IV
“TOOHEY,” SAID GUY FRANCON, “ELLSWORTH TOOHEY. PRETTY decent of him, don’t you think? Read it, Peter.”
Francon leaned jovially across his desk and handed to Keating the August issue of New Frontiers. New Frontiers had a white cover with a black emblem that combined a palette, a lyre, a hammer, a screw driver and a rising sun; it had a circulation of thirty thousand and a following that described itself as the intellectual vanguard of the country; no one had ever risen to challenge the description. Keating read from an article entitled “Marble and Mortar,” by Ellsworth M. Toohey:
“... And now we come to another notable achievement of the metropolitan skyline. We call the attention of the discriminating to the new Melton Building by Francon & Heyer. It stands in white serenity as an eloquent witness to the triumph of Classical purity and common sense. The discipline of an immortal tradition has served here as a cohesive factor in evolving a structure whose beauty can reach, simply and lucidly, the heart of every man in the street. There is no freak exhibitionism here, no perverted striving for novelty, no orgy of unbridled egotism. Guy Francon, its designer, has known how to subordinate himself to the mandatory canons which generations of craftsmen behind him have proved inviolate, and at the same time how to display his own creative originality, not in spite of, but precisely because of the classical dogma he has accepted with the humility of a true artist. It may be worth mentioning, in passing, that dogmatic discipline is the only thing which makes true originality possible....
“More important, however, is the symbolic significance of a building such as this rising in our imperial city. As one stands before its southern façade, one is stricken with the realization that the stringcourses, repeated with deliberate and gracious monotony from the third to the eighteenth story, these long, straight, horizontal lines are the moderating, leveling principle, the lines of equality. They seem to bring the towering structure down to the humble level of the observer. They are the lines of the earth, of the people, of the great masses. They seem to tell us that none may rise too high above the restraint of the common human level, that all is held and shall be checked, even as this proud edifice, by the stringcourses of men’s brotherhood....”
There was more. Keating read it all, then raised his head. “Gee!” he said, awed.
Francon smiled happily.
“Pretty good, eh? And from Toohey, no less. Not many people might have heard the name, but they will, mark my word, they will. I know the signs.... So he doesn’t think I’m so bad? And he’s got a tongue like an icepick, when he feels like using it. You should see what he says about others, more often than not. You know Durkin’s latest mousetrap? Well, I was at a party where Toohey said—” Francon chuckled—“he said: ‘If Mr. Durkin suffers under the delusion that he is an architect, someone should mention to him the broad opportunities offered by the shortage of skilled plumbers.’ That’s what he said, imagine, in public!”
“I wonder,” said Keating wistfully, “what he’ll say about me, when the time comes.”
“What on earth does he mean by that symbolic significance stuff and the stringcourses of men’s brotherhood? ... Oh, well, if that’s what he praises us for, we should worry!”
“It’s the critic’s job to interpret the artist, Mr. Francon, even to the artist himself. Mr. Toohey has merely stated the hidden significance that was subconsciously in your own mind.”
“Oh,” said Francon vaguely. “Oh, do you think so?” he added brightly. “Quite possible.... Yes, quite possible.... You’re a smart boy, Peter.”
“Thank you, Mr. Francon,” Keating made a movement to rise.
“Wait. Don’t go. One more cigarette and then we’ll both return to the drudgery.”
Francon was smiling over the article, reading it again. Keating had never seen him so pleased; no drawing in the office, no work accomplished had ever made him as happy as these words from another man on a printed page to be read by other eyes.
Keating sat easily in a comfortable chair. His month with the firm had been well spent. He had said nothing and done nothing, but the impression had spread through the office that Guy Francon liked to see this particular boy sent to him whenever anyone had to be sent. Hardly a day passed without the pleasant interlude of sitting across the desk from Guy Francon, in a respectful, growing intimacy, listening to Francon’s sighs about the necessity of being surrounded by men who understood him.
Keating had learned all he could learn about Guy Francon, from his fellow draftsmen. He had learned that Guy Francon ate moderately and exquisitely, and prided himself on the title of gourmet; that he had graduated with distinction from the Ecole des Beaux Arts; that he had married a great deal of money and that the marriage had not been a happy one; that he matched meticulously his socks with his handkerchiefs, but never with his neckties; that he had a great preference for designing buildings of gray granite; that he owned a quarry of gray granite in Connecticut, which did a thriving business; that he maintained a magnificent bachelor apartment done in plum-colored Louis XV; that his wife, of a distinguished old name, had died, leaving her fortune to their only daughter; that the daughter, now nineteen, was away at college.
