Atlas Shrugged [284]
"Mr. Danagger, I came here to speak to you about a matter of crucial importance to the future of your business and mine. I came to speak to you about your indictment."
"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. It doesn't matter. I'm going to retire."
She sat still, feeling nothing, wondering numbly whether this was how it felt to hear a death sentence one had dreaded, but had never quite believed possible.
Her first movement was a sudden jerk of her head toward the exit door; she asked, her voice low, her mouth distorted by hatred, "Who was he?"
Danagger laughed. "If you've guessed that much, you should have guessed that it's a question I won't answer."
"Oh God, Ken Danagger!" she moaned; his words made her realize that the barrier of hopelessness, of silence, of unanswered questions was already erected between them; the hatred had been only a thin wire that had held her for a moment and she broke with its breaking.
"Oh God!"
"You're wrong, kid," he said gently. "I know how you feel, but you're wrong," then added more formally, as if remembering the proper manner, as if still trying to balance himself between two kinds of reality, "I'm sorry, Miss Taggart, that you had to come here so soon after."
"I came too late," she said. "That's what I came here to prevent. I knew it would happen."
"Why?"
"I felt certain that he'd get you next, whoever he is."
"You did? That's funny. I didn't."
"I wanted to warn you, to . . . to arm you against him."
He smiled. "Take my word for it, Miss Taggart, so that you won't torture yourself with regrets about the timing; that could not have been done."
She felt that with every passing minute he was moving away into some great distance where she would not be able to reach him, but there was still some thin bridge left between them and she had to hurry.
She leaned forward, she said very quietly, the intensity of emotion taking form in the exaggerated steadiness of her voice, "Do you remember what you thought and felt, what you were, three hours ago? Do you remember what your mines meant to you? Do you remember Taggart Transcontinental or Rearden Steel? In the name of that, will you answer me? Will you help me to understand?"
"I will answer whatever I may."
"You have decided to retire? To give up your business?"
"Yes."
"Does it mean nothing to you now?"
"It means more to me now than it ever did before."
"But you're going to abandon it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"That, I won't answer,"
"You, who loved your work, who respected nothing but work, who despised every kind of aimlessness, passivity and renunciation-have you renounced the kind of life you loved?"
"No. I have just discovered how much I do love it."
"But you intend to exist without work or purpose?"
"What makes you think that?"
"Are you going into the coal-mining business somewhere else?"
"No, not into the coal-mining business."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"I haven't decided that yet."
"Where are you going?"
"I won't answer."
She gave herself a moment's pause, to gather her strength, to tell herself; Don't feel, don't show him that you feel anything, don't let it cloud and break the bridge-then she said, in the same quiet, even voice, "Do you realize what your retirement will do to Hank Rearden, to me, to all the rest of us, whoever is left?"
"Yes. I realize it more fully than you do at present."
"And it means nothing to you?"
"It means more than you will care to believe."
"Then why are you deserting us?"
"You will not believe it and I will not explain, but I am not deserting you."
"We're being left to carry a greater burden, and you're indifferent to the knowledge that you'll see us destroyed by the looters."
"Don't be too sure of that."
"Of which? Your indifference or our destruction?"
"Of either."
"But you know, you knew it this morning, that it's a battle to the death, and it's we-you were one of us-against the looters."