The Fountainhead Part 37

Mr. Toohey, for reasons which he could not explain, was not too fond of his son. Ellsworth, however, was the ruler of the household, by a tacit, voluntary submission of both parents, though his father could never understand the cause of his own share in that submission.

In the evenings, under the lamp of the family sitting room, Mrs. Toohey would begin, in a tense, challenging voice, angry and defeated in advance: "Horace, I want a bicycle. A bicycle for Ellsworth. All the boys his age have them, Willie Lovett just got a new one the other day, Horace. Horace, I want a bicycle for Ellsworth."

"Not right now, Mary," Mr. Toohey would answer wearily. "Maybe next summer.... Just now we can't afford ..."

Mrs. Toohey would argue, her voice rising in jerks toward a shriek.

"Mother, what for?" said Ellsworth, his voice soft, rich and clear, lower than the voices of his parents, yet cutting across them, commanding, strangely persuasive. "There's many things we need more than a bicycle. What do you care about Willie Lovett? I don't like Willie. Willie's a dumbbell. Willie can afford it, because his pa's got his own drygoods store. His pa's a show-off. I don't want a bicycle."

Every word of this was true, and Ellsworth did not want a bicycle. But Mr. Toohey looked at him strangely, wondering what had made him say that. He saw his son's eyes looking at him blankly from behind the small gla.s.ses; the eyes were not ostentatiously sweet, not reproachful, not malicious; just blank. Mr. Toohey felt that he should be grateful for his son's understanding-and wished to h.e.l.l the boy had not mentioned that part about the private store.

Ellsworth did not get the bicycle. But he got a polite attention in the house, a respectful solicitude-tender and guilty, from his mother, uneasy and suspicious from his father. Mr. Toohey would do anything rather than be forced into a conversation with Ellsworth-feeling, at the same time, foolish and angry at himself for his fear.

"Horace, I want a new suit. A new suit for Ellsworth. I saw one in a window today and I've ..."

"Mother, I've got four suits. What do I need another one for? I don't want to look silly like Pat Noonan who changes them every day. That's because his pa's got his own ice-cream parlor. Pat's stuck up like a girl about his clothes. I don't want to be a sissy."

Ellsworth, thought Mrs. Toohey at times, happy and frightened, is going to be a saint; he doesn't care about material things at all; not one bit. This was true. Ellsworth did not care about material things.

He was a thin, pale boy with a bad stomach, and his mother had to watch his diet, as well as his tendency to frequent colds in the head. His sonorous voice was astonis.h.i.+ng in his puny frame. He sang in the choir, where he had no rivals. At school he was a model pupil. He always knew his lessons, had the neatest copybooks, the cleanest fingernails, loved Sunday school and preferred reading to athletic games, in which he had no chance. He was not too good at mathematics-which he disliked-but excellent at history, English, civics and penmans.h.i.+p; later, at psychology and sociology.

He studied conscientiously and hard. He was not like Johnny Stokes, who never listened in cla.s.s, seldom opened a book at home, yet knew everything almost before the teacher had explained it. Learning came to Johnny automatically, as did all things: his able little fists, his healthy body, his startling good looks, his overexuberant vitality. But Johnny did the shocking and the unexpected; Ellsworth did the expected, better than anyone had ever seen it done. When they came to compositions, Johnny would stun the cla.s.s by some brilliant display of rebellion. Given the theme of "School Days-The Golden Age," Johnny came through with a masterly essay on how he hated school and why. Ellsworth delivered a prose poem on the glory of school days, which was reprinted in a local newspaper.

Besides, Ellsworth had Johnny beaten hollow when it came to names and dates; Ellsworth's memory was like a spread of liquid cement: it held anything that fell upon it. Johnny was a shooting geyser; Ellsworth was a sponge.

The children called him "Elsie Toohey." They usually let him have his way, and avoided him when possible, but not openly; they could not figure him out. He was helpful and dependable when they needed a.s.sistance with their lessons; he had a sharp wit and could ruin any child by the apt nickname he coined, the kind that hurt; he drew devastating cartoons on fences; he had all the earmarks of a sissy, but somehow he could not be cla.s.sified as one; he had too much self-a.s.surance and quiet, disturbingly wise contempt for everybody. He was afraid of nothing.

He would march right up to the strongest boys, in the middle of the street, and state, not yell, in a clear voice that carried for blocks, state without anger-no one had ever seen Ellsworth Toohey angry-"Johnny Stokes's got a patch on his a.s.s. Johnny Stokes lives in a rented flat. Willie Lovett is a dunce. Pat Noonan is a fish eater." Johnny never gave him a beating, and neither did the other boys, because Ellsworth wore gla.s.ses.

He could not take part in ball games, and was the only child who boasted about it, instead of feeling frustrated or ashamed like the other boys with substandard bodies. He considered athletics vulgar and said so; the brain, he said, was mightier than the brawn; he meant it.

He had no close personal friends. He was considered impartial and incorruptible. There were two incidents in his childhood of which his mother was very proud.

