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made his voice sound like that.

"No, Mr. Roark. It’s Mr. Wynand’s secretary."

"Yes. Yes. Tell her yes."

He walked to the drafting table and looked down at the sketches; it was the

first desertion he had ever been forced to commit: he knew he would not be able

to work today. The weight of hope and relief together was too great.

When Roark approached the door of what had been the Banner Building, he saw that

the sign, the Banner’s masthead, was gone. Nothing replaced it. A discolored

rectangle was left over the door. He knew the building now contained the offices

of the Clarion and floors of empty rooms. The Clarion, a third-rate afternoon

tabloid, was the only representative of the Wynand chain in New York.

611

He walked to an elevator. He was glad to be the only passenger: he felt a

sudden, violent possessiveness for the small cage of steel; it was his, found

again, given back to him. The intensity of the relief told him the intensity of

the pain it had ended; the special pain, like no other in his life.

When he entered Wynand’s office, he knew that he had to accept that pain and

carry it forever, mat there was to be no cure and no hope. Wynand sat behind his

desk and rose when he entered, looking straight at him. Wynand’s face was more

than the face of a stranger: a stranger’s face is an unapproached potentiality,

to be opened if one makes the choice and effort; this was a face known, closed

and never to be reached again. A face that held no pain of renunciation, but the

stamp of the next step, when even pain is renounced. A face remote and quiet,

with a dignity of its own, not a living attribute, but the dignity of a figure

on a medieval tomb that speaks of past greatness and forbids a hand to reach out

for the remains.

"Mr. Roark, this interview is necessary, but very difficult for me. Please act

accordingly."

Roark knew that the last act of kindness he could offer was to claim no bond. He

knew he would break what was left of the man before him if he pronounced one

word: Gail. Roark answered: "Yes, Mr. Wynand."

Wynand picked up four typewritten sheets of paper and handed them across the

desk:

"Please read this and sign it if it meets with your approval."

"What is it?"

"Your contract to design the Wynand Building." Roark put the sheets down. He

could not hold them. He could not look at them.

"Please listen carefully, Mr. Roark. This must be explained and understood. I

wish to undertake the construction of the Wynand Building at once. I wish it to

be the tallest structure of the city. Do not discuss with me the question of

whether this is timely or economically advisable. I wish it built. It will be

used--which is all that concerns you. It will house the Clarion and all the

offices of the Wynand Enterprises now located in various parts of the city. The

rest of the space will be rented. I have sufficient standing left to guarantee

that. You need have no fear of erecting a useless structure. I shall send you a

written statement on all details and requirements. The rest will be up to you.

You will design the building as you wish. Your decisions will be final. They

will not require my approval. You will have full charge and complete authority.

This is stated in the contract. But I wish it understood that I shall not have

to see you. There will be an agent to represent me in all technical and

financial matters. You will deal with him. You will hold all further conferences

with him. Let him know what contractors you prefer chosen for the job. If you

find it necessary to communicate with me, you will do it through my agent. You

are not to expect or attempt to see me. Should you do so, you will be refused

admittance. I do not wish to speak to you. I do not wish ever to see you again.

If you are prepared to comply with these conditions, please read the contract

and sign it."

Roark reached for a pen and signed without looking at the paper.

"You have not read it," said Wynand.

Roark threw the paper across the desk.

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"Please sign both copies."

Roark obeyed.

"Thank you," said Wynand, signed the sheets and handed one to Roark. "This is

your copy."

Roark slipped the paper into his pocket.

"I have not mentioned the financial part of the undertaking. It is an open

secret that the so-called Wynand empire is dead. It is sound and doing as well

as ever throughout the country, with the exception of New York City. It will

last my lifetime. But it will end with me. I intend to liquidate a great part of

it. You will, therefore, have no reason to limit yourself by any consideration

of costs in your design of the building. You are free to make it cost whatever

you find necessary. The building will remain long after the newsreels and

tabloids are gone."

"Yes, Mr. Wynand."

"I presume you will want to make the structure efficiently economical in

maintenance costs. But you do not have to consider the return of the original

investment. There’s no one to whom it must return."

"Yes, Mr. Wynand."

"If you consider the behavior of the world at present and the disaster toward

which it is moving you might find the undertaking preposterous. The age of the

skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a

prelude to the age of the cave. But you are not afraid of a gesture against the

whole world. This will be the last skyscraper ever built in New York. It is

proper that it should be so. The last achievement of man on earth before mankind

destroys itself."

"Mankind will never destroy itself, Mr. Wynand. Nor should it think of itself as

destroyed. Not so long as it does things such as this."

"As what?"

