Atlas Shrugged [166]
"Mr. Taggart, what is it that makes you so unhappy?"
"Why should you care whether I am or not?"
"Because . . . well, if you haven't the right to be happy and proud, who has?"
"That's what I want to know-who has?" He turned to her abruptly, the words exploding as if a safety fuse had blown. "He didn't invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?"
"Who?"
"Rearden. He didn't invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn't have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it's his? Why does he think it's his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else.
Nobody ever invents anything."
She said, puzzled, "But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn't anybody else make that Metal, but Mr.
Rearden did?"
"He didn't do it for any noble purpose, he did it just for his own profit, he's never done anything for any other reason."
"What's wrong with that, Mr. Taggart?" Then she laughed softly, as if at the sudden solution of a riddle. "That's nonsense, Mr. Taggart. You don't mean it. You know that Mr. Rearden has earned all his profits, and so have you. You're saying those things just to be modest, when everybody knows what a great job you people have done-you and Mr. Rearden and your sister, who must be such a wonderful person!"
"Yeah? That's what you think. She's a hard, insensitive woman who spends her life building tracks and bridges, not for any great ideal, but only because that's what she enjoys doing. If she enjoys it, what is there to admire about her doing it? I'm not so sure it was great-building that Line for all those prosperous industrialists in Colorado, when there are so many poor people in blighted areas who need transportation."
"But, Mr. Taggart, it was you who fought to build that Line."
"Yes, because it was my duty-to the company and the stockholders and our employees. But don't expect me to enjoy it. I'm not so sure it was great-inventing this complex new Metal, when so many nations are in need of plain iron-why, do you know that the People's State of China hasn't even got enough nails to put wooden roofs over people's heads?"
"But . . . but I don't see that that's your fault."
"Somebody should attend to it. Somebody with the vision to see beyond his own pocketbook. No sensitive person these days-when there's so much suffering around us-would devote ten years of his life to splashing about with a lot of trick metals. You think it's great? Well, it's not any kind of superior ability, but just a hide that you couldn't pierce if you poured a ton of his own steel over his head! There are many people of much greater ability in the world, but you don't read about them in the headlines and you don't run to gape at them at grade crossings-because they can't invent non-collapsible bridges at a time when the suffering of mankind weighs on their spirit!"
She was looking at him silently, respectfully, her joyous eagerness toned down, her eyes subdued. He felt better.
He picked up his drink, took a gulp, and chuckled abruptly at a sudden recollection.
"It was funny, though," he said, his tone easier, livelier, the tone of a confidence to a pal. "You should have seen Orren Boyle yesterday, when the first flash came through on the radio from Wyatt Junction! He turned green-but I mean, green, the color of a fish that's been lying around too long! Do you know what he did last night, by way of taking the bad news? Hired himself a suite at the Valhalla Hotel-and you know what that is-and the last I heard, he was still there today, drinking himself under the table and the beds, with a few choice friends of his and half the female population of upper Amsterdam Avenue!"
"Who is Mr. Boyle?" she asked, stupefied.
"Oh, a fat slob that's inclined to overreach himself. A smart guy who gets too smart at times. You should have seen his face yesterday! I got a kick out of that. That-and Dr. Floyd Ferris. That smoothy