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it before he knew the reason, but he knew the reason almost in the same instant:

there was someone whom he could ask. He did not want to think of that name; he

would not go to him; the anger rose to his face and he felt the hot, tight

patches under his eyes. He knew that he would go.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. He was not going anywhere. When the time

came, he slipped his drawings into a folder and went to Roark’s office.

He found Roark alone, sitting at the desk in the large room that bore no signs

of activity.

"Hello, Howard!" he said brightly. "How are you? I’m not interrupting anything,

am I?"

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"Hello, Peter," said Roark. "You aren’t."

"Not awfully busy, are you?"

"No."

"Mind if I sit down for a few minutes?"

"Sit down."

"Well, Howard, you’ve been doing great work. I’ve seen the Fargo Store. It’s

splendid. My congratulations."

"Thank you."

"You’ve been forging straight ahead, haven’t you? Had three commissions

already?"

"Four."

"Oh, yes, of course, four. Pretty good. I hear you’ve been having a little

trouble with the Sanborns."

"I have."

"Well, it’s not all smooth sailing, not all of it, you know. No new commissions

since? Nothing?"

"No. Nothing."

"Well, it will come. I’ve always said that architects don’t have to cut one

another’s throat, there’s plenty of work for all of us, we must develop a spirit

of professional unity and co-operation. For instance, take that

competition--have you sent your entry in already?"

"What competition?"

"Why, the competition. The Cosmo-Slotnick competition."

"I’m not sending any entry."

"You’re...not? Not at all?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I don’t enter competitions."

"Why, for heaven’s sake?"

"Come on, Peter. You didn’t come here to discuss that."

"As a matter of fact I did think I’d show you my own entry, you understand I’m

not asking you to help me, I just want your reaction, just a general opinion."

He hastened to open the folder.

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Roark studied the sketches. Keating snapped: "Well? Is it all right?"

"No. It’s rotten. And you know it."

Then, for hours, while Keating watched and the sky darkened and lights flared up

in the windows of the city, Roark talked, explained, slashed lines through the

plans, untangled the labyrinth of the theater’s exits out windows, unraveled

halls, smashed useless arches, straightened stairways. Keating stammered once:

"Jesus, Howard! Why don’t you enter the competition, if you can do it like

this?" Roark answered: "Because I can’t. I couldn’t if I tried. I dry up. I go

blank. I can’t give them what they want. But I can straighten someone else’s

damn mess when I see it:"

It was morning when he pushed the plans aside. Keating whispered:

"And the elevation?"

"Oh, to hell with your elevation! I don’t want to look at your damn Renaissance

elevations!" But he looked. He could not prevent his hand from cutting lines

across the perspective. "All right, damn you, give them good Renaissance if you

must and if there is such a thing! Only I can’t do that for you. Figure it out

yourself. Something like this. Simpler. Peter, simpler, more direct, as honest

as you can make of a dishonest thing. Now go home and try to work out something

on this order."

Keating went home. He copied Roark’s plans. He worked out Roark’s hasty sketch

of the elevation into a neat, finished perspective. Then the drawings were

mailed, properly addressed to:

#

"The Most Beautiful Building in the World" Competition

Cosmo-Slotnick Pictures, Inc.

New York City.

#

The envelope, accompanying the entry, contained the names: "Francon & Heyer,

architects, Peter Keating, associated designer."

#

Through the months of that winter Roark found no other chances, no offers, no

prospects of commissions. He sat at his desk and forgot, at times, to turn on

the lights in the early dusk. It was as if the heavy immobility of all the hours

that had flowed through the office, of its door, of its air were beginning to

seep into his muscles. He would rise and fling a book at the wall, to feel his

arm move, to hear the burst of sound. He smiled, amused, picked up the book, and

laid it neatly back on the desk. He turned on the desk lamp. Then he stopped,

before he had withdrawn his hands from the cone of light under the lamp, and he

looked at his hands; he spread his fingers out slowly. Then he remembered what

Cameron had said to him long ago. He jerked his hands away. He reached for his

coat, turned the lights off, locked the door and went home.

As spring approached he knew that his money would not last much longer. He paid

the rent on his office promptly on the first of each month. He wanted the

feeling of thirty days ahead, during which he would still own the office. He

entered it calmly each morning. He found only that he did not want to look at

the calendar when it began to grow dark and he knew that another day of the

thirty had gone. When he noticed this, he made himself look at the calendar. It

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was a race he was running now, a race between his rent money and...he did not

know the name of the other contestant. Perhaps it was every man whom he passed

on the street.

When he went up to his office, the elevator operators looked at him in a queer,

lazy, curious sort of way; when he spoke, they answered, not insolently, but in

an indifferent drawl that seemed to say it would become insolent in a moment.

They did not know what he was doing or why; they knew only that he was a man to

whom no clients ever came. He attended, because Austen Heller asked him to

attend, the few parties Heller gave occasionally; he was asked by guests: "Oh,

you’re an architect? You’ll forgive me, I haven’t kept up with

architecture--what have you built?" When he answered, he heard them say: "Oh,

yes, indeed," and he saw the conscious politeness of their manner tell him that

he was an architect by presumption. They had never seen his buildings; they did

not know whether his buildings were good or worthless; they knew only that they

had never heard of these buildings.

It was a war in which he was invited to fight nothing, yet he was pushed forward

to fight, he had to fight, he had no choice--and no adversary.

He passed by buildings under construction. He stopped to look at the steel

cages. He felt at times as if the beams and girders were shaping themselves not

into a house, but into a barricade to stop him; and the few steps on the

sidewalk that separated him from the wooden fence enclosing the construction

were the steps he would never be able to take. It was pain, but it was a

blunted, unpenetrating pain. It’s true, he would tell himself; it’s not, his

body would answer, the strange, untouchable healthiness of his body.

