Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [545]
He smiled as if his words were an ugly confession. “We’ve been making money in the past month,” he answered.
She saw the outer door open and James Taggart come in, accompanied by Mr. Meigs. “Eddie, do you want to be present at the conference?” she asked. “Or would you rather miss this one?”
“No. I want to be present.”
Jim’s face looked like a crumpled piece of paper, though its soft, puffed flesh had acquired no additional lines.
“Dagny, there’s a lot of things to discuss, a lot of important changes which—” he said shrilly, his voice rushing in ahead of his person. “Oh, I’m glad to see you back, I’m happy that you’re alive,” he added impatiently, remembering. “Now there are some urgent—”
“Let’s go to my office,” she said.
Her office was like a historical reconstruction, restored and maintained by Eddie Willers. Her map, her calendar, the picture of Nat Taggart were on the walls, and no trace was left of the Clifton Locey era.
“I understand that I am still the Operating Vice-President of this railroad?” she asked, sitting down at her desk.
“You are,” said Taggart hastily, accusingly, almost defiantly. “You certainly are—and don’t you forget it—you haven’t quit, you’re still -have you?”
“No, I haven’t quit.”
“Now the most urgent thing to do is to tell that to the press, tell them that you’re back on the job and where you were and—and, by the way, where were you?”
“Eddie,” she said, “will you make a note on this and send it to the press? My plane developed engine trouble while I was flying over the Rocky Mountains to the Taggart Tunnel. I lost my way, looking for an emergency landing, and crashed in an uninhabited mountain section—of Wyoming. I was found by an old sheepherder and his wife, who took me to their cabin, deep in the wilderness, fifty miles away from the nearest settlement. I was badly injured and remained unconscious for most of two weeks. The old couple had no telephone, no radio, no means of communication or transportation, except an old truck that broke down when they attempted to use it. I had to remain with them until I recovered sufficient strength to walk. I walked the fifty miles to the foothills, then hitchhiked my way to a Taggart station in Nebraska.”
“I see,” said Taggart. “Well, that’s fine. Now when you give the press interview—”
“I’m not going to give any press interviews.”
“What? But they’ve been calling me all day! They’re waiting! It’s essential!” He had an air of panic. “It’s most crucially essential!”
“Who’s been calling you all day?”
“People in Washington and ... and others ... They’re waiting for your statement.”
She pointed at Eddie’s notes. “There’s my statement.”
“But that’s not enough! You must say that you haven’t quit.”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m back.”
“You must say something about it.”
“Such as what?”
“Something personal.”
“To whom?”
“To the country. People were worried about you. You must reassure them.”
“The story will reassure them, if anyone was worried about me.”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“Well, what do you mean?”
“I mean—” He stopped, his eyes avoiding hers. “I mean—” He sat, searching for words, cracking his knuckles.
Jim was going to pieces, she thought; the jerky impatience, the shrillness, the aura of panic were new; crude outbreaks of a tone of ineffectual menace had replaced his pose of cautious smoothness.
“I mean—” He was searching for words to name his meaning without naming it, she thought, to make her understand that which he did not want to be understood. “I mean, the public—”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “No, Jim, I’m not going to reassure the public about the state of our industry.”
“Now you.‘re—”
“The public had better be as unreassured as it has the wits to be. Now proceed to business.”
“I—”
“Proceed to business, Jim.”
He glanced at Mr. Meigs. Mr. Meigs sat silently, his legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. He wore a jacket which was not, but looked like, a military uniform. The flesh of his neck bulged over the collar, and the flesh of his body strained against the narrow waistline intended to disguise it. He wore