第 20 页

ringing, for a long time. Catherine wouldn’t be out when she knew he was coming;

she couldn’t be. He walked incredulously down the stairs, out to the street, and

looked up at the windows of her apartment. The windows were dark.

He stood, looking up at the windows as at a tremendous betrayal. Then came a

sick feeling of loneliness, as if he were homeless in a great city; for the

moment, he forgot his own address or its existence. Then he thought of the

meeting, the great mass meeting where her uncle was publicly to make a martyr of

himself tonight. That’s where she went, he thought, the damn little fool! He

said aloud: "To hell with her!"...And he was walking rapidly in the direction of

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the meeting hall.

There was one naked bulb of light over the square frame of the hall’s entrance,

a small, blue-white lump glowing ominously, too cold and too bright. It leaped

out of the dark street, lighting one thin trickle of rain from some ledge above,

a glistening needle of glass, so thin and smooth that Keating thought crazily of

stories where men had been killed by being pierced with an icicle. A few curious

loafers stood indifferently in the rain around the entrance, and a few

policemen. The door was open. The dim lobby was crowded with people who could

not get into the packed hall, they were listening to a loud-speaker installed

there for the occasion. At the door three vague shadows were handing out

pamphlets to passers-by. One of the shadows was a consumptive, unshaved young

man with a long, bare neck; the other was a trim youth with a fur collar on an

expensive coat; the third was Catherine Halsey.

She stood in the rain, slumped, her stomach jutting forward in weariness, her

nose shiny, her eyes bright with excitement. Keating stopped, staring at her.

Her hand shot toward him mechanically with a pamphlet, then she raised her eyes

and saw him. She smiled without astonishment and said happily:

"Why, Peter! How sweet of you to come here!"

"Katie..." He choked a little. "Katie, what the hell..."

"But I had to, Peter." Her voice had no trace of apology. "You don’t understand,

but I..."

"Get out of the rain. Get inside."

"But I can’t! I have to..."

"Get out of the rain at least, you fool!" He pushed her roughly through the

door, into a corner of the lobby.

"Peter darling, you’re not angry, are you? You see, it was like this: I didn’t

think Uncle would let me come here tonight, but at the last minute he said I

could if I wanted to, and that I could help with the pamphlets. I knew you’d

understand, and I left you a note on the living room table, explaining, and..."

"You left me a note? Inside?"

"Yes...Oh...Oh, dear me, I never thought of that, you couldn’t get in of course,

how silly of me, but I was in such a rush! No, you’re not going to be angry, you

can’t! Don’t you see what this means to him? Don’t you know what he’s

sacrificing by coming here? And I knew he would. I told them so, those people

who said not a chance, it’ll be the end of him--and it might be, but he doesn’t

care. That’s what he’s like. I’m frightened and I’m terribly happy, because what

he’s done--it makes me believe in all human beings. But I’m frightened, because

you see, Wynand will..."

"Keep still! I know it all. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to hear about your

uncle or Wynand or the damn strike. Let’s get out of here."

"Oh, no, Peter! We can’t! I want to hear him and..."

"Shut up over there!" someone hissed at them from the crowd.

"We’re missing it all," she whispered. "That’s Austen Heller speaking. Don’t you

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want to hear Austen Heller?"

Keating looked up at the loud-speaker with a certain respect, which he felt for

all famous names. He had not read much of Austen Heller, but he knew that Heller

was the star columnist of the Chronicle, a brilliant, independent newspaper,

arch-enemy of the Wynand publications; that Heller came from an old,

distinguished family and had graduated from Oxford; that he had started as a

literary critic and ended by becoming a quiet fiend devoted to the destruction

of all forms of compulsion, private or public, in heaven or on earth; that he

had been cursed by preachers, bankers, club-women and labor organizers; that he

had better manners than the social elite whom he usually mocked, and a tougher

constitution than the laborers whom he usually defended; that he could discuss

the latest play on Broadway, medieval poetry or international finance; that he

never donated to charity, but spent more of his own money than he could afford,

on defending political prisoners anywhere.

