THE ARISTOCRACY OF PULL 7 page

"Do you think we're bluffing?" snapped Dr. Ferris; his voice suddenly had the quality of the animals he had spent so much time studying: it sounded as if he were baring his teeth.

"I don't know," said Rearden. "I don't care, one way or the other."

"Are you going to be as impractical as that?"

"The evaluation of an action as 'practical,' Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice."

"Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else?"

"That is what I am doing right now."

"If you think we'll let you get away with a—"

"You will now please get out of here."

"Whom do you think you're fooling?" Dr. Ferris' voice had risen close to the edge of a scream. "The day of the barons of industry is done! You've got the goods, but we've got the goods on you, and you're going to play it our way or you'll—"

Rearden had pressed a button; Miss Ives entered the office.

"Dr. Ferris has become confused and has lost his way, Miss Ives," said Rearden. "Will you escort him out please?" He turned to Ferris.

"Miss Ives is a woman, she weighs about a hundred pounds, and she has no practical qualifications at all, only a superlative intellectual efficiency. She would never do for a bouncer in a saloon, only in an impractical place, such as a factory."

Miss Ives looked as if she was performing a duty of no greater emotional significance than taking dictation about a list of shipping invoices. Standing straight in a disciplined manner of icy formality, she held the door open, let Dr. Ferris cross the room, then walked out first; Dr. Ferris followed.

She came back a few minutes later, laughing in uncontrollable exultation.

"Mr. Rearden," she asked, laughing at her fear for him, at their danger, at everything but the triumph of the moment, "what is it you're doing?"

He sat in a pose he had never permitted himself before, a pose he had resented as the most vulgar symbol of the businessman—he sat leaning back in his chair, with his feet on his desk—and it seemed to her that the posture had an air of peculiar nobility, that it was not the pose of a stuffy executive, but of a young crusader.

"I think I'm discovering a new continent, Owen," he answered cheerfully. "A continent that should have been discovered along with America, but wasn't."

"I have to speak of it to you" said Eddie Willers, looking at the worker across the table. "I don't know why it helps me, but it does—just to know that you're hearing me."

It was late and the lights of the underground cafeteria were low, but Eddie Willers could see the worker's eyes looking at him intently.

"I feel as if . . . as if there's no people and no human language left," said Eddie Willers. "I feel that if I were to scream in the middle of the streets, there would be no one to hear it. . . . No, that's not quite what I feel, it's this: I feel that someone is screaming in the middle of the streets, but people are passing by and no sound can reach them —and it's not Hank Rearden or Ken Danagger or I who's screaming, and yet it seems as if it's all three of us. . . . Don't you see that somebody should have risen to defend them, but nobody has or will?

Rearden and Danagger were indicted this morning—for an illegal sale of Rearden Metal. They'll go on trial next month. I was there, in the courtroom in Philadelphia, when they read the indictment. Rearden was very calm—I kept feeling that he was smiling, but he wasn't.

Danagger was worse than calm. He didn't say a word, he just stood there, as if the room were empty. . . . The newspapers are saying that both of them should be thrown in jail. . . . No . . . no, I'm not shaking, I'm all right, I'll be all right in a moment. . . . That's why I haven't said a word to her, I was afraid I'd explode and I didn't want to make it harder for her, I know how she feels. . . . Oh yes, she spoke to me about it, and she didn't shake, but it was worse—you know, the kind of rigidity when a person acts as if she didn't feel anything at all, and . . . Listen, did I ever tell you that I like you?

I like you very much—for the way you look right now. You hear us.

You understand . . . What did she say? It was strange: it's not Hank Rearden that she's afraid for, it's Ken Danagger. She said that Rearden will have the strength to take it, but Danagger won't. Not that he'll lack the strength, but he'll refuse to take it. She . . . she feels certain that Ken Danagger will be the next one to go. To go like Ellis Wyatt and all those others. To give up and vanish . . . Why?

Well, she thinks that there's something like a shift of stress involved—economic and personal stress. As soon as all the weight of the moment shifts to the shoulders of some one man—he's the one who vanishes, like a pillar slashed off. A year ago, nothing worse could have happened to 'the country than to lose Ellis Wyatt. He's the one we lost.

