Atlas Shrugged – Day 025 – pp. 244-253
OK the train is hurtling on. And as it blows past everything at 100 mph, Rand describes Dagny’s feelings of exhilaration. Her sense of triumph blends into the scenes Rand paints of land and skyscapes flashing by.
I’d say Dagny is having a good day.
Now combine all that adrenaline with Hank in the engine cab. . .
“She saw Rearden stadning by the steps of the door to the cab. He was looking at her as if he knew why she had escaped and what she felt. They stood still, their bodies becoming a glance that met across a narrow passage.”
Of course this section is mostly written describing Dagny’s experience, but there’s no sign of the usual Rearden guilt either.
Three hours later they’ve pulled into Wyatt Junction. Crowds on hand are cheering and they are met by Ellis Wyatt (who is considerably friendlier still.)
They’ll be staying overnight at his house… uh oh?
At dinner the three of them talk about the future and how great it will be now that transportation has been assured.
“Do you live hear alone, like this, milses away from everything?”
Wyatt pointed at the window. “I’m a couple of steps away from everything”
“What about people?”
“I have guest rooms for the kind of people who come to see me on business. I want as many miles as possible between myself and all the other kinds.”
And again the three start to foretell a spectacular future…
But Ellis has some pent up issues…
“Ellis picked up his glass. Looked at their faces and said, “To the world as it seems to be right now!”
He emptied the glass with a single movement.
She heard the crash of the glass against the wall in the same instant that she saw a circling current — from the curve of his body to the sweep of his arm to the terrible violence of his hand that flung the glass across the room. It was not conventional gesture meant as celebration, it was the gesture of a rebellious anger, the vicious gesture which is substituted for a scream of pain.
“Ellis” she whispered “what’s the matter?”
He turned to look at her. Wiht the same violent suddenness, his eyes were clear, his face was calm; what frightened her was seeing him smile gently. “I”m sorry, ” he said. “never mind. We’ll try to think that it will last.”
We’ll try to think that it will last?. . . Another prediction of the future?
Anyway, Ellis shows them to their rooms.
As they stand in the darkness in front of thier rooms… Takes Rand six paragraphs to get there but…
It was like a act of hatred, like the cutting blows of a lash encircling her body: she felt his arms around her, she felt her legs pulled forward against him and her chest bent back under the pressure of his, his mouth on hers.
So how did folks get it on backin the 50s?
“She felt him trembling and she thought that this was the kind of cry she had wanted to tear from him– this surrender through the shreds of his tortured resistance . . . . Whatever I am, she thought, whatever pride of person I may hold, the pride of my courage, of my work, of my mind and my freedom – that is what I offer you for the pleasure of your body, that is what I want you to use in your service — and that you want it to serve you is the greatest reward I can have.
?? She doesn’t do ANYTHING half-assed…
Seriously. A confidence? A purity? An innocence? To disregerard everything else … to see the thing before her for exactly and only what it is. And to make a fair trade in terms of the value she places on it.
Hmmmmmm. . .
Sex and fireworks follows. Flagrante dilecto…
And chapter!