The voice coming from the loud-speaker was dry, precise, with the faint trace of

a British accent.

"...and we must consider," Austen Heller was saying unemotionally, "that

since--unfortunately--we are forced to live together, the most important thing

for us to remember is that the only way in which we can have any law at all is

to have as little of it as possible. I see no ethical standard to which to

measure the whole unethical conception of a State, except in the amount of time,

of thought, of money, of effort and of obedience, which a society extorts from

its every member. Its value and its civilization are in inverse ratio to that

extortion. There is no conceivable law by which a man can be forced to work on

any terms except those he chooses to set. There is no conceivable law to prevent

him from setting them--just as there is none to force his employer to accept

them. The freedom to agree or disagree is the foundation of our kind of

society--and the freedom to strike is a part of it. I am mentioning this as a

reminder to a certain Petronius from Hell’s Kitchen, an exquisite bastard who

has been rather noisy lately about telling us that this strike represents a

destruction of law and order."

The loud-speaker coughed out a high, shrill sound of approval and a clatter of

applause. There were gasps among the people in the lobby. Catherine grasped

Keating’s arm. "Oh, Peter!" she whispered. "He means Wynand! Wynand was born in

Hell’s Kitchen. He can afford to say that, but Wynand will take it out on Uncle

Ellsworth!"

Keating could not listen to the rest of Heller’s speech, because his head was

swimming in so violent an ache that the sounds hurt his eyes and he had to keep

his eyelids shut tightly. He leaned against the wall.

He opened his eyes with a jerk, when he became aware of the peculiar silence

around him. He had not noticed the end of Heller’s speech. He saw the people in

the lobby standing in tense, solemn expectation, and the blank rasping of the

loud-speaker pulled every glance into its dark funnel. Then a voice came through

the silence, loudly and slowly:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great honor of presenting to you now Mr.

Ellsworth Monkton Toohey!"

Well, thought Keating, Bennett’s won his six bits down at the office. There were

a few seconds of silence. Then the thing which happened hit Keating on the back

of the head; it was not a sound nor a blow, it was something that ripped time

apart, that cut the moment from the normal one preceding it. He knew only the

shock, at first; a distinct, conscious second was gone before he realized what

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it was and that it was applause. It was such a crash of applause that he waited

for the loud-speaker to explode; it went on and on and on, pressing against the

walls of the lobby, and he thought he could feel the walls buckling out to the

street.

The people around him were cheering. Catherine stood, her lips parted, and he

felt certain that she was not breathing at all.

It was a long time before silence came suddenly, as abrupt and shocking as the

roar; the loud-speaker died, choking on a high note. Those in the lobby stood

still. Then came the voice.

"My friends," it said, simply and solemnly. "My brothers," it added softly,

involuntarily, both full of emotion and smiling apologetically at the emotion.

"I am more touched by this reception than I should allow myself to be. I hope I

shall be forgiven for a trace of the vain child which is in all of us. But I

realize--and in that spirit I accept it--that this tribute was paid not to my

person, but to a principle which chance has granted me to represent in all

humility tonight."

It was not a voice, it was a miracle. It unrolled as a velvet banner. It spoke

English words, but the resonant clarity of each syllable made it sound like a

new language spoken for the first time. It was the voice of a giant.

Keating stood, his mouth open. He did not hear what the voice was saying. He

heard the beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the

meaning; he could accept anything, he would be led blindly anywhere.

"...and so, my friends," the voice was saying, "the lesson to be learned from

our tragic struggle is the lesson of unity. We shall unite or we shall be

defeated. Our will--the will of the disinherited, the forgotten, the

oppressed--shall weld us into a solid bulwark, with a common faith and a common

goal. This is the time for every man to renounce the thoughts of his petty

little problems, of gain, of comfort, of self-gratification. This is the time to

merge his self in a great current, in the rising tide which is approaching to

sweep us all, willing or unwilling, into the future. History, my friends, does

not ask questions or acquiescence. It is irrevocable, as the voice of the masses

that determine it. Let us listen to the call. Let us organize, my brothers. Let

us organize. Let us organize. Let us organize."

