The Fountainhead Part 81

"What principle?"

"The thing that is destroying the world. The thing you were talking about. Actual selflessness."

"The ideal which they say does not exist?"

"They're wrong. It does exist-though not in the way they imagine. It's what I couldn't understand about people for a long time. They have no self. They live within others. They live second-hand. Look at Peter Keating."

"You look at him. I hate his guts."

"I've looked at him-at what's left of him-and it's helped me to understand. He's paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he's been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life? Greatness-in other people's eyes. Fame, admiration, envy-all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn't want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There's your actual selflessness. It's his ego that he's betrayed and given up. But everybody calls him selfish."

"That's the pattern most people follow."

"Yes! And isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to make money. Now I don't see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. If a man wants it for a personal purpose-to invest in his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury-he's completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They're second-handers. Look at our so-called cultural endeavors. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him-and the people who listen and don't give a d.a.m.n, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers."

"If I were Ellsworth Toohey, I'd say: aren't you making out a case against selfishness? Aren't they all acting on a selfish motive-to be noticed, liked, admired?"

"-by others. At the price of their own self-respect. In the realm of greatest importance-the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought-they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it."

"I think Toohey understands that. That's what helps him spread his vicious nonsense. Just weakness and cowardice. It's so easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousands to charity and think oneself n.o.ble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek subst.i.tutes for competence-such easy subst.i.tutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no subst.i.tute for competence."

"That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: 'Is this true?' They ask: 'Is this what others think is true?' Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friends.h.i.+p. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you don't work through another's hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that s.p.a.ce which divides one human body from another. Not an ent.i.ty, but a relation-anch.o.r.ed to nothing. That's the emptiness I couldn't understand in people. That's what stopped me whenever I faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person. It's everywhere and nowhere and you can't reason with him. He's not open to reason. You can't speak to him-he can't hear. You're tried by an empty bench. A blind ma.s.s running amuck, to crush you without sense or purpose. Steve Mallory couldn't define the monster, but he knew. That's the drooling beast he fears. The second-hander."

"I think your second-handers understand this, try as they might not to admit it to themselves. Notice how they'll accept anything except a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once. By instinct. There's a special, insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They've got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The independent man kills them-because they don't exist within him and that's the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an independent man. Look back at your own life, Howard, and at the people you've met. They know. They're afraid. You're a reproach."

"That's because some sense of dignity always remains in them. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self-esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn't have conceived. And now, to cure a world peris.h.i.+ng from selflessness, we're asked to destroy the self. Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion-prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.' Then he wonders why he's unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean-for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once-and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters." wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.' Then he wonders why he's unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean-for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once-and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters."

"I'm glad you admit that you have friends."

"I even admit that I love them. But I couldn't love them if they were my chief reason for living. Do you notice that Peter Keating hasn't a single friend left? Do you see why? If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others."

"To h.e.l.l with Peter Keating. I'm thinking of you-and your friends."

Roark smiled. "Gail, if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you."

"Howard, what were the reasons and standards?"

Roark looked at him and realized that he had said all the things he had tried not to say to Wynand. He answered: "That you weren't born to be a second-hander."

Wynand smiled. He heard the sentence-and nothing else.

Afterward, when Wynand had gone below to his cabin, Roark remained alone on deck. He stood at the rail, staring out at the ocean, at nothing.

He thought: I haven't mentioned to him the worst second-hander of all-the man who goes after power.

XII

IT WAS APRIL WHEN ROARK AND WYNAND RETURNED TO THE CITY. The skysc.r.a.pers looked pink against the blue sky, an incongruous shade of porcelain on ma.s.ses of stone. There were small tufts of green on the trees in the streets.

Roark went to his office. His staff shook hands with him and he saw the strain of smiles self-consciously repressed, until a young boy burst out: "What the h.e.l.l! Why can't we say how glad we are to see you back, boss?" Roark laughed. "Go ahead. I can't tell you how d.a.m.n glad I am to be back." Then he sat on a table in the drafting room, while they all reported to him on the past three months, interrupting one another; he played with a ruler in his hands, not noticing it, like a man with the feel of his farm's soil under his fingers, after an absence.

In the afternoon, alone at his desk, he opened a newspaper. He had not seen a newspaper for three months. He noticed an item about the construction of Cortlandt Homes. He saw the line: "Peter Keating, architect. Gordon L. Prescott and Augustus Webb, a.s.sociate designers."

He sat very still.

That evening, he went to see Cortlandt.

