Atlas Shrugged Part III, Chapter 2: The Utopia of Greed (Part 3) - Dagny's Month in Paradise

This final stretch of the chapter is where everything comes to a head. Dagny has spent nearly a month in Galt’s valley. She’s worked as his housekeeper, walked his trails, eaten dinners with the strikers. And now the vacation month is ending, and she has to decide: stay in paradise or go back to the collapsing world.

The Love Triangle That Isn’t

Francisco asks Dagny to spend her last week at his house. He says it plainly, openly, in front of Galt. No scheming, no jealousy. Just a straightforward request. Dagny, being Dagny, turns it into a test. She tells Galt to decide for her. She wants to see what he’ll do.

Galt says no. And the relief she feels is enormous. Not because she wanted to stay with Galt instead of Francisco, though she did. But because Galt refused to sacrifice his own desire for the sake of a friend. He didn’t fake selflessness. He didn’t play the noble martyr.

This is Rand making her philosophical point through a love triangle. In the “normal” world, the expected move would be for Galt to step aside, let Francisco have his moment, suffer in silence. The three of them would spend years in quiet misery, pretending they were being good people. Instead, Galt just says what he wants. Francisco accepts it gracefully. Nobody is destroyed. Nobody is deceived.

I have to admit, this is one of those moments where Rand’s philosophy actually works better in practice than what we’re taught. Growing up, I saw plenty of families where everyone was sacrificing for everyone else and everyone was miserable. Nobody would say what they actually wanted. The result wasn’t kindness. It was resentment, guilt, and years of passive-aggressive dinners. Galt’s approach is almost shocking in its simplicity: just be honest about what you want.

Galt later teases Dagny about it. “You had to put me to a test to learn whether I’d fall to the lowest possible stage of altruism?” She doesn’t argue. She knows he’s right.

Rearden’s Plane

Then a plane appears over the valley. This is a gut-punch scene.

Dagny hears the engine, runs to the airfield telescope, and sees the tail number. It’s Hank Rearden. He’s been searching for her wreck for three weeks. He hasn’t given up. He’s flying low over the mountains, circling and circling, looking for any sign of her crashed plane.

And she can see him. She can see the valley spread out below his wings, sunlit, green, obvious. But the ray screen hides everything. He flies right over paradise and sees nothing.

She screams his name. She waves her arms. It’s useless. The screen is absolute. The only thing that could pierce it is his own understanding, and he doesn’t have it yet.

This scene hit me hard. There’s something deeply painful about watching someone search for you while you stand right there, unable to reach them. Rand turns it into a metaphor for the whole book. The answer is right in front of people. The valley exists. Freedom exists. But you can’t see it until you’re ready to see it.

The plane eventually rises and disappears. And Dagny is left with a question she can’t shake: if she leaves, will she be just as blind as Rearden? Will she fly right over the truth, circling and circling, never finding it?

The Decision

With one day left, Dagny meets with Galt, Francisco, Mulligan, and Hugh Akston. The question is simple: yes or no.

She asks for one more day. They give her advice, and it’s the opposite of what you’d hear anywhere else. “Follow your mind, not your heart.” “Don’t substitute our judgment for your own.” “You have no duty to anyone but yourself.” Every one of them wants her to stay. Not a single one tries to pressure her.

Then Mulligan starts describing what’s coming for the outside world. Trains stopping. Cities starving. Infrastructure collapsing. He’s not being dramatic. He’s listing facts. New York has two days of food supply if the rails stop running. Planes will go first, then cars, then trucks, then horse carts. Factories will stop. Electric lights will go dark.

And then he says: “The Taggart Bridge will collapse and…”

Dagny cuts him off. “No, it won’t!”

And just like that, she’s made her choice. Not by thinking it through. By reflex. The railroad is her life. She can’t abandon it while there’s still a chance.

Galt stands and nods. “You’ve made your decision.”

What follows is painful and beautiful at the same time. Dagny tells them she wishes she could die in a month just so she could spend it in the valley. That’s how much she loves the place. But as long as she’s alive, she’ll fight for her railroad. She can’t believe that people will refuse to see the truth forever. She still has hope for the outside world.

Hugh Akston tells her gently: “Do they desire to live? Take that question back with you.”

The Last Night

The conditions of her departure are practical and cold. She must never reveal the valley’s location. She’ll be flown out blindfolded. She can’t come back uninvited.

That evening, the three of them walk to Francisco’s cabin. He pours wine into the two silver goblets of Sebastian d’Anconia, his ancestor, and gives one to Dagny and one to Galt. He keeps a plain glass for himself. It’s a gesture of acceptance. He’s handing over the family treasure to the two people he loves most, acknowledging what they are to each other.

Francisco says he knew twelve years ago that this would happen. Before Galt could have known. Before Dagny existed in their story. He says it was always going to be this way.

Galt tells Francisco: “I would have given anything to let it be otherwise, except that which is beyond giving.”

That line is one of the best in the entire novel. You can’t give away your own soul to spare someone pain. Not even someone you love.

Later, alone in Galt’s house, Dagny tells him she knows he’s going back to New York because of her. He says yes. She asks why. He says: “To be there on the day when you decide to join us.” He’ll stay in the dying world as her last key to the valley, waiting for the moment she’s ready.

She asks if she can see him there. No. She asks if he’ll watch over her. More than before. She asks if he’ll protect her. No. He just wants to be there when she finally sees.

He gives her a five-dollar gold piece. Her last wage. She grips it tight.

The next morning, she leaves. Blindfolded, in his plane. Forty-seven minutes later, she’s standing in a scorched prairie next to a Taggart station, watching his plane shrink from a cross to a dot to a spark to nothing.

And she’s back in the world.

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This is part of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (35th Anniversary Edition, ISBN: 978-1-101-13719-2). New posts daily.