Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [300]
“Me, I’m just going to be old-fashioned,” said Philip. “I’m just going to thank the sweetest mother in the world.”
“Well, for the matter of that,” said Rearden’s mother, “we ought to thank Lillian for this dinner and for all the trouble she took to make it so pretty. She spent hours fixing the table. It’s real quaint and different.”
“It’s the wooden shoe that does it,” said Philip, bending his head sidewise to study it in a manner of critical appreciation. “That’s the real touch. Anybody can have candles, silverware and junk, that doesn’t take anything but money—but this shoe, that took thought.”
Rearden said nothing. The candlelight moved over his motionless face as over a portrait; the portrait bore an expression of impersonal courtesy.
“You haven’t touched your wine,” said his mother, looking at him. “What I think is you ought to drink a toast in gratitude to the people of this country who have given you so much.”
“Henry is not in the mood for it, Mother,” said Lillian. “I’m afraid Thanksgiving is a holiday only for those who have a clear conscience.” She raised her wine glass, but stopped it halfway to her lips and asked, “You’re not going to make some sort of stand at your trial tomorrow, are you, Henry?”
“I am.”
She put the glass down. “What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see it tomorrow.”
“You don’t really imagine that you can get away with it!”
“I don’t know what you have in mind as the object I’m to get away with.”
“Do you realize that the charge against you is extremely serious?”
“I do.”
“You’ve admitted that you sold the Metal to Ken Danagger.”
“I have.”
“They might send you to jail for ten years.”
“I don’t think they will, but it’s possible.”
“Have you been reading the newspapers, Henry?” asked Philip, with an odd kind of smile.
“No.”
“Oh, you should!”
“Should I? Why?”
“You ought to see the names they call you!”
“That’s interesting,” said Rearden; he said it about the fact that Philip’s smile was one of pleasure.
“I don’t understand it,” said his mother. “Jail? Did you say jail, Lillian? Henry, are you going to be sent to jail?”
“I might be.”
“But that’s ridiculous! Do something about it.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it. Respectable people don’t go to jail. Do something. You’ve always known what to do about business.”
“Not this kind of business.”
“I don’t believe it.” Her voice had the tone of a frightened, spoiled child. “You’re saying it just to be mean.”
“He’s playing the hero, Mother,” said Lillian. She smiled coldly, turning to Rearden. “Don’t you think that your attitude is perfectly futile?”
“No.”
“You know that cases of this kind are not ... intended ever to come to trial. There are ways to avoid it, to get things settled amicably -if one knows the right people.”
“I don’t know the right people.”
“Look at Orren Boyle. He’s done much more and much worse than your little Sing at the black market, but he’s smart enough to keep himself out of courtrooms.”
“Then I’m not smart enough.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you made an effort to adjust yourself to the conditions of our age?”
“No.”
“Well, then I don’t see how you can pretend that you’re some sort of victim. If you go to jail, it will be your own fault.”
“What pretense are you talking about, Lillian?”
“Oh, I know that you think you’re fighting for some sort of principle —but actually it’s only a matter of your incredible conceit. You’re doing it for no better reason than because you think you’re right.”
“Do you think they’re right?”
She shrugged. “That’s the conceit I’m talking about—the idea that it matters who’s right or wrong. It’s the most insufferable form of vanity, this insistence on always doing right. How do you know what’s right? How can anyone ever know it? It’s nothing but a delusion to flatter your own ego and to hurt other people by flaunting your superiority over them.”
He was looking at her with attentive interest. “Why should it hurt other people, if it’s nothing but a delusion?”
“Is it necessary for me to point