第 19 页

There’s no question but that he is a potential genius." He extended the sketch

to Roark. The sketch represented a house in the shape of a grain silo incredibly

merged with the simplified, emaciated shadow of the Parthenon.

"That," said Gordon L. Prescott, "is originality, the new in the eternal. Try

toward something like this. I can’t really say that I predict a great deal for

your future. We must be frank, I wouldn’t want to give you illusions based on my

authority. You have a great deal to learn. I couldn’t venture a guess on what

talent you might possess or develop later. But with hard work,

perhaps...Architecture is a difficult profession, however, and the competition

is stiff, you know, very stiff...And now, if you’ll excuse me, my secretary has

an appointment waiting for me...."

#

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Roark walked home late on an evening in October. It had been another of the many

days that stretched into months behind him, and he could not tell what had taken

place in the hours of that day, whom he had seen, what form the words of refusal

had taken. He concentrated fiercely on the few minutes at hand, when he was in

an office, forgetting everything else; he forgot these minutes when he left the

office; it had to be done, it had been done, it concerned him no longer. He was

free once more on his way home.

A long street stretched before him, its high banks, coming close together ahead,

so narrow that he felt as if he could spread his arms, seize the spires and push

them apart. He walked swiftly, the pavements as a springboard throwing his steps

forward.

He saw a lighted triangle of concrete suspended somewhere hundreds of feet above

the ground. He could not see what stood below, supporting it; he was free to

think of what he’d want to see there, what he would have made to be seen. Then

he thought suddenly that now, in this moment, according to the city, according

to everyone save that hard certainty within him, he would never build again,

never--before he had begun. He shrugged. Those things happening to him, in those

offices of strangers, were only a kind of sub-reality, unsubstantial incidents

in the path of a substance they could not reach or touch.

He turned into side streets leading to the East River. A lonely traffic light

hung far ahead, a spot of red in a bleak darkness. The old houses crouched low

to the ground, hunched under the weight of the sky. The street was empty and

hollow, echoing to his footsteps. He went on, his collar raised, his hands in

his pockets. His shadow rose from under his heels, when he passed a light, and

brushed a wall in a long black arc, like the sweep of a windshield wiper.

9.

JOHN ERIK SNYTE looked through Roark’s sketches, flipped three of them aside,

gathered the rest into an even pile, glanced again at the three, tossed them

down one after another on top of the pile, with three sharp thuds, and said:

"Remarkable. Radical, but remarkable. What are you doing tonight?"

"Why?" asked Roark, stupefied.

"Are you free? Mind starting in at once? Take your coat off, go to the drafting

room, borrow tools from somebody and do me up a sketch for a department store

we’re remodeling. Just a quick sketch, just a general idea, but I must have it

tomorrow. Mind staying late tonight? The heat’s on and I’ll have Joe send you up

some dinner. Want black coffee or Scotch or what? Just tell Joe. Can you stay?"

"Yes," said Roark, incredulously. "I can work all night."

"Fine! Splendid! that’s just what I’ve always needed--a Cameron man. I’ve got

every other kind. Oh, yes, what did they pay you at Francon’s?"

"Sixty-five."

"Well, I can’t splurge like Guy the Epicure. Fifty’s tops. Okay? Fine. Go right

in. I’ll have Billings explain about the store to you. I want something modern.

Understand? Modern, violent, crazy, to knock their eye out. Don’t restrain

yourself. Go the limit. Pull any stunt you can think of, the goofier the better.

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Come on!"

John Erik Snyte shot to his feet, flung a door open into a huge drafting room,

flew in, skidded against a table, stopped, and said to a stout man with a grim

moon-face: "Billings--Roark. He’s our modernist. Give him the Benton store. Get

him some instruments. Leave him your keys and show him what to lock up tonight.

Start him as of this morning. Fifty. What time was my appointment with Dolson

Brothers? I’m late already. So long, I won’t be back tonight."

He skidded out, slamming the door. Billings evinced no surprise. He looked at

Roark as if Roark had always been there. He spoke impassively, in a weary drawl.