It happened that the wealthy, popular Willie Lovett gave a birthday party on the same day as Drippy Munn, son of a widowed seamstress, a whining boy whose nose was always running. n.o.body accepted Drippy's invitation, except the children who were never invited anywhere. Of those asked for both occasions, Ellsworth Toohey was the only one who snubbed Willie Lovett and went to Drippy Munn's party, a miserable affair from which he expected and received no pleasure. Willie Lovett's enemies howled and taunted Willie for months afterward-about being pa.s.sed up in favor of Drippy Munn.

It happened that Pat Noonan offered Ellsworth a bag of jelly beans in exchange for a surrept.i.tious peek at his test paper. Ellsworth took the jelly beans and allowed Pat to copy his test. A week later, Ellsworth marched up to the teacher, laid the jelly beans, untouched, upon her desk and confessed his crime, without naming the other culprit. All her efforts to extract that name could not budge him; Ellsworth remained silent; he explained only that the guilty boy was one of the best students, and he could not sacrifice the boy's record to the demands of his own conscience. He was the only one punished-kept after school for two hours. Then the teacher had to drop the matter and let the test marks remain as they were. But it threw suspicion on the grades of Johnny Stokes, Pat Noonan, and all the best pupils of the cla.s.s, except Ellsworth Toohey.

Ellsworth was eleven years old when his mother died. Aunt Adeline, his father's maiden sister, came to live with them and run the Toohey household. Aunt Adeline was a tall, capable woman to whom the word "horse" clung in conjunction with the words "sense" and "face." The secret sorrow of her life was that she had never inspired romance. Helen became her immediate favorite. She considered Ellsworth an imp out of h.e.l.l. But Ellsworth never wavered in his manner of grave courtesy toward Aunt Adeline. He leaped to pick up her handkerchief, to move her chair, when they had company, particularly masculine company. He sent her beautiful Valentines on the appropriate day-with paper lace, rosebuds and love poems. He sang "Sweet Adeline" at the top of his town crier's voice. "You're a maggot, Elsie," she told him once. "You feed on sores." "Then I'll never starve," he answered. After a while they reached a state of armed neutrality. Ellsworth was left to grow up as he pleased.

In high school Ellsworth became a local celebrity-the star orator. For years the school did not refer to a promising boy as a good speaker, but as "a Toohey." He won every contest. Afterward, members of the audience spoke about "that beautiful boy"; they did not remember the sorry little figure with the sunken chest, inadequate legs and gla.s.ses; they remembered the voice. He won every debate. He could prove anything. Once, after beating Willie Lovett with the affirmative of "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword," he challenged Willie to reverse their positions, took the negative and won again.

Until the age of sixteen Ellsworth felt himself drawn to the career of a minister. He thought a great deal about religion. He talked about G.o.d and the spirit. He read extensively on the subject. He read more books on the history of the church than on the substance of faith. He brought his audience to tears in one of his greatest oratorical triumphs with the theme of "The meek shall inherit the earth."

At this period he began to acquire friends. He liked to speak of faith and he found those who liked to listen. Only, he discovered that the bright, the strong, the able boys of his cla.s.s felt no need of listening, felt no need of him at all. But the suffering and the ill-endowed came to him. Drippy Munn began to follow him about with the silent devotion of a dog. Billy Wilson lost his mother, and came wandering to the Toohey house in the evenings, to sit with Ellsworth on the porch, listening, s.h.i.+vering once in a while, saying nothing, his eyes wide, dry and pleading. Skinny Dix got infantile paralysis-and would lie in bed, watching the street corner beyond the window, waiting for Ellsworth. Rusty Hazelton failed to pa.s.s in his grades, and sat for many hours, crying, with Ellsworth's cold, steady hand on his shoulder.

It was never clear whether they all discovered Ellsworth or Ellsworth discovered them. It seemed to work more like a law of nature: as nature allows no vacuum, so pain and Ellsworth Toohey drew each other. His rich, beautiful voice said to them: "It's good to suffer. Don't complain. Bear, bow, accept-and be grateful that G.o.d has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy. If you don't understand this, don't try to understand. Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand. So if you didn't get pa.s.sing grades, be glad of it. It means that you are better than the smart boys who think too much and too easily."

People said it was touching, the way Ellsworth's friends clung to him. After they had taken him for a while, they could not do without him. It was like a drug habit.

Ellsworth was fifteen, when he astonished the Bible-cla.s.s teacher by an odd question. The teacher had been elaborating upon the text: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Ellsworth asked: "Then, in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?" The teacher was about to ask him what the h.e.l.l did he mean, but controlled himself and asked what did he mean. Ellsworth would not eludicate.

At the age of sixteen, Ellsworth lost interest in religion. He discovered socialism.

His transition shocked Aunt Adeline. "In the first place, it is blasphemous and drivel," she said. "In the second place, it doesn't make sense. I'm surprised at you, Elsie. 'The poor in spirit'-that was fine, but just 'the poor'-that doesn't sound respectable at all. Besides, it's not like you. You're not cut out to make big trouble-only little trouble. Something's crazy somewhere, Elsie. It just don't fit. It's not like you at all." "In the first place, my dear aunt," he answered, "don't call me Elsie. In the second place, you're wrong."

The change seemed to be good for Ellsworth. He did not become an aggressive zealot. He became gentler, quieter, milder. He became more attentively considerate of people. It was as if something had taken the nervous edges off his personality and given him new confidence. Those around him began to like him. Aunt Adeline stopped worrying. Nothing actual seemed to come of his preoccupation with revolutionary theories. He joined no political party. He read a great deal and he attended a few dubious meetings, where he spoke once or twice, not too well, but mostly sat in a corner, listening, watching, thinking.

