Atlas Shrugged [168]
He saw the puzzled, anxious look of her face. "But, Mr. Taggart, you got everything you wanted. Now you have the best railroad in the country, the newspapers call you the greatest business executive of the age, they say the stock of your company made a fortune for you overnight, you got everything you could ask for-aren't you glad of it?"
In the brief space of his answer, she felt frightened, sensing a sudden fear within him. He answered, "No."
She didn't know why her voice dropped to a whisper. "You'd rather the bridge had collapsed?"
"I haven't said that!" he snapped sharply. Then he shrugged and waved his hand in a gesture of contempt. "You don't understand."
"I'm sorry . . . Oh, I know that I have such an awful lot to learn!"
"I am talking about a hunger for something much beyond that bridge.
A hunger that nothing material will ever satisfy."
"What, Mr. Taggart? What is it you want?"
"Oh, there you go! The moment you ask, 'What is it?' you're back in the crude, material world where everything's got to be tagged and measured. I'm speaking of things that can't be named in materialistic words . . . the higher realms of the spirit, which man can never reach. . . .
What's any human achievement, anyway? The earth is only an atom whirling in the universe-of what importance is that bridge to the solar system?"
A sudden, happy look of understanding cleared her eyes. "It's great of you, Mr. Taggart, to think that your own achievement isn't good enough for you. I guess no matter how far you've gone, you want to go still farther. You're ambitious. That's what I admire most: ambition. I mean, doing things, not stopping and giving up, but doing. I understand, Mr. Taggart . . . even if I don't understand all the big thoughts."
"You'll learn."
"Oh, I'll work very hard to learn!"
Her glance of admiration had not changed. He walked across the room, moving in that glance as in a gentle spotlight. He went to refill his glass. A mirror hung in the niche behind the portable bar. He caught a glimpse of his own figure: the tall body distorted by a sloppy, sagging posture, as if in deliberate negation of human grace, the thinning hair, the soft, sullen mouth. It struck him suddenly that she did not see him at all: what she saw was the heroic figure of a builder, with proudly straight shoulders and wind-blown hair. He chuckled aloud, feeling that this was a good joke on her, feeling dimly a satisfaction that resembled a sense of victory: the superiority of having put something over on her.
Sipping his drink, he glanced at the door of his bedroom and thought of the usual ending for an adventure of this kind. He thought that it would be easy: the girl was too awed to resist. He saw the reddish-bronze sparkle of her hair-as she sat, head bent, under a light-and a wedge of smooth, glowing skin on her shoulder. He looked away. Why bother?
-he thought.
The hint of desire that he felt, was no more than a sense of physical discomfort. The sharpest impulse in his mind, nagging him to action, was not the thought of the girl, but of all the men who would not pass up an opportunity of this kind. He admitted to himself that she was a much better person than Betty Pope, perhaps the best person ever offered to him. The admission left him indifferent. He felt no more than he had felt for Betty Pope. He felt nothing. The prospect of experiencing pleasure was not worth the effort; he had no desire to experience pleasure.
"It's getting late," he said. "Where do you live? Let me give you another drink and then I'll take you home."
When he said good-bye to her at the door of a miserable rooming house in a slum neighborhood, she hesitated, fighting not to ask a question which she desperately wished to ask him, "Will I . . . " she began, and stopped.
"What?"
"No, nothing, nothing!"
He knew that the question was: "Will I see you again?" It gave him pleasure not to answer, even though he knew