Within twenty minutes he left Roark at a drafting table with paper, pencils,

instruments, a set of plans and photographs of the department store, a set of

charts and a long list of instructions.

Roark looked at the clean white sheet before him, his fist closed tightly about

the thin stem of a pencil. He put the pencil down, and picked it up again, his

thumb running softly up and down the smooth shaft; he saw that the pencil was

trembling. He put it down quickly, and he felt anger at himself for the weakness

of allowing this job to mean so much to him, for the sudden knowledge of what

the months of idleness behind him had really meant. His fingertips were pressed

to the paper, as if the paper held them, as a surface charged with electricity

will hold the flesh of a man who has brushed against it, hold and hurt. He tore

his fingers off the paper. Then he went to work....

John Erik Snyte was fifty years old; he wore an expression of quizzical

amusement, shrewd and unwholesome, as if he shared with each man he contemplated

a lewd secret which he would not mention because it was so obvious to them both.

He was a prominent architect; his expression did not change when he spoke of

this fact. He considered Guy Francon an impractical idealist; he was not

restrained by an Classic dogma; he was much more skillful and liberal: he built

anything. He had no distaste for modern architecture and built cheerfully, when

a rare client asked for it, bare boxes with flat roofs, which he called

progressive; he built Roman mansions which he called fastidious; he built Gothic

churches which he called spiritual. He saw no difference among any of them. He

never became angry, except when somebody called him eclectic.

He had a system of his own. He employed five designers of various types and he

staged a contest among them on each commission he received. He chose the winning

design and improved it with bits of the four others. "Six minds," he said, "are

better than one."

When Roark saw the final drawing of the Benton Department Store, he understood

why Snyte had not been afraid to hire him. He recognized his own planes of

space, his windows, his system of circulation; he saw, added to it, Corinthian

capitals, Gothic vaulting, Colonial chandeliers and incredible moldings, vaguely

Moorish. The drawing was done in water-color, with miraculous delicacy, mounted

on cardboard, covered with a veil of tissue paper. The men in the drafting room

were not allowed to look at it, except from a safe distance; all hands had to be

washed, all cigarettes discarded. John Erik Snyte attached a great importance to

the proper appearance of a drawing for submission to clients, and kept a young

Chinese student of architecture employed solely upon the execution of these

masterpieces.

Roark knew what to expect of his job. He would never see his work erected, only

pieces of it, which he preferred not to see; but he would be free to design as

he wished and he would have the experience of solving actual problems. It was

less than he wanted and more than he could expect. He accepted it at that. He

met his fellow designers, the four other contestants, and learned that they were

85

unofficially nicknamed in the drafting room as "Classic,"

"Gothic,"

"Renaissance" and "Miscellaneous." He winced a little when he was addressed as

"Hey, Modernistic."

#

The strike of the building-trades unions infuriated Guy Francon. The strike had

started against the contractors who were erecting the Noyes-Belmont Hotel, and

had spread to all the new structures of the city. It had been mentioned in the

press that the architects of the Noyes-Belmont were the firm of Francon & Heyer.

Most of the press helped the fight along, urging the contractors not to

surrender. The loudest attacks against the strikers came from the powerful

papers of the great Wynand chain.

"We have always stood," said the Wynand editorials, "for the rights of the

common man against the yellow sharks of privilege, but we cannot give our

support to the destruction of law and order." It had never been discovered

whether the Wynand papers led the public or the public led the Wynand papers; it

was known only that the two kept remarkably in step. It was not known to anyone,

however, save to Guy Francon and a very few others, that Gail Wynand owned the

corporation which owned the corporation which owned the Noyes-Belmont Hotel.