Ellsworth went to Harvard. His mother had willed her life insurance for that specific purpose. At Harvard his scholastic record was superlative. He majored in history. Aunt Adeline had expected to see him go in for economics and sociology; she half feared that he would end up as a social worker. He didn't. He became absorbed in literature and the fine arts. It baffled her a little; it was a new trait in him; he had never shown any particular tendency in that direction. "You're not the arty kind, Elsie," she stated. "It don't fit." "You're wrong, auntie," he said.

Ellsworth's relations with his fellow students were the most unusual of his achievements at Harvard. He made himself accepted. Among the proud young descendants of proud old names, he did not hide the fact of his humble background; he exaggerated it. He did not tell them that his father was the manager of a shoe store; he said that his father was a shoe cobbler. He said it without defiance, bitterness or proletarian arrogance; he said it as if it were a joke on him and-if one looked closely into his smile-on them. He acted like a sn.o.b; not a flagrant sn.o.b, but a natural, innocent one who tries very hard not to be sn.o.bbish. He was polite, not in the manner of one seeking favor, but in the manner of one granting it. His att.i.tude was contagious. People did not question the reasons of his superiority; they took it for granted that such reasons existed. It became amusing, at first, to accept "Monk" Toohey; then it became distinctive and progressive. If this was a victory Ellsworth did not seem conscious of it as such; he did not seem to care. He moved among all these unformed youths, with the a.s.surance of a man who has a plan, a long-range plan set in every detail, and who can spare nothing but amus.e.m.e.nt for the small incidentals of his way. His smile had a secret, closed quality, the smile of a shopkeeper counting profits-even though nothing in particular seemed to be happening.

He did not talk about G.o.d and the n.o.bility of suffering. He talked about the ma.s.ses. He proved to a rapt audience, at bull sessions lasting till dawn, that religion bred selfishness; because, he stated, religion overemphasized the importance of the individual spirit; religion preached nothing but a single concern-the salvation of one's own soul.

"To achieve virtue in the absolute sense," said Ellsworth Toohey, "a man must be willing to take the foulest crimes upon his soul-for the sake of his brothers. To mortify the flesh is nothing. To mortify the soul is the only act of virtue. So you think you love the broad ma.s.s of mankind? You know nothing of love. You give two bucks to a strike fund and you think you've done your duty? You poor fools! No gift is worth a d.a.m.n, unless it's the most precious thing you've got. Give your soul. To a lie? Yes, if others believe it. To deceit? Yes, if others need it. To treachery, knavery, crime? Yes! To whatever it is that seems lowest and vilest in your eyes. Only when you can feel contempt for your own priceless little ego, only then can you achieve the true, broad peace of selflessness, the merging of your spirit with the vast collective spirit of mankind. There is no room for the love of others within the tight, crowded miser's hole of a private ego. Be empty in order to be filled. 'He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.' The opium peddlers of the church had something there, but they didn't know what they had. Self-abnegation? Yes, my friends, by all means. But one doesn't abnegate by keeping one's self pure and proud of its own purity. The sacrifice that includes the destruction of one's soul-ah, but what am I talking about? This is only for heroes to grasp and to achieve."

He did not have much success among the poor boys working their way through college. He acquired a sizable following among the young heirs, the second and third generation millionaires. He offered them an achievement of which they felt capable.

He graduated with high honors. When he came to New York, he was preceded by a small, private fame; a few trickles of rumor had seeped down from Harvard about an unusual person named Ellsworth Toohey; a few people, among the extreme intellectuals and the extremely wealthy, heard these rumors and promptly forgot what they heard, but remembered the name; it remained in their minds with a vague connotation of such things as brilliance, courage, idealism.

People began to ooze toward Ellsworth Toohey; the right kind of people, those who soon found him to be a spiritual necessity. The other kind did not come; there seemed to be an instinct about it. When someone commented on the loyalty of Toohey's following-he had no t.i.tle, program or organization, but somehow his circle was called a following from the first-an envious rival remarked: "Toohey draws the sticky kind. You know the two things that stick best: mud and glue." Toohey overheard it and shrugged, smiling, and said: "Oh, come, come, there are many more: adhesive plaster, leeches, taffy, wet socks, rubber girdles, chewing gum and tapioca pudding." Moving away, he added over his shoulder, without smiling: "And cement."

He took his Master's degree from a New York university and wrote a thesis on "Collective Patterns in the City Architecture of the XIVth Century." He earned his living in a busy, varied, scattered way: no one could keep track of all his activities. He held the post of vocational adviser at the university, he reviewed books, plays, art exhibitions, he wrote articles, gave a few lectures to small, obscure audiences. Certain tendencies were apparent in his work. When reviewing books, he leaned toward novels about the soil rather than the city, about the average rather than the gifted, about the sick rather than the healthy; there was a special glow in his writing when he referred to stories about "little people"; "human" was his favorite adjective; he preferred character study to action, and description to character study; he preferred novels without a plot and, above all, novels without a hero.

