Atlas Shrugged – Day 044 – pp. 429-438
Busted.
“He stood like a man in military uniform at some official proceedings where emotions could not be permitted to exist.”
“Aren’t you going to try to justify yourself?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you going to start begging my forgiveness?”
Somehow I doubt it. He has, over and over, acknowledged his moral wrongdoing, and he’s more than willing to accept whatever consequences, pay whatever damages are due.
“There is no reason why you should forgive me. There is nothing for me to add. You know the truth. Now it is up to you.”
Well, there’s just one more thing.
“Who is she, Henry?”
Now THAT ain’t gonna happen. Hank would never stoop to sully the reputation of Dagny, a woman he places on such a high pedestal. Lillian has no idea. She assumes some chorus girl, or an equivalent of Cherryl Brooks. (Cherryl and Hank. . . now that would have been an interesting hook up.)
And one other thing. He’s not giving her up.
So what’s left? Lillian gets to set some rules.
“Divorce?” she said, chuckling coldly. “Did you think you’d get off as easily as that? . . . I want you to sit in that office of which you’re so proud, in those precious mills of yours, and play the hero who works eighteen hours a day, the giant of industry who keeps the whole country going, the genius who is above the common herd of whining, lying chiseling humanity. Then I want you to come home and face the only person who knows you for what you really are, who knows the actual value of your work, of your honor, of your integrity, of your vaunted self-esteem.”
Ouch. Lillian’s a bitch. But we already knew that. But now Hank is seeing some more.
“. . .he observed the thought that there was some flaw in the scheme of the punishment she wanted him to bear, something wrong by its own terms, aside from its propriety or justice, some practical miscalculation that would demolish it all if discovered.”
“. . .if discovered.” And then a relapse. . .
“His own brain was numb with the effort to hold the last of his sense of justice against so overwhelming a tide of revulsion that it swamped Lillian out of human form. . . If she was loathsome, he thought, it was he who had brought her to it; this was her way of taking pain — no one could prescribe the form of a human being’s attempt to bear suffering — no one could blame — above all, not he, who had caused it.”
And then he notices. . .
“. . . But he saw no evidence of pain in her manner. Then perhaps the ugliness was the only means she could summon to hide it, he thought.”
She’s an ugly bitch, Hank.
Cut to Hank’s office where Dr Ferris of the SSI has arrived.
He’s come to make a play for Rearden Metal. A year and a half prior, the SSI had issued a paper warning of its dangers. Now, it’s a different story.
“Times change, and people change with the times — the wise ones do. Wisdom lies in knowing when to remember and when to forget.”
They want 10 thousand tons of RM. Hank already turned them down with the Wet Nurse. But Dr Ferris apparently has an ace up his sleeve.
He knows about the four thousand tons of RM Hank sold to Ken Danagger under the table.
Who told?
“One of your friends, Mr,Rearden. The owner of a copper mine in Arizona, who reported to us that you had purchased an extra amount of copper last month, above the regular tonnage required for the monthly quota of Rearden Metal which the law permits you to produce. . . It was all the information we needed. The rest was easy to trace.”
Busted again.
Rearden calmly said, “In my youth, this was called blackmail.”
Dr Ferris grinned. “That’s what it is, Mr, Rearden. We’ve entered a much more realistic age.”
Government extortionist attitude — check.
“But there was a peculiar difference, thought Rearden . . . A blackmailer would show signs of gloating over his victim’s sin and of acknowledging its evil, he would suggest a threat to the victim and a sense of danger to them both. Dr. Ferris conveyed none of it. His manner was that of dealing with the normal and the natural, it suggested a sense of safety, it held no tone of condemnation, but a hint of comradeship, a comradeship based — for both of them — on self-contempt.”
Dr F invites him to a seat at the big kids table. Don’t bother with Jim Taggart. He’s on the outs these days. Orrin Boyle they can take care of him if he wants. Ken Danagger too. They’re calling him up to the big leagues.
And more revelation (as if we didn’t know.)
“Come down to earth. You’re not the man who’d let sentiment interfere with business. . . . We knew you’d slip up sooner or later – and this is just what we wanted.”
“You seem pleased about it.”
“Don’t I have good reason to be?”
“But after all, I did break one of your laws.”
“Well what do you think they’re there for?”
Honesty?!?!
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? . . . We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against — . . . We’re after power and we mean it.”
I wonder if it’s good to be quite that bold in blackmail negotiations. Hank seems to notice something too.
“There’s a flaw in your system, Dr. Ferris. . . . a practical flaw which you will discover when you put me on trial for selling four thousand tons of Reareden Metal to Ken Danagger.”
(“. . .if discovered”?) Thrown down Hank!!! Get in that government bitch’s face!!
Dr F protests, realizing that all six aces up his sleeve aren’t getting the job done. Hank calls for Miss Ives to escort the doctor out.
He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. “A pose he had never permitted himself before, a pose he resented as the vulgar symbol of the businessman. . .”
A light has gone on for Hank.