The Fountainhead Part 39

"I swear it. By ... that."

"All right. Now you've never dealt with architects, and he's an unusual kind of architect, and you don't want to m.u.f.f it. So I'll tell you exactly what you're to say to him."

On the following day Toohey walked into Dominique's office. He stood at her desk, smiled and said, his voice unsmiling: "Do you remember Hopton Stoddard and that temple of all faith that he's been talking about for six years?"

"Vaguely."

"He's going to build it."

"Is he?"

"He's giving the job to Howard Roark."

"Not really!"

"Really."

"Well, of all the incredible ... Not Hopton!"

"Hopton."

"Oh, all right. I'll go to work on him."

"No. You'll lay off. I told him to give it to Roark."

She sat still, exactly as the words caught her, the amus.e.m.e.nt gone from her face. He added: "I wanted you to know that I did it, so there won't be any tactical contradictions. No one else knows it or is to know it. I trust you to remember that."

"She asked, her lips moving tightly: "What are you after?"

He smiled. He said: "I'm going to make him famous."

Roark sat in Hopton Stoddard's office and listened, stupefied. Hopton Stoddard spoke slowly; it sounded earnest and impressive, but was due to the fact that he had memorized his speeches almost verbatim. His baby eyes looked at Roark with an ingratiating plea. For once, Roark almost forgot architecture and placed the human element first; he wanted to get up and get out of the office; he could not stand the man. But the words he heard held him; the words did not match the man's face or voice.

"So you see, Mr. Roark, though it is to be a religious edifice, it is also more than that. You notice that we call it the Temple of the Human Spirit. We want to capture-in stone, as others capture in music-not some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. And what is the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit toward the highest, the n.o.blest, the best. The human spirit as the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great life-giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit. That is your a.s.signment, Mr. Roark."

Roark rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, helplessly. It was not possible. It simply was not possible. That could not be what the man wanted; not that man. It seemed horrible to hear him say that.

"Mr. Stoddard, I'm afraid you've made a mistake," he said, his voice slow and tired. "I don't think I'm the man you want. I don't think it would be right for me to undertake it. I don't believe in G.o.d."

He was astonished to see Hopton Stoddard's expression of delight and triumph. Hopton Stoddard glowed in appreciation-in appreciation of the clairvoyant wisdom of Ellsworth Toohey who was always right. He drew himself up with new confidence, and he said firmly, for the first time in the tone of an old man addressing a youth, wise and gently patronizing: "That doesn't matter. You're a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark -in your own way. I can see that in your buildings."

He wondered why Roark stared at him like that, without moving, for such a long time.

"That's true," said Roark. It was almost a whisper.

That he should learn something about himself, about his buildings, from this man who had seen it and known it before he knew it, that this man should say it with that air of tolerant confidence implying full understanding-removed Roark's doubts. He told himself that he did not really understand people; that an impression could be deceptive; that Hopton Stoddard would be far on another continent anyway; that nothing mattered in the face of such an a.s.signment; that nothing could matter when a human voice-even Hopton Stoddard's-was going on, saying: "I wish to call it G.o.d. You may choose any other name. But what I want in that building is your spirit. Your spirit, Mr. Roark. Give me the best of that-and you will have done your job, as I shall have done mine. Do not worry about the meaning I wish conveyed. Let it be your spirit in the shape of a building-and it will have that meaning, whether you know it or not."

And so Roark agreed to build the Stoddard Temple of the Human Spirit.

XI

IN DECEMBER THE COSMO-SLOTNICK BUILDING WAS OPENED WITH great ceremony. There were celebrities, flower horseshoes, newsreel cameras, revolving searchlights and three hours of speeches, all alike.

I should be happy, Peter Keating told himself-and wasn't. He watched from a window the solid spread of faces filling Broadway from curb to curb. He tried to talk himself into joy. He felt nothing. He had to admit that he was bored. But he smiled and shook hands and let himself be photographed. The Cosmo-Slotnick Building rose ponderously over the street, like a big white bromide.

After the ceremonies Ellsworth Toohey took Keating away to the retreat of a pale-orchid booth in a quiet, expensive restaurant. Many brilliant parties were being given in honor of the opening, but Keating grasped Toohey's offer and declined all the other invitations. Toohey watched him as he seized his drink and slumped in his seat.