He was considered outstanding as a vocational adviser. His tiny office at the university became an informal confessional where students brought all their problems, academic as well as personal. He was willing to discuss-with the same gentle, earnest concentration-the choice of cla.s.ses, or love affairs, or-most particularly-the selection of a future career.

When consulted on love affairs, Toohey counseled surrender, if it concerned a romance with a charming little pushover, good for a few drunken parties-"let us be modern"; and renunciation, if it concerned a deep, emotional pa.s.sion-"let us be grown-up." When a boy came to confess a feeling of shame after some unsavory s.e.xual experience, Toohey told him to snap out of it: "It was d.a.m.n good for you. There are two things we must get rid of early in life: a feeling of personal superiority and an exaggerated reverence for the s.e.xual act."

People noticed that Ellsworth Toohey seldom let a boy pursue the career he had chosen. "No, I wouldn't go in for law if I were you. You're much too tense and pa.s.sionate about it. A hysterical devotion to one's career does not make for happiness or success. It is wiser to select a profession about which you can be calm, sane and matter-of-fact. Yes, even if you hate it. It makes for down-to-earthness." ... "No, I wouldn't advise you to continue with your music. The fact that it comes to you so easily is a sure sign that your talent is only a superficial one. That's just the trouble-that you love it. Don't you think that sounds like a childish reason? Give it up. Yes, even if it hurts like h.e.l.l." ... "No, I'm sorry, I would like so much to say that I approve, but I don't. When you thought of architecture, it was a purely selfish choice, wasn't it? Have you considered anything but your own egotistical satisfaction? Yet a man's career concerns all society. The question of where you could be most useful to your fellow men comes first. It's not what you can get out of society, it's what you can give. And where opportunities for service are concerned, there's no endeavor comparable to that of a surgeon. Think it over."

After leaving college some of his proteges did quite well, others failed. Only one committed suicide. It was said that Ellsworth Toohey had exercised a beneficent influence upon them-for they never forgot him: they came to consult him on many things, years later, they wrote him, they clung to him. They were like machines without a self-starter, that had to be cranked up by an outside hand. He was never too busy to give them his full attention.

His life was crowded, public and impersonal as a city square. The friend of humanity had no single private friend. People came to him; he came close to no one. He accepted all. His affection was golden, smooth and even, like a great expanse of sand; there was no wind of discrimination to raise dunes; the sands lay still and the sun stood high.

Out of his meager income he donated money to many organizations. He was never known to have loaned a dollar to an individual. He never asked his rich friends to a.s.sist a person in need; but he obtained from them large sums and endowments for charitable inst.i.tutions: for settlement houses, recreation centers, homes for fallen girls, schools for defective children. He served on the boards of all these inst.i.tutions-without salary. A great many philanthropic undertakings and radical publications, run by all sorts of people, had a single connecting link among them, one common denominator: the name of Ellsworth M. Toohey on their stationery. He was a sort of one-man holding company of altruism.

Women played no part in his life. s.e.x had never interested him. His furtive, infrequent urges drew him to the young, slim, full-bosomed, brainless girls-the giggling little waitresses, the lisping manicurists, the less efficient stenographers, the kind who wore pink or orchid dresses and little hats on the back of their heads with gobs of blond curls in front. He was indifferent to women of intellect.

He contended that the family was a bourgeois inst.i.tution; but he made no issue of it and did not crusade for free love. The subject of s.e.x bored him. There was, he felt, too much fuss made over the d.a.m.n thing; it was of no importance; there were too many weightier problems in the world.

The years pa.s.sed, with each busy day of his life like a small, neat coin dropped patiently into a gigantic slot machine, without a glance at the combination of symbols, without return. Gradually, one of his many activities began to stand out among the others: he became known as an eminent critic of architecture. He wrote about buildings for three successive magazines that limped on noisily for a few years and failed, one after the other: New Voices, New Pathways, New Horizons. New Voices, New Pathways, New Horizons. The fourth, The fourth, New Frontiers, New Frontiers, survived. Ellsworth Toohey was the only thing salvaged from the successive wrecks. Architectural criticism seemed to be a neglected field of endeavor; few people bothered to write about buildings, fewer to read. Toohey acquired a reputation and an unofficial monopoly. The better magazines began calling upon him whenever they needed anything connected with architecture. survived. Ellsworth Toohey was the only thing salvaged from the successive wrecks. Architectural criticism seemed to be a neglected field of endeavor; few people bothered to write about buildings, fewer to read. Toohey acquired a reputation and an unofficial monopoly. The better magazines began calling upon him whenever they needed anything connected with architecture.

In the year 1921 a small change occurred in Toohey's private life; his niece Catherine Halsey, the daughter of his sister Helen, came to live with him. His father had long since died, and Aunt Adeline had vanished into the obscure poverty of some small town; at the death of Catherine's parents there was no one else to take care of her. Toohey had not intended to keep her in his own home. But when she stepped off the train in New York, her plain little face looked beautiful for a moment, as if the future were opening before her and its glow were already upon her forehead, as if she were eager and proud and ready to meet it. It was one of those rare moments when the humblest person knows suddenly what it means to feel as the center of the universe, and is made beautiful by the knowledge, and the world-in the eyes of witnesses-looks like a better place for having such a center. Ellsworth Toohey saw this-and decided that Catherine would remain with him.

