The Fountainhead Part 29

"Yes," said Keating and felt himself being ridiculous.

"It must have been spring," said Toohey. "It usually is. There's always a dark movie theater, and two people lost to the world, their hands clasped together-but hands do perspire when held too long, don't they? Still, it's beautiful to be in love. The sweetest story ever told-and the tritest. Don't turn away like that, Catherine. We must never allow ourselves to lose our sense of humor."

He smiled. The kindliness of his smile embraced them both. The kindliness was so great that it made their love seem small and mean, because only something contemptible could evoke such immensity of compa.s.sion. He asked: "Incidentally, Peter, when do you intend to get married?"

"Oh, well ... we've never really set a definite date, you know how it's been, all the things happening to me and now Katie has this work of hers and ... And, by the way," he added sharply, because that matter of Katie's work irritated him without reason, "when we're married, Katie will have to give that up. I don't approve of it."

"But of course," said Toohey, "I don't approve of it either, if Catherine doesn't like it."

Catherine was working as day nursery attendant at the Clifford Settlement House. It had been her own idea. She had visited the settlement often with her uncle, who conducted cla.s.ses in economics there, and she had become interested in the work.

"But I do like it!" she said with sudden excitement. "I don't see why you resent it, Peter!" There was a harsh little note in her voice, defiant and unpleasant. "I've never enjoyed anything so much in my life. Helping people who're helpless and unhappy. I went there this morning-I didn't have have to, but I to, but I wanted wanted to-and then I rushed so on my way home, I didn't have time to change my clothes, but that doesn't matter, who cares what I look like? And"-the harsh note was gone, she was speaking eagerly and very fast-"Uncle Ellsworth, imagine! little Billy Hansen had a sore throat-you remember Billy? And the nurse wasn't there, and I had to swab his throat with Argyrol, the poor thing! He had the most awful white mucous patches down in his throat!" to-and then I rushed so on my way home, I didn't have time to change my clothes, but that doesn't matter, who cares what I look like? And"-the harsh note was gone, she was speaking eagerly and very fast-"Uncle Ellsworth, imagine! little Billy Hansen had a sore throat-you remember Billy? And the nurse wasn't there, and I had to swab his throat with Argyrol, the poor thing! He had the most awful white mucous patches down in his throat!"

Her voice seemed to shine, as if she were speaking of great beauty. She looked at her uncle. For the first time Keating saw the affection he had expected. She went on speaking about her work, the children, the settlement. Toohey listened gravely. He said nothing. But the earnest attention in his eyes changed him, his mocking gaiety vanished and he forgot his own advice, he was being serious, very serious indeed. When he noticed that Catherine's plate was empty, he offered her the sandwich tray with a simple gesture and made it, somehow, a gracious gesture of respect.

Keating waited impatiently till she paused for an instant. He wanted to change the subject. He glanced about the room and saw the Sunday papers. This was a question he had wanted to ask for a long time. He asked cautiously: "Ellsworth ... what do you think of Roark?"

"Roark? Roark?" asked Toohey. "Who is Roark?"

The too innocent, too trifling manner in which he repeated the name, with the faint, contemptuous question mark quite audible at the end, made Keating certain that Toohey knew the name well. One did not stress total ignorance of a subject if one were in total ignorance of it. Keating said: "Howard Roark. You know, the architect. The one who's doing the Enright House."

"Oh? Oh, yes, someone's doing that Enright House at last, isn't he?"

"There's a picture of it in the Chronicle Chronicle today." today."

"Is there? I did glance through the Chronicle." Chronicle."

"And ... what do you think of that building?"

"If it were important, I should have remembered it."

"Of course!" Keating's syllables danced, as if his breath caught at each one in pa.s.sing: "It's an awful, crazy thing! Like nothing you ever saw or want to see!"

He felt a sense of deliverance. It was as if he had spent his life believing that he carried a congenital disease, and suddenly the words of the greatest specialist on earth had p.r.o.nounced him healthy. He wanted to laugh, freely, stupidly, without dignity. He wanted to talk.

"Howard's a friend of mine," he said happily.

"A friend of yours? You know him?"

"Do I know him! Why we went to school together-Stanton, you know-why, he lived at our house for three years, I can tell you the color of his underwear and how he takes a shower-I've seen him!"

"He lived at your house in Stanton?" Toohey repeated. Toohey spoke with a kind of cautious precision. The sounds of his voice were small and dry and final, like the cracks of matches being broken.

It was very peculiar, thought Keating. Toohey was asking him a great many questions about Howard Roark. But the questions did not make sense. They were not about buildings, they were not about architecture at all. They were pointless personal questions-strange to ask about a man of whom he had never heard before.

