Jim and Cherryl

Atlas Shrugged – Day 026 – pp. 254-263

Chapter IX – The Sacred and the Profane (sounds like a soap opera…)

The deed done, now comes the awkward part.

Hank gets up to get dressed and addresses the situation…

“I want you to know this. . . What I feel for you is contempt. But it’s nothing, compared to the contempt I feel for myself. I don’t love you. I’ve never loved anyone. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you as one wants a whore — for the same reason and purpose. I spent two years damning myself, because I thought you were above a desire of this kind. You’re not. You’re as vile an animal as I am. I should loathe my discovering it. I won’t  Yesterday I could have killed anyone who’d tell me that you were capable of doing what I’ve had you do. Today, I would give my life not to let it be otherwise, not to have you be anything but the bitch you are. All the greatness that I saw in you — I would not take it in exchange for the obscenity of your talent at an animal’s sensation of pleasure. . . . you and I, proud of our strength, weren’t we? Well this is all that’s left of us — and I want no self-deception about it.”

Christ! What’s wrong with “I’ll call you…”

Sometimes there is just overthinking a situation. Hank could learn quite a bit from Tiger Woods, but I don’t think that’s Rand’s purpose here. His up-righteousness isn’t from a devotion to Lillian — we’re well aware of that. It’s his devotion to the deal. The agreement, the contract. His word.

Going back on his word, is apparently one of the most vile, heinous acts of self-deprecation that Hank can commit. And his nasty-ness with Dagny compounds the problem. First because its made him break an oath. But second, it’s because he is so attracted to her – physically, obviously — but also I think in pretty much every other way too.

Anyway, what does Dagny think about being called a bitch, whore, and animal?

She threw the blanket off with a stressed, deliberate sweep of her arm.

“I want you Hank. I’m much more of an animal that you think. I wanted you too from the first moment I saw you — and the only thing I’m ashamed of is that I did not know it. . . . I want you in my bed — and you are free of me for all the rest of your time. There’s nothing you’ll have to pretend — don’t think of me, don’t feel, don’t care — I do not want your mind, your will, your being or your soul, so long as it’s to me that you will come for that lowest one of your desires. I am an who wants nothing but that sensation of pleasure which you despise — but I want it from you. . . . You don’t have to fear that you’re now dependent upon me. It’s I who will depend on any whim of yours. You’ll have me any time you wish, anywhere, on any terms. . . . Did you call it depravity? I am much more depraved that you are. You hold as your guilt, and I — as my pride. . . . If I’m asked to name my proudest attainment, I will say: I have slept wiht Hank Rearden. I had earned.”

JEEEEZ!! (Ayn Rand is a dirty, freaky girl!)

Anyway, next section…

Jim Taggart at the board meeting. With the success of the JGL, Taggart stock is soaring. He sat at the head of the table while the board of directors “spoke about their brilliant future and the debt of gratitude which the company owed to James Taggart.”

How’s this guy sleep with himself?

After the meeting he doesn’t want to be alone. (Maybe he can’t stand himself.) He’s got the sniffles and has lost his handkerchief. He wanders into a five and dime store for some Kleenex (was there Kleenex back then? –tissues)

He’s recognized by the girl at the counter. She’s awe-struck and full of flattery for him.

The flattery is the end of any self-reproach he might have been feeling.

“Mr Taggart, how does it feel to be a great man?”
“How does it feel to be a little girl?”
She luaughed, “Why wonderful!”
“Then you’re better off than I am.”

No. Reading through this chapter, the truth of his situation is beginning to weigh on him. I’m going on a limb and predicting maybe the insane asylum for Jim before the end of the book.

The more the young shop girl tries to bolster him, the more he feels compelled to do a non-confession.

A non-confession is a word I just made up. It means nibbling around at the edges of the truth, while at the same time maintaining the lie that covers the truth (there’s probably already a word for that.)

“I read a book once where it said that great men are always unhappy, and the greater — the unhappier. It didn’t make sense to me. But maybe it’s true.”
“It’s much truer than you think”
She looked away, her face disturbed.
“Why do you sorry so much about the great men?” He asked. “What are you, a hero worshiper of some kind?”

Do great men find great unhappiness — or only great frauds? Like to pose that question to Hank in the earlier scene…

Well, store’s closing and Jim tells the girl to get her hat. He meets her outside. Asks her back to his place for a drink.

Since she appears to be a character of some importance now, let’s have a look.

When she came out, he noted the peculiar conbination of her shyness and of her head held high, She wore an ugly raincoat, made worse by a gob of cheap jewelry on the lapel, and a small hat of plush flowers planted defiantly among her curls. Strangely, the lift of her head made the apparel seem attractive; it stressed how well she wore even the things she wore.

She’s from Buffalo where she left her family. They were all liars and losers. With no ambitions who would never amount to anything. Something was different about her…

“we were stinking poor and not giving a damn about it. That’s what I couldn’t take — that they didn’t really give a damn. Not enough to lift a finger.”

Wow. What’s that called? Moxie? I fear she may be falling in with the wrong Taggart.

Her name. Cherryl Brooks.

Back at Jim’s with drinks in hand he’s going on about what? Trying to score? No. Not at all. . .