The Fountainhead Part 64

"No sir, this isn't rubbish. You just haven't noticed, guess you don't read it close enough, but I've got an instinct about things like that and I know. I know when it's just some smart young punk taking pot-shots or when a magazine means business."

"You're nervous, Alvah, and you're exaggerating. The New Frontiers New Frontiers is a liberal magazine and they've always sniped at Gail Wynand. Everybody has. He's never been any too popular in the trade, you know. Hasn't hurt him, though, has it?" is a liberal magazine and they've always sniped at Gail Wynand. Everybody has. He's never been any too popular in the trade, you know. Hasn't hurt him, though, has it?"

"This is different. I don't like it when there's a system behind it, a kind of special purpose, like a lot of little trickles dribbling along, all innocently, and pretty soon they make a little stream, and it all fits pat, and pretty soon ..."

"Getting a persecution mania, Alvah?"

"I don't like it. It was all right when people took cracks at his yachts and women and a few munic.i.p.al election scandals-which were never proved," he added hastily. "But I don't like it when it's that new intelligentsia slang that people seem to be going for nowadays: Gail Wynand, the exploiter, Gail Wynand, the pirate of capitalism, Gail Wynand, the disease of an era. It's still c.r.a.p, Ellsworth, only there's dynamite in that kind of c.r.a.p."

"It's just the modern way of saying the same old things, nothing more. Besides, I can't be responsible for the policy of a magazine just because I sell them an article once in a while."

"Yeah, but ... That's not what I hear."

"What do you hear?"

"I hear you're financing the d.a.m.n thing."

"Who, me? me? With what?" With what?"

"Well, not you yourself exactly. But I hear it was you who got young Ronny Pickering, the booze hound, to give them a shot in the arm to the tune of one hundred thousand smackers, just about when New Frontiers New Frontiers was going the way of all frontiers." was going the way of all frontiers."

"h.e.l.l, that was just to save Ronny from the town's more expensive gutters. The kid was going to the dogs. Gave him a sort of higher purpose in life. And put one hundred thousand smackers to better use than the chorus cuties who'd have got it out of him anyway."

"Yeah, but you could've attached a little string to the gift, slipped word to the editors that they'd better lay off Gail or else."

"The New Frontiers New Frontiers is not the is not the Banner, Banner, Alvah. It's a magazine of principles. One doesn't attach strings to its editors and one doesn't tell them 'or else.' " Alvah. It's a magazine of principles. One doesn't attach strings to its editors and one doesn't tell them 'or else.' "

"In this game, Ellsworth? Whom are you kidding?"

"Well, if it will set your mind at rest, I'll tell you something you haven't heard. It's not supposed to be known-it was done through a lot of proxies. Did you know that I got Mitch.e.l.l Layton to buy a nice fat chunk of the Banner?" Banner?"

"No!"

"Yes."

"Christ, Ellsworth, that's great! Mitch.e.l.l Layton? We can use a reservoir like that and ... Wait a minute. Mitch.e.l.l Layton?"

"Yes. What's wrong with Mitch.e.l.l Layton?"

"Isn't he the little boy who couldn't digest grandpaw's money?"

"Grandpaw left him an awful lot of money."

"Yeah, but he's a crackpot. He's the one who's been a Yogi, then a vegetarian, then a Unitarian, then a nudist-and now he's gone to build a palace of the proletariat in Moscow."

"So what?"

"But Jesus!-a Red among our stockholders?"

"Mitch isn't a Red. How can one be a Red with a quarter of a billion dollars? He's just a pale tea-rose. Mostly yellow. But a nice kid at heart."

"But-on the Banner!" Banner!"

"Alvah, you're an a.s.s. Don't you see? I've made him put some dough into a good, solid, conservative paper. That'll cure him of his pink notions and set him in the right direction. Besides, what harm can he do? Your dear Gail controls his papers, doesn't he?"

"Does Gail know about this?"

"No. Dear Gail hasn't been as watchful in the last five years as he used to be. And you'd better not tell him. You see the way Gail's going. He'll need a little pressure. And you'll need the dough. Be nice to Mitch Layton. He can come in handy."

"That's so."