In the year 1925 came Sermons in Stone- Sermons in Stone-and fame.

Ellsworth Toohey became a fas.h.i.+on. Intellectual hostesses fought over him. Some people disliked him and laughed at him. But there was little satisfaction in laughing at Ellsworth Toohey, because he was always first to make the most outrageous remarks about himself. Once, at a party, a smug, boorish businessman listened to Toohey's earnest social theories for a while and said complacently: "Well, I wouldn't know much about all that intellectual stuff. I play the stock market." "I," said Toohey, "play the stock market of the spirit. And I sell short."

The most important consequence of Sermons in Stone Sermons in Stone was Toohey's contract to write a daily column for Gail Wynand's New York was Toohey's contract to write a daily column for Gail Wynand's New York Banner. Banner.

The contract came as a surprise to the followers of both sides involved, and, at first, it made everybody angry. Toohey had referred to Wynand frequently and not respectfully; the Wynand papers had called Toohey every name fit to print. But the Wynand papers had no policy, save that of reflecting the greatest prejudices of the greatest number, and this made for an erratic direction, but a recognizable direction, nevertheless: toward the inconsistent, the irresponsible, the trite and the maudlin. The Wynand papers stood against Privilege and for the Common Man, but in a respectable manner that could shock n.o.body; they exposed monopolies, when they wished; they supported strikes, when they wished, and vice versa. They denounced Wall Street and they denounced socialism and they hollered for clean movies, all with the same gusto. They were strident and blatant-and, in essence, lifelessly mild. Ellsworth Toohey was a phenomenon much too extreme to fit behind the front page of the Banner. Banner.

But the staff of the Banner Banner was as unfastidious as its policy. It included everybody who could please the public or any large section thereof. It was said: "Gail Wynand is not a pig. He'll eat anything." Ellsworth Toohey was a great success and the public was suddenly interested in architecture; the was as unfastidious as its policy. It included everybody who could please the public or any large section thereof. It was said: "Gail Wynand is not a pig. He'll eat anything." Ellsworth Toohey was a great success and the public was suddenly interested in architecture; the Banner Banner had no authority on architecture; the had no authority on architecture; the Banner Banner would get Ellsworth Toohey. It was a simple syllogism. would get Ellsworth Toohey. It was a simple syllogism.

Thus "One Small Voice" came into existence.

The Banner Banner explained its appearance by announcing: "On Monday the explained its appearance by announcing: "On Monday the Banner Banner will present to you a new friend-ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY-whose scintillating book will present to you a new friend-ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY-whose scintillating book Sermons in Stone Sermons in Stone you have all read and loved. The name of Mr. Toohey stands for the great profession of architecture. He will help you to understand everything you want to know about the wonders of modern building. Watch for 'ONE SMALL VOICE' on Monday. To appear exclusively in the you have all read and loved. The name of Mr. Toohey stands for the great profession of architecture. He will help you to understand everything you want to know about the wonders of modern building. Watch for 'ONE SMALL VOICE' on Monday. To appear exclusively in the Banner Banner in New York City." The rest of what Mr. Toohey stood for was ignored. in New York City." The rest of what Mr. Toohey stood for was ignored.

Ellsworth Toohey made no announcement or explanation to anyone. He disregarded the friends who cried that he had sold himself. He simply went to work. He devoted "One Small Voice" to architecture-once a month. The rest of the time it was the voice of Ellsworth Toohey saying what he wished said-to syndicated millions.

Toohey was the only Wynand employee who had a contract permitting him to write anything he pleased. He had insisted upon it. It was considered a great victory, by everybody except Ellsworth Toohey. He realized that it could mean one of two things: either Wynand had surrendered respectfully to the prestige of his name-or Wynand considered him too contemptible to be worth restraining.

"One Small Voice" never seemed to say anything dangerously revolutionary, and seldom anything political. It merely preached sentiments with which most people felt in agreement: unselfishness, brotherhood, equality. "I'd rather be kind than right." "Mercy is superior to justice, the shallow-hearted to the contrary notwithstanding." "Speaking anatomically-and perhaps otherwise-the heart is our most valuable organ. The brain is a superst.i.tion." "In spiritual matters there is a simple, infallible test: everything that proceeds from the ego is evil; everything that proceeds from love for others is good." "Service is the only badge of n.o.bility. I see nothing offensive in the conception of fertilizer as the highest symbol of man's destiny: it is fertilizer that produces wheat and roses." "The worst folk song is superior to the best symphony." "A man braver than his brothers insults them by implication. Let us aspire to no virtue which cannot be shared." "I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother." "Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a disease." "We are all brothers under the skin-and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it."

In the offices of the Banner Banner Ellsworth Toohey was treated respectfully and left alone. It was whispered that Gail Wynand did not like him-because Wynand was always polite to him. Alvah Scarret unbent to the point of cordiality, but kept a wary distance. There was a silent, watchful equilibrium between Toohey and Scarret: they understood each other. Ellsworth Toohey was treated respectfully and left alone. It was whispered that Gail Wynand did not like him-because Wynand was always polite to him. Alvah Scarret unbent to the point of cordiality, but kept a wary distance. There was a silent, watchful equilibrium between Toohey and Scarret: they understood each other.

