The Fountainhead Part 62

"What's the big idea, Ellsworth?" snapped Clokey.

"Why, it's simple, Lance. When the fact that one is a total nonent.i.ty who's done nothing more outstanding than eating, sleeping and chatting with neighbors becomes a fact worthy of pride, of announcement to the world and of diligent study by millions of readers-the fact that one has built a cathedral becomes unrecordable and unannounceable. A matter of perspectives and relativity. The distance permissible between the extremes of any particular capacity is limited. The sound perception of an ant does not include thunder."

"You talk like a decadent bourgeois, Ellsworth," said Gus Webb.

"Pipe down, Sweetie-pie," said Toohey without resentment.

"It's all very wonderful," said Lois Cook, "except that you're doing too well, Ellsworth. You'll run me out of business. Pretty soon if I still want to be noticed, I'll have to write something that's actually good."

"Not in this century, Lois," said Toohey. "And perhaps not in the next. It's later than you think."

"But you haven't said ... !" Ike cried suddenly, worried.

"What haven't I said?"

"You haven't said who's going to produce my play!"

"Leave that to me," said Jules Fougler.

"I forgot to thank you, Ellsworth," said Ike solemnly. "So now I thank you. There are lots of b.u.m plays, but you picked mine. You and Mr. Fougler."

"Your b.u.mness is serviceable, Ike."

"Well, that's something."

"It's a great deal."

"How-for instance?"

"Don't talk too much, Ellsworth," said Gus Webb. "You've got a talking jag."

"Shut your face, Kewpie-doll. I like to talk. For instance, Ike? Well, for instance, suppose I didn't like Ibsen--"

"Ibsen is good," said Ike.

"Sure he's good, but suppose I didn't like him. Suppose I wanted to stop people from seeing his plays. It would do me no good whatever to tell them so. But if I sold them the idea that you're just as great as Ibsen-pretty soon they wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"Jesus, can you?"

"It's only an example, Ike."

"But it would be wonderful!"

"Yes. It would be wonderful. And then it wouldn't matter what they went to see at all. Then nothing would matter-neither the writers nor those for whom they wrote."

"How's that, Ellsworth?"

"Look, Ike, there's no room in the theater for both Ibsen and you. You do understand that, don't you?"

"In a manner of speaking-yes."

"Well, you do want me to make room for you, don't you?"

"All of this useless discussion has been covered before and much better," said Gus Webb. "Shorter. I believe in functional economy."

"Where's it covered, Gus?" asked Lois Cook.

" 'Who had been nothing shall be all,' sister."

"Gus is crude, but deep," said Ike. "I like him."

"Go to h.e.l.l," said Gus.

Lois Cook's butler entered the room. He was a stately, elderly man and he wore full-dress evening clothes. He announced Peter Keating.

"Pete?" said Lois Cook gaily. "Why, sure, shove him in, shove him right in."

Keating entered and stopped, startled, when he saw the gathering.

"Oh ... h.e.l.lo, everybody," he said bleakly. "I didn't know you had company, Lois."

"That's not company. Come in, Pete, sit down, grab yourself a drink, you know everybody."

"h.e.l.lo, Ellsworth," said Keating, his eyes resting on Toohey for support.

Toohey waved his hand, scrambled to his feet and settled down in an armchair, crossing his legs gracefully. Everybody in the room adjusted himself automatically to a sudden control: to sit straighter, to bring knees together, to pull in a relaxed mouth. Only Gus Webb remained stretched as before.

Keating looked cool and handsome, bringing into the unventilated room the freshness of a walk through cold streets. But he was pale and his movements were slow, tired.

"Sorry if I intrude, Lois," he said. "Had nothing to do and felt so d.a.m.n lonely, thought I'd drop in." He slurred over the word "lonely," throwing it away with a self-deprecatory smile. "d.a.m.n tired of Neil Dumont and the bunch. Wanted more uplifting company-sort of spiritual food, huh?"

"I'm a genius," said Ike. "I'll have a play on Broadway. Me and Ibsen. Ellsworth said so."

"Ike has just read his new play to us," said Toohey. "A magnificent piece of work."

"You'll love it, Peter," said Lancelot Clokey. "It's really great."

"It is a masterpiece," said Jules Fougler. "I hope you will prove yourself worthy of it, Peter. It is the kind of play that depends upon what the members of the audience are capable of bringing with them into the theater. If you are one of those literal-minded people, with a dry soul and a limited imagination, it is not for you. But if you are a real human being with a big, big heart full of laughter, who has preserved the uncorrupted capacity of his childhood for pure emotion-you will find it an unforgettable experience."

"Except as ye become as little children ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven," said Ellsworth Toohey.

"Thanks, Ellsworth," said Jules Fougler. "That will be the lead of my review."

Keating looked at Ike, at the others, his eyes eager. They all seemed remote and pure, far above him in the safety of their knowledge, but their faces had hints of smiling warmth, a benevolent invitation extended downward.

Keating drank the sense of their greatness, the spiritual food he sought in coming here, and felt himself rising through them. They saw their greatness made real by him. A circuit was established in the room and the circle closed. Everybody was conscious of that, except Peter Keating.

