New York were brought to Wynand’s office each day, as he +had ordered. He read every word of what was written and whispered in town. +Everybody knew that the story had been a self-frame-up; the wife of a +multimillionaire would not report the loss of a five-thousand-dollar ring in the +circumstances; but this did not prevent anyone from accepting the story as given +and commenting accordingly. The most offensive comments were spread on the pages +of the Banner. +Alvah Scarret had found a crusade to which he devoted himself with the truest +fervor he had ever experienced. He felt that it was his atonement for any +disloyalty he might have committed toward Wynand in the past. He saw a way to +redeem Wynand’s name. He set out to sell Wynand to the public as the victim of a +great passion for a depraved woman; it was Dominique who had forced her husband +to champion an immoral cause, against his better judgment; she had almost +wrecked her husband’s paper, his standing, his reputation, the achievement of +his whole life--for the sake of her lover. Scarret begged readers to forgive +Wynand--a tragic, self-sacrificing love was his justification. It was an inverse +ratio in Scarret’s calculations: every filthy adjective thrown at Dominique +created sympathy for Wynand in the reader’s mind; this fed Scarret’s smear +talent. It worked. The public responded, the Banner’s old feminine readers in +particular. It helped in the slow, painful work of the paper’s reconstruction. +Letters began to arrive, generous in their condolences, unrestrained in the +indecency of their comment on Dominique Francon. "Like the old days, Gail," said +Scarret happily, "just like the old days!" He piled all the letters on Wynand’s +desk. +Wynand sat alone in his office with the letters. Scarret could not suspect that +this was the worst of the suffering Gail Wynand was to know. He made himself +read every letter. Dominique, whom he had tried to save from the Banner... +597 + + When they met in the building, Scarret looked at him expectantly, with an +entreating, tentative half-smile, an eager pupil waiting for the teacher’s +recognition of a lesson well learned and well done. Wynand said nothing. Scarret +ventured once: +"It was clever, wasn’t it, Gail?" +"Yes." +"Have any idea on where we can milk it some more?" +"It’s your job, Alvah." +"She’s really the cause of everything, Gail. Long before all this. When you +married her. I was afraid then. That’s what started it. Remember when you didn’t +allow us to cover your wedding? That was a sign. She’s ruined the Banner. But +I’ll be damned if I don’t rebuild it now right on her own body. Just as it was. +Our old Banner." +"Yes." +"Got any suggestions, Gail? What else would you like me to do?" +"Anything you wish, Alvah." + +18. +A TREE BRANCH hung in the open window. The leaves moved against the sky, +implying sun and summer and an inexhaustible earth to be used. Dominique thought +of the world as background. Wynand thought of two hands bending a tree branch to +explain the meaning of life. The leaves drooped, touching the spires of New +York’s skyline far across the river. The skyscrapers stood like shafts of +sunlight, washed white by distance and summer. A crowd filled the county +courtroom, witnessing the trial of Howard Roark. +Roark sat at the defense table. He listened calmly. +Dominique sat in the third row of spectators. Looking at her, people felt as if +they had seen a smile. She did not smile. She looked at the leaves in the +window. +Gail Wynand sat at the back of the courtroom. He had come in, alone, when the +room was full. He had not noticed the stares and the flashbulbs exploding around +him. He had stood in the aisle for a moment, surveying the place as if there +were no reason why he should not survey it. He wore a gray summer suit and a +panama hat with a drooping brim turned up at one side. His glance went over +Dominique as over the rest of the courtroom. When he sat down, he looked at +Roark. From the moment of Wynand’s entrance Roark’s eyes kept returning to him. +Whenever Roark looked at him, Wynand turned away. +"The motive which the State proposes to prove," the prosecutor was making his +opening address to the jury, "is beyond the realm of normal human emotions. To +the majority of us it will appear monstrous and inconceivable." +Dominique sat with Mallory, Heller, Lansing, Enright, Mike--and Guy Francon, to +the shocked disapproval of his friends. Across the aisle, celebrities formed a +598 + + comet: from the small point of Ellsworth Toohey, well in front, a tail of +popular names stretched through the crowd: Lois Cook, Gordon L. Prescott, Gus +Webb, Lancelot Clokey, Ike, Jules Fougler, Sally Brent, Homer Slottern, Mitchell +Layton. +"Even as the dynamite which swept a building away, his motive blasted all sense +of humanity out of this man’s soul. We are dealing, gentlemen of the jury, with +the most vicious explosive on earth--the egotist!" +On the chairs, on the window sills, in the aisles, pressed against the walls, +the human mass was blended like a monolith, except for the pale ovals of faces. +The faces stood out, separate, lonely, no two alike. Behind each, there were the +years of a life lived or half over, effort, hope and an attempt, honest or +dishonest, but an attempt. It had left on all a single mark in common: on lips +smiling with malice, on lips loose with renunciation, on lips tight with +uncertain dignity--on all--the mark of suffering. +"...In this day and age, when the world is torn by gigantic problems, seeking an +answer to questions that hold the survival of man in the balance--this man +attached to such a vague intangible, such an unessential as his artistic +opinions sufficient importance to let it become his sole passion and the +motivation of a crime against society." +The people had come to witness a sensational case, to see celebrities, to get +material for conversation, to be seen, to kill time. They would return to +unwanted jobs, unloved families, unchosen friends, to drawing rooms, evening +clothes, cocktail glasses and movies, to unadmitted pain, murdered hope, desire +left unreached, left hanging silently over a path on which no step was taken, to +days of effort not to think, not to say, to forget and give in and give up. But +each of them had known some unforgotten moment--a morning when nothing had +happened, a piece of music heard suddenly and never heard in the same way again, +a stranger’s face seen in a bus--a moment when each had known a different sense +of living. And each remembered other moments, on a sleepless night, on an +afternoon of steady rain, in a church, in an empty street at sunset, when each +had wondered why there was so much suffering and ugliness in the world. They had +not tried to find the answer and they had gone on living as if no answer were +necessary. But each had known a moment when, in lonely, naked honesty, he had +felt the need of an answer. +"...a ruthless, arrogant egotist who wished to have his own way at any price..." +Twelve men sat in the jury box. They listened, their faces attentive and +emotionless. People had whispered that it was a tough-looking jury. There were +two executives of industrial concerns, two engineers, a mathematician, a truck +driver, a bricklayer, an electrician, a gardener and three factory workers. The +impaneling of the jury had taken some time. Roark had challenged many talesmen. +He had picked these twelve. The prosecutor had agreed, telling himself that this +was what happened when an amateur undertook to handle his own defense; a lawyer +would have chosen the gentlest types, those most likely to respond to an appeal +for mercy; Roark had chosen the hardest faces. +"...Had it been some plutocrat’s mansion, but a housing project, gentlemen of +the jury, a housing project!" +The judge sat erect on the tall bench. He had gray hair and the stern face of an +army officer. +"...a man trained to serve society, a builder who became a destroyer..." +599 + + The voice went on, practiced and confident. The faces filling the room listened +with the response they granted to a good weekday dinner: satisfying and to be +forgotten within an hour. They agreed with every sentence; they had heard it +before, they had always heard it, this was what the world lived by; it was +self-evident--like a puddle before one’s feet. +The prosecutor introduced his witnesses. The policeman who had arrested Roark +took the stand to tell how he had found the defendant standing by the electric +plunger. The night watchman related how he had been sent away from the scene; +his testimony was brief; the prosecutor preferred not to stress the subject of +Dominique. The contractor’s superintendent testified about the dynamite missing +from the stores on the site. Officials of Cortlandt, building inspectors, +estimators took the stand to describe the building and the extent of the damage. +This concluded the first day of the trial. +Peter Keating was the first witness called on the following day. +He sat on the stand, slumped forward. He looked at the prosecutor obediently. +His eyes moved, once in a while. He looked at the crowd, at the jury, at Roark. +It made no difference. +"Mr. Keating, will you state under oath whether you designed the project +ascribed to you, known as Cortlandt Homes?" +"No. I didn’t." +"Who designed it?" +"Howard Roark." +"At whose request?" +"At my request." +"Why did you call on him?" +"Because I was not capable of doing it myself." +There was no sound of honesty in the voice, because there was no sound of effort +to pronounce a truth of such nature; no tone of truth or falsehood; only +indifference. +The prosecutor handed him a sheet of paper. "Is this the agreement you signed?" +Keating held the paper in his hand. "Yes." +"Is that Howard Roark’s signature?" +"Yes." +"Will you please read the terms of this agreement to the jury?" +Keating read it aloud. His voice came evenly, well drilled. Nobody in the +courtroom realized that this testimony had been intended as a sensation. It was +not a famous architect publicly confessing incompetence; it was a man reciting a +memorized lesson. People felt mat were he interrupted, he would not be able to +pick up the next sentence, but would have to start all over again from the +beginning. +600 + + He answered a great many questions. The prosecutor introduced in evidence +Roark’s original drawings of Cortlandt, which Keating had kept; the copies which +Keating had made of them; and photographs of Cortlandt as it had been built. +"Why did you object so strenuously to the excellent structural changes suggested +by Mr. Prescott and Mr. Webb?" +"I was afraid of Howard Roark." +"What did your knowledge of his character lead you to expect?’ +"Anything." +"What do you mean?" +"I don’t know. I was afraid. I used to be afraid." +The questions went on. The story was unusual, but the audience felt bored. It +did not sound like the recital of a participant. The other witnesses had seemed +to have a more personal connection with the case. +When Keating left the stand, the audience had the odd impression that no change +had occurred in the act of a man’s exit; as if no person had walked out. +"The prosecution rests," said the District Attorney. +The judge looked at Roark. +"Proceed," he said. His voice was gentle. +Roark got up. "Your Honor, I shall call no witnesses. This will be my testimony +and my summation." +"Take the oath." +Roark took the oath. He stood by the steps of the witness stand. The audience +looked at him. They felt he had no chance. They could drop the nameless +resentment, the sense of insecurity which he aroused in most people. And so, for +the first time, they could see him as he was: a man totally innocent of fear. +The fear of which they thought was not the normal kind, not a response to a +tangible danger, but the chronic, unconfessed fear in which they all lived. They +remembered the misery of the moments when, in loneliness, a man thinks of the +bright words he could have said, but had not found, and hates those who robbed +him of his courage. The misery of knowing how strong and able one is in one’s +own mind, the radiant picture never to be made real. Dreams? Self-delusion? Or a +murdered reality, unborn, killed by that corroding emotion without +name--fear--need--dependence--hatred? +Roark stood before them as each man stands in the innocence of his own mind. But +Roark stood like that before a hostile crowd--and they knew suddenly that no +hatred was possible to him. For the flash of an instant, they grasped the manner +of his consciousness. Each asked himself: do I need anyone’s approval?--does it +matter?--am I tied? And for that instant, each man was free--free enough to feel +benevolence for every other man in the room. +It was only a moment; the moment of silence when Roark was about to speak. +"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was +601 + + probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was +considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But +thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their +caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness +off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was +probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered +a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could +travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he +had opened the roads of the world. +"That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every +legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a +rock and torn by vultures--because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was +condemned to suffer--because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. +Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that +its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage. +"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads +armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had +this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, +and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the +artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their +time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was +denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered +impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered +sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered +and they paid. But they won. +"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers +rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of +their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to +achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an +airplane or a building--that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, +read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The +creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. +The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things +and against all men. +"His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man’s spirit, +however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, +to judge, to act are functions of the ego. +"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power--that it +was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of +energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He +had lived for himself. +"And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the +glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement. +"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His +brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no +fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. +To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make +weapons--a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest +religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and +everything we have comes from a single attribute of man--the function of his +reasoning mind. +602 + + "But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a +collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement +reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many +individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process +of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many +men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to +breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the +functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred. +"We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We +make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. +But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product +of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this +product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty +cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, +individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn +from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can +give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of +survival. +"Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And +here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways--by +the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of +others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature +alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary. +"The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the +conquest of men. +"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is +within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become +his prime motive. +"The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work +under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to +any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in +motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary. +"The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to +be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve +others. He preaches altruism. +"Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place +others above self. +"No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share +his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation +and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every +precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue. +"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in +motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing +but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it +in reality--the man who lives to serve others--is the slave. If physical slavery +is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? +The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted +and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself +voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the +dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence +603 + + of altruism. +"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. +Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before +distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator +comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire +the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made +the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of +achievement. +"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of +others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give +relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make +suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others +suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The +creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the +creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and +spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever +conceive. +"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator +is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with +the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have +been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man +who stands alone. +"Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the +ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the +selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are +functions of the self. +"Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man +has been left no alternative--and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was +offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the +sacrifice of others to self. Altruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This +tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his +own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake +of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap +was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat +that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever +perpetrated on mankind. +"This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as +fundamentals of life. +"The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or +dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is +the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the +creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. +The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of +survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that +which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil. +"The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is +the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not +function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not +in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in +the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man--and he asks no +other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual +604 + + respect possible between men. +"Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree +of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines +his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of +human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or +hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no +standard of personal dignity except independence. +"In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An +architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. +They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men +exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their +personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not +desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This +is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a +relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner. +"No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job +is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect +requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to +vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his +proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. +But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches +them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual +property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men. +"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to +himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of +others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not +depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative +faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the +gangster, the altruist and the dictator. +"A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule--alone. +Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They +are the province of the second-hander. +"Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely +through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity +of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the +bandit. The form of dependence does not matter. +"But men were taught to regard second-handers--tyrants, emperors, dictators--as +exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, +themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or +to harness them. Which is a synonym. +"From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the +creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the +first second-hander responded. He invented altruism. +"The creator--denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited--went on, moved forward and +carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing +to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the +individual against the collective. +"The ’common good’ of a collective--a race, a class, a state--was the claim and +justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of +605 + + history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of +selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does +the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most +dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society +reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their +right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was +accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the +course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with +declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and +will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. +That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders +of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results. +"The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their +proper relationship is--Hands off! +"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. +This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of +greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was +not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of +altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own +happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the +results. Look into your own conscience. +"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was +destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the +progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, +ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free +from men. +"Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, +the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men +to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a +scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed +most of Europe. It is engulfing our country. +"I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is +built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live. +"Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt. +"I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it. +"I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double +monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated +by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had +not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general +implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights +and that I had no claim to stand against it. +"I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I designed +it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not +paid. +"I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his +employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would +be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the +integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague +intangible and an unessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was +606 + + the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless +it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s +property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man +among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one +was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all +collective action. +"I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what +they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as +cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their +satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me +contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of +this nature. +"It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten +that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who +were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, +in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants +gave them a right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. +That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the +second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world. +"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my +life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter +who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. +"I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others. +"It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. +"I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of +greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not +understand this are the men who’re destroying the world. +"I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others. +"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and +to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years +which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in +memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of +loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place. +"My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the +force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of +loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend--and to the battles +he won. To every creator whose name is known--and to every creator who lived, +struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator +who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To +a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and +knows that I am speaking of him." +Roark stood, his legs apart, his arms straight at his sides, his head lifted--as +he stood in an unfinished building. Later, when he was seated again at the +defense table, many men in the room felt as if they still saw him standing; one +moment’s picture that would not be replaced. +The picture remained in their minds through the long legal discussions that +followed. They heard the judge state to the prosecutor that the defendant had, +in effect, changed his plea: he had admitted his act, but had not pleaded guilty +607 + + of the crime; an issue of temporary legal insanity was raised; it was up to the +jury to decide whether the defendant knew the nature and quality of his act, or, +if he did, whether he knew that the act was wrong. The prosecutor raised no +objection; there was an odd silence in the room; he felt certain that he had won +his case already. He made his closing address. No one remembered what he said. +The judge gave his instructions to the jury. The jury rose and left the +courtroom. +People moved, preparing to depart, without haste, in expectation of many hours +of waiting. Wynand, at the back of the room, and Dominique, in the front, sat +without moving. +A bailiff stepped to Roark’s side to escort him out Roark stood by the defense +table. His eyes went to Dominique, then to Wynand. He turned and followed the +bailiff. +He had reached the door when there was a sharp crack of sound, and a space of +blank silence before people realized that it was a knock at the closed door of +the jury room. The jury had reached a verdict. +Those who had been on their feet remained standing, frozen, until the judge +returned to the bench. The jury filed into the courtroom. +"The prisoner will rise and face the jury," said the clerk of the court. +Howard Roark stepped forward and stood facing the jury. At the back of the room, +Gail Wynand got up and stood also. +"Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict?" +"We have." +"What is your verdict?" +"Not guilty." +The first movement of Roark’s head was not to look at the city in the window, at +the judge or at Dominique. He looked at Wynand. +Wynand turned sharply and walked out. He was the first man to leave the +courtroom. + +19. +ROGER ENRIGHT bought the site, the plans and the ruins of Cortlandt from the +government. He ordered every twisted remnant of foundations dug out to leave a +clean hole in the earth. He hired Howard Roark to rebuild the project. Placing a +single contractor in charge, observing the strict economy of the plans, Enright +budgeted the undertaking to set low rentals with a comfortable margin of profit +for himself. No questions were to be asked about the income, occupation, +children or diet of the future tenants; the project was open to anyone who +wished to move in and pay the rent, whether he could afford a more expensive +apartment elsewhere or not. +Late in August Gail Wynand was granted his divorce. The suit was not contested +and Dominique was not present at the brief hearing. Wynand stood like a man +608 + + facing a court-martial and heard the cold obscenity of legal language describing +the breakfast in a house of Monadnock Valley--Mrs. Gail Wynand--Howard Roark; +branding his wife as officially dishonored, granting him lawful sympathy, the +status of injured innocence, and a paper that was his passport to freedom for +all the years before him, and for all the silent evenings of those years. +Ellsworth Toohey won his case before the labor board. Wynand was ordered to +reinstate him in his job. +That afternoon Wynand’s secretary telephoned Toohey and told him that Mr. Wynand +expected him back at work tonight, before nine o’clock. Toohey smiled, dropping +the receiver. +Toohey smiled, entering the Banner Building that evening. He stopped in the city +room. He waved to people, shook hands, made witty remarks about some current +movies, and bore an air of guileless astonishment, as if he had been absent just +since yesterday and could not understand why people greeted him in the manner of +a triumphal homecoming. +Then he ambled on to his office. He stopped short. He knew, while stopping, that +he must enter, must not show the jolt, and that he had shown it: Wynand stood in +the open door of his office. +"Good evening, Mr. Toohey," said Wynand softly. "Come in." +"Hello, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey, his voice pleasant, reassured by feeling his +face muscles manage a smile and his legs walking on. +He entered and stopped uncertainly. It was his own office, unchanged, with his +typewriter and a stack of fresh paper on the desk. But the door remained open +and Wynand stood there silently, leaning against the jamb. +"Sit down at your desk, Mr. Toohey. Go to work. We must comply with the law." +Toohey gave a gay little shrug of acquiescence, crossed the room and sat down. +He put his hands on the desk surface, palms spread solidly, then dropped them to +his lap. He reached for a pencil, examined its point and dropped it +Wynand lifted one wrist slowly to the level of his chest and held it still, the +apex of a triangle made by his forearm and the long, drooping fingers of his +hand; he was looking down at his wrist watch. He said: +"It is ten minutes to nine. You are back on your job, Mr. Toohey." +"And I’m happy as a kid to be back. Honestly, Mr. Wynand, I suppose I shouldn’t +confess it, but I missed this place like all hell." +Wynand made no movement to go. He stood, slouched as usual, his shoulder blades +propped against the doorjamb, arms crossed on his chest, hands holding his +elbows. A lamp with a square shade of green glass burned on the desk, but there +was still daylight outside, streaks of tired brown on a lemon sky; the room held +a dismal sense of evening in the illumination that seemed both premature and too +feeble. The light made a puddle on the desk, but it could not shut out the +brown, half-dissolved shapes of the street, and it could not reach the door to +disarm Wynand’s presence. +The lamp shade rattled faintly and Toohey felt the nimble under his shoe soles: +the presses were rolling. He realized that he had heard them for some time. It +was a comforting sound, dependable and alive. The pulse beat of a newspaper--the +609 + + newspaper that transmits to men the pulse beat of the world. A long, even flow +of separate drops, like marbles rolling away in a straight line, like the sound +of a man’s heart. +Toohey moved a pencil over a sheet of paper, until he realized that the sheet +lay in the lamplight and Wynand could see the pencil making a water lily, a +teapot and a bearded profile. He dropped the pencil and made a self-mocking +sound with his lips. He opened a drawer and looked attentively at a pile of +carbons and paper clips. He did not know what he could possibly be expected to +do: one did not start writing a column just like that. He had wondered why he +should be asked to resume his duties at nine o’clock in the evening, but he had +supposed that it was Wynand’s manner of softening surrender by overdoing it, and +he had felt he could afford not to argue the point. +The presses were rolling; a man’s heartbeats gathered and re-broadcast. He heard +no other sound and he thought it was absurd to keep this up if Wynand had gone, +but most inadvisable to look in his direction if he hadn’t. +After a while he looked up. Wynand was still there. The light picked out two +white spots of his figure: the long fingers of one hand closed over an elbow, +and the high forehead. It was the forehead that Toohey wanted to see; no, there +were no slanting ridges over the eyebrows. The eyes made two solid white ovals, +faintly discernible in the angular shadows of the face. The ovals were directed +at Toohey. But there was nothing in the face; no indication of purpose. +After a while, Toohey said: +"Really, Mr. Wynand, there’s no reason why you and I can’t get together." +Wynand did not answer. +Toohey picked up a sheet of paper and inserted it in the typewriter. He sat +looking at the keys, holding his chin between two fingers, in the pose he knew +he assumed when preparing to attack a paragraph. The rims of the keys glittered +under the lamps, rings of bright nickel suspended in the dim room. +The presses stopped. +Toohey jerked back, automatically, before he knew why he had jerked: he was a +newspaperman and it was a sound that did not stop like that. +Wynand looked at his wrist watch. He said: +"It’s nine o’clock. You’re out of a job, Mr. Toohey. The Banner has ceased to +exist." +The next incident of reality Toohey apprehended was his own hand dropping down +on the typewriter keys: he heard the metal cough of the levers tangling and +striking together, and the small jump of the carriage. +He did not speak, but he thought his face was naked because he heard Wynand +answering him: +"Yes, you had worked here for thirteen years....Yes, I bought them all out, +Mitchell Layton included, two weeks ago...." The voice was indifferent. "No, the +boys in the city room didn’t know it. Only the boys in the pressroom...." +Toohey turned away. He picked up a paper clip, held it on his palm, then turned +his hand over and let the clip fall, observing with mild astonishment the +610 + + finality of the law mat had not permitted it to remain on his downturned palm. +He got up. He stood looking at Wynand, a stretch of gray carpet between them. +Wynand’s head moved, leaned slightly to one shoulder. Wynand’s face looked as if +no barrier were necessary now, it looked simple, it held no anger, the closed +lips were drawn in the hint of a smile of pain that was almost humble. +Wynand said: +"This was the end of the Banner....I think it’s proper that I should meet it +with you." +# +Many newspapers bid for the services of Ellsworth Monkton Toohey. He selected +the Courier, a paper of well-bred prestige and gently uncertain policy. +In the evening of his first day on the new job Ellsworth Toohey sat on the edge +of an associate editor’s desk and they talked about Mr. Talbot, the owner of the +Courier, whom Toohey had met but a few times. +"But Mr. Talbot as a man?" asked Ellsworth Toohey. "What’s his particular god? +What would he go to pieces without?" +In the radio room across the hall somebody was twisting a dial. "Time," blared a +solemn voice, "marches on!" +# +Roark sat at the drafting table in his office, working. The city beyond the +glass walls seemed lustrous, the air washed by the first cold of October. +The telephone rang. He held his pencil suspended in a jerk of impatience; the +telephone was never to ring when he was drawing. He walked to his desk and +picked up the receiver. +"Mr. Roark," said his secretary, the tense little note in her voice serving as +apology for a broken order, "Mr. Gail Wynand wishes to know whether it would be +convenient for you to come to his office at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon?" +She heard the faint buzz of silence in the receiver at her ear and counted many +seconds. +"Is he on the wire?" asked Roark. She knew it was not the phone connection that +made his voice sound like that. +"No, Mr. Roark. It’s Mr. Wynand’s secretary." +"Yes. Yes. Tell her yes." +He walked to the drafting table and looked down at the sketches; it was the +first desertion he had ever been forced to commit: he knew he would not be able +to work today. The weight of hope and relief together was too great. +When Roark approached the door of what had been the Banner Building, he saw that +the sign, the Banner’s masthead, was gone. Nothing replaced it. A discolored +rectangle was left over the door. He knew the building now contained the offices +of the Clarion and floors of empty rooms. The Clarion, a third-rate afternoon +tabloid, was the only representative of the Wynand chain in New York. +611 + + He walked to an elevator. He was glad to be the only passenger: he felt a +sudden, violent possessiveness for the small cage of steel; it was his, found +again, given back to him. The intensity of the relief told him the intensity of +the pain it had ended; the special pain, like no other in his life. +When he entered Wynand’s office, he knew that he had to accept that pain and +carry it forever, mat there was to be no cure and no hope. Wynand sat behind his +desk and rose when he entered, looking straight at him. Wynand’s face was more +than the face of a stranger: a stranger’s face is an unapproached potentiality, +to be opened if one makes the choice and effort; this was a face known, closed +and never to be reached again. A face that held no pain of renunciation, but the +stamp of the next step, when even pain is renounced. A face remote and quiet, +with a dignity of its own, not a living attribute, but the dignity of a figure +on a medieval tomb that speaks of past greatness and forbids a hand to reach out +for the remains. +"Mr. Roark, this interview is necessary, but very difficult for me. Please act +accordingly." +Roark knew that the last act of kindness he could offer was to claim no bond. He +knew he would break what was left of the man before him if he pronounced one +word: Gail. Roark answered: "Yes, Mr. Wynand." +Wynand picked up four typewritten sheets of paper and handed them across the +desk: +"Please read this and sign it if it meets with your approval." +"What is it?" +"Your contract to design the Wynand Building." Roark put the sheets down. He +could not hold them. He could not look at them. +"Please listen carefully, Mr. Roark. This must be explained and understood. I +wish to undertake the construction of the Wynand Building at once. I wish it to +be the tallest structure of the city. Do not discuss with me the question of +whether this is timely or economically advisable. I wish it built. It will be +used--which is all that concerns you. It will house the Clarion and all the +offices of the Wynand Enterprises now located in various parts of the city. The +rest of the space will be rented. I have sufficient standing left to guarantee +that. You need have no fear of erecting a useless structure. I shall send you a +written statement on all details and requirements. The rest will be up to you. +You will design the building as you wish. Your decisions will be final. They +will not require my approval. You will have full charge and complete authority. +This is stated in the contract. But I wish it understood that I shall not have +to see you. There will be an agent to represent me in all technical and +financial matters. You will deal with him. You will hold all further conferences +with him. Let him know what contractors you prefer chosen for the job. If you +find it necessary to communicate with me, you will do it through my agent. You +are not to expect or attempt to see me. Should you do so, you will be refused +admittance. I do not wish to speak to you. I do not wish ever to see you again. +If you are prepared to comply with these conditions, please read the contract +and sign it." +Roark reached for a pen and signed without looking at the paper. +"You have not read it," said Wynand. +Roark threw the paper across the desk. +612 + + "Please sign both copies." +Roark obeyed. +"Thank you," said Wynand, signed the sheets and handed one to Roark. "This is +your copy." +Roark slipped the paper into his pocket. +"I have not mentioned the financial part of the undertaking. It is an open +secret that the so-called Wynand empire is dead. It is sound and doing as well +as ever throughout the country, with the exception of New York City. It will +last my lifetime. But it will end with me. I intend to liquidate a great part of +it. You will, therefore, have no reason to limit yourself by any consideration +of costs in your design of the building. You are free to make it cost whatever +you find necessary. The building will remain long after the newsreels and +tabloids are gone." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +"I presume you will want to make the structure efficiently economical in +maintenance costs. But you do not have to consider the return of the original +investment. There’s no one to whom it must return." +"Yes, Mr. Wynand." +"If you consider the behavior of the world at present and the disaster toward +which it is moving you might find the undertaking preposterous. The age of the +skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a +prelude to the age of the cave. But you are not afraid of a gesture against the +whole world. This will be the last skyscraper ever built in New York. It is +proper that it should be so. The last achievement of man on earth before mankind +destroys itself." +"Mankind will never destroy itself, Mr. Wynand. Nor should it think of itself as +destroyed. Not so long as it does things such as this." +"As what?" +"As the Wynand Building." +"That is up to you. Dead things--such as the Banner--are only the financial +fertilizer that will make it possible. It is their proper function." +He picked up his copy of the contract, folded it and put it, with a precise +gesture, into his inside coat pocket. He said, with no change in the tone of his +voice: +"I told you once that this building was to be a monument to my life. There is +nothing to commemorate now. The Wynand Building will have nothing--except what +you give it." +He rose to his feet, indicating that the interview was ended. Roark got up and +inclined his head in parting. He held his head down a moment longer than a +formal bow required. +At the door he stopped and turned. Wynand stood behind his desk without moving. +They looked at each other. +613 + + Wynand said: +"Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been +mine." + +20. +ON A spring day, eighteen months later, Dominique walked to the construction +site of the Wynand Building. +She looked at the skyscrapers of the city. They rose from unexpected spots, out +of the low roof lines. They had a kind of startling suddenness, as if they had +sprung up the second before she saw them and she had caught the last thrust of +the motion; as if, were she to turn away and look again fast enough, she would +catch them in the act of springing. +She turned a corner of Hell’s Kitchen and came to the vast cleared tract. +Machines were crawling over the torn earth, grading the future park. From its +center, the skeleton of the Wynand Building rose, completed, to the sky. The top +part of the frame still hung naked, an intercrossed cage of steel. Glass and +masonry had followed its rise, covering the rest of the long streak slashed +through space. +She thought: They say the heart of the earth is made of fire. It is held +imprisoned and silent. But at times it breaks through the clay, the iron, the +granite, and shoots out to freedom. Then it becomes a thing like this. +She walked to the building. A wooden fence surrounded its lower stories. The +fence was bright with large signs advertising the names of the firms who had +supplied materials for the tallest structure in the world. "Steel by National +Steel, Inc." "Glass by Ludlow." "Electrical Equipment by Wells-Clairmont." +"Elevators by Kessler, Inc." "Nash & Dunning, Contractors." +She stopped. She saw an object she had never noticed before. The sight was like +the touch of a hand on her forehead, the hand of those figures in legend who had +the power to heal. She had not known Henry Cameron and she had not heard him say +it, but what she felt now was as if she were hearing it: "And I know that if you +carry these words through to the end, it will be a victory, Howard, not just for +you, but for something that should win, that moves the world--and never wins +acknowledgment. It will vindicate so many who have fallen before you, who have +suffered as you will suffer." +She saw, on the fence surrounding New York’s greatest building, a small tin +plate bearing the words: + +"Howard Roark, Architect" + +She walked to the superintendent’s shed. She had come here often to call for +Roark, to watch the progress of construction. But there was a new man in the +shed who did not know her. She asked for Roark. +"Mr. Roark is way up on top by the water tank. Who’s calling, ma’am?" +614 + + "Mrs. Roark," she answered. +The man found the superintendent who let her ride the outside hoist, as she +always did--a few planks with a rope for a railing, that rose up the side of the +building. +She stood, her hand lifted and closed about a cable, her high heels poised +firmly on the planks. The planks shuddered, a current of air pressed her skirt +to her body, and she saw the ground dropping softly away from her. +She rose above the broad panes of shop windows. The channels of streets grew +deeper, sinking. She rose above the marquees of movie theaters, black mats held +by spirals of color. Office windows streamed past her, long belts of glass +running down. The squat hulks of warehouses vanished, sinking with the treasures +they guarded. Hotel towers slanted, like the spokes of an opening fan, and +folded over. The fuming matchsticks were factory stacks and the moving gray +squares were cars. The sun made lighthouses of peaked summits, they reeled, +flashing long white rays over the city. The city spread out, marching in angular +rows to the rivers. It stood held between two thin black arms of water. It +leaped across and rolled away to a haze of plains and sky. +Flat roofs descended like pedals pressing the buildings down, out of the way of +her flight. She went past the cubes of glass that held dining rooms, bedrooms +and nurseries. She saw roof gardens float down like handkerchiefs spread on the +wind. Skyscrapers raced her and were left behind. The planks under her feet shot +past the antennae of radio stations. +The hoist swung like a pendulum above the city. It sped against the side of the +building. It had passed the line where the masonry ended behind her. There was +nothing behind her now but steel ligaments and space. She felt the height +pressing against her eardrums. The sun filled her eyes. The air beat against her +raised chin. +She saw him standing above her, on the top platform of the Wynand Building. He +waved to her. +The line of the ocean cut the sky. The ocean mounted as the city descended. She +passed the pinnacles of bank buildings. She passed the crowns of courthouses. +She rose above the spires of churches. +Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark. +The End + +615 + + + CONTENTS +PART I +NON-CONTRADICTION +I +II +III +IV +V +VI +VII +VIII +IX +X + +THE THEME +THE CHAIN +THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM +THE IMMOVABLE MOVERS +THE CLIMAX OF THE D'ANCONIAS +THE NON-COMMERCIAL +THE EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED +THE JOHN GALT LINE +THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE +WYATT'S TORCH + +PART II +EITHER-OR +I +II +III +IV +V +VI +VII +VIII +IX +X + +THE MAN WHO BELONGED ON EARTH +THE ARISTOCRACY OF PULL +WHITE BLACKMAIL +THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM +ACCOUNT OVERDRAWN +MIRACLE METAL +THE MORATORIUM ON BRAINS +BY OUR LOVE +THE FACE WITHOUT PAIN OR FEAR OR GUILT +THE SIGN OF THE DOLLAR + +PART III +A IS A +I +II +III +IV +V +VI +VII +VIII +IX +X + +ATLANTIS +THE UTOPIA OF GREED +ANTI-GREED +ANTI-LIFE +THEIR BROTHERS' KEEPERS +THE CONCERTO OF DELIVERANCE +"THIS IS JOHN GALT SPEAKING" +THE EGOIST +THE GENERATOR +IN THE NAME OF THE BEST WITHIN US + + PART I + +NON-CONTRADICTION + + CHAPTER I +THE THEME +"Who is John Galt?" +The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bum's +face. The bum had said it simply, without expression. But from the sunset far +at the end of the street, yellow glints caught his eyes, and the eyes looked +straight at Eddie Willers, mocking and still—as if the question had been +addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him. +"Why did you say that?" asked Eddie Willers, his voice tense. +The bum leaned against the side of the doorway; a wedge of broken glass +behind him reflected the metal yellow of the sky. +"Why does it bother you?" he asked. +"It doesn't," snapped Eddie Willers. +He reached hastily into his pocket. The bum had stopped him and asked for +a dime, then had gone on talking, as if to kill that moment and postpone the +problem of the next. Pleas for dimes were so frequent in the streets these +days that it was not necessary to listen to explanations, and he had no +desire to hear the details of this bum's particular despair. +"Go get your cup of coffee," he said, handing the dime to the shadow that +had no face. +"Thank you, sir," said the voice, without interest, and the face leaned +forward for a moment. The face was wind-browned, cut by lines of weariness +and cynical resignation; the eyes were intelligent. Eddie Willers walked on, +wondering why he always felt it at this time of day, this sense of dread +without reason. No, he thought, not dread, there's nothing to fear: just an +immense, diffused apprehension, with no source or object. He had become +accustomed to the feeling, but he could find no explanation for it; yet the +bum had spoken as if he knew that Eddie felt it, as if he thought that one +should feel it, and more: as if he knew the reason. +Eddie Willers pulled his shoulders straight, in conscientious selfdiscipline. He had to stop this, he thought; he was beginning to imagine +things. Had he always felt it? He was thirty-two years old. He tried to think +back. No, he hadn't; but he could not remember when it had started. The +feeling came to him Suddenly, at random intervals, and now it was coming more +often than ever. It's the twilight, he thought; I hate the twilight. +The clouds and the shafts of skyscrapers against them were turning brown, +like an old painting in oil, the color of a fading masterpiece. Long streaks +of grime ran from under the pinnacles down the slender, soot-eaten walls. +High on the side of a tower there was a crack in the shape of a motionless +lightning, the length of ten stories. A jagged object cut the sky above the +roofs; it was half a spire, still holding the glow of the sunset; the gold +leaf had long since peeled off the other half. The glow was red and still, +like the reflection of a fire: not an active fire, but a dying one which it +is too late to stop. +No, thought Eddie Willers, there was nothing disturbing in the sight of +the city. It looked as it had always looked. +He walked on, reminding himself that he was late in returning to the +office. He did not like the task which he had to perform on his return, but +it had to be done. So he did not attempt to delay it, but made himself walk +faster. +He turned a corner. In the narrow space between the dark silhouettes of +two buildings, as in the crack of a door, he saw the page of a gigantic +calendar suspended in the sky. +It was the calendar that the mayor of New York had erected last year on +the top of a building, so that citizens might tell the day of the month as +they told the hours of the day, by glancing up at a public tower. A white + + rectangle hung over the city, imparting the date to the men in the streets +below. In the rusty light of this evening's sunset, the rectangle said: +September 2. +Eddie Willers looked away. He had never liked the sight of that calendar. +It disturbed him, in a manner he could not explain or define. The feeling +seemed to blend with his sense of uneasiness; it had the same quality. +He thought suddenly that there was some phrase, a kind of quotation, that +expressed what the calendar seemed to suggest. But he could not recall it. He +walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He +could neither fill it nor dismiss it. He glanced back. The white rectangle +stood above the roofs, saying in immovable finality: September 2. +Eddie Willers shifted his glance down to the street, to a vegetable +pushcart at the stoop of a brownstone house. He saw a pile of bright gold +carrots and the fresh green of onions. He saw a clean white curtain blowing +at an open window. He saw a bus turning a corner, expertly steered. He +wondered why he felt reassured—and then, why he felt the sudden, inexplicable +wish that these things were not left in the open, unprotected against the +empty space above. +When he came to Fifth Avenue, he kept his eyes on the windows of the +stores he passed. There was nothing he needed or wished to buy; but he liked +to see the display of good?, any goods, objects made by men, to be used by +men. He enjoyed the sight of a prosperous street; not more than every fourth +one of the stores was out of business, its windows dark and empty. +He did not know why he suddenly thought of the oak tree. Nothing had +recalled it. But he thought of it and of his childhood summers on the Taggart +estate. He had spent most of his childhood with the Taggart children, and now +he worked for them, as his father and grandfather had worked for their father +and grandfather. +The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson, in a lonely spot +of the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, aged seven, liked to come and look at +that tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would +always stand there. Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk +into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he +would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole of the +earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak +tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was +his greatest symbol of strength. +One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it the next morning. +It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a +black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away +long ago; there was nothing inside—just a thin gray dust that was being +dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and +the shape it left had not been able to stand without it. +Years later, he heard it said that children should be protected from +shock, from their first knowledge of death, pain or fear. But these had never +scarred him; his shock came when he stood very quietly, looking into the +black hole of the trunk. It was an immense betrayal—the more terrible because +he could not grasp what it was that had been betrayed. It was not himself, he +knew, nor his trust; it was something else. He stood there for a while, +making no sound, then he walked back to the house. He never spoke about it to +anyone, then or since. +Eddie Willers shook his head, as the screech of a -rusty mechanism +changing a traffic light stopped him on the edge of a curb. He felt anger at +himself. There was no reason that he had to remember the oak tree tonight. It +meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness—and somewhere +within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on +the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark. + + He wanted no sadness attached to his childhood; he loved its memories: any +day of it he remembered now seemed flooded by a still, brilliant sunlight. It +seemed to him as if a few rays from it reached into his present: not rays, +more like pinpoint spotlights that gave an occasional moment's glitter to his +job, to his lonely apartment, to the quiet, scrupulous progression of his +existence. +He thought of a summer day when he was ten years old. That day, in a +clearing of the woods, the one precious companion of his childhood told him +what they would do when they grew up. The words were harsh and glowing, like +the sunlight. He listened in admiration and in wonder. When he was asked what +he would want to do, he answered at once, "Whatever is right," and added, +"You ought to do something great . . . I mean, the two of us together." +"What?" she asked. He said, "I don't know. That's what we ought to find out. +Not just what you said. Not just business and earning a living. Things like +winning battles, or saving people out of fires, or climbing mountains." "What +for?" she asked. He said, "The minister said last Sunday that we must always +reach for the best within us. What do you suppose is the best within us?" "I +don't know." "We'll have to find out." She did not answer; she was looking +away, up the railroad track. +Eddie Willers smiled. He had said, "Whatever is right," twenty-two years +ago. He had kept that statement unchallenged ever since; the other questions +had faded in his mind; he had been too busy to ask them. But he still thought +it self-evident that one had to do what was right; he had never learned how +people could want to do otherwise; he had learned only that they did. It +still seemed simple and incomprehensible to him: simple that things should be +right, and incomprehensible that they weren't. He knew that they weren't. He +thought of that, as he turned a corner and came to the great building of +Taggart Transcontinental. +The building stood over the street as its tallest and proudest structure. +Eddie Willers always smiled at his first sight of it. Its long bands of +windows were unbroken, in contrast to those of its neighbors. Its rising +lines cut the sky, with no crumbling corners or worn edges. It seemed to +stand above the years, untouched. It would always stand there, thought Eddie +Willers. +Whenever he entered the Taggart Building, he felt relief and a sense of +security. This was a place of competence and power. The floors of its +hallways were mirrors made of marble. The frosted rectangles of its electric +fixtures were chips of solid light. Behind sheets of glass, rows of girls sat +at typewriters, the clicking of their keys like the sound of speeding train +wheels. And like an answering echo, a faint shudder went through the walls at +times, rising from under the building, from the tunnels of the great terminal +where trains started out to cross a continent and stopped after crossing it +again, as they had started and stopped for generation after generation. +Taggart Transcontinental, thought Eddie Willers, From Ocean to Ocean—the +proud slogan of his childhood, so much more shining and holy than any +commandment of the Bible. From Ocean to Ocean, forever—thought Eddie Willers, +in the manner of a rededication, as he walked through the spotless halls into +the heart of the building, into the office of James Taggart, President of +Taggart Transcontinental. +James Taggart sat at his desk. He looked like a man approaching fifty, who +had crossed into age from adolescence, without the intermediate stage of +youth. He had a small, petulant mouth, and thin hair clinging to a bald +forehead. His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance +of his tall, slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the +confident poise of an aristocrat, but transformed into the gawkiness of a +lout. The flesh of his face was pale and soft. His eyes were pale and veiled, +with a glance that moved slowly, never quite stopping, gliding off and past + + things in eternal resentment of their existence. He looked obstinate and +drained. He was thirty-nine years old. +He lifted his head with irritation, at the sound of the opening door. +"Don't bother me, don't bother me, don't bother me," said James Taggart. +Eddie Willers walked toward the-desk. +"It's important, Jim," he said, not raising his voice. +"All right, all right, what is it?" +Eddie Willers looked at a map on the wall of the office. The map's colors +had faded under the glass—he wondered dimly how many Taggart presidents had +sat before it and for how many years. The Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, +the network of red lines slashing the faded body of the country from New York +to San Francisco, looked like a system of blood vessels. It looked as if +once, long ago, the blood had shot down the main artery and, under the +pressure of its own overabundance, had branched out at random points, running +all over the country. One red streak twisted its way from Cheyenne, Wyoming, +down to El Paso, Texas—the Rio Norte Line of Taggart Transcontinental. New +tracing had been added recently and the red streak had been extended south +beyond El Paso—but Eddie Willers turned away hastily when his eyes reached +that point. +He looked at James Taggart and said, "It's the Rio Norte Line." He noticed +Taggart's glance moving down to a corner of the desk. "We've had another +wreck." +"Railroad accidents happen every day. Did you have to bother me about +that?" +"You know what I'm saying, Jim. The Rio Norte is done for. That track is +shot. Down the whole line." +"We are getting a new track." +Eddie Willers continued as if there had been no answer: "That track is +shot. It's no use trying to run trains down there. People are giving up +trying to use them." +"There is not a railroad in the country, it seems to me, that doesn't have +a few branches running at a deficit. We're not the only ones. It's a national +condition—a temporary national condition." +Eddie stood looking at him silently. What Taggart disliked about Eddie +Willers was this habit of looking straight into people's eyes. Eddie's eyes +were blue, wide and questioning; he had blond hair and a square face, +unremarkable except for that look of scrupulous attentiveness and open, +puzzled wonder. +"What do you want?" snapped Taggart. +"I just came to tell you something you had to know, because somebody had +to tell you." +"That we've had another accident?" +"That we can't give up the Rio Norte Line." +James Taggart seldom raised his head; when he looked at people, he did so +by lifting his heavy eyelids and staring upward from under the expanse of his +bald forehead. +"Who's thinking of giving up the Rio Norte Line?" he asked. +"There's never been any question of giving it up. I resent your saying it. +I resent it very much." +"But we haven't met a schedule for the last six months. We haven't +completed a run without some sort of breakdown, major or minor. We're losing +all our shippers, one after another. How long can we last?" +"You're a pessimist, Eddie. You lack faith. That's what undermines the +morale of an organization." +"You mean that nothing's going to be done about the Rio Norte Line?" +"I haven't said that at all. Just as soon as we get the new track-" + + "Jim, there isn't going to be any new track." He watched Taggart's eyelids +move up slowly. "I've just come back from the office of Associated Steel. +I've spoken to Orren Boyle." +"What did he say?" +"He spoke for an hour and a half and did not give me a single straight +answer." +"What did you bother him for? I believe the first order of rail wasn't due +for delivery until next month." +"And before that, it was due for delivery three months ago." +"Unforeseen circumstances. Absolutely beyond Orren's control." +"And before that, it was due six months earlier. Jim, we have waited for +Associated Steel to deliver that rail for thirteen months." +"What do you want me to do? I can't run Orren Boyle's business." +"I want you to understand that we can't wait." +Taggart asked slowly, his voice half-mocking, half-cautious, "What did my +sister say?" +"She won't be back until tomorrow." +"Well, what do you want me to do?" +"That's for you to decide." +"Well, whatever else you say, there's one thing you're not going to +mention next—and that's Rearden Steel." +Eddie did not answer at once, then said quietly, "All right, Jim. I won't +mention it." +"Orren is my friend." He heard no answer. "I resent your attitude. Orren +Boyle will deliver that rail just as soon as it's humanly possible. So long +as he can't deliver it, nobody can blame us." +"Jim! What are you talking about? Don't you understand that the Rio Norte +Line is breaking up—whether anybody blames us or not?" +"People would put up with it—they'd have to—if it weren't for the PhoenixDurango." He saw Eddie's face tighten. "Nobody ever complained about the Rio +Norte Line, until the Phoenix-Durango came on the scene." +"The Phoenix-Durango is doing a brilliant job." +"Imagine a thing called the Phoenix-Durango competing with Taggart +Transcontinental! It was nothing but a local milk line ten years ago." +"It's got most of the freight traffic of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado +now." Taggart did not answer. "Jim, we can't lose Colorado. It's our last +hope. It's everybody's last hope. If we don't pull ourselves together, we'll +lose every big shipper in the state to the Phoenix-Durango. We've lost the +Wyatt oil fields." +"I don't see why everybody keeps talking about the Wyatt oil fields." +"Because Ellis Wyatt is a prodigy who—" +"Damn Ellis Wyatt!" +Those oil wells, Eddie thought suddenly, didn't they have something in +common with the blood vessels on the map? Wasn't that the way the red stream +of Taggart Transcontinental had shot across the country, years ago, a feat +that seemed incredible now? He thought of the oil wells spouting a black +stream that ran over a continent almost faster than the trains of the +Phoenix-Durango could carry it. That oil field had been only a rocky patch in +the mountains of Colorado, given up as exhausted long ago. Ellis Wyatt's +father had managed to squeeze an obscure living to the end of his days, out +of the dying oil wells. Now it was as if somebody had given a shot of +adrenalin to the heart of the mountain, the heart had started pumping, the +black blood had burst through the rocks—of course it's blood, thought Eddie +Willers, because blood is supposed to feed, to give life, and that is what +Wyatt Oil had done. It had shocked empty slopes of ground into sudden +existence, it had brought new towns, new power plants, new factories to a +region nobody had ever noticed on any map. New factories, thought Eddie + + Willers, at a time when the freight revenues from all the great old +industries were dropping slowly year by year; a rich new oil field, at a time +when the pumps were stopping in one famous field after another; a new +industrial state where nobody had expected anything but cattle and beets. One +man had done it, and he had done it in eight years; this, thought Eddie +Willers, was like the stories he had read in school books and never quite +believed, the stories of men who had lived in the days of the country's +youth. He wished he could meet Ellis Wyatt. There was a great deal of talk +about him, but few had ever met him; he seldom came to New York. They said he +was thirty-three years old and had a violent temper. He had discovered some +way to revive exhausted oil wells and he had proceeded to revive them. +"Ellis Wyatt is a greedy bastard who's after nothing but money," said +James Taggart. "It seems to me that there are more important things in life +than making money." +"What are you talking about, Jim? What has that got to do with—" +"Besides, he's double-crossed us. We served the Wyatt oil fields for +years, most adequately. In the days of old man Wyatt, we ran a tank train a +week." +"These are not the days of old man Wyatt, Jim. The Phoenix-Durango runs +two tank trains a day down there—and it runs them on schedule." +"If he had given us time to grow along with him—" +"He has no time to waste." +"What does he expect? That we drop all our other shippers, sacrifice the +interests of the whole country and give him all our trains?" +"Why, no. He doesn't expect anything. He just deals with the PhoenixDurango." +"I think he's a destructive, unscrupulous ruffian. I think he's an +irresponsible upstart who's been grossly overrated." It was astonishing to +hear a sudden emotion in James Taggart's lifeless voice. "I'm not so sure +that his oil fields are such a beneficial achievement. It seems to me that +he's dislocated the economy of the whole country. Nobody expected Colorado to +become an industrial state. How can we have any security or plan anything if +everything changes all the time?" +"Good God, Jim! He's—" +"Yes, I know, I know, he's making money. But that is not the standard, it +seems to me, by which one gauges a man's value to society. And as for his +oil, he'd come crawling to us. and he'd wait his turn along with all the +other shippers, and he wouldn't demand more than his fair share of +transportation—if it weren't for the Phoenix-Durango. We can't help it if +we're up against destructive competition of that kind. Nobody can blame us." +The pressure in his chest and temples, thought Eddie Willers, was the +strain of the effort he was making; he had decided to make the issue clear +for once, and the issue was so clear, he thought, that nothing could bar it +from Taggart's understanding, unless it was the failure of his own +presentation. So he had tried hard, but he was failing, just as he had always +failed in all of their discussions; no matter what he said, they never seemed +to be talking about the same subject. +"Jim, what are you saying? Does it matter that nobody blames us—when the +road is falling apart?" +James Taggart smiled; it was a thin smile, amused and cold. "It's +touching, Eddie," he said. "It's touching—your devotion to Taggart +Transcontinental. If you don’t look out, you’ll turn into one of those real +feudal serfs." +"That’s what I am, Jim." +"But may I ask whether it is your job to discuss these matters with me?" +"No, it isn't." + + "Then why don't you learn that we have departments to take care of things? +Why don't you report all this to whoever's concerned? Why don't you cry on my +dear sister's shoulder?" +"Look. Jim, I know it's not my place to talk to you. But I can't +understand what's going on. I don't know what it is that your proper advisers +tell you, or why they can't make you understand. So I thought I'd try to tell +you myself." +"I appreciate our childhood friendship, Eddie, but do you think that that +should entitle you to walk in here unannounced whenever you wish? Considering +your own rank, shouldn't you remember that I am president of Taggart +Transcontinental?" +This was wasted. Eddie Willers looked at him as usual, not hurt, merely +puzzled, and asked, "Then you don't intend to do anything about the Rio Norte +Line?" +"I haven't said that. I haven't said that at all." Taggart was looking at +the map, at the red streak south of El Paso. "Just as soon as the San +Sebastian Mines get going and our Mexican branch begins to pay off—" +"Don't let's talk about that, Jim." Taggart turned, startled by the +unprecedented phenomenon of an implacable anger in Eddie's voice. "What's the +matter?" +"You know what's the matter. Your sister said—" +"Damn my sister!" said James Taggart. +Eddie Willers did not move. He did not answer. He stood looking straight +ahead. But he did not see James Taggart or anything in the office. +After a moment, he bowed and walked out. +In the anteroom, the clerks of James Taggart's personal staff were +switching off the lights, getting ready to leave for the day. But Pop Harper, +chief clerk, still sat at his desk, twisting the levers of a half-dismembered +typewriter. Everybody in the company had the impression that Pop Harper was +born in that particular corner at that particular desk and never intended to +leave it. He had been chief clerk for James Taggart's father. +Pop Harper glanced up at Eddie Willers as he came out of the president's +office. It was a wise, slow glance; it seemed to say that he knew that +Eddie's visit to their part of the building meant trouble on the line, knew +that nothing had come of the visit, and was completely indifferent to the +knowledge. It was the cynical indifference which Eddie Willers had seen in +the eyes of the bum on the street corner. +"Say, Eddie, know where I could get some woolen undershirts?" he asked, +"Tried all over town, but nobody's got 'em." +"I don't know," said Eddie, stopping. "Why do you ask me?" +"I just ask everybody. Maybe somebody'!! tell me." +Eddie looked uneasily at the blank, emaciated face and white hair. +"It's cold in this joint," said Pop Harper. "It's going to be colder this +winter." +"What are you doing?" Eddie asked, pointing at the pieces of typewriter. +"The damn thing's busted again. No use sending it out, took them three +months to fix it the last time. Thought I'd patch it up myself. Not for long, +I guess." He let his fist drop down on the keys. "You're ready for the junk +pile, old pal. Your days are numbered." +Eddie started. That was the sentence he had tried to remember: Your days +are numbered. But he had forgotten in what connection he had tried to +remember it. +"It's no use, Eddie," said Pop Harper. +"What's no use?" +"Nothing. Anything." +"What's the matter, Pop?" + + "I'm not going to requisition a new typewriter. The new ones are made of +tin. When the old ones go, that will be the end of typewriting. There was an +accident in the subway this morning, their brakes wouldn't work. You ought to +go home, Eddie, turn on the radio and listen to a good dance band. Forget it, +boy. Trouble with you is you never had a hobby. Somebody stole the electric +light bulbs again, from off the staircase, down where I live. I've got a pain +in my chest. Couldn't get any cough drops this morning, the drugstore on our +corner went bankrupt last week. The Texas-Western Railroad went bankrupt last +month. They closed the Queensborough Bridge yesterday for temporary repairs. +Oh well, what's the use? Who is John Galt?" +* * * +She sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back, one leg +stretched across to the empty seat before her. The window frame trembled with +the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light +slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while. +Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line +running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a highheeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty +train car and oddly incongruous with the rest of her. She wore a battered +camel's hair coat that had been expensive, wrapped shapelessly about her +slender, nervous body. The coat collar was raised to the slanting brim of her +hat. A sweep of brown hair fell back, almost touching the line of her +shoulders. Her face was made of angular planes, the shape of her mouth clearcut, a sensual mouth held closed with inflexible precision. She kept her +hands in the coat pockets, her posture taut, as if she resented immobility, +and unfeminine, as if she were unconscious of her own body and that it was a +woman's body. She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. +The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, +they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody +every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst +of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of +release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing +but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds +spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing +astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there +never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. +She thought: For just a few moments—while this lasts—it is all right to +surrender completely—to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. +She thought: Let go—drop the controls—this is it. +Somewhere on the edge of her mind, under the music, she heard the sound of +train wheels. They knocked in an even rhythm, every fourth knock accented, as +if stressing a conscious purpose. She could relax, because she heard the +wheels. She listened to the symphony, thinking: This is why the wheels have +to be kept going, and this is where they're going. +She had never heard that symphony before, but she knew that it was written +by Richard Halley. She recognized the violence and the magnificent intensity. +She recognized the style of the theme; it was a clear, complex melody—at a +time when no one wrote melody any longer. . . . She sat looking up at the +ceiling of the car, but she did not see it and she had forgotten where she +was. She did not know whether she was hearing a full symphony orchestra or +only the theme; perhaps she was hearing the orchestration in her own mind. +She thought dimly that there had been premonitory echoes of this theme in +all of Richard Halley's work, through all the years of his long struggle, to +the day, in his middle-age, when fame struck him suddenly and knocked him +out. This—she thought, listening to the symphony— had been the goal of his + + struggle. She remembered half-hinted attempts in his music, phrases that +promised it, broken bits of melody that started but never quite reached it; +when Richard Halley wrote this, he . . . She sat up straight. When did +Richard Halley write this? +In the same instant, she realized where she was and wondered for the first +time where that music came from. +A few steps away, at the end of the car, a brakeman was adjusting the +controls of the air-conditioner. He was blond and young. He was whistling the +theme of the symphony. She realized that he had been whistling it for some +time and that this was all she had heard. +She watched him incredulously for a while, before she raised her voice to +ask, "Tell me please, what are you whistling?" +The boy turned to her. She met a direct glance and saw an open, eager +smile, as if he were sharing a confidence with a friend. She liked his face— +its lines were tight and firm, it did not have that look of loose muscles +evading the responsibility of a shape, which she had learned to expect in +people's faces. +"It's the Halley Concerto," he answered, smiling. +"Which one?" +"The Fifth." +She let a moment pass, before she said slowly and very carefully, "Richard +Halley wrote only four concertos." +The boy's smile vanished. It was as if he were jolted back to reality, +just as she had been a few moments ago. It was as if a shutter were slammed +down, and what remained was a face without expression, impersonal, +indifferent and empty. +"Yes, of course," he said. "I'm wrong. I made a mistake." +"Then what was it?" +"Something I heard somewhere." +"What?" +"I don't know." +"Where did you hear it?" +"I don't remember." +She paused helplessly; he was turning away from her without further +interest. +"It sounded like a Halley theme," she said. "But I know every note he's +ever written and he never wrote that." +There was still no expression, only a faint look of attentiveness on the +boy's face, as he turned back to her and asked, "You like the music of +Richard Halley?" +"Yes," she said, "I like it very much." +He considered her for a moment, as if hesitating, then he turned away. She +watched the expert efficiency of his movements as he went on working. He +worked in silence. +She had not slept for two nights, but she could not permit herself to +sleep; she had too many problems to consider and not much time: the train was +due in New York early in the morning. She needed the time, yet she wished the +train would go faster; but it was the Taggart Comet, the fastest train in the +country. +She tried to think; but the music remained on the edge of her mind and she +kept hearing it, in full chords, like the implacable steps of something that +could not be stopped. . . . She shook her head angrily, jerked her hat off +and lighted a cigarette. +She would not sleep, she thought; she could last until tomorrow night. . . +. The train wheels clicked in accented rhythm. She was so used to them that +she did not hear them consciously, but the sound became a sense of peace +within her. . . . When she extinguished her cigarette, she knew that she + + needed another one, but thought that she would give herself a minute, just a +few minutes, before she would light it. . . . +She had fallen asleep and she awakened with a jolt, knowing that something +was wrong, before she knew what it was: the wheels had stopped. The car stood +soundless and dim in the blue glow of the night lamps. She glanced at her +watch: there was no reason for stopping. She looked out the window: the train +stood still in the middle of empty fields. +She heard someone moving in a seat across the aisle, and asked, "How long +have we been standing?" +A man's voice answered indifferently, "About an hour." The man looked +after her, sleepily astonished, because she leaped to her feet and rushed to +the door. There was a cold wind outside, and an empty stretch of land under +an empty sky. She heard weeds rustling in the darkness. Far ahead, she saw +the figures of men standing by the engine—and above them, hanging detached in +the sky, the red light of a signal. +She walked rapidly toward them, past the motionless line of wheels. No one +paid attention to her when she approached. The train crew and a few +passengers stood clustered under the red light. They had stopped talking, +they seemed to be waiting in placid indifference. +"What's the matter?" she asked. +The engineer turned, astonished. Her question had sounded like an order, +not like the amateur curiosity of a passenger. She stood, hands in pockets, +coat collar raised, the wind beating her hair in strands across her face. +"Red light, lady," he said, pointing up with his thumb. +"How long has it been on?" +"An hour." +"We're off the main track, aren't we?" +"That's right." +"Why?" +"I don't know." +The conductor spoke up. "I don't think we had any business being sent off +on a siding, that switch wasn't working right, and this thing's not working +at all." He jerked his head up at the red light. "I don't think the signal's +going to change. I think it's busted." +"Then what are you doing?" +"Waiting for it to change." +In her pause of startled anger, the fireman chuckled. "Last week, the +crack special of the Atlantic Southern got left on a siding for two hours— +just somebody's mistake." +"This is the Taggart Comet," she said. "The Comet has never been late." +"She's the only one in the country that hasn't," said the engineer. +"There's always a first time," said the fireman. +"You don't know about railroads, lady," said a passenger. +"There's not a signal system or a dispatcher in the country that's worth a +damn." +She did not turn or notice him, but spoke to the engineer. +"If you know that the signal is broken, what do you intend to do?" +He did not like her tone of authority, and he could not understand why she +assumed it so naturally. She looked like a young girl; only her mouth and +eyes showed that she was a woman in her thirties. The dark gray eyes were +direct and disturbing, as if they cut through things, throwing the +inconsequential out of the way. The face seemed faintly familiar to him, but +he could not recall where he had seen it. +"Lady, I don't intend to stick my neck out," he said. +"He means," said the fireman, "that our job's to wait for orders." +"Your job is to run this train." +"Not against a red light. If the light says stop, we stop." + + "A red light means danger, lady," said the passenger. +"We're not taking any chances," said the engineer. "Whoever's responsible +for it, he'll switch the blame to us if we move. So we're not moving till +somebody tells us to." +"And if nobody does?" +"Somebody will turn up sooner or later." +"How long do you propose to wait?" +The engineer shrugged. "Who is John Galt?" +"He means," said the fireman, "don't ask questions nobody can answer." +She looked at the red light and at the rail that went off into the black, +untouched distance. +She said, "Proceed with caution to the next signal. If it's in order, +proceed to the main track. Then stop at the first open office." +"Yeah? Who says so?" +"I do." +"Who are you?" +It was only the briefest pause, a moment of astonishment at a question she +had not expected, but the engineer looked more closely at her face, and in +time with her answer he gasped, "Good God!" +She answered, not offensively, merely like a person who does not hear the +question often: "Dagny Taggart." +"Well, I'll be—" said the fireman, and then they all remained silent. She +went on, in the same tone of unstressed authority. "Proceed to the main track +and hold the train for me at the first open office." +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +"You'll have to make up time. You've got the rest of the night to do it. +Get the Comet in on schedule." +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +She was turning to go, when the engineer asked, "If there's any trouble, +are you taking the responsibility for it, Miss Taggart?" +"I am." +The conductor followed her as she walked back to her car. He was saying, +bewildered, "But . . . just a seat in a day coach, Miss Taggart? But how +come? But why didn't you let us know?" +She smiled easily. "Had no time to be formal. Had my own car attached to +Number 22 out of Chicago, but got off at Cleveland—and Number 22 was running +late, so I let the car go. The Comet came next and I took it. There was no +sleeping-car space left." +The conductor shook his head. "Your brother—he wouldn't have taken a +coach." +She laughed. "No, he wouldn't have." +The men by the engine watched her walking away. The young brakeman was +among them. He asked, pointing after her, "Who is that?" +"That's who runs Taggart Transcontinental," said the engineer; the respect +in his voice was genuine. "That's the Vice-president in Charge of Operation." +When the train jolted forward, the blast of its whistle dying over the +fields, she sat by the window, lighting another cigarette. She thought: It's +cracking to pieces, like this, all over the country, you can expect it +anywhere, at any moment. But she felt no anger or anxiety; she had no time to +feel. +This would be just one more issue, to be settled along with the others. +She knew that the superintendent of the Ohio Division was no good and that he +was a friend of James Taggart. She had not insisted on throwing him out long +ago only because she had no better man to put in his place. Good men were so +strangely hard to find. But she would have to get rid of him, she thought, +and she would give his post to Owen Kellogg, the young engineer who was doing +a brilliant job as one of the assistants to the manager of the Taggart + + Terminal in New York; it was Owen Kellogg who ran the Terminal. She had +watched his work for some time; she had always looked for sparks of +competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland. Kellogg +was still too young to be made superintendent of a division; she had wanted +to give him another year, but there was no time to wait. She would have to +speak to him as soon as she returned. +The strip of earth, faintly visible outside the window, was running faster +now, blending into a gray stream. Through the dry phrases of calculations in +her mind, she noticed that she did have time to feel something: it was the +hard, exhilarating pleasure of action. +* * * +With the first whistling rush of air, as the Comet plunged into the +tunnels of the Taggart Terminal under the city of New York, Dagny Taggart sat +up straight. She always felt it when the train went underground—this sense of +eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. It was as if normal existence +were a photograph of shapeless things in badly printed colors, but this was a +sketch done in a few sharp strokes that made things seem clean, important—and +worth doing. +She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net +of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green +and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else, +nothing to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the +ingenuity that had achieved it. She thought of the Taggart Building standing +above her head at this moment, growing straight to the sky, and she thought: +These are the roots of the building, hollow roots twisting under the ground, +feeding the city. +When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the +platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. +She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give +form to the things she felt. It was a few moments before she realized that +she was whistling a piece of music—and that it was the theme of Halley's +Fifth Concerto. She felt someone looking at her and turned. The young +brakeman stood watching her tensely. +She sat on the arm of the big chair facing James Taggart's desk, her coat +thrown open over a wrinkled traveling suit. Eddie Willers sat across the +room, making notes once in a while. His title was that of Special Assistant +to the Vice-President in Charge of Operation, and his main duty was to be her +bodyguard against any waste of time. She asked him to be present at +interviews of this nature, because then she never had to explain anything to +him afterwards. James Taggart sat at his desk, his head drawn into his +shoulders. +"The Rio Norte Line is a pile of junk from one end to the other," she +said. "It's much worse than I thought. But we're going to save it." +"Of course," said James Taggart. +"Some of the rail can be salvaged. Not much and not for long. We'll start +laying new rail in the mountain sections, Colorado first. We'll get the new +rail in two months." +"Oh, did Orren Boyle say he'll—" +"I've ordered the rail from Rearden Steel." +The slight, choked sound from Eddie Willers was his suppressed desire to +cheer. +James Taggart did not answer at once. "Dagny, why don't you sit in the +chair as one is supposed to?" he said at last; his voice was petulant. +"Nobody holds business conferences this way." +"I do." + + She waited. He asked, his eyes avoiding hers, "Did you say that you have +ordered the rail from Rearden?" +"Yesterday evening. I phoned him from Cleveland." +"But the Board hasn't authorized it. I haven't authorized it. You haven't +consulted me." +She reached over, picked up the receiver of a telephone on his desk and +handed it to him. +"Call Rearden and cancel it," she said. +James Taggart moved back in his chair. "I haven't said that," he answered +angrily. "I haven't said that at all." +"Then it stands?" +"I haven't said that, either." +She turned. "Eddie, have them draw up the contract with Rearden Steel. Jim +will sign it." She took a crumpled piece of notepaper from her pocket and +tossed it to Eddie. "There's the figures and terms." +Taggart said, "But the Board hasn't—" +"The Board hasn't anything to do with it. They authorized you to buy the +rail thirteen months ago. Where you buy it is up to you." +"I don't think it's proper to make such a decision without giving the +Board a chance to express an opinion. And I don't see why I should be made to +take the responsibility." +"I am taking it.” +"What about the expenditure which—" +"Rearden is charging less than Orren Boyle's Associated Steel." +"Yes, and what about Orren Boyle?" +"I've cancelled the contract. We had the right to cancel it six months +ago." +"When did you do that?" +"Yesterday." +"But he hasn't called to have me confirm it." +"He won't." +Taggart sat looking down at his desk. She wondered why he resented the +necessity of dealing with Rearden, and why his resentment had such an odd, +evasive quality. Rearden Steel had been the chief supplier of Taggart +Transcontinental for ten years, ever since the first Rearden furnace was +fired, in the days when their father was president of the railroad. For ten +years, most of their rail had come from Rearden Steel. There were not many +firms in the country who delivered what was ordered, when and as ordered. +Rearden Steel was one of them. +If she were insane, thought Dagny, she would conclude that her brother +hated to deal with Rearden because Rearden did his job with superlative +efficiency; but she would not conclude it, because she thought that such a +feeling was not within the humanly possible. +"It isn't fair," said James Taggart. +"What isn't?" +"That we always give all our business to Rearden. It seems to me we should +give somebody else a chance, too. Rearden doesn't need us; he's plenty big +enough. We ought to help the smaller fellows to develop. Otherwise, we're +just encouraging a monopoly." +"Don't talk tripe, Jim," +"Why do we always have to get things from Rearden?" +"Because we always get them." +"I don't like Henry Rearden." +"I do. But what does that matter, one way or the other? We need rails and +he's the only one who can give them to us." +"The human element is very important. You have no sense of the human +element at all." + + "We're talking about saving a railroad, Jim." +"Yes, of course, of course, but still, you haven't any sense of the human +element." +"No. I haven't." +"If we give Rearden such a large order for steel rails—" +"They're not going to be steel. They're Rearden Metal." +She had always avoided personal reactions, but she was forced to break her +rule when she saw the expression on Taggart's face. She burst out laughing. +Rearden Metal was a new alloy, produced by Rearden after ten years of +experiments. He had placed it on the market recently. He had received no +orders and had found no customers. +Taggart could not understand the transition from the laughter to the +sudden tone of Dagny's voice; the voice was cold and harsh: "Drop it, Jim. I +know everything you're going to say. Nobody's ever used it before. Nobody +approves of Rearden Metal. Nobody's interested in it. Nobody wants it. Still, +our rails are going to be made of Rearden Metal." +"But . . ." said Taggart, "but . . . but nobody's ever used it before!" +He observed, with satisfaction, that she was silenced by anger. He liked +to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark +unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points. But how one +could feel a personal emotion about a metal alloy, and what such an emotion +indicated, was incomprehensible to him; so he could make no use of his +discovery. +"The consensus of the best metallurgical authorities," he said, "seems to +be highly skeptical about Rearden Metal, contending—" +"Drop it, Jim." +"Well, whose opinion did you take?" +"I don't ask for opinions." +"What do you go by?" +"Judgment." +"Well, whose judgment did you take?" +"Mine." +"But whom did you consult about it?" +"Nobody." +"Then what on earth do you know about Rearden Metal?" +"That it's the greatest thing ever put on the market." +"Why?" +"Because it's tougher than steel, cheaper than steel and will outlast any +hunk of metal in existence." +"But who says so?" +"Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them." +"What did you see?" +"Rearden's formula and the tests he showed me." +"Well, if it were any good, somebody would have used it, and nobody has." +He saw the flash of anger, and went on nervously: "How can you know it's +good? How can you be sure? How can you decide?" +"Somebody decides such things, Jim. Who?" +"Well, I don't see why we have to be the first ones. I don't see it at +all." +"Do you want to save the Rio Norte Line or not?" He did not answer, "If +the road could afford it, I would scrap every piece of rail over the whole +system and replace it with Rearden Metal. All of it needs replacing. None of +it will last much longer. But we can't afford it. We have to get out of a bad +hole, first. Do you want us to pull through or not?" +"We're still the best railroad in the country. The others are doing much +worse." +"Then do you want us to remain in the hole?" + + "I haven't said that! Why do you always oversimplify things that way? And +if you're worried about money, I don't see why you want to waste it on the +Rio Norte Line, when the Phoenix-Durango has robbed us of all our business +down there. Why spend money when we have no protection against a competitor +who'll destroy our investment?" +"Because the Phoenix-Durango is an excellent railroad, but I intend to +make the Rio Norte Line better than that. Because I'm going to beat the +Phoenix-Durango, if necessary—only it won't be necessary, because there will +be room for two or three railroads to make fortunes in Colorado. Because I'd +mortgage the system to build a branch to any district around Ellis Wyatt." +"I'm sick of hearing about Ellis Wyatt." +He did not like the way her eyes moved to look at him and remained still, +looking, for a moment. +"I don't see any need for immediate action," he said; he sounded offended. +"Just what do you consider so alarming in the present situation of Taggart +Transcontinental?" +"The consequences of your policies, Jim." +"Which policies?" +"That thirteen months' experiment with Associated Steel, for one. Your +Mexican catastrophe, for another." +"The Board approved the Associated Steel contract," he said hastily. +"The Board voted to build the San Sebastian Line. Besides, I don't see why +you call it a catastrophe." +"Because the Mexican government is going to nationalize your line any day +now." +"That's a lie!" His voice was almost a scream. "That's nothing but vicious +rumors! I have it on very good inside authority that—" +"Don't show that you're scared, Jim," she said contemptuously. He did not +answer. "It's no use getting panicky about it now," she said. "All we can do +is try to cushion the blow. It's going to be a bad blow. Forty million +dollars is a loss from which we won't recover easily. But Taggart +transcontinental has withstood many bad shocks in the past. I'll see to it +that it withstands this one." +"I refuse to consider, I absolutely refuse to consider the possibility of +the San Sebastian Line being nationalized!" +"All right. Don't consider it." +She remained silent. He said defensively, "I don't see why you're so eager +to give a chance to Ellis Wyatt, yet you think it's wrong to take part in +developing an underprivileged country that never had a chance." +"Ellis Wyatt is not asking anybody to give him a chance. And I'm not in +business to give chances. I'm running a railroad." +"That's an extremely narrow view, it seems to me. I don't see why we +should want to help one man instead of a whole nation." +"I'm not interested in. helping anybody. I want to make money." +"That's an impractical attitude. Selfish greed for profit is a thing of +the past. It has been generally conceded that the interests of society as a +whole must always be placed first in any business undertaking which—" +"How long do you intend to talk in order to evade the issue, Jim?" +"What issue?" +"The order for Rearden Metal." +He did not answer. He sat studying her silently. Her slender body, about +to slump from exhaustion, was held erect by the straight line of the +shoulders, and the shoulders were held by a conscious effort of will. Few +people liked her face: the face was too cold, the eyes too intense; nothing +could ever lend her the charm of a soft focus. The beautiful legs, slanting +down from the chair's arm in the center of his vision, annoyed him; they +spoiled the rest of his estimate. + + She remained silent; he was forced to ask, "Did you decide to order it +just like that, on the spur of the moment, over a telephone?" +"I decided it six months ago. I was waiting for Hank Rearden to get ready +to go into production." +"Don't call him Hank Rearden. It's vulgar." +"That's what everybody calls him. Don't change the subject." +"Why did you have to telephone him last night?" +"Couldn't reach him sooner." +"Why didn't you wait until you got back to New York and—" +"Because I had seen the Rio Norte Line." +"Well, I need time to consider it, to place the matter before the Board, +to consult the best—" +"There is no time." +"You haven't given me a chance to form an opinion." +"I don't give a damn about your opinion. I am not going to argue with you, +with your Board or with your professors. You have a choice to make and you're +going to make it now. Just say yes or no." +"That's a preposterous, high-handed, arbitrary way of-—" +"Yes or no?" +"That's the trouble with you. You always make it 'Yes' or 'No.' Things are +never absolute like that. Nothing is absolute." +"Metal rails are. Whether we get them or not, is." +She waited. He did not answer. "Well?" she asked. +"Are you taking the responsibility for it?" +"I am." +"Go ahead," he said, and added, "but at your own risk. I won't cancel it, +but I won't commit myself as to what I'll say to the Board." +"Say anything you wish." +She rose to go. He leaned forward across the desk, reluctant to end the +interview and to end it so decisively. +"You realize, of course, that a lengthy procedure will be necessary to put +this through," he said; the words sounded almost hopeful. "It isn't as simple +as that." +"Oh sure," she said. "I'll send you a detailed report, which Eddie will +prepare and which you won't read. Eddie will help you put it through the +works. I'm going to Philadelphia tonight to see Rearden. He and I have a lot +of work to do." She added, "It's as simple as that, Jim." +She had turned to go, when he spoke again—and what he said seemed +bewilderingly irrelevant. "That's all right for you, because you're lucky. +Others can't do it." +"Do what?" +"Other people are human. They're sensitive. They can't devote their whole +life to metals and engines. You're lucky—you've never had any feelings. +You've never felt anything at all." +As she looked at him, her dark gray eyes went slowly from astonishment to +stillness, then to a strange expression that resembled a look of weariness, +except that it seemed to reflect much more than the endurance of this one +moment. +"No, Jim," she said quietly, "I guess I've never felt anything at all." +Eddie Willers followed her to her office. Whenever she returned, he felt as +if the world became clear, simple, easy to face—and he forgot his moments of +shapeless apprehension. He was the only person who found it completely +natural that she should be the Operating Vice-President of a great railroad, +even though she was a woman. She had told him, when he was ten years old, +that she would run the railroad some day. It did not astonish him now, just +as it had not astonished him that day in a clearing of the woods. + + When they entered her office, when he saw her sit down at the desk and +glance at the memos he had left for her—he felt as he did in his car when the +motor caught on and the wheels could move forward. +He was about to leave her office, when he remembered a matter he had not +reported. "Owen Kellogg of the Terminal Division has asked me for an +appointment to see you," he said. +She looked up, astonished. "That's funny. I was going to send for him. +Have him come up. I want to see him. . . . Eddie," she added suddenly, +"before I start, tell them to get me Ayers of the Ayers Music Publishing +Company on the phone." +"The Music Publishing Company?" he repeated incredulously. +"Yes. There's something I want to ask him." +When the voice of Mr. Ayers, courteously eager, inquired of what service +he could be to her, she asked, "Can you tell me whether Richard Halley has +written a new piano concerto, the Fifth?" +"A fifth concerto, Miss Taggart? Why, no, of course he hasn't." +"Are you sure?" +"Quite sure, Miss Taggart. He has not written anything for eight years." +"Is he still alive?" +"Why, yes—that is, I can't say for certain, he has dropped out of public +life entirely—but I'm sure we would have heard of it if he had died." +"If he wrote anything, would you know about it?" +"Of course. We would be the first to know. We publish all of his work. But +he has stopped writing." +"I see. Thank you." +When Owen Kellogg entered her office, she looked at him with satisfaction. +She was glad to see that she had been right in her vague recollection of his +appearance—his face had the same quality as that of the young brakeman on the +train, the face of the kind of man with whom she could deal. +"Sit down, Mr. Kellogg," she said, but he remained standing in front of +her desk. +"You had asked me once to let you know if I ever decided to change my +employment, Miss Taggart," he said. "So I came to tell you that I am +quitting." +She had expected anything but that; it took her a moment before she asked +quietly, "Why?" +"For a personal reason." +"Were you dissatisfied here?" +"No." +"Have you received a better offer?" +"No." +"What railroad are you going to?" +"I'm not going to any railroad, Miss Taggart." +"Then what job are you taking?" +"I have not decided that yet." +She studied him, feeling slightly uneasy. There was no hostility in his +face; he looked straight at her, he answered simply, directly; he spoke like +one who has nothing to hide, or to show; the face was polite and empty. +"Then why should you wish to quit?" +"It's a personal matter." +"Are you ill? Is it a question of your health?" +"No." +"Are you leaving the city?" +"No." +"Have you inherited money that permits you to retire?" +"No." +"Do you intend to continue working for a living?" + + "Yes." +"But you do not wish to work for Taggart Transcontinental?" +"No." +"In that case, something must have happened here to cause your decision. +What?" +"Nothing, Miss Taggart." +"I wish you'd tell me. I have a reason for wanting to know." +"Would you take my word for it, Miss Taggart?" +"Yes." +"No person, matter or event connected with my job here had any bearing +upon my decision." +"You have no specific complaint against Taggart Transcontinental?" +"None." +"Then I think you might reconsider when you hear what I have to offer +you." +"I'm sorry, Miss Taggart. I can't." +"May I tell you what I have in mind?" +"Yes, if you wish." +"Would you take my word for it that I decided to offer you the post I'm +going to offer, before you asked to see me? I want you to know that." +"I will always take your word, Miss Taggart." +"It's the post of Superintendent of the Ohio Division. It's yours, if you +want it." +His face showed no reaction, as if the words had no more significance for +him than for a savage who had never heard of railroads. +"I don't want it, Miss Taggart," he answered. +After a moment, she said, her voice tight, "Write your own ticket, +Kellogg. Name your price, I want you to stay. I can match anything any other +railroad offers you." +"I am not going to work for any other railroad." +"I thought you loved your work." +This was the first sign of emotion in him, just a slight widening of his +eyes and an oddly quiet emphasis in his voice when he answered, "I do." +"Then tell me what it is that I should say in order to hold you!" It had +been involuntary and so obviously frank that he looked at her as if it had +reached him. +"Perhaps I am being unfair by coming here to tell you that I'm quitting, +Miss Taggart. I know that you asked me to tell you because you wanted to have +a chance to make me a counter-offer. So if I came, it looks as if I'm open to +a deal. But I'm not. I came only because I . . . I wanted to keep my word to +you." +That one break in his voice was like a sudden flash that told her how much +her interest and her request had meant to him; and that his decision had not +been an easy one to make. +"Kellogg, is there nothing I can offer you?" she asked. +"Nothing, Miss Taggart. Nothing on earth." +He turned to go. For the first time in her life, she felt helpless and +beaten. +"Why?" she asked, not addressing him. +He stopped. He shrugged and smiled—he was alive for a moment and it was +the strangest smile she had ever seen: it held secret amusement, and +heartbreak, and an infinite bitterness. He answered: "Who is John Galt?" + + CHAPTER II +THE CHAIN +It began with a few lights. As a train of the Taggart line rolled toward +Philadelphia, a few brilliant, scattered lights appeared in the darkness; +they seemed purposeless in the empty plain, yet too powerful to have no +purpose. The passengers watched them idly, without interest. +The black shape of a structure came next, barely visible against the sky, +then a big building, close to the tracks; the building was dark, and the +reflections of the train lights streaked across the solid glass of its walls. +An oncoming freight train hid the view, filling the windows with a rushing +smear of noise. In a sudden break above the fiat cars, the passengers saw +distant structures under a faint, reddish glow in the sky; the glow moved in +irregular spasms, as if the structures were breathing. +When the freight train vanished, they saw angular buildings wrapped in +coils of steam. The rays of a few strong lights cut straight sheafs through +the coils. The steam was red as the sky. +The thing that came next did not look like a building, but like a shell of +checkered glass enclosing girders, cranes and trusses in a solid, blinding, +orange spread of flame. +The passengers could not grasp the complexity of what seemed to be a city +stretched for miles, active without sign of human presence. They saw towers +that looked like contorted skyscrapers, bridges hanging in mid-air, and +sudden wounds spurting fire from out of solid walls. They saw a line of +glowing cylinders moving through the night; the cylinders were red-hot metal. +An office building appeared, close to the tracks. The big neon sign on its +roof lighted the interiors of the coaches as they went by. It said: REARDEN +STEEL. +A passenger, who was a professor of economics, remarked to his companion: +"Of what importance is an individual in the titanic collective achievements +of our industrial age?" Another, who was a journalist, made a note for future +use in his column: "Hank Rearden is the kind of man who sticks his name on +everything he touches. You may, from this, form your own opinion about the +character of Hank Rearden." +The train was speeding on into the darkness when a red gasp shot to the +sky from behind a long structure. The passengers paid no attention; one more +heat of steel being poured was not an event they had been taught to notice. +It was the first heat for the first order of Rearden Metal. +To the men at the tap-hole of the furnace inside the mills, the first +break of the liquid metal into the open came as a shocking sensation of +morning. The narrow streak pouring through space had the pure white color of +sunlight. Black coils of steam were boiling upward, streaked with violent +red. Fountains of sparks shot in beating spasms, as from broken arteries. The +air seemed torn to rags, reflecting a raging flame that was not there, red +blotches whirling and running through space, as if not to be contained within +a man-made structure, as if about to consume the columns, the girders, the +bridges of cranes overhead. But the liquid metal had no aspect of violence. +It was a long white curve with the texture of satin and the friendly radiance +of a smile. It flowed obediently through a spout of clay, with two brittle +borders to restrain it. It fell through twenty feet of space, down into a +ladle that held two hundred tons. A flow of stars hung above the stream, +leaping out of its placid smoothness, looking delicate as lace and innocent +as children's sparklers. +Only at a closer glance could one notice that the white satin was boiling. +Splashes flew out at times and fell to the ground below: they were metal and, +cooling while hitting the soil, they burst into flame. + + Two hundred tons of a metal which was to be harder than steel, running +liquid at a temperature of four thousand degrees, had the power to annihilate +every wall of the structure and every one of the men who worked by the +stream. But every inch of its course, every pound of its pressure and the +content of every molecule within it, were controlled and made by a conscious +intention that had worked upon it for ten years. +Swinging through the darkness of the shed, the red glare kept stashing the +face of a man who stood in a distant corner; he stood leaning against a +column, watching. The glare cut a moment's wedge across his eyes, which had +the color and quality of pale blue ice—then across the black web of the metal +column and the ash-blond strands of his hair— then across the belt of his +trenchcoat and the pockets where he held his hands. His body was tall and +gaunt; he had always been too tall for those around him. His face was cut by +prominent cheekbones and by a few sharp lines; they were not the lines of +age, he had always had them: this had made him look old at twenty, and young +now, at forty-five. +Ever since he could remember, he had been told that his face was ugly, +because it was unyielding, and cruel, because it was expressionless. It +remained expressionless now, as he looked at the metal. He was Hank Rearden. +The metal came rising to the top of the ladle and went running over with +arrogant prodigality. Then the blinding white trickles turned to glowing +brown, and in one more instant they were black icicles of metal, starting to +crumble off. The slag was crusting in thick, brown ridges that looked like +the crust of the earth. As the crust grew thicker, a few craters broke open, +with the white liquid still boiling within. +A man came riding through the air, in the cab of a crane overhead. He +pulled a lever by the casual movement of one hand: steel hooks came down on a +chain, seized the handles of the ladle, lifted it smoothly like a bucket of +milk—and two hundred tons of metal went sailing through space toward a row of +molds waiting to be filled. +Hank Rearden leaned back, closing his eyes. He felt the column trembling +with the rumble of the crane. The job was done, he thought. +A worker saw him and grinned in understanding, like a fellow accomplice in +a great celebration, who knew why that tall, blond figure had to be present +here tonight. Rearden smiled in answer: it was the only salute he had +received. Then he started back for his office, once again a figure with an +expressionless face. +It was late when Hank Rearden left his office that night to walk from his +mills to his house. It was a walk of some miles through empty country, but he +had felt like doing it, without conscious reason. +He walked, keeping one hand in his pocket, his fingers closed about a +bracelet. It was made of Rearden Metal, in the shape of a chain. His fingers +moved, feeling its texture once in a while. It had taken ten years to make +that bracelet. Ten years, he thought, is a long time. The road was dark, +edged with trees. Looking up, he could see a few leaves against the stars; +the leaves were twisted and dry, ready to fall. +There were distant lights in the windows of houses scattered through the +countryside; but the lights made the road seem lonelier. +He never felt loneliness except when he was happy. He turned, once in a +while, to look back at the red glow of the sky over the mills. He did not +think of the ten years. What remained of them tonight was only a feeling +which he could not name, except that it was quiet and solemn. The feeling was +a sum, and he did not have to count again the parts that had gone to make it. +But the parts, unrecalled, were there, within the feeling. They were the +nights spent at scorching ovens in the research laboratory of the mills—-the +nights spent in the workshop of his home, over sheets of paper which he +filled with formulas, then tore up in angry failure—-the days when the young + + scientists of the small staff he had chosen to assist him waited for +instructions like soldiers ready for a hopeless battle, having exhausted +their ingenuity, still willing, but silent, with the unspoken sentence +hanging in the air: "Mr. Rearden, it can't be done—"—the meals, interrupted +and abandoned at the sudden flash of a new thought, a thought to be pursued +at once, to be tried, to be tested, to be worked on for months, and to be +discarded as another failure——the moments snatched from conferences, from +contracts, from theduties of running the best steel mills in the country, +snatched almostguiltily, as for a secret love——the one thought held immovably +across a span of ten years, undereverything he did and everything he saw, the +thought held in his mindwhen he looked at the buildings of a city, at the +track of a railroad, atthe light in the windows of a distant farmhouse, at +the knife in the handsof a beautiful woman cutting a piece of fruit at a +banquet, the thought ofa metal alloy that would do more than steel had ever +done, a metal thatwould be to steel what steel had been to iron——the acts of +self-racking when he discarded a hope or a sample,not permitting himself to +know that he was tired, not giving himself timeto feel, driving himself +through the wringing torture of: "not good enough . . . still not good enough +. . ." and going on with no motor save the conviction that it could be done— +—then the day when it was done and its result was called Rearden Metal— — +these were the things that had come to white heat, had melted and fused +within him, and their alloy was a strange, quiet feeling that made him smile +at the countryside in the darkness and wonder why happiness could hurt. +After a while, he realized that he was thinking of his past, as if certain +days of it were spread before him, demanding to be seen again. He did not +want to look at them; he despised memories as a pointless indulgence. But +then he understood that he thought of them tonight in honor of that piece of +metal in his pocket. Then he permitted himself to look. +He saw the day when he stood on a rocky ledge and felt a thread of sweat +running from his temple down his neck. He was fourteen years old and it was +his first day of work in the iron mines of Minnesota. He was trying to learn +to breathe against the scalding pain in his chest. He stood, cursing himself, +because he had made up his mind that he would not be tired. After a while, he +went back to his task; he decided that pain was not a valid reason for +stopping, He saw the day when he stood at the window of his office and looked +at the mines; he owned them as of that morning. He was thirty years old. What +had gone on in the years between did not matter, just as pain had not +mattered. He had worked in mines, in foundries, in the steel mills of the +north, moving toward the purpose he had chosen. All he remembered of those +jobs was that the men around him had never seemed to know what to do, while +he had always known. He remembered wondering why so many iron mines were +closing, just as these had been about to close until he took them over. He +looked at the shelves of rock in the distance. Workers were putting up a new +sign above a gate at the end of a road: Rearden Ore. +He saw an evening when he sat slumped across his desk in that office. +It was late and his staff had left; so he could lie there alone, +unwitnessed. He was tired. It was as if he had run a race against his own +body, and all the exhaustion of years, which he had refused to acknowledge, +had caught him at once and flattened him against the desk top. He felt +nothing, except the desire not to move. He did not have the strength to feel— +not even to suffer. He had burned everything there was to burn within him; he +had scattered so many sparks to start so many things— and he wondered whether +someone could give him now the spark he needed, now when he felt unable ever +to rise again. He asked himself who had started him and kept him going. Then +he raised his head. + + Slowly, with the greatest effort of his life, he made his body rise until +he was able to sit upright with only one hand pressed to the desk and a +trembling arm to support him. +He never asked that question again. He saw the day when he stood on a hill +and looked at a grimy wasteland of structures that had been a steel plant. It +was closed and given up. He had bought it the night before. There was a +strong wind and a gray light squeezed from among the clouds. In that light, +he saw the brown-red of rust, like dead blood, on the steel of the giant +cranes—and bright, green, living weeds, like gorged cannibals, growing over +piles of broken glass at the foot of walls made of empty frames. At a gate in +the distance, he saw the black silhouettes of men. They were the unemployed +from the rotting hovels of what had once been a prosperous town. +They stood silently, looking at the glittering car he had left at the gate +of the mills; they wondered whether the man on the hill was the Hank Rearden +that people were talking about, and whether it was true that the mills were +to be reopened. "The historical cycle of steel-making in Pennsylvania is +obviously running down," a newspaper had said, "and experts agree that Henry +Rearden's venture into steel is hopeless. You may soon witness the +sensational end of the sensational Henry Rearden." That was ten years ago. +Tonight, the cold wind on his face felt like the wind of that day. He turned +to look back. The red glow of the mills breathed in the sky, a sight as lifegiving as a sunrise. These had been his stops, the stations which an express +had reached and passed. He remembered nothing distinct of the years between +them; the years were blurred, like a streak of speed. +Whatever it was, he thought, whatever the strain and the agony, they were +worth it, because they had made him reach this day—this day when the first +heat of the first order of Rearden Metal had been poured, to become rails for +Taggart Transcontinental. +He touched the bracelet in his pocket. He had had it made from that first +poured metal. It was for his wife. As he touched it, he realized suddenly +that he had thought of an abstraction called "his wife"—not of the woman to +whom he was married. +He felt a stab of regret, wishing he had not made the bracelet, then a +wave of self-reproach for the regret. He shook his head. This was not the +time for his old doubts. He felt that he could forgive anything to anyone, +because happiness was the greatest agent of purification. He felt certain +that every living being wished him well tonight. He wanted to meet someone, +to face the first stranger, to stand disarmed and open, and to say, "Look at +me." People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always +been—for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so +inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men +should be unhappy. +The dark road had risen imperceptibly to the top of a hill. He stopped and +turned. The red glow was a narrow strip, far to the west. Above it, small at +a distance of miles, the words of a neon sign stood written on the blackness +of the sky: REARDEN STEEL. He stood straight, as if before a bench of +judgment. He thought that in the darkness of this night other signs were +lighted over the country: Rearden Ore—Rearden Coal—Rearden Limestone. He +thought of the days behind him. He wished it were possible to light a neon +sign above them, saying: Rearden Life. +He turned sharply and walked on. As the road came closer to his house, he +noticed that his steps were slowing down and that something was ebbing away +from his mood. He felt a dim reluctance to enter his home, which he did not +want to feel. No, he thought, not tonight; they'll understand it, tonight. +But he did not know, he had never defined, what it was that he wanted them to +understand. + + He saw lights in the windows of the living room, when he approached his +house. The house stood on a hill, rising before him like a big white bulk; it +looked naked, with a few semi-colonial pillars for reluctant ornament; it had +the cheerless look of a nudity not worth revealing. +He was not certain whether his wife noticed him when he entered the living +room. She sat by the fireplace, talking, the curve of her arm floating in +graceful emphasis of her words. He heard a small break in her voice, and +thought that she had seen him, but she did not look up and her sentence went +on smoothly; he could not be certain. "—but it's just that a man of culture +is bored with the alleged wonders of purely material ingenuity," she was +saying. "He simply refuses to get excited about plumbing." +Then she turned her head, looked at Rearden in the shadows across the long +room, and her arms spread gracefully, like two swan necks by her sides. +"Why, darling," she said in a bright tone of amusement, "isn't it too +early to come home? Wasn't there some slag to sweep or tuyeres to polish?" +They all turned to him—his mother, his brother Philip and Paul Larkin, +their old friend. +"I'm sorry," he answered. "I know I'm late." +"Don't say you're sorry," said his mother. "You could have telephoned." He +looked at her, trying vaguely to remember something. +"You promised to be here for dinner tonight." +"Oh, that's right, I did. I'm sorry. But today at the mills, we poured—" +He stopped; he did not know what made him unable to utter the one thing he +had come home to say; he added only, "It's just that I . . . forgot." +"That's what Mother means," said Philip. +"Oh, let him get his bearings, he's not quite here yet, he's still at the +mills," his wife said gaily. "Do take your coat off, Henry." +Paul Larkin was looking at him with the devoted eyes of an inhibited dog. +"Hello, Paul," said Rearden. "When did you get in?" +"Oh, I just hopped down on the five thirty-five from New York." Larkin was +smiling in gratitude for the attention. +"Trouble?" +"Who hasn't got trouble these days?" Larkin's smile became resigned, to +indicate that the remark was merely philosophical. "But no, no special +trouble this time. I just thought I'd drop in to see you." +His wife laughed. "You've disappointed him, Paul." She turned to Rearden. +"Is it an inferiority complex or a superiority one, Henry? Do you believe +that nobody can want to see you just for your own sake, or do you believe +that nobody can get along without your help?” +He wanted to utter an angry denial, but she was smiling at him as if this +were merely a conversational joke, and he had no capacity for the sort of +conversations which were not supposed to be meant, so he did not answer. He +stood looking at her, wondering about the things he had never been able to +understand. +Lillian Rearden was generally regarded as a beautiful woman. She had a +tall, graceful body, the kind that looked well in high-waisted gowns of the +Empire style, which she made it a practice to wear. Her exquisite profile +belonged to a cameo of the same period: its pure, proud lines and the +lustrous, light brown waves of her hair, worn with classical simplicity, +suggested an austere, imperial beauty. But when she turned full-face, people +experienced a small shock of disappointment. +Her face was not beautiful. The eyes were the flaw: they were vaguely +pale, neither quite gray nor brown, lifelessly empty of expression. Rearden +had always wondered, since she seemed amused so often, why there was no +gaiety in her face. +"We have met before, dear," she said, in answer to his silent scrutiny, +"though you don't seem to be sure of it." + + "Have you had any dinner, Henry?" his mother asked; there was a +reproachful impatience in her voice, as if his hunger were a personal insult +to her. +"Yes . . . No . . . I wasn't hungry." +"I'd better ring to have them—" +"No, Mother, not now, it doesn't matter." +"That's the trouble I've always had with you." She was not looking at him, +but reciting words into space. "It's no use trying to do things for you, you +don't appreciate it. I could never make you eat properly." +"Henry, you work too hard," said Philip. "It's not good for you." +Rearden laughed. "I like it." +"That's what you tell yourself. It's a form of neurosis, you know. When a +man drowns himself in work, it's because he's trying to escape from +something. You ought to have a hobby." +"Oh, Phil, for Christ's sake!" he said, and regretted the irritation in +his voice. +Philip had always been in precarious health, though doctors had found no +specific defect in his loose, gangling body. He was thirty-eight, but his +chronic weariness made people think at times that he was older than his +brother. +"You ought to learn to have some fun," said Philip. "Otherwise, you'll +become dull and narrow. Single-tracked, you know. You ought to get out of +your little private shell and take a look at the world. You don't want to +miss life, the way you're doing." +Fighting anger, Rearden told himself that this was Philip's form of +solicitude. He told himself that it would be unjust to feel resentment: they +were all trying to show their concern for him—and he wished these were not +the things they had chosen for concern. +"I had a pretty good time today, Phil," he answered, smiling—and wondered +why Philip did not ask him what it was. +He wished one of them would ask him. He was finding it hard to +concentrate. The sight of the running metal was still burned into his mind, +filling his consciousness, leaving no room for anything else. +"You might have apologized, only I ought to know better than to expect +it." It was his mother's voice; he turned: she was looking at him with that +injured look which proclaims the long-bearing patience of the defenseless. +"Mrs. Beecham was here for dinner," she said reproachfully. +"What?" +"Mrs. Beecham. My friend Mrs. Beecham." +"Yes?" +"I told you about her, I told you many times, but you never remember +anything I say. Mrs. Beecham was so anxious to meet you, but she had to leave +after dinner, she couldn't wait, Mrs. Beecham is a very busy person. She +wanted so much to tell you about the wonderful work we're doing in our parish +school, and about the classes in metal craftsmanship, and about the beautiful +wrought-iron doorknobs that the little slum children are making all by +themselves." +It took the whole of his sense of consideration to force himself to answer +evenly, "I'm sorry if I disappointed you, Mother." +"You're not sorry. You could've been here if you'd made the effort. But +when did you ever make an effort for anybody but yourself? You're not +interested in any of us or in anything we do. You think that if you pay the +bills, that's enough, don't you? Money! That's all you know. And all you give +us is money. Have you ever given us any time?" +If this meant that she missed him, he thought, then it meant affection, +and if it meant affection, then he was unjust to experience a heavy, murky + + feeling which kept him silent lest his voice betray that the feeling was +disgust. +"You don't care," her voice went half-spitting, half-begging on. "Lillian +needed you today for a very important problem, but I told her it was no use +waiting to discuss it with you." +"Oh, Mother, it's not important!" said Lillian. "Not to Henry." +He turned to her. He stood in the middle of the room, with his trenchcoat +still on, as if he were trapped in an unreality that would not become real to +him. +"It's not important at all," said Lillian gaily; he could not tell whether +her voice was apologetic or boastful. "It's not business. It's purely noncommercial." +"What is it?" +"Just a party I'm planning to give." +"A party?" +"Oh, don't look frightened, it's not for tomorrow night. I know that +you're so very busy, but it's for three months from now and I want it to be a +very big, very special affair, so would you promise me to be here that night +and not in Minnesota or Colorado or California?" +She was looking at him in an odd manner, speaking too lightly and too +purposefully at once, her smile overstressing an air of innocence and +suggesting something like a hidden trump card. +"Three months from now?" he said. "But you know that I can't tell what +urgent business might come up to call me out of town." +"Oh, I know! But couldn't I make a formal appointment with you, way in +advance, just like any railroad executive, automobile manufacturer or junk—I +mean, scrap—dealer? They say you never miss an appointment. Of course, I'd +let you pick the date to suit your convenience." She was looking up at him, +her glance acquiring some special quality of feminine appeal by being sent +from under her lowered forehead up toward his full height; she asked, a +little too casually and too cautiously, "The date I had in mind was December +tenth, but would you prefer the ninth or the eleventh?" +"It makes no difference to me." +She said gently, "December tenth is our wedding anniversary, Henry." +They were all watching his face; if they expected a look of guilt, what +they saw, instead, was a faint smile of amusement. She could not have +intended this as a trap, he thought, because he could escape it so easily, by +refusing to accept any blame for his forgetfulness and by leaving her +spurned; she knew that his feeling for her was her only weapon. Her motive, +he thought, was a proudly indirect attempt to test his feeling and to confess +her own. A party was not his form of celebration, but it was hers. It meant +nothing in his terms; in hers, it meant the best tribute she could offer to +him and to their marriage. He had to respect her intention, he thought, even +if he did not share her standards, even if he did not know whether he still +cared for any tribute from her. He had to let her win, he thought, because +she had thrown herself upon his mercy. He smiled, an open, unresentful smile +in acknowledgment of her victory. "All right, Lillian," he said quietly, "I +promise to be here on the night of December tenth." +"Thank you, dear." Her smile had a closed, mysterious quality; he wondered +why he had a moment's impression that his attitude had disappointed them all. +If she trusted him, he thought, if her feeling for him was still alive, +then he would match her trust. He had to say it; words were a lens to focus +one's mind, and he could not use words for anything else tonight. "I'm sorry +I'm late, Lillian, but today at the mills we poured the first heat of Rearden +Metal." +There was a moment of silence. Then Philip said, "Well, that's nice." +The others said nothing. + + He put his hand in his pocket. When he touched it, the reality of the +bracelet swept out everything else; he felt as he had felt when the liquid +metal had poured through space before him. +"I brought you a present, Lillian." +He did not know that he stood straight and that the gesture of his arm was +that of a returning crusader offering his trophy to his love, when he dropped +a small chain of metal into her lap. +Lillian Rearden picked it up, hooked on the tips of two straight fingers, +and raised it to the light. The links were heavy, crudely made, the shining +metal had an odd tinge, it was greenish-blue. +"What's that?" she asked. +"The first thing made from the first heat of the first order of Rearden +Metal." +"You mean," she said, "it's fully as valuable as a piece of railroad +rails?" +He looked at her blankly. +She jingled the bracelet, making it sparkle under the light. "Henry, it's +perfectly wonderful! What originality! I shall be the sensation of New York, +wearing jewelry made of the same stuff as bridge girders, truck motors, +kitchen stoves, typewriters, and—what was it you were saying about it the +other day, darling?—soup kettles?" +"God, Henry, but you're conceited!" said Philip. +Lillian laughed. "He's a sentimentalist. All men are. But, darling, I do +appreciate it. It isn't the gift, it's the intention, I know." +"The intention's plain selfishness, if you ask me," said Rearden's mother. +"Another man would bring a diamond bracelet, if he wanted to give his wife a +present, because it's' her pleasure he'd think of, not his own. But Henry +thinks that just because he's made a new kind of tin, why, it's got to be +more precious than diamonds to everybody, just because it's he that's made +it. That's the way he's been since he was five years old—the most conceited +brat you ever saw—and I knew he'd grow up to be the most selfish creature on +God's earth." +"No, it's sweet," said Lillian. "It's charming." She dropped the bracelet +down on the table. She got up, put her hands on Rearden's shoulders, and +raising herself on tiptoe, kissed him on the cheek, saying, "Thank you, +dear." +He did not move, did not bend his head down to her. After a while, he +turned, took off his coat and sat down by the fire, apart from the others. He +felt nothing but an immense exhaustion. +He did not listen to their talk. He heard dimly that Lillian was arguing, +defending him against his mother. +"I know him better than you do," his mother was saying. "Hank Rearden's +not interested in man, beast or weed unless it's tied in some way to himself +and his work. That's all he cares about. I've tried my best to teach him some +humility, I've tried all my life, but I've failed." +He had offered his mother unlimited means to live as and where she +pleased; he wondered why she had insisted that she wanted to live with him. +His success, he had thought, meant something to her, and if it did, then it +was a bond between them, the only kind of bond he recognized; if she wanted a +place in the home of her successful son, he would not deny it to her. +"It's no use hoping to make a saint out of Henry, Mother," said Philip. +"He wasn't meant to be one." +"Oh but, Philip, you're wrong!" said Lillian. "You're so wrong! Henry has +all the makings of a saint. That's the trouble." What did they seek from +him?—thought Rearden—what were they after? He had never asked anything of +them; it was they who wished to hold him, they who pressed a claim on him—and +the claim seemed to have the form of affection, but it was a form which he + + found harder to endure than any sort of hatred. He despised causeless +affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him +for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could +wish to be loved. He wondered what response they could hope to obtain from +him in such manner—if his response was what they wanted. +And it was, he thought; else why those constant complaints, those +unceasing accusations about his indifference? Why that chronic air of +suspicion, as if they were waiting to be hurt? He had never had a desire to +hurt them, but he had always felt their defensive, reproachful expectation; +they seemed wounded by anything he said, it was not a matter of his words or +actions, it was almost . . . almost as if they were Wounded by the mere fact +of his being. Don't start imagining the insane —he told himself severely, +struggling to face the riddle with the strictest of his ruthless sense of +justice. He could not condemn them without understanding; and he could not +understand. +Did he like them? No, he thought; he had wanted to like them, which was +not the same. He had wanted it in the name of some unstated potentiality +which he had once expected to see in any human being. He felt nothing for +them now, nothing but the merciless zero of indifference, not even the regret +of a loss. Did he need any person as part of his life? Did he miss the +feeling he had wanted to feel? No, he thought. Had he ever missed it? Yes, he +thought, in his youth; not any longer. +His sense of exhaustion was growing; he realized that it was boredom. +He owed them the courtesy of hiding it, he thought—and sat motionless, +fighting a desire for sleep that was turning into physical pain. +His eyes were closing, when he felt two soft, moist fingers touching his +hand: Paul Larkin had pulled a chair to his side and was leaning over for a +private conversation. +"I don't care what the industry says about it, Hank, you've got a great +product in Rearden Metal, a great product, it will make a fortune, like +everything you touch." +"Yes," said Rearden, "it will." +"I just . . . I just hope you don't run into trouble." +"What trouble?" +"Oh, I don't know . . . the way things are nowadays . . . there's people, +who . . . but how can we tell? . . . anything can happen. . . ." +"What trouble?" +Larkin sat hunched, looking up with his gentle, pleading eyes. His short, +plumpish figure always seemed unprotected and incomplete, as if he needed a +shell to shrink into at the slightest touch. His wistful eyes, his lost, +helpless, appealing smile served as substitute for the shell. The smile was +disarming, like that of a boy who throws himself at the mercy of an +incomprehensible universe. He was fifty-three years old. +"Your public relations aren't any too good, Hank," he said. "You've always +had a bad press." +"So what?" +"You're not popular, Hank." +"I haven't heard any complaints from my customers." +"That's not what I mean. You ought to hire yourself a good press agent to +sell you to the public," +"What for? It's steel that I'm selling." +"But you don't want to have the public against you. Public opinion, you +know—it can mean a lot." +"I don't think the public's against me. And I don't think that it means a +damn, one way or another," +"The newspapers are against you." +"They have time to waste. I haven't." + + "I don't like it, Hank. It's not good." +"What?" +"What they write about you." +"What do they write about me?" +"Well, you know the stuff. That you're intractable. That you're ruthless. +That you won't allow anyone any voice in the running of your mills. +That your only goal is to make steel and to make money." +"But that is my only goal." +"But you shouldn't say it." +"Why not? What is it I'm supposed to say?" +"Oh, I don't know . . . But your mills—" +"They're my mills, aren't they?" +"Yes, but—but you shouldn't remind people of that too loudly. . . . +You know how it is nowadays. . . . They think that your attitude is antisocial." +"I don't give a damn what they think," +Paul Larkin sighed. +"What's the matter, Paul? What are you driving at?" +"Nothing . . . nothing in particular. Only one never knows what can happen +in times like these. . . . One has to be so careful . . ." +Rearden chuckled. "You're not trying to worry about me, are you?" +"It's just that I'm your friend, Hank. I'm your friend. You know how much +I admire you." +Paul Larkin had always been unlucky. Nothing he touched ever came off +quite well, nothing ever quite failed or succeeded. He was a businessman, but +he could not manage to remain for long in any one line of business. At the +moment, he was struggling with a modest plant that manufactured mining +equipment. +He had clung to Rearden for years, in awed admiration. He came for advice, +he asked for loans at times, but not often; the loans were modest and were +always repaid, though not always on time. His motive in the relationship +seemed to resemble the need of an anemic person who receives a kind of living +transfusion from the mere sight of a savagely overabundant vitality. +Watching Larkin's efforts, Rearden felt what he did when he watched an ant +struggling under the load of a matchstick. It's so hard for him, thought +Rearden, and so easy for me. So he gave advice, attention and a tactful, +patient interest, whenever he could. +"I'm your friend, Hank." +Rearden looked at him inquiringly. +Larkin glanced away, as if debating something in his mind. After a while, +he asked cautiously, "How is your man in Washington?" +"Okay, I guess." +"You ought to be sure of it. It's important." He looked up at Rearden, and +repeated with a kind of stressed insistence, as if discharging a painful +moral duty, "Hank, it's very important." +"I suppose so." +"In fact, that's what I came here to tell you." +"For any special reason?" +Larkin considered it and decided that the duty was discharged. "No," +he said. +Rearden disliked the subject. He knew that it was necessary to have a man +to protect him from the legislature; all industrialists had to employ such +men. But he had never given much attention to this aspect of his business; he +could not quite convince himself that it was necessary. +An inexplicable kind of distaste, part fastidiousness, part boredom, +stopped him whenever he tried to consider it. + + "Trouble is, Paul," he said, thinking aloud, "that the men one has to pick +for that job are such a crummy lot," +Larkin looked away. "That's life," he said. +"Damned if I see why. Can you tell me that? What's wrong with the world?" +Larkin shrugged sadly. "Why ask useless questions? How deep is the ocean? +How high is the sky? Who is John Galt?" +Rearden sat up straight. "No," he said sharply. "No. There's no reason to +feel that way." +He got up. His exhaustion had gone while he talked about his business. He +felt a sudden spurt of rebellion, a need to recapture and defiantly to +reassert his own view of existence, that sense of it which he had held while +walking home tonight and which now seemed threatened in some nameless manner. +He paced the room, his energy returning. He looked at his family. +They were bewildered, unhappy children—he thought—all of them, even his +mother, and he was foolish to resent their ineptitude; it came from their +helplessness, not from malice. It was he who had to make himself learn to +understand them, since he had so much to give, since they could never share +his sense of joyous, boundless power. +He glanced at them from across the room. His mother and Philip were +engaged in some eager discussion; but he noted that they were not really +eager, they were nervous. Philip sat in a low chair, his stomach forward, his +weight on his shoulder blades, as if the miserable discomfort of his position +were intended to punish the onlookers. +"What's the matter, Phil?" Rearden asked, approaching him. "You look done +in." +"I've had a hard day," said Philip sullenly. +"You're not the only one who works hard," said his mother. "Others have +problems, too—even if they're not billion-dollar, trans-super-continental +problems like yours." +"Why, that's good. I always thought that Phil should find some interest of +his own." +"Good? You mean you like to see your brother sweating his health away? It +amuses you, doesn't it? I always thought it did." +"Why, no, Mother. I'd like to help." +"You don't have to help. You don't have to feel anything for any of us." +Rearden had never known what his brother was doing or wished to do. He had +sent Philip through college, but Philip had not been able to decide on any +specific ambition. There was something wrong, by Rearden's standards, with a +man who did not seek any gainful employment, but he would not impose his +standards on Philip; he could afford to support his brother and never notice +the expense. Let him take it easy, Rearden had thought for years, let him +have a chance to choose his career without the strain of struggling for a +livelihood. +"What were you doing today, Phil?" he asked patiently. +"It wouldn't interest you." +"It does interest me. That's why I'm asking." +"I had to see twenty different people all over the place, from here to +Redding to Wilmington." +"What did you have to see them about?" +"I am trying to raise money for Friends of Global Progress." +Rearden had never been able to keep track of the many organizations to +which Philip belonged, nor to get a clear idea of their activities. He had +heard Philip talking vaguely about this one for the last six months. +It seemed to be devoted to some sort of free lectures on psychology, folk +music and co-operative farming. Rearden felt contempt for groups of that kind +and saw no reason for a closer inquiry into their nature. + + He remained silent. Philip added without being prompted, "We need ten +thousand dollars for a vital program, but it's a martyr's task, trying to +raise money. There's not a speck of social conscience left in people. +When I think of the kind of bloated money-bags I saw today—why, they spend +more than that on any whim, but I couldn't squeeze just a hundred bucks a +piece out of them, which was all I asked. They have no sense of moral duty, +no . . . What are you laughing at?" he asked sharply. Rearden stood before +him, grinning. +It was so childishly blatant, thought Rearden, so helplessly crude: the +hint and the insult, offered together. It would be so easy to squash Philip +by returning the insult, he thought—by returning an insult which would be +deadly because it would be true—that he could not bring himself to utter it. +Surely, he thought, the poor fool knows he's at my mercy, knows he's opened +himself to be hurt, so I don't have to do it, and my not doing it is my best +answer, which he won't be able to miss. +What sort of misery does he really live in, to get himself twisted quite +so badly? +And then Rearden thought suddenly that he could break through Philip's +chronic wretchedness for once, give him a shock of pleasure, the unexpected +gratification of a hopeless desire. He thought: What do I care about the +nature of his desire?—it's his, just as Rearden Metal was mine—it must mean +to him what that meant to me—let's see him happy just once, it might teach +him something—didn't I say that happiness is the agent of purification?—I'm +celebrating tonight, so let him share in it—it will be so much for him, and +so little for me. +"Philip," he said, smiling, "call Miss Ives at my office tomorrow. +She'll have a check for you for ten thousand dollars." +Philip stared at him blankly; it was neither shock nor pleasure; it was +just the empty stare of eyes that looked glassy. +"Oh," said Philip, then added, "We'll appreciate it very much." +There was no emotion in his voice, not even the simple one of greed. +Rearden could not understand his own feeling: it was as if something +leaden and empty were collapsing within him, he felt both the weight and the +emptiness, together. He knew it was disappointment, but he wondered why it +was so gray and ugly. +"It's very nice of you, Henry," Philip said dryly. "I'm surprised. I +didn't expect it of you." +"Don't you understand it, Phil?" said Lillian, her voice peculiarly clear +and lilting. "Henry's poured his metal today." She turned to Rearden. "Shall +we declare it a national holiday, darling?" +"You're a good man, Henry," said his mother, and added, "but not often +enough." +Rearden stood looking at Philip, as if waiting. +Philip looked away, then raised his eyes and held Rearden's glance, as if +engaged in a scrutiny of his own. +"You don't really care about helping the underprivileged, do you?" +Philip asked—and Rearden heard, unable to believe it, that the tone of his +voice was reproachful. +"No, Phil, I don't care about it at all. I only wanted you to be happy." +"But that money is not for me. I am not collecting it for any personal +motive. I have no selfish interest in the matter whatever." His voice was +cold, with a note of self-conscious virtue. +Rearden turned away. He felt a sudden loathing: not because the words were +hypocrisy, but because they were true; Philip meant them. +"By the way, Henry," Philip added, "do you mind if I ask you to have Miss +Ives give me the money in cash?" Rearden turned back to him, puzzled. "You +see, Friends of Global Progress are a very progressive group and they have + + always maintained that you represent the blackest element of social +retrogression ha the country, so it would embarrass us, you know, to have +your name on our list of contributors, because somebody might accuse us of +being in the pay of Hank Rearden." +He wanted to slap Philip's face. But an almost unendurable contempt made +him close his eyes, instead. +"All right," he said quietly, "you can have it in cash." +He walked away, to the farthest window of the room, and stood looking at +the glow of the mills in the distance. +He heard Larkin's voice crying after him, "Damn it, Hank, you shouldn't +have given it to him!" +Then Lillian's voice came, cold and gay: "But you're wrong, Paul, you're +so wrong! What would happen to Henry's vanity if he didn't have us to throw +alms to? What would become of his strength if he didn't have weaker people to +dominate? What would he do with himself if he didn't keep us around as +dependents? It's quite all right, really, I'm not criticizing him, it's just +a law of human nature." +She took the metal bracelet and held it up, letting it glitter in the +lamplight. +"A chain," she said. "Appropriate, isn't it? It's the chain by which he +holds us all in bondage." + + CHAPTER III +THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM +The ceiling was that of a cellar, so heavy and low that people stooped +when crossing the room, as if the weight of the vaulting rested on their +shoulders. The circular booths of dark red leather were built into walls of +stone that looked eaten by age and dampness. There were no windows, only +patches of blue light shooting from dents in the masonry, the dead blue light +proper for use in blackouts. The place was entered by way of narrow steps +that led down, as if descending deep under the ground. This was the most +expensive barroom in New York and it was built on the roof of a skyscraper. +Four men sat at a table. Raised sixty floors above the city, they did not +speak loudly as one speaks from a height in the freedom of air and space; +they kept their voices low, as befitted a cellar. +"Conditions and circumstances, Jim," said Orren Boyle. "Conditions and +circumstances absolutely beyond human control. We had everything mapped to +roll those rails, but unforeseen developments set in which nobody could have +prevented. If you'd only given us a chance, Jim." +"Disunity," drawled James Taggart, "seems to be the basic cause of all +social problems. My sister has a certain influence with a certain element +among our stockholders. Their disruptive tactics cannot always be defeated." +"You said it, Jim. Disunity, that's the trouble. It's my absolute opinion +that in our complex industrial society, no business enterprise can succeed +without sharing the burden of the problems of other enterprises." +Taggart took a sip of his drink and put it down again. "I wish they'd fire +that bartender," he said. +"For instance, consider Associated Steel. We've got the most modern plant +in the country and the best organization. That seems to me to be an +indisputable fact, because we got the Industrial Efficiency Award of Globe +Magazine last year. So we can maintain that we've done our best and nobody +can blame us. But we cannot help it if the iron ore situation is a national +problem. We could not get the ore, Jim." +Taggart said nothing. He sat with his elbows spread wide on the table top. +The table was uncomfortably small, and this made it more uncomfortable for +his three companions, but they did not seem to question his privilege. +"Nobody can get ore any longer," said Boyle. "Natural exhaustion of the +mines, you know, and the wearing out of equipment, and shortages of +materials, and difficulties of transportation, and other unavoidable +conditions." +"The ore industry is crumbling. That's what's killing the mining equipment +business," said Paul Larkin. +"It's been proved that every business depends upon every other business," +said Orren Boyle. "So everybody ought to share the burdens of everybody +else." +"That is, I think, true,” said Wesley Mouch. But nobody ever paid any +attention to Wesley Mouch. +"My purpose," said Orren Boyle, "is the preservation of a free economy. +It's generally conceded that free economy is now on trial. Unless it proves +its social value and assumes its social responsibilities, the people won't +stand for it. If it doesn't develop a public spirit, it's done for, make no +mistake about that." +Orren Boyle had appeared from nowhere, five years ago, and had since made +the cover of every national news magazine. He had started out with a hundred +thousand dollars of his own and a two-hundred million-dollar loan from the +government. Now he headed an enormous concern which had swallowed many + + smaller companies. This proved, he liked to say, that individual ability +still had a chance to succeed in the world. +"The only justification of private property," said Orren Boyle, "is public +service." +"That is, I think, indubitable," said Wesley Mouch. +Orren Boyle made a noise, swallowing his liquor. He was a large man with +big, virile gestures; everything about his person was loudly full of life, +except the small black slits of his eyes. +"Jim," he said, "Rearden Metal seems to be a colossal kind of swindle." +"Uh-huh," said Taggart. +"I hear there's not a single expert who's given a favorable report on it." +"No, not one." +"We've been improving steel rails for generations, and increasing their +weight. Now, is it true that these Rearden Metal rails are to be lighter than +the cheapest grade of steel?" +"That's right," said Taggart. "Lighter." +"But it's ridiculous, Jim. It's physically impossible. For your heavyduty, high-speed, main-line track?" +"That's right." +"But you're just inviting disaster." +"My sister is." +Taggart made the stem of his glass whirl slowly between two fingers. +There was a moment of silence. +"The National Council of Metal Industries," said Orren Boyle, "passed a +resolution to appoint a committee to study the question of Rearden Metal, +inasmuch as its use may be an actual public hazard." +"That is, in my opinion, wise," said Wesley Mouch. +"When everybody agrees," Taggart's voice suddenly went shrill, "when +people are unanimous, how does one man dare to dissent? By what right? That's +what I want to know—by what right?" +Boyle's eyes darted to Taggart's face, but the dim light of the room made +it impossible to see faces clearly: he saw only a pale, bluish smear. +"When we think of the natural resources, at a time of critical shortage," +Boyle said softly, "when we think of the crucial raw materials that are being +wasted on an irresponsible private experiment, when we think of the ore . . +." +He did not finish. He glanced at Taggart again. But Taggart seemed to know +that Boyle was waiting and to find the silence enjoyable. +"The public has a vital stake in natural resources, Jim, such as iron ore. +The public can't remain indifferent to reckless, selfish waste by an antisocial individual. After all, private property is a trusteeship held for the +benefit of society as a whole." +Taggart glanced at Boyle and smiled; the smile was pointed, it seemed to +say that something in his words was an answer to something in the words of +Boyle. "The liquor they serve here is swill. I suppose that's the price we +have to pay for not being crowded by all kinds of rabble. But I do wish +they'd recognize that they're dealing with experts. +Since I hold the purse strings, I expect to get my money's worth and at my +pleasure." +Boyle did not answer; his face had become sullen. "Listen, Jim . . ." +he began heavily. +Taggart smiled. "What? I'm listening." +"Jim, you will agree, I'm sure, that there's nothing more destructive than +a monopoly." +"Yes," said Taggart, "on the one hand. On the other, there's the blight of +unbridled competition." + + "That's true. That's very true. The proper course is always, in my +opinion, in the middle. So it is, I think, the duty of society to snip the +extremes, now isn't it?" +"Yes," said Taggart, "it is." +"Consider the picture in the iron-ore business. The national output seems +to be falling at an ungodly rate. It threatens the existence of the whole +steel industry. Steel mills are shutting down all over the country. +There's only one mining company that's lucky enough not to be affected by +the general conditions. Its output seems to be plentiful and always available +on schedule. But who gets the benefit of it? Nobody except its owner. Would +you say that that's fair?" +"No," said Taggart, "it isn't fair." +"Most of us don't own iron mines. How can we compete with a man who's got +a corner on God's natural resources? Is it any wonder that he can always +deliver steel, while we have to struggle and wait and lose our customers and +go out of business? Is it in the public interest to let one man destroy an +entire industry?" +"No," said Taggart, "it isn't." +"It seems to me that the national policy ought to be aimed at the +objective of giving everybody a chance at his fair share of iron ore, with a +view toward the preservation of the industry as a whole. Don't you think so?" +"I think so." +Boyle sighed. Then he said cautiously, "But I guess there aren't many +people in Washington capable of understanding a progressive social policy." +Taggart said slowly, "There are. No, not many and not easy to approach, +but there are. I might speak to them." +Boyle picked up his drink and swallowed it in one gulp, as if he had heard +all he had wanted to hear. +"Speaking of progressive policies, Orren," said Taggart, "you might ask +yourself whether at a time of transportation shortages, when so many +railroads are going bankrupt and large areas are left without rail service, +whether it is in the public interest to tolerate wasteful duplication of +services and the destructive, dog-eat-dog competition of newcomers in +territories where established companies have historical priority." +"Well, now," said Boyle pleasantly, "that seems to be an interesting +question to consider. I might discuss it with a few friends in the National +Alliance of Railroads." +"Friendships," said Taggart in the tone of an idle abstraction, "are more +valuable than gold." Unexpectedly, he turned to Larkin. "Don't you think so, +Paul?" +"Why . . . yes," said Larkin, astonished. "Yes, of course." +"I am counting on yours." +"Huh?" +"I am counting on your many friendships." +They all seemed to know why Larkin did not answer at once; his shoulders +seemed to shrink down, closer to the table. "If everybody could pull for a +common purpose, then nobody would have to be hurt!" +he cried suddenly, in a tone of incongruous despair; he saw Taggart +watching him and added, pleading, "I wish we didn't have to hurt anybody." +"That is an anti-social attitude," drawled Taggart. "People who are +afraid, to sacrifice somebody have no business talking about a common +purpose." +"But I'm a student of history," said Larkin hastily. "I recognize +historical necessity." +"Good," said Taggart. +"I can't be expected to buck the trend of the whole world, can I?" +Larkin seemed to plead, but the plea was not addressed to anyone. + + "Can I?" +"You can't, Mr. Larkin," said Wesley Mouch. "You and I are not to be +blamed, if we—" +Larkin jerked his head away; it was almost a shudder; he could not bear to +look at Mouch. +"Did you have a good time in Mexico, Orren?" asked Taggart, his voice +suddenly loud and casual. All of them seemed to know that the purpose of +their meeting was accomplished and whatever they had come here to understand +was understood. +"Wonderful place, Mexico," Boyle answered cheerfully. "Very stimulating +and thought-provoking. Their food rations are something awful, though. I got +sick. But they're working mighty hard to put their country on its feet." +"How are things going down there?" +"Pretty splendid, it seems to me, pretty splendid. Right at the moment, +however, they're . . . But then, what they're aiming at is the future. The +People's State of Mexico has a great future. They'll beat us all in a few +years." +"Did you go down to the San Sebastian Mines?" +The four figures at the table sat up straighter and tighter; all of them +had invested heavily in the stock of the San Sebastian Mines. +Boyle did not answer at once, so that his voice seemed unexpected and +unnaturally loud when it burst forth: "Oh, sure, certainly, that's what I +wanted to see most." +"And?" +"And what?" +"How are things going?" +"Great. Great. They must certainly have the biggest deposits of copper on +earth, down inside that mountain!" +"Did they seem to be busy?" +"Never saw such a busy place in my life." +"What were they busy doing?" +"Well, you know, with the kind of Spic superintendent they have down +there, I couldn't understand half of what he was talking about, but they're +certainly busy." +"Any . . . trouble of any kind?" +"Trouble? Not at San Sebastian. It's private property, the last piece of +it left in Mexico, and that does seem to make a difference." +"Orren," Taggart asked cautiously, "what about those rumors that they're +planning to nationalize the San Sebastian Mines?" +"Slander," said Boyle angrily, "plain, vicious slander. I know it for +certain. I had dinner with the Minister of Culture and lunches with all the +rest of the boys." +"There ought to be a law against irresponsible gossip," said Taggart +sullenly. "Let's have another drink." +He waved irritably at a waiter. There was a small bar in a dark corner of +the room, where an old, wizened bartender stood for long stretches of time +without moving. When called upon, he moved with contemptuous slowness. His +job was that of servant to men's relaxation and pleasure, but his manner was +that of an embittered quack ministering to some guilty disease. +The four men sat in silence until the waiter returned with their drinks. +The glasses he placed on the table were four spots of faint blue glitter in +the semi-darkness, like four feeble jets of gas flame. Taggart reached for +his glass and smiled suddenly. +"Let's drink to the sacrifices to historical necessity," he said, looking +at Larkin. +There was a moment's pause; in a lighted room, it would have been the +contest of two men holding each other's eyes; here, they were merely looking + + at each other's eye sockets. Then Larkin picked up his glass, "It's my party, +boys," said Taggart, as they drank. +Nobody found anything else to say. until Boyle spoke up with indifferent +curiosity. "Say, Jim, I meant to ask you, what in hell's the matter with your +train service down on the San Sebastian Line?" +"Why, what do you mean? What is the matter with it?" +"Well, I don't know, but running just one passenger train a day is—" +"One train?" +"—is pretty measly service, it seems to me, and what a train! You must +have inherited those coaches from your great-grandfather, and he must have +used them pretty hard. And where on earth did you get that wood-burning +locomotive?" +"Wood-burning?' +"That's what I said, wood-burning. I never saw one before, except in +photographs. What museum did you drag it out of? Now don't act as if you +didn't know it, just tell me what's the gag?" +"Yes, of course I knew it," said Taggart hastily. "It was just . . . +You just happened to choose the one week when we had a little trouble with +our motive power—our new engines are on order, but there's been a slight +delay—you know what a problem we're having with the manufacturers of +locomotives—but it's only temporary." +"Of course," said Boyle. "Delays can't be helped. It's the strangest train +I ever rode on, though. Nearly shook my guts out." +Within a few minutes, they noticed that Taggart had become silent. +He seemed preoccupied with a problem of his own. When he rose abruptly, +without apology, they rose, too, accepting it as a command. +Larkin muttered, smiling too strenuously, "It was a pleasure, Jim. +A pleasure. That's how great projects are born—over a drink with friends." +"Social reforms are slow," said Taggart coldly. "It is advisable to be +patient and cautious." For the first time, he turned to Wesley Mouch. +"What I like about you, Mouch, is that you don't talk too much." +Wesley Mouch was Rearden's Washington man. +There was still a remnant of sunset light in the sky, when Taggart and +Boyle emerged together into the street below. The transition was faintly +shocking to them—the enclosed barroom led one to expect midnight darkness. A +tall building stood outlined against the sky, sharp and straight like a +raised sword. In the distance beyond it, there hung the calendar. +Taggart fumbled irritably with his coat collar, buttoning it against the +chill of the streets. He had not intended to go back to the office tonight, +but he had to go back. He had to see his sister. +". . . a difficult undertaking ahead of us, Jim," Boyle was saying, "a +difficult undertaking, with so many dangers and complications and so much at +stake . . ." +"It all depends," James Taggart answered slowly, "on knowing the people +who make it possible. . . . That's what has to be known—who makes it +possible." +Dagny Taggart was nine years old when she decided that she would run the +Taggart Transcontinental Railroad some day. She stated it to herself when she +stood alone between the rails, looking at the two straight lines of steel +that went off into the distance and met in a single point. What she felt was +an arrogant pleasure at the way the track cut through the woods: it did not +belong in the midst of ancient trees, among green branches that hung down to +meet green brush and the lonely spears of wild flowers—but there it was. The +two steel lines were brilliant in the sun, and the black ties were like the +rungs of a ladder which she had to climb. +It was not a sudden decision, but only the final seal of words upon +something she had known long ago. In unspoken understanding, as if bound by a + + vow it had never been necessary to take, she and Eddie Willers had given +themselves to the railroad from the first conscious days of their childhood. +She felt a bored indifference toward the immediate world around her, +toward other children and adults alike. She took it as a regrettable +accident, to be borne patiently for a while, that she happened to be +imprisoned among people who were dull. She had caught a glimpse of another +world and she knew that it existed somewhere, the world that had created +trains, bridges, telegraph wires and signal lights winking in the night. She +had to wait, she thought, and grow up to that world. +She never tried to explain why she liked the railroad. Whatever it was +that others felt, she knew that this was one emotion for which they had no +equivalent and no response. She felt the same emotion in school, in classes +of mathematics, the only lessons she liked. She felt the excitement of +solving problems, the insolent delight of taking up a challenge and disposing +of it without effort, the eagerness to meet another, harder test. She felt, +at the same time, a growing respect for the adversary, for a science that was +so clean, so strict, so luminously rational. Studying mathematics, she felt, +quite simply and at once: "How great that men have done this" and "How +wonderful that I'm so good at it." It was the joy of admiration and of one's +own ability, growing together. Her feeling for the railroad was the same: +worship of the skill that had gone to make it, of the ingenuity of someone's +clean, reasoning mind, worship with a secret smile that said she would know +how to make it better some day. She hung around the tracks and the +roundhouses like a humble student, but the humility had a touch of future +pride, a pride to be earned. +"You're unbearably conceited," was one of the two sentences she heard +throughout her childhood, even though she never spoke of her own ability. The +other sentence was: "You're selfish." She asked what was meant, but never +received an answer. She looked at the adults, wondering how they could +imagine that she would feel guilt from an undefined accusation. +She was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run +the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for +the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. +To hell with that, she thought—and never worried about it again. +She went to work for Taggart Transcontinental at the age of sixteen. +Her father permitted it: he was amused and a little curious. She started +as night operator at a small country station. She had to work nights for the +first few years, while attending a college of engineering. +James Taggart began his career on the railroad at the same time; he was +twenty-one. He started in the Department of Public Relations. +Dagny's rise among the men who operated Taggart Transcontinental was swift +and uncontested. She took positions of responsibility because there was no +one else to take them. There were a few rare men of talent around her, but +they were becoming rarer every year. Her superiors, who held the authority, +seemed afraid to exercise it, they spent their time avoiding decisions, so +she told people what to do and they did it. +At every step of her rise, she did the work long before she was granted +the title. It was like advancing through empty rooms. Nobody opposed her, yet +nobody approved of her progress. +Her father seemed astonished and proud of her, but he said nothing and +there was sadness in his eyes when he looked at her in the office She was +twenty-nine years old when he died. "There has always been a Taggart to run +the railroad," was the last thing he said to her. He looked at her with an +odd glance: it had the quality of a salute and of compassion, together. +The controlling stock of Taggart Transcontinental was left to James +Taggart. He was thirty-four when he became President of the railroad Dagny +had expected the Board of Directors to elect him, but she had never been able + + to understand why they did it so eagerly. They talked about tradition, the +president had always been the eldest son of the Taggart family; they elected +James Taggart in the same manner as they refused to walk under a ladder, to +propitiate the same kind of fear. They talked about his gift of "making +railroads popular," his "good press," his "Washington ability." He seemed +unusually skillful at obtaining favors from the Legislature. +Dagny knew nothing about the field of "Washington ability" or what such an +ability implied. But it seemed to be necessary, so she dismissed it with the +thought that there were many kinds of work which were offensive, yet +necessary, such as cleaning sewers; somebody had to do it, and Jim seemed to +like it. +She had never aspired to the presidency; the Operating Department was her +only concern. When she went out on the line, old railroad men, who hated Jim, +said, "There will always be a Taggart to run the railroad," looking at her as +her father had looked. She was armed against Jim by the conviction that he +was not smart enough to harm the railroad too much and that she would always +be able to correct whatever damage he caused. +At sixteen, sitting at her operator's desk, watching the lighted windows +of Taggart trains roll past, she had thought that she had entered her kind of +world. In the years since, she learned that she hadn't. The adversary she +found herself forced to fight was not worth matching or beating; it was not a +superior ability which she would have found honor in challenging; it was +ineptitude—a gray spread of cotton that deemed soft and shapeless, that could +offer no resistance to anything or anybody, yet managed to be a barrier in +her way. She stood, disarmed, before the riddle of what made this possible. +She could find no answer. +It was only in the first few years that she felt herself screaming +silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of +clean, hard, radiant competence. She had fits of tortured longing for a +friend or an enemy with a mind better than her own. But the longing passed. +She had a job to do. She did not have time to feel pain; not often. +The first step of the policy that James Taggart brought to the railroad +was the construction of the San Sebastian Line. Many men were responsible for +it; but to Dagny, one name stood written across that venture, a name that +wiped out all others wherever she saw it. It stood across five years of +struggle, across miles of wasted track, across sheets of figures that +recorded the losses of Taggart Transcontinental like a red trickle from a +wound which would not heal—as it stood on the ticker tape of every stock +exchange left in the world—as it stood on smokestacks in the red glare of +furnaces melting copper—as it stood in scandalous headlines—as it stood on +parchment pages recording the nobility of the centuries—as it stood on cards +attached to flowers in the boudoirs of women scattered through three +continents. +The name was Francisco d'Anconia. +At the age of twenty-three, when he inherited his fortune, Francisco +d'Anconia had been famous as the copper king of the world. Now, at thirtysix, he was famous as the richest man and the most spectacularly worthless +playboy on earth. He was the last descendant of one of the noblest families +of Argentina. He owned cattle ranches, coffee plantations and most of the +copper mines of Chile. He owned half of South America and sundry mines +scattered through the United States as small change. +When Francisco d'Anconia suddenly bought miles of bare mountains in +Mexico, news leaked out that he had discovered vast deposits of copper. He +made no effort to sell stock in his venture; the stock was begged out of his +hands, and he merely chose those whom he wished to favor from among the +applicants. His financial talent was called phenomenal; no one had ever +beaten him in any transaction—he added to his incredible fortune with every + + deal he touched and every step he made, when he took the trouble to make it. +Those who censured him most were first to seize the chance of riding on his +talent, toward a share of his new wealth. James Taggart, Orren Boyle and +their friends were among the heaviest stockholders of the project which +Francisco d'Anconia had named the San Sebastian Mines. +Dagny was never able to discover what influences prompted James Taggart to +build a railroad branch from Texas into the wilderness of San Sebastian. It +seemed likely that he did not know it himself: like a field without a +windbreak, he seemed open to any current, and the final sum was made by +chance, A few among the Directors of Taggart Transcontinental objected to the +project. The company needed all its resources to rebuild the Rio Norte Line; +it could not do both. But James Taggart was the road's new president. It was +the first year of his administration. He won. +The People's State of Mexico was eager to co-operate, and signed a +contract guaranteeing for two hundred years the property right of Taggart +Transcontinental to its railroad line in a country where no property rights +existed. Francisco d'Anconia had obtained the same guaranty for his mines. +Dagny fought against the building of the San Sebastian Line. She fought by +means of whoever would listen to her; but she was only an assistant in the +Operating Department, too young, without authority, and nobody listened. +She was unable, then or since, to understand the motives of those who +decided to build the line. Sitting as a helpless spectator, a minority +member, at one of the Board meetings, she felt a strange evasiveness in the +air of the room, in every speech, in every argument, as if the real reason of +their decision were never stated, but clear to everyone except herself. +They spoke about the future importance of the trade with Mexico, about a +rich stream of freight, about the large revenues assured to the exclusive +carrier of an inexhaustible supply of copper. They proved it by citing +Francisco d'Anconia's past achievements. They did not mention any +mineralogical facts about the San Sebastian Mines. Few facts were available; +the information which d'Anconia had released was not very specific; but they +did not seem to need facts. +They spoke at great length about the poverty of the Mexicans and their +desperate need of railroads, "They've never had a chance." "It is our duty to +help an underprivileged nation to develop. A country, it seems to me, is its +neighbors' keeper." +She sat, listening, and she thought of the many branch lines which Taggart +Transcontinental had had to abandon; the revenues of the great railroad had +been falling slowly for many years. She thought of the ominous need of +repairs, ominously neglected over the entire system. +Their policy on the problem of maintenance was not a policy but a game +they seemed to be playing with a piece of rubber that could be stretched a +little, then a little more. +"The Mexicans, it seems to me, are a very diligent people, crushed by +their primitive economy. How can they become industrialized if nobody lends +them a hand?" "When considering an investment, we should, in my opinion, take +a chance on human beings, rather than on purely material factors." +She thought of an engine that lay in a ditch beside the Rio Norte Line, +because a splice bar had cracked. She thought of the five days when all +traffic was stopped on the Rio Norte Line, because a retaining wall had +collapsed, pouring tons of rock across the track. +"Since a man must think of the good of his brothers before he thinks of +his own, it seems to me that a nation must think of its neighbors before it +thinks of itself." +She thought of a newcomer called Ellis Wyatt whom people were beginning to +watch, because his activity was the first trickle of a torrent of goods about +to burst from the dying stretches of Colorado. The Rio Norte Line was being + + allowed to run its way to a final collapse, just when its fullest efficiency +was about to be needed and used. +"Material greed isn't everything. There are non-material ideals to +consider." "I confess to a feeling of shame when I think that we own a huge +network of railways, while the Mexican people have nothing but one or two +inadequate lines." "The old theory of economic self-sufficiency has been +exploded long ago. It is impossible for one country to prosper in the midst +of a starving world." +She thought that to make Taggart Transcontinental what it had been once, +long before her time, every available rail, spike and dollar was needed—and +how desperately little of it was available. +They spoke also, at the same session, in the same speeches, about the +efficiency of the Mexican government that held complete control of +everything. Mexico had a great future, they said, and would become a +dangerous competitor in a few years. "Mexico's got discipline," the men of +the Board kept saying, with a note of envy in their voices. +James Taggart let it be understood—in unfinished sentences and undefined +hints—that his friends in Washington, whom he never named, wished to see a +railroad line built in Mexico, that such a line would be of great help in +matters of international diplomacy, that the good will of the public opinion +of the world would more than repay Taggart Transcontinental for its +investment. +They voted to build the San Sebastian Line at a cost of thirty million +dollars. +When Dagny left the Board room and walked through the clean, cold air of +the streets, she heard two words repeated clearly, insistently in the numbed +emptiness of her mind: Get out . . . Get out . . . +Get out. +She listened, aghast. The thought of leaving Taggart Transcontinental did +not belong among the things she could hold as conceivable. She felt terror, +not at the thought, but at the question of what had made her think it. She +shook her head angrily; she told herself that Taggart Transcontinental would +now need her more than ever. +Two of the Directors resigned; so did the Vice-President in Charge of +Operation. He was replaced by a friend of James Taggart, Steel rail was laid +across the Mexican desert—while orders were issued to reduce the speed of +trains on the Rio Norte Line, because the track was shot. A depot of +reinforced concrete, with marble columns and mirrors, was built amidst the +dust of an unpaved square in a Mexican village—while a train of tank cars +carrying oil went hurtling down an embankment and into a blazing junk pile, +because a rail had split on the Rio Norte Line. Ellis Wyatt did not wait for +the court to decide whether the accident was an act of God, as James Taggart +claimed, He transferred the shipping of his oil to the Phoenix-Durango, an +obscure railroad which was small and struggling, but struggling well. +This was the rocket that sent the Phoenix-Durango on its way. From then +on, it grew, as Wyatt Oil grew, as factories grew in nearby valleys —as a +band of rails and ties grew, at the rate of two miles a month, across the +scraggly fields of Mexican corn. +Dagny was thirty-two years old, when she told James Taggart that she would +resign. She had run the Operating Department for the past three years, +without title, credit or authority. She was defeated by loathing for the +hours, the days, the nights she had to waste circumventing the interference +of Jim's friend who bore the title of Vice-President in Charge of Operation. +The man had no policy, and any decision he made was always hers, but he made +it only after he had made every effort to make it impossible. What she +delivered to her brother was an ultimatum. He gasped, "But, Dagny, you're a + + woman! A woman as Operating Vice-President? It's unheard of! The Board won't +consider it!" "Then I'm through," she answered. +She did not think of what she would do with the rest of her life. To face +leaving Taggart Transcontinental was like waiting to have her legs amputated; +she thought she would let it happen, then take up the load of whatever was +left. +She never understood why the Board of Directors voted unanimously to make +her Vice-President in Charge of Operation. +It was she who finally gave them their San Sebastian Line. When she took +over, the construction had been under way for three years; one third of its +track was laid; the cost to date was beyond the authorized total. She fired +Jim's friends and found a contractor who completed the job in one year. +The San Sebastian Line was now in operation. No surge of trade had come +across the border, nor any trains loaded with copper. A few carloads came +clattering down the mountains from San Sebastian, at long intervals. The +mines, said Francisco d'Anconia, were still in the process of development. +The drain on Taggart Transcontinental had not stopped. +Now she sat at the desk in her office, as she had sat for many evenings, +trying to work out the problem of what branches could save the system and in +how many years. +The Rio Norte Line, when rebuilt, would redeem the rest. As she looked at +the sheets of figures announcing losses and more losses, she did not think of +the long, senseless agony of the Mexican venture. She thought of a telephone +call. "Hank, can you save us? Can you give us rail on the shortest notice and +the longest credit possible?" A quiet, steady voice had answered, "Sure." +The thought was a point of support. She leaned over the sheets of paper on +her desk, finding it suddenly easier to concentrate. There was one thing, at +least, that could be counted upon not to crumble when needed. +James Taggart crossed the anteroom of Dagny's office, still holding the +kind of confidence he had felt among his companions at the barroom half an +hour ago. When he opened her door, the confidence vanished. He crossed the +room to her desk like a child being dragged to punishment, storing the +resentment for all his future years. +He saw a head bent over sheets of paper, the light of the desk lamp +glistening on strands of disheveled hair, a white shirt clinging to her +shoulders, its loose folds suggesting the thinness of her body. +"What is it, Jim?" +"What are you trying to pull on the San Sebastian Line?" +She raised her head. "Pull? Why?" +"What sort of schedule are we running down there and what kind of trains?" +She laughed; the sound was gay and a little weary. "You really ought to +read the reports sent to the president's office, Jim, once in a while." +"What do you mean?" +"We've been running that schedule and those trains on the San Sebastian +for the last three months." +"One passenger train a day?" +"—in the morning. And one freight train every other night." +"Good God! On an important branch like that?" +"The important branch can't pay even for those two trams." +"But the Mexican people expect real service from us!" +"I'm sure they do." +"They need trains!" +"For what?" +"For . . . To help them develop local industries. How do you expect them +to develop if we don't give them transportation?" +"I don't expect them to develop," + + "That's just your personal opinion. I don't see what right you had to take +it upon yourself to cut our schedules. Why, the copper traffic alone will pay +for everything." +"When?" +He looked at her; his face assumed the satisfaction of a person about to +utter something that has the power to hurt. "You don't doubt the success of +those copper mines, do you?—when it's Francisco d'Anconia who's running +them?" He stressed the name, watching her. +She said, "He may be your friend, but—" +"My friend? I thought he was yours." +She said steadily, "Not for the last ten years." +"That's too bad, isn't it? Still, he's one of the smartest operators on +earth. He's never failed in a venture—I mean, a business venture—and he's +sunk millions of his own money into those mines, so we can rely on his +judgment." +"When will you realize that Francisco d'Anconia has turned into a +worthless bum?" +He chuckled. "I always thought that that's what he was—as far as his +personal character is concerned. But you didn't share my opinion. Yours was +opposite. Oh my, how opposite! Surely you remember our quarrels on the +subject? Shall I quote some of the things you said about him? I can only +surmise as to some of the things you did." +"Do you wish to discuss Francisco d'Anconia? Is that what you came here +for?" +His face showed the anger of failure—because hers showed nothing. +"You know damn well what I came here for!" he snapped. "I've heard some +incredible things about our trains in Mexico." +"What things?" +"What sort of rolling stock are you using down there?" +"The worst I could find." +"You admit that?" +"I've stated it on paper in the reports I sent you." +"Is it true that you're using wood-burning locomotives?" +"Eddie found them for me in somebody's abandoned roundhouse down in +Louisiana. He couldn't even learn the name of the railroad." +"And that's what you're running as Taggart trains?" +"Yes." +"What in hell's the big idea? What's going on? I want to know what's going +on!" +She spoke evenly, looking straight at him. "If you want to know, I have +left nothing but junk on the San Sebastian Line, and as little of that as +possible. I have moved everything that could be moved—switch engines, shop +tools, even typewriters and mirrors—out of Mexico." +"Why in blazes?" +"So that the looters won't have too much to loot when they nationalize the +line." +He leaped to his feet. "You won't get away with that! This is one time you +won't get away with it! To have the nerve to pull such a low, unspeakable . . +. just because of some vicious rumors, when we have a contract for two +hundred years and . . ." +"Jim," she said slowly, "there's not a car, engine or ton of coal that we +can spare anywhere on the system." +"I won't permit it, I absolutely won't permit such an outrageous policy +toward a friendly people who need our help. Material greed isn't everything. +After all, there are non-material considerations, even though you wouldn't +understand them!" +She pulled a pad forward and picked up a pencil. "All right, Jim. + + How many trains do you wish me to run on the San Sebastian Line?" +"Huh?" +"Which runs do you wish me to cut and on which of our lines—in order to +get the Diesels and the steel coaches?" +"I don't want you to cut any runs!" +"Then where do I get the equipment for Mexico?" +"That's for you to figure out. It's your job." +"I am not able to do it. You will have to decide." +"That's your usual rotten trick—switching the responsibility to me!" +"I'm waiting for orders, Jim." +'Tm not going to let you trap me like that!" +She dropped the pencil. "Then the San Sebastian schedule will remain as it +is." +"Just wait till the Board meeting next month. I'll demand a decision, Once +and for all, on how far the Operating Department is to be permitted to exceed +its authority. You're going to have to answer for this." +"Ill answer for it." +She was back at her work before the door had closed on James Taggart. +When she finished, pushed the papers aside and glanced up, the sky was +black beyond the window, and the city had become a glowing spread of lighted +glass without masonry. She rose reluctantly. She resented the small defeat of +being tired, but she knew that she was, tonight. +The outer office was dark and empty; her staff had gone. Only Eddie +Willers was still there, at his desk in his glass-partitioned enclosure that +looked like a cube of light in a comer of the large room. She waved to him on +her way out. +She did not take the elevator to the lobby of the building, but to the +concourse of the Taggart Terminal. She liked to walk through it on her way +home. +She had always felt that the concourse looked like a temple. Glancing up +at the distant ceiling, she saw dim vaults supported by giant granite +columns, and the tops of vast windows glazed by darkness. The vaulting held +the solemn peace of a cathedral, spread in protection high above the rushing +activity of men. +Dominating the concourse, but ignored by the travelers as a habitual +sight, stood a statue of Nathaniel Taggart, the founder of the railroad. +Dagny was the only one who remained aware of it and had never been able to +take it for granted. To look at that statue whenever she crossed the +concourse, was the only form of prayer she knew. +Nathaniel Taggart had been a penniless adventurer who had come from +somewhere in New England and built a railroad across a continent, in the days +of the first steel rails. His railroad still stood; his battle to build it +had dissolved into a legend, because people preferred not to Understand it or +to believe it possible. +He was a man who had never accepted the creed that others had the right to +stop him. He set his goal and moved toward it, his way as straight as one of +his rails. He never sought any loans, bonds, subsidies, land grants or +legislative favors from the government. He obtained money from the men who +owned it, going from door to door— +from the mahogany doors of bankers to the clapboard doors of lonely +farmhouses. He never talked about the public good. He merely told people that +they would make big profits on his railroad, he told them why he expected the +profits and he gave his reasons. He had good reasons. +Through all the generations that followed, Taggart Transcontinental was +one of the few railroads that never went bankrupt and the only one whose +controlling stock remained in the hands of the founder's descendants. + + In his lifetime, the name "Nat Taggart" was not famous, but notorious; it +was repeated, not in homage, but in resentful curiosity; and if anyone +admired him, it was as one admires a successful bandit. Yet no penny of his +wealth had been obtained by force or fraud; he was guilty of nothing, except +that he earned his own fortune and never forgot that it was his. +Many stories were whispered about him. It was said that in the wilderness +of the Middle West, he murdered a state legislator who attempted to revoke a +charter granted to him, to revoke it when his rail was laid halfway across +the state; some legislators had planned to make a fortune on Taggart stock—by +selling it short. Nat Taggart was indicted for the murder, but the charge +could never be proved. He had no trouble with legislators from then on. +It was said that Nat Taggart had staked his life on his railroad many +times; but once, he staked more than his life. Desperate for funds, with the +construction of his line suspended, he threw down three flights of stairs a +distinguished gentleman who offered him a loan from the government. Then he +pledged his wife as security for a loan from a millionaire who hated him and +admired her beauty. He repaid the loan on time and did not have to surrender +his pledge. The deal had been made with his wife's consent. She was a great +beauty from the noblest family of a southern state, and she had been +disinherited by her family because she eloped with Nat Taggart when he was +only a ragged young adventurer. +Dagny regretted at times that Nat Taggart was her ancestor. What she felt +for him did not belong in the category of unchosen family affections. She did +not want her feeling to be the thing one was supposed to owe an uncle or a +grandfather. She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice +and she resented anyone's demand for it. But had it been possible to choose +an ancestor, she would have chosen Nat Taggart, in voluntary homage and with +all of her gratitude. +Nat Taggart's statue was copied from an artist's sketch of him, the only +record ever made of his appearance. He had lived far into old age, but one +could never think of him except as he was on that sketch —as a young man. In +her childhood, his statue had been Dagny's first concept of the exalted. When +she was sent to church or to school, and heard people using that word, she +thought that she knew what they meant: she thought of the statue. +The statue was of a young man with a tall, gaunt body and an angular face. +He held his head as if he faced a challenge and found joy in his capacity to +meet it. All that Dagny wanted of life was contained in the desire to hold +her head as he did. +Tonight, she looked at the statue when she walked across the concourse. It +was a moment's rest; it was as if a burden she could not name were lightened +and as if a faint current of air were touching her forehead. +In a corner of the concourse, by the main entrance, there was a small +newsstand. The owner, a quiet, courteous old man with an air of breeding, had +stood behind his counter for twenty years. He had owned a cigarette factory +once, but it had gone bankrupt, and he had resigned himself to the lonely +obscurity of his little stand in the midst of an eternal whirlpool of +strangers. He had no family or friends left alive. +He had a hobby which was his only pleasure: he gathered cigarettes from +all over the world for his private collection; he knew every brand made or +that had ever been made. +Dagny liked to stop at his newsstand on her way out. He seemed to be part +of the Taggart Terminal, like an old watchdog too feeble to protect it, but +reassuring by the loyalty of his presence. He liked to see her coming, +because it amused him to think that he alone knew the importance of the young +woman in a sports coat and a slanting hat, who came hurrying anonymously +through the crowd. + + She stopped tonight, as usual, to buy a package of cigarettes. "How is the +collection?" she asked him. "Any new specimens?" +He smiled sadly, shaking his head. "No, Miss Taggart. There aren't any new +brands made anywhere in the world. Even the old ones are going, one after +another. There's only five or six kinds left selling now. +There used to be dozens. People aren't making anything new any more." +"They will. That's only temporary." +He glanced at her and did not answer. Then he said, "I like cigarettes, +Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous +force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man +sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great +things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire +alive in his mind—and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a +cigarette as his one expression." +"Do they ever think?" she asked involuntarily, and stopped; the question +was her one personal torture and she did not want to discuss it. +The old man looked as if he had noticed the sudden stop and understood it; +but he did not start discussing it; he said, instead, "I don't like the thing +that's happening to people, Miss Taggart." +"What?" +"I don't know. But I've watched them here for twenty years and I've seen +the change. They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it +was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get +there. Now they're hurrying because they are afraid. +It's not a purpose that drives them, it's fear. They're not going +anywhere, they're escaping. And I don't think they know what it is that they +want to escape. They don't look at one another. They jerk when brushed +against. They smile too much, but it's an ugly kind of smiling: it's not joy, +it's pleading. I don't know what it is that's happening to the world." He +shrugged. "Oh well, who is John Galt?" +"He's just a meaningless phrase!" +She was startled by the sharpness of her own voice, and she added in +apology, "I don't like that empty piece of slang. What does it mean? +Where did it come from?" +"Nobody knows," he answered slowly. +"Why do people keep saying it? Nobody seems able to explain just what it +stands for, yet they all use it as if they knew the meaning." +"Why does it disturb you?" he asked. +"I don't like what they seem to mean when they say it." +"I don't, either, Miss Taggart." +Eddie Willers ate his dinners in the employees' cafeteria of the Taggart +Terminal. There was a restaurant in the building, patronized by Taggart +executives, but he did not like it. The cafeteria seemed part of the +railroad, and he felt more at home. +The cafeteria lay underground. It was a large room with walls of white +tile that glittered in the reflections of electric lights and looked like +silver brocade. It had a high ceiling, sparkling counters of glass and +chromium, a sense of space and light. +There was a railroad worker whom Eddie Willers met at times in the +cafeteria. Eddie liked his face. They had been drawn into a chance +conversation once, and then it became their habit to dine together whenever +they happened to meet. +Eddie had forgotten whether he had ever asked the worker's name or the +nature of his job; he supposed that the job wasn't much, because the man's +clothes were rough and grease-stained. The man was not a person to him, but +only a silent presence with an enormous intensity of interest in the one +thing which was the meaning of his own life: in Taggart Transcontinental. + + Tonight, coming down late, Eddie saw the worker at a table in a corner of +the half-deserted room. Eddie smiled happily, waving to him, and carried his +tray of food to the worker's table. +In the privacy of their corner, Eddie felt at ease, relaxing after the +long strain of the day. He could talk as he did not talk anywhere else, +admitting things he would not confess to anyone, thinking aloud, looking into +the attentive eyes of the worker across the table. +"The Rio Norte Line is our last hope," said Eddie Willers. "But it will +save us. We'll have at least one branch in good condition, where it's needed +most, and that will help to save the rest. . . . It's funny— +isn't it?—to speak about a last hope for Taggart Transcontinental. Do you +take it seriously if somebody tells you that a meteor is going to destroy the +earth? . . . I don't, either. . . . 'From Ocean to Ocean, forever'—that's +what we heard all through our childhood, she and I. +No, they didn't say 'forever,' but that's what it meant. . . . You know, +I'm not any kind of a great man. I couldn't have built that railroad. If it +goes, I won't be able to bring it back. I'll have to go with it. . . . +Don't pay any attention to me. I don't know why I should want to say +things like that. Guess I'm just a little tired tonight. . . . Yes, I worked +late. She didn't ask me to stay, but there was a light under her door, long +after all the others had gone . . . Yes, she's gone home now. . . . +Trouble? Oh, there's always trouble in the office. But she's not worried. +She knows she can pull us through. . . . Of course, it's bad. We're having +many more accidents than you hear about. We lost two Diesels again, last +week. One—just from old age, the other—in a head-on collision. . . . Yes, we +have Diesels on order, at the United Locomotive Works, but we've waited for +them for two years. I don't know whether we'll ever get them or not. . . . +God, do we need them! Motive power —you can't imagine how important that is. +That's the heart of everything. . . . What are you smiling at? . . . Well, as +I was saying, it's bad. But at least the Rio Norte Line is set. The first +shipment of rail will get to the site in a few weeks. In a year, we'll run +the first train on the new track. Nothing's going to stop us, this time. . . +. Sure, I know who's going to lay the rail. McNamara, of Cleveland. He's the +contractor who finished the San Sebastian Line for us. There, at least, is +one man who knows his job. So we're safe. We can count on him. There aren't +many good contractors left. . . . We're rushed as hell, but I like it. I've +been coming to the office an hour earlier than usual, but she beats me to it. +She's always there first. . . . What? . . . I don't know what she does at +night. Nothing much, I guess. . . . No, she never goes out with anyone. She +sits at home, mostly, and listens to music. She plays records. . . . What do +you care, which records? Richard Halley. +She loves the music of Richard Halley. Outside the railroad, that's the +only thing she loves." + + CHAPTER IV +THE IMMOVABLE MOVERS +Motive power—thought Dagny, looking up at the Taggart Building in the +twilight—was its first need; motive power, to keep that building standing; +movement, to keep it immovable. It did not rest on piles driven into granite; +it rested on the engines that rolled across a continent. +She felt a dim touch of anxiety. She was back from a trip to the plant of +the United Locomotive Works in New Jersey, where she had gone to see the +president of the company in person. She had learned nothing: neither the +reason for the delays nor any indication of the date when the Diesel engines +would be produced. The president of the company had talked to her for two +hours. But none of his answers had connected to any of her questions. His +manner had conveyed a peculiar note of condescending reproach whenever she +attempted to make the conversation specific, as if she were giving proof of +ill-breeding by breaking some unwritten code known to everyone else. +On her way through the plant, she had seen an enormous piece of machinery +left abandoned in a corner of the yard. It had been a precision machine tool +once, long ago, of a kind that could not be bought anywhere now. It had not +been worn out; it had been rotted by neglect, eaten by rust and the black +drippings of a dirty oil. She had turned her face away from it. A sight of +that nature always blinded her for an instant by the burst of too violent an +anger. She did not know why; she could not define her own feeling; she knew +only that there was, in her feeling, a scream of protest against injustice, +and that it was a response to something much beyond an old piece of +machinery. +The rest of her staff had gone, when she entered the anteroom of her +office, but Eddie Willers was still there, waiting for her. She knew at once +that something had happened, by the way he looked and the way he followed her +silently into her office. +"What's the matter, Eddie?" +"McNamara quit." +She looked at him blankly. "What do you mean, quit?" +"Left. Retired. Went out of business." +"McNamara, our contractor?" +"Yes" +"But that's impossible!" +"I know it." +"What happened? Why?" +"Nobody knows." +Taking her time deliberately, she unbuttoned her coat, sat down at her +desk, started to pull off her gloves. Then she said, "Begin at the beginning, +Eddie. Sit down." +He spoke quietly, but he remained standing. "I talked to his chief +engineer, long distance. The chief engineer called from Cleveland, to tell +us. That's all he said. He knew nothing else." +"What did he say?" +"That McNamara has closed his business and gone." +"Where?" +"He doesn't know. Nobody knows." +She noticed that she was holding with one hand two empty fingers of the +glove of the other, the glove half-removed and forgotten. She pulled it off +and dropped it on the desk. +Eddie said, "He's walked out on a pile of contracts that are worth a +fortune. He had a waiting list of clients for the next three years. . . ." + + She said nothing. He added, his voice low, "I wouldn't be frightened if I +could understand it. . . . But a thing that can't have any possible reason . +. ." She remained silent. "He was the best contractor in the country." +They looked at each other. What she wanted to say was, "Oh God, Eddie!" +Instead, her voice even, she said, "Don't worry. We'll find another +contractor for the Rio Norte Line," +It was late when she left her office. Outside, on the sidewalk at the door +of the building, she paused, looking at the streets. She felt suddenly empty +of energy, of purpose, of desire, as if a motor had crackled and stopped. +A faint glow streamed from behind the buildings into the sky, the +reflection of thousands of unknown lights, the electric breath of the city. +She wanted to rest. To rest, she thought, and to find enjoyment somewhere. +Her work was all she had or wanted. But there were times, like tonight, +when she felt that sudden, peculiar emptiness, which was not emptiness, but +silence, not despair, but immobility, as if nothing within her were +destroyed, but everything stood still. Then she felt the wish to find a +moment's joy outside, the wish to be held as a passive spectator by some work +or sight of greatness. Not to make it, she thought, but to accept; not to +begin, but to respond; not to create, but to admire. I need it to let me go +on, she thought, because joy is one's fuel. +She had always been—she closed her eyes with a faint smile of amusement +and pain—the motive power of her own happiness. For once, she wanted to feel +herself carried by the power of someone else's achievement. As men on a dark +prairie liked to see the lighted windows of a train going past, her +achievement, the sight of power and purpose that gave them reassurance in the +midst of empty miles and night —so she wanted to feel it for a moment, a +brief greeting, a single glimpse, just to wave her arm and say: Someone is +going somewhere. . . . +She started walking slowly, her hands in the pockets of her coat, the +shadow of her slanting hat brim across her face. The buildings around her +rose to such heights that her glance could not find the sky. She thought: It +has taken so much to build this city, it should have so much to offer. +Above the door of a shop, the black hole of a radio loudspeaker was +hurling sounds at the streets. They were the sounds of a symphony concert +being given somewhere in the city. They were a long screech without shape, as +of cloth and flesh being torn at random. They scattered with no melody, no +harmony, no rhythm to hold them. If music was emotion and emotion came from +thought, then this was the scream of chaos, of the irrational, of the +helpless, of man's self-abdication. +She walked on. She stopped at the window of a bookstore. The window +displayed a pyramid of slabs in brownish-purple jackets, inscribed: The +Vulture Is Molting. "The novel of our century," said a placard. +"The penetrating study of a businessman's greed. A fearless revelation of +man's depravity." +She walked past a movie theater. Its lights wiped out half a block, +leaving only a huge photograph and some letters suspended in blazing mid-air. +The photograph was of a smiling young woman; looking at her face, one felt +the weariness of having seen it for years, even while seeing it for the first +time. The letters said: ". . . in a momentous drama giving the answer to the +great problem: Should a woman tell?" +She walked past the door of a night club. A couple came staggering out to +a taxicab. The girl had blurred eyes, a perspiring face, an ermine cape and a +beautiful evening gown that had slipped off one shoulder like a slovenly +housewife's bathrobe, revealing too much of her breast, not in a manner of +daring, but in the manner of a drudge's indifference. Her escort steered her, +gripping her naked arm; his face did not have the expression of a man + + anticipating a romantic adventure, but the sly look of a boy out to write +obscenities on fences. +What had she hoped to find?—she thought, walking on. These were the things +men lived by, the forms of their spirit, of their culture, of their +enjoyment. She had seen nothing else anywhere, not for many years. +At the corner of the street where she lived, she bought a newspaper and +went home. +Her apartment was two rooms on the top floor of a skyscraper. The sheets +of glass in the corner window of her living room made it look like the prow +of a ship in motion, and the lights of the city were like phosphorescent +sparks on the black waves of steel and stone. When she turned on a lamp, long +triangles of shadow cut the bare walls, in a geometrical pattern of light +rays broken by a few angular pieces of furniture. +She stood in the middle of the room, alone between sky and city. +There was only one thing that could give her the feeling she wanted to +experience tonight; it was the only form of enjoyment she had found. +She turned to a phonograph and put on a record of the music of Richard +Halley. +It was his Fourth Concerto, the last work he had written. The crash of its +opening chords swept the sights of the streets away from her mind. +The Concerto was a great cry of rebellion. It was a "No" flung at some +vast process of torture, a denial of suffering, a denial that held the agony +of the struggle to break free. The sounds were like a voice saying: There is +no necessity for pain—why, then, is the worst pain reserved for those who +will not accept its necessity?—we who hold the love and the secret of joy, to +what punishment have we been sentenced for it, and by whom? . . . The sounds +of torture became defiance, the statement of agony became a hymn to a distant +vision for whose sake anything was worth enduring, even this. It was the song +of rebellion—and of a desperate quest. +She sat still, her eyes closed, listening. +No one knew what had happened to Richard Halley, or why. The story of his +life had been like a summary written to damn greatness by showing the price +one pays for it. It had been a procession of years spent in garrets and +basements, years that had taken the gray tinge of the walls imprisoning a man +whose music overflowed with violent color. +It had been the gray of a struggle against long flights of unlighted +tenement stairs, against frozen plumbing, against the price of a sandwich in +an ill-smelling delicatessen store, against the faces of men who listened to +music, their eyes empty. It had been a struggle without the relief of +violence, without the recognition of finding a conscious enemy, with only a +deaf wall to batter, a wall of the most effective soundproofing: +indifference, that swallowed blows, chords and screams—a battle of silence, +for a man who could give to sounds a greater eloquence than they had ever +carried—the silence of obscurity, of loneliness, of the nights when some rare +orchestra played one of his works and he looked at the darkness, knowing that +his soul went in trembling, widening circles from a radio tower through the +air of the city, but there were no receivers tuned to hear it. +"The music of Richard Halley has a quality of the heroic. Our age has +outgrown that stuff," said one critic. "The music of Richard Halley is out of +key with our times. It has a tone of ecstasy. Who cares for ecstasy +nowadays?" said another. +His life had been a summary of the lives of all the men whose reward is a +monument in a public park a hundred years after the time when a reward can +matter—except that Richard Halley did not die soon enough. He lived to see +the night which, by the accepted laws of history, he was not supposed to see. +He was forty-three years old and it was the opening night of Phaethon, an +opera he had written at the age of twenty-four. He had changed the ancient + + Greek myth to his own purpose and meaning: Phaethon, the young son of Helios, +who stole his father's chariot and, in ambitious audacity, attempted to drive +the sun across the sky, did not perish, as he perished in the myth; in +Halley's opera, Phaethon succeeded. The opera had been performed then, +nineteen years ago, and had closed after one performance, to the sound of +booing and catcalls. That night, Richard Halley had walked the streets of the +city till dawn, trying to find an answer to a question, which he did not +find. +On the night when the opera was presented again, nineteen years later, the +last sounds of the music crashed into the sounds of the greatest ovation the +opera house had ever heard. The ancient walls could not contain it, the +sounds of cheering burst through to the lobbies, to the stairs, to the +streets, to the boy who had walked those streets nineteen years ago. +Dagny was in the audience on the night of the ovation. She was one of the +few who had known the music of Richard Halley much earlier; but she had never +seen him. She saw him being pushed out on the stage, saw him facing the +enormous spread of waving arms and cheering heads. He stood without moving, a +tall, emaciated man with graying hair. He did not bow, did not smile; he just +stood there, looking at the crowd. His face had the quiet, earnest look of a +man staring at a question. +"The music of Richard Halley," wrote a critic next morning, "belongs to +mankind. It is the product and the expression of the greatness of the +people." "There is an inspiring lesson," said a minister, "in the life of +Richard Halley. He has had a terrible struggle, but what does that matter? It +is proper, it is noble that he should have endured suffering, injustice, +abuse at the hands of his brothers—in order to enrich their lives and teach +them to appreciate the beauty of great music." +On the day after the opening, Richard Halley retired. +He gave no explanation. He merely told his publishers that his career was +over. He sold them the rights to his works for a modest sum, even though he +knew that his royalties would now bring him a fortune. He went away, leaving +no address. It was eight years ago; no one had seen him since. +Dagny listened to the Fourth Concerto, her head thrown back, her eyes +closed. She lay half-stretched across the corner of a couch, her body relaxed +and still; but tension stressed the shape of her mouth on her motionless +face, a sensual shape drawn in lines of longing. +After a while, she opened her eyes. She noticed the newspaper she had +thrown down on the couch. She reached for it absently, to turn the vapid +headlines out of sight. The paper fell open. She saw the photograph of a face +she knew, and the heading of a story. She slammed the pages shut and flung +them aside. +It was the face of Francisco d'Anconia. The heading said that he had +arrived in New York. What of it?—she thought. She would not have to see him. +She had not seen him for years. +She sat looking down at the newspaper on the floor. Don't read it, she +thought; don't look at it. But the face, she thought, had not changed. +How could a face remain the same when everything else was gone? She wished +they had not caught a picture of him when he smiled. That kind of smile did +not belong in the pages of a newspaper. It was the smile of a man who is able +to see, to know and to create the glory of existence. It was the mocking, +challenging smile of a brilliant intelligence. +Don't read it, she thought; not now—not to that music—oh, not to that +music! +She reached for the paper and opened it. +The story said that Senor Francisco d'Anconia had granted an interview to +the press in his suite at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. He said that he had come +to New York for two important reasons: a hat-check girl at the Cub Club, and + + the liverwurst at Moe's Delicatessen on Third Avenue. He had nothing to say +about the coming divorce trial of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Vail. Mrs. Vail, a +lady of noble breeding and unusual loveliness, had taken a shot at her +distinguished young husband, some months ago, publicly declaring that she +wished to get rid of him for the sake of her lover, Francisco d'Anconia. She +had given to the press a detailed account of her secret romance, including a +description of the night of last New Year's Eve which she had spent at +d'Anconia's villa in the Andes. Her husband had survived the shot and had +sued for divorce. +She had countered with a suit for half of her husband's millions, and with +a recital of his private life which, she said, made hers look innocent. +All of that had been splashed over the newspapers for weeks. But Senor +d'Anconia had nothing to say about it, when the reporters questioned him. +Would he deny Mrs. Vail's story, they asked. "I never deny anything," he +answered. The reporters had been astonished by his sudden arrival in town; +they had thought that he would not wish to be there just when the worst of +the scandal was about to explode on the front pages. But they had been wrong. +Francisco d'Anconia added one more comment to the reasons for his arrival. "I +wanted to witness the farce," +he said. +Dagny let the paper slip to the floor. She sat, bent over, her head on her +arms. She did not move, but the strands of hair, hanging down to her knees, +trembled in sudden jolts once in a while. +The great chords of Halley's music went on, filling the room, piercing the +glass of the windows, streaming out over the city. She was hearing the music. +It was her quest, her cry. +James Taggart glanced about the living room of his apartment, wondering +what time it was; he did not feel like moving to find his watch. +He sat in an armchair, dressed in wrinkled pajamas, barefooted; it was too +much trouble to look for his slippers. The light of the gray sky in the +windows hurt his eyes, still sticky with sleep. He felt, inside his skull, +the nasty heaviness which is about to become a headache. He wondered angrily +why he had stumbled out into the living room. Oh yes, he remembered, to look +for the time. +He slumped sidewise over the arm of the chair and caught sight of a clock +on a distant building: it was twenty minutes past noon. +Through the open door of the bedroom, he heard Betty Pope washing her +teeth in the bathroom beyond. Her girdle lay on the floor, by the side of a +chair with the rest of her clothes; the girdle was a faded pink, with broken +strands of rubber. +"Hurry up, will you?" he called irritably. "I've got to dress," +She did not answer. She had left the door of the bathroom open; he could +hear the sound of gargling. +Why do I do those things?—he thought, remembering last night. But it was +too much trouble to look for an answer. +Betty Pope came into the living room, dragging the folds of a satin +negligee harlequin-checkered in orange and purple. She looked awful in a +negligee, thought Taggart; she was ever so much better in a riding habit, in +the photographs on the society pages of the newspapers. She was a lanky girl, +all bones and loose joints that did not move smoothly. +She had a homely face, a bad complexion and a look of impertinent +condescension derived from the fact that she belonged to one of the very best +families. +"Aw, hell!" she said at nothing in particular, stretching herself to +limber up. "Jim, where are your nail clippers? I've got to trim my toenails." +"I don't know. I have a headache. Do it at home." + + "You look unappetizing in the morning." she said indifferently. "You look +like a snail." +"Why don't you shut up?" +She wandered aimlessly about the room. "I don't want to go home," +she said with no particular feeling. "I hate morning. Here's another day +and nothing to do. I've got a tea session on for this afternoon, at Liz +Blane's. Oh well, it might be fun, because Liz is a bitch." She picked up a +glass and swallowed the stale remnant of a drink. "Why don't you have them +repair your air-conditioner? This place smells." +"Are you through in the bathroom?" he asked. "I have to dress. I have an +important engagement today." +"Go right in. I don't mind. I'll share the bathroom with you. I hate to be +rushed." +While he shaved, he saw her dressing in front of the open bathroom door. +She took a long time twisting herself into her girdle, hooking garters to her +stockings, pulling on an ungainly, expensive tweed suit. +The harlequin negligee, picked from an advertisement in the smartest +fashion magazine, was like a uniform which she knew to be expected on certain +occasions, which she had worn dutifully for a specified purpose and then +discarded. +The nature of their relationship had the same quality. There was no +passion in it, no desire, no actual pleasure, not even a sense of shame. +To them, the act of sex was neither joy nor sin. It meant nothing. They +had heard that men and women were supposed to sleep together, so they did. +"Jim, why don't you take me to the Armenian restaurant tonight?" +she asked. "I love shish-kebab." +"I can't," he answered angrily through the soap lather on his face. +"I've got a busy day ahead." +"Why don't you cancel it?" +"What?" +"Whatever it is." +"It is very important, my dear. It is a meeting of our Board of +Directors." +"Oh, don't be stuffy about your damn railroad. It's boring. I hate +businessmen. They're dull." +He did not answer. +She glanced at him slyly, and her voice acquired a livelier note when she +drawled, "Jock Benson said that you have a soft snap on that railroad anyway, +because it's your sister who runs the whole works." +"Oh, he did, did he?" +"I think that your sister is awful. I think it's disgusting—a woman acting +like a grease-monkey and posing around like a big executive. It's so +unfeminine. Who does she think she is, anyway?" +Taggart stepped out to the threshold. He leaned against the doorjamb, +studying Betty Pope. There was a faint smile on his face, sarcastic and +confident. They had, he thought, a bond in common. +"It might interest you to know, my dear," he said, "that I'm putting the +skids under my sister this afternoon." +"No?" she said, interested. "Really?" +"And that is why this Board meeting is so important." +"Are you really going to kick her out?" +"No. That's not necessary or advisable. I shall merely put her in her +place. It's the chance I've been waiting for." +"You got something on her? Some scandal?" +"No, no. You wouldn't understand. It's merely that she's gone too far, for +once, and she's going to get slapped down. She's pulled an inexcusable sort +of stunt, without consulting anybody. It's a serious offense against our + + Mexican neighbors. When the Board hears about it, they'll pass a couple of +new rulings on the Operating Department, which will make my sister a little +easier to manage." +"You're smart, Jim," she said. +"I'd better get dressed." He sounded pleased. He turned back to the +washbowl, adding cheerfully, "Maybe I will take you out tonight and buy you +some shish-kebab." +The telephone rang. +He lifted the receiver. The operator announced a long-distance call from +Mexico City. +The hysterical voice that came on the wire was that of his political man +in Mexico. +"I couldn't help it, Jim!" it gulped. "I couldn't help it! . . . We had no +warning, I swear to God, nobody suspected, nobody saw it coming, I've done my +best, you can't blame me, Jim, it was a bolt out of the blue! The decree came +out this morning, just five minutes ago, they sprang it on us like that, +without any notice! The government of the People's State of Mexico has +nationalized the San Sebastian Mines and the San Sebastian Railroad." +". . . and, therefore, I can assure the gentlemen of the Board that there +is no occasion for panic. The event of this morning is a regrettable +development, but I have full confidence—based on my knowledge of the inner +processes shaping our foreign policy in Washington—that our government will +negotiate an equitable settlement with the government of the People's State +of Mexico, and that we will receive full and just compensation for our +property." +James Taggart stood at the long table, addressing the Board of Directors. +His voice was precise and monotonous; it connoted safety. +"I am glad to report, however, that I foresaw the possibility of such a +turn of events and took every precaution to protect the interests of Taggart +Transcontinental. Some months ago, I instructed our Operating Department to +cut the schedule on the San Sebastian Line down to a single train a day, and +to remove from it our best motive power and rolling stock, as well as every +piece of equipment that could be moved. +The Mexican government was able to seize nothing but a few wooden cars and +one superannuated locomotive. My decision has saved the company many millions +of dollars—I shall have the exact figures computed and submit them to you. I +do feel, however, that our stockholders will be justified in expecting that +those who bore the major responsibility for this venture should now bear the +consequences of their negligence. I would suggest, therefore, that we request +the resignation of Mr. Clarence Eddington, our economic consultant, who +recommended the construction of the San Sebastian Line, and of Mr. Jules +Mott, our representative in Mexico City." +The men sat around the long table, listening. They did not think of what +they would have to do, but of what they would have to say to the men they +represented. Taggart's speech gave them what they needed. +Orren Boyle was waiting for him, when Taggart returned to his office. Once +they were alone, Taggart's manner changed. He leaned against the desk, +sagging, his face loose and white. +"Well?" he asked. +Boyle spread his hands out helplessly. "I've checked, Jim," he said. +"It's straight all right; d'Anconia's lost fifteen million dollars of his +own money in those mines. No, there wasn't anything phony about that, he +didn't pull any sort of trick, he put up his own cash and now he's lost it." +"Well, what's he going to do about it?" +"That—I don't know. Nobody does." +"He's not going to let himself be robbed, is he? He's too smart for that. +He must have something up his sleeve." + + "I sure hope so." +"He's outwitted some of the slickest combinations of money-grubbers on +earth. Is he going to be taken by a bunch of Greaser politicians with a +decree? He must have something on them, and he'll get the last word, and we +must be sure to be in on it, too!" +"That's up to you, Jim. You're his friend." +"Friend be damned! I hate his guts." +He pressed a button for his secretary. The secretary entered uncertainly, +looking unhappy; he was a young man, no longer too young, with a bloodless +face and the well-bred manner of genteel poverty. +"Did you get me an appointment with Francisco d'Anconia?" snapped Taggart. +"No, sir." +"But, God damn it, I told you to call the—" +"I wasn't able to, sir. I have tried." +"Well, try again." +"I mean I wasn't able to obtain the appointment, Mr. Taggart." +"Why not?" +"He declined it." +"You mean he refused to see me?" +"Yes, sir, that is what I mean." +"He wouldn't see me?" +"No, sir, he wouldn't." +"Did you speak to him in person?" +"No, sir, I spoke to his secretary." +"What did he tell you? Just what did he say?" The young man hesitated and +looked more unhappy. "What did he say?" +"He said that Senior d'Anconia said that you bore him, Mr. Taggart." +The proposal which they passed was known as the "Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule." +When they voted for it, the members of the National Alliance of Railroads sat +in a large hall in the deepening twilight of a late autumn evening and did +not look at one another. +The National Alliance of Railroads was an organization formed, it was +claimed, to protect the welfare of the railroad industry. This was to be +achieved by developing methods of co-operation for a common purpose; this was +to be achieved by the pledge of every member to subordinate his own interests +to those of the industry as a whole; the interests of the industry as a whole +were to be determined by a majority vote, and every member was committed to +abide by any decision the majority chose to make. +"Members of the same profession or of the same industry should stick +together," the organizers of the Alliance had said. "We all have the same +problems, the same interests, the same enemies. We waste our energy fighting +one another, instead of presenting a common front to the world. +We can all grow and prosper together, if we pool our efforts." "Against +whom is this Alliance being organized?" a skeptic had asked. The answer had +been: "Why, it's not 'against' anybody. But if you want to put it that way, +why, it's against shippers or supply manufacturers or anyone who might try to +take advantage of us. Against whom is any union organized?" "That's what I +wonder about," the skeptic had said. +When the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule was offered to the vote of the full +membership of the National Alliance of Railroads at its annual meeting, it +was the first mention of this Rule in public. But all the members had heard +of it; it had been discussed privately for a long tune, and more insistently +in the last few months. The men who sat in the large hall of the meeting were +the presidents of the railroads. They did not like the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule; +they had hoped it would never be brought up. +But when it was brought up, they voted for it. + + No railroad was mentioned by name in the speeches that preceded the +voting. The speeches dealt only with the public welfare. It was said that +while the public welfare was threatened by shortages of transportation, +railroads were destroying one another through vicious competition, on "the +brutal policy of dog-eat-dog." While there existed blighted areas where rail +service had been discontinued, there existed at the same time large regions +where two or more railroads were competing for a traffic barely sufficient +for one. It was said that there were great opportunities for younger +railroads in the blighted areas. While it was true that such areas offered +little economic incentive at present, a public-spirited railroad, it was +said, would undertake to provide transportation for the struggling +inhabitants, since the prime purpose of a railroad was public service, not +profit. +Then it was said that large, established railroad systems were essential +to the public welfare; and that the collapse of one of them would be a +national catastrophe; and that if one such system had happened to sustain a +crushing loss in a public-spirited attempt to contribute to international +good will, it was entitled to public support to help it survive the blow. +No railroad was mentioned by name. But when the chairman of the meeting +raised his hand, as a solemn signal that they were about to vote, everybody +looked at Dan Conway, president of the Phoenix-Durango. +There were only five dissenters who voted against it. Yet when the +chairman announced that the measure had passed, there was no cheering, no +sounds of approval, no movement, nothing but a heavy silence. +To the last minute, every one of them had hoped that someone would save +them from it. +The Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule was described as a measure of "voluntary selfregulation" intended "the better to enforce" the laws long since passed by +the country's Legislature. The Rule provided that the members of the National +Alliance of Railroads were forbidden to engage in practices defined as +"destructive competition"; that in regions declared to be restricted, no more +than one railroad would be permitted to operate; that in such regions, +seniority belonged to the oldest railroad now operating there, and that the +newcomers, who had encroached unfairly upon its territory, would suspend +operations within nine months after being so ordered; that the Executive +Board of the National Alliance of Railroads was empowered to decide, at its +sole discretion, which regions were to be restricted. +When the meeting adjourned, the men hastened to leave. There were no +private discussions, no friendly loitering. The great hall became deserted in +an unusually short time. Nobody spoke to or looked at Dan Conway. +In the lobby of the building, James Taggart met Orren Boyle. They had made +no appointment to meet, but Taggart saw a bulky figure outlined against a +marble wall and knew who it was before he saw the face. They approached each +other, and Boyle said, his smile less soothing than usual, "I've delivered. +Your turn now, Jimmie." "You didn't have to come here. Why did you?" said +Taggart sullenly. "Oh, just for the fun of it," said Boyle. +Dan Conway sat alone among rows of empty seats. He was still! +there when the charwoman came to clean the hall. When she hailed him, he +rose obediently and shuffled to the door. Passing her in the aisle, he +fumbled in his pocket and handed her a five dollar bill, silently, meekly, +not looking at her face. He did not seem to know what he was doing; he acted +as if he thought that he was in some place where generosity demanded that he +give a tip before leaving. +Dagny was still at her desk when the door of her office flew open and +James Taggart rushed in. It was the first time he had ever entered in such +manner. His face looked feverish. + + She had not seen him since the nationalization of the San Sebastian Line. +He had not sought to discuss it with her, and she had said nothing about it. +She had been proved right so eloquently, she had thought, that comments were +unnecessary. A feeling which was part courtesy, part mercy had stopped her +from stating to him the conclusion to be drawn from the events. In all reason +and justice, there was but one conclusion he could draw. She had heard about +his speech to the Board of Directors. She had shrugged, contemptuously +amused; if it served his purpose, whatever that was, to appropriate her +achievements, then, for his own advantage, if for no other reason, he would +leave her free to achieve, from now on. +"So you think you're the only one who's doing anything for this railroad?" +She looked at Mm, bewildered. His voice was shrill; he stood in front of +her desk, tense with excitement. +"So you think that I've ruined the company, don't you?" he yelled. +"And now you're the only one who can save us? Think I have no way to make +up for the Mexican loss?" +She asked slowly, "What do you want?" +"I want to tell you some news. Do you remember the Anti-dog-eat dog +proposal of the Railroad Alliance that I told you about months ago? +You didn't like the idea. You didn't like it at all." +"I remember. What about it?" +"It has been passed." +"What has been passed?" +"The Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule. Just a few minutes ago. At the meeting. +Nine months from now, there's not going to be any Phoenix-Durango Railroad +in Colorado!" +A glass ashtray crashed to the floor off the desk, as she leaped to her +feet. +"You rotten bastards!" +He stood motionless. He was smiling. +She knew that she was shaking, open to him, without defense, and that this +was the sight he enjoyed, but it did not matter to her. Then she saw his +smile—and suddenly the blinding anger vanished. She felt nothing. She studied +that smile with a cold, impersonal curiosity. +They stood facing each other. He looked as if, for the first time, he was +not afraid of her. He was gloating. The event meant something to him much +beyond the destruction of a competitor. It was not a victory over Dan Conway, +but over her. She did not know why or in what manner, but she felt certain +that he knew. +For the flash of one instant, she thought that here, before her, in James +Taggart and in that which made him smile, was a secret she had never +suspected, and it was crucially important that she learn to understand it. +But the thought flashed and vanished. +She whirled to the door of a closet and seized her coat. +"Where are you going?" Taggart's voice had dropped; it sounded +disappointed and faintly worried. +She did not answer. She rushed out of the office. +"Dan, you have to fight them. I'll help you. I'll fight for you with +everything I've got." +Dan Conway shook his head. +He sat at his desk, the empty expanse of a faded blotter before him, one +feeble lamp lighted in a corner of the room. Dagny had rushed straight to the +city office of the Phoenix-Durango. Conway was there, and he still sat as she +had found him. He had smiled at her entrance and said, "Funny, I thought you +would come," his voice gentle, lifeless. +They did not know each other well, but they had met a few times in +Colorado. + + "No," he said, "it's no use." +"Do you mean because of that Alliance agreement that you signed? +It won't hold. This is plain expropriation. No court will uphold it. And +if Jim tries to hide behind the usual looters' slogan of 'public welfare,' +I’ll go on the stand and swear that Taggart Transcontinental can't handle +the whole traffic of Colorado, And if any court rules against you, you can +appeal and keep on appealing for the next ten years." +"Yes," he said, "I could . . . I'm not sure I'd win, but I could try and I +could hang onto the railroad for a few years longer, but . . . No, it's not +the legal points that I'm thinking about, one way or the other. It's not +that." +"What, then?" +"I don't want to fight it, Dagny." +She looked at him incredulously. It was the one sentence which, she felt +sure, he had never uttered before; a man could not reverse himself so late in +life. +Dan Conway was approaching fifty. He had the square, stolid, stubborn face +of a tough freight engineer, rather than a company president; the face of a +fighter, with a young, tanned skin and graying hair. He had taken over a +shaky little railroad in Arizona, a road whose net revenue was "less than +that of a successful grocery store, and he had built it into the best +railroad of the Southwest. He spoke little, seldom read books, had never gone +to college. The whole sphere of human endeavors, with one exception, left him +blankly indifferent; he had no touch of that which people called culture. But +he knew railroads. +"Why don't you want to fight?" +"Because they had the right to do it." +"Dan," she asked, "have you lost your mind?" +"I've never gone back on my word in my life," he said tonelessly. "I don't +care what the courts decide. I promised to obey the majority. I have to +obey." +"Did you expect the majority to do this to you?" +"No." There was a kind of faint convulsion in the stolid face. He spoke +softly, not looking at her, the helpless astonishment still raw within him. +"No, I didn't expect it. I heard them talking about it for over a year, but I +didn't believe it. Even when they were voting, I didn't believe it." +"What did you expect?" +"I thought . . . They said all of us were to stand for the common good. I +thought what I had done down there in Colorado was good. +Good for everybody." +"Oh, you damn fool! Don't you see that that's what you're being punished +for—because it was good?" +He shook his head. "I don't understand it," he said. "But I see no way +out." +"Did you promise them to agree to destroy yourself?" +"There doesn't seem to be any choice for any of us." +"What do you mean?" +"Dagny, the whole world's in a terrible state right now. I don't know +what's wrong with it, but something's very wrong. Men have to get together +and find a way out. But who's to decide which way to take, unless it's the +majority? I guess that's the only fair method of deciding, I don't see any +other. I suppose somebody's got to be sacrificed. If it turned out to be me, +I have no right to complain. The right's on their side. Men have to get +together." +She made an effort to speak calmly; she was trembling with anger. + + "If that's the price of getting together, then I'll be damned if I want to +live on the same earth with any human beings! If the rest of them can survive +only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? +Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right +to turn men into sacrificial animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy +the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for +ability. If that is right, then we'd better start slaughtering one another, +because there isn't any right at all in the world!" +He did not answer. He looked at her helplessly. +"If it's that kind of world, how can we live in it?" she asked. +"I don't know . . ." he whispered. +"Dan, do you really think it's right? In all truth, deep down, do you +think it's right?" +He closed his eyes. "No," he said. Then he looked at her and she saw a +look of torture for the first time. "That's what I've been sitting here +trying to understand. I know that I ought to think it's right—but I can't. +It's as if my tongue wouldn't turn to say it. I keep seeing every tie of the +track down there, every signal light, every bridge, every night that I spent +when . . ." His head dropped down on his arms. "Oh God, it's so damn unjust!" +"Dan," she said through her teeth, "fight it." +He raised his head. His eyes were empty. "No," he said. "It would be +wrong- I'm just selfish." +"Oh, damn that rotten tripe! You know better than that!" +"I don't know . . ." His voice was very tired. "I've been sitting here, +trying to think about it . . . I don't know what is right any more. . . ." +He added, "I don't think I care." +She knew suddenly that all further words were useless and that Dan Conway +would never be a man of action again. She did not know what made her certain +of it. She said, wondering, "You've never given up in the face of a battle +before." +"No, I guess I haven't. . . ." He spoke with a quiet, indifferent +astonishment. "I've fought storms and floods and rock slides and rail +fissure. . . . I knew how to do it, and I liked doing it. . . . But this kind +of battle—it's one I can't fight." +"Why?" +"I don't know. Who knows why the world is what it if-? Oh, who is John +Galt?" +She winced. "Then what are you going to do?" +"I don't know . . .'“ +"I mean—" She stopped. +He knew what she meant. "Oh, there's always something to do. . . ." +He spoke without conviction. "I guess it's only Colorado and New Mexico +that they're going to declare restricted. I'll still have the line in Arizona +to run." He added, "As it was twenty years ago . . . +Well, it will keep me busy. I'm getting tired, Dagny. I didn't take time +to notice it, but I guess I am." +She could say nothing. +"I'm not going to build a line through one of their blighted areas," +he said in the same indifferent voice. "That's what they tried to hand me +for a consolation prize, but I think it's just talk. You can't build a +railroad where there's nothing for hundreds of miles but a couple of farmers +who're not growing enough to feed themselves. You can't build a road and make +it pay. If you don't make it pay, who's going to? It doesn't make sense to +me. They just didn't know what they were saying." +"Oh, to hell with their blighted areas! It's you I'm thinking about." +She had to name it. "What will you do with yourself?" + + "I don't know . . . Well, there's a lot of things I haven't had time to +do. Fishing, for instance. I've always liked fishing. Maybe I'll start +reading books, always meant to. Guess I'll take it easy now. Guess I'll go +fishing. There's some nice places down in Arizona, where it's peaceful and +quiet and you don't have to see a human being for miles. . . ." +He glanced up at her and added, "Forget it. Why should you worry about +me?" +"It's not about you, it's . . . Dan," she said suddenly, "I hope you know +it's not for your sake that I wanted to help you fight." +He smiled; it was a faint, friendly smile. "I know," he said. +"It's not out of pity or charity or any ugly reason like that. Look, I +intended to give you the battle of your life, down there in Colorado. +I intended to cut into your business and squeeze you to the wall and drive +you out, if necessary," +He chuckled faintly; it was appreciation. "You would have made a pretty +good try at it, too," he said. +"Only I didn't think it would be necessary. I thought there was enough +room there for both of us." +"Yes," he said. "There was." +"Still, if I found that there wasn't, I would have fought you, and if I +could make my road better than yours, I'd have broken you and not given a +damn about what happened to you. But this . . . Dan, I don't think I want to +look at our Rio Norte Line now. I . . . Oh God, Dan, I don't want to be a +looter!" +He looked at her silently for a moment. It was an odd look, as if from a +great distance. He said softly, "You should have been born about a hundred +years earlier, kid. Then you would have had a chance." +"To hell with that. I intend to make my own chance." +"That's what I intended at your age." +"You succeeded." +"Have I?" +She sat still, suddenly unable to move. +He sat up straight and said sharply, almost as if he were issuing orders, +"You'd better look at that Rio Norte Line of yours, and you'd better do it +fast. Get it ready before I move out, because if you don't, that will be the +end of Ellis Wyatt and all the rest of them down there, and they're the best +people left in the country. You can't let that happen. It's all on your +shoulders now. It would be no use trying to explain to your brother that it's +going to be much tougher for you down there without me to compete with. But +you and I know it. So go to it. Whatever you do, you won't be a looter. No +looter could run a railroad in that part of the country and last at it. +Whatever you make down there, you will have earned it. Lice like your brother +don't count, anyway. It's up to you now." +She sat looking at him, wondering what it was that had defeated a man of +this kind; she knew that it was not James Taggart. +She saw him looking at her, as if he were struggling with a question mark +of his own. Then he smiled, and she saw, incredulously, that the smile held +sadness and pity. +"You'd better not feel sorry for me," he said. "I think, of the two of us, +it's you who have the harder time ahead. And I think you're going to get it +worse than I did." +She had telephoned the mills and made an appointment to see Hank Rearden +that afternoon. She had just hung up the receiver and was bending over the +maps of the Rio Norte Line spread on her desk, when the door opened. Dagny +looked up, startled; she did not expect the door of her office to open +without announcement. + + The man who entered was a stranger. He was young, tall, and something +about him suggested violence, though she could not say what it was, because +the first trait one grasped about him was a quality of self-control that +seemed almost arrogant. He had dark eyes, disheveled hair, and his clothes +were expensive, but worn as if he did not care or notice what he wore. +"Ellis Wyatt," he said in self-introduction. +She leaped to her feet, involuntarily. She understood why nobody had or +could have stopped him in the outer office. +"Sit down, Mr. Wyatt," she said, smiling. +"It won't be necessary." He did not smile. "I don't hold long +conferences." +Slowly, taking her time by conscious intention, she sat down and leaned +back, looking at him. +"Well?" she asked. +"I came to see you because I understand you're the only one who's got any +brains in this rotten outfit." +"What can I do for you?" +"You can listen to an ultimatum." He spoke distinctly, giving an unusual +clarity to every syllable. "I expect Taggart Transcontinental, nine months +from now, to run trains in Colorado as my business requires them to be run. +If the snide stunt you people perpetrated on the Phoenix-Durango was done for +the purpose of saving yourself from the necessity of effort, this is to give +you notice that you will not get away with it. I made no demands on you when +you could not give me the kind of service I needed. I found someone who +could. Now you wish to force me to deal with you. You expect to dictate terms +by leaving me no choice. You expect me to hold my business down to the level +of your incompetence. This is to tell you that you have miscalculated." +She said slowly, with effort, "Shall I tell you what I intend to do about +our service in Colorado?" +"No. I have no interest in discussions and intentions. I expect +transportation. What you do to furnish it and how you do it, is your problem, +not mine. I am merely giving you a warning. Those who wish to deal with me, +must do so on my terms or not at all. I do not make terms with incompetence. +If you expect to earn money by carrying the oil I produce, you must be as +good at your business as I am at mine. I wish this to be understood." +She said quietly, "I understand." +"I shan't waste time proving to you why you'd better take my ultimatum +seriously. If you have the intelligence to keep this corrupt organization +functioning at all, you have the intelligence to judge this for yourself. We +both know that if Taggart Transcontinental runs trains in Colorado the way it +did five years ago, it will ruin me. I know that that is what you people +intend to do. You expect to feed off me while you can and to find another +carcass to pick dry after you have finished mine. That is the policy of most +of mankind today. So here is my ultimatum: it is now in your power to destroy +me; I may have to go; but if I go, I'll make sure that I take all the rest of +you along with me." +Somewhere within her, under the numbness that held her still to receive +the lashing, she felt a small point of pain, hot like the pain of scalding. +She wanted to tell him of the years she had spent looking for men such as he +to work with; she wanted to tell him that his enemies were hers, that she was +fighting the same battle; she wanted to cry to him: I'm not one of them! But +she knew that she could not do it. She bore the responsibility for Taggart +Transcontinental and for everything done in its name; she had no right to +justify herself now. +Sitting straight, her glance as steady and open as his, she answered +evenly, "You will get the transportation you need, Mr. Wyatt." + + She saw a faint hint of astonishment in his face; this was not the manner +or the answer he had expected; perhaps it was what she had not said that +astonished him most: that she offered no defense, no excuses. He took a +moment to study her silently. Then he said, his voice less sharp: "All right. +Thank you. Good day." +She inclined her head. He bowed and left the office. +"That's the story, Hank. I had worked out an almost impossible schedule to +complete the Rio Norte Line in twelve months. Now I'll have to do it in nine. +You were to give us the rail over a period of one year. Can you give it to us +within nine months? If there's any human way to do it, do it. If not, I'll +have to find some other means to finish it." +Rearden sat behind his desk. His cold, blue eyes made two horizontal cuts +across the gaunt planes of his face; they remained horizontal, impassively +half-closed; he said evenly, without emphasis: 'I'll do it." +Dagny leaned back in her chair. The short sentence was a shock. It was not +merely relief: it was the sudden realization that nothing else was necessary +to guarantee that it would be done; she needed no proofs, no questions, no +explanations; a complex problem could rest safely on three syllables +pronounced by a man who knew what he was saying. +"Don't show that you're relieved." His voice was mocking. "Not too +obviously." His narrowed eyes were watching her with an unrevealing smile. "I +might think that I hold Taggart Transcontinental in my power," +"You know that, anyway." +"I do. And I intend to make you pay for it." +"I expect to. How much?" +"Twenty dollars extra per ton on the balance of the order delivered after +today." +"Pretty steep, Hank. Is that the best price you can give me?" +"No. But that's the one I'm going to get. I could ask twice that and you'd +pay it." +"Yes., I would. And you could. But you won't." +"Why won't I?" +"Because you need to have the Rio Norte Line built. It's your first +showcase for Rearden Metal." +He chuckled. "That's right. I like to deal with somebody who has no +illusions about getting favors." +"Do you know what made me feel relieved, when you decided to take +advantage of it?" +"What?" +"That I was dealing, for once, with somebody who doesn't pretend to give +favors." +His smile had a discernible quality now: it was enjoyment. "You always +play it open, don't you?" he asked. +"I've never noticed you doing otherwise." +"I thought I was the only one who could afford to." +"I'm not broke, in that sense, Hank." +"I think I'm going to break you some day—in that sense." +"Why?" +"I've always wanted to." +"Don't you have enough cowards around you?" +"That's why I'd enjoy trying it—because you're the only exception. +So you think it's right that I should squeeze every penny of profit I can, +out of your emergency?" +"Certainly. I'm not a fool. I don't think you're in business for my +convenience." +"Don't you wish I were?" +"I'm not a moocher, Hank." + + "Aren't you going to find it hard to pay?" +"That's my problem, not yours. I want that rail." +"At twenty dollars extra per ton?" +"Okay, Hank." +"Fine. You'll get the rail. I may get my exorbitant profit—or Taggart +Transcontinental may crash before I collect it." +She said, without smiling, "If I don't get that line built in nine months, +Taggart Transcontinental will crash." +"It won't, so long as you run it," +When he did not smile, his face looked inanimate, only his eyes remained +alive, active with a cold, brilliant clarity of perception. But what he was +made to feel by the things he perceived, no one would be permitted to know, +she thought, perhaps not even himself. +"They've done their best to make it harder for you, haven't they?" he +said. +"Yes. I was counting on Colorado to save the Taggart system. Now it's up +to me to save Colorado. Nine months from now, Dan Conway will close his road. +If mine isn't ready, it won't be any use finishing it. +You can't leave those men without transportation for a single day, let +alone a week or a month. At the rate they've been growing, you can't stop +them dead and then expect them to continue. It's like slamming brakes on an +engine going two hundred miles an hour." +"I know." +"I can run a good railroad. I can't run it across a continent of +sharecroppers who're not good enough to grow turnips successfully. I've got +to have men like Ellis Wyatt to produce something to fill the trains I run. +So I've got to give him a train and a track nine months from now, if I have +to blast all the rest of us into hell to do it!" +He smiled, amused. "You feel very strongly about it, don't you?" +"Don't you?" +He would not answer, but merely held the smile. +"Aren't you concerned about it?" she asked, almost angrily. +"No." +"Then you don't realize what it means?" +"I realize that I'm going to get the rail rolled and you're going to get +the track laid in nine months." +She smiled, relaxing, wearily and a little guiltily. "Yes. I know we will. +I know it's useless—getting angry at people like Jim and his friends. We +haven't any time for it. First, I have to undo what they've done. Then +afterwards"—she stopped, wondering, shook her head and shrugged—"afterwards, +they won't matter." +"That's right. They won't. When I heard about that Anti-dog-eat-dog +business, it made me sick. But don't worry about the goddamn bastards." +The two words sounded shockingly violent, because his face and voice +remained calm. "You and I will always be there to save the country from the +consequences of their actions." He got up; he said, pacing the office, +"Colorado isn't going to be stopped. You'll pull it through. Then Dan Conway +will be back, and others. All that lunacy is temporary. ]t can't last. It's +demented, so it has to defeat itself. You and I will just have to work a +little harder for a while, that's all." +She watched his tall figure moving across the office. The office suited +him; it contained nothing but the few pieces of furniture he needed, all of +them harshly simplified down to their essential purpose, all of them +exorbitantly expensive in the quality of materials and the skill of design. +The room looked like a motor—a motor held within the glass case of broad +windows. But she noticed one astonishing detail: a vase of jade that stood on +top of a filing cabinet. The vase was a solid, dark green stone carved into + + plain surfaces; the texture of its smooth curves provoked an irresistible +desire to touch it. It seemed startling in that office, incongruous with the +sternness of the rest: it was a touch of sensuality. +"Colorado is a great place," he said. "It's going to be the greatest in +the country. You're not sure that I'm concerned about it? That state's +becoming one of my best customers, as you ought to know if you take time to +read the reports on your freight traffic." +"I know. I read them." +"I've been thinking of building a plant there in a few years. To save them +your transportation charges." He glanced at her. "You'll lose an awful lot of +steel freight, if I do." +"Go ahead. I'll be satisfied with carrying your supplies, and the +groceries for your workers, and the freight of the factories that will follow +you there—and perhaps I won't have time to notice that I've lost your steel. +. . . What are you laughing at?" +"It's wonderful." +"What?" +"The way you don't react as everybody else does nowadays.” +"Still, I must admit that for the time being you're the most important +single shipper of Taggart Transcontinental." +"Don't you suppose I know it?" +"So I can't understand why Jim—" She stopped. +"—tries his best to harm my business? Because your brother Jim is a fool." +"He is. But it's more than that. There's something worse than stupidity +about it." +"Don't waste time trying to figure him out. Let him spit. He's no danger +to anyone. People like Jim Taggart just clutter up the world." +"I suppose so." +"Incidentally, what would you have done if I'd said I couldn't deliver +your rails sooner?" +"I would have torn up sidings or closed some branch line, any branch line, +and I would have used the rail to finish the Rio Norte track on time." +He chuckled. "That's why I'm not worried about Taggart Transcontinental. +But you won't have to start getting rail out of old sidings. Not so long as +I'm in business." +She thought suddenly that she was wrong about his lack of emotion: the +hidden undertone of his manner was enjoyment. She realized that she had +always felt a sense of light-hearted relaxation in his presence and known +that he shared it. He was the only man she knew to whom she could speak +without strain or effort. This, she thought, was a mind she respected, an +adversary worth matching. Yet there had always been an odd sense of distance +between them, the sense of a closed door; there was an impersonal quality in +his manner, something within him that could not be reached. +He had stopped at the window. He stood for a moment, looking out. "Do you +know that the first load of rail is being delivered to you today?" he asked, +"Of course I know it." +"Come here." +She approached him. He pointed silently. Far in the distance, beyond the +mill structures, she saw a string of gondolas waiting on a siding. +The bridge of an overhead crane cut the sky above them. The crane was +moving. Its huge magnet held a load of rails glued to a disk by the sole +power of contact. There was no trace of sun in the gray spread of clouds, yet +the rails glistened, as if the metal caught light out of space. The metal was +a greenish-blue. The great chain stopped over a car, descended, jerked in a +brief spasm and left the rails in the car. The crane moved back in majestic +indifference; it looked like the giant drawing of a geometrical theorem +moving above the men and the earth. + + They stood at the window, watching silently, intently. She did not speak, +until another load of green-blue metal came moving across the sky. Then the +first words she said were not about rail, track or an order completed on +time. She said, as if greeting a new phenomenon of nature: "Rearden Metal . . +." +He noticed that, but said nothing. He glanced at her, then turned back to +the window. +"Hank, this is great." +"Yes." +He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, +and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person +could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own +greatness, knowing that it is understood. +She said, "When I think of what that metal can do, what it will make +possible . . . Hank, this is the most important thing happening in the world +today, and none of them know it." +"We know it." +They did not look at each other. They stood watching the crane. On the +front of the locomotive in the distance, she could distinguish the letters +TT. She could distinguish the rails of the busiest industrial siding of the +Taggart system. +"As soon as I can find a plant able to do it," she said, "I'm going to +order Diesels made of Rearden Metal." +"You'll need them. How fast do you run your trains on the Rio Norte +track?" +"Now? We're lucky if we manage to make twenty miles an hour." +He pointed at the cars. "When that rail is laid, you'll be able to run +trains at two hundred and fifty, if you wish." +"I will, in a few years, when we'll have cars of Rearden Metal, which will +be half the weight of steel and twice as safe." +"You'll have to look out for the air lines. We're working on a plane of +Rearden Metal. It will weigh practically nothing and lift anything. +You'll see the day of long-haul, heavy-freight air traffic." +"I've been thinking of what that metal will do for motors, any motors, and +what sort of thing one can design now." +"Have you thought of what it will do for chicken wire? Just plain chickenwire fences, made of Rearden Metal, that will cost a few pennies a mile and +last two hundred years. And kitchenware that will be bought at the dime store +and passed on from generation to generation. And ocean liners that one won't +be able to dent with a torpedo." +"Did I tell you that I'm having tests made of communications wire of +Rearden Metal?" +"I'm making so many tests that I'll never get through showing people what +can be done with it and how to do it.” +They spoke of the metal and of the possibilities which they could not +exhaust. It was as if they were standing on a mountain top, seeing a +limitless plain below and roads open in all directions. But they merely spoke +of mathematical figures, of weights, pressures, resistances, costs. +She had forgotten her brother and his National Alliance. She had forgotten +every problem, person and event behind her; they had always been clouded in +her sight, to be hurried past, to be brushed aside, never final, never quite +real. This was reality, she thought, this sense of clear outlines, of +purpose, of lightness, of hope. This was the way she had expected to live—she +had wanted to spend no hour and take no action that would mean less than +this. +She looked at him in the exact moment when he turned to look at her. They +stood very close to each other. She saw, in his eyes, that he felt as she + + did. If joy is the aim and the core of existence, she thought, and if that +which has the power to give one joy is always guarded as one's deepest +secret, then they had seen each other naked in that moment. +He made a step back and said in a strange tone of dispassionate wonder, +"We're a couple of blackguards, aren't we?" +"Why?" +"We haven't any spiritual goals or qualities. All we're after is material +things. That's all we care for," +She looked at him, unable to understand. But he was looking past her, +straight ahead, at the crane in the distance. She wished he had not said it. +The accusation did not trouble her, she never thought of herself in such +terms and she was completely incapable of experiencing a feeling of +fundamental guilt. But she felt a vague apprehension which she could not +define, the suggestion that there was something of grave consequence in +whatever had made him say it, something dangerous to him. He had not said it +casually. But there had been no feeling in his voice, neither plea nor shame. +He had said it indifferently, as a statement of fact. +Then, as she watched him, the apprehension vanished. He was looking at his +mills beyond the window; there was no guilt in his face, no doubt, nothing +but the calm of an inviolate self-confidence. +"Dagny" he said, "whatever we are, it's we who move the world and it's we +who'll pull it through." + + CHAPTER V +THE CLIMAX OF THE D'ANCONIAS +The newspaper was the first thing she noticed. It was clutched tightly in +Eddie's hand, as he entered her office. She glanced up at his face: it was +tense and bewildered. +"Dagny, are you very busy?" +"Why?" +"I know that you don't like to talk about him. But there's something here +I think you ought to see." +She extended her hand silently for the newspaper. +The story on the front page announced that upon taking over the San +Sebastian Mines, the government of the People's State of Mexico had +discovered that they were worthless—blatantly, totally, hopelessly worthless. +There was nothing to justify the five years of work and the millions spent; +nothing but empty excavations, laboriously cut. The few traces of copper were +not worth the effort of extracting them. No great deposits of metal existed +or could be expected to exist there, and there were no indications that could +have permitted anyone to be deluded. The government of the People's State of +Mexico was holding emergency sessions about their discovery, in an uproar of +indignation; they felt that they had been cheated. +Watching her, Eddie knew that Dagny sat looking at the newspaper long +after she had finished reading. He knew that he had been right to feel a hint +of fear, even though he could not tell what frightened him about that story. +He waited. She raised her head. She did not look at him. Her eyes were +fixed, intent in concentration, as if trying to discern something at a great +distance. +He said, his voice low, "Francisco is not a fool. Whatever else he may be, +no matter what depravity he's sunk to—and I've given up trying to figure out +why—he is not a fool. He couldn't have made a mistake of this kind. It is not +possible. I don't understand it." +"I'm beginning to." +She sat up, jolted upright by a sudden movement that ran through her body +like a shudder. She said: "Phone him at the Wayne-Falkland and tell the +bastard that I want to see him." +"Dagny," he said sadly, reproachfully, "it's Frisco d'Anconia." +"It was." +She walked through the early twilight of the city streets to the WayneFalkland Hotel. "He says, any time you wish," Eddie had told her. The first +lights appeared in a few windows high under the clouds. +The skyscrapers looked like abandoned lighthouses sending feeble, dying +signals out into an empty sea where no ships moved any longer. +A few snowflakes came down, past the dark windows of empty stores, to melt +in the mud of the sidewalks. A string of red lanterns cut the street, going +off into the murky distance. +She wondered why she felt that she wanted to run, that she should be +running; no, not down this street; down a green hillside in the blazing sun +to the road on the edge of the Hudson, at the foot of the Taggart estate. +That was the way she always ran when Eddie yelled, "It's Frisco d'Anconia!" +and they both flew down the hill to the car approaching on the road below. +He was the only guest whose arrival was an event in their childhood, their +biggest event. The running to meet him had become part of a contest among the +three of them. There was a birch tree on the hillside, halfway between the +road and the house; Dagny and Eddie tried to get past the tree, before +Francisco could race up the hill to meet them. On all the many days of his +arrivals, in all the many summers, they never reached the birch tree; + + Francisco reached it first and stopped them when he was way past it. +Francisco always won, as he always won everything. +His parents were old friends of the Taggart family. He was an only son and +he was being brought up all over the world; his father, it was said, wanted' +him to consider the world as his future domain. +Dagny and Eddie could never be certain of where he would spend his winter; +but once a year, every summer, a stern South American tutor brought him for a +month to the Taggart estate. +Francisco found it natural that the Taggart children should be chosen as +his companions: they were the crown heirs of Taggart Transcontinental, as he +was of d'Anconia Copper. "We are the only aristocracy left in the world—the +aristocracy of money," he said to Dagny once, when he was fourteen. "It's the +only real aristocracy, if people understood what it means, which they don't." +He had a caste system of his own: to him, the Taggart children were not +Jim and Dagny, but Dagny and Eddie. He seldom volunteered to notice Jim's +existence. Eddie asked him once, "Francisco, you're some kind of very high +nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. +The reason my family has lasted for such a long lime is that none of us +has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to +become one." He pronounced his name as if he wished his listeners to be +struck in the face and knighted by the sound of it. +Sebastian d'Anconia, his ancestor, had left Spain many centuries ago, at a +time when Spain was the most powerful country on earth and his was one of +Spain's proudest figures. He left, because the lord of the Inquisition did +not approve of his manner of thinking and suggested, at a court banquet, that +he change it. Sebastian d'Anconia threw the contents of his wine glass at the +face of the lord of the Inquisition, and escaped before he could be seized. +He left behind him his fortune, his estate, his marble palace and the girl he +loved—and he sailed to a new world. +His first estate in Argentina was a wooden shack in the foothills of the +Andes. The sun blazed like a beacon on the silver coat-of-arms of the +d'Anconias, nailed over the door of the shack, while Sebastian d'Anconia dug +for the copper of his first mine. He spent years, pickax in hand, breaking +rock from sunrise till darkness, with the help of a few stray derelicts: +deserters from the armies of his countrymen, escaped convicts, starving +Indians. +Fifteen years after he left Spain, Sebastian d'Anconia sent for the girl +he loved; she had waited for him. When she arrived, she found the silver +coat-of-arms above the entrance of a marble palace, the gardens of a great +estate, and mountains slashed by pits of red ore in the distance. He carried +her in his arms across the threshold of his home. He looked younger than when +she had seen him last. +"My ancestor and yours," Francisco told Dagny, "would have liked each +other." +Through the years of her childhood, Dagny lived in the future—in the world +she expected to find, where she would not have to feel contempt or boredom. +But for one month each year, she was free. For one month, she could live in +the present. When she raced down the hill to meet Francisco d'Anconia, it was +a release from prison. +"Hi, Slug!" +"Hi, Frisco!" +They had both resented the nicknames, at first. She had asked him angrily, +"What do you think you mean?" He had answered, "In case you don't know it, +'Slug' means a great fire in a locomotive firebox." +"Where did you pick that up?" "From the gentlemen along the Taggart iron." +He spoke five languages, and he spoke English without a trace of accent, a +precise, cultured English deliberately mixed with slang. She had retaliated + + by calling him Frisco. He had laughed, amused and annoyed. "If you barbarians +had to degrade the name of a great city of yours, you could at least refrain +from doing it to me." But they had grown to like the nicknames. +It had started in the days of their second summer together, when he was +twelve years old and she was ten. That summer, Francisco began vanishing +every morning for some purpose nobody could discover. He went off on his +bicycle before dawn, and returned in time to appear at the white and crystal +table set for lunch on the terrace, his manner courteously punctual and a +little too innocent. He laughed, refusing to answer, when Dagny and Eddie +questioned him. They tried to follow him once, through the cold, pre-morning +darkness, but they gave it up; no one could track him when he did not want to +be tracked. +After a while, Mrs. Taggart began, to worry and decided to investigate. +She never learned how he had managed to by-pass all the child-labor laws, but +she found Francisco working—by an unofficial deal with the dispatcher—as a +call boy for Taggart Transcontinental, at a division point ten miles away. +The dispatcher was stupefied by her personal visit; he had no idea that his +call boy was a house guest of the Taggarts. The boy was known to the local +railroad crews as Frankie, and Mrs. Taggart preferred not to enlighten them +about his full name. +She merely explained that he was working without his parents' permission +and had to quit at once. The dispatcher was sorry to lose him; Frankie, he +said, was the best call boy they had ever had. "I'd sure like to keep him on. +Maybe we could make a deal with his parents?” he suggested. "I'm afraid not.” +said Mrs. Taggart faintly. +"Francisco," she asked, when she brought him home, "what would your father +say about this, if he knew?" +"My father would ask whether I was good at the job or not. +That's all he'd want to know." +"Come now, I'm serious." +Francisco was looking at her politely, his courteous manner suggesting +centuries of breeding and drawing rooms; but something in his eyes made her +feel uncertain about the politeness. "Last winter," he answered, "I shipped +out as cabin boy on a cargo steamer that carried d'Anconia copper. My father +looked for me for three months, but that's all he asked me when I came back." +"So that's how you spend your winters?" said Jim Taggart. Jim's smile had +a touch of triumph, the triumph of finding cause to feel contempt. +"That was last winter," Francisco answered pleasantly, with no change in +the innocent, casual tone of his voice. "The winter before last I spent in +Madrid, at the home of the Duke of Alba." +"Why did you want to work on a railroad?" asked Dagny. +They stood looking at each other: hers was a glance of admiration, his of +mockery; but it was not the mockery of malice—it was the laughter of a +salute. +"To learn what it's like, Slug," he answered, "and to tell you that I've +had a job with Taggart Transcontinental before you did." +Dagny and Eddie spent their winters trying to master some new skill, in +order to astonish Francisco and beat him, for once. They never succeeded. +When they showed him how to hit a ball with a bat, a game he had never played +before, he watched them for a few minutes, then said, "I think I get the +idea. Let me try." He took the bat and sent the ball flying over a line of +oak trees far at the end of the field. +When Jim was given a motorboat for his birthday, they all stood on the +river landing, watching the lesson, while an instructor showed Jim how to run +it. None of them had ever driven a motorboat before. The sparkling white +craft, shaped like a bullet, kept staggering clumsily across the water, its +wake a long record of shivering, its motor choking with hiccoughs, while the + + instructor, seated beside him, kept seizing the wheel out of Jim's hands. For +no apparent reason, Jim raised his head suddenly and yelled at Francisco, "Do +you think you can do it any better?" "I can do it." "Try it!" +When the boat came back and its two occupants stepped out, Francisco +slipped behind the wheel. "Wait a moment," he said to the instructor, who +remained on the landing. "Let me take a look at this." +Then, before the instructor had time to move, the boat shot out to the +middle of the river, as if fired from a gun. It was streaking away before +they grasped what they were seeing. As it went shrinking into the distance +and sunlight, Dagny's picture of it was three straight lines: its wake, the +long shriek of its motor, and the aim of the driver at its wheel. +She noticed the strange expression of her father's face as he looked at +the vanishing speedboat. He said nothing; he just stood looking. She +remembered that she had seen him look that way once before. It was when he +inspected a complex system of pulleys which Francisco, aged twelve, had +erected to make an elevator to the top of a rock; he was teaching Dagny and +Eddie to dive from the rock into the Hudson. Francisco's notes of calculation +were still scattered about on the ground; her father picked them up, looked +at them, then asked, "Francisco, how many years of algebra have you had?" +"Two years." "Who taught you to do this?" "Oh, that's just something I +figured out." She did not know that what her father held on the crumpled +sheets of paper was the crude version of a differential equation. +The heirs of Sebastian d'Anconia had been an unbroken line of first sons, +who knew how to bear his name. It was a tradition of the family that the man +to disgrace them would be the heir who died, leaving the d'Anconia fortune no +greater than he had received it. Throughout the generations, that disgrace +had not come. An Argentinian legend said that the hand of a d'Anconia had the +miraculous power of the saints— +only it was not the power to heal, but the power to produce. +The d'Anconia heirs had been men of unusual ability, but none of them +could match what Francisco d'Anconia promised to become. It was as if the +centuries had sifted the family's qualities through a fine mesh, had +discarded the irrelevant, the inconsequential, the weak, and had let nothing +through except pure talent; as if chance, for once, had achieved an entity +devoid of the accidental. +Francisco could do anything he undertook, he could do it better than +anyone else, and he did it without effort. There was no boasting in his +manner and consciousness, no thought of comparison. His attitude was not: "I +can do it better than you," but simply: "I can do it." What he meant by doing +was doing superlatively. +No matter what discipline was required of him by his father's exacting +plan for his education, no matter what subject he was ordered to study, +Francisco mastered it with effortless amusement. His father adored him, but +concealed it carefully, as he concealed the pride of knowing that he was +bringing up the most brilliant phenomenon of a brilliant family line. +Francisco, it was said, was to be the climax of the d'Anconias. +"I don't know what sort of motto the d'Anconias have on their family +crest," Mrs. Taggart said once, "but I'm sure that Francisco will change it +to 'What for?' " It was the first question he asked about any activity +proposed to him—and nothing would make him act, if he found no valid answer. +He flew through the days of his summer month like a rocket, but if one +stopped him in mid-flight, he could always name the purpose of his every +random moment. Two things were impossible to him: to stand still or to move +aimlessly. +"Let's find out" was the motive he gave to Dagny and Eddie for anything he +undertook, or "Let's make it." These were his only forms of enjoyment. + + "I can do it," he said, when he was building his elevator, clinging to the +side of a cliff, driving metal wedges into rock, his arms moving with an +expert's rhythm, drops of blood slipping, unnoticed, from under a bandage on +his wrist. "No, we can't take turns, Eddie, you're not big enough yet to +handle a hammer. Just cart the weeds off and keep the way clear for me, I'll +do the rest. . . . What blood? Oh, that's nothing, just a cut I got +yesterday. Dagny, run to the house and bring me a clean bandage." +Jim watched them. They left him alone, but they often saw him standing in +the distance, watching Francisco with a peculiar kind of intensity. +He seldom spoke in Francisco's presence. But he would corner Dagny and he +would smile derisively, saying, "AH those airs you put on, pretending that +you're an iron woman with a mind of her own! You're a spineless dishrag, +that's all you are. It's disgusting, the way you let that conceited punk +order you about. He can twist you around his little finger. You haven't any +pride at all. The way you run when he whistles and wait on him! Why don't you +shine his shoes?" "Because he hasn't told me to," she answered. +Francisco could win any game in any local contest. He never entered +contests. He could have ruled the junior country club. He never came within +sight of their clubhouse, ignoring their eager attempts to enroll the most +famous heir in the world. Dagny and Eddie were his only friends. They could +not tell whether they owned him or were owned by him completely; it made no +difference: either concept made them happy. +The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. +Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on +top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He +stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, "A young man of your position +ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world." +"What do you think I'm doing?" asked Francisco. +There were no factories in the neighborhood, but Francisco taught Dagny +and Eddie to steal rides on Taggart trains to distant towns, where they +climbed fences into mill yards or hung on window sills, watching machinery as +other children watched movies. "When I run Taggart Transcontinental . . ." +Dagny would say at times. "When I run d'Anconia Copper . . ." said Francisco. +They never had to explain the rest to each other; they knew each other's goal +and motive. +Railroad conductors caught them, once in a while. Then a stationmaster a +hundred miles away would telephone Mrs. Taggart: "We've got three young +tramps here who say that they are—" "Yes," Mrs. Taggart would sigh, "they +are. Please send them back." +"Francisco," Eddie asked him once, as they stood by the tracks of the +Taggart station, "you've been just about everywhere in the world. +What's the most important thing on earth?" "This," answered Francisco, +pointing to the emblem TT on the front of an engine. He added, "I wish I +could have met Nat Taggart." +He noticed Dagny's glance at him. He said nothing else. But minutes later, +when they went on through the woods, down a narrow path of damp earth, ferns +and sunlight, he said, "Dagny, I'll always bow to a coat-of-arms. I'll always +worship the symbols of nobility. Am I not supposed to be an aristocrat? Only +I don't give a damn for moth-eaten turrets and tenth-hand unicorns. The +coats-of-arms of our day are to be found on billboards and in the ads of +popular magazines." "What do you mean?" asked Eddie. "Industrial trademarks, +Eddie," he answered. +Francisco was fifteen years old, that summer. +"When I run d'Anconia Copper . . ." "I'm studying mining and mineralogy, +because I must be ready for the time when I run d'Anconia Copper. . . ." "I'm +studying electrical engineering, because power companies are the best + + customers of d'Anconia Copper. . . ." "I'm going to study philosophy, because +I'll need it to protect d'Anconia Copper. . . ." +"Don't you ever think of anything but d'Anconia Copper?" Jim asked him +once. +"No." +"It seems to me that there are other things in the world." +"Let others think about them." +"Isn't that a very selfish attitude?" +"It is." +"What are you after?" +"Money." +"Don't you have enough?" +"In his lifetime, every one of my ancestors raised the production of +d'Anconia Copper by about ten per cent. I intend to raise it by one hundred." +"What for?" Jim asked, in sarcastic imitation of Francisco's voice. +"When I die, I hope to go to heaven—whatever the hell that is— +and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.” +"Virtue is the price of admission," Jim said haughtily. +"That's what I mean, James. So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest +virtue of all—that I was a man who made money." +"Any grafter can make money." +"James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning." +Francisco smiled; it was a smile of radiant mockery. Watching them, Dagny +thought suddenly of the difference between Francisco and her brother Jim. +Both of them smiled derisively. But Francisco seemed to laugh at things +because he saw something much greater. Jim laughed as if he wanted to let +nothing remain great. +She noticed the particular quality of Francisco's smile again, one night, +when she sat with him and Eddie at a bonfire they had built in the woods. The +glow of the fire enclosed them within a fence of broken, moving strips that +held pieces of tree trunks, branches and distant stars. +She felt as if there were nothing beyond that fence, nothing but black +emptiness, with the hint of some breath-stopping, frightening promise . . . +like the future. But the future, she thought, would be like Francisco's +smile, there was the key to it, the advance warning of its nature —in his +face in the firelight under the pine branches—and suddenly she felt an +unbearable happiness, unbearable because it was too full and she had no way +to express it. She glanced at Eddie. He was looking at Francisco. In some +quiet way of his own, Eddie felt as she did. +"Why do you like Francisco?" she asked him weeks later, when Francisco was +gone. +Eddie looked astonished; it had never occurred to him that the feeling +could be questioned. He said, "He makes me feel safe." +She said, "He makes me expect excitement and danger." +Francisco was sixteen, next summer, the day when she stood alone with him +on the summit of a cliff by the river, their shorts and shirts torn in their +climb to the top. They stood looking down the Hudson; they had heard that on +clear days one could see New York in the distance. But they saw only a haze +made of three different kinds of light merging together: the river, the sky +and the sun. +She knelt on a rock, leaning forward, trying to catch some hint of the +city, the wind blowing her hair across her eyes. She glanced back over her +shoulder—and saw that Francisco was not looking at the distance: he stood +looking at her. It was an odd glance, intent and unsmiling. She remained +still for a moment, her hands spread flat on the rock, her arms tensed to +support the weight of her body; inexplicably, his glance made her aware of +her pose, of her shoulder showing through the torn shirt, of her long, + + scratched, sunburned legs slanting from the rock to the ground. She stood up +angrily and backed away from him. And while throwing her head up, resentment +in her eyes to meet the sternness in his, while feeling certain that his was +a glance of condemnation and hostility, she heard herself asking him, a tone +of smiling defiance in her voice: "What do you like about me?" +He laughed; she wondered, aghast, what had made her say it. He answered, +"There's what I like about you," pointing to the glittering rails of the +Taggart station in the distance. +"It's not mine," she said, disappointed. +"What I like is that it's going to be." +She smiled, conceding his victory by being openly delighted. She did not +know why he had looked at her so strangely; but she felt that he had seen +some connection, which she could not grasp, between her body and something +within her that would give her the strength to rule those rails some day. +He said brusquely, "Let's see if we can see New York," and jerked her by +the arm to the edge of the cliff. She thought that he did not notice that he +twisted her arm in a peculiar way, holding it down along the length of his +side; it made her stand pressed against him, and she felt the warmth of the +sun in the skin of his legs against hers. They looked far out into the +distance, but they saw nothing ahead except a haze of light. +When Francisco left, that summer, she thought that his departure was; like +the crossing of a frontier which ended his childhood: he was to start +college, that fall. Her turn would come next. She felt an eager impatience +touched by the excitement of fear, as if he had leaped into an unknown +danger. It was like the moment, years ago, when she had seen him dive first +from a rock into the Hudson, had seen him vanish under the black water and +had stood, knowing that he would reappear in an instant and that it would +then be her turn to follow. +She dismissed the fear; dangers, to Francisco, were merely opportunities +for another brilliant performance; there were no battles he could lose, no +enemies to beat him. And then she thought of a remark she had heard a few +years earlier. It was a strange remark—and it was strange that the words had +remained in her mind, even though she had thought them senseless at the time. +The man who said it was an old professor of mathematics, a friend of her +father, who came to their country house for just that one visit. She liked +his face, and she could still see the peculiar sadness in his eyes when he +said to her father one evening, sitting on the terrace in the fading light, +pointing to Francisco's figure in the garden, "That boy is vulnerable. He has +too great a capacity for joy. +What will he do with it in a world where there's so little occasion for +it?" +Francisco went to a great American school, which his father had chosen for +him long ago. It was the most distinguished institution of learning left in +the world, the Patrick Henry University of Cleveland. +He did not come to visit her in New York, that winter, even though he was +only a night's journey away. They did not write to each other, they had never +done it. But she knew that he would come back to the country for one summer +month. +There were a few times, that winter, when she felt an undefined +apprehension: the professor's words kept returning to her mind, as a warning +which she could not explain. She dismissed them. When she thought of +Francisco, she felt the steadying assurance that she would have another month +as an advance against the future, as a proof that the world she saw ahead was +real, even though it was not the world of those around her. +"Hi, Slug!" +"Hi, Frisco!" + + Standing on the hillside, in the first moment of seeing him again, she +grasped suddenly the nature of that world which they, together, held against +all others. It was only an instant's pause, she felt her cotton skirt beating +in the wind against her knees, felt the sun on her eyelids, and the upward +thrust of such an immense relief that she ground her feet into the grass +under her sandals, because she thought she would rise, weightless, through +the wind. +It was a sudden sense of freedom and safety—because she realized that she +knew nothing about the events of his life, had never known and would never +need to know. The world of chance—of families, meals, schools, people, of +aimless people dragging the load of some unknown guilt—was not theirs, could +not change him, could not matter. He and she had never spoken of the things +that happened to them, but only of what they thought and of what they would +do. . . . She looked at him silently, as if a voice within her were saying: +Not the things that are, but the things we'll make . . . We are not to be +stopped, you and I . . . +Forgive me the fear, if I thought I could lose you to them—forgive me the +doubt, they'll never reach you—I’ll never be afraid for you again. . . . +He, too, stood looking at her for a moment—and it seemed to her that it +was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had +thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only +an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning to point at +the birch tree behind him and saying in the tone of their childhood game: "I +wish you'd learn to run faster. I'll always have to wait for you." +"Will you wait for me?" she asked gaily. +He answered, without smiling, "Always." +As they went up the hill to the house, he spoke to Eddie, while she walked +silently by his side. She felt that there was a new reticence between them +which, strangely, was a new kind of intimacy. +She did not question him about the university. Days later, she asked him +only whether he liked it. +"They're teaching a lot of drivel nowadays," he answered, "but there are a +few courses I like." +"Have you made any friends there?" +"Two." +He told her nothing else. +Jim was approaching his senior year in a college in New York. His studies +had given him a manner of odd, quavering belligerence, as if he had found a +new weapon. He addressed Francisco once, without provocation, stopping him in +the middle of the lawn to say in a tone of aggressive self-righteousness: "I +think that now that you've reached college age, you ought to learn something +about ideals. It's time to forget your selfish greed and give some thought to +your social responsibilities, because I think that all those millions you're +going to inherit are not for your personal pleasure, they are a trust for the +benefit of the underprivileged and the poor, because I think that the person +who doesn't realize this is the most depraved type of human being." +Francisco answered courteously, "It is not advisable, lames, to venture +unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of +their exact value to your listener." +Dagny asked him, as they walked away, "Are there many men like Jim in the +world?" +Francisco laughed. "A great many." +"Don't you mind it?" +"No. I don't have to deal with them. Why do you ask that?" +"Because I think they're dangerous in some way . . . I don't know how . . +." +"Good God, Dagny! Do you expect me to be afraid of an object like James?" + + It was days later, when they were alone, walking through the woods on the +shore of the river, that she asked: "Francisco, what's the most depraved type +of human being?" +"The man without a purpose." +She was looking at the straight shafts of the trees that stood against the +great, sudden, shining spread of space beyond. The forest was dim and cool, +but the outer branches caught the hot, silver sunrays from the water. She +wondered why she enjoyed the sight, when she had never taken any notice of +the country around her, why she was so aware of her enjoyment, of her +movements, of her body in the process of walking. +She did not want to look at Francisco. She felt that his presence seemed +more intensely real when she kept her eyes away from him, almost as if the +stressed awareness of herself came from him, like the sunlight from the +water. +"You think you're good, don't you?" he asked. +"I always did," she answered defiantly, without turning. +"Well, let me sec you prove it. Let me see how far you'll rise with +Taggart Transcontinental. No matter how good you are, I'll expect you to +wring everything you've got, trying to be still better. And when you've worn +yourself out to reach a goal, I'll expect you to start for another." +"Why do you think that I care to prove anything to you?" she asked. +"Want me to answer?" +"No," she whispered, her eyes fixed upon the other shore of the river in +the distance. +She heard him chuckling, and after a while he said, "Dagny, there's +nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work. +Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the +only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they'll try to ram down +your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece +people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of +morality that's on a gold standard. When you grow up, you'll know what I +mean." +"I know it now. But . . . Francisco, why are you and I the only ones who +seem to know it?" +"Why should you care about the others?" +"Because I like to understand things, and there's something about people +that I can't understand." +"What?" +"Well, I've always been unpopular in school and it didn't bother me, but +now I've discovered the reason. It's an impossible kind of reason. +They dislike me, not because I do things badly, but because I do them +well. They dislike me because I've always had the best grades in the class. I +don't even have to study. I always get A's. Do you suppose I should try to +get D's for a change and become the most popular girl in school?" +Francisco stopped, looked at her and slapped her face. +What she felt was contained in a single instant, while the ground rocked +under her feet, in a single blast of emotion within her. She knew that she +would have killed any other person who struck her; she felt the violent fury +which would have given her the strength for it—and as violent a pleasure that +Francisco had done it. She felt pleasure from the dull, hot pain in her cheek +and from the taste of blood in the corner of her mouth. She felt pleasure in +what she suddenly grasped about him, about herself and about his motive. +She braced her feet to stop the dizziness, she held her head straight and +stood facing him in the consciousness of a new power, feeling herself his +equal for the first time, looking at him with a mocking smile of triumph. +"Did I hurt you as much as that?" she asked. + + He looked astonished; the question and the smile were not those of a +child. He answered, "Yes—if it pleases you." +"It does." +"Don't ever do that again. Don't crack jokes of that kind." +"Don't be a fool. Whatever made you think that I cared about being +popular?" +"When you grow up, you'll understand what sort of unspeakable thing you +said." +"I understand it now." +He turned abruptly, took out his handkerchief and dipped it in the water +of the river. "Come here," he ordered. +She laughed, stepping back, "Oh no. I want to keep it as it is. I hope it +swells terribly. I like it." +He looked at her for a long moment. He said slowly, very earnestly, +"Dagny, you're wonderful." +"I thought that you always thought so," she answered, her voice insolently +casual. +When she came home, she told her mother that she had cut her lip by +falling against a rock. It was the only lie she ever told. She did not do it +to protect Francisco; she did it because she felt, for some reason which she +could not define, that the incident was a secret too precious to share, Next +summer, when Francisco came, she was sixteen. She started running down the +hill to meet him, but stopped abruptly. He saw it, stopped, and they stood +for a moment, looking at each other across the distance of a long, green +slope. It was he who walked up toward her, walked very slowly, while she +stood waiting. +When he approached, she smiled innocently, as if unconscious of any +contest intended or won. +"You might like to know," she said, "that I have a job on the railroad. +Night operator at Rockdale." +He laughed. "All right, Taggart Transcontinental, now it's a race. +Let's see who'll do greater honor, you—to Nat Taggart, or I—to Sebastian +d'Anconia." +That winter, she stripped her life down to the bright simplicity of a +geometrical drawing: a few straight lines—to and from the engineering college +in the city each day, to and from her job at Rockdale Station each night—and +the closed circle of her room, a room littered with diagrams of motors, +blueprints of steel structures, and railroad timetables. +Mrs. Taggart watched her daughter in unhappy bewilderment. She could have +forgiven all the omissions, but one: Dagny showed no sign of interest in men, +no romantic inclination whatever. Mrs. Taggart did not approve of extremes; +she had been prepared to contend with an extreme of the opposite kind, if +necessary; she found herself thinking that this was worse. She felt +embarrassed when she had to admit that her daughter, at seventeen, did not +have a single admirer. +"Dagny and Francisco d'Anconia?" she said, smiting ruefully, in answer to +the curiosity of her friends. "Oh no, it's not a romance. It's an +international industrial cartel of some kind. That's all they seem to care +about." +Mrs. Taggart heard James say one evening, in the presence of guests, a +peculiar tone of satisfaction in his voice, "Dagny, even though you were +named after her, you really look more like Nat Taggart than like that first +Dagny Taggart, the famous beauty who was his wife." Mrs. Taggart did not know +which offended her most: that James said it or that Dagny accepted it happily +as a compliment. +She would never have a chance, thought Mrs. Taggart, to form some +conception of her own daughter. Dagny was only a figure hurrying in and out + + of the apartment, a slim figure in a leather jacket, with a raised collar, a +short skirt and long show-girl legs. She walked, cutting across a room, with +a masculine, straight-line abruptness, but she had a peculiar grace of motion +that was swift, tense and oddly, challengingly feminine. +At times, catching a glimpse of Dagny's face, Mrs. Taggart caught an +expression which she could not quite define: it was much more than gaiety, it +was the look of such an untouched purity of enjoyment that she found it +abnormal, too: no young girl could be so insensitive as to have discovered no +sadness in life. Her daughter, she concluded, was incapable of emotion. +"Dagny.," she asked once, "don't you ever want to have a good time?" Dagny +looked at her incredulously and answered, "What do you think I'm having?" +The decision to give her daughter a formal debut cost Mrs. Taggart a great +deal of anxious thought. She did not know whether she was introducing to New +York society Miss Dagny Taggart of the Social Register or the night operator +of Rockdale Station; she was inclined to believe it was more truly this last; +and she felt certain that Dagny would reject the idea of such an occasion. +She was astonished when Dagny accepted it with inexplicable eagerness, for +once like a child. +She was astonished again, when she saw Dagny dressed for the party, It was +the first feminine dress she had ever worn—a gown of white chiffon with a +huge skirt that floated like a cloud. Mrs. Taggart had expected her to look +like a preposterous contrast. Dagny looked like a beauty. She seemed both +older and more radiantly innocent than usual; standing in front of a mirror, +she held her head as Nat Taggart's wife would have held it. +"Dagny," Mrs. Taggart said gently, reproachfully, "do you see how +beautiful you can be when you want to?" +"Yes," said Dagny, without any astonishment. +The ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel had been decorated under Mrs. +Taggart's direction; she had an artist's taste, and the setting of that +evening was her masterpiece. "Dagny, there are things I would like you to +learn to notice," she said, "lights, colors, flowers, music. +They are not as negligible as you might think." "I've never thought +they're negligible," Dagny answered happily. For once, Mrs. Taggart felt a +bond between them; Dagny was looking at her with a child's grateful trust. +"They're the things that make life beautiful," said Mrs. +Taggart. "I want this evening to be very beautiful for you, Dagny. The +first ball is the most romantic event of one's life." +To Mrs. Taggart, the greatest surprise was the moment when she saw Dagny +standing under the lights, looking at the ballroom. This was not a child, not +a girl, but a woman of such confident, dangerous power that Mrs. Taggart +stared at her with shocked admiration. In an age of casual, cynical, +indifferent routine, among people who held themselves as if they were not +flesh, but meat—Dagny's bearing seemed almost indecent, because this was the +way a woman would have faced a ballroom centuries ago, when the act of +displaying one's half-naked body for the admiration of men was an act of +daring, when it had meaning, and but one meaning, acknowledged by all as a +high adventure. And this—thought Mrs. Taggart, smiling—was the girl she had +believed to be devoid of sexual capacity. She felt an immense relief, and a +touch of amusement at the thought that a discovery of this kind should make +her feel relieved. +The relief lasted only for a few hours. At the end of the evening, she saw +Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a +fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed +in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face +contemptuously empty. +Neither Dagny nor Mrs. Taggart said a word when they rode home together. +But hours later, on a sudden impulse, Mrs. Taggart went to her daughter's + + room. Dagny stood by the window, still wearing the white evening gown; it +looked like a cloud supporting a body that now seemed too thin for it, a +small body with sagging shoulders. Beyond the window, the clouds were gray in +the first light of morning. +When Dagny turned, Mrs. Taggart saw only puzzled helplessness in her face; +the face was calm, but something about it made Mrs. Taggart wish she had not +wished that her daughter should discover sadness. +"Mother, do they think it's exactly in reverse?" she asked. +"What?" asked Mrs. Taggart, bewildered. +"The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they +expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?" +"Darling, what do you mean?" +"There wasn't a person there who enjoyed it," she said, her voice +lifeless, "or who thought or felt anything at all. They moved about, and they +said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the +lights would make it brilliant." +"Darling, you take everything too seriously. One is not supposed to be +intellectual at a ball. One is simply supposed to be gay." +"How? By being stupid?" +"I mean, for instance, didn't you enjoy meeting the young men?" +"What men? There wasn't a man there I couldn't squash ten of." +Days later, sitting at her desk at Rockdale Station, feeling +lightheartedly at home, Dagny thought of the party and shrugged in +contemptuous reproach at her own disappointment. She looked up: it was spring +and there were leaves on the tree branches in the darkness outside; the air +was still and warm. She asked herself what she had expected from that party. +She did not know. But she felt it again, here, now, as she sat slouched over +a battered desk, looking out into the darkness: a sense of expectation +without object, rising through her body, slowly, like a warm liquid. She +slumped forward across the desk, lazily, feeling neither exhaustion nor +desire to work. +When Francisco came, that summer, she told him about the party and about +her disappointment. He listened silently, looking at her for the first time +with that glance of unmoving mockery which he reserved for others, a glance +that seemed to see too much. She felt as if he heard, in her words, more than +she knew she told him. +She saw the same glance in his eyes on the evening when she left him too +early. They were alone, sitting on the shore of the river. +She had another hour before she was due at Rockdale. There were long, thin +strips of fire in the sky, and red sparks floating lazily on the water. He +had been silent for a long time, when she rose abruptly and told him that she +had to go. He did not try to stop her; he leaned back, his elbows in the +grass, and looked at her without moving; his glance seemed to say that he +knew her motive. Hurrying angrily up the slope to the house, she wondered +what had made her leave; she did not know; it had been a sudden restlessness +that came from a feeling she did not identify till now: a feeling of +expectation. +Each night, she drove the five miles from the country house to Rockdale. +She came back at dawn, slept a few hours and got up with the rest of the +household. She felt no desire to sleep. Undressing for bed in the first rays +of the sun, she felt a tense, joyous, causeless impatience to face the day +that was starting. +She saw Francisco's mocking glance again, across the net of a tennis +court. She did not remember the beginning of that game; they had often played +tennis together and he had always won. She did not know at what moment she +decided that she would win, this time. + + When she became aware of it, it was no longer a decision or a wish, but a +quiet fury rising within her. She did not know why she had to win; she did +not know why it seemed so crucially, urgently necessary; she knew only that +she had to and that she would. +It seemed easy to play; it was as if her will had vanished and someone's +power were playing for her. She watched Francisco's figure ——a tall, swift +figure, the suntan of his arms stressed by his short white shirt sleeves. She +felt an arrogant pleasure in seeing the skill of his movements, because this +was the thing which she would beat, so that his every expert gesture became +her victory, and the brilliant competence of his body became the triumph of +hers. +She felt the rising pain of exhaustion—not knowing that it was pain, +feeling it only in sudden stabs that made her aware of some part of her body +for an instant, to be forgotten in the next: her arm socket— +her shoulder blades—her hips, with the white shorts sticking to her skin — +the muscles of her legs, when she leaped to meet the ball, but did not +remember whether she came down to touch the ground again—her eyelids, when +the sky went dark red and the ball came at her through the darkness like a +whirling white flame—the thin, hot wire that shot from her ankle, up her +back, and went on shooting straight across the air, driving the ball at +Francisco's figure. . . . She felt an exultant pleasure—because every stab of +pain begun in her body had to end in his, because he was being exhausted as +she was—what she did to herself, she was doing it also to him—this was what +he felt—this was what she drove him to—it was not her pain that she felt or +her body, but his. +In the moments when she saw his face, she saw that he was laughing. +He was looking at her as if he understood. He was playing, not to win, but +to make it harder for her—sending his shots wild to make her run —losing +points to see her twist her body in an agonizing backhand— +standing still, letting her think he would miss, only to let his arm shoot +out casually at the last moment and send the ball back with such force that +she knew she would miss it. She felt as if she could not move again, not +ever—and it was strange to find herself landing suddenly at the other side of +the court, smashing the ball in time, smashing it as if she wished it to +burst to pieces, as if she wished it were Francisco's face. +Just once more, she thought, even if the next one would crack the bones of +her arm . . . Just once more, even if the air which she forced down in gasps +past her tight, swollen throat, would be stopped altogether . . . Then she +felt nothing, no pain, no muscles, only the thought that she had to beat him, +to see him exhausted, to see him collapse, and then she would be free to die +in the next moment. +She won. Perhaps it was his laughing that made him lose, for once. +He walked to the net, while she stood still, and threw his racket across, +at her feet, as if knowing that this was what she wanted. He walked out of +the court and fell down on the grass of the lawn, collapsing, his head on his +arm. +She approached him slowly. She stood over him, looking down at his body +stretched at her feet, looking at his sweat-drenched shirt and the strands of +his hair spilled across his arm. He raised his head. His glance moved slowly +up the line of her legs, to her shorts, to her blouse, to her eyes. It was a +mocking glance that seemed to see straight through her clothes and through +her mind. And it seemed to say that he had won. +She sat at her desk at Rockdale, that night, alone in the old station +building, looking at the sky in the window. It was the hour she liked best, +when the top panes of the window grew lighter, and the rails of the track +outside became threads of blurred silver across the lower panes. She turned +off her lamp and watched the vast, soundless motion of light over a + + motionless earth. Things stood still, not a leaf trembled on the branches, +while the sky slowly lost its color and became an expanse that looked like a +spread of glowing water. +Her telephone was silent at this hour, almost as if movement had stopped +everywhere along the system. She heard steps approaching outside, suddenly, +close to the door. Francisco came in. He had never come here before, but she +was not astonished to see him. +"What are you doing up at this hour?" she asked. +"I didn't feel like sleeping." +"How did you get here? I didn't hear your car." +"I walked." +Moments passed before she realized that she had not asked him why he came +and that she did not want to ask it. +He wandered through the room, looking at the clusters of waybills that +hung on the walls, at the calendar with a picture of the Taggart Comet caught +in a proud surge of motion toward the onlooker. He seemed casually at home, +as if he felt that the place belonged to them, as they always felt wherever +they went together. But he did not seem to want to talk. He asked a few +questions about her job, then kept silent. +As the light grew outside, movement grew down on the line and the +telephone started ringing in the silence. She turned to her work. He sat in a +corner, one leg thrown over the arm of his chair, waiting. +She worked swiftly, feeling inordinately clear-headed. She found pleasure +in the rapid precision of her hands. She concentrated on the sharp, bright +sound of the phone, on the figures of train numbers, car numbers, order +numbers. She was conscious of nothing else. +But when a thin sheet of paper fluttered down to the floor and she bent to +pick it up, she was suddenly as intently conscious of that particular moment, +of herself and her own movement. She noticed her gray linen skirt, the rolled +sleeve of her gray blouse and her naked arm reaching down for the paper. She +felt her heart stop causelessly in the kind of gasp one feels in moments of +anticipation. She picked up the paper and turned back to her desk. +It was almost full daylight. A train went past the station, without +stopping. In the purity of the morning light, the long line of car roofs +melted into a silver string, and the train seemed suspended above the ground, +not quite touching it, going past through the air. The floor of the station +trembled., and glass rattled in the windows. She watched the train's flight +with a smile of excitement. She glanced at Francisco: he was looking at her, +with the same smile. +When the day operator arrived, she turned the station over to him, and +they walked out into the morning air. The sun had not yet risen and the air +seemed radiant in its stead. She felt no exhaustion. She felt as if she were +just getting up. +She started toward her car, but Francisco said, "Let's walk home. +We'll come for the car later." +"All right." +She was not astonished and she did not mind the prospect of walking five +miles. It seemed natural; natural to the moment's peculiar reality that was +sharply clear, but cut off from everything, immediate, but disconnected, like +a bright island in a wall of fog, the heightened, unquestioning reality one +feels when one is drunk. +The road led through the woods. They left the highway for an old trail +that went twisting among the trees across miles of untouched country. There +were no traces of human existence around them. Old ruts, overgrown with +grass, made human presence seem more distant, adding the distance of years to +the distance of miles. A haze of twilight remained over the ground, but in +the breaks between the tree trunks there were leaves that hung in patches of + + shining green and seemed to light the forest. The leaves hung still. They +walked, alone to move through a motionless world. She noticed suddenly that +they had not said a word for a long time. +They came to a clearing. It was a small hollow at the bottom of a shaft +made of straight rock hillsides. A stream cut across the grass, and tree +branches flowed low to the ground, like a curtain of green fluid. +The sound of the water stressed the silence. The distant cut of open sky +made the place seem more hidden. Far above, on the crest of a hill, one tree +caught the first rays of sunlight. +They stopped and looked at each other. She knew, only when he did it, that +she had known he would. He seized her, she felt her lips in his mouth, felt +her arms grasping him in violent answer, and knew for the first time how much +she had wanted him to do it. +She felt a moment's rebellion and a hint of fear. He held her, pressing +the length of his body against hers with a tense, purposeful insistence, his +hand moving over her breasts as if he were learning a proprietor's intimacy +with her body, a shocking intimacy that needed no consent from her, no +permission. She tried to pull herself away, but she only leaned back against +his arms long enough to see his face and his smile, the smile that told her +she had given him permission long ago. She thought that she must escape; +instead, it was she who pulled his head down to find his mouth again. +She knew that fear was useless, that he would do what he wished, that the +decision was his, that he left nothing possible to her except the thing she +wanted most—to submit. She had no conscious realization of his purpose, her +vague knowledge of it was wiped out, she had no power to believe it clearly, +in this moment, to believe it about herself, she knew only that she was +afraid—yet what she felt was as if she were crying to him: Don't ask me for +it—oh, don't ask me—do it! +She braced her feet for an instant, to resist, but his mouth was pressed +to hers and they went down to the ground together, never breaking their lips +apart. She lay still—as the motionless, then the quivering object of an act +which he did simply, unhesitatingly, as of right, the right of the +unendurable pleasure it gave them. +He named what it meant to both of them in the first words he spoke +afterwards. He said, "We had to learn it from each other." She looked at his +long figure stretched on the grass beside her, he wore black slacks and a +black shirt, her eyes stopped on the belt pulled tight across his slender +waistline, and she felt the stab of an emotion that was like a gasp of pride, +pride in her ownership of his body. She lay on her back, looking up at the +sky, feeling no desire to move or think or know that there was any time +beyond this moment. +When she came home, when she lay in bed, naked because her body had become +an unfamiliar possession, too precious for the touch of a nightgown, because +it gave her pleasure to feel naked and to feel as if the white sheets of her +bed were touched by Francisco's body—when she thought that she would not +sleep, because she did not want to rest and lose the most wonderful +exhaustion she had ever known—her last thought was of the times when she had +wanted to express, but found no way to do it, an instant's knowledge of a +feeling greater than happiness, the feeling of one's blessing upon the whole +of the earth, the feeling of being in love with the fact that one exists and +in this kind of world; she thought that the act she had learned was the way +one expressed it. If this was a thought of the gravest importance, she did +not know it; nothing could be grave in a universe from which the concept of +pain had been wiped out; she was not there to weigh her conclusion; she was +asleep, a faint smile on her face, in a silent, luminous room filled with the +light of morning. + + That summer, she met him in the woods, in hidden corners by the river, on +the floor of an abandoned shack, in the cellar of the house. +These were the only times when she learned to feel a sense of beauty— +by looking up at old wooden rafters or at the steel plate of an air +conditioning machine that whirred tensely, rhythmically above their heads. +She wore slacks or cotton summer dresses, yet she was never so feminine as +when she stood beside him, sagging in his arms, abandoning herself to +anything he wished, in open acknowledgment of his power to reduce her to +helplessness by the pleasure he had the power to give her. He taught her +every manner of sensuality he could invent. "Isn't it wonderful that our +bodies can give us so much pleasure?" he said to her once, quite simply. They +were happy and radiantly innocent. They were both incapable of the conception +that joy is sin. +They kept their secret from the knowledge of others, not as a shameful +guilt, but as a thing that was immaculately theirs, beyond anyone's right of +debate or appraisal. She knew the general doctrine on sex, held by people in +one form or another, the doctrine that sex was an ugly weakness of man's +lower nature, to be condoned regretfully. She experienced an emotion of +chastity that made her shrink, not from the desires of her body, but from any +contact with the minds who held this doctrine. +That winter, Francisco came to see her in New York, at unpredictable +intervals. He would fly down from Cleveland, without warning, twice a week, +or he would vanish for months. She would sit on the floor of her room, +surrounded by charts and blueprints, she would hear a knock at her door and +snap, "I'm busy!" then hear a mocking voice ask, "Are you?" and leap to her +feet to throw the door open, to find him standing there. They would go to an +apartment he had rented in the city, a small apartment in a quiet +neighborhood. "Francisco," she asked him once, in sudden astonishment, "I'm +your mistress, am I not?" He laughed. "That's what you are." She felt the +pride a woman is supposed to experience at being granted the title of wife. +In the many months of his absence, she never wondered whether he was true +to her or not; she knew he was. She knew, even though she was too young to +know the reason, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence were +possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil. +She knew little about Francisco's life. It was his last year in college; +he seldom spoke of it, and she never questioned him. She suspected that he +was working too hard, because she saw, at times, the unnaturally bright look +of his face, the look of exhilaration that comes from driving one's energy +beyond its limit. She laughed at him once, boasting that she was an old +employee of Taggart Transcontinental, while he had not started to work for a +living. He said, "My father refuses to let me work for d'Anconia Copper until +I graduate." "When did you learn to be obedient?" "I must respect his wishes. +He is the owner of d'Anconia Copper. . . . He is not, however, the owner of +all the copper companies in the world." There was a hint of secret amusement +in his smile. +She did not learn the story until the next fall, when he had graduated and +returned to New York after a visit to his father in Buenos Aires. +Then he told her that he had taken two courses of education during the +last four years: one at the Patrick Henry University, the other in a copper +foundry on the outskirts of Cleveland. "I like to learn things for myself," +he said. He had started working at the foundry as furnace boy, when he was +sixteen—and now, at twenty, he owned it. He acquired his first title of +property, with the aid of some inaccuracy about his age, on the day when he +received his university diploma, and he sent them both to his father. +He showed her a photograph of the foundry. It was a small, grimy place, +disreputable with age, battered by years of a losing struggle; above its + + entrance gate, like a new flag on the mast of a derelict, hung the sign: +d'Anconia Copper. +The public relations man of his father's office in New York had moaned, +outraged, "But, Don Francisco, you can't do that! What will the public think? +That name on a dump of this kind?" "It's my name," +Francisco had answered. +When he entered his father's office in Buenos Aires, a large room, severe +and modern as a laboratory, with photographs of the properties of d'Anconia +Copper as sole ornament on its walls—photographs of the greatest mines, ore +docks and foundries in the world—he saw, in the place of honor, facing his +father's desk, a photograph of the Cleveland foundry with the new sign above +its gate. +His father's eyes moved from the photograph to Francisco's face as he +stood in front of the desk. +"Isn't it a little too soon?" his father asked. +"I couldn't have stood four years of nothing but lectures." +"Where did you get the money for your first payment on that property?" +"By playing the New York stock market," +"What? Who taught you to do that?" +"It is not difficult to judge which industrial ventures will succeed and +which won't." +"Where did you get the money to play with?" +"From the allowance you sent me, sir, and from my wages." +"When did you have time to watch the stock market?" +"While I was writing a thesis on the influence—upon subsequent +metaphysical systems—of Aristotle's theory of the Immovable Mover." +Francisco's stay in New York was brief, that fall. His father was sending +him to Montana as assistant superintendent of a d'Anconia mine. "Oh well," he +said to Dagny, smiling, "my father does not think it advisable to let me rise +too fast. I would not ask him to take me on faith. If he wants a factual +demonstration, I shall comply." In the spring, Francisco came back—as head of +the New York office of d'Anconia Copper. +She did not see him often in the next two years. She never knew where he +was, in what city or on what continent, the day after she had seen him. He +always came to her unexpectedly—and she liked it, because it made him a +continuous presence in her life, like the ray of a hidden light that could +hit her at any moment. +Whenever she saw him in his office, she thought of his hands as she had +seen them on the wheel of a motorboat: he drove his business HI with the same +smooth, dangerous, confidently mastered speed. But one small incident +remained in her mind as a shock: it did not fit him. +She saw him standing at the window of his office, one evening, looking at +the brown winter twilight of the city. He did not move for a long time. His +face was hard and tight; it had the look of an emotion she had never believed +possible to him: of bitter, helpless anger. He said, "There's something wrong +in the world. There's always been. Something no one has ever named or +explained." He would not tell her what it was. +When she saw him again, no trace of that incident remained in his manner. +It was spring and they stood together on the roof terrace of a restaurant, +the light silk of her evening gown blowing in the wind against his tall +figure in formal black clothes. They looked at the city. +In the dining room behind them, the sounds of the music were a concert +etude by Richard Halley; Halley's name was not known to many, but they had +discovered it and they loved his music. Francisco said, "We don't have to +look for skyscrapers in the distance, do we? + + We've reached them." She smiled and said, "I think we're going past them. +. . . I'm almost afraid . . . we're on a speeding elevator of some kind." +"Sure. Afraid of what? Let it speed. Why should there be a limit?" +He was twenty-three when his father died and he went to Buenos Aires to +take over the d'Anconia estate, now his. She did not see him for three years. +He wrote to her, at first, at random intervals. He wrote about d'Anconia +Copper, about the world market, about issues affecting the interests of +Taggart Transcontinental. His letters were brief, written by hand, usually at +night. +She was not unhappy in his absence. She, too, was making her first steps +toward the control of a future kingdom. Among the leaders of industry, her +father's friends, she heard it said that one had better watch the young +d'Anconia heir; if that copper company had been great before, it would sweep +the world now, under what his management promised to become. She smiled, +without astonishment. There were moments when she felt a sudden, violent +longing for him, but it was only impatience, not pain. She dismissed it, in +the confident knowledge that they were both working toward a future that +would bring them everything they wanted, including each other. Then his +letters stopped. +She was twenty-four on that day of spring when the telephone rang on her +desk, in an office of the Taggart Building. "Dagny," said a voice she +recognized at once, "I'm at the Wayne-Falkland. Come to have dinner with me +tonight. At seven." He said it without greeting, as if they had parted the +day before. Because it took her a moment to regain the art of breathing, she +realized for the first time how much that voice meant to her. "All right . . +. Francisco," she answered. They needed to say nothing else. She thought, +replacing the receiver, that his return was natural and as she had always +expected it to happen, except that she had not expected her sudden need to +pronounce his name or the stab of happiness she felt while pronouncing it. +When she entered his hotel room, that evening, she stopped short. +He stood in the middle of the room, looking at her—and she saw a smile +that came slowly, involuntarily, as if he had lost the ability to smile and +were astonished that he should regain it. He looked at her incredulously, not +quite believing what she was or what he felt. His glance was like a plea, +like the cry for help of a man who could never cry. At her entrance, he had +started their old salute, he had started to say, "Hi—" but he did not finish +it. Instead, after a moment, he said, "You're beautiful, Dagny." He said it +as if it hurt him. +"Francisco, I—" +He shook his head, not to let her pronounce the words they had never said +to each other—even though they knew that both had said and heard them in that +moment. +He approached, he took her in his arms, he kissed her mouth and held her +for a long time. When she looked up at his face, he was smiling down at her +confidently, derisively. It was a smile that told her he was in control of +himself, of her, of everything, and ordered her to forget what she had seen +in that first moment. "Hi, Slug," he said. +Feeling certain of nothing except that she must not ask questions, she +smiled and said, "Hi, Frisco." +She could have understood any change, but not the things she saw. +There was no sparkle of life in his face, no hint of amusement; the face +had become implacable. The plea of his first smile had not been a plea of +weakness; he had acquired an air of determination that seemed merciless. He +acted like a man who stood straight, under the weight of an unendurable +burden. She saw what she could not have believed possible: that there were +lines of bitterness in his face and that he looked tortured. + + "Dagny, don't be astonished by anything I do," he said, "or by anything I +may ever do in the future." +That was the only explanation he granted her, then proceeded to act as if +there were nothing to explain. +She could feel no more than a faint anxiety; it was impossible to fee! +fear for his fate or in his presence. When he laughed, she thought they +were back in the woods by the Hudson: he had not changed and never would. +The dinner was served in his room. She found it amusing to face him across +a table laid out with the icy formality pertaining to excessive cost, in a +hotel room designed as a European palace. +The Wayne-Falkland was the most distinguished hotel left on any continent. +Its style of indolent luxury, of velvet drapes, sculptured panels and +candlelight, seemed a deliberate contrast to its function: no one could +afford its hospitality except men who came to New York on business, to settle +transactions involving the world. She noticed that the manner of the waiters +who served their dinner suggested a special deference to this particular +guest of the hotel, and that Francisco did not notice it. He was +indifferently at home. He had long since become accustomed to the fact that +he was Senor d'Anconia of d'Anconia Copper. +But she thought it strange that he did not speak about his work. She had +expected it to be his only interest, the first thing he would share with her. +He did not mention it. He led her to talk, instead, about her job, her +progress, and what she felt for Taggart Transcontinental. She spoke of it as +she had always spoken to him, in the knowledge that he was the only one who +could understand her passionate devotion. He made no comment, but he listened +intently. +A waiter had turned on the radio for dinner music; they had paid no +attention to it. But suddenly, a crash of sound jarred the room, almost as if +a subterranean blast had struck the walls and made them tremble. The shock +came, not from the loudness, but from the quality of the sounds. It was +Halley's new Concerto, recently written, the Fourth. +They sat in silence, listening to the statement of rebellion—the anthem of +the triumph of the great victims who would refuse to accept pain. Francisco +listened, looking out at the city. +Without transition or warning, he asked, his voice oddly unstressed, +"Dagny, what would you say if I asked you to leave Taggart Transcontinental +and let it go to hell, as it will when your brother takes over?" +"What would I say if you asked me to consider the idea of committing +suicide?" she answered angrily. +He remained silent. +"Why did you say that?" she snapped. "I didn't think you'd joke about it. +It's not like you." +There was no touch of humor in his face. He answered quietly, gravely, +"No. Of course. I shouldn't." +She brought herself to question him about his work. He answered the +questions; he volunteered nothing. She repeated to him the comments of the +industrialists about the brilliant prospects of d'Anconia Copper under his +management. "That's true," he said, his voice lifeless. +In sudden anxiety, not knowing what prompted her, she asked, "Francisco, +why did you come to New York?" +He answered slowly, "To see a friend who called for me," +"Business?" +Looking past her, as if answering a thought of his own, a faint smile of +bitter amusement on his face, but his voice strangely soft and sad, he +answered: "Yes." +It was long past midnight when she awakened in bed by his side. + + No sounds came from the city below. The stillness of the room made life +seem suspended for a while. Relaxed in happiness and in complete exhaustion, +she turned lazily to glance at him. He lay on his back, half propped by a +pillow. She saw his profile against the foggy glow of the night sky in the +window. He was awake, his eyes were open. He held his mouth closed like a man +lying in resignation in unbearable pain, bearing it, making no attempt to +hide it. +She was too frightened to move. He felt her glance and turned to her. +He shuddered suddenly, he threw off the blanket, he looked at her naked +body, then he fell forward and buried his face between her breasts. He held +her shoulders, hanging onto her convulsively. She heard the words, muffled, +his mouth pressed to her skin: "I can't give it up! I can't!" +"What?" she whispered. +"You." +"Why should—" +"And everything." +"Why should you give it up?" +"Dagny! Help me to remain. To refuse. Even though he's right!" +She asked evenly, 'To refuse what, Francisco?" +He did not answer, only pressed his face harder against her. +She lay very still, conscious of nothing but a supreme need of caution. +His head on her breast, her hand caressing his hair gently, steadily, she +lay looking up at the ceiling of the room, at the sculptured garlands faintly +visible in the darkness, and she waited, numb with terror. +He moaned, "It's right, but it's so hard to do! Oh God, it's so hard!" +After a while, he raised his head. He sat up. He had stopped trembling. +"What is it, Francisco?" +"I can't tell you." His voice was simple, open, without attempt to +disguise suffering, but it was a voice that obeyed him now. "You're not ready +to hear it." +"I want to help you." +"You can't." +"You said, to help you refuse." +"I can't refuse." +"Then let me share it with you." +He shook his head. +He sat looking down at her, as if weighing a question. Then he shook his +head again, in answer to himself. +"If I'm not sure I can stand it," he said, and the strange new note in his +voice was tenderness, "how could you?" +She said slowly, with effort, trying to keep herself from screaming, +"Francisco, I have to know." +"Will you forgive me? I know you're frightened, and it's cruel. But will +you do this for me—will you let it go, just let it go, and don't ask me +anything?" +«I_" +"That's all you can do for me. Will you?" +"Yes, Francisco." +"Don't be afraid for me. It was just this once. It won't happen to me +again. It will become much easier . . . later." +"If I could—" +"No. Go to sleep, dearest," +It was the first time he had ever used that word. +In the morning, he faced her openly, not avoiding her anxious glance, but +saying nothing about it. She saw both serenity and suffering in the calm of +his face, an expression like a smile of pain, though he was not smiling. +Strangely, it made him look younger. He did not look like a man bearing + + torture now, but like a man who sees that which makes the torture worth +bearing. +She did not question him. Before leaving, she asked only, "When will I see +you again?" +He answered, "I don't know. Don't wait for me, Dagny. Next time we meet, +you will not want to see me. I will have a reason for the things I'll do. But +I can't tell you the reason and you will be right to damn me. I am not +committing the contemptible act of asking you to take me on faith. You have +to live by your own knowledge and judgment. You will damn me. You will be +hurt. Try not to let it hurt you too much. Remember that I told you this and +that it was all I could tell you." +She heard nothing from him or about him for a year. When she began to hear +gossip and to read newspaper stories, she did not believe, at first, that +they referred to Francisco d'Anconia. After a while, she had to believe it. +She read the story of the party he gave on his yacht, in the harbor of +Valparaiso; the guests wore bathing suits, and an artificial rain of +champagne and flower petals kept falling upon the decks throughout the night. +She read the story of the party he gave at an Algerian desert resort; he +built a pavilion of thin sheets of ice and presented every woman guest with +an ermine wrap, as a gift to be worn for the occasion, on condition that they +remove their wraps, then their evening gowns, then all the rest, in tempo +with the melting of the walls. +She read the accounts of the business ventures he undertook at lengthy +intervals; the ventures were spectacularly successful and ruined his +competitors, but he indulged in them as in an occasional sport, staging a +sudden raid, then vanishing from the industrial scene for a year or two, +leaving d'Anconia Copper to the management of his employees. +She read the interview where he said, "Why should I wish to make money? I +have enough to permit three generations of descendants to have as good a time +as I'm having." +She saw him once, at a reception given by an ambassador in New York. He +bowed to her courteously, he smiled, and he looked at her with a glance in +which no past existed. She drew him aside. She said only, "Francisco, why?" +"Why—what?" he asked. She turned away. "I warned you," he said. She did not +try to see him again. +She survived it. She was able to survive it, because she did not believe +in suffering. She faced with astonished indignation the ugly fact of feeling +pain, and refused to let it matter. Suffering was a senseless accident, it +was not part of life as she saw it. She would not allow pain to become +important. She had no name for the kind of resistance she offered, for the +emotion from which the resistance came; but the words that stood as its +equivalent in her mind were: It does not count —it is not to be taken +seriously. She knew these were the words, even in the moments when there was +nothing left within her but screaming and she wished she could lose the +faculty of consciousness so that it would not tell her that what could not be +true was true. Not to be taken seriously—an immovable certainty within her +kept repeating— +pain and ugliness are never to be taken seriously. +She fought it. She recovered. Years helped her to reach the day when she +could face her memories indifferently, then the day when she felt no +necessity to face them. It was finished and of no concern to her any longer. +There had been no other men in her life. She did not know whether this had +made her unhappy. She had had no time to know. She found the clean, brilliant +sense of life as she wanted it—in her work. Once, Francisco had given her the +same sense, a feeling that belonged with her work and in her world. The men +she had met since were like the men she met at her first ball. + + She had won the battle against her memories. But one form of torture +remained, untouched by the years, the torture of the word "why?" +Whatever the tragedy he met, why had Francisco taken the ugliest way of +escape, as ignoble as the way of some cheap alcoholic? The boy she had known +could not have become a useless coward. An incomparable mind could not turn +its ingenuity to the invention of melting ballrooms. Yet he had and did, and +there was no explanation to make it conceivable and to let her forget him in +peace. She could not doubt the fact of what he had been; she could not doubt +the fact of what he had become; yet one made the other impossible. At times, +she almost doubted her own rationality or the existence of any rationality +anywhere; but this was a doubt which she did not permit to anyone. Yet there +was no explanation, no reason, no clue to any conceivable reason —and in all +the days of ten years she had found no hint of an answer. +No, she thought—as she walked through the gray twilight, past the' +windows of abandoned shops, to the Wayne-Falkland Hotel—no, there could be +no answer. She would not seek it. It did not matter now. +The remnant of violence, the emotion rising as a thin trembling within +her, was not for the man she was going to see; it was a cry of protest +against a sacrilege—against the destruction of what had been greatness. +In a break between buildings, she saw the towers of the Wayne Falkland. +She felt a slight jolt, in her lungs and legs, that stopped her for an +instant. Then she walked on evenly. +By the time she walked through the marble lobby, to the elevator, then +down the wide, velvet-carpeted, soundless corridors of the Wayne Falkland, +she felt nothing but a cold anger that grew colder with every step. +She was certain of the anger when she knocked at his door. She heard his +voice, answering, "Come in." She jerked the door open and entered. +Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia sat on the floor, +playing marbles. +Nobody ever wondered whether Francisco d'Anconia was good-looking or not; +it seemed irrelevant; when he entered a room, it was impossible to look at +anyone else. His tall, slender figure had an air of distinction, too +authentic to be modern, and he moved as if he had a cape floating behind him +in the wind. People explained him by saying that he had the vitality of a +healthy animal, but they knew dimly that that was not correct. He had the +vitality of a healthy human being, a thing so rare that no one could identify +it. He had the power of certainty. +Nobody described his appearance as Latin, yet the word applied to him, not +in its present, but in its original sense, not pertaining to Spain, but to +ancient Rome. His body seemed designed as an exercise in consistency of +style, a style made of gauntness, of tight flesh, long legs and swift +movements. His features had the fine precision of sculpture. His hair was +black and straight, swept back. The suntan of his skin intensified the +startling color of his eyes: they were a pure, clear blue. His face was open, +its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had +nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint +of what he thought. +He sat on the floor of his drawing room, dressed in sleeping pajamas of +thin black silk. The marbles spread on the carpet around him were made of the +semi-precious stones of his native country: carnelian and rock crystal. He +did not rise when Dagny entered. He sat looking up at her, and a crystal +marble fell like a teardrop out of his hand. He smiled, the unchanged, +insolent, brilliant smile of his childhood. +"Hi, Slug!" +She heard herself answering, irresistibly, helplessly, happily: "Hi, +Frisco!" + + She was looking at his face; it was the face she had known. It bore no +mark of the kind of life he had led, nor of what she had seen on their last +night together. There was no sign of tragedy, no bitterness, no tension—only +the radiant mockery, matured and stressed, the look of dangerously +unpredictable amusement, and the great, guiltless serenity of spirit. But +this, she thought, was impossible; this was more shocking than all the rest. +His eyes were studying her: the battered coat thrown open, half slipping +off her shoulders, and the slender body in a gray suit that looked like an +office uniform. +"If you came here dressed like this in order not to let me notice how +lovely you are," he said, "you miscalculated. You're lovely. I wish I could +tell you what a relief it is to see a face that's intelligent though a +woman's. But you don't want to hear it. That's not what you came here for." +The words were improper in so many ways, yet were said so lightly that +they brought her back to reality, to anger and to the purpose of her visit. +She remained standing, looking down at him, her face blank, refusing him any +recognition of the personal, even of its power to offend her. She said, "I +came here to ask you a question." +"Go ahead." +"When you told those reporters that you came to New York to witness the +farce, which farce did you mean?" +He laughed aloud, like a man who seldom finds a chance to enjoy the +unexpected. +"That's what I like about you, Dagny. There are seven million people in +the city of New York, at present. Out of seven million people, you are the +only one to whom it could have occurred that I wasn't talking about the Vail +divorce scandal." +"What were you talking about?" +"What alternative occurred to you?" +"The San Sebastian disaster." +"That's much more amusing than the Vail divorce scandal, isn't it?" +She said in the solemn, merciless tone of a prosecutor, "You did it +consciously, cold-bloodedly and with full intention." +"Don't you think it would be better if you took your coat off and sat +down?" +She knew she had made a mistake by betraying too much intensity. +She turned coldly, removed her coat and threw it aside. He did not rise to +help her. She sat down in an armchair. He remained on the floor, at some +distance, but it seemed as if he were sitting at her feet. +"What was it I did with full intention?" he asked. +"The entire San Sebastian swindle." +"What was my full intention?" +"That is what I want to know." +He chuckled, as if she had asked him to explain in conversation a complex +science requiring a lifetime of study. +"You knew that the San Sebastian mines were worthless," she said. +"You knew it before you began the whole wretched business." +"Then why did I begin it?" +"Don't start telling me that you gained nothing. I know it. I know you +lost fifteen million dollars of your own money. Yet it was done on purpose." +"Can you think of a motive that would prompt me to do it?" +"No. It's inconceivable." +"Is it? You assume that I have a great mind, a great knowledge and a great +productive ability, so that anything I undertake must necessarily be +successful. And then you claim that I had no desire to put out my best effort +for the People's State of Mexico. Inconceivable, isn't it?" + + "You knew, before you bought that property, that Mexico was in the hands +of a looters' government. You didn't have to start a mining project for +them." +"No, I didn't have to." +"You didn't give a damn about that Mexican government, one way or another, +because—" +"You're wrong about that." +"—because you knew they'd seize those mines sooner or later. What you were +after is your American stockholders." +"That's true." He was looking straight at her, he was not smiling, his +face was earnest. He added, "That's part of the truth." +"What's the rest?" +"It was not all I was after." +"What else?" +"That's for you to figure out." +"I came here because I wanted you to know that I am beginning to +understand your purpose." +He smiled. "If you did, you wouldn't have come here." +"That's true. I don't understand and probably never shall. I am merely +beginning to see part of it." +"Which part?" +"You had exhausted every other form of depravity and sought a new thrill +by swindling people like Jim and his friends, in order to watch them squirm. +I don't know what sort of corruption could make anyone enjoy that, but that's +what you came to New York to see, at the right time." +"They certainly provided a spectacle of squirming on the grand scale. Your +brother James in particular." +"They're rotten fools, but in this case their only crime was that they +trusted you. They trusted your name and your honor." +Again, she saw the look of earnestness and again knew with certainty that +it was genuine, when he said, "Yes. They did. I know it." +"And do you find it amusing?" +"No. I don't find it amusing at all." +He had continued playing with his marbles, absently, indifferently, taking +a shot once in a while. She noticed suddenly the faultless accuracy of his +aim, the skill of his hands. He merely flicked his wrist and sent a drop of +stone shooting across the carpet to click sharply against another drop. She +thought of his childhood and of the predictions that anything he did would be +done superlatively. +"No," he said, "I don't find it amusing. Your brother James and his +friends knew nothing about the copper-mining industry. They knew nothing +about making money. They did not think it necessary to learn. They considered +knowledge superfluous and judgment inessential. They observed that there I +was in the world and that I made it my honor to know. They thought they could +trust my honor. One does not betray a trust of this kind, does one?” +"Then you did betray it intentionally?" +"That's for you to decide. It was you who spoke about their trust and my +honor. I don't think in such terms any longer. . . ." He shrugged, adding, "I +don't give a damn about your brother James and his friends. Their theory was +not new, it has worked for centuries. But it wasn't foolproof. There is just +one point that they overlooked. They thought it was safe to ride on my brain, +because they assumed that the goal of my journey was wealth. All their +calculations rested on the premise that I wanted to make money. What if I +didn't?" +"If you didn't, what did you want?" +"They never asked me that. Not to inquire about my aims, motives or +desires is an essential part of their theory." + + "If you didn't want to make money, what possible motive could you have +had?" +"Any number of them. For instance, to spend it." +"To spend money on a certain, total failure?" +"How was I to know that those mines were a certain, total failure?" +"How could you help knowing it?" +"Quite simply. By giving it no thought." +"You started that project without giving it any thought?" +"No, not exactly. But suppose I slipped up? I'm only human. I made a +mistake. I failed. I made a bad job of it." He flicked his wrist; a crystal +marble shot, sparkling, across the floor and cracked violently against a +brown one at the other end of the room. +"I don't believe it," she said. +"No? But haven't I the right to be what is now accepted as human? +Should I pay for everybody's mistakes and never be permitted one of my +own?" +"That's not like you." +"No?" He stretched himself full-length on the carpet, lazily, relaxing. +"Did you intend me to notice that if you think I did it on purpose, then +you still give me credit for having a purpose? You're still unable to accept +me as a bum?" +She closed her eyes. She heard him laughing; it was the gayest sound hi +the world. She opened her eyes hastily; but there was no hint of cruelty in +his face, only pure laughter. +"My motive, Dagny? You don't think that it's the simplest one of all— +the spur of the moment?" +No, she thought, no, that's not true; not if he laughed like that, not if +he looked as he did. The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does +not belong to irresponsible fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the +achievement of a drifter; to be able to laugh like that is the end result of +the most profound, most solemn thinking. +Almost dispassionately, looking at his figure stretched on the carpet at +her feet, she observed what memory it brought back to her: the black pajamas +stressed the long lines of his body, the open collar showed a smooth, young, +sunburned skin—and she thought of the figure in black slacks and shirt +stretched beside her on the grass at sunrise. She had felt pride then, the +pride of knowing that she owned his body; she still felt it. She remembered +suddenly, specifically, the excessive acts of their intimacy; the memory +should have been offensive to her now, but wasn't. It was still pride, +without regret or hope, an emotion that had no power to reach her and that +she had no power to destroy. +Unaccountably, by an association of feeling that astonished her, she +remembered what had conveyed to her recently the same sense of consummate joy +as his. +"Francisco," she heard herself saying softly, "we both loved the music of +Richard Halley. . . ." +"I still love it." +"Have you ever met him?" +"Yes. Why?" +"Do you happen to know whether he has written a Fifth Concerto?" +He remained perfectly still. She had thought him impervious to shock; he +wasn't. But she could not attempt to guess why of all the things she had +said, this should be the first to reach him. It was only an instant; then he +asked evenly, "What makes you think he has?" +"Well, has he?" +"You know that there are only four Halley Concertos." +"Yes. But I wondered whether he had written another one." + + "He has stopped writing." +"I know." +"Then what made you ask that?" +"Just an idle thought. What is he doing now? Where is he?" +"I don't know. I haven't seen him for a long time. What made you think +that there was a Fifth Concerto?" +"I didn't say there was. I merely wondered about it." +"Why did you think of Richard Halley just now?" +"Because"—she felt her control cracking a little—"because my mind can't +make the leap from Richard Halley's music to . . . to Mrs. +Gilbert Vail." +He laughed, relieved. "Oh, that? . . . Incidentally, if you've been +following my publicity, have you noticed a funny little discrepancy in the +story of Mrs. Gilbert Vail?" +"I don't read the stuff." +"You should. She gave such a beautiful description of last New Year's Eve, +which we spent together in my villa in the Andes. The moonlight on the +mountain peaks, and the blood-red flowers hanging on vines in the open +windows. See anything wrong in the picture?" +She said quietly, "It's I who should ask you that, and I'm not going to." +"Oh, I see nothing wrong—except that last New Year's Eve I was in El Paso, +Texas, presiding at the opening of the San Sebastian Line of Taggart +Transcontinental, as you should remember, even if you didn't choose to be +present on the occasion. I had my picture taken with my arms around your +brother James and the Senor Orren Boyle." +She gasped, remembering that this was true, remembering also that she had +seen Mrs. Vail's story in the newspapers. +"Francisco, what . . . what does that mean?" +He chuckled. "Draw your own conclusions. . . . Dagny"—his face was +serious—"why did you think of Halley writing a Fifth Concerto? +Why not a new symphony or opera? Why specifically a concerto?" +"Why does that disturb you?" +"It doesn't." He added softly, "I still love his music, Dagny." Then he +spoke lightly again. "But it belonged to another age. Our age provides a +different kind of entertainment." +He rolled over on his back and lay with his hands crossed under his head, +looking up as if he were watching the scenes of a movie farce unrolling on +the ceiling. +"Dagny, didn't you enjoy the spectacle of the behavior of the People's +State of Mexico in regard to the San Sebastian Mines? Did you read their +government's speeches and the editorials in their newspapers? +They're saying that I am an unscrupulous cheat who has defrauded them. +They expected to have a successful mining concern to seize. I had no right to +disappoint them like that. Did you read about the scabby little bureaucrat +who wanted them to sue me?" +He laughed, lying flat on his back; his arms were thrown wide on the +carpet, forming a cross with his body; he seemed disarmed, relaxed and young. +"It was worth whatever it's cost me. I could afford the price of that +show. If I had staged it intentionally, I would have beaten the record of the +Emperor Nero. What's burning a city—compared to tearing the lid off hell and +letting men see it?" +He raised himself, picked up a few marbles and sat shaking them absently +in his hand; they clicked with the soft, clear sound of good stone. She +realized suddenly that playing with those marbles was not a deliberate +affectation on his part; it was restlessness; he could not remain inactive +for long. + + "The government of the People's State of Mexico has issued a +proclamation," he said, "asking the people to be patient and put up with +hardships just a little longer. It seems that the copper fortune of the San +Sebastian Mines was part of the plans of the central planning council. +It was to raise everybody's standard of living and provide a roast of pork +every Sunday for every man, woman, child and abortion in the People's State +of Mexico. Now the planners are asking their people not to blame the +government, but to blame the depravity of the rich, because I turned out to +be an irresponsible playboy, instead of the greedy capitalist I was expected +to be. How were they to know, they're asking, that I would let them down? +Well, true enough. How were they to know it?" +She noticed the way he fingered the marbles in his hand. He was not +conscious of it, he was looking off into some grim distance, but she felt +certain that the action was a relief to him, perhaps as a contrast. His +fingers were moving slowly, feeling the texture of the stones with sensual +enjoyment. Instead of finding it crude, she found it strangely attractive— +as if, she thought suddenly, as if sensuality were not physical at all, +but came from a fine discrimination of the spirit. +"And that's not all they didn't know," he said. "They're in for some more +knowledge. There's that housing settlement for the workers of San Sebastian. +It cost eight million dollars. Steel-frame houses, with plumbing, electricity +and refrigeration. Also a school, a church, a hospital and a movie theater. A +settlement built for people who had lived in hovels made of driftwood and +stray tin cans. My reward for building it was to be the privilege of escaping +with my skin, a special concession due to the accident of my not being a +native of the People's State of Mexico. That workers' settlement was also +part of their plans. +A model example of progressive State housing. Well, those steel-frame +houses arc mainly cardboard, with a coating of good imitation shellac, They +won't stand another year. The plumbing pipes—as well as most of our mining +equipment—were purchased from the dealers whose main source of supply are the +city dumps of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. I'd give those pipes another +five months, and the electric system about six. The wonderful roads we graded +up four thousand feet of rock for the People's State of Mexico, will not last +beyond a couple of winters: they're cheap cement without foundation, and the +bracing at the bad turns is just painted clapboard. Wait for one good +mountain slide. The church, I think, will stand. They'll need it." +"Francisco," she whispered, "did you do it on purpose?" +He raised his head; she was startled to see that his face had a look of +infinite weariness. "Whether I did it on purpose," he said, "or through +neglect, or through stupidity, don't you understand that that doesn't make +any difference? The same element was missing." +She was trembling. Against all her decisions and control, she cried, +"Francisco! If you see what's happening in the world, if you understand all +the things you said, you can't laugh about it! You, of all men, you should +fight them!" +"Whom?" +"The looters, and those who make world-looting possible. The Mexican +planners and their kind." +His smile had a dangerous edge. "No, my dear. It's you that I have to +fight." +She looked at him blankly. "What are you trying to say?" +"I am saying that the workers' settlement of San Sebastian cost eight +million dollars," he answered with slow emphasis, his voice hard. "The price +paid for those cardboard houses was the price that could have bought steel +structures. So was the price paid for every other item. That money went to +men who grow rich by such methods. Such men do not remain rich for long. The + + money will go into channels which will carry it, not to the most productive, +but to the most corrupt. By the standards of our time, the man who has the +least to offer is the man who wins. That money will vanish in projects such +as the San Sebastian Mines," +She asked with effort, "Is that what you're after?" +"Yes." +"Is that what you find amusing?" +"Yes." +"I am thinking of your name," she said, while another part of her mind was +crying to her that reproaches were useless. "It was a tradition of your +family that a d'Anconia always left a fortune greater than the one he +received." +"Oh yes, my ancestors had a remarkable ability for doing the right thing +at the right time—and for making the right investments. Of course, +'investment' is a relative term. It depends on what you wish to accomplish. +For instance, look at San Sebastian. It cost me fifteen million dollars, but +these fifteen million wiped out forty million belonging to Taggart +Transcontinental, thirty-five million belonging to stockholders such as James +Taggart and Orren Boyle, and hundreds of millions which will be lost in +secondary consequences. That's not a bad return on an investment, is it, +Dagny?" +She was sitting straight. "Do you realize what you're saying?" +"Oh, fully! Shall I beat you to it and name the consequences you were +going to reproach me for? First, I don't think that Taggart Transcontinental +will recover from its loss on that preposterous San Sebastian Line. You think +it will, but it won't. Second, the San Sebastian helped your brother James to +destroy the Phoenix-Durango, which was about the only good railroad left +anywhere." +"You realize all that?" +"And a great deal more." +"Do you"—she did not know why she had to say it, except that the memory of +the face with the dark, violent eyes seemed to stare at her— +"do you know Ellis Wyatt?" +"Sure." +"Do you know what this might do to him?" +"Yes. He's the one who's going to be wiped out next." +"Do you . . . find that . . . amusing?" +"Much more amusing than the ruin of the Mexican planners." +She stood up. She had called him corrupt for years; she had feared it, she +had thought about it, she had tried to forget it and never think of it again; +but she had never suspected how far the corruption had gone. +She was not looking at him; she did not know that she was saying it aloud, +quoting his words of the past: ". . . who'll do greater honor, you—to Nat +Taggart, or I—to Sebastian d'Anconia . . ." +"But didn't you realize that I named those mines in honor of my great +ancestor? I think it was a tribute which he would have liked." +It took her a moment to recover her eyesight; she had never known what was +meant by blasphemy or what one felt on encountering it; she knew it now. +He had risen and stood courteously, smiling down at her; it was a cold +smile, impersonal and unrevealing. +She was trembling, but it did not matter. She did not care what he saw or +guessed or laughed at. +"I came here because I wanted to know the reason for what you've done with +your life," she said tonelessly, without anger. +"I have told you the reason," he answered gravely, "but you don't want to +believe it." + + "I kept seeing you as you were. I couldn't forget it. And that you should +have become what you are—that does not belong in a rational universe." +"No? And the world as you see it around you, does?" +"You were not the kind of man who gets broken by any kind of world" +"True." +"Then—why?" +He shrugged. "Who is John Galt?" +"Oh, don't use gutter language!" +He glanced at her. His lips held the hint of a smile, but his eyes were +still, earnest and, for an instant, disturbingly perceptive. +"Why?" she repeated. +He answered, as he had answered in the night, in this hotel, ten years +ago, "You're not ready to hear it." +He did not follow her to the door. She had put her hand on the doorknob +when she turned—and stopped. He stood across the room, looking at her; it was +a glance directed at her whole person; she knew its meaning and it held her +motionless, "I still want to sleep with you," he said. "But I am not a man +who is happy enough to do it." +"Not happy enough?" she repeated in complete bewilderment. +He laughed. "Is it proper that that should be the first thing you'd +answer?" He waited, but she remained silent. "You want it, too, don't you?" +She was about to answer "No," but realized that the truth was worse than +that. "Yes," she answered coldly, "but it doesn't matter to me that I want +it." +He smiled, in open appreciation, acknowledging the strength she had needed +to say it. +But he was not smiling when he said, as she opened the door to leave, "You +have a great deal of courage, Dagny. Some day, you'll have enough of it." +"Of what? Courage?" +But he did not answer. + + CHAPTER VI +THE NON-COMMERCIAL +Rearden pressed his forehead to the mirror and tried not to think. That +was the only way he could go through with it, he told himself. +He concentrated on the relief of the mirror's cooling touch, wondering how +one went about forcing one's mind into blankness, particularly after a +lifetime lived on the axiom that the constant, clearest, most ruthless +function of his rational faculty was his foremost duty. He wondered why no +effort had ever seemed beyond his capacity, yet now he could not scrape up +the strength to stick a few black pearl studs into his starched white shirt +front. +This was his wedding anniversary and he had known for three months that +the party would take place tonight, as Lillian wished. +He had promised it to her, safe in the knowledge that the party was a long +way off and that he would attend to it, when the time came, as he attended to +every duty on his overloaded schedule. Then, during three months of eighteenhour workdays, he had forgotten it happily—until half an hour ago, when, long +past dinner time, his secretary had entered his office and said firmly, "Your +party, Mr. Rearden." He had cried, "Good God!" leaping to his feet; he had +hurried home, rushed up the stairs, started tearing his clothes off and gone +through the routine of dressing, conscious only of the need to hurry, not of +the purpose. +When the full realization of the purpose struck him like a sudden blow, he +stopped. +"You don't care for anything but business." He had heard it all his life, +pronounced as a verdict of damnation. He had always known that business was +regarded as some sort of secret, shameful cult, which one did not impose on +innocent laymen, that people thought of it as of an ugly necessity, to be +performed but never mentioned, that to talk shop was an offense against +higher sensibilities, that just as one washed machine grease off one's hands +before coming home, so one was supposed to wash the stain of business off +one's mind before entering a drawing room. He had never held that creed, but +he had accepted it as natural that his family should hold it. He took it for +granted—wordlessly, in the manner of a feeling absorbed in childhood, left +unquestioned and unnamed—that he had dedicated himself, like the martyr of +some dark religion, to the service of a faith which was his passionate love, +but which made him an outcast among men, whose sympathy he was not to expect. +He had accepted the tenet that it was his duty to give his wife some form +of existence unrelated to business. But he had never found the capacity to do +it or even to experience a sense of guilt. He could neither force himself to +change nor blame her if she chose to condemn him. +He had given Lillian none of his time for months—:no, he thought, for +years; for the eight years of their marriage. He had no interest to spare for +her interests, not even enough to learn just what they were. +She had a large circle of friends, and he had heard it said that their +names represented the heart of the country's culture, but he had never had +time to meet them or even to acknowledge their fame by knowing what +achievements had earned it. He knew only that he often saw their names on the +magazine covers on newsstands. If Lillian resented his attitude, he thought, +she was right. If her manner toward him was objectionable, he deserved it. If +his family called him heartless, it was true. +He had never spared himself in any issue. When a problem came up at the +mills, his first concern was to discover what error he had made; he did not +search for anyone's fault but his own; it was of himself that he demanded +perfection. He would grant himself no mercy now; he took the blame. But at + + the mills, it prompted him to action in an immediate impulse to correct the +error; now, it had no effect. . . . Just a few more minutes, he thought, +standing against the mirror, his eyes closed. +He could not stop the thing in his mind that went on throwing words at +him; it was like trying to plug a broken hydrant with his bare hands. +Stinging jets, part words, part pictures, kept shooting at his brain. . . +. +Hours of it, he thought, hours to spend watching the eyes of the guests +getting heavy with boredom if they were sober or glazing into an imbecile +stare if they weren't, and pretend that he noticed neither, and strain to +think of something to say to them, when he had nothing to say —while he +needed hours of inquiry to find a successor for the superintendent of his +rolling mills who had resigned suddenly, without explanation—he had to do it +at once—men of that sort were so hard to find—and if anything happened to +break the flow of the rolling mills—it was the Taggart rail that was being +rolled. . . . He remembered the silent reproach, the look of accusation, +long-bearing patience and scorn, which he always saw in the eyes of his +family when they caught some evidence of his passion for his business—and the +futility of his silence, of his hope that they would not think Rearden Steel +meant as much to him as it did—like a drunkard pretending indifference to +liquor, among people who watch him with the scornful amusement of their full +knowledge of his shameful weakness. . . . "I heard you last night coming home +at two in the morning, where were you?" his mother saying to him at the +dinner table, and Lillian answering, "Why, at the mills, of course," as +another wife would say, "At the corner saloon." . . . Or Lillian asking him, +the hint of a wise half-smile on her face, "What were you doing in New York +yesterday?" "It was a banquet with the boys." "Business?" "Yes." "Of course"— +and Lillian turning away, nothing more, except the shameful realization that +he had almost hoped she would think he had attended some sort of obscene stag +party. . . . +An ore carrier had gone down in a storm on Lake Michigan, with thousands +of tons of Rearden ore—those boats were falling apart—if he didn't take it +upon himself to help them obtain the replacements they needed, the owners of +the line would go bankrupt, and there was no other line left in operation on +Lake Michigan. . . . "That nook?" +said Lillian, pointing to an arrangement of settees and coffee tables in +their drawing room. "Why, no, Henry, it's not new, but I suppose I should +feel flattered that three weeks is all it took you to notice it. It's my own +adaptation of the morning room of a famous French palace —but things like +that can't possibly interest you, darling, there's no stock market quotation +on them, none whatever." . . . The order for copper, which he had placed six +months ago, had not been delivered, the promised date had been postponed +three tunes—"We can't help it, Mr. Rearden"—he had to find another company to +deal with, the supply of copper was becoming increasingly uncertain. . . . +Philip did not smile, when he looked up in the midst of a speech he was +making to some friend of their mother's, about some organization he had +joined, but there was something that suggested a smile of superiority in the +loose muscles of his face when he said, "No, you wouldn't care for this, it's +not business, Henry, not business at all, it's a strictly non-commercial +endeavor." . . . That contractor in Detroit, with the job of rebuilding a +large factory, was considering structural shapes of Rearden Metal —he should +fly to Detroit and speak to him in person—he should have done it a week ago— +he could have done it tonight. . . . "You're not listening," said his mother +at the breakfast table, when his mind wandered to the current coal price +index, while she was telling him about the dream she'd had last night. +"You've never listened to a living soul. + + You're not interested in anything but yourself. You don't give a damn +about people, not about a single human creature on God's earth." +. . . The typed pages lying on the desk in his office were a report on the +tests of an airplane motor made of Rearden Metal—perhaps of all things on +earth, the one he wanted most at this moment was to read it— +it had lain on his desk, untouched, for three days, he had had no time for +it—why didn't he do it now and— +He shook his head violently, opening his eyes, stepping back from the +mirror. +He tried to reach for the shirt studs. He saw his hand reaching, instead, +for the pile of mail on his dresser. It was mail picked as urgent, it had to +be read tonight, but he had had no time to read it in the office. +His secretary had stuffed it into his pocket on his way out. He had thrown +it there while undressing. +A newspaper clipping fluttered down to the floor. It was an editorial +which his secretary had marked with an angry stash in red pencil. It was +entitled "Equalization of Opportunity." He had to read it: there had been too +much talk about this issue in the last three months, ominously too much, He +read it, with the sound of voices and forced laughter coming from downstairs, +reminding him that the guests were arriving, that the party had started and +that he would face the bitter, reproachful glances of his family when he came +down. +The editorial said that at a time of dwindling production, shrinking +markets and vanishing opportunities to make a living, it was unfair to let +one man hoard several business enterprises, while others had none; it was +destructive to let a few corner all the resources, leaving others no chance; +competition was essential to society, and it was society's duty to see that +no competitor ever rose beyond the range of anybody who wanted to compete +with him. The editorial predicted the passage of a bill which had been +proposed, a bill forbidding any person or corporation to own more than one +business concern. +Wesley Mouch, his Washington man, had told Rearden not to worry; the fight +would be stiff, he had said, but the bill would be defeated. +Rearden understood nothing about that kind of fight. He left it to Mouch +and his staff. He could barely find time to skim through the reports from +Washington and to sign the checks which Mouch requested for the battle. +Rearden did not believe that the bill would pass. He was incapable of +believing it. Having dealt with the clean reality of metals, technology, +production all his life, he had acquired the conviction that one had to +concern oneself with the rational, not the insane—that one had to seek that +which was right, because the right answer always won—that the senseless, the +wrong, the monstrously unjust could not work, could not succeed, could do +nothing but defeat itself. A battle against a thing such as that bill seemed +preposterous and faintly embarrassing to him, as if he were suddenly asked to +compete with a man who calculated steel mixtures by the formulas of +numerology. +He had told himself that the issue was dangerous. But the loudest +screaming of the most hysterical editorial roused no emotion in him— +while a variation of a decimal point in a laboratory report on a test of +Rearden Metal made him leap to his feet in eagerness or apprehension. +He had no energy to spare for anything else. +He crumpled the editorial and threw it into the wastebasket. He felt the +leaden approach of that exhaustion which he never felt at his job, the +exhaustion that seemed to wait for him and catch him the moment he turned to +other concerns. He felt as if he were incapable of any desire except a +desperate longing for sleep, He told himself that he had to attend the party— + + that his family had the right to demand it of him—that he had to learn to +like their kind of pleasure, for their sake, not his own. +He wondered why this was a motive that had no power to impel him. +Throughout his life, whenever he became convinced that a course of action was +right, the desire to follow it had come automatically. What was happening to +him?—he wondered. The impossible conflict of feeling reluctance to do that +which was right—wasn't it the basic formula of moral corruption? To recognize +one's guilt, yet feel nothing but the coldest, most profound indifference— +wasn't it a betrayal of that which had been the motor of his life-course and +of his pride? +He gave himself no time to seek an answer. He finished dressing, quickly, +pitilessly. +Holding himself erect, his tall figure moving with the unstressed, +unhurried confidence of habitual authority, the white of a fine handkerchief +in the breast pocket of his black dinner jacket, he walked slowly down the +stairs to the drawing room, looking—to the satisfaction of the dowagers who +watched him—like the perfect figure of a great industrialist. +He saw Lillian at the foot of the stairs. The patrician lines of a lemonyellow Empire evening gown stressed her graceful body, and she stood like a +person proudly in control of her proper background. +He smiled; he liked to see her happy; it gave some reasonable +justification to the party. +He approached her—and stopped. She had always shown good taste in her use +of jewelry, never wearing too much of it. But tonight she wore an +ostentatious display: a diamond necklace, earrings, rings and brooches. Her +arms looked conspicuously bare by contrast. On her right wrist, as sole +ornament, she wore the bracelet of Rearden Metal. The glittering gems made it +look like an ugly piece of dime-store jewelry. +When he moved his glance from her wrist to her face, he found her looking +at him. Her eyes were narrowed and he could not define their expression; it +was a look that seemed both veiled and purposeful, the look of something +hidden that flaunted its security from detection. +He wanted to tear the bracelet off her wrist. Instead, in obedience to her +voice gaily pronouncing an introduction, he bowed to the dowager who stood +beside her, his face expressionless. +"Man? What is man? He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of +grandeur," said Dr. Pritchett to a group of guests across the room. +Dr. Pritchett picked a canape off a crystal dish, held it speared between +two straight fingers and deposited it whole into his mouth. +"Man's metaphysical pretensions," he said, "are preposterous. A miserable +bit of protoplasm, full of ugly little concepts and mean little emotions—and +it imagines itself important! Really, you know, that is the root of all the +troubles in the world." +"But which concepts are not ugly or mean, Professor?" asked an earnest +matron whose husband owned an automobile factory. +"None," said Dr. Pritchett, "None within the range of man's capacity." +A young man asked hesitantly, "But if we haven't any good concepts, how do +we know that the ones we've got are ugly? I mean, by what standard?" +"There aren't any standards." +This silenced his audience. +"The philosophers of the past were superficial," Dr. Pritchett went on. +"It remained for our century to redefine the purpose of philosophy. +The purpose of philosophy is not to help men find the meaning of life, but +to prove to them that there isn't any." +An attractive young woman, whose father owned a coal mine, asked +indignantly, "Who can tell us that?" + + "I am trying to," said Dr. Pritchett. For the last three years, he had +been head of the Department of Philosophy at the Patrick Henry University. +Lillian Rearden approached, her jewels glittering under the lights. +The expression on her face was held to the soft hint of a smile, set and +faintly suggested, like the waves of her hair. +"It is this insistence of man upon meaning that makes him so difficult," +said Dr. Pritchett. "Once he realizes that he is of no importance whatever in +the vast scheme of the universe, that no possible significance can be +attached to his activities, that it does not matter whether he lives or dies, +he will become much more . . . tractable." +He shrugged and reached for another canape", A businessman said uneasily, +"What I asked you about, Professor, was what you thought about the +Equalization of Opportunity Bill." +"Oh, that?" said Dr. Pritchett. "But I believe I made it clear that I am +in favor of it, because I am in favor of a free economy. A free economy +cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. +Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free." +"But, look . . . isn't that sort of a contradiction?" +"Not in the higher philosophical sense. You must learn to see beyond the +static definitions of old-fashioned thinking. Nothing is static in the +universe. Everything is fluid." +"But it stands to reason that if—" +"Reason, my dear fellow, is the most naive of all superstitions. That, at +least, has been generally conceded in our age," +"But I don't quite understand how we can—" +"You suffer from the popular delusion of believing that things can be +understood. You do not grasp the fact that the universe is a solid +contradiction." +"A contradiction of what?" asked the matron. +"Of itself." +"How . . . how's that?" +"My dear madam, the duty of thinkers is not to explain, but to demonstrate +that nothing can be explained." +"Yes, of course . . . only . , ," +"The purpose of philosophy is not to seek knowledge, but to prove that +knowledge is impossible to man." +"But when we prove it," asked the young woman, "what's going to be left?" +"Instinct," said Dr. Pritchett reverently. +At the other end of the room, a group was listening to Balph Eubank. He +sat upright on the edge of an armchair, in order to counteract the appearance +of his face and figure, which had a tendency to spread if relaxed. +"The literature of the past," said Balph Eubank, "was a shallow fraud. It +whitewashed life in order to please the money tycoons whom it served. +Morality, free will, achievement, happy endings, and man as some sort of +heroic being—all that stuff is laughable to us. Our age has given depth to +literature for the first time, by exposing the real essence of life," +A very young girl in a white evening gown asked timidly, "What is the real +essence of life, Mr. Eubank?" +"Suffering," said Balph Eubank. "Defeat and suffering." +"But . . . but why? People are happy . . . sometimes . . . aren't they?" +"That is a delusion of those whose emotions are superficial." +The girl blushed. A wealthy woman who had inherited an oil refinery, asked +guiltily, "What should we do to raise the people's literary taste, Mr. +Eubank?" +"That is a great social problem," said Balph Eubank. He was described as +the literary leader of the age, but had never written a book that sold more + + than three thousand copies. "Personally, I believe that an Equalization of +Opportunity Bill applying to literature would be the solution." +"Oh, do you approve of that Bill for industry? I'm not sure I know what to +think of it." +"Certainly, I approve of it. Our culture has sunk into a bog of +materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their pursuit of material +production and technological trickery. They're too comfortable. They will +return to a nobler life if we teach them to bear privations. So we ought to +place a limit upon their material greed." +"I hadn't thought of it that way," said the woman apologetically. +"But how are you going to work an Equalization of Opportunity Bill for +literature, Ralph?" asked Mort Liddy. "That's a new one on me." +"My name is Balph," said Eubank angrily. "And it's a new one on you +because it's my own idea." +"Okay, okay, I'm not quarreling, am I? I'm just asking." Mort Liddy +smiled. He spent most of his time smiling nervously. He was a composer who +wrote old-fashioned scores for motion pictures, and modern symphonies for +sparse audiences. +"It would work very simply," said Balph Eubank. "There should be a law +limiting the sale of any book to ten thousand copies. This would throw the +literary market open to new talent, fresh ideas and non-commercial writing. +If people were forbidden to buy a million copies of the same piece of trash, +they would be forced to buy better books." +"You've got something there," said Mort Liddy. "But wouldn't it be kinda +tough on the writers' bank accounts?" +"So much the better. Only those whose motive is not money-making should be +allowed to write." +"But, Mr. Eubank," asked the young girl in the white dress, "what if more +than ten thousand people want to buy a certain book?" +"Ten thousand readers is enough for any book." +"That's not what I mean. I mean, what if they want it?" +"That is irrelevant." +"But if a book has a good story which—" +"Plot is a primitive vulgarity in literature," said Balph Eubank +contemptuously. +Dr. Pritchett, on his way across the room to the bar, stopped to say, +"Quite so. Just as logic is a primitive vulgarity in philosophy." +"Just as melody is a primitive vulgarity in music," said Mort Liddy. +"What's all this noise?” asked Lillian Rearden, glittering to a stop +beside them. +"Lillian, my angel," Balph Eubank drawled, "did I tell you that I'm +dedicating my new novel to you?" +"Why. thank you, darling." +"What is the name of your new novel?" asked the wealthy woman. +"The Heart Is a Milkman." +"What is it about?" +"Frustration." +"But, Mr. Eubank," asked the young girl in the white dress, blushing +desperately, "if everything is frustration, what is there to live for?" +"Brother-love," said Balph Eubank grimly. +Bertram Scudder stood slouched against the bar. His long, thin face looked +as if it had shrunk inward, with the exception of his mouth and eyeballs, +which were left to protrude as three soft globes. He was the editor of a +magazine called The Future and he had written an article on Hank Rearden, +entitled "The Octopus." +Bertram Scudder picked up his empty glass and shoved it silently toward +the bartender, to be refilled. He took a gulp from his fresh drink, noticed + + the empty glass in front of Philip Rearden, who stood beside him, and jerked +his thumb in a silent command to the bartender. He ignored the empty glass in +front of Betty Pope, who stood at Philip's other side. +"Look, bud," said Bertram Scudder, his eyeballs focused approximately in +the direction of Philip, "whether you like it or not, the Equalization of +Opportunity Bill represents a great step forward." +"What made you think that I did not like it, Mr. Scudder?" Philip asked +humbly. +"Well, it's going to pinch, isn't it? The long arm of society is going to +trim a little off the hors d'oeuvres bill around here." He waved his hand at +the bar. +"Why do you assume that I object to that?" +"You don't?" Bertram Scudder asked without curiosity. +"I don't!" said Philip hotly. "I have always placed the public good above +any personal consideration. I have contributed my time and money to Friends +of Global Progress in their crusade for the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. +I think it is perfectly unfair that one man should get all the breaks and +leave none to others." +Bertram Scudder considered him speculatively, but without particular +interest. "Well, that's quite unusually nice of you," he said. +"Some people do take moral issues seriously, Mr. Scudder," said Philip, +with a gentle stress of pride in his voice. +"What's he talking about, Philip?" asked Betty Pope. "We don't know +anybody who owns more than one business, do we?" +"Oh, pipe down!" said Bertram Scudder, his voice bored. +"I don't see why there's so much fuss about that Equalization of +Opportunity Bill," said Betty Pope aggressively, in the tone of an expert on +economics. "I don't see why businessmen object to it. It's to their own +advantage. If everybody else is poor, they won't have any market for their +goods. But if they stop being selfish and share the goods they've hoarded— +they'll have a chance to work hard and produce some more." +"I do not see why industrialists should be considered at all," said +Scudder. "When the masses are destitute and yet there are goods available, +it's idiotic to expect people to be stopped by some scrap of paper called a +property deed. Property rights are a superstition. One holds property only by +the courtesy of those who do not seize it. The people can seize it at any +moment. If they can, why shouldn't they?" +"They should," said Claude Slagenhop. "They need it. Need is the only +consideration. If people are in need, we've got to seize things first and +talk about it afterwards." +Claude Slagenhop had approached and managed to squeeze himself between +Philip and Scudder, shoving Scudder aside imperceptibly. +Slagenhop was not tall or heavy, but he had a square, compact bulk, and a +broken nose. He was the president of Friends of Global Progress. +"Hunger won't wait," said Claude Slagenhop. "Ideas are just hot air. +An empty belly is a solid fact. I've said in all my speeches that it's not +necessary to talk too much. Society is suffering for lack of business +opportunities at the moment, so we've got the right to seize such +opportunities as exist. Right is whatever's good for society." +"He didn't dig that ore single-handed, did he?" cried Philip suddenly, his +voice shrill. "He had to employ hundreds of workers. They did it. +Why does he think he's so good?" +The two men looked at him, Scudder lifting an eyebrow, Slagenhop without +expression. +"Oh, dear me!" said Betty Pope, remembering. +Hank Rearden stood at a window in a dim recess at the end of the drawing +room. He hoped no one would notice him for a few minutes. + + He had just escaped from a middle-aged woman who had been telling him +about her psychic experiences. He stood, looking out. Far in the distance, +the red glow of Rearden Steel moved in the sky. He watched it for a moment's +relief. +He turned to look at the drawing room. He had never liked his house; it +had been Lillian's choice. But tonight, the shifting colors of the evening +dresses drowned out the appearance of the room and gave it an air of +brilliant gaiety. He liked to see people being gay, even though he did not +understand this particular manner of enjoyment. +He looked at the flowers, at the sparks of light on the crystal glasses, +at the naked arms and shoulders of women. There was a cold wind outside, +sweeping empty stretches of land. He saw the thin branches of a tree being +twisted, like arms waving in an appeal for help. +The tree stood against the glow of the mills. +He could not name his sudden emotion. He had no words to state its cause, +its quality, its meaning. Some part of it was joy, but it was solemn like the +act of baring one's head—he did not know to whom. +When he stepped back into the crowd, he was smiling. But the smile +vanished abruptly; he saw the entrance of a new guest: it was Dagny Taggart. +Lillian moved forward to meet her, studying her with curiosity. They had +met before, on infrequent occasions, and she found it strange to see Dagny +Taggart wearing an evening gown. It was a black dress with a bodice that fell +as a cape over one arm and shoulder, leaving the other bare; the naked +shoulder was the gown's only ornament. Seeing her in the suits she wore, one +never thought of Dagny Taggart's body. The black dress seemed excessively +revealing—because it was astonishing to discover that the lines of her +shoulder were fragile and beautiful, and that the diamond band on the wrist +of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being +chained. +"Miss Taggart, it is such a wonderful surprise to see you here," said +Lillian Rearden, the muscles of her face performing the motions of a smile. +"I had not really dared to hope that an invitation' from me would take you +away from your ever so much weightier concerns. Do permit me to feel +flattered." +James Taggart had entered with his sister. Lillian smiled at him, in the +manner of a hasty postscript, as if noticing him for the first time. +"Hello, James. That's your penalty for being popular—one tends to lose +sight of you in the surprise of seeing your sister." +"No one can match you in popularity, Lillian," he answered, smiling +thinly, "nor ever lose sight of you." +"Me? Oh, but I am quite resigned to taking second place in the shadow of +my husband. I am humbly aware that the wife of a great man has to be +contented with reflected glory—don't you think so, Miss Taggart?" +"No," said Dagny, "I don't." +"Is this a compliment or a reproach, Miss Taggart? But do forgive me if I +confess I'm helpless. Whom may I present to you? I'm afraid I have nothing +but writers and artists to offer, and they wouldn't interest you, I'm sure." +"I'd like to find Hank and say hello to him." +"But of course. James, do you remember you said you wanted to meet Balph +Eubank?—oh yes, he's here—I’ll tell him that I heard you rave about his last +novel at Mrs. Whitcomb's dinner!" +Walking across the room, Dagny wondered why she had said that she wanted +to find Hank Rearden, what had prevented her from admitting that she had seen +him the moment she entered. +Rearden stood at the other end of the long room, looking at her. +He watched her as she approached, but he did not step forward to meet her. +"Hello, Hank." + + "Good evening." +He bowed, courteously, impersonally, the movement of his body matching the +distinguished formality of his clothes. He did not smile. +"Thank you for inviting me tonight," she said gaily. +"I cannot claim that I knew you were coming." +"Oh? Then I'm glad that Mrs. Rearden thought of me. I wanted to make an +exception." +"An exception?" +"I don't go to parties very often." +"I am pleased that you chose this occasion as the exception." He did not +add "Miss Taggart," but it sounded as if he had. +The formality of his manner was so unexpected that she was unable to +adjust to it. "I wanted to celebrate," she said. +"To celebrate my wedding anniversary?" +"Oh, is it your wedding anniversary? I didn't know. My congratulations, +Hank." +"What did you wish to celebrate?" +"I thought I'd permit myself a rest. A celebration of my own—in your honor +and mine." +"For what reason?" +She was thinking of the new track on the rocky grades of the Colorado +mountains, growing slowly toward the distant goal of the Wyatt oil fields. +She was seeing the greenish-blue glow of the rails on the frozen ground, +among the dried weeds, the naked boulders, the rotting shanties of halfstarved settlements. +"In honor of the first sixty miles of Rearden Metal track," she answered. +"I appreciate it." The tone of his voice was the one that would have been +proper if he had said, "I've never heard of it." +She found nothing else to say. She felt as if she were speaking to a +stranger. +"Why, Miss Taggart!" a cheerful voice broke their silence. "Now this is +what I mean when I say that Hank Rearden can achieve any miracle!" +A businessman whom they knew had approached, smiling at her in delighted +astonishment. The three of them had often held emergency conferences about +freight rates and steel deliveries. Now he looked at her, his face an open +comment on the change in her appearance, the change, she thought, which +Rearden had not noticed. +She laughed, answering the man's greeting, giving herself no time to +recognize the unexpected stab of disappointment, the unadmitted thought that +she wished she had seen this look on Rearden's face, instead. She exchanged a +few sentences with the man. When she glanced around, Rearden was gone. +"So that is your famous sister?" said Balph Eubank to James Taggart, +looking at Dagny across the room. +"I was not aware that my sister was famous," said Taggart, a faint bite in +his voice. +"But, my good man, she's an unusual phenomenon in the field of economics, +so you must expect people to talk about her. Your sister is a symptom of the +illness of our century. A decadent product of the machine age. Machines have +destroyed man's humanity, taken him away from the soil, robbed him of his +natural arts, killed his soul and turned him into an insensitive robot. +There's an example of it—a woman who runs a railroad, instead of practicing +the beautiful craft of the handloom and bearing children." +Rearden moved among the guests, trying not to be trapped into +conversation. He looked at the room; he saw no one he wished to approach. +"Say, Hank Rearden, you're not such a bad fellow at all when seen close up +in the lion's own den. You ought to give us a press conference once in a +while, you'd win us over." + + Rearden turned and looked at the speaker incredulously. It was a young +newspaperman of the seedier sort, who worked on a radical tabloid. The +offensive familiarity of his manner seemed to imply that he chose to be rude +to Rearden because he knew that Rearden should never have permitted himself +to associate with a man of his kind. +Rearden would not have allowed him inside the mills; but the man was +Lillian's guest; he controlled himself; he asked dryly, "What do you want?" +"You're not so bad. You've got talent. Technological talent. But, of +course, I don't agree with you about Rearden Metal." +"I haven't asked you to agree." +"Well, Bertram Scudder said that your policy—" the man started +belligerently, pointing toward the bar, but stopped, as if he had slid +farther than he intended. +Rearden looked at the untidy figure slouched against the bar. Lillian had +introduced them, but he had paid no attention to the name. He turned sharply +and walked off, in a manner that forbade the young bum to tag him. +Lillian glanced up at his face, when Rearden approached her in the midst +of a group, and, without a word, stepped aside where they could not be heard. +"Is that Scudder of The Future?" he asked, pointing. +"Why, yes." +He looked at her silently, unable to begin to believe it, unable to find +the lead of a thought with which to begin to understand. Her eyes were +watching him. +"How could you invite him here?" he asked. +"Now, Henry, don't let's be ridiculous. You don't want to be narrow +minded, do you? You must learn to tolerate the opinions of others and respect +their right of free speech." +"In my house?" +"Oh, don't be stuffy!" +He did not speak, because his consciousness was held, not by coherent +statements, but by two pictures that seemed to glare at him insistently. +He saw the article, "The Octopus," by Bertram Scudder, which was not an +expression of ideas, but a bucket of slime emptied in public—an article that +did not contain a single fact, not even an invented one, but poured a stream +of sneers and adjectives in which nothing was clear except the filthy malice +of denouncing without considering proof necessary. And he saw the lines of +Lillian's profile, the proud purity which he had sought in marrying her. +When he noticed her again, he realized that the vision of her profile was +in his own mind, because she was turned to him full-face, watching him. In +the sudden instant of returning to reality, he thought that what he saw in +her eyes was enjoyment. But in the next instant he reminded himself that he +was sane and that this was not possible. +"It's the first time you've invited that . . ." he used an obscene word +with unemotional precision, "to my house. It's the last." +"How dare you use such—" +"Don't argue, Lillian. If you do, I'll throw him out right now." +He gave her a moment to answer, to object, to scream at him if she wished. +She remained silent, not looking at him, only her smooth cheeks seemed +faintly drawn inward, as if deflated. +Moving blindly away through the coils of lights, voices and perfume, he +felt a cold touch of dread. He knew that he should think of Lillian and find +the answer to the riddle of her character, because this was a revelation +which he could not ignore; but he did not think of her—and he felt the dread +because he knew that the answer had ceased to matter to him long ago. +The flood of weariness was starting to rise again. He felt as if he could +almost see it in thickening waves; it was not within him, but outside, +spreading through the room. For an instant, he felt as if he were alone, lost + + in a gray desert, needing help and knowing that no help would come, He +stopped short. In the lighted doorway, the length of the room between them, +he saw the tall, arrogant figure of a man who had paused for a moment before +entering. He had never met the man, but of all the notorious faces that +cluttered the pages of newspapers, this was the one he despised. It was +Francisco d'Anconia. +Rearden had never given much thought to men like Bertram Scudder. +But with every hour of his life, with the strain and the pride of every +moment when his muscles or his mind had ached from effort, with every step he +had taken to rise out of the mines of Minnesota and to turn his effort into +gold, with all of his profound respect for money and for its meaning, he +despised the squanderer who did not know how to deserve the great gift of +inherited wealth. There, he thought, was the most contemptible representative +of the species. +He saw Francisco d'Anconia enter, bow to Lillian, then walk into the crowd +as if he owned the room which he had never entered before. +Heads turned to watch him, as if he pulled them on strings in his wake. +Approaching Lillian once more, Rearden said without anger, the contempt +becoming amusement in his voice, "I didn't know you knew that one." +"I've met him at a few parties." +"Is he one of your friends, too?" +"Certainly not!" The sharp resentment was genuine. +"Then why did you invite him?" +"Well, you can't give a party—not a party that counts—while he's in this +country, without inviting him. It's a nuisance if he comes, and a social +black mark if he doesn't." +Rearden laughed. She was off guard; she did not usually admit things of +this kind. "Look," he said wearily, "I don't want to spoil your party. But +keep that man away from me. Don't come around with introductions. I don't +want to meet him. I don't know how you'll work that, but you're an expert +hostess, so work it." +Dagny stood still when she saw Francisco approaching. He bowed to her as +he passed by. He did not stop, but she knew that he had stopped the moment in +his mind. She saw him smile faintly in deliberate emphasis of what he +understood and did not choose to acknowledge. She turned away. She hoped to +avoid him for the rest of the evening. +Balph Eubank had joined the group around Dr. Pritchett, and was saying +sullenly, ". . . no, you cannot expect people to understand the higher +reaches of philosophy. Culture should be taken out of the hands of the +dollar-chasers. We need a national subsidy for literature. It is disgraceful +that artists are treated like peddlers and that art works have to be sold +like soap." +"You mean, your complaint is that they don't sell like soap?" asked +Francisco d'Anconia. +They had not noticed him approach; the conversation stopped, as if slashed +off; most of them had never met him, but they all recognized him at once. +"I meant—" Balph Eubank started angrily and closed his mouth; he saw the +eager interest on the faces of his audience, but it was not interest in +philosophy any longer. +"Why, hello, Professor!" said Francisco, bowing to Dr. Pritchett. +There was no pleasure in Dr. Pritchett's face when he answered the +greeting and performed a few introductions. +"We were just discussing a most interesting subject," said the earnest +matron. "Dr. Pritchett was telling us that nothing is anything." +"He should, undoubtedly, know more than anyone else about that," +Francisco answered gravely. + + "I wouldn't have supposed that you knew Dr. Pritchett so well, Senor +d'Anconia," she said, and wondered why the professor looked displeased by her +remark. +"I am an alumnus of the great school that employs Dr. Pritchett at +present, the Patrick Henry University. But I studied under one of his +predecessors—Hugh Akston." +"Hugh Akston!" the attractive young woman gasped. "But you couldn't have, +Senor d'Anconia! You're not old enough. I thought he was one of those great +names of . . . of the last century." +"Perhaps in spirit, madame. Not in fact." +"But I thought he died years ago." +"Why, no. He is still alive." +"Then why don't we ever hear about him any more?" +"He retired, nine years ago." +"Isn't it odd? When a politician or a movie star retires, we read front +page stories about it. But when a philosopher retires, people do not even +notice it." +"They do, eventually." +A young man said, astonished, "I thought Hugh Akston was one of those +classics that nobody studied any more, except in histories of philosophy. I +read an article recently which referred to him as the last of the great +advocates of reason." +"Just what did Hugh Akston teach?" asked the earnest matron. +Francisco answered, "He taught that everything is something." +"Your loyalty to your teacher is laudable, Senior d'Anconia," said Dr. +Pritchett dryly. "May we take it that you are an example of the practical +results of his teaching?" +"I am." +James Taggart had approached the group and was waiting to be noticed. +"Hello, Francisco." +"Good evening, James." +"What a wonderful coincidence, seeing you here! I've been very anxious to +speak to you." +"That's new. You haven't always been." +"Now you're joking, just like in the old days." Taggart was moving slowly, +as if casually, away from the group, hoping to draw Francisco after him. "You +know that there's not a person in this room who wouldn't love to talk to +you." +"Really? I'd be inclined to suspect the opposite." Francisco had followed +obediently, but stopped within hearing distance of the others. +"I have tried in every possible way to get in touch with you," said +Taggart, "but . . . but circumstances didn't permit me to succeed." +"Are you trying to hide from me the fact that I refused to see you?" +"Well . . . that is . , . I mean, why did you refuse?" +"I couldn't imagine what you wanted to speak to me about." +"The San Sebastian Mines, of course!" Taggart's voice rose a little. +"Why, what about them?" +"But . . . Now, look, Francisco, this is serious. It's a disaster, an +unprecedented disaster—and nobody can make any sense out of it. I don't know +what to think. I don't understand it at all. I have a right to know." +"A right? Aren't you being old-fashioned, James? But what is it you want +to know?" +"Well, first of all, that nationalization—what are you going to do about +it?" +"Nothing." +"Nothing?!" + + "But surely you don't want me to do anything about it. My mines and your +railroad were seized by the will of the people. You wouldn't want me to +oppose the will of the people, would you?" +"Francisco, this is not a laughing matter!" +"I never thought it was." +"I'm entitled to an explanation! You owe your stockholders an account of +the whole disgraceful affair! Why did you pick a worthless mine? Why did you +waste all those millions? What sort of rotten swindle was It?" +Francisco stood looking at him in polite astonishment. "Why, James," +he said, "I thought you would approve of it." +"Approve?!" +"I thought you would consider the San Sebastian Mines as the practical +realization of an ideal of the highest moral order. Remembering that you and +I have disagreed so often in the past, I thought you would be gratified to +see me acting in accordance with your principles." +"What are you talking about?" +Francisco shook his head regretfully. "I don't know why you should call my +behavior rotten. I thought you would recognize it as an honest effort to +practice what the whole world is preaching. Doesn't everyone believe that it +is evil to be selfish? I was totally selfless in regard to the San Sebastian +project. Isn't it evil to pursue a personal interest? I had no personal +interest in it whatever. Isn't it evil to work for profit? I did not work for +profit—I took a loss. Doesn't everyone agree that the purpose and +justification of an industrial enterprise are not production, but the +livelihood of its employees? The San Sebastian Mines were the most eminently +successful venture in industrial history: they produced no copper, but they +provided a livelihood for thousands of men who could not have achieved, in a +lifetime, the equivalent of what they got for one day's work, which they +could not do. Isn't it generally agreed that an owner is a parasite and an +exploiter, that it is the employees who do all the work and make the product +possible? I did not exploit anyone. I did not burden the San Sebastian Mines +with my useless presence; I left them in the hands of the men who count. I +did not pass judgment on the value of that property. I turned it over to a +mining specialist. He was not a very good specialist, but he needed the job +very badly. Isn't it generally conceded that when you hire a man for a job, +it is his need that counts, not his ability? Doesn't everyone believe that in +order to get the goods, all you have to do is need them? I have carried out +every moral precept of our age. I expected gratitude and a citation of honor. +I do not understand why I am being damned." +In the silence of those who had listened, the sole comment was the shrill, +sudden giggle of Betty Pope: she had understood nothing, but she saw the look +of helpless fury on James Taggart's face. +People were looking at Taggart, expecting an answer. They were indifferent +to the issue, they were merely amused by the spectacle of someone's +embarrassment. Taggart achieved a patronizing smile. +"You don't expect me to take this seriously?" he asked. +"There was a time," Francisco answered, "when I did not believe that +anyone could take it seriously. I was wrong." +"This is outrageous!" Taggart's voice started to rise. "It's perfectly +outrageous to treat your public responsibilities with such thoughtless +levity!" He turned to hurry away. +Francisco shrugged, spreading his hands. "You see? I didn't think you +wanted to speak to me." +Rearden stood alone, far at the other end of the room. Philip noticed him, +approached and waved to Lillian, calling her over. + + "Lillian, I don't think that Henry is having a good time," he said, +smiling; one could not tell whether the mockery of his smile was directed at +Lillian or at Rearden. "Can't we do something about it?" +"Oh, nonsense!" said Rearden. +"I wish I knew what to do about it, Philip," said Lillian. "I've always +wished Henry would learn to relax. He's so grimly serious about everything. +He's such a rigid Puritan. I've always wanted to see him drunk, just once. +But I've given up. What would you suggest?" +"Oh, I don't know! But he shouldn't be standing around all by himself." +"Drop it," said Rearden. While thinking dimly that he did not want to hurt +their feelings, he could not prevent himself from adding, "You don't know how +hard I've tried to be left standing all by myself." +"There—you see?" Lillian smiled at Philip. "To enjoy life and people is +not so simple as pouring a ton of steel. Intellectual pursuits are not +learned in the market place." +Philip chuckled. "It's not intellectual pursuits I'm worried about. +How sure are you about that Puritan stuff, Lillian? If I were you, I +wouldn't leave him free to look around. There are too many beautiful women +here tonight." +"Henry entertaining thoughts of infidelity? You flatter him, Philip. +You overestimate his courage." She smiled at Rearden, coldly, for a brief, +stressed moment, then moved away. +Rearden looked at his brother. "What in hell do you think you're doing?" +"Oh, stop playing the Puritan! Can't you take a joke?" +Moving aimlessly through the crowd, Dagny wondered why she had accepted +the invitation to this party. The answer astonished her: it was because she +had wanted to see Hank Rearden. Watching him in the crowd, she realized the +contrast for the first time. The faces of the others looked like aggregates +of interchangeable features, every face oozing to blend into the anonymity of +resembling all, and all looking as if they were melting. Rearden's face, with +the sharp planes, the pale blue eyes, the ash-blond hair, had the firmness of +ice; the uncompromising clarity of its lines made it look, among the others, +as if he were moving through a fog, hit by a ray of light. +Her eyes kept returning to him involuntarily. She never caught him +glancing in her direction. She could not believe that he was avoiding her +intentionally; there could be no possible reason for it- yet she felt certain +that he was. She wanted to approach him and convince herself that she was +mistaken. Something stopped her; she could not understand her own reluctance. +Rearden bore patiently a conversation with his mother and two ladies whom +she wished him to entertain with stories of his youth and his struggle. He +complied, telling himself that she was proud of him in her own way. But he +felt as if something in her manner kept suggesting that she had nursed him +through his struggle and that she was the source of his success. He was glad +when she let him go. Then he escaped once more to the recess of the window. +He stood there for a while, leaning on a sense of privacy as if it were a +physical support. +"Mr. Rearden," said a strangely quiet voice beside him, "permit me to +introduce myself. My name is d'Anconia." +Rearden turned, startled; d'Anconia's manner and voice had a quality he +had seldom encountered before: a tone of authentic respect. +"How do you do," he answered. His voice was brusque and dry; but he had +answered. +"I have observed that Mrs. Rearden has been trying to avoid the necessity +of presenting me to you, and I can guess the reason. Would you prefer that I +leave your house?" +The action of naming an issue instead of evading it, was so unlike the +usual behavior of all the men he knew, it was such a sudden, startling + + relief, that Rearden remained silent for a moment, studying d'Anconia's face. +Francisco had said it very simply, neither as a reproach nor a plea, but in a +manner which, strangely, acknowledged Rearden's dignity and his own. +"No," said Rearden, "whatever else you guessed, I did not say that." +"Thank you. In that case, you will allow me to speak to you." +"Why should you wish to speak to me?" +"My motives cannot interest you at present." +"Mine is not the sort of conversation that could interest you at all." +"You are mistaken about one of us, Mr. Rearden, or both. I came to this +party solely in order to meet you." +There had been a faint tone of amusement in Rearden's voice; now it +hardened into a hint of contempt. "You started by playing it straight. +Stick to it." +"I am." +"What did you want to meet me for? In order to make me lose money?" +Francisco looked straight at him. "Yes—eventually." +"What is it, this time? A gold mine?" +Francisco shook his head slowly; the conscious deliberation of the +movement gave it an air that was almost sadness. "No," he said, "I don't want +to sell you anything. As a matter of fact, I did not attempt to sell the +copper mine to James Taggart, either. He came to me for it. You won't." +Rearden chuckled. "If you understand that much, we have at least a +sensible basis for conversation. Proceed on that. If you don't have some +fancy investment in mind, what did you want to meet me for?" +"In order to become acquainted with you," +"That's not an answer. It's just another way of saying the same thing." +"Not quite, Mr. Rearden." +"Unless you mean—in order to gain my confidence?" +"No. I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's +confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated +confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a +moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits +it to himself or not." +Rearden's startled glance at him was like the involuntary thrust of a hand +grasping for support in a desperate need. The glance betrayed how much he +wanted to find the sort of man he thought he was seeing. Then Rearden lowered +his eyes, almost closing them, slowly, shutting out the vision and the need. +His face was hard; it had an expression of severity, an inner severity +directed at himself; it looked austere and lonely. +"All right," he said tonelessly. "What do you want, if it's not my +confidence?" +"I want to learn to understand you." +"What for?" +"For a reason of my own which need not concern you at present." +"What do you want to understand about me?" +Francisco looked silently out at the darkness. The fire of the mills was +dying down. There was only a faint tinge of red left on the edge of the +earth, just enough to outline the scraps of clouds ripped by the tortured +battle of the storm in the sky. Dim shapes kept sweeping through space and +vanishing, shapes which were branches, but looked as if they were the fury of +the wind made visible. +"It's a terrible night for any animal caught unprotected on that plain," +said Francisco d'Anconia. "This is when one should appreciate the meaning +of being a man." +Rearden did not answer for a moment; then he said, as if in answer to +himself, a tone of wonder in his voice, "Funny . . ." +"What?" + + "You told me what I was thinking just a while ago . . .” +"You were?" +". . . only I didn't have the words for it," +"Shall I tell you the rest of the words?" +"Go ahead." +"You stood here and watched the storm _with the greatest pride one can +ever feel—because you are able to have summer flowers and half naked women in +your house on a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that +storm. And if it weren't for you, most of those who are here would be left +helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain." +"How did you know that?" +In tune with his question., Rearden realized that it was not his thoughts +this man had named, but his most hidden, most persona] +emotion; and that he, who would never confess his emotions to anyone, had +confessed it in his question. He saw the faintest flicker in Francisco's +eyes, as of a smile or a check mark. +"What would you know about a pride of that kind?" Rearden asked sharply, +as if the contempt of the second question could erase the confidence of the +first. +"That is what I felt once, when I was young." +Rearden looked at him. There was neither mockery nor self-pity in +Francisco's face; the fine, sculptured planes and the clear, blue eyes held a +quiet composure, the face was open, offered to any blow, unflinching. +"Why do you want to talk about it?" Rearden asked, prompted by a moment's +reluctant compassion. +"Let us say—by way of gratitude, Mr. Rearden." +"Gratitude to me?" +"If you will accept it." +Rearden's voice hardened. "I haven't asked for gratitude. I don't need +it." +"I have not said you needed it. But of all those whom you are saving from +the storm tonight, I am the only one who will offer it." +After a moment's silence, Rearden asked, his voice low with a sound which +was almost a threat, "What are you trying to do?" +"I am calling your attention to the nature of those for whom you are +working." +"It would take a man who's never done an honest day's work in his life, to +think or say that." The contempt in Rearden's voice had a note of relief; he +had been disarmed by a doubt of his judgment on the character of his +adversary; now he felt certain once more. "You wouldn't understand it if I +told you that the man who works, works for himself, even if he does carry the +whole wretched bunch of you along. Now I'll guess what you're thinking: go +ahead, say that it's evil, that I'm selfish, conceited, heartless, cruel. I +am. I don't want any part of that tripe about working for others. I'm not." +For the first time, he saw the look of a personal reaction in Francisco's +eyes, the look of something eager and young. "The only thing that's wrong in +what you said," Francisco answered, "is that you permit anyone to call it +evil." In Rearden's pause of incredulous silence, he pointed at the crowd in +the drawing room. "Why are you willing to carry them?" +"Because they're a bunch of miserable children who struggle to remain +alive, desperately and very badly, while I—I don't even notice the burden," +"Why don't you tell them that?” +"What?" +"That you're working for your own sake, not theirs." +"They know it." + + "Oh yes, they know it. Every single one of them here knows it. But they +don't think you do. And the aim of all their efforts is to keep you from +knowing it." +"Why should I care what they think?" +"Because it's a battle in which one must make one's stand clear." +"A battle? What battle? I hold the whip hand. I don't fight the disarmed." +"Are they? They have a weapon against you. It's their only weapon, but +it's a terrible one. Ask yourself what it is, some time." +"Where do you see any evidence of it?" +"In the unforgivable fact that you're as unhappy as you are." +Rearden could accept any form of reproach, abuse, damnation anyone chose +to throw at him; the only human reaction which he would not accept was pity. +The stab of a coldly rebellious anger brought him back to the full context of +the moment. He spoke, fighting not to acknowledge the nature of the emotion +rising within him, "What sort of effrontery are you indulging in? What's your +motive?" +"Let us say—to give you the words you need, for the time when you'll need +them." +"Why should you want to speak to me on such a subject?" +"In the hope that you will remember it." +What he felt, thought Rearden, was anger at the incomprehensible fact that +he had allowed himself to enjoy this conversation. He felt a dim sense of +betrayal, the hint of an unknown danger. "Do you expect me to forget what you +are?" he asked, knowing that this was what he had forgotten. +"I do not expect you to think of me at all." +Under his anger, the emotion which Rearden would not acknowledge remained +unstated and unthought; he knew it only as a hint of pain. +Had he faced it, he would have known that he still heard Francisco's voice +saying, "I am the only one who will offer it . . . if you will accept it. . . +." He heard the words and the strangely solemn inflection of the quiet voice +and an inexplicable answer of his own, something within him that wanted to +cry yes, to accept, to tell this man that he accepted, that he needed it— +though there was no name for what he needed, it was not gratitude, and he +knew that it was not gratitude this man had meant. +Aloud, he said, "I didn't seek to talk to you. But you've asked for it and +you're going to hear it. To me, there's only one form of human depravity—the +man without a purpose." +"That is true." +"I can forgive all those others, they're not vicious, they're merely +helpless. But you—you're the kind who can't be forgiven." +"It is against the sin of forgiveness that I wanted to warn you." +"You had the greatest chance in life. What have you done with it? +If you have the mind to understand all the things you said, how can you +speak to me at all? How can you face anyone after the sort of irresponsible +destruction you've perpetrated in that Mexican business?" +"It is your right to condemn me for it, if you wish." +Dagny stood by the corner of the window recess, listening. They did not +notice her. She had seen them together and she had approached, drawn by an +impulse she could not explain or resist; it seemed crucially important that +she know what these two men said to each other. +She had heard their last few sentences. She had never thought it possible +that she would see Francisco taking a beating. He could smash any adversary +in any form of encounter. Yet he stood, offering no defense. +She knew that it was not indifference; she knew his face well enough to +see the effort his calm cost him—she saw the faint line of a muscle pulled +tight across his cheek. + + "Of all those who live by the ability of others," said Rearden, "you're +the one real parasite." +"I have given you grounds to think so." +"Then what right have you to talk about the meaning of being a man? You're +the one who has betrayed it." +"I am sorry if I have offended you by what you may rightly consider as a +presumption." +Francisco bowed and turned to go. Rearden said involuntarily, not knowing +that the question negated his anger, that it was a plea to stop this man and +hold him, "What did you want to learn to understand about me?" +Francisco turned. The expression of his face had not changed; it was still +a look of gravely courteous respect. "I have learned it," he answered. +Rearden stood watching him as he walked off into the crowd. The figures of +a butler, with a crystal dish, and of Dr. Pritchett, stooping to choose +another canape, hid Francisco from sight. Rearden glanced out at the +darkness; nothing could be seen there but the wind. +Dagny stepped forward, when he came out of the recess; she smiled, openly +inviting conversation. He stopped. It seemed to her that he had stopped +reluctantly. She spoke hastily, to break the silence. +"Hank, why do you have so many intellectuals of the looter persuasion +here? I wouldn't have them in my house." +This was not what she had wanted to say to him. But she did not know what +she wanted to say; never before had she felt herself left wordless in his +presence. +She saw his eyes narrowing, like a door being closed. "I see no reason why +one should not invite them to a party," he answered coldly. +"Oh, I didn't mean to criticize your choice of guests. But . . . Well, +I've been trying not to learn which one of them is Bertram Scudder. If I do, +I'll slap his face." She tried to sound casual, "I don't want to create a +scene, but I'm not sure I'll be able to control myself. I couldn't believe it +when somebody told me that Mrs. Rearden had invited him." +"I invited him." +"But . . ." Then her voice dropped. "Why?" +"I don't attach any importance to occasions of this kind." +"I'm sorry, Hank. I didn't know you were so tolerant. I'm not." +He said nothing. +"I know you don't like parties. Neither do I. But sometimes I wonder . . . +perhaps we're the only ones who were meant to be able to enjoy them." +"I am afraid I have no talent for it." +"Not for this. But do you think any of these people are enjoying it? +They're just straining to be more senseless and aimless than usual. To be +light and unimportant . . . You know, I think that only if one feels +immensely important can one feel truly light." +"I wouldn't know." +"It's just a thought that disturbs me once in a while. . . . I thought it +about my first ball. . . . I keep thinking that parties are intended to be +celebrations, and celebrations should be only for those who have something to +celebrate." +"I have never thought of it." +She could not adapt her words to the rigid formality of his manner; she +could not quite believe it. They had always been at ease together, in his +office. Now he was like a man in a strait jacket. +"Hank, look at it. If you didn't know any of these people, wouldn't it +seem beautiful? The lights and the clothes and all the imagination that went +to make it possible . . ." She was looking at the room. She did not notice +that he had not followed her glance. He was looking down at the shadows on +her naked shoulder, the soft, blue shadows made by the light that fell + + through the strands of her hair. "Why have we left it all to fools? It should +have been ours." +"In what manner?" +"I don't know . . . I've always expected parties to be exciting and +brilliant, like some rare drink." She laughed; there was a note of sadness in +it. "But I don't drink, either. That's just another symbol that doesn't mean +what it was intended to mean," He was silent. She added, "Perhaps there's +something that we have missed." +"I am not aware of it." +In a flash of sudden, desolate emptiness, she was glad that he had not +understood or responded, feeling dimly that she had revealed too much, yet +not knowing what she had revealed. She shrugged, the movement running through +the curve of her shoulder like a faint convulsion. +"It's just an old illusion of mine," she said indifferently. "Just a mood +that comes once every year or two. Let me see the latest steel price index +and I'll forget all about it." +She did not know that his eyes were following her, as she walked away from +him. +She moved slowly through the room, looking at no one. She noticed a small +group huddled by the unlighted fireplace. The room was not cold, but they sat +as if they drew comfort from the thought of a non-existent fire. +"I do not know why, but I am growing to be afraid of the dark. No, not +now, only when I am alone. What frightens me is night. Night as such." +The speaker was an elderly spinster with an air of breeding and +hopelessness. The three women and two men of the group were well dressed, the +skin of their faces was smoothly well tended, but they had a manner of +anxious caution that kept their voices one tone lower than normal and blurred +the differences of their ages, giving them all the same gray look of being +spent. It was the look one saw in groups of respectable people everywhere. +Dagny stopped and listened. +"But, my dear," one of them asked, "why should it frighten you?" +"I don't know," said the spinster, "I am not afraid of prowlers or +robberies or anything of the sort. But I stay awake all night. I fall asleep +only when I see the sky turning pale. It is very odd. Every evening, when it +grows dark, I get the feeling that this tune it is final, that daylight will +not return." +"My cousin who lives on the coast of Maine wrote me the same thing," +said one of the women. +"Last night," said the spinster, "I stayed awake because of the shooting. +There were guns going off all night, way out at sea. There were no flashes. +There was nothing. Just those detonations, at long intervals, somewhere in +the fog over the Atlantic." +"I read something about it in the paper this morning. Coast Guard target +practice." +"Why, no," the spinster said indifferently. "Everybody down on the shore +knows what it was. It was Ragnar Danneskjold. It was the Coast Guard trying +to catch him." +"Ragnar Danneskjold in Delaware Bay?" a woman gasped. +"Oh, yes. They say it is not the first time." +"Did they catch him?" +"No." +"Nobody can catch him," said one of the men. +"The People's State of Norway has offered a million-dollar reward for his +head." +"That's an awful lot of money to pay for a pirate's head." +"But how are we going to have any order or security or planning in the +world, with a pirate running loose all over the seven seas?" + + "Do you know what it was that he seized last night?" said the spinster. +"The big ship with the relief supplies we were sending to the People's +State of France." +"How does he dispose of the goods he seizes?" +"Ah, that—nobody knows." +"I met a sailor once, from a ship he'd attacked, who'd seen him in person. +He said that Ragnar Danneskjold has the purest gold hair and the most +frightening face on earth, a face with no sign of any feeling. If there ever +was a man born without a heart, he's it—the sailor said." +"A nephew of mine saw Ragnar Danneskjold's ship one night, off the coast +of Scotland. He wrote me that he couldn't believe his eyes. It was a better +ship than any in the navy of the People's State of England." +"They say he hides in one of those Norwegian fjords where neither God nor +man will ever find him. That's where the Vikings used to hide in the Middle +Ages." +"There's a reward on his head offered by the People's State of Portugal, +too. And by the People's State of Turkey." +"They say it's a national scandal in Norway. He comes from one of their +best families. The family lost its money generations ago, but the name is of +the noblest. The ruins of their castle are still in existence. +His father is a bishop. His father has disowned him and excommunicated +him. But it had no effect." +"Did you know that Ragnar Danneskjold went to school in this country? +Sure. The Patrick Henry University." +"Not really?" +"Oh yes. You can look it up." +"What bothers me is . . . You know, I don't like it. I don't like it that +he's now appearing right here, in our own waters. I thought things like that +could happen only in the wastelands. Only in Europe. But a big-scale outlaw +of that kind operating in Delaware in our day and age!" +"He's been seen off Nantucket, too. And at Bar Harbor. The newspapers have +been asked not to write about it." +"Why?" +"They don't want people to know that the navy can't cope with him." +"I don't like it. It feels funny. It's like something out of the Dark +Ages." +Dagny glanced up. She saw Francisco d'Anconia standing a few steps away. +He was looking at her with a kind of stressed curiosity; his eyes were +mocking. +"It's a strange world we're living in," said the spinster, her voice low. +"I read an article," said one of the women tonelessly. "It said that times +of trouble are good for us. It is good that people are growing poorer. To +accept privations is a moral virtue." +"I suppose so," said another, without conviction. +"We must not worry. I heard a speech that said it is useless to worry or +to blame anyone. Nobody can help what he does, that is the way things made +him. There is nothing we can do about anything. We must learn to bear it." +"What's the use anyway? What is man's fate? Hasn't it always been to hope, +but never to achieve? The wise man is the one- who does not attempt to hope." +"That is the right attitude to take." +"I don't know . . . I don't know what is right any more . . . How can we +ever know?" +"Oh well, who is John Galt?" +Dagny turned brusquely and started away from them. One of the women +followed her. +"But I do know it," said the woman, in the soft, mysterious tone of +sharing a secret. + + "You know what?" +"I know who is John Galt." +"Who?" Dagny asked tensely, stopping. +"I know a man who knew John Galt in person. This man is an old friend of a +great-aunt of mine. He was there and he saw it happen. Do you know the legend +of Atlantis, Miss Taggart?" +"What?" +"Atlantis." +"Why . . . vaguely." +"The Isles of the Blessed. That is what the Greeks called it, thousands of +years ago. They said Atlantis was a place where hero-spirits lived in a +happiness unknown to the rest of the earth. A place which only the spirits of +heroes could enter, and they reached it without dying, because they carried +the secret of life within them. Atlantis was lost to mankind, even then. But +the Greeks knew that it had existed. They tried to find it. Some of them said +it was underground, hidden in the heart of the earth. But most of them said +it was an island. A radiant island in the Western Ocean. Perhaps what they +were thinking of was America. They never found it. For centuries afterward, +men said it was only a legend. +They did not believe it, but they never stopped looking for it, because +they knew that that was what they had to find." +"Well, what about John Galt?" +"He found it." +Dagny's interest was gone. "Who was he?" +"John Galt was a millionaire, a man of inestimable wealth. He was sailing +his yacht one night, in mid-Atlantic, fighting the worst storm ever wreaked +upon the world, when he found it. He saw it in the depth, where it had sunk +to escape the reach of men. He saw the towers of Atlantis shining on the +bottom of the ocean. It was a sight of such kind that when one had seen it, +one could no longer wish to look at the rest of the earth. John Galt sank his +ship and went down with his entire crew. They all chose to do it. My friend +was the only one who survived." +"How interesting." +"My friend saw it with his own eyes," said the woman, offended. "It +happened many years ago. But John Galt's family hushed up the story." +"And what happened to his fortune? [ don't recall ever hearing of a Galt +fortune." +"It went down with him." She added belligerently, "You don't have to +believe it." +"Miss Taggart doesn't," said Francisco d'Anconia. "I do." +They turned. He had followed them and he stood looking at them with the +insolence of exaggerated earnestness. +"Have you ever had faith in anything, Senor d'Anconia?" the woman asked +angrily. +"No, madame." +He chuckled at her brusque departure. Dagny asked coldly, "What's the +joke?" +"The joke's on that fool woman. She doesn't know that she was telling you +the truth." +"Do you expect me to believe that?" +"No." +"Then what do you find so amusing?" +"Oh, a great many things here. Don't you?" +"No." +"Well, that's one of the things I find amusing." +"Francisco, will you leave me alone?" + + "But I have. Didn't you notice that you were first to speak to me +tonight?" +"Why do you keep watching me?" +"Curiosity." +"About what?" +"Your reaction to the things which you don't find amusing." +"Why should you care about my reaction to anything?" +"That is my own way of having a good time, which, incidentally, you are +not having, are you, Dagny? Besides, you're the only woman worth watching +here." +She stood defiantly still, because the way he looked at her demanded an +angry escape. She stood as she always did, straight and taut, her head lifted +impatiently. It was the unfeminine pose of an executive. But her naked +shoulder betrayed the fragility of the body under the black dress, and the +pose made her most truly a woman. The proud strength became a challenge to +someone's superior strength, and the fragility a reminder that the challenge +could be broken. She was not conscious of it. She had met no one able to see +it. +He said, looking down at her body, "Dagny, what a magnificent waste!" +She had to turn and escape. She felt herself blushing, for the first time +in years: blushing because she knew suddenly that the sentence named what she +had felt all evening. +She ran, trying not to think. The music stopped her. It was a sudden blast +from the radio. She noticed Mort Liddy, who had turned it on, waving his arms +to a group of friends, yelling, "That's it! That's it! I want you to hear +it!" +The great burst of sound was the opening chords of Halley's Fourth +Concerto. It rose in tortured triumph, speaking its denial of pain, its hymn +to a distant vision. Then the notes broke. It was as if a handful of mud and +pebbles had been flung at the music, and what followed was the sound of the +rolling and the dripping. It was Halley's Concerto swung into a popular tune. +It was Halley's melody torn apart, its holes stuffed with hiccoughs. The +great statement of joy had become the giggling of a barroom. Yet it was still +the remnant of Halley’s melody that gave it form; it was the melody that +supported it like a spinal cord. +"Pretty good?" Mort Liddy was smiling at his friends, boastfully and +nervously. "Pretty good, eh? Best movie score of the year. Got me a prize. +Got me a long-term contract. Yeah, this was my score for Heaven's in Your +Backyard." +Dagny stood, staring at the room, as if one sense could replace another, +as if sight could wipe out sound. She moved her head in a slow circle, trying +to find an anchor somewhere. She saw Francisco leaning against a column, his +arms crossed; he was looking straight at her; he was laughing. +Don't shake like this, she thought. Get out of here. This was the approach +of an anger she could not control. She thought: Say nothing. +Walk steadily. Get out. +She had started walking, cautiously, very slowly. She heard Lillian's +words and stopped. Lillian had said it many times this evening, in answer to +the same question, but it was the first time that Dagny heard it. +"This?" Lillian was saying, extending her arm with the metal bracelet for +the inspection of two smartly groomed women. "Why, no, it's not from a +hardware store, it's a very special gift from my husband. +Oh, yes, of course it's hideous. But don't you sec? It's supposed to be +priceless. Of course, I'd exchange it for a common diamond bracelet any time, +but somehow nobody will offer me one for it, even though it is so very, very +valuable. Why? My dear, it's the first thing ever made of Rearden Metal." + + Dagny did not see the room. She did not hear the music. She felt the +pressure of dead stillness against her eardrums. She did not know the moment +that preceded, or the moments that were to follow. She did not know those +involved, neither herself, nor Lillian, nor Rearden, nor the meaning of her +own action. It was a single instant, blasted out of context. She had heard. +She was looking at the bracelet of green-blue metal. +She felt the movement of something being torn off her wrist, and she heard +her own voice saying in the great stillness, very calmly, a voice cold as a +skeleton, naked of emotion, "If you are not the coward that I think you are, +you will exchange it." +On the palm of her hand, she was extending her diamond bracelet to +Lillian. +"You're not serious, Miss Taggart?" said a woman's voice. +It was not Lillian's voice. Lillian's eyes were looking straight at her. +She saw them. Lillian knew that she was serious. +"Give me that bracelet," said Dagny, lifting her palm higher, the diamond +band glittering across it. +"This is horrible!" cried some woman. It was strange that the cry stood +out so sharply. Then Dagny realized that there were people standing around +them and that they all stood in silence. She was hearing sounds now, even the +music; it was Halley's mangled Concerto, somewhere far away. +She saw Rearden's face. It looked as if something within him were mangled, +like the music; she did not know by what. He was watching them. +Lillian's mouth moved into an upturned crescent. It resembled a smile. She +snapped the metal bracelet open, dropped it on Dagny's palm and took the +diamond band. +"Thank you, Miss Taggart," she said. +Dagny's fingers closed about the metal. She felt that; she felt nothing +else. +Lillian turned, because Rearden had approached her. He took the diamond +bracelet from her hand. He clasped it on her wrist, raised her hand to his +lips and kissed it. +He did not look at Dagny. +Lillian laughed, gaily, easily, attractively, bringing the room back to +its normal mood. +"You may have it back, Miss Taggart, when you change your mind," +she said. +Dagny had turned away. She felt calm and free. The pressure was gone. The +need to get out had vanished. +She clasped the metal bracelet on her wrist. She liked the feel of its +weight against her skin. Inexplicably, she felt a touch of feminine vanity, +the kind she had never experienced before: the desire to be seen wearing this +particular ornament. +From a distance, she heard snatches of indignant voices: "The most +offensive gesture I've ever seen. . . . It was vicious. . . . I'm glad +Lillian took her up on it. . . . Serves her right, if she feels like throwing +a few thousand dollars away. . . . " +For the rest of the evening, Rearden remained by the side of his wife. +He shared her conversations, he laughed with her friends, he was suddenly +the devoted, attentive, admiring husband. +He was crossing the room, carrying a tray with drinks requested by someone +in Lillian's group—an unbecoming act of informality which nobody had ever +seen him perform—when Dagny approached him. +She stopped and looked up at him, as if they were alone in his office. +She stood like an executive, her head lifted. He looked down at her. In +the line of his glance, from the fingertips of her one hand to her face, her +body was naked but for his metal bracelet. + + "I'm sorry, Hank," she said, "but I had to do it." +His eyes remained expressionless. Yet she was suddenly certain that she +knew what he felt: he wanted to slap her face. +"It was not necessary," he answered coldly, and walked on. +It was very late when Rearden entered his wife's bedroom. She was still +awake. A lamp burned on her bedside table. +She lay in bed, propped up on pillows of pale green linen. Her bed jacket +was pale green satin, worn with the untouched perfection of a window model; +its lustrous folds looked as if the crinkle of tissue paper still lingered +among them. The light, shaded to a tone of apple blossoms, fell on a table +that held a book, a glass of fruit juice, and toilet accessories of silver +glittering like instruments in a surgeon's case. Her arms had a tinge of +porcelain. There was a touch of pale pink lipstick on her mouth. She showed +no sign of exhaustion after the party—no sign of life to be exhausted. The +place was a decorator's display of a lady groomed for sleep, not to be +disturbed. +He still wore his dress clothes; his tie was loose, and a strand of hair +hung over his face. She glanced at him without astonishment, as if she knew +what the last hour in his room had done to him. +He looked at her silently. He had not entered her room for a long time. He +stood, wishing he had not entered it now. +"Isn't it customary to talk, Henry?" +"If you wish." +"I wish you'd send one of your brilliant experts from the mills to take a +look at our furnace. Do you know that it went out during the party and Simons +had a terrible time getting it started again? . . . Mrs. +Weston says that our best achievement is our cook—she loved the hors +d'oeuvres. . . . Balph Eubank said a very funny thing about you, he said +you're a crusader with a factory's chimney smoke for a plume. . . . +I'm glad you don't like Francisco d'Anconia. I can't stand him." +He did not care to explain his presence, or to disguise defeat, or to +admit it by leaving. Suddenly, it did not matter to him what she guessed or +felt. He walked to the window and stood, looking out. +Why had she married him?—he thought. It was a question he had not asked +himself on their wedding day, eight years ago. Since then, in tortured +loneliness, he had asked it many times. He had found no answer. +It was not for position, he thought, or for money. She came from an old +family that had both. Her family's name was not among the most distinguished +and their fortune was modest, but both were sufficient to let her be included +in the top circles of New York's society, where he had met her. Nine years +ago, he had appeared in New York like an explosion, in the glare of the +success of Rearden Steel, a success that had been thought impossible by the +city's experts. It was his indifference that made him spectacular. He did not +know that he was expected to attempt to buy his way into society and that +they anticipated the pleasure of rejecting him. He had no time to notice +their disappointment. +He attended, reluctantly, a few social occasions to which he was invited +by men who sought his favor. He did not know, but they knew, that his +courteous politeness was condescension toward the people who had expected to +snub him, the people who had said that the age of achievement was past. +It was Lillian's austerity that attracted him—the conflict between her +austerity and her behavior. He had never liked anyone or expected to be +liked. He found himself held by the spectacle of a woman who was obviously +pursuing him but with obvious reluctance, as if against her own will, as if +fighting a desire she resented. It was she who planned that they should meet, +then faced him coldly, as if not caring that he knew it. She spoke little; +she had an air of mystery that seemed to tell him he would never break + + through her proud detachment, and an air of amusement, mocking her own desire +and his. +He had not known many women. He had moved toward his goal, sweeping aside +everything that did not pertain to it in the world and in himself. His +dedication to his work was like one of the fires he dealt with, a fire that +burned every lesser element, every impurity out of the white stream of a +single metal. He was incapable of halfway concerns. +But there were times when he felt a sudden access of desire, so violent +that it could not be given to a casual encounter. He had surrendered to it, +on a few rare occasions through the years, with women he had thought he +liked. He had been left feeling an angry emptiness—because he had sought an +act of triumph, though he had not known of what nature, but the response he +received was only a woman's acceptance of a casual pleasure, and he knew too +clearly that what he had won had no meaning. He was left, not with a sense of +attainment, but with a sense of his own degradation. He grew to hate his +desire. He fought it. He came to believe the doctrine that this desire was +wholly physical, a desire, not of consciousness, but of matter, and he +rebelled against the thought that his flesh could be free to choose and that +its choice was impervious to the will of his mind. He had spent his life in +mines and mills, shaping matter to his wishes by the power of his brain—and +he found it intolerable that he should be unable to control the matter of his +own body. He fought it. He had won his every battle against inanimate nature; +but this was a battle he lost. +It was the difficulty of the conquest that made him want Lillian. +She seemed to be a woman who expected and deserved a pedestal; this made +him want to drag her down to his bed. To drag her down, were the words in his +mind; they gave him a dark pleasure, the sense of a victory worth winning. +He could not understand why—he thought it was an obscene conflict, the +sign of some secret depravity within him—why he felt, at the same time, a +profound pride at the thought of granting to a woman the title of his wife. +The feeling was solemn and shining; it was almost as if he felt that he +wished to honor a woman by the act of possessing her. +Lillian seemed to fit the image he had not known he held, had not known he +wished to find; he saw the grace, the pride, the purity; the rest was in +himself; he did not know that he was looking at a reflection. +He remembered the day when Lillian came from New York to his office, of +her own sudden choice, and asked him to take her through his mills. He heard +a soft, low, breathless tone—the tone of admiration— +growing in her voice, as she questioned him about his work and looked at +the place around her. He looked at her graceful figure moving against the +bursts of furnace flame, and at the light, swift steps of her high heels +stumbling through drifts of slag, as she walked resolutely by his side. +The look in her eyes, when she watched a heat of steel being poured, was +like his own feeling for it made visible to him. When her eyes moved up to +his face, he saw the same look, but intensified to a degree that seemed to +make her helpless and silent. It was at dinner, that evening, that he asked +her to marry him. +It took him some time after his marriage before he admitted to himself +that this was torture. He still remembered the night when he admitted it, +when he told himself—the veins of his wrists pulled tight as he stood by the +bed, looking down at Lillian—that he deserved the torture and that he would +endure it. Lillian was not looking at him; she was adjusting her hair. "May I +go to sleep now?" she asked. +She had never objected; she had never refused him anything; she submitted +whenever he wished. She submitted in the manner of complying with the rule +that it was, at times, her duty to become an inanimate object turned over to +her husband's use. + + She did not censure him. She made it clear that she took it for granted +that men had degrading instincts which constituted the secret, ugly part of +marriage. She was condescendingly tolerant. She smiled, in amused distaste, +at the intensity of what he experienced. "It's the most undignified pastime I +know of," she said to him once, "but I have never entertained the illusion +that men are superior to animals." +His desire for her had died in the first week of their marriage. What +remained was only a need which he was unable to destroy. He had never entered +a whorehouse; he thought, at times, that the self-loathing he would +experience there could be no worse than what he felt when he was driven to +enter his wife's bedroom. +He would often find her reading a book. She would put it aside, with a +white ribbon to mark the pages. When lie lay exhausted, his eyes closed, +still breathing in gasps, she would turn on the light, pick up the book and +continue her reading. +He told himself that he deserved the torture, because he had wished never +to touch her again and was unable to maintain his decision. He despised +himself for that. He despised a need which now held no shred of joy or +meaning, which had become the mere need of a woman's body, an anonymous body +that belonged to a woman whom he had to forget while he held it. He became +convinced that the need was depravity. +He did not condemn Lillian. He felt a dreary, indifferent respect for her. +His hatred of his own desire had made him accept the doctrine that women were +pure and that a pure woman was one incapable of physical pleasure. +Through the quiet agony of the years of his marriage, there had been one +thought which he would not permit himself to consider; the thought of +infidelity. He had given his word. He intended to keep it. It was not loyalty +to Lillian; it was not the person of Lillian that he wished to protect from +dishonor—but the person of his wife. +He thought of that now, standing at the window. He had not wanted to enter +her room. He had fought against it. He had fought, more fiercely, against +knowing the particular reason why he would not be able to withstand it +tonight. Then, seeing her, he had known suddenly that he would not touch her. +The reason which had driven him here tonight was the reason which made it +impossible for him. +He stood still, feeling free of desire, feeling the bleak relief of +indifference to his body, to this room, even to his presence here. He had +turned away from her, not to see her lacquered chastity. What he thought he +should feel was respect; what he felt was revulsion. +". . . but Dr. Pritchett said that our culture is dying because our +universities have to depend on the alms of the meat packers, the steel +puddlers and the purveyors of breakfast cereals." +Why had she married him?—he thought. That bright, crisp voice was not +talking at random. She knew why he had come here. She knew what it would do +to him to see her pick up a silver buffer and go on talking gaily, polishing +her fingernails. She was talking about the party. +But she did not mention Bertram Scudder—or Dagny Taggart. +What had she sought in marrying him? He felt the presence of some cold, +driving purpose within her—but found nothing to condemn. She had never tried +to use him. She made no demands on him. She found no satisfaction in the +prestige of industrial power—she spurned it—she preferred her own circle of +friends. She was not after money—she spent little—she was indifferent to the +kind of extravagance he could have afforded. He had no right to accuse her, +he thought, or ever to break the bond. She was a woman of honor in their +marriage. She wanted nothing material from him. +He turned and looked at her wearily. +"Next time you give a party," he said, "stick to your own crowd. + + Don't invite what you think are my friends. I don't care to meet them +socially." +She laughed, startled and pleased. "I don't blame you, darling," she said. +He walked out, adding nothing else. +What did she want from him?—he thought. What was she after? In the +universe as he knew it. There was no answer. + + CHAPTER VII +THE EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED +The rails rose through the rocks to the oil derricks and the oil derricks +rose to the sky. Dagny stood on the bridge, looking up at the crest of the +hill where the sun hit a spot of metal on the top of the highest rigging. +It looked like a white torch lighted over the snow on the ridges of Wyatt +OIL By spring, she thought, the track would meet the line growing toward it +from Cheyenne. She let her eyes follow the green-blue rails that started from +the derricks, came down, went across the bridge and past her. She turned her +head to follow them through the miles of clear air, as they went on in great +curves hung on the sides of the mountains, far to the end of the new track, +where a locomotive crane, like an arm of naked bones and nerves, moved +tensely against the sky. +A tractor went past her, loaded with green-blue bolts. The sound of drills +came as a steady shudder from far below, where men swung on metal cables, +cutting the straight stone drop of the canyon wall to reinforce the abutments +of the bridge. Down the track, she could see men working, their arms stiff +with the tension of their muscles as they gripped the handles of electric tie +tampers. +"Muscles, Miss Taggart," Ben Nealy, the contractor, had said to her, +"muscles—that's all it takes to build anything in the world." +No contractor equal to McNamara seemed to exist anywhere. She had taken +the best she could find. No engineer on the Taggart staff could be trusted to +supervise the job; all of them were skeptical about the new metal. "Frankly, +Miss Taggart," her chief engineer had said, "since it is an experiment that +nobody has ever attempted before, I do not think it's fair that it should be +my responsibility." 'It's mine," she had answered. He was a man in his +forties, who still preserved the breezy manner of the college from which he +had graduated. Once, Taggart Transcontinental had had a chief engineer, a +silent, gray-haired, self educated man, who could not be matched on any +railroad. He had resigned, five years ago. +She glanced down over the bridge. She was standing on a slender beam of +steel above a gorge that had cracked the mountains to a depth of fifteen +hundred feet. Far at the bottom, she could distinguish the dim outlines of a +dry river bed, of piled boulders, of trees contorted by centuries. She +wondered whether boulders, tree trunks and muscles could ever bridge that +canyon. She wondered why she found herself thinking suddenly that cavedwellers had lived naked on the bottom of that canyon for ages. +She looked up at the Wyatt oil fields. The track broke into sidings among +the wells. She saw the small disks of switches dotted against the snow. They +were metal switches, of the kind that were scattered in thousands, unnoticed, +throughout the country—but these were sparkling in the sun and the sparks +were greenish-blue. What they meant to her was hour upon hour of speaking +quietly, evenly, patiently, trying to hit the center less target that was the +person of Mr. Mowen, president of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company, +Inc., of Connecticut. "But, Miss Taggart, my dear Miss Taggart! My company +has served your company for generations, why, your grandfather was the first +customer of my grandfather, so you cannot doubt our eagerness to do anything +you ask, but—did you say switches made of Rearden Metal?" +"Yes." +"But, Miss Taggart! Consider what it would mean, having to work with that +metal. Do you know that the stuff won't melt under less than four thousand +degrees? . . . Great? Well, maybe that's great for motor manufacturers, but +what I'm thinking of is that it means a new type of furnace, a new process +entirely, men to be trained, schedules upset, work rules shot, everything + + balled up and then God only knows whether it will come out right or not! . . +. How do you know, Miss Taggart? How can you know, when it's never been done +before? . . . +Well, I can't say that that metal is good and I can't say that it isn't. +. . . Well, no, I can't tell whether it's a product of genius, as you say, +or just another fraud as a great many people are saying, Miss Taggart, a +great many. . . . Well, no, I can't say that it does matter one way or the +other, because who am I to take a chance on a job of this kind?" +She had doubled the price of her order. Rearden had sent two metallurgists +to train Mowen's men, to teach, to show, to explain every step of the +process, and had paid the salaries of Mowen's men while they were being +trained. +She looked at the spikes in the rail at her feet. They meant the night +when she had heard that Summit Casting of Illinois, the only company willing +to make spikes of Rearden Metal, had gone bankrupt, with half of her order +undelivered. She had flown to Chicago, that night, she had got three lawyers, +a judge and a state legislator out of bed, she had bribed two of them and +threatened the others, she had obtained a paper that was an emergency permit +of a legality no one would ever be able to untangle, she had had the +padlocked doors of the Summit Casting plant unlocked and a random, halfdressed crew working at the smelters before the windows had turned gray with +daylight. The crews had remained at work, under a Taggart engineer and a +Rearden metallurgist. The rebuilding of the Rio Norte Line was not held up. +She listened to the sound of the drills. The work had been held up once, +when the drilling for the bridge abutments was stepped. "I couldn't help it, +Miss Taggart," Ben Nealy had said, offended. "You know how fast drill heads +wear out. I had them on order, but Incorporated Tool ran into a little +trouble, they couldn't help it either, Associated Steel was delayed in +delivering the steel to them, so there's nothing we can do but wait. It's no +use getting upset, Miss Taggart, I'm doing my best." +"I've hired you to do a job, not to do your best—whatever that is." +"That's a funny thing to say. That's an unpopular attitude, Miss Taggart, +mighty unpopular." +"Forget Incorporated Tool. Forget the steel. Order the doll heads made of +Rearden Metal." +"Not me. I've had enough trouble with the damn stuff in that rail of +yours. I'm not going to mess up my own equipment." +"A drill head of Rearden Metal will outlast three of steel." +"Maybe." +"I said order them made." +"Who's going to pay for it?" +"I am." +"Who's going to find somebody to make them?" +She had telephoned Rearden. He had found an abandoned tool plant, long +since out of business. Within an hour, he had purchased it from the relatives +of its last owner. Within a day, the plant had been reopened. Within a week, +drill heads of Rearden Metal lad been delivered to the bridge in Colorado. +She looked at the bridge. It represented a problem badly solved, but she +had had to accept it. The bridge, twelve hundred feet of steel across the +black gap, was built in the days of Nat Taggart's son. It was long past the +stage of safety; it had been patched with stringers of steel, then of iron, +then of wood; it was barely worth the patching. +She had thought of a new bridge of Rearden Metal. She had asked her chief +engineer to submit a design and an estimate of the cost. +The design he had submitted was the scheme of a steel bridge badly scaled +down to the greater strength of the new metal; the cost made the project +impossible to consider. + + "I beg your pardon, Miss Taggart," he had said, offended. "I don't know +what you mean when you say that I haven't made use of the metal. This design +is an adaptation of the best bridges on record. +What else did you expect?” +"A new method of construction." +"What do you mean, a new method?" +"I mean that when men got structural steel, they did not use it to build +steel copies of wooden bridges." She had added wearily, "Get me an estimate +on what we'll need to make our old bridge last for another five years." +"Yes, Miss Taggart," he had said cheerfully. "If we reinforce it with +steel—" +"We'll reinforce it with Rearden Metal." +"Yes, Miss Taggart," he had said coldly. +She looked at the snow-covered mountains. Her job had seemed hard at +times, in New York. She had stopped for blank moments in the middle of her +office, paralyzed by despair at the rigidity of time which she could not +stretch any further—on a day when urgent appointments had succeeded one +another, when she had discussed worn Diesels, rotting freight cars, failing +signal systems, falling revenues, while thinking of the latest emergency on +the Rio Norte construction; when she had talked, with the vision of two +streaks of green-blue metal cutting across her mind; when she had interrupted +the discussions, realizing suddenly why a certain news item had disturbed +her, and seized the telephone receiver to call long-distance, to call her +contractor, to say, "Where do you get the food from, for your men? +. . . I thought so. Well, Barton and Jones of Denver went bankrupt +yesterday. Better find another supplier at once, if you don't want to have a +famine on your hands." She had been building the line from her desk in New +York. It had seemed hard. But now she was looking at the track. It was +growing. It would be done on time. +She heard sharp, hurried footsteps, and turned. A man was coming up the +track. He was tall and young, his head of black hair was hatless in the cold +wind, he wore a workman's leather jacket, but he did not look like a workman, +there was too imperious an assurance in the way he walked. She could not +recognize the face until he came closer. It was Ellis Wyatt. She had not seen +him since that one interview in her office. +He approached, stopped, looked at her and smiled. +"Hello, Dagny," he said. +In a single shock of emotion, she knew everything the two words were +intended to tell her. It was forgiveness, understanding, acknowledgment. It +was a salute. +She laughed, like a child, in happiness that things should be as right as +that. +"Hello," she said, extending her hand. +His hand held hers an instant longer than a greeting required. It was +their signature under a score settled and understood. +"Tell Nealy to put up new snow fences for a mile and a half on Granada +Pass," he said. "The old ones are rotted. They won't stand through another +storm. Send him a rotary plow. What he's got is a piece of junk that wouldn't +sweep a back yard. The big snows are coming any day now." +She considered him for a moment. "How often have you been doing this?" she +asked, "What?" +"Coming to watch the work." +"Every now and then. When I have the time. Why?" +"Were you here the night when they had the rock slide?" +"Yes." + + "I was surprised how quickly and well they cleared the track, when I got +the reports about it. It made me think that Nealy was a better man than I had +thought" +"He isn't." +"Was it you who organized the system of moving his day's supplies down to +the line?" +"Sure. His men used to spend half their time hunting for things. +Tell him to watch his water tanks. They'll freeze on him one of these +nights. See if you can get him a new ditcher. I don't like the looks of the +one he's got. Check on his wiring system." +She looked at him for a moment. "Thanks, Ellis," she said. +He smiled and walked on. She watched him as he walked across the bridge, +as he started up the long rise toward his derricks. +"He thinks he owns the place, doesn't he?" +She turned, startled. Ben Nealy had approached her; his thumb was pointing +at Ellis Wyatt. +"What place?" +"The railroad, Miss Taggart. Your railroad. Or the whole world maybe. +That's what he thinks." +Ben Nealy was a bulky man with a soft, sullen face. His eyes were stubborn +and blank. In die bluish light of the snow, his skin had the tinge of butter. +"What does he keep hanging around here for?" he said. "As if nobody knew +their business but him. The snooty show-off. Who does he think he is?" +"God damn you," said Dagny evenly, not raising her voice. +Nealy could never know what had made her say it. But some part of him, in +some way of his own, knew it: the shocking thing to her was that he was not +shocked. He said nothing. +"Let's go to your quarters," she said wearily, pointing to an old railway +coach on a spur in the distance. "Have somebody there to take notes." +"Now about those crossties, Miss Taggart," he said hastily as they +started. "Mr. Coleman of your office okayed them. He didn't say anything +about too much bark. I don't see why you think they're—" +"I said you're going to replace them." +When she came out of the coach, exhausted by two hours of effort to be +patient, to instruct, to explain—she saw an automobile parked on the torn +dirt road below, a black two-seater, sparkling and new. A new car was an +astonishing sight anywhere; one did not see them often. +She glanced around and gasped at the sight of the tall figure standing at +the foot of the bridge. It was Hank Rearden; she had not expected to find him +in Colorado. He seemed absorbed in calculations, pencil and notebook in hand. +His clothes attracted attention, like his car and for the same reason; he +wore a simple trenchcoat and a hat with a slanting brim, but they were of +such good quality, so flagrantly expensive that they appeared ostentatious +among the seedy garments of the crowds everywhere, the more ostentatious +because worn so naturally. +She noticed suddenly that she was running toward him; she had lost all +trace of exhaustion. Then she remembered that she had not seen him since the +party. She stopped. +He saw her, he waved to her in a gesture of pleased, astonished greeting, +and he walked forward to meet her. He was smiling. +"Hello," he said. "Your first trip to the job?" +"My fifth, in three months." +"I didn't know you were here. Nobody told me." +"I thought you'd break down some day." +"Break down?" +"Enough to come and see this. There's your Metal. How do you like it?" + + He glanced around. "If you ever decide to quit the railroad business, let +me know." +"You'd give me a job?" +"Any time." +She looked at him for a moment. "You're only half-kidding, Hank. +I think you'd like it—having me ask you for a job. Having me for an +employee instead of a customer. Giving me orders to obey." +"Yes. I would." +She said, her face hard, "Don't quit the steel business, I won't promise +you a job on the railroad." +He laughed. "Don't try it." +"What?" +"To win any battle when I set the terms." +She did not answer. She was struck by what the words made her feel; it was +not an emotion, but a physical sensation of pleasure, which she could not +name or understand. +"incidentally," he said, "this is not my first trip. I was here +yesterday." +"You were? Why?" +"Oh, I came to Colorado on some business of my own, so I thought I'd take +a look at this." +"What are you after?" +"Why do you assume that I'm after anything?" +"You wouldn't waste time coming here just to look. Not twice." +He laughed. "True." He pointed at the bridge. "I'm after that." +"What about it?" +"It's ready for the scrap heap." +"Do you suppose that I don't know it?" +"I saw the specifications of your order for Rearden Metal members for that +bridge. You're wasting your money. The difference between what you're +planning to spend on a makeshift that will last a couple of years, and the +cost of a new Rearden Metal bridge, is comparatively so little that I don't +see why you want to bother preserving this museum piece." +"I've thought of a new Rearden Metal bridge, I've had my engineers give me +an estimate." +"What did they tell you?" +"Two million dollars." +"Good God!" +"What would you say?" +"Eight hundred thousand." +She looked at him. She knew that he never spoke idly. She asked, trying to +sound calm, "How?" +"Like this." +He showed her his notebook. She saw the disjoined notations he had made, a +great many figures, a few rough sketches. She understood his scheme before he +had finished explaining it. She did not notice that they had sat down, that +they were sitting on a pile of frozen lumber, that her legs were pressed to +the rough planks and she could feel the cold through her thin stockings. They +were bent together over a few scraps of paper which could make it possible +for thousands of tons of freight to cross a cut of empty space. His voice +sounded sharp and clear, while he explained thrusts, pulls, loads, wind +pressures. The bridge was to be a single twelve-hundred-foot truss span. He +had devised a new type of truss. It had never been made before end could not +be made except with members that had the strength and the lightness of +Rearden Metal. +"Hank," she asked, "did you invent this in two days?" + + "Hell, no. I 'invented' it long before I had Rearden Metal. I figured it +out while making steel for bridges. I wanted a metal with which one would be +able to do this, among other things. I came here just to see your particular +problem for myself." +He chuckled, when he saw the slow movement of her hand across her eyes and +the line of bitterness in the set of her mouth, as if she were trying to wipe +out the things against which she had fought such an exhausting, cheerless +battle. +"This is only a rough scheme," he said, "but I believe you see what can be +done?" +"I can't tell you all that I see, Hank." +"Don't bother. I know it." +"You're saving Taggart Transcontinental for the second time." +"You used to be a better psychologist than that." +"What do you mean?" +"Why should I give a damn about saving Taggart Transcontinental? +Don't you know that I want to have a bridge of Rearden Metal to show the +country?" +"Yes, Hank. I know it" +"There are too many people yelping that rails of Rearden Metal are unsafe. +So I thought I'd give them something real to yelp about. Let them see a +bridge of Rearden Metal." +She looked at him and laughed aloud in simple delight. +"Now what's that?" he asked. +"Hank, I don't know anyone, not anyone in the world, who'd think of such +an answer to people, in such circumstances—except you." +"What about you? Would you want to make the answer with me and face the +same screaming?" +"You knew I would." +"Yes. I knew it." +He glanced at her, his eyes narrowed; he did not laugh as she had, but the +glance was an equivalent. +She remembered suddenly their last meeting, at the party. The memory +seemed incredible. Their ease with each other—the strange, light-headed +feeling, which included the knowledge that it was the only sense of ease +either of them found anywhere—made the thought of hostility impossible. Yet +she knew that the party had taken place; he acted as if it had not. +They walked to the edge of the canyon. Together, they looked at the dark +drop, at the rise of rock beyond it, at the sun high on the derricks of Wyatt +Oil. She stood, her feet apart on the frozen stones, braced firmly against +the wind. She could feel, without touching it, the line of his chest behind +her shoulder. The wind beat her coat against his legs. +"Hank, do you think we can build it in time? There are only six months +left." +"Sure. It will take less time and labor than any other type of bridge. +Let me have my engineers work out the basic scheme and submit it to you. +No obligation on your part. Just take a look at it and see for yourself +whether you'll be able to afford it. You will. Then you can let your college +boys work out the details." +"What about the Metal?" +"I'll get the Metal rolled if I have to throw every other order out of the +mills." +"You'll get it rolled on so short a notice?" +"Have I ever held you up on an order?" +"No. But the way things are going nowadays, you might not be able to help +it." +"Who do you think you're talking to—Orren Boyle?" + + She laughed. "All right. Let me have the drawings as soon as possible. +I'll take a look and let you know within forty-eight hours. As to my college +boys, they—" She stopped, frowning. "Hank, why is it so hard to find good men +for any job nowadays?" +"I don't know . . ." +He looked at the lines of the mountains cut across the sky. A thin jet of +smoke was rising from a distant valley. +"Have you seen the new towns of Colorado and the factories?" he asked. +"Yes." +"It's great, isn't it?—to see the kind of men they've gathered here from +every corner of the country. All of them young, all of them starting on a +shoestring and moving mountains." +"What mountain have you decided to move?" +"Why?" +"What are you doing in Colorado?" +He smiled. "Looking at a mining property." +"What sort?" +"Copper." +"Good God, don't you have enough to do?" +"I know it's a complicated job. But the supply of copper is becoming +completely unreliable. There doesn't seem to be a single first-rate company +left in the business in this country—and I don't want to deal with d'Anconia +Copper. I don't trust that playboy." +"I don't blame you," she said, looking away. +"So if there's no competent person left to do it, I'll have to mine my own +copper, as I mine my own iron ore. I can't take any chances on being held up +by all those failures and shortages. I need a great deal of copper for +Rearden Metal." +"Have you bought the mine?" +"Not yet. There are a few problems to solve. Getting the men, the +equipment, the transportation." +"Oh . . . !" She chuckled. "Going to speak to me about building a branch +line?" +"Might. There's no limit to what's possible in this state. Do you know +that they have every kind of natural resource here, waiting, untouched? And +the way their factories are growing! I feel ten years younger when I come +here." +"I don't." She was looking east, past the mountains. "I think of the +contrast, all over the rest of the Taggart system. There's less to carry, +less tonnage produced each year. It's as if . . . Hank, what's wrong with the +country?" +"I don't know." +"I keep thinking of what they told us in school about the sun losing +energy, growing colder each year. I remember wondering, then, what it would +be like in the last days of the world. I think it would be . . . +like this. Growing colder and things stopping." +"I never believed that story. I thought by the time the sun was exhausted, +men would find a substitute." +"You did? Funny. I thought that, too." +He pointed at the column of smoke. "There's your new sunrise. It's going +to feed the rest." +"If it's not stopped." +"Do you think it can be stopped?" +She looked at the rail under her feet. "No," she said. +He smiled. He looked down at the rail, then let his eyes move along the +track, up the sides of the mountains, to the distant crane. She saw two + + things, as if, for a moment, the two stood alone in her field of vision: the +lines of his profile and the green-blue cord coiling through space. +"We've done it, haven't we?" he said. +In payment for every effort, for every sleepless night, for every silent +thrust against despair, this moment was all she wanted. "Yes. We have." +She looked away, noticed an old crane on a siding, and thought that its +cables were worn and would need replacing: This was the great clarity of +being beyond emotion, after the reward of having felt everything one could +feel. Their achievement, she thought, and one moment of acknowledging it, of +possessing it together—what greater intimacy could one share? Now she was +free for the simplest, most commonplace concerns of the moment, because +nothing could be meaningless within her sight. +She wondered what made her certain that he felt as she did. He turned +abruptly and started toward his car. She followed. They did not look at each +other. +"I'm due to leave for the East in an hour," he said. +She pointed at the car. "Where did you get that?" +"Here. It's a Hammond. Hammond of Colorado—they're the only people who're +still making a good car. I just bought it, on this trip." +"Wonderful job." +"Yes, isn't it?" +"Going to drive it back to New York?" +"No. Tm having it shipped. I flew my plane down here." +"Oh, you did? I drove down from Cheyenne—I had to see the line —but I'm +anxious to get home as fast as possible. Would you take me along? Can I fly +back with you?" +He did not answer at once. She noticed the empty moment of a pause. "I'm +sorry," he said; she wondered whether she imagined the note of abruptness in +his voice. "I'm not flying back to New York. I'm going to Minnesota." +"Oh well, then I'll try to get on an air liner, if I can find one today," +She watched his car vanish down the winding road. She drove to the airport +an hour later. The place was a small field at the bottom of a break in the +desolate chain of mountains. There were patches of snow on the hard, pitted +earth. The pole of a beacon stood at one side, trailing wires to the ground; +the other poles had been knocked down by a storm. +A lonely attendant came to meet her. "No, Miss Taggart," he said +regretfully, "no planes till day after tomorrow. There's only one +transcontinental liner every two days, you know, and the one that was due +today has been grounded, down in Arizona. Engine trouble, as usual." He +added, "It's a pity you didn't get here a bit sooner. Mr. +Rearden took off for New York, in his private plane, just a little while +ago." +"He wasn't flying to New York, was be?" +"Why, yes. He said so." +"Are you sure?" +"He said he had an appointment there tonight." +She looked at the sky to the east, blankly, without moving. She had no +clue to any reason, nothing to give her a foothold, nothing with which to +weigh this or fight it or understand. +"Damn these streets!" said James Taggart. "We're going to be late." +Dagny glanced ahead, past the back of the chauffeur. Through the circle +made by a windshield wiper on the sleet-streaked glass, she saw black, worn, +glistening car tops strung in a motionless line. Far ahead, the smear of a +red lantern, low over the ground, marked a street excavation. +"There's something wrong on every other street," said Taggart irritably. +"Why doesn't somebody fix them?" +She leaned back against the seat, tightening the collar of her wrap. + + She felt exhausted at the end of a day she had started at her desk, in her +office, at seven A.M.; a day she had broken off, uncompleted, to rush home +and dress, because she had promised Jim to speak at the dinner of the New +York Business Council "They want us to give them a talk about Rearden Metal," +he had said. "You can do it so much better than I. It's very important that +we present a good case. There's such a controversy about Rearden Metal." +Sitting beside him in his car, she regretted that she had agreed. She +looked at the streets of New York and thought of the race between metal and +time, between the rails of the Rio Norte Line and the passing days. She felt +as if her nerves were being pulled tight by the stillness of the car, by the +guilt of wasting an evening when she could not afford to waste an hour. +"With all those attacks on Rearden that one hears everywhere," +said Taggart, "he might need a few friends." +She glanced at him incredulously. "You mean you want to stand by him?" +He did not answer at once; he asked, his voice bleak, "That report of the +special committee of the National Council of Metal Industries— +what do you think of it?" +"You know what I think of it." +"They said Rearden Metal is a threat to public safety. They said its +chemical composition is unsound, it's brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, +and it will crack suddenly, without warning . . ." He stopped, as if begging +for an answer. She did not answer. He asked anxiously, "You haven't changed +your mind about it, have you?" +"About what?" +"About that metal." +"No, Jim, I have not changed my mind." +"They're experts, though . . . the men on that committee. . . . +Top experts . . . Chief metallurgists for the biggest corporations, with a +string of degrees from universities all over the country . . ." He said it +unhappily, as if he were begging her to make him doubt these men and their +verdict. +She watched him, puzzled; this was not like him. +The car jerked forward. It moved slowly through a gap in a plank barrier, +past the hole of a broken water main. She saw the new pipe stacked by the +excavation; the pipe bore a trademark: Stockton Foundry, Colorado. She looked +away; she wished she were not reminded of Colorado. +"I can't understand it . . ." said Taggart miserably. "The top experts of +the National Council of Metal Industries . . ." +"Who's the president of the National Council of Metal Industries, Jim? +Orren Boyle, isn't it?" +Taggart did not turn to her, but his jaw snapped open. "If that fat slob +thinks he can—" he started, but stopped and did not finish. +She looked up at a street lamp on the corner. It was a globe of glass +filled with light. It hung, secure from storm, lighting boarded windows and +cracked sidewalks, as their only guardian. At the end of the street, across +the river, against the glow of a factory, she saw the thin tracing of a power +station. A truck went by, hiding her view. It was the kind of truck that fed +the power station—a tank truck, its bright new paint impervious to sleet, +green with white letters: Wyatt Oil, Colorado. +"Dagny, have you heard about that discussion at the structural steel +workers' union meeting in Detroit?" +"No. What discussion?" +"It was in all the newspapers. They debated whether their members should +or should not be permitted to work with Rearden Metal. +They didn't reach a decision, but that was enough for the contractor who +was going to take a chance on Rearden Metal. He cancelled his order, but +fast! . . . What if . . . what if everybody decides against it?" + + "Let them." +A dot of light was rising in a straight line to the top of an invisible +tower. It was the elevator of a great hotel. The car went past the building's +alley. Men were moving a heavy, crated piece of equipment from a truck into +the basement. She saw the name on the crate: Nielsen Motors, Colorado. +"I don't like that resolution passed by the convention of the grade school +teachers of New Mexico," said Taggart. +"What resolution?" +"They resolved that it was their opinion that children should not be +permitted to ride on the new Rio Norte Line of Taggart Transcontinental when +it's completed, because it is unsafe. . . . They said it specifically, the +new line of Taggart Transcontinental. It was in all the newspapers. It's +terrible publicity for us. . . . Dagny, what do you think we should do to +answer them?" +"Run the first train on the new Rio Norte Line." +He remained silent for a long time. He looked strangely dejected. +She could not understand it: he did not gloat, he did not use the opinions +of his favorite authorities against her, he seemed to be pleading for +reassurance. +A car flashed past them; she had a moment's glimpse of power—a smooth, +confident motion and a shining body. She knew the make of the car: Hammond, +Colorado. +"Dagny, are we . . . are we going to have that line built . . . on time?" +It was strange to hear a note of plain emotion in his voice, the +uncomplicated sound of animal fear. +"God help this city, if we don't!" she answered. +The car turned a corner. Above the black roofs of the city, she saw the +page of the calendar, hit by the white glare of a spotlight. It said: January +29. +"Dan Conway is a bastard!" +The words broke out suddenly, as if he could not hold them any longer. +She looked at him, bewildered. "Why?" +"He refused to sell us the Colorado track of the Phoenix-Durango." +"You didn't—" She had to stop. She started again, keeping her voice flat +in order not to scream. "You haven't approached him about it?" +"Of course I have!" +"You didn't expect him . . . to sell it . . . to you?" +"Why not?" His hysterically belligerent manner was back, "I offered him +more than anybody else did. We wouldn't have had the expense of tearing it up +and carting it off, we could have used it as is. And it would have been +wonderful publicity for us—that we're giving up the Rearden Metal track in +deference to public opinion. It would have been worth every penny of it in +good will! But the son of a bitch refused. He's actually declared that not a +foot of rail would be sold to Taggart Transcontinental. He's selling it +piecemeal to any stray comer, to one-horse railroads in Arkansas or North +Dakota, selling it at a loss, way under what I offered him, the bastard! +Doesn't even want to take a profit! And you should see those vultures +flocking to him! They know they'd never have a chance to get rail anywhere +else!” +She sat, her head bowed. She could not bear to look at him. +"I think it's contrary to the intent of the Anti-dog-cat-dog Rule," he +said angrily. "I think it was the intent and purpose of the National Alliance +of Railroads to protect the essential systems, not the jerkwaters of North +Dakota. But I can't get the Alliance to vote on it now, because they're all +down there, outbidding one another for that rail!" +She said slowly, as if she wished it were possible to wear gloves to +handle the words, "I see why you want me to defend Rearden Metal." + + "I don't know what you're—" +"Shut up, Jim," she said quietly. +He remained silent for a moment. Then he drew his head back and drawled +defiantly, "You'd better do a good job of defending Rearden Metal, because +Bertram Scudder can get pretty sarcastic." +"Bertram Scudder?" +"He's going to be one of the speakers tonight." +"One of the . . . You didn't tell me there were to be other speakers." +"Well . . . I . . . What difference does that make? You're not afraid of +him, are you?" +"The New York Business Council . . . and you invite Bertram Scudder?" +"Why not? Don't you think it's smart? He doesn't have any hard feelings +toward businessmen, not really. He's accepted the invitation. +We want to be broad-minded and hear all sides and maybe win him over. . . +. Well, what are you staring at? You'll be able to beat him, won't you?" +". . . to beat him?" +"On the air. It's going to be a radio broadcast. You're going to debate +with him the question: 'Is Rearden Metal a lethal product of greed?' " +She leaned forward. She pulled open the glass partition of the front seat, +ordering, "Stop the car!" +She did not hear what Taggart was saying. She noticed dimly that his voice +rose to screams: "They're waiting! . . . Five hundred people at the dinner, +and a national hook-up! . . . You can't do this to me!" +He seized her arm, screaming, "But why?" +"You goddamn fool, do you think I consider their question debatable?" +The car stopped, she leaped out and ran. +The first tiling she noticed after a while, was her slippers. She was +walking slowly, normally, and it was strange to feel iced stone under the +thin soles of black satin sandals. She pushed her hair back, off her +forehead, and felt drops of sleet melting on her palm. +She was quiet now; the blinding anger was gone; she felt nothing but a +gray weariness. Her head ached a little, she realized that she was hungry and +remembered that she was to have had dinner at the Business Council. She +walked on. She did not want to eat. She thought she would get a cup of coffee +somewhere, then take a cab home. +She glanced around her. There were no cabs in sight. She did not know the +neighborhood. It did not seem to be a good one. She saw an empty stretch of +space across the street, an abandoned park encircled by a jagged line that +began as distant skyscrapers and came down to factory chimneys; she saw a few +lights in the windows of dilapidated houses, a few small, grimy shops closed +for the night, and the fog of the East River two blocks away. +She started back toward the center of the city. The black shape of a ruin +rose before her. It had been an office building, long ago; she saw the sky +through the naked steel skeleton and the angular remnants of the bricks that +had crumbled. In the shadow of the ruin, like a blade of grass fighting to +live at the roots of a dead giant, there stood a small diner. Its windows +were a bright band of glass and light. She went in. +There was a clean counter inside, with a shining strip of chromium at the +edges. There was a bright metal boiler and the odor of coffee. A few +derelicts sat at the counter, a husky, elderly man stood behind it, the +sleeves of his clean white shirt rolled at the elbows. The warm air made her +realize, in simple gratitude, that she had been cold. She pulled her black +velvet cape tight about her and sat down at the counter. +"A cup of coffee, please," she said. +The men looked at her without curiosity. They did not seem astonished to +see a woman in evening clothes enter a slum diner; nothing astonished anyone, + + these days. The owner turned impassively to fill her order; there was, in his +stolid indifference, the kind of mercifulness that asks no questions. +She could not tell whether the four at the counter were beggars or Working +men; neither clothes nor manner showed the difference, these days. The owner +placed a mug of coffee before her. She closed both hands about it, finding +enjoyment in its warmth. +She glanced around her and thought, in habitual professional calculation, +how wonderful it was that one could buy so much for a dime. +Her eyes moved from the stainless steel cylinder of the coffee boiler to +the cast-iron griddle, to the glass shelves, to the enameled sink, to the +chromium blades of a mixer. The owner was making toast. She found pleasure in +watching the ingenuity of an open belt that moved slowly, carrying slices of +bread past glowing electric coils. Then she saw the name stamped on the +toaster: Marsh, Colorado. +Her head fell down on her arm on the counter. +"It's no use, lady," said the old bum beside her. +She had to raise her head. She had to smile in amusement, at him and at +herself. +"It isn't?" she asked. +"No. Forget it. You're only fooling yourself." +"About what?" +"About anything being worth a damn. It's dust, lady, all of it, dust and +blood. Don't believe the dreams they pump you full of, and you won't get +hurt." +"What dreams?" +"The stories they tell you when you're young—about the human spirit. There +isn't any human spirit. Man is just a low-grade animal, without intellect, +without soul, without virtues or moral values. An animal with only two +capacities: to eat and to reproduce." +His gaunt face, with staring eyes and shrunken features that had been +delicate, still retained a trace of distinction. He looked like the hulk of +an evangelist or a professor of esthetics who had spent years in +contemplation in obscure museums. She wondered what had destroyed him, what +error on the way could bring a man to this. +"You go through life looking for beauty, for greatness, for some sublime +achievement," he said. "And what do you find? A lot of trick machinery for +making upholstered cars or inner-spring mattresses." +"What's wrong with inner-spring mattresses?" said a man who looked like a +truck driver. "Don't mind him, lady. He likes to hear himself talk. He don't +mean no harm." +"Man's only talent is an ignoble cunning for satisfying the needs of his +body," said the old bum. "No intelligence is required for that. +Don't believe the stories about man's mind, his spirit, his ideals, his +sense of unlimited ambition." +"I don't," said a young boy who sat at the end of the counter. He wore a +coat ripped across one shoulder; his square-shaped mouth seemed formed by the +bitterness of a lifetime. +"Spirit?" said the old bum. "There's no spirit involved in manufacturing +or in sex. Yet these are man's only concerns. Matter—that's all men know or +care about. As witness our great industries—the only accomplishment of our +alleged civilization—built by vulgar materialists with the aims, the +interests and the moral sense of hogs. It doesn't take any morality to turn +out a ten-ton truck on an assembly line." +"What is morality?" she asked. +"Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage +to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the +good at any price. But where does one find it?" + + The young boy made a sound that was half-chuckle, half-sneer: "Who is John +Galt?" +She drank the coffee, concerned with nothing but the pleasure of feeling +as if the hot liquid were reviving the arteries of her body. +"I can tell you," said a small, shriveled tramp who wore a cap pulled low +over his eyes. "I know." +Nobody heard him or paid any attention. The young boy was watching Dagny +with a kind of fierce, purposeless intensity. +"You're not afraid," he said to her suddenly, without explanation, a fiat +statement in a brusque, lifeless voice that had a note of wonder. +She looked at him. "No," she said, "I'm not." +"I know who is John Galt," said the tramp. "It's a secret, but I know it." +"Who?" she asked without interest. +"An explorer," said the tramp. "The greatest explorer that ever lived. The +man who found the fountain of youth." +"Give me another cup. Black," said the old bum, pushing his cup across the +counter. +"John Galt spent years looking for it. He crossed oceans, and he crossed +deserts, and he went down into forgotten mines, miles under the earth. But he +found it on the top of a mountain. It took him ten years to climb that +mountain. It broke every bone in his body, it tore the skin off his hands, it +made him lose his home, his name, his love. +But he climbed it. He found the fountain of youth, which he wanted to +bring down to men. Only he never came back." +"Why didn't he?" she asked. +"Because he found that it couldn't be brought down." +The man who sat in front of Rearden's desk had vague features and a manner +devoid of all emphasis, so that one could form no specific image of his face +nor detect the driving motive of his person. His only mark of distinction +seemed to be a bulbous nose, a bit too large for the rest of him; his manner +was meek, but it conveyed a preposterous hint, the hint of a threat +deliberately kept furtive, yet intended to be recognized. Rearden could not +understand the purpose of his visit. He was Dr. Potter, who held some +undefined position with the State Science Institute. +"What do you want?" Rearden asked for the third time. +"It is the social aspect that I am asking you to consider, Mr. +Rearden," the man said softly, "I urge you to take note of the age we're +living in. Our economy is not ready for it." +"For what?" +"Our economy is in a state of extremely precarious equilibrium. We all +have to pool our efforts to save it from collapse." +"Well, what is it you want me to do?" +"These are the considerations which I was asked to call to your attention. +I am from the State Science Institute, Mr. Rearden." +"You've said so before. But what did you wish to see me about?" +"The State Science Institute does not hold a favorable opinion of Rearden +Metal." +"You've said that, too." +"Isn't that a factor which you must take into consideration?" +"No." +The light was growing dim in the broad windows of the office. The days +were short. Rearden saw the irregular shadow of the nose on the man's cheek, +and the pale eyes watching him; the glance was vague, but its direction +purposeful. +"The State Science Institute represents the best brains of the country, +Mr. Rearden." +"So I'm told." + + "Surely you do not want to pit your own judgment against theirs?" +"I do." +The man looked at Rearden as if pleading for help, as if Rearden had +broken an unwritten code which demanded that he should have understood long +ago. Rearden offered no help. +"Is this all you wanted to know?" he asked. +"It's only a question of time, Mr. Rearden," the man said placatingly. +"Just a temporary delay. Just to give our economy a chance to get stabilized. +If you'd only wait for a couple of years—" +Rearden chuckled, gaily, contemptuously. "So that's what you're after? +Want me to take Rearden Metal off the market? Why?" +"Only for a few years, Mr. Rearden. Only until—" +"Look," said Rearden. "Now I'll ask you a question: did your scientists +decide that Rearden Metal is not what I claim it is?" +"We have not committed ourselves as to that." +"Did they decide it's no good?" +"It is the social impact of a product that must be considered. We are +thinking in terms of the country as a whole, we are concerned with the public +welfare and the terrible crisis of the present moment, which—" +"Is Rearden Metal good or not?" +"If we view the picture from the angle of the alarming growth of +unemployment, which at present—" +"Is Rearden Metal good?" +"At a time of desperate steel shortage, we cannot afford to permit the +expansion of a steel company which produces too much, because it might throw +out of business the companies which produce too little, thus creating an +unbalanced economy which—" +"Are you going to answer my question?" +The man shrugged. "Questions of value are relative. If Rearden Metal is +not good, it's a physical danger to the public. If it is good— +it's a social danger." +"If you have anything to say to me about the physical danger of Rearden +Metal, say it. Drop the rest of it. Fast. I don't speak that language." +"But surely questions of social welfare—" +"Drop it." +The man looked bewildered and lost, as if the ground had been cut from +under his feet. In a moment, he asked helplessly, "But what, then, is your +chief concern?" +"The market." +"How do you mean?" +"There's a market for Rearden Metal and I intend to take full advantage of +it." +"Isn't the market somewhat hypothetical? The public response to your metal +has not been encouraging. Except for the order from Taggart Transcontinental, +you haven't obtained any major—" +"Well, then, if you think the public won't go for it, what are you +worrying about?" +"If the public doesn't go for it, you will take a heavy loss, Mr. +Rearden." +"That's my worry, not yours." +"Whereas, if you adopt a more co-operative attitude and agree to wait for +a few years—" +"Why should I wait?" +"But I believe I have made it clear that the State Science Institute does +not approve of the appearance of Rearden Metal on the metallurgical scene at +the present time." +"Why should I give a damn about that?" + + The man sighed. "You are a very difficult man, Mr. Rearden." +The sky of the late afternoon was growing heavy, as if thickening against +the glass of the windowpanes. The outlines of the man's figure seemed to +dissolve into a blob among the sharp, straight planes of the furniture. +"I gave you this appointment," said Rearden, "because you told me that you +wished to discuss something of extreme importance. If this is all you had to +say, you will please excuse me now. I am very busy." +The man settled back in his chair. "I believe you have spent ten years of +research on Rearden Metal," he said. "How much has it cost you?" +Rearden glanced up: he could not understand the drift of the question, yet +there was an undisguised purposefulness in the man's voice; the voice had +hardened. +"One and a half million dollars," said Rearden. +"How much will you take for it?" +Rearden had to let a moment pass. He could not believe it. "For what?" he +asked, his voice low. +"For all rights to Rearden Metal." +"I think you had better get out of here,"' said Rearden. +"There is no call for such an attitude. You are a businessman. I am +offering you a business proposition. You may name your own price." +"The rights to Rearden Metal are not for sale." +"I am in a position to speak of large sums of money. Government money." +Rearden sat without moving, the muscles of his cheeks pulled tight; but +his glance was indifferent, focused only by the faint pull of morbid +curiosity. +"You are a businessman, Mr. Rearden. This is a proposition which you +cannot afford to ignore. On the one hand, you are gambling against great +odds, you are bucking an unfavorable public opinion, you run a good chance of +losing every penny you put into Rearden Metal. On the other hand, we can +relieve you of the risk and the responsibility, at an impressive profit, an +immediate profit, much larger than you could hope to realize from the sale of +the metal for the next twenty years." +"The State Science Institute is a scientific establishment, not a +commercial one," said Rearden. "What is it that they're so afraid of?" +"You are using ugly, unnecessary words, Mr. Rearden. I am endeavoring to +suggest that we keep the discussion on a friendly plane. The matter is +serious." +"I am beginning to see that." +"We are offering you a blank check on what is, as you realize, an +unlimited account. What else can you want? Name your price." +"The sale of the rights to Rearden Metal is not open to discussion. +If you have anything else to say, please say it and leave." +The man leaned back, looked at Rearden incredulously and asked, "What are +you after?" +"I? What do you mean?" +"You're in business to make money, aren't you?" +"I am." +"You want to make as big a profit as possible, don't you?" +"I do." +"Then why do you want to struggle for years, squeezing out your gains in +the form of pennies per ton—rather than accept a fortune for Rearden Metal? +Why?" +"Because it's mine. Do you understand the word?" +The man sighed and rose to his feet. "I hope you will not have cause to +regret your decision, Mr. Rearden," he said; the tone of his voice was +suggesting the opposite. +"Good day," said Rearden. + + "I think I must tell you that the State Science Institute may issue an +official statement condemning Rearden Metal." +'That is their privilege." +"Such a statement would make things more difficult for you." +"Undoubtedly." +"As to further consequences . . ." The man shrugged. "This is not the day +for people who refuse to co-operate. In this age, one needs friends. You are +not a popular man, Mr. Rearden." +"What are you trying to say?" +"Surely, you understand." +"I don't." +"Society is a complex structure. There are so many different issues +awaiting decision, hanging by a thin thread. We can never tell when one such +issue may he decided and what may be the decisive factor in a delicate +balance. Do I make myself clear?" +"No." +The red flame of poured steel shot through the twilight. An orange glow, +the color of deep gold, hit the wall behind Rearden's desk. +The glow moved gently across his forehead. His face had an unmoving +serenity. +"The State Science Institute is a government organization, Mr. +Rearden. There are certain bills pending in the Legislature, which may be +passed at any moment. Businessmen are peculiarly vulnerable these days. I am +sure you understand me." +Rearden rose to his feet. He was smiling. He looked as if all tension had +left him. +"No, Dr. Potter," he said, "I don't understand. If I did, I'd have to kill +you." +The man walked to the door, then stopped and looked at Rearden in a way +which, for once, was simple human curiosity. Rearden stood motionless against +the moving glow on the wall; he stood casually, his hands in his pockets. +"Would you tell me," the man asked, "just between us, it's only my +personal curiosity—why are you doing this?" +Rearden answered quietly, "I'll tell you. You won't understand. You see, +it's because Rearden Metal is good." +Dagny could not understand Mr. Mowen's motive. The Amalgamated Switch and +Signal Company had suddenly given notice that they would not complete her +order. Nothing had happened, she could find no cause for it and they would +give no explanation. +She had hurried to Connecticut, to see Mr. Mowen in person, but the sole +result of the interview was a heavier, grayer weight of bewilderment in her +mind. Mr. Mowen stated that he would not continue to make switches of Rearden +Metal. For sole explanation, he said, avoiding her eyes, "Too many people +don't like it." +"What? Rearden Metal or your making the switches?" +"Both, I guess . . . People don't like it . . . I don't want any trouble." +"What kind of trouble?" +"Any kind." +"Have you heard a single thing against Rearden Metal that's true?" +"Aw, who knows what's true? . . . That resolution of the National Council +of Metal Industries said—" +"Look, you've worked with metals all your life. For the last four months, +you've worked with Rearden Metal. Don't you know that it's the greatest thing +you've ever handled?" He did not answer. "Don't you know it?" He looked away. +"Don't you know what's true?" +"Hell, Miss Taggart, I'm in business, I'm only a little guy. I just want +to make money." + + "How do you think one makes it?" +But she knew that it was useless. Looking at Mr. Mowen's face, at the eyes +which she could not catch, she felt as she had felt once on a lonely section +of track, when a storm blew down the telephone wires: that communications +were cut and that words had become sounds which transmitted nothing. +It was useless to argue, she thought, and to wonder about people who would +neither refute an argument nor accept it. Sitting restlessly in the train, on +her way back to New York, she told herself that Mr. +Mowen did not matter, that nothing mattered now, except finding somebody +else to manufacture the switches. She was wrestling with a list of names in +her mind, wondering who would be easiest to convince, to beg or to bribe. +She knew, the moment she entered the anteroom of her office, that +something had happened. She saw the unnatural stillness, with the faces of +her staff turned to her as if her entrance were the moment they had all +waited for, hoped for and dreaded. +Eddie Willers rose to his feet and started toward the door of her office, +as if knowing that she would understand and follow. She had seen his face. No +matter what it was, she thought, she wished it had not hurt him quite so +badly. +"The State Science Institute," he said quietly, when they were alone in +her office, "has issued a statement warning people against the use of Rearden +Metal." He added, "It was on the radio. It's in the afternoon papers." +"What did they say?" +"Dagny, they didn't say it! . . . They haven't really said it, yet it's +there—and it isn't. That's what's monstrous about it." +His effort was focused on keeping his voice quiet; he could not control +his words. The words were forced out of him by the unbelieving. +bewildered indignation of a child screaming in denial at his first +encounter with evil. +"What did they say, Eddie?" +"They . . . You'd have to read it." He pointed to the newspaper he had +left on her desk. "They haven't said that Rearden Metal is bad. +They haven't said that it's unsafe. What they've done is . . ." His hands +spread and dropped in a gesture of futility. +She saw at a glance what they had done. She saw the sentences: "It may be +possible that after a period of heavy usage, a sudden fissure may appear, +though the length of this period cannot be predicted. . . . The possibility +of a molecular reaction, at present unknown, cannot be entirely discounted. . +. . Although the tensile strength of the metal is obviously demonstrable, +certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to +be ruled out. +. . . Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use +of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be +of value." +"We can't fight it. It can't be answered," Eddie was saying slowly. +"We can't demand a retraction. We can't show them our tests or prove +anything. They've said nothing. They haven't said a thing that could be +refuted and embarrass them professionally. It's the job of a coward. +You'd expect it from some con-man or blackmailer. But, Dagny! It's the +State Science Institute!" +She nodded silently. She stood, her eyes fixed on some point beyond the +window. At the end of a dark street, the bulbs of an electric sign kept going +on and off, as if winking at her maliciously. +Eddie gathered his strength and said in the tone of a military report, +"Taggart stock has crashed. Ben Nealy quit. The National Brotherhood of Road +and Track Workers has forbidden its members to work on the Rio Norte Line. +Jim has left town." + + She took her hat and coat off, walked across the room and slowly, very +deliberately sat down at her desk. +She noticed a large brown envelope lying before her; it bore the +letterhead of Rearden Steel. +"That came by special messenger, right after you left," said Eddie. +She put her hand on the envelope, but did not open it. She knew what it +was: the drawings of the bridge. +After a while, she asked, "Who issued that statement?" +Eddie glanced at her and smiled briefly, bitterly, shaking his head. +"No," he said. "I thought of that, too. I called the Institute long +distance and asked them. No, it was issued by the office of Dr. Floyd Ferris, +their co-ordinator." +She said nothing. +"But still! Dr. Stadler is the head of that Institute. He is the +Institute. He must have known about it. He permitted it. If it's done, it's +done in his name . . . Dr. Robert Stadler . . . Do you remember . . . when we +were in college . . . how we used to talk about the great names in the world +. . . the men of pure intellect . . . and we always chose his name as one of +them, and—" He stopped. "I'm sorry, Dagny. I know it's no use saying +anything. Only—" +She sat, her hand pressed to the brown envelope. +"Dagny," he asked, his voice low, "what is happening to people? +Why did that statement succeed? It's such an obvious smear-job, so obvious +and so rotten. You'd think a decent person would throw it in the gutter. How +could"—his voice was breaking in gentle, desperate, rebellious anger—"how +could they accept it? Didn't they read it? +Didn't they see? Don't they think? Dagny! What is it in people that lets +them do this—and how can we live with it?" +"Quiet, Eddie," she said, "quiet. Don't be afraid." +The building of the State Science Institute stood over a river of New +Hampshire, on a lonely hillside, halfway between the river and the sky. From +a distance, it looked like a solitary monument in a virgin forest. The trees +were carefully planted, the roads were laid out as a park, the roof tops of a +small town could be seen in a valley some miles away. But nothing had been +allowed to come too close and detract from the building's austerity. +The white marble of the walls gave it a classical grandeur; the +composition of its rectangular masses gave it the cleanliness and beauty of a +modern plant. It was an inspired structure. From across the river, people +looked at it with reverence and thought of it as a monument to a living man +whose character had the nobility of the building's lines. +Over the entrance, a dedication was cut into the marble: "To the fearless +mind. To the inviolate truth." In a quiet aisle, in a bare corridor, a small +brass plate, such as dozens of other name plates on other doors, said: Dr. +Robert Stadler. +At the age of twenty-seven, Dr. Robert Stadler had written a treatise on +cosmic rays, which demolished most of the theories held by the scientists who +preceded him. Those who followed, found his achievement somewhere at the base +of any line of inquiry they undertook. +At the age of thirty, he was recognized as the greatest physicist of his +time. At thirty-two, he became head of the Department of Physics of the +Patrick Henry University, in the days when the great University still +deserved its glory. It was of Dr. Robert Stadler that a writer had said: +"Perhaps, among the phenomena of the universe which he is studying, none is +so miraculous as the brain of Dr. Robert Stadler himself." It was Dr. Robert +Stadler who had once corrected a student: "Free scientific inquiry? The first +adjective is redundant." + + At the age of forty, Dr. Robert Stadler addressed the nation, endorsing +the establishment of a State Science Institute. "Set science free of the rule +of the dollar," he pleaded. The issue had hung in the balance; an obscure +group of scientists had quietly forced a bill through its long way to the +floor of the Legislature; there had been some public hesitation about the +bill, some doubt, an uneasiness no one could define. The name of Dr. Robert +Stadler acted upon the country like the cosmic rays he studied: it pierced +any barrier. The nation built the white marble edifice as a personal present +to one of its greatest men. +Dr. Stadler's office at the Institute was a small room that looked like +the office of the bookkeeper of an unsuccessful firm. There was n cheap desk +of ugly yellow oak, a filing cabinet, two chairs, and a blackboard chalked +with mathematical formulas. Sitting on one of the chairs against a blank +wall, Dagny thought that the office had an air of ostentation and elegance, +together: ostentation, because it seemed intended to suggest that the owner +was great enough to permit himself such a setting; elegance, because he truly +needed nothing else. +She had met Dr. Stadler on a few occasions, at banquets given by leading +businessmen or great engineering societies, in honor of some solemn cause or +another. She had attended the occasions as reluctantly as he did, and had +found that he liked to talk to her. "Miss Taggart," +he had said to her once, "I never expect to encounter intelligence. +That I should find it here is such an astonishing relief!" She had come to +his office, remembering that sentence. She sat, watching him in the manner of +a scientist: assuming nothing, discarding emotion, seeking only to observe +and to understand. +"Miss Taggart," he said gaily, "I'm curious about you, I'm curious +whenever anything upsets a precedent. As a rule, visitors are a painful duty +to me. I'm frankly astonished that I should feel such a simple pleasure in +seeing you here. Do you know what it's like to feel suddenly that one can +talk without the strain of trying to force some sort of understanding out of +a vacuum?" +He sat on the edge of his desk, his manner gaily informal. He was not +tall, and his slenderness gave him an air of youthful energy, almost of +boyish zest. His thin face was ageless; it was a homely face, but the great +forehead and the large gray eyes held such an arresting intelligence that one +could notice nothing else. There were wrinkles of humor in the corners of the +eyes, and faint lines of bitterness in the corners of the mouth. He did not +look like a man in his early fifties; the slightly graying hair was his only +sign of age. +"Tell me more about yourself," he said. "I always meant to ask you what +you're doing in such an unlikely career as heavy industry and how you can +stand those people." +"I cannot take too much of your time, Dr. Stadler." She spoke with polite, +impersonal precision. "And the matter I came to discuss is extremely +important." +He laughed. "There's a sign of the businessman—wanting to come to the +point at once. Well, by all means. But don't worry about my time—it's yours. +Now, what was it you said you wanted to discuss? +Oh yes. Rearden Metal. Not exactly one of the subjects on which I'm best +informed, but if there's anything I can do for you—" His hand moved in a +gesture of invitation. +"Do you know the statement issued by this Institute in regard to Rearden +Metal?" +He frowned slightly. "Yes, I've heard about it." +"Have you read it?" +"No." + + "It was intended to prevent the use of Rearden Metal." +"Yes, yes, I gathered that much.” +"Could you tell me why?" +He spread his hands; they were attractive hands—long and bony, beautiful +in their suggestion of nervous energy and strength. "I really wouldn't know. +That is the province of Dr. Ferris. I'm sure he had his reasons. Would you +like to speak to Dr. Ferris?" +"No. Are you familiar with the metallurgical nature of Rearden Metal, Dr. +Stadler?" +"Why, yes, a little. But tell me, why are you concerned about it?" +A flicker of astonishment rose and died in her eyes; she answered without +change in the impersonal tone of her voice, "I am building a branch line with +rails of Rearden Metal, which—" +"Oh, but of course! I did hear something about it. You must forgive me, I +don't read the newspapers as regularly as I should. It's your railroad that's +building that new branch, isn't it?" +"The existence of my railroad depends upon the completion of that branch— +and, I think," eventually, the existence of this country will depend on it as +well." +The wrinkles of amusement deepened about his eyes. "Can you make such a +statement with positive assurance, Miss Taggart? I couldn't." +"In this case?" +"In any case. Nobody can tell what the course of a country's future may +be. It is not a matter of calculable trends, but a chaos subject to the rule +of the moment, in which anything is possible." +"Do you think that production is necessary to the existence of a country, +Dr. Stadler?" +"Why, yes, yes, of course." +"The building of our branch line has been stopped by the statement of this +Institute." +He did not smile and he did not answer. +"Does that statement represent your conclusion about the nature of Rearden +Metal?" she asked. +"I have said that I have not read it." There was an edge of sharpness in +his voice. +She opened her bag, took out a newspaper clipping and extended it to him. +"Would you read it and tell me whether this is a language which science may +properly speak?" +He glanced through the clipping, smiled contemptuously and tossed it aside +with a gesture of distaste. "Disgusting, isn't it?" he said. "But what can +you do when you deal with people?" +She looked at him, not understanding. "You do not approve of that +statement?" +He shrugged. "My approval or disapproval would be irrelevant." +"Have you formed a conclusion of your own about Rearden Metal?" +"Well, metallurgy is not exactly—what shall we say?—my specialty." +"Have you examined any data on Rearden Metal?" +"Miss Taggart, I don't see the point of your questions." His voice sounded +faintly impatient. +"I would like to know your personal verdict on Rearden Metal," +"For what purpose?" +"So that I may give it to the press." +He got up. "That is quite impossible." +She said, her voice strained with the effort of trying to force +understanding, "I will submit to you all the information necessary to form a +conclusive judgment." +"I cannot issue any public statements about it." + + "Why not?" +"The situation is much too complex to explain in a casual discussion." +"But if you should find that Rearden Metal is, in fact, an extremely +valuable product which—" +"That is beside the point." +"The value of Rearden Metal is beside the point?" +"There are other issues involved, besides questions of fact." +She asked, not quite believing that she had heard him right, "What other +issues is science concerned with, besides questions of fact?" +The bitter lines of his mouth sharpened into the suggestion of a smile. +"Miss Taggart, you do not understand the problems of scientists." +She said slowly, as if she were seeing it suddenly in time with her words, +"I believe that you do know what Rearden Metal really is." +He shrugged. "Yes. I know. From such information as I've seen, it appears +to be a remarkable thing. Quite a brilliant achievement—as far as technology +is concerned." He was pacing impatiently across the office. "In fact, I +should like, some day, to order a special laboratory motor that would stand +just such high temperatures as Rearden Metal can take. It would be very +valuable in connection with certain phenomena I should like to observe. I +have found that when particles are accelerated to a speed approaching the +speed of light, they—" +"Dr. Stadler," she asked slowly, "you know the truth, yet you will not +state it publicly?" +"Miss Taggart, you are using an abstract term, when we are dealing with a +matter of practical reality." +"We are dealing with a matter of science." +"Science? Aren't you confusing the standards involved? It is only in the +realm of pure science that truth is an absolute criterion. When we deal with +applied science, with technology—we deal with people. +And when we deal with people, considerations other than truth enter the +question." +"What considerations?" +"I am not a technologist, Miss Taggart. I have no talent or taste for +dealing with people. I cannot become involved in so-called practical +matters." +"That statement was issued in your name." +"I had nothing to do with it!" +"The name of this Institute is your responsibility." +"That's a perfectly unwarranted assumption." +"People think that the honor of your name is the guarantee behind any +action of this Institute." +"I can't help what people think—if they think at all!" +"They accepted your statement. It was a lie." +"How can one deal in truth when one deals with the public?" +"I don't understand you," she said very quietly. +"Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. No principles have +ever had any effect on society." +"What, then, directs men's actions?" +He shrugged. "The expediency of the moment," +"Dr. Stadler," she said, "I think I must tell you the meaning and the +consequences of the fact that the construction of my branch line is being +stopped. I am stopped, in the name of public safety, because I am using the +best rail ever produced. In six months, if I do not complete that line, the +best industrial section of the country will be left without transportation. +It will be destroyed, because it was the best and there were men who thought +it expedient to seize a share of its wealth." + + "Well, that may be vicious, unjust, calamitous—but such is life in +society. Somebody is always sacrificed, as a rule unjustly; there is no other +way to live among men. What can any one person do?" +"You can state the truth about Rearden Metal." +He did not answer. +"I could beg you to do it in order to save me. I could beg you to do it in +order to avert a national disaster. But I won't. These may not be valid +reasons. There is only one reason; you must say it, because it is true." +"I was not consulted about that statement!" The cry broke out +involuntarily. "I wouldn't have allowed it! I don't like it any better than +you do! But I can't issue a public denial!" +"You were not consulted? Then shouldn't you want to find out the reasons +behind that statement?" +"I can't destroy the Institute now!" +"Shouldn't you want to find out the reasons?" +"I know the reasons! They won't tell me, but I know. And I can't say that +I blame them, either." +"Would you tell me?" +"I'll tell you, if you wish. It's the truth that you want, isn't it? +Dr. Ferris cannot help it, if the morons who vote the funds for this +Institute insist on what they call results. They are incapable of conceiving +of such a thing as abstract science. They can judge it only in terms of the +latest gadget it has produced for them. I do not know how Dr. Ferris has +managed to keep this Institute in existence, I can only marvel at his +practical ability. I don't believe he ever was a first-rate scientist—but +what a priceless valet of science! I know that he has been facing a grave +problem lately. He's kept me out of it, he spares me all that, but I do hear +rumors. People have been criticizing the Institute, because, they say, we +have not produced enough. The public has been demanding economy. In times +like these, when their fat little comforts are threatened, you may be sure +that science is the first thing men will sacrifice. This is the only +establishment left. There are practically no private research foundations any +longer. Look at the greedy ruffians who run our industries. You cannot expect +them to support science." +"Who is supporting you now?" she asked, her voice low. +He shrugged. "Society." +She said, with effort, "You were going to tell me the reasons behind that +statement." +"I wouldn't think you'd find them hard to deduce. If you consider that for +thirteen years this Institute has had a department of metallurgical research, +which has cost over twenty million dollars and has produced nothing but a new +silver polish and a new anti-corrosive preparation, which, I believe, is not +so good as the old ones—you can imagine what the public reaction will be if +some private individual comes out with a product that revolutionizes the +entire science of metallurgy and proves to be sensationally successful!" +Her head dropped. She said nothing. +"I don't blame our metallurgical department!" he said angrily. "I know +that results of this kind are not a matter of any predictable time. +But the public won't understand it. What, then, should we sacrifice? An +excellent piece of smelting—or the last center of science left on earth, and +the whole future of human knowledge? That is the alternative." +She sat, her head down. After a while, she said, "AH right, Dr. Stadler. I +won't argue." +He saw her groping for her bag, as if she were trying to remember the +automatic motions necessary to get up. +"Miss Taggart," he said quietly. It was almost a plea. She looked up. +Her face was composed and empty. + + He came closer; he leaned with one hand against the wall above her head, +almost as if he wished to hold her in the circle of his arm. +"Miss Taggart," he said, a tone of gentle, bitter persuasiveness in his +voice, "I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on +earth, Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a +rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal +with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into +letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We +cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal +of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, selfindulgent, predatory dollar-chasers who—" +"I am one of the dollar-chasers, Dr. Stadler," she said, her voice low. +"You are an unusual, brilliant child who has not seen enough of life to +grasp the full measure of human stupidity. I've fought it all my life. +I'm very tired. . . ." The sincerity of his voice was genuine. He walked +slowly away from her. "There was a time when I looked at the tragic mess +they've made of this earth, and I wanted to cry out, to beg them to listen—I +could teach them to live so much better than they did—but there was nobody to +hear me, they had nothing to hear me with. . . . +Intelligence? It is such a rare, precarious spark that flashes for a +moment somewhere among men, and vanishes. One cannot tell its nature, or its +future . . . or its death. . . ." +She made a movement to rise. +"Don't go, Miss Taggart. I'd like you to understand." +She raised her face to him, in obedient indifference. Her face was not +pale, but its planes stood out with strangely naked precision, as if its skin +had lost the shadings of color. +"You're young," he said. "At your age, I had the same faith in the +unlimited power of reason. The same brilliant vision of man as a rational +being. I have seen so much, since. I have been disillusioned so often. . . . +I'd like to tell you just one story." +He stood at the window of his office. It had grown dark outside. The +darkness seemed to rise from the black cut of the river, far below. A few +lights trembled in the water, from among the hills of the other shore. The +sky was still the intense blue of evening. A lonely star, low over the earth, +seemed unnaturally large and made the sky look darker. +"When I was at the Patrick Henry University," he said, "I had three +pupils. I have had many bright students in the past, but these three werethe kind of reward a teacher prays for. If ever you could wish to receive the +gift of the human mind at its best, young and delivered into your hands for +guidance, they were this gift. Theirs was the kind of intelligence one +expects to see, in the future, changing the course of the world. They came +from very different backgrounds, but they were inseparable friends. They made +a strange choice of studies. They majored in two subjects—mine and Hugh +Akston's. Physics and philosophy. It is not a combination of interests one +encounters nowadays. Hugh Akston was a distinguished man, a great mind . . . +unlike the incredible creature whom that University has now put in his place. +. . . Akston and I were a little jealous of each other over these three +students. It was a kind of contest between us, a friendly contest, because we +understood each other, I heard Akston saying one day that he regarded them as +his sons. I resented it a little . . . because I thought of them as mine. . . +." +He turned and looked at her. The bitter lines of age were visible now, +cutting across his cheeks. He said, "When I endorsed the establishment of +this Institute, one of these three damned me. I have not seen him since. It +used to disturb me, in the first few years. I wondered, once in a while, +whether he had been right. . . . It has ceased to disturb me, long ago." + + He smiled. There was nothing but bitterness now, in his smile and his +face. +'These three men, these three who held all the hope which the gift of +intelligence ever proffered, these three from whom we expected such a +magnificent future—one of them was Francisco d'Anconia, who became a depraved +playboy. Another was Ragnar Danneskjold, who became a plain bandit. So much +for the promise of the human mind." +"Who was the third one?" she asked, He shrugged. "The third one did not +achieve even that sort of notorious distinction. He vanished without a trace— +into the great unknown of mediocrity. He is probably a second assistant +bookkeeper somewhere." +"It's a lie! I didn't run away!" cried James Taggart. "I came here because +I happened to be sick. Ask Dr. Wilson. It's a form of flu. +He'll prove it. And how did you know that I was here?" +Dagny stood in the middle of the room; there were melting snowflakes on +her coat collar, on the brim of her hat. She glanced around, feeling an +emotion that would have been sadness, had she had time to acknowledge it. +It was a room in the house of the old Taggart estate on the Hudson. +Jim had inherited the place, but he seldom came here. In their childhood, +this had been their father's study. Now it had the desolate air of a room +which is used, yet uninhabited. There were slipcovers on all but two chairs, +a cold fireplace and the dismal warmth of an electric heater with a cord +twisting across the floor, a desk, its glass surface empty. +Jim lay on the couch, with a towel wrapped for a scarf around his neck. +She saw a stale, filled ashtray on a chair beside him, a bottle of whisky, a +wilted paper cup, and two-day-old newspapers scattered about the floor. A +portrait of their grandfather hung over the fireplace, full figure, with a +railroad bridge in the fading background. +"I have no time for arguments, Jim." +"It was your idea! I hope you'll admit to the Board that it was your idea. +That's what your goddamn Rearden Metal has done to us! If we had waited for +Orren Boyle . . ." His unshaved face was pulled by a twisted scramble of +emotions: panic, hatred, a touch of triumph, the relief of screaming at a +victim—and the faint, cautious, begging look that sees a hope of help. +He had stopped tentatively, but she did not answer. She stood watching +him, her hands in the pockets of her coat. +"There's nothing we can do now!" he moaned. "I tried to call Washington, +to get them to seize the Phoenix-Durango and turn it over to us, on the +ground of emergency, but they won't even discuss it! Too many people +objecting, they say, afraid of some fool precedent or another! . . . I got +the National Alliance of Railroads to suspend the deadline and permit Dan +Conway to operate his road for another year —that would have given us time— +but he's refused to do it! I tried to get Ellis Wyatt and his bunch of +friends in Colorado to demand that Washington order Conway to continue +operations—but all of them, Wyatt and all the rest of those bastards, +refused! It's their skin, worse than ours, they're sure to go down the drain— +but they've refused!" +She smiled briefly, but made no comment. +"Now there's nothing left for us to do! We're caught. We can't give up +that branch and we can't complete it. We can't stop or go on. We have no +money. Nobody will touch us with a ten-foot pole! What have we got left +without the Rio Norte Line? But we can't finish it. We'd be boycotted. We'd +be blacklisted. That union of track workers would sue us. They would, there's +a law about it. We can't complete that Line! Christ! What are we going to +do?" +She waited. "Through, Jim?" she asked coldly. "If you are, I’ll tell you +what we're going to do." + + He kept silent, looking up at her from under his heavy eyelids. +"This is not a proposal, Jim. It's an ultimatum. Just listen and accept. I +am going to complete the construction of the Rio Norte Line. +I personally, not Taggart Transcontinental. I will take a leave of absence +from the job of Vice-President. I will form a company in my own name. Your +Board will turn the Rio None Line over to me. I will act as my own +contractor. I will get my own financing. I will take full charge and sole +responsibility. I will complete the Line on time. After you have seen how the +Rearden Metal rails can take it, I will transfer the Line back to Taggart +Transcontinental and I'll return to my job. That is all," +He was looking at her silently, dangling a bedroom slipper on the tip of +his foot. She had never supposed that hope could look ugly in a man's face, +but it did: it was mixed with cunning. She turned her eyes away from him, +wondering how it was possible that a man's first thought in such a moment +could be a search for something to put over on her. +Then, preposterously, the first thing he said, his voice anxious, was, +"But who will run Taggart Transcontinental in the meantime?" +She chuckled; the sound astonished her, it seemed old in its bitterness. +She said, "Eddie Willers." +"Oh no! He couldn't!" +She laughed, in the same brusque, mirthless way. "I thought you were +smarter than I about things of this kind. Eddie will assume the title of +Acting Vice-President. He will occupy my office and sit at my desk. +But who do you suppose will run Taggart Transcontinental?" +"But I don't see how—" +"I will commute by plane between Eddie's office and Colorado. Also, there +are long-distance phones available. I will do just what I have been doing. +Nothing will change, except the kind of show you will put on for your friends +. . . and the fact that it will be a little harder for me." +"What show?" +"You understand me, Jim. I have no idea what sort of games you're tangled +in, you and your Board of Directors. I don't know how many ends you're all +playing against the middle and against one another, or how many pretenses you +have to keep up in how many opposite directions. I don't know or care. You +can all hide behind me. +If you're all afraid, because you've made deals with friends who're +threatened by Rearden Metal—well, here's your chance to go through the +motions of assuring them that you're not involved, that you're not doing +this—I am. You can help them to curse me and denounce me. +You can all stay home, take no risks and make no enemies. Just keep out of +my way." +"Well . . ." he said slowly, "of course, the problems involved in the +policy of a great railroad system are complex . . . while a small, +independent company, in the name of one person, could afford to—" +"Yes, Jim, yes, I know all that. The moment you announce that you're +turning the Rio Norte Line over to me, the Taggart stock will rise. The +bedbugs will stop crawling from out of unlikely corners, since they won't +have the incentive of a big company to bite. Before they decide what to do +about me, I will have the Line finished. And as for me, I don't want to have +you and your Board to account to, to argue with, to beg permissions from. +There isn't any time for that, if I am to do the kind of job that has to be +done. So I'm going to do it alone." +"And . . . if you fail?" +"If I fail, I'll go down alone." +"You understand that in such case Taggart Transcontinental wilt not be +able to help you in any way?" +“I understand.” + + "You will not count on us?" +"No." +"You will cut all official connection with us, so that your activities +will not reflect upon our reputation?" +"Yes." +"I think we should agree that in case of failure or public scandal . . . +your leave of absence will become permanent . . . that is, you will not +expect to return to the post of Vice-President." +She closed her eyes for a moment. "All right, Jim. In such case, I will +not return." +"Before we transfer the Rio Norte Line to you, we must have a written +agreement that you will transfer it back to us, along with your controlling +interest at cost, in case the Line becomes successful. Otherwise you might +try to squeeze us for a windfall profit, since we need that Line." +There was only a brief stab of shock in her eyes, then she said +indifferently, the words sounding as if she were tossing alms, "By all means, +Jim. Have that stated in writing." +"Now as to your temporary successor . . ." +"Yes?" +"You don't really want it to be Eddie Willers, do you?" +"Yes. I do." +"But he couldn't even act like a vice-president! He doesn't have the +presence, the manner, the—" +"He knows his work and mine. He knows what I want. I trust him. +I'll be able to work with him." +"Don't you think it would be better to pick one of our more distinguished +young men, somebody from a good family, with more social poise and—" +"It's going to be Eddie Willers, Jim." +He sighed. "All right. Only . . . only we must be careful about it. +. . . We don't want people to suspect that it's you who're still running +Taggart Transcontinental. Nobody must know it." +"Everybody will know it, Jim. But since nobody will admit it openly, +everybody will be satisfied." +"But we must preserve appearances." +"Oh, certainly! You don't have to recognize me on the street, if you don't +want to. You can say you've never seen me before and I'll say I've never +heard of Taggart Transcontinental." +He remained silent, trying to think, staring down at the floor. +She turned to look at the grounds beyond the window. The sky had the even, +gray-white pallor of winter. Far below, on the shore of the Hudson, she saw +the road she used to watch for Francisco's car— +she saw the cliff over the river, where they climbed to look for the +towers of New York—and somewhere beyond the woods were the trails that led to +Rockdale Station. The earth was snow-covered now, and what remained was like +the skeleton of the countryside she remembered—a thin design of bare branches +rising from the snow to the sky. +It was gray and white, like a photograph, a dead photograph which one +keeps hopefully for remembrance, but which has no power to bring back +anything. +"What are you going to call it?" +She turned, startled. "What?" +"What are you going to call your company?" +"Oh . . . Why, the Dagny Taggart Line, I guess." +"But . . . Do you think that's wise? It might be misunderstood. +The Taggart might be taken as—" +"Well, what do you want me to call it?" she snapped, worn down to anger. +"The Miss Nobody? The Madam X? The John Galt?" She stopped. She smiled + + suddenly, a cold, bright, dangerous smile. 'That's what I'm going to call it: +the John Galt Line." +"Good God, no!" +"Yes." +"But it's . . . if s just a cheap piece of slang!" +"You can't make a joke out of such a serious project! . . . You can't be +so vulgar and . . . and undignified!" +"Can't I?" +"But for God's sake, why?” +"Because it's going to shock all the rest of them just as it shocked you." +"I've never seen you playing for effects." +"I am, this time." +"But . . ." His voice dropped to an almost superstitious sound: "Look, +Dagny, you know, it's . . . it's bad luck. . . . What it stands for is . . ." +He stopped. +"What does it stand for?" +"I don't know . . . But the way people use it, they always seem to say it +out of—" +"Fear? Despair? Futility?" +"Yes . . . yes, that's what it is." +"That's what I want to throw in their faces!" +The bright, sparkling anger in her eyes, her first look of enjoyment, made +him understand that he had to keep still. +"Draw up all the papers and all the red tape in the name of the John Galt +Line," she said. +He sighed. "Well, it's your Line." +"You bet it is!" +He glanced at her, astonished. She had dropped the manners and style of a +vice-president; she seemed to be relaxing happily to the level of yard crews +and construction gangs. +"As to the papers and the legal side of it," he said, "there might be some +difficulties. We would have to apply for the permission of—" +She whirled to face him. Something of the bright, violent look still +remained in her face. But it was not gay and she was not smiling. The look +now had an odd, primitive quality. When he saw it, he hoped he would never +have to see it again. +"Listen, Jim," she said; he had never heard that tone in any human voice. +"There is one thing you can do as your part of the deal and you'd better do +it: keep your Washington boys off. See to it that they give me all the +permissions, authorizations, charters and other waste paper that their laws +require. Don't let them try to stop me. If they try . . . Jim, people say +that our ancestor, Nat Taggart, killed a politician who tried to refuse him a +permission he should never have had to ask. I don't know whether Nat Taggart +did it or not. But I'll tell you this: I know how he felt, if he did. If he +didn't—I might do the job for him, to complete the family legend. I mean it, +Jim." +Francisco d'Anconia sat in front of her desk. His face was blank. It had +remained blank while Dagny explained to him, in the clear, impersonal tone of +a business interview, the formation and purpose of her own railroad company. +He had listened. He had not pronounced a word. +She had never seen his face wear that look of drained passivity. +There was no mockery, no amusement, no antagonism; it was as if he did not +belong in these particular moments of existence and could not be reached. Yet +his eyes looked at her attentively; they seemed to see more than she could +suspect; they made her think of one-way glass: they let all light rays in, +but none out. + + "Francisco, I asked you to come here, because I wanted you to see me in my +office. You've never seen it. It would have meant something to you, once." +His eyes moved slowly to look at the office. Its walls were bare, except +for three things: a map of Taggart Transcontinental—the original drawing of +Nat Taggart, that had served as model for his statue —and a large railroad +calendar, in cheerfully crude colors, the kind that was distributed each +year, with a change of its picture, to every station along the Taggart track, +the kind that had hung once in her first work place at Rockdale. +He got up. He said quietly, "Dagny, for your own sake, and"—it was a +barely perceptible hesitation—"and in the name of any pity you might feel for +me, don't request what you're going to request. +Don't. Let me go now." +This was not like him and like nothing she could ever have expected to +hear from him. After a moment, she asked, "Why?" +"I can't answer you. I can't answer any questions. That is one of the +reasons why it's best not to discuss it." +"You know what I am going to request?" +"Yes." The way she looked at him was such an eloquent, desperate question, +that he had to add, "I know that I am going to refuse." +"Why?" +He smiled mirthlessly, spreading his hands out, as if to show her that +this was what he had predicted and had wanted to avoid. +She said quietly, "I have to try, Francisco. I have to make the request. +That's my part. What you'll do about it is yours. But I'll know that I've +tried everything." +He remained standing, but he inclined his head a little, in assent, and +said, "I will listen, if that will help you." +"I need fifteen million dollars to complete the Rio Norte Line, I have +obtained seven million against the Taggart stock I own free and clear. I can +raise nothing else. I will issue bonds in the name of my new company, in the +amount of eight million dollars. I called you here to ask you to buy these +bonds." +He did not answer. +"I am simply a beggar, Francisco, and I am begging you for money. +I had always thought that one did not beg in business. I thought that one +stood on the merit of what one had to offer, and gave value for value. This +is not so any more, though I don't understand how we can act on any other +rule and continue to exist. Judging by every objective fact, the Rio Norte +Line is to be the best railroad in the country. Judging by every known +standard, it is the best investment possible. And that is what damns me. I +cannot raise money by offering people a good business venture: the fact that +it's good, makes people reject it. There is no bank that would buy the bonds +of my company. +So I can't plead merit. I can only plead." +Her voice was pronouncing the words with impersonal precision. She +stopped, waiting for his answer. He remained silent. +"I know that I have nothing to offer you," she said. "I can't speak to you +in terms of investment. You don't care to make money. Industrial projects +have ceased to concern you long ago. So I won't pretend that it's a fair +exchange. It's just begging." She drew her breath and said, "Give me that +money as alms, because it means nothing to you." +"Don't," he said, his voice low. She could not tell whether the strange +sound of it was pain or anger; his eyes were lowered. +"Will you do it, Francisco?" +"No." +After a moment, she said, "I called you, not because I thought you would +agree, but because you were the only one who could understand what I am + + saying. So I had to try it." Her voice was dropping lower, as if she hoped it +would make emotion harder to detect. "You see, I can't believe that you're +really gone . . . because I know that you're still able to hear me. The way +you live is depraved. But the way you act is not. Even the way you speak of +it, is not. . . . I had to try . . . +But I can't struggle to understand you any longer." +"I'll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think +that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that +one of them is wrong." +"Francisco," she whispered, "why don't you tell me what it was that +happened to you?" +"Because, at this moment, the answer would hurt you more than the doubt." +"Is it as terrible as that?" +"It is an answer which you must reach by yourself." +She shook her head. "I don't know what to offer you. I don't know what is +of value to you any longer. Don't you see that even a beggar has to give +value in return, has to offer some reason why you might want to help him? . . +. Well, I thought . . . at one time, it meant a great deal to you—success. +Industrial success. Remember how we used to talk about it? You were very +severe. You expected a lot from me. +You told me I'd better live up to it. I have. You wondered how far I'd +rise with Taggart Transcontinental." She moved her hand, pointing at the +office. "This is how far I've risen. . . . So I thought . . . if the memory +of what had been your values still has some meaning for you, if only as +amusement, or a moment's sadness, or just like . . . like putting flowers on +a grave . . . you might want to give me the money . . . in the name of that." +"No." +She said, with effort, "That money would mean nothing to you—you've wasted +that much on senseless parties—you've wasted much more on the San Sebastian +Mines—" +He glanced up. He looked straight at her and she saw the first spark of a +living response in his eyes, a look that was bright, pitiless and, +incredibly, proud: as if this were an accusation that gave him strength. +"Oh, yes," she said slowly, as if answering his thought, "I realize that. +I've damned you for those mines, I've denounced you, I've thrown my contempt +at you in every way possible, and now I come back to you—for money. Like Jim, +like any moocher you've ever met. I know it's a triumph for you, I know that +you can laugh at me and despise me with full justice. Well—perhaps I can +offer you that. If it's amusement that you want, if you enjoyed seeing Jim +and the Mexican planners crawl—wouldn't it amuse you to break me? Wouldn't it +give you pleasure? Don't you want to hear me acknowledge that I'm beaten by +you? Don't you want to see me crawling before you? Tell me what form of it +you'd like and I'll submit." +He moved so swiftly that she could not notice how he started; it only +seemed to her that his first movement was a shudder. He came around the desk, +he took her hand and raised it to his lips. It began as a gesture of the +gravest respect, as if its purpose were to give her strength; but as he held +his lips, then his face, pressed to her hand, she knew that he was seeking +strength from it himself. +He dropped her hand, he looked down at her face, at the frightened +stillness of her eyes, he smiled, not trying to hide that his smile held +suffering, anger and tenderness. +"Dagny, you want to crawl? You don't know what the word means and never +will. One doesn't crawl by acknowledging it as honestly as that. Don't you +suppose I know that your begging me was the bravest thing you could do? But . +. . Don't ask me, Dagny." + + "In the name of anything I ever meant to you . . ." she whispered, +"anything left within you . . ." +In the moment when she thought that she had seen this look before, that +this was the way he had looked against the night glow of the city, when he +lay in bed by her side for the last time—she heard his cry, the kind of cry +she had never torn from him before: "My love, I can't!" +Then, as they looked at each other, both shocked into silence by +astonishment, she saw the change in his face. It was as crudely abrupt as if +he had thrown a switch. He laughed, he moved away from her and said, his +voice jarringly offensive by being completely casual: "Please excuse the +mixture in styles of expression. I've been supposed to say that to so many +women, but on somewhat different occasions." +Her head dropped, she sat huddled tight together, not caring that he saw +it. +When she raised her head, she looked at him indifferently. "All right, +Francisco. It was a good act. I did believe it. If that was your own way of +having the kind of fun I was offering you, you succeeded. +I won't ask you for anything." +"I warned you." +"I didn't know which side you belonged on. It didn't seem possible —but +it's the side of Orren Boyle and Bertram Scudder and your old teacher." +"My old teacher?" he asked sharply. +"Dr. Robert Stadler." +He chuckled, relieved. "Oh, that one? He's the looter who thinks that his +end justifies his seizure of my means." He added, "You know, Dagny, I'd like +you to remember which side you said I'm on. Some day, I'll remind you of it +and ask you whether you'll want to repeat it." +"You won't have to remind me." +He turned to go. He tossed his hand in a casual salute and said, "If it +could be built, I'd wish good luck to the Rio Norte Line." +"It's going to be built. And it's going to be called the John Galt Line." +"What?!" +It was an actual scream; she chuckled derisively. "The John Galt Line." +"Dagny, in heaven's name, why?" +"Don't you like it?" +"How did you happen to choose that?" +"It sounds better than Mr. Nemo or Mr. Zero, doesn't it?" +"Dagny, why that?" +"Because it frightens you." +"What do you think it stands for?" +"The impossible. The unattainable. And you're all afraid of my Line just +as you're afraid of that name." +He started laughing. He laughed, not looking at her, and she felt +strangely certain that he had forgotten her, that he was far away, that he +was laughing—in furious gaiety and bitterness—at something in which she had +no part. +When he turned to her, he said earnestly, "Dagny, I wouldn't, if I were +you." +She shrugged. "Jim didn't like it, either." +"What do you like about it?" +"I hate it! I hate the doom you're all waiting for, the giving up, and +that senseless question that always sounds like a cry for help. I'm sick of +hearing pleas for John Galt. I'm going to fight him." +He said quietly, "You are." +"I'm going to build a railroad line for him. Let him come and claim it!" +He smiled sadly and nodded: "He will." + + The glow of poured steel streamed across the ceiling and broke against one +wall. Rearden sat at his desk, in the light of a single lamp. Beyond its +circle, the darkness of the office blended with the darkness outside. He felt +as if it were empty space where the rays of the furnaces moved at will; as if +the desk were a raft hanging in mid-air, holding two persons imprisoned in +privacy. Dagny sat in front of his desk. +She had thrown her coat off, and she sat outlined against it, a slim, +tense body in a gray suit, leaning diagonally across the wide armchair. +Only her hand lay in the light, on the edge of the desk; beyond it, he saw +the pale suggestion of her face, the white of a blouse, the triangle of an +open collar. +"All right, Hank," she said, "we're going ahead with a new Rearden Metal +bridge. This is the official order of the official owner of the John Galt +Line." +He smiled, looking down at the drawings of the bridge spread in the light +on his desk. "Have you had a chance to examine the scheme we submitted?" +"Yes. You don't need my comments or compliments. The order says it." +"Very well. Thank you. I'll start rolling the Metal" +"Don't you want to ask whether the John Galt Line is in a position to +place orders or to function?" +"I don't need to. Your coming here says it," +She smiled. "True. It's all set, Hank. I came to tell you that and to +discuss the details of the bridge in person." +"All right, I am curious: who are the bondholders of the John Galt Line?" +"I don't think any of them could afford it. All of them have growing +enterprises. All of them needed their money for their own concerns. +But they needed the Line and they did not ask anyone for help." She took a +paper out of her bag. "Here's John Galt, Inc.," she said, handing it across +the desk. +He knew most of the names on the list: "Ellis.. Wyatt, Wyatt Oil, +Colorado. Ted Nielsen, Nielsen Motors, Colorado. Lawrence Hammond, Hammond +Cars, Colorado. Andrew Stockton, Stockton Foundry, Colorado." There were a +few from other states; he noticed the name: "Kenneth Danagger, Danagger Coal, +Pennsylvania." The amounts of their subscriptions varied, from sums in five +figures to six. +He reached for his fountain pen, wrote at the bottom of the list "Henry +Rearden, Rearden Steel, Pennsylvania—$1,000,000" and tossed the list back to +her. +"Hank," she said quietly, "I didn't want you- in on this. You've invested +so much in Rearden Metal that it's worse for you than for any of us. You +can't afford another risk." +"I never accept favors," he answered coldly. +"What do you mean?" +"I don't ask people to take greater chances on my ventures than I take +myself. If it's a gamble, I'll match anybody's gambling. Didn't you say that +that track was my first showcase?" +She inclined her head and said gravely, "All right. Thank you." +"Incidentally, I don't expect to lose this money. I am aware of the +conditions under which these bonds can be converted into stock at my option. +I therefore expect to make an inordinate profit—and you're going to earn it +for me." +She laughed. "God, Hank, I've spoken to so many yellow fools that they've +almost infected me into thinking of the Line as of a hopeless loss! Thanks +for reminding me. Yes, I think I'll earn your inordinate profit for you." +"If it weren't for the yellow fools, there wouldn't be any risk in it at +all. But we have to beat them. We will.” He reached for two telegrams from + + among the papers on his desk. "There are still a few men in existence." He +extended the telegrams. "I think you'd like to see these.” +One of them read: "I had intended to undertake it in two years, but the +statement of the State Science Institute compels me to proceed at once. +Consider this a commitment for the construction of a 12inch pipe line of +Rearden Metal, 600 miles, Colorado to Kansas City. +Details follow. Ellis Wyatt." +The other read: "Re our discussion of my order. Go ahead. Ken Danagger." +He added, in explanation, "He wasn't prepared to proceed at once, either. +It's eight thousand tons of Rearden Metal. Structural metal. +For coal mines." +They glanced at each other and smiled. They needed no further comment. +He glanced down, as she handed the telegrams back to him. The skin of her +hand looked transparent in the light, on the edge of his desk, a young girl's +hand with long, thin fingers, relaxed for a moment, defenseless. +"The Stockton Foundry in Colorado," she said, "is going to finish that +order for me—the one that the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company ran out +on. They're going to get in touch with you about the Metal." +"They have already. What have you done about the construction crews?" +"Nealy's engineers are staying on, the best ones, those I need. And most +of the foremen, too. It won't be too hard to keep them going. +Nealy wasn't of much use, anyway." +"What about labor?" +"More applicants than I can hire. I don't think the union is going to +interfere. Most of the applicants are giving phony names. They're union +members. They need the work desperately. I'll have a few guards on the Line, +but I don't expect any trouble." +"What about your brother Jim's Board of Directors?" +"They're all scrambling to get statements into the newspapers to the +effect that they have no connection whatever with the John Galt Line and how +reprehensible an undertaking they think it is. They agreed to everything I +asked." +The line of her shoulders looked taut, yet thrown back easily, as if +poised for flight. Tension seemed natural to her, not a sign of anxiety, but +a sign of enjoyment; the tension of her whole body, under the gray suit, +half-visible in the darkness, "Eddie Willers has taken over the office of +Operating Vice-President," +she said. "If you need anything, get in touch with him. I'm leaving for +Colorado tonight." +"Tonight?" +"Yes. We have to make up time. We've lost a week." +"Flying your own plane?" +"Yes. I’ll be back in about ten days, I intend to be in New York once or +twice a month." +"Where will you live out there?" +"On the site. In my own railway car—that is, Eddie's car, which I'm +borrowing." +"Will you be safe?" +"Safe from what?" Then she laughed, startled. "Why, Hank, it's the first +time you've ever thought that I wasn't a man. Of coarse I'll be safe." +He was not looking at her; he was looking at a sheet of figures on his +desk. "I've had my engineers prepare a breakdown of the cost of the bridge," +he said, "and an approximate schedule of the construction time required. That +is what I wanted to discuss with you." He extended the papers. She settled +back to read them. + + A wedge of light fell across her face. He saw the firm, sensual mouth in +sharp outline. Then she leaned back a little, and he saw only a suggestion of +its shape and the dark lines of her lowered lashes. +Haven't I?—he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw +you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? . . . He sat +motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself +to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to +destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as +sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her. . . . Since the first +time I saw you . . . Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way +your eyes would look at me, if . . . Through every sentence I ever said to +you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of +all the issues we discussed . . . You trusted me, didn't you? To recognize +your greatness? To think of you as you deserved—as if you were a man? +. . . Don't you suppose I know how much I've betrayed? The only bright +encounter of my life—the only person I respected—the best businessman I know— +my ally—my partner in a desperate battle . . . +The lowest of all desires—as my answer to the highest I've met . . . +Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been +unthinkable. For that degrading need, which should never touch you, I have +never wanted anyone but you . . . I hadn't known what it was like, to want +it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought: Not I, I couldn't be +broken by it . . . Since then . . . for two years . . . with not a moment's +respite . . . Do you know what it's like, to want it? Would you wish to hear +what I thought when I looked at you . . . when I lay awake at night . . . +when I heard your voice over a telephone wire . . . when I worked, but could +not drive it away? +. . . To bring you down to things you can't conceive—and to know that it's +I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's +pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your +wonderful spirit dependent upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as +you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength—then to see +you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act +which I'll perform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to +which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation . . . I want +you—and may I be damned for it! . . . +She was reading the papers, leaning back in the darkness—he saw the +reflection of the fire touching her hair, moving to her shoulder, down her +arm, to the naked skin of her wrist. +. . . Do you know what I'm thinking now, in this moment? . . . +Your gray suit and your open collar . . . you look so young, so austere, +so sure of yourself . . . What would you be like if I knocked your head back, +if I threw you down in that formal suit of yours, if I raised your skirt— +She glanced up at him. He looked down at the papers on his desk. +In a moment, he said, "The actual cost of the bridge is less than our +original estimate. You will note that the strength of the bridge allows for +the eventual addition of a second track, which, I think, that section of the +country will justify in a very few years. If you spread the cost over a +period of—" +He spoke, and she looked at his face in the lamplight, against the black +emptiness of the office. The lamp was outside her field of vision, and she +felt as if it were his face that illuminated the papers on the desk. His +face, she thought, and the cold, radiant clarity of his voice, of his mind, +of Ms drive to a single purpose. The face was like his words—as if the line +of a single theme ran from the steady glance of the eyes, through the gaunt +muscles of the cheeks, to the faintly scornful, downward curve of the mouth— +the line of a ruthless asceticism. + + The day began with the news of a disaster: a freight train of the Atlantic +Southern had crashed head-on into a passenger train, in New Mexico, on a +sharp curve in the mountains, scattering freight cars all over the slopes. +The cars carried five thousand tons of copper, bound from a mine in Arizona +to the Rearden mills, Rearden telephoned the general manager of the Atlantic +Southern, but the answer he received was: "Oh God, Mr. Rearden, how can we +tell? How can anybody tell how long it will take to clear that wreck? +One of the worst we've ever had . . . I don't know, Mr. Rearden. +There are no other lines anywhere in that section. The track is torn for +twelve hundred feet. There's been a rockslide. Our wrecking train can't get +through. I don't know how we'll ever get those freight cars back on rails, or +when. Can't expect it sooner than two weeks . . . +Three days? Impossible, Mr. Rearden! . . . But we can't help it! +. . . But surely you can tell your customers that it's an act of God! +What if you do hold them up? Nobody can blame you in a case of this kind!" +In the next two hours, with the assistance of his secretary, two young +engineers from his shipping department, a road map, and the long-distance +telephone, Rearden arranged for a fleet of trucks to proceed to the scene of +the wreck, and for a chain of hopper cars to meet them at the nearest station +of the Atlantic Southern. The hopper cars had been borrowed from Taggart +Transcontinental. The trucks had been recruited from all over New Mexico, +Arizona and Colorado. Rearden's engineers had hunted by telephone for private +truck owners and had offered payments that cut all arguments short. +It was the third of three shipments of copper that Rearden. had expected; +two orders had not been delivered: one company had gone out of business, the +other was still pleading delays that it could not help. +He had attended to the matter without breaking his chain of appointments, +without raising his voice, without sign of strain, uncertainty or +apprehension; he had acted with the swift precision of a military commander +under sudden fire—and Gwen Ives, his secretary, had acted as his calmest +lieutenant. She was a girl in her late twenties, whose quietly harmonious, +impenetrable face had a quality matching the best designed office equipment; +she was one of his most ruthlessly competent employees; her manner of +performing her duties suggested the kind of rational cleanliness that would +consider any element of emotion, while at work, as an unpardonable +immorality. +When the emergency was over, her sole comment was, "Mr. Rearden, I think +we should ask all our suppliers to ship via Taggart Transcontinental." "I'm +thinking that, too," he answered; then added, "Wire Fleming in Colorado. Tell +him I'm taking an option on that copper mine property." +He was back at his desk, speaking to his superintendent on one phone and +to his purchasing manager on another, checking every date and ton of ore on +hand—he could not leave to chance or to another person the possibility of a +single hour's delay in the flow of a furnace: it was the last of the rail for +the John Galt Line that was being poured—when the buzzer rang and Miss Ives' +voice announced that his mother was outside, demanding to see him. +He had asked his family never to come to the mills without appointment. He +had been glad that they hated the place and seldom appeared in his office. +What he now felt was a violent impulse to order his mother off the premises. +Instead, with a greater effort than the problem of the train wreck had +required of him, he said quietly, "All right. Ask her to come in." +His mother came in with an air of belligerent defensiveness. She looked at +his office as if she knew what it meant to him and as if she were declaring +her resentment against anything being of greater importance to him than her +own person. She took a long time settling down in an armchair, arranging and +rearranging her bag, her gloves, the folds of her dress, while droning, "It's + + a fine thing when a mother has to wait in an anteroom and ask permission of a +stenographer before she's allowed to see her own son who—" +"Mother, is it anything important? I am very rushed today." +"You're not the only one who's got problems. Of course, it's important. Do +you think I'd go to the trouble of driving way +out here, if it wasn't important?" +"What is it?" +"It's about Philip." +"Yes?" +"Philip is unhappy." +"Well?" +"He feels it's not right that he should have to depend on your charity and +live on handouts and never be able to count on a single dollar of his own." +"Well!" he said with a startled smile. "I've been waiting for him to +realize that." +"It isn't right for a sensitive man to be in such a position." +"It certainly isn't." +"I'm glad you agree with me. So what you have to do is give him a job." +"A . . . what?" +"You must give him a job, here, at the mills—but a nice, clean job, of +course, with a desk and an office and a decent salary, where he wouldn't have +to be among your day laborers and your smelly furnaces." +He knew that he was hearing it; he could not make himself believe it. +"Mother, you're not serious." +"I certainly am. I happen to know that that's what he wants, only 's too +proud to ask you for it But if you offer it to him and make it look like it's +you who're asking him a favor—why, I know he'd be happy to take it. That's +why I had to come here to talk to you—so he wouldn't guess that I put you up +to it." +It was not in the nature of his consciousness to understand the nature of +the things he was hearing. A single thought cut through his mind like a +spotlight, making him unable to conceive how any eyes could miss it. The +thought broke out of him as a cry of bewilderment: "But he knows nothing +about the steel business!" +"What has that got to do with it? He needs a job." +"But he couldn't do the work." +"He needs to gain self-confidence and to feel important." +"But he wouldn't be any good whatever." +"He needs to feel that he's wanted." +"Here? What could I want him for?" +"You hire plenty of strangers.” +"I hire men who produce. What has he got to offer?" +"He's your brother, isn't he?" +"What has that got to do with it?" +She stared incredulously, in turn, silenced by shock. For a moment, they +sat looking at each other, as if across an interplanetary distance. +"He's your brother," she said, her voice like a phonograph record +repeating a magic formula she could not permit herself to doubt. "He needs a +position in the world. He needs a salary, so that he'd feel that he's got +money coming to him as his due, not as alms." +"As his due? But he wouldn't be worth a nickel to me." +"Is that what you think of first? Your profit? I'm asking you to help your +brother, and you're figuring how to make a nickel on him, and you won't help +him unless there's money in it for you—is that it?" +She saw the expression of his eyes, and she looked away, but spoke +hastily, her voice rising. "Yes, sure, you're helping him—like you'd help any +stray beggar. Material help—that's all you know or understand. Have you + + thought about his spiritual needs and what his position is doing to his selfrespect? He doesn't want to live like a beggar. He wants to be independent of +you." +"By means of getting from me a salary he can't earn for work he can't do?" +"You'd never miss it. You've got enough people here who're making money +for you." +"Are you asking me to help him stage a fraud of that kind?" +"You don't have to put it that way." +"Is it a fraud—or isn't it?" +"That's why I can't talk to you—because you're not human. You have no +pity, no feeling for your brother, no compassion for his feelings." +"Is it a fraud or not?" +"You have no mercy for anybody." +"Do you think that a fraud of this kind would be just?" +"You're the most immoral man living—you think of nothing but justice! You +don't feel any love at all!" +He got up, his movement abrupt and stressed, the movement of ending an +interview and ordering a visitor out of his office. "Mother, I'm running a +steel plant—not a whorehouse." +"Henry!" The gasp of indignation was at his choice of language, nothing +more. +"Don't ever speak to me again about a job for Philip. I would not give him +the job of a cinder sweeper. I would not allow him inside my mills. I want +you to understand that, once and for all. You may try to help him in any way +you wish, but don't ever let me see you thinking of my mills as a means to +that end." +The wrinkles of her soft chin trickled into a shape resembling a sneer. +"What are they, your mills—a holy temple of some kind?" +"Why . . . yes," he said softly, astonished at the thought. +"Don't you ever think of people and of your moral duties?" +"I don't know what it is that you choose to call morality. No, I don't +think of people—except that if I gave a job to Philip, I wouldn't be able to +face any competent man who needed work and deserved it." +She got up. Her head was drawn into her shoulders, and the righteous +bitterness of her voice seemed to push the words upward at his tall, straight +figure: "That's your cruelty, that's what's mean and selfish about you. If +you loved your brother, you'd give him a job he didn't deserve, precisely +because he didn't deserve it—that would be true love and kindness and +brotherhood. Else what's love for? If a man deserves a job, there's no virtue +in giving it to him. Virtue is the giving of the undeserved." +He was looking at her like a child at an unfamiliar nightmare, incredulity +preventing it from becoming horror. "Mother," he said slowly, "you don't know +what you're saying. I'm not able ever to despise you enough to believe that +you mean it" +The look on her face astonished him more than all the rest: it was a look +of defeat and yet of an odd, sly, cynical cunning, as if, for a moment, she +held some worldly wisdom that mocked his innocence. +The memory of that look remained in his mind, like a warning signal +telling him that he had glimpsed an issue which he had to understand. +But he could not grapple with it, he could not force his mind to accept it +as worthy of thought, he could find no clue except his dim uneasiness and his +revulsion—and he had no time to give it, he could not think of it now, he was +facing his next caller seated in front of his desk—he was listening to a man +who pleaded for his life. +The man did not state it in such terms, but Rearden knew that that was the +essence of the case. What the man put into words was only a a for five +hundred tons of steel. + + He was Mr. Ward, of the Ward Harvester Company of Minnesota. +It was an unpretentious company with an unblemished reputation, the kind +of business concern that seldom grows large, but never fails. Mr. +Ward represented the fourth generation of a family that had owned the +plant and had given it the conscientious best of such ability as they +possessed. +He was a man in his fifties, with a square, stolid face. Looking at him, +one knew that he would consider it as indecent to let his face show suffering +as to remove his clothes in public. He spoke in a dry, businesslike manner. +He explained that he had always dealt, as his father had, with one of the +small steel companies now taken over by Orren Boyle's Associated Steel. He +had waited for his last order of steel for a year. He had spent the last +month struggling to obtain a personal interview with Rearden. +"I know that your mills are running at capacity, Mr. Rearden," he said, +"and I know that you are not in a position to take care of new orders, what +with your biggest, oldest customers having to wait their turn, you being the +only decent—I mean, reliable—steel manufacturer left in the country. I don't +know what reason to offer you as to why you should want to make an exception +in my case. But there was nothing else for me to do, except close the doors +of my plant for good, and I"— +there was a slight break in his voice—"I can't quite see my way to closing +the doors . . . as yet . . . so I thought I'd speak to you, even if I didn't +have much chance . . . still, I had to try everything possible." +This was language that Rearden could understand, "I wish I could help you +out," he said, "but this is the worst possible time for me, because of a very +large, very special order that has to take precedence over everything." +"I know. But would you just give me a hearing, Mr. Rearden?" +"Sure." +"If it's a question of money, I'll pay anything you ask. If I could make +it worth your while that way, why, charge me any extra you please, charge me +double the regular price, only let me have the steel. +I wouldn't care if I had to sell the harvester at a loss this year, just +so I could keep the doors open. I've got enough, personally, to run at a loss +for a couple of years, if necessary, just to hold out—because, I figure, +things can't go on this way much longer, conditions are bound to improve, +they've got to or else we'll—" He did not finish. He said firmly, "They've +got to." +"They will," said Rearden. +The thought of the John Galt Line ran through his mind like a harmony +under the confident sound of his words. The John Galt Line was moving +forward. The attacks on his Metal had ceased. He felt as if, miles apart +across the country, he and Dagny Taggart now stood in empty space, their way +cleared, free to finish the job. They'll leave us alone to do it, he thought. +The words were like a battle hymn in his mind: They'll leave us alone. +"Our plant capacity is one thousand harvesters per year," said Mr. +Ward. "Last year, we put out three hundred. I scraped the steel together +from bankruptcy sales, and begging a few tons here and there from big +companies, and just going around like a scavenger to all sorts of unlikely +places—well, I won't bore you with that, only I never thought I'd live to see +the time when I'd have to do business that way. +And all the while Mr. Orren Boyle was swearing to me that he was going to +deliver the steel next week. But whatever he managed to pour, it went to new +customers of his, for some reason nobody would mention, only I heard it +whispered that they were men with some sort of political pull. And now I +can't even get to Mr. Boyle at all. +He's in Washington, been there for over a month. And all his office tells +me is just that they can't help it, because they can't get the ore." + + "Don't waste your time on them," said Rearden. "You'll never get anything +from that outfit." +"You know, Mr. Rearden," he said in the tone of a discovery which he could +not quite bring himself to believe, "I think there's something phony about +the way Mr. Boyle runs his business. I can't understand what he's after. +They've got half their furnaces idle, but last month there were all those big +stories about Associated Steel in all the newspapers. About their output? +Why, no—about the wonderful housing project that Mr. Boyle's just built for +his workers. Last week, it was colored movies that Mr. Boyle sent to all the +high schools, showing how steel is made and what great service it performs +for everybody. +Now Mr. Boyle's got a radio program, they give talks about the importance +of the steel industry to the country and they keep saying that we must +preserve the steel industry as a whole. I don't understand what he means by +it as a whole." +"I do. Forget it. He won't get away with it." +"You know, Mr. Rearden, I don't like people who talk too much about how +everything they do is just for the sake of others. It's not true, and I don't +think it would be right if it ever were true. So I'll say that what I need +the steel for is to save my own business. Because it's mine. Because if I had +to close it . . . oh well, nobody understands that nowadays." +"I do." +"Yes . . . Yes, I think you would. . . . So, you see, that's my first +concern. But still, there are my customers, too. They've dealt with me for +years. They're counting on me. It's just about impossible to get any sort of +machinery anywhere. Do you know what it's getting to be like, out in +Minnesota, when the farmers can't get tools, when machine break down in the +middle of the harvest season and there are no parts, no replacements . . . +nothing but Mr. Orren Boyle's colored movies about . . . Oh well . . . And +then there are my workers, too. Some of them have been with us since my +father's time. They've got no other place to go. Not now." +It was impossible, thought Rearden, to squeeze more steel out of mills +where every furnace, every hour and every ton were scheduled in advance for +urgent orders, for the next six months. But . . . The John Galt Line, he +thought. If he could do that, he could do anything. +- . . He felt as if he wished to undertake ten new problems at once. +He felt as if this were a world where nothing was impossible to him. +"Look," he said, reaching for the telephone, "let me check with my +superintendent and see just what we're pouring in the next few weeks. +Maybe I'll find a way to borrow a few tons from some of the orders and—" +Mr. Ward looked quickly away from him, but Rearden had caught a glimpse of +his face. It's so much for him, thought Rearden, and so little for me! +He lifted the telephone receiver, but he had to drop it, because the door +of his office flew open and Gwen Ives rushed in. +It seemed impossible that Miss Ives should permit herself a breach of that +kind, or that the calm of her face should look like an unnatural distortion, +or that her eyes should seem blinded, or that her steps should sound a shred +of discipline away from staggering. She said, "Excuse me for interrupting, +Mr. Rearden," but he knew that she did not see the office, did not see Mr. +Ward, saw nothing but him. "I thought I must tell you that the Legislature +has just passed the Equalization of Opportunity Bill." +It was the stolid Mr. Ward who screamed, "Oh God, no! Oh, no!"— +staring at Rearden. +Rearden had leaped to his feet. He stood unnaturally bent, one shoulder +drooping forward. It was only an instant. Then he looked around him, as if +regaining eyesight, said, "Excuse me," his glance including both Miss Ives +and Mr. Ward, and sat down again. + + "We were not informed that the Bill had been brought to the floor, were +we?" he asked, his voice controlled and dry. +"No, Mr. Rearden. Apparently, it was a surprise move and it took them just +forty-five minutes." +"Have you heard from Mouch?" +"No, Mr. Rearden." She stressed the no. "It was the office boy from the +fifth floor who came running in to tell me that he'd just heard it on the +radio. I called the newspapers to verify it. I tried to reach Mr. +Mouch in Washington. His office does not answer." +"When did we hear from him last?" +"Ten days ago, Mr. Rearden." +"All right. Thank you, Gwen. Keep trying to get his office." +"Yes, Mr. Rearden." +She walked out. Mr. Ward was on his feet, hat in hand. He muttered, "I +guess I'd better—" +"Sit down!" Rearden snapped fiercely. +Mr. Ward obeyed, staring at him. +"We had business to transact, didn't we?" said Rearden. Mr. Ward could not +define the emotion that contorted Rearden's mouth as he spoke. "Mr. Ward, +what is it that the foulest bastards on earth denounce us for, among other +things? Oh yes, for our motto of 'Business as usual.' Well—business as usual, +Mr. Ward!" +He picked up the telephone receiver and asked for his superintendent. +"Say, Pete . . . What? . . . Yes, I've heard. Can it. We'll talk about that +later. What I want to know is, could you let me have five hundred tons of +steel, extra, above schedule, in the next few weeks? +. . . Yes, I know . . . I know it's tough. . . . Give me the dates and the +figures." He listened, rapidly jotting notes down on a sheet of paper. Then +he said, "Right. Thank you," and hung up. +He studied the figures for a few moments, marking some brief calculations +on the margin of the sheet. Then he raised his head. +"All right, Mr. Ward," he said. "You will have your steel in ten days." +When Mr. Ward had gone, Rearden came out into the anteroom. +He said to Miss Ives, his voice normal, "Wire Fleming in Colorado. +He'll know why I have to cancel that option." She inclined her head, in +the manner of a nod signifying obedience. She did not look at him. +He turned to his next caller and said, with a gesture of invitation toward +his office, "How do you do. Come in." +He would think of it later, he thought; one moves step by step and one +must keep moving. For the moment, with an unnatural clarity, with a brutal +simplification that made it almost easy, his consciousness contained nothing +but one thought: It must not stop me. The sentence hung alone, with no past +and no future. He did not think of what it was that must not stop him, or why +this sentence was such a crucial absolute. It held him and he obeyed. He went +step by step. He completed his schedule of appointments, as scheduled. +It was late when his last caller departed and he came out of his office. +The rest of his staff had gone home. Miss Ives sat alone at her desk in an +empty room. She sat straight and stiff, her hands clasped tightly together in +her lap. Her head was not lowered, but held rigidly level, and her face +seemed frozen. Tears were running down her cheeks, with no sound, with no +facial movement, against her resistance, beyond control. +She saw him and said dryly, guiltily, in apology, "I'm sorry, Mr. +Rearden," not attempting the futile pretense of hiding her face. +He approached her. "Thank you," he said gently. +She looked up at him, astonished. +He smiled. "But don't you think you're underestimating me, Gwen? +Isn't it too soon to cry over me?" + + "I could have taken the rest of it," she whispered, "but they"—she pointed +at the newspapers on her desk—"they're calling it a victory for anti-greed." +He laughed aloud. "I can see where such a distortion of the English +language would make you furious," he said. "But what else?" +As she looked at him, her mouth relaxed a little. The victim whom she +could not protect was her only point of reassurance in a world dissolving +around her. +He moved his hand gently across her forehead; it was an unusual break of +formality for him, and a silent acknowledgment of the things at which he had +not laughed. "Go home, Gwen. I won't need you tonight. I'm going home myself +in just a little while. No, I don't want you to wait." +It was past midnight, when, still sitting at his desk, bent over +blueprints of the bridge for the John Galt Line, he stopped his work +abruptly, because emotion reached him in a sudden stab, not to be escaped any +longer, as if a curtain of anesthesia had broken, He slumped down, halfway, +still holding onto some shred of resistance, and sat, his chest pressed to +the edge of the desk to stop him, his head hanging down, as if the only +achievement still possible to him was not to let his head drop down on the +desk. He sat that way for a few moments, conscious of nothing but pain, a +screaming pain without content or limit—he sat, not knowing whether it was in +his mind or his body, reduced to the terrible ugliness of pain that stopped +thought. +In a few moments, it was over. He raised his head and sat up straight, +quietly, leaning back against his chair. Now he saw that in postponing this +moment for hours, he had not been guilty of evasion: he had not thought of +it, because there was nothing to think. +Thought—he told himself quietly—is a weapon one uses in order to act. No +action was possible. Thought is the tool by which one makes a choice. No +choice was left to him. Thought sets one's purpose and the way to reach it. +In the matter of his life being torn piece by piece out of him, he was to +have no voice, no purpose, no way, no defense. +He thought of this in astonishment. He saw for the first time that he had +never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent +cure of being able to act. No, he thought, not an assurance of victory—who +can ever have that?—only the chance to act, which is all one needs. Now he +was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of +terror: being delivered to destruction with one's hands tied behind one's +back. +Well, then, go on with your hands tied, he thought. Go on in chains. +Go on. It must not stop you. . . . But another voice was telling him +things he did not want to hear, while he fought back, crying through and +against it: There's no point in thinking of that . . . there's no use . . . +what for? . . . leave it alone! +He could not choke it off. He sat still, over the drawings of the bridge +for the John Galt Line, and heard the things released by a voice that was +part-sound, part-sight: They decided it without him. +. . . They did not call for him, they did not ask, they did not let him +speak. . . . They were not bound even by the duty to let him know— +to let him know that they had slashed part of his life away and that he +had to be ready to walk on as a cripple. . . . Of ah" those concerned, +whoever they were, for whichever reason, for whatever need, he was the one +they had not had to consider. +The sign at the end of a long road said: Rearden Ore. It hung over black +tiers of metal . . . and over years and nights . . . over a clock ticking +drops of his blood away . . . the blood he had given gladly, exultantly in +payment for a distant day and a sign over a road . . paid for with his +effort, his strength, his mind, his hope. + + Destroyed at the whim of some men who sat and voted . . . Who knows by +what minds? . . . Who knows whose will had placed them in power?— +what motive moved them?—what was their knowledge?—which one of them, +unaided, could bring a chunk of ore out of the earth? . . . Destroyed at the +whim of men whom he had never seen and who had never seen those tiers of +metal . . . Destroyed, because they so decided. By what right? +He shook his head. There are things one must not contemplate, he thought. +There is an obscenity of evil which contaminates the observer. +There is a limit to what it is proper for a man to see. He must not think +of this, or look within it, or try to learn the nature of its roots. +Feeling quiet and empty, he told himself that he would be all right +tomorrow. He would forgive himself the weakness of this night, it was like +the tears one is permitted at a funeral, and then one learns how to live with +an open wound or with a crippled factory. +He got up and walked to the window. The mills seemed deserted and still; +he saw feeble snatches of red above black funnels, long coils of steam, the +webbed diagonals of cranes and bridges. +He felt a desolate loneliness, of a kind he had never known before. +He thought that Gwen Ives and Mr. Ward could look to him for hope, for +relief, for renewal of courage. To whom could he look for it? He, too, needed +it, for once. He wished he had a friend who could be permitted to see him +suffer, without pretense or protection, on whom he could lean for a moment, +just to say, "I'm very tired," and find a moment's rest. Of all the men he +knew, was there one he wished he had beside him now? He heard the answer in +his mind, immediate and shocking: Francisco d'Anconia. +His chuckle of anger brought him back. The absurdity of the longing jolted +him into calm. That's what you get, he thought, when you indulge yourself in +weakness. +He stood at the window, trying not to think. But he kept hearing words in +his mind: Rearden Ore . . . Rearden Coal . . . Rearden Steel . . . Rearden +Metal . . . What was the use? Why had he done it? Why should he ever want to +do anything again? . . . +His first day on the ledges of the ore mines . . . The day when he stood +in the wind, looking down at the ruins of a steel plant . . . The day when he +stood here, in this office, at this window, and thought that a bridge could +be made to carry incredible loads on just a few bars of metal, if one +combined a truss with an arch, if one built diagonal bracing with the top +members curved to— +He stopped and stood still. He had not thought of combining a truss with +an arch, that day. +In the next moment, he was at his desk, bending over it, with one knee on +the seat of the chair, with no time to think of sitting down, he was drawing +lines, curves, triangles, columns of calculations, indiscriminately on the +blueprints, on the desk blotter, on somebody's letters. +And an hour later, he was calling for a long-distance line, he was waiting +for a phone to ring by a bed in a railway car on a siding, he was saying, +"Dagny! That bridge of ours—throw in the ash can all the drawings I sent you, +because . . . What? . . . Oh, that? To hell with that! Never mind the looters +and their laws! Forget it! Dagny, what do we care! Listen, you know the +contraption you called the Rearden Truss, that you admired so much? It's not +worth a damn. I've figured out a truss that will beat anything ever built! +Your bridge will carry four trains at once, stand three hundred years and +cost you less than your cheapest culvert. I'll send you the drawings in two +days, but I wanted to tell you about it right now. You see, it's a matter of +combining a truss with an arch. If we take diagonal bracing and . . . +What? . . . I can't hear you. Have you caught a cold? . . . What are you +thanking me for, as yet? Wait till I explain it to you." + + CHAPTER VIII +THE JOHN GALT LINE +The worker smiled, looking at Eddie Willers across the table. +"I feel like a fugitive," said Eddie Willers. 'I guess you know why I +haven't been here for months?" He pointed at the underground cafeteria. +"I'm supposed to be a vice-president now. The Vice-President in Charge of +Operation. For God's sake, don't take it seriously. I stood it as long as I +could, and then I had to escape, if only for one evening. . . . The first +time I came down here for dinner, after my alleged promotion, they all stared +at me so much, I didn't dare come back. Well, let them stare. +You don't. I'm glad that it doesn't make any difference to you. . . . +No, I haven't seen her for two weeks. But I speak to her on the phone +every day, sometimes twice a day. . . . Yes, I know how she feels: she loves +it. What is it we hear over the telephone—sound vibrations, isn't it? Well, +her voice sounds as if it were turning into light vibrations—if you know what +I mean. She enjoys running that horrible battle single handed and winning. . +. . Oh yes, she's winning! Do you know why you haven't read anything about +the John Galt Line in the newspapers for some time? Because it's going so +well . . . Only . . . that Rearden Metal rail will be the greatest track ever +built, but what will be the use, if we don't have any engines powerful enough +to take advantage of it? +Look at the kind of patched coal-burners we've got left—they can barely +manage to drag themselves fast enough for old trolley-car rails. . . . +Still, there's hope. The United Locomotive Works went bankrupt. That's the +best break we've had in the last few weeks, because their plant has been +bought by Dwight Sanders. He's a brilliant young engineer who's got the only +good aircraft plant in the country. He had to sell the aircraft plant to his +brother, in order to take over United Locomotive. +That's on account of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. Sure, it's just +a setup between them, but can you blame him? Anyway, we'll see Diesels coming +out of the United Locomotive Works now. Dwight Sanders will start things +going. . . . Yes, she's counting on him. Why do you ask that? . . . Yes, he's +crucially important to us right now. We've just signed a contract with him, +for the first ten Diesel engines he'll build. When I phoned her that the +contract was signed, she laughed and said, "You see? Is there ever any reason +to be afraid?' . . . She said that, because she knows—I've never told her, +but she knows—that I'm afraid. . . . Yes, I am. . . . I don't know . . . I +wouldn't be afraid if I knew of what, I could do something about it. But this +. . . Tell me, don't you really despise me for being Operating VicePresident? . . . +But don't you see that it's vicious? . . . What honor? I don't know what +it is that I really am: a clown, a ghost, an understudy or just a rotten +stooge. When I sit in her office, in her chair, at her desk, I feel worse +than that: I feel like a murderer. . . . Sure, I know that I'm supposed to be +a stooge for her—and that would be an honor—but . . . +but I feel as if in some horrible way which I can't quite grasp, I'm a +stooge for Jim Taggart. Why should it be necessary for her to have a stooge? +Why does she have to hide? Why did they throw her out of the building? Do you +know that she had to move out into a dinky hole in the back alley, across +from our Express and Baggage Entrance? You ought to take a look at it some +time, that's the office of John Galt, Inc. +Yet everybody knows that it's she who's still running Taggart +Transcontinental. Why does she have to hide the magnificent job she's doing? +Why are they giving her no credit? Why are they robbing her of her +achievement—with me as the receiver of stolen goods? Why are they doing + + everything in their power to make it impossible for her to succeed, when +she's all they've got standing between them and destruction? Why are they +torturing her in return for saving their lives? . . . What's the matter with +you? Why do you look at me like that? . . . Yes, I guess you understand. . . +. There's something about it all that I can't define, and it's something +evil. That's why I'm afraid. . . . I don't think one can get away with it. . +. . You know, it's strange, but I think they know it, too, Jim and his crowd +and all of them in the building. There's something guilty and sneaky about +the whole place. Guilty and sneaky and dead. Taggart Transcontinental is now +like a man who's lost his soul . . . who's betrayed his soul. . . . No, she +doesn't care. Last time she was in New York, she came in unexpectedly—I was +in my office, in her office—and suddenly the door opened and there she was. +She came in, saying, 'Mr. Willers, I'm looking for a job as a station +operator, would you give me a chance?' I wanted to damn them all, but I had +to laugh, I was so glad to see her and she was laughing so happily. She had +come straight from the airport—she wore slacks and a flying jacket—she looked +wonderful—she'd got windburned, it looked like a suntan, just as if she'd +returned from a vacation. She made me remain where I was, in her chair, and +she sat on the desk and talked about the new bridge of the John Galt Line. . +. . No. No, I never asked her why she chose that name. . . . I don't know +what it means to her. A sort of challenge, I guess . . . I don't know to whom +. . . Oh, it doesn't matter, it doesn't mean a thing, there isn't any John +Galt, but I wish she hadn't used it. I don't like it, do you? . . . You do? +You don't sound very happy saying it." +The windows of the offices of the John Galt Line faced a dark alley. +Looking up from her desk, Dagny could not see the sky, only the wall of a +building rising past her range of vision. It was the side wall of the great +skyscraper of Taggart Transcontinental. +Her new headquarters were two rooms on the ground floor of a half +collapsed structure. The structure still stood, but its upper stories were +boarded off as unsafe for occupancy. Such tenants as it sheltered were halfbankrupt, existing, as it did, on the inertia of the momentum of the past. +She liked her new place: it saved money. The rooms contained no +superfluous furniture or people. The furniture had come from junk shops. The +people were the choice best she could find. On her rare visits to New York, +she had no time to notice the room where she worked; she noticed only that it +served its purpose. +She did not know what made her stop tonight and look at the thin streaks +of rain on the glass of the window, at the wall of the building across the +alley. +It was past midnight. Her small staff had gone. She was due at the airport +at three A.M., to fly her plane back to Colorado. She had little left to do, +only a few of Eddie's reports to read. With the sudden break of the tension +of hurrying, she stopped, unable to go on. The reports seemed to require an +effort beyond her power. It was too late to go home and sleep, too early to +go to the airport. She thought: You're tired—and watched her own mood with +severe, contemptuous detachment, knowing that it would pass. +She had flown to New York unexpectedly, at a moment's notice, leaping to +the controls of her plane within twenty minutes after hearing a brief item in +a news broadcast. The radio voice had said that Dwight Sanders had retired +from business, suddenly, without reason or explanation. She had hurried to +New York, hoping to find him and stop him. +But she had felt, while flying across the continent, that there would be +no trace of him to find. +The spring rain hung motionless in the air beyond the window, like a thin +mist. She sat, looking across at the open cavern of the Express and Baggage +Entrance of the Taggart Terminal. There were naked lights inside, among the + + steel girders of the ceiling, and a few piles of luggage on the worn concrete +of the floor. The place looked abandoned and dead. +She glanced at a jagged crack on the wall of her office. She heard no +sound. She knew she was alone in the ruins of a building. It seemed as if she +were alone in the city. She felt an emotion held back for years: a loneliness +much beyond this moment, beyond the silence of the room and the wet, +glistening emptiness of the street; the loneliness of a gray wasteland where +nothing was worth reaching; the loneliness of her childhood. +She rose and walked to the window. By pressing her face to the pane, she +could see the whole of the Taggart Building, its lines converging abruptly to +its distant pinnacle in the sky. She looked up at the dark window of the room +that had been her office. She felt as if she were in exile, never to return, +as if she were separated from the building by much more than a sheet of +glass, a curtain of rain and the span of a few months. +She stood, in a room of crumbling plaster, pressed to the windowpane, +looking up at the unattainable form of everything she loved. She did not know +the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not +the world I expected. +Once, when she was sixteen, looking at a long stretch of Taggart track, at +the rails that converged—like the lines of a skyscraper—to a single point in +the distance, she had told Eddie Willers that she had always felt as if the +rails were held in the hand of a man beyond the horizon—no, not her father or +any of the men in the office—and some day she would meet him. +She shook her head and turned away from the window. +She went back to her desk. She tried to reach for the reports. But +suddenly she was slumped across the desk, her head on her arm. Don't, she +thought; but she did not move to rise, it made no difference, there was no +one to see her. +This was a longing she had never permitted herself to acknowledge. +She faced it now. She thought: If emotion is one's response to the things +the world has to offer, if she loved the rails, the building, and more: if +she loved her love for them—there was still one response, the greatest, that +she had missed. She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, +as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth . +. . To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her +world, as she would be of his . . . No, not Francisco d'Anconia, not Hank +Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired . . . A man who existed only +in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would +have given her life to experience . . . She twisted herself in a slow, faint +movement, her breasts pressed to the desk; she felt the longing in her +muscles, in the nerves of her body. +Is that what you want? Is it as simple as that?—she thought, but knew that +it was not simple. There was some unbreakable link between her love for her +work and the desire of her body; as if one gave her the right to the other, +the right and the meaning; as if one were the completion of the other—and the +desire would never be satisfied, except by a being of equal greatness. +Her face pressed to her arm, she moved her head, shaking it slowly hi +negation. She would never find it. Her own thought of what life could be +like, was all she would ever have of the world she had wanted. Only the +thought of it—and a few rare moments, like a few lights reflected from it on +her way—to know, to hold, to follow to the end . . . +She raised her head. +On the pavement of the alley, outside her window, she saw the shadow of a +man who stood at the door of her office. +The door was some steps away; she could not see him, or the street light +beyond, only his shadow on the stones of the pavement. He stood perfectly +still. + + He was so close to the door, like a man about to enter, that she waited to +hear him knock. Instead, she saw the shadow jerk abruptly, as if he were +jolted backward, then he turned and walked away. There was only the outline +of his hat brim and shoulders left on the ground, when he stopped. The shadow +lay still for a moment, wavered, and grew longer again as he came back. +She felt no fear. She sat at her desk, motionless, watching in blank +wonder. He stopped at the door, then backed away from it; he stood somewhere +in the middle of the alley, then paced restlessly and stopped again. His +shadow swung like an irregular pendulum across the pavement, describing the +course of a soundless battle: it was a man fighting himself to enter that +door or to escape. +She looked on, with peculiar detachment. She had no power to react, only +to observe. She wondered numbly, distantly: Who was he? Had he been watching +her from somewhere in the darkness? Had he seen her slumped across her desk, +in the lighted, naked window? Had he watched her desolate loneliness as she +was now watching his? She felt nothing. +They were alone in the silence of a dead city—it seemed to her that he was +miles away, a reflection of suffering without identity, a fellow survivor +whose problem was as distant to her as hers would be to him. +He paced, moving out of her sight, coming back again. She sat, watching—on +the glistening pavement of a dark alley—the shadow of an unknown torment. +The shadow moved away once more. She waited. It did not return. +Then she leaped to her feet. She had wanted to see the outcome of the +battle; now that he had won it—or lost—she was struck by the sudden, urgent +need to know his identity and motive. She ran through the dark anteroom, she +threw the door open and looked out. +The alley was empty. The pavement went tapering off into the distance, +like a band of wet mirror under a few spaced lights. There was no one in +sight. She saw the dark hole of a broken window in an abandoned shop. Beyond +it, there were the doors of a few rooming houses. Across the alley, streaks +of rain glittered under a light that hung over the black gap of an open door +leading down to the underground tunnels of Taggart Transcontinental. +* * * +Rearden signed the papers, pushed them across the desk and looked away, +thinking that he would never have to think of them again, wishing he were +carried to the time when this moment would be far behind him. +Paul Larkin reached for the papers hesitantly; he looked ingratiatingly +helpless, "It's only a legal technicality, Hank," he said. "You know that +I'll always consider these ore mines as yours." +Rearden shook his head slowly; it was just a movement of his neck muscles; +his face looked immovable, as if he were speaking to a stranger. +"No!" he said. "Either I own a property or I don't." +"But . . . but you know that you can trust me. You don't have to worry +about your supply of ore. We've made an agreement. You know that you can +count on me." +"I don't know it. I hope I can." +"But I've given you my word." +"I have never been at the mercy of anyone's word before." +"Why . . . why do you say that? We're friends. I'll do anything you wish. +You'll get my entire output. The mines are still yours—just as good as yours. +You have nothing to fear. I'll . . . Hank, what's the matter?" +"Don't talk." +"But . . . but what's the matter?" +"I don't like assurances. I don't want any pretense about how safe I am. +I'm not. We have made an agreement which I can't enforce. I want you to know + + that I understand my position fully. If you intend to keep your word, don't +talk about it, just do it." +"Why do you look at me as if it were my fault? You know how badly I feel +about it. I bought the mines only because I thought it would help you out—I +mean, I thought you'd rather sell them to a friend than to some total +stranger. It's not my fault. I don't like that miserable Equalization Bill, I +don't know who's behind it, I never dreamed they'd pass it, it was such a +shock to me when they—" +"Never mind." +"But I only—" +"Why do you insist on talking about it?" +"I . . ." Larkin's voice was pleading. "I gave you the best price, Hank. +The law said 'reasonable compensation.' My bid was higher than anyone +else's." +Rearden looked at the papers still lying across the desk. He thought of +the payment these papers gave him for his ore mines. Two-thirds of the sum +was money which Larkin had obtained as a loan from the government; the new +law made provisions for such loans "in order to give a fair opportunity to +the new owners who have never had a chance." +Two-thirds of the rest was a loan he himself had granted to Larkin, a +mortgage he had accepted on his own mines. . . . And the government money, he +thought suddenly, the money now given to him as payment for his property, +where had that come from? Whose work had provided it? +"'You don't have to worry, Hank," said Larkin, with that incomprehensible, +insistent note of pleading in his voice. "It's just a paper formality." +Rearden wondered dimly what it was that Larkin wanted from him. +He felt that the man was waiting for something beyond the physical fact of +the sale, some words which he, Rearden, was supposed to pronounce, some +action pertaining to mercy which he was expected to grant. Larkin's eyes, in +this moment of his best fortune, had the sickening look of a beggar. +"Why should you be angry, Hank? It's only a new form of legal red tape. +Just a new historical condition. Nobody can help it, if it's, a historical +condition. Nobody can be blamed for it. But there's always a way to get +along. Look at all the others. They don't mind. They're—" +"They're setting up stooges whom they control, to run the properties +extorted from them. I—" +"Now why do you want to use such words?" +"I might as well tell you—and I think you know it—that I am not good at +games of that kind. I have neither the time nor the stomach to devise some +form of blackmail in order to tie you up and own my mines through you. +Ownership is a thing I don't share. And I don't wish to hold it by the grace +of your cowardice—by means of a constant struggle to outwit you and keep some +threat over your head. I don't do business that way and I don't deal with +cowards. The mines are yours. If you wish to give me first call on all the +ore produced, you will do so. +If you wish to double-cross me, it's in your power." +Larkin looked hurt. "That's very unfair of you," he said; there was a dry +little note of righteous reproach in his voice. "I have never given you cause +to distrust me." He picked up the papers with a hasty movement. +Rearden saw the papers disappear into Larkin's inside coat pocket. +He saw the flare of the open coat, the wrinkles of a vest pulled tight +over flabby bulges, and a stain of perspiration in the armpit of the shirt. +Unsummoned, the picture of a face seen twenty-seven years ago rose +suddenly in his mind. It was the face of a preacher on a street corner he had +passed, in a town he could not remember any longer. Only the dark walls of +the slums remained in his memory, the rain of an autumn evening, and the +righteous malice of the man's mouth, a small mouth stretched to yell into the + + darkness: ". . . the noblest ideal—that man live for the sake of his +brothers, that the strong work for the weak, that he who has ability serve +him who hasn't . . ." +Then he saw the boy who had been Hank Rearden at eighteen. He saw the +tension of the face, the speed of the walk, the drunken exhilaration of the +body, drunk on the energy of sleepless nights, the proud lift of the head, +the clear, steady, ruthless eyes, the eyes of a man who drove himself without +pity toward that which he wanted. And he saw what Paul Larkin must have been +at that time—a youth with an aged baby's face, smiling ingratiatingly, +joylessly, begging to be spared, pleading with the universe to give him a +chance. If someone had shown that youth to the Hank Rearden of that time and +told him that this was to be the goal of his steps, the collector of the +energy of his aching tendons, what would he have— +It was not a thought, it was like the punch of a fist inside his skull. +Then, when he could think again, Rearden knew what the boy he had been +would have felt: a desire to step on the obscene thing which was Larkin and +grind every wet bit of it out of existence. +He had never experienced an emotion o[ this kind. It took him a few +moments to realize that this was what men called hatred. +He noticed that rising to leave and muttering some sort of good-byes, +Larkin had a wounded, reproachful, mouth-pinched look, as if he, Larkin, were +the injured party. +When he sold his coal mines to Ken Danagger, who owned the largest coal +company in Pennsylvania, Rearden wondered why he felt as if it were almost +painless. He felt no hatred. Ken Danagger was a man in his fifties, with a +hard, closed face; he had started in life as a miner. +When Rearden handed to him the deed to his new property, Danagger said +impassively, "I don't believe I've mentioned that any coal you buy from me, +you'll get it at cost." +Rearden glanced at him, astonished. "It's against the law," he said. +"Who's going to find out what sort of cash I band to you in your own +living room?" +"You're talking about a rebate." +"I am." +"That's against two dozen laws. They'll sock you worse than me, if they +catch you at it." +"Sure. That's your protection—so you won't be left at the mercy of my good +will." +Rearden smiled; it was a happy smile, but he closed his eyes as under a +blow. Then he shook his head. "Thanks," he said. "But I'm not one of them. I +don't expect anybody to work for me at cost." +"I'm not one of them, either," said Danagger angrily. "Look here, Rearden, +don't you suppose I know what I'm getting, unearned? The money doesn't pay +you for it. Not nowadays." +"You didn't volunteer to bid to buy my property. I asked you to buy it. I +wish there had been somebody like you in the ore business, to take over my +mines. There wasn't. If you want to do me a favor, don't offer me rebates. +Give me a chance to pay you higher prices, higher than anyone else will +offer, sock me anything you wish, just so I'll be first to get the coal. I'll +manage my end of it. Only let me have the coal." +"You'll have it." +Rearden wondered, for a while, why he heard no word from Wesley Mouch. His +calls to Washington remained unanswered. Then he received a letter consisting +of a single sentence which informed him that Mr. Mouch was resigning from his +employ. Two weeks later, he read in the newspapers that Wesley Mouch had been +appointed Assistant Coordinator of the Bureau of Economic Planning and +National Resources. + + Don't dwell on any of it—thought Rearden, through the silence of many +evenings, fighting the sudden access of that new emotion which he did not +want to feel—there is an unspeakable evil in the world, you know it, and it's +no use dwelling on the details of it. You must work a little harder. Just a +little harder. Don't let it win. +The beams and girders of the Rearden Metal bridge were coming daily out of +the rolling mills, and were being shipped to the site of the John Galt Line, +where the first shapes of green-blue metal, swung into space to span the +canyon, glittered in the first rays of the spring sun. +He had no time for pain, no energy for anger. Within a few weeks, it was +over; the blinding stabs of hatred ceased and did not return. +He was back in confident self-control on the evening when he telephoned +Eddie Willers, "Eddie, I'm in New York, at the Wayne-Falkland. Come to have +breakfast with me tomorrow morning. There's something I'd like to discuss +with you." +Eddie Willers went to the appointment with a heavy feeling of guilt. +He had not recovered from the shock of the Equalization of Opportunity +Bill; it had left a dull ache within him, like the black-and-blue mark of a +blow. He disliked the sight of the city: it now looked as if it hid the +threat of some malicious unknown. He dreaded facing one of the Bill's +victims: he felt almost as if he, Eddie Willers, shared the responsibility +for it in some terrible way which he could not define. +When he saw Rearden, the feeling vanished. There was no hint suggesting a +victim, in Rearden's bearing. Beyond the windows of the hotel room, the +spring sunlight of early morning sparkled on the windows of the city, the sky +was a very pale blue that seemed young, the offices were still closed, and +the city did not look as if it held malice, but as if it were joyously, +hopefully ready to swing into action—in the same manner as Rearden. He looked +refreshed by an untroubled sleep, he wore a dressing gown, he seemed +impatient of the necessity to dress, unwilling to delay the exciting game of +his business duties. +"Good morning, Eddie. Sorry if I got you out so early. It's the only time +I had. Have to go back to Philadelphia right after breakfast. We can talk +while we're eating." +The dressing gown he wore was of dark blue flannel, with the white +initials "H R" on the breast pocket. He looked young, relaxed, at home in +this room and in the world. +Eddie watched a waiter wheel the breakfast table into the room with a +swift efficiency that made him feel braced. He found himself enjoying the +stiff freshness of the white tablecloth and the sunlight sparkling on the +silver, on the two bowls of crushed ice holding glasses of orange juice; he +had not known that such things could give him an invigorating pleasure. +"I didn't want to phone Dagny long distance about this particular matter," +said Rearden. "She has enough to do. We can settle it in a few minutes, you +and I." +"If I have the authority to do it," +Rearden smiled. "You have." He leaned forward across the table. +"Eddie, what's the financial state of Taggart Transcontinental at the +moment? Desperate?" +"Worse than that, Mr. Rearden." +"Are you able to meet pay rolls?" +"Not quite. We've kept it out of the newspapers, but I think everybody +knows it. We're in arrears all over the system and Jim is running out of +excuses." +"Do you know that your first payment for the Rearden Metal rail is due +next week?" +"Yes, I know it." + + "Well, let's agree on a moratorium. I'm going to give you an extension—you +won't have to pay me anything until six months after the opening of the John +Galt Line." +Eddie Willers put down his cup of coffee with a sharp thud. He could not +say a word. +Rearden chuckled. "What's the matter? You do have the authority to accept, +don't you?" +"Mr. Rearden . . . I don't know . . . what to say to you." +"Why, just 'okay' is all that's necessary," +"Okay, Mr. Rearden." Eddie's voice was barely audible. +"I'll draw up the papers and send them to you. You can tell Jim about it +and have him sign them." +"Yes, Mr. Rearden." +"I don't like to deal with Jim. He'd waste two hours trying to make +himself believe that he's made me believe that he's doing me a favor by +accepting." +Eddie sat without moving, looking down at his plate. +"What's the matter?" +"Mr. Rearden, I'd like . . . to say thank you . . . but there isn't any +form of it big enough to—" +"Look, Eddie. You've got the makings of a good businessman, so you'd +better get a few things straight. There aren't any thank-you's in situations +of this kind. I'm not doing it for Taggart Transcontinental. +It's a simple, practical, selfish matter on my part. Why should I collect +my money from you now, when it might prove to be the death blow to your +company? If your company were no good, I'd collect, and fast. I don't engage +in charity and I don't gamble on incompetents. But you're still the best +railroad in the country. When the John Galt Line is completed, you'll be the +soundest one financially. So I have good reason to wait. Besides, you're in +trouble on account of my rail. I intend to see you win," +"I still owe you thanks, Mr. Rearden . . . for something much greater than +charity." +"No. Don't you see? I have just received a great deal of money . . . +which I didn't want. I can't invest it. It's of no use to me whatever. . . +. +So, in a way, it pleases me that I can turn that money against the same +people in the same battle. They made it possible for me to give you an +extension to help you fight them." +He saw Eddie wincing, as if he had hit a wound. "That's what's horrible +about it!" +"What?" +"What they've done to you—and what you're doing in return. I mean—" He +stopped. "Forgive me, Mr. Rearden. I know this is no way to talk business." +Rearden smiled. "Thanks, Eddie. I know what you mean. But forget it. To +hell with them." +"Yes. Only . . . Mr. Rearden, may I say something to you? I know it's +completely improper and I'm not speaking as a vice-president." +"Go ahead." +"I don't have to tell you what your offer means to Dagny, to me, to every +decent person on Taggart Transcontinental. You know it. And you know you can +count on us. But . . . but I think it's horrible that Jim Taggart should +benefit, too—that you should be the one to save him and people like him, +after they—" +Rearden laughed. "Eddie, what do we care about people like him? +We're driving an express, and they're riding on the roof, making a lot of +noise about being leaders. Why should we care? We have enough power to carry +them along—haven't we?" + + "It won't stand." +The summer sun made blotches of fire on the windows of the city, and +glittering sparks in the dust of the streets. Columns of heat shimmered +through the air, rising from the roofs to the white page of the calendar. The +calendar's motor ran on, marking off the last days of June. +"It won't stand," people said. "When they run the first train on the John +Galt Line, the rail will split. They'll never get to the bridge. If they do, +the bridge will collapse under the engine." +From the slopes of Colorado, freight trains rolled down the track of the +Phoenix-Durango, north to Wyoming and the main line of Taggart +Transcontinental, south to New Mexico and the main line of the Atlantic +Southern. Strings of tank cars went radiating in all directions from the +Wyatt oil fields to industries in distant states. No one spoke about them. To +the knowledge of the public, the tank trains moved as silently as rays and, +as rays, they were noticed only when they became the light of electric lamps, +the heat of furnaces, the movement of motors; but as such, they were not +noticed, they were taken for granted. +The Phoenix-Durango Railroad was to end operations on July 25. +"Hank Rearden is a greedy monster," people said. "Look at the fortune he's +made. Has he ever given anything in return? Has he ever shown any sign of +social conscience? Money, that's all he's after. He'll do anything for money. +What does he care if people lose their lives when his bridge collapses?" +"The Taggarts have been a band of vultures for generations," people said. +"It's in their blood. Just remember that the founder of that family was Nat +Taggart, the most notoriously anti-social scoundrel that ever lived, who bled +the country white to squeeze a fortune for himself. You can be sure that a +Taggart won't hesitate to risk people's lives in order to make a profit. They +bought inferior rail, because it's cheaper than steel—what do they care about +catastrophes and mangled human bodies, after they've collected the fares?" +People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was +being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. +"Reason," Dr. Pritchett had told them, "is the most naive of all +superstitions." +"The source of public opinion?" said Claude Slagenhop in a radio speech. +'There is no source of public opinion. It is spontaneously general. It is a +reflex of the collective instinct of the collective mind." +Orren Boyle gave an interview to Globe, the news magazine with the largest +circulation. The interview was devoted to the subject of the grave social +responsibility of metallurgists, stressing the fact that metal performed so +many crucial tasks where human lives depended on its quality. "One should +not, it seems to me, use human beings as guinea pigs in the launching of a +new product," he said. He mentioned no names. +"Why, no, I don't say that that bridge will collapse," said the chief +metallurgist of Associated Steel, on a television program. "I don't say it at +all. I just say that if I had any children, I wouldn't let them ride on the +first train that's going to cross that bridge. But it's only a personal +preference, nothing more, just because I'm overly fond of children." +"I don't claim that the Rearden-Taggart contraption will collapse," +wrote Bertram Scudder in The Future. "Maybe it will and maybe it won't. +That's not the important issue. The important issue is: what protection does +society have against the arrogance, selfishness and greed of two unbridled +individualists, whose records are conspicuously devoid of any public-spirited +actions? These two, apparently, are willing to stake the lives of their +fellow men on their own conceited notions about their powers of judgment, +against the overwhelming majority opinion of recognized experts. Should +society permit it? If that thing does collapse, won't it be too late to take +precautionary measures? Won't it be like locking the barn after the horse has + + escaped? It has always been the belief of this column that certain kinds of +horses should be kept bridled and locked, on general social principles." +A group that called itself "Committee of Disinterested Citizens" collected +signatures on a petition demanding a year's study of the John Galt Line by +government experts before the first train were allowed to run. The petition +stated that its signers had no motive other than "a sense of civic duty." The +first signatures were those of Balph Eubank and Mort Liddy. The petition was +given a great deal of space and comment in all the newspapers. The +consideration it received was respectful, because it came from people who +were disinterested. +No space was given by the newspapers to the progress of the construction +of the John Galt Line. No reporter was sent to look at the scene. The general +policy of the press had been stated by a famous editor five years ago. "There +are no objective facts," he had said. "Every report on facts is only +somebody's opinion. It is, therefore, useless to write about facts." +A few businessmen thought that one should think about the possibility that +there might be commercial value in Rearden Metal. They undertook a survey of +the question. They did not hire metallurgists to examine samples, nor +engineers to visit the site of construction. They took a public poll. Ten +thousand people, guaranteed to represent every existing kin ! +of brain, were asked the question: "Would you ride on the John Galt Line?" +The answer, overwhelmingly., was: "No, sir-reel" +No voices were heard in public in defense of Rearden Metal. And nobody +attached significance to the fact that the stock of Taggart Transcontinental +was rising on the market, very slowly, almost furtively. +There were men who watched and played safe. Mr. Mowen bought Taggart stock +in the name of his sister. Ben Nealy bought it in the name of a cousin. Paul +Larkin bought it under an alias. "I don't believe in raising controversial +issues," said one of these men. +"Oh yes, of course, the construction is moving on schedule," said James +Taggart, shrugging, to his Board of Directors. "Oh yes, you may feel full +confidence. My dear sister does not happen to be a human being, but just an +internal combustion engine, so one must not wonder at her success." +When James Taggart heard a rumor that some bridge girders had split and +crashed, killing three workmen, he leaped to his feet and ran to his +secretary's office, ordering him to call Colorado. He waited, pressed against +the secretary's desk, as if seeking protection; his eyes had the unfocused +look of panic. Yet his mouth moved suddenly into almost a smile and he said, +"I'd give anything to see Henry Rearden’s face right now." When he heard that +the rumor was false, he said, "Thank God!" +But his voice had a note of disappointment. +"Oh well!" said Philip Rearden to his friends, hearing the same rumor. +"Maybe he can fail, too, once in a while. Maybe my great brother isn't as +great as he thinks." +"Darling," said Lillian Rearden to her husband, "I fought for you +yesterday, at a tea where the women were saying that Dagny Taggart is your +mistress. . . . Oh, for heaven's sake, don't look at me like that! +I know it's preposterous and I gave them hell for it. It's just that those +silly bitches can't imagine any other reason why a woman would take such a +stand against everybody for the sake of your Metal. Of course, I know better +than that. I know that the Taggart woman is perfectly sexless and doesn't +give a damn about you—and, darling, I know that if you ever had the courage +for anything of the sort, which you haven't, you wouldn't go for an adding +machine in tailored suits, you'd go for some blond, feminine chorus girl who— +oh, but Henry, I'm only joking! +—don't look at me like that!" + + "Dagny," James Taggart said miserably, "what's going to happen to us? +Taggart Transcontinental has become so unpopular!" +Dagny laughed, in enjoyment of the moment, any moment, as if the +undercurrent of enjoyment was constant within her and little was needed to +tap it. She laughed easily, her mouth relaxed and open. Her teeth were very +white against her sun-scorched face. Her eyes had the look, acquired in open +country, of being set for great distances. On her last few visits to New +York, he had noticed that she looked at him as if she did not see him. +"What are we going to do? The public is so overwhelmingly against us!" +"Jim, do you remember the story they tell about Nat Taggart? He said that +he envied only one of his competitors, the one who said The public be +damned!' He wished he had said it." +In the summer days and in the heavy stillness of the evenings of the city, +there were moments when a lonely man or woman—on a park bench, on a street +corner, at an open window—would see in a newspaper a brief mention of the +progress of the John Galt Line, and would look at the city with a sudden stab +of hope. They were the very young, who felt that it was the kind of event +they longed to see happening in the world—or the very old, who had seen a +world in which such events did happen. They did not care about railroads, +they knew nothing about business, they knew only that someone was fighting +against great odds and winning. They did not admire the fighters' purpose, +they believed the voices of public opinion—and yet, when they read that the +Line was growing, they felt a moment's sparkle and wondered why it made their +own problems seem easier. +Silently, unknown to everyone except to the freight yard of Taggart +Transcontinental in Cheyenne and the office of the John Galt Line in the dark +alley, freight was rolling in and orders for cars were piling up— +for the first train to run on the John Galt Line. Dagny Taggart had +announced that the first train would be, not a passenger express loaded with +celebrities and politicians, as was the custom, but a freight special. +The freight came from farms, from lumber yards, from mines all over the +country, from distant places whose last means of survival were the new +factories of Colorado. No one wrote about these shippers, because they were +men who were not disinterested. +The Phoenix-Durango Railroad was to close on July 25. The first train of +the John Galt Line was to run on July 22. +"Well, it's like this, Miss Taggart," said the delegate of the Union of +Locomotive Engineers. "I don't think we're going to allow you to run that +train." +Dagny sat at her battered desk, against the blotched wall of her office. +She said, without moving, "Get out of here." +It was a sentence the man had never heard in the polished offices of +railroad executives. He looked bewildered. "I came to tell you—" +"If you have anything to say to me, start over again." +"What?" +"Don't tell me what you're going to allow me to do." +"Well, I meant we're not going to allow our men to run your train." +"That's different." +"Well, that's what we've decided." +"Who's decided it?" +"The committee. What you're doing is a violation of human rights. +You can't force men to go out to get killed—when that bridge collapses — +just to make money for you." +She reached for a sheet of blank paper and handed it to him. "Put it down +in writing," she said, "and we'll sign a contract to that effect." +"What contract?" + + "That no member of your union will ever be employed to run an engine on +the John Galt Line." +"Why . . . wait a minute . . . I haven't said—" +"You don't want to sign such a contract?" +-No, I—" +"Why not, since you know that the bridge is going to collapse?" +"I only want—" +"I know what you want. You want a stranglehold on your men by means of the +jobs which I give them—and on me, by means of your men. You want me to +provide the jobs, and you want to make it impossible for me to have any jobs +to provide. Now I'll give you a choice. +That train is going to be run. You have no choice about that. But you can +choose whether it's going to be run by one of your men or not. If you choose +not to let them, the train will still run, if I have to drive the engine +myself. Then, if the bridge collapses, there won't be any railroad left in +existence, anyway. But if it doesn't collapse, no member of your union will +ever get a job on the John Galt Line. If you think that I need your men more +than they need me, choose accordingly. If you know that I can run an engine, +but they can't build a railroad, choose according to that. Now are you going +to forbid your men to run that train?" +"I didn't say we'd forbid it. I haven't said anything about forbidding. +But . . . but you can't force men to risk their lives on something +nobody's ever tried before." +"I'm not going to force anyone to take that run." +"What are you going to do?" +"I'm going to ask for a volunteer." +"And if none of them volunteers?" +"Then it will be my problem, not yours." +"Well, let me tell you that I'm going to advise them to refuse." +"Go ahead. Advise them anything you wish. Tell them whatever, you like. +But leave the choice to them. Don't try to forbid it." +The notice that appeared in every roundhouse of the Taggart system was +signed "Edwin Willers, Vice-President in Charge of Operation." It asked +engineers, who were willing to drive the first train on the John Galt Line, +so to inform the office of Mr. Willers., not later than eleven A.M. of July +15. +It was a quarter of eleven, on the morning of the fifteenth, when the +telephone rang in her office. It was Eddie, calling from high up in the +Taggart Building outside her window. "Dagny, I think you'd better come over." +His voice sounded queer. +She hurried across the street, then down the marble-floored halls, to the +door that still carried the name "Dagny Taggart" on its glass panel. +She pulled the door open. +The anteroom of the office was full. Men stood jammed among the desks, +against the walls. As she entered, they took their hats off in sudden +silence. She saw the graying heads, the muscular shoulders, she saw the +smiling faces of her staff at their desks and the face of Eddie Willers at +the end of the room. Everybody knew that nothing had to be said. +Eddie stood by the open door of her office. The crowd parted to let her +approach him. He moved his hand, pointing at the room, then at a pile of +letters and telegrams. +"Dagny, every one of them," he said. "Every engineer on Taggart +Transcontinental. Those who could, came here, some from as far as the Chicago +Division." He pointed at the mail. "There's the rest of them. +To be exact, there's only three I haven't heard from: one's on a vacation +in the north woods, one's in a hospital, and one's in jail for reckless +driving—of his automobile." + + She looked at the men. She saw the suppressed grins on the solemn faces. +She inclined her head, in acknowledgment. She stood for a moment, head bowed, +as if she were accepting a verdict, knowing that the verdict applied to her, +to every man in the room and to the world beyond the walls of the building. +"Thank you," she said. +Most of the men had seen her many times. Looking at her, as she raised her +head, many of them thought—in astonishment and for the first time—that the +face of their Operating Vice-President was the face of a woman and that it +was beautiful. +Someone in the back of the crowd cried suddenly, cheerfully, 'To hell with +Jim Taggart!" +An explosion answered him. The men laughed, they cheered, they broke into +applause. The response was out of all proportion to the sentence. But the +sentence had given them the excuse they needed. They seemed to be applauding +the speaker, in insolent defiance of authority. +But everyone in the room knew who it was that they were cheering. +She raised her hand. "We're too early," she said, laughing. "Wait till a +week from today. That's when we ought to celebrate. And believe me, we will!" +They drew lots for the run. She picked a folded slip of paper from among a +pile containing all their names. The winner was not in the room, but he was +one of the best men on the system, Pat Logan, engineer of the Taggart Comet +on the Nebraska Division. +"Wire Pat and tell him he's been demoted to a freight," she said to Eddie. +She added casually, as if it were a last-moment decision, but it fooled no +one, "Oh yes, tell him that I'm going to ride with him in the cab of the +engine on that run." +An old engineer beside her grinned and said, "I thought you would, Miss +Taggart." +Rearden was in New York on the day when Dagny telephoned him from her +office. "Hank, I'm going to have a press conference tomorrow." +He laughed aloud. "No!" +"Yes." Her voice sounded earnest, but, dangerously, a bit too earnest. +"The newspapers have suddenly discovered me and are asking questions. +I'm going to answer them." +"Have a good time." +"I will. Are you going to be in town tomorrow? I'd like to have you in on +it." +"Okay. I wouldn't want to miss it." +The reporters who came to the press conference in the office of the John +Galt Line were young men who had been trained to think that their job +consisted of concealing from the world the nature of its events. It was their +daily duty to serve as audience for some public- figure who made utterances +about the public good, in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning. It +was their daily job to sling words together in any combination they pleased, +so long as the words did not fall into a sequence saying something specific. +They could not understand the interview now being given to them. +Dagny Taggart sat behind her desk in an office that looked like a slum +basement. She wore a dark blue suit with a white blouse, beautifully +tailored, suggesting an air of formal, almost military elegance. She sat +straight, and her manner was severely dignified, just a shade too dignified. +Rearden sat in a corner of the room, sprawled across a broken armchair, +his long legs thrown over one of its arms, his body leaning against the +other. His manner was pleasantly informal, just a bit too informal. +In the clear, monotonous voice of a military report, consulting no papers, +looking straight at the men, Dagny recited the technological facts about the +John Galt Line, giving exact figures on the nature of the rail, the capacity +of the bridge, the method of construction, the costs. Then, in the dry tone + + of a banker, she explained the financial prospects of the Line and named the +large profits she expected to make. 'That is all," +she said. +"All?" said one of the reporters. "Aren't you going to give us a message +for the public?" +"That was my message." +"But hell—I mean, aren't you going to defend yourself?" +"Against what?" +"Don't you want to tell us something to justify your Line?" +"I have." +A man with a mouth shaped as a permanent sneer asked, "Well, what I want +to know, as Bertram Scudder stated, is what protection do we have against +your Line being no good?" +"Don't ride on it." +Another asked, "Aren't you going to tell us your motive for building that +Line?" +"I have told you: the profit which I expect to make." +"Oh, Miss Taggart, don't say that!" cried a young boy. He was new, he was +still honest about his job, and he felt that he liked Dagny Taggart, without +knowing why. "That's the wrong thing to say. That's what they're all saying +about you." +"Are they?" +"I'm sure you didn't mean it the way it sounds and . . . and I'm sure +you'll want to clarify it." +"Why, yes, if you wish me to. The average profit of railroads has been two +per cent of the capital invested. An industry that does so much and keeps so +little, should consider itself immoral. As I have explained, the cost of the +John Galt Line in relation to the traffic which it will carry makes me expect +a profit of not less than fifteen per cent on our investment. Of course, any +industrial profit above four per cent is considered usury nowadays. I shall, +nevertheless, do my best to make the John Galt Line earn a profit of twenty +per cent for me, if possible. That was my motive for building the Line. Have +I made myself clear now?” +The boy was looking at her helplessly. "You don't mean, to earn a profit +for you, Miss Taggart? You mean, for the small stockholders, of course?" he +prompted hopefully. +"Why, no. I happen to be one of the largest stockholders of Taggart +Transcontinental, so my share of the profits will be one of the largest, Now, +Mr. Rearden is in a much more fortunate position, because he has no +stockholders to share with—or would you rather make your own statement, Mr. +Rearden?" +"Yes, gladly," said Rearden. "Inasmuch as the formula of Rearden Metal is +my own personal secret, and in view of the fact that the Metal costs much +less to produce than you boys can imagine, I expect to skin the public to the +tune of a profit of twenty-five per cent in the next few years." +"What do you mean, skin the public, Mr. Rearden?" asked the boy. +"If it's true, as I've read in your ads, that your Metal will last three +times longer than any other and at half the price, wouldn't the public be +getting a bargain?" +"Oh, have you noticed that?" said Rearden. +"Do the two of you realize you're talking for publication?" asked the man +with the sneer. +"But, Mr. Hopkins," said Dagny, in polite astonishment, "is there any +reason why we would talk to you, if it weren't for publication?" +"Do you want us to quote all the things you said?" +"I hope I may trust you to be sure and quote them. Would you oblige me by +taking this down verbatim?" She paused to see their pencils ready, then + + dictated: "Miss Taggart says—quote—I expect to make a pile of money on the +John Galt Line. I will have earned it. Close quote. Thank you so much." +"Any questions, gentlemen?" asked Rearden. +There were no questions. +"Now I must tell you about the opening of the John Galt Line," said Dagny. +"The first train will depart from the station of Taggart Transcontinental in +Cheyenne, Wyoming, at four P.M. on July twenty-second. +It will be a freight special, consisting of eighty cars. It will be driven +by an eight-thousand-horsepower, four-unit Diesel locomotive—which I'm +leasing from Taggart Transcontinental for the occasion. It will run non-stop +to Wyatt Junction, Colorado, traveling at an average speed of one hundred +miles per hour. I beg your pardon?" she asked, hearing the long, low sound of +a whistle. +"What did you say, Miss Taggart?" +"I said, one hundred miles per hour—grades, curves and all." +"But shouldn't you cut the speed below normal rather than . . . Miss +Taggart, don't you have any consideration whatever for public opinion?" +"But I do. If it weren't for public opinion, an average speed of sixtyfive miles per hour would have been quite sufficient." +"Who's going to run that train?" +"I had quite a bit of trouble about that. All the Taggart engineers +volunteered to do it. So did the firemen, the brakemen and the conductors. We +had to draw lots for every job on the train's crew. The engineer will be Pat +Logan, of the Taggart Comet, the fireman—Ray McKim. +I shall ride in the cab of the engine with them." +"Not really!" +"Please do attend the opening. It's on July twenty-second. The press is +most eagerly invited. Contrary to my usual policy, I have become a publicity +hound. Really. I should like to have spotlights, radio microphones and +television cameras. I suggest that you plant a few cameras around the bridge. +The collapse of the bridge would give you some interesting shots." +"Miss Taggart," asked Rearden, "why didn't you mention that I'm going to +ride in that engine, too?" +She looked at him across the room, and for a moment they were alone, +holding each other's glance. +"Yes, of course, Mr. Rearden," she answered. +She did not see him again until they looked at each other across the +platform of the Taggart station in Cheyenne, on July 22. +She did not look for anyone when she stepped out on the platform: she felt +as if her senses had merged, so that she could not distinguish the sky, the +sun or the sounds of an enormous crowd, but perceived only a sensation of +shock and light. +Yet he was the first person she saw, and she could not tell for how long a +time he was also the only one. He stood by the engine of the John Galt train, +talking to somebody outside the field of her consciousness. +He was dressed in gray slacks and shirt, he looked like an expert +mechanic, but he was stared at by the faces around him, because he was Hank +Rearden of Rearden Steel. High above him, she saw the letters TT on the +silver front of the engine. The lines of the engine slanted back, aimed at +space. +There was distance and a crowd between them, but his eyes moved to her the +moment she came out. They looked at each other and she knew that he felt as +she did. This was not to be a solemn venture upon which their future +depended, but simply their day of enjoyment. Their work was done. For the +moment, there was no future. They had earned the present. +Only if one feels immensely important, she had told him, can one feel +truly light. Whatever the train's run would mean to others, for the two of + + them their own persons were this day's sole meaning. Whatever it was that +others sought in life, their right to what they now felt was all the two of +them wished to find. It was as if, across the platform, they said it to each +other. +Then she turned away from him. +She noticed that she, too, was being stared at, that there were people +around her, that she was laughing and answering questions. +She had not expected such a large crowd. They filled the platform, the +tracks, the square beyond the station; they were on the roofs of the boxcars +on the sidings, at the windows of every house in sight. Something had drawn +them here, something in the air which, at the last moment, had made James +Taggart want to attend the opening of the John Galt Line. She had forbidden +it. "If you come, Jim," she had said, "I'll have you thrown out of your own +Taggart station. This is one event you're not going to see." Then she had +chosen Eddie Willers to represent Taggart Transcontinental at the opening. +She looked at the crowd and she felt, simultaneously, astonishment that +they should stare at her, when this event was so personally her own that no +communication about it was possible, and a sense of fitness that they should +be here, that they should want to see it, because the sight of an achievement +was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others. +She felt no anger toward anyone on earth. The things she had endured had +now receded into some outer fog, like pain that still exists, but has no +power to hurt. Those things could not stand in the face of this moment's +reality, the meaning of this day was as brilliantly, violently clear as the +splashes of sun on the silver of the engine, all men had to perceive it now, +no one could doubt it and she had no one to hate. +Eddie Willers was watching her. He stood on the platform, surrounded by +Taggart executives, division heads, civic leaders, and the various local +officials who had been out argued, bribed or threatened, to obtain permits to +run a train through town zones at a hundred miles an hour. For once, for this +day and event, his title of Vice-president was real to him and he carried it +well. But while he spoke to those around him, his eyes kept following Dagny +through the crowd. She was dressed in blue slacks and shirt, she was +unconscious of official duties, she had left them to him, the train was now +her sole concern, as if she were only a member of its crew. +She saw him, she approached, and she shook his hand; her smile was like a +summation of all the things they did not have to say. "Well, Eddie, you're +Taggart Transcontinental now." +"Yes," he said solemnly, his voice low. +There were reporters asking questions, and they dragged her away from him. +They were asking him questions, too. "Mr. Willers, what is the policy of +Taggart Transcontinental in regard to this line?" "So Taggart +Transcontinental is just a disinterested observer, is it, Mr. Willers?" +He answered as best he could. He was looking at the sun on a Diesel +engine. But what he was seeing was the sun in a clearing of the woods and a +twelve-year-old girl telling him that he would help her run the railroad some +day. +He watched from a distance while the train's crew was lined up in front of +the engine, to face a firing squad of cameras. Dagny and Rearden were +smiling, as if posing for snapshots of a summer vacation. Pat Logan, the +engineer, a short, sinewy man with graying hair and a contemptuously +inscrutable face, posed in a manner of amused indifference. +Ray McKim, the fireman, a husky young giant, grinned with an air of +embarrassment and superiority together. The rest of the crew looked as if +they were about to wink at the cameras. A photographer said, laughing, "Can't +you people look doomed, please? I know that's what the editor wants." + + Dagny and Rearden were answering questions for the press. There was no +mockery in their answers now, no bitterness. They were enjoying it. They +spoke as if the questions were asked in good faith. Irresistibly, at some +point which no one noticed, this became true, "What do you expect to happen +on this run?" a reporter asked one of the brakemen. "Do you think you'll get +there?" +"I think we'll get there," said the brakeman, "and so do you, brother." +"Mr. Logan, do you have any children? Did you take out any extra +insurance? I'm just thinking of the bridge, you know." +"Don't cross that bridge till I come to it," Pat Logan answered +contemptuously. +"Mr. Rearden, how do you know that your rail will hold?" +'The man who taught people to make a printing press," said Rearden, "how +did he know it?" +"Tell me, Miss Taggart, what's going to support a seven-thousand-ton train +on a three-thousand-ton bridge?" +"My judgment," she answered. +The men of the press, who despised their own profession, did not know why +they were enjoying it today. One of them, a young man with years of notorious +success behind him and a cynical look of twice his age, said suddenly, "I +know what I'd like to be: I wish I could be a man who covers news!" +The hands of the clock on the station building stood at 3:45. The crew +started off toward the caboose at the distant end of the train. The movement +and noise of the crowd were subsiding. Without conscious intention, people +were beginning to stand still. +The dispatcher had received word from every local operator along the line +of rail that wound through the mountains to the Wyatt oil fields three +hundred miles away. He came out of the station building and, looking at +Dagny, gave the signal for clear track ahead. Standing by the engine, Dagny +raised her hand, repeating his gesture in sign of an order received and +understood. +The long line of boxcars stretched off into the distance, in spaced, +rectangular links, like a spinal cord. When the conductor's arm swept through +the air, far at the end, she moved her arm in answering signal. +Rearden, Logan and McKim stood silently, as if at attention, letting her +be first to get aboard. As she started up the rungs on the side of the +engine, a reporter thought of a question he had not asked. +"Miss Taggart," he called after her, "who is John Galt?" +She turned, hanging onto a metal bar with one hand, suspended for an +instant above the heads of the crowd. +"We are!" she answered. +Logan followed her into the cab, then McKim; Rearden went last, then the +door of the engine was shut, with the tight finality of sealed metal. +The lights, hanging on a signal bridge against the sky, were green. +There were green lights between the tracks, low over the ground, dropping +off into the distance where the rails turned and a green light stood at the +curve, against leaves of a summer green that looked as if they, too, were +lights. +Two men held a white silk ribbon stretched across the track in front of +the engine. They were the superintendent of the Colorado Division and Nealy's +chief engineer, who had remained on the job. Eddie Willers was to cut the +ribbon they held and thus to open the new line. +The photographers posed him carefully, scissors in hand, his back to the +engine. He would repeat the ceremony two or three times, they explained, to +give them a choice of shots; they had a fresh bolt of ribbon ready. He was +about to comply, then stopped. "No," he said suddenly. +"It's not going to be a phony." + + In a voice of quiet authority, the voice of a vice-president, he ordered, +pointing at the cameras, "Stand back—way back. Take one shot when I cut it, +then get out of the way, fast." +They obeyed, moving hastily farther down the track. There was only one +minute left. Eddie turned his back to the cameras and stood between the +rails, facing the engine. He held the scissors ready over the white ribbon. +He took his hat off and tossed it aside. He was looking up at the engine. A +faint wind stirred his blond hair. The engine was a great silver shield +bearing the emblem of Nat Taggart. +Eddie Willers raised his hand as the hand of the station clock reached the +instant of four. +"Open her up, Pat!" he called. +In the moment when the engine started forward, he cut the white ribbon and +leaped out of the way. +From the side track, he saw the window of the cab go by and Dagny waving +to him in an answering salute. Then the engine was gone, and he stood looking +across at the crowded platform that kept appearing and vanishing as the +freight cars clicked past him. +The green-blue rails ran to meet them, like two jets shot out of a single +point beyond the curve of the earth. The crossties melted, as they +approached, into a smooth stream rolling down under the wheels. A blurred +streak clung to the side of the engine, low over the ground. Trees and +telegraph poles sprang into sight abruptly and went by as if jerked back. The +green plains stretched past, in a leisurely flow. At the edge of the sky, a +long wave of mountains reversed the movement and seemed to follow the train. +She felt no wheels under the floor. The motion was a smooth flight on a +sustained impulse, as if the engine hung above the rails, riding a current. +She felt no speed. It seemed strange that the green lights of the signals +kept coming at them and past, every few seconds. She knew that the signal +lights were spaced two miles apart. +The needle on the speedometer in front of Pat Logan stood at one hundred. +She sat in the fireman's chair and glanced across at Logan once in a +while. He sat slumped forward a little, relaxed, one hand resting lightly on +the throttle as if by chance; but his eyes were fixed on the track ahead. He +had the ease of an expert, so confident that it seemed casual, but it was the +ease of a tremendous concentration, the concentration on one's task that has +the ruthlessness of an absolute. Ray McKim sat on a bench behind them. +Rearden stood in the middle of the cab. +He stood, hands in pockets, feet apart, braced against the motion, looking +ahead. There was nothing he could now care to see by the side of the track: +he was looking at the rail. +Ownership—she thought, glancing back at him—weren't there those who knew +nothing of its nature and doubted its reality? No, it was not made of papers, +seals, grants and permissions. There it was—in his eyes. +The sound filling the cab seemed part of the space they were crossing. It +held the low drone of the motors—the sharper clicking of the many parts that +rang in varied cries of metal—and the high, thin chimes of trembling glass +panes. +Things streaked past—a water tank, a tree, a shanty, a grain silo. +They had a windshield-wiper motion: they were rising, describing a curve +and dropping back. The telegraph wires ran a race with the train, rising and +falling from pole to pole, in an even rhythm, like the cardiograph record of +a steady heartbeat written across the sky. +She looked ahead, at the haze that melted rail and distance, a haze that +could rip apart at any moment to some shape of disaster. She wondered why she +felt safer than she had ever felt in a car behind the engine, safer here, +where it seemed as if, should an obstacle rise, her breast and the glass + + shield would be first to smash against it. She smiled, grasping the answer: +it was the security of being first, with full sight and full knowledge of +one's course—not the blind sense of being pulled into the unknown by some +unknown power ahead. It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to +trust, but to know. +The glass sheets of the cab's windows made the spread of the fields seem +vaster: the earth looked as open to movement as it was to sight. +Yet nothing was distant and nothing was out of reach. She had barely +grasped the sparkle of a lake ahead—and in the next instant she was beside +it, then past. +It was a strange foreshortening between sight and touch, she thought, +between wish and fulfillment, between—the words clicked sharply in her mind +after a startled stop—between spirit and body. First, the vision—then the +physical shape to express it. First, the thought—then the purposeful motion +down the straight line of a single track to a chosen goal. Could one have any +meaning without the other? Wasn't it evil to wish without moving—or to move +without aim? Whose malevolence was it that crept through the world, +struggling to break the two apart and set them against each other? +She shook her head. She did not want to think or to wonder why the world +behind her was as it was. She did not care. She was flying away from it, at +the rate of a hundred miles an hour. She leaned to the open window by her +side, and felt the wind of the speed blowing her hair off her forehead. She +lay back, conscious of nothing but the pleasure it gave her. +Yet her mind kept racing. Broken bits of thought flew past her attention, +like the telegraph poles by the track. Physical pleasure?