"It is. You see? My heart's in the right place. I've helped a puny little liberal mag like the New Frontiers, New Frontiers, but I've also brought a much more substantial hunk of cash to a big stronghold of arch-conservatism such as the New York but I've also brought a much more substantial hunk of cash to a big stronghold of arch-conservatism such as the New York Banner." Banner."

"So you have. d.a.m.n decent of you, too, considering that you're a kind of radical yourself."

"Now are you going to talk about any disloyalty?"

"Guess not. Guess you'll stand by the old Banner." Banner."

"Of course I will. Why, I love the Banner. Banner. I'd do anything for it. Why, I'd give my life for the New York I'd do anything for it. Why, I'd give my life for the New York Banner." Banner."

VIII

WALKING THE SOIL OF A DESERT ISLAND HOLDS ONE ANCh.o.r.eD to the rest of the earth; but in their penthouse, with the telephone disconnected, Wynand and Dominique had no feeling of the fifty-seven floors below them, of steel shafts braced against granite-and it seemed to them that their home was anch.o.r.ed in s.p.a.ce, not an island, but a planet. The city became a friendly sight, an abstraction with which no possible communication could be established, like the sky, a spectacle to be admired, but of no direct concern in their lives.

For two weeks after their wedding they never left the penthouse. She could have pressed the b.u.t.ton of the elevator and broken these weeks any time she wished; she did not wish it. She had no desire to resist, to wonder, to question. It was enchantment and peace.

He sat talking to her for hours when she wanted. He was content to sit silently, when she preferred, and look at her as he looked at the objects in his art gallery, with the same distant, undisturbing glance. He answered any question she put to him. He never asked questions. He never spoke of what he felt. When she wished to be alone, he did not call for her. One evening she sat reading in her room and saw him standing at the frozen parapet of the dark roof garden outside, not looking back at the house, only standing in the streak of light from her window.

When the two weeks ended, he went back to his work, to the office of the Banner. Banner. But the sense of isolation remained, like a theme declared and to be preserved through all their future days. He came home in the evening and the city ceased to exist. He had no desire to go anywhere. He invited no guests. But the sense of isolation remained, like a theme declared and to be preserved through all their future days. He came home in the evening and the city ceased to exist. He had no desire to go anywhere. He invited no guests.

He never mentioned it, but she knew that he did not want her to step out of the house, neither with him nor alone. It was a quiet obsession which he did not expect to enforce. When he came home, he asked: "Have you been out?"-never: "Where have you been?" It was not jealousy-the "where" did not matter. When she wanted to buy a pair of shoes, he had three stores send a collection of shoes for her choice-it prevented her visit to a store. When she said she wanted to see a certain picture, he had a projection room built on the roof.

She obeyed, for the first few months. When she realized that she loved their isolation, she broke it at once. She made him accept invitations and she invited guests to their home. He complied without protest.

But he maintained a wall she could not break-the wall he had erected between his wife and his newspapers. Her name never appeared in their pages. He stopped every attempt to draw Mrs. Gail Wynand into public life-to head committees, sponsor charity drives, endorse crusades. He did not hesitate to open her mail-if it bore an official letterhead that betrayed its purpose-to destroy it without answer and to tell her that he had destroyed it. She shrugged and said nothing.

Yet he did not seem to share her contempt for his papers. He did not allow her to discuss them. She could not discover what he thought of them, nor what he felt. Once, when she commented on an offensive editorial, he said coldly: "I've never apologized for the Banner. Banner. I never will." I never will."

"But this is really awful, Gail."

"I thought you married me as the publisher of the Banner." Banner."

"I thought you didn't like to think of that."

"What I like or dislike doesn't concern you. Don't expect me to change the Banner Banner or sacrifice it. I wouldn't do that for anyone on earth." or sacrifice it. I wouldn't do that for anyone on earth."

She laughed. "I wouldn't ask it, Gail."

He did not laugh in answer.

In his office in the Banner Building, he worked with a new energy, a kind of elated, ferocious drive that surprised the men who had known him in his most ambitious years. He stayed in the office all night when necessary, as he had not done for a long time. Nothing changed in his methods and policy. Alvah Scarret watched him with satisfaction. "We were wrong about him, Ellsworth," said Scarret to his constant companion, "it's the same old Gail, G.o.d bless him. Better than ever." "My dear Alvah," said Toohey, "nothing is ever as simple as you think-nor as fast." "But he's happy. Don't you see that he's happy?" "To be happy is the most dangerous thing that could have happened to him. And, as a humanitarian for once, I mean this for his own sake."

