Posted on 06/27/2009 7:38:16 AM PDT by Publius
Synopsis
Jim Taggart hands a hundred dollar bill to a bum on the street, and the bum contemptuously takes no notice of the denomination.
Under the Railroad Unification Plan, the machine has run down further. There are ripples.
Jim has been busy. His day began with a meeting with the Argentine ambassador where he discovered that Argentina was to be declared a people’s state in two weeks. It was followed by a cocktail party at Orren Boyle’s where it was decided to loan $4 billion to Argentina and Chile. That was followed by a party given by Jim at the bar on the 60th floor of a skyscraper that looked like a cellar in which was formed the Interneighborly Amity and Development Corporation, an outfit presided over by Orren Boyle that would possess exclusive rights to run the industrial concerns of the various people’s states of South America. The final event had been held at the home of the Chilean ambassador, who appeared to be nothing more than a gangster. Here Jim had learned that on September 2, all d’Anconia Cooper properties would be nationalized. Jim had made a mental note: sell d’Anconia, buy Interneighborly. He feels no pleasure in this because he is not thinking about money any longer, and that bothers him. In his mind is a fogbound alley that holds things he prefers not to think about.
Arriving home, Jim senses in Cherryl that things are no better here. He brags that he has closed a big deal today, and she seems neutral in her reaction. He asks for champagne while he brags that he and a group of men will control the nationalized properties of South America to help the underprivileged. He complains that slum dwellers like Cherryl have no humanitarian spirit of altruism, something that can be felt only by those born to wealth. Cherryl has no sympathy for the welfare philosophy; having come from the slums, she knows that most of the poor want something for nothing. She tells Jim straightforwardly that he doesn’t care about the humanitarian spirit either. He brags that he will end up one of the richest men in the world, and she indicates that even if he does, she wants nothing from him. She tells Jim that she respects Hank Rearden as Jim brags about having beaten him.
Cherryl is proud of what Dagny did on the radio and has noticed that the government never answered her charges. Jim explains that Bertram Scudder took the fall for that disaster. It was better for the nation – and Jim – that Scudder become the scapegoat. Scudder’s fatal mistake was his membership in the Tinky Holloway faction. The Chick Morrison faction won, and Holloway traded Scudder for some favors. Cherryl is horrified that this is the kind of victory her husband is winning. Jim complains that he did not create this world, he only lives in it. In Jim’s words Cherryl hears the echo of her drunken father.
Cherryl had worked hard to be Mrs. James Taggart, approaching the task as would a military cadet, but Jim was never satisfied. She could not understand the intellectual scum that formed Jim’s orbit. She perceived that men like Simon Pritchett and Balph Eubank were phonies. In her mind was an oncoming headlight that held things she preferred not to think about. And her worst discovery was that her husband was also a phony. The only true thing Jim had said was that he was surrounded by enemies. Conversations with people within the railroad revealed to Cherryl that his enemies did in fact work there – and he had earned their hatred. It was from Eddie Willers that she had finally learned the truth about Jim and Dagny.
When she confronts Jim about it, he turns ugly and accuses her of ingratitude. He can’t put into words what he wants; it can only be felt. Cherryl can’t accept this and says that what she loved about him wasn’t real. Cherryl now feels something – and it’s fear. Jim accuses her of being a gold-digger who trades love, but can’t just give it. Loving a man for his virtues is cold justice; it’s unearned love that matters. Cherryl explodes. Jim is a charlatan like the welfare pimps, wanting unearned love and unearned admiration. He wants to be like Hank Rearden without working for it.
The champagne arrives, and Jim mockingly proposes a toast to Francisco, which Cherryl refuses. Jim comes unglued and leaves the room.
At her apartment, Dagny yearns to be back in Galt’s Gulch and hopes to spot John on the street in New York. The doorbell rings and in comes Cherryl. She is there to pay a debt; she apologizes for everything she had said at the wedding. She admits that she now knows the truth about who really runs the railroad. She knows that her husband is a worthless moocher; the girls now have a bond. Dagny admits that when people say she is hard and unfeeling, it is true – because she is being just. Dagny has held herself above the terrible world Jim inhabits by one rule: To place nothing above the verdict of her own mind. This connects with something Cherryl had felt in her poor youth in Buffalo, something people around her had wanted to destroy. A premonition tells Dagny to suggest that Cherryl stay with her tonight, but Cherryl decides to go home. She looks broken.
Moments after Cherryl has left Jim, Lillian Rearden shows up. Lillian is unhappy about the quality of the new class of looters, who are not “our crowd”. Lillian is there for a favor: she needs Jim to use his influence to stop the divorce. Hank has purchased everyone necessary to get his divorce and keep Lillian away from his money. All of this happened because Lillian had done critical favors for Jim. He kids her about how she always said she didn’t care about money, but she says she cares about poverty. Bertram Scudder can no longer help, but if Jim could get Wesley Mouch to intervene... Jim explains that the channels of pull have become so convoluted that it is impossible to get favors from the right people anymore.
Jim and Lillian drink champagne. Lillian says that Hank thinks little of Jim, and Jim wants just once to beat him. And in a sense he does in the next few minutes, as he beds Lillian Rearden. She is even less fun than Betty Pope.
Cherryl comes home in time to catch them after the act. She confronts Jim who becomes enraged and then brags about it. She asks why he married her; Jim tells her she was a cheap little guttersnipe from Buffalo who had no choice but to love him as he was – because she was worthless. He wants her to accept his love as alms because she could never hope to earn it. The oncoming headlight finally hits Cherryl, shattering her. She sees through Jim, telling him he is a killer for the sake of killing; he slaps her for her effrontery.
Cherryl runs out of her apartment on a wild but aimless run through the streets of Manhattan. A social worker approaches her and asks if she is in trouble, then grabs her and reprimands her for being a drunken society girl. Tearing herself away, Cherryl screams and runs headlong into the East River.
Discussion Topics
Knowing Rand, it’s more likely Dagny will marry Francisco, Hank, AND John. She’ll have to just sleep with Mulligan and Quentin Daniels on the down low, though. More than three husbands would be ridiculous.
I promise not to tell — so keep on teasing those who are not there yet.
Wait until you see who hijacks the calendar and what he displays in its place!
(How's that for a teaser?)
Sorry about my mistake.
Actually “last part” does sound significantly longer than “the ending”, so I guess it was more my mistake than yours. :-)
Great teaser!
And, the answer is, I do!
Is it Saturday, yet?
Saturday morning at roughly 7:30 AM Pacific time, it goes up.
I cannardly wait.
(Publius, you know I’m just having a little fun here. In what I hope is not a feeble effort to keep interest up in the AS threads.)
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