Ellsworth Toohey came out in support of the cause of modern architecture.

In the past ten years, while most of the new residences continued to be built as faithful historical copies, the principles of Henry Cameron had won the field of commercial structures: the factories, the office buildings, the skysc.r.a.pers. It was a pale, distorted victory; a reluctant compromise that consisted of omitting columns and pediments, allowing a few stretches of wall to remain naked, apologizing for a shape-good through accident-by finishing it off with an edge of simplified Grecian volutes. Many stole Cameron's forms; few understood his thinking. The sole part of his argument irresistible to the owners of new structures was financial economy; he won to that extent.

In the countries of Europe, most prominently in Germany, a new school of building had been growing for a long time: it consisted of putting up four walls and a flat top over them, with a few openings. This was called new architecture. The freedom from arbitrary rules, for which Cameron had fought, the freedom that imposed a great new responsibility on the creative builder, became a mere elimination of all effort, even the effort of mastering historical styles. It became a rigid set of new rules-the discipline of conscious incompetence, creative poverty made into a system, mediocrity boastfully confessed.

"A building creates its own beauty, and its ornament is derived from the rules of its theme and its structure," Cameron had said. "A building needs no beauty, no ornament and no theme," said the new architects. It was safe to say it. Cameron and a few men had broken the path and paved it with their lives. Other men, of whom there were greater numbers, the men who had been safe in copying the Parthenon, saw the danger and found a way to security: to walk Cameron's path and make it lead them to a new Parthenon, an easier Parthenon in the shape of a packing crate of gla.s.s and concrete. The palm tree had broken through; the fungus came to feed on it, to deform it, to hide, to pull it back into the common jungle.

The jungle found its words.

In "One Small Voice," sub-t.i.tled "I Swim with the Current," Ellsworth Toohey wrote: "We have hesitated for a long time to acknowledge the powerful phenomenon known as Modern Architecture. Such caution is requisite in anyone who stands in the position of mentor to the public taste. Too often, isolated manifestations of anomaly can be mistaken for a broad popular movement, and one should be careful not to ascribe to them a significance they do not deserve. But Modem Architecture has stood the test of time, has answered a demand of the ma.s.ses, and we are glad to salute it.

"It is not amiss to offer a measure of recognition to the pioneers of this movement, such as the late Henry Cameron. Premonitory echoes of the new grandeur can be found in some of his work. But like all pioneers he was still bound by the inherited prejudices of the past, by the sentimentality of the middle cla.s.s from which he came. He succ.u.mbed to the superst.i.tion of beauty and ornament, even though the ornament was of his own devising, and, consequently, inferior to that of established historical forms.

"It remained for the power of a broad, collective movement to bring Modern Architecture to its full and true expression. Now it can be seen-growing throughout the world-not as a chaos of individual fancies, but as a cohesive, organized discipline which makes severe demands upon the artist, among them the demand to subordinate himself to the collective nature of his craft.

"The rules of this new architecture have been formulated by the vast process of popular creation. They are as strict as the rules of Cla.s.sicism. They demand unadorned simplicity-like the honesty of the unspoiled common man. Just as in the pa.s.sing age of international bankers every building had to have an ostentatious cornice, so now the coming age ordains that every building have a flat roof. Just as the imperialist era required a Roman portico on every house, so the era of humanity requires that every house have corner windows-symbol of the sunshine distributed equally to all.

"The discriminating will see the social significance eloquent in the forms of this new architecture. Under the old system of exploitation, the most useful social elements-the workers-were never permitted to realize their importance; their practical functions were kept hidden and disguised; thus a master had his servants dressed up in fancy gold-braided livery. This was reflected in the architecture of the period; the functional elements of a building-its doors, windows, stairways-were hidden under the scrolls of pointless ornamentation. But in a modern building, it is precisely these useful elements-symbols of toil-that come starkly in the open. Do we not hear in this the voice of a new world where the worker shall come into his own?

"As the best example of Modern Architecture in America, we call to your attention the new plant of the Ba.s.sett Brush Company, soon to be completed. It is a small building, but in its modest proportions it embodies all the grim simplicity of the new discipline and presents an invigorating example of the Grandeur of the Little. It was designed by Augustus Webb, a young architect of great promise."

Meeting Toohey a few days later, Peter Keating asked, disturbed: "Say, Ellsworth, did you mean it?"

"What?"

"About modern architecture."

"Of course I meant it. How did you like my little piece?"

"Oh, I thought it was very beautiful. Very convincing. But say, Ellsworth, why ... why did you pick Gus Webb? After all, I've done some modernistic things in the last few years. The Palmer Building was quite bare, and the Mowry Building was nothing but roof and windows, and the Sheldon Warehouse was ..."

"Now, Peter, don't be a hog. I've done pretty well by you, haven't I? Let me give somebody else a boost once in a while."

