Atlas Shrugged

by Ayn Rand

  "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 feeling 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 newspapers; 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; but 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 Wayne-Falkland 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 right," 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 c
ome?"

  "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 see 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.