The Fountainhead (101 page)

Eve Layton believed that her mission in life was to be the vanguard—it did not matter of what. Her method had always been to take a careless leap and land triumphantly far ahead of all others. Her philosophy consisted of one sentence—“I can get away with anything.” In conversation she paraphrased it to her favorite line: “I? I’m the day after tomorrow.” She was an expert horsewoman, a racing driver, a stunt pilot, a swimming champion. When she saw that the emphasis of the day had switched to the realm of ideas, she took another leap, as she did over any ditch. She landed well in front, in the latest. Having landed, she was amazed to find that there were people who questioned her feat. Nobody had ever questioned her other achievements. She acquired an impatient anger against all those who disagreed with her political views. It was a personal issue. She had to be right, since she was the day after tomorrow.

Her husband, Mitchell Layton, hated her.

“It’s a perfectly valid discussion,” he snapped. “Everybody can’t be as competent as you, my dear. We must help the others. It’s the moral duty of intellectual leaders. What I mean is we ought to lose that bugaboo of being scared of the word compulsion. It’s not compulsion when it’s for a good cause. What I mean is in the name of love. But I don’t know how we can make this country understand it. Americans are so stuffy.”

He could not forgive his country because it had given him a quarter of a billion dollars and then refused to grant him an equal amount of reverence. People would not take his views on art, literature, history, biology, sociology and metaphysics as they took his checks. He complained that people identified him with his money too much; he hated them because they did not identify him enough.

“There’s a great deal to be said for compulsion,” stated Homer Slottern. “Provided it’s democratically planned. The common good must always come first, whether we like it or not.”

Translated into language, Homer Slottern’s attitude consisted of two parts; they were contradictory parts, but this did not trouble him, since they remained untranslated in his mind. First, he felt that abstract theories were nonsense, and if the customers wanted this particular kind, it was perfectly safe to give it to them, and good business, besides. Second, he felt uneasy that he had neglected whatever it was people called spiritual life, in the rush of making money; maybe men like Toohey had something there. And what if his stores were taken away from him? Wouldn’t it really be easier to live as manager of a State-owned Department Store? Wouldn’t a manager’s salary give him all the prestige and comfort he now enjoyed, without the responsibility of ownership?

“Is it true that in the future society any woman will sleep with any man she wants,” asked Renée Slottern. It had started as a question, but it petered out. She did not really want to know. She merely felt a vapid wonder about how it felt to have a man one really wanted and how one went about wanting.

“It’s stupid to talk about personal choice,” said Eve Layton. “It’s old-fashioned. There’s no such thing as a person. There’s only a collective entity. It’s self-evident.”

Ellsworth Toohey smiled and said nothing.

“Something’s got to be done about the masses,” Mitchell Layton declared. “They’ve got to be led. They don’t know what’s good for them. What I mean is, I can’t understand why people of culture and position like us understand the great ideal of collectivism so well and are willing to sacrifice our personal advantages, while the working man who has everything to gain from it remains so stupidly indifferent. I can’t understand why the workers in this country have so little sympathy with collectivism.”

“Can’t you?” said Ellsworth Toohey. His glasses sparkled.

“I’m bored with this,” snapped Eve Layton, pacing the room, light streaming off her shoulders.

The conversation switched to art and its acknowledged leaders of the day in every field.

“Lois Cook said that words must be freed from the oppression of reason. She said the stranglehold of reason upon words is like the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists. Words must be permitted to negotiate with reason through collective bargaining. That’s what she said. She’s so amusing and refreshing.”

“Ike—what’s his name again?—says that the theater is an instrument of love. It’s all wrong, he says, about a play taking place on the stage—it takes place in the hearts of the audience.”

“Jules Fougler said in last Sunday’s Banner that in the world of the future the theater will not be necessary at all. He says that the daily life of the common man is as much a work of art in itself as the best Shakespearean tragedy. In the future there will be no need for a dramatist. The critic will simply observe the life of the masses and evaluate its artistic points for the public. That’s what Jules Fougler said. Now I don’t know whether I agree with him, but he’s got an interesting fresh angle there.”

“Lancelot Clokey says the British Empire is doomed. He says there will be no war, because the workers of the world won’t allow it, it’s international bankers and munition makers who start wars and they’ve been kicked out of the saddle. Lancelot Clokey says that the universe is a mystery and that his mother is his best friend. He says the Premier of Bulgaria eats herring for breakfast.”

“Gordon Prescott says that four walls and a ceiling is all there is to architecture. The floor is optional. All the rest is capitalistic ostentation. He says nobody should be allowed to build anything anywhere until every inhabitant of the globe has a roof over his head ... Well, what about the Patagonians? It’s
our
job to teach them to
want
a roof. Prescott calls it dialectic trans-spatial interdependence.”

Ellsworth Toohey said nothing. He stood smiling at the vision of a huge typewriter. Each famous name he heard was a key of its keyboard, each controlling a special field, each hitting, leaving its mark, and the whole making connected sentences on a vast blank sheet. A typewriter, he thought, presupposes the hand that punches its keys.

He snapped to attention when he heard Mitchell Layton’s sulking voice say:

“Oh, yes, the
Banner,
God damn it!”

“I know,” said Homer Slottern.

“It’s slipping,” said Mitchell Layton. “It’s definitely slipping. A swell investment it turned out to be for me. It’s the only time Ellsworth’s been wrong.”

“Ellsworth is never wrong,” said Eve Layton.

“Well, he was, that time. It was he who advised me to buy a piece of that lousy sheet.” He saw Toohey’s eyes, patient as velvet, and he added hastily: “What I mean is, I’m not complaining, Ellsworth. It’s all right. It may even help me to slice something off my damned income tax. But that filthy reactionary rag is sure going downhill.”

“Have a little patience, Mitch,” said Toohey.

“You don’t think I should sell and get out from under?”

“No, Mitch, I don’t.”

“Okay, if you say so. I can afford it. I can afford anything.”

“But I jolly well can’t!” Homer Slottern cried with surprising vehemence. “It’s coming to where one can’t afford to advertise in the
Banner.
It’s not their circulation—that’s okay—but there’s a feeling around—a funny kind of feeling.... Ellsworth, I’ve been thinking of dropping my contract.”

“Why?”

“Do you know about the ‘We Don’t Read Wynand’ movement?”

“I’ve heard about it.”

“It’s run by somebody named Gus Webb. They paste stickers on parked windshields and in public privies. They hiss Wynand newsreels in theaters. I don’t think it’s a large group, but ... Last week an unappetizing female threw a fit in my store—the one on Fifth Avenue—calling us enemies of labor because we advertised in the
Banner.
You can ignore that, but it becomes serious when one of our oldest customers, a mild little old lady from Connecticut and a Republican for three generations, calls us to say that perhaps maybe she should cancel her charge account, because somebody told her that Wynand is a dictator.”

“Gail Wynand knows nothing about politics, except of the most primitive kind,” said Toohey. “He still thinks in terms of the Democratic Club of Hell’s Kitchen. There was a certain innocence about the political corruption of those days, don’t you think so?”

“I don’t care. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, the Banner is becoming a kind of liability. It hurts business. One’s got to be so careful nowadays. You get tied up with the wrong people and first thing you know there’s a smear campaign going on and you get splashed too. I can’t afford that sort of thing.”

“It’s not entirely an unjustified smear.”

“I don’t care. I don’t give a damn whether it’s true or not. Who am I to stick my neck out for Gail Wynand? If there’s a public sentiment against him, my job is to get as far away as I can, pronto. And I’m not the only one. There’s a bunch of us who’re thinking the same. Jim Ferris of Ferris & Symes, Billy Shultz of Vimo Flakes, Bud Harper of Toddler Togs, and ... hell, you know them all, they’re all your friends, our bunch, the liberal businessmen. We all want to yank our ads out of the
Banner.”

“Have a little patience, Homer. I wouldn’t hurry. There’s a proper time for everything. There’s such a thing as a psychological moment.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it. But there’s—there’s a kind of feeling in the air. It will become dangerous some day.”

“It might. I’ll tell you when it will.”

“I thought Ellsworth worked on the
Banner,”
said Renée Slottern vacantly, puzzled.

The others turned to her with indignation and pity.

“You’re naive, Renée,” shrugged Eve Layton.

