Atlas Shrugged – Day 054 – pp. 529-538
“You know, of course, I won’t allow this to continue. . . I won’t permit you to have her. Not her. Anyone but her. . . . I won’t permit it! You’ll give it up!. . . You’ll give it up, you’ll leave her, you’ll never see her again!”
Hank has a calm reply.
“Lillian, if you wish to discuss it, there’s one thing you’d better understand: nothing on earth will make me give it up.”
It’s a strange reaction of jealousy.
She wouldn’t care if it were some showgirl or “five and dime” clerk. But not Dagny Taggart. It’s as if she doesn’t care about the actual infidelity. As if she realizes that sex is just sex — but this is a fulfillment for Hank. She’s not jealous that he’s getting some on the side. She’s jealous that he’s found a soulmate. Something she could never be.
“But I have the right to demand it! I own your life!. . . You swore to serve my happiness. Not yours — mine! What have you done for me? You’ve given me nothing, you’ve sacrificed nothing. . .”
Her right – to demand sacrifice of her husband.
Her tirade isn’t about being betrayed anymore. But I guess its the realization that Hank has finally found something she can neither have nor know. The only recourse left for her is to hurt him. To take away any happiness he has found. To make him a miserable wretch like her.
But Hank won’t do it. He’s begun to figure out who really holds the power. That he can’t be hurt unless he lets himself be.
“Lillian, I would have it, even if it took your life.”
Ouch!
Of course, Lillian’s no school girl. . .
“Miss Dagny Taggart. . .The super woman whom common, average wives were not supposed to suspect. . . I should have known that she was just a bitch who wanted you in the same way as any bitch would want you – because you are fully expert in bed . . . since she worships expertness of any kind and since she has probably been laid by every section hand on her railroad!”
Zing!
Hank offers her her choices. Divorce him or carry on as things are. With one caveat.
“. . .you are never to speak of her to me. If you ever do it again, I will answer you as I would answer a hoodlum: I will beat you up. Neither you nor anyone else is to discuss her.”
“Really?”
No, there’ll be no divorce. She has plans.
Chapter VI Miracle Metal
We’re in Washington at the behest of Wesley Mouch. Jim’s there along with Orren Boyle and the rest of the private looters and some other heavy hitters including a certain Mr. Fred Kinnan, head of the Amalgamated Labor of America.
A crisis has begun to erupt. And they have to get it under control. (This should be some horse trading!)
“. . . in the twelve-month period ending on the first of this year, the rate of business failures has doubled. . . . Since the first of this year, it has trebled.”
“Be sure they think it’s their own fault,” said Dr. Ferris. “Make them feel guilty.”
“Huh?” said Wesley Mouch.
“Whatever you do, don’t apologize,. . .make them feel guilty.”
So there’s step one of the plan. Manage the narrative. But it gets even better. . .
“But it is their own fault,” said Eugene Lawson. . .”It’s their lack of social spirit. They refuse to recognize that production is not a private choice, but a public duty. They have no right to fail, no matter what conditions come up.”
Now, can a sane man actually say something that and believe it?
Amalgamated Labor speaks up. They should make it compulsory to add one-third more men to every payroll in the country.
Jimmy Taggart parries deftly . . . “Good God!. . . Are you crazy?”
Apparently Jimmy has no means to pay any more workers since he has no freight and no passengers to pay him. And then he thrusts. If they were allowed to raise their rates. . .
And Orren Boyle leaps into the fray. . . “Have you lost your mind?”
He can’t afford to pay what Taggart charges now. (They’re all doing their civic duty. They just weren’t supposed to go broke.)
The funny thing about going broke in a cartel like this, it makes the rats turn on each other.
Actually, to digress, that’s the problem with all cartels – managed production. It’s always in someone in the cartels best economic interest . . . to cheat. If they only knew.
The situation has gotten so grim they decide to enact “Directive No. 10-289.”
“They had not heard the text of Directive No. 10-289, but they knew what it would contain. . . . they now wished it were possible for them not to hear the words of the directive.”
“They wished the directive to go into effect. They wished it could be put into effect without words, so that they would not have to know that what they were doing was what it was.”
Yikes!
Mouch sums it up (in a few more words,)
“Freedom has been given a chance and has failed. Therefore, more stringent controls are necessary. Since men are unable and unwilling to solve their problems voluntarily, they must be forced to do it.”
Is total failure finally at hand? Are we finally at the climax of the decline? Is that a total oxymoron?
Details of the directive tomorrow…