The Fountainhead Part 17

Alvah Scarret watched her pleasurably. He had long since given up any attempts beyond holding her hand when not necessary or patting her shoulder; he had stopped thinking of the subject, but he had a dim, half-conscious feeling which he summed up to himself in the words: You never can tell.

"I've got good news for you, child," he said. "I've been working out a little scheme, just a bit of reorganization, and I've figured where I'll consolidate a few things together into a Women's Welfare Department. You know, the schools, the home economics, the care of babies, the juvenile delinquents and all the rest of it-all to be under one head. And I see no better woman for the job than my little girl."

"Do you mean me?" she asked, without turning.

"No one else but. Just as soon as Gail comes back, I'll get his okay."

She turned and looked at him, her arms crossed, her hands holding her elbows. She said: "Thank you, Alvah. But I don't want it."

"What do you mean, you don't want it?"

"I mean that I don't want it."

"For heaven's sake, do you realize what an advance that would be?"

"Toward what?"

"Your career."

"I never said I was planning a career."

"But you don't want to be running a d.i.n.ky back-page column forever!"

"Not forever. Until I get bored with it."

"But think of what you could do in the real game! Think of what Gail could do for you once you come to his attention!"

"I have no desire to come to his attention."

"But, Dominique, we need you. The women will be for you solid after tonight."

"I don't think so."

"Why, I've ordered two columns held for a yarn on the meeting and your speech."

She reached for the telephone and handed the receiver to him. She said: "You'd better tell them to kill it."

"Why?"

She searched through a litter of papers on a desk, found some typewritten sheets and handed them to him. "Here's the speech I made tonight," she said.

He glanced through it. He said nothing, but clasped his forehead once. Then he seized the telephone and gave orders to run as brief an account of the meeting as possible, and not to mention the speaker by name.

"All right," said Dominique, when he dropped the receiver. "Am I fired?"

He shook his head dolefully. "Do you want to be?"

"Not necessarily."

"I'll squash the business," he muttered. "I'll keep it from Gail."

"If you wish. I really don't care one way or the other."

"Listen, Dominque-oh I know, I'm not to ask any questions-only why on earth are you always doing things like that?"

"For no reason on earth."

"Look, you know, I've heard about that sw.a.n.k dinner where you made certain remarks on this same subject. And then you go and say things like these at a radical meeting."

"They're true, though, both sides of it, aren't they?"

"Oh, sure, but couldn't you have reversed the occasions when you chose to express them?"

"There wouldn't have been any point in that."

"Was there any in what you've done?"

"No. None at all. But it amused me."

"I can't figure you out, Dominique. You've done it before. You go along so beautifully, you do brilliant work and just when you're about to make a real step forward-you spoil it by pulling something like this. Why?"

"Perhaps that is precisely why."

"Will you tell me-as a friend, because I like you and I'm interested in you-what are you really after?"

"I should think that's obvious. I'm after nothing at all."

He spread his hands open, shrugging helplessly.

She smiled gaily.

"What is there to look so mournful about? I like you, too, Alvah, and I'm interested in you. I even like to talk to you, which is better. Now sit still and relax and I'll get you a drink. You need a drink, Alvah."

She brought him a frosted gla.s.s with ice cubes ringing in the silence. "You're just a nice child, Dominique," he said.

"Of course. That's what I am."

She sat down on the edge of a table, her hands flat behind her, leaning back on two straight arms, swinging her legs slowly. She said: "You know, Alvah, it would be terrible if I had a job I really wanted."

"Well, of all things! Well, of all fool things to say! What do you mean?"

"Just that. That it would be terrible to have a job I enjoyed and did not want to lose."

"Why?"

"Because I would have to depend on you-you're a wonderful person, Alvah, but not exactly inspiring and I don't think it would be beautiful to cringe before a whip in your hand-oh, don't protest, it would be such a polite little whip, and that's what would make it uglier. I would have to depend on our boss Gail-he's a great man, I'm sure, only I'd just as soon never set eyes on him."

"Whatever gives you such a crazy att.i.tude? When you know that Gail and I would do anything for you, and I personally ..."

"It's not only that, Alvah. It's not you alone. If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted-I'd have to depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a net, the net is waiting, and we're pushed into it by one single desire. You want a thing and it's precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can't know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you're afraid of them all. And you cringe and you crawl and you beg and you accept them-just so they'll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept."

"If I'm correct in gathering that you're criticizing mankind in general ..."

"You know, it's such a peculiar thing-our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you'd feel big and solemn about? There's nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual equivalents. As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they're enjoying themselves? That's when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they've slaved for-at amus.e.m.e.nt parks and side shows. Look at those who're rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That's your mankind in general. I don't want to touch it."

"But h.e.l.l! That's not the way to look at it. That's not the whole picture. There's some good in the worst of us. There's always a redeeming feature."

"So much the worse. Is it an inspiring sight to see a man commit a heroic gesture, and then learn that he goes to vaudeville shows for relaxation? Or see a man who's painted a magnificent canvas-and learn that he spends his time sleeping with every s.l.u.t he meets?"

"What do you want? Perfection?"

"-or nothing. So, you see, I take the nothing."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom."

"You call that freedom?"

"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing."

"What if you found something you wanted?"

"I won't find it. I won't choose to see it. It would be part of that lovely world of yours. I'd have to share it with all the rest of you-and I wouldn't. You know, I never open again any great book I've read and loved. It hurts me to think of the other eyes that have read it and of what they were. Things like that can't be shared. Not with people like that."

"Dominique, it's abnormal to feel so strongly about anything."

