Atlas Shrugged [649]
It was strange-she thought, in the days that followed, looking at the men around her-that catastrophe had made them aware of Hank Rearden with an intensity that his achievements had not aroused, as if the paths of their consciousness were open to disaster, but not to value.
Some spoke of him in shrill curses-others whispered, with a look of guilt and terror, as if a nameless retribution were now to descend upon them-some tried, with hysterical evasiveness, to act as if nothing had happened.
The newspapers, like puppets on tangled strings, were shouting with the same belligerence and on the same dates: "It is social treason to ascribe too much importance to Hank Rearden's desertion and to undermine public morale by the old-fashioned belief that an individual can be of any significance to society." "It is social treason to spread rumors about the disappearance of Hank Rearden. Mr. Rearden has not disappeared, he is in his office, running his mills, as usual, and there has been no trouble at Rearden Steel, except a minor disturbance, a private scuffle among some workers." "It is social treason to cast an unpatriotic light upon the tragic loss of Hank Rearden. Mr. Rearden has not deserted, he was killed in an automobile accident on his way to work, and his grief-stricken family has insisted on a private funeral."
It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials, as if existence had ceased, facts had vanished and only the frantic negatives uttered by officials and columnists gave any clue to the reality they were denying. "It is not true that the Miller Steel Foundry of New Jersey has gone out of business." "It is not true that the Jansen Motor Company of Michigan has closed its doors." "It is a vicious, anti-social lie that manufacturers of steel products are collapsing under the threat of a steel shortage. There is no reason to expect a steel shortage." "It is a slanderous, unfounded rumor that a Steel Unification Plan had been in the making and that it had been favored by Mr.
Orren Boyle. Mr. Boyle's attorney has issued an emphatic denial and has assured the press that Mr. Boyle is now vehemently opposed to any such plan. Mr. Boyle, at the moment, is suffering from a nervous breakdown."
But some news could be witnessed in the streets of New York, in the cold, dank twilight of autumn evenings: a crowd gathered in front of a hardware store, where the owner had thrown the doors open, inviting people to help themselves to the last of his meager stock, while he laughed in shrieking sobs and went smashing his plate-glass windows-
a crowd gathered at the door of a run-down apartment house, where a police ambulance stood waiting, while the bodies of a man, his wife and their three children were being removed from a gas-filled room; the man had been a small manufacturer of steel castings.
If they see Hank Rearden's value now-she thought-why didn't they see it sooner? Why hadn't they averted their own doom and spared him his years of thankless torture? She found no answer.
In the silence of sleepless nights, she thought that Hank Rearden and she had now changed places: he was in Atlantis and she was locked out by a screen of light-he was, perhaps, calling to her as she had called to his struggling airplane, but no signal could reach her through that screen.
Yet the screen split open for one brief break-for the length of a letter she received a week after he vanished. The envelope bore no return address, only the postmark of some hamlet in Colorado. The letter contained two sentences: I have met him. I don't blame you.
H.R.
She sat still for a long time, looking at the letter, as if unable to move or to feel. She felt nothing, she thought, then noticed that her shoulders were trembling in a faint, continuous shudder, then grasped that the tearing violence within her was made of an exultant tribute, of gratitude and of despair-her tribute to the victory that the meeting