Atlas Shrugged

The next morning, Dagny meets Danneskjold, who explains the values guiding his life of piracy. She refuses to accept any gold from him but instead decided to earn her keep by working as Galt’s housekeeper. She agrees to stay for the duration of the month-long holiday during which all the members of the Galt’s Gulch community return to the valley, although she is not yet ready to join them permanently.

She learns from Owen Kellogg that the outside world believes her to have perished in the plane crash, and a grieving Francisco is overcome with joy to see her alive. Dagny and Francisco declare their enduring love for each other, even though Francisco accepts that Dagny has moved on. Both of them feel immense pity for Hank Rearden, who still believes her to be dead.

She passes the month enjoying the utopian community and everything that it offers to the fullest extent, getting closer to Galt and falling in love with him as he is already enamored with her. At the end of the month, Dagny decides that she’s going to leave the valley to try and outlast the looters and salvage the remnants of the old world. Galt will return to New York, too, against the advice of the other men of Galt’s Gulch, so that he will be ready to abscond with her once she surrenders. They leave together and part ways.

Dr. Ferris summons an indignant Dr. Stadler to a large press junket, where Ferris unveils “Project X” with Stadler’s endorsement even though he knew nothing of it. The revealed device produces a sound ray that, when demonstrated, completely flattens a nearby farm and kills the animals within.

Dagny returns to the outside world and announces her return to the press and to Rearden, who had been combing the Rocky Mountains to try and find the wreckage of her plane. When she returns to New York, Eddie is being harassed by Cuffy Meigs, the current looter in charge of the railway. Eddie greets Dagny with great tenderness and updates her on the state of the world and the railway. All industries have crumbled, there is little social order remaining, and civil liberty has been essentially abolished. Lilian Rearden explains to Dagny how Rearden was blackmailed into signing away RM, believing that this will pressure her into speaking on Bertram Scudder’s radio show. Dagny agrees to do the show, but instead of reading a pre-prepared speech reassuring the public and supporting the government, she instead confesses to the affair and exposes the blackmail attempts against her and Rearden.

She and Rearden meet, and she weeps as he apologizes for putting her in the position where she had to speak up and liberate them both. He tells her he loves her but that he has already discerned and accepted that she’s fallen for someone else. They both resolve to continue fighting the looters until it becomes hopeless.

Cheryl Taggart (née Brookes) has worked hard to elevate herself so as to be worthy of her husband, which annoys Jim Taggart, who previously reveled in her humiliation and his perceived altruism in marrying her. She begins to understand his character and motives, causing him to lash out. When she learns that it was actually Dagny who merited her respect all along for her work on the John Galt line, Cheryl visits Dagny to explain and apologize for her mistakes. Dagny accepts her as a sister based on their shared values, encourages her to stay strong, and explains the principles that govern them both.

While Cheryl is out, Lilian visits Jim and begs for his help to alleviate the threat of poverty now that Rearden is divorcing her. She and Jim sleep together, which Jim then uses to taunt Cheryl. He tells Cheryl that he wanted her to stay useless and to chain her to himself to curb her aspirations to greatness. She flees, hysterical; feeling as though there’s nowhere to go, she then kills herself.

The looters plan to nationalize d’Anconia copper, but just as they vote to do so, Francisco explodes every one of his properties and disappears with all of his money and any remaining productive workers. Rearden is delighted with Francisco’s actions and with his jaunty farewell message emblazoned on the giant public calendar in New York.

Philip Rearden repeatedly interrupts his brother at work, eventually asking for a job. Rearden refuses to employ him because he would be useless. Tony, the “Wet Nurse” whom Rearden calls “Non-Absolute” with fond mockery, asks for a real job at Rearden’s company. He has been slowly overcoming the conditioning of his college education and aligning himself with Rearden’s principles, and Rearden tells him that he would gladly employ him. Unfortunately, the Washington men and looters would never let it happen.

Rearden and Dagny understand the hopelessness of their efforts to work but focus on trying to support the system long enough to let the few good people left survive the winter. TT is falling apart; despite Dagny’s best efforts, the farmers of Minnesota can’t get freight cars in time to transport their harvest, leading to crucial grain stores rotting and complete anarchy breaking out. Galt watches her give orders to manage the most recent catastrophe, and they sleep together. She refuses Galt’s offer to fix things and says that she just needs a little more time to outlast the looters. He predicts that she needs a little more time to learn the truth, and they part ways.