The Fountainhead Part 49

He felt no relief, no despair, no fear. The moment of his end would not grant him even the dignity of seriousness. It was an anonymous moment; a few minutes ago, he had held a toothbrush in that hand; now he held a gun with the same casual indifference.

One does not die like this, he thought. One must feel a great joy or a healthy terror. One must salute one's own end. Let me feel a spasm of dread and I'll pull the trigger. He felt nothing.

He shrugged and lowered the gun. He stood tapping it against the palm of his left hand. People always speak of a black death or a red death, he thought; yours, Gail Wynand, will be a gray death. Why hasn't anyone ever said that this this is the ultimate horror? Not screams, pleas or convulsions. Not the indifference of a clean emptiness, disinfected by the fire of some great disaster. But this-a mean, s.m.u.tty little horror, impotent even to frighten. You can't do it like that, he told himself, smiling coldly; it would be in such bad taste. is the ultimate horror? Not screams, pleas or convulsions. Not the indifference of a clean emptiness, disinfected by the fire of some great disaster. But this-a mean, s.m.u.tty little horror, impotent even to frighten. You can't do it like that, he told himself, smiling coldly; it would be in such bad taste.

He walked to the wall of his bedroom. His penthouse was built above the fifty-seventh floor of a great residential hotel which he owned, in the center of Manhattan; he could see the whole city below him. The bedroom was a gla.s.s cage on the roof of the penthouse, its walls and ceiling made of huge gla.s.s sheets. There were dust-blue suede curtains to be pulled across the walls and enclose the room when he wished; there was nothing to cover the ceiling. Lying in bed, he could study the stars over his head, or see flashes of lightning, or watch the rain smashed into furious, glittering sunburst in mid-air above him, against the unseen protection. He liked to extinguish the lights and pull all the curtains open when he lay in bed with a woman. "We are fornicating in the sight of six million people," he would tell her.

He was alone now. The curtains were open. He stood looking at the city. It was late and the great riot of lights below him was beginning to die down. He thought that he did not mind having to look at the city for many more years and he did not mind never seeing it again.

He leaned against the wall and felt the cold gla.s.s through the thin, dark silk of his pyjamas. A monogram was embroidered in white on his breast pocket: GW, reproduced from his handwriting, exactly as he signed his initials with a single imperial motion.

People said that Gail Wynand's greatest deception, among many, was his appearance. He looked like the decadent, overperfected end product of a long line of exquisite breeding-and everybody knew that he came from the gutter. He was tall, too slender for physical beauty, as if all his flesh and muscle had been bred away. It was not necessary for him to stand erect in order to convey an impression of hardness. Like a piece of expensive steel, he bent, slouched and made people conscious, not of his pose, but of the ferocious spring that could snap him straight at any moment. This hint was all he needed; he seldom stood quite straight; he lounged about. Under any clothes he wore, it gave him an air of consummate elegance.

His face did not belong to modern civilization, but to ancient Rome; the face of an eternal patrician. His hair, streaked with gray, was swept smoothly back from a high forehead. His skin was pulled tight over the sharp bones of his face; his mouth was long and thin; his eyes, under slanting eyebrows, were pale blue and photographed like two sardonic white ovals. An artist had asked him once to sit for a painting of Mephistopheles; Wynand had laughed, refusing, and the artist had watched sadly, because the laughter made the face perfect for his purpose.

He slouched casually against the gla.s.s pane of his bedroom, the weight of a gun on his palm. Today, he thought; what was today? Did anything happen that would help me now and give meaning to this moment?

Today had been like so many other days behind him that particular features were hard to recognize. He was fifty-one years old, and it was the middle of October in the year 1932; he was certain of this much; the rest took an effort of memory.

He had awakened and dressed at six o'clock this morning; he had never slept more than four hours on any night of his adult life. He descended to his dining room where breakfast was served to him. His penthouse, a small structure, stood on the edge of a vast roof landscaped as a garden. The rooms were a superlative artistic achievement; their simplicity and beauty would have aroused gasps of admiration had this house belonged to anyone else; but people were shocked into silence when they thought that this was the home of the publisher of the New York Banner, the most vulgar newspaper in the country.

