The Fountainhead Part 43

"How is it going to stop him?" she asked in the tone one would use to recite a list of statistics. "It will prove nothing, whether he wins or loses. The whole thing is just a spree for great numbers of louts, filthy but pointless. I did not think you wasted your time on stink bombs. All of it will be forgotten before next Christmas."

"My G.o.d, but I must be a failure! I never thought of myself as such a poor teacher. That you should have learned so little in two years of close a.s.sociation with me! It's really discouraging. Since you are the most intelligent woman I know, the fault must be mine. Well, let's see, you did learn one thing: that I don't waste my time. Quite correct. I don't. Right, my dear, everything will be forgotten by next Christmas. And that, you see, will be the achievement. You can fight a live issue. You can't fight a dead one. Dead issues, like all dead things, don't just vanish, but leave some decomposing matter behind. A most unpleasant thing to carry on your name. Mr. Hopton Stoddard will be thoroughly forgotten. The Temple will be forgotten. The lawsuit will be forgotten. But here's what will remain: 'Howard Roark? Why, how could you trust a man like that? He's an enemy of religion. He's completely immoral. First thing you know, he'll gyp you on your construction costs.' 'Roark? He's no good-why, a client had to sue him because he made such a botch of a building.' 'Roark? Roark? Wait a moment, isn't that the guy who got into all the papers over some sort of mess? Now what was it? Some rotten kind of scandal, the owner of the building-I think the place was a disorderly house-anyway the owner had to sue him. You don't want to get involved with a notorious character like that. What for, when there are so many decent architects to choose from?' Fight that, my dear. Tell me a way to fight it. Particularly when you have no weapons except your genius, which is not a weapon but a great liability."

Her eyes were disappointing; they listened patiently, an unmoving glance that would not become anger. She stood before his desk, straight, controlled, like a sentry in a storm who knows that he has to take it and has to remain there even when he can take it no longer.

"I believe you want me to continue," said Toohey. "Now you see the peculiar effectiveness of a dead issue. You can't talk your way out of it, you can't explain, you can't defend yourself. n.o.body wants to listen. It is difficult enough to acquire fame. It is impossible to change its nature once you've acquired it. No, you can never ruin an architect by proving that he's a bad architect. But you can ruin him because he's an atheist, or because somebody sued him, or because he slept with some woman, or because he pulls wings off bottleflies. You'll say it doesn't make sense? Of course it doesn't. That's why it works. Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight the unreasonable? The trouble with you, my dear, and with most people, is that you don't have sufficient respect for the senseless. The senseless is the major factor in our lives. You have no chance if it is your enemy. But if you can make it become your ally-ah, my dear! ... Look, Dominique, I will stop talking the moment you show a sign of being frightened."

"Go on," she said.

"I think you should now ask me a question. Or perhaps you don't like to be obvious and feel that I must guess the question myself? I think you're right. The question is, why did I choose Howard Roark? Because -to quote my own article-it is not my function to be a fly swatter. I quote this now with a somewhat different meaning, but we'll let that pa.s.s. Also, this has helped me to get something I wanted from Hopton Stoddard, but that's only a minor side-issue, an incidental, just pure gravy. Princ.i.p.ally, however, the whole thing was an experiment. Just a test skirmish, shall we say? The results are most gratifying. If you were not involved as you are, you'd be the one person who'd appreciate the spectacle. Really, you know, I've done very little when you consider the extent of what followed. Don't you find it interesting to see a huge, complicated piece of machinery, such as our society, all levers and belts and interlocking gears, the kind that looks as if one would need an army to operate it-and you find that by pressing your little finger against one spot, the one vital spot, the center of all its gravity, you can make the thing crumble into a worthless heap of sc.r.a.p iron? It can be done, my dear. But it takes a long time. It takes centuries. I have the advantage of many experts who came before me. I think I shall be the last and the successful one of the line, because-though not abler than they were-I see more clearly what we're after. However, that's abstraction. Speaking of concrete reality, don't you find anything amusing in my little experiment? I do. For instance, do you notice that all the wrong people are on the wrong sides? Mr. Alvah Scarret, the college professors, the newspaper editors, the respectable mothers and the Chambers of Commerce should have come flying to the defense of Howard Roark-if they value their own lives. But they didn't. They are upholding Hopton Stoddard. On the other hand I heard that some screwy bunch of cafeteria radicals called 'The New League of Proletarian Art' tried to enlist in support of Howard Roark-they said he was a victim of capitalism-when they should have known that Hopton Stoddard is their champion. Roark, by the way, had the good sense to decline. He understands. You do. I do. Not many others. Oh, well. Sc.r.a.p iron has its uses."

