The Journals of Ayn Rand (120 page)

“Dagny, suffering is evil. One must never make terms with suffering. One must not accept it as normal. Suffering is the call to action, the call to fight it and destroy it—not to bear it.

“Why should love be tied to pain, as its permanent price? Why should the virtue of your ability, your competence, your intelligence, your great, living fire, be paid for by pain? Isn’t there some terrible evil in that, which you have accepted? The one evil, the root and source, which we must fight? The immor talization of pain? The damning of life as a chronic state of suffering?

“Dagny, by the nature and essence of existence, no paradox can exist. Pain is destruction—the sign of the evil, the wrong, the improper, the contradictory. Pain
cannot
be the natural accompaniment of talent, of creative work, of living activity. The essence of man’s life—creative action—cannot be the cause which has pain as its effect. If this is what you see around you, throughout man’s existence—then what sort of code are men acting on? Who caused that? Whose idea are you acting on and what sort of an idea is it? Do you realize that
that
is pure, naked evil—the idea of death? Virtue cannot and may not be tied to pain. When it is, then it is evil that we are serving....

“Have you ever wondered why the peddlers of the cannibal morality lay such a stress on imperfection? They are careful to make men think that the mere desire for perfection is evil, that it is a sin, the sin of pride. Why? Because this holds the whole secret of their moral code. It is the code of destruction—which
cannot
be practiced fully, or mankind would perish. But in that ghastly agony of the just-about, the approximation, through which they have dragged mankind for centuries, lies the only advantage they hope to achieve. If the man of virtue does not expect perfection, he will put up with undeserved pain. If the evil man does not expect perfection, he will escape the full punishment which he deserves, he will get the unearned, he will get—in spirit and in matter, in moral honor and in physical wealth—the rewards of the man of virtue, while that man of virtue will bear the evil-doer’s punishment.
That is the whole heart of the ‘morality of imperfection.’

“That
is what we’ve borne for centuries. Dagny! That’s the evil we have to end, once and for all. No part of our virtue, no work or product of it, must go into the service of evil. No part of it must be left unrewarded and unpaid for. No moment of our suffering must be spent for the sake of providing unearned joy to the looters. One hour of undeserved pain which we accept is an hour given to the looters, the hour when we make evil possible—the only hour that makes it possible—the act of feeding and supporting evil.
That
is what we have to refuse them. Nothing unrewarded and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit, neither in escaped punishment nor in uncollected reward. The code of the traders, Dagny. The code of justice.”

[AR commented later on the problems she faced in writing some of the philosophical scenes with Francisco: “It was enormously difficult to decide how much could be given away and where—and what should be saved for Galt’s speech. ” The above passages were probably cut because Francisco comes too close to identifying death as the standard of the parasites’ moral code—a point that AR had to save for Galt
.]

 

 

As illustration of “Laws are made to be broken”—the state of the country now is such that one cannot survive (or get rich, which is the same) except as a criminal: by breaking the looters’ laws, by paying for pull, by paying for the right to exist. The “death principle” is now almost blatantly obvious; you have to
pay
for the right to live—existence is now a
crime.

Make use of Danneskjöld’s gold given to Rearden. If possible, have it become the only money left to Rearden, his only means of escape.

Make issue of the copper shortage (in connection with or leading up to the final, total crash of d‘Anconia Copper).

Make issue of Danneskjöld’s blockade against the production of Rearden Metal by the looters.

To consider
(as a possibility): the importance of California (or the West Coast) to the final disintegration and to Project X (the rule of brute force)—this was why Mouch wanted Kip Chalmers to control California. This could also be why parasites have to hold the main line of TT, rather than the Minnesota Line—thus sacrificing production to political power. They would rather have more semi-starving people to loot than to have more production—they cannot
permit
production.

