Atlas Shrugged

by Ayn Rand

  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-eat-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 jerk-waters 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 thing 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 flat statement in a brusque, lifeless voice that had a note of wonder.

  She looked at him. "No," she s
aid, "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 endeav oring to suggest that we keep the discussion on a friendly plane. The matter is serious."

  "I am begi
nning 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 be 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.