The Fountainhead Part 53

"The thing that thinks and values and makes decisions?"

"Yes! Yes, that's it. And the thing that feels. You've-you've given it up."

"So there are two things that one can't give up: one's thoughts and one's desires?"

"Yes! Oh, you do understand! So you see, you're like a corpse to everybody around you. A kind of walking death. That's worse than any active crime. It's ..."

"Negation?"

"Yes. Just blank negation. You're not here. You've never been here. If you'd tell me that the curtains in this room are ghastly and if you'd rip them off and put up some you like-something of you would be real, here, in this room. But you never have. You've never told the cook what dessert you liked for dinner. You're not here, Dominique. You're not alive. Where's your I?"

"Where's yours, Peter?" she asked quietly.

He sat still, his eyes wide. She knew that his thoughts, in this moment, were clear and immediate like visual perception, that the act of thinking was an act of seeing a procession of years behind him.

"It's not true," he said at last, his voice hollow. "It's not true."

"What is not true?"

"What you said."

"I've said nothing. I asked you a question."

His eyes were begging her to speak, to deny. She rose, stood before him, and the taut erectness of her body was a sign of life, the life he had missed and begged for, a positive quality of purpose, but the quality of a judge.

"You're beginning to see, aren't you, Peter? Shall I make it clearer? You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn't want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act-a beautiful, complicated act, all twists, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and words. All words. You didn't like what I said about Vincent Knowlton. You liked it when I said the same thing under cover of virtuous sentiments. You didn't want me to believe. You only wanted me to convince you that I believed. My real soul, Peter? It's real only when it's independent-you've discovered that, haven't you? It's real only when it chooses curtains and desserts-you're right about that-curtains, desserts and religions, Peter, and the shapes of buildings. But you've never wanted that. You wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they're reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors facing each other across a narrow pa.s.sage. Usually in the more vulgar kind of hotels. Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose. I gave you what you wanted. I became what you are, what your friends are, what most of humanity is so busy being-only without the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. I didn't go around spouting book reviews to hide my emptiness of judgment-I said I had no judgment. I didn't borrow designs to hide my creative impotence-I created nothing. I didn't say that equality is a n.o.ble conception and unity the chief goal of mankind-I just agreed with everybody. You call it death, Peter? That kind of death-I've imposed it on you and on everyone around us. But you-you haven't done that. People are comfortable with you, they like you, they enjoy your presence. You've spared them the blank death. Because you've imposed it-on yourself."

He said nothing. She walked away from him, and sat down again, waiting.

He got up. He made a few steps toward her. He said: "Dominique ..."

Then he was on his knees before her, clutching her, his head buried against her legs.

"Dominique, it's not true-that I never loved you. I love you, I always have, it was not ... just to show the others-that was not all-I loved you. There were two people-you and another person, a man, who always made me feel the same thing-not fear exactly, but like a wall, a steep wall to climb-like a command to rise-I don't know where-but a feeling going up-I've always hated that man-but you, I wanted you-always-that's why I married you-when I knew you despised me-so you should have forgiven me that marriage-you shouldn't have taken your revenge like this-not like this, Dominique-Dominique, I can't fight back, I--"

"Who is the man you hated, Peter?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Who is he?"

"n.o.body. I ..."

"Name him."

"Howard Roark."

She said nothing for a long time. Then she put her hand on his hair. The gesture had the form of gentleness.

"I never wanted to take a revenge on you, Peter," she said softly.

"Then-why?"

"I married you for my own reasons. I acted as the world demands one should act. Only I can do nothing halfway. Those who can, have a fissure somewhere inside. Most people have many. They lie to themselves-not to know that. I've never lied to myself. So I had to do what you all do-only consistently and completely. I've probably destroyed you. If I could care, I'd say I'm sorry. That was not my purpose."

"Dominique, I love you. But I'm afraid. Because you've changed something in me, ever since our wedding, since I said yes to you-even if I were to lose you now, I couldn't go back to what I was before-you took something I had ..."

"No. I took something you never had. I grant you that's worse."

"What?"

"It's said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. But that's not true. Self-respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it."

"Dominique, I ... I don't want to talk."

She looked down at his face resting against her knees, and he saw pity in her eyes, and for one moment he knew what a dreadful thing true pity is, but he kept no knowledge of it, because he slammed his mind shut before the words in which he was about to preserve it.

She bent down and kissed his forehead. It was the first kiss she had ever given him.

"I don't want you to suffer, Peter," she said gently. "This, now, is real-it's I-it's my own words-I don't want you to suffer-I can't feel anything else-but I feel that much."

He pressed his lips to her hand.

When he raised his head, she looked at him as if, for a moment, he was her husband. She said: "Peter, if you could hold on to it-to what you are now--"

"I love you," he said.

They sat silently together for a long time. He felt no strain in the silence.

The telephone rang.

It was not the sound that destroyed the moment; it was the eagerness with which Keating jumped up and ran to answer it. She heard his voice through the open door, a voice indecent in its relief: "h.e.l.lo? ... Oh, h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, Ellsworth! ... No, not a thing.... Free as a lark.... Sure, come over, come Ellsworth! ... No, not a thing.... Free as a lark.... Sure, come over, come right right over! ... Okey-doke!" over! ... Okey-doke!"