Toohey made no attempt to approach Wynand in any way. Toohey seemed indifferent to all the men who counted on the Banner. Banner. He concentrated on the others, instead. He concentrated on the others, instead.

He organized a club of Wynand employees. It was not a labor union; it was just a club. It met once a month in the library of the Banner. It did not concern itself with wages, hours or working conditions; it had no concrete program at all. People got acquainted, talked, and listened to speeches. Ellsworth Toohey made most of the speeches. He spoke about new horizons and the press as the voice of the ma.s.ses. Gail Wynand appeared at a meeting once, entering unexpectedly in the middle of a session. Toohey smiled and invited him to join the club, declaring that he was eligible. Wynand did not join. He sat listening for half an hour, yawned, got up, and left before the meeting was over.

Alvah Scarret appreciated the fact that Toohey did not try to reach into his field, into the important matters of policy. As a kind of return courtesy, Scarret let Toohey recommend new employees, when there was a vacancy to fill, particularly if the position was not an important one; as a rule, Scarret did not care, while Toohey always cared, even when it was only the post of copy boy. Toohey's selections got the jobs. Most of them were young, brash, competent, s.h.i.+fty-eyed and shook hands limply. They had other things in common, but these were not so apparent.

There were several monthly meetings which Toohey attended regularly; the meetings of: the Council of American Builders, the Council of American Writers, the Council of American Artists. He had organized them all.

Lois Cook was chairman of the Council of American Writers. It met in the drawing room of her home on the Bowery. She was the only famous member. The rest included a woman who never used capitals in her books, and a man who never used commas; a youth who had written a thousand-page novel without a single letter o, and another who wrote poems that neither rhymed nor scanned; a man with a beard, who was sophisticated and proved it by using every unprintable four-letter word in every ten pages of his ma.n.u.script; a woman who imitated Lois Cook, except that her style was less clear; when asked for explanations she stated that this was the way life sounded to her, when broken by the prism of her subconscious-"You know what a prism does to a ray of light, don't you?" she said. There was also a fierce young man known simply as Ike the Genius, though n.o.body knew just what he had done, except that he talked about loving all of life.

The council signed a declaration which stated that writers were servants of the proletariat-but the statement did not sound as simple as that; it was more involved and much longer. The declaration was sent to every newspaper in the country. It was never published anywhere, except on page 32 of New Frontiers. New Frontiers.

The Council of American Artists had, as chairman, a cadaverous youth who painted what he saw in his nightly dreams. There was a boy who used no canvas, but did something with bird cages and metronomes, and another who discovered a new technique of painting: he blackened a sheet of paper and then painted with a rubber eraser. There was a stout middle-aged lady who drew subconsciously, claiming that she never looked at her hand and had no idea of what the hand was doing; her hand, she said, was guided by the spirit of the departed lover whom she had never met on earth. Here they did not talk so much about the proletariat, but merely rebelled against the tyranny of reality and of the objective.

A few friends pointed out to Ellsworth Toohey that he seemed guilty of inconsistency; he was so deeply opposed to individualism, they said, and here were all these writers and artists of his, and every one of them was a rabid individualist. "Do you really think so?" said Toohey, smiling blandly.

n.o.body took these Councils seriously. People talked about them, because they thought it made good conversation; it was such a huge joke, they said, certainly there was no harm in any of it. "Do you really think so?" said Toohey.

Ellsworth Toohey was now forty-one years old. He lived in a distinguished apartment that seemed modest when compared to the size of the income he could have commanded if he wished. He liked to apply the adjective "conservative" to himself in one respect only: in his conservative good taste for clothes. No one had ever seen him lose his temper. His manner was immutable; it was the same in a drawing room, at a labor meeting, on a lecture platform, in the bathroom or during s.e.xual intercourse: cool, self-possessed, amused, faintly patronizing.

People admired his sense of humor. He was, they said, a man who could laugh at himself. "I'm a dangerous person. Somebody ought to warn you against me," he said to people, in the tone of uttering the most preposterous thing in the world.

Of all the many t.i.tles bestowed upon him, he preferred one: Ellsworth Toohey, the Humanitarian.

X

THE ENRIGHT HOUSE WAS OPENED IN JUNE OF 1929. There was no formal ceremony. But Roger Enright wanted to mark the moment for his own satisfaction. He invited a few people he liked and he unlocked the great gla.s.s entrance door, throwing it open to the sun-filled air. Some press photographers had arrived, because the story concerned Roger Enright and because Roger Enright did not want to have them there. He ignored them. He stood in the middle of the street, looking at the building, then he walked through the lobby, stopping short without reason and resuming his pacing. He said nothing. He frowned fiercely, as if he were about to scream with rage. His friends knew that Roger Enright was happy.

The building stood on the sh.o.r.e of the East River, a structure rapt as raised arms. The rock crystal forms mounted in such eloquent steps that the building did not seem stationary, but moving upward in a continuous flow-until one realized that it was only the movement of one's glance and that one's glance was forced to move in that particular rhythm. The walls of pale gray limestone looked silver against the sky, with the clean, dulled l.u.s.ter of metal, but a metal that had become a warm, living substance, carved by the most cutting of all instruments-a purposeful human will. It made the house alive in a strange, personal way of its own, so that in the minds of spectators five words ran dimly, without object or clear connection: "... in His image and likeness ..."

