Atlas Shrugged – Day 083 – pp. 892-901
Now we shift back in time. (Just an hour or so) Jim Taggart is sitting in his study and sees Cherryl leave the apartment.
He slams the door and we get into a little “crazy scene.” (The kind of stuff that wins actors Oscars. — I have never made a prediction this early, but…
Matthew Marsden will be modest accepting.)
“…[he] slumped down on the davenport, with patches of spilled champagne still soaking the cloth of his trousers, as if his own discomfort were a revenge upon his wife and upon a universe that would not provide him with the celebration he had wanted.
…he leapt to his feet, tore off his coat and threw it across the room. He reached for a cigarette, but snapped it in half and flung it at a painting over the fireplace.
He noticed a vase of Venetian glass – a museum piece, centuries old,. . . He seized it and flung it at the wall. . .
He kicked off his shoes, and fell back on the davenport, letting his stocking feet dangle in mid-air.”
Doorbell interrupts the fun.
Lillian Rearden to see Mr. Taggart.
Lillian’s not looking her usual perfectly presented self. Jim notes she “was beginning to show her age.” Of course he gets a kick out of it.
She needs a favor.
“I am sure that I can count on you.”
“How can we ever be sure of anything?”
That ain’t good.
Hank will be divorcing her in one month. He’s got the whole thing sewed up. He bought off everybody.
“…the judge, the clerks, the bailiffs, their backers, their backers’ backers, a few legislators, half a dozen administrators –“
She’s going to be out. Gone without a penny. No settlement, no alimony, no nothing. And of course the thing that got this whole ball rolling was her handing Dagny over to Jim.
Now under normal circumstances, a favor of that magnitude ought to curry at least a bit of reciprocity. But we are talking about looter-world here.
The realization of the future that awaits her now makes Lillian a little nuts.
“I don’t want him to divorce me! I don’t want to let him go free! I won’t permit it! I won’t let the whole of my life be a total failure!”
What little money she has of her own was lost when her father’s factories went belly up during the looting – she’s broke. Suddenly feigning not caring about money isn’t so easy.
“You don’t understand! I’m not talking about money — I’m talking about poverty! Real, stinking, hall-bedroom poverty! That our of bounds for any civilized person! I – I to have to worry about food and rent?”
“Hall-bedroom poverty!” That’s poor. She implores him to get a favor done from higher up.
Jim tells her it can’t be done.
“Nobody does favors nowadays, if there’s nothing to gain in return. And the stakes are getting higher and higher. . . .nobody dares move. . . only when he has to, when the stakes are life or death — and that’s practically the only kind of stakes we’re playing for now.”
They pause to have a drink. Jim tries to console her. Says, let him have the divorce. He won’t have the last laugh. The other looters will prevail.
He hands her another drink.
“She drank, not in the manner of a social gesture, but like a lonely drinker in a saloon — for the physical sake of the liquor.”
“…like a lonely drinker in a saloon…” That’s a picture worth 1,000 words.
Blah, blah. Have another drink.
“His eyes kept coming back to the low cut of her gown. It was not the smooth skin that attracted his glance, not the exposed rise of her breasts, but the fraud of the safety pin beyond the edge.”
That’s an interesting shift. She’s got a safety pin holding her stuff together. I guess that’s something only a poor person would do. I’m guessing watching her suffer is amusing Jimmy.
Lillian goes on babbling about being Mrs. Hank Rearden and yadda, yadda, yadda. And in her ramble she tosses out (maybe) an unconscious threat.
“I can’t bring men down to their knees in admiration — but I can bring them down to their knees.”
“Shut up” he screamed in terror. . .
She spills some of her drink down her mouth onto her boob.
Jim goes to wipe it away.
Uh oh!!
“His fingers slipped under the gown’s neckline, closing over her breast, . . .When he reached for her mouth, her arms embraced him obediently and her mouth responded…”
He’s not amused, he’s excited.
“He jerked her closer to stifle the sight and his own shudder.”
(That’s romantic.)
Cut to Jim’s bedroom.
He’s gonna nail Lillian Rearden.