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Keating got up. He dragged his feet to a dresser, opened a drawer, took out a

crumpled piece of paper and handed it to Toohey. It was his contract with Roark.

Toohey read it and chuckled once, a dry snap of sound. Then he looked at

Keating.

"You’re a complete success, Peter, as far as I’m concerned. But at times I have

to want to turn away from the sight of my successes."

Keating stood by the dresser, his shoulders slumped, his eyes empty.

"I didn’t expect you to have it in writing like that, with his signature. So

that’s what he’s done for you--and this is what you do in return....No, I take

back the insults, Peter. You had to do it. Who are you to reverse the laws of

history? Do you know what this paper is? The impossible perfect, the dream of

the centuries, the aim of all of mankind’s great schools of thought. You

harnessed him. You made him work for you. You took his achievement, his reward,

his money, his glory, his name. We only thought and wrote about it. You gave a

practical demonstration. Every philosopher from Plato up should thank you. Here

it is, the philosopher’s stone--for turning gold into lead. I should be pleased,

but I guess I’m human and I can’t help it, I’m not pleased, I’m just sick. The

others, Plato and all the rest, they really thought it would turn lead into

gold. I knew the truth from the first. I’ve been honest with myself, Peter, and

that’s the hardest form of honesty. The one you all run from at any price. And

right now I don’t blame you, it is the hardest one, Peter."

He sat down wearily and held the paper by the corners in both hands. He said:

"If you want to know how hard it is, I’ll tell you: right now I want to burn

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this paper. Make what you wish of that. I don’t claim too great a credit,

because I know that tomorrow I’ll send this to the district attorney. Roark will

never know it--and it would make no difference to him if he knew--but in the

truth of things, there was one moment when I wanted to burn this paper."

He folded the paper cautiously and slipped it into his pocket. Keating followed

his gestures, moving his whole head, like a kitten watching a ball on a string.

"You make me sick," said Toohey. "God, how you make me sick, all you

hypocritical sentimentalists! You go along with me, you spout what I teach you,

you profit by it--but you haven’t the grace to admit to yourself what you’re

doing. You turn green when you see the truth. I suppose that’s in the nature of

your natures and that’s precisely my chief weapon--but God! I get tired of it. I

must allow myself a moment free of you. That’s what I have to put on an act for

all my life--for mean little mediocrities like you. To protect your

sensibilities, your posturings, your conscience and the peace of the mind you

haven’t got. That’s the price I pay for what I want--but at least I know that

I’ve got to pay it. And I have no illusions about the price or the purchase."

"What do you...want...Ellsworth?"

"Power, Petey."

There were steps in the apartment above, someone skipping gaily, a few sounds on

the ceiling as of four or five tap beats. The light fixture jingled and

Keating’s head moved up in obedience. Then it came back to Toohey. Toohey was

smiling, almost indifferently.

"You...always said..." Keating began thickly, and stopped.

"I’ve always said just that. Clearly, precisely and openly. It’s not my fault if

you couldn’t hear. You could, of course. You didn’t want to. Which was safer

than deafness--for me. I said I intended to rule. Like all my spiritual

predecessors. But I’m luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their

efforts and I shall be the one who’ll see the great dream made real. I see it

all around me today. I recognize it. I don’t like it. I didn’t expect to like

it. Enjoyment is not my destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity

permits. I shall rule."

"Whom...?"

"You. The world. It’s only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how

to rule one single man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It’s the soul,

Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That’s why the Caesars,

the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul,

Peter, is that which can’t be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get

your fingers on it--and the man is yours. You won’t need a whip--he’ll bring it

to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse--and his own mechanism will do

your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it’s done? See if I

ever lied to you. See if you haven’t heard all this for years, but didn’t want

to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine. There are many ways. Here’s one. Make

man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity.

That’s difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted

way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it

toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that

he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one

of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His every living

instinct screams against it. But don’t you see what you accomplish? Man realizes

that he’s incapable of what he’s accepted as the noblest virtue--and it gives

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him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme

ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration,

all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he

can’t practice. But one can’t be good halfway or honest approximately. To

preserve one’s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to

be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect. You’ve got him. He’ll

obey. He’ll be glad to obey--because he can’t trust himself, he feels uncertain,

he feels unclean. That’s one way. Here’s another. Kill man’s sense of values.

Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be

ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny the conception of greatness.

Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional.

Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most

inept--and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop

all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and

hold Peter Keating as a great architect. You’ve destroyed architecture. Build up

Lois Cook and you’ve destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you’ve destroyed the

theater. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you’ve destroyed the press. Don’t set out

to raze all shrines--you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity--and the shrines

are razed. Then there’s another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument

of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer.

It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor

is an unlimited virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul--and

his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in

man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle. He’ll obey and he’ll set no limits to

his obedience--anything goes--nothing is too serious. Here’s another way. This

is most important. Don’t allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and

self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free

men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or

important to them. Never let them have what they want. Make them feel that the

mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying I

want’ is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of

great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They’ll need you. They’ll come

for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man’s

soul--and the space is yours to fill. I don’t see why you should look so

shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. Look at any

great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn’t they all preach the sacrifice

of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven’t they all had a

single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven’t you been able to

catch their theme song--’Give up, give up, give up, give up’? Look at the moral

atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to

the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing

makes men happy--and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied

happiness to guilt. And we’ve got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born

into a sacrificial furnace--lie on a bed of nails--go into the desert to mortify

the flesh--don’t dance--don’t go to the movies on Sunday--don’t try to get

rich--don’t smoke--don’t drink. It’s all the same line. The great line. Fools

think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over,

old-fashioned. But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine

a folly--ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that

preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course,

you must dress it up. You must tell people that they’ll achieve a superior kind

of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don’t have to be

too clear about it. Use big vague words. ’Universal Harmony’--’Eternal

Spirit’--’Divine Purpose’--’Nirvana’--’Paradise’--’Racial Supremacy’--’The

Dictatorship of the Proletariat.’ Internal corruption, Peter. That’s the oldest

one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it.

Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him

speak of sacrifice--run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that

where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where

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there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of

sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if

ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural

right, that your first duty is to yourself--that will be the man who’s not after

your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him

come and you’ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he’s a selfish

monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries. But here you might have

noticed something. I said, ’It stands to reason.’ Do you see? Men have a weapon

against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the

props from under it. But be careful. Don’t deny outright. Never deny anything

outright, you give your hand away. Don’t say reason is evil--though some have

gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited.

That there’s something above it. What? You don’t have to be too clear about it

either. The field’s inexhaustible.

’Instinct’--’Feeling’--’Revelation’--’Divine Intuition’--’Dialectic

Materialism.’ If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you

that your doctrine doesn’t make sense--you’re ready for him. You tell him that

there’s something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel.

He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in

any manner you wish whenever you need it. You’ve got him. Can you rule a

thinking man? We don’t want any thinking men."

Keating had sat down on the floor, by the side of the dresser; he had felt tired

and he had simply folded his legs. He did not want to abandon the dresser; he

felt safer, leaning against it; as if it still guarded the letter he had

surrendered.

"Peter, you’ve heard all this. You’ve seen me practicing it for ten years. You

see it being practiced all over the world. Why are you disgusted? You have no

right to sit there and stare at me with the virtuous superiority of being

shocked. You’re in on it. You’ve taken your share and you’ve got to go along.

You’re afraid to see where it’s leading. I’m not I’ll tell you. The world of the

future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the

thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of

the brain of his neighbor who’ll have no thought of his own but an attempt to

guess the thought of the next neighbor who’ll have no thought--and so on, Peter,

around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold

a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of

his neighbor who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next

neighbor who’ll have no desires--around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve

all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money,

but for that headless monster--prestige. The approval of his fellows--their good

opinion--the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus,

all tentacles and no brain. Judgment, Peter! Not judgment, but public polls. An

average drawn upon zeroes--since no individuality will be permitted. A world

with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand--and the

hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you

tick--you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we

called you the average, the little, the common, you who’ve liked and accepted

those names. You’ll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the

absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the

unlimited, God and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the

common, the general. Do you know the proper antonym for Ego? Bromide, Peter. The

rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be originated by someone at some

time. We’ll do the originating. Vox dei. We’ll enjoy unlimited submission--from