"Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rand Ayn)

at typewriters, the clicking of their keys like the sound of speeding train
wheels. And like an answering echo, a faint shudder went through the walls at
times, rising from under the building, from the tunnels of the great terminal
where trains started out to cross a continent and stopped after crossing it
again, as they had started and stopped for generation after generation.
Taggart Transcontinental, thought Eddie Willers, From Ocean to Oceanthe
proud slogan of his childhood, so much more shining and holy than any
commandment of the Bible. From Ocean to Ocean, foreverthought Eddie Willers,
in the manner of a rededication, as he walked through the spotless halls into
the heart of the building, into the office of James Taggart, President of
Taggart Transcontinental.
James Taggart sat at his desk. He looked like a man approaching fifty, who
had crossed into age from adolescence, without the intermediate stage of
youth. He had a small, petulant mouth, and thin hair clinging to a bald
forehead. His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance
of his tall, slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the
confident poise of an aristocrat, but transformed into the gawkiness of a
lout. The flesh of his face was pale and soft. His eyes were pale and veiled,
with a glance that moved slowly, never quite stopping, gliding off and past
things in eternal resentment of their existence. He looked obstinate and
drained. He was thirty-nine years old.
He lifted his head with irritation, at the sound of the opening door.
"DonтАЩt bother me, donтАЩt bother me, donтАЩt bother me," said James Taggart.
Eddie Willers walked toward the-desk.
"ItтАЩs important, Jim," he said, not raising his voice.
"All right, all right, what is it?"
Eddie Willers looked at a map on the wall of the office. The mapтАЩs colors had
faded under the glasshe wondered dimly how many Taggart presidents had sat
before it and for how many years. The Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, the
network of red lines slashing the faded body of the country from New York to
San Francisco, looked like a system of blood vessels. It looked as if once,
long ago, the blood had shot down the main artery and, under the pressure of
its own overabundance, had branched out at random points, running all over
the country. One red streak twisted its way from Cheyenne, Wyoming, down to
El Paso, Texasthe Rio Norte Line of Taggart Transcontinental. New tracing
had been added recently and the red streak had been extended south beyond El
Pasobut Eddie Willers turned away hastily when his eyes reached that point.
He looked at James Taggart and said, "ItтАЩs the Rio Norte Line." He noticed
TaggartтАЩs glance moving down to a corner of the desk. "WeтАЩve had another
wreck." "Railroad accidents happen every day. Did you have to bother me about that?"
"You know what IтАЩm saying, Jim. The Rio Norte is done for. That track is
shot. Down the whole line."
"We are getting a new track."
Eddie Willers continued as if there had been no answer: "That track is shot.
ItтАЩs no use trying to run trains down there. People are giving up trying to
use them."
"There is not a railroad in the country, it seems to me, that doesnтАЩt have a
few branches running at a deficit. WeтАЩre not the only ones. ItтАЩs a national
conditiona temporary national condition."
Eddie stood looking at him silently. What Taggart disliked about Eddie