These last facts interested Keating a great deal. He mentioned to Francon, tentatively, in passing, the subject of his daughter. “Oh, yes ...” Francon said thinly. “Yes, indeed ...” Keating abandoned all further research into the matter, for the time being; Francon’s face had declared that the thought of his daughter was painfully annoying to him, for some reason which Keating could not discover.
Keating had met Lucius N. Heyer, Francon’s partner, and had seen him come to the office twice in three weeks, but had been unable to learn what service Heyer rendered to the firm. Heyer did not have haemophilia, but looked as though he should have it. He was a withered aristocrat, with a long, thin neck, pale, bulging eyes and a manner of frightened sweetness toward everyone. He was the relic of an ancient family, and it was suspected that Francon had taken him into partnership for the sake of his social connections. People felt sorry for poor dear Lucius, admired him for the effort of undertaking a professional career, and thought it would be nice to let him build their homes. Francon built them and required no further service from Lucius. This satisfied everybody.
The men in the drafting rooms loved Peter Keating. He made them feel as if he had been there for a long time; he had always known how to become part of any place he entered; he came soft and bright as a sponge to be filled, unresisting, with the air and the mood of the place. His warm smile, his gay voice, the easy shrug of his shoulders seemed to say that nothing weighed too much within his soul and so he was not one to blame, to demand, to accuse anything.
As he sat now, watching Francon read the article, Francon raised his head to glance at him. Francon saw two eyes looking at him with immense approval—and two bright little points of contempt in the corners of Keating’s mouth, like two musical notes of laughter visible the second before they were to be heard. Francon felt a great wave of comfort. The comfort came from the contempt. The approval, together with that wise half-smile, granted him a grandeur he did not have to earn; a blind admiration would have been precarious; a deserved admiration would have been a responsibility; an undeserved admiration was precious.
“When you go, Peter, give this to Miss Jeffers to put in my scrapbook.”
On his way down the stairs, Keating flung the magazine high in the air and caught it smartly, his lips pursed to whistle without sound.
In the drafting room he found Tim Davis, his best friend, slouched despondently over a drawing. Tim Davis was the tall, blond boy at the next table, whom Keating had noticed long ago, because he had known, with no tangible evidence, but with certainty, as Keating always knew such things, that this was the favored draftsman of the office. Keating managed to be assigned, as frequently as possible, to do parts of the projects on which Davis worked. Soon they were going out to lunch together, and to a quiet little speak-easy after the day’s work, and Keating was listening with breathless attention to Davis’ talk about his love for one Elaine Duffy, not a word of which Keating ever remembered afterward.
He found Davis now in black gloom, his mouth chewing furiously a cigarette and a pencil at once. Keating did not have to question him. He merely bent his friendly face over Davis’ shoulder. Davis spit out the cigarette and exploded. He had just been told that he would have to work overtime tonight, for the third time this week.
“Got to stay late, God knows how late! Gotta finish this damn tripe tonight!” He slammed the sheets spread before him. “Look at it! Hours and hours and hours to finish it! What am I going to do?”
“Well, it’s because you’re the best man here, Tim, and they need you.”
“To hell with that! I’ve got a date with Elaine tonight! How’m I going to break it? Third time! She won’t believe me! She told me so last time! That’s the end! I’m going up to Guy the Mighty and tell him where he can put his plans and his job! I’m through!”
“Wait,” said Keating, and leaned closer to him. “Wait! There’s another way. I’ll finish them for you.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll stay. I’ll do them. Don’t be afraid. No one’ll tell the difference.”
“Pete! Would you?”
“Sure. I’ve nothing to do tonight. You just stay till they all go home, then skip.”
“Oh, gee, Pete!” Davis sighed, tempted. “But look, if they find out, they’ll can me. You’re too new for this kind of job.”
“They won’t find out.”
“I can’t lose my job, Pete. You know I can’t. Elaine and I are going to be married soon. If anything happens ...”
“Nothing will happen.”
