| A Woman's Love and her Standard of Loyalty |
| Hank Rearden leaned back, closing his eyes. He felt the column trembling with the rumble of the crane. The job was done, he thought. A worker saw him and grinned in understanding, like a fellow accomplice in a great celebration, who knew why that tall, blond figure had had to be present here tonight. Rearden smiled: it was the only salute he had received. Then he started back for his office, once again a figure with an expressionless face. It was late when Hank Rearden left his office that night to walk from his mills to his house. It was a walk of some miles through empty country, but he had felt like doing it, without conscious reason. He walked, keeping one hand in his pocket, his fingers closed about a bracelet. It was made of Rearden Metal, in the shape of a chain. His fingers moved, feeling its texture once in a while. It had taken ten years to make that bracelet. Ten years, he thought, is a long time. He did not think of the ten years. What remained of them tonight was only a feeling which he could not name, except that it was quiet and solumn. The feeling was a sum, and he did not have to count again the parts that had gone to make it. But the parts, unrecalled, were there, within the feeling. They were the nights spent at scorching ovens in the research laboratory of the mills -- --the nights he spent in the workshop of his home, over sheets of paper, which he filled with formulas, then tore up in angry failure -- -- the days when the young scientists of the small staff he had chosen to assist him waited for instructions like soldiers ready for a hopeless battle, having exahusted their ingenuity, still willing, but silent, with the unspoken sentence hanging in the air: "Mr. Rearden, it can't be done -- " -- the metals, interrupted and abandoned at the sudden flash of a new thought, a thought to be pursued at once, to be tried, to be tested, to be worked on for months, and to be discarded as another failure -- -- the moments snatched from conferences, from contracts, from the duties of running the best steel mills in the country, snatched almost guiltily, as for a secret love -- --the one thought held immovable across a span of ten years, under everything he did and everything he saw, the thought held in his mind when he looked at the buildings of a city, at the track of a railroad, at the light in the windows of a distant farmhouse, at the knife in the hands of a beautiful woman cutting a piece of fruit at a banquet, the thought of a metal alloy that would do more than steel had ever done, a metal that would be to steel what steel had been to iron -- -- the acts of self-racking when he discarded a hope or a sample, not permitting himself to know that he was tired, not giving himself time to feel, driving himself through the wringing torture of: "not good enough... still not good enough..." and going on with no motor save the conviction that it could be done -- -- these were the things that had come together to white heat, had melted and fused within him, and their alloy was a strange, quiet feeling that made him smile at the countryside in the darkness and wonder why happiness could hurt. As the road came closer to his house, he noticed that his steps were slowing down and that something was ebbing away from his mood. He felt a dim reluctance to enter his home, which he did not want to feel. No, he thought, not tonight; they'll understand it, tonight. But he did not know, he had never defined what it was that he wanted them to understand. "I'm sorry I'm late, Lillian, but today at the mills we poured the first heat of Rearden Metal." There was a moment of silence. Then Philip said, "Well, that's nice." The others said nothing. He put his hand in his pocket. When he touched it, the reality of the bracelet swept over everything else; he felt as he had felt when the liquid metal had poured through space before him. "I brought you a present, Lillian." He did not know that he stood straight and that the gesture of his arm was that of a returning crusader offering his trophy to his love, when he dropped a small chain into her lap. "What's that?" she asked. "The first thing made from the first heat of the first order of Rearden Metal." "You mean," she said, "it's fully as valuable as a piece of railroad rails?" She jingled the bracelet, making it sparkle under the light. "Henry it's perfectly wonderful! What originality! I shall be the sensation of New York, wearing jewelry made of the same stuff as bridge girders, truck motors, kitchen stoves, typewriters, and - what was it you were saying about it the other day, darling? - soup kettles?" "God, Henry, but you're conceited!" said Philip. Lillian laughed. "He's a sentimentalist. All men are. But, darling, I do appreciate it. It isn't the gift, it's the intention, I know." "The intention's plain selfishness, if you ask me," said Rearden's mother. "Another man would bring a diamond bracelet, if he wanted to give his wife a present, because it's her pleasure he'd think of, not his own. But Henry thinks that just because he's made a new kind of tin, why, it's got to be more precious than diamonds to everybody, just because it's he that's made it. That's the way he's been since he was five years old - the most conceited brat you ever saw - and I knew he'd grow up to be the most selfish creature on God's earth." * * * [Three months later], Dangy stood staring at the room, as if one sense could replace another, as if sight could wipe out sound. She moved her head in a slow circle, trying to find an anchor somewhere. Don't shake like this, she thought. Get out of here. This was the approach of an anger she could not control. She thought: Say nothing. Walk steadily. Get out. She had started walking, cautiously, very slowly. She heard Lillian's words and stopped. Lillian had said it many times this evening in answer to the same question, but it was the first time that Dagny had heard it. "This?" Lillian was saying, extending her arm with the metal bracelet for the two smartly groomed women. "Why, no, it's not from a hardware store, it's a very special gift from my husband. Oh, yes, of course it's hideous. But don't you see? It's supposed to be priceless. Of course, I'd exchange it for a common diamond bracelet any time, but somehow nobody will offer me one for it, even though it is so very, very valuable. Why? My dear, it's the first thing ever made of Rearden Metal." Dagny did not see the room. She did not hear the music. She felt the pressure of dead stillness against her eardrums. She did not know the moment that preceeded, or the moments that were to follow. She did not know those involved, neither herself, nor Lillian, nor Rearden, nor the meaning of her own action. It was a single instant, blasted out of context. She had heard. She was looking at the bracelet of green-blue metal. She felt the movement of something being torn off her wrist, and she heard her own voice saying in great stillness, very calmly, a voice cold as a skeleton, naked of emotion, "If you are not the coward that I think you are, you will exchange it." On the palm of her hand, she was extending her diamond bracelet to Lillian. "You're not serious, Miss Taggert" said a woman's voice. It was not Lillian's voice. Lillian's eyes were looking straight at her. She saw them. Lillian knew she was serious. "Give me that bracelet," said Dagny, lifting her palm higher, the diamond band glittering across it. "This is horrible!" cried some woman. It was strange that the cry stood out sharply. Then Dagny realized that there were people standing around them and that they all stood in silence. She was hearing sounds now, even the music; it was Halley's mangled Concerto, somewhere far away. She saw Rearden's face. It looked as if something within him were mangled, like the music; she did not know by what. He was watching them. Lillian's mouth moved into an upturned crescent. It resembled a smile. She snapped the metal bracelet open, dropped it on Dagny's palm and took the diamond band. "Thank you, Miss Taggert," she said. Dagny's fingers closed about the metal. She felt that; she felt nothing else. "You may have it back, Miss Taggert, when you change you mind." Lillian said. Dagny had turned away. She felt calm and free. The pressure was gone. The need to get out had vanished. She clasped the metal bracelet on her wrist. She liked the feel of the weight against her skin. Inexplicably, she felt a touch of feminine vanity, the kind she had never experiened before: the desire to be seen wearing this particular ornament. ~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged |