III
WHEN PETER KEATING ENTERED THE OFFICE, THE OPENING OF the door sounded like a single high blast on a trumpet. The door flew forward as if it had opened of itself to the approach of a man before whom all doors were to open in such manner.
His day in the office began with the newspapers. There was a neat pile of them waiting, stacked on his desk by his secretary. He liked to see what new mentions appeared in print about the progress of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building or the firm of Francon & Keating.
There were no mentions in the papers this morning, and Keating frowned. He saw, however, a story about Ellsworth M. Toohey. It was a startling story. Thomas L. Foster, noted philanthropist, had died and had left, among larger bequests, the modest sum of one hundred thousand dollars to Ellsworth M. Toohey, “my friend and spiritual guide—in appreciation of his noble mind and true devotion to humanity.” Ellsworth M. Toohey had accepted the legacy and had turned it over, intact, to the “Workshop of Social Study,” a progressive institute of learning where he held the post of lecturer on “Art as a Social Symptom.” He had given the simple explanation that he “did not believe in the institution of private inheritance.” He had refused all further comment. “No, my friends,” he had said, “not about this.” And had added, with his charming knack for destroying the earnestness of his own moment: “I like to indulge in the luxury of commenting solely upon interesting subjects. I do not consider myself one of these.”
Peter Keating read the story. And because he knew that it was an action which he would never have committed, he admired it tremendously.
Then he thought, with a familiar twinge of annoyance, that he had not been able to meet Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey had left on a lecture tour shortly after the award in the Cosmo-Slotnick competition, and the brilliant gatherings Keating had attended ever since were made empty by the absence of the one man he’d been most eager to meet. No mention of Keating’s name had appeared in Toohey’s column. Keating turned hopefully, as he did each morning, to “One Small Voice” in the Banner. But “One Small Voice” was subtitled “Songs and Things” today, and was devoted to proving the superiority of folk songs over any other form of musical art, and of choral singing over any other manner of musical rendition.
Keating dropped the Banner. He got up and paced viciously across the office, because he had to turn now to a disturbing problem. He had been postponing it for several mornings. It was the matter of choosing a sculptor for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. Months ago the commission for the giant statue of “Industry” to stand in the main lobby of the building had been awarded—tentatively—to Steven Mallory. The award had puzzled Keating, but it had been made by Mr. Slotnick, so Keating had approved of it. He had interviewed Mallory and said: “... in recognition of your unusual ability ... of course you have no name, but you will have, after a commission like this ... they don’t come every day like this building of mine.”
He had not liked Mallory. Mallory’s eyes were like black holes left after a fire not quite put out, and Mallory had not smiled once. He was twenty-four years old, had had one show of his work, but not many commissions. His work was strange and too violent. Keating remembered that Ellsworth Toohey had said once, long ago, in “One Small Voice”: “Mr. Mallory’s human figures would have been very fine were it not for the hypothesis that God created the world and the human form. Had Mr. Mallory been entrusted with the job, he might, perhaps, have done better than the Almighty, if we are to judge by what he passes as human bodies in stone. Or would he?”
Keating had been baffled by Mr. Slotnick’s choice, until he heard that Dimples Williams had once lived in the same Greenwich Village tenement with Steven Mallory, and Mr. Slotnick could refuse nothing to Dimples Williams at the moment. Mallory had been hired, had worked and had submitted a model of his statue of “Industry.” When he saw it, Keating knew that the statue would look like a raw gash, like a smear of fire in the neat elegance of his lobby. It was the slender naked body of a man who looked as if he coud break through the steel plate of a battleship and through any barrier whatever. It stood like a challenge. It left a strange stamp on one’s eyes. It made the people around it seem smaller and sadder than usual. For the first time in his life, looking at that statue, Keating thought he understood what was meant by the word “heroic.”
He said nothing. But the model was sent on to Mr. Slotnick and many people said, with indignation, what Keating had felt. Mr. Slotnick asked him to select another sculptor and left the choice in his hands.
Keating flopped down in an armchair, leaned back and clicked his tongue against his palate. He wondered whether he should give the commission to Bronson, the sculptor who was a friend of Mrs. Shupe, wife of the president of Cosmo; or to Palmer, who had been recommended by Mr. Huseby who was planning the erection of a new five-million dollar cosmetic factory. Keating discovered that he liked this process of hesitation; he held the fate of two men and of many potential others; their fate, their work, their hope, perhaps even the amount of food in their stomachs. He could choose as he pleased, for any reason, without reasons; he could flip a coin, he could count them off on the buttons of his vest. He was a great man—by the grace of those who depended on him.
Then he noticed the envelope.
It lay on top of a pile of letters on his desk. It was a plain, thin, narrow envelope, but it bore the small masthead of the
Banner in one corner. He reached for it hastily. It contained no letter; only a strip of proofs for tomorrow’s
Banner. He saw the familiar
“One Small Voice” by Ellsworth M. Toohey, and under it a single word as subtitle, in large, spaced letters, a single word, blatant in its singleness, a salute by dint of omission:
He dropped the paper strip and seized it again and read, choking upon great unchewed hunks of sentences, the paper trembling in his hand, the skin on his forehead drawing into tight pink spots. Toohey had written:
“Greatness is an exaggeration, and like all exaggerations of dimension it connotes at once the necessary corollary of emptiness. One thinks of an inflated toy balloon, does one not? There are, however, occasions when we are forced to acknowledge the promise of an approach—brilliantly close—to what we designate loosely by the term of greatness. Such a promise is looming on our architectural horizon in the person of a mere boy named Peter Keating.
“We have heard a great deal—and with justice—about the superb Cosmo-Slotnick Building which he has designed. Let us glance, for once, beyond the building, at the man whose personality is stamped upon it.
“There is no personality stamped upon that building—and in this, my friends, lies the greatness of the personality. It is the greatness of a selfless young spirit that assimilates all things and returns them to the world from which they came, enriched by the gentle brilliance of its own talent. Thus a single man comes to represent, not a lone freak, but the multitude of all men together, to embody the reach of all aspirations in his own....
“... Those gifted with discrimination will be able to hear the message which Peter Keating addresses to us in the shape of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, to see that the three simple, massive ground floors are the solid bulk of our working classes which support all of society; that the rows of identical windows offering their panes to the sun are the souls of the common people, of the countless anonymous ones alike in the uniformity of brotherhood, reaching for the light; that the graceful pilasters rising from their firm base in the ground floors and bursting into the gay effervescence of their Corinthian capitals, are the flowers of Culture which blossom only when rooted in the rich soil of the broad masses....
“... In answer to those who consider all critics as fiends devoted solely to the destruction of sensitive talent, this column wishes to thank Peter Keating for affording us the rare—oh, so rare!—opportunity to prove our delight in our true mission, which is to discover young talent -when it is there to be discovered. And if Peter Keating should chance to read these lines, we expect no gratitude from him. The gratitude is ours.”
It was when Keating began to read the article for the third time that he noticed a few lines written in red pencil across the space by its title:
“Dear Peter Keating,
“Drop in to see me at my office one of these days. Would love to discover what you look like.
“E.M.T.”
He let the clipping flutter down to his desk, and he stood over it, running a strand of hair between his fingers, in a kind of happy stupor. Then he whirled around to his drawing of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, that hung on the wall between a huge photograph of the Parthenon and one of the Louvre. He looked at the pilasters of his building. He had never thought of them as Culture flowering from out of the broad masses, but he decided that one could very well think that and all the rest of the beautiful stuff.
Then he seized the telephone, he spoke to a high, flat voice which belonged to Ellsworth Toohey’s secretary, and he made an appointment to see Toohey at four-thirty of the next afternoon.
In the hours that followed, his daily work assumed a new relish. It was as if his usual activity had been only a bright, flat mural and had now become a noble bas-relief, pushed forward, given a three-dimensional reality by the words of Ellsworth Toohey.
Guy Francon descended from his office once in a while, for no ascertainable purpose. The subtler shades of his shirts and socks matched the gray of his temples. He stood smiling benevolently in silence. Keating flashed past him in the drafting room and acknowledged his presence, not stopping, but slowing his steps long enough to plant a crackling bit of newspaper into the folds of the mauve handkerchief in Francon’s breast-pocket, with “Read that when you have time, Guy.” He added, his steps half-way across the next room: “Want to have lunch with me today, Guy? Wait for me at the Plaza.”
When he came back from lunch, Keating was stopped by a young draftsman who asked, his voice high with excitement:
“Say, Mr. Keating, who’s it took a shot at Ellsworth Toohey?”
Keating managed to gasp out:
“Who is it did what?”
“Shot Mr. Toohey.”
“Who?”
“That’s what I want to know, who.”
“Shot ... Ellsworth Toohey?”
“That’s what I saw in the paper in the restaurant a guy had. Didn’t have time to get one.”
“He’s ... killed?”
“That’s what I don’t know. Saw only it said about a shot.”
“If he’s dead, does that mean they won’t publish his column tomorrow?”
“Dunno. Why, Mr. Keating?”
“Go get me a paper.”
“But I’ve got to ...”
“Get me that paper, you damned idiot!”
The story was there, in the afternoon papers. A shot had been fired at Ellsworth Toohey that morning, as he stepped out of his car in front of a radio station where he was to deliver an address on “The Voiceless and the Undefended.” The shot had missed him. Ellsworth Toohey had remained calm and sane throughout. His behavior had been theatrical only in too complete an absence of anything theatrical. He had said: “We cannot keep a radio audience waiting,” and had hurried on upstairs to the microphone where, never mentioning the incident, he delivered a half-hour’s speech from memory, as he always did. The assailant had said nothing when arrested.
Keating stared—his throat dry—at the name of the assailant. It was Steven Mallory.
Only the inexplicable frightened Keating, particularly when the inexplicable lay, not in tangible facts, but in that causeless feeling of dread within him. There was nothing to concern him directly in what had happened, except his wish that it had been someone else, anyone but Steven Mallory; and that he didn’t know why he should wish this.
Steven Mallory had remained silent. He had given no explanation of his act. At first, it was supposed that he might have been prompted by despair at the loss of his commission for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, since it was learned that he lived in revolting poverty. But it was learned, beyond any doubt, that Ellsworth Toohey had had no connection whatever with his loss. Toohey had never spoken to Mr. Slotnick about Steven Mallory. Toohey had not seen the statue of “Industry.” On this point Mallory had broken his silence to admit that he had never met Toohey nor seen him in person before, nor known any of Toohey’s friends. “Do you think that Mr. Toohey was in some way responsible for your losing that commission?” he was asked. Mallory had answered: “No.” “Then why?” Mallory said nothing.
Toohey had not recognized his assailant when he saw him seized by policemen on the sidewalk outside the radio station. He did not learn his name until after the broadcast. Then, stepping out of the studio into an anteroom full of waiting newsmen, Toohey said: “No, of course I won’t press any charges. I wish they’d let him go. Who is he, by the way?” When he heard the name, Toohey’s glance remained fixed somewhere between the shoulder of one man and the hat brim of another. Then Toohey—who had stood calmly while a bullet struck an inch from his face against the glass of the entrance door below—uttered one word and the word seemed to fall at his feet, heavy with fear: “Why?”
No one could answer. Presently, Toohey shrugged, smiled, and said: “If it was an attempt at free publicity—well, what atrocious taste!” But nobody believed this explanation, because all felt that Toohey did not believe it either. Through the interviews that followed, Toohey answered questions gaily. He said: “I had never thought myself important enough to warrant assassination. It would be the greatest tribute one could possibly expect—if it weren’t so much in the style of an operetta.” He managed to convey the charming impression that nothing of importance had happened because nothing of importance ever happened on earth.
Mallory was sent to jail to await trial. All efforts to question him failed.
The thought that kept Keating uneasily awake for many hours, that night, was the groundless certainty that Toohey felt exactly as he did. He knows, thought Keating, and I know, that there is—in Steven Mallory’s motive—a greater danger than in his murderous attempt. But we shall never know his motive. Or shall we? ... And then he touched the core of fear: it was the sudden wish that he might be guarded, through the years to come, to the end of his life, from ever learning that motive.
Ellsworth Toohey’s secretary rose in a leisurely manner, when Keating entered, and opened for him the door into Ellsworth Toohey’s office.
Keating had grown past the stage of experiencing anxiety at the prospect of meeting a famous man, but he experienced it in the moment when he saw the door opening under her hand. He wondered what Toohey really looked like. He remembered the magnificent voice he had heard in the lobby of the strike meeting, and he imagined a giant of a man, with a rich mane of hair, perhaps, just turning gray, with bold, broad features of an ineffable benevolence, something vaguely like the countenance of God the Father.
“Mr. Peter Keating—Mr. Toohey,” said the secretary and closed the door behind him.