"It's Ellsworth," he said, returning to the living room. His voice was gay and it had a touch of insolence. "He wants to drop in."

She said nothing.

He busied himself emptying ash trays that contained a single match or one b.u.t.t, gathering newspapers, adding a log to the fire that did not need it, lighting more lamps. He whistled a tune from a screen operetta.

He ran to open the door when he heard the bell.

"How nice," said Toohey, coming in. "A fire and just the two of you. h.e.l.lo, Dominique. Hope I'm not intruding."

"h.e.l.lo, Ellsworth," she said.

"You're never intruding," said Keating. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you." He pushed a chair to the fire. "Sit down here, Ellsworth. What'll you have? You know, when I heard your voice on the phone ... well, I wanted to jump and yelp like a pup."

"Don't wag your tail, though," said Toohey. "No, no drinks, thanks. How have you been, Dominique?"

"Just as I was a year ago," she said.

"But not as you were two years ago?"

"No."

"What did we do two years ago this time?" Keating asked idly.

"You weren't married," said Toohey. "Prehistorical period. Let me see-what happened then? I think the Stoddard Temple was just being completed."

"Oh that," said Keating.

Toohey asked: "Hear anything about your friend Roark ... Peter?"

"No. I don't think he's worked for a year or more. He's finished, this time."

"Yes, I think so.... What have you been doing, Peter?"

"Nothing much.... Oh, I've just read The Gallant Gallstone." The Gallant Gallstone."

"Liked it?"

"Yes! You know, I think it's a very important book. Because it's true that there's no such thing as free will. We can't help what we are or what we do. It's not our fault. n.o.body's to blame for anything. It's all in your background and ... and your glands. If you're good, that's no achievement of yours-you were just lucky in your glands. If you're rotten, n.o.body should punish you-you were unlucky, that's all." He was saying it defiantly, with a violence inappropriate to a literary discussion. He was not looking at Toohey nor at Dominique, but speaking to the room and to what that room had witnessed.

"Substantially correct," said Toohey. "To be logical, however, we should not think of punishment for those who are rotten. Since they suffered through no fault of their own, since they were unlucky and underendowed, they should deserve a compensation of some sort-more like a reward."

"Why-yes!" cried Keating. "That's ... that's logical."

"And just," said Toohey.

"Got the Banner Banner pretty much where you want it, Ellsworth?" asked Dominique. pretty much where you want it, Ellsworth?" asked Dominique.

"What's that in reference to?"

"The Gallant Gallstone."

"Oh. No, I can't say I have. Not quite. There are always the-imponderables."

"What are you talking about?" asked Keating.

"Professional gossip," said Toohey. He stretched his hands to the fire and flexed his fingers playfully. "By the way, Peter, are you doing anything about Stoneridge?"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," said Keating.

"What's the matter?"

"You know what's the matter. You know the b.a.s.t.a.r.d better than I do. To have a project like that going up, now, when its manna in the desert, and of all people to have that son of a b.i.t.c.h Wynand doing it!"

"What's the matter with Mr. Wynand?"

"Oh come, Ellsworth! You know very well if it were anyone else, I'd get that commission just like that"-he snapped his fingers-"I wouldn't even have to ask, the owner'd come to me. Particularly when he knows that an architect like me is practically sitting on his f.a.n.n.y now, compared to the work our office could handle. But Mr. Gail Wynand! You'd think he was a holy Lama who's just allergic to the air breathed by architects!"

"I gather you've tried?"

"Oh, don't talk about it. It makes me sick. I think I've spent three hundred dollars feeding lunches and pouring liquor into all sorts of c.r.a.ppy people who said they could get me to meet him. All I got is hangovers. I think it'd be easier to meet the Pope."

"I gather you do want to get Stoneridge?"

"Are you baiting me, Ellsworth? I'd give my right arm for it."

"That wouldn't be advisable. You couldn't make any drawings then-or pretend to. It would be preferable to give up something less tangible."

"I'd give my soul."

"Would you, Peter?" asked Dominique.

"What's on your mind, Ellsworth?" Keating snapped.

"Just a practical suggestion," said Toohey. "Who has been your most effective salesman in the past and got you some of your best commissions?"

"Why-Dominique I guess."

"That's right. And since you can't get to Wynand and it wouldn't do you any good if you did, don't you think Dominique is the one who'll be able to persuade him?"

Keating stared at him. "Are you crazy, Ellsworth?"

Dominique leaned forward. She seemed interested.

"From what I've heard," she said, "Gail Wynand does not do favors for a woman, unless she's beautiful. And if she's beautiful, he doesn't do it as a favor."

Toohey looked at her, underscoring the fact that he offered no denial.

"It's silly," snapped Keating angrily. "How would Dominique ever get to see him?"

"By telephoning his office and making an appointment," said Toohey.

"Who ever told you he'd grant it?"

"He did."

"When?!"

"Late last night. Or early this morning, to be exact."

"Ellsworth!" gasped Keating. He added: "I don't believe it."

"I do," said Dominique, "or Ellsworth wouldn't have started this conversation." She smiled at Toohey. "So Wynand promised you to see me?"

"Yes, my dear."