A young photographer from the Banner Banner noticed Howard Roark standing alone across the street, at the parapet of the river. He was leaning back, his hands closed over the parapet, hatless, looking up at the building. It was an accidental, unconscious moment. The young photographer glanced at Roark's face-and thought of something that had puzzled him for a long time: he had always wondered why the sensations one felt in dreams were so much more intense than anything one could experience in waking reality-why the horror was so total and the ecstasy so complete-and what was that extra quality which could never be recaptured afterward; the quality of what he felt when he walked down a path through tangled green leaves in a dream, in an air full of expectation, of causeless, utter rapture-and when he awakened he could not explain it, it had been just a path through some woods. He thought of that because he saw that extra quality for the first time in waking existence, he saw it in Roark's face lifted to the building. The photographer was a young boy, new to his job; he did not know much about it; but he loved his work; he had been an amateur photographer since childhood. So he snapped a picture of Roark in that one moment. noticed Howard Roark standing alone across the street, at the parapet of the river. He was leaning back, his hands closed over the parapet, hatless, looking up at the building. It was an accidental, unconscious moment. The young photographer glanced at Roark's face-and thought of something that had puzzled him for a long time: he had always wondered why the sensations one felt in dreams were so much more intense than anything one could experience in waking reality-why the horror was so total and the ecstasy so complete-and what was that extra quality which could never be recaptured afterward; the quality of what he felt when he walked down a path through tangled green leaves in a dream, in an air full of expectation, of causeless, utter rapture-and when he awakened he could not explain it, it had been just a path through some woods. He thought of that because he saw that extra quality for the first time in waking existence, he saw it in Roark's face lifted to the building. The photographer was a young boy, new to his job; he did not know much about it; but he loved his work; he had been an amateur photographer since childhood. So he snapped a picture of Roark in that one moment.

Later the Art Editor of the Banner Banner saw the picture and barked: "What the h.e.l.l's that?" "Howard Roark," said the photographer. "Who's Howard Roark?" "The architect." "Who the h.e.l.l wants a picture of the architect?" "Well, I only thought ..." "Besides, it's crazy. What's the matter with the man?" So the picture was thrown into the morgue. saw the picture and barked: "What the h.e.l.l's that?" "Howard Roark," said the photographer. "Who's Howard Roark?" "The architect." "Who the h.e.l.l wants a picture of the architect?" "Well, I only thought ..." "Besides, it's crazy. What's the matter with the man?" So the picture was thrown into the morgue.

The Enright House rented promptly. The tenants who moved in were people who wanted to live in sane comfort and cared about nothing else. They did not discuss the value of the building; they merely liked living there. They were the sort who lead useful, active private lives in public silence.

But others talked a great deal of the Enright House, for about three weeks. They said that it was preposterous, exhibitionist and phony. They said: "My dear, imagine inviting Mrs. Moreland if you lived in a place like that! And her home is in such good taste!" A few were beginning to appear who said: "You know, I rather like modern architecture, there are some mighty interesting things being done that way nowadays, there's quite a school of it in Germany that's rather remarkable-but this is not like it at all. This is a freak."

Ellsworth Toohey never mentioned the Enright House in his column. A reader of the Banner Banner wrote to him: "Dear Mr. Toohey: What do you think of this place they call the Enright House? I have a friend who is an interior decorator and he talks a lot about it and he says it's lousy. Architecture and such various arts being my hobby, I don't know what to think. Will you tell us in your column?" Ellsworth Toohey answered in a private letter: "Dear Friend: There are so many important buildings and great events going on in the world today that I cannot devote my column to trivialities." wrote to him: "Dear Mr. Toohey: What do you think of this place they call the Enright House? I have a friend who is an interior decorator and he talks a lot about it and he says it's lousy. Architecture and such various arts being my hobby, I don't know what to think. Will you tell us in your column?" Ellsworth Toohey answered in a private letter: "Dear Friend: There are so many important buildings and great events going on in the world today that I cannot devote my column to trivialities."

But people came to Roark-the few he wanted. That winter, he had received a commission to build the Norris house, a modest country home. In May he signed another contract-for his first office building, a fifty-story skysc.r.a.per in the center of Manhattan. Anthony Cord, the owner, had come from nowhere and made a fortune in Wall Street within a few brilliant, violent years. He wanted a building of his own and he went to Roark.

Roark's office had grown to four rooms. His staff loved him. They did not realize it and would have been shocked to apply such a term as love to their cold, unapproachable, inhuman boss. These were the words they used to describe Roark, these were the words they had been trained to use by all the standards and conceptions of their past; only, working with him, they knew that he was none of these things, but they could not explain, neither what he was nor what they felt for him.

He did not smile at his employees, he did not take them out for drinks, he never inquired about their families, their love lives or their church attendance. He responded only to the essence of a man: to his creative capacity. In this office one had to be competent. There were no alternatives, no mitigating considerations. But if a man worked well, he needed nothing else to win his employer's benevolence: it was granted, not as a gift, but as a debt. It was granted, not as affection, but as recognition. It bred an immense feeling of self-respect within every man in that office.