At a first glance upon Ellsworth Monkton Toohey one wished to offer him a heavy, well-padded overcoat—so frail and unprotected did his thin little body appear, like that of a chicken just emerging from the egg, in all the sorry fragility of unhardened bones. At a second glance one wished to be sure that the overcoat should be an exceedingly good one—so exquisite were the garments covering that body. The lines of the dark suit followed frankly the shape within it, apologizing for nothing: they sank with the concavity of the narrow chest, they slid down from the long, thin neck with the sharp slope of the shoulders. A great forehead dominated the body. The wedge-shaped face descended from the broad temples to a small, pointed chin. The hair was black, lacquered, divided into equal halves by a thin white line. This made the skull look tight and trim, but left too much emphasis to the ears that flared out in solitary nakedness, like the handles of a bouillon cup. The nose was long and thin, prolonged by the small dab of a black mustache. The eyes were dark and startling. They held such a wealth of intellect and of twinkling gaiety that his glasses seemed to be worn not to protect his eyes but to protect other men from their excessive brilliance.
“Hello, Peter Keating,” said Ellsworth Monkton Toohey in his compelling, magical voice. “What do you think of the temple of Nike Apteros?”
“How ... do you do, Mr. Toohey,” said Keating, stopped, stupefied. “What do I think ... of what?”
“Sit down, my friend. Of the temple of Nike Apteros.”
“Well ... Well ... I ...”
“I feel certain that you couldn’t have overlooked that little gem. The Parthenon has usurped the recognition which—and isn’t that usually the case? the bigger and stronger appropriating all the glory, while the beauty of the unprepossessing goes unsung—which should have been awarded to that magnificent little creation of the great free spirit of Greece. You’ve noted, I’m sure, the fine balance of its mass, the supreme perfection of its modest proportions—ah, yes, you know, the supreme in the modest—the delicate craftsmanship of detail?”
“Yes, of course,” muttered Keating, “that’s always been my favorite —the temple of Nike Apteros.”
“Really?” said Ellsworth Toohey, with a smile which Keating could not quite classify. “I was certain of it. I was certain you’d say it. You have a very handsome face, Peter Keating, when you don’t stare like this—which is really quite unnecessary.”
And Toohey was laughing suddenly, laughing quite obviously, quite insultingly, at Keating and at himself; it was as if he were underscoring the falseness of the whole procedure. Keating sat aghast for an instant; and then he found himself laughing easily in answer, as if at home with a very old friend.
“That’s better,” said Toohey. “Don’t you find it advisable not to talk too seriously in an important moment? And this might be a very important moment—who knows?—for both of us. And, of course, I knew you’d be a little afraid of me and—oh, I admit—I was quite a bit afraid of you, so isn’t this much better?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Toohey,” said Keating happily. His normal assurance in meeting people had vanished; but he felt at ease, as if all responsibility were taken away from him and he did not have to worry about saying the right things, because he was being led gently into saying them without any effort on his part. “I’ve always known it would be an important moment when I met you, Mr. Toohey. Always. For years.”
“Really?” said Ellsworth Toohey, the eyes behind the glasses attentive. “Why?”
“Because I’d always hoped that I would please you, that you’d approve to me ... of my work ... when the time came ... why, I even ...”
“Yes?”
“... I even thought, so often, when drawing, is this the kind of a building that Ellsworth Toohey would say is good? I tried to see it like that, through your eyes ... I ... I’ve ...” Toohey listened watchfully. “I’ve always wanted to meet you because you’re such a profound thinker and a man of such cultural distinc—”
“Now,” said Toohey, his voice kindly but a little impatient; his interest had dropped on that last sentence. “None of that. I don’t mean to be ungracious, but we’ll dispense with that sort of thing, shall we? Unnatural as this may sound, I really don’t like to hear personal praise.”
It was Toohey’s eyes, thought Keating, that put him at ease. There was such a vast understanding in Toohey’s eyes and such an unfastidious kindness—no, what a word to think of—such an unlimited kindness. It was as if one could hide nothing from him, but it was not necessary to hide it, because he would forgive anything. They were the most unaccusing eyes that Keating had ever seen.
“But, Mr. Toohey,” he muttered, “I did want to ...”
“You wanted to thank me for my article,” said Toohey and made a little grimace of gay despair. “And here I’ve been trying so hard to prevent you from doing it. Do let me get away with it, won’t you? There’s no reason why you should thank me. If you happened to deserve the things I said—well, the credit belongs to you, not to me. Doesn’t it?”
