The Fountainhead (45 page)

“... and thus, my friends, what the architectural profession lacks is an understanding of its own social importance. This lack is due to a double cause: to the anti-social nature of our entire society and to your own inherent modesty. You have been conditioned to think of yourselves merely as breadwinners with no higher purpose than to earn your fees and the means of your own existence. Isn’t it time, my friends, to pause and to redefine your position in society? Of all the crafts, yours is the most important. Important, not in the amount of money you might make, not in the degree of artistic skill you might exhibit, but in the service you render to your fellow men. You are those who provide mankind’s shelter. Remember this and then look at our cities, at our slums, to realize the gigantic task awaiting you. But to meet this challenge you must be armed with a broader vision of yourselves and of your work. You are not hired lackeys of the rich. You are crusaders in the cause of the underprivileged and the unsheltered. Not by what we are shall we be judged, but by those we serve. Let us stand united in this spirit. Let us—in all matters—be faithful to this new, broader, higher perspective. Let us organize—well, my friends, shall I say—a nobler dream?”

Keating listened avidly. He had always thought of himself as a bread-winner bent upon earning his fees, in a profession he had chosen because his mother had wanted him to choose it. It was gratifying to discover that he was much more than this; that his daily activity carried a nobler significance. It was pleasant and it was drugging. He knew that all the others in the room felt it also.

“... and when our system of society collapses, the craft of builders will not be swept under, it will be swept up to greater prominence and greater recognition ...”

The doorbell rang. Then Toohey’s valet appeared for an instant, holding the door of the living room open to admit Dominique Francon.

By the manner in which Toohey stopped, on a half-uttered word, Keating knew that Dominique had not been invited or expected. She smiled at Toohey, shook her head and moved one hand in a gesture telling him to continue. He managed a faint bow in her direction, barely more than a movement of his eyebrows, and went on with his speech. It was a pleasant greeting and its informality included the guest in the intimate brotherhood of the occasion, but it seemed to Keating that it had come just one beat too late. He had never before seen Toohey miss the right moment.

Dominique sat down in a corner, behind the others. Keating forgot to listen for a while, trying to attract her attention. He had to wait until her eyes had traveled thoughtfully about the room, from face to face, and stopped on his. He bowed and nodded vigorously, with the smile of greeting a private possession. She inclined her head, he saw her lashes touching her cheeks for an instant as her eyes closed, and then she looked at him again. She sat looking at him for a long moment, without smiling, as if she were rediscovering something in his face. He had not seen her since spring. He thought that she looked a little tired and lovelier than his memory of her.

Then he turned to Ellsworth Toohey once more and he listened. The words he heard were as stirring as ever, but his pleasure in them had an edge of uneasiness. He looked at Dominique. She did not belong in this room, at this meeting. He could not say why, but the certainty of it was enormous and oppressive. It was not her beauty, it was not her insolent elegance. But something made her an outsider. It was as if they had all been comfortably naked, and a person had entered fully clothed, suddenly making them self-conscious and indecent. Yet she did nothing. She sat listening attentively. Once, she leaned back, crossing her legs, and lighted a cigarette. She shook the flame off the match with a brusque little jerk of her wrist and she dropped the match into an ash tray on a table beside her. He saw her drop the match into the ash tray; he felt as if that movement of her wrist had tossed the match into all their faces. He thought that he was being preposterous. But he noticed that Ellsworth Toohey never looked at her as he spoke.

When the meeting ended, Toohey rushed over to her.

“Dominique, my dear!” he said brightly. “Shall I consider myself flattered?”

“If you wish.”

“Had I known that you were interested, I would have sent you a very special invitation.”

“But you didn’t think I’d be interested?”

“No, frankly, I ...”

“That was a mistake, Ellsworth. You discounted my newspaper-woman’s instinct. Never miss a scoop. It’s not often that one has the chance to witness the birth of a felony.”

“Just exactly what do you mean, Dominique?” asked Keating, his voice sharp.

She turned to him. “Hello, Peter.”

