The Fountainhead Part 70

"Don't you hate my guts?"

"No. Why should I?"

"You want me to speak of it first?"

"Of what?"

"The Stoddard Temple."

Roark smiled. "So you did check up on me since yesterday."

"I read our clippings." He waited, but Roark said nothing. "All of them." His voice was harsh, half defiance, half plea. "Everything we said about you." The calm of Roark's face drove him to fury. He went on, giving slow, full value to each word: "We called you an incompetent fool, a tyro, a charlatan, a swindler, an egomaniac ..."

"Stop torturing yourself."

Wynand closed his eyes, as if Roark had struck him. In a moment, he said: "Mr. Roark, you don't know me very well. You might as well learn this: I don't apologize. I never apologize for any of my actions."

"What made you think of apology? I haven't asked for it."

"I stand by every one of those descriptive terms. I stand by every word printed in the Banner." Banner."

"I haven't asked you to repudiate it."

"I know what you think. You understood that I didn't know about the Stoddard Temple yesterday. I had forgotten the name of the architect involved. You concluded it wasn't I who led that campaign against you. You're right, it wasn't I, I was away at the time. But you don't understand that the campaign was in the true and proper spirit of the Banner. Banner. It was in strict accordance with the It was in strict accordance with the Banner's Banner's function. No one is responsible for it but me. Alvah Scarret was doing only what I taught him. Had I been in town, I would have done the same." function. No one is responsible for it but me. Alvah Scarret was doing only what I taught him. Had I been in town, I would have done the same."

"That's your privilege."

"You don't believe I would have done it?"

"No."

"I haven't asked you for compliments and I haven't asked you for pity."

"I can't do what you're asking for."

"What do you think I'm asking?"

"That I slap your face."

"Why don't you?"

"I can't pretend an anger I don't feel," said Roark. "It's not pity. It's much more cruel than anything I could do. Only I'm not doing it in order to be cruel. If I slapped your face, you'd forgive me for the Stoddard Temple."

"Is it you who should seek forgiveness?"

"No. You wish I did. You know that there's an act of forgiveness involved. You're not clear about the actors. You wish I would forgive you-or demand payment, which is the same thing-and you believe that that would close the record. But, you see, I have nothing to do with it. I'm not one of the actors. It doesn't matter what I do or feel about it now. You're not thinking of me. I can't help you. I'm not the person you're afraid of just now."

"Who is?"

"Yourself."

"Who gave you the right to say all this?"

"You did."

"Well, go on."

"Do you wish the rest?"

"Go on."

"I think it hurts you to know that you've made me suffer. You wish you hadn't. And yet there's something that frightens you more. The knowledge that I haven't suffered at all."

"Go on."

"The knowledge that I'm neither kind nor generous now, but simply indifferent. It frightens you, because you know that things like the Stoddard Temple always require payment-and you see that I'm not paying for it. You were astonished that I accepted this commission. Do you think my acceptance required courage? You needed far greater courage to hire me. You see, this is what I think of the Stoddard Temple. I'm through with it. You're not."

Wynand let his fingers fall open, palms out. His shoulders sagged a little, relaxing. He said very simply: "All right. It's true. All of it."

Then he stood straight, but with a kind of quiet resignation, as if his body were consciously made vulnerable.

"I hope you know you've given me a beating in your own way," he said.

"Yes. And you've taken it. So you've accomplished what you wanted. Shall we say we're even and forget the Stoddard Temple?"

"You're very wise or I've been very obvious. Either is your achievement. n.o.body's ever caused me to become obvious before."

"Shall I still do what you want?"

"What do you think I want now?"

"Personal recognition from me. It's my turn to give in, isn't it?"

"You're appallingly honest, aren't you?"

"Why shouldn't I be? I can't give you the recognition of having made me suffer. But you'll take the subst.i.tute of having given me pleasure, won't you? All right, then. I'm glad you like me. I think you know this is as much an exception for me as your taking a beating. I don't usually care whether I'm liked or not. I do care this time. I'm glad."

Wynand laughed aloud. "You're as innocent and presumptuous as an emperor. When you confer honors you merely exalt yourself. What in h.e.l.l made you think I liked you?"

"Now you don't want any explanations of that. You've reproached me once for causing you to be obvious."

Wynand sat down on a fallen tree trunk. He said nothing; but his movement was an invitation and a demand. Roark sat down beside him; Roark's face was sober, but the trace of a smile remained, amused and watchful, as if every word he heard were not a disclosure but a confirmation.

"You've come up from nothing, haven't you?" Wynand asked. "You came from a poor family."

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"Just because it feels like a presumption-the thought of handing you anything: a compliment, an idea or a fortune. I started at the bottom, too. Who was your father?"

"A steel puddler."

"Mine was a longsh.o.r.eman. Did you hold all sorts of funny jobs when you were a child?"