Shortly after six, Davis departed furtively from the empty drafting room, leaving Keating at his table.
Bending under a solitary green lamp, Keating glanced at the desolate expanse of three long rooms, oddly silent after the day’s rush, and he felt that he owned them, that he would own them, as surely as the pencil moved in his hand.
It was half past nine when he finished the plans, stacked them neatly on Davis’ table, and left the office. He walked down the street, glowing with a comfortable, undignified feeling, as though after a good meal. Then the realization of his loneliness struck him suddenly. He had to share this with someone tonight. He had no one. For the first time he wished his mother were in New York. But she had remained in Stanton, awaiting the day when he would be able to send for her. He had nowhere to go tonight, save to the respectable little boarding house on West Twenty-Eighth Street, where he could climb three flights of stairs to his clean, airless little room. He had met people in New York, many people, many girls, with one of whom he remembered spending a pleasant night, though he could not remember her last name; but he wished to see none of them. And then he thought of Catherine Halsey.
He had sent her a wire on the night of his graduation and forgotten her ever since. Now he wanted to see her; the desire was intense and immediate with the first sound of her name in his memory. He leaped into a bus for the long ride to Greenwich Village, climbed to the deserted top and, sitting alone on the front bench, cursed the traffic lights whenever they turned to red. It had always been like this where Catherine was concerned; and he wondered dimly what was the matter with him.
He had met her a year ago in Boston, where she had lived with her widowed mother. He had found Catherine homely and dull, on that first meeting, with nothing to her credit but her lovely smile, not a sufficient reason ever to see her again. He had telephoned her the next evening. Of the countless girls he had known in his student years she was the only one with whom he had never progressed beyond a few kisses. He could have any girl he met and he knew it; he knew that he could have Catherine; he wanted her; she loved him and had admitted it simply, openly, without fear or shyness, asking nothing of him, expecting nothing; somehow, he had never taken advantage of it. He had felt proud of the girls whom he escorted in those days, the most beautiful girls, the most popular, the best dressed, and he had delighted in the envy of his schoolmates. He had been ashamed of Catherine’s thoughtless sloppiness and of the fact that no other boy would look at her twice. But he had never been as happy as when he took her to fraternity dances. He had had many violent loves, when he swore he could not live without this girl or that; he forgot Catherine for weeks at a time and she never reminded him. He had always come back to her, suddenly, inexplicably, as he did tonight.
Her mother, a gentle little schoolteacher, had died last winter. Catherine had gone to live with an uncle in New York. Keating had answered some of her letters immediately, others—months later. She had always replied at once, and never written during his long silences, waiting patiently. He had felt, when he thought of her, that nothing would ever replace her. Then, in New York, within reach of a bus or a telephone, he had forgotten her again for a month.
He never thought, as he hurried to her now, that he should have announced his visit. He never wondered whether he would find her at home. He had always come back like this and she had always been there. She was there again tonight.
She opened the door for him, on the top floor of a shabby, pretentious brownstone house. “Hello, Peter,” she said, as if she had seen him yesterday.
She stood before him, too small, too thin for her clothes. The short black skirt flared out from the slim band of her waist; the boyish shirt collar hung loosely, pulled to one side, revealing the knob of a thin collarbone; the sleeves were too long over the fragile hands. She looked at him, her head bent to one side; her chestnut hair was gathered carelessly at the back of her neck, but it looked as though it were bobbed, standing, light and fuzzy, as a shapeless halo about her face. Her eyes were gray, wide and nearsighted; her mouth smiled slowly, delicately, enchantingly, her lips glistening.
“Hello, Katie,” he said.
He felt at peace. He felt he had nothing to fear, in this house or anywhere outside. He had prepared himself to explain how busy he’d been in New York; but explanations seemed irrelevant now.
“Give me your hat,” she said, “be careful of that chair, it’s not very steady, we have better ones in the living room, come in.”
The living room, he noticed, was modest but somehow distinguished, and in surprisingly good taste. He noticed the books; cheap shelves rising to the ceiling, loaded with precious volumes; the volumes stacked carelessly, actually being used. He noticed, over a neat, shabby desk, a Rembrandt etching, stained and yellow, found, perhaps, in some junk shop by the eyes of a connoisseur who had never parted with it, though its price would have obviously been of help to him. He wondered what business her uncle could be in; he had never asked.