“You know Peter Keating of course?” Toohey smiled at her.

“Oh, yes. Peter was in love with me once.”

“You’re using the wrong tense, Dominique,” said Keating.

“You must never take seriously anything Dominique chooses to say, Peter. She does not intend us to take it seriously. Would you like to join our little group, Dominique? Your professional qualifications make you eminently eligible.”

“No, Ellsworth. I wouldn’t like to join your little group. I really don’t hate you enough to do that.”

“Just why do you disapprove of it?” snapped Keating.

“Why, Peter!” she drawled. “Whatever gave you that idea? I don’t disapprove of it at all. Do I, Ellsworth? I think it’s a proper undertaking in answer to an obvious necessity. It’s just what we all need—and deserve.”

“Can we count on your presence at our next meeting?” Toohey asked. “It is pleasant to have so understanding a listener who will not be in the way at alt—at our next meeting, I mean.”

“No, Ellsworth. Thank you. It was merely curiosity. Though you do have an interesting group of people here. Young builders. By the way, why didn’t you invite that man who designed the Enright House—what’s his name?—Howard Roark?”

Keating felt his jaw snap tight. But she looked at them innocently, she had said it lightly, in the tone of a casual remark—surely, he thought, she did not mean ... what? he asked himself and added: she did not mean whatever it was he’d thought for a moment she meant, whatever had terrified him in that moment.

“I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Roark,” Toohey answered gravely.

“Do you know him?” Keating asked her.

“No,” she answered. “I’ve merely seen a sketch of the Enright House.”

“And?” Keating insisted. “What do you think of it?”

“I don’t think of it,” she answered.

When she turned to leave, Keating accompanied her. He looked at her in the elevator, on their way down. He saw her hand, in a tight black glove, holding the flat corner of a pocketbook. The limp carelessness of her fingers was insolent and inviting at once. He felt himself surrendering to her again.

“Dominique, why did you actually come here today?”

“Oh, I haven’t been anywhere for a long time and I decided to start in with that. You know, when I go swimming I don’t like to torture myself getting into cold water by degrees. I dive right in and it’s a nasty shock, but after that the rest is not so hard to take.”

“What do you mean? What do you really see that’s so wrong with that meeting? After all, we’re not planning to do anything definite. We don’t have any actual program. I don’t even know what we were there for.”

“That’s it, Peter. You don’t even know what you were there for.”

“It’s only a group for fellows to get together. Mostly to talk. What harm is there in that?”

“Peter, I’m tired.”

“Well, did your appearance tonight mean at least that you’re coming out of your seclusion?”

“Yes. Just that ... My seclusion?”

“I’ve tried and tried to get in touch with you, you know.”

“Have you?”

“Shall I begin to tell you how happy I am to see you again?”

“No. Let’s consider that you’ve told me.”

“You know, you’ve changed, Dominique. I don’t know exactly in what way, but you’ve changed.”

“Have I?”

“Let’s consider that I’ve told you how lovely you are, because I can’t find words to say it.”

The streets were dark. He called a cab. Sitting close to her, he turned and looked at her directly, his glance compelling like an open hint, hoping to make the silence significant between them. She did not turn away. She sat studying his face. She seemed to be wondering, attentive to some thought of her own which he could not guess. He reached over slowly and took her hand. He felt an effort in her hand, he could feel through her rigid fingers the effort of her whole arm, not an effort to withdraw her hand, but to let him hold it. He raised the hand, turned it over and pressed his lips to her wrist.

Then he looked at her face. He dropped her hand and it remained suspended in the air for an instant, the fingers stiff, half closed. This was not the indifference he remembered. This was revulsion, so great that it became impersonal, it could not offend him, it seemed to include more than his person. He was suddenly aware of her body; not in desire or resentment, but just aware of its presence close to him, under her dress. He whispered involuntarily:

“Dominique, who was he?”

She whirled to face him. Then he saw her eyes narrowing. He saw her lips relaxing, growing fuller, softer, her mouth lengthening slowly into a faint smile, without opening. She answered, looking straight at him:

“A workman in the granite quarry.”