Since then, she says, it's been as if the center of gravity were swinging wildly—like in a sinking cargo ship out of control—shifting from industry to industry, from man to man. When we lose one, another becomes that much more desperately needed—and he's the one we lose next. Well, what could be a greater disaster now than to have the country's coal supply left in the hands of men like Boyle or Larkin?

And there's no one left in the coal industry who amounts to much, except Ken Danagger. So she says that she feels almost as if he's a marked man, as if he's hit by a spotlight right now, waiting to be cut down. . . . What are you laughing at? It might sound preposterous, but I think it's true. . . . What? . . . Oh yes, you bet she's a smart woman! . . . And then there's another thing involved, she says. A man has to come to a certain mental stage—not anger or despair, but something much, much more than both—before he can be cut down.

She can't tell what it is, but she knew, long before the fire, that Ellis Wyatt had reached that stage and something would happen to him.

When she saw Ken Danagger in the courtroom today, she said that he was ready for the destroyer. . . . Yes, that's the words she used: he was ready for the destroyer. You see, she doesn't think it's happening by chance or accident. She thinks there's a system behind it, an intention, a man. There's a destroyer loose in the country, who's cutting down the buttresses one after another to let the structure collapse upon our heads. Some ruthless creature moved by some inconceivable purpose . . . She says that she won't let him get Ken Danagger. She keeps repeating that she must stop Danagger—she wants to speak to him, to beg, to plead, to revive whatever it is that he's losing, to arm him against the destroyer, before the destroyer comes. She's desperately anxious to reach Danagger first. He has refused to see anyone. He's gone back to Pittsburgh, to his mines. But she got him on the phone, late today, and she's made an appointment to see him tomorrow afternoon. . . . Yes, she'll go to Pittsburgh tomorrow. . . . Yes, she's afraid for Danagger, terribly afraid. . . . No. She knows nothing about the destroyer. She has no clue to his identity, no evidence of his existence—except the trail of destruction. But she feels certain that he exists. . . . No, she cannot guess his purpose. She says that nothing on earth could justify him. There are times when she feels that she'd like to find him more than any other man in the world, more than the inventor of the motor. She says that if she found the destroyer, she'd shoot him on sight—she'd be willing to give her life if she could take his first and by her own hand . . . because he's the most evil creature that's ever existed, the man who's draining the brains of the world.

. . . I guess it's getting to be too much for her, at times—even for her. I don't think she allows herself to know how tired she is. The other morning, I came to work very early and I found her asleep on the couch in her office, with the light still burning on her desk. She'd been there all night. I just stood and looked at her. I wouldn't have awakened her if the whole goddamn railroad collapsed. . . . When she was asleep? Why, she looked like a young girl. She looked as if she felt certain that she would awaken in a world where no one would harm her, as if she had nothing to hide or to fear. That's what was terrible—that guiltless purity of her face, with her body twisted by exhaustion, still lying there as she had collapsed. She looked—say, why should you ask me what she looks like when she's asleep? . . .

Yes, you're right, why do I talk about it? I shouldn't. I don't know what made me think of it. . . . Don't pay any attention to me. I'll be all right tomorrow. I guess it's just that I'm sort of shell-shocked by that courtroom. I keep thinking: if men like Rearden and Danagger are to be sent to jail, then what kind of world are we working in and what for? Isn't there any justice left on earth? I was foolish enough to say that to a reporter when we were leaving the courtroom—and he just laughed and said, 'Who is John Galt?' . . . Tell me, what's happening to us? Isn't there a single man of justice left? Isn't there anyone to defend them? Oh, do you hear me? Isn't there anyone to defend them?"

"Mr. Danagger will be free in a moment, Miss Taggart. He has a visitor in his office. Will you excuse it, please?" said the secretary.

Through the two hours of her flight to Pittsburgh, Dagny had been tensely unable to justify her anxiety or to dismiss it; there was no reason to count minutes, yet she had felt a blind desire to hurry. The anxiety vanished when she entered the anteroom of Ken Danagger's office: she had reached him, nothing had happened to prevent it, she felt safety, confidence and an enormous sense of relief.

The words of the secretary demolished it. You're becoming a coward—thought Dagny., feeling a causeless jolt of dread at the words, out of all proportion to their meaning.

"I am so sorry, Miss Taggart." She heard the secretary's respectful, solicitous voice and realized that she had stood there without answering. "Mr. Danagger will be with you in just a moment. Won't you sit down?" The voice conveyed an anxious concern over the impropriety of keeping her waiting.