He stood looking vaguely at the room, feeling her presence behind him, enjoying that sense of certainty which he found so rarely. Then he turned and took her in his arms and kissed her; her lips met his softly, eagerly; but she was neither frightened nor excited, too happy to accept this in any way save by taking it for granted.
“God, I’ve missed you!” he said, and knew that he had, every day since he’d seen her last and most of all, perhaps, on the days when he had not thought of her.
“You haven’t changed much,” she said. “You look a little thinner. It’s becoming. You’ll be very attractive when you’re fifty, Peter.”
“That’s not very complimentary—by implication.”
“Why? Oh, you mean I think you’re not attractive now? Oh, but you are.”
“You shouldn’t say that right out to me like that.”
“Why not? You know you are. But I’ve been thinking of what you’ll look like at fifty. You’ll have gray temples and you’ll wear a gray suit—I saw one in a window last week and I thought that would be the one-and you’ll be a very great architect.”
“You really think so?”
“Why, yes.” She was not flattering him. She did not seem to realize that it could be flattery. She was merely stating a fact, too certain to need emphasis.
He waited for the inevitable questions. But instead, they were talking suddenly of their old Stanton days together, and he was laughing, holding her across his knees, her thin shoulders leaning against the circle of his arm, her eyes soft, contented. He was speaking of their old bathing suits, of the runs in her stockings, of their favorite ice-cream parlor in Stanton, where they had spent so many summer evenings together—and he was thinking dimly that it made no sense at all; he had more pertinent things to tell and to ask her; people did not talk like that when they hadn’t seen each other for months. But it seemed quite normal to her; she did not appear to know that they had been parted.
He was first to ask finally:
“Did you get my wire?”
“Oh, yes. Thanks.”
“Don’t you want to know how I’m getting along in the city?”
“Sure. How are you getting along in the city?”
“Look here, you’re not terribly interested.”
“Oh, but I am! I want to know everything about you.”
“Why don’t you ask?”
“You’ll tell me when you want to.”
“It doesn’t matter much to you, does it?”
“What?”
“What I’ve been doing.”
“Oh ... Yes, it does, Peter. No, not too much.”
“That’s sweet of you!”
“But, you see, it’s not what you do that matters really. It’s only you.”
“Me what?”
“Just you here. Or you in the city. Or you somewhere in the world. I don’t know. Just that.”
“You know, you’re a fool, Katie. Your technique is something awful.”
“My what?”
“Your technique. You can’t tell a man so shamelessly, like that, that you’re practically crazy about him.”
“But I am.”
“But you can’t say so. Men won’t care for you.”
“But I don’t want men to care for me.”
“You want me to, don’t you?”
“But you do, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said, his arms tightening about her. “Damnably. I’m a bigger fool than you are.”
“Well, then it’s perfectly all right,” she said, her fingers in his hair, “isn’t it?”
“It’s always been perfectly all right, that’s the strangest part about it. ... But look, I want to tell you about what’s happened to me, because it’s important.”
“I’m really very interested, Peter.”
“Well, you know I’m working for Francon & Heyer and ... Oh, hell, you don’t even know what that means!”
“Yes, I do. I’ve looked them up in Who’s Who in Architecture. It said some very nice things about them. And I asked Uncle. He said they were tops in the business.”
“You bet they are. Francon—he’s the greatest designer in New York, in the whole country, in the world maybe. He’s put up seventeen skyscrapers, eight cathedrals, six railroad terminals and God knows what else.... Of course, you know, he’s an old fool and a pompous fraud who oils his way into everything and ...”
He stopped, his mouth open, staring at her. He had not intended to say that. He had never allowed himself to think that before.
She was looking at him serenely.
“Yes?” she asked. “And ... ?”
“Well ... and ...” he stammered, and he knew that he could not speak differently, not to her, “and that’s what I really think of him. And I have no respect for him at all. And I’m delighted to be working for him. See?”
“Sure,” she said quietly. “You’re ambitious, Peter.”
“Don’t you despise me for it?”
“No. That’s what you wanted.”
“Sure, that’s what I wanted. Well, actually, it’s not as bad as that. It’s a tremendous firm, the best in the city. I’m really doing work, and Francon is very pleased with me. I’m getting ahead. I think I can have any job I want in the place eventually.... Why, only tonight I took over a man’s work and he doesn’t know that he’ll be useless soon, because ... Katie! What am I saying?”