She succeeded; he laughed aloud.

“Serves me right, Dominique. I shouldn’t suspect the impossible.”

“Peter, isn’t it strange? It was you that I thought I could make myself want, at one time.”

“Why is that strange?”

“Only in thinking how little we know about ourselves. Some day you’ll know the truth about yourself too, Peter, and it will be worse for you than for most of us. But you don’t have to think about it. It won’t come for a long time.”

“You did want me, Dominique?”

“I thought I could never want anything and you suited that so well.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know what you ever think you’re saying. I know that I’ll always love you. And I won’t let you disappear again. Now that you’re back ...”

“Now that I’m back, Peter, I don’t want to see you again. Oh, I’ll have to see you when we run into each other, as we will, but don’t call on me. Don’t come to see me. I’m not trying to offend you, Peter. It’s not that. You’ve done nothing to make me angry. It’s something in myself that I don’t want to face again. I’m sorry to choose you as the example. But you suit so well. You—Peter, you’re everything I despise in the world and I don’t want to remember how much I despise it. If I let myself remember—I’ll return to it. This is not an insult to you, Peter. Try to understand that. You’re not the worst of the world. You’re its best. That’s what’s frightening. If I ever come back to you—don’t let me come. I’m saying this now because I can, but if I come back to you, you won’t be able to stop me, and now is the only time when I can warn you.”

“I don’t know,” he said in cold fury, his lips stiff, “what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to know. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just stay away from each other. Shall we?”

“I’ll never give you up.”

She shrugged. “All right, Peter. This is the only time I’ve ever been kind to you. Or to anyone.”

R
OGER ENRIGHT HAD STARTED LIFE AS A COAL MINER IN PENNSYLVANIA. On his way to the millions he now owned, no one had ever helped him. “That,” he explained, “is why no one has ever stood in my way.” A great many things and people had stood in his way, however; but he had never noticed them. Many incidents of his long career were not admired; none was whispered about. His career had been glaring and public like a billboard. He made a poor subject for blackmailers or debunking biographers. Among the wealthy he was disliked for having become wealthy so crudely.

He hated bankers, labor unions, women, evangelists and the stock exchange. He had never bought a share of stock nor sold a share in any of his enterprises, and he owned his fortune singlehanded, as simply as if he carried all his cash in his pocket. Beside his oil business he owned a publishing house, a restaurant, a radio shop, a garage, a plant manufacturing electric refrigerators. Before each new venture he studied the field for a long time, then proceeded to act as if he had never heard of it, upsetting all precedent. Some of his ventures were successful, others failed. He continued running them all with ferocious energy. He worked twelve hours a day.

When he decided to erect a building, he spent six months looking for an architect. Then he hired Roark at the end of their first interview, which lasted half an hour. Later, when the drawings were made, he gave orders to proceed with construction at once. When Roark began to speak about the drawings, Enright interrupted him: “Don’t explain. It’s no use explaining abstract ideals to me. I’ve never had any ideals. People say I’m completely immoral. I go only by what I like. But I do know what I like.”

Roark never mentioned the attempt he had made to reach Enright, nor his interview with the bored secretary. Enright learned of it somehow. Within five minutes the secretary was discharged, and within ten minutes he was walking out of the office, as ordered, in the middle of a busy day, a letter left half typed in his machine.

Roark reopened his office, the same big room on the top of an old building. He enlarged it by the addition of an adjoining room—for the draftsmen he hired in order to keep up with the planned lightning schedule of construction. The draftsmen were young and without much experience. He had never heard of them before and he did not ask for letters of recommendation. He chose them from among many applicants, merely by glancing at their drawings for a few minutes.

In the crowded tension of the days that followed he never spoke to them, except of their work. They felt, entering the office in the morning, that they had no private lives, no significance and no reality save the overwhelming reality of the broad sheets of paper on their tables. The place seemed cold and soulless like a factory, until they looked at him; then they thought that it was not a factory, but a furnace fed on their bodies, his own first.