Atlas Shrugged (145 page)

They were cut into the polish of the wood, still showing the force of the pencil’s pressure in the hands that had made them, each in his own violent writing: “You’ll get over it—Ellis Wyatt” “It will be all right by morning—Ken Danagger” “It’s worth it—Roger Marsh.” There were others.

“What is that?” she asked.

He smiled. “This is the room where they spent their first night in the valley. The first night is the hardest. It’s the last pull of the break with one’s memories, and the worst. I let them stay here, so they can call for me, if they want me. I speak to them, if they can’t sleep. Most of them can’t. But they’re free of it by morning.... They’ve all gone through this room. Now they call it the torture chamber or the anteroom—because everyone has to enter the valley through my house.”

He turned to go, he stopped on the threshold and added:

“This is the room I never intended you to occupy. Good night, Miss Taggart.”

CHAPTER II

THE UTOPIA OF GREED

“Good morning.”

She looked at him across the living room from the threshold of her door. In the windows behind him, the mountains had that tinge of silver-pink which seems brighter than daylight, with the promise of a light to come. The sun had risen somewhere over the earth, but it had not reached the top of the barrier, and the sky was glowing in its stead, announcing its motion. She had heard the joyous greeting to the sunrise, which was not the song of birds, but the ringing of the telephone a moment ago; she saw the start of day, not in the shining green of the branches outside, but in the glitter of chromium on the stove, the sparkle of a glass ashtray on a table, and the crisp whiteness of his shirt sleeves. Irresistibly, she heard the sound of a smile in her own voice, matching his, as she answered:

“Good morning.”

He was gathering notes of penciled calculations from his desk and stuffing them into his pocket. “I have to go down to the powerhouse,” he said. “They’ve just phoned me that they’re having trouble with the ray screen. Your plane seems to have knocked it off key. I’ll be back in half an hour and then I’ll cook our breakfast.”

It was the casual simplicity of his voice, the manner of taking her presence and their domestic routine for granted, as if it were of no significance to them, that gave her the sense of an underscored significance and the feeling that he knew it.

She answered as casually, “If you’ll bring me the cane I left in the car, I’ll have breakfast ready for you by the time you come back.”

He glanced at her with a slight astonishment; his eyes moved from her bandaged ankle to the short sleeves of the blouse that left her arms bare to display the heavy bandage on her elbow. But the transparent blouse, the open collar, the hair falling down to the shoulders that seemed innocently naked under a thin film of cloth, made her look like a schoolgirl, not an invalid, and her posture made the bandages look irrelevant. .

He smiled, not quite at her, but as if in amusement at some sudden memory of his own. “If you wish,” he said.

It was strange to be left alone in his house. Part of it was an emotion she had never experienced before: an awed respect that made her hesitantly conscious of her hands, as if to touch any object around her would be too great an intimacy. The other part was a reckless sense of ease, a sense of being at home in this place, as if she owned its owner.

It was strange to feel so pure a joy in the simple task of preparing a breakfast. The work seemed an end in itself, as if the motions of filling a coffee pot, squeezing oranges, slicing bread were performed for their own sake, for the sort of pleasure one expects, but seldom finds, in the motions of dancing. It startled her to realize that she had not experienced this kind of pleasure in her work since her days at the operator’s desk in Rockdale Station.

She was setting the table, when she saw the figure of a man hurrying up the path to the house, a swift, agile figure that leaped over boulders with the casual ease of a flight. He threw the door open, calling, “Hey, John!”—and stopped short as he saw her. He wore a dark blue sweater and slacks, he had gold hair and a face of such shocking perfection of beauty that she stood still, staring at him, not in admiration, at first, but in simple disbelief.

He looked at her as if he had not expected to find a woman in this house. Then she saw a look of recognition melting into a different kind of astonishment, part amusement, part triumph melting into a chuckle. “Oh, have
you
joined us?” he asked.

“No,” she answered dryly, “I haven’t. I’m a scab.”

He laughed, like an adult at a child who uses technological words beyond its understanding. “If you know what you’re saying, you know that it’s not possible,” he said. “Not here.”