“It’s all right, dear. I understand.”
“If you did, you’d call me the names I deserve and make me stop it.”
“No, Peter. I don’t want to change you. I love you, Peter.”
“God help you!”
“I know that.”
“You know that? And you say it like this? Like you’d say, ‘Hello, it’s a beautiful evening’?”
“Well, why not? Why worry about it? I love you.”
“No, don’t worry about it! Don’t ever worry about it! ... Katie.... I’ll never love anyone else....”
“I know that too.”
He held her close, anxiously, afraid that her weightless little body would vanish. He did not know why her presence made him confess things unconfessed in his own mind. He did not know why the victory he came here to share had faded. But it did not matter. He had a peculiar sense of freedom—her presence always lifted from him a pressure he could not denne—he was alone—he was himself. All that mattered to him now was the feeling of her coarse cotton blouse against his wrist.
Then he was asking her about her own life in New York and she was speaking happily about her uncle.
“He’s wonderful, Peter. He’s really wonderful. He’s quite poor, but he took me in and he was so gracious about it, he gave up his study to make a room for me and now he has to work here, in the living room. You must meet him, Peter. He’s away now, on a lecture tour, but you must meet him when he comes back.”
“Sure, I’d love to.”
“You know, I wanted to go to work and be on my own, but he wouldn’t let me. ‘My dear child,’ he said, ‘not at seventeen. You don’t want me to be ashamed of myself, do you? I don’t believe in child labor.’ That was kind of a funny idea, don’t you think? He has so many funny ideas—I don’t understand them all, but they say he’s a brilliant man. So he made it look as if I were doing him a favor by letting him keep me, and I think that was really very decent of him.”
“What do you do with yourself all day long?”
“Nothing much of anything now. I read books. On architecture. Uncle has tons of books on architecture. But when he’s here I type his lectures for him. I really don’t think he likes me to do it, he prefers the typist he had, but I love it and he lets me. And he pays me her salary. I didn’t want to take it, but he made me.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“Oh, so many things, I don’t know, I can’t keep track of them. He teaches art history, for one thing, he’s a kind of professor.”
“And when are you going to college, by the way?”
“Oh ... Well ... well, you see, I don’t think Uncle approves of the idea. I told him how I’d always planned to go and that I’d work my own way through, but he seems to think it’s not for me. He doesn’t say much, only: ‘God made the elephant for toil and the mosquito for flitting about, and it’s not advisable, as a rule, to experiment with the laws of nature, however, if you want to try it, my dear child ...’ But he’s not objecting really, it’s up to me, only ...”
“Well, don’t let him stop you.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t want to stop me. Only, I was thinking, I was never any great shakes in high school, and, darling, I’m really quite utterly lousy at mathematics, and so I wonder ... But then, there’s no hurry, I’ve got plenty of time to decide.”
“Listen, Katie, I don’t like that. You’ve always planned on college. If that uncle of yours ...”
“You shouldn’t say it like this. You don’t know him. He’s the most amazing man. I’ve never met anyone quite like him. He’s so kind, so understanding. And he’s such fun, always joking, he’s so clever at it, nothing that you thought was serious ever seems to be when he’s around, and yet he’s a very serious man. You know, he spends hours talking to me, he’s never too tired and he’s not bored with my stupidity, he tells me all about strikes, and conditions in the slums, and the poor people in sweatshops, always about others, never about himself. A friend of his told me that Uncle could be a very rich man if he tried, he’s so clever, but he won’t, he just isn’t interested in money.”
“That’s not human.”
“Wait till you see him. Oh, he wants to meet you, too. I’ve told him about you. He calls you ‘the T-square Romeo.’ ”
“Oh, he does, does he?”
“But you don’t understand. He means it kindly. It’s the way he says things. You’ll have a lot in common. Maybe he could help you. He knows something about architecture, too. You’ll love Uncle Ellsworth.”
“Who?” said Keating.
“My uncle.”
“Say,” Keating asked, his voice a little husky, “what’s your uncle’s name?”
“Ellsworth Toohey. Why?”
His hands fell limply. He sat staring at her.
“What’s the matter, Peter?”
