Atlas Shrugged [76]
Unaccountably, by an association of feeling that astonished her, she remembered what had conveyed to her recently the same sense of consummate joy as his.
"Francisco," she heard herself saying softly, "we both loved the music of Richard Halley. . . ."
"I still love it."
"Have you ever met him?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Do you happen to know whether he has written a Fifth Concerto?"
He remained perfectly still. She had thought him impervious to shock; he wasn't. But she could not attempt to guess why of all the things she had said, this should be the first to reach him. It was only an instant; then he asked evenly, "What makes you think he has?"
"Well, has he?"
"You know that there are only four Halley Concertos."
"Yes. But I wondered whether he had written another one."
"He has stopped writing."
"I know."
"Then what made you ask that?"
"Just an idle thought. What is he doing now? Where is he?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen him for a long time. What made you think that there was a Fifth Concerto?"
"I didn't say there was. I merely wondered about it."
"Why did you think of Richard Halley just now?"
"Because"-she felt her control cracking a little-"because my mind can't make the leap from Richard Halley's music to . . . to Mrs.
Gilbert Vail."
He laughed, relieved. "Oh, that? . . . Incidentally, if you've been following my publicity, have you noticed a funny little discrepancy in the story of Mrs. Gilbert Vail?"
"I don't read the stuff."
"You should. She gave such a beautiful description of last New Year's Eve, which we spent together in my villa in the Andes. The moonlight on the mountain peaks, and the blood-red flowers hanging on vines in the open windows. See anything wrong in the picture?"
She said quietly, "It's I who should ask you that, and I'm not going to."
"Oh, I see nothing wrong-except that last New Year's Eve I was in El Paso, Texas, presiding at the opening of the San Sebastian Line of Taggart Transcontinental, as you should remember, even if you didn't choose to be present on the occasion. I had my picture taken with my arms around your brother James and the Senor Orren Boyle."
She gasped, remembering that this was true, remembering also that she had seen Mrs. Vail's story in the newspapers.
"Francisco, what . . . what does that mean?"
He chuckled. "Draw your own conclusions. . . . Dagny"-his face was serious-"why did you think of Halley writing a Fifth Concerto?
Why not a new symphony or opera? Why specifically a concerto?"
"Why does that disturb you?"
"It doesn't." He added softly, "I still love his music, Dagny." Then he spoke lightly again. "But it belonged to another age. Our age provides a different kind of entertainment."
He rolled over on his back and lay with his hands crossed under his head, looking up as if he were watching the scenes of a movie farce unrolling on the ceiling.
"Dagny, didn't you enjoy the spectacle of the behavior of the People's State of Mexico in regard to the San Sebastian Mines? Did you read their government's speeches and the editorials in their newspapers?
They're saying that I am an unscrupulous cheat who has defrauded them. They expected to have a successful mining concern to seize. I had no right to disappoint them like that. Did you read about the scabby little bureaucrat who wanted them to sue me?"
He laughed, lying flat on his back; his arms were thrown wide on the carpet, forming a cross with his body; he seemed disarmed, relaxed and young.
"It was worth whatever it's cost me. I could afford the price of that show. If I had staged it intentionally, I would have beaten the record of the Emperor Nero. What's burning a city-compared to tearing the lid off hell and letting men see it?"
He raised himself, picked up a few marbles and sat shaking them absently in his hand; they clicked with the soft, clear sound of good stone. She realized