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"Gone?"

"Quit. Left for New York, I think. Very suddenly too."

"When? A week ago?"

"Why, no. Just yesterday."

"Who was..."

Then she stopped. She was going to ask: "Who was he?" She asked instead:

"Who was working here so late last night? I heard blasting."

"That was for a special order for Mr. Francon’s building. The Cosmo-Slotnick

Building, you know. A rash job."

"Yes...I see...."

"Sorry it disturbed you, Miss Francon."

"Oh, not at all...."

She walked away. She would not ask for his name. It was her last chance of

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freedom.

She walked swiftly, easily, in sudden relief. She wondered why she had never

noticed that she did not know his name and why she had never asked him. Perhaps

because she had known everything she had to know about him from that first

glance. She thought, one could not find some nameless worker in the city of New

York. She was safe. If she knew his name, she would be on her way to New York

now.

The future was simple. She had nothing to do except never to ask for his name.

She had a reprieve. She had a chance to fight. She would break it--or it would

break her. If it did, she would ask for his name.

3.

WHEN Peter Keating entered the office, the opening of the door sounded like a

single high blast on a trumpet. The door flew forward as if it had opened of

itself to the approach of a man before whom all doors were to open in such

manner.

His day in the office began with the newspapers. There was a neat pile of them

waiting, stacked on his desk by his secretary. He liked to see what new mentions

appeared in print about the progress of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building or the firm

of Francon & Keating.

There were no mentions in the papers this morning, and Keating frowned. He saw,

however, a story about Ellsworth M. Toohey. It was a startling story. Thomas L.

Foster, noted philanthropist, had died and had left, among larger bequests, the

modest sum of one hundred thousand dollars to Ellsworth M. Toohey, "my friend

and spiritual guide--in appreciation of his noble mind and true devotion to

humanity." Ellsworth M. Toohey had accepted the legacy and had turned it over,

intact, to the "Workshop of Social Study," a progressive institute of learning

where he held the post of lecturer on "Art as a Social Symptom." He had given

the simple explanation that he "did not believe in the institution of private

inheritance." He had refused all further comment. "No, my friends," he had said,

"not about this." And had added, with his charming knack for destroying the

earnestness of his own moment: "I like to indulge in the luxury of commenting

solely upon interesting subjects. I do not consider myself one of these."

Peter Keating read the story. And because he knew that it was an action which he

would never have committed, he admired it tremendously.

Then he thought, with a familiar twinge of annoyance, that he had not been able

to meet Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey had left on a lecture tour shortly after the

award in the Cosmo-Slotnick competition, and the brilliant gatherings Keating

had attended ever since were made empty by the absence of the one man he’d been

most eager to meet. No mention of Keating’s name had appeared in Toohey’s

column. Keating turned hopefully, as he did each morning, to "One Small Voice"

in the Banner. But "One Small Voice" was subtitled "Songs and Things" today, and

was devoted to proving the superiority of folk songs over any other forms of

musical art, and of choral singing over any other manner of musical rendition.

Keating dropped the Banner. He got up and paced viciously across the office,

because he had to turn now to a disturbing problem. He had been postponing it

for several mornings. It was the matter of choosing a sculptor for the

Cosmo-Slotnick Building. Months ago the commission for the giant statue of

"Industry" to stand in the main lobby of the building had been

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awarded--tentatively--to Steven Mallory. The award had puzzled Keating, but it

had been made by Mr. Slotnick, so Keating had approved of it. He had interviewed

Mallory and said: "...in recognition of your unusual ability...of course you

have no name, but you will have, after a commission like this...they don’t come

every day like this building of mine."

He had not liked Mallory. Mallory’s eyes were like black holes left after a fire

not quite put out, and Mallory had not smiled once. He was twenty-four years

old, had had one show of his work, but not many commissions. His work was

strange and too violent. Keating remembered that Ellsworth Toohey had said once,

long ago, in "One Small Voice."

"Mr. Mallory’s human figures would have been very fine were it not for the

hypothesis that God created the world and the human form. Had Mr. Mallory been

entrusted with the job, he might, perhaps, have done better than the Almighty,

if we are to judge by what he passes as human bodies in stone. Or would he?"

Keating had been baffled by Mr. Slotnick’s choice, until he heard that Dimples

Williams had once lived in the same Greenwich Village tenement with Steven

Mallory, and Mr. Slotnick could refuse nothing to Dimples Williams at the

moment. Mallory had been hired, had worked and had submitted a model of his

statue of "Industry." When he saw it, Keating knew that the statue would look

like a raw gash, like a smear of fire in the neat elegance of his lobby. It was

a slender naked body of a man who looked as if he could break through the steel

plate of a battleship and through any barrier whatever. It stood like a

challenge. It left a strange stamp on one’s eyes. It made the people around it

seem smaller and sadder than usual. For the first time in his life, looking at

that statue, Keating thought he understood what was meant by the word "heroic."

He said nothing. But the model was sent on to Mr. Slotnick and many people said,

with indignation, what Keating had felt. Mr. Slotnick asked him to select

another sculptor and left the choice in his hands.

Keating flopped down in an armchair, leaned back and clicked his tongue against

his palate. He wondered whether he should give the commission to Bronson, the

sculptor who was a friend of Mrs. Shupe, wife of the president of Cosmo; or to

Palmer, who had been recommended by Mr. Huseby who was planning the erection of

a new five-million-dollar cosmetic factory. Keating discovered that he liked

this process of hesitation; he held the fate of two men and of many potential

others; their fate, their work, their hope, perhaps even the amount of food in

their stomachs. He could choose as he pleased, for any reason, without reasons;

he could flip a coin, he could count them off on the buttons of his vest. He was

a great man--by the grace of those who depended on him.

Then he noticed the envelope.

