The Journals of Ayn Rand (122 page)

(This might be the place to state their attitude on religion—the atheism of all four of them. “Do you believe in God, Miss Taggart?” “God, no!” “That’s about all that one needs to say on the subject. We are here concerned with reason. It is a big enough job—enough for the life of any man.”)

Show Akston’s love for his three pupils, his paternal devotion to them—past and present. For present, such touches as: “Don’t sit on the ground, Francisco. It’s getting chilly. You’ve always been careless about taking chances.” Akston calls Dagny “Miss Taggart”—then, after a specific reference to the three men as his sons (and after some hint of the Dagny-Galt relationship), he suddenly addresses her as “Dagny” and she sees him looking at Galt. This is Akston’s acceptance of Dagny as his daughter—as Galt’s wife.

 

Scene of temptation.
The night when Galt and Dagny almost surrender to an unendurable desire for each other. She sees the look and the torture of desire in his face. (“Do you wish to hold me here?” “More than anything else in the world.” “You could hold me.” “I know it.” Then: “It’s your acceptance of this place that I wish. What good would it do me to have your physical presence without any meaning? That is the sort of fraud on reality which people cheat themselves by. I’m incapable of it.”) He is first to leave—to go to his bedroom. She lies in bed, tortured, unable to sleep. She wonders whether Galt is tortured in the same manner. She hears no sound, sees no light in his room. Then she hears the sound of a step and the click of a cigarette lighter. (Then—she hears the steps outside and hears Francisco speaking to Galt. She learns that Galt had been sitting on the sill of his open window, smoking a cigarette. Francisco is on his way home from Richard Halley’s house. They speak for a few moments, then Francisco walks on. She realizes that Francisco has no suspicion of any attraction between her and Galt—and now Francisco can be certain that they do not sleep with each other.)
[This last parenthetical passage was crossed out.
]

Scene of Galt telling her about his first sight of her.
This must come in some context such as the one at the power house, so that when she asks: “When did you see me for the first time?”—the question actually is: how long have you been in love with me? He tells her that he saw her ten years ago, one night, on the underground platform of the Taggart Terminal. She was wearing an evening dress, a light, flowing, ice-blue gown, like the tunic of a Greek goddess, with the short hair and imperious profile of an American girl. She had a fur cape, half sliding off her body, he saw her naked back, shoulders and profile, it looked for an instant as if the cape would slide further and she would stand naked. She looked preposterously out of place on a railroad platform—it was not of a railroad that he was thinking, and yet it was, she did belong here, she was the real spirit and meaning of it, luxury and competence combined, energy and its reward. She did not seem to be aware of her clothes, she was giving orders to three men, her voice clear, swift, confident, she was intent on nothing but her work. He came close enough to hear two sentences: “Who said so?” asked one of the men. “I did,” she answered evenly. That was all. That was enough. He knew that this was Dagny Taggart—and he knew, then, that he was in love with her. She wonders which one among the streams of passengers that she ignored had been Galt—she wonders how close she had then come and had missed. “Why didn’t you speak to me, then or later?” she asks. He says: “Do you remember what you were doing in the terminal that night?” She remembers vaguely that she had been called from a party she was attending, because the new terminal manager had caused some mess—the old one had quit a week earlier. He says: “It was I who made him quit.”

Before that night, Galt had heard about Dagny from Francisco, but very little: Francisco had told him that she was one of them, that she was the sole hope and future of Taggart Transcontinental, but that TT would be hard to destroy, because she would be their most dangerous enemy, she would be very hard to win for their strike, she had too much endurance and devotion to her work. Francisco had spoken briefly, dryly, non-commitally, as if merely reporting on a future striker. Galt knew that they had been childhood friends, that was all. After Galt had seen her, he began to question Francisco about her whenever he could. He noticed that Francisco was eager to talk about her, in spite of himself. He realized what Francisco’s past with her had been, that she had been Francisco’s mistress, that Francisco had given her up for the strike and was still desperately in love with her. But Galt never let him guess the nature and reason of his own interest in her. It sounded merely as if he were questioning Francisco about an important future striker. The scene ends on Dagny wondering whether Galt intends to sacrifice his own love for the sake of Francisco.

 

Smaller, preliminary scenes:
(1) Scene where
Dagny asks Galt
from where he had been watching her and what job he holds in the world; he refuses to answer both questions. (2)
Dagny and Francisco in his house.
(The two silver goblets—he’s never used them; they’re all he wants to save, everything else will go, in a few months.) His design of a copper smelter, his talk about his first d‘Anconia Copper mine, here, in the valley; instead of the doubled production he had dreamed about, he might produce only a single pound of copper at the end of his life, but he will be richer than with all the tons produced by his ancestors, because that pound will be wholly his, with no part of it feeding the looters. (The start of d’Anconia Copper—and of the world—has to be in the U.S.) In this scene, there is a touch of possibility of her love for Francisco. (3)
Scenes of Dagny and the valley:
Galt’s lectures; Dagny-Richard Halley; Dagny-Kay Ludlow; Dagny-young mother. (4)
Dagny and the plan for the railroad
(then—“what for?”) (5)
Scene where they discuss Dagny’s departure:
Dagny, Galt, Francisco, Mulligan, Akston. Here they beg Galt to remain in the valley, he has no further reason to stay outside; but he says that he has not yet decided, he might stay outside—for “the one thing he wants for himself” (though not in any collaboration or compromise with the looters—nor with the “scabs,” this is not
for
Dagny, but
for him).