"Does he laugh often?"

"Very rarely."

"Does he seem unhappy?"

"Never."

"Did he have many friends at Stanton?"

"He's never had any friends anywhere."

"The boys didn't like him?"

"n.o.body can like him."

"Why?"

"He makes you feel it would be an impertinence to like him."

"Did he go out, drink, have a good time?"

"Never."

"Does he like money?"

"No."

"Does he like to be admired?"

"No."

"Does he believe in G.o.d?"

"No."

"Does he talk much?"

"Very little."

"Does he listen if others discuss any ... idea with him?"

"He listens. It would be better if he didn't."

"Why?"

"It would be less insulting-if you know what I mean, when a man listens like that and you know it hasn't made the slightest bit of difference to him."

"Did he always want to be an architect?"

"He..,"

"What's the matter, Peter?"

"Nothing. It just occurred to me how strange it is that I've never asked myself that about him before. Here's what's strange: you can't ask that about him. He's a maniac on the subject of architecture. It seems to mean so d.a.m.n much to him that he's lost all human perspective. He just has no sense of humor about himself at all-now there's a man without a sense of humor, Ellsworth. You don't ask what he'd do if he didn't want to be an architect."

"No," said Toohey. "You ask what he'd do if he couldn't be an architect."

"He'd walk over corpses. Any and all of them. All of us. But he'd be an architect."

Toohey folded his napkin, a crisp little square of cloth on his knee; he folded it accurately, once across each way, and he ran his fingernail along the edges to make a sharp crease.

"Do you remember our little youth group of architects, Peter?" he asked. "I'm making arrangements for a first meeting soon. I've spoken to many of our future members and you'd be flattered by what they said about you as our prospective chairman."

They talked pleasantly for another half hour. When Keating rose to go, Toohey declared: "Oh, yes. I did speak to Lois Cook about you. You'll hear from her shortly."

"Thank you so much, Ellsworth. By the way, I'm reading Clouds and Shrouds."

"And?"

"Oh, it's tremendous. You know, Ellsworth, it ... it makes you think so differently about everything you've thought before."

"Yes," said Toohey, "doesn't it?"

He stood at the window, looking out at the last sunshine of a cold, bright afternoon. Then he turned and said: "It's a lovely day. Probably one of the last this year. Why don't you take Catherine out for a little walk, Peter?"

"Oh, I'd love to!" said Catherine eagerly.

"Well, go ahead." Toohey smiled gaily. "What's the matter, Catherine? Do you have to wait for my permission?"

When they walked out together, when they were alone in the cold brilliance of streets flooded with late sunlight, Keating felt himself recapturing everything Catherine had always meant to him, the strange emotion that he could not keep in the presence of others. He closed his hand over hers. She withdrew her hand, took off her glove and slipped her fingers into his. And then he thought suddenly that hands did perspire when held too long, and he walked faster in irritation. He thought that they were walking there like Mickey and Minnie Mouse and that they probably appeared ridiculous to the pa.s.sers-by. To shake himself free of these thoughts he glanced down at her face. She was looking straight ahead at the gold light, he saw her delicate profile and the faint crease of a smile in the corner of her mouth, a smile of quiet happiness. But he noticed that the edge of her eyelid was pale and he began to wonder whether she was anemic.

Lois Cook sat on the floor in the middle of her living room, her legs crossed Turkish fashion, showing large bare knees, gray stockings rolled over tight garters, and a piece of faded pink drawers. Peter Keating sat on the edge of a violet satin chaise longue. Never before had he felt uncomfortable at a first interview with a client.

Lois Cook was thirty-seven. She had stated insistently, in her publicity and in private conversation, that she was sixty-four. It was repeated as a whimsical joke and it created about her name a vague impression of eternal youth. She was tall, dry, narrow-shouldered and broad-hipped. She had a long, sallow face, and eyes set close together. Her hair hung about her ears in greasy strands. Her fingernails were broken. She looked offensively unkempt, with studied slovenliness as careful as grooming-and for the same purpose.

She talked incessantly, rocking back and forth on her haunches: "... yes, on the Bowery. A private residence. The shrine on the Bowery. I have the site, I wanted it and I bought it, as simple as that, or my fool lawyer bought it for me, you must meet my lawyer, he has halitosis. I don't know what you'll cost me, but it's unessential, money is commonplace. Cabbage is commonplace too. It must have three stories and a living room with a tile floor."

