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window.

Gail Wynand sat at the back of the courtroom. He had come in, alone, when the

room was full. He had not noticed the stares and the flashbulbs exploding around

him. He had stood in the aisle for a moment, surveying the place as if there

were no reason why he should not survey it. He wore a gray summer suit and a

panama hat with a drooping brim turned up at one side. His glance went over

Dominique as over the rest of the courtroom. When he sat down, he looked at

Roark. From the moment of Wynand’s entrance Roark’s eyes kept returning to him.

Whenever Roark looked at him, Wynand turned away.

"The motive which the State proposes to prove," the prosecutor was making his

opening address to the jury, "is beyond the realm of normal human emotions. To

the majority of us it will appear monstrous and inconceivable."

Dominique sat with Mallory, Heller, Lansing, Enright, Mike--and Guy Francon, to

the shocked disapproval of his friends. Across the aisle, celebrities formed a

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comet: from the small point of Ellsworth Toohey, well in front, a tail of

popular names stretched through the crowd: Lois Cook, Gordon L. Prescott, Gus

Webb, Lancelot Clokey, Ike, Jules Fougler, Sally Brent, Homer Slottern, Mitchell

Layton.

"Even as the dynamite which swept a building away, his motive blasted all sense

of humanity out of this man’s soul. We are dealing, gentlemen of the jury, with

the most vicious explosive on earth--the egotist!"

On the chairs, on the window sills, in the aisles, pressed against the walls,

the human mass was blended like a monolith, except for the pale ovals of faces.

The faces stood out, separate, lonely, no two alike. Behind each, there were the

years of a life lived or half over, effort, hope and an attempt, honest or

dishonest, but an attempt. It had left on all a single mark in common: on lips

smiling with malice, on lips loose with renunciation, on lips tight with

uncertain dignity--on all--the mark of suffering.

"...In this day and age, when the world is torn by gigantic problems, seeking an

answer to questions that hold the survival of man in the balance--this man

attached to such a vague intangible, such an unessential as his artistic

opinions sufficient importance to let it become his sole passion and the

motivation of a crime against society."

The people had come to witness a sensational case, to see celebrities, to get

material for conversation, to be seen, to kill time. They would return to

unwanted jobs, unloved families, unchosen friends, to drawing rooms, evening

clothes, cocktail glasses and movies, to unadmitted pain, murdered hope, desire

left unreached, left hanging silently over a path on which no step was taken, to

days of effort not to think, not to say, to forget and give in and give up. But

each of them had known some unforgotten moment--a morning when nothing had

happened, a piece of music heard suddenly and never heard in the same way again,

a stranger’s face seen in a bus--a moment when each had known a different sense

of living. And each remembered other moments, on a sleepless night, on an

afternoon of steady rain, in a church, in an empty street at sunset, when each

had wondered why there was so much suffering and ugliness in the world. They had

not tried to find the answer and they had gone on living as if no answer were

necessary. But each had known a moment when, in lonely, naked honesty, he had

felt the need of an answer.

"...a ruthless, arrogant egotist who wished to have his own way at any price..."

Twelve men sat in the jury box. They listened, their faces attentive and

emotionless. People had whispered that it was a tough-looking jury. There were

two executives of industrial concerns, two engineers, a mathematician, a truck

driver, a bricklayer, an electrician, a gardener and three factory workers. The

impaneling of the jury had taken some time. Roark had challenged many talesmen.

He had picked these twelve. The prosecutor had agreed, telling himself that this

was what happened when an amateur undertook to handle his own defense; a lawyer

would have chosen the gentlest types, those most likely to respond to an appeal

for mercy; Roark had chosen the hardest faces.

"...Had it been some plutocrat’s mansion, but a housing project, gentlemen of

the jury, a housing project!"

The judge sat erect on the tall bench. He had gray hair and the stern face of an

army officer.

"...a man trained to serve society, a builder who became a destroyer..."

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The voice went on, practiced and confident. The faces filling the room listened

with the response they granted to a good weekday dinner: satisfying and to be

forgotten within an hour. They agreed with every sentence; they had heard it

before, they had always heard it, this was what the world lived by; it was

self-evident--like a puddle before one’s feet.

The prosecutor introduced his witnesses. The policeman who had arrested Roark

took the stand to tell how he had found the defendant standing by the electric

plunger. The night watchman related how he had been sent away from the scene;

his testimony was brief; the prosecutor preferred not to stress the subject of

Dominique. The contractor’s superintendent testified about the dynamite missing

from the stores on the site. Officials of Cortlandt, building inspectors,

estimators took the stand to describe the building and the extent of the damage.

