Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [279]
“You have the right to condemn me in any way you wish.”
She laughed. “The great man who was so contemptuous—in business—of weaklings who trimmed comers or fell by the wayside, because they couldn’t match his strength of character and steadfastness of purpose! How do you feel about it now?”
“My feelings need not concern you. You have the right to decide what you wish me to do. I will agree to any demand you make, except one: don’t ask me to give it up.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t ask you to give it up! I wouldn’t expect you to change your nature. This is your true level—under all that self-made grandeur of a knight of industry who rose by sheer genius from the ore mine gutters to finger bowls and white tie! It fits you well, that white tie, to come home in at eleven o.‘clock in the morning! You never rose out of the ore mines, that’s where you belong—all of you self-made princes of the cash register—in the corner saloon on Saturday night, with the traveling salesmen and the dance-hall girls!”
“Do you wish to divorce me?”
“Oh, wouldn’t you like that! Wouldn’t that be a smart trade to pull! Don’t you suppose I know that you’ve wanted to divorce me since the first month of our marriage?”
“If that is what you thought, why did you stay with me?”
She answered severely, “It’s a question you have lost the right to ask.”
“That’s true,” he said, thinking that only one conceivable reason, her love for him, could justify her answer.
“No, I’m not going to divorce you. Do you suppose that I will allow your romance with a floozie to deprive me of my home, my name, my social position? I shall preserve such pieces of my life as I can, whatever does not rest on so shoddy a foundation as your fidelity. Make no mistake about it: I shall never give you a divorce. Whether you like it or not, you’re married and you’ll stay married.”
“I will, if that is what you wish.”
“And furthermore, I will not consider—incidentally, why don’t you sit down?”
He remained standing. “Please say what you have to say.”
“I will not consider any unofficial divorce, such as a separation. You may continue your love idyll in the subways and basements where it belongs, but in the eyes of the world I will expect you to remember that I am Mrs. Henry Rearden. You have always proclaimed such an exaggerated devotion to honesty—now let me see you be condemned to the life of the hypocrite that you really are. I will expect you to maintain your residence at the home which is officially yours, but will now be mine.”
“If you wish.”
She leaned back loosely, in a manner of untidy relaxation, her legs spread apart, her arms resting in two strict parallels on the arms of the chair—like a judge who could permit himself to be sloppy.
“Divorce?” she said, chuckling coldly. “Did you think you’d get off as easily as that? Did you think you’d get by at the price of a few of your millions tossed off as alimony? You’re so used to purchasing whatever you wish by the simple means of your dollars, that you cannot conceive of things that are non-commercial, non-negotiable, non-subject to any kind of trade. You’re unable to believe that there may exist a person who feels no concern for money. You cannot imagine what that means. Well, I think you’re going to learn. Oh yes, of course you’ll agree to any demand I make, from now on. I want you to sit in that office of which you’re so proud, in those precious mills of yours, and play the hero who works eighteen hours a day, the giant of industry who keeps the whole country going, the genius who is above the common herd of whining, lying, chiseling humanity. Then I want you to come home and face the only person who knows you for what you really are, who knows the actual value of your word, of your honor, of your integrity, of your