It lay on top of a pile of letters on his desk. It was a plain, thin, narrow

envelope, but it bore the small masthead of the Banner in one corner. He reached

for it hastily. It contained no letter; only a strip of proofs for tomorrow’s

Banner. He saw the familiar "One Small Voice" by Ellsworth M. Toohey, and under

it a single word as subtitle, in large, spaced letters, a single word, blatant

in its singleness, a salute by dint of omission:

#

"KEATING"

#

He dropped the paper strip and seized it again and read, choking upon great

unchewed hunks of sentences, the paper trembling in his hand, the skin on his

forehead drawing into tight pink spots. Toohey had written:

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#

"Greatness is an exaggeration, and like all exaggerations of dimension it

connotes at once the necessary corollary of emptiness. One thinks of an inflated

toy balloon, does one not? There are, however, occasions when we are forced to

acknowledge the promise of an approach--brilliantly close--to what we designate

loosely by the term of greatness. Such a promise is looming on our architectural

horizon in the person of a mere boy named Peter Keating.

"We have heard a great deal--and with justice--about the superb Cosmo-Slotnick

Building which he has designed. Let us glance, for once, beyond the building, at

the man whose personality is stamped upon it.

"There is no personality stamped upon that building--and in this, my friend,

lies the greatness of the personality. It is the greatness of a selfless young

spirit that assimilates all things and returns them to the world from which they

came, enriched by the gentle brilliance of its own talent. Thus a single man

comes to represent, not a lone freak, but the multitude of all men together, to

embody the reach of all aspirations in his own....

"...Those gifted with discrimination will be able to hear the message which

Peter Keating addresses to us in the shape of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, to

see that the three simple, massive ground floors are the solid bulk of our

working classes which support all of society; that the rows of identical windows

offering their panes to the sun are the souls of the common people, of the

countless anonymous ones alike in the uniformity of brotherhood, reaching for

the light; that the graceful pilasters rising from their firm base in the ground

floors and bursting into the gay effervescence of their Corinthian capitals, are

the flowers of Culture which blossom only when rooted in the rich soil of the

broad masses....

"...In answer to those who consider all critics as fiends devoted solely to the

destruction of sensitive talent, this column wishes to thank Peter Keating for

affording us the rare--oh, so rare!--opportunity to prove our delight in our

true mission, which is to discover young talent--when it is there to be

discovered. And if Pete Keating should chance to read these lines, we expect no

gratitude from him. The gratitude is ours."

#

It was when Keating began to read the article for the third time that he noticed

a few lines written in red pencil across the space by its title:

#

"Dear Peter Keating,

"Drop in to see me at my office one of these days. Would love to discover what

you look like.

"E.M.T."

#

He let the clipping flutter down to his desk, and he stood over it, running a

strand of hair between his fingers, in a kind of happy stupor. Then he whirled

around to his drawing of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, that hung on the wall

between a huge photograph of the Parthenon and one of the Louvre. He looked at

the pilasters of his building. He had never thought of them as Culture flowering

from out of the broad masses, but he decided that one could very well think that

and all the rest of the beautiful stuff.

Then he seized the telephone, he spoke to a high, flat voice which belonged to

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Ellsworth Toohey’s secretary, and he made an appointment to see Toohey at

four-thirty of the next afternoon.

In the hours that followed, his daily work assumed a new relish. It was as if

his usual activity had been only a bright, flat mural and had now become a noble

bas-relief, pushed forward, given a three-dimensional reality by the words of

Ellsworth Toohey.

Guy Francon descended from his office once in a while, for no ascertainable

purpose. The subtler shades of his shirts and socks matched the gray of his

temples. He stood smiling benevolently in silence. Keating flashed past him in

the drafting room and acknowledged his presence, not stopping, but slowing his

steps long enough to plant a crackling bit of newspaper into the folds of the

mauve handkerchief in Francon’s breast-pocket, with "Read that when you have

time, Guy." He added, his steps halfway across the next room: "Want to have

lunch with me today, Guy? Wait for me at the Plaza."

When he came back from lunch, Keating was stopped by a young draftsman who

asked, his voice high with excitement:

"Say, Mr. Keating, who’s it took a shot at Ellsworth Toohey?"

Keating managed to gasp out:

"Who is it did what?"

"Shot Mr. Toohey."

"Who?"

"That’s what I want to know, who."

"Shot...Ellsworth Toohey?"

"That’s what I saw in the paper in the restaurant a guy had. Didn’t have time to

get one."

"He’s...killed?"

"That’s what I don’t know. Saw only it said about a shot."

"If he’s dead, does that mean they won’t publish his column tomorrow?"

"Dunno. Why, Mr. Keating?"

"Go get me a paper."

"But I’ve got to..."

"Get me that paper, you damned idiot!"

The story was there, in the afternoon papers. A shot had been fired at Ellsworth

Toohey that morning, as he stepped out of his car in front of a radio station

where he was to deliver an address on "The Voiceless and the Undefended." The

shot had missed him. Ellsworth Toohey had remained calm and sane throughout. His

behavior had been theatrical only in too complete an absence of anything

theatrical. He had said: "We cannot keep a radio audience waiting," and had

hurried on upstairs to the microphone where, never mentioning the incident, he

delivered a half-hour’s speech from memory, as he always did. The assailant had

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said nothing when arrested.

Keating stared--his throat dry--at the name of the assailant. It was Steven

Mallory.

Only the inexplicable frightened Keating, particularly when the inexplicable

lay, not in tangible facts, but in that causeless feeling of dread within him.

There was nothing to concern him directly in what had happened, except his wish

that it had been someone else, anyone but Steven Mallory; and that he didn’t

know why he should wish this.

Steven Mallory had remained silent. He had given no explanation of his act. At