“But what’s the matter with the
Banner?”

“Now, child, don’t you bother with dirty politics,” said Jessica Pratt. “The
Banner
is a wicked paper. Mr. Wynand is a very evil man. He represents the selfish interests of the rich.”

“I think he’s good-looking,” said Renée. “I think he has sex appeal.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” cried Eve Layton.

“Now, after all, Renée is entitled to express her opinion,” Jessica Pratt said with immediate rage.

“Somebody told me Ellsworth is the president of the Union of Wynand Employees,” drawled Renée.

“Oh dear me, no, Renée. I’m never president of anything. I’m just a rank-and-file member. Like any copy boy.”

“Do they have a Union of Wynand Employees?” asked Homer Slottern.

“It was just a club, at first,” said Toohey. “It became a union last year.”

“Who organized it?”

“How can one tell? It was more or less spontaneous. Like all mass movements.”

“
I
think Wynand is a bastard,” declared Mitchell Layton. “Who does he think he is anyway? I come to a meeting of stockholders and he treats us like flunkies. Isn’t my money as good as his? Don’t I own a hunk of his damn paper? I could teach him a thing or two about journalism. I have ideas. What’s he so damn arrogant about? Just because he made that fortune himself? Does he have to be such a damn snob just because he came from Hell’s Kitchen? It isn’t other people’s fault if they weren’t lucky enough to be born in Hell’s Kitchen to rise out of! Nobody understands what a terrible handicap it is to be born rich. Because people just take for granted that because you were born that way you’d just be no good if you weren’t. What I mean is if I’d had Gail Wynand’s breaks, I’d be twice as rich as he is by now and three times as famous. But he’s so conceited he doesn’t realize this at all!”

Nobody said a word. They heard the rising inflection of hysteria in Mitchell Layton’s voice. Eve Layton looked at Toohey, silently appealing for help. Toohey smiled and made a step forward.

“I’m ashamed of you, Mitch,” he said.

Homer Slottern gasped. One did not rebuke Mitchell Layton on this subject; one did not rebuke Mitchell Layton on any subject.

Mitchell Layton’s lower lip vanished.

“I’m ashamed of you, Mitch,” Toohey repeated sternly, “for comparing yourself to a man as contemptible as Gail Wynand.”

Mitchell Layton’s mouth relaxed in the equivalent of something almost as gentle as a smile.

“That’s true,” he said humbly.

“No, you would never be able to match Gail Wynand’s career. Not with your sensitive spirit and humanitarian instincts. That’s what’s holding you down, Mitch, not your money. Who cares about money? The age of money is past. It’s your nature that’s too fine for the brute competition of our capitalistic system. But that, too, is passing.”

“It’s self-evident,” said Eve Layton.

It was late when Toohey left. He felt exhilarated and he decided to walk home. The streets of the city lay gravely empty around him, and the dark masses of the buildings rose to the sky, confident and unprotected. He remembered what he had said to Dominique once: “A complicated piece of machinery, such as our society ... and by pressing your little finger against one spot ... the center of all its gravity ... you can make the thing crumble into a worthless heap of scrap iron ...” He missed Dominique. He wished she could have been with him to hear this evening’s conversation.

The unshared was boiling up within him. He stopped in the middle of a silent street, threw his head back and laughed aloud, looking at the tops of skyscrapers.

A policeman tapped him on the shoulder, asking: “Well, Mister?”

Toohey saw buttons and blue cloth tight over a broad chest, a stolid face, hard and patient; a man as set and dependable as the buildings around them.

“Doing your duty, officer?” Toohey asked, the echoes of laughter like jerks in his voice. “Protecting law and order and decency and human lives?” The policeman scratched the back of his head. “You ought to arrest me, officer.”

“Okay, pal, okay,” said the policeman. “Run along. We all take one too many once in a while.”

I
T WAS ONLY WHEN THE LAST PAINTER HAD DEPARTED THAT PETER Keating felt a sense of desolation and a numb weakness in the crook of his elbows. He stood in the hall, looking up at the ceiling. Under the harsh gloss of paint he could still see the outline of the square where the stairway had been removed and the opening closed over. Guy Francon’s old office was gone. The firm of Keating & Dumont had a single floor left now.