“I crashed the gate. Literally.”

He looked at her bandages, weighing the question, his glance almost insolent in its open curiosity. “When?”

“Yesterday.”

“How?”

“In a plane.”

“What were you doing in a plane in this part of the country?”

He had the direct, imperious manner of an aristocrat or a roughneck; he looked like one and was dressed like the other. She considered him for a moment, deliberately letting him wait. “I was trying to land on a prehistorical mirage,” she answered. “And I have.”

“You
are
a scab,” he said, and chuckled, as if grasping all the implications of the problem. “Where’s John?”

“Mr. Galt is at the powerhouse. He should be back any moment.”

He sat down in an armchair, asking no permission, as if he were at home. She turned silently to her work. He sat watching her movements with an open grin, as if the sight of her laying out cutlery on a kitchen table were the spectacle of some special paradox.

“What did Francisco say when he saw you here?” he asked.

She turned to him with a slight jolt, but answered evenly, “He is not here yet.”

“Not yet?” He seemed startled. “Are you sure?”

“So I was told.”

He lighted a cigarette. She wondered, watching him, what profession he had chosen, loved and abandoned in order to join this valley. She could make no guess; none seemed to fit; she caught herself in the preposterous feeling of wishing that he had no profession at all, because any work seemed too dangerous for his incredible kind of beauty. It was an impersonal feeling, she did not look at him as at a man, but as at an animated work of art—and it seemed to be a stressed indignity of the outer world that a perfection such as his should be subjected to the shocks, the strains, the scars reserved for any man who loved his work. But the feeling seemed the more preposterous, because the lines of his face had the sort of hardness for which no danger on earth was a match.

“No, Miss Taggart,” he said suddenly, catching her glance, “you’ve never seen me before.”

She was shocked to realize that she had been studying him openly. “How do you happen to know who I am?” she asked.

“First, I’ve seen your pictures in the papers many times. Second, you’re the only woman left in the outer world, to the best of our knowledge, who’d be allowed to enter Galt’s Gulch. Third, you’re the only woman who’d have the courage—and prodigality—still to remain a scab.”

“What made you certain that I was a scab?”

“If you weren.‘t, you’d know that it’s not this valley, but the view of life held by men in the outer world that is a prehistorical mirage.”

They heard the sound of the motor and saw the car stopping below, in front of the house. She noticed the swiftness with which he rose to his feet at the sight of Galt in the car; if it were not for the obvious personal eagerness, it would have looked like an instinctive gesture of military respect.

She noticed the way Galt stopped, when he entered and saw his visitor. She noticed that Galt smiled, but that his voice was oddly low, almost solemn, as if weighted with unconfessed relief, when he said very quietly, “Hello.”

“Hi, John,” said the visitor gaily.

She noticed that their handshake came an instant too late and lasted an instant too long, like the handshake of men who had not been certain that their previous meeting would not be their last.

Galt turned to her. “Have you met?” he asked, addressing them both.

“Not exactly,” said the visitor.

“Miss Taggart, may I present Ragnar Danneskjöld?”

She knew what her face had looked like, when she heard Danneskjöld.‘s voice as from a great distance: “You don’t have to be frightened, Miss Taggart. I’m not dangerous to anyone in Galt’s Gulch.”

She could only shake her head, before she recaptured her voice to say, “It’s not what you’re doing to anyone . . . it’s what they’re doing to you. . . .”

His laughter swept her out of her moment’s stupor. “Be careful, Miss Taggart. If that’s how you’re beginning to feel, you won’t remain a scab for long.” He added, “But you ought to start by adopting the right things from the people in Galt’s Gulch, not their mistakes: they’ve spent twelve years worrying about me—needlessly.” He glanced at Galt.

“When did you get in?” asked Galt.

“Late last night.”

“Sit down. You’re going to have breakfast with us.”

“But where’s Francisco? Why isn’t he here yet?”

“I don’t know,” said Galt, frowning slightly. “I asked at the airport, just now. Nobody’s heard from him.”

