Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter III
Almost as soon as Dagny returns to work, Jim comes to her in a panic. He insists she appear on the radio that night, on a talk show hosted by Bertram Scudder, to reassure the people that she hasn’t quit and that she believes the government’s policies are working. She flatly refuses. But a little while later, she has another visitor, and it’s Lillian Rearden.
Lillian asks Dagny if she knows why Hank surrendered his patent on Rearden Metal. Dagny says she doesn’t, so Lillian tells her:
“You will be glad to know that he gave it up for your sake, Miss Taggart. For the sake of your reputation and your honor. He signed the Gift Certificate surrendering Rearden Metal โ under the threat that the adultery he was carrying on with you would be exposed to the eyes of the world… all the factual evidence โ hotel registers, jewelry bills and stuff like that โ is still in the possession of the right persons and will be broadcast on every radio program tomorrow, unless you appear on one radio program tonight. Is this clear?”
This blackmail seems at first to have the desired effect, as Dagny listens calmly and then agrees to go on the radio that night:
There was a beam of white light beating down upon the glittering metal of a microphone โ in the center of a glass cage imprisoning her with Bertram Scudder. The sparks of glitter were greenish-blue; the microphone was made of Rearden Metal.
It occurred to me that Hank missed a trick. He really should have called it “Reardenium”.
Sitting in the booth, she listens to Scudder praise her and Hank as old-school industrialists who’ve come to see the wisdom of the government’s policies. When it’s her turn to speak, she says that it’s true that Hank is a great industrialist, that his views are hers as well, and that the public should judge both their actions by the motive that inspired them. Then:
“For two years, I had been Hank Rearden’s mistress. Let there be no misunderstanding about it: I am saying this, not as a shameful confession, but with the highest sense of pride… If this now makes me a disgraced woman in your eyes โ let your estimate be your own concern. I will stand on mine.”
…And to such among you who hate the thought of human joy, who wish to see men’s life as chronic suffering and failure, who wish men to apologize for happiness โ or for success, or ability, or achievement, or wealth โ to such among you, I am now saying: I wanted him, I had him, I was happy, I had known joy, a pure, full, guiltless joy, the joy you dread to hear confessed by any human being, the joy of which your only knowledge is in your hatred for those who are worthy of reaching it. Well, hate me, then โ because I reached it!
…And, of course, I came here to tell you about the political and moral system under which you are now living. Well, I thought that I knew everything about Hank Rearden, but there was one thing which I did not learn until today. It was the blackmail threat that our relationship would be made public that forced Hank Rearden to sign the Gift Certificate surrendering Rearden Metal. It was blackmail โ blackmail by your government officials, by your rulers, by your—”
Dagny’s microphone is cut off in mid-sentence. While Scudder and the rest of the bad guys scream threats and excuses at each other, fighting over who to blame for this debacle, she drops the mic and walks out.
Rand’s gender politics are a strange blend of the progressive and the misanthropic, and this scene has both elements side-by-side. Dagny admitting her affair, and doing it proudly so that no one can use it against her or Hank ever again, is a smart political move – not that Rand would ever have thought of it as political. It’s also daring, especially by the standards of this book’s era. Despite all the things that make Dagny an awful human being, one thing I can’t fault her for is her refusal to be shamed for her sexuality.
But at the same time, Dagny blunts the impact of it by insulting the listeners whose sympathy she’s trying to win. She says that if they condemn her, it’s not because they disapprove of infidelity, but because they “hate the thought of human joy” and resent her for being happy. This is a recurring theme in Atlas: humanitarians and charities don’t love the poor, they just hate the rich; environmentalists don’t want to protect the planet, but to destroy progress. In Rand’s eyes, the only reason anyone might ever disagree with her or her characters is a naked choice to be evil.
When she returns to her apartment, she finds Hank waiting for her. In sheer relief at seeing him again, she collapses sobbing into his arms in a very un-Randian moment of weakness. She says she has something desperately important to tell him, but Hank asks to speak first. He confesses that he should never have kept their relationship a secret, that he loves her and always has:
“But you knew it, then, on that morning in Ellis Wyatt’s house. You knew that all those insults I was throwing at you were the fullest confession of love a man could make. You knew that the physical desire I was damning as our mutual shame, is neither physical nor an expression of one’s body, but the expression of one’s mind’s deepest values, whether one has the courage to know it or not.
…Now I’ll tell you what it was that you wanted to tell me โ because, you see, I know it and I accept: somewhere within the past month, you have met the man you love, and if love means one’s final, irreplaceable choice, then he is the only man you’ve ever loved.”
“Yes!” Her voice was half-gasp, half-scream, as under a physical blow, with shock as her only awareness. “Hank! – how did you know it?”
He smiled and pointed at the radio. “My darling, you used nothing but the past tense.”
This is a bizarre inversion of the standard romance trope where a bad boy is tamed by the love of a good woman. Like so much else in Atlas Shrugged, it happens in reverse: rapey, possessive, violently jealous Hank suddenly turns good when Dagny leaves him. The mere sight of Francisco in her apartment incites him to murderous rage, but when he finds out that she’s left him for someone else, he not only accepts it, he’s happy for her. “Oh well, I guess you found a better man than me. Good luck, you crazy kids! Go and have lots of pro-capitalist, non-procreative sex!”
However, lest you think Hank is totally reformed, he’s still a Randian protagonist. In another monologue, he explains that he now understands the connection between his job and his family life. He should have lived both by the same code all along, he says, meaning that he should have disowned his family and kicked them out of the house as soon as he found them guilty of insufficiently admiring him.
“I had cut myself in two, as the mystics preached, and I ran my business by one code of rules, but my own life by another… I rebelled against demands for an unearned wealth โ but I thought it was my duty to grant an unearned love to a wife I despised, an unearned respect to a mother who hated me, an unearned support to a brother who plotted for my destruction.
…If some man like Hugh Akston had told me, when I started, that by accepting the mystics’ theory of sex I was accepting the looters’ theory of economics, I would have laughed in his face. I would not laugh at him now.”
With all that settled, Hank asks Dagny where she was for the past month. She says that it’s a secret and she gave her word not to tell anyone, even him. The one thing she’s willing to say is that it’s where she met the man she loves.
“Who is he?”
Her chuckle of desperate amusement was involuntary. “Who is John Galt?”
He glanced at her, astonished โ but realized that she was not joking.
She says that there’s just one thing she can tell him, because she discovered it before making any promises: he’s the man who invented the motor they found. For once, Hank puts down the Idiot Ball and draws the obvious conclusion:
“Oh!” He smiled, as if he should have known it. Then he said softly, with a glance that was almost compassion, “He’s the destroyer, isn’t he?” He saw her look of shock, and added, “No, don’t answer me, if you can’t. I think I know where you were. It was Quentin Daniels that you wanted to save from the destroyer, and you were following Daniels when you crashed, weren’t you?”
It’s about time that one of these alleged super-geniuses figured this out on his own, even as late in the book as this is. But it makes you wonder why John Galt and the rest made Dagny promise not to tell anyone about them. Hank Rearden is one of the people they want to recruit, and Dagny knows that, so what’s the purpose of keeping it a secret from him? This should be the time to tell him everything. Instead, this is just more of the same pointless coyness that Francisco’s been exhibiting for the entire book.
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