ent, not a degradation. Her line of attack, which he had found so baffling, had been constant and clear--it was his self-esteem she had sought to destroy, knowing that a man who surrenders his value is at the mercy of anyone's will; it was his moral purity she had struggled to breach, it was his confident rectitude she had wanted to shatter by means of the poison of guilt--as if, were he to collapse, his depravity would give her a right to hers.
For the same purpose and motive, for the same satisfaction, as others weave complex systems of philosophy to destroy generations, or establish dictatorships to destroy a country, so she, possessing no weapons except femininity, had made it her goal to destroy one man.
Yours was the code of life--he remembered the voice of his lost young teacher--what, then, is theirs?
"I have something to tell you!" cried Lillian, with the sound of that impotent rage which wishes that words were brass knuckles. "You're so proud of yourself, aren't you? You're so proud of your name! Rearden Steel, Rearden Metal, Rearden Wife! That's what I was, wasn't I? Mrs. Rearden! Mrs. Henry Rearden!" The sounds she was making were now a string of cackling gasps, an unrecognizable corruption of laughter. "Well, I think you'd like to know that your wife's been laid by another man! I've been unfaithful to you, do you hear me? I've .been unfaithful, not with some great, noble lover, but with the scum miest louse, with Jim Taggart! Three months ago! Before your divorce! While I was your wife! While I was still your wife!"
He stood listening like a scientist studying a subject of no personal relevance whatever. There, he thought, was the final abortion of the creed of collective interdependence, the creed of non-identity, non-property, non-fact: the belief that the moral stature of one is at the mercy of the action of another.
"I've been unfaithful to you! Don't you hear me, you stainless Puritan? I've slept with Jim Taggart, you incorruptible hero! Don't you hear me? ... Don't you hear me? ... Don't you ... ?"
He was looking at her as he would have looked if a strange woman had approached him on the street with a personal confession--a look like the equivalent of the words: Why tell it to me?
Her voice trailed off. He had not known what the destruction of a person would be like; but he knew that he was seeing the destruction of Lillian. He saw it in the collapse of her face, in the sudden slackening of features, as if there were nothing to hold them together, in the eyes, blind, yet staring, staring inward, filled with that terror which no outer threat can equal. It was not the look of a person losing her mind, but the look of a mind seeing total defeat and, in the same instant, seeing her own nature for the first time--the look of a person seeing that after years of preaching non-existence, she had achieved it.
He turned to go. His mother stopped him at the door, seizing his arm. With a look of stubborn bewilderment, with the last of her effort at self-deceit, she moaned in a voice of tearfully petulant reproach, "Are you really incapable of forgiveness?"
"No, Mother," he answered, "I'm not. I would have forgiven the past--if, today, you had urged me to quit and disappear."
There was a cold wind outside, tightening his overcoat about him like an embrace, there was the great, fresh sweep of country stretching at the foot of the hill, and the clear, receding sky of twilight. Like two sunsets ending the day, the red glow of the sun was a straight, still band in the west, and the breathing red band in the east was the glow of his mills.
The feel of the steering wheel under his hands and of the smooth highway streaming past, as he sped to New York, had an oddly bracing quality. It was a sense of extreme precision and of relaxation, together, a sense of action without strain, which seemed inexplicably youthful--until he realized that this was the way he had acted and had expected always to act, in his youth--and what he now felt was like the simple, astonished question: Why should one ever have to act in any other manner?
It seemed to him that the skyline of New York, when it rose before him, had a strangely luminous clarity, though its shapes were veiled by distance, a clarity that did not seem to rest in the object, but felt as if the illumination came from him. He looked at the great city, with no tie to any view or usage others had made of it, it was not a city of gangsters or panhandlers or derelicts or whores, it was the greatest industrial achievement in the history of man, its only meaning was that which it meant to him, there was a personal quality in his sight of it, a quality of possessiveness and of unhesitant perception, as if he were seeing it for the first time--or the last.
He paused in the silent corridor of the Wayne-Falkland, at the door of the suite he was to enter; it took him a long moment's effort to lift his hand and knock: it was the suite that had belonged to Francisco d.'Anconia.