He swallowed. She saw the jerking motion of his throat. Then he said, his voice hard:
“Listen, Katie, I don’t want to meet your uncle.”
“But why?”
“I don’t want to meet him. Not through you.... You see, Katie, you don’t know me. I’m the kind that uses people. I don’t want to use you. Ever. Don’t let me. Not you.”
“Use me how? What’s the matter? Why?”
“It’s just this: I’d give my eyeteeth to meet Ellsworth Toohey, that’s all.” He laughed harshly. “So he knows something about architecture, does he? You little fool! He’s the most important man in architecture. Not yet, maybe, but that’s what he’ll be in a couple of years—ask Francon, that old weasel knows. He’s on his way to becoming the Napoleon of all architectural critics, your Uncle Ellsworth is, just watch him. In the first place, there aren’t many to bother writing about our profession, so he’s the smart boy who’s going to corner the market. You should see the big shots in our office lapping up every comma he puts out in print! So you think maybe he could help me? Well, he could make me, and he will, and I’m going to meet him some day, when I’m ready for him, as I met Francon, but not here, not through you. Understand? Not from you!”
“But, Peter, why not?”
“Because I don’t want it that way! Because it’s filthy and I hate it, all of it, my work and my profession, and what I’m doing and what I’m going to do! It’s something I want to keep you out of. You’re all I really have. Just keep out of it, Katie!”
“Out of what?”
“I don’t know!”
She rose and stood in the circle of his arms, his face hidden against her hip; she stroked his hair, looking down at him.
“All right, Peter. I think I know. You don’t have to meet him until you want to. Just tell me when you want it. You can use me, if you have to. It’s all right. It won’t change anything.”
When he raised his head, she was laughing softly.
“You’ve worked too hard, Peter. You’re a little unstrung. Suppose I make you some tea?”
“Oh, I’d forgotten all about it, but I’ve had no dinner today. Had no time.”
“Well, of all things! Well, how perfectly disgusting! Come on to the kitchen, this minute, I’ll see what I can fix up for you!”
He left her two hours later, and he walked away feeling light, clean, happy, his fears forgotten, Toohey and Francon forgotten. He thought only that he had promised to come again tomorrow and that it was an unbearably long time to wait. She stood at the door, after he had gone, her hand on the knob he had touched, and she thought that he might come tomorrow—or three months later.
“When you finish tonight,” said Henry Cameron, “I want to see you in my office.”
“Yes,” said Roark.
Cameron veered sharply on his heels and walked out of the drafting room. It had been the longest sentence he had addressed to Roark in a month.
Roark had come to this room every morning, had done his task, and had heard no word of comment. Cameron would enter the drafting room and stand behind Roark for a long time, looking over his shoulder. It was as if his eyes concentrated deliberately on trying to throw the steady hand off its course on the paper. The two other draftsmen botched their work from the mere thought of such an apparition standing behind them. Roark did not seem to notice it. He went on, his hand unhurried, he took his time about discarding a blunted pencil and picking out another. “Uh-huh,” Cameron would grunt suddenly. Roark would turn his head then, politely attentive. “What is it?” he would ask. Cameron would turn away without a word, his narrowed eyes underscoring contemptuously the fact that he considered an answer unnecessary, and would leave the drafting room. Roark would go on with his drawing.
“Looks bad,” Loomis, the young draftsman, confided to Simpson, his ancient colleague. “The old man doesn’t like this guy. Can’t say that I blame him, either. Here’s one that won’t last long.”
Simpson was old and helpless; he had survived from Cameron’s three-floor office, had stuck and had never understood it. Loomis was young, with the face of a drugstore-corner lout; he was here because he had been fired from too many other places.
Both men disliked Roark. He was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he went. His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. He was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his presence had a strange quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not there; or perhaps that he was and they weren’t.
After work he walked the long distance to his home, a tenement near the East River. He had chosen that tenement because he had been able to get, for two-fifty a week, its entire top floor, a huge room that had been used for storage: it had no ceiling and the roof leaked between its naked beams. But it had a long row of windows, along two of its walls, some panes filled with glass, others with cardboard, and the windows opened high over the river on one side and the city on the other.