She turned to leave the room.

"Dominique, you're not going?" He sounded hurt. "You won't say anything? Not anything at all?"

"No."

"Dominique, you're letting me down. And how I waited for you! I'm a very self-sufficient person, as a rule, but I do need an audience once in a while. You're the only person with whom I can be myself. I suppose it's because you have such contempt for me that nothing I say can make any difference. You see, I know that, but I don't care. Also, the methods I use on other people would never work on you. Strangely enough, only my honesty will. h.e.l.l, what's the use of accomplis.h.i.+ng a skillful piece of work if n.o.body knows that you've accomplished it? Had you been your old self, you'd tell me, at this point, that that is the psychology of a murderer who's committed the perfect crime and then confesses because he can't bear the idea that n.o.body knows it's a perfect crime. And I'd answer that you're right. I want an audience. That's the trouble with victims-they don't even know they're victims, which is as it should be, but it does become monotonous and takes half the fun away. You're such a rare treat-a victim who can appreciate the artistry of its own execution.... For G.o.d's sake, Dominique, are you leaving when I'm practically begging you to remain?"

She put her hand on the doork.n.o.b. He shrugged and settled back in his chair.

"All right," he said. "Incidentally, don't try to buy Hopton Stoddard out. He's eating out of my hand just now. He won't sell." She had opened the door, but she stopped and pulled it shut again. "Oh, yes, of course I know that you've tried. It's no use. You're not that rich. You haven't enough to buy that temple and you couldn't raise enough. Also, Hopton won't accept any money from you to pay for the alterations. I know you've offered that, too. He wants it from Roark. By the way, I don't think Roark would like it if I let him know that you've tried."

He smiled in a manner that demanded a protest. Her face gave no answer. She turned to the door again.

"Just one more question, Dominique. Mr. Stoddard's attorney wants. to know whether he can call you as a witness. An expert on architecture. You will testify for the plaintiff, of course?"

"Yes. I will testify for the plaintiff."

The case of Hopton Stoddard versus Howard Roark opened in February of 1931.

The courtroom was so full that ma.s.s reactions could be expressed only by a slow motion running across the spread of heads, a sluggish wave like the ripple under the tight-packed skin of a sea lion.

The crowd, brown and streaked with subdued color, looked like a fruitcake of all the arts, with the cream of the A.G.A. rich and heavy on top. There were distinguished men and well-dressed, tight-lipped women; each woman seemed to feel an exclusive proprietors.h.i.+p of the art practiced by her escort, a monopoly guarded by resentful glances at the others. Almost everybody knew almost everybody else. The room had the atmosphere of a convention, an opening night and a family picnic. There was a feeling of "our bunch," "our boys," "our show."

Steven Mallory, Austen h.e.l.ler, Roger Enright, Kent Lansing and Mike sat together in one corner. They tried not to look around them. Mike was worried about Steven Mallory. He kept close to Mallory, insisted on sitting next to him and glanced at him whenever a particularly offensive bit of conversation reached them. Mallory noticed it at last, and said: "Don't worry, Mike. I won't scream. I won't shoot anyone."

"Watch your stomach, kid," said Mike, "just watch your stomach. A man can't get sick just because he oughta."

"Mike, do you remember the night when we stayed so late that it was almost daylight, and Dominique's car was out of gas, and there were no busses, and we all decided to walk home, and there was sun on the rooftops by the time the first one of us got to his house?"

"That's right. You think about that, and I'll think about the granite quarry."

"What granite quarry?"

"It's something made me very sick once, but then it turned out it made no difference at all, in the long run."

Beyond the windows the sky was white and flat like frosted gla.s.s. The light seemed to come from the banks of snow on roofs and ledges, an unnatural light that made everything in the room look naked.

The judge sat hunched on his high bench as if he were roosting. He had a small face, wizened into virtue. He kept his hands upright in front of his chest, the finger tips pressed together. Hopton Stoddard was not present. He was represented by his attorney, a handsome gentleman, tall and grave as an amba.s.sador.

Roark sat alone at the defense table. The crowd had stared at him and given up angrily, finding no satisfaction. He did not look crushed and he did not look defiant. He looked impersonal and calm. He was not like a public figure in a public place; he was like a man alone in his own room, listening to the radio. He took no notes; there were no papers on the table before him, only a large brown envelope. The crowd would have forgiven anything, except a man who could remain normal under the vibrations of its enormous collective sneer. Some of them had come prepared to pity him; all of them hated him after the first few minutes.

