Atlas Shrugged – Day 093 – pp. 992-1001
“Listen, kid,” said Rearden sternly, “I want you to do me a favor. …make up your mind that you want to live — just as you did down there on that slag heap…”
Time for a quick comment.
I should have titled these bits on this chapter “Hanks 3 Meetings.” He’s essentially come in contact with three factions of the opposition, if you will. The looters, who are all about stealing from industry for their own personal enrichment. His family, who are about stealing too, but also about familial obligation and personal relationships. And finally the Wet Nurse, who is more about a vision of the truth. A youth steeped in the teachings of the day who’s able to see through the false doctrines and uncover a truth.
We see Hank’s response to each. Most are predictable.
He walks out on the looters. When destruction is imminent, he refuses to sacrifice himself for their evil, greedy cause.
He cuts his ties and turns his back on his family. Something much more severe. For a “moral” person to shut out their family, as I mused before, has got to take some serious pimping over by the relatives. Certainly Hank’s mother, brother and ex- have all filled out the application. They’re getting their just desserts.
But this final meeting with the Wet Nurse is different.
Throughout the book, Rand has painted Hank as an all-business kind of guy. Even in his personal relationship with Dagny. There was never any emotion. His emotional decisions were all logically made. Her portrayal made him seem less human and more like a cut out character.
In the middle of it all, Rand decides to show us a side of Hank she hasn’t before. A side that is capable of forgiveness and compassion and kindness and actual tenderness.
In stark contrast to the way he’s just treated his family and the looters at the meeting,
“The boy’s head dropped on Rearden’s shoulder, hesitantly, almost as if this were a presumption, Rearden bent down and pressed his lips to the dust-streaked forehead.”
Human after all. Alright, Hank!
Anyway, Hank picks him up and starts to get him to the infirmary. But, he’s too late.
“Then his head fell back — Rearden went on slowly, not altering his pace, even though he knew that no caution was necessary any longer because what he was carrying his his arms was now that which had been the boy’s teachers’ idea of man — a collection of chemicals.”
(What a shitty sentence!)
Rand goes on to eulogize the WN in typical fashion. From an indictment of education…
“–yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child’s education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think.”
To a nice send off for the character…
“Armed with nothing but meaningless phrases, this boy had been thrown to fight for existence, he had hobbled and groped through a brief, doomed effort, he had screamed his indignant, bewildered protest — and had perished on his first attempt to soar on his mangled wings.”
(What a great sentence!)
Hank leaves him in the infirmary.
Then he makes his way back toward the front gate where he sees the carnage around him. I’m getting the feeling that Hank’s in somewhat of a haze – in the middle of all the fighting, yet he’s not really there.
On the structure above the gate, he sees the silhouette of a figure firing into the crowd and shouting directions to the men.
Hank turns to go … not sure where … when he’s spotted by two thugs.
“There he is!”
“He saw a club in a rising fist … he heard the sound of running steps approaching from another direction … then the club crashed down on his skull from behind … he felt himself going down … a strong protective arm seizing him … he heard a gun exploding an inch above his ear, then another explosion…”
Hank wakes up in the infirmary. He’s OK. But what happened? he asks the superintendent.
“Who was it that saved my life? Somebody grabbed me as I fell, and fired at the thugs.”
“Did he! Straight at their faces. Blew their heads off. [YEAH!!] That was the new furnace foreman … Been here two months … he got wise to what the gravy boys were planning and warned me … Told me to arm our men … It was the furnaces foreman, Frank Adams is his name — who organized our defense, ran the whole battle…”
“I’d like to see him.”
Bet you would Hank. Who could this military genius be?
Knock at the door. Come in.
“The man standing on the threshold, with disheveled hair, a soot-streaked face and furnace-smudged arms, dressed in scorched overalls and bloodstained shirt, standing as if he wore a cape waving behind him in the wind, was Francisco d’Anconia.”
Nooooo. Get outta here!
This is one of those hokey twists that’s only barely believable. But given the story as it’s unfolded and given that I like the Francisco character, I’m going to suspend my little disbelief and go with the flow.
They do their little back and forth. In a scene reminiscent of the WN and Hank, Hank’s now humbled in front of Francisco. Of course Frisco will have none of it. He has too much respect for Hank.
Now he’s going to finish that discussion they started in his office way back when…
End of the most awesome chapter in the book so far.
Two pages left in this segment start chapter vii — “This is John Galt Speaking”
(After what, 3-1/2 months we’re finally getting close to the end.)
“The doorbell was ringing … in long demanding screams.”
Jimmy Taggart is at Dagny, ringing the bell in a panic.
“He’s gone!” he cried.
“Who?”
“Hank Rearden! He’s gone, quit, vanished, disappeared!”
Dagny bursts out laughing.
“Come in, Jim.”
That’s a shift. She’s usually throwing him out.
Jim explains that it’s gotten out in the media despite the looters attempts to quash the story. It’s a national emergency. He wants Dagny to get Hank back.
Suddenly she ain’t laughing anymore.
That kind of request to her is like asking her to piss on the memory of Nat Taggart and everything he stood for.
“Get out.”
That’s more like it.
Then she has this crazy thought.
“Two sentences were beating in her mind … He’s free, he’s out of their reach! … There’s still a chance to win, but let me be the only victim.”
What is this martyrdom shit? Note to Miss Taggart:
Dear Dagny, Hank’s finally quit. You’ve already been nationalized. What’s left? Why kill yourself to save the little that’s left of the world? Even if you stopped the decay in its tracks, you’d only be rebuilding a world an nth degree better than if you let the looters finish it on their own. Is this perhaps Miss Rand humanizing you, like she did with Hank and the WN? I don’t get it. Get the hell out!