After breakfast he went to his study. His desk was piled with every important newspaper, book and magazine received that morning from all over the country. He worked alone at his desk for three hours, reading and making brief notes with a large blue pencil across the printed pages. The notes looked like a spy's shorthand; n.o.body could decipher them except the dry, middle-aged secretary who entered the study when Wynand left it. He had not heard her voice in five years, but no communication between them was necessary. When he returned to his study in the evening, the secretary and the pile of papers were gone; on his desk he found neatly typed pages containing the things he had wished to be recorded from his morning's work.

At ten o'clock he arrived at the Banner Building, a plain, grimy structure in an undistinguished neighborhood of lower Manhattan. When he walked through the narrow halls of the building, the employees he met wished him a good morning. The greeting was correct and he answered courteously; but his pa.s.sage had the effect of a death ray that stopped the motor of living organisms.

Among the many hard rules imposed upon the employees of all Wynand enterprises, the hardest was the one demanding that no man pause in his work if Mr. Wynand entered the room, or notice his entrance. n.o.body could predict what department he would choose to visit or when. He could appear at any moment in any part of the building-and his presence was as un.o.btrusive as an electric shock. The employees tried to obey the rule as best they could; but they preferred three hours of overtime to ten minutes of working under his silent observation.

This morning, in his office, he went over the proofs of the Banner's Banner's Sunday editorials. He slashed blue lines across the spreads he wished eliminated. He did not sign his initials; everybody knew that only Gail Wynand could make quite that kind of blue slashes, lines that seemed to rip the authors of the copy out of existence. Sunday editorials. He slashed blue lines across the spreads he wished eliminated. He did not sign his initials; everybody knew that only Gail Wynand could make quite that kind of blue slashes, lines that seemed to rip the authors of the copy out of existence.

He finished the proofs, then asked to be connected with the editor of the Wynand Herald, Herald, in Springville, Kansas. When he telephoned his provinces, Wynand's name was never announced to the victim. He expected his voice to be known to every key citizen of his empire. in Springville, Kansas. When he telephoned his provinces, Wynand's name was never announced to the victim. He expected his voice to be known to every key citizen of his empire.

"Good morning, c.u.mmings," he said when the editor answered.

"My G.o.d!" gasped the editor. "It isn't ..."

"It is," said Wynand. "Listen, c.u.mmings. One more piece of c.r.a.p like yesterday's yarn on the Last Rose of Summer and you can go back to the high school Bugle."

"Yes, Mr. Wynand."

Wynand hung up. He asked to be connected with an eminent Senator in Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Good morning, Senator," he said when the gentleman came on the wire within two minutes. "It is so kind of you to answer this call. I appreciate it. I do not wish to impose on your time. But I felt I owed you an expression of my deepest grat.i.tude. I called to thank you for your work in pa.s.sing the Hayes-Langston Bill."

"But ... Mr. Wynand!" The Senator's voice seemed to squirm. "It's so nice of you, but ... the Bill hasn't been pa.s.sed."

"Oh, that's right. My mistake. It will be pa.s.sed tomorrow."

A meeting of the board of directors of the Wynand Enterprises, Inc., had been scheduled for eleven-thirty that morning. The Wynand Enterprises consisted of twenty-two newspapers, seven magazines, three news services and two newsreels. Wynand owned seventy-five percent of the stock. The directors were not certain of their functions or purpose. Wynand had ordered meetings of the board always to start on time, whether he was present or not. Today he entered the board room at twelve twenty-five. A distinguished old gentleman was making a speech. The directors were not allowed to stop or notice Wynand's presence. He walked to the empty chair at the head of the long mahogany table and sat down. No one turned to him; it was as if the chair had just been occupied by a ghost whose existence they dared not admit. He listened silently for fifteen minutes. He got up in the middle of a sentence and left the room as he had entered.

On a large table in his office he spread out maps of Stoneridge, his new real-estate venture, and spent half an hour discussing it with two of his agents. He had purchased a vast tract of land on Long Island, which was to be converted into the Stoneridge Development, a new community of small home owners, every curbstone, street and house to be built by Gail Wynand. The few people who knew of his real-estate activities had told him that he was crazy. It was a year when no one thought of building. But Gail Wynand had made his fortune on decisions which people called crazy.

The architect to design Stoneridge had not been chosen. News of the project had seeped into the starved profession. For weeks Wynand had refused to read letters or answer calls from the best architects of the country and their friends. He refused once more when, at the end of his conference, his secretary informed him that Mr. Ralston Holcombe most urgently requested two minutes of his time on the telephone.

