by Ayn Rand
"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 Jed 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.' '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?"
"I 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?"
"I 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 her: 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."
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br /> "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.