Sally Brent decided to outwit her boss. Sally Brent was one of the proudest possessions of the Banner, Banner, a stout, middle-aged woman who dressed like a model for a style show of the twenty-first century and wrote like a chambermaid. She had a large personal following among the readers of the a stout, middle-aged woman who dressed like a model for a style show of the twenty-first century and wrote like a chambermaid. She had a large personal following among the readers of the Banner. Banner. Her popularity made her overconfident. Her popularity made her overconfident.

Sally Brent decided to do a story on Mrs. Gail Wynand. It was just her type of story and there it was, simply going to waste. She gained admittance to Wynand's penthouse, using the tactics of gaining admittance to places where one is not wanted which she had been taught as a well-trained Wynand employee. She made her usual dramatic entrance, wearing a black dress with a fresh sunflower on her shoulder -her constant ornament that had become a personal trade-mark-and she said to Dominique breathlessly: "Mrs. Wynand, I've come here to help you deceive your husband!"

Then she winked at her own naughtiness and explained: "Our dear Mr. Wynand has been unfair to you, my dear, depriving you of your rightful fame, for some reason which I just simply can't understand. But we'll fix him, you and I. What can a man do when we girls get together? He simply doesn't know what good copy you are. So just give me your story, and I'll write it, and it will be so good that he just simply won't be able not to run it."

Dominique was alone at home, and she smiled in a manner which Sally Brent had never seen before, so the right adjectives did not occur to Sally's usually observant mind. Dominique gave her the story. She gave the exact kind of story Sally had dreamed about.

"Yes, of course I cook his breakfast," said Dominique. "Ham and eggs is his favorite dish, just plain ham and eggs ... Oh yes, Miss Brent, I'm very happy. I open my eyes in the morning and I say to myself, it can't be true, it's not poor little me who's become the wife of the great Gail Wynand who had all the glamorous beauties of the world to choose from. You see, I've been in love with him for years. He was just a dream to me, a beautiful, impossible dream. And now it's like a dream come true.... Please, Miss Brent, take this message from me to the women of America: Patience is always rewarded and romance is just around the corner. I think it's a beautiful thought and perhaps it will help other girls as it has helped me.... Yes, all I want of life is to make Gail happy, to share his joys and sorrows, to be a good wife and mother."

Alvah Scarret read the story and liked it so much that he lost all caution. "Run it off, Alvah," Sally Brent urged him, "just have a proof run off and leave it on his desk. He'll okay it, see if he won't." That evening Sally Brent was fired. Her costly contract was bought off-it had three more years to run-and she was told never to enter the Banner Building again for any purpose whatsoever.

Scarret protested in panic: "Gail, you can't fire Sally! Not Sally!" Sally!"

"When I can't fire anyone I wish on my paper, I'll close it and blow up the G.o.d-d.a.m.n building," said Wynand calmly.

"But her public! We'll lose her public!"

"To h.e.l.l with her public."

That night, at dinner, Wynand took from his pocket a crumpled wad of paper-the proof cut of the story-and threw it, without a word, at Dominique's face across the table. It hit her cheek and fell to the floor. She picked it up, unrolled it, saw what it was and laughed aloud.

Sally Brent wrote an article on Gail Wynand's love life. In a gay, intellectual manner, in the terms of a sociological study, the article presented material such as no pulp magazine would have accepted. It was published in the New Frontiers. New Frontiers.

Wynand brought Dominique a necklace designed at his special order. It was made of diamonds without visible settings, s.p.a.ced wide apart in an irregular pattern, like a handful scattered accidentally, held together by platinum chains made under a microscope, barely noticeable. When he clasped it about her neck, it looked like drops of water fallen at random.

She stood before a mirror. She slipped her dressing gown off her shoulders and let the raindrops glitter on her skin. She said: "That life story of the Bronx housewife who murdered her husband's young mistress is pretty sordid, Gail. But I think there's something dirtier-the curiosity of the people who pander to that curiosity. Actually, it was that housewife-she has piano legs and such a baggy neck in her pictures-who made this necklace possible. It's a beautiful necklace. I shall be proud to wear it."