—she thought. This +is a train made of steel . . . running on rails of Rearden Metal . . . moved +by the energy of burning oil and electric generators . . . it's a physical +sensation of physical movement through space . . . but is that the cause and +the meaning of what I now feel? +. . . Do they call it a low, animal joy—this feeling that I would not care +if the rail did break to bits under us now—it won't—but I wouldn't care, +because I have experienced this? A low, physical, material, degrading +pleasure of the body? +She smiled, her eyes closed, the wind streaming through her hair. +She opened her eyes and saw that Rearden stood looking down at her. It was +the same glance with which he had looked at the rail. She felt her power of +volition knocked out by some single, dull blow that made her unable to move. +She held his eyes, lying back in her chair, the wind pressing the thin cloth +of her shirt to her body. +He looked away, and she turned again to the sight of the earth tearing +open before them. +She did not want to think, but the sound of thought went on, like the +drone of the motors under the sounds of the engine. She looked at the cab +around her. The fine steel mesh of the ceiling, she thought, and the row of +rivets in the corner, holding sheets of steel sealed together—who made them? +The brute force of men's muscles? Who made it possible for four dials and +three levers in front of Pat Logan to hold the incredible power of the +sixteen motors behind them and deliver it to the effortless control of one +man's hand? +These things and the capacity from which they came—was this the pursuit +men regarded as evil? Was this what they called an ignoble concern with the +physical world? Was this the state of being enslaved by matter? Was this the +surrender of man's spirit to his body? +She shook her head, as if she wished she could toss the subject out of the +window and let it get shattered somewhere along the track. She looked at the +sun on the summer fields. She did not have to think, because these questions +were only details of a truth she knew and had always known. Let them go past + + like the telegraph poles. The thing she knew was like the wires flying above +in an unbroken line. The words for it, and for this journey, and for her +feeling, and for the whole of man's earth, were: It's so simple and so right! +She looked out at the country. She had been aware for some time of the +human figures that flashed with an odd regularity at the side of the track. +But they went by so fast that she could not grasp their meaning until, like +the squares of a movie film, brief flashes blended into a whole and she +understood it. She had had the track guarded since its completion, but she +had not hired the human chain she saw strung out along the right-of-way. A +solitary figure stood at every mile post. Some were young schoolboys, others +were so old that the silhouettes of their bodies looked bent against the sky. +All of them were armed, with anything they had found, from costly rifles to +ancient muskets. All of them wore railroad caps. They were the sons of +Taggart employees, and old railroad men who had retired after a full lifetime +of Taggart service. They had come, unsummoned, to guard this train. As the +engine went past him, every man in his turn stood erect, at attention, and +raised his gun in a military salute. +When she grasped it, she burst out laughing, suddenly, with the abruptness +of a cry. She laughed, shaking, like a child; it sounded like sobs of +deliverance. Pat Logan nodded to her with a faint smile; he had noted the +guard of honor long ago. She leaned to the open window, and her arm swept in +wide curves of triumph, waving to the men by the track. +On the crest of a distant hill, she saw a crowd of people, their arms +swinging against the sky. The gray houses of a village were scattered through +a valley below, as if dropped there once and forgotten; the roof lines +slanted, sagging, and the years had washed away the color of the walls. +Perhaps generations had lived there, with nothing to mark the passage of +their days but the movement of the sun from east to west. +Now, these men had climbed the hill to see a silver-headed comet cut +through their plains like the sound of a bugle through a long weight of +silence. +As houses began to come more frequently, closer to the track, she saw +people at the windows, on the porches, on distant roofs. She saw crowds +blocking the roads at grade crossings. The roads went sweeping past like the +spokes of a fan, and she could not distinguish human figures, only their arms +greeting the train like branches waving in the wind of its speed. They stood +under the swinging red lights of warning signals, under the signs saying; +"Stop. Look. Listen." +The station past which they flew, as they went through a town at a hundred +miles an hour, was a swaying sculpture of people from platform to roof. She +caught the flicker of waving arms, of hats tossed in the air, of something +flung against the side of the engine, which was a bunch of flowers. +As the miles clicked past them, the towns went by, with the stations at +which they did not stop, with the crowds of people who had come only to see, +to cheer and to hope. She saw garlands of flowers under the sooted eaves of +old station buildings, and bunting of red-white-and-blue on the time-eaten +walls. It was like the pictures she had seen—and envied—in schoolbook +histories of railroads, from the era when people gathered to greet the first +run of a train. It was like the age when Nat Taggart moved across the +country, and the stops along his way were marked by men eager for the sight +of achievement. That age, she had thought, was gone; generations had passed, +with no event to greet anywhere, with nothing to see but the cracks +lengthening year by year on the walls built by Nat Taggart. Yet men came +again, as they had come in his time, drawn by the same response. +She glanced at Rearden. He stood against the wall, unaware of the crowds, +indifferent to admiration. He was watching the performance of track and train +with an expert's intensity of professional interest; his bearing suggested + + that he would kick aside, as irrelevant, any thought such as 'They like it," +when the thought ringing in his mind was "It works!" +His tall figure in the single gray of slacks and shirt looked as if his +body were stripped for action. The slacks stressed the long lines of his +legs, the light, firm posture of standing without effort or being ready to +swing forward at an instant's notice; the short sleeves stressed the gaunt +strength of his arms; the open shirt bared the tight skin of his chest. +She turned away, realizing suddenly that she had been glancing back at him +too often. But this day had no ties to past or future—her thoughts were cut +off from implications—she saw no further meaning, only the immediate +intensity of the feeling that she was imprisoned with him, sealed together in +the same cube of air, the closeness of his presence underscoring her +awareness of this day, as his rails underscored the flight of the train. +She turned deliberately and glanced back. He was looking at her. +He did not turn away, but held her glance, coldly and with full intention. +She smiled defiantly, not letting herself know the full meaning of her +smile, knowing only that it was the sharpest blow she could strike at his +inflexible face. She felt a sudden desire to see him trembling, to tear a cry +out of him. She turned her head away, slowly, feeling a reckless amusement, +wondering why she found it difficult to breathe. +She sat leaning back in her chair, looking ahead, knowing that he was as +aware of her as she was of him. She found pleasure in the special selfconsciousness it gave her. When she crossed her legs, when she leaned on her +arm against the window sill, when she brushed her hair off her forehead—every +movement of her body was underscored by a feeling the unadmitted words for +which were: Is he seeing it? +The towns had been left behind. The track was rising through a country +growing more grimly reluctant to permit approach. The rails kept vanishing +behind curves, and the ridges of hills kept moving closer, as if the plains +were being folded into pleats. The flat stone shelves of Colorado were +advancing to the edge of the track—and the distant reaches of the sky were +shrinking into waves of bluish mountains. +Far ahead, they saw a mist of smoke over factory chimneys—then the web of +a power station and the lone needle of a steel structure. They were +approaching Denver. +She glanced at Pat Logan. He was leaning forward a little farther; she saw +a slight tightening in the fingers of his hand and in his eyes. He knew, as +she did, the danger of crossing a city at the speed they were traveling. +It was a succession of minutes, but it hit them as a single whole. First, +they saw the lone shapes, which were factories, rolling across their +windowpanes—then the shapes fused into the blur of streets—then a delta of +rails spread out before them, like the mouth of a funnel sucking them into +the Taggart station, with nothing to protect them but the small green beads +of lights scattered over the ground—from the height of the cab, they saw +boxcars on sidings streak past as flat ribbons of roof tops —the black hole +of the train-shed flew at their faces—they hurtled through an explosion of +sound, the beating of wheels against the glass panes of a vault, and the +screams of cheering from a mass that swayed like a liquid in the darkness +among steel columns—they flew toward a glowing arch and the green lights +hanging in the open sky beyond, the green lights that were like the doorknobs +of space, throwing door after door open before them. Then, vanishing behind +them, went the streets clotted with traffic, the open windows bulging with +human figures, the screaming sirens, and—from the top of a distant +skyscraper—a cloud of paper snowflakes shimmering on the air, flung by +someone who saw the passage of a silver bullet across a city stopped still to +watch it. + + Then they were out again, on a rocky grade—and with shocking suddenness, +the mountains were before them, as if the city had flung them straight at a +granite wall, and a thin ledge had caught them in time. They were clinging to +the side of a vertical cliff, with the earth rolling down, dropping away, and +giant tiers of twisted boulders streaming up and shutting out the sun, +leaving them to speed through a bluish twilight, with no sight of soil or +sky. +The curves of rail became coiling circles among walls that advanced to +grind them off their sides. But the track cut through at times and the +mountains parted, flaring open like two wings at the tip of the rail—one wing +green, made of vertical needles, with whole pines serving as the pile of a +solid carpet—the other reddish-brown, made of naked rock. +She looked down through the open window and saw the silver side of the +engine hanging over empty space. Far below, the thin thread of a stream went +falling from ledge to ledge, and the ferns that drooped to the water were the +shimmering tops of birch trees. She saw the engine's tail of boxcars winding +along the face of a granite drop—and miles of contorted stone below, she saw +the coils of green-blue rail unwinding behind the train. +A wall of rock shot upward in their path, filling the windshield, +darkening the cab, so close that it seemed as if the remnant of time could +not let them escape it. But she heard the screech of wheels on curve, the +light came bursting back—and she saw an open stretch of rail on a narrow +shelf. The shelf ended in space. The nose of the engine was aimed straight at +the sky. There was nothing to stop them but two strips of green-blue metal +strung in a curve along the shelf. +To take the pounding violence of sixteen motors, she thought, the thrust +of seven thousand tons of steel and freight, to withstand it, grip it and +swing it around a curve, was the impossible feat performed by two strips of +metal no wider than her arm. What made it possible? What power had given to +an unseen arrangement of molecules the power on which their lives depended +and the lives of all the men who waited for the eighty boxcars? She saw a +man's face and hands in the glow of a laboratory oven, over the white liquid +of a sample of metal. +She felt the sweep of an emotion which she could not contain, as of +something bursting upward. She turned to the door of the motor units, she +threw it open to a screaming jet of sound and escaped into the pounding of +the engine's heart. +For a moment, it was as if she were reduced to a single sense, the sense +of hearing, and what remained of her hearing was only a long, rising, +falling, rising scream. She stood in a swaying, sealed chamber of metal, +looking at the giant generators. She had wanted to see them, because the +sense of triumph within her was bound to them, to her love for them, to the +reason of the life-work she had chosen. In the abnormal clarity of a violent +emotion, she felt as if she were about to grasp something she had never known +and had to know. She laughed aloud, but heard no sound of it; nothing could +be heard through the continuous explosion. "The John Galt Line!" she shouted, +for the amusement of feeling her voice swept away from her lips. +She moved slowly along the length of the motor units, down a narrow +passage between the engines and the wall. She felt the immodesty of an +intruder, as if she had slipped inside a living creature, under its silver +skin, and were watching its life beating in gray metal cylinders, in twisted +coils, in sealed tubes, in the convulsive whirl of blades in wire cages. The +enormous complexity of the shape above her was drained by invisible channels, +and the violence raging within it was led to fragile needles on glass dials, +to green and red beads winking on panels, to tall, thin cabinets stenciled +"High Voltage." + + Why had she always felt that joyous sense of confidence when looking at +machines?—she thought. In these giant shapes, two aspects pertaining to the +inhuman were radiantly absent: the causeless and the purposeless. Every part +of the motors was an embodied answer to "Why?" +and "What for?"—like the steps of a life-course chosen by the sort of mind +she worshipped. The motors were a moral code cast in steel. +They are alive, she thought, because they are the physical shape of the +action of a living power—of the mind that had been able to grasp the whole of +this complexity, to set its purpose, to give it form. For an instant, it +seemed to her that the motors were transparent and she was seeing the net of +their nervous system. It was a net of connections, more intricate, more +crucial than all of their wires and circuits: the rational connections made +by that human mind which had fashioned any one part of them for the first +time. +They are alive, she thought, but their soul operates them by remote +control. Their soul is in every man who has the capacity to equal this +achievement. Should the soul vanish from the earth, the motors would stop, +because that is the power which keeps them going—not the oil under the floor +under her feet, the oil that would then become primeval ooze again—not the +steel cylinders that would become stains of rust on the walls of the caves of +shivering savages—the power of a living mind —the power of thought and choice +and purpose. +She was making her way back toward the cab, feeling that she wanted to +laugh, to kneel or to lift her arms, wishing she were able to release the +thing she felt, knowing that it had no form of expression. +She stopped She saw Rearden standing by the steps of the door to the cab. +He was looking at her as if he knew why she had escaped and what she felt. +They stood still, their bodies becoming a glance that met across a narrow +passage. The beating within her was one with the beating of the motors—and +she felt as if both came from him; the pounding rhythm wiped out her will. +They went back to the cab, silently, knowing that there had been a moment +which was not to be mentioned between them. +The cliffs ahead were a bright, liquid gold. Strips of shadow were +lengthening in the valleys below. The sun was descending to the peaks in the +west. They were going west and up, toward the sun. +The sky had deepened to the greenish-blue of the rails, when they saw +smokestacks in a distant valley. It was one of Colorado's new towns, the +towns that had grown like a radiation from the Wyatt oil fields. She saw the +angular lines of modern houses, flat roofs, great sheets of windows. It was +too far to distinguish people. In the moment when she thought that they would +not be watching the train at that distance, a rocket shot out from among the +buildings, rose high above the town and broke as a fountain of gold stars +against the darkening sky. Men whom she could not see, were seeing the streak +of the train on the side of the mountain, and were sending a salute, a lonely +plume of fire in the dusk, the symbol of celebration or of a call for help. +Beyond the next turn, in a sudden view of distance, she saw two dots of +electric light, white and red, low in the sky. They were not airplanes '—she +saw the cones of metal girders supporting them—and in the moment when she +knew that they were the derricks of Wyatt Oil, she saw that the track was +sweeping downward, that the earth flared open, as if the mountains were flung +apart—and at the bottom, at the foot of the Wyatt hill, across the dark crack +of a canyon, she saw the bridge of Rearden Metal. +They were flying down, she forgot the careful grading, the great curves of +the gradual descent, she felt as if the train were plunging downward, head +first, she watched the bridge growing to meet them—a small, square tunnel of +metal lace work, a few beams criss-crossed through the air, green-blue and +glowing, struck by a long ray of sunset light from some crack in the barrier + + of mountains. There were people by the bridge, the dark splash of a crowd, +but they rolled off the edge of her consciousness. She heard the rising, +accelerating sound of the wheels—and some theme of music, heard to the rhythm +of wheels, kept tugging at her mind, growing louder—it burst suddenly within +the cab, but she knew that it was only in her mind; the Fifth Concerto by +Richard Halley—she thought: did he write it for this? had he known a feeling +such as this?— +they were going faster, they had left the ground, she thought, flung off +by the mountains as by a springboard, they were now sailing through space— +it's not a fair test, she thought, we're not going to touch that bridge—she +saw Rearden's face above her, she held his eyes and her head leaned back, so +that her face lay still on the air under his face— +they heard a ringing blast of metal, they heard a drum roll under their +feet, the diagonals of the bridge went smearing across the windows with the +sound of a metal rod being run along the pickets of a fence—then the windows +were too suddenly clear, the sweep of their downward plunge was carrying them +up a hill, the derricks of Wyatt Oil were reeling before them—Pat Logan +turned, glancing up at Rearden with the hint of a smile—and Rearden said, +"That's that." +The sign on the edge of a roof read: Wyatt Junction. She stared, feeling +that there was something odd about it, until she grasped what it was: the +sign did not move. The sharpest jolt of the journey was the realization that +the engine stood still. +She heard voices somewhere, she looked down and saw that there were people +on the platform. Then the door of the cab was flung open, she knew that she +had to be first to descend, and she stepped to the edge. +For the flash of an instant, she felt the slenderness of her own body, the +lightness of standing full-figure in a current of open air. She gripped the +metal bars and started down the ladder. She was halfway down when she felt +the palms of a man's hands slam tight against her ribs and waistline, she was +torn off the steps, swung through the air and deposited on the ground. She +could not believe that the young boy laughing in her face was Ellis Wyatt. +The tense, scornful face she remembered, now had the purity, the eagerness, +the joyous benevolence of a child in the kind of world for which he had been +intended. +She was leaning against his shoulder, feeling unsteady on the motionless +ground, with his arm about her, she was laughing, she was listening to the +things he said, she was answering, "But didn't you know we would?" +In a moment, she saw the faces around them. They were the bondholders of +the John Galt Line, the men who were Nielsen Motors, Hammond Cars, Stockton +Foundry and all the others. She shook their hands, and there were no +speeches; she stood against Ellis Wyatt, sagging a little, brushing her hair +away from her eyes, leaving smudges of soot on her forehead. She shook the +hands of the men of the train's crew, without words, with the seal of the +grins on their faces. There were flash bulbs exploding around them, and men +waving to them from the riggings of the oil wells on the slopes of the +mountains. Above her head, above the heads of the crowd, the letters TT on a +silver shield were hit by the last ray of a sinking sun. +Ellis Wyatt had taken charge. He was leading her somewhere, the sweep of +his arm cutting a path for them through the crowd, when one of the men with +the cameras broke through to her side. "Miss Taggart," +he called, "will you give us a message for the public?" Ellis Wyatt +pointed at the long string of freight cars. "She has." +Then she was sitting in the back seat of an open car, driving up the +curves of a mountain road. The man beside her was Rearden, the driver was +Ellis Wyatt. + + They stopped at a house that stood on the edge of a cliff, with no other +habitation anywhere in sight, with the whole of the oil fields spread on the +slopes below. +"Why, of course you're staying at my house overnight, both of you," +said Ellis Wyatt, as they went in. "Where did you expect to stay?" +She laughed. "I don't know, I hadn't thought of it at all." +"The nearest town is an hour's drive away. That's where your crew has +gone: your boys at the division point are giving a party in their honor. So +is the whole town. But I told Ted Nielsen and the others that we'd have no +banquets for you and no oratory. Unless you'd like it?" +"God, no!" she said. "Thanks, Ellis." +It was dark when they sat at the dinner table in a room that had large +windows and a few pieces of costly furniture. The dinner was served by a +silent figure in a white jacket, the only other inhabitant of the house, an +elderly Indian with a stony face and a courteous manner. A few points of fire +were scattered through the room, running over and out beyond the windows: the +candles on the table, the lights on the derricks, and the stars. +"Do you think that you have your hands full now?" Ellis Wyatt was saying. +"Just give me a year and I'll give you something to keep you busy. Two tank +trains a day, Dagny? It's going to be four or six or as many as you wish me +to fill." His hand swept over the lights on the mountains. "This? It's +nothing, compared to what I've got coming." He pointed west. "The Buena +Esperanza Pass. Five miles from here. Everybody's wondering what I'm doing +with it. Oil shale. How many years ago was it that they gave up trying to get +oil from shale, because it was too expensive? Well, wait till you see the +process I've developed. It will be the cheapest oil ever to splash in their +faces, and an unlimited supply of it, an untapped supply that will make the +biggest oil pool look like a mud puddle. Did I order a pipe line? Hank, you +and I will have to build pipe lines in all directions to . . . Oh, I beg your +pardon. I don't believe I introduced myself when I spoke to you at the +station. I haven't even told you my name." +Rearden grinned. "I've guessed it by now." +"I'm sorry, I don't like to be careless, but I was too excited." +"What were you excited about?" asked Dagny, her eyes narrowed in mockery. +Wyatt held her glance for a moment; his answer had a tone of solemn +intensity strangely conveyed by a smiling voice. "About the most beautiful +slap in the face I ever got and deserved." +"Do you mean, for our first meeting?" +"I mean, for our first meeting." +"Don't. You were right." +"I was. About everything but you. Dagny, to find an exception after years +of . . . Oh, to hell with them! Do you want me to turn on the radio and hear +what they're saying about the two of you tonight?" +"No." +"Good. I don't want to hear them. Let them swallow their own speeches. +They're all climbing on the band wagon now. We're the band." +He glanced at Rearden. "What are you smiling at?" +"I've always been curious to see what you're like." +"I've never had a chance to be what I'm like—except tonight." +"Do you live here alone, like this, miles away from everything?" +Wyatt pointed at the window. "I'm a couple of steps away from— +everything." +"What about people?" +"I have guest rooms for the kind of people who come to see me on business. +I want as many miles as possible between myself and all the other kinds." He +leaned forward to refill their wine glasses. "Hank, why don't you move to +Colorado? To hell with New York and the Eastern Seaboard! This is the capital + + of the Renaissance. The Second Renaissance—not of oil paintings and +cathedrals—but of oil derricks, power plants, and motors made of Rearden +Metal. They had the Stone Age and the Iron Age and now they're going to call +it the Rearden Metal Age—because there's no limit to what your Metal has made +possible." +"I'm going to buy a few square miles of Pennsylvania," said Rearden. +"The ones around my mills. It would have been cheaper to build a branch +here, as I wanted, but you know why I can't, and to hell with them! Ill beat +them anyway. I'm going to expand the mills—and if she can give me three-day +freight service to Colorado, I'll give you a race for who's going to be the +capital of the Renaissance!" +"Give me a year," said Dagny, "of running trains on the John Galt Line, +give me time to pull the Taggart system together—and I'll give you three-day +freight service across the continent, on a Rearden Metal track from ocean to +ocean!" +"Who was it that said he needed a fulcrum?" said Ellis Wyatt. "Give me an +unobstructed right-of-way and I'll show them how to move the earth!" +She wondered what it was that she liked about the sound of Wyatt's +laughter. Their voices, even her own, had a tone she had never heard before. +When they rose from the table, she was astonished to notice that the candles +were the only illumination of the room: she had felt as if she were sitting +in a violent light. +Ellis Wyatt picked up his glass, looked at their faces and said, "To the +world as it seems to be right now!" +He emptied the glass with a single movement. +She heard the crash of the glass against the wall in the same instant that +she saw a circling current—from the curve of his body to the sweep of his arm +to the terrible violence of his hand that flung the glass across the room. It +was not the conventional gesture meant as celebration, it was the gesture of +a rebellious anger, the vicious gesture which is movement substituted for a +scream of pain. +"Ellis," she whispered, "what's the matter?" +He turned to look at her. With the same violent suddenness, his eyes were +clear, his face was calm; what frightened her was seeing him smile gently. +"I'm sorry," he said. "Never mind. We'll try to think that it will last." +The earth below was streaked with moonlight, when Wyatt led them up an +outside stairway to the second floor of the house, to the open gallery at the +doors of the guest rooms. He wished them good night and they heard his steps +descending the stairs. The moonlight seemed to drain sound as it drained +color. The steps rolled into a distant past, and when they died, the silence +had the quality of a solitude that had lasted for a long time, as if no +person were left anywhere in reach. +She did not turn to the door of her room. He did not move. At the level of +their feet, there was nothing but a thin railing and a spread of space. +Angular tiers descended below, with shadows repeating the steel tracery of +derricks, criss-crossing sharp, black lines on patches of glowing rock. A few +lights, white and red, trembled in the clear air, like drops of rain caught +on the edges of steel girders. Far in the distance, three small drops were +green, strung in a line along the Taggart track. +Beyond them, at the end of space, at the foot of a white curve, hung a +webbed rectangle which was the bridge. +She felt a rhythm without sound or movement, a sense of beating tension, +as if the wheels of the John Galt Line were still speeding on. +Slowly, in answer and in resistance to an unspoken summons, she turned and +looked at him. +The look she saw on his face made her know for the first time that she had +known this would be the end of the journey. That look was not as men are + + taught to represent it, it was not a matter of loose muscles, hanging lips +and mindless hunger. The lines of his face were pulled tight, giving it a +peculiar purity, a sharp precision of form, making it clean and young. His +mouth was taut, the lips faintly drawn inward, stressing the outline of its +shape. Only his eyes were blurred, their lower lids swollen and raised, their +glance intent with that which resembled hatred and pain. +The shock became numbness spreading through her body—she felt a tight +pressure in her throat and her stomach—she was conscious of nothing but a +silent convulsion that made her unable to breathe. But what she felt, without +words for it, was: Yes, Hank, yes—now—because it is part of the same battle, +in some way that I can't name . . . because it is our being, against theirs . +. . our great capacity, for which they torture us, the capacity of happiness +. . . Now, like this, without words or questions . . . because we want it. . +. . +It was like an act of hatred, like the cutting blow of a lash encircling +her body: she felt his arms around her, she felt her legs pulled forward +against him and her chest bent back under the pressure of his, his mouth on +hers. +Her hand moved from his shoulders to his waist to his legs, releasing the +unconfessed desire of her every meeting with him. When she tore her mouth +away from him, she was laughing soundlessly, in triumph, as if saying: Hank +Rearden—the austere, unapproachable Hank Rearden of the monk like office, the +business conferences, the harsh bargains—do you remember them now?—I'm +thinking of it, for the pleasure of knowing that I've brought you to this. He +was not smiling, his face was tight, it was the face of an enemy, he jerked +her head and caught her mouth again, as if he were inflicting a wound. +She felt him trembling and she thought that this was the kind of cry she +had wanted to tear from him—this surrender through the shreds of his tortured +resistance. Yet she knew, at the same time, that the triumph was his, that +her laughter was her tribute to him, that her defiance was submission, that +the purpose of all of her violent strength was only to make his victory the +greater—he was holding her body against his, as if stressing his wish to let +her know that she was now only a tool for the satisfaction of his desire—and +his victory, she knew, was her wish to let him reduce her to that. Whatever I +am, she thought, whatever pride of person I may hold, the pride of my +courage, of my work, of my mind and my freedom—that is what I offer you for +the pleasure of your body, that is what I want you to use in your service—and +that you want it to serve you is the greatest reward I can have. +There were lights burning in the two rooms behind them. He took her wrist +and threw her inside his room, making the gesture tell her that he needed no +sign of consent or resistance. He locked the door, watching her face. +Standing straight, holding his glance, she extended her arm to the lamp on +the table and turned out the light. He approached. He turned the light on +again, with a single, contemptuous jerk of his wrist. +She saw him smile for the first time, a slow, mocking, sensual smile that +stressed the purpose of his action. +He was holding her half-stretched across the bed, he was tearing her +clothes off. while her face was pressed against him, her mouth, moving down +the line of his neck, down his shoulder. She knew that every gesture of her +desire for him struck him like a blow, that there was some shudder of +incredulous anger within him—yet that no gesture would satisfy his greed for +every evidence of her desire. +He stood looking down at her naked body, he leaned over, she heard his +voice—it was more a statement of contemptuous triumph than a question: "You +want it?" Her answer was more a gasp than a word, her eyes closed, her mouth +open: "Yes." + + She knew that what she felt with the skin of her arms was the cloth of his +shirt, she knew that the lips she felt on her mouth were his, but in the rest +of her there was no distinction between his being and her own, as there was +no division between body and spirit. Through all the steps of the years +behind them, the steps down a course chosen in the courage of a single +loyalty: their love of existence—chosen in the knowledge that nothing will be +given, that one must make one's own desire and every shape of its +fulfillment—through the steps of shaping metal, rails and motors—they had +moved by the power of the thought that one remakes the earth for one's +enjoyment, that man's spirit gives meaning to insentient matter by molding it +to serve one's chosen goal. The course led them to the moment when, in answer +to the highest of one's values, in an admiration not to be expressed by any +other form of tribute, one's spirit makes one's body become the tribute, +recasting it—as proof, as sanction, as reward—into a single sensation of such +intensity of joy that no other sanction of one's existence is necessary. He +heard the moan of her breath, she felt the shudder of his body, in the same +instant. + + CHAPTER IX +THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE +She looked at the glowing bands on the skin of her arm, spaced like +bracelets from her wrist to her shoulder. They were strips of sunlight from +the Venetian blinds on the window of an unfamiliar room. She saw a bruise +above her elbow, with dark beads that had been blood. Her arm lay on the +blanket that covered her body. She was aware of her legs and hips, but the +rest of her body was only a sense of lightness, as if it were stretched +restfully across the air in a place that looked like a cage made of sunrays. +Turning to look at him, she thought: From his aloofness, from his manner +of glass-enclosed formality, from his pride in never being made to feel +anything—to this, to Hank Rearden in bed beside her, after hours of a +violence which they could not name now, not in words or in daylight—but which +was in their eyes, as they looked at each other, which they wanted to name, +to stress, to throw at each other's face. +He saw the face of a young girl, her lips suggesting a smile, as if her +natural state of relaxation were a state of radiance, a lock of hair falling +across her cheek to the curve of a naked shoulder, her eyes looking at him as +if she were ready to accept anything he might wish to say, as she had been +ready to accept anything he had wished to do. +He reached over and moved the lock of hair from her cheek, cautiously, as +if it were fragile. He held it back with his fingertips and looked at her +face. Then his fingers closed suddenly in her hair and he raised the lock to +his lips. The way he pressed his mouth to it was tenderness, but the way his +fingers held it was despair. +He dropped back on the pillow and lay still, his eyes closed. His face +seemed young, at peace. Seeing it for a moment without the reins of tension, +she realized suddenly the extent of the unhappiness he had borne; but it's +past now, she thought, it's over. +He got up, not looking at her. His face was blank and closed again. +He picked up his clothes from the floor and proceeded to dress, standing +in the middle of the room, half-turned away from her. He acted, not as if she +wasn't present, but as if it did not matter that she was. His movements, as +he buttoned his shirt, as he buckled the belt of his slacks, had the rapid +precision of performing a duty. +She lay back on the pillow, watching him, enjoying the sight of his figure +in motion. She liked the gray slacks and shirt—the expert mechanic of the +John Galt Line, she thought, in the stripes of sunlight and shadow, like a +convict behind bars. But they were not bars any longer, they were the cracks +of a wall which the John Galt Line had broken, the advance notice of what +awaited them outside, beyond the Venetian blinds—she thought of the trip +back, on the new rail, with the first train from Wyatt Junction—the trip back +to her office in the Taggart Building and to all the things now open for her +to win—but she was free to let it wait, she did not want to think of it, she +was thinking of the first touch of his mouth on hers—she was free to feel it, +to hold a moment when nothing else was of any concern—she smiled defiantly at +the strips of sky beyond the blinds. +"I want you to know this." +He stood by the bed, dressed, looking down at her. His voice had +pronounced it evenly, with great clarity and no inflection. She looked up at +him obediently. He said: "What I feel for you is contempt. But it's nothing, +compared to the contempt I feel for myself. I don't love you. I've never +loved anyone. +I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you as one wants a +whore—for the same reason and purpose. I spent two years damning myself, +because I thought you were above a desire of this kind. + + You're not. You're as vile an animal as I am. I should loathe my +discovering it. I don't. Yesterday, I would have killed anyone who'd tell me +that you were capable of doing what I've had you do. Today, I would give my +life not to let it be otherwise, not to have you be anything but the bitch +you are. All the greatness that I saw in you—I would not take it in exchange +for the obscenity of your talent at an animal's sensation of pleasure. We +were two great beings, you and I, proud of our strength, weren't we? Well, +this is all that's left of us—and I want no self-deception about it." +He spoke slowly, as if lashing himself with his words. There was no sound +of emotion in his voice, only the lifeless pull of effort; it was not the +tone of a man's willingness to speak, but the ugly, tortured sound of duty. +"I held it as my honor that I would never need anyone. I need you. +It had been my pride that I had always acted on my convictions. I've given +in to a desire which I despise. It is a desire that has reduced my mind, my +will, my being, my power to exist into an abject dependence upon you—not even +upon the Dagny Taggart whom I admired—but upon your body, your hands, your +mouth and the few seconds of a convulsion of your muscles. I had never broken +my word. Now I've broken an oath I gave for life. I had never committed an +act that had to be hidden. Now I am to lie, to sneak, to hide. Whatever I +wanted, I was free to proclaim it aloud and achieve it in the sight of the +whole world. +Now my only desire is one I loathe to name even to myself. But it is my +only desire. I'm going to have you—I'd give up everything I own for it, the +mills, the Metal, the achievement of my whole life. I'm going to have you at +the price of more than myself: at the price of my self esteem—and I want you +to know it. I want no pretense, no evasion, no silent indulgence, with the +nature of our actions left unnamed. I want no pretense about love, value, +loyalty or respect. I want no shred of honor left to us, to hide behind. I've +never begged for mercy. I've chosen to do this—and I'll take all the +consequences, including the full recognition of my choice. It's depravity—and +I accept it as such—and there is no height of virtue that I wouldn't give up +for it. Now if you wish to slap my face, go ahead. I wish you would." +She had listened, sitting up straight, holding the blanket clutched at her +throat to cover her body. At first, he had seen her eyes growing dark with +incredulous shock. Then it seemed to him that she was listening with greater +attentiveness, but seeing more than his face, even though her eyes were fixed +on his. She looked as if she were studying intently some revelation that had +never confronted her before. He felt as if some ray of light were growing +stronger on his face, because he saw its reflection on hers, as she watched +him—he saw the shock vanishing, then the wonder—he saw her face being +smoothed into a strange serenity that seemed quiet and glittering at once. +When he stopped, she burst out laughing. +The shock to him was that he heard no anger in her laughter. She laughed +simply, easily, in joyous amusement, in release, not as one laughs at the +solution of a problem, but at the discovery that no problem had ever existed. +She threw the blanket off with a stressed, deliberate sweep of her arm. +She stood up. She saw her clothes on the floor and kicked them aside. +She stood facing him, naked. She said: "I want you, Hank. I'm much more of +an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you—and +the only thing I'm ashamed of is that I did not know it. I did not know why, +for two years, the brightest moments I found were the ones in your office, +where I could lift my head to look up at you. I did not know the nature of +what I felt in your presence, nor the reason. I know it now. That is all I +want, Hank. I want you in my bed—and you are free of me for all the rest of +your time. There's nothing you'll have to pretend—don't think of me, don't +feel, don't care—I do not want your mind, your will, your being or your soul, +so long as it's to me that you will come for that lowest one of your desires. + + I am an animal who wants nothing but that sensation of pleasure which you +despise--but I want it from you. You'd give up any height of virtue for it, +while I—I haven't any to give up. There's none I seek or wish to reach. I am +so low that I would exchange the greatest sight of beauty in the world for +the sight of your figure in the cab of a railroad engine. And seeing it, I +would not be able to see it indifferently. You don't have to fear that you're +now dependent upon me. It's I who will depend on any whim of yours. You’ll +have me any time you wish, anywhere, on any. terms. Did you call it the +obscenity of my talent? It's such that it gives you a safer hold on me than +on any other property you own. You may dispose of me as you please—I'm not +afraid to admit it—L have nothing to protect from you and nothing to reserve. +You think that this is a threat to your achievement, but it is not to mine. I +will sit at my desk, and work, and when the things around me get hard to +bear, I will think that for my reward I will be in your bed that night. Did +you call it depravity? I am much more depraved than you are: you hold it as +your guilt, and I—as my pride. I'm more proud of it than of anything I've +done, more proud than of building the Line. +If I'm asked to name my proudest attainment, I will say: I have slept with +Hank Rearden. I had earned it.'1 +When he threw her down on the bed, their bodies met like the two sounds +that broke against each other in the air of the room: the sound of his +tortured moan and of her laughter. +The rain was invisible in the darkness of the streets, but it hung like +the sparkling fringe of a lampshade under the corner light. Fumbling in his +pockets, James Taggart discovered that he had lost his handkerchief. +He swore half-aloud, with resentful malice, as if the loss, the rain and +his head cold were someone's personal conspiracy against him. +There was a thin gruel of mud on the pavements; he felt a gluey suction +under his shoe soles and a chill slipping down past his collar. He did not +want to walk or to stop. He had no place to go. +Leaving his office, after the meeting of the Board of Directors, he had +realized suddenly that there were no other appointments, that he had a long +evening ahead and no one to help him kill it. The front pages of the +newspapers were screaming of the triumph of the John Galt Line, as the radios +had screamed it yesterday and all through the night. The name of Taggart +Transcontinental was stretched in headlines across the continent, like its +track, and he had smiled in answer to the congratulations. He had smiled, +seated at the bead of the long table, at the Board meeting, while the +Directors spoke about the soaring rise of the Taggart stock on the Exchange, +while they cautiously asked to see his written agreement with his sister—just +in case, they said—and commented that it was fine, it was hole proof, there +was no doubt but that she would have to turn the Line over to Taggart +Transcontinental at once, they spoke about their brilliant future and the +debt of gratitude which the company owed to James Taggart. +He had sat through the meeting, wishing it were over with, so that he +could go home. Then he had stepped out into the street and realized that home +was the one place where he dared not go tonight. He could not be alone, not +in the next few hours, yet there was nobody to call. +He did not want to see people. He kept seeing the eyes of the men of the +Board when they spoke about his greatness: a sly, filmy look that held +contempt for him and, more terrifyingly, for themselves. +He walked, head down, a needle of rain pricking the skin of his neck once +in a while. He looked away whenever he passed a newsstand. The papers seemed +to shriek at him the name of the John Galt Line, and another name which he +did not want to hear: Ragnar Danneskjold. A ship bound for the People's State +of Norway with an Emergency Gift cargo of machine tools had been seized by +Ragnar Danneskjold last night. That story disturbed him in some personal + + manner which he could not explain. The feeling seemed to have some quality in +common with the things he felt about the John Galt Line. +It's because he had a cold, he thought; he wouldn't feel this way if he +didn't have a cold; a man couldn't be expected to be in top form when he had +a cold—he couldn't help it—what did they expect him to do tonight, sing and +dance?—he snapped the question angrily at the unknown judges of his +unwitnessed mood. He fumbled for his handkerchief again, cursed and decided +that he'd better stop somewhere to buy some paper tissues. +Across the square of what had once been a busy neighborhood, he saw the +lighted windows of a dime store, still open hopefully at this late hour. +There's another one that will go out of business pretty soon, he thought as +he crossed the square; the thought gave him pleasure. +There were glaring lights inside, a few tired salesgirls among a spread of +deserted counters, and the screaming of a phonograph record being played for +a lone, listless customer in a corner. The music swallowed the sharp edges of +Taggart's voice: he asked for paper tissues in a tone which implied that the +salesgirl was responsible for his cold. The girl turned to the counter behind +her, but turned back once to glance swiftly at his face. She took a packet, +but stopped, hesitating, studying him with peculiar curiosity. +"Are you James Taggart?" she asked. +"Yes!" he snapped. "Why?" +"Oh!" +She gasped like a child at a burst of firecrackers; she was looking at him +with a glance which he had thought to be reserved only for movie stars. +"I saw your picture in the paper this morning, Mr. Taggart," she said very +rapidly, a faint flush appearing on her face and vanishing. "It said what a +great achievement it was and how it was really you who had done it all, only +you didn't want it to be known." +"Oh," said Taggart. He was smiling. +"You look just like your picture," she said in immense astonishment, and +added, "Imagine you walking in here like this, in person!" +"Shouldn't I?" His tone was amused. +"I mean, everybody's talking about it, the whole country, and you're the +man who did it—and here you are! I've never seen an important person before. +I've never been so close to anything important, I mean to any newspaper +news." +He had never had the experience of seeing his presence give color to a +place he entered: the girl looked as if she was not tired any longer, as if +the dime store had become a scene of drama and wonder. +"Mr. Taggart, is it true, what they said about you in the paper?" +"What did they say?" +"About your secret." +"What secret?" +"Well, they said that when everybody was fighting about your bridge, +whether it would stand or not, you didn't argue with them, you just went +ahead, because you knew it would stand, when nobody else was sure of it—so +the Line was a Taggart project and you were the guiding spirit behind the +scenes, but you kept it secret, because you didn't care whether you got +credit for it or not." +He had seen the mimeographed release of his Public Relations Department. +"Yes," he said, "it's true." The way she looked at him made him feel as if it +were. +"It was wonderful of you, Mr. Taggart." +"Do you always remember what you read in the newspapers, so well, in such +detail?" +"Why, yes, I guess so—all the interesting things. The big things. I like +to read about them. Nothing big ever happens to me." + + She said it gaily, without self-pity. There was a young, determined +brusqueness in her voice and movements. She had a head of reddish brown +curls, wide-set eyes, a few freckles on the bridge of an upturned nose. He +thought that one would call her face attractive if one ever noticed it, but +there was no particular reason to notice it. It was a common little face, +except for a look of alertness, of eager interest, a look that expected the +world to contain an exciting secret behind every corner. +"Mr. Taggart, how does it feel to be a great man?" +"How does it feel to be a little girl?" +She laughed. "Why, wonderful." +"Then you're better off than I am." +"Oh, how can you say such a—" +"Maybe you're lucky if you don't have anything to do with the big events +in the newspapers. Big. What do you call big, anyway?" +"Why . . . important." +"What's important?" +"You're the one who ought to tell me that, Mr. Taggart." +"Nothing's important." +She looked at him incredulously. "You, of all people, saying that tonight +of all nights!" +"1 don't feel wonderful at all, if that's what you want to know. I've +never felt less wonderful in my life." +He was astonished to see her studying his face with a look of concern such +as no one had ever granted him. "You're worn out, Mr. Taggart," +she said earnestly. "Tell them to go to hell." +"Whom?" +"Whoever's getting you down. It isn't right," +"What isn't?" +"That you should feel this way. You've had a tough time, but you've licked +them all, so you ought to enjoy yourself now. You've earned it." +"And how do you propose that I enjoy myself?" +"Oh, I don't know. But I thought you'd be having a celebration tonight, a +party with all the big shots, and champagne, and things given to you, like +keys to cities, a real swank party like that—instead of walking around all by +yourself, shopping for paper handkerchiefs, of all fool things!" +"You give me those handkerchiefs, before you forget them altogether," he +said, handing her a dime. "And as to the swank party, did it occur to you +that I might not want to see anybody tonight?" +She considered it earnestly. "No," she said, "I hadn't thought of it. +But I can see why you wouldn't." +"Why?" It was a question to which he bad no answer. +"Nobody's really good enough for you, Mr. Taggart," she answered very +simply, not as flattery, but as a matter of fact. +"Is that what you think?" +"I don't think I like people very much, Mr. Taggart. Not most of them." +"I don't either. Not any of them." +"I thought a man like you—you wouldn't know how mean they can be and how +they try to step on you and ride on your back, if you let them. I thought the +big men in the world could get away from them and not have to be flea-bait +all of the time, but maybe I was wrong." +"What do you mean, flea-bait?" +"Oh, it's just something I tell myself when things get tough—that I've got +to beat my way out to where I won't feel like I'm flea-bitten all the time by +all kinds of lousiness—but maybe it's the same anywhere, only the fleas get +bigger." +"Much bigger." + + She remained silent, as if considering something. "It's funny," she said +sadly to some thought of her own. +"What's funny?" +"I read a book once where it said that great men are always unhappy, and +the greater—the unhappier. It didn't make sense to me. But maybe it's true." +"It's much truer than you think." +She looked away, her face disturbed. +"Why do you worry so much about the great men?" he asked. "What are you, a +hero worshipper of some kind?" +She turned to look at him and he saw the light of an inner smile, while +her face remained solemnly grave; it was the most eloquently personal glance +he had ever seen directed at himself, while she answered in a quiet, +impersonal voice, "Mr. Taggart, what else is there to look up to?" +A screeching sound, neither quite bell nor buzzer, rang out suddenly and +went on ringing with nerve-grating insistence. +She jerked her head, as if awakening at the scream of an alarm clock, then +sighed. "That's closing time, Mr. Taggart," she said regretfully. +"Go get your hat—I'll wait for you outside," he said. +She stared at him, as if among all of life's possibilities this was one +she had never held as conceivable. +"No kidding?" she whispered. +"No kidding." +She whirled around and ran like a streak to the door of the employees1 +quarters, forgetting her counter, her duties and all feminine concern +about never showing eagerness in accepting a man's invitation. +He stood looking after her for a moment, his eyes narrowed. He did not +name to himself the nature of his own feeling—never to identify his emotions +was the only steadfast rule of his life; he merely felt it—and this +particular feeling was pleasurable, which was the only identification he +cared to know. But the feeling was the product of a thought he would not +utter. He had often met girls of the lower classes, who had put on a brash +little act, pretending to look up to him, spilling crude flattery for an +obvious purpose; he had neither liked nor resented them; he had found a bored +amusement in their company and he had granted them the status of his equals +in a game he considered natural to both players involved. This girl was +different. The unuttered words in his mind were: The damn little fool means +it. +That he waited for her impatiently, when he stood in the rain on the +sidewalk, that she was the one person he needed tonight, did not disturb him +or strike him as a contradiction. He did not name the nature of his need. The +unnamed and the unuttered could not clash into a contradiction. +When she came out, he noted the peculiar combination of her shyness and of +her head held high. She wore an ugly raincoat, made worse by a gob of cheap +jewelry on the lapel, and a small hat of plush flowers planted defiantly +among her curls. Strangely, the lift of her head made the apparel seem +attractive; it stressed how well she wore even the things she wore. +"Want to come to my place and have a drink with me?" he asked. +She nodded silently, solemnly, as if not trusting herself to find the +right words of acceptance. Then she said, not looking at him, as if stating +it to herself, "You didn't want to see anybody tonight, but you want o see +me. . . " He had never heard so solemn a tone of pride in anyone's voice. +She was silent, when she sat beside him in the taxicab. She looked up at +the skyscrapers they passed. After a while, she said, "I heard that things +like this happened in New York, but I never thought they'd happen to me." +"Where do you come from?" +"Buffalo." +"Got any family?" + + She hesitated. "I guess so. In Buffalo." +"What do you mean, you guess so?" +"I walked out on them." +"Why?" +"I thought that if I ever was to amount to anything, I had to get away +from them, clean away." +"Why? What happened?" +"Nothing happened. And nothing was ever going to happen. That's what I +couldn't stand." +"What do you mean?" +"Well, they . . . well, I guess I ought to tell you the truth, Mr. +Taggart. My old man's never been any good, and Ma didn't care whether he was +or not, and I got sick of it always turning out that I was the only one of +the seven of us that kept a job, and the rest of them always being out of +luck, one way or another. I thought if I didn't get out, it would get me—I'd +rot all the way through, like the rest of them. So I bought a railroad ticket +one day and left. Didn't say good-bye. They didn't even know I was going." +She gave a soft, startled little laugh at a sudden thought. "Mr. Taggart," +she said, "it was a Taggart train." +"When did you come here?" +"Six months ago." +"And you're all alone?" +"Yes," she said happily. +"What was it you wanted to do?" +"Well, you know—make something of myself, get somewhere." +"Where?" +"Oh, I don't know, but . . . but people do things in the world. 1 +saw pictures of New York and I thought"—she pointed at the giant buildings +beyond the streaks of rain on the cab window—"I thought, somebody built those +buildings—he didn't just sit and whine that the kitchen was filthy and the +roof leaking and the plumbing clogged and it's a goddamn world and . . . Mr. +Taggart"—she jerked her head in a shudder and looked straight at him—"we were +stinking poor and not giving a damn about it. That's what I couldn't take— +that they didn't really give a damn. Not enough to lift a finger. Not enough +to empty the garbage pail. And the woman next door saying it was my duty to +help them, saying it made no difference what became of me or of her or of any +of us, because what could anybody do anyway!" Beyond the bright look of her +eyes, he saw something within her that was hurt and hard. +"I don't want to talk about them," she said. "Not with you. This—my +meeting you, I mean—that's what they couldn't have. That's what I'm not going +to share with them. It's mine, not theirs." +"How old are you?" he asked. +"Nineteen." +When he looked at her in the lights of his living room, he thought that +she'd have a good figure if she'd eat a few meals; she seemed too thin for +the height and structure of her bones. She wore a tight, shabby little black +dress, which she had tried to camouflage by the gaudy plastic bracelets +tinkling on her wrist. She stood looking at his room as if it were a museum +where she must touch nothing and reverently memorize everything. +"What's your name?" he asked. +"Cherryl Brooks." +"Well, sit down." +He mixed the drinks in silence, while she waited obediently, sitting on +the edge of an armchair. When he handed her a glass, she swallowed dutifully +a few times, then held the glass clutched in her hand. He knew that she did +not taste what she was drinking, did not notice it, had no time to care. + + He took a gulp of his drink and put the glass down with irritation: he did +not feel like drinking, either. He paced the room sullenly, knowing that her +eyes followed him, enjoying the knowledge, enjoying the sense of tremendous +significance which his movements, his cuff links, his shoelaces, his +lampshades and ashtrays acquired in that gentle, unquestioning glance. +"Mr. Taggart, what is it that makes you so unhappy?" +"Why should you care whether I am or not?" +"Because . . . well, if you haven't the right to be happy and proud, who +has?" +"That's what I want to know—who has?" He turned to her abruptly, the words +exploding as if a safety fuse had blown. "He didn't invent iron ore and blast +furnaces, did he?" +"Who?" +"Rearden. He didn't invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He +couldn't have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other +people. His Metal! Why does he think it's his? Why does he think it's his +invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. +Nobody ever invents anything." +She said, puzzled, "But the iron ore and all those other things were there +all the time. Why didn't anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. +Rearden did?" +"He didn't do it for any noble purpose, he did it just for his own profit, +he's never done anything for any other reason." +"What's wrong with that, Mr. Taggart?" Then she laughed softly, as if at +the sudden solution of a riddle. "That's nonsense, Mr. Taggart. You don't +mean it. You know that Mr. Rearden has earned all his profits, and so have +you. You're saying those things just to be modest, when everybody knows what +a great job you people have done—you and Mr. Rearden and your sister, who +must be such a wonderful person!" +"Yeah? That's what you think. She's a hard, insensitive woman who spends +her life building tracks and bridges, not for any great ideal, but only +because that's what she enjoys doing. If she enjoys it, what is there to +admire about her doing it? I'm not so sure it was great—building that Line +for all those prosperous industrialists in Colorado, when there are so many +poor people in blighted areas who need transportation." +"But, Mr. Taggart, it was you who fought to build that Line." +"Yes, because it was my duty—to the company and the stockholders and our +employees. But don't expect me to enjoy it. I'm not so sure it was great— +inventing this complex new Metal, when so many nations are in need of plain +iron—why, do you know that the People's State of China hasn't even got enough +nails to put wooden roofs over people's heads?" +"But . . . but I don't see that that's your fault." +"Somebody should attend to it. Somebody with the vision to see beyond his +own pocketbook. No sensitive person these days—when there's so much suffering +around us—would devote ten years of his life to splashing about with a lot of +trick metals. You think it's great? Well, it's not any kind of superior +ability, but just a hide that you couldn't pierce if you poured a ton of his +own steel over his head! There are many people of much greater ability in the +world, but you don't read about them in the headlines and you don't run to +gape at them at grade crossings—because they can't invent non-collapsible +bridges at a time when the suffering of mankind weighs on their spirit!" +She was looking at him silently, respectfully, her joyous eagerness toned +down, her eyes subdued. He felt better. +He picked up his drink, took a gulp, and chuckled abruptly at a sudden +recollection. +"It was funny, though," he said, his tone easier, livelier, the tone of a +confidence to a pal. "You should have seen Orren Boyle yesterday, when the + + first flash came through on the radio from Wyatt Junction! He turned green— +but I mean, green, the color of a fish that's been lying around too long! Do +you know what he did last night, by way of taking the bad news? Hired himself +a suite at the Valhalla Hotel—and you know what that is—and the last I heard, +he was still there today, drinking himself under the table and the beds, with +a few choice friends of his and half the female population of upper Amsterdam +Avenue!" +"Who is Mr. Boyle?" she asked, stupefied. +"Oh, a fat slob that's inclined to overreach himself. A smart guy who gets +too smart at times. You should have seen his face yesterday! I got a kick out +of that. That—and Dr. Floyd Ferris. That smoothy didn't like it a bit, oh not +a bit!—the elegant Dr. Ferris of the State Science Institute, the servant of +the people, with the patent-leather vocabulary—but he carried it off pretty +well, I must say, only you could see him squirming in every paragraph—I mean, +that interview he gave out this morning, where he said, 'The country gave +Rearden that Metal, now we expect him to give the country something in +return.' That was pretty nifty, considering who's been riding on the gravy +train and . . . well, considering. That was better than Bertram Scudder—Mr. +Scudder couldn't think of anything but 'No comment,' when his fellow +gentlemen of the press asked him to voice his sentiments. 'No comment'—from +Bertram Scudder who's never been known to shut his trap from the day he was +born, about anything you ask him or don't ask, Abyssinian poetry or the state +of the ladies' rest rooms in the textile industry! And Dr. Pritchett, the old +fool, is going around saying that he knows for certain that Rearden didn't +invent that Metal—because he was told, by an unnamed reliable source, that +Rearden stole the formula from a penniless inventor whom he murdered!" +He was chuckling happily. She was listening as to a lecture on higher +mathematics, grasping nothing, not even the style of the language, a style +which made the mystery greater, because she was certain that it did not mean— +coming from him—what it would have meant anywhere else. +He refilled his glass and drained it, but his gaiety vanished abruptly. +He slumped into an armchair, facing her, looking up at her from under his +bald forehead, his eyes blurred. +"She's coming back tomorrow," he said, with a sound like a chuckle devoid +of amusement. +"Who?" +"My sister. My dear sister. Oh, she'll think she's great, won't she?" +"You dislike your sister, Mr. Taggart?" He made the same sound; its +meaning was so eloquent that she needed no other answer. "Why?" she asked. +"Because she thinks she's so good. What right has she to think it? +What right has anybody to think he's good? Nobody's any good." +"You don't mean it, Mr. Taggart." +"I mean, we're only human beings—and what's a human being? A weak, ugly, +sinful creature, born that way, rotten in his bones—so humility is the one +virtue he ought to practice. He ought to spend his life on his knees, begging +to be forgiven for his dirty existence. When a man thinks he's good—that's +when he's rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he's done." +"But if a man knows that what he's done is good?" +"Then he ought to apologize for it." +"To whom?" +"To those who haven't done it." +"I . . . I don't understand." +"Of course you don't. It takes years and years of study in the higher +reaches of the intellect. Have you ever heard of The Metaphysical +Contradictions of the Universe, by Dr. Simon Pritchett?" She shook her head, +frightened. "How do you know what's good, anyway? Who knows what's good? Who +can ever know? There are no absolutes—as Dr. + + Pritchett has proved irrefutably. Nothing is absolute. Everything is a +matter of opinion. How do you know that that bridge hasn't collapsed? +You only think it hasn't. How do you know that there's any bridge at all? +You think that a system of philosophy—such as Dr. Pritchett's—is just +something academic, remote, impractical? But it isn't. Oh, boy, how it +isn't!" +"But, Mr. Taggart, the Line you built—" +"Oh, what's that Line, anyway? It's only a material achievement, is that +of any importance? Is there any greatness in anything material? +Only a low animal can gape at that bridge—when there are so many higher +things in life. But do the higher things ever get recognition? Oh no! Look at +people. All that hue and cry and front pages about some trick arrangement of +some scraps of matter. Do they care about any nobler issue? Do they ever give +front pages to a phenomenon of the spirit? Do they notice or appreciate a +person of finer sensibility? And you wonder whether it's true that a great +man is doomed to unhappiness in this depraved world!" He leaned forward, +staring at her intently. "I'll tell you . . . I'll tell you something . . . +unhappiness is the hallmark of virtue. If a man is unhappy, really, truly +unhappy, it means that he is a superior sort of person." +He saw the puzzled, anxious look of her face. "But, Mr. Taggart, you got +everything you wanted. Now you have the best railroad in the country, the +newspapers call you the greatest business executive of the age, they say the +stock of your company made a fortune for you overnight, you got everything +you could ask for—aren't you glad of it?" +In the brief space of his answer, she felt frightened, sensing a sudden +fear within him. He answered, "No." +She didn't know why her voice dropped to a whisper. "You'd rather the +bridge had collapsed?" +"I haven't said that!" he snapped sharply. Then he shrugged and waved his +hand in a gesture of contempt. "You don't understand." +"I'm sorry . . . Oh, I know that I have such an awful lot to learn!" +"I am talking about a hunger for something much beyond that bridge. +A hunger that nothing material will ever satisfy." +"What, Mr. Taggart? What is it you want?" +"Oh, there you go! The moment you ask, 'What is it?' you're back in the +crude, material world where everything's got to be tagged and measured. I'm +speaking of things that can't be named in materialistic words . . . the +higher realms of the spirit, which man can never reach. . . . +What's any human achievement, anyway? The earth is only an atom whirling +in the universe—of what importance is that bridge to the solar system?" +A sudden, happy look of understanding cleared her eyes. "It's great of +you, Mr. Taggart, to think that your own achievement isn't good enough for +you. I guess no matter how far you've gone, you want to go still farther. +You're ambitious. That's what I admire most: ambition. I mean, doing things, +not stopping and giving up, but doing. I understand, Mr. Taggart . . . even +if I don't understand all the big thoughts." +"You'll learn." +"Oh, I'll work very hard to learn!" +Her glance of admiration had not changed. He walked across the room, +moving in that glance as in a gentle spotlight. He went to refill his glass. +A mirror hung in the niche behind the portable bar. He caught a glimpse of +his own figure: the tall body distorted by a sloppy, sagging posture, as if +in deliberate negation of human grace, the thinning hair, the soft, sullen +mouth. It struck him suddenly that she did not see him at all: what she saw +was the heroic figure of a builder, with proudly straight shoulders and windblown hair. He chuckled aloud, feeling that this was a good joke on her, + + feeling dimly a satisfaction that resembled a sense of victory: the +superiority of having put something over on her. +Sipping his drink, he glanced at the door of his bedroom and thought of +the usual ending for an adventure of this kind. He thought that it would be +easy: the girl was too awed to resist. He saw the reddish-bronze sparkle of +her hair—as she sat, head bent, under a light—and a wedge of smooth, glowing +skin on her shoulder. He looked away. Why bother? +—he thought. +The hint of desire that he felt, was no more than a sense of physical +discomfort. The sharpest impulse in his mind, nagging him to action, was not +the thought of the girl, but of all the men who would not pass up an +opportunity of this kind. He admitted to himself that she was a much better +person than Betty Pope, perhaps the best person ever offered to him. The +admission left him indifferent. He felt no more than he had felt for Betty +Pope. He felt nothing. The prospect of experiencing pleasure was not worth +the effort; he had no desire to experience pleasure. +"It's getting late," he said. "Where do you live? Let me give you another +drink and then I'll take you home." +When he said good-bye to her at the door of a miserable rooming house in a +slum neighborhood, she hesitated, fighting not to ask a question which she +desperately wished to ask him, "Will I . . . " she began, and stopped. +"What?" +"No, nothing, nothing!" +He knew that the question was: "Will I see you again?" It gave him +pleasure not to answer, even though he knew that she would. +She glanced up at him once more, as if it were perhaps for the last time, +then said earnestly, her voice low, "Mr. Taggart, I'm very grateful to you, +because you . . . I mean, any other man would have tried to . . . I mean, +that's all he'd want, but you're so much better than that, oh, so much +better!" +He leaned closer to her with a faint, interested smile. "Would you have?" +he asked. +She drew back from him, in sudden terror at her own words. "Oh, I didn't +mean it that way!" she gasped. "Oh God, I wasn't hinting or . . . +or . . ." She blushed furiously, whirled around and ran, vanishing up the +long, steep stairs of the rooming house. +He stood on the sidewalk, feeling an odd, heavy, foggy sense of +satisfaction: feeling as if he had committed an act of virtue—and as if he +had taken his revenge upon every person who had stood cheering along the +three-hundred-mile track of the John Galt Line. +When their train reached Philadelphia, Rearden left her without a word, as +if the nights of their return journey deserved no acknowledgment in the +daylight reality of crowded station platforms and moving engines, the reality +he respected. She went on to New York, alone. But late that evening, the +doorbell of her apartment rang and Dagny knew that she had expected it. +He said nothing when he entered, he looked at her, making his silent +presence more intimate a greeting than words. There was the faint suggestion +of a contemptuous smile in his face, at once admitting and mocking his +knowledge of her hours of impatience and his own. He stood in the middle of +her living room, looking slowly around him; this was her apartment, the one +place in the city that had been the focus of two years of his torment, as the +place he could not think about and did, the place he could not enter—and was +now entering with the casual, unannounced right of an owner. He sat down in +an armchair, stretching his legs forward—and she stood before him, almost as +if she needed his permission to sit down and it gave her pleasure to wait. +"Shall I tell you that you did a magnificent job, building that Line?" + + he asked. She glanced at him in astonishment; he had never paid her open +compliments of that kind; the admiration in his voice was genuine, but the +hint of mockery remained in his face, and she felt as if he were speaking to +some purpose which she could not guess. "I've spent all day answering +questions about you-—and about the Line, the Metal and the future. That, and +counting the orders for the Metal. +They're coming in at the rate of thousands of tons an hour. When was it, +nine months ago?—I couldn't get a single answer anywhere. Today, I had to cut +off my phone, not to listen to all the people who wanted to speak to me +personally about their urgent need of Rearden Metal. +What did you do today?" +"I don't know. Tried to listen to Eddie's reports—tried to get away from +people—tried to find the rolling stock to put more trains on the John Galt +Line, because the schedule I'd planned won't be enough for the business +that's piled up in just three days." +"A great many people wanted to see you today, didn't they?" +"Why. yes." +"They'd have given anything just for a word with you, wouldn't they?" ' +"I . . . I suppose so." +"The reporters kept asking me what you were like. A young boy from a local +sheet kept saying that you were a great woman. He said he'd be afraid to +speak to you, if he ever had the chance. He's right. That future that they're +all talking and trembling about—it will be as you made it, because you had +the courage none of them could conceive of. +All the roads to wealth that they're scrambling for now, it's your +strength that broke them open. The strength to stand against everyone. +The strength to recognize no will but your own." +She caught the sinking gasp of her breath: she knew his purpose. She stood +straight, her arms at her sides, her face austere, as if in unflinching +endurance; she stood under the praise as under a lashing of insults. +"They kept asking you questions, too, didn't they?" He spoke intently, +leaning forward. "And they looked at you with admiration. +They looked, as if you stood on a mountain peak and they could only take +their hats off to you across the great distance. Didn't they?" +"Yes," she whispered. +"They looked as if they knew that one may not approach you or speak in +your presence or touch a fold of your dress. They knew it and it's true. They +looked at you with respect, didn't they? They looked up to you?" +He seized her arm, threw her down on her knees, twisting her body against +his legs, and bent down to kiss her mouth. She laughed soundlessly, her +laughter mocking, but her eyes half-closed, veiled with pleasure. +Hours later, when they lay in bed together, his hand moving over her body, +he asked suddenly, throwing her back against the curve of his arm, bending +over her—and she knew, by the intensity of his face, by the sound of a gasp +somewhere in the quality of his voice, even though his voice was low and +steady, that the question broke out of him as if it were worn by the hours of +torture he had spent with it: "Who were the other men that had you?" +He looked at her as if the question were a sight visualized in every +detail, a sight he loathed, but would not abandon; she heard the contempt in +his voice, the hatred, the suffering—and an odd eagerness that did not +pertain to torture; he had asked the question, holding her body tight against +him. +She answered evenly, but he saw a dangerous flicker in her eyes, as of a +warning that she understood him too well. "There was only one other, Hank." +"When?" +"When I was seventeen.'1 +"Did it last?" + + "For some years." +"Who was he?" +She drew back, lying against his arm; he leaned closer, his face taut; she +held his eyes. "I won't answer you.” +"Did you love him?" +"I won't answer." +"Did you like sleeping with him?" +"Yes!" +The laughter in her eyes made it sound like a slap across his face, the +laughter of her knowledge that this was the answer he dreaded and wanted. +He twisted her arms behind her, holding her helpless, her breasts pressed +against him; she felt the pain ripping through her shoulders, she heard the +anger in his words and the huskiness of pleasure in his voice: "Who was he?" +She did not answer, she looked at him, her eyes dark and oddly brilliant, +and he saw that the shape of her mouth, distorted by pain, was the shape of a +mocking smile. +He felt it change to a shape of surrender, under the touch of his lips. +He held her body as if the violence and the despair of the way he took her +could wipe his unknown rival out of existence, out of her past, and more: as +if it could transform any part of her, even the rival, into an instrument of +his pleasure. He knew, by the eagerness of her movement as her arms seized +him, that this was the way she wanted to be taken. +* * * +The silhouette of a conveyor belt moved against the strips of fire in the +sky, raising coal to the top of a distant tower, as if an inexhaustible +number of small black buckets rode out of the earth in a diagonal line across +the sunset. The harsh, distant clatter kept going through the rattle of the +chains which a young man in blue overalls was fastening over the machinery, +securing it to the flatcars lined on the siding of the Quinn Ball Bearing +Company of Connecticut. +Mr. Mowen, of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company across the street, +stood by, watching. He had stopped to watch, on his way home from his own +plant. He wore a light overcoat stretched over his short, paunchy figure, and +a derby hat over his graying, blondish head. +There was a first touch of September chill in the air. All the gates of +the Quinn plant buildings stood wide open, while men and cranes moved the +machinery out; like taking the vital organs and leaving a carcass, thought +Mr. Mowen. +"Another one?" asked Mr. Mowen, jerking his thumb at the plant, even +though he knew the answer. +"Huh?" asked the young man, who had not noticed him standing there. +"Another company moving to Colorado?" +"Uh-huh." +"It's the third one from Connecticut in the last two weeks," said Mr. +Mowen. "And when you look at what's happening in New Jersey, Rhode Island, +Massachusetts and all along the Atlantic coast . . ." +The young man was not looking and did not seem to listen. "It's like a +leaking faucet," said Mr. Mowen, "and all the water's running out to +Colorado. All the money." The young man flung the chain across and followed +it deftly, climbing over the big shape covered with canvas. +"You'd think people would have some feeling for their native state, some +loyalty . . . But they're running away. I don't know what's happening to +people." +"It's the Bill," said the young man. +"What Bill?" + + "The Equalization of Opportunity Bill." +"How do you mean?" +"I hear Mr. Quinn was making plans a year ago to open a branch in +Colorado. The Bill knocked that out cold. So now he's made up his mind to +move there, lock, stock and barrel." +"I don't see where that makes it right. The Bill was necessary. It's a +rotten shame—old firms that have been here for generations . . . +There ought to be a law . . ." +The young man worked swiftly, competently, as if he enjoyed it. Behind +him. the conveyor belt kept rising and clattering against the sky. +Four distant smokestacks stood like flagpoles, with coils of smoke weaving +slowly about them, like long banners at half-mast in the reddish glow of the +evening. +Mr. Mowen had lived with every smokestack of that skyline since the days +of his father and grandfather. He had seen the conveyor belt from his office +window for thirty years. That the Quinn Ball Bearing Company should vanish +from across the street had seemed inconceivable; he had known about Quinn's +decision and had not believed it; or rather, he had believed it as he +believed any words he heard or spoke: as sounds that bore no fixed relation +to physical reality. Now he knew that it was real. He stood by the flatcars +on the siding as if he still had a chance to stop them. +"It isn't right," he said; he was speaking to the skyline at large, but +the young man above was the only part of it that could hear him. +"That's not the way it was in my father's time. I'm not a big shot. I +don't want to fight anybody. What's the matter with the world?" There was no +answer, "Now you, for instance—are they taking you along to Colorado?" +"Me? No. I don't work here. I'm just transient labor. Just picked up this +job helping to lug the stuff out." +"Well, where are you going to go when they move away?" +"Haven't any idea." +"What are you going to do, if more of them move out?" +"Wait and see." +Mr. Mowen glanced up dubiously: he could not tell whether the answer was +intended to apply to him or to the young man. But the young man's attention +was fixed on his task; he was not looking down. +He moved on, to the shrouded shapes on the next flatcar, and Mr. +Mowen followed, looking up at him, pleading with something up in space: +"I've got rights, haven't I? I was born here. I expected the old companies to +be here when I grew up. I expected to run the plant like my father did. A man +is part of his community, he's got a right to count on it, hasn't he? . . . +Something ought to be done about it." +"About what?" +"Oh, I know, you think it's great, don't you?—that Taggart boom and +Rearden Metal and the gold rush to Colorado and the drunken spree out there, +with Wyatt and his bunch expanding their production like kettles boiling +over! Everybody thinks it's great—that's all you hear anywhere you go—people +are slap-happy, making plans like six-year olds on a vacation—you'd think it +was a national honeymoon of some kind or a permanent Fourth of July!" +The young man said nothing. +"Well, I don't think so," said Mr. Mowen. He lowered his voice. 'The +newspapers don't say so, either—mind you that—the newspapers aren't saying +anything." +Mr. Mowen heard no answer, only the clanking of the chains. +"Why are they all running to Colorado?” he asked. "What have they got down +there that we haven't got?" +The young man grinned. "Maybe it's something you've got that they haven't +got." + + "What?" The young man did not answer. "I don't see it. It's a backward, +primitive, unenlightened place. They don't even have a modern government. +It's the worst government in any state. The laziest. It does nothing—outside +of keeping law courts and a police department. +It doesn't do anything for the people. It doesn't help anybody. I don't +see why all our best companies want to run there." +The young man glanced down at him, but did not answer. +Mr. Mowen sighed. "Things aren't right," he said. "The Equalization of +Opportunity Bill was a sound idea. There's got to be a chance for everybody. +It's a rotten shame if people like Quinn take unfair +advantage of it. Why didn't he let somebody else start manufacturing ball +bearings in Colorado? . . . I wish the Colorado people would leave us alone. +That Stockton Foundry out there had no right going into the switch and signal +business. That's been my business for years, I have the right of seniority, +it isn't fair, it's dog-eat-dog competition, newcomers shouldn't be allowed +to muscle in. Where am I going to sell switches and signals? There were two +big railroads out in Colorado. +Now the Phoenix-Durango's gone, so there's just Taggart Transcontinental +left. It isn't fair—their forcing Dan Conway out. There's got to be room for +competition. . . . And I've been waiting six months for an order of steel +from Orren Boyle—and now he says he can't promise me anything, because +Rearden Metal has shot his market to hell, there's a run on that Metal, Boyle +has to retrench. It isn't fair—Rearden being allowed to ruin other people's +markets that way. . . . And I want to get some Rearden Metal, too, I need it— +but try and get it! He has a waiting line that would stretch across three +states—nobody can get a scrap of it, except his old friends, people like +Wyatt and Danagger and such. It isn't fair. It's discrimination. I'm just as +good as the next fellow. I'm entitled to my share of that Metal." +The young man looked up. "I was in Pennsylvania last week," he said. "I +saw the Rearden mills. There's a place that's busy! They're building four new +open-hearth furnaces, and they've got six more coming. . . . New furnaces," +he said, looking off to the south. "Nobody's built a new furnace on the +Atlantic coast for the last five years. . . ." He stood against the sky, on +the top of a shrouded motor, looking off at the dusk with a faint smile of +eagerness and longing, as one looks at the distant vision of one's love. +"They're busy. . . ." he said. +Then his smile vanished abruptly; the way he jerked the cru-fin was the +first break in the smooth competence of his movements: it looked like a jolt +of anger. +Mr. Mowen looked at the skyline, at the belts, the wheels, the smoke—the +smoke that settled heavily, peacefully across the evening air, stretching in +a long haze all the way to the city of New York somewhere beyond the sunset— +and he felt reassured by the thought of New York in its ring of sacred fires, +the ring of smokestacks, gas tanks, cranes and high tension lines. He felt a +current of power flowing through every grimy structure of his familiar +street; he liked the figure of the young man above him, there was something +reassuring in the way he worked, something that blended with the skyline. . . +. Yet Mr. Mowen wondered why he felt that a crack was growing somewhere, +eating through the solid, the eternal walls. +"Something ought to be done," said Mr. Mowen. "A friend of mine went out +of business last week—the oil business—had a couple of wells down in +Oklahoma—couldn't compete with Ellis Wyatt. It isn't fair. They ought to +leave the little people a chance. They ought to place a limit on Wyatt's +output. He shouldn't be allowed to produce so much that he'll swamp everybody +else off the market. . . . I got stuck in New York yesterday, had to leave my +car there and come home on a damn commuters'1 local, couldn't get any gas for + + the car, they said there's a shortage of oil in the city. . . . Things aren't +right. Something ought to be done about it. . . ." +Looking at the skyline, Mr. Mowen wondered what was the nameless threat to +it and who was its destroyer. +“What do you want to do about it?" asked the young man. +"Who, me?" said Mr. Mowen. "I wouldn't know. I'm not a big shot. +I can't solve national problems. I just want to make a living. All I know +is, somebody ought to do something about it. . . . Things aren't right. . . . +Listen—what's your name?" +"Owen Kellogg." +"Listen, Kellogg, what do you think is going to happen to the world?" +"You wouldn't care to know." +A whistle blew on a distant tower, the night-shift whistle, and Mr. +Mowen realized that it was getting late. He sighed, buttoning his coat, +turning to go. +"Well, things are being done," he said. "Steps are being taken. +Constructive steps. The Legislature has passed a Bill giving wider powers to +the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. They've appointed a +very able man as Top Co-ordinator. Can't say I've heard of him before, but +the newspapers said he's a man to be watched. His name is Wesley Mouch." +Dagny stood at the window of her living room, looking at the city. +It was late and the lights were like the last sparks left glittering on +the black remnants of a bonfire. +She felt at peace, and she wished she could hold her mind still to let her +own emotions catch up with her, to look at every moment of the month that had +rushed past her. She had had no time to feel that she was back in her own +office at Taggart Transcontinental; there had been so much to do that she +forgot it was a return from exile. She had not noticed what Jim had said on +her return or whether he had said anything. There had been only one person +whose reaction she had wanted to know; she had telephoned the Wayne-Falkland +Hotel; but Senor Francisco d'Anconia, she was told, had gone back to Buenos +Aires. +She remembered the moment when she signed her name at the bottom of a long +legal page; it was the moment that ended the John Galt Line. Now it was the +Rio Norte Line of Taggart Transcontinental again—except that the men of the +train crews refused to give up its name. She, too, found it hard to give up; +she forced herself not to call it "the John Galt," and wondered why that +required an effort, and why she felt a faint wrench of sadness. +One evening, on a sudden impulse, she had turned the corner of the Taggart +Building, for a last look at the office of John Galt, Inc., in the alley; she +did not know what she wanted—just to see it, she thought. +A plank barrier had been raised along the sidewalk: the old building was +being demolished; it had given up, at last. She had climbed over the planks +and, by the light of the street lamp that had once thrown a stranger's shadow +across the pavement, she had looked in through the window of her former +office. Nothing was left of the ground floor; the partitions had been torn +down, there were broken pipes hanging from the ceiling and a pile of rubble +on the floor. There was nothing to see. +She had asked Rearden whether he had come there one night last spring and +stood outside her window, fighting his desire to enter. But she had known, +even before he answered, that he had not. She did not tell him why she asked +it. She did not know why that memory still disturbed her at times. +Beyond the window of her living room, the lighted rectangle of the +calendar hung like a small shipping tag in the black sky. It read: September +2. She smiled defiantly, remembering the race she had run against its +changing pages; there were no deadlines now, she thought, no barriers, no +threats, no limits. + + She heard a key turning in the door of her apartment; this was the sound +she had waited for, had wanted to hear tonight. +Rearden came in, as he had come many times, using the key she had given +him, as sole announcement. He threw his hat and coat down on a chair with a +gesture that had become familiar; he wore the formal black of dinner clothes. +"Hello," she said. +"I'm still waiting for the evening when I won't find you in," he answered, +"Then you'll have to phone the offices of Taggart Transcontinental." +"Any evening? Nowhere else?" +"Jealous, Hank?" +"No. Curious what it would feel like, to be." +He stood looking at her across the room, refusing to let himself approach +her, deliberately prolonging the pleasure of knowing that he could do it +whenever he wished. She wore the tight gray skirt of an office suit and a +blouse of transparent white cloth tailored like a man's shirt; the blouse +flared out above her waistline, stressing the trim flatness of her hips; +against the glow of a lamp behind her, he could see the slender silhouette of +her body within the flaring circle of the blouse. +"How was the banquet?" she asked. +"Fine. I escaped as soon as I could. Why didn't you come? You were +invited." +"I didn't want to see you in public." +He glanced at her, as if stressing that he noted the full meaning of her +answer; then the lines of his face moved to the hint of an amused smile. "You +missed a lot. The National Council of Metal Industries won't put itself again +through the ordeal of having me for guest of honor. +Not if they can help it." +"What happened?" +"Nothing. Just a lot of speeches." +"Was it an ordeal for you?" +"No . . . Yes, in a way . . . I had really wanted to enjoy it." +"Shall I get you a drink?" +"Yes, will you?" +She turned to go. He stopped her, grasping her shoulders from behind; he +bent her head back and kissed her mouth. When he raised his head, she pulled +it down again with a demanding gesture of ownership, as if stressing her +right to do it. Then she stepped away from him. +"Never mind the drink," he said, "I didn't really want it—except for +seeing you wait on me." +"Well, then, let me wait on you." +"No." +He smiled, stretching himself out on the couch, his hands crossed under +his head. He felt at home; it was the first home he had ever found. +"You know, the worst part of the banquet was that the only wish of every +person present was to get it over with," he said. "What I can't understand is +why they wanted to do it at all. They didn't have to. Certainly not for my +sake." +She picked up a cigarette box, extended it to him, then held the flame of +a lighter to the tip of his cigarette, in the deliberate manner of waiting on +him. She smiled in answer to his chuckle, then sat down on the arm of a chair +across the room. +"Why did you accept their invitation, Hank?" she asked. "You've always +refused to join them." +"I didn't want to refuse a peace offer—when I've beaten them and they know +it. I'll never join them, but an invitation to appear as a guest of honor— +well, I thought they were good losers. I thought it was generous of them." +"Of them?" + + "Are you going to say: of me?" +"Hank! After all the things they've done to stop you—" +"I won, didn't I? So I thought . . . You know, I didn't hold it against +them that they couldn't see the value of the Metal sooner—so long as they saw +it at last. Every man learns in his own way and time. +Sure, I knew there was a lot of cowardice there, and envy and hypocrisy, +but I thought that that was only the surface—now, when I've proved my case, +when I've proved it so loudly!—I thought their real motive for inviting me +was their appreciation of the Metal, and—" +She smiled in the brief space of his pause; she knew the sentence he had +stopped himself from uttering: " and for that, I would forgive anyone +anything." +"But it wasn't," he said. "And I couldn't figure out what their motive +was. Dagny, I don't think they had any motive at all. They didn't give that +banquet to please me, or to gain something from me, or to save face with the +public. There was no purpose of any kind about it, no meaning. They didn't +really care when they denounced the Metal—and they don't care now. They're +not really afraid that I'll drive them all off the market—they don't care +enough even about that. Do you know what that banquet was like? It's as if +they'd heard that there are values one is supposed to honor and this is what +one does to honor them—so they went through the motions, like ghosts pulled +by some sort of distant echoes from a better age. I . . . I couldn't stand +it." +She said, her face tight, "And you don't think you're generous!" +He glanced up at her; his eyes brightened to a look of amusement. +"Why do they make you so angry?" +She said, her voice low to hide the sound of tenderness, "You wanted to +enjoy it . . ." +"It probably serves me right. I shouldn't have expected anything. 1 +don't know what it was that I wanted." +"I do." +"I've never liked occasions of that sort. I don't see why I expected it to +be different, this time. . . . You know, I went there feeling almost as if +the Metal had changed everything, even people." +"Oh yes, Hank, I know!" +"Well, it was the wrong place to seek anything. . . . Do you remember? You +said once that celebrations should be only for those who have something to +celebrate." +The dot of her lighted cigarette stopped in mid-air; she sat still. She +had never spoken to him of that party or of anything related to his home. In +a moment., she answered quietly, "I remember." +"1 know what you meant . . . I knew it then, too." +He was looking straight at her. She lowered her eyes. +He remained silent; when he spoke again, his voice was gay. "The worst +thing about people is not the insults they hand out, but the compliments. I +couldn't bear the kind they spouted tonight, particularly when they kept +saying how much everybody needs me—they, the city, the country and the whole +world, I guess. Apparently, their idea of the height of glory is to deal with +people who need them. I can't stand people who need me." He glanced at her. +"Do you need me?" +She answered, her voice earnest, "Desperately." +He laughed. "No. Not the way I meant. You didn't say it the way they do." +"How did I say it?" +"Like a trader—who pays for what he wants. They say it like beggars who +use a tin cup as a claim check." +"I . . . pay for it, Hank?" +"Don't look innocent. You know exactly what I mean." + + "Yes," she whispered; she was smiling. +"Oh, to hell with them!" he said happily, stretching his legs, shifting +the position of his body on the couch, stressing the luxury of relaxation. +"I'm no good as a public figure. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. +We don't have to care what they see or don't see. They'll leave us alone. +It's clear track ahead. What's the next undertaking, Mr. Vice-President?" +"A transcontinental track of Rearden Metal." +"How soon do you want it?" +"Tomorrow morning. Three years from now is when I'll get it." +"Think you can do it in three years?" +"If the John Galt . . . if the Rio Norte Line does as well as it's doing +now." +"It's going to do better. That's only the beginning." +"I have an installment plan made out. As the money comes in, I'm going to +start tearing up the main track, one division at a time, and replacing it +with Rearden Metal rail." +"Okay. Any time you wish to start." +"I'll keep moving the old rail to the branch lines—they won't last much +longer, if I don't. In three years, you'll ride on your own Metal into San +Francisco, if somebody wants to give you a banquet there." +"In three years, I'll have mills pouring Rearden Metal in Colorado, in +Michigan and in Idaho. That's my installment plan." +"Your own mills? Branches?" +"Uh-huh." +"What about the Equalization of Opportunity Bill?" +"You don't think it's going to exist three years from now, do you? +We've given them such a demonstration that all that rot is going to be +swept away. The whole country is with us. Who'll want to stop things now? +Who'll listen to the bilge? There's a lobby of the better kind of men working +In Washington right this moment. They're going to get the Equalization Bill +scrapped at the next session." +"I . . . I hope so." +"I've had a terrible time, these last few weeks, getting the new furnaces +started, but it's all set now, they're being built, I can sit back and take +it easy. I can sit at my desk, rake in the money, loaf like a bum, watch the +orders for the Metal pouring in and play favorites ail over the place. . . . +Say, what's the first train you've got for Philadelphia tomorrow morning?" +"Oh, I don't know." +"You don't? What's the use of an Operating Vice-president? I have to be at +the mills by seven tomorrow. Got anything running around six?" +"Five-thirty A.M. is the first one, I think." +"Will you wake me up in time to make it or would you rather order the +train held for me?" +"I'll wake you up." +“Ok". +She sat, watching him as he remained silent. He had looked tired when he +came in; the lines of exhaustion were gone from his face now. +"Dagny," he asked suddenly; his tone had changed, there was some hidden, +earnest note in his voice, "why didn't you want to see me in public?" +"I don't want to be part of your . . . official life." +He did not answer; in a moment, he asked casually, "When did you take a +vacation last?" +"I think it was two . . . no, three years ago." +"What did you do?" +"Went to the Adirondacks for a month. Came back in a week." +"I did that five years ago. Only it was Oregon." He lay flat on his back, +looking at the ceiling. "Dagny, let's take a vacation together. Let's take my + + car and drive away for a few weeks, anywhere, just drive, down the back +roads, where no one knows us. We'll leave no address, we won't look at a +newspaper, we won't touch a phone—we won't have any official life at all." +She got up. She approached him, she stood by the side of the couch, +looking down at him, the light of the lamp behind her; she did not want him +to see her face and the effort she was making not to smile. +"You can take a few weeks off. can't you?" he said. "Things are set and +going now. It's safe. We won't have another chance in the next three years." +"All right, Hank," she said, forcing her voice to sound calmly toneless. +"Will you?" +"When do you want to start?" +"Monday morning." +"All right." +She turned to step away. He seized her wrist, pulled her down, swung her +body to lie stretched full-length on top of him, he held her still, +uncomfortably, as she had fallen, his one hand in her hair, pressing her +mouth to his, his other hand moving from the shoulder blades under her thin +blouse to her waist, to her legs. She whispered, "And you say I don't need +you . . . !" +She pulled herself away from him, and stood up, brushing her hair off her +face. He lay still, looking up at her, his eyes narrowed, the bright flicker +of some particular interest in his eyes, intent and faintly mocking. She +glanced down: a strap of her slip had broken, the slip hung diagonally from +her one shoulder to her side, and he was looking at her breast under the +transparent film of the blouse. She raised her hand to adjust the strap. He +slapped her hand down. She smiled, in understanding, in answering mockery. +She walked slowly, deliberately across the room and leaned against a table, +facing him, her hands holding the table's edge, her shoulders thrown back. It +was the contrast he liked—the severity of her clothes and the half-naked +body, the railroad executive who was a woman he owned. +He sat up; he sat leaning comfortably across the couch, his legs crossed +and stretched forward, his hands in his pockets, looking at her with the +glance of a property appraisal. +"Did you say you wanted a transcontinental track of Rearden Metal, Mr. +Vice-President?" he asked. "What if I don't give it to you? I can choose my +customers now and demand any price I please. If this were a year ago, I would +have demanded that you sleep with me in exchange." +"I wish you had." +"Would you have done it?" +"Of course." +"As a matter of business? As a sale?" +"If you were the buyer. You would have liked that, wouldn't you?" +"Would you?" +"Yes . . ." she whispered. +He approached her, he grasped her shoulders and pressed his mouth to her +breast through the thin cloth. +Then, holding her, he looked at her silently for a long moment. +"What did you do with that bracelet?" he asked. +They had never referred to it; she had to let a moment pass to regain the +steadiness of her voice. "I have it," she answered. +"I want you to wear it." +"If anyone guesses, it will be worse for you than for me." +"Wear it." +She brought out the bracelet of Rearden Metal. She extended it to him +without a word, looking straight at him, the green-blue chain glittering +across her palm. Holding her glance, he clasped the bracelet on her wrist. In + + the moment when the clasp clicked shut under his fingers, she bent her head +down to them and kissed his hand. +The earth went flowing under the hood of the car. Uncoiling from among the +curves of Wisconsin's hills, the highway was the only evidence of human +labor, a precarious bridge stretched across a sea of brush, weeds and trees. +The sea rolled softly, in sprays of yellow and orange, with a few red jets +shooting up on the hillsides, with pools of remnant green in the hollows, +under a pure blue sky. Among the colors of a picture post card, the car's +hood looked like the work of a jeweler, with the sun sparkling on its +chromium steel, and its black enamel reflecting the sky. +Dagny leaned against the corner of the side window, her legs stretched +forward; she liked the wide, comfortable space of the car's seat and the +warmth of the sun on her shoulders; she thought that the countryside was +beautiful. +"What I'd like to see," said Rearden, "is a billboard,” +She laughed: he had answered her silent thought. "Selling what and to +whom? We haven't seen a car or a house for an hour." +"That's what I don't like about it." He bent forward a little, his hands +on the wheel; he was frowning. "Look at that road." +The long strip of concrete was bleached to the powdery gray of bones left +on a desert, as if sun and snows had eaten away the traces of tires, oil and +carbon, the lustrous polish of motion. Green weeds rose from the angular +cracks of the concrete. No one had used the road or repaired it for many +years; but the cracks were few. +"It's a good road," said Rearden. "It was built to last. The man who built +it must have had a good reason for expecting it to carry a heavy traffic in +the years ahead." +"Yes . . . " +"I don't like the looks of this." +"I don't either." Then she smiled. "But think how often we've heard people +complain that billboards ruin the appearance of the countryside. +Well, there's the unruined countryside for them to admire." She added, +"They're the people I hate." +She did not want to feel the uneasiness which she felt like a thin crack +under her enjoyment of this day. She had felt that uneasiness at times, in +the last three weeks, at the sight of the country streaming past the wedge of +the car's hood. She smiled: it was the hood that had been the immovable point +in her field of vision, while the earth had gone by, it was the hood that had +been the center, the focus, the security in a blurred, dissolving world . . . +the hood before her and Rearden's hands on the wheel by her side . . . she +smiled, thinking that she was satisfied to let this be the shape of her +world. +After the first week of their wandering, when they had driven at random, +at the mercy of unknown crossroads, he had said to her one morning as they +started out, "Dagny, does resting have to be purposeless?" She had laughed, +answering, "No. What factory do you want to see?" He had smiled—at the guilt +he did not have to assume, at the explanations he did not have to give—and he +had answered, "It's an abandoned ore mine around Saginaw Bay, that I've heard +about. They say it's exhausted." +They had driven across Michigan to the ore mine. They had walked through +the ledges of an empty pit, with the remnants of a crane like a skeleton +bending above them against the sky, and someone's rusted lunchbox clattering +away from under their feet. She had felt a stab of uneasiness, sharper than +sadness—but Rearden had said cheerfully, "Exhausted, hell! I'll show them how +many tons and dollars I can draw out of this place!" On their way back to the +car, he had said, "If I could find the right man, I'd buy that mine for him +tomorrow morning and set him up to work it." + + The next day, when they were driving west and south, toward the plains of +Illinois, he had said suddenly, after a long silence, "No, I'll have to wait +till they junk the Bill. The man who could work that mine, wouldn't need me +to teach him. The man who'd need me, wouldn't be worth a damn." +They could speak of their work, as they always had, with full confidence +in being understood. But they never spoke of each other. He acted as if their +passionate intimacy were a nameless physical fact, not to be identified in +the communication between two minds. Each night, it was as if she lay in the +arms of a stranger who let her see every shudder of sensation that ran +through his body, but would never permit her to know whether the shocks +reached any answering tremor within him. She lay naked at his side, but on +her wrist there was the bracelet of Rearden Metal. +She knew that he hated the ordeal of signing the "Mr. and Mrs. +Smith" on the registers of squalid roadside hotels. There were evenings +when she noticed the faint contraction of anger in the tightness of his +mouth, as he signed the expected names of the expected fraud, anger at those +who made fraud necessary. She noticed, indifferently, the air of knowing +slyness in the manner of the hotel clerks, which seemed to suggest that +guests and clerks alike were accomplices in a shameful guilt: the guilt of +seeking pleasure. But she knew that it did not matter to him when they were +alone, when he held her against him for a moment and she saw his eyes look +alive and guiltless. +They drove through small towns, through obscure side roads, through the +kind of places they had not seen for years. She felt uneasiness at the sight +of the towns. Days passed before she realized what it was that she missed +most: a glimpse of fresh paint. The houses stood like men in unpressed suits, +who had lost the desire to stand straight: the cornices were like sagging +shoulders, the crooked porch steps like torn hem lines, the broken windows +like patches, mended with clapboard. The people in the streets stared at the +new car, not as one stares at a rare sight, but as if the glittering black +shape were an impossible vision from another world. There were few vehicles +in the streets and too many of them were horse-drawn. She had forgotten the +literal shape and usage of horsepower; she did not like to see its return. +She did not laugh, that day at the grade crossing, when Rearden chuckled, +pointing, and she saw the train of a small local railroad come tottering from +behind a hill, drawn by an ancient locomotive that coughed black smoke +through a tall stack. +"Oh God, Hank, it's not funny!" +"I know," he said. +They were seventy miles and an hour away from it, when she said, "Hank, do +you see the Taggart Comet being pulled across the continent by a coal-burner +of that kind?" +"What's the matter with you? Pull yourself together." +"I'm sorry . . . It's just that I keep thinking it won't be any use, all +my new track and all your new furnaces, if we don't find someone able to +produce Diesel engines. If we don't find him fast," +"Ted Nielsen of Colorado is your man." +"Yes, if he finds a way to open his new plant. He's sunk more money than +he should into the bonds of the John Galt Line." +"That's turned out to be a pretty profitable investment, hasn't it?" +"Yes, but it's held him up. Now he's ready to go ahead, but he can't find +the tools. There are no machine tools to buy, not anywhere, not at any price. +He's getting nothing but promises and delays. He's combing the country, +looking for old junk to reclaim, from closed factories. If he doesn't start +soon—" +"He will. Who's going to stop him now?" +"Hank," she said suddenly, "could we go to a place I'd like to see?" + + "Sure, Anywhere. Which place?" +"It's in Wisconsin. There used to be a great motor company there, in my +father's time. We had a branch line serving it, but we closed the line—about +seven years ago—when they closed the factory. I think it's one of those +blighted areas now. Maybe there's still some machinery left there that Ted +Nielsen could use. It might have been overlooked—the place is forgotten and +there's no transportation to it at all." +"I'll find it. What was the name of the factory?" +"The Twentieth Century Motor Company." +"Oh, of course! That was one of the best motor firms in my youth, perhaps +the best. I seem to remember that there was something odd about the way it +went out of business . . . can't recall what it was.'1 +It took them three days of inquiries, but they found the bleached, +abandoned road—and now they were driving through the yellow leaves that +glittered like a sea of gold coins, to the Twentieth Century Motor Company. +"Hank, what if anything happens to Ted Nielsen?" she asked suddenly, as +they drove in silence. +"Why should anything happen to him?" +"I don't know, but . . . well, there was Dwight Sanders. He vanished. +United Locomotives is done for now. And the other plants are in no condition +to produce Diesels. I've stopped listening to promises. And . . . and of what +use is a railroad without motive power?" +"Of what use is anything, for that matter, without it?" +The leaves sparkled, swaying in the wind. They spread for miles, from +grass to brush to trees, with the motion and all the colors of fire; they +seemed to celebrate an accomplished purpose, burning in unchecked, untouched +abundance. +Rearden smiled. "There's something to be said for the wilderness. +I'm beginning to like it. New country that nobody's discovered." She +nodded gaily. "It's good soil—look at the way things grow. I'd clear that +brush and I'd build a—" +And then they stopped smiling. The corpse they saw in the weeds by the +roadside was a rusty cylinder with bits of glass—the remnant of a gas-station +pump. +It was the only thing left visible. The few charred posts, the slab of +concrete and the sparkle of glass dust—which had been a gas station— +were swallowed in the brush, not to be noticed except by a careful glance, +not to be seen at all in another year. +They looked away. They drove on, not wanting to know what else lay hidden +under the miles of weeds. They felt the same wonder like a weight in the +silence between them: wonder as to how much the weeds had swallowed and how +fast. +The road ended abruptly behind the turn of a hill. What remained was a few +chunks of concrete sticking out of a long, pitted stretch of tar and mud. The +concrete had been smashed by someone and carted away; even weeds could not +grow in the strip of earth left behind. On the crest of a distant hill, a +single telegraph pole stood slanted against the sky, like a cross over a vast +grave. +It took them three hours and a punctured tire to crawl in low gear through +trackless soft, through gullies, then down ruts left by cart wheels—to reach +the settlement that lay in the valley beyond the hill with the telegraph +pole. +A few houses still stood within the skeleton of what had once been an +industrial town. Everything that could move, had moved away; but some human +beings had remained. The empty structures were vertical rubble; they had been +eaten, not by time, but by men: boards torn out at random, missing patches of +roofs, holes left in gutted cellars. It looked as if blind hands had seized + + whatever fitted the need of the moment, with no concept of remaining in +existence the next morning. +The inhabited houses were scattered at random among the ruins; the smoke +of their chimneys was the only movement visible in town. A shell of concrete, +which had been a schoolhouse, stood on the outskirts; it looked like a skull, +with the empty sockets of glassless windows, with a few strands of hair still +clinging to it, in the shape of broken wires. +Beyond the town, on a distant hill, stood the factory of the Twentieth +Century Motor Company. Its walls, roof lines and smokestacks looked trim, +impregnable like a fortress. It would have seemed intact but for a silver +water tank: the water tank was tipped sidewise. +They saw no trace of a road to the factory in the tangled miles of trees +and hillsides. They drove to the door of the first house in sight that showed +a feeble signal of rising smoke. The door was open. An old woman came +shuffling out at the sound of the motor. She was bent and swollen, +barefooted, dressed in a garment of flour sacking. She looked at the car +without astonishment, without curiosity; it was the blank stare of a being +who had lost the capacity to feel anything but exhaustion. +"Can you tell me the way to the factory?" asked Rearden. +The woman did not answer at once; she looked as if she would be unable to +speak English. "What factory?" she asked. +Rearden pointed. "That one." +"It's closed." +"I know it's closed. But is there any way to get there?" +"I don't know." +"Is there any sort of road?" +"There's roads in the woods." +"Any for a car to drive through?" +"Maybe." +"Well, which would be the best road to take?" +"I don't know." +Through the open door, they could see the interior of her house. +There was a useless gas stove, its oven stuffed with rags, serving as a +chest of drawers. There was a stove built of stones in a corner, with a few +logs burning under an old kettle, and long streaks of soot rising up the +wall. A white object lay propped against the legs of a table: it was a +porcelain washbowl, torn from the wall of some bathroom, filled with wilted +cabbages. A tallow candle stood in a bottle on the table. There was no paint +left on the floor; its boards were scrubbed to a soggy gray that looked like +the visual expression of the pain in the bones of the person who had bent and +scrubbed and lost the battle against the grime now soaked into the grain of +the boards. +A brood of ragged children had gathered at the door behind the woman, +silently, one by one. They stared at the car, not with the bright curiosity +of children, but with the tension of savages ready to vanish at the first +sign of danger. +"How many miles is it to the factory?" asked Rearden. +"Ten miles," said the woman, and added, "Maybe five." +"How far is the next town?" +"There ain't any next town." +"There are other towns somewhere. I mean, how far?" +"Yeah. Somewhere." +In the vacant space by the side of the house, they saw faded rags hanging +on a clothesline, which was a piece of telegraph wire. Three chickens pecked +among the beds of a scraggly vegetable garden; a fourth sat roosting on a bar +which was a length of plumber's pipe. Two pigs waddled in a stretch of mud + + and refuse; the stepping stones laid across the muck were pieces of the +highway's concrete. +They heard a screeching sound in the distance and saw a man drawing water +from a public well by means of a rope pulley. They watched him as he came +slowly down the street. He carried two buckets that seemed too heavy for his +thin arms. One could not tell his age. +He approached and stopped, looking at the car. His eyes darted at the +strangers, then away, suspicious and furtive. +Rearden took out a ten-dollar bill and extended it to him, asking, "Would +you please tell us the way to the factory?" +The man stared at the money with sullen indifference, not moving, not +lifting a hand for it, still clutching the two buckets. If one were ever to +see a man devoid of greed, thought Dagny, there he was. +"We don't need no money around here," he said. +"Don't you work for a living?" +"Yeah." +"Well, what do you use for money?" +The man put the buckets down, as if it had just occurred to him that he +did not have to stand straining under their weight. "We don't use no money," +he said. "We just trade things amongst us." +"How do you trade with people from other towns?" +"We don't go to no other towns." +"You don't seem to have it easy here." +"What's that to you?" +"Nothing. Just curiosity. Why do you people stay here?" +"My old man used to have a grocery store here. Only the factory closed." +"Why didn't you move?" +"Where to?" +"Anywhere." +"What for?" +Dagny was staring at the two buckets: they were square tins with rope +handles; they had been oil cans. +"Listen," said Rearden, "can you tell us whether there's a road to the +factory?" +"There's plenty of roads." +"Is there one that a car can take?" +"I guess so." +"Which one?" +The man weighed the problem earnestly for some moments. "Well, now, if you +turn to the left by the schoolhouse," he said, "and go on til you come to the +crooked oak, there's a road up there that's fine when it don't rain for a +couple of weeks." +"When did it rain last?" +"Yesterday." +"Is there another road?" +"Well, you could go through Hanson's pasture and across the woods and then +there's a good, solid road there, all the way down to the creek." +"Is there a bridge across the creek?" +"No." +"What are the other roads?" +"Well, if it's a car road that you want, there's one the other side of +Miller's patch, it's paved, it's the best road for a car, you just turn to +the right by the schoolhouse and—" +"But that road doesn't go to the factory, does it?" +"No, not to the factory." +"All right," said Rearden. "Guess we'll find our own way." + + He had pressed the starter, when a rock came smashing into the windshield. +The glass was shatterproof, but a sunburst of cracks spread across it. They +saw a ragged little hoodlum vanishing behind a corner with a scream of +laughter, and they heard the shrill laughter of children answering him from +behind some windows or crevices. +Rearden suppressed a swear word. The man looked vapidly across the street, +frowning a little. The old woman looked on, without reaction. She had stood +there silently, watching, without interest or purpose, like a chemical +compound on a photographic plate, absorbing visual shapes because they were +there to be absorbed, but unable ever to form any estimate of the objects of +her vision. +Dagny had been studying her for some minutes. The swollen shapelessness of +the woman's body did not look like the product of age and neglect: it looked +as if she was pregnant. This seemed impossible, but glancing closer Dagny saw +that her dust-colored hair was not gray and that there were few wrinkles on +her face; it was only the vacant eyes, the stooped shoulders, the shuffling +movements that gave her the stamp of senility. +Dagny leaned out and asked, "How old are you?" +The woman looked at her, not in resentment, but merely as one looks at a +pointless question. "Thirty-seven," she answered. +They had driven five former blocks away, when Dagny spoke. +"Hank," she said in terror, "that woman is only two years older than I!" +"Yes." +"God, how did they ever come to such a state?" +He shrugged. "Who is John Galt?" +The last thing they saw, as they left the town, was a billboard. A design +was still visible on its peeling strips, imprinted in the dead gray that had +once been color. It advertised a washing machine. +In a distant field, beyond the town, they saw the figure of a man moving +slowly, contorted by the ugliness of a physical effort beyond the proper use +of a human body: he was pushing a plow by hand. +They reached the factory of the Twentieth Century Motor Company two miles +and two hours later. They knew, as they climbed the hill, that their quest +was useless. A rusted padlock hung on the door of the main entrance, but the +huge windows were shattered and the place was open to anyone, to the +woodchucks, the rabbits and the dried leaves that lay in drifts inside. +The factory had been gutted long ago. The great pieces of machinery had +been moved out by some civilized means—the neat holes of their bases still +remained in the concrete of the floor. The rest had gone to random looters. +There was nothing left, except refuse which the neediest tramp had found +worthless, piles of twisted, rusted scraps, of boards, plaster and glass +splinters—and the steel stairways, built to last and lasting, rising in trim +spirals to the roof. +They stopped in the great hall where a ray of light fell diagonally from a +gap in the ceiling, and the echoes of their steps rang around them, dying far +away in rows of empty rooms. A bird darted from among the steel rafters and +went in a hissing streak of wings out into the sky, "We'd better look through +it, just in case," said Dagny. "You take the shops and I'll take the annexes. +Let's do it as fast as possible." +"I don't like to let you wander around alone. I don't know how safe they +are, any of those floors or stairways." +"Oh, nonsense! I can find my way around a factory—or in a wrecking crew. +Let's get it over with. I want to get out of here." +When she walked through the silent yards—where steel bridges still hung +overhead, tracing lines of geometrical perfection across the sky —her only +wish was not to see any of it, but she forced herself to look. + + It was like having to perform an autopsy on the body of one's love. She +moved her glance as an automatic searchlight, her teeth clamped tight +together. She walked rapidly—there was no necessity to pause anywhere. +It was in a room of what had been the laboratory that she stopped. It was +a coil of wire that made her stop. The coil protruded from a pile of junk. +She had never seen that particular arrangement of wires, yet it seemed +familiar, as if it touched the hint of some memory, faint and very distant. +She reached for the coil, but could not move it: it seemed to be part of some +object buried in the pile. +The room looked as if it had been an experimental laboratory—if she was +right in judging the purpose of the torn remnants she saw on the walls: a +great many electrical outlets, bits of heavy cable, lead conduits, glass +tubing, built-in cabinets without shelves or doors. There was a great deal of +glass, rubber, plastic and metal in the junk pile, and dark gray splinters of +slate that had been a blackboard. Scraps of paper rustled dryly all over the +floor. There were also remnants of things which had not been brought here by +the owner of that room: popcorn wrappers, a whiskey bottle, a confession +magazine. +She attempted to extricate the coil from the scrap pile. It would not +move; it was part of some large object. She knelt and began to dig through +the junk. +She had cut her hands, she was covered with dust by the time she stood up +to look at the object she had cleared. It was the broken remnant of the model +of a motor. Most of its parts were missing, but enough was left to convey +some idea of its former shape and purpose. +She had never seen a motor of this kind or anything resembling it. +She could not understand the peculiar design of its parts or the functions +they were intended to perform. +She examined the tarnished tubes and odd-shaped connections. She tried to +guess their purpose, her mind going over every type of motor she knew and +every possible kind of work its parts could perform. +None fitted the model. It looked like an electric motor, but she could not +tell what fuel it was intended to burn. It was not designed for steam, or +oil, or anything she could name. +Her sudden gasp was not a sound, but a jolt that threw her at the junk +pile. She was on her hands and knees, crawling over the wreckage, seizing +every piece of paper in sight, flinging it away, searching further. Her hands +were shaking. +She found part of what she hoped had remained in existence. It was a thin +sheaf of typewritten pages clamped together—the remnant of a manuscript. Its +beginning and end were gone; the bits of paper left under the clamp showed +the thick number of pages it had once contained. The paper was yellowed and +dry. The manuscript had been a description of the motor. +From the empty enclosure of the plant's powerhouse, Rearden heard her +voice screaming, "Hank!" It sounded like a scream of terror. +He ran in the direction of the voice. He found her standing in the middle +of a room, her hands bleeding, her stockings torn, her suit smeared with +dust, a bunch of papers clutched in her hand. +"Hank, what does this look like?" she asked, pointing at an odd piece of +wreckage at her feet; her voice had the intense, obsessed tone of a person +stunned by a shock, cut off from reality. "What does it look like?" +"Are you hurt? What happened?” +"No! . . . Oh, never mind, don't look at me! I'm all right. Look at this. +Do you know what that is?" +"What did you do to yourself?" +"I had to dig it out of there. I'm all right." +"You're shaking." + + "You will, too, in a moment. Hank! Look at it. Just look and tell me what +you think it is." +He glanced down, then looked attentively—then he was sitting on the floor, +studying the object intently. "It's a queer way to put a motor together," he +said, frowning. +"Read this," she said, extending the pages. +He read, looked up and said, "Good God!" +She was sitting on the floor beside him, and for a moment they could say +nothing else. +"It was the coil," she said. She felt as if her mind were racing, she +could not keep up with all the things which a sudden blast had opened to her +vision, and her words came hurtling against one another. "It was the coil +that I noticed first—because I had seen drawings like it, not quite, but +something like it, years ago, when I was in school—it was in an old book, it +was given up as impossible long, long ago—but I liked to read everything I +could find about railroad motors. That book said that there was a time when +men were thinking of it—they worked on it, they spent years on experiments, +but they couldn't solve it and they gave it up. It was forgotten for +generations. I didn't think that any living scientist ever thought of it now. +But someone did. +Someone has solved it, now, today! . . . Hank, do you understand? +Those men, long ago, tried to invent a motor that would draw static +electricity from the atmosphere, convert it and create its own power as it +went along. They couldn't do it. They gave it up." She pointed at the broken +shape. "But there it is." +He nodded. He was not smiling. He sat looking at the remnant, intent on +some thought of his own; it did not seem to be a happy thought. +"Hank! Don't you understand what this means? It's the greatest revolution +in power motors since the internal-combustion engine— +greater than that! It wipes everything out—and makes everything possible. +To hell with Dwight Sanders and all of them! Who'll want to look at a Diesel? +Who'll want to worry about oil, coal or refueling stations? Do you see what I +see? A brand-new locomotive half the size of a single Diesel unit, and with +ten times the power. A self-generator, working on a few drops of fuel, with +no limits to its energy. The cleanest, swiftest, cheapest means of motion +ever devised. Do you see what this will do to our transportation systems and +to the country—in about one year?" +There was no spark of excitement in his face. He said slowly, "Who +designed it? Why was it left here?" +"We'll find out." +He weighed the pages in his hand reflectively. "Dagny," he asked, "if you +don't find the man who made it, will you be able to reconstruct that motor +from what is left?" +She took a long moment, then the word fell with a sinking sound: "No." +"Nobody will. He had it all right. It worked—judging by what he writes +here. It is the greatest thing I've ever laid eyes on. It was. We can't make +it work again. To supply what's missing would take a mind as great as his." +"I'll find him—if I have to drop every other thing I'm doing." +"—and if he's still alive." +She heard the unstated guess in the tone of his voice. "Why do you say it +like that?" +"I don't think he is. If he were, would he leave an invention of this kind +to rot on a junk pile? Would he abandon an achievement of this size? If he +were still alive, you would have had the locomotives with the self-generators +years ago. And you wouldn't have had to look for him, because the whole world +would know his name by now." +"I don't think this model was made so very long ago." + + He looked at the paper of the manuscript and at the rusty tarnish of the +motor. "About ten years ago, I'd guess. Maybe a little longer." +"We've got to find him or somebody who knew him. This is more important—" +«—than anything owned or manufactured by anyone today. I don't think we'll +find him. And if we don't, nobody will be able to repeat his performance. +Nobody will rebuild his motor. There's not enough of it left. It's only a +lead, an invaluable lead, but it would take the sort of mind that's born once +in a century, to complete it. Do you see our present-day motor designers +attempting it?" +"No." +"There's not a first-rate designer left. There hasn't been a new idea in +motors for years. That's one profession that seems to be dying—or dead." +"Hank, do you know what that motor would have meant, if built?" +He chuckled briefly. "I'd say: about ten years added to the life of every +person in this country—if you consider how many things it would have made +easier and cheaper to produce, how many hours of human labor it would have +released for other work, and how much more anyone's work would have brought +him. Locomotives? What about automobiles and ships and airplanes with a motor +of this kind? And tractors. +And power plants. All hooked to an unlimited supply of energy, with no +fuel to pay for, except a few pennies' worth to keep the converter going. +That motor could have set the whole country in motion and on fire. It would +have brought an electric light bulb into every hole, even into the homes of +those people we saw down in the valley." +"It would have? It will. I'm going to find the man who made it." +"We'll try." +He rose abruptly, but stopped to glance down at the broken remnant and +said, with a chuckle that was not gay, “There was the motor for the John Galt +Line." +Then he spoke in the brusque manner of an executive. "First, we'll try to +see if we can find their personnel office here. We'll look for their records, +if there's any left. We want the names of their research staff and their +engineers. I don't know who owns this place now, and I suspect that the +owners will be hard to find, or they wouldn't have let it come to this. Then +we'll go over every room in the laboratory. +Later, we'll get a few engineers to fly here and comb the rest of the +place." +They started out, but she stopped for a moment on the threshold. +"Hank, that motor was the most valuable thing inside this factory," +she said, her voice low. "It was more valuable than the whole factory and +everything it ever contained. Yet it was passed up and left in the refuse. It +was the one thing nobody found worth the trouble of taking." +"That's what frightens me about this," he answered. +The personnel office did not take them long. They found it by the sign +which was left on the door, but it was the only thing left. There was no +furniture inside, no papers, nothing but the splinters of smashed windows. +They went back to the room of the motor. Crawling on hands and knees, they +examined every scrap of the junk that littered the floor. +There was little to find. They put aside the papers that seemed to contain +laboratory notes, but none referred to the motor, and there were no pages of +the manuscript among them. The popcorn wrappers and the whiskey bottle +testified to the kind of invading hordes that had rolled through the room, +like waves washing the remnants of destruction away to unknown bottoms. +They put aside a few bits of metal that could have belonged to the motor, +but these were too small to be of value. The motor looked as if parts of it +had been ripped off, perhaps by someone who thought he could put them to some +customary use. What had remained was too unfamiliar to interest anybody. + + On aching knees, her palms spread flat upon the gritty floor, she felt the +anger trembling within her, the hurting, helpless anger that answers the +sight of desecration. She wondered whether someone's diapers hung on a +clothesline made of the motor's missing wires—whether its wheels had become a +rope pulley over a communal well—whether its cylinder was now a pot +containing geraniums on the window sill of the sweetheart of the man with the +whiskey bottle. +There was a remnant of light on the hill, but a blue haze was moving in +upon the valleys, and the red and gold of the leaves was spreading to the sky +in strips of sunset. +It was dark when they finished. She rose and leaned against the empty +frame of the window for a touch of cool air on her forehead. The sky was dark +blue. "It could have set the whole country in motion and on fire." She looked +down at the motor. She looked out at the country. She moaned suddenly, hit by +a single long shudder, and dropped her head on her arm, standing pressed to +the frame of the window. +"What's the matter?" he asked. +She did not answer. +He looked out. Far below, in the valley, in the gathering night, there +trembled a few pale smears which were the lights of tallow candles. + + CHAPTER X +WYATT'S TORCH +"God have mercy on us, ma'am!" said the clerk of the Hall of Records. +"Nobody knows who owns that factory now. I guess nobody will ever know it," +The clerk sat at a desk in a ground-floor office, where dust lay +undisturbed on the files and few visitors ever called. He looked at the +shining automobile parked outside his window, in the muddy square that had +once been the center of a prosperous county seat; he looked with a faint, +wistful wonder at his two unknown visitors. +"Why?" asked Dagny. +He pointed helplessly at the mass of papers he had taken out of the files. +"The court will have to decide who owns it, which I don't think any court can +do. If a court ever gets to it. I don't think it will." +"Why? What happened?" +"Well, it was sold out—the Twentieth Century, I mean. The Twentieth +Century Motor Company. It was sold twice, at the same time and to two +different sets of owners. That was sort of a big scandal at the time, two +years ago, and now it's just"—he pointed—"just a bunch of paper lying around, +waiting for a court hearing. I don't see how any judge will be able to +untangle any property rights out of it—or any right at all." +"Would you tell me please just what happened?" +"Well, the last legal owner of the factory was The People's Mortgage +Company, of Rome, Wisconsin. That's the town the other side of the factory, +thirty miles north. That Mortgage Company was a sort of noisy outfit that did +a lot of advertising about easy credit. Mark Yonts was the head of it. Nobody +knew where he came from and nobody knows where he's gone to now, but what +they discovered, the morning after The People's Mortgage Company collapsed, +was that Mark Yonts had sold the Twentieth Century Motor factory to a bunch +of suckers from South Dakota, and that he'd also given it as collateral for a +loan from a bank in Illinois. And when they took a look at the factory, they +discovered that he'd moved all the machinery out and sold it piecemeal, God +only knows where and to whom. So it seems like everybody owns the place—and +nobody. That's how it stands now—the South Dakotans and the bank and the +attorney for the creditors of The People's Mortgage Company all suing one +another, all claiming this factory, and nobody having the right to move a +wheel in it, except that there's no wheels left to move." +"Did Mark Yonts operate the factory before he sold it?" +"Lord, no, ma'am! He wasn't the kind that ever operates anything. +He didn't want to make money, only to get it. Guess he got it, too— +more than anyone could have made out of that factory." +He wondered why the blond, hard-faced man, who sat with the woman in front +of his desk, looked grimly out the window at their car, at a large object +wrapped in canvas, roped tightly under the raised cover of the car's luggage +compartment. +"What happened to the factory records?" +"Which do you mean, ma'am?" +"Their production records. Their work records. Their . . . personnel +files." +"Oh, there's nothing left of that now. There's been a lot of looting going +on. All the mixed owners grabbed what furniture or things they could haul out +of there, even if the sheriff did put a padlock on the door. The papers and +stuff like that—I guess it was all taken by the scavengers from Starnesville, +that's the place down in the valley, where they're having it pretty tough +these days. They burned the stuff for kindling, most likely." + + "Is there anyone left here who used to work in the factory?" asked +Rearden. +"No, sir. Not around here. They all lived down in Starnesville." +"All of them?" whispered Dagny; she was thinking of the ruins. "The . . . +engineers, too?" +"Yes, ma'am. That was the factory town. They've all gone, long ago." +"Do you happen to remember the names of any men who worked there?" +"No, ma'am." +"What owner was the last to operate the factory?" asked Rearden. +"I couldn't say, sir. There's been so much trouble up there and the place +has changed hands so many times, since old Jed Starnes died. +He's the man who built the factory. He made this whole part of the +country, I guess. He died twelve years ago." +"Can you give us the names of all the owners since?" +"No, sir. We had a fire in the old courthouse, about three years ago, and +all the old records are gone. I don't know where you could trace them now." +"You don't know how this Mark Yonts happened to acquire the factory?" +"Yes, I know that. He bought it from Mayor Bascom of Rome. How Mayor +Bascom happened to own it, I don't know." +"Where is Mayor Bascom now?” +"Still there, in Rome." +"Thank you very much," said Rearden, rising. "We'll call on him." +They were at the door when the clerk asked, "What is it you're looking +for, sir?" +"We're looking for a friend of ours," said Rearden. "A friend we've lost, +who used to work in that factory." +Mayor Bascom of Rome, Wisconsin, leaned back in his chair; his chest and +stomach formed a pear-shaped outline under his soiled shirt. +The air was a mixture of sun and dust, pressing heavily upon the porch of +his house. He waved his arm, the ring on his finger flashing a large topaz of +poor quality. +"No use, no use, lady, absolutely no use," he said. "Would be just a waste +of your time, trying to question the folks around here. There's no factory +people left, and nobody that would remember much about them. So many families +have moved away that what's left here is plain no good, if I do say so +myself, plain no good, just being Mayor of a bunch of trash." +He had offered chairs to his two visitors, but he did not mind it if the +lady preferred to stand at the porch railing. He leaned back, studying her +long-lined figure; high-class merchandise, he thought; but then, the man with +her was obviously rich. +Dagny stood looking at the streets of Rome. There were houses, sidewalks, +lampposts, even a sign advertising soft drinks; but they looked as if it were +now only a matter of inches and hours before the town would reach the stage +of Starnesville. +"Naw, there's no factory records left," said Mayor Bascom. "If that's what +you want to find, lady, give it up. It's like chasing leaves in a storm now. +Just like leaves in a storm. Who cares about papers? At a time like this, +what people save is good, solid, material objects. One's got to be +practical." +Through the dusty windowpanes, they could see the living room of his +house: there were Persian rugs on a buckled wooden floor, a portable bar with +chromium strips against a wall stained by the seepage of last year's rains, +an expensive radio with an old kerosene lamp placed on top of it. +"Sure, it's me that sold the factory to Mark Yonts. Mark was a nice +fellow, a nice, lively, energetic fellow. Sure, he did trim a few corners, +but who doesn't? Of course, he went a bit too far. That, I didn't expect. + + I thought he was smart enough to stay within the law—whatever's left of it +nowadays." +Mayor Bascom smiled, looking at them in a manner of placid frankness. His +eyes were shrewd without intelligence, his smile good-natured without +kindness. +"I don't think you folks are detectives," he said, "but even if you were, +it wouldn't matter to me. I didn't get any rake-off from Mark, he didn't let +me in on any of his deals, I haven't any idea where he's gone to now." He +sighed. "I liked that fellow. Wish he'd stayed around. Never mind the Sunday +sermons. He had to live, didn't he? He was no worse than anybody, only +smarter. Some get caught at it and some don't— +that's the only difference. . . . Nope, I didn't know what he was going to +do with it, when he bought that factory. Sure, he paid me quite a bit more +than the old booby trap was worth. Sure, he was doing me a favor when he +bought it. Nope, I didn't put any pressure on him to make him buy it. Wasn't +necessary. I'd done him a few favors before. There's plenty of laws that's +sort of made of rubber, and a mayor's in a position to stretch them a bit for +a friend. Well, what the hell? That's the only way anybody ever gets rich in +this world"—he glanced at the luxurious black car—"as you ought to know." +"You were telling us about the factory," said Rearden, trying to control +himself. +"What I can't stand," said Mayor Bascom, "is people who talk about +principles. No principle ever filled anybody's milk bottle. The only thing +that counts in life is solid, material assets. It's no time for theories, +when everything is falling to pieces around us. Well, me—I don't aim to go +under. Let them keep their ideas and I'll take the factory. I don't want +ideas, I just want my three square meals a day." +"Why did you buy that factory?" +"Why does anybody buy any business? To squeeze whatever can be squeezed +out of it. I know a good chance when I see it. It was a bankruptcy sale and +nobody much who'd want to bid on the old mess. So I got the place for +peanuts. Didn't have to hold it long, either—Mark took it off my hands in +two-three months. Sure, it was a smart deal, if I say so myself. No big +business tycoon could have done any better with it." +"Was the factory operating when you took it over?" +"Naw. It was shut down." +"Did you attempt to reopen it?" +"Not me. I'm a practical person." +"Can you recall the names of any men who worked there?" +"No. Never met 'em." +"Did you move anything out of the factory?" +"Well, I'll tell you. I took a look around—and what I liked was old Jed's +desk. Old led Starnes. He was a real big shot in his time. Wonderful desk, +solid mahogany. So I carted it home. And some executive, don't know who he +was, had a stall shower in his bathroom, the like of which I never saw. A +glass door with a mermaid cut in the glass, real art work, and hot stuff, +too, hotter than any oil painting. So I had that shower lifted and moved +here. What the hell, I owned it, didn't I? I was entitled to get something +valuable out of that factory." +"Whose bankruptcy sale was it, when you bought the factory?" +"Oh, that was the big crash of the Community National Bank in Madison. +Boy, was that a crash! It just about finished the whole state of Wisconsin— +sure finished this part of it. Some say it was this motor factory that broke +the bank, but others say it was only the last drop in a leaking bucket, +because the Community National had bum investments all over three or four +states. Eugene Lawson was the head of it. The banker with a heart, they +called him. He was quite famous in these parts two-three years ago." + + "Did Lawson operate the factory?" +"No. He merely lent an awful lot of money on it, more than he could ever +hope to get back out of the old dump. When the factory busted, that was the +last straw for Gene Lawson. The bank busted three months later." He sighed. +"It hit the folks pretty hard around here. They all had their life savings in +the Community National." +Mayor Bascom looked regretfully past his porch railing at his town. +He jerked his thumb at a figure across the street: it was a white-haired +charwoman, moving painfully on her knees, scrubbing the steps of a house. +"See that woman, for instance? They used to be solid, respectable folks. +Her husband owned the dry-goods store. He worked all his life to provide for +her in her old age, and he did, too, by the time he died— +only the money was in the Community National Bank." +"Who operated the factory when it failed?" +"Oh, that was some quicky corporation called Amalgamated Service, Inc. +Just a puff-ball. Came up out of nothing and went back to it." +"Where are its members?" +"Where are the pieces of a puff-ball when it bursts? Try and trace them +all over the United States. Try it." +"Where is Eugene Lawson?" +"Oh, him? He's done all right. He's got a job in Washington—in the Bureau +of Economic Planning and National Resources." +Rearden rose too fast, thrown to his feet by a jolt of anger, then said, +controlling himself, "Thank you for the information." +"You're welcome, friend, you're welcome," said Mayor Bascom placidly. "I +don't know what it is you're after, but take my word for it, give it up. +There's nothing more to be had out of that factory." +"I told you that we are looking for a friend of ours." +"Well, have it your way. Must be a pretty good friend, if you'll go to so +much trouble to find him, you and the charming lady who is not your Wife." +Dagny saw Rearden's face go white, so that even his lips became a +sculptured feature, indistinguishable against his skin. "Keep your dirty —" +he began, but she stepped between them. +"Why do you think that I am not his wife?" she asked calmly. +Mayor Bascom looked astonished by Rearden's reaction; he had made the +remark without malice, merely like a fellow cheat displaying his shrewdness +to his partners in guilt. +"Lady, I've seen a lot in my lifetime," he said good-naturedly. "Married +people don't look as if they have a bedroom on their minds when they look at +each other. In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not +both, lady, not both." +"I've asked him a question," she said to Rearden in time to silence him. +"He's given me an instructive explanation." +"If you want a tip, lady," said Mayor Bascom, "get yourself a wedding ring +from the dime store and wear it. It's not sure fire, but it helps." +"Thank you," she said, "Good-bye." +The stern, stressed calm of her manner was a command that made Rearden +follow her back to their car in silence. +They were miles beyond the town when he said, not looking at her, his +voice desperate and low, "Dagny, Dagny, Dagny . . . I'm sorry!" +"I'm not." +Moments later, when she saw the look of control returning to his face, she +said, "Don't ever get angry at a man for stating the truth." +"That particular truth was none of his business." +"His particular estimate of it was none of your concern or mine." +He said through his teeth, not as an answer, but as if the single thought +battering his brain turned into sounds against his will, 'T + + couldn't protect you from that unspeakable little—" +"I didn't need protection." +He remained silent, not looking at her. +"Hank, when you're able to keep down the anger, tomorrow or next week, +give some thought to that man's explanation and see if you recognize any part +of it." +He jerked his head to glance at her, but said nothing. +When he spoke, a long time later, it was only to say in a tired, even +voice, "We can't call New York and have our engineers come here to search the +factory. We can't meet them here. We can't let it be known that we found the +motor together. . . . I had forgotten all that . . . +up there . . . in the laboratory." +"Let me call Eddie, when we find a telephone. I'll have him send two +engineers from the Taggart staff. I'm here alone, on my vacation, for all +they'll know or have to know." +They drove two hundred miles before they found a long-distance telephone +line. When she called Eddie Willers, he gasped, hearing her voice. +"Dagny! For God's sake, where are you?" +"In Wisconsin. Why?" +"1 didn't know where to reach you. You'd better come back at once. +As fast as you can." +"What happened?" +"Nothing—yet. But there are things going on, which . . . You'd better stop +them now, if you can. If anybody can." +"What things?" +"Haven't you been reading the newspapers?" +"No." +"I can't tell you over the phone. I can't give you all the details. +Dagny, you'll think I'm insane, but I think they're planning to kill +Colorado." +"I'll come back at once," she said. +Cut into the granite of Manhattan, under the Taggart Terminal, there were +tunnels which had once been used as sidings, at a time when traffic ran in +clicking currents through every artery of the Terminal every hour of the day. +The need for space had shrunk through the years, with the shrinking of the +traffic, and the side tunnels had been abandoned, like dry river beds; a few +lights remained as blue patches on the granite over rails left to rust on the +ground. +Dagny placed the remnant of the motor into a vault in one of the tunnels; +the vault had once contained an emergency electric generator, which had been +removed long ago. She did not trust the useless young men of the Taggart +research staff; there were only two engineers of talent among them, who could +appreciate her discovery. She had shared her secret with the two and sent +them to search the factory in Wisconsin. Then she had hidden the motor where +no one else would know of its existence. +When her workers carried the motor down to the vault and departed, she was +about to follow them and lock the steel door, but she stopped, key in hand, +as if the silence and solitude had suddenly thrown her at the problem she had +been facing for days, as if this were the moment to make her decision. +Her office car was waiting for her at one of the Terminal platforms, +attached to the end of a train due to leave for Washington in a few minutes. +She had made an appointment to see Eugene Lawson, but she had told herself +that she would cancel it and postpone her quest—if she could think of some +action to take against the things she had found on her return to New York, +the things Eddie begged her to fight. +She had tried to think, but she could see no way of fighting, no rules of +battle, no weapons. Helplessness was a strange experience, new to her; she + + had never found it hard to face things and make decisions; but she was not +dealing with things—this was a fog without shapes or definitions, in which +something kept forming and shifting before it could be seen, like semi-clots +in a not-quite-liquid—it was as if her eyes were reduced to side-vision and +she were sensing blurs of disaster coiling toward her, but she could not move +her glance, she had no glance to move and focus. +The Union of Locomotive Engineers was demanding that the maximum speed of +all trains on the John Galt Line be reduced to sixty miles an hour. The Union +of Railway Conductors and Brakemen was demanding that the length of all +freight trains on the John Galt Line be reduced to sixty cars. +The states of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona were demanding that +the number of trains run in Colorado not exceed the number of trains run in +each of these neighboring states. +A group headed by Orren Boyle was demanding the passage of a Preservation +of Livelihood Law, which would limit the production of Rearden Metal to an +amount equal to the output of any other steel mill of equal plant capacity, A +group headed by Mr. Mowen was demanding the passage of a Fair Share Law to +give every customer who wanted it an equal supply of Rearden Metal. +A group headed by Bertram Scudder was demanding the passage of a Public +Stability Law, forbidding Eastern business firms to move out of their states. +Wesley Mouch, Top Co-ordinator of the Bureau of Economic Planning and +National Resources, was issuing a great many statements, the content and +purpose of which could not be denned, except that the words "emergency +powers" and "unbalanced economy" kept appearing in the text every few lines. +"Dagny, by what right?” Eddie Willers had asked her, his voice quiet, but +the words sounding like a cry. "By what right are they all doing it? +By what right?" +She had confronted James Taggart in his office and said, "Jim, this is +your battle. I've fought mine. You're supposed to be an expert at dealing +with the looters. Stop them." +Taggart had said, not looking at her, "You can't expect to run the +national economy to suit your own convenience." +"I don't want to run the national economy! I want your national economy +runners to leave me alone! I have a railroad to run—and I know what's going +to happen to your national economy if my railroad collapses!" +"I see no necessity for panic." +"Jim, do I have to explain to you that the income from our Rio Norte Line +is all we've got, to save us from collapsing? That we need every penny of it, +every fare, every carload of freight—as fast as we can get it?" He had not +answered. "When we have to use every bit of power in every one of our brokendown Diesels, when we don't have enough of them to give Colorado the service +it needs—what's going to happen if we reduce the speed and the length of +trains?" +"Well, there's something to be said for the unions' viewpoint, too. +With so many railroads closing and so many railroad men out of work, they +feel that those extra speeds you've established on the Rio Norte Line are +unfair—they feel that there should be more trains, instead, so that the work +would be divided around—they feel that it's not fair for us to get all the +benefit of that new rail, they want a share of it, too." +"Who wants a share of it? In payment for what?" He had not answered. +"Who'll bear the cost of two trains doing the work of one?" He had not +answered. "Where are you going to get the cars and the engines?" He had not +answered. "What are those men going to do after they've put Taggart +Transcontinental out of existence?" +"I fully intend to protect the interests of Taggart Transcontinental." +"How?" He had not answered. "How—if you kill Colorado?" + + "It seems to me that before we worry about giving some people a chance to +expand, we ought to give some consideration to the people who need a chance +of bare survival." +"If you kill Colorado, what is there going to be left for your damn +looters to survive on?" +"You have always been opposed to every progressive social measure. I seem +to remember that you predicted disaster when we passed the Anti-dog-eat-dog +Rule—but the disaster has not come." +"Because I saved you, you rotten fools! I won't be able to save you this +time!" He had shrugged, not looking at her. "And if I don't, who will?" He +had not answered. +It did not seem real to her, here, under the ground. Thinking of it here, +she knew she could have no part in Jim's battle. There was no action she +could take against the men of undefined thought, of unnamed motives, of +unstated purposes, of unspecified morality. There was nothing she could say +to them—nothing would be heard or answered. What were the weapons, she +thought, in a realm where reason was not a weapon any longer? It was a realm +she could not enter. She had to leave it to Jim and count on his selfinterest. Dimly, she felt the chill of a thought telling her that selfinterest was not Jim's motive. +She looked at the object before her, a glass case containing the remnant +of the motor. The man who made the motor—she thought suddenly, the thought +coming like a cry of despair. She felt a moment's helpless longing to find +him, to lean against him and let him tell her what to do. A mind like his +would know the way to win this battle. +She looked around her. In the clean, rational world of the underground +tunnels, nothing was of so urgent an importance as the task of finding the +man who made the motor. She thought: Could she delay it in order to argue +with Orren Boyle?—to reason with Mr. Mowen?—to plead with Bertram Scudder? +She saw the motor, completed, built into an engine that pulled a train of two +hundred cars down a track of Rearden Metal at two hundred miles an hour. When +the vision was within her reach, within the possible, was she to give it up +and spend her time bargaining about sixty miles and sixty cars? She could not +descend to an existence where her brain would explode under the pressure of +forcing itself not to outdistance incompetence. She could not function to the +rule of: Pipe down—keep down—slow down—don't do your best, it is not wanted! +She turned resolutely and left the vault, to take the train for +Washington. +It seemed to her, as she locked the steel door, that she heard a faint +echo of steps. She glanced up and down the dark curve of the tunnel. +There was no one in sight; there was nothing but a string of blue lights +glistening on walls of damp granite. +Rearden could not fight the gangs who demanded the laws. The choice was to +fight them or to keep his mills open. He had lost his supply of iron ore. He +had to fight one battle or the other. There was no time for both. +He had found, on his return, that a scheduled shipment of ore had not been +delivered. No word or explanation had been heard from Larkin. When summoned +to Rearden's office, Larkin appeared three days later than the appointment +made, offering no apology. He said, not looking at Rearden, his mouth drawn +tightly into an expression of rancorous dignity: "After all, you can't order +people to come running to your office any time you please." +Rearden spoke slowly and carefully. "Why wasn't the ore delivered?" +"I won't take abuse, I simply won't take any abuse for something I +couldn't help. I can run a mine just as well as you ran it, every bit as +well, I did everything you did—I don't know why something keeps going wrong +unexpectedly all the time. I can't be blamed for the unexpected." +"To whom did you ship your ore last month?" + + "I intended to ship you your share of it, I fully intended it, but I +couldn't help it if we lost ten days of production last month on account of +the rainstorm in the whole of north Minnesota—I intended to ship you the ore, +so you can't blame me, because my intention was completely honest." +"If one of my blast furnaces goes down, will I be able to keep it going by +feeding your intention into it?" +"That's why nobody can deal with you or talk to you—because you're +inhuman," +"I have just learned that for the last three months, you have not been +shipping your ore by the lake boats, you have been shipping it by rail. +Why?" +"Well, after all, I have a right to run my business as I see fit." +"Why are you willing to pay the extra cost?" +"What do you care? I'm not charging it to you." +"What will you do when you find that you can't afford the rail rates and +that you have destroyed the lake shipping?" +"I am sure you wouldn't understand any consideration other than dollars +and cents, but some people do consider their social and patriotic +responsibilities." +"What responsibilities?" +"Well, I think that a railroad like Taggart Transcontinental is essential +to the national welfare and it is one's public duty to support Jim's +Minnesota branch line, which is running at a deficit." +Rearden leaned forward across the desk; he was beginning to see the links +of a sequence he had never understood. "To whom did you ship your ore last +month?" he asked evenly. +"Well, after all, that is my private business which—" +"To Orren Boyle, wasn't it?" +"You can't expect people to sacrifice the entire steel industry of the +nation to your selfish interests and—" +"Get out of here," said Rearden. He said it calmly. The sequence was clear +to him now. +"Don't misunderstand me, I didn't mean—" +"Get out." +Larkin got out. +Then there followed the days and nights of searching a continent by phone, +by wire, by plane—of looking at abandoned mines and at mines ready to be +abandoned—of tense, rushed conferences held at tables hi the unlighted +corners of disreputable restaurants. Looking across the table, Rearden had to +decide how much he could risk to invest upon the sole evidence of a man's +face, manner and tone of voice, hating the state of having to hope for +honesty as for a favor, but risking it, pouring money into unknown hands in +exchange for unsupported promises, into unsigned, unrecorded loans to dummy +owners of failing mines— +money handed and taken furtively, as an exchange between criminals, in +anonymous cash; money poured into unenforceable contracts—both parties +knowing that in case of fraud, the defrauded was to be punished, not the +defrauder—but poured that a stream of ore might continue flowing into +furnaces, that the furnaces might continue to pour a stream of white metal. +"Mr. Rearden," asked the purchasing manager of his mills, "if you keep +that up, where will be your profit?" +"We'll make it up on tonnage," said Rearden wearily. "We have an unlimited +market for Rearden Metal." +The purchasing manager was an elderly man with graying hair, a lean, dry +face, and a heart which, people said, was given exclusively to the task of +squeezing every last ounce of value out of a penny. He stood in front of +Rearden's desk, saying nothing else, merely looking straight at Rearden, his + + cold eyes narrowed and grim. It was a look of the most profound sympathy that +Rearden had ever seen. +There's no other course open, thought Rearden, as he had thought through +days and nights. He knew no weapons but to pay for what he wanted, to give +value for value, to ask nothing of nature without trading his effort in +return, to ask nothing of men without trading the product of his effort. What +were the weapons, he thought, if values were not a weapon any longer? +"An unlimited market, Mr. Rearden?" the purchasing manager asked dryly. +Rearden glanced up at him. "I guess I'm not smart enough to make the sort +of deals needed nowadays," he said, in answer to the unspoken thoughts that +hung across his desk. +The purchasing manager shook his head. "No, Mr. Rearden, it's one or the +other. The same kind of brain can't do both. Either you're good at running +the mills or you're good at running to Washington." +"Maybe I ought to learn their method." +"You couldn't learn it and it wouldn't do you any good. You wouldn't win +in any of those deals. Don't you understand? You're the one who's got +something to be looted." +When he was left alone, Rearden felt a jolt of blinding anger, as it had +come to him before, painful, single and sudden like an electric shock—the +anger bursting out of the knowledge that one cannot deal with pure evil, with +the naked, full-conscious evil that neither has nor seeks justification. But +when he felt the wish to fight and kill in the rightful cause of selfdefense—he saw the fat, grinning face of Mayor Bascom and heard the drawling +voice saying, ". . . you and the charming lady who is not your wife." +Then no rightful cause was left, and the pain of anger was turning into +the shameful pain of submission. He had no right to condemn anyone—he +thought—to denounce anything, to fight and die joyously, claiming the +sanction of virtue. The broken promises, the unconfessed desires, the +betrayal, the deceit, the lies, the fraud—he was guilty of them all. What +form of corruption could he scorn? Degrees do not matter, he thought; one +does not bargain about inches of evil. +He did not know—as he sat slumped at his desk, thinking of the honesty he +could claim no longer, of the sense of justice he had lost— +that it was his rigid honesty and ruthless sense of justice that were now +knocking his only weapon out of his hands. He would fight the looters, but +the wrath and fire were gone. He would fight, but only as one guilty wretch +against the others. He did not pronounce the words, but the pain was their +equivalent, the ugly pain saying: Who am I to cast the first stone? +He let his body fall across the desk. . . . Dagny, he thought, Dagny, if +this is the price I have to pay, I'll pay it. . . . He was still the trader +who knew no code except that of full payment for his desires. +It was late when he came home and hurried soundlessly up the stairs to his +bedroom. He hated himself for being reduced to sneaking, but he had done it +on most of his evenings for months. The sight of his family had become +unbearable to him; he could not tell why. Don't hate them for your own guilt, +he had told himself, but knew dimly that this was not the root of his hatred. +He closed the door of his bedroom like a fugitive winning a moment's +reprieve. He moved cautiously, undressing for bed: he wanted no sound to +betray his presence to his family, he wanted no contact with them, not even +in their own minds. +He had put on his pajamas and stopped to light a cigarette, when the door +of his bedroom opened. The only person who could properly enter his room +without knocking had never volunteered to enter it, so he stared blankly for +a moment before he was able to believe that it was Lillian who came in. + + She wore an Empire garment of pale chartreuse, its pleated skirt streaming +gracefully from its high waistline; one could not tell at first glance +whether it was an evening gown or a negligee; it was a negligee. +She paused in the doorway, the lines of her body flowing into an +attractive silhouette against the light. +"I know I shouldn't introduce myself to a stranger," she said softly, "but +I'll have to: my name is Mrs. Rearden." He could not tell whether it was +sarcasm or a plea. +She entered and threw the door closed with a casual, imperious gesture, +the gesture of an owner. +"What is it, Lillian?" he asked quietly. +"My dear, you mustn't confess so much so bluntly"—she moved in a leisurely +manner across the room, past his bed, and sat down in an armchair—"and so +unflatteringly. It's an admission that I need to show special cause for +taking your time. Should I make an appointment through your secretary?" +He stood in the middle of the room, holding the cigarette at his lips, +looking at her. volunteering no answer. +She laughed. "My reason is so unusual that I know it will never occur to +you: loneliness, darling. Do you mind throwing a few crumbs of your expensive +attention to a beggar? Do you mind if I stay here without any formal reason +at all?" +"No," he said quietly, "not if you wish to." +"I have nothing weighty to discuss—no million-dollar orders, no +transcontinental deals, no rails, no bridges. Not even the political +situation. I just want to chatter like a woman about perfectly unimportant +things." +"Go ahead." +"Henry, there's no better way to stop me, is there?" She had an air of +helpless, appealing sincerity. "What can I say after that? Suppose I wanted +to tell you about the new novel which Balph Eubank is writing—he is +dedicating it to me—would that interest you?" +"If it's the truth that you want—not in the least." +She laughed. "And if it's not the truth that I want?" +"Then I wouldn't know what to say," he answered—and felt a rush of blood +to his brain, tight as a slap, realizing suddenly the double infamy of a lie +uttered in protestation of honesty; he had said it sincerely, but it implied +a boast to which he had no right any longer. "Why would you want it, if it's +not the truth?" he asked. "What for?" +"Now you see, that's the cruelty of conscientious people. You wouldn't +understand it—would you?—if I answered that real devotion consists of being +willing to lie, cheat and fake in order to make another person happy—to +create for him the reality he wants, if he doesn't like the one that exists." +"No," he said slowly, "I wouldn't understand it." +"It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is +beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost +you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer +her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for +her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But +to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love +her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake—and that is a real +tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your +integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.” +He looked at her blankly. It sounded like some sort of monstrous +corruption that precluded the possibility of wondering whether anyone could +mean it; he wondered only what was the point of uttering it. +"What's love, darling, if it's not self-sacrifice?" she went on lightly, +in the tone of a drawing-room discussion. "What's self-sacrifice, unless one + + sacrifices that which is one's most precious and most important? But I don't +expect you to understand it. Not a stainless-steel Puritan like you. +That's the immense selfishness of the Puritan. You'd let the whole world +perish rather than soil that immaculate self of yours with a single spot of +which you'd have to be ashamed." +He said slowly, his voice oddly strained and solemn, "I have never claimed +to be immaculate." +She laughed. "And what is it you're being right now? You're giving me an +honest answer, aren't you?" She shrugged her naked shoulders. +"Oh, darling, don't take me seriously! I'm just talking." +He ground his cigarette into an ashtray; he did not answer. +"Darling," she said, "I actually came here only because I kept thinking +that I had a husband and I wanted to find out what he looked like." +She studied him as he stood across the room, the tall, straight, taut +lines of his body emphasized by the single color of the dark blue pajamas. +"You're very attractive," she said. "You look so much better—these last +few months. Younger. Should I say happier? You look less tense. +Oh, I know you're rushed more than ever and you act like a commander in an +air raid, but that's only the surface. You're less tense— +inside." +He looked at her, astonished. It was true; he had not known it, had not +admitted it to himself. He wondered at her power of observation. +She had seen little of him in these last few months. He had not entered +her bedroom since his return from Colorado. He had thought that she would +welcome their isolation from each other. Now he wondered what motive could +have made her so sensitive to a change in him—unless it was a feeling much +greater than he had ever suspected her of experiencing. +"I was not aware of it,” he said. +"It's quite becoming, dear—and astonishing, since you've been having such +a terribly difficult time." +He wondered whether this was intended as a question. She paused, as if +waiting for an answer, but she did not press it and went on gaily: "I know +you're having all sorts of trouble at the mills—and then the political +situation is getting to be ominous, isn't it? If they pass those laws they're +talking about, it will hit you pretty hard, won't it?" +"Yes. It will. But that is a subject which is of no interest to you, +Lillian, is it?" +"Oh, but it is!" She raised her head and looked straight at him; her eyes +had the blank, veiled look he had seen before, a look of deliberate mystery +and of confidence in his inability to solve it. "It is of great interest to +me . . . though not because of any possible financial losses,” +she added softly. +He wondered, for the first time, whether her spite, her sarcasm, the +cowardly manner of delivering insults under the protection of a smile, were +not the opposite of what he had always taken them to be—not a method of +torture, but a twisted form of despair, not a desire to make him suffer, but +a confession of her own pain, a defense for the pride of an unloved wife, a +secret plea—so that the subtle, the hinted, the evasive in her manner, the +thing begging to be understood, was not the open malice, but the hidden love. +He thought of it, aghast. It made his guilt greater than he had ever +contemplated. +"If we're talking politics, Henry, I had an amusing thought. The side you +represent—what is that slogan you all use so much, the motto you're supposed +to stand for? 'The sanctity of contract'—is that it?" +She saw his swift glance, the intentness of his eyes, the first response +of something she had struck, and she laughed aloud. +"Go on," he said; his voice was low; it had the sound of a threat. + + "Darling, what for?—since you understood me quite well." +"What was it you intended to say?" His voice was harshly precise and +without any color of feeling. +"Do you really wish to bring me to the humiliation of complaining? +It's so trite and such a common complaint—although I did think I had a +husband who prides himself on being different from lesser men. Do you want me +to remind you that you once swore to make my happiness the aim of your life? +And that you can't really say in all honesty whether I'm happy or unhappy, +because you haven't even inquired whether I exist?" +He felt them as a physical pain—all the things that came tearing at him +impossibly together. Her words were a plea, he thought—and he felt the dark, +hot flow of guilt. He felt pity—the cold ugliness of pity without affection. +He felt a dim anger, like a voice he tried to choke, a voice crying in +revulsion: Why should I deal with her rotten, twisted lying?—why should I +accept torture for the sake of pity?—why is it I who should have to take the +hopeless burden of trying to spare a feeling she won't admit, a feeling I +can't know or understand or try to guess? +—if she loves me, why doesn't the damn coward say so and let us both face +it in the open? He heard another, louder voice, saying evenly: Don't switch +the blame to her, that's the oldest trick of all cowards— +you're guilty—no matter what she does, it's nothing compared to your +guilt—she's right—it makes you sick, doesn't it, to know it's she who's +right?—let it make you sick, you damn adulterer—it's she who's right! +"What would make you happy, Lillian?" he asked. His voice was toneless. +She smiled, leaning back in her chair, relaxing; she had been watching his +face intently. +"Oh, dear!" she said, as in bored amusement. "That's the shyster question. +The loophole. The escape clause." +She got up, letting her arms fall with a shrug, stretching her body in a +limp, graceful gesture of helplessness. +"What would make me happy, Henry? That is what you ought to tell me. That +is what you should have discovered for me. I don't know. You were to create +it and offer it to me. That was your trust, your obligation, your +responsibility. But you won't be the first man to default on that promise. +It's the easiest of all debts to repudiate. Oh, you'd never welsh on a +payment for a load of iron ore delivered to you. Only on a life." +She was moving casually across the room, the green-yellow folds of her +skirt coiling in long waves about her, "I know that claims of this kind are +impractical," she said. "I have no mortgage on you, no collateral, no guns, +no chains. I have no hold on you at all, Henry—nothing but your honor." +He stood looking at her as if it took all of his effort to keep his eyes +directed at her face, to keep seeing her, to endure the sight. "What do you +want?" he asked. +"Darling, there are so many things you could guess by yourself, if you +really wished to know what I want. For instance, if you have been avoiding me +so blatantly for months, wouldn't I want to know the reason?" +"I have been very busy." +She shrugged. "A wife expects to be the first concern of her husband's +existence. I didn't know that when you swore to forsake all others, it didn't +include blast furnaces." +She came closer and, with an amused smile that seemed to mock them both, +she slipped her arms around him. +It was the swift, instinctive, ferocious gesture of a young bridegroom at +the unrequested contact of a whore—the gesture with which he tore her arms +off his body and threw her aside. +He stood, paralyzed, shocked by the brutality of his own reaction. + + She was staring at him, her face naked in bewilderment, with no mystery, +no pretense or protection; whatever calculations she had made, this was a +thing she had not expected. +"I'm sorry, Lillian . . ." he said, his voice low, a voice of sincerity +and of suffering. +She did not answer. +"I'm sorry . . . It's just that I'm very tired," he added, his voice +lifeless; he was broken by the triple lie, one part of which was a disloyalty +he could not bear to face; it was not the disloyalty to Lillian. +She gave a brief chuckle. "Well, if that's the effect your work has on +you, I may come to approve of it. Do forgive me, I was merely trying to do my +duty. I thought that you were a sensualist who'd never rise above the +instincts of an animal in the gutter. I'm not one of those bitches who belong +in it." She was snapping the words dryly, absently, without thinking. Her +mind was on a question mark, racing over every possible answer. +It was her last sentence that made him face her suddenly, face her simply, +directly, not as one on the defensive any longer. "Lillian, what purpose do +you live for?" he asked. +"What a crude question! No enlightened person would ever ask it." +"Well, what is it that enlightened people do with their lives?" +"Perhaps they do not attempt to do anything. That is their enlightenment." +"What do they do with their time?" +"They certainly don't spend it on manufacturing plumbing pipes." +"Tell me, why do you keep making those cracks? I know that you feel +contempt for the plumbing pipes. You've made that clear long ago. +Your contempt means nothing to me. Why keep repeating it?" +He wondered why this hit her; he did not know in what manner, but he knew +that it did. He wondered why he felt with absolute certainty that that had +been the right thing to say. +She asked, her voice dry, "What's the purpose of the sudden +questionnaire?" +He answered simply, "I'd like to know whether there's anything that you +really want. If there is, I'd like to give it to you, if I can." +"You'd like to buy it? That's all you know—paying for things. You get off +easily, don't you? No, it's not as simple as that. What I want is nonmaterial." +"What is it?" +"You." +"How do you mean that, Lillian? You don't mean it in the gutter sense." +"No, not in the gutter sense." +"How, then?" +She was at the door, she turned, she raised her head to look at him and +smiled coldly. +"You wouldn't understand it," she said and walked out. +The torture remaining to him was the knowledge that she would never want +to leave him and he would never have the right to leave— +the thought that he owed her at least the feeble recognition of sympathy, +of respect for a feeling he could neither understand nor return— +the knowledge that he could summon nothing for her, except contempt, a +strange, total, unreasoning contempt, impervious to pity, to reproach, to his +own pleas for justice—and, hardest to bear, the proud revulsion against his +own verdict, against his demand that he consider himself lower than this +woman he despised. +Then it did not matter to him any longer, it all receded into some outer +distance, leaving only the thought that he was willing to bear anything— +leaving him in a state which was both tension and peace—because he lay in +bed, his face pressed to the pillow, thinking of Dagny, of her slender, + + sensitive body stretched beside him, trembling under the touch of his +fingers. He wished she were back in New York. If she were, he would have gone +there, now, at once, in the middle of the night. +Eugene Lawson sat at his desk as if it were the control panel of a bomber +plane commanding a continent below. But he forgot it, at times, and slouched +down, his muscles going slack inside his suit, as if he were pouting at the +world. His mouth was the one part of him which he could not pull tight at any +time; it was uncomfortably prominent in his lean face, attracting the eyes of +any listener: when he spoke, the movement ran through his lower lip, twisting +its moist flesh into extraneous contortions of its own. +"I am not ashamed of it," said Eugene Lawson. "Miss Taggart, I want you to +know that I am not ashamed of my past career as president of the Community +National Bank of Madison." +"I haven't made any reference to shame," said Dagny coldly. +"No moral guilt can be attached to me, inasmuch as I lost everything I +possessed in the crash of that bank. It seems to me that I would have the +right to feel proud of such a sacrifice." +"I merely wanted to ask you some questions about the Twentieth Century +Motor Company which—" +"I shall be glad to answer any questions. I have nothing to hide. My +conscience is clear. If you thought that the subject was embarrassing to me, +you were mistaken.'1 +"I wanted to inquire about the men who owned the factory at the time when +you made a loan to—" +"They were perfectly good men. They were a perfectly sound risk— +though, of course, I am speaking in human terms, not in the terms of cold +cash, which you are accustomed to expect from bankers. I granted them the +loan for the purchase of that factory, because they needed the money. If +people needed money, that was enough for me. Need was my standard, Miss +Taggart. Need, not greed. My father and grandfather built up the Community +National Bank just to amass a fortune for themselves. I placed their fortune +in the service of a higher ideal. I did not sit on piles of money and demand +collateral from poor people who needed loans. The heart was my collateral. Of +course, I do not expect anyone in this materialistic country to understand +me. The rewards I got were not of a kind that people of your class, Miss +Taggart, would appreciate. The people who used to sit in front of my desk at +the bank, did not sit as you do, Miss Taggart. They were humble, uncertain, +worn with care, afraid to speak. My rewards were the tears of gratitude in +their eyes, the trembling voices, the blessings, the woman who kissed my hand +when I granted her a loan she had begged for in vain everywhere else." +"Will you please tell me the names of the men who owned the motor +factory?" +"That factory was essential to the region, absolutely essential. I was +perfectly justified in granting that loan. It provided employment for +thousands of workers who had no other means of livelihood." +"Did you know any of the people who worked in the factory?" +"Certainly. I knew them all. It was men that interested me, not machines. +I was concerned with the human side of industry, not the cash register side." +She leaned eagerly across the desk. "Did you know any of the engineers who +worked there?" +"The engineers? No, no. I was much more democratic than that. It's the +real workers that interested me. The common men. They all knew me by sight. I +used to come into the shops and they would wave and shout, 'Hello, Gene.' +That's what they called me—Gene. But I'm sure this is of no interest to you. +It's past history. Now if you really came to Washington in order to talk to +me about your railroad"—he straightened up briskly, the bomber-plane pose +returning—"I don't know whether I can promise you any special consideration, + + inasmuch as I must hold the national welfare above any private privileges or +interests which—" +"1 didn't come to talk to you about my railroad," she said, looking at him +in bewilderment. "I have no desire to talk to you about my railroad." +"No?" He sounded disappointed. +"No. I came for information about the motor factory. Could you possibly +recall the names of any of the engineers who worked there?" +"I don't believe I ever inquired about their names. I wasn't concerned +with the parasites of office and laboratory. I was concerned with the real +workers—the men of calloused hands who keep a factory going. They were my +friends." +"Can you give me a few of their names? Any names, of anyone who worked +there?" +"My dear Miss Taggart, it was so long ago, there were thousands of them, +how can I remember?" +"Can't you recall one, any one?” +"I certainly cannot. So many people have always filled my life that I +can't be expected to recall individual drops in the ocean." +"Were you familiar with the production of that factory? With the kind of +work they were doing—or planning?" +"Certainly. I took a personal interest in all my investments. I went to +inspect that factory very often. They were doing exceedingly well. +They were accomplishing wonders. The workers' housing conditions were the +best in the country. I saw lace curtains at every window and flowers on the +window sills. Every home had a plot of ground for a garden. They had built a +new schoolhouse for the children." +"Did you know anything about the work of the factory's research +laboratory?" +"Yes, yes, they had a wonderful research laboratory, very advanced, very +dynamic, with forward vision and great plans." +"Do you . . . remember hearing anything about . . . any plans to produce a +new type of motor?" +"Motor? What motor, Miss Taggart? I had no time for details. My objective +was social progress, universal prosperity, human brotherhood and love. Love, +Miss Taggart. That is the key to everything. If men learned to love one +another, it would solve all their problems." +She turned away, not to see the damp movements of his mouth. +A chunk of stone with Egyptian hieroglyphs lay on a pedestal in a corner +of the office—the statue of a Hindu goddess with six spider arms stood in a +niche—and a huge graph of bewildering mathematical detail, like the sales +chart of a mail-order house, hung on the wall. +"Therefore, if you're thinking of your railroad, Miss Taggart—as, of +course, you are, in view of certain possible developments—I must point out to +you that although the welfare of the country is my first consideration, to +which I would not hesitate to sacrifice anyone's profits, still, I have never +closed my ears to a plea for mercy and—" +She looked at him and understood what it was that he wanted from her, what +sort of motive kept him going. +"I don't wish to discuss my railroad," she said, fighting to keep her +voice monotonously flat, while she wanted to scream in revulsion. "Anything +you have to say on the subject, you will please say it to my brother, Mr. +James Taggart." +"I'd think that at a time like this you wouldn't want to pass up a rare +opportunity to plead your case before—" +"Have you preserved any records pertaining to the motor factory?" +She sat straight, her hands clasped tight together. + + "What records? I believe I told you that I lost everything I owned when +the bank collapsed." His body had gone slack once more, his interest had +vanished. "But I do not mind it. What I lost was mere material wealth. I am +not the first man in history to suffer for an ideal. I was defeated by the +selfish greed of those around me. I couldn't establish a system of +brotherhood and love in just one small state, amidst a nation of profitseekers and dollar-grubbers. It was not my fault. But I won't let them beat +me. I am not to be stopped. I am fighting—on a wider scale—for the privilege +of serving my fellow men. Records, Miss Taggart? The record I left, when I +departed from Madison, is inscribed in the hearts of the poor, who had never +had a chance before." +She did not want to utter a single unnecessary word; but she could not +stop herself: she kept seeing the figure of the old charwoman scrubbing the +steps. "Have you seen that section of the country since?" she asked. +"It's not my fault!" he yelled. "It's the fault of the rich who still had +money, but wouldn't sacrifice it to save my bank and the people of Wisconsin! +You can't blame me! I lost everything!" +"Mr. Lawson," she said with effort, "do you perhaps recall the name of the +man who headed the corporation that owned the factory? The corporation to +which you lent the money. It was called Amalgamated Service, wasn't it? Who +was its president?" +"Oh, him? Yes, I remember him. His name was Lee Hunsacker. A very +worthwhile young man, who's taken a terrible beating." +"Where is he now? Do you know his address?" +"Why—I believe he's somewhere in Oregon. Grangeville, Oregon. +My secretary can give you his address. But I don't see of what interest . +. . Miss Taggart, if what you have in mind is to try to see Mr. +Wesley Mouch, let me tell you that Mr. Mouch attaches a great deal of +weight to my opinion in matters affecting such issues as railroads and other— +" +"I have no desire to see Mr. Mouch," she said, rising. +"But then, I can't understand . . . What, really, was your purpose in +coming here?" +"I am trying to find a certain man who used to work for the Twentieth +Century Motor Company." +"Why do you wish to find him?" +"I want him to work for my railroad." +He spread his arms wide, looking incredulous and slightly indignant. +"At such a moment, when crucial issues hang in the balance, you choose to +waste your time on looking for some one employee? Believe me, the fate of +your railroad depends on Mr. Mouch much more than on any employee you ever +find." +"Good day," she said. +She had turned to go, when he said, his voice jerky and high, "You haven't +any right to despise me." +She stopped to look at him. "I have expressed no opinion." +"I am perfectly innocent, since I lost my money, since I lost all of my +own money for a good cause. My motives were pure. I wanted nothing for +myself. I've never sought anything for myself. Miss Taggart, I can proudly +say that in all of my life I have never made a profit!" +Her voice was quiet, steady and solemn: "Mr. Lawson, I think I should let +you know that of all the statements a man can make, that is the one I +consider most despicable." +"I never had a chance!" said Lee Hunsacker. +He sat in the middle of the kitchen, at a table cluttered with papers. +He needed a shave; his shirt needed laundering. It was hard to judge his +age: the swollen flesh of his face looked smooth and blank, untouched by + + experience; the graying hair and filmy eyes looked worn by exhaustion; he was +forty-two. +"Nobody ever gave me a chance. I hope they're satisfied with what they've +made of me. But don't think that I don't know it. I know I was cheated out of +my birthright. Don't let them put on any airs about how kind they are. +They're a stinking bunch of hypocrites." +"Who?" asked Dagny. +"Everybody," said Lee Hunsacker. "People are bastards at heart and it's no +use pretending otherwise. Justice? Huh! Look at it!" His arm swept around +him. "A man like me reduced to this!" +Beyond the window, the light of noon looked like grayish dusk among the +bleak roofs and naked trees of a place that was not country and could never +quite become a town. Dusk and dampness seemed soaked into the walls of the +kitchen. A pile of breakfast dishes lay in the sink; a pot of stew simmered +on the stove, emitting steam with the greasy odor of cheap meat; a dusty +typewriter stood among the papers on the table. +"The Twentieth Century Motor Company," said Lee Hunsacker, "was one of the +most illustrious names in the history of American industry. I was the +president of that company. I owned that factory. +But they wouldn't give me a chance." +"You were not the president of the Twentieth Century Motor Company, were +you? I believe you headed a corporation called Amalgamated Service?" +"Yes, yes, but it's the same thing. We took over their factory. We were +going to do just as well as they did. Better. We were just as important. Who +the hell was Jed Starnes anyway? Nothing but a backwoods garage mechanic—did +you know that that's how he started?—without any background at all. My family +once belonged to the New York Four Hundred. My grandfather was a member of +the national legislature. It's not my fault that my father couldn't afford to +give me a car of my own, when he sent me to school. All the other boys had +cars. My family name was just as good as any of theirs. When I went to +college—" He broke off abruptly. "What newspaper did you say you're from?" +She had given him her name; she did not know why she now felt glad that he +had not recognized it and why she preferred not to enlighten him. "I did not +say I was from a newspaper," she answered, "j need some information on that +motor factory for a private purpose of my own, not for publication." +"Oh." He looked disappointed. He went on sullenly, as if she were guilty +of a deliberate offense against him. "I thought maybe you came for an advance +interview because I'm writing my autobiography." He pointed to the papers on +the table. "And what I intend to tell is plenty. +I intend—Oh, hell!" he said suddenly, remembering something. +He rushed to the stove, lifted the lid off the pot and went through the +motions of stirring the stew, hatefully, paying no attention to his +performance. He flung the wet spoon down on the stove, letting the grease +drip into the gas burners, and came back to the table. +"Yeah, I'll write my autobiography if anybody ever gives me a chance," he +said. "How can I concentrate on serious work when this is the sort of thing I +have to do?" He jerked his head at the stove. +"Friends, huh! Those people think that just because they took me in, they +can exploit me like a Chinese coolie! Just because I had no other place to +go. They have it easy, those good old friends of mine. He never lifts a +finger around the house, just sits in his store all day; a lousy little twobit stationery store—can it compare in importance with the book I'm writing? +And she goes out shopping and asks me to watch her damn stew for her. She +knows that a writer needs peace and concentration, but does she care about +that? Do you know what she did today?" He leaned confidentially across the +table, pointing at the dishes in the sink. "She went to the market and left +all the breakfast dishes there and said she'd do them later. I know what she + + wanted. She expected me to do them. Well, I'll fool her. I'll leave them just +where they are." +"Would you allow me to ask you a few questions about the motor factory?" +"Don't imagine that that motor factory was the only thing in my life. +I'd held many important positions before. I was prominently connected, at +various times, with enterprises manufacturing surgical appliances, paper +containers, men's hats and vacuum cleaners. Of course, that sort of stuff +didn't give me much scope. But the motor factory—that was my big chance. That +was what I'd been waiting for." +"How did you happen to acquire it?" +"It was meant for me. It was my dream come true. The factory was 'shut +down—bankrupt. The heirs of Jed Starnes had run it into the ground pretty +fast. I don't know exactly what it was, but there had been something goofy +going on up there, so the company went broke. The railroad people closed +their branch line. Nobody wanted the place, nobody would bid on it. But there +it was, this great factory, with all the equipment, all the machinery, all +the things that had made millions for Jed Starnes. That was the kind of setup +I wanted, the kind of opportunity I was entitled to. So I got a few friends +together and we formed the Amalgamated Service Corporation and we scraped up +a little money. But we didn't have enough, we needed a loan to help us out +and give us a start. It was a perfectly safe bet, we were young men embarking +on great careers, full of eagerness and hope for the future. +But do you think anybody gave us any encouragement? They did not. +Not those greedy, entrenched vultures of privilege! How were we to succeed +in life if nobody would give us a factory? We couldn't compete against the +little snots who inherit whole chains of factories, could we? +Weren't we entitled to the same break? Aw, don't let me hear anything +about justice! I worked like a dog, trying to get somebody to lend us the +money. But that bastard Midas Mulligan put me through the wringer." +She sat up straight. "Midas Mulligan?" +"Yeah—the banker who looked like a truck driver and acted it, too!" +"Did you know Midas Mulligan?" +"Did I know him? I'm the only man who ever beat him—not that it did me any +good!" +At odd moments, with a sudden sense of uneasiness, she had wondered—as she +wondered about the stories of deserted ships found floating at sea or of +sourceless lights flashing in the sky—about the disappearance of Midas +Mulligan. There was no reason why she felt that she had to solve these +riddles, except that they were mysteries which had no business being +mysteries: they could not be causeless, yet no known cause could explain +them. +Midas Mulligan had once been the richest and, consequently, the most +denounced man in the country. He had never taken a loss on any investment he +made; everything he touched turned into gold. "It's because I know what to +touch," he said. Nobody could grasp the pattern of his investments: he +rejected deals that were considered flawlessly safe, and he put enormous +amounts into ventures that no other banker would handle. Through the years, +he had been the trigger that had sent unexpected, spectacular bullets of +industrial success shooting over the country. It was he who had invested in +Rearden Steel at its start, thus helping Rearden to complete the purchase of +the abandoned steel mills in Pennsylvania. When an economist referred to him +once as an audacious gambler, Mulligan said, "The reason why you'll never get +rich is because you think that what I do is gambling." +It was rumored that one had to observe a certain unwritten rule when +dealing with Midas Mulligan: if an applicant for a loan ever mentioned his +personal need or any personal feeling whatever, the interview ended and he +was never given another chance to speak to Mr. Mulligan. + + "Why yes, I can," said Midas Mulligan, when he was asked whether he could +name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. "The man +who uses another's pity for him as a weapon." +In his long career, he had ignored all the public attacks on him, except +one. His first name had been Michael; when a newspaper columnist of the +humanitarian clique nicknamed him Midas Mulligan and the tag stuck to him as +an insult, Mulligan appeared in court and petitioned for a legal change of +his first name to "Midas." The petition was granted. +In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was a man who had committed the one +unforgivable sin: he was proud of his wealth. +These were the things Dagny had heard about Midas Mulligan; she had never +met him. Seven years ago, Midas Mulligan had vanished. +He left his home one morning and was never heard from again. On the next +day, the depositors of the Mulligan Bank in Chicago received notices +requesting that they withdraw their funds, because the bank was closing. In +the investigations that followed, it was learned that Mulligan had planned +the closing in advance and in minute detail; his employees were merely +carrying out his instructions. It was the most orderly run on a bank that the +country ever witnessed. Every depositor received his money down to the last +fraction of interest due. All of the bank's assets had been sold piecemeal to +various financial institutions. When the books were balanced, it was found +that they balanced perfectly, to the penny; nothing was left over; the +Mulligan Bank had been wiped out. +No clue was ever found to Mulligan's motive, to his personal fate or to +the many millions of his personal fortune. The man and the fortune vanished +as if they had never existed. No one had had any warning about his decision, +and no events could be traced to explain it. If he had wished to retire— +people wondered—why hadn't he sold his establishment at a huge profit, as he +could have done, instead of destroying it? There was nobody to give an +answer. He had no family, no friends. +His servants knew nothing: he had left his home that morning as usual and +did not come back; that was all. +There was—Dagny had thought uneasily for years—a quality of the impossible +about Mulligan's disappearance; it was as if a New York skyscraper had +vanished one night, leaving nothing behind but a vacant lot on a street +corner. A man like Mulligan, and a fortune such as he had taken along with +him, could not stay hidden anywhere; a skyscraper could not get lost, it +would be seen rising above any plain or forest chosen for its hiding place; +were it destroyed, even its pile of rubble could not remain unnoticed. But +Mulligan had gone—and in the seven years since, in the mass of rumors, +guesses, theories, Sunday supplement stories, and eyewitnesses who claimed to +have seen him in every part of the world, no clue to a plausible explanation +had ever been discovered. +Among the stories, there was one so preposterously out of character that +Dagny believed it to be true: nothing in Mulligan's nature could have given +anyone ground to invent it. It was said that the last person to see him, on +the spring morning of his disappearance, was an old woman who sold flowers on +a Chicago street corner by the Mulligan Bank. She related that he stopped and +bought a bunch of the year's first bluebells. His face was the happiest face +she had ever seen; he had the look of a youth starting out into a great, +unobstructed vision of life lying open before him; the marks of pain and +tension, the sediment of years upon a human face, had been wiped off, and +what remained was only joyous eagerness and peace. He picked up the flowers +as if on a sudden impulse, and he winked at the old woman, as if he had some +shining joke to share with her. He said, "Do you know how much I've always +loved it—being alive?" She stared at him, bewildered, and he walked away, +tossing the flowers like a ball in his hand—a broad, straight figure in a + + sedate, expensive, businessman's overcoat, going off into the distance +against the straight cliffs of office buildings with the spring sun sparkling +on their windows. +"Midas Mulligan was a vicious bastard with a dollar sign stamped on his +heart," said Lee Hunsacker, in the fumes of the acrid stew. "My whole future +depended upon a miserable half-million dollars, which was just small change +to him, bat when I applied for a loan, he turned me down flat—for no better +reason than that I had no collateral to offer. +How could I have accumulated any collateral, when nobody had ever given me +a chance at anything big? Why did he lend money to others, but not to me? It +was plain discrimination. He didn't even care about my feelings—he said that +my past record of failures disqualified me for ownership of a vegetable +pushcart, let alone a motor factory. What failures? I couldn't help it if a +lot of ignorant grocers refused to co-operate with me about the paper +containers. By what right did he pass judgment on my ability? Why did my +plans for my own future have to depend upon the arbitrary opinion of a +selfish monopolist? I wasn't going to stand for that. I wasn't going to take +it lying down. I brought suit against him." +"You did what?" +"Oh yes," he said proudly, "I brought suit. I'm sure it would seem strange +in some of your hidebound Eastern states, but the state of Illinois had a +very humane, very progressive law under which I could sue him. I must say it +was the first case of its kind, but I had a very smart, liberal lawyer who +saw a way for us to do it. It was an economic emergency law which said that +people were forbidden to discriminate for any reason whatever against any +person in any matter involving his livelihood. It was used to protect day +laborers and such, but it applied to me and my partners as well, didn't it? +So we went to court, and we testified about the bad breaks we'd all had in +the past, and I quoted Mulligan saying that I couldn't even own a vegetable +pushcart, and we proved that all the members of the Amalgamated Service +corporation had no prestige, no credit, no way to make a living —and, +therefore, the purchase of the motor factory was our only chance of +livelihood—and, therefore, Midas Mulligan had no right to discriminate +against us—and, therefore, we were entitled to demand a loan from him under +the law. Oh, we had a perfect case all right, but the man who presided at the +trial was Judge Narragansett, one of those old-fashioned monks of the bench +who thinks like a mathematician and never feels the human side of anything. +He just sat there all through the trial like a marble statue—like one of +those blindfolded marble statues, At the end, he instructed the jury to bring +in a verdict in favor of Midas Mulligan—and he said some very harsh things +about me and my partners. But we appealed to a higher court—and the higher +court reversed the verdict and ordered Mulligan to give us the loan on our +terms. He had three months in which to comply, but before the three months +were up, something happened that nobody can figure out and he vanished into +thin air, he and his bank. There wasn't an extra penny left of that bank, to +collect our lawful claim. We wasted a lot of money on detectives, trying to +find him—as who didn't?—but we gave it up." +No—thought Dagny—no, apart from the sickening feeling it gave her, this +case was not much worse than any of the other things that Midas Mulligan had +borne for years. He had taken many losses under laws of a similar justice, +under rules and edicts that had cost him much larger sums of money; he had +borne them and fought and worked the harder; it was not likely that this case +had broken him. +"What happened to Judge Narragansett?" she asked involuntarily, and +wondered what subconscious connection had made her ask it. She knew little +about Judge Narragansett, but she had heard and remembered his name, because + + it was a name that belonged so exclusively to the North American continent. +Now she realized suddenly that she had heard nothing about him for years. +"Oh, he retired," said Lee Hunsacker. +"He did?" The question was almost a gasp. +"Yeah." +"When?" +"Oh, about six months later." +"What did he do after he retired?" +"I don't know. I don't think anybody's heard from him since." +He wondered why she looked frightened. Part of the fear she felt, was that +she could not name its reason, either. "Please tell me about the motor +factory," she said with effort. +"Well, Eugene Lawson of the Community National Bank in Madison finally +gave us a loan to buy the factory—but he was just a messy cheapskate, he +didn't have enough money to see us through, he couldn't help us when we went +bankrupt. It was not our fault. We had everything against us from the start. +How could we run a factory when we had no railroad? Weren't we entitled to a +railroad? I tried to get them to reopen their branch line, but those damn +people at Taggart Trans—" +He stopped. "Say, are you by any chance one of those Taggarts?" +"I am the Operating Vice-President of Taggart Transcontinental." +For a moment, he stared at her in blank stupor; she saw the struggle of +fear, obsequiousness and hatred in his filmy eyes. The result was a sudden +snarl: "I don't need any of you big shots! Don't think I'm going to be afraid +of you. Don't expect me to beg for a job. I'm not asking favors of anybody. I +bet you're not used to hear people talk to you this way, are you?" +"Mr. Hunsacker, I will appreciate it very much if you will give me the +information I need about the factory." +"You're a little late getting interested. What's the matter? Your +conscience bothering you? You people let Jed Starnes grow filthy rich on that +factory, but you wouldn't give us a break. It was the same factory. +We did everything he did. We started right in manufacturing the particular +type of motor that had been his biggest money-maker for years. And then some +newcomer nobody ever heard of opened a two bit factory down in Colorado, by +the name of Nielsen Motors, and put out a new motor of the same class as the +Starnes model, at half the price! We couldn't help that, could we? It was all +right for Jed Starnes, no destructive competitor happened to come up in his +time, but what were we to do? How could we fight this Nielsen, when nobody +had given us a motor to compete with his?" +"Did you take over the Starnes research laboratory?" +"Yes, yes, it was there. Everything was there." +"His staff, too?" +"Oh, some of them. A lot of them had gone while the factory was closed." +"His research staff?" +"They were gone." +"Did you hire any research men of your own?" +"Yes, yes, some—but let me tell you, I didn't have much money to spend on +such things as laboratories, when I never had enough funds to give me a +breathing spell. I couldn't even pay the bills I owed for the absolutely +essential modernizing and redecorating which I'd had to do —that factory was +disgracefully old-fashioned from the standpoint of human efficiency. The +executive offices had bare plaster walls and a dinky little washroom. Any +modern psychologist will tell you that nobody could do his best in such +depressing surroundings. I had to have a brighter color scheme in my office, +and a decent modern bathroom with a stall shower. Furthermore, I spent a lot +of money on a new cafeteria and a playroom and rest room for the workers. We +had to have morale, didn't we? Any enlightened person knows that man is made + + by the material factors of his background, and that a man's mind is shaped by +his tools of production. But people wouldn't wait for the laws of economic +determinism to operate upon us. We never had a motor factory before. We had +to let the tools condition our minds, didn't we? But nobody gave us time." +"Can you tell me about the work of your research staff?" +"Oh, I had a group of very promising young men, all of them guaranteed by +diplomas from the best universities. But it didn't do me any good. I don't +know what they were doing. I think they were just sitting around, eating up +their salaries." +"Who was in charge of your laboratory?" +"Hell, how can I remember that now?" +"Do you remember any of the names of your research staff?" +"Do you think I had time to meet every hireling in person?" +"Did any of them ever mention to you any experiments with a . . . +with an entirely new kind of motor?" +"What motor? Let me tell you that an executive of my position does not +hang around laboratories. I spent most of my time in New York and Chicago, +trying to raise money to keep us going." +"Who was the general manager of tie factory?" +"A very able fellow by the name of Roy Cunningham. He died last year in an +auto accident. Drunk driving, they said." +"Can you give me the names and addresses of any of your associates? Anyone +you remember?" +"I don't know what's become of them. I wasn't in a mood to keep track of +that." +"Have you preserved any of the factory records?" +"I certainly have." +She sat up eagerly. "Would you let me see them?" +"You bet!" +He seemed eager to comply; he rose at once and hurried out of the room. +What he put down before her, when he returned, was a thick album of +clippings: it contained his newspaper interviews and his press agent's +releases. +"I was one of the big industrialists, too," he said proudly. "I was a +national figure, as you can see. My life will make a book of deep, human +significance. I'd have written it long ago, if I had the proper tools of +production." He banged angrily upon his typewriter. "I can't work on this +damn thing. It skips spaces. How can I get any inspiration and write a best +seller with a typewriter that skips spaces?" +"Thank you, Mr. Hunsacker," she said. "I believe this is all you can tell +me." She rose. "You don't happen to know what became of the Starnes heirs?" +"Oh, they ran for cover after they'd wrecked the factory. There were three +of them, two sons and a daughter. Last I heard, they were hiding their faces +out in Durance, Louisiana." +The last sight she caught of Lee Hunsacker, as she turned to go, was his +sudden leap to the stove; he seized the lid off the pot and dropped it to the +floor, scorching his fingers and cursing: the stew was burned. +Little was left of the Starnes fortune and less of the Starnes heirs. +"You won't like having to see them, Miss Taggart," said the chief of +police of Durance, Louisiana; he was an elderly man with a slow, firm manner +and a look of bitterness acquired not in blind resentment., but in fidelity +to clear-cut standards. "There's all sorts of human beings to see in the +world, there's murderers and criminal maniacs—but, somehow, I think these +Starnes persons are what decent people shouldn't have to see. They're a bad +sort, Miss Taggart. Clammy and bad . . . +Yes, they're still here in town—two of them, that is. The third one is: +dead. Suicide. That was four years ago. It's an ugly story. He was the + + youngest of the three, Eric Starnes. He was one of those chronic young men +who go around whining about their sensitive feelings, when they're well past +forty. He needed love, was his line. He was being kept by older women, when +he could find them. Then he started running after a girl of sixteen, a nice +girl who wouldn't have anything to do with him. +She married a boy she was engaged to. Eric Starnes got into their house on +the wedding day, and when they came back from church after the ceremony, they +found him in their bedroom, dead, messy dead, his wrists slashed. . . . Now I +say there might be forgiveness for a man who kills himself quietly. Who can +pass judgment on another man's suffering and on the limit of what he can +bear? But the man who kills himself, making a show of his death in order to +hurt somebody, the man who gives his life for malice—there's no forgiveness +for him, no excuse, he's rotten clear through, and what he deserves is that +people spit at his memory, instead of feeling sorry for him and hurt, as he +wanted them to be. . . . Well, that was Eric Starnes. I can tell you where to +find the other two, if you wish." +She found Gerald Starnes in the ward of a flophouse. He lay half twisted +on a cot. His hair was still black, but the white stubble of his chin was +like a mist of dead weeds over a vacant face. He was soggy drunk. A pointless +chuckle kept breaking his voice when he spoke, the sound of a static, +unfocused malevolence, "It went bust, the great factory. That's what happened +to it. Just went up and bust. Does that bother you, madam? The factory was +rotten. Everybody is rotten. I'm supposed to beg somebody's pardon, but I +won't. I don't give a damn. People get fits trying to keep up the show, when +it's all rot, black rot, the automobiles, the buildings and the souls, and it +doesn't make any difference, one way or another. You should've seen the kind +of literati who turned flip-flops when I whistled, when I had the dough. The +professors, the poets, the intellectuals, the world-savers and the brotherlovers. Any way I whistled. I had lots of fun. I wanted to do good, but now I +don't. There isn't any good. Not any goddamn good in the whole goddamn +universe. I don't propose to take a bath if I don't feel like it, and that's +that. If you want to know anything about the factory, ask my sister. My sweet +sister who had a trust fund they couldn't touch, so she got out of it safe, +even if she's in the hamburger class now, not the filet mignon a la Sauce +Bearnaise, but would she give a penny of it to her brother? The noble plan +that busted was her idea as much as mine, but will she give me a penny? +Hah! Go take a look at the duchess, take a look. What do I care about the +factory? It was just a pile of greasy machinery. I'll sell you all my rights, +claims and title to it—for a drink. I'm the last of the Starnes name. It used +to be a great name—Starnes. I'll sell it to you. You think I'm a stinking +bum, but that goes for all the rest of them and for rich ladies like you, +too. I wanted to do good for humanity. Hah! I wish they'd all boil in oil. Be +lots of fun. I wish they'd choke. What does it matter? What does anything +matter?" +On the next cot, a white-haired, shriveled little tramp turned in his +sleep, moaning; a nickel clattered to the floor out of his rags. Gerald +Starnes picked it up and slipped it into his own pocket. He glanced at Dagny. +The creases of his face were a malignant smile. +"Want to wake him up and start trouble?" he asked. "If you do, I'll say +that you're lying." +The ill-smelling bungalow, where she found Ivy Starnes, stood on the edge +of town, by the shore of the Mississippi. Hanging strands of moss and clots +of waxy foliage made the thick vegetation look as if it were drooling; the +too many draperies, hanging in the stagnant air of a small room, had the same +look. The smell came from undusted corners and from incense burning in silver +jars at the feet of contorted Oriental deities. Ivy Starnes sat on a pillow +like a baggy Buddha. Her mouth was a tight little crescent, the petulant + + mouth of a child demanding adulation—on the spreading, pallid face of a woman +past fifty. Her eyes were two lifeless puddles of water. Her voice had the +even, dripping monotone of rain: "I can't answer the kind of questions you're +asking, my girl. The research laboratory? The engineers? Why should I +remember anything about them? It was my father who was concerned with such +matters, not I, My father was an evil man who cared for nothing but business. +He had no time for love, only for money. My brothers and I lived on a +different plane. Our aim was not to produce gadgets, but to do good. +We brought a great, new plan into the factory. It was eleven years ago. +We were defeated by the greed, the selfishness and the base, animal nature +of men. It was the eternal conflict between spirit and matter, between soul +and body. They would not renounce their bodies, which was all we asked of +them. I do not remember any of those men. I do not care to remember. . . . +The engineers? I believe it was they who started the hemophilia. . . . Yes, +that is what I said: the hemophilia— +the slow leak—the loss of blood that cannot be stopped. They ran first. +They deserted us, one after another . . . Our plan? We put into practice +that noble historical precept: From each according to his ability, to each +according to his need. Everybody in the factory, from charwomen to president, +received the same salary—the barest minimum necessary. +Twice a year, we all gathered in a mass meeting, where every person +presented his claim for what he believed to be his needs. We voted on every +claim, and the will of the majority established every person's need and every +person's ability. The income of the factory was distributed accordingly. +Rewards were based on need, and penalties on ability. Those whose needs were +voted to be the greatest, received the most. Those who had not produced as +much as the vote said they could, were fined and had to pay the fines by +working overtime without pay. +That was our plan. It was based on the principle of selflessness. It +required men to be motivated, not by personal gain, but by love for their +brothers." +Dagny heard a cold, implacable voice saying somewhere within her: Remember +it—remember it well—it is not often that one can see pure evil—look at it— +remember—and some day you'll find the words to name its essence. . . . She +heard it through the screaming of other voices that cried in helpless +violence: It's nothing—I've heard it before —I'm hearing it everywhere—it's +nothing but the same old tripe— +why can't I stand it?—I can't stand it—I can't stand it! +"What's the matter with you, my girl? Why did you jump up like that? Why +are you shaking? . . . What? Do speak louder, I can't hear you. . . . How did +the plan work out? I do not care to discuss it. +Things became very ugly indeed and went fouler every year. It has cost me +my faith in human nature. In four years, a plan conceived, not by the cold +calculations of the mind, but by the pure love of the heart, was brought to +an end in the sordid mess of policemen, lawyers and bankruptcy proceedings. +But I have seen my error and I am free of it, I am through with the world of +machines, manufacturers and money, the world enslaved by matter. I am +learning the emancipation of the spirit, as revealed in the great secrets of +India, the release from bondage to flesh, the victory over physical nature, +the triumph of the spirit over matter." +Through the blinding white glare of anger, Dagny was seeing a long strip +of concrete that had been a road, with weeds rising from its cracks, and the +figure of a man contorted by a hand plow. +"But, my girl, I said that I do not remember. . . . But I do not know +their names, I do not know any names, I do not know what sort of adventurers +my father may have had in that laboratory! . . . + + Don't you hear me? . . . I am not accustomed to being questioned in such +manner and . . . Don't keep repeating it. Don't you know any words but +'engineer'? . . . Don't you hear me at all? . . . What's the matter with you? +I—I don't like your face, you're . . . Leave me alone. I don't know who you +are, I've never hurt you, I'm an old woman, don't look at me like that, I . . +. Stand back! Don't come near me or I'll call for help! I'll . . . Oh, yes, +yes, I know that one! +The chief engineer. Yes. He was the head of the laboratory. Yes. +William Hastings. That was his name—William Hastings. I remember. +He went off to Brandon, Wyoming. He quit the day after we introduced the +plan. He was the second man to quit us. . . . No. No, I don't remember who +was the first. He wasn't anybody important." +The woman who opened the door had graying hair and a poised, distinguished +look of grooming; it took Dagny a few seconds to realize that her garment was +only a simple cotton housedress, "May I see Mr. William Hastings?" asked +Dagny. +The woman looked at her for the briefest instant of a pause; it was an odd +glance, inquiring and grave. "May I ask your name?" +"I am Dagny Taggart, of Taggart Transcontinental." +"Oh. Please come in, Miss Taggart. I am Mrs. William Hastings." +The measured tone of gravity went through every syllable of her voice, +like a warning. Her manner was courteous, but she did not smile. +It was a modest home in the suburbs of an industrial town. Bare tree +branches cut across the bright, cold blue of the sky, on the top of the rise +that led to the house. The walls of the living room were silver-gray; +sunlight hit the crystal stand of a lamp with a white shade; beyond an open +door, a breakfast nook was papered in red-dotted white. +"Were you acquainted with my husband in business, Miss Taggart?" +"No. I have never met Mr. Hastings. But I should like to speak to him on a +matter of business of crucial importance." +"My husband died five years ago, Miss Taggart." +Dagny closed her eyes; the dull, sinking shock contained the conclusions +she did not have to make in words: This, then, had been the man she was +seeking, and Rearden had been right; this was why the motor had been left +unclaimed on a junk pile. +"I'm sorry," she said, both to Mrs. Hastings and to herself. +The suggestion of a smile on Mrs. Hastings' face held sadness, but the +face had no imprint of tragedy, only a grave look of firmness, acceptance and +quiet serenity. +"Mrs. Hastings, would you permit me to ask you a few questions?" +"Certainly. Please sit down." +"Did you have some knowledge of your husband's scientific work?" +"Very little. None, really. He never discussed it at home." +"He was, at one time, chief engineer of the Twentieth Century Motor +Company?" +"Yes. He had been employed by them for eighteen years." +"I wanted to ask Mr. Hastings about his work there and the reason why he +gave it up. If you can tell me, I would like to know what happened in that +factory." +The smile of sadness and humor appeared fully on Mrs. Hastings' +face. "That is what I would like to know myself," she said. "But I'm +afraid I shall never learn it now. I know why he left the factory. It was +because of an outrageous scheme which the heirs of led Starnes established +there. He would not work on such terms or for such people. +But there was something else. I've always felt that something happened at +Twentieth Century Motors, which he would not tell me." +"I'm extremely anxious to know any clue you may care to give me." + + "I have no clue to it. I've tried to guess and given up. I cannot +understand or explain it. But I know that something happened. +When my husband left Twentieth Century, we came here and he took a job as +head of the engineering department of Acme Motors. It was a growing, +successful concern at the time. It gave my husband the kind of work he liked. +He was not a person prone to inner conflicts, he had always been sure of his +actions and at peace with himself. But for a whole year after we left +Wisconsin, he acted as if he were tortured by something, as if he were +struggling with a personal problem he could not solve. At the end of that +year, he came to me one morning and told me that he had resigned from Acme +Motors, that he was retiring and would not work anywhere else. He loved his +work; it was his whole life. Yet he looked calm, self-confident and happy, +for the first time since we'd come here. He asked me not to question him +about the reason of his decision. I didn't question him and I didn't object. +We had this house, we had our savings, we had enough to live on modestly for +the rest of our days. I never learned his reason. We went on living here, +quietly and very happily. He seemed to feel a profound contentment. He had an +odd serenity of spirit that I had never seen in him before. There was nothing +strange in his behavior or activity—except that at times, Very rarely, he +went out without telling me where he went or whom he saw. In the last two +years of his life, he went away for one month, each summer; he did not tell +me where. Otherwise, he lived as he always had. He studied a great deal and +he spent his time on engineering research of his own, working in the basement +of our house. I don't know what he did with his notes and experimental +models. I found no trace of them in the basement, after his death. +He died five years ago, of a heart ailment from which he had suffered for +some time." +Dagny asked hopelessly, "Did you know the nature of his experiments?" +"No. I know very little about engineering." +"Did you know any of his professional friends or co-workers, who might +have been acquainted with his research?" +"No. When he was at Twentieth Century Motors, he worked such long hours +that we had very little time for ourselves and we spent it together. We had +no social life at all. He never brought his associates to the house." +"When he was at Twentieth Century, did he ever mention to you a motor he +had designed, an entirely new type of motor that could have changed the +course of all industry?" +"A motor? Yes. Yes, he spoke of it several times. He said it was an +invention of incalculable importance. But it was not he who had designed it. +It was the invention of a young assistant of his." +She saw the expression on Dagny's face, and added slowly, quizzically, +without reproach, merely in sad amusement, "I see." +"Oh, I'm sorry!" said Dagny, realizing that her emotion had shot to her +face and become a smile as obvious as a cry of relief. +"It's quite all right. I understand. It's the inventor of that motor that +you're interested in. I don't know whether he is still alive, but at least I +have no reason to think that he isn't." +"I'd give half my life to know that he is—and to find him. It's as +important as that, Mrs. Hastings. Who is he?" +"I don't know. I don't know his name or anything about him. I never knew +any of the men on my husband's staff. He told me only that he had a young +engineer who, some day, would up-turn the world. +My husband did not care for anything in people except ability. I think +this was the only man he ever loved. He didn't say so, but I could tell it, +just by the way he spoke of this young assistant. I remember—the day he told +me that the motor was completed—how his voice sounded when he said, 'And he's + + only twenty-six!' This was about a month before the death of Jed Starnes. He +never mentioned the motor or the young engineer, after that." +"You don't know what became of the young engineer?" +"No." +"You can't suggest any way to find him?" +"No." +"You have no clue, no lead to help me learn his name?" +"None. Tell me, was that motor extremely valuable?" +"More valuable than any estimate I could give you." +"It's strange, because, you see, I thought of it once, some years after +we'd left Wisconsin, and I asked my husband what had become of that invention +he'd said was so great, what would be done with it. +He looked at me very oddly and answered, 'Nothing.' " +"Why?" +"He wouldn't tell me." +"Can you remember anyone at all who worked at Twentieth Century? Anyone +who knew that young engineer? Any friend of his?" +"No, I . . . Wait! Wait, I think I can give you a lead. I can tell you +where to find one friend of his. I don't even know that friend's name, +either, but I know his address. It's an odd story. I'd better explain how it +happened. One evening—about two years after we'd come here—my husband was +going out and I needed our car that night, so he asked me to pick him up +after dinner at the restaurant of the railroad station. He did not tell me +with whom he was having dinner. When I drove up to the station, I saw him +standing outside the restaurant with two men. One of them was young and tall. +The other was elderly; he looked very distinguished. I would still recognize +those men anywhere; they had the kind of faces one doesn't forget. My husband +saw me and left them. They walked away toward the station platform; there was +a train coming. My husband pointed after the young man and said, 'Did you see +him? That's the boy I told you about.1 'The one who's the great maker of +motors?' The one who was.' " +"And he told you nothing else?" +"Nothing else. This was nine years ago. Last spring, I went to visit my +brother who lives in Cheyenne. One afternoon, he took the family out for a +long drive. We went up into pretty wild country, high in the Rockies, and we +stopped at a roadside diner. There was a distinguished, gray-haired man +behind the counter. I kept staring at him while he fixed our sandwiches and +coffee, because I knew that I had seen his face before, but could not +remember where. We drove on, we were miles away from the diner, when I +remembered. You'd better go there. +It's on Route 86, in the mountains, west of Cheyenne, near a small +industrial settlement by the Lennox Copper Foundry. It seems strange, but I'm +certain of it: the cook in that diner is the man I saw at the railroad +station with my husband's young idol." +The diner stood on the summit of a long, hard climb. Its glass walls +spread a coat of polish over the view of rocks and pines descending in broken +ledges to the sunset. It was dark below, but an even, glowing light still +remained in the diner, as in a small pool left behind by a receding tide. +Dagny sat at the end of the counter, eating a hamburger sandwich. +It was the best-cooked food she had ever tasted, the product of simple +ingredients and of an unusual skill. Two workers were finishing their dinner; +she was waiting for them to depart. +She studied the man behind the counter. He was slender and tall; he had an +air of distinction that belonged in an ancient castle or in the inner office +of a bank; but his peculiar quality came from the fact that he made the +distinction seem appropriate here, behind the counter of a diner. He wore a +cook's white jacket as if it were a full-dress suit. There was an expert + + competence in his manner of working; his movements were easy, intelligently +economical. He had a lean face and gray hair that blended in tone with the +cold blue of his eyes; somewhere beyond his look of courteous sternness, +there was a note of humor, so faint that it vanished if one tried to discern +it. +The two workers finished, paid and departed, each leaving a dime for a +tip. She watched the man as he removed their dishes, put the dimes into the +pocket of his white jacket, wiped the counter, working with swift precision. +Then he turned and looked at her. It was an impersonal glance, not intended +to invite conversation; but she felt certain that he had long since noted her +New York suit, her high-heeled pumps, her air of being a woman who did not +waste her time; his cold, observant eyes seemed to tell her that he knew she +did not belong here and that he was waiting to discover her purpose. +"How is business?" she asked. +"Pretty bad. They're going to close the Lennox Foundry next week, so I'll +have to close soon, too, and move on." His voice was clear, impersonally +cordial. +"Where to?" +"1 haven't decided." +"What sort of thing do you have in mind?" +"I don't know. I'm thinking of opening a garage, if I can find the right +spot in some town." +"Oh no! You're too good at your job to change it. You shouldn't want to be +anything but a cook." +A strange, fine smile moved the curve of his mouth. "No?" he asked +courteously. +"No! How would you like a job in New York?" He looked at her, astonished. +"I'm serious. I can give you a job on a big railroad, in charge of the +dining-car department." +"May I ask why you should want to?" +She raised the hamburger sandwich in its white paper napkin. +"There's one of the reasons." +"Thank you. What are the others?" +'T don't suppose you've lived in a big city, or you'd know how miserably +difficult it is to find any competent men for any job whatever." +"I know a little about that." +"Well? How about it, then? Would you like a job in New York at ten +thousand dollars a year?" +"No." +She had been carried away by the joy of discovering and rewarding ability. +She looked at him silently, shocked. "I don't think you understood me," she +said. +"I did." +"You're refusing an opportunity of this kind?" +"Yes." +"But why?" +"That is a personal matter." +"Why should you work like this, when you can have a better job?" +"I am not looking for a better job." +"You don't want a chance to rise and make money?" +"No. Why do you insist?" +"Because I hate to see ability being wasted!" +He said slowly, intently, "So do I." +Something in the way he said it made her feel the bond of some profound +emotion which they held in common; it broke the discipline that forbade her +ever to call for help. "I'm so sick of them!" Her voice startled hen it was + + an involuntary cry. "I'm so hungry for any sight of anyone who's able to do +whatever it is he's doing!" +She pressed the back of her hand to her eyes, trying to dam the outbreak +of a despair she had not permitted herself to acknowledge; she had not known +the extent of it, nor how little of her endurance the quest had left her. +"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low. It sounded, not as an apology, but as +a statement of compassion. +She glanced up at him. He smiled, and she knew that the smile was intended +to break the bond which he, too, had felt: the smile had a trace of courteous +mockery. He said, "But I don't believe that you came all the way from New +York just to hunt for railroad cooks in the Rockies." +"No. I came for something else." She leaned forward, both forearms braced +firmly against the counter, feeling calm and in tight control again, sensing +a dangerous adversary. "Did you know, about ten years ago, a young engineer +who worked for the Twentieth Century Motor Company?" +She counted the seconds of a pause; she could not define the nature of the +way he looked at her, except that it was the look of some special +attentiveness. +"Yes, I did," he answered. +"Could you give me his name and address?" +"What for?" +"It's crucially important that I find him." +"That man? Of what importance is he?" +"He is the most important man in the world." +"Really? Why?" +"Did you know anything about his work?" +"Yes." +"Did you know that he hit upon an idea of the most tremendous +consequence?" +He let a moment pass. "May I ask who you are?” +"Dagny Taggart. I'm the Vice-Pres—" +"Yes, Miss Taggart. I know who you are." +He said it with impersonal deference. But he looked as if he had found the +answer to some special question in his mind and was not astonished any +longer. +"Then you know that my interest is not idle," she said. "I'm in a position +to give him the chance he needs and I'm prepared to pay anything he asks." +"May I ask what has aroused your interest in him?" +"His motor." +"How did you happen to know about his motor?" +"I found a broken remnant of it in the ruins of the Twentieth Century +factory. Not enough to reconstruct it or to learn how it worked, But enough +to know that it did work and that it's an invention which can save my +railroad, the country and the economy of the whole world. +Don't ask me to tell you now what trail I've followed, trying to trace +that motor and to find its inventor. That's not of any importance, even my +life and work are not of any importance to me right now, nothing is of any +importance, except that I must find him. Don't ask me how I happened to come +to you. You're the end of the trail. Tell me his name." +He had listened without moving, looking straight at her; the attentiveness +of his eyes seemed to take hold of every word and store it carefully away, +giving her no clue to his purpose. He did not move for a long time. Then he +said, "Give it up, Miss Taggart. You won't find him." +"What is his name?" +"I can tell you nothing about him." +"Is he still alive?" +"I can tell you nothing." + + "What is your name?" +"Hugh Akston." +Through the blank seconds of recapturing her mind, she kept telling +herself: You're hysterical . . . don't be preposterous . . . it's just a +coincidence of names—while she knew, in certainty and numb, inexplicable +terror, that this was the Hugh Akston. +"Hugh Akston?" she stammered. "The philosopher? . . . The last of the +advocates of reason?" +"Why, yes," he answered pleasantly. "Or the first of their return." +He did not seem startled by her shock, but he seemed to find it +unnecessary. His manner was simple, almost friendly, as if he felt no need to +hide his identity and no resentment at its being discovered. +"I didn't think that any young person would recognize my name or attach +any significance to it, nowadays," he said. +"But . . . but what are you doing here?" Her arm swept at the room. "This +doesn't make sense!" +"Are you sure?" +"What is it? A stunt? An experiment? A secret mission? Are you studying +something for some special purpose?" +"No, Miss Taggart. I'm earning my living." The words and the voice had the +genuine simplicity of truth, "Dr. Akston, I . . . it's inconceivable, it's . +. . You're . . . you're a philosopher . . . the greatest philosopher living . +. . an immortal name . . . why would you do this?" +"Because I am a philosopher, Miss Taggart." +She knew with certainty—even though she felt as if her capacity for +certainty and for understanding were gone—that she would obtain no help from +him, that questions were useless, that he would give her no explanation, +neither of the inventor's fate nor of his own. +"Give it up, Miss Taggart," he said quietly, as if giving proof that he +could guess her thoughts, as she had known he would. "It is a hopeless quest, +the more hopeless because you have no inkling of what an impossible task you +have chosen to undertake. I would like to spare you the strain of trying to +devise some argument, trick or plea that would make me give you the +information you are seeking. Take my word for it: it can't be done. You said +I'm the end of your trail. It's a blind alley, Miss Taggart, Do not attempt +to waste your money and effort on other, more conventional methods of +inquiry: do not hire detectives. They will learn nothing. You may choose to +ignore my warning, but I think that you are a person of high intelligence, +able to know that I know what I am saying. Give it up. The secret you are +trying to solve involves something greater—much greater—than the invention of +a motor run by atmospheric electricity. There is only one helpful suggestion +that I can give you: By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions +cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an invention of genius should +be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a +cook in a diner—check your premises. You will find that one of them is +wrong." +She started: she remembered that she had heard this before and that it was +Francisco who had said it. And then she remembered that this man had been one +of Francisco's teachers. +"As you wish, Dr. Akston," she said. "I won't attempt to question you +about it. But would you permit me to ask you a question on an entirely +different subject?" +"Certainly." +"Dr. Robert Stadler once told me that when you were at the Patrick Henry +University, you had three students who were your favorites and his, three +brilliant minds from whom you expected a great future. One of them was +Francisco d'Anconia." + + "Yes. Another was Ragnar Danneskjold." +"Incidentally—this is not my question—who was the third?" +"His name would mean nothing to you. He is not famous." +"Dr. Stadler said that you and he were rivals over these three students, +because you both regarded them as your sons." +"Rivals? He lost them." +"Tell me, are you proud of the way these three have turned out?" +He looked off, into the distance, at the dying fire of the sunset on the +farthest rocks; his face had the look of a father who watches his sons +bleeding on a battlefield. He answered: "More proud than I had ever hoped to +be," +It was almost dark. He turned sharply, took a package of cigarettes from +his pocket, pulled out one cigarette, but stopped, remembering her presence, +as if he had forgotten it for a moment, and extended the package to her. She +took a cigarette and he struck the brief flare of a match, then shook it out, +leaving only two small points of fire in the darkness of a glass room and of +miles of mountains beyond it. +She rose, paid her bill, and said, "Thank you, Dr. Akston. I will not +molest you with tricks or pleas. I will not hire detectives. But I think I +should tell you that I will not give up, I must find the inventor of that +motor. I will find him." +"Not until the day when he chooses to find you—as he will." +When she walked to her car, he switched on the lights in the diner, she +saw the mailbox by the side of the road and noted the incredible fact that +the name "Hugh Akston" stood written openly across it. +She had driven far down the winding road, and the lights of the diner were +long since out of sight, when she noticed that she was enjoying the taste of +the cigarette he had given her: it was different from any she had ever smoked +before. She held the small remnant to the light of the dashboard, looking for +the name of the brand. There was no name, only a trademark. Stamped in gold +on the thin, white paper there stood the sign of the dollar. +She examined it curiously: she had never heard of that brand before. +Then she remembered the old man at the cigar stand of the Taggart +Terminal, and smiled, thinking that this was a specimen for his collection. +She stamped out the fire and dropped the butt into her handbag. +Train Number 57 was lined along the track, ready to leave for Wyatt +Junction, when she reached Cheyenne, left her car at the garage where she had +rented it, and walked out on the platform of the Taggart station. She had +half an hour to wait for the eastbound main liner to New York. She walked to +the end of the platform and leaned wearily against a lamppost; she did not +want to be seen and recognized by the station employees, she did not want to +talk to anyone, she needed rest. A few people stood in clusters on the halfdeserted platform; animated conversations seemed to be going on, and +newspapers were more prominently in evidence than usual. +She looked at the lighted windows of Train Number 57—for a moment's relief +in the sight of a victorious achievement. Train Number 57 was about to start +down the track of the John Galt Line, through the towns, through the curves +of the mountains, past the green signals where people had stood cheering and +the valleys where rockets had risen to the summer sky. Twisted remnants of +leaves now hung on the branches beyond the train's roof line, and the +passengers wore furs and mufflers, as they climbed aboard. They moved with +the casual manner of a daily event, with the security of expecting a +performance long since taken for granted. . . . We've done it—she thought— +this much, at least, is done. +It was the chance conversation of two men somewhere behind her that came +beating suddenly against her closed attention. +"But laws shouldn't be passed that way, so quickly." + + "They're not laws, they're directives." +"Then it's illegal." +"It's not illegal, because the Legislature passed a law last month giving +him the power to issue directives." +"I don't think directives should be sprung on people that way, out of the +blue, like a punch in the nose." +"Well, there's no time to palaver when it's a national emergency." +"But I don't think it's right and it doesn't jibe. How is Rearden going to +do it, when it says here—" +"Why should you worry about Rearden? He's rich enough. He can find a way +to do anything." +Then she leaped to the first newsstand in sight and seized a copy of the +evening paper. +It was on the front page. Wesley Mouch, Top Co-ordinator of the Bureau of +Economic Planning and National Resources, "in a surprise move," said the +paper, "and in the name of the national emergency," +had issued a set of directives, which were strung in a column down the +page: The railroads of the country were ordered to reduce the maximum speed +of all trains to sixty miles per hour—to reduce the maximum length of all +trains to sixty cars—and to run the same number of trains in every state of a +zone composed of five neighboring states, the country being divided into such +zones for the purpose. +The steel mills of the country were ordered to limit the maximum +production of any metal alloy to an amount equal to the production of other +metal alloys by other mills placed in the same classification of plant +capacity—and to supply a fair share of any metal alloy to all consumers who +might desire to obtain it. +All the manufacturing establishments of the country, of any size and +nature, were forbidden to move from their present locations, except when +granted a special permission to do so by the Bureau of Economic Planning and +National Resources. +To compensate the railroads of the country for the extra costs involved +and "to cushion the process of readjustment," a moratorium on payments of +interest and principal on all railroad bonds—secured and unsecured, +convertible and non-convertible—was declared for a period of five years. +To provide the funds for the personnel to enforce these directives, a +special tax was imposed on the state of Colorado, "as the state best able to +assist the needier states to bear the brunt of the national emergency," such +tax to consist of five per cent of the gross sales of Colorado's industrial +concerns. +The cry she uttered was one she had never permitted herself before, +because she made it her pride always to answer it herself—but she saw a man +standing a few steps away, she did not see that he was a ragged bum, and she +uttered the cry because it was the plea of reason and he was a human figure: +"What are we going to do?" +The bum grinned mirthlessly and shrugged: "Who is John Galt?" +It was not Taggart Transcontinental that stood as the focus of terror in +her mind, it was not the thought of Hank Rearden tied to a rack pulled in +opposite directions—it was Ellis Wyatt. Wiping out the rest, filling her +consciousness, leaving no room for words, no time for wonder, as a glaring +answer to the questions she had not begun to ask, stood two pictures: Ellis +Wyatt's implacable figure in front of her desk, saying, "It is now in your +power to destroy me; I may have to go; but if I go, I'll make sure that I +take all the rest of you along with me"— +and the circling violence of Ellis Wyatt's body when he flung a glass to +shatter against the wall. + + The only consciousness the pictures left her was the feeling of the +approach of some unthinkable disaster, and the feeling that she had to outrun +it. She had to reach Ellis Wyatt and stop him. She did not know what it was +that she had to prevent. She knew only that she had to stop him. +And because, were she lying crushed under the ruins of a building, were +she torn by the bomb of an air raid, so long as she was still in existence +she would know that action is man's foremost obligation, regardless of +anything he feels—she was able to run down the platform and to see the face +of the stationmaster when she found him—she was able to order: "Hold Number +57 for me!"—then to run to the privacy of a telephone booth in the darkness +beyond the end of the platform, and to give the long-distance operator the +number of Ellis Wyatt's house. +She stood, propped up by the walls of the booth, her eyes closed, and +listened to the dead whirl of metal which was the sound of a bell ringing +somewhere. It brought no answer. The bell kept coming in sudden spasms, like +a drill going through her ear, through her body. +She clutched the receiver as if, unheeded, it were still a form of +contact. +She wished the bell were louder. She forgot that the sound she heard was +not the one ringing in his house. She did not know that she was screaming, +"Ellis, don't! Don't! Don't I"—until she heard the cold, reproving voice of +the operator say, "Your party does not answer." +She sat at the window of a coach of Train Number 57, and listened to the +clicking of the wheels on the rails of Rearden Metal, She sat, unresisting, +swaying with the motion of the train. The black luster of the window hid the +countryside she did not want to see. It was her second run on the John Galt +Line, and she tried not to think of the first. +The bondholders, she thought, the bondholders of the John Galt Line—it was +to her honor that they had entrusted their money, the saving and achievement +of years, it was on her ability that they had staked it, it was on her work +that they had relied and on their own— +and she had been made to betray them into a looters' trap: there would be +no trains and no life-blood of freight, the John Galt Line had been only a +drainpipe that had permitted Jim Taggart to make a deal and to drain their +wealth, unearned, into his pocket, in exchange for letting others drain his +railroad—the bonds of the John Galt Line, which, this morning, had been the +proud guardians of their owners' security and future, had become in the space +of an hour, scraps of paper that no one would buy, with no value, no future, +no power, save the power to close the doors and stop the wheels of the last +hope of the country— +and Taggart Transcontinental was not a living plant, fed by blood it had +worked to produce, but a cannibal of the moment, devouring the unborn +children of greatness. +The tax on Colorado, she thought, the tax collected from Ellis Wyatt to +pay for the livelihood of those whose job was to tie him and make him unable +to live, those who would stand on guard to see that he got no trains, no tank +cars, no pipeline of Rearden Metal—Ellis Wyatt, stripped of the right of +serf-defense, left without voice, without weapons, and worse: made to be the +tool of his own destruction, the supporter of his own destroyers, the +provider of their food and of their weapons—Ellis Wyatt being choked, with +his own bright energy turned against him as the noose—Ellis Wyatt, who had +wanted to tap an unlimited source of shale oil and who spoke of a Second +Renaissance. . . . +She sat bent over, her head on her arms, slumped at the, ledge of the +window—while the great curves of the green-blue rail, the mountains, the +valleys, the new towns of Colorado went by in the darkness, unseen. + + The sudden jolt of brakes on wheels threw her upright. It was an +unscheduled stop, and the platform of the small station was crowded with +people, all looking off in the same direction. The passengers around her were +pressing to the windows, staring. She leaped to her feet, she ran down the +aisle, down the steps, into the cold wind sweeping the platform. +In the instant before she saw it and her scream cut the voices of the +crowd, she knew that she had known that which she was to see. In a break +between mountains, lighting the sky, throwing a glow that swayed on the roofs +and walls of the station, the hill of Wyatt Oil was a solid sheet of flame. +Later, when they told her that Ellis Wyatt had vanished, leaving nothing +behind but a board he had nailed to a post at the foot of the hill, when she +looked at his handwriting on the board, she felt as if she had almost known +that these would be the words: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. +It's yours." + + PART II +EITHER-OR + + CHAPTER I +THE MAN WHO BELONGED ON EARTH +Dr. Robert Stadler paced his office, wishing he would not feel the cold. +Spring had been late in coming. Beyond the window, the dead gray of the hills +looked like the smeared transition from the soiled white of the sky to the +leaden black of the river. Once in a while, a distant patch of hillside +flared into a silver-yellow that was almost green, then vanished. The clouds +kept cracking for the width of a single sunray, then oozing closed again. It +was not cold in the office, thought Dr. Stadler, it was that view that froze +the place. +It was not cold today, the chill was in his bones—he thought—the stored +accumulation of the winter months, when he had had to be distracted from his +work by an awareness of such a matter as inadequate heating and people had +talked about conserving fuel. It was preposterous, he thought, this growing +intrusion of the accidents of nature into the affairs of men: it had never +mattered before, if a winter happened to be unusually severe; if a flood +washed out a section of railroad track, one did not spend two weeks eating +canned vegetables; if an electric storm struck some power station, an +establishment such as the State Science Institute was not left without +electricity for five days. Five days of stillness this winter, he thought, +with the great laboratory motors stopped and irretrievable hours wiped out, +when his staff had been working on problems that involved the heart of the +universe. He turned angrily away from the window—but stopped and turned back +to it again. He did not want to see the book that lay on his desk. +He wished Dr. Ferris would come. He glanced at his watch: Dr. +Ferris was late—an astonishing matter—late for an appointment with him—Dr. +Floyd Ferris, the valet of science, who had always faced him in a manner that +suggested an apology for having but one hat to take off. +This was outrageous weather for the month of May, he thought, looking down +at the river; it was certainly the weather that made him feel as he did, not +the book. He had placed the book in plain view on his desk, when he had noted +that his reluctance to see it was more than mere revulsion, that it contained +the element of an emotion never to be admitted. He told himself that he had +risen from his desk, not because the book lay there, but merely because he +had wanted to move, feeling cold. He paced the room, trapped between the desk +and the window. He would throw that book in the ash can where it belonged, he +thought, just as soon as he had spoken to Dr. Ferris. +He watched the patch of green and sunlight on the distant hill, the +promise of spring in a world that looked as if no grass or bud would ever +function again. He smiled eagerly—and when the patch vanished, he felt a stab +of humiliation, at his own eagerness, at the desperate way he had wanted to +hold it. It reminded him of that interview with the eminent novelist, last +winter. The novelist had come from Europe to write an article about him—and +he, who had once despised interviews, had talked eagerly, lengthily, too +lengthily, seeing a promise of intelligence in the novelist's face, feeling a +causeless, desperate need to be understood. The article had come out as a +collection of sentences that gave him exorbitant praise and garbled every +thought he had expressed. Closing the magazine, he had felt what he was +feeling now at the desertion of a sunray. +All right—he thought, turning away from the window—he would concede that +attacks of loneliness had begun to strike him at times; but it was a +loneliness to which he was entitled, it was hunger for the response of some +living, thinking mind. He was so tired of all those people, he thought in +contemptuous bitterness; he dealt with cosmic rays, while they were unable to +deal with an electric storm. + + He felt the sudden contraction of his mouth, like a slap denying him the +right to pursue this course of thought. He was looking at the book on his +desk. Its glossy jacket was glaring and new; it had been published two weeks +ago. But I had nothing to do with it!—he screamed to himself; the scream +seemed wasted on a merciless silence; nothing answered it, no echo of +forgiveness. The title on the book's jacket was Why Do You Think You Think? +There was no sound in that courtroom silence within him, no pity, no voice +of defense—nothing but the paragraphs which his great memory had reprinted on +his brain: "Thought is a primitive superstition. Reason is an irrational +idea. +The childish notion that we are able to think has been mankind's costliest +error." +"What you think you think is an illusion created by your glands, your +emotions and, in the last analysis, by the content of your stomach." +"That gray matter you're so proud of is like a mirror in an amusement park +which transmits to you nothing but distorted signals from a reality forever +beyond your grasp." +"The more certain you feel of your rational conclusions, the more certain +you are to be wrong. Your brain being an instrument of distortion, the more +active the brain the greater the distortion." +"The giants of the intellect, whom you admire so much, once taught you +that the earth was flat and that the atom was the smallest particle of +matter. The entire history of science is a progression of exploded fallacies, +not of achievements." +"The more we know, the more we learn that we know nothing." +"Only the crassest ignoramus can still hold to the old-fashioned notion +that seeing is believing. That which you see is the first thing to +disbelieve." +"A scientist knows that a stone is not a stone at all. It is, in fact, +identical with a feather pillow. Both are only a cloud formation of the same +invisible, whirling particles. But, you say, you can't use a stone for a +pillow? Well, that merely proves your helplessness in the face of actual +reality." +"The latest scientific discoveries—such as the tremendous achievements of +Dr. Robert Stadler—have demonstrated conclusively that our reason is +incapable of dealing with the nature of the universe. These discoveries have +led scientists to contradictions which are impossible, according to the human +mind, but which exist in reality nonetheless. +If you have not yet heard it, my dear old-fashioned friends, it has now +been proved that the rational is the insane." +"Do not expect consistency. Everything is a contradiction of everything +else. Nothing exists but contradictions." +"Do not look for 'common sense.' To demand 'sense' is the hallmark of +nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense. The only crusaders +for 'sense' are the studious type of adolescent old maid who can't find a boy +friend, and the old-fashioned shopkeeper who thinks that the universe is as +simple as his neat little inventory and beloved cash register." +"Let us break the chains of the prejudice called Logic. Are we going to be +stopped by a syllogism?" +"So you think you're sure of your opinions? You cannot be sure of +anything. Are you going to endanger the harmony of your community, your +fellowship with your neighbors, your standing, reputation, good name and +financial security—for the sake of an illusion? For the sake of the mirage of +thinking that you think? Are you going to run risks and court disasters—at a +precarious time like ours—by opposing the existing social order in the name +of those imaginary notions of yours which you call your convictions? You say +that you're sure you're right? Nobody is right, or ever can be. You feel that + + the world around you is wrong? You have no means to know it. Everything is +wrong in human eyes—so why fight it? Don't argue. Accept. Adjust yourself. +Obey." +The book was written by Dr. Floyd Ferris and published by the State +Science Institute. +"I had nothing to do with it!" said Dr. Robert Stadler. He stood still by +the side of his desk, with the uncomfortable feeling of having missed some +beat of time, of not knowing how long the preceding moment had lasted. He had +pronounced the words aloud, in a tone of rancorous sarcasm directed at +whoever had made him say it. +He shrugged. Resting on the belief that self-mockery is an act of virtue, +the shrug was the emotional equivalent of the sentence: You're Robert +Stadler, don't act like a high-school neurotic. He sat down at his desk and +pushed the book aside with the back of his hand. +Dr. Floyd Ferris arrived half an hour late. "Sorry," he said, "but my car +broke down again on the way from Washington and I had a hell of a time trying +to find somebody to fix it—there's getting to be so damn few cars out on the +road that half the service stations are closed." +There was more annoyance than apology in his voice. He sat down without +waiting for an invitation to do so. +- Dr. Floyd Ferris would not have been noticed as particularly handsome in +any other profession, but in the one he had chosen he was always described as +"that good-looking scientist." He was six feet tall and forty-five years old, +but he managed to look taller and younger. +He had an air of immaculate grooming and a ballroom grace of motion, but +his clothes were severe, his suits being usually black or midnight blue. He +had a finely traced mustache, and his smooth black hair made the Institute +office boys say that he used the same shoe polish on both ends of him. He did +not mind repeating, in the tone of a joke on himself, that a movie producer +once said he would cast him for the part of a titled European gigolo. He had +begun his career as a biologist, but that was forgotten long ago; he was +famous as the Top Co-ordinator of the State Science Institute. +Dr. Stadler glanced at him with astonishment—the lack of apology was +unprecedented—and said dryly, "It seems to me that you are spending a great +deal of your time in Washington." +"But, Dr. Stadler, wasn't it you who once paid me the compliment of +calling me the watchdog of this Institute?" said Dr. Ferris pleasantly. +"Isn't that my most essential duty?" +"A few of your duties seem to be accumulating right around this place. +Before I forget it, would you mind telling me what's going on here about that +oil shortage mess?" +He could not understand why Dr. Ferris' face tightened into an injured +look, "You will permit me to say that this is unexpected and unwarranted," +said Dr. Ferris in that tone of formality which conceals pain and reveals +martyrdom. "None of the authorities involved have found cause for criticism. +We have just submitted a detailed report on the progress of the work to date +to the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources, and Mr. Wesley +Mouch has expressed himself as satisfied. We have done our best on that +project. We have heard no one else describe it as a mess. Considering the +difficulties of the terrain, the hazards of the fire and the fact that it has +been only six months since we—" +"What are you talking about?" asked Dr. Stadler. +'The Wyatt Reclamation Project. Isn't that what you asked me?" +"No," said Dr. Stadler, "no, I . . . Wait a moment. Let me get this +straight. I seem to recall something about this Institute taking charge of a +reclamation project. What is it that you're reclaiming?" +"Oil," said Dr. Ferris. "The Wyatt oil fields." + + "That was a fire, wasn't it? In Colorado? That was . . . wait a moment . . +. that was the man who set fire to his own oil wells." +"I'm inclined to believe that that's a rumor created by public hysteria," +said Dr. Ferris dryly. '"A rumor with some undesirable, unpatriotic +implications. I wouldn't put too much faith in those newspaper stories. +Personally, I believe that it was an accident and that Ellis Wyatt perished +in the fire." +"Well, who owns those fields now?" +"Nobody—at the moment. There being no will or heirs, the government has +taken charge of operating the fields—as a measure of public necessity—for +seven years. If Ellis Wyatt does not return within that time, he will be +considered officially dead." +"Well, why did they come to you—to us, for such an unlikely assignment as +oil pumping?" +"Because it is a problem of great technological difficulty, requiring the +services of the best scientific talent available. You see, it is a matter of +reconstructing the special method of oil extraction that Wyatt had employed. +His equipment is still there, though in a dreadful condition; some of his +processes are known, but somehow there is no full record of the complete +operation or the basic principle involved. That is what we have to +rediscover." +"And how is it going?" +"The progress is most gratifying. We have just been granted a new and +larger appropriation. Mr. Wesley Mouch is pleased with our work. +So are Mr. Balch of the Emergency Commission, Mr. Anderson of Crucial +Supplies and Mr. Pettibone of Consumers' Protection. I do not see what more +could be expected of us. The project is fully successful." +"Have you produced any oil?" +"No, but we have succeeded in forcing a flow from one of the wells, to the +extent of six and a half gallons. This, of course, is merely of experimental +significance, but you must take into consideration the fact that we had to +spend three full months just to put out the fire, which has now been totally— +almost totally—extinguished. We have a much tougher problem than Wyatt ever +had, because he started from scratch while we have to deal with the +disfigured wreckage of an act of vicious, anti-social sabotage which . . . I +mean to say, it is a difficult problem, but there is no doubt that we will be +able to solve it." +"Well, what I really asked you about was the oil shortage here, in the +Institute. The level of temperature maintained in this building all winter +was outrageous. They told me that they had to conserve oil. +Surely you could have seen to it that the matter of keeping this place +adequately supplied with such things as oil was handled more efficiently." +"Oh, is that what you had in mind, Dr. Stadler? Oh, but I am so sorry!" +The words came with a bright smile of relief on Dr. Ferris' +face; his solicitous manner returned. "Do you mean that the temperature +was low enough to cause you discomfort?" +"I mean that I nearly froze to death." +"But that is unforgivable! Why didn't they tell me? Please accept my +personal apology, Dr. Stadler, and rest assured that you will never be +inconvenienced again. The only excuse I can offer for our maintenance +department is that the shortage of fuel was not due to their negligence, it +was—oh, I realize that you would not know about it and such matters should +not take up your invaluable attention—but, you see, the oil shortage last +winter was a nation-wide crisis." +"Why? For heaven's sake, don't tell me that those Wyatt fields were the +only source of oil in the country!" + + "No, no, but the sudden disappearance of a major supply wrought havoc in +the entire oil market. So the government had to assume control and impose oil +rationing on the country, in order to protect the essential enterprises. I +did obtain an unusually large quota for the Institute— +and only by the special favor of some very special connections—but I feel +abjectly guilty if this proved insufficient. Rest assured that it will not +happen again. It is only a temporary emergency. By next winter, we shall have +the Wyatt fields back in production, and conditions will return to normal. +Besides, as far as this Institute is concerned, I made all the arrangements +to convert our furnaces to coal, and it was to be done next month, only the +Stockton Foundry in Colorado closed down suddenly, without notice—they were +casting parts for our furnaces, but Andrew Stockton retired, quite +unexpectedly, and now we have to wait till his nephew reopens the plant." +"I see. Well, I trust that you will take care of it among all your other +activities." Dr. Stadler shrugged with annoyance. "It is becoming a little +ridiculous—the number of technological ventures that an institution of +science has to handle for the government." +"But, Dr. Stadler—" +“I know, I know, it can't be avoided. By the way, what is Project X?" +Dr. Ferris' eyes shot to him swiftly—an odd, bright glance of alertness, +that seemed startled, but not frightened. "Where did you hear about Project +X, Dr. Stadler?" +"Oh, I heard a couple of your younger boys saying something about it with +an air of mystery you'd expect from amateur detectives. They told me it was +something very secret." +"That's right, Dr. Stadler. It is an extremely secret research project +which the government has entrusted to us. And it is of utmost importance that +the newspapers get no word about it." +"What's the X?" +"Xylophone. Project Xylophone. That is a code name, of course. +The work has to do with sound. But I am sure that it would not interest +you. It is a purely technological undertaking." +"Yes, do spare me the story. I have no time for your technological +undertakings." +"May I suggest that it would be advisable to refrain from mentioning the +words 'Project X' to anyone, Dr. Stadler?" +"Oh, all right, all right. I must say I do not enjoy discussions of that +kind." +"But of course! And I wouldn't forgive myself if I allowed your time to be +taken up by such concerns. Please feel certain that you may safely leave it +to me." He made a movement to rise. "Now if this was the reason you wanted to +see me, please believe that I—" +"No,” said Dr. Stadler slowly. "This was not the reason I wanted to see +you." +Dr. Ferris volunteered no questions, no eager offers of service; he +remained seated, merely waiting. +Dr. Stadler reached over and made the book slide from the corner to the +center of his desk, with a contemptuous flick of one hand. "Will you tell me, +please," he asked, "what is this piece of indecency?" +Dr. Ferris did not glance at the book, but kept his eyes fixed on +Stadler's for an inexplicable moment; then he leaned back and said with an +odd smile, "I feel honored that you chose to make such an exception for my +sake as reading a popular book. This little piece has sold twenty thousand +copies in two weeks." +"I have read it." +"And?" +"I expect an explanation." + + "Did you find the text confusing?" +Dr. Stadler looked at him in bewilderment. "Do you realize what theme you +chose to treat and in what manner? The style alone, the style, the gutter +kind of attitude—for a subject of this nature!" +"Do you think, then, that the content deserved a more dignified form of +presentation?" The voice was so innocently smooth that Dr. +Stadler could not decide whether this was mockery. +"Do you realize what you're preaching in this book?" +"Since you do not seem to approve of it, Dr. Stadler, I'd rather have you +think that I wrote it innocently." +This was it, thought Dr. Stadler, this was the incomprehensible element in +Ferris' manner: he had supposed that an indication of his disapproval would +be sufficient, but Ferris seemed to remain untouched by it "If a drunken lout +could find the power to express himself on paper," +said Dr. Stadler, "if he could give voice to his essence—the eternal +savage, leering his hatred of the mind—this is the sort of book I would +expect him to write. But to see it come from a scientist, under the imprint +of this Institute!" +"But, Dr. Stadler, this book was not intended to be read by scientists. It +was written for that drunken lout." +"What do you mean?" +"For the general public." +"But, good God! The feeblest imbecile should be able to see the glaring +contradictions in every one of your statements." +"Let us put it this way, Dr. Stadler: the man who doesn't see that, +deserves to believe all my statements." +"But you've given the prestige of science to that unspeakable stuff! +It was all right for a disreputable mediocrity like Simon Pritchett to +drool it as some sort of woozy mysticism—nobody listened to him. But you've +made them think it's science. Science! You've taken the achievements of the +mind to destroy the mind. By what right did you use my work to make an +unwarranted, preposterous switch into another field, pull an inapplicable +metaphor and draw a monstrous generalization out of what is merely a +mathematical problem? By what right did you make it sound as if I—I!-—gave my +sanction to that book?" +Dr. Ferris did nothing, he merely looked at Dr. Stadler calmly; but the +calm gave him an air that was almost patronizing. "Now, you see, Dr. Stadler, +you're speaking as if this book were addressed to a thinking audience. If it +were, one would have to be concerned with such matters as accuracy, validity, +logic and the prestige of science. But it isn't. It's addressed to the +public. And you have always been first to believe that the public does not +think." He paused, but Dr, Stadler said nothing. +"This book may have no philosophical value whatever, but it has a great +psychological value." +"Just what is that?" +"You see, Dr. Stadler, people don't want to think. And the deeper they get +into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they +feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and +follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who +makes a virtue—a highly intellectual virtue— +out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt." +"And you propose to pander to that?" +"That is the road to popularity." +"Why should you seek popularity?" +Dr. Ferris' eyes moved casually to Dr. Stadler's face, as if by pure +accident. "We are a public institution," he answered evenly, "supported by +public funds." + + "So you tell people that science is a futile fraud which ought to be +abolished!" +"That is a conclusion which could be drawn, in logic, from my book. +But that is not the conclusion they will draw." +"And what about the disgrace to the Institute in the eyes of the men of +intelligence, wherever such may be left?” +"Why should we worry about them?" +Dr. Stadler could have regarded the sentence as conceivable, had it been +uttered with hatred, envy or malice; but the absence of any such emotion, the +casual ease of the voice, an ease suggesting a chuckle, hit him like a +moment's glimpse of a realm that could not be taken as part of reality; the +thing spreading down to his stomach was cold terror. +"Did you observe the reactions to my book, Dr. Stadler? It was received +with considerable favor." +"Yes—and that is what I find impossible to believe." He had to speak, he +had to speak as if this were a civilized discussion, he could not allow +himself time to know what it was he had felt for a moment. +"I am unable to understand the attention you received in all the reputable +academic magazines and how they could permit themselves to discuss your book +seriously. If Hugh Akston were around, no academic publication would have +dared to treat this as a work admissible into the realm of philosophy." +"He is not around." +Dr. Stadler felt that there were words which he was now called upon to +pronounce—and he wished he could end this conversation before he discovered +what they were. +"On the other hand," said Dr, Ferris, "the ads for my book—oh, I'm sure +you wouldn't notice such things as ads—quote a letter of high praise which I +received from Mr. Wesley Mouch." +"Who the hell is Mr. Wesley Mouch?" +Dr. Ferris smiled. "In another year, even you won't ask that question, Dr. +Stadler. Let us put it this way: Mr. Mouch is the man who is rationing oil— +for the time being." +"Then I suggest that you stick to your job. Deal with Mr. Mouch and leave +him the realm of oil furnaces, but leave the realm of ideas to me." +"It would be curious to try to formulate the line of demarcation,” +said Dr. Ferris, in the tone of an idle academic remark. "But if we're +talking about my book, why, then we're talking about the realm of public +relations." He turned to point solicitously at the mathematical formulas +chalked on the blackboard. "Dr. Stadler, it would be disastrous if you +allowed the realm of public relations to distract you from the work which you +alone on earth are capable of doing." +It was said with obsequious deference, and Dr. Stadler could not tell what +made him hear in it the sentence: "Stick to your blackboard!" +He felt a biting irritation and he switched it against himself, thinking +angrily that he had to get rid of these suspicions. +"Public relations?" he said contemptuously. "I don't see any practical +purpose in your book. I don't see what it's intended to accomplish." +"Don't you?" Dr. Ferris1 eyes flickered briefly to his face; the sparkle +of insolence was too swift to be identified with certainty. +"I cannot permit myself to consider certain things as possible in a +civilized society," Dr. Stadler said sternly. +"That is admirably exact," said Dr. Ferris cheerfully. "You cannot permit +yourself." +Dr. Ferris rose, being first to indicate that the interview was ended. +"Please call for me whenever anything occurs in this Institute to cause +you discomfort, Dr. Stadler," he said. "It is my privilege always to be at +your service." + + Knowing that he had to assert his authority, smothering the shameful +realization of the sort of substitute he was choosing, Dr. Stadler said +imperiously, in a tone of sarcastic rudeness, "The next time I call for you, +you'd better do something about that car of yours." +"Yes, Dr. Stadler. I shall make certain never to be late again, and I beg +you to forgive me." Dr. Ferris responded as if playing a part on cue; as if +he were pleased that Dr. Stadler had learned, at last, the modern method of +communication. "My car has been causing me a great deal of trouble, it's +falling to pieces, and I had ordered a new one sometime ago, the best one on +the market, a Hammond convertible— +but Lawrence Hammond went out of business last week, without reason or +warning, so now I'm stuck. Those bastards seem to be vanishing somewhere. +Something will have to be done about it." +When Ferris had gone, Dr. Stadler sat at his desk, his shoulders shrinking +together, conscious only of a desperate wish not to be seen by anyone. In the +fog of the pain which he would not define, there was also the desperate +feeling that no one—no one of those he valued— +would ever wish to see him again. +He knew the words which he had not uttered. He had not said that he would +denounce the book in public and repudiate it in the name of the Institute. He +had not said it, because he had been afraid to discover that the threat would +leave Ferris unmoved, that Ferris was safe, that the word of Dr. Robert +Stadler had no power any longer. And while he told himself that he would +consider later the question of making a public protest, he knew that he would +not make it. +He picked up the book and let it drop into the wastebasket. +A face came to his mind, suddenly and clearly, as if he were seeing the +purity of its every line, a young face he had not permitted himself to recall +for years. He thought: No, he has not read this book, he won't see it, he's +dead, he must have died long ago. . . . The sharp pain was the shock of +discovering simultaneously that this was the man he longed to see more than +any other being in the world—and that he had to hope that this man was dead. +He did not know why—when the telephone rang and his secretary told him +that Miss Dagny Taggart was on the line—why he seized the receiver with +eagerness and noticed that his hand was trembling. She would never want to +see him again, he had thought for over a year. He heard her clear, impersonal +voice asking for an appointment to see him. +"Yes, Miss Taggart, certainly, yes, indeed. . . . Monday morning? +Yes—look, Miss Taggart, I have an engagement in New York today, I could +drop in at your office this afternoon, if you wish. . . . No, no —no trouble +at all, I'll be delighted. . . . This afternoon, Miss Taggart, about two—I +mean, about four o'clock." +He had no engagement in New York. He did not give himself time to know +what had prompted him to do it. He was smiling eagerly, looking at a patch of +sunlight on a distant hill. +Dagny drew a black line across Train Number 93 on the schedule, and felt a +moment's desolate satisfaction in noting that she did it calmly. It was an +action which she had had to perform many times in the last six months. It had +been hard, at first; it was becoming easier. +The day would come, she thought, when she would be able to deliver that +death stroke even without the small salute of an effort. Train Number 93 was +a freight that had earned its living by carrying supplies to Hammondsville, +Colorado. +She knew what steps would come next: first, the death of the special +freights—then the shrinking in the number of boxcars for Hammondsville, +attached, like poor relatives, to the rear end of freights bound for other +towns—then the gradual cutting of the stops at Hammondsville Station from the + + schedules of the passenger trains—then the day when she would strike +Hammondsville, Colorado, off the map. That had been the progression of Wyatt +Junction and of the town called Stockton. +She knew—once word was received that Lawrence Hammond had retired—that it +was useless to wait, to hope and to wonder whether his cousin, his lawyer or +a committee of local citizens would reopen the plant. She knew it was time to +start cutting the schedules. +It had lasted less than six months after Ellis Wyatt had gone—that period +which a columnist had gleefully called "the field day of the little fellow." +Every oil operator in the country, who owned three wells and whined that +Ellis Wyatt left him no chance of livelihood, had rushed to fill the hole +which Wyatt had left wide open. They formed leagues, cooperatives, +associations; they pooled their resources and their letter heads, "The little +fellow's day in the sun," the columnist had said. Their sun had been the +flames that twisted through the derricks of Wyatt Oil. In its glare, they +made the kind of fortunes they had dreamed about, fortunes requiring no +competence or effort. Then their biggest customers, such as power companies, +who drank oil by the trainful and would make no allowances for human frailty, +began to convert to coal —and the smaller customers, who were more tolerant, +began to go out of business—the boys in Washington imposed rationing on oil +and an emergency tax on employers to support the unemployed oil field +workers—then a few of the big oil companies closed down—then the little +fellows in the sun discovered that a drilling bit which had cost a hundred +dollars, now cost them five hundred, there being no market for oil field +equipment, and the suppliers having to earn on one drill what they had earned +on five, or perish—then the pipe lines began to close, there being no one +able to pay for their upkeep—then the railroads were granted permission to +raise their freight rates, there being little oil to carry and the cost of +running tank trains having crushed two small lines out of existence—and when +the sun went down, they saw that the operating costs, which had once +permitted them to exist on their sixty-acre fields, had been made possible by +the miles of Wyatt's hillside and had gone in the same coils of smoke. Not +until their fortunes had vanished and their pumps had stopped, did the little +fellows realize that no business in the country could afford to buy oil at +the price it would now take them to produce it. Then the boys in Washington +granted subsidies to the oil operators, but not all of the oil operators had +friends in Washington, and there followed a situation which no one cared to +examine too closely or to discuss. +Andrew Stockton had been in the sort of position which most of the +businessmen envied. The rush to convert to coal had descended upon his +shoulders like a weight of gold: he had kept his plant working around the +clock, running a race with next winter's blizzards, casting parts for coalburning stoves and furnaces. There were not many dependable foundries left; +he had become one of the main pillars supporting the cellars and kitchens of +the country. The pillar collapsed without warning. Andrew Stockton announced +that lie was retiring, closed his plant and vanished. He left no word on what +he wished to be done with the plant or whether his relatives had the right to +reopen it. +There still were cars on the roads of the country, but they moved like +travelers in the desert, who ride past the warning skeletons of horses +bleached by the sun: they moved past the skeletons of cars that had collapsed +on duty and had been left in the ditches by the side of the road. People were +not buying cars any longer, and the automobile factories were closing. But +there were men still able to get oil, by means of friendships that nobody +cared to question. These men bought cars at any price demanded. Lights +flooded the mountains of Colorado from the great windows of the plant, where +the assembly belts of Lawrence Hammond poured trucks and cars to the sidings + + of Taggart Transcontinental. The word that Lawrence Hammond had retired came +when least expected, brief and sudden like the single stroke of a bell in a +heavy stillness. A committee of local citizens was now broadcasting appeals +on the radio, begging Lawrence Hammond, wherever he was, to give them +permission to reopen his plant. There was no answer. +She had screamed when Ellis Wyatt went; she had gasped when Andrew +Stockton retired; when she heard that Lawrence Hammond had quit, she asked +impassively, "Who's next?" +"No, Miss Taggart, I can't explain it," the sister of Andrew Stockton had +told her on her last trip to Colorado, two months ago. "He never said a word +to me and I don't even know whether he's dead or living, same as Ellis Wyatt. +No, nothing special had happened the day before he quit. I remember only that +some man came to see him on that last evening. A stranger I'd never seen +before. They talked late into the night—when I went to sleep, the light was +still burning in Andrew's study." +People were silent in the towns of Colorado. Dagny had seen the way they +walked in the streets, past their small drugstores, hardware stores and +grocery markets: as if they hoped that the motions of their jobs would save +them from looking ahead at the future. She, too, had walked through those +streets, trying not to lift her head, not to see the ledges of sooted rock +and twisted steel, which had been the Wyatt oil fields. They could be seen +from many of the towns; when she had looked ahead, she had seen them in the +distance. +One well, on the crest of the hill, was still burning. Nobody had been +able to extinguish it. She had seen it from the streets: a spurt of fire +twisting convulsively against the sky, as if trying to tear loose. She had +seen it at night, across the distance of a hundred clear, black miles, from +the window of a train: a small, violent flame, waving in the wind. +People called it Wyatt's Torch. +The longest train on the John Galt Line had forty cars; the fastest ran at +fifty miles an hour. The engines had to be spared: they were coal burning +engines, long past their age of retirement. Jim obtained the oil for the +Diesels that pulled the Comet and a few of their transcontinental freights. +The only source of fuel she could count on and deal with was Ken Danagger of +Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania. +Empty trains clattered through the four states that were tied, as +neighbors, to the throat of Colorado. They carried a few carloads of sheep, +some corn, some melons and an occasional farmer with an overdressed family, +who had friends in Washington. Jim had obtained a subsidy from Washington for +every train that was run, not as a profit making carrier, but as a service of +"public equality." +It took every scrap of her energy to keep trains running through the +sections where they were still needed, in the areas that were still +producing. But on the balance sheets of Taggart Transcontinental, the checks +of Jim's subsidies for empty trains bore larger figures than the profit +brought by the best freight train of the busiest industrial division. +Jim boasted that this had been the most prosperous six months in Taggart +history. Listed as profit, on the glossy pages of his report to the +stockholders, was the money he had not earned—the subsidies for empty trains; +and the money he did not own—the sums that should have gone to pay the +interest and the retirement of Taggart bonds, the debt which, by the will of +Wesley Mouch, he had been permitted not to pay. He boasted about the greater +volume of freight carried by Taggart trains in Arizona—where Dan Conway had +closed the last of the Phoenix-Durango and retired; and in Minnesota—where +Paul Larkin was shipping iron ore by rail, and the last of the ore boats on +the Great Lakes had gone out of existence. + + "You have always considered money-making as such an important virtue," Jim +had said to her with an odd half-smile. "Well, it seems to me that I'm better +at it than you are." +Nobody professed to understand the question of the frozen railroad bonds; +perhaps, because everybody understood it too well. At first, there had been +signs of a panic among the bondholders and of a dangerous indignation among +the public. Then, Wesley Mouch had issued another directive, which ruled that +people could get their bonds "defrozen" upon a plea of "essential need": the +government would purchase the bonds, if it found the proof of the need +satisfactory. There were three questions that no one answered or asked: "What +constituted proof?" "What constituted need?" "Essential—to whom?" +Then it became bad manners to discuss why one man received the grant +defreezing his money, while another had been refused. People turned away in +mouth-pinched silence, if anybody asked a "why?" One was supposed to +describe, not to explain, to catalogue facts, not to evaluate them: Mr. Smith +had been defrozen, Mr. Jones had not; that was all. And when Mr. Jones +committed suicide, people said, "Well, I don't know, if he'd really needed +his money, the government would have given it to him, but some men arc just +greedy." +One was not supposed to speak about the men who, having been refused, sold +their bonds for one-third of the value to other men who possessed needs +which, miraculously, made thirty-three frozen cents melt into a whole dollar; +or about a new profession practiced by bright young boys just out of college, +who called themselves "defreezers" and offered their services "to help you +draft your application in the proper modern terms." The boys had friends in +Washington, Looking at the Taggart rail from the platform of some country +station, she had found herself feeling, not the brilliant pride she had once +felt, but a foggy, guilty shame, as if some foul kind of rust had grown on +the metal, and worse: as if the rust had a tinge of blood. But then, in the +concourse of the Terminal, she looked at the statue of Nat Taggart and +thought: It was your rail, you made it, you fought for it, you were not +stopped by fear or by loathing—I won't surrender it to the men of blood and +rust—and I'm the only one left to guard it. +She had not given up her quest for the man who invented the motor. +It was the only part of her work that made her able to bear the rest. +It was the only goal in sight that gave meaning to her struggle. There +were times when she wondered why she wanted to rebuild that motor. +What for?—some voice seemed to ask her. Because I'm still alive, she +answered. But her quest had remained futile. Her two engineers had found +nothing in Wisconsin. She had sent them to search through the country for men +who had worked for Twentieth Century, to learn the name of the inventor. They +had learned nothing. She had sent them to search through the files of the +Patent Office; no patent for the motor had ever been registered. +The only remnant of her personal quest was the stub of the cigarette with +the dollar sign. She had forgotten it, until a recent evening, when she had +found it in a drawer of her desk and given it to her friend at the cigar +counter of the concourse. The old man had been very astonished, as he +examined the stub, holding it cautiously between two fingers; he had never +heard of such a brand and wondered how he could have missed it. "Was it of +good quality, Miss Taggart?" "The best I've ever smoked." He had shaken his +head, puzzled. He had promised to discover where those cigarettes were made +and to get her a carton. +She had tried to find a scientist able to attempt the reconstruction of +the motor. She had interviewed the men recommended to her as the best in +their field. The first one, after studying the remnants of the motor and of +the manuscript, had declared, in the tone of a drill sergeant, that the thing +could not work, had never worked and he would prove that no. + + such motor could ever be made to work. The second one had drawled,, in the +tone of an answer to a boring imposition, that he did not know whether it +could be done or not and did not care to find out. The third had said, his +voice belligerently insolent, that he would attempt the task on a ten-year +contract at twenty-five thousand dollars a year—"After all, Miss Taggart, if +you expect to make huge profits on that motor, it's you who should pay for +the gamble of my time." The fourth, who was the youngest, had looked at her +silently for a moment and the lines of his face had slithered from blankness +into a suggestion of contempt. +"You know, Miss Taggart, I don't think that such a motor should ever be +made, even if somebody did learn how to make it. It would be so superior to +anything we've got that it would be unfair to lesser scientists, because it +would leave no field for their achievements and abilities. I don't think that +the strong should have the right to wound the self esteem of the weak." She +had ordered him out of her office, and had sat in incredulous horror before +the fact that the most vicious statement she had ever heard had been uttered +in a tone of moral righteousness. +The decision to speak to Dr. Robert Stadler had been her last recourse. +She had forced herself to call him, against the resistance of some +immovable point within her that felt like brakes slammed tight. She had +argued against herself. She had thought: I deal with men like Jim and Orren +Boyle—his guilt is less than theirs—why can't I speak to him? +She had found no answer, only a stubborn sense of reluctance, only the +feeling that of all the men on earth, Dr. Robert Stadler was the one she must +not call. +As she sat at her desk, over the schedules of the John Galt Line, waiting +for Dr. Stadler to come, she wondered why no first-rate talent had risen in +the field of science for years. She was unable to look for an answer. She was +looking at the black line which was the corpse of Train Number 93 on the +schedule before her. +A train has the two great attributes of life, she thought, motion and +purpose; this had been like a living entity, but now it was only a number of +dead freight cars and engines. Don't give yourself time to fee], she thought, +dismember the carcass as fast as possible, the engines are needed all over +the system, Ken Danagger in Pennsylvania needs trains, more trains, if only— +"Dr. Robert Stadler," said the voice of the interoffice communicator on +her desk. +He came in, smiling; the smile seemed to underscore his words: "Miss +Taggart, would you care to believe how helplessly glad I am to see you +again?" +She did not smile, she looked gravely courteous as she answered, "It was +very kind of you to come here." She bowed, her slender figure standing tautly +straight but for the slow, formal movement of her head. +"What if I confessed that all I needed was some plausible excuse in order +to come? Would it astonish you?" +"I would try not to overtax your courtesy." She did not smile. "Please sit +down, Dr. Stadler," +He looked brightly around him. "I've never seen the office of a railroad +executive. I didn't know it would be so . . . so solemn a place. Is that in +the nature of the job?" +"The matter on which I'd like to ask your advice is far removed from the +field of your interests, Dr. Stadler. You may think it odd that I should call +on you. Please allow me to explain my reason." +"The fact that you wished to call on me is a fully sufficient reason. If I +can be of any service to you, any service whatever, I don't know what would +please me more at this moment." His smile had an attractive quality, the + + smile of a man of the world who used it, not to cover his words, but to +stress the audacity of expressing a sincere emotion. +"My problem is a matter of technology," she said, in the clear, +expressionless tone of a young mechanic discussing a difficult assignment. +"I fully realize your contempt for that branch of science. I do not expect +you to solve my problem—it is not the kind of work which you do or care +about. I should like only to submit the problem to you, and then I'll have +just two questions to ask you. I had to call on you, because it is a matter +that involves someone's mind, a very great mind, and"—she spoke impersonally, +in the manner of rendering exact justice—"and you are the only great mind +left in this field." +She could not tell why her words bit him as they did. She saw the +stillness of his face, the sudden earnestness of the eyes, a strange +earnestness that seemed eager and almost pleading, then she heard his voice +come gravely, as if from under the pressure of some emotion that made it +sound simple and humble: "What is your problem, Miss Taggart?" +She told him about the motor and the place where she had found it; she +told him that it had proved impossible to learn the name of the inventor; she +did not mention the details of her quest. She handed him photographs of the +motor and the remnant of the manuscript. +She watched him as he read. She saw the professional assurance in the +swift, scanning motion of his eyes, at first, then the pause, then the +growing intentness, then a movement of his lips which, from another man, +would have been a whistle or a gasp. She saw him stop for long minutes and +look off, as if his mind were racing over countless sudden trails, trying to +follow them all—she saw him leaf back through the pages, then stop, then +force himself to read on, as if he were torn between his eagerness to +continue and his eagerness to seize all the possibilities breaking open +before his vision. She saw his silent excitement, she knew that he had +forgotten her office, her existence, everything but the sight of an +achievement—and in tribute to his being capable of such reaction, she wished +it were possible for her to like Dr. Robert Stadler. +They had been silent for over an hour, when he finished and looked up at +her. "But this is extraordinary!" he said in the joyous, astonished tone of +announcing some news she had not expected. +She wished she could smile in answer and grant him the comradeship of a +joy celebrated together, but she merely nodded and said coldly, "Yes." +"But, Miss Taggart, this is tremendous!" +"Yes." +"Did you say it's a matter of technology? It's more, much, much more than +that. The pages where he writes about his converter—you can see what premise +he's speaking from. He arrived at some new concept of energy. He discarded +all our standard assumptions, according to which his motor would have been +impossible. He formulated a new premise of his own and he solved the secret +of converting static energy into kinetic power. Do you know what that means? +Do you realize what a feat of pure, abstract science he had to perform before +he could make his motor?" +"Who?" she asked quietly. +"I beg your pardon?" +"That was the first of the two questions I wanted to ask you, Dr. +Stadler: can you think of any young scientist you might have known ten +years ago, who would have been able to do this?" +He paused, astonished; he had not had time to wonder about that question. +"No," he said slowly, frowning, "no, I can't think of anyone. +. . . And that's odd . . . because an ability of this kind couldn't have +passed unnoticed anywhere . . . somebody would have called him to my +attention . . . they always sent promising young physicists to me. + + . . . Did you say you found this in the research laboratory of a plain, +commercial motor factory?" +"Yes." +"That's odd. What was he doing in such a place?" +"Designing a motor." +"That's what I mean. A man with the genius of a great scientist, who chose +to be a commercial inventor? I find it outrageous. He wanted a motor, and he +quietly performed a major revolution in the science of energy, just as a +means to an end, and he didn't bother to publish his findings, but went right +on making his motor. Why did he want to waste his mind on practical +appliances?" +"Perhaps because he liked living on this earth," she said involuntarily. +"I beg your pardon?" +"No, I . . . I'm sorry, Dr. Stadler. I did not intend to discuss any . . . +irrelevant subject." +He was looking off, pursuing his own course of thought, "Why didn't he +come to me? Why wasn't he in some great scientific establishment where he +belonged? If he had the brains to achieve this, surely he had the brains to +know the importance of what he had done. Why didn't he publish a paper on his +definition of energy? I can see the general direction he'd taken, but God +damn him!—the most important pages are missing, the statement isn't here! +Surely somebody around him should have known enough to announce his work to +the whole world of science. Why didn't they? How could they abandon, just +abandon, a thing of this kind?" +"These are the questions to which I found no answers." +"And besides, from the purely practical aspect, why was that motor left in +a junk pile? You'd think any greedy fool of an industrialist would have +grabbed it in order to make a fortune. No intelligence was needed to see its +commercial value." +She smiled for the first time—a smile ugly with bitterness; she said +nothing. +"You found it impossible to trace the inventor?" he asked. +"Completely impossible—so far." +"Do you think that he is still alive?" +"I have reason to think that he is. But I can't be sure." +"Suppose I tried to advertise for him?" +"No. Don't." +"But if I were to place ads in scientific publications and have Dr. +Ferris"—he stopped; he saw her glance at him as swiftly as he glanced at +her; she said nothing, but she held his glance; he looked away and finished +the sentence coldly and firmly—"and have Dr. Ferris broadcast on the radio +that I wish to see him, would he refuse to come?" +"Yes, Dr. Stadler, I think he would refuse." +He was not looking at her. She saw the faint tightening of his facial +muscles and, simultaneously, the look of something going slack in the lines +of his face; she could not tell what sort of light was dying within him nor +what made her think of the death of a light. +He tossed the manuscript down on the desk with a casual, contemptuous +movement of his wrist. 'Those men who do not mind being practical enough to +sell their brains for money, ought to acquire a little knowledge of the +conditions of practical reality." +He looked at her with a touch of defiance, as if waiting for an angry +answer. But her answer was worse than anger: her face remained +expressionless, as if the truth or falsehood of his convictions were of no +concern to her any longer. She said politely, "The second question I wanted +to ask you was whether you would be kind enough to tell me the name of any + + physicist you know who, in your judgment, would possess the ability to +attempt the reconstruction of this motor." +He looked at her and chuckled; it was a sound of pain. "Have you been +tortured by it, too, Miss Taggart? By the impossibility of finding any sort +of intelligence anywhere?" +"I have interviewed some physicists who were highly recommended to me and +I have found them to be hopeless." +He leaned forward eagerly. "Miss Taggart," he asked, "did you call on me +because you trusted the integrity of my scientific judgment?" +The question was a naked plea. +"Yes," she answered evenly, "I trusted the integrity of your scientific +judgment." +He leaned back; he looked as if some hidden smile were smoothing the +tension away from his face. "I wish I could help you," he said, as to a +comrade. "I most selfishly wish I could help you, because, you see, this has +been my hardest problem—trying to find men of talent for my own staff. +Talent, hell! I'd be satisfied with just a semblance of promise —but the men +they send me couldn't be honestly said to possess the potentiality of +developing into decent garage mechanics. I don't know whether I am getting +older and more demanding, or whether the human race is degenerating, but the +world didn't seem to be so barren of intelligence in my youth. Today, if you +saw the kind of men I've had to interview, you'd—" +He stopped abruptly, as if at a sudden recollection. He remained silent; +he seemed to be considering something he knew, but did not wish to tell her; +she became certain of it, when he concluded brusquely, in that tone of +resentment which conceals an evasion, "No, I don't know anyone I'd care to +recommend to you." +"This was all I wanted to ask you, Dr. Stadler," she said. "Thank you for +giving me your time." +He sat silently still for a moment, as if he could not bring himself to +leave. +"Miss Taggart," he asked, "could you show me the actual motor itself?" +She looked at him, astonished. "Why, yes . . . if you wish. But it's in an +underground vault, down in our Terminal tunnels." +"I don't mind, if you wouldn't mind taking me down there. I have no +special motive. It's only my personal curiosity. I would like to see it— +that's all." +When they stood in the granite vault, over a glass case containing a shape +of broken metal, he took off his hat with a slow, absent movement—and she +could not tell whether it was the routine gesture of remembering that he was +in a room with a lady, or the gesture of baring one's head over a coffin. +They stood in silence, in the glare of a single light refracted from the +glass surface to their faces. Train wheels were clicking in the distance, and +it seemed at times as if a sudden, sharper jolt of vibration were about to +awaken an answer from the corpse in the glass case. +"It's so wonderful," said Dr. Stadler, his voice low. "It's so wonderful +to see a great, new, crucial idea which is not mine!" +She looked at him, wishing she could believe that she understood him +correctly. He spoke, in passionate sincerity, discarding convention, +discarding concern for whether it was proper to let her hear the confession +of his pain, seeing nothing but the face of a woman who was able to +understand: “Miss Taggart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's +resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit +trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own—they have no +inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness +for an equal— for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare +their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take + + pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them—while you'd give a year of your +life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, +and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their +acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible +proof of mediocrity., because that sort of world is what the man of +achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he +feels when surrounded by inferiors—hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom the +terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise +and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing +for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?" +"I've felt it all my life," she said. It was an answer she could not +refuse him. +"I know," he said—and there was beauty in the impersonal gentleness of his +voice. "I knew it the first time I spoke to you. That was why I came today—" +He stopped for the briefest instant, but she did not answer the appeal and he +finished with the same quiet gentleness, "Well, that was why I wanted to see +the motor." +"I understand," she said softly; the tone of her voice was the only form +of acknowledgment she could grant him. +"Miss Taggart," he said, his eyes lowered, looking at the glass case, "I +know a man who might be able to undertake the reconstruction of that motor. +He would not work for me—so he is probably the kind of man you want." +But by the time he raised his head—and before he saw the look of +admiration in her eyes, the open look he had begged for, the look of +forgiveness—he destroyed his single moment's atonement by adding in a voice +of drawing-room sarcasm, "Apparently, the young man had no desire to work for +the good of society or the welfare of science. He told me that he would not +take a government job. I presume he wanted the bigger salary he could hope to +obtain from a private employer." +He turned away, not to see the look that was fading from her face, not to +let himself know its meaning. "Yes," she said, her voice hard, "he is +probably the kind of man I want." +"He's a young physicist from the Utah Institute of Technology," +he said dryly. "His name is Quentin Daniels. A friend of mine sent him to +me a few months ago. He came to see me, but he would not take the job I +offered. I wanted him on my staff. He had the mind of a scientist. I don't +know whether he can succeed with your motor, but at least he has the ability +to attempt it. I believe you can still reach him at the Utah Institute of +Technology. I don't know what he's doing there now—they closed the Institute +a year ago." +"Thank you, Dr. Stadler. I shall get in touch with him." +"If . . . if you want me to, I'll be glad to help him with the theoretical +part of it. I'm going to do some work myself, starting from the leads of that +manuscript. I'd like to find the cardinal secret of energy that its author +had found. It's his basic principle that we must discover. If we succeed, Mr. +Daniels may finish the job, as far as your motor is concerned." +"I will appreciate any help you may care to give me, Dr. Stadler." +They walked silently -through the dead tunnels of the Terminal, down the +ties of a rusted track under a string of blue lights, to the distant glow of +the platforms. +At the mouth of the tunnel, they saw a man kneeling on the track, +hammering at a switch with the unrhythmical exasperation of uncertainty. +Another man stood watching him impatiently. +"Well, what's the matter with the damn thing?" asked the watcher. +"Don't know." +"You've been at it for an hour." +"Yeah." + + "How long is it going to take?" +"Who is John Galt?" +Dr. Stadler winced. They had gone past the men, when he said, "I don't +like that expression." +"I don't, either," she answered. +"Where did it come from?" +"Nobody knows." +They were silent, then he said, "I knew a John Galt once. Only he died +long ago." +"Who was he?" +"I used to think that he was still alive. But now I'm certain that he must +have died. He had such a mind that, had he lived, the whole world would have +been talking of him by now." +"But the whole world is talking of him." +He stopped still. "Yes . . ." he said slowly, staring at a thought that +had never struck him before, "yes . . . Why?" The word was heavy with the +sound of terror. +"Who was he, Dr. Stadler?" +"Why are they talking of him?" +"Who was he?" +He shook his head with a shudder and said sharply, "It's just a +coincidence. The name is not uncommon at all. It's a meaningless coincidence. +It has no connection with the man I knew. That man is dead." +He did not permit himself to know the full meaning of the words he added: +"He has to be dead." +* * * +The order that lay on his desk was marked "Confidential . . . +Emergency . . . Priority . . . Essential need certified by office of Top +Co-ordinator . . . for the account of Project X"—and demanded that he sell +ten thousand tons of Rearden Metal to the State Science Institute. +Rearden read it and glanced up at the superintendent of his mills who +stood before him without moving. The superintendent had come in and put the +order down on his desk without a word. +"I thought you'd want to see it," he said, in answer to Rearden's glance. +Rearden pressed a button, summoning Miss Ives. He handed the order to her +and said, "Send this back to wherever it came from. Tell them that I will not +sell any Rearden Metal to the State Science Institute." +Gwen Ives and the superintendent looked at him, at each other and back at +him again; what he saw in their eyes was congratulation. +"Yes, Mr. Rearden," Gwen Ives said formally, taking the slip as if it were +any other kind of business paper. She bowed and left the room. The +superintendent followed. +Rearden smiled faintly, in greeting to what they felt. He felt nothing +about that paper or its possible consequences. +By a sort of inner convulsion—which had been like tearing a plug out to +cut off the current of his emotions—he had told himself six months ago: Act +first, keep the mills going, feel later. It had made him able to watch +dispassionately the working of the Fair Share Law. +Nobody had known how that law was to be observed. First, he had been told +that he could not produce Rearden Metal in an amount greater than the tonnage +of the best special alloy, other than steel, produced by Orren Boyle. But +Orren Boyle's best special alloy was some cracking mixture that no one cared +to buy. Then he had been told that he could produce Rearden Metal in the +amount that Orren Boyle could have produced, if he could have produced it. +Nobody had known how this was to be determined. Somebody in Washington had + + announced a figure, naming a number of tons per year, giving no reasons. +Everybody had let it go at that. +He had not known how to give every consumer who demanded it an equal share +of Rearden Metal. The waiting list of orders could not be filled in three +years, even had he been permitted to work at full capacity. New orders were +coming in daily. They were not orders any longer, in the old, honorable sense +of trade; they were demands. The law provided that he could be sued by any +consumer who failed to receive his fair share of Rearden Metal. +Nobody had known how to determine what constituted a fair share of what +amount. Then a bright young boy just out of college had been sent to him from +Washington, as Deputy Director of Distribution. After many telephone +conferences with the capital, the boy announced that customers would get five +hundred tons of the Metal each, in the order of the dates of their +applications. Nobody had argued against his figure. +There was no way to form an argument; the figure could have been one pound +or one million tons, with the same validity. The boy had established an +office at the Rearden mills, where four girls took applications for shares of +Rearden Metal. At the present rate of the mills' +production, the applications extended well into the next century. +Five hundred tons of Rearden Metal could not provide three miles of rail +for Taggart Transcontinental; it could not provide the bracing for one of Ken +Danagger's coal mines. The largest industries, Rearden's best customers, were +denied the use of his Metal. But golf clubs made of Rearden Metal were +suddenly appearing on the market, as well as coffee pots, garden tools and +bathroom faucets. Ken Danagger, who had seen the value of the Metal and had +dared to order it against a fury of public opinion, was not permitted to +obtain it; his order had been left unfilled, cut off without warning by the +new laws. Mr. Mowen, who had betrayed Taggart Transcontinental in its most +dangerous hour, was now making switches of Rearden Metal and selling them to +the Atlantic Southern. Rearden looked on, his emotions plugged out. +He turned away, without a word, when anybody mentioned to him what +everybody knew: the quick fortunes that were being made on Rearden Metal. +"Well, no," people said in drawing rooms, "you mustn’t call it a black +market, because it isn't, really. Nobody is selling the Metal illegally. +They're just selling their right to it. Not selling really, just pooling +their shares." He did not want to know the insect intricacy of the deals +through which the "shares" were sold and pooled—nor how a manufacturer in +Virginia had produced, in two months, five thousand tons of castings made of +Rearden Metal—nor what man in Washington was that manufacturer's unlisted +partner. +He knew that their profit on a ton of Rearden Metal was five times larger +than his own. He said nothing. Everybody had a right to the Metal, except +himself. +The young boy from Washington—whom the steel workers had nicknamed the Wet +Nurse—hung around Rearden with a primitive, astonished curiosity which, +incredibly, was a form of admiration. Rearden watched him with disgusted +amusement. The boy had no inkling of any concept of morality; it had been +bred out of him by his college; this had left him an odd frankness, naive and +cynical at once, like the innocence of a savage. +"You despise me, Mr. Rearden," he had declared once, suddenly and without +any resentment. "That's impractical." +"Why is it impractical?" Rearden had asked. +The boy had looked puzzled and had found no answer. He never had an answer +to any "why?" He spoke in flat assertions. He would say about people, "He's +old-fashioned," "He's unreconstructed," "He's unadjusted," without hesitation +or explanation; he would also say, while being a graduate in metallurgy, +"Iron smelting, I think, seems to require a high temperature." He uttered + + nothing but uncertain opinions about physical nature—and nothing but +categorical imperatives about men. +"Mr. Rearden," he had said once, "if you feel you'd like to hand out more +of the Metal to friends of yours—I mean, in bigger hauls—it could be +arranged, you know. Why don't we apply for a special permission on the ground +of essential need? I've got a few friends in Washington. Your friends are +pretty important people, big businessmen, so it wouldn't be difficult to get +away with the essential need dodge. Of course, there would be a few expenses. +For things in Washington, You know how it is, things always occasion +expenses." +"What things?" +"You understand what I mean." +"No," Rearden had said, "I don't. Why don't you explain it to me?" +The boy had looked at him uncertainly, weighed it in his mind, then come +out with: "It's bad psychology." +"What is?" +"You know, Mr. Rearden, it's not necessary to use such words as that." +"As what?" +"Words are relative. They're only symbols. If we don't use ugly symbols, +we won't have any ugliness. Why do you want me to say things one way, when +I've already said them another?" +"Which way do I want you to say them?" +"Why do you want me to?" +"For the same reason that you don't." +The boy had remained silent for a moment, then had said, "You know, Mr. +Rearden, there are no absolute standards. We can't go by rigid principles, +we've got to be flexible, we've got to adjust to the reality of the day and +act on the expediency of the moment." +"Run along, punk. Go and try to pour a ton of steel without rigid +principles, on the expediency of the moment." +A strange sense, which was almost a sense of style, made Rearden feel +contempt for the boy, but no resentment. The boy seemed to fit the spirit of +the events around them. It was as if they were being carried back across a +long span of centuries to the age where the boy had belonged, but he, +Rearden, had not. Instead of building new furnaces, thought Rearden, he was +now running a losing race to keep the old ones going; instead of starting new +ventures, new research, new experiments in the use of Rearden Metal, he was +spending the whole of his energy on a quest for sources of iron ore: like the +men at the dawn of the Iron Age—he thought—but with less hope. +He tried to avoid these thoughts. He had to stand on guard against his own +feeling—as if some part of him had become a stranger that had to be kept +numb, and his will had to be its constant, watchful anesthetic. That part was +an unknown of which he knew only that he must never see its root and never +give it voice. He had lived through one dangerous moment which he could not +allow to return. +It was the moment when—alone in his office, on a winter evening, held +paralyzed by a newspaper spread on his desk with a long column of directives +on the front page—he had heard on the radio the news of Ellis Wyatt's flaming +oil fields. Then, his first reaction—before any thought of the future, any +sense of disaster, any shock, terror or protest —had been to burst out +laughing. He had laughed in triumph, in deliverance, in a spurting, living +exultation—and the words which he had not pronounced, but felt, were: God +bless you, Ellis, whatever you're doing! +When he had grasped the implications of his laughter, he had known that he +was now condemned to constant vigilance against himself. Like the survivor of +a heart attack, he knew that he had had a warning and that he carried within +him a danger that could strike him at any moment. + + He had held it off, since then. He had kept an even, cautious, severely +controlled pace in his inner steps. But it had come close to him for a +moment, once again. When he had looked at the order of the State Science +Institute on his desk, it had seemed to him that the glow moving over the +paper did not come from the furnaces outside, but from the flames of a +burning oil field. +"Mr. Rearden," said the Wet Nurse, when he heard about the rejected order, +"you shouldn't have done that." +"Why not?" +"There's going to be trouble." +"What kind of trouble?" +"It's a government order. You can't reject a government order." +"Why can't I?" +"It's an Essential Need project, and secret, too. It's very important." +"What kind of a project is it?" +"I don't know. It's secret." +"Then how do you know it's important?" +"It said so." +"Who said so?" +"You can't doubt such a thing as that, Mr. Rearden!" +"Why can't 1?" +"But you can't." +"If I can't, then that would make it an absolute and you said there aren't +any absolutes." +"That's different." +"How is it different?" +"It's the government." +"You mean, there aren't any absolutes except the government?" +"I mean, if they say it's important, then it is." +"Why?" +"I don't want you to get in trouble, Mr. Rearden, and you're going to, +sure as hell. You ask too many why's. Now why do you do that?" +Rearden glanced at him and chuckled. The boy noticed his own words and +grinned sheepishly, but he looked unhappy. +The man who came to see Rearden a week later was youngish and slenderish, +but neither as young nor as slender as he tried to make himself appear. He +wore civilian clothes and the leather leggings of a traffic cop. Rearden +could not quite get it clear whether he came from the State Science Institute +or from Washington. +"I understand that you refused to sell metal to the State Science +Institute, Mr. Rearden," he said in a soft, confidential tone of voice. +"That's right," said Rearden. +"But wouldn't that constitute a willful disobedience of the law?" +"It's for you to interpret." +"May I ask your reason?" +"My reason is of no interest to you." +"Oh, but of course it is! We are not your enemies, Mr. Rearden. We want to +be fair to you. You mustn't be afraid of the fact that you are a big +industrialist. We won't hold it against you. We actually want to be as fair +to you as to the lowest day laborer. We would like to know your reason." +"Print my refusal in the newspapers, and any reader will tell you my +reason. It appeared in all the newspapers a little over a year ago." +"Oh, no, no, no! Why talk of newspapers? Can't we settle this as a +friendly, private matter?" +"That's up to you." +"We don't want this in the newspapers." +"No?" + + "No. We wouldn't want to hurt you." +Rearden glanced at him and asked, "Why does the State Science Institute +need ten thousand tons of metal? What is Project X?" +"Oh, that? It's a very important project of scientific research, an +undertaking of great social value that may prove of inestimable public +benefit, but, unfortunately, the regulations of top policy do not permit me +to tell you its nature in fuller detail." +"You know," said Rearden, "I could tell you—as my reason—that I do not +wish to sell my Metal to those whose purpose is kept secret from me. I +created that Metal. It is my moral responsibility to know for what purpose I +permit it to be used." +"Oh, but you don't have to worry about that, Mr. Rearden! We relieve you +of the responsibility." +"Suppose I don't wish to be relieved of it?" +"But . . . but that is an old-fashioned and . . . and purely theoretical +attitude." +"I said I could name it as my reason. But I won't—because, in this case, I +have another, inclusive reason. I would not sell any Rearden Metal to the +State Science Institute for any purpose whatever, good or bad, secret or +open." +"But why?" +"Listen," said Rearden slowly, "there might be some sort of justification +for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could +murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best he could. But +there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to +manufacture the weapons for his own murderers." +"I don't think it's advisable to use such words, Mr. Rearden. I don't +think it's practical to think in such terms. After all, the government +cannot—in the pursuit of wide, national policies—take cognizance of your +personal grudge against some one particular institution." +"Then don't take cognizance of it." +"What do you mean?" +"Don't come asking my reason." +"But, Mr. Rearden, we cannot let a refusal to obey the law pass unnoticed. +What do you expect us to do?" +"Whatever you wish." +"But this is totally unprecedented. Nobody has ever refused to sell an +essential commodity to the government. As a matter of fact, the law does not +permit you to refuse to sell your Metal to any consumer, let alone the +government." +"Well, why don't you arrest me, then?" +"Mr. Rearden, this is an amicable discussion. Why speak of such things as +arrests?" +"Isn't that your ultimate argument against me?" +"Why bring it up?" +"Isn't it implied in every sentence of this discussion?" +"Why name it?" +"Why not?" There was no answer. "Arc you trying to hide from me the fact +that if it weren't for that trump card of yours, I wouldn't have allowed you +to enter this office?" +"But I'm not speaking of arrests." +"I am.11 +"I don't understand you, Mr. Rearden." +"I am not helping you to pretend that this is any sort of amicable +discussion. It isn't. Now do what you please about it." + + There was a strange look on the man's face: bewilderment, as if he had no +conception of the issue confronting him, and fear, as if he had always had +full knowledge of it and had lived in dread of exposure. +Rearden felt a strange excitement; he felt as if he were about to grasp +something he had never understood, as if he were on the trail of some +discovery still too distant to know, except that it had the most immense +importance he had ever glimpsed. +"Mr. Rearden" said the man, "the government needs your Metal. +You have to sell it to us, because surely you realize that the +government's plans cannot be held up by the matter of your consent." +"A sale," said Rearden slowly, "requires the seller's consent." He got up +and walked to the window. "I'll tell you what you can do.” +He pointed to the siding where ingots of Rearden Metal were being loaded +onto freight cars. "There's Rearden Metal. Drive down there with your trucks— +like any other looter, but without his risk, because I won't shoot you, as +you know I can't—take as much of the Metal as you wish and go. Don't try to +send me payment. I won't accept it. +Don't print out a check to me. It won't be cashed. If you want that Metal, +you have the guns to seize it. Go ahead." +"Good God, Mr. Rearden, what would the public think!" +It was an instinctive, involuntary cry. The muscles of Rearden's face +moved briefly in a soundless laughter. Both of them had understood the +implications of that cry. Rearden said evenly, in the grave, unstrained tone +of finality, "You need my help to make it look like a sale—like a safe, just, +moral transaction. I will not help you." +The man did not argue. He rose to leave. He said only, "You will regret +the stand you've taken, Mr. Rearden." +"I don't think so," said Rearden. +He knew that the incident was not ended. He knew also that the secrecy of +Project X was not the main reason why these people feared to make the issue +public. He knew that he felt an odd, joyous, lighthearted self-confidence. He +knew that these were the right steps down the trail he had glimpsed. +Dagny lay stretched in an armchair of her living room, her eyes closed. +This day had been hard, but she knew that she would see Hank Rearden tonight. +The thought of it was like a lever lifting the weight of hours of senseless +ugliness away from her. +She lay still, content to rest with the single purpose of waiting quietly +for the sound of the key in the lock. He had not telephoned her, but she had +heard that he was in New York today for a conference with producers of +copper, and he never left the city till next morning, nor spent a night in +New York that was not hers. She liked to wait for him. She needed a span of +time as a bridge between her days and his nights. +The hours ahead, like all her nights with him, would be added, she +thought, to that savings account of one's life where moments of time are +stored in the pride of having been lived. The only pride of her workday was +not that it had been lived, but that it had been survived. +It was wrong, she thought, it was viciously wrong that one should ever be +forced to say that about any hour of one's life. But she could not think of +it now. She was thinking of him, of the struggle she had watched through the +months behind them, his struggle for deliverance; she had known that she +could help him win, but must help him in every way except in words. +She thought of the evening last winter when he came in, took a small +package from his pocket and held it out to her, saying, "I want you to have +it." She opened it and stared in incredulous bewilderment at a pendant made +of a single pear-shaped ruby that spurted a violent fire on the white satin +of the jeweler's box. It was a famous stone, which only a dozen men in the +world could properly afford to purchase; he was not one of them. + + "Hank . . . why?" +"No special reason. I just wanted to see you wear it." +"Oh, no, not a thing of this kind! Why waste it? I go so rarely to +occasions where one has to dress. When would I ever wear it?" +He looked at her, his glance moving slowly from her legs to her face. +"I'll show you," he said. +He led her to the bedroom, he took off her clothes, without a word, in the +manner of an owner undressing a person whose consent is not required. He +clasped the pendant on her shoulders. She stood naked, the stone between her +breasts, like a sparkling drop of blood. +"Do you think a man should give jewelry to his mistress for any purpose +but his own pleasure?" he asked. "This is the way I want you to wear it. Only +for me. I like to look at it. It's beautiful," +She laughed; it was a soft, low, breathless sound. She could not speak or +move, only nod silently in acceptance and obedience; she nodded several +times, her hair swaying with the wide, circular movement of her head, then +hanging still as she kept her head bowed to him. +She dropped down on the bed. She lay stretched lazily, her head thrown +back, her arms at her sides, palms pressed to the rough texture of the +bedspread, one leg bent, the long line of the other extended across the dark +blue linen of the spread, the stone glowing like a wound in the semidarkness, throwing a star of rays against her skin. +Her eyes were half-closed in the mocking, conscious triumph of being +admired, but her mouth was half-open in helpless, begging expectation. He +stood across the room, looking at her, at her flat stomach drawn in, as her +breath was drawn, at the sensitive body of a sensitive consciousness. He +said, his voice low, intent and oddly quiet: "Dagny, if some artist painted +you as you are now, men would come to look at the painting to experience a +moment that nothing could give them in their own lives. They would call it +great art. They would not know the nature of what they felt, but the painting +would show them everything—even that you're not some classical Venus, but the +Vice-President of a railroad, because that's part of it—even what I am, +because that's part of it, too. Dagny, they'd feel it and go away and sleep +with the first barmaid in sight—and they'd never try to reach what they had +felt. I wouldn't want to seek it from a painting. +I'd want it real. I'd take no pride in any hopeless longing. I wouldn't +hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it. +Do you understand?" +"Oh yes, Hank, 7 understand!" she said. Do you, my darling?—do you +understand it fully?