The Fargo Store had opened. But one building could not save a neighborhood;

Fargo’s competitors had been right, the tide had turned, was flowing uptown, his

customers were deserting him. Remarks were made openly on the decline of John

Fargo, who had topped his poor business judgment by an investment in a

preposterous kind of a building; which proved, it was stated, that the public

would not accept these architectural innovations. It was not stated that the

store was the cleanest and brightest in the city; that the skill of its plan

made its operation easier than had ever been possible; that the neighborhood had

been doomed before its erection. The building took the blame.

Athelstan Beasely, the wit of the architectural profession, the court jester of

the A.G.A., who never seemed to be building anything, but organized all the

charity balls, wrote in his column entitled "Quips and Quirks" in the A.G.A.

Bulletin:

"Well, lads and lassies, here’s a fairy tale with a moral: seems there was, once

upon a time, a little boy with hair the color of a Hallowe’en pumpkin, who

thought that he was better than all you common boys and girls. So to prove it,

he up and built a house, which is a very nice house, except that nobody can live

in it, and a store, which is a very lovely store, except that it’s going

bankrupt. He also erected a very eminent structure, to wit: a dogcart on a mud

road. This last is reported to be doing very well indeed, which, perhaps, is the

right field of endeavor for that little boy."

At the end of March Roark read in the papers about Roger Enright. Roger Enright

possessed millions, an oil concern and no sense of restraint. This made his name

appear in the papers frequently. He aroused a half-admiring, half-derisive awe

by the incoherent variety of his sudden ventures. The latest was a project for a

new type of residential development--an apartment building, with each unit

complete and isolated like an expensive private home. It was to be known as the

Enright House. Enright had declared that he did not want it to look like

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anything anywhere else. He had approached and rejected several of the best

architects in town.

Roark felt as if this newspaper item were a personal invitation; the kind of

chance created expressly for him. For the first time he attempted to go after a

commission. He requested an interview with Roger Enright. He got an interview

with a secretary. The secretary, a young man who looked bored, asked him several

questions about his experience; he asked them slowly, as if it required an

effort to decide just what it would be appropriate to ask under the

circumstances, since the answers would make no difference whatever; he glanced

at some photographs of Roark’s buildings, and declared that Mr. Enright would

not be interested.

In the first week of April, when Roark had paid his last rental for one more

month at the office, he was asked to submit drawings for the new building of the

Manhattan Bank Company. He was asked by Mr. Weidler, a member of the board of

directors, who was a friend of young Richard Sanborn. Weidler told him: "I’ve

had a stiff fight, Mr. Roark, but I think I’ve won. I’ve taken them personally

through the Sanborn house, and Dick and I explained a few things. However, the

board must see the drawings before they make a decision. So it’s not quite

certain as yet, I must tell you frankly, but it’s almost certain. They’ve turned

down two other architects. They’re very much interested in you. Go ahead. Good

luck!"

Henry Cameron had had a relapse and the doctor warned his sister that no

recovery could be expected. She did not believe it. She felt a new hope, because

she saw that Cameron, lying still in bed, looked serene and--almost happy, a

word she had never found it possible to associate with her brother.

But she was frightened, one evening, when he said suddenly: "Call Howard. Ask

him to come here." In the three years since his retirement he had never called

for Roark, he had merely waited for Roark’s visits.

Roark arrived within an hour. He sat by the side of Cameron’s bed, and Cameron

talked to him as usual. He did not mention the special invitation and did not

explain. The night was warm and the window of Cameron’s bedroom stood open to

the dark garden. When he noticed, in a pause between sentences, the silence of

the trees outside, the unmoving silence of late hours, Cameron called his sister

and said: "Fix the couch in the living room for Howard. He’s staying here."

Roark looked at him and understood. Roark inclined his head in agreement; he

could acknowledge what Cameron had just declared to him only by a quiet glance

as solemn as Cameron’s.

Roark remained at the house for three days. No reference was made to his staying

here--nor to how long he would have to stay. His presence was accepted as a

natural fact requiring no comment. Miss Cameron understood--and knew that she

must say nothing. She moved about silently, with the meek courage of

resignation.

Cameron did not want Roark’s continuous presence in his room. He would say: "Go

out, take a walk through the garden, Howard. It’s beautiful, the grass is coming

up." He would lie in bed and watch, with contentment, through the open window,

Roark’s figure moving among the bare trees that stood against a pale blue sky.

He asked only that Roark eat his meals with him. Miss Cameron would put a tray

on Cameron’s knees, and serve Roark’s meal on a small table by the bed. Cameron

seemed to take pleasure in what he had never had nor sought: a sense of warmth

in performing a daily routine, the sense of family.

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On the evening of the third day Cameron lay back on his pillow, talking as

usual, but the words came slowly and he did not move his head. Roark listened

and concentrated on not showing that he knew what went on in the terrible pauses

between Cameron’s words. The words sounded natural, and the strain they cost was

to remain Cameron’s last secret, as he wished.

Cameron spoke about the future of building materials. "Watch the light metals

industry, Howard....In a few...years...you’ll see them do some astounding

things....Watch the plastics, there’s a whole new era...coming from

that....You’ll find new tools, new means, new forms....You’ll have to show...the

damn fools...what wealth the human brain has made for them...what

possibilities....Last week I read about a new kind of composition tile...and

I’ve thought of a way to use it where nothing...else would do...take, for

instance, a small house...about five thousand dollars..."

After a while he stopped and remained silent, his eyes closed. Then Roark heard

him whisper suddenly:

"Gail Wynand..."

Roark leaned closer to him, bewildered.

"I don’t...hate anybody any more...only Gail Wynand...No, I’ve never laid eyes