This concluded the first day of the trial.

Peter Keating was the first witness called on the following day.

He sat on the stand, slumped forward. He looked at the prosecutor obediently.

His eyes moved, once in a while. He looked at the crowd, at the jury, at Roark.

It made no difference.

"Mr. Keating, will you state under oath whether you designed the project

ascribed to you, known as Cortlandt Homes?"

"No. I didn’t."

"Who designed it?"

"Howard Roark."

"At whose request?"

"At my request."

"Why did you call on him?"

"Because I was not capable of doing it myself."

There was no sound of honesty in the voice, because there was no sound of effort

to pronounce a truth of such nature; no tone of truth or falsehood; only

indifference.

The prosecutor handed him a sheet of paper. "Is this the agreement you signed?"

Keating held the paper in his hand. "Yes."

"Is that Howard Roark’s signature?"

"Yes."

"Will you please read the terms of this agreement to the jury?"

Keating read it aloud. His voice came evenly, well drilled. Nobody in the

courtroom realized that this testimony had been intended as a sensation. It was

not a famous architect publicly confessing incompetence; it was a man reciting a

memorized lesson. People felt mat were he interrupted, he would not be able to

pick up the next sentence, but would have to start all over again from the

beginning.

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He answered a great many questions. The prosecutor introduced in evidence

Roark’s original drawings of Cortlandt, which Keating had kept; the copies which

Keating had made of them; and photographs of Cortlandt as it had been built.

"Why did you object so strenuously to the excellent structural changes suggested

by Mr. Prescott and Mr. Webb?"

"I was afraid of Howard Roark."

"What did your knowledge of his character lead you to expect?’

"Anything."

"What do you mean?"

"I don’t know. I was afraid. I used to be afraid."

The questions went on. The story was unusual, but the audience felt bored. It

did not sound like the recital of a participant. The other witnesses had seemed

to have a more personal connection with the case.

When Keating left the stand, the audience had the odd impression that no change

had occurred in the act of a man’s exit; as if no person had walked out.

"The prosecution rests," said the District Attorney.

The judge looked at Roark.

"Proceed," he said. His voice was gentle.

Roark got up. "Your Honor, I shall call no witnesses. This will be my testimony

and my summation."

"Take the oath."

Roark took the oath. He stood by the steps of the witness stand. The audience

looked at him. They felt he had no chance. They could drop the nameless

resentment, the sense of insecurity which he aroused in most people. And so, for

the first time, they could see him as he was: a man totally innocent of fear.

The fear of which they thought was not the normal kind, not a response to a

tangible danger, but the chronic, unconfessed fear in which they all lived. They

remembered the misery of the moments when, in loneliness, a man thinks of the

bright words he could have said, but had not found, and hates those who robbed

him of his courage. The misery of knowing how strong and able one is in one’s

own mind, the radiant picture never to be made real. Dreams? Self-delusion? Or a

murdered reality, unborn, killed by that corroding emotion without

name--fear--need--dependence--hatred?

Roark stood before them as each man stands in the innocence of his own mind. But

Roark stood like that before a hostile crowd--and they knew suddenly that no

hatred was possible to him. For the flash of an instant, they grasped the manner

of his consciousness. Each asked himself: do I need anyone’s approval?--does it

matter?--am I tied? And for that instant, each man was free--free enough to feel

benevolence for every other man in the room.

It was only a moment; the moment of silence when Roark was about to speak.

"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was

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probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was

considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But

thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their

caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness

off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was

probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered

a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could

travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he

had opened the roads of the world.

"That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every

legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a

rock and torn by vultures--because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was

condemned to suffer--because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that

its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads

armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had

this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed,

and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the

artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their

time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was

denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered

impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered

sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered

and they paid. But they won.

"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers

rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of

their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to

achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an

airplane or a building--that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard,

read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The

creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it.

The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things

and against all men.

"His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man’s spirit,

however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel,

to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power--that it

was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of

energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He

had lived for himself.

"And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the

glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His

brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no

fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it.

To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make

weapons--a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest

religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and

everything we have comes from a single attribute of man--the function of his

reasoning mind.

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"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a

collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement

reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many

individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process

of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many

men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to

breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the