THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM 2 page

Eddie started. That was the sentence he had tried to remember: Your days are numbered. But he had forgotten in what connection he had tried to remember it.

"It's no use, Eddie," said Pop Harper.

"What's no use?"

"Nothing. Anything."

"What's the matter, Pop?"

"I'm not going to requisition a new typewriter. The new ones are made of tin. When the old ones go, that will be the end of typewriting. There was an accident in the subway this morning, their brakes wouldn't work. You ought to go home, Eddie, turn on the radio and listen to a good dance band. Forget it, boy. Trouble with you is you never had a hobby. Somebody stole the electric light bulbs again, from off the staircase, down where I live. I've got a pain in my chest. Couldn't get any cough drops this morning, the drugstore on our corner went bankrupt last week. The Texas-Western Railroad went bankrupt last month. They closed the Queensborough Bridge yesterday for temporary repairs. Oh well, what's the use? Who is John Galt?"

She sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back, one leg stretched across to the empty seat before her. The window frame trembled with the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while.

Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car and oddly incongruous with the rest of her. She wore a battered camel's hair coat that had been expensive, wrapped shapelessly about her slender, nervous body. The coat collar was raised to the slanting brim of her hat. A sweep of brown hair fell back, almost touching the line of her shoulders. Her face was made of angular planes, the shape of her mouth clear-cut, a sensual mouth held closed with inflexible precision. She kept her hands in the coat pockets, her posture taut, as if she resented immobility, and unfeminine, as if she were unconscious of her own body and that it was a woman's body. She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.

She thought: For just a few moments—while this lasts—it is all right to surrender completely—to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. She thought: Let go—drop the controls—this is it.

Somewhere on the edge of her mind, under the music, she heard the sound of train wheels. They knocked in an even rhythm, every fourth knock accented, as if stressing a conscious purpose. She could relax, because she heard the wheels. She listened to the symphony, thinking: This is why the wheels have to be kept going, and this is where they're going.

She had never heard that symphony before, but she knew that it was written by Richard Halley. She recognized the violence and the magnificent intensity. She recognized the style of the theme; it was a clear, complex melody—at a time when no one wrote melody any longer. . . . She sat looking up at the ceiling of the car, but she did not see it and she had forgotten where she was. She did not know whether she was hearing a full symphony orchestra or only the theme; perhaps she was hearing the orchestration in her own mind.

She thought dimly that there had been premonitory echoes of this theme in all of Richard Halley's work, through all the years of his long struggle, to the day, in his middle-age, when fame struck him suddenly and knocked him out. This—she thought, listening to the symphony— had been the goal of his struggle. She remembered half-hinted attempts in his music, phrases that promised it, broken bits of melody that started but never quite reached it; when Richard Halley wrote this, he . . . She sat up straight. When did Richard Halley write this?

In the same instant, she realized where she was and wondered for the first time where that music came from.

A few steps away, at the end of the car, a brakeman was adjusting the controls of the air-conditioner. He was blond and young. He was whistling the theme of the symphony. She realized that he had been whistling it for some time and that this was all she had heard.

She watched him incredulously for a while, before she raised her voice to ask, "Tell me please, what are you whistling?"

The boy turned to her. She met a direct glance and saw an open, eager smile, as if he were sharing a confidence with a friend. She liked his face—its lines were tight and firm, it did not have that look of loose muscles evading the responsibility of a shape, which she had learned to expect in people's faces.

"It's the Halley Concerto," he answered, smiling.

"Which one?"

"The Fifth."

She let a moment pass, before she said slowly and very carefully, "Richard Halley wrote only four concertos."

The boy's smile vanished. It was as if he were jolted back to reality, just as she had been a few moments ago. It was as if a shutter were slammed down, and what remained was a face without expression, impersonal, indifferent and empty.

"Yes, of course," he said. "I'm wrong. I made a mistake."

"Then what was it?"

"Something I heard somewhere."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"Where did you hear it?"

"I don't remember."

She paused helplessly; he was turning away from her without further interest.

"It sounded like a Halley theme," she said. "But I know every note he's ever written and he never wrote that."

There was still no expression, only a faint look of attentiveness on the boy's face, as he turned back to her and asked, "You like the music of Richard Halley?"

"Yes," she said, "I like it very much."

He considered her for a moment, as if hesitating, then he turned away. She watched the expert efficiency of his movements as he went on working. He worked in silence.

She had not slept for two nights, but she could not permit herself to sleep; she had too many problems to consider and not much time: the train was due in New York early in the morning. She needed the time, yet she wished the train would go faster; but it was the Taggart Comet, the fastest train in the country.

She tried to think; but the music remained on the edge of her mind and she kept hearing it, in full chords, like the implacable steps of something that could not be stopped. . . . She shook her head angrily, jerked her hat off and lighted a cigarette.

She would not sleep, she thought; she could last until tomorrow night. . . . The train wheels clicked in accented rhythm. She was so used to them that she did not hear them consciously, but the sound became a sense of peace within her. . . . When she extinguished her cigarette, she knew that she needed another one, but thought that she would give herself a minute, just a few minutes, before she would light it. . . .

She had fallen asleep and she awakened with a jolt, knowing that something was wrong, before she knew what it was: the wheels had stopped. The car stood soundless and dim in the blue glow of the night lamps. She glanced at her watch: there was no reason for stopping. She looked out the window: the train stood still in the middle of empty fields.

She heard someone moving in a seat across the aisle, and asked, "How long have we been standing?"

A man's voice answered indifferently, "About an hour." The man looked after her, sleepily astonished, because she leaped to her feet and rushed to the door. There was a cold wind outside, and an empty stretch of land under an empty sky. She heard weeds rustling in the darkness. Far ahead, she saw the figures of men standing by the engine—and above them, hanging detached in the sky, the red light of a signal.

She walked rapidly toward them, past the motionless line of wheels. No one paid attention to her when she approached. The train crew and a few passengers stood clustered under the red light. They had stopped talking, they seemed to be waiting in placid indifference.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

The engineer turned, astonished. Her question had sounded like an order, not like the amateur curiosity of a passenger. She stood, hands in pockets, coat collar raised, the wind beating her hair in strands across her face.

"Red light, lady," he said, pointing up with his thumb.

"How long has it been on?"

"An hour."

"We're off the main track, aren't we?"

"That's right."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

The conductor spoke up. "I don't think we had any business being sent off on a siding, that switch wasn't working right, and this thing's not working at all." He jerked his head up at the red light. "I don't think the signal's going to change. I think it's busted."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Waiting for it to change."

In her pause of startled anger, the fireman chuckled. "Last week, the crack special of the Atlantic Southern got left on a siding for two hours—just somebody's mistake."

"This is the Taggart Comet," she said. "The Comet has never been late."

"She's the only one in the country that hasn't," said the engineer.

"There's always a first time," said the fireman.

"You don't know about railroads, lady," said a passenger.

"There's not a signal system or a dispatcher in the country that's worth a damn."

She did not turn or notice him, but spoke to the engineer.

"If you know that the signal is broken, what do you intend to do?"

He did not like her tone of authority, and he could not understand why she assumed it so naturally. She looked like a young girl; only her mouth and eyes showed that she was a woman in her thirties. The dark gray eyes were direct and disturbing, as if they cut through things, throwing the inconsequential out of the way. The face seemed faintly familiar to him, but he could not recall where he had seen it.

"Lady, I don't intend to stick my neck out," he said.

"He means," said the fireman, "that our job's to wait for orders."

"Your job is to run this train."

"Not against a red light. If the light says stop, we stop."

"A red light means danger, lady," said the passenger.

"We're not taking any chances," said the engineer. "Whoever's responsible for it, he'll switch the blame to us if we move. So we're not moving till somebody tells us to."

"And if nobody does?"

"Somebody will turn up sooner or later."

"How long do you propose to wait?"

The engineer shrugged. "Who is John Galt?"

"He means," said the fireman, "don't ask questions nobody can answer."

She looked at the red light and at the rail that went off into the black, untouched distance.

She said, "Proceed with caution to the next signal. If it's in order, proceed to the main track. Then stop at the first open office."

"Yeah? Who says so?"

"I do."

"Who are you?"

It was only the briefest pause, a moment of astonishment at a question she had not expected, but the engineer looked more closely at her face, and in time with her answer he gasped, "Good God!"

She answered, not offensively, merely like a person who does not hear the question often: "Dagny Taggart."

"Well, I'll be—" said the fireman, and then they all remained silent. She went on, in the same tone of unstressed authority. "Proceed to the main track and hold the train for me at the first open office."

"Yes, Miss Taggart."

"You'll have to make up time. You've got the rest of the night to do it. Get the Comet in on schedule."

"Yes, Miss Taggart."

She was turning to go, when the engineer asked, "If there's any trouble, are you taking the responsibility for it, Miss Taggart?"

"I am."

The conductor followed her as she walked back to her car. He was saying, bewildered, "But . . . just a seat in a day coach, Miss Taggart? But how come? But why didn't you let us know?"

She smiled easily. "Had no time to be formal. Had my own car attached to Number 22 out of Chicago, but got off at Cleveland—and Number 22 was running late, so I let the car go. The Comet came next and I took it. There was no sleeping-car space left."

The conductor shook his head. "Your brother—he wouldn't have taken a coach."

She laughed. "No, he wouldn't have."

The men by the engine watched her walking away. The young brakeman was among them. He asked, pointing after her, "Who is that?"

"That'swho runs Taggart Transcontinental," said the engineer; the respect in his voice was genuine. "That's the Vice-president in Charge of Operation."

When the train jolted forward, the blast of its whistle dying over the fields, she sat by the window, lighting another cigarette. She thought: It's cracking to pieces, like this, all over the country, you can expect it anywhere, at any moment. But she felt no anger or anxiety; she had no time to feel.

This would be just one more issue, to be settled along with the others. She knew that the superintendent of the Ohio Division was no good and that he was a friend of James Taggart. She had not insisted on throwing him out long ago only because she had no better man to put in his place. Good men were so strangely hard to find. But she would have to get rid of him, she thought, and she would give his post to Owen Kellogg, the young engineer who was doing a brilliant job as one of the assistants to the manager of the Taggart Terminal in New York; it was Owen Kellogg who ran the Terminal. She had watched his work for some time; she had always looked for sparks of competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland. Kellogg was still too young to be made superintendent of a division; she had wanted to give him another year, but there was no time to wait. She would have to speak to him as soon as she returned.

The strip of earth, faintly visible outside the window, was running faster now, blending into a gray stream. Through the dry phrases of calculations in her mind, she noticed that she did have time to feel something: it was the hard, exhilarating pleasure of action.

With the first whistling rush of air, as the Comet plunged into the tunnels of the Taggart Terminal under the city of New York, Dagny Taggart sat up straight. She always felt it when the train went underground—this sense of eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. It was as if normal existence were a photograph of shapeless things in badly printed colors, but this was a sketch done in a few sharp strokes that made things seem clean, important—and worth doing.

She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else, nothing to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it. She thought of the Taggart Building standing above her head at this moment, growing straight to the sky, and she thought: These are the roots of the building, hollow roots twisting under the ground, feeding the city.

When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action.

She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt. It was a few moments before she realized that she was whistling a piece of music—and that it was the theme of Halley's Fifth Concerto. She felt someone looking at her and turned. The young brakeman stood watching her tensely.

She sat on the arm of the big chair facing James Taggart's desk, her coat thrown open over a wrinkled traveling suit. Eddie Willers sat across the room, making notes once in a while. His title was that of Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operation, and his main duty was to be her bodyguard against any waste of time. She asked him to be present at interviews of this nature, because then she never had to explain anything to him afterwards. James Taggart sat at his desk, his head drawn into his shoulders.

"The Rio Norte Line is a pile of junk from one end to the other," she said. "It's much worse than I thought. But we're going to save it."

"Of course," said James Taggart.

"Some of the rail can be salvaged. Not much and not for long. We'll start laying new rail in the mountain sections, Colorado first. We'll get the new rail in two months."

"Oh, did Orren Boyle say he'll—"

"I've ordered the rail from Rearden Steel."

The slight, choked sound from Eddie Willers was his suppressed desire to cheer.

James Taggart did not answer at once. "Dagny, why don't you sit in the chair as one is supposed to?" he said at last; his voice was petulant.

"Nobody holds business conferences this way."

"I do."

She waited. He asked, his eyes avoiding hers, "Did you say that you have ordered the rail from Rearden?"

"Yesterday evening. I phoned him from Cleveland."

"But the Board hasn't authorized it. I haven't authorized it. You haven't consulted me."

She reached over, picked up the receiver of a telephone on his desk and handed it to him.

"Call Rearden and cancel it," she said.

James Taggart moved back in his chair. "I haven't said that," he answered angrily. "I haven't said that at all."

"Then it stands?"

"I haven't said that, either."

She turned. "Eddie, have them draw up the contract with Rearden Steel. Jim will sign it." She took a crumpled piece of notepaper from her pocket and tossed it to Eddie. "There's the figures and terms."

Taggart said, "But the Board hasn't—"

"The Board hasn't anything to do with it. They authorized you to buy the rail thirteen months ago. Where you buy it is up to you."

"I don't think it's proper to make such a decision without giving the Board a chance to express an opinion. And I don't see why I should be made to take the responsibility."

"I am taking it.”

"What about the expenditure which—"

"Rearden is charging less than Orren Boyle's Associated Steel."

"Yes, and what about Orren Boyle?"

"I've cancelled the contract. We had the right to cancel it six months ago."

"When did you do that?"

"Yesterday."

"But he hasn't called to have me confirm it."

"He won't."

Taggart sat looking down at his desk. She wondered why he resented the necessity of dealing with Rearden, and why his resentment had such an odd, evasive quality. Rearden Steel had been the chief supplier of Taggart Transcontinental for ten years, ever since the first Rearden furnace was fired, in the days when their father was president of the railroad. For ten years, most of their rail had come from Rearden Steel. There were not many firms in the country who delivered what was ordered, when and as ordered. Rearden Steel was one of them.

If she were insane, thought Dagny, she would conclude that her brother hated to deal with Rearden because Rearden did his job with superlative efficiency; but she would not conclude it, because she thought that such a feeling was not within the humanly possible.

"It isn't fair," said James Taggart.

"What isn't?"

"That we always give all our business to Rearden. It seems to me we should give somebody else a chance, too. Rearden doesn't need us; he's plenty big enough. We ought to help the smaller fellows to develop. Otherwise, we're just encouraging a monopoly."

"Don't talk tripe, Jim,"

"Why do we always have to get things from Rearden?"

"Because we always get them."

"I don't like Henry Rearden."

"I do. But what does that matter, one way or the other? We need rails and he's the only one who can give them to us."

"The human element is very important. You have no sense of the human element at all."

"We're talking about saving a railroad, Jim."

"Yes, of course, of course, but still, you haven't any sense of the human element."

"No. I haven't."

"If we give Rearden such a large order for steel rails—"

"They're not going to be steel. They're Rearden Metal."

She had always avoided personal reactions, but she was forced to break her rule when she saw the expression on Taggart's face. She burst out laughing.

Rearden Metal was a new alloy, produced by Rearden after ten years of experiments. He had placed it on the market recently. He had received no orders and had found no customers.

Taggart could not understand the transition from the laughter to the sudden tone of Dagny's voice; the voice was cold and harsh: "Drop it, Jim. I know everything you're going to say. Nobody's ever used it before. Nobody approves of Rearden Metal. Nobody's interested in it. Nobody wants it. Still, our rails are going to be made of Rearden Metal."

"But . . ." said Taggart, "but . . . but nobody's ever used it before!"

He observed, with satisfaction, that she was silenced by anger. He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points. But how one could feel a personal emotion about a metal alloy, and what such an emotion indicated, was incomprehensible to him; so he could make no use of his discovery.

"The consensus of the best metallurgical authorities," he said, "seems to be highly skeptical about Rearden Metal, contending—"

"Drop it, Jim."

"Well, whose opinion did you take?"

"I don't ask for opinions."

"What do you go by?"

"Judgment."

"Well, whose judgment did you take?"

"Mine."

"But whom did you consult about it?"

"Nobody."

"Then what on earth do you know about Rearden Metal?"

"That it's the greatest thing ever put on the market."

"Why?"

"Because it's tougher than steel, cheaper than steel and will outlast any hunk of metal in existence."

"But who says so?"

"Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them."

"What did you see?"

"Rearden's formula and the tests he showed me."

"Well, if it were any good, somebody would have used it, and nobody has." He saw the flash of anger, and went on nervously: "How can you know it's good? How can you be sure? How can you decide?"

"Somebody decides such things, Jim. Who?"

"Well, I don't see why we have to be the first ones. I don't see it at all."

"Do you want to save the Rio Norte Line or not?" He did not answer, "If the road could afford it, I would scrap every piece of rail over the whole system and replace it with Rearden Metal. All of it needs replacing. None of it will last much longer. But we can't afford it. We have to get out of a bad hole, first. Do you want us to pull through or not?"

"We're still the best railroad in the country. The others are doing much worse."

"Then do you want us to remain in the hole?"

"I haven't said that! Why do you always oversimplify things that way? And if you're worried about money, I don't see why you want to waste it on the Rio Norte Line, when the Phoenix-Durango has robbed us of all our business down there. Why spend money when we have no protection against a competitor who'll destroy our investment?"

"Because the Phoenix-Durango is an excellent railroad, but I intend to make the Rio Norte Line better than that. Because I'm going to beat the Phoenix-Durango, if necessary—only it won't be necessary, because there will be room for two or three railroads to make fortunes in Colorado. Because I'd mortgage the system to build a branch to any district around Ellis Wyatt."

"I'm sick of hearing about Ellis Wyatt."

He did not like the way her eyes moved to look at him and remained still, looking, for a moment.

"I don't see any need for immediate action," he said; he sounded offended. "Just what do you consider so alarming in the present situation of Taggart Transcontinental?"

"The consequences of your policies, Jim."

"Which policies?"

"That thirteen months' experiment with Associated Steel, for one. Your Mexican catastrophe, for another."

"The Board approved the Associated Steel contract," he said hastily.

"The Board voted to build the San Sebastian Line. Besides, I don't see why you call it a catastrophe."

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 569