The plaintiff's attorney stated his case in a simple opening address: it was true, he admitted, that Hopton Stoddard had given Roark full freedom to design and build the Temple; the point was, however, that Mr. Stoddard had clearly specified and expected a temple; a temple; the building in question could not be considered a temple by any known standards; as the plaintiff proposed to prove with the help of the best authorities in the field. the building in question could not be considered a temple by any known standards; as the plaintiff proposed to prove with the help of the best authorities in the field.

Roark waived his privilege to make an opening statement to the jury.

Ellsworth Monkton Toohey was the first witness called by the plaintiff. He sat on the edge of the witness chair and leaned back, resting on the end of his spine: he lifted one leg and placed it horizontally across the other. He looked amused-but managed to suggest that his amus.e.m.e.nt was a well-bred protection against looking bored.

The attorney went through a long list of questions about Mr. Toohey's professional qualifications, including the number of copies sold of his book Sermons in Stone. Sermons in Stone. Then he read aloud Toohey's column "Sacrilege" and asked him to state whether he had written it. Toohey replied that he had. There followed a list of questions in erudite terms on the architectural merits of the Temple. Toohey proved that it had none. There followed an historical review. Toohey, speaking easily and casually, gave a brief sketch of all known civilizations and of their outstanding religious monuments-from the Incas to the Phoenicians to the Easter Islanders-including, whenever possible, the dates when these monuments were begun and the dates when they were completed, the number of workers employed in the construction and the approximate cost in modern American dollars. The audience listened punch-drunk. Then he read aloud Toohey's column "Sacrilege" and asked him to state whether he had written it. Toohey replied that he had. There followed a list of questions in erudite terms on the architectural merits of the Temple. Toohey proved that it had none. There followed an historical review. Toohey, speaking easily and casually, gave a brief sketch of all known civilizations and of their outstanding religious monuments-from the Incas to the Phoenicians to the Easter Islanders-including, whenever possible, the dates when these monuments were begun and the dates when they were completed, the number of workers employed in the construction and the approximate cost in modern American dollars. The audience listened punch-drunk.

Toohey proved that the Stoddard Temple contradicted every brick, stone and precept of history. "I have endeavored to show," he said in conclusion, "that the two essentials of the conception of a temple are a sense of awe and a sense of man's humility. We have noted the gigantic proportions of religious edifices, the soaring lines, the horrible grotesques of monsterlike G.o.ds, or, later, gargoyles. All of it tends to impress upon man his essential insignificance, to crush him by sheer magnitude, to imbue him with that sacred terror which leads to the meekness of virtue. The Stoddard Temple is a brazen denial of our entire past, an insolent 'No' flung in the face of history. I may venture a guess as to the reason why this case has aroused such public interest. All of us have recognized instinctively that it involves a moral issue much beyond its legal aspects. This building is a monument to a profound hatred of humanity. It is one man's ego defying the most sacred impulses of all mankind, of every man on the street, of every man in this courtroom!"

This was not a witness in court, but Ellsworth Toohey addressing a meeting-and the reaction was inevitable: the audience burst into applause. The judge struck his gavel and made a threat to have the courtroom cleared. Order was restored, but not to the faces of the crowd: the faces remained lecherously self-righteous. It was pleasant to be singled out and brought into the case as an injured party. Three-fourths of them had never seen the Stoddard Temple.

"Thank you, Mr. Toohey," said the attorney, faintly suggesting a bow. Then he turned to Roark and said with delicate courtesy: "Your witness."

"No questions," said Roark.

Ellsworth Toohey raised one eyebrow and left the stand regretfully.

"Mr. Peter Keating!" called the attorney.

Peter Keating's face looked attractive and fresh, as if he had had a good night's sleep. He mounted the witness stand with a collegiate sort of gusto, swinging his shoulders and arms unnecessarily. He took the oath and answered the first questions gaily. His pose in the witness chair was strange: his torso slumped to one side with swaggering ease, an elbow on the chair's arm; but his feet were planted awkwardly straight, and his knees were pressed tight together. He never looked at Roark.

"Will you please name some of the outstanding buildings which you have designed, Mr. Keating?" the attorney asked.

Keating began a list of impressive names; the first few came fast, the rest slower and slower, as if he wished to be stopped; the last one died in the air, unfinished.

"Aren't you forgetting the most important one, Mr. Keating?" the attorney asked. "Didn't you design the Cosmo-Slotnick Building?"