Keating looked at Catherine. There was no Catherine; there was only a white face

dissolving in the sounds of the loudspeaker. It was not that she heard her

uncle; Keating could feel no jealousy of him; he wished he could. It was not

affection. It was something cold and impersonal that left her empty, her will

surrendered and no human will holding hers, but a nameless thing in which she

was being swallowed.

"Let’s get out of here," he whispered. His voice was savage. He was afraid.

She turned to him, as if she were emerging from unconsciousness. He knew that

she was trying to recognize him and everything he implied. She whispered: "Yes.

Let’s get out." They walked through the streets, through the rain, without

direction. It was cold, but they went on, to move, to feel the movement, to know

the sensation of their own muscles moving.

"We’re getting drenched," Keating said at last, as bluntly and naturally as he

could; their silence frightened him; it proved that they both knew the same

thing and that the thing had been real. "Let’s find some place where we can have

a drink."

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"Yes," said Catherine, "let’s. It’s so cold....Isn’t it stupid of me? Now I’ve

missed Uncle’s speech and I wanted so much to hear it." It was all right. She

had mentioned it. She had mentioned it quite naturally, with a healthy amount of

proper regret. The thing was gone. "But I wanted to be with you, Peter...I want

to be with you always." The thing gave a last jerk, not in the meaning of what

she said, but in the reason that had prompted her to say it. Then it was gone,

and Keating smiled; his fingers sought her bare wrist between her sleeve and

glove, and her skin was warm against his....

Many days later Keating heard the story that was being told all over town. It

was said that on the day after the mass meeting Gail Wynand had given Ellsworth

Toohey a raise in salary. Toohey had been furious and had tried to refuse it.

"You cannot bribe me, Mr. Wynand," he said. "I’m not bribing you," Wynand had

answered; "don’t flatter yourself."

#

When the strike was settled, interrupted construction went forward with a spurt

throughout the city, and Keating found himself spending days and nights at work,

with new commissions pouring into the office. Francon smiled happily at

everybody and gave a small party for his staff, to erase the memory of anything

he might have said. The palatial residence of Mr. and Mrs. Dale Ainsworth on

Riverside Drive, a pet project of Keating’s, done in Late Renaissance and gray

granite, was complete at last. Mr. and Mrs. Dale Ainsworth gave a formal

reception as a housewarming, to which Guy Francon and Peter Keating were

invited, but Lucius N. Heyer was ignored, quite accidentally, as always happened

to him of late. Francon enjoyed the reception, because every square foot of

granite in the house reminded him of the stupendous payment received by a

certain granite quarry in Connecticut. Keating enjoyed the reception, because

the stately Mrs. Ainsworth said to him with a disarming smile: "But I was

certain that you were Mr. Francon’s partner! It’s Francon and Heyer, of course!

How perfectly careless of me! All I can offer by way of excuse is that if you

aren’t his partner, one would certainly say you were entitled to be!" Life in

the office rolled on smoothly, in one of those periods when everything seemed to

go well.

Keating was astonished, therefore, one morning shortly after the Ainsworth

reception, to see Francon arrive at the office with a countenance of nervous

irritation. "Oh, nothing," he waved his hand at Keating impatiently, "nothing at

all." In the drafting room Keating noticed three draftsmen, their heads close

together, bent over a section of the New York Banner, reading with a guilty kind

of avid interest; he heard an unpleasant chuckle from one of them. When they saw

him the paper disappeared, too quickly. He had no time to inquire into this; a

contractor’s job runner was waiting for him in his office, also a stack of mail

and drawings to be approved.

He had forgotten the incident three hours later in a rush of appointments. He