Non-Contradiction: The Exploiters and the Exploited

Dagny stands on a bridge whose rails head to Wyatt Oil’s mountainous oil derricks (p 162 s 171) and expository tangents ensue. Dagny notices sparkling Rearden Metal switches. Mr. Mowen, president of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company, had agreed to produce Rearden Metal switches — “it’s never been done before” — only after Rearden agrees to pay for Mowen’s men’s salaries while Rearden metallurgists train them, and Dagny doubles the price of her order (p 163 s 171). Dagny sees the Rearden Metal spikes at her feet. Summit Casting of Illinois had gone bankrupt halfway through delivering the order of spikes; Dagny had “got three lawyers, a judge and a state legislator” out of bed that night with bribes and threats, and before sunrise the plant was been re-opened with a “legality no one would ever be able to untangle.” The sound of drills is a reminder of the rapid degradation of drill heads against the superior strength of Rearden Metal; Associated Steel’s delays to Incorporated Tool meant new drill heads were unattainable, stalling work on the Rio Norte Line (p 164 s 171). Within a day Rearden had bought and re-opened an abandoned old tool plant; after a week, Rearden Metal drill heads were available again. Even the bridge itself that Dagny stands upon was a struggle: it was built under Nat Taggart’s supervision and was too expensive to replace and almost too worthless to repair. Dagny is unable to find an engineer able to devise a “new method of construction” that harnesses the abilities of Rearden Metal. And as a final crisis, the Barton and Jones of Denver catering company serviced the Rio Norte Line personnel but had just gone bankrupt; Dagny had recognized the name in a news item and informed her contractor Ben Nealy to avoid famine (p 165 s 171).

A “tall and young” man in a “workman’s leather jacket” approaches Dagny with an imperious “assurance in the way he walked” (p 165 s 171). He is Ellis Wyatt, and deals Dagny a shock of “forgiveness, understanding, acknowledgement” — a “salute” — by the way he greets her. Dagny laughs “like a child, in happiness that things should be as right as that.” Wyatt proceeds to list RIo Norte Line concerns necessitating attention, things he noticed while making visits to watch the work. When Wyatt leaves and is out of earsight, Ben Nealy remarks that “he thinks he owns the place, doesn’t he? … Your railroad. Or the whole world maybe. That’s what he thinks. … What does he keep hanging around here for? … The snooty show-off.” Without raising her voice, Dagny declares “god damn you” — Nealy “could never knew what had made her say it” but knew “the shocking thing to her was that he was not shocked.” Dagny and Nealy have a meeting, leaving Dagny thereafter “exhausted by two hours of effort to be patient, to instruct, to explain” what needs to maintain construction on the Rio Norte Line.

After her meeting, Dagny notice Rearden’s figure in the distance and runs toward him having lost “all trace of exhaustion” (p 167 s 171). Observing her work ethic, he “half-kidding” offers her a job in his mills if she quits the railroad; she responds, “I think you’d like it — having me ask you for a job. Having me for an employee instead of a customer. Giving me orders to obey.” She responds that she can’t promise him a job, but he laughs and tell her, “Don’t try … to win any battle when I set the terms.” She feels not “an emotion, but a physical sensation of pleasure” from his words but she cannot “name or understand” it. They discuss the “museum piece” bridge and he declares a new Rearden Metal bridge will barely cost more than to make another temporary fix (p 168 s 171). He shows her “a great many figures, a few rough sketches. She understood his scheme before he had finished explaining it.” She acknowledges that Rearden is saving Taggart Transcontinental for the second time — he responds, “Why should I give a damn about saving Taggart Transcontinental? … There are too many people yelping that rails of Rearden Metal are unsafe. So I thought I’d give them something real to yelp about. Let them see a bridge of Rearden Metal.” (p 169 s 171)

Dagny and Rearden feel at ease together, the “strange, light-headed feeling, which included the knowledge that it was the only sense of ease either of them found anywhere — made the thought of hostility impossible. Yet she knew that the party had taken place; he acted as if it had not.” (p 169 s 171) Dagny and Rearden look at the derricks of Wyatt Oil, the wind beating Dagny’s coat again Rearden’s legs and the line of Rearden’s chest felt without touch by Dagny. They discuss the Rearden Metal bridge for Taggart Transcontinental, then Rearden’s plans to buy copper mining property in Colorado — “I don’t want to deal with d’Anconia Copper. I don’t trust that playboy.” (p 170 s 171) Rearden adores Colorado: “There’s no limit to what’s possible in this state. Do you know that they have every kind of natural resource here, waiting, untouched? And the way their factories are growing! I feel ten years younger when I come here.” Dagny feels the opposite upon seeing the same majestic state — “I think of the contrast, all over the Taggart system. There’s less to carry, less tonnage produced each year.” Dagny and Rearden discuss the slow death of the sun mentioned in school — “I remember wondering, then, what it would be like in the last days of the world. I think it would be . . . like this. Growing colder and things stopping.” (p 170-171 s 171) Rearden and Dagny relate that despite the same lesson, they each thought “by the time the sun was exhausted, men would find a substitute.” (p 171 s 171)

Rearden looks at the Taggart Transcontinental rails of Rearden Metal heading up the mounting, and declares: “We’ve done it, haven’t we?” (p 171 s 171) When Dagny states yes it is the moment she wanted “for every effort, for every sleepless night, for ever silent thrust against despair.” Dagny notes Rearden’s car — “I just bought it, on this trip.” — and he remarks he is having it shipped because he flew his own plane to see the Rio Norte Line’s progress. Dagny asks to hitch a ride back to New York with Hank in his plane but his voice develops a “note of abruptness” when he remarks he can’t because he’s headed to Minnesota. Dagny heads to a nearby field after watching Rearden drive away (p 172 s 171). The attendant remarks that the next plane to New York is in two days, and that if she had arrived just earlier — “Mr. Rearden took off for New York, in his private plane, just a little while ago.” Dagny is blank and unmoving — “she had no clue to any reason, nothing to give her a foothold, nothing with which to weigh this or fight it or understand.”