Atlas Shrugged

by Ayn Rand

  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 butler 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, anti-social 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 ..."

  "Don't you?"

  "You've always known my ... my political views. You've never 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 living 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 I? 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 know."

  "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?"