At a luncheon where he had to speak on architecture, Peter Keating stated: "In reviewing my career to date, I came to the conclusion that I have worked on a true principle: the principle that constant change is a necessity of life. Since buildings are an indispensable part of life, it follows that architecture must change constantly. I have never developed any architectural prejudices for myself, but insisted on keeping my mind open to all the voices of the times. The fanatics who went around preaching that all structures must be modern were just as narrow-minded as the hidebound conservatives who demanded that we employ nothing but historical styles. I do not apologize for those of my buildings which were designed in the Cla.s.sical tradition. They were an answer to the need of their era. Neither do I apologize for the buildings which I designed in the modern style. They represent the coming better world. It is my opinion that in the humble realization of this principle lies the reward and the joy of being an architect."

There was gratifying publicity, and many flattering comments of envy in professional circles, when the news of Peter Keating's selection to build Stoneridge was made public. He tried to recapture his old pleasure in such manifestations. He failed. He still felt something that resembled gladness, but it was faded and thin.

The effort of designing Stoneridge seemed a load too vast to lift. He did not mind the circ.u.mstances through which he had obtained it; that, too, had become pale and weightless in his mind, accepted and almost forgotten. He simply could not face the task of designing the great number of houses that Stoneridge required. He felt very tired. He felt tired when he awakened in the morning, and he found himself waiting all day for the time when he would be able to go back to bed.

He turned Stoneridge over to Neil Dumont and Bennett. "Go ahead," he said wearily, "do what you want." "What style, Pete?" Dumont asked. "Oh, make it some sort of period-the small home owners won't go for it otherwise. But trim it down a little-for the press comments. Give it historical touches and a modern feeling. Any way you wish. I don't care."

Dumont and Bennett went ahead. Keating changed a few roof lines on their sketches, a few windows. The preliminary drawings were approved by Wynand's office. Keating did not know whether Wynand had approved in person. He did not see Wynand again.

Dominique had been away a month, when Guy Francon announced his retirement. Keating had told him about the divorce, offering no explanation. Francon had taken the news calmly. He had said: "I expected it. It's all right, Peter. It's probably not your fault nor hers." He had not mentioned it since. Now he gave no explanation of his retirement, only: "I told you it was coming, long ago. I'm tired. Good luck, Peter."

The responsibility of the firm on his lonely shoulders and the prospect of his solitary name on the office door left Keating uneasy. He needed a partner. He chose Neil Dumont. Neil had grace and distinction. He was another Lucius Heyer. The firm became Peter Keating & Cornelius Dumont. Some sort of drunken celebration of the event was held by a few friends, but Keating did not attend it. He had promised to attend, but he forgot about it, went for a solitary weekend in the s...o...b..und country, and did not remember the celebration until the morning after it was held, when he was walking alone down a frozen country road.

Stoneridge was the last contract signed by the firm of Francon & Keating.

VII

WHEN DOMINIQUE STEPPED OFF THE TRAIN IN NEW YORK, Wynand was there to meet her. She had not written to him nor heard from him during the weeks of her residence in Reno; she had notified no one of her return. But his figure standing on the platform, standing calmly, with an air of finality, told her that he had kept in touch with her lawyers, had followed every step of the divorce proceedings, had known the date when the decree was granted, the hour when she took the train and the number of her compartment.

He did not move forward when he saw her. It was she who walked to him, because she knew that he wanted to see her walking, if only the short s.p.a.ce between them. She did not smile, but her face had the lovely serenity that can become a smile without transition.

"h.e.l.lo, Gail."

"h.e.l.lo, Dominique."

She had not thought of him in his absence, not sharply, not with a personal feeling of his reality, but now she felt an immediate recognition, a sense of reunion with someone known and needed.

He said: "Give me your baggage checks, I'll have it attended to later; my car is outside."

She handed him the checks and he slipped them into his pocket. They knew they must turn and walk up the platform to the exit, but the decisions both had made in advance broke down in the same instant, because they did not turn, but remained standing, looking at each other.

He made the first effort to correct the breach. He smiled lightly.

"If I had the right to say it, I'd say that I couldn't have endured the waiting had I known that you'd look as you do. But since I have no such right, I'm not going to say it."

She laughed. "All right, Gail. That was a form of pretense, too-our being too casual. It makes things more important, not less, doesn't it? Let's say whatever we wish."

"I love you," he said, his voice expressionless, as if the words were a statement of pain and not addressed to her.

"I'm glad to be back with you, Gail. I didn't know I would be, but I'm glad."

"In what way, Dominique?"

"I don't know. In a way of contagion from you, I think. In a way of finality and peace."

Then they noticed that this was said in the middle of a crowded platform, with people and baggage racks hurrying past.

They walked out to the street, to his car. She did not ask where they were going; and did not care. She sat silently beside him. She felt divided, most of her swept by a wish not to resist, and a small part of her left to wonder about it. She felt a desire to let him carry her-a feeling of confidence without appraisal, not a happy confidence, but confidence. After a while, she noticed that her hand lay in his, the length of her gloved fingers held to the length of his, only the spot of her bare wrist pressed to his skin. She had not noticed him take her hand; it seemed so natural and what she had wanted from the moment of seeing him. But she would not allow herself to want it.

"Where are we going, Gail?" she asked.

"To get the license. Then to the judge's office. To be married."

She sat up slowly, turning to face him. She did not withdraw her hand, but her fingers became rigid, conscious, taken away from him.