"All sorts. Mostly in the building trades."

"I did worse than that. I did just about everything. What job did you like best?"

"Catching rivets, on steel structures."

"I liked being a bootblack on a Hudson ferry. I should have hated that, but I didn't. I don't remember the people at all. I remember the city. The city-always there, on the sh.o.r.e, spread out, waiting, as if I were tied to it by a rubber band. The band would stretch and carry me away, to the other sh.o.r.e, but it would always snap back and I would return. It gave me the feeling that I'd never escape from that city-and it would never escape from me."

Roark knew that Wynand seldom spoke of his childhood, by the quality of his words: they were bright and hesitant, untarnished by usage, like coins that had not pa.s.sed through many hands.

"Were you ever actually homeless and starving?" Wynand asked.

"A few times."

"Did you mind that?"

"No."

"I didn't either. I minded something else. Did you want to scream, when you were a child, seeing nothing but fat inept.i.tude around you, knowing how many things could be done and done so well, but having no power to do them? Having no power to blast the empty skulls around you? Having to take orders-and that's bad enough-but to take orders from your inferiors! Have you felt that?"

"Yes."

"Did you drive the anger back inside of you, and store it, and decide to let yourself be torn to pieces if necessary, but reach the day when you'd rule those people and all people and everything around you?"

"No."

"You didn't? You let yourself forget?"

"No. I hate incompetence. I think it's probably the only thing I do hate. But it didn't make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want to do my own work in my own way and let myself be torn to pieces if necessary."

"And you were?"

"No. Not in any way that counts."

"You don't mind looking back? At anything?"

"No."

"I do. There was one night. I was beaten and I crawled to a door-I remember the pavement-it was right under my nostrils-I can still see it-there were veins in the stone and white spots-I had to make sure that that pavement moved-I couldn't feel whether I was moving or not-but I could tell by the pavement-I had to see that those veins and spots changed-I had to reach the next pattern or the crack six inches away-it took a long time-and I knew it was blood under my stomach ..."

His voice had no tone of self-pity; it was simple, impersonal, with a faint sound of wonder.

Roark said: "I'd like to help you."

Wynand smiled slowly, not gaily. "I believe you could. I even believe that it would be proper. Two days ago I would have murdered anyone who'd think of me as an object for help.... You know, of course, that that night's not what I hate in my past. Not what I dread to look back on. It was only the least offensive to mention. The other things can't be talked about."

"I know. I meant the other things."

"What are they? You name them."

"The Stoddard Temple."

"You want to help me with that?"

"Yes."

"You're a d.a.m.n fool. Don't you realize ..."

"Don't you realize I'm doing it already?"

"How?"

"By building this house for you."

Roark saw the slanting ridges on Wynand's forehead. Wynand's eyes seemed whiter than usual, as if the blue had ebbed from the iris, two white ovals, luminous on his face. He said: "And getting a fat commission check for it."

He saw Roark's smile, suppressed before it appeared fully. The smile would have said that this sudden insult was a declaration of surrender, more eloquent than the speeches of confidence; the suppression said that Roark would not help him over this particular moment.

"Why, of course," said Roark calmly.

Wynand got up. "Let's go. We're wasting time. I have more important things to do at the office."

They did not speak on their way back to the city. Wynand drove his car at ninety miles an hour. The speed made two solid walls of blurred motion on the sides of the road; as if they were flying down a long, closed, silent corridor.

He stopped at the entrance to the Cord Building and let Roark out. He said: "You're free to go back to that site as often as you wish, Mr. Roark. I don't have to go with you. You can get the surveys and all the information you need from my office. Please do not call on me again until it is necessary. I shall be very busy. Let me know when the first drawings are ready."

When the drawings were ready, Roark telephoned Wynand's office. He had not spoken to Wynand for a month. "Please hold the wire, Mr. Roark," said Wynand's secretary. He waited. The secretary's voice came back and informed him that Mr. Wynand wished the drawings brought to his office that afternoon; she gave the hour; Wynand would not answer in person.

When Roark entered the office, Wynand said: "How do you do, Mr. Roark," his voice gracious and formal. No memory of intimacy remained on his blank, courteous face.

Roark handed him the plans of the house and a large perspective drawing. Wynand studied each sheet. He held the drawing for a long time. Then he looked up.

"I am very much impressed, Mr. Roark." The voice was offensively correct. "I have been quite impressed by you from the first. I have thought it over and I want to make a special deal with you."

His glance was directed at Roark with a soft emphasis, almost with tenderness; as if he were showing that he wished to treat Roark cautiously, to spare him intact for a purpose of his own.

He lifted the sketch and held it up between two fingers, letting the light hit it straight on; the white sheet glowed as a reflector for a moment, pus.h.i.+ng the black pencil lines eloquently forward.

"You want to see this house erected?" Wynand asked softly. "You want it very much?"

"Yes," said Roark.