“But I was so happy that you thought I’m ...”
“... a great architect? But surely, my boy, you knew that. Or weren’t you quite sure? Never quite sure of it?”
“Well, I ...”
It was only a second’s pause. And it seemed to Keating that this pause was all Toohey had wanted to hear from him; Toohey did not wait for the rest, but spoke as if he had received a full answer, and an answer that pleased him.
“And as for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, who can deny that it’s an extraordinary achievement? You know, I was greatly intrigued by its plan. It’s a most ingenious plan. A brilliant plan. Very unusual. Quite different from what I have observed in your previous work. Isn’t it?”
“Naturally,” said Keating, his voice clear and hard for the first time, “the problem was different from anything I’d done before, so I worked out that plan to fit the particular requirements of the problem.”
“Of course,” said Toohey gently. “A beautiful piece of work. You should be proud of it.”
Keating noticed that Toohey’s eyes stood centered in the middle of the lenses and the lenses stood focused straight on his pupils, and Keating knew suddenly that Toohey knew he had not designed the plan of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. This did not frighten him. What frightened him was that he saw approval in Toohey’s eyes.
“If you must feel—no, not gratitude, gratitude is such an embarrassing word—but, shall we say, appreciation?” Toohey continued, and his voice had grown softer, as if Keating were a fellow conspirator who would know that the words used were to be, from now on, a code for a private meaning, “you might thank me for understanding the symbolic implications of your building and for stating them in words as you stated them in marble. Since, of course, you are not just a common mason, but a thinker in stone.”
“Yes,” said Keating, “that was my abstract theme, when I designed the building—the great masses and the flowers of culture. I’ve always believed that true culture springs from the common man. But I had no hope that anyone would ever understand me.”
Toohey smiled. His thin lips slid open, his teeth showed. He was not looking at Keating. He was looking down at his own hand, the long slender, sensitive hand of a concert pianist, moving a sheet of paper on the desk. Then he said: “Perhaps we’re brothers of the spirit, Keating. The human spirit. That is all that matters in life”—not looking at Keating, but past him, the lenses raised flagrantly to a line over Keating’s face.
And Keating knew that Toohey knew he had never thought of any abstract theme until he’d read that article, and more: that Toohey approved again. When the lenses moved slowly to Keating’s face, the eyes were sweet with affection, an affection very cold and very real. Then Keating felt as if the walls of the room were moving gently in upon him, pushing him into a terrible intimacy, not with Toohey, but with some unknown guilt. He wanted to leap to his feet and run. He sat still, his mouth half open.
And without knowing what prompted him, Keating heard his own voice in the silence:
“And I did want to say how glad I was that you escaped that maniac’s bullet yesterday, Mr. Toohey.”
“Oh? ... Oh, thanks. That? Well! Don’t let it upset you. Just one of the minor penalties one pays for prominence in public life.”
“I’ve never liked Mallory. A strange sort of person. Too tense. I don’t like people who’re tense. I’ve never liked his work either.”
“Just an exhibitionist. Won’t amount to much.”
“It wasn’t my idea, of course, to give him a try. It was Mr. Slotnick’s. Pull, you know. But Mr. Slotnick knew better in the end.”
“Did Mallory ever mention my name to you?”
“No. Never.”
“I haven’t even met him, you know. Never saw him before. Why did he do it?”
And then it was Toohey who sat still, before what he saw on Keating’s face; Toohey, alert and insecure for the first time. This was it, thought Keating, this was the bond between them, and the bond was fear, and more, much more than that, but fear was the only recognizable name to give it. And he knew, with unreasoning finality, that he liked Toohey better than any man he had ever met.
“Well, you know how it is,” said Keating brightly, hoping that the commonplace he was about to utter would close the subject. “Mallory is an incompetent and knows it and he decided to take it out on you as on a symbol of the great and the able.”
But instead of a smile, Keating saw the shot of Toohey’s sudden glance at him; it was not a glance, it was a fluoroscope, he thought he could feel it crawling searchingly inside his bones. Then Toohey’s face seemed to harden, drawing together again in composure, and Keating knew that Toohey had found relief somewhere, in his bones or in his gaping, bewildered face, that some hidden immensity of ignorance within him had given Toohey reassurance. Then Toohey said slowly, strangely, derisively:
“You and I, we’re going to be great friends, Peter.”