"Oh, but that's not human," said somebody when one of Roark's draftsmen tried to explain this at home, "such a cold, intellectual approach!" One boy, a younger sort of Peter Keating, tried to introduce the human in preference to the intellectual in Roark's office; he did not last two weeks. Roark made mistakes in choosing his employees occasionally, not often; those whom he kept for a month became his friends for life. They did not call themselves friends; they did not praise him to outsiders; they did not talk about him. They knew only, in a dim way, that it was not loyalty to him, but to the best within themselves.

Dominique remained in the city all summer. She remembered, with bitter pleasure, her custom to travel; it made her angry to think that she could not go, could not want to go. She enjoyed the anger; it drove her to his room. On the nights which she did not spend with him she walked through the streets of the city. She walked to the Enright House or to the Fargo Store, and stood looking at the building for a long time. She drove alone out of town-to see the h.e.l.ler house, the Sanborn house, the Gowan Service Station. She never spoke to him about that.

Once, she took the Staten Island ferry at two o'clock in the morning; she rode to the Island, standing alone at the rail of an empty deck. She watched the city moving away from her. In the vast emptiness of sky and ocean, the city was only a small, jagged solid. It seemed condensed, pressed tight together, not a place of streets and separate buildings, but a single sculptured form. A form of irregular steps that rose and dropped without ordered continuity, long ascensions and sudden drops, like the graph of a stubborn struggle. But it went on mounting-toward a few points, toward the triumphant masts of skysc.r.a.pers raised out of the struggle.

The boat went past the Statue of Liberty-a figure in a green light, with an arm raised like the skysc.r.a.pers behind it.

She stood at the rail, while the city diminished, and she felt the motion of growing distance as a growing tightness within her, the pull of a living cord that could not be stretched too far. She stood in quiet excitement, when the boat sailed back and she saw the city growing again to meet her. She stretched her arms wide. The city expanded, to her elbows, to her wrists, beyond her finger tips. Then the skysc.r.a.pers rose over her head, and she was back.

She came ash.o.r.e. She knew where she had to go, and wanted to get there fast, but felt she must get there herself, like this, on her own feet. So she walked half the length of Manhattan, through long, empty, echoing streets. It was four-thirty when she knocked at his door. He had been asleep. She shook her head. "No," she said. "Go back to sleep. I just want to be here." She did not touch him. She took off her hat and shoes, huddled into an armchair, and fell asleep, her arm hanging over the chair's side, her head on her arm. In the morning he asked no questions. They fixed breakfast together, then he hurried away to his office. Before leaving, he took her in his arms and kissed her. He walked out, and she stood for a few moments, then left. They had not exchanged twenty words.

There were weekends when they left the city together and drove in her car to some obscure point on the coast. They stretched out in the sun, on the sand of a deserted beach, they swam in the ocean. She liked to watch his body in the water. She would remain behind and stand, the waves. .h.i.tting her knees, and watch him cutting a straight line through the breakers. She liked to lie with him at the edge of the water; she would lie on her stomach, a few feet away from him, facing the sh.o.r.e, her toes stretched to the waves; she would not touch him, but she would feel the waves coming up behind them, breaking against their bodies, and she would see the backwash running in mingled streams off her body and his.

They spent the night at some country inn, taking a single room. They never spoke of the things left behind them in the city. But it was the unstated that gave meaning to the relaxed simplicity of these hours; their eyes laughed silently at the preposterous contrast whenever they looked at each other.

She tried to demonstrate her power over him. She stayed away from his house; she waited for him to come to her. He spoiled it by coming too soon; by refusing her the satisfaction of knowing that he waited and struggled against his desire; by surrendering at once. She would say: "Kiss my hand, Roark." He would kneel and kiss her ankle. He defeated her by admitting her power; she could not have the gratification of enforcing it. He would lie at her feet, he would say: "Of course I need you. I go insane when I see you. You can do almost anything you wish with me. Is that what you want to hear? Almost, Dominique. And the things you couldn't make me do-you could put me through h.e.l.l if you demanded them and I had to refuse you, as I would. Through utter h.e.l.l, Dominique. Does that please you? Why do you want to know whether you own me? It's so simple. Of course you do. All of me that can be owned. You'll never demand anything else. But you want to know whether you could make me suffer. You could. What of it?" The words did not sound like surrender, because they were not torn out of him, but admitted simply and willingly. She felt no thrill of conquest; she felt herself owned more than ever, by a man who could say these things, know them to be true, and still remain controlled and controlling-as she wanted him to remain.

Late in June a man named Kent Lansing came to see Roark. He was forty years old, he was dressed like a fas.h.i.+on plate and looked like a prize fighter, though he was not burly, muscular or tough: he was thin and angular. He merely made one think of a boxer and of other things that did not fit his appearance: of a battering ram, of a tank, of a submarine torpedo. He was a member of a corporation formed for the purpose of erecting a luxurious hotel on Central Park South. There were many wealthy men involved and the corporation was ruled by a numerous board; they had purchased their site; they had not decided on an architect. But Kent Lansing had made up his mind that it would be Roark.

"I won't try to tell you how much I'd like to do it," Roark said to him at the end of their first interview. "But there's not a chance of my getting it. I can get along with people-when they're alone. I can do nothing with them in groups. No board has ever hired me-and I don't think one ever will."