Atlas Shrugged – Day 012 – pp. 114-123
“It was long past midnight when she awakened in bed by his side.”
What the hell?..
“He held her shoulders, hanging on to her convulsively. She heard the words, muffled in is mouth pressed to her skin”
“I can’t give it up! I can’t.”
“What?” she whispered.
“You.”
“Why should –”
“And everything.”
“Why should you give it up?”
“Dagny! Help me to remain. To refuse. Even though he’s right!”
She asked evenly, “To refuse what, Francisco?”
Holy crap! What the hell’s going on? Who’s right? Like 60 pages into this chapter and Francisco’s the baddest ass in the universe. Who could turn him into this kind of whimpering bitch?
“What is it Francisco?”
“I can’t tell you.” His voice was simple, open, without attempt to disguise suffering. But it was a voice that obeyed him now. “You’re not ready to hear it.”
“I want to help you.”
“You can’t”
“You said, to help you refuse.”
“I can’t refuse.”
“Then let me share it with you.”
He shook his head.
Dagny’s not ready to hear what???
“When will I see you again?”
He answered, “I don’t know. Don’t wait for me, Dagny. Next time we meet, you will not want to see me.”
(This is a crazy chapter…)
Now I’d suspect he’s talking about the Mexican mines fiasco. Let’s see. If Dagny was 24 at the time of this tryst, and I’m sure she’s in her 30s now, this was likely 8 to 10 years earlier. How the hell do you make this kind prediction that early?
In the aftermath of their final tryst, Francisco went on his way to carouse through hoards of women in the sack and dominate and humiliate hoards of men in business.
Dagny got over him pouring herself into her work. And life went on.
Until NOW… Back to the meeting that started something-like 60 pages ago…
Dagny arrives at his hotel. She’s pissed.
As she enters his room she finds “Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d’Anconia” sitting on the floor in his pajamas playing marbles.
So what about the mines?
The farce he’s returned to town to see is not, in fact, the Vail divorce scandal but the fall-out from the mining venture.
Dagny accuses Francisco of taking a dive on the mines with full intent. Why would he do such a thing? To get even with his American investors?
That’s true. That’s part of the reason.
What’s the rest? That’s for Dagny to figure out.
She’s so pissed at him she actually stands up for her brother. “They’re rotten fools, but in this case their only crime was that they trusted you. They trusted your name and your honor.”
So let’s set her straight Frisco…
“No, he said, I don’t find it amusing. Your brother James and his friends know nothing about the copper-mining industry. They knew nothing about making money. They did not think it necessary to learn. They considered knowledge superfluous and judgement inessential. They observed that there I was in the world and that I made it my honor to know. They thought they could trust my honor. One does not betray a trust of this kind does one?”
“There was just one point that they over looked. They thought it was safe to ride on my brain, beause they assumed that the goal of my journey was wealth. All their calculations rested on the premise that I wanted to make money. What if I didn’t?”
Well if he didn’t plan to make money, what the hell was he planning?
“To spend it…”
And by the way, the Gail divorce… Apparently the night that Mrs Gail recounted spending with Francisco, he was in El Paso Texas opening the line of the San Sebastian mines.
What the hell’s going on??
Apparently Mexico was pissed to…
“Dagny, didn’t you enjoy the spectacle of the behavior of the People’s State of Mexico in regard to the San Sebastian Mines? Did you read their government’s speeches and the editorials in their newspapers. They’re saying that I am an unscrupulous cheat who has defrauded them. They expected to have a successful mining concern to seize. I had no right to disappoint them like that.”
And the workers housing settlement he built for the Mexican people. Apparantely that’s sub-code and should be falling apart within the year as well.
“Francisco,” she whispered, “did you do it all on purpose?”…