He smiled; the sudden brightness of his eyes had an odd quality of courage.

"That's one way of looking at it," he said. "There's another. I like to think that I took the worst refuse of the human spirit-the mind of that housewife and the minds of the people who like to read about her-and I made of it this necklace on your shoulders. I like to think that I was an alchemist capable of performing so great a purification."

She saw no apology, no regret, no resentment as he looked at her. It was a strange glance; she had noticed it before; a glance of simple worship. And it made her realize that there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence.

She was sitting before her mirror when he entered her dressing room on the following night. He bent down, he pressed his lips to the back of her neck-and he saw a square of paper attached to the corner of her mirror. It was the decoded copy of the cablegram that had ended her career on the Banner. Banner. FIRE THE b.i.t.c.h. G W FIRE THE b.i.t.c.h. G W He lifted his shoulders, to stand erect behind her. He asked: "How did you get that?"

"Ellsworth Toohey gave it to me. I thought it was worth preserving. Of course, I didn't know it would ever become so appropriate."

He inclined his head gravely, acknowledging the authorship, and said nothing else.

She expected to find the cablegram gone next morning. But he had not touched it. She would not remove it. It remained displayed on the comer of her mirror. When he held her in his arms, she often saw his eyes move to that square of paper. She could not tell what he thought.

In the spring, a publishers' convention took him away from New York for a week. It was their first separation. Dominique surprised him by coming to meet him at the airport when he returned. She was gay and gentle; her manner held a promise he had never expected, could not trust, and found himself trusting completely.

When he entered the drawing room of their penthouse and slumped down, half stretching on the couch, she knew that he wanted to lie still here, to feel the recaptured safety of his own world. She saw his eyes, open, delivered to her, without defense. She stood straight, ready. She said: "You'd better dress, Gail. We're going to the theater tonight."

He lifted himself to a sitting posture. He smiled, the slanting ridges standing out on his forehead. She had a cold feeling of admiration for him: the control was perfect, all but these ridges. He said: "Fine. Black tie or white?"

"White. I have tickets for No Skin Off Your Nose. No Skin Off Your Nose. They were very hard to get." They were very hard to get."

It was too much; it seemed too ludicrous to be part of this moment's contest between them. He broke down by laughing frankly, in helpless disgust.

"Good G.o.d, Dominique, not that one!"

"Why, Gail, it's the biggest hit in town. Your own critic, Jules Fougler"-he stopped laughing. He understood-"said it was the greatest play of our age. Ellsworth Toohey said it was the fresh voice of the coming new world. Alvah Scarret said it was not written in ink, but in the milk of human kindness. Sally Brent-before you fired her-said it made her laugh with a lump in her throat. Why, it's the G.o.dchild of the Banner. Banner. I thought you would certainly want to see it." I thought you would certainly want to see it."

"Yes, of course," he said.

He got up and went to dress.

No Skin Off Your Nose had been running for many months. Ellsworth Toohey had mentioned regretfully in his column that the t.i.tle of the play had had to be changed slightly-"as a concession to the stuffy prudery of the middle cla.s.s which still controls our theater. It is a crying example of interference with the freedom of the artist. Now don't let's hear any more of that old twaddle about ours being a free society. Originally, the t.i.tle of this beautiful play was an authentic line drawn from the language of the people, with the brave, simple eloquence of folk expression." had been running for many months. Ellsworth Toohey had mentioned regretfully in his column that the t.i.tle of the play had had to be changed slightly-"as a concession to the stuffy prudery of the middle cla.s.s which still controls our theater. It is a crying example of interference with the freedom of the artist. Now don't let's hear any more of that old twaddle about ours being a free society. Originally, the t.i.tle of this beautiful play was an authentic line drawn from the language of the people, with the brave, simple eloquence of folk expression."

Wynand and Dominique sat in the center of the fourth row, not looking at each other, listening to the play. The things being done on the stage were merely trite and cra.s.s; but the undercurrent made them frightening. There was an air about the ponderous inanities spoken, which the actors had absorbed like an infection; it was in their smirking faces, in the slyness of their voices, in their untidy gestures. It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations and insolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of innocent presumption, but of conscious effrontery; as if the author knew the nature of his work and boasted of his power to make it appear sublime in the minds of his audience and thus destroy the capacity for the sublime within them. The work justified the verdict of its sponsors: it brought laughs, it was amusing; it was an indecent joke, acted out not on the stage but in the audience. It was a pedestal from which a G.o.d had been torn, and in his place there stood, not Satan with a sword, but a corner lout sipping a bottle of Coca-Cola.