—she thought, but did not say it aloud. +On the evening of a blizzard, she came home to find an enormous spread of +tropical flowers standing in her living room against the dark glass of +windows battered by snowflakes. They were stems of Hawaiian Torch Ginger, +three feet tall; their large heads were cones of petals that had the sensual +texture of soft leather and the color of blood. "I saw them in a florist's +window," he told her when he came, that night. +"I liked seeing them through a blizzard. But there's nothing as wasted as +an object in a public window." +She began to find flowers in her apartment at unpredictable times, flowers +sent without a card, but with the signature of the sender in their fantastic +shapes, in the violent colors, in the extravagant cost. He brought her a gold +necklace made of small hinged squares that formed a spread of solid gold to +cover her neck and shoulders, like the collar of a knight's armor—"Wear it +with a black dress," he ordered. He brought her a set of glasses that were +tall, slender blocks of square-cut crystal, made by a famous jeweler. She +watched the way he held one of the glasses when she served him a drink—as if +the touch of the texture under his fingers, the taste of the drink and the + + sight of her face were the single form of an indivisible moment of enjoyment. +"I used to see things I liked," he said, "but I never bought them. There +didn't seem to be much meaning in it. There is, now." +He telephoned her at the office, one winter morning, and said, not in the +tone of an invitation, but in the tone of an executive's order, "We're going +to have dinner together tonight, T want you to dress. Do you have any sort of +blue evening gown? Wear it." +The dress she wore was a slender tunic of dusty blue that gave her a look +of unprotected simplicity, the look of a statue in the blue shadows of a +garden under the summer sun. What he brought and put over her shoulders was a +cape of blue fox that swallowed her from the curve of her chin to the tips of +her sandals. "Hank, that's preposterous"—she laughed—"it's not my kind of +thing!" "No?" he asked, drawing her to a mirror. +The huge blanket of fur made her look like a child bundled for a +snowstorm; the luxurious texture transformed the innocence of the awkward +bundle into the elegance of a perversely intentional contrast: into a look of +stressed sensuality. The fur was a soft brown, dimmed by an aura of blue that +could not be seen, only felt like an enveloping mist, like a suggestion of +color grasped not by one's eyes but by one's hands, as if one felt, without +contact, the sensation of sinking one's palms into the fur's softness. The +cape left nothing to be seen of her, except the brown of her hair, the bluegray of her eyes, the shape of her mouth. +She turned to him, her smile startled and helpless. "I . . . I didn't know +it would look like that." +"I did." +She sat beside him in his car as he drove through the dark streets of the +city. A sparkling net of snow flashed into sight once in a while, when they +went past the lights on the corners. She did not ask where they were going. +She sat low in the scat, leaning back, looking up at the snowflakes. The fur +cape was wrapped tightly about her; within it, her dress felt as light as a +nightgown and the feel of the cape was like an embrace. +She looked at the angular tiers of lights rising through the snowy +curtain, and—glancing at him, at the grip of his gloved hands on the wheel, +at the austere, fastidious elegance of the figure in black overcoat and white +muffler—she thought that he belonged in a great city, among polished +sidewalks and sculptured stone. +The car went down into a tunnel, streaked through an echoing tube of tile +under the river and rose to the coils of an elevated highway under an open +black sky. The lights were below them now, spread in flat miles of bluish +windows, of smokestacks, slanting cranes, red gusts of fire, and long, dim +rays silhouetting the contorted shapes of an industrial district. She thought +that she had seen him once, at his mills, with smudges of soot on his +forehead, dressed in acid-eaten overalls; he had worn them as naturally well +as he wore his formal clothes. He belonged here, too—she thought, looking +down at the flats of New Jersey—among the cranes, the fires and the grinding +clatter of gears. +When they sped down a dark road through an empty countryside, with the +strands of snow glittering across their headlights—she remembered how he had +looked in the summer of their vacation, dressed in slacks, stretched on the +ground of a lonely ravine, with the grass under his body and the sun on his +bare arms. He belonged in the countryside, she thought—he belonged +everywhere—he was a man who belonged on earth—and then she thought of the +words which were more exact: he was a man to whom the earth belonged, the man +at home on earth and in control. Why, then—she wondered—should he have had to +carry a burden of tragedy which, in silent endurance, he had accepted so +completely that he had barely known he carried it? She knew part of the +answer; she felt as if the whole answer were close and she would grasp it on + + some approaching day. But she did not want to think of it now, because they +were moving away from the burdens, because within the space of a speeding car +they held the stillness of full happiness. She moved her head imperceptibly +to let it touch his shoulder for a moment. +The car left the highway and turned toward the lighted squares of distant +windows, that hung above the snow beyond a grillwork of bare branches. Then, +in a soft, dim light, they sat at a table by a window facing darkness and +trees. The inn stood on a knoll in the woods; it had the luxury of high cost +and privacy, and an air of beautiful taste suggesting that it had not been +discovered by those who sought high cost and notice. She was barely aware of +the dining room; it blended away into a sense of superlative comfort, and the +only ornament that caught her attention was the glitter of iced branches +beyond the glass of the window. +She sat, looking out, the blue fur half-slipping off her naked arms and +shoulders. He watched her through narrowed eyes, with the satisfaction of a +man studying his own workmanship. +"I like giving things to you," he said, "because you don't need them." +"No?" +"And it's not that I want you to have them. I want you to have them from +me." +"That is the way I do need them, Hank. From you." +"Do you understand that it's nothing but vicious self-indulgence on my +part? I'm not doing it for your pleasure, but for mine." +"Hank!" The cry was involuntary; it held amusement, despair, indignation +and pity. "If you'd given me those things just for my pleasure, not yours, I +would have thrown them in your face." +"Yes . . . Yes, then you would—and should." +"Did you call it your vicious self-indulgence?" +"That's what they call it." +"Oh, yes! That's what they call it. What do you call it, Hank?" +"I don't know," he said indifferently, and went on intently. "I know only +that if it's vicious, then let me be damned for it but that's what I want to +do more than anything else on earth." +She did not answer; she sat looking straight at him with a faint smile, as +if asking him to listen to the meaning of his own words. +"I've always wanted to enjoy my wealth," he said. "I didn't know how to do +it. I didn't even have time to know how much T wanted to. +But I knew that all the steel I poured came back to me as liquid gold, and +the gold was meant to harden into any shape I wished, and it was I who had to +enjoy it. Only I couldn't. I couldn't find any purpose for it. I've found it, +now. It's I who've produced that wealth and it's I who am going to let it buy +for me every kind of pleasure I want—including the pleasure of seeing Row +much I'm able to pay for—including the preposterous feat of turning you into +a luxury object." +"But I'm a luxury object that you've paid for long ago," she said; she was +not smiling. +"How?" +"By means of the same values with which you paid for your mills." +She did not know whether he understood it with that full, luminous +finality which is a thought named in words; but she knew that what he felt in +that moment was understanding. She saw the relaxation of an invisible smile +in his eyes. +"I've never despised luxury," he said, "yet I've always despised those who +enjoyed it. I looked at what they called their pleasures and it seemed so +miserably senseless to me—after what I felt at the mills. I used to watch +steel being poured, tons of liquid steel running as I wanted it to, where I +wanted it. And then I'd go to a banquet and I'd see people who sat trembling + + in awe before their own gold dishes and lace tablecloths, as if their dining +room were the master and they were just objects serving it, objects created +by their diamond shirt studs and necklaces, not the other way around. Then +I'd run to the sight of the first slag heap I could find—and they'd say that +I didn't know how to enjoy life, because I cared for nothing but business." +He looked at the dim, sculptured beauty of the room and at the people who +sat at the tables. They sat in a manner of self-conscious display, as if the +enormous cost of their clothes and the enormous care of their grooming should +have fused into splendor, but didn't. Their faces had a look of rancorous +anxiety. +"Dagny, look at those people. They're supposed to be the playboys of life, +the amusement-seekers and luxury-lovers. They sit there, waiting for this +place to give them meaning, not the other way around. +But they're always shown to us as the enjoyers of material pleasures —and +then we're taught that enjoyment of material pleasures is evil. +Enjoyment? Are they enjoying it? Isn't there some sort of perversion in +what we're taught, some error that's vicious and very important?" +"Yes, Hank—very vicious and very, very important." +"They are the playboys, while we're just tradesmen, you and I. Do you +realize that we're much more capable of enjoying this place than they can +ever hope to be?" +"Yes." +He said slowly, in the tone of a quotation, "Why have we left it all to +fools? It should have been ours." She looked at him, startled. He smiled. "I +remember every word you said to me at that party. I didn't answer you then, +because the only answer I had, the only thing your words meant to me, was an +answer that you would hate me for, I thought; it was that I wanted you." He +looked at her. "Dagny, you didn't intend it then, but what you were saying +was that you wanted to sleep with me, wasn't it?" +"Yes, Hank. Of course." +He held her eyes, then looked away. They were silent for a long time. He +glanced at the soft twilight around them, then at the sparkle of two wine +glasses on their table. "Dagny, in my youth, when I was working in the ore +mines in Minnesota, I thought that I wanted to reach an evening like this. +No, that was not what I was working for, and I didn't think of it often. But +once in a while, on a winter night, when the stars were out and it was very +cold, when I was tired, because I had worked two shifts, and wanted nothing +on earth except to lie down and fall asleep right there, on the mine ledge—I +thought that some day I would sit in a place like this, where one drink of +wine would cost more than my day's wages, and I would have earned the price +of every minute of it and of every drop and of every flower on the table, and +I would sit there for no purpose but my own amusement." +She asked, smiling, "With your mistress?" +She saw the shot of pain in his eyes and wished desperately that she had +not said it. +"With . . . a woman," he answered. She knew the word he had not +pronounced. He went on, his voice soft and steady: "When I became rich and +saw what the rich did for their amusement, I thought that the place I had +imagined, did not exist. I had not even imagined it too clearly. I did not +know what it would be like, only what I would feel. I gave up expecting it +years ago. But I feel it tonight." +He raised his glass, looking at her. +"Hank, I . . . I'd give up anything I've ever had in my life, except my +being a . . . a luxury object of your amusement." +He saw her hand trembling as she held her glass. He said evenly, "I know +it, dearest." + + She sat shocked and still: he had never used that word before. He threw +his head back and smiled the most brilliantly gay smile she had ever seen on +his face. +"Your first moment of weakness, Dagny," he said. +She laughed and shook her head. He stretched his arm across the table and +closed his hand over her naked shoulder, as if giving her an instant's +support. Laughing softly, and as if by accident, she let her mouth brush +against his fingers; it kept her face down for the one moment when he could +have seen that the brilliance of her eyes was tears. +When she looked up at him, her smile matched his—and the rest of the +evening was their celebration—for all his years since the nights on the mine +ledges—for all her years since the night of her first ball when, in desolate +longing for an uncaptured vision of gaiety, she had wondered about the people +who expected the lights and the flowers to make them brilliant. +"Isn't there . . . in what we're taught . . . some error that's vicious +and very important?"—she thought of his words, as she lay in an armchair of +her living room, on a dismal evening of spring, waiting for him to come. . . +. Just a little farther, my darling—she thought— +look a little farther and you'll be free of that error and of all the +wasted pain you never should have had to carry. . . . But she felt that she, +too, had not seen the whole of the distance, and she wondered what were the +steps left for her to discover. . . . +Walking through the darkness of the streets, on his way to her apartment, +Rearden kept his hands in his coat pockets and his arms pressed to his sides, +because he felt that he did not want to touch anything or brush against +anyone. He had never experienced it before —this sense of revulsion that was +not aroused by any particular object, but seemed to flood everything around +him, making the city seem sodden. He could understand disgust for any one +thing, and he could fight that thing with the healthy indignation of knowing +that it did not belong in the world; but this was new to him—this feeling +that the world was a loathsome place where he did not want to belong. +He had held a conference with the producers of copper, who had just been +garroted by a set of directives that would put them out of existence in +another year. He had had no advice to give them, no solution to offer; his +ingenuity, which had made him famous as the man who would always find a way +to keep production going, had not been able to discover a way to save them. +But they had all known that there was no way; ingenuity was a virtue of the +mind—and in the issue confronting them, the mind had been discarded as +irrelevant long ago. "It's a deal between the boys in Washington and the +importers of copper," one of the men had said, "mainly d'Anconia Copper." +This was only a small, extraneous stab of pain, he thought, a feeling of +disappointment in an expectation he had never had the right to expect; he +should have known that this was just what a man like Francisco d'Anconia +would do—and he wondered angrily why he felt as if a bright, brief flame had +died somewhere in a lightless world. +He did not know whether the impossibility of acting had given him this +sense of loathing, or whether the loathing had made him lose the desire to +act. It's both, he thought; a desire presupposes the possibility of action to +achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving. If the only +goal possible was to wheedle a precarious moment's favor from men who held +guns, then neither action nor desire could exist any longer. +Then could life?—he asked himself indifferently. Life, he thought, had +been defined as motion; man's life was purposeful motion; what was the state +of a being to whom purpose and motion were denied, a being held in chains but +left to breathe and to see all the magnificence of the possibilities he could +have reached, left to scream "Why?" and to be shown the muzzle of a gun as + + sole explanation? He shrugged, walking on; he did not care even to find an +answer. +He observed, indifferently, the devastation wrought by his own +indifference. No matter how hard a struggle he had lived through in the past, +he had never reached the ultimate ugliness of abandoning the will to act. In +moments of suffering, he had never let pain win its one permanent victory: he +had never allowed it to make him lose the desire for joy. He had never +doubted the nature of the world or man's greatness as its motive power and +its core. Years ago, he had wondered with contemptuous incredulity about the +fanatical sects that appeared among men in the dark corners of history, the +sects who believed that man was trapped in a malevolent universe ruled by +evil for the sole purpose of his torture. Tonight, he knew what their vision +of the world and their feel of it had been. If what he now saw around him was +the world in which he lived, then he did not want to touch any part of it, he +did not want to fight it, he was an outsider with nothing at stake and no +concern for remaining alive much longer. +Dagny and his wish to see her were the only exception left to him. +The wish remained. But in a sudden shock, he realized that he felt no +desire to sleep with her tonight. That desire—which had never given him a +moment's rest, which had been growing, feeding on its own satisfaction—was +wiped out. It was an odd impotence, neither of his mind nor of his body. He +felt, as passionately as he had ever felt it, that she was the most desirable +woman on earth; but what came from it was only a desire to desire her, a wish +to feel, not a feeling. The sense of numbness seemed impersonal, as if its +root were neither in him nor in her; as if it were the act of sex that now +belonged to a realm which he had left. +"Don't get up—stay there—it's so obvious that you've been waiting for me +that I want to look at it longer." +He said it, from the doorway of her apartment, seeing her stretched in an +armchair, seeing the eager little jolt that threw her shoulders forward as +she was about to rise; he was smiling. +He noted—as if some part of him were watching his reactions with detached +curiosity—that his smile and his sudden sense of gaiety were real. He grasped +a feeling that he had always experienced, but never identified because it had +always been absolute and immediate: a feeling that forbade him ever to face +her in pain. It was much more than the pride of wishing to conceal his +suffering: it was the feeling that suffering must not be granted recognition +in her presence, that no form of claim between them should ever be motivated +by pain and aimed at pity. It was not pity that he brought here or came here +to find. +"Do you still need proof that I'm always waiting for you?" she asked, +leaning obediently back in her chair; her voice was neither tender nor +pleading, but bright and mocking. +"Dagny, why is it that most women would never admit that, but you do?" +"Because they're never sure that they ought to be wanted. I am." +"I do admire self-confidence." +"Self-confidence was only one part of what I said, Hank." +"What's the whole?" +"Confidence of my value—and yours." He glanced at her as if catching the +spark of a sudden thought, and she laughed, adding, "I wouldn't be sure of +holding a man like Orren Boyle, for instance. He wouldn't want me at all. You +would." +"Are you saying," he asked slowly, "that I rose in your estimation when +you found that I wanted you?" +"Of course." +"That's not the reaction of most people to being wanted." +"It isn't." + + "Most people feel that they rise in their own eyes, if others want them.". +"I feel that others live up to me, if they want me. And that is the way +you feel, too, Hank, about yourself—whether you admit it or not," +That's not what I said to you then, on that first morning—he thought, +looking down at her. She lay stretched out lazily, her face blank, but her +eyes bright with amusement. He knew that she was thinking of it and that she +knew he was. He smiled, but said nothing else. +As he sat half-stretched on the couch, watching her across the room, he +felt at peace—as if some temporary wall had risen between him and the things +he had felt on his way here. He told her about his encounter with the man +from the State Science Institute, because, even though he knew that the event +held danger, an odd, glowing sense of satisfaction still remained from it in +his mind. +He chuckled at her look of indignation. "Don't bother being angry at +them," he said. "It's no worse than all the rest of what they're doing every +day." +"Hank, do you want me to speak to Dr. Stadler about it?" +"Certainly not!" +"He ought to stop it. He could at least do that much." +"I'd rather go to jail. Dr. Stadler? You're not having anything to do with +him, are you?" +"1 saw him a few days ago." +"Why?" +"In regard to the motor." +"The motor . . . ?" He said it slowly, in a strange way, as if the thought +of the motor had suddenly brought back to him a realm he had forgotten. +"Dagny . . . the man who invented that motor . . . +he did exist, didn't he?" +"Why . . . of course. What do you mean?" +"I mean only that . . . that it's a pleasant thought, isn't it? Even if +he's dead now, he was alive once . . . so alive that he designed that motor. +. . ." +"What's the matter, Hank?" +"Nothing. Tell me about the motor." +She told him about her meeting with Dr. Stadler. She got up and paced the +room, while speaking; she could not lie still, she always felt a surge of +hope and of eagerness for action when she dealt with the subject of the +motor. +The first thing he noticed were the lights of the city beyond the window: +he felt as if they were being turned on, one by one, forming the great +skyline he loved; he felt it, even though he knew that the lights had been +there all the time. Then he understood that the thing which was returning was +within him: the shape coming back drop by drop was his love for the city. +Then he knew that it had come back because he was looking at the city past +the taut, slender figure of a woman whose head was lifted eagerly as at a +sight of distance, whose steps were a restless substitute for flight. He was +looking at her as at a stranger, he was barely aware that she was a woman, +but the sight was flowing into a feeling the words for which were: This is +the world and the core of it, this is what made the city—they go together, +the angular shapes of the buildings and the angular lines of a face stripped +of everything but purpose—the rising steps of steel and the steps of a being +intent upon his goal���this is what they had been, all the men who had lived to +invent the lights, the steel, the furnaces, the motors— +they were the world, they, not the men who crouched in dark corners, halfbegging, half-threatening, boastfully displaying their open sores as their +only claim on life and virtue—so long as he knew that there existed one man +with the bright courage of a new thought, could he give up the world to those + + others?—so long as he could find a single sight to give him a life-restoring +shot of admiration, could he believe that the world belonged to the sores, +the moans and the guns?—the men who invented motors did exist, he would never +doubt their reality, it was his vision of them that had made the contrastunbearable, so that even the loathing was the tribute of his loyalty to them +and to that world which was theirs and his. +"Darling . . ." he said, "darling . . ." like a man awakening suddenly, +when he noticed that she had stopped speaking. +"What's the matter, Hank?" she asked softly. +"Nothing . . . Except that you shouldn't have called Stadler." His face +was bright with confidence, his voice sounded amused, protective and gentle; +she could discover nothing else, he looked as he had always looked, it was +only the note of gentleness that seemed strange and new. +"I kept feeling that I shouldn't have," she said, "but I didn't know why." +"I'll tell you why." He leaned forward. "What he wanted from you was a +recognition that he was still the Dr, Robert Stadler he should have been, but +wasn't and knew he wasn't. He wanted you to grant him your respect, in spite +of and in contradiction to his actions. He wanted you to juggle reality for +him, so that his greatness would remain, but the State Science Institute +would be wiped out, as if it had never existed—and you're the only one who +could do it for him." +"Why I?" +"Because you're the victim." +She looked at him, startled. He spoke intently; he felt a sudden, violent +clarity of perception, as if a surge of energy were rushing into the activity +of sight, fusing the half-seen and haft-grasped into a single shape and +direction. +"Dagny, they're doing something that we've never understood. They know +something which we don't, but should discover. I can't see it fully yet, but +I'm beginning to see parts of it. That looter from the State Science +Institute was scared when I refused to help him pretend that he was just an +honest buyer of my Metal. He was scared way deep. Of what? I don't know— +public opinion was just his name for it, but it's not the full name. Why +should he have been scared? He has the guns, the jails, the laws—he could +have seized the whole of my mills, if he wished, and nobody would have risen +to defend me, and he knew it—so why should he have cared what I thought? But +he did. +It was I who had to tell him that he wasn't a looter, but my customer and +friend. That's what he needed from me. And that's what Dr. Stadler needed +from you—it was you who had to act as if he were a great man who had never +tried to destroy your rail and my Metal. I don't know what it is that they +think they accomplish—but they want us to pretend that we sec the world as +they pretend they see it. They need some sort of sanction from us. I don't +know the nature of that sanction—but. Dagny, I know that if we value our +lives, we must not give it to them. If they put you on a torture rack, don't +give it to them. Let them destroy your railroad and my mills, but don't give +it to them. Because I know this much: I know that that's our only chance." +She had remained standing still before him, looking attentively at the +faint outline of some shape she, too, had tried to grasp. +"Yes . . ." she said, "yes, I know what you've seen in them. . . . +I've felt it, too—but it's only like something brushing past that's gone +before I know I've seen it, like a touch of cold air, and what's left is +always the feeling that I should have stopped it. . . . I know that you're +right. I can't understand their game, but this much is right: We must not see +the world as they want us to see it. It's some sort of fraud, very ancient +and very vast—and the key to break it is: to check every premise they teach +us, to question every precept, to—" + + She whirled to him at a sudden thought, but she cut the motion and the +words in the same instant: the next words- would have been the ones she did +not want to say to him. She stood looking at him with a slow, bright smile of +curiosity. +Somewhere within him, he knew the thought she would not name, but he knew +it only in that prenatal shape which has to find its words in the future. He +did not pause to grasp it now—because in the flooding brightness of what he +felt, another thought, which was its predecessor, had become clear to him and +had been holding him for many minutes past. He rose, approached her and took +her in his arms. +He held the length of her body pressed to his, as if their bodies were two +currents rising upward together, each to a single point, each carrying the +whole of their consciousness to the meeting of their lips. +What she felt in that moment contained, as one nameless part of it, the +knowledge of the beauty in the posture of his body as he held her, as they +stood in the middle of a room high above the lights of the city. +What he knew, what he had discovered tonight, was that his recaptured love +of existence had not been given back to him by the return of his desire for +her—but that the desire had returned after he had regained his world, the +love, the value and the sense of his world— +and that the desire was not an answer to her body, but a celebration of +himself and of his will to live. +He did not know it, he did not think of it, he was past the need of words, +but in the moment when he felt the response of her body to his, he felt also +the unadmitted knowledge that that which he had called her depravity was her +highest virtue—this capacity of hers to feel the joy of being, as he felt it. + + CHAPTER II +THE ARISTOCRACY OF PULL +The calendar in the sky beyond the window of her office said: September 2. +Dagny leaned wearily across her desk. The first light to snap on at the +approach of dusk was always the ray that hit the calendar; when the whiteglowing page appeared above the roofs, it blurred the city, hastening the +darkness. +She had looked at that distant page every evening of the months behind +her. Your days are numbered, it had seemed to say—as if it were marking a +progression toward something it knew, but she didn't. Once, it had clocked +her race to build the John Galt Line; now it was clocking her race against an +unknown destroyer. +One by one, the men who had built new towns in Colorado, had departed into +some silent unknown, from which no voice or person had yet returned. The +towns they had left were dying. Some of the factories they built had remained +ownerless and locked; others had been seized by the local authorities; the +machines in both stood still. +She had felt as if a dark map of Colorado were spread before her like a +traffic control panel, with a few lights scattered through its mountains. One +after another, the lights had gone out. One after another, the men had +vanished. There had been a pattern about it, which she felt, but could not +define; she had become able to predict, almost with certainty, who would go +next and when; she was unable to grasp the "why?" +Of the men who had once greeted her descent from the cab of an engine on +the platform of Wyatt Junction, only Ted Nielsen was left, still running the +plant of Nielsen Motors. "Ted, you won't be the next one to go?" she had +asked him, on his recent visit to New York; she had asked it, trying to +smile. He had answered grimly, "I hope not." +"What do you mean, you hope?—aren't you sure?" He had said slowly, +heavily, "Dagny, I've always thought that I'd rather die than stop working. +But so did the men who're gone. It seems impossible to me that I could ever +want to quit. But a year ago, it seemed impossible that they ever could. +Those men were my friends. They knew what their going would do to us, the +survivors. They would not have gone like that, without a word, leaving to us +the added terror of the inexplicable—unless they had some reason of supreme +importance. A month ago, Roger Marsh, of Marsh Electric, told me that he'd +have himself chained to his desk, so that he wouldn't be able to leave it, no +matter what ghastly temptation struck him. He was furious with anger at the +men who'd left. He swore to me that he'd never do it. +'And if it's something that I can't resist,' he said, 'I swear that I'll +keep enough of my mind to leave you a letter and give you some hint of what +it is, so that you won't have to rack your brain in the kind of dread we're +both feeling now.' That's what he swore. Two weeks ago, he went. He left me +no letter. . . . Dagny, I can't tell what I'll do when I see it—whatever it +was that they saw when they went." +It seemed to her that some destroyer was moving soundlessly through the +country and the lights were dying at his touch—someone, she thought bitterly, +who had reversed the principle of the Twentieth Century motor and was now +turning kinetic energy into static. +That was the enemy—she thought, as she sat at her desk in the gathering +twilight—with whom she was running a race. The monthly report from Quentin +Daniels lay on her desk. She could not be certain, as yet, that Daniels would +solve the secret of the motor; but the destroyer, she thought, was moving +swiftly, surely, at an ever accelerating tempo; she wondered whether, by the +time she rebuilt the motor, there would be any world left to use it. + + She had liked Quentin Daniels from the moment he entered her office on +their first interview. He was a lanky man in his early thirties, with a +homely, angular face and an attractive smile. A hint of the smile remained in +his features at all times, particularly when he listened; it was a look of +good-natured amusement, as if he were swiftly and patiently discarding the +irrelevant in the words he heard and going straight to the point a moment +ahead of the speaker. +"Why did you refuse to work for Dr. Stadler?" she asked. +The hint of his smile grew harder and more stressed; this was as near as +he came to showing an emotion; the emotion was anger. But he answered in his +even, unhurried drawl, "You know, Dr. Stadler once said that the first word +of 'Free, scientific inquiry' was redundant. +He seems to have forgotten it. Well, I'll just say that 'Governmental +scientific inquiry' is a contradiction in terms." +She asked him what position he held at the Utah Institute of Technology. +"Night watchman," he answered. "What?" she gasped. "Night watchman," he +repeated politely, as if she had not caught the words, as if there were no +cause for astonishment. +Under her questioning, he explained that he did not like any of the +scientific foundations left in existence, that he would have liked a job in +the research laboratory of some big industrial concern—"But which one of them +can afford to undertake any long-range work nowadays, and why should they?"— +so when the Utah Institute of Technology was closed for lack of funds, he had +remained there as night watchman and sole inhabitant of the place; the salary +was sufficient to pay for his needs—and the Institute's laboratory was there, +intact, for his own private, undisturbed use. +"So you're doing research work of your own?" +"That's right." +"For what purpose?" +"For my own pleasure." +"What do you intend to do, if you discover something of scientific +importance or commercial value? Do you intend to put it to some public use?" +"I don't know. I don't think so." +"Haven't you any desire to be of service to humanity?" +"I don't talk that kind of language, Miss Taggart. I don't think you do, +either." +She laughed. "I think we'll get along together, you and I." +"We will." +When she had told him the story of the motor, when he had studied the +manuscript, he made no comment, but merely said that he would take the job on +any terms she named. +She asked him to choose his own terms. She protested, in astonishment, +against the low monthly salary he quoted. "Miss Taggart," he said, "if +there's something that I won't take, it's something for nothing. +I don't know how long you might have to pay me, or whether you'll get +anything at all in return. I'll gamble on my own mind. I won't let anybody +else do it. I don't collect for an intention. But I sure do intend to collect +for goods delivered. If I succeed, that's when I'll skin you alive, because +what I want then is a percentage, and it's going to be high, but it's going +to be worth your while." +When he named the percentage he wanted, she laughed. "That is skinning me +alive and it will be worth my while. Okay." +They agreed that it was to be her private project and that he was to be +her private employee; neither of them wanted to have to deal with the +interference of the Taggart Research Department. He asked to remain in Utah, +in his post of watchman, where he had all the laboratory equipment and all + + the privacy he needed. The project was to remain confidential between them, +until and unless he succeeded. +"Miss Taggart," he said in conclusion, "I don't know how many years it +will take me to solve this, if ever. But I know that if I spend the rest of +my life on it and succeed, I will die satisfied." He added, "There's only one +thing that I want more than to solve it: it's to meet the man who has." +Once a month, since his return to Utah, she had sent him a check and he +had sent her a report on his work. It was too early to hope, but his reports +were the only bright points in the stagnant fog of her days in the office. +She raised her head, as she finished reading his pages. The calendar in +the distance said: September 2. The lights of the city had grown beneath it, +spreading and glittering. She thought of Rearden. She wished he were in the +city; she wished she would sec him tonight. +Then, noticing the date, she remembered suddenly that she had to rush home +to dress, because she had to attend Jim's wedding tonight. +She had not seen Jim, outside the office, for over a year. She had not met +his fiancee, but she had read enough about the engagement in the newspapers. +She rose from her desk in wearily distasteful resignation: it seemed easier +to attend the wedding than to bother explaining her absence afterwards. +She was hurrying across the concourse of the Terminal when she heard a +voice calling, "Miss Taggart!" with a strange note of urgency and reluctance, +together. It stopped her abruptly; she took a few seconds to realize that it +was the old man at the cigar stand who had called. +"I've been waiting to catch sight of you for days. Miss Taggart. I've been +extremely anxious to speak to you." There was an odd expression on his face, +the look of an effort not to look frightened. +"I'm sorry," she said, smiling, "I've been rushing in and out of the +building all week and didn't have time to stop." +He did not smile. "Miss Taggart, that cigarette with the dollar sign that +you gave me some months ago—where did you get it?" +She stood still for a moment. "I'm afraid that's a long, complicated +story," she answered. +"Have you any way of getting in touch with the person who gave it to you?" +"I suppose so—though I'm not too sure. Why?" +"Would he tell you where he got it?" +"I don't know. What makes you suspect that he wouldn't?" +He hesitated, then asked, "Miss Taggart, what do you do when you have to +tell someone something which you know to be impossible?" +She chuckled. 'The man who gave me the cigarette said that in such a case +one must check one's premises." +"He did? About the cigarette?" +"Well, no, not exactly. But why? What is it you have to tell me?" +"Miss Taggart, I have inquired all over the world. I have checked every +source of information in and about the tobacco industry. I have had that +cigarette stub put through a chemical analysis. There is no plant that +manufactures that kind of paper. The flavoring elements in that tobacco have +never been used in any smoking mixture I could find. That cigarette was +machine-made, but it was not made in any factory I know—and I know them all. +Miss Taggart, to the best of my knowledge, that cigarette was not made +anywhere on earth." +Rearden stood by, watching absently, while the waiter wheeled the dinner +table out of his hotel room. Ken Danagger had left. The room was half-dark; +by an unspoken agreement, they had kept the lights low during their dinner, +so that Danagger's face would not be noticed and, perhaps, recognized by the +waiters. +They had had to meet furtively, like criminals who could not be seen +together. They could not meet in their offices or in their homes, only in the + + crowded anonymity of a city, in his suite at the Wayne Falkland Hotel. There +could be a fine of $10,000 and ten years of imprisonment for each of them, if +it became known that he had agreed to deliver to Danagger four thousand tons +of structural shapes of Rearden Metal. +They had not discussed that law, at their dinner together, or their +motives or the risk they were taking. They had merely talked business. +Speaking clearly and dryly, as he always spoke at any conference, Danagger +had explained that half of his original order would be sufficient to brace +such tunnels as would cave in, if he delayed the bracing much longer, and to +recondition the mines of the Confederated Coal Company, gone bankrupt, which +he had purchased three weeks ago— +"It's an excellent property, bat in rotten condition; they had a nasty +accident there last month, cave-in and gas explosion, forty men killed." +He had added, in the monotone of reciting some impersonal, statistical +report, "The newspapers are yelling that coal is now the most crucial +commodity in the country. They are also yelling that the coal operators are +profiteering on the oil shortage. One gang in Washington is yelling that I am +expanding too much and something should be done to stop me, because I am +becoming a monopoly. Another gang in Washington is yelling that I am not +expanding enough and something should be done to let the government seize my +mines, because I am greedy for profits and unwilling to satisfy the public's +need of fuel. At my present rate of profit, this Confederated Coal property +will bring back the money I spent on it—in forty-seven years. I have no +children. I bought it, because there's one customer I don't dare leave +without coal —and that's Taggart Transcontinental. I keep thinking of what +would happen if the railroads collapsed." He had stopped, then added, "T +don't know why I still care about that, but I do. Those people in +Washington don't seem to have a clear picture of what that would be like. I +have." Rearden had said, "I'll deliver the Metal. When you need the other +half of your order, let me know. I'll deliver that, too." +At the end of the dinner, Danagger had said in the same precise, impassive +tone, the tone of a man who knows the exact meaning of his words, "If any +employee of yours or mine discovers this and attempts private blackmail, I +will pay it, within reason. But I will not pay, if he has friends in +Washington. If any of those come around, then I go to jail." "Then we go +together," Rearden had said. +Standing alone in his half-darkened room, Rearden noted that the prospect +of going to jail left him blankly indifferent. He remembered the time when, +aged fourteen, faint with hunger, he would not steal fruit from a sidewalk +stand. Now, the possibility of being sent to jail—H this dinner was a felony— +meant no more to him than the possibility of being run over by a truck: an +ugly physical accident without any moral significance. +He thought that he had been made to hide, as a guilty secret, the only +business transaction he had enjoyed in a year's work—and that he was hiding, +as a guilty secret, his nights with Dagny, the only hours that kept him +alive. He felt that there was some connection between the two secrets, some +essential connection which he had to discover. He could not grasp it, he +could not find the words to name it, but he felt that the day when he would +find them, he would answer every question of his life. +He stood against the wall, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and +thought of Dagny, and then he felt that no questions could matter to him any +longer. He thought that he would see her tonight, almost hating it, because +tomorrow morning seemed so close and then he would have to leave her—he +wondered whether he could remain in town tomorrow, or whether he should leave +now, without seeing her, so that he could wait, so that he could always have +it ahead of him: the moment of closing his hands over her shoulders and +looking down at her face. You're going insane, he thought—but he knew that if + + she were beside him through every hour of his days, it would still be the +same, he would never have enough of it, he would have to invent some +senseless form of torture for himself in order to bear it—he knew he would +see her tonight, and the thought of leaving without it made the pleasure +greater, a moment's torture to underscore his certainty of the hours ahead. +He would leave the light on in her living room, he thought, and hold her +across the bed, and see nothing but the curve of the strip of light running +from her waist to her ankle, a single line drawing the whole shape of her +long, slim body in the darkness, then he would pull her head into the light, +to see her face, to see it falling back, unresisting, her hair over his arm. +her eyes closed, the face drawn as in a look of pain, her mouth open to him. +He stood at the wall, waiting, to let all the events of the day drop away +from him, to feel free, to know that the next span of time was his. +When the door of his room flew open without warning, he did not quite hear +or believe it, at first. He saw the silhouette of a woman, then of a bellboy +who put down a suitcase and vanished. The voice he heard was Lillian's: "Why, +Henry! All alone and in the dark?" +She pressed a light switch by the door. She stood there, fastidiously +groomed, wearing a pale beige traveling suit that looked as if she had +traveled under glass; she was smiling and pulling her gloves off with the air +of having reached home. +"Are you in for the evening, dear?" she asked. "Or were you going out?" +He did not know how long a time passed before he answered, "What are you +doing here?" +"Why, don't you remember that Jim Taggart invited us to his wedding? It's +tonight." +"I didn't intend to go to his wedding." +"Oh, but I did!" +"Why didn't you tell me this morning, before I left?" +"To surprise you, darling." She laughed gaily. "It's practically +impossible to drag you to any social function, but I thought you might do it +like this, on the spur of the moment, just to go out and have a good time, as +married couples are supposed to. I thought you wouldn't mind it—you've been +staying overnight in New York so often!" +He saw the casual glance thrown at him from under the brim of her +fashionably tilted hat. He said nothing. +"Of course, I was running a risk," she said. "You might have been taking +somebody out to dinner." He said nothing. "Or were you, perhaps, intending to +return home tonight?" +"No." +"Did you have an engagement for this evening?" +"No." +"Fine." She pointed at her suitcase. "I brought my evening clothes. +Will you bet me a corsage of orchids that I can get dressed faster than +you can?" +He thought that Dagny would be at her brother's wedding tonight; the +evening did not matter to him any longer. "I'll take you out, if you wish," +he said, "but not to that wedding." +"Oh, but that's where I want to go! It's the most preposterous event of +the season, and everybody's been looking forward to it for weeks, all my +friends. I wouldn't miss it for the world. There isn't any better show in +town—nor better publicized. It's a perfectly ridiculous marriage, but just +about what you'd expect from Jim Taggart." +She was moving casually through the room, glancing around, as if getting +acquainted with an unfamiliar place. "I haven't been in New York for years," +she said. "Not with you, that is. Not on any formal occasion." + + He noticed the pause in the aimless wandering of her eyes, a glance that +stopped briefly on a filled ashtray and moved on. He felt a stab of +revulsion. +She saw it in his face and laughed gaily. "Oh but, darling, I'm not +relieved! I'm disappointed. I did hope I'd find a few cigarette butts smeared +with lipstick." +He gave her credit for the admission of the spying, even if under cover of +a joke. But something in the stressed frankness of her manner made him wonder +whether she was joking; for the flash of an instant, he felt that she had +told him the truth. He dismissed the impression, because he could not +conceive of it as possible. +"I'm afraid that you'll never be human," she said. "So I'm sure that I +have no rival. And if I have—which I doubt, darling—I don't think I'll worry +about it, because if it's a person who's always available on call, without +appointment—well, everybody knows what sort of a person that is." +He thought that he would have to be careful; he had been about to slap her +face. "Lillian, I think you know," he said, "that humor of this kind is more +than I can stand." +"Oh, you're so serious!" she laughed. "I keep forgetting it. You're so +serious about everything—particularly yourself." +Then she whirled to him suddenly, her smile gone. She had the strange, +pleading look which he had seen in her face at times, a look that seemed made +of sincerity and courage: "You prefer to be serious, Henry? All right. How +long do you wish me to exist somewhere in the basement of your life? How +lonely do you want me to become? I've asked nothing of you. I've let you live +your life as you pleased. Can't you give me one evening? Oh, I know you hate +parties and you'll be bored. But it means a great deal to me. Call it empty, +social vanity—I want to appear, for once, with my husband. I suppose you +never think of it in such terms, but you're an important man, you're envied, +hated, respected and feared, you're a man whom any woman would be proud to +show off as her husband. +You may say it's a low form of feminine ostentation, but that's the form +of any woman's happiness. You don't live by such standards, but I do. Can't +you give me this much, at the price of a few hours of boredom? Can't you be +strong enough to fulfill your obligation and to perform a husband's duty? +Can't you go there, not for your own sake, but mine, not because you want to +go, but only because I want it?" +Dagny—he thought desperately—Dagny, who had never said a word about his +life at home, who had never made a claim, uttered a reproach or asked a +question—he could not appear before her with his wife, he could not let her +see him as the husband being proudly shown off—he wished he could die now, in +this moment, before he committed this action—because he knew that he would +commit it. +Because he had accepted his secret as guilt and promised himself to take +its consequences—because he had granted that the right was with Lillian, and +he was able to bear any form of damnation, but not able to deny the right +when it was claimed of him—because he knew that the reason for his refusal to +go, was the reason that gave him no right to refuse—because he heard the +pleading cry in his mind: "Oh God, Lillian, anything but that party!" and he +did not allow himself to beg for mercy— +—he said evenly, his voice lifeless and firm: "All right, Lillian. I’ll +go." +The wedding veil of rose-point lace caught on the splintered floor of her +tenement bedroom. Cherryl Brooks lifted it cautiously, stepping to look at +herself in a crooked mirror that hung on the wall. She had been photographed +here all day, as she had been many times in the past two months. She still + + smiled with incredulous gratitude when newspaper people wanted to take her +picture, but she wished they would not do it so often. +An aging sob sister, who had a drippy love column in print and the bitter +wisdom of a policewoman in person, had taken Cherryl under her protection +weeks ago, when the girl had first been thrown into press interviews as into +a meat grinder. Today, the sob sister had chased the reporters out, had +snapped, "All right, all right, beat it!" at the neighbors, had slammed +Cherryl's door in their faces and had helped her to dress. She was to drive +Cherryl to the wedding; she had discovered that there was no one else to do +it. +The wedding veil, the white satin gown, the delicate slippers and the +strand of pearls at her throat, had cost five hundred times the price of the +entire contents of Cherryl's room. A bed took most of the room's space, and +the rest was taken by a chest of drawers, one chair, and her few dresses +hanging behind a faded curtain. The huge hoop skirt of the wedding gown +brushed against the walls when she moved, her slender figure swaying above +the skirt in the dramatic contrast of a tight, severe, long-sleeved bodice; +the gown had been made by the best designer in the city. +"You see, when I got the job in the dime store, I could have moved to a +better room," she said to the sob sister, in apology, "but I don't think it +matters much where you sleep at night, so I saved my money, because I’ll need +it for something important in the future—" +She stopped and smiled, shaking her head dazedly. "I thought I'd need it," +she said. +"You look fine," said the sob sister. "You can't see much in that alleged +mirror, but you're okay." +"The way all this happened, I . . . I haven't had time to catch up with +myself. But you see, Jim is wonderful. He doesn't mind it, that I'm only a +salesgirl from a dime store, living in a place like this. He doesn't hold it +against me." +"Uh-huh," said the sob sister; her face looked grim. +Cherryl remembered the wonder of the first time Jim Taggart had come here. +He had come one evening, without warning, a month after their first meeting, +when she had given up hope of ever seeing him again. She had been miserably +embarrassed, she had felt as if she were trying to hold a sunrise within the +space of a mud puddle—but Jim had smiled, sitting on her only chair, looking +at her flushed face and at her room. Then he had told her to put on her coat, +and he had taken her to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in the city. +He had smiled at her uncertainty, at her awkwardness, at her terror of +picking the wrong fork, and at the look of enchantment in her eyes. +She had not known what he thought. But he had known that she was stunned, +not by the place, but by his bringing her there, that she barely touched the +costly food, that she took the dinner, not as booty from a rich sucker—as all +the girls he knew would have taken it—but as some shining award she had never +expected to deserve. +He had come back to her two weeks later, and then their dates had grown +progressively more frequent. He would drive up to the dime store at the +closing hour, and she would see her fellow salesgirls gaping at her, at his +limousine, at the uniformed chauffeur who opened the door for her. He would +take her to the best night clubs, and when he introduced her to his friends, +he would say, "Miss Brooks works in the dime store in Madison Square." She +would see the strange expressions on their faces and Jim watching them with a +hint of mockery in his eyes. He wanted to spare her the need of pretense or +embarrassment, she thought with gratitude. He had the strength to be honest +and not to care whether others approved of him or not, she thought with +admiration. But she felt an odd, burning pain, new to her, the night she + + heard some woman, who worked for a highbrow political magazine, say to her +companion at the next table, "How generous of Jim!" +Had he wished, she would have given him the only kind of payment she could +offer in return. She was grateful that he did not seek it. But she felt as if +their relationship was an immense debt and she had nothing to pay it with, +except her silent worship. He did not need her worship, she thought. +There were evenings when he came to take her out, but remained in her +room, instead, and talked to her, while she listened in silence. It always +happened unexpectedly, with a kind of peculiar abruptness, as if he had not +intended doing it, but something burst within him and he had to speak. Then +he sat slumped on her bed, unaware of his surroundings and of her presence, +yet his eyes jerked to her face once in a while, as if he had to be certain +that a living being heard him. +". . . it wasn't for myself, it wasn't for myself at all—why won't they +believe me, those people? I had to grant the unions' demands to cut down the +trains—and the moratorium on bonds was the only way I could do it, so that's +why Wesley gave it to me, for the workers, not for myself. AH the newspapers +said that I was a great example for all businessmen to follow—a businessman +with a sense of social responsibility. That's what they said. It's true, +isn't it? . . . Isn't it? . . . +What was wrong about that moratorium? What if we did skip a few +technicalities? It was for a good purpose. Everyone agrees that anything you +do is good, so long as it's not for yourself. . . . But she won't give me +credit for a good purpose. She doesn't think anybody's any good except +herself. My sister is a ruthless, conceited bitch, who won't take anyone's +ideas but her own. . . . Why do they keep looking at me that way—she and +Rearden and all those people? Why are they so sure they're right? . . . If I +acknowledge their superiority in the material realm, why don't they +acknowledge mine in the spiritual? +They have the brain, but I have the heart. They have the capacity to +produce wealth, but I have the capacity to love. Isn't mine the greater +capacity? Hasn't it been recognized as the greatest through all the centuries +of human history? Why won't they recognize it? . . . Why are they so sure +they're great? . . . And if they're great and I'm not —isn't that exactly why +they should bow to me, because I'm not? +Wouldn't that be an act of true humanity? It takes no kindness to respect +a man who deserves respect—it's only a payment which he's earned. To give an +unearned respect is the supreme gesture of charity. +. . . But they're incapable of charity. They're not human. They feel no +concern for anyone's need . . . or weakness. No concern . . . and no pity . . +. " +She could understand little of it, but she understood that he was unhappy +and that somebody had hurt him. He saw the pain of tenderness in her face, +the pain of indignation against his enemies, and he saw the glance intended +for heroes—given to him by a person able to experience the emotion behind +that glance. +She did not know why she felt certain that she was the only one to whom he +could confess his torture. She took it as a special honor, as one more gift. +The only way to be worthy of him, she thought, was never to ask him for +anything. He offered her money once, and she refused it, with such a bright, +painful flare of anger in her eyes that he did not attempt it again. The +anger was at herself: she wondered whether she had done something to make him +think she was that kind of person. +But she did not want to be ungrateful for his concern, or to embarrass him +by her ugly poverty; she wanted to show him her eagerness to rise and justify +his favor; so she told him that he could help her, if he wished, by helping + + her to find a better job. He did not answer. In the weeks that followed, she +waited, but he never mentioned the subject. +She blamed herself: she thought that she had offended him, that he had +taken it as an attempt to use him. +When he gave her an emerald bracelet, she was too shocked to understand. +Trying desperately not to hurt him, she pleaded that she could not accept it. +"Why not?" he asked. "It isn't as if you were a bad woman paying the usual +price for it. Are you afraid that I'll start making demands? Don't you trust +me?" He laughed aloud at her stammering embarrassment. He smiled, with an odd +kind of enjoyment, all through the evening when they went to a night club and +she wore the bracelet with her shabby black dress. +He made her wear that bracelet again, on the night when he took her to a +party, a great reception given by Mrs. Cornelias Pope. If he considered her +good enough to bring into the home of his friends, she thought—the +illustrious friends whose names she had seen on the inaccessible mountain +peaks that were the society columns of the newspapers—she could not embarrass +him by wearing her old dress. She spent her year's savings on an evening gown +of bright green chiffon with a low neckline, a belt of yellow roses and a +rhinestone buckle. When she entered the stern residence, with the cold, +brilliant lights and a terrace suspended over the roofs of skyscrapers, she +knew that her dress was wrong for the occasion, though she could not tell +why. But she kept her posture proudly straight and she smiled with the +courageous trust of a kitten when it sees a hand extended to play: people +gathered to have a good time would not hurt anyone, she thought. +At the end of an hour, her attempt to smile had become a helpless, +bewildered plea. Then the smile went, as she watched the people around her. +She saw that the trim, confident girls had a nasty insolence of manner when +they spoke to Jim, as if they did not respect him and never had. One of them +in particular, a Betty Pope, the daughter of the hostess, kept making remarks +to him which Cherryl could not understand, because she could not believe that +she understood them correctly. +No one had paid any attention to her, at first, except for a few +astonished glances at her gown. After a while, she saw them looking at her. +She heard an elderly woman ask Jim, in the anxious tone of referring to some +distinguished family she had missed knowing, "Did you say Miss Brooks of +Madison Square?" She saw an odd smile on Jim's face, when he answered, making +his voice sound peculiarly clear, "Yes —the cosmetics counter of Raleigh's +Five and Ten." Then she saw some people becoming too polite to her, and +others moving away in a pointed manner, and most of them being senselessly +awkward in simple bewilderment, and Jim watching silently with that odd +smile. +She tried to get out of the way, out of their notice. As she slipped by, +along the edge of the room, she heard some man say, with a shrug, "Well, Jim +Taggart is one of the most powerful men in Washington at the moment." He did +not say it respectfully. +Out on the terrace, where it was darker, she heard two men talking and +wondered why she felt certain that they were talking about her. +One of them said, "Taggart can afford to do it, if he pleases" and the +other said something about the horse of some Roman emperor named Caligula. +She looked at the lone straight shaft of the Taggart Building rising in +the distance—and then she thought that she understood: these people hated Jim +because they envied him. Whatever they were, she thought, whatever their +names and their money, none of them had an achievement comparable to his, +none of them had defied the whole country to build a railroad everybody +thought impossible. For the first time, she saw that she did have something +to offer Jim: these people were as mean and small as the people from whom she + + had escaped in Buffalo; he was as lonely as she had always been, and the +sincerity of her feeling was the only recognition he had found. +Then she walked back into the ballroom, cutting straight through the +crowd, and the only thing left of the tears she had tried to hold back in the +darkness of the terrace, was the fiercely luminous sparkle of her eyes. If he +wished to stand by her openly, even though she was only a shop girl, if he +wished to flaunt it, if he had brought her here to face the indignation of +his friends—then it was the gesture of a courageous man defying their +opinion, and she was willing to match his courage by serving as the scarecrow +of the occasion. +But she was glad when it was over, when she sat beside him in his car, +driving home through the darkness. She felt a bleak kind of relief, Her +battling defiance ebbed into a strange, desolate feeling; she tried not to +give way to it. Jim said little; he sat looking sullenly out the car window; +she wondered whether she had disappointed him in some manner. +On the stoop of her rooming house, she said to him forlornly, "I'm sorry +if I let you down . . ." +He did not answer for a moment, and then he asked, "What would you say if +I asked you to marry me?" +She looked at him, she looked around them—there was a filthy mattress +hanging on somebody's window sill, a pawnshop across the street, a garbage +pail at the stoop beside them—one did not ask such a question in such a +place, she did not know what it meant, and she answered, "I guess I . . . I +haven't any sense of humor." +"This is a proposal, my dear." +Then this was the way they reached their first kiss—with tears running +down her face, tears unshed at the party, tears of shock, of happiness, of +thinking that this should be happiness, and of a low, desolate voice telling +her that this was not the way she would have wanted it to happen. +She had not thought about the newspapers, until the day when Jim told her +to come to his apartment and she found it crowded with people who had +notebooks, cameras and flash bulbs. When she saw her picture in the papers +for the first time—a picture of them together, Jim's arm around her—she +giggled with delight and wondered proudly whether every person in the city +had seen it. After a while, the delight vanished. +They kept photographing her at the dime-store counter, in the subway, on +the stoop of the tenement house, in her miserable room. She would have taken +money from Jim now and run to hide in some obscure hotel for the weeks of +their engagement—but he did not offer it. +He seemed to want her to remain where she was. They printed pictures of +Jim at his desk, in the concourse of the Taggart Terminal, by the steps of +his private railway car, at a formal banquet in Washington. +The huge spreads of full newspaper pages, the articles in magazines, the +radio voices, the newsreels, all were a single, long, sustained scream—about +the "Cinderella Girl" and the "Democratic Businessman." +She told herself not to be suspicious, when she felt uneasy; she told +herself not to be ungrateful, when she felt hurt. She felt it only in a few +rare moments, when she awakened in the middle of the night and lay in the +silence of her room, unable to sleep. She knew that it would take her years +to recover, to believe, to understand. She was reeling through her days like +a person with a sunstroke, seeing nothing but the figure of Jim Taggart as +she had seen him first on the night of his great triumph. +"Listen, kid," the sob sister said to her, when she stood in her room for +the last time, the lace of the wedding veil streaming like crystal foam from +her hair to the blotched planks of the floor. "You think that if one gets +hurt in life, it's through one's own sins—and that's true, in the long run. +But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you— + + knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it +break you when you discover that." +"I don't think I'm afraid," she said, looking intently straight before +her, the radiance of her smile melting the earnestness of her glance. "I have +no right to be afraid of anything. I'm too happy. You sec, I always thought +that there wasn't any sense in people saying that all you can do in life is +suffer. I wasn't going to knuckle down to that and give up. +I thought that things could happen which were beautiful and very great. +I didn't expect it to happen to me—not so much and so soon. But I'll try +to live up to it." +"Money is the root of all evil," said James Taggart. "Money can't buy +happiness. Love will conquer any barrier and any social distance. That may be +a bromide, boys, but that's how I feel." +He stood under the lights of the ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, in +a circle of reporters who had closed about him the moment the wedding +ceremony ended. He heard the crowd of guests beating like a tide beyond the +circle. Cherryl stood beside him, her white gloved hand on the black of his +sleeve. She was still trying to hear the words of the ceremony, not quite +believing that she had heard them. +"How do you feel, Mrs. Taggart?" +She heard the question from somewhere in the circle of reporters. It was +like the jolt of returning to consciousness: two words suddenly made +everything real to her. She smiled and whispered, choking, "I . . . +I'm very happy . . ." +At opposite ends of the ballroom, Orren Boyle, who seemed too stout for +his full-dress clothes, and Bertram Scudder, who seemed too meager for his, +surveyed the crowd of guests with the same thought, though neither of them +admitted that he was thinking it. Orren Boyle half-told himself that he was +looking for the faces of friends, and Bertram Scudder suggested to himself +that he was gathering material for an article. But both, unknown to each +other, were drawing a mental chart of the faces they saw, classifying them +under two headings which, if named, would have read: "Favor" and "Fear." +There were men whose presence signified a special protection extended to +James Taggart, and men whose presence confessed a desire to avoid his +hostility—those who represented a hand lowered to pull him up, and those who +represented a back bent to let him climb. By the unwritten code of the day, +nobody received or accepted an invitation from a man of public prominence +except in token of one or the other of these motives. +Those in the first group were, for the most part, youthful; they had come +from Washington. Those in the second group were older; they were businessmen. +Orren Boyle and Bertram Scudder were men who used words as a public +instrument, to be avoided in the privacy of one's own mind. +Words were a commitment, carrying implications which they did not wish to +face. They needed no words for their chart; the classification was done by +physical means: a respectful movement of their eyebrows, equivalent to the +emotion of the word "So!" for the first group—and a sarcastic movement of +their lips, equivalent to the emotion of "Well, well!" for the second. One +face blew up the smooth working of their calculating mechanisms for a moment: +when they saw the cold blue eyes and blond hair of Hank Rearden, their +muscles tore at the register of the second group in the equivalent of "Oh, +boy!" The sum of the chart was an estimate of James Taggart's power. It added +up to an impressive total. +They knew that James Taggart was fully aware of it, when they saw him +moving among his guests. He walked briskly, in a Morse code pattern of short +dashes and brief stops, with a manner of faint irritation, as if conscious of +the number of people whom his displeasure might worry. The hint of a smile on +his face had a flavor of gloating— + + as if he knew that the act of coming to honor him was an act that +disgraced the men who had come; as if he knew and enjoyed it. +A tail of figures kept trailing and shifting behind him, as if their +function were to give him the pleasure of ignoring them. Mr. Mowen flickered +briefly among the tail, and Dr. Pritchett, and Balph Eubank. +The most persistent one was Paul Larkin. He kept describing circles around +Taggart, as if trying to acquire a suntan by means of an occasional ray, his +wistful smile pleading to be noticed. +Taggart's eyes swept over the crowd once in a while, swiftly and +furtively, in the manner of a prowler's flashlight; this, in the muscular +shorthand legible to Orren Boyle, meant that Taggart was looking for someone +and did not want anyone to know it. The search ended when Eugene Lawson came +to shake Taggart's hand and to say, his wet lower lip twisting like a cushion +to soften the blow, "Mr. Mouch couldn't come, Jim, Mr. Mouch is so sorry, he +had a special plane chartered, but at the last minute things came up, crucial +national problems, you know." Taggart stood still, did not answer and +frowned. +Orren Boyle burst out laughing. Taggart turned to him so sharply that the +others melted away without waiting for a command to vanish. +"What do you think you're doing?" snapped Taggart. +"Having a good time, Jimmy, just having a good time," said Boyle. "Wesley +is your boy, wasn't he?" +"I know somebody who's my boy and he'd better not forget it." +"Who? Larkin? Well, no, I don't think you're talking about Larkin. +And if it's not Larkin that you're talking about, why then I think you +ought to be careful in your use of the possessive pronouns. I don't mind the +age classification, I know I look young for my years, but I'm just allergic +to pronouns." +"That's very smart, but you're going to get too smart one of these days." +"If I do, you just go ahead and make the most of it, Jimmy. If." +"The trouble with people who overreach themselves is that they have short +memories. You'd better remember who got Rearden Metal choked off the market +for you." +"Why, I remember who promised to. That was the party who then pulled every +string he could lay his hands on to try to prevent that particular directive +from being issued, because he figured he might need rail of Rearden Metal in +the future." +"Because you spent ten thousand dollars pouring liquor into people you +hoped would prevent the directive about the bond moratorium!" +"That's right. So I did. I had friends who had railroad bonds. And +besides, I have friends in Washington, too, Jimmy. Well, your friends beat +mine on that moratorium business, but mine beat yours on Rearden Metal—and +I'm not forgetting it. But what the hell!—it's all right with me, that's the +way to share things around, only don't you try to fool me, Jimmy. Save the +act for the suckers." +"If you don't believe that I've always tried to do my best for you—" +"Sure, you have. The best that could be expected, all things considered. +And you'll continue to do it, too, so long as I've got somebody you need—and +not a minute longer. So I just wanted to remind you that I've got my own +friends in Washington. Friends that money can't buy—just like yours, Jimmy." +"What do you think you mean?" +"Just what you're thinking. The ones you buy aren't really worth a damn, +because somebody can always offer them more, so the field's wide open to +anybody and it's just like old-fashioned competition again. +But if you get the goods on a man, then you've got him, then there's no +higher bidder and you can count on his friendship. Well, you have friends, +and so have I. You have friends I can use, and vice versa. + + That's all right with me—what the hell!—one's got to trade something. +If we don't trade money—and the age of money is past—then we trade men." +"What is it you're driving at?" +"Why, I'm just telling you a few things that you ought to remember. +Now take Wesley, for instance. You promised him the assistant's job in the +Bureau of National Planning—for double-crossing Rearden, at the time of the +Equalization of Opportunity Bill. You had the connections to do it, and +that's what I asked you to do—in exchange for the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule, +where I had the connections. So Wesley did his part, and you saw to it that +you got it all on paper—oh sure, I know that you've got written proof of the +kind of deals he pulled to help pass that bill, while he was taking Rearden's +money to defeat it and keeping Rearden off guard. They were pretty ugly +deals. It would be pretty messy for Mr. Mouch, if it all came out in public. +So you kept your promise and you got the job for him, because you thought you +had him. And so you did. And he paid off pretty handsomely, didn't he? But it +works only just so long. After a while, Mr. Wesley Mouch might get to be so +powerful and the scandal so old, that nobody will care how he got his start +or whom he double-crossed. Nothing lasts forever. Wesley was Rearden's man, +and then he was your man, and he might be somebody else's man tomorrow " +"Are you giving me a hint?" +"Why no, I'm giving you a friendly warning. We're old friends. +Jimmy, and I think that that's what we ought to remain. I think we can be +very useful to each other, you and I, if you don't start getting the wrong +ideas about friendship. Me—I believe in a balance of power." +"Did you prevent Mouch from coming here tonight?" +"Well, maybe I did and maybe I didn't. I'll let you worry about it. +That's good for me, if I did—and still better, if I didn't." +Cherryl's eyes followed James Taggart through the crowd. The faces that +kept shifting and gathering around her seemed so friendly and their voices +were so eagerly warm that she felt certain there was no malice anywhere in +the room. She wondered why some of them talked to her about Washington, in a +hopeful, confidential manner of half sentences, half-hints, as if they were +seeking her help for something secret she was supposed to understand. She did +not know what to say, but she smiled and answered whatever she pleased. She +could not disgrace the person of "Mrs. Taggart" by any touch of fear. +Then she saw the enemy. It was a tall, slender figure in a gray evening +gown, who was now her sister-in-law. +The pressure of anger in Cherryl's mind was the stored accumulation of the +sounds of Jim's tortured voice. She felt the nagging pull of a duty left +undone. Her eyes kept returning to the enemy and studying her intently. The +pictures of Dagny Taggart in the newspapers had shown a figure dressed in +slacks, or a face with a slanting hat brim and a raised coat collar. Now she +wore a gray evening gown that seemed indecent, because it looked austerely +modest, so modest that it vanished from one's awareness and left one too +aware of the slender body it pretended to cover. There was a tone of blue in +the gray cloth that went with the gun-metal gray of her eyes. She wore no +jewelry, only a bracelet on her wrist, a chain of heavy metal links with a +green blue cast. +Cherryl waited, until she saw Dagny standing alone, then tore forward, +cutting resolutely across the room. She looked at close range into the gunmetal eyes that seemed cold and intense at once, the eyes that looked at her +directly with a polite, impersonal curiosity. +"There's something I want you to know," said Cherryl, her voice taut and +harsh, "so that there won't be any pretending about it. I'm not going to put +on the sweet relative act. I know what you've done to Jim and how you've made +him miserable all his life. I'm going to protect him against you. I'll put +you in your place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm the woman in this family now." + + "That's quite all right," said Dagny. "I'm the man.” +Cherryl watched her walk away, and ihoug'rit1 that Jim had been right: +this sister of his was a creature of cold evil who had given her no response, +no acknowledgment, no emotion of any kind except a touch of something that +looked like an astonished, indifferent amusement. +Rearden stood by Lillian's side and followed her when she moved. +She wished to be seen with her husband; he was complying. He did not know +whether anyone looked at him or not; he was aware of no one around them, +except the person whom he could not permit himself to see. +The image still holding his consciousness was the moment when he had +entered this room with Lillian and had seen Dagny looking at them. He had +looked straight at her, prepared to accept any blow her eyes would choose to +give him. Whatever the consequences to Lillian, he would have confessed his +adultery publicly, there and in that moment, rather than commit the +unspeakable act of evading Dagny's eyes, of closing his face into a coward's +blankness, of pretending to her that he did not know the nature of his +action. +But there had been no blow. He knew every shade of sensation ever +reflected in Dagny's face; he had known that she had felt no shock; he had +seen nothing but an untouched serenity. Her eyes had moved to his, as if +acknowledging the full meaning of this encounter, but looking at him as she +would have looked anywhere, as she looked at him in his office or in her +bedroom. It had seemed to him that she had stood before them both, at the +distance of a few steps, revealed to them as simply and openly as the gray +dress revealed her body. +She had bowed to them, the courteous movement of her head including them +both. He had answered, he had seen Lillian's brief nod, and then he had seen +Lillian moving away and realized that he had stood with his head bowed for a +long moment. +He did not know what Lillian's friends were saying to him or what he was +answering. As a man goes step by step, trying not to think of the length of a +hopeless road, so he went moment by moment, keeping no imprint of anything in +his mind. He heard snatches of Lillian's pleased laughter and a tone of +satisfaction in her voice. +After a while, he noticed the women around him; they all seemed to +resemble Lillian, with the same look of static grooming, with thin eyebrows +plucked to a static lift and eyes frozen in static amusement. He noticed that +they were trying to flirt with him, and that Lillian watched it as if she +were enjoying the hopelessness of their attempts. This, then —he thought—was +the happiness of feminine vanity which she had begged him to give her, these +were the standards which he did not live by, but had to consider. He turned +for escape to a group of men. +He could not find a single straight statement in the conversation of the +men; whatever subject they seemed to be talking about never seemed to be the +subject they were actually discussing. He listened like a foreigner who +recognized some of the words, but could not connect them into sentences. A +young man, with a look of alcoholic insolence, staggered past the group and +snapped, chuckling, "Learned your lesson, Rearden?" He did not know what the +young rat had meant; everybody else seemed to know it; they looked shocked +and secretly pleased. +Lillian drifted away from him, as if letting him understand that she did +not insist upon his literal attendance. He retreated to a corner of the room +where no one would see him or notice the direction of his eyes. Then he +permitted himself to look at Dagny. +He watched the gray dress, the shifting movement of the soft cloth when +she walked, the momentary pauses sculptured by the cloth, the shadows and the +light. He saw it as a bluish-gray smoke held shaped for an instant into a + + long curve that slanted forward to her knee and back to the tip of her +sandal. He knew every facet the light would shape if the smoke were ripped +away. +He felt a murky, twisting pain: it was jealousy of every man who spoke to +her. He had never felt it before; but he felt it here, where everyone had the +right to approach her, except himself. +Then, as if a single, sudden blow to his brain blasted a moment's shift of +perspective, he felt an immense astonishment at what he was doing here and +why. He lost, for that moment, all the days and dogmas of his past; his +concepts, his problems, his pain were wiped out; he knew only—as from a +great, clear distance—that man exists for the achievement of his desires, and +he wondered why he stood here, he wondered who had the right to demand that +he waste a single irreplaceable hour of his life, when his only desire was to +seize the slender figure in gray and hold her through the length of whatever +time there was left for him to exist. +In the next moment, he felt the shudder of recapturing his mind. He felt +the tight, contemptuous movement of his lips pressed together in token of the +words he cried to himself: You made a contract once, now stick to it. And +then he thought suddenly that in business transactions the courts of law did +not recognize a contract wherein no valuable consideration had been given by +one party to the other. He wondered what made him think of it. The thought +seemed irrelevant. He did not pursue it. +James Taggart saw Lillian Rearden drift casually toward him at the one +moment when he chanced to be alone in the dim corner between a potted palm +and a window. He stopped and waited to let her approach. +He could not guess her purpose, but this was the manner which, in the code +he understood, meant that he had better hear her. +"How do you like my wedding gift, Jim?" she asked, and laughed at his look +of embarrassment. "No, no, don't try to go over the list of things in your +apartment, wondering which one the hell it was. It's not in your apartment, +it's right here, and it's a non-material gift, darling." +He saw the half-hint of a smile on her face, the look understood among his +friends as an invitation to share a secret victory; it was the look, not of +having outthought, but of having outsmarted somebody. +He answered cautiously, with a safely pleasant smile, "Your presence is +the best gift you could give me." +"My presence, Jim?" +The lines of his face were shock-bound for a moment. He knew what she +meant, but he had not expected her to mean it. +She smiled openly. "We both know whose presence is the most valuable one +for you tonight—and the unexpected one. Didn't you really think of giving me +credit for it? I'm surprised at you. I thought you had a genius for +recognizing potential friends." +He would not commit himself; he kept his voice carefully neutral. +"Have I failed to appreciate your friendship, Lillian?" +"Now, now, darling, you know what I'm talking about. You didn't expect him +to come here, you didn't really think that he is afraid of you, did you? But +to have the others think he is—that's quite an inestimable advantage, isn't +it?" +"I'm . . . surprised, Lillian." +"Shouldn't you say 'impressed'? Your guests are quite impressed. I can +practically hear them thinking all over the room. Most of them are thinking: +'If he has to seek terms with Jim Taggart, we'd better toe the line.' And a +few are thinking: 'If he's afraid, we'll get away with much more.' This is as +you want it, of course—and I wouldn't think of spoiling your triumph—but you +and I are the only ones who know that you didn't achieve it single-handed." + + He did not smile; he asked, his face blank, his voice smooth, but with a +carefully measured hint of harshness, "What's your angle?" +She laughed. "Essentially—the same as yours, Jim. But speaking +practically—none at all. It's just a favor I've done you, and I need no favor +in return. Don't worry, I'm not lobbying for any special interests, I'm not +after squeezing some particular directive out of Mr. Mouch, I'm not even +after a diamond tiara from you. Unless, of course, it's a tiara of a nonmaterial order, such as your appreciation." +He looked straight at her for the first time, his eyes narrowed, his face +relaxed to the same half-smile as hers, suggesting the expression which, for +both of them, meant that they felt at home with each other: an expression of +contempt. "You know that I have always admired you, Lillian, as one of the +truly superior women." +"I'm aware of it." There was the faintest coating of mockery spread, like +shellac, over the smooth notes of her voice. +He was studying her insolently. "You must forgive me if I think that some +curiosity is permissible between friends," he said, with no tone of apology. +"I'm wondering from what angle you contemplate the possibility of certain +financial burdens—or losses—which affect your own personal interests." +She shrugged. "From the angle of a horsewoman, darling. If you had the +most powerful horse in the world, you would keep it bridled down to the Galt +required to carry you in comfort, even though this meant the sacrifice of its +full capacity, even though its top speed would never be seen and its great +power would be wasted. You would do it— +because if you let the horse go full blast, it would throw you off in no +time. . . . However, financial aspects are not my chief concern —nor yours, +Jim." +"t did underestimate you," he said slowly. +"Oh, well, that's an error I'm willing to help you correct. I know the +sort of problem he presents to you. I know why you're afraid of him, as you +have good reason to be. But . . . well, you're in business and in politics, +so I'll try to say it in your language. A businessman says that he can +deliver the goods, and a ward heeler says that he can deliver the vote, is +that right? Well, what I wanted you to know is that I can deliver him, any +time I choose. You may act accordingly." +In the code of his friends, to reveal any part of one's self was to give a +weapon to an enemy—but he signed her confession and matched it, when he said, +"I wish I were as smart about my sister." +She looked at him without astonishment; she did not find the words +irrelevant. "Yes, there's a tough one," she said. "No vulnerable point? +No weaknesses?" +"None." +"No love affairs?" +"God, no!" +She shrugged, in sign of changing the subject; Dagny Taggart was a person +on whom she did not care to dwell. "I think I'll let you run along, so that +you can chat a little with Balph Eubank," she said. "He looks worried, +because you haven't looked at him all evening and he's wondering whether +literature will be left without a friend at court." +"Lillian, you're wonderful!" he said quite spontaneously. +She laughed. "That, my dear, is the non-material tiara I wanted!" +The remnant of a smile stayed on her face as she moved through the crowd, +a fluid smile that ran softly into the look of tension and boredom worn by +all the faces around her. She moved at random, enjoying the sense of being +seen, her eggshell satin gown shimmering like heavy cream with the motion of +her tall figure. + + It was the green-blue spark that caught her attention: it flashed for an +instant under the lights, on the wrist of a thin, naked arm. Then she saw the +slender body, the gray dress, the fragile, naked shoulders. She stopped. She +looked at the bracelet, frowning. +Dagny turned at her approach. Among the many things that Lillian resented, +the impersonal politeness of Dagny's face was the one she resented most. +"What do you think of your brother's marriage, Miss Taggart?" she asked +casually, smiling. +"I have no opinion about it." +"Do you mean to say that you don't find it worthy of any thought?" +"If you wish to be exact—yes, that's what I mean." +"Oh, but don't you see any human significance in it?" +"No." +"Don't you think that a person such as your brother's bride does deserve +some interest?" +"Why, no." +"I envy you, Miss Taggart. I envy your Olympian detachment. It is, I +think, the secret of why lesser mortals can never hope to equal your success +in the field of business. They allow their attention to be divided—at least +to the extent of acknowledging achievements in other fields." +"What achievements are we talking about?" +"Don't you grant any recognition at all to the women who attain unusual +heights of conquest, not in the industrial, but in the human realm?" +"I don't think that there is such a word as 'conquest'—in the human +realm." +"Oh, but consider, for instance, how hard other women would have had to +work—if work were the only means available to them—to achieve what this girl +has achieved through the person of your brother." +"1 don't think she knows the exact nature of what she has achieved." +Rearden saw them together. He approached. He felt that he had to hear it, +no matter what the consequences. He stopped silently beside them. He did not +know whether Lillian was aware of his presence; he knew that Dagny was. +"Do show a little generosity toward her, Miss Taggart," said Lillian. +"At least, the generosity of attention. You must not despise the women who +do not possess your brilliant talent, but who exercise their own particular +endowments. Nature always balances her gifts and offers compensations—don't +you think so?" +"I'm not sure I understand you." +"Oh, I'm sure you don't want to hear me become more explicit!" +"Why, yes, I do." +Lillian shrugged angrily; among the women who were her friends, she would +have been understood and stopped long ago; but this was an adversary new to +her—a woman who refused to be hurt. She did not care to speak more clearly, +but she saw Rearden looking at her. +She smiled and said, "Well, consider your sister-in-law, Miss Taggart. +What chance did she have to rise in the world? None—by your exacting +standards. She could not have made a successful career in business. +She does not possess your unusual mind. Besides, men would have made it +impossible for her. They would have found her too attractive. +So she took advantage of the fact that men have standards which, +unfortunately, are not as high as yours. She resorted to talents which, I'm +sure, you despise. You have never cared to compete with us lesser women in +the sole field of our ambition—in the achievement of power over men." +"If you call it power, Mrs. Rearden—then, no, I haven't." +She turned to go, but Lillian's voice stopped her: "I would like to +believe that you're fully consistent, Miss Taggart, and fully devoid of human +frailties. I would like to believe that you've never felt the desire to + + flatter—or to offend—anyone. But I see that you expected both Henry and me to +be here tonight." +"Why, no, I can't say that I did, I had not seen my brother's guest list." +"Then why are you wearing that bracelet?" +Dagny's eyes moved deliberately straight to hers. "I always wear it." +"Don't you think that that's carrying a joke too far?" +"It was never a joke, Mrs. Rearden." +"Then you'll understand me if I say that I'd like you to give that +bracelet back to me." +"I understand you. But (will not give it back." +Lillian let a moment pass, as if to let them both acknowledge the meaning +of their silence. For once, she held Dagny's glance without smiling. "What do +you expect me to think, Miss Taggart?" +"Anything you wish." +"What is your motive?" +"You knew my motive when you gave me the bracelet." +Lillian glanced at Rearden. His face was expressionless; she saw no +reaction, no hint of intention to help her or stop her, nothing but an +attentiveness that made her feel as if she were standing in a spotlight. +Her smile came back, as a protective shield, an amused, patronizing smile, +intended to convert the subject into a drawing-room issue again. "I'm sure, +Miss Taggart, that you realize how enormously improper this is." +"No." +"But surely you know that you are taking a dangerous and ugly risk." +"No." +"You do not take into consideration the possibility of being . . . +misunderstood?" +"No." +Lillian shook her head in smiling reproach. "Miss Taggart, don't you think +that this is a case where one cannot afford to indulge in abstract theory, +but must consider practical reality?" +Dagny would not smile. "I have never understood what is meant by a +statement of that kind." +"I mean that your attitude may be highly idealistic—as I am sure it is— +but, unfortunately, most people do not share your lofty frame of mind and +will misinterpret your action in the one manner which would be most abhorrent +to you." +"Then the responsibility and the risk will be theirs, not mine." +"I admire your . . . no, I must not say 'innocence,' but shall I say +'purity?' You have never thought of it, I'm sure, but life is not as straight +and logical as . . . as a railroad track. It is regrettable, but possible, +that your high intentions may lead people to suspect things which . . . well, +which I'm sure you know to be of a sordid and scandalous nature." +Dagny was looking straight at her. "I don't." +"But you cannot ignore that possibility." +"I do." Dagny turned to go. +"Oh, but should you wish to evade a discussion if you have nothing to +hide?" Dagny stopped. "And if your brilliant—and reckless courage permits you +to gamble with your reputation, should you ignore the danger to Mr. Rearden?" +Dagny asked slowly, "What is the danger to Mr. Rearden?" +'Tm sure you understand me." +"I don't." +"Oh, but surely it isn't necessary to be more explicit." +"It is—if you wish to continue this discussion." +Lillian's eyes went to Rearden's face, searching for some sign to help her +decide whether to continue or to stop. He would not help her. + + "Miss Taggart” she said, "I am not your equal in philosophical altitude. I +am only an average wife. Please give me that bracelet—if you do not wish me +to think what I might think and what you wouldn't want me to name." +"Mrs. Rearden, is this the manner and place in which you choose to suggest +that I am sleeping with your husband?" +"Certainly not!" The cry was immediate; it had a sound of panic and the +quality of an automatic reflex, like the jerk of withdrawal of a pickpocket's +hand caught in action. She added, with an angry, nervous chuckle, in a tone +of sarcasm and sincerity that confessed a reluctant admission of her actual +opinion, "That would be the possibility farthest from my mind." +"Then you will please apologize to Miss Taggart," said Rearden. +Dagny caught her breath, cutting off all but the faint echo of a gasp. +They both whirled to him. Lillian saw nothing in "his face; Dagny saw +torture. +"It isn't necessary, Hank," she said. +"It is—for me," he answered coldly, not looking at her; he was looking at +Lillian in the manner of a command that could not be disobeyed. +Lillian studied his face with mild astonishment, but without anxiety or +anger, like a person confronted by a puzzle of no significance. +"But of course,” she said complaisantly, her voice smooth and confident +again. "Please accept my apology, Miss Taggart, if I gave you the impression +that I suspected the existence of a relationship which I would consider +improbable for you and—from my knowledge of his inclinations—impossible for +my husband." +She turned and walked away indifferently, leaving them together, as if in +deliberate proof of her words. +Dagny stood still, her eyes closed; she was thinking of the night when +Lillian had given her the bracelet. He had taken his wife's side, then; he +had taken hers, now. Of the three of them, she was the only one who +understood fully what this meant. +"Whatever is the worst you may wish to say to me, you will be right." +She heard him and opened her eyes. He was looking at her coldly, his face +harsh, allowing no sign of pain or apology to suggest a hope of forgiveness. +"Dearest, don't torture yourself like that," she said. "I knew that you're +married. I've never tried to evade that knowledge. I'm not hurt by it +tonight," +Her first word was the most violent of the several blows he felt: she had +never used that word before. She had never let him hear that particular tone +of tenderness. She had never spoken of his marriage in the privacy of their +meetings—yet she spoke of it here with effortless simplicity. +She saw the anger in his face—the rebellion against pity—the look of +saying to her contemptuously that he had betrayed no torture and needed no +help—then the look of the realization that she knew his face as thoroughly as +he knew hers—he closed his eyes, he inclined his head a little, and he said +very quietly, "Thank you." +She smiled and turned away from him. +James Taggart held an empty champagne glass in his hand and noticed the +haste with which Balph Eubank waved at a passing waiter, as if the waiter +were guilty of an unpardonable lapse. Then Eubank completed his sentence: "— +but you, Mr. Taggart, would know that a man who lives on a higher plane +cannot be understood or appreciated. It's a hopeless struggle—trying to +obtain support for literature from a world ruled by businessmen. They are +nothing but stuffy, middle-class vulgarians or else predatory savages like +Rearden." +"Jim," said Bertram Scudder, slapping his shoulder, "the best compliment I +can pay you is that you're not a real businessman!" + + "You're a man of culture, Jim," said Dr. Pritchett, "you're not an ex-oredigger like Rearden. I don't have to explain to you the crucial need of +Washington assistance to higher education." +"You really liked my last novel, Mr. Taggart?" Balph Eubank kept asking. +"You really liked it?" +Orren Boyle glanced at the group, on his way across the room, but did not +stop. The glance was sufficient to give him an estimate of the nature of the +group's concerns. Fair enough, he thought, one's got to trade something. He +knew, but did not care to name just what was being traded. +"We arc at the dawn of a new age," said James Taggart, from above the rim +of his champagne glass. "We are breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic +power. We will set men free of the rule of the dollar. We will release our +spiritual aims from dependence on the owners of material means. We will +liberate our culture from the stranglehold of the profit-chasers. We will +build a society dedicated to higher ideals, and we will replace the +aristocracy of money by—" +"—the aristocracy of pull," said a voice beyond the group. +They whirled around. The man who stood facing them was Francisco +d'Anconia. +His face looked tanned by a summer sun, and his eyes were the exact color +of the sky on the kind of day when he had acquired his tan. +His smile suggested a summer morning. The way he wore his formal clothes +made the rest of the crowd look as if they were masquerading in borrowed +costumes. +"What's the matter?" he asked in the midst of their silence. "Did I say +something that somebody here didn't know?" +"How did you get here?" was the first thing James Taggart found himself +able to utter. +"By plane to Newark, by taxi from there, then by elevator from my suite +fifty-three floors above you." +"I didn't mean . . . that is, what I meant was—" +"Don't look so startled, James. If I land in New York and hear that +there's a party going on, I wouldn't miss it, would I? You've always said +that I'm just a party hound." +The group was watching them. +"I'm delighted to see you, of course," Taggart said cautiously, then added +belligerently, to balance it, "But if you think you're going to—" +Francisco would not pick up the threat; he let Taggart's sentence slide +into mid-air and stop, then asked politely, "If I think what?" +"You understand me very well." +"Yes. I do. Shall I tell you what I think?" +"This is hardly the moment for any—" +"I think you should present me to your bride, James. Your manners have +never been glued to you too solidly—you always lose them in an emergency, and +that's the time when one needs them most." +Turning to escort him toward Cherryl, Taggart caught the faint sound that +came from Bertram Scudder; it was an unborn chuckle. Taggart knew that the +men who had crawled at his feet a moment ago, whose hatred for Francisco +d'Anconia was, perhaps, greater than his own, were enjoying the spectacle +none the less. The implications of this knowledge were among the things he +did not care to name. +Francisco bowed to Cherryl and offered his best wishes, as if she were the +bride of a royal heir. Watching nervously, Taggart felt relief— +and a touch of nameless resentment, which, if named, would have told him +he wished the occasion deserved the grandeur that Francisco's manner gave it +for a moment. + + He was afraid to remain by Francisco's side and afraid to let him loose +among the guests, He backed a few tentative steps away, but Francisco +followed him, smiling. +"You didn't think I'd want to miss your wedding, James—when you're my +childhood friend and best stockholder?" +"What?" gasped Taggart, and regretted it: the sound was a confession of +panic. +Francisco did not seem to take note of it; he said, his voice gaily +innocent, "Oh, but of course I know it. I know the stooge behind the stooge +behind every name on the list of the stockholders of d'Anconia Copper. It's +surprising how many men by the name of Smith and Gomez are rich enough to own +big chunks of the richest corporation in the world—so you can't blame me if I +was curious to learn what distinguished persons I actually have among my +minority stockholders. I seem to be popular with an astonishing collection of +public figures from all over the world—from People's States where you +wouldn't think there's any money left at all." +Taggart said dryly, frowning, "There are many reasons—business reasons—why +it is sometimes advisable not to make one's investments directly." +"One reason is that a man doesn't want people to know he's rich. +Another is that he doesn't want them to learn how he got that way." +"I don't know what you mean or why you should object." +"Oh, I don't object at all. I appreciate it. A great many investors —the +old-fashioned sort—dropped me after the San Sebastian Mines. +It scared them away. But the modern ones had more faith in me and acted as +they always do—on faith. I can't tell you how thoroughly I appreciate it." +Taggart wished Francisco would not talk so loudly; he wished people would +not gather around them. "You have been doing extremely well," he said, in the +safe tone of a business compliment. +"Yes, haven't I? It's wonderful how the stock of d'Anconia Copper has +risen within the last year. But I don't think I should be too conceited about +it—there's not much competition left in the world, there's no place to invest +one's money, if one happens to get rich quickly, and here's d'Anconia Copper, +the oldest company on earth, the one that's been the safest bet for +centuries. Just think of what it managed to survive through the ages. So if +you people have decided that it's the best place for your hidden money, that +it can't be beaten, that it would take a most unusual kind of man to destroy +d'Anconia Copper—you were right." +"Well, I hear it said that you've begun to take your responsibilities +seriously and that you've settled down to business at last. They say you've +been working very hard," +"Oh, has anybody noticed that? It was the old-fashioned investors who made +it a point to watch what the president of a company was doing. The modern +investors don't find knowledge necessary. I don't think they ever look into +my activities." +Taggart smiled. "They look at the ticker tape of the stock exchange. +That tells the whole story, doesn't it?" +"Yes. Yes, it does—in the long run." +"I must say I'm glad that you haven't been much of a party hound this past +year. The results show in your work." +"Do they? Well, no, not quite yet." +"I suppose," said Taggart, in the cautious tone of an indirect question, +"that I should feel flattered you chose to come to this party." +"Oh, but I had to come. I thought you were expecting me." +"Why, no, I wasn't . . . that is, I mean—" +"You should have expected me, James. This is the great, formal, nosecounting event, where the victims come in order to show how safe it is to +destroy them, and the destroyers form pacts of eternal friendship, which + + lasts for three months. I don't know exactly which group I belong to, but I +had to come and be counted, didn't I?" +"What in hell do you think you're saying?" Taggart cried furiously, seeing +the tension on the faces around them. +"Be careful, James. If you try to pretend that you don't understand me, +I'm going to make it much clearer." +"If you think it's proper to utter such—" +"I think it's funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody +would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. +Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have +you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your +whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns—just somebody +naming the exact nature of what you're doing?" +"If you think it's proper to come to a celebration such as a wedding, in +order to insult the host—" +"Why, James, I came here to thank you." +"To thank me?" +"Of course. You've done me a great favor—you and your boys in Washington +and the boys in Santiago. Only I wonder why none of you took the trouble to +inform me about it. Those directives that somebody issued here a few months +ago are choking off the entire copper industry of this country. And the +result is that this country suddenly has to import much larger amounts of +copper. And where in the world is there any copper left—unless it's d'Anconia +copper? So you see that I have good reason to be grateful." +"1 assure you I had nothing to do with it," Taggart said hastily, "and +besides, the vital economic policies of this country are not determined by +any considerations such as you're intimating or—-" +"I know how they're determined, James. I know that the deal started with +the boys in Santiago, because they've been on the d'Anconia pay roll for +centuries—well, no, 'pay roll' is an honorable word, it would be more exact +to say that d'Anconia Copper has been paying them protection money for +centuries—isn't that what your gangsters call it? +Our boys in Santiago call it taxes. They've been getting their cut on +every ton of d'Anconia copper sold. So they have a vested interest to see me +sell as many tons as possible. But with the world turning into People's +States, this is the only country left where men are not yet reduced to +digging for roots in forests for their sustenance—so this is the only market +left on earth. The boys in Santiago wanted to corner this market. I don't +know what they offered to the boys in Washington, or who traded what and to +whom—but I know that you came in on it somewhere, because you do hold a +sizable chunk of d'Anconia Copper stock. And it surely didn't displease you— +that morning, four months L ago, the day after the directives were issued—to +see the kind of soaring leap that d'Anconia Copper performed on the Stock +Exchange. Why, it practically leaped off the ticker tape and into your face." +"Who gave you any grounds to invent an outrageous story of this kind?" +"Nobody. I knew nothing about it. I just saw the leap on the ticker tape +that morning. That told the whole story, didn't it? Besides, the boys in +Santiago slapped a new tax on copper the following week—and they told me that +I shouldn't mind it, not with that sudden rise of my stock. They were working +for my best interests, they said. They said, why should I care—taking the two +events together, I was richer than I had been before. True enough. I was." +"Why do you wish to tell me this?" +"Why don't you wish to take any credit for it, James? That's out of +character and out of the policy at which you're such an expert. In an age +when men exist, not by right, but by favor, one does not reject a grateful +person, one tries to trap into gratitude as many people as possible. Don't +you want to have me as one of your men under obligation?" + + "I don't know what you're talking about." +"Think what a favor I received without any effort on my part. I wasn't +consulted, I wasn't informed, I wasn't thought about, everything was arranged +without me—and all I have to do now is produce the copper. That was a great +favor, James—and you may be sure that I will repay it." +Francisco turned abruptly, not waiting for an answer, and started away. +Taggart did not follow; he stood, feeling that anything was preferable to one +more minute of their conversation. +Francisco stopped when he came to Dagny. He looked at her for a silent +instant, without greeting, his smile acknowledging that she had been the +first person he saw and the first one to see him at his entrance into the +ballroom. +Against every doubt and warning in her mind, she felt nothing but a joyous +confidence; inexplicably, she felt as if his figure in that crowd was a point +of indestructible security. But in the moment when the beginning of a smile +told him how glad she was to see him, he asked, "Don't you want to tell me +what a brilliant achievement the John Galt Line turned out to be?" +She felt her lips trembling and tightening at once, as she answered, 'Tm +sorry if I show that I'm still open to be hurt. It shouldn't shock me that +you've come to the stage where you despise achievement." +"Yes; don't T? I despised that Line so much that I didn't want to see it +reach the kind of end it has reached." +He saw her look of sudden attentiveness, the look of thought rushing into +a breach torn open upon a new direction. He watched her for a moment, as if +he knew every step she would find along that road, then chuckled and said, +"Don't you want to ask me now: Who is John Galt?" +"Why should I want to, and why now?" +"Don't you remember that you dared him to come and claim your Line? Well, +he has." +He walked on, not waiting to sec the look in her eyes—a look that held +anger, bewilderment and the first faint gleam of a question mark. +It was the muscles of his own face that made Rearden realize the nature of +his reaction to Francisco's arrival: he noticed suddenly that he was smiling +and that his face had been relaxed into the dim well being of a smile for +some minutes past, as he watched Francisco d'Anconia in the crowd. +He acknowledged to himself, for the first time, all the half-grasped, +half-rejected moments when he had thought of Francisco d'Anconia and thrust +the thought aside before it became the knowledge of how much he wanted to see +him again. In moments of sudden exhaustion— +at his desk, with the fires of the furnaces going down in the twilight— +in the darkness of the lonely walk through the empty countryside to his +house—in the silence of sleepless nights—he had found himself thinking of the +only man who had once seemed to be his spokesman. +He had pushed the memory aside, telling himself: But that one is worse +than all the others!—while feeling certain that this was not true, yet being +unable to name the reason of his certainty. He had caught himself glancing +through the newspapers to see whether Francisco d'Anconia had returned to New +York—and he had thrown the newspapers aside, asking himself angrily: What if +he did return?—would you go chasing him through night clubs and cocktail +parties?—what is it that you want from him? +This was what he had wanted—he thought, when he caught himself smiling at +the sight of Francisco in the crowd—this strange feeling of expectation that +held curiosity, amusement and hope. +Francisco did not seem to have noticed him. Rearden waited, fighting a +desire to approach; not after the kind of conversation we had, he thought— +what for?—what would I say to him? And then, with the same smiling, lighthearted feeling, the feeling of being certain that it was right, he found + + himself walking across the ballroom, toward the group that surrounded +Francisco d'Anconia. +He wondered, looking at them, why these people were drawn to Francisco, +why they chose to hold him imprisoned in a clinging circle. +when their resentment of him was obvious under their smiles. Their faces +had the hint of a look peculiar, not to fear, but to cowardice: a look of +guilty anger. Francisco stood cornered against the side edge of a marble +stairway, half-leaning, half-sitting on the steps; the informality of his +posture, combined with the strict formality of his clothes, gave him an air +of superlative elegance. His was the only face that had the carefree look and +the brilliant smile proper to the enjoyment of a party; but his eyes seemed +intentionally expressionless, holding no trace of gaiety, showing—like a +warning signal—nothing but the activity of a heightened perceptiveness. +Standing unnoticed on the edge of the group, Rearden heard a woman, who +had large diamond earrings and a flabby, nervous face, ask tensely, "Senior +d'Anconia, what do you think is going to happen to the world?" +"Just exactly what it deserves," +"Oh, how cruel!" +"Don't you believe in the operation of the moral law, madame?" +Francisco asked gravely. "I do." +Rearden heard Bertram Scudder, outside the group, say to a girl who made +some sound of indignation, "Don't let him disturb you. You know, money is the +root of all evil—and he's the typical product of money." +Rearden did not think that Francisco could have heard it, but he saw +Francisco turning to them with a gravely courteous smile. +"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco +d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of +exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to +produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish +to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money +is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the +looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the +men who produce. +Is this what you consider evil? +"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the +conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. +It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean +of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in +your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of +paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor—your claim upon the +energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that +somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that +moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil? +"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an +electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular +effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the +knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try +to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you'll learn +that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth +that has ever existed on earth. +"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? +What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth +is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who +invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made +by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of +the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made— +before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, + + each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he +can't consume more than he has produced. +"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. +Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his +effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except +the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in +return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which +they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals +except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money +demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not +for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss—the recognition that +they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery—that +you must offer them values, not wounds—that the common bond among men is not +the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. +Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but +your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they +offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade—with +reason, not force, as their final arbiter—it is the best product that wins, +the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability—and the +degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the +code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider +evil? +"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will +not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the +satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. +Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of +causality—the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the +mind. +"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what +he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the +knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if +he's evaded the choke of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for +the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The +man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with +his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his +inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds +come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man +may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil? +"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth—the man who +would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to +his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. +But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he +corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and +you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been +distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, +would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living +power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot +match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil? +"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the +source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the +source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money +by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to +fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering +your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, +then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then +all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not +an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is + + evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, +because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your +hatred of money? +"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the +cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it +will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in +matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money? +"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? +To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know +and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, +and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. +It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in +proclaiming his hatred of money—and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers +of money are willing to work for it. +They know they are able to deserve it. +"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns +money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. +"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. +That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men +live together on earth and need means to deal with one another— +their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun. +"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or +to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no +moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as +they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich—will not remain rich +for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under +rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who +begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to +relieve him of the guilt— +and of his life, as he deserves. +"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard—the men who +live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of +their looted money—the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral +society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you +against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and lootersby-law—men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims—then money +becomes its creators' avenger. +Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a +law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who +get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at +production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the +standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society +vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter. +"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. +Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is +done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to +produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you +see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when +you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws +don't protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see +corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know +that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not +compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. +It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. +"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for +money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize +gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all + + objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary +setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth +produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun +aimed at those who are expected to "produce it. Paper is a check drawn by +legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the +victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account overdrawn.' +"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to +remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the +purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, +when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is +destroying the world?' You are. +"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest +productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while +you're damning its life-blood—-money. You look upon money as the savages did +before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of +your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of +one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the +same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, +defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you +mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was +produced by the labor of slaves—slaves who repeated the motions once +discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as +production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was +little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and +starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as +aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the +producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers—as industrialists. +"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in +history, a country of money—and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to +pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, +production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set +free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and +instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the +greatest worker, the highest type of human being—the self-made man—the +American industrialist. +"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would +choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people +who created the phrase 'to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever +used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static +quantity—to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a +favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. +The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. +"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted +cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you +to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity +as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your +magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the +labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who +simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the +power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide—as, I think, +he will. +"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask +for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal +with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or +dollars. Take your choice—there is no other—and your time is running out." +Francisco had not glanced at Rearden once while speaking; but the moment +he finished, his eyes went straight to Rearden's face. Rearden stood + + motionless, seeing nothing but Francisco d'Anconia across the moving figures +and angry voices between them. +There were people who had listened, but now hurried away, and people who +said, "It's horrible!"—"It's not true!"—"How vicious and selfish!"—saying it +loudly and guardedly at once, as if wishing that their neighbors would hear +them, but hoping that Francisco would not. +"Senor d'Anconia," declared the woman with the earrings, "I don't agree +with you!" +"If you can refute a single sentence I uttered, madame, I shall hear it +gratefully." +"Oh, I can't answer you. I don't have any answers, my mind doesn't work +that way, but I don't feel that you're right, so I know that you're wrong." +"How do you know it?" +"I feel it. I don't go by my head, but by my heart. You might be good at +logic, but you're heartless." +"Madame, when we'll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart +won't be of any earthly use to save them. And I'm heartless enough to say +that when you'll scream, 'But I didn't know it!'—you will not be forgiven." +The woman turned away, a shudder running through the flesh of her cheeks +and through the angry tremor of her voice: "Well, it's certainly a funny way +to talk at a party!" +A portly man with evasive eyes said loudly, his tone of forced +cheerfulness suggesting that his sole concern in any issue was not to let it +become unpleasant, "If this is the way you feel about money, senor, I think +I'm darn glad that I've got a goodly piece of d'Anconia Copper stock." +Francisco said gravely, "I suggest that you think twice, sir." +Rearden started toward him—and Francisco, who had not seemed to look in +his direction, moved to meet him at once, as if the others had never existed. +"Hello," said Rearden simply, easily, as to a childhood friend; he was +smiling. +He saw his own smile reflected in Francisco's face. "Hello." +"I want to speak to you." +"To whom do you think I've been speaking for the last quarter of an hour?" +Rearden chuckled, in the manner of acknowledging an opponent's round. "I +didn't think you had noticed me." +"I noticed, when I came in, that you were one of the only two persons in +this room who were glad to see me." +"Aren't you being presumptuous?" +"No—grateful." +"Who was the other person glad to see you?" +Francisco shrugged and said lightly, "A woman." +Rearden noticed that Francisco had led him aside, away from the group, in +so skillfully natural a manner that neither he nor the others had known it +was being done intentionally. +"I didn't expect to find you here," said Francisco. "You shouldn't have +come to this party." +"Why not?" +"May I ask what made you come?" +"My wife was anxious to accept the invitation." +"Forgive me if I put it in such form, but it would have been more proper +and less dangerous if she had asked you to take her on a tour of +whorehouses." +"What danger are you talking about?" +"Mr. Rearden, you do not know these people's way of doing business or how +they interpret your presence here. In your code, but not in theirs, accepting +a man's hospitality is a token of good will, a declaration that you and your +host stand on terms of a civilized relationship. + + Don't give them that kind of sanction." +"Then why did you come here?" +Francisco shrugged gaily. "Oh, I—it doesn't matter what I do. I'm only a +party hound." +"What are you doing at this party?" +"Just looking for conquests." +"Found any?" +His face suddenly earnest, Francisco answered gravely, almost solemnly, +"Yes—what I think is going to be my best and greatest." +Rearden's anger was involuntary, the cry, not of reproach, but of despair: +"How can you waste yourself that way?" +The faint suggestion of a smile, like the rise of a distant light, came +into Francisco's eyes as he asked, "Do you care to admit that you care about +it?" +"You're going to hear a few more admissions, if that's what you're after. +Before I met you, I used to wonder how you could waste a fortune such as +yours. Now it's worse, because I can't despise you as I did, as I'd like to, +yet the question is much more terrible: How can you waste a mind such as +yours?" +"I don't think I'm wasting it right now." +"I don't know whether there's ever been anything that meant a damn to you— +but I'm going to tell you what I've never said to anyone before. When I met +you, do you remember that you said you wanted to offer me your gratitude?" +There was no trace of amusement left in Francisco's eyes; Rearden had +never faced so solemn a look of respect, "Yes, Mr. Rearden," he answered +quietly. +"I told you that I didn't need it and I insulted you for it. All right, +you've won. That speech you made tonight—that was what you were offering me, +wasn't it?" +"Yes, Mr. Rearden.” +"It was more than gratitude, and I needed the gratitude; it was more than +admiration, and I needed that, too; it was much more than any word I can +find, it will take me days to think of all that it's given me—but one thing I +do know: I needed it. I've never made an admission of this kind, because I've +never cried for anyone's help. If it amused you to guess that I was glad to +see you, you have something real to laugh about now, if you wish." +"It might take me a few years, but I will prove to you that these are the +things I do not laugh about." +"Prove it now—by answering one question: Why don't you practice what you +preach?" +"Are you sure that I don't?" +"If the things you said are true, if you have the greatness to know it, +you should have been the leading industrialist of the world by now." +Francisco said gravely, as he had said to the portly man, but with an odd +note of gentleness in his voice, "I suggest that you think twice, Mr. +Rearden." +"I've thought about you more than I care to admit. I have found no +answer." +"Let me give you a hint: If the things I said are true, who is the +guiltiest man in this room tonight?" +"I suppose—James Taggart?" +"No, Mr. Rearden, it is not James Taggart. But you must define the guilt +and choose the man yourself." +"A few years ago, I would have said that it's you. I still think that +that's what I ought to say. But I'm almost in the position of that fool woman +who spoke to you: every reason I know tells me that you're guilty—and yet I +can't feel it." + + "You are making the same mistake as that woman, Mr. Rearden, though in a +nobler form." +"What do you mean?" +"I mean much more than just your judgment of me. That woman and all those +like her keep evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep +pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. They do +it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it, because you won't permit +yourself to consider anything that would spare y6u. They indulge their +emotions at any cost. You sacrifice your emotions as the first cost of any +problem. They are willing to bear nothing. You are willing to bear anything. +They keep evading responsibility. You keep assuming it. But don't you see +that the essential error is the same? Any refusal to recognize reality, for +any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts +except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires, Mr. +Rearden. Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to +how much you should have to bear." +"How did you know this about me?" +"I made the same mistake, once. But not for long." +"I wish—" Rearden began and stopped abruptly. +Francisco smiled. "Afraid to wish, Mr. Rearden?" +"I wish I could permit myself to like you as much as I do." +"I'd give—" Francisco stopped; inexplicably, Rearden saw the look of an +emotion which he could not define, yet felt certain to be pain; he saw +Francisco's first moment of hesitation. "Mr. Rearden, do you own any +d'Anconia Copper stock?" +Rearden looked at him, bewildered. "No." +"Some day, you'll know what treason I'm committing right now, but . . . +Don't ever buy any d'Anconia Copper stock. Don't ever deal with d'Anconia +Copper in any way." +"Why?" +"When you'll learn the full reason, you'll know whether there's ever been +anything—or anyone—that meant a damn to me, and . . . and how much he did +mean." +Rearden frowned: he had remembered something. "I wouldn't deal with your +company. Didn't you call them the men of the double standard? Aren't you one +of the looters who is growing rich right now by means of directives?" +Inexplicably, the words did not hit Francisco as an insult, but cleared +his face back into his look of assurance. "Did you think that it was I who +wheedled those directives out of the robber-planners?" +"If not, then who did it?" +"My hitchhikers." +"Without your consent?" +"Without my knowledge." +"I'd hate to admit how much I want to believe you—but there's no way for +you to prove it now." +"No? I'll prove it to you within the next fifteen minutes." +"How? The fact remains that you've profited the most from those +directives." +"That's true. I've profited more than Mr. Mouch and his gang could ever +imagine. After my years of work, they gave me just the chance I needed." +"Are you boasting?" +"You bet I am!” Rearden saw incredulously that Francisco's eyes had a +hard, bright look, the look, not of a party hound, but of a man of action. +"Mr. Rearden, do you know where most of those new aristocrats keep their +hidden money? Do you know where most of the fair share vultures have invested +their profits from Rearden Metal?" +"No, but—" + + "In d'Anconia Copper stock. Safely out of the way and out of the country. +D'Anconia Copper—an old, invulnerable company, so rich that it would last for +three more generations of looting. A company managed by a decadent playboy +who doesn't give a damn, who'll let them use his property in any way they +please and just continue to make money for them—automatically, as did his +ancestors. Wasn't that a perfect setup for the looters, Mr. Rearden? Only— +what one single point did they miss?" +Rearden was staring at him. "What are you driving at?" +Francisco laughed suddenly. "It's too bad about those profiteers on +Rearden Metal. You wouldn't want them to lose the money you made for them, +would you, Mr. Rearden? But accidents do happen in the world—you know what +they say, man is only a helpless plaything at the mercy of nature's +disasters. For instance, there was a fire at the d'Anconia ore docks in +Valparaiso tomorrow morning, a fire that razed them to the ground along with +half of the port structures. What time is it, Mr. Rearden? Oh, did I mix my +tenses? Tomorrow afternoon, there will be a rock slide in the d'Anconia mines +at Orano—no lives lost, no casualties, except the mines themselves. It will +be found that the mines are done for, because they had been worked in the +wrong places for months—what can you expect from a playboy's management? The +great deposits of copper will be buried under tons of mountain where a +Sebastian d'Anconia would not be able to reclaim them in less than three +years, and a People's State will never reclaim them at all. When the +stockholders begin to look into things, they will find that the mines at +Campos, at San Felix, at Las Heras have been worked in exactly the same +manner and have been running at a loss for over a year, only the playboy +juggled the books and kept it out of the newspapers. +Shall I tell you what they will discover about the management of the +d'Anconia foundries? Or of the d'Anconia ore fleet? But all these discoveries +won't do the stockholders any good anyway, because the stock of d'Anconia +Copper will have crashed tomorrow morning, crashed like an electric bulb +against concrete, crashed like an express elevator, spattering pieces of +hitchhikers all over the gutters!" +The triumphant rise of Francisco's voice merged with a matching sound: +Rearden burst out laughing. +Rearden did not know how long that moment lasted or what he had felt, it +had been like a blow hurling him into another kind of consciousness, then a +second blow returning him to his own—all that was left, as at the awakening +from a narcotic, was the feeling that he had known some immense kind of +freedom, never to be matched in reality. This was like the Wyatt fire again, +he thought, this was his secret danger. +He found himself backing away from Francisco d'Anconia, Francisco stood +watching him intently, and looked as if he had been watching him all through +that unknown length of time. +"There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden," Francisco said softly, "except +one: the refusal to think." +"No," said Rearden; it was almost a whisper, he had to keep his voice +down, he was afraid that he would hear himself scream it, "no . . . if this +is the key to you, no, don't expect me to cheer you . . . +you didn't have the strength to fight them . . . you chose the easiest, +most vicious way . . . deliberate destruction . . . the destruction of an +achievement you hadn't produced and couldn't match. . . ." +'That's not what you'll read in the newspapers tomorrow. There won't be +any evidence of deliberate destruction. Everything happened in the normal, +explicable, justifiable course of plain incompetence. Incompetence isn't +supposed to be punished nowadays, is it? The boys in Buenos Aires and the +boys in Santiago will probably want to hand me a subsidy, by way of +consolation and reward. There's still a great part of the d'Anconia Copper + + Company left, though a great part of it is gone for good. Nobody will say +that I've done it intentionally. You may think what you wish." +"I think you're the guiltiest man in this room," said Rearden quietly, +wearily; even the fire of his anger was gone; he felt nothing but the +emptiness left by the death of a great hope. "I think you're worse than +anything I had supposed. . . ." +Francisco looked at him with a strange half-smile of serenity, the +serenity of a victory over pain, and did not answer. +It was their silence that let them hear the voices of the two men who +stood a few steps away, and they turned to look at the speakers. +The stocky, elderly man was obviously a businessman of the conscientious, +unspectacular kind. His formal dress suit was of good quality, but of a cut +fashionable twenty years before, with the faintest tinge of green at the +seams; he had had few occasions to wear it. His shirt studs were +ostentatiously too large, but it was the pathetic ostentation of an heirloom, +intricate pieces of old-fashioned workmanship, that had probably come to him +through four generations, like his business. +His face had the expression which, these days, was the mark of an honest +man: an expression of bewilderment. He was looking at his companion, trying +hard—conscientiously, helplessly, hopelessly—to understand. +His companion was younger and shorter, a small man with lumpy flesh, with +a chest thrust forward and the thin points of a mustache thrust up. He was +saying, in a tone of patronizing boredom, "Well, I don't know. All of you are +crying about rising costs, it seems to be the stock complaint nowadays, it's +the usual whine of people whose profits are squeezed a little. I don't know, +we'll have to see, we'll have to decide whether we'll permit you to make any +profits or not." +Rearden glanced at Francisco—and saw a face that went beyond his +conception of what the purity of a single purpose could do to a human +countenance: it was the most merciless face one could ever be permitted to +see. He had thought of himself as ruthless, but he knew that he could not +match this level, naked, implacable look, dead to all feeling but justice. +Whatever the rest of him—thought Rearden—the man who could experience this +was a giant. +It was only a moment. Francisco turned to him, his face normal, and said +very quietly, "I've changed my mind, Mr. Rearden. I'm glad that you came to +this party. I want you to see this." +Then, raising his voice, Francisco said suddenly, in the gay, loose, +piercing tone of a man of complete irresponsibility, "You won't grant me that +loan, Mr. Rearden? It puts me on a terrible spot. I must get the money—I must +raise it tonight—I must raise it before the Stock Exchange opens in the +morning, because otherwise—" +He did not have to continue, because the little man with the mustache was +clutching at his arm. +Rearden had never believed that a human body could change dimensions +within one's sight, but he saw the man shrinking in weight, in posture, in +form, as if the air were let out of his lumps, and what had been an arrogant +ruler was suddenly a piece of scrap that could not be a threat to anyone. +"Is . . . is there something wrong, Senor d'Anconia? I mean, on . . . on +the Stock Exchange?" +Francisco jerked his finger to his lips, with a frightened glance. +"Keep quiet," he whispered. "For God's sake, keep quiet!" +The man was shaking. "Something's . . . wrong?" +"You don't happen to own any d'Anconia Copper stock, do you?" +The man nodded, unable to speak. "Oh my, that's too bad! Well, listen, +I'll tell you, if you give me your word of honor that you won't repeat it to +anyone, You don't want to start a panic." + + "Word of honor . . ." gasped the man. +"What you'd better do is run to your stockbroker and sell as fast as you +can—because things haven't been going too well for d'Anconia Copper, I'm +trying to raise some money, but if I don't succeed, you'll be lucky if you'll +have ten cents on your dollar tomorrow morning— +oh my! I forgot that you can't reach your stockbroker before tomorrow +morning—well, it's too bad, but—" +The man was running across the room, pushing people out of his way, like a +torpedo shot into the crowd. +"Watch," said Francisco austerely, turning to Rearden. +The man was lost in the crowd, they could not see him, they could not tell +to whom he was selling his secret or whether he had enough of his cunning +left to make it a trade with those who held favors—but they saw the wake of +his passage spreading through the room, the sudden cuts splitting the crowd, +like the first few cracks, then like the accelerating branching that runs +through a wall about to crumble, the streaks of emptiness slashed, not by a +human touch, but by the impersonal breath of terror. +There were the voices abruptly choked off, the pools of silence, then +sounds of a different nature; the rising, hysterical inflections of uselessly +repeated questions, the unnatural whispers, a woman's scream, the few spaced, +forced giggles of those still trying to pretend that nothing was happening. +There were spots of immobility in the motion of the crowd, like spreading +blotches of paralysis; there was a sudden stillness, as if a motor had been +cut off; then came the frantic, jerking, purposeless, rudderless movement of +objects bumping down a hill by the blind mercy of gravitation and of every +rock they hit on the way. People were running out, running to telephones, +running to one another, clutching or pushing the bodies around them at +random. These men, the most powerful men in the country, those who held, +unanswerable to any power, the power over every man's food and every man's +enjoyment of his span of years on earth—these men had become a pile of +rubble, clattering in the wind of panic, the rubble left of a structure when +its key pillar has been cut. +James Taggart, his face indecent in its exposure of emotions which +centuries had taught men to keep hidden, rushed up to Francisco and screamed, +"Is it true?" +"Why, James," said Francisco, smiling, "what's the matter? Why do you seem +to be upset? Money is the root of all evil—so I just got tired of being +evil." +Taggart ran toward the main exit, yelling something to Orren Boyle on the +way. Boyle nodded and kept on nodding, with the eagerness and humility of an +inefficient servant, then darted of in another direction. Cherryl, her +wedding veil coiling like a crystal cloud upon the air, as she ran after him, +caught Taggart at the door. "Jim, what's the matter?" He pushed her aside and +she fell against the stomach of Paul Larkin, as Taggart rushed out. +Three persons stood immovably still, like three pillars spaced through the +room, the lines of their sight cutting across the spread of the wreckage: +Dagny, looking at Francisco—Francisco and Rearden, looking at each other. + + CHAPTER III +WHITE BLACKMAIL +"What time is it?" +It's running out, thought Rearden—but he answered, "I don't know, Not yet +midnight," and remembering his wrist watch, added, "Twenty of." +"I'm going to take a train home," said Lillian. +He heard the sentence, but it had to wait its turn to enter the crowded +passages to his consciousness. He stood looking absently at the living room +of his suite, a few minutes' elevator ride away from the party. In a moment, +he answered automatically, "At this hour?" +"It's still early. There are plenty of trains running." +"You're welcome to stay here, of course." +"No, I think I prefer to go home." He did not argue. "What about you, +Henry? Do you intend going home tonight?" +"No." He added, "I have business appointments here tomorrow." +"As you wish." +She shrugged her evening wrap off her shoulders, caught it on her arm and +started toward the door of his bedroom, but stopped. +"I hate Francisco d'Anconia," she said tensely. "Why did he have to come +to that party? And didn't he know enough to keep his mouth shut, at least +till tomorrow morning?" He did not answer. "It's monstrous—what he's allowed +to happen to his company. Of course, he's nothing but a rotten playboy—still, +a fortune of that size is a responsibility, there's a limit to the negligence +a man can permit himself!" He glanced at her face: it was oddly tense, the +features sharpened, making her look older. "He owed a certain duty to his +stockholders, didn't he? +. . . Didn't he, Henry?" +"Do you mind if we don't discuss it?" +She made a tightening, sidewise movement with her lips, the equivalent of +a shrug, and walked into the bedroom. +He stood at the window, looking down at the streaming roofs of +automobiles, letting his eyes rest on something while his faculty of sight +was disconnected. His mind was still focused on the crowd in the ballroom +downstairs and on two figures in that crowd. But as his living room remained +on the edge of his vision, so the sense of some action he had to perform +remained on the edge of his consciousness. He grasped it for a moment—it was +the fact that he had to remove his evening clothes— +but farther beyond the edge there was the feeling of reluctance to undress +in the presence of a strange woman in his bedroom, and he forgot it again in +the next moment. +Lillian came out, as trimly groomed as she had arrived, the beige +traveling suit outlining her figure with efficient tightness, the hat tilted +over half a head of hair set in waves. She carried her suitcase, swinging it +a little, as if in demonstration of her ability to carry it. +He reached over mechanically and took the suitcase out of her hand. +"What are you doing?" she asked. +"I'm going to take you to the station." +"Like this? You haven't changed your clothes." +"It doesn't matter." +"You don't have to escort me. I'm quite able to find my own way. If you +have business appointments tomorrow, you'd better go to bed." +He did not answer, but walked to the door, held it open for her and +followed her to the elevator. +They remained silent when they rode in a taxicab to the station. At such +moments as he remembered her presence, he noticed that she sat efficiently + + straight, almost flaunting the perfection of her poise; she seemed alertly +awake and contented, as if she were starting out on a purposeful journey of +early morning. +The cab stopped at the entrance to the Taggart Terminal. The bright lights +flooding the great glass doorway transformed the lateness of the hour into a +sense of active, timeless security. Lillian jumped lightly out of the cab, +saying, "No, no, you don't have to get out, drive on back. +Will you be home for dinner tomorrow—or next month?" +"I'll telephone you," he said. +She waved her gloved hand at him and disappeared into the lights of the +entrance. As the cab started forward, he gave the driver the address of +Dagny's apartment. +The apartment was dark when he entered, but the door to her bedroom was +half-open and he heard her voice saying, "Hello, Hank." +He walked in, asking, "Were you asleep?" +"No." +He switched on the light. She lay in bed, her head propped by the pillow, +her hair falling smoothly to her shoulders, as if she had not moved for a +long time; but her face was untroubled. She looked like a schoolgirl, with +the tailored collar of a pale blue nightgown lying severely high at the base +of her throat; the nightgown's front was a deliberate contrast to the +severity, a spread of pale blue embroidery that looked luxuriously adult and +feminine. +He sat down on the edge of the bed—and she smiled, noticing that the stern +formality of his full dress clothes made his action so simply, naturally +intimate. He smiled in answer. He had come, prepared to reject the +forgiveness she had granted him at the party, as one rejects a favor from too +generous an adversary. Instead, he reached out suddenly and moved his hand +over her forehead, down the line of her hair, in a gesture of protective +tenderness, in the sudden feeling of how delicately childlike she was, this +adversary who had borne the constant challenge of his strength, but who +should have had his protection. +"You're carrying BO much," he said, "and it's I who make it harder for you +. . ." +"No, Hank, you don't and you know it." +"I know that you have the strength not to let it hurt you, but it's a +strength I have no right to call upon. Yet I do, and I have no solution, no +atonement to offer. I can only admit that I know it and that there's no way I +can ask you to forgive me." +"There's nothing to forgive." +"I had no right to bring her into your presence." +"It did not hurt me. Only . . ." +"Yes?" +". . . only seeing the way you suffered . . . was hard to see." +"I don't think that suffering makes up for anything, but whatever I felt, +I didn't suffer enough, if there's one thing I loathe, it's to speak of my +own suffering—that should be no one's concern but mine. But if you want to +know, since you know it already—yes, it was hell for me. And I wish it were +worse. At least, I'm not letting myself get away with it." +He said it sternly, without emotion, as an impersonal verdict upon +himself. She smiled, in amused sadness, she took his hand and pressed it to +her lips, and shook her head in rejection of the verdict, holding her face +hidden against his hand. +"What do you mean?" he asked softly. +"Nothing . . ." Then she raised her head and said firmly, "Hank, I knew +you were married. I knew what I was doing. I chose to do it. +There's nothing that you owe me, no duty that you have to consider." + + He shook his head slowly, in protest. +"Hank, I want nothing from you except what you wish to give me. +Do you remember that you called me a trader once? I want you to come to me +seeking nothing but your own enjoyment. So long as you wish to remain +married, whatever your reason, I have no right to resent it. My way of +trading is to know that the joy you give me is paid for by the joy you get +from me—not by your suffering or mine. I don't accept sacrifices and I don't +make them. If you asked me for more than you meant to me, I would refuse. If +you asked me to give up the railroad, I'd leave you. If ever the pleasure of +one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade at +all. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud. You don't do +it in business, Hank. +Don't do it in your own life." +Like a dim sound track under her words, he was hearing the words said to +him by Lillian; he was seeing the distance between the two, the difference in +what they sought from him and from life. +"Dagny, what do you think of my marriage?" +"I have no right to think of it." +"You must have wondered about it." +"I did . . . before I came to Ellis Wyatt's house. Not since." +"You've never asked me a question about it." +"And won't." +He was silent for a moment, then said, looking straight at her, +underscoring his first rejection of the privacy she had always granted him, +"There's one thing I want you to know: I have not touched her since . . . +Ellis Wyatt's house." +"I'm glad." +"Did you think I could?" +"I've never permitted myself to wonder about that." +"Dagny, do you mean that if I had, you . . . you'd accept that, too?" +"Yes." +"You wouldn't hate it?" +"I'd hate it more than I can tell you. But if that were your choice, I +would accept it. I want you, Hank." +He took her hand and raised it to his lips, she felt the moment's struggle +in his body, in the sudden movement with which he came down, half-collapsing, +and let his mouth cling to her shoulder. Then he pulled her forward, he +pulled the length of her body in the pale blue nightgown to lie stretched +across his knees, he held it with an unsmiling violence, as if in hatred for +her words and as if they were the words he had most wanted to hear. +He bent his face down to hers and she heard the question that had come +again and again in the nights of the year behind them, always torn out of him +involuntarily, always as a sudden break that betrayed his constant, secret +torture: "Who was your first man?" +She strained back, trying to draw away from him, but he held her. +"No, Hank," she said, her face hard. +The brief, taut movement of his lips was a smile. "I know that you won't +answer it, but I won't stop asking—because that is what I'll never accept." +"Ask yourself why you won't accept it." +He answered, his hand moving slowly from her breasts to her knees, as if +stressing his ownership and hating it, "Because . . . the things you've +permitted me to do . . . I didn't think you could, not ever, not even for me +. . . but to find that you did, and more: that you had permitted another man, +had wanted him to, had—" +"Do you understand what you're saying? That you've never accepted my +wanting you, either—you've never accepted that I should want you, just as I +should have wanted him, once." + + He said, his voice low, "That's true." +She tore herself away from him with a brusque, twisting movement, she +stood up, but she stood looking down at him with a faint smile, and she said +softly, "Do you know your only real guilt? With the greatest capacity for it, +you've never learned to enjoy yourself. You've always rejected your own +pleasure too easily. You've been willing to bear too much." +"He said that, too." +"Who?" +"Francisco d'Anconia." +He wondered why he had the impression that the name shocked her and that +she answered an instant too late, "He said that to you?" +"We were talking about quite a different subject." +In a moment, she said calmly, "I saw you talking to him. Which one of you +was insulting the other, this time?" +"We weren't. Dagny, what do you think of him?" +"I think that he's done it intentionally—that smash-up we're in for, +tomorrow." +"I know he has. Still, what do you think of him as a person?" +"I don't know. I ought to think that he's the most depraved person I've +ever met." +"You ought to? But you don't?" +"No. I can't quite make myself feel certain of it." +He smiled. "That's what's strange about him. I know that he's a liar, a +loafer, a cheap playboy, the most viciously irresponsible waste of a human +being I ever imagined possible. Yet, when I look at him, I feel that if ever +there was a man to whom I would entrust my life, he's the one." +She gasped. "Hank, are you saying that you like him?" +"I'm saying that I didn't know what it meant, to like a man, I didn't know +how much I missed it—until I met him," +"Good God, Hank, you've fallen for him!" +"Yes—I think I have." He smiled. "Why does it frighten you?" +"Because . . . because I think he's going to hurt you in some terrible way +. . . and the more you see in him, the harder it will be to bear . . . and it +will take you a long time to get over it, if ever. . . . +I feel that I ought to warn you against him, but I can't—because I'm +certain of nothing about him, not even whether he's the greatest or the +lowest man on earth." +"I'm certain of nothing about him—except that I like him." +"But think of what' he's done. It's not Jim and Boyle that he's hurt, it's +you and me and Ken Danagger and the rest of us, because Jim's gang will +merely take it out on us—and it's going to be another disaster, like the +Wyatt fire." +"Yes . . . yes, like the Wyatt fire. But, you know, I don't think I care +too much about that. What's one more disaster? Everything's going anyway, +it's only a question of a little faster or a little slower, all that's left +for us ahead is to keep the ship afloat as long as we can and then go down +with it." +"Is that his excuse for himself? Is that what he's made you feel?" +"No. Oh no! That's the feeling I lose when I speak to him. The strange +thing is what he does make me feel." +"What?" +"Hope." +She nodded, in helpless wonder, knowing that she had felt it, too. +"I don't know why," he said. "But I look at people and they seem to be +made of nothing but pain. He's not. You're not. That terrible hopelessness +that's all around us, I lose it only in his presence. And here. +Nowhere else." + + She came back to him and slipped down to sit at his feet, pressing her +face to his knees. "Hank, we still have so much ahead of us . . . +and so much right now. . . . " +He looked at the shape of pale blue silk huddled against the black of his +clothes—he bent down to her—he said, his voice low, "Dagny . . . +the things I said to you that morning in Ellis Wyatt's house . . . I think +I was lying to myself." +"I know it." +Through a gray drizzle of rain, the calendar above the roofs said: +September 3, and a clock on another tower said: 10:40, as Rearden rode back +to the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. The cab's radio was spitting out shrilly the +sounds of a panic-tinged voice announcing the crash of d'Anconia Copper. +Rearden leaned wearily against the seat: the disaster seemed to be no more +than a stale news story read long ago. He felt nothing, except an +uncomfortable sense of impropriety at finding himself out in the morning +streets, dressed in evening clothes. He felt no desire to return from the +world he had left to the world he saw drizzling past the windows of the taxi. +He turned the key in the door of his hotel suite, hoping to get back to a +desk as fast as possible and have to see nothing around him. +They hit his consciousness together: the breakfast table—the door to his +bedroom., open upon the sight of a bed that had been slept in—and Lillian's +voice saying, "Good morning, Henry." +She sat in an armchair, wearing the suit she had worn yesterday, without +the jacket or hat; her white blouse looked smugly crisp. There were remnants +of a breakfast on the table. She was smoking a cigarette, with the air and +pose of a long, patient vigil. +As he stood still, she took the time to cross her legs and settle down +more comfortably, then asked, "Aren't you going to say anything, Henry?" +He stood like a man in military uniform at some official proceedings where +emotions could not be permitted to exist. "It is for you to speak." +"Aren't you going to try to justify yourself?" +"No." +"Aren't you going to start begging my forgiveness?" +"There is no reason why you should forgive me. There is nothing for me to +add. You know the truth. Now it is up to you." +She chuckled, stretching, rubbing her shoulder blades against the chair's +back. "Didn't you expect to be caught, sooner or later?" she asked. "If a man +like you stays pure as a monk for over a year, didn't you think that I might +begin to suspect the reason? It's funny, though, that that famous brain of +yours didn't prevent you from getting caught as simply as this." She waved at +the room, at the breakfast table. "I felt certain that you weren't going to +return here, last night. And it wasn't difficult or expensive at all to find +out from a hotel employee, this morning, that you haven't spent a night in +these rooms in the past year." +He said nothing. +"The man of stainless steel!" She laughed. "The man of achievement and +honor who's so much better than the rest of us! Does she dance in the chorus +or is she a manicurist in an exclusive barber shop patronized by +millionaires?" +He remained silent. +"Who is she, Henry?" +"I won't answer that." +"I want to know." +"You're not going to." +"Don't you think it's ridiculous, your playing the part of a gentleman +who's protecting the lady's name—or of any sort of gentleman, from now on? +Who is she?" + + "I said I won't answer." +She shrugged. "I suppose it makes no difference. There's only one standard +type for the one standard purpose. I've always known that under that ascetic +look of yours you were a plain, crude sensualist who sought nothing from a +woman except an animal satisfaction which I pride myself on not having given +you. I knew that your vaunted sense of honor would collapse some day and you +would be drawn to the lowest, cheapest type of female, just like any other +cheating husband." +She chuckled. "That great admirer of yours, Miss Dagny Taggart, was +furious at me for the mere hint of a suggestion that her hero wasn't as pure +as his stainless, non-corrosive rail. And she was naive enough to imagine +that I could suspect her of being the type men find attractive for a +relationship in which what they seek is most notoriously not brains. I knew +your real nature and inclinations. Didn't I?" He said nothing. "Do you know +what [ think of you now?" +"You have the right to condemn me in any way you wish." +She laughed. "The great man who was so contemptuous—in business—of +weaklings who trimmed corners or fell by the wayside, because they couldn't +match his strength of character and steadfastness of purpose! How do you feel +about it now?" +"My feelings need not concern you. You have the right to decide what you +wish me to do. I will agree to any demand you make, except one: don't ask me +to give it up." +"Oh, I wouldn't ask you to give it up! I wouldn't expect you to change +your nature. This is your true level—under all that self-made grandeur of a +knight of industry who rose by sheer genius from the ore mine gutters to +finger bowls and white tie! It fits you welt, that white tie, to come home in +at eleven o'clock in the morning! You never rose out of the ore mines, that's +where you belong—all of you self-made princes of the cash register—in the +corner saloon on Saturday night, with the traveling salesmen and the dancehall girls!" +"Do you wish to divorce me?" +"Oh, wouldn't you like that! Wouldn't that be a smart trade to pull! +Don't you suppose I know that you've wanted to divorce me since the first +month of our marriage?" +"If that is what you thought, why did you stay with me?" +She answered severely, "It's a question you have lost the right to ask." +"That's true," he said, thinking that only one conceivable reason, her +love for him, could justify her answer. +"No, I'm not going to divorce you. Do you suppose that I will allow your +romance with a floozie to deprive me of my home, my name, my social position? +I shall preserve such pieces of my life as I can, whatever does not rest on +so shoddy a foundation as your fidelity. Make no mistake about it: I shall +never give you a divorce. Whether you like it or not, you're married and +you'll stay married." +"I will, if that is what you wish." +"And furthermore, I will not consider—incidentally, why don't you sit +down?" +He remained standing. "Please say what you have to say." +"I will not consider any unofficial divorce, such as a separation. You may +continue your love idyll in the subways and basements where it belongs, but +in the eyes of the world I will expect you to remember that I am Mrs. Henry +Rearden. You have always proclaimed such an exaggerated devotion to honesty— +now let me see you be condemned to the life of the hypocrite that you really +are. I will expect you to maintain your residence at the home which is +officially yours, but will now be mine." +"If you wish." + + She leaned back loosely, in a manner of untidy relaxation, her legs spread +apart, her arms resting in two strict parallels on the arms of the chair—like +a judge who could permit himself to be sloppy. +"Divorce?" she said, chuckling coldly. "Did you think you'd get off as +easily as that? Did you think you'd get by at the price of a few of your +millions tossed off as alimony? You're so used to purchasing whatever you +wish by the simple means of your dollars, that you cannot conceive of things +that are non-commercial, non-negotiable, non-subject to any kind of trade. +You're unable to believe that there may exist a person who feels no concern +for money. You cannot imagine what that means. +Well, I think you're going to learn. Oh yes, of course you'll agree to any +demand I make, from now on. I want you to sit in that office of which you're +so proud, in those precious mills of yours, and play the hero who works +eighteen hours a day, the giant of industry who keeps the whole country +going, the genius who is above the common herd of whining, lying, chiseling +humanity. Then I want you to come home and face the only person who knows you +for what you really are, who knows the actual value of your word, of your +honor, of your integrity, of your vaunted self-esteem. I want you to face, in +your own home, the one person who despises you and has the right to do so. I +want you to look at me whenever you build another furnace, or pour another +record breaking load of steel, or hear applause and admiration, whenever you +feel proud of yourself, whenever you feel clean, whenever you feel drunk on +the sense of your own greatness. I want you to look at me whenever you hear +of some act of depravity, or feel anger at human corruption, or feel contempt +for someone's knavery, or are the victim of a new governmental extortion—to +look and to know that you're no better, that you're superior to no one, that +there's nothing you have the right to condemn. I want you to look at me and +to learn the fate of the man who tried to build a tower to the sky, or the +man who wanted to reach the sun on wings made of wax—or you, the man who +wanted to hold himself as perfect!" +Somewhere outside of him and apart, as if he were reading it in a brain +not his own, he observed the thought that there was some flaw in the scheme +of the punishment she wanted him to bear, something wrong by its own terms, +aside from its propriety or justice, some practical miscalculation that would +demolish it all if discovered. He did not attempt to discover it. The thought +went by as a moment's notation, made in cold curiosity, to be brought back in +some distant future. There was nothing within him now with which to feel +interest or to respond. +His own brain was numb with the effort to hold the last of his sense of +justice against so overwhelming a tide of revulsion that it swamped Lillian +out of human form, past all his pleas to himself that he had no right to feel +it. If she was loathsome, he thought, it was he who had brought her to it; +this was her way of taking pain—no one could prescribe the form of a human +being's attempt to bear suffering—no one could blame—above all, not he, who +had caused it. But he saw no evidence of pain in her manner. Then perhaps the +ugliness was the only means she could summon to hide it, he thought. Then he +thought of nothing except of withstanding the revulsion, for the length of +the next moment and of the next. +When she stopped speaking, he asked, "Have you finished?" +"Yes, I believe so." +"Then you had better take the train home now." +When he undertook the motions necessary to remove his evening clothes, he +discovered that his muscles felt as if he were at the end of a long day of +physical labor. His starched shirt was limp with sweat. +There was neither thought nor feeling left in him, nothing but a sense +that merged the remnants of both, the sense of congratulation upon the + + greatest victory he had ever demanded of himself: that Lillian had walked out +of the hotel suite alive. +Entering Rearden's office, Dr. Floyd Ferris wore the expression of a man +so certain of the success of his quest that he could afford a benevolent +smile. He spoke with a smooth, cheerful assurance; Rearden had the impression +that it was the assurance of a cardsharp who has spent a prodigious effort in +memorizing every possible variation of the pattern, and is now safe in the +knowledge that every card in the deck is marked. +"Well, Mr. Rearden," he said, by way of greeting, "I didn't know that even +a hardened hound of public functions and shaker of famous hands, like myself, +could still get a thrill out of meeting an eminent man, but that's what I +feel right now, believe it or not." +"How do you do," said Rearden. +Dr. Ferris sat down and made a few remarks about the colors of the leaves +in the month of October, as he had observed them by the roadside on his long +drive from Washington, undertaken specifically for the purpose of meeting Mr. +Rearden in person. Rearden said nothing. Dr. +Ferris looked out the window and commented on the inspiring sight of the +Rearden mills which, he said, were one of the most valuable productive +enterprises in the country. +"That is not what you thought of my product a year and a half ago," +said Rearden. +Dr. Ferris gave a brief frown, as if a dot of the pattern had slipped and +almost cost him the game, then chuckled, as if he had recaptured it. "That +was a year and a half ago, Mr. Rearden," he said easily. +"Times change, and people change with the times—the wise ones do. +Wisdom lies in knowing when to remember and when to forget. Consistency is +not a habit of mind which it is wise to practice or to expect of the human +race." +He then proceeded to discourse upon the foolishness of consistency in a +world where nothing was absolute except the principle of compromise. He +talked earnestly, but in a casual manner, as if they both understood that +this was not the main subject of their interview; yet, oddly, he spoke not in +the tone of a foreword, but in the tone of a postscript, as if the main +subject had been settled long ago. +Rearden waited for the first "Don't you think so?” and answered, "Please +state the urgent matter for which you requested this appointment." +Dr. Ferris looked astonished and blank for a moment, then said brightly, +as if remembering an unimportant subject which could be disposed of without +effort, "Oh, that? That was in regard to the dates of delivery of Rearden +Metal to the State Science Institute. We should like to have five thousand +tons by the first of December, and then we'll be quite agreeable to waiting +for the balance of the order until after the first of the year." +Rearden sat looking at him silently for a long time; each passing moment +had the effect of making the gay intonations of Dr. Ferris' voice, still +hanging in the air of the room, seem more foolish. When Dr. Ferris had begun +to dread that he would not answer at all, Rearden answered, "Hasn't the +traffic cop with the leather leggings, whom you sent here, given you a report +on his conversation with me?" +"Why, yes, Mr. Rearden, but—" +"What else do you want to hear?" +"But that was five months ago, Mr. Rearden. A certain event has taken +place since, which makes me quite sure that you have changed your mind and +that you will make no trouble for us at all, just as we will make no trouble +for you." +"What event?" + + "An event of which you have far greater knowledge than I—but, you see, I +do have knowledge of it, even though you would much prefer me to have none." +"What event?" +"Since it is your secret, Mr. Rearden, why not let it remain a secret? +Who doesn't have secrets nowadays? For instance, Project X is a secret. +You realize, of course, that we could obtain your Metal simply by having +it purchased in smaller quantities by various government offices who would +then transfer it to us—and you would not be able to prevent it. +But this would necessitate our letting a lot of lousy bureaucrats"—Dr. +Ferris smiled with disarming frankness—"oh yes, we are as unpopular with +one another as we are with you private citizens—it would necessitate our +letting a lot of other bureaucrats in on the secret of Project X, which would +be highly undesirable at this time. And so would any newspaper publicity +about the Project—if we put you on trial for refusal to comply with a +government order. But if you had to stand trial on another, much more serious +charge, where Project X and the State Science Institute were not involved, +and where you could not raise any issue of principle or arouse any public +sympathy—why, that would not inconvenience us at all, but it would cost you +more than you would care to contemplate. Therefore, the only practical thing +for you to do is to help us keep our secret and get us to help you keep +yours—and, as I'm sure you realize, we are fully able to keep any of the +bureaucrats safely off your trail for as long as we wish," +"What event, what secret and what trail?" +"Oh, come, Mr. Rearden, don't be childish! The four thousand tons of +Rearden Metal which you delivered to Ken Danagger, of course," +said Dr. Ferris lightly. +Rearden did not answer. +"Issues of. principle are such a nuisance," said Dr. Ferris, smiling, "and +such a waste of time for all concerned. Now would you care to be a martyr for +an issue of principle, only in circumstances where nobody will know that +that's what you are—nobody but you and me—where you won't get a chance to +breathe a word about the issue or the principle—where you won't be a hero, +the creator of a spectacular new metal, making a stand against enemies whose +actions might appear somewhat shabby in the eyes of the public—where you +won't be a hero, but a common criminal, a greedy industrialist who's cheated +the law for a plain motive of profit, a racketeer of the black market who's +broken the national regulations designed to protect the public welfare—a hero +without glory and without public, who'll accomplish no more than about half a +column of newsprint somewhere on page five—now would you still care to be +that kind of martyr? Because that's just what the issue amounts to now: +either you let us have the Metal or you go to jail for ten years and take +your friend Danagger along, too." +As a biologist, Dr. Ferris had always been fascinated by the theory that +animals had the capacity to smell fear; he had tried to develop a similar +capacity in himself. Watching Rearden, he concluded that the man had long +since decided to give in—because he caught no trace of any fear. +"Who was your informer?" asked Rearden. +"One of your friends, Mr. Rearden. The owner of a copper mine in Arizona, +who reported to us that you had purchased an extra amount of copper last +month, above the regular tonnage required for the monthly quota of Rearden +Metal which the law permits you to produce. Copper is one of the ingredients +of Rearden Metal, isn't it? That was all the information we needed. The rest +was easy to trace. You mustn't blame that mine owner too much. The copper +producers, as you know, are being squeezed so badly right now that the man +had to offer something of value in order to obtain a favor, an 'emergency +need' ruling which suspended a few of the directives in his case and gave him +a little breathing spell. The person to whom he traded his information knew + + where it would have the highest value, so he traded it to me, in return for +certain favors he needed. So all the necessary evidence, as well as the next +ten years of your life, are now in my possession—and I am offering you a +trade. I'm sure you won't object, since trade is your specialty. The form may +be a little different from what it was in your youth—but you're a smart +trader, you've always known how to take advantage of changing conditions, and +these are the conditions of our day, so it should not be difficult for you to +see where your interests lie and to act accordingly." +Rearden said calmly, "In my youth, this was called blackmail." +Dr. Ferris grinned. "That's what it is, Mr. Rearden. We've entered a much +more realistic age." +But there was a peculiar difference, thought Rearden, between the manner +of a plain blackmailer and that of Dr. Ferris. A blackmailer would show signs +of gloating over his victim's sin and of acknowledging its evil, he would +suggest a threat to the victim and a sense of danger to them both. Dr. Ferris +conveyed none of it. His manner was that of dealing with the normal and the +natural, it suggested a sense of safety, it held no tone of condemnation, but +a hint of comradeship, a comradeship based—for both of them—on self-contempt. +The sudden feeling that made Rearden lean forward in a posture of eager +attentiveness, was the feeling that he was about to discover another step +along his half glimpsed trail. +Seeing Rearden's look of interest, Dr. Ferris smiled and congratulated +himself on having caught the right key. The game was clear to him now, the +markings of the pattern were falling in the right order; some men, thought +Dr. Ferris, would do anything so long as it was left unnamed, but this man +wanted frankness, this was the tough realist he had expected to find. +"You're a practical man, Mr. Rearden," said Dr. Ferris amiably. "I can't +understand why you should want to stay behind the times. Why don't you adjust +yourself and play it right? You're smarter than most of them. You're a +valuable person, we've wanted you for a long time, and when I heard that you +were trying to string along with Jim Taggart, I knew you could be had. Don't +bother with Jim Taggart, he's nothing, he's just flea-bait. Get into the big +game. We can use you and you can use us. Want us to step on Orren Boyle for +you? He's given you an awful beating, want us to trim him down a little? It +can be done. Or want us to keep Ken Danagger in line? Look how impractical +you've been about that. I know why you sold him the Metal—it's because you +need him to get coal from. So you take a chance on going to jail and paying +huge fines, just to keep on the good side of Ken Danagger. Do you call that +good business? Now, make a deal with us and just let Mr. Danagger understand +that if he doesn't toe the line, he'll go to jail, but you won't, because +you've got friends he hasn't got—and you'll never have to worry about your +coal supply from then on. Now that's the modern way of doing business. Ask +yourself which way is more practical. And whatever anyone's said about you, +nobody's ever denied that you're a great businessman and a hard-headed +realist." +"That's what I am," said Rearden. +"That's what I thought," said Dr. Ferris. "You rose to riches in an age +when most men were going bankrupt, you've always managed to blast obstacles, +to keep your mills going and to make money—that's your reputation—so you +wouldn't want to be impractical now, would you? What for? What do you care, +so long as you make money? Leave the theories to people like Bertram Scudder +and the ideals to people like Balph Eubank—and be yourself. Come down to +earth. You're not the man who'd let sentiment interfere with business." +"No," said Rearden slowly, "I wouldn't. Not any kind of sentiment." +Dr. Ferris smiled. "Don't you suppose we knew it?" he said, his tone +suggesting that he was letting his patent-leather hair down to impress a +fellow criminal by a display of superior cunning. "We've waited a long time + + to get something on you. You honest men are such a problem and such a +headache. But we knew you'd slip sooner or later—and this is just what we +wanted." +"You seem to be pleased about it." +"Don't I have good reason to be?" +"But, after all, I did break one of your laws." +"Well, what do you think they're for?" +Dr. Ferris did not notice the sudden look on Rearden's face, the look of a +man hit by the first vision of that which he had sought to see. +Dr. Ferris was past the stage of seeing; he was intent upon delivering the +last blows to an animal caught in a trap. +"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. +Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a +bunch of boy scouts you're up against—then you'll know that this is not the +age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. +You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get +wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any +government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there +aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a +crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who +wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But +just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor +objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you +cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and +once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." +Watching Dr. Ferris watch him, Rearden saw the sudden twitch of anxiety, +the look that precedes panic, as if a clean card had fallen on the table from +a deck Dr. Ferris had never seen before. +What Dr. Ferris was seeing in Rearden's face was the look of luminous +serenity that comes from the sudden answer to an old, dark problem, a look of +relaxation and eagerness together; there was a youthful clarity in Rearden's +eyes and the faintest touch of contempt in the line of his mouth. Whatever +this meant—and Dr. Ferris could not decipher it —he was certain of one thing: +the face held no sign of guilt. +"There's a flaw in your system, Dr. Ferris,” Rearden said quietly, almost +lightly, "a practical flaw which you will discover when you put me on trial +for selling four thousand tons of Rearden Metal to Ken Danagger." +It took twenty seconds—Rearden could feel them moving past slowly—at the +end of which Dr. Ferris became convinced that he had heard Rearden's final +decision. +"Do you think we're bluffing?" snapped Dr. Ferris; his voice suddenly had +the quality of the animals he had spent so much time studying: it sounded as +if he were baring his teeth. +"I don't know," said Rearden. "I don't care, one way or the other." +"Are you going to be as impractical as that?" +"The evaluation of an action as 'practical,' Dr. Ferris, depends on what +it is that one wishes to practice." +"Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else?" +"That is what I am doing right now." +"If you think we'll let you get away with a—" +"You will now please get out of here." +"Whom do you think you're fooling?" Dr. Ferris' voice had risen close to +the edge of a scream. "The day of the barons of industry is done! You've got +the goods, but we've got the goods on you, and you're going to play it our +way or you'll—" +Rearden had pressed a button; Miss Ives entered the office. +"Dr. Ferris has become confused and has lost his way, Miss Ives," + + said Rearden. "Will you escort him out please?" He turned to Ferris. +"Miss Ives is a woman, she weighs about a hundred pounds, and she has no +practical qualifications at all, only a superlative intellectual efficiency. +She would never do for a bouncer in a saloon, only in an impractical place, +such as a factory." +Miss Ives looked as if she was performing a duty of no greater emotional +significance than taking dictation about a list of shipping invoices. +Standing straight in a disciplined manner of icy formality, she held the door +open, let Dr. Ferris cross the room, then walked out first; Dr. Ferris +followed. +She came back a few minutes later, laughing in uncontrollable exultation. +"Mr. Rearden," she asked, laughing at her fear for him, at their danger, +at everything but the triumph of the moment, "what is it you're doing?" +He sat in a pose he had never permitted himself before, a pose he had +resented as the most vulgar symbol of the businessman—he sat leaning back in +his chair, with his feet on his desk—and it seemed to her that the posture +had an air of peculiar nobility, that it was not the pose of a stuffy +executive, but of a young crusader. +"I think I'm discovering a new continent, Owen," he answered cheerfully. +"A continent that should have been discovered along with America, but +wasn't." +"I have to speak of it to you" said Eddie Willers, looking at the worker +across the table. "I don't know why it helps me, but it does— +just to know that you're hearing me." +It was late and the lights of the underground cafeteria were low, but +Eddie Willers could see the worker's eyes looking at him intently. +"I feel as if . . . as if there's no people and no human language left," +said Eddie Willers. "I feel that if I were to scream in the middle of the +streets, there would be no one to hear it. . . . No, that's not quite what I +feel, it's this: I feel that someone is screaming in the middle of the +streets, but people are passing by and no sound can reach them —and it's not +Hank Rearden or Ken Danagger or I who's screaming, and yet it seems as if +it's all three of us. . . . Don't you see that somebody should have risen to +defend them, but nobody has or will? +Rearden and Danagger were indicted this morning—for an illegal sale of +Rearden Metal. They'll go on trial next month. I was there, in the courtroom +in Philadelphia, when they read the indictment. Rearden was very calm—I kept +feeling that he was smiling, but he wasn't. +Danagger was worse than calm. He didn't say a word, he just stood there, +as if the room were empty. . . . The newspapers are saying that both of them +should be thrown in jail. . . . No . . . no, I'm not shaking, I'm all right, +I'll be all right in a moment. . . . That's why I haven't said a word to her, +I was afraid I'd explode and I didn't want to make it harder for her, I know +how she feels. . . . Oh yes, she spoke to me about it, and she didn't shake, +but it was worse— +you know, the kind of rigidity when a person acts as if she didn't feel +anything at all, and . . . Listen, did I ever tell you that I like you? +I like you very much—for the way you look right now. You hear us. +You understand . . . What did she say? It was strange: it's not Hank +Rearden that she's afraid for, it's Ken Danagger. She said that Rearden will +have the strength to take it, but Danagger won't. Not that he'll lack the +strength, but he'll refuse to take it. She . . . she feels certain that Ken +Danagger will be the next one to go. To go like Ellis Wyatt and all those +others. To give up and vanish . . . Why? +Well, she thinks that there's something like a shift of stress involved— +economic and personal stress. As soon as all the weight of the moment +shifts to the shoulders of some one man—he's the one who vanishes, like a + + pillar slashed off. A year ago, nothing worse could have happened to 'the +country than to lose Ellis Wyatt. He's the one we lost. +Since then, she says, it's been as if the center of gravity were swinging +wildly—like in a sinking cargo ship out of control—shifting from industry to +industry, from man to man. When we lose one, another becomes that much more +desperately needed—and he's the one we lose next. Well, what could be a +greater disaster now than to have the country's coal supply left in the hands +of men like Boyle or Larkin? +And there's no one left in the coal industry who amounts to much, except +Ken Danagger. So she says that she feels almost as if he's a marked man, as +if he's hit by a spotlight right now, waiting to be cut down. . . . What are +you laughing at? It might sound preposterous, but I think it's true. . . . +What? . . . Oh yes, you bet she's a smart woman! . . . And then there's +another thing involved, she says. A man has to come to a certain mental +stage—not anger or despair, but something much, much more than both—before he +can be cut down. +She can't tell what it is, but she knew, long before the fire, that Ellis +Wyatt had reached that stage and something would happen to him. +When she saw Ken Danagger in the courtroom today, she said that he was +ready for the destroyer. . . . Yes, that's the words she used: he was ready +for the destroyer. You see, she doesn't think it's happening by chance or +accident. She thinks there's a system behind it, an intention, a man. There's +a destroyer loose in the country, who's cutting down the buttresses one after +another to let the structure collapse upon our heads. Some ruthless creature +moved by some inconceivable purpose . . . She says that she won't let him get +Ken Danagger. She keeps repeating that she must stop Danagger—she wants to +speak to him, to beg, to plead, to revive whatever it is that he's losing, to +arm him against the destroyer, before the destroyer comes. She's desperately +anxious to reach Danagger first. He has refused to see anyone. He's gone back +to Pittsburgh, to his mines. But she got him on the phone, late today, and +she's made an appointment to see him tomorrow afternoon. . . . Yes, she'll go +to Pittsburgh tomorrow. . . . Yes, she's afraid for Danagger, terribly +afraid. . . . No. She knows nothing about the destroyer. She has no clue to +his identity, no evidence of his existence—except the trail of destruction. +But she feels certain that he exists. . . . No, she cannot guess his purpose. +She says that nothing on earth could justify him. There are times when she +feels that she'd like to find him more than any other man in the world, more +than the inventor of the motor. She says that if she found the destroyer, +she'd shoot him on sight—she'd be willing to give her life if she could take +his first and by her own hand . . . because he's the most evil creature +that's ever existed, the man who's draining the brains of the world. +. . . I guess it's getting to be too much for her, at times—even for her. +I don't think she allows herself to know how tired she is. The other morning, +I came to work very early and I found her asleep on the couch in her office, +with the light still burning on her desk. She'd been there all night. I just +stood and looked at her. I wouldn't have awakened her if the whole goddamn +railroad collapsed. . . . When she was asleep? Why, she looked like a young +girl. She looked as if she felt certain that she would awaken in a world +where no one would harm her, as if she had nothing to hide or to fear. That's +what was terrible—that guiltless purity of her face, with her body twisted by +exhaustion, still lying there as she had collapsed. She looked—say, why +should you ask me what she looks like when she's asleep? . . . +Yes, you're right, why do I talk about it? I shouldn't. I don't know what +made me think of it. . . . Don't pay any attention to me. I'll be all right +tomorrow. I guess it's just that I'm sort of shell-shocked by that courtroom. +I keep thinking: if men like Rearden and Danagger are to be sent to jail, +then what kind of world are we working in and what for? Isn't there any + + justice left on earth? I was foolish enough to say that to a reporter when we +were leaving the courtroom—and he just laughed and said, 'Who is John Galt?' +. . . Tell me, what's happening to us? Isn't there a single man of justice +left? Isn't there anyone to defend them? Oh, do you hear me? Isn't there +anyone to defend them?" +"Mr. Danagger will be free in a moment, Miss Taggart. He has a visitor in +his office. Will you excuse it, please?" said the secretary. +Through the two hours of her flight to Pittsburgh, Dagny had been tensely +unable to justify her anxiety or to dismiss it; there was no reason to count +minutes, yet she had felt a blind desire to hurry. The anxiety vanished when +she entered the anteroom of Ken Danagger's office: she had reached him, +nothing had happened to prevent it, she felt safety, confidence and an +enormous sense of relief. +The words of the secretary demolished it. You're becoming a coward—thought +Dagny., feeling a causeless jolt of dread at the words, out of all proportion +to their meaning. +"I am so sorry, Miss Taggart." She heard the secretary's respectful, +solicitous voice and realized that she had stood there without answering. +"Mr. Danagger will be with you in just a moment. Won't you sit down?" The +voice conveyed an anxious concern over the impropriety of keeping her +waiting. +Dagny smiled. "Oh, that's quite all right." +She sat down in a wooden armchair, facing the secretary's railing. +She reached for a cigarette and stopped, wondering whether she would have +time to finish it, hoping that she would not, then lighted it brusquely. +It was an old-fashioned frame building, this headquarters of the great +Danagger Coal Company. Somewhere in the hills beyond the window were the pits +where Ken Danagger had once worked as a miner. He had never moved his office +away from the coal fields. +She could see the mine entrances cut into the hillsides, small frames of +metal girders, that led to an immense underground kingdom. They seemed +precariously modest, lost in the violent orange and red of the hills. . . . +Under a harsh blue sky, in the sunlight of late October, the sea of leaves +looked like a sea of fire . . . like waves rolling to swallow the fragile +posts of the mine doorways. She shuddered and looked away: she thought of the +flaming leaves spread over the hills of Wisconsin, on the road to +Starnesville. +She noticed that there was only a stub left of the cigarette between her +fingers. She lighted another. +When she glanced at the clock on the wall of the anteroom, she caught the +secretary glancing at it at the same time. Her appointment was for three +o'clock; the white dial said: 3:12. +"Please forgive it, Miss Taggart," said the secretary, "Mr. Danagger will +be through, any moment now, Mr. Danagger is extremely punctual about Ms +appointments. Please believe me that this is unprecedented." +"I know it." She knew that Ken Danagger was as rigidly exact about his +schedule as a railroad timetable and that he had been known to cancel an +interview if a caller permitted himself to arrive five minutes late. +The secretary was an elderly spinster with a forbidding manner: a manner +of even-toned courtesy impervious to any shock, just as her spotless white +blouse was impervious to an atmosphere filled with coal dust. Dagny thought +it strange that a hardened, well-trained woman of this type should appear to +be nervous: she volunteered no conversation, she sat still, bent over some +pages of paper on her desk. Half of Dagny's cigarette had gone in smoke, +while the woman still sat looking at the same page. +When she raised her head to glance at the clock, the 4ial said: 3:30. + + "I know that this is inexcusable, Miss Taggart." The note of apprehension +was obvious in her voice now. "I am unable to understand it." +"Would you mind telling Mr. Danagger that I'm here?" +"I can't!" It was almost a cry; she saw Dagny's astonished glance and felt +obliged to explain: "Mr. Danagger called me, on the interoffice communicator, +and told me that he was not to be interrupted under any circumstances or for +any reason whatever." +"When did he do that?" +The moment's pause was like a small air cushion for the answer: "Two hours +ago." +Dagny looked at the closed door of Danagger's office. She could hear the +sound of a voice beyond the door, but so faintly that she could not tell +whether it was the voice of one man or the conversation of two; she could not +distinguish the words or the emotional quality of the tone: it was only a +low, even progression of sounds that seemed normal and did not convey the +pitch of raised voices. +"How long has Mr. Danagger been in conference?" she asked. +"Since one o'clock," said the secretary grimly, then added in apology, "It +was an unscheduled caller, or Mr. Danagger would never have permitted this to +happen." +The door was not locked, thought Dagny; she felt an unreasoning desire to +tear it open and walk in—it was only a few wooden boards with a brass knob, +it would require only a small muscular contraction of her arm—but she looked +away, knowing that the power of a civilized order and of Ken Danagger's right +was more impregnable a barrier than any lock. +She found herself staring at the stubs of her cigarettes in the ashtray +stand beside her, and wondered why it gave her a sharper feeling of +apprehension. Then she realized that she was thinking of Hugh Akston: she had +written to him, at his diner in Wyoming, asking him to tell her where he had +obtained the cigarette with the dollar sign; her letter had come back, with a +postal inscription to inform her that he had moved away, leaving no +forwarding address. +She told herself angrily that this had no connection with the present +moment and that she had to control her nerves. But her hand jerked to press +the button of the ashtray and make the cigarette stubs vanish inside the +stand. +As she looked up, her eyes met the glance of the secretary watching her. +"I am sorry, Miss Taggart. I don't know what to do about it." +It was an openly desperate plea. "I don't dare interrupt." +Dagny asked slowly, as a demand, in defiance of office etiquette, "Who is +with Mr. Danagger?" +"I don't know, Miss Taggart. I have never seen the gentleman before." She +noticed the sudden, fixed stillness of Dagny's eyes and added, "I think it's +a childhood friend of Mr. Danagger." +"Oh!" said Dagny, relieved. +"He came in unannounced and asked to see Mr. Danagger and said that this +was an appointment which Mr. Danagger had made with him forty years ago," +"How old is Mr. Danagger?" +"Fifty-two," said the secretary. She added reflectively, in the tone of a +casual remark, "Mr. Danagger started working at the age of twelve." +After another silence, she added, "The strange thing is that the visitor +does not look as if he's even forty years old. He seems to be a man in his +thirties." +"Did he give his name?" +"No." +"What does he look like?" + + The secretary smiled with sudden animation, as if she were about to utter +an enthusiastic compliment, but the smile vanished abruptly. +"I don't know," she answered uneasily. "He's hard to describe. He has a +strange face." +They had been silent for a long time, and the hands of the dial were +approaching 3:50 when the buzzer rang on the secretary's desk— +the bell from Danagger's office, the signal of permission to enter. +They both leaped to their feet, and the secretary rushed forward, smiling +with relief, hastening to open the door. +As she entered Danagger's office, Dagny saw the private exit door closing +after the caller who had preceded her. She heard the knock of the door +against the jamb and the faint tinkle of the glass panel. +She saw the man who had left, by his reflection on Ken Danagger's face. It +was not the face she had seen in the courtroom, it was not the face she had +known for years as a countenance of unchanging, unfeeling rigidity—it was a +face which a young man of twenty should hope for, but could not achieve, a +face from which every sign of strain had been wiped out, so that the lined +cheeks, the creased forehead, the graying hair—like elements rearranged by a +new theme—were made to form a composition of hope, eagerness and guiltless +serenity: the theme was deliverance. +He did not rise when she entered—he looked as if he had not quite returned +to the reality of the moment and had forgotten the proper routine—but he +smiled at her with such simple benevolence that she found herself smiling in +answer. She caught herself thinking that this was the way every human being +should greet another—and she lost her anxiety, feeling suddenly certain that +all was well and that nothing to be feared could exist. +"How do you do, Miss Taggart," he said. "Forgive me, I think that I have +kept you waiting. Please sit down." He pointed to the chair in front of his +desk. +"I didn't mind waiting," she said. "I'm grateful that you gave me this +appointment. I was extremely anxious to speak to you on a matter of urgent +importance." +He leaned forward across the desk, with a look of attentive concentration, +as he always did at the mention of an important business matter, but she was +not speaking to the man she knew, this was a stranger, and she stopped, +uncertain about the arguments she had been prepared to use. +He looked at her in silence, and then he said, "Miss Taggart, this is such +a beautiful day—probably the last, this year. There's a thing I've always +wanted to do, but never had time for it. Let's go back to New York together +and take one of those excursion boat trips around the island of Manhattan. +Let's take a last look at the greatest city in the world." +She sat still, trying to hold her eyes fixed in order to stop the office +from swaying. This was the Ken Danagger who had never had a personal friend, +had never married, had never attended a play or a movie, had never permitted +anyone the impertinence of taking his time for any concern but business. +"Mr. Danagger, I came here to speak to you about a matter of crucial +importance to the future of your business and mine. I came to speak to you +about your indictment." +"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. It doesn't matter. I'm going to +retire." +She sat still, feeling nothing, wondering numbly whether this was how it +felt to hear a death sentence one had dreaded, but had never quite believed +possible. +Her first movement was a sudden jerk of her head toward the exit door; she +asked, her voice low, her mouth distorted by hatred, "Who was he?" +Danagger laughed. "If you've guessed that much, you should have guessed +that it's a question I won't answer." + + "Oh God, Ken Danagger!" she moaned; his words made her realize that the +barrier of hopelessness, of silence, of unanswered questions was already +erected between them; the hatred had been only a thin wire that had held her +for a moment and she broke with its breaking. +"Oh God!" +"You're wrong, kid," he said gently. "I know how you feel, but you're +wrong," then added more formally, as if remembering the proper manner, as if +still trying to balance himself between two kinds of reality, "I'm sorry, +Miss Taggart, that you had to come here so soon after." +"I came too late," she said. "That's what I came here to prevent. I knew +it would happen." +"Why?" +"I felt certain that he'd get you next, whoever he is." +"You did? That's funny. I didn't." +"I wanted to warn you, to . . . to arm you against him." +He smiled. "Take my word for it, Miss Taggart, so that you won't torture +yourself with regrets about the timing; that could not have been done." +She felt that with every passing minute he was moving away into some great +distance where she would not be able to reach him, but there was still some +thin bridge left between them and she had to hurry. +She leaned forward, she said very quietly, the intensity of emotion taking +form in the exaggerated steadiness of her voice, "Do you remember what you +thought and felt, what you were, three hours ago? Do you remember what your +mines meant to you? Do you remember Taggart Transcontinental or Rearden +Steel? In the name of that, will you answer me? Will you help me to +understand?" +"I will answer whatever I may." +"You have decided to retire? To give up your business?" +"Yes." +"Does it mean nothing to you now?" +"It means more to me now than it ever did before." +"But you're going to abandon it?" +"Yes." +"Why?" +"That, I won't answer,” +"You, who loved your work, who respected nothing but work, who despised +every kind of aimlessness, passivity and renunciation—have you renounced the +kind of life you loved?" +"No. I have just discovered how much I do love it." +"But you intend to exist without work or purpose?" +"What makes you think that?" +"Are you going into the coal-mining business somewhere else?" +"No, not into the coal-mining business." +"Then what are you going to do?" +"I haven't decided that yet." +"Where are you going?" +"I won't answer." +She gave herself a moment's pause, to gather her strength, to tell +herself; Don't feel, don't show him that you feel anything, don't let it +cloud and break the bridge—then she said, in the same quiet, even voice, "Do +you realize what your retirement will do to Hank Rearden, to me, to all the +rest of us, whoever is left?" +"Yes. I realize it more fully than you do at present." +"And it means nothing to you?" +"It means more than you will care to believe." +"Then why are you deserting us?" + + "You will not believe it and I will not explain, but I am not deserting +you." +"We're being left to carry a greater burden, and you're indifferent to the +knowledge that you'll see us destroyed by the looters." +"Don't be too sure of that." +"Of which? Your indifference or our destruction?" +"Of either." +"But you know, you knew it this morning, that it's a battle to the death, +and it's we—you were one of us—against the looters." +"If I answer that 7 know it, but you don't—you'll think that I attach no +meaning to my words. So take it as you wish, but that is my answer." +"Will you tell me the meaning?" +"No. It's for you to discover." +"You're willing to give up the world to the looters. We aren't." +"Don't be too sure of either." +She remained helplessly silent. The strangeness of his manner was its +simplicity; he spoke as if he were being completely natural and—in the midst +of unanswered questions and of a tragic mystery—he conveyed the impression +that there were no secrets any longer, and no mystery need ever have existed. +But as she watched him, she saw the first break in his joyous calm: she +saw him struggling against some thought; he hesitated, then said, with +effort, "About Hank Rearden . . . Will you do me a favor?" +"Of course." +"Will you tell him that I . . . You see, I've never cared for people, yet +he was always the man I respected, but I didn't know until today that what I +felt was,. . . that he was the only man I ever loved. . . . +Just tell him this and that I wish I could—no, I guess that's all I can +tell him. . . . He'll probably damn me for leaving . . . still, maybe he +won't." +"I'll tell him." +Hearing the dulled, hidden sound of pain in his voice, she felt so close +to him that it seemed impossible he would deliver the blow he was delivering— +and she made one last effort. +"Mr. Danagger, if I were to plead on my knees, if I were to find some sort +of words that I haven't found—would there be . . . is there a chance to stop +you?" +"There isn't." +After a moment, she asked tonelessly, "When are you quitting?" +"Tonight." +"What will you do with"—she pointed at the hills beyond the window—"the +Danagger Coal Company? To whom are you leaving it?" +"I don't know—or care. To nobody or everybody. To whoever wants to take +it." +"You're not going to dispose of it or appoint a successor?" +"No. What for?" +"To leave it in good hands. Couldn't you at least name an heir of your own +choice?" +"I haven't any choice. It doesn't make any difference to me. Want me to +leave it all to you?" He reached for a sheet of paper. "I'll write a letter +naming you sole heiress right now, if you want me to." +She shook her head in an involuntary recoil of horror. "I'm not a looter!" +He chuckled, pushing the paper aside. "You see? You gave the right answer, +whether you knew it or not. Don't worry about Danagger Coal. It won't make +any difference, whether I appoint the best successor in the world, or the +worst, or none. No matter who takes it over now, whether men or weeds, it +won't make any difference." + + "But to walk off and abandon . . . just abandon . . . an industrial +enterprise, as if we were in the age of landless nomads or of savages +wandering in the jungle!" +"Aren't we?" He was smiling at her, half in mockery, half in compassion. +"Why should I leave a deed or a will? I don't want to help the looters to +pretend that private property still exists. I am complying with the system +which they have established. They do not need me, they say, they only need my +coal. Let them take it." +"Then you're accepting their system?" +"Am I?" +She moaned, looking at the exit door, "What has he done to you?" +"He told me that I had the right to exist." +"I didn't believe it possible that in three hours one could make a man +turn against fifty-two years of his life!" +"If that's what you trunk he's done, or if you think that he's told me +some inconceivable revelation, then I can see how bewildering it would appear +to you. But that's not what he's done. He merely named what I had lived by, +what every man lives by—at and to the extent of such time as he doesn't spend +destroying himself." +She knew that questions were futile and that there was nothing she could +say to him. +He looked at her bowed head and said gently, "You're a brave person, Miss +Taggart. I know what you're doing right now and what it's costing you. Don't +torture yourself. Let me go." +She rose to her feet. She was about to speak—but suddenly he saw her stare +down, leap forward and seize the ashtray that stood on the edge of the desk. +The ashtray contained a cigarette butt stamped with the sign of the +dollar. +"What's the matter, Miss Taggart?" +"Did he . . . did he smoke this?" +"Who?" +"Your caller—did he smoke this cigarette?" +"Why, I don't know . . . I guess so . . . yes, I think I did see him +smoking a cigarette once . . . let me see . . . no, that's not my brand, so +it must be his." +"Were there any other visitors in this office today?" +"No. But why, Miss Taggart? What's the matter?" +"May I take this?" +"What? The cigarette butt?" He stared at her in bewilderment. +"Yes." +"Why, sure—but what for?" +She was looking down at the butt in the palm of her hand as if it were a +jewel. "I don't know . . . I don't know what good it will do me, except that +it's a clue to"—she smiled bitterly—"to a secret of my own." +She stood, reluctant to leave, looking at Ken Danagger in the manner of a +last look at one departing for the realm of no return. +He guessed it, smiled and extended his hand. "I won't say goodbye," he +said, "because I'll see you again in the not too distant future." +"Oh," she said eagerly, holding his hand clasped across the desk, "are you +going to return?" +"No. You're going to join me." +There was only a faint red breath above the structures in the darkness, as +if the mills were asleep but alive, with the even breathing of the furnaces +and the distant heartbeats of the conveyor belts to show it. +Rearden stood at the window of his office, his hand pressed to the pane; +in the perspective of distance, his hand covered half a mile of structures, +as if he were trying to hold them. + + He was looking at a long wall of vertical strips, which was the battery of +coke ovens. A narrow door slid open with a brief gasp of flame, and a sheet +of red-glowing coke came sliding out smoothly, like a slice of bread from the +side of a giant toaster. It held still for an instant, then an angular crack +shot through the slice and it crumbled into a gondola waiting on the rails +below. +Danagger coal, he thought. These were the only words in his mind. +The rest was a feeling of loneliness, so vast that even its own pain +seemed swallowed in an enormous void. +Yesterday, Dagny had told him the story of her futile attempt and given +him Danagger's message. This morning, he had heard the news that Danagger had +disappeared. Through his sleepless night, then through the taut concentration +on the duties of the day, his answer to the message had kept beating in his +mind, the answer he would never have a chance to utter. +"The only man I ever loved." It came from Ken Danagger, who had never +expressed anything more personal than "Look here, Rearden." +He thought: Why had we let it go? Why had we both been condemned —in the +hours away from our desks—to an exile among dreary strangers who had made us +give up all desire for rest, for friendship, for the sound of human voices? +Could I now reclaim a single hour spent listening to my brother Philip and +give it to Ken Danagger? Who made it our duty to accept, as the only reward +for our work, the gray torture of pretending love for those who roused us to +nothing but contempt? +We who were able to melt rock and metal for our purpose, why had we never +sought that which we wanted from men? +He tried to choke the words in his mind, knowing that it was useless to +think of them now. But the words were there and they were like words +addressed to the dead: No, I don't damn you for leaving—if that is the +question and the pain which you took away with you. Why didn't you give me a +chance to tell you . . . what? that I approve? +. . . no, but that I can neither blame you nor follow you. +Closing his eyes, he permitted himself to experience for a moment the +immense relief he would feel if he, too, were to walk off, abandoning +everything. Under the shock of his loss, he felt a thin thread of envy. Why +didn't they come for me, too, whoever they are, and give me that irresistible +reason which would make me go? But in the next moment, his shudder of anger +told him that he would murder the man who'd attempt to approach him, he would +murder before he could hear the words of the secret that would take him away +from his mills. +It was late, his staff had gone, but he dreaded the road to his house and +the emptiness of the evening ahead. He felt as if the enemy who had wiped out +Ken Danagger, were waiting for him in the darkness beyond the glow of the +mills. He was not invulnerable any longer, but whatever it was, he thought, +wherever it came from, he was safe from it here, as in a circle of fires +drawn about him to ward off evil. +He looked at the glittering white splashes on the dark windows of a +structure in the distance; they were like motionless ripples of sunlight on +water. It was the reflection of the neon sign that burned on the roof of the +building above his head, saying: Rearden Steel. He thought of the night when +he had wished to light a sign above his past, saying: Rearden Life. Why had +he wished it? For whose eyes to see? +He thought—in bitter astonishment and for the first time—that the joyous +pride he had once felt, had come from his respect for men, for the value of +their admiration and their judgment. He did not feel it any longer. There +were no men, he thought, to whose sight he could wish to offer that sign. +He turned brusquely away from the window. He seized his overcoat with the +harsh sweep of a gesture intended to jolt him back into the discipline of + + action. He slammed the two folds of the overcoat about his body, he jerked +the belt tight, then hastened to turn off the lights with rapid snaps of his +hand on his way out of the office. +He threw the door open—and stopped. A single lamp was burning in a corner +of the dimmed anteroom. The man who sat on the edge of a desk, in a pose of +casual, patient waiting, was Francisco d'Anconia. +Rearden stood still and caught a brief instant when Francisco, not moving, +looked at him with the hint of an amused smile that was like a wink between +conspirators at a secret they both understood, but would not acknowledge. It +was only an instant, almost too brief to grasp, because it seemed to him that +Francisco rose at once at his entrance, with a movement of courteous +deference. The movement suggested a strict formality, the denial of any +attempt at presumption—but it stressed the intimacy of the fact that he +uttered no word of greeting or explanation. +Rearden asked, his voice hard, "What are you doing here?" +"I thought that you would want to see me tonight, Mr. Rearden." +"Why?" +"For the same reason that has kept you so late in your office. You were +not working." +"How long have you been sitting here?" +"An hour or two." +"Why didn't you knock at my door?" +"Would you have allowed me to come in?" +"You're late in asking that question," +"Shall I leave, Mr. Rearden?" +Rearden pointed to the door of his office. "Come in." +Turning the lights on in the office, moving with unhurried control, +Rearden thought that he must not allow himself to feel anything, but felt the +color of life returning to him in the tensely quiet eagerness of an emotion +which he would not identify. What he told himself consciously was: Be +careful. +He sat down on the edge of his desk, crossed his arms, looked at +Francisco, who remained standing respectfully before him, and asked with the +cold hint of a smile, "Why did you come here?" +"You don't want me to answer, Mr. Rearden. You wouldn't admit to me or to +yourself how desperately lonely you are tonight. If you don't question me, +you won't feel obliged to deny it. Just accept what you do know, anyway: that +I know it." +Taut like a string pulled by anger against the impertinence at one end and +by admiration for the frankness at the other, Rearden answered, "I'll admit +it, if you wish. What should it matter to me, that you know it?" +"That I know and care, Mr. Rearden. I'm the only man around you who does." +"Why should you care? And why should I need your help tonight?" +"Because it's not easy to have to damn the man who meant most to you." +"I wouldn't damn you if you'd only stay away from me." +Francisco's eyes widened a little, then he grinned and said, "I was +speaking of Mr. Danagger." +For an instant, Rearden looked as if he wanted to slap his own face, then +he laughed softly and said, "All right. Sit down." +He waited to see what advantage Francisco would take of it now, but +Francisco obeyed him in silence, with a smile that had an oddly boyish +quality: a look of triumph and gratitude, together. +"I don't damn Ken Danagger," said Rearden. +"You don't?" The two words seemed to fall with a singular emphasis; they +were pronounced very quietly, almost cautiously, with no remnant of a smile +on Francisco's face. +"No. I don't try to prescribe how much a man should have to bear. + + If he broke, it's not for me to judge him." +"If he broke . . . ?" +"Well, didn't he?" +Francisco leaned back; his smile returned, but it was not a happy smile. +"What will his disappearance do to you?" +"I will just have to work a little harder." +Francisco looked at a steel bridge traced in black strokes against red +steam beyond the window, and said, pointing, "Every one of those girders has +a limit to the load it can carry. What's yours?" +Rearden laughed. "Is that what you're afraid of? Is that why you came +here? Were you afraid I'd break? Did you want to save me, as Dagny Taggart +wanted to save Ken Danagger? She tried to reach him in time, but couldn't." +"She did? I didn't know it. Miss Taggart and I disagree about many +things." +"Don't worry. I'm not going to vanish. Let them all give up and stop +working. I won't. I don't know my limit and don't care. All I have to know is +that I can't be stopped." +"Any man can be stopped, Mr. Rearden." +"How?" +"It's only a matter of knowing man's motive power." +"What is it?" +"You ought to know, Mr. Rearden. You're one of the last moral men left to +the world." +Rearden chuckled in bitter amusement. "I've been called just about +everything but that. And you're wrong. You have no idea how wrong." +"Are you sure?" +"I ought to know. Moral? What on earth made you say it?" +Francisco pointed to the mills beyond the window. "This." +For a long moment, Rearden looked at him without moving, then asked only, +"What do you mean?" +"If you want to see an abstract principle, such as moral action, in +material form—there it is. Look at it, Mr. Rearden. Every girder of it, every +pipe, wire and valve was put there by a choice in answer to the question: +right or wrong? You had to choose right and you had to choose the best within +your knowledge—the best for your purpose, which was to make steel—and then +move on and extend the knowledge, and do better, and still better, with your +purpose as your standard of value. You had to act on your own judgment, you +had to have the capacity to judge, the courage to stand on the verdict of +your mind, and the purest, the most ruthless consecration to the rule of +doing right, of doing the best, the utmost best possible to you. Nothing +could have made you act against your judgment, and you would have rejected as +wrong—as evil—any man who attempted to tell you that the best way to heat a +furnace was to fill it with ice. Millions of men, an entire nation, were not +able to deter you from producing Rearden Metal—because you had the knowledge +of its superlative value and the power which such knowledge gives. But what I +wonder about, Mr. Rearden, is why you live by one code of principles when you +deal with nature and by another when you deal with men?" +Rearden's eyes were fixed on him so intently that the question came +slowly, as if the effort to pronounce it were a distraction: "What do you +mean?" +"Why don't you hold to the purpose of your life as clearly and rigidly as +you hold to the purpose of your mills?" +"What do you mean?" +"You have judged every brick within this place by its value to the goal of +making steel. Have you been as strict about the goal which your work and your +steel are serving? What do you wish to achieve by giving your life to the +making of steel? By what standard of value do you judge your days? For + + instance, why did you spend ten years of exacting effort to produce Rearden +Metal?" +Rearden looked away, the slight, slumping movement of his shoulders like a +sigh of release and disappointment. "If you have to ask that, then you +wouldn't understand." +"If I told you that I understand it, but you don't—would you throw me out +of here?" +"T should have thrown you out of here anyway—so go ahead, tell me what you +mean." +"Are you proud of the rail of the John Galt Line?" +"Yes." +"Why?" +"Because it's the best rail ever made." +"Why did you make it?" +"In order to make money." +"There were many easier ways to make money. Why did you choose the +hardest?" +"You said it in your speech at Taggart's wedding: in order to exchange my +best effort for the best effort of others." +"If that was your purpose, have you achieved it?" +A beat of time vanished in a heavy drop of silence. "No," said Rearden. +"Have you made any money?" +"No." +"When you strain your energy to its utmost in order to produce the best, +do you expect to be rewarded for it or punished?" Rearden did not answer. "By +every standard of decency, of honor, of justice known to you—are you +convinced that you should have been rewarded for it?" +"Yes," said Rearden, his voice low. +"Then if you were punished, instead—what sort of code have you accepted?" +Rearden did not answer. +"It is generally assumed," said Francisco, "that living in a human society +makes one's life much easier and safer than if one were left alone to +struggle against nature on a desert island. Now wherever there is a man who +needs or uses metal in any way-—Rearden Metal has made his life easier for +him. Has it made yours easier for you?" +"No," said Rearden, his voice low. +"Has it left your life as it was before you produced the Metal?" +"No—" said Rearden, the word breaking off as if he had cut short the +thought that followed. +Francisco's voice lashed at him suddenly, as a command: "Say it!" +"It has made it harder," said Rearden tonelessly. +"When you felt proud of the rail of the John Galt Line," said Francisco, +the measured rhythm of his voice giving a ruthless clarity to his words, +"what sort of men did you think of? Did you want to see that Line used by +your equals—by giants of productive energy, such as Ellis Wyatt, whom it +would help to reach higher and still higher achievements of their own?" +"Yes," said Rearden eagerly. +"Did you want to see it used by men who could not equal the power of your +mind, but who would equal your moral integrity—men such as Eddie Willers—who +could never invent your Metal, but who would do their best, work as hard as +you did, live by their own effort, and—riding on your rail—give a moment's +silent thanks to the man who gave them more than they could give him?" +"Yes," said Rearden gently. +"Did you want to see it used by whining rotters who never rouse themselves +to any effort, who do not possess the ability of a filing clerk, but demand +the income of a company president, who drift from failure to failure and +expect you to pay their bills, who hold their wishing as an equivalent of + + your work and their need as a higher claim to reward than your effort, who +demand that you serve them, who demand that it be the aim of your life to +serve them, who demand that your strength be the voiceless, rightless, +unpaid, unrewarded slave of their impotence, who proclaim that you are born +to serfdom by reason of your genius, while they are born to rule by the grace +of incompetence, that yours is only to give, but theirs only to take, that +yours is to produce, but theirs to consume, that you are not to be paid, +neither in matter nor in spirit, neither by wealth nor by recognition nor by +respect nor by gratitude—so that they would ride on your rail and sneer at +you and curse you, since they owe you nothing, not even the effort of taking +off their hats which you paid for? Would this be what you wanted? Would you +feel proud of it?" +'I'd blast that rail first," said Rearden, his lips white. +'Then why don't you do it, Mr. Rearden? Of the three kinds of men I +described—which men are being destroyed and which are using your Line today?" +They heard the distant metal heartbeats of the mills through the long +thread of silence. +"What I described last," said Francisco, "is any man who proclaims his +right to a single penny of another man's effort." +Rearden did not answer; he was looking at the reflection of a neon sign on +dark windows in the distance. +"You take pride in setting no limit to your endurance, Mr. Rearden, +because you think that you are doing right. What if you aren't? What if +you're placing your virtue in the service of evil and letting it become a +tool for the destruction of everything you love, respect and admire? +Why don't you uphold your own code of values among men as you do among +iron smelters? You who won't allow one per cent of impurity into an alloy of +metal—what have you allowed into your moral code?" +Rearden sat very still; the words in his mind were like the beat of steps +down the trail he had been seeking; the words were: the sanction of the +victim. +"You, who would not submit to the hardships of nature, but set out to +conquer it and placed it in the service of your joy and your comfort—to what +have you submitted at the hands of men? You, who know from your work that one +bears punishment only for being wrong —what have you been willing to bear and +for what reason? All your life, you have heard yourself denounced, not for +your faults, but for your greatest virtues. You have been hated, not for your +mistakes, but for your achievements. You have been scorned for all those +qualities of character which are your highest pride. You have been called +selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgment and bearing sole +responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your +independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. +You have been called anti-social for the vision that made you venture upon +undiscovered roads. You have been called ruthless for the strength and selfdiscipline of your drive to your purpose. You have been called greedy for the +magnificence of your power to create wealth. You, who've expended an +inconceivable flow of energy, have been called a parasite. You, who've +created abundance where there had been nothing but wastelands and helpless, +starving men before you, have been called a robber. You, who've kept them all +alive, have been called an exploiter. You, the purest and most moral man +among them, have been sneered at as a 'vulgar materialist.' Have you stopped +to ask them: by what right?—by what code?—by what standard? No, you have +borne it all and kept silent. You bowed to their code and you never upheld +your own. You knew what exacting morality was needed to produce a single +metal nail, but you let them brand you as immoral. +You knew that man needs the strictest code of values to deal with nature, +but you thought that you needed no such code to deal with men. You left the + + deadliest weapon in the hands of your enemies, a weapon you never suspected +or understood. Their moral code is their weapon. Ask yourself how deeply and +in how many terrible ways you have accepted it. Ask yourself what it is that +a code of moral values does to a man's life, and why he can't exist without +it, and what happens to him if he accepts the wrong standard, by which the +evil is the good. Shall I tell you why you're drawn to me, even though you +think you ought to damn me? It's because I'm the first man who has given you +what the whole world owes you and what you should have demanded of all men +before you dealt with them: a moral sanction." +Rearden whirled to him, then remained still, with a stillness like a gasp. +Francisco leaned forward, as if he were reaching the landing of a dangerous +flight, and his eyes were steady, but their glance seemed to tremble with +intensity. +"You're guilty of a great sin, Mr. Rearden, much guiltier than they tell +you, but not in the way they preach. The worst guilt is to accept an +undeserved guilt—and that is what you have been doing all your life. +You have been paying blackmail, not for your vices, but for your virtues. +You have been willing to carry the load of an unearned punishment—and toilet +it grow the heavier the greater the virtues you practiced. But your virtues +were those which keep men alive. Your own moral code—the one you lived by, +but never stated, acknowledged or defended—was the code that preserves man's +existence. If you were punished for it, what was the nature of those who +punished you? +Yours was the code of life. What, then, is theirs? What standard of value +lies at its root? What is its ultimate purpose? Do you think that what you're +facing is merely a conspiracy to seize your wealth? You, who know the source +of wealth, should know it's much more and much worse than that. Did you ask +me to name man's motive power? +Man's motive power is his moral code. Ask yourself where their code is +leading you and what it offers you as your final goal. A viler evil than to +murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than +to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of +his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides. By their own statement, +it is they who need you and have nothing to offer you in return. By their own +statement, you must support them because they cannot survive without you. +Consider the obscenity of offering their impotence and their need—their need +of you—as a justification for your torture. Are you willing to accept it? Do +you care to purchase—at the price of your great endurance, at the price of +your agony—the satisfaction of the needs of your own destroyers?" +"No!" +"Mr. Rearden," said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, "if you saw Atlas, +the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, +blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but +still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the +greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders—what +would you tell him to do?" +"I . . . don't know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?" +"To shrug." +The clatter of the metal came in a flow of irregular sounds without +discernible rhythm, not like the action of a mechanism, but as if some +conscious impulse were behind every sudden, tearing rise that went up and +crashed, scattering into the faint moan of gears. The glass of the windows +tinkled once in a while. +Francisco's eyes were watching Rearden as if he were examining the course +of bullets on a battered target. The course was hard to trace: the gaunt +figure on the edge of the desk was erect, the cold blue eyes showed nothing + + but the intensity of a glance fixed upon a great distance, only the +inflexible mouth betrayed a line drawn by pain. +"Go on," said Rearden with effort, "continue. You haven't finished, have +you?" +"I have barely begun." Francisco's voice was hard. +"What . . . are you driving at?" +"You'll know it before I'm through. But first, I want you to answer a +question: if you understand the nature of your burden, how can you . . ." +The scream of an alarm siren shattered the space beyond the window and +shot like a rocket in a long, thin line to the sky. It held for an instant, +then fell, then went on in rising, falling spirals of sound, as if fighting +for breath against terror to scream louder. It was the shriek of agony, the +call for help, the voice of the mills as of a wounded body crying to hold its +soul. +Rearden thought that he leaped for the door the instant the scream hit his +consciousness, but he saw that he was an instant late, because Francisco had +preceded him. Flung by the blast of the same response as his own, Francisco +was flying down the hall, pressing the button of the elevator and, not +waiting, racing on down the stairs. Rearden followed him and, watching the +dial of the elevator on the stair landings, they met it halfway down the +height of the building. Before the steel cage had ceased trembling at the +sill of the ground floor, Francisco was out, racing to meet the sound of the +call for help. Rearden had thought himself a good runner, but he could not +keep up with the swift figure streaking off through stretches of red glare +and darkness, the figure of a useless playboy he had hated himself for +admiring. +The stream, gushing from a hole low on the side of a blast furnace, did +not have the red glow of fire, but the white radiance of sunlight. +It poured along the ground, branching off at random in sudden streaks; it +cut through a dank fog of steam with a bright suggestion of morning. +It was liquid iron, and what the scream of the alarm proclaimed was a +break-out. +The charge of the furnace had been hung up and, breaking, had blown the +tap-hole open. The furnace foreman lay knocked unconscious, the white flow +spurted, slowly tearing the hole wider, and men were struggling with sand, +hose and fire clay to stop the glowing streaks that spread in a heavy, +gliding motion, eating everything on their way into jets of acrid smoke. +In the few moments which Rearden needed to grasp the sight and nature of +the disaster, he saw a man's figure rising suddenly at the foot of the +furnace, a figure outlined by the red glare almost as if it stood in the path +of the torrent, he saw the swing of a white shirt sleeved arm that rose and +flung a black object into the source of the spurting metal. It was Francisco +d'Anconia, and his action belonged to an art which Rearden had not believed +any man to be trained to perform any longer. +Years before, Rearden had worked in an obscure steel plant in Minnesota, +where it had been his job, after a blast furnace was tapped, to close the +hole by hand—by throwing bullets of fire clay to dam the flow of the metal. +It was a dangerous job that had taken many lives; it had been abolished years +earlier by the invention of the hydraulic gun; but there had been struggling, +failing mills which, on their way down, had attempted to use the outworn +equipment and methods of a distant past. Rearden had done the job; but in the +years since, he had met no other man able to do it. In the midst of shooting +jets of live steam, in the face of a crumbling blast furnace, he was now +seeing the tall, slim figure of the playboy performing the task with the +skill of an expert. +It took an instant for Rearden to tear off his coat, seize a pair of +goggles from the first man in sight and join Francisco at the mouth of the + + furnace. There was no time to speak, to feel or to wonder. Francisco glanced +at him once—and what Rearden saw was a smudged face, black goggles and a wide +grin. +They stood on a slippery bank of baked mud, at the edge of the white +stream, with the raging hole under their feet, flinging clay into the glare +where the twisting tongues that looked like gas were boiling metal. Rearden's +consciousness became a progression of bending, raising the weight, aiming and +sending it down and, before it had reached its unseen destination, bending +for the next one again, a consciousness drawn tight upon watching the aim of +his arm, to save the furnace, and the precarious posture of his feet, to save +himself. He was aware of nothing else—except that the sum of it was the +exultant feeling of action, of his own capacity, of his body's precision, of +its response to his will. And with no time to know it, but knowing it, +seizing it with his senses past the censorship of his mind, he was seeing a +black silhouette with red rays shooting from behind its shoulders, its +elbows, its angular curves, the red rays circling through steam like the long +needles of spotlights, following the movements of a swift, expert, confident +being whom he had never seen before except in evening clothes under the +lights of ballrooms. +There was no time to form words, to think, to explain, but he knew that +this was the real Francisco d'Anconia, this was what he had seen from the +first and loved—the word did not shock him, because there was no word in his +mind, there was only a joyous feeling that seemed like a flow of energy added +to his own. +To the rhythm of his body, with the scorching heat on his face and the +winter night on his shoulder blades, he was seeing suddenly that this was the +simple essence of his universe: the instantaneous refusal to submit to +disaster, the irresistible drive to fight it, the triumphant feeling of his +own ability to win. He was certain that Francisco felt it, too, that he had +been moved by the same impulse, that it was right to feel it, right for both +of them to be what they were—he caught glimpses of a sweat-streaked face +intent upon action, and it was the most joyous face he had ever seen. +The furnace stood above them, a black bulk wrapped in coils of tubes and +steam; she seemed to pant, shooting red gasps that hung on the air above the +mills—and they fought not to let her bleed to death. +Sparks hung about their feet and burst in sudden sheafs out of the metal, +dying unnoticed against their clothes, against the skin of their hands. The +stream was coming slower, in broken spurts through the dam rising beyond +their sight. +It happened so fast that Rearden knew it fully only after it was over. +He knew that there were two moments: the first was when he saw the violent +swing of Francisco's body in a forward thrust that sent the bullet to +continue the line in space, then he saw the sudden, unrhythmic jerk backward +that did not succeed, the convulsive beating against a forward pull, the +extended arms of the silhouette losing its balance, he thought that a leap +across the distance between them on the slippery, crumbling ridge would mean +the death of both of them—and the second moment was when he landed at +Francisco's side, held him in his arms, hung swaying together between space +and ridge, over the white pit, then gained his footing and pulled him back, +and, for an instant, still held the length of Francisco's body against the +length of his own, as he would have held the body of an only son. His love, +his terror, his relief were in a single sentence: "Be careful, you goddamn +fool!" +Francisco reached for a chunk of clay and went on. +When the job was done and the gap was closed, Rearden noticed that there +was a twisting pain in the muscles of his arms and legs, that his body had no + + strength left to move—yet that he felt as if he were entering his office in +the morning, eager for ten new problems to solve. +He looked at Francisco and noticed for the first time that their clothes +had blade-ringed holes, that their hands were bleeding, that there was a +patch of skin torn on Francisco's temple and a red thread winding down his +cheekbone. Francisco pushed the goggles back off his eyes and grinned at him: +it was a smile of morning. +A young man with a look of chronic hurt and impertinence together, rushed +up to him, crying, "I couldn't help it, Mr. Rearden!" +and launched into a speech of explanation. Rearden turned his back on him +without a word. It was the assistant in charge of the pressure gauge of the +furnace, a young man out of college. +Somewhere on the outer edge of Rearden's consciousness, there was the +thought that accidents of this nature were happening more frequently now, +caused by the kind of ore he was using, but he had to use whatever ore he +could find. There was the thought that his old workers had always been able +to avert disaster; any of them would have seen e indications of a hang-up and +known how to prevent it; but there were not many of them left, and he had to +employ whatever men he could find. Through the swirling coils of steam around +him, he observed that it was the older men who had rushed from all over the +mills to fight the break-out and now stood in line, being given first aid by +the medical staff. He wondered what was happening to the young men of the +country. But the wonder was swallowed by the sight of the college boy's face, +which he could not bear to see, by a wave of contempt, by the wordless +thought that if this was the enemy, there was nothing to fear. All these +things came to him and vanished in the outer darkness; the sight blotting +them out was Francisco d'Anconia, He saw Francisco giving orders to the men +around him. They did not know who he was or where he came from, but they +listened: they knew he was a man who knew his job. Francisco broke off in the +middle of a sentence, seeing Rearden approach and listen, and said, laughing, +"Oh, I beg your pardon!" Rearden said, "Go right ahead. It's all correct, so +far." +They said nothing to each other when they walked together through the +darkness, on their way back to the office. Rearden felt an exultant laughter +swelling within him, he felt that he wanted, in his turn, to wink at +Francisco like a fellow conspirator who had learned a secret Francisco would +not acknowledge. He glanced at his face once in a while, but Francisco would +not look at him. +After a while, Francisco said, "You saved my Me." The "thank you" +was in the way he said it. +Rearden chuckled. "You saved my furnace." +They went on in silence. Rearden felt himself growing lighter with every +step. Raising his face to the cold air, he saw the peaceful darkness bf the +sky and a single star above a smokestack with the vertical lettering: Rearden +Steel. He felt how glad he was to be alive. +He did not expect the change he saw in Francisco's face when he looked at +it in the light of his office. The things he had seen by the glare of the +furnace were gone. He had expected a look of triumph, of mockery at all the +insults Francisco had heard from him, a look demanding the apology he was +joyously eager to offer. Instead, he saw a face made lifeless by an odd +dejection. +"Are you hurt?" +"No . . . no, not at all." +"Come here," ordered Rearden, opening the door of his bathroom. +. "Look at yourself." +"Never mind. You come here." + + For the first time, Rearden felt that he was the older man; he felt the +pleasure of taking Francisco in charge; he felt a confident, amused, paternal +protectiveness. He washed the grime off Francisco's face, he put +disinfectants and adhesive bandages on his temple, his hands, his scorched +elbows. Francisco obeyed him in silence. +Rearden asked, in the tone of the most eloquent salute he could offer, +"Where did you learn to work like that?" +Francisco shrugged. "I was brought up around smelters of every kind," he +answered indifferently. +Rearden could not decipher the expression of his face: it was only a look +of peculiar stillness, as if his eyes were fixed on some secret vision of his +own that drew his mouth into a line of desolate, bitter, hurting selfmockery. +They did not speak until they were back in the office. +"You know," said Rearden, "everything you said here was true. But that was +only part of the story. The other part is what we've done tonight. Don't you +see? We're able to act. They're not. So it's we who'll win in the long run, +no matter what they do to us." +Francisco did not answer, "Listen," said Rearden, "I know what's been the +trouble with you. +You've never cared to do a real day's work in your life. I thought you +were conceited enough, but I see that you have no idea of what you've got in +you. Forget that fortune of yours for a while and come to work for me. I'll +start you as furnace foreman any time. You don't know what it will do for +you. In a few years, you'll be ready to appreciate and to run d'Anconia +Copper." +He expected a burst of laughter and he was prepared to argue; instead, he +saw Francisco shaking his head slowly, as if he could not trust his voice, as +if he feared that were he to speak, he would accept. +In a moment, he said, "Mr. Rearden . . . I think I would give the rest of +my life for one year as your furnace foreman. But I can't." +"Why not?" +"Don't ask me. It's . . . a personal matter." +The vision of Francisco in Rearden's mind, which he had resented and found +irresistibly attractive, had been the figure of a man radiantly incapable of +suffering. What he saw now in Francisco's eyes was the look of a quiet, +tightly controlled, patiently borne torture. +Francisco reached silently for his overcoat. +"You're not leaving, are you?" asked Rearden, "Yes." +"Aren't you going to finish what you had to tell me?" +"Not tonight." +"You wanted me to answer a question. What was it?" +Francisco shook his head. +"You started asking me how can I . . . How can I—what?" +Francisco's smile was like a moan of pain, the only moan he would permit +himself. "I won't ask it, Mr. Rearden. I know it." + + CHAPTER IV +THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM +The roast turkey had cost $30. The champagne had cost $25. The lace +tablecloth, a cobweb of grapes and vine leaves iridescent in the candlelight, +had cost $2,000. The dinner service, with an artist's design burned in blue +and gold into a translucent white china, had cost $2,500. +The silverware, which bore the initials LR in Empire wreaths of laurels, +had cost $3,000. But it was held to be unspiritual to think of money and of +what that money represented. +A peasant's wooden shoe, gilded, stood in the center of the table, filled +with marigolds, grapes and carrots. The candles were stuck into pumpkins that +were cut as open-mouthed faces drooling raisins, nuts and candy upon the +tablecloth. +It was Thanksgiving dinner, and the three who faced Rearden about the +table were his wife, his mother and his brother. +"This is the night to thank the Lord for our blessings," said Rearden's +mother. "God has been kind to us. There are people all over the country who +haven't got any food in the house tonight, and some that haven't even got a +house, and more of them going jobless every day. +Gives me the creeps to look around in the city. Why, only last week, who +do you suppose I ran into but Lucie Judson—Henry, do you remember Lucie +Judson? Used to live next door to us. up in Minnesota, when you were tentwelve years old. Had a boy about your age. I lost track of Lucie when they +moved to New York, must have been all of twenty years ago. Well, it gave me +the creeps to see what she's come to—just a toothless old hag, wrapped in a +man's overcoat, panhandling on a street corner. And I thought: That could've +been me, but for the grace of God." +"Well, if thanks are in order," said Lillian gaily, "I think that we +shouldn't forget Gertrude, the new cook. She's an artist." +"Me, I'm just going to be old-fashioned," said Philip. "I'm just going to +thank the sweetest mother in the world." +"Well, for the matter of that," said Rearden's mother, "we ought to . +thank Lillian for this dinner and for all the trouble she took to make it so +pretty. She spent hours fixing the table. It's real quaint and different." +"It's the wooden shoe that does it," said Philip, bending his head +sidewise to study it in a manner of critical appreciation. "That's the real +touch. Anybody can have candles, silverware and junk, that doesn't take +anything but money—but this shoe, that took thought." +Rearden said nothing. The candlelight moved over his motionless face as +over a portrait; the portrait bore an expression of impersonal courtesy. +"You haven't touched your wine," said his mother, looking at him. +"What I think is you ought to drink a toast in gratitude to the people of +this country who have given you so much." +"Henry is not in the mood for it, Mother," said Lillian. "I'm afraid +Thanksgiving is a holiday only for those who have a clear conscience." +She raised her wine glass, but stopped it halfway to her lips and asked, +"You're not going to make some sort of stand at your trial tomorrow, are you, +Henry?" +"I am." +She put the glass down. "What are you going to do?" +"You'll see it tomorrow." +"You don't really imagine that you can get away with it!" +"I don't know what you have in mind as the object I'm to get away with." +"Do you realize that the charge against you is extremely serious?" +"I do." + + "You've admitted that you sold the Metal to Ken Danagger." +"I have." +"They might send you to jail for ten years," +"I don't think they will, but it's possible." +"Have you been reading the newspapers, Henry?" asked Philip, with an odd +kind of smile. +"No." +"Oh, you should!" +"Should I? Why?" +"You ought to see the names they call you!" +"That's interesting," said Rearden; he said it about the fact that +Philip's smile was one of pleasure. +"I don't understand it," said his mother. "Jail? Did you say jail, +Lillian? Henry, are you going to be sent to jail?" +"I might be." +"But that's ridiculous' Do something about it." +"What?" +"I don't know. I don't understand any of it. Respectable people don't go +to jail. Do something. You've always known what to do about business." +"Not this kind of business." +"I don't believe it." Her voice had the tone of a frightened, spoiled +child. "You're saying it just to be mean." +"He's playing the hero, Mother," said Lillian. She smiled coldly, turning +to Rearden. "Don't you think that your attitude is perfectly futile?" +"No." +"You know that cases of this kind are not . . . intended ever to come to +trial. There are ways to avoid it, to get things settled amicably —if one +knows the right people." +"I don't know the right people." +"Look at Orren Boyle. He's done much more and much worse than your little +fling at the black market, but he's smart enough to keep himself out of +courtrooms." +"Then I'm not smart enough." +"Don't you think it's time you made an effort to adjust yourself to the +conditions of our age?" +"No." +"Well, then I don't see how you can pretend that you're some sort of +victim. If you go to jail, it will be your own fault." +"What pretense are you talking about, Lillian?" +"Oh, I know that you think you're fighting for some sort of principle —but +actually it's only a matter of your incredible conceit. You're doing it for +no better reason than because you think you're right." +"Do you think they're right?" +She shrugged, "That's the conceit I'm talking about—the idea that it +matters who's right or wrong. It's the most insufferable form of vanity, this +insistence on always doing right. How do you know what's right? +How can anyone ever know it? It's nothing but a delusion to flatter your +own ego and to hurt other people by flaunting your superiority over them." +He was looking at her with attentive interest. "Why should it hurt other +people, if it's nothing but a delusion?" +"Is it necessary for me to point out that in your case it's nothing but +hypocrisy? That is why I find your attitude preposterous. Questions of right +have no bearing on human existence. And you're certainly nothing but human— +aren't you, Henry? You're no better than any of the men you're going to face +tomorrow. I think you should remember that it's not for you to make a stand +on any sort of principle. Maybe you're a victim in this particular mess, +maybe they're pulling a rotten trick on you, but what of it? They're doing it + + because they're weak; they couldn't resist the temptation to grab your Metal +and to muscle in on your profits, because they had no other way of ever +getting rich. Why should you blame them? It's only a question of different +strains, but it s the same shoddy human fabric that gives way just as +quickly. You wouldn't be tempted by money, because it's so easy for you to +make it. +But you wouldn't withstand other pressures and you'd fall just as +ignominiously. Wouldn't you? So you have no right to any righteous +indignation against them. You have no moral superiority to assert or to +defend. And if you haven't, then what is the point of fighting a battle that +you can't win? I suppose that one might find some satisfaction in being a +martyr, if one is above reproach. But you—who are you to cast the first +stone?" +She paused to observe the effect. There was none, except that his look of +attentive interest seemed intensified; he listened as if he were held by some +impersonal, scientific curiosity. It was not the response she had expected. +"1 believe you understand me," she said. +"No," he answered quietly, "I don't." +"I think you should abandon the illusion of your own perfection, which you +know full well to be an illusion. I think you should learn to get along with +other people. The day of the hero is past. This is the day of humanity, in a +much deeper sense than you imagine. Human beings are no longer expected to be +saints nor to be punished for their sins. Nobody is right or wrong, we're all +in it together, we're all human—and the human is the imperfect. You'll gain +nothing tomorrow by proving that they're wrong. You ought to give in with +good grace, simply because it's the practical thing to do. You ought to keep +silent, precisely because they're wrong. They'll appreciate it. Make +concessions for others and they'll make concessions for you. Live and let +live. Give and take. Give in and take in. That's the policy of our age—and +it's time you accepted it. Don't tell me you're too good for it. You know +that you're not. You know that I know it." +The look of his eyes, held raptly still upon some point in space, was not +in answer to her words; it was in answer to a man's voice saying to him, "Do +you think that what you're facing is merely a conspiracy to seize your +wealth? You, who know the source of wealth, should know it's much more and +much worse than that." +He turned to look at Lillian. He was seeing the full extent of her +failure—in the immensity of his own indifference. The droning stream of her +insults was like the sound of a distant riveting machine, a long, impotent +pressure that reached nothing within him. He had heard her studied reminders +of his guilt on every evening he had spent at home in the past three months. +But guilt had been the one emotion he had found himself unable to feel. The +punishment she had wanted to inflict on him was the torture of shame; what +she had inflicted was the torture of boredom. +He remembered his brief glimpse—on that morning in the Wayne Falkland +Hotel—of a flaw in her scheme of punishment, which he had not examined. Now +he stated it to himself for the first time. She wanted to force upon him the +suffering of dishonor—but his own sense of honor was her only weapon of +enforcement. She wanted to wrest from him an acknowledgment of his moral +depravity—but only his own moral rectitude could attach significance to such +a verdict. She wanted to injure him by her contempt—but he could not be +injured, unless he respected her judgment. She wanted to punish him for the +pain he had caused her and she held her pain as a gun aimed at him, as if she +wished to extort his agony at the point of his pity. But her only tool was +his own benevolence, his concern for her, his compassion. Her only power was +the power of his own virtues. What if he chose to withdraw it? + + An issue of guilt, he thought, had to rest on his own acceptance of the +code of justice that pronounced him guilty. He did not accept it; he never +had. His virtues, all the virtues she needed to achieve his punishment, came +from another code and lived by another standard. +He felt no guilt, no shame, no regret, no dishonor. He felt no concern for +any verdict she chose to pass upon him: he had lost respect for her judgment +long ago. And the sole chain still holding him was only a last remnant of +pity. +But what was the code on which she acted? What sort of code permitted the +concept of a punishment that required the victim's own virtue as the fuel to +make it work? A code—he thought—which would destroy only those who tried to +observe it; a punishment, from which only the honest would suffer, while the +dishonest would escape unhurt. Could one conceive of an infamy lower than to +equate virtue with pain, to make virtue, not vice, the source and motive +power of suffering? If he were the kind of rotter she was struggling to make +him believe he was, then no issue of his honor and his moral worth would +matter to him. If he wasn't, then what was the nature of her attempt? +To count upon his virtue and use it as an instrument of torture, to +practice blackmail with the victim's generosity as sole means of extortion, +to accept the gift of a man's good will and turn it into a tool for the +giver's destruction . . . he sat very still, contemplating the formula of so +monstrous an evil that he was able to name it, but not to believe it +possible. +He sat very still, held by the hammering of a single question: Did Lillian +know the exact nature of her scheme?—was it a conscious policy, devised with +full awareness of its meaning? He shuddered; he did not hate her enough to +believe it. +He looked at her. She was absorbed, at the moment, in the task of cutting +a plum pudding that stood as a mount of blue flame on a silver platter before +her, its glow dancing over her face and her laughing mouth—she was plunging a +silver knife into the flame, with a practiced, graceful curve of her arm. She +had metallic leaves in the red, gold and brown colors of autumn scattered +over one shoulder of her black velvet gown; they glittered in the +candlelight. +He could not get rid of the impression, which he had kept receiving and +rejecting for three months, that her vengeance was not a form of despair, as +he had supposed—the impression, which he regarded as inconceivable, that she +was enjoying it. He could find no trace of pain in her manner. She had an air +of confidence new to her. She seemed to be at home in her house for the first +time. Even though everything within the house was of her own choice and +taste, she had always seemed to act as the bright, efficient, resentful +manager of a high-class hotel, who keeps smiling in bitter amusement at her +position of inferiority to the owners. The amusement remained, but the +bitterness was gone. She had not gained weight, but her features had lost +their delicate sharpness in a blurring, softening look of satisfaction; even +her voice sounded as if it had grown plump. +He did not hear what she was saying; she was laughing in the last flicker +of the blue flames, while he sat weighing the question: Did she know? He felt +certain that he had discovered a secret much greater than the problem of his +marriage, that he had grasped the formula of a policy practiced more widely +throughout the world than he dared to contemplate at the moment. But to +convict a human being of that practice was a verdict of irrevocable +damnation, and he knew that he would not believe it of anyone, so long as the +possibility of a doubt remained. +No—he thought, looking at Lillian, with the last effort of his generosity— +he would not believe it of her. In the name of whatever grace and pride she +possessed—in the name of such moments when he had seen a smile of joy on her + + face, the smile of a living being—in the name of the brief shadow of love he +had once felt for her—he would not pronounce upon her a verdict of total +evil. +The butter slipped a plate of plum pudding in front of him, and he heard +Lillian's voice: "Where have you been for the last five minutes, Henry—or is +it for the last century? You haven't answered me. You haven't heard a word I +said." +"I heard it," he answered quietly. "I don't know what you're trying to +accomplish." +"What a question!" said his mother. "Isn't that just like a man? +She's trying to save you from going to jail—that's what she's trying to +accomplish." +That could be true, he thought; perhaps, by the reasoning of some crude, +childish cowardice, the motive of their malice was a desire to protect him, +to break him down into the safety of a compromise. It's possible, he thought— +but knew that he did not believe it. +"You've always been unpopular," said Lillian, "and it's more than a matter +of any one particular issue. It's that unyielding, intractable attitude of +yours. The men who're going to try you, know what you're thinking. That's why +they'll crack down on you, while they'd let another man off." +"Why, no. I don't think they know what I'm thinking. That's what I have to +let them know tomorrow." +"Unless you show them that you're willing to give in and co-operate, you +won't have a chance. You've been too hard to deal with." +"No. I've been too easy." +"But if they put you in jail," said his mother, "what's going to happen to +your family? Have you thought of that?" +"No. I haven't." +"Have you thought of the disgrace you'll bring upon us?" +"Mother, do you understand the issue in this case?" +"No, I don't and I-don't want to understand. It's all dirty business and +dirty politics. All business is just dirty politics and all politics is just +dirty business. I never did want to understand any of it. I don't care who's +right or wrong, but what I think a man ought to think of first is his family. +Don't you know what this will do to us?" +"No, Mother, I don't know or care." +His mother looked at him, aghast. +"Well, I think you have a very provincial attitude, all of you," said +Philip suddenly. "Nobody here seems to be concerned with the wider, social +aspects of the case. I don't agree with you, Lillian. I don't see why you say +that they're pulling some sort of rotten trick on Henry and that he's in the +right. I think he's guilty as hell. Mother, I can explain the issue to you +very simply. There's nothing unusual about it, the courts are full of cases +of this kind. Businessmen are taking advantage of the national emergency in +order to make money. They break the regulations which protect the common +welfare of all—for the sake of their own personal gain. They're profiteers of +the black market who grow rich by defrauding the poor of their rightful +share, at a time of desperate shortage. They pursue a ruthless, grasping, +grabbing, antisocial policy, based on nothing but plain, selfish greed. It's +no use pretending about it, we all know it—and I think it's contemptible." +He spoke in a careless, offhand manner, as if explaining the obvious to a +group of adolescents; his tone conveyed the assurance of a man who knows that +the moral ground of his stand is not open to question. +Rearden sat looking at him, as if studying an object seen for the first +time. Somewhere deep in Rearden's mind, as a steady, gentle, inexorable beat, +was a man's voice, saying: By what right?—by what code?— +by what standard? + + "Philip," he said, not raising his voice, "say any of that again and you +will find yourself out in the street, right now, with the suit you've got on +your back, with whatever change you've got in your pocket and with nothing +else." +. He heard no answer, no sound, no movement. He noted that the stillness +of the three before him had no element of astonishment. The look of shock on +their faces was not the shock of people at the sudden explosion of a bomb, +but the shock of people who had known that they Were playing with a lighted +fuse. There were no outcries, no protests, no questions; they knew that he +meant it and they knew everything it meant. A dim, sickening feeling told him +that they had known it long before he did. +"You . . . you wouldn't throw your own brother out on the street, would +you?" his mother said at last; it was not a demand, but a plea. +"I would." +"But he's your brother . . . Doesn't that mean anything to you?" +"No." +"Maybe he goes a bit too far at times, but it's just loose talk, it's just +that modern jabber, he doesn't know what he's saying." +"Then let him learn." +"Don't be hard on him . . . he's younger than you and . . . and weaker. He +. . . Henry, don't look at me that way! I've never seen you look like that. . +. . You shouldn't frighten him. You know that he needs you." +"Does he know it?" +"You can't be hard on a man who needs you, it will prey on your conscience +for the rest of your life." +"It won't." +"You've got to be kind, Henry." +"I'm not." +"You've got to have some pity." +"I haven't." +"A good man knows how to forgive." +"I don't." +"You wouldn't want me to think that you're selfish," +"I am." +Philip's eyes were darting from one to the other. He looked like a man who +had felt certain that he stood on solid granite and had suddenly discovered +that it was thin ice, now cracking open all around him. +"But I . . . " he tried, and stopped; his voice sounded like steps testing +the ice. "But don't I have any freedom of speech?" +"In your own house. Not in mine." +"Don't I have a right to my own ideas?" +"At your own expense. Not at mine." +"Don't you tolerate any differences of opinion?" +"Not when I'm paying the bills." +"Isn't there anything involved but money?" +"Yes. The fact that it's my money." +"Don't you want to consider any hi . . ."—he was going to say "higher," +but changed his mind—"any other aspects?" +"No." +"But I'm not your slave." +"Am I yours?" +"I don't know what you—" He stopped; he knew what was meant. +"No," said Rearden, "you're not my slave. You're free to walk out of here +any time you choose." +"I . . . I'm not speaking of that." +"I am." +"I don't understand it . . ." + + my political views. You've never "Don't you?" +"You've always known my . +objected before." +"That's true," said Rearden gravely. "Perhaps I owe you an explanation, if +I have misled you. I've tried never to remind you that you're riving on my +charity. I thought that it was your place to remember it. +I thought that any human being who accepts the help of another, knows that +good will is the giver's only motive and that good will is the payment he +owes in return. But I see that I was wrong. You were getting your food +unearned and you concluded that affection did not have to be earned, either. +You concluded that I was the safest person in the world for you to spit on, +precisely because I held you by the throat. You concluded that I wouldn't +want to remind you of it and that I would be tied by the fear of hurting your +feelings. All right, let's get it straight: you're an object of charity who's +exhausted his credit long ago. +Whatever affection I might have felt for you once, is gone. I haven't the +slightest interest in you, your fate or your future. I haven't any reason +whatever for wishing to feed you. If you leave my house, it won't make any +difference to me whether you starve or not. Now that is your position here +and I will expect you to remember it, if you wish to stay. If not, then get +out." +But for the movement of drawing his head a little into his shoulders, +Philip showed no reaction. "Don't imagine that I enjoy living here," he said; +his voice was lifeless and shrill. "If you think I'm happy, you're mistaken. +I'd give anything to get away." The words pertained to defiance, but the +voice had a curiously cautious quality. "If that is how you feel about it, it +would be best for me to leave." The words were a statement, but the voice put +a question mark at the end of it and waited; there was no answer. "You +needn't worry about my future. I don't have to ask: favors of anybody. I can +take care of myself all right." The words were addressed to Rearden, but the +eyes were looking at his mother; she did not speak; she was afraid to move. +"I've always wanted to be on my own. I've always wanted to live in New York, +near all my friends." The voice slowed down and added in an impersonal, +reflective manner, as if the words were not addressed to anyone, "Of course, +I'd have the problem of maintaining a certain social position . . . it's not +my fault if I'll be embarrassed by a family name associated with a +millionaire. . . . I would need enough money for a year or two . . . to +establish myself in a manner suitable to my—" +"You won't get it from me." +"I wasn't asking you for it, was 1? Don't imagine that I couldn't get it +somewhere else, if I wanted to! Don't imagine that I couldn't leave! +I'd go in a minute, if I had only myself to think about. But Mother needs +me, and if I deserted her—" +"Don't explain." +"And besides, you misunderstood me, Henry. I haven't said anything to +insult you. I wasn't speaking in any personal way. I was only discussing the +general political picture from an abstract sociological viewpoint which—" +"Don't explain," said Rearden. He was looking at Philip's face. It was +half-lowered, its eyes looking up at him. The eyes were lifeless, as if they +had witnessed nothing; they held no spark of excitement, no personal +sensation, neither of defiance nor of regret, neither of shame nor of +suffering; they were filmy ovals that held no response to reality, no attempt +to understand it, to weigh it, to reach some verdict of justice —ovals that +held nothing but a dull, still, mindless hatred. "Don't explain. Just keep +your mouth shut." +The revulsion that made Rearden turn his face away contained a spasm of +pity. There was an instant when he wanted to seize his brother's shoulders, + + to shake him, to cry: How could you do this to yourself? How did you come to +a stage where this is all that's left of you? Why did you let the wonderful +fact of your own existence go by? +. . . He looked away. He knew it was useless. +He noted, in weary contempt, that the three at the table remained silent. +Through all the years past, his consideration for them had brought him +nothing but their maliciously righteous reproaches. Where was their +righteousness now? Now was the time to stand on their code of justice—if +justice had been any part of their code. Why didn't they throw at him all +those accusations of cruelty and selfishness, which he had come to accept as +the eternal chorus to his life? What had permitted them to do it for years? +He knew that the words he heard in his mind were the key to the answer: The +sanction of the victim. +"Don't let's quarrel," said his mother, her voice cheerless and vague. +"It's Thanksgiving Day." +When he looked at Lillian, he caught a glance that made him certain she +had watched him for a long time: its quality was panic. +He got up. "You will please excuse me now," he said to the table at large. +"Where are you going?" asked Lillian sharply. +He stood looking at her for a deliberate moment, as if to confirm the +meaning she would read in his answer: "To New York." +She jumped to her feet. "Tonight?" +"Now," +"You can't go to New York tonight!" Her voice was not loud, but it had the +imperious helplessness of a shriek. "This is not the time when you can afford +it. When you can afford to desert your family, I mean. +You ought to think about the matter of clean hands. You're not in a +position to permit yourself anything which you know to be depravity." +By what code?—thought Rearden—by what standard? +"Why do you wish to go to New York tonight?" +"I think, Lillian, for the same reason that makes you wish to stop me." +"Tomorrow is your trial." +"That is what I mean." +He made a movement to turn, and she raised her voice: "I don't want you to +go!" He smiled. It was the first time he had smiled at her in the past three +months; it was not the kind of smile she could care to see. "I forbid you to +leave us tonight!" +He turned and left the room. +Sitting at the wheel of his car, with the glassy, frozen road flying at +his face and down under the wheels at sixty miles an hour, he let the thought +of his family drop away from him—and the vision of their faces went rolling +back into the abyss of speed that swallowed the bare Trees and lonely +structures of the roadside. There was little traffic, and few lights in the +distant clusters of the towns he passed; the emptiness of inactivity was the +only sign of a holiday. A hazy glow, rusted by frost, flashed above the roof +of a factory once in a rare while, and a cold wind shrieked through the +joints of his car, beating the canvas top against the metal frame. +By some dim sense of contrast, which he did not define, the thought of his +family was replaced by the thought of his encounter with the Wet Nurse, the +Washington boy of his mills. +At the time of his indictment, he had discovered that the boy had known +about his deal with Danagger, yet had not reported it to anyone. +"Why didn't you inform your friends about me?" he had asked. +The boy had answered brusquely, not looking at him, "Didn't want to." +"It was part of your job to watch precisely for things of that kind, +wasn't it?" +"Yeah." + + "Besides, your friends would have been delighted to hear it." +"I knew." +"Didn't you know what a valuable piece of information it was and what a +stupendous trade you could have pulled with those friends of yours in +Washington whom you offered to me once—remember?—the friends who always +'occasion expenses'?" The boy had not answered. +"It could have made your career at the very top level. Don't tell me that +you didn't know it." +"I knew it." +"Then why didn't you make use of it?" +"I didn't want to." +"Why not?" +"Don't know." +The boy had stood, glumly avoiding Rearden's eyes, as if trying to avoid +something incomprehensible within himself. Rearden had laughed. +"Listen, Non-Absolute, you're playing with fire. Better go and murder +somebody fast, before you let it get you—that reason that stopped you from +turning informer—or else it will blast your career to hell." +The boy had not answered. +This morning, Rearden had gone to his office as usual, even though the +rest of the office building was closed. At lunch time, he had stopped at the +rolling mills and had been astonished to find the Wet Nurse standing there, +alone in a corner, ignored by everybody, watching the work with an air of +childish enjoyment. +"What are you doing here today?" Rearden had asked. "Don't you know it's a +holiday?" +"Oh, I let the girls off, but I just came in to finish some business." +"What business?" +"Oh, letters and . . . Oh, hell, I signed three letters and sharpened my +pencils, I know I didn't have to do it today, but I had nothing to do at home +and . . . I get lonesome away from this place." +"Don't you have any family?" +"No . . . not to speak of. What about you, Mr. Rearden? Don't you have +any?" +"I guess—not to speak of." +"I like this place. I like to hang around. . . . You know, Mr. Rearden, +what I studied to be was a metallurgist." +Walking away, Rearden had turned to glance back and had caught the Wet +Nurse looking after him as a boy would look at the hero of his childhood's +favorite adventure story. God help the poor little bastard! +—he had thought. +God help them all—he thought, driving through the dark streets of a small +town, borrowing, in contemptuous pity, the words of their belief which he had +never shared. He saw newspapers displayed on metal stands, with the black +letters of headlines screaming to empty corners: "Railroad Disaster." He had +heard the news on the radio, that afternoon: there had been a wreck on the +main line of Taggart Transcontinental, near Rockland, Wyoming; a split rail +had sent a freight train crashing over the edge of a canyon. Wrecks on the +Taggart main line were becoming more frequent—the track was wearing out—the +track which, less than eighteen months ago, Dagny was planning to rebuild, +promising him a journey from coast to coast on his own Metal. +She had spent a year, picking worn rail from abandoned branches to patch +the rail of the main line. She had spent months fighting the men of Jim's +Board of Directors, who said that the national emergency was only temporary +and a track that had lasted for ten years could well last for another winter, +until spring, when conditions would improve, as Mr. Wesley Mouch had +promised. Three weeks ago, she had made them authorize the purchase of sixty + + thousand tons of new rail; it could do no more than make a few patches across +the continent in the worst divisions, but it was all she had been able to +obtain from them. +She had had to wrench the money out of men deaf with panic: the freight +revenues were falling at such a rate that the men of the Board had begun to +tremble, staring at Jim's idea of the most prosperous year in Taggart +history. She had had to order steel rail, there was no hope of obtaining an +"emergency need" permission to buy Rearden Metal and no time to beg for it. +Rearden looked away from the headlines to the glow at the edge of the sky, +which was the city of New York far ahead; his hands tightened on the wheel a +little. +It was half past nine when he reached the city. Dagny's apartment was +dark, when he let himself in with his key. He picked up the telephone and +called her office. Her own voice answered: "Taggart Transcontinental." +"Don't you know it's a holiday?" he asked. +"Hello, Hank. Railroads have no holidays. Where are you calling from?" +"Your place." +"I'll be through in another half-hour." +"It's all right. Stay there. I'll come for you." +The anteroom of her office was dark, when he entered, except for the +lighted glass cubbyhole of Eddie Willers. Eddie was closing his desk, getting +ready to leave. He looked at Rearden, in puzzled astonishment. +"Good evening, Eddie. What is it that keeps you people so busy— +the Rockland wreck?" +Eddie sighed. "Yes, Mr. Rearden." +"That's what I want to see Dagny about—about your rail." +"She's still here." +He started toward her door, when Eddie called after him hesitantly, "Mr. +Rearden . . ." +He stopped. "Yes?" +"I wanted to say . . . because tomorrow is your trial . . . and whatever +they do to you is supposed to be in the name of all the people . . . I just +wanted to say that I . . . that it won't be in my name . . . +even if there's nothing I can do about it, except to tell you . . . even +if I know that that doesn't mean anything." +"It means much more than you suspect. Perhaps more than any of us suspect. +Thanks, Eddie." +Dagny glanced up from her desk, when Rearden entered her office; he saw +her watching him as he approached and he saw the look of weariness +disappearing from her eyes. He sat down on the edge of the desk. She leaned +back, brushing a strand of hair off her face, her shoulders relaxing under +her thin white blouse. +"Dagny, there's something I want to tell you about the rail that you +ordered. I want you to know this tonight." +She was watching him attentively; the expression of his face pulled hers +into the same look of quietly solemn tension. +"I am supposed to deliver to Taggart Transcontinental, on February +'fifteenth, sixty thousand tons of rail, which is to give you three hundred +miles of track. You will receive—for the same sum of money—eighty thousand +tons of rail, which will give you five hundred miles of track. +You know what material is cheaper and lighter than steel. Your rail will +not be steel, it will be Rearden Metal. Don't argue, object or agree. +I am not asking for your consent. You are not supposed to consent or to +know anything about it. I am doing this and I alone will be responsible. +We will work it so that those on your staff who'll know that you've +ordered steel, won't know that you've received Rearden Metal, and those +who'll know that you've received Rearden Metal, won't know that you had no + + permit to buy it. We will tangle the bookkeeping in such a way that if the +thing should ever blow up, nobody will be able to pin anything on anybody, +except on me. They might suspect that I bribed someone on your staff, or they +might suspect that you were hi on it, but they won't be able to prove it. I +want you to give me your word that you will never admit it, no matter what +happens. It's my Metal, and if there are any chances to take, it's I who'll +take them. I have been planning this from the day I received your order. I +have ordered the copper for it, from a source which will not betray me. I did +not intend to tell you about it till later, but I changed my mind. I want you +to know it tonight—because I am going on trial tomorrow for the same kind of +crime." +She had listened without moving. At his last sentence, he saw a faint +contraction of her cheeks and lips; it was not quite a smile, but it gave him +her whole answer: pain, admiration, understanding. +Then he saw her eyes becoming softer, more painfully, dangerously alive—he +took her wrist, as if the tight grasp of his fingers and the severity of his +glance were to give her the support she needed—and he said sternly, "Don't +thank me—this is not a favor—I am doing it in order to be able to bear my +work, or else I'll break like Ken Danagger." +She whispered, "AH right, Hank, I won't thank you," the tone of her voice +and the look of her eyes making it a lie by the time it was uttered. +He smiled. "Give me the word I asked." +She inclined her head. "I give you my word." He released her wrist. +She added, not raising her head, "The only thing I'll say is that if they +sentence you to jail tomorrow, I'll quit—without waiting for any destroyer to +prompt me." +"You won't. And I don't think they'll sentence me to jail. I think they'll +let me off very lightly. I have a hypothesis about it—I'll explain it to you +afterwards, when I've put it to the test." +"What hypothesis?" +"Who is John Galt?" He smiled, and stood up. "That's all. We won't talk +any further about my trial, tonight. You don't happen to have anything to +drink in your office, have you?" +"No. But I think my traffic manager has some sort of a bar on one shelf of +his filing closet." +"Do you think you could steal a drink for me, if he doesn't have it +locked?" +"I'll try." +He stood looking at the portrait of Nat Taggart on the wall of her office— +the portrait of a young man with a lifted head—until she returned, bringing a +bottle of brandy and two glasses. He filled the glasses in silence. +"You know, Dagny, Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive +people to celebrate the success of their work." +The movement of his arm, as he raised his glass, went from the portrait—to +her—to himself— to the buildings of the city beyond the window. +For a month in advance, the people who filled the courtroom had been told +by the press that they would see the man who was a greedy enemy of society; +but they had come to see the man who had invented Rearden Metal. +He stood up, when the judges called upon him to do so. He wore a gray +suit, he had pale blue eyes and blond hair; it was not the colors that made +his figure seem icily implacable, it was the fact that the suit had an +expensive simplicity seldom flaunted these days, that it belonged in the +sternly luxurious office of a rich corporation, that his bearing came from a +civilized era and clashed with the place around him. +The crowd knew from the newspapers that he represented the evil of +ruthless wealth; and—as they praised the virtue of chastity, then ran to see +any movie that displayed a half-naked female on its posters—so they came to + + see him; evil, at least, did not have the stale hopelessness of a bromide +which none believed and none dared to challenge. They looked at him without +admiration—admiration was a feeling they had lost the capacity to experience, +long ago; they looked with curiosity and with a dim sense of defiance against +those who had told them that it was their duty to hate him. +A few years ago, they would have jeered at his air of self-confident +wealth. But today, there was a slate-gray sky in the windows of the +courtroom, which promised the first snowstorm of a long, hard winter; the +last of the country's oil was vanishing, and the coal mines were not able to +keep up with the hysterical scramble for winter supplies. The crowd in the +courtroom remembered that this was the case which had cost them the services +of Ken Danagger. There were rumors that the output of the Danagger Coal +Company had fallen perceptibly within one month; the newspapers said that it +was merely a matter of readjustment while Danagger's cousin was reorganizing +the company he had taken over. Last week, the front pages had carried the +story of a catastrophe on the site of a housing project under construction: +defective steel girders had collapsed, killing four workmen; the newspapers +had not mentioned, but the crowd knew, that the girders had come from Orren +Boyle's Associated Steel. +They sat in the courtroom in heavy silence and they looked at the tall, +gray figure, not with hope—they were losing the capacity to hope —but with an +impassive neutrality spiked by a faint question mark; the question mark was +placed over all the pious slogans they had heard for years. +The newspapers had snarled that the cause of the country's troubles, as +this case demonstrated, was the selfish greed of rich industrialists; that it +was men like Hank Rearden who were to blame for the shrinking diet, the +falling temperature and the cracking roofs in the homes of the nation; that +if it had not been for men who broke regulations and hampered the +government's plans, prosperity would have been achieved long ago; and that a +man like Hank Rearden was prompted by nothing but the profit motive. This +last was stated without explanation or elaboration, as if the words "profit +motive" were the self-evident brand of ultimate evil. +The crowd remembered that these same newspapers, less than two years ago, +had screamed that the production of Rearden Metal should be forbidden, +because its producer was endangering people's lives for the sake of his +greed; they remembered that the man in gray had ridden in the cab of the +first engine to run over a track of his own Metal; and that he was now on +trial for the greedy crime of withholding from the public a load of the Metal +which it had been his greedy crime to offer in the public market. +According to the procedure established by directives, cases of this kind +were not tried by a jury, but by a panel of three judges appointed by the +Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources; the procedure, the +directives had stated, was to be informal and democratic. +The judge's bench had been removed from the old Philadelphia courtroom for +this occasion, and replaced by a table on a wooden platform; it gave the room +an atmosphere suggesting the kind of meeting where a presiding body puts +something over on a mentally retarded membership. +One of the judges, acting as prosecutor, had read the charges. "You may +now offer whatever plea you wish to make in your own defense," +he announced. +Facing the platform, his voice inflectionless and peculiarly clear, Hank +Rearden answered: "I have no defense." +"Do you—" The judge stumbled; he had not expected it to be that easy. "Do +you throw yourself upon the mercy of this court?" +"I do not recognize this court's right to try me." +"What?" +"I do not recognize this court's right to try me." + + "But, Mr. Rearden, this is the legally appointed court to try this +particular category of crime." +"I do not recognize my action as a crime," +"But you have admitted that you have broken our regulations controlling +the sale of your Metal." +"I do not recognize your right to control the sale of my Metal." +"Is it necessary for me to point out that your recognition was not +required?" +"No. I am fully aware of it and I am acting accordingly." +He noted the stillness of the room. By the rules of the complicated +pretense which all those people played for one another's benefit, they should +have considered his stand as incomprehensible folly; there should have been +rustles of astonishment and derision; there were none; they sat still; they +understood. +"Do you mean that you are refusing to obey the law?" asked the judge. +"No. I am complying with the law—to the letter. Your law holds that my +life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very +well, you may now dispose of me without my participation in the matter. I +will not play the part of defending myself, where no defense is possible, and +I will not simulate the illusion of dealing with a tribunal of justice." +"But, Mr. Rearden, the law provides specifically that you are to be given +an opportunity to present your side of the case and to defend yourself." +"A prisoner brought to trial can defend himself only if there is an +objective principle of justice recognized by his judges, a principle +upholding his rights, which they may not violate and which he can invoke. +The law, by which you are trying me, holds that there are no principles, +that I have no rights and that you may do with me whatever you please. Very +well. Do it." +"Mr. Rearden, the law which you are denouncing is based on the highest +principle—the principle of the public good." +"Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when +men believed that the good' was a concept to be defined by a code of moral +values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation +of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may +sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to +be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply +because they need it—well, so does any burglar. There is only this +difference: the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act." +A group of seats at the side of the courtroom was reserved for the +prominent visitors who had come from New York to witness the trial. Dagny sat +motionless and her face showed nothing but a solemn attention, the attention +of listening with the knowledge that the flow of his words would determine +the course of her life. Eddie Willers sat beside her. James Taggart had not +come. Paul Larkin sat hunched forward, his face thrust out, pointed like an +animal's muzzle, sharpened by a look of fear now turning into malicious +hatred. Mr. Mowen, who sat beside him, was a man of greater innocence and +smaller understanding; his fear was of a simpler nature; he listened in +bewildered indignation and he whispered to Larkin, "Good God, now he's done +it! Now he'll convince the whole country that all businessmen are enemies of +the public good!" +"Are we to understand," asked the judge, "that you hold your own interests +above the interests of the public?" +"I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of +cannibals.” +"What . . . what do you mean?" +"I hold that there is no clash of interests among men who do not demand +the unearned and do not practice human sacrifices." + + "Are we to understand that if the public deems it necessary to curtail +your profits, you do not recognize its right to do so?" +"Why, yes, I do. The public may curtail my profits any time it wishes—by +refusing to buy my product." +"We are speaking of . . . other methods." +"Any other method of curtailing profits is the method of looters —and I +recognize it as such." +"Mr. Rearden, this is hardly the way to defend yourself." +"I said that I would not defend myself." +"But this is unheard of! Do you realize the gravity of the charge against +you?" +"I do not care to consider it." +"Do you realize the possible consequences of your stand?" +"Fully." +"It is the opinion of this court that the facts presented by the +prosecution seem to warrant no leniency. The penalty which this court has the +power to impose on you is extremely severe." +"Go ahead." +"I beg your pardon?" +"Impose it." +The three judges looked at one another. Then their spokesman turned back +to Rearden. "This is unprecedented," he said. +"It is completely irregular," said the second judge. "The law requires you +to submit a plea in your own defense. Your only alternative is to state for +the record that you throw yourself upon the mercy of the court." +"I do not." +"But you have to." +"Do you mean that what you expect from me is some sort of voluntary +action?" +"Yes." +"I volunteer nothing." +"But the law demands that the defendant's side be represented on the +record." +"Do you mean that you need my help to make this procedure legal?" +"Well, no . . . yes . . . that is, to complete the form." +"I will not help you." +The third and youngest judge, who had acted as prosecutor, snapped +impatiently, "This is ridiculous and unfair! Do you want to let it look as if +a man of your prominence had been railroaded without a—" He cut himself off +short. Somebody at the back of the courtroom emitted a long whistle. +"I want," said Rearden gravely, "to let the nature of this procedure +appear exactly for what it is. If you need my help to disguise it—I will not +help you." +"But we are giving you a chance to defend yourself—and it is you who are +rejecting it." +"I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you +to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognized. I +will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a +debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend +that you are administering justice." +"But the law compels you to volunteer a defense!" +There was laughter at the back of the courtroom. +"That is the flaw in your theory, gentlemen," said Rearden gravely, "and I +will not help you out of it. If you choose to deal with men by means of +compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary cooperation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And +your victims should discover that it is their own volition—which you cannot + + force—that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you +in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the +point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men +to carry me there—I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have +to seize my property to collect the fine—I will not volunteer to pay it. If +you believe that you have the right to force me—use your guns openly. I will +not help you to disguise the nature of your action." +The eldest judge leaned forward across the table and his voice became +suavely derisive: "You speak as if you were fighting for some sort of +principle, Mr. Rearden, but what you're actually fighting for is only your +property, isn't it?" +"Yes, of course. I am fighting for my property. Do you know the kind of +principle that represents?" +"You pose as a champion of freedom, but it's only the freedom to make +money that you're after." +"Yes, of course. AH I want is the freedom to make money. Do you know what +that freedom implies?" +"Surely, Mr. Rearden, you wouldn't want your attitude to be misunderstood. +You wouldn't want to give support to the widespread impression that you are a +man devoid of social conscience, who feels no concern for the welfare of his +fellows and works for nothing but his own profit." +"I work for nothing but my own profit. I earn it." +There was a gasp, not of indignation, but of astonishment, in the crowd +behind him and silence from the judges he faced. He went on calmly: "No, I do +not want my attitude to be misunderstood. I shall be glad to state it for the +record. I am in full agreement with the facts of everything said about me in +the newspapers—with the facts, but not with the evaluation. I work for +nothing but my own profit—which I make by selling a product they need to men +who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at +the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of +theirs; I do not sacrifice my interests to them nor do they sacrifice theirs +to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage—and I am proud +of every penny that I have earned in this manner. I am rich and I am proud of +every penny I own. I have made my money by my own effort, in free exchange +and through the voluntary consent of every man I dealt with—the voluntary +consent of those who employed me when I started, the voluntary consent of +those who work for me now, the voluntary consent of those who buy my product. +I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish +to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I +wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I +do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is +evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever standards you +hold. These are mine. I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I +refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I +must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I +am able to do it and to do it well. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that +I am able to do it better than most people—the fact that my work is of +greater value than the work of my neighbors and that more men are willing to +pay I refuse to apologize for my ability—I refuse to apologize for my me. +success—I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most +of it. If this is what the public finds harmful to its interests, let the +public destroy me. This is my code—and I will accept no other. +I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men than you +can ever hope to accomplish—but I will not say it, because I do not seek the +good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the +good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their +destruction of my life. I will not say that the good of others was the + + purpose of my work—my own good was my purpose, and I despise the man who +surrenders his. I could say to you that you do not serve the public good—that +nobody's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices—that when you +violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all, and a +public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you +that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation—as any looter +must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won't. +It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise. +If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some +men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the +sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were +asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own— +I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would +fight it with every, power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if +one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the +full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to +exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of +my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires +victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!" +The crowd burst into applause. +Rearden whirled around, more startled than his judges. He saw faces that +laughed in violent excitement, and faces that pleaded for help; he saw their +silent despair breaking out into the open; he saw the same anger and +indignation as his own, finding release in the wild defiance of their +cheering; he saw the looks of admiration and the looks of hope. There were +also the faces of loose-mouthed young men and maliciously unkempt females, +the kind who led the booing in newsreel theaters at any appearance of a +businessman on the screen; they did not attempt a counter-demonstration; they +were silent. +As he looked at the crowd, people saw in his face what the threats of the +judges had not been able to evoke: the first sign of emotion. +It was a few moments before they heard the furious beating of a gavel upon +the table and one of the judges yelling: "—or I shall have the courtroom +cleared!" +_ As he turned back to the table, Rearden's eyes moved over the visitors' +section. His glance paused on Dagny, a pause perceptible only to her, as if +he were saying: It works. She would have appeared calm except that her eyes +seemed to have become too large for her face. +Eddie Willers was smiling the kind of smile that is a man's substitute for +breaking into tears. Mr. Mowen looked stupefied. Paul Larkin was staring at +the floor. There was no expression on Bertram Scudder's face on Lillian's. +She sat at the end of a row, her legs crossed, a mink stole slanting from her +right shoulder to her left hip; she looked at Rearden, not moving. +In the complex violence of all the things he felt, he had time to +recognize a touch of regret and of longing: there was a face he had hoped to +see, had looked for from the start of the session, had wanted to be present +more than any other face around him. But Francisco d'Anconia had not come. +4LMr. Rearden," said the eldest judge, smiling affably, reproachfully and +spreading his arms, "it is regrettable that you should have misunderstood us +so completely. That's the trouble—that businessmen refuse to approach us in a +spirit of trust and friendship. They seem to imagine that we are their +enemies. Why do you speak of human sacrifices? What made you go to such an +extreme? We have no intention of seizing your property or destroying your +life. We do not seek to harm your interests. We are fully aware of your +distinguished achievements. Our purpose is only to balance social pressures +and do justice to all. This hearing is really intended, not as a trial, but +as a friendly discussion aimed at mutual understanding and co-operation." + + "I do not co-operate at the point of a gun." +"Why speak of guns? This matter is not serious enough to warrant such +references. We are fully aware that the guilt in this case lies chiefly with +Mr. Kenneth Danagger, who instigated this infringement of the law, who +exerted pressure upon you and who confessed his guilt by disappearing in +order to escape trial" +"No. We did it by equal, mutual, voluntary agreement." +"Mr. Rearden," said the second judge, "you may not share some of our +ideas, but when all is said and done, we're all working for the same cause. +For the good of the people. We realize that you were prompted to disregard +legal technicalities by the critical situation of the coal mines and the +crucial importance of fuel to the public welfare." +"No. I was prompted by my own profit and my own interests. +What effect it had on the coal mines and the public welfare is for you to +estimate. That was not my motive." +Mr. Mowen stared dazedly about him and whispered to Paul Larkin, +"Something's gone screwy here." +"Oh, shut up!" snapped Larkin. +"I am sure, Mr. Rearden," said the eldest judge, "that you do not really +believe—nor docs the public—that we wish to treat you as a sacrificial +victim. If anyone has been laboring under such a misapprehension, we are +anxious to prove that it is not true." +The judges retired to consider their verdict. They did not stay out long. +They returned to an ominously silent courtroom—and announced that a fine of +$5,000 was imposed on Henry Rearden, but that the sentence was suspended. +Streaks of jeering laughter ran through the applause that swept the +courtroom. The applause was aimed at Rearden, the laughter—at the judges. +Rearden stood motionless, not turning to the crowd, barely hearing the +applause. He stood looking at the judges. There was no triumph in his face, +no elation, only the still intensity of contemplating a vision with a bitter +wonder that was almost fear. He was seeing the enormity of the smallness of +the enemy who was destroying the world. He felt as if, after a journey of +years through a landscape of devastation, past the ruins of great factories, +the wrecks of powerful engines, the bodies of invincible men, he had come +upon the despoiler, expecting to find a giant—and had found a rat eager to +scurry for cover at the first sound of a human step. If this is what has +beaten us, he thought, the guilt is ours. +He was jolted back into the courtroom by the people pressing to surround +him. He smiled in answer to their smiles, to the frantic, tragic eagerness of +their faces; there was a touch of sadness in his smile. +"God bless you, Mr. Rearden!" said an old woman with a ragged shawl over +her head. "Can't you save us, Mr. Rearden? They're eating us alive, and it's +no use fooling anybody about how it's the rich that they're after—do you know +what's happening to us?" +"Listen, Mr. Rearden," said a man who looked like a factory worker, "it's +the rich who're selling us down the river. Tell those wealthy bastards, +who're so anxious to give everything away, that when they give away their +palaces, they're giving away the skin off our backs." +"I know it," said Rearden. +The guilt is ours, he thought. If we who were the movers, the providers, +the benefactors of mankind, were willing to let the brand of evil be stamped +upon us and silently to bear punishment for our virtues—what sort of "good" +did we expect to triumph in the world? +He looked at the people around him. They had cheered him today; they had +cheered him by the side of the track of the John Galt Line. +But tomorrow they would clamor for a new directive from Wesley Mouch and a +free housing project from Orren Boyle, while Boyle's girders collapsed upon + + their heads. They would do it, because they would be told to forget, as a +sin, that which had made them cheer Hank Rearden. +Why were they ready to renounce their highest moments as a sin? +Why were they willing to betray the best within them? What made them +believe that this earth was a realm of evil where despair was their natural +fate? He could not name the reason, but he knew that it had to be named. He +felt it as a huge question mark within the courtroom, which it was now his +duty to answer. +This was the real sentence imposed upon him, he thought—to discover what +idea, what simple idea available to the simplest man, had made mankind accept +the doctrines that led it to self-destruction. +"Hank, I'll never think that it's hopeless, not ever again," said Dagny +that evening, after the trial. "I'll never be tempted to quit. You've proved +that the right always works and always wins—" She stopped, then added, "— +provided one knows what is the right." +Lillian said to him at dinner next day, "So you've won, have you?" +Her voice was noncommittal; she said nothing else; she was watching him, +as If studying a riddle. +The Wet Nurse asked him at the mills, "Mr. Rearden, what's a moral +premise?" "What you're going to have a lot of trouble with." +The boy frowned, then shrugged and said, laughing, "God, that was a +wonderful show! What a beating you gave them, Mr. Rearden! I sat by the radio +and howled." "How do you know it was a beating?" "Well, it was, wasn't it?" +"Are you sure of it?" "Sure I'm sure." "The thing that makes you sure is a +moral premise." +The newspapers were silent. After the exaggerated attention they had given +to the case, they acted as if the trial were not worthy of notice. They +printed brief accounts on unlikely pages, worded in such generalities that no +reader could discover any hint of a controversial issue. +The businessmen he met seemed to wish to evade the subject of his trial. +Some made no comment at all, but turned away, their faces showing a peculiar +resentment under the effort to appear noncommittal, as if they feared that +the mere act of looking at him would be interpreted as taking a stand. Others +ventured to comment: "In my opinion, Rearden, it was extremely unwise of you. +. . . It seems to me that this is hardly the time to make enemies. . . . We +can't afford to arouse resentment." +"Whose resentment?" he asked. +"I don't think the government will like it." +"You saw the consequences of that" +"Well, I don't know . . . The public won't take it, there's bound to be a +lot of indignation." +"You saw how the public took it." +"Well, I don't know . . . We've been trying hard not to give any grounds +for all those accusations about selfish greed—and you've given ammunition to +the enemy." +"Would you rather agree with the enemy that you have no right to your +profits and your property?" +"Oh, no, no, certainly not—but why go to extremes? There's always a middle +ground." +"A middle ground between you and your murderers?" +"Now why use such words?” +"What I said at the trial, was it true or not?" +"It's going to be misquoted and misunderstood." +"Was it true or not?" +"The public is too dumb to grapple with such issues." +"Was it true or not?" + + "It's no time to boast about being rich—when the populace is starving. +It's just goading them on to seize everything." +"But telling them that you have no right to your wealth, while they have— +is what's going to restrain them?" +"Well, I don't know . . ." +"I don't like the things you said at your trial," said another man. +"In my opinion, I don't agree with you at all. Personally, I'm proud to +believe that I am working for the public good, not just for my own profit. I +like to think that I have some goal higher than just earning my three meals a +day and my Hammond limousine." +"And I don't like that idea about no directives and no controls," +said another. "I grant you they're running hog-wild and overdoing it. +But—no controls at all? I don't go along with that. I think some controls +are necessary. The ones which are for the public good." +"I am sorry, gentlemen," said Rearden, "that I will be obliged to save +your goddamn necks along with mine." +A group of businessmen headed by Mr. Mowen did not issue any statements +about the trial. But a week later they announced, with an inordinate amount +of publicity, that they were endowing the construction of a playground for +the children of the unemployed. +Bertram Scudder did not mention the trial in his column. But ten days +later, he wrote, among items of miscellaneous gossip: "Some idea of the +public value of Mr. Hank Rearden may be gathered from the fact that of all +social groups, he seems to be most unpopular with his own fellow businessmen. +His old-fashioned brand of ruthlessness seems to be too much even for those +predatory barons of profit." +On an evening in December—when the street beyond his window was like a +congested throat coughing with the horns of pre-Christmas traffic—Rearden sat +in his room at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, fighting an enemy more dangerous +than weariness or fear: revulsion against the thought of having to deal with +human beings. +He sat, unwilling to venture into the streets of the city, unwilling to +move, as if he were chained to his chair and to this room. He had tried for +hours to ignore an emotion that felt like the pull of homesickness: his +awareness that the only man whom he longed to see, was here, in this hotel, +just a few floors above him. +He had caught himself, in the past few weeks, wasting time in the lobby +whenever he entered the hotel or left it, loitering unnecessarily at the mail +counter or the newsstand, watching the hurried currents of people, hoping to +see Francisco d'Anconia among them. He had caught himself eating solitary +dinners in the restaurant of the Wayne-Falkland, with his eyes on the +curtains of the entrance doorway, Now he caught himself sitting in his room, +thinking that the distance was only a few floors. +He rose to his feet, with a chuckle of amused indignation; he was acting, +he thought, like a woman who waits for a telephone call and fights against +the temptation to end the torture by making the first move. There was no +reason, he thought, why he could not go to Francisco d'Anconia, if that was +what he wanted. Yet when he told himself that he would, he felt some +dangerous element of surrender in the intensity of his own relief. +He made a step toward the phone, to call Francisco's suite, but stopped. +It was not what he wanted; what he wanted was simply to walk in, unannounced, +as Francisco had walked into his office; it was this that seemed to state +some unstated right between them. +On his way to the elevator, he thought: He won't be in or, if he is, +you'll probably find him entertaining some floozie, which will serve you +right. But the thought seemed unreal, he could not make it apply to the man +he had seen at the mouth of the furnace—he stood confidently in the elevator, + + looking up—he walked confidently down the hall, feeling his bitterness relax +into gaiety—he knocked at the door. +Francisco's voice snapped, "Come in!" It had a brusque, absentminded +sound. +Rearden opened the door and stopped on the threshold. One of the hotel's +costliest satin-shaded lamps stood in the middle of the floor, throwing a +circle of light on wide sheets of drafting paper. Francisco d'Anconia, in +shirt sleeves, a strand of hair hanging down over his face, lay stretched on +the floor, on his stomach, propped up by his elbows, biting the end of a +pencil in concentration upon some point of the intricate tracing before him. +He did not look up, he seemed to have forgotten the knock. Rearden tried to +distinguish the drawing: it looked like the section of a smelter. He stood +watching in startled wonder; had he had the power to bring into reality his +own image of Francisco d'Anconia, this was the picture he would have seen: +the figure of a purposeful young worker intent upon a difficult task, In a +moment, Francisco raised his head. In the next instant, he flung his body +upward to a kneeling posture, looking at Rearden with a smile of incredulous +pleasure. In the next, he seized the drawings and threw them aside too +hastily, face down. +"What did I interrupt?" asked Rearden. +"Nothing much. Come in." He was grinning happily. Rearden felt suddenly +certain that Francisco had waited, too, had waited for this as for a victory +which he had not quite hoped to achieve. +"What were you doing?" asked Rearden. +"Just amusing myself." +"Let me see it." +"No." He rose and kicked the drawings aside. +Rearden noted that if he had resented as impertinence Francisco's manner +of proprietorship in his office, he himself was now guilty of the same +attitude—because he offered no explanation for his visit, but crossed the +room and sat down in an armchair, casually, as if he were at home. +"Why didn't you come to continue what you had started?" he asked. +"You have been continuing it brilliantly without my help." +"Do you mean, my trial?" +"I mean, your trial." +"How do you know? You weren't there." +Francisco smiled, because the tone of the voice confessed an added +sentence: I was looking for you. "Don't you suppose I heard every word of it +on the radio?" +"You did? Well, how did you like hearing your own lines come over the air, +with me as your stooge?" +"You weren't, Mr. Rearden. They weren't my lines. Weren't they the things +you had always lived by?" +"Yes." +"I only helped you to see that you should have been proud to live by +them." +"I am glad you heard it" +"It was great, Mr. Rearden—and about three generations too late." +"What do you mean?" +"If one single businessman had had the courage, then, to say that he +worked for nothing but his own profit—and to say it proudly—he would have +saved the world." +"I haven't given up the world as lost." +"It isn't. It never can be. But oh God!—what he would have spared us!" +"Well, I guess we have to fight, no matter what era we're caught in." + + "Yes . . . You know, Mr. Rearden, I would suggest that you get a +transcript of your trial and read what you said. Then see whether you are +practicing it fully and consistently—or not." +"You mean that I'm not?" +"See for yourself." +"I know that you had a great deal to tell me, when we were interrupted, +that night at the mills. Why don't you finish what you had to say?" +"No. It's too soon." +Francisco acted as if there were nothing unusual about this visit, as if +he took it as a matter of natural course—as he had always acted in Rearden's +presence. But Rearden noted that he was not so calm as he wished to appear; +he was pacing the room, in a manner that seemed a release for an emotion he +did not want to confess; he had forgotten the lamp and it still stood on the +floor as the room's sole illumination. +"You've been taking an awful beating in the way of discoveries, haven't +you?" said Francisco, "How did you like the behavior of your fellow +businessmen?" +"I suppose it was to be expected." +His voice tense with the anger of compassion, Francisco said, "It's been +twelve years and yet I'm still unable to see it indifferently!" The sentence +sounded involuntary, as if, trying to suppress the sound of emotion, he had +uttered suppressed words. +"Twelve years—since what?" asked Rearden. +There was an instant's pause, but Francisco answered calmly, "Since I +understood what those men were doing," He added, "I know what you're going +through right now . . . and what's still ahead." +"Thanks," said Rearden. +"For what?" +"For what you're trying so hard not to show. But don't worry about me. I'm +still able to stand it. . . . You know, I didn't come here because I wanted +to talk about myself or even about the trial." +"I'll agree to any subject you choose—in order to have you here." +He said it in the tone of a courteous joke; but the tone could not +disguise it; he meant it. "What did you want to talk about?" +"You." +Francisco stopped. He looked at Rearden for a moment, then answered +quietly, "All right.” +If that which Rearden felt could have gone directly into words, past the +barrier of his will, he would have cried: Don't let me down—I need you—I am +fighting all of them, I have fought to my limit and am condemned to fight +beyond it—and, as sole ammunition possible to me, I need the knowledge of one +single man whom I can trust, respect and admire. +Instead, he said calmly, very simply—and the only note of a personal bond +between them was that tone of sincerity which comes with a direct, +unqualifiedly rational statement and implies the same honesty of mind in the +listener—"You know, I think that the only real moral crime that one man can +commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions, an +impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus +shake the concept of rationality in his victim." +"That's true." +"If I say that that is the dilemma you've put me in, would you help me by +answering a personal question?" +"I will try.” +"I don't have to tell you—I think you know it—that you are the man of the +highest mind I have ever met. I am coming to accept, not as right, but at +least as possible, the fact that you refuse to exercise your great ability in +the world of today. But what a man does out of despair, is not necessarily a + + key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that +which he seeks for his enjoyment. +And this is what I find inconceivable: no matter what you've given up, so +long as you chose to remain alive, how can you find any pleasure in spending +a life as valuable as yours on running after cheap women and on an imbecile's +idea of diversions?" +Francisco looked at him with a fine smile of amusement, as if saying: No? +You didn't want to talk about yourself? And what is it that you're confessing +but the desperate loneliness which makes the question of my character more +important to you than any other question right now? +The smile merged into a soft, good-natured chuckle, as if the question +involved no problem for him, no painful secret to reveal. "There's a way to +solve every dilemma of that kind, Mr. Rearden. Check your premises." He sat +down on the floor, settling himself gaily, informally, for a conversation he +would enjoy. "Is it your own first-hand conclusion that I am a man of high +mind?" +"Yes." +"Do you know of your own first-hand knowledge that I spend my life running +after women?" +"You've never denied it." +"Denied it? I've gone to a lot of trouble to create that impression." +"Do you mean to say that it isn't true?" +"Do I strike you as a man with a miserable inferiority complex?" +"Good God, no!" +"Only that kind of man spends his life running after women." +"What do you mean?" +"Do you remember what I said about money and about the men who seek to +reverse the law of cause and effect? The men who try to replace the mind by +seizing the products of the mind? Well, the mail who despises himself tries +to gain self-esteem from sexual adventures —which can't be done, because sex +is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man's sense of his own +value." +"You'd better explain that." +"Did it ever occur to you that it's the same issue? The men who think that +wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, +are the men who think—for the same reason—that sex is a physical capacity +which functions independently of one's mind, choice or code of values. They +think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you—just about +in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its +own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks +the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the +result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds +sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. +Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of +himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of +selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he +cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment—just try to think of +performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!—an act which is not possible +in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being +desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand +naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as., his +standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his +deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to +experience—or to fake—a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain +of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman +he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the possession +of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of + + a brainless slut. He does not seek to . . . What's the matter?" he asked, +seeing the look on Rearden's face, a look of intensity much beyond mere +interest in an abstract discussion. +"Go on," said Rearden tensely. +"He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no +conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But +the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he +despises—because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him +from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a +momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral +code that damns him. Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex +lives—and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral +philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest +values— +and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of +existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, +that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or +sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, +not in response to values, but in response to flaws—and he will have cut +himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make +him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest +type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of +his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned +existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself +and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has +equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of +pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own +which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure +emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love brings him nothing +but boredom, and sex—nothing but shame." +Rearden said slowly, looking off, not realizing that he was thinking +aloud, "At least . . . I've never accepted that other tenet . . . I've never +felt guilty about making money." +Francisco missed the significance of the first two words; he smiled and +said eagerly, "You do see that it's the same issue? No, you'd never accept +any part of their vicious creed. You wouldn't be able to force it upon +yourself. If you tried to damn sex as evil, you'd still find yourself, +against your will, acting on the proper moral premise. You'd be attracted to +the highest woman you met. You'd always want a heroine. You'd be incapable of +self-contempt. You'd be unable to believe that existence is evil and that +you're a helpless creature caught in an impossible universe. You're the man +who's spent his life shaping matter to the purpose of his mind. You're the +man who would know that just as an idea unexpressed in physical action is +contemptible hypocrisy, so is platonic love—and just as physical action +unguided by an idea is a fool's self-fraud, so is sex when cut off from one's +code of values. It's the same issue, and you would know it. Your inviolate +sense of self-esteem would know it. You would be incapable of desire for a +woman you despised. Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of +desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love. But observe +that most people are creatures cut in half who keep swinging desperately to +one side or to the other. One kind of half is the man who despises money, +factories, skyscrapers and his own body. +He holds undefined emotions about non-conceivable subjects as the meaning +of life and as his claim to virtue. And he cries with despair, because he can +feel nothing for the women he respects, but finds himself in bondage to an +irresistible passion for a slut from the gutter. + + He is the man whom people call an idealist. The other kind of half is the +man whom people call practical, the man who despises principles, +abstractions, art, philosophy and his own mind. He regards the acquisition of +material objects as the only goal of existence—and he laughs at the need to +consider their purpose or their source. He expects them to give him pleasure— +and he wonders why the more he gets, the less he feels. He is the man who +spends his time chasing women. Observe the triple fraud which he perpetrates +upon himself. He will not acknowledge his need of self-esteem, since he +scoffs at such a concept as moral values; yet he feels the profound selfcontempt which comes from believing that he is a piece of meat. He will not +acknowledge, but he knows that sex is the physical expression of a tribute to +personal values. So he tries, by going through the motions of the effect, to +acquire that which should have been the cause. He tries to gain a sense of +his own value from the women who surrender to him—and he forgets that the +women he picks have neither character nor judgment nor standard of value. He +tells himself that all he's after is physical pleasure— +but observe that he tires of his women in a week or a night, that he +despises professional whores and that he loves to imagine he is seducing +virtuous girls who make a great exception for his sake. It is the feeling, of +achievement that he seeks and never finds. What glory can there be in the +conquest of a mindless body? Now that is your woman-chaser. Does the +description fit me?" +"God, no!" +"Then you can judge, without asking my word for it, how much chasing of +women I've done in my life." +"But what on earth have you been doing on the front pages of newspapers +for the last—isn't it twelve—years?" +"I've spent a lot of money on the most ostentatiously vulgar parties I +could think of, and a miserable amount of time on being seen with the +appropriate sort of women. As for the rest—" He stopped, then said, "I have +some friends who know this, but you are the first person to whom I am +confiding it against my own rules: I have never slept with any of those +women. I have never touched one of them." +"What is more incredible than that, is that I believe you." +The lamp on the floor beside him threw broken bits of light across +Francisco's face, as he leaned forward; the face had a look of guiltless +amusement. "If you care to glance over those front pages, you'll see that +I've never said anything. It was the women who were eager to rush into print +with stories insinuating that being seen with me at a restaurant was the sign +of a great romance. What do you suppose those women are after but the same +thing as the chaser—the desire to gain their own value from the number and +fame of the men they conquer? Only it's one step phonier, because the value +they seek is not even in the actual fact, but in the impression on and the +envy of other women. Well, I gave those bitches what they wanted—but what +they literally wanted, without the pretense that they expected, the pretense +that hides from Them the nature of their wish. Do you think they wanted to +sleep with me or with any man? They wouldn't be capable of so real and honest +a desire. They wanted food for their vanity—and I gave it to them. I gave +them the chance to boast to their friends and to see themselves in the +scandal sheets in the roles of great seductresses. But do you know that it +works in exactly the same way as what you did at your trial? If you want to +defeat any kind of vicious fraud—comply with it literally, adding nothing of +your own to disguise its nature. Those women understood. They saw whether +there's any satisfaction in being envied by others for a feat one has not +achieved. Instead of self-esteem, their publicized romances with me have +given them a deeper sense of inferiority: each one of them knows that she's +tried and failed. If dragging me into bed is supposed to be her public + + standard of value, she knows that she couldn't live up to it. I think those +women hate me more than any other man on. +earth. But my secret is safe—because each one of them thinks that she was +the only one who failed, while all the others succeeded, so she'll be the +more vehement in swearing to our romance and will never admit the truth to +anybody." +"But what have you done to your own reputation?" +Francisco shrugged. "Those whom I respect, will know the truth about me, +sooner or later. The others"—his face hardened—"the others consider that +which I really am as evil. Let them have what they prefer—what I appear to be +on the front pages." +"But what for? Why did you do it? Just to teach them a lesson?" +"Hell, no! I wanted to be known as a playboy." +"Why?" +"A playboy is a man who just can't help letting money run through his +fingers.” +"Why did you want to assume such an ugly sort of role?" +"Camouflage." +"For what?" +"For a purpose of my own." +"What purpose?" +Francisco shook his head. "Don't ask me to tell you that. I've told you +more than I should. You'll come to know the rest of it soon, anyway." +"If it's more than you should, why did you tell me?" +"Because . . . you've made me become impatient for the first time in +years." The note of a suppressed emotion came back into his voice. +"Because I've never wanted anyone to know the truth about me as I wanted +you to know it. Because I knew that you'd despise a playboy more than any +other sort of man—as I would, too. Playboy? I've never loved but one woman in +my life and still do and always will!" It was an involuntary break, and he +added, his voice low, "I've never confessed that to anyone . . . not even to +her." +"Have you lost her?" +Francisco sat looking off into space; in a moment, he answered tonelessly, +"I hope not." +The light of the lamp hit his face from below, and Rearden could not see +his eyes, only his mouth drawn in lines of endurance and oddly solemn +resignation. Rearden knew that this was a wound not to be probed any further. +With one of his swift changes of mood, Francisco said, "Oh well, it's just +a little longer!" and rose to his feet, smiling. +"Since you trust me," said Rearden, "I want to tell you a secret of mine +in exchange. I want you to, know how much I trusted you before I came here. +And I might need your help later." +"You're the only man left whom I'd like to help." +"There's a great deal that I don't understand about you, but I'm certain +of one thing: that you're not a friend of the looters." +"I'm not." There was a hint of amusement in Francisco's face, as at an +understatement. +"So I know that you won't betray me if I tell you that I'm going to +continue selling Rearden Metal to customers of my own choice in any amount I +wish, whenever I see a chance to do it. Right now, I'm getting ready to pour +an order twenty times the size of the one they tried me for." +Sitting on the arm of a chair, a few feet away, Francisco leaned forward +to look at him silently, frowning, for a long moment, "Do you think that +you're fighting them by doing it?" he asked. +"Well, what would you call it? Co-operating?" + + "You were willing to work and produce Rearden Metal for them at the price +of losing your profits, losing your friends, enriching stray bastards who had +the pull to rob you, and taking their abuse for the privilege of keeping them +alive. Now you're willing to do it at the price of accepting the position of +a criminal and the risk of being thrown in jail at any moment—for the sake of +keeping in existence a system which can be kept going only by its victims, +only by the breaking of its own laws." +"It's not for their system, but for customers whom I can't abandon to the +mercy of their system—I intend to outlast that system of theirs —I don't +intend to let them stop me, no matter how hard they make it for me—and I +don't intend to give up the world to them, even if I am the last man left. +Right now, that illegal order is more important to me than the whole of my +mills." +Francisco shook his head slowly and did not answer; then he asked, "To +which one of your friends in the copper industry are you going to give the +valuable privilege of informing on you this time?" +Rearden smiled. "Not this time. This time, I'm dealing with a man I can +trust." +"Really? Who is it?" +"You." +Francisco sat up straight. "What?" he asked, his voice so low that he +almost succeeded in hiding the sound of a gasp. +Rearden was smiling. "You didn't know that I'm one of your customers now? +It was done through a couple of stooges and under a phony name—but I'll need +your help to prevent anyone on your staff from becoming inquisitive about it. +I need that copper, I need it on time—and I don't care if they arrest me +later, so long as I get this through. I know that you've lost all concern for +your company, your wealth, your work, because you don't care to deal with +looters like Taggart and Boyle. But if you meant all the things you taught +me, if I am the last man left whom you respect, you'll help me to survive and +to beat them. I've never asked for anyone's help. I'm asking for yours. +I need you. I trust you. You've always professed your admiration for me. +Well, there's my life in your hands—if you want it. An order of d'Anconia +copper is being shipped to me right now. It left San Juan on December fifth." +"What?!" +It was a scream of plain shock. Francisco had shot to his feet, past any +attempt to hide anything. "On December fifth?" +"Yes," said Rearden, stupefied. +Francisco leaped to the telephone. "I told you not to deal with d'Anconia +Copper!" It was the half-moaning, half-furious cry of despair. +His hand was reaching for the telephone, but jerked back. He grasped the +edge of the table, as if to stop himself from lifting the receiver, and he +stood, head down, for how long a time neither he nor Rearden could tell. +Rearden was held numb by the fact of watching an agonized struggle with the +motionless figure of a man as its only evidence. He could not guess the +nature of the struggle, he knew only that there was something which Francisco +had the power to prevent in that moment and that it was a power which he +would not use. +When Francisco raised his head, Rearden saw a face drawn by so great a +suffering that its lines were almost an audible cry of pain, the more +terrible because the face had a look of firmness, as if the decision had been +made and this was the price of it. +"Francisco . . . what's the matter?" +"Hank, I . . . " He shook his head, stopped, then stood up straight. +"Mr. Rearden," he said, in a voice that had the strength, the despair and +the peculiar dignity of a plea he knew to be hopeless, "for the time when + + you're going to damn me, when you're going to doubt every word I said . . . I +swear to you—by the woman I love—that I am your friend." +The memory of Francisco's face as it looked in that moment, came back to +Rearden three days later, through a blinding shock of loss and hatred—it came +back, even though, standing by the radio in his office, he thought that he +must now keep away from the Wayne-Falkland or he would kill Francisco +d'Anconia on sight—it kept coming back to him, through the words he was +hearing—he was hearing that three ships of d'Anconia copper, bound from San +Juan to New York, had been attacked by Ragnar Danneskjold and sent to the +bottom of the ocean—it kept coming back, even though he knew that much more +than the copper had gone down for him with those ships. + + CHAPTER V +ACCOUNT OVERDRAWN +It was the first failure in the history of Rearden Steel. For the first +time, an order was not delivered as promised. But by February 15, when the +Taggart rail was due, it made no difference to anyone any longer. +Winter had come early, in the last days of November. People said that it +was the hardest winter on record and that no one could be blamed for the +unusual severity of the snowstorms. They did not care to remember that there +had been a time when snowstorms did not sweep, unresisted, down unlighted +roads and upon the roofs of unheated houses, did not stop the movement of +trains, did not leave a wake of corpses counted by the hundreds. +The first time that Danagger Coal was late in delivering fuel to Taggart +Transcontinental, in the last week of December, Danagger's cousin explained +that he could not help it; he had had to cut the workday down to six hours, +he said, in order to raise the morale of the men who did not seem to function +as they had in the days of his cousin Kenneth; the men had become listless +and sloppy, he said, because they were exhausted by the harsh discipline of +the former management; he could not help it if some of the superintendents +and foremen had quit him without reason, men who had been with the company +for ten to twenty years; he could not help it if there seemed to be some +friction between his workers and his new supervisory staff, even though the +new men were much more liberal than the old slave drivers; it was only a +matter of readjustment, he said. He could not help it, he said, if the +tonnage intended for Taggart Transcontinental had been turned over, on the +eve of its scheduled delivery, to the Bureau of Global Relief for shipment to +the People's State of England; it was an emergency, the people of England +were starving, with all of their State factories closing down—and Miss +Taggart was being unreasonable, since it was only a matter of one day's +delay. +It was only one day's delay. It caused a three days' delay in the run of +Freight Train Number 386, bound from California to New York with fifty-nine +carloads of lettuce and oranges. Freight Train Number 386 waited on sidings, +at coaling stations, for the fuel that had not arrived. When the train +reached New York, the lettuce and oranges had to be dumped into the East +River: they had waited their turn too long in the freight houses of +California, with the train schedules cut and the engines forbidden, by +directive, to pull a train of more than sixty cars. +Nobody but their friends and trade associates noticed that three orange +growers in California went out of business, as well as two lettuce farmers in +Imperial Valley; nobody noticed the closing of a commission house in New +York, of a plumbing company to which the commission house owed money, of a +lead-pipe wholesaler who had supplied the plumbing company. When people were +starving, said the newspapers, one did not have to feel concern over the +failures of business enterprises which were only private ventures for private +profit. +The coal shipped across the Atlantic by the Bureau of Global Relief did +not reach the People's State of England: it was seized by Ragnar Danneskjold. +The second time that Danagger Coal was late in delivering fuel to Taggart +Transcontinental, in mid-January, Danagger's cousin snarled over the +telephone that he could not help it: his mines had been shut down for three +days, due to a shortage of lubricating oil for the machinery. The supply of +coal to Taggart Transcontinental was four days late. +Mr. Quinn, of the Quinn Ball Bearing Company which had once moved from +Connecticut to Colorado, waited a week for the freight train that carried his + + order of Rearden steel. When the train arrived, the doors of the Quinn Ball +Bearing Company's plant were closed. +Nobody traced the closing of a motor company in Michigan, that had waited +for a shipment of ball bearings, its machinery idle, its workers on full pay; +or the closing of a sawmill in Oregon, that had waited for a new motor; or +the closing of a lumber yard in Iowa, left without supply; or the bankruptcy +of a building contractor in Illinois who, failing to get his lumber on time, +found his contracts cancelled and the purchasers of his homes sent wandering +off down snowswept roads in search of that which did not exist anywhere any +longer. +The snowstorm that came at the end of January blocked the passes through +the Rocky Mountains, raising white walls thirty feet high across the mainline track of Taggart Transcontinental. The men who attempted to clear the +track, gave up within the first few hours: the rotary plows broke down, one +after another. The plows had been kept in precarious repair for two years +past the span of their usefulness. The new plows had not been delivered; the +manufacturer had quit, unable to obtain the steel he needed from Orren Boyle. +Three westbound trains were trapped on the sidings of Winston Station, +high in the Rockies, where the main line of Taggart Transcontinental cut +across the northwest corner of Colorado. For five days, they remained beyond +the reach of help. Trains could not approach them through the storm. The last +of the trucks made by Lawrence Hammond broke down on the frozen grades of the +mountain highways. +The best of the airplanes once made by Dwight Sanders were sent out, but +never reached Winston Station; they were worn past the stage of fighting a +storm. +Through the driving mesh of snow, the passengers trapped aboard the trains +looked out at the lights of Winston's shanties. The lights died in the night +of the second day. By the evening of the third, the lights, the heat and the +food had given out aboard the trains. In the brief lulls of the storm, when +the white mesh vanished and left behind it the stillness of a black void +merging a lightless earth with a starless sky— +the passengers could see, many miles away to the south, a small tongue of +flame twisting in the wind. It was Wyatt's Torch. +By the morning of the sixth day, when the trains were able to move and +proceeded down the slopes of Utah, of Nevada, of California, the trainmen +observed the smokeless stacks and the closed doors of small trackside +factories, which had not been closed on their last run. +"Storms are an act of God," wrote Bertram Scudder, "and nobody can be held +socially responsible for the weather." +The rations of coal, established by Wesley Mouch, permitted the heating of +homes for three hours a day. There was no wood to burn, no metal to make new +stoves, no tools to pierce the walls of the houses for new installations. In +makeshift contraptions of bricks and oil cans, professors were burning the +books of their libraries, and fruit growers were burning the trees of their +orchards. "Privations strengthen a people's spirit," wrote Bertram Scudder, +"and forge the fine steel of social discipline. Sacrifice is the cement which +unites human bricks into the great edifice of society." +"The nation which had once held the creed that greatness is achieved by +production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor," said Francisco +d'Anconia in a press interview. But this was not printed. +The only business boom, that winter, came to the amusement industry. +People wrenched their pennies out of the quicksands of their food and heat +budgets, and went without meals in order to crowd into movie theaters, in +order to escape for a few hours the state of animals reduced to the single +concern of terror over their crudest needs. In January, all movie theaters, +night clubs and bowling alleys were closed by order of Wesley Mouch, for the + + purpose of conserving fuel. "Pleasure is not an essential of existence," +wrote Bertram Scudder. +"You must learn to take a philosophical attitude," said Dr. Simon +Pritchett to a young girl student who broke down into sudden, hysterical sobs +in the middle of a lecture. She had just returned from a volunteer relief +expedition to a settlement on Lake Superior; she had seen a mother holding +the body of a grown son who had died of hunger. +"There are no absolutes," said Dr. Pritchett. "Reality is only an +illusion. +How does that woman know that her son is dead? How does she know that he +ever existed?" +People with pleading eyes and desperate faces crowded into tents where +evangelists cried in triumphant gloating that man was unable to cope with +nature, that his science was a fraud, that his mind was a failure, that he +was reaping punishment for the sin of pride, for his confidence in his own +intellect—and that only faith in the power of mystic secrets could protect +him from the fissure of a rail or from the blowout of the last tire on his +last truck. Love was the key to the mystic secrets, they cried, love and +selfless sacrifice to the needs of others. +Orren Boyle made a selfless sacrifice to the needs of others. He sold to +the Bureau of Global Relief, for shipment to the People's State of Germany, +ten thousand tons of structural steel shapes that had been intended for the +Atlantic Southern Railroad. "It was a difficult decision to make," he said, +with a moist, unfocused look of righteousness, to the panic-stricken +president of the Atlantic Southern, "but I weighed the fact that you're a +rich corporation, while the people of Germany are in a state of unspeakable +misery. So I acted on the principle that need comes first. When in doubt, +it's the weak that must be considered, not the strong." The president of the +Atlantic Southern had heard that Orren Boyle's most valuable friend in +Washington had a friend in the Ministry of Supply of the People's State of +Germany. But whether this had been Boyle's motive or whether it had been the +principle of sacrifice, no one could tell and it made no difference: if Boyle +had been a saint of the creed of selflessness, he would have had to do +precisely what he had done. This silenced the president of the Atlantic +Southern; he dared not admit that he cared for his railroad more than for the +people of Germany; he dared not argue against the principle of sacrifice. +The waters of the Mississippi had been rising all through the month of +January, swollen by the storms, driven by the wind into a restless grinding +of current against current and against every obstruction in their way. On a +night of lashing sleet, in the first week of February, the Mississippi bridge +of the Atlantic Southern collapsed under a passenger train. The engine and +the first five sleepers went down with the cracking girders into the twisting +black spirals of water eighty feet below. The rest of the train remained on +the first three spans of the bridge, which held. +"You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it, too," said +Francisco d'Anconia. The fury of denunciations which the holders of public +voices unleashed against him was greater than their concern over the horror +at the river. +It was whispered that the chief engineer of the Atlantic Southern, in +despair over the company's failure to obtain the steel he needed to reinforce +the bridge, had resigned six months ago, telling the company that the bridge +was unsafe. He had written a letter to the largest newspaper in New York, +warning the public about it; the letter had not been printed. It was +whispered that the first three spans of the bridge had held because they had +been reinforced with structural shapes of Rearden Metal; but five hundred +tons of the Metal was all that the railroad had been able to obtain under the +Fair Share Law. + + As the sole result of official investigations, two bridges across the +Mississippi, belonging to smaller railroads, were condemned. One of the +railroads went out of business; the other closed a branch line, tore up its +rail and laid a track to the Mississippi bridge of Taggart Transcontinental; +so did the Atlantic Southern. +The great Taggart Bridge at Bedford, Illinois, had been built by Nathaniel +Taggart. He had fought the government for years, because the courts had +ruled, on the complaint of river shippers, that railroads were a destructive +competition to shipping and thus a threat to the public welfare, and that +railroad bridges across the Mississippi were to be forbidden as a material +obstruction; the courts had ordered Nathaniel Taggart to tear down his bridge +and to carry his passengers across the river by means of barges. He had won +that battle by a majority of one voice on the Supreme Court. His bridge was +now the only major link left to hold the continent together. His last +descendant had made it her strictest rule that whatever else was neglected, +the Taggart Bridge would always be maintained in flawless shape. +The steel shipped across the Atlantic by the Bureau of Global Relief had +not reached the People's State of Germany. It had been seized by Ragnar +Danneskjold—but nobody heard of it outside the Bureau, because the newspapers +had long since stopped mentioning the activities of Ragnar Danneskjold. +It was not until the public began to notice the growing shortage, then the +disappearance from the market of electric irons, toasters, washing machines +and all electrical appliances, that people began to ask questions and to hear +whispers. They heard that no ship loaded with d'Anconia copper was able to +reach a port of the United States; it could not get past Ragnar Danneskjold. +In the foggy winter nights, on the waterfront, sailors whispered the story +that Ragnar Danneskjold always seized the cargoes of relief vessels, but +never touched the copper: he sank the d'Anconia ships with their loads; he +let the crews escape in lifeboats, but the copper went to the bottom of the +ocean. They whispered it as a dark legend beyond men's power to explain; +nobody could find a reason why Danneskjold did not choose to take the copper. +In the second week of February, for the purpose of conserving copper wire +and electric power, a directive forbade the running of elevators above the +twenty-fifth floor. The upper floors of the buildings had to be vacated, and +partitions of unpainted boards went up to cut off the stairways. By special +permit, exceptions were granted—on the grounds of "essential need"—to a few +of the larger business enterprises and the more fashionable hotels. The tops +of the cities were cut down. +The inhabitants of New York had never had to be aware of the weather. +Storms had been only a nuisance that slowed the traffic and made puddles in +the doorways of brightly lighted shops. Stepping against the wind, dressed in +raincoats, furs and evening slippers, people had felt that a storm was an +intruder within the city. Now, facing the gusts of snow that came sweeping +down the narrow streets, people felt in dim terror that they were the +temporary intruders and that the wind had the right-of-way. +"It won't make any difference to us now, forget it, Hank, it doesn't +matter," said Dagny when Rearden told her that he would not be able to +deliver the rail; he had not been able to find a supplier of copper. +"Forget it, Hank." He did not answer her. He could not forget the first +failure of Rearden Steel. +On the evening of February 15, a plate cracked on a rail joint and sent an +engine off the track, half a mile from Winston, Colorado, on a division which +was to have been relaid with the new rail. The station agent of Winston +sighed and sent for a crew with a crane; it was only one of the minor +accidents that were happening in his section every other day or so, he was +getting used to it. + + Rearden, that evening, his coat collar raised, his hat slanted low over +his eyes, the snow drifts rising to his knees, was tramping through an +abandoned open-pit coal mine, in a forsaken corner of Pennsylvania, +supervising the loading of pirated coal upon the trucks which he had +provided. Nobody owned the mine, nobody could afford the cost of working it. +But a young man with a brusque voice and dark, angry eyes, who came from a +starving settlement, had organized a gang of the unemployed and made a deal +with Rearden to deliver the coal. +They mined it at night, they stored it in hidden culverts, they were paid +in cash, with no questions asked or answered. Guilty of a fierce desire to +remain alive, they and Rearden traded like savages, without rights, titles, +contracts or protection, with nothing but mutual understanding and a +ruthlessly absolute observance of one's given word. Rearden did not even know +the name of the young leader. Watching him at the job of loading the trucks, +Rearden thought that this boy, if born a generation earlier, would have +become a great industrialist; now, he would probably end his brief life as a +plain criminal in a few more years. +Dagny, that evening, was facing a meeting of the Taggart Board of +Directors. +They sat about a polished table in a stately Board room which was +inadequately heated. The men who, through the decades of their careers, had +relied for their security upon keeping their faces blank, their words +inconclusive and their clothes impeccable, were thrown off-key by the +sweaters stretched over their stomachs, by the mufflers wound about their +necks, by the sound of coughing that cut through the discussion too +frequently, like the rattle of a machine gun. +She noted that Jim had lost the smoothness of his usual performance. +He sat with his head drawn into his shoulders, and his eyes kept darting +too rapidly from face to face. +A man from Washington sat at the table among them. Nobody knew his exact +job or title, but it was not necessary: they knew that he was the man from +Washington. His name was Mr. Weatherby, he had graying temples, a long, +narrow face and a mouth that looked as if he had to stretch his facial +muscles in order to keep it closed; this gave a suggestion of primness to a +face that displayed nothing else. The Directors did not know whether he was +present as the guest, the adviser or the ruler of the Board; they preferred +not to find out. +"It seems to me," said the chairman, "that the top problem for us to +consider is the fact that the track of our main line appears to be in a +deplorable, not to say critical, condition—" He paused, then added +cautiously, "—while the only good rail we own is that of the John Galt—I +mean, the Rio Norte—Line." +In the same cautious tone of waiting for someone else to pick up the +intended purpose of his words, another man said, "If we consider our critical +shortage of equipment, and if we consider that we are letting it wear out in +the service of a branch line running at a loss—" He stopped and did not state +what would occur if they considered it. +"In my opinion," said a thin, pallid man with a neat mustache, "the Rio +Norte Line seems to have become a financial burden which the company might +not be able to carry—that is, not unless certain readjustments are made, +which—" He did not finish, but glanced at Mr. +Weatherby. Mr. Weatherby looked as if he had not noticed it. +"Jim," said the chairman, "I think you might explain the picture to Mr. +Weatherby." +Taggart's voice still retained a practiced smoothness, but it was the +smoothness of a piece of cloth stretched tight over a broken glass object, +and the sharp edges showed through once in a while: "I think it is generally + + conceded that the main factor affecting every railroad in the country is the +unusual rate of business failures. While we all realize, of course, that this +is only temporary, still, for the moment, it has made the railroad situation +approach a stage that may well be described as desperate. Specifically, the +number of factories which have closed throughout the territory of the Taggart +Transcontinental system is so large that it has wrecked our entire financial +structure. Districts and divisions which had always brought us our steadiest +revenues, are now showing an actual operating loss. A train schedule geared +to a heavy volume of freight cannot be maintained for three shippers where +there had once been seven. We cannot give them the same service—at least, not +at . . . our present rates." He glanced at Mr. Weatherby, but Mr. +Weatherby did not seem to notice. "It seems to me," said Taggart, the +sharp edges becoming sharper in his voice, "that the stand taken by our +shippers is unfair. Most of them have been complaining about their +competitors and have passed various local measures to eliminate competition +in their particular fields. Now most of them are practically in sole +possession of their markets, yet they refuse to realize that a railroad +cannot give to one lone factory the freight rates which had been made +possible by the production of a whole region. We are running our trains for +them at a loss, yet they have taken a stand against any . . . raise in +rates." +"Against any raise?" said Mr. Weatherby mildly, with a good imitation of +astonishment. "That is not the stand they have taken." +"If certain rumors, which I refuse to credit, are true—" said the +chairman, and stopped one syllable after the tone of panic had become obvious +in his voice. +"Jim," said Mr. Weatherby pleasantly, "I think it would be best if we just +didn't mention the subject of raising the rates." +"I wasn't suggesting an actual raise at this time," said Taggart hastily. +"I merely referred to it to round out the picture." +"But, Jim," said an old man with a quavering voice, "I thought that your +influence—I mean, your friendship—with Mr. Mouch would insure . . . " +He stopped, because the others were looking at him severely, in reproof +for the breach of an unwritten law: one did not mention a failure of this +kind, one did not discuss the mysterious ways of Jim's powerful friendships +or why they had failed him. +"Fact is," said Mr. Weatherby easily, "that Mr. Mouch sent me here to +discuss the demand of the railway unions for a raise in wages and the demand +of the shippers for a cut in rates." +He said it in a tone of casual firmness; he knew that all these men had +known it, that the demands had been discussed in the newspapers for months; +he knew that the dread in these men's minds was not of the fact, but of his +naming it-—as if the fact had not existed, but his words held the power to +make it exist; he knew that they had waited to see whether he would exercise +that power; he was letting them know that he would. +Their situation warranted an outcry of protest; there was none; nobody +answered him. Then James Taggart said in that biting, nervous tone which is +intended to convey anger, but merely confesses uncertainty, "I wouldn't +exaggerate the importance of Buzzy Watts of the National Shippers Council. +He's been making a lot of noise and giving a lot of expensive dinners in +Washington, but I wouldn't advise taking it too seriously." +"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Weatherby. +"Listen, Clem, I do know that Wesley refused to see him last week." +"That's true. Wesley is a pretty busy man." +"And I know that when Gene Lawson gave that big party ten days ago, +practically everybody was there, but Buzzy Watts was not invited." +"That's so," said Mr. Weatherby peaceably. + + "So I wouldn't bet on Mr. Buzzy Watts, Clem. And I wouldn't let it worry +me." +"Wesley's an impartial man," said Mr. Weatherby. "A man devoted to public +duty. It's the interests of the country as a whole that he's got to consider +above everything else." Taggart sat up; of all the danger signs he knew, this +line of talk was the worst. "Nobody can deny it, Jim, that Wesley feels a +high regard for you as an enlightened businessman, a valuable adviser and one +of his closest personal friends." +Taggart's eyes shot to him swiftly: this was still worse. "But nobody can +say that Wesley would hesitate to sacrifice his personal feelings and +friendships—where the welfare of the public is concerned." +Taggart's face remained blank; his terror came from things never allowed +to reach expression in words or in facial muscles. The terror was his +struggle against an unadmitted thought: he himself had been "the public" for +so long and in so many different issues, that he knew what it would mean if +that magic title, that sacred title no one dared to oppose, were transferred, +along with its "welfare," to the person of Buzzy Watts. +But what he asked, and he asked it hastily, was, "You're not implying that +I would place my personal interests above the public welfare, are you?" +"No, of course not," said Mr. Weatherby, with a look that was almost a +smile. "Certainly not. Not you, Jim. Your public-spirited attitude—and +understanding-—are too well known. That's why Wesley expects you to see every +side of the picture." +"Yes, of course," said Taggart, trapped. +"Well, consider the unions' side of it. Maybe you can't afford to give +them a raise, but how can they afford to exist when the cost of living has +shot sky-high? They've got to eat, don't they? That comes first, railroad or +no railroad." Mr. Weatherby's tone had a kind of placid righteousness, as if +he were reciting a formula required to convey another meaning, clear to all +of them; he was looking straight at Taggart, in special emphasis of the +unstated. "There are almost a million members in the railway unions. With +families, dependents and poor relatives—and who hasn't got poor relatives +these days?—it amounts to about five million votes. Persons, I mean. Wesley +has to bear that in mind. He has to think of their psychology. And then, +consider the public. The rates you're charging were established at a time +when everybody was making money. But the way things are now, the cost of +transportation has become a burden nobody can afford. People arc screaming +about it all over the country." He looked straight at Taggart; he merely +looked, but his glance had the quality of a wink. +"There's an awful lot of them, Jim. They're not very happy at the moment +about an awful lot of things. A government that would bring the railroad +rates down would make a lot of folks grateful." +The silence that answered him was like a hole so deep that no sound could +be heard of the things crashing down to its bottom. Taggart knew, as they all +knew, to what disinterested motive Mr. Mouch would always be ready to +sacrifice his personal friendships. +It was the silence and the fact that she did not want to say it, had come +here resolved not to speak, but could not resist it, that made Dagny's voice +sound so vibrantly harsh: "Got what you've been asking for, all these years, +gentlemen?" +The swiftness with which their eyes moved to her was an involuntary answer +to an unexpected sound, but the swiftness with which they moved away—to look +down at the table, at the walls, anywhere but at her—was the conscious answer +to the meaning of the sounds. +In the silence of the next moment, she felt their resentment like a starch +thickening the air of the room, and she knew that it was not resentment +against Mr. Weatherby, but against her. She could have borne it, if they had + + merely let her question go unanswered; but what made her feel a sickening +tightness in her stomach, was their double fraud of pretending to ignore her +and then answering in their own kind of manner. +The chairman said, not looking at her, his voice pointedly noncommittal, +yet vaguely purposeful at the same time, "It would have been all right, +everything would have worked out fine, if it weren't for the wrong people in +positions of power, such as Buzzy Watts and Chick Morrison." +"Oh, I wouldn't worry about Chick Morrison," said the pallid man with the +mustache. "He hasn't any top-level connections. Not really. +It's Tinky Holloway that's poison." +"I don't see the picture as hopeless," said a portly man who wore a green +muffler. "Joe Dunphy and Bud Hazleton are very close to Wesley. If their +influence prevails, we'll be all right. However, Kip Chalmers and Tinky +Holloway are dangerous." +"I can take care of Kip Chalmers," said Taggart. +Mr. Weatherby was the only person in the room who did not mind looking at +Dagny; but whenever his glance rested upon her, it registered nothing; she +was the only person in the room whom he did not see. +"I am thinking," said Mr. Weatherby casually, looking at Taggart, "that +you might do Wesley a favor." +"Wesley knows that he can always count on me." +"Well, my thought is that if you granted the unions' wage raises— +we might drop the question of cutting the rates, for the time being." +"I can't do that!" It was almost a cry. "The National Alliance of +Railroads has taken a unanimous stand against the raises and has committed +every member to refuse." +"That's just what I mean," said Mr. Weatherby softly. "Wesley needs to +drive a wedge into that Alliance stand. If a railroad like Taggart +Transcontinental were to give in, the rest would be easy. You would help +Wesley a great deal. He would appreciate it." +"But, good God, Clem!—I'd be open to court action for it, by the Alliance +rules!" +Mr. Weatherby smiled. "What court? Let Wesley take care of that." +"But listen, Clem, you know—you know just as well as I do—that we can't +afford it!" +Mr. Weatherby shrugged. "That's a problem for you to work out." +"How, for Christ's sake?" +"I don't know. That's your job, not ours. You wouldn't want the government +to start telling you how to run your railroad, would you?" +"No, of course not! But—" +"Our job is only to see that the people get fair wages and decent +transportation. It's up to you to deliver. But, of course, if you say that +you can't do the job, why then—" +"I haven't said it!" Taggart cried hastily, "I haven't said it at all!" +"Good," said Mr. Weatherby pleasantly. "We know that you have the ability +to find some way to do it." +He was looking at Taggart; Taggart was looking at Dagny. +"Well, it was just a thought," said Mr. Weatherby, leaning back in his +chair in a manner of modest withdrawal. "Just a thought for you to mull over. +I'm only a guest here. I don't want to interfere. The purpose of the meeting +was to discuss the situation of the . . . branch lines, I believe?" +"Yes," said the chairman and sighed. "Yes. Now if anyone has a +constructive suggestion to offer—" He waited; no one answered. "I believe the +picture is clear to all of us." He waited. "It seems to be established that +we cannot continue to afford the operation of some of our branch lines . . . +the Rio Norte Line in particular . . . and, therefore, some form of action +seems to be indicated. . . ." + + "I think," said the pallid man with the mustache, his voice unexpectedly +confident, "that we should now hear from Miss Taggart." He leaned forward +with a look of hopeful craftiness. As Dagny did not answer, but merely turned +to him, he asked, "What do you have to say, Miss Taggart?" +"Nothing." +"I beg your pardon?" +"All I had to say was contained in the report which Jim has read to you." +She spoke quietly, her voice clear and flat. +"But you did not make any recommendations." +"I have none to make." +"But, after all, as our Operating Vice-President, you have a vital +interest in the policies of this railroad." +"I have no authority over the policies of this railroad." +"Oh, but we are anxious to consider your opinion." +"I have no opinions." +"Miss Taggart," he said, in the smoothly formal tone of an order, "you +cannot fail to realize that our branch lines are running at a disastrous +deficit—and that we expect you to make them pay." +"How?" +"I don't know. That is your job, not ours." +"I have stated in my report the reasons why that is now impossible. +If there are facts which I have overlooked, please name them." +"Oh, I wouldn't know. We expect you to find some way to make it possible. +Our job is only to see that the stockholders get a fair profit. +It's up to you to deliver. You wouldn't want us to think that you're +unable to do the job and—" +"I am unable to do it." +The man opened his mouth, but found nothing else to say; he looked at her +in bewilderment, wondering why the formula had failed. +"Miss Taggart," asked the man with the green muffler, "did you imply in +your report that the situation of the Rio Norte Line was critical?" +"I stated that it was hopeless." +"Then what action do you propose?" +"I propose- nothing." +"Aren't you evading a responsibility?" +"What is it that you think you're doing?" She spoke evenly, addressing +them all. "Are you counting on my not saying that the responsibility-is +yours, that it was your goddamn policies that brought us where we are? Well, +I'm saying it." +"Miss Taggart, Miss Taggart," said the chairman in a tone of pleading +reproach, "there shouldn't be any hard feelings among us. Does it matter now +who was to blame? We don't want to quarrel over past mistakes. We must all +pull together as a team to carry our railroad through this desperate +emergency," +A gray-haired man of patrician bearing, who had remained silent throughout +the session, with a look of the quietly bitter knowledge that the entire +performance was futile, glanced at Dagny in a way which would have been +sympathy had he still felt a remnant of hope. He said, raising his voice just +enough to betray a note of controlled indignation, "Mr. Chairman, if it is +practical solutions that we are considering, I should like to suggest that we +discuss the limitation placed upon the length and speed of our trains. Of any +single practice, that is the most disastrous one. Its repeal would not solve +all of our problems, but it would be an enormous relief. With the desperate +shortage of motive power and the appalling shortage of fuel, it is criminal +insanity to send an engine out on the road with sixty cars when it could pull +a hundred and to take four days on a run which could be made in three. I +suggest that we compute the number of shippers we have ruined and the + + districts we have destroyed through the failures, shortages and delays of +transportation, and then we—" +"Don't think of it," Mr. Weatherby cut in snappily. "Don't try dreaming +about any repeals. We wouldn't consider it. We wouldn't even consider +listening to any talk on the subject." +"Mr. Chairman," the gray-haired man asked quietly, "shall I continue?" +The chairman spread out his hands, with a smooth smile, indicating +helplessness. "It would be impractical," he answered. +"I think we'd better confine the discussion to the status of the Rio Norte +Line," snapped James Taggart. +There was a long silence. +The man with the green muffler turned to Dagny. "Miss Taggart," he asked +sadly and cautiously, "would you say that if—this is just a hypothetical +question—if the equipment now in use on the Rio Norte Line were made +available, it would fill the needs of our transcontinental main-line +traffic?" +"It would help." +"The rail of the Rio Norte Line," said the pallid man with the mustache, +"is unmatched anywhere in the country and could not now be purchased at any +price. We have three hundred miles of track, which means well over four +hundred miles of rail of pure Rearden Metal in that Line. Would you say, Miss +Taggart, that we cannot afford to waste that superlative rail on a branch +that carries no major traffic any longer?" +"That is for you to judge." +"Let me put it this way: would it be of value if that rail were made +available for our main-line track, which is in such urgent need of repair?" +"It would help." +"Miss Taggart," asked the man with the quavering voice, "would you say +that there are any shippers of consequence left on the Rio Norte Line?" +"There's Ted Nielsen of Nielsen Motors. No one else." +"Would you say that the operating costs of the Rio Norte Line could be +used to relieve the financial strain on the rest of the system?" +"It would help." +"Then, as our Operating Vice-President . . ." He stopped; she waited, +looking at him; he said, "Well?" +"What was your question?" +"I meant to say . . . that is, well, as our Operating Vice-President, +don't you have certain conclusions to draw?" +She stood up. She looked at the faces around the table. "Gentlemen," +she said, "I do not know by what sort of self-fraud you expect to feel +that if it's I who name the decision you intend to make, it will be I who'll +bear the responsibility for it. Perhaps you believe that if my voice delivers +the final blow, it will make me the murderer involved—since you know that +this is the last act of a long-drawn-out murder. I cannot conceive what it is +you think you can accomplish by a pretense of this kind, and I will not help +you to stage it. The final blow will be delivered by you, as were all the +others." +She turned to go. The chairman half-rose, asking helplessly, "But, Miss +Taggart—" +"Please remain seated. Please continue the discussion—and take the vote in +which I shall have no voice. I shall abstain from voting. Ill stand by, if +you wish me to, but only as an employee. I will not pretend to be anything +else." +She turned away once more, but it was the voice of the gray-haired man +that stopped her. "Miss Taggart, this is not an official question, it is only +my personal curiosity, but would you tell me your view of the future of the +Taggart Transcontinental system?" + + She answered, looking at him in understanding, her voice gentler, "I have +stopped thinking of a future or of a railroad system. I intend to continue +running trains so long as it is still possible to run them. I don't think +that it will be much longer." +She walked away from the table, to the window, to stand aside and let them +continue without her. +She looked at the city. Jim had obtained the permit which allowed them the +use of electric power to the top of the Taggart Building. +From the height of the room, the city looked like a flattened remnant, +with but a few rare, lonely streaks of lighted glass still rising through the +darkness to the sky. +She did not listen to the voices of the men behind her. She did not know +for how long the broken snatches of their struggle kept rolling past her—the +sounds that nudged and prodded one another, trying to edge back and leave +someone pushed forward���a struggle, not to assert one's own will, but to +squeeze an assertion from some unwilling victim —a battle in which the +decision was to be pronounced, not by the winner, but by the loser: "It seems +to me . . . It is, I think . . . It must, in my opinion . . . +If we were to suppose . . . I am merely suggesting . . . I am not +implying, but . . . If we consider both sides . . . It is, in my opinion, +indubitable . . . It seems to me to be an unmistakable fact . . ." +She did not know whose voice it was, but she heard it when the voice +pronounced: ". . . and, therefore, I move that the John Galt Line be closed." +Something, she thought, had made him call the Line by its right name. +You had to bear it, too, generations ago—it was just as hard for you, just +as bad, but you did not let it stop you—was it really as bad as this? as +ugly?—never mind, it's different forms, but it's only pain, and you were not +stopped by pain, not by whatever kind it was that you had to bear—you were +not stopped—you did not give in to it—you faced it and this is the kind I +have to face—you fought and I will have to —you did it—I will try . . . She +heard, in her own mind, the quiet intensity of the words of dedication—and it +was some time before she realized that she was speaking to Nat Taggart. +The next voice she heard was Mr. Weatherby's: "Wait a minute, boys. +Do you happen to remember that you need to obtain permission before you +can close a branch line?" +"Good God, Clem!" Taggart's cry was open panic. "Surely there's not going +to be any trouble about—" +"I wouldn't be too sure of it. Don't forget that you're a public service +and you're expected to provide transportation, whether you make money or +not." +"But you know that it's impossible!" +"Well, that's fine for you, that solves your problem, if you close that +Line—but what will it do to us? Leaving a whole state like Colorado +practically without transportation—what sort of public sentiment will it +arouse? Now, of course, if you gave Wesley something in return, to balance +it, if you granted the unions' wage raises—" +"I can't! I gave my word to the National Alliance!" +"Your word? Well, suit yourself; We wouldn't want to force the Alliance. +We much prefer to have things happen voluntarily. But these are difficult +times and it's hard telling what's liable to happen. With everybody going +broke and the tax receipts falling, we might—fact being that we hold well +over fifty per cent of the Taggart bonds—we might be compelled to call for +the payment of railroad bonds within six months." +"What?!" screamed Taggart. +"—or sooner." + + "But you can't! Oh God, you can't! It was understood that the moratorium +was for five years! It was a contract, an obligation! We were counting on +it!" +"An obligation? Aren't you old-fashioned, Jim? There aren't any +obligations, except the necessity of the moment. The original owners of those +bonds were counting on their payments, too." +Dagny burst out laughing. +She could not stop herself, she could not resist it, she could not reject +a moment's chance to avenge Ellis Wyatt, Andrew Stockton, Lawrence Hammond, +all the others. She said, torn by laughter: "Thanks, Mr. Weatherby!" +Mr. Weatherby looked at her in astonishment. "Yes?" he asked coldly. +"I knew that we would have to pay for those bonds one way or another. +We're paying." +"Miss Taggart," said the chairman severely, "don't you think that I toldyou-so's are futile? To talk of what would have happened if we had acted +differently is nothing but purely theoretical speculation. We cannot indulge +in theory, we have to deal with the practical reality of the moment." +"Right," said Mr. Weatherby. "That's what you ought to be—practical. Now +we offer you a trade. You do something for us and we'll do something for you. +You give the unions their wage raises and we'll give you permission to close +the Rio Norte Line." +"All right," said James Taggart, his voice choked. +Standing at the window, she heard them vote on their decision. She heard +them declare that the John Galt Line would end in six weeks, on March 31. +It's only a matter of getting through the next few moments, she thought; +take care of the next few moments, and then the next, a few at a time, and +after a while it will be easier; you'll get over it, after a while. +The assignment she gave herself for the next few moments was to put on her +coat and be first to leave the room. +Then there was the assignment of riding in an elevator down the great, +silent length of the Taggart Building. Then there was the assignment of +crossing the dark lobby. +Halfway through the lobby, she stopped. A man stood leaning against the +wall, in a manner of purposeful waiting—and it was she who was his purpose, +because he was looking straight at her. She did not recognize him at once, +because she felt certain that the face she saw could not possibly be there in +that lobby at this hour. +"Hi, Slug," he said softly. +She answered, groping for some great distance that had once been hers, +"Hi, Frisco." +"Have they finally murdered John Galt?" +She struggled to place the moment into some orderly sequence of time. The +question belonged to the present, but the solemn face came from those days on +the hill by the Hudson when he would have understood all that the question +meant to her. +"How did you know that they'd do it tonight?" she asked. +"It's been obvious for months that that would be the next step at their +next meeting." +"Why did you come here?" +"To see how you'd take it." +"Want to laugh about it?" +"No, Dagny, I don't want to laugh about it." +She saw no hint of amusement in his face; she answered trustingly, "I +don't know how I'm taking it." +"I do." + + "I was expecting it, I knew they'd have to do it, so now it's only a +matter of getting through"—tonight, she wanted to say, but said—"all the work +and details." +He took her arm. "Let's go some place where we can have a drink together." +"Francisco, why don't you laugh at me? You've always laughed about that +Line." +"I will—tomorrow, when I see you going on with all the work and details. +Not tonight." +"Why not?" +"Come on. You're in no condition to talk about it." +"I—" She wanted to protest, but said, "No, I guess I'm not." +He led her out to the street, and she found herself walking silently in +time with the steady rhythm of his steps, the grasp of his fingers on her arm +unstressed and firm. He signaled a passing taxicab and held the door open for +her. She obeyed him without questions; she felt relief, like a swimmer who +stops struggling. The spectacle of a man acting with assurance, was a life +belt thrown to her at a moment when she had forgotten the hope of its +existence. The relief was not in the surrender of responsibility, but in the +sight of a man able to assume it. +"Dagny," he said, looking at the city as it moved past their taxi window, +"think of the first man who thought of making a steel girder. He knew what he +saw, what he thought and what he wanted. He did not say, 'It seems to me,' +and he did not take orders from those who say, 'In my opinion.'" +She chuckled, wondering at his accuracy: he had guessed the nature of the +sickening sense that held her, the sense of a swamp which she had to escape. +"Look around you," he said. "A city is the frozen shape of human courage— +the courage of those men who thought for the first time of every bolt, rivet +and power generator that went to make it. The courage to say, not 'It seems +to me,' but 'It is'—and to stake one's life on one's judgment. You're not +alone. Those men exist. They have always existed. There was a time when human +beings crouched in caves, at the mercy of any pestilence and any storm. Could +men such as those on your Board of Directors have brought them out of the +cave and up to this?" He pointed at the city. +"God, no!" +"Then there's your proof that another kind of men do exist." +"Yes," she said avidly. "Yes." +"Think of them and forget your Board of Directors." +"Francisco, where are they now—the other kind of men?" +"Now they're not wanted." +"I want them. Oh God, how I want them!" +"When you do, you'll find them." +He did not question her about the John Galt Line and she did not speak of +it, until they sat at a table in a dimly lighted booth and she saw the stem +of a glass between her fingers. She had barely noticed how they had come +here. It was a quiet, costly place that looked like a secret retreat; she saw +a small, lustrous table under her hand, the leather of a circular seat behind +her shoulders, and a niche of dark blue mirror that cut them off from the +sight of whatever enjoyment or pain others had come here to hide. Francisco +was leaning against the table, watching her, and she felt as if she were +leaning against the steady attentiveness of his eyes. +They did not speak of the Line, but she said suddenly, looking down at the +liquid in her glass: "I'm thinking of the night when Nat Taggart was told +that he had to abandon the bridge he was building. The bridge across the +Mississippi. He had been desperately short of money—because people were +afraid of the bridge, they called it an impractical venture. That morning, he +was told that the river steamboat concerns had filed suit against him, +demanding that his bridge be destroyed as a threat to the public welfare. + + There were three spans of the bridge built, advancing across the river. That +same day, a local mob attacked the structure and set fire to the wooden +scaffolding. His workers deserted him, some because they were scared, some +because they were bribed by the steamboat people, and most of them because he +had had no money to pay them for weeks. Throughout that day, he kept +receiving word that men who had subscribed to buy the stock of the Taggart +Transcontinental Railroad were cancelling their subscriptions, one after +another. Toward evening, a committee, representing two banks that were his +last hope of support, came to see him. It was right there, on the +construction site by the river, in the old railway coach where he lived, with +the door open to the view of the blackened ruin, with the wooden remnants +still smoking over the twisted steel. He had negotiated a loan from those +banks, but the contract had not been signed. The committee told him that he +would have to give up his bridge, because he was certain to lose the suit, +and the bridge would be ordered torn down by the time he completed it. If he +was willing to give it up, they said, and to ferry his passengers across the +river on barges, as other railroads were doing, the contract would stand and +he would get the money to continue his line west on the other shore; if not, +then the loan was off. What was his answer?— +they asked. He did not say a word, he picked up the contract, tore it +across, handed it to them and walked out. He walked to the bridge, along the +spans, down to the last girder. He knelt, he picked up the tools his men had +left and he started to clear the charred wreckage away from the steel +structure. His chief engineer saw him there, axe in hand, alone over the wide +river, with the sun setting behind him in that west where his line was to go. +He worked there all night. By morning, he had thought out a plan of what he +would do to find the right men, the men of independent judgment—to find them, +to convince them, to raise the money, to continue the bridge." +She spoke in a low, flat voice, looking down at the spot of light that +shimmered in the liquid as her fingers turned the stem of her glass once in a +while. She showed no emotion, but her voice had the intense monotone of a +prayer: "Francisco . . . if he could live through that night, what right have +I to complain? What does it matter, how I feel just now? He built that +bridge, I have to hold it for him. I can't let it go the way of the bridge of +the Atlantic Southern. I feel almost as if he'd know it, if I let that +happen, he'd know it that night when he was alone over the river . . . no, +that's nonsense, but here's what I feel: any man who knows what Nat Taggart +felt that night, any man living now and capable of knowing it—it's him that I +would betray if I let it happen . . . and I can't." +"Dagny, if Nat Taggart were living now, what would he do?" +She answered involuntarily, with a swift, bitter chuckle, "He wouldn't +last a minute!"—then corrected herself: "No, he would. He would find a way to +fight them." +"How?" +"I don't know." +She noticed some tense, cautious quality in the attentive way he watched +her as he leaned forward and asked, "Dagny, the men of your Board of +Directors are no match for Nat Taggart, are they? There's no form of contest +in which they could beat him, there's nothing he'd have to fear from them, +there's no mind, no will, no power in the bunch of them to equal onethousandth of his." +"No, of course not." +"Then why is it that throughout men's history the Nat Taggarts, who make +the world, have always won—and always lost it to the men of the Board?" +"I . . . don't know." +"How could men who're afraid to hold an unqualified opinion about the +weather, fight Nat Taggart? How could they seize his achievement, if he chose + + to defend it? Dagny, he fought with every weapon he possessed, except the +most important one. They could not have won, if we —he and the rest of us—had +not given the world away to them." +"Yes, You gave it away to them. Ellis Wyatt did. Ken Danagger did, I +won't." +He smiled. "Who built the John Galt Line for them?" +He saw only the faintest contraction of her mouth, but he knew that the +question was like a blow across an open wound. Yet she answered quietly, "I +did." +"For this kind of end?" +"For the men who did not hold out, would not fight and gave up." +"Don't you see that no other end was possible?" +"No." +"How much injustice are you willing to take?" +"As much as I'm able to fight." +"What will you do now? Tomorrow?" +She said calmly, looking straight at him with the faintly proud look of +stressing her calm, "Start to tear it up." +"What?" +"The John Galt Line. Start to tear it up as good as with my own hands—with +my own mind, by my own instructions. Get it ready to be closed, then tear it +up and use its pieces to reinforce the transcontinental track. There's a lot +of work to do. It will keep me busy." The calm cracked a little, in the +faintest change of her voice: "You know, I'm looking forward to it. I'm glad +that I'll have to do it myself. +That's why Nat Taggart worked all that night—just to keep going. It's not +so bad as long as there's something one can do. And I'll know, at least, that +I'm saving the main line." +"Dagny," he asked very quietly—and she wondered what made her feel that he +looked as if his personal fate hung on her answer, "what if it were the main +line that you had to dismember?" +She answered irresistibly, "Then I'd let the last engine run over me!" +—but added, "No. That's just self-pity. I wouldn't." +He said gently, "I know you wouldn't. But you'd wish you could." +"Yes." +He smiled, not looking at her; it was a mocking smile, but it was a smile +of pain and the mockery was directed at himself. She wondered what made her +certain of it; but she knew his face so well that she would always know what +he felt, even though she could not guess his reasons any longer. She knew his +face as well, she thought, as she knew every line of his body, as she could +still see it, as she was suddenly aware of it under his clothes, a few feet +away, in the crowding intimacy of the booth. He turned to look at her and +some sudden change in his eyes made her certain that he knew what she was +thinking. He looked away and picked up his glass. +"Well—" he said, "to Nat Taggart." +"And to Sebastian d'Anconia?" she asked—then regretted it, because it had +sounded like mockery, which she had not intended. +But she saw a look of odd, bright clarity in his eyes and he answered +firmly, with the faintly proud smile of stressing his firmness, "Yes—and to +Sebastian d'Anconia," +Her hand trembled a little and she spilled a few drops on the square of +paper lace that lay on the dark, shining plastic of the table. She watched +him empty his glass in a single gesture; the brusque, brief movement of his +hand made it look like the gesture of some solemn pledge. +She thought suddenly that this was the first time in twelve years that he +had come to her of his own choice. + + He had acted as if he were confidently in control, as if his confidence +were a transfusion to let her recapture hers, he had given her no time to +wonder that they should be here together. Now she felt, unaccountably, that +the reins he had held were gone. It was only the silence of a few blank +moments and the motionless outline of his forehead, cheekbone and mouth, as +he sat with his face turned away from her— +but she felt as if it were he who was now struggling for something he had +to recapture. +She wondered what had been his purpose tonight—and noticed that he had, +perhaps, accomplished it: he had carried her over the worst moment, he had +given her an invaluable defense against despair—the knowledge that a living +intelligence had heard her and understood. But why had he wanted to do it? +Why had he cared about her hour of despair—after the years of agony he had +given her? Why had it mattered to him how she would take the death of the +John Galt Line? She noticed that this was the question she had not asked him +in the lobby of the Taggart Building. +This was the bond between them, she thought: that she would never be +astonished if he came when she needed him most, and that he would always know +when to come. This was the danger: that she would trust him even while +knowing that it could be nothing but some new kind of trap, even while +remembering that he would always betray those who trusted him. +He sat, leaning forward with his arms crossed on the table, looking +straight ahead. He said suddenly, not turning to her: "1 am thinking of the +fifteen years that Sebastian d'Anconia had to wait for the woman he loved. He +did not know whether he would ever find her again, whether she would survive +. . . whether she would wait for him. But he knew that she could not live +through his battle and that he could not call her to him until it was won. So +he waited, holding his love in the place of the hope which he had no right to +hold. +But when he carried her across the threshold of his house, as the first +Senora d'Anconia of a new world, he knew that the battle was won, that they +were free, that nothing threatened her and nothing would ever hurt her +again." +In the days of their passionate happiness, he had never given her a hint +that he would come to think of her as Senora d'Anconia. For one moment, she +wondered whether she had known what she had meant to him. But the moment +ended in an invisible shudder: she would not believe that the past twelve +years could allow the things she was hearing to be possible. This was the new +trap, she thought. +"Francisco," she asked, her voice hard, "what have you done to Hank +Rearden?" +He looked startled that she should think of that name at that moment +"Why?" he asked. +"He told me once that you were the only man he'd ever liked. But last time +I saw him, he said that he would kill you on sight." +"He did not tell you why?" +"No." +“He told you nothing about it?" +"No." She saw him smiling strangely, a smile of sadness, gratitude and +longing. "I warned him that you would hurt him—when he told me that you were +the only man he liked." +His words came like a sudden explosion: "He was the only man— +with one exception—to whom I could have given my life!" +"Who is the exception?" +"The man to whom I have." +"What do you mean?" + + He shook his head, as if he had said more than he intended, and did not +answer. +"What did you do to Rearden?" +"I'll tell you some time. Not now." +"Is that what you always do to those who . . . mean a great deal to you?" +He looked at her with a smile that had the luminous sincerity of innocence +and pain. "You know," he said gently, "I could say that that is what they +always do to me." He added, "But I won't. The actions—and the knowledge—were +mine." +He stood up. "Shall we go? I'll take you home." +She rose and he held her coat for her; it was a wide, loose garment, and +his hands guided it to enfold her body. She felt his arm remain about her +shoulders a moment longer than he intended her to notice. +She glanced back at him. But he was standing oddly still, staring intently +down at the table. In rising, they had brushed aside the mats of paper lace +and she saw an inscription cut into the plastic of the table top. Attempts +had been made to erase it, but the inscription remained, as the graven voice +of some unknown drunk's despair: "Who is John Galt?" +With a brusque movement of anger, she flicked the mat back to cover the +words. He chuckled. +"I can answer it," he said. "I can tell you who is John Galt." +"Really? Everybody seems to know him, but they never tell the same story +twice." +"They're all true, though—all the stories you've heard about him." +"Well, what's yours? Who is he?" +"John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being +torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, +he broke his chains and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw +their vultures." +The band of crossties swept in wide curves around granite corners, +clinging to the mountainsides of Colorado. Dagny walked down the ties, +keeping her hands in her coat pockets, and her eyes on the meaningless +distance ahead; only the familiar movement of straining her steps to the +spacing of the ties gave her the physical sense of an action pertaining to a +railroad. +A gray cotton, which was neither quite fog nor clouds, hung in sloppy wads +between sky and mountains, making the sky look like an old mattress spilling +its stuffing down the sides of the peaks. A crusted snow covered the ground, +belonging neither to winter nor to spring. A net of moisture hung in the air, +and she felt an icy pin-prick on her face once in a while, which was neither +a raindrop nor a snowflake. +The weather seemed afraid to take a stand and clung noncommittally to some +sort of road's middle; Board of Directors' weather, she thought. +The light seemed drained and she could not tell whether this was the +afternoon or the evening of March 31. But she was very certain that it was +March 31; that was a certainty not to be escaped. +She had come to Colorado with Hank Rearden, to buy whatever machinery +could still be found in the closed factories. It had been like a hurried +search through the sinking hulk of a great ship before it was to vanish out +of reach. They could have given the task to employees, but they had come, +both prompted by the same unconfessed motive: they could not resist the +desire to attend the run of the last train, as one cannot resist the desire +to give a last salute by attending a funeral, even while knowing that it is +only an act of self-torture. +They had been buying machinery from doubtful owners in sales of dubious +legality, since nobody could tell who had the right to dispose of the great, +dead properties, and nobody would come to challenge the transactions. They + + had bought everything that could be moved from the gutted plant of Nielsen +Motors. Ted Nielsen had quit and vanished, a week after the announcement that +the Line was to be closed. +She had felt like a scavenger, but the activity of the hunt had made her +able to bear these past few days. When she had found that three empty hours +remained before the departure of the last train, she had gone to walk through +the countryside, to escape the stillness of the town. She had walked at +random through twisting mountain trails, alone among rocks and snow, trying +to substitute motion for thought, knowing that she had to get through this +day without thinking of the summer when she had ridden the engine of the +first train. +But she found herself walking back along the roadbed of the John Galt +Line—and she knew that she had intended it, that she had gone out for that +purpose. +It was a spur track which had already been dismembered. There were no +signal lights, no switches, no telephone wires, nothing but a long band of +wooden strips left on the ground—a chain of ties without rail, like the +remnant of a spine—and, as its lonely guardian, at an abandoned grade +crossing, a pole with slanted arms saying: "Stop. +Look. Listen." +An early darkness mixed with fog was slipping down to fill the valleys, +when she came upon the factory. There was an inscription high on the lustrous +tile of its front wall: "Roger Marsh. Electrical Appliances." The man who had +wanted to chain himself to his desk in order not to leave this, she thought. +The building stood intact, like a corpse in that instant when its eyes have +just closed and one still waits to see them open again. She felt that the +lights would flare up at any moment behind the great sheets of windows, under +the long, flat roofs. Then she saw one broken pane, pierced by a stone for +some young moron's enjoyment—and she saw the tall, dry stem of a single weed +rising from the steps of the main entrance. Hit by a sudden, blinding hatred, +in rebellion against the weed's impertinence, knowing of what enemy this was +the scout, she ran forward, she fell on her knees and jerked the weed up by +its roots. Then, kneeling on the steps of a closed factory, looking at the +vast silence of mountains, brush and dusk, she thought: What do you think +you're doing? +It was almost dark when she reached the end of the ties that led her back +to the town of Marshville. Marshville had been the end of the Line for months +past; service to Wyatt Junction had been discontinued long ago; Dr. Ferris' +Reclamation Project had been abandoned this winter. +The street lights were on, and they hung in mid-air at the intersections, +in a long, diminishing line of yellow globes over the empty streets of +Marshville. All the better homes were closed—the neat, sturdy houses of +modest cost, well built and well kept; there were faded "For Sale" signs on +their lawns. But she saw lights in the windows of the cheap, garish +structures that had acquired, within a few years, the slovenly dilapidation +of slum hovels; the homes of people who had not moved, the people who never +looked beyond the span of one week. She saw a large new television set in the +lighted room of a house with a sagging roof and cracking walls. She wondered +how long they expected the electric power companies of Colorado to remain in +existence. Then she shook her head: those people had never known that power +companies existed. +The main street of Marshville was lined by the black windows of shops out +of business. All the luxury stores are gone—she thought, looking at their +signs; and then she shuddered, realizing what things she now called luxury, +realizing to what extent and in what manner those things, once available to +the poorest, had been luxuries: Dry Cleaning—Electrical Appliances—Gas + + Station—Drug Store—Five and Ten. The only ones left open were grocery stores +and saloons. +The platform of the railroad station was crowded. The glaring arc lights +seemed to pick it out of the mountains, to isolate and focus it, like a small +stage on which every movement was naked to the sight of the unseen tiers +rising in the vast, encircling night. People were carting luggage, bundling +their children, haggling at ticket windows, the stifled panic of their manner +suggesting that what they really wanted to do was to fall down on the ground +and scream with terror. Their terror had the evasive quality of guilt: it was +not the fear that comes from understanding, but from the refusal to +understand. +The last train stood at the platform, its windows a long, lone streak of +light. The steam of the locomotive, gasping tensely through the wheels, did +not have its usual joyous sound of energy released for a sprint; it had the +sound of a panting breath that one dreads to hear and dreads more to stop +hearing. Far at the end of the lighted windows, she saw the small red dot of +a lantern attached to her private car. Beyond the lantern, there was nothing +but a black void. +The train was loaded to capacity, and the shrill notes of hysteria in the +confusion of voices were the pleas for space in vestibules and aisles. Some +people were not leaving, but stood in vapid curiosity, watching the show; +they had come, as if knowing that this was the last event they would ever +witness in their community and, perhaps, in their lives. +She walked hastily through the crowd, trying not to look at anyone. +Some knew who she was, most of them did not. She saw an old woman with a +ragged shawl on her shoulders and the graph of a lifetime's struggle on the +cracked skin of her face; the woman's glance was a hopeless appeal for help. +An unshaved young man with gold-rimmed glasses stood on a crate under an arc +light, yelling to the faces shifting past him, "What do they mean, no +business! Look at that train! It's full of passengers! There's plenty of +business! It's just that there's no profits for them—that's why they're +letting you perish, those greedy parasites!" A disheveled woman rushed up to +Dagny, waving two tickets and screaming something about the wrong date. Dagny +found herself pushing people out of the way, fighting to reach the end of the +train—but an emaciated man, with the staring eyes of years of malicious +futility, rushed at her, shouting, "It's all right for you, you've got a good +overcoat and a private car, but you won't give us any trains, you and all the +selfish—" +He stopped abruptly, looking at someone behind her. She felt a hand +grasping her elbow: it was Hank Rearden. He held her arm and led her toward +her car; seeing the look on his face, she understood why people got out of +their way. At the end of the platform, a pallid, plumpish man stood saying to +a crying woman, "That's how it's always been in this world. There will be no +chance for the poor, until the rich are destroyed." High above the town, +hanging in black space like an uncooled planet, the flame of Wyatt's Torch +was twisting in the wind. +Rearden went inside her car, but she remained on the steps of the +vestibule, delaying the finality of turning away. She heard the "All aboard!" +She looked at the people who remained on the platform as one looks at those +who watch the departure of the last lifeboat. +The conductor stood below, at the foot of the steps, with his lantern in +one hand and his watch in the other. He glanced at the watch, then glanced up +at her face. She answered by the silent affirmation of closing her eyes and +inclining her head. She saw his lantern circling through the air, as she +turned away—and the first jolt of the wheels, on the rails of Rearden Metal, +was made easier for her by the sight of Rearden, as she pulled the door open +and went into her car. + + When James Taggart telephoned Lillian Rearden from New York and said, +"Why, no—no special reason, just wondered how you were and whether you ever +came to the city—haven't seen you for ages and just thought we might have +lunch together next time you're in New York"—she knew that he had some very +special reason in mind. +When she answered lazily, "Oh, let me see—what day is this? April second?— +let me look at my calendar—why, it just so happens that I have some shopping +to do in New York tomorrow, so I'll be delighted to let you save me my lunch +money"—he knew that she had no shopping to do and that the luncheon would be +the only purpose of her trip to the city. +They met in a distinguished, high-priced restaurant, much too +distinguished and high-priced ever to be mentioned in the gossip columns; not +the kind of place which James Taggart, always eager for personal publicity, +was in the habit of patronizing; he did not want them to be seen together, +she concluded. +The half-hint of half-secret amusement remained on her face while she +listened to him talking about their friends, the theater and the weather, +carefully building for himself the protection of the unimportant. She sat +gracefully not quite straight, as if she were leaning back, enjoying the +futility of his performance and the fact that he had to stage it for her +benefit. She waited with patient curiosity to discover his purpose. +"I do think that you deserve a pat on the back or a medal or something, +Jim," she said, "for being remarkably cheerful in spite of all the messy +trouble you're having. Didn't you just close the best branch of your +railroad?" +"Oh, it's only a slight financial setback, nothing more. One has to expect +retrenchments at a time like this. Considering the general state of the +country, we're doing quite well. Better than the rest of them." He added, +shrugging, "Besides, it's a matter of opinion whether the Rio Norte Line was +our best branch. It is only my sister who thought so. +It was her pet project." +She caught the tone of pleasure blurring the drawl of his syllables. +She smiled and said, "I see." +Looking up at her from under his lowered forehead, as if stressing that he +expected her to understand, Taggart asked, "How is he taking it?" +"Who?" She understood quite well. +"Your husband.” +"Taking what?" +"The closing of that Line." +She smiled gaily. "Your guess is as good as mine, Jim—and mine is very +good indeed," +"What do you mean?" +"You know how he would take it—just as you know how your sister is taking +it. So your cloud has a double silver lining, hasn't it?" +"What has he been saying in the last few days?" +"He's been away in Colorado for over a week, so I—" She stopped; she had +started answering lightly, but she noticed that Taggart's question had been +too specific while his tone had been too casual, and she realized that he had +struck the first note leading toward the purpose of the luncheon; she paused +for the briefest instant, then finished, still more lightly, "so I wouldn't +know. But he's coming back any day now." +"Would you say that his attitude is still what one might call +recalcitrant?" +"Why, Jim, that would be an understatement!" +"It was to be hoped that events had, perhaps, taught him the wisdom of a +mellower approach." + + It amused her to keep him in doubt about her understanding. "Oh yes," she +said innocently, "it would be wonderful if anything could ever make him +change." +"He is making things exceedingly hard for himself." +"He always has." +"But events have a way of beating us all into a more . . . pliable frame +of mind, sooner or later." +"I've heard many characteristics ascribed to him, but 'pliable' has never +been one of them." +"Well, things change and people change with them. After all, it is a law +of nature that animals must adapt themselves to their background. +And I might add that adaptability is the one characteristic most +stringently required at present by laws other than those of nature. We're in +for a very difficult time, and I would hate to see you suffer the +consequences of his intransigent attitude. I would hate—as your friend—to see +you in the kind of danger he's headed for, unless he learns to cooperate." +"How sweet of you, Jim," she said sweetly. +He was doling his sentences out with cautious slowness, balancing himself +between word and intonation to hit the right degree of semi clarity. He +wanted her to understand, but he did not want her to understand fully, +explicitly, down to the root—since the essence of that modern language, which +he had learned to speak expertly, was never to let oneself or others +understand anything down to the root. +He had not needed many words to understand Mr. Weatherby. On his last trip +to Washington, he had pleaded with Mr. Weatherby that a cut in the rates of +the railroads would be a deathblow; the wage raises had been granted, but the +demands for the cut in rates were still heard in the press—and Taggart had +known what it meant, if Mr. Mouch still permitted them to be heard; he had +known that the knife was still poised at his throat. Mr. Weatherby had not +answered his pleas, but had said, in a tone of idly irrelevant speculation, +"Wesley has so many tough problems. If he is to give everybody a breathing +spell, financially speaking, he's got to put into operation a certain +emergency program of which you have some inkling. But you know what hell the +unprogressive elements of the country would raise about it. A man like +Rearden, for instance. We don't want any more stunts of the sort he's liable +to pull. Wesley would give a lot for somebody who could keep Rearden in line. +But I guess that's something nobody can deliver. +Though I may be wrong. You may know better, Jim, since Rearden is a sort +of friend of yours, who comes to your parties and all that." +Looking at Lillian across the table, Taggart said, "Friendship, I find, is +the most valuable thing in life—and I would be amiss if I didn't give you +proof of mine." +"But I've never doubted it." +He lowered his voice to the tone of an ominous warning: "I think I should +tell you, as a favor to a friend, although it's confidential, that your +husband's attitude is being discussed in high places—very high places. I'm +sure you know what I mean." +This was why he hated Lillian Rearden, thought Taggart: she knew the game, +but she played it with unexpected variations of her own. It was against all +rules to look at him suddenly, to laugh in his face, and —after all those +remarks showing that she understood too little—to say bluntly, showing that +she understood too much, "Why, darling, of course I know what you mean. You +mean that the purpose of this very excellent luncheon was not a favor you +wanted to do me, but a favor you wanted to get from me. You mean that it's +you who are in danger and could use that favor to great advantage for a trade +in high places. + + And you mean that you are reminding me of my promise to deliver the +goods." +"The sort of performance he put on at his trial was hardly what I'd call +delivering the goods," he said angrily. "It wasn't what you had led me to +expect." +"Oh my, no, it wasn't," she said placidly. "It certainly wasn't. But, +darling, did you expect me not to know that after that performance of his he +wouldn't be very popular in high places? Did you really think you had to tell +me that as a confidential favor?" +"But it's true. I heard him discussed, so I thought I'd tell you." +"I'm sure it's true. I know that they would be discussing him. I know also +that if there were anything they could do to him, they would have done it +right after his trial. My, would they have been glad to do it! So I know that +he's the only one among you who is in no danger whatever, at the moment. I +know that it's they who are afraid of him. Do you see how well I understand +what you mean, darling?" +"Well, if you think you do, I must say that for my part I don't understand +you at all. I don't know what it is you're doing." +"Why, I'm just setting things straight—so that you'll know that I know how +much you need me. And now that it's straight, I'll tell you the truth in my +turn: I didn't double-cross you, I merely failed. His performance at the +trial—I didn't expect it any more than you did. +Less. I had good reason not to expect it. But something went wrong. +I don't know what it was. I am trying to find out. When I do, I will keep +my promise. Then you'll be free to take full credit for it and to tell your +friends in high places that it's you who've disarmed him." +"Lillian," he said nervously, "I meant it when I said that I was anxious +to give you proof of my friendship—so if there's anything-1 can do for—" +She laughed. "There isn't. I know you meant it. But there's nothing you +can do for me. No favor of any kind. No trade. I'm a truly noncommercial +person, I want nothing in return. Tough luck, Jim. You'll just have to remain +at my mercy." +"But then why should you want to do it at all? What are you getting out of +it?" +She leaned back, smiling. "This lunch. Just seeing you here. Just knowing +that you had to come to me." +An angry spark flashed in Taggart's veiled eyes, then his eyelids narrowed +slowly and he, too, leaned back in his chair, his face relaxing to a faint +look of mockery and satisfaction. Even from within that unstated, unnamed, +undefined muck which represented his code of values, he was able to realize +which one of them was the more dependent on the other and the more +contemptible. +When they parted at the door of the restaurant, she went to Rearden's +suite at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, where she stayed occasionally in his +absence. She paced the room for about half an hour, in a leisurely manner of +reflection. Then she picked up the telephone, with a smoothly casual gesture, +but with the purposeful air of a decision reached. She called Rearden's +office at the mills and asked Miss Ives when she expected him to return. +"Mr. Rearden will be in New York tomorrow, arriving on the Comet, Mrs. +Rearden," said Miss Ives' clear, courteous voice. +"Tomorrow? That's wonderful. Miss Ives, would you do me a favor? +Would you call Gertrude at the house and tell her not to expect me for +dinner? I'm staying in New York overnight." +She hung up, glanced at her watch and called the florist of the WayneFalkland. "This is Mrs. Henry Rearden," she said. "I should like to have two +dozen roses delivered to Mr. Rearden's drawing room aboard the Comet. . . . + + Yes, today, this afternoon, when the Comet reaches Chicago. . . . No, without +any card—just the flowers. . . . +Thank you ever so much." +She telephoned James Taggart. "Jim, will you send me a pass to your +passenger platforms? I want to meet my husband at the station tomorrow." +She hesitated between Balph Eubank and Bertram Scudder, chose Balph +Eubank, telephoned him and made a date for this evening's dinner and a +musical show. Then she went to take a bath1, and lay relaxing in a tub of +warm water, reading a magazine devoted to problems of political economy. +It was late afternoon when the florist telephoned her. "Our Chicago office +sent word that they were unable to deliver the flowers, Mrs. +Rearden," he said, "because Mr. Rearden is not aboard the Comet." +"Are you sure?" she asked. +"Quite sure, Mrs. Rearden. Our man found at the station in Chicago that +there was no compartment on the train reserved in Mr. Rearden's name. We +checked with the New York office of Taggart Transcontinental, just to make +certain, and were told that Mr. Rearden's name is not on the passenger list +of the Comet." +"I see. . . . Then cancel the order, please. . . . Thank you." +She sat by the telephone for a moment, frowning, then called Miss Ives. +"Please forgive me for being slightly scatterbrained, Miss Ives, but I was +rushed and did not write it down, and now I'm not quite certain of what you +said. Did you say that Mr. Rearden was coming back tomorrow? On the Comet?" +"Yes, Mrs. Rearden." +"You have not heard of any delay or change in his plans?" +"Why, no. In fact, I spoke to Mr. Rearden about an hour ago. He telephoned +from the station in Chicago, and he mentioned that he had to hurry back +aboard, as the Comet was about to leave." +"I see. Thank you." +She leaped to her feet as soon as the click of the instrument restored her +to privacy. She started pacing the room, her steps now unrhythmically tense. +Then she stopped, struck by a sudden thought. +There was only one reason why a man would make a train reservation under +an assumed name: if he was not traveling alone. +Her facial muscles went flowing slowly into a smile of satisfaction: this +was an opportunity she had not expected. +Standing on the Terminal platform, at a point halfway down the length of +the train, Lillian Rearden watched the passengers descending from the Comet. +Her mouth held the hint of a smile; there was a spark of animation in her +lifeless eyes; she glanced from one face to another, jerking her head with +the awkward eagerness of a schoolgirl. +She was anticipating the look on Rearden's face when, with his mistress +beside him, he would see her standing there. +Her glance darted hopefully to every flashy young female stepping off the +train. It was hard to watch: within an instant after the first few figures, +the train had seemed to burst at the seams, flooding the platform with a +solid current that swept in one direction, as if pulled by a vacuum; she +could barely distinguish separate persons. The lights were more glare than +illumination, picking this one strip out of a dusty, oily darkness. She +needed an effort to stand still against the invisible pressure of motion. +Her first sight of Rearden in the crowd came as a shock: she had not seen +him step out of a car, but there he was, walking in her direction from +somewhere far down the length of the train. He was alone. He was walking with +his usual purposeful speed, his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. There +was no woman beside him, no companion of any kind, except a porter hurrying +along with a bag she recognized as his. + + In a fury of incredulous disappointment, she looked frantically for any +single feminine figure he could, have left behind. She felt certain that she +would recognize his choice. She saw none that could be possible. And then she +saw that the last car of the train was a private car, and that the figure +standing at its door, talking to some station official— +a figure wearing, not minks and veils, but a rough sports coat that +stressed the incomparable grace of a slender body in the confident posture of +this station's owner and center—was Dagny Taggart. Then Lillian Rearden +understood. +"Lillian! What's the matter?" +She heard Rearden's voice, she felt his hand grasping her arm, she saw him +looking at her as one looks at the object of a sudden emergency. He was +looking at a blank face and an unfocused glance of terror. +"What happened? What are you doing here?" +"I . . . Hello, Henry . . . I just came to meet you . . . No special +reason . . . I just wanted to meet you." The terror was gone from her face, +but she spoke in a strange, flat voice. "I wanted to see you, it was an +impulse, a sudden impulse and I couldn't resist it, because—" +"But you look . . . looked ill." +"No . . . No, maybe I felt faint, it's stuffy here. . . . I couldn't +resist coming, because it made me think of the days when you would have been +glad to see me . . . it was a moment's illusion to recreate for myself. . . +." The words sounded like a memorized lesson. +She knew that she had to speak, while her mind was fighting to grasp the +full meaning of her discovery. The words were part of the plan she had +intended to use, if she had met him after he had found the roses in his +compartment. +He did not answer, he stood watching her, frowning. +"I missed you, Henry, I know what I am confessing. But I don't expect it +to mean anything to you any longer." The words did not fit the tight face, +the lips that moved with effort, the eyes that kept glancing away from him +down the length of the platform. "I wanted . . . I merely wanted to surprise +you." A look of shrewdness and purpose was returning to her face. +He took her arm, but she drew back, a little too sharply. +"Aren't you going to say a word to me, Henry?" +"What do you wish me to say?” +"Do you hate it as much as that—having your wife come to meet you at the +station?" She glanced down the platform: Dagny Taggart was walking toward +them; he did not see her. +"Let's go," he said. +She would not move. "Do you?" she asked. +"What?" +"Do you hate it?" +"No, I don't hate it. I merely don't understand it." +"Tell me about your trip. I'm sure you've had a very enjoyable trip." +"Come on. We can talk at home." +"When do I ever have a chance to talk to you at home?" She was drawling +her words impassively, as if she were stretching them to fill time, for some +reason which he could not imagine. "I had hoped to catch a few moments of +your attention—like this—between trains and business appointments and all +those important matters that hold you day and night, all those great +achievements of yours, such as . . . +Hello, Miss Taggart!" she said sharply, her voice loud and bright. +Rearden whirled around. Dagny was walking past them, but she stopped. +"How do you do," she said to Lillian, bowing, her face expressionless. +"I am so sorry, Miss Taggart," said Lillian, smiling, "you must forgive me +if I don't know the appropriate formula of condolences for the occasion." She + + noted that Dagny and Rearden had not greeted each other. "You're returning +from what was, in effect, the funeral of your child by my husband, aren't +you?" +Dagny's mouth showed a faint line of astonishment and of contempt. +She inclined her head, by way of leave-taking, and walked on. +Lillian glanced sharply at Rearden's face, as if in deliberate emphasis. +He looked at her indifferently, puzzled. +She said nothing. She followed him without a word when he turned to go. +She remained silent in the taxicab, her face half-turned away from him, while +they rode to the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. He felt certain, as he looked at the +tautly twisted set of her mouth, that some uncustomary violence was raging +within her. He had never known her to experience a strong emotion of any +kind. +She whirled to face him, the moment they were alone in his room. +"So that's who it is?" she asked. +He had not expected it. He looked at her, not quite believing that he had +understood it correctly. +"It's Dagny Taggart who's your mistress, isn't she?" +He did not answer. +"I happen to know that you had no compartment on that train. So I know +where you've slept for the last four nights. Do you want to admit it or do +you want me to send detectives to question her train crews and her house +servants? Is it Dagny Taggart?" +"Yes," he answered calmly. +Her mouth twisted into an ugly chuckle; she was staring past him. +"I should have known it. I should have guessed. That's why it didn't +work!" +He asked, in blank bewilderment, "What didn't work?" +She stepped back, as if to remind herself of his presence. "Had you— +when she was in our house, at the party—had you, then . . . ?" +"No. Since." +"The great businesswoman," she said, "above reproach and feminine +weaknesses. The great mind detached from any concern with the body . . ." She +chuckled, "The bracelet . . ." she said, with the still look that made it +sound as if the words were dropped accidentally out of the torrent in her +mind. "That's what she meant to you. That's the weapon she gave you." +"If you really understand what you're saying—yes." +"Do you think I'll let you get away with it?" +"Get away . . . ?" He was looking at her incredulously, in cold, +astonished curiosity. +"That's why, at your trial—" She stopped. +"What about my trial?" +She was trembling. "You know, of course, that I won't allow this to +continue." +"What does it have to do with my trial?" +"I won't permit you to have her. Not her. Anyone but her." +He let a moment pass, then asked evenly, "Why?" +"I won't permit it! You'll give it up!" He was looking at her without +expression, but the steadiness of his eyes hit her as his most dangerous +answer. "You'll give it up, you'll leave her, you'll never see her again!" +"Lillian, if you wish to discuss it, there's one thing you'd better +understand; nothing on earth will make me give it up." +"But I demand it!" +"I told you that you could demand anything but that." +He saw the look of a peculiar panic growing in her eyes: it was not the +look of understanding, but of a ferocious refusal to understand—as if she +wanted to turn the violence of her emotion into a fog screen, as if she + + hoped, not that it would blind her to reality, but that her blindness would +make reality cease to exist. +"But I have the right to demand it! I own your life! It's my property. +My property—by your own oath. You swore to serve my happiness, Not yours— +mine! What have you done for me? You've given me nothing, you've sacrificed +nothing, you've never been concerned with anything but yourself—your work, +your mills, your talent, your mistress! +What about me? I hold first claim! I'm presenting it for collection! +You're the account I own!" +It was the look on his face that drove her up the rising steps of her +voice, scream by scream, into terror. She was seeing, not anger or pain or +guilt, but the one inviolate enemy: indifference. +"Have you thought of me?" she screamed, her voice breaking against his +face. "Have you thought of what you're doing to me? You have no right to go +on, if you know that you're putting me through hell every time you sleep with +that woman! I can't stand it, I can't stand one moment of knowing it! Will +you sacrifice me to your animal desire? Are you as vicious and selfish as +that? Can you buy your pleasure at the price of my suffering? Can you have +it, if this is what it does to me?" +Feeling nothing but the emptiness of wonder, he observed the thing which +he had glimpsed briefly in the past and was now seeing in the full ugliness +of its futility: the spectacle of pleas for pity delivered, in snarling +hatred, as threats and as demands. +"Lillian," he said very quietly, "I would have it, even if it took your +life." +She heard it. She heard more than he was ready to know and to hear in his +own words. The shock, to him, was that she did not scream in answer, but that +he saw her, instead, shrinking down into calm. "You have no right . . ." she +said dully. It had the embarrassing helplessness of the words of a person who +knows her own words to be meaningless. +"Whatever claim you may have on me," he said, "no human being can hold on +another a claim demanding that he wipe himself out of existence." +"Does she mean as much as that to you?" +"Much more than that." +The look of thought was returning to her face, but in her face it had the +quality of a look of cunning. She remained silent. +"Lillian, I'm glad that you know the truth. Now you can make a choice with +full understanding. You may divorce me—or you may ask that we continue as we +are. That is the only choice you have. It is all I can offer you. I think you +know that I want you to divorce me. But I don't ask for sacrifices. I don't +know what sort of comfort you can find in our marriage, but if you do, I +won't ask you to give it up. I don't know why you should want to hold me now, +I don't know what it is that I mean to you, I don't know what you're seeking, +what form of happiness is yours or what you will obtain from a situation +which I see as intolerable for both of us. By every standard of mine, you +should have divorced me long ago. By every standard of mine, to maintain our +marriage will be a vicious fraud. But my standards are not yours. I do not +understand yours, I never have, but I will accept them. If this is the manner +of your love for me, if bearing the name of my wife will give you some form +of contentment, I won't take it away from you. It's I who've broken my word, +so I will atone for it to the extent I can. You know, of course, that I could +buy one of those modern judges and obtain a divorce any time I wished. I +won't do it. I will keep my word, if you so desire, but this is the only form +in which I can keep it. Now make your choice—but if you choose to hold me, +you must never speak to me about her, you must never show her that you know, +if you meet her in the future, you must never touch that part of my life." + + She stood still, looking up at him, the posture of her body slouched and +loose, as if its sloppiness were a form of defiance, as if she did not care +to resume for his sake the discipline of a graceful bearing. +"Miss Dagny Taggart . . ." she said, and chuckled. "The superwoman whom +common, average wives were not supposed to suspect. +The woman who cared for nothing but business and dealt with men as a man. +The woman of great spirit who admired you platonically, just for your genius, +your mills and your Metal!" She chuckled. "I should have known that she was +just a bitch who wanted you in the same way as any bitch would want you— +because you are fully as expert in bed as you are at a desk, if I am a judge +of such matters. But she would appreciate that better than I, since she +worships expertness of any kind and since she has probably been laid by every +section hand on her railroad!" +She stopped, because she saw, for the first time in her life, by what sort +of look one learns that a man is capable of killing. But he was not looking +at her. She was not sure whether he was seeing her at all or hearing her +voice. +He was hearing his own voice saying her words—saying them to Dagny in the +sun-striped bedroom of Ellis Wyatt's house. He was seeing, in the nights +behind him, Dagny's face in those moments when, his body leaving hers, she +lay still with a look of radiance that was more than a smile, a look of +youth, of early morning, of gratitude to the fact of one's own existence. And +he was seeing Lillian's face, as he had seen it in bed beside him, a lifeless +face with evasive eyes, with some feeble sneer on its lips and the look of +sharing some smutty guilt. He saw who was the accuser and who the accused—he +saw the obscenity of letting impotence hold itself as virtue and damn the +power of living as a sin— +he saw, with the clarity of direct perception, in the shock of a single +instant, the terrible ugliness of that which had once been his own belief. +It was only an instant, a conviction without words, a knowledge grasped as +a feeling, left unsealed by his mind. The shock brought him back to the sight +of Lillian and to the sound of her words. She appeared to him suddenly as +some inconsequential presence that had to be dealt with at the moment. +"Lillian," he said, in an unstressed voice that did not grant her even the +honor of anger, "you are not to speak of her to me. If you ever do it again, +I will answer you as I would answer a hoodlum: I will beat you up. Neither +you nor anyone else is to discuss her." +She glanced at him. "Really?" she said. It had an odd, casual sound —as if +the word were tossed away, leaving some hook implanted in her mind. She +seemed to be considering some sudden vision of her own. +He said quietly, in weary astonishment, "I thought you would be glad to +discover the truth. I thought you would prefer to know—for the sake of +whatever love or respect you felt for me—that if I betrayed you, it was not +cheaply and casually, it was not for a chorus girl, but for the cleanest and +most serious feeling of my life." +The ferocious spring with which she whirled to him was involuntary, as was +the naked twist of hatred in her face. "Oh, you goddamn fool!" +He remained silent. +Her composure returned, with the faint suggestion of a smile of secret +mockery. "I believe you're waiting for my answer?" she said. "No, I won't +divorce you. Don't ever hope for that. We shall continue as we are—if that is +what you offered and if you think it can continue. See whether you can flout +all moral principles and get away with it!" +He did not listen to her while she reached for her coat, telling him that +she was going back to their home. He barely noticed it when the door closed +after her. He stood motionless, held by a feeling he had never experienced +before. He knew that he would have to think later, to think and understand, + + but for the moment he wanted nothing but to observe the wonder of what he +felt. +It was a sense of freedom, as if he stood alone in the midst of an endless +sweep of clean air, with only the memory of some weight that had been torn +off his shoulders. It was the feeling of an immense deliverance. It was the +knowledge that it did not matter to him what Lillian felt, what she suffered +or what became of her, and more: not only that it did not matter, but the +shining, guiltless knowledge that it did not have to matter. + + CHAPTER VI +MIRACLE METAL +"But can we get away with it?" asked Wesley Mouch. His voice was high with +anger and thin with fear. +Nobody answered him. James Taggart sat on the edge of an armchair, not +moving, looking up at him from under his forehead, Orren Boyle gave a vicious +tap against an ashtray, shaking the ash off his cigar. Dr. +Floyd Ferris smiled. Mr. Weatherby folded his lips and hands. Fred Kinnan, +head of the Amalgamated Labor of America, stopped pacing the office, sat down +on the window sill and crossed his arms. Eugene Lawson, who had sat hunched +downward, absent-mindedly rearranging a display of flowers on a low glass +table, raised his torso resentfully and glanced up. Mouch sat at his desk, +with his fist on a sheet of paper. +It was Eugene Lawson who answered. "That's not, it seems to me, the way to +put it. We must not let vulgar difficulties obstruct our feeling that it's a +noble plan motivated solely by the public welfare. It's for the good of the +people. The people need it. Need comes first, so we don't have to consider +anything else." +Nobody objected or picked it up; they looked as if Lawson had merely made +it harder to continue the discussion. But a small man who sat unobtrusively +in the best armchair of the room, apart from the others, content to be +ignored and fully aware that none of them could be unconscious of his +presence, glanced at Lawson, then at Mouch, and said with brisk cheerfulness, +"That's the line, Wesley. Tone it down and dress it up and get your press +boys to chant it—and you won't have to worry." +"Yes, Mr. Thompson," said Mouch glumly. +Mr. Thompson, the Head of the State, was a man who possessed the quality +of never being noticed. In any group of three, his person became +indistinguishable, and when seen alone it seemed to evoke a group of its own, +composed of the countless persons he resembled. +The country had no clear image of what he looked like: his photographs had +appeared on the covers of magazines as frequently as those of his +predecessors in office, but people could never be quite certain which +photographs were his and which were pictures of "a mail clerk" +or "a white-collar worker," accompanying articles about the daily life of +the undifferentiated—except that Mr. Thompson's collars were usually wilted. +He had broad shoulders and a slight body. He had stringy hair, a wide mouth +and an elastic age range that made him look like a harassed forty or an +unusually vigorous sixty. Holding enormous official powers, he schemed +ceaselessly to expand them, because it was expected of him by those who had +pushed him into office. He had the cunning of the unintelligent and the +frantic energy of the lazy. The sole secret of his rise in life was the fact +that he was a product of chance and knew it and aspired to nothing else. +"It's obvious that measures have to be taken. Drastic measures," +said James Taggart, speaking, not to Mr. Thompson, but to Wesley Mouch. +"We can't let things go the way they're going much longer." +His voice was belligerent and shaky. +"Take it easy, Jim," said Orren Boyle. +"Something's got to be done and done fast!" +"Don't look at me," snapped Wesley Mouch. "I can't help it. I can't help +it if people refuse to co-operate. I'm tied. I need wider powers." +Mouch had summoned them all to Washington, as his friends and personal +advisers, for a private, unofficial conference on the national crisis. But, +watching him, they were unable to decide whether his manner was overbearing +or whining, whether he was threatening them or pleading for their help. + + "Fact is," said Mr. Weatherby primly, in a statistical tone of voice, +"that in the twelve-month period ending on the first of this year, the rate +of business failures has doubled, as compared with the preceding twelve-month +period. Since the first of this year, it has trebled." +"Be sure they think it's their own fault," said Dr. Ferris casually. +"Huh?" said Wesley Mouch, his eyes darting to Ferris. +"Whatever you do, don't apologize," said Dr, Ferris. "Make them feel +guilty." +"I'm not apologizing!" snapped Mouch. "I'm not to blame. I need wider +powers." +"But it is their own fault," said Eugene Lawson, turning aggressively to +Dr. Ferris. "It's their lack of social spirit. They refuse to recognize that +production is not a private choice, but a public duty. They have no right to +fail, no matter what conditions happen to come up. They've got to go on +producing. It's a social imperative. A man's work is not a personal matter, +it's a social matter. There's no such thing as a personal matter—or a +personal life. That's what we've got to force them to learn." +"Gene Lawson knows what I'm talking about," said Dr. Ferris, with a slight +smile, "even though he hasn't the faintest idea that he does." +"What do you think you mean?" asked Lawson, his voice rising. +"Skip it," ordered Wesley Mouch. +"I don't care what you decide to do, Wesley," said Mr. Thompson, "and I +don't care if the businessmen squawk about it. Just be sure you've got the +press with you. Be damn sure about that." +"I've got 'em," said Mouch. +"One editor who'd open his trap at the wrong time could do us more harm +than ten disgruntled millionaires." +"That's true, Mr. Thompson," said Dr. Ferris. "But can you name one editor +who knows it?" +"Guess not," said Mr. Thompson; he sounded pleased. +"Whatever type of men we're counting on and planning for," said Dr. +Ferris, "there's a certain old-fashioned quotation which we may safely +forget: the one about counting on the wise and the honest. We don't have to +consider them. They're out of date." +James Taggart glanced at the window. There were patches of blue in the sky +above the spacious streets of Washington, the faint blue of mid-April, and a +few beams breaking through the clouds, A monument stood shining in the +distance, hit by a ray of sun: it was a tall, white obelisk, erected to the +memory of the man Dr. Ferris was quoting, the man in whose honor this city +had been named. James Taggart looked away. +"I don't like the professor's remarks," said Lawson loudly and sullenly. +"Keep still," said Wesley Mouch. "Dr. Ferris is not talking theory, but +practice." +"Well, if you want to talk practice," said Fred Kinnan, "then let me tell +you that we can't worry about businessmen at a time like this. +What we've got to think about is jobs. More jobs for the people. In my +unions, every man who's working is feeding five who aren't, not counting his +own pack of starving relatives. If you want my advice— +oh, I know you won't go for it, but it's just a thought—issue a directive +making it compulsory to add, say, one-third more men to every payroll in the +country." +"Good God!" yelled Taggart. "Are you crazy? We can barely meet our +payrolls as it is! There's not enough work for the men we've got now! Onethird more? We wouldn't have any use for them whatever!" +"Who cares whether you'd have any use for them?" said Fred Kinnan. "They +need jobs. That's what comes first—need—doesn't it?— +not your profits." + + "It's not a question of profits!" yelled Taggart hastily. "I haven't said +anything about profits. I haven't given you any grounds to insult me. +It's just a question of where in hell we'd get the money to pay your men— +when half our trains are running empty and there's not enough freight to fill +a trolley car." His voice slowed down suddenly to a tone of cautious +thoughtfulness: "However, we do understand the plight of the working men, +and—it's just a thought —we could, perhaps, take on a certain extra number, +if we were permitted to double our freight rates, which—" +"Have you lost your mind?" yelled Orren Boyle. "I'm going broke on the +rates you're charging now, I shudder every time a damn boxcar pulls in or out +of the mills, they're bleeding me to death, I can't afford it—and you want to +double it?" +"It is not essential whether you can afford it or not," said Taggart +coldly, "You have to be prepared to make some sacrifices. The public needs +railroads. Need conies first—above your profits." +"What profits?" yelled Orren Boyle. "When did I ever make any profits? +Nobody can accuse me of running a profit-making business! +Just look at my balance sheet—and then look at the books of a certain +competitor of mine, who's got all the customers, all the raw materials, all +the technical advantages and a monopoly on secret formulas—then tell me who's +the profiteer! . . . But, of course, the public does need railroads, and +perhaps I could manage to absorb a certain raise in rates, if I were to get— +it's just a thought—if I were to get a subsidy to carry me over the next year +or two, until I catch my stride and—" +"What? Again?" yelled Mr. Weatherby, losing his primness. "How many loans +have you got from us and how many extensions, suspensions and moratoriums? +You haven't repaid a penny—and with all of you boys going broke and the tax +receipts crashing, where do you expect us to get the money to hand you a +subsidy?" +"There are people who aren't broke," said Boyle slowly. "You boys have no +excuse for permitting all that need and misery to spread through the country— +so long as there are people who aren't broke." +"I can't help it!" yelled Wesley Mouch. "I can't do anything about it! +I need wider powers!" +They could not tell what had prompted Mr. Thompson to attend this +particular conference. He had said little, but had listened with interest. It +seemed as if there were something which he had wanted to learn, and now he +looked as if he had learned it. He stood up and smiled cheerfully. +"Go ahead, Wesley," he said. "Go ahead with Number 10-289. You won't have +any trouble at all," +They had all risen to their feet, in gloomily reluctant deference. Wesley +Mouch glanced down at his sheet of paper, then said in a petulant tone of +voice, "If you want me to go ahead, you'll have to declare a state of total +emergency." +"I'll declare it any time you're ready." +"There are certain difficulties, which—" +"I'll leave it up to you. Work it out any way you wish. It's your job. +Let me see the rough draft, tomorrow or next day, but don't bother me +about the details. I've got a speech to make on the radio in half an hour." +"The chief difficulty is that I'm not sure whether the law actually grants +us the power to put into effect certain provisions of Directive Number 10289.1 fear they might be open to challenge." +“Oh hell, we've passed so many emergency laws that if you hunt through +them, you're sure to dig up something that will cover it." +Mr. Thompson turned to the others with a smile of good fellowship. +"I'll leave you boys to iron out the wrinkles," he said. "I appreciate +your coming to Washington to help us out. Glad to have seen you." + + They waited until the door closed after him, then resumed their seats; +they did not look at one another. +They had not heard the text of Directive No. 10-289, but they knew what it +would contain. They had known it for a long time, in that special manner +which consisted of keeping secrets from oneself and leaving knowledge +untranslated into words. And, by the same method, they now wished it were +possible for them not to hear the words of the directive. It was to avoid +moments such as this that all the complex twistings of their minds had been +devised, They wished the directive to go into effect. They wished it could be +put into effect without words, so that they would not have to know that what +they were doing was what it was. Nobody had ever announced that Directive No. +10-289 was the final goal of his efforts. +Yet, for generations past, men had worked to make it possible, and for +months past, every provision of it had been prepared for by countless +speeches, articles, sermons, editorials—by purposeful voices that screamed +with anger if anyone named their purpose. +'The picture now is this," said Wesley Mouch. "The economic condition of +the country was better the year before last than it was last year, and last +year it was better than it is at present. It's obvious that we would not be +able to survive another year of the same progression. +Therefore, our sole objective must now be to hold the line. To stand still +in order to catch our stride. To achieve total stability. Freedom has been +given a chance and has failed. Therefore, more stringent controls are +necessary. Since men are unable and unwilling to solve their problems +voluntarily, they must be forced to do it." He paused, picked up the sheet of +paper, then added in a less formal tone of voice, "Hell, what it comes down +to is that we can manage to exist as and where we are, but we can't afford to +move! So we've got to stand still. We've got to stand still. We've got to +make those bastards stand still!" +His head drawn into his shoulders, he was looking at them with the anger +of a man declaring that the country's troubles were a personal affront to +him. So many men seeking favors had been afraid of him that he now acted as +if his anger were a solution to everything, as if his anger were omnipotent, +as if all he had to do was to get angry. +Yet, facing him, the men who sat in a silent semicircle before his desk +were uncertain whether the presence of fear in the room was their own emotion +or whether the hunched figure behind the desk generated the panic of a +cornered rat. +Wesley Mouch had a long, square face and a flat-topped skull, made more so +by a brush haircut. His lower lip was a petulant bulb and the pale, brownish +pupils of his eyes looked like the yolks of eggs smeared under the not fully +translucent whites. His facial muscles moved abruptly, and the movement +vanished, having conveyed no expression. +No one had ever seen him smile. +Wesley Mouch came from a family that had known neither poverty nor wealth +nor distinction for many generations; it had clung, however, to a tradition +of its own: that of being college-bred and, therefore, of despising men who +were in business. The family's diplomas had always hung on the wall in the +manner of a reproach to the world, because the diplomas had not automatically +produced the material equivalents of their attested spiritual value. Among +the family's numerous relatives, there was one rich uncle. He had married his +money and, in his widowed old age, he had picked Wesley as his favorite from +among his many nephews and nieces, because Wesley was the least distinguished +of the lot and therefore, thought Uncle Julius, the safest. Uncle Julius did +not care for people who were brilliant. He did not care for the trouble of +managing his money, either; so he turned the job over to Wesley. By the time +Wesley graduated from college, there was no money left to manage. Uncle + + Julius blamed it on Wesley's cunning and cried that Wesley was an +unscrupulous schemer. +But there had been no scheme about it; Wesley could not have said just +where the money had gone. In high school, Wesley Mouch had been one of the +worst students and had passionately envied those who were the best. College +taught him that he did not have to envy them at all. After graduation, he +took a job in the advertising department of a company that manufactured a +bogus corn-cure. The cure sold well and he rose to be the head of his +department. He left it to take charge of the advertising of a hair-restorer, +then of a patented brassiere, then of a new soap, then of a soft drink—and +then he became advertising vice-president of an automobile concern. He tried +to sell automobiles as if they were a bogus corn-cure. They did not sell. +He blamed it on the insufficiency of his advertising budget. It was the +president of the automobile concern who recommended him to Rearden. It was +Rearden who introduced him to Washington—Rearden, who knew no standard by +which to judge the activities of his Washington man. It was James Taggart who +gave him a start in the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources—in +exchange for double crossing Rearden in order to help Orren Boyle in exchange +for destroying Dan Conway. From then on, people helped Wesley Mouch to +advance, for the same reason as that which had prompted Uncle Julius: they +were people who believed that mediocrity was safe. The men who now sat in +front of his desk had been taught that the law of causality was a +superstition and that one had to deal with the situation of the moment +without considering its cause. By the situation of the moment, they had +concluded that Wesley Mouch was a man of superlative skill and cunning, since +millions aspired to power, but he was the one who had achieved it. It was not +within their method of thinking to know that Wesley Mouch was the zero at the +meeting point of forces unleashed in destruction against one another. +"This is just a rough draft of Directive Number 10-289," said Wesley +Mouch, "which Gene, Clem and I have dashed off just to give you the general +idea. We want to hear your opinions, suggestions and so forth—you being the +representatives of labor, industry, transportation and the professions." +Fred Kinnan got off the window sill and sat down on the arm of a chair. +Orren Boyle spit out the butt of his cigar. James Taggart looked down at his +own hands. Dr. Ferris was the only one who seemed to be at ease. +"In the name of the general welfare," read Wesley Mouch, "to protect the +people's security, to achieve full equality and total stability, it is +decreed for the duration of the national emergency that— +"Point One. All workers, wage earners and employees of any kind whatsoever +shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be +dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty +shall be determined by the Unification Board, such Board to be appointed by +the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. All persons reaching +the age of twenty-one shall report to the Unification Board, which shall +assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the +interests of the nation. +"Point Two. All industrial, commercial, manufacturing and business +establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, +and the owners of such establishments shall not quit nor leave nor retire, +nor close, sell or transfer their business, under penalty of the +nationalization of their establishment and of any and all of their property. +"Point Three. All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, +inventions, formulas, processes and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be +turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift +Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and +copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents +and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the + + purpose of eliminating monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products +and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names +or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be +known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such +name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and +brand names are hereby abolished. +"Point Four. No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature +whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufactured +or sold after the date of this directive. The Office of Patents and +Copyrights is hereby suspended. +"Point Five. Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged +in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same +amount of goods per year as it, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no +more and no less. The year to be known as the Basic or Yardstick Year is to +be the year ending on the date of this directive. Over or under production +shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board. +"Point Six. Every person of any age, sex, class or income, shall +henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year +as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less. +Over or under purchasing shall be fined, such fines to be determined by +the Unification Board. +"Point Seven. All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest +rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their +present figures, as of the date of this directive. +"Point Eight. All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided +for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification +Board, whose decisions will be final." +There was, even within the four men who had listened, a remnant of human +dignity, which made them sit still and feel sick for the length of one +minute. +James Taggart spoke first. His voice was low, but it had the trembling +intensity of an involuntary scream: "Well, why not? Why should they have it, +if we don't? Why should they stand above us? If we are to perish, let's make +sure that we all perish together. Let's make sure that we leave them no +chance to survive!" +"That's a damn funny thing to say about a very practical plan that will +benefit everybody," said Orren Boyle shrilly, looking at Taggart in +frightened astonishment. +Dr. Ferris chuckled. +Taggart's eyes seemed to focus, and he said, his voice louder, "Yes, of +course. It's a very practical plan. It's necessary, practical and just. +It will solve everybody's problems. It will give everybody a chance to +feel safe. A chance to rest." +"It will give security to the people," said Eugene Lawson, his mouth +slithering into a smile. "Security—that's what the people want. If they want +it, why shouldn't they have it? Just because a handful of rich will object?" +"It's not the rich who'll object," said Dr. Ferris lazily. "The rich drool +for security more than any other sort of animal—haven't you discovered that +yet?" +"Well, who'll object?" snapped Lawson. +Dr. Ferris smiled pointedly, and did not answer. +Lawson looked away. "To hell with them! Why should we worry about them? +We've got to run the world for the sake of the little people. It's +intelligence that's caused all the troubles of humanity. Man's mind is the +root of all evil. This is the day of the heart. It's the weak, the meek, the +sick and the humble that must be the only objects of our concern," His lower +Up was twisting in soft, lecherous motions. + + "Those who're big are here to serve those who aren't. If they refuse to do +their moral duty, we've got to force them. There once was an Age of Reason, +but we've progressed beyond it. This is the Age of Love." +"Shut up!" screamed James Taggart. +They all stared at him. "For Christ's sake, Jim, what's the matter?" +said Orren Boyle, shaking. +"Nothing," said Taggart, "nothing . . . Wesley, keep him still, will you?" +Mouch said uncomfortably, "But I fail to see—" +"Just keep him still. We don't have to listen to him, do we?" +"Why, no, but—" +"Then let's go on." +"What is this?" demanded Lawson, "I resent it. I most emphatically—" But +he saw no support in the faces around him and stopped, his mouth sagging into +an expression of pouting hatred. +"Let's go on," said Taggart feverishly. +"What's the matter with you?" asked Orren Boyle, trying not to know what +was the matter with himself and why he felt frightened. +"Genius is a superstition, Jim," said Dr. Ferris slowly, with an odd kind +of emphasis, as if knowing that he was naming the unnamed in all their minds. +"There's no such thing as the intellect. A man's brain is a social product. A +sum of influences that he's picked up from those around him. Nobody invents +anything, he merely reflects what's floating in the social atmosphere. A +genius is an intellectual scavenger and a greedy hoarder of the ideas which +rightfully belong to society, from which he stole them. All thought is theft. +If we do away with private fortunes, we'll have a fairer distribution of +wealth. If we do away with the genius, we'll have a faker distribution of +ideas." +"Are we here to talk business or are we here to kid one another?" +asked Fred Kinnan. +They turned to him. He was a muscular man with large features, but his +face had the astonishing property of finely drawn lines that raised the +corners of his mouth into the permanent hint of a wise, sardonic grin. He sat +on the arm of the chair, hands in pockets, looking at Mouch with the smiling +glance of a hardened policeman at a shoplifter. +"All I've got to say is that you'd better staff that Unification Board +with my men," he said. "Better make sure of it, brother—or I'll blast your +Point One to hell." +"I intend, of course, to have a representative of labor on that Board," +said Mouch dryly, "as well as a representative of industry, of the +professions and of every cross-section of—" +"No cross-sections," said Fred Kinnan evenly. "Just representatives of +labor. Period." +"What the hell!" yelled Orren Boyle. "That's stacking the cards, isn't +it?" +"Sure," said Fred Kinnan. +"But that will give you a stranglehold on every business in the country!" +"What do you think I'm after?" +"That's unfair!" yelled Boyle. "I won't stand for it! You have no right! +You—" +"Right?" said Kinnan innocently. "Are we talking about rights?" +"But, I mean, after all, there are certain fundamental property rights +which—" +"Listen, pal, you want Point Three, don't you?" +"Well, I—" +"Then you'd better keep your trap shut about property rights from now on. +Keep it shut tight." + + "Mr. Kinnan," said Dr. Ferris, "you must not make the old fashioned +mistake of drawing wide generalizations. Our policy has to be flexible. There +are no absolute principles which—" +"Save it for Jim Taggart, Doc," said Fred Kinnan. "I know what I'm talking +about. That's because I never went to college." +"I object," said Boyle, "to your dictatorial method of—" +Kinnan turned his back on him and said, "Listen, Wesley, my boys won't +like Point One. If I get to run things, I'll make them swallow it. If not, +not. Just make up your mind," +"Well—" said Mouch, and stopped. +"For Christ's sake, Wesley, what about us?" yelled Taggart. +"You'll come to me," said Kinnan, "when you'll need a deal to fix the +Board. But I'll run that Board. Me and Wesley." +"Do you think the country will stand for it?" yelled Taggart. +"Stop kidding yourself," said Kinnan. "The country? If there aren't any +principles any more—and I guess the doc is right, because there sure aren't— +if there aren't any rules to this game and it's only a question of who robs +whom—then I've got more votes than the bunch of you, there are more workers +than employers, and don't you forget it, boys!" +"That's a funny attitude to take," said Taggart haughtily, "about a +measure which, after all, is not designed for the selfish benefit of workers +or employers, but for the general welfare of the public." +"Okay," said Kinnan amiably, "let's talk your lingo. Who is the public? If +you go by quality—then it ain't you, Jim, and it ain't Orrie Boyle. If you go +by quantity—then it sure is me, because quantity is what I've got behind me." +His smile disappeared, and with a sudden, bitter look of weariness he added, +"Only I'm not going to say that I'm working for the welfare of my public, +because I know I'm not. I know that I'm delivering the poor bastards into +slavery, and that's all there is to it. And they know it, too. But they know +that I'll have to throw them a crumb once in a while, if I want to keep my +racket, while with the rest of you they wouldn't have a chance in hell. So +that's why, if they've got to be under a whip, they'd rather I held it, not +you—you drooling, tear-jerking, mealy-mouthed bastards of the public welfare! +Do you think that outside of your college-bred pansies there's one village +idiot whom you're fooling? I'm a racketeer—but I know it and my boys know it, +and they know that I'll pay off. Not out of the kindness of my heart, either, +and not a cent more than I can get away with, but at least they can count on +that much. Sure, it makes me sick sometimes, it makes me sick right now, but +it's not me who's built this kind of world—you did—so I'm playing the game as +you've set it up and I'm going to play it for as long as it lasts—which isn't +going to be long for any of us!" +He stood up. No one answered him. He let his eyes move slowly from face to +face and stop on Wesley Mouch. +"Do I get the Board, Wesley?" he asked casually. +"The selection of the specific personnel is only a technical detail," +said Mouch pleasantly. "Suppose we discuss it later, you and I?" +Everybody in the room knew that this meant the answer Yes. +"Okay, pal," said Kinnan. He went back to the window, sat down on the sill +and lighted a cigarette. +For some unadmitted reason, the others were looking at Dr. Ferris, as if +seeking guidance. +"Don't be disturbed by oratory," said Dr. Ferris smoothly. "Mr. +Kinnan is a fine speaker, but he has no sense of practical reality. He is +unable to think dialectically." +There was another silence, then James Taggart spoke up suddenly. + + "I don't care. It doesn't matter. He'll have to hold things still. +Everything will have to remain as it is. Just as it is. Nobody will be +permitted to change anything. Except—" He turned sharply to Wesley Mouch. +"Wesley, under Point Four, we'll have to close all research departments, +experimental laboratories, scientific foundations and all the rest of the +institutions of that kind. They'll have to be forbidden." +"Yes, that's right," said Mouch. "I hadn't thought of that. We'll have to +stick in a couple of lines about that." He hunted around for a pencil and +made a few scrawls on the margin of his paper. +"It will end wasteful competition," said James Taggart. "We'll stop +scrambling to beat one another to the untried and the unknown. We won't have +to worry about new inventions upsetting the market. We won't have to pour +money down the drain in useless experiments just to keep up with over +ambitious competitors." +"Yes," said Orren Boyle. "Nobody should be allowed to waste money on the +new until everybody has plenty of the old. Close all those damn research +laboratories—and the sooner, the better." +"Yes," said Wesley Mouch. "We'll close them. All of them." +"The State Science Institute, too?" asked Fred Kinnan. +"Oh, no!" said Mouch. "That's different. That's government. Besides, it's +a non-profit institution. And it will be sufficient to take care of all +scientific progress." +"Quite sufficient," said Dr. Ferris. +"And what will become of all the engineers, professors and such, when you +close all those laboratories?" asked Fred Kinnan. "What are they going to do +for a living, with all the other jobs and businesses frozen?" +"Oh," said Wesley Mouch. He scratched his head. He turned to Mr. +Weatherby. "Do we put them on relief, Clem?" +"No," said Mr. Weatherby. "What for? There's not enough of them to raise a +squawk. Not enough to matter." +"I suppose," said Mouch, turning to Dr. Ferris, "that you'll be able to +absorb some of them, Floyd?" +"Some," said Dr. Ferris slowly, as if relishing every syllable of his +answer. "Those who prove co-operative." +"What about the rest?" asked Fred Kinnan. +"They'll have to wait till the Unification Board finds some use for them," +said Wesley Mouch. +"What will they eat while they're waiting?" +Mouch shrugged. "There's got to be some victims in times of national +emergency. It can't be helped." +"We have the right to do it!" cried Taggart suddenly, in defiance to the +stillness of the room. "We need it. We need it, don't we?" There was no +answer. "We have the right to protect our livelihood!" Nobody opposed him, +but he went on with a shrill, pleading insistence. "We'll be safe for the +first time in centuries. Everybody will know his place and job, and everybody +else's place and job—and we won't be at the mercy of every stray crank with a +new idea. Nobody will push us out of business or steal our markets or +undersell us or make us obsolete. +Nobody will come to us offering some damn new gadget and putting us on the +spot to decide whether we'll lose our shirt if we buy it, or whether we'll +lose our shirt if we don't but somebody else does! We won't have to decide. +Nobody will be permitted to decide anything. +It will be decided once and for all." His glance moved pleadingly from +face to face. "There's been enough invented already—enough for everybody's +comfort—why should they be allowed to go on inventing? +Why should we permit them to blast the ground from under our feet every +few steps? Why should we be kept on the go in eternal uncertainty? Just + + because of a few restless, ambitious adventurers? Should we sacrifice the +contentment of the whole of mankind to the greed of a few non-conformists? We +don't need them. We don't need them at all. +I wish we'd get rid of that hero worship! Heroes? They've done nothing but +harm, all through history. They've kept mankind running a wild race, with no +breathing spell, no rest, no ease, no security. Running to catch up with them +. . . always, without end . . . Just as -we catch up, they're years ahead. . +. . They leave us no chance . . . They've never left us a chance. . . ." His +eyes were moving restlessly; he glanced at the window, but looked hastily +away: he did not want to see the white obelisk in the distance. "We're +through with them. We've won. This is our age. Our world. We're going to have +security—for the first time in centuries—for the first time since the +beginning of the industrial revolution!" +"Well, this, I guess," said Fred Kinnan, "is the anti-industrial +revolution." +"That's a damn funny thing for you to say!" snapped Wesley Mouch. "We +can't be permitted to say that to the public." +"Don't worry, brother. I won't say it to the public." +"It's a total fallacy," said Dr. Ferris. "It's a statement prompted by +ignorance. Every expert has conceded long ago that a planned economy achieves +the maximum of productive efficiency and that centralization leads to superindustrialization.” +"Centralization destroys the blight of monopoly," said Boyle. +"How's that again?" drawled Kinnan. +Boyle did not catch the tone of mockery, and answered earnestly, "It +destroys the blight of monopoly. It leads to the democratization of industry. +It makes everything available to everybody. Now, for instance, at a time like +this, when there's such a desperate shortage of iron ore, is there any sense +in my wasting money, labor and national resources on making old-fashioned +steel, when there exists a much better metal that I could be making? A metal +that everybody wants, but nobody can get. Now is that good economics or sound +social efficiency or democratic justice? Why shouldn't I be allowed to +manufacture that metal and why shouldn't the people get it when they need it? +Just because of the private monopoly of one selfish individual? Should we +sacrifice our rights to his personal interests?" +"Skip it, brother," said Fred Kinnan. "I've read it all in the same +newspapers you did." +"I don't like your attitude," said Boyle, in a sudden tone of +righteousness, with a look which, in a barroom, would have signified a +prelude to a fist fight. He sat up straight, buttressed by the columns of +paragraphs on yellow-tinged paper, which he was seeing in his mind: "At a +time of crucial public need, are we to waste social effort on the manufacture +of obsolete products? Are we to let the many remain in want while the few +withhold from us the better products and methods available? Are we to be +stopped by the superstition of patent rights?" +"Is it not obvious that private industry is unable to cope with the +present economic crisis? How long, for instance, are we going to put up with +the disgraceful shortage of Rearden Metal? There is a crying public demand +for it, which Rearden has failed to supply." +"When are we going to put an end to economic injustice and special +privileges? Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture +Rearden Metal?" +"I don't like your attitude," said Orren Boyle. "So long as we respect the +rights of the workers, we'll want you to respect the rights of the +industrialists." +"Which rights of which industrialists?" drawled Kinnan. + + "I'm inclined to think," said Dr. Ferris hastily, "that Point Two, +perhaps, is the most essential one of all at present. We must put an end to +that peculiar business of industrialists retiring and vanishing. We must stop +them. It's playing havoc with our entire economy." +"Why are they doing it?" asked Taggart nervously. "Where are they all +going?" +"Nobody knows," said Dr. Ferris. "We've been unable to find any +information or explanation. But it must be stopped. In times of crisis, +economic service to the nation is just as much of a duty as military service. +Anyone who abandons it should be regarded as a deserter. I have recommended +that we introduce the death penalty for those men, but Wesley wouldn't agree +to it." +"Take it easy, boy," said Fred Kinnan in an odd, slow voice. He sat +suddenly and perfectly still, his arms crossed, looking at Ferris in a manner +that made it suddenly real to the room that Ferris had proposed murder. +"Don't let me hear you talk about any death penalties in industry." +Dr. Ferris shrugged. +"We don't have to go to extremes," said Mouch hastily. "We don't want to +frighten people. We want to have them on our side. Our top problem is, will +they . . . will they accept it at all?" +"They will," said Dr. Ferris. +"I'm a little worried," said Eugene Lawson, "about Points Three and Four. +Taking over the patents is fine. Nobody's going to defend industrialists. But +I'm worried about taking over the copyrights. That's going to antagonize the +intellectuals. It's dangerous. It's a spiritual issue. Doesn't Point Four +mean that no new books are to be written or published from now on?" +"Yes," said Mouch, "it does. But we can't make an exception for the bookpublishing business. It's an industry like any other. When we say 'no new +products,' it's got to mean 'no new products.' " +"But this is a matter of the spirit," said Lawson; his voice had a tone, +not of rational respect, but of superstitious awe. +"We're not interfering with anybody's spirit. But when you print a book on +paper, it becomes a material commodity—and if we grant an exception to one +commodity, we won't be able to hold the others in line and we won't be able +to make anything stick." +"Yes, that's true. But—" +"Don't be a chump, Gene," said Dr. Ferris. "You don't want some +recalcitrant hacks to come out with treatises that will wreck our entire +program, do you? If you breathe the word 'censorship' now, they'll all scream +bloody murder. They're not ready for it—as yet. But if you leave the spirit +alone and make it a simple material issue—not a matter of ideas, but just a +matter of paper, ink and printing presses— +you accomplish your purpose much more smoothly. You'll make sure that +nothing dangerous gets printed or heard—and nobody is going to fight over a +material issue." +"Yes, but . . . but I don't think the writers will like it." +"Are you sure?" asked Wesley Mouch, with a glance that was almost a smile, +"Don't forget that under Point Five, the publishers will have to publish as +many books as they did in the Basic Year. Since there will be no new ones, +they will have to reprint—and the public will have to buy—some of the old +ones. There are many very worthy books that have never had a fair chance." +"Oh," said Lawson; he remembered that he had seen Mouch lunching with +Balph Eubank two weeks ago. Then he shook his head and frowned. "Still, I'm +worried. The intellectuals are our friends. We don't want to lose them. They +can make an awful lot of trouble." +"They won't," said Fred Kinnan. "Your kind of intellectuals are the first +to scream when it's safe—and the first to shut their traps at the first sign + + of danger. They spend years spitting at the man who feeds them—and they lick +the hand of the man who slaps their drooling faces. Didn't they deliver every +country of Europe, one after another, to committees of goons, just like this +one here? Didn't they scream their heads off to shut out every burglar alarm +and to break every padlock open for the goons? Have you heard a peep out of +them since? Didn't they scream that they were the friends of labor? Do you +hear them raising their voices about the chain gangs, the slave camps, the +fourteen-hour workday and the mortality from scurvy in the People's States of +Europe? No, but you do hear them telling the whip-beaten wretches that +starvation is prosperity, that slavery is freedom, that torture chambers arc +brother-love and that if the wretches don't understand it, then it's their +own fault that they suffer, and it's the mangled corpses in the jail cellars +who're to blame for all their troubles, not the benevolent leaders! +Intellectuals? You might have to worry about any other breed of men, but not +about the modern intellectuals: they'll swallow anything. I don't feel so +safe about the lousiest wharf rat in the longshoremen's union: he's liable to +remember suddenly that he is a man—and then I won't be able to keep him in +line. But the intellectuals? That's the one thing they've forgotten long ago. +I guess it's the one thing that all their education was aimed to make them +forget. Do anything you please to the intellectuals. They'll take it." +"For once," said Dr. Ferns, "I agree with Mr. Kinnan. I agree with his +facts, if not with his feelings. You don't have to worry about the +intellectuals, Wesley. Just put a-few of them on the government payroll and +send them out to preach precisely the sort of thing Mr. +Kinnan mentioned: that the blame rests on the victims. Give them +moderately comfortable salaries and extremely loud titles—and they'll forget +their copyrights and do a better job for you than whole squads of enforcement +officers." +"Yes," said Mouch. "I know." +"The danger that I'm worried about will come from a different quarter," +said Dr. Ferris thoughtfully. "You might run into quite a bit of trouble on +that 'voluntary Gift Certificate1 business, Wesley." +"I know," said Mouch glumly. "That's the point I wanted Thompson to help +us out on. But I guess he can't. We don't actually have the legal power to +seize the patents. Oh, there's plenty of clauses in dozens of laws that can +be stretched to cover it—almost, but not quite. Any tycoon who'd want to make +a test case would have a very good chance to beat us. And we have to preserve +a semblance of legality—or the populace won't take it." +"Precisely," said Dr. Ferris. "It's extremely important to get those +patents turned over to us voluntarily. Even if we had a law permitting +outright nationalization, it would be much better to get them as a gift, We +want to leave to people the illusion that they're still preserving their +private property rights. And most of them will play along. They'll sign the +Gift Certificates. Just raise a lot of noise about its being a patriotic duty +and that anyone who refuses is a prince of greed, and they'll sign. But—" He +stopped. +"I know," said Mouch; he was growing visibly more nervous. "There will be, +I think, a few old-fashioned bastards here and there who'll refuse to sign— +but they won't be prominent enough to make a noise, nobody will hear about +it, their own communities and friends will turn against them for their being +selfish, so it won't give us any trouble. +We'll just take the patents over, anyway—and those guys won't have the +nerve or the money to start a test case. But—" He stopped. +James Taggart leaned back in his chair, watching them; he was beginning to +enjoy the conversation. +"Yes," said Dr. Ferris, "I'm thinking of it, too. I'm thinking of a +certain' tycoon who is in a position to blast us to pieces. Whether we'll + + recover the pieces or not, is hard to tell. God knows what is liable to +happen at a hysterical time like the present and in a situation as delicate +as this. Anything can throw everything off balance. Blow up the whole works. +And if there's anyone who wants to do it, he does. He does and can. He knows +the real issue, he knows the things which must not be said—and he is not +afraid to say them. He knows the one dangerous, fatally dangerous weapon. He +is our deadliest adversary." +"Who?" asked Lawson. +Dr. Ferris hesitated, shrugged and answered, "The guiltless man." +Lawson stared blankly. "What do you mean and whom are you talking about?" +James Taggart smiled. +"I mean that there is no way to disarm any man," said Dr. Ferris, "except +through guilt. Through that which he himself has accepted as guilt. If a man +has ever stolen a dime, you can impose on him the punishment intended for a +bank robber and he will take it. He'll bear any form of misery, he'll feel +that he deserves no better. If there's not enough guilt in the world, we must +create it. If we teach a man that it's evil to look at spring flowers and he +believes us and then does it —we'll be able to do whatever we please with +him. He won't defend himself. He won't feel he's worth it. He won't fight. +But save us from the man who lives up to his own- standards. Save us from the +man of clean conscience. He's the man who'll beat us." +"Are you talking about Henry Rearden?" asked Taggart, his voice peculiarly +clear. +The one name they had not wanted to pronounce struck them into an +instant's silence. +"What if I were?" asked Dr. Ferris cautiously. +"Oh, nothing," said Taggart. "Only, if you were, I would tell you that I +can deliver Henry Rearden. He'll sign." +By the rules of their unspoken language, they all knew—from the tone of +his voice—that he was not bluffing. +"God, Jim! No!" gasped Wesley Mouch. +"Yes," said Taggart. "I was stunned, too, when I learned—what I learned. I +didn't expect that. Anything but that." +"I am glad to hear it," said Mouch cautiously. "It's a constructive piece +of information. It might be very valuable indeed." +"Valuable—yes," said Taggart pleasantly. "When do you plan to put the +directive into effect?" +"Oh, we have to move fast. We don't want any news of it to leak out. I +expect you all to keep this most strictly confidential. I'd say that we'll be +ready to spring it on them in a couple of weeks." +"Don't you think that it would be advisable—before all prices are frozen— +to adjust the matter of the railroad rates? I was thinking of a raise. A +small but most essentially needed raise." +"We'll discuss it, you and I," said Mouch amiably. "It might be arranged." +He turned to the others; Boyle's face was sagging. "There are many details +still to be worked out, but I'm sure that our program won't encounter any +major difficulties." He was assuming the tone and manner of a public address; +he sounded brisk and almost cheerful. "Rough spots are to be expected. If one +thing doesn't work, we'll try another. +Trial-and-error is the only pragmatic rule of action. We'll just keep on +trying. If any hardships come up, remember that it's only temporary. +Only for the duration of the national emergency." +"Say," asked Kinnan, "how is the emergency to end if everything is to +stand still?" +"Don't be theoretical," said Mouch impatiently. "We've got to deal with +the situation of the moment. Don't bother about minor details, so long as the + + broad outlines of our policy are clear. We'll have the power. We'll be able +to solve any problem and answer any question." +Fred Kinnan chuckled. "Who is John Galt?" +"Don't say that!" cried Taggart. +"I have a question to ask about Point Seven," said Kinnan. "It says that +al! wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits and so forth will be frozen +on the date of the directive. Taxes, too?" +"Oh no!" cried Mouch. "How can we tell what funds we'll need in the +future?" Kinnan seemed to be smiling. "Well?" snapped Mouch. +"What about it?" +"Nothing," said Kinnan. "I just asked." +Mouch leaned back in his chair. "I must say to all of you that I +appreciate your coming here and giving us the benefit of your opinions. It +has been very helpful." He leaned forward to look at his desk calendar and +sat over it for a moment, toying with his pencil, Then the pencil came down, +struck a date and drew a circle around it. "Directive 10-289 will go into +effect on the morning of May first." +All nodded approval. None looked at his neighbor. +James Taggart rose, walked to the window and pulled the blind down over +the white obelisk. +In the first moment of awakening, Dagny was astonished to find herself +looking at the spires of unfamiliar buildings against a glowing, pale blue +sky. Then she saw the twisted seam of the thin stocking on her own leg, she +felt a wrench of discomfort in the muscles of her waistline, and she realized +that she was lying on the couch in her office, with the clock on her desk +saying 6:15 and the first rays of the sun giving silver edges to the +silhouettes of the skyscrapers beyond the window. The last thing she +remembered was that she had dropped down on the couch, intending to rest for +ten minutes, when the window was black and the clock stood at 3:30. +She twisted herself to her feet, feeling an enormous exhaustion. The +lighted lamp on the desk looked futile in the glow of the morning, over the +piles of paper which were her cheerless, unfinished task. She tried not to +think of the work for a few minutes longer, while she dragged herself past +the desk to her washroom and let handfuls of cold water run over her face. +The exhaustion was gone by the time she stepped back into the office. No +matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not +feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her +body and a hunger for action in her mind— +because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life. +She looked down at the city. The streets were still empty, it made them +look wider, and in the luminous cleanliness of the spring air they seemed to +be waiting for the promise of all the greatness that would take form in the +activity about to pour through them. The calendar in the distance said: May +1. +She sat down at her desk, smiling in defiance at the distastefulness of +her job. She hated the reports that she had to finish reading, but it was her +job, it was her railroad, it was morning. She lighted a cigarette, thinking +that she would finish this task before breakfast; she turned off the lamp and +pulled the papers forward. +There were reports from the general managers of the four Regions of the +Taggart system, their pages a typewritten cry of despair over the breakdowns +of equipment. There was a report about a wreck on the main line near Winston, +Colorado. There was the new budget of the Operating Department, the revised +budget based on the raise in rates which Jim had obtained last week. She +tried to choke the exasperation of hopelessness as she went slowly over the +budget's figures: all those calculations had been made on the assumption that +the volume of freight would remain unchanged and that the raise would bring + + them added revenue by the end of the year; she knew that the freight tonnage +would go on shrinking, that the raise would make little difference, that by +the end of this year their losses would be greater than ever. +When she looked up from the pages, she saw with a small jolt of +astonishment that the clock said 9:25. She had been dimly aware of the usual +sound of movement and voices in the anteroom of her office, as her staff had +arrived to begin their day; she wondered why nobody had entered her office +and why her telephone had remained silent; as a daily rule, there should have +been a rush of business by this hour. She glanced at her calendar; there was +a note that the McNeil Car Foundry of Chicago was to phone her at nine A.M. +in regard to the new freight cars which Taggart Transcontinental had been +expecting for six months. +She flicked the switch of the interoffice communicator to call her +secretary. The girl's voice answered with a startled little gasp: "Miss +Taggart! Are you here, in your office?" +"I slept here last night, again. Didn't intend to, but did. Was there a +call for me from the McNeil Car Foundry?" +"No, Miss Taggart." +"Put them through to me immediately, when they call," +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +Switching the communicator off, she wondered whether she imagined it or +whether there had been something strange in the girl's voice: it had sounded +unnaturally tense. +She felt the faint light-headedness of hunger and thought that she should +go down to get a cup of coffee, but there was still the report of the chief +engineer to finish, so she lighted one more cigarette. +The chief engineer was out on the road, supervising the reconstruction of +the main track with the Rearden Metal rail taken from the corpse of the John +Galt Line; she had chosen the sections most urgently in need of repair. +Opening his report, she read—with a shock of incredulous anger—that he had +stopped work in the mountain section of Winston, Colorado. He recommended a +change of plans: he suggested that the rail intended for Winston be used, +instead, to repair the track of their Washington-to-Miami branch. He gave his +reasons: a derailment had occurred on that branch last week, and Mr. Tinky +Holloway of Washington, traveling with a party of friends, had been delayed +for three hours; it had been reported to the chief engineer that Mr. Holloway +had expressed extreme displeasure. Although, from a purely technological +viewpoint—said the chief engineer's report—the rail of the Miami branch was +in better condition than that of the Winston section, one had to remember, +from a sociological viewpoint, that the Miami branch carried a much more +important class of passenger traffic; therefore, the chief engineer suggested +that Winston could be kept waiting a little longer, and recommended the +sacrifice of an obscure section of mountain trackage for the sake of a branch +where "Taggart Transcontinental could not afford to create an unfavorable +impression." +She read, slashing furious pencil marks on the margins of the pages, +thinking that her first duty of the day, ahead of any other, was to stop this +particular piece of insanity. +The telephone rang. +"Yes?" she asked, snatching the receiver. "McNeil Car Foundry?" +"No," said the voice of her secretary. "Senor Francisco d'Anconia." +She looked at the phone's mouthpiece for the instant of a brief shock. +"All right. Put him on." +The next voice she heard was Francisco's. "I see that you're in your +office just the same," he said; his voice was mocking, harsh and tense. +"Where did you expect me to be?" +"How do you like the new suspension?" + + "What suspension?" +"The moratorium on brains." +"What are you talking about?" +"Haven't you seen today's newspapers?" +"No." +There was a pause; then his voice came slowly, changed and grave: "Better +take a look at them, Dagny." +"All right." +"I'll call you later." +She hung up and pressed the switch of the communicator on her desk. "Get +me a newspaper," she said to her secretary. +"Yes, Miss Taggart," the secretary's voice answered grimly. +It was Eddie Willers who came in and put the newspaper down on her desk. +The meaning of the look on his face' was the same as the tone she had caught +in Francisco's voice: the advance notice of some inconceivable disaster. +"None of us wanted to be first to tell you," he said very quietly and +walked out. +When she rose from her desk, a few moments later, she felt that she had +full control of her body and that she was not aware of her body's existence. +She felt lifted to her feet and it seemed to her that she stood straight, not +touching the ground. There was an abnormal clarity about every object in the +room, yet she was seeing nothing around her, but she knew that she would be +able to see the thread of a cobweb if her purpose required it, just as she +would be able to walk with a somnambulist's assurance along the edge of a +roof. She could not know that she was looking at the room with the eyes of a +person who had lost the capacity and the concept of doubt, and what remained +to her was the simplicity of a single perception and of a single goal. She +did not know that the thing which seemed so violent, yet felt like such a +still, unfamiliar calm within her, was the power of full certainty—and that +the anger shaking her body, the anger which made her ready, with the same +passionate indifference, either to kill or to die, was her love of rectitude, +the only love to which all the years of her life had been given. +Holding the newspaper in her hand, she walked out of her office and on +toward the hall. She knew, crossing the anteroom, that the faces of her staff +were turned to her, but they seemed to be many years away. +She walked down the hall, moving swiftly but without effort, with the same +sensation of knowing that her feet were probably touching the ground but that +she did not feel it. She did not know how many rooms she crossed to reach +Jim's office, or whether there had been any people in her way, she knew the +direction to take and the door to pull open to enter unannounced and walk +toward his desk. +The newspaper was twisted into a roll by the time she stood before him. +She threw it at his face, it struck his cheek and fell down to the carpet. +"There's my resignation, Jim," she said. "I won't work as a slave or as a +slave-driver." +She did not hear the sound of his gasp; it came with the sound of the door +closing after her. +She went back to her office and, crossing the anteroom, signaled Eddie to +follow her inside. +She said, her voice calm and clear, "I have resigned." +He nodded silently. +"I don't know as yet what I’ll do in the future. I'm going away, to think +it over and to decide. If you want to follow me, I'll be at the lodge in +Woodstock." It was an old hunting cabin in a forest of the Berkshire +Mountains, which she had inherited from her father and had not visited for +years. + + "I want to follow," he whispered, "I want to quit, and . . . and I can't. +I can't make myself do it." +"Then will you do me a favor?" +"Of course." +"Don't communicate with me about the railroad. I don't want to hear it. +Don't tell anyone where I am, except Hank Rearden. If he asks, tell him about +the cabin and how to get there. But no one else. I don't want to see +anybody." +"AU right." +"Promise?" +"Of course." +"When I decide what's to become of me, I'll let you know." +"Ill wait." +"That's all, Eddie." +He knew that every word was measured and that nothing else could be said +between them at this moment. He inclined his head, letting it say the rest, +then walked out of the office. +She saw the chief engineer's report still lying open on her desk, and +thought that she had to order him at once to resume the work on the Winston +section, then remembered that it was not her problem any longer. She felt no +pain. She knew that the pain would come later and that it would be a tearing +agony of pain, and that the numbness of this moment was a rest granted to +her, not after, but before, to make her ready to bear it. But it did not +matter. If that is required of me, then I'll bear it—she thought. +She sat down at her desk and telephoned Rearden at his mills in +Pennsylvania. +"Hello, dearest," he said. He said it simply and clearly, as if he wanted +to say it because it was real and right, and he needed to hold on to the +concepts of reality and Tightness. +"Hank, I've quit." +"I see." He sounded as if he had expected it. +"Nobody came to get me, no destroyer, perhaps there never was any +destroyer, after all. I don't know what I'll do next, but I have to get away, +so that I won't have to see any of them for a while. Then I'll decide. I know +that you can't go with me right now." +"No. I have two weeks in which they expect me to sign their Gift +Certificate. I want to be right here when the two weeks expire." +"Do you need me—for the two weeks?" +"No. It's worse for you than for me. You have no way to fight them. I +have. I think I'm glad they did it. It's clear and final. Don't worry about +me. Rest. Rest from all of it, first." +"Yes." +"Where are you going?" +"To the country. To a cabin I own in the Berkshires. If you want to see +me, Eddie Willers will tell you the way to get there. I'll be back in two +weeks." +"Will you do me a favor?" +"Yes." +"Don't come back until I come for you." +"But I want to be here, when it happens." +"Leave that up to me." +"Whatever they do to you, I want it done to me also." +"Leave it up to me. Dearest, don't you understand? I think that what I +want most right now is what you want: not to see any of them. But I have to +stay here for a while. So it will help me if I know that you, at least, are +out of their reach. I want to keep one clean point in my mind, to lean + + against. It will be only a short while—and then I'll come for you. Do you +understand?" +"Yes, my darling. So long." +It was weightlessly easy to walk out of her office and down the stretching +halls of Taggart Transcontinental. She walked, looking ahead, her steps +advancing with the unbroken, unhurried rhythm of finality. +Her face was held level and it had a look of astonishment, of acceptance, +of repose. +She walked across the concourse of the Terminal. She saw the statue of +Nathaniel Taggart. But she felt no pain from it and no reproach, only the +rising fullness of her love, only the feeling that she was going to join him, +not in death, but in that which had been his life. +The first man to quit at Rearden Steel was Tom Colby, rolling mill +foreman, head of the Rearden Steel Workers Union. For ten years, he had heard +himself denounced throughout the country, because his was a "company union" +and because he had never engaged in a violent conflict with the management. +This was true: no conflict had ever been necessary; Rearden paid a higher +wage scale than any union scale in the country, for which he demanded—and +got—the best labor force to be found anywhere. +When Tom Colby told him that he was quitting, Rearden nodded, without +comment or questions. +"I won't work under these conditions, myself," Colby added quietly, "and I +won't help, to keep the men working. They trust me. I won't be the Judas goat +leading them to the stockyards." +"What are you going to do for a living?" asked Rearden. +"I've saved enough to last me for about a year." +"And after that?" +Colby shrugged. +Rearden thought of the boy with the angry eyes, who mined coal at night as +a criminal. He thought of all the dark roads, the alleys, the back yards of +the country, where the best of the country's men would now exchange their +services in jungle barter, in chance jobs, in unrecorded transactions. He +thought of the end of that road. +Tom Colby seemed to know what he was thinking. "You're on your way to end +up right alongside of me, Mr. Rearden," he said. "Are you going to sign your +brains over to them?" +"No." +"And after that?" +Rearden shrugged. +Colby's eyes watched him for a moment, pale, shrewd eyes in a furnacetanned face with soot-engraved wrinkles. "They've been telling us for years +that it's you against me, Mr. Rearden. But it isn't. It's Orren Boyle and +Fred Kinnan against you and me." +"I know it." +The Wet Nurse had never entered Rearden's office, as if sensing that that +was a place he had no right to enter. He always waited to catch a glimpse of +Rearden outside. The directive had attached him to his job, as the mills' +official watchdog of over-or-under-production. He stopped Rearden, a few days +later, in an alley between the rows of open-hearth furnaces. There was an odd +look of fierceness on the boy's face. +"Mr. Rearden," he said, "I wanted to tell you that if you want to pour ten +times the quota of Rearden Metal or steel or pig iron or anything, and +bootleg it all over the place to anybody at any price—I wanted to tell you to +go ahead. Ill fix it up. I'll juggle the books, I'll fake the reports, I'll +get phony witnesses, I'll forge affidavits, I'll commit perjury—so you don't +have to worry, there won't be any trouble!" + + "Now why do you want to do that?" asked Rearden, smiling, but his smile +vanished when he heard the boy answer earnestly: "Because I want, for once, +to do something moral." +"That's not the way to be moral—" Rearden started, and stopped abruptly, +realizing that- it was the way, the only way left, realizing through how many +twists of intellectual corruption upon corruption this boy had to struggle +toward his momentous discovery. +"I guess that's not the word," the boy said sheepishly. "I know it's a +stuffy, old-fashioned word. That's not what I meant. I meant—" It was a +sudden, desperate cry of incredulous anger: "Mr. Rearden, they have no right +to do it!" +"What?" +"Take Rearden Metal away from you." +Rearden smiled and, prompted by a desperate pity, said, "Forget it, NonAbsolute. There are no rights." +"I know there aren't. But I mean . . . what I mean is that they can't do +it." +"Why not?" He could not help smiling. +"Mr. Rearden, don't sign the Gift Certificate! Don't sign it, on +principle." +"I won't sign it. But there aren't any principles." +"I know there aren't." He was reciting it in full earnestness, with the +honesty of a conscientious student: "I know that everything is relative and +that nobody can know anything and that reason is an illusion and that there +isn't any reality. But I'm just talking about Rearden Metal. +Don't sign, Mr. Rearden. Morals or no morals, principles or no principles, +just don't sign it—because it isn't right!" +No one else mentioned the directive in Rearden's presence. Silence was the +new aspect about the mills. The men did not speak to him when he appeared in +the workshops, and he noticed that they did not speak to one another. The +personnel office received no formal resignations. But every other morning, +one or two men failed to appear and never appeared again. Inquiries at their +homes found the homes abandoned and the men gone. The personnel office did +not report these desertions, as the directive required; instead, Rearden +began to see unfamiliar faces among the workers, the drawn, beaten faces of +the long unemployed, and heard them addressed by the names of the men who had +quit. He asked no questions. +There was silence throughout the country. He did not know how many +industrialists had retired and vanished on May I and 2, leaving their plants +to be seized. He counted ten among his own customers, including McNeil of the +McNeil Car Foundry in Chicago. He had no way of learning about the others; no +reports appeared in the newspapers. +The front pages of the newspapers were suddenly full of stories about +spring floods, traffic accidents, school picnics and golden-wedding +anniversaries. +There was silence in his own home. Lillian had departed on a vacation trip +to Florida, in mid-April; it had astonished him, as an inexplicable whim; it +was the first trip she had taken alone since their marriage. Philip avoided +him, with a look of panic. His mother stared at Rearden in reproachful +bewilderment; she said nothing, but she kept bursting into tears in his +presence, her manner suggesting that her tears were the most important aspect +to consider in whatever disaster it was that she sensed approaching. +On the morning of May 15, he sat at the desk in his office, above the +spread of the mills, and watched the colors of the smoke rising to the clear, +blue sky. There were spurts of transparent smoke, like waves of heat, +invisible but for the structures that shivered behind them; there were +streaks of red smoke, and sluggish columns of yellow, and light, floating + + spirals of blue—and the thick, tight, swiftly pouring coils that looked like +twisted bolts of satin tinged a mother-of-pearl pink by the summer sun. +The buzzer rang on his desk, and Miss Ives voice said, "Dr. Floyd Ferris +to see you, without appointment, Mr. Rearden." In spite of its rigid +formality, her tone conveyed the question: Shall I throw him out? +There was a faint movement of astonishment in Rearden's face, barely above +the line of indifference: he had not expected that particular emissary. He +answered evenly, "Ask him to come in." +Dr. Ferris did not smile as he walked toward Rearden's desk; he merely +wore a look suggesting that Rearden knew full well that he had good reason to +smile and so he would abstain from the obvious. +He sat down in front of the desk, not waiting for an invitation; he +carried a briefcase, which he placed across his knees; he acted as if words +were superfluous, since his reappearance in this office had made everything +clear. +Rearden sat watching him in patient silence. +"Since the deadline for the signing of the national Gift Certificates +expires tonight at midnight," said Dr. Ferris, in the tone of a salesman +extending a special courtesy to a customer, "I have come to obtain your +signature, Mr. Rearden." +He paused, with an air of suggesting that the formula now called for an +answer. +"Go on," said Rearden. "I am listening." +"Yes, I suppose I should explain," said Dr. Ferris, "that we wish to get +your signature early in the day in order to announce the fact on a national +news broadcast. Although the gift program has gone through quite smoothly, +there are still a few stubborn individualists left, who have failed to sign— +small fry, really, whose patents are of no crucial value, but we cannot let +them remain unbound, as a matter of principle, you understand. They are, we +believe, waiting to follow your lead. You have a great popular following, Mr. +Rearden, much greater than you suspected or knew how to use. Therefore, the +announcement that you have signed will remove the last hopes of resistance +and, by midnight, will bring in the last signatures, thus completing the +program on schedule." +Rearden knew that of all possible speeches, this was the last Dr. +Ferris would make if any doubt of his surrender remained in the man's +mind. +"Go on," said Rearden evenly. "You haven't finished." +"You know—as you have demonstrated at your trial—how important it is, and +why, that we obtain all that property with the voluntary consent of the +victims." Dr. Ferris opened his briefcase. "Here is the Gift Certificate, Mr. +Rearden. We have filled it out and all you have to do is to sign your name at +the bottom." +The piece of paper, which he placed in front of Rearden, looked like a +small college diploma, with the text printed in old-fashioned script and the +particulars inserted by typewriter. The thing stated that he, Henry Rearden, +hereby transferred to the nation all rights to the metal alloy now known as +"Rearden Metal," which would henceforth be manufactured by all who so +desired, and which would bear the name of "Miracle Metal," chosen by the +representatives of the people. +Glancing at the paper, Rearden wondered whether it was a deliberate +mockery of decency, or so low an estimate of their victims' intelligence, +that had made the designers of this paper print the text across a faint +drawing of the Statue of Liberty. +His eyes moved slowly to Dr. Ferris' face. "You would not have come here," +he said, "unless you had some extraordinary kind of blackjack to use on me. +What is it?" + + "Of course," said Dr. Ferris. "I would expect you to understand that. That +is why no lengthy explanations are necessary." He opened his briefcase. "Do +you wish to see my blackjack? I have brought a few samples." +In the manner of a cardsharp whisking out a long fan of cards with one +snap of the hand, he spread before Rearden a line of glossy photographic +prints. They were photostats of hotel and auto court registers, bearing in +Rearden's handwriting the names of Mr. and Mrs. J. +Smith. +"You know, of course," said Dr. Ferris softly, "but you might wish to see +whether we know it, that Mrs. J. Smith is Miss Dagny Taggart." +He found nothing to observe in Rearden's face. Rearden had not moved to +bend over the prints, but sat looking down at them with grave attentiveness, +as if, from the perspective of distance, he were discovering something about +them which he had not known. +"We have a great deal of additional evidence," said Dr. Ferris, and tossed +down on the desk a photostat of the jeweler's bill for the ruby pendant. "You +wouldn't care to see the sworn statements of apartment house doormen and +night clerks—they contain nothing that would be new to you, except the number +of witnesses who know where you spent your nights in New York, for about the +last two years. You mustn't blame those people too much. It's an interesting +characteristic of epochs such as ours that people begin to be afraid of +saying the things they want to say—and afraid, when questioned, to remain +silent about things they'd prefer never to utter. That is to be expected. But +you would be astonished if you knew who gave us the original tip." +"I know it," said Rearden; his voice conveyed no reaction. The trip to +Florida was not inexplicable to him any longer. +"There is nothing in this blackjack of mine that can harm you personally," +said Dr. Ferris, "We knew that no form of personal injury would ever make you +give in. Therefore, I am telling you frankly that this will not hurt you at +all. It will only hurt Miss Taggart" +Rearden was looking straight at him now, but Dr. Ferris wondered why it +seemed to him that the calm, closed face was moving away into a greater and +greater distance. +"If this affair of yours is spread from one end of the country to the +other," said Dr, Ferris, "by such experts in the art of smearing as Bertram +Scudder, it will do no actual damage to your reputation. +Beyond a few glances of curiosity and a few raised eyebrows in a few of +the stuffier drawing rooms, you will get off quite easily. Affairs of this +sort are expected of a man. In fact, it will enhance your reputation. +It will give you an aura of romantic glamour among the women and, among +the men, it will give you a certain kind of prestige, in the nature of envy +for an unusual conquest. But what it will do to Miss Taggart—with her +spotless name, her reputation for being above scandal, her peculiar position +of a woman in a strictly masculine business— +what it will do to her, what she will see in the eyes of everyone she +meets, what she will hear from every man she deals with—I will leave that up +to your own mind to imagine. And to consider." +Rearden felt nothing but a great stillness and a great clarity. It was as +if some voice were telling him sternly: This is the time—the scene is +lighted—now look. And standing naked in the great light, he was looking +quietly, solemnly, stripped of fear, of pain, of hope, with nothing left to +him but the desire to know. +Dr. Ferris was astonished to hear him say slowly, in the dispassionate +tone of an abstract statement that did not seem to be addressed to his +listener, "But all your calculations rest on the fact that Miss Taggart is a +virtuous woman, not the slut you're going to call her." +"Yes, of course," said Dr. Ferris. + + "And that this means much more to me than a casual affair." +"Of course." +"If she and I were the kind of scum you're going to make us appear, your +blackjack wouldn't work." +"No, it wouldn't.” +"If our relationship were the depravity you're going to proclaim it to be, +you'd have no way to harm us." +"No." +"We'd be outside your power." +"Actually—yes." +It was not to Dr. Ferris that Rearden was speaking. He was seeing a long +line of men stretched through the centuries from Plato onward, whose heir and +final product was an incompetent little professor with the appearance of a +gigolo and the soul of a thug. +"I offered you, once, a chance to join us," said Dr. Ferris. "You refused. +Now you can see the consequences. How a man of your intelligence thought that +he could win by playing it straight, I can't imagine." +"But if I had joined you," said Rearden with the same detachment, as if he +were not speaking about himself, "what would I have found worth looting from +Orren Boyle?" +"Oh hell, there's always enough suckers to expropriate in the world!" +"Such as Miss Taggart? As Ken Danagger? As Ellis Wyatt? As I?" +"Such as any man who wants to be impractical." +"You mean that it is not practical to live on earth, is it?" +He did not know whether Dr. Ferris answered him. He was not listening any +longer. He was seeing the pendulous face of Orren Boyle with the small slits +of pig's eyes, the doughy face of Mr. Mowen with the eyes that scurried away +from any speaker and any fact—he was seeing them go through the jerky motions +of an ape performing a routine it had learned to copy by muscular habit, +performing it in order to manufacture Rearden Metal, with no knowledge and no +capacity to know what had taken place in the experimental laboratory of +Rearden Steel through ten years of passionate devotion to an excruciating +effort. It was proper that they should now call it "Miracle Metal".—a miracle +was the only name they could give to those ten years and to that faculty from +which Rearden Metal was born—a miracle was all that the Metal could be in +their eyes, the product of an unknown, unknowable cause, an object in nature, +not to be explained, but to be seized, like a stone or a weed, theirs for the +seizing—"are we to let the many remain in want while the few withhold from us +the better products and methods available?" +If I had not known that my life depends on my mind and my effort—he was +saying soundlessly to the line of men stretched through the centuries—if I +had not made it my highest moral purpose to exercise the best of my effort +and the fullest capacity of my mind in order to support and expand my life, +you would have found nothing to loot from me, nothing to support your own +existence. It is not my sins that you're using to injure me, but my virtues— +my virtues by your own acknowledgment, since your own life depends on them, +since you need them, since you do not seek to destroy my achievement but to +seize it. +He remembered the voice of the gigolo of science saying to him: "We're +after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real +trick." We were not after power—he said to the gigolo's ancestors-in-spirit— +and we did not live by means of that which we condemned. We regarded +productive ability as virtue—and we let the degree of his virtue be the +measure of a man's reward. We drew no advantage from the things we regarded +as evil—we did not require the existence of bank robbers in order to operate +our banks, or of burglars in order to provide for our homes, or of murderers +in order to protect our lives. But you need the products of a man's ability— + + yet you proclaim that productive ability is a selfish evil and you turn the +degree of a man's productiveness into the measure of his loss. We lived by +that which we held to be good and punished that which we held to be evil. You +live by that which you denounce as evil and punish that which you know to be +good. +He remembered the formula of the punishment that Lillian had sought to +impose on him, the formula he had considered too monstrous to believe—and he +saw it now in its full application, as a system of thought, as a way of life +and on a world scale. There it was: the punishment that required the victim's +own virtue as the fuel to make it work—his invention of Rearden Metal being +used as the cause of his expropriation—Dagny's honor and the depth of their +feeling for each other being used as a tool of blackmail, a blackmail from +which the depraved would be immune—and, in the People's States of Europe, +millions of men being held in bondage by means of their desire to live, by +means of their energy drained in forced labor, by means of their ability to +feed their masters, by means of the hostage system, of their love for their +children or wives or friends—by means of love, ability and pleasure as the +fodder for threats and the bait for extortion, with love tied to fear, +ability to punishment, ambition to confiscation, with blackmail as law, with +escape from pain, not quest for pleasure, as the only incentive to effort and +the only reward of achievement—men held enslaved by means of whatever living +power they possessed and of whatever joy they found in life. Such was the +code that the world had accepted and such was the key to the code: that it +hooked man's love of existence to a circuit of torture, so that only the man +who had nothing to offer would have nothing to fear, so that the virtues +which made life possible and the values which gave it meaning became the +agents of its destruction, so that one's best became the tool of one's agony, +and man's life on earth became impractical. +“Yours was the code of life," said the voice of a man whom he could not +forget. "What, then, is theirs?" +Why had the world accepted it?—he thought. How had the victims come to +sanction a code that pronounced them guilty of the fact of existing? . . . +And then the violence of an inner blow became the total stillness of his body +as he sat looking at a sudden vision: Hadn't he done it also? Hadn't he given +his sanction to the code of self damnation? Dagny—he thought—and the depth of +their feeling for each other . . . the blackmail from which the depraved +would be immune . . . hadn't he, too, once called it depravity? Hadn't he +been first to throw at her all the insults which the human scum was now +threatening to throw at her in public? Hadn't he accepted as guilt the +highest happiness he had ever found? +"You who won't allow one per cent of impurity into an alloy of metal," the +unforgotten voice was saying to him, "what have you allowed into your moral +code?" +"Well, Mr. Rearden?" said the voice of Dr, Ferris. "Do you understand me +now? Do we get the Metal or do we make a public showplace out of Miss +Taggart's bedroom?" +He was not seeing Dr. Ferris. He was seeing—in the violent clarity that +was like a spotlight tearing every riddle open to him—the day he met Dagny +for the first time. +It was a few months after she had become Vice-President of Taggart +Transcontinental. He had been hearing skeptically, for some time, the rumors +that the railroad was run by Jim Taggart's sister. That summer, when he grew +exasperated at Taggart's delays and contradictions over an order of rail for +a new cutoff, an order which Taggart kept placing, altering and withdrawing, +somebody told him that if he wished to get any sense or action out of Taggart +Transcontinental, he'd better speak to Jim's sister. He telephoned her office +to make an appointment and insisted on having it that same afternoon. Her + + secretary told him that Miss Taggart would be at the construction site of the +new cutoff, that afternoon, at Milford Station between New York and +Philadelphia, but would be glad to see him there if he wished. He went to the +appointment resentfully; he did not like such businesswomen as he had met, +and he felt that railroads were no business for a woman to play with; he +expected a spoiled heiress who used her name and sex as substitute for +ability, some eyebrow-plucked, over groomed female, like the lady executives +of department stores. +He got off the last car of a long train, far beyond the platform of +Milford Station. There was a clutter of sidings, freight cars, cranes and +steam shovels around him, descending from the main track down the slope of a +ravine where men were grading the roadbed of the new cutoff. He started +walking between the sidings toward the station building. Then he stopped. +He saw a girl standing on top of a pile of machinery on a flatcar. +She was looking off at the ravine, her head lifted, strands of disordered +hair stirring in the wind. Her plain gray suit was like a thin coating of +metal over a slender body against the spread of sun-flooded space and sky. +Her posture had the lightness and unself-conscious precision of an arrogantly +pure self-confidence. She was watching the work, her glance intent and +purposeful, the glance of competence enjoying its own function. She looked as +if this were her place, her moment and her world, she looked as if enjoyment +were her natural state, her face was the living form of an active, living +intelligence., a young girl's face with a woman's mouth, she seemed unaware +of her body except as of a taut instrument ready to serve her purpose in any +manner she wished. +Had he asked himself a moment earlier whether he carried in his mind an +image of what he wanted a woman to look like, he would have answered that he +did not; yet, seeing her, he knew that this was the image and that it had +been for years. But he was not looking at her as at a woman. He had forgotten +where he was and on what errand, he was held by a child's sensation of joy in +the immediate moment, by the delight of the unexpected and undiscovered, he +was held by the astonishment of realizing how seldom he came upon a sight he +truly liked, liked in complete acceptance and for its own sake, he was +looking up at her with a faint smile, as he would have looked at a statue or +a landscape, and what he felt was the sheer pleasure of the sight, the purest +esthetic pleasure he had ever experienced. +He saw a switchman going by and he asked, pointing, "Who is that?" +"Dagny Taggart," said the man, walking on. +Rearden felt as if the words struck him inside his throat. He felt the +start of a current that cut his breath for a moment, then went slowly down +his body, carrying in its wake a sense of weight, a drained heaviness that +left him no capacity but one. He was aware—with an abnormal clarity—of the +place, the woman's name, and everything it implied, but all of it had receded +into some outer ring and had become a pressure that left him alone in the +center, as the ring's meaning and essence—and his only reality was the desire +to have this woman, now, here, on top of the flatcar in the open sun—to have +her before a word was spoken between them, as the first act of their meeting, +because it would say everything and because they had earned it long ago. +She turned her head. In the slow curve of the movement, her eyes came to +his and stopped. He felt certain that she saw the nature of his glance, that +she was held by it, yet did not name it to herself. +Her eyes moved on and he saw her speak to some man who stood beside the +flatcar, taking notes. +Two things struck him together: his return to his normal reality, and the +shattering impact of guilt. He felt a moment's approach to that which no man +may feel fully and survive: a sense of self-hatred—the more terrible because +some part of him refused to accept it and made him feel guiltier. It was not + + a progression of words, but the instantaneous verdict of an emotion, a +verdict that told him: This, then, was his nature, this was his depravity— +that the shameful desire he had never been able to conquer, came to him in +response to the only sight of beauty he had found, that it came with a +violence he had not known to be possible, and that the only freedom now left +to him was to hide it and to despise himself, but never to be rid of it so +long as he and this woman were alive. +He did not know how long he stood there or what devastation that span of +time left within him. All that he could preserve was the will to decide that +she must never know it. +He waited until she had descended to the ground and the man with the notes +had departed; then he approached her and said coldly: "Miss Taggart? I am +Henry Rearden." +"Oh!" It was just a small break, then he heard the quietly natural "How do +you do, Mr. Rearden." +He knew, not admitting it to himself, that the break came from some faint +equivalent of his own feeling: she was glad that a face she had liked +belonged to a man she could admire. When he proceeded to speak to her about +business, his manner was more harshly abrupt than it had ever been with any +of his masculine customers. +Now, looking from the memory of the girl on the flatcar to the Gift +Certificate lying on his desk, he felt as if the two met in a single shock, +fusing all the days and doubts he had lived between them, and, by the glare +of the explosion, in a moment's vision of a final sum, he saw the answer to +all his questions. +He thought: Guilty?—guiltier than I had known, far guiltier than I had +thought, that day—guilty of the evil of damning as guilt that which was my +best. I damned the fact that my mind and body were a unit, and that my body +responded to the values of my mind. I damned the fact that joy is the core of +existence, the motive power of every living being, that it is the need of +one's body as it is the goal of one's spirit, that my body was not a weight +of inanimate muscles, but an instrument able to give me an experience of +superlative joy to unite my flesh and my spirit. That capacity, which I +damned as shameful, had left me indifferent to sluts, but gave me my one +desire in answer to a woman's greatness. That desire, which I damned as +obscene, did not come from the sight of her body, but from the knowledge that +the lovely form I saw, did express the spirit I was seeing— +it was not her body that I wanted, but her person—it was not the girl in +gray that I had to possess, but the woman who ran a railroad. +But I damned my body's capacity to express what I felt, I damned, as an +affront to her, the highest tribute I could give her—just as they damn my +ability to translate the work of my mind into Rearden Metal, just as they +damn me for the power to transform matter to serve my needs. I accepted their +code and believed, as they taught me, that the values of one's spirit must +remain as an impotent longing, unexpressed in action, untranslated into +reality, while the life of one's body must be lived in misery, as a +senseless, degrading performance, and those who attempt to enjoy it must be +branded as inferior animals. +I broke their code, but I fell into the trap they intended, the trap of a +code devised to be broken. I took no pride in my rebellion, I took it as +guilt, I did not damn them, I damned myself, I did not damn their code, I +damned existence—and I hid my happiness as a shameful secret. I should have +lived it openly, as of our right—or made her my wife, as in truth she was. +But I branded my happiness as evil and made her bear it as a disgrace. What +they want to do to her now, I did it first. I made it possible. +I did it—in the name of pity for the most contemptible woman I know. That, +too, was their code, and I accepted it. I believed that one person owes a + + duty to another with no payment for it in return. I believed that it was my +duty to love a woman who gave me nothing, who betrayed everything I lived +for, who demanded her happiness at the price of mine. I believed that love is +some static gift which, once granted, need no longer be deserved—just as they +believe that wealth is a static possession which can be seized and held +without further effort. I believed that love is a gratuity, not a reward to +be earned— +just as they believe it is their right to demand an unearned wealth. +And just as they believe that their need is a claim on my energy, so I +believed that her unhappiness was a claim on my life. For the sake of pity, +not justice, T endured ten years of self-torture. I placed pity above my own +conscience, and this is the core of my guilt. My crime was committed when I +said to her, "By every standard of mine, to maintain our marriage will be a +vicious fraud. But my standards are not yours. +I do not understand yours, I never have, but I will accept them." +Here they are, lying on my desk, those standards I accepted without +understanding, here is the manner of her love for me, that love which I never +believed, but tried to spare. Here is the final product of the unearned. I +thought that it was proper to commit injustice, so long as I would be the +only one to suffer. But nothing can justify injustice. +And this is the punishment for accepting as proper that hideous evil which +is self-immolation. I thought that I would be the only victim. +Instead, I've sacrificed the noblest woman to the vilest. When one acts on +pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the +evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one +forces to suffer. There is no escape from justice, nothing can be unearned +and unpaid for in the universe, neither in matter nor in spirit—and if the +guilty do not pay, then the innocent have to pay it. +It was not the cheap little looters of wealth who have beaten me— +it was I. They did not disarm me—I threw away my weapon. This is a battle +that cannot be fought except with clean hands—because the enemy's sole power +is in the sores of one's conscience—and I accepted a code that made me regard +the strength of my hands as a sin and a stain. +"Do we get the Metal, Mr. Rearden?" +He looked from the Gift Certificate on his desk to the memory of the girl +on the flatcar. He asked himself whether he could deliver the radiant being +he had seen in that moment, to the looters of the mind and the thugs of the +press. Could he continue to let the innocent bear punishment? Could he let +her take the stand he should have taken? +Could he now defy the enemy's code, when the disgrace would be hers, not +his—when the muck would be thrown at her, not at him— +when she would have to fight, while he'd be spared? Could he let her +existence be turned into a hell he would have no way of sharing? +He sat still, looking up at her, I love you, he said to the girl on the +flatcar, silently pronouncing the words that had been the meaning of that +moment four years ago, feeling the solemn happiness that belonged with the +words, even though this was how he had to say it to her for the first time. +He looked down at the. Gift Certificate. Dagny, he thought, you would not +let me do it if you knew, you will hate me for it if you learn—but I cannot +let you pay my debts. The fault was mine and I will not shift to you the +punishment which is mine to take. Even if I have nothing else now left to me, +I have this much: that I see the truth, that I am free of their guilt, that I +can now stand guiltless in my own eyes, that I know I am right, right fully +and for the first time—and that I will remain faithful to the one commandment +of my code which I have never broken: to be a man who pays his own way. +I love you, he said to the girl on the flatcar, feeling as if the light of +that summer's sun were touching his forehead, as if he, too, were standing + + under an open sky over an unobstructed earth, with nothing left to him except +himself. +"Well, Mr. Rearden? Are you going to sign?'1 asked Dr. Ferris. +Rearden's eyes moved to him. He had forgotten that Ferris was there, he +did not know whether Ferris had been speaking, arguing or waiting in silence. +"Oh, that?" said Rearden. +He picked up a pen and with no second glance, with the easy gesture of a +millionaire signing a check, he signed his name at the foot of the Statue of +Liberty and pushed the Gift Certificate across the desk. + + CHAPTER VII +THE MORATORIUM ON BRAINS +"Where have you been all this time?" Eddie Willers asked the worker in the +underground cafeteria, and added, with a smile that was an appeal, an apology +and a confession of despair, "Oh, I know it's I who've stayed away from here +for weeks." The smile looked like the effort of a crippled child groping for +a gesture that he could not perform any longer. "I did come here once, about +two weeks ago, but you weren't here that night. I was afraid you'd gone . . . +so many people are vanishing without notice. I hear there's hundreds of them +roving around the country. The police have been arresting them for leaving +their jobs—they're called deserters—but there's too many of them and no food +to feed them in jail, so nobody gives a damn any more, one way or another. I +hear the deserters are just wandering about, doing odd jobs or worse—who's +got any odd jobs to offer these days? . . . It's our best men that we're +losing, the kind who've been with the company for twenty years or more. Why +did they have to chain them to their jobs? Those men never intended to quit— +but now they're quitting at the slightest disagreement, just dropping their +tools and walking off, any hour of the day or night, leaving us in all sorts +of jams—the men who used to leap out of bed and come running if the railroad +needed them. . . . You should see the kind of human driftwood we're getting +to fill the vacancies. Some of them mean well, but they're scared of their +own shadows. Others are the kind of scum I didn't think existed—they get the +jobs and they know that we can't throw them out once they're in, so they make +it clear that they don't intend to work for their pay and never did intend. +They're the kind of men who like it—who like the way things are now. Can you +imagine that there are human beings who like it? Well, there are. . . . You +know, I don't think that I really believe it—all that's happening to us these +days. It's happening all right, but I don't believe it. I keep thinking that +insanity is a state where a person can't tell what's real. +Well, what's real now is insane—and if I accepted it as real, I'd have to +lose my mind, wouldn't I? . . . I go on working and I keep telling myself +that this is Taggart Transcontinental. I keep waiting for her to come back— +for die door to open at any moment and—oh God, I'm not supposed to say that! +. . . What? You knew it? You knew that she's gone? . . . They're keeping it +secret. But I guess everybody knows it, only nobody is supposed to say it. +They're telling people that she's away on a leave of absence. She's still +listed as our Vice-President in Charge of Operation. I think Jim and I are +the only ones who know that she has resigned for good. Jim is scared to death +that his friends in Washington will take it out on him, if it becomes known +that she's quit. It's supposed to be disastrous for public morale, if any +prominent person quits, and Jim doesn't want them to know that he's got a +deserter right in his own family. . . . But that's not all. Jim is scared +that the stockholders, the employees and whoever we do business with, will +lose the last of their confidence in Taggart Transcontinental if they learn +that she's gone. Confidence! You'd think that it wouldn't matter now, since +there's nothing any of them can do about it. And yet, Jim knows that we have +to preserve some semblance of the greatness that Taggart Transcontinental +once stood for. And he knows that the last of it went with her. . . . No, +they don't know where she is. . . . Yes, I do, but I won't tell them. I'm the +only one who knows. . . . Oh yes, they've been trying to find out. They've +tried to pump me in every way they could think of, but it's no use. +I won't tell anyone. . . . You should see the trained seal that we now +have in her place—our new Operating Vice-President. Oh sure, we have one—that +is, we have and we haven't. It's like everything they do today—it is and it +ain't, at the same tune. His name is Clifton Locey— + + he's from Jim's personal staff—a bright, progressive young man of +fortyseven and a friend of Jim's. He's only supposed to be pinch-hitting for +her, but he sits in her office and we all know that that's the new Operating +Vice-President. He gives the orders—that is, he sees to it that he's never +caught actually giving an order. He works very hard at making sure that no +decision can ever be pinned down on him, so that he won't be blamed for +anything. You see, his purpose is not to operate a railroad, but to hold a +job. He doesn't want to run trains— +he wants to please Jim. He doesn't give a damn whether there's a single +train moving or not, so long as he can make a good impression on Jim and on +the boys in Washington. So far, Mr. Clifton Locey has managed to frame up two +men: a young third assistant, for not relaying an order which Mr. Locey had +never given—and the freight manager, for issuing an order which Mr. Locey did +give, only the freight manager couldn't prove it. Both men were fired, +officially, by ruling of the Unification Board. . . . When things go well— +which is never longer than half an hour—Mr. Locey makes it a point to remind +us that 'these are not the days of Miss Taggart.' At the first sign of +trouble, he calls me into his office and asks me—casually, in the midst of +the most irrelevant drivel—what Miss Taggart used to do in such an emergency. +I tell him, whenever I can. I tell myself that it's Taggart Transcontinental, +and . . . and there's thousands of lives on dozens of trains that hang on our +decisions. Between emergencies, Mr. Locey goes out of his way to be rude to +me—that's so I wouldn't think that he needs me. He's made it a point to +change everything she used to do, in every respect that doesn't matter, but +he's damn cautious not to change anything that matters. The only trouble is +that he can't always tell which is which. . . . On his first day in her +office, he told me that it wasn't a good idea to have a picture of Nat +Taggart on the wall— +'Nat Taggart,' he said, 'belongs to a dark past, to the age of selfish +greed, he is not exactly a symbol of our modern, progressive policies, so it +could make a bad impression, people could identify me with him.' 'No, they +couldn't,' I said—but I took the picture off his wall. . . . What? +. . . No, she doesn't know any of it. I haven't communicated with her. +Not once. She told me not to. . . . Last week, I almost quit. It was over +Chick's Special. Mr. Chick Morrison of Washington, whoever the hell he is, +has gone on a speaking tour of the whole country—to speak about the directive +and build up the people's morale, as things are getting to be pretty wild +everywhere. He demanded a special train, for himself and party—a sleeper, a +parlor car and a diner with barroom and lounge. The Unification Board gave +him permission to travel at a hundred miles an hour—by reason, the ruling +said, of this being a non-profit journey. Well, so it is. It's just a journey +to talk people into continuing to break their backs at making profits in +order to support men who are superior by reason of not making any. Well, our +trouble came when Mr. Chick Morrison demanded a Diesel engine for his train. +We had none to give him. Every Diesel we own is out on the road, pulling the +Comet and the transcontinental freights, and there wasn't a spare one +anywhere on the system, except—well, that was an exception I wasn't going to +mention to Mr. Clifton Locey. +Mr. Locey raised the roof, screaming that come hell or high water we +couldn't refuse a demand of Mr. Chick Morrison. I don't know what damn fool +finally told him about the extra Diesel that was kept at Winston, Colorado, +at the mouth of the tunnel. You know the way our Diesels break down nowadays, +they're all breathing their last—so you can understand why that extra Diesel +had to be kept at the tunnel. I explained it to Mr. Locey, I threatened him, +I pleaded, I told him that she had made it our strictest rule that Winston +Station was never to be left without an extra Diesel. He told me to remember +that he was not Miss Taggart—as if I could ever forget it!—and that the rule + + was nonsense, because nothing had happened all these years, so Winston could +do without a Diesel for a couple of months, and he wasn't going to worry +about some theoretical disaster in the future when we were up against the +very real, practical, immediate disaster of getting Mr. +Chick Morrison angry at us. Well, Chick's Special got the Diesel. The +superintendent of the Colorado Division quit. Mr. Locey gave that job to a +friend of his own. I wanted to quit. I had never wanted to so badly. But I +didn't. . . . No, I haven't heard from her. I haven't heard a word since she +left. Why do you keep questioning me about her? Forget it. She won't be back, +. . . I don't know what it is that I'm hoping for. Nothing, I guess. I just +go day by day, and I try not to look ahead. At first, I hoped that somebody +would save us. I thought maybe it would be Hank Rearden. But he gave in. I +don't know what they did to him to make him sign, but I know that it must +have been something terrible. Everybody thinks so. Everybody's whispering +about it, wondering what sort of pressure was used on him. . . . No, nobody +knows. He's made no public statements and he's refused to see anyone, . . . +But, listen, I'll tell you something else that everybody's whispering about. +Lean closer, will you?—I don't want to speak too loudly. They say that Orren +Boyle seems to have known about that directive long ago, weeks or months in +advance, because he had started, quietly and secretly, to reconstruct his +furnaces for the production of Rearden Metal, in one of his lesser steel +plants, an obscure little place way out on the coast of Maine, He was ready +to start pouring the Metal the moment Rearden's extortion paper—I mean, Gift +Certificate—was signed. But—listen—the night before they were to start, +Boyle's men were heating the furnaces in that place on the coast, when they +heard a voice, they didn't know whether it came from a plane or a radio or +some sort of loud-speaker, but it was a man's voice and it said that he would +give them ten minutes to get out of the place. +They got out. They started going and they kept on going—because the man's +voice had said that he was Ragnar Danneskjold. In the next half-hour, Boyle's +mills were razed to the ground. Razed, wiped out, not a brick of them left +standing. They say it was done by long-range naval guns, from somewhere way +out on the Atlantic. Nobody saw Danneskjold's ship. . . . That's what people +are whispering. The newspapers haven't printed a word about it. The boys in +Washington say that it's only a rumor spread by panic-mongers. . . . I don't +know whether the story is true. I think it is. I hope it is. . . . You know, +when I was fifteen years old, I used to wonder how any man could become a +criminal, I couldn't understand what would make it possible. +Now—now I'm glad that Ragnar Danneskjold has blown up those mills. May God +bless him and never let them find him, whatever and wherever he is! . . . +Yes, that's what I've come to feel. Well, how much do they think people can +take? . . . It's not so bad for me in the daytime, because I can keep busy +and not think, but it gets me at night. I can't sleep any more, I lie awake +for hours. . . . Yes!—if you want to know it—yes, it's because I'm worried +about her! I'm scared to death for her. Woodstock is just a miserable little +hole of a place, miles away from everything, and the Taggart lodge is twenty +miles farther, twenty miles of a twisting trail in a godforsaken forest. How +do I know what might happen to her there, alone, and with the kind of gangs +that are roving all through the country these nights—just through such +desolate parts of the country as the Berkshires? . . . I know I shouldn't +think about it. I know that she can take care of herself. Only I wish she'd +drop me a line. I wish I could go there. But she told me not to. +I told her I'd wait. . . . You know, I'm glad you're here tonight. It +helps me—talking to you and . . . just seeing you here. You won't vanish, +like all the others, will you? . . . What? Next week? . . . Oh, on your +vacation. For how long? . . . How do you rate a whole month's vacation? . . . +I wish I could do that, too—take a month off at my own expense. But they + + wouldn't let me. . . . Really? I envy you. . . . I wouldn't have envied you a +few years ago. But now—now I'd like to get away. Now I envy you—if you've +been able to take a month off every summer for twelve years." +It was a dark road, but it led in a new direction. Rearden walked from his +mills, not toward his house, but toward the city of Philadelphia. +It was a great distance to walk, but he had wanted to do it tonight, as he +had done it every evening of the past week. He felt at peace in the empty +darkness of the countryside, with nothing but the black shapes of trees +around him, with no motion but that of his own body and of branches stirring +in the wind, with no lights but the slow sparks of the fireflies flickering +through the hedges. The two hours between mills and city were his span of +rest. +He had moved out of his home to an apartment in Philadelphia. He had given +no explanation to his mother and Philip, he had said nothing except that they +could remain in the house if they wished and that Miss Ives would take care +of their bills. He had asked them to tell Lillian, when she returned, that +she was not to attempt to see him. +They had stared at him in terrified silence. +He had handed to his attorney a signed blank check and said, "Get me a +divorce. On any grounds and at any cost. I don't care what means you use, how +many of their judges you purchase or whether you find it necessary to stage a +frame-up of my wife. Do whatever you wish. +But there is to be no alimony and no property settlement." The attorney +had looked at him with the hint of a wise, sad smile, as if this were an +event he had expected to happen long ago. He had answered, "Okay, Hank. It +can be done. But it will take some time." "Make it as fast as you can." +No one had questioned him about his signature on the Gift Certificate. But +he had noticed that the men at the mills looked at him with a kind of +searching curiosity, almost as if they expected to find the scars of some +physical torture on his body. +He felt nothing—nothing but the sense of an even, restful twilight, like a +spread of slag over a molten metal, when it crusts and swallows the last +brilliant spurt of the white glow within. He felt nothing at the thought of +the looters who were now going to manufacture Rearden Metal. His desire to +hold his right to it and proudly to be the only one to sell it, had been his +form of respect for his fellow men, his belief that to trade with them was an +act of honor. The belief, the respect and the desire were gone. He did not +care what men made, what they sold, where they bought his Metal or whether +any of them would know that it had been his. The human shapes moving past him +in the streets of the city were physical objects without any meaning. The +countryside —with the darkness washing away all traces of human activity, +leaving only an untouched earth which he had once been able to handle—was +real. +He carried a gun in his pocket, as advised by the policemen of the radio +car that patrolled the roads; they had warned him that no road was safe after +dark, these days. He felt, with a touch of mirthless amusement, that the gun +had been needed at the mills, not in the peaceful safety of loneliness and +night; what could some starving vagrant take from him, compared to what had +been taken by men who claimed to be his protectors? +He walked with an effortless speed, feeling relaxed by a form of activity +that was natural to him. This was his period of training for solitude, he +thought; he had to learn to live without any awareness of people, the +awareness that now paralyzed him with revulsion. He had once built his +fortune, starting out with empty hands; now he had to rebuild his life, +starting out with an empty spirit. +He would give himself a short span of time for the training, he thought, +and then he would claim the one incomparable value still left to him, the one + + desire that had remained pure and whole: he would go to Dagny. Two +commandments had grown in his mind; one was a duty, the other a passionate +wish. The first was never to let her learn the reason of his surrender to the +looters; the second was to say to her the words which he should have known at +their first meeting and should have said on the gallery of Ellis Wyatt's +house. +There was nothing but the strong summer starlight to guide him, as he +walked, but he could distinguish the highway and the remnant of a stone fence +ahead, at the corner of a country crossroad. The fence had nothing to protect +any longer, only a spread of weeds, a willow tree bending over the road and, +farther in the distance, the ruin of a farmhouse with the starlight showing +through its roof. +He walked, thinking that even this sight still retained the power to be of +value: it gave him the promise of a long stretch of space undisturbed by +human intrusion. +The man who stepped suddenly out into the road must have come from behind +the willow tree, but so swiftly that it seemed as if he had sprung up from +the middle of the highway. Rearden's hand went to the gun in his pocket, but +stopped: he knew—by the proud posture of the body standing in the open, by +the straight line of the shoulders against the starlit sky—that the man was +not a bandit. When he heard the voice, he knew that the man was not a beggar. +"I should like to speak to you, Mr. Rearden." +The voice had the firmness, the clarity and the special courtesy peculiar +to men who are accustomed to giving orders. +"Go ahead," said Rearden, "provided you don't intend to ask me for help or +money." +The man's garments were rough, but efficiently trim. He wore dark trousers +and a dark blue windbreaker closed tight at his throat, prolonging the lines +of his long, slender figure. He wore a dark blue cap, and all that could be +seen of him in the night were his hands, his face and a patch of gold-blond +hair on his temple. The hands held no weapon, only a package wrapped in +burlap, the size of a carton of cigarettes. +"No, Mr. Rearden," he said, "I don't intend to ask you for money, but to +return it to you." +"To return money?" +"Yes." +"What money?" +"A small refund on a very large debt." +"Owed by you?" +"No, not by me. It is only a token payment, but I want you to accept it as +proof that if we live long enough, you and I, every dollar of that debt will +be returned to you." +"What debt?" +"The money that was taken from you by force." +He extended the package to Rearden, flipping the burlap open. +Rearden saw the starlight run like fire along a mirror-smooth surface. +He knew, by its weight and texture, that what he held was a bar of solid +gold. +He looked from the bar to the man's face, but the face seemed harder and +less revealing than the surface of the metal. +"Who are you?" asked Rearden. +"The friend of the friendless." +"Did you come here to give this to me?" +"Yes." +"Do you mean that you had to stalk me at night, on a lonely road, in +order, not to rob me, but to hand me a bar of gold?" +"Yes." + + "Why?" +"When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is +done today, then any act of honor or restitution has to be hidden +underground." +"What made you think that I'd accept a gift of this kind?" +"It is not a gift, Mr. Rearden. It is your own money. But I have one favor +to ask of you. It is a request, not a condition, because there can be no such +thing as conditional property. The gold is yours, so you are free to use it +as you please. But I risked my life to bring it to you tonight, so I am +asking, as a favor, that you save it for the future or spend it on yourself. +On nothing but your own comfort and pleasure. Do not give it away and, above +all, do not put it into your business." +"Why?" +"Because I don't want it to be of any benefit to anybody but you. +Otherwise, I will have broken an oath taken long ago—as I am breaking +every rule I had set for myself by speaking to you tonight." +"What do you mean?" +"I have been collecting this money for you for a long time. But I did not +intend to see you or tell you about it or give it to you until much later." +"Then why did you?" +"Because I couldn't stand it any longer." +"Stand what?" +"I thought that I had seen everything one could see and that there was +nothing I could not stand seeing. But when they took Rearden Metal away from +you, it was too much, even for me. I know that you don't need this gold at +present. What you need is the justice which it represents, and the knowledge +that there are men who care for justice." +Struggling not to give in to an emotion which he felt rising through his +bewilderment, past all his doubts, Rearden tried to study the man's face, +searching for some clue to help him understand. But the face had no +expression; it had not changed once while speaking; it looked as if the man +had lost the capacity to feel long ago, and what remained of him were only +features that seemed implacable and dead. With a shudder of astonishment, +Rearden found himself thinking that it was not the face of a man, but of an +avenging angel. +"Why did you care?" asked Rearden. "What do I mean to you?" +"Much more than you have reason to suspect. And I have a friend to whom +you mean much more than you will ever learn. He would have given anything to +stand by you today. But he can't come to you. So I came in his place." +"What friend?" +"I prefer not to name him." +"Did you say that you've spent a long time collecting this money for me?" +"I have collected much more than this." He pointed at the gold. "I am +holding it in your name and I will turn it over to you when the time comes. +This is only a sample, as proof that it does exist. And if you reach the day +when you find yourself robbed of the last of your fortune, I want you to +remember that you have a large bank account waiting for you." +"What account?" +"If you try to think of all the money that has been taken from you by +force, you will know that your account represents a considerable sum." +"How did you collect it? Where did this gold come from?" +"It was taken from those who robbed you." +"Taken by whom?" +"By me." +"Who are you?" +"Ragnar Danneskjold." + + Rearden looked at him for a long, still moment, then let the gold fall out +of his hands. +Danneskjold's eyes did not follow it to the ground, but remained fixed on +Rearden with no change of expression. "Would you rather I were a law-abiding +citizen, Mr. Rearden? If so, which law should I abide by? Directive 10-289?" +"Ragnar Danneskjold . . ." said Rearden, as if he were seeing the whole of +the past decade, as if he were looking at the enormity of a crime spread +through ten years and held within two words. +"Look more carefully, Mr. Rearden. There are only two modes of living left +to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who +works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either." +"You chose to live by means of force, like the rest of them," +"Yes—openly. Honestly, if you will. I do not rob men who are tied and +gagged, I do not demand that my victims help me, I do not tell them that I am +acting for their own good. I stake my life in every encounter with men, and +they have a chance to match their guns and their brains against mine in fair +battle. Fair? It's I against the organized strength, the guns, the planes, +the battleships of five continents. If it's a moral judgment that you wish to +pronounce, Mr. Rearden, then who is the man of higher morality: I or Wesley +Mouch?" +"I have no answer to give you," said Rearden, his voice low. +"Why should you be shocked, Mr. Rearden? I am merely complying with the +system which my fellow men have established. If they believe that force is +the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask +for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them +try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property— +let them come and get it." +"But what sort of life have you chosen? To what purpose are you giving +your mind?" +"To the cause of my love." +"Which is what?" +"Justice." +"Served by being a pirate?" +"By working for the day when I won't have to be a pirate any longer." +"Which day is that?" +"The day when you'll be free to make a profit on Rearden Metal." +"Oh God!" said Rearden, laughing, his voice desperate. "Is that your +ambition?" +Danneskjold's face did not change. "It is." +"Do you expect to live to see that day?" +"Yes. Don't you?" +"No." +"Then what are you looking forward to, Mr. Rearden?" +"Nothing." +"What are you working for?" +Rearden glanced at him. "Why do you ask that?" +"To make you understand why I'm not." +"Don't expect me ever to approve of a criminal." +"I don't expect it. But there are a few things I want to help you to see." +"Even if they're true, the things you said, why did you choose to be a +bandit? Why didn't you simply step out, like—" He stopped. +"Like Ellis Wyatt, Mr. Rearden? Like Andrew Stockton? Like your friend Ken +Danagger?" +"Yes!" +"Would you approve of that?" +"I—" He stopped, shocked by his own words. + + The shock that came next was to see Danneskjold smile: it was like seeing +the first green of spring on the sculptured planes of an iceberg. Rearden +realized suddenly, for the first time, that Danneskjold's face was more than +handsome, that it had the startling beauty of physical perfection—the hard, +proud features, the scornful mouth of a Viking's statue—yet he had not been +aware of it, almost as if the dead sternness of the face had forbidden the +impertinence of an appraisal. +But the smile was brilliantly alive. +"I do approve of it, Mr. Rearden. But I've chosen a special mission of my +own. I'm after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but +until the last trace of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a +decent world to live in." +"What man?" +"Robin Hood." +Rearden looked at him blankly, not understanding. +"He was the man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I'm the +man who robs the poor and gives to the rich—or, to be exact, the man who robs +the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich." +"What in blazes do you mean?" +"If you remember the stories you've read about me in the newspapers, +before they stopped printing them, you know that I have never robbed a +private ship and never taken any private property. Nor have I ever robbed a +military vessel—because the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from +violence the citizens who paid for it, which is the proper function of a +government. But I have seized every loot carrier that came within range of my +guns, every government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship, every +vessel with a cargo of goods taken by force from some men for the unpaid, +unearned benefit of others. I seized the boats that sailed under the flag of +the idea which I am fighting: the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring +human sacrifices—that the need of some men is the knife of a guillotine +hanging over others—that all of us must live with our work, our hopes, our +plans, our efforts at the mercy of the moment when that knife will descend +upon us—and that the extent of our ability is the extent of our danger, so +that success will bring our heads down on the block, while failure will give +us the right to pull the cord. This is the horror which Robin Hood +immortalized as an ideal of righteousness. It is said that he fought against +the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but +that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is remembered, +not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender +of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man +who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did +not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay +for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea +that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don't have to +produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the +unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to +make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his +betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors +at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures—the +double-parasite who lives on the sores, of the poor and the blood of the +rich—whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal. And this has brought us +to a world where the more a man produces, the closer he comes to the loss of +all his rights, until, if his ability is great enough, he becomes a rightless +creature delivered as prey to any claimant—while in order to be placed above +rights, above principles, above morality, placed where anything is permitted +to him, even plunder and murder, all a man has to do is to be in need. Do you +wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. + + Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most +immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no +way for mankind to survive." +Rearden listened, feeling numb. But under the numbness, like the first +thrust of a seed breaking through, he felt an emotion he could not identify +except that it seemed familiar and very distant, like something experienced +and renounced long ago. +"What I actually am, Mr. Rearden, is a policeman. It is a policeman's duty +to protect men from criminals—criminals being those who seize wealth by +force. It is a policeman's duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to +its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the +policeman's duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property— +then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman. I have been selling the +cargoes I retrieved to some special customers of mine in this country, who +pay me in gold. Also, I have been selling my cargoes to the smugglers and the +black-market traders of the People's States of Europe. Do you know the +conditions of existence in those People's States? Since production and trade— +not violence—were decreed to be crimes, the best men of Europe had no choice +but to become criminals. The slave-drivers of those States are kept in power +by the handouts from their fellow looters in countries not yet fully drained, +such as this country. I do not let the handouts reach them. I sell the goods +to Europe's law-breakers, at the highest prices I can get, and I make them +pay me in gold. Gold is the objective value, the means of preserving one's +wealth and one's future. Nobody is permitted to have gold in Europe, except +the whip-wielding friends of humanity, who claim that they spend it for the +welfare of their victims. That is the gold which my smuggler-customers obtain +to pay me. +How? By the same method I use to obtain the goods. And then I return the +gold to those from whom the goods were stolen—to you, Mr. +Rearden, and to other men like you." +Rearden grasped the nature of the emotion he had forgotten. It was the +emotion he had felt when, at the age of fourteen, he had looked at his first +pay check—when, at the age of twenty-four, he had been made superintendent of +the ore mines—when, as the owner of the mines, he had placed, in his own +name, his first order for new equipment from the best concern of the time, +Twentieth Century Motors— +an emotion of solemn, joyous excitement, the sense of winning his place in +a world he respected and earning the recognition of men he admired. For +almost two decades, that emotion had been buried under a mount of wreckage, +as the years had added layer upon gray layer of contempt, of indignation, of +his struggle not to look around him, not to see those he dealt with, not to +expect anything from men and to keep, as a private vision within the four +walls of his office, the sense of that world into which he had hoped to rise. +Yet there it was again, breaking through from under the wreckage, that +feeling of quickened interest, of listening to the luminous voice of reason, +with which one could communicate and deal and live. But it was the voice of a +pirate speaking about acts of violence, offering him this substitute for his +world of reason and justice. He could not accept it; he could not lose +whatever remnant of his vision he still retained. He listened, wishing he +could escape, yet knowing that he would not miss a word of it. +"I deposit the gold in a bank—in a gold-standard bank, Mr. Rearden —to the +account of men who are its rightful owners. They are the men of superlative +ability who made their fortunes by personal effort, in free trade, using no +compulsion, no help from the government. They are the great victims who have +contributed the most and suffered the worst injustice in return. Their names +are written in my book of restitution. Every load of gold which I bring back +is divided among them and deposited to their accounts." + + "Who are they?" +"You're one of them, Mr. Rearden. I cannot compute all the money that has +been extorted from you—in hidden taxes, in regulations, in wasted time, in +lost effort, in energy spent to overcome artificial obstacles. I cannot +compute the sum, but if you wish to see its magnitude —look around you. The +extent of the misery now spreading through this once prosperous country is +the extent of the injustice which you have suffered. If men refuse to pay the +debt they owe you, this is the manner in which they will pay for it. But +there is one part of the debt which is computed and on record. That is the +part which I have made it my purpose to collect and return to you." +"What is that?" +"Your income tax, Mr. Rearden." +"What?" +"Your income tax for the last twelve years." +"You intend to refund that?" +"In full and in gold, Mr. Rearden." +Rearden burst out laughing; he laughed like a young boy, in simple +amusement, in enjoyment of the incredible. "Good God! You're a policeman and +a collector of Internal Revenue, too?" +"Yes," said Danneskjold gravely. +"You're not serious about this, are you?" +"Do I look as if I'm joking?" +"But this is preposterous!" +"Any more preposterous than Directive 10-289?" +"It's not real or possible!" +"Is only evil real and possible?" +"But—" +"Are you thinking that death and taxes are our only certainty, Mr. +Rearden? Well, there's nothing I can do about the first, but if I lift the +burden of the second, men might learn to see the connection between the two +and what a longer, happier life they have the power to achieve. They might +learn to hold, not death and taxes, but life and production as their two +absolutes and as the base of their moral code." +Rearden looked at him, not smiling. The tall, slim figure, with the +windbreaker stressing its trained muscular agility, was that of a highwayman; +the stern marble face was that of a judge; the dry, clear voice was that of +an efficient bookkeeper. +"The looters are not the only ones who have kept records on you, Mr. +Rearden. So have I. I have, in my files, copies of all your income tax +returns for the last twelve years, as well as the returns of all my other +clients. I have friends in some astonishing places, who obtain the copies I +need. I divide the money among my clients in proportion to the sums extorted +from them. Most of my accounts have now been paid to their owners. Yours is +the largest one left to settle. On the day when you will be ready to claim +it—the day when I'll know that no penny of it will go back to support the +looters—I will turn your account over to you. Until then—" He glanced down at +the gold on the ground. "Pick it up, Mr. Rearden. It's not stolen. It's +yours." +Rearden would not move or answer or look down. +"Much more than that lies in the bank, in your name." +"What bank?" +"Do you remember Midas Mulligan of Chicago?" +"Yes, of course." +"All my accounts are deposited at the Mulligan Bank." +"There is no Mulligan Bank in Chicago." +"It is not in Chicago." +Rearden let a moment pass. "Where is it?" + + "I think that you will know it before long, Mr. Rearden. But I cannot tell +you now." He added, "I must tell you, however, that I am the only one +responsible for this undertaking. It is my own personal mission. No one is +involved in it but me and the men of my ship's crew. +Even my banker has no part in it, except for keeping the money I deposit. +Many of my friends do not approve of the course I've chosen. +But we all choose different ways to fight the same battle—and this is +mine." +Rearden smiled contemptuously, "Aren't you one of those damn altruists who +spends his time on a non-profit venture and risks his life merely to serve +others?" +"No, Mr. Rearden. I am investing my time in my own future. +When we are free and have to start rebuilding from out of the ruins, I +want to see the world reborn as fast as possible. If there is, then, some +working capital in the right hands—in the hands of our best, our most +productive men—it will save years for the rest of us and, incidentally, +centuries for the history of the country. Did you ask what you meant to me? +Everything I admire, everything I want to be on the day when the earth will +have a place for such state of being, everything I want to deal with—even if +this is the only way I can deal with you and be of use to you at present." +"Why?" whispered Rearden. +"Because my only love, the only value I care to live for, is that which +has never been loved by the world, has never won recognition or friends or +defenders: human ability. That is the love I am serving—and if I should lose +my life, to what better purpose could I give it?" +The man who had lost the capacity to feel?—thought Rearden, and knew that +the austerity of the marble face was the form of a disciplined capacity to +feel too deeply. The even voice was continuing dispassionately: "I wanted you +to know this. I wanted you to know it now, when it most seem to you that +you're abandoned at the bottom of a pit among subhuman creatures who are all +that's left of mankind. I wanted you to know, in your most hopeless hour, +that the day of deliverance is much closer than you think. And there was one +special reason why I had to speak to you and tell you my secret ahead of the +proper time. +Have you heard of what happened to Orren Boyle's steel mills on the coast +of Maine?" +"Yes," said Rearden—and was shocked to hear that the word came as a gasp +out of the sudden jolt of eagerness within him. "I didn't know whether it was +true." +"It's true. I did it. Mr. Boyle is not going to manufacture Rearden Metal +on the coast of Maine. He is not going to manufacture it anywhere. Neither is +any other looting louse who thinks that a directive can give him a right to +your brain. Whoever attempts to produce that Metal, will find his furnaces +blown up, his machinery blasted, his shipments wrecked, his plant set on +fire—so many things will happen to any man who tries it, that people will say +there's a curse on it, and there will soon be no worker in the country +willing to enter the plant of any new producer of Rearden Metal. If men like +Boyle think that force is all they need to rob their betters—let them see +what happens when one of their betters chooses to resort to force. I wanted +you to know, Mr. Rearden, that none of them will produce your Metal nor make +a penny on it." +Because he felt an exultant desire to laugh—as he had laughed at the news +of Wyatt's fire, as he had laughed at the crash of d'Anconia Copper—and knew +that if he did, the thing he feared would hold him, would not release him +this time, and he would never see his mills again—Rearden drew back and, for +a moment, kept his lips closed tight to utter no sound. When the moment was + + over, he said quietly, his voice firm and dead, "Take that gold of yours and +get away from here. I won't accept the help of a criminal." +Danneskjold's face showed no reaction. "I cannot force you to accept the +gold, Mr. Rearden. But I will not take it back. You may leave it lying where +it is, if you wish." +"I don't want your help and I don't intend to protect you. If I were +within reach of a phone, I would call the police. I would and I will, if you +ever attempt to approach me again. I'll do it—in self-protection." +"I understand exactly what you mean." +"You know—because I've listened to you, because you've seen me eager to +hear it—that I haven't damned you as I should. I can't damn you or anyone +else. There are no standards left for men to live by, so I don't care to +judge anything they do today or in what manner they attempt to endure the +unendurable. If this is your manner, I will let you go to hell in your own +way, but I want no part of it. Neither as your inspiration nor as your +accomplice. Don't expect me ever to accept your bank account, if it does +exist. Spend it on some extra armor plate for yourself—because I'm going to +report this to the police and give them every clue I can to set them on your +trail." +Danneskjold did not move or answer. A freight train was rolling by, +somewhere in the distance and darkness; they could not see it, but they heard +the pounding beat of wheels filling the silence, and it seemed close, as if a +disembodied train, reduced to a long string of sound, were going past them in +the night. +"You wanted to help me in my most hopeless hour?" said Rearden. +"If I am brought to where my only defender is a pirate, then I don't care +to be defended any longer. You speak some remnant of a human language, so in +the name of that, I'll tell you that I have no hope left, but I have the +knowledge that when the end comes, I will have lived by my own standards, +even while I was the only one to whom they remained valid. I will have lived +in the world in which I started and J will go down with the last of it. I +don't think you'll want to understand me, but—" +A beam of light hit them with the violence of a physical blow. The clangor +of the train had swallowed the noise of the motor and they had not heard the +approach of the car that swept out of the side road, from behind the +farmhouse. They were not in the car's path, yet they heard the screech of +brakes behind the two headlights, pulling an invisible shape to a stop. It +was Rearden who jumped back involuntarily and had time to marvel at his +companion: the swiftness of Danneskjold's self-control was that he did not +move. +It was a police car and it stopped beside them. +The driver leaned out. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Rearden!" he said, touching his +fingers to his cap. "Good evening, sir." +"Hello," said Rearden, fighting to control the unnatural abruptness of his +voice. +There were two patrolmen in the front seat of the car and their faces had +a tight look of purpose, not the look of their usual friendly intention to +stop for a chat. +"Mr. Rearden, did you walk from the mills by way of Edgewood Road, past +Blacksmith Cove?" +"Yes. Why?" +"Did you happen to see a man anywhere around these parts, a stranger +moving along in a hurry?" +"Where?" +"He'd be either on foot or in a battered wreck of a car that's got a +million-dollar motor." +"What man?" + + "A tall man with blond hair." +"Who is he?" +"You wouldn't believe it if I told you, Mr. Rearden. Did you see him?" +Rearden was not aware of his own questions, only of the astonishing fact +that he was able to force sounds past some beating barrier inside his throat. +He was looking straight at the policeman, but he felt as if the focus of his +eyes had switched to his side vision, and what he saw most clearly was +Danneskjold's face watching him with no expression, with no line's, no +muscle's worth of feeling. He saw Danneskjold's arms hanging idly by his +sides, the hands relaxed, with no sign of intention to reach for a weapon, +leaving the tall, straight body defenseless and open—open as to a firing +squad. He saw, in the light, that the face looked younger than he had thought +and that the eyes were sky-blue. +He felt that his one danger would be to glance directly at Danneskjold—and +he kept his eyes on the policeman, on the brass buttons of a blue uniform, +but the object filling his consciousness, more forcefully than a visual +perception, was Danneskjold's body, the naked body under the clothes, the +body that would be wiped out of existence. He did not hear his own words, +because he kept hearing a single sentence in his mind, without context except +the feeling that it was the only thing that mattered to him in the world: "If +I should lose my life, to what better purpose could I give it?" +"Did you see him, Mr. Rearden?" +"No," said Rearden. "I didn't." +The policeman shrugged regretfully and closed his hands about the steering +wheel. "You didn't see any man that looked suspicious?" +"No." +"Nor any strange car passing you on the road?" +"No." +The policeman reached for the starter. "They got word that he was seen +ashore in these parts tonight, and they've thrown a dragnet over five +counties. We're not supposed to mention his name, not to scare the folks, but +he's a man whose head is worth three million dollars in rewards from all over +the world.” +He had pressed the starter and the motor was churning the air with bright +cracks of sound, when the second policeman leaned forward. +He had been looking at the blond hair under Danneskjold's cap. +"Who is that, Mr. Rearden?" he asked. +"My new bodyguard,” said Rearden. +"Oh . . . ! A sensible precaution, Mr. Rearden, in times like these. +Good night, sir." +The motor jerked forward. The red taillights of the car went shrinking +down the road. Danneskjold watched it go, then glanced pointedly at Rearden's +right hand. Rearden realized that he had stood facing the policemen with his +hand clutching the gun in his pocket and that he had been prepared to use it. +He opened his fingers and drew his hand out hastily. Danneskjold smiled. +It was a smile of radiant amusement, the silent laughter of a clear, young +spirit greeting a moment it was glad to have lived. +And although the two did not resemble each other, the smile made Rearden +think of Francisco d'Anconia. +"You haven't told a lie," said Ragnar Danneskjold. "Your bodyguard—that's +what I am and what I'll deserve to be, in many more ways than you can know at +present. Thanks, Mr. Rearden, and so long—we'll meet again much sooner than I +had hoped." +He was gone before Rearden could answer. He vanished beyond the stone +fence, as abruptly and soundlessly as he had come. When Rearden turned to +look through the farm field, there was no trace of him and no sign of +movement anywhere in the darkness. + + Rearden stood on the edge of an empty road in a spread of loneliness +vaster than it had seemed before. Then he saw, lying at his feet, an object +wrapped in burlap, with one corner exposed and glistening in the moonlight, +the color of the pirate's hair. He bent, picked it up and walked on. +Kip Chalmers swore as the train lurched and spilled his cocktail over the +table top. He slumped forward, his elbow in the puddle, and said: "God damn +these railroads! What's the matter with their track? +You'd think with all the money they've got they'd disgorge a little, so we +wouldn't have to bump like farmers on a hay cart!" +His three companions did not take the trouble to answer. It was late, and +they remained in the lounge merely because an effort was needed to retire to +their compartments. The lights of the lounge looked like feeble portholes in +a fog of cigarette smoke dank with the odor of alcohol. It was a private car, +which Chalmers had demanded and obtained for his journey; it was attached to +the end of the Comet and it swung like the tail of a nervous animal as the +Comet coiled through the curves of the mountains. +"I'm going to campaign for the nationalization of the railroads," +said Kip Chalmers, glaring defiantly at a small, gray man who looked at +him without interest. 'That's going to be my platform plank. I've got to have +a platform plank. I don't like Jim Taggart. He looks like a soft-boiled clam. +To hell with the railroads! It's time we took them over." +"Go to bed," said the man, "if you expect to look like anything human at +the big rally tomorrow." +"Do you think we'll make it?" +"You've got to make it." +"I know I've got to. But I don't think we'll get there on time. This +goddamn snail of a super-special is hours late." +"You’ve got to get there, Kip," said the man ominously, in that stubborn +monotone of the unthinking which asserts an end without concern for the +means. +"God damn you, don't you suppose I know it?" +Kip Chalmers had curly blond hair and a shapeless mouth. He came from a +semi-wealthy, semi-distinguished family, but he sneered at wealth and +distinction in a manner which implied that only a top rank aristocrat could +permit himself such a degree of cynical indifference. He had graduated from a +college which specialized in breeding that kind of aristocracy. The college +had taught him that the purpose of ideas is to fool those who are stupid +enough to think. He had made his way in Washington with the grace of a catburglar, climbing from bureau to bureau as from ledge to ledge of a crumbling +structure. He was ranked as semi-powerful, but his manner made laymen mistake +him for nothing less than Wesley Mouch. +For reasons of his own particular strategy, Kip Chalmers had decided to +enter popular politics and to run for election as Legislator from California, +though he knew nothing about that state except the movie industry and the +beach clubs. His campaign manager had done the preliminary work, and Chalmers +was now on his way to face his future constituents for the first time at an +over publicized rally in San Francisco tomorrow night. The manager had wanted +him to start a day earlier, but Charmers had stayed in Washington to attend a +cocktail party and had taken the last train possible. He had shown no concern +about the rally until this evening, when he noticed that the Comet was +running six hours late. +His three companions did not mind his mood: they liked his liquor, tester +Tuck, his campaign manager, was a small, aging man with a face that looked as +if it had once been punched in and had never rebounded. He was an attorney +who, some generations earlier, would have represented shoplifters and people +who stage accidents on the premises of rich corporations; now he found that +he could do better by representing men like Kip Chalmers. + + Laura Bradford was Chalmers' current mistress; he liked her because his +predecessor had been Wesley Mouch. She was a movie actress who had forced her +way from competent featured player to incompetent star, not by means of +sleeping with studio executives, but by taking the long-distance short cut of +sleeping with bureaucrats. She talked economics, instead of glamor, for press +interviews, in the belligerently righteous style of a third-rate tabloid; her +economics consisted of the assertion that "we've got to help the poor." +Gilbert Keith-Worthing was Chalmers' guest, for no reason that either of +them could discover. He was a British novelist of world fame, who had been +popular thirty years ago; since then, nobody bothered to read what he wrote, +but everybody accepted him as a walking classic. +He had been considered profound for uttering such things as: "Freedom? Do +let's stop talking about freedom. Freedom is impossible. Man can never be +free of hunger, of cold, of disease, of physical accidents. +He can never be free of the tyranny of nature. So why should he object to +the tyranny of a political dictatorship?" When all of Europe put into +practice the ideas which he bad preached, he came to live in America. Through +the years, his style of writing and his body had grown flabby. At seventy, he +was an obese old man with retouched hair and a manner of scornful cynicism +retouched by quotations from the yogis about the futility of all human +endeavor. Kip Chalmers had invited him, because it seemed to look +distinguished. Gilbert Keith Worthing had come along, because he had no +particular place to go. +"God damn these railroad people!" said Kip Chalmers. "They're doing it on +purpose. They want to ruin my campaign. I can't miss that rally! For Christ's +sake, Lester, do something!" +"I've tried," said Lester Tuck. At the train's last stop, he had tried, by +long-distance telephone, to find air transportation to complete their +journey; but there were no commercial flights scheduled for the next two +days. +"If they don't get me there on time, I'll have their scalps and their +railroad! Can't we tell that damn conductor to hurry?" +"You've told him three times," +"I'll get him fired. He's given me nothing but a lot of alibis about all +their messy technical troubles. I expect transportation, not alibis. They +can't treat me like one of their day-coach passengers. I expect them to get +me where I want to go when I want it. Don't they know that I'm on this +train?" +"They know it by now," said Laura Bradford. "Shut up, Kip. You bore me." +Chalmers refilled his glass. The car was rocking and the glassware tinkled +faintly on the shelves of the bar. The patches of starlit sky in the windows +kept swaying jerkily, and it seemed as if the stars were tinkling against one +another. They could see nothing beyond the glass bay of the observation +window at the end of the car, except the small halos of red and green +lanterns marking the rear of the train, and a brief stretch of rail running +away from them into the darkness. A wall of rock was racing the train, and +the stars dipped occasionally into a sudden break that outlined, high above +them, the peaks of the mountains of Colorado. +"Mountains . . ." said Gilbert Keith-Worthing, with satisfaction. +"It is a spectacle of this kind that makes one feel the insignificance of +man.' What is this presumptuous little bit of rail, which crude materialists +are so proud of building—compared to that eternal grandeur? No more than the +basting thread of a seamstress on the hem of the garment of nature. If a +single one of those granite giants chose to crumble, it would annihilate this +train." +"Why should it choose to crumble?" asked Laura Bradford, without any +particular interest. + + "I think this damn train is going slower," said Kip Chalmers. "Those +bastards are slowing down,, in spite of what I told them!" +"Well . . . it's the mountains, you know . . ." said Lester Tuck. +"Mountains be damned! Lester, what day is this? With all those damn +changes of time, I can't tell which—" +"It's May twenty-seventh," sighed Lester Tuck. +"It's May twenty-eighth," said Gilbert Keith-Worthing, glancing at his +watch. "It is now twelve minutes past midnight.” +"Jesus!" cried Chalmers. "Then the rally is today?" +"Yep," said Lester Tuck. +"We won't make it! We—" +The train gave a sharper lurch, knocking the glass out of his hand. +The thin sound of its crash against the floor mixed with the screech of +the wheel-flanges tearing against the rail of a sharp curve. +"I say," asked Gilbert Keith-Worthing nervously, "are your railroads +safe?" +"Hell, yes!" said Kip Chalmers. "We've got so many rules, regulations and +controls that those bastards wouldn't dare not to be safe! +. . . Lester, how far are we now? What's the next stop?'1 +"There won't be any stop till Salt Lake City." +"I mean, what's the next station?" +Lester Tuck produced a soiled map, which he had been consulting every few +minutes since nightfall. "Winston," he said. "Winston, Colorado." +Kip Chalmers reached for another glass. +"Tinky Holloway said that Wesley said that if you don't win this election, +you're through," said Laura Bradford. She sat sprawled in her chair, looking +past Chalmers, studying her own face in a mirror on the wall of the lounge; +she was bored and it amused her to needle his impotent anger. +"Oh, he did, did he?" +"Uh-huh. Wesley doesn't want what's-his-name—whoever's running against +you—to get into the Legislature. If you don't win, Wesley will be sore as +hell. Tinky said—" +"Damn that bastard! He'd better watch his own neck!" +"Oh, I don't know. Wesley likes him very much." She added, "Tinky Holloway +wouldn't allow some miserable train to make him miss an important meeting. +They wouldn't dare to hold him up." +Kip Chalmers sat staring at his glass. "I'm going to have the government +seize all the railroads," he said, his voice low. +"Really," said Gilbert Keith-Worthing, "I don't see why you haven't done +it long ago. This is the only country on earth backward enough to permit +private ownership of railroads." +"Well, we're catching up with you," said Kip Chalmers. +"Your country is so incredibly naive. It's such an anachronism. All that +talk about liberty and human rights—I haven't heard it since the days of my +great-grandfather. It's nothing but a verbal luxury of the rich. After all, +it doesn't make any difference to the poor whether their livelihood is at the +mercy of an industrialist or of a bureaucrat." +5S8 +"The day of the industrialists is over. This is the day of—" +The jolt felt as if the air within the car smashed them forward while the +floor stopped under their feet. Kip Chalmers was flung down to the carpet, +Gilbert Keith-Worthing was thrown across the table top, the lights were +blasted out. Glasses crashed off the shelves, the steel of the walls screamed +as if about to rip open, while a long, distant thud went like a convulsion +through the wheels of the train. +When he raised his head, Chalmers saw that the car stood intact and still; +he heard the moans of his companions and the first shriek of Laura Bradford's + + hysterics. He crawled along the floor to the doorway, wrenched it open, and +tumbled down the steps. Far ahead, on the side of a curve, he saw moving +flashlights and a red glow at a spot where the engine had no place to be. He +stumbled through the darkness, bumping into half-clothed figures that waved +the futile little flares of matches. +Somewhere along the line, he saw a man with a flashlight and seized his +arm. It was the conductor. +"What happened?" gasped Chalmers. +"Split rail,” the conductor answered impassively. "The engine went off the +track." +"Off . . . ?M +"On its side." +"Anybody . . . killed?" +"No. The engineer's all right. The fireman is hurt." +"Split rail? What do you mean, split rail?" +The conductor's face had an odd look: it was grim, accusing and closed. +"Rail wears out, Mr. Chalmers," he answered with a strange kind of emphasis. +"Particularly on curves." +"Didn't you know that it was worn out?" +"We knew." +"Well, why didn't you have it replaced?" +"It was going to be replaced. But Mr. Locey cancelled that." +"Who is Mr. Locey?" +"The man who is not our Operating Vice-President." +Chalmers wondered why the conductor seemed to look at him as if something +about the catastrophe were his fault. "Well . . . well, aren't you going to +put the engine back on the track?" +"That engine's never going to be put back on any track, from the looks of +it." +"But . . . but it's got to move us!" +"It can't." +Beyond the few moving flares and the dulled sounds of screams, Chalmers +sensed suddenly, not wanting to look at it, the black immensity of the +mountains, the silence of hundreds of uninhabited miles, and the precarious +strip of a ledge hanging between a wall of rock and an abyss. He gripped the +conductor's arm tighter. +"But . . . but what are we going to do?" +"The engineer's gone to call Winston." +"Call? How?" +"There's a phone couple of miles down the track." +"Will they get us out of here?" +"They will." +"But . . ." Then his mind made a connection with the past and the future, +and his voice rose to a scream for the first time: "How long will we have to +wait?" +"I don't know," said the conductor. He threw Chalmers' hand off his arm, +and walked away. +The night operator of Winston Station listened to the phone message, +dropped the receiver and raced up the stairs to shake the station agent out +of bed. The station agent was a husky, surly drifter who had been assigned to +the job ten days ago, by order of the new division superintendent. He +stumbled dazedly to his feet, but he was knocked awake when the operator's +words reached his brain. +"What?" he gasped. "Jesus! The Comet? . . . Well, don't stand there +shaking! Call Silver Springs!" + + The night dispatcher of the Division Headquarters at Silver Springs +listened to the message, then telephoned Dave Mitchum, the new superintendent +of the Colorado Division. +"The Comet?" gasped Mitchum, his hand pressing the telephone receiver to +his ear, his feet hitting the floor and throwing him upright, out of bed. +"The engine done for? The Diesel?" +"Yes, sir." +"Oh God! Oh, God Almighty! What are we going to do?" Then, remembering his +position, he added, "Well, send out the wrecking train." +"I have." +"Call the operator at Sherwood to hold all traffic." +"I have." +"What have you got on the sheet?" +"The Army Freight Special, westbound. But it's not due for about four +hours. It's running late." +"I'll be right down. . . . Wait, listen, get Bill, Sandy and Clarence down +by the time I get there. There's going to be hell to pay!" +Dave Mitchum had always complained about injustice, because, he said, he +had always had bad luck. He explained it by speaking darkly about the +conspiracy of the big fellows, who would never give him a chance, though he +did not explain just whom he meant by "the big fellows." Seniority of service +was his favorite topic of complaint and sole standard of value; he had been +in the railroad business longer than many men who had advanced beyond him; +this, he said, was proof of the social system's injustice—though he never +explained just what he meant by "the social system." He had worked for many +railroads, but had not stayed long with any one of them. His employers had +had no specific misdeeds to charge against him, but had simply eased him out, +because he said, "Nobody told me to!” too often. He did not know that he owed +his present job to a deal between James Taggart and Wesley Mouch: when +Taggart traded to Mouch the secret of his sister's private life, in exchange +for a raise in rates, Mouch made him throw in an extra favor, by their +customary rules of bargaining, which consisted of squeezing all one could out +of any given trade. The extra was a job for Dave Mitchum, who was the +brother-in-law of Claude Slagenhop, who was the president of the Friends of +Global Progress, who were regarded by Mouch as a valuable influence on public +opinion. James Taggart pushed the responsibility of finding a job for Mitchum +onto Clifton Locey. Locey pushed Mitchum into the first job that came up— +superintendent of the Colorado Division—when the man holding it quit without +notice. The man quit when the extra Diesel engine of Winston Station was +given to Chick Morrison's Special. +"What are we going to do?" cried Dave Mitchum, rushing, half-dressed and +groggy with sleep, into his office, where the chief dispatcher, the +trainmaster and the road foreman of engines were waiting for him. +The three men did not answer. They were middle-aged men with years of +railroad service behind them. A month ago, they would have volunteered their +advice in any emergency; but they were beginning to learn that things had +changed and that it was dangerous to speak. +"What in hell are we going to do?" +"One thing is certain," said Bill Brent, the chief dispatcher. "We can't +send a train into the tunnel with a coal-burning engine." +Dave Mitchum's eyes grew sullen: he knew that this was the one thought on +all their minds; he wished Brent had not named it. +"Well, where do we get a Diesel?" he asked angrily. +"We don't," said the road foreman. +"But we can't keep the Comet waiting on a siding all night!" + + "Looks like we'll have to," said the trainmaster. "What's the use of +talking about it, Dave? You know that there is no Diesel anywhere on the +division." +"But Christ Almighty, how do they expect us to move trains without +engines?" +"Miss Taggart didn't," said the road foreman. "Mr. Locey does." +"Bill," asked Mitchum, in the tone of pleading for a favor, "isn't there +anything transcontinental that's due tonight, with any sort of a Diesel?" +"The first one to come," said Bill Brent implacably, "will be Number 236, +the fast freight from San Francisco, which is due at Winston at seveneighteen A.M." He added, "That's the Diesel closest to us at this moment. +I've checked," +"What about the Army Special?" +"Better not think about it, Dave. That one has superiority over everything +on the line, including the Comet, by order of the Army. +They're running late as it is—journal boxes caught fire twice. They're +carrying munitions for the West Coast arsenals. Better pray that nothing +stops them on your division. If you think we'll catch hell for holding the +Comet, it's nothing to what we'll catch if we try to stop that Special." +They remained silent. The windows were open to the summer night and they +could hear the ringing of the telephone in the dispatcher's office +downstairs. The signal lights winked over the deserted yards that had once +been a busy division point. +Mitchum looked toward the roundhouse, where the black silhouettes of a few +steam engines stood outlined in a dim light. +"The tunnel—" he said and stopped. +"—is eight miles long," said the trainmaster, with a harsh emphasis. +"I was only thinking," snapped Mitchum. +"Better not think of it," said Brent softly. +"I haven't said anything!" +"What was that talk you had with Dick Horton before he quit?" the road +foreman asked too innocently, as if the subject were irrelevant. +"Wasn't it something about the ventilation system of the tunnel being on +the bum? Didn't he say that that tunnel was hardly safe nowadays even for +Diesel engines?" +"Why do you bring that up?" snapped Mitchum. "I haven't said anything!" +Dick Horton, the division chief engineer, had quit three days after Mitchum's +arrival. +"I thought I'd just mention it," the road foreman answered innocently. +"Look, Dave," said Bill Brent, knowing that Mitchum would stall for +another hour rather than formulate a decision, "you know that there's only +one thing to do: hold the Comet at Winston till morning, wait for Number 236, +have her Diesel take the Comet through the tunnel, then let the Comet finish +her run with the best coal-burner we can give her on the other side," +"But how late will that make her?" +Brent shrugged. "Twelve hours—eighteen hours—who knows?" +"Eighteen hours—for the Comet? Christ, that's never happened before!" +"None of what's been happening to us has ever happened before," +said Brent, with an astonishing sound of weariness in his brisk, competent +voice. +"But they'll blame us for it in New York! They'll put all the blame on +us!" +Brent shrugged. A month ago, he would have considered such an injustice +inconceivable; today, he knew better. +"I guess . . ." said Mitchum miserably, "I guess there's nothing else that +we can do." +"There isn't, Dave," + + "Oh God! Why did this have to happen to us?" +"Who is John Galt?" +It was half-past two when the Comet, pulled by an old switch engine, +jerked to a stop on a siding of Winston Station. Kip Chalmers glanced out +with incredulous anger at the few shanties on a desolate mountainside and at +the ancient hovel of a station. +"Now what? What in hell are they stopping here for?" he cried, and rang +for the conductor. +With the return of motion and safety, his terror had turned into rage. He +felt almost as if he had been cheated by having been made to experience an +unnecessary fear. His companions were still clinging to the tables of the +lounge; they felt too shaken to sleep. +"How long?" the conductor said impassively, in answer to his question. +"Till morning, Mr. Chalmers." +Chalmers stared at him, stupefied. "We're going to stand here till +morning?" +"Yes, Mr. Chalmers." +"Here?" +"Yes." +"But I have a rally in San Francisco in the evening!" +The conductor did not answer. +"Why? Why do we have to stand? Why in hell? What happened?" +Slowly, patiently, with contemptuous politeness, the conductor gave him an +exact account of the situation. But years ago, in grammar school, in high +school, in college, Kip Chalmers had been taught that man does not and need +not live by reason. +"Damn your tunnel!" he screamed. "Do you think I'm going to let you hold +me up because of some miserable tunnel? Do you want to wreck vital national +plans on account of a tunnel? Tell your engineer that I must be in San +Francisco by evening and that he's got to get me there!" +"How?" +"That's your job, not mine!" +"There is no way to do it." +"Then find a way, God damn you!" +The conductor did not answer. +"Do you think I'll let your miserable technological problems interfere +with crucial social issues? Do you know who I am? Tell that engineer to start +moving, if he values his job!" +"The engineer has his orders." +"Orders be damned! I give the orders these days! Tell him to start at +once!" +"Perhaps you'd better speak to the station agent, Mr. Chalmers. I have no +authority to answer you as I'd like to," said the conductor, and walked out. +Chalmers leaped to his feet. "Say, Kip . . ." said Lester Tuck uneasily, +"maybe it's true . . . maybe they can't do it." +"They can if they have to!" snapped Chalmers, marching resolutely to the +door. +Years ago, in college, he had been taught that the only effective means to +impel men to action was fear. +In the dilapidated office of Winston Station, he confronted a sleepy man +with slack, worn features, and a frightened young boy who sat at the +operator's desk. They listened, in silent stupor, to a stream of profanity +such as they had never heard from any section gang. +"—and it's not my problem how you get the train through the tunnel, that's +for you to figure out!" Chalmers concluded. "But if you don't get me an +engine and don't start that train, you can kiss good-bye to your jobs, your +work permits and this whole goddamn railroad!" + + The station agent had never heard of Kip Chalmers and did not know the +nature of his position. But he knew that this was the day when unknown men in +undefined positions held unlimited power—the power of life or death. +"It's not up to us, Mr. Chalmers," he said pleadingly. "We don't issue the +orders out here. The order came from Silver Springs. Suppose you telephone +Mr. Mitchum and—" +"Who's Mr. Mitchum?" +"He's the division superintendent at Silver Springs. Suppose you send him +a message to—" +"I should bother with a division superintendent! I'll send a message to +Jim Taggart—that's what I'm going to do!" +Before the station agent had time to recover, Chalmers whirled to the boy, +ordering, "You—take this down and send it at once!" +It was a message which, a month ago, the station agent would not have +accepted from any passenger; the rules forbade it; but he was not certain +about any rules any longer: Mr. James Taggart, New York City. Am held up on +the Comet at Winston, Colorado, by the incompetence of your men, who refuse +to give me an engine. Have meeting in San Francisco in the evening of toplevel national importance. If you don't move my train at once, I'll let you +guess the consequences. Kip Chalmers. +After the boy had transmitted the words onto the wires that stretched from +pole to pole across a continent as guardians of the Taggart track—after Kip +Chalmers had returned to Ms car to wait for an answer—the station agent +telephoned Dave Mitchum, who was his friend, and read to him the text of the +message. He heard Mitchum groan in answer. +"I thought I'd tell you, Dave. I never heard of the guy before, but maybe +he's somebody important." +"I don't know!" moaned Mitchum. "Kip Chalmers? You see his name in the +newspapers all the time, right in with all the top-level boys, I don't know +what he is, but if he's from Washington, we can't take any chances. Oh +Christ, what are we going to do?" +We can't take any chances—thought the Taggart operator in New York, and +transmitted the message by telephone to James Taggart's home. It was close to +six A.M. in New York, and James Taggart was awakened out of the fitful sleep +of a restless night. He listened to the telephone, his face sagging. He felt +the same fear as the station agent of Winston, and for the same reason. +He called the home of Clifton Locey. All the rage which he could not pour +upon Kip Chalmers, was poured over the telephone wire upon Clifton Locey. "Do +something!" screamed Taggart. "I don't care what you do, it's your job, not +mine, but see to it that that train gets through! What in hell is going on? I +never heard of the Comet being held up! Is that how you run your department? +It's a fine thing when important passengers have to start sending messages to +me! At least, when my sister ran the place, I wasn't awakened in the middle +of the night over every spike that broke in Iowa—Colorado, I mean!" +"I'm so sorry, Jim," said Clifton Locey smoothly, in a tone that balanced +apology, reassurance and the right degree of patronizing confidence. "It's +just a misunderstanding. It's somebody's stupid mistake. +Don't worry, 111 take care of it. I was, as a matter of fact, in bed, but +I'll attend to it at once." +Clifton Locey was not in bed; he had just returned from a round of night +clubs, in the company of a young lady. He asked her to wait and hurried to +the offices of Taggart Transcontinental. None of the night staff who saw him +there could say why he chose to appear in person, but neither could they say +that it had been unnecessary. He rushed in and out of several offices, was +seen by many people and gave an impression of great activity. The only +physical result of it was an order that went over the wires to Dave Mitchum, +superintendent of the Colorado Division: "Give an engine to Mr. Chalmers at + + once. Send the Comet through safely and without unnecessary delay. If you are +unable to perform your duties, I shall hold you responsible before the +Unification Board, Clifton Locey," +Then, calling his girl friend to join him, Clifton Locey drove to a +country roadhouse—to make certain that no one would be able to find him in +the next few hours. +The dispatcher at Silver Springs was baffled by the order that he handed +to Dave Mitchum, but Dave Mitchum understood. He knew that no railroad order +would ever speak in such terms as giving an engine to a passenger; he knew +that the thing was a show piece, he guessed what sort of show was being +staged, and he felt a cold sweat at the realization of who was being framed +as the goat of the show. +"What's the matter, Dave?" asked the trainmaster. +Mitchum did not answer. He seized the telephone, his hands shaking as he +begged for a connection to the Taggart operator in New York, He looked like +an animal in a trap. +He begged the New York operator to get him Mr. Clifton Locey's home. The +operator tried. There was no answer. He begged the operator to keep on trying +and to try every number he could think of, where Mr. Locey might be found. +The operator promised and Mitchum hung up, but knew that it was useless to +wait or to speak to anyone in Mr. Locey's department. +"What's the matter, Dave?" +Mitchum handed him the order—and saw by the look on the trainmaster's face +that the trap was as bad as he had suspected. +He called the Region Headquarters of Taggart Transcontinental at Omaha, +Nebraska, and begged to speak to the general manager of the region. There was +a brief silence on the wire, then the voice of the Omaha operator told him +that the general manager had resigned and vanished three days ago—"over a +little trouble with Mr. Locey," the voice added. +He asked to speak to the assistant general manager in charge of his +particular district; but the assistant was out of town for the week end and +could not be reached. +"Get me somebody else!" Mitchum screamed. "Anybody, of any district! For +Christ's sake, get me somebody who'll tell me what to do!" +The man who came on the wire was the assistant general manager of the +Iowa-Minnesota District. +"What?" he interrupted at Mitchum's first words. "At Winston, Colorado? +Why in hell are you calling me? . . . No, don't tell me what happened, I +don't want to know it! . . . No, I said! No! You're not going to frame me +into having to explain afterwards why I did or didn't do anything about +whatever it is. It's not my problem! . . . Speak to some region executive, +don't pick on me, what do I have to do with Colorado? . . . Oh hell, I don't +know, get the chief engineer, speak to him!" +The chief engineer of the Central Region answered impatiently, "Yes? What? +What is it?"—and Mitchum rushed desperately to explain. When the chief +engineer heard that there was no Diesel, he snapped, "Then hold the train, of +course!" When he heard about Mr. +Chalmers, he said, his voice suddenly subdued, "Hm . . . Kip Chalmers? Of +Washington? . . . Well, I don't know. That would be a matter for Mr. Locey to +decide." When Mitchum said, "Mr. Locey ordered me to arrange it, but—" the +chief engineer snapped in great relief, "Then do exactly as Mr. Locey says!" +and hung up. +Dave Mitchum replaced the telephone receiver cautiously. He did not scream +any longer. Instead, he-tiptoed to a chair, almost as if he were sneaking. He +sat looking at Mr. Locey's order for a long time. +Then he snatched a glance about the room. The dispatcher was busy at his +telephone. The trainmaster and the road foreman were there, but they + + pretended that they were not waiting. He wished Bill Brent, the chief +dispatcher, would go home; Bill Brent stood in a corner, watching him. +Brent was a short, thin man with broad shoulders; he was forty, but looked +younger; he had the pale face of an office worker and the hard, lean features +of a cowboy. He was the best dispatcher on the system. +Mitchum rose abruptly and walked upstairs to his office, clutching Locey's +order in his hand. +Dave Mitchum was not good at understanding problems of engineering and +transportation, but he understood men like Clifton Locey. He understood the +kind of game the New York executives were playing and what they were now +doing to him. The order did not tell him to give Mr. Chalmers a coal-burning +engine—just "an engine." If the time came to answer questions, wouldn't Mr. +Locey gasp in shocked indignation that he had expected a division +superintendent to know that only a Diesel engine could be meant in that +order? The order stated that he was to send the Comet through "safely"—wasn't +a division superintendent expected to know what was safe?—"and without +unnecessary delay." What was an unnecessary delay? If the possibility of a +major disaster was involved, wouldn't a delay of a week or a month be +considered necessary? +The New York executives did not care, thought Mitchum; they did not care +whether Mr. Chalmers reached his meeting on time, or whether an unprecedented +catastrophe struck their rails; they cared only about making sure that they +would not be blamed for either. If he held the train, they would make him the +scapegoat to appease the anger of Mr. Chalmers; if he sent the train through +and it did not reach the western portal of the tunnel, they would put the +blame on his incompetence; they would claim that he had acted against their +orders, in either case. What would he be able to prove? To whom? One could +prove nothing to a tribunal that had no stated policy, no defined procedure, +no rules of evidence, no binding principles—a tribunal, such as the +Unification Board, that pronounced men guilty or innocent as it saw fit, with +no standard of guilt or innocence. +Dave Mitchum knew nothing about the philosophy of law; but he knew that +when a court is not bound by any rules, it is not bound by any facts, and +then a hearing is not an issue of justice, but an issue of men, and your fate +depends not on what you have or have not done, but on whom you do or do not +know. He asked himself what chance he would have at such a hearing against +Mr. James Taggart, Mr. Clifton Locey, Mr. Kip Chalmers and their powerful +friends. +Dave Mitchum had spent his life slipping around the necessity of ever +making a decision; he had done it by waiting to be told and never being +certain of anything. All that he now allowed into his brain was a long, +indignant whine against injustice. Fate, he thought, had singled him out for +an unfair amount of bad luck: he was being framed by his superiors on the +only good job he had ever held. He had never been taught to understand that +the manner in which he obtained this job, and the frame-up, were inextricable +parts of a single whole. +As he looked at Locey's order, he thought that he could hold the Comet, +attach Mr. Chalmers1 car to an engine and send it into the tunnel, alone. But +he shook his head before the thought was fully formed: he knew that this +would force Mr. Chalmers to recognize the nature of the risk; Mr. Chalmers +would refuse; he would continue to demand a safe and non-existent engine. And +more: this would mean that he, Mitchum, would have to assume responsibility, +admit full knowledge of the danger, stand in the open and identify the exact +nature of the situation—the one act which the policy of his superiors was +based on evading, the one key to their game. +Dave Mitchum was not the man to rebel against his background or to +question the moral code of those in charge. The choice he made was not to + + challenge, but to follow the policy of his superiors. Bill Brent could havebeaten him in any contest of technology, but here was an endeavor at which he +could beat Bill Brent without effort. There had once been a society where men +needed the particular talents of Bill Brent, if they wished to survive; what +they needed now was the talent of Dave Mitchum. +Dave Mitchum sat down at his secretary's typewriter and, by means of two +fingers, carefully typed out an order to the trainmaster and another to the +road foreman. The first instructed the trainmaster to summon a locomotive +crew at once, for a purpose described only as "an emergency"; the second +instructed the road foreman to "send the best engine available to Winston, to +stand by for emergency assistance." +He put carbon copies of the orders into his own pocket, then opened the +door, yelled for the night dispatcher to come up and handed him the two +orders for the two men downstairs. The night dispatcher was a conscientious +young boy who trusted his superiors and knew that discipline was the first +rule of the railroad business. He was astonished that Mitchum should wish to +send written orders down one flight of stairs, but he asked no questions, +Mitchum waited nervously. After a while, he saw the figure of the road +foreman walking across the yards toward the roundhouse. He felt relieved: the +two men had not come up to confront him in person; they had understood and +they would play the game as he was playing it. +The road foreman walked across the yards, looking down at the ground. He +was thinking of his wife, his two children and the house which he had spent a +lifetime to own. He knew what his superiors were doing and he wondered +whether he should refuse to obey them. He had never been afraid of losing his +job; with the confidence of a competent man, he had known that if he +quarreled with one employer, he would always be able to find another. Now, he +was afraid; he had no right to quit or to seek a job; if he defied an +employer, he would be delivered into the unanswerable power of a single +Board, and if the Board ruled against him, it would mean being sentenced to +the slow death of starvation: it would mean being barred from any employment. +He knew that the Board would rule against him; he knew that the key to the +dark, capricious mystery of the Board's contradictory decisions was the +secret power of pull. What chance would he have against Mr. Chalmers? There +had been a time when the self-interest of his employers had demanded that he +exercise his utmost ability. +Now, ability was not wanted any longer. There had been a time when he had +been required to do his best and rewarded accordingly. Now, he could expect +nothing but punishment, if he tried to follow his conscience. There had been +a time when he had been expected to think. +Now, they did not want him to think, only to obey. They did not want him +to have a conscience any longer. Then why should he raise his voice? For +whose sake? He thought of the passengers—the three hundred passengers aboard +the Comet. He thought of his children. He had a son in high school and a +daughter, nineteen, of whom he was fiercely, painfully proud, because she was +recognized as the most beautiful girl in town. He asked himself whether he +could deliver his children to the fate of the children of the unemployed, as +he had seen them in the blighted areas, in the settlements around closed +factories and along the tracks of discontinued railroads. He saw, in +astonished horror, that the choice which he now had to make was between the +lives of his children and the lives of the passengers on the Comet. A +conflict of this kind had never been possible before. It was by protecting +the safety of the passengers that he had earned the security of his children; +he had served one by serving the other; there had been no clash of interests, +no call for victims. Now, if he wanted to save the passengers, he had to do +it at the price of his children. + + He remembered dimly the sermons he had heard about the beauty of selfimmolation, about the virtue of sacrificing to others that which was one's +dearest. He knew nothing about the philosophy of ethics; but he knew +suddenly—not in words, but in the form of a dark, angry, savage pain—that if +this was virtue, then he wanted no part of it. +He walked into the roundhouse and ordered a large, ancient coal burning +locomotive to be made ready for the run to Winston. +The trainmaster reached for the telephone in the dispatcher's office, to +summon an engine crew, as ordered. But his hand stopped, holding the +receiver. It struck him suddenly that he was summoning men to their death, +and that of the twenty lives listed on the sheet before him, two would be +ended by his choice. He felt a physical sensation of cold, nothing more; he +felt no concern, only a puzzled, indifferent astonishment. It had never been +his job to call men out to die; his job had been to call them out to earn +their living. It was strange, he thought; and it was strange that his hand +had stopped; what made it stop was like something he would have felt twenty +years ago—no, he thought, strange, only one month ago, not longer. +He was forty-eight years old. He had no family, no friends, no ties to any +living being in the world. Whatever capacity for devotion he had possessed, +the capacity which others scatter among many random concerns, he had given it +whole to the person of his young brother —the brother, his junior by twentyfive years, whom he had brought up. He had sent him through a technological +college, and he had known, as had all the teachers, that the boy had the mark +of genius on the forehead of his grim, young face. With the same singletracked devotion as his brother's, the boy had cared for nothing but his +studies, not for sports or parties or girls, only for the vision of the +things he was going to create as an inventor. He had graduated from college +and had gone, on a salary unusual for his age, into the research laboratory +of a great electrical concern in Massachusetts. +This was now May 28, thought the trainmaster. It was on May 1 +that Directive 10-289 had been issued. It was on the evening of May I that +he had been informed that his brother had committed suicide. +The trainmaster had heard it said that the directive was necessary to save +the country. He could not know whether this was true or not; he had no way of +knowing what was necessary to save a country. But driven by some feeling +which he could not express, he had walked into the office of the editor of +the local newspaper and demanded that they publish the story of his brother's +death. "People have to know it," had been all he could give as his reason. He +had been unable to explain that the bruised connections of his mind had +formed the wordless conclusion that if this was done by the will of the +people, then the people had to know it; he could not believe that they would +do it, if they knew. The editor had refused; he had stated that it would be +bad for the country's morale. +The trainmaster knew nothing about political philosophy; but he knew that +that had been the moment when he lost all concern for the life or death of +any human being or of the country. +He thought, holding the telephone receiver, that maybe he should warn the +men whom he was about to call. They trusted him; it would never occur to them +that he could knowingly send them to their death. +But he shook his head: this was only an old thought, last year's thought, +a remnant of the time when he had trusted them, too. It did not matter now. +His brain worked slowly, as if he were dragging his thoughts through a vacuum +where no emotion responded to spur them on; he thought that there would be +trouble if he warned anyone, there would be some sort of fight and it was he +who had to make some great effort to start it. He had forgotten what it was +that one started this sort of fight for. Truth? Justice? Brother-love? He did +not want to make an effort. He was very tired. If he warned all the men on + + his list, he thought, there would be no one to run that engine, so he would +save two lives and also three hundred lives aboard the Comet. +But nothing responded to the figures in his mind; "lives" was just a word, +it had no meaning. +He raised the telephone receiver to his ear, he called two numbers, he +summoned an engineer and a fireman to report for duty at once. +Engine Number 306 had left for Winston, when Dave Mitchum came downstairs. +"Get a track motor car ready for me," he ordered, "I'm going to run up to +Fairmount." Fairmount was a small station, twenty miles east on the line. The +men nodded, asking no questions. Bill Brent was not among them. Mitchum +walked into Brent's office. Brent was there, sitting silently at his desk; he +seemed to be waiting. +"I'm going to Fairmount," said Mitchum; his voice was aggressively too +casual, as if implying that no answer was necessary. "They had a Diesel there +couple of weeks ago . . . you know, emergency repairs or something. . . . I'm +going down to see if we could use it." +He paused, but Brent said nothing. +"The way things stack up," said Mitchum, not looking at him, "we can't +hold that train till morning. We've got to take a chance, one way or another. +Now I think maybe this Diesel will do it, but that's the last one we can try +for. So if you don't hear from me in half an hour, sign the order and send +the Comet through with Number 306 to pull her." +Whatever Brent had thought, he could not believe it when he heard it. He +did not answer at once; then he said, very quietly, "No." +"What do you mean, no?" +"I won't do it." +"What do you mean, you won't? It's an order!” +"I won't do it." Brent's voice had the firmness of certainty unclouded by +any emotion. +"Are you refusing to obey an order?" +"I am." +"But you have no right to refuse! And I'm not going to argue about it, +either. It's what I've decided, it's my responsibility and I'm not asking for +your opinion. Your job is to take my orders." +"Will you give me that order in writing?" +"Why, God damn you, are you hinting that you don't trust me? Are you . . . +?" +"Why do you have to go to Fairmount, Dave? Why can't you telephone them +about that Diesel, if you think that they have one?" +"You're not going to tell me how to do my job! You're not going to sit +there and question me! You're going to keep your trap shut and do as you're +told or I'll give you a chance to talk—to the Unification Board!" +It was hard to decipher emotions on Brent's cowboy face, but Mitchum saw +something that resembled a look of incredulous horror; only it was horror at +some sight of his own, not at the words, and it had no quality of fear, not +the kind of fear Mitchum had hoped for. +Brent knew that tomorrow morning the issue would be his word against +Mitchum's; Mitchum would deny having given the order; Mitchum would show +written proof that Engine Number 306 had been sent to Winston only "to stand +by," and would produce witnesses that he had gone to Fairmount in search of a +Diesel; Mitchum would claim that the fatal order had been issued by and on +the sole responsibility of Bill Brent, the chief dispatcher, it would not be +much of a case, not a case that could bear close study, but it would be +enough for the Unification Board, whose policy was consistent only in not +permitting anything to be studied closely. Brent knew that he could play the +same game and pass the frame-up on to another victim, he knew that he had the +brains to work it out—except that he would rather be dead than do it. + + It was not the sight of Mitchum that made him sit still in horror. +It was the realization that there was no one whom he could call to expose +this thing and stop it—no superior anywhere on the line, from Colorado to +Omaha to New York. They were in on it, all of them, they were doing the same, +they had given Mitchum the lead and the method. It was Dave Mitchum who now +belonged on this railroad and he, Bill Brent, who did not. +As Bill Brent had learned to see, by a single glance at a few numbers on a +sheet of paper, the entire trackage of a division—so he was now able to see +the whole of his own life and the full price of the decision he was making. +He had not fallen in love until he was past his youth; he had been thirty-six +when he had found the woman he wanted. He had been engaged to her for the +last four years; he had had to wait, because he had a mother to support and a +widowed sister with three children. He had never been afraid of burdens, +because he had known his ability to carry them, and he had never assumed an +obligation unless he was certain that he could fulfill it. He had waited, he +had saved his money, and now he had reached the time when he felt himself +free to be happy. He was to be married in a few weeks, this coming June. He +thought of it, as he sat at his desk, looking at Dave Mitchum, but the +thought aroused no hesitation, only regret and a distant sadness—distant, +because he knew that he could not let it be part of this moment. +Bill Brent knew nothing about epistemology; but he knew that man must live +by his own rational perception of reality, that he cannot act against it or +escape it or find a substitute for it—and that there is no other way for him +to live. +He rose to his feet. "It's true that so long as I hold this job, I cannot +refuse to obey you," he said. "But I can, if I quit. So I'm quitting." +"You're what?" +"I'm quitting, as of this moment." +"But you have no right to quit, you goddamn bastard! Don't you know that? +Don't you know that I'll have you thrown in jail for it?" +"If you want to send the sheriff for me in the morning, I'll be at home. I +won't try to escape. There's no place to go." +Dave Mitchum was six-foot-two and had the build of a bruiser, but he stood +shaking with fury and terror over the delicate figure of Bill Brent. "You +can't quit! There's a law against it! I've got a law! You can't walk out on +me! I won't let you out! I won't let you leave this building tonight!" +Brent walked to the door. "Will you repeat that order you gave me, in +front of the others? No? Then I will!" +As he pulled the door open, Mitchum's fist shot out, smashed into his face +and knocked him down. +The trainmaster and the road foreman stood in the open doorway. +"He quit!" screamed Mitchum. "The yellow bastard quit at a time like this! +He's a law-breaker and a coward!" +In the slow effort of rising from the floor, through the haze of blood +running into his eyes, Bill Brent looked up at the two men. He saw that they +understood, but he saw the closed faces of men who did not want to +understand, did not want to interfere and hated him for putting them on the +spot in the name of justice. He said nothing, rose to his feet and walked out +of the building. +Mitchum avoided looking at the others. "Hey, you," he called, jerking his +head at the night dispatcher across the room. "Come here. +You've got to take over at once." +With the door closed, he repeated to the boy the story of the Diesel at +Fairmount, as he had given it to Brent, and the order to send the Comet +through with Engine Number 306, if the boy did not hear from him in half an +hour. The boy was in no condition to think, to speak or to understand +anything: he kept seeing the blood on the face of Bill Brent, who had been + + his idol. "Yes, sir," he answered numbly Dave Mitchum departed for Fairmount, +announcing to every yardman, switchman and wiper in sight, as he boarded the +track motor car that he was going in search of a Diesel for the Comet. +The night dispatcher sat at his desk, watching the clock and the +telephone, praying that the telephone would ring and let him hear from Mr. +Mitchum. But the half-hour went by in silence, and whet there were only three +minutes left, the boy felt a terror he could not explain, except that he did +not want to send that order, He turned to the trainmaster and the road +foreman, asking hesitantly, "Mr. Mitchum gave me an order before he left, but +I wonder whether I ought to send it, because I . . . I don't think it's +right. He said—" +The trainmaster turned away; he felt no pity: the boy was about the same +age as his brother had been. +The road foreman snapped, "Do just as Mr. Mitchum told you. +You're not supposed to think," and walked out of the room. +The responsibility that James Taggart and Clifton Locey had evaded now +rested on the shoulders of a trembling, bewildered boy. He hesitated, then he +buttressed his courage with the thought that one did not doubt the good faith +and the competence of railroad executives. He did not know that his vision of +a railroad and its executives was that of a century ago. +With the conscientious precision of a railroad man, in the moment when the +hand of the clock ended the half-hour, he signed his name to the order +instructing the Comet to proceed with Engine Number 306, and transmitted the +order to Winston Station. +The station agent at Winston shuddered when he looked at the order, but he +was not the man to defy authority. He told himself that the tunnel was not, +perhaps, as dangerous as he thought. He told himself that the best policy, +these days, was not to think. +When he handed their copies of the order to the conductor and the engineer +of the Comet, the conductor glanced slowly about the room, from face to face, +folded the slip of paper, put it into his pocket and walked out without a +word. +The engineer stood looking at the paper for a moment, then threw it down +and said, "I'm not going to do it. And if it's come to where this railroad +hands out orders like this one, I'm not going to work for it, either. Just +list me as having quit." +"But you can't quit!" cried the station agent, "They'll arrest you for +it!" +"If they find me," said the engineer, and walked out of the station into +the vast darkness of the mountain night. +The engineer from Silver Springs, who had brought in Number 306, was +sitting in a corner of the room. He chuckled and said, "He's yellow." +The station agent turned to him. "Will you do it, Joe? Will you take the +Comet?" +Joe Scott was drunk. There had been a time when a railroad man, reporting +for duty with any sign of intoxication, would have been regarded as a doctor +arriving for work with sores of smallpox on his face. +But Joe Scott was a privileged person. Three months ago, he had been fired +for an infraction of safety rules, which had caused a major wreck; two weeks +ago, he had been reinstated in his job by order of the Unification Board. He +was a friend of Fred Kinnan; he protected Kinnan's interests in his union, +not against the employers, but against the membership. +"Sure," said Joe Scott. "I'll take the Comet. I'll get her through, if I +go fast enough." +The fireman of Number 306 had remained in the cab of his engine. +He looked up uneasily, when they came to switch his engine to the head end +of the Comet; he looked up at the red and green lights of the tunnel, hanging + + in the distance above twenty miles of curves. But he was a placid, amicable +fellow, who made a good fireman with no hope of ever rising to engineer; his +husky muscles were his only asset. +He felt certain that his superiors knew what they were doing, so he did +not venture any questions. +The conductor stood by the rear end of the Comet. He looked at the lights +of the tunnel, then at the long chain of the Comet's windows. A few windows +were lighted, but most of them showed only the feeble blue glow of night +lamps edging the lowered blinds. He thought that he should rouse the +passengers and warn them. There had been a time when he had placed the safety +of the passengers above his own, not by reason of love for his fellow men, +but because that responsibility was part of his job, which he accepted and +felt pride in fulfilling. Now, he felt a contemptuous indifference and no +desire to save them. They had asked for and accepted Directive 10-289, he +thought, they went on living and daily turning away in evasion from the kind +of verdicts that the Unification Board was passing on defenseless victims—why +shouldn't he now turn away from them? If he saved their lives, not one of +them would come forward to defend him when the Unification Board would +convict him for disobeying orders, for creating a panic, for delaying Mr. +Chalmers. He had no desire to be a martyr for the sake of allowing people +safely to indulge in their own irresponsible evil. +When the moment came, he raised his lantern and signaled the engineer to +start. +"See?" said Kip Chalmers triumphantly to Lester Tuck, as the wheels under +their feet shuddered forward. "Fear is the only practical means to deal with +people." +The conductor stepped onto the vestibule of the last car. No one saw him +as he went down the steps of the other side, slipped off the train and +vanished into the darkness of the mountains. +A switchman stood ready to throw the switch that would send the Comet from +the siding onto the main track. He looked at the Comet as it came slowly +toward him. It was only a blazing white globe with a beam stretching high +above his head, and a jerky thunder trembling through the rail under his +feet. He knew that the switch should not be thrown. He thought of the night, +ten years ago, when he had risked his life in a flood to save a train from a +washout. But he knew that times had changed. In the moment when he threw the +switch and saw the headlight jerk sidewise, he knew that he would now hate +his job for the rest of his life. +The Comet uncoiled from the siding into a thin, straight line, and went on +into the mountains, with the beam of the headlight like an extended arm +pointing the way, and the lighted glass curve of the observation lounge +ending it off. +Some of the passengers aboard the Comet were awake. As the train started +its coiling ascent, they saw the small cluster of Winston's lights at the +bottom of the darkness beyond their windows, then the same darkness, but with +red and green lights by the hole of a tunnel on the upper edge of the +windowpanes. The lights of Winston kept growing smaller, each time they +appeared; the black hole of the tunnel kept growing larger. A black veil went +streaking past the windows at times, dimming the lights: it was the heavy +smoke from the coal-burning engine. +As the tunnel came closer, they saw, on the edge of the sky far to the +south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the +wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn. +It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were +those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or +responsible for the thing that happened to them. + + The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught +that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is +futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no +individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved +collectively, and that it's masses that count, not men. +The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is +proper and moral to use compulsion "for a good cause," who believed that he +had the right to unleash physical force upon others— +to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, +to imprison, to despoil, to murder—for the sake of whatever he chose to +consider as his own idea of "a good cause," which did not even have to be an +idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely +stated that he went by "a feeling"—a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, +since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied solely on his +own "good intentions" and on the power of a gun. +The woman in Roomette 10, Car No. 3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had +spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable +cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard +of good and evil, that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must +not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing. +The man in Drawing Room B, Car No, 4, was a newspaper publisher who +believed that men are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic +instincts, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and to murder one another— +and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which +must be made the exclusive privilege of the rulers, for the purpose of +forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the +bounds of order and justice. +The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his +business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the +Equalization of Opportunity Bill. +The man in Drawing Room A, Car No. 6, was a financier who had made a +fortune by buying "frozen" railroad bonds and getting his friends in +Washington to "defreeze" them. +The man in Seat 5, Car No, 7, was a worker who believed that he had "a +right" to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not. +The woman in Roomette 6, Car No. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a +consumer, she had "a right" to transportation, whether the railroad people +wished to provide it or not. +The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who +advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence +plays no part in industrial production, that man's mind is conditioned by +material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it's only a +matter of seizing the machinery. +The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two +children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, +protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a +government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, "I don't +care, it's only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my +children." +The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who +wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted +cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were +scoundrels. +The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she +had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control +giant industries, of which she had no knowledge. + + The man in Bedroom F, Car No. 13, was a lawyer who had said, "Me? I'll +find a way to get along under any political system." +The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 14, was a professor of philosophy who taught +that there is no mind—how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous?—-no +reality—how can you prove that the tunnel exists?— +no logic—why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power?—no +principles—why should you be bound by the law of cause and-effect?—no rights— +why shouldn't you attach men to their jobs by force?—no morality—what's moral +about running a railroad?—no absolutes—what difference does it make to you +whether you live or die, anyway? He taught that we know nothing—why oppose +the orders of your superiors?—that we can never be certain of anything—how do +you know you're right?—that we must act on the expediency of the moment—you +don't want to risk your job, do you? +The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 15, was an heir who had inherited his +fortune, and who had kept repeating, "Why should Rearden be the only one +permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?" +The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, "The +men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must +be penalized in order to support the incompetent. +Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not +caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is +concerned." +These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did +not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the +flame of Wyatt's Torch was the last thing they saw on earth. + + CHAPTER VIII +BY OUR LOVE +The sun touched the tree tops on the slope of the hill, and they looked a +bluish-silver, catching the color of the sky. Dagny stood at the door of the +cabin, with the first sunrays on her forehead and miles of forest spread +under her feet. The leaves went down from silver to green to the smoky blue +of the shadows on the road below. The light trickled down through the +branches and shot upward in sudden spurts when it hit a clump of ferns that +became a fountain of green rays. It gave her pleasure to watch the motion of +the light over a stillness where nothing else could move. +She had marked the date, as she did each morning, on the sheet of paper +she had tacked to the wall of her room. The progression of the dates on that +paper was the only movement in the stillness of her days, like the record +kept by a prisoner on a desert island. This morning's date was May 28. +She had intended the dates to lead to a purpose, but she could not say +whether she had reached it or not. She had come here with three assignments +given, as orders, to herself: rest—learn to live without the railroad—get the +pain out of the way. Get it out of the way, were the words she used. She felt +as if she were tied to some wounded stranger who could be stricken at any +moment by an attack that would drown her in his screams. She felt no pity for +the stranger, only a contemptuous impatience; she had to fight him and +destroy him, then her way would be clear to decide what she wished to do; but +the stranger was not easy to fight. +The assignment to rest had been easier. She found that she liked the +solitude; she awakened in the morning with a feeling of confident +benevolence, the sense that she could venture forth and be willing to deal +with whatever she found. In the city, she had lived in chronic tension to +withstand the shock of anger, indignation, disgust, contempt. +The only danger to threaten her here was the simple pain of some physical +accident; it seemed innocent and easy by comparison, The cabin was far from +any traveled road; it had remained as her father had left it. She cooked her +meals on a wood-burning stove and gathered the wood on the hillsides. She +cleared the brush from under her walls, she reshingled the roof, she +repainted the door and the frames of the windows. Rains, weeds and brush had +swallowed the steps of what had once been a terraced path rising up the hill +from the road to the cabin. She rebuilt it, clearing the terraces, re-laying +the stones, bracing the banks of soft earth with walls of boulders. It gave +her pleasure to devise complex systems of levers and pulleys out of old +scraps of iron and rope, then to move weights of rock that were much beyond +her physical power. She planted a few seeds of nasturtiums and morning +glories, to see one spreading slowly over the ground and the other climbing +up the tree trunks, to see them grow, to see progression and movement. +The work gave her the calm she needed; she had not noticed how she began +it or why; she had started without conscious intention, but she saw it +growing under her hands, pulling her forward, giving her a healing sense of +peace. Then she understood that what she needed was the motion to a purpose, +no matter how small or in what form, the sense of an activity going step by +step to some chosen end across a span of time. The work of cooking a meal was +like a closed circle, completed and gone, leading nowhere. But the work of +building a path was a living sum, so that no day was left to die behind her, +but each day contained all those that preceded it, each day acquired its +immortality on every succeeding tomorrow. A circle, she thought, is the +movement proper to physical nature, they say that there's nothing but +circular motion in the inanimate universe around us, but the straight line is +the badge of man, the straight line of a geometrical abstraction that makes + + roads, rails and bridges, the straight line that cuts the curving aimlessness +of nature by a purposeful motion from a start to an end. +The cooking of meals, she thought, is like the feeding of coal to an +engine for the sake of a great run, but what would be the imbecile torture of +coaling an engine that had no run to make? It is not proper for man's life to +be a circle, she thought, or a string of circles dropping off like zeros +behind him—man's life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther +goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum, like a journey +down the track of a railroad, from station to station to—oh, stop it! +Stop it—she told herself in quiet severity, when the scream of the wounded +stranger was choked off—don't think of that, don't look too far, you like +building this path, build it, don't look beyond the foot of the hill. +She had driven a few times to the store in Woodstock, twenty miles away, +to buy supplies and food. Woodstock was a small huddle of dying structures, +built generations ago for some reason and hope long since forgotten. There +was no railroad to feed it, no electric power, nothing but a county highway +growing emptier year by year. +The only store was a wooden hovel, with spider-eaten corners and a rotted +patch in the middle of the floor, eaten by the rains that came through the +leaking roof. The storekeeper was a fat, pallid woman who moved with effort, +but seemed indifferent to her own discomfort. The stock of food consisted of +dusty cans with faded labels, some grain, and a few vegetables rotting in +ancient bins outside the door. "Why don't you move those vegetables out of +the sun?" Dagny asked once. The woman looked at her blankly, as if unable to +understand the possibility of such a question. "They've always been there," +she answered indifferently. +Driving back to the cabin, Dagny looked up at a mountain stream that fell +with ferocious force down a sheer granite wall, its spray hanging like a mist +of rainbows in the sun. She thought that one could build a hydroelectric +plant, just large enough to supply the power for her cabin and for the town +of Woodstock—Woodstock could be made to be productive—those wild apple trees +she saw in such unusual numbers among the dense growth on the hillsides, were +the remnants of orchards—suppose one were to reclaim them, then build a small +spur to the nearest railroad—oh, stop it! +"No kerosene today," the storekeeper told her on her next trip to +Woodstock. "It rained Thursday night, and when it rains, the trucks can't get +through Fairfield gorge, the road's flooded, and the kerosene truck won't be +back this way till next month." "If you know that the road gets flooded every +time it rains, why don't you people repair it?" +The woman answered, "The road's always been that way." +Driving back, Dagny stopped on the crest of a hill and looked down at the +miles of countryside below. She looked at Fairfield gorge where the county +road, twisting through marshy soil below the level of a river, got trapped in +a crack between two hills. It would be simple to bypass those hills, she +thought, to build a road on the other side of the river—the people of +Woodstock had nothing to do, she could teach them—cut a road straight to the +southwest, save miles, connect with the state highway at the freight depot +of—oh, stop it! +She put her kerosene lamp aside and sat in her cabin after dark by the +light of a candle, listening to the music of a small portable radio. +She hunted for symphony concerts and twisted the dial rapidly past +whenever she caught the raucous syllables of a news broadcast; she did not +want any news from the city. +Don't think of Taggart Transcontinental—she had told herself on her first +night in the cabin—don't think of it until you're able to hear the words as +if they were "Atlantic Southern" or "Associated Steel," But the weeks passed +and no scar would grow over the wound. + + It seemed to her as if she were fighting the unpredictable cruelty of her +own mind. She would lie in bed, drifting off to sleep—then find herself +suddenly thinking that the conveyor belt was worn at the coaling station at +Willow Bend, Indiana, she had seen it from the window of her car on her last +trip, she must tell them to replace it or they— +and then she would be sitting up in bed, crying, Stop it!—and stopping it, +but remaining awake for the rest of that night. +She would sit at the door of the cabin at sunset and watch the motion of +the leaves growing still in the twilight—then she would see the sparks of the +fireflies rising from the grass, flashing on and off in every darkening +corner, flashing slowly, as if holding one moment's warning—they were like +the lights of signals winking at night over the track of a—Stop it! +It was the times when she could not stop it that she dreaded, the times +when, unable to stand up—as in physical pain, with no limit to divide it from +the pain of her mind—she would fall down on the floor of the cabin or on the +earth of the woods and sit still, with her face pressed to a chair or a rock, +and fight not to let herself scream aloud, while they were suddenly as close +to her and as real as the body of a lover: the two lines of rail going off to +a single point in the distance—the front of an engine cutting space apart by +means of the letters TT—the sound of the wheels clicking in accented rhythm +under the floor of her car—the statue of Nat Taggart in the concourse of the +Terminal. Fighting not to know them, not to feel them, her body rigid but for +the grinding motion of her face against her arm, she would draw whatever +power over her consciousness still remained to her into the soundless, +toneless repetition of the words: Get it over with, There were long stretches +of calm, when she was able to face her problem with the dispassionate clarity +of weighing a problem in engineering. But she could find no answer. She knew +that her desperate longing for the railroad would vanish, were she to +convince herself that it was impossible or improper. But the longing came +from the certainty that the truth and the right were hers—that the enemy was +the irrational and the unreal—that she could not set herself another goal or +summon the love to achieve it, while her rightful achievement had been lost, +not to some superior power, but to a loathsome evil that conquered by means +of impotence. +She could renounce the railroad, she thought; she could find contentment +here, in this forest; but she would build the path, then reach the road +below, then rebuild the road—and then she would reach the storekeeper of +Woodstock and that would be the end, and the empty white face staring at the +universe in stagnant apathy would be the limit placed on her effort. Why?—she +heard herself screaming aloud, There was no answer. +Then stay here until you answer it, she thought. You have no place to go, +you can't move, you can't start grading a right-of-way until . . . +until you know enough to choose a terminal. +There were long, silent evenings when the emotion that made her sit still +and look at the unattainable distance beyond the fading light to the south, +was loneliness for Hank Rearden. She wanted the sight of his unyielding face, +the confident face looking at her with the hint of a smile. But she knew that +she could not see him until her battle was won. His smile had to be deserved, +it was intended for an adversary who traded her strength against his, not for +a pain-beaten wretch who would seek relief in that smile and thus destroy its +meaning. He could help her to live; he could not help her to decide for what +purpose she wished to go on living. +She had felt a faint touch of anxiety since the morning when she marked +"May 15" on her calendar. She had forced herself to listen to news +broadcasts, once in a while; she had heard no mention of his name. Her fear +for him was her last link to the city; it kept drawing her eyes to the +horizon at the south and down to the road at the foot of the hill. She found + + herself waiting for him to come. She found herself listening for the sound of +a motor. But the only sound to give her a futile start of hope at times, was +the sudden crackle of some large bird's wings hurtling through the branches +into the sky. +There was another link to the past, that still remained as an unsolved +question: Quentin Daniels and the motor that he was trying to rebuild. +By June 1, she would owe him his monthly check. Should she tell him that +she had quit, that she would never need that motor and neither would the +world? Should she tell him to stop and to let the remnant of the motor vanish +in rust on some such junk pile as the one where she had found it? She could +not force herself to do it. It seemed harder than leaving the railroad. That +motor, she thought, was not a link to the past: it was her last link to the +future. To kill it seemed like an act, not of murder, but of suicide: her +order to stop it would be her signature under the certainty that there was no +terminal for her to seek ahead. +But it is not true—she thought, as she stood at the door of her cabin, on +this morning of May 28—it is not true that there is no place in the future +for a superlative achievement of man's mind; it can never be true. No matter +what her problem, this would always remain to her—this immovable conviction +that evil was unnatural and temporary. She felt it more clearly than ever +this morning: the certainty that the ugliness of the men in the city and the +ugliness of her suffering were transient accidents—while the smiling sense of +hope within her at the sight of a sun-flooded forest, the sense of an +unlimited promise, was the permanent and the real. +She stood at the door, smoking a cigarette. In the room behind her, the +sounds of a symphony of her grandfather's time were coming from the radio. +She barely listened, she was conscious only of the flow of chords that seemed +to play an underscoring harmony for the flow of the smoke curving slowly from +her cigarette, for the curving motion of her arm moving the cigarette to her +lips once in a while. She closed her eyes and stood still, feeling the rays +of the sun on her body. This was the achievement, she thought—to enjoy this +moment, to let no memory of pain blunt her capacity to feel as she felt right +now; so long as she could preserve this feeling, she would have the fuel to +go on. +She was barely aware of a faint noise that came through the music, like +the scratching of an old record. The first thing to reach her consciousness +was the sudden jerk of her own hand flinging the cigarette aside. It came in +the same instant as the realization that the noise was growing loader and +that it was the sound of a motor. Then she knew that she had not admitted to +herself how much she had wanted to hear that sound, how desperately she had +waited for Hank Rearden. +She heard her own chuckle—it was humbly, cautiously low, as if not to +disturb the drone of revolving metal which was now the unmistakable sound of +a car rising up the mountain road. +She could not see the road—the small stretch under the arch of branches at +the foot of the hill was her only view of it—but she watched the car's ascent +by the growing, imperious strain of the motor against the grades and the +screech of the tires on curves. +The car stopped under the arch of branches. She did not recognize it —it +was not the black Hammond, but a long, gray convertible. She saw the driver +step out: it was a man whose presence here could not be possible. It was +Francisco d'Anconia. +The shock she felt was not disappointment, it was more like the sensation +that disappointment would now be irrelevant. It was eagerness and an odd, +solemn stillness, the sudden certainty that she was facing the approach of +something unknown and of the gravest importance. + + The swiftness of Francisco's movements was carrying him toward the hill +while he was raising his head to glance up. He saw her above, at the door of +the cabin, and stopped. She could not distinguish the expression on his face. +He stood still for a long moment, his face raised to her. Then he started up +the hill. +She felt—almost as if she had expected it—that this was a scene from their +childhood. He was coming toward her, not running, but moving upward with a +kind of triumphant, confident eagerness. No, she thought, this was not their +childhood—it was the future as she would have seen it then, in the days when +she waited for him as for her release from prison. It was a moment's view of +a morning they would have reached, if her vision of life had been fulfilled, +if they had both gone the way she had then been so certain of going. Held +motionless by wonder, she stood looking at him, taking this moment, not in +the name of the present, but as a salute to their past. +When he was close enough and she could distinguish his face, she saw the +look of that luminous gaiety which transcends the solemn by proclaiming the +great innocence of a man who has earned the right to be light-hearted. He was +smiling and whistling some piece of music that seemed to flow like the long, +smooth, rising flight of his steps. +The melody seemed distantly familiar to her, she felt that it belonged +with this moment, yet she felt also that there was something odd about it, +something important to grasp, only she could not think of it now. +"Hi, Slug!" +"Hi, Frisco!" +She knew—by the way he looked at her, by an instant's drop of his eyelids +closing his eyes, by the brief pull of his head striving to lean back and +resist, by the faint, half-smiling, half-helpless relaxation of his lips, +then by the sudden harshness of his arms as he seized her— +that it was involuntary, that he had not intended it, and that it was +irresistibly right for both of them. +The desperate violence of the way he held her, the hurting pressure of his +mouth on hers, the exultant surrender of his body to the touch of hers, were +not the form of a moment's pleasure— she knew that no physical hunger could +bring a man to this—she knew that it was the statement she had never heard +from him, the greatest confession of love a man could make. No matter what he +had done to wreck his life, this was still the Francisco d'Anconia in whose +bed she had been so proud of belonging—no matter what betrayals she had met +from the world, her vision of life had been true and some indestructible part +of it had remained within him—and in answer to it, her body responded to his, +her arms and mouth held him, confessing her desire, confessing an +acknowledgment she had always given him and always would. +Then the rest of his years came back to her, with a stab of the pain of +knowing that the greater his person, the more terrible his guilt hi +destroying it. She pulled herself away from him, she shook her head, she +said, in answer to both of them, "No." +He stood looking at her, disarmed and smiling. "Not yet. You have a great +deal to forgive me, first. But I can tell you everything now." +She had never heard that low, breathless quality of helplessness in his +voice. He was fighting to regain control, there was almost a touch of apology +in his smile, the apology of a child pleading for indulgence, but there was +also an adult's amusement, the laughing declaration that he did not have to +hide his struggle, since it was happiness that he was wrestling with, not +pain. +She backed away from him; she felt as if emotion had flung her ahead of +her own consciousness, and questions were now catching up with her, groping +toward the form of words.' + + "Dagny, that torture you've been going through, here, for the last month . +. . answer me as honestly as you can . . . do you think you could have borne +it twelve years ago?" +"No," she answered; he smiled. "Why do you ask that?" +"To redeem twelve years of my life, which I won't have to regret." +"What do you mean? And"—her questions had caught up with her—"and what do +you know about my torture here?" +"Dagny, aren't you beginning to see that I would know everything about +it?" +"How did you . . . Francisco! What were you whistling when you were coming +up the hill?" +"Why, was I? I don't know." +"It was the Fifth Concerto by Richard Halley, wasn't it?" +"Oh . . . ]” He looked startled, then smiled in amusement at himself, then +answered gravely, "I'll tell you that later." +"How did you find out where I was?" +"I'll tell you that, too." +"You forced it out of Eddie." +"I haven't seen Eddie for over a year." +"He was the only one who knew it." +"It wasn't Eddie who told me." +"I didn't want anybody to find me." +He glanced slowly about him, she saw his eyes stop on the path she had +built, on the planted flowers, on the fresh-shingled roof. He chuckled, as if +he understood and as if it hurt him. "You shouldn't have been left here for a +month," he said. "God, you shouldn't have! It's my first failure, at the one +time when I didn't want to fail. But I didn't think you were ready to quit. +Had I known it, I would have watched you day and night." +"Really? What for?" +"To spare you"—he pointed at her work—"all this." +"Francisco," she said, her voice low, "if you're concerned about my +torture, don't you know that I don't want to hear you speak of it, because—" +She stopped; she had never complained to him, not in all those years; her +voice flat, she 'said only, "—that I don't want to hear it?" +"Because I'm the one man who has no right to speak of it? Dagny, if you +think that I don't know how much I've hurt you, I'll tell you about the years +when I . . . But it's over. Oh, darling, it's over!" +"Is it?" +"Forgive me, I mustn't say that. Not until you say it," He was trying to +control his voice, but the look of happiness was beyond his power of control. +"Are you happy because I've lost everything I lived for? All right, I'll +say it, if this is what you've come to hear: you were the first thing I lost— +does it amuse you now to see that I've lost the rest?" +He glanced straight at her, his eyes drawn narrow by such an intensity of +earnestness that the glance was almost a threat, and she knew that whatever +the years had meant to him, "amusement" was the one word she had no right to +utter. +"Do you really think that?" he asked. +She whispered, "No . . ." +"Dagny, we can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change +their form at times, if we've made an error, but the purpose remains the same +and the forms are ours to make." +"'That is what I've been telling myself for a month. But there's no way +left open toward any purpose whatever." +He did not answer. He sat down on a boulder by the door of the cabin, +watching her as if he did not want to miss a single shadow of reaction on her +face. "What do you think now of the men who quit and vanished?" he asked. + + She shrugged, with a faint smile of helpless sadness, and sat down on the +ground beside him. "You know," she said, "I used to think that there was some +destroyer who came after them and made them quit. +But I guess there wasn't. There have been times, this past month, when +I've almost wished he would come for me, too. But nobody came." +"No?" +"No. I used to think that he gave them some inconceivable reason to make +them betray everything they loved. But that wasn't necessary. +I know how they felt. I can't blame them any longer. What I don't know is +how they learned to exist afterward—if any of them still exist." +"Do you feel that you've betrayed Taggart Transcontinental?" +"No. I . . . I feel that I would have betrayed it by remaining at work." +"You would have." +"If I had agreed to serve the looters, it's . . . it's Nat Taggart that I +would have delivered to them. I couldn't. I couldn't let his achievement, and +mine, end up with the looters as our final goal." +"No, you couldn't. Do you call this indifference? Do you think that you +love the railroad less than you did a month ago?" +"I think that I would give my life for just one more year on the railroad +. . . But I can't go back to it." +"Then you know what they felt, all the men who quit, and what it was that +they loved when they gave up." +"Francisco," she asked, not looking at him, her head bent, "why did you +ask me whether I could have given it up twelve years ago?" +"Don't you know what night I am thinking of, just as you are?" +"Yes . . ." she whispered. +"That was the night I gave up d'Anconia Copper." +Slowly, with a long effort, she moved her head to glance up at him. +His face had the expression she had seen then, on that next morning, +twelve years ago: the look of a smile, though he was not smiling, the quiet +look of victory over pain, the look of a man's pride in the price he paid and +in that which made it worth paying. +"But you didn't give it up," she said. "You didn't quit. You're still the +President of d'Anconia Copper, only it means nothing to you now." +"It means as much to me now as it did that night." +"Then how can you let it go to pieces?" +"Dagny, you're more fortunate than I. Taggart Transcontinental is a +delicate piece of precision machinery. It will not last long without you. It +cannot be run by slave labor. They will mercifully destroy it for you and you +won't have to see it serving the looters. But copper mining is a simpler job. +D'Anconia Copper could have lasted for generations of looters and slaves. +Crudely, miserably, ineptly—but it could have lasted and helped them to last. +I had to destroy it myself." +-You—what?" +"I am destroying d'Anconia Copper, consciously, deliberately, by plan and +by my own hand. I have to plan it as carefully and work as hard as if I were +producing a fortune—in order not to let them notice it and stop me, in order +not to let them seize the mines until it is too late. AH the effort and +energy I had hoped to spend on d'Anconia Copper, I'm spending them, only . . +. only it's not to make it grow. I shall destroy every last bit of it and +every last penny of my fortune and every ounce of copper that could feed the +looters. I shall not leave it as I found it—I shall leave it as Sebastian +d'Anconia found it—then let them try to exist without him or me!" +"Francisco!" she screamed. "How could you make yourself do it?" +"By the grace of the same love as yours," he answered quietly, "my love +for d'Anconia Copper, for the spirit of which it was the shape. +Was—and, some day, will be again." + + She sat still, trying to grasp all the implications of what she now +grasped only as the numbness of shock. In the silence, the music of the radio +symphony went on, and the rhythm of the chords reached her like the slow, +solemn pounding of steps, while she struggled to see at once the whole +progression of twelve years: the tortured boy who called for help on her +breasts—the man who sat on the floor of a drawing room, playing marbles and +laughing at the destruction of great industries—the man who cried, "My love, +I can't!" while refusing to help her—the man who drank a toast, in the dim +booth of a barroom, to the years which Sebastian d'Anconia had had to wait. . +. . +"Francisco . . . of all the guesses I tried to make about you . . . I +never thought of it . . . I never thought that you were one of those men who +had quit . . ." +"I was one of the first of them." +"I thought that they always vanished . . ." +"Well, hadn't I? Wasn't it the worst of what I did to you—that I left you +looking at a cheap playboy who was not the Francisco d'Anconia you had +known?" +"Yes . . ." she whispered, "only the worst was that I couldn't believe it +. . . I never did . . . It was Francisco d'Anconia that I kept seeing every +time I saw you. . . ." +"I know. And I know what it did to you. I tried to help you understand, +but it was too soon to tell you. Dagny, if I had told you— +that night or the day when you came to damn me for the San Sebastian +Mines—that I was not an aimless loafer, that I was out to speed up the +destruction of everything we had held sacred together, the destruction of +d'Anconia Copper, of Taggart Transcontinental, of Wyatt Oil, of Rearden +Steel—would you have found it easier to take?" +"Harder," she whispered. "I'm not sure T can take it, even now. +Neither your kind of renunciation nor my own . . . But, Francisco"— +she threw her head back suddenly to look up at him—"if this was your +secret, then of all the hell you had to take, I was—" +"Oh yes, my darling, yes, you were the worst of it!" It was a desperate +cry, its sound of laughter and of release confessing all the agony he wanted +to sweep away. He seized her hand, he pressed his mouth to it, then his face, +not to let her see the reflection of what his years had been like. "If it's +any kind of atonement, which it isn't . . . +whatever I made you suffer, that's how I paid for it . . . by knowing what +I was doing to you and having to do it . . . and waiting, waiting to . . . +But it's over." +He raised his head, smiling, he looked down at her and she saw a look of +protective tenderness come into his face, which told her of the despair he +saw in hers. +"Dagny, don't think of that. I won't claim any suffering of mine as my +excuse. Whatever my reason, I knew what I was doing and I've hurt you +terribly. I'll need years to make up for it. Forget what"—she knew that he +meant: what his embrace had confessed—"what I haven't said. Of all the things +I have to tell you, that is the one I'll say last." But his eyes, his smile, +the grasp of his fingers on her wrist were saying it against his will. +"You've borne too much, and there's a great deal that you have to learn to +understand in order to lose every scar of the torture you never should have +had to bear. All that matters now is that you're free to recover. We're free, +both of us, we're free of the looters, we're out of their reach." +She said, her voice quietly desolate, "That's what I came here for— +to try to understand. But I can't. It seems monstrously wrong to surrender +the world to the looters, and monstrously wrong to live under their rule. I +can neither give up nor go back. I can neither exist without work nor work as + + a serf. I had always thought that any sort of battle was proper, anything, +except renunciation. I'm not sure we're right to quit, you and f, when we +should have fought them. But there is no way to fight. It's surrender, if we +leave—and surrender, if we remain. I don't know what is right any longer." +"Check your premises, Dagny. Contradictions don't exist." +"But I can't find any answer. I can't condemn you for what you're doing, +yet it's horror that I feel—admiration and horror, at the same time. You, the +heir of the d'Anconias, who could have surpassed all his ancestors of the +miraculous hand that produced, you're turning your matchless ability to the +job of destruction. And I—I'm playing with cobblestones and shingling a roof, +while a transcontinental railroad system is collapsing in the hands of +congenital ward heelers. Yet you and I were the kind who determine the fate +of the world. If this is what we let it come to, then it must have been our +own guilt. But I can't see the nature of our error." +"Yes, Dagny, it was our own guilt." +"Because we didn't work hard enough?" +"Because we worked too hard—and charged too little." +"What do you mean?" +"We never demanded the one payment that the world owed us—and we let our +best reward go to the worst of men. The error was made centuries ago, it was +made by Sebastian d'Anconia, by Nat Taggart, by every man who fed the world +and received no thanks in return. +You don't know what is right any longer? Dagny, this is not a battle over +material goods. It's a moral crisis, the greatest the world has ever faced +and the last. Our age is the climax of centuries of evil. We must put an end +to it, once and for all, or perish—we, the men of the mind. It was our own +guilt. We produced the wealth of the world— +but we let our enemies write its moral code." +"But we never accepted their code. We lived by our own standards." +"Yes—and paid ransoms for it! Ransoms in matter and in spirit—in money, +which our enemies received, but did not deserve, and in honor, which we +deserved, but did not receive. That was our guilt— +that we were willing to pay. We kept mankind alive, yet we allowed men to +despise us and to worship our destroyers. We allowed them to worship +incompetence and brutality, the recipients and the dispensers of the +unearned. By accepting punishment, not for any sins, but for our virtues, we +betrayed our code and made theirs possible. Dagny, theirs is the morality of +kidnappers. They use your love of virtue as a hostage. They know that you'll +bear anything in order to work and produce, because you know that achievement +is man's highest moral purpose, that he can't exist without it, and your love +of virtue is your love of life. They count on you to assume any burden. They +count on you to feel that no effort is too great in the service of your love. +Dagny, your enemies are destroying you by means of your own power. Your +generosity and your endurance are their only tools. Your unrequited rectitude +is the only hold they have upon you. They know it. +You don't. The day when you'll discover it is the only thing they dread. +You must learn to understand them. You won't be free of them, until you +do. But when you do, you'll reach such a stage of rightful anger that you'll +blast every rail of Taggart Transcontinental, rather than let it serve them!" +"But to leave it to them!" she moaned. "To abandon it . . . To abandon +Taggart Transcontinental . . . when it's . . . it's almost like a living +person . . ." +"It was. It isn't any longer. Leave it to them. It won't do them any good. +Let it go. We don't need it. We can rebuild it. They can't. We'll survive +without it. They won't." +"But we, brought down to renouncing and giving up!" + + "Dagny, we who've been called 'materialists' by the killers of the human +spirit, we're the only ones who know how little value or meaning there is in +material objects as such, because we're the ones who create their value and +meaning. We can afford to give them up, for a short while, in order to redeem +something much more precious. We are the soul, of which railroads, copper +mines, steel mills and oil wells are the body—and they are living entities +that beat day and night, like our hearts, in the sacred function of +supporting human life, but only so long as they remain our body, only so long +as they remain the expression, the reward and the property of achievement. +Without us, they are corpses and their sole product is poison, not wealth or +food, the poison of disintegration that turns men into hordes of scavengers. +Dagny, learn to understand the nature of your own power and you'll +understand the paradox you now see around you. You do not have to depend on +any material possessions, they depend on you, you create them, you own the +one and only tool of production. Wherever you are, you will always be able to +produce. But the looters—by their own stated theory—are in desperate, +permanent, congenital need and at the blind mercy of matter. Why don't you +take them at their word? They need railroads, factories, mines, motors, which +they cannot make or run. Of what use will your railroad be to them without +you? Who held it together? Who kept it alive? Who saved it, time and time +again? +Was it your brother James? Who fed him? Who fed the looters? Who produced +their weapons? Who gave them the means to enslave you? +The impossible spectacle of shabby little incompetents holding control +over the products of genius—who made it possible? Who supported your enemies, +who forged your chains, who destroyed your achievement?" +The motion that threw her upright was like a silent cry. He shot to his +feet with the stored abruptness of a spring uncoiling, his voice driving on +in merciless triumph: "You're beginning to see, aren't you? Dagny! Leave them +the carcass of that railroad, leave them all the rusted rails and rotted ties +and gutted engines—but don't leave them your mind! Don't leave them your +mind! The fate of the world rests on that decision!" +"Ladies and gentlemen," said the panic-pregnant voice of a radio +announcer, breaking off the chords of the symphony, "we interrupt this +broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. The greatest disaster in +railroad history occurred in the early hours of the morning on the main line +of Taggart Transcontinental, at Winston, Colorado, demolishing the famous +Taggart Tunnel!" +Her scream sounded like the screams that had rung out in the one last +moment in the darkness of the tunnel. Its sound remained with him through the +rest of the broadcast—as they both ran to the radio in the cabin and stood, +in equal terror, her eyes staring at the radio, his eyes watching her face. +"The details of the story were obtained from Luke Beal, fireman of the +Taggart luxury main liner, the Comet, who was found unconscious at the +western portal of the tunnel this morning, and who appears to be the sole +survivor of the catastrophe. Through some astounding infraction of safety +rules—in circumstances not yet fully established—the Comet, westbound for San +Francisco, was sent into the tunnel with a coal-burning steam locomotive. The +Taggart Tunnel, an eight-mile bore, cut through the summit of the Rocky +Mountains and regarded as an engineering achievement not to be equaled in our +time, was built by the grandson of Nathaniel Taggart, in the great age of the +clean, smokeless Diesel-electric engine. The tunnel's ventilation system was +not designed to provide for the heavy smoke and fumes of coal-burning +locomotives—and it was known to every railroad employee in the district that +to send a train into the tunnel with such a locomotive would mean death by +suffocation for everyone aboard. The Comet, none the less, was so ordered to +proceed. According to Fireman Beal, the effects of the fumes began to be felt + + when the train was about three miles inside the tunnel. Engineer Joseph Scott +threw the throttle wide open, in a desperate attempt to gain speed, but the +old, worn engine was inadequate for the weight of the long train and the +rising grade of the track. Struggling through the thickening fumes, engineer +and fireman had barely managed to force the leaking steam boilers up to a +speed of forty miles per hour—when some passenger, prompted undoubtedly by +the panic of choking, pulled the emergency brake cord. The sudden jolt of the +stop apparently broke the engine's airhose, for the train could not be +started again. There were screams coming from the cars. Passengers were +breaking windows. Engineer Scott struggled frantically to make the engine +start, but collapsed at the throttle, overcome by the fumes. +Fireman Beal leaped from the engine and ran. He was within sight of the +western portal, when he heard the blast of the explosion, which is the last +thing he remembers. The rest of the story was gathered from railroad +employees at Winston Station. It appears that an Army Freight Special, +westbound, carrying a heavy load of explosives, had been given no warning +about the presence of the Comet on the track just ahead. Both trains had +encountered delays and were running off their schedules. It appears that the +Freight Special had been ordered to proceed regardless of signals, because +the tunnel's signal system was out of order. It is said that in spite of +speed regulations and in view of the frequent breakdowns of the ventilating +system, it was the tacit custom of all engineers to go full speed while in +the tunnel. It appears, as far as can be established at present, that the +Comet was stalled just beyond the point where the tunnel makes a sharp curve. +It is believed that everyone aboard was dead by that time. It is doubted that +the engineer of the Freight Special, turning a curve at eighty miles an hour, +would have been able to see, in time, the observation window of the Comet's +last car, which was brightly lighted when it left Winston Station. What is +known is that the Freight Special crashed into the rear of the Comet. The +explosion of the Special's cargo broke windows in a farmhouse five miles away +and brought down such a weight of rock upon the tunnel that rescue parties +have not yet been able to come within three miles of where either train had +been. It is not expected that any survivors will be found—and it is not +believed that the Taggart Tunnel can ever be rebuilt." +She stood still. She looked as if she were seeing, not the room around +her, but the scene in Colorado. Her sudden movement had the abruptness of a +convulsion. With the single-tracked rationality of a somnambulist,, she +whirled to find her handbag, as if it were the only object in existence, she +seized it, she whirled to the door and ran. +"Dagny!" he screamed. "Don't go back!" +The scream had no more power to reach her than if he were calling to her +across the miles between him and the mountains of Colorado. +He ran after her, he caught her, seizing her by both elbows, and he cried, +"Don't go back! Dagny! In the name of anything sacred to you, don't go back!" +She looked as if she did not know who he was. In a contest of physical +strength, he could have broken the bones of her arms without effort. +But with the force of a living creature fighting for life, she tore +herself loose so violently that she threw him off balance for a moment. When +he regained his footing, she was running down the hill—running as he had run +at the sound of the alarm siren in Rearden's mills—running to her car on the +road below. +His letter of resignation lay on the desk before him—and James Taggart sat +staring at it, hunched by hatred. He felt as if his enemy were this piece of +paper, not the words on it, but the sheet and the ink that had given the +words a material finality. He had always regarded thoughts and words as +inconclusive, but a material shape was that which he had spent his life +escaping: a commitment. + + He had not decided to resign—not really, he thought; he had dictated the +letter for a motive which he identified to himself only as "just in case." +The letter, he felt, was a form of protection; but he had not signed it yet, +and that was his protection against the protection. The hatred was directed +at whatever had brought him to feel that he would not be able to continue +extending this process much longer. +He had received word of the catastrophe at eight o'clock this morning; by +noon, he had arrived at his office. An instinct that came from reasons which +he knew, but spent his whole effort on not knowing, had told him that he had +to be there, this time. +The men who had been his marked cards—in a game he knew how to play—were +gone. Clifton Locey was barricaded behind the statement of a doctor who had +announced that Mr. Locey was suffering from a heart condition which made it +impossible to disturb him at present. One of Taggart's executive assistants +was said to have left for Boston last night, and the other was said to have +been called unexpectedly to an unnamed hospital, to the bedside of a father +nobody had ever suspected him of having. There was no answer at the home of +the chief engineer. The vice-president in charge of public relations could +not be found. +Driving through the streets to his office, Taggart had seen the black +letters of the headlines. Walking down the corridors of Taggart +Transcontinental, he had heard the voice of a speaker pouring from a radio in +someone's office, the kind of voice one expects to hear on unlighted street +corners: it was screaming demands for the nationalization of the railroads. +He had walked through the corridors, his steps noisy, in order to be seen, +and hasty, in order not to be stopped for questions. He had locked the door +of his office, ordering his secretary not to admit any person or phone call +and to tell all comers that Mr. Taggart was busy. +Then he sat at his desk, alone with blank terror. He felt as if he were +trapped in a subterranean vault and the lock could never be broken again—and +as if he were held on display in the sight of the whole city below, hoping +that the lock would hold out for eternity. He had to be here, in this office, +it was required of him, he had to sit idly and wait—wait for the unknown to +descend upon him and to determine his actions—and the terror was both of who +would come for him and of the fact that nobody came, nobody to tell him what +to do. +The ringing of the telephones in the outer office sounded like screams for +help. He looked at the door with a sensation of malevolent triumph at the +thought of all those voices being defeated by the innocuous figure of his +secretary, a young man expert at nothing but the art of evasion, which he +practiced with the gray, rubber limpness of the amoral. The voices, thought +Taggart, were coming from Colorado, from every center of the Taggart system, +from every office of the building around him. He was safe so long as he did +not have to hear them. +His emotions had clogged into a still, solid, opaque ball within him, +which the thought of the men who operated the Taggart system could not +pierce; those men were merely enemies to be outwitted. The sharper bites of +fear came from the thought of the men on the Board of Directors; but his +letter of resignation was his fire escape, which would leave them stuck with +the fire. The sharpest fear came from the thought of the men in Washington. +If they called, he would have to answer; his rubber secretary would know +whose voices superseded his orders. But Washington did not call. +The fear went through him in spasms, once in a while, leaving his mouth +dry. He did not know what he dreaded. He knew that it was not the threat of +the radio speaker. What he had experienced at the sound of the snarling voice +had been more like a terror which he felt because he was expected to feel it, +a duty-terror, something that went with his position, like well-tailored + + suits and luncheon speeches. But under it, he had felt a sneaking little +hope, swift and furtive like the course of a cockroach: if that threat took +form, it would solve everything, save him from decision, save him from +signing the letter . . . he would not be President of Taggart +Transcontinental any longer, but neither would anyone else . . . neither +would anyone else. . . . +He sat, looking down at his desk, keeping his eyes and his mind out of +focus. It was as if he were immersed in a pool of fog, struggling not to let +it reach the finality of any form. That which exists possesses identity; he +could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it. +He did not examine the events in Colorado, he did not attempt to grasp +their cause, he did not consider their consequences. He did not think. The +clogged ball of emotion was like a physical weight in his chest, filling his +consciousness, releasing him from the responsibility of thought. The bah1 was +hatred—hatred as his only answer, hatred as the sole reality, hatred without +object, cause, beginning or end, hatred as his claim against the universe, as +a justification, as a right, as an absolute. +The screaming of the telephones went on through the silence. He knew that +those pleas for help were not addressed to him, but to an entity whose shape +he had stolen. It was this shape that the screams were now tearing away from +him; he felt as if the ringing ceased to be sounds and became a succession of +slashes hitting his skull. The object of the hatred began to take form, as if +summoned by the bells. The solid ball exploded within him and flung him +blindly into action. +Rushing out of the room, in defiance of all the faces around him, he went +running down the halls to the Operating Department and into the anteroom of +the Operating Vice-President's office. +The door to the office was open: he saw the sky in the great windows +beyond an empty desk. Then he saw the staff in the anteroom around him, and +the blond head of Eddie Willers in the glass cubbyhole. He walked +purposefully straight toward Eddie Willers, he flung the glass door open and, +from the threshold, in the sight and hearing of the room, he screamed: "Where +is she?" +Eddie Willers rose slowly to his feet and stood looking at Taggart with an +odd kind of dutiful curiosity, as if this were one more phenomenon to observe +among all the unprecedented things he had observed. He did not answer. +"Where is she?" +"I cannot tell you." +"Listen, you stubborn little punk, this is no time for ceremony! If you're +trying to make me believe that you don't know where she is, I don't believe +you! You know it and you're going to tell me, or I'll report you to the +Unification Board! I'll swear to them that you know it—then try and prove +that you don't!" +There was a faint tone of astonishment in Eddie's voice as he answered, +"I've never attempted to imply that I don't know where she is, Jim, I know +it. But I won't tell you." +Taggart's scream rose to the shrill, impotent sound that confesses a +miscalculation: "Do you realize what you're saying?" +"Why, yes, of course." +"Will you repeat it"—he waved at the room—"for these witnesses?" +Eddie raised his voice a little, more in precision and clarity than in +volume: "I know where she is. But I will not tell you." +"You're confessing that you're an accomplice who's aiding and abetting a +deserter?" +"If that's what you wish to call it." +"But it's a crime! It's a crime against the nation. Don't you know that?" +"No." + + "It's against the law!" +"Yes." +"This is a national emergency! You have no right to any private secrets! +You're withholding vital information! I'm the President of this railroad! I'm +ordering you to tell me! You can't refuse to obey an order! +It's a penitentiary offense! Do you understand?" +"Yes." +"Do you refuse?" +"I do." +Years of training had made Taggart able to watch any audience around him, +without appearing to do so. He saw the tight, closed faces of the staff, +faces that were not his allies. All had a look of despair, except the face of +Eddie Willers. The "feudal serf" of Taggart Transcontinental was the only one +who seemed untouched by the disaster. He looked at Taggart with the +lifelessly conscientious glance of a scholar confronted by a field of +knowledge he had never wanted to study. +"Do you realize that you're a traitor?" yelled Taggart. +Eddie asked quietly, 'To whom?" +"To the people! It's treason to shield a deserter! It's economic treason! +Your duty to feed the people comes first, above anything else whatever! Every +public authority has said so! Don't you know it? +Don't you know what they'll do to you?" +"Don't you see that I don't give a damn about that?" +"Oh, you don't? I'll quote that to the Unification Board! I have all these +witnesses to prove that you said—" +"Don't bother about witnesses, Jim. Don't put them on the spot. I'll write +down everything I said, I'll sign it, and you can take it to the Board." +The sudden explosion of Taggart's voice sounded as if he had been slapped: +"Who are you to stand against the government? Who are you, you miserable +little office rat, to judge national policies and hold opinions of your own? +Do you think the country has time to bother about your opinions, your wishes +or your precious little conscience? +You're going to learn a lesson—all of you!