As she turned to the kitchen, Galt moved to follow. “No,” she said, “it’s my job today.”

“Let me help you.”

“This is the place where one doesn’t ask for help, isn’t it?”

He smiled. “That’s right.”

She had never experienced the pleasure of motion, of walking as if her feet had no weight to carry, as if the support of the cane in her hand were merely a superfluous touch of elegance, the pleasure of feeling her steps trace swift, straight lines, of sensing the faultless, spontaneous precision of her gestures—as she experienced it while placing their food on the table in front of the two men. Her bearing told them that she knew they were watching her—she held her head like an actress on a stage, like a woman in a ballroom, like the winner of a silent contest.

“Francisco will be glad to know that it’s you who were his stand-in today,” said Danneskjöld, when she joined them at the table.

“His what?”

“You see, today is June first, and the three of us—John, Francisco and I—have had breakfast together on every June first for twelve years.”

“Here?”

“Not when we started. But here, ever since this house was built eight years ago.” He shrugged, smiling. “For a man who has more centuries of tradition behind him than I have, it’s odd that Francisco should be the first to break our own tradition.”

“And Mr. Galt?” she asked. “How many centuries does he have behind him?”

“John? None at all. None behind him—but all of those ahead.”

“Never mind the centuries,” said Galt. “Tell me what sort of year you’ve had behind you. Lost any men?”

“No.”

“Lost any of your time?”

“You mean, was I wounded? No. I haven’t had a scratch since that one time, ten years ago, when I was still an amateur, which you ought to forget by now. I wasn’t in any danger whatever, this year—in fact, I was much more safe than if I were running a small-town drugstore under Directive 10-289.”

“Lost any battles?”

“No. The losses were all on the other side, this year. The looters lost most of their ships to me—and most of their men to you. You’ve had a good year, too, haven’t you? I know, I’ve kept track of it. Since our last breakfast together, you got everyone you wanted from the state of Colorado, and a few others besides, such as Ken Danagger, who was a great prize to get. But let me tell you about a still greater one, who is almost yours. You’re going to get him soon, because he’s hanging by a thin thread and is just about ready to fall at your feet. He’s a man who saved my life—so you can see how far he’s gone.”

Galt leaned back, his eyes narrowing. “So you weren’t in any danger whatever, were you?”

Danneskjöld laughed. “Oh, I took a slight risk. It was worth it. It was the most enjoyable encounter I’ve ever had. I’ve been waiting to tell you about it in person. It’s a story you’ll want to hear. Do you know who the man was? Hank Rearden. I—”

“No!”

It was Galt’s voice; it was a command; the brief snap of sound had a tinge of violence neither of them had ever heard from him before.

“What?” asked Danneskjöld softly, incredulously.

“Don’t tell me about it now.”

“But you’ve always said that Hank Rearden was the one man you wanted to see here most.”

“I still do. But you’ll tell me later.”

She studied Galt’s face intently, but she could find no clue, only a closed, impersonal look, either of determination or of control, that tightened the skin of his cheekbones and the line of his mouth. No matter what he knew about her, she thought, the only knowledge that could explain this, was a knowledge he had had no way of acquiring.

“You’ve met Hank Rearden?” she asked, turning to Danneskjöld. “And he saved your life?”

“Yes.”

“I want to hear about it.”

“I don.‘t,” said Galt.

“Why not?”

“You’re not one of us, Miss Taggart.”

“I see.” She smiled, with a faint touch of defiance. “Were you thinking that I might prevent you from getting Hank Rearden?”

“No, that was not what I was thinking.”

She noticed that Danneskjöld was studying Galt’s face, as if he, too, found the incident inexplicable. Galt held his glance, deliberately and openly, as if challenging him to find the explanation and promising that he would fail. She knew that Danneskjöld had failed, when she saw a faint crease of humor softening Galt’s eyelids.

“What else,” asked Galt, “have you accomplished this year?”

“I’ve defied the law of gravitation.”

“You’ve always done that. In what particular form now?”