Dagny smiled. "Oh, that's quite all right."

She sat down in a wooden armchair, facing the secretary's railing.

She reached for a cigarette and stopped, wondering whether she would have time to finish it, hoping that she would not, then lighted it brusquely.

It was an old-fashioned frame building, this headquarters of the great Danagger Coal Company. Somewhere in the hills beyond the window were the pits where Ken Danagger had once worked as a miner. He had never moved his office away from the coal fields.

She could see the mine entrances cut into the hillsides, small frames of metal girders, that led to an immense underground kingdom. They seemed precariously modest, lost in the violent orange and red of the hills. . . . Under a harsh blue sky, in the sunlight of late October, the sea of leaves looked like a sea of fire . . . like waves rolling to swallow the fragile posts of the mine doorways. She shuddered and looked away: she thought of the flaming leaves spread over the hills of Wisconsin, on the road to Starnesville.

She noticed that there was only a stub left of the cigarette between her fingers. She lighted another.

When she glanced at the clock on the wall of the anteroom, she caught the secretary glancing at it at the same time. Her appointment was for three o'clock; the white dial said: 3:12.

"Please forgive it, Miss Taggart," said the secretary, "Mr. Danagger will be through, any moment now, Mr. Danagger is extremely punctual about Ms appointments. Please believe me that this is unprecedented."

"I know it." She knew that Ken Danagger was as rigidly exact about his schedule as a railroad timetable and that he had been known to cancel an interview if a caller permitted himself to arrive five minutes late.

The secretary was an elderly spinster with a forbidding manner: a manner of even-toned courtesy impervious to any shock, just as her spotless white blouse was impervious to an atmosphere filled with coal dust. Dagny thought it strange that a hardened, well-trained woman of this type should appear to be nervous: she volunteered no conversation, she sat still, bent over some pages of paper on her desk. Half of Dagny's cigarette had gone in smoke, while the woman still sat looking at the same page.

When she raised her head to glance at the clock, the 4ial said: 3:30.

"I know that this is inexcusable, Miss Taggart." The note of apprehension was obvious in her voice now. "I am unable to understand it."

"Would you mind telling Mr. Danagger that I'm here?"

"I can't!" It was almost a cry; she saw Dagny's astonished glance and felt obliged to explain: "Mr. Danagger called me, on the interoffice communicator, and told me that he was not to be interrupted under any circumstances or for any reason whatever."

"When did he do that?"

The moment's pause was like a small air cushion for the answer: "Two hours ago."

Dagny looked at the closed door of Danagger's office. She could hear the sound of a voice beyond the door, but so faintly that she could not tell whether it was the voice of one man or the conversation of two; she could not distinguish the words or the emotional quality of the tone: it was only a low, even progression of sounds that seemed normal and did not convey the pitch of raised voices.

"How long has Mr. Danagger been in conference?" she asked.

"Since one o'clock," said the secretary grimly, then added in apology, "It was an unscheduled caller, or Mr. Danagger would never have permitted this to happen."

The door was not locked, thought Dagny; she felt an unreasoning desire to tear it open and walk in—it was only a few wooden boards with a brass knob, it would require only a small muscular contraction of her arm—but she looked away, knowing that the power of a civilized order and of Ken Danagger's right was more impregnable a barrier than any lock.

She found herself staring at the stubs of her cigarettes in the ashtray stand beside her, and wondered why it gave her a sharper feeling of apprehension. Then she realized that she was thinking of Hugh Akston: she had written to him, at his diner in Wyoming, asking him to tell her where he had obtained the cigarette with the dollar sign; her letter had come back, with a postal inscription to inform her that he had moved away, leaving no forwarding address.

She told herself angrily that this had no connection with the present moment and that she had to control her nerves. But her hand jerked to press the button of the ashtray and make the cigarette stubs vanish inside the stand.

As she looked up, her eyes met the glance of the secretary watching her. "I am sorry, Miss Taggart. I don't know what to do about it."

It was an openly desperate plea. "I don't dare interrupt."

Dagny asked slowly, as a demand, in defiance of office etiquette, "Who is with Mr. Danagger?"

"I don't know, Miss Taggart. I have never seen the gentleman before." She noticed the sudden, fixed stillness of Dagny's eyes and added, "I think it's a childhood friend of Mr. Danagger."