There were coils of cigarette smoke weaving through the air of the drawing room, among the velvet drapes and bare, polished tables. With its costly furniture and the absence of all personal belongings, the room had that air of dreary luxury which pertains to transient occupancy, as dismal as the air of a flophouse. Five figures rose in the fog at his entrance: Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, James Taggart, Dr. Floyd Ferris and a slim, slouching man who looked like a rat-faced tennis player and was introduced to him as Tinky Holloway.
"All right," said Rearden, cutting off the greetings, the smiles, the offers of drinks and the comments on the national emergency, "what did you want?"
"We're here as your friends, Mr. Rearden," said Tinky Holloway, "purely as your friends, for an informal conversation with a view to closer mutual teamwork."
"We're anxious to avail ourselves of your outstanding ability," said Lawson, "and your expert advice on the country's industrial problems."
"It's men like you that we need in Washington," said Dr. Ferris. "There's no reason why you should have remained an outsider for so long, when your voice is needed at the top level of national leadership."
The sickening thing about it, thought Rearden, was that the speeches were only half-lies; the other half, in their tone of hysterical urgency, was the unstated wish to have it somehow be true. "What did you want?" he asked.
"Why ... to listen to you, Mr. Rearden," said Wesley Mouch, the jerk of his features imitating a frightened smile; the smile was faked, the fear was real. "We ... we want the benefit of your opinion on the nation's industrial crisis."
"I have nothing to say."
"But, Mr. Rearden," said Dr. Ferris, "all we want is a chance to co-operate with you."
"I've told you once, publicly, that I don't co-operate at the point of a gun."
"Can't we bury the hatchet at a time like this?" said Lawson beseechingly.
"The gun? Go ahead."
"Uh?"
"It's you who're holding it. Bury it, if you think you can."
"That ... that was just a figure of speech," Lawson explained, blinking. "I was speaking metaphorically."
"I wasn't."
"Can't we all stand together for the sake of the country in this hour of emergency?" said Dr. Ferris. "Can't we disregard our differences of opinion? We're willing to meet you halfway. If there's any aspect of our policy which you oppose, just tell us and we'll issue a directive to--"
"Cut it, boys. I didn't come here to help you pretend that I'm not in the position I'm in and that any halfway is possible between us. Now come to the point. You've prepared some new gimmick to spring on the steel industry. What is it?"
"As a matter of fact," said Mouch, "we do have a vital question to discuss in regard to the steel industry, but ... but your language, Mr. Rearden!"
"We don't want to spring anything on you," said Holloway. "We asked you here to discuss it with you."
"I came here to take orders. Give them."
"But, Mr. Rearden, we don't want to look at it that way. We don't want to give you orders. We want your voluntary consent."
Rearden smiled. "I know it."
"You do?" Holloway started eagerly, but something about Rearden's smile made him slide into uncertainty. "Well, then--"
"And you, brother," said Rearden, "know that that is the flaw in your game, the fatal flaw that will blast it sky-high. Now do you tell me what clout on my head you're working so hard not to let me notice--or do I go home?"
"Oh no, Mr. Rearden!" cried Lawson, with a sudden dart of his eyes to his wrist watch. "You can't go now!--That is, I mean, you wouldn't want to go without hearing what we have to say."
"Then let me hear it."
He saw them glancing at one another. Wesley Mouch seemed afraid to address him; Mouch's face assumed an expression of petulant stubbornness, like a signal of command pushing the others forward; whatever their qualifications to dispose of the fate of the steel industry, they had been brought here to act as Mouch's conversational bodyguards. Rearden wondered about the reason for the presence of James Taggart; Taggart sat in gloomy silence, sullenly sipping a drink, never glancing in his direction.
"We have worked out a plan," said Dr. Ferris too cheerfully, "which will solve the problems of the steel industry and which will meet with your full approval, as a measure providing for the general welfare, while protecting your interests and insuring your safety in a--"
"Don't try to tell me what I'm going to think. Give me the facts."