—all of you spoiled, selfindulgent, undisciplined little two-bit clerks, who strut as if that crap +about your rights was serious! You're going to learn that these are not the +days of Nat Taggart!" +Eddie said nothing. For an instant, they stood looking at each other +across the desk. Taggart's face was distorted by terror, Eddie's remained +sternly serene. James Taggart believed the existence of an Eddie Willers too +well; Eddie Willers could not believe the existence of a James Taggart. +"Do you think the nation will bother about your wishes or hers?" +screamed Taggart. "It's her duty to come back! It's her duty to work! +What do we care whether she wants to work or not? We need her!" +"Do you, Jim?" +An impulse pertaining to self-preservation made Taggart back a step away +from the sound of that particular tone, a very quiet tone, in the voice of +Eddie Willers. But Eddie made no move to follow. He remained standing behind +his desk, in a manner suggesting the civilized tradition of a business +office. +"You won't find her," he said, "She won't be back. I'm glad she won't. You +can starve, you can close the railroad, you can throw me in jail, you can +have me shot—what does it matter? I won't tell you where she is. If I see the +whole country crashing, I won't tell you. You won't find her. You—" +They whirled at the sound of the entrance door flung open. They saw Dagny +standing on the threshold. +She wore a wrinkled cotton dress, and her hair was disheveled by hours of +driving. She stopped for the duration of a glance around her, as if to + + recapture the place, but there was no recognition of persons in her eyes, the +glance merely swept through the room, as if making a swift inventory of +physical objects. Her face was not the face they remembered; it had aged, not +by means of lines, but by means of a still, naked look stripped of any +quality save ruthlessness. +Yet their first response, ahead of shock or wonder, was a single emotion +that went through the room like a gasp of relief. It was in all their faces +but one: Eddie Willers, who alone had been calm a moment ago, collapsed with +his face down on his desk; he made no sound, but the movements of his +shoulders were sobs. +Her face gave no sign of acknowledgment to anyone, no greeting, as if her +presence here were inevitable and no words were necessary. She went straight +to the door of her office; passing the desk of her secretary, she said, her +voice like the sound of a business machine, neither rude nor gentle, "Ask +Eddie to come in." +James Taggart was the first one to move, as if dreading to let her out of +his sight. He rushed in after her, he cried, "I couldn't help it!" and then, +life returning to him, his own, his normal kind of life, he screamed, "It was +your fault! You did it! You're to blame for it! Because you left!" +He wondered whether his scream had been an illusion inside his own ears. +Her face remained blank; yet she had turned to him; she looked as if sounds +had reached her, but not words, not the communication of a mind. What he felt +for a moment was his closest approach to a sense of his own non-existence. +Then he saw the faintest change in her face, merely the indication of +perceiving a human presence, but she was looking past him and he turned and +saw that Eddie Willers had entered the office. +There were traces of tears in Eddie's eyes, but he made no attempt to hide +them, he stood straight, as if the tears or any embarrassment or any apology +for them were as irrelevant to him as to her. +She said, "Get Ryan on the telephone, tell him I'm here, then let me speak +to him." Ryan had been the general manager of the railroad's Central Region. +Eddie gave her a warning by not answering at once, then said, his voice as +even as hers, "Ryan's gone, Dagny. He quit last week." +They did not notice Taggart, as they did not notice the furniture around +them. She had not granted him even the recognition of ordering him out of her +office. Like a paralytic, uncertain of his muscles' +obedience, he gathered his strength and slipped out. But he was certain of +the first thing he had to do: he hurried to his office to destroy his letter +of resignation. +She did not notice his exit; she was looking at Eddie. "Is Knowland here?" +she asked. +"No. He's gone." +"Andrews?" +"Gone." +"McGuire?" +"Gone." +He went on quietly to recite the list of those he knew she would ask for, +those most needed in this hour, who had resigned and vanished within the past +month. She listened without astonishment or emotion, as one listens to the +casualty list of a battle where all are doomed and it makes no difference +whose names fall first. +When he finished, she made no comment, but asked, "What has been done +since this morning?" +"Nothing." +"Nothing?" +"Dagny, any office boy could have issued orders here since this morning +and everybody would have obeyed him, But even the office boys know that + + whoever makes the first move today will be held responsible for the future, +the present and the past—when the buck passing begins. He would not save the +system, he would merely lose his job by the time he saved one division. +Nothing has been done. It's stopped still. Whatever is moving, is moving on +anyone's blind guess— +out on the line where they don't know whether they're to move or to stop. +Some trains are held at stations, others are going on, waiting to be stopped +before they reach Colorado. It's whatever the local dispatchers decide. The +Terminal manager downstairs has cancelled all transcontinental traffic for +today, including tonight's Comet. I don't know what the manager in San +Francisco is doing. Only the wrecking crews are working. At the tunnel. They +haven't come anywhere near the wreck as yet. I don't think they will." +"Phone the Terminal manager downstairs and tell him to put all +transcontinental trains back on the schedule at once, including tonight's +Comet. Then come back here." +When he came back, she was bending over the maps she had spread on a +table, and she spoke while he made rapid notes: "Route all westbound trains +south from Kirby, Nebraska, down the spur track to Hastings, down the track +of the Kansas Western to Laurel, Kansas, then to the track of the Atlantic +Southern at Jasper, Oklahoma. +West on the Atlantic Southern to Flagstaff, Arizona, north on the track of +the Flagstaff-Homedale to Elgin, Utah, north to Midland, northwest on the +track of the Wasatch Railway to Salt Lake City. The Wasatch Railway is an +abandoned narrow-gauge. Buy it. Have the gauge spread to standard. If the +owners are afraid, since sales are illegal, pay them twice the money and +proceed with the work. There is no rail between Laurel, Kansas, and Jasper, +Oklahoma—three miles, no rail between Elgin and Midland, Utah—five and a half +miles. Have the rail laid. +Have construction crews start at once—recruit every local man available, +pay twice the legal wages, three times, anything they ask—put three shifts +on—and have the job done overnight. For rail, tear up the sidings at Winston, +Colorado, at Silver Springs, Colorado, at Leeds, Utah, at Benson, Nevada. If +any local stooges of the Unification Board come to stop the work—give +authority to our local men, the ones you trust, to bribe them. Don't put that +through the Accounting Department, charge it to me, I'll pay it. If they find +some case where it doesn't work, have them tell the stooge that Directive 10289 does not provide for local injunctions, that an injunction has to be +brought against our headquarters and that they have to sue me, if they wish +to stop us." +"Is that true?" +"How do I know? How can anybody know? But by the time they untangle it and +decide whatever it is they please to decide—our track will be built." +"I see." +"I'll go over the lists and give you the names of our local men to put in +charge—if they're still there. By the time tonight's Comet Teaches Kirby, +Nebraska, the track will be ready. It will add about thirty-six hours to the +transcontinental schedule—but there will be a transcontinental schedule. Then +have them get for me out of the files the old maps of our road as it was +before Nat Taggart's grandson built the tunnel." +"The . . . what?" He did not raise his voice, but the catch of his breath +was the break of emotion he had wanted to avoid. +Her face did not change, but a fault note in her voice acknowledged him, a +note of gentleness, not reproof: "The old maps of the days before the tunnel. +We're going back, Eddie. Let's hope we can. No, we won't rebuild the tunnel. +There's no way to do it now. But the old grade that crossed the Rockies is +still there. It can be reclaimed. Only it will be hard to get the rail for it +and the men to do it. Particularly the men." + + He knew, as he had known from the first, that she had seen his tears and +that she had not walked past in indifference, even though her clear, toneless +voice and unmoving face gave him no sign of feeling. +There was some quality in her manner, which he sensed but could not +translate. Yet the feeling it gave him, translated, was as if she were saying +to him: I know, I understand, I would feel compassion and gratitude, if we +were alive and free to feel, but we're not, are we, Eddie?—we're on a dead +planet, like the moon, where we must move, but dare not stop for a breath of +feeling or we'll discover that there is no air to breathe. +"We have today and tomorrow to get things started," she said. "I'll leave +for Colorado tomorrow night." +"If you want to fly, I'll have to rent a plane for you somewhere. +Yours is still in the shops, they can't get the parts for it." +"No, I'll go by rail. I have to see the line. I'll take tomorrow's Comet." +It was two hours later, in a brief pause between long-distance phone +calls, that she asked him suddenly the first question which did not pertain +to the railroad: "What have they done to Hank Rearden?" +Eddie caught himself in the small evasion of looking away, forced his +glance back to meet hers, and answered, "He gave in. He signed their Gift +Certificate, at the last moment." +"Oh." The sound conveyed no shock or censure, it was merely a vocal +punctuation mark, denoting the acceptance of a fact. "Have you heard from +Quentin Daniels?" +"No." +"He sent no letter or message for me?" +"No." +He guessed the thing she feared and it reminded him of a matter he had not +reported. "Dagny, there's another problem that's been growing all over the +system since you left. Since May first. It's the frozen trains," +"The what?" +"We've had trains abandoned on the line, on some passing track, in the +middle of nowhere, usually at night—with the entire crew gone. +They just leave the train and vanish. There's never any warning given or +any special reason, it's more like an epidemic, it hits the men suddenly and +they go. It's been happening on other railroads, too. Nobody can explain it. +But I think that everybody understands. It's the directive that's doing it. +It's our men's form of protest. They try to go on and then they suddenly +reach a moment when they can't take it any longer. +What can we do about it?" He shrugged. "Oh well, who is John Galt?" +She nodded thoughtfully; she did not look astonished. +The telephone rang and the voice of her secretary said, "Mr. Wesley Mouch +calling from Washington, Miss Taggart." +Her lips stiffened a little, as at the unexpected touch of an insect. "It +must be for my brother," she said. +"No, Miss Taggart. For you." +"All right. Put him on." +"Miss Taggart," said the voice of Wesley Mouch in the tone of a cocktailparty host, "I was so glad to hear you've regained your health that I wanted +to welcome you back in person. I know that your health required a long rest +and I appreciate the patriotism that made you cut your leave of absence short +in this terrible emergency. I wanted to assure you that you can count on our +co-operation in any step you now find it necessary to take. Our fullest cooperation, assistance and support. If there are any . . . special exceptions +you might require, please feel certain that they can be granted." +She let him speak, even though he had made several small pauses inviting +an answer. When his pause became long enough, she said, "I would be much +obliged if you would let me speak to Mr. Weatherby." + + "Why, of course, Miss Taggart, any time you wish . . . why . . . +that is . . . do you mean, now?" +"Yes. Right now." +He understood. But he said, "Yes, Miss Taggart." +When Mr. Weatherby's voice came on the wire, it sounded cautious: "Yes, +Miss Taggart? Of what service can I be to you?" +"You can tell your boss that if he doesn't want me to quit again, as he +knows I did, he is never to call me or speak to me. Anything your gang has to +tell me, let them send you to tell it. I'll speak to you, but not to him. You +may tell him that my reason is what he did to Hank Rearden when he was on +Rearden's payroll. If everybody else has forgotten it, I haven't." +"It is my duty to assist the nation's railroads at any time, Miss +Taggart." Mr. Weatherby sounded as if he were trying to avoid the commitment +of having heard what he had heard; but a sudden note of interest crept into +his voice as he asked slowly, thoughtfully, with guarded shrewdness, "Am I to +understand, Miss Taggart, that it is your wish to deal exclusively with me in +all official matters? May I take this as your policy?" +She gave a brief, harsh chuckle. "Go ahead," she said. "You may list me as +your exclusive property, use me as a special item of pull, and trade me all +over Washington. But I don't know what good that will do you, because I'm not +going to play the game, I'm not going to trade favors, I'm simply going to +start breaking your laws right now—and you can arrest me when you feel that +you can afford to." +"I believe that you have an old-fashioned idea about law, Miss Taggart. +Why speak of rigid, unbreakable laws? Our modern laws are elastic and open to +interpretation according to . . . circumstances." +"Then start being elastic right now, because I'm not and neither are +railroad catastrophes." +She hung up, and said to Eddie, in the tone of an estimate passed on +physical objects, "They'll leave us alone for a while." +She did not seem to notice the changes in her office: the absence of Nat +Taggart's portrait, the new glass coffee table where Mr. Locey had spread, +for the benefit of visitors, a display of the loudest humanitarian magazines +with titles of articles headlined on their covers. +She heard—with the attentive look of a machine equipped to record, not to +react—Eddie's account of what one month had done to the railroad. She heard +his report on what he guessed about the causes of the catastrophe. She faced, +with the same look of detachment, a succession of men who went in and out of +her office with over hurried steps and hands fumbling in superfluous +gestures. He thought that she had become impervious to anything. But +suddenly—while pacing the office, dictating to him a list of track-laying +materials and where to obtain them illegally—she stopped and looked down at +the magazines on the coffee table. Their headlines said: "The New Social +Conscience," "Our Duty to the Underprivileged," "Need versus Greed." With a +single movement of her arm, the abrupt, explosive movement of sheer physical +brutality, such as he had never seen from her before, she swept the magazines +off the table and went on, her voice reciting a list of figures without a +break, as if there were no connection between her mind and the violence of +her body. +Late in the afternoon, finding a moment alone in her office, she +telephoned Hank Rearden. +She gave her name to his secretary—and she heard, in the way he said it, +the haste with which he had seized the receiver: "Dagny?" +"Hello, Hank. I'm back." +"Where?" +"In my office." + + She heard the things he did not say, in the moment's silence on the wire, +then he said, "1 suppose I'd better start bribing people at once to get the +ore to start pouring rail for you." +"Yes. As much of it as you can. It doesn't have to be Rearden Metal. It +can be—" The break in her voice was almost too brief to notice, but what it +held was the thought: Rearden Metal rail for going back to the time before +heavy steel?—perhaps back to the time of wooden rails with strips of iron? +"It can be steel, any weight, anything you can give me." +"All right. Dagny, do you know that I've surrendered Rearden Metal to +them? I've signed the Gift Certificate." +"Yes, I know." +"I've given in." +"Who am I to blame you? Haven't I?" He did not answer, and she said, +"Hank, I don't think they care whether there's a train or a blast furnace +left on earth. We do. They're holding us by our love of it, and we'll go on +paying so long as there's still one chance left to keep one single wheel +alive and moving in token of human intelligence. We'll go on holding it +afloat, like our drowning child, and when the flood swallows it, we'll go +down with the last wheel and the last syllogism. I know what we're paying, +but—price is no object any longer." +"I know." +"Don't be afraid for me, Hank, I'll be all right by tomorrow morning." +"I'll never be afraid for you, darling. I'll see you tonight." + + CHAPTER IX +THE FACE WITHOUT PAIN OR FEAR OR GUILT +The silence of her apartment and the motionless perfection of objects that +had remained just as she had left them a month before, struck her with a +sense of relief and desolation together, when she entered her living room. +The silence gave her an illusion of privacy and ownership; the sight of the +objects reminded her that they were preserving a moment she could not +recapture, as she could not undo the events that had happened since. +There was still a remnant of daylight beyond the windows. She had left the +office earlier than, she intended, unable to summon the effort for any task +that could be postponed till morning. This was new to her —and it was new +that she should now feel more at home in her apartment than in her office. +She took a shower, and stood for long, blank minutes, letting the water +run over her body, but stepped out hastily when she realized that what she +wanted to wash off was not the dust of the drive from the country, but the +feel of the office. +She dressed, lighted a cigarette and walked into the living room, to stand +at the window, looking at the city, as she had stood looking at the +countryside at the start of this day. +She had said she would give her life for one more year on the +railroad. She was back; but this was not the joy of working; it +was only the clear, cold peace of a decision reached—and the +stillness of unadmitted pain. +Clouds had wrapped the sky and had descended as fog to wrap the streets +below, as if the sky were engulfing the city. She could see the whole of +Manhattan Island, a long, triangular shape cutting into an invisible ocean. +It looked like the prow of a sinking ship; a few tall buildings still rose +above it, like funnels, but the rest was disappearing under gray-blue coils, +going down slowly into vapor and space. +This was how they had gone—she thought—Atlantis, the city that sank into +the ocean, and all the other kingdoms that vanished, leaving the same legend +in all the languages of men, and the same longing. +She felt—-as she had felt it one spring night, slumped across her desk in +the crumbling office of the John Galt Line, by a window facing a dark alley— +the sense and vision of her own world, which she would never reach. , , . +You—she thought—whoever you are, whom ,1 +have always loved and never found, you whom I expected to see at the end +of the rails beyond the horizon, you whose presence I had always felt in the +streets of the city and whose world I had wanted to build, it is my love for +you that had kept me moving, my love and my hope to reach you and my wish to +be worthy of you on the day when I would stand before you face to face. Now I +know that I shall never find you— +that it is not to be reached or lived—but what is left of my life is still +yours, and I will go on in your name, even though it is a name I'll never +learn, I will go on serving you, even though I'm never to win, I will go on, +to be worthy of you on the day when I would have met you, even though I +won't. . . . She had never accepted hopelessness, but she stood at the window +and, addressed to the shape of a fogbound city, it was her self-dedication to +unrequited love. +The doorbell rang. +She turned with indifferent astonishment to open, the door—but she knew +that she should have expected him, when she saw that it was Francisco +d'Anconia. She felt no shock and no rebellion, only the cheerless serenity of +her assurance—and she raised her head to face him, with a slow, deliberate + + movement, as if telling him that she had chosen her stand and that she stood +in the open. +His face was grave and calm; the look of happiness was gone, but the +amusement of the playboy had not returned. He looked as if all masks were +down, he looked direct, tightly disciplined, intent upon a purpose, he looked +like a man able to know the earnestness of action, as she had once expected +him to look—he had never seemed so attractive as he did in this moment—and +she noted, in astonishment, her sudden feeling that he was not a man who had +deserted her, but a man whom she had deserted. +"Dagny, are you able to talk about it now?" +"Yes—if you wish. Come in." +He glanced briefly at her living room, her home which he had never +entered, then his eyes came back to her. He was watching her attentively. He +seemed to know that the quiet simplicity of her manner was the worst of all +signs for his purpose, that it was like a spread of ashes where no flicker of +pain could be revived, that even pain would have been a form of fire. +"Sit down, Francisco." +She remained standing before him, as if consciously letting him see that +she had nothing to hide, not even the weariness of her posture, the price she +had paid for this day and her carelessness of price. +"I don't think I can stop you now," he said, "if you've made your choice. +But if there's one chance left to stop you, it's a chance I have to take." +She shook her head slowly. "There isn't. And—what for, Francisco? +You've given up. What difference does it make to you whether I perish with +the railroad or away from it?" +"I haven't given up the future," +"What future?" +"The day when the looters will perish, but we won't." +"If Taggart Transcontinental is to perish with the looters, then so am I." +He did not take his eyes off her face and he did not answer. +She added dispassionately, "I thought I could live without it. I can't. +I'll never try it again. Francisco, do you remember?—we both believed, +when we started, that the only sin on earth was to do things badly, I still +believe it." The first note of life shuddered in her voice. "I can't stand by +and watch what they did at that tunnel. I can't accept what they're all +accepting—Francisco, it's the thing we thought so monstrous, you and I!—the +belief that disasters are one's natural fate, to be borne, not fought. I +can't accept submission. I can't accept helplessness. I can't accept +renunciation. So long as there's a railroad left to run, I'll run it." +"In order to maintain the looters' world?" +"In order to maintain the last strip of mine." +"Dagny," he said slowly, "I know why one loves one's work. I know what it +means to you, the job of running trains. But you would not run them if they +were empty. Dagny, what is it you see when you think of a moving train?" +She glanced at the city. "The life of a man of ability who might have +perished in that catastrophe, but will escape the next one, which I'll +prevent—a man who has an intransigent mind and an unlimited ambition, and is +in love with his own life . . . the kind of man who is what we were when we +started, you and I. You gave him up. I can't." +He closed his eyes for an instant, and the tightening movement of his +mouth was a smile, a smile substituting for a moan of understanding, +amusement and pain. He asked, his voice gravely gentle, "Do you think that +you can still serve him—that kind of man—by running the railroad?" +"Yes." +"All right, Dagny. I won't try to stop you. So long as you still think +that, nothing can stop you, or should. You will stop on the day when you'll + + discover that your work has been placed in the service, not of that man's +life, but of his destruction." +"Francisco!" It was a cry of astonishment and despair. "You do understand +it, you know what I mean by that kind of man, you see him, too!" +"Oh yes," he said simply, casually, looking at some point in space within +the room, almost as if he were seeing a real person. He added, "Why should +you be astonished? You said that we were of his kind once, you and I. We +still are. But one of us has betrayed him." +"Yes," she said sternly, "one of us has. We cannot serve him by +renunciation." +"We cannot serve him by making terms with his destroyers." +"I'm not making terms with them. They need me. They know it. +It's my terms that I'll make them accept." +"By playing a game in which they gain benefits in exchange for harming +you?" +"If I can keep Taggart Transcontinental in existence, it's the only +benefit I want. What do I care if they make me pay ransoms? Let them have +what they want. I'll have the railroad." +He smiled. "Do you think so? Do you think that their need of you is your +protection? Do you think that you can give them what they want? No, you won't +quit until you see, of your own sight and judgment, what it is that they +really want. You know, Dagny, we were taught that some things belong to God +and others to Caesar. Perhaps their God would permit it. But the man you say +we're serving—he docs not permit it. He permits no divided allegiance, no war +between your mind and your body, no gulf between your values and your +actions, no tributes to Caesar. He permits no Caesars." +"For twelve years," she said softly, "I would have thought it +inconceivable that there might come a day when I would have to beg your +forgiveness on my knees. Now I think it's possible. If I come to see that +you're right, I will. But not until then." +"You will. But not on your knees." +He was looking at her, as if he were seeing her body as she stood before +him, even though his eyes were directed at her face, and his glance told her +what form of atonement and surrender he was seeing in the future. She saw the +effort he made to look away, his hope that she had not seen his glance or +understood it, his silent struggle, betrayed by the tension of a few muscles +under the skin of his face—the face she knew so well, "Until then, Dagny, +remember that we're enemies. I didn't want to tell you this, but you're the +first person who almost stepped into heaven and came back to earth. You've +glimpsed too much, so you have to know this clearly. It's you that I'm +fighting, not your brother James or Wesley Mouch. It's you that I have to +defeat. I am out to end all the things that are most precious to you right +now. While you'll struggle to save Taggart Transcontinental, I will be +working to destroy it. Don't ever ask me for help or money. You know my +reasons. Now you may hate me—as, from your stand, you should." +She raised her head a little, there was no perceptible change in her +posture, it was no more than her awareness of her own body and of its meaning +to him, but for the length of one sentence she stood as a woman, the +suggestion of defiance coming only from the faintly stressed spacing of her +words: "And what will it do to you?" +He looked at her, in full understanding, but neither admitting nor denying +the confession she wanted to tear from him. "That is no one's concern but +mine," he answered. +It was she who weakened, but realized, while saying it, that this was +still more cruel: "I don't hate you. I've tried to, for years, but I never +will, no matter what we do, either one of us." + + "I know it," he said, his voice low, so that she did not hear the pain, +but felt it within herself as if by direct reflection from him. +"Francisco!" she cried, in desperate defense of him against herself. +"How can you do what you're doing?" +"By the grace of my love"—for you, said his eyes—"for the man," +said his voice, "who did not perish in your catastrophe and who will never +perish," +She stood silently still for a moment, as if in respectful acknowledgment. +"I wish I could spare you what you're going to go through," he said, the +gentleness of his voice saying: It's not me that you should pity. +"But I can't. Every one of us has to travel that road by his own steps. +But it's the same road." +"Where does it lead?" +He smiled, as if softly closing a door on the questions that he would not +answer. "To Atlantis," he said. +"What?" she asked, startled. +"Don't you remember?—the lost city that only the spirits of heroes can +enter." +The connection that struck her suddenly had been struggling in her mind +since morning, like a dim anxiety she had had no time to identify. +She had known it, but she had thought only of his own fate and his +personal decision, she had thought of him as acting alone. Now she remembered +a wider danger and sensed the vast, undefined shape of the enemy she was +facing. +"You're one of them," she said slowly, "aren't you?" +"Of whom?" +"Was it you in Ken Danagger's office?" +He smiled. "No." But she noted that he did not ask what she meant. +"Is there—you would know it—is there actually a destroyer loose in the +world?" +"Of course." +"Who is it?" +"You." +She shrugged; her face was growing hard. "The men who've quit, are they +still alive or dead?" +"They're dead—as far as you're concerned. But there's to be a Second +Renaissance in the world. I'll wait for it." +"No!" The sudden violence of her voice was in personal answer to him, to +one of the two things he had wanted her to hear in his words. +"No, don't wait for me!" +"I'll always wait for you, no matter what we do, either one of us." +The sound they heard was the turning of a key in the lock of the entrance +door. The door opened and Hank Rearden came in. +He stopped briefly on the threshold, then walked slowly into the living +room, his hand slipping the key into his pocket. +She knew that he had seen Francisco's face before he had seen hers. +He glanced at her, but his eyes came back to Francisco, as if this were +the only face he was now able to see. +It was at Francisco's face that she was afraid to look. The effort she +made to pull her glance along the curve of a few steps felt as if she were +pulling a weight beyond her power. Francisco had risen to his feet, as if in +the unhurried, automatic manner of a d'Anconia trained to the code of +courtesy. There was nothing that Rearden could see in his face. But what she +saw in it was worse than she had feared. +"What are you doing here?" asked Rearden, in the tone one would use to +address a menial caught in a drawing room. + + "I see that I have no right to ask you the same question," said Francisco. +She knew what effort was required to achieve the clear, toneless quality of +his voice. His eyes kept returning to Rearden's right hand, as if he were +still seeing the key between, his fingers. +"Then answer it," said Rearden. +"Hank, any questions you wish to ask should be asked of me," she said. +Rearden did not seem to see or hear her. "Answer it," he repeated. +"There is only one answer which you would have the right to demand," said +Francisco, "so I will answer you that that is not the reason of my presence +here." +"There is only one reason for your presence in the house of any woman," +said Rearden. "And I mean, any woman—as far as you're concerned. Do you think +that I believe it now, that confession of yours or anything you ever said to +me?" +"I have given you grounds not to trust me, but none to include Miss +Taggart." +"Don't tell me that you have no chance here, never had and never will. I +know it. But that I should find you here on the first—" +"Hank, if you wish to accuse me—" she began, but Rearden whirled to her. +"God, no, Dagny, I don't! But you shouldn't be seen speaking to him. You +shouldn't deal with him in any way. You don't know him. I do." He turned to +Francisco. "What are you after? Are you hoping to include her among your kind +of conquests or—" +"No!" It was an involuntary cry and it sounded futile, with its passionate +sincerity offered—to be rejected—as its only proof. +"No? Then are you here on a matter of business? Are you setting a trap, as +you -did for me? What sort of double-cross are you preparing for her?" +"My purpose . . . was not . . . a matter of business." +"Then what was it?" +"If you still care to believe me, I can tell you only that it involved no +. . . betrayal of any kind." +"Do you think that you may still discuss betrayal, in my presence?” +"I will answer you some day. I cannot answer you now." +"You don't like to be reminded of it, do you? You've stayed away from me +since, haven't you? You didn't expect to see me here? You didn't want to face +me?" But he knew that Francisco was facing him as no one else did these days— +he saw the eyes held straight to meet his, the features composed, without +emotion, without defense or appeal, set to endure whatever was coming—he saw +the open, unprotected look of courage—this was the face of the man he had +loved, the man who had set him free of guilt—and he found himself fighting +against the knowledge that this face still held him, above all else, above +his month of impatience for the sight of Dagny. "Why don't you defend +yourself, if you have nothing to hide? Why are you here? Why were you stunned +to see me enter?" +"Hank, stop it!" Dagny's voice was a cry, and she drew back, knowing that +violence was the most dangerous element to introduce into this moment. +Both men turned to her. "Please let me be the one to answer," Francisco +said quietly. +"I told you that I hoped I'd never see him again," said Rearden. +'Tm sorry if it has to be here. It doesn't concern you, but there's +something he must be paid for." +"If that is . . . your purpose," Francisco said with effort, "haven't you +. . . achieved it already?" +"What's the matter?" Rearden's face was frozen, his lips barely moving, +but his voice had the sound of a chuckle. "Is this your way of asking for +mercy?" +The instant of silence was Francisco's strain to a greater effort. + + "Yes . . . if you wish," he answered. +"Did you grant it when you held my future in your hands?" +"You are justified in anything you wish to think of me. But since it +doesn't concern Miss Taggart . . . would you now permit me to leave?" +"No! Do you want to evade it, like all those other cowards? Do you want to +escape?" +"I will come anywhere you require any time you wish. But I would rather it +were not in Miss Taggart's presence." +"Why not? I want it to be in her presence, since this is the one place you +had no right to come. I have nothing left to protect from you, you've taken +more than the looters can ever take, you've destroyed everything you've +touched, but here is one thing you're not -going to touch." He knew that the +rigid absence of emotion in Francisco's face was the strongest evidence of +emotion, the evidence of some abnormal effort at control—he knew that this +was torture and that he, Rearden, was driven blindly by a feeling which +resembled a torturer's enjoyment, except that he was now unable to tell +whether he was torturing Francisco or himself. "You're worse than the +looters, because you betray with full understanding of that which you're +betraying. I don't know what form of corruption is your motive—but I want you +to learn that there are things beyond your reach, beyond your aspiration or +your malice." +"You have nothing . . . to fear from me . . . now." +"I want you to learn that you are not to think of her, not to look at her, +not to approach her. Of all men, it's you who're not to appear in her +presence." He knew that he was driven by a desperate anger at his own feeling +for this man, that the feeling still lived, that it was this feeling which he +had to outrage and destroy. "Whatever your motive, it's from any contact with +you that she has to be protected." +"IE I gave you my word—" He stopped. +Rearden chuckled. "I know what they mean, your words, your convictions, +your friendship and your oath by the only woman you ever—" +He stopped. They all knew what this meant, in the same instant that +Rearden knew it. +He made a step toward Francisco; he asked, pointing at Dagny, his voice +low and strangely unlike his own voice, as if it neither came from nor were +addressed to a living person, "Is this the woman you love?" +Francisco closed his eyes. +"Don't ask him that!" The cry was Dagny's. +"Is this the woman you love?" +Francisco answered, looking at her, "Yes." +Rearden's hand rose, swept down and slapped Francisco's face. +The scream came from Dagny. When she could see again—after an instant that +felt as if the blow had struck her own cheek—Francisco's hands were the first +thing she saw. The heir of the d'Anconias stood thrown back against a table, +clasping the edge behind him, not to support himself, but to stop his own +hands. She saw the rigid stillness of his body,, a body that was pulled too +straight but seemed broken, with the slight, unnatural angles of his +waistline and shoulders, with his arms held stiff but slanted back—he stood +as if the effort not to move were turning the force of his violence against +himself, as if the motion he resisted were running through his muscles as a +tearing pain. She saw his convulsed fingers struggling to grow fast to the +table's edge, she wondered which would break first, the wood of the table or +the bones of the man, and she knew that Rearden's life hung in the balance. +When her eyes moved up to Francisco's face, she saw no sign of struggle, +only the skin of his temples pulled tight and the planes of his cheeks drawn +inward, seeming faintly more hollow than usual. It made his face look naked, +pure and young. She felt terror because she was seeing in his eyes the tears + + which were not there. His eyes were brilliant and dry. He was looking at +Rearden, but it was not Rearden that he was seeing. He looked as if he were +facing another presence in the room and as if his glance were saying: If this +is what you demand of me, then even this is yours, yours to accept and mine +to endure, there is no more than this in me to offer you, but let me be proud +to know that I can offer so much. She saw—with a single artery beating under +the skin of his throat, with a froth of pink in the corner of his mouth— +the look of an enraptured dedication which was almost a smile, and she +knew that she was witnessing Francisco d'Anconia's greatest achievement. +When she felt herself shaking and heard her own voice, it seemed to meet +the last echo of her scream in the air of the room—and she realized how brief +a moment had passed between. Her voice had the savage sound of rising to +deliver a blow and it was crying to Rearden: "—to protect me from him? Long +before you ever—" +"Don't!" Francisco's head jerked to her, the brief snap of his voice held +all of his unreleased violence, and she knew it was an order that had to be +obeyed. +Motionless but for the slow curve of his head, Francisco turned to +Rearden. She saw his hands leave the edge of the table and hang relaxed by +his sides. It was Rearden that he was now seeing, and there was nothing in +Francisco's face except the exhaustion of effort, but Rearden knew suddenly +how much this man had loved him. +"Within the extent of your knowledge," Francisco said quietly, "you are +right." +Neither expecting nor permitting an answer, he turned to leave. He bowed +to Dagny, inclining his head in a manner that appeared as a simple gesture of +leave-taking to Rearden, as a gesture of acceptance to her. Then he left. +Rearden stood looking after him, knowing—without context and with absolute +certainty—that he would give his life for the power not to have committed the +action he had committed. +When he turned to Dagny, his face looked drained, open and faintly +attentive, as if he were not questioning her about the words she had cut off, +but were waiting for them to come. +A shudder of pity ran through her body and ended in the movement of +shaking her head: she did not know for which of the two men the pity was +intended, but it made her unable to speak and she shook her head over and +over again, as if trying desperately to negate some vast, impersonal +suffering that had made them all its victims. +"If there's something that must be said, say it." His voice was toneless. +The sound she made was half-chuckle, half-moan—it was not a desire for +vengeance, but a desperate sense of justice that drove the cutting bitterness +of her voice, as she cried, consciously throwing the words at his face, "You +wanted to know the name of that other man? +The man. I slept with? The man who had me first? It was Francisco +d'Anconia!" +She saw the force of the blow by seeing his face swept blank. She knew +that if justice was her purpose, she had achieved it—because this slap was +worse than the one he had dealt. +She felt suddenly calm, knowing that her words had had to be said for the +sake of all three of them. The despair of a helpless victim left her, she was +not a victim any longer, she was one of the contestants, willing to bear the +responsibility of action. She stood facing him, waiting for any answer he +would choose to give her, feeling almost as if it were her turn to be +subjected to violence. +She did not know what form of torture he was enduring, or what he saw +being wrecked within him and kept himself the only one to see. + + There was no sign of pain to give her any warning; he looked as if he were +just a man who stood still in the middle of a room, making his consciousness +absorb a fact that it refused to absorb. Then she noticed that he did not +change his posture, that even his hands hung by his sides with the fingers +half-bent as they had been for a long time, it seemed to her that she could +feel the heavy numbness of the blood stopping in his fingers—and this was the +only clue to his suffering she was able to find, but it told her that that +which he felt left him no power to feel anything else, not even the existence +of his own body. +She waited, her pity vanishing and becoming respect. +Then she saw his eyes move slowly from her face down the length of her +body, and she knew the sort of torture he was now choosing to experience, +because it was a glance of a nature he could not hide from her. She knew that +he was seeing her as she had been at seventeen, he was seeing her with the +rival he hated, he was seeing them together as they would be now, a sight he +could neither endure nor resist. She saw the protection of control dropping +from his face, but he did not care whether he let her see his face alive and +naked, because there now was nothing to read in it except an unrevealing +violence, some part of which resembled hatred. +He seized her shoulders, and she felt prepared to accept that he would now +kill her or beat her into unconsciousness, and in the moment when she felt +certain that he had thought of it, she felt her body thrown against him and +his mouth falling on hers, more brutally than the act of a beating would have +permitted. +She found herself, in terror, twisting her body to resist, and, in +exultation, twisting her arms around him, holding him, letting her lips bring +blood to his, knowing that she had never wanted him as she did in this +moment. +When he threw her down on the couch, she knew, to the rhythm of the beat +of his body, that it was the act of his victory over his rival and of his +surrender to him, the act of ownership brought to unendurable violence by the +thought of the man whom it was defying, the act of transforming his hatred +for the pleasure that man had known into the intensity of his own pleasure, +his conquest of that man by means of her body—she felt Francisco's presence +through Rearden's mind, she felt as if she were surrendering to both men, to +that which she had worshipped in both of them, that which they held in +common, that essence of character which had made of her love for each an act +of loyalty to both. She knew also that this was his rebellion against the +world around them, against its worship of degradation, against the long +torment of his wasted days and lightless struggle—this was what he wished to +assert and, alone with her in the half-darkness high in space above a city of +ruins, to hold as the last of his property. +Afterwards, they lay still, his face on her shoulder. The reflection of a +distant electric sign kept beating in faint flashes on the ceiling above her +head. +He reached for her hand and slipped her fingers under his face to let his +mouth rest against her palm for a moment, so gently that she felt his motive +more than his touch. +After a while, she got up, she reached for a cigarette, lighted it, then +held it out to him with a slight, questioning lift of her hand; he nodded, +still sitting half-stretched on the couch; she placed the cigarette between +his lips and lighted another for herself. She felt a great sense of peace +between them, and the intimacy of the unimportant gestures underscored the +importance of the things they were not saying to each other. Everything was +said, she thought—but knew that it waited to be acknowledged. +She saw his eyes move to the entrance door once in a while and remain on +it for long moments, as if he were still seeing the man who had left. + + He said quietly, "He could have beaten me by letting me have the truth, +any time he wished. Why didn't he?" +She shrugged, spreading her hands in a gesture of helpless sadness, +because they both knew the answer. She asked, "He did mean a great deal to +you, didn't he?" +"He does." +The two dots of fire at the tips of their cigarettes had moved slowly to +the tips of their fingers, with the small glow of an occasional flare and the +soft crumbling of ashes as sole movement in the silence, when the doorbell +rang. They knew that it was not the man they wished but could not hope to see +return, and she frowned with sudden anger as she went to open the door. It +took her a moment to remember that the innocuously courteous figure she saw +bowing to her with a standard smile of welcome was the assistant manager of +the apartment house. +"Good evening, Miss Taggart. We're so glad to see you back. I just came on +duty and heard that you had returned and wanted to greet you in person." +"Thank you." She stood at the door, not moving to admit him. +"I have a letter that came for you about a week ago, Miss Taggart," +he said, reaching into his pocket. "It looked as if it might be important, +but being marked 'personal,' it was obviously not intended to be sent to your +office and, besides, they did not know your address, either—so not knowing +where to forward it, I kept it in our safe and I thought I'd deliver it to +you in person." +The envelope he handed to her was marked: Registered—Air Mail —Special +Delivery—Personal. The return address said: Quentin Daniels, Utah Institute +of Technology;. Afton, Utah. +"Oh . . . Thank you." +The assistant manager noted that her voice went dropping toward a whisper, +the polite disguise for a gasp, he noted that she stood looking down at the +sender's name much longer than was necessary, so he repeated his good wishes +and departed. +She was tearing the envelope open as she walked toward Rearden, and she +stopped in the middle of the room to read the letter. It was typewritten on +thin paper—he could see the black rectangles of the paragraphs through the +transparent sheets—and he could see her face as she read them. +He expected it, by the time he saw her come to the end: she leaped to the +telephone, he heard the violent whirl of the dial and her voice saying with +trembling urgency, "Long-distance, please . . . Operator, get me the Utah +Institute of Technology at Afton, Utah!" +He asked, approaching, "What is it?" +She extended the letter, not looking at him, her eyes fixed on the +telephone, as if she could force it to answer. +The letter said: Dear Miss Taggart: I have fought it out for three weeks, +I did not want to do it, I know how this will hit you and I know every +argument you could offer me, because I have used them all against myself—but +this is to tell you that I am quitting. +I cannot work under the terms of Directive 10-289—though not for the +reason its perpetrators intended. I know that their abolition of all +scientific research does not mean a damn to you or me, and that you would +want me to continue. But I have to quit, because I do not wish to succeed any +longer. +I do not wish to work in a world that regards me as a slave. I do not wish +to be of any value to people. If I succeeded in rebuilding the motor, I would +not let you place it in their service. I would not take it upon my conscience +that anything produced by my mind should be used to bring them comfort. +I know that if we succeed, they will be only too eager to expropriate the +motor. And for the sake of that prospect, we have to accept the position of + + criminals, you and I, and live under the threat of being arrested at any +moment at their whim. And this is the thing that I cannot take, even were I +able to take all the rest: that in order to give them an inestimable benefit, +we should be made martyrs to the men who, but for us, could not have +conceived of it. I might have forgiven the rest, but when I think of this, I +say: May they be damned, I will see them all die of starvation, myself +included, rather than forgive them for this or permit it! +To tell you the full truth, I want to succeed, to solve the secret of the +motor, as much as ever. So I shall continue to work on it for my own sole +pleasure and for as long as I last. But if I solve it, it will remain my +private secret. I will not release it for any commercial use. Therefore, I +cannot take your money any longer. +Commercialism is supposed to be despicable, so all those people should +truly approve of my decision, and I—I'm tired of helping those who despise +me. +I don't know how long I will last or what I will do in the future. +For the moment, I intend to remain in my job at this Institute. +But if any of its trustees or receivers should remind me that I am now +legally forbidden to cease being a janitor, I will 'quit. +You had given me my greatest chance and if I am now giving you a painful +blow, perhaps T should ask you to forgive me, I think that you love your work +as much as I loved mine, so you will know that my decision was not easy to +make, but that I had to make it. +It is a strange feeling—writing this letter. I do not intend to die, but I +am giving up the world and this feels like the letter of a suicide. So I want +to say that of all the people I have known, you are the only person I regret +leaving behind. +Sincerely yours, Quentin Daniels When he looked up from the letter, he +heard her saying, as he had heard her through the words of the typewritten +lines, her voice rising closer to despair each time: "Keep ringing, Operator! +. . . Please keep ringing!" +"What can you tell him?" he asked. "There are no arguments to offer." +"I won't have a chance to tell him! He's gone by now. It was a week ago. +I'm sure he's gone. They've got him." +"Who got him?" +"Yes, Operator, I'll hold the line, keep trying!" +"What would you tell him if he answered?" +"I'd beg him to go on taking my money, with no strings attached, no +conditions, just so he'll have the means to continue! I'll promise him that +if we're still in a looters' world when and if he succeeds, I won't ask him +to give me the motor or even to tell me its secret. But if, by that time, +we're free—" She stopped. +"If we're free . . ." +"All I want from him now is that he doesn't give up and vanish, like . . . +like all those others. I don't want to let them get him. If it's not too +late—oh God, I don't want them to get him! . . . Yes, Operator, keep +ringing!" +"What good will it do us, even if he continues to work?" +"That's all I'll beg him to do—just to continue. Maybe we'll never get a +chance to use the motor in the future. But I want to know that somewhere in +the world there's still a great brain at work on a great attempt—and that we +still have a chance at a future. , , . If that motor is abandoned again, then +there's nothing but Starnesville ahead of us." +"Yes. I know." +She held the receiver pressed to her ear, her arm stiff with the effort +not to tremble. She waited, and he heard, in the silence, the futile clicking +of the unanswered call. + + "He's gone," she said. 'They got him. A week is much longer than they +need. I don't know how they learn when the time is right, but this" +—she pointed at the letter—"this was their time and they wouldn't have +missed it." +"Who?" +"The destroyer's agents," +"Are you beginning to think that they really exist?" +"Yes." +"Are you serious?" +"I am. I've met one of them." +"Who?" +"I'll tell you later. I don't know who their leader is, but I'm going to +find out, one of these days. I'm going to find out. I'll be damned if I let +them—" +She broke off on a gasp; he saw the change in her face the moment before +he heard the click of a distant receiver being lifted and the sound of a +man's voice saying, across the wire, "Hello?" +"Daniels! Is that you? You're alive? You're still there?" +"Why, yes. Is this you, Miss Taggart? What's the matter?" +"I . . . I thought you were gone." +"Oh, I'm sorry, I just heard the phone ringing, I was out in the back lot, +gathering carrots." +'"Carrots?" She was laughing with hysterical relief. +"I have my own vegetable patch out there. Used to be the Institute's +parking lot. Are you calling from New York, Miss Taggart?" +"Yes. I just received your letter. Just now. I . . . I had been away." +"Oh." There was a pause, then he said quietly, "There's really nothing +more to be said about it, Miss Taggart." +"Tell me, are you going away?" +"No." +"You're not planning to go?" +"No. Where?" +"Do you intend to remain at the Institute?" +"Yes." +"For how long? Indefinitely?" +"Yes—as far as I know." +"Has anyone approached you?" +"About what?" +"About leaving." +"No. Who?" +"Listen, Daniels, I won't try to discuss your letter over the phone. +But I must speak to you. I'm coming to see you. I'll get there as fast as +I can." +"I don't want you to do that, Miss Taggart. I don't want you to go to such +an effort, when it's useless." +"Give me a chance, won't you? You don't have to promise to change your +mind, you don't have to commit yourself to anything—only to give me a +hearing. If I want to come, it's my risk, I'm taking it. There are things I +want to say to you, I'm asking you only-for the chance to say them." +"You know that I will always give you that chance, Miss Taggart." +"I'm leaving for Utah at once. Tonight. But there's one thing I want you +to promise me. Will you promise to wait for me? Will you promise to be there +when I arrive?" +"Why . . . of course, Miss Taggart. Unless I die or something happens +outside my power—but I don't expect it to happen." +"Unless you die, will you wait for me no matter what happens?" +"Of course." + + "Do you give me your word that you'll wait?" +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +"Thank you. Good night." +"Good night, Miss Taggart." +She pressed the receiver down and picked it up again in the same sweep of +her hand and rapidly dialed a number. +"Eddie? . . . Have them hold the Comet for me. . . . Yes, tonight's Comet. +Give orders to have my car attached, then come here, to my place, at once," +She glanced at her watch. "It's eight-twelve. I have an hour to make it. I +don't think I'll hold them up too long. I'll talk to you while I pack." +She hung up and turned to Rearden. +"Tonight?" he said. +"I have to." +"I guess so. Don't you have to go to Colorado, anyway?" +"Yes. I intended to leave tomorrow night. But I think Eddie can manage to +take care of my office, and I'd better start now. It takes three days"—she +remembered—"it will now take five days to reach Utah. +I have to go by train, there are people I have to see on the line—this +can't be delayed, either." +"How long will you stay in Colorado?" +"Hard to tell." +"Wire me when you get there, will you? If it looks as if it's going to be +long, I'll join you there." +This was the only expression he could give to the words he had desperately +wished to say to her, had waited for, had come here to say, and now wished to +pronounce more than ever, but knew that it must not be said tonight. +She knew, by a faint, solemn stress in the tone of his voice, that this +was his acceptance of her confession, his surrender, his forgiveness. She +asked, "Can you leave the mills?" +"It will take me a few days to arrange, but I can." +He knew what her words were admitting, acknowledging and forgiving him, +when she said, "Hank, why don't you meet me in Colorado in a week? If you fly +your plane, we'll both get there at the same time. And then we'll come back +together." +"All right . . . dearest." +She dictated a list of instructions, while pacing her bedroom, gathering +her clothes, hastily packing a suitcase. Rearden had left; Eddie Willers sat +at her dressing table, making notes. He seemed to work in his usual manner of +unquestioning efficiency, as if he were not aware of the perfume bottles and +powder boxes, as if the dressing table were a desk and the room were only an +office. +'I'll phone you from Chicago, Omaha, Flagstaff and Afton," she said, +tossing underwear into the suitcase. "If you need me in between, call any +operator along the line, with orders to flag the train." +"The Comet?" he asked mildly. +"Hell, yes!—the Comet.” +"Okay." +"Don't hesitate to call, if you have to." +"Okay. But I don't think I'll have to." +"We'll manage. We'll work by long-distance phone, just as we did when we—" +She stopped. +"—when we were building the John Galt Line?" he asked quietly. +They glanced at each other, but said nothing else. +"What's the latest report on the construction crews?" she asked. +"Everything's under way. I got word, just after you left the office, that +the grading gangs have started—out of Laurel, Kansas, and out of Jasper, +Oklahoma. The rail is on its way to them from Silver Springs. + + It will be all right. The hardest thing to find was—M +"The men?" +"Yes. The men to put in charge. We had trouble out West, over the Elgin to +Midland stretch. All the men we were counting on are gone. I couldn't find +anyone able to assume responsibility, neither on our line nor elsewhere. I +even tried to get Dan Conway, but—" +"Dan Conway?" she asked, stopping. +"Yes. I did. I tried. Do you remember how he used to have rail laid at the +rate of five miles a day, right in that part of the country? Oh, I know he'd +have reason to hate our guts, but what does it matter now? +I found him—he's living on a ranch out in Arizona. I phoned him myself and +I begged him to save us. Just to take charge, for one night, of building five +and a half miles of track. Five and a half miles, Dagny, that we're stuck +with—and he's the greatest railroad builder living! I told him that I was +asking him to do it as a gesture of charity to us, if he would. You know, I +think he understood me. He wasn't angry. He sounded sad. But he wouldn't do +it. He said one must not try to bring people back out of the grave. . . . He +wished me luck. I think he meant it. . . . You know, I don't think he's one +of those that the destroyer knocked out. I think he just broke by himself." +"Yes. I know he did." +Eddie saw the expression on her face and pulled himself up hastily. +"Oh, we finally found a man to put in charge at Elgin," he said, forcing +his voice to sound confident. "Don't worry, the track will be built long +before you get there." +She glanced at him with the faint suggestion of a smile, thinking of how +often she had said these words to him and of the desperate bravery with which +he was now trying to tell her: Don't worry. He caught her glance, he +understood, and the answering hint of his smile had a touch of embarrassed +apology. +He turned back to his note pad, feeling anger at himself, sensing that he +had broken his own unstated commandment: Don't make it harder for her. He +should not have told her about Dan Conway, he thought; he should not have +said anything to remind them both of the despair they would feel, if they +felt. He wondered what was the matter with him: he thought it inexcusable +that he should find his discipline slipping just because this was a room, not +an office. +She went on speaking—and he listened, looking down at his pad, making a +brief notation once in a while. He did not permit himself to look at her +again. +She threw the door of her closet open, jerked a suit off a hanger and +folded it rapidly, while her voice went on with unhurried precision. +He did not look up, he was aware of her only by means of sound: the sound +of the swift movements and of the measured voice. He knew what was wrong with +him, he thought; he did not want her to leave, he did not want to lose her +again, after so brief a moment of reunion. But to indulge any personal +loneliness, at a time when he knew how desperately the railroad needed her in +Colorado, was an act of disloyalty he had never committed before—and he felt +a vague, desolate sense of guilt. +('Send out orders that the Comet is to stop at every division point," +she said, "and that all division superintendents are to prepare for me a +report on—" +He glanced up—then his glance stopped and he did not hear the rest of the +words. He saw a man's dressing gown hanging on the back of the open closet +door, a dark blue gown with the white initials HR on its breast pocket. +He remembered where he had seen that gown before, he remembered the man +facing him across a breakfast table in the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, he +remembered that man coming, unannounced, to her office late on a Thanksgiving + + night—and the realization that he should have known it, came to him as two +subterranean jolts of a single earthquake: it came with a feeling that +screamed "No!" so savagely that the scream, not the sight, brought down every +girder within him. It was not the shock of the discovery, but the more +terrible shock of what it made him discover about himself. +He hung on to a single thought; that he must not let her see what he had +noticed or what it had done to him. He felt a sensation of embarrassment +magnified to the point of physical torture; it was the dread of violating her +privacy twice: by learning her secret and by revealing his own. He bent lower +over the note pad and concentrated on an immediate purpose: to stop his +pencil from shaking. +". . . fifty miles of mountain trackage to build, and we can count on +nothing but whatever material we own." +"I beg your pardon," he said, his voice barely audible, "I didn't hear +what you said.” +"I said I want a report from all superintendents on every foot of rail and +every piece of equipment available on their divisions." +"Okay." +"I will confer with each one of them in turn. Have them meet me in my car +aboard the Comet." +"Okay." +"Send word out—unofficially—that the engineers are to make up time for the +stops by going seventy, eighty, a hundred miles an hour, anything they wish +as and when they need to, and that I will . . . +Eddie?" +"Yes. Okay." +"Eddie, what's the matter?" +He had to look up, to face her and, desperately, to lie for the first time +in his life. "I'm . . . I'm afraid of the trouble we'll get into with the +law," he said. +"Forget it. Don't you see that there isn't any law left? Anything goes +now, for whoever can get away with it—and, for the moment, it's we who're +setting the terms." +When she was ready, he carried her suitcase to a taxicab, then down the +platform of the Taggart Terminal to her office car, the last at the end of +the Comet. He stood on the platform, saw the train jerk forward and watched +the red markers on the back of her car slipping slowly away from him into the +long darkness of the exit tunnel. When they were gone, he felt what one feels +at the loss of a dream one had not known till after it was lost. +There were few people on the platform around him and they seemed to move +with self-conscious strain, as if a sense of disaster clung to the rails and +to the girders above their heads. He thought indifferently that after a +century of safety, men were once more regarding the departure of a train as +an event involving a gamble with death. +He remembered that he had had no dinner, and he felt no desire to eat, but +the underground cafeteria of the Taggart Terminal was more truly his home +than the empty cube of space he now thought of as his apartment—so he walked +to the cafeteria, because he had no other place to go. +The cafeteria was almost deserted—but the first thing he saw, as he +entered, was a thin column of smoke rising from the cigarette of the worker, +who sat alone at a table in a dark corner. +Not noticing what he put on his tray, Eddie carried it to the worker's +table, said, "Hello," sat down and said nothing else. He looked at the +silverware spread before him, wondered about its purpose, remembered the use +of a fork and attempted to perform the motions of eating, but found that it +was beyond his power. After a while, he looked up and saw that the worker's +eyes were studying him attentively. + + "No," said Eddie, "no, there's nothing the matter with me. . . . +Oh yes, a lot has happened, but what difference does it make now? +. . . Yes, she's back. . . . What else do you want me to say about it? . . +. How did you know she's back? Oh well, I suppose the whole company knew it +within the first ten minutes. . . . No, I don't know whether I'm glad that +she's back. . . . Sure, she'll save the railroad— +for another year or month. . . . What do you want me to say? . . . +No, she didn't. She didn't tell me what she's counting on. She didn't tell +me what she thought or felt. . . . Well, how do you suppose she'd feel? It's +hell for her—all right, for me, too! Only my kind of hell is my own fault. . +. . No. Nothing. I can't talk about it—talk?—I mustn't even think about it, +I've got to stop it, stop thinking of her and—of her, I mean." +He remained silent and he wondered why the worker's eyes—the eyes that +always seemed to see everything within him—made him feel uneasy tonight. He +glanced down at the table, and he noticed the butts of many cigarettes among +the remnants of food on the worker's plate. +"Are you in trouble, too?" asked Eddie. "Oh, just that you've sat here for +a long time tonight, haven't you? . . . For me? Why should you have wanted to +wait for me? . . . You know, I never thought you cared whether you saw me or +not, me or anybody, you seemed so complete in yourself, and that's why I +liked to talk to you, because I felt that you always understood, but nothing +could hurt you—you looked as if nothing had ever hurt you—and it made me feel +free, as if . . . as if there were no pain in the world. . . . Do you know +what's strange about your face? You look as if you've never known pain or +fear or guilt. . . . I'm sorry I'm so late tonight. I had to see her off—she +has just left, on the Comet. . . . Yes, tonight, just now. +. . . Yes, she's gone. . . . Yes, it was a sudden decision—within the past +hour. She intended to leave tomorrow night, but something unexpected happened +and she had to go at once. . . . Yes, she's going to Colorado—afterwards. . . +. To Utah—first. . . . Because she got a letter from Quentin Daniels that +he's quitting—and the one thing she won't give up, couldn't stand to give up, +is the motor. You remember, the motor I told you about, the remnant that she +found. . . . Daniels? +He's a physicist who's been working for the past year, at the Utah +Institute of Technology, trying to solve the secret of the motor and to +rebuild it. . . . Why do you look at me like that? . . . No, I haven't told +you about him before, because it was a secret. It was a private, secret +project of her own—and of what interest would it have been to you, anyway? . +. . I guess I can talk about it now, because he's quit. . . . Yes, he told +her his reasons. He said that he won't give anything produced by his mind to +a world that regards him as a slave. +He said that he won't be made a martyr to people in exchange for giving +them an inestimable benefit. . . . What—what are you laughing at? . . . Stop +it, will you? Why do you laugh like that? . . . The whole secret? What do you +mean, the whole secret? He hasn't found the whole secret of the motor, if +that's what you meant, but he seemed to be doing well, he had a good chance. +Now it's lost. She's rushing to him, she wants to plead, to hold him, to make +him go on—but I think it's useless. Once they stop, they don't come back +again. Not one of them has. . . . No, I don't care, not any more, we've taken +so many losses that I'm getting used to it. . . . Oh no! It's not Daniels +that I can't take, it's—no, drop it. Don't question me about it. The whole +world is going to pieces, she's still fighting to save it, and I—I sit here +damning her for something I had no right to know. . . . No! She's done +nothing to be damned, nothing—and, besides, it doesn't concern the railroad. +. . . Don't pay any attention to me, it's not true, it's not her that I'm +damning, it's myself. . . . Listen, I've always known that you loved Taggart +Transcontinental as I loved it, that it meant something special to you, + + something personal, and that was why you liked to hear me talk about it. But +this—the thing I learned today—this has nothing to do with the railroad. It +would be of no importance to you. +Forget it. . . . It's something that I didn't know about her, that's all. +. . . I grew up with her. I thought I knew her. I didn't. . . . I don't +know what it was that I expected. I suppose I just thought that she had no +private life of any kind. To me, she was not a person and not . . . not a +woman. She was the railroad. And I didn't think that anyone would ever have +the audacity to look at her in any other way. +. . . Well, it serves me right. Forget it. . . . Forget it, I said! Why do +you question me like this? It's only her private life. What can it matter to +you? . . . Drop it, for God's sake! Don't you see that I can't talk about it? +. . . Nothing happened, nothing's wrong with me, I just —oh, why am I lying? +I can't lie to you, you always seem to see everything, it's worse than trying +to lie to myself! . . . I have lied to myself. I didn't know what I felt for +her. The railroad? I'm a rotten hypocrite. If the railroad was all she meant +to me, it wouldn't have hit me like this. I wouldn't have felt that I wanted +to kill him! . . . +What's the matter with you tonight? Why do you look at me like that? +. . . Oh, what's the matter with all of us? Why is there nothing but +misery left for anyone? Why do we suffer so much? We weren't meant to. I +always thought that we were to be happy, all of us, as our natural fate. What +are we doing? What have we lost? A year ago, I wouldn't have damned her for +finding something she wanted. But I know that they're doomed, both of them, +and so am I, and so is everybody, and she was all I had left. . . . It was so +great, to be alive, it was such a wonderful chance, I didn't know that I +loved it and that that was our love, hers and mine and yours—but the world is +perishing and we cannot stop it. Why are we destroying ourselves? Who will +tell us the truth? Who will save us? Oh, who is John Galt?! . . . No, it's no +use. +It doesn't matter now. Why should I feel anything? We won't last much +longer. Why should I care what she does? Why should I care that she's +sleeping with Hank Rearden? . . . Oh God!—what's the matter with you? Don't +go! Where are you going?" + + CHAPTER X +THE SIGN OF THE DOLLAR +She sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back, not moving, +wishing she would never have to move again. +The telegraph poles went racing past the window, but the train seemed lost +in a void, between a brown stretch of prairie and a solid spread of rusty, +graying clouds. The twilight was draining the sky without the wound of a +sunset; it looked more like the fading of an anemic body in the process of +exhausting its last drops of blood and light. The train was going west, as if +it, too, were pulled to follow the sinking rays and quietly to vanish from +the earth. She sat still, feeling no desire to resist it. +She wished she would not hear the sound of the wheels. They knocked in an +even rhythm, every fourth knock accented—and it seemed to her that through +the rapid, running clatter of some futile stampede to escape, the beat of the +accented knocks was like the steps of an enemy moving toward some inexorable +purpose. +She had never experienced it before, this sense of apprehension at the +sight of a prairie, this feeling that the rail was only a fragile thread +stretched across an enormous emptiness, like a worn nerve ready to break. She +had never expected that she, who had felt as if she were the motive power +aboard a train, would now sit wishing, like a child or a savage, that this +train would move, that it would not stop, that it would get her there on +time—wishing it, not like an act of will, but like a plea to a dark unknown. +She thought of what a difference one month had made. She had seen it in +the faces of the men at the stations. The track workers, the switchmen, the +yardmen, who had always greeted her, anywhere along the line, their cheerful +grins boasting that they knew who she was—had now looked at her stonily, +turning away, their faces wary and closed. +She had wanted to cry to them in apology, "It's not I who've done it to +you!"—then had remembered that she had accepted it and that they now had the +right to hate her, that she was both a slave and a driver of slaves, and so +was every human being in the country, and hatred was the only thing that men +could now feel for one another. +She had found reassurance, for two days, in the sight of the cities moving +past her window—the factories, the bridges, the electric signs, the +billboards pressing down upon the roofs of homes—the crowded, grimy, active, +living conflux of the industrial East. +But the cities had been left behind. The train was now diving into the +prairies of Nebraska, the rattle of its couplers sounding as if it were +shivering with cold. She saw lonely shapes that had been farmhouses in the +vacant stretches that had been fields. But the great burst of energy, in the +East, generations ago, had splattered bright trickles to run through the +emptiness; some were gone, but some still lived. +She was startled when the lights of a small town swept across her car and, +vanishing, left it darker than it had been before. She would not move to turn +on the light. She sat still, watching the rare towns. Whenever an electric +beam went flashing briefly at her face, it was like a moment's greeting. +She saw them as they went by, written on the walls of modest structures, +over sooted roofs, down slender smokestacks, on the curves of tanks: Reynolds +Harvesters—Macey Cement—Quinlan & Jones Pressed Alfalfa—Home of the Crawford +Mattress—Benjamin Wylie Grain and Feed—words raised like flags to the empty +darkness of the sky, the motionless forms of movement, of effort, of courage, +of hope, the monuments to how much had been achieved on the edge of nature's +void by men who had once been free to achieve—she saw the homes built in +scattered privacy, the small shops, the wide streets with electric lighting, + + like a few luminous strokes criss-crossed on the black sheet of the +wastelands—she saw the ghosts between, the remnants of towns, the skeletons +of factories with crumbling smokestacks, the corpses of shops with broken +panes, the slanting poles with shreds of wire—she saw a sudden blaze, the +rare sight of a gas station, a glittering white island of glass and metal +under the huge black weight of space and sky —she saw an ice-cream cone made +of radiant tubing, hanging above the corner of a street, and a battered car +being parked below, with a young boy at the wheel and a girl stepping out, +her white dress blowing in the summer wind—she shuddered for the two of them, +thinking: I can't look at you, I who know what it has taken to give you your +youth, to give you this evening, this car and the ice-cream cone you're going +to buy for a quarter—she saw, on the edge beyond a town, a building glowing +with tiers of pale blue light, the industrial light she loved, with the +silhouettes of machines in its windows and a billboard in the darkness above +its roof—and suddenly her head fell on her arm, and she sat shaking, crying +soundlessly to the night, to herself, to whatever was human in any living +being: Don't let it go! . . . Don't let it go! . . . +She jumped to her feet and snapped on the light. She stood still, fighting +to regain control, knowing that such moments were her greatest danger. The +lights of the town were past, her window was now an empty rectangle, and she +heard, in the silence, the progression of the fourth knocks, the steps of the +enemy moving on, not to be hastened or stopped. +In desperate need of the sight of some living activity, she decided she +would not order dinner in her car, but would go to the diner. As if stressing +and mocking her loneliness, a voice came back to her mind: "But you would not +run trains if they were empty." Forget it!—she told herself angrily, walking +hastily to the door of her car. +She was astonished, approaching her vestibule, to hear the sound of voices +close by. As she pulled the door open, she heard a shout: "Get off, God damn +you!" +An aging tramp had taken refuge in the corner of her vestibule. +He sat on the floor, his posture suggesting that he had no strength left +to stand up or to care about being caught. He was looking at the conductor, +his eyes observant, fully conscious, but devoid of any reaction. The train +was slowing down for a bad stretch of track, the conductor had opened the +door to a cold gust of wind, and was waving at the speeding black void, +ordering, "Get going! Get off as you got on or I'll kick you off head first!" +There was no astonishment in the tramp's face, no protest, no anger, no +hope; he looked as if he had long since abandoned any judgment of any human +action. He moved obediently to rise, his hand groping upward along the rivets +of the car's wall. She saw him glance at her and glance away, as if she were +merely another inanimate fixture of the train. He did not seem to be aware of +her person, any more than of his own, he was indifferently ready to comply +with an order which, in his condition, meant certain death. +She glanced at the conductor. She saw nothing in his face except the blind +malevolence of pain, of some long-repressed anger that broke out upon the +first object available, almost without consciousness of the object's +identity. The two men were not human beings to each other any longer. +The tramp's suit was a mass of careful patches on a cloth so stiff and +shiny with wear that one expected it to crack like glass if bent; but she +noticed the collar of his shirt: it was bone-white from repeated laundering +and it still preserved a semblance of shape. He had pulled himself up to his +feet, he was looking indifferently at the black hole open upon miles of +uninhabited wilderness where no one would see the body or hear the voice of a +mangled man, but the only gesture of concern he made was to tighten his grip +on a small, dirty bundle, as if to make sure he would not lose it in leaping +off the train. + + It was the laundered collar and this gesture for the last of his +possessions—the gesture of a sense of property—that made her feel an emotion +like a sudden, burning twist within her. "Wait," she said. +The two men turned to her. +"Let him be my guest," she said to the conductor, and held her door open +for the tramp, ordering, "Come in." +The tramp followed her, obeying as blankly as he had been about to obey +the conductor. +He stood in the middle of her car, holding his bundle, looking around him +with the same observant, unreacting glance. +"Sit down," she said. +He obeyed—and looked at her, as if waiting for further orders. +There was a kind of dignity in his manner, the honesty of the open +admission that he had no claim to make, no plea to offer, no questions to +ask, that he now had to accept whatever was done to him and was ready to +accept it. +He seemed to be in his early fifties; the structure of his bones and the +looseness of his suit suggested that he had once been muscular. +The lifeless indifference of his eyes did not fully hide that they had +been intelligent; the wrinkles cutting his face with the record of some +incredible bitterness, had not fully erased the fact that the face had once +possessed the kindliness peculiar to honesty. +"When did you eat last?" she asked. +"Yesterday," he said, and added, "I think." +She rang for the porter and ordered dinner for two, to be brought to her +car from the diner. +The tramp had watched her silently, but when the porter departed, he +offered the only payment it was in his power to offer: "I don't want to get +you in trouble, ma'am," he said. +She smiled. "What trouble?" +"You're traveling with one of those railroad tycoons, aren't you?" +"No, alone." +"Then you're the wife of one of them?" +"No." +"Oh." She saw his effort at a look of something like respect, as if to +make up for having forced an improper confession, and she laughed. +"No, not that, either. I guess I'm one of the tycoons myself. My name is +Dagny Taggart and I work for this railroad." +"Oh . . . I think I've heard of you, ma'am—in the old days." It was hard +to tell what "the old days" meant to him, whether it was a month or a year or +whatever period of time had passed since he had given up. He was looking at +her with a sort of interest in the past tense, as if he were thinking that +there had been a time when he would have considered her a personage worth +seeing. "You were the lady who ran a railroad," he said. +"Yes," she said. "I was." +He showed no sign of astonishment at the fact that she had chosen to help +him. He looked as if so much brutality had confronted him that he had given +up the attempt to understand, to trust or to expect anything. +"When did you get aboard the train?" she asked. +"Back at the division point, ma'am. Your door wasn't locked." He added, "I +figured maybe nobody would notice me till morning on account of it being a +private car." +"Where are you going?" +"I don't know." Then, almost as if he sensed that this could sound too +much like an appeal for pity, he added, "I guess I just wanted to keep moving +till I saw some place that looked like there might be a chance to find work +there." This was his attempt to assume the responsibility of a purpose, + + rather than to throw the burden of his aimlessness upon her mercy—an attempt +of the same order as his shirt collar. +"What kind of work are you looking for?" +"People don't look for kinds of work any more, ma'am," he answered +impassively. "They just look for work." +"What sort of place did you hope to find?" +"Oh . . . well . . . where there's factories, I guess.” +"Aren't you going in the wrong direction for that? The factories are in +the East." +"No." He said it with the firmness of knowledge. "There are too many +people in the East. The factories are too well watched. I figured there might +be a better chance some place where there's fewer people and less law." +"Oh, running away? A fugitive from the law, are you?" +"Not as you'd mean it in the old days, ma'am. But as things are now, I +guess I am. I want to work." +"What do you mean?" +"There aren't any jobs back East. And a man couldn't give you a job, if he +had one to give—he'd go to jail for it. He's watched. You can't get work +except through the Unification Board. The Unification Board has a gang of its +own friends waiting in line for the jobs, more friends than a millionaire's +got relatives. Well, me—I haven't got either." +"Where did you work last?" +"I've been bumming around the country for six months—no, longer, I guess—I +guess it's closer to about a year—I can't tell any more— +mostly day work it was. Mostly on farms. But it's getting to be no use +now. I know how the farmers look at you—they don't like to see a man +starving, but they're only one jump ahead of starvation themselves, they +haven't any work to give you, they haven't any food, and whatever they save, +if the tax collectors don't get it, then the raiders do—you know, the gangs +that rove all through the country— +deserters, they call them." +"Do you think that it's any better in the West?" +"No. I don't." +"Then why are you going there?" +"Because I haven't tried it before. That's all there is left to try. It's +somewhere to go. Just to keep moving . . . You know," he added suddenly, "I +don't think it will be any use. But there's nothing to do in the East except +sit under some hedge and wait to die. I don't think I'd mind it much now, the +dying. I know it would be a lot easier. Only I think that it's a sin to sit +down and let your life go, without making a try for it." +She thought suddenly of those modern college-infected parasites who +assumed a sickening air of moral self-righteousness whenever they uttered the +standard bromides about their concern for the welfare of others. The tramp's +last sentence was one of the most profoundly moral statements she had ever +heard; but the man did not know it; he had said it in his impassive, +extinguished voice, simply, dryly, as a matter of fact. +"What part of the country do you come from?" she asked. +"Wisconsin," he answered. +The waiter came in, bringing their dinner. He set a table and courteously +moved two chairs, showing no astonishment at the nature of the occasion. +She looked at the table; she thought that the magnificence of a world +where men could afford the time and the effortless concern for such things as +starched napkins and tinkling ice cubes, offered to travelers along with +their meals for the price of a few dollars, was a remnant of the age when the +sustenance of one's life had not been made a crime and a meal had not been a +matter of running a race with death—a remnant which was soon to vanish, like +the white filling station on the edge of the weeds of the jungle. + + She noticed that the tramp, who had lost the strength to stand up, had not +lost the respect for the meaning of the things spread before him. He did not +pounce upon the food; he fought to keep his movements slow, to unfold his +napkin, to pick up his fork in tempo with hers, his hand shaking—as if he +still knew that this, no matter what indignity was ever forced upon them, was +the manner proper to men. +"What was your line of work—in the old days?" she asked, when the waiter +left. "Factories, wasn't it?" +"Yes, ma'am." +"What trade?" +"Skilled lathe-operator." +"Where did you work at it last?" +"In Colorado, ma'am. For the Hammond Car Company." +"Oh . . . !" +"Ma'am?" +"No, nothing. Worked there long?" +"No, ma'am. Just two weeks." +"How come?" +"Well, I'd waited a year for it, hanging around Colorado just to get that +job. They had a waiting list too, the Hammond Car Company, only they didn't +go by friendships and they didn't go by seniority, they went by a man's +record. I had a good record. But it was just two weeks after I got the job +that Lawrence Hammond quit. He quit and disappeared. They closed the plant. +Afterwards, there was a citizens' +committee that reopened it. I got called back. But five days was all it +lasted. They started layoffs just about at once. By seniority. So I had to +go. I heard they lasted for about three months, the citizens' +committee. Then they had to close the plant for good." +"Where did you work before that?" +"Just about in every Eastern state, ma'am. But it was never more than a +month or two. The plants kept closing." +"Did that happen on every job you've held?" +He glanced at her, as if he understood her question. "No, ma'am," he +answered and, for the first time, she caught a faint echo of pride in his +voice. "The first job I had, I held it for twenty years. Not the same job, +but the same place, I mean—I got to be shop foreman. That was twelve years +ago. Then the owner of the plant died, and the heirs who took it over, ran it +into the ground. Times were bad then, but it was since then that things +started going to pieces everywhere faster and faster. Since then, it seems +like anywhere I turned—the place cracked and went. At first, we thought it +was only one state or another. A lot of us thought that Colorado would last. +But it went, too. +Anything you tried, anything you touched—it fell. Anywhere you looked, +work was stopping—the factories were stopping—the machines were stopping—" he +added slowly, in a whisper, as if seeing some secret terror of his own, "the +motors . . . were . . . stopping." His voice rose: "Oh God, who is—" and +broke off. +"—John Galt?" she asked. +"Yes," he said, and shook his head as if to dispel some vision, "only I +don't like to say that." +"I don't, either. I wish I knew why people are saying it and who started +it." +"That's it, ma'am. That's what I'm afraid of. It might have been me who +started it." +"What?" +"Me or about six thousand others. We might have. I think we did. +I hope we're wrong." + + "What do you mean?" +"Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for +twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There +were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to +run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody— +voted for it. We didn't know. We thought it was good. No, that's not true, +either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was +that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would +be paid according to his need. We—what's the matter, ma'am? Why do you look +like that?" +"What was the name of the factory?" she asked, her voice barely audible. +"The Twentieth Century Motor Company, ma'am, of Starnesville, Wisconsin." +"Go on." +"We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six +thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made +long speeches about it, and it wasn't too clear, but nobody asked any +questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us +thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt +guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who'd +oppose the plan was a child killer at heart and less than a human being. They +told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know +otherwise? Hadn't we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our +schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and +every movie and every public speech? Hadn't we always been told that this was +righteous and just? Well, maybe there's some excuse for what we did at that +meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to +us. You know, ma'am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived +through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is +it that hell is supposed to be? +Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn't it? Well, that's what we saw and +helped to make—and I think we're damned, every one of us, and maybe we'll +never be forgiven. . . . +"Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? +Try pouring water into a tank where there's a pipe at the bottom draining +it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an +inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you +stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six— +for your neighbor's supper—for his wife's operation—for his child's measles— +for his mother's wheel chair —for his uncle's shirt—for his nephew's +schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere +around you— +it's theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from +sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show +for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for +the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end. . . . From +each according to his ability, to each according to his need. . . . +"We're all one big family, they told us, we're all in this together. +But you don't all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day— +together, and you don't all get a bellyache—together. What's whose ability +and which of whose needs comes first? When it's all one pot, you can't let +any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim +that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings is all you have to go by, he might +prove it, too. Why not? If it's not right for me to own a car until I've +worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every +naked savage on earth—why can't he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still +have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can't? Then why can he demand +that I go without cream for my coffee until he's replastered his living room? + + . . . Oh well . . . Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to +judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma'am, we voted on it in +a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to +think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to +discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all +of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no +rights and no earnings, his work didn't belong to him, it belonged to 'the +family,' and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on +them was his 'need' +—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy +moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers +and his wife's head colds, hoping that 'the family' would throw him the alms. +He had to claim miseries, because it's miseries, not work, that had become +the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest among six thousand +panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother's. How +else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men +kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot? +"But that wasn't all. There was something else that we discovered at the +same meeting. The factory's production had fallen by forty per cent, in that +first half-year, so it was decided that somebody hadn't delivered 'according +to his ability’ Who? How would you tell it? 'The family' voted on that, too. +They voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work +overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you +weren't paid by tune and you weren't paid by work, only by need. +"Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of +creatures we all started turning, we who had once been human? +We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like +hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What +else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for 'the family,' it's +not thanks or rewards that we'd get, but punishment? We knew that for every +stinker who'd ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either +through his sloppiness, because he didn't have to care, or through plain +incompetence—it's we who'd have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we +did our best to be no good. +"There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble +ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his +shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us +thousands of man-hours. He gave it to 'the family,' +didn't ask anything for it, either, couldn't ask, but that was all right +with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as +one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn't gotten +enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn't come +up with any ideas, the second year. +"What was it they'd always told us about the vicious competition of the +profit system, where men had to compete for who'd do a better job than his +fellows? Vicious, wasn't it? Well, they should have seen what it was like +when we all had to compete with one another for who'd do the worst job +possible. There's no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot +where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a +bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness +or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do +except to fake unfitness. +The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was +like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to +work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, +whether you worked or not—your 'housing and feeding allowance,' it was +called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter + + how hard you tried. You couldn't count on buying a new suit of clothes next +year—they might give you a 'clothing allowance' or they might not, according +to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more +babies. And if there wasn't enough money for new suits for everybody, then +you couldn't get yours, either. +"There was one man who'd worked hard all his life, because he'd always +wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high +school in the second year of the plan—but 'the family' +wouldn't give the father any 'allowance’ for the college. They said his +son couldn't go to college, until we had enough to send everybody's sons to +college—and that we first had to send everybody's children through high +school, and we didn't even have enough for that. The father died the +following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over +nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the +time. +"Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: +phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old +days, he used to skip meals just to buy himself some new recording of +classical music. Well, they didn't give him any 'allowance' for records— +'personal luxury,' they called it. But at that same meeting, Millie Bush, +somebody's daughter, a mean, ugly little eight-year-old, was voted a pair of +gold braces for her buck teeth— +this was 'medical need,' because the staff psychologist had said that the +poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren't straightened +out. The old guy' who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you +never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one +tiling he couldn't forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw +Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them. +"Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. +Don't ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are +forbidden, there's always ways to get the rotten ones. You don't break into +grocery stores after dark and you don't pick your fellow's pockets to buy +classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it's to get stinking drunk and +forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns? +Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn't any 'amusement allowance' +for anybody. 'Amusement' was the first thing they dropped. Aren't you +always supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up +anything, if it's something that gave you pleasure? Even our 'tobacco +allowance' was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, +they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies' milk fund. +Babies was the only item of production that didn't fall, but rose and kept on +rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they +didn't have to care, the baby wasn't their burden, it was 'the family's.' In +fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a +while was a 'baby allowance.' Either that, or a major disease. +"It didn't take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to +play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any +pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel's worth of tobacco or chew a stick of +gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed +of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of +overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, +miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not +a blood-sucker. +He wouldn't marry, he wouldn't help his folks back home, he wouldn't put +an extra burden on 'the family.' Besides, if he still had some sort of sense +of responsibility, he couldn't marry or bring children into the world, when +he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. + + But the shiftless and the irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred +babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative +they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an +extra 'disability allowance,' they got more sicknesses than any doctor could +disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the +hell, 'the family' was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in +'need' than the rest of us could ever imagine —they developed a special skill +for it, which was the only ability they showed. +"God help us, ma'am! Do you see what we saw? We saw that we'd been given a +law to live by, a moral law, they called it, which punished those who +observed it—for observing it. The more you tried to live up to it, the more +you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger reward you got. Your +honesty was like a tool left at the mercy of the next man's dishonesty. The +honest ones paid, the dishonest collected. +The honest lost, the dishonest won. How long could men stay good under +this sort of a law of goodness? We were a pretty decent bunch of fellows when +we started. There weren't many chiselers among us. +We knew our jobs and we were proud of it and we worked for the best +factory in the country, where old man Starnes hired nothing but the pick of +the country's labor. Within one year under the new plan, there wasn't an +honest man left among us. That was the evil, the sort of hell-horror evil +that preachers used to scare you with, but you never thought to see alive. +Not that the plan encouraged a few bastards, but that it turned decent people +into bastards, and there was nothing else that it could do—and it was called +a moral ideal! +"What was it we were supposed to want to work for? For the love of our +brothers? What brothers? For the bums, the loafers, the moochers we saw all +around us? And whether they were cheating or plain incompetent, whether they +were unwilling or unable—what difference did that make to us? If we were tied +for life to the level of their unfitness, faked or real, how long could we +care to go on? We had no way of knowing their ability, we had no way of +controlling their needs—all we knew was that we were beasts of burden +struggling blindly in some sort of place that was half-hospital, halfstockyards—a place geared to nothing but disability, disaster, disease—beasts +put there for the relief of whatever whoever chose to say was whichever's +need. +"Love of our brothers? That's when we learned to hate our brothers for the +first time in our lives. We began to hate them for every meal they swallowed, +for every small pleasure they enjoyed, for one man's new shirt, for another's +wife's hat, for an outing with their family, for a paint job on their house— +it was taken from us, it was paid for by our privations, our denials, our +hunger. We began to spy on one another, each hoping to catch the others lying +about their needs, so as to cut their 'allowance' at the next meeting. We +began to have stool pigeons who informed on people, who reported that +somebody had bootlegged a turkey to his family on some Sunday—which he'd paid +for by gambling, most likely. We began to meddle into one another's lives. We +provoked family quarrels, to get somebody's relatives thrown out. Any time we +saw a man starting to go steady with a girl, we made life miserable for him. +We broke up many engagements. +We didn't want anyone to marry, we didn't want any more dependents to +feed. +"In the old days, we used to celebrate if somebody had a baby, we used to +chip in and help him out with the hospital bills, if he happened to be hardpressed for the moment. Now, if a baby was born, we didn't speak to the +parents for weeks. Babies, to us, had become what locusts were to farmers. In +the old days, we used to help a man if he had a bad illness in the family. +Now—well, I’ll tell you about just one case. It was the mother of a man who + + had been with us for fifteen years. She was a kindly old lady, cheerful and +wise, she knew us all by our first names and we all liked her—we used to like +her. One day, she slipped on the cellar stairs and fell and broke her hip. We +knew what that meant at her age. The staff doctor said that she'd have to be +sent to a hospital in town, for expensive treatments that would take a long +time. The old lady died the night before she was to leave for town. They +never established the cause of death. No, I don't know whether she was +murdered. Nobody said that. Nobody would talk about it at all. All I know is +that I—and that's what I can't forget!—I, too, had caught myself wishing that +she would die. This—may God forgive us!—was the brotherhood, the security, +the abundance that the plan was supposed to achieve for us! +"Was there any reason why this sort of horror would ever be preached by +anybody? Was there anybody who got any profit from it? There was. The Starnes +heirs. I hope you're not going to remind me that they'd sacrificed a fortune +and turned the factory over to us as a gift. We were fooled by that one, too. +Yes, they gave up the factory. But profit, ma'am, depends on what it is +you're after. And what the Starnes heirs were after, no money on earth could +buy. +Money is too clean and innocent for that. +"Eric Starnes, the youngest—he was a jellyfish that didn't have the guts +to be after anything in particular. He got himself voted as Director of our +Public Relations Department, which didn't do anything, except that he had a +staff for the not doing of anything, so he didn't have to bother sticking +around the office. The pay he got—well, I shouldn't call it 'pay,' none of us +was 'paid'—the alms voted to him was fairly modest, about ten times what I +got, but that wasn't riches. +Eric didn't care for money—he wouldn't have known what to do with it. He +spent his time hanging around among us, showing how chummy he was and +democratic. He wanted to be loved, it seems. The way he went about it was to +keep reminding us that he had given us the factory. We couldn't stand him. +"Gerald Starnes was our Director of Production. We never learned just what +the size of his rake-off—his alms—had been. It would have taken a staff of +accountants to figure that out, and a staff of engineers to trace the way it +was piped, directly or indirectly, into his office. +None of it was supposed to be for him—it was all for company expenses. +Gerald had three cars, four secretaries, five telephones, and he used to +throw champagne and caviar parties that no tax-paying tycoon in the country +could have afforded. He spent more money in one year than his father had +earned in profits in the last two years of his life. We saw a hundred-pound +stack—a hundred pounds, we weighed them—of magazines in Gerald's office, full +of stories about our factory and our noble plan, with big pictures of Gerald +Starnes, calling him a great social crusader. Gerald liked to come into the +shops at night, dressed in his formal clothes, flashing diamond cuff links +the size of a nickel and shaking cigar ashes all over. Any cheap show-off +who's got nothing to parade but his cash, is bad enough—except that he makes +no bones about the cash being his, and you're free to gape at him or not, as +you wish, and mostly you don't. But when a bastard like Gerald Starnes puts +on an act and keeps spouting that he doesn't care for material wealth, that +he's only serving 'the family,' that all the lushness is not for himself, but +for our sake and for the common good, because it's necessary to keep up the +prestige of the company and of the noble plan in the eyes of the public—then +that's when you learn to hate the creature as you've never hated anything +human. +"But his sister Ivy was worse. She really did not care for material +wealth. The alms she got was no bigger than ours, and she went about in +scuffed, flat-heeled shoes and shirtwaists—just to show how selfless she was. +She was our Director of Distribution. She was the lady in charge of our + + needs. She was the one who held us by the throat. Of course, distribution was +supposed to be decided by voting—by the voice of the people. But when the +people are six thousand howling voices, trying to decide without yardstick, +rhyme or reason, when there are no rules to the game and each can demand +anything, but has a right to nothing, when everybody holds power over +everybody's life except his own—then it turns out, as it did, that the voice +of the people is Ivy Starnes. By the end of the second year, we dropped the +pretense of the 'family meetings'—in the name of 'production efficiency and +time economy,' one meeting used to take ten days—and all the petitions of +need were simply sent to Miss Starnes' office. No, not sent. They had to be +recited to her in person by every petitioner. +Then she made up a distribution list, which she read to us for our vote of +approval at a meeting that lasted three-quarters of an hour. +We voted approval. There was a ten-minute period on the agenda for +discussion and objections. We made no objections. We knew better by that +time. Nobody can divide a factory's income among thousands of people, without +some sort of a gauge to measure people's value. Her gauge was bootlicking. +Selfless? In her father's time, all of his money wouldn't have given him a +chance to speak to his lousiest wiper and get away with it, as she spoke to +our best skilled workers and their wives. She had pale eyes that looked +fishy, cold and dead. And if you ever want to see pure evil, you should have +seen the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to +her once and who'd just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing +above basic pittance. And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any +person who's ever preached the slogan: 'From each according to his ability, +to each according to his need,' +"This was the whole secret of it. At first, I kept wondering how it could +be possible that the educated, the cultured, the famous men of the world +could make a mistake of this size and preach, as righteousness, this sort of +abomination—when five minutes of thought should have told them what would +happen if somebody tried to practice what they preached. Now I know that they +didn't do it by any kind of mistake. Mistakes of this size are never made +innocently. +If men fall for some vicious piece of insanity, when they have no way to +make it work and no possible reason to explain their choice—it's because they +have a reason that they do not wish to tell. And we weren't so innocent +either, when we voted for that plan at the first meeting. We didn't do it +just because we believed that the drippy old guff they spewed was good. We +had another reason, but the guff helped us to hide it from our neighbors and +from ourselves. The guff gave us a chance to pass off as virtue something +that we'd be ashamed to admit otherwise. There wasn't a man voting for it who +didn't think that under a setup of this kind he'd muscle in on the profits of +the men abler than himself. There wasn't a man rich and smart enough but that +he didn't think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would +give him a share of his better's wealth and brain. But while he was thinking +that he'd get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men +below who'd get unearned benefits, too. He forgot about all his inferiors +who'd rush to drain him just as he hoped to drain his superiors. The worker +who liked the idea that his need entitled him to a limousine like his boss's, +forgot that every bum and beggar on earth would come howling that their need +entitled them to an icebox like his own. That was our real motive when we +voted— +that was the truth of it—but we didn't like to think it, so the less we +liked it, the louder we yelled about our love for the common good. +"Well, we got what we asked for. By the time we saw what it was that we'd +asked for, it was too late. We were trapped, with no place to go. The best +men among us left the factory in the first week of the plan. We lost our best + + engineers, superintendents, foremen and highest skilled workers. A man of +self-respect doesn't turn into a milch cow for anybody. Some able fellows +tried to stick it out, but they couldn't take it for long. We kept losing our +men, they kept escaping from the factory like from a pesthole—till we had +nothing left except the men of need, but none of the men of ability. +"And the few of us who were still any good, but stayed on, were only those +who had been there too long. In the old days, nobody ever quit the Twentieth +Century—and, somehow, we couldn't make ourselves believe that it was gone. +After a while, we couldn't quit, because no other employer would have us—for +which I can't blame him. +Nobody would deal with us in any way, no respectable person or firm. +All the small shops, where we traded, started moving out of Starnesville +fast—till we had nothing left but saloons, gambling joints and crooks who +sold us trash at gouging prices. The alms we got kept falling, but the cost +of our living went up. The list of the factory's needy kept stretching, but +the list of its customers shrank. There was less and less income to divide +among more and more people. In the old days, it used to be said that the +Twentieth Century Motor trademark was as good as the karat mark on gold. I +don't know what it was that the Starnes heirs thought, if they thought at +all, but I suppose that like all social planners and like savages, they +thought that this trademark was a magic stamp which did the trick by some +sort of voodoo power and that it would keep them rich, as it had kept their +father. Well, when our customers began to see that we never delivered an +order on time and never put out a motor that didn't have something wrong with +it—the magic stamp began to work the other way around: people wouldn't take a +motor as a gift, if it was marked Twentieth Century, And it came to where our +only customers were men who never paid and never meant to pay their bills. +But Gerald Starnes, doped by his own publicity, got huffy and went around, +with an air of moral superiority, demanding that businessmen place orders +with us, not because our motors were good, but because we needed the orders +so badly. +"By that time, a village half-wit could see what generations of professors +had pretended not to notice. What good would our need do to a power plant +when its generators stopped because of our defective engines? What good would +it do to a man caught on an operating table when the electric light went out? +What good would it do to the passengers of a plane when its motor failed in +mid-air? +And if they bought our product, not because of its merit, but because of +our need, would that be the good, the right, the moral thing to do for the +owner of that power plant, the surgeon in that hospital, the maker of that +plane? +"Yet this was the moral law that the professors and leaders and thinkers +had wanted to establish all over the earth. If this is what it did in a +single small town where we all knew one another, do you care to think what it +would do on a world scale? Do you care to imagine what it would be like, if +you had to live and to work, when you're tied to all the disasters and all +the malingering of the globe? To work —and whenever any men failed anywhere, +it's you who would have to make up for it. To work—with no chance to rise, +with your meals and your clothes and your home and your pleasure depending on +any swindle, any famine, any pestilence anywhere on earth. To work— +with no chance for an extra ration, till the Cambodians have been fed and +the Patagonians have been sent through college. To work—on a blank check held +by every creature born, by men whom you'll never see, whose needs you'll +never know, whose ability or laziness or sloppiness or fraud you have no way +to learn and no right to question —just to work and work and work—and leave +it up to the Ivys and the Geralds of the world to decide whose stomach will + + consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life. And this is the +moral law to accept? This—a moral ideal? +"Well, we tried it—and we learned. Our agony took four years, from our +first meeting to our last, and it ended the only way it could end: in +bankruptcy. At our last meeting, Ivy Starnes was the one who tried to brazen +it out. She made a short, nasty, snippy little speech in which she said that +the plan had failed because the rest of the country had not accepted it, that +a single community could not succeed in the midst of a selfish, greedy world— +and that the plan was a noble ideal, but human nature was not good enough for +it. A young boy—the one who had been punished for giving us a useful idea in +our first year—got up, as we all sat silent, and walked straight to Ivy +Starnes on the platform. He said nothing. He spat in her face. That was the +end of the noble plan and of the Twentieth Century." +The man had spoken as if the burden of his years of silence had slipped +suddenly out of his grasp. She knew that this was his tribute to her: he had +shown no reaction to her kindness, he had seemed numbed to human value or +human hope, but something within him had been reached and his response was +this confession, this long, desperate cry of rebellion against injustice, +held back for years, but breaking out in recognition of the first person he +had met in whose hearing an appeal for justice would not be hopeless. It was +as if the life he had been about to renounce were given back to him by the +two essentials he needed: by his food and by the presence of a rational +being. +"But what about John Galt?" she asked. +"Oh . . ." he said, remembering. "Oh, yes . . ." +"You were going to tell me why people started asking that question." +"Yes . . ." He was looking off, as if at some sight which he had studied +for years, but which remained unchanged and unsolved; his face had an odd, +questioning look of terror. +"You were going to tell me who was the John Galt they mean—if there ever +was such a person." +"I hope there wasn't, ma'am. I mean, I hope that it's just a coincidence, +just a sentence that hasn't any meaning." +"You had something in mind. What?" +"It was . . . it was something that happened at that first meeting at the +Twentieth Century factory. Maybe that was the start of it, maybe not. I don't +know . . . The meeting was held on a spring night, twelve years ago. The six +thousand of us were crowded on bleachers built way up to the rafters of the +plant's largest hangar. We had just voted for the new plan and we were in an +edgy sort of mood, making too much noise, cheering the people's victory, +threatening some kind of unknown enemies and spoiling for a fight, like +bullies with an uneasy conscience. There were white arclights beating down on +us and we felt kind of touchy and raw, and we were an ugly, dangerous mob in +that moment. Gerald Starnes, who was chairman, kept hammering his gavel for +order, and we quieted down some, but not much, and you could see the whole +place moving restlessly from side to side, like water in a pan that's being +rocked. 'This is a crucial moment in the history of mankind!' Gerald Starnes +yelled through the noise. 'Remember that none of us may now leave this place, +for each of us belongs to all the others by the moral law which we all +accept!' 'I don't," +said one man and stood up. He was one of the young engineers. Nobody knew +much about him. He'd always kept mostly by himself. When he stood up, we +suddenly turned dead-still. It was the way he held his head. He was tall and +slim—and I remember thinking that any two of us could have broken his neck +without trouble—but what we all felt was fear. He stood like a man who knew +that he was right. 'I will put an end to this, once and for all,' he said. +His voice was clear and without any feeling. That was all he said and started + + to walk out. He walked down the length of the place, in the white light, not +hurrying and not noticing any of us. Nobody moved to stop him. Gerald Starnes +cried suddenly after him, 'How?' He turned and answered, 'I will stop the +motor of the world. Then he walked out. We never saw him again. +We never heard what became of him. But years later, when we saw the lights +going out, one after another, in the great factories that had stood solid +like mountains for generations, when we saw the gates closing and the +conveyor belts turning still, when we saw the roads growing empty and the +stream of cars draining off, when it began to look as if some silent power +were stopping the generators of the world and the world was crumbling +quietly, like a body when its spirit is gone—then we began to wonder and to +ask questions about him. We began to ask it of one another, those of us who +had heard him say it. +We began to think that he had kept his word, that he, who had seen and +known the truth we refused to know, was the retribution we had called upon +our heads, the avenger, the man of that justice which we had defied. We began +to think that he had damned us and there was no escape from his verdict and +we would never be able to get away from him—and this was the more terrible +because he was not pursuing us, it was we who were suddenly looking for him +and he had merely gone without a trace. We found no answer about him +anywhere. We wondered by what sort of impossible power he could have done +what he had promised to do. There was no answer to that. We began to think of +him whenever we saw another collapse in the world, which nobody could +explain, whenever we took another blow, whenever we lost another hope, +whenever we felt caught in this dead, gray fog that's descending all over the +earth. Perhaps people heard us crying that question and they did not know +what we meant, but they knew too well the feeling that made us cry it. They, +too, felt that something had gone from the world. Perhaps this was why they +began to say it, whenever they felt that there was no hope. I'd like to think +that I am wrong, that those words mean nothing, that there's no conscious +intention and no avenger behind the ending of the human race. But when I hear +them repeating that question, I feel afraid. I think of the man who said that +he would stop the motor of the world. You see, his name was John Galt." +She awakened, because the sound of the wheels had changed. It was an +irregular beat, with sudden screeches and short, sharp cracks, a sound like +the broken laughter of hysteria, with the fitful jerking of the car to match +it. She knew, before she glanced at her watch, that this was the track of the +Kansas Western and that the train had started on its long detour south from +Kirby, Nebraska. +The train was half-empty; few people had ventured across the continent on +the first Comet since the tunnel disaster. She had given a bedroom to the +tramp, and then had remained alone with his story. +She had wanted to think of it, of all the questions she intended to ask +him tomorrow—but she had found her mind frozen and still, like a spectator +staring at the story, unable to function, only to stare. She had felt as if +she knew the meaning of that spectacle, knew it with no further questions and +had to escape it. To move—had been the words beating in her mind with +peculiar urgency—to move—as if movement had become an end in itself, crucial, +absolute and doomed. +Through a thin layer of sleep, the sound of the wheels had kept running a +race with the growth of her tension. She had kept awakening, as in a +causeless start of panic, finding herself upright in the darkness, thinking +blankly: What was it?—then telling herself in reassurance: We're moving . . . +we're still moving. . . . +The track of the Kansas Western was worse than she had expected— +she thought, listening to the wheels. The train was now carrying her +hundreds of miles away from Utah. She had felt a desperate desire to get off + + the train on the main line, abandon all the problems of Taggart +Transcontinental, find an airplane and fly straight to Quentin Daniels. +It had taken a cheerless effort of will to remain in her car. +She lay in the darkness, listening to the wheels, thinking that only +Daniels and his motor still remained like a point of fire ahead, pulling her +forward. Of what use would the motor now be to her? She had no answer. Why +did she feel so certain of the desperate need to hurry? +She had no answer. To reach him in time, was the only ultimatum left in +her mind. She held onto it, asking no questions. Wordlessly, she knew the +real answer: the motor was needed, not to move trains, but to keep her +moving. +She could not hear the beat of the fourth knocks any longer in the jumbled +screeching of metal, she could not hear the steps of the enemy she was +racing, only the hopeless stampede of panic. . . . +I'll get there in time, she thought, I'll get there first, I'll save the +motor. +There's one motor he's not going to stop, she thought . . . he's not going +to stop . . . he's not going to stop . . . He's not going to stop, she +thought—awakening with a jolt, jerking her head off the pillow. The wheels +had stopped. +For a moment, she remained still, trying to grasp the peculiar stillness +around her. It felt like the impossible attempt to create a sensory image of +non-existence. There were no attributes of reality to perceive, nothing but +their absence: no sound, as if she were alone on the train—no motion, as if +this were not a train, but a room in a building—no light, as if this were +neither train nor room, but space without objects—no sign of violence or +physical disaster, as if this were the state where disaster is no longer +possible. +In the moment when she grasped the nature of the stillness, her body +sprang upright with a single curve of motion, immediate and violent like a +cry of rebellion. The loud screech of the window shade went like a knife-cut +through the silence, as she threw the shade upward. There was nothing outside +but anonymous stretches of prairie; a strong wind was breaking the clouds, +and a shaft of moonlight fell through, but it fell upon plains that seemed as +dead as those from which it came. +The sweep of her hand pressed the light switch and the bell to summon the +porter. The electric light came on and brought her back to a rational world. +She glanced at her watch: it was a few minutes past midnight. She looked out +of the rear window: the track went off in a straight line and, at the +prescribed distance, she saw the red lanterns left on the ground, placed +conscientiously to protect the rear of the train. The sight seemed +reassuring. +She pressed the porter's bell once more. She waited. She went to the +vestibule, unlocked the door and leaned out to look down the line of the +train. A few windows were lighted in the long, tapering band of steel, but +she saw no figures, no sign of human activity. She slammed the door, came +back and started to dress, her movements suddenly calm and swift. +No one came to answer her bell. When she hastened across to the next car, +she felt no fear, no uncertainty, no despair, nothing but the urgency of +action. +There was no porter in the cubbyhole of the next car, no porter in the car +beyond. She hurried down the narrow passageways, meeting no one. But a few +compartment doors were open. The passengers sat inside, dressed or halfdressed, silently, as if waiting. They watched her rush by with oddly furtive +glances, as if they knew what she was after, as if they had expected someone +to come and to face what they had not faced. She went on, running down the +spinal cord of a dead train, noting the peculiar combination of lighted + + compartments, open doors and empty passages: no one had ventured to step out. +No one had wanted to ask the first question. +She ran through the train's only coach, where some passengers slept in +contorted poses of exhaustion, while others, awake and still, sat hunched, +like animals waiting for a blow, making no move to avert it In the vestibule +of the coach, she stopped. She saw a man, who had unlocked the door and was +leaning out, looking inquiringly ahead through the darkness, ready to step +off. He turned at the sound of her approach. She recognized his face: it was +Owen Kellogg, the man who had rejected the future she had once offered him. +"Kellogg!" she gasped, the sound of laughter in her voice like a cry of +relief at the sudden sight of a man in a desert. +"Hello, Miss Taggart," he answered, with an astonished smile that held a +touch of incredulous pleasure—and of wistfulness. "I didn't know you were +aboard." +"Come on," she ordered, as if he were still an employee of the railroad. +"I think we're on a frozen train." +"We are," he said, and followed her with prompt, disciplined obedience. +No explanations were necessary. It was as if, in unspoken understanding, +they were answering a call to duty—and it seemed natural that of the hundreds +aboard, it was the two of them who should be partners-in-danger. +"Any idea how long we've been standing?" she asked, as they hurried on +through the next car. +"No," he said. "We were standing when I woke up." +They went the length of the train, finding no porters, no waiters in the +diner, no brakemen, no conductor. They glanced at each other once in a while, +but kept silent. They knew the stories of abandoned trains, of the crews that +vanished in sudden bursts of rebellion against serfdom. +They got off at the head end of the train, with no motion around them save +the wind on their faces, and they climbed swiftly aboard the engine. The +engine's headlight was on, stretching like an accusing arm into the void of +the night. The engine's cab was empty. +Her cry of desperate triumph broke out in answer to the shock of the +sight: "Good for them! They're human beings!" +She stopped, aghast, as at the cry of a stranger. She noticed that Kellogg +stood watching her curiously, with the faint hint of a smile. +It was an old steam engine, the best that the railroad had been able to +provide for the Comet. The fire was banked in the grates, the steam gauge was +low, and in the great windshield before them the headlight fell upon a band +of ties that should have been running to meet them, but lay still instead, +like a ladder's steps, counted, numbered and ended. +She reached for the logbook and looked at the names of the train's last +crew. The engineer had been Pat Logan. +Her head dropped slowly, and she closed her eyes. She thought of the first +run on a green-blue track, that must have been in Pat Logan's mind—as it was +now in hers—through the silent hours of his last run on any rail. +"Miss Taggart?" said Owen Kellogg softly. +She jerked her head up. "Yes," she said, "yes . . . Well"—her voice had no +color except the metallic tinge of decision—"we'll have to get to a phone and +call for another crew." She glanced at her watch. "At the rate we were +running, I think we must be about eighty miles from the Oklahoma state line. +I believe Bradshaw is this road's nearest division point to call. We're +somewhere within thirty miles of it." +"Are there any Taggart trains following us?" +"The next one is Number 253, the transcontinental freight, but it won't +get here till about seven A.M., if it's running on time, which 1 doubt." +"Only one freight in seven hours?" He said it involuntarily, with a note +of outraged loyalty to the great railroad he had once been proud to serve. + + Her mouth moved in the brief snap of a smile. "Our transcontinental +traffic is not what it was in your day." +He nodded slowly. "I don't suppose there are any Kansas Western trains +coming tonight, either?" +"I can't remember offhand, but I think not." +He glanced at the poles by the side of the track. "I hope that the Kansas +Western people have kept their phones in order." +"You mean that the chances are they haven't, if we judge by the state of +their track. But we'll have to try it," +"Yes." +She turned to go, but stopped. She knew it was useless to comment, but the +words came involuntarily. "You know," she said, "it's those lanterns our men +put behind the train to protect us that's the hardest thing to take. They . . +. they felt more concern for human lives than their country had shown for +theirs." +His swift glance at her was like a shot of deliberate emphasis, then he +answered gravely, "Yes, Miss Taggart." +Climbing down the ladder on the side of the engine, they saw a cluster of +passengers gathered by the track and more figures emerging from the train to +join them. By some special instinct of their own, the men who had sat waiting +knew that someone had taken charge, someone had assumed the responsibility +and it was now safe to show signs of life. +They all looked at her with an air of inquiring expectation, as she +approached. The unnatural pallor of the moonlight seemed to dissolve the +differences of their faces and to stress the quality they all had in common: +a look of cautious appraisal, part fear, part plea, part impertinence held in +abeyance. +"Is there anyone here who wishes to be spokesman for the passengers?" she +asked. +They looked at one another. There was no answer. +"Very well," she said. "You don't have to speak. I'm Dagny Taggart, the +Operating Vice-President of this railroad, and"—there was a rustle of +response from the group, half-movement, half-whisper, resembling relief—"and +I'll do the speaking. We are on a train that has been abandoned by its crew. +There was no physical accident. The engine is intact. But there is no one to +run it. This is what the newspapers call a frozen train. You all know what it +means—and you know the reasons. Perhaps you knew the reasons long before they +were discovered by the men who deserted you tonight. The law forbade them to +desert. But this will not help you now." +A woman shrieked suddenly, with the demanding petulance of hysteria, "What +are we going to do?" +Dagny paused to look at her. The woman was pushing forward, to squeeze +herself into the group, to place some human bodies between herself and the +sight of the great vacuum—the plain stretching off and dissolving into +moonlight, the dead phosphorescence of impotent, borrowed energy. The woman +had a coat thrown over a nightgown; the coat was slipping open and her +stomach protruded under the gown's thin cloth, with that loose obscenity of +manner which assumes all human self-revelation to be ugliness and makes no +effort to conceal it. For a moment, Dagny regretted the necessity to +continue. +"I shall go down the track to a telephone," she continued, her voice clear +and as cold as the moonlight. "There are emergency telephones at intervals of +five miles along the right-of-way. I shall call for another crew to be sent +here. This will take some time. You will please stay aboard and maintain such +order as you are capable of maintaining." +"What about the gangs of raiders?" asked another woman's nervous voice. + + "That's true," said Dagny. "I'd better have someone to accompany me. Who +wishes to go?" +She had misunderstood the woman's motive. There was no answer. +There were no glances directed at her or at one another. There were no +eyes—only moist ovals glistening in the moonlight. There they were, she +thought, the men of the new age, the demanders and recipients of selfsacrifice. She was struck by a quality of anger in their silence— +an anger saying that she was supposed to spare them moments such as this— +and, with a feeling of cruelty new to her, she remained silent by conscious +intention. +She noticed that Owen Kellogg, too, was waiting; but he was not watching +the passengers, he was watching her face. When he became certain that there +would be no answer from the crowd, he said quietly, "I'll go with you, of +course, Miss Taggart." +"Thank you." +"What about us?" snapped the nervous woman. +Dagny turned to her, answering in the formal, inflectionless monotone of a +business executive, "There have been no cases of raider gang attacks upon +frozen trains—unfortunately." +"Just where are we?" asked a bulky man with too expensive an overcoat and +too flabby a face; his voice had a tone intended for servants by a man unfit +to employ them. "In what part of what state?" +"I don't know," she answered. +"How long will we be kept here?" asked another, in the tone of a creditor +who is imposed upon by a debtor. +"1 don't know." +"When will we get to San Francisco?" asked a third, in the manner of a +sheriff addressing a suspect. +"I don't know." +The demanding resentment was breaking loose, in small, crackling puffs, +like chestnuts popping open in the dark oven of the minds who now felt +certain that they were taken care of and safe. +"This is perfectly outrageous!" yelled a woman, springing forward, +throwing her words at Dagny's face. "You have no right to let this happen! I +don't intend to be kept waiting in the middle of nowhere! +I expect transportation!" +"Keep your mouth shut," said Dagny, "or I'll lock the train doors and +leave you where you are." +"You can't do that! You're a common carrier! You have no right to +discriminate against me! I'll report it to the Unification Board!" +"—if I give you a train to get you within sight or hearing of your Board," +said Dagny, turning away. +She saw Kellogg looking at her, his glance like a line drawn under her +words, underscoring them for her own attention. +"Get a flashlight somewhere," she said, "while I go to get my handbag, +then we'll start." +When they started out on their way to the track phone, walking past the +silent line of cars, they saw another figure descending from the train and +hurrying to meet them. She recognized the tramp. +"Trouble, ma'am?" he asked, stopping. +"The crew has deserted." +"Oh. What's to be done?" +"I'm going to a phone to call the division point." +"You can't go alone, ma'am. Not these days. I'd better go with you." +She smiled. "Thanks. But I'll be all right. Mr. Kellogg here is going with +me. Say—what's your name?" +"Jeff Alien, ma'am." + + "Listen, Alien, have you ever worked for a railroad?" +"No, ma'am." +"Well, you're working for one now. You're deputy-conductor and proxy-vicepresident-in-charge-of-operation. Your job is to take charge of this train in +my absence, to preserve order and to keep the cattle from stampeding. Tell +them that I appointed you. You don't need any proof. They'll obey anybody who +expects obedience." +"Yes, ma'am," he answered firmly, with a look of understanding. +She remembered that money inside a man's pocket had the power to turn into +confidence inside his mind; she took a hundred-dollar bill from her bag and +slipped it into his hand. "As advance on wages," +she said. +"Yes, ma'am." +She had started off, when he called after her, "Miss Taggart!" +She turned. "Yes?" +"Thank you," he said. +She smiled, half-raising her hand in a parting salute, and walked on. +"Who is that?" asked Kellogg. +"A tramp who was caught stealing a ride." +"He'll do the job, I think." +"He will." +They walked silently past the engine and on in the direction of its +headlight. At first, stepping from tie to tie, with the violent light beating +against them from behind, they still felt as if they were at home in the +normal realm of a railroad. Then she found herself watching the light on the +ties under her feet, watching it ebb slowly, trying to hold it, to keep +seeing its fading glow, until she knew that the hint of a glow on the wood +was no longer anything but moonlight. She could not prevent the shudder that +made her turn to look back. The headlight still hung behind them, like the +liquid silver globe of a planet, deceptively close, but belonging to another +orbit and another system. +Owen Kellogg walked silently beside her, and she felt certain that they +knew each other's thoughts. +"He couldn't have. Oh God, he couldn't!" she said suddenly, not realizing +that she had switched to words. +"Who?" +"Nathaniel Taggart. He couldn't have worked with people like those +passengers. He couldn't have run trains for them. He couldn't have employed +them. He couldn't have used them at all, neither as customers nor as +workers." +Kellogg smiled. "You mean that he couldn't have grown rich by exploiting +them, Miss Taggart?" +She nodded. "They . . ." she said, and he heard the faint trembling of her +voice, which was love and pain and indignation, "they've said for years that +he rose by thwarting the ability of others, by leaving them no chance, and +that . . . that human incompetence was to his selfish interest. . . . But he +. . . it wasn't obedience that he required of people." +"Miss Taggart," he said, with an odd note of sternness in his voice, "just +remember that he represented a code of existence which—for a brief span in +all human history—drove slavery out of the civilized world. Remember it, when +you feel baffled by the nature of his enemies," +"Have you ever heard of a woman named Ivy Starnes?" +"Oh yes." +"I keep thinking that this was what she would have enjoyed—the spectacle +of those passengers tonight. This was what she's after. But we—we can't live +with it, you and I, can we? No one can live with it. +It's not possible to live with it." + + "What makes you think that Ivy Starnes's purpose is life?" +Somewhere on the edge of her mind—like the wisps she saw floating on the +edges of the prairie, neither quite rays nor fog nor cloud— +she felt some shape which she could not grasp, half-suggested and +demanding to be grasped. +She did not speak, and—like the links of a chain unrolling through their +silence—the rhythm of their steps went on, spaced to the ties, scored by the +dry, swift beat of heels on wood. +She had not had time to be aware of him, except as of a providential +comrade-in-competence; now she glanced at him with conscious attention. His +face had the clear, hard look she remembered having liked in the past. But +the face had grown calmer, as if more serenely at peace. His clothes were +threadbare. He wore an old leather jacket, and even in the darkness she could +distinguish the scuffed blotches streaking across the leather. +"What have you been doing since you left Taggart Transcontinental?" she +asked. +"Oh, many things." +"Where are you working now?" +"On special assignments, more or less." +"Of what kind?" +"Of every kind." +"You're not working for a railroad?" +"No." +The sharp brevity of the sound seemed to expand it into an eloquent +statement. She knew that he knew her motive. "Kellogg, if I told you that I +don't have a single first-rate man left on the Taggart system, if I offered +you any job, any terms, any money you cared to name—would you come back to +us?" +"No." +"You were shocked by our loss of traffic. I don't think you have any idea +of what our loss of men has done to us. I can't tell you the sort of agony I +went through three days ago, trying to find somebody able to build five miles +of temporary track. I have fifty miles to build through the Rockies. I see no +way to do it. But it has to be done. I've combed the country for men. There +aren't any. And then to run into you suddenly, to find you here, in a day +coach, when I'd give half the system for one employee like you—do you +understand why I can't let you go? Choose anything you wish. Want to be +general manager of a region? Or assistant operating vice-president?" +"No." +"You're still working for a living, aren't you?" +"Yes." +"You don't seem to be making very much." +"I'm making enough for my needs—and for nobody else's." +"Why are you willing to work for anyone but Taggart Transcontinental?" +"Because you wouldn't give me the kind of job I'd want." +"I?" She stopped still. "Good God, Kellogg!—haven't you understood? I'd +give you any job you name!" +"All right. Track walker." +"What?" +"Section hand. Engine wiper." He smiled at the look on her face. +"No? You see, I said you wouldn't." +"Do you mean that you'd take a day laborer's job?" +"Any time you offered it." +"But nothing better?" +"That's right, nothing better." +"Don't you understand that I have too many men who're able to do those +jobs, but nothing better?" + + "I understand it, Miss Taggart. Do you?" +"What I need is your—" +"—mind, Miss Taggart? My mind is not on the market any longer." +She stood looking at him, her face growing harder. "You're one of them, +aren't you?" she said at last. +"Of whom?" +She did not answer, shrugged and went on, "Miss Taggart," he asked, "how +long will you remain willing to be a common carrier?" +"I won't surrender the world to the creature you're quoting." +"The answer you gave her was much more realistic." +The chain of their steps had stretched through many silent minutes before +she asked, "Why did you stand by me tonight? Why were you willing to help +me?" +He answered easily, almost gaily, "Because there isn't a passenger on that +train who needs to get where he's going more urgently than I do. If the train +can be started, none will profit more than I. But when I need something, I +don't sit and expect transportation, like that creature of yours." +"You don't? And what if all trains stopped running?" +"Then I wouldn't count on making a crucial journey by train." +"Where are you going?" +"West." +"On a 'special assignment'?" +"No. For a month's vacation with some friends." +"A vacation? And it's that important to you?" +"More important than anything on earth." +They had walked two miles when they came to the small gray box on a post +by the trackside, which was the emergency telephone. +The box hung sidewise, beaten by storms. She jerked it open. The telephone +was there, a familiar, reassuring object, glinting in the beam of Kellogg's +flashlight. But she knew, the moment she pressed the receiver to her ear, and +he knew, when he saw her finger tapping sharply against the hook, that the +telephone was dead. +She handed the receiver to him without a word. She held the flashlight, +while he went swiftly over the instrument, then tore it off the wall and +studied the wires. +"The wire's okay," he said. "The current's on. It's this particular +instrument that's out of order. There's a chance that the next one might be +working." He added, "The next one is five miles away." +"Let's go," she said. +Far behind them, the engine's headlight was still visible, not a planet +any longer, but a small star winking, through mists of distance. +Ahead of them, the rail went off into bluish space, with nothing to mark +its end. +She realized how often she had glanced back at that headlight; so long as +it remained in sight, she had felt as if a life-line were holding them +anchored safely; now they had to break it and dive into . . . +and dive off this planet, she thought. She noticed that Kellogg, too, +stood looking back at the headlight. +They glanced at each other, but said nothing. The crunch of a pebble under +her shoe sole burst like a firecracker in the silence. +With a coldly intentional movement, he kicked the telephone instrument and +sent it rolling into a ditch: the violence of the noise shattered the vacuum. +"God damn him," he said evenly, not raising his voice, with a loathing +past any display of emotion. "He probably didn't feel like attending to his +job, and since he needed his pay check, nobody had the right to ask that he +keep the phones in order." +"Come on," she said. + + "We can rest, if you feel tired, Miss Taggart." +"I'm all right. We have no time to feel tired." +"That's our great error, Miss Taggart. We ought to take the time, some +day." +She gave a brief chuckle, she stepped onto a tie of the track, stressing +the step as her answer, and they went on. +It was hard, walking on ties, but when they tried to walk along the +trackside, they found that it was harder. The soil, half-sand, half-dust, +sank under their heels, like the soft, unresisting spread of some substance +that was neither liquid nor solid. They went back to walking from tie to tie; +it was almost like stepping from log to log in the midst of a river. +She thought of what an enormous distance five miles had suddenly become, +and that a division point thirty miles away was now unattainable—after an era +of railroads built by men who thought in thousands of transcontinental miles. +That net of rails and lights, spreading from ocean to ocean, hung on the snap +of a wire, on a broken connection inside a rusty phone—no, she thought, on +something much more powerful and much more delicate. It hung on the +connections in the minds of the men who knew that the existence of a wire, of +a train, of a job, of themselves and their actions was an absolute not to be +escaped. When such minds were gone, a two thousand-ton train was left at the +mercy of the muscles of her legs. +Tired?—she thought; even the strain of walking was a value, a small piece +of reality in the stillness around them. The sensation of effort was a +specific experience, it was pain and could be nothing else—in the midst of a +space which was neither light nor dark, a soil which neither gave nor +resisted, a fog which neither moved nor hung still. Their strain was the only +evidence of their motion: nothing changed in the emptiness around them, +nothing took form to mark their progress. She had always wondered, in +incredulous contempt, about the sects that preached the annihilation of the +universe as the ideal to be attained. There, she thought, was their world and +the content of their minds made real. +When the green light of a signal appeared by the track, it gave them a +point to reach and pass, but—incongruous in the midst of the floating +dissolution—it brought them no sense of relief. It seemed to come from a long +since extinguished world, like those stars whose light remains after they are +gone. The green circle glowed in space, announcing a clear track, inviting +motion where there was nothing to move. Who was that philosopher, she +thought, who preached that motion exists without any moving entities? This +was his world, too. +T! +She found herself pushing forward with increasing effort, as if against +some resistance that was, not pressure, but suction. Glancing at Kellogg, she +saw that he, too, was walking like a man braced against a storm. She felt as +if the two of them were the sole survivors of . . . of reality, she thought— +two lonely figures fighting, not through a storm, but worse: through nonexistence. +It was Kellogg who glanced back, after a while, and she followed his +glance: there was no headlight behind them. +They did not stop. Looking straight ahead, he reached absently into his +pocket; she felt certain that the movement was involuntary; he produced a +package of cigarettes and extended it to her. +She was about to take a cigarette—then, suddenly, she seized his wrist and +tore the package out of his hand. It was a plain white package that bore, as +single imprint, the sign of the dollar. +"Give me the flashlight!" she ordered, stopping. + + He stopped obediently and sent the beam of the flashlight at the package +in her hands. She caught a glimpse of his face: he looked a little astonished +and very amused. +There was no printing on the package, no trade name, no address, only the +dollar sign stamped in gold. The cigarettes bore the same sign. +"Where did you get this?" she asked. +He was smiling. "If you know enough to ask that, Miss Taggart, you should +know that I won't answer." +"I know that this stands for something." +"The dollar sign? For a great deal. It stands on the vest of every fat, +pig like figure in every cartoon, for the purpose of denoting a crook, a +grafter, a scoundrel—as the one sure-fire brand of evil. It stands—as the +money of a free country—for achievement, for success, for ability, for man's +creative power—and, precisely for these reasons, it is used as a brand of +infamy. It stands stamped on the forehead of a man like Hank Rearden, as a +mark of damnation. Incidentally, do you know where that sign comes from? It +stands for the initials of the United States." +He snapped the flashlight off, but he did not move to go; she could +distinguish the hint of his bitter smile. +"Do you know that the United States is the only country in history that +has ever used its own monogram as a symbol of depravity? Ask yourself why. +Ask yourself how long a country that did that could hope to exist, and whose +moral standards have destroyed it. It was the only country in history where +wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by +trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man's right to his own +mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself. If this is +evil, by the present standards of the world, if this is the reason for +damning us, then we —we, the dollar chasers and makers—accept it and choose +to be damned by that world. We choose to wear the sign of the dollar on our +foreheads, proudly, as our badge of nobility—the badge we are willing to live +for and, if need be, to die." +He extended his hand for the package. She held it as if her fingers would +not let it go, but gave up and placed it on his palm. With deliberate +slowness, as if to underscore the meaning of his gesture, he offered her a +cigarette. She took it and placed it between her lips. +He took one for himself, struck a match, lighted both, and they walked on. +They walked, over rotting logs that sank without resistance into the +shifting ground, through a vast, uncongealed globe of moonlight and coiling +mist—with two spots of living fire in their hands and the glow of two small +circles to light their faces. +"Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips . . ." she remembered +the old man saying to her, the old man who had said that these cigarettes +were not made anywhere on earth. "When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire +alive in his mind—and it's proper that he should have the burning point of a +cigarette as his one expression." +"I wish you'd tell me who makes them," she said, in the tone of a hopeless +plea. +He chuckled good-naturedly. "I can tell you this much: they're made by a +friend of mine, for sale, but—not being a common carrier —he sells them only +to his friends." +"Sell me that package, will you?" +"I don't think you'll be able to afford it, Miss Taggart, but—all right, +if you wish." +"How much is it?" +"Five cents." +"Five cents?" she repeated, bewildered. +"Five cents—" he said, and added, "in gold." + + She stopped, staring at him. "In gold?" +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +"Well, what's your rate of exchange? How much is it in our normal money?" +"There is no rate of exchange, Miss Taggart. No amount of physical—or +spiritual—currency, whose sole standard of value is the decree of Mr. Wesley +Mouch, will buy these cigarettes." +"I see." +He reached into his pocket, took out the package and handed it to her. +"I'll give them to you, Miss Taggart," he said, "because you've earned them +many times over—and because you need them for the same purpose we do." +"What purpose?" +"To remind us—in moments of discouragement, in the loneliness of exile—of +our true homeland, which has always been yours, too, Miss Taggart." +'Thank you," she said. She put the cigarettes in her pocket; he saw that +her hand was trembling. +When they reached the fourth of the five mileposts, they had been silent +for a long time, with no strength left for anything but the effort of moving +their feet. Far ahead, they saw a dot of light, too low on the horizon and +too harshly clear to be a star. They kept watching it, as they walked, and +said nothing until they became certain that it was a powerful electric beacon +blazing in the midst of the empty prairie. +"What is that?" she asked. +"I don't know," he said. "It looks like—" +"No," she broke in hastily, "it couldn't be. Not around here." +She did not want to hear him name the hope which she had felt for many +minutes past. She could not permit herself to think of it or to know that the +thought was hope. +They found the telephone box at the fifth milepost. The beacon hung like a +violent spot of cold fire, less than half a mile farther south. +The telephone was working. She heard the buzz of the wire, like the breath +of a living creature, when she lifted the receiver. Then a drawling voice +answered, "Jessup, at Bradshaw." The voice sounded sleepy. +"This is Dagny Taggart, speaking from—" +"Who?" +"Dagny Taggart, of Taggart Transcontinental, speaking—" +"Oh . . . Oh yes . . . I see . . . Yes?" +"—speaking from your track phone Number 83. The Comet is stalled seven +miles north of here. It's been abandoned. The crew has deserted." +There was a pause. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" +She had to pause in turn, in order to believe it. "Are you the night +dispatcher?” +"Yeah." +"Then send another crew out to us at once." +"A full passenger train crew?" +"Of course." +"Now?" +"Yes." +There was a pause. "The rules don't say anything about that." +"Get me the chief dispatcher," she said, choking. +"He's away on his vacation." +"Get the division superintendent." +"He's gone down to Laurel for a couple of days." +"Get me somebody who's in charge." +"I'm in charge." +"Listen," she said slowly, fighting for patience, "do you understand that +there's a train, a passenger limited, abandoned in the middle of the +prairie?" + + "Yeah, but how am I to know what I'm supposed to do about it? +The rules don't provide for it. Now if you had an accident, we'd send out +the wrecker, but if there was no accident . . . you don't need the wrecker, +do you?" +"No. We don't need the wrecker. We need men. Do you understand? Living men +to run an engine." +"The rules don't say anything about a train without men. Or about men +without a train. There's no rule for calling out a full crew in the middle of +the night and sending them to hunt for a train somewhere. +I've never heard of it before," +"You're hearing it now. Don't you know what you have to do?" +"Who am I to know?" +"Do you know that your job is to keep trains moving?" +"My job is to obey the rules. If I send out a crew when I'm not supposed +to, God only knows what's going to happen! What with the Unification Board +and all the regulations they've got nowadays, who am I to take it upon +myself?" +"And what's going to happen if you leave a train stalled on the line?" +"That's not my fault. I had nothing to do with it. They can't blame me. I +couldn't help it." +"You're to help it now." +"Nobody told me to." +"I'm telling you to!" +"How do I know whether you're supposed to tell me or not? We're not +supposed to furnish any Taggart crews. You people were to run with your own +crews. That's what we were told." +"But this is an emergency!" +"Nobody told me anything about an emergency." +She had to take a few seconds to control herself. She saw Kellogg watching +her with a bitter smile of amusement. +"Listen," she said into the phone, "do you know that the Comet was due at +Bradshaw over three hours ago?" +"Oh, sure. But nobody's going to make any trouble about that. No train's +ever on schedule these days," +"Then do you intend to leave us blocking your track forever?" +"We've got nothing due till Number 4, the northbound passenger out of +Laurel, at eight thirty-seven A.M. You can wait till then. The day-trick +dispatcher will be on then. You can speak to him," +"You blasted idiot! This is the Comet!" +"What's that to me? This isn't Taggart Transcontinental. You people expect +a lot for your money. You've been nothing but a headache to us7 with all the +extra work at no extra pay for the little fellows." +His voice was slipping into whining insolence. "You can't talk to me that +way. The time's past when you could talk to people that way." +She had never believed that there were men with whom a certain method, +which she had never used, would work; such men were not hired by Taggart +Transcontinental and she had never been forced to deal with them before. +"Do you know who I am?" she asked, in the cold, overbearing tone of a +personal threat. +It worked. "I . . . I guess so," he answered. +"Then let me tell you that if you don't send a crew to me at once, you'll +be out of a job within one hour after I reach Bradshaw, which I'll reach +sooner or later. You'd better make it sooner." +"Yes, ma'am," he said. +"Call out a full passenger train crew and give them orders to run us to +Laurel, where we have our own men." + + "Yes, ma'am.” He added, "Will you tell headquarters that it was you who +told me to do it?" +"I will." +"And that it's you who're responsible for it?" +"I am." +There was a pause, then he asked helplessly, "Now how am I going to call +the men? Most of them haven't got any phones." +"Do you have a call boy?" +"Yes, but he won't get here till morning." +"Is there anybody in the yards right now?" +"There's the wiper in the roundhouse." +"Send him out to call the men." +"Yes, ma'am. Hold the line." +She leaned against the side of the phone box, to wait. Kellogg was +smiling. +"And you propose to run a railroad—a transcontinental railroad— +with that?" he asked. +She shrugged. +She could not keep her eyes off the beacon. It seemed so close, so easily +within her reach. She felt as if the unconfessed thought were struggling +furiously against her, splattering bits of the struggle all over her mind: A +man able to harness an untapped source of energy, a man working on a motor to +make all other motors useless . . . she could be talking to him, to his kind +of brain, in a few hours . . . in just a few hours. . . . What if there was +no need to hurry to him? It was what she wanted to do. It was all she wanted. +. . . Her work? +What was her work: to move on to the fullest, most exacting use of her +mind—or to spend the rest of her life doing his thinking for a man unfit to +be a night dispatcher? Why had she chosen to work? +Was it in order to remain where she had started—night operator of Rockdale +Station—no, lower than that—she had been better than that dispatcher, even at +Rockdale—was this to be the final sum: an end lower than her beginning? . . . +There was no reason to hurry? She was the reason. . . . They needed the +trains, but they did not need the motor? She needed the motor. . . . Her +duty? To whom? +The dispatcher was gone for a long time; when he came back, his voice +sounded sulky: "Well, the wiper says he can get the men all right, but it's +no use, because how am I going to send them out to you? We have no engine." +"No engine?" +"No. The superintendent took one to run down to Laurel, and the other's in +the shops, been there for weeks, and the switch engine jumped a rail this +morning, they'll be working on her till tomorrow afternoon." +"What about the wrecker's engine that you were offering to send us?" +"Oh, she's up north. They had a wreck there yesterday. She hasn't come +back yet." +"Have you a Diesel car?" +"Never had any such thing. Not around here." +"Have you a track motor car?" +"Yes. We have that." +"Send them out on the track motor car." +"Oh . . . Yes, ma'am." +"Tell your men to stop here, at track phone Number 83, to pick up Mr. +Kellogg and myself." She was looking at the beacon, "Yes, ma'am." +"Call the Taggart trainmaster at Laurel, report the Comet's delay and +explain to him what happened." She put her hand into her pocket and suddenly +clutched her fingers: she felt the package of cigarettes. "Say—" she asked, +"what's that beacon, about half a mile from here?" + + "From where you are? Oh, that must be the emergency landing field of the +Flagship Airlines." +"I see . . . Well, that's all. Get your men started at once. Tell them to +pick up Mr. Kellogg by track phone Number 83." +"Yes, ma'am." +She hung up. Kellogg was grinning. +"An airfield, isn't it?" he asked. +"Yes." She stood looking at the beacon, her hand still clutching the +cigarettes in her pocket. +"So they're going to pick up Mr. Kellogg, are they?" +She whirled to him, realizing what decision her mind had been reaching +without her conscious knowledge. "No," she said, "no, I didn't mean to +abandon you here. It's only that I, too, have a crucial purpose out West, +where I ought to hurry, so I was thinking of trying to catch a plane, but I +can't do it and it's not necessary." +"Come on," he said, starting in the direction of the airfield. +"But I—" +"If there's anything you want to do more urgently than to nurse those +morons—go right ahead." +"More urgently than anything in the world," she whispered. +"I'll undertake to remain in charge for you and to deliver the Comet to +your man at Laurel." +"Thank you . . . But if you're hoping . . . I'm not deserting, you know." +"I know." +"Then why are you so eager to help me?" +"I just want you to see what it's like to do something you want, for +once." +"There's not much chance that they'll have a plane at that field." +"There's a good chance that they will." +There were two planes on the edge of the airfield: one, the half charred +remnant of a wreck, not worth salvaging for scrap—the other, a Dwight Sanders +monoplane, brand-new, the kind of ship that men were pleading for, in vain, +all over the country. +There was one sleepy attendant at the airfield, young, pudgy and, but for +a faint smell of college about his vocabulary, a brain brother of the night +dispatcher of Bradshaw. He knew nothing about the two planes: they had been +there when he first took this job a year ago. He had never inquired about +them and neither had anybody else. In whatever silent crumbling had gone on +at the distant headquarters, in the slow dissolution of a great airline +company, the Sanders monoplane had been forgotten—as assets of this nature +were being forgotten everywhere . . . as the model of the motor had been +forgotten on a junk pile and, left in plain sight, had conveyed nothing to +the inheritors and the takers-over. . . . +There were no rules to tell the young attendant whether he was expected to +keep the Sanders plane or not. The decision was made for him by the brusque, +confident manner of the two strangers—by the credentials of Miss Dagny +Taggart, Vice-President of a railroad— +by brief hints about a secret, emergency mission, which sounded like +Washington to him—by the mention of an agreement with the airline's top +officials in New York, whose names he had never heard before—by a check for +fifteen thousand dollars, written by Miss Taggart, as deposit against the +return of the Sanders plane—and by another check, for two hundred bucks, for +his own, personal courtesy. +He fueled the plane, he checked it as best he could, he found a map of the +country's airports—and she saw that a landing field on the outskirts of +Afton, Utah, was marked as still in existence. She had been too tensely, +swiftly active to feel anything, but at the last moment, when the attendant + + switched on the floodlights, when she was about to climb aboard, she paused +to glance at the emptiness of the sky, then at Owen Kellogg. He stood, alone +in the white glare, his feet planted firmly apart, on an island of cement in +a ring of blinding lights, with nothing beyond the ring but an irredeemable +night—and she wondered which one of them was taking the greater chance and +facing the more desolate emptiness, "In case anything happens to me," she +said, "will you tell Eddie Willers in my office to give Jeff Alien a job, as +I promised?" +"I will. . . . Is this all you wish to be done . . . in case anything +happens?" +She considered it and smiled sadly, in astonishment at the realization. +"Yes, I guess that's all . . . Except, tell Hank Rearden what happened and +that I asked you to tell him." +"I will." +She lifted her head and said firmly, "I don't expect it to happen, +however. When you reach Laurel, call Winston, Colorado, and tell them that I +will be there tomorrow by noon." +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +She wanted to extend her hand in parting, but it seemed inadequate, and +then she remembered what he had said about times of loneliness. She took out +the package and silently offered him one of his own cigarettes. His smile was +a full statement of understanding, and the small flame of his match lighting +their two cigarettes was their most enduring handshake. +Then she climbed aboard—and the next span of her consciousness was not +separate moments and movements, but the sweep of a single motion and a single +unit of time, a progression forming one entity, like the notes of a piece of +music: from the touch of her hand on the starter—to the blast of the motor's +sound that broke off, like a mountain rockslide, all contact with the time +behind her—to the circling fall of a blade that vanished in a fragile sparkle +of whirling air that cut the space ahead—to the start for the runway—to the +brief pause—then to the forward thrust—to the long, perilous run, the run not +to be obstructed, the straight line ran that gathers power by spending it on +a harder and harder and ever-accelerating effort, the straight line to a +purpose—to the moment, unnoticed., when the earth drops off and the line, +unbroken, goes on into space in the simple, natural act of rising. +She saw the telegraph wires of the trackside slipping past at the tip of +her toes. The earth was falling downward, and she felt as if its weight were +dropping off her ankles, as if the globe would go shrinking to the size of a +ball, a convict's ball she had dragged and lost. +Her body swayed, drunk with the shock of a discovery, and her craft rocked +with her body, and it was the earth below that reeled with the rocking of her +craft—the discovery that her life was now in her own hands, that there was no +necessity to argue, to explain, to teach, to plead, to fight—nothing but to +see and think and act. Then the earth steadied into a wide black sheet that +grew wider and wider as she circled, rising. When she glanced down for the +last time, the lights of the field were extinguished, there was only the +single beacon left and it looked like the tip of Kellogg's cigarette, glowing +as a last salute in the darkness. +Then she was left with the lights on her instrument panel and the spread +of stars beyond her film of glass. There was nothing to support her but the +beat of the engine and the minds of the men who had made the plane. But what +else supports one anywhere?—she thought. +The line of her course went northwest, to cut a diagonal across the state +of Colorado. She knew she had chosen the most dangerous route, over too long +a stretch of the worst mountain barrier—but it was the shortest line, and +safety lay in altitude, and no mountains seemed dangerous compared to the +dispatcher of Bradshaw. + + The stars were like foam and the sky seemed full of flowing motion, the +motion of bubbles settling and forming, the floating of circular waves +without progression. A spark of light flared up on earth once in a while, and +it seemed brighter than all the static blue above. But it hung alone, between +the black of ashes and the blue of a crypt, it seemed to fight for its +fragile foothold, it greeted her and went. +The pale streak of a river came rising slowly from the void, and for a +long stretch of time it remained in sight, gliding imperceptibly to meet her. +It looked like a phosphorescent vein showing through the skin of the earth, a +delicate vein without blood. +When she saw the lights of a town, like a handful of gold coins flung upon +the prairie, the brightly violent lights fed by an electric current, they +seemed as distant as the stars and now as unattainable. The energy that had +lighted them was gone, the power that created power stations in empty +prairies had vanished, and she knew of no journey to recapture it. Yet these +had been her stars—she thought, looking down—these had been her goal, her +beacon, the aspiration drawing her upon her upward course. That which others +claimed to feel at the sight of the stars—stars safely distant by millions of +years and thus imposing no obligation to act, but serving as the tinsel of +futility—she had felt at the sight of electric bulbs lighting the streets of +a town. It was this earth below that had been the height she had wanted to +reach, and she wondered how she had come to lose it, who had made of it a +convict's ball to drag through muck, who had turned its promise of greatness +into a vision never to be reached. But the town was past, and she had to look +ahead, to the mountains of Colorado rising in her way. +The small glass dial on her panel showed that she was now climbing. +The sound of the engine, beating through the metal shell around her, +trembling in the wheel against her palms, like the pounding of a heart +strained to a solemn effort, told her of the power carrying her above the +peaks. The earth was now a crumpled sculpture that swayed from side to side, +the shape of an explosion still shooting sudden spurts to reach the plane. +She saw them as dented black cuts ripping through the milky spread of stars, +straight in her path and tearing wider. Her mind one with her body and her +body one with the plane, she fought the invisible suction drawing her +downward, she fought the sudden gusts that tipped the earth as if she were +about to roll off into the sky, with half of the mountains rolling after. It +was like fighting a frozen ocean where the touch of a single spray would be +fatal. +There were stretches of rest when the mountains shrank down, over valleys +filled with fog. Then the fog rose higher to swallow the earth and she was +left suspended in space, left motionless but for the sound of the engine. +But she did not need to see the earth. The instrument panel was now her +power of sight'—it was the condensed sight of the best minds able to guide +her on her way. Their condensed sight, she thought, offered to hers and +requiring only that she be able to read it. How had they been paid for it, +they, the sight-givers? From condensed milk to condensed music to the +condensed sight of precision instruments—what wealth had they not given to +the world and what had they received in return? +Where were they now? Where was Dwight Sanders? Where was the inventor of +her motor? +The fog was lifting—and in a sudden clearing, she saw a drop of fire on a +spread of rock. It was not an electric light, it was a lonely flame in the +darkness of the earth. She knew where she was and she knew that flame: it was +Wyatt's Torch. +She was coming close to her goal. Somewhere behind her, in the northeast, +stood the summits pierced by the Taggart Tunnel. The mountains were sliding + + in a long descent into the steadier soil of Utah. She let her plane slip +closer to the earth. +The stars were vanishing, the sky was growing darker, but in the bank of +clouds to the east thin cracks were beginning to appear—first as threads, +then faint spots of reflection, then straight bands that were not yet pink, +but no longer blue, the color of a future light, the first hints of the +coming sunrise. They kept appearing and vanishing, slowly growing clearer, +leaving the sky darker, then breaking it wider apart, like a promise +struggling to be fulfilled. She heard a piece of music beating in her mind, +one she seldom liked to recall: not Halley's Fifth Concerto, but his Fourth, +the cry of a tortured struggle, with the chords of its theme breaking +through, like a distant vision to be reached. +She saw the Afton airport from across a span of miles, first as a square +of sparks, then as a sunburst of white rays. It was lighted for a plane about +to take off, and she had to wait for her landing. Circling in the outer +darkness above the field, she saw the silver body of a plane rising like a +phoenix out of the white fire and—in a straight line, almost leaving an +instant's trail of light to hang in space behind it—going off toward the +east. +Then she swept down in its stead, to dive into the luminous funnel of +beams—she saw a strip of cement flying at her face, she felt the jolt of the +wheels stopping it in time, then the streak of her motion ebbing out and the +plane being tamed to the safety of a car, as it taxied smoothly off the +runway. +It was a small private airfield, serving the meager traffic of a few +industrial concerns still remaining in Afton, She saw a lone attendant +hurrying to meet her. She leaped down to the ground the moment the plane +stood still, the hours of the flight swept from her mind by the impatience +over the stretch of a few more minutes. +"Can I get a car somewhere to drive me to the Institute of Technology at +once?" she asked. +The attendant looked at her, puzzled. "Why, yes, I guess so, ma'am. +But . . . but what for? There's nobody there." +"Mr. Quentin Daniels is there." +The attendant shook his head slowly—then jerked his thumb, pointing east +to the shrinking taillights of the plane. "There's Mr. Daniels going now." +"What?" +"He just left." +"Left? Why?" +"He went with the man who flew in for him two-three hours ago." +"What man?" +"Don't know, never saw him before, but, boy!—he's got a beauty of a ship!" +She was back at the wheel, she was speeding down the runway, she was +rising into the air, her plane like a bullet aimed at two sparks of red and +green light that were twinkling away into the eastern sky—while she was still +repeating, "Oh no, they don't! They don't! They don't! +They don't!" +Once and for all—she thought, clutching the wheel as if it were the enemy +not to be relinquished, her words like separate explosions with a trail of +fire in her mind to link them—once and for all . . . to meet the destroyer +face to face . . . to learn who he is and where he goes to vanish . . . not +the motor . . . he is not to carry the motor away into the darkness of his +monstrously closed unknown . . . he is not to escape, this time. . . . +A band of light was rising in the east and it seemed to come from the +earth, as a breath long-held and released. In the deep blue above it, the +stranger's plane was a single spark changing color and flashing from side to +side, like the tip of a pendulum swinging in the darkness, beating time. + + The curve of distance made the spark drop closer to the earth, and she +pushed her throttle wide open, not to let the spark out of her sight, not to +let it touch the horizon and vanish. The light was flowing into the sky, as +if drawn from the earth by the stranger's plane. The plane was headed +southeast, and she was following it into the coming sunrise. +From the transparent green of ice, the sky melted into pale gold, and the +gold spread into a lake under a fragile film of pink glass, the color of that +forgotten morning which was the first she had seen on earth. The clouds were +dropping away in long shreds of smoky blue. She kept her eyes on the +stranger's plane, as if her glance were a towline pulling her ship. The +stranger's plane was now a small black cross, like a shrinking check mark on +the glowing sky. +Then she noticed that the clouds were not dropping, that they stood +congealed on the edge of the earth—and she realized that the plane was headed +toward the mountains of Colorado, that the struggle against the invisible +storm lay ahead for her once more. She noted it without emotion; she did not +wonder whether her ship or her body had the power to attempt it again. So +long as she was able to move, she would move to follow the speck that was +fleeing away with the last of her world. She felt nothing but the emptiness +left by a fire that had been hatred and anger and the desperate impulse of a +fight to the kill; these had fused into a single icy streak, the single +resolve to follow the stranger, whoever he was, wherever he took her, to +follow and . . . she added nothing in her mind, but, unstated, what lay at +the bottom of the emptiness was: and give her life, if she could take his +first. +Like an instrument set to automatic control, her body was performing the +motions of driving the plane—with the mountains reeling in a bluish fog below +and the dented peaks rising in her path as smoky formations of a deadlier +blue. She noticed that the distance to the stranger's plane had shrunk: he +had checked his speed for the dangerous crossing, while she had gone on, +unconscious of the danger, with only the muscles of her arms and legs +fighting to keep her plane aloft. A brief, tight movement of her lips was as +close as she could come to a smile: it was he who was flying her plane for +her, she thought; he had given her the power to follow him with a +somnambulist's unerring skill. +As if responding of itself to his control, the needle of her altimeter was +slowly moving upward. She was rising and she went on rising and she wondered +when her breath and her propeller would fail. +He was going southeast, toward the highest mountains that obstructed the +path of the sun. +It was his plane that was struck by the first sunray. It flashed for an +instant, like a burst of white fire, sending rays to shoot from its wings. +The peaks of the mountains came next: she saw the sunlight reaching the +snow in the crevices, then trickling down the granite sides; it cut violent +shadows on the ledges and brought the mountains into the Jiving finality of a +form. +They were flying over the wildest stretch of Colorado, uninhabited, +uninhabitable, inaccessible to men on foot or plane. No landing was possible +within a radius of a hundred miles; she glanced at her fuel gauge: she had +one half-hour left. The stranger was heading straight toward another, higher +range. She wondered why he chose a course no air route did or ever would +travel. She wished this range were behind her; it was the last effort she +could hope to make. +The stranger's plane was suddenly slacking its speed. He was losing +altitude just when she had expected him to climb. The granite barrier was +rising In his path, moving to meet him, reaching for his wings—but the long, +smooth line of his motion was sliding down. She could detect no break, no + + jolt, no sign of mechanical failure; it looked like the even movement of a +controlled intention. With a sudden flash of sunlight on its wings, the plane +banked into a long curve, rays dripping like water from its body—then went +into the broad, smooth circles of a spiral, as if circling for a landing +where no landing was conceivable. +She watched, not trying to explain it, not believing what she saw, waiting +for the upward thrust that would throw him back on his course. But the easy, +gliding circles went on dropping, toward a ground she could not see and dared +not think of. . . Like remnants of broken jaws, strings of granite dentures +stood between her ship and his; she could not tell what lay at the bottom of +his spiral motion. +She knew only that it did not look like, but was certain to be, the motion +of a suicide. +She saw the sunlight glitter on his wings for an instant. Then, like the +body of a man diving chest-first and arms outstretched, serenely abandoned to +the sweep of the fall, the plane went down and vanished behind the ridges of +rock. +She flew on, almost waiting for it to reappear, unable to believe that she +had witnessed a horrible catastrophe taking place so simply and quietly. She +flew on to where the plane had dropped. It seemed to be a valley in a ring of +granite walls. +She reached the valley and looked down. There was no possible place for a +landing. There was no sign of a plane. +The bottom of the valley looked like a stretch of the earth's crust +mangled in the days when the earth was cooling, left irretrievable ever +since. It was a stretch of rocks ground against one another, with boulders +hanging in precarious formations, with long, dark crevices and a few +contorted pine trees growing half-horizontally into the air. +There was no level piece of soil the size of a handkerchief. There was no +place for a plane to hide. There was no remnant of a plane's wreck. +She banked sharply, circling above the valley, dropping down a little. By +some trick of light, which she could not explain, the floor of the valley +seemed more clearly visible than the rest of the earth. +She could distinguish it well enough to, know that the plane was not +there; yet this was not possible. +She circled, dropping down farther. She glanced around her—and for one +frightening moment, she thought that it was a quiet summer morning, that she +was alone, lost in a region of the Rocky Mountains which no plane should ever +venture to approach, and, with the last of her fuel burning away, she was +looking for a plane that had never existed, in quest of a destroyer who had +vanished as he always vanished; perhaps it was only his vision that had led +her here to be destroyed. In the next moment, she shook her head, pressed her +mouth tighter and dropped farther. +She thought that she could not abandon an incalculable wealth such as the +brain of Quentin Daniels on one of those rocks below, if he was still alive +and within her reach to help. She had dropped inside the circle of the +valley's walls. It was a dangerous job of flying, the space was much too +tight, but she went on circling and dropping lower, her life hanging on her +eyesight, and her eyesight flashing between two tasks: searching the floor of +the valley and watching the granite walls that seemed about to rip her wings. +She knew the danger only as part of the job. It had no personal meaning +any longer. The savage thing she felt was almost enjoyment. It was the last +rage of a lost battle. No!—she was crying in her mind, crying it to the +destroyer, to the world she had left, to the years behind her, to the long +progression of defeat—No! . . .No! +. . . No! . . . + + Her eyes swept past the instrument panel—and then she sat still but for +the sound of a gasp. Her altimeter had stood at 11,000 feet the last time she +remembered seeing it. Now it stood at 10,000. But the floor of the valley had +not changed. It had come no closer. It remained as distant as at her first +glance down. +She knew that the figure 8,000 meant the level of the ground in this part +of Colorado. She had not noticed the length of her descent. +She had not noticed that the ground, which had seemed too clear and too +close from the height, was now too dim and too far. She was looking at the +same rocks from the same perspective, they had grown no larger, their shadows +had not moved, and the oddly unnatural light still hung over the bottom of +the valley. +She thought that her altimeter was off, and she went on circling downward. +She saw the needle of her dial moving down;, she saw the walls of granite +moving up, she saw the ring of mountains growing higher, its peaks coming +closer together in the sky—but the floor of the valley remained unchanged, as +if she were dropping down a well with a bottom never to be reached. The +needle moved to 9,500— +to 9,300—to 9,000—to 8,700. +The flash of light that hit her had no source. It was as if the air within +and beyond the plane became an explosion of blinding cold fire, sudden and +soundless. The shock threw her back, her hands off the wheel and over her +eyes. In the break of an instant, when she seized the wheel again, the light +was gone, but her ship was spinning. +her ears were bursting with silence and her propeller stood stiffly +straight before her: her motor was dead. +She tried to pull for a rise, but the ship was going down—and what she saw +flying at her face was not the spread of mangled boulders, but the green +grass of a field where no field had been before. +There was no time to see the rest. There was no time to think of +explanations. There was no time to come out of the spin. The earth was a +green ceiling coming down upon her, a few hundred swiftly shrinking feet +away. +Flung from side to side, like a battered pendulum, clinging to the wheel, +half in her seat, half on her knees, she fought to pull the ship into a +glide, for an attempt to make a belly-landing, while the green ground was +whirling about her, sweeping above her, then below, its spiral coils coming +closer. Her arms pulling at the wheel, with no chance to know whether she +could succeed, with her space and time running out—she felt, in a flash of +its full, violent purity, that special sense of existence which had always +been hers. In a moment's consecration to her love—to her rebellious denial of +disaster, to her love of life and of the matchless value that was herself—she +felt the fiercely proud certainty that she would survive. +And in answer to the earth that flew to meet her, she heard in her mind, +as her mockery at fate, as her cry of defiance, the words of the sentence she +hated—the words of defeat, of despair and of a plea for help: "Oh hell! Who +is John Galt?" + + PART III +A is A + + CHAPTER I +ATLANTIS +When she opened her eyes, she saw sunlight, green leaves and a man's face. +She thought: I know what this is. This was the world as she had expected to +see it at sixteen—and now she had reached it—and it seemed so simple, so +unastonishing, that the thing she felt was like a blessing pronounced upon +the universe by means of three words: But of course. +She was looking up at the face of a man who knelt by her side, and she +knew that in all the years behind her, this was what she would have given her +life to see: a face that bore no mark of pain or fear or guilt. The shape of +his mouth was pride, and more: it was as if he took pride in being proud. The +angular planes of his cheeks made her think of arrogance, of tension, of +scorn—yet the face had none of these qualities, it had their final sum: a +look of serene determination and of certainty, and the look of a ruthless +innocence which would not seek forgiveness or grant it. It was a face that +had nothing to hide or to escape, a face with no fear of being seen, or of +seeing, so that the first thing she grasped about him was the intense +perceptiveness of his eyes—he looked as if his faculty of sight were his +best-loved tool and its exercise were a limitless, joyous adventure, as if +his eyes imparted a superlative value to himself and to the world—to himself +for his ability to see, to the world for being a place so eagerly worth +seeing. It seemed to her for a moment that she was in the presence of a being +who was pure consciousness—yet she had never been so aware of a man's body. +The light cloth of his shirt seemed to stress, rather than hide, the +structure of his figure, his skin was suntanned, his body had the hardness, +the gaunt, tensile strength, the clean precision of a foundry casting, he +looked as if he were poured out of metal, but some dimmed, soft-lustered +metal, like an aluminum-copper alloy, the color of his skin blending with the +chestnut-brown of his hair, the loose strands of the hair shading from brown +to gold in the sun, and his eyes completing the colors, as the one part of +the casting left undimmed and harshly lustrous: his eyes were the deep, dark +green of light glinting on metal. +He was looking down at her with the faint trace of a smile, it was not a +look of discovery, but of familiar contemplation—as if he, too, were seeing +the long-expected and the never-doubted. +This was her world, she thought, this was the way men were meant to be and +to face their existence—and all the rest of it, all the years of ugliness and +struggle were only someone's senseless joke. She smiled at him, as at a +fellow conspirator, in relief, in deliverance, in radiant mockery of all the +things she would never have to consider important again. He smiled in answer, +it was the same smile as her own, as if he felt what she felt and knew what +she meant. +"We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?" she whispered. +"No, we never had to." +And then, her consciousness returning fully, she realized that this man +was a total stranger. +She tried to draw away from him, but it was only a faint movement of her +head on the grass she felt under her hair. She tried to rise. +A shot of pain across her back threw her down again. +"Don't move, Miss Taggart. You're hurt." +"You know me?" Her voice was impersonal and hard. +"I've known you for many years." +"Have I known you?" +"Yes, I think so." +"What is your name?" + + "John Galt." +She looked at him, not moving. +"Why are you frightened?" he asked. +"Because I believe it." +He smiled, as if grasping a full confession of the meaning she attached to +his name; the smile held an adversary's acceptance of a challenge—and an +adult's amusement at the self-deception of a child. +She felt as if she were returning to consciousness after a crash that had +shattered more than an airplane. She could not reassemble the pieces now, she +could not recall the things she had known about his name, she knew only that +it stood for a dark vacuum which she would slowly have to fill. She could not +do it now, this man was too blinding a presence, like a spotlight that would +not let her see the shapes strewn hi the outer darkness. +"Was it you that I was following?" she asked. +"Yes." +She glanced slowly around her. She was lying in the grass of a field at +the foot of a granite drop that came down from thousands of feet away in the +blue sky. On the other edge of the field, some crags and pines and the +glittering leaves of birch trees hid the space that stretched to a distant +wall of encircling mountains. Her plane was not shattered— +it was there, a few feet away, flat on its belly in the grass. There was +no other plane in sight, no structures, no sign of human habitation. +"What is this valley?" she asked. +He smiled, "The Taggart Terminal." +"What do you mean?" +"You'll find out." +A dim impulse, like the recoil of an antagonist, made her want to check on +what strength was left to her. She could move her arms and legs; she could +lift her head; she felt a stabbing pain when she breathed deeply; she saw a +thin thread of blood running down her stocking. +"Can one get out of this place?" she asked. +His voice seemed earnest, but the glint of the metal-green eyes was a +smile: "Actually—no. Temporarily—yes." +She made a movement to rise. He bent to lift her, but she gathered her +strength in a swift, sudden jolt and slipped out of his grasp, struggling to +stand up. "I think I can—" she started saying, and collapsed against him the +instant her feet rested on the ground, a stab of pain shooting up from an +ankle that would not hold her. +He lifted her in his arms and smiled. "No, you can't, Miss Taggart," +he said, and started off across the field. +She lay still, her arms about him, her head on his shoulder, and she +thought: For just a few moments—while this lasts—it is all right to surrender +completely—to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. . . . When +had she experienced it before?—she wondered; there had been a moment when +these had been the words in her mind, but she could not remember it now. She +had known it, once—this feeling of certainty, of the final, the reached, the +not-to-be-questioned. But it was new to feel protected, and to feel that it +was right to accept the protection, to surrender—right, because this peculiar +sense of safety was not protection against the future, but against the past, +not the protection of being spared from battle, but of having won it, not a +protection granted to her weakness, but to her strength. . . . Aware with +abnormal intensity of the pressure of his hands against her body, of the gold +and copper threads of his hair, the shadows of his lashes on the skin of his +face a few inches away from hers, she wondered dimly: Protected, from what? . +. . it's he who was the enemy . . . was he? + + . . . why? . . . She did not know, she could not think of it now. It took +an effort to remember that she had had a goal and a motive a few hours ago. +She forced herself to recapture it. +"Did you know that I was following you?" she asked. +"No." +"Where is your plane?" +"At the landing field." +"Where is the landing field?" +"On the other side of the valley." +"There was no landing field in this valley, when I looked down, There was +no meadow, either. How did it get here?" +He glanced at the sky. "Look carefully. Do you see anything up there?" +She dropped her head back, looking straight into the sky, seeing nothing +but the peaceful blue of morning. After a while she distinguished a few faint +strips of shimmering air. +"Heat waves," she said. +"Refractor rays," he answered. "The valley bottom that you saw is a +mountain top eight thousand feet high, five miles away from here." +"A . . . what?" +"A mountain top that no flyer would ever choose for a landing. +What you saw was its reflection projected over this valley." +"How?" +"By the same method as a mirage on a desert: an image refracted from a +layer of heated air." +"How?" +"By a screen of rays calculated against everything—except a courage such +as yours." +"What do you mean?" +"I never thought that any plane would attempt to drop within seven hundred +feet of the ground. You hit the ray screen. Some of the rays are the kind +that kill magnetic motors. Well, that's the second time you beat me: I've +never been followed, either," +"Why do you keep that screen?" +"Because this place is private property intended to remain as such." +"What is this place?" +"I'll show it to you, now that you're here, Miss Taggart. I'll answer +questions after you've seen it." +She remained silent. She noticed that she had asked questions about every +subject, but not about him. It was as if he were a single whole, grasped by +her first glance at him, like some irreducible absolute, like an axiom not to +be explained any further, as if she knew everything about him by direct +perception, and what awaited her now was only the process of identifying her +knowledge. +He was carrying her down a narrow trail that went winding to the bottom of +the valley. On the slopes around them, the tall, dark pyramids of firs stood +immovably straight, in masculine simplicity, like sculpture reduced to an +essential form, and they clashed with the complex, feminine, over detailed +lace-work of the birch leaves trembling in the sun. +The leaves let the sunrays fall through to sweep across his hair, across +both their faces. She could not see what lay below, beyond the turns of the +trail. +Her eyes kept coming back to his face. He glanced down at her once in a +while. At first, she looked away, as if she had been caught. +Then, as if learning it from him, she held his glance whenever he chose to +look down—knowing that he knew what she felt and that he did not hide from +her the meaning of his glance. + + She knew that his silence was the same confession as her own. He did not +hold her in the impersonal manner of a man carrying a wounded woman. It was +an embrace, even though she felt no suggestion of it in his bearing; she felt +it only by means of her certainty that his whole body was aware of holding +hers. +She heard the sound of the waterfall before she saw the fragile thread +that fell in broken strips of glitter down the ledges. The sound came through +some dim beat in her mind, some faint rhythm that seemed no louder than a +struggling memory—but they went past and the beat remained; she listened to +the sound of the water, but another sound seemed to grow clearer, rising, not +in her mind, but from somewhere among the leaves. The trail turned, and in a +sudden clearing she saw a small house on a ledge below, with a flash of sun +on the pane of an open window. In the moment when she knew what experience +had once made her want to surrender to the immediate present—it had been the +night in a dusty coach of the Comet, when she had heard the. theme of +Halley's Fifth Concerto for the first time—she knew that she was hearing it +now, hearing it rise from the keyboard of a piano, in the clear, sharp chords +of someone's powerful, confident touch. +She snapped the question at his face, as if hoping to catch him +unprepared: "That's the Fifth Concerto by Richard Halley, isn't it?" +"Yes." +"When did he write it?" +"Why don't you ask him that in person?" +"Is he here?" +"It's he who's playing it. That's his house." +"Oh . . . !" +"You'll meet him, later. He'll be glad to speak to you. He knows that his +works are the only records you like to play, in the evening, when you are +alone." +"How does he know that?" +"I told him." +The look on her face was like a question that would have begun with "How +in hell . . . ?"—but she saw the look of his eyes, and she laughed, her +laughter giving sound to the meaning of his glance. +She could not question anything, she thought, she could not doubt, not +now—not with the sound of that music rising triumphantly through the sundrenched leaves, the music of release, of deliverance, played as it was +intended to be played, as her mind had struggled to hear it in a rocking +coach through the beat of wounded wheels—it was this that her mind had seen +in the sounds, that night—this valley and the morning sun and— +And then she gasped, because the trail had turned and from the height of +an open ledge she saw the town on the floor of the valley. +It was not a town, only a cluster of houses scattered at random from the +bottom to the rising steps of the mountains that went on rising above their +roofs, enclosing them within an abrupt, impassable circle. +They were homes, small and new, with naked, angular shapes and the glitter +of broad windows. Far in the distance, some structures seemed taller, and the +faint coils of smoke above them suggested an industrial district. But close +before her, rising on a slender granite column from a ledge below to the +level of her eyes, blinding her by its glare, dimming the rest, stood a +dollar sign three feet tall, made of solid gold. It hung in space above the +town, as its coat-of-arms, its trademark, its beacon— +and it caught the sunrays, like some transmitter of energy that sent them +in shining blessing to stretch horizontally through the air above the roofs, +"What's that?" she gasped, pointing at the sign. +"Oh, that's Francisco's private joke." +"Francisco—who?" she whispered, knowing the answer. + + "Francisco d'Anconia." +"Is he here, too?" +"He will be, any day now." +"What do you mean, his joke?" +"He gave that sign as an anniversary present to the owner of this place. +And then we all adopted it as our particular emblem. We liked the idea." +"Aren't you the owner of this place?" +"I? No." He glanced down at the foot of the ledge and added, pointing, +"There's the owner of this place, coming now." +A car had stopped at the end of a dirt road below, and two men were +hurrying up the trail. She could not distinguish their faces; one of them was +slender and tall, the other shorter, more muscular. She lost sight of them +behind the twists of the trail, as he went on carrying her down to meet them. +She met them when they emerged suddenly from behind a rocky corner a few +feet away. The sight of their faces hit her with the abruptness of a +collision. +"Well, I'll be goddamned!" said the muscular man, whom she did not know, +staring at her. +She was staring at the tall, distinguished figure of his companion: it was +Hugh Akston. +It was Hugh Akston who spoke first, bowing to her with a courteous smile +of welcome. "Miss Taggart, this is the first time anyone has ever proved me +wrong, I didn't know—when I told you you'd never find him —that the next time +I saw you, you would be in his arms." +"In whose arms?" +"Why, the inventor of the motor." +She gasped, closing her eyes; this was one connection she knew she should +have made. When she opened her eyes, she was looking at Galt, He was smiling, +family, derisively, as if he knew fully what this meant to her. +"It would have served you right if you'd broken your neck!" the muscular +man snapped at her, with the anger of concern, almost of affection. "What a +stunt to pull—for a person who'd have been admitted here so eagerly, if she'd +chosen to come through the front door!" +"Miss Taggart, may I present Midas Mulligan?" said Galt. +"Oh," she said weakly, and laughed; she had no capacity for astonishment +any longer. "Do you suppose I was killed in that crash—and this is some other +kind of existence?" +"It is another kind of existence," said Galt. "But as for being killed, +doesn't it seem more like the other way around?" +"Oh yes," she whispered, "yes . . ." She smiled at Mulligan. "Where is the +front door?" +"Here," he said, pointing to his forehead. +"I've lost the key," she said simply, without resentment. "I've lost all +keys, right now." +"You'll find them. But what in blazes were you doing in that plane?" +"Following." +"Him?" He pointed at Galt. +"Yes." +"You're lucky to be alive! Are you badly hurt?" +"I don't think so." +"You'll have a few questions to answer, after they patch you up." He +turned brusquely, leading the way down to the car, then glanced at Galt. +"Well, what do we do now? There's something we hadn't provided for: the first +scab." +"The first . . . what?" she asked. +"Skip it," said Mulligan, and looked at Galt. "What do we do?" + + "It will be my charge," said Galt. "I will be responsible. You take +Quentin Daniels." +"Oh, he's no problem at all. He needs nothing but to get acquainted with +the place. He seems to know all the rest," +"Yes. He had practically gone the whole way by himself." He saw her +watching him in bewilderment, and said, "There's one thing I must thank you +for, Miss Taggart: you did pay me a compliment when you chose Quentin Daniels +as my understudy. He was a plausible one." +"Where is he?" she asked. "Will you tell me what happened?" +"Why, Midas met us at the landing field, drove me to my house and took +Daniels with him. I was going to join them for breakfast, but I saw your +plane spinning and plunging for that pasture. I was the closest one to the +scene." +"We got here as fast as we could," said Mulligan. "I thought he deserved +to get himself killed—whoever was in that plane. I never dreamed that it was +one of the only two persons in the whole world whom I'd exempt." +"Who is the other one?" she asked. +"Hank Rearden." +She winced; it was like a sudden blow from another great distance. +She wondered why it seemed to her that Galt was watching her face intently +and that she saw an instant's change in his, too brief to define. +They had come to the car. It was a Hammond convertible, its top down, one +of the costliest models, some years old, but kept in the shining trim of +efficient handling. Galt placed her cautiously in the back seat and held her +in the circle of his arm. She felt a stabbing pain once in a while, but she +had no attention to spare for it. She watched the distant houses of the town, +as Mulligan pressed the starter and the car moved forward, as they went past +the sign of the dollar and a golden ray hit her eyes, sweeping over her +forehead. +"Who is the owner of this place?" she asked. +"I am," said Mulligan. +"What is he?" She pointed to Galt. +Mulligan chuckled. "He just works here." +"And you, Dr. Akston?" she asked. +He glanced at Galt, "I'm one of his two fathers, Miss Taggart. The one who +didn't betray him." +"Oh!" she said, as another connection fell into place. "Your third pupil?" +"That's right." +"The second assistant bookkeeper!" she moaned suddenly, at one more +memory. +"What's that?" +"That's what Dr. Stadler called him. That's what Dr. Stadler told me he +thought his third pupil had become." +"He overestimated," said Galt. "I'm much lower than that by the scale of +his standards and of his world." +The car had swerved into a lane rising toward a lonely house that stood on +a ridge above the valley. She saw a man walking down a path, ahead of them, +hastening in the direction of the town. He wore blue denim overalls and +carried a lunchbox. There was something faintly familiar in the swift +abruptness of his Galt. As the car went past him, she caught a glimpse of his +face—and she jerked backward, her voice rising to a scream from the pain of +the movement and from the shock of the sight: "Oh, stop! Stop! Don't let him +go!" It was Ellis Wyatt. +The three men laughed, but Mulligan stopped the car. "Oh . . . " +she said weakly, in apology, realizing she had forgotten that this was the +place from which Wyatt would not vanish. + + Wyatt was running toward them: he had recognized her, too. When he seized +the edge of the car, to brake his speed, she saw the face and the young, +triumphant smile that she had seen but once before: on the platform of Wyatt +Junction. +"Dagny! You, too, at last? One of us?" +"No," said Galt. "Miss Taggart is a castaway." +"What?" +"Miss Taggart's plane crashed. Didn't you see it?" +"Crashed—here?" +"Yes." +"I heard a plane, but I . . ." His look of bewilderment changed to a +smile, regretful, amused and friendly. "I see. Oh, hell, Dagny, it's +preposterous!" +She was staring at him helplessly, unable to reconnect the past to the +present. And helplessly—as one would say to a dead friend, in a dream, the +words one regrets having missed the chance to say in life— +she said, with the memory of a telephone ringing, unanswered, almost two +years ago, the words she had hoped to say if she ever caught sight of him +again, "I . . . I tried to reach you." +He smiled gently. "We've been trying to reach you ever since, Dagny. +. . . I'll see you tonight. Don't worry, I won't vanish—and I don't think +you will, either." +He waved to the others and went off, swinging his lunchbox. She glanced +up, as Mulligan started the car, and saw Galt's eyes watching her +attentively. Her face hardened, as if in open admission of pain and in +defiance of the satisfaction it might give him. "All right," she said. "I see +what sort of show you want to put me through the shock of witnessing." +But there was neither cruelty nor pity in his face, only the level look of +justice. "Our first rule here, Miss Taggart," he answered, "is that one must +always see for oneself." +The car stopped in front of the lonely house. It was built of rough +granite blocks, with a sheet of glass for most of its front wall. "I'll send +the doctor over," said Mulligan, driving off, while Galt carried her up the +path. +"Your house?" she asked. +"Mine," he answered, kicking the door open. +He carried her across the threshold into the glistening space of his +living room, where shafts of sunlight hit walls of polished pine. She saw a +few pieces of furniture made by hand, a ceiling of bare rafters, an archway +open upon a small kitchen with rough shelves, a bare wooden table and the +astonishing sight of chromium glittering on an electric stove; the place had +the primitive simplicity of a frontiersman's cabin, reduced to essential +necessities, but reduced with a super-modern skill. +He carried her across the sunrays into a small guest room and placed her +down on a bed. She noticed a window open upon a long slant of rocky steps and +pines going off into the sky. She noticed small streaks that looked like +inscriptions cut into the wood of the walls, a few scattered lines that +seemed made by different handwritings; she could not distinguish the words. +She noticed another door, left half-open; it led to his bedroom. +"Am I a guest here or a prisoner?" she asked. +"The choice will be yours, Miss Taggart." +"I can make no choice when I'm dealing with a stranger." +"But you're not Didn't you name a railroad line after me?" +"Oh! . . . Yes . . ." It was the small jolt of another connection falling +into place. "Yes, I—" She was looking at the tall figure with the sunstreaked hair, with the suppressed smile in the mercilessly perceptive eyes— +she was seeing the struggle to build her Line and the summer day of the first + + train's run—she was thinking that if a human figure could be fashioned as an +emblem of that Line, this was the figure. +"Yes . . . I did . . . " Then, remembering the rest, she added, "But I +named it after an enemy." +He smiled. "That's the contradiction you had to resolve sooner or later, +Miss Taggart." +"It was you . . . wasn't it? . . . who destroyed my Line. . . ." +"Why, no. It was the contradiction." +She closed her eyes; in a moment, she asked, "All those stories I heard +about you—which of them were true?" +"All of them." +"Was it you who spread them?" +"No. What for? I never had any wish to be talked about." +"But you do know that you've become a legend?" +"Yes." +"The young inventor of the Twentieth Century Motor Company is the one real +version of the legend, isn't it?" +"The one that's concretely real—yes." +She could not say it indifferently; there was still a breathless tone and +the drop of her voice toward a whisper, when she asked, "The motor . . . the +motor I found . . . it was you who made it?" +"Yes." +She could not prevent the jolt of eagerness that threw her head up. +"The secret of transforming energy—" she began, and stopped, "I could tell +it to you in fifteen minutes," he said, in answer to the desperate plea she +had not uttered, "but there's no power on earth that can force me to tell it. +If you understand this, you'll understand everything that's baffling you." +"That night . . . twelve years ago . . . a spring night when you walked +out of a meeting of six thousand murderers—that story is true, isn't it?" +"Yes." +"You told them that you would stop the motor of the world." +"I have." +"What have you done?" +"I've done nothing, Miss Taggart. And that's the whole of my secret." +She looked at him silently for a long moment. He stood waiting, as if he +could read her thoughts. "The destroyer—" she said in a tone of wonder and +helplessness. +"—the most evil creature that's ever existed," he said in the tone of a +quotation, and she recognized her own words, "the man who's draining the +brains of the world." +"How thoroughly have you been watching me," she asked, "and for how long?" +It was only an instant's pause, his eyes did not move, but it seemed to +her that his glance was stressed, as if in special awareness of seeing her, +and she caught the sound of some particular intensity in his voice as he +answered quietly, "For years." +She closed her eyes, relaxing and giving up. She felt an odd, lighthearted +indifference, as if she suddenly wanted nothing but the comfort of +surrendering to helplessness. +The doctor who arrived was a gray-haired man with a mild, thoughtful face +and a firmly, unobtrusively confident manner. +"Miss Taggart, may I present Dr. Hendricks?" said Galt. +"Not Dr, Thomas Hendricks?" she gasped, with the involuntary rudeness of a +child; the name belonged to a great surgeon, who had retired and vanished six +years ago. +"Yes, of course," said Galt. + + Dr. Hendricks smiled at her, in answer. "Midas told me that Miss Taggart +has to be treated for shock," he said, "not for the one sustained, but for +the ones to come." +"I'll leave you to do it," said Galt, "while I go to the market to get +supplies for breakfast." +She watched the rapid efficiency of Dr. Hendricks' work, as he examined +her injuries. He had brought an object she had never seen before: a portable +X-ray machine. She learned that she had torn the cartilage of two ribs, that +she had sprained an ankle, ripped patches of skin off one knee and one elbow, +and acquired a few bruises spread in purple blotches over her body. By the +time Dr. Hendricks' swift, competent hands had wound the bandages and the +tight lacings of tape, she felt as if her body were an engine checked by an +expert mechanic, and no further care was necessary, "I would advise you to +remain in bed, Miss Taggart." +"Oh no! If I'm careful and move slowly, I'll be all right." +"You ought to rest." +"Do you think I can?" +He smiled. "I guess not." +She was dressed by the time Galt came back. Dr. Hendricks gave him an +account of her condition, adding, "I'll be back to check up, tomorrow." +"Thanks," said Galt. "Send the bill to me." +"Certainly not!" she said indignantly. "I will pay it myself." +The two men glanced at each other, in amusement, as at the boast of a +beggar. +"We'll discuss that later," said Galt. +Dr. Hendricks left, and she tried to stand up, limping, catching at the +furniture for support. Galt lifted her in his arms, carried her to the +kitchen alcove and placed her on a chair by the table set for two. +She noticed that she was hungry, at the sight of the coffee pot boiling on +the stove, the two glasses of orange juice, the heavy white pottery dishes +sparkling in the sun on the polished table top. +"When did you sleep or eat last?" he asked. +"I don't know . . . I had dinner on the train, with—" She shook her head +in helplessly bitter amusement: with the tramp, she thought, with a desperate +voice pleading for escape from an avenger who would not pursue or be found— +the avenger who sat facing her across the table, drinking a glass of orange +juice. "I don't know . . . it seems centuries and continents away." +"How did you happen to be following me?" +"I landed at the Alton airport just as you were taking off. The man there +told me that Quentin Daniels had gone with you." +"I remember your plane circling to land. But that was the one and only +time when I didn't think of you. I thought you were coming by train." +She asked, looking straight at him, "How do you want me to understand +that?" +"What?" +"The one and only time when you didn't think of me." +He held her glance; she saw the faint movement she had noted as typical of +him: the movement of his proudly intractable mouth curving into the hint of a +smile. "In any way you wish," he answered. +She let a moment pass to underscore her choice by the severity of her +face, then asked coldly, in the tone of an enemy's accusation, "You knew that +I was coming for Quentin Daniels?" +"Yes." +"You got him first and fast, in order not to let me reach him? In order to +beat me—knowing fully what sort of beating that would mean for me?" +"Sure." + + It was she who looked away and remained silent. He rose to cook the rest +of their breakfast. She watched him as he stood at the stove, toasting bread, +frying eggs and bacon. There was an easy, relaxed skill about the way he +worked, but it was a skill that belonged to another profession; his hands +moved with the rapid precision of an engineer pulling the levers of a control +board. She remembered suddenly where she had seen as expert and preposterous +a performance. +"Is that what you learned from Dr. Akston?" she asked, pointing at the +stove. +"That, among other things." +"Did he teach you to spend your time—your time!—" she could not keep the +shudder of indignation out of her voice—"on this sort of work?" +"I've spent time on work of much lesser importance." +When he put her plate before her, she asked, "Where did you get that food? +Do they have a grocery store here?" +"The best one in the world. It's run by Lawrence Hammond." +"What?" +"Lawrence Hammond, of Hammond Cars. The bacon is from the farm of Dwight +Sanders—of Sanders Aircraft. The eggs and the butter from Judge Narragansett— +of the Superior Court of the State of Illinois." +She looked at her plate, bitterly, almost as if she were afraid to touch +it. "It's the most expensive breakfast I'll ever eat, considering the value +of the cook's time and of all those others." +"Yes—from one aspect. But from another, it's the cheapest breakfast you'll +ever eat—because no part of it has gone to feed the looters who'll make you +pay for it through year after year and leave you to starve in the end." +After a long silence, she asked simply, almost wistfully, "What is it that +you're all doing here?" +"Living." +She had never heard that word sound so real, "What is your job?" she +asked. "Midas Mulligan said that you work here." +"I'm the handy man, I guess." +"The what?" +"I'm on call whenever anything goes wrong with any of the installations— +with the power system, for instance." +She looked at him—and suddenly she tore forward, staring at the electric +stove, but fell back on her chair, stopped by pain. +He chuckled. "Yes, that's true—but take it easy or Dr. Hendricks will +order you back to bed." +"The power system . . ." she said, choking, "the power system here . . . +it's run by means of your motor?" +"Yes." +"It's built? It's working? It's functioning?" +"It has cooked your breakfast." +"I want to see it!" +"Don't bother crippling yourself to look at that stove. It's just a plain +electric stove like any other, only about a hundred times cheaper to run. +And that's all you'll have a chance to see, Miss Taggart." +"You promised to show me this valley." +"I'll show it to you. But not the power generator." +"Will you take me to see the place now, as soon as we finish?" +"If you wish—and if you're able to move." +"I am." +He got up, went to the telephone and dialed a number. "Hello, Midas? . . . +Yes. . . . He did? Yes, she's all right. . . . Will you rent me your car for +the day? . . . Thanks. At the usual rate— + + twenty-five cents, . . . . Can you send it over? . . . Do you happen to +have some sort of cane? She'll need it. . . . Tonight? Yes, I think so. +We will. Thanks." +He hung up. She was staring at him incredulously. +"Did I understand you to say that Mr. Mulligan—who's worth about two +hundred million dollars, I believe—is going to charge you +twenty-five cents for the use of his car?" +"That's right." +"Good heavens, couldn't he give it to you as a courtesy?" +He sat looking at her for a moment, studying her face, as if deliberately +letting her see the amusement in his. "Miss Taggart," he said, "we have no +laws in this valley, no rules, no formal organization of any kind. We come +here because we want to rest. But we have certain customs, which we all +observe, because they pertain to the things we need to rest from. So I'll +warn you now that there is one word which is forbidden in this valley: the +word 'give,' " +"I'm sorry," she said. "You're right." +He refilled her cup of coffee and extended a package of cigarettes. +She smiled, as she took a cigarette: it bore the sign of the dollar. +"If you're not too tired by evening," he said, "Mulligan has invited us +for dinner. He'll have some guests there whom, I think, you'll want to meet." +"Oh, of course! I won't be too tired. I don't think I’ll ever feel tired +again." +They were finishing breakfast when she saw Mulligan's car stopping in +front of the house. The driver leaped out, raced up the path and rushed into +the room, not pausing to ring or knock. It took her a moment to realize that +the eager, breathless, disheveled young man was Quentin Daniels. +"Miss Taggart," he gasped, "I'm sorry!" The desperate guilt in his voice +clashed with the joyous excitement in his face, "I've never broken my word +before! There's no excuse for it, I can't ask you to forgive me, and I know +that you won't believe it, but the truth is that I— +I forgot!" +She glanced at Galt, "I believe you." +"I forgot that I promised to wait, I forgot everything—until a few minutes +ago, when Mr. Mulligan told me that you'd crashed here in a plane, and then I +knew it was my fault, and if anything had happened to you—oh God, are you all +right?" +"Yes. Don't worry. Sit down." +"I don't know how one can forget one's word of honor. I don't know what +happened to me." +"I do." +"Miss Taggart, I had been working on it for months, on that one particular +hypothesis, and the more I worked, the more hopeless it seemed to become. I'd +been in my laboratory for the last two days, trying to solve a mathematical +equation that looked impossible. I felt I'd die at that blackboard, but +wouldn't give up. It was late at night when he came in. I don't think I even +noticed him, not really. He said he wanted to speak to me and I asked him to +wait and went right on. +I think I forgot his presence. I don't know how long he stood there, +watching me, but what I remember is that suddenly his hand reached over, +swept all my figures off the blackboard and wrote one brief equation. And +then I noticed him! Then I screamed—because it wasn't the full answer to the +motor, but it was the way to it, a way I hadn't seen, hadn't suspected, but I +knew where it led! I remember I cried, 'How could you know it?'—and he +answered, pointing at a photograph of your motor, 'I'm the man who made it in +the first place.' And that's the last I remember, Miss Taggart—I mean, the + + last I remember of my own existence, because after that we talked about +static electricity and the conversion of energy and the motor." +"We talked physics all the way down here," said Galt. +"Oh, I remember when you asked me whether I'd go with you," said Daniels, +"whether I'd be willing to go and never come back and give up everything . . +. Everything? Give up a dead Institute that's crumbling back into the jungle, +give up my future as a janitor-slave-by-law, give up Wesley Mouch and +Directive 10-289 and sub-animal creatures who crawl on their bellies, +grunting that there is no mind! . . . Miss Taggart"—he laughed exultantly—"he +was asking me whether I'd give that up to go with him! He had to ask it +twice, I couldn't believe it at first, I couldn't believe that any human +being would need to be asked or would think of it as a choice. To go? I would +have leaped off a skyscraper just to follow him—and to hear his formula +before we hit the pavement!" +"I don't blame you," she said; she looked at him with a tinge of +wistfulness that was almost envy. "Besides, you've fulfilled your contract. +You've led me to the secret of the motor." +"I'm going to be a janitor here, too," said Daniels, grinning happily. +"Mr. Mulligan said he'd give me the job of janitor—at the power plant. +And when I learn, I'll rise to electrician. Isn't he great—Midas Mulligan? +That's what I want to be when I reach his age. I want to make money. I want +to make millions. I want to make as much as he did!" +"Daniels!" She laughed, remembering the quiet self-control, the strict +precision, the stern logic of the young scientist she had known. "What's the +matter with you? Where are you? Do you know what you're saying?" +"I'm here, Miss Taggart—and there's no limit to what's possible here! +I'm going to be the greatest electrician in the world and the richest! I'm +going to—" +"You're going to go back to Mulligan's house," said Galt, "and sleep for +twenty-four hours—or I won't let you near the power plant." +"Yes, sir," said Daniels meekly. +The sun had trickled down the peaks and drawn a circle of shining granite +and glittering snow to enclose the valley—when they stepped out of the house. +She felt suddenly as if nothing existed beyond that circle, and she wondered +at the joyous, proud comfort to be found in a sense of the finite, in the +knowledge that the field of one's concern lay within the realm of one's +sight. She wanted to stretch out her arms over the roofs of the town below, +feeling that her fingertips would touch the peaks across. But she could not +raise her arms; leaning on a cane with one hand and on Galt's arm with the +other, moving her feet by a slow, conscientious effort, she walked down to +the car like a child learning to walk for the first time. +She sat by Galt's side as he drove, skirting the town, to Midas Mulligan's +house. It stood on a ridge, the largest house of the valley, the only one +built two stories high, an odd combination of fortress and pleasure resort, +with stout granite walls and broad, open terraces. He stopped to let Daniels +off, then drove on up a winding road rising slowly into the mountains. +It was the thought of Mulligan's wealth, the luxurious car and the sight +of Galt's hands on the wheel that made her wonder for the first time whether +Galt, too, was wealthy. She glanced at his clothes: the gray slacks and white +shirt seemed of a quality intended for long wear; the leather of the narrow +belt about his waistline was cracked; the watch on his wrist was a precision +instrument, but made of plain stainless steel. The sole suggestion of luxury +was the color of his hair—the strands stirring in the wind like liquid gold +and copper. +Abruptly, behind a turn of the road, she saw the green acres of pastures +stretching to a distant farmhouse. There were herds of sheep, some horses, +the fenced squares of pigpens under the sprawling shapes of wooden barns and, + + farther away, a metal hangar of a type that did not belong on a farm, A man +in a bright cowboy shirt was hurrying toward them. Galt stopped the car and +waved to him, but said nothing in answer to her questioning glance. He let +her discover for herself, when the man came closer, that it was Dwight +Sanders, "Hello, Miss Taggart," he said, smiling. +She looked silently at his rolled shirt sleeves, at his heavy boots, at +the herds of cattle. "So that's all that's left of Sanders Aircraft," she +said. +"Why, no. There's that excellent monoplane, my best model, which you +flattened up in the foothills." +"Oh, you know about that? Yes, it was one of yours. It was a wonderful +ship. But I'm afraid I've damaged it pretty badly." +"You ought to have it fixed." +"I think I've ripped the bottom. Nobody can fix it." +"I can." +These were the words and the tone of confidence that she had not heard for +years, this was the manner she had given up expecting—but the start of her +smile ended in a bitter chuckle. "How?" she asked. "On a hog farm?" +"Why, no. At Sanders Aircraft." +"Where is it?" +"Where did you think it was? In that building in New Jersey, which Tinky +Holloway's cousin bought from my bankrupt successors by means of a government +loan and a tax suspension? In that building where he produced six planes that +never left the ground and eight that did, but crashed with forty passengers +each?" +"Where is it, then?" +"Wherever I am." +He pointed across the road. Glancing down through the tops of the pine +trees, she saw the concrete rectangle of an airfield on the bottom of the +valley. +"We have a few planes here and it's my job to take care of them," +he said. "I'm the hog farmer and the airfield attendant. I'm doing quite +well at producing ham and bacon, without the men from whom I used to buy it. +But those men cannot produce airplanes without me—and, without me, they +cannot even produce their ham and bacon," +"But you—you have not been designing airplanes, either." +"No, I haven't. And I haven't been manufacturing the Diesel engines I once +promised you. Since the time I saw you last, I have designed and manufactured +just one new tractor. I mean, one—I tooled it by hand—no mass production was +necessary. But that tractor has cut an eight-hour workday down to four hours +on"—the straight line of his arm, extended to point across the valley, moved +like a royal scepter; her eyes followed it and she saw the terraced green of +hanging gardens on a distant mountainside—"the chicken and dairy farm of +Judge Narragansett"—his arm moved slowly to a long, flat stretch of greenish +gold at the foot of a canyon, then to a band of violent green—"in the wheat +fields and tobacco patch of Midas Mulligan"—his arm rose to a granite flank +striped by glistening tiers of leaves—"in the orchards of Richard Halley." +Her eyes went slowly over the curve his arm had traveled, over and over +again, long after the arm had dropped; but she said only, "I see." +"Now do you believe that I can fix your plane?" he asked. +"Yes. But have you seen it?" +"Sure. Midas called two doctors immediately—Hendricks for you, and me for +your plane. It can be fixed. But it will be an expensive job." +"How much?" +"Two hundred dollars." +"Two hundred dollars?" she repeated incredulously; the price seemed much +too low. + + "In gold, Miss Taggart." +"Oh . . . ! Well, where can I buy the gold?" +"You can't," said Galt. +She jerked her head to face him defiantly. "No?" +"No. Not where you come from. Your laws forbid it." +"Yours don't?" +"No." +"Then sell it to me. Choose your own rate of exchange. Name any sum you +want—in my money." +"What money? You're penniless, Miss Taggart." +"What?" It was a word that a Taggart heiress could not ever expect to +hear. +"You're penniless in this valley. You own millions of dollars in Taggart +Transcontinental stock—but it will not buy one pound of bacon from the +Sanders hog farm." +"1 see." +Galt smiled and turned to Sanders. "Go ahead and fix that plane. +Miss Taggart will pay for it eventually." +He pressed the starter and drove on, while she sat stiffly straight, +asking no questions. +A stretch of violent turquoise blue split the cliffs ahead, ending the +road; it took her a second to realize that it was a lake. The motionless +water seemed to condense the blue of the sky and the green of the pinecovered mountains into so brilliantly pure a color that it made the sky look +a dimmed pale gray. A streak of boiling foam came from among the pines and +went crashing down the rocky steps to vanish in the placid water. A small +granite structure stood by the stream. +Galt stopped the car just as a husky man in overalls stepped out to the +threshold of the open doorway. It was Dick McNamara, who had once been her +best contractor. +"Good day, Miss Taggart!" he said happily. "I'm glad to see that you +weren't hurt badly.” +She inclined her head in silent greeting—it was like a greeting to the +loss and the pain of the past, to a desolate evening and the desperate face +of Eddie Willers telling her the news of this man's disappearance— +hurt badly? she thought—I was, but not in the plane crash—on that evening, +in an empty office. . . . Aloud, she asked, "What are you doing here? What +was it that you betrayed me for, at the worst time possible?" +He smiled, pointing at the stone structure and down at the rocky drop +where the tube of a water main went vanishing into the underbrush. "I'm the +utilities man," he said. "I take care of the water lines, the power lines and +the telephone service." +"Alone?" +"Used to. But we've grown so much in the past year that I've had to hire +three men to help me." +"What men? From where?" +"Well, one of them is a professor of economics who couldn't get a job +outside, because he taught that you can't consume more than you have +produced—one is a professor of history who couldn't get a job because he +taught that the inhabitants of slums were not the men who made this country— +and one is a professor of psychology who couldn't get a job because he taught +that men are capable of thinking." +"They work for you as plumbers and linesmen?" +"You'd be surprised how good they are at it." +"And to whom have they abandoned our colleges?" +"To those who're wanted there." He chuckled, "How long ago was it that I +betrayed you, Miss Taggart? Not quite three years ago, wasn't it? it's the + + John Galt Line that I refused to build for you. Where is your Line now? But +my lines have grown, in that time, from the couple of miles that Mulligan had +built when I took over, to hundreds of miles of pipe and wire, all within the +space of this valley." +He saw the swift, involuntary look of eagerness on her face, the look of a +competent person's appreciation; he smiled, glanced at her companion and said +softly, "You know, Miss Taggart, when it comes to the John Galt Line—maybe +it's I who've followed it and you who're betraying it." +She glanced at Galt. He was watching her face, but she could read nothing +in his. +As they drove on along the edge of the lake, she asked, "You've mapped +this route deliberately, haven't you? You're showing me all the men whom"—she +stopped, feeling inexplicably reluctant to say it, and said, instead—"whom I +have lost?" +"I'm showing you all the men whom I have taken away from you," +he answered firmly. +This was the root, she thought, of the guiltlessness of his face: he had +guessed and named the words she had wanted to spare him, he had rejected a +good will that was not based on his values—and in proud certainty of being +right, he had made a boast of that which she had intended as an accusation. +Ahead of them, she saw a wooden pier projecting into the water of the +lake. A young woman lay stretched on the sun-flooded planks, watching a +battery of fishing rods. She glanced up at the sound of the car, then leaped +to her feet in a single swift movement, a shade too swift, and ran to the +road. She wore slacks, rolled above the knees of her bare legs, she had dark, +disheveled hair and large eyes. Galt waved to her. +"Hello, John! When did you get in?" she called. +"This morning," he answered, smiling and driving on. +Dagny jerked her head to look back and saw the glance with which the young +woman stood looking after Galt. And even though hopelessness, serenely +accepted, was part of the worship in that glance, she experienced a feeling +she had never known before: a stab of jealousy. +"Who is that?" she asked. +"Our best fishwife. She provides the fish for Hammond's grocery market." +"What else is she?" +"You've noticed that there's a 'what else' for every one of us here? +She's a writer. The kind of writer who wouldn't be published outside. +She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind." +The car turned into a narrow path, climbing steeply into a wilderness of +brush and pine trees. She knew what to expect when she saw a handmade sign +nailed to a tree, with an arrow pointing the way: The Buena Esperanza Pass. +It was not a pass, it was a wall of laminated rock with a complex chain of +pipes, pumps and valves climbing like a vine up its narrow ledges, but it +bore, on its crest, a huge wooden sign—and the proud violence of the letters +announcing their message to an impassable tangle of ferns and pine branches, +was more characteristic, more familiar than the words: Wyatt Oil. +It was oil that ran in a glittering curve from the mouth of a pipe into a +tank at the foot of the wall, as the only confession of the tremendous secret +struggle inside the stone, as the unobtrusive purpose of all the intricate +machinery—but the machinery did not resemble the installations of an oil +derrick, and she knew that she was looking at the unborn secret of the Buena +Esperanza Pass, she knew that this was oil drawn out of shale by some method +men had considered impossible. +Ellis Wyatt stood on a ridge, watching the glass dial of a gauge imbedded +in the rock. He saw the car stopping below, and called, "Hi, Dagny! Be with +you in a minute!" + + There were two other men working with him: a big, muscular roughneck, at a +pump halfway up the wall, and a young boy, by the tank on the ground. The +young boy had blond hair and a face with an unusual purity of form. She felt +certain that she knew this face, but she could not recall where she had seen +it. The boy caught her puzzled glance, grinned and, as if to help her, +whistled softly, almost inaudibly the first notes of Halley's Fifth Concerto. +It was the young brakeman of the Comet. +She laughed. "It was the Fifth Concerto by Richard Halley, wasn't it?" +"Sure," he answered. "But do you think I'd tell that to a scab?" +"A what?" +"What am I paying you for?" asked Ellis Wyatt, approaching; the boy +chuckled, darting back to seize the lever he had abandoned for a moment. +"It's Miss Taggart who couldn't fire you, if you loafed on the job. lean." +"That's one of the reasons why I quit the railroad, Miss Taggart," +said the boy. +"Did you know that I stole him from you?" said Wyatt. "He used to be your +best brakeman and now he's my best grease-monkey, but neither one of us is +going to hold him permanently." +"Who is?" +"Richard Halley. Music. He's Halley's best pupil." +She smiled, "I know, this is a place where one employs nothing but +aristocrats for the lousiest kinds of jobs." +"They're all aristocrats, that's true," said Wyatt, "because they know +that there's no such thing as a lousy job—only lousy men who don't care to do +it." +The roughneck was watching them from above, listening with curiosity. She +glanced up at him, he looked like a truck driver, so she asked, "What were +you outside? A professor of comparative philology, I suppose?" +"No, ma'am," he answered. "I was a truck driver." He added, "But that's +not what I wanted to remain." +Ellis Wyatt was looking at the place around them with a kind of youthful +pride eager for acknowledgment: it was the pride of a host at a formal +reception in a drawing room, and the eagerness of an artist at the opening of +his show in a gallery. She smiled and asked, pointing at the machinery, +"Shale oil?" +"Uh-huh." +"That's the process which you were working to develop while you were on +earth?" She said it involuntarily and she gasped a little at her own words. +He laughed. "While I was in hell—yes. I'm on earth now." +"How much do you produce?" +"Two hundred barrels a day." +A note of sadness came back into her voice: "It's the process by which you +once intended to fill five tank-trains a day." +"Dagny," he said earnestly, pointing at his tank, "one gallon of it is +worth more than a trainful back there in hell—because this is mine, all of +it, every single drop of it, to be spent on nothing but myself." He raised +his smudged hand, displaying the greasy stains as a treasure, and a black +drop on the tip of his finger flashed like a gem in the sun. +"Mine," he said. "Have you let them beat you into forgetting what that +word means, what it feels like? You should give yourself a chance to relearn +it." +"You're hidden in a hole in the wilderness," she said bleakly, "and you're +producing two hundred barrels of oil, when you could have flooded the world +with it." +"What for? To feed the looters?" +"No! To earn the fortune you deserve." + + "But I'm richer now than I was in the world. What's wealth but the means +of expanding one's life? There's two ways one can do it: either by producing +more or by producing it faster. And that's what I'm doing: I'm manufacturing +time." +"What do you mean?" +"I'm producing everything I need, I'm working to improve my methods, and +every hour I save is an hour added to my life. It used to take me five hours +to fill that tank. It now takes three. The two I saved are mine—as +pricelessly mine as if I moved my grave two further hours away for every five +I've got. It's two hours released from one task, to be invested in another— +two more hours in which to work, to grow, to move forward. That's the savings +account I'm -hoarding. Is there any sort of safety vault that could protect +this account in the outside world?" +"But what space do you have for moving forward? Where's your market?" +He chuckled. "Market? I now work for use, not for profit—my use, not the +looters' profit. Only those who add to my life, not those who devour it, are +my market. Only those who produce, not those who consume, can ever be +anybody's market. I deal with the life-givers, not with the cannibals. If my +oil takes less effort to produce, I ask less of the men to whom I trade it +for the things I need. I add an extra span of time to their lives with every +gallon of my oil that they burn. And since they're men like me, they keep +inventing faster ways to make the things they make—so every one of them +grants me an added minute, hour or day with the bread I buy from them, with +the clothes, the lumber, the metal"—he glanced at Galt—"an added year with +every month of electricity I purchase. That's our market and that's how it +works for us—but that was not the way it worked in the outer world. Down what +drain were they poured out there, our days, our lives and our energy? +Into what bottomless, futureless sewer of the unpaid-for? Here, we trade +achievements, not failures—values, not needs. We're free of one another, yet +we all grow together. Wealth, Dagny? What greater wealth is there than to own +your Me and to spend it on growing? +Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or +perish. +Look—" He pointed at a plant fighting upward from under the weight of a +rock—a long, gnarled stem, contorted by an unnatural struggle, with drooping, +yellow remnants of unformed leaves and a single green shoot thrust upward to +the sun with the desperation of a last, spent, inadequate effort. "That's +what they're doing to us back there in hell. +Do you see me submitting to it?" +"No," she whispered. +"Do you see him submitting?" He pointed at Galt. +"God, no!" +"Then don't be astonished by anything you see in this valley." +She remained silent when they drove on. Galt said nothing. +On a distant mountainside, in the dense green of a forest, she saw a. +pine tree slanting down suddenly, tracing a curve, like the hand of a +clock, then crashing abruptly out of sight. She knew that it was a manmade +motion. +"Who's the lumberjack around here?" she asked. +"Ted Nielsen." +The road was relaxing into wider curves and gentler grades, among the +softer shapes of hillsides. She saw a rust-brown slope patched by two squares +of unmatching green: the dark, dusty green of potato plants, and the pale, +greenish-silver of cabbages, A man in a red shirt was riding a small tractor, +cutting weeds, "Who's the cabbage tycoon?" she asked. +"Roger Marsh." + + She closed her eyes. She thought of the weeds that were climbing up the +steps of a closed factory, over its lustrous tile front, a few hundred miles +away, beyond the mountains. +The road was descending to the bottom of the valley. She saw the roofs of +the town straight below, and the small, shining spot of the dollar sign in +the distance at the other end. Galt stopped the car in front of the first +structure on a ledge above the roofs, a brick building with a faint tinge of +red trembling over its smokestack. It almost shocked her to see so logical a +sign as "Stockton Foundry" above its door. +When she walked, leaning on her cane, out of the sunlight into the dank +gloom of the building, the shock she felt was part sense of anachronism, part +homesickness. This was the industrial East which, in the last few hours, had +seemed to be centuries behind her. This was the old, the familiar, the loved +sight of reddish billows rising to steel rafters, of sparks shooting in +sunbursts from invisible sources, of sudden flames streaking through a black +fog, of sand molds glowing with white metal. The fog hid the walls of the +structure, dissolving its size— +and for a moment, this was the great, dead foundry at Stockton, Colorado, +it was Nielsen Motors . . . it was Rearden Steel. +"Hi, Dagny!" +The smiling face that approached her out of the fog was Andrew Stockton's, +and she saw a grimy hand extended to her with a gesture of confident pride, +as if it held all of her moment's vision on its palm. +She clasped the hand. "Hello," she said softly, not knowing whether she +was greeting the past or the future. Then she shook her head and added, "How +come you're not planting potatoes or making shoes around here? You've +actually remained in your own profession." +"Oh, Calvin Atwood of the Atwood Light and Power Company of New York City +is making the shoes. Besides, my profession is one of the oldest and most +immediately needed anywhere. Still, I had to fight for it. I had to ruin a +competitor, first." +"What?" +He grinned and pointed to the glass door of a sun-flooded room. +"There's my ruined competitor," he said. +She saw a young man bent over a long table, working on a complex model for +the mold of a drill head. He had the slender, powerful hands of a concert +pianist and the grim face of a surgeon concentrating on his task. +"He's a sculptor," said Stockton. "When I came here, he and his partner +had a sort of combination hand-forge and repair shop. I opened a real +foundry, and took all their customers away from them. The boy couldn't do the +kind of job I did, it was only a part-time business for him, anyway—sculpture +is his real business—so he came to work for me. He's making more money now, +in shorter hours, than he used to make in his own foundry. His partner was a +chemist, so he went into agriculture and he's produced a chemical fertilizer +that's doubled some of the crops around here—did you mention potatoes?— +potatoes, in particular." +"Then somebody could put you out of business, too?" +"Sure. Any time. I know one man who could and probably will, when he gets +here. But, boy!—I'd work for him as a cinder sweeper. He'd blast through this +valley like a rocket. He'd triple everybody's production." +"Who's that?" +"Hank Rearden." +"Yes . . ." she whispered, "Oh yes!" +She wondered what had made her say it with such immediate certainty. She +felt, simultaneously, that Hank Rearden's presence in this valley was +impossible—and that this was his place, peculiarly his, this was the place of +his youth, of his start, and, together, the place he had been seeking all his + + life, the land he had struggled to reach, the goal of his tortured battle. . +. . It seemed to her that the spirals of flame tinged fog were drawing time +into an odd circle—and while a dim thought went floating through her mind +like the streamer of an unfollowed sentence: To hold an unchanging youth is +to reach, at the end, the vision with which one started—she heard the voice +of a tramp in a diner, saying, "John Galt found the fountain of youth which +he wanted to bring down to men. Only he never came back . . . because he +found that it couldn't be brought down." +A sheaf of sparks went up in the depth of the fog—and she saw the broad +back of a foreman whose arm made the sweeping gesture of a signal, directing +some invisible task. He jerked his head to snap an order—she caught a glimpse +of his profile—and she caught her breath. +Stockton saw it, chuckled and called into the fog: "Hey, Ken! Come here! +Here's an old friend of yours!" +She looked at Ken Danagger as he approached them. The great industrialist, +whom she had tried so desperately to hold to his desk, was now dressed in +smudged overalls. +"Hello, Miss Taggart. I told you we'd soon meet again." +Her head dropped, as if in assent and in greeting, but her hand bore down +heavily upon her cane, for a moment, while she stood reliving their last +encounter: the tortured hour of waiting, then the gently distant face at the +desk and the tinkling of a glass-paneled door closing upon a stranger. +It was so brief a moment that two of the men before her could take it only +as a greeting—but it was at Galt that she looked when she raised her head, +and she saw him looking at her as if he knew what she felt—she saw him seeing +in her face the realization that it was he who had walked out of Danagger's +office, that day. His face gave her nothing in answer: it had that look of +respectful severity with which a man stands before the fact that the truth is +the truth. +"I didn't expect it," she said softly, to Danagger. "I never expected to +see you again." +Danagger was watching her as if she were a promising child he had once +discovered and was now affectionately amused to watch. "I know," he said. +"But why are you so shocked?" +"I . . . oh, it's just that it's preposterous!" She pointed at his +clothes. +"What's wrong with it?" +"Is this, then, the end of your road?" +"Hell, no! The beginning." +"What are you aiming at?" +"Mining. Not coal, though. Iron." +"Where?" +He pointed toward the mountains. "Right here. Did you ever know Midas +Mulligan to make a bad investment? You'd be surprised what one can find in +that stretch of rock, if one knows how to look. That's what I've been doing— +looking." +"And if you don't find any iron ore?" +He shrugged. "There's other things to do. I've always been short on time +in my life, never on what to use it for." +She glanced at Stockton with curiosity. "Aren't you training a man who +could become your most dangerous competitor?" +"That's the only sort of men I like to hire. Dagny, have you lived too +long among the looters? Have you come to think that one man's ability is a +threat to another?" +"Oh no! But I thought I was almost the only one left who didn't think +that." + + "Any man who's afraid of hiring the best ability he can find, is a cheat +who's in a business where he doesn't belong. To me—the foulest man on earth, +more contemptible than a criminal, is the employer who rejects men for being +too good. That's what I've always thought and— +say, what are you laughing at?" +She was listening to him with an eager, incredulous smile. "It's so +startling to hear," she said, "because it's so right!" +"What else can one think?" +She chuckled softly. "You know, when I was a child, I expected every +businessman to think it." +"And since then?" +"Since then, I've learned not to expect it." +"But it's right, isn't it?" +"I've learned not to expect the right." +"But it stands to reason, doesn't it?" +"I've given up expecting reason." +"That's what one must never give up," said Ken Danagger. +They had returned to the car and had started down the last, descending +curves of the road, when she glanced at Galt and he turned to her at once, as +if he had expected it. +"It was you in Danagger's office that day, wasn't it?" she asked. +"Yes." +"Did you know, then, that I was waiting outside?" +"Yes." +"Did you know what it was like, to wait behind that closed door?" +She could not name the nature of the glance with which he looked at her. +It was not pity, because she did not seem to be its object; it was the kind +of glance with which one looks at suffering, but it was not her suffering +that he seemed to be seeing. +"Oh yes," he answered quietly, almost lightly. +The first shop to rise by the side of the valley's single street was like +the sudden sight of an open theater: a frame box without front wall, its +stage set in the bright colors of a musical comedy—with red cubes, green +circles, gold triangles, which were bins of tomatoes, barrels of lettuce, +pyramids of oranges, and a spangled backdrop where the sun hit shelves of +metal containers. The name on the marquee said; Hammond Grocery Market. A +distinguished man in shirt sleeves, with a stern profile and gray temples, +was weighing a chunk of butter for an attractive young woman who stood at the +counter, her posture light as a show girl's, the skirt of her cotton dress +swelling faintly in the wind, like a dance costume. Dagny smiled +involuntarily, even though the man was Lawrence Hammond. +The shops were small one-story structures, and as they moved past her, she +caught familiar names on their signs, like headings on the pages of a book +riffled by the car's motion: Mulligan General Store—Atwood Leather Goods— +Nielsen Lumber—then the sign of the dollar above the door of a small brick +factory with the inscription: Mulligan Tobacco Company. "Who's the Company, +besides Midas Mulligan?" she asked. "Dr. Akston," he answered. +There were few passers-by, some men, fewer women, and they walked with +purposeful swiftness, as if bound on specific errands. One after another, +they stopped at the sight of the car, they waved to Galt and they looked at +her with the unastonished curiosity of recognition. +"Have I been expected here for a long time?" she asked, "You still are," +he answered. +On the edge of the road, she saw a structure made of glass sheets held +together by a wooden framework, but for one instant it seemed to her that it +was only a frame for the painting of a woman—a tall, fragile woman with pale +blond hair and a face of such beauty that it seemed veiled by distance, as if + + the artist had been merely able to suggest it, not to make it quite real. In +the next instant the woman moved her head—and Dagny realized that there were +people at the tables inside the structure, that it was a cafeteria, that the +woman stood behind the counter, and that she was Kay Ludlow, the movie star +who, once seen, could never be forgotten; the star who had retired and +vanished five years ago, to be replaced by girls of indistinguishable names +and interchangeable faces. But at the shock of the realization, Dagny thought +of the sort of movies that were now being made—and then she felt that the +glass cafeteria was a cleaner use for Kay Ludlow's beauty than a role in a +picture glorifying the commonplace for possessing no glory. +The building that came next was a small, squat block of rough granite, +sturdy, solid, neatly built, the lines of its rectangular bulk as severely +precise as the creases of a formal garment—but she saw, like an instant's +ghost, the long streak of a skyscraper rising into the coils of Chicago's +fog, the skyscraper that had once borne the sign she now saw written in gold +letters above a modest pine-wood door: Mulligan Bank. +Galt slowed the car while moving past the bank, as if placing the motion +in some special italics. +A small brick structure came next, bearing the sign: Mulligan Mint. +"A mint?" she asked. "What's Mulligan doing with a mint?" Galt reached +into his pocket and dropped two small coins into the palm of her hand. They +were miniature disks of shining gold, smaller than pennies, the kind that had +not been in circulation since the days of Nat Taggart; they bore the head of +the Statue of Liberty on one side, the words "United States of America—One +Dollar" on the other, but the dates stamped upon them were of the past two +years. +"That's the money we use here," he said. "It's minted by Midas Mulligan." +"But . . . on whose authority?" +"That's stated on the coin—on both sides of it." +"What do you use for small change?" +"Mulligan mints that, too, in silver. We don't accept any other currency +in this valley. We accept nothing but objective values." +She was studying the coins. "This looks like . . . like something from the +first morning in the age of my ancestors." +He pointed at the valley, "Yes, doesn't it?" +She sat looking at the two thin, delicate, almost weightless drops of gold +in the palm of her hand, knowing that the whole of the Taggart +Transcontinental system had rested upon them, that this had been the keystone +supporting all the keystones, all the arches, all the girders of the Taggart +track, the Taggart Bridge, the Taggart Building. . . . She shook her head and +slipped the coins back into his hand. +"You're not making it easier for me," she said, her voice low. +"I'm making it as hard as possible." +"Why don't you say it? Why don't you tell me all the things you want me to +learn?" +The gesture of his arm pointed at the town, at the road behind them. +"What have I been doing?" he asked. +They drove on in silence. After a while, she asked, in the tone of a dryly +statistical inquiry, "How much of a fortune has Midas Mulligan amassed in +this valley?" +He pointed ahead. "Judge for yourself." +The road was winding through stretches of unleveled soil toward the homes +of the valley. The homes were not lined along a street, they were spread at +irregular intervals over the rises and hollows of the ground, they were small +and simple, built of local materials, mostly of granite and pine, with a +prodigal ingenuity of thought and a tight economy of physical effort. Every +house looked as if it had been put up by the labor of one man, no two houses + + were alike, and the only quality they had in common was the stamp of a mind +grasping a problem and solving it. Galt pointed out a house, once in a while, +choosing the names she knew—and it sounded to her like a list of quotations +from the richest stock exchange in the world, or like a roll call of honor: +"Ken Danagger . . . Ted Nielsen . . . Lawrence Hammond . . . Roger Marsh . . +. Ellis Wyatt . . . Owen Kellogg . . . Dr. Akston." +The home of Dr. Akston was the last, a small cottage with a large terrace, +lifted on the crest of a wave against the rising walls of the mountains. The +road went past it and climbed on into the coils of an ascending grade. The +pavement shrank to a narrow path between two walls of ancient pines, their +tall, straight trunks pressing against it like a grim colonnade, their +branches meeting above, swallowing the path into sudden silence and twilight. +There were no marks of wheels on the thin strip of earth, it looked unused +and forgotten, a few minutes and a few turns seemed to take the car miles +away from human habitation— +and then there was nothing to break the pressure of the stillness but a +rare wedge of sunlight cutting across the trunks in the depth of the forest +once in a while. +The sudden sight of a house on the edge of the path struck her like the +shock of an unexpected sound: built in loneliness, cut off from all ties to +human existence, it looked like the secret retreat of some great defiance or +sorrow. It was the humblest home of the valley, a log cabin beaten in dark +streaks by the tears of many rains, only its great windows withstanding the +storms with the smooth, shining, untouched serenity of glass. +"Whose house is . . . Oh!"—she caught her breath and jerked her head away. +Above the door, hit by a ray of sun, its design blurred and worn, battered +smooth by the winds of centuries, hung the silver coat of-arms of Sebastian +d'Anconia. +As if in deliberate answer to her involuntary movement of escape, Galt +stopped the car in front of the house. For a moment, they held each other's +eyes: her glance was a question, his a command, her face had a defiant +frankness, his an unrevealing severity; she understood his purpose, but not +his motive. She obeyed. Leaning on her cane, she stepped out of the car, then +stood erect, facing the house. +She looked at the silver crest that had come from a marble palace in Spain +to a shack in the Andes to a log cabin in Colorado—the crest of the men who +would not submit. The door of the cabin was locked, the sun did not reach +into the glazed darkness beyond the windows, and pine branches hung +outstretched above the roof like arms spread in protection, in compassion, in +solemn blessing. With no sound but the snap of a twig or the ring of a drop +falling somewhere in the forest through long stretches of moments, the +silence seemed to hold all the pain that had been hidden here, but never +given voice. She stood, listening with a gentle, resigned, unlamenting +respect: Let's see who'll do greater honor, you—to Nat Taggart, or I—to +Sebastian d'Anconia. . . . +Dagny! Help me to remain. To refuse. Even though he's right! . . . +She turned to look at Galt, knowing that he was the man against whom she +had had no help to offer. He sat at the wheel of the car, he had not followed +her or moved to assist her, as if he had wanted her to acknowledge the past +and had respected the privacy of her lonely salute. She noticed that he still +sat as she had left him, his forearm leaning against the wheel at the same +angle, the fingers of his hand hanging down in the same sculptured position. +His eyes were watching her, but that was all she could read in his face: that +he had watched her intently, without moving. +When she was seated beside him once more, he said, "That was the first man +I took away from you." + + She asked, her face stern, open and quietly defiant, "How much do you know +about that?" +"Nothing that he told me in words. Everything that the tone of his voice +told me whenever he spoke of you." +She inclined her head. She had caught the sound of suffering in the +faintest exaggeration of evenness in his voice. +He pressed the starter, the motor's explosion blasted the story contained +in the silence, and they drove on., The path widened a little, streaming +toward a pool of sunlight ahead. +She saw a brief glitter of wires among the branches, as they drove out +into a clearing. An unobtrusive little structure stood against a hillside, on +a rising slant of rocky ground. It was a simple cube of granite, the size of +a toolshed, it had no windows, no apertures of any kind, only a door of +polished steel and a complex set of wire antennae branching out from the +roof. Galt was driving past, leaving it unnoticed, when she asked with a +sudden start, "What's that?" +She saw the faint break of his smile. "The powerhouse." +"Oh, stop, please!" +He obeyed, backing the car to the foot of the hillside. It was her first +few steps up the rocky incline that stopped her, as if there were no need to +move forward, no further place to rise—and she stood as in the moment when +she had opened her eyes on the earth of the valley, a moment uniting her +beginning to her goal. +She stood looking up at the structure, her consciousness surrendered to a +single sight and a single, wordless emotion—but she had always known that an +emotion was a sum totaled by an adding machine of the mind, and what she now +felt was the instantaneous total of the thoughts she did not have to name, +the final sum of a long progression, like a voice telling her by means of a +feeling: If she had held onto Ouentin Daniels, with no hope of a chance to +use the motor, for the sole sake of knowing that achievement had not died on +earth—if, like a weighted diver sinking in an ocean of mediocrity, under the +pressure of men with gelatin eyes, rubber voices, spiral-shaped convictions, +noncommittal souls and non-committing hands, she had held, as her life line +and oxygen tube, the thought of a superlative achievement of the human mind— +if, at the sight of the motor's remnant, in a sudden gasp of suffocation, as +a last protest from his corruption-eaten lungs, Dr. +Stadler had cried for something, not to look down at, but up to, and this +had been the cry, the longing and the fuel of her life—if she had moved, +drawn by the hunger of her youth for a sight of clean, hard, radiant +competence—then here it was before her, reached and done, the power of an +incomparable mind given shape in a net of wires sparkling peacefully under a +summer sky, drawing an incalculable power out of space into the secret +interior of a small stone hovel. +She thought of this structure, half the size of a boxcar, replacing the +power plants of the country, the enormous conglomerations of steel, fuel and +effort—she thought of the current flowing from this structure, lifting +ounces, pounds, tons of strain from the shoulders of those who would make it +or use it, adding hours, days and years of liberated time to their lives, be +it an extra moment to lift one's head from one's task and glance at the +sunlight, or an extra pack of cigarettes bought with the money saved from +one's electric bill, or an hour cut from the workday of every factory using +power, or a month's journey through the whole, open width of the world, on a +ticket paid for by one day of one's labor, on a train pulled by the power of +this motor—with all the energy of that weight, that strain, that time +replaced and paid for by the energy of a single mind who had known how to +make connections of wire follow the connections of his thought. But she knew +that there was no meaning in motors or factories or trains, that their only + + meaning was in man's enjoyment of his life, which they served—and that her +swelling admiration at the sight of an achievement was for the man from whom +it came, for the power and the radiant vision within him which had seen the +earth as a place of enjoyment and had known that the work of achieving one's +happiness was the purpose, the sanction and the meaning of life. +The door of the structure was a straight, smooth sheet of stainless steel, +softly lustrous and bluish in the sun. Above it, cut in the granite, as the +only feature of the building's rectangular austerity, there stood an +inscription: I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR +THE SAKE OF ANOTHER +MAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR MINE. +She turned to Galt. He stood beside her; he had followed her, he had known +that this salute was his. She was looking at the inventor of the motor, but +what she saw was the easy, casual figure of a workman in his natural setting +and function—she noted the uncommon lightness of his posture, a weightless +way of standing that showed an expert control of the use of his body—a tall +body in simple garments: a thin shirt, light slacks, a belt about a slender +waistline—and loose hair made to glitter like metal by the current of a +sluggish wind. She looked at him as she had looked at his structure. +Then she knew that the first two sentences they had said to each other +still hung between them, filling the silence—that everything said since, had +been said over the sound of those words, that he had known it, had held it, +had not let her forget it. She was suddenly aware that they were alone; it +was an awareness that stressed the fact, permitting no further implication, +yet holding the full meaning of the unnamed in that special stress. They were +alone in a silent forest, at the foot of a structure that looked like an +ancient temple—and she knew what rite was the proper form of worship to be +offered on an altar of that kind. +She felt a sudden pressure at the base of her throat, her head leaned back +a little, no more than to feel the faint shift of a current against her hair, +but it was as if she were lying back in space, against the wind, conscious of +nothing but his legs and the shape of his mouth. He stood watching her, his +face still but for the faint movement of his eyelids drawing narrow as if +against too strong a light. It was like the beat of three instants—this was +the first—and in the next, she felt a stab of ferocious triumph at the +knowledge that his effort and his struggle were harder to endure than hers— +and, then he moved his eyes and raised his head to look at the inscription on +the temple. +She let him look at it for a moment, almost as an act of condescending +mercy to an adversary struggling to refuel his strength, then she asked, with +a note of imperious pride in her voice, pointing at the inscription, "What's +that?" +"It's the oath that was taken by every person in this valley, but you." +She said, looking at the words, "This has always been my own rule of +living." +"I know it." +"But I don't think that yours is the way to practice it." +"Then you'll have to learn which one of us is wrong." +She walked up to the steel door of the structure, with a sudden confidence +faintly stressed in the movements of her body, a mere hint of stress, no more +than her awareness of the power she held by means of his pain—and she tried, +asking no permission, to turn the knob of the door. But the door was locked, +and she felt no tremor under the pressure of her hand, as if the lock were +poured and sealed to the stone with the solid steel of the sheet. +"Don't try to open that door, Miss Taggart" +He approached her, his steps a shade too slow, as if stressing his +knowledge of her awareness of every step. "No amount of physical force will + + do it," he said. "Only a thought can open that door. If you tried to break it +down by means of the best explosives in the world, the machinery inside would +collapse into rubble long before the door would give way. But reach the +thought which it requires—and the secret of the motor will be yours, as well +as"—it was the first break she had heard in his voice—"as well as any other +secret you might wish to know." +He faced her for a moment, as if leaving himself open to her full +understanding, then smiled oddly, quietly at some thought of his own, and +added, "I'll show you how it's done." +He stepped back. Then, standing still, his face raised to the words carved +in the stone, he repeated them slowly, evenly, as if taking that oath once +more. There was no emotion in his voice, nothing but the spaced clarity of +the sounds he pronounced with full knowledge of their meaning—but she knew +that she was witnessing the most solemn moment it would ever be given her to +witness, she was seeing a man's naked soul and the cost it had paid to utter +these words, she was hearing an echo of the day when he had pronounced that +oath for the first time and with full knowledge of the years ahead—she knew +what manner of man had stood up to face six thousand others on a dark spring +night and why they had been afraid of him, she knew that this was the birth +and the core of all the things that had happened to the world in the twelve +years since, she knew that this was of far greater import than the motor +hidden inside the structure—she knew it, to the sound of a man's voice +pronouncing in self-reminder and rededication: "I swear by my life . . . and +my love of it . . . that I will never live for the sake of another man . . . +nor ask another man . . . to live . . . for mine." +It did not startle her, it seemed unastonishing and almost unimportant, +that at the end of the last sound, she saw the door opening slowly, without +human touch, moving inward upon a growing strip of darkness. +In the moment when an electric light went on inside the structure, he +seized the knob and pulled the door shut, its lock clicking sealed once more. +"It's a sound lock," he said; his face was serene. "That sentence is the +combination of sounds needed to open it. I don't mind telling you this +secret—because I know that you won't pronounce those words until you mean +them the way I intended them to be meant." +She inclined her head. "I won't." +She followed him down to the car, slowly, feeling suddenly too exhausted +to move. She fell back against the seat, closing her eyes, barely hearing the +sound of the starter. The accumulated strain and shock of her sleepless hours +hit her at once, breaking through the barrier of the tension her nerves had +held to delay it. She lay still, unable to think, to react or to struggle, +drained of all emotions but one. +She did not speak. She did not open her eyes until the car stopped in +front of his house. +"You'd better rest," he said, "and go to sleep right now, if you want to +attend Mulligan's dinner tonight." +She nodded obediently. She staggered to the house, avoiding his help. She +made an effort to tell him, "I'll be all right," then to escape to the safety +of her room and last long enough to close the door. +She collapsed, face down, on the bed. It was not the mere fact of physical +exhaustion. It was the sudden monomania of a sensation too complete to +endure. While the strength of her body was gone, while her mind had lost the +faculty of consciousness, a single emotion drew on her remnants of energy, of +understanding, of judgment, of control, leaving her nothing to resist it with +or to direct it, making her unable to desire, only to feel, reducing her to a +mere sensation—a static sensation without start or goal. She kept seeing his +figure in her mind—his figure as he had stood at the door of the structure— +she felt nothing else, no wish, no hope, no estimate of her feeling, no name + + for it, no relation to herself—there was no entity such as herself, she was +not a person, only a function, the function of seeing him, and the sight was +its own meaning and purpose, with no further end to reach. +Her face buried in the pillow, she recalled dimly, as a faint sensation, +the moment of her take-off from the floodlighted strip of the Kansas +airfield. She felt the beat of the engine, the streak of accelerating motion +gathering power in a straight-line run to a single goal—and in the moment +when the wheels left the ground, she was asleep. +The floor of the valley was like a pool still reflecting the glow of the +sky, but the light was thickening from gold to copper, the shores were fading +and the peaks were smoke-blue—when they drove to Mulligan's house. +There was no trace of exhaustion left in her bearing and no remnant of +violence. She had awakened at sundown; stepping out of her room, she had +found Galt waiting, sitting idly motionless in the light of a lamp. He had +glanced up at her; she had stood in the doorway, her face composed, her hair +smooth, her posture relaxed and confident —she had looked as she would have +looked on the threshold of her office in the Taggart Building, but for the +slight angle of her body leaning on a cane. He had sat looking at her for a +moment, and she had wondered why she had felt certain that this was the image +he was seeing—he was seeing the doorway of her office, as if it were a sight +long-imagined and long-forbidden. +She sat beside him in the car, feeling no desire to speak, knowing that +neither of them could conceal the meaning of their silence. She watched a few +lights come up in the distant homes of the valley, then the lighted windows +of Mulligan's house on the ledge ahead. She asked, "Who will be there?" +"Some of your last friends," he answered, "and some of my first." +Midas Mulligan met them at the door. She noticed that his grim, square +face was not as harshly expressionless as she had thought: he had a look of +satisfaction, but satisfaction could not soften his features, it merely +struck them like flint and sent sparks of humor to glitter faintly in the +corners of his eyes, a humor that was shrewder, more demanding, yet warmer +than a smile. +He opened the door of his house, moving his arm a shade more slowly than +normal, giving an imperceptibly solemn emphasis to his gesture. +Walking into the living room, she faced seven men who rose to their feet +at her entrance. +"Gentlemen—Taggart Transcontinental," said Midas Mulligan. +He said it smiling, but only half-jesting; some quality in his voice made +the name of the railroad sound as it would have sounded in the days of Nat +Taggart, as a sonorous title of honor. +She inclined her head, slowly, in acknowledgment to the men before her, +knowing that these were the men whose standards of value and honor were the +same as her own, the men who recognized the glory of that title as she +recognized it, knowing with a sudden stab of wistfulness how much she had +longed for that recognition through all her years. +Her eyes moved slowly, in greeting, from face to face: Ellis Wyatt— +Ken Danagger—Hugh Akston—Dr. Hendricks—Quentin Daniels— +Mulligan's voice pronounced the names of the two others: "Richard Halley— +Judge Narragansett." +The faint smile on Richard Halley's face seemed to tell her that they had +known each other for years—as, in her lonely evenings by the side of her +phonograph, they had. The austerity of Judge Narragansett's white-haired +figure reminded her that she had once heard him described as a marble statue— +a blindfolded marble statue; it was the kind of figure that had vanished from +the courtrooms of the country when the gold coins had vanished from the +country's hands. + + "You have belonged here for a long time, Miss Taggart," said Midas +Mulligan. "This was not the way we expected you to come, but—welcome home." +No!—she wanted to answer, but heard herself answering softly, "Thank you." +"Dagny, how many years is it going to take you to learn to be yourself?” +It was Ellis Wyatt, grasping her elbow, leading her to a chair, grinning at +her look of helplessness, at the struggle between a smile and a tightening +resistance in her face. "Don't pretend that you don't understand us. You do." +"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston. "That is the +moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell—we show. +We do not claim—we prove. It is not your obedience that we seek to win, +but your rational conviction. You have seen all the elements of our secret. +The conclusion is now yours to draw—we can help you to name it, but not to +accept it—the sight, the knowledge and the acceptance must be yours." +"I feel as if I know it," she answered simply, "and more: I feel as if +I've always known it, but never found it, and now I'm afraid, not afraid to +hear it, just afraid that it's coming so close." +Akston smiled. "What does this look like to you, Miss Taggart?" He pointed +around the room. +"This?" She laughed suddenly, looking at the faces of the men against the +golden sunburst of rays filling the great windows. "This looks like . . . You +know, I never hoped to see any of you again, I wondered at times how much I'd +give for just one more glimpse or one more word—and now—now this is like that +dream you imagine in childhood, when you think that some day, in heaven, you +will see those great departed whom you had not seen on earth, and you choose, +from all the past centuries, the great men you would like to meet." +"Well, that's one clue to the nature of our secret," said Akston. +"Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left +waiting for us in our graves—or whether it should be ours here and now and on +this earth." +"I know," she whispered. +"And if you met those great men in heaven," asked Ken Danagger, "what +would you want to say to them?" +"Just . . . just 'hello,' I guess." +"That's not all," said Danagger. "There's something you'd want to hear +from them. I didn't know it, either, until I saw him for the first time"—he +pointed to Galt—"and he said it to me, and then I knew what it was that I had +missed all my life. Miss Taggart, you'd want them to look at you and to say, +'Well done’ " She dropped her head and nodded silently, head down, not to let +him see the sudden spurt of tears to her eyes. "All right, then: Well done, +Dagny!—well done—too well—and now it's time for you to rest from that burden +which none of us should ever have had to carry." +"Shut up," said Midas Mulligan, looking at her bowed head with anxious +concern. +But she raised her head, smiling. "Thank you," she said to Danagger. +"If you talk about resting, then let her rest,” said Mulligan. "She's had +too much for one day." +"No." She smiled. "Go ahead, say it—whatever it is." +"Later," said Mulligan. +It was Mulligan and Akston who served dinner, with Quentin Daniels to help +them. They served it on small silver trays, to be placed on the arms of the +chairs—and they all sat about the room, with the fire of the sky fading in +the windows and sparks of electric light glittering in the wine glasses. +There was an air of luxury about the room, but it was the luxury of expert +simplicity; she noted the costly furniture, carefully chosen for comfort, +bought somewhere at a time when luxury had still been an art. There were no +superfluous objects, but she noticed a small canvas by a great master of the +Renaissance, worth a fortune, she noticed an Oriental rug of a texture and + + color that belonged under glass in a museum. This was Mulligan's concept of +wealth, she thought—the wealth of selection, not of accumulation. +Quentin Daniels sat on the floor, with his tray on his lap; he seemed +completely at home, and he glanced up at her once in a while, grinning like +an impudent kid brother who had beaten her to a secret she had not +discovered. He had preceded her into the valley by some ten minutes, she +thought, but he was one of them, while she was still a stranger. +Galt sat aside, beyond the circle of lamplight, on the arm of Dr. +Akston's chair. He had not said a word, he had stepped back and turned her +over to the others, and he sat watching it as a spectacle in which he had no +further part to play. But her eyes kept coming back to him, drawn by the +certainty that the spectacle was of his choice and staging, that he had set +it in motion long ago, and that all the others knew it as she knew it. +She noticed another person who was intensely aware of Galt's presence: +Hugh Akston glanced up at him once in a while, involuntarily, almost +surreptitiously, as if struggling not to confess the loneliness of a long +separation. Akston did not speak to him, as if taking his presence for +granted. But once, when Galt bent forward and a strand of hair fell down +across his face, Akston reached over and brushed it back, his hand lingering +for an imperceptible instant on his pupil's forehead: it was the only break +of emotion he permitted himself, the only greeting; it was the gesture of a +father. +She found herself talking to the men around her, relaxing in lighthearted +comfort. No, she thought, what she felt was not strain, it was a dim +astonishment at the strain which she should, but did not, feel; the +abnormality of it was that it seemed so normal and simple. +She was barely aware of her questions, as she spoke to one man after +another, but their answers were printing a record in her mind, moving +sentence by sentence to a goal. +"The Fifth Concerto?" said Richard Halley, in answer to her question. "I +wrote it ten years ago. We call it the Concerto of Deliverance. +Thank you for recognizing it from a few notes whistled in the night. +. . . Yes, I know about that. . . . Yes, since you knew my work, you would +know, when you heard it, that this Concerto said everything I had been +struggling to say and reach. It's dedicated to him." He pointed to Galt. +"Why, no, Miss Taggart, I haven't given up music, What makes you think so? +I've written more in the last ten years than in any other period of my life. +I will play it for you, any of it, when you come to my house. . . . No, Miss +Taggart, it will not be published outside. Not a note of it will be heard +beyond these mountains." +"No, Miss Taggart, I have not given up medicine," said Dr. Hendricks, in +answer to her question. "I have spent the last six years on research. I have +discovered a method to protect the blood vessels of the brain from that fatal +rupture which is known as a brain stroke. It will remove from human existence +the terrible threat of sudden paralysis. +. . . No, not a word of my method will be heard outside.” +"The law, Miss Taggart?" said Judge Narragansett. "What law? I did not +give it up—it has ceased to exist. But I am still working in the profession I +had chosen, which was that of serving the cause of justice. +. . . No, justice has not ceased to exist. How could it? It is possible +for men to abandon their sight of it, and then it is justice that destroys +them. But it is not possible for justice to go out of existence, because one +is an attribute of the other, because justice is the act of acknowledging +that which exists. . . . Yes, I am continuing in my profession. I am writing +a treatise on the philosophy of law, I shall demonstrate that humanity's +darkest evil, the most destructive horror machine among all the devices of + + men, is non-objective law. . . . No, Miss Taggart, my treatise will not be +published outside." +"My business, Miss Taggart?" said Midas Mulligan. "My business is blood +transfusion—and I'm still doing it. My job is to feed a life-fuel into the +plants that are capable of growing. But ask Dr. Hendricks whether any amount +of blood will save a body that refuses to function, a rotten hulk that +expects to exist without effort. My blood bank is gold. Gold is a fuel that +will perform wonders, but no fuel can work where there is no motor. . . . No, +I haven't given up. I merely got fed up with the job of running a slaughter +house, where one drains blood out of healthy living beings and pumps it into +gutless half-corpses." +"Given up?" said Hugh Akston. "Check your premises, Miss Taggart. +None of us has given up. It is the world that has. . . . What is wrong +with a philosopher running a roadside diner? Or a cigarette factory, as I am +doing now? All work is an act of philosophy. And when men will learn to +consider productive work—and that which is its source—as the standard of +their moral values, they will reach that state of perfection which is the +birthright they lost. . . . The source of work? Man's mind, Miss Taggart, +man's reasoning mind. I am writing a book on this subject, defining a moral +philosophy that I learned from my own pupil. . . . Yes, it could save the +world. . . . No, it will not be published outside." +"Why?" she cried. "Why? What are you doing, all of you?" +"We are on strike," said John Galt. +They all turned to him, as if they had been waiting for his voice and for +that word. She heard the empty beat of time within her, which was the sudden +silence of the room, as she looked at him across a span of lamplight. He sat +slouched casually on the arm of a chair, leaning forward, his forearm across +his knees, his hand hanging down idly— +and it was the faint smile on his face that gave to his words the deadly +sound of the irrevocable: "Why should this seem so startling? There is only +one kind of men who have never been on strike in human history. Every other +kind and class have stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands +to the world, claiming to be indispensable—except the men who have carried +the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as +sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. +Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they +do and what happens when they refuse to function. This is the strike of the +men of the mind, Miss Taggart. This is the mind on strike." +She did not move, except for the fingers of one hand that moved slowly up +her cheek to her temple. +"Through all the ages," he said, "the mind has been regarded as evil, and +every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiter— +every form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation— +every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squad— +have been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of +looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and +performing the crucial act of a rational connection. Yet only to the extent +to which—in chains, in dungeons, in hidden corners, in the cells of +philosophers, in the shops of traders—some men continued to think, only to +that extent was humanity able to survive. Through all the centuries of the +worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, +whatever brutality to practice—it was only by the grace of the men who +perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a +curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served +by torture and life is not fed by destruction—only by the grace of those men +did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark +of being human, and only the sum of such moments permitted them to continue + + to exist. It was the man of the mind who taught them to bake their bread, to +heal their wounds, to forge their weapons and to build the jails into which +they threw him. He was the man of extravagant energy—and reckless generosity— +who knew that stagnation is not man's fate, that impotence is not his nature, +that the ingenuity of his mind is his noblest and most joyous power—and in +service to that love of existence he was alone to feel, he went on working, +working at any price, working for his despoilers, for his jailers, for his +torturers, paying with his life for the privilege of saving theirs. This was +his glory and his guilt—that he let them teach him to feel guilty of his +glory, to accept the part of a sacrificial animal and, in punishment for the +sin of intelligence, to perish on the altars of the brutes. The tragic joke +of human history is that on any of the altars men erected, it was always man +whom they immolated and the animal whom they enshrined. It was always the +animal's attributes, not man's, that humanity worshipped: the idol of +instinct and the idol of force—the mystics and the kings—the mystics, who +longed for an irresponsible consciousness and ruled by means of the claim +that their dark emotions were superior to reason, that knowledge came in +blind, causeless fits, blindly to be followed, not doubted—and the kings, who +ruled by means of claws and muscles, with conquest as their method and +looting as their aim, with a club or a gun as sole sanction of their power. +The defenders of man's soul were concerned with his feelings, and the +defenders of man's body were concerned with his stomach—but both were united +against his mind. Yet no one, not the lowest of humans, is ever able fully to +renounce his brain. No one has ever believed in the irrational; what they do +believe in is the unjust. +Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature +the mind would not permit him to confess. When he preaches contradictions, he +does so in the knowledge that someone will accept the burden of the +impossible, someone will make it work for him at the price of his own +suffering or life; destruction is the price of any contradiction. It is the +victims who made injustice possible. It is the men of reason who made it +possible for the rule of the brute to work. The despoiling of reason has been +the motive of every anti-reason creed on earth. The despoiling of ability has +been the purpose of every creed that preached self-sacrifice. The despoilers +have always known it. We haven't. The time has come for us to see. What we +are now asked to worship, what had once been dressed as God or king, is the +naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent. This is the new +ideal, the goal to aim at, the purpose to live for, and all men are to be +rewarded according to how close they approach it. This is the age of the +common man, they tell us—a title which any man may claim to the extent of +such distinction as he has managed not to achieve. He will rise to a rank of +nobility by means of the effort he has failed to make, he will be honored for +such virtue as he has not displayed, and he will be paid for the goods which +he did not produce. But we—we, who must atone for the guilt of ability—we +will work to support him as he orders, with his pleasure as our only reward. +Since we have the most to contribute, we will have the least to say. Since we +have the better capacity to think, we will not be permitted a thought of our +own. Since we have the judgment to act, we will not be permitted an action of +our choice. We will work under directives and controls, issued by those who +are incapable of working. They will dispose of our energy, because they have +none to offer, and of our product, because they can't produce. Do you say +that this is impossible, that it cannot be made to work? They know it, but it +is you who don't—and they are counting on you not to know it. They are +counting on you to go on, to work to the limit of the inhuman and to feed +them while you last—and when you collapse, there will be another victim +starting out and feeding them, while struggling to survive—and the span of +each succeeding victim will be shorter, and while you'll die to leave them a + + railroad, your last descendant-in-spirit will die to leave them a loaf of +bread. +This does not worry the looters of the moment. Their plan—like all the +plans of all the royal looters of the past—is only that the loot shall last +their lifetime. It has always lasted before, because in one generation they +could not run out of victims. But this time—it will not last. The victims are +on strike. We are on strike against martyrdom—and against the moral code that +demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must +exist for the sake of another. We are on strike against the morality of +cannibals, be it practiced in body or in spirit. We will not deal with men on +any terms but ours—and our terms are a moral code which holds that man is an +end in himself and not the means to any end of others. We do not seek to +force our code upon them. They are free to believe what they please. But, for +once, they will have to believe it and to exist—without our help. And, once +and for all, they will learn the meaning of their creed. That creed has +lasted for centuries solely by the sanction of the victims—by means of the +victims' acceptance of punishment for breaking a code impossible to practice. +But that code was intended to be broken. It is a code that thrives not on +those who observe it, but on those who don't, a morality kept in existence +not by virtue of its saints, but by the grace of its shiners. We have decided +not to be sinners any longer. We have ceased breaking that moral code. We +shall blast it out of existence forever by the one method that it can't +withstand: by obeying it. We are obeying it. We are complying. In dealing +with our fellow men, we are observing their code of values to the letter and +sparing them all the evils they denounce. The mind is evil? We have withdrawn +the works of our minds from society, and not a single idea of ours is to be +known or used by men. Ability is a selfish evil that leaves no chance to +those who are less able? We have withdrawn from the competition and left all +chances open to incompetents. The pursuit of wealth is greed, the root of all +evil? We do not seek to make fortunes any longer. It is evil to earn more +than one's bare sustenance? We take nothing but the lowliest jobs and we +produce, by the effort of our muscles, no more than we consume for our +immediate needs—with not a penny nor an inventive thought left over to harm +the world. It is evil to succeed, since success is made by the strong at the +expense of the weak? We have ceased burdening the weak with our ambition and +have left them free to prosper without us. It is evil to be an employer? We +have no employment to offer. It is evil to own property? We own nothing. It +is evil to enjoy one's existence in this world? There is no form of enjoyment +that we seek from their world, and—this was hardest for us to attain—what we +now feel for their world is that emotion which they preach as an ideal: +indifference—the blank—the zero—the mark of death. . . . +We are giving men everything they've professed to want and to seek as +virtue for centuries. Now let them see whether they want it." +"It was you who started this strike?" she asked. +"I did." +He got up, he stood, hands in pockets, his face in the light—and she saw +him smile with the easy, effortless, implacable amusement of certainty. +"We've heard so much about strikes," he said, "and about the dependence of +the uncommon man upon the common. We've heard it shouted that the +industrialist is a parasite, that his workers support him, create his wealth, +make his luxury possible—and what would happen to him if they walked out? +Very well. I propose to show to the world who depends on whom, who supports +whom, who is the source of wealth, who makes whose livelihood possible and +what happens to whom when who walks out." +The windows were now sheets of darkness, reflecting the dots of lighted +cigarettes. He picked a cigarette from a table beside him, and in the flare + + of a match she saw the brief sparkle of gold, the dollar sign, between his +fingers. +"I quit and joined him and went on strike," said Hugh Akston, "because I +could not share my profession with men who claim that the qualification of an +intellectual consists of denying the existence of the intellect. People would +not employ a plumber who'd attempt to prove his professional excellence by +asserting that there's no such thing as plumbing—but, apparently, the same +standards of caution are not considered necessary in regard to philosophers. +I learned from my own pupil, however, that it was I who made this possible. +When thinkers accept those who deny the existence of thinking, as fellow +thinkers of a different school of thought—it is they who achieve the +destruction of the mind. They grant the enemy's basic premise, thus granting +the sanction of reason to formal dementia, A basic premise is an absolute +that permits no co-operation with its antithesis and tolerates no tolerance. +In the same manner and for the same reason as a banker may not accept and +pass counterfeit money, granting it the sanction, honor and prestige of his +bank, just as he may not grant the counterfeiter's demand for tolerance of a +mere difference of opinion—so I may not grant the title of philosopher to Dr. +Simon Pritchett or compete with him for the minds of men. Dr. Pritchett has +nothing to deposit to the account of philosophy, except his declared +intention to destroy it. He seeks to cash in—by means of denying it—on the +power of reason among men. He seeks to stamp the mint-mark of reason upon the +plans of his looting masters. He seeks to use the prestige of philosophy to +purchase the enslavement of thought. But that prestige is an account which +can exist only so long as I am there to sign the checks. +Let him do it without me. Let him—and those who entrust to him their +children's minds—have exactly that which they demand: a world of +intellectuals without intellect and of thinkers who proclaim that they cannot +think. I am conceding it. I am complying. And when they see the absolute +reality of their non-absolute world, I will not be there and it will not be I +who will pay the price of their contradictions." +"Dr. Akston quit on the principle of sound banking," said Midas Mulligan. +"I quit on the principle of love. Love is the ultimate form of recognition +one grants to superlative values. It was the Hunsacker case that made me +quit—that case when a court of law ordered that I honor, as first right to my +depositors' funds, the demand of those who would offer proof that they had no +right to demand it. I was ordered to hand out money earned by men, to a +worthless rotter whose only claim consisted of his inability to earn it. I +was born on a farm. I knew the meaning of money. I had dealt with many men in +my life. I had watched them grow. I had made my fortune by being able to spot +a certain kind of man. The kind who never asked you for faith, hope and +charity, but offered you facts, proof and profit. Did you know that I +invested in Hank Rearden's business at the time when he was rising, when he +had just beaten his way out of Minnesota to buy the steel mills in +Pennsylvania? Well, when I looked at that court order on my desk, I had a +vision. I saw a picture, and I saw it so clearly that it changed the looks of +everything for me. I saw the bright face and the eyes of young Rearden, as +he'd been when I'd met him first. I saw him lying at the foot of an altar, +with his blood running down into the earth—and what stood on that altar was +Lee Hunsacker, with the mucus-filled eyes, whining that he'd never had a +chance. . . . It's strange how simple things become, once you see them +clearly. It wasn't hard for me to close the bank and go: I kept seeing, for +the first time in my life, what it was that I had lived for and loved." +She looked at Judge Narragansett. "You quit over the same case, didn't +you?" +"Yes," said Judge Narragansett. "I quit when the court of appeals reversed +my ruling. The purpose for which I had chosen my work, was my resolve to be a + + guardian of justice. But the laws they asked me to enforce made me the +executor of the vilest injustice conceivable. I was asked to use force to +violate the rights of disarmed men, who came before me to seek my protection +for their rights. Litigants obey the verdict of a tribunal solely on the +premise that there is an objective rule of conduct, which they both accept. +Now I saw that one man was to be bound by it, but the other was not, one was +to obey a rule, the other was to assert an arbitrary wish—his need—and the +law was to stand on the side of the wish. Justice was to consist of upholding +the unjustifiable. I quit—because I could not have borne to hear the words +'Your Honor' addressed to me by an honest man." +Her eyes moved slowly to Richard Halley, as if she were both pleading and +afraid to hear his story. He smiled. +"I would have forgiven men for my struggle," said Richard Halley. +"It was their view of my success that I could not forgive. I had felt no +hatred in all the years when they rejected me. If my work was new, I had to +give them time to learn, if I took pride in being first to break a trail to a +height of my own, I had no right to complain if others were slow to follow. +That was what I had told myself through all those years —except on some +nights, when I could neither wait nor believe any longer, when I cried 'why?' +but found no answer. Then, on the night when they chose to cheer me, I stood +before them on the stage of a theater, thinking that this was the moment I +had struggled to reach, wishing to feel it, but feeling nothing. I was seeing +all the other nights behind me, hearing the 'why?' which still had no answer— +and their cheers seemed as empty as their snubs. If they had said, 'Sorry to +be so late, thank you for waiting—I would have asked for nothing else and +they could have had anything I had to give them. But what I saw in their +faces, and in the way they spoke when they crowded to praise me, was the +thing I had heard being preached to artists—only I had never believed that +anyone human could mean it. They seemed to say that they owed me nothing, +that their deafness had provided me with a moral goal, that it had been my +duty to struggle, to suffer, to bear—for their sake—whatever sneers, +contempt, injustice, torture they chose to inflict upon me, to bear it in +order to teach them to enjoy my work, that this was their rightful due and my +proper purpose. And then I understood the nature of the looter-in-spirit, a +thing I had never been able to conceive. I saw them reaching into my soul, +just as they reach into Mulligan's pocket, reaching to expropriate the value +of my person, just as they reach to expropriate his wealth—I saw the +impertinent malice of mediocrity boastfully holding up its own emptiness as +an abyss to be filled by the bodies of its betters—I saw them seeking, just +as they seek to feed on Mulligan's money, to feed on those hours when I wrote +my music and on that which made me write it, seeking to gnaw their way to +self-esteem by extorting from me the admission that they were the goal of my +music, so that precisely by reason of my achievement, it would not be they +who'd acknowledge my value, but I who would bow to theirs. . . . It was that +night that I took the oath never to let them hear another note of mine. The +streets were empty when I left that theater, I was the last one to leave—and +I saw a man whom I had never seen before, waiting for me in the light of a +lamppost. He did not have to tell me much. But the concerto I dedicated to +him is called the Concerto of Deliverance." +She looked at the others. "Please tell me your reasons," she said, with a +faint stress of firmness in her voice, as if she were taking a beating, but +wished to take it to the end. +"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," +said Dr. Hendricks. "Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? +Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, +merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what +I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me + + was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected +to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not +let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or +the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my +reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement +of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men +considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who +were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in +the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, +they said, only 'to serve.' That a man who's willing to work under compulsion +is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never +occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for +the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert +their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate +my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it that they expect to depend +on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has +taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their +victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the +kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in +their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their +lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, +if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the +sort who doesn't." +"I quit," said Ellis Wyatt, "because I didn't wish to serve as the +cannibals' meal and to do the cooking, besides," +"I discovered," said Ken Danagger, "that the men I was fighting were +impotent. The shiftless, the purposeless, the irresponsible, the irrational— +it was not I who needed them, it was not theirs to dictate terms to me, it +was not mine to obey demands. I quit, to let them discover it, too." +"I quit," said Quentin Daniels, "because, if there are degrees of +damnation, the scientist who places his mind in the service of brute force is +the longest-range murderer on earth." +They were silent. She turned to Galt. "And you?" she asked. "You were +first. What made you come to it?" +He chuckled, "My refusal to be born with any original sin." +"What do you mean?" +"I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my +mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, +and thus was free to earn and to know my own value. Ever since I can +remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for +the sake of his need—and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling. +That night, at the Twentieth Century meeting, when I heard an unspeakable +evil being spoken in a tone of moral righteousness, I saw the root of the +world's tragedy, the key to it and the solution. I saw what had to be done. I +went out to do it." +"And the motor?" she asked. "Why did you abandon it? Why did you leave it +to the Starnes heirs?" +"It was then- father's property. He paid me for it. It was made on his +time. But I knew that it would be of no benefit to them and that no one would +ever hear of it again. It was my first experimental model. +Nobody but me or my equivalent could have been able to complete it or even +to grasp what it was. And I knew that no equivalent of mine would come near +that factory from then on." +"You knew the kind of achievement your motor represented?" +"Yes." +"And you knew you were leaving it to perish?" + + "Yes." He looked off into the darkness beyond the windows and chuckled +softly, but it was not a sound of amusement. "I looked at my motor for the +last tune, before I left. I thought of the men who claim that wealth is a +matter of natural resources—and of the men who claim that wealth is a matter +of seizing the factories—and of the men who claim that machines condition +their brains. Well, there was the motor to condition them, and there it +remained as just exactly what it is without man's mind—as a pile of metal +scraps and wires, going to rust. You have been thinking of the great service +which that motor could have rendered to mankind, if it had been put into +production. I think that on the day when men understand the meaning of its +fate in that factory's junk heap—it will have rendered a greater one." +"Did you expect to see that day, when you left it?" +"No." +"Did you expect a chance to rebuild it elsewhere?” +"No." +"And you were willing to let it remain in a junk heap?" +"For the sake of what that motor meant to me," he said slowly, "I had to +be willing to let it crumble and vanish forever"—he looked straight at her +and she heard the steady, unhesitant, uninflected ruthlessness of his voice— +"just as you will have to be willing to let the rail of Taggart +Transcontinental crumble and vanish." +She held his eyes, her head was lifted, and she said softly, in the tone +of a proudly open plea, "Don't make me answer you now." +"I won't. We'll tell you whatever you wish to know. We won't urge you to +make a decision." He added, and she was shocked by the sudden gentleness of +his voice, "I said that that kind of indifference toward a world which should +have been ours was the hardest thing to attain. I know. We've all gone +through it." +She looked at the quiet, impregnable room, and at the light—the light that +came from his motor—on the faces of men who were the most serene and +confident gathering she had ever attended. +"What did you do, when you walked out of the Twentieth Century?" +she asked. +"I went out to become a flame-spotter. I made it my job to watch for those +bright flares in the growing night of savagery, which were the men of +ability, the men of the mind—to watch their course, their struggle and their +agony—and to pull them out, when I knew that they had seen enough." +"What did you tell them to make them abandon everything?" +"I told them that they were right." +In answer to the silent question of her glance, he added, "I gave them the +pride they did not know they had. I gave them the words to identify it. I +gave them that priceless possession which they had missed, had longed for, +yet had not known they needed: a moral sanction. Did you call me the +destroyer and the hunter of men? I was the walking delegate of this strike, +the leader of the victims' rebellion, the defender of the oppressed, the +disinherited, the exploited—and when I use these words, they have, for once, +a literal meaning." +"Who were the first to follow you?" +He let a moment pass, in deliberate emphasis, then answered, "My two best +friends. You know one of them. You know, perhaps better than anyone else, +what price he paid for it. Our own teacher, Dr. +Akston, was next. He joined us within one evening's conversation. William +Hastings, who had been my boss in the research laboratory of Twentieth +Century Motors, had a hard time, fighting it out with himself. It took him a +year. But he joined. Then Richard Halley. Then Midas Mulligan." +"—who took fifteen minutes," said Mulligan. +She turned to him. "It was you who established this valley?" + + "Yes," said Mulligan. "It was just my own private retreat, at first. I +bought it years ago, I bought miles of these mountains, section by section, +from ranchers and cattlemen who didn't know what they owned. The valley is +not listed on any map. I built this house, when I decided to quit. I cut off +all possible avenues of approach, except one road—and it's camouflaged beyond +anyone's power to discover—and I stocked this place to be self-supporting, so +that I could live here for the rest of my life and never have to see the face +of a looter. When I heard that John had got Judge Narragansett, too, I +invited the Judge to come here. Then we asked Richard Halley to join us. The +others remained outside, at first." +"We had no rules of any kind,” said Galt, "except one. When a man took our +oath, it meant a single commitment: not to work in his own profession, not to +give to the world the benefit of his mind. Each of us carried it out in any +manner he chose. Those who had money, retired to live on their savings. Those +who had to work, took the lowest jobs they could find. Some of us had been +famous; others—like that young brakeman of yours, whom Halley discovered—were +stopped by us before they had set out to get tortured. But we did not give up +our minds or the work we loved. Each of us continued in his real profession, +in whatever manner and spare time he could manage—but he did it secretly, for +his own sole benefit, giving nothing to men, sharing nothing. We were +scattered all over the country, as the outcasts we had always been, only now +we accepted our parts with conscious intention. +Our sole relief were the rare occasions when we could see one another. +We found that we liked to meet—in order to be reminded that human beings +still existed. So we came to set aside one month a year to spend in this +valley—to rest, to live in a rational world, to bring our real work out of +hiding, to trade our achievements—here, where achievements meant payment, not +expropriation. Each of us built his own house here, at his own expense—for +one month of life out of twelve. +It made the eleven easier to bear." +"You see, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston, "man is a social being, but not +in the way the looters preach." +"It's the destruction of Colorado that started the growth of this valley," +said Midas Mulligan. "Ellis Wyatt and the others came to live here +permanently, because they had to hide. Whatever part of their wealth they +could salvage, they converted into gold or machines, as I had, and they +brought it here. There were enough of us to develop the place and to create +jobs for those who had had to earn their living outside. We have now reached +the stage where most of us can live here full time. The valley is almost +self-supporting—and as to the goods that we can't yet produce, I purchase +them from the outside through a pipe line of my own. It's a special agent, a +man who does not let my money reach the looters. We are not a state here, not +a society of any kind— +we're just a voluntary association of men held together by nothing but +every man's self-interest. I own the valley and I sell the land to the +others, when they want it. Judge Narragansett is to act as our arbiter, hi +case of disagreements. He hasn't had to be called upon, as yet. They say that +it's hard for men to agree. You'd be surprised how easy it is— +when both parties hold as their moral absolute that neither exists for the +sake of the other and that reason is their only means of trade. The time is +approaching when all of us will have to be called to live here— +because the world is falling apart so fast that it will soon be starving. +But we will be able to support ourselves in this valley." +"The world is crashing faster than we expected," said Hugh Akston. +"Men are stopping and giving up. Your frozen trains, the gangs of raiders, +the deserters, they're men who've never heard of us, and they're not part of +our strike, they are acting on their own—it's the natural response of + + whatever rationality is still left in them—it's the same kind of protest as +ours." +"We started with no time limit in view," said Galt. "We did not know +whether we'd live to see the liberation of the world or whether we'd have to +leave our battle and our secret to the next generations. +We knew only that this was the only way we cared to live. But now we think +that we will see, and soon, the day of our victory and of our return." +"When?" she whispered. +"When the code of the looters has collapsed." +He saw her looking at him, her glance half-question, half-hope, and he +added, "When the creed of self-immolation has run, for once, its undisguised +course—when men find no victims ready to obstruct the path of justice and to +deflect the fall of retribution on themselves— +when the preachers of self-sacrifice discover that those who are willing +to practice it, have nothing to sacrifice, and those who have, are not +willing any longer—when men see that neither their hearts nor their muscles +can save them, but the mind they damned is not there to answer then: screams +for help—when they collapse as they must, as men without mind—when they have +no pretense of authority left, no remnant of law, no trace of morality, no +hope, no food and no way to obtain it—when they collapse and the road is +clear—then we'll come back to rebuild the world." +The Taggart Terminal, she thought; she heard the words beating through the +numbness of her mind, as the sum of a burden she had not had time to weigh. +This was the Taggart Terminal, she thought, this room, not the giant +concourse in New York—this was her goal, the end of track, the point beyond +the curve of the earth where the two straight lines of rail met and vanished, +drawing her forward—as they had drawn Nathaniel Taggart—this was the goal +Nathaniel Taggart had seen in the distance and this was the point still +holding the straight-line glance of his lifted head above the spiral motion +of men in the granite concourse. It was for the sake of this that she had +dedicated herself to the rail of Taggart Transcontinental, as to the body of +a spirit yet to be found. She had found it, everything she had ever wanted, +it was here in this room, reached and hers—but the price was that net of rail +behind her, the rail that would vanish, the bridges that would crumble, the +signal lights that would go out. . . . And yet . . . Everything I had ever +wanted, she thought—looking away from the figure of a man with sun-colored +hair and implacable eyes. +"You don't have to answer us now." +She raised her head; he was watching her as if he had followed the steps +in her mind. +"We never demand agreement," he said. "We never tell anyone more than he +is ready to hear You are the first person who has learned our secret ahead of +time. But you're here and you had to know. Now you know the exact nature of +the choice you'll have to make. If it seems hard, it's because you still +think that it does not have to be one or the other. You will learn that it +does." +"Will you give me time?" +"Your time is not ours to give. Take your time. You alone can decide what +you'll choose to do, and when. We know the cost of that decision. We've paid +it. That you've come here might now make it easier for you—or harder." +"Harder," she whispered. +"I know." +He said it, his voice as low as hers, with the same sound of being forced +past one's breath, and she missed an instant of time, as in the stillness +after a blow, because she felt that this—not the moments when he had carried +her in his arms down the mountainside, but this meeting of their voices—had +been the closest physical contact between them. + + A full moon stood in the sky above the valley, when they drove back to his +house; it stood like a flat, round lantern without rays, with a haze of light +hanging in space, not reaching the ground, and the illumination seemed to +come from the abnormal white brightness of the soil. In the unnatural +stillness of sight without color, the earth seemed veiled by a film of +distance, its shapes did not merge into a landscape, but went slowly flowing +past, like the print of a photograph on a cloud. +She noticed suddenly that she was smiling. She was looking down at the +houses of the valley. Their lighted windows were dimmed by a bluish cast, the +outlines of their walls were dissolving, long bands of mist were coiling +among them in torpid, unhurried waves. It looked like a city sinking under +water. +"What do they call this place?" she asked. +"I call it Mulligan's Valley," he said. "The others call it Galt's Gulch." +"I'd call it—" but she did not finish. +He glanced at her. She knew what he saw in her face. He turned away. +She saw a faint movement of his lips, like the release of a breath that he +was forcing to function. She dropped her glance, her arm falling against the +side of the car, as if her hand were suddenly too heavy for the weakness in +the crook of her elbow. +The road grew darker, as it went higher, and pine branches met over their +heads. Above a slant of rock moving to meet them, she saw the moonlight on +the windows of his house. Her head fell back against the seat and she lay +still, losing awareness of the car, feeling only the motion that carried her +forward, watching the glittering drops of water in the pine branches, which +were the stars. +When the car stopped, she did not permit herself to know why she did not +look at him as she stepped, out. She did not know that she stood still for an +instant, looking up at the dark windows. She did not hear him approach; but +she felt the impact of his hands with shocking intensity, as if it were the +only awareness she could now experience. +He lifted her in his arms and started slowly up the path to the house. +He walked, not looking at her, holding her tight, as if trying to hold a +progression of time, as if his arms were still locked over the moment when he +had lifted her against his chest. She felt his steps as if they were a single +span of motion to a goal and as if each step were a separate moment in which +she dared not think of the next. +Her head was close to his, his hair brushing her cheek, and she knew that +neither of them would move his face that one breath closer. It was a sudden, +stunned state of quiet drunkenness, complete in itself, their hair mingled +like the rays of two bodies in space that had achieved their meeting, she saw +that he walked with his eyes closed, as if even sight would now be an +intrusion. +He entered the house, and as he moved across the living room, he did not +look to his left and neither did she, but she knew that both of them were +seeing the door on his left that led to his bedroom. He walked the length of +the darkness to the wedge of moonlight that fell across the guest-room bed, +he placed her down upon it, she felt an instant's pause of his hands still +holding her shoulder and waistline, and when his hands left her body, she +knew that the moment was over. +He stepped back and pressed a switch, surrendering the room to the harshly +public glare of light. He stood still, as if demanding that she look at him, +his face expectant and stern. +"Have you forgotten that you wanted to shoot me on sight?" he asked. +It was the unprotected stillness of his figure that made it real. The +shudder that threw her upright was like a cry of terror and denial; but she +held his glance and answered evenly, "That's true. I did." + + "Then stand by it." +Her voice was low, its intensity was both a surrender and a scornful +reproach: "You know better than that, don't you?" +He shook his head. "No. I want you to remember that that had been your +wish. You were right, in the past. So long as you were part of the outer +world, you had to seek to destroy me. And of the two courses now open to you, +one will lead you to the day when you will find yourself forced to do it." +She did not answer, she sat looking down, he saw the strands of her hair +swing jerkily as she shook her head in desperate protest. "You are my only +danger. You are the only person who could deliver me to my enemies. If you +remain with them, you will. Choose that, if you wish, but choose it with full +knowledge. +Don't answer me now. But until you do"—the stress of severity in his voice +was the sound of effort directed against himself—"remember that I know the +meaning of either answer." +"As fully as I do?" she whispered. +"As fully." +He turned to go, when her eyes fell suddenly upon the inscriptions she had +noticed, and forgotten, on the walls of the room. +They were cut into the polish of the wood, still showing the force of the +pencil's pressure in the hands that had made them, each in his own violent +writing: "You'll get over it—Ellis Wyatt" "It will be all right by morning— +Ken Danagger" "It's worth it—Roger Marsh." +There were others, "What is that?" she asked. +He smiled. "This is the room where they spent their first night in the +valley. The first night is the hardest. It's the last pull of the break with +one's memories, and the worst. I let them stay here, so they can call for me, +if they want me. I speak to them, if they can't sleep. +Most of them can't. But they're free of it by morning. . . . They've all +gone through this room. Now they call it the torture chamber or the anteroom— +because everyone has to enter the valley through my house.” +He turned to go, he stopped on the threshold and added: "This is the room +I never intended you to occupy. Good night, Miss Taggart." + + CHAPTER II +THE UTOPIA OF GREED +"Good morning." +She looked at him across the living room from the threshold of her door. +In the windows behind him, the mountains had that tinge of silver-pink which +seems brighter than daylight, with the promise of a light to come. The sun. +had risen somewhere over the earth, but it had not reached the top of the +barrier, and the sky was glowing in its stead, announcing its motion. She had +heard the joyous greeting to the sunrise, which was not the song of birds, +but the ringing of the telephone a moment ago; she saw the start of day, not +in the shining green of the branches outside, but in the glitter of chromium +on the stove, the sparkle of a glass ashtray on a table, and the crisp +whiteness of his shirt sleeves. Irresistibly, she heard the sound of a smile +in her own voice, matching his, as she answered: "Good morning." +He was gathering notes of penciled calculations from his desk and stuffing +them into his pocket. "I have to go down to the powerhouse," +he said. "They've just phoned me that they're having trouble with the ray +screen. Your plane seems to have knocked it off key. I'll be back in half an +hour and then I'll cook our breakfast" +It was the casual simplicity of his voice, the manner of taking her +presence and their domestic routine for granted, as if it were of no +significance to them, that gave her the sense of an underscored significance +and the feeling that he knew it. +She answered as casually, "If you'll bring me the cane I left in the car, +I'll have breakfast ready for you by the time you come back." +He glanced at her with a slight astonishment; his eyes moved from her +bandaged ankle to the short sleeves of the blouse that left her arms bare to +display the heavy bandage on her elbow. But the transparent blouse, the open +collar, the hair falling down to the shoulders that seemed innocently naked +under a thin film of cloth, made her look like a schoolgirl, not an invalid, +and her posture made the bandages look irrelevant. +He smiled, not quite at her, but as if in amusement at some sudden memory +of his own. "If you wish," he said. +It was strange to be left alone in his house. Part of it was an emotion +she had never experienced before: an awed respect that made her hesitantly +conscious of her hands, as if to touch any object around her would be too +great an intimacy. The other part was a reckless sense of ease, a sense of +being at home in this place, as if she owned its owner. +It was strange to feel so pure a joy in the simple task of preparing a +breakfast. The work seemed an end in itself, as if the motions of filling a +coffee pot, squeezing oranges, slicing bread were performed for their own +sake, for the sort of pleasure one expects, but seldom finds, in the motions +of dancing. It startled her to realize that she had not experienced this kind +of pleasure in her work since her days at the operator's desk in Rockdale +Station. +She was setting the table, when she saw the figure of a man hurrying up +the path to the house, a swift, agile figure that leaped over boulders with +the casual ease of a flight. He threw the door open, calling, "Hey, John!"