 

 

“Live and let live
is our moral code. The code of our enemies, the code of evil, is the code of death. It will work out to its logical conclusion and it will destroy them; but we will not save them, will not give life to their evil, will not make it work. Thus, toward them, our code is:
live and let die.
Anyone who desires be an irrationalist—let
him
perish by his own ideas, but do not help him to destroy the world and yourself. You cannot hold mercy above morality. To make terms with that which
you
consider evil, to be an accomplice of evil, to betray your own moral standards, in the name of ‘mercy’—and to hold this as moral—is the lowest corruption ever devised by men.”

 

 

“Unification” of railroads.

“Unification” of steel.

Crash of d‘Anconia Copper.

“Soybean project”—freight cars—collapse of Minnesota.

Closing of Minnesota Line.

End of Rearden Steel.

Collapse of Taggart Bridge (which is end of TT and of New York).

This is the rule of the brute—the economics of gangsters, the mixture of production and guns, the “expediency of the moment,” the plain, crude attempt to seize whatever’s still available, with no pretense of any plan or thought of the future.

 

 

Dagny-John Galt.

The music of Halley’s Fifth Concerto.

The sign of the dollar.

The car coming to meet them—Hugh Akston, Midas Mulligan. (“You’re in the arms of the inventor of the motor.”)

Ellis Wyatt passing them on the street.

Galt’s house—the famous surgeon—the breakfast.

Quentin Daniels.

The industries of the valley.

The restaurant and the shop.

The Mulligan Bank.

The power plant (Galt’s motor). (Mind and body.)

The grocery store and general store.

Dwight Sanders undertakes to fix her plane.

The dinner at Mulligan’s house: Galt, Akston, Mulligan, Richard Halley, Ellis Wyatt, Ken Danagger, Quentin Daniels, Judge Narragansett, Dr. Hendricks. Her feeling about heaven and meeting all the great men. Galt’s explanation: “We’re on strike.”

Galt drives her back to his house. She asks, on the way: “What do you call this place?” “I call it Mulligan’s Valley. The others call it Galt’s Gulch.” “I’d call it—” but she doesn’t finish.

He takes her into his guest bedroom. Hands her the gun. “Have you forgotten that you wanted to shoot me on sight?” (The contradiction in her premises, which she will have to resolve.)

She notices the inscriptions on the wall: “You’ll get over it—Ellis Wyatt.” “It will be all right by morning—Ken Danagger.” “It’s worth it—Roger Holt.” She asks him about it, he explains and adds: “This is the room you were never intended to see.... Good night, Miss Taggart.”

The next morning: Galt is called out, she is fixing breakfast, when the blond stranger rushes in. “Oh, have
you
joined us?” “No, I’m a scab.” Galt comes in, introduces them—Ragnar Danneskjöld. Explanation about her account.

She becomes Galt’s paid cook and servant—for a month.

The arrival of Owen Kellogg. He tells her about the Comet’s trip, he has arranged a job for Jeff Allen with the Taggart man at Laurel, she is thought to be lost in plane crash, he has spoken on the phone to Rearden. She asks Galt to let Rearden know—he answers: No, there is no communication with the outside world for a month.

Francisco’s arrival. The scene between them.

The progression of the Galt-Dagny romance. The scene where she has to make her choice. He tells her about the universal longing for the ideal: “It’s real. It’s possible. Here it is—and it’s yours—but at the price of dropping every delusion of mankind’s vicious past, every error of the centuries of self-immolation, including the willingness to suffer unnecessary pain and to endure injustice.” Her reasons: her last hope for the power of rationality and of man’s self-interest, which will make her win over the looters. He tells her she will have to discover whether those men really
want
reason or life.

He flies her out of the valley. “Don’t look for me. You won’t find me until you really want me—with no contradictions and for what I really am. And when you’ll want me, I’ll be the easiest man to find.”

 

 

1. Richard Halley (new symphony)

2. Judge Narragansett (book on the philosophy of law)

3. Dr. Hendricks (medical research—disinfectant)

4. Ellis Wyatt (shale-oil research)

5. Ken Dannager (mine prospecting)

6. Midas Mulligan

7. Hugh Akston (book on the philosophy of reason—“the single absolute”)