The Fountainhead (104 page)

“I ... I have ideas, Ellsworth. I’ve watched the field ... I’ve ... studied new methods.... I could ...”

“If you can, it’s yours. If you can’t, all my friendship won’t help you. And God knows I’d like to help you. You look like an old hen in the rain. Here’s what I’ll do for you, Peter: come to my office tomorrow, I’ll give you all the dope, take it home and see if you wish to break your head over it. Take a chance, if you care to. Work me out a preliminary scheme. I can’t promise anything. But if you come anywhere near it, I’ll submit it to the right people and I’ll push it for all I’m worth. That’s all I can do for you. It’s not up to me. It’s really up to you.”

Keating sat looking at him. Keating’s eyes were anxious, eager and hopeless.

“Care to try, Peter?”

“Will you let me try?”

“Of course I’ll let you. Why shouldn’t I? I’d be delighted if you, of all people, turned out to be the one to turn the trick.”

“About the way I look, Ellsworth,” he said suddenly, “about the way I look ... it’s not because I mind so much that I’m a failure ... it’s because I can’t understand why I slipped like that ... from the top ... without any reason at all ...”

“Well, Peter, that could be terrifying to contemplate. The inexplicable is always terrifying. But it wouldn’t be so frightening if you stopped to ask yourself whether there’s ever been any reason why you should have been at the top.... Oh, come, Peter, smile, I’m only kidding. One loses everything when one loses one’s sense of humor.”

 

On the following morning Keating came to his office after a visit to Ellsworth Toohey’s cubbyhole in the Banner Building. He brought with him a briefcase containing the data on the Cortlandt Homes project. He spread the papers on a large table in his office and locked the door. He asked a draftsman to bring him a sandwich at noon, and he ordered another sandwich at dinner time. “Want me to help, Pete?” asked Neil Dumont. “We could consult and discuss it and ...” Keating shook his head.

He sat at his table all night. After a while he stopped looking at the papers; he sat still, thinking. He was not thinking of the charts and figures spread before him. He had studied them. He had understood what he could not do.

When he noticed that it was daylight, when he heard steps behind his locked door, the movement of men returning to work, and knew that office hours had begun, here and everywhere else in the city—he rose, walked to his desk and reached for the telephone book. He dialed the number.

“This is Peter Keating speaking. I should like to make an appointment to see Mr. Roark.”

Dear God, he thought while waiting, don’t let him see me. Make him refuse. Dear God, make him refuse and I will have the right to hate him to the end of my days. Don’t let him see me.

“Will four o’clock tomorrow afternoon be convenient for you, Mr. Keating?” said the calm, gentle voice of the secretary. “Mr. Roark will see you then.”

R
OARK KNEW THAT HE MUST NOT SHOW THE SHOCK OF HIS FIRST glance at Peter Keating—and that it was too late: he saw a faint smile on Keating’s lips, terrible in its resigned acknowledgment of disintegration.

“Are you only two years younger than I am, Howard?” was the first thing Keating asked, looking at the face of the man he had not seen for six years.

“I don’t know, Peter, I think so. I’m thirty-seven.”

“I’m thirty-nine—that’s all.”

He moved to the chair in front of Roark’s desk, groping for it with his hand. He was blinded by the band of glass that made three walls of Roark’s office. He stared at the sky and the city. He had no feeling of height here, and the buildings seemed to lie under his toes, not a real city, but miniatures of famous landmarks, incongruously close and small; he felt he could bend and pick any one of them up in his hand. He saw the black dashes which were automobiles and they seemed to crawl, it took them so long to cover a block the size of his finger. He saw the stone and plaster of the city as a substance that had soaked light and was throwing it back, row upon row of flat, vertical planes grilled with dots of windows, each plane a reflector, rose-colored, gold and purple—and jagged streaks of smoke-blue running among them, giving them shape, angles and distance. Light streamed from the buildings into the sky and made of the clear summer blue a humble second thought, a spread of pale water over living fire. My God, thought Keating, who are the men that made all this?—and then remembered that he had been one of them.

He saw Roark’s figure for an instant, straight and gaunt against the angle of two glass panes behind the desk, then Roark sat down facing him.

Keating thought of men lost in the desert and of men perishing at sea, when, in the presence of the silent eternity of the sky, they have to speak the truth. And now he had to speak the truth, because he was in the presence of the earth’s greatest city.

“Howard, is this the terrible thing they meant by turning the other cheek—your letting me come here?”

He did not think of his voice. He did not know that it had dignity.

Roark looked at him silently for a moment; this was a greater change than the swollen face.

“I don’t know, Peter. No, if they meant actual forgiveness. Had I been hurt, I’d never forgive it. Yes, if they meant what I’m doing. I don’t think a man can hurt another, not in any important way. Neither hurt him nor help him. I have really nothing to forgive you.”

“It would be better if you felt you had. It would be less cruel.”

“I suppose so.”

“You haven’t changed, Howard.”

“I guess not.”

“If this is the punishment I must take—I want you to know that I’m taking it and that I understand. At one time I would have thought I was getting off easy.”

“You have changed, Peter.”

“I know I have.”

“I’m sorry if it has to be punishment.”

“I know you are. I believe you. But it’s all right. It’s only the last of it. I really took it night before last.”

“When you decided to come here?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t be afraid now. What is it?”

Keating sat straight, calm, not as he had sat facing a man in a dressing gown three days ago, but almost in confident repose. He spoke slowly and without pity:

“Howard, I’m a parasite. I’ve been a parasite all my life. You designed my best projects at Stanton. You designed the first house I ever built. You designed the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. I have fed on you and on all the men like you who lived before we were born. The men who designed the Parthenon, the Gothic cathedrals, the first skyscrapers. If they hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have known how to put stone on stone. In the whole of my life, I haven’t added a new doorknob to what men have done before me. I have taken that which was not mine and given nothing in return. I had nothing to give. This is not an act, Howard, and I’m very conscious of what I’m saying. And I came here to ask you to save me again. If you wish to throw me out, do it now.”