A week ago Cameron had come into the drafting room and had thrown down on Roark’s table a violent sketch of a country residence. “See if you can make a house out of this!” he had snapped and gone without further explanation. He had not approached Roark’s table during the days that followed. Roark had finished the drawings last night and left them on Cameron’s desk. This morning, Cameron had come in, thrown some sketches of steel joints to Roark, ordered him to appear in his office later and had not entered the drafting room again for the rest of the day.
The others were gone. Roark pulled an old piece of oil cloth over his table and went to Cameron’s office. His drawings of the country house were spread on the desk. The light of the lamp fell on Cameron’s cheek, on his beard, the white threads glistening, on his fist, on a corner of the drawing, its black lines bright and hard as if embossed on the paper.
“You’re fired,” said Cameron.
Roark stood, halfway across the long room, his weight on one leg, his arms hanging by his sides, one shoulder raised.
“Am I?” he asked quietly, without moving.
“Come here,” said Cameron. “Sit down.”
Roark obeyed.
“You’re too good,” said Cameron. “You’re too good for what you want to do with yourself. It’s no use, Roark. Better now than later.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s no use wasting what you’ve got on an ideal that you’ll never reach, that they’ll never let you reach. It’s no use, taking that marvelous thing you have and making a torture rack for yourself out of it. Sell it, Roark. Sell it now. It won’t be the same, but you’ve got enough in you. You’ve got what they’ll pay you for, and pay plenty, if you use it their way. Accept them, Roark. Compromise. Compromise now, because you’ll have to later, anyway, only then you’ll have gone through things you’ll wish you hadn’t. You don’t know. I do. Save yourself from that. Leave me. Go to someone else.”
“Did you do that?”
“You presumptuous bastard! How good do you think I said you were? Did I tell you to compare yourself to ...” He stopped because he saw that Roark was smiling.
He looked at Roark, and suddenly smiled in answer, and it was the most painful thing that Roark had ever seen.
“No,” said Cameron softly, “that won’t work, huh? No, it won’t ... Well, you’re right. You’re as good as you think you are. But I want to speak to you. I don’t know exactly how to go about it. I’ve lost the habit of speaking to men like you. Lost it? Maybe I’ve never had it. Maybe that’s what frightens me now. Will you try to understand?”
“I understand. I think you’re wasting your time.”
“Don’t be rude. Because I can’t be rude to you now. I want you to listen. Will you listen and not answer me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t intend it as rudeness.”
“You see, of all men, I’m the last one to whom you should have come. I’ll be committing a crime if I keep you here. Somebody should have warned you against me. I won’t help you at all. I won’t discourage you. I won’t teach you any common sense. Instead, I’ll push you on. I’ll drive you the way you’re going now. I’ll beat you into remaining what you are, and I’ll make you worse.... Don’t you see? In another month I won’t be able to let you go. I’m not sure I can now. So don’t argue with me and go. Get out while you can.”
“But can I? Don’t you think it’s too late for both of us? It was too late for me twelve years ago.”
“Try it, Roark. Try to be reasonable for once. There’s plenty of big fellows who’ll take you, expulsion or no expulsion, if I say so. They may laugh at me in their luncheon speeches, but they steal from me when it suits them, and they know that I know a good draftsman when I see one. I’ll give you a letter to Guy Francon. He worked for me once, long ago. I think I fired him, but that wouldn’t matter. Go to him. You won’t like it at first, but you’ll get used to it. And you’ll thank me for it many years from now.”
“Why are you saying all this to me? That’s not what you want to say. That’s not what you did.”
“That’s why I’m saying it! Because that’s not what I did! ... Look, Roark, there’s one thing about you, the thing I’m afraid of. It’s not just the kind of work you do; I wouldn’t care, if you were an exhibitionist who’s being different as a stunt, as a lark, just to attract attention to himself. It’s a smart racket, to oppose the crowd and amuse it and collect admission to the side show. If you did that, I wouldn’t worry. But it’s not that. You love your work. God help you, you love it! And that’s the curse. That’s the brand on your forehead for all of them to see. You love it, and they know it, and they know they have you. Do you ever look at the people in the street? Aren’t you afraid of them? I am. They move past you and they wear hats and they carry bundles. But that’s not the substance of them. The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his work. That’s the only kind they fear. I don’t know why. You’re opening yourself up, Roark, for each and every one of them.”
“But I never notice the people in the streets.”
“Do you notice what they’ve done to me?”