The first building was almost completed. It stood alone on the large, empty tract. The workers had left for the day; a small light showed in the shack of the night watchman. The building had the skeleton of what Roark had designed, with the remnants of ten different breeds piled on the lovely symmetry of the bones. He saw the economy of plan preserved, but the expense of incomprehensible features added; the variety of modeled ma.s.ses gone, replaced by the monotony of brutish cubes; a new wing added, with a vaulted roof, bulging out of a wall like a tumor, containing a gymnasium; strings of balconies added, made of metal stripes painted a violent blue; corner windows without purpose; an angle cut off for a useless door, with a round metal awning supported by a pole, like a haberdashery in the Broadway district; three vertical bands of brick, leading from nowhere to nowhere; the general style of what the profession called "Bronx Modern"; a panel of bas-relief over the main entrance, representing a ma.s.s of muscle which could be discerned as either three or four bodies, one of them with an arm raised, holding a screwdriver.

There were white crosses on the fresh panes of gla.s.s in the windows, and it looked appropriate, like an error x'ed out of existence. There was a band of red in the sky, to the west, beyond Manhattan, and the buildings of the city rose straight and black against it.

Roark stood across the s.p.a.ce of the future road before the first house of Cortlandt. He stood straight, the muscles of his throat pulled, his wrists held down and away from his body, as he would have stood before a firing squad.

No one could tell how it had happened. There had been no deliberate intention behind it. It had just happened.

First, Toohey told Keating one morning that Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb would be put on the payroll as a.s.sociate designers. "What do you care, Peter? It won't come out of your fee. It won't cut your prestige at all, since you're the big boss. They won't be much more than your draftsmen. All I want is to give the boys a boost. It will help their reputation, to be tagged with this project in some way. I'm very interested in building up their reputation."

"But what for? There's nothing for them to do. It's all done."

"Oh, any kind of last-minute drafting. Save time for your own staff. You can share the expense with them. Don't be a hog."

Toohey had told the truth; he had no other purpose in mind.

Keating could not discover what connections Prescott and Webb possessed, with whom, in what office, on what terms-among the dozens of officials involved in the project. The entanglement of responsibility was such that no one could be quite certain of anyone's authority. It was clear only that Prescott and Webb had friends, and that Keating could not keep them off the job.

The changes began with the gymnasium. The lady in charge of tenant selection demanded a gymnasium. She was a social worker and her task was to end with the opening of the project. She acquired a permanent job by getting herself appointed Director of Social Recreation for Cortlandt. No gymnasium had been provided in the original plans; there were two schools and a Y.M.C.A. within walking distance. She declared that this was an outrage against the children of the poor. Prescott and Webb supplied the gymnasium. Other changes followed, of a purely esthetic nature. Extras piled on the cost of construction so carefully devised for economy. The Director of Social Recreation departed for Was.h.i.+ngton to discuss the matter of a Little Theater and a Meeting Hall she wished added to the next two buildings of Cortlandt.

The changes in the drawings came gradually, a few at a time. The orders okaying the changes came from headquarters. "But we're ready to start!" cried Keating. "What the h.e.l.l," drawled Gus Webb, "set 'em back just a coupla thousand bucks more, that's all." "Now as to the balconies," said Gordon L. Prescott, "they lend a certain modern style. You don't want the d.a.m.n thing to look so bare. It's depressing. Besides, you don't understand psychology. The people who'll live here are used to sitting out on fire-escapes. They love it. They'll miss it. You gotta give 'em a place to sit on in the fresh air.... The cost? h.e.l.l, if you're so d.a.m.n worried about the cost, I've got an idea where we can save plenty. We'll do without closet doors. What do they need doors for on closets? It's old-fas.h.i.+oned." All the closet doors were omitted.

Keating fought. It was the kind of battle he had never entered, but he tried everything possible to him, to the honest limit of his exhausted strength. He went from office to office, arguing, threatening, pleading. But he had no influence, while his a.s.sociate designers seemed to control an underground river with interlocking tributaries. The officials shrugged and referred him to someone else. No one cared about an issue of esthetics. "What's the difference?" "It doesn't come out of your your pocket, does it?" "Who are you to have it all your way? Let the boys contribute something." pocket, does it?" "Who are you to have it all your way? Let the boys contribute something."

He appealed to Ellsworth Toohey, but Toohey was not interested. He was busy with other matters and he had no desire to provoke a bureaucratic quarrel. In all truth, he had not prompted his proteges to their artistic endeavor, but he saw no reason for attempting to stop them. He was amused by the whole thing. "But it's awful, Ellsworth! You know it's awful!" "Oh, I suppose so. What do you care, Peter? Your poor but unwashed tenants won't be able to appreciate the finer points of architectural art. See that the plumbing works."

"But what for? What for? What for?" Keating cried to his a.s.sociate designers. "Well, why shouldn't we have any say at all?" asked Gordon L. Prescott. "We want to express our individuality too."