"Oh!" said Dagny, relieved.

"He came in unannounced and asked to see Mr. Danagger and said that this was an appointment which Mr. Danagger had made with him forty years ago,"

"How old is Mr. Danagger?"

"Fifty-two," said the secretary. She added reflectively, in the tone of a casual remark, "Mr. Danagger started working at the age of twelve."

After another silence, she added, "The strange thing is that the visitor does not look as if he's even forty years old. He seems to be a man in his thirties."

"Did he give his name?"

"No."

"What does he look like?"

The secretary smiled with sudden animation, as if she were about to utter an enthusiastic compliment, but the smile vanished abruptly.

"I don't know," she answered uneasily. "He's hard to describe. He has a strange face."

They had been silent for a long time, and the hands of the dial were approaching 3:50 when the buzzer rang on the secretary's desk—the bell from Danagger's office, the signal of permission to enter.

They both leaped to their feet, and the secretary rushed forward, smiling with relief, hastening to open the door.

As she entered Danagger's office, Dagny saw the private exit door closing after the caller who had preceded her. She heard the knock of the door against the jamb and the faint tinkle of the glass panel.

She saw the man who had left, by his reflection on Ken Danagger's face. It was not the face she had seen in the courtroom, it was not the face she had known for years as a countenance of unchanging, unfeeling rigidity—it was a face which a young man of twenty should hope for, but could not achieve, a face from which every sign of strain had been wiped out, so that the lined cheeks, the creased forehead, the graying hair—like elements rearranged by a new theme—were made to form a composition of hope, eagerness and guiltless serenity: the theme was deliverance.

He did not rise when she entered—he looked as if he had not quite returned to the reality of the moment and had forgotten the proper routine—but he smiled at her with such simple benevolence that she found herself smiling in answer. She caught herself thinking that this was the way every human being should greet another—and she lost her anxiety, feeling suddenly certain that all was well and that nothing to be feared could exist.

"How do you do, Miss Taggart," he said. "Forgive me, I think that I have kept you waiting. Please sit down." He pointed to the chair in front of his desk.

"I didn't mind waiting," she said. "I'm grateful that you gave me this appointment. I was extremely anxious to speak to you on a matter of urgent importance."

He leaned forward across the desk, with a look of attentive concentration, as he always did at the mention of an important business matter, but she was not speaking to the man she knew, this was a stranger, and she stopped, uncertain about the arguments she had been prepared to use.

He looked at her in silence, and then he said, "Miss Taggart, this is such a beautiful day—probably the last, this year. There's a thing I've always wanted to do, but never had time for it. Let's go back to New York together and take one of those excursion boat trips around the island of Manhattan. Let's take a last look at the greatest city in the world."

She sat still, trying to hold her eyes fixed in order to stop the office from swaying. This was the Ken Danagger who had never had a personal friend, had never married, had never attended a play or a movie, had never permitted anyone the impertinence of taking his time for any concern but business.

"Mr. Danagger, I came here to speak to you about a matter of crucial importance to the future of your business and mine. I came to speak to you about your indictment."

"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. It doesn't matter. I'm going to retire."

She sat still, feeling nothing, wondering numbly whether this was how it felt to hear a death sentence one had dreaded, but had never quite believed possible.

Her first movement was a sudden jerk of her head toward the exit door; she asked, her voice low, her mouth distorted by hatred, "Who was he?"

Danagger laughed. "If you've guessed that much, you should have guessed that it's a question I won't answer."

"Oh God, Ken Danagger!" she moaned; his words made her realize that the barrier of hopelessness, of silence, of unanswered questions was already erected between them; the hatred had been only a thin wire that had held her for a moment and she broke with its breaking.

"Oh God!"

"You're wrong, kid," he said gently. "I know how you feel, but you're wrong," then added more formally, as if remembering the proper manner, as if still trying to balance himself between two kinds of reality, "I'm sorry, Miss Taggart, that you had to come here so soon after."

"I came too late," she said. "That's what I came here to prevent. I knew it would happen."

"Why?"

"I felt certain that he'd get you next, whoever he is."

"You did? That's funny. I didn't."

"I wanted to warn you, to . . . to arm you against him."

He smiled. "Take my word for it, Miss Taggart, so that you won't torture yourself with regrets about the timing; that could not have been done."

She felt that with every passing minute he was moving away into some great distance where she would not be able to reach him, but there was still some thin bridge left between them and she had to hurry.

She leaned forward, she said very quietly, the intensity of emotion taking form in the exaggerated steadiness of her voice, "Do you remember what you thought and felt, what you were, three hours ago? Do you remember what your mines meant to you? Do you remember Taggart Transcontinental or Rearden Steel? In the name of that, will you answer me? Will you help me to understand?"

"I will answer whatever I may."

"You have decided to retire? To give up your business?"

"Yes."

"Does it mean nothing to you now?"

"It means more to me now than it ever did before."

"But you're going to abandon it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"That, I won't answer,”

"You, who loved your work, who respected nothing but work, who despised every kind of aimlessness, passivity and renunciation—have you renounced the kind of life you loved?"

"No. I have just discovered how much I do love it."

"But you intend to exist without work or purpose?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Are you going into the coal-mining business somewhere else?"

"No, not into the coal-mining business."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I haven't decided that yet."

"Where are you going?"

"I won't answer."

She gave herself a moment's pause, to gather her strength, to tell herself; Don't feel, don't show him that you feel anything, don't let it cloud and break the bridge—then she said, in the same quiet, even voice, "Do you realize what your retirement will do to Hank Rearden, to me, to all the rest of us, whoever is left?"

"Yes. I realize it more fully than you do at present."

"And it means nothing to you?"

"It means more than you will care to believe."

"Then why are you deserting us?"

"You will not believe it and I will not explain, but I am not deserting you."

"We're being left to carry a greater burden, and you're indifferent to the knowledge that you'll see us destroyed by the looters."

"Don't be too sure of that."

"Of which? Your indifference or our destruction?"

"Of either."

"But you know, you knew it this morning, that it's a battle to the death, and it's we—you were one of us—against the looters."

"If I answer that 7 know it, but you don't—you'll think that I attach no meaning to my words. So take it as you wish, but that is my answer."

"Will you tell me the meaning?"

"No. It's for you to discover."

"You're willing to give up the world to the looters. We aren't."

"Don't be too sure of either."

She remained helplessly silent. The strangeness of his manner was its simplicity; he spoke as if he were being completely natural and—in the midst of unanswered questions and of a tragic mystery—he conveyed the impression that there were no secrets any longer, and no mystery need ever have existed.

But as she watched him, she saw the first break in his joyous calm: she saw him struggling against some thought; he hesitated, then said, with effort, "About Hank Rearden . . . Will you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Will you tell him that I . . . You see, I've never cared for people, yet he was always the man I respected, but I didn't know until today that what I felt was,. . . that he was the only man I ever loved. . . .

Just tell him this and that I wish I could—no, I guess that's all I can tell him. . . . He'll probably damn me for leaving . . . still, maybe he won't."

"I'll tell him."

Hearing the dulled, hidden sound of pain in his voice, she felt so close to him that it seemed impossible he would deliver the blow he was delivering—and she made one last effort.

"Mr. Danagger, if I were to plead on my knees, if I were to find some sort of words that I haven't found—would there be . . . is there a chance to stop you?"

"There isn't."

After a moment, she asked tonelessly, "When are you quitting?"

"Tonight."

"What will you do with"—she pointed at the hills beyond the window—"the Danagger Coal Company? To whom are you leaving it?"

"I don't know—or care. To nobody or everybody. To whoever wants to take it."

"You're not going to dispose of it or appoint a successor?"

"No. What for?"

"To leave it in good hands. Couldn't you at least name an heir of your own choice?"

"I haven't any choice. It doesn't make any difference to me. Want me to leave it all to you?" He reached for a sheet of paper. "I'll write a letter naming you sole heiress right now, if you want me to."

She shook her head in an involuntary recoil of horror. "I'm not a looter!"

He chuckled, pushing the paper aside. "You see? You gave the right answer, whether you knew it or not. Don't worry about Danagger Coal. It won't make any difference, whether I appoint the best successor in the world, or the worst, or none. No matter who takes it over now, whether men or weeds, it won't make any difference."

"But to walk off and abandon . . . just abandon . . . an industrial enterprise, as if we were in the age of landless nomads or of savages wandering in the jungle!"

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 417