She did not speak to Galt, as they walked down the last stretch of the trail to his house. She did not turn her head to him, feeling that even a glance would be too dangerous, She felt, in their silence, both the calm understanding and the tension of the knowledge that they were not to name the things they understood.
But she faced him, when they were in his living room, with full confidence and as if in sudden certainty of a right – the certainty that she would not break and that it was now safe to speak. She said evenly, neither as plea nor as triumph, merely as a statement of a fact, “You are going back to the outer world because I will be there.”
“Yes.”
“I do not want you to go.”
“You have no choice about it.”
“You are going for my sake.”
“No, for mine.”
“Will you allow me to see you there?”
“No.”
“I am not to see you?”
“No.”
“I am not to know where you are or what you do?”
You’re not.”
You’re not.”
“Will you be watching me, as you did before?”
“More so.”
“Is your purpose to protect me?”
“No.”
“What is it, then?”
“To be there on day when you decide to join us.”
She looked at him attentively, permitting herself no other reaction, but as if groping for an answer to the first point she had not fully understood.
“All the rest of us will be gone,” he explained. “It will become too dangerous to remain. I will remain as your last key, before the door of this valley closes altogether.”
“Oh!” She choked it off before she could moan. Then, regaining the manner of impersonal detachment she asked, “Suppose I were to tell you that my decision is final and that I am never to join you?”
“It would be a lie.”
“Suppose I were now to decide that I wish to make it final and to sand by it, no matter what the future?”
“No matter what future evidence you observe and what convictions you form?”
“Yes.”
“That would be worse than a lie.”
“You are certain that I have made the wrong decision?”
“I am.”
“Do you believe that one must e responsible for one’s own errors?”
“I do.”
“Then why aren’t you letting me bear the consequences of mine?”
“I am and you will.”
“If I find, whenit is too late, that I want to return to this valley – why should you have to bear the risk of keeping that door open to me?”
“I don’t have to. I wouldn’t do it if I had no selfish end to gain.”
“What selfish end?”
“I want you here.”
-pp. 743-744 of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand 1957
HTML:
