Atlas Shrugged – Day 074 – pp. 802-811
I can’t wait!!
“Yes or no, Miss Taggart?”
She’s at a meeting with the “heads” of state — Mulligan, Galt, Francisco and Hugh Akston.
Now I think we all know what her answer will be. The only question is whether she goes back to save the railroad or to save Hank.
So what is her decision?
She ain’t makin’ it now! She’s got another day left and she asks for all the time to decide.
Mulligan says they’ll wait till the morning after next. And then for as long as it takes in her absence, Akston adds. (He’s so philosophical.)
Then in four-part harmony they pitch the philosophy one more time (for any reader who doesn’t get it yet.)
“If any part of your uncertainty is a conflict between your heart and your mind, follow your mind”
“Consider the reasons which make us certain that we are right. . .”
“Don’t rely on our knowledge of what’s best for your future. . .”
“Don’t consider our interests or desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself.”
OK, back to new business. She hangs by the window while the other four discuss the business of returning to the world and finishing their job.
Francisco will be back full time by November. What about Galt? He’s not going back.
He says he doesn’t know.
“But — good God, John ! — what for?”
“I’ll tell you when I’ve decided.”
His job on the outside, has been to recruit the great minds of the world and bring them to the valley.
But I think we know why he’s considering going back this time.
The boys at the table are worried about him. They describe the vision of the future that’s coming when society finally collapses. The danger that looms. The guys who are running the show have no idea what they’re doing.
“Consider the physical risks of complex machinery in the hands of blind fools and fear-crazed cowards.”
Everything is going to fall apart. Figurative looters will have become real looters. Violence in the streets has started. Every time he gets on a train he’ll be taking his life in his hands. And when the railroads collapse, the city of New York will collapse too.
The factories, the furnaces, the electric. And then the Taggart bridge will collapse and it’ll…
“No it won’t.”
I guess we have her answer.
But why?
“I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours. . . because I cannot believe that men can refuse to see. . .They still love their lives — and that is the uncorrupted remnant of their minds. So long as men desire to live, I cannot lose my battle.
“Do they?” said Hugh Akston softly? “Do they desire it?”
He tells her to take that thought back with her.
OK – since she’s leaving, a couple ground rules. One – Cant’ tell anyone about the place. Neither them nor the valley. Check
Second, She can never attempt to find the valley again. They have to take measures.
“You will be taken out of the valley by plane, blindfolded, and you will be flown a distance sufficient to make it impossible for you ever to retrace the course.”
Maybe they’ll spin her around a couple times first. (I’m rather surprised that no one there has invented one of those memory erasers like they had in Men in Black.)
Anyway. John, Francisco and Dagny are walking back. Francisco invites them in for a drink on their last night together. As Francisco’s pouring, John announces he’s going back.
Then Francisco. . .
“For a long moment, he was seeing nothing but Galt’s face. Then his eyes moved to hers, He put the bottle down and he didn’t not step back, but it was as if his glance drew back to a wide range to include them both.”
Oh, so the light’s just gone on?
Or not.
“I knew it twelve years ago” he said. “I knew it before you could have know, and it’s I who should have seen that you would see. . . . I should have seen that you would think it, too. . . .It could not have been otherwise. . .”
Rand is so freakin’ “poetically vague” sometimes. What? He should have realized then that John Galt would want Dagny? And if he should have, how could he know? I mean his reality is supposed to be HIS reality. Or is he talking about something else? Did he know that John Galt was more, what? Worthy? Entitled? I don’t understand Rand’s fucking romantic applications. Makes me react like guys do. “When’s the next fight scene?”
Well, Francisco’s a bit player now.
Anyway, on the way home, Dagny confronts Galt.
“You are going back to the outer world because I will be there?”
“Yes.”
“I do not want you to go.”
“You have no choice about it.”
“You are going back for my sake?”
“No, for mine.”
No, he has a selfish motive. To be there when she decides to join them. Now he’s such a fucking liar! If he really lived by his “moral” code, he’d let her go and when the door shut, if she wasn’t in, too damn bad. You make your decisions, you live with your consequences.
You don’t extend a special privilege to anyone — unless she’s a brilliant, smokin’ hot, railroad executive, I guess.
“–why should you have to bear the risk of keeping that door open to me?”
“I don’t have to. I wouldn’t do it if I had no selfish end to gain.”
“What selfish end?”
“I want you here.”
See! Told you.