"Yes," whispered Keating.

"Now, Mr. Keating, you attended the Stanton Inst.i.tute of Technology at the same period as Mr. Roark?"

"Yes."

"What can you tell us about Mr. Roark's record there?"

"He was expelled."

"He was expelled because he was unable to live up to the Inst.i.tute's high standard of requirements?"

"Yes. Yes, that was it."

The judge glanced at Roark. A lawyer would have objected to this testimony as irrelevant. Roark made no objection.

"At that time, did you think he showed any talent for the profession of architecture?"

"No."

"Will you please speak a little louder, Mr. Keating?"

"I didn't ... think he had any talent."

Queer things were happening to Keating's verbal punctuation: some words came out crisply, as if he dropped an exclamation point after each; others ran together, as if he would not stop to let himself hear them. He did not look at the attorney. He kept his eyes on the audience. At times, he looked like a boy out on a lark, a boy who has just drawn a mustache on the face of a beautiful girl on a subway tooth-paste ad. Then he looked as if he were begging the crowd for support-as if he were on trial before them.

"At one time you employed Mr. Roark in your office?"

"Yes."

"And you found yourself forced to fire him?"

"Yes ... we did."

"For incompetence?"

"Yes."

"What can you tell us about Mr. Roark's subsequent career?"

"Well, you know, 'career' is a relative term. In volume of achievement any draftsman in our office has done more than Mr. Roark. We don't call one or two buildings a career. We put up that many every month or so."

"Will you give us your professional opinion of his work?"

"Well, I think it's immature. Very startling, even quite interesting at times, but essentially-adolescent."

"Then Mr. Roark cannot be called a full-fledged architect?"

"Not in the sense in which we speak of Mr. Ralston Holcombe, Mr. Guy Francon, Mr. Gordon Prescott-no. But, of course, I want to be fair. I think Mr. Roark had definite potentialities, particularly in problems of pure engineering. He could have made something of himself. I've tried to talk to him about it-I've tried to help him-I honestly did. But it was like talking to one of his pet pieces of reinforced concrete. I knew that he'd come to something like this. I wasn't surprised when I heard that a client had had to sue him at last."

"What can you tell us about Mr. Roark's att.i.tude toward clients?"

"Well, that's the point. That's the whole point. He didn't care what the clients thought or wished, what anyone in the world thought or wished. He didn't even understand how other architects could care. He wouldn't even give you that, not even understanding, not even enough to ... respect you a little just the same. I don't see what's so wrong with trying to please people. I don't see what's wrong with wanting to be friendly and liked and popular. Why is that a crime? Why should anyone sneer at you for that, sneer all the time, all the time, day and night, not giving you a moment's peace, like the Chinese water torture, you know where they drop water on your skull drop by drop?"

People in the audience began to realize that Peter Keating was drunk. The attorney frowned; the testimony had been rehea.r.s.ed; but it was getting off the rails.

"Well, now, Mr. Keating, perhaps you'd better tell us about Mr. Roark's views on architecture."

"I'll tell you, if you want to know. He thinks you should take your shoes off and kneel, when you speak of architecture. That's what he thinks. Now why should you? Why? It's a business like any other, isn't it? What's so d.a.m.n sacred about it? Why do we have to be all keyed up? We're only human. We want to make a living. Why can't things be simple and easy? Why do we have to be some sort of G.o.d-d.a.m.n heroes?"

"Now, now, Mr. Keating, I think we're straying slightly from the subject. We're . . ."

"No, we're not. I know what I'm talking about. You do, too. They all do. Every one of them here. I'm talking about the temple. Don't you see? Why pick a fiend to build a temple? Only a very human sort of man should be chosen to do that. A man who understands ... and forgives. A man who forgives ... That's what you go to church for-to be ... forgiven ..."

"Yes, Mr. Keating, but speaking of Mr. Roark ..."

"Well, what about Mr. Roark? He's no architect. He's no good. Why should I be afraid to say that he's no good? Why are you all afraid of him?"

"Mr. Keating, if you're not well and wish to be dismissed ..." Keating looked at him, as if awakening. He tried to control himself. After a while he said, his voice flat, resigned: "No. I'm all right. I'll tell you anything you want. What is it you want me to say?"

"Will you tell us-in professional terms-your opinion of the structure known as the Stoddard Temple?"