— +and stopped short as he saw her. He wore a dark blue sweater and slacks, he +had gold hair and a face of such shocking perfection of beauty that she stood +still, staring at him, not in admiration, at first, but in simple disbelief. +He looked at her as if he had not expected to find a woman in this house. +Then she saw a look of recognition melting into a different kind of +astonishment, part amusement, part triumph melting into a chuckle. +"Oh, have you joined us?" he asked. + + "No," she answered dryly, "I haven't. I'm a scab." +He laughed, like an adult at a child who uses technological words beyond +its understanding. "If you know what you're saying, you know that it's not +possible," he said. "Not here." +"I crashed the gate. Literally." +He looked at her bandages, weighing the question, his glance almost +insolent in its open curiosity. "When?" +"Yesterday." +"How?" +"In a plane." +"What were you doing in a plane in this part of the country?" +He had the direct, imperious manner of an aristocrat or a roughneck; he +looked like one and was dressed like the other. She considered him for a +moment, deliberately letting him wait. "I was trying to land on a +prehistorical mirage," she answered. "And I have." +"You are a scab," he said, and chuckled, as if grasping all the +implications of the problem. "Where's John?" +"Mr. Galt is at the powerhouse. He should be back any moment." +He sat down in an armchair, asking no permission, as if he were at home. +She turned silently to her work. He sat watching her movements with an open +grin, as if the sight of her laying out cutlery on a kitchen table were the +spectacle of some special paradox. +"What did Francisco say when he saw you here?" he asked. +She turned to him with a slight jolt, but answered evenly, "He is not here +yet." +"Not yet?" He seemed startled. "Are you sure?" +"So I was told." +He lighted a cigarette. She wondered, watching him, what profession he had +chosen, loved and abandoned in order to join this valley. She could make no +guess; none seemed to fit; she caught herself in the preposterous feeling of +wishing that he had no profession at all, because any work seemed too +dangerous for his incredible kind of beauty. It was an impersonal feeling, +she did not look at him as at a man, but as at an animated work of art—and it +seemed to be a stressed indignity of the outer world that a perfection such +as his should be subjected to the shocks, the strains, the scars reserved for +any man who loved his work. +But the feeling seemed the more preposterous, because the lines of his +face had the sort of hardness for which no danger on earth was a match, "No, +Miss Taggart," he said suddenly, catching her glance, "you've never seen me +before." +She was shocked to realize that she had been studying him openly. +"How do you happen to know who I am?" she asked. +"First, I've seen your pictures in the papers many times. Second, you're +the only woman left in the outer world, to the best of our knowledge, who'd +be allowed to enter Galt's Gulch, Third, you're the only woman who'd have the +courage—and prodigality—still to remain a scab." +"What made you certain that I was a scab?" +"If you weren't, you'd know that it's not this valley, but the view of +life held by men in the outer world that is a prehistorical mirage." +They heard the sound of the motor and saw the car stopping below, in front +of the house. She noticed the swiftness with which he rose to his feet at the +sight of Galt in the car; if it were not for the obvious personal eagerness, +it would have looked like an instinctive gesture of military respect. +She noticed the way Galt stopped, when he entered and saw his visitor. She +noticed that Galt smiled, but that his voice was oddly low, almost solemn, as +if weighted with unconfessed relief,, when he said very quietly, "Hello." +"Hi, John," said the visitor gaily. + + She noticed that their handshake came an instant too late and lasted an +instant too long, like the handshake of men who had not been certain that +their previous meeting would not be their last. +Galt turned to her. "Have you met?" he asked, addressing them both. +"Not exactly," said the visitor. +"Miss Taggart, may I present Ragnar Danneskjold?" +She knew what her face had looked like, when she heard Danneskjold's voice +as from a great distance: "You don't have to be frightened, Miss Taggart I'm +not dangerous to anyone in Galt's Gulch." +She could only shake her head, before she recaptured her voice to say, +"It's not what you're doing to anyone . . . it's what they're doing to you. . +. . " +His laughter swept her out of her moment's stupor, "Be careful, Miss +Taggart. If that's how you're beginning to feel, you won't remain a scab for +long." He added, "But you ought to start by adopting the right things from +the people in Galt's Gulch, not their mistakes: they've spent twelve years +worrying about me—needlessly." He glanced at Galt. +"When did you get in?" asked Galt. +"Late last night." +"Sit down. You're going to have breakfast with us." +"But where's Francisco? Why isn't he here yet?" +"I don't know," said Galt, frowning slightly. "I asked at the airport, +just now. Nobody's heard from him." +As she turned to the kitchen, Galt moved to follow. "No," she said, "it's +my job today." +"Let me help you." +"This is the place where one doesn't ask for help, isn't it?" +He smiled. "That's right." +She had never experienced the pleasure of motion, of walking as if her +feet had no weight to carry, as if the support of the cane in her hand were +merely a superfluous touch of elegance, the pleasure of feeling her steps +trace swift, straight lines, of sensing the faultless, spontaneous precision +of her gestures—as she experienced it while placing their food on the table +in front of the two men. Her bearing told them that she knew they were +watching her—she held her head like an actress on a stage, like a woman in a +ballroom, like the winner of a silent contest. +"Francisco will be glad to know that it's you who were his stand-in +today," said Danneskjold, when she joined them at the table. +"His what?" +"You see, today is June first, and the three of us—John, Francisco and I— +have had breakfast together on every June first for twelve years." +"Here?" +"Not when we started. But here, ever since this house was built eight +years ago." He shrugged, smiling. "For a man who has more centuries of +tradition behind him than I have, it's odd that Francisco should be the first +to break our own tradition." +"And Mr. Galt?" she asked. "How many centuries does he have behind him?" +"John? None at all. None behind him—but all of those ahead." +"Never mind the centuries," said Galt. "Tell me what sort of year you've +had behind you. Lost any men?" +"No." +"Lost any of your time?" +"You mean, was I wounded? No. I haven't had a scratch since that one time, +ten years ago, when I was still an amateur, which you ought to forget by now. +I wasn't in any danger whatever, this year—in fact, I was much more safe than +if I were running a small-town drugstore under Directive 10-289." +"Lost any battles?" + + "No. The losses were all on the other side, this year. The looters lost +most of their ships to me—and most of their men to you. You've had a good +year, too, haven't you? I know, I've kept track of it. Since our last +breakfast together, you got everyone you wanted from the state of Colorado, +and a few others besides, such as Ken Danagger, who was a great prize to get. +But let me tell you about a still greater one, who is almost yours. You're +going to get him soon, because he's hanging by a thin thread and is just +about ready to fall at your feet. He's a man who saved my life—so you can see +how far he's gone." +Galt leaned back, his eyes narrowing. "So you weren't in any danger +whatever, were you?" +Danneskjold laughed. "Oh, I took a slight risk. It was worth it. It was +the most enjoyable encounter I've ever had. I've been waiting to tell you +about it in person. It's a story you'll want to hear. Do you know who the man +was? Hank Rearden. I—" +"No!" +It was Galt's voice; it was a command; the brief snap of sound had a tinge +of violence neither of them had ever heard from him before. +"What?" asked Danneskjold softly, incredulously. +"Don't tell me about it now." +"But you've always said that Hank Rearden was the one man you wanted to +see here most." +"I still do. But you'll tell me later." +She studied Galt's face intently, but she could find no clue, only a +closed, impersonal look, either of determination or of control, that +tightened the skin of his cheekbones and the line of his mouth. No matter +what he knew about her, she thought, the only knowledge that could explain +this, was a knowledge he had had no way of acquiring. +"You've met Hank Rearden?" she asked, turning to Danneskjold. +"And he saved your life?" +"Yes." +"I want to hear about it." +"I don't," said Galt. +"Why not?" +"You're not one of us, Miss Taggart." +"I see." She smiled, with a faint touch of defiance. "Were you thinking +that I might prevent you from getting Hank Rearden?" +"No, that was not what I was thinking," +She noticed that Danneskjold was studying Galt's face, as if he, too, +found the incident inexplicable. Galt held his glance, deliberately and +openly, as if challenging him to find the explanation and promising that he +would fail. She knew that Danneskjold had failed, when she saw a faint crease +of humor softening Galt's eyelids. +"What else," asked Galt, "have you accomplished this year?" +"I've defied the law of gravitation." +"You've always done that. In what particular form now?" +"In the form of a flight from mid-Atlantic to Colorado in a plane loaded +with gold beyond the safety point of its capacity. Wait till Midas sees the +amount I have to deposit. My customers, this year, will become richer by— +Say, have you told Miss Taggart that she's one of my customers?" +"No, not yet You may tell her, if you wish." +"I'm—What did you say I am?" she asked. +"Don't be shocked, Miss Taggart," said Danneskjold. "And don't object. I'm +used to objections. I'm a sort of freak here, anyway. None of them approve of +my particular method of fighting our battle. John doesn't, Dr. Akston +doesn't. They think that my life is too valuable for it. But, you see, my + + father was a bishop—and of all his teachings there was only one sentence that +I accepted: 'All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' " +"What do you mean?" +"That violence is not practical. If my fellow men believe that the force +of the combined tonnage of their muscles is a practical means to rule me—let +them learn the outcome of a contest in which there's nothing but brute force +on one side, and force ruled by a mind, on the other. Even John grants me +that in our age I had the moral right to choose the course I've chosen. I am +doing just what he is doing— +only in my own way. He is withdrawing man's spirit from the looters, I'm +withdrawing the products of man's spirit. He is depriving them of reason, I'm +depriving them of wealth. He is draining the soul of the world, I'm draining +its body. His is the lesson they have to learn, only I'm impatient and I'm +hastening their scholastic progress. But, like John, I'm simply complying +with their moral code and refusing to grant them a double standard at my +expense. Or at Rearden's expense. Or at yours." +"What are you talking about?" +"About a method of taxing the income taxers. All methods of taxation are +complex, but this one is very simple, because it's the naked essence of all +the others. Let me explain it to you." +She listened. She heard a sparkling voice reciting, in the tone of a dryly +meticulous bookkeeper, a report about financial transfers, bank accounts, +income-tax returns, as if he were reading the dusty pages of a ledger—a +ledger where every entry was made by means of offering his own blood as the +collateral to be drained at any moment, at any slip of his bookkeeping pen. +As she listened, she kept seeing the perfection of his face—and she kept +thinking that this was the head on which the world had placed a price of +millions for the purpose of delivering it to the rot of death. . . . The face +she had thought too beautiful for the scars of a productive career—she kept +thinking numbly, missing half his words—the face too beautiful to risk. . . . +Then it struck her that his physical perfection was only a simple +illustration, a childish lesson given to her in crudely obvious terms on the +nature of the outer world and on the fate of any human value in a subhuman +age. Whatever the justice or the evil of his course, she thought, how could +they . . . no! +she thought, his course was just, and this was the horror of it, that +there was no other course for justice to select, that she could not condemn +him, that she could neither approve nor utter a word of reproach. +". . . and the names of my customers, Miss Taggart, were chosen slowly, +one by one. I had to be certain of the nature of their character and career. +On my list of restitution, your name was one of the first." +She forced herself to keep her face expressionlessly tight, and she +answered only, "I see." +"Your account is one of the last left unpaid. It is here, at the Mulligan +Bank, to be claimed by you on the day when you join us." +"I see." +"Your account, however, is not as large as some of the others, even though +huge sums were extorted from you by force in the past twelve years. You will +find—as it is marked on the copies o£ your income-tax returns which Mulligan +will hand over to you—that I have refunded only those taxes which you paid on +the salary you earned as Operating Vice-President, but not the taxes you paid +on your income from your Taggart Transcontinental stock. You deserved every +penny of that stock, and in the days of your father I would have refunded +every penny of your profit—but under your brother's management, Taggart +Transcontinental has taken its share of the looting, it has made profits by +force, by means of government favors, subsidies, moratoriums, directives. You +were not responsible for it, you were, in fact, the greatest victim of that + + policy—but I refund only the money which was made by pure productive ability, +not the money any part of which was loot taken by force." +"I see." +They had finished their breakfast. Danneskjold lighted a cigarette and +watched her for an instant through the first jet of smoke, as if he knew the +violence of the conflict in her mind—then he grinned at Galt and rose to his +feet. +"I'll run along," he said. "My wife is waiting for me." +"What?" she gasped. +"My wife," he repeated gaily, as if he had not understood the reason of +her shock. +"Who is your wife?" +"Kay Ludlow." +The implications that struck her were more than she could bear to +consider. "When . . . when were you married?" +"Four years ago." +"How could you show yourself anywhere long enough to go through a wedding +ceremony?" +"We were married here, by Judge Narragansett." +"How can"—she tried to stop, but the words burst involuntarily, in +helplessly indignant protest, whether against him, fate or the outer world, +she could not tell—"how can she live through eleven months of thinking that +you, at any moment, might be . . . ?" She did not finish. +He was smiling, but she saw the enormous solemnity of that which he and +his wife had needed to earn their right to this kind of smile. "She can live +through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth +is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction. +We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in +chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific +reason to expect it—and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is +not happiness, but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success, +but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life." +Galt accompanied him to the door, then came back, sat down at the table +and in a leisurely manner reached for another cup of coffee. +She shot to her feet, as if flung by a jet of pressure breaking a safety +valve. "Do you think that I'll ever accept his money?" +He waited until the curving streak of coffee had filled his cup, then +glanced up at her and answered, "Yes, I think so." +"Well, I won't! I won't let him risk his life for it!" +"You have no choice about that." +"I have the choice never to claim it!" +"Yes, you have." +"Then it will lie in that bank till doomsday!" +"No, it won't. If you don't claim it, some part of it—a very small part— +will be turned over to me in your name." +"In my name? Why?" +"To pay for your room and board." +She stared at him, her look of anger switching to bewilderment, then +dropped slowly back on her chair. +He smiled. "How long did you think you were going to stay here, Miss +Taggart?" He saw her startled look of helplessness. "You haven't thought of +it? I have. You're going to stay here for a month. For the one month of our +vacation, like the rest of us. I am not asking for your consent—you did not +ask for ours when you came here. You broke our rules, so you'll have to take +the consequences. Nobody leaves the valley during this month. I could let you +go, of course, but I won't. + + There's no rule demanding that I hold you, but by forcing your way here, +you've given me the right to any choice I make—and I'm going to hold you +simply because I want you here. If, at the end of a month, you decide that +you wish to go back, you will be free to do so. Not until then." +She sat straight, the planes of her face relaxed, the shape of her mouth +softened by the faint, purposeful suggestion of a smile; it was the dangerous +smile of an adversary, but her eyes were coldly brilliant and veiled at once, +like the eyes of an adversary who fully intends to fight, but hopes to lose. +"Very well," she said, "I shall charge you for your room and board—it is +against our rules to provide the unearned sustenance of another human being. +Some of us have wives and children, but there is a mutual trade involved +in that, and a mutual payment"—he glanced at her—"of a kind I am not entitled +to collect. So I shall charge you fifty cents a day and you will pay me when +you accept the account that lies in your name at the Mulligan Bank. If you +don't accept the account, Mulligan will charge your debt against it and he +will give me the money when I ask for it." +"I shall comply with your terms," she answered; her voice had the shrewd, +confident, deliberating slowness of a trader. "But I shall not permit the use +of that money for my debts." +"How else do you propose to comply?" +"I propose to earn my room and board." +"By what means?" +"By working." +"In what capacity?" +"In the capacity of your cook and housemaid." +For the first time, she saw him take the shock of the unexpected, in a +manner and with a violence she had not foreseen. It was only an explosion of +laughter on his part—but he laughed as if he were hit beyond his defenses, +much beyond the immediate meaning of her words; she felt that she had struck +his past, tearing loose some memory and meaning of his own which she could +not know. He laughed as if he were seeing some distant image, as if he were +laughing in its face, as if this were his victory—and hers. +"If you will hire me," she said, her face severely polite, her tone +harshly clear, impersonal and businesslike, "I shall cook your meals, clean +your house, do your laundry and perform such other duties as are required of +a servant—in exchange for my room, board and such money as I will need for +some items of clothing. I may be slightly handicapped by my injuries for the +next few days, but that will not last and I will be able to do the job +fully." +"Is that what you want to do?" he asked. +"That is what I want to do—" she answered, and stopped before she uttered +the rest of the answer in her mind: more than anything else in the world. +He was still smiling, it was a smile of amusement, but it was as if +amusement could be transmuted into some shining glory. "All right, Miss +Taggart," he said, "I'll hire you." +She inclined her head in a dryly formal acknowledgment. "Thank you," +"I will pay you ten dollars a month, in addition to your room and board." +"Very well," +"I shall be the first man in this valley to hire a servant." He got up, +reached into his pocket and threw a five-dollar gold piece down on the table. +"As advance on your wages," he said. +She was startled to discover, as her hand reached for the gold piece, that +she felt the eager, desperate, tremulous hope of a young girl on her first +job: the hope that she would be able to deserve it. +"Yes, sir," she said, her eyes lowered. +Owen Kellogg arrived on the afternoon of her third day in the valley. + + She did not know which shocked him most: the sight of her standing on the +edge of the airfield as he descended from the plane—the sight of her clothes: +her delicate, transparent blouse, tailored by the most expensive shop in New +York, and the wide, cotton-print skirt she had bought in the valley for sixty +cents—her cane, her bandages or the basket of groceries on her arm. +He descended among a group of men, he saw her, he stopped, then ran to her +as if flung forward by some emotion so strong that, whatever its nature, it +looked like terror. +"Miss Taggart . . ." he whispered—and said nothing else, while she +laughed, trying to explain how she had come to beat him to his destination. +He listened, as if it were irrelevant, and then he uttered the thing from +which he had to recover, "But we thought you were dead." +"Who thought it?" +"All of us . . . I mean, everybody in the outside world." +Then she suddenly stopped smiling, while his voice began to recapture his +story and his first sound of joy. +"Miss Taggart, don't you remember? You told me to phone Winston, Colorado, +and to tell them that you'd be there by noon of the next day. That was to be +the day before yesterday, May thirty-first. But you did not reach Winston—and +by late afternoon, the news was on all the radios that you were lost in a +plane crash somewhere in the Rocky Mountains." +She nodded slowly, grasping the events she had not thought of considering. +"I heard it aboard the Comet," he said. "At a small station in the middle +of New Mexico, The conductor held us there for an hour, while I helped him to +check the story on long-distance phones. He was hit by the news just as I +was. They all were—the train crew, the station agent, the switchmen. They +huddled around me while I called the city rooms of newspapers in Denver and +New York. We didn't learn much. +Only that you had left the Afton airfield just before dawn on May thirtyfirst, that you seemed to be following some stranger's plane, that the +attendant had seen you go off southeast—and that nobody had seen you since . +. . And that searching parties were combing the Rockies for the wreckage of +your plane." +She asked involuntarily, "Did the Comet reach San Francisco?" +"I don't know. She was crawling north through Arizona, when I gave up. +There were too many delays, too many things going wrong, and a total +confusion of orders. I got off and spent the night hitchhiking my way to +Colorado, bumming rides on trucks, on buggies, on horse carts, to get there +on time—to get to our meeting place, I mean, where we gather for Midas' ferry +plane to pick us up and bring us here." +She started walking slowly up the path toward the car she had left in +front of Hammond's Grocery Market. Kellogg followed, and when he spoke again, +his voice dropped a little, slowing down with their steps, as if there were +something they both wished to delay. +"I got a job for Jeff Alien," he said; his voice had the peculiarly solemn +tone proper for saying: I have carried out your last will. "Your agent at +Laurel grabbed him and put him to work the moment we got there. The agent +needed every able-bodied—no, able-minded—man he could find." +They had reached the car, but she did not get in. +"Miss Taggart, you weren't hurt badly, were you? Did you say you crashed, +but it wasn't serious?" +"No, not serious at all. I'll be able to get along without Mr. Mulligan's +car by tomorrow—and in a day or two I won't need this thing, either." She +swung her cane and tossed it contemptuously into the car. +They stood in silence; she was waiting. +"The last long-distance call I made from that station in New Mexico," he +said slowly, "was to Pennsylvania. I spoke to Hank Rearden. + + I told him everything I knew. He listened, and then there was a pause, and +then he said, 'Thank you for calling me.' " Kellogg's eyes were lowered; he +added, “I never want to hear that kind of pause again as long as I live." +He raised his eyes to hers; there was no reproach in his glance, only the +knowledge of that which he had not suspected when he heard her request, but +had guessed since. +"Thank you," she said, and threw the door of the car open. "Can I give you +a lift? I have to get back and get dinner ready before my employer comes +home." +It was in the first moment of returning to Galt's house, of standing alone +in the silent, sun-filled room, that she faced the full meaning of what she +felt. She looked at the window, at the mountains barring the sky in the east. +She thought of Hank Rearden as he sat at his desk, now, two thousand miles +away, his face tightened into a retaining wall against agony, as it had been +tightened under all the blows of all his years—and she felt a desperate wish +to fight his battle, to fight for him, for his past, for that tension of his +face and the courage that fed it— +as she wanted to fight for the Comet that crawled by a last effort across +a desert on a crumbling track. She shuddered, closing her eyes, feeling as if +she were guilty of double treason, feeling as if she were suspended in space +between this valley and the rest of the earth, with no right to either. +The feeling vanished when she sat facing Galt across the dinner table. He +was watching her, openly and with an untroubled look, as if her presence were +normal—and as if the sight of her were all he wished to allow into his +consciousness. +She leaned back a little, as if complying with the meaning of his glance, +and said dryly, efficiently, in deliberate denial, "I have checked your +shirts and found one with two buttons missing, and another with the left +elbow worn through. Do you wish me to mend them?" +"Why, yes—if you can do it.” +"I can do it." +It did not seem to alter the nature of his glance; it merely seemed to +stress its satisfaction, as if this were what he had wished her to say — +except that she was not certain whether satisfaction was the name for the +thing she saw in his eyes and fully certain that he had not wished her to say +anything. +Beyond the window, at the edge of the table, storm clouds had wiped out +the last remnants of light in the eastern sky. She wondered why she felt a +sudden reluctance to look out, why she felt as if she wanted to cling to the +golden patches of light on the wood of the table, on the buttered crust of +the rolls, on the copper coffee pot, on Galt's hair —to cling as to a small +island on the edge of a void. +Then she heard her own voice asking suddenly, involuntarily, and she knew +that this was the treason she had wanted to escape, "Do you permit any +communication with the outside world?" +"No." +"Not any? Not even a note without return address?" +"No." +"Not even a message, if no secret of yours were given away?" +"Not from here. Not during this month. Not to outsiders at any time," +She noticed that she was avoiding his eyes, and she forced herself to lift +her head and face him. His glance had changed; it was watchful, unmoving, +implacably perceptive. He asked, looking at her as if he knew the reason of +her query, "Do you wish to ask for a special exception?" +"No," she answered, holding his glance. +Next morning, after breakfast, when she sat in her room, carefully placing +a patch on the sleeve of Galt's shirt, with her door closed, not to let him + + see her fumbling effort at an unfamiliar task, she heard the sound of a car +stopping in front of the house. +She heard Galt's steps hurrying across the living room, she heard him jerk +the entrance door open and call out with the joyous anger of relief: "It's +about time!" +She rose to her feet, but stopped: she heard his voice, its tone abruptly +changed and grave, as if in answer to the shock of some sight confronting +him: "What's the matter?" +"Hello, John," said a clear, quiet voice that sounded steady, but weighted +with exhaustion. +She sat down on her bed, feeling suddenly drained of strength: the voice +was Francisco's. +She heard Galt asking, his tone severe with concern, "What is it?" +"I'll tell you afterwards." +"Why are you so late?" +"I have to leave again in an hour." +"To leave?" +"John, I just came to tell you that I won't be able to stay here this +year." +There was a pause, then Galt asked gravely, his voice low, "Is it as bad +as that—whatever it is?" +"Yes. I . . . I might be back before the month is over. I don't know." He +added, with the sound of a desperate effort, "I don't know whether to hope to +be done with it quickly or . . . or not," +"Francisco, could you stand a shock right now?" +"I? Nothing could shock me now." +"There's a person, here, in my guest room, whom you have to see. +It will be a shock to you, so I think I'd better warn you in advance that +this person is still a scab." +"What? A scab? In your house?" +"Let me tell you how—" +"That's something I want to see for myself!" +She heard Francisco's contemptuous chuckle and the rush of his steps, she +saw her door flung open, and she noticed dimly that it was Galt who closed +it, leaving them alone. +She did not know how long Francisco stood looking at her, because the +first moment that she grasped fully was when she saw him on his knees, +holding onto her, his face pressed to her legs, the moment when she felt as +if the shudder that ran through his body and left him still, had run into +hers and made her able to move. +She saw, in astonishment, that her hand was moving gently over his hair, +while she was thinking that she had no right to do it and feeling as if a +current of serenity were flowing from her hand, enveloping them both, +smoothing the past. He did not move, he made no sound, as if the act of +holding her said everything he had to say. +When he raised his head, he looked as she had felt when she had opened her +eyes in the valley: he looked as if no pain had ever existed in the world. He +was laughing. +"Dagny, Dagny, Dagny"—his voice sounded, not as if a confession resisted +for years were breaking out, but as if he were repeating the long since +known, laughing at the pretense that it had ever been unsaid —"of course I +love you. Were you afraid when he made me say it? +I'll say it as often as you wish—I love you, darling, I love you, I always +will—don't be afraid for me, I don't care if I'll never have you again, what +does that matter?—you're alive and you're here and you know everything now. +And it's so simple, isn't it? Do you see what it was and why I had to desert +you?" His arm swept out to point at the valley. "There it is—it's your earth, + + your kingdom, your kind of world—Dagny, I've always loved you and that I +deserted you, that was my love." +He took her hands and pressed them to his lips and held them, not moving, +not as a kiss, but as a long moment of rest—as if the effort of speech were a +distraction from the fact of her presence, and as if he were torn by too many +things to say, by the pressure of all the words stored in the silence of +years. +"The women I chased—you didn't believe that, did you? I've never touched +one of them—but I think you knew it, I think you've known it all along. The +playboy—it was a part that I had to play in order not to let the looters +suspect me while I was destroying d'Anconia Copper in plain sight of the +whole world. That's the joker in their system, they're out to fight any man +of honor and ambition, but let them see a worthless rotter and they think +he's a friend, they think he's safe—safe!—that's their view of life, but are +they learning!—are they learning whether evil is safe and incompetence +practical! . . . +Dagny, it was the night when I knew, for the first time, that I loved you— +it was then that I knew I had to go. It was when you entered my hotel room, +that night, when I saw what you looked like, what you were, what you meant to +me—and what awaited you in the future. Had you been less, you might have +stopped me for a while. But it was you, you who were the final argument that +made me leave you. I asked for your help, that night—against John Galt. But I +knew that you were his best weapon against me, though neither you nor he +could know it. +You were everything that he was seeking, everything he told us to live for +or die, if necessary. . . . I was ready for him, when he called me suddenly +to come to New York, that spring. I had not heard from him for some time. He +was fighting the same problem I was. He solved it. +. . . Do you remember? It was the time when you did not hear from me for +three years. Dagny, when I took over my father's business, when I began to +deal with the whole industrial system of the world, it was then that I began +to see the nature of the evil I had suspected, but thought too monstrous to +believe. I saw the tax-collecting vermin that had grown for centuries like +mildew on d'Anconia Copper, draining us by no right that anyone could name—I +saw the government regulations passed to cripple me, because I was +successful, and to help my competitors, because they were loafing failures—I +saw the labor unions who won every claim against me, by reason of my ability +to make their livelihood possible—I saw that any man's desire for money he +could not earn was regarded as a righteous wish, but if he earned it, it was +damned as greed—I saw the politicians who winked at me, telling me not to +worry, because I could just work a little harder and outsmart them all. I +looked past the profits of the moment, and I saw that the harder I worked, +the more I tightened the noose around my throat, I saw that my energy was +being poured down a sewer, that the parasites who fed on me were being fed +upon in their turn, that they were caught in their own trap—and that there +was no reason for it, no answer known to anyone, that the sewer pipes of the +world, draining its productive blood, led into some dank fog nobody had dared +to pierce, while people merely shrugged and said that life on earth could be +nothing but evil. And then I saw that the whole industrial establishment of +the world, with all of its magnificent machinery, its thousand-ton furnaces, +its transatlantic cables, its mahogany offices, its stock exchanges, its +blazing electric signs, its power, its wealth—all of it was run, not by +bankers and boards of directors, but by any unshaved humanitarian in any +basement beer joint, by any face pudgy with malice, who preached that virtue +must be penalized for being virtue, that the purpose of ability is to serve +incompetence, that man has no right to exist except for the sake of others. . +. . I knew it. I saw no way to fight it. John found the way. There were just + + the two of us with him, the night when we came to New York in answer to his +call, Ragnar and I. He told us what we had to do and what sort of men we had +to reach. He had quit the Twentieth Century. He was living in a garret in a +slum neighborhood. He stepped to the window and pointed at the skyscrapers of +the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when +we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was +done. He did not ask us to join him at once. He told us to think it over and +to weigh everything it would do to our lives. I gave him my answer on the +morning of the second day, and Ragnar a few hours later, in the afternoon. . +. . Dagny, that was the morning after our last night together. I had seen, in +a manner of vision that I couldn't escape, what it was that I had to fight +for. +It was for the way you looked that night, for the way you talked about +your railroad—for the way you had looked when we tried to see the skyline of +New York from the top of a rock over the Hudson—I had to save you, to clear +the way for you, to let you find your city—not to let you stumble the years +of your life away, struggling on through a poisoned fog, with your eyes still +held straight ahead, still looking as they had looked in the sunlight, +struggling on to find, at the end of your road, not the towers of a city, but +a fat, soggy, mindless cripple performing his enjoyment of life by means of +swallowing the gin your life had gone to pay for! You,—to know no joy in +order that he may know it? You—to serve as fodder for the pleasure of others? +You—as the means for the subhuman as the end? Dagny, that was what I saw and +that was what I couldn't let them do to you! Not to you, not to any child who +had your kind of look when-he faced the future, not to any man who had your +spirit and was able to experience a moment of being proudly, guiltlessly, +confidently, joyously alive. That was my love, that state of the human +spirit, and I left you to fight for it, and I knew that if I were to lose +you, it was still you that I would be winning with every year of the battle. +But you see it now, don't you? You've seen this valley. It's the place we set +out to reach when we were children, you and I. We've reached it. What else +can I ask for now? Just to see you here—did John say you're still a scab?—oh +well, it's only a matter of tune, but you'll be one of us, because you've +always been, if you don't see it fully, we'll wait, I don't care— +so long as you're alive, so long as I don't have to go on flying over the +Rockies, looking for the wreckage of your plane!" +She gasped a little, realizing why he had not come to the valley on time. +He laughed. "Don't look like that. Don't look at me as if I were a wound +that you're afraid to touch." +"Francisco, I've hurt you in so many different ways—" +"No! No, you haven't hurt me—and he hasn't either, don't say anything +about it, it's he who's hurt, but we'll save him and he'll come here, too, +where he belongs, and he'll know, and then he, too, will be able to laugh +about it. Dagny, I didn't expect you to wait, I didn't hope, I knew the +chance I'd taken, and if it had to be anyone, I'm glad it's he." +She closed her eyes, pressing her lips together not to moan. +"Darling, don't! Don't you see that I've accepted it?" +But it isn't—she thought—it isn't he, and I can't tell you the truth, +because it's a man who might never hear it from me and whom I might never +have. +"Francisco, I did love you—" she said, and caught her breath, shocked, +realizing that she had not intended to say it and, simultaneously, that this +was not the tense she had wanted to use. +"But you do," he said calmly, smiling. "You still love me—even if there's +one expression of it that you'll always feel and want, but will not give me +any longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always +grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant to + + another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you +feel for me, and it won't be treason to either, because it comes from the +same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values. No matter what +happens in the future, we'll always be what we were to each other, you and I, +because you'll always love me." +"Francisco," she whispered, "do you know that?" +"Of course. Don't you understand it now? Dagny, every form of happiness is +one, every desire is driven by the same motor—by our love for a single value, +for the highest potentiality of our own existence—and every achievement is an +expression of it. Look around you. Do you see how much is open to us here, on +an unobstructed earth? Do you see how much I am free to do, to experience, to +achieve? Do you see that all of it is part of what you are to me—as I am part +of it for you? And if I'll see you smile with admiration at a new copper +smelter that I built, it will be another form of what I felt when I lay in +bed beside you. Will I want to sleep with you? Desperately. Will I envy the +man who does? Sure. But what does that matter? It's so much—just to have you +here, to love you and to be alive." +Her eyes lowered, her face stern, holding her head bowed as in an act of +reverence, she said slowly, as if fulfilling a solemn promise, "Will you +forgive me?" +He looked astonished, then chuckled gaily, remembering, and answered, "Not +yet. There's nothing to forgive, but I'll forgive it when you join us." +He rose, he drew her to her feet—and when his arms closed about her, their +kiss was the summation of their past, its end and their seal of acceptance. +Galt turned to them from across the living room, when they came out. He +had been standing at a window, looking at the valley—and she felt certain +that he had stood there all that time. She saw his eyes studying their faces, +his glance moving slowly from one to the other. +His face relaxed a little at the sight of the change in Francisco's. +Francisco smiled, asking him, "Why do you stare at me?" +"Do you know what you looked like when you came in?" +"Oh, did I? That's because I hadn't slept for three nights. John, will you +invite me to dinner? I want to know how this scab of yours got here, but I +think that I might collapse sound asleep in the middle of a sentence—even +though right now I feel as if I'll never need any sleep at all—so I think I'd +better go home and stay there till evening." +Galt was watching him with a faint smile. "But aren't you going to leave +the valley in an hour?" +"What? No . . ." he said mildly, in momentary astonishment. "No!" +he laughed exultantly. "I don't have to! That's right, I haven't told you +what it was, have I? I was searching for Dagny. For . . . for the wreck of +her plane. She'd been reported lost in a crash in the Rockies." +"I see," said Galt quietly. +"I could have thought of anything, except that she would choose to crash +in Galt's Gulch," Francisco said happily; he had the tone of that joyous +relief which almost relishes the horror of the past, defying it by means of +the present. "I kept flying over the district between Afton, Utah, and +Winston, Colorado, over every peak and crevice of it, over every remnant of a +car in any gully below, and whenever I saw one, I—" He stopped; it looked +like a shudder. "Then at night, we went out on foot—the searching parties of +railroad men from Winston— +we went climbing at random, with no clues, no plan, on and on, until it +was daylight again, and—" He shrugged, trying to dismiss it and to smile. "I +wouldn't wish it on my worst—" +He stopped short; his smile vanished and a dim reflection of the look he +had worn for three days came back to his face, as if at the sudden presence +of an image he had forgotten. + + After a long moment, he turned to Galt. "John," his voice sounded +peculiarly solemn, "could we notify those outside that Dagny is alive . . . +in case there's somebody who . . . who'd feel as I did?" +Galt was looking straight at him. "Do you wish to give any outsider any +relief from the consequences of remaining outside?" +Francisco dropped his eyes, but answered firmly, "No." +"Pity, Francisco?" +"Yes. Forget it. You're right." +Galt turned away with a movement that seemed oddly out of character: it +had the unrhythmical abruptness of the involuntary. +He did not turn back; Francisco watched him in astonishment, then asked +softly, "What's the matter?" +Galt turned and looked at him for a moment, not answering. She could not +identify the emotion that softened the lines of Galt's face: it had the +quality of a smile, of gentleness, of pain, and of something greater that +seemed to make these concepts superfluous. +"Whatever any of us has paid for this battle," said Galt, "you're the one +who's taken the hardest beating, aren't you?" +"Who? I?" Francisco grinned with shocked, incredulous amusement. +"Certainly not! What's the matter with you?" He chuckled and added, "Pity, +John?" +"No," said Galt firmly. +She saw Francisco watching him with a faint, puzzled frown—because Galt +had said it, looking, not at him, but at her. +The emotional sum that struck her as an immediate impression of +Francisco's house, when she entered it for the first time, was not the sum +she had once drawn from the sight of its silent, locked exterior. She felt, +not a sense of tragic loneliness, but of invigorating brightness. The rooms +were bare and crudely simple, the house seemed built with the skill, the +decisiveness and the impatience typical of Francisco; it looked like a +frontiersman's shanty thrown together to serve as a mere springboard for a +long flight into the future—a future where so great a field of activity lay +waiting that no time could be wasted on the comfort of its start. The place +had the brightness, not of a home, but of a fresh wooden scaffolding erected +to shelter the birth of a skyscraper. +Francisco, in shirt sleeves, stood in the middle of his twelve-foot square +living room, with the look of a host in a palace. Of all the places where she +had ever seen him, this was the background that seemed most properly his. +Just as the simplicity of his clothes, added to his bearing, gave him the air +of a superlative aristocrat, so the crudeness of the room gave it the +appearance of the most patrician retreat; a single royal touch was added to +the crudeness: two ancient silver goblets stood in a small niche cut in a +wall of bare logs; their ornate design had required the luxury of some +craftsman's long and costly labor, more labor than had gone to build the +shanty, a design dimmed by the polish of more centuries than had gone to grow +the log wall's pines. In the midst of that room, Francisco's easy, natural +manner had a touch of quiet pride, as if his smile were silently saying to +her: This is what I am and what I have been all these years. +She looked up at the silver goblets. +"Yes," he said, in answer to her silent guess, "they belonged to Sebastian +d'Anconia and his wife. That's the only thing I brought here from my palace +in Buenos Aires. That, and the crest over the door. +It's all I wanted to save. Everything else will go, in a very few months +now." He chuckled. "They'll seize it, all of it, the last dregs of d'Anconia +Copper, but they'll be surprised. They won't find much for their trouble. And +as to that palace, they won't be able to afford even its heating bill." +"And then?" she asked. "Where will you go from there?" + + "I? I will go to work for d'Anconia Copper." +"What do you mean?" +"Do you remember that old slogan: "The king is dead, long live the king'? +When the carcass of my ancestors' property is out of the way, then my mine +will become the young new body of d'Anconia Copper, the kind of property my +ancestors had wanted, had worked for, had deserved, but had never owned." +"Your mine? What mine? Where?" +"Here," he said, pointing toward the mountain peaks. "Didn't you know it?" +"No." +"I own a copper mine that the looters won't reach. It's here, in these +mountains. I did the prospecting, I discovered it, I broke the first +excavation. It was over eight years ago. I was the first man to whom Midas +sold land in this valley. I bought that mine. I started it with my own hands, +as Sebastian d'Anconia had started. I have a superintendent 77! +in charge of it now, who used to be my best metallurgist in Chile. +The mine produces all the copper we require. My profits are deposited at +the Mulligan Bank. That will be all I'll have, a few months from now. That +will be all I'll need." +—to conquer the world, was the way his voice sounded on his last sentence— +and she marveled at the difference between that sound and the shameful, +mawkish tone, half-whine, half-threat, the tone of beggar and thug combined, +which the men of their century had given to the word "need." +"Dagny," he was saying, standing at the window, as if looking out at the +peaks, not of mountains, but of time, "the rebirth of d'Anconia Copper—and of +the world—has to start here, in the United States. This country was the only +country in history born, not of chance and blind tribal warfare, but as a +rational product of man's mind. This country was built on the supremacy of +reason—and, for one magnificent century, it redeemed the world. It will have +to do so again. The first step of d'Anconia Copper, as of any other human +value, has to come from here—because the rest of the earth has reached the +consummation of the beliefs it has held through the ages: mystic faith, the +supremacy of the irrational, which has but two monuments at the end of its +course: the lunatic asylum and the graveyard. . . . Sebastian d'Anconia +committed one error: he accepted a system which declared that the property he +had earned by right, was to be his, not by right, but by permission. His +descendants paid for that error. I have made the last payment. . . . I think +that I will see the day when, growing out from their root in this soil, the +mines, the smelters, the ore docks of d'Anconia Copper will spread again +through the world and down to my native country, and I will be the first to +start my country's rebuilding. +I may see it, but I cannot be certain. No man can predict the time when +others will choose to return to reason. It may be that at the end of my life, +I shall have established nothing but this single mine— +d'Anconia Copper No. 1, Galt's Gulch, Colorado, U.S.A. But, Dagny, do you +remember that my ambition was to double my father's production of copper? +Dagny, if at the end of my life, I produce but one pound of copper a year, I +will be richer than my father, richer than all my ancestors with all their +thousands of tons—because that one pound will be mine by right and will be +used to maintain a world that knows it!" +This was the Francisco of their childhood, in bearing, in manner, in the +unclouded brilliance of his eyes—and she found herself questioning him about +his copper mine, as she had questioned him about his industrial projects on +their walks on the shore of the Hudson, recapturing the sense of an +unobstructed future. +"I'll take you to see the mine," he said, "as soon as your ankle recovers +completely. We have to climb a steep trail to get there, just a mule trail, +there's no truck road as yet. Let me show you the new smelter I'm designing. + + I've been working on it for some time, it's too complex for our present +volume of production, but when the mine's output grows to justify it—just +take a look at the time, labor and money that it will save!" +They were sitting together on the floor, bending over the sheets of paper +he spread before her, studying the intricate sections of the smelter—with the +same joyous earnestness they had once brought to the study of scraps in a +junk yard. +She leaned forward just as he moved to reach for another sheet, and she +found herself leaning against his shoulder.-Involuntarily, she held still for +one instant, no longer than for a small break in the flow of a single motion, +while her eyes rose to his. He was looking down at her, neither hiding what +he felt nor implying any further demand. She drew back, knowing that she had +felt the same desire as his. +Then, still holding the recaptured sensation of what she had felt for him +in the past, she grasped a quality that had always been part of it, now +suddenly clear to her for the first time: if that desire was a celebration of +one's life, then what she had felt for Francisco had always been a +celebration of her future, like a moment of splendor gained in part payment +of an unknown, total, affirming some promise to come. In the instant when she +grasped it, she knew also the only desire she had ever experienced not in +token of the future but of the full and final present She knew it by means of +an image—the image of a man's figure standing at the door of a small granite +structure. The final form of the promise that had kept her moving, she +thought, was the man who would, perhaps, remain a promise never to be +reached. +But this—she thought in consternation—was that view of human destiny which +she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view that man was ever to +be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to +aspire, but not to achieve. Her life and her values could not bring her to +that, she thought; she had never found beauty in longing for the impossible +and had never found the possible to be beyond her reach. But she had come to +it and she could find no answer. +She could not give him up or give up the world—she thought, looking at +Galt, that evening. The answer seemed harder to find in his presence. She +felt that no problem existed, that nothing could stand beside the fact of +seeing him and nothing would ever have the power to make her leave—and, +simultaneously, that she would have no right to look at him if she were to +renounce her railroad. She felt that she owned him, that the unnamed had been +understood between them from the start—and, simultaneously, that he was able +to vanish from her Me and, on some future street of the outside world, to +pass her by in unweighted indifference. +She noted that he did not question her about Francisco. When she spoke of +her visit, she could find no reaction in his face, neither of approval nor of +resentment. It seemed to her that she caught an imperceptible shading in his +gravely attentive expression: he looked as if this were a matter about which +he did not choose to feel. +Her faint apprehension grew into a question mark, and the question mark +turned into a drill, cutting deeper and deeper into her mind through the +evenings that followed—when Galt left the house and she remained alone. He +went out every other night, after dinner, not telling her where he went, +returning at midnight or later. She tried not to allow herself fully to +discover with what tension and. restlessness she waited for his return. She +did not ask him where he spent his evenings. The reluctance that stopped her +was her too urgent desire to know; she kept silent in some dimly intentional +form of defiance, half in defiance of him, half of her own anxiety. +She would not acknowledge the things she feared or give them the solid +shape of words, she knew them only by the ugly, nagging pull of an unadmitted + + emotion. Part of it was a savage resentment, of a kind she had never +experienced before, which was her answer to the dread that there might be a +woman in his life; yet the resentment was softened by some quality of health +in the thing she feared, as if the threat could be fought and even, if need +be, accepted. But there was another, uglier dread: the sordid shape of selfsacrifice, the suspicion, not to be uttered about him, that he wished to +remove himself from her path and let its emptiness force her back to the man +who was his best-loved friend. +Days passed before she spoke of it. Then, at dinner, on an evening when he +was to leave, she became suddenly aware of the peculiar pleasure she +experienced while watching him eat the food she had prepared—and suddenly, +involuntarily, as if that pleasure gave her a right she dared not identify, +as if enjoyment, not pain, broke her resistance, she heard herself asking +him, "What is it you're doing every other evening?" +He answered simply, as if he had taken for granted that she knew it, +"Lecturing." +"What?" +"Giving a course of lectures on physics, as I do every year during this +month. It's my . . . What are you laughing at?" he asked, seeing the look of +relief, of silent laughter that did not seem to be directed at his words—and +then, before she answered, he smiled suddenly, as if he had guessed the +answer, she saw some particular, intensely personal quality in his smile, +which was almost a quality of insolent intimacy—in contrast to the calmly +impersonal, casual manner with which he went on. "You know that this is the +month when we all trade the achievements of our real professions. Richard +Halley is to give concerts, Kay Ludlow is to appear in two plays written by +authors who do not write for the outside world—and I give lectures, reporting +on the work I've done during the year." +"Free lectures?" +"Certainly not. It's ten dollars per person for the course." +"I want to hear you." +He shook his head. "No. You'll be allowed to attend the concerts, the +plays or any form of presentation for your own enjoyment, but not my lectures +or any other sale of ideas which you might carry out of this valley. Besides, +my customers, or students, are only those who have a practical purpose in +taking my course: Dwight Sanders, Lawrence Hammond, Dick McNamara, Owen +Kellogg, a few others. I've added one beginner this year: Quentin Daniels." +"Really?" she said, almost with a touch of jealousy. "How can he afford +anything that expensive?" +"On credit. I've given him a time-payment plan. He's worth it." +"Where do you lecture?" +"In the hangar, on Dwight Sanders' farm." +"And where do you work during the year?" +"In my laboratory." +She asked cautiously, "Where is your laboratory? Here, in the valley?" +He held her eyes for a moment, letting her see that his glance was amused +and that he knew her purpose, then answered, "No." +"You've lived in the outside world for all of these twelve years?" +"Yes." +"Do you"—the thought seemed unbearable—"do you hold some such job as the +others?" +"Oh yes." The amusement in his eyes seemed stressed by some special +meaning. +"Don't tell me that you're a second assistant bookkeeper!" +"No, I'm not." +"Then what do you do?" +"I hold the kind of job that the world wishes me to hold." + + "Where?" +He shook his head. "No, Miss Taggart. If you decide to leave the valley, +this is one of the things that you are not to know." +He smiled again with that insolently personal quality which now seemed to +say that he knew the threat contained in his answer and what it meant to her, +then he rose from the table. +When he had gone, she felt as if the motion of time were an oppressive +weight in the stillness of the house, like a stationary, half-solid mass +slithering slowly into some faint elongation by a tempo that left her no +measure to know whether minutes had passed or hours. She lay half-stretched +in an armchair of the living room, crumpled by that heavy, indifferent +lassitude which is not the will to laziness, but the frustration of the will +to a secret violence that no lesser action can satisfy. +That special pleasure she had felt in watching him eat the food she had +prepared—she thought, lying still, her eyes closed, her mind moving, like +time, through some realm of veiled slowness—it had been the pleasure of +knowing that she had provided him with a sensual enjoyment, that one form of +his body's satisfaction had come from her. +. . . There is reason, she thought, why a woman would wish to cook for a +man . . . oh, not as a duty, not as a chronic career, only as a rare and +special rite in symbol of . . . but what have they made of it, the preachers +of woman's duty? . . . The castrated performance of a sickening drudgery was +held to be a woman's proper virtue—while that which gave it meaning and +sanction was held as a shameful sin . . . the work of dealing with grease, +steam and slimy peelings in a reeking kitchen was held to be a spiritual +matter, an act of compliance with her moral duty—while the meeting of two +bodies in a bedroom was held to be a physical indulgence, an act of surrender +to an animal instinct, with no glory, meaning or pride of spirit to be +claimed by the animals involved. +She leaped abruptly to her feet. She did not want to think of the outer +world or of its moral code. But she knew that that was not the subject of her +thoughts. And she did not want to think of the subject her mind was intent on +pursuing, the subject to which it kept returning against her will, by some +will of its own. . . . +She paced the room, hating the ugly, jerky, uncontrolled looseness of her +movements—torn between the need to let her motion break the stillness, and +the knowledge that this was not the form of break she wanted. She lighted +cigarettes, for an instant's illusion of purposeful action—and discarded them +within another instant, feeling the weary distaste of a substitute purpose. +She looked at the room like a restless beggar, pleading with physical objects +to give her a motive, wishing she could find something to clean, to mend, to +polish—while knowing that no task was worth the effort. When nothing seems +worth the effort— +said some stern voice in her mind—it's a screen to hide a wish that's +worth too much; what do you want? . . . She snapped a match, viciously +jerking the flame to the tip of a cigarette she noticed hanging, unlighted, +in the corner of her mouth. . . . What do you want?—repeated the voice that +sounded severe as a judge. I want him to come back!—she answered, throwing +the words, as a soundless cry, at some accuser within her, almost as one +would throw a bone to a pursuing beast, in the hope of distracting it from +pouncing upon the rest. +I want him back—she said softly, in answer to the accusation that there +was no reason for so great an impatience. . . . I want him back —she said +pleadingly, in answer to the cold reminder that her answer did not balance +the judge's scale. . . . I want him back!—she cried defiantly, fighting not +to drop' the one superfluous, protective word in that sentence. + + She felt her head drooping with exhaustion, as after a prolonged beating. +The cigarette she saw between her fingers had burned the mere length of half +an inch. She ground it out and fell into the armchair again. +I'm not evading it—she thought—I'm not evading it, it's just that I can +see no way to any answer. . . . That which you want—said the voice, while she +stumbled through a thickening fog—is yours for the taking, but anything less +than your full acceptance, anything less than your full conviction, is a +betrayal of everything he is. . . . Then let him damn me—she thought, as if +the voice were now lost in the fog and would not hear her—let him damn me +tomorrow. . . . I want him . . . back. . . . She heard no answer, because her +head had fallen softly against the chair; she was asleep. +When she opened her eyes, she saw him standing three feet away, looking +down at her, as if he had been watching her for some time. +She saw his face and, with the clarity of undivided perception, she saw +the meaning of the expression on his face: it was the meaning she had fought +for hours. She saw it without astonishment, because she had not yet regained +her awareness of any reason why it should astonish her. +"This is the way you look," he said softly, "when you fall asleep in your +office," and she knew that he, too, was not fully aware of letting her hear +it: the way he said it told her how often he had thought of it and for what +reason. "You look as if you would awaken in a world where you had nothing to +hide or to fear," and she knew that the first movement of her face had been a +smile, she knew it in the moment when it vanished, when she grasped that they +were both awake. He added quietly, with full awareness, "But here, it's +true." +Her first emotion of the realm of reality was a sense of power. She sat up +with a flowing, leisurely movement of confidence, feeling the flow of the +motion from muscle to muscle through her body. She asked, and it was the +slowness, the sound of casual curiosity, the tone of taking the implications +for granted, that gave to her voice the faintest sound of disdain, "How did +you know what I look like in . . . my office?" +"I told you that I've watched you for years." +"How were you able to watch me that thoroughly? From where?" +"I will not answer you now," he said, simply, without defiance. +The slight movement of her shoulder leaning back, the pause, then the +lower, huskier tone of her voice, left a hint of smiling triumph to trail +behind her words: "When did you see me for the first time?" +"Ten years ago," he answered, looking straight at her, letting her see +that he was answering the full, unnamed meaning of her question. +"Where?" The word was almost a command. +He hesitated, then she saw a faint smile that touched only his lips, not +his eyes, the kind of smile with which one contemplates—with longing, +bitterness and pride—a possession purchased at an excruciating cost; his eyes +seemed directed, not at her, but at the girl of that time. +"Underground, in the Taggart Terminal," he answered. +She became suddenly conscious of her posture: she had let her shoulder +blades slide down against the chair, carelessly, half-lying, one leg +stretched forward—and with her sternly tailored, transparent blouse, her wide +peasant skirt hand-printed in violent colors, her thin stocking and highheeled pump, she did not look like a railroad executive—the consciousness of +it struck her in answer to his eyes that seemed to be seeing the +unattainable—she looked like that which she was: his servant girl. She knew +the moment when some faintest stress of the brilliance in his dark green eyes +removed the veil of distance, replacing the vision of the past by the act of +seeing her immediate person. +She met his eyes with that insolent glance which is a smile without +movement of facial muscles. + + He turned away, but as he moved across the room his steps were as eloquent +as the sound of a voice. She knew that he wanted to leave the room, as he +always left it, he had never stayed for longer than a brief good night when +he came home. She watched the course of his struggle, whether by means of his +steps, begun in one direction and swerving in another, or by means of her +certainty that her body had become an instrument for the direct perception of +his, like a screen reflecting both movements and motives—she could not tell. +She knew only that he who had never started or lost a battle against himself, +now had no power to leave this room. +His manner seemed to show no sign of strain. He took off his coat, +throwing it aside, remaining in shirt sleeves, and sat down, facing her, at +the window across the room. But he sat down on the arm of a chair, as if he +were neither leaving nor staying. +She felt the light-headed, the easy, the almost frivolous sensation of +triumph in the knowledge that she was holding him as surely as by a physical +touch; for the length of a moment, brief and dangerous to endure, it was a +more satisfying form of contact. +Then she felt a sudden, blinding shock, which was half-blow, half scream +within her, and she groped, stunned, for its cause—only to realize that he +had leaned a little to one side and it had been no more than the sight of an +accidental posture, of the long line running from his shoulder to the angle +of his waist, to his hips, down his legs. She looked away, not to let him see +that she was trembling—and she dropped all thoughts of triumph and of whose +was the power. +"I've seen you many times since," he said, quietly, steadily, but a little +more slowly than usual, as if he could control everything except his need to +speak. +"Where have you seen me?" +"Many places." +"But you made certain to remain unseen?" She knew that his was a face she +could not have failed to notice. +"Yes." +"Why? Were you afraid?" +"Yes." +He said it simply, and it took her a moment to realize that he was +admitting he knew what the sight of his person would have meant to her. "Did +you know who I was, when you saw me for the first time?" +"Oh yes. My worst enemy but one." +"What?" She had not expected it; she added, more quietly, "Who's the worst +one?" +"Dr. Robert Stadler." +"Did you have me classified with him?" +"No. He's my conscious enemy. He's the man who sold his soul. We don't +intend to reclaim him. You—you were one of us. I knew it, long before I saw +you. I knew also that you would be the last to join us and the hardest one to +defeat." +"Who told you that?" +"Francisco." +She let a moment pass, then asked, "What did he say?" +"He said that of all the names on our list, you'd be the one most +difficult to win. That was when I heard of you for the first time. It was +Francisco who put your name on our list. He told me that you were the sole +hope and future of Taggart Transcontinental, that you'd stand against us for +a long time, that you'd fight a desperate battle for your railroad—because +you had too much endurance, courage and consecration to your work." He +glanced at her. "He told me nothing else. + + He spoke of you as if he were merely discussing one of our future +strikers. I knew that you and he had been childhood friends, that was all." +"When did you see me?" +"Two years later." +"How?" +"By chance. It was late at night . . . on a passenger platform of the +Taggart Terminal." She knew that this was a form of surrender, he did not +want to say it, yet he had to speak, she heard both the muted intensity and +the pull of resistance in his voice—he had to speak, because he had to give +himself and her this one form of contact. "You wore an evening gown. You had +a cape half-slipping off your body—I saw, at first, only your bare shoulders, +your back and your profile—it looked for a moment as if the cape would slip +further and you would stand there naked. Then I saw that you wore a long +gown, the color of ice, like the tunic of a Grecian goddess, but had the +short hair and the imperious profile of an American woman. You looked +preposterously out of place on a railroad platform—and it was not on a +railroad platform that I was seeing you, I was seeing a setting that had +never haunted me before—but then, suddenly, I knew that you did belong among +the rails, the soot and the girders, that that was the proper setting for a +flowing gown and naked shoulders and a face as alive as yours—a railroad +platform, not a curtained apartment—you looked like a symbol of luxury and +you belonged in the place that was its source—you seemed to bring wealth, +grace, extravagance and the enjoyment of life back to their rightful owners, +to the men who created railroads and factories—you had a look of energy and +of its reward, together, a look of competence and luxury combined—and I was +the first man who had ever stated in what manner these two were inseparable— +and I thought that if our age gave form to its proper gods and erected a +statue to the meaning of an American railroad, yours would be that statue. . +. . Then I saw what you were doing—and I knew who you were. You were giving +orders to three Terminal officials, I could not hear your words, but your +voice sounded swift, clear-cut and confident. I knew that you were Dagny +Taggart. I came closer, close enough to hear two sentences. 'Who said so?' +asked one of the men. 'I did,' you answered. That was all I heard. That was +enough." +"And then?" +He raised his eyes slowly to hold hers across the room, and the submerged +intensity that pulled his voice down, blurring its tone to softness, gave it +a sound of self-mockery that was desperate and almost gentle: "Then I knew +that abandoning my motor was not the hardest price I would have to pay for +this strike." +She wondered which anonymous shadow—among the passengers who had hurried +past her, as insubstantial as the steam of the engines and as ignored—which +shadow and face had been his; she wondered how close she had come to him for +the length of that unknown moment. "Oh, why didn't you speak to me, then or +later?" +"Do you happen to remember what you were doing in the Terminal that +night?" +"I remember vaguely a night when they called me from some party I was +attending. My father was out of town and the new Terminal manager had made +some sort of error that tied up all traffic in the tunnels. The old manager +had quit unexpectedly the week before," +"It was I who made him quit." +"I see . . ." +Her voice trailed off, as if abandoning sound, as her eyelids dropped, +abandoning sight. If he had not withstood it then—she thought—if he had come +to claim her, then or later, what( sort of tragedy would they have had to + + reach? . . . She remembered what she had felt when she had cried that she +would shoot the destroyer on sight. . . . +I would have—the thought was not in words, she knew it only as a trembling +pressure in her stomach—I would have shot him, afterward, if I discovered his +role . . . and I would have had to discover it . . . +and yet—she shuddered, because she knew she still wished he had come to +her, because the thought not to be admitted into her mind. +but flowing as a dark warmth through her body, was: I would have shot him, +but not before— +She raised her eyelids—and she knew that that thought was as naked to him +in her eyes, as it was to her in his. She saw his veiled glance and the +tautness of his mouth, she saw him reduced to agony, she felt herself drowned +by the exultant wish to cause him pain, to see it, to watch it, to watch it +beyond her own endurance and his, then to reduce him to the helplessness of +pleasure. +He got up, he looked away, and she could not tell whether it was the +slight lift of his head or the tension of his features that made his face +look oddly calm and clear, as if it were stripped of emotion down to the +naked purity of its structure. +"Every man that your railroad needed and lost in the past ten years," +he said, "it was I who made you lose him." His voice had the single toned +flatness and the luminous simplicity of an accountant who reminds a reckless +purchaser that cost is an absolute which cannot be escaped, "I have pulled +every girder from under Taggart Transcontinental and, if you choose to go +back, I will see it collapse upon your head." +He turned to leave the room. She stopped him. It was her voice, more than +her words, that made him stop: her voice was low, it had no quality of +emotion, only of a sinking weight, and its sole color was some dragging +undertone, like an inner echo, resembling a threat; it was the voice of the +plea of a person who still retains a concept of honor, but is long past +caring for it: "You want to hold me here, don't you?" +"More than anything else in the world." +"You could hold me." +"I know it" +His voice had said it with the same sound as hers. He waited, to regain +his breath. When he spoke, his voice was low and clear, with some stressed +quality of awareness, which was almost the quality of a smile of +understanding: "It's your acceptance of this place that I want. What good +would it do me, to have your physical presence without any meaning? That's +the kind of faked reality by which most people cheat themselves of their +lives. I'm not capable of it." He turned to go. "And neither are you. Good +night, Miss Taggart." +He walked out, into his bedroom, closing the door. +She was past the realm of thought—as she lay in bed in the darkness of her +room, unable to think or to sleep—and the moaning violence that filled her +mind seemed only a sensation of her muscles, but its tone and its twisting +shades were like a pleading cry, which she knew, not as words, but as pain: +Let him come here, let him break —let it be damned, all of it, my railroad +and his strike and everything we've lived by!—let it be damned, everything +we've been and are!— +he would, if tomorrow I were to die—then let me die, but tomorrow —let him +come here, be it any price he names, I have nothing left that's not for sale +to him any longer—is this what it means to be an animal?—it does and I am. . +. . She lay on her back, her palms pressed to the sheet at her sides, to stop +herself from rising and walking into his room, knowing that she was capable +even of that. . . . + + It's not I, it's a body I can neither endure nor control. . . . But +somewhere within her, not as words, but as a radiant point of stillness, +there was the presence of the judge who seemed to observe her, not in stern +condemnation any longer, but in approval and amusement, as if saying: Your +body?—if he were not what you know him to be, would your body bring you to +this?—why is it his body that you want, and no other?—do you think that you +are damning them, the things you both have lived by?—are you damning that +which you are honoring in this very moment, by your very desire? . . . She +did not have to hear the words, she knew them, she had always known them. +. . . After a while, she lost the glow of that knowledge, and there was +nothing left but pain and the palms that were pressed to the sheet—and the +almost indifferent wonder whether he, too, was awake and fighting the same +torture. +She heard no sound in the house and saw no light from his window on the +tree trunks outside. After a long while she heard, from the darkness of his +room, two sounds that gave her a full answer; she knew that he was awake and +that he would not come; it was the sound of a step and the click of a +cigarette lighter. +Richard Halley stopped playing, turned away from the piano and glanced at +Dagny, He saw her drop her face with the involuntary movement of hiding too +strong an emotion, he rose, smiled and said softly, "Thank you." +"Oh no . . ." she whispered, knowing that the gratitude was hers and that +it was futile to express it. She was thinking of the years when the works he +had just played for her were being written, here, in his small cottage on a +ledge of the valley, when all this prodigal magnificence of sound was being +shaped by him as a flowing monument to a concept which equates the sense of +life with the sense of beauty—while she had walked through the streets of New +York in a hopeless quest for some form of enjoyment, with the screeches of a +modern symphony running after her, as if spit by the infected throat of a +loud-speaker coughing its malicious hatred of existence. +"But I mean it," said Richard Halley, smiling. "I'm a businessman and I +never do anything without payment. You've paid me. Do you see why I wanted to +play for you tonight?" +She raised her head. He stood in the middle of his living room, they were +alone, with the window open to the summer night, to the dark trees on a long +sweep of ledges descending toward the glitter of the valley's distant lights. +"Miss Taggart, how many people are there to whom my work means as much as +it does to you?" +"Not many," she answered simply, neither as boast nor flattery, but as an +impersonal tribute to the exacting values involved. +"That is the payment I demand. Not many can afford it. I don't mean your +enjoyment, I don't mean your emotion—emotions be damned!—I mean your +understanding and the fact that your enjoyment was of the same nature as +mine, that it came from the same source: from your intelligence, from the +conscious judgment of a mind able to judge my work by the standard of the +same values that went to write it—I mean, not the fact that you felt, but +that you felt what I wished you to feel, not the fact that you admire my +work, but that you admire it for the things I wished to be admired." He +chuckled. +"There's only one passion in most artists more violent than their desire +for admiration: their fear of identifying the nature of such admiration as +they do receive. But it's a fear I've never shared. I do not fool myself +about my work or the response I seek—I value both too highly. +I do not care to be admired causelessly, emotionally, intuitively, +instinctively—or blindly, I do not care for blindness in any form, I have too +much to show—or for deafness, I have too much to say. I do not care to be +admired by anyone's heart—only by someone's head. And when I find a customer + + with that invaluable capacity, then my performance is a mutual trade to +mutual profit. An artist is a trader, Miss Taggart, the hardest and most +exacting of all traders. Now do you understand me?" +"Yes," she said incredulously, "I do," incredulously because she was +hearing her own symbol of moral pride, chosen by a man she had least expected +to choose it. +"If you do, why did you look quite so tragic just a moment ago? +What is it that you regret?" +"The years when your work has remained unheard." +"But it hasn't. I've given two or three concerts every year. Here, in +Galt's Gulch. I am giving one next week. I hope you'll come. The price of +admission is twenty-five cents." +She could not help laughing. He smiled, then his face slipped slowly into +earnestness, as under the tide of some unspoken contemplation of his own. He +looked at the darkness beyond the window, at a spot where, in a clearing of +the branches, with the moonlight draining its color, leaving only its +metallic luster, the sign of the dollar hung like a curve of shining steel +engraved on the sky. +"Miss Taggart, do you see why I'd give three dozen modern artists for one +real businessman? Why I have much more in common with Ellis Wyatt or Ken +Danagger—who happens to be tone deaf—than with men like Mort Liddy and Balph +Eubank? Whether it's a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of +creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see +through one's own eyes—which means: the capacity to perform a rational +identification -—which means: the capacity to sew, to connect and to make +what had not been seen, connected and made before. That shining vision which +they talk about as belonging to the authors of symphonies and novels—what do +they think is the driving faculty of men who discover how to use oil, how to +run a mine, how to build an electric motor? That sacred fire which is said to +burn within musicians and poets—what do they suppose moves an industrialist +to defy the whole world for the sake of his new metal, as the inventors of +the airplane, the builders of the railroads, the discoverers of new germs or +new continents have done through all the ages? . . . An intransigent devotion +to the pursuit of truth, Miss Taggart? Have you heard the moralists and the +art lovers of the centuries talk about the artist's intransigent devotion to +the pursuit of truth? Name me a greater example of such devotion than the act +of a man who says that the earth does turn, or the act of a man who says that +an alloy of steel and copper has certain properties which enable it to do +certain things, that it is and does—and let the world rack him or ruin him, +he will not bear false witness to the evidence of his mind! This, Miss +Taggart, this sort of spirit, courage and love for truth—as against a sloppy +bum who goes around proudly assuring you that he has almost reached the +perfection of a lunatic, because he's an artist who hasn't the faintest idea +what his art work is or means, he's not restrained by such crude concepts as +'being' or 'meaning’ he's the vehicle of higher mysteries, he doesn't know +how he created his work or why, it just came out of him spontaneously, like +vomit out of a drunkard, he did not think, he wouldn't stoop to thinking, he +just felt it, all he has to do is feel— +he feels, the flabby, loose-mouthed, shifty-eyed, drooling, shivering, +uncongealed bastard! I, who know what discipline, what effort, what tension +of mind, what unrelenting strain upon one's power of clarity are needed to +produce a work of art—I, who know that it requires a labor which makes a +chain gang look like rest and a severity no army drilling sadist could +impose—I'll take the operator of a coal mine over any walking vehicle of +higher mysteries. The operator knows that it's not his feelings that keep the +coal carts moving under the earth—and he knows what does keep them moving. + + Feelings? Oh yes, we do feel, he, you and I—we are, in fact, the only people +capable of feeling— +and we know where our feelings come from. But what we did not know and +have delayed learning for too long is the nature of those who claim that they +cannot account for their feelings. We did not know what it is that they feel. +We are learning it now. It was a costly error. And those most guilty of it, +will pay the hardest price—as, in justice, they must. Those most guilty of it +were the real artists, who will now see that they are first to be +exterminated and that they had prepared the triumph of their own +exterminators by helping to destroy their only protectors. For if there is +more tragic a fool than the businessman who doesn't know that he's an +exponent of man's highest creative spirit—it's the artist who thinks that the +businessman is his enemy." +It was true—she thought, when she walked through the streets of the +valley, looking with a child's excitement at the shop windows sparkling in +the sun—that the businesses here had the purposeful selectiveness of art—and +that the art—she thought, when she sat in the darkness of a clapboard concert +hall, listening to the controlled violence and the mathematical precision of +Halley's music—had the stern discipline of business. +Both had the radiance of engineering—she thought, when she sat among rows +of benches under the open sky, watching Kay Ludlow on the stage. It was an +experience she had not known since childhood —the experience of being held +for three hours by a play that told a story she had not seen before, in lines +she had not heard, uttering a theme that had not been picked from the handme-downs of the centuries. It was the forgotten delight of being held in rapt +attention by the reins of the ingenious, the unexpected, the logical, the +purposeful, the new—and of seeing it embodied in a performance of superlative +artistry by a woman playing a character whose beauty of spirit matched her +own physical perfection. +"That's why I'm here, Miss Taggart," said Kay Ludlow, smiling in answer to +her comment, after the performance. "Whatever quality of human greatness I +have the talent to portray—that was the quality the outer world sought to +degrade. They let me play nothing but symbols of depravity, nothing but +harlots, dissipation-chasers and home-wreckers, always to be beaten at the +end by the little girl next door, personifying the virtue of mediocrity. They +used my talent—for the defamation of itself. That was why I quit." +Not since childhood, thought Dagny, had she felt that sense of +exhilaration after witnessing the performance of a play—the sense that life +held things worth reaching, not the sense of having studied some aspect of a +sewer there had been no reason to see. As the audience filed away into the +darkness from the lighted rows of benches, she noticed Ellis Wyatt, Judge +Narragansett, Ken Danagger, men who had once been said to despise all forms +of art. +The last image she caught, that evening, was the sight of two tall, +straight, slender figures walking away together down a trail among the rocks, +with the beam of a spotlight flashing once on the gold of their hair. They +were Kay Ludlow and Ragnar Danneskjold—and she wondered whether she could +bear to return to a world where these were the two doomed to destruction. +The recaptured sense of her own childhood kept coming back to her whenever +she met the two sons of the young woman who owned the bakery shop. She often +saw them wandering down the trails of the valley—two fearless beings, aged +seven and four. They seemed to face life as she had faced it. They did not +have the look she had seen in the children of the outer world—a look of fear, +half-secretive, half sneering, the look of a child's defense against an +adult, the look of a being in the process of discovering that he is hearing +lies and of learning to feel hatred. The two boys had the open, joyous, +friendly confidence of kittens who do not expect to get hurt, they had an + + innocently natural, non-boastful sense of their own value and as innocent a +trust in any stranger's ability to recognize it, they had the eager curiosity +that would venture anywhere with the certainty that life held nothing +unworthy of or closed to discovery, and they looked as if, should they +encounter malevolence, they would reject it contemptuously, not as dangerous, +but as stupid, they would not accept it in bruised resignation as the law of +existence, "They represent my particular career, Miss Taggart," said the +young mother in answer to her comment, wrapping a loaf of fresh bread and +smiling at her across the counter. "They're the profession I've chosen to +practice, which, in spite of all the guff about motherhood, one can't +practice successfully in the outer world. I believe you've met my husband, +he's the teacher of economics who works as linesman for Dick McNamara. You +know, of course, that there can be no collective commitments in this valley +and that families or relatives are not allowed to come here, unless each +person takes the striker's oath by his own independent conviction. I came +here, not merely for the sake of my husband's profession, but for the sake of +my own. I came here in order to bring up my sons as human beings. I would not +surrender them to the educational systems devised to stunt a child's brain, +to convince him that reason is impotent, that existence is an irrational +chaos with which he's unable to deal, and thus reduce him to a state of +chronic terror. You marvel at the difference between my children and those +outside, Miss Taggart? Yet the cause is so simple. The cause is that here, in +Galt's Gulch, there's no person who would not consider it monstrous ever to +confront a child with the slightest suggestion of the irrational." +She thought of the teachers whom the schools of the world had lost —when +she looked at the three pupils of Dr. Akston, on the evening of their yearly +reunion. +The only other guest he had invited was Kay Ludlow. The six of them sat in +the back yard of his house, with the light of the sunset on their faces, and +the floor of the valley condensing into a soft blue vapor far below. +She looked at his pupils, at the three pliant, agile figures half +stretched on canvas chairs in poses of relaxed contentment, dressed in +slacks, windbreakers and open-collared shirts: John Galt, Francisco +d'Anconia, Ragnar Danneskjold. +"Don't be astonished, Miss Taggart," said Dr. Akston, smiling, "and don't +make the mistake of thinking that these three pupils of mine are some sort of +superhuman creatures. They're something much greater and more astounding than +that: they're normal men—a thing the world has never seen—and their feat is +that they managed to survive as such. It does take an exceptional mind and a +still more exceptional integrity to remain untouched by the brain-destroying +influences of the world's doctrines, the accumulated evil of centuries—to +remain human, since the human is the rational." +She felt some new quality in Dr. Akston's attitude, some change in the +sternness of his usual reserve; he seemed to include her in their circle, as +if she were more than a guest. Francisco acted as if her presence at their +reunion were natural and to be taken gaily for granted. Galt's face gave no +hint of any reaction; his manner was that of a courteous escort who had +brought her here at Dr. Akston's request. +She noticed that Dr. Akston's eyes kept coming back to her, as if with the +quiet pride of displaying his students to an appreciative observer. His +conversation kept returning to a single theme, in the manner of a father who +has found a listener interested in his most cherished subject: "You should +have seen them, when they were in college, Miss Taggart. You couldn't have +found three boys 'conditioned' to such different backgrounds, but— +conditioners be damned!—they must have picked one another at first sight, +among the thousands on that campus. + + Francisco, the richest hen- in the world—Ragnar, the European aristocrat— +and John, the self-made man, self-made in every sense, out of nowhere, +penniless, parentless, tie-less. Actually, he was the son of a gas-station +mechanic at some forsaken crossroads in Ohio, and he had left home at the age +of twelve to make his own way—but I've always thought of him as if he had +come into the world like Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who sprang forth +from Jupiter's head, fully grown and fully armed. . . . I remember the day +when I saw the three of them for the first time. They were sitting at the +back of the classroom—I was giving a special course for postgraduate +students, so difficult a course that few outsiders ever ventured to attend +these particular lectures. Those three looked too young even for freshmen— +they were sixteen at the time, as I learned later. At the end of that +lecture, John got up to ask me a question. It was a question which, as a +teacher, I would have been proud to hear from a student who'd taken six years +of philosophy. It was a question pertaining to Plato's metaphysics, which +Plato hadn't had the sense to ask of himself. I answered—and I asked John to +come to my office after the lecture. +He came—all three of them came—I saw the two others in my anteroom and let +them in. I talked to them for an hour—then I cancelled all my appointments +and talked to them for the rest of the day. After which, I arranged to let +them take that course and receive their credits for it. They took the course. +They got the highest grades in the class. +. . . They were majoring in two subjects: physics and philosophy. +Their choice amazed everybody but me: modern thinkers considered it +unnecessary to perceive reality, and modern physicists considered it +unnecessary to think. I knew better; what amazed me was that these children +knew it, too. . . . Robert Stadler was head of the Department of Physics, as +I was head of the Department of Philosophy. He and I suspended all rules and +restrictions for these three students, we spared them all the routine, +unessential courses, we loaded them with nothing but the hardest tasks, and +we cleared their way to major in our two subjects within their four years. +They worked for it. And, during those four years, they worked for their +living, besides. Francisco and Ragnar were receiving allowances from their +parents, John had nothing, but all three of them held part-time jobs to earn +their own experience and money. Francisco worked in a copper foundry, John +worked in a railroad roundhouse, and Ragnar—no, Miss Taggart, Ragnar was not +the least, but the most studiously sedate of the three— +he worked as clerk in the university library. They had time for everything +they wanted, but no time for people or for any communal campus activities. +They . . . Ragnar!" he interrupted himself suddenly, sharply. "Don't sit on +the ground!" +Danneskjold had slipped down and was now sitting on the grass, with his +head leaning against Kay Ludlow's knees. He rose obediently, chuckling. Dr. +Akston smiled with a touch of apology. +"It's an old habit of mine," he explained to Dagny. "A 'conditioned' +reflex, I guess. I used to tell him that in those college years, when I'd +catch him sitting on the ground in my back yard, on cold, foggy evenings—he +was reckless that way, he made me worry, he should have known it was +dangerous and—" +He stopped abruptly; he read in Dagny's startled eyes the same thought as +his own: the thought of the kind of dangers the adult Ragnar had chosen to +face. Dr. Akston shrugged, spreading his hands in a gesture of helpless selfmockery. Kay Ludlow smiled at him in understanding. +"My house stood just outside the campus," he continued, sighing, "on a +tall bluff over Lake Erie. We spent many evenings together, the four of us. +We would sit just like this, in my back yard, on the nights of early fall or +in the spring, only instead of this granite mountainside, we had the spread + + of the lake before us, stretching off into a peacefully unlimited distance. I +had to work harder on those nights than in any classroom, answering all the +questions they'd ask me, discussing the kind of issues they'd raise. About +midnight, I would fix some hot chocolate and force them to drink it—the one +thing I suspected was that they never took time to eat properly—and then we'd +go on talking, while the lake vanished into solid darkness and the sky seemed +lighter than the earth. There were a few tunes when we stayed there till I +noticed suddenly that the sky was turning darker and the lake was growing +pale and we were within a few sentences of daylight. I should have known +better, I knew that they weren't getting enough sleep as it was, but I forgot +it occasionally, I lost my sense of time— +you see, when they were there, I always felt as ft it were early morning +and a long, inexhaustible day were stretching ahead before us. They never +spoke of what they wished they might do in the future, they never wondered +whether some mysterious omnipotence had favored them with some unknowable +talent to achieve the things they wanted— +they spoke of what they would do. Does affection tend to make one a +coward? I know that the only times I felt fear were occasional moments when I +listened to them and thought of what the world was becoming and what they +would have to encounter in the future. Fear? +Yes—but it was more than fear. It was the kind of emotion that makes men +capable of killing—when I thought that the purpose of the world's trend was +to destroy these children, that these three sons of mine were marked for +immolation. Oh yes, I would have killed— +but whom was there to kill? It was everyone and no one, there was no +single enemy, no center and no villain, it was not the simpering social +worker incapable of earning a penny or the thieving bureaucrat scared of his +own shadow, it was the whole of the earth rolling into an obscenity of +horror, pushed by the hand of every would-be decent man who believed that +need is holier than ability, and pity is holier than justice. But these were +only occasional moments. It was not my constant feeling. I listened to my +children and I knew that nothing would defeat them. I looked at them, as they +sat in my back yard, and beyond my house there were the tall, dark buildings +of what was still a monument to unenslaved thought—the Patrick Henry +University— +and farther in the distance there were the lights of Cleveland, the orange +glow of steel mills behind batteries of smokestacks, the twinkling red dots +of radio towers, the long white rays of airports on the black edge of the +sky—and I thought that in the name of any greatness that had ever existed and +moved this world, the greatness of which they were the last descendants, they +would win, . . . I remember one night when I noticed that John had been +silent for a long time —and I saw that he had fallen asleep, stretched there +on the ground. +The two others confessed that he had not slept for three days. I sent the +two of them home at once, but I didn't have the heart to disturb him. It was +a warm spring night, I brought a blanket to cover him, and I let him sleep +where he was. I sat there beside him till morning—and as I watched his face +in the starlight, then the first ray of the sun on his untroubled forehead +and closed eyelids, what I experienced was not a prayer, I do not pray, but +that state of spirit at which a prayer is a misguided attempt: a full, +confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the +certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of +future he deserved." He moved his arm, pointing to the valley. "I did not +expect it to be as great as this—or as hard." +It had grown dark and the mountains had blended with the sky. + + Hanging detached in space, there were the lights of the valley below them, +the red breath of Stockton's foundry above, and the lighted string of windows +of Mulligan's house, like a railroad car imbedded in the sky. +"I did have a rival," said Dr. Akston slowly. "It was Robert Stadler. +. . . Don't frown, John—it's past. . . . John- did love him, once. +Well, so did I—no, not quite, but what one felt for a mind like Stadler's +was painfully close to love, it was that rarest of pleasures: admiration. No, +I did not love him, but he and I had always felt as if we were fellow +survivors from some vanishing age or land, in the gibbering swamp of +mediocrity around us. The mortal sin of Robert Stadler was that he never +identified his proper homeland. . . . He hated stupidity. It was the only +emotion I had ever seen him display toward people—a biting, bitter, weary +hatred for any ineptitude that dared to oppose him. He wanted his own way, he +wanted to be left alone to pursue it, he wanted to brush people out of his +path— +and he never identified the means to it or the nature of his path and of +his enemies. He took a short cut. Are you smiling, Miss Taggart? +You hate him, don't you? Yes, you know the kind of short cut he took. . . +. He told you that we were rivals for these three students. +That was true—or rather, that was not the way I thought of it, but I knew +that he did. Well, if we were rivals, I had one advantage: I knew why they +needed both our professions; he never understood their interest in mine. He +never understood its importance to himself— +which, incidentally, is what destroyed him. But in those years he was +still alive enough to grasp at these three students. 'Grasp' was the word for +it. Intelligence being the only value he worshipped, he clutched them as if +they were a private treasure of his own. He had always been a very lonely +man. I think that in the whole of his life, Francisco and Ragnar were his +only love, and John was his only passion. It was John whom he regarded as his +particular heir, as his future, as his own immortality. John intended to be +an inventor, which meant that he was to be a physicist; he was to take his +postgraduate course under Robert Stadler. Francisco intended to leave after +graduation and go to work; he was to be the perfect blend of both of us, his +two intellectual fathers: an industrialist. And Ragnar—you didn't know what +profession Ragnar had chosen, Miss Taggart? No, it wasn't stunt pilot, or +jungle explorer, or deep-sea diver. It was something much more courageous +than these. Ragnar intended to be a philosopher. An abstract, theoretical, +academic, cloistered, ivory-tower philosopher. . . . +Yes, Robert Stadler loved them. And yet—I have said that I would have +killed to protect them, only there was no one to kill. If that were the +solution—which, of course, it isn't—the man to kill was Robert Stadler. Of +any one person, of any single guilt for the evil which is now destroying the +world—his was the heaviest guilt. He had the mind to know better. His was the +only name of honor and achievement, used to sanction the rule of the looters. +He was the man who delivered science into the power of the looters' guns. +John did not expect it. Neither did I. . . . John came back for his +postgraduate course in physics. But he did not finish it. He left, on the day +when Robert Stadler endorsed the establishment of a State Science Institute. +I met Stadler by chance in a corridor of the university, as he came out of +his office after his last conversation with John. He looked changed. +I hope that I shall never have to see again a change of that kind in a +man's face. He saw me approaching—and he did not know, but I knew, what made +him whirl upon me and cry, Tin so sick of all of you Impractical idealists!1 +I turned away. I knew that I had heard a man pronounce a death sentence upon +himself. . . . Miss Taggart, do you remember the question you asked me about +my three pupils?" +"Yes," she whispered. + + "I could gather, from your question, the nature of what Robert Stadler had +said to you about them. Tell me, why did he speak of them at all?" +He saw the faint movement of her bitter smile. "He told me their story as +a justification for his belief in the futility of human intelligence. He told +it to me as an example of his disillusioned hope. +Theirs was the kind of ability,' he said, 'one expects to see, in the +future, changing the course of the world'." +"Well, haven't they done so?" +She nodded, slowly, holding her head inclined for a long moment hi +acquiescence and in homage. +"What I want you to understand, Miss Taggart, is the full evil of those +who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm +of malevolence where the good has no chance to win. Let them check their +premises. Let them check their standards of value. Let them check—before they +grant themselves the unspeakable license of evil-as-necessity—whether they +know what is the good and what are the conditions it requires. Robert Stadler +now believes that intelligence is futile and that human life can be nothing +but irrational. Did he expect John Galt to become a great scientist, willing +to work under the orders of Dr. Floyd Ferris? Did he expect Francisco +d'Anconia to become a great industrialist, willing to produce under the +orders and for the benefit of Wesley Mouch? Did he expect Ragnar Danneskjold +to become a great philosopher, willing to preach, under the orders of Dr. +Simon Pritchett, that there is no mind and that might is right? Would that +have been a future which Robert Stadler would have considered rational? I +want you to observe, Miss Taggart, that those who cry the loudest about their +disillusionment, about the failure of virtue, the futility of reason, the +impotence of logic— +are those who have achieved the full, exact, logical result of the ideas +they preached, so mercilessly logical that they dare not identify it. In a +world that proclaims the non-existence of the mind, the moral righteousness +of rule by brute force, the penalizing of the competent in favor of the +incompetent, the sacrifice of the best to the worst —in such a world, the +best have to turn against society and have to become its deadliest enemies. +In such a world John Galt, the man of incalculable intellectual power, will +remain an unskilled laborer— +Francisco d'Anconia, the miraculous producer of wealth, will become a +wastrel—and Ragnar Danneskjold, the man of enlightenment, will become the man +of violence. Society—and Dr. Robert Stadler—have achieved everything they +advocated. What complaint do they now have to make? That the universe is +irrational? Is it?" +He smiled; his smile had the pitiless gentleness of certainty. +"Every man builds his world in his own image," he said. "He has the power +to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. +If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the +grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of +existence—by his own choice. Whoever preserves a single thought uncorrupted +by any concession to the will of others, whoever brings into reality a +matchstick or a patch of garden made in the image of his thought—he, and to +that extent, is a man, and that extent is the sole measure of his virtue. +They"—he pointed at his pupils— +"made no concessions. This"—he pointed at the valley—"is the measure of +what they preserved and of what they are. . . . Now I can repeat my answer to +the question you asked me, knowing that you will understand it fully. You +asked me whether I was proud of the way my three sons had turned out. I am +more proud than I had ever hoped to be. I am proud of their every action, of +their every goal— +and of every value they've chosen. And this, Dagny, is my full answer." + + The sudden sound of her first name was pronounced in the tone of a father; +he spoke his last two sentences, looking, not at her, but at Galt. +She saw Galt answering him by an open glance held steady for an instant, +like a signal of affirmation. Then Galt's eyes moved to hers. +She saw him looking at her as if she bore the unspoken title that hung in +the silence between them, the title Dr. Akston had granted her, but had not +pronounced and none of the others had caught— +she saw, in Galt's eyes, a glance of amusement at her shock, of support +and, incredibly, of tenderness. +D'Anconia Copper No. I was a small cut on the face of the mountain, that +looked as if a knife had made a few angular slashes, leaving shelves of rock, +red as a wound, on the reddish-brown flank. +The sun beat down upon it. Dagny stood at the edge of a path, holding on +to Galt's arm on one side and to Francisco's on the other, the wind blowing +against their faces and out over the valley, two thousand feet below. +This—she thought, looking at the mine—was the story of human wealth +written across the mountains: a few pine trees hung over the cut, contorted +by the storms that had raged through the wilderness for centuries, six men +worked on the shelves, and an inordinate amount of complex machinery traced +delicate lines against the sky; the machinery did most of the work. +She noticed that Francisco was displaying his domain to Galt as much as to +her, as much or more. "You haven't seen it since last year, John. . . . John, +wait till you see it a year from now. I'll be through, outside, in just a few +months—and then this will be my full-time job." +"Hell, no, John!" he said, laughing, in answer to a question—but she +caught suddenly the particular quality of his glance whenever it rested on +Galt: it was the quality she had seen in his eyes when he had stood in her +room, clutching the edge of a table to outlive an unlivable moment; he had +looked as if he were seeing someone before him; it was Galt, she thought; it +was Galt's image that had carried him through. +Some part of her felt a dim dread: the effort which Francisco had made in +that moment to accept her loss and his rival, as the payment demanded of him +for his battle, had cost him so much that he was now unable to suspect the +truth Dr. Akston had guessed. What will it do to him when he learns?—she +wondered, and felt a bitter voice reminding her that there would, perhaps, +never be any truth of this kind to learn. +Some part of her felt a dim tension as she watched the way Galt looked at +Francisco: it was an open, simple, unreserved glance of surrender to an +unreserved feeling. She felt the anxious wonder she had never fully named or +dismissed: wonder whether this feeling would bring him down to the ugliness +of renunciation. +But most of her mind seemed swept by some enormous sense of release, as if +she were laughing at all doubts. Her glance kept going back over the path +they had traveled to get here, over the two exhausting miles of a twisted +trail that ran, like a precarious corkscrew, from the tip of her feet down to +the floor of the valley. Her eyes kept studying it, her mind racing with some +purpose of its own. +Brush, pines and a clinging carpet of moss went climbing from the green +slopes far below, up the granite ledges. The moss and the brush vanished +gradually, but the pines went on, struggling upward in thinning strands, till +only a few dots of single trees were left, rising up the naked rock toward +the white sunbursts of snow in the crevices at the peaks. She looked at the +spectacle of the most ingenious mining machinery she had ever seen, then at +the trail where the plodding hoofs and swaying shapes of mules provided the +most ancient form of transportation. +"Francisco," she asked, pointing, "who designed the machines?" +"They're just adaptations of standard equipment." + + "Who designed them?" +"I did. We don't have many men to spare. We had to make up for it." +"You're wasting an unconscionable amount of manpower and time, carting +your ore on muleback. You ought to build a railroad down to the valley." +She was looking down and did not notice the sudden, eager shot of his +glance to her face or the sound of caution in his voice: "I know it, but it's +such a difficult job that the mine's output won't justify it at present." +"Nonsense! It's much simpler than it looks. There's a pass to the east +where there's an easier grade and softer stone, I watched it on the way up, +it wouldn't take so many curves, three miles of rail or less would do it." +She was pointing east, she did not notice the intensity with which the two +men were watching her face. +"Just a narrow-gauge track is all you’ll need . . . like the first +railroads . . . that's where the first railroads started—at mines, only they +were coal mines. . . . Look, do you see that ridge? There's plenty of +clearance for a three-foot gauge, you wouldn't need to do any blasting or +widening. Do you see where there's a slow rise for a stretch of almost half a +mile? That would be no worse than a four per cent grade, any engine could +manage it." She was speaking with a swift, bright certainty, conscious of +nothing but the joy of performing her natural function in her natural world +where nothing could take precedence over the act of offering a solution to a +problem. "The road will pay for itself within three years. I think, at a +rough glance, that the costliest part of the job will be a couple of steel +trestles—and there's one spot where I might have to blast a tunnel, but it's +only for a hundred feet or less. I'll need a steel trestle to throw the track +across that gorge and bring it here, but it's not as hard as it looks—let me +show you, have you got a piece of paper?" +She did not notice with what speed Galt produced a notebook and a pencil +and thrust them into her hands—she seized them, as if she expected them to be +there, as if she were giving orders on a construction site where details of +this kind were not to delay her. +"Let me give you a rough idea of what I mean. If we drive diagonal piles +into the rock"—she was sketching rapidly—"the actual steel span would be only +six hundred feet long—it would cut off this last half mile of your corkscrew +turns—I could have the rail laid in three months and—" +She stopped. When she looked up at their faces, the fire had gone out of +hers. She crumpled her sketch and flung it aside into the red dust of the +gravel. "Oh, what for?" she cried, the despair breaking out for the first +time. "To build three miles of railroad and abandon a transcontinental +system!" +The two men were looking at her, she saw no reproach in their faces, only +a look of understanding which was almost compassion. +"I'm sorry," she said quietly, dropping her eyes. +"If you change your mind," said Francisco, "I'll hire you on the spot-—or +Midas will give you a loan in five minutes to finance that railroad, if you +want to own it yourself." +She shook her head. "I can't . . ." she whispered, "not yet . . ." +She raised her eyes, knowing that they knew the nature of her despair and +that it was useless to hide her struggle. "I've tried it once," +she said. "I've tried to give it up . . . I know what it will mean . . . +I'll think of it with every crosstie I'll see laid here, with every spike +driven . . . I'll think of that other tunnel and . . . and of Nat Taggart's +bridge. . . . Oh, if only I didn't have to hear about it! If only I could +stay here and never know what they're doing to the railroad, and never learn +when it goes!" +"You'll have to hear about it," said Galt; it was that ruthless tone, +peculiarly his, which sounded implacable by being simple, devoid of any + + emotional value, save the quality of respect for facts. "You'll hear the +whole course of the last agony of Taggart Transcontinental. +You'll hear about every wreck. You'll hear about every discontinued train. +You'll hear about every abandoned line. You'll hear about the collapse of the +Taggart Bridge. Nobody stays in this valley except by a full, conscious +choice based on a full, conscious knowledge of every fact involved in his +decision. Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever." +She looked at him, her head lifted, knowing what chance he was rejecting. +She thought that no man of the outer world would have said this to her at +this moment—she thought of the world's code that worshipped white lies as an +act of mercy—she felt a stab of revulsion against that code, suddenly seeing +its full ugliness for the first time— +she felt an enormous pride for the tight, clean face of the man before +her—he saw the shape of her mouth drawn firm in self-control, yet softened by +some tremulous emotion, while she answered quietly, "Thank you. You're +right." +"You don't have to answer me now," he said. "You'll tell me when you've +decided. There's still a week left." +"Yes," she said calmly, "just one more week." +He turned, picked up her crumpled sketch, folded it neatly and slipped it +into his pocket. +"Dagny," said Francisco, "when you weigh your decision, consider the first +time you quit, if you wish, but consider everything about it. +In this valley, you won't have to torture yourself by shingling roofs and +building paths that lead nowhere." +"Tell me," she asked suddenly, "how did you find out where I was, that +time?'1 +He smiled. "It was John who told me. The destroyer, remember? +You wondered why the destroyer had not sent anyone after you. But he had. +It was he who sent me there." +"He sent you?" +"Yes." +"What did he say to you?" +"Nothing much. Why?" +"What did he say? Do you remember the exact words?" +"Yes, I do remember. He said, 'If you want your chance, take it. +You’ve earned it.' I remember, because—" He turned to Galt with the +untroubled frown of a slight, casual puzzle. "John, I never quite understood +why you said it. Why that? Why—my chance?" +"Do you mind if I don't answer you now?" +"No, but—" +Someone hailed him from the ledges of the mine, and he went off swiftly, +as if the subject required no further attention. +She was conscious of the long span of moments she took while turning her +head to Galt. She knew that she would find him looking at her. She could read +nothing in his eyes, except a hint of derision, as if he knew what answer she +was seeking and that she would not find it in his face. +"You gave him a chance that you wanted?" +"I could have no chance till he'd had every chance possible to him." +"How did you know what he had earned?" +"I had been questioning him about you for ten years, every time I could, +in every way, from every angle. No, he did not tell me—it was the way he +spoke of you that did. He didn't want to speak, but he spoke too eagerly, +eagerly and reluctantly together—and then I knew that it had not been just a +childhood friendship. I knew how much he had given up for the strike and how +desperately he hadn't given it up forever. I? I was merely questioning him + + about one of our most important future strikers—as I questioned him about +many others," +The hint of derision remained in his eyes; he knew that she had wanted to +hear this, but that this was not the answer to the one question she feared. +She looked from his face to Francisco's approaching figure, not hiding +from herself any longer that her sudden, heavy, desolate anxiety was the fear +that Galt might throw the three of them into the hopeless waste of selfsacrifice. +Francisco approached, looking at her thoughtfully, as if weighing some +question of his own, but some question that gave a sparkle of reckless gaiety +to his eyes. +"Dagny, there's only one week left," he said. "If you decide to go back, +it will be the last, for a long time," There was no reproach and no sadness +in his voice, only some softened quality as sole evidence of emotion. "If you +leave now—oh yes, you'll still come back —but it won't be soon. And I—in a +few months, I'll come to live here permanently, so if you go, I won't see you +again, perhaps for years. +I'd like you to spend this last week with me. I'd like you to move to my +house. As my guest, nothing else, for no reason, except that I'd like you +to." +He said it simply, as if nothing were or could be hidden among the three +of them. She saw no sign of astonishment in Galt's face. She felt some swift +tightening in her chest, something hard, reckless and almost vicious that had +the quality of a dark excitement driving her blindly into action. +"But I'm an employee," she said, with an odd smile, looking at Galt, "I +have a job to finish." +"I won't hold you to it," said Galt, and she felt anger at the tone of his +voice, a tone that granted her no hidden significance and answered nothing +but the literal meaning of her words. "You can quit the job any time you +wish. It's up to you." +"No, it isn't. I'm a prisoner here. Don't you remember? I'm to take +orders. I have no preferences to follow, no wishes to express, no decisions +to make. I want the decision to be yours." +"You want it to be mine?" +"Yes!" +"You've expressed a wish." +The mockery of his voice was in its seriousness—and she threw at him +defiantly, not smiling, as if daring him to continue pretending that he did +not understand: "All right. That's what I wish!" +He smiled, as at a child's complex scheming which he had long since seen +through. "Very well." But he did not smile, as he said, turning to Francisco, +"Then—no." +The defiance toward an adversary who was the sternest of teachers, was all +that Francisco had read in her face. He shrugged, regretfully, but gaily. +"You're probably right. If you can't prevent her from going back—nobody can." +She was not hearing Francisco's words. She was stunned by the magnitude of +the relief that hit her at the sound of Galt's answer, a relief that told her +the magnitude of the fear it swept away. She knew, only after it was over, +what had hung for her on his decision; she knew that had his answer been +different, it would have destroyed the valley in her eyes. +She wanted to laugh, she wanted to embrace them both and laugh with them +in celebration., it did not seem to matter whether she would stay here or +return to the world, a week was like an endless span of time, either course +seemed flooded by an unchanging sunlight—and no struggle was hard, she +thought, if this was the nature of existence. The relief did not come from +the knowledge that he would not renounce her, nor from arty assurance that + + she would win—the relief came from the certainty that he would always remain +what he was. +"I don't know whether I'll go back to the world or not," she said soberly, +but her voice was trembling with a subdued violence, which was pure gaiety. +"I'm sorry that I'm still unable to make a decision. +I'm certain of only one thing: that I won't be afraid to decide." +Francisco took the sudden brightness of her face as proof that the +incident had been of no significance. But Galt understood; he glanced at her +and the glance was part amusement, part contemptuous reproach. +He said nothing, until they were alone, walking down the trail to the +valley. Then he glanced at her again, the amusement sharper in his eyes, and +said, "You had to put me to a test in order to learn whether I'd fall to the +lowest possible stage of altruism?" +She did not answer, but looked at him in open, undefensive admission. +He chuckled and looked away, and a few steps later said slowly, in the +tone of a quotation, "Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner +whatever." +Part of the intensity of her relief—she thought, as she walked silently by +his side—was the shock of a contrast: she had seen, with the sudden, +immediate vividness of sensory perception, an exact picture of what the code +of self-sacrifice would have meant, if enacted by the three of them. Galt, +giving up the woman he wanted, for the sake of his friend, faking his +greatest feeling out of existence and himself out of her life, no matter what +the cost to him and to her, then dragging the rest of his years through the +waste of the unreached and unfulfilled —she, turning for consolation to a +second choice, faking a love she did not feel, being willing to fake, since +her will to self-deceit was the essential required for Galt's self-sacrifice, +then living out her years in hopeless longing, accepting, as relief for an +unhealing wound, some moments of weary affection, plus the tenet that love is +futile and happiness is not to be found on earth—Francisco, struggling in the +elusive fog of a counterfeit reality, his life a fraud staged by the two who +were dearest to him and most trusted, struggling to grasp what was missing +from his happiness, struggling down the brittle scaffold of a lie over the +abyss of the discovery that he was not the man she loved, but only a resented +substitute, half-charity-patient, half-crutch, his perceptiveness becoming +his danger and only his surrender to lethargic stupidity protecting the +shoddy structure of his joy, struggling and giving up and settling into the +dreary routine of the conviction that fulfillment is impossible to man—the +three of them, who had had all the gifts of existence spread out before them, +ending up as embittered hulks, who cry in despair that life is frustration— +the frustration of not being able to make unreality real. +But this—she thought—was men's moral code in the outer world, a code that +told them to act on the premise of one another's weakness, deceit and +stupidity, and this was the pattern of their lives, this struggle through a +fog of the pretended and unacknowledged, this belief that facts are not solid +or final, this state where, denying any form to reality, men stumble through +life, unreal and unformed, and die having never been born. Here—she thought, +looking down through green branches at the glittering roofs of the valley—one +dealt with men as clear and firm as sun and rocks, and the immense lightheartedness of her relief came from the knowledge that no battle was hard, no +decision was dangerous where there was no soggy uncertainty, no shapeless +evasion to encounter. +"Did it ever occur to you, Miss Taggart," said Galt, in the casual tone of +an abstract discussion, but as if he had known her thoughts, "that there is +no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in +their most personal desires—if they omit the irrational from their view of +the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? There is no + + conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of +another—if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that +lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot +be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to +that which isn't. The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a +superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer's wealth, +the artist who envies a rival's higher talent—they're all wishing facts out +of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue +it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune or an immortal fame— +they will merely destroy production, employment and art. A wish for the +irrational is not to be achieved, whether the sacrificial victims are willing +or not. But men will not cease to desire the impossible and will not lose +their longing to destroy—so long as self-destruction and self-sacrifice are +preached to them as the practical means of achieving the happiness of the +recipients." +He glanced at her and added slowly, a slight emphasis as sole change in +the impersonal tone of his voice, "No one's happiness but my own is in my +power to achieve or to destroy. You should have had more respect for him and +for me than to fear what you had feared." +She did not answer, she felt as if a word would overfill the fullness of +this moment, she merely turned to him with a look of acquiescence that was +disarmed, childishly humble and would have been an apology but for its +shining joy, He smiled—in amusement, in understanding, almost in comradeship +of the things they shared and in sanction of the things she felt. +They went on in silence, and it seemed to her that this was a summer day +out of a carefree youth she had never lived, it was just a walk through the +country by two people who were free for the pleasure of motion and sunlight, +with no unsolved burdens left to carry. Her sense of lightness blended with +the weightless sense of walking downhill, as if she needed no effort to walk, +only to restrain herself from flying, and she walked, fighting the speed of +the downward pull, her body leaning back, the wind blowing her skirt like a +sail to brake her motion. +They parted at the bottom of the trail; he went to keep an appointment +with Midas Mulligan, while she went to Hammond's Market with a list of items +for the evening's dinner as the sole concern of her world. +His wife—she thought, letting herself hear consciously the word Dr. Akston +had not pronounced, the word she had long since felt, but never named—for +three weeks she had been his wife in every sense but one, and that final one +was still to be earned, but this much was real and today she could permit +herself to know it, to feel it, to live with that one thought for this one +day. +The groceries, which Lawrence Hammond was lining up at her order on the +polished counter of his store, had never appeared to her as such shining +objects—and, intent upon them, she was only half-conscious of some disturbing +element, of something that was wrong but that her mind was too full to +notice. She noticed it only when she saw Hammond pause, frown and stare +upward, at the sky beyond his open store front. +In time with his words: "I think somebody's trying to repeat your stunt, +Miss Taggart," she realized that it was the sound of an airplane overhead and +that it had been there for some time, a sound which was not to be heard in +the valley after the first of this month. +They rushed out to the street. The small silver cross of a plane was +circling above the ring of mountains, like a sparkling dragonfly about to +brush the peaks with its wings. +"What does he think he's doing?" said Lawrence Hammond. +There were people at the doors of the shops and standing still all down +the street, looking up. + + "Is . . . is anyone expected?" she asked and was astonished by the anxiety +of her own voice. +"No," said Hammond. "Everyone who's got any business here is here." He did +not sound disturbed, but grimly curious. +The plane was now a small dash, like a silver cigarette, streaking against +the flanks of the mountains: it had dropped lower. +"Looks like a private monoplane," said Hammond, squinting against the sun. +"Not an army model." +"Will the ray screen hold out?" she asked tensely, in a tone of defensive +resentment against the approach of an enemy. +He chuckled. "Hold out?" +"Will he see us?" +"That screen is safer than an underground vault, Miss Taggart. As you +ought to know." +The plane rose, and for a moment it was only a bright speck, like a bit of +paper blown by the wind—it hovered uncertainly., then dropped down again into +another circling spiral. +"What in hell is he after?" said Hammond. +Her eyes shot suddenly to his face. +"He's looking for something," said Hammond. "What?" +"Is there a telescope somewhere?" +"Why—yes, at the airfield, but—" He was about to ask what was the matter +with her voice—but she was running across the road, down the path to the +airfield, not knowing that she was running, driven by a reason she had no +time and no courage to name. +She found Dwight Sanders at the small telescope of the control tower; he +was watching the plane attentively, with a puzzled frown. +"Let me see it!" she snapped. +She clutched the metal tube, she pressed her eye to the lens, her hand +guiding the tube slowly to follow the plane—then he saw that her hand had +stopped, but her fingers did not open and her face remained bent over the +telescope, pressed to the lens, until he looked closer and saw that the lens +was pressed to her forehead. +"What's the matter, Miss Taggart?" +She raised her head slowly. +"Is it anyone you know, Miss Taggart?" +She did not answer. She hurried away, her steps rushing with the +zigzagging aimlessness of uncertainty—she dared not run, but she had to +escape, she had to hide, she did not know whether she was afraid to be seen +by the men around her or by the plane above—the plane whose silver wings bore +the number that belonged to Hank Rearden. +She stopped when she stumbled over a rock and fell and noticed that she +had been running. She was on a small ledge in the cliffs above the airfield, +hidden from the sight of the town, open to the view of the sky. She rose, her +hands groping for support along a granite wall, feeling the warmth of the sun +on the rock under her palms—she stood, her back pressed to the wall, unable +to move or to take her eyes off the plane. +The plane was circling slowly, dipping down, then rising again, +struggling—she thought—as she had struggled, to distinguish the sight of a +wreck in a hopeless spread of crevices and boulders, an elusive spread +neither clear enough to abandon nor to survey. He was searching for the wreck +of her plane, he had not given up, and whatever the three weeks of it had +cost him, whatever he felt, the only evidence he would give to the world and +his only answer was this steady, insistent, monotonous drone of a motor +carrying a fragile craft over every deadly foot of an inaccessible chain of +mountains. + + Through the brilliant purity of the summer air, the plane seemed +intimately close, she could see it rock on precarious currents and bank under +the thrusts of wind. She could see, and it seemed impossible that so clear a +sight was closed to his eyes. The whole of the valley lay below him, flooded +by sunlight, flaming with glass panes and green lawns, screaming to be seen— +the end of his tortured quest, the fulfillment of more than his wishes, not +the wreck of her plane and her body, but her living presence and his freedom— +all that he was seeking or had ever sought was now spread open before him, +open and waiting, his to be reached by a straight-line dive through the pure, +clear air— +his and asking nothing of him but the capacity to see. "Hank!" she +screamed, waving her arms in desperate signal. "Hank!" +She fell back against the rock, knowing that she had no way to reach him, +that she had no power to give him sight, that no power on earth could pierce +that screen except his own mind and vision. +Suddenly and for the first time, she felt the screen, not as the most +intangible, but as the most grimly absolute barrier in the world. +Slumped against the rock, she watched, in silent resignation, the hopeless +circles of the plane's struggle and its motor's uncomplaining cry for help, a +cry she had no way to answer. The plane swooped down abruptly, but it was +only the start of its final rise, it cut a swift diagonal across the +mountains and shot into the open sky. Then, as if caught in the spread of a +lake with no shores and no exit, it went sinking slowly and drowning out of +sight. +She thought, in bitter compassion, of how much he had failed to see. +And I?—she thought. If she left the valley, the screen would close for her +as tightly, Atlantis would descend under a vault of rays more impregnable +than the bottom of the ocean, and she, too, would be left to struggle for the +things she had not known how to see, she, too, would be left to fight a +mirage of primordial savagery, while the reality of all that she desired +would never come again within her reach, But the pull of the outer world, the +pull that drew her to follow the plane, was not the image of Hank Rearden—she +knew that she could not return to him, even if she returned to the world—the +pull was the vision of Hank Rearden's courage and the courage of all those +still fighting to stay alive. He would not give up the search for her plane, +when all others had long since despaired, as he would not give up his mills, +as he would not give up any goal he had chosen if a single chance was left. +Was she certain that no chance remained for the world of Taggart +Transcontinental? Was she certain that the terms of the battle were such that +she could not care to win? They were right, the men of Atlantis, they were +right to vanish if they knew that they left no value behind them—but until +and unless she saw that no chance was untaken and no battle unfought, she had +no right to remain among them. This was the question that had lashed her for +weeks, but had not driven her to a glimpse of the answer. +She lay awake, through the hours of that night, quietly motionless, +following—like an engineer and like Hank Rearden—a process of dispassionate, +precise, almost mathematical consideration, with no regard for cost or +feeling. The agony which he lived in his plane, she lived it in a soundless +cube of darkness, searching, but finding no answer. She looked at the +inscriptions on the walls of her room, faintly visible in patches of +starlight, but the help those men had called in their darkest hour was not +hers to call. +"Yes or no, Miss Taggart?" +She looked at the faces of the four men in the soft twilight of Mulligan's +living room: Galt, whose face had the serene, impersonal attentiveness of a +scientist—Francisco, whose face was made expressionless by the hint of a +smile, the kind of smile that would fit either answer— + + Hugh Akston who looked compassionately gentle—Midas Mulligan, who had +asked the question with no touch of rancor in his voice. Somewhere two +thousand miles away, at this sunset hour, the page of a calendar was +springing into light over the roofs of New York, saying: June 28—and it +seemed to her suddenly that she was seeing it, as if it were hanging over the +heads of these men. +"I have one more day," she said steadily. "Will you let me have it? I +think I've reached my decision, but I am not fully certain of it and I'll +need all the certainty possible to me." +"Of course," said Mulligan. "You have, in fact, until morning of the day +after tomorrow. We'll wait." +"We'll wait after that as well," said Hugh Akston, "though in your +absence, if that be necessary." +She stood by the window, facing them, and she felt a moment's satisfaction +in the knowledge that she stood straight, that her hands did not tremble, +that her voice sounded as controlled, uncomplaining and unpitying as theirs; +it gave her a moment's feeling of a bond to them. +"If any part of your uncertainty,” said Galt, "is a conflict between your +heart and your mind—follow your mind." +"Consider the reasons which make us certain that we are right," said Hugh +Akston, "but not the fact that we are certain. If you are not convinced, +ignore our certainty. Don't be tempted to substitute our judgment for your +own," +"Don't rely on our knowledge of what's best for your future," said +Mulligan. "We do know, but it can't be best until you know it." +"Don't consider our interests or desires," said Francisco. "You have no +duty to anyone but yourself." +She smiled, neither sadly nor gaily, thinking that none of it was the sort +of advice she would have been given in the outer world. And knowing how +desperately they wished to help her where no help was possible, she felt it +was her part to give them reassurance. +"I forced my way here," she said quietly, "and I was to bear +responsibility for the consequences. I'm bearing it." +Her reward was to see Galt smile; the smile was like a military decoration +bestowed upon her. +Looking away, she remembered suddenly Jeff Alien, the tramp aboard the +Comet, in the moment when she had admired him for attempting to tell her that +he knew where he was going, to spare her the burden of his aimlessness. She +smiled faintly, thinking that she had now experienced it in both roles and +knew that no action could be lower or more futile than for one person to +throw upon another the burden of his abdication of choice. She felt an odd +calm, almost a confident repose; she knew that it was tension, but the +tension of a great clarity. She caught herself thinking: She's functioning +well in an emergency, I'll be all right with her—and realized that she was +thinking of herself. +"Let it go till day after tomorrow, Miss Taggart," said Midas Mulligan. +"Tonight you're still here." +"Thank you," she said. +She remained by the window, while they went on discussing the valley's +business; it was their closing conference of the month. They had just +finished dinner—and she thought of her first dinner in this house a month +ago; she was wearing, as she had then worn, the gray suit that belonged in +her office, not the peasant skirt that had been so easy to wear hi the sun. +I'm still here tonight, she thought, her hand pressed possessively to the +window sill. +The sun had not yet vanished beyond the mountains, but the sky was an +even, deep, deceptively clear blue that blended with the blue of invisible + + clouds into a single spread, hiding the sun; only the edges of the clouds +were outlined by a thin thread of flame, and it looked like a glowing, +twisted net of neon tubing, she thought . . . like a chart of winding rivers +. . . like . . . like the map of a railroad traced in white fire on the sky. +She heard Mulligan giving Galt the names of those who were not returning +to the outer world. "We have jobs for all of them," said Mulligan. "In fact, +there's only ten or twelve men who're going back this year—mostly to finish +off, convert whatever they own and come here permanently. I think this was +our last vacation month, because before another year is over we'll all be +living in this valley." +"Good," said Galt. +"We'll have to, from the way things are going outside." +"Yes." +"Francisco," said Mulligan, "you'll come back in a few months?" +"In November at the latest," said Francisco. "I'll send you word by short +wave, when I'm ready to come back—will you turn the furnace on in my house?" +"I will," said Hugh Akston. "And I'll have your supper ready for you when +you arrive." +"John, I take it for granted," said Mulligan, "that you're not returning +to New York this time." +Galt took a moment to glance at him, then answered evenly, "I have not +decided it yet." +She noticed the shocked swiftness with which Francisco and Mulligan bent +forward to stare at him—and the slowness with which Hugh Akston's glance +moved to his face; Akston did not seem to be astonished. +"You're not thinking of going back to that hell for another year, are +you?" said Mulligan. +"I am." +"But—good God, John!—what for?" +"I'll tell you, when I've decided." +"But there's nothing left there for you to do. We got everybody we knew of +or can hope to know of. Our list is completed, except for Hank Rearden—and +we'll get him before the year is over—and Miss Taggart, if she so chooses. +That's all. Your job is done. There's nothing to look for, out there—except +the final crash, when the roof comes down on their heads." +"I know it." +"John, yours is the one head I don't want to be there when it happens." +"You've never had to worry about me." +"But don't you realize what stage they're coming to? They're only one step +away from open violence—hell, they've taken the step and sealed and declared +it long ago!—but in one more moment they'll see the full reality of what +they've taken, exploding in their damned faces—plain, open, blind, arbitrary, +blood shedding violence, running amuck, hitting anything and anyone at +random. That's what I don't want to see you in the midst of." +"I can take care of myself." +"John, there's no reason for you to take the risk," said Francisco. +"What risk?" +"The looters are. worried about the men who've disappeared. They're +suspecting something. You, of all people, shouldn't stay there any longer. +There's always a chance that they might discover just who and what you are." +"There's some chance. Not much." +"But there's no reason whatever to take it. There's nothing left that +Ragnar and I can't finish." +Hugh Akston was watching them silently, leaning back in his chair; his +face had that look of intensity, neither quite bitterness nor quite a SOS +smile, with which a man watches a progression that interests him, but that +lags a few steps behind his vision. + + "If I go back," said Galt, "it won't be for our work. It will be to win +the only thing I want from the world for myself, now that the work is done. +I've taken nothing from the world and I've wanted nothing. But there's one +thing which it's still holding and which is mine and which I won't let it +have. No, I don't intend to break my oath, I won't deal with the looters, I +won't be of any value or help to anyone out there, neither to looters nor +neutrals—nor scabs. If I go, it won't be for anyone's sake but mine—and I +don't think I'm risking my life, but if I am—well, I'm now free to risk it." +He was not looking at her, but she had to turn away and stand pressed +against the window frame, because her hands were trembling. +"But, John!" cried Mulligan, waving his arm at the valley, "if anything +happens to you, what would we—" He stopped abruptly and guiltily. +Galt chuckled. "What were you about to say?" Mulligan waved his hand +sheepishly, in a gesture of dismissal. "Were you about to say that if +anything happens to me, I'll die as the worst failure in the world?" +"All right," said Mulligan guiltily, "I won't say it. I won't say that we +couldn't get along without you—we can, I won't beg you to stay here for our +sake—I didn't think I'd ever revert to that rotten old plea, but, boy! +—what a temptation it was, I can almost see why people do it. I know that +whatever it is you want, if you wish to risk your life, that's all there is +to it—but I'm thinking only that it's . . . oh God, John, it's such a +valuable life!" +Galt smiled. "I know it. That's why I don't think I'm risking it—I think +I'll win." +Francisco was now silent, he was watching Galt intently, with a frown of +wonder, not as if he had found an answer, but as if he had suddenly glimpsed +a question. +"Look, John," said Mulligan, "since you haven't decided whether you'll go— +you haven't decided it yet, have you?" +"No, not yet." +"Since you haven't, would you let me remind you of a few things, just for +you to consider?" +"Go ahead." +"It's the chance dangers that I'm afraid of—the senseless, unpredictable +dangers of a world falling apart. Consider the physical risks of complex +machinery in the hands of blind fools and fear-crazed cowards. +Just think of their railroads—you'd be taking a chance on some such horror +as that Winston tunnel incident every time you stepped aboard a train—and +there will be more incidents of that kind, coming faster and faster. They'll +reach the stage where no day will pass without a major wreck." +"I know it." +"And the same will be happening in every other industry, wherever machines +are used—the machines which they thought could replace our minds. Plane +crashes, oil tank explosions, blast-furnace break-outs, high-tension wire +electrocutions, subway cave-ins and trestle collapses —they'll see them all. +The very machines that had made their life so safe, will now make it a +continuous peril." +"I know it." +"I know that you know it, but have you considered it in every specific +detail? Have you allowed yourself to visualize it? I want you to see the +exact picture of what it is that you propose to enter—before you decide +whether anything can justify your entering it. You know that the cities will +be hit worst of all. The cities were made by the railroads and will go with +them." +"That's right." +"When the rails are cut, the city of New York will starve in two days. + + That's all the supply of food it's got. It's fed by a continent three +thousand miles long. How will they carry food to New York? By directive and +oxcart? But first, before it happens, they'll go through the whole of the +agony—through the shrinking, the shortages, the hunger riots, the stampeding +violence in the midst of the growing stillness." +"They will." +"They'll lose their airplanes first, then their automobiles, then their +trucks, then their horse carts." +"They will." +"Their factories will stop, then their furnaces and their radios. Then +their electric light system will go." +"It will." +"There's only a worn thread holding that continent together. There will be +one train a day, then one train a week—then the Taggart Bridge will collapse +and—" +"No, it won't!" +It was her voice and they whirled to her. Her face was white, but calmer +than it had been when she had answered them last. +Slowly, Galt rose to his feet and inclined his head, as in acceptance of a +verdict. "You've made your decision," he said. +"I have." +"Dagny," said Hugh Akston, "I'm sorry." He spoke softly, with effort, as +if his words were struggling and failing to fill the silence of the room. "I +wish it were possible not to see this happen, I would have preferred +anything—except to see you stay here by default of the courage of your +convictions." +She spread her hands, palms out, her arms at her sides, in a gesture of +simple frankness, and said, addressing them all, her manner so calm that she +could afford to show emotion, "I want you to know this: I have wished it were +possible for me to die in one more month, so that I could spend it in this +valley. This is how much I've wanted to remain. But so long as I choose to go +on living, I can't desert a battle which I think is mine to fight" +"Of course," said Mulligan respectfully, "if you still think it." +"If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, 111 tell you; I +cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, +all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by +right—because I cannot believe that men can refuse to see, that they can +remain blind and deaf to us forever, when the truth is ours and their lives +depend on accepting it. They still love their lives—and that is the +uncorrupted remnant of their minds. So long as men desire to live, I cannot +lose my battle." +"Do they?" said Hugh Akston softly. "Do they desire it? No, don't answer +me now. I know that the answer was the hardest thing for any of us to grasp +and to accept. Just take that question back with you, as the last premise +left for you to check." +"You're leaving as our friend," said Midas Mulligan, "and we'll be +fighting everything you'll do, because we know you're wrong, but it's not you +that we'll be damning." +"You'll come back," said Hugh Akston, "because yours is an error of +knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the +last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you—and, Dagny, +when you come back, you will have discovered that there need never be any +conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one +you've borne so well." +"Thank you," she said, closing her eyes. + + "We must discuss the conditions of your departure," said Galt; he spoke in +the dispassionate manner of an executive. "First, you must give us your word +that you will not disclose our secret or any part of it— +neither our cause nor our existence nor this valley nor your whereabouts +for the past month—to anyone in the outer world, not at any time or for any +purpose whatsoever." +"I give you my word." +"Second, you must never attempt to find this valley again. You are not to +come here uninvited. Should you break the first condition, it will not place +us in serious danger. Should you break the second—it will. It is not our +policy ever to be at the arbitrary mercy of the good faith of another person, +or at the mercy of a promise that cannot be enforced. Nor can we expect you +to place our interests above your own. Since you believe that your course is +right, the day may come when you may find it necessary to lead our enemies to +this valley. We shall, therefore, leave you no means to do it. You will be +taken out of the valley by plane, blindfolded, and you will be flown a +distance sufficient to make it impossible for you ever to retrace the +course." +She inclined her head. "You are right." +"Your plane has been repaired. Do you wish to reclaim it by signing a +draft on your account at the Mulligan Bank?" +"No." +"Then we shall hold it, until such time as you choose to pay for it. +Day after tomorrow, I will take you in my plane to a point outside the +valley and leave you within reach of further transportation." +She inclined her head. "Very well." +It had grown dark, when they left Midas Mulligan's. The trail back to +Galt's house led across the valley, past Francisco's cabin, and the three of +them walked home together. A few squares of lighted windows hung scattered +through the darkness, and the first streams of mist were weaving slowly +across the panes, like shadows cast by a distant sea. +They walked in silence, but the sound of their steps, blending into a +single, steady beat, was like a speech to be grasped and not to be uttered in +any other form. +After a while, Francisco said, "It changes nothing, it only makes the span +a little longer, and the last stretch is always the hardest—but it's the +last." +"I will hope so," she said. In a moment, she repeated quietly, "The last +is the hardest." She turned to Galt. "May I make one request?" +"Yes." +"Will you let me go tomorrow?" +"If you wish." +When Francisco spoke again, moments later, it was as if he were addressing +the unnamed wonder in her mind; his voice had the tone of answering, a +question: "Dagny, all three of us are in love"—she jerked her head to him— +"with the same thing, no matter what its forms. Don't wonder why you feel no +breach among us. You'll be one of us, so long as you'll remain in love with +your rails and your engines—and they'll lead you back to us, no matter how +many times you lose your way. The only man never to be redeemed is the man +without passion." +"Thank you," she said softly. +"For what?" +"For . . . for the way you sound." +"How do I sound? Name it, Dagny." +"You sound . . . as if you're happy." +"I am—in exactly the same way you are. Don't tell me what you feel. I know +it. But, you see, the measure of the hell you're able to endure is the + + measure of your love. The hell I couldn't bear to witness would be to see you +being indifferent." +She nodded silently, unable to name as joy any part of the things she +felt, yet feeling that he was right. +Clots of mist were drifting, like smoke, across the moon, and in the +diffused glow she could not distinguish the expressions of their faces, as +she walked between them: the only expressions to perceive were the straight +silhouettes of their bodies, the unbroken sound of then- steps and her own +feeling that she wished to walk on and on, a feeling she could not define, +except that it was neither doubt nor pain, When they approached his cabin, +Francisco stopped, the gesture of his hand embracing them both as he pointed +to his door. "Will you come in —since it's to be our last night together for +some time? Let's have a drink to that future of which all three of us are +certain." +"Are we?" she asked. +"Yes," said Galt, "we are." +She looked at their faces when Francisco switched on the light in his +house. She could not define their expressions, it was not happiness or any +emotion pertaining to joy, their faces were taut and solemn, but it was a +glowing solemnity—she thought—if this were possible, and the odd glow she +felt within her, told her that her own face had the same look. +Francisco reached for three glasses from a cupboard, but stopped, as at a +sudden thought. He placed one glass on the table, then reached for the two +silver goblets of Sebastian d'Anconia and placed them beside it. +"Are you going straight to New York, Dagny?" he asked, in the calm, +unstrained tone of a host, bringing out a bottle of old wine, "Yes," she +answered as calmly. +"I'm flying to Buenos Aires day after tomorrow," he said, uncorking the +bottle. "I'm not sure whether I'll be back in New York later, but if I am, it +will be dangerous for you to see me." +"I won't care about that," she said, "unless you feel that I'm not +entitled to see you any longer." +"True, Dagny. You're not. Not in New York." +He was pouring the wine and he glanced up at Galt. "John, when will you +decide whether you're going back or staying here?" +Galt looked straight at him, then said slowly, in the tone of a man who +knows all the consequences of his words, "I have decided, Francisco. I'm +going back." +Francisco's hand stopped. For a long moment, he was seeing nothing but +Galt's face. Then his eyes moved to hers. He put the bottle down and he did +not step back, but it was as if his glance drew back to a wide range, to +include them both, "But of course," he said. +He looked as if he had moved still farther and were now seeing the whole +spread of their years; his voice had an even, uninflected sound, quality that +matched the size of the vision. +"I knew it twelve years ago," he said. "I knew it before you could have +known, and it's I who should have seen that you would see. That night, when +you called us to New York, I thought of it then as"—he was speaking to Galt, +but his eyes moved to Dagny—"as everything that you were seeking . . . +everything you told us to live for or die, if +necessary. I should have seen that you would think it, too. It could not +have been otherwise. It is as it had—and ought—to be. It was set then, twelve +years ago." He looked at Galt and chuckled softly. "And you say that it's I +who've taken the hardest beating?" +He turned with too swift a movement—then, too slowly, as if in deliberate +emphasis, he completed the task of pouring the wine, filling the three +vessels on the table. He picked up the two silver goblets, looked down at + + them for the pause of an instant, then extended one to Dagny, the other to +Galt. +"Take it," he said. "You've earned it—and it wasn't chance." +Galt took the goblet from his hand, but it was as if the acceptance was +done by their eyes as they looked at each other. +"I would have given anything to let it be otherwise," said Galt, "except +that which is beyond giving." +She held her goblet, she looked at Francisco and she let him see her eyes +glance at Galt. "Yes,” she said in the tone of an answer, "But I have not +earned it—and what you've paid, I'm paying it now, and I don't know whether +I'll ever earn enough to hold clear title, but if hell is the price—and the +measure—then let me be the greediest of the three of us." +As they drank, as she stood, her eyes closed, feeling the liquid motion of +the wine inside her throat, she knew that for all three of them this was the +most tortured—and the most exultant—moment they had ever reached. +She did not speak to Galt, as they walked down the last stretch of the +trail to his house. She did not turn her head to him, feeling that even a +glance would be too dangerous. She felt, in their silence, both the calm of a +total understanding and the tension of the knowledge that they were not to +name the things they understood. +But she faced him, when they were in his living room, with full confidence +and as if in sudden certainty of a right—the certainty that she would not +break and that it was now safe to speak. She said evenly, neither as plea nor +as triumph, merely as the statement of a fact, "You are going back to the +outer world because I will be there." +"Yes." +"I do not want you to go." +"You have no choice about it." +"You are going for my sake." +"No, for mine." +"Will you allow me to see you there?" +"No." +"I am not to see you?" +"No." +"I am not to know where you are or what you do?" +"You're not." +"Will you be watching me, as you did before?" +"More so." +"Is your purpose to protect me?" +"No." +"What is it, then?" +"To be there on the day when you decide to join us." +She looked at him attentively, permitting herself no other reaction, but +as if groping for an answer to the first point she had not fully understood. +"All the rest of us will be gone," he explained. "It will become too +dangerous to remain. I will remain as your last key, before the door of this +valley closes altogether." +"Oh!" She choked it off before it became a moan. Then, regaining the +manner of impersonal detachment, she asked, "Suppose I were to tell you that +my decision is final and that I am never to join you?" +"It would be a lie." +"Suppose I were now to decide that I wish to make it final and to stand by +it, no matter what the future?" +"No matter what future evidence you observe and what convictions you +form?" +"Yes." +"That would be worse than a lie.” + + "You are certain that I have made the wrong decision?” +"I am." +"Do you believe that one must be responsible for one's own errors?" +"I do." +"Then why aren't you letting me bear the consequences of mine?" +"I am and you will." +"If I find, when it is too late, that I want to return to this valley —why +should you have to bear the risk of keeping that door open to me?" +"I don't have to. I wouldn't do it if I had no selfish end to gain." +"What selfish end?" +"I want you here." +She closed her eyes and inclined her head in open admission of defeat— +defeat in the argument and in her attempt to face calmly the full meaning of +that which she was leaving. +Then she raised her head and, as if she had absorbed his kind of +frankness, she looked at him, hiding neither her suffering nor her longing +nor her calm, knowing that all three were in her glance. +His face was as it had been in the sunlight of the moment when she had +seen it for the first time: a face of merciless serenity and unflinching +perceptiveness, without pain or fear or guilt. She thought that were it +possible for her to stand looking at him, at the straight lines of his +eyebrows over the dark green eyes, at the curve of the shadow underscoring +the shape of his mouth, at the poured-metal planes of his skin in the open +collar of his shirt and the casually immovable posture of his legs—she would +wish to spend the rest of her life on this spot and in this manner. And in +the next instant she knew that if her wish were granted, the contemplation +would lose all meaning, because she would have betrayed all the things that +gave it value. +Then, not as memory, but as an experience of the present, she felt herself +reliving the moment when she had stood at the window of her room in New York, +looking at a fogbound city, at the unattainable shape of Atlantis sinking out +of reach—and she knew that she was now seeing the answer to that moment. She +felt, not the words she had then addressed to the city, but that untranslated +sensation from which the words had come: You, whom I have always loved and +never found, you whom I expected to see at the end of the rails beyond the +horizon— +Aloud, she said, "I want you to know this. I started my life with a single +absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values +and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the +struggle"—you whose presence I had always felt in the streets of the city, +the wordless voice within her was saying, and whose world I had wanted to +build—"Now I know that I was fighting for this valley"—it is my love for you +that had kept me moving—"It was this valley that I saw as possible and would +exchange for nothing less and would not give up to a mindless evil"—my love +and my hope to reach you and my wish to be worthy of you on the day when I +would stand before you face to face—"I am going back to fight for this +valley—to release it from its underground, to regain for it its full and +rightful realm, to let the earth belong to you in fact, as it does in spirit— +and to meet you again on the day when I'm able to deliver to you the whole of +the world—or, if I fail, to remain in exile from this valley to the end of my +life"—but what is left of my life will still be yours, and I will go on in +your name, even though it is a name I'm never to pronounce, I will go on +serving you, even though I'm never to win, I will go on, to be worthy of you +on the day when I would have met you, even though I won't—"I will fight for +it, even if I have to fight against you, even if you damn me as a traitor . . +. even if I am never to see you again." + + He had stood without moving, he had listened with no change in his face, +only his eyes had looked at her as if he were hearing every word, even the +words she had not pronounced. He answered, with the same look, as if the look +were holding some circuit not yet to be broken, his voice catching some tone +of hers, as if in signal of the same code, a voice with no sign of emotion +except in the spacing of the words: "If you fail, as men have failed in their +quest for a vision that should have been possible, yet has remained forever +beyond their reach—if, like them, you come to think that one's highest values +are not to be attained and one's greatest vision is not to be made real— +don't damn this earth, as they did. don't damn existence. You have seen +the Atlantis they were seeking, it is here, it exists—but one must enter it +naked and alone, with no rags from the falsehoods of centuries, with the +purest clarity of mind—not an innocent heart, but that which is much rarer: +an intransigent mind—as one's only possession and key. You will not enter it +until you learn that you do not need to convince or to conquer the world. +When you learn it, you will see that through all the years of your struggle, +nothing had barred you from Atlantis and there were no chains to hold you, +except the chains you were willing to wear. Through all those years, that +which you most wished to win was waiting for you"—he looked at her as if he +were speaking to the unspoken words in her mind—"waiting as unremittingly as +you were fighting, as passionately, as desperately—but with a greater +certainty than yours. Go out to continue your struggle. Go on carrying +unchosen burdens, taking undeserved punishment and believing that justice can +be served by the offer of your own spirit to the most unjust of tortures. But +in your worst and darkest moments, remember that you have seen another kind +of world. Remember that you can reach it whenever you choose to see. Remember +that it will be waiting and that it's real, it's possible—it's yours." +Then, turning his head a little, his voice as clear, but his eyes breaking +the circuit, he asked, "What time do you wish to leave tomorrow?" +"Oh . . . ! As early as it will be convenient for you." +"Then have breakfast ready at seven and we'll take off at eight." +"I will." +He reached into his pocket and extended to her a small, shining disk which +she could not distinguish at first. He dropped it on the palm of her hand: it +was a five-dollar gold piece. +"The last of your wages for the month," he said. +Her fingers snapped closed over the coin too tightly, but she answered +calmly and tonelessly, "Thank you." +"Good night, Miss Taggart." +"Good night." +She did not sleep in the hours that were still left to her. She sat on the +floor of her room, her face pressed to the bed, feeling nothing but the sense +of his presence beyond the wall. At times, she felt as if he were before her, +as if she were sitting at his feet. She spent her last night with him in this +manner. +She left the valley as she had come, carrying away nothing that belonged +to it. She left the few possessions she had acquired—her peasant skirt, a +blouse, an apron, a few pieces of underwear—folded neatly in a drawer of the +chest in her room. She looked at them for a moment, before she closed the +drawer, thinking that if she came back, she would, perhaps, still find them +there. She took nothing with her but the five-dollar gold piece and the band +of tape still wound about her ribs. +The sun touched the peaks of the mountains, drawing a shining circle as a +frontier of the valley—when she climbed aboard the plane. +She leaned back in the seat beside him and looked at Galt's face bent over +her, as it had been bent when she had opened her eyes on the first morning. + + Then she closed her eyes and felt his hands tying the blindfold across her +face. +She heard the blast of the motor, not as sound, but as the shudder of an +explosion inside her body; only it felt like a distant shudder, as if the +person feeling it would have been hurt if she were not so far away. +She did not know when the wheels left the ground or when the plane crossed +the circle of the peaks. She lay still, with the pounding beat of the motor +as her only perception of space, as if she were carried inside a current of +sound that rocked once in a while. The sound came from his engine, from the +control of his hands on the wheel; she held onto that; the rest was to be +endured, not resisted. +She lay still, her legs stretched forward, her hands on the arms of the +seat, with no sense of motion, not even her own, to give her a sense of time, +with no space, no sight, no future, with the night of closed eyelids under +the pressure of the cloth—and with the knowledge of his presence beside her +as her single, unchanging reality, They did not speak. Once, she said +suddenly, "Mr. Galt." +"Yes?" +"No. Nothing. I just wanted to know whether you were still there." +"I will always be there." +She did not know for how many miles the memory of the sound of words +seemed like a small landmark rolling away into the distance, then vanishing. +Then there was nothing but the stillness of an indivisible present. +She did not know whether a day had passed or an hour, when she felt the +downward, plunging motion which meant that they were about to land or to +crash; the two possibilities seemed equal to her mind. +She felt the jolt of the wheels against the ground as an oddly delayed +sensation: as if some fraction of time had gone to make her believe it. +She felt the running streak of jerky motion, then the jar of the stop and +of silence, then the touch of his hands on her hair, removing the blindfold. +She saw a glaring sunlight, a stretch of scorched weeds going off into the +sky, with no mountains to stop it, a deserted highway and the hazy outline of +a town about a mile away. She glanced at her watch: forty seven minutes ago, +she had still been in the valley. +"You'll find a Taggart station there," he said, pointing at the town, "and +you'll be able to take a train." +She nodded, as if she understood. +He did not follow her as she descended to the ground. He leaned across the +wheel toward the open door of the plane, and they looked at each other. She +stood, her face raised to him, a faint wind stirring her hair, the straight +line of her shoulders sculptured by the trim suit of a business executive +amidst the flat immensity of an empty prairie. +The movement of his hand pointed east, toward some invisible cities. +"Don't look for me out there," he said. "You will not find me—until you +want me for what I am. And when you'll want me, I'll be the easiest man to +find." +She heard the sound of the door falling closed upon him; it seemed louder +than the blast of the propeller that followed. She watched the run of the +plane's wheels and the trail of weeds left flattened behind them. +Then she saw a strip of sky between wheels and weeds. +She looked around her. A reddish haze of heat hung over the shapes of the +town in the distance, and the shapes seemed to sag under a rusty tinge; above +their roofs, she saw the remnant of a crumbled smokestack. She saw a dry, +yellow scrap rustling faintly in the weeds beside her: it was a piece of +newspaper. She looked at these objects blankly, unable to make them real. +She raised her eyes to the plane. She watched the spread of its wings grow +smaller in the sky, draining away in its wake the sound of its motor. It kept + + rising, wings first, like a long silver cross; then the curve of its motion +went following the sky, dropping slowly closer to the earth; then it seemed +not to move any longer, but only to shrink. She watched it like a star in the +process of extinction, while it shrank from cross to dot to a burning spark +which she was no longer certain of seeing. When she saw that the spread of +the sky was strewn with such sparks all over, she knew that the plane was +gone. + + CHAPTER III +ANTI-GREED +"What am I doing here?" asked Dr. Robert Stadler. "Why was I asked to come +here? I demand an explanation. I'm not accustomed to being dragged halfway +across a continent without rhyme, reason or notice." +Dr, Floyd Ferris smiled. "Which makes me appreciate it all the more that +you did come, Dr. Stadler." It was impossible to tell whether his voice had a +tone of gratitude—or of gloating. +The sun was beating down upon them and Dr. Stadler felt a streak of +perspiration oozing along his temple. He could not hold an angrily, +embarrassingly private discussion in the middle of a crowd streaming to fill +the benches of the grandstand around them—the discussion which he had tried +and failed to obtain for the last three days. It occurred to him that that +was precisely the reason why his meeting with Dr. Ferris had been delayed to +this moment; but he brushed the thought aside, just as he brushed some insect +buzzing to reach his wet temple. +"Why was I unable to get in touch with you?" he asked. The fraudulent +weapon of sarcasm now seemed to sound less effective than ever, but it was +Dr. Stadler's only weapon: "Why did you find it necessary to send me messages +on official stationery worded in a style proper, I'm sure, for Army"—orders, +he was about to say, but didn't—"communications, but certainly not for +scientific correspondence?" +"It is a government matter," said Dr. Ferris gently. +"Do you realize that I was much too busy and that this meant an +interruption of my work?" +"Oh yes," said Dr. Ferris noncommittally. +"Do you realize that I could have refused to come?" +"But you didn't," said Dr. Ferris softly. +"Why was I given no explanation? Why didn't you come for me in person, +instead of sending those incredible young hooligans with their mysterious +gibberish that sounded half-science, half-pulp-magazine?" +"I was too busy," said Dr. Ferris blandly. +"Then would you mind telling me what you're doing in the middle of a plain +in Iowa—and what I'm doing here, for that matter?" He waved contemptuously at +the dusty horizon of an empty prairie and at the three wooden grandstands. +The stands were newly erected, and the wood, too, seemed to perspire; he +could see drops of resin sparkling in the sun. +"We are about to witness an historical event, Dr. Stadler. An occasion +which will become a milestone on the road of science, civilization, social +welfare and political adaptability." Dr. Ferris' voice had the tone of a +public relations man's memorized handout. "The turning point of a new era." +"What event? What new era?" +"As you will observe, only the most distinguished citizens, the cream of +our intellectual elite, have been chosen for the special privilege of +witnessing this occasion. We could not omit your name, could we?—and we feel +certain, of course, that we can count on your loyalty and cooperation." +He could not catch Dr. Ferris' eyes. The grandstands were rapidly filling +with people, and Dr. Ferris kept interrupting himself constantly to wave to +nondescript newcomers, whom Dr. Stadler had never seen before, but who were +personages, as he could tell by the particular shade of gaily informal +deference in Ferns' waving. They all seemed to know Dr. Ferris and to seek +him out, as if he were the master of ceremonies —or the star—of the occasion. +"If you would kindly be specific for a moment," said Dr. Stadler, "and +tell me what—" + + "Hi, Spud!" called Dr. Ferris, waving to a portly, white-haired man who +filled the full-dress uniform of a general. +Dr. Stadler raised his voice: "I said, if you would kindly concentrate +long enough to explain to me what in hell is going on—" +"But it's very simple. It's the final triumph of . . . You'll have to +excuse me a minute, Dr. Stadler," said Dr. Ferris hastily, tearing forward, +like an over trained lackey at the sound of a bell, in the direction of what +looked like a group of aging rowdies; he turned back long enough to add two +words which he seemed reverently to consider as a full explanation: "The +press!" +Dr. Stadler sat down on the wooden bench, feeling unaccountably reluctant +to brush against anything around him. The three grandstands were spaced at +intervals in a semi-curve, like the tiers of a small, private circus, with +room for some three hundred people; they seemed built for the viewing of some +spectacle—but they faced the emptiness of a flat prairie stretching off to +the horizon, with nothing in sight but the dark blotch of a farmhouse miles +away. +There were radio microphones in front of one stand, which seemed reserved +for the press. There was a contraption resembling a portable switchboard in +front of the stand reserved for officials; a few levers of polished metal +sparkled in the sun on the face of the switchboard. In an improvised parking +lot behind the stands, the glitter of luxurious new cars seemed a brightly +reassuring sight. But it was the building that stood on a knoll some thousand +feet away that gave Dr. Stadler a vague sense of uneasiness. It was a small, +squat structure of unknown purpose, with massive stone walls, no windows +except a few slits protected by stout iron bars, and a large dome, +grotesquely too heavy for the rest, that seemed to press the structure down +into the soil. A few outlets protruded from the base of the dome, in loose, +irregular shapes, resembling badly poured clay funnels; they did not seem to +belong to an industrial age or to any known usage. The building had an air of +silent malevolence, like a puffed, venomous mushroom; it was obviously +modern, but its sloppy, rounded, ineptly unspecific lines made it look like a +primitive structure unearthed in the heart of the jungle, devoted to some +secret rites of savagery. +Dr. Stadler sighed with irritation; he was tired of secrets. +"Confidential" and "Top Confidential" had been the words stamped on the +invitation which had demanded that he travel to Iowa on a two-day notice and +for an unspecified purpose. Two young men, who called themselves physicists, +had appeared at the Institute to escort him; his calls to Ferris' office in +Washington had remained unanswered. The young men had talked—through an +exhausting trip by government plane, then a clammy ride in a government car— +about science, emergencies, social equilibriums and the need of secrecy, till +he knew less than he had known at the start; he noticed only that two words +kept recurring in their jabber, which had also appeared in the text of the +invitation, two words that had an ominous sound when involving an unknown +issue: the demands for his "loyalty" and "co-operation." +The young men had deposited him on a bench in the front row of the +grandstand and had vanished, like the folding gear of a mechanism, leaving +him to the sudden presence of Dr. Ferris in person. Now, watching the scene +around him, watching Dr. Ferris' vague, excited, loosely casual gestures in +the midst of a group of newsmen, he had an impression of bewildering +confusion, of senseless, chaotic inefficiency—and of a smooth machine working +to produce the exact degree of that impression needed at the exact moment. +He felt a single, sudden flash of panic, in which, as in a flash of +lightning, he permitted himself to know that he felt a desperate desire to +escape. But he slammed his mind shut against it. He knew that the darkest +secret of the occasion—more crucial, more untouchable, more deadly than + + whatever was hidden in the mushroom building—was that which had made him +agree to come. +He would never have to learn his own motive, he thought; he thought it, +not by means of words, but by means of the brief, vicious spasm of an emotion +that resembled irritation and felt like acid. The words that stood in his +mind, as they had stood when he had agreed to come, were like a voodoo +formula which one recites when it is needed and beyond which one must not +look: What can you do when you have to deal with people? +He noticed that the stand reserved for those whom Ferris had called the +intellectual elite was larger than the stand prepared for government +officials. He caught himself feeling a swift little sneak of pleasure at the +thought that he had been placed in the front row. He turned to glance at the +tiers behind him. The sensation he experienced was like a small, gray shock: +that random, faded, shopworn assembly was not his conception of an +intellectual elite. He saw defensively belligerent men and tastelessly +dressed women—he saw mean, rancorous, suspicious faces that bore the one mark +incompatible with a standard bearer of the intellect: the mark of +uncertainty. He could find no face he knew, no face to recognize as famous +and none likely ever to achieve such recognition. +He wondered by what standard these people had been selected. +Then he noticed a gangling figure in the second row, the figure of an +elderly man with a long, slack face that seemed faintly familiar to him, +though he could recall nothing about it, except a vague' memory, as of a +photograph seen in some unsavory publication. He leaned toward a woman and +asked, pointing, "Could you tell me. the name of that gentleman?" The woman +answered in a whisper of awed respect, "That is Dr. Simon Pritchett!" Dr. +Stadler turned away, wishing no one would see him, wishing no one would ever +learn that he had been a member of that group. +He raised his eyes and saw that Ferris was leading the whole press gang +toward him. He saw Ferris sweeping his arm at him, in the manner of a tourist +guide, and declaring, when they were close enough to be heard, "But why +should you waste your time on me, when there is the source of today's +achievement, the man who made it all possible— +Dr. Robert Stadler!" +It seemed to him for an instant that he saw an incongruous look on the +worn, cynical faces of the newsmen, a look that was not quite respect, +expectation or hope, but more like an echo of these, like a faint reflection +of the look they might have worn in their youth on hearing the name of Robert +Stadler. In that instant, he felt an impulse which he would not acknowledge: +the impulse to tell them that he knew nothing about today's event, that his +power counted for less than theirs, that he had been brought here as a pawn +in some confidence game, almost as . . . as a prisoner. +Instead, he heard himself answering their questions in the smug, +condescending tone of a man who shares all the secrets of the highest +authorities: "Yes, the State Science Institute is proud of its record of +public service. . . . The State Science Institute is not the tool of any +private interests or personal greed, it is devoted to the welfare of mankind, +to the good of humanity as a whole—" spouting, like a dictaphone, the +sickening generalities he had heard from Dr. Ferns. +He would not permit himself to know that what he felt was self loathing; +he identified the emotion, but not its object; it was loathing for the men +around him, he thought; it was they who were forcing him to go through this +shameful performance. What can you do—he thought— +when you have to deal with people? +The newsmen were making brief notes of his answers. Their faces now had +the look of automatons acting out the routine of pretending that they were +hearing news in the empty utterances of another automaton. + + "Dr. Stadler," asked one of them, pointing at the building on the knoll, +"is it true that you consider Project X the greatest achievement of the State +Science Institute?" +There was a dead drop of silence. +"Project . . . X . . . ?" said Dr. Stadler. +He knew that something was ominously wrong in the tone of his voice, +because he saw the heads of the newsmen go up, as at the sound of an alarm; +he saw them waiting, their pencils poised. +For one instant, while he felt the muscles of his face cracking into the +fraud of a smile, he felt a formless, an almost supernatural terror, as if he +sensed again the silent working of some smooth machine, as if he were caught +in it, part of it and doing its irrevocable will. "Project X?" he said +softly, in the mysterious tone of a conspirator. "Well, gentlemen, the value— +and the motive—of any achievement of the State Science Institute are not to +be doubted, since it is a non-profit venture—need I say more?" +He raised his head and noticed that Dr. Ferris had stood on the edge of +the group through the whole of the interview. He wondered whether he imagined +that the look on Dr. Ferris' face now seemed less tense—and more impertinent. +Two resplendent cars came shooting at full speed into the parking lot and +stopped with a flourish of screeching brakes. The newsmen deserted him in the +middle of a sentence and went running to meet the group alighting from the +cars. +Dr. Stadler turned to Ferris. "What is Project X?" he asked sternly. +Dr. Ferris smiled in a manner of innocence and insolence together. +"A non-profit venture," he answered—and went running off to meet the +newcomers. +From the respectful whispers of the crowd, Dr. Stadler learned that the +little man in a wilted linen suit, who looked like a shyster, striding +briskly in the center of the new group, was Mr. Thompson, the Head of the +State. Mr. Thompson was smiling, frowning and barking answers to the newsmen. +Dr. Ferris was weaving through the group, with the grace of a cat rubbing +against sundry legs. +The group came closer and he saw Ferris steering them in his direction. +"Mr. Thompson," said Dr. Ferris sonorously, as they approached, "may I +present Dr. Robert Stadler?" +Dr. Stadler saw the little shyster's eyes studying him for the fraction of +a second: the eyes had a touch of superstitious awe, as at the sight of a +phenomenon from a mystical realm forever incomprehensible to Mr. Thompson—and +they had the piercing, calculating shrewdness of a ward heeler who feels +certain that nothing is immune from his standards, a glance like the visual +equivalent of the words: What's your angle? +"It's an honor, Doctor, an honor, I'm sure," said Mr. Thompson briskly, +shaking his hand. +He learned that the tall, stoop-shouldered man with a crew haircut was Mr. +Wesley Mouch. He did not catch the names of the others, whose hands he shook. +As the group proceeded toward the officials' +grandstand, he was left with the burning sensation of a discovery he dared +not face: the discovery that he had felt anxiously pleased by the little +shyster's nod of approval. +A party of young attendants, who looked like movie theater ushers, +appeared- from, somewhere with handcarts of glittering objects, which they +proceeded to distribute to the assembly. The objects were field glasses. Dr. +Ferns took his place at the microphone of a public-address system by the +officials' stand. At a signal from Wesley Mouch, his voice boomed suddenly +over the prairie, an unctuous, fraudulently solemn voice magnified by the +microphone inventor's ingenuity into the sound and power of a giant: "Ladies +and gentlemen . . . !" + + The crowd was struck into silence, all heads jerking unanimously toward +the graceful figure of Dr. Floyd Ferris. +"Ladies and gentlemen, you have been chosen—in recognition of your +distinguished public service and social loyalty—to witness the unveiling of a +scientific achievement of such tremendous importance, such staggering scope, +such epoch-making possibilities that up to this moment it has been known only +to a very few and only as Project X." +Dr. Stadler focused his field glasses on the only thing in sight—on the +blotch of the distant farm. +He saw that it was the deserted ruin of a farmhouse, which had obviously +been abandoned years ago. The light of the sky showed through the naked ribs +of the roof, and jagged bits of glass framed the darkness of empty windows. +He saw a sagging barn, the rusted tower of a water wheel, and the remnant of +a tractor lying upturned with its treads in the air. +Dr. Ferris was talking about the crusaders of science and about the years +of selfless devotion, unremitting toil and persevering research that had gone +into Project X. +It was odd—thought Dr. Stadler, studying the ruins of the farm— +that there should be a herd of goats in the midst of such desolation. +There were six or seven of them, some drowsing, some munching +lethargically at whatever grass they could find among the sun-scorched weeds. +"Project X," Dr. Ferris was saying, "was devoted to some special research +in the field of sound. The science of sound has astonishing aspects, which +laymen would scarcely suspect. . . ." +Some fifty feet away from the farmhouse, Dr. Stadler saw a structure, +obviously new and of no possible purpose whatever: it looked like a few spans +of a steel trestle, rising into empty space, supporting nothing, leading +nowhere. +Dr. Ferris was now talking about the nature of sound vibrations. +Dr. Stadler aimed his field glasses at the horizon beyond the farm, but +there was nothing else to be seen for dozens of miles. The sudden, straining +motion of one of the goats brought his eyes back to the herd. +He noticed that the goats were chained to stakes driven at intervals into +the ground. +". . . And it was discovered," said Dr. Ferris, "that there are certain +frequencies of sound vibration which no structure, organic or inorganic, can +withstand. . . ." +Dr. Stadler noticed a silvery spot bouncing over the weeds among the herd. +It was a kid that had not been chained; it kept leaping and weaving about its +mother. +". . . The sound ray is controlled by a panel inside the giant underground +laboratory," said Dr. Ferris, pointing at the building on the knoll. "That +panel is known to us affectionately as the 'Xylophone'— +because one must be darn careful to strike the right keys, or, rather, to +pull the right levers. For this special occasion, an extension Xylophone, +connected to the one inside, has been erected here"—he pointed to the +switchboard in front of the officials1 stand—"so that you may witness the +entire operation and see the simplicity of the whole procedure. . . ." +Dr. Stadler found pleasure in watching the kid, a soothing, reassuring +kind of pleasure. The little creature seemed barely a week old, it looked +like a ball of white fur with graceful long legs, it kept bounding in a +manner of deliberate, gaily ferocious awkwardness, all four of its legs held +stiff and straight. It seemed to be leaping at the sunrays, at the summer +air, at the joy of discovering its own existence. +". . . The sound ray is invisible, inaudible and fully controllable in +respect to target, direction and range. Its first public test, which you are +about to witness, has been set to cover a small sector, a mere two miles, in + + perfect safety, with all space cleared for twenty miles beyond. The present +generating equipment in our laboratory is capable of producing rays to cover— +through the outlets which you may observe under the dome—the entire +countryside within a radius of a hundred miles, a circle with a periphery +extending from the shore of the Mississippi, roughly from the bridge of the +Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, to Des Moines and Fort Dodge, Iowa, to +Austin, Minnesota, to Woodman, Wisconsin, to Rock Island, Illinois. This is +only a modest beginning. We possess the technical knowledge to build +generators with a range of two and three hundred miles—but due to the fact +that we were unable to obtain in time a sufficient quantity of a highly heat +resistant metal, such as Rearden Metal, we had to be satisfied with our +present equipment and radius of control. In honor of our great executive, Mr. +Thompson, under whose far-sighted administration the State Science Institute +was granted the funds without which Project X would not have been possible, +this great invention will henceforth be known as the Thompson Harmonizer!" +The crowd applauded. Mr. Thompson sat motionless, with his face held selfconsciously stiff. Dr. Stadler felt certain that this small-time shyster had +had as little to do with the Project as any of the movie usher attendants, +that he possessed neither the mind nor the initiative nor even the sufficient +degree of malice to cause a new gopher trap to be brought into the world, +that he, too, was only the pawn of a silent machine—a machine that had no +center, no leader, no direction, a machine that had not been set in motion by +Dr. Ferris or Wesley Mouch, or any of the cowed creatures in the grandstands, +or any of the creatures behind the scenes—an impersonal, unthinking, +unembodied machine, of which none was the driver and all were the pawns, each +to the degree of his evil. Dr. Stadler gripped the edge of the bench: he felt +a desire to leap to his feet and run. +". . . As to the function and the purpose of the sound ray, I shall say +nothing. I shall let it speak for itself. You will now see it work. +When Dr. Blodgett pulls the levers of the Xylophone, I suggest that you +keep your eyes on the target—which is that farmhouse two miles away. There +will be nothing else to see. The ray itself is invisible. It has long been +conceded by all progressive thinkers that there are no entities, only +actions—and no values, only consequences. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will +see the action and the consequences of the Thompson Harmonizer." +Dr. Ferris bowed, walked slowly away from the microphone and came to take +his seat on the bench beside Dr. Stadler. +A youngish, fattish kind of man took his stand by the switchboard— +and raised his eyes expectantly toward Mr. Thompson. Mr. Thompson looked +blankly bewildered for an instant, as if something had slipped his mind, +until Wesley Mouch leaned over and whispered some word into his ear. +"Contact!" said Mr. Thompson loudly. +Dr. Stadler could not bear to watch the graceful, undulating, effeminate +motion of Dr. Blodgett's hand as it pulled the first lever of the +switchboard, then the next. He raised his field glasses and looked at the +farmhouse. +In the instant when he focused his lens, a goat was pulling at its chain, +reaching placidly for a tall, dry thistle. In the next instant, the goat rose +into the air, upturned, its legs stretched upward and jerking, then fell into +a gray pile made of seven goats in convulsions. By the time Dr. Stadler +believed it, the pile was motionless, except for one beast's leg sticking out +of the mass, stiff as a rod and shaking as in a strong wind. The farmhouse +tore into strips of clapboard and went down, followed by a geyser of the +bricks of its chimney. The tractor vanished into a pancake. The water tower +cracked and its shreds hit the ground white its wheel was still describing a +long curve through the air, as if of its own leisurely volition. The steel +beams and girders of the solid new trestle collapsed like a structure of + + matchsticks under the breath of a sigh. It was so swift, so uncontested, so +simple, that Dr. +Stadler felt no horror, he felt nothing, it was not the reality he had +known, it was the realm of a child's nightmare where material objects could +be dissolved by means of a single malevolent wish. +He moved the field glasses from his eyes. He was looking at an empty +prairie. There was no farm, there was nothing in the distance except a +darkish strip that looked like the shadow of a cloud. +A single, high, thin scream rose from the tiers behind him, as some woman +fainted. He wondered why she should scream so long after the fact-and then he +realized that the time elapsed since the touch of the first lever was not a +full minute. +He raised his field glasses again, almost as if he were suddenly hoping +that the cloud shadow would be all he would see. But the material objects +were still there; they were a mount of refuse. He moved his glasses over the +wreckage; in a moment, he realized that he was looking for the kid. He could +not find it; there was nothing but a pile of gray fur. +When he lowered the glasses and turned, he found Dr. Ferns looking at him. +He felt certain that through the whole of the test, it was not the target, it +was his face that Ferris had watched, as if to see whether he, Robert +Stadler, could withstand the ray. +"That's all there is to it," the fattish Dr. Blodgett announced through +the microphone, in the ingratiating sales tone of a department-store +floorwalker. "There is no nail or rivet remaining in the frame of the +structures and there is no blood vessel left unbroken in the bodies of the +animals." +The crowd was rustling with jerky movements and high-pitched whispers. +People were looking at one another, rising uncertainly and dropping down +again, restlessly demanding anything but this pause. There was a sound of +submerged hysteria in the whispers. They seemed to be waiting to be told what +to think. +Dr. Stadler saw a woman being escorted down the steps from the back row, +her head bent, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth: she was sick at her +stomach. +He turned away and saw that Dr. Ferris was still watching him. Dr. +Stadler leaned back a little, his face austere and scornful, the face of +the nation's greatest scientist, and asked, "Who invented that ghastly +thing?" +"You did." +Dr. Stadler looked at him, not moving. +"It is merely a practical appliance," said Dr. Ferris pleasantly, "based +upon your theoretical discoveries. It was derived from your invaluable +research into the nature of cosmic rays and of the spatial transmission of +energy." +"Who worked on the Project?" +"A few third-raters, as you would call them. Really, there was very little +difficulty. None of them could have begun to conceive of the first step +toward the concept of your energy-transmission formula, but given that—the +rest was easy." +"What is the practical purpose of this invention? What are the 'epochmaking possibilities'?" +"Oh, but don't you see? It is an invaluable instrument of public security. +No enemy would attack the possessor of such a weapon. It will set the country +free from the fear of aggression and permit it to plan its future in +undisturbed safety." His voice had an odd carelessness, a tone of offhand +improvisation, as if he were neither expecting nor attempting to be believed. + + "It will relieve social frictions. It will promote peace, stability and—as we +have indicated—harmony. It will eliminate all danger of war." +"What war? What aggression? With the whole world starving and all those +People's States barely subsisting on handouts from this country—where do you +see any danger of war? Do you expect those ragged savages to attack you?" +Dr. Ferris looked straight into his eyes. "Internal enemies can be as +great a danger to the people as external ones," he answered. "Perhaps +greater." This time his voice sounded as if he expected and was certain to be +understood. "Social systems are so precarious. But think of what stability +could be achieved by a few scientific installations at strategic key points. +It would guarantee a state of permanent peace—don't you think so?" +Dr. Stadler did not move or answer; as the seconds clicked past and his +face still held an unchanged expression, it began to look paralyzed. +His eyes had the stare of a man who suddenly sees that which he had known, +had known from the first, had spent years trying not to see, and who is now +engaged in a contest between the sight and his power to deny its existence. +"I don't know what you're talking about!" he snapped at last. +Dr. Ferris smiled. "No private businessman or greedy industrialist would +have financed Project X," he said softly, in the tone of an idle, informal +discussion. "He couldn't have afforded it. It's an enormous investment, with +no prospect of material gain. What profit could he expect from it? There are +no profits henceforth to be derived from that farm." He pointed at the dark +strip in the distance. "But, as you have so well observed, Project X had to +be a non-profit venture. Contrary to a business firm, the State Science +Institute had no trouble in obtaining funds for the Project. You have not +heard of the Institute having any financial difficulties in the past two +years, have you? And it used to be such a problem—getting them to vote the +funds necessary for the advancement of science. They always demanded gadgets +for their cash, as you used to say. Well, here was a gadget which some people +in power could fully appreciate. They got the others to vote for it. It +wasn't difficult. In fact, a great many of those others felt safe in voting +money for a project that was secret—they felt certain it was important, since +they were not considered important enough to be let in on it. +There were, of course, a few skeptics and doubters. But they gave in when +they were reminded that the head of the State Science Institute was Dr. +Robert Stadler—whose judgment and integrity they could not doubt." +Dr. Stadler was looking down at his fingernails. +The sudden screech of the microphone jerked the crowd into an +instantaneous attentiveness; people seemed to be a second's worth of selfcontrol away from panic. An announcer, with a voice like a machine gun +spitting smiles, barked cheerily that they were now to witness the radio +broadcast that would break the news of the great discovery to the whole +nation. Then, with a glance at his watch, his script and the signaling arm of +Wesley Mouch, he yelled into the sparkling snake-head of the microphone—into +the living rooms, the offices, the studies, the nurseries of the country: +"Ladies and gentlemen! Project X!" +Dr. Ferris leaned toward Dr. Stadler—through the staccato hoof beats of +the announcer's voice galloping across the continent with a description of +the new invention—and said in the tone of a casual remark, "It is vitally +important that there be no criticism of the Project in the country at this +precarious time," then added semi-accidentally, as a semi-joke, "that there +be no criticism of anything at any time." +"—and the nation's political, cultural, intellectual and moral leaders," +the announcer was yelling into the microphone, "who have witnessed this great +event, as your representatives and in your name, will now tell you their +views of it in person!" + + Mr. Thompson was the first to mount the wooden steps to the platform of +the microphone. He snapped his way through a brief speech, hailing a new era +and declaring—in the belligerent tone of a challenge to unidentified enemies— +that science belonged to the people and that every man on the face of the +globe had a right to a share of the advantages created by technological +progress. +Wesley Mouch came next. He spoke about social planning and the necessity +of unanimous rallying in support of the planners. He spoke about discipline, +unity, austerity and the patriotic duty of bearing temporary hardships. "We +have mobilized the best brains of the country to work for your welfare. This +great invention was the product of the genius of a man whose devotion to the +cause of humanity is not to be questioned, a man acknowledged by all as the +greatest mind of the century—Dr. Robert Stadler!" +"What?" gasped Dr. Stadler, whirling toward Ferris. +Dr. Ferris looked at him with a glance of patient mildness. +"He didn't ask my permission to say that!" Dr. Stadler half-snapped, halfwhispered. +Dr. Ferris spread out his hands in a gesture of reproachful helplessness. +"Now you see, Dr. Stadler, how unfortunate it is if you allow yourself to be +disturbed by political matters, which you have always considered unworthy of +your attention and knowledge. You see, it is not Mr. Mouch's function to ask +permissions." +The figure now slouching against the sky on the speakers platform, coiling +itself about the microphone, talking in the bored, contemptuous tone of an +off-color story, was Dr. Simon Pritchett. He was declaring that the new +invention was an instrument of social welfare, which guaranteed general +prosperity, and that anyone who doubted this self evident fact was an enemy +of society, to be treated accordingly. +"This invention, the product of Dr. Robert Stadler, the pre-eminent lover +of freedom—" +Dr. Ferris opened a briefcase, produced some pages of neatly typed copy +and turned to Dr. Stadler. "You are to be the climax of the broadcast," he +said. "You will speak last, at the end of the hour." He extended the pages. +"Here's the speech you'll make," His eyes said the rest: they said that his +choice of words had not been accidental. +Dr. Stadler took the pages, but held them between the tips of two straight +fingers, as one might hold a scrap of waste paper about to be tossed aside. +"I haven't asked you to appoint yourself as my ghost writer," he said. The +sarcasm of the voice gave Ferris his clue: this was not a moment for sarcasm. +"I couldn't have allowed your invaluable time to be taken up by the +writing of radio speeches," said Dr. Ferris. "I felt certain that you would +appreciate it." He said it in a tone of spurious politeness intended to be +recognized as spurious, the tone of tossing to a beggar the alms of facesaving. +Dr. Stadler's answer disturbed him: Dr. Stadler did not choose to answer +or to glance down at the manuscript. +"Lack of faith," a beefy speaker was snarling on the platform, in the tone +of a street brawl, "lack of faith is the only thing we got to fear! If we +4iave faith in the plans of our leaders, why, the plans will work and we'll +all have prosperity and ease and plenty. It's the fellows who go around +doubting and destroying our morale, it's they who're keeping us in shortages +and misery. But we're not going to let them do it much longer, we're here to +protect the people—and if any of those doubting smarties come around, believe +you me, we'll take care of them!" +"It would be unfortunate," said Dr. Ferris in a soft voice, "to arouse +popular resentment against the State Science Institute at an explosive time +like the present. There's a great deal of dissatisfaction and unrest in the + + country—and if people should misunderstand the nature of the new invention, +they're liable to vent their rage on all scientists. Scientists have never +been popular with the masses." +"Peace," a tall, willowy woman was signing into the microphone, "this +invention is a great, new instrument of peace. It will protect us from the +aggressive designs of selfish enemies, it will allow us to breathe freely and +to learn to love our fellow men." She had a bony face with a mouth embittered +at cocktail parties, and wore a flowing pale blue gown, suggesting the +concert garment of a harpist. "It may well be considered as that miracle +which was thought impossible in history—the dream of the ages—the final +synthesis of science and love!" +Dr. Stadler looked at the faces in the grandstands. They were sitting +quietly now, they were listening, but their eyes had an ebbing look of +twilight, a look of fear in the process of being accepted as permanent, the +look of raw wounds being dimmed by the veil of infection. They knew, as he +knew it, that they were the targets of the shapeless funnels protruding from +the mushroom building's dome—and he wondered in what manner they were now +extinguishing their minds and escaping that knowledge; he knew that the words +they were eager to absorb and believe were the chains slipping in to hold +them, like the goats, securely within the range of those funnels. They were +eager to believe; he saw the tightening lines of their lips, he saw the +occasional glances of suspicion they threw at their neighbors—as if the +horror that threatened them was not the sound ray, but the men who would make +them acknowledge it as horror. Their eyes were veiling over, but the remnant +look of a wound was a cry for help. +"Why do you think they think?" said Dr. Ferris softly. "Reason is the +scientist's only weapon—and reason has no power over men, has it? At a time +like ours, with the country falling apart, with the mob driven by blind +desperation to the edge of open riots and violence— +order must be maintained by any means available. What can we do when we +have to deal with people?" +Dr. Stadler did not answer. +A fat, jellied woman, with an inadequate brassiere under a dark, +perspiration-stained dress, was saying into the microphone—Dr. Stadler could +not believe it at first—that the new invention was to be greeted with +particular gratitude by the mothers of the country. +Dr. Stadler turned away; watching him, Ferris could see nothing but the +noble line of the high forehead and the deep cut of bitterness at the corner +of the mouth. +Suddenly, without context or warning, Robert Stadler whirled to face him. +It was like a spurt of blood from a sudden crack in a wound that had almost +closed: Stadler's face was open, open in pain, in horror, in sincerity, as +if, for that moment, both he and Ferris were human beings, while he moaned +with incredulous despair: "In a civilized century, Ferris, in a civilized +century!" +Dr. Ferris took his time to produce and prolong a soft chuckle. "I don't +know what you're talking about," he answered in the tone of a quotation. +Dr. Stadler lowered his eyes. +When Ferris spoke again, his voice had the faintest edge of a tone which +Stadler could not define, except that it did not belong in any civilized +discussion: "It would be unfortunate if anything were to happen to jeopardize +the State Science Institute. It would be most unfortunate if the Institute +were to be closed—or if any one of us were to be forced to leave it. Where +would we go? Scientists are an inordinate luxury these days—and there aren't +many people or establishments left who're able to afford necessities, let +alone luxuries. There are no doors left open to us. We wouldn't be welcome in +the research department of an industrial concern, such as—let us say—Rearden + + Steel. Besides, if we should happen to make enemies, the same enemies would +be feared by any person tempted to employ our talents. A man like Rearden +would have fought for us. Would a man like Orren Boyle? But this is purely +theoretical speculation, because, as a matter of practical fact, all private +establishments of scientific research have been closed by law—by Directive +10-289, issued, as you might not realize, by Mr. Wesley Mouch. Are you +thinking, perhaps, of universities? They are in the same position. They can't +afford to make enemies. Who would speak up for us? I believe that some such +man as Hugh Akston would have come to our defense—but to think of that is to +be guilty of an anachronism. He belonged to a different age. The conditions +set up in our social and economic reality have long since made his continued +existence impossible. And I don't think that Dr. Simon Pritchett, or the +generation reared under his guidance, would be able or willing to defend us. +I have never believed in the efficacy of idealists—have you?— +and this is no age for impractical idealism. If anyone wished to oppose a +government policy, how would he make himself heard? Through these gentlemen +of the press, Dr. Stadler? Through this microphone? Is there an independent +newspaper left in the country? An uncontrolled radio station? A private piece +of property, for that matter—or a personal opinion?" The tone of the voice +was obvious now: it was the tone of a thug. "A personal opinion is the one +luxury that nobody can afford today." +Dr. Stadler's lips moved stiffly, as stiffly as the muscles of the goats, +"You are speaking to Robert Stadler." +"I have not forgotten that. It is precisely because I have not forgotten +it that I am speaking, 'Robert Stadler' is an illustrious name, which I would +hate to see destroyed. But what is an illustrious name nowadays? In whose +eyes?" His arm swept over the grandstands. "In the eyes of people such as you +see around you? If they will believe, when so told, that an instrument of +death is a tool of prosperity—would they not believe it if they were told +that Robert Stadler is a traitor and an enemy of the State? Would you then +rely on the fact that this is not true? Are you thinking of truth, Dr. +Stadler? Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. Principles have +no influence on public affairs. +Reason has no power over human beings. Logic is impotent. Morality is +superfluous. Do not answer me now, Dr. Stadler. You will answer me over the +microphone. You're the next speaker." +Looking off at the dark strip of the farm in the distance, Dr. Stadler +knew that what he felt was terror, but he would not permit himself to know +its nature. He, who had been able to study the particles and sub particles of +cosmic space, would not permit himself to examine his feeling and to know +that it was made of three parts: one part was terror of a vision that seemed +to stand before his eyes, the vision of the inscription cut, in his honor, +over the door of the Institute: "To the fearless mind, to the inviolate +truth"—another part was a plain, brute, animal fear of physical destruction, +a humiliating fear which, in the civilized world of his youth, he had not +expected ever to experience— +and the third was the terror of the knowledge that by betraying the first, +one delivers oneself into the realm of the second. +He walked toward the speaker's scaffold, his steps firm and slow, his head +lifted, the manuscript of the speech held crumpled in his fingers. +It looked like a walk to mount either a pedestal or a guillotine. As the +whole of a man's life flashes before him in his dying moment, so he walked to +the sound of the announcer's voice reading to the country the list of Robert +Stadler's achievements and career. A faint convulsion ran over Robert +Stadler's face at the words: "—former head of the Department of Physics of +the Patrick Henry University." He knew, distantly, not as if the knowledge +were within him, but as if it were within some person he was leaving behind, + + that the crowd was about to witness an act of destruction more terrible than +the destruction of. the farm. +He had mounted the first three steps of the scaffold, when a young newsman +tore forward, ran to him and, from below, seized the railing to stop him. +"Dr. Stadler!" he cried in a desperate whisper. "Tell them the truth! Tell +them that you had nothing to do with it! Tell them what sort of infernal +machine it is and for what purpose it's intended to be used! Tell the country +what sort of people are trying to rule it! Nobody can doubt your word! Tell +them the truth! Save us! You're the only one who can!" +Dr. Stadler looked down at him. He was young; his movements and voice had +that swift, sharp clarity which belongs to competence; among his aged, +corrupt, favor-ridden and pull-created colleagues, he had managed to achieve +the rank of elite of the political press, by means and in the role of a last, +irresistible spark of ability. His eyes had the look of an eager, +unfrightened intelligence; they were the kind of eyes Dr. +Stadler had seen looking up at him from the benches of classrooms. +He noticed that this boy's eyes were hazel; they had a tinge of green. +Dr. Stadler turned his head and saw that Ferris had come rushing to his +side, like a servant or a jailer. "I do not expect to be insulted by disloyal +young punks with treasonable motives," said Dr. Stadler loudly. +Dr. Ferris whirled upon the young man and snapped, his face out of +control, distorted by rage at the unexpected and unplanned, "Give me your +press card and your work permit!" +"I am proud," Dr. Robert Stadler read-into the microphone and into the +attentive silence of a nation, "that my years of work in the service of +science have brought me the honor of placing into the hands of our great +leader, Mr. Thompson, a new instrument with an incalculable potential for a +civilizing and liberating influence upon the mind of man. . . . " +The sky had the stagnant breath of a furnace and the streets of New York +were like pipes running, not with air and light, but with melted dust. Dagny +stood on a street corner, where the airport bus had left her, looking at the +city in passive astonishment. The buildings seemed worn by weeks of summer +heat, but the people seemed worn by centuries of anguish. She stood watching +them, disarmed by an enormous sense of unreality. +That sense of unreality had been her only feeling since the early hours of +the morning—since the moment when, at the end of an empty highway, she had +walked into an unknown town and stopped the first passer-by to ask where she +was. +"Watsonville," he answered. "What state, please?" she asked. The man +glanced at her, said, "Nebraska," and walked hastily away. She smiled +mirthlessly, knowing that he wondered where she had come from and that no +explanation he could imagine would be as fantastic as the truth. Yet it was +Watsonville that seemed fantastic to her, as she walked through its streets +to the railroad station. She had lost the habit of observing despair as the +normal and dominant aspect of human existence, so normal as to become +unnoticed—and the sight of it struck her in all of its senseless futility. +She was seeing the brand of pain and fear on the faces of people, and the +look of evasion that refuses to know it—they seemed to be going through the +motions of some enormous pretense, acting out a ritual to ward off reality, +letting the earth remain unseen and their lives unlived, in dread of +something namelessly forbidden— +yet the forbidden was the simple act of looking at the nature of their +pain and questioning their duty to bear it. She was seeing it so clearly that +she kept wanting to approach strangers, to shake them, to laugh in their +faces and to cry, "Snap out of it!" + + There was no reason for people to be as unhappy as that, she thought, no +reason whatever . . . and then she remembered that reason was the one power +they had banished from their existence. +She boarded a Taggart train for the nearest airfield; she did not identify +herself to anyone: it seemed irrelevant. She sat at the window of a coach, +like a stranger who has to learn the incomprehensible language of those +around her. She picked up a discarded newspaper; she managed, with effort, to +understand what was written, but not why it should ever have been written: it +all seemed so childishly senseless. +She stared in astonishment at a paragraph in a syndicated column from New +York, which stated over emphatically that Mr. James Taggart wished it to be +known that his sister had died in an airplane crash, any unpatriotic rumors +to the contrary notwithstanding. Slowly, she remembered Directive 10-289 and +realized that Jim was embarrassed by the public suspicion that she had +vanished as a deserter. +The wording of the paragraph suggested that her disappearance had been a +prominent public issue, not yet dropped. There were other suggestions of it: +a mention of Miss Taggart's tragic death, in a story about the growing number +of plane crashes—and, on the back page, an ad, offering a $100,000 reward to +the person who would find the wreckage of her plane, signed by Henry Rearden. +The last gave her a stab of urgency; the rest seemed meaningless. +Then, slowly, she realized that her return was a public event which would +be taken as big news. She felt a lethargic weariness at the prospect of a +dramatic homecoming, of facing Jim and the press, of witnessing the +excitement. She wished they would get it over with in her absence. +At the airfield, she saw a small-town reporter interviewing some departing +officials. She waited till he had finished, then she approached him, extended +her credentials and said quietly, to the gaping stare of his eyes, "I'm Dagny +Taggart. Would you make it known, please, that I'm alive and that I'll be in +New York this afternoon?" The plane was about to take off and she escaped the +necessity of answering questions. +She watched the prairies, the rivers, the towns slipping past at an +untouchable distance below—and she noted that the sense of detachment one +feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when +looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer, The +passengers were listening to some radio broadcast, which appeared to be +important, judging by their earnest attentiveness. She caught brief snatches +of fraudulent voices talking about some sort of new invention that was to +bring some undefined benefits to some undefined public's welfare. The words +were obviously chosen to convey no specific meaning whatever; she wondered +how one could pretend that one was hearing a speech; yet that was what the +passengers were doing. +They were going through the performance of a child who, not yet able to +read, holds a book open and spells out anything he wishes to spell, +pretending that it is contained in the incomprehensible black lines. But the +child, she thought, knows that he is playing a game; these people pretend to +themselves that they are not pretending; they know no other state of +existence. +The sense of unreality remained as her only feeling, when she landed, when +she escaped a crowd of reporters without being seen— +by avoiding the taxi stands and leaping into the airport bus—when she rode +on the bus, then stood on a street corner, looking et New York, She felt as +if she were seeing an abandoned city. +She felt no sense of homecoming, when she entered her apartment; the place +seemed to be a convenient machine that she could use for some purpose of no +significance whatever. + + But she felt a quickened touch of energy, like the first break in a fog —a +touch of meaning—when she picked up the telephone receiver and called +Rearden's office in Pennsylvania. "Oh, Miss Taggart . . . Miss Taggart!" +said, in a joyous moan, the voice of the severe, unemotional Miss Ives. +"Hello, Miss Ives. I haven't startled you, have I? You knew that I was +alive?" +"Oh yes! I heard it on the radio this morning." +"Is Mr. Rearden in his office?" +"No, Miss Taggart. He . . . he's in the Rocky Mountains, searching for . . +. that is . . ." +"Yes, I know. Do you know where we can reach him?" +"I expect to hear from him at any moment. He's stopping in Los Gatos, +Colorado, right now. I phoned him, the moment I heard the news, but he was +out and I left a message for him to call me. You see, he's out flying, most +of the day . . . but he'll call me when he comes back to the hotel." +"What hotel is it?" +"The Eldorado Hotel, in Los Gatos." +"Thank you, Miss Ives." She was about to hang up. +"Oh, Miss Taggart!" +"Yes?" +"What was it that happened to you? Where were you?" +"I . . . I'll tell you when I see you. I'm in New York now. When Mr. +Rearden calls, tell him please that I'll be in my office." +"Yes, Miss Taggart." +She hung up, but her hand remained on the receiver, clinging to her first +contact with a matter that had importance. She looked at her apartment and at +the city in the window, feeling reluctant to sink again into the dead fog of +the meaningless. +She raised the receiver and called Los Gatos. +"Eldorado Hotel," said a woman's drowsily resentful voice. +"Would you take a message for Mr. Henry Rearden? Ash him, when he comes +in, to—" +"Just a minute, please," drawled the voice, in the impatient tone that +resents any effort as an imposition. +She heard the clicking of switches, some buzzing, some breaks of silence +and then a man's clear, firm voice answering: "Hello?" It was Hank Rearden. +She stared at the receiver as at the muzzle of a gun, feeling trapped, +unable to breathe. +"Hello?" he repeated. +"Hank, is that you?" +She heard a low sound, more a sigh than a gasp, and then the long, empty +crackling of the wire. +"Hank'" There was no answer. "Hank!" she screamed in terror. +She thought she heard the effort of a breath—then she heard a whisper, +which was not a question, but a statement saying everything: "Dagny." +"Hank, I'm sorry—oh, darling, I'm sorry!—didn't you know?" +"Where are you, Dagny?" +"Are you all right?" +"Of course." +"Didn't you know that I was back and . . . and alive?" +"No . . . I didn't know it." +"Oh God, I'm sorry I called, I—" +"What are you talking about? Dagny, where are you?" +"In New York. Didn't you hear about it on the radio?" +"No. I've just come in." +"Didn't they give you a message to call Miss Ives?" +"No." + + "Are you all right?" +"Now?" She heard his soft, low chuckle. She was hearing the sound of +unreleased laughter, the sound of youth, growing in his voice with every +word. "When did you come back?" +"This morning." +"Dagny, where were you?" +She did not answer at once. "My plane crashed," she said. "In the Rockies. +I was picked up by some people who helped me, but I could not send word to +anyone." +The laughter went out of his voice. "As bad as that?" +"Oh . . . oh, the crash? No, it wasn't bad. I wasn't hurt. Not seriously." +"Then why couldn't you send word?" +"There were no . . . no means of communication." +"Why did it take you so long to get back?" +“I . . . can't answer that now," +"Dagny, were you in danger?" +The half-smiling, half-bitter tone of her voice was almost regret, as she +answered, "No." +"Were you held prisoner?" +"No—not really." +"Then you could have returned sooner, but didn't?" +"That's true—but that's all I can tell you," +"Where were you, Dagny?" +"Do you mind if we don't talk about it now? Let's wait until I see you." +"Of course. I won't ask any questions. Just tell me: are you safe now?" +"Safe? Yes." +"I mean, have you suffered any permanent injuries or consequences?" +She answered, with the same sound of a cheerless smile, "Injuries— +no, Hank. I don't know, as to the permanent consequences." +"Will you still be in New York tonight?" +"Why, yes. I'm . . . I'm back for good." +"Are you?" +"Why do you ask that?" +"I don't know. I guess I'm too used to what it's like when . . . when I +can't find you." +"I'm back." +"Yes. I'll see you in a few hours." His voice broke off, as if the +sentence were too enormous to believe. "In a few hours," he repeated firmly. +"I'll be here." +"Dagny—" +"Yes?" +He chuckled softly. "No, nothing. Just wanted to hear your voice awhile +longer. Forgive me. I mean, not now. I mean, I don't want to say anything +now." +"Hank, I—" +"When I see you, my darling. So long." +She stood looking at the silent receiver. For the first time since her +return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her alive, because it was +worth feeling. +She telephoned her secretary at Taggart Transcontinental, to say briefly +that she would be in the office in half an hour. +The statue of Nathaniel Taggart was real—when she stood facing it in the +concourse of the Terminal. It seemed to her that they were alone in a vast, +echoing temple, with fog coils of formless ghosts weaving and vanishing +around them. She stood still, looking up at the statue, as for a brief moment +of dedication. I'm back—were the only words she had to offer. + + "Dagny Taggart" was still the inscription on the frosted glass panel of +the door to her office. The look on the faces of her staff, as she entered +the anteroom, was the look of drowning persons at the sight of a lifeline. +She saw Eddie Willers standing at his desk in his glass enclosure, with some +man before him. Eddie made a move in her direction, but stopped; he looked +imprisoned. She let her glance greet every face in turn, smiling at them +gently as at doomed children, then walked toward Eddie's desk. +Eddie was watching her approach as if he were seeing nothing else in the +world, but his rigid posture seemed designed to pretend that he was listening +to the man before him. +"Motive power?" the man was saying in a voice that had a brusque, staccato +snap and a slurred, nasal drawl, together. "There's no problem about motive +power. You just take—" +"Hello," said Eddie softly, with a muted smile, as to a distant vision. +The man turned to glance at her. He had a yellow complexion, curly hair, a +hard face made of soft muscles, and the revolting handsomeness belonging to +the esthetic standards of barroom corners; his blurred brown eyes had the +empty flatness of glass. +"Miss Taggart," said Eddie, in a resonant tone of severity, the tone of +slapping the man into the manners of a drawing room he had never entered, +"may I present Mr. Meigs?" +"How d' do," said the man without interest, then turned to Eddie and +proceeded, as if she were not present: "You just take the Comet off the +schedule for tomorrow and Tuesday, and shoot the engines to Arizona for the +grapefruit special, with the rolling stock from the Scranton coal run I +mentioned. Send the orders out at once." +"You'll do nothing of the kind!" she gasped, too incredulous to be angry. +Eddie did not answer. +Meigs glanced at her with what would have been astonishment if his eyes +were capable of registering a reaction. "Send the orders," he said to Eddie, +with no emphasis, and walked out. +Eddie was jotting notations on a piece of paper. +"Are you crazy?" she asked. +He raised his eyes to her, as though exhausted by hours of beating. +"We'll have to, Dagny” he said, his voice dead. +"What is that?" she asked, pointing at the outer door that had closed on +Mr. Meigs. +"The Director of Unification." +"What?" +"The Washington representative, in charge of the Railroad Unification +Plan." +"What's that?" +"It's . . . Oh, wait, Dagny, are you all right? Were you hurt? Was it a +plane crash?" +She had never imagined what the face of Eddie Willers would look like in +the process of aging, but she was seeing it now—aging at thirty-five and +within the span of one month. It was not a matter of texture or wrinkles, it +was the same face with the same muscles, but saturated by the withering look +of resignation to a pain accepted as hopeless. +She smiled, gently and confidently, in understanding, in dismissal of all +problems, and said, extending her hand, "All right, Eddie. Hello." +He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, a thing he had never done +before, his manner neither daring nor apologetic, but simply and openly +personal. +"It was a plane crash," she said, "and, Eddie, so that you won't worry, +111 tell you the truth: I wasn't hurt, not seriously. But that's not the + + story I'm going to give to the press and to all the others. So you're never +to mention it." +"Of course." +"I had no way to communicate with anyone, but not because I was hurt. It's +all I can tell you, Eddie. Don't ask me where I was or why it took me so long +to return." +"I won't." +"Now tell me, what is the Railroad Unification Plan?" +"It's . . . Oh, do you mind?—let Jim tell you. He will, soon enough. I +just don't have the stomach—unless you want me to," he added, with a +conscientious effort at discipline, "No, you don't have to. Just tell me +whether I understood that Unificator correctly: he wants you to cancel the +Comet for two days in order to give her engines to a grapefruit special in +Arizona?" +"That's right." +"And he's cancelled a coal train in order to get cars to lug grapefruit?" +"Yes." +"Grapefruit?" +"That's right." +"Why?" +"Dagny, 'why' is a word nobody uses any longer." +After a moment, she asked, "Have you any guess about the reason?" +"Guess? I don't have to guess. I know." +"All right, what is it?" +"The grapefruit special is for the Smather brothers. The Smather brothers +bought a fruit ranch in Arizona a year ago, from a man who went bankrupt +under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. He had owned the ranch for thirty +years. The Smather brothers were in the punchboard business the year before. +They bought the ranch by means of a loan from Washington under a project for +the reclamation of distressed areas, such as Arizona. The Smather brothers +have friends in. +Washington." +"Well?" +"Dagny, everybody knows it. Everybody knows how train schedules have been +run in the past three weeks, and why some districts and some shippers get +transportation, while others don't. What we're not supposed to do is say that +we know it. We're supposed to pretend to believe that 'public welfare is the +only reason for any decision—and that the public welfare of the city of New +York requires the immediate delivery of a large quantity of grapefruit." He +paused, then added, "The Director of Unification is sole judge of the public +welfare and has sole authority over the allocation of any motive power and +rolling stock on any railroad anywhere in the United States." +There was a moment of silence. "I see," she said. In another moment, she +asked, "What has been done about the Winston tunnel?" +"Oh, that was abandoned three weeks ago. They never unearthed the trains. +The equipment gave out." +"What has been done about rebuilding the old line around the tunnel?" +"That was shelved." +"Then are we running any transcontinental traffic?" +He gave her an odd glance. "Oh yes," he said bitterly. +"Through the detour of the Kansas Western?" +"No." +"Eddie, what has been happening here in the past month?" +He smiled as if his words were an ugly confession. "We've been making +money in the past month," he answered. +She saw the outer door open and James Taggart come in, accompanied by Mr. +Meigs. "Eddie, do you want to be present at the conference?" + + she asked. "Or would you rather miss this one?" +"No. I want to be present." +Jim's face looked like a crumpled piece of paper, though its soft, puffed +flesh had acquired no additional lines. +"Dagny, there's a lot of things to discuss, a lot of important changes +which—" he said shrilly, his voice rushing in ahead of his person. "Oh, I'm +glad to see you back, I'm happy that you're alive," he added impatiently, +remembering. "Now there are some urgent—" +"Let's go to my office," she said. +Her office was like a historical reconstruction, restored and maintained +by Eddie Willers. Her map, her calendar, the picture of Nat Taggart were on +the walls, and no trace was left of the Clifton Locey era, "I understand that +I am still the Operating Vice-President of this railroad?" she asked, sitting +down at her desk. +"You are," said Taggart hastily, accusingly, almost defiantly. "You +certainly are—and don't you forget it—you haven't quit, you're still —have +you?" +"No, I haven't quit." +"Now the most urgent thing to do is to tell that to the press, tell them +that you're back on the job and where you were and—and, by the way, where +were you?" +"Eddie," she said, "will you make a note on this and send it to the press? +My plane developed engine trouble while I was flying over the Rocky Mountains +to the Taggart Tunnel. I lost my way, looking for an emergency landing, and +crashed in an uninhabited mountain section— +of Wyoming. I was found by an old sheepherder and his wife, who took me to +their cabin, deep in the wilderness, fifty miles away from the nearest +settlement. I was badly injured and remained unconscious for most of two +weeks. The old couple had no telephone, no radio, no means of communication +or transportation, except an old truck that broke down when they attempted to +use it. I had to remain with them until I recovered sufficient strength to +walk. I walked the fifty miles to the foothills, then hitchhiked my way to a +Taggart station in Nebraska." +"I see," said Taggart. "Well, that's fine. Now when you give the press +interview—" +"I'm not going to give any press interviews." +"What? But they've been calling me all day! They're waiting! It's +essential!" He had an air of panic. "It's most crucially essential!" +"Who's been calling you all day?" +"People in Washington and . . . and others . . . They're waiting for your +statement." +She pointed at Eddie's notes. "There's my statement." +"But that's not enough! You must say that you haven't quit." +"That's obvious, isn't it? I'm back." +"You must say something about it." +"Such as what?" +"Something personal." +"To whom?" +"To the country. People were worried about you. You must reassure them." +"The story will reassure them, if anyone was worried about me." +"That's not what I mean!" +"Well, what do you mean?" +"I mean—" He stopped, his eyes avoiding hers. "I mean—" He sat, searching +for words, cracking his knuckles. +Jim was going to pieces, she thought; the jerky impatience, the +shrillness, the aura of panic were new; crude outbreaks of a tone of +ineffectual menace had replaced his pose of cautious smoothness. + + "I mean—" He was searching for words to name his meaning without naming +it, she thought, to make her understand that which he did not want to be +understood, "I mean, the public—" +"I know what you mean," she said. "No, Jim, I'm not going to reassure the +public about the state of our industry." +"Now you're—" +"The public had better be as unreassured as it has the wits to be. +Now proceed to business." +"I-" +"Proceed to business, Jim." +He glanced at Mr. Meigs. Mr. Meigs sat silently, his legs crossed, smoking +a cigarette. He wore a jacket which was not, but looked like, a military +uniform. The flesh of his neck bulged over the collar, and the flesh of his +body strained against the narrow waistline intended to disguise it. He wore a +ring with a large yellow diamond that flashed when he moved his stubby +fingers. +"You've met Mr. Meigs," said Taggart. "I'm. so glad that the two of you +will get along well together." He made an expectant half-pause, but received +no answer from either. "Mr. Meigs is the representative of the Railroad +Unification Plan. You'll have many opportunities to cooperate with him." +"What is the Railroad Unification Plan?" +"It is a . . . a new national setup that went into effect three weeks ago, +which you will appreciate and approve of and find extremely practical." She +marveled at the futility of his method: he was acting as if, by naming her +opinion in advance, he would make her unable to alter it. "It is an emergency +setup which has saved the country's transportation system." +"What is the plan?" +"You realize, of course, the insurmountable difficulties of any sort of +construction job during this period of emergency. It is—temporarily— +impossible to lay new track. Therefore, the country's top problem is to +preserve the transportation industry as a whole, to preserve its existing +plant and all of its existing facilities. The national survival requires—" +"What is the plan?" +"As a policy of national survival, the railroads of the country have been +unified into a single team, pooling their resources. All of their gross +revenue is turned over to the Railroad Pool Board in Washington, which acts +as trustee for the industry as a whole, and divides the total income among +the various railroads, according to a . . . a more modern principle of +distribution." +"What principle?" +"Now don't worry, property rights have been fully preserved and protected, +they've merely been given a new form. Every railroad retains independent +responsibility for its own operations, its train schedules and the +maintenance of its track and equipment. As its contribution to the national +pool, every railroad permits any other, when conditions so require, to use +its track and facilities without charge. At the end of the year, the Pool +Board distributes the total gross income, and every individual railroad is +paid, not on the haphazard, old-fashioned basis of the number of trains run +or the tonnage of freight carried, but on the basis of its need—that is, the +preservation of its track being its main need, every individual railroad is +paid according to the mileage of the track which it owns and maintains." +She heard the words; she understood the meaning; she was unable to make it +real—to grant the respect of anger, concern, opposition to a nightmare piece +of insanity that rested on nothing but people's willingness to pretend to +believe that it was sane. She felt a numbed emptiness —and the sense of being +thrown far below the realm where moral indignation is pertinent. + + "Whose track are we using for our transcontinental traffic?" she asked, +her voice flat and dry. +"Why, our own, of course," said Taggart hastily, "that is, from New York +to Bedford, Illinois. We run our trains out of Bedford on the track of the +Atlantic Southern." +"To San Francisco?" +"Well, it's much faster than that long detour you tried to establish." +"We run our trains without charge for the use of the track?" +"Besides, your detour couldn't have lasted, the Kansas Western rail was +shot, and besides—" +"Without charge for the use of the Atlantic Southern track?" +"Well, we're not charging them for the use of our Mississippi bridge, +either." +After a moment, she asked, "Have you looked at a map?" +"Sure," said Meigs unexpectedly. "You own the largest track mileage of any +railroad in the country. So you've got nothing to worry about." +Eddie Willers burst out laughing. +Meigs glanced at him blankly, "What's the matter with you?" he asked. +"Nothing," said Eddie wearily, "nothing." +"Mr. Meigs," she said, "if you look at a map, you will see that two thirds +of the cost of maintaining a track for our transcontinental traffic is given +to us free and is paid by our competitor." +"Why, sure," he said, but his eyes narrowed, watching her suspiciously, as +if he were wondering what motive prompted her to so explicit a statement. +"While we're paid for owning miles of useless track which carries no +traffic," she said. +Meigs understood—and leaned back as if he had lost all further interest in +the discussion. +"That's not true!" snapped Taggart. "We're running a great number of local +trains to serve the region of our former transcontinental line— +through Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado—and, on the other side of the tunnel, +through California, Nevada and Utah." +"We're running two locals a day," said Eddie Willers, in the dry, blankly +innocent tone of a business report. "Fewer, some places." +"What determines the number of trains which any given railroad is +obligated to run?" she asked. +"The public welfare," said Taggart "The Pool Board," said Eddie. +"How many trains have been discontinued in the country in the past three +weeks?" +"As a matter of fact," said Taggart eagerly, "the plan has helped to +harmonize the industry and to eliminate cutthroat competition." +"It has eliminated thirty per cent of the trains run in-the country," +said Eddie. "The only competition left is in the applications to the Board +for permission to cancel trains. The railroad to survive will be the one that +manages to run no trains at all." +"Has anybody calculated how long the Atlantic Southern is expected to be +able to remain in business?" +"That's no skin off your—" started Meigs. +"Please, Cuffy!" cried Taggart. +"The president of the Atlantic Southern," said Eddie impassively, "has +committed suicide." +"That had nothing to do with this!" yelled Taggart. "It was over a +personal matter!" +She remained silent. She sat, looking at their faces. There was still an +element of wonder in the numbed indifference of her mind: Jim had always +managed to switch the weight of his failures upon the strongest plants around +him and to survive by destroying them to pay for his errors, as he had done + + with Dan Conway, as he had done with the industries of Colorado; but this did +not have even the rationality of a looter—this pouncing upon the drained +carcass of a weaker, a half bankrupt competitor for a moment's delay, with +nothing but a cracking bone between the pouncer and the abyss. +The impulse of the habit of reason almost pushed her to speak, to argue, +to demonstrate the self-evident—but she looked at their faces and she saw +that they knew it. In some terms different from hers, in some inconceivable +manner of consciousness, they knew all that she could tell them, it was +useless to prove to them the irrational horror of their course and of its +consequences, both Meigs and Taggart knew it— +and the secret of their consciousness was the means by which they escaped +the finality of their knowledge, "I see," she said quietly. +"Well, what would you rather have had me do?" screamed Taggart. +"Give up our transcontinental traffic? Go bankrupt? Turn the railroad into +a miserable East Coast local?" Her two words seemed to have hit him worse +than any indignant objection; he seemed to be shaking with terror at that +which the quiet "I see” had acknowledged seeing. "I couldn't help it! We had +to have a transcontinental track! There was no way to get around the tunnel! +We had no money to pay for any extra costs! Something had to be done! We had +to have a track!" +Meigs was looking at him with a glance of part-astonishment, part disgust, +"I am not arguing, Jim," she said dryly. +"We couldn't permit a railroad like Taggart Transcontinental to crash! It +would have been a national catastrophe! We had to think of all the cities and +industries and shippers and passengers and employees and stockholders whose +lives depend on us! It wasn't just for ourselves, it was for the public +welfare! Everybody agrees that the Railroad Unification Plan is practical! +The best-informed—" +"Jim," she said, "if you have any further business to discuss with me — +discuss it." +"You've never considered the social angle of anything," he said, in a +sullen, retreating voice. +She noticed that this form of pretense was as unreal to Mr. Meigs as it +was to her, though for an antipodal reason. He was looking at Jim with bored +contempt. Jim appeared to her suddenly as a man who had tried to find a +middle course between two poles—Meigs and herself —and who was now seeing +that his course was narrowing and that he was to be ground between two +straight walls. +"Mr. Meigs," she asked, prompted by a touch of bitterly amused curiosity, +"what is your economic plan for day after tomorrow?" +She saw his bleary brown eyes focus upon her without expression. +"You're impractical," he said. +"It's perfectly useless to theorize about the future," snapped Taggart, +"when we have to take care of the emergency of the moment. In the long run—" +"In the long run, we'll all be dead," said Meigs. +Then, abruptly, he shot to his feet. "I'll run along, Jim," he said. "I've +got no time to waste on conversations." He added, "You talk to her about that +matter of doing something to stop all those train wrecks—if she's the little +girl who's such a wizard at railroading." It was said inoffensively; he was a +man who would not know when he was giving offense or taking it. +"I'll see you later, Cuffy," said Taggart, as Meigs walked out with no +parting glance at any of them. +Taggart looked at her, expectantly and fearfully, as if dreading her +comment, yet desperately hoping to hear some word, any word. +"Well?" she asked. +"What do you mean?" +"Have you anything else to discuss?" + + "Well, I . . . " He sounded disappointed. "Yes!" he cried, in the tone of +a desperate plunge. "I have another matter to discuss, the most important one +of all, the—" +"Your growing number of train wrecks?" +"No! Not that." +"What, then?" +"It's . . . that you're going to appear on Bertram Scudder's radio program +tonight." +She leaned back. "Am I?" +"Dagny, it's imperative, it's crucial, there's nothing to be done about +it, to refuse is out of the question, in times like these one has no choice, +and—" +She glanced at her watch. "I'll give you three minutes to explain— +if you want to be heard at all. And you'd better speak straight." +"All right!" he said desperately. "It's considered most important— +on the highest levels, I mean Chick Morrison and Wesley Mouch and Mr. +Thompson, as high as that—that you should make a speech to the nation, a +morale-building speech, you know, saying that you haven't quit." +"Why?" +"Because everybody thought you had! . . . You don't know what's been going +on lately, but . . . but it's sort of uncanny. The country is full of rumors, +all sorts of rumors, about everything, all of them dangerous. Disruptive, I +mean. People seem to do nothing but whisper. They don't believe the +newspapers, they don't believe the best speakers, they believe every vicious, +scare-mongering piece of gossip that comes floating around. There's no +confidence left, no faith, no order, no . . . no respect for authority. +People . . . people seem to be on the verge of panic." +"Well?" +"Well, for one thing, it's that damnable business of all those big +industrialists who've vanished into thin air! Nobody's been able to explain +it and it's giving them the jitters. There's all sorts of hysterical stuff +being whispered about it, but what they whisper mostly is that 'no decent man +will work for those people.' They mean the people in Washington. Now do you +see? You wouldn't suspect that you were so famous, but you are, or you've +become, ever since your plane crash. Nobody believed the plane crash. They +all thought you had broken the law, that is, Directive 10-289, and deserted. +There's a lot of popular . . . misunderstanding of Directive 10-289, a lot of +. . . well, unrest. +Now you see how important it is that you go on the air and tell people +that it isn't true that Directive 10-289 is destroying industry, that it's a +sound piece of legislation devised for everybody's good, and that if they'll +just be patient a little longer, things will improve and prosperity will +return. They don't believe any public official any more. You . . . +you're an industrialist, one of the few left of the old school, and the +only one who's ever come back after they thought you'd gone. You're known as +. . . as a reactionary who's opposed to Washington policies. So the people +will believe you. It would have a great influence on them, it would buttress +their confidence, it would help their morale. Now do you see?" +He had rushed on, encouraged by the odd look of her face, a look of +contemplation that was almost a faint half-smile. +She had listened, hearing, through his words, the sound of Rearden's voice +saying to her on a spring evening over a year ago: "They need some sort of +sanction from us. I don't know the nature of that sanction -—but, Dagny, I +know that if we value our lives, we must not give it to them. If they put you +on a torture rack, don't give it to them. Let them destroy your railroad and +my mills, but don't give it to them." +"Now do you see?" + + "Oh yes, Jim, I see!" +He could not interpret the sound of her voice, it was low, it was partmoan, part-chuckle, part-triumph—but it was the first sound of emotion to +come from her, and he plunged on, with no choice but to hope. "I promised +them in Washington that you'd speak! We can't fail them—not in an issue of +this kind! We can't afford to be suspected of disloyalty. It's alt arranged. +You'll be the guest speaker on Bertram Scudder's program, tonight, at tenthirty. He's got a radio program where he interviews prominent public +figures, it's a national hookup, he has a large following, he reaches over +twenty million people. The office of the Morale Conditioner has—" +"The what?" +"The Morale Conditioner—that's Chick Morrison—has called me three times, +to make sure that nothing would go wrong. They've issued orders to all the +news broadcasters, who've been announcing it all day, all over the country, +telling people to listen to you tonight on Bertram Scudder's hour." +He looked at her as if he were demanding both an answer and the +recognition that her answer was the element of least importance in these +circumstances. She said, "You know what I think of the Washington policies +and of Directive 10-289." +"At a time like this, we can't afford the luxury of thinking!" +She laughed aloud. +"But don't you see that you can't refuse them now?" he yelled. "If you +don't appear after all those announcements, it will support the rumors, it +will amount to an open declaration of disloyalty!" +"The trap won't work, Jim." +"What trap?" +"The one you're always setting up." +"I don't know what you mean!" +"Yes, you do. You knew—all of you knew it—that I would refuse. +So you pushed me into a public trap, where my refusal would become an +embarrassing scandal for you, more embarrassing than you thought I'd dare to +cause. You were counting on me to save your faces and the necks you stuck +out. I won't save them." +"But I promised it!" +"I didn't." +"But we can't refuse them! Don't you see that they've got us hogtied? +That they're holding us by the throat? Don't you know what they can do to +us through this Railroad Pool, or through the Unification Board, or through +the moratorium on our bonds?" +"I knew that two years ago." +He was shaking; there was some formless, desperate, almost superstitious +quality in his terror, out of proportion to the dangers he named. +She felt suddenly certain that it came from something deeper than his fear +of bureaucratic reprisal, that the reprisal was the only identification of it +which he would permit himself to know, a reassuring identification which had +a semblance of rationality and hid his true motive. She felt certain that it +was not the country's panic he wanted to stave off, but his own—that he, and +Chick Morrison and Wesley Mouch and all the rest of the looting crew needed +her sanction, not to reassure their victims, but to reassure themselves, +though the allegedly crafty, the allegedly practical idea of deluding their +victims was the only identification they gave to their own motive and their +hysterical insistence. With an awed contempt—awed by the enormity of the +sight—she wondered what inner degradation those men had to reach in order to +arrive at a level of self-deception where they would seek the extorted +approval of an unwilling victim as the moral sanction they needed, they who +thought that they were merely deceiving the world. +"We have no choice!" he cried. "Nobody has any choice!" + + "Get out of here," she said, her voice very quiet and low. +Some tonal quality in the sound of her voice struck the note of the +unconfessed within him, as ft, never allowing it into words, he knew from +what knowledge that sound had come. He got out. +She glanced at Eddie; he looked like a man worn by fighting one more of +the attacks of disgust which he was learning to endure as a chronic +condition. +After a moment, he asked, "Dagny, what became of Quentin Daniels? +You were flying after him, weren't you?" +"Yes," she said. "He's gone." +'To the destroyer?" +The word hit her like a physical blow. It was the first touch of the outer +world upon that radiant presence which she had kept within her all day, as a +silent, changeless vision, a private vision, not to be affected by any of the +things around her, not to be thought about, only to be felt as the source of +her strength. The destroyer, she realized, was the name of that vision, here, +in their world. +"Yes," she said dully, with effort, "to the destroyer." +Then she closed her hands over the edge of the desk, to steady her purpose +and her posture, and said, with the bitter hint of a smile, "Well, Eddie, +let's see what two impractical persons, like you and me, can do about +preventing the tram wrecks." +It was two hours later—when she was alone at her desk, bent over sheets of +paper that bore nothing but figures, yet were like a motion picture film +unrolling to tell her the whole story of the railroad in the past four weeks— +that the buzzer rang and her secretary's +voice said, "Mrs. Rearden to see you, Miss Taggart." +"Mr. Rearden?" she asked incredulously, unable to believe either. +"No. Mrs. Rearden." +She let a moment pass, then said, "Please ask her to come in." +There was some peculiar touch of emphasis in Lillian Rearden's bearing +when she entered and walked toward the desk. She wore a tailored suit, with a +loose, bright bow hanging casually sidewise for a note of elegant +incongruity, and a small hat tilted at an angle considered smart by virtue of +being considered amusing; her face was a shade too smooth, her steps a shade +too slow, and she walked almost as if she were swinging her hips. +"How do you do, Miss Taggart," she said in a lazily gracious voice, a +drawing-room voice which seemed to strike, in that office, the same style of +incongruity as her suit and her bow. +Dagny inclined her head gravely. +Lillian glanced about the office; her glance had the same style of +amusement as her hat: an amusement purporting to express maturity by the +conviction that life could be nothing but ridiculous. +"Please sit down," said Dagny. +Lillian sat down, relaxing Into a confident, gracefully casual posture. +When she turned her face to Dagny, the amusement was still there, but its +shading was now different: it seemed to suggest that they shared a secret, +which would make her presence here seem preposterous to the world, but selfevidently logical to the two of them. She stressed it by remaining silent. +"What can I do for you?" +"I came to tell you," said Lillian pleasantly, "that you will appear on +Bertram Scudder's broadcast tonight." +She detected no astonishment in Dagny's face, no shock, only the glance of +an engineer studying a motor that makes an irregular sound. +"I assume," said Dagny, "that you are fully aware of the form of your +sentence." +"Oh yes!" said Lillian. + + "Then proceed to support it." +"I beg your pardon?" +"Proceed to tell me." +Lillian gave a brief little laugh, its forced brevity betraying that this +was not quite the attitude she had expected. "I am sure that no lengthy +explanations will be necessary," she said. "You know why your appearance on +that broadcast is important to those in power. I know why you have refused to +appear. I know your convictions on the subject. +You may have attached no importance to it, but you do know that my +sympathy has always been on the side of the system now in power. +Therefore, you will understand my interest in the issue and my place in +it. When your brother told me that you had refused, I decided to take a hand +in the matter—because, you see, I am one of the very few who know that you +are not in a position to refuse." +"I am not one of those few, as yet," said Dagny. +Lillian smiled. "Well, yes, I must explain a little further. You realize +that your radio appearance will have the same value for those in power as—as +the action of my husband when he signed the Gift Certificate that turned +Rearden Metal over to them. You know how frequently and how usefully they +have been mentioning it in all of their propaganda." +"I didn't know that," said Dagny sharply. +"Oh, of course, you have been away for most of the last two months, so you +might have missed the constant reminders—in the press, on the radio, in +public speeches—that even Hank Rearden approves of and supports Directive 10289, since he has voluntarily signed his Metal over to the nation. Even Hank +Rearden. That discourages a great many recalcitrants and helps to keep them +in line." She leaned back and asked in the tone of a casual aside, "Have you +ever asked him why he signed?" +Dagny did not answer; she did not seem to hear that it was a question; she +sat still and her face was expressionless, but her eyes seemed too large and +they were fixed on Lillian's, as if she were now intent upon nothing but +hearing Lillian to the end. +"No, I didn't think you knew it. I didn't think that he would ever tell +you," said Lillian, her voice smoother, as if recognizing the signposts and +sliding comfortably down the anticipated course. "Yet you must learn the +reason that made him sign—because it is the same reason that will make you +appear on Bertram Scudder's broadcast tonight." +She paused, wishing to be urged; Dagny waited. +"It is a reason," said Lillian, "which should please you—as far as my +husband's action is concerned. Consider what that signature meant to him. +Rearden Metal was his greatest achievement, the summation of the best in his +life, the final symbol of his pride—and my husband, as you have reason to +know, is an extremely passionate man, his pride in himself being, perhaps, +his greatest passion. Rearden Metal was more than an achievement to him, it +was the symbol of his ability to achieve, of his independence, of his +struggle, of his rise. It was his property, his by right—and you know what +rights mean to a man as strict as he, and what property means to a man as +possessive. He would have gladly died to defend it, rather than surrender it +to the men he despised. This is what it meant to him—and this is what he gave +up. You will be glad to know that he gave it up for your sake, Miss Taggart. +For the sake of your reputation and your honor. He signed the Gift +Certificate surrendering Rearden Metal—under the threat that the adultery he +was carrying on with you would be exposed to the eyes of the world. Oh yes, +we had full proof of it, in every intimate detail. I believe that you hold a +philosophy which disapproves of sacrifice—but in this case, you are most +certainly a woman, so I'm sure that you will feel gratification at the +magnitude of the sacrifice a man has made for the privilege of using your + + body. You have undoubtedly taken great pleasure in the nights which he spent +in your bed. You may now take pleasure in the knowledge of what those nights +have cost him. And since—you like bluntness, don't you, Miss Taggart?—since +your chosen status is that of a whore, I take my hat off to you in regard to +the price you exacted, which none of your sisters could ever have hoped to +match." +Lillian's voice had kept growing reluctantly sharper, like a drill head +that kept breaking by being unable to find the line of the fault in the +stone. Dagny was still looking at her, but the intensity had vanished from +Dagny's eyes and posture. Lillian wondered why she felt as if Dagny's face +were hit by a spotlight. She could detect no particular expression, it was +simply a face in natural repose—and the clarity seemed to come from its +structure, from the precision of its sharp planes, the firmness of the mouth, +the steadiness of the eyes. She could not decipher the expression of the +eyes, it seemed incongruous, it resembled the calm, not of a woman, but of a +scholar, it had that peculiar, luminous quality which is the fearlessness of +satisfied knowledge. +"It was I," said Lillian softly, "who informed the bureaucrats about my +husband's adultery." +Dagny noticed the first flicker of feeling in Lillian's lifeless eyes: it +resembled pleasure, but so distantly that it looked like sunlight reflected +from the dead surface of the moon to the stagnant water of a swamp; it +flickered for an instant and went. +"It was I," said Lillian, "who took Rearden Metal away from him." +It sounded almost like a plea. +It was not within the power of Dagny's consciousness ever to understand +that plea or to know what response Lillian had hoped to find; she knew only +that she had not found it, when she heard the sudden shrillness of Lillian's +voice: "Have you understood me?" +"Yes." +"Then you know what I demand and why you'll obey me. You thought you were +invincible, you and he, didn't you?" The voice was attempting smoothness, but +it was jerking unevenly. "You have always acted on no will but your own—a +luxury I have not been able to afford. For once and in compensation, I will +see you acting on mine. +You can't fight me. You can't buy your way out of it, with those dollars +which you're able to make and I'm not. There's no profit you can offer me—I'm +devoid of greed. I'm not paid by the bureaucrats for doing this—I am doing it +without gain. Without gain. Do you understand me?" +"Yes." +"Then no further explanations are necessary, only the reminder that all +the factual evidence—hotel registers, jewelry bills and stuff like that—is +still in the possession of the right persons and will be broadcast on every +radio program tomorrow, unless you appear on one radio program tonight. Is +this clear?" +"Yes." +"Now what is your answer?" She saw the luminous scholar-eyes looking at +her, and suddenly she felt as if too much of her were seen and as if she were +not seen at all. +"I am glad that you have told me," said Dagny. "I will appear on Bertram +Scudder's broadcast tonight." +There was a beam of white light beating down upon the glittering metal of +a microphone—in the center of a glass cage imprisoning her with Bertram +Scudder. The spark of glitter were greenish-blue; the microphone was made of +Rearden Metal. +Above them, beyond a sheet of glass, she could distinguish a booth with +two rows of faces looking down at her: the lax, anxious face of James + + Taggart, with Lillian Rearden beside him, her hand resting reassuringly on +his arm—a man who had arrived by plane from Washington and had been +introduced to her as Chick Morrison—and a group of young men from his staff, +who talked about percentage curves of intellectual influence and acted like +motorcycle cops. +Bertram Scudder seemed to be afraid of her. He clung to the microphone, +spitting words into its delicate mesh, into the ears of the country, +introducing the subject of his program. He was laboring to sound cynical, +skeptical, superior and hysterical together, to sound like a man who sneers +at the vanity of all human beliefs and thereby demands an instantaneous +belief from his listeners. A small patch of moisture glistened on the back of +his neck. He was describing in over colored detail her month of convalescence +in the lonely cabin of a sheepherder, then her heroic trudging down fifty +miles of mountain trails for the sake of resuming her duties to the people in +this grave hour of national emergency. +". . . And if any of you have been deceived by vicious rumors aimed to +undermine your faith in the great social program of our leaders— +you may trust the word of Miss Taggart, who—" +She stood, looking up at the white beam. Specks of dust were whirling in +the beam and she noticed that one of them was alive: it was a gnat with a +tiny sparkle in place of its beating wings, it was struggling for some +frantic purpose of its own, and she watched it, feeling as distant from its +purpose as from that of the world. +". . . Miss Taggart is an impartial observer, a brilliant businesswoman +who has often been critical of the government in the past and who may be said +to represent the extreme, conservative viewpoint held by such giants of +industry as Hank Rearden. Yet even she—" +She wondered at how easy it felt, when one did not have to feel; she +seemed to be standing naked on public display, and a beam of light was enough +to support her, because there was no weight of pain in her, no hope, no +regret, no concern, no future. +". . . And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will present to you the heroine of +this night, our most uncommon guest, the—" +Pain came back to her in a sudden, piercing stab, like a long splinter +from the glass of a protective wall shattered by the knowledge that the next +words would be hers; it came back for the brief length of a name in her mind, +the name of the man she had called the destroyer: she did not want him to +hear what she would now have to say. If you hear it—the pain was like a voice +crying it to him—you won't believe the things I have said to you—no, worse, +the things which I have not said, but which you knew and believed and +accepted —you will think that I was not free to offer them and that my days +with you were a lie—this will destroy my one month and ten of your years— +this was not the way I wanted you to learn it, not like this, not tonight +—but you will, you who've watched and known my every movement, you who're +watching me now, wherever you are—you will hear it—but it has to be said. +"—the last descendant of an illustrious name in our industrial history, +the woman executive possible only in America, the Operating Vice-President of +a great railroad—Miss Dagny Taggart!" +Then she felt the touch of Rearden Metal, as her hand closed over the stem +of the microphone, and it was suddenly easy, not with the drugged ease of +indifference, but with the bright, clear, living ease of action. +"I came here to tell you about the social program, the political system +and the moral philosophy under which you are now living." +There was so calm, so natural, so total a certainty in the sound of her +voice that the mere sound seemed to carry an immense persuasiveness. +"You have heard it said that I believe that this system has depravity as +its motive, plunder as its goal, lies, fraud and force as its method, and + + destruction as its only result. You have also heard it said that, like Hank +Rearden, I am a loyal supporter of this system and that I give my voluntary +co-operation to present policies, such as Directive 10-289.1 have come here +to tell you the truth about it. +"It is true that I share the stand of Hank Rearden. His political +convictions are mine. You have heard him denounced in the past as a +reactionary who opposed every step, measure, slogan and premise of the +present system. Now you hear him praised as our greatest industrialist, whose +judgment on the value of economic policies may safely be trusted. It is true. +You may trust his judgment. If you are now beginning to fear that you are in +the power of an irresponsible evil, that the country is collapsing and that +you will soon be left to starve—consider the views of our ablest +industrialist, who knows what conditions are necessary to make production +possible and to permit a country to survive. +Consider all that you know about his views. At such times as he was able +to speak, you have heard him tell you that this government's policies were +leading you to enslavement and destruction. Yet he did not denounce the final +climax of these policies—Directive 10-289. You have heard him fighting for +his rights—his and yours—for his independence, for his property. Yet he did +not fight Directive 10-289. He signed voluntarily, so you have been told, the +Gift Certificate that surrendered Rearden Metal to his enemies. He signed the +one paper which, by all of his previous record, you had expected him to fight +to the death. What could this mean—you have constantly been told— +unless it meant that even he recognized the necessity of Directive 10289 +and sacrificed his personal interests for the sake of the country? +Judge his views by the motive of that action, you have constantly been +told. And with this I agree unreservedly: judge his views by the motive of +that action. And—for whatever value you attach to my opinion and to any +warning I may give you—judge my views also by the motive of that action, +because his convictions are mine. +"For two years, I had been Hank Rearden's mistress. Let there be no +misunderstanding about it: I am saying this, not as a shameful confession, +but with the highest sense of pride. I had been his mistress. I had slept +with him, in his bed, in his arms. There is nothing anyone might now say to +you about me, which I will not tell you first. It will be useless to defame +me—I know the nature of the accusations and I will state them to you myself. +Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my +body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I +have. If this now makes me a disgraced woman in your eyes—let your estimate +be your own concern. I will stand on mine." +Bertram Scudder was staring at her; this was not the speech he had +expected and he felt, in dim panic, that it was not proper to let it +continue, but she was the special guest whom the Washington rulers had +ordered him to treat cautiously; he could not be certain whether he was now +supposed to interrupt her or not; besides, he enjoyed hearing this sort of +story. In the audience booth, James Taggart and Lillian Rearden sat frozen, +like animals paralyzed by the headlight of a train rushing down upon them; +they were the only ones present who knew the connection between the words +they were hearing and the theme of the broadcast; it was too late for them to +move; they dared not assume the responsibility of a movement or of whatever +was to follow. +In the control room, a young intellectual of Chick Morrison's staff stood +ready to cut the broadcast off the air in case of trouble, but he saw no +political significance in the speech he was hearing, no element he could +construe as dangerous to his masters. He was accustomed to hearing speeches +extorted by unknown pressure from unwilling victims, and he concluded that +this was the case of a reactionary forced to confess a scandal and that, + + therefore, the speech had, perhaps, some political value; besides, he was +curious to hear it "I am proud that he had chosen me to give him pleasure and +that it was he who had been my choice. It was not—as it is for most of you— +an act of casual indulgence and mutual contempt. It was the ultimate form +of our admiration for each other, with full knowledge of the values by which +we made our choice. We are those who do not disconnect the values of their +minds from the actions of their bodies, those who do not leave their values +to empty dreams, but bring them into existence, those who give material form +to thoughts, and reality to values—those who make steel, railroads and +happiness. And to such among you who hate the thought of human joy, who wish +to see men's life as chronic suffering and failure, who wish men to apologize +for happiness—or for success, or ability, or achievement, or wealth— +to such among you, I am now saying: I wanted him, I had him, I was happy, +I had known joy, a pure, full, guiltless joy, the joy you dread to hear +confessed by any human being, the joy of which your only knowledge is in your +hatred for those who are worthy of reaching it. Well, hate me, then—because I +reached it!" +"Miss Taggart," said Bertram Scudder nervously, "aren't we departing from +the subject of . . . After all, your personal relationship with Mr. +Rearden has no political significance which—" +"[ didn't think it had, either. And, of course, I came here to tell you +about the political and moral system under which you are now living. Well, I +thought that I knew everything about Hank Rearden, but there was one thing +which I did not learn until today. It was the blackmail threat that our +relationship would be made public that forced Hank Rearden to sign the Gift +Certificate surrendering Rearden Metal. It was blackmail—blackmail by your +government officials, by your rulers, by your—" +In the instant when Scudder's hand swept out to knock the microphone over, +a faint click came from its throat as it crashed to the floor, signifying +that the intellectual cop had cut the broadcast off the air. +She laughed—but there was no one to see her and to hear the nature of her +laughter. The figures rushing into the glass enclosure were screaming at one +another. Chick Morrison was yelling unprintable curses at Bertram Scudder— +Bertram Scudder was shouting that he had been opposed to the whole idea, but +had been ordered to do it—James Taggart looked like an animal baring its +teeth, while he snarled at two of Morrison's youngest assistants and avoided +the snarls of an older third. The muscles of Lillian Rearden's face had an +odd slackness, like the limbs of an animal lying in the road, intact but +dead. The morale conditioners were shrieking what they guessed they thought +Mr. +Mouch would think. "What am I to say to them?" the program announcer was +crying, pointing at the microphone. "Mr. Morrison, there's an audience +waiting, what am I to say?" Nobody answered him. They were not fighting over +what to do, but over whom to blame. +Nobody said a word to Dagny or glanced in her direction. Nobody stopped +her, when she walked out. +She stepped into the first taxicab in sight, giving the address of her +apartment. As the cab started, she noticed that the dial of the radio on the +driver's panel was lighted and silent, crackling with the brief, tense coughs +of static: it was tuned to Bertram Scudder's program. +She lay back against the seat, feeling nothing but the desolation of the +knowledge that the sweep of her action had, perhaps, swept away the man who +might never wish to see her again. She felt, for the first time, the +immensity of the hopelessness of finding him—if he did not choose to be +found—in the streets of the city, in the towns of a continent, in the canyons +of the Rocky Mountains where the goal was closed by a screen of rays. But one +thing remained to her, like a log floating on a void, the log to which she + + had clung through the broadcast—and she knew that this was the thing she +could not abandon, even were she to lose all the rest; it was the sound of +his voice saying to her: "Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner +whatever." +"Ladies and gentlemen,'1 the voice of Bertram Scudder's announcer crackled +suddenly out of the static, "due to technical difficulties over which we have +no control, this station will remain off the air, pending the necessary +readjustments." The taxi driver gave a brief, contemptuous chuckle—and +snapped the radio off. +When she stepped out and handed him a bill, he extended the change to her +and, suddenly, leaned forward for a closer look at her face. +She felt certain that he recognized her and she held his glance austerely +for an instant. His bitter face and his over patched shirt were worn out by a +hopeless, losing struggle. As she handed him. a tip, he said quietly, with +too earnest, too solemn an emphasis for a mere acknowledgment of the corns, +"Thank you, ma'am," +She turned swiftly and hurried into the building, not to let him see the +emotion which was suddenly more than she could bear. +Her head was drooping, as she unlocked the door of her apartment, and the +light struck her from below, from the carpet, before she jerked her head up +in astonishment at finding the apartment lighted. She took a step forward—and +saw Hank Rearden standing across the room. +She was held still by two shocks: one was the sight of his presence, she +had not expected him to be back so soon; the other was the sight of his face. +His face had so firm, so confident, so mature a look of calm, in the faint +half-smile, in the clarity of the eyes, that she felt as if he had aged +decades within one month, but aged in the proper sense of human growth, aged +in vision, in stature, in power. She felt that he who had lived through a +month of agony, he whom she had hurt so deeply and was about to hurt more +deeply still, he would now be the one to give her support and consolation, +his would be the strength to protect them both. She stood motionless for only +an instant, but she saw his smile deepening as if he were reading her +thoughts and telling her that she had nothing to fear. She heard a slight, +crackling sound and saw, on a table beside him, the lighted dial of a silent +radio. Her eyes moved to his as a question and he answered by the faintest +nod, barely more than a lowering of his eyelids; he had heard her broadcast. +They moved toward each other in the same moment. He seized her shoulders +to support her, her face was raised to his, but he did not touch her lips, he +took her hand and kissed her wrist, her fingers, her palm, as the sole form +of the greeting which so much of his suffering had gone to await. And +suddenly, broken by the whole of this day and of that month, she was sobbing +in his arms, slumped against him, sobbing as she had never done in her life, +as a woman, in surrender to pain and in a last, futile protest against it. +Holding her so that she stood and moved only by means of his body, not +hers, he led her to the couch and tried to make her sit down beside him, but +she slipped to the floor, to sit at his feet and bury her face in his knees +and sob without defense or disguise. +He did not lift her, he let her cry, with his arm tight about her. She +felt his hand on her head, on. her shoulder, she felt the protection of his +firmness, a firmness which seemed to tell her that as her tears were for both +of them, so was his knowledge, that he knew her pain and felt it and +understood, yet was able to witness it calmly—and his calm seemed to lift her +burden, by granting her the right to break, here, at his feet, by telling her +that he was able to carry what she could not carry any longer. She knew dimly +that this was the real Hank Rearden, and no matter what form of insulting +cruelty he had once given to their first nights together, no matter how often +she had seemed as the stronger of the two, this had always been within him + + and at the root of their bond—this strength of his which would protect her if +ever hers were gone. +When she raised her head, he was smiling down at her. +"Hank . . ." she whispered guiltily, in desperate astonishment at her own +break. +"Quiet, darling." +She let her face drop back on his knees; she lay still, fighting for rest, +fighting against the pressure of a wordless thought: he had been able to bear +and to accept her broadcast only as a confession of her love; it made the +truth she now had to tell him more inhuman a blow than anyone had the right +to deliver. She felt terror at the thought that she would not have the +strength to do it, and terror at the thought that she would. +When she looked up at him again, he ran his hand over her forehead, +brushing the hair o2 her face. +"It's over, darling," he said. "The worst of it is over, for both of us." +"No, Hank, it isn't." +He smiled. +He drew her to sit beside him, with her head on his shoulder. "Don't say +anything now,” he said. "You know that we both understand all that has to be +said, and we'll speak of it, but not until it has ceased to hurt you quite so +much." +His hand moved down the line of her sleeve, down a fold of her skirt, with +so light a pressure that it seemed as if the hand did not feel the body +inside the clothes, as if he were regaining possession, not of her body, but +only of its vision. +"You've taken too much," he said. "So have I. Let them batter us. +There's no reason why we should add to it. No matter what we have to face, +there can be no suffering between the two of us. No added pain. +Let that come from their world. It won't come from us. Don't be afraid. +We won't hurt each other. Not now." +She raised her head, shaking it with a bitter smile—there was a desperate +violence in her movement, but the smile was a sign of recovery: of the +determination to face the despair. +"Hank, the kind of hell I let you go through in the last month—" +Her voice was trembling. +"It's nothing, compared to the kind of hell I let you go through in the +last hour." His voice was steady. +She got up, to pace the room, to prove her strength—her steps like words +telling him that she was not to be spared any longer. When she stopped and +turned to face him, he rose, as if he understood her motive. +"I know that I've made it worse for you," she said, pointing at the radio. +He shook his head. "No." +"Hank, there's something I have to tell you." +"So have I. Will you let me speak first? You see, it's something I should +have said to you long ago. Will you let me speak and not answer me until I +finish?" +She nodded. +He took a moment to look at her as she stood before him, as if to hold the +full sight of her figure, of this moment and of everything that had led them +to it. +"I love you, Dagny," he said quietly, with the simplicity of an unclouded, +yet unsmiling happiness. +She was about to speak, but knew that she couldn't, even if he had +permitted it, she caught her unuttered words, the movement of her lips was +her only answer, then she inclined her head in acceptance. +"I love you. As the same value, as the same expression, with the same +pride and the same meaning as I love my work, my mills, my Metal, my hours at + + a desk, at a furnace, in a laboratory, in an ore mine, as I love my ability +to work, as I love the act of sight and knowledge, as I love the action of my +mind when it solves a chemical equation or grasps a sunrise, as I love the +things I've made and the things I've felt, as my product, as my choice, as a +shape of my world, as my best mirror, as the wife I've never had, as that +which makes all the rest of it possible: as my power to live." +She did not drop her face, but kept it level and open, to hear and accept, +as he wanted her to and as he deserved. +"I loved you from the first day I saw you, on a flatcar on a siding of +Milford Station. I loved you when we rode in the cab of the first engine on +the John Galt Line. I loved you on the gallery of Ellis Wyatt's house. I +loved you on that next morning. You knew it. But it's I who must say it to +you, as I'm saying it now—if I am to redeem all those days and to let them be +fully what they were for both of us, I loved you. You knew it. I didn't. And +because I didn't, I had to learn it when I sat at my desk and looked at the +Gift Certificate for Rearden Metal." +She closed her eyes. But there was no suffering in his face, nothing but +the immense and quiet happiness of clarity. +" 'We are those who do not disconnect the values of their minds from the +actions of their bodies.' You said it in your broadcast tonight. +But you knew it, then, on that morning in Ellis Wyatt's house. You knew +that all those insults I was throwing at you were the fullest confession of +love a man could make. You knew that the physical desire I was damning as our +mutual shame, is neither physical nor an expression of one's body, but the +expression of one's mind's deepest values, whether one has the courage to +know it or not. That was why you laughed at me as you did, wasn't it?" +"Yes," she whispered. +"You said, 'I do not want your mind, your will, your being or your soul—so +long as it's to me that you will come for that lowest one of your desires.' +You knew, when you said it, that it was my mind, my will, my being and my +soul that I was giving you by means of that desire. And I want to say it now, +to let that morning mean what it meant: my mind, my will, my being and my +soul, Dagny—yours, for as long as I shall live." +He was looking straight at her and she saw a brief sparkle in his eyes, +which was not a smile, but almost as if he had heard the cry she had not +uttered. +"Let me finish, dearest. I want you to know how fully I know what I am +saying. I, who thought that I was fighting them, I had accepted the worst of +our enemies' creed—and that is what I've paid for ever since, as I am paying +now and as I must. I had accepted the one tenet by which they destroy a man +before he's started, the killer-tenet: the breach between his mind and body. +I had accepted it, like most of their victims, not knowing it, not knowing +even that the issue existed. I rebelled against their creed of human +impotence and I took pride in my ability to think, to act, to work for the +satisfaction of my desires. +But I did not know that this was virtue, I never identified it as a moral +value, as the highest of moral values, to be defended above one's life, +because it's that which makes life possible. And I accepted punishment for +it, punishment for virtue at the hands of an arrogant evil, made arrogant +solely by my ignorance and my submission. +"1 accepted their insults, their frauds, their extortions. I thought I +could afford to ignore them—all those impotent mystics who prattle about +their souls and are unable to build a roof over their heads. I thought that +the world was mine, and that those jabbering incompetents were no threat to +my strength. I could not understand why I kept losing every battle. I did not +know that the force unleashed against me was my own. While I was busy +conquering matter, I had surrendered to them the realm of the mind, of + + thought, of principle, of law, of values, of morality. I had accepted, +unwittingly and by default, the tenet that ideas were of no consequence to +one's existence, to one's work, to reality, to this earth—as if ideas were +not the province of reason, but of that mystic faith which I despised. This +was all they wanted me to concede. It was enough. I had surrendered that +which all of their claptrap is designed to subvert and to destroy: man's +reason. +No, they were not able to deal with matter, to produce abundance, to +control this earth. They did not have to. They controlled me. +"I, who knew that wealth is only a means to an end, created the means and +let them prescribe my ends. I, who took pride in my ability to achieve the +satisfaction of my desires, let them prescribe the code of values by which I +judged my desires. I, who shaped matter to serve my purpose, was left with a +pile of steel and gold, but with my every purpose defeated, my every desire +betrayed, my every attempt at happiness frustrated. +"1 had cut myself in two, as the mystics preached, and I ran my business +by one code of rules, but my own life by another. I rebelled against the +looters' attempt to set the price and value of my steel—but I let them set +the moral values of my life. I rebelled against demands for an unearned +wealth—but I thought it was my duty to grant an unearned love to a wife I +despised, an unearned respect to a mother who hated me, an unearned support +to a brother who plotted for my destruction. I rebelled against undeserved +financial injury—but I accepted a life of undeserved pain. I rebelled against +the doctrine that my productive ability was guilt—but I accepted, as guilt, +my capacity for happiness. I rebelled against the creed that virtue is some +disembodied unknowable of the spirit—but I damned you, you, my dearest one, +for the desire of your body and mine. But if the body is evil; then so are +those who provide the means of its survival, so is material wealth and those +who produce it—and if moral values are set in contradiction to our physical +existence, then it's right that rewards should be unearned, that virtue +should consist of the undone, that there should be no tie between achievement +and profit, that the inferior animals who're able to produce should serve +those superior beings whose superiority in spirit consists of incompetence in +the flesh. +"If some man like Hugh Akston had told me, when I started, that by +accepting the mystics' theory of sex I was accepting the looters' theory of +economics, I would have laughed in his face. I would not laugh at him now. +Now I see Rearden Steel being ruled by human scum—I see the achievement of my +life serving to enrich the worst of my enemies—and as to the only two persons +I ever loved, I've brought a deadly insult to one and public disgrace to the +other. I slapped the face of the man who was my friend, my defender, my +teacher, the man who set me free by helping me to learn what I've learned, I +loved him, Dagny, he was the brother, the son, the comrade I never had—but I +knocked him out of my life, because he would not help me to produce for the +looters. I'd give anything now to have him back, but I own nothing to offer +in such repayment, and I'll never see him again, because it's I who'll know +that there is no way to deserve even the right to ask forgiveness. +"But what I've done to you, my dearest, is still worse. Your speech and +that you had to make it—that's what I've brought upon the only woman I loved, +in payment for the only happiness I've known. Don't tell me that it was your +choice from the first and that you accepted all consequences, including +tonight—it does not redeem the fact that it was I who had no better choice to +offer you. And that the looters forced you to speak, that you spoke to avenge +me and set me free— +does not redeem the fact that it was I who made their tactics possible. +It was not then own convictions of sin and dishonor that they could use to +disgrace you—it was mine. They merely carried out the things I believed and + + said in Ellis Wyatt's house. It was I who kept our love bidden as a guilty +secret—they merely treated it for what it was by my own appraisal. It was I +who was willing to counterfeit reality for the sake of appearance in their +eyes—they merely cashed in on the right I had given them. +"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've +learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders +one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's +master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that +person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of +the lie—the price one pays is the destruction of that which the gain was +intended to serve. The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from +then on- When I chose to hide my love for you, to disavow it in public and +live it as a lie, I made it public property—and the public has claimed it in +a fitting sort of manner. I had no way to avert it and no power to save you. +When I gave in to the looters, when I signed their Gift Certificate, to +protect you—I was still faking reality, there was nothing else left open to +me—and, Dagny, I'd rather have seen us both dead than permit them to do what +they threatened. But there are no white lies, there is only the blackness of +destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all. I was still faking +reality, and it had the inexorable result: instead of protection, it brought +you a more terrible kind of ordeal, instead of saving your name, it forced +you to offer yourself for a public stoning and to throw the stones by your +own hand. I know that you were proud of the things you said, and I was proud +to hear you—but that was the pride we should have claimed two years ago. +"No, you did not make it worse for me, you set me free, you saved us both, +you redeemed our past. I can't ask you to forgive me, we're far beyond such +terms—and the only atonement I can offer you is the fact that I am happy. +That I am happy, my darling, not that I suffer. I am happy that I have seen +the truth—even if my power of sight is all that's left to me now. Were I to +surrender to pain and give up in futile regret that my own error has wrecked +my past—that would be the act of final treason, the ultimate failure toward +that truth I regret having failed. But if my love of truth is left as my only +possession, then the greater the loss behind me, the greater the pride I may +take in the price I have paid for that love. Then the wreckage will not +become a funereal mount above me, but will serve as a height I have climbed +to attain a wider field of vision. My pride and my power of vision were all +that I owned when I started—and whatever I achieved, was achieved by means of +them. Both are greater now, Now I have the knowledge of the superlative value +I had missed: of my right to be proud of my vision. The rest is mine to +reach. +"And, Dagny, the one thing I wanted, as the first step of my future, was +to say that I love you—as I'm saying it now. I love you, my dearest, with +that blindest passion of my body which comes from the clearest perception of +my mind—and my love for you is the only attainment of my past that will be +left to me, unchanged, through all the years ahead. I wanted to say it to you +while I still had the right to say it. And because I had not said it at our +beginning, this is the way I have to say it—at the end. Now I'll tell you +what it was that you wanted to tell me—because, you see, I know it and I +accept: somewhere within the past month, you have met the man you love, and +if love means one's final, irreplaceable choice, then he is the only man +you've ever loved." +"Yes!" Her voice was half-gasp, half-scream, as under a physical blow, +with shock as her only awareness. "Hank!—how did you know it?" +He smiled and pointed at the radio. "My darling, you used nothing but the +past tense." +"Oh . . . !” Her voice was now half-gasp, half-moan, and she closed her +eyes. + + "You never pronounced the one word you would have rightfully thrown at +them, were it otherwise. You said, 'I wanted him,' not, 'I love him.' You +told me on the phone today that you could have returned sooner. No other +reason would have made you leave me as you did. Only that one reason was +valid and right." +She was leaning back a little, as if fighting for balance to stand, yet +she was looking straight at him, with a smile that did not part her lips, but +softened her eyes to a glance of admiration and her mouth to a shape of pain. +"It's true. I've met the man I love and will always love, I've seen him, +I've spoken to him—but he's a man whom I can't have, whom I may never have +and, perhaps, may never see again." +"I think I've always known that you would find him. I knew what you felt +for me, I knew how much it was, but I knew that I was not your final choice. +What you'll give him is not taken away from me, it's what I've never had. I +can't rebel against it. What I've had means too much to me—and that I've had +it, can never be changed." +"Do you want me to say it, Hank? Will you understand it, if I say that +I'll always love you?" +"I think I've understood it before you did." +"I've always seen you as you are now. That greatness of yours which you +are just beginning to allow yourself to know—I've always known it and I've +watched your struggle to discover it. Don't speak of atonement, you have not +hurt me, your mistakes came from your magnificent integrity under the torture +of an impossible code—and your fight against it did not bring me suffering, +it brought me the feeling I've found too seldom: admiration. If you will +accept it, it will always be yours. What you meant to me can never be +changed. But the man I met—he is the love I had wanted to reach long before I +knew that he existed, and I think he will remain beyond my reach, but that I +love him will be enough to keep me living." +He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Then you know what I feel," +he said, "and why I am still happy." +Looking up at his face, she realized that for the first time he was what +she had always thought him intended to be: a man with an immense capacity for +the enjoyment of existence. The taut look of endurance, of fiercely +unadmitted pain, was gone; now, in the midst of the wreckage and of his +hardest hour, his face had the serenity of pure strength; it had the look she +had seen in the faces of the men in the valley. +"Hank," she whispered, "I don't think I can explain it, but I feel that I +have committed no treason, either to you or to him." +"You haven't." +Her eyes seemed abnormally alive in a face drained of color, as if her +consciousness remained untouched in a body broken by exhaustion. He made her +sit down and slipped his arm along the back of the couch, not touching her, +yet holding her in a protective embrace. +"Now tell me," he asked, "where were you?" +"I can't tell you that. I've given my word never to reveal anything about +it. I can say only that it's a place I found by accident, when I crashed, and +I left it blindfolded—and I wouldn't be able to find it again." +"Couldn't you trace your way back to it?" +"I won't try." +"And the man?" +"I won't look for him." +"He remained there?" +"I don't know." +"Why did you leave him?" +"I can't tell you." +"Who is he?" + + Her chuckle of desperate amusement was involuntary. "Who is John Galt?" +He glanced at her, astonished—but realized that she was not joking. +"So there is a John Galt?" he asked slowly, "Yes." +"That slang phrase refers to him?" +"Yes." +"And it has some special meaning?" +"Oh yes! . . . There's one thing I can tell you about him, because I +discovered it earlier, without promise of secrecy: he is the man who invented +the motor we found." +"Oh!" He smiled, as if he should have known it. Then he said softly, with +a glance that was almost compassion, "He's the destroyer, isn't he?" He saw +her look of shock, and added, "No, don't answer me, if you can't. I think I +know where you were. It was Quentin Daniels that you wanted to save from the +destroyer, and you were following Daniels when you crashed, weren't you?" +"Yes." +"Good God, Dagny!—does such a place really exist? Are they all alive? Is +there . . . ? I'm sorry. Don't answer." +She smiled. "It does exist." +He remained silent for a long time. +"Hank, could you give up Rearden Steel?" +"No!" The answer was fiercely immediate, but he added, with the first +sound of hopelessness in his voice, "Not yet." +Then he looked at her, as if, in the transition of his three words, he had +lived the course of her agony of the past month. "I see," he said. He ran his +hand over her forehead, with a gesture of understanding, of compassion, of an +almost incredulous wonder. "What hell you've now undertaken to endure!" he +said, his voice low. +She nodded. +She slipped down, to lie stretched, her face on his knees. He stroked her +hair; he said, "We'll fight the looters as long as we can. I don't know what +future is possible to us, but we'll win or we'll learn that it's hopeless. +Until we do, we'll fight for our world. We're all that's left of it." +She fell asleep, lying there, her hand clasping his. Her last awareness, +before she surrendered the responsibility of consciousness, was the sense of +an enormous void, the void of a city and of a continent where she would never +be able to find the man whom she had no right to seek. + + CHAPTER IV +ANTI-LIFE +James Taggart reached into the pocket of his dinner jacket, pulled out the +first wad of paper he found, which was a hundred-dollar bill, and dropped it +into the beggar's hand. +He noticed that the beggar pocketed the money in a manner as indifferent +as his own. "Thanks, bud." said the beggar contemptuously, and walked away. +James Taggart remained still in the middle of the sidewalk, wondering what +gave him a sense of shock and dread. It was not the man's insolence—he had +not sought any gratitude, he had not been moved by pity, his gesture had been +automatic and meaningless. It was that the beggar acted as if he would have +been indifferent had he received a hundred dollars or a dime or, failing to +find any help whatever, had seen himself dying of starvation within this +night. Taggart shuddered and walked brusquely on, the shudder serving to cut +off the realization that the beggar's mood matched his own. +The walls of the street around him had the stressed, unnatural clarity of +a summer twilight, while an orange haze filled the channels of intersections +and veiled the tiers of roofs, leaving him on a shrinking remnant of ground. +The calendar in the sky seemed to stand insistently out of the haze, yellow +like a page of old parchment, saying: August 5, No—he thought, in answer to +things he had not named—it was not true, he felt fine, that's why he wanted +to do something tonight. He could not admit to himself that his peculiar +restlessness came from a desire to experience pleasure; he could not admit +that the particular pleasure he wanted was that of celebration, because he +could not admit what it was that he wanted to celebrate. +This had been a day of intense activity, spent on words floating as +vaguely as cotton, yet achieving a purpose as precisely as an adding machine, +summing up to his full satisfaction. But his purpose and the nature of his +satisfaction had to be kept as carefully hidden from himself as they had been +from others; and his sudden craving for pleasure was a dangerous breach. +The day had started with a small luncheon in the hotel suite of a visiting +Argentinian legislator, where a few people of various nationalities had +talked at leisurely length about the climate of Argentina, its soil, its +resources, the needs of its people, the value of a dynamic, progressive +attitude toward the future—and had mentioned, as the briefest topic of +conversation, that Argentina would be declared a People's State within two +weeks. +It had been followed by a few cocktails at the home of Orren Boyle, with +only one unobtrusive gentleman from Argentina sitting silently in a corner, +while two executives from Washington and a few friends of unspecified +positions had talked about national resources, metallurgy, mineralogy, +neighborly duties and the welfare of the globe—and had mentioned that a loan +of four billion dollars would be granted within three weeks to the People's +State of Argentina and the People's State of Chile. +It had been followed by a small cocktail party in a private room of the +bar built like a cellar on the roof of a skyscraper, an informal party given +by him, James Taggart, for the directors of a recently formed company, The +Interneighborly Amity and Development Corporation, of which Orren Boyle was +president and a slender, graceful, overactive man from Chile was treasurer, a +man whose name was Senor Mario Martinez, but whom Taggart was tempted, by +some resemblance of spirit, to call Senor Cuffy Meigs. Here they had talked +about golf, horse races, boat races, automobiles and women. It had not been +necessary to mention, since they all knew it, that the Interneighborly Amity +and Development Corporation had an exclusive contract to operate, on a + + twenty-year "managerial lease," all the industrial properties of the People's +States of the Southern Hemisphere. +The last event of the day had been a large dinner reception at the home of +Senor Rodrigo Gonzales, a diplomatic representative of Chile. +No one had heard of Senor Gonzales a year ago, but he had become famous +for the parties he had given in the past six months, ever since his arrival +in New York. His guests described him as a progressive businessman. He had +lost his property—it was said—when Chile, becoming a People's State, had +nationalized all properties, except those belonging to citizens of backward, +non-People's countries, such as Argentina; but he had adopted an enlightened +attitude and had joined the new regime, placing himself in the service of his +country. His home in New York occupied an entire floor of an exclusive +residential hotel. +He had a fat, blank face and the eyes of a killer. Watching him at +tonight's reception, Taggart had concluded that the man was impervious to any +sort of feeling, he looked as if a knife could slash, unnoticed, through his +pendulous layers of flesh—except that there was a lewd, almost sexual relish +in the way he rubbed his feet against the rich pile of his Persian rugs, or +patted the polished arm of his chair, or folded his lips about a cigar. His +wife, the Senora Gonzales, was a small, attractive woman, not as beautiful as +she assumed, but enjoying the reputation of a beauty by means of a violent +nervous energy and an odd manner of loose, warm, cynical self-assertiveness +that seemed to promise anything and to absolve anyone. It was known that her +particular brand of trading was her husband's chief asset, in an age when one +traded, not goods, but favors—and, watching her among the guests, Taggart had +found amusement in wondering what deals had been made, what directives +issued, what industries destroyed in exchange for a few chance nights, which +most of those men had had no reason to seek and, perhaps, could no longer +remember. The party had bored him, there had been only half a dozen persons +for whose sake he had put in an appearance, and it had not been necessary to +speak to that half-dozen, merely to be seen and to exchange a few glances. +Dinner had been about to be served, when he had heard what he had come to +hear: Senor Gonzales had mentioned—the smoke of his cigar weaving over the +half-dozen men who had drifted toward his armchair—that by agreement with the +future People's State of Argentina, the properties of d'Anconia Copper would +be nationalized by the People's State of Chile, in less than a month, on +September 2. +It had all gone as Taggart had expected; the unexpected had come when, on +hearing those words, he had felt an irresistible urge to escape. +He had felt incapable of enduring the boredom of the dinner, as if some +other form of activity were needed to greet the achievement of this night. He +had walked out into the summer twilight of the streets, feeling as if he were +both pursuing and pursued: pursuing a pleasure which nothing could give him, +in celebration of a feeling which he dared not name—pursued by the dread of +discovering what motive had moved him through the planning of tonight's +achievement and what aspect of it now gave him this feverish sense of +gratification. +He reminded himself that he would sell his d'Anconia Copper stock, which +had never rallied fully after its crash of last year, and he would purchase +shares of the Inter-neighborly Amity and Development Corporation, as agreed +with his friends, which would bring him a fortune. But the thought brought +him nothing but boredom; this was not the thing he wanted to celebrate. +He tried to force himself to enjoy it: money, he thought, had been his +motive, money, nothing worse. Wasn't that a normal motive? A valid one? +Wasn't that what they all were after, the Wyatts, the Reardens, the +d'Anconias? . . . He jerked his head to stop it: he felt as if his thoughts + + were slipping down a dangerous blind alley, the end of which he must never +permit himself to see. +No—he thought bleakly, in reluctant admission—money meant nothing to him +any longer. He had thrown dollars about by the hundreds— +at that party he had given today—for unfinished drinks, for uneaten +delicacies, for unprovoked tips and unexpected whims, for a long distance +phone call to Argentina because one of the guests had wanted to check the +exact version of a smutty story he had started telling, for the spur of any +moment, for the clammy stupor of knowing that it was easier to pay than to +think. +"You've got nothing to worry about, under that Railroad Unification Plan," +Orren Boyle had giggled to him drunkenly. Under the Railroad Unification +Plan, a local railroad had gone bankrupt in North Dakota, abandoning the +region to the fate of a blighted area, the local banker had committed +suicide, first killing his wife and children—a freight train had been taken +oil the schedule in Tennessee, leaving a local factory without transportation +at a day's notice, the factory owner's son had quit college and was now in +jail, awaiting execution for a murder committed with a gang of raiders—a way +station had been closed in Kansas, and the station agent, who had wanted to +be a scientist, had given up his studies and become a dishwasher—that he, +James Taggart, might sit in a private barroom and pay for the alcohol pouring +down Orren Boyle's throat, for the waiter who sponged Boyle's garments when +he spilled his drink over his chest, for the carpet burned by the cigarettes +of an ex-pimp from Chile who did not want to take the trouble of reaching for +an ashtray across a distance of three feet. +It was not the knowledge of his indifference to money that now gave him a +shudder of dread. It was the knowledge that he would be equally indifferent, +were he reduced to the state of the beggar. There had been a time when he had +felt some measure of guilt—in no clearer a form than a touch of irritation—at +the thought that he shared the sin of greed, which he spent his time +denouncing. Now he was hit by the chill realization that, in fact, he had +never been a hypocrite: in full truth, he had never cared for money. This +left another hole gaping open before him, leading into another blind alley +which he could not risk seeing. +I just want to do something tonight!—he cried soundlessly to someone at +large, in protest and in demanding anger—in protest against whatever it was +that kept forcing these thoughts into his mind—in anger at a universe where +some malevolent power would not permit him to find enjoyment without the need +to know what he wanted or why. +What do you want?—some enemy voice kept asking, and he walked faster, +trying to escape it. It seemed to him that his brain was a maze where a blind +alley opened at every turn, leading into a fog that hid an abyss. It seemed +to him that he was running, while the small island of safety was shrinking +and nothing but those alleys would soon be left. It was like the remnant of +clarity in the street around him, with the haze rolling in to fill all exits. +Why did it have to shrink?—he thought in panic. This was the way he had lived +all his life—keeping his eyes stubbornly, safely on the immediate pavement +before him, craftily avoiding the sight of his road, of corners, of +distances, of pinnacles. He had never intended going anywhere, he had wanted +to be free of progression, free of the yoke of a straight line, he had never +wanted his years to add up to any sum—what had summed them up?—why had he +reached some unchosen destination where one could no longer stand still or +retreat? "Look where you're going, brother!" snarled some voice, while an +elbow pushed him back—and he realized that he had collided with some large, +ill-smelling figure and that he had been running. +He slowed his steps and admitted into his mind a recognition of the +streets he had chosen in his random escape. He had not wanted to know that he + + was going home to his wife. That, too, was a fogbound alley, but there was no +other left to him. +He knew—the moment he saw Cherryl's silent, poised figure as she rose at +his entrance into her room—that this was more dangerous than he had allowed +himself to know and that he would not find what he wanted. But danger, to +him, was a signal to shut off his sight, suspend his judgment and pursue an +unaltered course, on the unstated premise that the danger would remain unreal +by the sovereign power of his wish not to see it—like a foghorn within him, +blowing, not to sound a warning, but to summon the fog. +"Why, yes, I did have an important business banquet to attend, but I +changed my mind, I felt like having dinner with you tonight," he said in the +tone of a compliment—but a quiet "I see" was the only answer he obtained. +He felt irritation at her unastonished manner and her pale, unrevealing +face. He felt irritation at the smooth efficiency with which she gave +instructions to the servants, then at finding himself in the candlelight of +the dining room, facing her across a perfectly appointed table, with two +crystal cups of fruit in silver bowls of ice between them. +It was her poise that irritated him most; she was no longer an incongruous +little freak, dwarfed by the luxury of the residence which a famous artist +had designed; she matched it. She sat at the table as if she were the kind of +hostess that room had the right to demand. She wore a tailored housecoat of +russet-colored brocade that blended with the bronze of her hair, the severe +simplicity of its lines serving as her only ornament. He would have preferred +the jingling bracelets and rhinestone buckles of her past. Her eyes disturbed +him, as they had for months: they were neither friendly nor hostile, but +watchful and questioning. +"I closed a big deal today," he said, his tone part boastful, part +pleading. "A deal involving this whole continent and half a dozen +governments." +He realized that the awe, the admiration, the eager curiosity he had +expected, belonged to the face of the little shop girl who had ceased to +exist. He saw none of it in the face of his wife; even anger or hatred would +have been preferable to her level, attentive glance; the glance was worse +than accusing, it was inquiring. +"What deal, Jim?" +"What do you mean, what deal? Why are you suspicious? Why do you have to +start prying at once?" +"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was confidential. You don't have to answer +me." +"It's not confidential." He waited, but she remained silent. "Well? +Aren't you going to say anything?" +"Why, no." She said it simply, as if to please him. +"So you're not interested at all?" +"But I thought you didn't want to discuss it." +"Oh, don't be so tricky!" he snapped. "It's a big business deal. That's +what you admire, isn't it, big business? Well, it's bigger than anything +those boys ever dreamed of. They spend their lives grubbing for their +fortunes penny by penny, while I can do it like that"—he snapped his fingers— +"just like that. It's the biggest single stunt ever pulled." +"Stunt, Jim?" +"Deal!" +"And you did it? Yourself?" +"You bet I did it! That fat fool, Orren Boyle, couldn't have swung it in a +million years. This took knowledge and skill and timing"—he saw a spark of +interest in her eyes—"and psychology." The spark vanished, but he went +rushing heedlessly on. "One had to know how to approach Wesley, and how to +keep the wrong influences away from him, and how to get Mr. Thompson + + interested without letting him know too much, and how to cut Chick Morrison +in on it, but keep Tinky Holloway out, and how to get the right people to +give a few parties for Wesley at the right time, and . . . Say, Cherryl, is +there any champagne in this house?" +"Champagne?" +"Can't we do something special tonight? Can't we have a sort of +celebration together?" +"We can have champagne, yes, Jim, of course." +She rang the bell and gave the orders, in her odd, lifeless, uncritical +manner, a manner of meticulous compliance with his wishes while volunteering +none of her own. +"You don't seem to be very impressed," he said. "But what would you know +about business, anyway? You wouldn't be able to understand anything on so +large a scale. Wait till September second. Wait till they hear about it." +"They? Who?" +He glanced at her, as if he had let a dangerous word slip out +involuntarily, "We've organized a setup where we—me, Orren and a few friends— +are going to control every industrial property south of the border." +"Whose property?" +"Why . . . the people's. This is not an old-fashioned grab for private +profit. It's a deal with a mission—a worthy, public-spirited mission—to +manage the nationalized properties of the various People's States of South +America, to teach their workers our modern techniques of production, to help +the underprivileged who've never had a chance, to—" He broke off abruptly, +though she had merely sat looking at him without shifting her glance. "You +know," he said suddenly, with a cold little chuckle, "if you're so damn +anxious to hide that you came from the slums, you ought to be less +indifferent to the philosophy of social welfare. It's always the poor who +lack humanitarian instincts. One has to be born to wealth in order to know +the finer feelings of altruism." +"I've never tried to hide that I came from the slums," she said in the +simple, impersonal tone of a factual correction. "And I haven't any sympathy +for that welfare philosophy. I've seen enough of them to know what makes the +kind of poor who want something for nothing." +He did not answer, and she added suddenly, her voice astonished, but firm, +as if in final confirmation of a long-standing doubt, "Jim, you don't care +about it, either. You don't care about any of that welfare hogwash." +"Well, if money is all that you're interested in," he snapped, "let me +tell you that that deal will bring me a fortune. That's what you've always +admired, isn't it, wealth?" +"It depends." +"I think I'll end up as one of the richest men in the world," he said; he +did not ask what her admiration depended upon. "There's nothing I won't be +able to afford. Nothing. Just name it. I can give you anything you want. Go +on, name it." +"I don't want anything, Jim." +"But I'd like to give you a present! To celebrate the occasion, see? +Anything you take it into your head to ask. Anything. I can do it. I want +to show you that I can do it. Any fancy you care to name." +"I haven't any fancies." +"Oh, come on! Want a yacht?" +"No." +"Want me to buy you the whole neighborhood where you lived in Buffalo?" +"No." +"Want the crown jewels of the People's State of England? They can be had, +you know. That People's State has been hinting about it on the black market +for a long time. But there aren't any old-fashioned tycoons left who're able + + to afford it. I'm able to afford it—or will be, after September second. Want +it?" +"No." +"Then what do you want?" +"I don't want anything, Jim." +"But you've got to! You've got to want something, damn you!" +She looked at him, faintly startled, but otherwise indifferent. +"Oh, all right, I'm sorry," he said; he seemed astonished by his own 87! +outbreak. "I just wanted to please you," he added sullenly, "but I guess +you can't understand it at all. You don't know how important it is. +You don't know how big a man you're married to." +"I'm trying to find out," she said slowly, "Do you still think, as you +used to, that Hank Rearden is a great man?" +"Yes, Jim, I do." +"Well, I've got him beaten. I'm greater than any of them, greater than +Rearden and greater than that other lover of my sister's, who—" +He stopped, as if he had slid too far. +"Jim," she asked evenly, "what is going to happen on September second?" +He glanced up at her, from under his forehead—a cold glance, while his +muscles creased into a semi-smile, as if in cynical breach of some hallowed +restraint. "They're going to nationalize d'Anconia Copper," he said. +He heard the long, harsh roll of a motor, as a plane went by somewhere in +the darkness above the roof, then a thin tinkle, as a piece of ice settled, +melting, in the silver bowl of his fruit cup—before she answered. She said, +"He was your friend, wasn't he?" +"Oh, shut up!" +He remained silent, not looking at her. When his eyes came back to her +face, she was still watching him and she spoke first, her voice oddly stern: +"What your sister did in her radio broadcast was great." +"Yes, I know, I know, you've been saying that for a month." +"You've never answered me." +"What is there to ans . . . ?" +"Just as your friends in Washington have never answered her." He remained +silent. "Jim, I'm not dropping the subject." He did not answer. +"Your friends in Washington never uttered a word about it. They did not +deny the things she said, they did not explain, they did not try to justify +themselves. They acted as if she had never spoken. I think they're hoping +that people will forget it. Some people will. But the rest of us know what +she said and that your friends were afraid to fight her." +"That's not true! The proper action was taken and the incident is closed +and I don't see why you keep bringing it up." +"What action?" +"Bertram Scudder was taken off the air, as a program not in the public +interest at the present time." +"Does that answer her?" +"It closes the issue and there's nothing more to be said about it." +"About a government that works by blackmail and extortion?" +"You can't say that nothing was done. It's been publicly announced that +Scudder's programs were disruptive, destructive and untrustworthy." +"Jim, I want to understand this. Scudder wasn't on her side—he was on +yours. He didn't even arrange that broadcast. He was acting on orders from +Washington, wasn't he?" +"I thought you didn't like Bertram Scudder." +"I didn't and I don't, but—" +"Then what do you care?" +"But he was innocent, as far as your friends were concerned, wasn't he?" +"I wish you wouldn't bother with politics. You talk like a fool." + + "He was innocent, wasn't he?" +"So what?" +She looked at him, her eyes incredulously wide. "Then they just made him +the scapegoat, didn't they?" +"Oh, don't sit there looking like Eddie Willers!" +"Do I? I like Eddie Willers. He's honest." +"He's a damn half-wit who doesn't have the faintest idea of how to deal +with practical reality!" +"But you do, don't you, Jim?" +"You bet I do!" +"Then couldn't you have helped Scudder?" +"I?" He burst into helpless, angry laughter. "Oh, why don't you grow up? I +did my best to get Scudder thrown to the lions! Somebody had to be. Don't you +know that it was my neck, if some other hadn't been found?" +"Your neck? Why not Dagny's, if she was wrong? Because she wasn't?" +"Dagny is in an entirely different category! It had to be Scudder or me." +"Why?" +"And it's much better for national policy to let it be Scudder. This way, +it's not necessary to argue about what she said—and if anybody brings it up, +we start howling that it was said on Scudder's program and that Scudder's +programs have been discredited and that Scudder is a proven fraud and liar, +etc., etc.