Atlas Shrugged – Day 077 – pp. 832-841
“The buildings seemed worn by weeks of summer heat, but the people seemed worm by centuries of anguish.”
Dagny’s back in the Big Apple. Apparently things have gone down hill in just the last month. These ten pages are more or less catch up so I’m just going to hit the highlights. (I want to get moving on that Project X — or Thompson Harmonizer plot twist.)
So she got dropped in Watsonville NE. Made her way to the train she took to the airport. While on the train she realized that her return from the dead was going to be a public affair. (Wait’ll you see how she covers her bases on that!) At the airport boarding the plane she stops a reporter, identifies herself and tell’s him she’s alive before boarding her flight.
The news is out all over by the time she lands.
Back in NY, first thing, she tries to contact Hank. She calls the office. He’s searching for her in Los Gatos, CO.
She calls his hotel.
He answers.
“She stared at the receiver as at the muzzle of a gun, feeling trapped, unable to breathe.”
(Wonder what that means.)
Now the “where have you been?” bit…
“My plane crashed . . . I was picked up by some people who helped me, but I could not send word to anyone.”
“Why did it take you so long to get back?”
“I. . .can’t answer that now.”
(Damn right you can’t.)
“Dagny, were you in danger?”
“No.”
“Were you held prisoner?”
What!!?? That would have made her return an “escape.” What kind of question is that? OK now Hank’s just being a pussy-whipped idiot. Dagny seems to have that kind of effect on men. First Francisco, now Hank (although, I don’t suppose he’d give her up as easily as Frisco.)
I read somewhere that Ayn Rand fancied Dagny as modeled after her ideal self. Kind of the woman she wanted to be. And I want to be Brad Pitt, but let’s move on…
“No, not really.”
What’s with the “not really?” That’s like saying “yes, sort of.”
“Then you could have returned sooner but didn’t?”
Who is he, damn it?!?!? Who is he!!!!???? I’ll kill him!!! (Nah.)
“That’s true – but that’s all I can tell you.”
“Where were you Dagny?”
“Do you mind if we don’t talk about it now? Let’s wait until I see you.”
(And then I won’t be able to talk about it either.)
He asks if she’s been injured. Like, what. He’s going to dump her if she’s lost a leg or her face has been mangled?
“Injuries – no, Hank. I don’t know as to the permanent consequences.”
Well she’s dropped enough clues for now I think.
Back to the office to work and save the world.
She goes to Eddie’s office where he’s being dictated to by a Mr. Meigs — the new director of the Railroad Unification Plan.
He’s rerouting traffic. She says not on your life. Eddie says there’s nothing they can do. The trains are being rerouted to serve the Smather brothers — some special friends of Washington who bought a fruit ranch in Arizona a year back with a large government loan.
Dagny, Eddie, Jim and Meigs meet in her office. Jim alternates between a really half-hearted joy at her safe return, and a CYA-toned plea for her to confirm she hasn’t deserted the railroad.
There has to be a public statement. Fine. Eddie, take a note to the press.
I was flying over the Rocky Mountains to the Taggart Tunnel. I lost my way, looking for an emergency landing, and crashed in an uninhabited mountain section of Wyoming. I was found by an old sheepherder and his wife, who took me to their cabin, deep in the wilderness, fifty miles away from the nearest settlement. I was badly injured and remained unconscious for most of two weeks. The old couple had no telephone, no radio, no means of communication or transportation, except an old truck that broke down when they attempted to use it. I had to remain with them until I recovered sufficient strength to walk. I walked the fifty miles to the foothills, then hitchhiked by way to a Taggart station in Nebraska.
HAAAAAAA hahahahahahaha!!!! That’ll show ’em.
So on to the Railroad unification business. What the hell is it?
“As a policy of national survival, the railroads of the country have been unified into a single team, pooling their resources.”
The profits are turned over to the G who distributes them “. . .according to a more modern principle of distribution.”
As Jim is describing all this, in what has to be a put-on political tone that has become so rote that it’s lost any sound of authenticity and is barely distinguishable from his real self (whatever’s left of that,) I can see Dagny sitting stone-faced, completely expressionless as she asks “What principle?”
Yeeeeeess, Ladies and gentlemen. To each according to their need.
It’s the Starnes kids plan – the most pure evil she has ever known – finally come to fruition.