Atlas Shrugged – Day 057 – pp. 559-568
To climb into Hank’s head for the moment, I’d guess that he thinks they have some evidence about his black market dealings or over-pouring Rearden Metal or something like that.
Dr F pulls a stack of copies out of his brief case. Hotel registries with the name of Mr. and Mrs. J. Smith. (I guess you didn’t need to be so creative back in those days.)
“You know, of course,” said Dr. Ferris softly, “but you might wish to see whether we know it, that Mrs, J. Smith is Miss Dagny Taggart.”
“Rearden had not moved to bend over the prints, but sat looking down at them with grave attentiveness. . .”
I guess I’d expect nothing other that a calm, unrevealing response from Hank. I can’t think of when else in the book when he’s lost it. But this is a tough one.
“There is nothing in this blackjack of mine that can harm you personally. . . We know that no form of personal injury would ever make you give in. . . . It will only hurt Miss Taggart.”
Dr F explains what, I’m sure, Hank already knows. Spreading the story will have little effect on Rearden, might even raise him up a notch in certain circles of esteem. But it’ll trash Dagny’s rep. She’ll never get the respect she’s earned in any business deal going forward. She’ll only be viewed as a sex object.
So there is a little difference between then and now.
Today, there’s no such thing as bad press. Go to jail for insider trading, go to rehab for parole violations, sue to recover a sex tape you made which mysteriously got leaked onto the internet. . .your stock is almost guaranteed to spike at least in the short term before the next shiny penny distracts our attention.
Hank has a counter.
If she really meant nothing to him more than a casual fling, this leverage would have no power over him.
That’s right.
But now Hank is again seeing the truth of the situation.
“He remembered the formula of the punishment that Lillian had sought to impose on him, the formula he had considered too monstrous to believe — and he saw it now in its full application, as a system of thought, as a way of life and on a world scale. . . . the punishment that required the victim’s own virtue as the fuel to make it work — . . . a tool of blackmail from which only the depraved would be immune. . .”
So while Dr F is going on about something, Rand takes us into another four-plus pages of Rearden’s thoughts. Thinking about how he himself was guilty of participating in his own “depravity.” About how he felt the first time he had heard of and met the new Vice President of Taggart Transcontinental. About how he wanted her even back then. About how he’s damning himself for all his sins of wanting pleasure. . . (I think we’ve been over and over it.)
And even through all this, he know’s he can still pull the rip cord if he wants. (It’d be pretty much out of character if he did now though.)
“It was not the cheap little looters of wealth who have beaten me — it was I. They did not disarm me — I threw away my weapon.”
So it’s give away Rearden Metal, or throw Dagny to the wolves.
“He picked up a pen and with no second glance, with the easy gesture of millionaire signing a check, he signed his mane at the foot of the Statue of Liberty and pushed the Gift Certificate across the desk.”
Chapter VII – The Moratorium on Brains.
Back at the cafeteria with Eddie and his mysterious friend (whom, let me just announce right here, ahead of everything, I believe is John Galt. What JG is doing working in a menial job at the railroad, I can’t imagine, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
To advance the story, he updates his friend on the effects of the directive. Men are quitting left and right. Unintended as it may be, it’s having the same effect. Everything is grinding to a stand still.
Of course, like I mentioned before, everything can’t stand still for long. If growth doesn’t keep pushing that stone up the hill, it’ll eventually start rolling back down.
It seems that our mysterious friend already knows that Dagny is gone. But he still doesn’t know where.
Jim is panicked that the board, stockholders, business partners will find out she’s gone. Right now, his “Job-1” is maintaining the illusion that she’s still behind the company.
For the time being, her position has been given over to a certain Mr. Clifton Locey. Eddie describes him exactly as we’d expect. . .
“You should see the trained seal we now have in her place. . .he’s from Jim’s personal staff . . . He gives the orders – -that is, he sees to it that he’s never caught actually giving an order. He works very hard at making sure that no decision can ever be pinned down on him, so that he won’t be blamed for anything. You see his purpose is not to operate a railroad, but hold a job.”
I don’t suppose you can do that indefinitely, though.
Welcome to the “new” economy.