Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [417]
Francisco closed his eyes.
“Don’t ask him that!” The cry was Dagny’s.
“Is this the woman you love?”
Francisco answered, looking at her, “Yes.”
Rearden’s hand rose, swept down and slapped Francisco’s face.
The scream came from Dagny. When she could see again—after an instant that felt as if the blow had struck her own cheek—Francisco’s hands were the first thing she saw. The heir of the d.‘Anconias stood thrown back against a table, clasping the edge behind him, not to support himself, but to stop his own hands. She saw the rigid stillness of his body, a body that was pulled too straight but seemed broken, with the slight, unnatural angles of his waistline and shoulders, with his arms held stiff but slanted back—he stood as if the effort not to move were turning the force of his violence against himself, as if the motion he resisted were running through his muscles as a tearing pain. She saw his convulsed fingers struggling to grow fast to the table’s edge, she wondered which would break first, the wood of the table or the bones of the man, and she knew that Rearden’s life hung in the balance.
When her eyes moved up to Francisco’s face, she saw no sign of struggle, only the skin of his temples pulled tight and the planes of his cheeks drawn inward, seeming faintly more hollow than usual. It made his face look naked, pure and young. She felt terror because she was seeing in his eyes the tears which were not there. His eyes were brilliant and dry. He was looking at Rearden, but it was not Rearden that he was seeing. He looked as if he were facing another presence in the room and as if his glance were saying: If this is what you demand of me, then even this is yours, yours to accept and mine to endure, there is no more than this in me to offer you, but let me be proud to know that I can offer so much. She saw—with a single artery beating under the skin of his throat, with a froth of pink in the corner of his mouth-the look of an enraptured dedication which was almost a smile, and she .knew that she was witnessing Francisco d‘Anconia’s greatest achievement. .
When she felt herself shaking and heard her own voice, it seemed to meet the last echo of her scream in the air of the room—and she realized how brief a moment had passed between. Her voice had the savage sound of rising to deliver a blow and it was crying to Rearden:
“—to protect me from him? Long before you ever—”
“Don.‘t!” Francisco’s head jerked to her, the brief snap of his voice held all of his unreleased violence, and she knew it was an order that had to be obeyed.
Motionless but for the slow curve of his head, Francisco turned to Rearden. She saw his hands leave the edge of the table and hang relaxed by his sides. It was Rearden that he was now seeing, and there was nothing in Francisco’s face except the exhaustion of effort, but Rearden knew suddenly how much this man had loved him.
“Within the extent of your knowledge,” Francisco said quietly, “you are right.”
Neither expecting nor permitting an answer, he turned to leave. He bowed to Dagny, inclining his head in a manner that appeared as a simple gesture of leave-taking to Rearden, as a gesture of acceptance to her. Then he left.
Rearden stood looking after him, knowing—without context and with absolute certainty—that he would give his life for the power not to have committed the action he had committed.
When he turned to Dagny, his face looked drained, open and faintly attentive, as if he were not questioning her about the words she had cut off, but were waiting for them to come.
A shudder of pity ran through her body and ended in the movement of shaking her head: she did not know for which of the two men the pity was intended, but it made her unable to speak and she shook her head over and over again, as if trying desperately to negate some vast, impersonal suffering that had made them all its victims.
“If there’s something that must be said, say it.” His voice was toneless.
The sound