"It is a plan which is fair, sound, equitable and--"
"Don't tell me your evaluation. Give me the facts."
"It is a plan which--" Dr. Ferris stopped; he had lost the habit of naming facts.
"Under this plan," said Wesley Mouch, "we will grant the industry a five per cent increase in the price of steel." He paused triumphantly.
Rearden said nothing.
"Of course, some minor adjustments will be necessary," said Holloway airily, leaping into the silence as onto a vacant tennis court. "A certain increase in prices will have to be granted to the producers of iron ore--oh, three per cent at most--in view of the added hardships which some of them, Mr. Larkin of Minnesota, for instance, will now encounter, inasmuch as they'll have to ship their ore by the costly means of trucks, since Mr. James Taggart has had to sacrifice his Minnesota branch line to the public welfare. And, of course, an increase in freight rates will have to be granted to the country's railroads--let's say, seven per cent, roughly speaking--in view of the absolutely essential .need for--"
Holloway stopped, like a player emerging from a whirlwind activity to notice suddenly that no opponent was answering his shots.
"But there will be no increase in wages," said Dr. Ferris hastily. "An essential point of the plan is that we will grant no increase in wages to the steel workers, in spite of their insistent demands. We do wish to be fair to you, Mr. Rearden, and to protect your interests--even at the risk of popular resentment and indignation."
"Of course, if we expect labor to make a sacrifice," said Lawson, "we must show them that management, too, is making certain sacrifices for the sake of the country. The mood of labor in the steel industry is extremely tense at present, Mr. Rearden, it is dangerously explosive and ... and in order to protect you from ... from ..." He stopped.
"Yes?" said Rearden. "From?"
"From possible ... violence, certain measures are necessary, which ... Look, Jim"--he turned suddenly to James Taggart--"why don't you explain it to Mr. Rearden, as a fellow industrialist?"
"Well, somebody's got to support the railroads," said Taggart sullenly, not looking at him. "The country needs railroads and somebody's got to help us carry the load, and if we don't get an increase in freight rates--"
"No, no, no!" snapped Wesley Mouch. "Tell Mr. Rearden about the working of the Railroad Unification Plan."
"Well, the Plan is a full success," said Taggart lethargically, "except for the not fully controllable element of time. It is only a question of time before our unified teamwork puts every railroad in the country back on its feet. The Plan, I'm in a position to assure you, would work as successfully for any other industry."
"No doubt about that," said Rearden, and turned to Mouch. "Why do you ask the stooge to waste my time? What has the Railroad Unification Plan to do with me?"
"But, Mr. Rearden," cried Mouch with desperate cheerfulness, "that's the pattern we're to follow! That's what we called you here to discuss!"
"What?"
"The Steel Unification Plan!"
There was an instant of silence, as of breaths drawn after a plunge. Rearden sat looking at them with a glance that seemed to be a glance of interest.
"In view of the critical plight of the steel industry," said Mouch with a sudden rush, as if not to give himself time to know what made him uneasy about the nature of Rearden's glance, "and since steel is the most vitally, crucially basic commodity, the foundation of our entire industrial structure, drastic measures must be taken to preserve the country's steel-making facilities, equipment and plant." The tone and impetus of public speaking carried him that far and no farther. "With this objective in view, our Plan is ... our Plan is ..."
"Our Plan is really very simple," said Tinky Holloway, striving to prove it by the gaily bouncing simplicity of his voice. "We'll lift all restrictions from the production of steel and every company will produce all it can, according to its ability. But to avoid the waste and danger of dog-eat-dog competition, all the companies will deposit their gross earnings into a common pool, to be known as the Steel Unification Pool, in charge of a special Board. At the end of the year, the Board will distribute these earnings by totaling the nation's steel output and dividing it by the number of open-hearth furnaces in existence, thus arriving at an average which will be fair to all--and every company will be paid according to its need. The preservation of its furnaces being its basic need, every company will be paid according to the number of furnaces it owns."
He stopped, waited, then added, "That's it, Mr. Rearden," and getting no answer, said, "Oh, there's a lot of wrinkles to be ironed out, but ... but that's it."