When the agents were gone, Wynand pressed a b.u.t.ton on his desk, summoning Alvah Scarret. Scarret entered the office, smiling happily. He always answered that buzzer with the flattered eagerness of an office boy.

"Alvah, what in h.e.l.l is the Gallant Gallstone?"

Scarret laughed. "Oh, that? It's the t.i.tle of a novel. By Lois Cook."

"What kind of a novel?"

"Oh, just a lot of drivel. It's supposed to be a sort of prose poem. It's all about a gallstone that thinks that it's an independent ent.i.ty, a sort of a rugged individualist of the gall bladder, if you see what I mean, and then the man takes a big dose of castor oil-there's a graphic description of the consequences-I'm not sure it's correct medically, but anyway that's the end of the gallant gallstone. It's all supposed to prove that there's no such thing as free will."

"How many copies has it sold?"

"I don't know. Not very many, I think. Just among the intelligentsia. But I hear it's picked up some, lately, and ..."

"Precisely. What's going on around here, Alvah?"

"What? Oh, you mean you noticed the few mentions which ..."

"I mean I've noticed it all over the Banner Banner in the last few weeks. Very nicely done, too, if it took me that long to discover that it wasn't accidental." in the last few weeks. Very nicely done, too, if it took me that long to discover that it wasn't accidental."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? Why should that particular t.i.tle appear continuously, in the most inappropriate places? One day it's in a police story about the execution of some murderer who 'died bravely like the Gallant Gallstone.' Two days later it's on page sixteen, in a state yam from Albany. 'Senator Hazleton thinks he's an independent ent.i.ty, but it might turn out that he's only a Gallant Gallstone.' Then it's in the obituaries. Yesterday it was on the women's page. Today, it's in the comics. Snooxy calls his rich landlord a Gallant Gallstone."

Scarret chortled peacefully. "Yes, isn't it silly?"

"I thought it was silly. At first. Now I don't."

"But what the h.e.l.l, Gail! It's not as if it were a major issue and our by-liners plugged it. It's just the small fry, the forty-dollar-a-week ones."

"That's the point. One of them. The other is that the book's not a famous best-seller. If it were, I could understand the t.i.tle popping into their heads automatically. But it isn't. So someone's doing the popping. Why?"

"Oh, come, Gail! Why would anyone want to bother? And what do we care? If it were a political issue ... But h.e.l.l, who can get any gravy out of plugging for free will or against free will?"

"Did anyone consult you about this plugging?"

"No. I tell you, n.o.body's behind it. It's just spontaneous. Just a lot of people who thought it was a funny gag."

"Who was the first one that you heard it from?"

"I don't know.... Let me see.... It was ... yes, I think it was Ellsworth Toohey."

"Have it stopped. Be sure to tell Mr. Toohey."

"Okay, if you say so. But it's really nothing. Just a lot of people amusing themselves."

"I don't like to have anyone amusing himself on my paper."

"Yes, Gail."

At two o'clock Wynand arrived, as guest of honor, at a luncheon given by a National Convention of Women's Clubs. He sat at the right of the chairwoman, in an echoing banquet hall filled with the odors of corsages-gardenias and sweet peas-and of fried chicken. After luncheon Wynand spoke. The Convention advocated careers for married women; the Wynand papers had fought against the employment of married women for many years. Wynand spoke for twenty minutes and said nothing at all; but he conveyed the impression that he supported every sentiment expressed at the meeting. n.o.body had ever been able to explain the effect of Gail Wynand on an audience, particularly an audience of women. He did nothing spectacular; his voice was low, metallic, inclined to sound monotonous; he was too correct, in a manner that was almost deliberate satire on correctness. Yet he conquered all listeners. People said it was his subtle, enormous virility; it made the courteous voice speaking about school, home and family sound as if he were making love to every old hag present.

Returning to his office, Wynand stopped in the city room. Standing at a tall desk, a big blue pencil in his hand, he wrote on a huge sheet of plain print stock, in letters an inch high, a brilliant, ruthless editorial denouncing all advocates of careers for women. The GW at the end stood like a streak of blue flame. He did not read the piece over-he never needed to-but threw it on the desk of the first editor in sight and walked out of the room.

Late in the afternoon, when Wynand was ready to leave his office, his secretary announced that Ellsworth Toohey requested the privilege of seeing him. "Let him in," said Wynand.

Toohey entered, a cautious half-smile on his face, a smile mocking himself and his boss, but with a delicate sense of balance, sixty percent of the mockery directed at himself. He knew that Wynand did not want to see him, and being received was not in his favor.