"Wasn't it grand?" said Toohey. "That, Peter, is the climax of what you can expect from life." He lifted his gla.s.s delicately. "Here's to the hope that you shall have many triumphs such as this. Such as tonight."

"Thanks," said Keating, and reached for his gla.s.s hastily, without looking, and lifted it, to find it empty.

"Don't you feel proud, Peter?"

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"That's good. That's how I like to see you. You looked extremely handsome tonight. You'll be splendid in those newsreels."

A flicker of interest snapped in Keating's eyes. "Well, I sure hope so."

"It's too bad you're not married, Peter. A wife would have been most decorative tonight. Goes well with the public. With the movie audiences, too."

"Katie doesn't photograph well."

"Oh, that's right, you're engaged to Katie. So stupid of me. I keep forgetting it. No, Katie doesn't photograph well at all. Also, for the life of me, I can't imagine Katie being very effective at a social function. There are a great many nice adjectives one could use about Katie, but 'poised' and 'distinguished' are not among them. You must forgive me, Peter. I let my imagination run away with me. Dealing with art as much as I do, I'm inclined to see things purely from the viewpoint of artistic fitness. And looking at you tonight, I couldn't help thinking of the woman who would have made such a perfect picture by your side."

"Who?"

"Oh, don't pay attention to me. It's only an esthetic fancy. Life is never as perfect as that. People have too much to envy you for. You couldn't add that that to your other achievements." to your other achievements."

"Who?"

"Drop it, Peter. You can't get her. n.o.body can get her. You're good, but you're not good enough for that."

"Who?"

"Dominique Francon, of course."

Keating sat up straight and Toohey saw wariness in his eyes, rebellion, actual hostility. Toohey held his glance calmly. It was Keating who gave in; he slumped again and he said, pleading: "Oh, G.o.d, Ellsworth, I don't love her."

"I never thought you did. But I do keep forgetting the exaggerated importance which the average man attaches to love-s.e.xual love."

"I'm not an average man," said Keating wearily; it was an automatic protest-without fire.

"Sit up, Peter. You don't look like a hero, slumped that way."

Keating jerked himself up-anxious and angry. He said: "I've always felt that you wanted me to marry Dominique. Why? What's it to you?"

"You've answered your own question, Peter. What could it possibly be to me? But we were speaking of love. s.e.xual love, Peter, is a profoundly selfish emotion. And selfish emotions are not the ones that lead to happiness. Are they? Take tonight for instance. That was an evening to swell an egotist's heart. Were you happy, Peter? Don't bother, my dear, no answer is required. The point I wish to make is only that one must mistrust one's most personal impulses. What one desires is actually of so little importance! One can't expect to find happiness until one realizes this completely. Think of tonight for a moment. You, my dear Peter, were the least important person there. Which is as it should be. It is not the doer that counts but those for whom things are done. But you were not able to accept that-and so you didn't feel the great elation that should have been yours."

"That's true," whispered Keating. He would not have admitted it to anyone else.

"You missed the beautiful pride of utter selflessness. Only when you learn to deny your ego, completely, only when you learn to be amused by such piddling sentimentalities as your little s.e.x urges-only then will you achieve the greatness which I have always expected of you."

"You ... you believe that about me, Ellsworth? You really do?"

"I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't. But to come back to love. Personal love, Peter, is a great evil-as everything personal. And it always leads to misery. Don't you see why? Personal love is an act of discrimination, of preference. It is an act of injustice-to every human being on earth whom you rob of the affection arbitrarily granted to one. You must love all men equally. But you cannot achieve so n.o.ble an emotion if you don't kill your selfish little choices. They are vicious and futile-since they contradict the first cosmic law-the basic equality of all men."

"You mean," said Keating, suddenly interested, "that in a ... in a philosophical way, deep down, I mean, we're all equal? All of us?"

"Of course," said Toohey.

Keating wondered why the thought was so warmly pleasant to him. He did not mind that this made him the equal of every pickpocket in the crowd gathered to celebrate his building tonight; it occurred to him dimly-and left him undisturbed, even though it contradicted the pa.s.sionate quest for superiority that had driven him all his life. The contradiction did not matter; he was not thinking of tonight nor of the crowd; he was thinking of a man who had not been there tonight.