Think over:
whether to indicate the economic future of the world when the strikers return—and Judge Narragansett’s proposed amendment to the Constitution.

 

1.
Scene of Galt telling Dagny how he saw her for the first time.
(Preceded by her question about how he watched her and what is his job in the outside world.) (He finds her asleep. The story is followed by the temptation scene.)

2.
Dagny-Francisco, in his house.

3.
Dagny-the valley
(Galt’s lectures, Richard Halley, Kay Ludlow, young mother).

4.
Dagny—plan of railroad.
(“I won’t ask you—you’ll tell me when you’ve decided.”)

5.
Dr. Akston and his three pupils.

6.
Rearden’s plane.

7.
Scene of “no-sacrifice.”

8.
Discussion of Dagny’s departure.
(Talk of danger to Galt, of break-down and Taggart bridge, makes her decide to go back.)

9.
Francisco discovers Galt-Dagny romance.
(They walk home together and stop at Francisco’s house. Question of Galt going back to his job. The two silver goblets. “Take it. You’ve earned it.”)

10.
The flight by plane, and their parting.

The essential paradox, which is the root of all philosophical errors, is as follows: to substitute for an abstraction one of the concrete applications of that abstraction, and at the same time make that concrete contradict and invalidate the abstraction. Example: when a man decides that thought is not valid, that he will not think, but will instead obey the orders of a dictator, it is an act and decision of thought; he substitutes specific “political thought” for the general abstraction of “thought,” declares thought to be invalid and holds this as a justification for the thinking which led him to decide to stop thinking about politics and to obey political orders.

 

 

Taggart’s desire for the unearned spiritually—he does not want Cherryl to rise,
he wants his “love” for her to be alms
and he wants her admiration for him to be sincere, but unearned; her torture under an impossible paradox.
Her horror when she realizes that his love was in answer to flaws,
rather than in answer to values (the exact opposite of the Rearden-Dagny romance). Taggart’s hold on her through her pity; he stops her doubts by means of his whining and her generosity—until she sees the truth. She thinks that suffering is still a sign of the good in him, of his struggling for something—
until she realizes what the nature of his suffering is: his frustrated desire for destruction.
(Her struggle with “culture”—her boredom with the Eubank kind of art, her bewilderment at the revivals of classics, Taggart’s anger at her questions about it. Here—parallel to the last-stage economic looting.)

 

 

Taggart wishes to celebrate the deal which has given a loan to the People’s State of Chile in exchange for the promise that the d‘Anconia Copper mines will be nationalized on September 2, then turned over on “operation lease” to an “international group” consisting of Orren Boyle, an equivalent of Cuffy Meigs, and others of that sort. No word has been said publicly about Dagny’s broadcast, but Bertram Scudder has been made the goat: his program is abolished. He has to keep silent if he doesn’t want to be framed and jailed or [punished as] the authorities please.

Taggart’s sudden realization that nothing gives him pleasure. Taggart and Cherryl, their “formal” dinner. Her poise and silence, his attempts to get her sanction.

Flashback to highlights of their marriage and of her growing realization.

Her bewilderment about their wedding party—and her determination to understand, and to be worthy of him.

Her attempts at self-improvement, and his vicious attitude toward it.

She begins to suspect his position on the railroad (faith versus truth); she decides to investigate. The evasiveness of the railroad officials; the common workers tell her the truth; Eddie Willers tells her the whole truth.

Taggart’s fury about her “ingratitude,” then his play for pity and “understanding”—her tortured fairness and patience. (Her disappointment in “culture”—his incomprehensible anger about it.)

Now, at dinner, his attempt at “celebration” fails—he talks about “causeless” love—she will not grant him sanction. (“What I feel is fear.” “Of me?” “No, not exactly. Not of what you can do, but of what you are.”)

Cherryl goes to see Dagny. Cherryl’s apology and despair; Dagny cannot fully reassure her.

Lillian comes to see Taggart about stopping the divorce. He can’t help her, but they both share the enjoyment over Francisco’s coming ruin and over Rearden’s crushing burdens.
This
is the celebration Taggart wanted. Their affair.

Cherryl comes home to find that Taggart is in the bedroom with some woman. Cherryl does not walk in, she hides in her own study and waits, then comes out and confronts Taggart when he is alone. His vicious admissions, his boast that the woman was Lillian Rearden, his laughter when Cherryl offers to give him a divorce—her horror at the full realization of the meaning of his love, the love “in answer to flaws.” She almost names the death principle—he slaps her.

She runs out of the house, wanders through the streets, the city—as her symbol of greatness, but now she is in total terror that she has no way of knowing the good from the evil. (The traffic lights.) Her suicide—she leaps into the river.

 

 

[In regard to] the “death principle” and James Taggart: Taggart wanted Cherryl to be vicious—and moral—at the same time. This means that he wants good people to “weaken” occasionally and thus give him both the benefit of their virtue and the license for his evil. It is their “weaknesses,” their evil, that would make it possible for him to exploit their virtues. (Example: Rearden’s sex guilt and the gift certificate.) It is the “middle-of-the-road” morality—the theory that “there’s something bad in the best of us”—that is the most immoral theory possible, because it is the only theory that makes it possible for evil to exist. Pure evil is impotent, it is destruction and nonexistence; it is only by feeding on and penalizing virtue that evil can act and have power in the world.