Keating let a moment pass before he caught himself to answer hastily:
“Oh, I hope so, Mr. Toohey!”
“Really, Peter! I’m not as old as all that, am I? ‘Ellsworth’ is the monument to my parents’ peculiar taste in nomenclature.”
“Yes ... Ellsworth.”
“That’s better. I really don’t mind the name, when compared to some of the things I’ve been called privately—and publicly—these many years. Oh, well. Flattering. When one makes enemies one knows that one’s dangerous where it’s necessary to be dangerous. There are things that must be destroyed—or they’ll destroy us. We’ll see a great deal of each other, Peter.” The voice was smooth and sure now, with the finality of a decision tested and reached, with the certainty that never again would anything in Keating be a question mark to him. “For instance, I’ve been thinking for some time of getting together a few young architects—I know so many of them—just an informal little organization, to exchange ideas, you know, to develop a spirit of co-operation, to follow a common line of action for the common good of the profession if necessity arises. Nothing as stuffy as the A.G.A. Just a youth group. Think you’d be interested?”
“Why, of course! And you’d be the chairman?”
“Oh dear, no. I’m never chairman of anything, Peter. I dislike titles. No, I rather thought you’d make the right chairman for us, can’t think of anyone better.”
“Me?”
“You, Peter. Oh, well, it’s only a project—nothing definite—just an idea I’ve been toying with in odd moments. We’ll talk about it some other time. There’s something I’d like you to do—and that’s really one of the reasons why I wanted to meet you.”
“Oh, sure, Mr. Too—sure, Ellsworth. Anything I can do for you ...”
“It’s not for me. Do you know Lois Cook?”
“Lois ... who?”
“Cook. You don’t. But you will. That young woman is the greatest literary genius since Goethe. You must read her, Peter. I don’t suggest that as a rule except to the discriminating. She’s so much above the heads of the middle-class who love the obvious. She’s planning to build a house. A little private residence on the Bowery. Yes, on the Bowery. Just like Lois, She’s asked me to recommend an architect. I’m certain that it will take a person like you to understand a person like Lois. I’m going to give her your name—if you’re interested in what is to be a small, though quite costly, residence.”
“But of course! That’s . . . very kind of you, Ellsworth! You know, I thought when you said ... and when I read your note, that you wanted —well, some favor from me, you know, a good turn for a good turn, and here you’re ...”
“My dear Peter, how naive you are!”
“Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t have said that! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, I ...”
“I don’t mind. You must learn to know me better. Strange as it may sound, a totally selfless interest in one’s fellow men is possible in this world, Peter.”
Then they talked about Lois Cook and her three published works—“Novels? No, Peter, not exactly novels.... No, not collections of stories either ... that’s just it, just Lois Cook—a new form of literature entirely ...”—about the fortune she had inherited from a long line of successful tradesmen, and about the house she planned to build.
It was only when Toohey had risen to escort Keating to the door—and Keating noted how precariously erect he stood on his very small feet—that Toohey paused suddenly to say:
“Incidentally, it seems to me as if I should remember some personal connection between us, though for the life of me I can’t quite place ... oh, yes, of course. My niece. Little Catherine.”
Keating felt his face tighten, and knew he must not allow this to be discussed, but smiled awkwardly instead of protesting.
“I understand you’re engaged to her?”
“Yes.”
“Charming,” said Toohey. “Very charming. Should enjoy being your uncle. You love her very much?”
“Yes,” said Keating. “Very much.”
The absence of stress in his voice made the answer solemn. It was, laid before Toohey, the first bit of sincerity and of importance within Keating’s being.
“How pretty,” said Toohey. “Young love. Spring and dawn and heaven and drugstore chocolates at a dollar and a quarter a box. The prerogative of the gods and of the movies.... Oh, I do approve, Peter. I think it’s lovely. You couldn’t have made a better choice than Catherine. She’s just the kind for whom the world is well lost—the world with all its problems and all its opportunities for greatness—oh, yes, well lost because she’s innocent and sweet and pretty and anemic.”
“If you’re going to ...” Keating began, but Toohey smiled with a luminous sort of kindliness.
“Oh, Peter, of course I understand. And I approve. I’m a realist. Man has always insisted on making an ass of himself. Oh, come now, we must never lose our sense of humor. Nothing’s really sacred but a sense of humor. Still, I’ve always loved the tale of Tristan and Isolde. It’s the most beautiful story ever told—next to that of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.”