Roark shook his head slowly, and moved one hand in silent permission to continue.

“I suppose you know that I’m finished as an architect. Oh, not actually finished, but near enough. Others could go on like this for quite a few years, but I can’t, because of what I’ve been. Or was thought to have been. People don’t forgive a man who’s slipping. I must live up to what they thought. I can do it only in the same way I’ve done everything else in my life. I need a prestige I don’t deserve for an achievement I didn’t accomplish to save a name I haven’t earned the right to bear. I’ve been given a last chance. I know it’s my last chance. I know I can’t do it. I won’t try to bring you a mess and ask you to correct it. I’m asking you to design it and let me put my name on it.”

“What’s the job?”

“Cortlandt Homes.”

“The housing project?”

“Yes. You’ve heard about it?”

“I know everything about it.”

“You’re interested in housing projects, Howard?”

“Who offered it to you? On what conditions?”

Keating explained, precisely, dispassionately, relating his conversation with Toohey as if it were the summary of a court transcript he had read long ago. He pulled the papers out of his briefcase, put them down on the desk and went on speaking, while Roark looked at them. Roark interrupted him once: “Wait a moment, Peter. Keep still.” He waited for a long time. He saw Roark’s hand moving the papers idly, but he knew that Roark was not looking at the papers. Roark said: “Go on,” and Keating continued obediently, allowing himself no questions.

“I suppose there’s no reason why you should do it for me,” he concluded. “If you can solve their problem, you can go to them and do it on your own.”

Roark smiled. “Do you think I could get past Toohey?”

“No. No, I don’t think you could.”

“Who told you I was interested in housing projects?”

“What architect isn’t?”

“Well, I am. But not in the way you think.”

He got up. It was a swift movement, impatient and tense. Keating allowed himself his first opinion: he thought it was strange to see suppressed excitement in Roark.

“Let me think this over, Peter. Leave that here. Come to my house tomorrow night. I’ll tell you then.”

“You’re not ... turning me down?”

“Not yet.”

“You might ... after everything that’s happened ... ?”

“To hell with that.”

“You’re going to consider ...”

“I can’t say anything now, Peter. I must think it over. Don’t count on it. I might want to demand something impossible of you.”

“Anything you ask, Howard. Anything.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Howard, I ... how can I try to thank you, even for ...”

“Don’t thank me. If I do it, I’ll have my own purpose. I’ll expect to gain as much as you will. Probably more. Just remember that I don’t do things on any other terms.”

Keating came to Roark’s house on the following evening. He could not say whether he had waited impatiently or not. The bruise had spread. He could act; he could weigh nothing.

He stood in the middle of Roark’s room and looked about slowly. He had been grateful for all the things Roark had not said to him. But he gave voice to the things himself when he asked:

“This is the Enright House, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You built it?”

Roark nodded, and said: “Sit down, Peter,” understanding too well.

Keating had brought his briefcase; he put it down on the floor, propping it against his chair. The briefcase bulged and looked heavy; he handled it cautiously. Then he spread his hands out and forgot the gesture, holding it, asking:

“Well?”

“Peter, can you think for a moment that you’re alone in the world?”

“I’ve been thinking that for three days.”

“No. That’s not what I mean. Can you forget what you’ve been taught to repeat, and think, think hard, with your own brain? There are things I’ll want you to understand. It’s my first condition. I’m going to tell you what I want. If you think of it as most people do, you’ll say it’s nothing. But if you say that, I won’t be able to do it. Not unless you understand completely, with your whole mind, how important it is.”

“I’ll try, Howard. I was ... honest with you yesterday.”

“Yes. If you hadn’t been, I would have turned you down yesterday. Now I think you might be able to understand and do your part of it.”

“You want to do it?”

“I might. If you offer me enough.”

“Howard—anything you ask. Anything. I’d sell my soul ...”

“That’s the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul—would you understand why that’s much harder?”

“Yes ... Yes, I think so.”

“Well? Go on. I want you to give me a reason why I should wish to design Cortlandt. I want you to make me an offer.”

“You can have all the money they pay me. I don’t need it. You can have twice the money. I’ll double their fee.”

“You know better than that, Peter. Is that what you wish to tempt me with?”

“You would save my life.”

“Can you think of any reason why I should want to save your life?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“It’s a great public project, Howard. A humanitarian undertaking. Think of the poor people who live in slums. If you can give them decent comfort within their means, you’ll have the satisfaction of performing a noble deed.”

“Peter, you were more honest than that yesterday.”

His eyes dropped, his voice low, Keating said:

“You will love designing it.”

“Yes, Peter. Now you’re speaking my language.”

“What do you want?”

“Now listen to me. I’ve been working on the problem of low-rent housing for years. I never thought of the poor people in slums. I thought of the potentialities of our modern world. The new materials, the means, the chances to take and use. There are so many products of man’s genius around us today. There are such great possibilities to exploit. To build cheaply, simply, intelligently. I’ve had a lot of time to study. I didn’t have much to do after the Stoddard Temple. I didn’t expect results. I worked because I can’t look at any material without thinking: What could be done with it? And the moment I think that, I’ve got to do it. To find the answer, to break the thing. I’ve worked on it for years. I loved it. I worked because it was a problem I wanted to solve. You wish to know how to build a unit to rent for fifteen dollars a month? I’ll show you how to build it for ten.”