"That's the only way I can feel. Or not at all."

"Dominique, my dear," he said, with earnest, sincere concern, "I wish I'd been your father. What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood?"

"Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I'm used to that."

"I suppose you're just an unfortunate product of our times. That's what I've always said. We're too cynical, too decadent. If we went back in all humility to the simple virtues ..."

"Alvah, how can you start on that stuff? That's only for your editorials and ..." She stopped, seeing his eyes; they looked puzzled and a little hurt. Then she laughed. "I'm wrong. You really do believe all that. If it's actually believing, or whatever it is you do that takes its place. Oh, Alvah! That's why I love you. That's why I'm doing again right now what I did tonight at the meeting."

"What?" he asked, bewildered.

"Talking as I am talking-to you as you are. It's nice, talking to you about such things. Do you know, Alvah, that primitive people made statues of their G.o.ds in man's likeness? Just think of what a statue of you would look like-of you nude, your stomach and all."

"Now what's that in relation to?"

"To nothing at all, darling. Forgive me." She added: "You know, I love statues of naked men. Don't look so silly. I said statues. I had one in particular. It was supposed to be Helios. I got it out of a museum in Europe. I had a terrible time getting it-it wasn't for sale, of course. I think I was in love with it, Alvah. I brought it home with me."

"Where is it? I'd like to see something you like, for a change."

"It's broken."

"Broken? A museum piece? How did that happen?"

"I broke it."

"How?"

"I threw it down the air shaft. There's a concrete floor below."

"Are you totally crazy? Why?"

"So that no one else would ever see it."

"Dominique!"

She jerked her head, as if to shake off the subject; the straight ma.s.s of her hair stirred in a heavy ripple, like a wave through a half-liquid pool of mercury. She said: "I'm sorry, darling. I didn't want to shock you. I thought I could speak to you because you're the one person who's impervious to any sort of shock. I shouldn't have. It's no use, I guess."

She jumped lightly off the table.

"Run on home, Alvah," she said. "It's getting late. I'm tired. See you tomorrow."

Guy Francon read his daughter's articles; he heard of the remarks she had made at the reception and at the meeting of social workers. He understood nothing of it, but he understood that it had been precisely the sequence of events to expect from his daughter. It preyed on his mind, with the bewildered feeling of apprehension which the thought of her always brought him. He asked himself whether he actually hated his daughter.

But one picture came back to his mind, irrelevantly, whenever he asked himself that question. It was a picture of her childhood, of a day from some forgotten summer on his country estate in Connecticut long ago. He had forgotten the rest of that day and what had led to the one moment he remembered. But he remembered how he stood on the terrace and saw her leaping over a high green hedge at the end of the lawn. The hedge seemed too high for her little body; he had time to think that she could not make it, in the very moment when he saw her flying triumphantly over the green barrier. He could not remember the beginning nor the end of that leap; but he still saw, clearly and sharply, as on a square of movie film cut out and held motionless forever, the one instant when her body hung in s.p.a.ce, her long legs flung wide, her thin arms thrown up, hands braced against the air, her white dress and blond hair spread in two broad, flat mats on the wind, a single moment, the flash of a small body in the greatest burst of ecstatic freedom he had ever witnessed in his life.

He did not know why that moment remained with him, what significance, unheeded at the time, had preserved it for him when so much else of greater import had been lost. He did not know why he had to see that moment again whenever he felt bitterness for his daughter, nor why, seeing it, he felt that unbearable twinge of tenderness. He told himself merely that his paternal affection was a.s.serting itself quite against his will. But in an awkward, unthinking way he wanted to help her, not knowing, not wanting to know what she had to be helped against.

So he began to look more frequently at Peter Keating. He began to accept the solution which he never quite admitted to himself. He found comfort in the person of Peter Keating, and he felt that Keating's simple, stable wholesomeness was just the support needed by the unhealthy inconstancy of his daughter.

Keating would not admit that he had tried to see Dominique again, persistently and without results. He had obtained her telephone number from Francon long ago, and he had called her often. She had answered, and laughed gaily, and told him that of course she'd see him, she knew she wouldn't be able to escape it, but she was so busy for weeks to come and would he give her a ring by the first of next month?

Francon guessed it. He told Keating he would ask Dominique to lunch and bring them together again. "That is," he added, "I'll try to ask her. She'll refuse, of course." Dominique surprised him again: she accepted, promptly and cheerfully.

She met them at a restaurant, and she smiled as if this were a reunion she welcomed. She talked gaily, and Keating felt enchanted, at ease, wondering why he had ever feared her. At the end of a half hour she looked at Francon and said: "It was wonderful of you to take time off to see me, Father. Particularly when you're so busy and have so many appointments."

Francon's face a.s.sumed a look of consternation.

"My G.o.d, Dominique, that reminds me!"

"You have an appointment you forgot?" she asked gently.

"Confound it, yes! It slipped my mind entirely. Old Andrew Colson phoned this morning and I forgot to make a note of it and he insisted on seeing me at two o'clock, you know how it is, I just simply can't refuse to see Andrew Colson, confound it!-today of all ..." He added, suspiciously: "How did you know it?"

"Why, I didn't know it at all. It's perfectly all right, Father. Mr. Keating and I will excuse you, and we'll have a lovely luncheon together, and I have no appointments at all for the day, so you don't have to be afraid that I'll escape from him."

Francon wondered whether she knew that that had been the excuse he'd prepared in advance in order to leave her alone with Keating. He could not be sure. She was looking straight at him; her eyes seemed just a bit too candid. He was glad to escape.