Atlas Shrugged [629]
The look of terror in her eyes was real. A year ago, he would have told himself that this was her way of making amends; he would have choked his revulsion against her words, words which conveyed nothing to him but the fog of the meaningless; he would have violated his mind to give them meaning, even if he did not understand; he would have ascribed to her the virtue of sincerity in her own terms, even if they were not his. But he was through with granting respect to any terms other than his own.
"Will you forgive us?"
"Mother, it would be best not to speak of that. Don't press me to tell you why. I think you know it as well as I do. If there's anything you want done, tell me what it is. There's nothing else to discuss.
"But I don't understand you! I don't! That's what I called you here for-to ask your forgiveness! Are you going to refuse to answer me?"
"Very well. What would it mean, my forgiveness?"
"Uh?"
"I said, what would it mean?"
. She spread her hands out in an astonished gesture to indicate the self-evident. "Why, it . . . it would make us feel better."
"Will it change the past?"
"It would make us feel better to know that you've forgiven it."
"Do you wish me to pretend that the past has not existed?"
"Oh God, Henry, can't you see? All we want is only to know that you . . . that you feel some concern for us."
"I don't feel it. Do you wish me to fake it?"
"But that's what I'm begging you for-to feel it!"
"On what ground?"
"Ground?"
"In exchange for what?"
"Henry, Henry, it's not business we're talking about, not steel tonnages and bank balances, it's feelings-and you talk like a trader!"
"I am one."
What he saw in her eyes was terror-not the helpless terror of struggling and failing to understand, but the terror of being pushed toward the edge where to avoid understanding would no longer be possible.
"Look, Henry," said Philip hastily, "Mother can't understand those things. We don't know how to approach you. We can't speak your language."
"I don't speak yours."
"What she's trying to say is that we're sorry. We're terribly sorry that we've hurt you. You think we're not paying for it, but we are.
We're suffering remorse."
The pain in Philip's face was real. A year ago, Rearden would have felt pity. Now, he knew that they had held him through nothing but his reluctance to hurt them, his fear of their pain. He was not afraid of it any longer, "We're sorry, Henry. We know we've harmed you. We wish we could atone for it. But what can we do? The past is past. We can't undo it."
"Neither can I."
"You can accept our repentance," said Lillian, in a voice glassy with caution. "I have nothing to gain from you now. I only want you to know that whatever I've done, I've done it because I loved you."
He turned away, without answering.
"Henry!" cried his mother. "What's happened to you? What's changed you like that? You don't seem to be human any more! You keep pressing us for answers, when we haven't any answers to give. You keep beating us with logic-what's logic at a time like this?-what's logic when people are suffering?"
"We can't help it!" cried Philip.
"We're at your mercy," said Lillian.
They were throwing their pleas at a face that could not be reached.
They did not know-and their panic was the last of their struggle to escape the knowledge-that his merciless sense of justice, which had been their only hold on him, which had made him take any punishment and give them the benefit of every doubt, was now turned against them-that the same force that had made him tolerant, was now the force that made him ruthless-that the justice which would forgive miles of innocent errors of knowledge, would not forgive a single step taken in conscious evil.
"Henry, don't you understand us?" his mother was pleading.
"I do," he said quietly.
She looked away, avoiding the clarity of his eyes. "Don't you care what becomes of us?"
"I don't."
"Aren't you human?" Her voice grew shrill with anger. "Aren't you capable of any love at