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By Root 11877 0

didn't like it a bit, oh not a bit!-the elegant Dr. Ferris of the State Science Institute, the servant of the people, with the patent-leather vocabulary-but he carried it off pretty well, I must say, only you could see him squirming in every paragraph-I mean, that interview he gave out this morning, where he said, 'The country gave Rearden that Metal, now we expect him to give the country something in return.' That was pretty nifty, considering who's been riding on the gravy train and . . . well, considering. That was better than Bertram Scudder-Mr. Scudder couldn't think of anything but 'No comment,' when his fellow gentlemen of the press asked him to voice his sentiments. 'No comment'-from Bertram Scudder who's never been known to shut his trap from the day he was born, about anything you ask him or don't ask, Abyssinian poetry or the state of the ladies' rest rooms in the textile industry! And Dr. Pritchett, the old fool, is going around saying that he knows for certain that Rearden didn't invent that Metal-because he was told, by an unnamed reliable source, that Rearden stole the formula from a penniless inventor whom he murdered!"

He was chuckling happily. She was listening as to a lecture on higher mathematics, grasping nothing, not even the style of the language, a style which made the mystery greater, because she was certain that it did not mean-coming from him-what it would have meant anywhere else.

He refilled his glass and drained it, but his gaiety vanished abruptly.

He slumped into an armchair, facing her, looking up at her from under his bald forehead, his eyes blurred.

"She's coming back tomorrow," he said, with a sound like a chuckle devoid of amusement.

"Who?"

"My sister. My dear sister. Oh, she'll think she's great, won't she?"

"You dislike your sister, Mr. Taggart?" He made the same sound; its meaning was so eloquent that she needed no other answer. "Why?" she asked.

"Because she thinks she's so good. What right has she to think it?

What right has anybody to think he's good? Nobody's any good."

"You don't mean it, Mr. Taggart."

"I mean, we're only human beings-and what's a human being? A weak, ugly, sinful creature, born that way, rotten in his bones-so humility is the one virtue he ought to practice. He ought to spend his life on his knees, begging to be forgiven for his dirty existence. When a man thinks he's good-that's when he's rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he's done."

"But if a man knows that what he's done is good?"

"Then he ought to apologize for it."

"To whom?"

"To those who haven't done it."

"I . . . I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. It takes years and years of study in the higher reaches of the intellect. Have you ever heard of The Metaphysical Contradictions of the Universe, by Dr. Simon Pritchett?" She shook her head, frightened. "How do you know what's good, anyway? Who knows what's good? Who can ever know? There are no absolutes-as Dr.

Pritchett has proved irrefutably. Nothing is absolute. Everything is a matter of opinion. How do you know that that bridge hasn't collapsed?

You only think it hasn't. How do you know that there's any bridge at all?

You think that a system of philosophy-such as Dr. Pritchett's-is just something academic, remote, impractical? But it isn't. Oh, boy, how it isn't!"

"But, Mr. Taggart, the Line you built-"

"Oh, what's that Line, anyway? It's only a material achievement, is that of any importance? Is there any greatness in anything material?

Only a low animal can gape at that bridge-when there are so many higher things in life. But do the higher things ever get recognition? Oh no! Look at people. All that hue and cry and front pages about some trick arrangement of some scraps of matter. Do they care about any nobler issue? Do they ever give front pages to a phenomenon of the spirit? Do they notice or appreciate a person of finer sensibility? And you wonder whether it's true that a great man is doomed to unhappiness in this depraved world!" He leaned forward, staring at her intently. "I'll tell you . . . I'll