This added greatly to Francon’s discomfort. Gail Wynand’s real-estate operations

were rumored to be vaster than his journalistic empire. It was the first chance

Francon had ever had at a Wynand commission and he grasped it avidly, thinking

of the possibilities which it could open. He and Keating had put their best

efforts into designing the most ornate of all Rococo palaces for future patrons

who could pay twenty-five dollars per day per room and who were fond of plaster

flowers, marble cupids and open elevator cages of bronze lace. The strike had

shattered the future possibilities; Francon could not be blamed for it, but one

could never tell whom Gail Wynand would blame and for what reason. The

unpredictable, unaccountable shifts of Wynand’s favor were famous, and it was

well known that few architects he employed once were ever employed by him again.

Francon’s sullen mood led him to the unprecedented breach of snapping over

nothing in particular at the one person who had always been immune from

it--Peter Keating. Keating shrugged, and turned his back to him in silent

insolence. Then Keating wandered aimlessly through the halls, snarling at young

draftsmen without provocation. He bumped into Lucius N. Heyer in a doorway and

snapped: "Look where you’re going!" Heyer stared after him, bewildered,

blinking.

There was little to do in the office, nothing to say and everyone to avoid.

Keating left early and walked home through a cold December twilight.

At home, he cursed aloud the thick smell of paint from the overheated radiators.

He cursed the chill, when his mother opened a window. He could find no reason

for his restlessness, unless it was the sudden inactivity that left him alone.

He could not bear to be left alone.

He snatched up the telephone receiver and called Catherine Halsey. The sound of

her clear voice was like a hand pressed soothingly against his hot forehead. He

said: "Oh, nothing important, dear, I just wondered if you’d be home tonight. I

thought I’d drop in after dinner."

"Of course, Peter. I’ll be home."

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"Swell. About eight-thirty?"

"Yes...Oh, Peter, have you heard about Uncle Ellsworth?"

"Yes, God damn it, I’ve heard about your Uncle Ellsworth!...I’m sorry,

Katie...Forgive me, darling, I didn’t mean to be rude, but I’ve been hearing

about your uncle all day long. I know, it’s wonderful and all that, only look,

we’re not going to talk about him again tonight!"

"No, of course not. I’m sorry. I understand. I’ll be waiting for you."

"So long, Katie."

He had heard the latest story about Ellsworth Toohey, but he did not want to

think of it because it brought him back to the annoying subject of the strike.

Six months ago, on the wave of his success with Sermons in Stone, Ellsworth

Toohey had been signed to write "One Small Voice," a daily syndicated column for

the Wynand papers. It appeared in the Banner and had started as a department of

art criticism, but grown into an informal tribune from which Ellsworth M. Toohey

pronounced verdicts on art, literature, New York restaurants, international

crises and sociology--mainly sociology. It had been a great success. But the

building strike had placed Ellsworth M. Toohey in a difficult position. He made

no secret of his sympathy with the strikers, but he had said nothing in his

column, for no one could say what he pleased on the papers owned by Gail Wynand

save Gail Wynand. However, a mass meeting of strike sympathizers had been called

for this evening. Many famous men were to speak, Ellsworth Toohey among them. At

least, Toohey’s name had been announced.

The event caused a great deal of curious speculation and bets were made on

whether Toohey would dare to appear. "He will," Keating had heard a draftsman

insist vehemently, "he’ll sacrifice himself. He’s that kind. He’s the only

honest man in print."

"He won’t," another had said. "Do you realize what it means to pull a stunt like

that on Wynand? Once Wynand gets it in for a man, he’ll break the guy for sure

as hell’s fire. Nobody knows when he’ll do it or how he’ll do it, but he’ll do

it, and nobody’ll prove a thing on him, and you’re done for once you get Wynand

after you." Keating did not care about the issue one way or another, and the

whole matter annoyed him.

He ate his dinner, that evening, in grim silence and when Mrs. Keating began,

with an "Oh, by the way..." to lead the conversation in a direction he

recognized, he snapped: "You’re not going to talk about Catherine. Keep still."

Mrs. Keating said nothing further and concentrated on forcing more food on his

plate.

He took a taxi to Greenwich Village. He hurried up the stairs. He jerked at the

bell. He waited. There was no answer. He stood, leaning against the wall,