Atlas Shrugged (40 page)

“Why?”

He smiled mirthlessly, spreading his hands out, as if to show her that this was what he had predicted and had wanted to avoid.

She said quietly, “I have to try, Francisco. I have to make the request. That’s my part. What you’ll do about it is yours. But I’ll know that I’ve tried everything.”

He remained standing, but he inclined his head a little, in assent, and said, “I will listen, if that will help you.”

“I need fifteen million dollars to complete the Rio Norte Line. I have obtained seven million against the Taggart stock I own free and clear. I can raise nothing else. I will issue bonds in the name of my new company, in the amount of eight million dollars. I called you here to ask you to buy these bonds.”

He did not answer.

“I am simply a beggar, Francisco, and I am begging you for money. I had always thought that one did not beg in business. I thought that one stood on the merit of what one had to offer, and gave value for value. This is not so any more, though I don’t understand how we can act on any other rule and continue to exist. Judging by every objective fact, the Rio Norte Line is to be the best railroad in the country. Judging by every known standard, it is the best investment possible. And that is what damns me. I cannot raise money by offering people a good business venture: the fact that it’s good, makes people reject it. There is no bank that would buy the bonds of my company. So I can’t plead merit. I can only plead.”

Her voice was pronouncing the words with impersonal precision. She stopped, waiting for his answer. He remained silent.

“I know that I have nothing to offer you,” she said. “I can’t speak to you in terms of investment. You don’t care to make money. Industrial projects have ceased to concern you long ago. So I won’t pretend that it’s a fair exchange. It’s just begging.” She drew her breath and said, “Give me that money as alms, because it means nothing to you.”

“Don‘t,” he said, his voice low. She could not tell whether the strange sound of it was pain or anger; his eyes were lowered.

“Will you do it, Francisco?”

“No.”

After a moment, she said, “I called you, not because I thought you would agree, but because you were the only one who could understand what I am saying. So I had to try it.” Her voice was dropping lower, as if she hoped it would make emotion harder to detect. “You see, I can’t believe that you’re really gone . . . because I know that you’re still able to hear me. The way you live is depraved. But the way you act is not. Even the way you speak of it, is not.... I had to try . . . But I can’t struggle to understand you any longer.”

“I’ll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

“Francisco,” she whispered, “why don’t you tell me what it was that happened to you?”

“Because, at this moment, the answer would hurt you more than the doubt.”

“Is it as terrible as that?”

“It is an answer which you must reach by yourself.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to offer you. I don’t know what is of value to you any longer. Don’t you see that even a beggar has to give value in return, has to offer some reason why you might want to help him? ... Well, I thought . . . at one time, it meant a great deal to you—success. Industrial success. Remember how we used to talk about it? You were very severe. You expected a lot from me. You told me I’d better live up to it. I have. You wondered how far I’d rise with Taggart Transcontinental.” She moved her hand, pointing at the office. “This is how far I’ve risen.... So I thought . . . if the memory of what had been your values still has some meaning for you, if only as amusement, or a moment’s sadness, or just like . . . like putting flowers on a grave . . . you might want to give me the money ... in the name of that.”

“No.”

She said, with effort, “That money would mean nothing to you—you’ve wasted that much on senseless parties—you’ve wasted much more on the San Sebastián Mines—”

He glanced up. He looked straight at her and she saw the first spark of a living response in his eyes, a look that was bright, pitiless and, incredibly, proud: as if this were an accusation that gave him strength.

“Oh, yes,” she said slowly, as if answering his thought, “I realize that. I’ve damned you for those mines, I’ve denounced you, I’ve thrown my contempt at you in every way possible, and now I come back to you—for money. Like Jim, like any moocher you’ve ever met. I know it’s a triumph for you, I know that you can laugh at me and despise me with full justice. Well—perhaps I can offer you that. If it’s amusement that you want, if you enjoyed seeing Jim and the Mexican planners crawl—wouldn’t it amuse you to break me? Wouldn’t it give you pleasure? Don’t you want to hear me acknowledge that I’m beaten by you? Don’t you want to see me crawling before you? Tell me what form of it you’d like and I’ll submit.”

He moved so swiftly that she could not notice how he started; it only seemed to her that his first movement was a shudder. He came around the desk, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. It began as a gesture of the gravest respect, as if its purpose were to give her strength; but as he held his lips, then his face, pressed to her hand, she knew that he was seeking strength from it himself.

He dropped her hand, he looked down at her face, at the frightened stillness of her eyes, he smiled, not trying to hide that his smile held suffering, anger and tenderness.

“Dagny, you want to crawl? You don’t know what the word means and never will. One doesn’t crawl by acknowledging it as honestly as that. Don’t you suppose I know that your begging me was the bravest thing you could do? But . . . Don’t ask me, Dagny.”

“In the name of anything I ever meant to you . . .” she whispered, “anything left within you . . .”

In the moment when she thought that she had seen this look before, that this was the way he had looked against the night glow of the city, when he lay in bed by her side for the last time—she heard his cry, the kind of cry she had never torn from him before:

“My love, I can‘t!”

Then, as they looked at each other, both shocked into silence by astonishment, she saw the change in his face. It was as crudely abrupt as if he had thrown a switch. He laughed, he moved away from her and said, his voice jarringly offensive by being completely casual:

“Please excuse the mixture in styles of expression. I’ve been supposed to say that to so many women, but on somewhat different occasions.”

Her head dropped, she sat huddled tight together, not caring that he saw it.

When she raised her head, she looked at him indifferently. “All right, Francisco. It was a good act. I did believe it. If that was your own way of having the kind of fun I was offering you, you succeeded. I won’t ask you for anything.”

“I warned you.”

“I didn’t know which side you belonged on. It didn’t seem possible -but it’s the side of Orren Boyle and Bertram Scudder and your old teacher.”

“My old teacher?” he asked sharply.

“Dr. Robert Stadler.”

He chuckled, relieved. “Oh, that one? He’s the looter who thinks that his end justifies his seizure of my means.” He added, “You know, Dagny, I’d like you to remember which side you said I’m on. Some day, I’ll remind you of it and ask you whether you’ll want to repeat it.”

“You won’t have to remind me.”

He turned to go. He tossed his hand in a casual salute and said, “If it could be built, I’d wish good luck to the Rio Norte Line.”

“It’s going to be built. And it’s going to be called the John Galt Line.”

It was an actual scream; she chuckled derisively. “The John Galt Line.”

“Dagny, in heaven’s name, why?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“How did you happen to choose that?”

“It sounds better than Mr. Nemo or Mr. Zero, doesn’t it?”

“Dagny, why that?”

“Because it frightens you.”

“What do you think it stands for?”

“The impossible. The unattainable. And you’re all afraid of my Line just as you’re afraid of that name.”

He started laughing. He laughed, not looking at her, and she felt strangely certain that he had forgotten her, that he was far away, that he was laughing—in furious gaiety and bitterness—at something in which she had no part.

When he turned to her, he said earnestly, “Dagny, I wouldn‘t, if I were you.”

She shrugged. “Jim didn’t like it, either.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I hate it! I hate the doom you’re all waiting for, the giving up, and that senseless question that always sounds like a cry for help. I’m sick of hearing pleas for John Galt. I’m going to fight him.”

He said quietly, “You are.”

“I’m going to build a railroad line for him. Let him come and claim it!”

He smiled sadly and nodded: “He will.”

The glow of poured steel streamed across the ceiling and broke against one wall. Rearden sat at his desk, in the light of a single lamp. Beyond its circle, the darkness of the office blended with the darkness outside. He felt as if it were empty space where the rays of the furnaces moved at will; as if the desk were a raft hanging in mid-air, holding two persons imprisoned in privacy. Dagny sat in front of his desk.

She had thrown her coat off, and she sat outlined against it, a slim, tense body in a gray suit, leaning diagonally across the wide armchair. Only her hand lay in the light, on the edge of the desk; beyond it, he saw the pale suggestion of her face, the white of a blouse, the triangle of an open collar.

“All right, Hank,” she said, “we’re going ahead with a new Rearden Metal bridge. This is the official order of the official owner of the John Galt Line.”

He smiled, looking down at the drawings of the bridge spread in the light on his desk. “Have you had a chance to examine the scheme we submitted?”

“Yes. You don’t need my comments or compliments. The order says it.”

“Very well. Thank you. I’ll start rolling the Metal.”

“Don’t you want to ask whether the John Galt Line is in a position to place orders or to function?”

“I don’t need to. Your coming here says it.”

She smiled. “True. It’s all set, Hank. I came to tell you that and to discuss the details of the bridge in person.”

“All right, I
am
curious: who are the bondholders of the John Galt Line?”

“I don’t think any of them could afford it. All of them have growing enterprises. All of them needed their money for their own concerns. But they needed the Line and they did not ask anyone for help.” She took a paper out of her bag. “Here’s John Galt, Inc.,” she said, handing it across the desk.

He knew most of the names on the list: “Ellis. Wyatt, Wyatt Oil, Colorado. Ted Nielsen, Nielsen Motors, Colorado. Lawrence Hammond, Hammond Cars, Colorado. Andrew Stockton, Stockton Foundry, Colorado.” There were a few from other states; he noticed the name: “Kenneth Danagger, Danagger Coal, Pennsylvania.” The amounts of their subscriptions varied, from sums in five figures to six.

He reached for his fountain pen, wrote at the bottom of the list “Henry Rearden, Rearden Steel, Pennsylvania—$1,000,000” and tossed the list back to her.

“Hank,” she said quietly, “I didn’t want you. in on this. You’ve invested so much in Rearden Metal that it’s worse for you than for any of us. You can’t afford another risk.”

“I never accept favors,” he answered coldly.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t ask people to take greater chances on my ventures than I take myself. If it’s a gamble, I’ll match anybody’s gambling. Didn’t you say that that track was my first showcase?”

She inclined her head and said gravely, “All right. Thank you.”

“Incidentally, I don’t expect to lose this money. I am aware of the conditions under which these bonds can be converted into stock at my option. I therefore expect to make an inordinate profit—and you’re going to earn it for me.”

She laughed. “God, Hank, I’ve spoken to so many yellow fools that they’ve almost infected me into thinking of the Line as of a hopeless loss! Thanks for reminding me. Yes, I think I’ll earn your inordinate profit for you.”

“If it weren’t for the yellow fools, there wouldn’t be any risk in it at all. But we have to beat them. We will.” He reached for two telegrams from among the papers on his desk. “There are still a few men in existence.” He extended the telegrams. “I think you’d like to see these.”

One of them read: “I had intended to undertake it in two years, but the statement of the State Science Institute compels me to proceed at once. Consider this a commitment for the construction of a 12-inch pipe line of Rearden Metal, 600 miles, Colorado to Kansas City. Details follow. Ellis Wyatt.”

The other read: “Re our discussion of my order. Go ahead. Ken Danagger.”