A car flashed past them; she had a moment’s glimpse of power—a smooth, confident motion and a shining body. She knew the make of the car: Hammond, Colorado.
“Dagny, are we... are we going to have that line built... on time?”
It was strange to hear a note of plain emotion in his voice, the uncomplicated sound of animal fear.
“God help this city, if we don’t!” she answered.
The car turned a corner. Above the black roofs of the city, she saw the page of the calendar, hit by the white glare of a spotlight. It said: January 29.
“Dan Conway is a bastard!”
The words broke out suddenly, as if he could not hold them any longer.
She looked at him, bewildered. “Why?”
“He refused to sell us the Colorado track of the Phoenix-Durango.”
“You didn’t—” She had to stop. She started again, keeping her voice flat in order not to scream. “You haven’t approached him about it?”
“Of course I have!”
“You didn’t expect him... to sell it... to you?”
“Why not?” His hysterically belligerent manner was back, “I offered him more than anybody else did. We wouldn’t have had the expense of tearing it up and carting it off, we could have used it as is. And it would have been wonderful publicity for us—that we’re giving up the Rearden Metal track in deference to public opinion. It would have been worth every penny of it in good will! But the son of a bitch refused. He’s actually declared that not a foot of rail would be sold to Taggart Transcontinental. He’s selling it piecemeal to any stray comer, to one-horse railroads in Arkansas or North Dakota, selling it at a loss, way under what I offered him, the bastard! Doesn’t even want to take a profit! And you should see those vultures flocking to him! They know they’d never have a chance to get rail anywhere else!”
She sat, her head bowed. She could not bear to look at him.
“I think it’s contrary to the intent of the Anti-dog-cat-dog Rule,” he said angrily. “I think it was the intent and purpose of the National Alliance of Railroads to protect the essential systems, not the jerkwaters of North Dakota. But I can’t get the Alliance to vote on it now, because they’re all down there, outbidding one another for that rail!”
She said slowly, as if she wished it were possible to wear gloves to handle the words, “I see why you want me to defend Rearden Metal.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Shut up, Jim,” she said quietly.
He remained silent for a moment. Then he drew his head back and drawled defiantly, “You’d better do a good job of defending Rearden Metal, because Bertram Scudder can get pretty sarcastic.”
“Bertram Scudder?”
“He’s going to be one of the speakers tonight.”
“One of the... You didn’t tell me there were to be other speakers.”
“Well... I... What difference does that make? You’re not afraid of him, are you?”
“The New York Business Council... and you invite Bertram Scudder?”
“Why not? Don’t you think it’s smart? He doesn’t have any hard feelings toward businessmen, not really. He’s accepted the invitation.
We want to be broad-minded and hear all sides and maybe win him over... Well, what are you staring at? You’ll be able to beat him, won’t you?”
“... to beat him?”
“On the air. It’s going to be a radio broadcast. You’re going to debate with him the question: ‘Is Rearden Metal a lethal product of greed?’”
She leaned forward. She pulled open the glass partition of the front seat, ordering, “Stop the car!”
She did not hear what Taggart was saying. She noticed dimly that his voice rose to screams: “They’re waiting!... Five hundred people at the dinner, and a national hook-up!... You can’t do this to me!”
He seized her arm, screaming, “But why?”
“You goddamn fool, do you think I consider their question debatable?”
The car stopped, she leaped out and ran.
The first thing she noticed after a while, was her slippers. She was walking slowly, normally, and it was strange to feel iced stone under the thin soles of black satin sandals. She pushed her hair back, off her forehead, and felt drops of sleet melting on her palm.
She was quiet now; the blinding anger was gone; she felt nothing but a gray weariness. Her head ached a little, she realized that she was hungry and remembered that she was to have had dinner at the Business Council. She walked on. She did not want to eat. She thought she would get a cup of coffee somewhere, then take a cab home.
She glanced around her. There were no cabs in sight. She did not know the neighborhood. It did not seem to be a good one. She saw an empty stretch of space across the street, an abandoned park encircled by a jagged line that began as distant skyscrapers and came down to factory chimneys; she saw a few lights in the windows of dilapidated houses, a few small, grimy shops closed for the night, and the fog of the East River two blocks away.
She started back toward the center of the city. The black shape of a ruin rose before her. It had been an office building, long ago; she saw the sky through the naked steel skeleton and the angular remnants of the bricks that had crumbled. In the shadow of the ruin, like a blade of grass fighting to live at the roots of a dead giant, there stood a small diner. Its windows were a bright band of glass and light. She went in.
There was a clean counter inside, with a shining strip of chromium at the edges. There was a bright metal boiler and the odor of coffee. A few derelicts sat at the counter, a husky, elderly man stood behind it, the sleeves of his clean white shirt rolled at the elbows. The warm air made her realize, in simple gratitude, that she had been cold. She pulled her black velvet cape tight about her and sat down at the counter.
“A cup of coffee, please,” she said.
The men looked at her without curiosity. They did not seem astonished to see a woman in evening clothes enter a slum diner; nothing astonished anyone, these days. The owner turned impassively to fill her order; there was, in his stolid indifference, the kind of mercifulness that asks no questions.
She could not tell whether the four at the counter were beggars or working men; neither clothes nor manner showed the difference, these days. The owner placed a mug of coffee before her. She closed both hands about it, finding enjoyment in its warmth.
She glanced around her and thought, in habitual professional calculation, how wonderful it was that one could buy so much for a dime.
Her eyes moved from the stainless steel cylinder of the coffee boiler to the cast-iron griddle, to the glass shelves, to the enameled sink, to the chromium blades of a mixer. The owner was making toast. She found pleasure in watching the ingenuity of an open belt that moved slowly, carrying slices of bread past glowing electric coils. Then she saw the name stamped on the toaster: Marsh, Colorado.
Her head fell down on her arm on the counter.
“It’s no use, lady,” said the old bum beside her.
She had to raise her head. She had to smile in amusement, at him and at herself.
“It isn’t?” she asked.
“No. Forget it. You’re only fooling yourself.”
“About what?”
“About anything being worth a damn. It’s dust, lady, all of it, dust and blood. Don’t believe the dreams they pump you full of, and you won’t get hurt.”
“What dreams?”
“The stories they tell you when you’re young—about the human spirit. There isn’t any human spirit. Man is just a low-grade animal, without intellect, without soul, without virtues or moral values. An animal with only two capacities: to eat and to reproduce.”
His gaunt face, with staring eyes and shrunken features that had been delicate, still retained a trace of distinction. He looked like the hulk of an evangelist or a professor of esthetics who had spent years in contemplation in obscure museums. She wondered what had destroyed him, what error on the way could bring a man to this.