—and do you think the public will be able to unscramble it? +Nobody's ever trusted Bertram Scudder, anyway. +Oh, don't stare at me like that! Would you rather they'd picked me to +discredit?" +"Why not Dagny? Because her speech could not be discredited?" +"If you're so damn sorry for Bertram Scudder, you should have seen him try +his damndest to make them break my neck! He's been doing that for years—how +do you think he got to where he was, except by climbing on carcasses? He +thought he was pretty powerful, too—you should have seen how the big business +tycoons used to be afraid of him! But he got himself outmaneuvered, this +time. This time, he belonged to the wrong faction." +Dimly, through the pleasant stupor of relaxing, of sprawling back in his +chair and smiling, he knew that this was the enjoyment he wanted: to be +himself. To be himself—he thought, in the drugged, precarious state of +floating past the deadliest of his blind alleys, the one that led to the +question of what was himself. +"You see, he belonged to the Tinky Holloway faction. It was pretty much of +a seesaw for a while, between the Tinky Holloway faction and the Chick +Morrison faction. But we won. Tinky made a deal and agreed to scuttle his pal +Bertram in exchange for a few things he needed from us. You should have heard +Bertram howl! But he was a dead duck and he knew it." +He started on a rolling chuckle, but choked it off, as the haze cleared +and he saw his wife's face. "Jim," she whispered, "is that the sort of . . . +victories you're winning?" +"Oh, for Christ's sake!" he screamed, smashing his fist down on the table. +"Where have you been all these years? What sort of world do you think you're +living in?" His blow had upset his water glass and the water went spreading +in dark stains over the lace of the tablecloth. +"I'm trying to find out," she whispered. Her shoulders were sagging and +her face looked suddenly worn, an odd, aged look that seemed haggard and +lost. +"I couldn't help it!" he burst out in the silence. "I'm not to blame! I +have to take things as I find them! It's not I who've made this world!" +He was shocked to see that she smiled—a smile of so fiercely bitter a +contempt that it seemed incredible on her gently patient face; she was not + + looking at him, but at some image of her own. "That's what my father used to +say when he got drunk at the corner saloon instead of looking for work." +"How dare you try comparing me to—" he started, but did not finish, +because she was not listening. +Her words, when she looked at him again, astonished him as completely +irrelevant. "The date of that nationalization, September second," +she asked, her voice wistful, "was it you who picked it?" +"No. I had nothing to do with it. It's the date of some special session of +their legislature. Why?" +"It's the date of our first wedding anniversary." +"Oh? Oh, that's right!" He smiled, relieved at the change to a safe +subject. "We'll have been married a year. My, it doesn't seem that long!" +"It seems much longer," she said tonelessly. +She was looking off again, and he felt in sudden uneasiness that the +subject was not safe at all; he wished she would not look as if she were +seeing the whole course of that year and of their marriage. +. . . not to get scared, but to learn—she thought—the thing to do is not +to get scared, but to learn . . . The words came from a sentence she had +repeated to herself so often that it felt like a pillar polished smooth by +the helpless weight of her body, the pillar that had supported her through +the past year. She tried to repeat it, but she felt as if her hands were +slipping on the polish, as if the sentence would not stave off terror any +longer—because she was beginning to understand. +If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn. +. . . It was in the bewildered loneliness of the first weeks of her +marriage that she said it to herself for the first time. She could not +understand Jim's behavior, or his sullen anger, which looked like weakness, +or his evasive, incomprehensible answers to her questions, which sounded like +cowardice; such traits were not possible in the James Taggart whom she had +married. She told herself that she could not condemn without understanding, +that she knew nothing about his world, that the extent of her ignorance was +the extent to which she misinterpreted his actions. She took the blame, she +took the beating of self reproach—against some bleakly stubborn certainty +which told her that something was wrong and that the thing she felt was fear. +"I must learn everything that Mrs. James Taggart is expected to know and +to be." was the way she explained her purpose to a teacher of etiquette. She +set out to learn with the devotion, the discipline, the drive of a military +cadet or a religious novice. It was the only way, she thought, of earning the +height which her husband had granted her on trust, of living up to his vision +of her, which it was now her duty to achieve. And, not wishing to confess it +to herself, she felt also that at the end of the long task she would +recapture her vision of him, that knowledge would bring back to her the man +she had seen on the night of his railroad's triumph. +She could not understand Jim's attitude when she told him about her +lessons. He burst out laughing; she was unable to believe that the laughter +had a sound of malicious contempt. "Why, Jim? Why? What are you laughing at?" +He would not explain—almost as if the fact of his contempt were sufficient +and required no reasons. +She could not suspect him of malice: he was too patiently generous about +her mistakes. He seemed eager to display her in the best drawing rooms of the +city, and he never uttered a word of reproach for her ignorance, for her +awkwardness, for those terrible moments when a silent exchange of glances +among the guests and a burst of blood to her cheekbones told her that she had +said the wrong thing again. He showed no embarrassment, he merely watched her +with a faint smile. + + When they came home after one of those evenings, his mood seemed +affectionately cheerful. He was trying to make it easier for her, she +thought—and gratitude drove her to study the harder. +She expected her reward on the evening when, by some imperceptible +transition, she found herself enjoying a party for the first time. She felt +free to act, not by rules, but at her own pleasure, with sudden confidence +that the rules had fused into a natural habit—she knew that she was +attracting attention, but now, for the first time, it was not the attention +of ridicule, but of admiration—she was sought after, on her own merit, she +was Mrs. Taggart, she had ceased being an object of charity weighing Jim +down, painfully tolerated for his sake—she was laughing gaily and seeing the +smiles of response, of appreciation on the faces around her—and she kept +glancing at him across the room, radiantly, like a child handing him a report +card with a perfect score, begging him to be proud of her. Jim sat alone in a +corner, watching her with an undecipherable glance. +He would not speak to her on their way home. "I don't know why I keep +dragging myself to those parties," he snapped suddenly, tearing off his dress +tie in the middle of their living room, "I've never sat through such a +vulgar, boring waste of time!" "Why, Jim," she said, stunned, "I thought it +was wonderful." "You would! You seemed to be quite at home—quite as if it +were Coney Island. I wish you'd learn to keep your place and not to embarrass +me in public." "[ embarrassed you? Tonight?" "You did!" "How?" "If you don't +understand it, I can't explain," he said in the tone of a mystic who implies +that a lack of understanding is the confession of a shameful inferiority. "I +don't understand it," she said firmly. He walked out of the room, slamming +the door. +She felt that the inexplicable was not a mere blank, this time: it had a +tinge of evil. From that night on, a small, hard point of fear remained +within her, like the spot of a distant headlight advancing upon her down an +invisible track. +Knowledge did not seem to bring her a clearer vision of Jim's world, but +to make the mystery greater. She could not believe that she was supposed to +feel respect for the dreary senselessness of the art shows which his friends +attended, of the novels they read, of the political magazines they discussed— +the art shows, where she saw the kind of drawings she had seen chalked on any +pavement of her childhood's slums—the novels, that purported to prove the +futility of science, industry, civilization and love, using language that her +father would not have used in his drunkenest moments—the magazines, that +propounded cowardly generalities, less clear and more stale than the sermons +for which she had condemned the preacher of the slum mission as a mealymouthed old fraud. +She could not believe that these things were the culture she had so +reverently looked up to and so eagerly waited to discover. She felt as if she +had climbed a mountain toward a jagged shape that had looked like a castle +and had found it to be the crumbling ruin of a gutted warehouse. +"Jim," she said once, after an evening spent among the men who were called +the intellectual leaders of the country, "Dr. Simon Pritchett is a phony—a +mean, scared old phony." "Now, really," he answered, "do you think you're +qualified to pass judgment on philosophers?" +"I'm qualified to pass judgment on con men. I've seen enough of them to +know one when I see him." "Now this is why I say that you'll never outgrow +your background. If you had, you would have learned to appreciate Dr. +Pritchett's philosophy." "What philosophy?" "If you don't understand it, I +can't explain." She would not let him end the conversation on that favorite +formula of his. "Jim," she said, "he's a phony, he and Balph Eubank and that +whole gang of theirs—and I think you've been taken in by them." Instead of + + the anger she expected, she saw a brief flash of amusement in the lift of his +eyelids. "That's what you think," he answered. +She felt an instant of terror at the first touch of a concept she had not +known to be possible: What if Jim was not taken in by them? She could +understand the phoniness of Dr. Pritchett, she thought—it was a racket that +gave him an undeserved income; she could even admit the possibility, by now, +that Jim might be a phony in his own business; what she could not hold inside +her mind was the concept of Jim as a phony in a racket from which he gained +nothing, an unpaid phony, an unvenal phony; the phoniness of a cardsharp or a +con man seemed innocently wholesome by comparison. She could not conceive of +his motive; she felt only that the headlight moving upon her had grown +larger. +She could not remember by what steps, what accumulation of pain, first as +small scratches of uneasiness, then as stabs of bewilderment, then as the +chronic, nagging pull of fear, she had begun to doubt Jim's position on the +railroad. It was his sudden, angry "so you don't trust me?" snapped in answer +to her first, innocent questions that made her realize that she did not—when +the doubt had not yet formed in her mind and she had fully expected that his +answers would reassure her. She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, +that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted, "I +don't care to talk shop," was his answer whenever she mentioned the railroad. +She tried to plead with him once. "Jim, you know what I think of your work +and how much I admire you for it." "Oh, really? +What is it you married, a man or a railroad president?" "I . . . I never +thought of separating the two." "Well, it is not very flattering to me." She +looked at him, baffled: she had thought it was. "I'd like to believe," he +said, "that you love me for myself, and not for my railroad." "Oh God, Jim," +she gasped, "you didn't think that I—!" "No," +he said, with a sadly generous smile, "I didn't think that you married me +for my money or my position. I have never doubted you." Realizing, in stunned +confusion and in tortured fairness, that she might have given him ground to +misinterpret her feeling, that she had forgotten how many bitter +disappointments he must have suffered at the hands of fortune-hunting women, +she could do nothing but shake her head and moan, "Oh, Jim, that's not what I +meant!" He chuckled softly, as at a child, and slipped his arm around her. +"Do you love me?" he asked. "Yes," she whispered. "Then you must have faith +in me. Love is faith, you know. Don't you see that I need it? I don't trust +anyone around me, I have nothing but enemies, I am very lonely. Don't you +know that I need you?" +The thing that made her pace her room—hours later, in tortured +restlessness—was that she wished desperately to believe him and did not +believe a word of it, yet knew that it was true. +It was true, but not in the manner he implied, not in any manner or +meaning she could ever hope to grasp. It was true that he needed her, but the +nature of his need kept slipping past her every effort to define it. She did +not know what he wanted of her. It was not flattery that he wanted, she had +seen him listening to the obsequious compliments of liars, listening with a +look of resentful inertness—almost the look of a drug addict at a dose +inadequate to rouse him. But she had seen him look at her as if he were +waiting for some reviving shot and, at times, as if he were begging. She had +seen a flicker of life in his eyes whenever she granted him some sign of +admiration—yet a burst of anger was his answer, whenever she named a reason +for admiring him. +He seemed to want her to consider him great, but never dare ascribe any +specific content to his greatness. +She did not understand the night, in mid-April, when he returned from a +trip to Washington. "Hi, kid!" he said loudly, dropping a sheaf of lilac into + + her arms. "Happy days are here again! Just saw those flowers and thought of +you. Spring is coming, baby!" +He poured himself a drink and paced the room, talking with too light, too +brash a manner of gaiety. There was a feverish sparkle in his eyes, and his +voice seemed shredded by some unnatural excitement. She began to wonder +whether he was elated or crushed. +"I know what it is that they're planning!" he said suddenly, without +transition, and she glanced up at him swiftly: she knew the sound of one of +his inner explosions. "There's not a dozen people in the whole country who +know it, but I do! The top boys are keeping it secret till they're ready to +spring it on the nation. Will it surprise a lot of people! +Will it knock them flat! A lot of people? Hell, every single person in +this country! It will affect every single person. That's how important it +is." +"Affect—how, Jim?" +"It will affect them! And they don't know what's coming, but I do. +There they sit tonight"—he waved at the lighted windows of the city— +"making plans, counting their money, hugging their children or their +dreams, and they don't know, but I do, that all of it will be struck, +stopped, changed!" +"Changed—for the worse or the better?" +"For the better, of course," he answered impatiently, as if it were +irrelevant; his voice seemed to lose its fire and to slip into the fraudulent +sound of duty. "It's a plan to save the country, to stop our economic +decline, to hold things still, to achieve stability and security." +"What plan?" +"I can't tell you. It's secret. Top secret. You have no idea how many +people would like to know it. There's no industrialist who wouldn't give a +dozen of his best furnaces for just one hint of warning, which he's not going +to get! Like Hank Rearden, for instance, whom you admire so much." He +chuckled, looking off into the future. +"Jim," she asked, the sound of fear in her voice telling him what the +sound of his chuckle had been like, "why do you hate Hank Rearden?" +"I don't hate him!" He whirled to her, and his face, incredibly, looked +anxious, almost frightened. "I never said I hated him. Don't worry, he'll +approve of the plan. Everybody will. It's for everybody's good." He sounded +as if he were pleading. She felt the dizzying certainty that he was lying, +yet that the plea was sincere—as if he had a desperate need to reassure her, +but not about the things he said. +She forced herself to smile. "Yes, Jim, of course," she answered, +wondering what instinct in what impossible kind of chaos had made her say it +as if it were her part to reassure him. +The look she saw on his face was almost a smile and almost of gratitude. +"1 had to tell you about it tonight. I had to tell you. I wanted you to know +what tremendous issues I deal with. You always talk about my work, but you +don't understand it at all, it's so much wider than you imagine. You think +that running a railroad is a matter of track laying and fancy metals and +getting trains there on time. But it's not. +Any underling can do that. The real heart of a railroad is in Washington. +My job is politics. Politics. Decisions made on a national scale, affecting +everything, controlling everybody. A few words on paper, a directive—changing +the life of every person in every nook, cranny and penthouse of this +country!" +"Yes, Jim," she said, wishing to believe that he was, perhaps, a man of +stature in the mysterious realm of Washington. +"You'll see," he said, pacing the room. "You think they're powerful —those +giants of industry who're so clever with motors and furnaces? + + They'll be stopped! They'll be stripped! They'll be brought down! They'll +be—" He noticed the way she was staring at him. "It's not for ourselves," he +snapped hastily, "it's for the people. That's the difference between business +and politics—we have no selfish ends in view, no private motives, we're not +after profit, we don't spend our lives scrambling for money, we don't have +to! That's why we're slandered and misunderstood by all the greedy profitchasers who can't conceive of a spiritual motive or a moral ideal or . . . We +couldn't help it!" he cried suddenly, whirling to her. "We had to have that +plan! With everything falling to pieces and stopping, something had to be +done! We had to stop them from stopping! We couldn't help it!" +His eyes were desperate; she did not know whether he was boasting or +begging for forgiveness; she did not know whether this was triumph or terror. +"Jim, don't you feel well? Maybe you've worked too hard and you're worn out +and—" +"I've never felt better in my life!" he snapped, resuming his pacing. +"You bet I've worked hard. My work is bigger than any job you can hope to +imagine. It's above anything that grubbing mechanics like Rearden and my +sister, are doing. Whatever they do, I can undo it. Let them build a track—I +can come and break it, just like that!" +He snapped his fingers. "Just like breaking a spine'" +"You want to break spines?" she whispered, trembling. +"I haven't said that!" he screamed. "What's the matter with you? I haven't +said it!" +"I'm sorry, Jim!" she gasped, shocked by her own words and by the terror +in his eyes. "It's just that I don't understand, but . . . but I know I +shouldn't bother you with questions when you're so tired"— +she was struggling desperately to convince herself—"when you have so many +things on your mind . . . such . . . such great things . . . +things I can't even begin to think of . . ." +His shoulders sagged, relaxing. He approached her and dropped wearily down +on his knees, slipping his arms around her. "You poor little fool," he said +affectionately. +She held onto him, moved by something that felt like tenderness and almost +like pity. But he raised his head to glance up at her face, and it seemed to +her that the look she saw in his eyes was part-gratification, part-contempt— +almost as if, by some unknown kind of sanction, she had absolved him and +damned herself. +It was useless—she found in the days that followed—to tell herself that +these things were beyond her understanding, that it was her duty to believe +in him, that love was faith. Her doubt kept growing—doubt of his +incomprehensible work and of his relation to the railroad. She wondered why +it kept growing in direct proportion to her self-admonitions that faith was +the duty she owed him. Then, one sleepless night, she realized that her +effort to fulfill that duty consisted of turning away whenever people +discussed his job, of refusing to look at newspaper mentions of Taggart +Transcontinental, of slamming her mind shut against any evidence and every +contradiction. She stopped, aghast, struck by the question: What is it, then— +faith versus truth? And realizing that part of her zeal to believe was her +fear to know, she set out to learn the truth, with a cleaner, calmer sense of +Tightness than the effort at dutiful self-fraud had ever given her. +It did not take her long to learn. The evasiveness of the Taggart +executives, when she asked a few casual questions, the stale generalities of +their answers, the strain of their manner at the mention of their boss, and +their obvious reluctance to discuss him—told her nothing concrete, but gave +her a feeling equivalent to knowing the worst. The railroad workers were more +specific—the switchmen, the gatemen, the ticket sellers whom she drew into +chance conversations in the Taggart Terminal and who did not know her. "Jim + + Taggart? That whining, sniveling, speech-making deadhead!" "Jimmy the +President? Well, I'll tell you: he's the hobo on the gravy train." "The boss? +Mr. Taggart? You mean Miss Taggart, don't you?" +It was Eddie Willers who told her the whole truth. She heard that he had +known Jim since childhood, and she asked him to lunch with her. +When she faced him at the table, when she saw the earnest, questioning +directness of his eyes and the severely literal simplicity of his words, she +dropped all attempts at casual prodding, she told him what she wanted to know +and why, briefly, impersonally, not appealing for help or for pity, only for +truth. He answered her in the same manner. He told her the whole story, +quietly, impersonally, pronouncing no verdict, expressing no opinion, never +encroaching on her emotions by any sign of concern for them, speaking with +the shining austerity and the awesome power of facts. He told her who ran +Taggart Transcontinental. +He told her the story of the John Galt Line. She listened, and what she +felt was not shock, but worse: the lack of shock, as if she had always known +it. "Thank you, Mr. Willers," was all that she said when he finished. +She waited for Jim to come home, that evening, and the thing that eroded +any pain or indignation, was a feeling of her own detachment, as if it did +not matter to her any longer, as if some action were required of her, but it +made no difference what the action would be or the consequences. +It was not anger that she felt when she saw Jim enter the room, but a +murky astonishment, almost as if she wondered who he was and why it should +now be necessary to speak to him. She told him what she knew, briefly, in a +tired, extinguished voice. It seemed to her that he understood it from her +first few sentences, as if he had expected this to come sooner or later. +"Why didn't you tell me the truth?" she asked. +"So that's your idea of gratitude?" he screamed. "So that's how you feel +after everything I've done for you? Everybody told me that crudeness and +selfishness was all I could expect for lifting a cheap little alley cat by +the scruff of her neck!" +She looked at him as if he were making inarticulate sounds that connected +to nothing inside her mind. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?" +"Is that all the love you felt for me, you sneaky little hypocrite? Is. +that all I get in return for my faith in you?" +"Why did you lie? Why did you let me think what I thought?" +"You should be ashamed of yourself, you should be ashamed to face me or +speak to me!" +"1?" The inarticulate sounds had connected, but she could not believe the +sum they made. "What are you trying to do, Jim?" she asked, her voice +incredulous and distant. +"Have you thought of my feelings? Have you thought of what this. +would do to my feelings? You should have considered my feelings first! +That's the first obligation of any wife—and of a woman in your position in +particular! There's nothing lower and uglier than ingratitude!" +For the flash of one instant, she grasped the unthinkable fact of a man +who was guilty and knew it and was trying to escape by inducing an emotion of +guilt in his victim. But she could not hold the fact inside her brain. She +felt a stab of horror, the convulsion of a mind rejecting a sight that would +destroy it—a stab like a swift recoil from the edge of insanity. By the time +she dropped her head, closing her eyes, she knew only that she felt disgust, +a sickening disgust for a nameless reason. +When she raised her head, it seemed to her-that she caught a glimpse of +him watching her with the uncertain, retreating, calculating look of a man +whose trick has not worked. But before she had time to believe it, his face +was hidden again under an expression of injury and anger. + + She said, as if she were naming her thoughts for the benefit of the +rational being who was not present, but whose presence she had to assume, +since no other could be addressed, "That night . . . those headlines . . . +that glory . . . it was not you at all . . . it was Dagny." +"Shut up, you rotten little bitch!" +She looked at him blankly, without reaction. She looked as if nothing +could reach her, because her dying words had been uttered. +He made the sound of a sob. "Cherryl, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I take +it back, I didn't mean it . . ." +She remained standing, leaning against the wall, as she had stood from the +first. +He dropped down on the edge of a couch, in a posture of helpless +dejection. "How could I have explained it to you?" he said in the tone of +abandoning hope. "It's all so big and so complex. How could I have told you +anything about a transcontinental railroad, unless you knew all the details +and ramifications? How could I have explained to you my years of work, my . . +. Oh, what's the use? I've always been misunderstood and I should have been +accustomed to it by now, only I thought that you were different and that I +had a chance." +"Jim, why did you marry me?" +He chuckled sadly. "That's what everybody kept asking me. I didn't think +you'd ever ask it. Why? Because I love you." +She wondered at how strange it was that this word—which was supposed to be +the simplest in the human language, the word understood by all, the universal +bond among men—conveyed to her no meaning whatever. She did not know what it +was that it named in his mind. +"Nobody's ever loved me," he said. "There isn't any love in the world. +People don't feel. I feel things. Who cares about that? All they care for is +time schedules and freight loads and money. I can't live among those people. +I'm very lonely. I've always longed to find understanding. Maybe I'm just a +hopeless idealist, looking for the impossible. +Nobody will ever understand me." +"Jim," she said, with an odd little note of severity in her voice, "what +I've struggled for all this time is to understand you." +He dropped his hand in a motion of brushing her words aside, not +offensively, but sadly. "I thought you could. You're all I have. But maybe +understanding is just not possible between human beings." +"Why should it be impossible? Why don't you tell me what it is that you +want? Why don't you help me to understand you?" +He sighed. "That's it. That's the trouble—your asking all those why's. +Your constant asking of a why for everything. What I'm talking about can't be +put into words. It can't be named. It has to be felt. +Either you feel it or you don't. It's not a thing of the mind, but of the +heart. Don't you ever feel? Just feel, without asking all those questions? +Can't you understand me as a human being, not as if I were a scientific +object in a laboratory? The great understanding that transcends our shabby +words and helpless minds . . . No, I guess I shouldn't look for it. But I'll +always seek and hope. You're my last hope. You're all I have." +She stood at the wall, without moving. +"I need you," he wailed softly. "Fm all alone. You're not like the others. +I believe in you. I trust you. What has all that money and fame and business +and struggle given me? You're all I have . . . " +She stood without moving and the direction of her glance, lowered to look +down at him, was the only form of recognition she gave him. +The things he said about his suffering were lies, she thought; but the +suffering was real; he was a man torn by some continual anguish, which he +seemed unable to tell her, but which, perhaps, she could learn to understand. + + She still owed him this much—she thought, with the grayness of a sense of +duty—in payment for the position he had given her, which, perhaps, was all he +had to give, she owed him an effort to understand him. +It was strange to feel, in the days that followed, that she had become a +stranger to herself, a stranger who had nothing to want or to seek. In place +of a love made by the brilliant fire of hero worship, she was left with the +gnawing drabness of pity. In place of the men she had struggled to find, men +who fought for their goals and refused to suffer—she was left with a man +whose suffering was his only claim to value and his only offer in exchange +for her life. But it made no difference to her any longer. The one who was +she, had looked with eagerness at the turn of every corner ahead; the passive +stranger who had taken her place, was like all the over groomed people around +her, the people who said that they were adult because they did not try to +think or to desire. +But the stranger was still haunted by a ghost who was herself, and the +ghost had a mission to accomplish. She had to learn to understand the things +that had destroyed her. She had to know, and she lived with a sense of +ceaseless waiting. She had to know, even though she felt that the headlight +was closer and in the moment of knowledge she would be struck by the wheels. +What do you want of me?—was the question that kept beating in her mind as +a clue. What do you want of me?—she kept crying soundlessly, at dinner +tables, in drawing rooms, on sleepless nights— crying it to Jim and those who +seemed to share his secret, to Balph Eubank, to Dr. Simon Pritchett—what do +you want of me? She did not ask it aloud; she knew that they would not +answer. What do you want of me? +—she asked, feeling as if she were running, but no way were open to +escape. What do you want of me?—she asked, looking at the whole long torture +of her marriage that had not lasted the full span of one year. +"What do you want of me?" she asked aloud—and saw that she was sitting at +the table in her dining room, looking at Jim, at his feverish face, and at a +drying stain of water on the table. +She did not know how long a span of silence had stretched between them, +she was startled by her own voice and by the--question she had not intended +to utter. She did not expect him to understand it, he had never seemed to +understand much simpler queries—and she shook her head, struggling to +recapture the reality of the present. +She was startled to see him looking at her with a touch of derision, as if +he were mocking her estimate of his understanding. +"Love," he answered. +She felt herself sagging with hopelessness, in the face of that answer +which was at once so simple and so meaningless. +"You don't love me," he said accusingly. She did not answer. "You don't +love me or you wouldn't ask such a question." +"I did love you once," she said dully, "but it wasn't what you wanted. I +loved you for your courage, your ambition, your ability. But it wasn't real, +any of it." +His lower lip swelled a little in a faint, contemptuous thrust. "What a +shabby idea of love!" he said. +"Jim, what is it that you want to be loved for?" +"What a cheap shopkeeper's attitude!" +She did not speak; she looked at him, her eyes stretched by a silent +question. +"To be loved for!" he said, his voice grating with mockery and +righteousness. "So you think that love is a matter of mathematics, of +exchange, of weighing and measuring, like a pound of butter on a grocery +counter? I don't want to be loved for anything. I want to be loved for + + myself—not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself—not for my +body or mind or words or works or actions." +"But then . . . what is yourself?" +"If you loved me, you wouldn't ask it." His voice had a shrill note of +nervousness, as if he were swaying dangerously between caution and some +blindly heedless impulse. "You wouldn't ask. You'd know. You'd feel it. Why +do you always try to tag and label everything? Can't you rise above those +petty materialistic definitions? Don't you ever feel— +just feel?" +"Yes. Jim, I do," she said, her voice low. "But I am trying not to, +because . . . because what T feel is fear." +"Of me?" he asked hopefully. +"No, not exactly. Not fear of what you can do to me, but of what you are." +He dropped his eyelids with the swiftness of slamming a door—but she +caught a flash of his eyes and the flash, incredibly, was terror. +"You're not capable of love, you cheap little gold-digger!" he cried +suddenly, in a tone stripped of all color but the desire "to hurt. "Yes, I +said gold-digger. There are many forms of it, other than greed for money, +other and worse. You're a gold-digger of the spirit. You didn't marry me for +my cash—but you married me for my ability or courage or whatever value it was +that you set as the price of your love!" +"Do you want . . . love . . . to be . . . causeless?" +"Love is its own cause! Love is above causes and reasons. Love is blind. +But you wouldn't be capable of it. You have the mean, scheming, calculating +little soul of a shopkeeper who trades', but never gives! +Love is a gift—a great, free, unconditional gift that transcends and +forgives everything. What's the generosity of loving a man for his virtues? +What do you give him? Nothing. It's no more than cold justice. No more +than he's earned." +Her eyes were dark with the dangerous intensity of glimpsing her goal. +"You want it to be unearned," she said, not in the tone of a question, but of +a verdict. +"Oh, you don't understand!" +"Yes, Jim, I do. That's what you want—that's what all of you really want— +not money, not material benefits, not economic security, not any of the +handouts you keep demanding." She spoke in a flat monotone, as if reciting +her thoughts to herself, intent upon giving the solid identity of words to +the torturous shreds of chaos twisting in her mind. +"All of you welfare preachers—it's not unearned money that you're after. +You want handouts, but of a different kind. I'm a gold-digger of the spirit, +you said, because I look for value. Then you, the welfare preachers . . . +it's the spirit that you want to loot. I never thought and nobody ever told +us how it could be thought of and what it would mean—the unearned in spirit. +But that is what you want. You want unearned love. You want unearned +admiration. You want unearned greatness. You want to be a man like Hank +Rearden without the necessity of being what he is. Without the necessity of +being anything. +Without . . . the necessity . . . of being." +"Shut up!" he screamed. +They looked at each other, both in terror, both feeling as if they were +swaying on an edge which she could not and he would not name, both knowing +that one more step would be fatal. +"What do you think you're saying?" he asked in a tone of petty anger, +which sounded almost benevolent by bringing them back into the realm of the +normal, into the near-wholesomeness of nothing worse than a family quarrel. +"What sort of metaphysical subject are you trying to deal with?" + + "I don't know . . ." she said wearily, dropping her head, as if some shape +she had tried to capture had slipped once more out of her grasp. "I don't +know . . . It doesn't seem possible . . ." +"You'd better not try to wade in way over your head or—" But he had to +stop, because the butler entered, bringing the glittering ice bucket with the +champagne ordered for celebration. +They remained silent, letting the room be filled by the sounds which +centuries of men and of struggle had established as the symbol of joyous +attainment: the blast of the cork, the laughing tinkle of a pale gold liquid +running into two broad cups filled with the weaving reflections of candles, +the whisper of bubbles rising through two crystal stems, almost demanding +that everything in sight rise, too, in the same aspiration. +They remained silent, till the butler had gone. Taggart sat looking down +at the bubbles, holding the stem of his glass between two limply casual +fingers. Then his hand closed suddenly about the stem into an awkwardly +convulsed fist and he raised it, not as one lifts a glass of champagne, but +as one would lift a butcher knife. +"To Francisco d'Anconia!" he said. +She put her glass down. "No," she answered. +"Drink it!" he screamed. +"No," she answered, her voice like a drop of lead. +They held each other's glances for a moment, the light playing on the +golden liquid, not reaching their faces or eyes. +"Oh, go to hell!" he cried, leaping to his feet, flinging his glass to +smash on the floor and rushing out of the room. +She sat at the table, not moving, for a long time, then rose slowly and +pressed the bell. +She walked to her room, her steps unnaturally even, she opened the door of +a closet, she reached for a suit and a pair of shoes, she took off the +housecoat, moving with cautious precision, as if her life depended on not +jarring anything about or within her. She held onto a single thought: that +she had to get out of this house—just get out of it for a while, if only for +the next hour—and then, later, she would be able to face all that had to be +faced. +The lines were blurring on the paper before her and, raising her head, +Dagny realized that it had long since grown dark. +She pushed the papers aside, unwilling to turn on the lamp, permitting +herself the luxury of idleness and darkness. It cut her off from the city +beyond the windows of her living room. The calendar in the distance said: +August 5. +The month behind her had gone, leaving nothing but the blank of dead time. +It had gone into the planless, thankless work of racing from emergency to +emergency, of delaying the collapse of a railroad—a month like a waste pile +of disconnected days, each given to averting the disaster of the moment. It +had not been a sum of achievements brought into existence, but only a sum of +zeros, of that which had not happened, a sum of prevented catastrophes—not a +task in the service of life, but only a race against death. +There had been times when an unsummoned vision—a sight of the valley—had +seemed to rise before her, not as a sudden appearance, but as a constant, +hidden presence that suddenly chose to assume an insistent reality. She had +faced it, through moments of blinded stillness, in a contest between an +unmoving decision and an unyielding pain, a pain to be fought by +acknowledgment, by saying: All right, even this. +There had been mornings when, awakening with rays of sunlight on her face, +she had thought that she must hurry to Hammond's Market to get fresh eggs for +breakfast; then, recapturing full consciousness, seeing the haze of New York +beyond the window of her bedroom, she had felt a tearing stab, like a touch + + of death, the touch of rejecting reality. You knew it—she had told herself +severely—you knew what it would be like when you made your choice. And +dragging her body, like an unwilling weight, out of bed to face an unwelcome +day, she would whisper: All right, even this. +The worst of the torture had been the moments when, walking down the +street, she had caught a sudden glimpse of chestnut-gold, a glowing streak of +hair among the heads of strangers, and had felt as if the city had vanished, +as if nothing but the violent stillness within her were delaying the moment +when she would rush to him and seize him; but that next moment had come as +the sight of some meaningless face—and she had stood, not wishing to live +through the following step, not wishing to generate the energy of living. She +had tried to avoid such moments; she had tried to forbid herself to look; she +had walked, keeping her eyes on the pavements. She had failed: by some will +of their own, her eyes had kept leaping to every streak of gold. +She had kept the blinds raised on the windows of her office, remembering +his promise, thinking only: If you are watching me, wherever you are . . . +There were no buildings close to the height of her office, but she had looked +at the distant towers, wondering which window was his observation post, +wondering whether some invention of his own, some device of rays and lenses, +permitted him to observe her every movement from some skyscraper a block or a +mile away. She had sat at her desk, at her uncurtained windows, thinking: +Just to know that you're seeing me, even if I'm never to see you again. +And remembering it, now, in the darkness of her room, she leaped to her +feet and snapped on the light. +Then she dropped her head for an instant, smiling in mirthless amusement +at herself. She wondered whether her lighted windows, in the black immensity +of the city, were a flare of distress, calling for his help—or a lighthouse +still protecting the rest of the world. +The doorbell rang. +When she opened the door, she saw the silhouette of a girl with a faintly +familiar face—and it took her a moment of startled astonishment to realize +that it was Cherryl Taggart. Except for a formal exchange of greetings on a +few chance encounters in the halls of the Taggart Building, they had not seen +each other since the wedding. +Cherryl's face was composed and unsmiling. "Would you permit me to speak +to you"—she hesitated and ended on—"Miss Taggart?" +"Of course," said Dagny gravely. "Come in." +She sensed some desperate emergency in the unnatural calm of Cherryl's +manner; she became certain of it when she looked at the girl's face in the +light of the living room. "Sit down," she said, but Cherryl remained +standing. +"I came to pay a debt," said Cherryl, her voice solemn with the effort to +permit herself no sound of emotion. "I want to apologize for the things I +said to you at my wedding. There's no reason why you should forgive me, but +it's my place to tell you that I know I was insulting everything I admire and +defending everything I despise. I know that admitting it now, doesn't make up +for it, and even coming here is only another presumption, there's no reason +why you should want to hear it, so I can't even cancel the debt, I can only +ask for a favor— +that you let me say the things I want to say to you." +Dagny's shock of emotion, incredulous, warm and painful, was the wordless +equivalent of the sentence: What a distance to travel in less than a year . . +. ! She answered, the unsmiling earnestness of her voice like a hand extended +in support, knowing that a smile would upset some precarious balance, "But it +does make up for it, and I do want to hear it." +"I know that it was you who ran Taggart Transcontinental. It was you who +built the John Galt Line. It was you who had the mind and the courage that + + kept all of it alive. I suppose you thought that I married Jim for his money— +as what shop girl wouldn't have? But, you see, I married Jim because I . . . +I thought that he was you. I thought that he was Taggart Transcontinental. +Now I know that he's"— +she hesitated, then went on firmly, as if not to spare herself anything— +"he's some sort of vicious moocher, though I can't understand of what kind +or why. When I spoke to you at my wedding, I thought that I was defending +greatness and attacking its enemy . . . but it was in reverse . . . it was in +such horrible, unbelievable reverse! . . . So I wanted to tell you that I +know the truth . . . not so much for your sake, I have no right to presume +that you'd care, but . . . but for the sake of the things I loved." +Dagny said slowly, "Of course I forgive it." +"Thank you," she whispered, and turned to go. +"Sit down." +She shook her head. "That . . . that was all, Miss Taggart." +Dagny allowed herself the first touch of a smile, no more than in the look +of her eyes, as she said, "Cherryl, my name is Dagny." +Cherryl's answer was no more than a faint, tremulous crease of her mouth, +as if, together, they had completed a single smile. "I . . . +I didn't know whether I should—" +"We're sisters, aren't we?" +"No! Not through Jim!" It was an involuntary cry. +"No, through our own choice. Sit down, Cherryl." The girl obeyed, +struggling not to show the eagerness of her acceptance, not to grasp for +support, not to break. "You've had a terrible time, haven't you?" +"Yes . . . but that doesn't matter . . . that's my own problem . . . and +my own fault." +"I don't think it was your own fault." +Cherryl did not answer, then said suddenly, desperately, "Look . . . +what I don't want is charity." +"Jim must have told you—and it's true—that I never engage in charity." +"Yes, he did . . . But what I mean is—" +"I know what you mean." +"But there's no reason why you should have to feel concern for me . . . I +didn't come here to complain and . . . and load another burden on your +shoulders . . . That I happen to suffer, doesn't give me a claim on you." +"No, it doesn't. But that you value all the things I value, does." +"You mean . . . if you want to talk to me, it's not alms? Not just because +you feel sorry for me?" +"I feel terribly sorry for you, Cherryl, and I'd like to help you— +not because you suffer, but because you haven't deserved to suffer." +"You mean, you wouldn't be kind to anything weak or whining or rotten +about me? Only to whatever you see in me that's good?" +"Of course." +Cherryl did not move her head, but she looked as if it were lifted— +as if some bracing current were relaxing her features into that rare look +which combines pain and dignity. +"It's not alms, Cherryl. Don't be afraid to speak to me." +"It's strange . . . You're the first person I can talk to . . . and it +feels so easy . . . yet I . . . I was afraid to speak to you. I wanted to ask +your forgiveness long ago . . . ever since I learned the truth, I went as far +as the door of your office, but I stopped and stood there in the hall and +didn't have the courage to go in. . . . I didn't intend to come here tonight. +I went out only to . . . to think something over, and then, suddenly, I knew +that I wanted to see you, that in the whole of the city this was the only +place for me to go and the only thing still left for me to do." +"I'm glad you did." + + "You know, Miss Tag—Dagny," she said softly, in wonder, "you're not as I +expected you to be at all. . . . They, Jim and his friends, they said you +were hard and cold and unfeeling." +"But it's true, Cherryl. I am, in the sense they mean—only have they ever +told you in just what sense they mean it?" +"No. They never do. They only sneer at me when I ask them what they mean +by anything . . . about anything. What did they mean about you?" +"Whenever anyone accuses some person of being 'unfeeling,' he means that +that person is just. He means that that person has no causeless emotions and +will not grant him a feeling which he does not deserve. He means that 'to +feel' is to go against reason, against moral values, against reality. He +means . . . What's the matter?" she asked, seeing the abnormal intensity of +the girl's face. +"It's . . . it's something I've tried so hard to understand . . . for such +a long time. . . ." +"Well, observe that you never hear that accusation in defense of +innocence, but always in defense of guilt. You never hear it said by a good +person about those who fail to do him justice. But you always hear it said by +a rotter about those who treat him as a rotter, those who don't feel any +sympathy for the evil he's committed or for the pain he suffers as a +consequence. Well, it's true—that is what I do not feel. But those who feel +it, feel nothing for any quality of human greatness, for any person or action +that deserves admiration, approval, esteem. These are the things 7 feel. +You'll find that it's one or the other. Those who grant sympathy to guilt, +grant none to innocence. +Ask yourself which, of the two, are the unfeeling persons. And then you'll +see what motive is the opposite of charity." +"What?" she whispered. +"Justice, Cherryl." +Cherryl shuddered suddenly and dropped her head. "Oh God!" she moaned. "If +you knew what hell Jim has been giving me because I believed just what you +said!" She raised her face in the sweep of another shudder, as if the things +she had tried to control had broken through; the look in her eyes was terror. +"Dagny," she whispered, "Dagny, I'm afraid of them . . . of Jim and all the +others . . . not afraid of something they'll do . . . if it were that, I +could escape . . . +but afraid, as if there's no way out . . . afraid of what they are and . . +. and that they exist." +Dagny came forward swiftly to sit on the arm of her chair and seize her +shoulder in a steadying grasp. "Quiet, kid," she said. "You're wrong. You +must never feel afraid of people in that way. You must never think that their +existence is a reflection on yours—yet that's what you're thinking." +"Yes . . . Yes, I feel that there's no chance for me to exist, if they do +. . . no chance, no room, no world I can cope with. . . . I don't want to +feel it, I keep pushing it back, but it's coming closer and 1 +know I have no place to run. . . . I can't explain what it feels like, I +can't catch hold of it—and that's part of the terror, that you can't catch +hold of anything—it's as if the whole world were suddenly destroyed, but not +by an explosion—an explosion is something hard and solid—but destroyed by . . +. by some horrible kind of softening . . . +as if nothing were solid, nothing held any shape at all, and you could +poke your finger through stone walls and the stone would give, like jelly, +and mountains would slither, and buildings would switch their shapes like +clouds—and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but +goo." + + "Cherryl . . . Cherryl, you poor kid, there have been centuries of +philosophers plotting to turn the world into just that—to destroy people's +minds by making them believe that that's what they're seeing. +But you don't have to accept it. You don't have to see through the eyes of +others, hold onto yours, stand on your own judgment, you know that what is, +is—say it aloud, like the holiest of prayers, and don't let anyone tell you +otherwise." +"But . . . but nothing is, any more. Jim and his friends—they're not. I +don't know what I'm looking at, when I'm among them, I don't know what I'm +hearing when they speak . . . it's not real, any of it, it's some ghastly +sort of act that they're all going through . . . and I don't know what +they're after. . . . Dagny! We've always been told that human beings have +such a great power of knowledge, so much greater than animals, but I—I feel +blinder than any animal right now, blinder and more helpless. An animal knows +who are its friends and who are its enemies, and when to defend itself. It +doesn't expect a friend to step on it or to cut its throat. It doesn't expect +to be told that love is blind, that plunder is achievement, that gangsters +are statesmen and that it's great to break the spine of Hank Rearden!—oh God, +what am I saying?" +"I know what you're saying." +"I mean, how am I to deal with people? I mean, if nothing held firm for +the length of one hour—we couldn't go on, could we? Well, I know that things +are solid—but people? Dagny! They're nothing and anything, they're not +beings, they're only switches, just constant switches without any shape. But +I have to live among them. How am I to do it?" +"Cherryl, what you've been struggling with is the greatest problem in +history, the one that has caused ail of human suffering. You've understood +much more than most people, who suffer and die, never knowing what killed +them. I'll help you to understand. It's a big subject and a hard battle—but +first, above all, don't be afraid." +The look on Cherryl's face was an odd, wistful longing, as if, seeing +Dagny from a great distance, she were straining and failing to come closer, +"I wish I could wish to fight," she said softly, "but I don't. I don't even +want to win any longer. There's one change that I don't seem to have the +strength to make. You see, I had never expected anything like my marriage to +Jim, Then when it happened, I thought that life was much more wonderful than +I had expected. And now to get used to the idea that life and people are much +more horrible than anything I had imagined and that my marriage was not a +glorious miracle, but some unspeakable kind of evil which I'm still afraid to +learn fully—that is what I can't force myself to take. I can't get past it." +She glanced up suddenly. "Dagny, how did you do it? How did you manage to +remain unmangled?" +"By holding to just one rule." +"Which?" +"To place nothing—nothing—above the verdict of my own mind." +"You've taken some terrible beatings . . . maybe worse than I did . . . +worse than any of us. . . . What held you through it?" +"The knowledge that my life is the highest of values, too high to give up +without a fight." +She saw a look of astonishment, of incredulous recognition on Cherryl's +face, as if the girl were struggling to recapture some sensation across a +span of years. "Dagny"—her voice was a whisper—"that's . . . that's what I +felt when I was a child . . . that's what I seem to remember most about +myself . . . that kind of feeling . . . and I never lost it, it's there, it's +always been there, but as I grew up, I thought it was something that I must +hide. . . . I never had any name for it, but just now, when you said it, it + + struck me that that's what it was. . . . Dagny, to feel that way about your +own life—is that good?" +"Cherryl, listen to me carefully: that feeling—with everything which it +requires and implies—is the highest, noblest and only good on earth." +"The reason I ask is because I . . . I wouldn't have dared to think that. +Somehow, people always made me feel as if they thought it was a sin . . . as +if that were the thing in me which they resented and . . . and wanted to +destroy." +"It's true. Some people do want to destroy it. And when you learn to +understand their motive, you'll know the darkest, ugliest and only evil in +the world, but you'll be safely out of its reach." +Cherryl's smile was like a feeble flicker struggling to retain its hold +upon a few drops of fuel, to catch them, to flare up. "It's the first time in +months," she whispered, "that I've felt as if . . . as if there's still a +chance." She saw Dagny's eyes watching her with attentive concern, and she +added, "I'll be all right . . . Let me get used to it—to you, to all the +things you said. I think I'll come to believe it . . . to believe that it's +real . . . and that Jim doesn't matter." She rose to her feet, as if trying +to retain the moment of assurance. +Prompted by a sudden, causeless certainty, Dagny said sharply, "Cherryl, I +don't want you to go home tonight." +"Oh no! I'm all right. I'm not afraid, that way. Not of going home." +"Didn't something happen there tonight?" +"No . . . not really . . . nothing worse than usual. It was just that I +began to see things a little more clearly, that was all . . . I'm all right. +I have to think, think harder than I ever did before . . . and then I'll +decide what I must do. May I—" She hesitated. +"Yes?'1 +"May I come back to talk to you again?" +"Of course." +"Thank you, I . . . I'm very grateful to you." +"Will you promise me that you'll come back?" +"I promise." +Dagny saw her walking off down the hall toward the elevator, saw the slump +of her shoulders, then the effort that lifted them, saw the slender figure +that seemed to sway then marshal all of its strength to remain erect. She +looked like a plant with a broken stem, still held together by a single +fiber, struggling to heal the breach, which one more gust of wind would +finish. +Through the open door of his study, James Taggart had seen Cherryl cross +the anteroom and walk out of the apartment. He had slammed his door and +slumped down on the davenport, with patches of spilled champagne still +soaking the cloth of his trousers, as if his own discomfort were a revenge +upon his wife and upon a universe that would not provide him with the +celebration he had wanted. +After a while, he leaped to his feet, tore off his coat and threw it +across the room. He reached for a cigarette, but snapped it in half and flung +it at a painting over the fireplace. +He noticed a vase of Venetian glass—a museum piece, centuries old, with an +intricate system of blue and gold arteries twisting through its transparent +body. He seized it and flung it at the wall; it burst into a rain of glass as +thin as a shattered light bulb. +He had bought that vase for the satisfaction of thinking of all the +connoisseurs who could not afford it. Now he experienced the satisfaction of +a revenge upon the centuries which had prized it—and the satisfaction of +thinking that there were millions of desperate families, any one of whom +could have lived for a year on the price of that vase. + + He kicked off his shoes, and fell back on the davenport, letting his +stocking feet dangle in mid-air. +The sound of the doorbell startled him: it seemed to match his mood. +It was the kind of brusque, demanding, impatient snap of sound he would +have produced if he were now jabbing his finger at someone's doorbell. +He listened to the butler's steps, promising himself the pleasure of +refusing admittance to whoever was seeking it. In a moment, he heard the +knock at his door and the butler entered to announce, "Mrs. +Rearden to see you, sir." +"What? . . . Oh . . . Well! Have her come in!" +He swung his feet down to the floor, but made no other concession, and +waited with half a smile of alerted curiosity, choosing not to rise until a +moment after Lillian had entered the room. +She wore a wine-colored dinner gown, an imitation of an Empire traveling +suit, with a miniature double-breasted jacket gripping her high waistline +over the long sweep of the skirt, and a small hat clinging to one ear, with a +feather sweeping down to curl under her chin. She entered with a brusque, +unrhythmical motion, the train of her dress and the feather of her hat +swirling, then flapping against her legs and throat, like pennants signaling +nervousness. +"Lillian, my dear, am I to be flattered, delighted or just plain +flabbergasted?" +"Oh, don't make a fuss about it! I had to see you, and it had to be +immediately, that's all." +The impatient tone, the peremptory movement with which she sat down were a +confession of weakness: by the rules of their unwritten language, one did not +assume a demanding manner unless one were seeking a favor and had no value—no +threat—to barter. +"Why didn't you stay at the Gonzales reception?" she asked, her casual +smile failing to hide the tone of irritation. "I dropped in on them after +dinner, just to catch hold of you—but they said you hadn't been feeling well +and had gone home." +He crossed the room and picked up a cigarette, for the pleasure of padding +in his stocking feet past the formal elegance of her costume. +"I was bored," he answered. +"I can't stand them," she said, with a little shudder; he glanced at her +in astonishment: the words sounded involuntary and sincere. "I can't stand +Senor Gonzales and that whore he's got himself for a wife. +It's disgusting that they've become so fashionable, they and their +parties. I don't feel like going anywhere any longer. It's not the same +style any more, not the same spirit. I haven't run into Balph Eubank for +months, or Dr. Pritchett, or any of the boys. And all those new faces that +look like butcher's assistants! After all, our crowd were gentlemen." +"Yeah," he said reflectively. "Yeah, there's some funny kind of +difference. It's like on the railroad, too: I could get along with Gem +Weatherby, he was civilized, but Cuffy Meigs—that's something else again, +that's . . ."He stopped abruptly. +"It's perfectly preposterous," she said, in the tone of a challenge to the +space at large. "They can't get away with it." +She did not explain "who" or "with what." He knew what she meant. Through +a moment of silence, they looked as if they were clinging to each other for +reassurance. +In the next moment, he was thinking with pleasurable amusement that +Lillian was beginning to show her age. The deep burgundy color of her gown +was unbecoming, it seemed to draw a purplish tinge out of her skin, a tinge +that gathered, like twilight, in the small gullies of her face, softening her + + flesh to a texture of tired slackness, changing her look of bright mockery +into a look of stale malice. +He saw her studying him, smiling and saying crisply, with the smile as +license for insult, "You are unwell, aren't you, Jim? You look like a +disorganized stable boy." +He chuckled. "I can afford it." +"I know it, darling. You're one of the most powerful men in New York +City." She added, "It's a good joke on New York City." +"It is." +"I concede that you're in a position to do anything. That's why I had to +see you." She added a small, grunt like sound of amusement, to dilute her +statement's frankness. +"Good," he said, his voice comfortable and noncommittal. +"I had to come here, because I thought it best, in this particular matter, +not to be seen together in public." +"That is always wise." +"I seem to remember having been useful to you in the past." +"In the past—yes." +"I am sure that I can count on you." +"Of course—only isn't that an old-fashioned, unphilosophical remark? How +can we ever be sure of anything?" +"Jim," she snapped suddenly, "you've got to help me!" +"My dear, I'm at your disposal, I'd do anything to help you," he answered, +the rules of their language requiring that any open statement be answered by +a blatant lie. Lillian was slipping, he thought—and he experienced the +pleasure of dealing with an inadequate adversary. +She was neglecting, he noted, even the perfection of her particular +trademark: her grooming. A few strands were escaping from the drilled waves +of her hair—her nails, matching her gown, were the deep shade of coagulated +blood, which made it easy to notice the chipped polish at their tips—and +against the broad, smooth, creamy expanse of her skin in the low, square cut +of her gown, he observed the tiny glitter of a safety pin holding the strap +of her slip. +"You've got to prevent it!" she said, in the belligerent tone of a plea +disguised as a command. "You've got to stop it!" +"Really? What?" +"My divorce." +"Oh . . . !" His features dropped into sudden earnestness. +"You know that he's going to divorce me, don't you?" +"I've heard some rumors about it." +"It's set for next month. And when I say set, that's just what I mean. +Oh, it's cost him plenty—but he's bought the judge, the clerks, the +bailiffs, their backers, their backers1 backers, a few legislators, half a +dozen administrators—he's bought the whole legal process, like a private +thoroughfare, and there's no single crossroad left for me to squeeze through +to stop it!" +"I see." +"You know, of course, what made him start divorce proceedings?" +"I can guess." +"And I did it as a favor to you!" Her voice was growing anxiously shrill. +"I told you about your sister in order to let you get that Gift Certificate +for your friends, which—" +"I swear I don't know who let it out!" he cried hastily. "Only a very few +at the top knew that you'd been our informer, and I'm sure nobody would dare +mention—" +"Oh, I'm sure nobody did. He'd have the brains to guess it, wouldn't he?" +"Yes, I suppose so. Well, then you knew that you were taking a chance." + + "I didn't think he'd go that far. I didn't think he'd ever divorce me. +I didn't—" +He chuckled suddenly, with a glance of astonishing perceptiveness. +"You didn't think that guilt is a rope that wears thin, did you, Lillian?" +She looked at him, startled, then answered stonily, "I don't think it +does." +"It does, my dear—for men such as your husband." +"I don't want him to divorce me!" It was a sudden scream. "I don't want to +let him go free! I won't permit it! I won't let the whole of my life be a +total failure!" She stopped abruptly, as if she had admitted too much. +He was chuckling softly, nodding his head with a slow movement that had an +air of intelligence, almost of dignity, by signifying a complete +understanding. +"I mean . . . after all, he's my husband," she said defensively. +"Yes, Lillian, yes, I know." +"Do you know what he's planning? He's going to get the decree and he's +going to cut me off without a penny—no settlement, no alimony, nothing! He's +going to have the last word. Don't you see? If he gets away with it, then . . +. then the Gift Certificate was no victory for me at all!" +"Yes, my dear, I see." +"And besides . . . It's preposterous that I should have to think of it, +but what am I going to live on? The little money I had of my own is worth +nothing nowadays. It's mainly stock in factories of my father's time, that +have closed long ago. What am I going to do?" +"But, Lillian," he said softly, "I thought you had no concern for money or +for any material rewards." +"You don't understand! I'm not talking about money—I'm talking about +poverty! Real, stinking, hall-bedroom poverty! That's out of bounds for any +civilized person! I—I to have to worry about food and rent?" +He was watching her with a faint smile; for once, his soft, aging face +seemed tightened into a look of wisdom; he was discovering the pleasure of +full perception—in a reality which he could permit himself to perceive. +"Jim, you've got to help me! My lawyer is powerless. I've spent the little +I had, on him and on his investigators, friends and fixers—but all they could +do for me was find out that they can do nothing. My lawyer gave me his final +report this afternoon. He told me bluntly that I haven't a chance. I don't +seem to know anyone who can help against a setup of this kind. I had counted +on Bertram Scudder, but . . . +well, you know what happened to Bertram. And that, too, was because I had +tried to help you. You pulled yourself out of that one. Jim, you're the only +person who can pull me out now. You've got your gopher-hole pipe line +straight up to the top. You can reach the big boys. Slip a word to your +friends to slip a word to their friends. One word from Wesley would do it. +Have them order that divorce decree to be refused. Just have it be refused." +He shook his head slowly, almost compassionately, like a tired +professional at an overzealous amateur. "It can't be done, Lillian," he said +firmly. "I'd like to do it—for the same reasons as yours—and I think you know +it. But whatever power I have is not enough in this case." +She was looking at him, her eyes dark with an odd, lifeless stillness; +when she spoke, the motion of her lips was twisted by so evil a contempt that +he did not dare identify it beyond knowing that it embraced them both; she +said, "I know that you'd like to do it." +He felt no desire to pretend; oddly, for the first time, for this one +chance, truth seemed much more pleasurable—truth, for once, serving his +particular kind of enjoyment. "I think you know that it can't be done," he +said. "Nobody does favors nowadays, if there's nothing to gain in return. And +the stakes are getting higher and higher. The gopher holes, as you called + + them, are so complex, so twisted and intertwisted that everybody has +something on everybody else, and nobody dares move because he can't tell +who'll crack which way or when. So he'll move only when he has to, when the +stakes are life or death—and that's practically the only kind of stakes we're +playing for now. Well, what's your private life to any of those boys? That +you'd like to hold your husband—what's in it for them, one way or another? +And my personal stock-in-trade—well, there's nothing I could offer them at +the moment in exchange for trying to blast a whole court clique out of a +highly profitable deal. Besides, right now, the top boys wouldn't do it at +any price. They have to be mighty careful of your husband—he's the man who's +safe from them right now—ever since that radio broadcast of my sister's." +"You asked me to force her to speak on that broadcast!" +"I know, Lillian. We lost, both of us, that time. And we lose, both of us, +now." +"Yes," she said, with the same darkness of contempt in her eyes, "both of +us." +It was the contempt that pleased him; it was the strange, heedless, +unfamiliar pleasure of knowing that this woman saw him as he was, yet +remained held by his presence, remained and leaned back in her chair, as if +declaring her bondage. +"You're a wonderful person, Jim," she said. It had the sound of damnation. +Yet it was a tribute, and she meant it as such, and his pleasure came from +the knowledge that they were in a realm where damnation was value. +"You know," he said suddenly, "you're wrong about those butcher's +assistants, like Gonzales. They have their uses. Have you ever liked +Francisco d'Anconia?" +"I can't stand him." +"Well, do you know the real purpose of that cocktail-swilling occasion +staged by Senor Gonzales tonight? It was to celebrate the agreement to +nationalize d'Anconia Copper in about a month." +She looked at him for a moment, the corners of her lips lifting slowly +into a smile. "He was your friend, wasn't he?" +Her voice had a tone he had never earned before, the tone of an emotion +which he had drawn from people only by fraud, but which now, for the first +time, was granted with full awareness to the real, the actual nature of his +deed: a tone of admiration. +Suddenly, he knew that this was the goal of his restless hours, this was +the pleasure he had despaired of finding, this was the celebration he had +wanted. +"Let's have a drink, Lil." he said. +Pouring the liquor, he glanced at her across the room, as she lay +stretched limply in her chair. "Let him get his divorce," he said, "He won't +have the last word. They will. The butcher's assistants. Senor Gonzales and +Cuffy Meigs." +She did not answer. When he approached, she took the glass from him with a +sloppily indifferent sweep of her hand. She drank, not in the manner of a +social gesture, but like a lonely drinker in a saloon—for the physical sake +of the liquor. +He sat down on the arm of the davenport, improperly close to her, and +sipped his drink, watching her face. After a while, he asked, "What does he +think of me?" +The question did not seem to astonish her. "He thinks you're a fool," she +answered. "He thinks life's too short to have to notice your existence." +"He'd notice it, if—" He stopped. +"—if you bashed him over the head with a club? I'm not too sure. +He'd merely blame himself for not having moved out of the club's reach. +Still, that would be your only chance." + + She shifted her body, sliding lower in the armchair, stomach forward, as +if relaxation were ugliness, as if she were granting him the kind of intimacy +that required no poise and no respect. +"That was the first thing I noticed about him," she said, "when I met him +for the first time: that he was not afraid. He looked as if he felt certain +that there was nothing any of us could do to him—so certain that he didn't +even know the issue or the nature of what he felt." +"How long since you saw him last?" +"Three months. I haven't seen him since . . . since the Gift Certificate . +. ." +"I saw him at an industrial meeting two weeks ago. He still looks that +way—only more so. Now, he looks as if he knows it." He added, "You have +failed, Lillian." +She did not answer. She pushed her hat off with the back of her hand; it +rolled down to the carpet, its feather curling like a question mark. "I +remember the first time I saw his mills," she said. "His mills! +You can't imagine what he felt about them. You wouldn't know the kind of +intellectual arrogance it takes to feel as if anything pertaining to him, +anything he touched, were made sacred by the touch. His mills, his Metal, his +money, his bed, his wife!" She glanced up at him, a small flicker piercing +the lethargic emptiness of her eyes. "He never noticed your existence. He did +notice mine. I'm still Mrs. Rearden—at least for another month." +"Yes . . ." he said, looking down at her with a sudden, new interest. +"Mrs. Rearden!" she chuckled. "You wouldn't know what that meant to him. +No feudal lord ever felt or demanded such reverence for the title of his +wife—or held it as such a symbol of honor. Of his unbending, untouchable, +inviolate, stainless honor!" She waved her hand in a vague motion, indicating +the length of her sprawled body. "Caesar's wife!" she chuckled. "Do you +remember what she was supposed to be? +No, you wouldn't. She was supposed to be above reproach," +He was staring down at her with the heavy, blind stare of impotent hatred— +a hatred of which she was the sudden symbol, not the object. +"He didn't like it when his Metal was thrown into common, public use, for +any chance passer-by to make . . . did he?" +"No, he didn't." +His words were blurring a little, as if weighted with drops of the liquor +he had swallowed: "Don't tell me that you helped us to get that Gift +Certificate as a favor to me and that you gained nothing. . . . I know why +you did it." +"You knew it at the time." +"Sure. That's why I like you, Lillian." +His eyes kept coming back to the low cut of her gown. It was not the +smooth skin that attracted his glance, not the exposed rise of her breasts, +but the fraud of the safety pin beyond the edge. +"I'd like to see him beaten," he said. "I'd like to hear him scream with +pain, just once." +"You won't, Jimmy." +"Why does he think he's better than the rest of us—he and that sister of +mine?" +She chuckled, He rose as if she had slapped him. He went to the bar and +poured himself another drink, not offering to refill her glass. +She was speaking into space, staring past him. "He did notice my +existence—even though I can't lay railroad tracks for him and erect bridges +to the glory of his Metal. I can't build his mills—but I can destroy them. I +can't produce his Metal—but I can take it away from him. I can't bring men +down to their knees in admiration—but I can bring them down to their knees." + + "Shut up!" he screamed in terror, as if she were coming too close to that +fogbound alley which had to remain unseen. +She glanced up at his face. "You're such a coward, Jim." +"Why don't you get drunk?" he snapped, sticking his unfinished drink at +her mouth, as if he wanted to strike her. +Her fingers half-closed limply about the glass, and she drank, spilling +the liquor down her chin, her breast and her gown. +"Oh hell, Lillian, you're a mess!" he said and, not troubling to reach for +his handkerchief, he stretched out his hand to wipe the liquor with the flat +of his palm. His fingers slipped under the gown's neckline, closing over her +breast, his breath catching in a sudden gulp, like a hiccough. His eyelids +were drawing closed, but he caught a glimpse of her face leaning back +unresistingly, her mouth swollen with revulsion. +When he reached for her mouth, her arms embraced him obediently and her +mouth responded, but the response was just a pressure, not a kiss. +He raised his head to glance at her face. Her teeth were bared in a smile, +but she was staring past him, as if mocking some invisible presence, her +smile lifeless, yet loud with malice, like the grin of a fleshless skull. +He jerked her closer, to stifle the sight and his own shudder. His hands +were going through the automatic motions of intimacy—and she complied, but in +a manner that made him feel as if the beats of her arteries under his touch +were snickering giggles. They were both performing an expected routine, a +routine invented by someone and imposed upon them, performing it in mockery, +in hatred, in defiling parody on its inventors. +He felt a sightless, heedless fury, part-horror, part-pleasure—the horror +of committing an act he would never dare confess to anyone— +the pleasure of committing it in blasphemous defiance of those to whom he +would not dare confess it. He was himself!—the only conscious part of his +rage seemed to be screaming to him—he was, at last, himself! +They did not speak. They knew each other's motive. Only two words were +pronounced between them. "Mrs. Rearden," he said. +They did not look at each other when he pushed her into his bedroom and +onto his bed, falling against her body, as against a soft. +stuffed object. Their faces had a look of secrecy, the look of partners in +guilt, the furtive, smutty look of children defiling someone's clean fence by +chalking sneaky scratches intended as symbols of obscenity. +Afterward, it did not disappoint him that what he had possessed was an +inanimate body without resistance or response. It was not a woman that he had +wanted to possess. It was not an act in celebration of life that he had +wanted to perform—but an act in celebration of the triumph of impotence. +Cherryl unlocked the door and slipped in quietly, almost surreptitiously, +as if hoping not to be seen or to see the place which was her home. The sense +of Dagny's presence—of Dagny's world—had supported her on her way back, but +when she entered her own apartment the walls seemed to swallow her again into +the suffocation of a trap. +The apartment was silent; a wedge of light cut across the anteroom from a +door left half-open. She dragged herself mechanically in the direction of her +room. Then she stopped. +The open band of light was the door of Jim's study, and on the illuminated +strip of its carpet she saw a woman's hat with a feather stirring faintly in +a draft. +She took a step forward. The room was empty, she saw two glasses, one on a +table, the other on the floor, and a woman's purse lying on the seat of an +armchair. She stood, in unexacting stupor, until she heard the muffled drawl +of two voices behind the door of Jim's bedroom; she could not distinguish the +words, only the quality of the sounds: Jim's voice had a tone of irritation, +the woman's—of contempt. + + Then she found herself in her own room, fumbling frantically to lock her +door. She had been flung here by the blind panic of escape, as if it were she +who had to hide, she who had to run from the ugliness of being seen in the +act of seeing them—a panic made of revulsion, of pity, of embarrassment, of +that mental chastity which recoils from confronting a man with the +unanswerable proof of his evil. +She stood in the middle of her room, unable to grasp what action was now +possible to her. Then her knees gave way, folding gently, she found herself +sitting on the floor and she stayed there, staring at the carpet, shaking. +It was neither anger nor jealousy nor indignation, but the blank horror of +dealing with the grotesquely senseless. It was the knowledge that neither +their marriage nor his love for her nor his insistence on holding her nor his +love for that other woman nor this gratuitous adultery had any meaning +whatever, that there was no shred of sense in any of it and no use to grope +for explanations. She had always thought of evil as purposeful, as a means to +some end; what she was seeing now was evil for evil's sake. +She did not know how long she had sat there, when she heard their steps +and voices, then the sound of the front door closing. She got up, with no +purpose in mind, but impelled by some instinct from the past, as if acting in +a vacuum where honesty was not relevant any longer, but knowing no other way +to act. +She met Jim in the anteroom. For a moment, they looked at each other as if +neither could believe the other's reality. +"When did you come back?" he snapped. "How long have you been home?" +"I don't know . . ." +He was looking at her face. "What's the matter with you?" +"Jim, I—" She struggled, gave up and waved her hand toward his bedroom. +"Jim, I know." +"What do you know?" +"You were there . . . with a woman." +His first action was to push her into his study and slam the door, as if +to hide them both, he could no longer say from whom. An unadmitted rage was +boiling in his mind, struggling between escape and explosion, and it blew up +into the sensation that this negligible little wife of his was depriving him +of his triumph, that he would not surrender to her his new enjoyment. +"Sure!" he screamed. "So what? What are you going to do about it?" +She stared at him blankly. +"Sure! I was there with a woman! That's what I did, because that's what I +felt like doing! Do you think you're going to scare me with your gasps, your +stares, your whimpering virtue?" He snapped his fingers. +"That for your opinion! I don't give a hoot in hell about your opinion! +Take it and like it!" It was her white, defenseless face that drove him +on, lashing him into a state of pleasure, the pleasure of feeling as if his +words were blows disfiguring a human face. "Do you think you're going to make +me hide? I'm sick of having to put on an act for your righteous satisfaction! +Who the hell are you, you cheap little nobody? +I'll do as I please, and you'll keep your mouth shut and go through the +right tricks in public, like everybody else, and stop demanding that I act in +my own home!—nobody is virtuous in his own home, the show is only for +company!—but if you expect me to mean it—to mean it, you damn little fool!— +you'd better grow up in a hurry!" +It was not her face that he was seeing, it was the face of the man at whom +he wanted and would never be able to throw his deed of this night—but she had +always stood as the worshipper, the defender, the agent of that man in his +eyes, he had married her for it, so she could serve his purpose now, and he +screamed, "Do you know who she was, the woman I laid? It was—" +"No!" she cried. "Jim! I don't have to know it!" + + "It was Mrs. Rearden! Mrs. Hank Rearden!" +She stepped back. He felt a brief flash of terror—because she was looking +at him as if she were seeing that which had to remain unadmitted to himself. +She asked, in a dead voice that had the incongruous sound of common sense, "I +suppose you will now want us to get divorced?" +He burst out laughing. "You goddamn fool! You still mean it! You still +want it big and pure' I wouldn't think of divorcing you—and don't go +imagining that I'll let you divorce me! You think it's as important as that? +Listen, you fool, there isn't a husband who doesn't sleep with other women +and there isn't a wife who doesn't know it, but they don't talk about it! +I'll lay anybody I please, and you go and do the same, like all those +bitches, and keep your mouth shut!" +He saw the sudden, startling sight of a look of hard, unclouded, +unfeeling, almost inhuman intelligence in her eyes. "Jim, if I were the kind +who did or would, you wouldn't have married me." +"No. I wouldn't have." +"Why did you marry me?" +He felt himself drawn as by a whirlpool, part in relief that the moment of +danger was past, part in irresistible defiance of the same danger. "Because +you were a cheap, helpless, preposterous little guttersnipe, who'd never have +a chance at anything to equal me! Because I thought you'd love me! I thought +you'd know that you had to love me!" +"As you are?" +"Without daring to ask what I am! Without reasons! Without putting me on +the spot always to live up to reason after reason after reason, like being on +some goddamn dress parade to the end of my days!" +"You loved me . . . because I was worthless?" +"Well, what did you think you were?" +"You loved me for being rotten?" +"What else did you have to offer? But you didn't have the humility to +appreciate it. I wanted to be generous, I wanted to give you security—what +security is there in being loved for one's virtues? The competition's wide +open, like a jungle market place, a better person will always come along to +beat you! But I—I was willing to love you for your flaws, for your faults and +weaknesses, for your ignorance, your crudeness, your vulgarity—and that's +safe, you'd have nothing to fear, nothing to hide, you could be yourself, +your real, stinking, sinful, ugly self—everybody's self is a gutter—but you +could hold my love, with nothing demanded of you!" +"You wanted me to . . . accept your love . . . as alms'"' +"Did you imagine that you could earn it? Did you imagine that you could +deserve to marry me, you poor little tramp? I used to buy the likes of you +for the price of a meal! I wanted you to know, with every step you took, with +every mouthful of caviar you swallowed, that you owed it all to me, that you +had nothing and were nothing and could never hope to equal, deserve or +repay!" +"I . . . tried . . . to deserve it." +"Of what use would you be to me, if you had?" +"You didn't want me to?" +"Oh, you goddamn fool!" +"You didn't want me to improve? You didn't want me to rise? You thought me +rotten and you wanted me to stay rotten?" +"Of what use would you be to me, if you earned it all, and I had to work +to hold you, and you could trade elsewhere if you chose?" +"You wanted it to be alms . . . for both of us and from both? +You wanted us to be two beggars chained to each other?" +"Yes, you goddamn evangelist! Yes, you goddamn hero worshipper! +Yes!" + + "You chose me because I was worthless?" +"Yes!" +"You're lying, Jim." +His answer was only a startled glance of astonishment. +"Those girls that you used to buy for the price of a meal, they would have +been glad to let their real selves become a gutter, they would have taken +your alms and never tried to rise, but you would not marry one of them. You +married me, because you knew that I did not accept the gutter, inside or out, +that I was struggling to rise and would go on struggling—didn't you?" +"Yes!" he cried. +Then the headlight she had felt rushing upon her, hit its goal—and she +screamed in the bright explosion of the impact—she screamed in physical +terror, backing away from him. +"What's the matter with you?" he cried, shaking, not daring to see in her +eyes the thing she had seen. +She moved her hands in groping gestures, half-waving it away, half trying +to grasp it; when she answered, her words did not quite name it, but they +were the only words she could find: "You . . . you're a killer . . . for the +sake of killing . . ." +It was too close to the unnamed; shaking with terror, he swung out blindly +and struck her in the face. +She fell against the side of an armchair, her head striking the floor, but +she raised her head in a moment and looked up at him blankly, without +astonishment, as if physical reality were merely taking the form she had +expected. A single pear-shaped drop of blood went slithering slowly from the +corner of her mouth. +He stood motionless—and for a moment they looked at each other, as if +neither dared to move. +She moved first. She sprang to her feet—and ran. She ran out of the room, +out of the apartment—he heard her running down the hall, tearing open the +iron door of the emergency stairway, not waiting to ring for the elevator. +She ran down the stairs, opening doors on random landings, running through +the twisting hallways of the building, then down the stairs again, until she +found herself in the lobby and ran to the street. +After a while, she saw that she was walking down a littered sidewalk in a +dark neighborhood, with an electric bulb glaring in the cave of a subway +entrance and a lighted billboard advertising soda crackers on the black roof +of a laundry. She did not remember how she had come here. Her mind seemed to +work in broken spurts, without connections. +She knew only that she had to escape and that escape was impossible. +She had to escape from Jim, she thought. Where?—she asked, looking around +her with a glance like a cry of prayer. She would have seized upon a job in a +five-and-ten, or in that laundry, or in any of the dismal shops she passed. +But she would work, she thought, and the harder she worked, the more +malevolence she would draw from the people around her, and she would not know +when truth would be expected of her and when a lie, but the stricter her +honesty, the greater the fraud she would be asked to suffer at their hands. +She had seen it before and had borne it, in the home of her family, in the +shops of the slums, but she had thought that these were vicious exceptions, +chance evils, to escape and forget. Now she knew that they were not +exceptions, that theirs was the code accepted by the world, that it was a +creed of living, known by all, but kept unnamed, leering at her from people's +eyes in that sly, guilty look she had never been able to understand—and at +the root of the creed, hidden by silence, lying in wait for her in the +cellars of the city and in the cellars of their souls, there was a thing with +which one could not live. + + Why are you doing it to me?—she cried soundlessly to the darkness around +her. Because you're good—some enormous laughter seemed to be answering from +the roof tops and from the sewers. Then I won't want to be good any longer— +But you will—I don't have to—You will— +I can't bear it—You will. +She shuddered and walked faster—but ahead of her, in the foggy distance, +she saw the calendar above the roofs of the city—it was long past midnight +and the calendar said: August 6, but it seemed to her suddenly that she saw +September 2 written above the city in letters of blood—and she thought: If +she worked, if she struggled, if she rose., she would take a harder beating +with each step of her climb, until, at the end, whatever she reached, be it a +copper company or an unmortgaged cottage, she would see it seized by Jim on +some September 2 +and she would see it vanish to pay for the parties where Jim made his +deals with his friends. +Then I won't!—she screamed and whirled around and went running back along +the street—but it seemed to her that in the black sky. +grinning at her from the steam of the laundry, there weaved an enormous +figure that would hold no shape, but its grin remained the same on its +changing faces, and its face was Jim's and her childhood preacher's and the +woman social worker's from the personnel department of the five-and-ten—and +the grin seemed to say to her: People like you will always stay honest, +people like you will always struggle to rise, people like you will always +work, so we're safe and you have no choice. +She ran. When she looked around her once more, she was walking down a +quiet street, past the glass doorways where lights were burning in the +carpeted lobbies of luxurious buildings. She noticed that she was limping, +and saw that the heel of her pump was loose; she had broken it somewhere in +her blank span of running. +From the sudden space of a broad intersection, she looked at the great +skyscrapers in the distance. They were vanishing quietly into a veil of fog, +with the faint breath of a glow behind them, with a few lights like a smile +of farewell. Once, they had been a promise, and from the midst of the +stagnant sloth around her she had looked to them for proof that another kind +of men existed. Now she knew that they were tombstones, slender obelisks +soaring in memory of the men who had been destroyed for having created them, +they were the frozen shape of the silent cry that the reward of achievement +was martyrdom. +Somewhere in one of those vanishing towers, she thought, there was Dagny— +but Dagny was a lonely victim, fighting a losing battle, to be destroyed and +to sink into fog like the others. +There is no place to go, she thought and stumbled on—T can't stand still, +nor move much longer—I can neither work nor rest—I can neither surrender nor +fight—but this . . . this is what they want of me, this is where they want +me—neither living nor dead, neither thinking nor insane, but just a chunk of +pulp that screams with fear, to be shaped by them as they please, they who +have no shape of their own. +She plunged into the darkness behind a corner, shrinking in dread from any +human figure. No, she thought, they're not evil, not all people . . . they're +only their own first victims, but they all believe in Jim's creed, and I +can't deal with them, once I know it . . . and if I spoke to them, they would +try to grant me their good will, but I'd know what it is that they hold as +the good and I would see death staring out of their eyes. +The sidewalk had shrunk to a broken strip, and splashes of garbage ran +over from the cans at the stoops of crumbling houses. Beyond the dusty glow +of a saloon, she saw a lighted sign "Young Women's Rest Club" above a locked +door. + + She knew the institutions of that kind and the women who ran them, the +women who said that theirs was the job of helping sufferers. +If she went in—she thought, stumbling past—if she faced them and begged +them for help, "What is your guilt?" they would ask her. +"Drink? Dope? Pregnancy? Shoplifting?" She would answer, "I have no guilt, +I am innocent, but I'm—" "Sorry. We have no concern for the pain of the +innocent." +She ran. She stopped, regaining her eyesight, on the corner of a long, +wide street. The buildings and pavements merged with the sky—and two lines of +green lights hung in open space, going off into an endless distance, as if +stretching into other towns and oceans and foreign lands, to encircle the +earth. The green glow had a look of serenity, like an inviting, unlimited +path open to confident travel. Then the lights switched to red, dropping +heavily lower, turning from sharp circles into foggy smears, into a warning +of unlimited danger. She stood and watched a giant truck-go by, its enormous +wheels crushing one more layer of shiny polish into the flattened cobbles of +the street. +The lights went back to the green of safety—but she stood trembling, +unable to move. That's how it works for the travel of one's body, she +thought, but what have they done to the traffic of the soul? They have set +the signals in reverse—and the road is safe when the lights are the red of +evil—but when the lights are the green of virtue, promising that yours is the +right-of-way, you venture forth and are ground by the wheels. All over the +world, she thought—those inverted lights go reaching into every land, they go +on, encircling the earth. And the earth is littered with mangled cripples, +who don't know what has hit them or why, who crawl as best they can on their +crushed limbs through their lightless days, with no answer save that pain is +the core of existence— +and the traffic cops of morality chortle and tell them that man, by his +nature, is unable to walk. +These were not words in her mind, these were the words which would have +named, had she had the power to find them, what she knew only as a sudden +fury that made her beat her fists in futile horror against the iron post of +the traffic light beside her, against the hollow tube where the hoarse, rusty +chuckle of a relentless mechanism went grating on and on. +She could not smash it with her fists, she could not batter one by one all +the posts of the street stretching off beyond eyesight—as she could not smash +that creed from the souls of the men she would encounter, one by one. She +could not deal with people any longer, she could not take the paths they +took—but what could she say to them, she who had no words to name the thing +she knew and no voice that people would hear? What could she tell them? How +could she reach them all? +Where were the men who could have spoken? +These were not words in her mind, these were only the blows of: her fists +against metal—then she saw herself suddenly, battering her knuckles to blood +against an immovable post, and the sight made her shudder—and she stumbled +away. She went on, seeing nothing around her, feeling trapped in a maze with +no exit. +No exit—her shreds of awareness were saying, beating it into the pavements +in the sound of her steps—no exit . . . no refuge . . . no signals . . . no +way to tell destruction from safety, or enemy from friend. . . . Like that +dog she had heard about, she thought . . . +somebody's dog in somebody's laboratory . . . the dog who got his signals +switched on him, and saw no way to tell satisfaction from torture, saw food +changed to beatings and beatings to food, saw his eyes and ears deceiving him +and his judgment futile and his consciousness impotent in a shifting, + + swimming, shapeless world—and gave up, refusing to eat at that price or to +live in a world of that kind. . . . No!— +was the only conscious word in her brain—no!—no!—no!—not your way, not +your world—even if this "no" is all that's to be left of mine! +It was in the darkest hour of the night, in an alley among wharfs and +warehouses that the social worker saw her. The social worker was a woman +whose gray face and gray coat blended with the walls of the district. She saw +a young girl wearing a suit too smart and expensive for the neighborhood, +with no hat, no purse, with a broken heel, disheveled hair and a bruise at +the corner of her mouth, a girl staggering blindly, not knowing sidewalks +from pavements. The street was only a narrow crack between the sheer, blank +walls of storage structures, but a ray of light fell through a fog dank with +the odor of rotting water; a stone parapet ended the street on the edge of a +vast black hole merging river and sky. +The social worker approached her and asked severely, "Are you in +trouble?"—and saw one wary eye, the other hidden by a lock of hair, and the +face of a wild creature who has forgotten the sound of human voices, but +listens as to a distant echo, with suspicion, yet almost with hope. +The social worker seized her arm. "It's a disgrace to come to such a state +. . . if you society girls had something to do besides indulging your desires +and chasing pleasures, you wouldn't be wandering, drunk as a tramp, at this +hour of the night . . . if you stopped living for your own enjoyment, stopped +thinking of yourself and found some higher—" +Then the girl screamed—and the scream went beating against the blank walls +of the street as in a chamber of torture, an animal scream of terror. She +tore her arm loose and sprang back, then screamed in articulate sounds: "No! +No! Not your kind of world!" +Then she ran, ran by the sudden propulsion of a burst of power, the power +of a creature running for its life, she ran straight down the street that +ended at the river—and in a single streak of speed, with no break, no moment +of doubt, with full consciousness of acting in self-preservation, she kept +running till the parapet barred her way and, not stopping, went over into +space. + + CHAPTER V +THEIR BROTHERS' KEEPERS +On the morning of September 2, a copper wire broke in California, between +two telephone poles by the track of the Pacific branch line of Taggart +Transcontinental. +A slow, thin rain had been falling since midnight, and there had been no +sunrise, only a gray light seeping through a soggy sky—and the brilliant +raindrops hanging on the telephone wires had been the only sparks glittering +against the chalk of the clouds, the lead of the ocean and the steel of the +oil derricks descending as lone bristles down a desolate hillside. The wires +had been worn by more rains and years than they had been intended to carry; +one of them had kept sagging, through the hours of that morning, under the +fragile load of raindrops; then its one last drop had grown on the wire's +curve and had hung like a crystal bead, gathering the weight of many seconds; +the bead and the wire had given up together and, as soundless as the fall of +tears, the wire had broken and fallen with the fall of the bead. +The men at the Division Headquarters of Taggart Transcontinental avoided +looking at one another, when the break of the telephone line was discovered +and reported. They made statements painfully miscalculated to seem to refer +to the problem, yet to state nothing, none fooling the others. They knew that +copper wire was a vanishing commodity, more precious than gold or honor; they +knew that the division storekeeper had sold their stock of wire weeks ago, to +unknown dealers who came by night and were not businessmen in the daytime, +but only men who had friends in Sacramento and in Washington—just as the +storekeeper, recently appointed to the division, had a friend in New York, +named Cuffy Meigs, about whom one asked no questions. They knew that the man +who would now assume the responsibility of ordering repairs and initiating +the action which would lead to the discovery that the repairs could not be +made, would incur retaliation from unknown enemies, that his fellow workers +would become mysteriously silent and would not testify to help him, that he +would prove nothing, and if he attempted to do his job, it would not be his +any longer. They did not know what was safe or dangerous these days, when the +guilty were not punished, but the accusers were; and, like animals, they knew +that immobility was the only protection when in doubt and in danger. They +remained immobile; they spoke about the appropriate procedure of sending +reports to the appropriate authorities on the appropriate dates. +A young roadmaster walked out of the room and out of the headquarters +building to the safety of a telephone booth in a drugstore and, at his own +expense, ignoring the continent and the tiers of appropriate executives +between, he telephoned Dagny Taggart in New York. +She received the call in her brother's office, interrupting an emergency +conference. The young roadmaster told her only that the telephone line was +broken and that there was no wire to repair it; he said nothing else and he +did not explain why he had found it necessary to call her in person. She did +not question him; she understood. "Thank you," was all that she answered. +An emergency file in her office kept a record of all the crucial materials +still on hand, on every division of Taggart Transcontinental. +Like the file of a bankrupt, it kept registering losses, while the rare +additions of new supplies seemed like the malicious chuckles of some +tormentor throwing crumbs at a starving continent. She looked through the +file, closed it, sighed and said, "Montana, Eddie. Phone the Montana Line to +ship half their stock of wire to California. Montana might be able to last +without it—for another week." And as Eddie Willers was about to protest, she +added, "Oil, Eddie. California is one of the last producers of oil left in + + the country. We don't dare lose the Pacific Line." Then she went back to the +conference in her brother's office. +"Copper wire?" said James Taggart, with an odd glance that went from her +face to the city beyond the window. "In a very short while, we won't have any +trouble about copper." +"Why?" she asked, but he did not answer. There was nothing special to see +beyond the window, only the clear sky of a sunny day, the quiet light of +early afternoon on the roofs of the city and, above them, the page of the +calendar, saying: September 2. +She did not know why he had insisted on holding this conference in his own +office, why he had insisted on speaking to her alone, which he had always +tried to avoid, or why he kept glancing at his wrist watch. +"Things are, it seems to me, going wrong," he said. "Something has to be +done. There appears to exist a state of dislocation and confusion tending +toward an uncoordinated, unbalanced policy. What I mean is, there's a +tremendous national demand for transportation, yet we're losing money. It +seems to me—" +She sat looking at the ancestral map of Taggart Transcontinental on the +wall of his office, at the red arteries winding across a yellowed continent. +There had been a time when the railroad was called the blood system of the +nation, and the stream of trains had been like a living circuit of blood, +bringing growth and wealth to every patch of wilderness it touched. Now. it +was still like a stream of blood, but like the one-way stream that runs from +a wound, draining the last of a body's sustenance and life. One-way traffic— +she thought indifferently—consumers' traffic. +There was Train Number 193, she thought. Six weeks ago, Train Number 193 +had been sent with a load of steel, not to Faulkton, Nebraska, where the +Spencer Machine Tool Company, the best machine tool concern still in +existence, had been idle for two weeks, waiting for the shipment—but to Sand +Creek, Illinois, where Confederated Machines had been wallowing in debt for +over a year, producing unreliable goods at unpredictable times. The steel had +been allocated by a directive which explained that the Spencer Machine Tool +Company was a rich concern, able to wait, while Confederated Machines was +bankrupt and could not be allowed to collapse, being the sole source of +livelihood of the community of Sand Creek, Illinois. The Spencer Machine Tool +Company had closed a month ago. Confederated Machines had closed two weeks +later. +The people of Sand Creek, Illinois, had been placed on national relief, +but no food could be found for them in the empty granaries of the nation at +the frantic call of the moment—so the seed grain of the farmers of Nebraska +had been seized by order of the Unification Board—and Train Number 194 had +carried the unplanted harvest and the future of the people of Nebraska to be +consumed by the people of Illinois. "In this enlightened age," Eugene Lawson +had said in a radio broadcast, "we have come, at last, to realize that each +one of us is his brother's keeper." +"In a precarious period of emergency, like the present," James Taggart was +saying, while she looked at the map, "it is dangerous to find ourselves +forced to miss pay days and accumulate wage arrears on some of our divisions, +a temporary condition, of course, but—" +She chuckled. "The Railroad Unification Plan isn't working, is it, Jim?" +"I beg your pardon?" +"You're to receive a big cut of the Atlantic Southern's gross income, out +of the common pool at the end of the year—only there won't be any gross +income left for the pool to seize, will there?" +"That's not true! It's just that the bankers are sabotaging the Plan. +Those bastards—who used to give us loans in the old days, with no security +at all except our own railroad—now refuse to let me have a few measly + + hundred-thousands, on short term, just to take care of a few payrolls, when I +have the entire plant of all the railroads of the country to offer them as +security for my loan!" +She chuckled. +"We couldn't help it!" he cried. "It's not the fault of the Plan that some +people refuse to carry their fair share of our burdens!" +"Jim, was this all you wanted to tell me? If it is, I'll go. I have work +to do." +His eyes shot to his wrist watch. "No, no, that's not all! It's most +urgent that we discuss the situation and arrive at some decision, which—" +She listened blankly to the next stream of generalities, wondering about +his motive. He was marking time, yet he wasn't, not fully; she felt certain +that he was holding her here for some specific purpose and, simultaneously, +that he was holding her for the mere sake of her presence. +It was some new trait in him, which she had begun to notice ever since +Cherryl's death. He had come running to her, rushing, unannounced, into her +apartment on the evening of the day when Cherryl's body had been found and +the story of her suicide had filled the newspapers, given by some social +worker who had witnessed it; "an. inexplicable suicide," the newspapers had +called it, unable to discover any motive. "It wasn't my fault!" he had +screamed to her, as if she were the only judge whom he had to placate. "I'm +not to blame for it! I'm not to blame!" He had been shaking with terror—yet +she had caught a few glances thrown shrewdly at her face, which had seemed, +inconceivably, to convey a touch of triumph. "Get out of here, Jim," was all +she had said to him. +He had never spoken to her again about Cherry], but he had started coming +to her office more often than usual, he had stopped her in the halls for +snatches of pointless discussions—and such moments had grown into a sum that +gave her an incomprehensible sensation: as if, while clinging to her for +support and protection against some nameless terror, his arms were sliding to +embrace her and to plunge a knife into her back. +"I am eager to know your views," he was saying insistently, as she looked +away. "It is most urgent that we discuss the situation and . . . +and you haven't said anything." She did not turn. "It's not as if there +were no money to be had out of the railroad business, but—" +She glanced at him sharply; his eyes scurried away. +"What I mean is, some constructive policy has to be devised," he droned on +hastily. "Something has to be done . . . by somebody. In times of emergency—" +She knew what thought he had scurried to avoid, what hint he had given +her, yet did not want her to acknowledge or discuss. She knew that no train +schedules could be maintained any longer, no promises kept, no contracts +observed, that regular trains were cancelled at a moment's notice and +transformed into emergency specials sent by unexplained orders to unexpected +destinations—and that the orders came from Cuffy Meigs, sole judge of +emergencies and of the public welfare. +She knew that factories were closing, some with their machinery stilled +for lack of supplies that had not been received, others with their warehouses +full of goods that could not be delivered. She knew that the old industries— +the giants who had built their power by a purposeful course projected over a +span of time—were left to exist at the whim of the moment, a moment they +could not foresee or control. She knew that the best among them, those of the +longest range and most complex function, had long since gone—and those still +struggling to produce, struggling savagely to preserve the code of an age +when production had been possible, were now inserting into their contracts a +line shameful to a descendant of Nat Taggart: "Transportation permitting." + + And yet there were men—and she knew it—who were able to obtain +transportation whenever they wished, as by a mystic secret, as by the grace +of some power which one was not to question or explain. +They were the men whose dealings with Cuffy Meigs were regarded by people +as that unknowable of mystic creeds which smites the observer for the sin of +looking, so people kept their eyes closed, dreading, not ignorance, but +knowledge. She knew that deals were made whereby those men sold a commodity +known as "transportation pull"—a term which all understood, but none would +dare define. She knew that these were the men of the emergency specials, the +men who could cancel her scheduled trains and send them to any random spot of +the continent which they chose to strike with their voodoo stamp, the stamp +superseding contract, property, justice, reason and lives, the stamp stating +that "the public welfare" required the immediate salvation of that spot. +These were the men who sent trains to the relief of the Smather Brothers and +their grapefruit in Arizona—to the relief of a factory in Florida engaged in +the production of pin-ball machines— +to the relief of a horse farm in Kentucky—to the relief of Orren Boyle's +Associated Steel. +These were the men who made deals with desperate industrialists to provide +transportation for the goods stalled in their warehouses—or, failing to +obtain the percentage demanded, made deals to purchase the goods, when the +factory closed, at the bankruptcy sale, at ten cents on the dollar, and to +speed the goods away in freight cars suddenly available, away to markets +where dealers of the same kind were ready for the kill. These were the men +who hovered over factories, waiting for the last breath of a furnace, to +pounce upon the equipment—and over desolate sidings, to pounce upon the +freight cars of undelivered goods— +these were a new biological species, the hit-and-run businessmen, who did +not stay in any line of business longer than the span of one deal, who had no +payrolls to meet, no overhead to carry, no real estate to own, no equipment +to build, whose only asset and sole investment consisted of an item known as +"friendship." These were the men whom official speeches described as "the +progressive businessmen of our dynamic age," but whom people called "the pull +peddlers"—the species included many breeds, those of "transportation pull," +and of "steel pull" and "oil pull'1 and "wage-raise pull" and "suspended +sentence pull"—men who were dynamic, who kept darting all over the country +while no one else could move, men who were active and mindless, active, not +like animals, but like that which breeds, feeds and moves upon the stillness +of a corpse. +She knew that there was money to be had out of the railroad business and +she knew who was now obtaining it Cuffy Meigs was selling trains as he was +selling the last of the railroad's supplies, whenever he could rig a setup +which would not let it be discovered or proved— +selling rail to roads in Guatemala or to trolley companies in Canada, +selling wire to manufacturers of juke boxes, selling crossties for fuel in +resort hotels. +Did it matter—she thought, looking at the map—which part of the corpse had +been consumed by which type of maggot, by those who gorged themselves or by +those who gave the food to other maggots? So long as living flesh was prey to +be devoured, did it matter whose stomachs it had gone to fill? There was no +way to tell which devastation had been accomplished by the humanitarians and +which by undisguised gangsters. There was no way to tell which acts of +plunder had been prompted by the charity-lust of the Lawsons and which by the +gluttony of Cuffy Meigs—no way to tell which communities had been immolated +to feed another community one week closer to starvation and which to provide +yachts for the pull-peddlers. Did it matter? Both were alike in fact as they +were alike in spirit, both were in need and need was regarded as sole title + + to property, both were acting in strictest accordance with the same code of +morality. Both held the immolation of men as proper and both were achieving +it. There wasn't even any way to tell who were the cannibals and who the +victims—the communities that accepted as their rightful due the confiscated +clothing or fuel of a town to the east of them, found, next week, their +granaries confiscated to feed a town to the west—men had achieved the ideal +of the centuries, they were practicing it in unobstructed perfection, they +were serving need as their highest ruler, need as first claim upon them, need +as their standard of value, as the coin of their realm, as more sacred than +right and life. Men had been pushed into a pit where, shouting that man is +his brother's keeper, each was devouring his neighbor and was being devoured +by his neighbor's brother, each was proclaiming the righteousness of the +unearned and wondering who was stripping the skin off his back, each was +devouring himself, while screaming in terror that some unknowable evil was +destroying the earth. +"What complaint do they now have to make?" she heard Hugh Akston's voice +in her mind. "That the universe is irrational? Is it?" +She sat looking at the map, her glance dispassionately solemn, as if no +emotion save respect were permissible when observing the awesome power of +logic. She was seeing—in the chaos of a perishing continent —the precise, +mathematical execution of all the ideas men had held. +They had not wanted to know that this was what they wanted, they had not +wanted to see that they had the power to wish, but not the power to fake—and +they had achieved their wish to the letter, to the last bloodstained comma of +it. +What were they thinking now, the champions of need and the lechers of +pity?—she wondered. What were they counting on? Those who had once simpered: +"I don't want to destroy the rich, I only want to seize a little of their +surplus to help the poor, just a little, they'll never miss it!"—then, later, +had snapped: "The tycoons can stand being squeezed, they've amassed enough to +last them for three generations"— +then, later, had yelled: "Why should the people suffer while businessmen +have reserves to last a year?"—now were screaming: "Why should we starve +while some people have reserves to last a week?" What were they counting on?— +she wondered. +"You must do something!" cried James Taggart. +She whirled to face him. "I?" +"It's your job, it's your province, it's your duty!" +"What is?" +"To act. To do." +"To do—what?" +"How should I know? It's your special talent. You're the doer." +She glanced at him: the statement was so oddly perceptive and so +incongruously irrelevant. She rose to her feet. +"Is this all, Jim?" +"No! No! I want a discussion!" +"Go ahead." +"But you haven't said anything!" +"You haven't, either." +"But . . . What I mean is, there are practical problems to solve, which . +. . For instance, what was that matter of our last allocation of new rail +vanishing from the storehouse in Pittsburgh?" +"Cuffy Meigs stole it and sold it." +"Can you prove it?" he snapped defensively. +"Have your friends left any means, methods, rules or agencies of proof?" +"Then don't talk about it, don't be theoretical, we've got to deal with +facts! We've got to deal with facts as they are today . . . I mean, we've got + + to be realistic and devise some practical means to protect our supplies under +existing conditions, not under unprovable assumptions, which—" +She chuckled. There was the form of the formless, she thought, there was +the method of his consciousness: he wanted her to protect him from Cuffy +Meigs without acknowledging Meigs' existence, to fight it without admitting +its reality, to defeat it without disturbing its game. +"What do you find so damn funny?" he snapped angrily. +"You know it" +"I don't know what's the matter with you! I don't know what's happened to +you . . . in the last two months . . . ever since you came back. . . . You've +never been so uncooperative!" +"Why, Jim, I haven't argued with you in the last two months." +"That's what I mean!" He caught himself hastily, but not fast enough to +miss her smile. "I mean, I wanted to have a conference, I wanted to know your +view of the situation—" +"You know it." +"But you haven't said a word!" +"I said everything I had to say, three years ago. I told you where your +course would take you. It has." +"Now there you go again! What's the use of theorizing? We're here, we're +not back three years ago. We've got to deal with the present, not the past. +Maybe things would have been different, if we had followed your opinion, +maybe, but the fact is that we didn't—and we've got to deal with facts. We've +got to take reality as it is now, today!" +"Well, take it." +"I beg your pardon?" +"Take your reality. I'll merely take your orders." +"That's unfair! I'm asking for your opinion—" +"You're asking for reassurance, Jim. You're not going to get it." +"I beg your pardon?" +"I'm not going to help you pretend—by arguing with you—that the reality +you're talking about is not what it is, that there's still a way to make it +work and to save your neck. There isn't." +"Well . . ." There was no explosion, no anger—only the feebly uncertain +voice of a man on the verge of abdication. "Well . . . what would you want me +to do?" +"Give up." He looked at her blankly. "Give up—all of you, you and your +Washington friends and your looting planners and the whole of your cannibal +philosophy. Give up and get out of the way and let those of us who can, start +from scratch out of the ruins." +"No!" The explosion came, oddly, now; it was the scream of a man who would +die rather than betray his idea, and it came from a man who had spent his +life evading the existence of ideas, acting with the expediency of a +criminal. She wondered whether she had ever understood the essence of +criminals. She wondered about the nature of the loyalty to the idea of +denying ideas. +"No!" he cried, his voice lower, hoarser and more normal, sinking from the +tone of a zealot to the tone of an overbearing executive. +"That's impossible! That's out of the question!" +"Who said so?" +"Never mind! It's so! Why do you always think of the impractical? +Why don't you accept reality as it is and do something about it? +You're the realist, you're the doer, the mover, the producer, the Nat +Taggart, you're the person who's able to achieve any goal she chooses! +You could save us now, you could find a way to make things work—if you +wanted to!" +She burst out laughing. + + There, she thought, was the ultimate goal of all that loose academic +prattle which businessmen had ignored for years, the goal of all the slipshod +definitions, the sloppy generalities, the soupy abstractions, all claiming +that obedience to objective reality is the same as obedience to the State, +that there is no difference between a law of nature and a bureaucrat's +directive, that a hungry man is not free, that man must be released from the +tyranny of food, shelter and clothing—all of it, for years, that the day +might come when Nat Taggart, the realist, would be asked to consider the will +of Cuffy Meigs as a fact of nature, irrevocable and absolute like steel, +rails and gravitation, to accept the Meigs made world as an objective, +unchangeable reality—then to continue producing abundance in that world. +There was the goal of all those con men of library and classroom, who sold +their revelations as reason, their "instincts" as science, their cravings as +knowledge, the goal of all the savages of the non-objective, the nonabsolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable—the savages who, seeing a +farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound +by the law of causality and created by the farmer's omnipotent whim, who then +proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, +of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: "Now grow +a harvest and feed us!" +No—she thought, expecting Jim to ask it—it would be useless to try to +explain what she was laughing at, he would not be able to understand it. +But he did not ask it. Instead, she saw him slumping and heard him say— +terrifyingly, because his words were so irrelevant, if he did not understand, +and so monstrous, if he did, "Dagny, I'm your brother . . ." +She drew herself up, her muscles growing rigid, as if she were about to +face a killer's gun. +"Dagny"—his voice was the soft, nasal, monotonous whine of a beggar—"I +want to be president of a railroad. I want it. Why can't I have my wish as +you always have yours? Why shouldn't I be given the fulfillment of my desires +as you always fulfill any desire of your own? Why should you be happy while I +suffer? Oh yes, the world is yours, you're the one who has the brains to run +it. Then why do you permit suffering in your world? You proclaim the pursuit +of happiness, but you doom me to frustration. Don't I have the right to +demand any form of happiness I choose? Isn't that a debt which you owe me? Am +I not your brother?" +His glance was like a prowler's flashlight searching her face for a shred +of pity. It found nothing but a look of revulsion. +"It's your sin if I suffer! It's your moral failure! I'm your brother, +therefore I'm your responsibility, but you've failed to supply my wants, +therefore you're guilty! All of mankind's moral leaders have said so for +centuries—who are you to say otherwise? You're so proud of yourself, you +think that you're pure and good—but you can't be good, so long as I'm +wretched. My misery is the measure of your sin. My contentment is the measure +of your virtue. I want this kind of world, today's world, it gives me my +share of authority, it allows me to feel important-make it work for me!—do +something!—how do I know what?—it's your problem and your duty! You have the +privilege of strength, but I—I have the right of weakness! That's a moral +absolute! +Don't you know it? Don't you? Don't you?" +His glance was now like the hands of a man hanging over an abyss, groping +frantically for the slightest fissure of doubt, but slipping on the clean, +polished rock of her face. +"You bastard," she said evenly, without emotion, since the words were not +addressed to anything human. + + It seemed to her that she saw him fall into the abyss—even though there +was nothing to see in his face except the look of a con man whose trick has +not worked. +There was no reason to feel more revulsion than usual, she thought; he had +merely uttered the things which were preached, heard and accepted everywhere; +but this creed was usually expounded in the third person, and Jim had had the +open effrontery to expound it in the first. +She wondered whether people accepted the doctrine of sacrifice provided +its recipients did not identify the nature of their own claims and actions. +She turned to leave. +"No! No! Wait!" he cried, leaping to his feet, with a glance at his wrist +watch. "It's time now! There's a particular news broadcast that I want you to +hear!" +She stopped, held by curiosity. +He pressed the switch of the radio, watching her face openly, intently, +almost insolently. His eyes had a look of fear and of oddly lecherous +anticipation. +"Ladies and gentlemen!" the voice of the radio speaker leaped forth +abruptly; it had a tone of panic. "News of a shocking development has just +reached us from Santiago, Chile!" +She saw the jerk of Taggart's head and a sudden anxiety in his bewildered +frown, as if something about the words and voice were not what he had +expected. +"A special session of the legislature of the People's State of Chile had +been called for ten o'clock this morning, to pass an act of utmost importance +to the people of Chile, Argentina and other South American People's States. +In line with the enlightened policy of Senior Ramirez, the new Head of the +Chilean State—who came to power on the moral slogan that man is his brother's +keeper—the legislature was to nationalize the Chilean properties of d'Anconia +Copper, thus opening the way for the People's State of Argentina to +nationalize the rest of the d'Anconia properties the world over. This, +however, was known only to a very few of the top-level leaders of both +nations. The measure had been kept secret in order to avoid debate and +reactionary opposition. +The seizure of the multi-billion dollar d'Anconia Copper was to come as a +munificent surprise to the country. +"On the stroke of ten, in the exact moment when the chairman's gavel +struck the rostrum, opening the session—almost as if the gavel's blow had set +it off—the sound of a tremendous explosion rocked the hall, shattering the +glass of its windows. It came from the harbor, a few streets away—and when +the legislators rushed to the windows, they saw a long column of flame where +once there had risen the familiar silhouettes of the ore docks of d'Anconia +Copper. The ore docks had been blown to bits. +"The chairman averted panic and called the session to order. The act of +nationalization was read to the assembly, to the sound of fire alarm sirens +and distant cries. It was a gray morning, dark with rain clouds, the +explosion had broken an electric transmitter—so that the assembly voted on +the measure by the light of candles, while the red glow of the fire kept +sweeping over the great vaulted ceiling above their heads. +"But more terrible a shock came later, when the legislators called a hasty +recess to announce to the nation the good news that the people now owned +d'Anconia Copper. While they were voting, word had come from the closest and +farthest points of the globe that there was no d'Anconia Copper left on +earth. Ladies and gentlemen, not anywhere. +In that same instant, on the stroke of ten, by an infernal marvel of +synchronization, every property of d'Anconia Copper on the face of the globe, + + from Chile to Siam to Spain to Pottsville, Montana, had been blown up and +swept away. +"The d'Anconia workers everywhere had been handed their last pay checks, +in cash, at nine A.M., and by nine-thirty had been moved off the premises. +The ore docks, the smelters, the laboratories, the office buildings were +demolished. Nothing was left of the d'Anconia ore ships which had been in +port—and only lifeboats carrying the crews were left of those ships which had +been at sea. As to the d'Anconia mines, some were buried under tons of +blasted rock, while others were found not to be worth the price of blasting. +An astounding number of these mines, as reports pouring in seem to indicate, +had continued to be run, even though exhausted years ago. +"Among the thousands of d'Anconia employees, the police have found no one +with any knowledge of how this monstrous plot had been conceived, organized +and carried out. But the cream of the d'Anconia staff are not here any +longer. The most efficient of the executives, mineralogists, engineers, +superintendents have vanished—all the men upon whom the People's State had +been counting to carry on the work and cushion the process of readjustment. +The most able—correction: the most selfish—of the men are gone. Reports from +the various banks indicate that there are no d'Anconia accounts left +anywhere; the money has been spent down to the last penny, "Ladies and +gentlemen, the d'Anconia fortune—the greatest fortune on earth, the legendary +fortune of the centuries—has ceased to exist. +In place of the golden dawn of a new age, the People's States of Chile and +Argentina are left with a pile of rubble and hordes of unemployed on their +hands. +"No clue has been found to the fate or the whereabouts of Senor Francisco +d'Anconia. He has vanished, leaving nothing behind him, not even a message of +farewell." +Thank you, my darling—thank you in the name of the last of us, even if you +will not hear it and will not care to hear. . . . It was not a sentence, but +the silent emotion of a prayer in her mind, addressed to the laughing face of +a boy she had known at sixteen. +Then she noticed that she was clinging to the radio, as if the faint +electric beat within it still held a tie to the only living force on earth, +which it had transmitted for a few brief moments and which now filled the +room where all else was dead. +As distant remnants of the explosion's wreckage, she noticed a sound that +came from Jim, part-moan, part-scream, part-growl—then the sight of Jim's +shoulders shaking over a telephone and his distorted voice screaming, "But, +Rodrigo, you said it was safe! Rodrigo—oh God!—do you know how much I'd sunk +into it?"—then the shriek of another phone on his desk, and his voice +snarling into another receiver, his hand still clutching the first, "Shut +your trap, Orren! What are you to do? What do I care, God damn you!" +There were people rushing into the office, the telephones were screaming +and, alternating between pleas and curses, Jim kept yelling into one +receiver, "Get me Santiago! . . . Get Washington to get me Santiago!" +Distantly, as on the margin of her mind, she could see what sort of game +the men behind the shrieking phones had played and lost. They seemed far +away, like tiny commas squirming on the white field under the lens of a +microscope. She wondered how they could ever expect to be taken seriously +when a Francisco d'Anconia was possible on earth. +She saw the glare of the explosion in every face she met through the rest +of the day—and in every face she passed in the darkness of the streets, that +evening. If Francisco had wanted a worthy funeral pyre for d'Anconia Copper, +she thought, he -had succeeded. There it was, in the streets of New York +City, the only city on earth still able to understand it—in the faces of +people, in their whispers, the whispers crackling tensely like small tongues + + of fire, the faces lighted by a look that was both solemn and frantic, the +shadings of expressions appearing to sway and weave, as if cast by a distant +flame, some frightened, some angry, most of them uneasy, uncertain, +expectant, but all of them acknowledging a fact much beyond an industrial +catastrophe, all of them knowing what it meant, though none would name Us +meaning, all of them carrying a touch of laughter, a laughter of amusement +and defiance, the bitter laughter of perishing victims who feel that they are +avenged. +She saw it in the face of Hank Rearden, when she met him for dinner that +evening. As his tall, confident figure walked toward her— +the only figure that seemed at home in the costly setting of a +distinguished restaurant—she saw the look of eagerness fighting the sternness +of his features, the look of a young boy still open to the enchantment of the +unexpected. He did not speak of this day's event, but she knew that it was +the only image in his mind. +They had been meeting whenever he came to the city, spending a brief, rare +evening together—with their past still alive in their silent acknowledgment— +with no future in their work and in their common struggle, but with the +knowledge that they were allies gaining support from the fact of each other's +existence. +He did not want to mention today's event, he did not want to speak of +Francisco, but she noticed, as they sat at the table, that the strain of a +resisted smile kept pulling at the hollows of his cheeks. She knew whom he +meant, when he said suddenly, his voice soft and low with the weight of +admiration, "He did keep his oath, didn't he?" +"His oath?" she asked, startled, thinking of the inscription on the temple +of Atlantis. +"He said to me, 'I swear—by the woman I love—that I am your friend,' He +was." +"He is." +He shook his head. "I have no right to think of him. I have no right to +accept what he's done as an act in my defense. And yet . . ." +He stopped. +"But it was, Hank. In defense of all of us—and of you, most of all." +He looked away, out at the city. They sat at the side of the room, with a +sheet of glass as an invisible protection against the sweep of space and +streets sixty floors below. The city seemed abnormally distant: it lay +flattened down to the pool of its lowest stories. A few blocks away, its +tower merging into darkness, the calendar hung at the level of their faces, +not as a small, disturbing rectangle, but as an enormous screen, eerily close +and large, flooded by the dead, white glow of light projected through an +empty film, empty but for the letters: September 2. +"Rearden Steel is now working at capacity," he was saying indifferently. +"They've lifted the production quotas off my mills—for the next five minutes, +I guess. I don't know how many of their own regulations they've suspended, I +don't think they know it, either, they don't bother keeping track of legality +any longer, I'm sure I'm a law-breaker on five or six counts, which nobody +could prove or disprove—all I know is that the gangster of the moment told me +to go full steam ahead." He shrugged. "When another gangster kicks him out +tomorrow, I'll probably be shut down, as penalty for illegal operation. But +according to the plan of the present split-second, they've begged me to keep +pouring my Metal, in any amount and by any means I choose." +She noticed the occasional, surreptitious glances that people were +throwing in their direction. She had noticed it before, ever since her +broadcast, ever since the two of them had begun to appear in public together. +Instead of the disgrace he had dreaded, there was an air of awed uncertainty +in people's manner—uncertainty of their own moral precepts, awe in the + + presence of two persons who dared to be certain of being right. People were +looking at them with anxious curiosity, with envy, with respect, with the +fear of offending an unknown, proudly rigorous standard, some almost with an +air of apology that seemed to say: "Please forgive us for being married." +There were some who had a look of angry malice, and a few who had a look of +admiration. +"Dagny," he asked suddenly, "do you suppose he's in New York?" +"No. I've called the Wayne-Falkland. They told me that the lease on his +suite had expired a month ago and he did not renew it." +"They're looking for him all over the world," he said, smiling. +"They'll never find him." The smile vanished. "Neither will I." His voice +slipped back to the flat, gray tone of duty: "Well, the mills are working, +but I'm not. I'm doing nothing but running around the country like a +scavenger, searching for illegal ways to purchase raw materials. +Hiding, sneaking, lying—just to get a few tons of ore or coal or copper. +They haven't lifted their regulations off my raw materials. They know that +I'm pouring more Metal than the quotas they give me could produce. They don't +care." He added, "They think I do." +"Tired, Hank?" +"Bored to death." +There was a time, she thought, when his mind, his energy, his +inexhaustible resourcefulness had been given to the task of a producer +devising better ways to deal with nature; now, they were switched to the task +of a criminal outwitting men. She wondered how long a man could endure a +change of that kind. +"It's becoming almost impossible to get iron ore," he said indifferently, +then added, his voice suddenly alive, "Now it's going to be completely +impossible to get copper." He was grinning. +She wondered how long a man could continue to work against himself, to +work when his deepest desire was not to succeed, but to fail. +She understood the connection of his thoughts when he said, "I've never +told you, but I've met Ragnar Danneskjold." +"He told me." +"What? Where did you ever—" He stopped. "Of course," he said, his voice +tense and low. "He would be one of them. You would have met him. Dagny, what +are they like, those men who . . . No. Don't answer me." In a moment he +added, "So I've met one of their agents." +"You've met two of them." +His response was a span of total stillness. "Of course," he said dully. +"I knew it . . . I just wouldn't admit to myself that I knew . . . He was +their recruiting agent, wasn't he?" +"One of their earliest and best." +He chuckled; it was a sound of bitterness and longing. 'That night . . . +when they got Ken Danagger . . . I thought that they had not sent anyone +after me. . . ." +The effort by which he made his face grow rigid, was almost like the slow, +resisted turn of a key locking a sunlit room he could not permit himself to +examine. After a while, he said impassively, "Dagny, that new rail we +discussed last month—I don't think I'll be able to deliver it. They haven't +lifted their regulations off my output, they're still controlling my sales +and disposing of my Metal as they please. But the bookkeeping is in such a +snarl that I'm smuggling a few thousand tons into the black market every +week. I think they know it. They're pretending not to. They don't want to +antagonize me, right now. But, you see, I've been shipping every ton I could +snatch, to some emergency customers of mine. Dagny, I was in Minnesota last +month. I've seen what's going on there. The country will starve, not next +year, but this winter, unless a few of us act and act fast. There are no + + grain reserves left anywhere. With Nebraska gone, Oklahoma wrecked, North +Dakota abandoned, Kansas barely subsisting—there isn't going to be any wheat +this winter, not for the city of New York nor for any Eastern city. +Minnesota is our last granary. They've had two bad years in succession, +but they have a bumper crop this fall—and they have to be able to harvest it. +Have you had a chance to take a look at the condition of the farm-equipment +industry? They're not big enough, any of them, to keep a staff of efficient +gangsters in Washington or to pay percentages to pull-peddlers. So they +haven't been getting many allocations of materials. Two-thirds of them have +shut down and the rest are about to. +And farms are perishing all over the country—for lack of tools. You should +have seen those farmers in Minnesota. They've been spending more time fixing +old tractors that can't be fixed than plowing their fields. +I don't know how they managed to survive till last spring. I don't know +how they managed to plant their wheat. But they did. They did." There was a +look of intensity on his face, as if he were contemplating a rare, forgotten +sight: a vision of men—and she knew what motive was still holding him to his +job. "Dagny, they had to have tools for their harvest. I've been selling all +the Metal I could steal out of my own mills to the manufacturers of farm +equipment. On credit. They've been sending the equipment to Minnesota as fast +as they could put it out. +Selling it in the same way—illegally and on credit. But they will be paid, +this fall, and so will I. Charity, hell! We're helping producers— +and what tenacious producers!—not lousy, mooching 'consumers.1 +We're giving loans, not alms. We're supporting ability, not need. I'll be +damned if I'll stand by and let those men be destroyed while the pull +peddlers grow rich!" +He was looking at the image of a sight he had seen in Minnesota: the +silhouette of an abandoned factory, with the light of the sunset streaming, +unopposed, through the holes of its windows and the cracks of its roof, with +the remnant of a sign: Ward Harvester Company. +"Oh, I know," he said. "We'll save them this winter, but the looters will +devour them next year. Still, we'll save them this winter. . . . +Well, that's why I won't be able to smuggle any rail for you. Not in the +immediate future—and there's nothing left to us but the immediate future. I +don't know what is the use of feeding a country, if it loses its railroads— +but what is the use of railroads where there is no food? +What is the use, anyway?" +"It's all right, Hank, We'll last with such rail as we have, for—" +She stopped. +"For a month?" +"For the winter—I hope." +Cutting across their silence, a shrill voice reached them from another +table, and they turned to look at a man who had the jittery manner of a +cornered gangster about to reach for his gun. "An act of anti-social +destruction," he was snarling to a sullen companion, "at a time when there's +such a desperate shortage of copper! . . . We can't permit it! +We can't permit it to be true!" +Rearden turned abruptly to look off, at the city. "I'd give anything to +know where he is," he said, his voice low. "Just to know where he is, right +now, at this moment." +"What would you do, if you knew it?" +He dropped his hand in a gesture of futility. "[ wouldn't approach him. +The only homage I can still pay him is not to cry for forgiveness where no +forgiveness is possible." +They remained silent. They listened to the voices around them, to the +splinters of panic trickling through the luxurious room. + + She had not been aware that the same presence seemed to be an invisible +guest at every table, that the same subject kept breaking through the +attempts at any other conversation. People sat in a manner, not quite of +cringing, but as if they found the room too large and too exposed—a room of +glass, blue velvet, aluminum and gentle lighting. They looked as if they had +come to this room at the price of countless evasions, to let it help them +pretend that theirs was still a civilized existence—but an act o£ primeval +violence had blasted the nature of their world into the open and they were no +longer able not to see. +"How could he? How could he?" a woman was demanding with petulant terror. +"He had no right to do it!" +"It was an accident," said a young man with a staccato voice and an odor +of public payroll. "It was a chain of coincidences, as any statistical curve +of probabilities can easily prove. It is unpatriotic to spread rumors +exaggerating the power of the people's enemies." +"Right and wrong is all very well for academic conversations," said a +woman with a schoolroom voice and a barroom mouth, "but how can anybody take +his own ideas seriously enough to destroy a fortune when people need it?" +"f don't understand it," an old man was saying with quavering bitterness. +"After centuries of efforts to curb man's innate brutality, after centuries +of teaching, training and indoctrination with the gentle and the humane!" +A woman's bewildered voice rose uncertainly and trailed off: "I thought we +were living in an age of brotherhood . . ." +"I'm scared," a young girl was repeating, "I'm scared . . . oh, I don't +know! . . . I'm just scared . . ." +"He couldn't have done it!" . . . "He did!" . . . "But why?" . . . +"I refuse to believe it!" . . . "It's not human!" . . . "But why?" . . . +"Just a worthless playboy!" . . . "But why?" +The muffled scream of a woman across the room and some half grasped signal +on the edge of Dagny's vision, came simultaneously and made her whirl to look +at the city. +The calendar was run by a mechanism locked in a room behind the screen, +unrolling the same film year after year, projecting the dates in steady +rotation, in changeless rhythm, never moving but on the stroke of midnight. +The speed of Dagny's turn gave her time to see a phenomenon as unexpected as +if a planet had reversed its orbit in the sky: she saw the words "September +2" moving upward and vanishing past the edge of the screen. +Then, written across the enormous page, stopping time, as a last message +to the world and to the world's motor which was New York, she saw the lines +of a sharp, intransigent handwriting: Brother, you asked for it! +Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia She did not know which +shock was greater: the sight of the message or the sound of Rearden's +laughter—Rearden, standing on his feet, in full sight and hearing of the room +behind him, laughing above their moans of panic, laughing in greeting, in +salute, in acceptance of the gift he had tried to reject, in release, in +triumph, in surrender. +On the evening of September 7, a copper wire broke in Montana, stopping +the motor of a loading crane on a spur track of Taggart Transcontinental, at +the rim of the Stanford Copper Mine. +The mine had been working on three shifts, its days and nights blending +into a single stretch of struggle to lose no minute, no drop of copper it +could squeeze from the shelves of a mountain into the nation's industrial +desert. The crane broke down at the task of loading a train; it stopped +abruptly and hung still against the evening sky, between a string of empty +cars and piles of suddenly immovable ore. +The men of the railroad and of the mine stopped in dazed bewilderment: +they found that in all the complexity of their equipment, among the drills, + + the motors, the derricks, the delicate gauges, the ponderous floodlights +beating down into the pits and ridges of a mountain—there was no wire to mend +the crane. They stopped, like men on an ocean liner propelled by tenthousand-horsepower generators, but perishing for lack of a safety pin. +The station agent, a young man with a swift body and a brusque voice, +stripped the wiring from the station building and set the crane in motion +again—and while the ore went clattering to fill the cars, the light of +candles came trembling through the dusk from the windows of the station. +"Minnesota, Eddie," said Dagny grimly, closing the drawer of her special +file. "Tell the Minnesota Division to ship half their stock of wire to +Montana." "But good God, Dagny!—with the peak of the harvest rush +approaching—" "They'll hold through it—I think. We don't dare lose a single +supplier of copper." +"But I have!" screamed James Taggart, when she reminded him once more. "I +have obtained for you the top priority on copper wire, the first claim, the +uppermost ration level, I've given you all the cards, certificates, documents +and requisitions—what else do you want?" "The copper wire." "I've done all I +could! Nobody can blame me!" +She did not argue. The afternoon newspaper was lying on his desk— +and she was staring at an item on the back page: An Emergency State Tax +had been passed in California for the relief of the state's unemployed, in +the amount of fifty per cent of any local corporation's gross income ahead of +other taxes; the California oil companies had gone out of business. +"Don't worry, Mr. Rearden," said an unctuous voice over a long distance +telephone line from Washington, "I just wanted to assure you that you will +not have to worry." "About what?" asked Rearden, baffled. "About that +temporary bit of confusion in California. We'll straighten it out in no time, +it was an act of illegal insurrection, their state government had no right to +impose local taxes detrimental to national taxes, we'll negotiate an +equitable arrangement immediately— +but in the meantime, if you have been disturbed by any unpatriotic rumors +about the California oil companies, I just wanted to tell you that Rearden +Steel has been placed in the top category of essential need, with first claim +upon any oil available anywhere in the nation, very top category, Mr. +Rearden—so I just wanted you to know that you won't have to worry about the +problem of fuel this winter!" +Rearden hung up the telephone receiver, with a frown of worry, not about +the problem of fuel and the end of the California oil fields— +disasters of this kind had become habitual—but about the fact that the +Washington planners found it necessary to placate him. This was new; he +wondered what it meant. Through the years of his struggle, he had learned +that an apparently causeless antagonism was not hard to deal with, but an +apparently causeless solicitude was an ugly danger. The same wonder struck +him again, when, walking down an alley between the mill structures, he caught +sight of a slouching figure whose posture combined an air of insolence with +an air of expecting to be swatted: it was his brother Philip. +Ever since he had moved to Philadelphia, Rearden had not visited his +former home and had not heard a word from his family, whose bills he went on +paying. Then, inexplicably, twice in the last few weeks, he had caught Philip +wandering through the mills for no apparent reason. +He had been unable to tell whether Philip was sneaking to avoid him or +waiting to catch his attention; it had looked like both. He had been unable +to discover any clue to Philip's purpose, only some incomprehensible +solicitude, of a kind Philip had never displayed before. +The first time, in answer to his startled "What are you doing here?" +—Philip had said vaguely, “Well, I know that you don't like me to come to +your office." "What do you want?" "Oh, nothing . . . but . . . well, Mother + + is worried about you." "Mother can call me any time she wishes." Philip had +not answered, but had proceeded to question him, in an unconvincingly casual +manner, about his work, his health, his business; the questions had kept +hitting oddly beside the point, not questions about business, but more about +his, Rearden's, feelings toward business. Rearden had cut him short and waved +him away, but had been left with the small, nagging sense of an incident that +remained inexplicable. +The second time, Philip had said, as sole explanation, "We just want to +know how you feel." "Who's we?" "Why . . . Mother and I. These are difficult +times and . . . well, Mother wants to know how you feel about it all." "Tell +her that I don't." The words had seemed to hit Philip in some peculiar +manner, almost as if this were the one answer he dreaded. "Get out of here," +Rearden had ordered wearily, "and the next time you want to see me, make an +appointment and come to my office. But don't come unless you have something +to say. This is not a place where one discusses feelings, mine or anybody +else's." +Philip had not called for an appointment—but now there he was again, +slouching among the giant shapes of the furnaces, with an air of guilt and +snobbishness together, as if he were both snooping and slumming. +"But I do have something to say! I do!" he cried hastily, in answer to the +angry frown on Rearden's face. +"Why didn't you come to my office?" +"You don't want me in your office." +"I don't want you here, either." +"But I'm only . . . I'm only trying to be considerate and not to take your +time when you're so busy and . . . you are very busy, aren't you?" +"And?" +"And . . . well, I just wanted to catch you in a spare moment . . . +to talk to you." +"About what?" +"I . . . Well, I need a job." +He said it belligerently and drew back a little. Rearden stood looking at +him blankly. +"Henry, I want a job. I mean, here, at the mills. I want you to give me +something to do. I need a job, I need to earn my living. +I'm tired of alms." He was groping for something to say, his voice both +offended and pleading, as if the necessity to justify the plea were an unfair +imposition upon him. "I want a livelihood of my own, I'm not asking you for +charity, I'm asking you to give me a chance!" +"This is a factory, Philip, not a gambling joint," +"Uh?" +"We don't take chances or give them." +'I’m asking you to give me a job!" +"Why should I?" +"Because I need it!" +Rearden pointed to the red spurts of flame shooting from the black shape +of a furnace, shooting safely into space four hundred feet of steel-clay-andsteam-embodied thought above them. "I needed that furnace, Philip. "It wasn't +my need that gave it to me." +Philip's face assumed a look of not having heard. "You're not officially +supposed to hire anybody, bat that's just a technicality, if you'll put me +on, my friends will okay it without any trouble and—" Something about +Rearden's eyes made him stop abruptly, then ask in an angrily impatient +voice, "Well, what's the matter? What have I said that's wrong?" +"What you haven't said." +"I beg your pardon?" +"What you're squirming to leave unmentioned." + + "What?" +"That you'd be of no use to me whatever." +"Is that what you—" Philip started with automatic righteousness, but +stopped and did not finish. +"Yes," said Rearden, smiling, "that's what I think of first." +Philip's eyes oozed away; when he spoke, his voice sounded as if it were +darting about at random, picking stray sentences: "Everybody is entitled to a +livelihood . . . How am I going to get it, if nobody gives me my chance?" +"How did I get mine?" +"I wasn't born owning a steel plant." +"Was I?" +"I can do anything you can—if you'll teach me." +"Who taught me?" +"Why do you keep saying that? I'm not talking about you!" +"I am." +In a moment, Philip muttered, "What do you have to worry about? +It's not your livelihood that's in question!" +Rearden pointed to the figures of men in the steaming rays of the furnace. +"Can you do what they're doing?" +"I don't see what you're—" +"What will happen if I put you there and you ruin a heat of steel for me?" +"What's more important, that your damn steel gets poured or that I eat?" +"How do you propose to eat if the steel doesn't get poured?" +Philip's face assumed a look of reproach. "I'm not in a position to argue +with you right now, since you hold the upper hand." +"Then don't argue." +"Uh?" +"Keep your mouth shut and get out of here." +"But I meant—" He stopped. +Rearden chuckled. "You meant that it's I who should keep my mouth shut, +because I hold the upper hand, and should give in to you, because you hold no +hand at all?" +"That's a peculiarly crude way of stating a moral principle." +"But that's what your moral principle amounts to, doesn't it?" +"You can't discuss morality in materialistic terms." +"We're discussing a job in a steel plant—and, boy! is that a materialistic +place!" +Philip's 'body drew a shade tighter together and his eyes became a shade +more glazed, as if in fear of the place around him, in resentment of its +sight, in an effort not to concede its reality. He said, in the soft, +stubborn whine of a voodoo incantation, "It's a moral imperative, universally +conceded in our day and age, that every man is entitled to a job." His voice +rose: "I'm entitled to it!" +"You are? Go on, then, collect your claim." +"Uh?" +"Collect your job. Pick it off the bush where you think it grows." +"I mean—" +"You mean that it doesn't? You mean that you need it, but can't create it? +You mean that you're entitled to a job which I must create for you?" +"Yes!" +"And if I don't?" +The silence went stretching through second after second. "I don't +understand you," said Philip; his voice had the angry bewilderment of a man +who recites the formulas of a well-tested role, but keeps getting the wrong +cues in answer. "I don't understand why one can't talk to you any more. I +don't understand what sort of theory you're propounding and—" +"Oh yes, you do." + + As if refusing to believe that the formulas could fail, Philip burst out +with: "Since when did you take to abstract philosophy? You're only a +businessman, you're not qualified to deal with questions of principle, you +ought to leave it to the experts who have conceded for centuries—" +"Cut it, Philip. What's the gimmick?" +“Gimmick?" +"Why the sudden ambition?" +"Well, at a time like this . . ." +"Like what?" +"Well, every man has the right to have some means of support and . . . and +not be left to be tossed aside . . . When things are so uncertain, a man's +got to have some security . . . some foothold . . . I mean, at a time like +this, if anything happened to you, I'd have no—" +"What do you expect to happen to me?" +"Oh, I don't! I don't!" The cry was oddly, incomprehensibly genuine. +"I don't expect anything to happen] . . . Do you?" +"Such as what?" +"How do I know? . . . But I've got nothing except the pittance you give me +and . . . and you might change your mind any time." +"I might." +"And I haven't any hold on you at all." +"Why did it take you that many years to realize it and start worrying? +Why now?" +"Because . . . because you've changed. You . . . you used to have a sense +of duty and moral responsibility, but . . . you're losing it. +You're losing it, aren't you?" +Rearden stood studying him silently; there was something peculiar in +Philip's manner of sliding toward questions, as if his words were accidental, +but the too casual, the faintly Insistent questions were the key to his +purpose. +"Well, I'll be glad to take the burden off your shoulders, if I'm a burden +to you!" Philip snapped suddenly. "Just give me a job, and your conscience +won't have to bother you about me any longer!" +"It doesn't." +"That's what I mean! You don't care. You don't care what becomes of any of +us, do you?" +"Of whom?" +"Why . . . Mother and me and . . . and mankind in general. But I'm not +going to appeal to your better self. I know that you're ready to ditch me at +a moment's notice, so—" +"You're lying, Philip. That's not what you're worried about. If it were, +you'd be angling for a chunk of cash, not for a job, not—" +"No! I want a job!" The cry was immediate and almost frantic. "Don't try +to buy me off with cash! I want a job!" +"Pull yourself together, you poor louse. Do you hear what you're saying?" +Philip spit out his answer with impotent hatred: "You can't talk to me +that way!" +"Can you?" +"I only—" +"To buy you off? Why should I try to buy you off—instead of kicking you +out, as I should have, years ago?" +"Well, after all, I'm your brother!” +"What is that supposed to mean?" +"One's supposed to have some sort of feeling for one's brother." +"Do you?" + + Philip's mouth swelled petulantly; he did not answer; he waited; Rearden +let him wait. Philip muttered, "You're supposed . . . at least . . . to have +some consideration for my feelings . . . but you haven't." +"Have you for mine?" +"Yours? Your feelings?" It was not malice in Philip's voice, but worse: it +was a genuine, indignant astonishment. "You haven't any feelings. You've +never felt anything at all. You've never suffered!" +It was as if a sum of years hit Rearden in the face, by means of a +sensation and a sight: the exact sensation of what he had felt in the cab of +the first train's engine on the John Galt Line—and the sight of Philip's +eyes, the pale, half-liquid eyes presenting the uttermost of human +degradation: an uncontested pain, and, with the obscene insolence of a +skeleton toward a living being, demanding that this pain be held as the +highest of values. You've never suffered, the eyes were saying to him +accusingly—while he was seeing the night in his office when his ore mines +were taken away from him—the moment when he had signed the Gift Certificate +surrendering Rearden Metal—the month of days inside a plane that searched for +the remains of Dagny's body. You've never suffered, the eyes were saying with +self-righteous scorn—while he remembered the sensation of proud chastity with +which he had fought through those moments, refusing to surrender to pain, a +sensation made of his love, of his loyalty, of his knowledge that joy is the +goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, +and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the +moment's torture. You've never suffered, the dead stare of the eyes was +saying, you've never felt anything, because only to suffer is to feel—there's +no such thing as joy, there's only pain and the absence of pain, only pain +and the zero, when one feels nothing—I suffer, I'm twisted by suffering, I'm +made of undiluted suffering, that's my purity, that's my virtue—and yours, +you the untwisted one, you the uncomplaining, yours is to relieve me of my +pain—cut your unsuffering body to patch up mine, cut your unfeeling soul to +stop mine from feeling—and we'll achieve the ultimate ideal, the triumph over +life, the zero! He was seeing the nature of those who, for centuries, had not +recoiled from the preachers of annihilation—he was seeing the nature of the +enemies he had been fighting all his life. +"Philip," he said, "get out of here." His voice was like a ray of sunlight +in a morgue, it was the plain, dry, daily voice of a businessman, the sound +of health, addressed to an enemy one could not honor by anger, nor even by +horror. "And don't ever try to enter these mills again, because there will be +orders at every gate to throw you out, if you try it.'1 +"Well, after all," said Philip, in the angry and cautious tone of a +tentative threat, "I could have my friends assign me to a job here and compel +you to accept it!" +Rearden had started to go, but he stopped and turned to look at his +brother. +Philip's moment of grasping a sudden revelation was not accomplished by +means of thought, but by means of that dark sensation which was his only mode +of consciousness: he felt a sensation of terror, squeezing his throat, +shivering down into his stomach—he was seeing the spread of the mills, with +the roving streamers of flame, with the ladles of molten metal sailing +through space on delicate cables, with open pits the color of glowing coal, +with cranes coming at his head, pounding past, holding tons of steel by the +invisible power of magnets—and he knew that he was afraid of this place, +afraid to the death, that he dared not move without the protection and +guidance of the man before him— +then he looked at the tall, straight figure standing casually still, the +figure with the unflinching eyes whose sight had cut through rock and flame +to build this place—and then he knew how easily the man he was proposing to + + compel could let a single bucket of metal tilt over a second ahead of its +time or let a single crane drop its load a foot short of its goal, and there +would be nothing left of him, of Philip the claimant— +and his only protection lay in the fact that his mind would think of such +actions, but the mind of Hank Rearden would not. +"But we'd better keep it on a friendly basis," said Philip. +"You'd better," said Rearden and walked away. +Men who worship pain—thought Rearden, staring at the image of the enemies +he had never been able to understand—they're men who worship pain. It seemed +monstrous, yet peculiarly devoid of importance. +He felt nothing. It was like trying to summon emotion toward inanimate +objects, toward refuse sliding down a mountainside to crush him. One could +flee from the slide or build retaining walls against it or be crushed —but +one could not grant any anger, indignation or moral concern to the senseless +motions of the un-living; no, worse, he thought—the antiliving. +The same sense of detached unconcern remained with him while he sat in a +Philadelphia courtroom and watched men perform the motions which were to +grant him his divorce. He watched them utter mechanical generalities, recite +vague phrases of fraudulent evidence, play an intricate game of stretching +words to convey no facts and no meaning. He had paid them to do it—he whom +the law permitted no other way to gain his freedom, no right to state the +facts and plead the truth—the law which delivered his fate, not to objective +rules objectively defined, but to the arbitrary mercy of a judge with a +wizened face and a look of empty cunning. +Lillian was not present in the courtroom; her attorney made gestures once +in a while, with the energy of letting water run through his fingers. They +all knew the verdict in advance and they knew its reason; no other reason had +existed for years, where no standards, save whim, had existed. They seemed to +regard it as their rightful prerogative; they acted as if the purpose of the +procedure were not to try a case, but to give them jobs, as if their jobs +were to recite the appropriate formulas with no responsibility to know what +the formulas accomplished, as if a courtroom were the one place where +questions of right and wrong were irrelevant and they, the men in charge of +dispensing justice, were safely wise enough to know that no justice existed. +They acted like savages performing a ritual devised to set them free of +objective reality. +But the ten years of his marriage had been real, he thought—and these were +the men who assumed the power to dispose of it, to decide whether he would +have a chance of contentment on earth or be condemned to torture for the rest +of his lifetime. He remembered the austerely pitiless respect he had felt for +his contract of marriage, for all his contracts and all his legal +obligations—and he saw what sort of legality his scrupulous observance was +expected to serve. +He noticed that the puppets of the courtroom had started by glancing at +him in the sly, wise manner of fellow conspirators sharing a common guilt, +mutually safe from moral condemnation. Then, when they observed that he was +the only man in the room who looked steadily straight at anyone's face, he +saw resentment growing in their eyes. Incredulously, he realized what it was +that had been expected of him: he, the victim, chained, bound, gagged and +left with no recourse save to bribery, had been expected to believe that the +farce he had purchased was a process of law, that the edicts enslaving him +had moral validity, that he was guilty of corrupting the integrity of the +guardians of justice, and that the blame was his, not theirs. It was like +blaming the victim of a holdup for corrupting the integrity of the thug. And +yet—he thought —through all the generations of political extortion, it was +not the looting bureaucrats who had taken the blame, but the chained +industrialists, not the men who peddled legal favors, but the men who were + + forced to buy them; and through all those generations of crusades against +corruption, the remedy had always been, not the liberating of the victims, +but the granting of wider powers for extortion to the extortionists. The only +guilt of the victims, he thought, had been that they accepted it as guilt. +When he walked out of the courtroom into the chilly drizzle of a gray +afternoon, he felt as if he had been divorced, not only from Lillian, but +from the whole of the human society that supported the procedure he had +witnessed. +The face of his attorney, an elderly man of the old-fashioned school, wore +an expression that made it look as if he longed to take a bath. +"Say, Hank,” he asked as sole comment, "is there something the looters are +anxious to get from you right now?" "Not that I know of. Why?" +"The thing went too smoothly. There were a few points at which I expected +pressure and hints for some extras, but the boys sailed past and took no +advantage of it. Looks to me as if orders had come from on high to treat you +gently and let you have your way. Are they planning something new against +your mills?" "Not that I know of," said Rearden —and was astonished to hear +in his mind: Not that I care. +It was on the same afternoon, at the mills, that he saw the Wet Nurse +hurrying toward him—a gangling, coltish figure with a peculiar mixture of +brusqueness, awkwardness and decisiveness. +"Mr. Rearden, I would like to speak to you." His voice was diffident, yet +oddly firm. +"Go ahead." +"There's something I want to ask you." The boy's face was solemn and taut. +"I want you to know that I know you should refuse me, but I want to ask it +just the same . . . and . . . and if it's presumptuous, then just tell me to +go to hell." +"Okay. Try it." +"Mr. Rearden, would you give me a job?" It was the effort to sound normal +that betrayed the days of struggle behind the question. "I want to quit what +I'm doing and go to work. I mean, real work—in steel making, like I thought +I'd started to, once. I want to earn my keep. I'm tired of being a bedbug." +Rearden could not resist smiling and reminding him, in the tone of a +quotation, "Now why use such words, Non-Absolute? If we don't use ugly words, +we won't have any ugliness and—" But he saw the desperate earnestness of the +boy's face and stopped, his smile vanishing. +"I mean it, Mr. Rearden. And I know what the word means and it's the right +word. I'm tired of being paid, with your money, to do nothing except make it +impossible for you to make any money at all. I know that anyone who works +today is only a sucker for bastards like me, but . . . +well, God damn it, I'd rather be a sucker, if that's all there's left to +be!" +His voice had risen to a cry. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Rearden," he said +stiffly, looking away. In a moment, he went on in his woodenly unemotional +tone. "I want to get out of the Deputy-Director-of-Distribution racket. I +don't know that I'd be of much use to you, I've got a college diploma in +metallurgy, but that's not worth the paper it's printed on. But I think I've +learned a little about the work in the two years I've been here—and if you +could use me at all, as sweeper or scrap man or whatever you'd trust me with, +I'd tell them where to put the deputy directorship and I'd go to work for you +tomorrow, next week, this minute or whenever you say." He avoided looking at +Rearden, not in a manner of evasion, but as if he had no right to do it. +"Why were you afraid to ask me?" said Rearden gently. +The boy glanced at him with indignant astonishment, as if the answer were +self-evident. "Because after the way I started here and the way I acted and + + what I'm deputy of, if I come asking you for favors, you ought to kick me in +the teeth!" +"You have learned a great deal in the two years you've been here." +"No, I—" He glanced at Rearden, understood, looked away and said woodenly, +"Yeah . . . if that's what you mean." +"Listen, kid, I'd give you a job this minute and I'd trust you with more +than a sweeper's job, if it were up to me. But have you forgotten the +Unification Board? I'm not allowed to hire you and you're not allowed to +quit. Sure, men are quitting all the time, and we're hiring others under +phony names and fancy papers proving that they've worked here for years. You +know it, and thanks for keeping your mouth shut. But do you think that if I +hired you that way, your friends in Washington would miss it?" +The boy shook his head slowly. +"Do you think that if you quit their service to become a sweeper, they +wouldn't understand your reason?" +The boy nodded. +"Would they let you go?" +The boy shook his head. After a moment, he said in a tone of forlorn +astonishment, "I hadn't thought of that at all, Mr. Rearden. I forgot them. I +kept thinking of whether you'd want me or not and that the only thing that +counted was your decision.” +"I know." +"And . . . it is the only thing that counts, in fact." +"Yes, Non-Absolute, in fact." +The boy's mouth jerked suddenly into the brief, mirthless twist of a +smile. "I guess I'm tied worse than any sucker . . ." +"Yes. There's nothing you can do now, except apply to the Unification +Board for permission to change your job. I'll support your application, if +you want to try—only I don't think they'll grant it. I don't think they'll +let you work for me." +"No. They won't." +"If you maneuver enough and lie enough, they might permit you to transfer +to a private job—with some other steel company." +"No! I don't want to go anywhere else! I don't want to leave this place!” +He stood looking off at the invisible vapor of rain over the flame of the +furnaces. After a while, he said quietly, "I'd better stay put, I guess. I'd +better go on being a deputy looter. Besides, if I left, God only knows what +sort of bastard they'd saddle you with in my place!" +He turned. "They're up to something, Mr. Rearden. I don't know what it is, +but they're getting ready to spring something on you." +"What?" +"I don't know. But they've been watching every opening here, in the last +few weeks, every desertion, and slipping their own gang in. A queer sort of +gang, too—real goons, some of them, that I'd swear never stepped inside a +steel plant before. I've had orders to get as many of 'our boys' in as +possible. They wouldn't tell me why. I don't know what it is they're +planning. I've tried to pump them, but they're acting pretty cagey about it. +I don't think they trust me any more. I'm losing the right touch, I guess. +All I know is they're getting set to pull something here." +"Thanks for warning me." +"I'll try to get the dope on it. I'll try my damndest to get it in time." +He turned brusquely and started off, but stopped. "Mr. Rearden, if it were up +to you, you would have hired me?" +"I would have, gladly and at once." +"Thank you, Mr. Rearden," he said, his voice solemn and low, then walked +away. + + Rearden stood looking after him, seeing, with a tearing smile of pity, +what it was that the ex-relativist, the ex-pragmatist, the ex-amoralist was +carrying away with him for consolation. +On the afternoon of September 11, a copper wire broke in Minnesota, +stopping the belts of a grain elevator at a small country station of Taggart +Transcontinental. +A flood of wheat was moving down the highways, the roads, the abandoned +trails of the countryside, emptying thousands of acres of farmland upon the +fragile dams of the railroad's stations. It was moving day and night, the +first trickles growing into streams, then rivers, then torrents—moving on +palsied trucks with coughing, tubercular motors—on wagons pulled by the rusty +skeletons of starving horses—on carts pulled by oxen—on the nerves and last +energy of men who had lived through two years of disaster for the triumphant +reward of this autumn's giant harvest, men who had patched their trucks and +carts with wire, blankets, ropes and sleepless nights, to make them hold +together for this one more journey, to carry the grain and collapse at +destination, but to give their owners a chance at survival. +Every year, at this season, another movement had gone clicking across the +country, drawing freight cars from all corners of the continent to the +Minnesota Division of Taggart Transcontinental, the beat of train wheels +preceding the creak of the wagons, like an advance echo rigorously planned, +ordered and timed to meet the flood. The Minnesota Division drowsed through +the year, to come to violent life for the weeks of the harvest; fourteen +thousand freight cars had jammed its yards each year; fifteen thousand were +expected this time. The first of the wheat trains had started to channel the +flood into the hungry flour mills, then bakeries, then stomachs of the +nation—but every train, car and storage elevator counted, and there was no +minute or inch of space to spare. +Eddie Willers watched Dagny's face as she went through the cards of her +emergency file; he could tell the content of the cards by her expression. +"The Terminal," she said quietly, closing the file. "Phone the Terminal +downstairs and have them ship half their stock of wire to Minnesota." Eddie +said nothing and obeyed. +He said nothing, the morning when he put on her desk a telegram from the +Taggart office in Washington, informing them of the directive which, due to +the critical shortage of copper, ordered government agents to seize all +copper mines and operate them as a public utility. +"Well," she said, dropping the telegram into the wastebasket, "that's the +end of Montana." +She said nothing when James Taggart announced to her that he was issuing +an order to discontinue all dining cars on Taggart trains. "We can't afford +it any longer," he explained, "we've always lost money on those goddamn +diners, and when there's no food to get, when restaurants are closing because +they can't grab hold of a pound of horse meat anywhere, how can railroads be +expected to do it? Why in hell should we have to feed the passengers, anyway? +They're lucky if we give them transportation, they'd travel in cattle cars if +necessary, let 'em pack their own box lunches, what do we care?—they've got +no other trains to take!" +The telephone on her desk had become, not a voice of business, but an +alarm siren for the desperate appeals of disaster. "Miss Taggart. +we have no copper wire!" "Nails, Miss Taggart, plain nails, could you tell +somebody to send us a keg of nails?" "Can you find any paint. +Miss Taggart, any sort of waterproof paint anywhere?" +But thirty million dollars of subsidy money from Washington had been +plowed into Project Soybean—an enormous acreage in Louisiana, where a harvest +of soybeans was ripening, as advocated and organized by Emma Chalmers, for +the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation. Emma + + Chalmers, better known as Kip's Ma, was an old sociologist who had hung about +Washington for years, as other women of her age and type hang about barrooms. +For some reason which nobody could define, the death of her son in the tunnel +catastrophe had given her in Washington an aura of martyrdom, heightened by +her recent conversion to Buddhism. "The soybean is a much more sturdy, +nutritious and economical plant than all the extravagant foods which our +wasteful, self-indulgent diet has conditioned us to expect," Kip's Ma had +said over the radio; her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, +not of water, but of mayonnaise. +"Soybeans make an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and +coffee—and if all of us were compelled to adopt soybeans as our staple diet, +it would solve the national food crisis and make it possible to feed more +people. The greatest food for the greatest number—that's my slogan. At a time +of desperate public need, it's our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and +eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome +foodstuff on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted for +centuries. There's a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the +Orient." +"Copper tubing, Miss Taggart, could you get some copper tubing for us +somewhere?" the voices were pleading over her telephone. "Rail spikes, Miss +Taggart!" "Screwdrivers, Miss Taggart!" "Light bulbs, Miss Taggart, there's +no electric light bulbs to be had anywhere within two hundred miles of us!" +But five million dollars was being spent by the office of Morale +Conditioning on the People's Opera Company, which traveled through the +country, giving free performances to people who, on one meal a day, could not +afford the energy to walk to the opera house. Seven million dollars had been +granted to a psychologist in charge of a project to solve the world crisis by +research into the nature of brother-love. Ten million dollars had been +granted to the manufacturer of a new electronic cigarette lighter—but there +were no cigarettes in the shops of the country. There were flashlights on the +market, but no batteries; there were radios, but no tubes; there were +cameras, but no film. The production of airplanes had been declared +"temporarily suspended." Air travel for private purposes had been forbidden, +and reserved exclusively for missions of "public need." An industrialist +traveling to save his factory was not considered as publicly needed and could +not get aboard a plane; an official traveling to collect taxes was and could. +"People are stealing nuts and bolts out of rail plates, Miss Taggart, +stealing them at night, and our stock is running out, the division storehouse +is bare, what are we to do, Miss Taggart?" +But a super-color-four-foot-screen television set was being erected for +tourists in a People's Park in Washington—and a super-cyclotron for the study +of cosmic rays was being erected at the State Science Institute, to be +completed in ten years. +"The trouble with our modern world," Dr. Robert Stadler said over the +radio, at the ceremonies launching the construction of the cyclotron, "is +that too many people think too much. It is the cause of all our current fears +and doubts. An enlightened citizenry should abandon the superstitious worship +of logic and the outmoded reliance on reason. +Just as laymen leave medicine to doctors and electronics to engineers, so +people who are not qualified to think should leave all thinking to the +experts and have faith in the experts' higher authority. Only experts are +able to understand the discoveries of modern science, which have proved that +thought is an illusion and that the mind is a myth." +"This age of misery is God's punishment to man for the sin of relying on +his mind!" snarled the triumphant voices of mystics of every sect and sort, +on street corners, in rain-soaked tents, in crumbling temples. "This world +ordeal is the result of man's attempt to live by reason! This is where + + thinking, logic and science have brought you! And there's to be no salvation +until men realize that their mortal mind is impotent to solve their problems +and go back to faith, faith in God, faith in a higher authority!" +And confronting her daily there was the final product of it all, the heir +and collector—Cuffy Meigs, the man impervious to thought. +Cuffy Meigs strode through the offices of Taggart Transcontinental, +wearing a semi-military tunic and slapping a shiny leather briefcase against +his shiny leather leggings. He carried an automatic pistol in one pocket and +a rabbit's foot in the other. +Cuffy Meigs tried to avoid her; his manner was part scorn, as if he +considered her an impractical idealist, part superstitious awe, as if she +possessed some incomprehensible power with which he preferred not to tangle. +He acted as if her presence did not belong to his view of a railroad, yet as +if hers were the one presence he dared not challenge. +There was a touch of impatient resentment in his manner toward Jim, as if +it were Jim's duty to deal with her and to protect him; just as he expected +Jim to keep the railroad in running order and leave him free for activities +of more practical a nature, so he expected Jim to keep her in line, as part +of the equipment. +Beyond the window of her office, like a patch of adhesive plaster stuck +over a wound on the sky, the page of the calendar hung blank in the distance. +The calendar had never been repaired since the night of Francisco's farewell. +The officials who had rushed to the tower, that night, had knocked the +calendar's motor to a stop, while tearing the film out of the projector. They +had found the small square of Francisco's message, pasted into the strip of +numbered days, but who had pasted it there, who had entered the locked room +and when and how, was never discovered by the three commissions still +investigating the case. Pending the outcome of their efforts, the page hung +blank and still above the city. +It was blank on the afternoon of September 14, when the telephone rang in +her office. "A man from Minnesota," said the voice of her secretary. +She had told her secretary that she would accept all calls of this kind. +They were the appeals for help and her only source of information. At a time +when the voices of railroad officials uttered nothing but sounds designed to +avoid communication, the voices of nameless men were her last link to the +system, the last sparks of reason and tortured honesty flashing briefly +through the miles of Taggart track. +"Miss Taggart, it is not my place to call you, but nobody else will," +said the voice that came on the wire, this time; the voice sounded young +and too calm. "In another day or two, a disaster's going to happen here the +like of which they've never seen, and they won't be able to hide it any +longer, only it will be too late by then, and maybe it's too late already." +"What is it? Who are you?" +"One of your employees of the Minnesota Division, Miss Taggart. +In another day or two, the trains will stop running out of here—and you +know what that means, at the height of the harvest. At the height of the +biggest harvest we've ever had. They'll stop, because we have no cars. The +harvest freight cars have not been sent to us this year." +"What did you say?" She felt as if minutes went by between the words of +the unnatural voice that did not sound like her own. +"The cars have not been sent. Fifteen thousand should have been here by +now. As far as I could learn, about eight thousand cars is all we got. I've +been calling Division Headquarters for a week. They've been telling me not to +worry. Last time, they told me to mind my own damn business. Every shed, +silo, elevator, warehouse, garage and dance hall along the track is filled +with wheat. At the Sherman elevators, there's a line of farmers' trucks and +wagons two miles long, waiting on the road. At Lakewood Station, the square + + is packed solid and has been for three nights. They keep telling us it's only +temporary, the cars are coming and we'll catch up. We won't. There aren't any +cars coming. +I've called everyone I could. I know, by the way they answer. They know, +and not one of them wants to admit it. They're scared, scared to move or +speak or ask or answer. All they're thinking of is who will be blamed when +that harvest rots here around the stations—and not of who's going to move it. +Maybe nobody can, now. Maybe there's nothing you can do about it, either. But +I thought you're the only person left who'd want to know and that somebody +had to tell you." +"I . . ." She made an effort to breathe. "I see . . . Who are you?" +"The name wouldn't matter. When I hang up, I will have become a deserter. +I don't want to stay here to see it when it happens. I don't want any part of +it any more. Good luck to you, Miss Taggart." +She heard the click. "Thank you," she said over a dead wire. +The next time she noticed the office around her and permitted herself to +feel, it was noon of the following day. She stood in the middle of the +office, running stiff, spread fingers through a strand of hair, brushing it +back off her face—and for an instant, she wondered where she was and what was +the unbelievable thing that had happened in the last twenty hours. What she +felt was horror, and she knew that she had felt it from the first words of +the man on the wire, only there had been no time to know it. +There was not much that remained in her mind of the last twenty hours, +only disconnected bits, held together by the single constant that had made +them possible—by the soft, loose faces of men who fought to hide from +themselves that they knew the answers to the questions she asked. +From the moment when she was told that the manager of the Car Service +Department had been out of town for a week and had left no address where one +could reach him—she knew that the report of the man from Minnesota was true. +Then came the faces of the assistants in the Car Service Department, who +would neither confirm the report nor deny it, but kept showing her papers, +orders, forms, file cards that bore words in the English language, but no +connection to intelligible facts. "Were the freight cars sent to Minnesota?" +"Form 357W is filled out in every particular, as required by the office of +the Co-ordinator in conformance with the instructions of the comptroller and +by Directive 11-493." +"Were the freight cars sent to Minnesota?" "The entries for the months of +August and September have been processed by—" "Were the freight cars sent to +Minnesota?" "My files indicate the locations of freight cars by state, date, +classification and—" "Do you know whether the cars were sent to Minnesota?" +"As to the interstate motion of freight cars, I would have to refer you to +the files of Mr. Benson and of—" +There was nothing to learn from the files. There were careful entries, +each conveying four possible meanings, with references which led to +references which led to a final reference which was missing from the files. +It did not take her long to discover that the cars had not been sent to +Minnesota and that the order had come from Cuffy Meigs— +but who had carried it out, who had tangled the trail, what steps had been +taken by what compliant men to preserve the appearance of a safely normal +operation, without a single cry of protest to arouse some braver man's +attention, who had falsified the reports, and where the cars had gone—seemed, +at first, impossible to learn. +Through the hours of that night—while a small, desperate crew under the +command of Eddie Willers kept calling every division point, every yard, +depot, station, spur and siding of Taggart Transcontinental for every freight +car in sight or reach, ordering them to unload, drop, dump, scuttle anything +and proceed to Minnesota at once, while they kept calling the yards, stations + + and presidents of every railroad still half in existence anywhere across the +map, begging for cars for Minnesota—she went through the task of tracing from +face to coward's face the destination of the freight cars that had vanished. +She went from railroad executives to wealthy shippers to Washington +officials and back to the railroad—by cab, by phone, by wire—pursuing a trail +of half-uttered hints. The trail approached its end when she heard the pinchlipped voice of a public relations, woman in a Washington office, saying +resentfully over the telephone wire, "Well, after all, it is a matter of +opinion whether wheat is essential to a nation's welfare— +there are those of more progressive views who feel that the soybean is, +perhaps, of far greater value"—and then, by noon, she stood in the middle of +her office, knowing that the freight cars intended for the wheat of Minnesota +had been sent, instead, to carry the soybeans from the Louisiana swamps of +Kip's Ma's project. +The first story of the Minnesota disaster appeared in the newspapers three +days later. It reported that the farmers who had waited in. the streets of +Lakewood for six days, with no place to store their wheat and no trains to +carry it, had demolished the local courthouse, the mayor's home and the +railroad station. Then the stories vanished abruptly and the newspapers kept +silent, then began to print admonitions urging people not to believe +unpatriotic rumors. +While the flour mills and grain markets of the country were screaming over +the phones and the telegraph wires, sending pleas to New York and delegations +to Washington, while strings of freight cars from random corners of the +continent were crawling like rusty caterpillars across the map in the +direction of Minnesota—the wheat and hope of the country were waiting to +perish along an empty track, under the unchanging green lights of signals +that called for motion to trains that were not there. +At the communication desks of Taggart Transcontinental, a small crew kept +calling for freight cars, repeating, like the crew of a sinking ship, an +S.O.S, that remained unheard. There were freight cars held loaded for months +in the yards of the companies owned by the friends of pull-peddlers, who +ignored the frantic demands to unload the cars and release them. "You can +tell that railroad to—" followed by untransmissible words, was the message of +the Smather Brothers of Arizona in answer to the S.O.S. of New York. +In Minnesota, they were seizing cars from every siding, from the Mesabi +Range, from the ore mines of Paul Larkin where the cars had stood waiting for +a dribble of iron. They were pouring wheat into ore cars, into coal cars, +into boarded stock cars that went spilling thin gold trickles along the track +as they clattered off. They were pouring wheat into passenger coaches, over +seats, racks and fixtures, to send it off, to get it moving, even if it went +moving into track-side ditches in the sudden crash of breaking springs, in +the explosions set off by burning journal boxes. +They fought for movement, for movement with no thought of destination, for +movement as such, like a paralytic under a stroke, struggling in wild, stiff, +incredulous jerks against the realization that movement was suddenly +impossible. There were no other railroads: James Taggart had killed them; +there were no boats on the Lakes: Paul Larkin had destroyed them. There was +only the single line of rail and a net of neglected highways. +The trucks and wagons of waiting farmers started trickling blindly down +the roads, with no maps, no gas, no feed for horses—moving south, south +toward the vision of flour mills awaiting them somewhere, with no knowledge +of the distances ahead, but with the knowledge of death behind them—moving, +to collapse on the roads, in the gullies, in the breaks of rotted bridges. +One farmer was found, half a mile south of the wreck of his truck, lying dead +in a ditch, face down, still clutching a sack of wheat on his shoulders. Then +rain clouds burst over the prairies of Minnesota; the rain went eating the + + wheat into rot at the waiting railroad stations; it went hammering the piles +spilled along the roads, washing gold kernels into the soil. +The men in Washington were last to be reached by the panic. They watched, +not the news from Minnesota, but the precarious balance of their friendships +and commitments; they weighed, not the fate of the harvest, but the +unknowable result of unpredictable emotions in +unthinking men of unlimited power. They waited, they evaded all pleas, +they declared, "Oh, ridiculous, there's nothing to worry about! Those Taggart +people have always moved that wheat on schedule, they'll find some way to +move it!" +Then, when the State Chief Executive of Minnesota sent a request to +Washington for the assistance of the Army against the riots he was unable to +control—three directives burst forth within two hours, stopping all trains in +the country, commandeering all cars to speed to Minnesota. +An order signed by Wesley Mouch demanded the immediate release of the +freight cars held in the service of Kip's Ma. But by that time, it was too +late. Ma's freight cars were in California, where the soybeans had been sent +to a progressive concern made up of sociologists preaching the cult of +Oriental austerity, and of businessmen formerly in the numbers racket. +In Minnesota, farmers were setting fire to their own farms, they were +demolishing grain elevators and the homes of county officials, they were +fighting along the track of the railroad, some to tear it up, some to defend +it with their lives—and, with no goal to reach save violence, they were dying +in the streets of gutted towns and in the silent gullies of a roadless night. +Then there was only the acrid stench of grain rotting in half-smouldering +piles—a few columns of smoke rising from the plains, standing still in the +air over blackened ruins—and, in an office in Pennsylvania, Hank Rearden +sitting at his desk, looking at a list of men who had gone bankrupt: they +were the manufacturers of farm equipment, who could not be paid and would not +be able to pay him. +The harvest of soybeans did not reach the markets of the country: it had +been reaped prematurely, it was moldy and unfit for consumption. +On the night of October 15, a copper wire broke in New York City, in an +underground control tower of the Taggart Terminal, extinguishing the lights +of the signals. +It was only the breach of one wire, but it produced a short circuit in the +interlocking traffic system, and the signals of motion or danger disappeared +from the panels of the control towers and from among the strands of rail. The +red and green lenses remained red and green, not with the living radiance of +sight, but with the dead stare of glass eyes. On the edge of the city, a +cluster of trains gathered at the entrance to the Terminal tunnels and grew +through the minutes of stillness, like blood dammed by a clot inside a vein, +unable to rush into the chambers of the heart. +Dagny, that night, was sitting at a table in a private dining room of the +Wayne-Falkland. The wax of candles was dripping down on the white camellias +and laurel leaves at the base of the silver candlesticks, arithmetical +calculations were penciled on the damask linen tablecloth, and a cigar butt +was swimming in a finger bowl. The six men in formal dinner jackets, facing +her about the table, were Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, Dr. Floyd Ferris, Clem +Weatherby, James Taggart and Cuffy Meigs. +"Why?" she had asked, when Jim had told her that she had to attend that +dinner. "Well . . . because our Board of Directors is to meet next week." +"And?" "You're interested in what's going to be decided about our Minnesota +Line, aren't you?" "Is that going to be decided at the Board meeting?'1 +"Well, not exactly." "Is it going to be decided at this dinner?" "Not +exactly, but . . . oh, why do you always have to be so definite? Nothing's + + ever definite. Besides, they insisted that they wanted you to come." "Why?" +"Isn't that sufficient?" +She did not ask why those men chose to make all their crucial decisions at +parties of this kind; she knew that they did. She knew that behind the +clattering, lumbering pretense of their council sessions, committee meetings +and mass debates, the decisions were made in advance, in furtive informality, +at luncheons, dinners and bars, the graver the issue, the more casual the +method of settling it. It was the first time that they had asked her, the +outsider, the enemy, to one of those secret sessions; it was, she thought, an +acknowledgment of the fact that they needed her and, perhaps, the first step +of their surrender; it was a chance she could not leave untaken. +But as she sat in the candlelight of the dining room, she felt certain +that she had no chance; she felt restlessly unable to accept that certainty, +since she could not grasp its reason, yet lethargically reluctant to pursue +any inquiry. +"As, I think, you will concede, Miss Taggart, there now seems to be no +economic justification for the continued existence of a railroad line in +Minnesota, which . . ." "And even Miss Taggart will, I'm sure, agree that +certain temporary retrenchments seem to be indicated, until . . ." "Nobody, +not even Miss Taggart, will deny that there are times when it is necessary to +sacrifice the parts for the sake of the whole . . ." As she listened to the +mentions of her name tossed into the conversation at half-hour intervals, +tossed perfunctorily, with the speaker's eyes never glancing in her +direction, she wondered what motive had made them want her to be present. It +was not an attempt to delude her into believing that they were consulting +her, but worse: an attempt to delude themselves into believing that she had +agreed. They asked her questions at times and interrupted her before she had +completed the first sentence of the answer. They seemed to want her approval, +without having to know whether she approved or not. +Some crudely childish form of self-deception had made them choose to give +to this occasion the decorous setting of a formal dinner. They acted as if +they hoped to gain, from the objects of gracious luxury, the power and the +honor of which those objects had once been the product and symbol—they acted, +she thought, like those savages who devour the corpse of an adversary in the +hope of acquiring his strength and his virtue. +She regretted that she was dressed as she was. "It's formal," Jim had told +her, "but don't overdo it . . . what I mean is, don't look too rich . . . +business people should avoid any appearance of arrogance these days . . . not +that you should look shabby, but if you could just seem to suggest . . . +well, humility . . . it would please them, you know, it would make them feel +big." "Really?" she had said, turning away. +She wore a black dress that looked as if it were no more than a piece of +cloth crossed over her breasts and falling to her feet in the soft folds of a +Grecian tunic; it was made of satin, a satin so light and thin that it could +have served as the stuff of a nightgown. The luster of the cloth, streaming +and shifting with her movements, made it look as if the light of the room she +entered were her personal property, sensitively obedient to-the motions of +her body, wrapping her in a sheet of radiance more luxurious than the texture +of brocade, underscoring the pliant fragility of her figure, giving her an +air of so natural an elegance that it could afford to be scornfully casual. +She wore a single piece of jewelry, a diamond clip at the edge of the black +neckline, that kept flashing with the imperceptible motion of her breath, +like a transformer converting a flicker into fire, making one conscious, not +of the gems, but of the living beat behind them; it flashed like a military +decoration, like wealth worn as a badge of honor. She wore no other ornament, +only the sweep of a black velvet cape, more arrogantly, ostentatiously +patrician than any spread of sables. + + She regretted it now, as she looked at the men before her; she felt the +embarrassing guilt of pointlessness, as if she had tried to defy the figures +in a waxworks. She saw a mindless resentment in their eyes and a sneaking +trace of the lifeless, sexless, smutty leer with which men look at a poster +advertising burlesque. +"It's a great responsibility," said Eugene Lawson, "to hold the decision +of life or death over thousands of people and to sacrifice them when +necessary, but we mast have the courage to do it." His soft lips seemed to +twist into a smile. +"The only factors to consider are land acreage and population figures," +said Dr. Ferris in a statistical voice, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling. +"Since it is no longer possible to maintain both the Minnesota Line and the +transcontinental traffic of this railroad, the choice is between Minnesota +and those states west of the Rockies which were cut off by the failure of the +Taggart Tunnel, as well as the neighboring states of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, +which means, practically speaking, the whole of the Northwest. When you +compute the acreage and the number of heads in both areas, it's obvious that +we should scuttle Minnesota rather than give up our lines of communication +over a third of a continent." +"1 won't give up the continent," said Wesley Mouch, staring down at his +dish of ice cream, his voice hurt and stubborn. +She was thinking of the Mesabi Range, the last of the major sources of +iron ore, she was thinking of the Minnesota farmers, such as were left of +them, the best producers of wheat in the country—she was thinking that the +end of Minnesota would end Wisconsin, then Michigan, then Illinois—she was +seeing the red breath of the factories dying out over the industrial East—as +against the empty miles of western sands, of scraggly pastures and abandoned +ranches. +"The figures indicate," said Mr. Weatherby primly, "that the continued +maintenance of both areas seems to be impossible. The railway track and +equipment of one has to be dismantled to provide the material for the +maintenance of the other." +She noticed that Clem Weatherby, their technical expert on railroads, was +the man of least influence among them, and Cuffy Meigs—of most. +Cuffy Meigs sat sprawled in his chair, with a look of patronizing +tolerance for their game of wasting time on discussions. He spoke little, but +when he did, it was to snap decisively, with a contemptuous grin, "Pipe down, +Jimmy!" or, "Nuts, Wes, you're talking through your hat!" She noticed that +neither Jim nor Mouch resented it. They seemed to welcome the authority of +his assurance; they were accepting him as their master. +"We have to be practical," Dr. Ferris kept saying. "We have to. be +scientific." +"I need the economy of the country as a whole," Wesley Mouch kept +repeating. "I need the production of a nation." +"Is it economics that you're talking about? Is it production?" she said, +whenever her cold, measured voice was able to seize a brief stretch of their +tune. "If it is, then give us leeway to save the Eastern states. That's all +that's left of the country—and of the world. If you let us save that, we'll +have a chance to rebuild the rest. If not, it's the end. +Let the Atlantic Southern take care of such transcontinental traffic as +still exists. Let the local railroads take care of the Northwest. But let +Taggart Transcontinental drop everything else—yes, everything—and devote all +our resources, equipment and rail to the traffic of the Eastern states. Let +us shrink back to the start of this country, but let us hold that start. +We'll run no trains west of the Missouri. We'll become a local railroad—the +local of the industrial East. Let us save our industries. + + There's nothing left to save in the West. You can run agriculture for +centuries by manual labor and oxcarts. But destroy the last of this country's +industrial plant—and centuries of effort won't be able to rebuild it or to +gather the economic strength to make a start. How do you expect our +industries—or railroads—to survive without steel? How do you expect any steel +to be produced if you cut off the supply of iron ore? Save Minnesota, +whatever's left of it. The country? You have no country to save, if its +industries perish. You can sacrifice a leg or an arm. You can't save a body +by sacrificing its heart and brain. Save our industries. Save Minnesota. Save +the Eastern Seaboard." +It was no use. She said it as many times, with as many details, +statistics, figures, proofs, as she could force out of her weary mind into +their evasive hearing. It was no use. They neither refuted nor agreed; they +merely looked as if her arguments were beside the point. There was a sound of +hidden emphasis in their answers, as if they were giving her an explanation, +but in a code to which she had no key. +"There's trouble in California," said Wesley Mouch sullenly. "Their state +legislature's been acting pretty huffy. There's talk of seceding from the +Union." +"Oregon is overrun by gangs of deserters," said Clem Weatherby cautiously. +"They murdered two tax collectors within the last three months." +"The importance of industry to a civilization has been grossly +overemphasized," said Dr. Ferris dreamily. "What is now known as the People's +State of India has existed for centuries without any industrial development +whatever." +"People could do with fewer material gadgets and a sterner discipline of +privations," said Eugene Lawson eagerly. "It would be good for them." +"Oh hell, are you going to let that dame talk you into letting the richest +country on earth slip through your fingers?" said Cuffy Meigs, leaping to his +feet. "It's a fine time to give up a whole continent—and in exchange for +what? For a dinky little state that's milked dry, anyway! +I say ditch Minnesota, but hold onto your transcontinental dragnet. +With trouble and riots everywhere, you won't be able to keep people in +line unless you have transportation—troop transportation—unless you hold your +soldiers within a few days' journey of any point on the continent. This is no +time to retrench. Don't get yellow, listening to all that talk. You've got +the country in your pocket. Just keep it there." +"In the long run—" Mouch started uncertainly. +"In the long run, we'll all be dead," snapped Cuffy Meigs. He was pacing +restlessly. "Retrenching, hell! There's plenty of pickings left in California +and Oregon and all those places. What I've been thinking is, we ought to +think of expanding—the way things are, there's nobody to stop us, it's there +for the taking—Mexico, and Canada maybe—it ought to be a cinch." +Then she saw the answer; she saw the secret premise behind their words. +With all of their noisy devotion to the age of science, their hysterically +technological jargon, their cyclotrons, their sound rays, these men were +moved forward, not by the image of an industrial skyline, but by the vision +of that form of existence which the industrialists had swept away—the vision +of a fat, unhygienic rajah of India, with vacant eyes staring in indolent +stupor out of stagnant layers of flesh, with nothing to do but run precious +gems through his fingers and, once in a while, stick a knife into the body of +a starved, toil-dazed, germeaten creature, as a claim to a few grains of the +creature's rice, then claim it from hundreds of millions of such creatures +and thus let the rice grains gather into gems. +She had thought that industrial production was a value not to be +questioned by anyone; she had thought that these men's urge to expropriate +the factories of others was their acknowledgment of the factories value. She, + + born of the industrial revolution, had not held as conceivable, had forgotten +along with the tales of astrology and alchemy, what these men knew in their +secret, furtive souls, knew not by means of thought, but by means of that +nameless muck which they called their instincts and emotions: that so long as +men struggle to stay alive, they'll never produce so little but that the man +with the club won't be able to seize it and leave them still less, provided +millions of them are willing to submit—that the harder their work and the +less their gain, the more submissive the fiber of their spirit—that men who +live by pulling levers at an electric switchboard, are not easily ruled, but +men who live by digging the soil with their naked fingers, are—that the +feudal baron did not need electronic factories in order to drink his brains +away out of jeweled goblets, and neither did the rajahs of the People's State +of India. +She saw what they wanted and to what goal their "instincts," which they +called unaccountable, were leading them. She saw that Eugene Lawson, the +humanitarian, took pleasure at the prospect of human starvation—and Dr. +Ferris, the scientist, was dreaming of the day when men would return to the +hand-plow. +Incredulity and indifference were her only reaction: incredulity, because +she could not conceive of what would bring human beings to such a state— +indifference, because she could not regard those who reached it, as human any +longer. They went on talking, but she was unable to speak or to listen. She +caught herself feeling that her only desire was now to get home and fall +asleep. +"Miss Taggart," said a politely rational, faintly anxious voice—and +jerking her head up, she saw the courteous figure of a waiter, "the assistant +manager of the Taggart Terminal is on the telephone, requesting permission to +speak to you at once. He says it's an emergency.” +It was a relief to leap to her feet and get out of that room, even if in +answer to the call of some new disaster. It was a relief to hear the +assistant manager's voice, even though it was saying, "The interlocker system +is out, Miss Taggart. The signals are dead. There are eight incoming trains +held up and six outgoing. We can't move them in or out of the tunnels, we +can't find the chief engineer, we can't locate the breach of the circuit, we +have no copper wire for repairs, we don't know what to do, we—" "111 be right +down," she said, dropping the receiver. +Hurrying to the elevator, then half-running through the stately lobby of +the Wayne-Falkland, she felt herself returning to life at the summons of the +possibility of action. +Taxicabs were rare, these days, and none came in answer to the doorman's +whistle. She started rapidly down the street, forgetting what she wore, +wondering why the touch of the wind seemed too cold and too ultimately close. +Her mind on the Terminal ahead, she was startled by the loveliness of a +sudden sight: she saw the slender figure of a woman hurrying toward her, the +ray of a lamppost sweeping over lustrous hair, naked arms, the swirl of a +black cape and the flame of a diamond on her breast, with the long, empty +corridor of a city street behind her and skyscrapers drawn by lonely dots of +light. The knowledge that she was seeing her own reflection in the side +mirror of a florist's window, came an instant too late: she had felt the +enchantment of the full context to which that image and city belonged. Then +she felt a stab of desolate loneliness, much wider a loneliness than the span +of an empty street— +and a stab of anger at herself, at the preposterous contrast between her +appearance and the context of this night and age. +She saw a taxi turn a corner, she waved to it and leaped in, slamming the +door against a feeling which she hoped to leave behind her, on the empty +pavement by a florist's window. But she knew—in self mockery, in bitterness, + + in longing—that this feeling was the sense of expectation she had felt at her +first ball and at those rare times when she had wanted the outward beauty of +existence to match its inner splendor. What a time to think of it! she told +herself in mockery—not now! she cried to herself in anger—but a desolate +voice kept asking her quietly to the rattle of the taxi's wheels: You who +believed you must live for your happiness, what do you now have left of it?— +what are you gaining from your struggle?—yes! say it honestly: what's in it +for you?—or are you becoming one of those abject altruists who has no answer +to that question any longer? . . . Not now!—she ordered, as the glowing +entrance to the Taggart Terminal flared up in the rectangle of the taxi's +windshield. +The men in the Terminal manager's office were like extinguished signals, +as if here, too, a circuit were broken and there were no living current to +make them move. They looked at her with a kind of inanimate passivity, as if +it made no difference whether she let them stay still or threw a switch to +set them in motion. +The Terminal manager was absent. The chief engineer could not be found; he +had been seen at the Terminal two hours ago, not since. The assistant manager +had exhausted his power of initiative by volunteering to call her. The others +volunteered nothing. The signal engineer was a college-boyish man in his +thirties, who kept saying aggressively, "But this has never happened before, +Miss Taggart! The interlocker has never failed. It's not supposed to fail. We +know our jobs, we can take care of it as well as anybody can—but not if it +breaks down when it's not supposed to!" She could not tell whether the +dispatcher, an elderly man with years of railroad work behind him, still +retained his intelligence but chose to hide it, or whether months of +suppressing it had choked it for good, granting him the safety of stagnation, +"We don't know what to do, Miss Taggart." "We don't know whom to call for +what sort of permission." "There are no rules to cover an emergency of this +kind." "There aren't even any rules about who's to lay down the rules for +it!" +She listened, she reached for the telephone without a word of explanation, +she ordered the operator to get her the operating vice-president of the +Atlantic Southern in Chicago, to get him at his home and out of bed, if +necessary. +"George? Dagny Taggart," she said, when the voice of her competitor came +on the wire. "Will you lend me the signal engineer of your Chicago terminal, +Charles Murray, for twenty-four hours? . . . +Yes. . . . Right. . . . Put him aboard a plane and get him here as fast as +you can. Tell him we'll pay three thousand dollars. . . . Yes, for the one +day. . . . Yes, as bad as that. . . . Yes, I'll pay him in cash, out of my +own pocket, if necessary. I'll pay whatever it takes to bribe his way aboard +a plane, but get him on the first plane out of Chicago. . . . No, George, not +one—not a single mind left on Taggart Transcontinental. . . . Yes, I'll get +all the papers, exemptions, exceptions and emergency permissions. . . . +Thanks, George. So long." +She hung up and spoke rapidly to the men before her, not to hear the +stillness of the room and of the Terminal, where no sound of wheels was +beating any longer, not to hear the bitter words which the stillness seemed +to repeat: Not a single mind left on Taggart Transcontinental. . . . +"Get a wrecking train and crew ready at once,'1 she said. "Send them out +on the Hudson Line, with orders to tear down every foot of copper wire, any +copper wire, lights, signals, telephone, everything that's company property. +Have it here by morning." "But, Miss Taggart! Our service on the Hudson Line +is only temporarily suspended and the Unification Board has refused us +permission to dismantle the line!" "I'll be responsible." "But how are we +going to get the wrecking train out of here, when there aren't any signals?" + + "There will be signals in half an hour." "How?" "Come on," she said, rising +to her feet. +They followed her as she hurried down the passenger platforms, past the +huddling, shifting groups of travelers by the motionless trains. She hurried +down a narrow catwalk, through a maze of rail, past blinded signals and +frozen switches, with nothing but the beat of her satin sandals to fill the +great vaults of the underground tunnels of Taggart Transcontinental, with the +hollow creaking of planks under the slower steps of men trailing her like a +reluctant echo—she hurried to the lighted glass cube of Tower A, that hung in +the darkness like a crown without a body, the crown of a deposed ruler above +a realm of empty tracks. +The tower director was too expert a man at too exacting a job to be able +wholly to conceal the dangerous burden of intelligence. He understood what +she wanted him to do from her first few words and answered only with an +abrupt "Yes, ma'am," but he was bent over his charts by the time the others +came following her up the iron stairway, he was grimly at work on the most +humiliating job of calculation he had ever had to perform in his long career. +She knew how fully he understood it, from a single glance he threw at her, a +glance of indignation and endurance that matched some emotion he had caught +in her face, "We'll do it first and feel about it afterwards," she said, even +though he had made no comment. "Yes, ma'am," he answered woodenly. +His room, on the top of an underground tower, was like a glass verandah +overlooking what had once been the swiftest, richest and most orderly stream +in the world. He had been trained to chart the course of over ninety trains +an hour and to watch them roll safely through a maze of tracks and switches +in and out of the Terminal, under his glass walls and his fingertips. Now, +for the first time, he was looking out at the empty darkness of a dried +channel. +Through the open door of the relay room, she saw the tower men standing +grimly idle—the men whose jobs had never permitted a moment's relaxation— +standing by the long rows that looked like vertical copper pleats, like +shelves of books and as much of a monument to human intelligence. The pull of +one of the small levers, which protruded like bookmarks from the shelves, +threw thousands of electric circuits into motion, made thousands of contacts +and broke as many others, set dozens of switches to clear a chosen course and +dozens of signals to light it, with no error left possible, no chance, no +contradiction —an enormous complexity of thought condensed into one movement +of a human hand to set and insure the course of a train, that hundreds of +trains might safely rush by, that thousands of tons of metal and lives might +pass in speeding streaks a breath away from one another, protected by nothing +but a thought, the thought of the man who devised the levers. But they—she +looked at the face of her signal engineer —they believed that that muscular +contraction of a hand was the only thing required to move the traffic—and now +the tower men stood idle— +and on the great panels in front of the tower director, the red and green +lights, which had flashed announcing the progress of trains at a distance of +miles, were now so many glass beads—like the glass beads for which another +breed of savages had once sold the Island of Manhattan. +"Calf all of your unskilled laborers," she said to the assistant manager, +"the section hands, trackwalkers, engine wipers, whoever's in the Terminal +right now, and have them come here at once." +"Here?" +"Here," she said, pointing at the tracks outside the tower. "Call all your +switchmen, too. Phone your storehouse and have them bring here every lantern +they can lay their hands on, any sort of lantern, conductors' lanterns, storm +lanterns, anything." +"Lanterns, Miss Taggart?" + + "Get going." +"Yes, ma'am." +"What is it we're doing, Miss Taggart?" asked the dispatcher. +"We're going to move trains and we're going "to move them manually." +"Manually?" said the signal engineer. +"Yes, brother! Now why should you be shocked?" She could not resist it. +"Man is only muscles, isn't he? We're going back—back to where there were no +interlocking systems, no semaphores, no electricity —back to the time when +train signals were not steel and wire, but men holding lanterns. Physical +men, serving as lampposts. You've advocated it long enough—you got what you +wanted. Oh, you thought that your tools would determine your ideas? But it +happens to be the other way around—and now you're going to see the kind of +tools your ideas have determined!" +But even to go back took an act of intelligence—she thought, feeling the +paradox of her own position, as she looked at the lethargy of the faces +around her. +"How will we work the switches, Miss Taggart?" +"By hand." +"And the signals?" +"By hand." +"How?" +"By placing a man with a lantern at every signal post." +"How? There's not enough clearance." +"We'll use alternate tracks." +"How will the men know which way to throw the switches?" +"By written orders." +"Uh?" +"By written orders—just as in the old days." She pointed to the tower +director. "He's working out a schedule of how to move the trains and which +tracks to use. He'll write out an. order for every signal and switch, he'll +pick some men as runners and they'll keep delivering the orders to every +post—and it will take hours to do what used to take minutes, but we'll get +those waiting trains into the Terminal and out on the road-" +"We're to work it that way all night?" +"And all day tomorrow—until the engineer who's got the brains for it, +shows you how to repair the interlocker." +"There's nothing in the union contracts about men standing with lanterns. +There's going to be trouble. The union will object." +"Let them come to me." +"The Unification Board will object." +"I'll be responsible." +"Well, I wouldn't want to be held for giving the orders—" +"I'll give the orders." +She stepped out on the landing of the iron stairway that hung on the side +of the tower; she was fighting for self-control. It seemed to her for a +moment as if she, too, were a precision instrument of high technology, left +without electric current, trying to run a transcontinental railroad by means +of her two hands. She looked out at the great, silent darkness of the Taggart +underground—and she felt a stab of burning humiliation that she should now +see it brought down to the level where human lampposts would stand in its +tunnels as its last memorial statues. +She could barely distinguish the faces of the men when they gathered at +the foot of the tower. They came streaming silently through the darkness and +stood without moving in the bluish murk, with blue bulbs on the walls behind +them and patches of light falling on their shoulders from the tower's +windows. She could see the greasy garments, the slack, muscular bodies, the +limply hanging arms of men drained by the unrewarding exhaustion of a labor + + that required no thought. These were the dregs of the railroad, the younger +men who could now seek no chance to rise and the older men who had never +wanted to seek it. +They stood in silence, not with the apprehensive curiosity of workmen, but +with the heavy indifference of convicts. +"The orders which you are about to receive have come from me," +she said, standing above them on the iron stairs, speaking with resonant +clarity. "The men who'll issue them are acting under my instructions. +The interlocking control system has broken down. It will now be replaced +by human labor. Train service will be resumed at once." +She noticed some faces in the crowd staring at her with a peculiar look: +with a veiled resentment and the kind of insolent curiosity that made her +suddenly conscious of being a woman. Then she remembered what she wore, and +thought that it did look preposterous—and then, at the sudden stab of some +violent impulse that felt like defiance and like loyalty to the full, real +meaning of the moment, she threw her cape back and stood in the raw glare of +light, under the sooted columns, like a figure at a formal reception, sternly +erect, flaunting the luxury of naked arms, of glowing black satin, of a +diamond flashing like a military cross. +"The tower director will assign switchmen to their posts. He will select +men for the job of signaling trains by means of lanterns and for the task of +transmitting his orders. Trains will—" +She was fighting to drown a bitter voice that seemed to be saying: That's +all they're fit for, these men, if even that . . . there's not a single mind +left anywhere on Taggart Transcontinental. . . . +"Trains will continue to be moved in and out of the Terminal. You will +remain at your posts until—" +Then she stopped. It was his eyes and hair that she saw first—the +ruthlessly perceptive eyes, the streaks of hair shaded from gold to copper +that seemed to reflect the glow of sunlight in the murk of the underground— +she saw John Galt among the chain gang of the mindless, John Galt in greasy +overalls and rolled shirt sleeves, she saw his weightless way of standing, +his face held lifted, his eyes looking at her as if he had seen this moment +many moments ago. +"What's the matter, Miss Taggart?" +It was the soft voice of the tower director, who stood by her side, with +some sort of paper in his hand—and she thought it was strange to emerge from +a span of unconsciousness which had been the span of the sharpest awareness +she had ever experienced, only she did not know how long it had lasted or +where she was or why. She had been aware of Galt's face, she had been seeing, +in the shape of his mouth, in the planes of his cheeks, the crackup of that +implacable serenity which had always been his, but he still retained it in +his look of acknowledging the breach, of admitting that this moment was too +much even for him. +She knew that she went on speaking, because those around her looked as if +they were listening, though she could not hear a sound, she went on speaking +as if carrying out a hypnotic order given to herself some endless time ago, +knowing only that the completion of that order was a form of defiance against +him, neither knowing nor hearing her own words. +She felt as if she were standing in a radiant silence where sight was her +only capacity and his face was its only object, and the sight of his face was +like a speech in the form of a pressure at the base of her throat. It seemed +so natural that he should be here, it seemed so unendurably simple—she felt +as if the shock were not his presence, but the presence of others on the +tracks of her railroad, where he belonged and they did not. She was seeing +those moments aboard a train when, at its plunge into the tunnels, she had +felt a sudden, solemn tension, as if this place were showing her in naked + + simplicity the essence of her railroad and of her life, the union of +consciousness and matter, the frozen form of a mind's ingenuity giving +physical existence to its purpose; she had felt a sense of sudden hope, as if +this place held the meaning of all of her values, and a sense of secret +excitement, as if a nameless promise were awaiting her under the ground—it +was right that she should now meet him here, he had been the meaning and the +promise—she was not seeing his clothing any longer, nor to what level her +railroad had reduced him—she was seeing only the vanishing torture of the +months when he had been outside her reach—she was seeing in his face the +confession of what those months had cost him —the only speech she heard was +as if she were saying to him: This is the reward for all my days—and as if he +were answering: For all of mine. +She knew that she had finished speaking to the strangers when she saw that +the tower director had stepped forward and was saying something to them, +glancing at a list in his hand. Then, drawn by a sense of irresistible +certainty, she found herself descending the stairs, slipping away from the +crowd, not toward the platforms and the exit, but into the darkness of the +abandoned tunnels. You will follow me, she thought —and felt as if the +thought were not in words, but in the tension of her muscles, the tension of +her will to accomplish a thing she knew to be outside her power, yet she knew +with certainty that it would be accomplished and by her wish . . . no, she +thought, not by her wish, but by its total Tightness. You will follow me—it +was neither plea nor prayer nor demand., but the quiet statement of a fact, +it contained the whole of her power of knowledge and the whole of the +knowledge she had earned through the years. You will follow me, if we are +what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the +meaning of this moment and can't let it slip by, as others let it slip, into +the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached. You will follow me—she felt +an exultant assurance, which was neither hope nor faith, but an act of +worship for the logic of existence. +She was hurrying down the remnants of abandoned rails, down the long, dark +corridors twisting through granite. She lost the sound of the director's +voice behind her. Then she felt the beat of her arteries and heard, in +answering rhythm, the beat of the city above her head, but she felt as if she +heard the motion of her blood as a sound filling the silence, and the motion +of the city as the beat inside her body—and, far behind her, she heard the +sound of steps. She did not glance back. +She went faster. +She went past the locked iron door where the remnant of his motor was +still hidden, she did not stop, but a faint shudder was her answer to the +sudden glimpse of the unity and logic in the events of the last two years. A +string of blue lights went on into the darkness, over patches of glistening +granite, over broken sandbags spilling drifts on the rails, over rusty piles +of scrap metal. When she heard the steps coming closer, she stopped and +turned to look back. +She saw a sweep of blue light flash briefly on the shining strands of +Galt's hair, she caught the pale outline of his face and the dark hollows of +his eyes. The face disappeared, but the sound of his steps served as the link +to the next blue light that swept across the line of his eyes, the eyes that +remained held level, directed ahead—and she felt certain that she had stayed +in his sight from the moment he had seen her at the tower. +She heard the beat of the city above them—these tunnels, she had once +thought, were the roots of the city and of all the motion reaching to the +sky—but they, she thought, John Galt and she, were the living power within +these roots, they were the start and aim and meaning—he, too, she thought, +heard the beat of the city as the beat of his body. + + She threw her cape back, she stood defiantly straight, as he had seen her +stand on the steps of the tower—as he had seen her for the first time, ten +years ago, here, under the ground—she was hearing the words of his +confession, not as words, but by means of that beating which made it so +difficult to breathe: You looked like a symbol of luxury and you belonged in +the place that was its source . . . you seemed to bring the enjoyment of life +back to its rightful owners . . . +you had a look of energy and of its reward, together . . . and I was the +first man who had ever stated in what manner these two were inseparable. . . +. +The next span of moments was like flashes of light in stretches of blinded +unconsciousness—the moment when she saw his face, as he stopped beside her, +when she saw the unastonished calm, the leashed intensity, the laughter of +understanding in the dark green eyes—the moment when she knew what he saw in +her face, by the tight, drawn harshness of his lips—the moment when she felt +his mouth on hers, when she felt the shape of his mouth both as an absolute +shape and as a liquid filling her body—then the motion of his lips down the +line of her throat, a drinking motion that left a trail of bruises—then the +sparkle of her diamond clip against the trembling copper of his hair. +Then she was conscious of nothing but the sensations of her body, because +her body acquired the sudden power to let her know her most complex values by +direct perception. Just as her eyes had the power to translate wave lengths +of energy into sight, just as her ears had the power to translate vibrations +into sound, so her body now had the power to translate the energy that had +moved all the choices of her life, into immediate sensory perception. It was +not the pressure of a hand that made her tremble, but the instantaneous sum +of its meaning, the knowledge that it was his hand, that it moved as if her +flesh were his possession, that its movement was his signature of acceptance +under the whole of that achievement which was herself—it was only a sensation +of physical pleasure, but it contained her worship of him, of everything that +was his person and his life—from the night of the mass meeting in a factory +in Wisconsin, to the Atlantis of a valley hidden in the Rocky Mountains, to +the triumphant mockery of the green eyes of the superlative intelligence +above a worker's figure at the foot of the tower—it contained her pride in +herself and that it should be she whom he had chosen as his mirror, that it +should be her body which was now giving him the sum of his existence, as his +body was giving her the sum of hers. These were the things it contained—but +what she knew was only the sensation of the movement of his hand on her +breasts. +He tore off her cape and she felt the slenderness of her own body by means +of the circle of his arms, as if his person were only a tool for her +triumphant awareness of herself, but that self were only a tool for her +awareness of him. It was as if she were reaching the limit of her capacity to +feel, yet what she felt was like a cry of impatient demand, which she was now +incapable of naming, except that it had the same quality of ambition as the +course of her life, the same inexhaustible quality of radiant greed. +He pulled her head back for a moment, to look straight into her eyes, to +let her see his, to let her know the full meaning of their actions, as if +throwing the spotlight of consciousness upon them for the meeting of their +eyes in a moment of intimacy greater than the one to come. +Then she felt the mesh of burlap striking the skin of her shoulders, she +found herself lying on the broken sandbags, she saw the long, tight gleam of +her stockings, she felt his mouth pressed to her ankle, then rising in a +tortured motion up the line of her leg, as if he wished to own its shape by +means of his lips, then she felt her teeth sinking into the flesh of his arm, +she felt the sweep of his elbow knocking her head aside and his mouth seizing +her lips with a pressure more viciously painful than hers—then she felt, when + + it hit her throat, that which she knew only as an upward streak of motion +that released and united her body into a single shock of pleasure—then she +knew nothing but the motion of his body and the driving greed that went +reaching on and on, as if she were not a person any longer, only a sensation +of endless reaching for the impossible—then she knew that it was possible, +and she gasped and lay still, knowing that nothing more could be desired, +ever. +He lay beside her, on his back, looking up at the darkness of the granite +vault above them, she saw him stretched on the jagged slant of sandbags as if +his body were fluid in relaxation, she saw the black wedge of her cape flung +across the rails at their feet, there were beads of moisture twinkling on the +vault, shifting slowly, running into invisible cracks, like the lights of a +distant traffic. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if he were quietly +continuing a sentence in answer to the questions in her mind, as if he had +nothing to hide from her any longer and what he owed her now was only the act +of undressing his soul, as simply as he would have undressed his body: ". . . +this is how I've watched you for ten years . . . from here, from under the +ground under your feet . . . knowing every move you made in your office at +the top of the building, but never seeing you, never enough . . . ten years +of nights, spent waiting to catch a glimpse of you, here, on the platforms, +when you boarded a train. . . . +Whenever the order came down to couple your car, I'd know of it and wait +and see you come down the ramp, and wish you didn't walk so fast . . . it was +so much like you, that walk, I'd know it anywhere . . . +your walk and those legs of yours . . . it was always your legs that I'd +see first, hurrying down the ramp, going past me as I looked up at you from a +dark side track below. . . . I think I could have molded a sculpture of your +legs, I knew them, not with my eyes, but with the palms of my hands when I +watched you go by . . . when I turned back to my work . . . when I went home +just before sunrise for the three hours of sleep which I didn't get . . ." +"I love you," she said, her voice quiet and almost toneless except for a +fragile sound of youth. +He closed his eyes, as if letting the sound travel through the years +behind them. "Ten years, Dagny . . ., except that once there were a few weeks +when I had you before me, in plain sight, within reach, not hurrying away, +but held still, as on a lighted stage, a private stage for me to watch . . . +and I watched you for hours through many evenings . . . in the lighted window +of an office that was called the John Galt Line. . . . And one night—" +Her breath was a faint gasp. "Was it you, that night?" +"Did you see me?" +"I saw your shadow . . . on the pavement . . . pacing back and forth . . . +it looked like a struggle . . . it looked like—" She stopped; she did not +want to say "torture." +"It was," he said quietly. "That night, I wanted to walk in, to face you, +to speak, to . . . That was the night I came closest to breaking my oath, +when I saw you slumped across your desk, when I saw you broken by the burden +you were carrying—" +"John, that night, it was you that I was thinking of . . . only I didn't +know it . . ." +"But, you see, 7 knew it," +". . . it was you, all my life, through everything I did and everything I +wanted . . . " +"I know it." +"John, the hardest was not when I left you in the valley . . . it was—" +"Your radio speech, the day you returned?" +"Yes! Were you listening?" + + "Of course. I'm glad you did it. It was a magnificent thing to do. And I—I +knew it, anyway." +"You knew . . . about Hank Rearden?" +"Before I saw you in the valley." +"Was it . . . when you learned about him, had you expected it?" +"No." +"Was it . . . ?" she stopped. +"Hard? Yes. But only for the first few days. That next night . . . Do you +want me to tell you what I did the night after I learned it?" +"Yes." +"I had never seen Hank Rearden, only pictures of him in the newspapers. +I knew that he was in New York, that night, at some conference of big +industrialists. I wanted to have just one look at him. I went to wait at the +entrance of the hotel where that conference was held. There were bright +lights under the marquee of the entrance, but it was dark beyond, on the +pavement, so I could see without being seen, there were a few loafers and +vagrants hanging around, there was a drizzle of rain and we clung to the +walls of the building. One could tell the members of the conference when they +began filing out, by their clothes and their manner—ostentatiously prosperous +clothes and a manner of overbearing timidity, as if they were guiltily trying +to pretend that they were what they appeared to be for that moment. There +were chauffeurs driving up their cars, there were a few reporters delaying +them for questions and hangers-on trying to catch a word from them. They were +worn men, those industrialists, aging, flabby, frantic with the effort to +disguise uncertainty. And then I saw him. He wore an expensive trenchcoat and +a hat slanting across his eyes. He walked swiftly, with the kind of assurance +that has to be earned, as he'd earned it. Some of his fellow industrialists +pounced on him with questions, and those tycoons were acting like hangers-on +around him. I caught a glimpse of him as he stood with his hand on the door +of his car, his head lifted, I saw the brief flare of a smile under the +slanting brim, a confident smile, impatient and a little amused. And then, +for one instant, I did what I had never done before, what most men wreck +their lives on doing—I saw that moment out of context, I saw the world as he +made it look, as if it matched him, as if he were its symbol—I saw a world of +achievement, of unenslaved energy, of unobstructed drive through purposeful +years to the enjoyment of one's reward—I saw, as I stood in the rain in a +crowd of vagrants, what my years would have brought me, if that world had +existed, and I felt a desperate longing—he was the image of everything I +should have been . . . and he had everything that should have been mine. . . +. But it was only a moment. Then I saw the scene in full context again and in +all of its actual meaning—I saw what price he was paying for his brilliant +ability, what torture he was enduring in silent bewilderment, struggling to +understand what I had understood—I saw that the world he suggested, did not +exist and was yet to be made, I saw him again for what he was, the symbol of +my battle, the unrewarded hero whom I was to avenge and to release—and then . +. . then I accepted what I had learned about you and him. I saw that it +changed nothing, that I should have expected it—that it was right." +He heard the faint sound of her moan and he chuckled softly. +"Dagny, it's not that I don't suffer, it's that I know the unimportance of +suffering, I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be +accepted as part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of +existence. Don't feel sorry for me. It was gone right then." +She turned her head to look at him in silence, and he smiled, lifting +himself on an elbow to look down at her face as she lay helplessly still. +She whispered, "You've been a track laborer, here—here!—for twelve years . +. .” +"Yes." + + "Ever since—" +"Ever since I quit the Twentieth Century." +"The night when you saw me for the first time . . . you were working here, +then?" +"Yes. And the morning when you offered to work for me as my cook, I was +only your track laborer on leave of absence. Do you see why I laughed as I +did?" +She was looking up at his face; hers was a smile of pain, his—of pure +gaiety, "John . . ." +"Say it. But say it all." +"You were here . . . all those years . . ." +"Yes." +". . . all those years . . . while the railroad was perishing . . . +while I was searching for men of intelligence . . . while I was struggling +to hold onto any scrap of it I could find . . ." +". . . while you were combing the country for the inventor of my motor, +while you were feeding James Taggart and Wesley Mouch, while you were naming +your best achievement after the enemy whom you wanted to destroy.” +She closed her eyes. +"I was here all those years," he said, "within your reach, inside your own +realm, watching your struggle, your loneliness, your longing, watching you in +a battle you thought you were fighting for me, a battle in which you were +supporting my enemies and taking an endless defeat —I was here, hidden by +nothing but an error of your sight, as Atlantis is hidden from men by nothing +but an optical illusion—I was here, waiting for the day when you would see, +when you would know that by the code of the world you were supporting, it's +to the darkest bottom of the underground that all the things you valued would +have to be consigned and that it's there that you would have to look. I was +here. I was waiting for you. I love you, Dagny. I love you more than my life, +I who have taught men how life is to be loved. I've taught them also never to +expect the unpaid for—and what I did tonight, I did it with full knowledge +that I would pay for it and that my life might have to be the price," +"No!" +He smiled, nodding. "Oh yes. You know that you've broken me for once, that +I broke the decision I had set for myself—but I did it consciously, knowing +what it meant, I did it, not in blind surrender to the moment, but with full +sight of the consequences and full willingness to bear them. I could not let +this kind of moment pass us by, it was ours, my love, we had earned it. But +you're not ready to quit and join me— +you don't have to tell me, I know—and since I chose to take what I wanted +before it was fully mine, I'll have to pay for it, I have no way of knowing +how or when, I know only that if I give in to an enemy, I'll take the +consequences." He smiled in answer to the look on her face. +"No, Dagny, you're not my enemy in mind—and that is what brought me to +this—but you are in fact, in the course you're pursuing, though you don't see +it yet, but I do. My actual enemies are of no danger to me. +You are. You're the only one who can lead them to find me. They would +never have the capacity to know what I am, but with your help —they will." +"No!" +"No, not by your intention. And you're free to change your course, but so +long as you follow it, you're not free to escape its logic. Don't frown, the +choice was mine and it's a danger I chose to accept. I am a trader, Dagny, in +all things. I wanted you, I had no power to change your decision, I had only +the power to consider the price and decide whether I could afford it. I +could. My life is mine to spend or to invest —and you, you're"—as if his +gesture were continuing his sentence, he raised her across his arm and kissed +her mouth, while her body hung limply in surrender, her hair streaming down, + + her head falling back, held only by the pressure of his lips—"you're the one +reward I had to have and chose to buy. I wanted you, and if my life is the +price, I'll give it. My life—but not my mind." +There was a sudden glint of hardness in his eyes, as he sat up and smiled +and asked, "Would you want me to join you and go to work? +Would you like me to repair that interlocking signal system of yours +within an hour?" +"No!" The cry was immediate—in answer to the flash of a sudden image, the +image of the men in the private dining room of the Wayne Falkland. +He laughed. "Why not?" +"I don't want to see you working as their serf!" +"And yourself?" +"I think that they're crumbling and that I'll win. I can stand it just a +little longer." +"True, it's just a little longer—not till you win, but till you learn." +"I can't let it go!" It was a cry of despair. +"Not yet," he said quietly. +He got up, and she rose obediently, unable to speak. +"I will remain here, on my job," he said. "But don't try to see me. +You'll have to endure what I've endured and wanted to spare you— +you'll have to go on, knowing where I am, wanting me as I'll want you, but +never permitting yourself to approach me. Don't seek me here. +Don't come to my home. Don't ever let them see us together. And when you +reach the end, when you're ready to quit, don't tell them, just chalk a +dollar sign on the pedestal of Nat Taggart's statue—where it belongs —then go +home and wait. I'll come for you in twenty-four hours." +She inclined her head in silent promise. +But when he turned to go, a sudden shudder ran through her body, like a +first jolt of awakening or a last convulsion of life, and it ended in an +involuntary cry: "Where are you going?" +"To be a lamppost and stand holding a lantern till dawn—which is the only +work your world relegates me to and the only work it's going to get." +She seized his arm, to hold him, to follow, to follow him blindly, +abandoning everything but the sight of his face. "John!" +He gripped her wrist, twisted her hand and threw it off. "No," he said. +Then he took her hand and raised it to his lips and the pressure of his +mouth was more passionate a statement than any he had chosen to confess. Then +he walked away, down the vanishing line of rail, and it seemed to her that +both the rail and the figure were abandoning her at the same time. +When she staggered out into the concourse of the Terminal, the first blast +of rolling wheels went shuddering through the walls of the building, like the +sudden beat of a heart that had stopped. The temple of Nathaniel Taggart was +silent and empty, its changeless light beating down on a deserted stretch of +marble. Some shabby figures shuffled across it, as if lost in its shining +expanse. On the steps of the pedestal, under the statue of the austere, +exultant figure, a ragged bum sat slumped in passive resignation, like a +wing-plucked bird with no place to go, resting on any chance cornice. +She fell down on the steps of the pedestal, like another derelict, her +dust-smeared cape wrapped tightly about her, she sat still, her head on her +arm, past crying or reeling or moving. +It seemed to her only that she kept seeing a figure with a raised arm +holding a light, and it looked at times like the Statue of Liberty and then +it looked like a man with sun-streaked hair, holding a lantern against a +midnight sky, a red lantern that stopped the movement of the world. +"Don't take it to heart, lady, whatever it is," said the bum, in a tone of +exhausted compassion. "Nothing's to be done about it, anyway. . . . +What's the use, lady? Who is John Galt?" + + CHAPTER VI +THE CONCERTO OF DELIVERANCE +On October 20, the steel workers' union of Rearden Steel demanded a raise +in wages. +Hank Rearden learned it from the newspaper; no demand had been presented +to him and it had not been considered necessary to inform him. The demand was +made to the Unification Board; it was not explained why no other steel +company was presented with a similar claim. +He was unable to tell whether the demanders did or did not represent his +workers, the Board's rules on union elections having made it a matter +impossible to define. He learned only that the group consisted of those +newcomers whom the Board had slipped into his mills in the past few months. +On October 23, the Unification Board rejected the union's petition, +refusing to grant the raise. If any hearings had been held on the matter, +Rearden had not known about it. He had not been consulted, informed or +notified. He had waited, volunteering no questions. +On October 25, the newspapers of the country, controlled by the same men +who controlled the Board, began a campaign of commiseration with the workers +of Rearden Steel. They printed stories about the refusal of the wage raise, +omitting any mention of who had refused it or who held the exclusive legal +power to refuse, as if counting on the public to forget legal technicalities +under a barrage of stories implying that an employer was the natural cause of +all miseries suffered by employees. They printed a story describing the +hardships of the workers of Rearden Steel under the present rise in the cost +of their living—next to a story describing Hank Rearden's profits, of five +years ago. They printed a story on the plight of a Rearden worker's wife +trudging from store to store in a hopeless quest for food—next to a story +about a champagne bottle broken over somebody's head at a drunken party given +by an unnamed steel tycoon at a fashionable hotel; the steel tycoon had been +Orren Boyle, but the story mentioned no names. "Inequalities still exist +among us," the newspapers were saying, "and cheat us of the benefits of our +enlightened age." "Privations have worn the nerves and temper of the people. +The situation is reaching the danger point. We fear an outbreak of violence." +"We fear an outbreak of violence," the newspapers kept repeating, On October +28, a group of the new workers at Rearden Steel attacked a foreman and +knocked the tuyeres off a blast furnace. Two days later, a similar group +broke the ground-floor windows of the administration building. A new worker +smashed the gears of a crane, upsetting a ladle of molten metal within a yard +of five bystanders. "Guess I went nuts, worrying about my hungry kids," he +said, when arrested. "This is no time to theorize about who's right or +wrong," the newspapers commented. "Our sole concern is the fact that an +inflammatory situation is endangering the steel output of the country." +Rearden watched, asking no questions. He waited, as if some final +knowledge were in the process of unraveling before him, a process not to be +hastened or stopped. No—he thought through the early dusk of autumn evenings, +looking out the window of his office—no, he was not indifferent to his +mills;4but the feeling which had once been passion for a living entity was +now like the wistful tenderness one feels for the memory of the loved and +dead. The special quality of what one feels for the dead, he thought, is that +no action is possible any longer. +On the morning of October 31, he received a notice informing him that all +of his property, including his bank accounts and safety deposit boxes, had +been attached to satisfy a delinquent judgment obtained against him in a +trial involving a deficiency in his personal income tax of three years ago. +It was a formal notice, complying with every requirement of the law—except + + that no such deficiency had ever existed and no such trial had ever taken +place. +"No," he said to his indignation-choked attorney, "don't question them, +don't answer, don't object." "But this is fantastic!" "Any more fantastic +than the rest?" "Hank, do you want me to do nothing? To take it lying down?" +"No, standing up. And I mean, standing. Don't move. Don't act." "But they've +left you helpless." "Have they?" he asked softly, smiling. +He had a few hundred dollars in cash, left in his wallet, nothing else. +But the odd, glowing warmth in his mind, like the feel of a distant +handshake, was the thought that in a secret safe of his bedroom there lay a +bar of solid gold, given to him by a gold-haired pirate. +Next day, on November 1, he received a telephone call from Washington, +from a bureaucrat whose voice seemed to come sliding down the wire on its +knees in protestations of apology. "A mistake, Mr. Rearden! It was nothing +but an unfortunate mistake! That attachment was not intended for you. You +know how it is nowadays, with the inefficiency of all office help and with +the amount of red tape we're tangled in, some bungling fool mixed the records +and processed the attachment order against you—when it wasn't your case at +all, it was, in fact, the case of a soap manufacturer! Please accept our +apologies, Mr. Rearden, our deepest personal apologies at the top level." The +voice slid to a slight, expectant pause. "Mr. Rearden . . . ?" "I'm +listening." "I can't tell you how sorry we are to have caused you any +embarrassment or inconvenience. And with all those damn formalities that we +have to go through—you know how it is, red tape!—it will take a few days, +perhaps a week, to de-process that order and to lift the attachment. +. . . Mr. Rearden?" "I heard you." "We're desperately sorry and ready to +make any amends within our power. You will, of course, be entitled to claim +damages for any inconvenience this might cause you, and we are prepared to +pay. We won't contest it. You will, of course, file such a claim and—" "I +have not said that." "Uh? No, you haven't . . . that +is . . . well, what have you said, Mr. Rearden?" "I have said nothing." +Late on the next afternoon, another voice came pleading from Washington. +This one did not seem to slide, but to bounce on the telephone wire with the +gay virtuosity of a tight-rope walker. It introduced itself as Tinky Holloway +and pleaded that Rearden attend a conference, "an informal little conference, +just a few of us, the top-level few," to be held in New York, at the WayneFalkland Hotel, day after next. +"There have been so many misunderstandings in the past few weeks!" said +Tinky Holloway. "Such unfortunate misunderstandings— +and so unnecessary! We could straighten everything out in a jiffy, Mr. +Rearden, if we had a chance to have a little talk with you. We're +extremely anxious to see you." +"You can issue a subpoena for me any time you wish." +"Oh, no! no! no!" The voice sounded frightened. "No, Mr. Rearden —why +think of such things? You don't understand us, we're anxious to meet you on a +friendly basis, we're seeking nothing but your voluntary co-operation." +Holloway paused tensely, wondering whether he had heard the faint sound of a +distant chuckle; he waited, but heard nothing else. +"Mr. Rearden?" +"Yes?" +"Surely, Mr. Rearden, at a time like this, a conference with us could be +to your great advantage." +"A conference—about what?" +"You've encountered so many difficulties—and we're anxious to help you in +any way we can." +"I have not asked for help." + + "These are precarious times, Mr. Rearden, the public mood is so uncertain +and inflammatory, so . . . so dangerous . . . and we want to be able to +protect you." +"I have not asked for protection." +"But surely you realize that we're in a position to be of value to you. +and if there's anything you want from us, any . . ." +"There isn't." +"But you must have problems you'd like to discuss with us." +"I haven't." +"Then . . . well, then" —giving up the attempt at the play of granting a +favor, Holloway switched to an open plea—"then won't you just give us a +hearing?" +"If you have anything to say to me," +"We have, Mr. Rearden, we certainly have! That's all we're asking for—a +hearing. Just give us a chance. Just come to this conference. +You wouldn't be committing yourself to anything—" He said it +involuntarily, and stopped, hearing a bright, mocking stab of life in +Rearden's voice, an unpromising-sound, as Rearden answered: "I know it." +"Well, I mean . . . that is . . . well, then, will you come?" +"All Tight," said Rearden. "I'll come." +He did not listen to Holloway's assurances of gratitude, he noted only +that Holloway kept repeating, "At seven P.M., November fourth, Mr. Rearden . +. . November fourth . . ." as if the date had some special significance. +Rearden dropped the receiver and lay back in his chair, looking at the +glow of furnace flames on the ceiling of his office. He knew that the +conference was a trap; he knew also that he was walking into it with nothing +for any trappers to gain. +Tinky Holloway dropped the receiver, in his Washington office, and sat up +tensely, frowning. Claude Slagenhop, president of Friends of Global Progress, +who had sat in an armchair, nervously chewing a matchstick, glanced up at him +and asked, "Not so good?" +Holloway shook his head. "He'll come, but . . . no, not so good." +He added, "I don't think he'll take it." +"That's what my punk told me." +"I know." +"The punk said we'd better not try it." +"God damn your punk! We've got to! We'll have to risk it!" +The punk was Philip Rearden who, weeks ago, had reported to Claude +Slagenhop: "No, he won't let me in, he won't give me a job, I've tried, as +you wanted me to, I've tried my best, but it's no use, he won't let me set +foot inside his mills. And as to his frame of mind— +listen, it's bad. It's worse than anything I expected. I know him and I +can tell you that you won't have a chance. He's pretty much at the end of his +rope. One more squeeze will snap it. You said the big boys wanted to know. +Tell them not to do it. Tell them he . . . Claude, God help us, if they do +it, they'll lose him!" "Well, you're not of much help," +Slagenhop had said dryly, turning away. Philip had seized his sleeve and +asked, his voice shrinking suddenly into open anxiety, "Say, Claude - . . +according to . . . to Directive 10-289 . . . if he goes, there's . . . +there's to be no heirs?" "That's right." "They'd seize the mills and . . . +and everything?" 'That's the law." "But . . . Claude, they wouldn't do that +to me, would they?" "They don't want him to go. You know that. Hold him, if +you can." "But I can't! You know I can't! Because of my political ideas and . +. . and everything I've done for you, you know what he thinks of me! I have +no hold on him at all!" "Well, that's your tough luck." "Claude!" Philip had +cried in panic. "Claude, they won't leave me out in the cold, will they? I +belong, don't I? + + They've always said I belonged, they've always said they needed me . . . +they said they needed men like me, not like him, men with my . . . my sort of +spirit, remember? And after all I've done for them, after all my faith and +service and loyalty to the cause—" "You damn fool," Slagenhop had snapped, +"of what use are you to us without him?" +On the morning of November 4, Hank Rearden was awakened by the ringing of +the telephone. He opened his eyes to the sight of a clear, pale sky, the sky +of early dawn, in the window of his bedroom, a sky the delicate color of +aquamarine, with the first rays of an invisible sun giving a shade of +porcelain pink to Philadelphia's ancient roof tops. +For a moment, while his consciousness had a purity to equal the sky's, +while he was aware of nothing but himself and had not yet reharnessed his +soul to the burden of alien memories, he lay still, held by the sight and by +the enchantment of a world to match it, a world where the style of existence +would be a continuous morning. +The telephone threw him back into exile: it was screaming at spaced +intervals, like a nagging, chronic cry for help, the kind of cry that did not +belong in his world. He lifted the receiver, frowning. "Hello?" +"Good morning, Henry," said a quavering voice; it was his mother. +"Mother—at this hour?" he asked dryly. +"Oh, you're always up at dawn, and I wanted to catch you before you went +to the office." +"Yes? What is it?" +"I've got to see you, Henry. I've got to speak to you. Today. Sometime +today. It's important." +"Has anything happened?" +"No . . . yes . . . that is . . . I've got to have a talk with you in +person. Will you come?" +"I'm sorry, I can't. I have an appointment in New York tonight. If you +want me to come tomorrow—" +"No! No, not tomorrow. It's got to be today. It's got to." There was a dim +tone of panic in her voice, but it was the stale panic of chronic +helplessness, not the sound of an emergency—except for an odd echo of fear in +her mechanical insistence. +"What is it, Mother?" +"I can't talk about it over the telephone, I've got to see you." +"Then if you wish to come to the office—" +"No! Not at the office! I've got to sec you alone, where we can talk. +Can't you come here today, as a favor? It's your mother who's asking you a +favor. You've never come to see us at all. And maybe you're not the one to +blame for it, either. But can't you do it for me this once, if I beg you to?" +"All right, Mother. I'll be there at four o'clock this afternoon." +"That will be fine, Henry. Thank you, Henry. That will be fine.” +It seemed to him that there was a touch of tension in the air of the +mills, that day. It was a touch too slight to define—but the mills, to him, +were like the face of a loved wife where he could catch shades of feeling +almost ahead of expression. He noticed small clusters of the new workers, +just three or four of them huddling together in conversation —once or twice +too often. He noticed their manner, a manner suggesting a poolroom corner, +not a factory. He noticed a few glances thrown at him as he went by, glances +a shade too pointed and lingering. He dismissed it; it was not quite enough +to wonder about—and he had no time to wonder. +When he drove up to his former home, that afternoon, he stopped his car +abruptly at the foot of the hill. He had not seen the house since that May +15, six months ago, when he had walked out of it— +and the sight brought back to him the sum of all he had felt in ten years +of daily home-coming: the strain, the bewilderment, the gray weight of + + unconfessed unhappiness, the stern endurance that forbade him to confess it, +the desperate innocence of the effort to understand his family . . . the +effort to be just. +He walked slowly up the path toward the door. He felt no emotion, only the +sense of a great, solemn clarity. He knew that this house was a monument of +guilt—of his guilt toward himself. +He had expected to see his mother and Philip; he had not expected the +third person who rose, as they did, at his entrance into the living room: it +was Lillian. +He stopped on the threshold. They stood looking at his face and at the +open door behind him. Their faces had a look of fear and cunning, the look of +that blackmail-through-virtue which he had learned to understand, as if they +hoped to get away with it by means of nothing but his pity, to hold him +trapped, when a single step back could take him out of their reach. +They had counted on his pity and dreaded his anger; they had not dared +consider the third alternative; his indifference. +"What is she doing here?" he asked, turning to his mother, his voice +dispassionately flat. +"Lillian's been living here ever since your divorce," she answered +defensively. "I couldn't let her starve on the city pavements, could I?" +The look in his mother's eyes was half-plea, as if she were begging him +not to slap her face, half-triumph, as if she had slapped his. He knew her +motive: it was not compassion, there had never been much love between Lillian +and her, it was their common revenge against him, it was the secret +satisfaction of spending his money on the ex-wife he had refused to support. +Lillian's head was poised to bow in greeting, with the tentative hint of a +smile on her lips, half-timid, half-brash. He did not pretend to ignore her; +he looked at her, as if he were seeing her fully, yet as if no presence were +being registered in his mind. He said nothing, closed the door and stepped +into the room. +His mother gave a small sigh of uneasy relief and dropped hastily into the +nearest chair, watching him, nervously uncertain of whether he would follow +her example. +"What was it you wanted?" he asked, sitting down. +His mother sat erect and oddly hunched, her shoulders raised, her head +half-lowered. "Mercy, Henry," she whispered. +"What do you mean?" +"Don't you understand me?" +"No." +"Well"—she spread her hands in an untidily fluttering gesture of +helplessness—"well . . . " Her eyes darted about, struggling to escape his +attentive glance. "Well, there are so many things to say and . . . +and I don't know how to say them, but . . . well, there's one practical +matter, but it's not important by itself . . . it's not why I called you here +. . . " +"What is it?" +"The practical matter? Our allowance checks—Philip's and mine. It's the +first of the month, but on account of that attachment order, the checks +couldn't come through. You know that, don't you?" +"I know it." +"Well, what are we going to do?" +"I don't know." +"I mean, what are you going to do about it?" +"Nothing," +His mother sat staring at him, as if counting the seconds of silence. +"Nothing, Henry?" +"I have no power to do anything." + + They were watching his face with a kind of searching intensity; he felt +certain that his mother had told him the truth, that immediate financial +worry was not their purpose, that it was only the symbol of a much wider +issue. +"But, Henry, we're caught short." +"So was I." +"But can't you send us some cash or something?" +"They gave me no warning, no time to get any cash." +"Then . . . Look, Henry, the thing was so unexpected, it scared people, I +guess—the grocery store refuses to give us credit, unless you ask for it. I +think they want you to sign a credit card or something. So will you speak to +them and arrange it?" +"I will not." +"You won't?" She choked on a small gasp. "Why?" +"I will not assume obligations that I can't fulfill." +"What do you mean?" +"I will not assume debts I have no way of repaying." +"What do you mean, no way? That attachment is only some sort of +technicality, it's only temporary, everybody knows that!" +"Do they? I don't." +"But, Henry—a grocery bill! You're not sure you'll be able to pay a +grocery bill, you, with all the millions you own?" +"I'm not going to defraud the grocer by pretending that I own those +millions." +"What are you talking about? Who owns them?" +"Nobody." +"What do you mean?" +"Mother, I think you understand me fully. I think you understood it before +I did. There isn't any ownership left in existence or any property. It's what +you've approved of and believed in for years. You wanted me tied. I'm tied. +Now it's too late to play any games about it." +"Are you going to let some political ideas of yours—" She saw the look on +his face and stopped abruptly. +Lillian sat looking down at the floor, as if afraid to glance up at this +moment. Philip sat cracking his knuckles. +His mother dragged her eyes into focus again and whispered, "Don't abandon +us, Henry." Some faint stab of life in her voice told him that the lid of her +real purpose was cracking open. "These are terrible times, and we're scared. +That's the truth of it, Henry, we're scared, because you're turning away from +us. Oh, I don't mean just that grocery bill, but that's a sign—a year ago you +wouldn't have let that happen to us. Now . . . now you don't care." She made +an expectant pause. +"Do you?" +"No." +"Well . . . well, I guess the blame is ours. That's what I wanted to tell +you—that we know we're to blame. We haven't treated you right, all these +years. We've been unfair to you, we've made you suffer, we've used you and +given you no thanks in return. We're guilty, Henry, we've sinned against you, +and we confess it. What more can we say to you now? Will you find it in your +heart to forgive us?" +"What is it you want me to do?" he asked, in the clear, flat tone of a +business conference. +"I don't know! Who am I to know? But that's not what I'm talking of right +now. Not of doing, only of feeling. It's your feeling that I'm begging you +for, Henry—just your feeling—even if we don't deserve it. You're generous and +strong. Will you cancel the past, Henry? Will you forgive us?" + + The look of terror in her eyes was real. A year ago, he would have told +himself that this was her way of making amends; he would have choked his +revulsion against her words, words which conveyed nothing to him but the fog +of the meaningless; he would have violated his mind to give them meaning, +even if he did not understand; he would have ascribed to her the virtue of +sincerity in her own terms, even if they were not his. But he was through +with granting respect to any terms other than his own. +"Will you forgive us?" +"Mother, it would be best not to speak of that. Don't press me to tell you +why. I think you know it as well as I do. If there's anything you want done, +tell me what it is. There's nothing else to discuss. +"But I don't understand you! I don't! That's what I called you here for—to +ask your forgiveness! Are you going to refuse to answer me?" +"Very well. What would it mean, my forgiveness?" +"Uh?" +"I said, what would it mean?" +. She spread her hands out in an astonished gesture to indicate the selfevident. "Why, it . . . it would make us feel better." +"Will it change the past?" +"It would make us feel better to know that you've forgiven it." +"Do you wish me to pretend that the past has not existed?" +"Oh God, Henry, can't you see? All we want is only to know that you . . . +that you feel some concern for us." +"I don't feel it. Do you wish me to fake it?" +"But that's what I'm begging you for—to feel it!" +"On what ground?" +"Ground?" +"In exchange for what?" +"Henry, Henry, it's not business we're talking about, not steel tonnages +and bank balances, it's feelings—and you talk like a trader!" +"I am one." +What he saw in her eyes was terror—not the helpless terror of struggling +and failing to understand, but the terror of being pushed toward the edge +where to avoid understanding would no longer be possible. +"Look, Henry," said Philip hastily, "Mother can't understand those things. +We don't know how to approach you. We can't speak your language." +"I don't speak yours." +"What she's trying to say is that we're sorry. We're terribly sorry that +we've hurt you. You think we're not paying for it, but we are. +We're suffering remorse." +The pain in Philip's face was real. A year ago, Rearden would have felt +pity. Now, he knew that they had held him through nothing but his reluctance +to hurt them, his fear of their pain. He was not afraid of it any longer, +"We're sorry, Henry. We know we've harmed you. We wish we could atone for it. +But what can we do? The past is past. We can't undo it." +"Neither can I." +"You can accept our repentance," said Lillian, in a voice glassy with +caution. "I have nothing to gain from you now. I only want you to know that +whatever I've done, I've done it because I loved you." +He turned away, without answering. +"Henry!" cried his mother. "What's happened to you? What's changed you +like that? You don't seem to be human any more! You keep pressing us for +answers, when we haven't any answers to give. You keep beating us with logic— +what's logic at a time like this?—what's logic when people are suffering?" +"We can't help it!" cried Philip. +"We're at your mercy," said Lillian. +They were throwing their pleas at a face that could not be reached. + + They did not know—and their panic was the last of their struggle to escape +the knowledge—that his merciless sense of justice, which had been their only +hold on him, which had made him take any punishment and give them the benefit +of every doubt, was now turned against them—that the same force that had made +him tolerant, was now the force that made him ruthless—that the justice which +would forgive miles of innocent errors of knowledge, would not forgive a +single step taken in conscious evil. +"Henry, don't you understand us?" his mother was pleading. +"I do," he said quietly. +She looked away, avoiding the clarity of his eyes. "Don't you care what +becomes of us?" +"I don't." +"Aren't you human?" Her voice grew shrill with anger. "Aren't you capable +of any love at all? It's your heart I'm trying to reach, not your mind! Love +is not something to argue and reason and bargain about! +It's something to give! To feel! Oh God, Henry, can't you feel without +thinking?" +"I never have." +In a moment, her voice came back, low and droning: "We're not as smart as +you are, not as strong. If we've sinned and blundered, it's because we're +helpless. We need you, you're all we've got—and we're losing you—and we're +afraid. These are terrible times, and getting worse, people are scared to +death, scared and blind and not knowing what to do. How are we to cope with +it, if you leave us? We're small and weak and we'll be swept like driftwood +in that terror that's running loose in the world. Maybe we had our share of +guilt for it, maybe we helped to bring it about, not knowing any better, but +what's done is done—and we can't stop it now. If you abandon us, we're lost. +If you give up and vanish, like all those men who—" +It was not a sound that stopped her, it was only a movement of his +eyebrows, the brief, swift movement of a check mark. Then they saw him smile; +the nature of the smile was the most terrifying of answers. +"So that's what you're afraid of," he said slowly. +"You can't quit!" his mother screamed in blind panic. "You can't quit now! +You could have, last year, but not now! Not today! You can't turn deserter, +because now they take it out on your family! They'll leave us penniless, +they'll seize everything, they'll leave us to starve, they'll—" +"Keep still!" cried Lillian, more adept than the others at reading danger +signs in Rearden's face. +His face held the remnant of a smile, and they knew that he was not seeing +them any longer, but it was not in their power to know why his smile now +seemed to hold pain and an almost wistful longing, or why he was looking +across the room, at the niche of the farthest window. +He was seeing a finely sculptured face held composed under the lashing of +his insults, he was hearing a voice that had said to him quietly, here, in +this room: "It is against the sin of forgiveness that I wanted to warn you." +You who had known it then, he thought . . . but he did not finish the +sentence in his mind, he let it end in the bitter twist of his smile, because +he knew what he had been about to think: You who had known it then—forgive +me. +There it was—he thought, looking at his family—the nature of their pleas +for mercy, the logic of those feelings they so righteously proclaimed as nonlogical—there was the simple, brutal essence of all men who speak of being +able to feel without thought and of placing mercy over justice. +They had known what to fear; they had grasped and named, before he had, +the only way of deliverance left open to him; they had understood the +hopelessness of his industrial position, the futility of his struggle, the +impossible burdens descending to crush him; they had known that in reason, in + + justice, in self-preservation, his only course was to drop it all and run—yet +they wanted to hold him, to keep him in the sacrificial furnace, to make him +let them devour the last of him in the name of mercy, forgiveness and +brother-cannibal love. +"If you still want me to explain it, Mother," he said very quietly, "if +you're still hoping that I won't be cruel enough to name what you're +pretending not to know, then here's what's wrong with your idea of +forgiveness: You regret that you've hurt me and, as your atonement for it, +you ask that I offer myself to total immolation." +"Logic!" she screamed. "There you go again with your damn logic! +It's pity that we need, pity, not logic!" +He rose to his feet. +"Wait! Don't go! Henry, don't abandon us! Don't sentence us to perish! +Whatever we are, we're human! We want to live!" +"Why, no—" he started in quiet astonishment and ended in quiet horror, as +the thought struck him fully, "I don't think you do. If you did, you would +have known how to value me." +As if in silent proof and answer, Philip's face went slowly into an +expression intended as a smile of amusement, yet holding nothing but fear and +malice. "You won't be able to quit and run away," said Philip. "You can't run +away without money." +It seemed to strike its goal; Rearden stopped short, then chuckled, +"Thanks, Philip," he said. +"Uh?" Philip gave a nervous jerk of bewilderment. +"So that's the purpose of the attachment order. That's what your friends +are afraid of. I knew they were getting set to spring something on me today. +I didn't know that the attachment was their idea of cutting off escape." He +turned incredulously to look at his mother. "And that's why you had to see me +today, before the conference in New York." +"Mother didn't know it!" cried Philip, then caught himself and cried +louder, "I don't know what you're talking about! I haven't said anything! I +haven't said it!" His fear now seemed to have some much less mystic and much +more practical quality. +"Don't worry, you poor little louse, I won't tell them that you've told me +anything. And if you were trying—" +He did not finish; he looked at the three faces before him, and a sudden +smile ended his sentence, a smile of weariness, of pity, of incredulous +revulsion. He was seeing the final contradiction, the grotesque absurdity at +the end of the irrationalists' game: the men in Washington had hoped to hold +him by prompting these three to try for the role of hostages. +"You think you're so good, don't you?" It was a sudden cry and it came +from Lillian; she had leaped to her feet to bar his exit; her face was +distorted, as he had seen it once before, on that morning when she had +learned the name of his mistress. "You're so good! You're so proud of +yourself! Well, I have something to tell you!" +She looked as if she had not believed until this moment that her game was +lost. The sight of her face struck him like a last shred completing a +circuit, and in sudden clarity he knew what her game had been and why she had +married him. +If to choose a person as the constant center of one's concern, as the +focus of one's view of life, was to love—he thought—then it was true that she +loved him; but if, to him, love was a celebration of one's self and of +existence—then, to the self-haters and life-haters, the pursuit of +destruction was the only form and equivalent of love. It was for the best of +his virtues that Lillian had chosen him, for his strength, his confidence, +his pride—she had chosen him as one chooses an object of love, as the symbol +of man's living power, but the destruction of that power had been her goal. + + He saw them as they had been at their first meeting: he, the man of +violent energy and passionate ambition, the man of achievement, lighted by +the flame of his success and flung into the midst of those pretentious ashes +who called themselves an intellectual elite, the burned out remnants of +undigested culture, feeding on the afterglow of the minds of others, offering +their denial of the mind as their only claim to distinction, and a craving to +control the world as their only lust—she, the woman hanger-on of that elite, +wearing their shopworn sneer as her answer to the universe, holding impotence +as superiority and emptiness as virtue—he, unaware of their hatred, +innocently scornful of their posturing fraud—she, seeing him as the danger to +their world, as a threat, as a challenge, as a reproach. +The lust that drives others to enslave an empire, had become, in her +limits, a passion for power over him. She had set out to break him, as if, +unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the +measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if—he +thought with a shudder—as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater +than the artist who had made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were +greater than the mother who had given it birth. +He remembered her hammering derision of his work, his mills, his Metal, +his success, he remembered her desire to see him drunk, just once, her +attempts to push him into infidelity, her pleasure at the thought that he had +fallen to the level of some sordid romance, her terror on discovering that +that romance had been an attainment, not a degradation. Her line of attack, +which he had found so baffling, had been constant and clear—it was his selfesteem she had sought to destroy, knowing that a man who surrenders his value +is at the mercy of anyone's will; it was his moral purity she had struggled +to breach, it was his confident rectitude she had wanted to shatter by means +of the poison of guilt—as if, were he to collapse, his depravity would give +her a right to hers. +For the same purpose and motive, for the same satisfaction, as others +weave complex systems of philosophy to destroy generations, of establish +dictatorships to destroy a country, so she, possessing no weapons except +femininity, had made it her goal to destroy one man. +Yours was the code of life—he remembered the voice of his lost young +teacher—what, then, is theirs? +"I have something to tell you!" cried Lillian, with the sound of that +impotent rage which wishes that words were brass knuckles. "You're so proud +of yourself, aren't you? You're so proud of your name! +Rearden Steel, Rearden Metal, Rearden Wife! That's what I was, wasn't I? +Mrs. Rearden! Mrs. Henry Rearden!" The sounds she was making were now a +string of cackling gasps, an unrecognizable corruption of laughter. "Well, I +think you'd like to know that your wife's been laid by another man! I've been +unfaithful to you, do you hear me? I've been unfaithful, not with some great, +noble lover, but with the scummiest louse, with Jim Taggart! Three months +ago! Before your divorce! +While I was your wife! While I was still your wife!" +He stood listening like a scientist studying a subject of no personal +relevance whatever. There, he thought, was the final abortion of the creed of +collective interdependence, the creed of non-identity, nonproperty, non-fact: +the belief that the moral stature of one is at the mercy of the action of +another. +"I've been unfaithful to you! Don't you hear me, you stainless Puritan? +I've slept with Jim Taggart, you incorruptible hero! Don't you hear me? . . . +Don't you hear me? . . . Don't you . . . ?" +He was looking at her as he would have looked if a strange woman had +approached him on the street with a personal confession—a look like the +equivalent of the words: Why tell it to me? + + Her voice trailed off. He had not known what the destruction of a person +would be like; but he knew that he was seeing the destruction of Lillian. He +saw it in the collapse of her face, in the sudden slackening of features, as +if there were nothing to hold them together, in the eyes, blind, yet staring, +staring inward, filled with that terror which no outer threat can equal. It +was not the look of a person losing her mind, but the look of a mind seeing +total defeat and, in the same instant, seeing, her own nature for the first +time—the look of a person seeing that after years of preaching non-existence, +she had achieved it. +He turned to go. His mother stopped him at the door, seizing his arm. With +a look of stubborn bewilderment, with the last of her effort at self-deceit, +she moaned in a voice of tearfully petulant reproach, "Are you really +incapable of forgiveness?" +"No, Mother," he answered, "I'm not. I would have forgiven the past—if, +today, you had urged me to quit and disappear." +There was a cold wind outside, tightening his overcoat about him like an +embrace, there was the great, fresh sweep of country stretching at the foot +of the hill, and the clear, receding sky of twilight. Like two sunsets ending +the day, the red glow of the sun was a straight, still band in the west, and +the breathing red band in the east was the glow of his mills. +The feel of the steering wheel under his hands and of the smooth highway +streaming past, as he sped to New York, had an oddly bracing quality. It was +a sense of extreme precision and of relaxation, together, a sense of action +without strain, which seemed inexplicably youthful—until he realized that +this was the way he had acted and had expected always to act, in his youth— +and what he now felt was like the simple, astonished question: Why should one +ever have to act in any other manner? +It seemed to him that the skyline of New York, when it rose before him, +had a strangely luminous clarity, though its shapes were veiled by distance, +a clarity that did not seem to rest in the object, but felt as if the +illumination came from him. He looked at the great city, with no tie to any +view or usage others had made of it, it was not a city of gangsters or +panhandlers or derelicts or whores, it was the greatest industrial +achievement in the history of man, its only meaning was that which it meant +to him, there was a personal quality in his sight of it, a quality of +possessiveness and of unhesitant perception, as if he were seeing it for the +first time—or the last. +He paused in the silent corridor of the Wayne-Falkland, at the door of the +suite he was to enter; it took him a long moment's effort to lift his hand +and knock; it was the suite that had belonged to Francisco d'Anconia. +There were coils of cigarette smoke weaving through the air of the drawing +room, among the velvet drapes and bare, polished tables. +With its costly furniture and the absence of all personal belongings, the +room had that air of dreary luxury which pertains to transient occupancy, as +dismal as the air of a flophouse. Five figures rose in. the fog at his +entrance: Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, James Taggart, Dr. Floyd Ferris and a +slim, slouching man who looked like a rat-faced tennis player and was +introduced to him as Tinky Holloway. +"All right," said Rearden, cutting off the greetings, the smiles, the +offers of drinks and the comments on the national emergency, "what did you +want?" +"We're here as your friends, Mr. Rearden," said Tinky Holloway, "purely as +your friends, for an informal conversation with a view to closer mutual +teamwork." +"We're anxious to avail ourselves of your outstanding ability," said +Lawson, "and your expert advice on the country's industrial problems." +"It's men like you that we need in Washington," said Dr. Ferris. + + "There's no reason why you should have remained an outsider for so long, +when your voice is needed at the top level of national leadership.” +The sickening thing about it, thought Rearden, was that the speeches were +only half-lies; the other half, in their tone of hysterical urgency, was the +unstated wish to have it somehow be true. "What did you want?" he asked. +"Why . . . to listen to you, Mr. Rearden," said Wesley Mouch, the jerk of +his features imitating a frightened smile; the smile was faked, the fear was +real. "We . . . we want the benefit of your opinion on the nation's +industrial crisis." +"I have nothing to say." +"But, Mr. Rearden," said Dr. Ferris, "all we want is a chance to cooperate with you." +"I've told you once, publicly, that I don't co-operate at the point of a +gun." +"Can't we bury the hatchet at a time like this?" said Lawson beseechingly. +"The gun? Go ahead." +"Uh?" +"It's you who're holding it. Bury it, if you think you can." +"That . . . that was just a figure of speech," Lawson explained, blinking, +"I was speaking metaphorically." +>78 +"I wasn't." +"Can't we all stand together for the sake of the country in this hour of +emergency?" said Dr. Ferris. "Can't we disregard our differences of opinion? +We're willing to meet you halfway. If there's any aspect of our policy which +you oppose, just tell us and we'll issue a directive to—" +"Cut it, boys. I didn't come here to help you pretend that I'm not in the +position I'm in and that any halfway is possible between us. +Now come to the point. You've prepared some new gimmick to spring on the +steel industry. What is it?" +"As a matter of fact," said Mouch, "we do have a vital question to discuss +in regard to the steel industry, but . . . but your language, Mr. Rearden!" +"We don't want to spring anything on you," said Holloway. "We asked you +here to discuss it with you." +"I came here to take orders. Give them." +"But, Mr. Rearden, we don't want to look at it that way. We don't want to +give you orders. We want your voluntary consent." +Rearden smiled. "I know it." +"You do?" Holloway started eagerly, but something about Rearden's smile +made him slide into uncertainty. "Well, then—" +"And you, brother," said Rearden, "know that that is the flaw in your +game, the fatal flaw that will blast it sky-high. Now do you tell me what +clout on my head you're working so hard not to let me notice—or do I go +home?" +"Oh no, Mr. Rearden!" cried Lawson, with a sudden dart of his eyes to his +wrist watch. "You can't go now!—That is, I mean, you wouldn't want to go +without hearing what we have to say." +"Then let me hear it." +He saw them glancing at one another. Wesley Mouch seemed afraid to address +him; Mouch's face assumed an expression of petulant stubbornness, like a +signal of command pushing the others forward; whatever their qualifications +to dispose of the fate of the steel industry, they had been brought here to +act as Mouch's conversational bodyguards. +Rearden wondered about the reason for the presence of James Taggart; +Taggart sat in gloomy silence, sullenly sipping a drink, never glancing in +his direction. + + "We have worked out a plan," said Dr. Ferris too cheerfully, "which will +solve the problems of the steel industry and which will meet with your full +approval, as a measure providing for the general welfare, while protecting +your interests and insuring your safety in a—" +"Don't try to tell me what I'm going to think. Give me the facts." +"It is a plan which is fair, sound, equitable and—" +"Don't tell me your evaluation. Give me the facts." +"It is a plan which—" Dr. Ferris stopped; he had lost the habit of naming +facts. +"Under this plan," said Wesley Mouch, "we will grant the industry a five +per cent increase in the price of steel." He paused triumphantly. +Rearden said nothing. +"Of course, some minor adjustments will be necessary," said Holloway +airily, leaping into the silence as onto a vacant tennis court. "A certain +increase in prices will have to be granted to the producers of iron ore—oh, +three per cent at most—in view of the added hardships which some of them, Mr. +Larkin of Minnesota, for instance, will now encounter, inasmuch as they'll +have to ship their ore by the costly means of trucks, since Mr. James Taggart +has had to sacrifice his Minnesota branch line to the public welfare. And, of +course, an increase in freight rates will have to be granted to the country's +railroads—let's say, seven per cent, roughly speaking—in view of the +absolutely essential need for—" +Holloway stopped, like a player emerging from a whirlwind activity to +notice suddenly that no opponent was answering his shots. +"But there will be no increase in wages," said Dr. Ferris hastily. "An +essential point of the plan is that we will grant no increase in wages to the +steel workers, in spite of their insistent demands. We do wish to be fair to +you, Mr. Rearden, and to protect your interests—even at the risk of popular +resentment and indignation." +"Of course, if we expect labor to make a sacrifice," said Lawson, "we must +show them that management, too, is making certain sacrifices for the sake of +the country. The mood of labor in the steel industry is extremely tense at +present, Mr. Rearden, it is dangerously explosive and . . . and in order to +protect you from . . . from . . . " He stopped. +"Yes?" said Rearden. "From?" +"From possible . . . violence, certain measures are necessary, which . . . +Look, Jim"—he turned suddenly to James Taggart—"why don't you explain it to +Mr. Rearden, as a fellow industrialist?" +"Well, somebody's got to support the railroads," said Taggart sullenly, +not looking at him. "The country needs railroads and somebody's got to help +us carry the load, and if we don't get an increase in freight rates—" +"No, no, no!" snapped Wesley Mouch. "Tell Mr. Rearden about the working of +the Railroad Unification Plan." +"Well, the Plan is a full success," said Taggart lethargically, "except +for the not fully controllable element of time. It is only a question of time +before our unified teamwork puts every railroad in the country back on its +feet. The Plan, I'm in a position to assure you, would work as successfully +for any other industry." +"No doubt about that," said Rearden, and turned to Mouch. "Why do you ask +the stooge to waste my time? What has the Railroad Unification Plan to do +with me?" +"But, Mr. Rearden," cried Mouch with desperate cheerfulness, "that's the +pattern we're to follow! That's what we called you here to discuss!" +"What?" +"The Steel Unification Plan!" +There was an instant of silence, as of breaths drawn after a plunge. + + Rearden sat looking at them with a glance that seemed to be a glance of +interest. +"In view of the critical plight of the steel industry," said Mouch with a +sudden rush, as if not to give himself time to know what made him uneasy +about the nature of Rearden's glance, "and since steel is the most vitally, +crucially basic commodity, the foundation of our entire industrial structure, +drastic measures must be taken to preserve the country's steel-making +facilities, equipment and plant." The tone and impetus of public speaking +carried him that far and no farther. "With this objective in view, our Plan +is . . . our Plan is . . ." +"Our Plan Is really very simple," said Tinky Holloway, striving to prove +it by the gaily bouncing simplicity of his voice. "We'll lift all +restrictions from the production of steel and every company will produce all +it can, according to its ability. But to avoid the waste and danger of dogeat-dog competition, all the companies will deposit their gross earnings into +a common pool, to be known as the Steel Unification Pool, in charge of a +special Board. At the end of the year, the Board will distribute these +earnings by totaling the nation's steel output and dividing it by the number +of open-hearth furnaces in existence, thus arriving at an average which will +be fair to all—and every company will be paid according to its need. The +preservation of its furnaces being its basic need, every company will be paid +according to the number of furnaces it owns." +He stopped, waited, then added, "That's it, Mr. Rearden," and getting no +answer, said, "Oh, there's a lot of wrinkles to be ironed out, but . . . but +that's it." +Whatever reaction they had expected, it was not the one they saw. +Rearden leaned back in his chair, his eyes attentive, but fixed on space, +as if looking at a not too distant distance, then he asked, with an odd note +of quietly impersonal amusement, "Will you tell me just one thing, boys: what +is it you're counting on?" +He knew that they understood. He saw, on their faces, that stubbornly +evasive look which he had once thought to be the look of a liar cheating a +victim, but which he now knew to be worse: the look of a man cheating himself +of his own consciousness. They did not answer. They remained silent, as if +struggling, not to make him forget his question, but to make themselves +forget that they had heard it. +"It's a sound, practical Plan!" snapped James Taggart unexpectedly, with +an angry edge of sudden animation in his voice. "It will work! +It has to work! We want it to work!" +No one answered him. +"Mr. Rearden . . . ?" said Holloway timidly. +"Well, let me see," said Rearden. "Orren Boyle's Associated Steel owns 60 +open-hearth furnaces, one-third of them standing idle and the rest producing +an average of 300 tons of steel per furnace per day. +I own 20 open-hearth furnaces, working at capacity, producing tons of +Rearden Metal per furnace per day. So we own SO 'pooled' +furnaces with a 'pooled' output of 27,000 tons, which makes an average of +337.5 tons per furnace. Each day of the year, I, producing 15,000 tons, will +be paid for 6,750 tons. Boyle, producing 12,000 tons, will be paid for 20,250 +tons. Never mind the other members of the pool, they won't change the scale, +except to bring the average still lower, most of them doing worse than Boyle, +none of them producing as much as I. Now how long do you expect me to last +under your Plan?" +There was no answer, then Lawson cried suddenly, blindly, righteously, "In +time of national peril, it is your duty to serve, suffer and work for the +salvation of the country!" + + "I don't see why pumping my earnings into Orren Boyle's pocket is going to +save the country." +"You have to make certain sacrifices to the public welfare!" +"I don't see why Orren Boyle is more 'the public' than I am." +"Oh, it's not a question of Mr. Boyle at all! It's much wider than any one +person. It's a matter of preserving the country's natural resources—such as +factories—and saving the whole of the nation's industrial plant. We cannot +permit the ruin of an establishment as vast as Mr. Boyle's. The country needs +it." +"I think," said Rearden slowly, "that the country needs me much more than +it needs Orren Boyle." +"But of course!" cried Lawson with startled enthusiasm. "The country needs +you, Mr. Rearden! You do realize that, don't you?" +But Lawson's avid pleasure at the familiar formula of self-immolation, +vanished abruptly at the sound of Rearden's voice, a cold, trader's voice +answering: "I do." +"It's not Boyle alone who's involved," said Holloway pleadingly. +"The country's economy would not be able to stand a major dislocation at +the present moment. There are thousands of Boyle's workers, suppliers and +customers. What would happen to them if Associated Steel went bankrupt?" +"What will happen to the thousands of my workers, suppliers and customers +when I go bankrupt?" +"You, Mr. Rearden?" said Holloway incredulously. "But you're the richest, +safest and strongest industrialist in the country at this moment!" +"What about the moment after next?" +"Uh?" +"How long do you expect me to be able to produce at a loss?" +"Oh, Mr. Rearden, I have complete faith in you!" +"To hell with your faith! How do you expect me to do it?" +"You'll manage!" +"How?" +There was no answer. +"We can't theorize about the future," cried Wesley Mouch, "when here's an +immediate national collapse to avoid! We've got to save the country's +economy! We've got to do something!" Rearden's imperturbible glance of +curiosity drove him to heedlessness. "If you don't like it, do you have a +better solution to offer?" +"Sure," said Rearden easily. "If it's production that you want, then get +out of the way, junk all of your damn regulations, let Orren Boyle go broke, +let me buy the plant of Associated Steel—and it will be pouring a thousand +tons a day from every one of its sixty furnaces." +"Oh, but . . . but we couldn't!" gasped Mouch. "That would be monopoly!" +Rearden chuckled. "Okay," he said indifferently, "then let my mills +superintendent buy it. Hell do a better job than Boyle." +"Oh, but that would be letting the strong have an advantage over the weak! +We couldn't do that!" +"Then don't talk about saving the country's economy." +"All we want is—" He stopped. +"All you want is production without men who're able to produce, isn't it?" +"That . . . that's theory. That's just a theoretical extreme. All we want +is a temporary adjustment." +"You've been making those temporary adjustments for years. Don't you see +that you've run out of time?" +"That's just theo . . ." His voice trailed off and stopped. +"Well, now, look here," said Holloway cautiously, "it's not as if Mr. +Boyle were actually . . . weak. Mr. Boyle is an extremely able man. + + It's just that he's suffered some unfortunate reverses, quite beyond his +control. He had invested large sums in a public-spirited project to assist +the undeveloped peoples of South America, and that copper crash of theirs has +dealt him a severe financial blow. So it's only a matter of giving him a +chance to recover, a helping hand to bridge the gap, a bit of temporary +assistance, nothing more. All we have to do is just equalize the sacrifice— +then everybody will recover and prosper." +"You've been equalizing sacrifice for over a hundred"—he stopped —"for +thousands of years," said Rearden slowly. "Don't you see that you're at the +end of the road?" +"That's just theory!" snapped Wesley Mouch. +Rearden smiled. "I know your practice," he said softly. "It's your theory +that I'm trying to understand." +He knew that the specific reason behind the Plan was Orren Boyle; he knew +that the working of an intricate mechanism, operated by pull, threat, +pressure, blackmail—a mechanism like an irrational adding machine run amuck +and throwing up any chance sum at the whim of any moment—had happened to add +up to Boyle's pressure upon these men to extort for him this last piece of +plunder. He knew also that Boyle was not the cause of it or the essential to +consider, that Boyle was only a chance rider, not the builder, of the +infernal machine that had destroyed the world, that it was not Boyle who had +made it possible, nor any of the men in this room. They, too, were only +riders on a machine without a driver, they were trembling hitchhikers who +knew that their vehicle was about to crash into its final abyss—and it was +not love or fear of Boyle that made them cling to their course and press on +toward their end, it was something else, it was some one nameless element +which they knew and evaded knowing, something which was neither thought nor +hope, something he identified only as a certain look in their faces, a +furtive look saying: I can get away with it. Why? +—he thought. Why do they think they can? +"We can't afford any theories!" cried Wesley Mouch. "We've got to act!" +"Well, then, I'll offer you another solution. Why don't you take over my +mills and be done with it?" +The jolt that shook them was genuine terror. +"Oh no!" gasped Mouch. +"We wouldn't think of it!" cried Holloway. +"We stand for free enterprise!" cried Dr. Ferris. +"We don't want to harm you!" cried Lawson. "We're your friends, Mr. +Rearden. Can't we all work together? We're your friends." +There, across the room, stood a table with a telephone, the same table, +most likely, and the same instrument—and suddenly Rearden felt as if he were +seeing the convulsed figure of a man bent over that telephone, a man who had +then known what he, Rearden, was now beginning to learn, a man fighting to +refuse him the same request which he was now refusing to the present tenants +of this room—he saw the finish of that fight, a man's tortured face lifted to +confront him and a desperate voice saying steadily: "Mr. Rearden, I swear to +you . . . by the woman I love . . . that I am your friend." +This was the act he had then called treason, and this was the man he had +rejected in order to go on serving the men confronting him now. +Who, then, had been the traitor?—he thought; he thought it almost without +feeling, without right to feel, conscious of nothing but a solemnly reverent +clarity. Who had chosen to give its present tenants the means to acquire this +room? Whom had he sacrificed and to whose profit? +"Mr. Rearden!" moaned Lawson. "What's the matter?" +He turned his head, saw Lawson's eyes watching him fearfully and guessed +what look Lawson had caught in his face. +"We don't want to seize your mills!" cried Mouch. + + "We don't want to deprive you of your property!" cried Dr. Ferris. +"You don't understand us!" +"I'm beginning to." +A year ago, he thought, they would have shot him; two years ago, they +would have confiscated his property; generations ago, men of their kind had +been able to afford the luxury of murder and expropriation, the safety of +pretending to themselves and their victims that material loot was their only +objective. But their time was running out and his fellow victims had gone, +gone sooner than any historical schedule had promised, and they, the looters, +were now left to face the undisguised reality of their own goal. +"Look, boys," he said wearily. "I know what you want. You want to eat my +mills and have them, too. And all I want to know is this: what makes you +think it's possible?" +"I don't know what you mean," said Mouch in an injured tone of voice. "We +said we didn't want your mills." +"All right, I'll say it more precisely: You want to eat me and have me, +too. How do you propose to do it?" +"I don't know how you can say that, after we've given you every assurance +that we consider you of invaluable importance to the country, to the steel +industry, to—" +"I believe you. That's what makes the riddle Harder. You consider me of +invaluable importance to the country? Hell, you consider me of invaluable +importance even to your own necks. You sit there trembling, because you know +that I'm the last one left to save your lives—and you know that time is as +short as that. Yet you propose a plan to destroy me, a plan which demands, +with an idiot's crudeness, without loopholes, detours or escape, that I work +at a loss—that I work, with every ton I pour costing me more than I'll get +for it—that I feed the last of my wealth away until we all starve together. +That much irrationality is not possible to any man or any looter. For your +own sake—never mind the country's or mine—you must be counting on something. +What?" +He saw the getting-away-with-it look on their faces, a peculiar look that +seemed secretive, yet resentful, as if, incredibly, it were he who was hiding +some secret from them. +"I don't see why you should choose to take such a defeatist view of the +situation," said Mouch sullenly. +"Defeatist? Do you really expect me to be able to remain in business under +your Plan?" +"But it's only temporary!" +"There's no such thing as a temporary suicide." +"But it's only for the duration of the emergency! Only until the country +recovers!" +"How do you expect it to recover?" +There was no answer. +"How do you expect me to produce after I go bankrupt?" +"You won't go bankrupt. You'll always produce," said Dr. Ferris +indifferently, neither in praise nor in blame, merely in the tone of stating +a fact of nature, as he would have said to another man: You'll always be a +bum, "You can't help it. It's in your blood. Or, to be more scientific: +you're conditioned that way." +Rearden sat up: it was as if he had been struggling to find the secret +combination of a lock and felt, at those words, a faint click within, as of +the first tumbrel falling into place. +"It's only a matter of weathering this crisis," said Mouch, "of giving +people a reprieve, a chance to catch up." +"And then?" +"Then things will improve." + + "How?" +There was no answer. +"What will improve them?" +There was no answer. +"Who will improve them?" +"Christ, Mr. Rearden, people don't just stand still!" cried Holloway, +"They do things, they grow, they move forward!" +"What people?" +Holloway waved his hand vaguely. "People," he said. +"What people? The people to whom you're going to feed the last of Rearden +Steel, without getting anything in return? The people who'll go on consuming +more than they produce?" +"Conditions will change." +"Who'll change them?" +There was no answer. +"Have you anything left to loot? If you didn't see the nature of your +policy before—it's not possible that you don't see it now. Look around you. +All those damned People's States all over the earth have been existing only +on the handouts which you squeezed for them out of this country. But you—you +have no place left to sponge on or mooch from. No country on the face of the +globe. This was the greatest and last. You've drained it. You've milked it +dry. Of all that irretrievable splendor, I'm only one remnant, the last, What +will you do, you and your People's Globe, after you've finished me? What are +you hoping for? What do you see ahead—except plain, stark, animal +starvation?" +They did not answer. They did not look at him. Their faces wore +expressions of stubborn resentment, as if his were the plea of a liar. +Then Lawson said softly, half in reproach, half in scorn, "Well, after +all, you businessmen have kept predicting disasters for years, you've cried +catastrophe at every progressive measure and told us that we'll perish—but we +haven't." He started a smile, but drew back from the sudden intensity of +Rearden’s eyes. +Rearden had felt another click in his mind, the sharper click of the +second tumbrel connecting the circuits of the lock. He leaned forward. +"What are you counting on?" he asked; his tone had changed, it was low, it +had the steady, pressing, droning sound of a drill. +"It's only a matter of gaining time!" cried Mouch. +"There isn't any time left to gain." +"All we need is a chance!" cried Lawson. +"There are no chances left." +"It's only until we recover!" cried Holloway. +"There is no way to recover." +"Only until our policies begin to work!" cried Dr. Ferris. +"There's no way to make the irrational work.'1 There was no answer. +"What can save you now?" +"Oh, you'll do something!" cried James Taggart. +Then—even though it was only a sentence he had heard all his life—he felt +a deafening crash within him, as of a steel door dropping open at the touch +of the final tumbrel, the one small number completing the sum and releasing +the intricate lock, the answer uniting all the pieces, the questions and the +unsolved wounds of his life. +In the moment of silence after the crash, it seemed to him that he heard +Francisco's voice, asking him quietly in the ballroom of this building, yet +asking it also here and now: "Who is the guiltiest man in this room?" He +heard his own answer of the past: "I suppose— + + James Taggart?" and Francisco's voice saying without reproach: "No, Mr. +Rearden, it's not James Taggart,"—but here, in this room and this moment, his +mind answered: "I am." +He had cursed these looters for their stubborn blindness? It was he who +had made it possible. From the first extortion he had accepted, from the +first directive he had obeyed, he had given them cause to believe that +reality was a thing to be cheated, that one could demand the irrational and +someone somehow would provide it. If he had accepted the Equalization of +Opportunity Bill, if he had accepted Directive 10-289, if he had accepted the +law that those who could not equal his ability had the right to dispose of +it, that those who had not earned were to profit, but he who had was to lose, +that those who could not think were to command, but he who could was to obey +them—then were they illogical in believing that they existed in an irrational +universe? He had made it for them, he had provided it. +Were they illogical in believing that theirs was only to wish, to wish +with no concern for the possible—and that his was to fulfill their wishes, by +means they did not have to know or name? They, the impotent mystics, +struggling to escape the responsibility of reason, had known that he, the +rationalist, had undertaken to serve their whims. +They had known that he had given them a blank check on reality— +his was not to ask why?—theirs was not to ask how?—let them demand that he +give them a share of his wealth, then all that he owns, then more than he +owns—impossible?—no, he'll do something! +He did not know that he had leaped to his feet, that he stood staring down +at James Taggart, seeing in the unbridled shapelessness of Taggart's features +the answer to all the devastation he had witnessed through the years of his +life. +"What's the matter, Mr. Rearden? What have I said?" Taggart was asking +with rising anxiety—but he was out of the reach of Taggart's voice. +He was seeing the progression of the years, the monstrous extortions, the +impossible demands, the inexplicable victories of evil, the preposterous +plans and unintelligible goals proclaimed in volumes of muddy philosophy, the +desperate wonder of the victims who thought that some complex, malevolent +wisdom was moving the powers destroying the world—and all of it had rested on +one tenet behind the shifty eyes of the victors: he'll do something! . . . +We'll get away with it—he'll let us—he'll do something! . . . +You businessmen kept predicting that we'd perish, but we haven't. +. . . It was true, he thought. They had not been blind to reality, he had— +blind to the reality he himself had created. No, they had not perished, but +who had? Who had perished to pay for their manner of survival? Ellis Wyatt . +. . Ken Danagger . . . Francisco d'Anconia. +He was reaching for his hat and coat, when he noticed that the men in the +room were trying to stop him, that their faces had a look of panic and their +voices were crying in bewilderment: "What's the matter, Mr. +Rearden? . . . Why? . . . But why? . . . What have we said? . . . +You're not going! . . . You can't go! . . . It's too early! . . . Not yet! +Oh, not yet!" +He felt as if he were seeing them from the rear window of a speeding +express, as if they stood on the track behind him, waving their arms in +futile gestures and screaming indistinguishable sounds, their figures growing +smaller in the distance, their voices fading. +One of them tried to stop him as he turned to the door. He pushed him out +of his way, not roughly, but with a simple, smooth sweep of his arm, as one +brushes aside an obstructing curtain, then walked out. +Silence was his only sensation, as he sat at the wheel of his car, +speeding back down the road to Philadelphia. It was the silence of immobility +within him, as if, possessing knowledge, he could now afford to rest, with no + + further activity of soul. He felt nothing, neither anguish nor elation. It +was as if, by an effort of years, he had climbed a mountain to gain a distant +view and, having reached the top, had fallen to lie still, to rest before he +looked, free to spare himself for the first time. +He was aware of the long, empty road streaming, then curving, then +streaming straight before him, of the effortless pressure of his hands on the +wheel and the screech of the tires on the curves. But he felt as if he were +speeding down a skyway suspended and coiling in empty space. +The passers-by at the factories, the bridges, the power plants along his +road saw a sight that had once been natural among them: a trim, expensively +powerful car driven by a confident man, with the concept of success +proclaimed more loudly than by any electric sign, proclaimed by the driver's +garments, by his expert steering, by his purposeful speed. +They watched him go past and vanish into the haze equating earth with +night. +He saw his mills rising in the darkness, as a black silhouette against a +breathing glow. The glow was the color of burning gold, and "Rearden Steel" +stood written across the sky in the cool, white fire of crystal. +He looked at the long silhouette, the curves of blast furnaces standing +like triumphal arches, the smokestacks rising like a solemn colonnade along +an avenue of honor in an imperial city, the bridges hanging like garlands, +the cranes saluting like lances, the smoke waving slowly like flags. The +sight broke the stillness within him and he smiled in greeting. It was a +smile of happiness, of love, of dedication. He had never loved his mills as +he did in that moment, for—seeing them by an act of his own vision, cleared +of all but his own code of values, in a luminous reality that held no +contradictions—he was seeing the reason of his love: the mills were an +achievement of his mind, devoted to his enjoyment of existence, erected in a +rational world to deal with rational men. If those men had vanished, if that +world was gone, if his mills had ceased to serve his values—then the mills +were only a pile of dead scrap, to be left to crumble, the sooner the better— +to be left, not as an act of treason, but as an act of loyalty to their +actual meaning. +The mills were still a mile ahead when a small spurt of flame caught his +sudden attention. Among all the shades of fire in the vast spread of +structures, he could tell the abnormal and the out-of-place: this one was too +raw a shade of yellow and it was darting from a spot where no fire had reason +to be, from a structure by the gate of the main entrance. +In the next instant, he heard the dry crack of a gunshot, then three +answering cracks in swift succession, like an angry hand slapping a sudden +assailant. +Then the black mass barring the road in the distance took shape, it was +not mere darkness and it did not recede as he came closer—it was a mob +squirming at the main gate, trying to storm the mills. +He had time to distinguish waving arms, some with clubs, some with +crowbars, some with rifles—the yellow flames of burning wood gushing from the +window of the gatekeeper's office—the blue cracks of gunfire darting out of +the mob and the answers spitting from the roofs of the structures—he had time +to see a human figure twisting backward and falling from the top of a car— +then he sent his wheels into a shrieking curve, turning into the darkness of +a side road. +He was going at the rate of sixty miles an hour down the ruts of an +unpaved soil, toward the eastern gate of the mills—and the gate was in sight +when the impact of tires on a gully threw the car off the road, to the edge +of a ravine where an ancient slag heap lay at the bottom. With the weight of +his chest and elbow on the wheel, pitted against two tons of speeding metal, +the curve of his body forced the curve of the car to complete its screaming + + half-circle, sweeping it back onto the road and into the control of his +hands. It had taken one instant, but in the next his foot went down on the +brake, tearing the engine to a stop: for in the moment when his headlights +had swept the ravine, he had glimpsed an oblong shape, darker than the gray +of the weeds on the slope, and it had seemed to him that a brief white blur +had been a human hand waving for help. +Throwing off his overcoat, he went hurrying down the side of the ravine, +lumps of earth giving way under his feet, he went catching at the dried coils +of brush, half-running, half-sliding toward the long black form which he +could now distinguish to be a human body. A scum of cotton was swimming +against the moon, he could see the white of a hand and the shape of an arm +lying stretched in the weeds, but the body lay still, with no sign of motion. +"Mr. Rearden . . ." +It was a whisper struggling to be a cry, it was the terrible sound of +eagerness fighting against a voice that could be nothing but a moan of pain. +He did not know which came first, it felt like a single shock: his thought +that the voice was familiar, a ray of moonlight breaking through the cotton, +the movement of falling down on his knees by the white oval of a face, and +the recognition. It was the Wet Nurse. +He felt the boy's hand clutching his with the abnormal strength of agony, +while he was noticing the tortured lines of the face, the drained lips, the +glazing eyes and the thin, dark trickle from a small, black hole in too +wrong, too close a spot on the left side of the boy's chest. +"Mr. Rearden . . . I wanted to stop them . . . I wanted to save you . . ." +"What happened to you, kid?" +"They shot me, so I wouldn't talk . . . I wanted to prevent"—his hand +fumbled toward the red glare in the sky—"what they're doing . . . +I was too late, but I've tried to . . . I've tried . . . And . . . and I'm +still able . . . to talk . . . Listen, they—" +"You need help. Let's get you to a hospital and—" +"No! Wait! I . . . I don't think I have much time left to me and . . . and +I've got to tell you . . . Listen, that riot . . . it's staged . . . on +orders from Washington . . . It's not workers . . . not your workers . . . +it's those new boys of theirs and . . . and a lot of goons hired on the +outside . . . Don't believe a word they'll tell you about it . . . It's a +frame-up . . . it's their rotten kind of frame-up . . ." +There was a desperate intensity in the boy's face, the intensity of a +crusader's battle, his voice seemed to gain a sound of life from some fuel +burning in broken spurts within him—-and Rearden knew that the greatest +assistance he could now render was to listen. +"They . . . they've got a Steel Unification Plan ready . . . and they need +an excuse for it . . . because they know that the country won't take it . . . +and you won't stand for it . . . They're afraid this one's going to be too +much for everybody . . . it's just a plan to skin you alive, that's all . . . +So they want to make it look like you're starving your workers . . . and the +workers are running amuck and you're unable to control them . . . and the +government's got to step in for your own protection and for public safety . . +. That's going to be their pitch, Mr. Rearden . . ." +Rearden was noticing the torn flesh of the boy's hands, the drying mud of +blood and dust on his palms and his clothing, gray patches of dust on knees +and stomach, scrambled with the needles of burs. In the intermittent fits of +moonlight, he could see the trail of flattened weeds and glistening smears +going off into the darkness below. He dreaded to think how far the boy had +crawled and for how long. +"They didn't want you to be here tonight, Mr. Rearden . . . They didn't +want you to see their 'People's rebellion' . . . Afterwards . . . + + you know how they screw up the evidence . . . there won't be a straight +story to get anywhere . . . and they hope to fool the country . . . and you . +. . that they're acting to protect you from violence . . . +Don't let them get away with it, Mr. Rearden! . . . Tell the country . . . +tell the people . . . tell the newspapers . . . Tell them that I told you . . +. it's under oath . . . I swear it . . . that makes it legal, doesn't it? . . +. doesn't it? . . . that gives you a chance?" +Rearden pressed the boy's hand in his. "Thank you, kid." +"I . . . I'm sorry I'm late, Mr. Rearden, but . . . but they didn't let me +in on it till the last minute . . . till just before it started . . . +They called me in on a . . . a strategy conference . . . there was a man +there by the name of Peters . . . from the Unification Board . . . he's a +stooge of Tinky Holloway . . . who's a stooge of Orren Boyle . . . What they +wanted from me was . . . they wanted me to sign a lot of passes . . . to let +some of the goons in . . . so they'd start trouble from the inside and the +outside together . . . to make it look like they really were your workers . . +. I refused to sign the passes." +"You did? After they'd let you in on their game?" +"But . . . but, of course, Mr. Rearden . . . Did you think I'd play that +kind of game?" +"No, kid, no, I guess not. Only—" +"What?" +"Only that's when you stuck your neck out." +"But I had to! . . . I couldn't help them wreck the mills, could I? +. . . How long was I to keep from sticking my neck out? Till they broke +yours? . . . And what would I do with my neck, if that's how I had to keep +it? . . . You . . . you understand it, don't you, Mr. +Rearden?" +"Yes. I do." +"I refused them . . . I ran out of the office . . . I ran to look for the +superintendent . . . to tell him everything . . . but I couldn't find him . . +. and then I heard shots at the main gate and I knew it had started . . . I +tried to phone your home . . . the phone wires were cut . . . I ran to get my +car, I wanted to reach you or a policeman or a newspaper or somebody . . . +but they must have been following me . . . that's when they shot me . . . in +the parking lot . . . +from behind . . . all I remember is falling and . . . and then, when I +opened my eyes, they had dumped me here . . . on the slag heap . . . " +"On the slag heap?" said Rearden slowly, knowing that the heap was a +hundred feet below. +The boy nodded, pointing vaguely down into the darkness. "Yeah . . . down +there . . . And then I . . . I started crawling . . . +crawling up . . . I wanted . . . I wanted to last till I told somebody +who'd tell you." The pain-twisted lines of his face smoothed suddenly into a +smile; his voice had the sound of a lifetime's triumph as he added, "I have." +Then he jerked his head up and asked, in the tone of a child's astonishment +at a sudden discovery, "Mr. Rearden, is this how it feels to . . . to want +something very much . . . very desperately much . . . and to make it?" +"Yes, kid, that's how it feels." The boy's head dropped back against +Rearden's arm, the eyes closing, the mouth relaxing, as if to hold a moment's +profound contentment. "But you can't stop there. You're not through. You've +got to hang on till I get you to a doctor and—" He was lifting the boy +cautiously, but a convulsion of pain ran through the boy's face, his mouth +twisting to stop a cry—and Rearden had to lower him gently back to the +ground. +The boy shook his head with a glance that was almost apology. "I won't +make it, Mr. Rearden . . . No use fooling myself . . . I know I'm through." + + Then, as if by some dim recoil against self-pity, he added, reciting a +memorized lesson, his voice a desperate attempt at his old, cynical, +intellectual tone, "What does it matter, Mr. Rearden? . . . Man is only a +collection of . . . conditioned chemicals . . . and a man's dying doesn't +make . . . any more difference than an animal's." +"You know better than that." +"Yes," he whispered. "Yes, I guess I do." +His eyes wandered over the vast darkness, then rose to Rearden's face; the +eyes were helpless, longing, childishly bewildered. "I know . . . it's crap, +all those things they taught us . . . all of it, everything they said . . . +about living or . . . or dying . . . Dying . . . it wouldn't make any +difference to chemicals, but—" he stopped, and all of his desperate protest +was only in the intensity of his voice dropping lower to say, "—but it does, +to me . . . And . . . and, I guess, it makes a difference to an animal, too . +. . But they said there are no values . . . only social customs . . . No +values!" His hand clutched blindly at the hole in his chest, as if trying to +hold that which he was losing. "No . . . values . . .” +Then his eyes opened wider, with the sudden calm of full frankness. +"I'd like to live, Mr. Rearden. God, how I'd like to!" His voice was +passionately quiet. "Not because I'm dying . . . but because I've just +discovered it tonight, what it means, really to be alive . . . And . . . it's +funny . . . do you know when [ discovered it? . . . In the office . . . +when I stuck my neck out . . . when I told the bastards to go to hell . . +. There's . . . there's so many things I wish I'd known sooner . . . But . . +. well, it's no use crying over spilled milk." He saw Rearden's involuntary +glance at the flattened trail below and added, "Over spilled anything, Mr. +Rearden." +"Listen, kid," said Rearden sternly, "I want you to do me a favor." +"Now, Mr. Rearden?" +"Yes. Now." +"Why, of course, Mr. Rearden . . . if I can." +"You've done me a big favor tonight, but I want you to do a still bigger +one. You've done a great job, climbing out of that slag heap. +Now will you try for something still harder? You were willing to die to +save my mills. Will you try to live for me?" +"For you, Mr. Rearden?" +"For me. Because I'm asking you to. Because I want you to. Because we +still have a great distance to climb together, you and I." +"Does it . . . does it make a difference to you, Mr. Rearden?" +"It does. Will you make up your mind that you want to live—just as you did +down there on the slag heap? That you want to last and live? Will you fight +for it? You wanted to fight my battle. Will you fight this one with me, as +our first?" +He felt the clutching of the boy's hand; it conveyed the violent eagerness +of the answer; the voice was only a whisper: "I'll try, Mr. +Rearden." +"Now help me to get you to a doctor. Just relax, take it easy and let me +lift you." +"Yes, Mr. Rearden." With the jerk of a sudden effort, the boy pulled +himself up to lean on an elbow. +"Take it easy, Tony." +He saw a sudden flicker in the boy's face, an attempt at his old, bright, +impudent grin. "Not 'Non-Absolute' any more?" +"No, not any more. You're a full absolute now, and you know it." +"Yes. I know several of them, now. There's one"—he pointed at the wound in +his chest—"that's an absolute, isn't it? And"—he went on speaking while +Rearden was lifting him from the ground by imperceptible seconds and inches, + + speaking as if the trembling intensity of his words were serving as an +anesthetic against the pain—"and men can't live . . . if rotten bastards . . +. like the ones in Washington . . . get away with things like . . . like the +one they're doing tonight . . . if everything becomes a stinking fake . . . +and nothing is real . . . and nobody is anybody . . . men can't live that way +. . . +that's an absolute, isn't it?" +"Yes, Tony, that's an absolute." +Rearden rose to his feet by a long, cautious effort; he saw the tortured +spasm of the boy's features, as he settled him slowly against his chest, like +a baby held tight in his arms—but the spasm twisted into another echo of the +impudent grin, and the boy asked, "Who's the Wet Nurse now?" +"I guess I am." +He took the first steps up the slant of crumbling soil, his body tensed to +the task of shock absorber for his fragile burden, to the task of maintaining +a steady progression where there was no foothold to find. +The boy's head dropped on Rearden's shoulder, hesitantly, almost as if +this were a presumption. Rearden bent down and pressed his lips to the duststreaked forehead. +The boy jerked back, raising his head with a shock of incredulous, +indignant astonishment. "Do you know what you did?" he whispered, as if +unable to believe that it was meant for him. +"Put your head down," said Rearden, "and I'll do it again." +The boy's head dropped and Rearden kissed his forehead; it was like a +father's recognition granted to a son's battle. +The boy lay still, his face hidden, his hands clutching Rearden's +shoulders. Then, with no hint of sound, with only the sudden beat of faint, +spaced, rhythmic shudders to show it, Rearden knew that the boy was crying— +crying in surrender, in admission of all the things which he could not put +into the words he had never found. +Rearden went on moving slowly upward, step by groping step, fighting for +firmness of motion against the weeds, the drifts of dust, the chunks of scrap +metal, the refuse of a distant age. He went on, toward the line where the red +glow of his mills marked the edge of the pit above him, his movement a fierce +struggle that had to take the form of a gentle, unhurried flow. +He heard no sobs, but he felt the rhythmic shudders, and, through the +cloth of his shirt, in place of tears, he felt the small, warm, liquid spurts +flung from the wound by the shudders. He knew that the tight pressure of his +arms was the only answer which the boy was now able to hear and understand— +and he held the trembling body as if the strength of his arms could transfuse +some part of his living power into the arteries beating ever fainter against +him. +Then the sobbing stopped and the boy raised his head. His face seemed +thinner and paler, but the eyes were lustrous, and he looked up at Rearden, +straining for the strength to speak. +"Mr. Rearden . . . I . . . I liked you very much." +"I know it." +The boy's features had no power to form a smile, but it was a smile that +spoke in his glance, as he looked at Rearden's face—as he looked at that +which he had not known he had been seeking through the brief span of his +life, seeking as the image of that which he had not known to be his values. +Then his head fell back, and there was no convulsion in his face, only his +mouth relaxing to a shape of serenity—but there was a brief stab of +convulsion in his body, like a last cry of protest—and Rearden went on +slowly, not altering his pace, even though he knew that no caution was +necessary any longer because what he was carrying in his arms was now that +which had been the boy's teachers' idea of man— + + a collection of chemicals. +He walked, as if this were his form of last tribute and funeral procession +for the young life that had ended in his arms. He felt an anger too intense +to identify except as a pressure within him: it was a desire to kill. +The desire was not directed at the unknown thug who had sent a bullet +through the boy's body, or at the looting bureaucrats who had hired the thug +to do it, but at the boy's teachers who had delivered him, disarmed, to the +thug's gun—at the soft, safe assassins of college classrooms who, incompetent +to answer the queries of a quest for reason, took pleasure in crippling the +young minds entrusted to their care. +Somewhere, he thought, there was this boy's mother, who had trembled with +protective concern over his groping steps, while teaching him to walk, who +had measured his baby formulas with a jeweler's caution, who had obeyed with +a zealot's fervor the latest words of science on his diet and hygiene, +protecting his unhardened body from germs—then had sent him to be turned into +a tortured neurotic by the men who taught him that he had no mind and must +never attempt to think. Had she fed him tainted refuse, he thought, had she +mixed poison into his food, it would have been more kind and less fatal. +He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of +survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such +strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly—yet man, whose tool of +survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach