Atlas Shrugged

by Ayn Rand

  "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?"

  "Y.es."

  "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 sparks 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 overcolored 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. I 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 poticies--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 10-289 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 t
rouble, 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--"

  "I 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," 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 overpatched 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 coins, "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 off 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.