The fear went through him in spasms, once in a while, leaving his mouth dry. He did not know what he dreaded. He knew that it was not the threat of the radio speaker. What he had experienced at the sound of the snarling voice had been more like a terror which he felt because he was expected to feel it, a duty-terror, something that went with his position, like well-tailored suits and luncheon speeches. But under it, he had felt a sneaking little hope, swift and furtive like the course of a cockroach: if that threat took form, it would solve everything, save him from decision, save him from signing the letter . . . he would not be President of Taggart Transcontinental any longer, but neither would anyone else . . . neither would anyone else. . . .
He sat, looking down at his desk, keeping his eyes and his mind out of focus. It was as if he were immersed in a pool of fog, struggling not to let it reach the finality of any form. That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.
He did not examine the events in Colorado, he did not attempt to grasp their cause, he did not consider their consequences. He did not think. The clogged ball of emotion was like a physical weight in his chest, filling his consciousness, releasing him from the responsibility of thought. The bah1 was hatred—hatred as his only answer, hatred as the sole reality, hatred without object, cause, beginning or end, hatred as his claim against the universe, as a justification, as a right, as an absolute.
The screaming of the telephones went on through the silence. He knew that those pleas for help were not addressed to him, but to an entity whose shape he had stolen. It was this shape that the screams were now tearing away from him; he felt as if the ringing ceased to be sounds and became a succession of slashes hitting his skull. The object of the hatred began to take form, as if summoned by the bells. The solid ball exploded within him and flung him blindly into action.
Rushing out of the room, in defiance of all the faces around him, he went running down the halls to the Operating Department and into the anteroom of the Operating Vice-President’s office.
The door to the office was open: he saw the sky in the great windows beyond an empty desk. Then he saw the staff in the anteroom around him, and the blond head of Eddie Willers in the glass cubbyhole. He walked purposefully straight toward Eddie Willers, he flung the glass door open and, from the threshold, in the sight and hearing of the room, he screamed: “Where is she?”
Eddie Willers rose slowly to his feet and stood looking at Taggart with an odd kind of dutiful curiosity, as if this were one more phenomenon to observe among all the unprecedented things he had observed. He did not answer.
“Where is she?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Listen, you stubborn little punk, this is no time for ceremony! If you’re trying to make me believe that you don’t know where she is, I don’t believe you! You know it and you’re going to tell me, or I’ll report you to the Unification Board! I’ll swear to them that you know it—then try and prove that you don’t!”
There was a faint tone of astonishment in Eddie’s voice as he answered, “I’ve never attempted to imply that I don’t know where she is, Jim, I know it. But I won’t tell you.”
Taggart’s scream rose to the shrill, impotent sound that confesses a miscalculation: “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Will you repeat it”—he waved at the room—”for these witnesses?”
Eddie raised his voice a little, more in precision and clarity than in volume: “I know where she is. But I will not tell you.”
“You’re confessing that you’re an accomplice who’s aiding and abetting a deserter?”
“If that’s what you wish to call it.”
“But it’s a crime! It’s a crime against the nation. Don’t you know that?”
“No.”
“It’s against the law!”
“Yes.”
“This is a national emergency! You have no right to any private secrets! You’re withholding vital information! I’m the President of this railroad! I’m ordering you to tell me! You can’t refuse to obey an order!
It’s a penitentiary offense! Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you refuse?”
“I do.”
Years of training had made Taggart able to watch any audience around him, without appearing to do so. He saw the tight, closed faces of the staff, faces that were not his allies. All had a look of despair, except the face of Eddie Willers. The “feudal serf” of Taggart Transcontinental was the only one who seemed untouched by the disaster. He looked at Taggart with the lifelessly conscientious glance of a scholar confronted by a field of knowledge he had never wanted to study.
“Do you realize that you’re a traitor?” yelled Taggart.
Eddie asked quietly, ‘To whom?”
“To the people! It’s treason to shield a deserter! It’s economic treason! Your duty to feed the people comes first, above anything else whatever! Every public authority has said so! Don’t you know it?
Don’t you know what they’ll do to you?”
“Don’t you see that I don’t give a damn about that?”
“Oh, you don’t? I’ll quote that to the Unification Board! I have all these witnesses to prove that you said—”
“Don’t bother about witnesses, Jim. Don’t put them on the spot. I’ll write down everything I said, I’ll sign it, and you can take it to the Board.”
The sudden explosion of Taggart’s voice sounded as if he had been slapped: “Who are you to stand against the government? Who are you, you miserable little office rat, to judge national policies and hold opinions of your own? Do you think the country has time to bother about your opinions, your wishes or your precious little conscience?
You’re going to learn a lesson—all of you!—all of you spoiled, self-indulgent, undisciplined little two-bit clerks, who strut as if that crap about your rights was serious! You’re going to learn that these are not the days of Nat Taggart!”
Eddie said nothing. For an instant, they stood looking at each other across the desk. Taggart’s face was distorted by terror, Eddie’s remained sternly serene. James Taggart believed the existence of an Eddie Willers too well; Eddie Willers could not believe the existence of a James Taggart.
“Do you think the nation will bother about your wishes or hers?” screamed Taggart. “It’s her duty to come back! It’s her duty to work!
What do we care whether she wants to work or not? We need her!”
“Do you, Jim?”
An impulse pertaining to self-preservation made Taggart back a step away from the sound of that particular tone, a very quiet tone, in the voice of Eddie Willers. But Eddie made no move to follow. He remained standing behind his desk, in a manner suggesting the civilized tradition of a business office.
“You won’t find her,” he said, “She won’t be back. I’m glad she won’t. You can starve, you can close the railroad, you can throw me in jail, you can have me shot—what does it matter? I won’t tell you where she is. If I see the whole country crashing, I won’t tell you. You won’t find her. You—”
They whirled at the sound of the entrance door flung open. They saw Dagny standing on the threshold.
She wore a wrinkled cotton dress, and her hair was disheveled by hours of driving. She stopped for the duration of a glance around her, as if to recapture the place, but there was no recognition of persons in her eyes, the glance merely swept through the room, as if making a swift inventory of physical objects. Her face was not the face they remembered; it had aged, not by means of lines, but by means of a still, naked look stripped of any quality save ruthlessness.
Yet their first response, ahead of shock or wonder, was a single emotion that went through the room like a gasp of relief. It was in all their faces but one: Eddie Willers, who alone had been calm a moment ago, collapsed with his face down on his desk; he made no sound, but the movements of his shoulders were sobs.
Her face gave no sign of acknowledgment to anyone, no greeting, as if her presence here were inevitable and no words were necessary. She went straight to the door of her office; passing the desk of her secretary, she said, her voice like the sound of a business machine, neither rude nor gentle, “Ask Eddie to come in.”
James Taggart was the first one to move, as if dreading to let her out of his sight. He rushed in after her, he cried, “I couldn’t help it!” and then, life returning to him, his own, his normal kind of life, he screamed, “It was your fault! You did it! You’re to blame for it! Because you left!”