Whatever reaction they had expected, it was not the one they saw. Rearden leaned back in his chair, his eyes attentive, but fixed on space, as if looking at a not too distant distance, then he asked, with an odd note of quietly impersonal amusement, "Will you tell me just one thing, boys: what is it you're counting on?"
He knew that they understood. He saw, on their faces, that stubbornly evasive look which he had once thought to be the look of a liar cheating a victim, but which he now knew to be worse: the look of a man cheating himself of his own consciousness. They did not answer. They remained silent, as if struggling, not to make him forget his question, but to make themselves forget that they had heard it.
"It's a sound, practical Plan!" snapped James Taggart unexpectedly, with an angry edge of sudden animation in his voice. "It will work! It has to work! We want it to work!"
No one answered him.
"Mr. Rearden ... ?" said Holloway timidly.
"Well, let me see," said Rearden. "Orren Boyle's Associated Steel owns 60 open-hearth furnaces, one-third of them standing idle and the rest producing an average of 300 tons of steel per furnace per day. I own 20 open-hearth furnaces, working at capacity, producing 750 tons of Rearden Metal per furnace per day. So we own 80 'pooled' furnaces with a '.pooled' output of 27,000 tons, which makes an average of 337.5 tons per furnace. Each day of the year, I, producing 15,000 tons, will be paid for 6,750 tons. Boyle, producing 12,000 tons, will be paid for 20,250 tons. Never mind the other members of the pool, they won't change the scale, except to bring the average still lower, most of them doing worse than Boyle, none of them producing as much as I. Now how long do you expect me to last under your Plan?"
There was no answer, then Lawson cried suddenly, blindly, righteously, "In time of national peril, it is your duty to serve, suffer and work for the salvation of the country!"
"I don't see why pumping my earnings into Orren Boyle's pocket is going to save the country."
"You have to make certain sacrifices to the public welfare!"
"I don't see why Orren Boyle is more .'the public' than I am."
"Oh, it's not a question of Mr. Boyle at all! It's much wider than any one person. It's a matter of preserving the country's natural resources--such as factories--and saving the whole of the nation's industrial plant. We cannot permit the ruin of an establishment as vast as Mr. Boyle's. The country needs it."
"I think," said Rearden slowly, "that the country needs me much more than it needs Orren Boyle."
"But of course!" cried Lawson with startled enthusiasm. "The country needs you, Mr. Rearden! You do realize that, don't you?"
But Lawson's avid pleasure at the familiar formula of self-immolation, vanished abruptly at the sound of Rearden's voice, a cold, trader's voice answering: "I do."
"It's not Boyle alone who's involved," said Holloway pleadingly. "The country's economy would not be able to stand a major dislocation at the present moment. There are thousands of Boyle's workers, suppliers and customers. What would happen to them if Associated Steel went bankrupt?"
"What will happen to the thousands of my workers, suppliers and customers when I go bankrupt?"
"You, Mr. Rearden?" said Holloway incredulously. "But you're the richest, safest and strongest industrialist in the country at this moment!"
"What about the moment after next?"
"Uh?"
"How long do you expect me to be able to produce at a loss?"
"Oh, Mr. Rearden, I have complete faith in you!"
"To hell with your faith! How do you expect me to do it?"
"You'll manage!"
"How?"
There was no answer.
"We can't theorize about the future," cried Wesley Mouch, "when there's an immediate national collapse to avoid! We've got to save the country's economy! We've got to do something!" Rearden's imperturbable glance of curiosity drove him to heedlessness. "If you don't like it, do you have a better solution to offer?"
"Sure," said Rearden easily. "If it's production that you want, then get out of the way, junk all of your damn regulations, let Orren Boyle go broke, let me buy the plant of Associated Steel--and it will be pouring a thousand tons a day from every one of its sixty furnaces."
"Oh, but ... but we couldn.'t!" gasped Mouch. "That would be monopoly!"
Rearden chuckled. "Okay," he said indifferently, "then let my mills superintendent buy it. He'll do a better job than Boyle."
"Oh, but that would be letting the strong have an