There was silence in the audience, puzzled and humble. When someone laughed, the rest joined in, with relief, glad to learn that they were enjoying themselves. Jules Fougler had not tried to influence anybody; he had merely made clear-well in advance and through many channels-that anyone unable to enjoy this play was, basically, a worthless human being. "It's no use asking for explanations," he had said. "Either you're fine enough to like it or you aren't."

In the intermission Wynand heard a stout woman saying: "It's wonderful. I don't understand it, but I have the feeling feeling that it's something very important." Dominique asked him: "Do you wish to go, Gail?" He said: "No. We'll stay to the end." that it's something very important." Dominique asked him: "Do you wish to go, Gail?" He said: "No. We'll stay to the end."

He was silent in the car on their way home. When they entered their drawing room, he stood waiting, ready to hear and accept anything. For a moment she felt the desire to spare him. She felt empty and very tired. She did not want to hurt him; she wanted to seek his help.

Then she thought again what she had thought in the theater. She thought that this play was the creation of the Banner, Banner, this was what the Banner had forced into life, had fed, upheld, made to triumph. And it was the this was what the Banner had forced into life, had fed, upheld, made to triumph. And it was the Banner Banner that had begun and ended the destruction of the Stoddard Temple.... The New York that had begun and ended the destruction of the Stoddard Temple.... The New York Banner, Banner, November 2, 1930-"One Small Voice"-"Sacrilege" by Ellsworth M. Toohey-"The Churches of our Childhood" by Alvah Scarret-"Are you happy, Mr. Superman?" ... And now that destruction was not an event long since past-this was not a comparison between two mutually unmeasurable ent.i.ties, a building and a play-it was not an accident, nor a matter of persons, of Ike, Fougler, Toohey, herself ... and Roark. It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions, the thing that had created the building against the things that made the play possible-two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple statement-two forces that had fought since the world began-and every religion had known of them-and there had always been a G.o.d and a Devil-only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil-he was not single and big, he was many and s.m.u.tty and small. The November 2, 1930-"One Small Voice"-"Sacrilege" by Ellsworth M. Toohey-"The Churches of our Childhood" by Alvah Scarret-"Are you happy, Mr. Superman?" ... And now that destruction was not an event long since past-this was not a comparison between two mutually unmeasurable ent.i.ties, a building and a play-it was not an accident, nor a matter of persons, of Ike, Fougler, Toohey, herself ... and Roark. It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions, the thing that had created the building against the things that made the play possible-two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple statement-two forces that had fought since the world began-and every religion had known of them-and there had always been a G.o.d and a Devil-only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil-he was not single and big, he was many and s.m.u.tty and small. The Banner Banner had destroyed the Stoddard Temple in order to make room for this play-it could not do otherwise-there was no middle choice, no escape, no neutrality-it was one or the other-it had always been-and the contest had many symbols, but no name and no statement.... Roark, she heard herself screaming inside, Roark ... Roark ... Roark ... had destroyed the Stoddard Temple in order to make room for this play-it could not do otherwise-there was no middle choice, no escape, no neutrality-it was one or the other-it had always been-and the contest had many symbols, but no name and no statement.... Roark, she heard herself screaming inside, Roark ... Roark ... Roark ...

"Dominique ... what's the matter?"

She heard Wynand's voice. It was soft and anxious. He had never allowed himself to betray anxiety. She grasped the sound as a reflection of her own face, of what he had seen in her face.

She stood straight, and sure of herself, and very silent inside.

"I'm thinking of you, Gail," she said.

He waited.

"Well, Gail? The total pa.s.sion for the total height?" She laughed, letting her arms swing sloppily in the manner of the actors they had seen. "Say, Gail, have you got a two-cent stamp with a picture of George Washington on it? ... How old are you, Gail? How hard have you worked? Your life is more than half over, but you've seen your reward tonight. Your crowning achievement. Of course, no man is ever quite equal to his highest pa.s.sion. Now if you strive and make a great effort, some day you'll rise to the level of that play!"