Wynand sat behind his desk, his face courteously blank. Two diagonal ridges stood out faintly on his forehead, parallel with his slanting eyebrows. It was a disconcerting peculiarity which his face a.s.sumed at times; it gave the effect of a double exposure, an ominous emphasis.

"Sit down, Mr. Toohey. Of what service can I be to you?"

"Oh, I'm much more presumptuous than that, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey gaily. "I didn't come to ask for your services, but to offer you mine."

"In what matter?"

"Stoneridge."

The diagonal lines stood out sharper on Wynand's forehead.

"Of what use can a newspaper columnist be to Stoneridge?"

"A newspaper columnist-none, Mr. Wynand. But an architectural expert ..." Toohey let his voice trail into a mocking question mark.

If Toohey's eyes had not been fixed insolently on Wynand's, he would have been ordered out of the office at once. But the glance told Wynand that Toohey knew to what extent he had been plagued by people recommending architects and how hard he had tried to avoid them; and that Toohey had outwitted him by obtaining this interview for a purpose Wynand had not expected. The impertinence of it amused Wynand, as Toohey had known it would.

"All right, M. Toohey. Whom are you selling?"

"Peter Keating."

"Well?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, sell him to me."

Toohey was stopped, then shrugged brightly and plunged in: "You understand, of course, that I'm not connected with Mr. Keating in any way. I'm acting only as his friend-and yours." The voice sounded pleasantly informal, but it had lost some of its certainty. "Honestly, I know it does sound trite, but what else can I say? It just happens to be the truth." Wynand would not help him out. "I presumed to come here because I felt it was my duty to give you my opinion. No, not a moral duty. Call it an esthetic one. I know that you demand the best in anything you do. For a project of the size you have in mind there's not another architect living who can equal Peter Keating in efficiency, taste, originality, imagination. That, Mr. Wynand, is my sincere opinion."

"I quite believe you."

"You do?"

"Of course. But, Mr. Toohey, why should I consider your opinion?"

"Well, after all, I am am your architectural expert!" He could not keep the edge of anger out of his voice. your architectural expert!" He could not keep the edge of anger out of his voice.

"My dear Mr. Toohey, don't confuse me with my readers."

After a moment, Toohey leaned back and spread his hands out in laughing helplessness.

"Frankly, Mr. Wynand, I didn't think my word would carry much weight with you. So I didn't intend trying to sell you Peter Keating."

"No? What did you intend?"

"Only to ask that you give half an hour of your time to someone who can convince you of Peter Keating's ability much better than I can."

"Who is that?"

"Mrs. Peter Keating."

"Why should I wish to discuss this matter with Mrs. Peter Keating?"

"Because she is an exceedingly beautiful woman and an extremely difficult one."

Wynand threw his head back and laughed aloud.

"Good G.o.d, Toohey, am I as obvious as that?"

Toohey blinked, unprepared.

"Really, Mr. Toohey, I owe you an apology, if, by allowing my tastes to become so well known, I caused you to be so crude. But I had no idea that among your many other humanitarian activities you were also a pimp."

Toohey rose to his feet.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Toohey. I have no desire whatever to meet Mrs. Peter Keating."

"I didn't think you would have, Mr. Wynand. Not on my unsupported suggestion. I foresaw that several hours ago. In fact, as early as this morning. So I took the liberty of preparing for myself another chance to discuss this with you. I took the liberty of sending you a present. When you get home tonight, you will find my gift there. Then, if you feel that I was justified in expecting you to do so, you can telephone me and I shall come over at once so that you will be able to tell me whether you wish to meet Mrs. Peter Keating or not."

"Toohey, this is unbelievable, but I believe you're offering me a bribe."

"I am."

"You know, that's the sort of stunt you should be allowed to get away with completely-or lose your job for."

"I shall rest upon your opinion of my present tonight."

"All right, Mr. Toohey, I'll look at your present."

Toohey bowed and turned to go. He was at the door when Wynand added: "You know, Toohey, one of these days you'll bore me."

"I shall endeavor not to do so until the right time," said Toohey, bowed again and went out.

When Wynand returned to his home, he had forgotten all about Ellsworth Toohey.

That evening, in his penthouse, Wynand had dinner with a woman who had a white face, soft brown hair and, behind her, three centuries of fathers and brothers who would have killed a man for a hint of the things which Gail Wynand had experienced with her.