"You know, Ellsworth," he said, leaning forward, happy in an uneasy kind of way, "I ... I'd rather talk to you than do anything else, anything at all. I had so many places to go tonight-and I'm so much happier just sitting here with you. Sometimes I wonder how I'd ever go on without you."

"That," said Toohey, "is as it should be. Or else what are friends for?"

That winter the annual costume Arts Ball was an event of greater brilliance and orginality than usual. Athelstan Beasely, the leading spirit of its organization, had had what he called a stroke of genius: all the architects were invited to come dressed as their best buildings. It was a huge success.

Peter Keating was the star of the evening. He looked wonderful as the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. An exact papier-mache replica of his famous structure covered him from head to knees; one could not see his face, but his bright eyes peered from behind the windows of the top floor, and the crowning pyramid of the roof rose over his head; the colonnade hit him somewhere about the diaphragm, and he wagged a finger through the portals of the great entrance door. His legs were free to move with his usual elegance, in faultless dress trousers and patent-leather pumps.

Guy Francon was very impressive as the Frink National Bank Building, although the structure looked a little squatter than in the original, in order to allow for Francon's stomach; the Hadrian torch over his head had a real electric bulb lit by a miniature battery. Ralston Holcombe was magnificent as a state capitol, and Gordon L. Prescott was very masculine as a grain elevator. Eugene Pettingill waddled about on his skinny, ancient legs, small and bent, an imposing Park Avenue hotel, with horn-rimmed spectacles peering from under the majestic tower. Two wits engaged in a duel, b.u.t.ting each other in the belly with famous spires, great landmarks of the city that greet the ships approaching from across the ocean. Everybody had lots of fun.

Many of the architects, Athelstan Beasely in particular, commented resentfully on Howard Roark who had been invited and did not come. They had expected to see him dressed as the Enright House.

Dominique stopped in the hall and stood looking at the door, at the inscription: "HOWARD ROARK, ARCHITECT."

She had never seen his office. She had fought against coming here for a long time. But she had to see the place where he worked.

The secretary in the reception room was startled when Dominique gave her name, but announced the visitor to Roark. "Go right in, Miss Francon," she said.

Roark smiled when she entered his office; a faint smile without surprise.

"I knew you'd come here some day," he said. "Want me to show you the place?"

"What's that?" she asked.

His hands were smeared with clay; on a long table, among a litter of unfinished sketches, stood the clay model of a building, a rough study of angles and terraces.

"The Aquitania?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Do you always do that?"

"No. Not always. Sometimes. There's a hard problem here. I like to play with it for a while. It will probably be my favorite building-it's so difficult."

"Go ahead. I want to watch you doing that. Do you mind?"

"Not at all."

In a moment, he had forgotten her presence. She sat in a corner and watched his hands. She saw them molding walls. She saw them smash a part of the structure, and begin again, slowly, patiently, with a strange certainty even in his hesitation. She saw the palm of his hand smooth a long, straight plane, she saw an angle jerked across s.p.a.ce in the motion of his hand before she saw it in clay.

She rose and walked to the window. The buildings of the city far below looked no bigger than the model on his table. It seemed to her that she could see his hands shaping the setbacks, the corners, the roofs of all the structures below, smashing and molding again. Her hand moved absently, following the form of a distant building in rising steps, feeling a physical sense of possession, feeling it for him.

She turned back to the table. A strand of hair hung down over his face bent attentively to the model; he was not looking at her, he was looking at the shape under his fingers. It was almost as if she were watching his hands moving over the body of another woman. She leaned against the wall, weak with a feeling of violent, physical pleasure.

At the beginning of January, while the first steel columns rose from the excavations that were to become the Cord Building and the Aquitania Hotel, Roark worked on the drawings for the Temple.

When the first sketches were finished, he said to his secretary: "Get me Steven Mallory."

"Mallory, Mr. Roark? Who ... Oh, yes, the shooting sculptor."

"The what?"

"He took a shot at Ellsworth Toohey, didn't he?"

"Did he? Yes, that's right."

"Is that the one you want, Mr. Roark?"

"That's the one."

For two days the secretary telephoned art dealers, galleries, architects, newspapers. No one could tell her what had become of Steven Mallory or where he could be found. On the third day she reported to Roark: "I've found an address, in the Village, which I'm told might be his. There's no telephone." Roark dictated a letter asking Mallory to telephone his office.