In the silence of sleepless nights, she thought that Hank Rearden and she had now changed places: he was in Atlantis and she was locked out by a screen of light—he was, perhaps, calling to her as she had called to his struggling airplane, but no signal could reach her through that screen.
Yet the screen split open for one brief break—for the length of a letter she received a week after he vanished. The envelope bore no return address, only the postmark of some hamlet in Colorado. The letter contained two sentences: I have met him. I don’t blame you.
H.R.
She sat still for a long time, looking at the letter, as if unable to move or to feel. She felt nothing, she thought, then noticed that her shoulders were trembling in a faint, continuous shudder, then grasped that the tearing violence within her was made of an exultant tribute, of gratitude and of despair—her tribute to the victory that the meeting of these two men implied, the final victory of both—her gratitude that those in Atlantis still regarded her as one of them and had granted her the exception of receiving a message—the despair of the knowledge that her blankness was a struggle not to hear the questions she was now hearing. Had Galt abandoned her? Had he gone to the valley to meet his greatest conquest? Would he come back? Had he given her up? The unendurable was not that these questions had no answer, but that the answer was so simply, so easily within her reach and that she had no right to take a step to reach it.
She had made no attempt to see him. Every morning, for a month, on entering her office, she had been conscious, not of the room around her, but of the tunnels below, under the floors of the building—and she had worked, feeling as if some marginal part of her brain was computing figures, reading reports, making decisions in a rush of lifeless activity, while her living mind was inactive and still, frozen in contemplation, forbidden to move beyond the sentence: He’s down there. The only inquiry she had permitted herself had been a glance at the payroll list of the Terminal workers. She had seen the name: Galt, John. The list had carried it, openly, for over twelve years. She had seen an address next to the name—and, for a month, had struggled to forget it.
It had seemed hard to live through that month—yet now, as she looked at the letter, the thought that Galt had gone was still harder to bear. Even the struggle of resisting his proximity had been a link to him, a price to pay, a victory achieved in his name. Now there was nothing, except a question that was not to be asked. His presence in the tunnels had been her motor through those days—just as his presence in the city had been her motor through the months of that summer—just as his presence somewhere in the world had been her motor through the years before she ever heard his name. Now she felt as if her motor, too, had stopped.
She went on, with the bright, pure glitter of a five-dollar gold piece, which she kept in her pocket, as her last drop of fuel. She went on, protected from the world around her by a last armor: indifference.
The newspapers did not mention the outbreaks of violence that had begun to burst across the country—but she watched them through the reports of train conductors about bullet-riddled cars, dismantled tracks, attacked trains, besieged stations, in. Nebraska, in Oregon, in Texas, in Montana—the futile, doomed outbreaks, prompted by nothing but despair, ending in nothing but destruction. Some were the explosions of local gangs; some spread wider. There were districts that rose in blind rebellion, arrested the local officials, expelled the agents of Washington, killed the tax collectors—then, announcing their secession from the country, went on to the final extreme of the very evil that had destroyed them, as if fighting murder with suicide: went on to seize all property within their reach, to declare community bondage of all to all, and to perish within a week, their meager loot consumed, in the bloody hatred of all for all, in the chaos of no rule save that of the gun, to perish under the lethargic thrust of a few worn soldiers sent out from Washington to bring order to the ruins.
The newspapers did not mention it. The editorials went on speaking of self-denial as the road to future progress, of self-sacrifice as the moral imperative, of greed as the enemy, of love as the solution—their threadbare phrases as sickeningly sweet as the odor of ether in a hospital.
Rumors went spreading through the country in whispers of cynical terror—yet people read the newspapers and acted as if they believed what they read, each competing with the others on who would keep most blindly silent, each pretending that he did not know what he knew, each striving to believe that the unnamed was the unreal. It was as if a volcano were cracking open, yet the people at the foot of the mountain ignored the sudden fissures, the black fumes, the boiling trickles, and went on believing that their only danger was to acknowledge the reality of these signs.
“Listen to Mr. Thompson’s report on the world crisis, November 22!”
It was the first acknowledgment of the unacknowledged. The announcements began to appear a week in advance and went ringing across the country. “Mr. Thompson will give the people a report on the world crisis! Listen to Mr. Thompson on every radio station and television channel at 8 P.M., on November 22!”
First, the front pages of the newspapers and the shouts of the radio voices had explained it: “To counteract the fears and rumors spread by the enemies of the people, Mr. Thompson will address the country on November 22 and will give us a full report on the state of the world in this solemn moment of global crisis. Mr. Thompson will put an end to those sinister forces whose purpose is to keep us in terror and despair. He will bring light into the darkness of the world and will show us the way out of our tragic problems—a stern way, as befits the gravity of this hour, but a way of glory, as granted by the rebirth of light.
Mr. Thompson’s address will be carried by every radio station in this country and in all countries throughout the world, wherever radio waves may still be heard.”
Then the chorus broke loose and went growing day by day. “Listen to Mr. Thompson on November 22!” said daily headlines. “Don’t forget Mr. Thompson on November 22!” cried radio stations at the end of every program. “Mr. Thompson will tell you the truth!” said placards in subways and buses—then posters on the walls of buildings —then billboards on deserted highways.
“Don’t despair! Listen to Mr. Thompson!” said pennants on government cars, “Don’t give up! Listen to Mr. Thompson!” said banners in offices and shops. “Have faith! Listen to Mr. Thompson!” said voices in churches. “Mr. Thompson will give you the answer!” wrote army airplanes across the sky, the letters dissolving in space, and only the last two words remaining by the time the sentence was completed.
Public loud-speakers were built in the squares of New York for the day of the speech, and came to rasping life once an hour, in time with the ringing of distant clocks, to send over the worn rattle of the traffic, over the heads of the shabby crowds, the sonorous, mechanical cry of an alarm-toned voice: “Listen to Mr. Thompson’s report on the world crisis, November 22!”—a cry rolling through the frosted air and vanishing among the foggy roof tops, under the blank page of a calendar that bore no date.
On the afternoon of November 22, James Taggart told Dagny that Mr. Thompson wished to meet her for a conference before the broadcast.
“In Washington?” she asked incredulously, glancing at her watch.
“Well, I must say that you haven’t been reading the newspapers or keeping track of important events. Don’t you know that Mr. Thompson is to broadcast from New York? He has come here to confer with the leaders of industry, as well as of labor, science, the professions, and the best of the country’s leadership in general. He has requested that I bring you to the conference.”
“Where is it to be held?”
“At the broadcasting studio.”
“They don’t expect me to speak on the air in support of their policies, do they?”
“Don’t worry, they wouldn’t let you near a microphone! They just want to hear your opinion, and you can’t refuse, not in a national emergency, not when it’s an invitation from Mr. Thompson in person!” He spoke impatiently, avoiding her eyes.
“When is that conference to be held?”
“At seven-thirty.”