When Keating invoked his contract, he was told: "All right, go ahead, try to sue the government. Try it." At times, he felt a desire to kill. There was no one to kill. Had he been granted the privilege, he could not have chosen a victim. n.o.body was responsible. There was no purpose and no cause. It had just happened.

Keating came to Roark's house on the evening after Roark's return. He had not been summoned. Roark opened the door and said: "Good evening, Peter," but Keating could not answer. They walked silently into the work room. Roark sat down, but Keating remained standing in the middle of the floor and asked, his voice dull: "What are you going to do?"

"You must leave that up to me now."

"I couldn't help it, Howard.... I couldn't help it!"

"I suppose not."

"What can you do now? You can't sue the government."

"No."

Keating thought that he should sit down, but the distance to a chair seemed too great. He felt he would be too conspicuous if he moved.

"What are you going to do to me, Howard?"

"Nothing."

"Want me to confess the truth to them? To everybody?"

"No."

After a while Keating whispered: "Will you let me give you the fee ... everything ... and ..."

Roark smiled.

"I'm sorry ..." Keating whispered, looking away.

He waited, and then the plea he knew he must not utter came out as: "I'm scared, Howard ..."

Roark shook his head.

"Whatever I do, it won't be to hurt you, Peter. I'm guilty, too. We both are."

"You're guilty?"

"It's I who've destroyed you, Peter. From the beginning. By helping you. There are matters in which one must not ask for help nor give it. I shouldn't have done your projects at Stanton. I shouldn't have done the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. Nor Cortlandt. I loaded you with more than you could carry. It's like an electric current too strong for the circuit. It blows the fuse. Now we'll both pay for it. It will be hard on you, but it will be harder on me."

"You'd rather ... I went home now, Howard?"

"Yes."

At the door Keating said: "Howard! They didn't do it on purpose."

"That's what makes it worse."

Dominique heard the sound of the car rising up the hill road. She thought it was Wynand coming home. He had worked late in the city every night of the two weeks since his return.

The motor filled the spring silence of the countryside. There was no sound in the house; only the small rustle of her hair as she leaned her head back against a chair cus.h.i.+on. In a moment she was not conscious of hearing the car's approach, it was so familiar at this hour, part of the loneliness and privacy outside.

She heard the car stop at the door. The door was never locked; there were no neighbors or guests to expect. She heard the door opening, and steps in the hall downstairs. The steps did not pause, but walked with familiar certainty up the stairs. A hand turned the k.n.o.b of her door.

It was Roark. She thought, while she was rising to her feet, that he had never entered her room before; but he knew every part of this house; as he knew everything about her body. She felt no moment of shock, only the memory of one, a shock in the past tense, the thought: I must have been shocked when I saw him, but not now. Now, by the time she was standing before him, it seemed very simple.

She thought: The most important never has to be said between us. It has always been said like this. He did not want to see me alone. Now he's here. I waited and I'm ready.

"Good evening, Dominique."

She heard the name p.r.o.nounced to fill the s.p.a.ce of five years. She said quietly : "Good evening, Roark."

"I want you to help me."

She was standing on the station platform of Clayton, Ohio, on the witness stand of the Stoddard trial, on the ledge of a quarry, to let herself-as she had been then-share this sentence she heard now.

"Yes, Roark."

He walked across the room he had designed for her, he sat down, facing her, the width of the room between them. She found herself seated too, not conscious of her own movements, only of his, as if his body contained two sets of nerves, his own and hers.

"Next Monday night, Dominique, exactly at eleven-thirty, I want you to drive up to the site of Cortlandt Homes."

She noticed that she was conscious of her eyelids; not painfully, but just conscious; as if they had tightened and would not move again. She had seen the first building of Cortlandt. She knew what she was about to hear.

"You must be alone in your car and you must be on your way home from some place where you had an appointment to visit, made in advance. A place that can be reached from here only by driving past Cortlandt. You must be able to prove that afterward. I want your car to run out of gas in front of Cortlandt, at eleven-thirty. Honk your horn. There's an old night watchman there. He will come out. Ask him to help you and send him to the nearest garage, which is a mile away."

She said steadily, "Yes, Roark."

"When he's gone, get out of your car. There's a big stretch of vacant land by the road, across from the building, and a kind of trench beyond. Walk to that trench as fast as you can, get to the bottom and lie down on the ground. Lie flat. After a while, you can come back to the car. You will know when to come back. See that you're found in the car and that your condition matches its condition-approximately."

"Yes, Roark."

"Have you understood?"

"Yes."

"Everything?"

"Yes. Everything."

They were standing. She saw only his eyes and that he was smiling.

She heard him say: "Good night, Dominique," he walked out and she heard his car driving away. She thought of his smile.