"Yes. Sure. The Stoddard Temple ... The Stoddard Temple has an improperly articulated plan, which leads to spatial confusion. There is no balance of ma.s.ses. It lacks a sense of symmetry. Its proportions are inept." He spoke in a monotone. His neck was stiff; he was making an effort not to let it drop forward. "It's out of scale. It contradicts the elementary principles of composition. The total effect is that of ..."

"Louder please, Mr. Keating."

"The total effect is that of crudeness and architectural illiteracy. It shows ... it shows no sense of structure, no instinct for beauty, no creative imagination, no ..." he closed his eyes, "... artistic integrity ..."

"Thank you, Mr. Keating. That is all."

The attorney turned to Roark and said nervously: "Your witness."

"No questions," said Roark.

This concluded the first day of the trial.

That evening Mallory, h.e.l.ler, Mike, Enright and Lansing gathered in Roark's room. They had not consulted one another, but they all came, prompted by the same feeling. They did not talk about the trial, but there was no strain and no conscious avoidance of the subject. Roark sat on his drafting table and talked to them about the future of the plastics industry. Mallory laughed aloud suddenly, without apparent reason. "What's the matter, Steve?" Roark asked. "I just thought ... Howard, we all came here to help you, to cheer you up. But it's you you who're helping us, instead. You're supporting your supporters, Howard." who're helping us, instead. You're supporting your supporters, Howard."

That evening, Peter Keating lay half-stretched across a table in a speakeasy, one arm extended along the table top, his face on his arm.

In the next two days a succession of witnesses testified for the plaintiff. Every examination began with questions that brought out the professional achievements of the witness. The attorney gave them leads like an expert press agent. Austen h.e.l.ler remarked that architects must have fought for the privilege of being called to the witness stand, since it was the grandest spree of publicity in a usually silent profession.

None of the witnesses looked at Roark. He looked at them. He listened to the testimony. He said: "No questions," to each one.

Ralston Holcombe on the stand, with flowing tie and gold-headed cane, had the appearance of a Grand Duke or a beer-garden composer. His testimony was long and scholarly, but it came down to: "It's all nonsense. It's all a lot of childish nonsense. I can't say that I feel much sympathy for Mr. Hopton Stoddard. He should have known better. It is a scientific fact that the architectural style of the Renaissance is the only one appropriate to our age. If our best people, like Mr. Stoddard, refuse to recognize this, what can you expect from all sorts of parvenus, would-be architects and the rabble in general? It has been proved that Renaissance is the only permissible style for all churches, temples and cathedrals. What about Sir Christopher Wren? Just laugh that off. And remember the greatest religious monument of all time-St. Peter's in Rome. Are you going to improve upon St. Peter's? And if Mr. Stoddard did not specifically insist on Renaissance, he got just exactly what he deserved. It serves him jolly well right."

Gordon L. Prescott wore a turtle-neck sweater under a plaid coat, tweed trousers and heavy golf shoes.

"The correlation of the transcendental to the purely spatial in the building under discussion is entirely screwy," he said. "If we take the horizontal as the one-dimensional, the vertical as the two-dimensional, the diagonal as the three-dimensional, and the interpenetration of s.p.a.ces as the fourth-dimensional-architecture being a fourth-dimensional art -we can see quite simply that this building is homaloidal, or-in the language of the layman-nat. The flowing life which comes from the sense of order in chaos, or, if you prefer, from unity in diversity, as well as vice versa, which is the realization of the contradiction inherent in architecture, is here absolutely absent. I am really trying to express myself as clearly as I can, but it is impossible to present a dialectic state by covering it up with an old fig leaf of logic just for the sake of the mentally lazy layman."

John Erik Snyte testified modestly and un.o.btrusively that he had employed Roark in his office, that Roark had been an unreliable, disloyal and unscrupulous employee, and that Roark had started his career by stealing a client from him.

On the fourth day of the trial the plaintiff's attorney called his last witness.

"Miss Dominique Francon," he announced solemnly.

Mallory gasped, but no one heard it; Mike's hand clamped down on his wrist and made him keep still.

The attorney had reserved Dominique for his climax, partly because he expected a great deal from her, and partly because he was worried: she was the only unrehea.r.s.ed witness; she had refused to be coached. She had never mentioned the Stoddard Temple in her column; but he had looked up her earlier writings on Roark; and Ellsworth Toohey had advised him to call her.

Dominique stood for a moment on the elevation of the witness stand, looking slowly over the crowd. Her beauty was startling but too impersonal, as if it did not belong to her; it seemed present in the room as a separate ent.i.ty. People thought of a vision that had not quite appeared, of a victim on a scaffold, of a person standing at night at the rail of an ocean liner.