"Miss Cook, I've read Clouds and Shrouds Clouds and Shrouds and it was a spiritual revelation to me. Allow me to include myself among the few who understand the courage and significance of what you're achieving singlehanded while ..." and it was a spiritual revelation to me. Allow me to include myself among the few who understand the courage and significance of what you're achieving singlehanded while ..."

"Oh, can the c.r.a.p," said Lois Cook and winked at him.

"But I mean it!" he snapped angrily. "I loved your book. I ..."

She looked bored.

"It is so commonplace," she drawled, "to be understood by everybody."

"But Mr. Toohey said ..."

"Ah, yes. Mr. Toohey." Her eyes were alert now, insolently guilty, like the eyes of a child who has just perpetrated some nasty little joke. "Mr. Toohey. I'm chairman of a little youth group of writers in which Mr. Toohey is very interested."

"You are?" he said happily. It seemed to be the first direct communication between them. "Isn't that interesting! Mr. Toohey is getting together a little youth group of architects, too, and he's kind enough to have me in mind for chairman."

"Oh," she said and winked. "One of us?"

"Of whom?"

He did not know what he had done, but he knew that he had disappointed her in some way. She began to laugh. She sat there, looking up at him, laughing deliberately in his face, laughing ungraciously and not gaily.

"What the ... !" He controlled himself. "What's the matter, Miss Cook?"

"Oh my!" she said. "You're such a sweet, sweet boy and so pretty!"

"Mr. Toohey is a great man," he said angrily. "He's the most ... the n.o.blest personality I've ever ..."

"Oh, yes. Mr. Toohey is a wonderful man." Her voice was strange by omission, it was flagrantly devoid of respect. "My best friend. The most wonderful man on earth. There's the earth and there's Mr. Toohey-a law of nature. Besides, think how nicely you can rhyme it: Toohey-gooey-phooey-hooey. Nevertheless, he's a saint. That's very rare. As rare as genius. I'm a genius. I want a living room without windows. No windows at all, remember that when you draw up the plans. No windows, a tile floor and a black ceiling. And no electricity. I want no electricity in my house, just kerosene lamps. Kerosene lamps with chimneys, and candles. To h.e.l.l with Thomas Edison! Who was he anyway?"

Her words did not disturb him as much as her smile. It was not a smile, it was a permanent smirk raising the corners of her long mouth, making her look like a sly, vicious imp.

"And, Keating, I want the house to be ugly. ugly. Magnificently ugly. I want it to be the ugliest house in New York." Magnificently ugly. I want it to be the ugliest house in New York."

"The ... ugliest, ugliest, Miss Cook?" Miss Cook?"

"Sweetheart, the beautiful is so commonplace!"

"Yes, but ... but I ... well, I don't see how I could permit myself to ..."

"Keating, where's your courage? Aren't you capable of a sublime gesture on occasion? They all work so hard and struggle and suffer, trying to achieve beauty, trying to surpa.s.s one another in beauty. Let's surpa.s.s them all! Let's throw their sweat in their face. Let's destroy them at one stroke. Let's be G.o.ds. Let's be ugly."

He accepted the commission. After a few weeks he stopped feeling uneasy about it. Wherever he mentioned this new job, he met a respectful curiosity. It was an amused curiosity, but it was respectful. The name of Lois Cook was well known in the best drawing rooms he visited. The t.i.tles of her books were flashed in conversation like the diamonds in the speaker's intellectual crown. There was always a note of challenge in the voices p.r.o.nouncing them. It sounded as if the speaker were being very brave. It was a satisfying bravery; it never aroused antagonism. For an author who did not sell, her name seemed strangely famous and honored. She was the standard-bearer of a vanguard of intellect and revolt. Only it was not quite clear to him just exactly what the revolt was against. Somehow, he preferred not to know.

He designed the house as she wished it. It was a three-floor edifice, part marble, part stucco, adorned with gargoyles and carriage lanterns. It looked like a structure from an amus.e.m.e.nt park.

His sketch of it was reproduced in more publications than any other drawing he had ever made, with the exception of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. One commentator expressed the opinion that "Peter Keating is showing a promise of being more than just a bright young man with a knack for pleasing stuffy moguls of big business. He is venturing into the field of intellectual experimentation with a client such as Lois Cook." Toohey referred to the house as "a cosmic joke."

But a peculiar sensation remained in Keating's mind: the feeling of an aftertaste. He would experience a dim flash of it while working on some important structure he liked; he would experience it in the moments when he felt proud of his work. He could not identify the quality of the feeling; but he knew that part of it was a sense of shame.

Once, he confessed it to Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey laughed. "That's good for you, Peter. One must never allow oneself to acquire an exaggerated sense of one's own importance. There's no necessity to burden oneself with absolutes."

V