“I notice only that you weren’t afraid of them. Why do you ask me to be?”
“That’s just why I’m asking it!” He leaned forward, his fists closing on the desk before him. “Roark, do you want me to say it? You’re cruel, aren’t you? All right, I’ll say it: do you want to end up like this? Do you want to be what I am?”
Roark got up and stood against the edge of light on the desk.
“If,” said Roark, “at the end of my life, I’ll be what you are today, here, in this office, I shall consider it an honor that I could not have deserved.”
“Sit down!” roared Cameron. “I don’t like demonstrations!”
Roark looked down at himself, at the desk, astonished to find himself standing. He said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I got up.”
“Well, sit down. Listen. I understand. And it’s very nice of you. But you don’t know. I thought a few days here would be enough to take the hero worship out of you. I see it wasn’t. Here you are, saying to yourself how grand old Cameron is, a noble fighter, a martyr to a lost cause, and you’d just love to die on the barricades with me and to eat in dime lunchwagons with me for the rest of your life. I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty years? Do you know what happens in those days? Roark! Do you know what happens?”
“You don’t want to speak of that.”
“No! I don’t want to speak of that! But I’m going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know what’s in store for you. There will be days when you’ll look at your hands and you’ll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they’ll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can’t find that chance, and you can’t bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. There will be days when a bus driver will snap at you as you enter a bus, and he’ll be only asking for a dime, but that won’t be what you’ll hear; you’ll hear that you’re nothing, that he’s laughing at you, that it’s written on your forehead, that thing they hate you for. There will be days when you’ll stand in the corner of a hall and listen to a creature on a platform talking about buildings, about that work which you love, and the things he’ll say will make you wait for somebody to rise and crack him open between two thumbnails; and then you’ll hear the people applauding him, and you’ll want to scream, because you won’t know whether they’re real or you are, whether you’re in a room full of gored skulls, or whether someone has just emptied your own head, and you’ll say nothing, because the sounds you could make—they’re not a language in that room any longer; but if you’d want to speak, you won’t anyway, because you’ll be brushed aside, you who have nothing to tell them about buildings! Is that what you want?”
Roark sat still, the shadows sharp on his face, a black wedge on a sunken cheek, a long triangle of black cutting across his chin, his eyes on Cameron.
“Not enough?” asked Cameron. “All right. Then, one day, you’ll see on a piece of paper before you a building that will make you want to kneel; you won’t believe that you’ve done it, but you will have done it; then you’ll think that the earth is beautiful and the air smells of spring and you love your fellow men, because there is no evil in the world. And you’ll set out from your house with this drawing, to have it erected, because you won’t have any doubt that it will be erected by the first man to see it. But you won’t get very far from your house. Because you’ll be stopped at the door by the man who’s come to turn off the gas. You hadn’t had much food, because you saved money to finish your drawing, but still you had to cook something and you hadn’t paid for it.... All right, that’s nothing, you can laugh at that. But finally you’ll get into a man’s office with your drawing, and you’ll curse yourself for taking so much space of his air with your body, and you’ll try to squeeze yourself out of his sight, so that he won’t see you, but only hear your voice begging him, pleading, your voice licking his knees; you’ll loathe yourself for it, but you won’t care, if only he’d let you put up that building, you won’t care, you’ll want to rip your insides open to show him, because if he saw what’s there he’d have to let you put it up. But he’ll say that he’s very sorry, only the commission has just been given to Guy Francon. And you’ll go home, and do you know what you’ll do there? You’ll cry. You’ll cry like a woman, like a drunkard, like an animal. That’s your future, Howard Roark. Now, do you want it?”
“Yes,” said Roark.
Cameron’s eyes dropped; then his head moved down a little, then a little farther; his head went on dropping slowly, in long, single jerks, then stopped; he sat still, his shoulders hunched, his arms huddled together in his lap.
“Howard,” whispered Cameron, “I’ve never told it to anyone....”
“Thank you....” said Roark.
After a long time, Cameron raised his head.
“Go home now,” said Cameron, his voice flat. “You’ve worked too much lately. And you have a hard day ahead.” He pointed to the drawings of the country house. “This is all very well, and I wanted to see what you’d do, but it’s not good enough to build. You’ll have to do it over. I’ll show you what I want tomorrow.”