"As the Wynand Building."

"That is up to you. Dead things--such as the Banner--are only the financial

fertilizer that will make it possible. It is their proper function."

He picked up his copy of the contract, folded it and put it, with a precise

gesture, into his inside coat pocket. He said, with no change in the tone of his

voice:

"I told you once that this building was to be a monument to my life. There is

nothing to commemorate now. The Wynand Building will have nothing--except what

you give it."

He rose to his feet, indicating that the interview was ended. Roark got up and

inclined his head in parting. He held his head down a moment longer than a

formal bow required.

At the door he stopped and turned. Wynand stood behind his desk without moving.

They looked at each other.

613

Wynand said:

"Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been

mine."

20.

ON A spring day, eighteen months later, Dominique walked to the construction

site of the Wynand Building.

She looked at the skyscrapers of the city. They rose from unexpected spots, out

of the low roof lines. They had a kind of startling suddenness, as if they had

sprung up the second before she saw them and she had caught the last thrust of

the motion; as if, were she to turn away and look again fast enough, she would

catch them in the act of springing.

She turned a corner of Hell’s Kitchen and came to the vast cleared tract.

Machines were crawling over the torn earth, grading the future park. From its

center, the skeleton of the Wynand Building rose, completed, to the sky. The top

part of the frame still hung naked, an intercrossed cage of steel. Glass and

masonry had followed its rise, covering the rest of the long streak slashed

through space.

She thought: They say the heart of the earth is made of fire. It is held

imprisoned and silent. But at times it breaks through the clay, the iron, the

granite, and shoots out to freedom. Then it becomes a thing like this.

She walked to the building. A wooden fence surrounded its lower stories. The

fence was bright with large signs advertising the names of the firms who had

supplied materials for the tallest structure in the world. "Steel by National

Steel, Inc." "Glass by Ludlow." "Electrical Equipment by Wells-Clairmont."

"Elevators by Kessler, Inc." "Nash & Dunning, Contractors."

She stopped. She saw an object she had never noticed before. The sight was like

the touch of a hand on her forehead, the hand of those figures in legend who had

the power to heal. She had not known Henry Cameron and she had not heard him say

it, but what she felt now was as if she were hearing it: "And I know that if you

carry these words through to the end, it will be a victory, Howard, not just for

you, but for something that should win, that moves the world--and never wins

acknowledgment. It will vindicate so many who have fallen before you, who have

suffered as you will suffer."

She saw, on the fence surrounding New York’s greatest building, a small tin

plate bearing the words:

"Howard Roark, Architect"

She walked to the superintendent’s shed. She had come here often to call for

Roark, to watch the progress of construction. But there was a new man in the

shed who did not know her. She asked for Roark.

"Mr. Roark is way up on top by the water tank. Who’s calling, ma’am?"

614

"Mrs. Roark," she answered.

The man found the superintendent who let her ride the outside hoist, as she

always did--a few planks with a rope for a railing, that rose up the side of the

building.

She stood, her hand lifted and closed about a cable, her high heels poised

firmly on the planks. The planks shuddered, a current of air pressed her skirt

to her body, and she saw the ground dropping softly away from her.

She rose above the broad panes of shop windows. The channels of streets grew

deeper, sinking. She rose above the marquees of movie theaters, black mats held

by spirals of color. Office windows streamed past her, long belts of glass

running down. The squat hulks of warehouses vanished, sinking with the treasures

they guarded. Hotel towers slanted, like the spokes of an opening fan, and

folded over. The fuming matchsticks were factory stacks and the moving gray

squares were cars. The sun made lighthouses of peaked summits, they reeled,

flashing long white rays over the city. The city spread out, marching in angular

rows to the rivers. It stood held between two thin black arms of water. It

leaped across and rolled away to a haze of plains and sky.

Flat roofs descended like pedals pressing the buildings down, out of the way of

her flight. She went past the cubes of glass that held dining rooms, bedrooms

and nurseries. She saw roof gardens float down like handkerchiefs spread on the

wind. Skyscrapers raced her and were left behind. The planks under her feet shot

past the antennae of radio stations.

The hoist swung like a pendulum above the city. It sped against the side of the

building. It had passed the line where the masonry ended behind her. There was

nothing behind her now but steel ligaments and space. She felt the height

pressing against her eardrums. The sun filled her eyes. The air beat against her

raised chin.

She saw him standing above her, on the top platform of the Wynand Building. He

waved to her.

The line of the ocean cut the sky. The ocean mounted as the city descended. She

passed the pinnacles of bank buildings. She passed the crowns of courthouses.

She rose above the spires of churches.

Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark.

The End

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