Atlas Shrugged [294]
After a while, Francisco said, "You saved my Me." The "thank you"
was in the way he said it.
Rearden chuckled. "You saved my furnace."
They went on in silence. Rearden felt himself growing lighter with every step. Raising his face to the cold air, he saw the peaceful darkness bf the sky and a single star above a smokestack with the vertical lettering: Rearden Steel. He felt how glad he was to be alive.
He did not expect the change he saw in Francisco's face when he looked at it in the light of his office. The things he had seen by the glare of the furnace were gone. He had expected a look of triumph, of mockery at all the insults Francisco had heard from him, a look demanding the apology he was joyously eager to offer. Instead, he saw a face made lifeless by an odd dejection.
"Are you hurt?"
"No . . . no, not at all."
"Come here," ordered Rearden, opening the door of his bathroom.
. "Look at yourself."
"Never mind. You come here."
For the first time, Rearden felt that he was the older man; he felt the pleasure of taking Francisco in charge; he felt a confident, amused, paternal protectiveness. He washed the grime off Francisco's face, he put disinfectants and adhesive bandages on his temple, his hands, his scorched elbows. Francisco obeyed him in silence.
Rearden asked, in the tone of the most eloquent salute he could offer, "Where did you learn to work like that?"
Francisco shrugged. "I was brought up around smelters of every kind," he answered indifferently.
Rearden could not decipher the expression of his face: it was only a look of peculiar stillness, as if his eyes were fixed on some secret vision of his own that drew his mouth into a line of desolate, bitter, hurting self-mockery.
They did not speak until they were back in the office.
"You know," said Rearden, "everything you said here was true. But that was only part of the story. The other part is what we've done tonight. Don't you see? We're able to act. They're not. So it's we who'll win in the long run, no matter what they do to us."
Francisco did not answer, "Listen," said Rearden, "I know what's been the trouble with you.
You've never cared to do a real day's work in your life. I thought you were conceited enough, but I see that you have no idea of what you've got in you. Forget that fortune of yours for a while and come to work for me. I'll start you as furnace foreman any time. You don't know what it will do for you. In a few years, you'll be ready to appreciate and to run d'Anconia Copper."
He expected a burst of laughter and he was prepared to argue; instead, he saw Francisco shaking his head slowly, as if he could not trust his voice, as if he feared that were he to speak, he would accept.
In a moment, he said, "Mr. Rearden . . . I think I would give the rest of my life for one year as your furnace foreman. But I can't."
"Why not?"
"Don't ask me. It's . . . a personal matter."
The vision of Francisco in Rearden's mind, which he had resented and found irresistibly attractive, had been the figure of a man radiantly incapable of suffering. What he saw now in Francisco's eyes was the look of a quiet, tightly controlled, patiently borne torture.
Francisco reached silently for his overcoat.
"You're not leaving, are you?" asked Rearden, "Yes."
"Aren't you going to finish what you had to tell me?"
"Not tonight."
"You wanted me to answer a question. What was it?"
Francisco shook his head.
"You started asking me how can I . . . How can I-what?"
Francisco's smile was like a moan of pain, the only moan he would permit himself. "I won't ask it, Mr. Rearden. I know it."
CHAPTER IV: THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM
The roast turkey had cost $30. The champagne had cost $25. The lace