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Keating let a moment pass before he caught himself to answer hastily:

"Oh, I hope so, Mr. Toohey!"

"Really, Peter! I’m not as old as all that, am I? ’Ellsworth’ is the monument to

my parents’ peculiar taste in nomenclature."

"Yes...Ellsworth."

"That’s better. I really don’t mind the name, when compared to some of the

things I’ve been called privately--and publicly--these many years. Oh, well.

Flattering. When one makes enemies one knows that one’s dangerous where it’s

necessary to be dangerous. There are things that must be destroyed--or they’ll

destroy us. We’ll see a great deal of each other, Peter." The voice was smooth

and sure now, with the finality of a decision tested and reached, with the

certainty that never again would anything in Keating be a question mark to him.

"For instance, I’ve been thinking for some time of getting together a few young

architects--I know so many of them--just an informal little organization, to

exchange ideas, you know, to develop a spirit of co-operation, to follow a

common line of action for the common good of the profession if necessity arises.

Nothing as stuffy as the A.G.A. Just a youth group. Think you’d be interested?"

"Why, of course! And you’d be the chairman?"

"Oh dear, no. I’m never chairman of anything, Peter. I dislike titles. No, I

rather thought you’d make the right chairman for us, can’t think of anyone

better."

"Me?"

"You, Peter. Oh, well, it’s only a project--nothing definite--just an idea I’ve

been toying with in odd moments. We’ll talk about it some other time. There’s

something I’d like you to do--and that’s really one of the reasons why I wanted

to meet you,"

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"Oh, sure, Mr. Too--sure, Ellsworth. Anything I can do for you..."

"It’s not for me. Do you know Lois Cook?"

"Lois...who?"

"Cook. You don’t. But you will. That young woman is the greatest literary genius

since Goethe. You must read her, Peter. I don’t suggest that as a rule except to

the discriminating. She’s so much above the heads of the middle-class who love

the obvious. She’s planning to build a house. A little private residence on the

Bowery. Yes, on the Bowery. Just like Lois. She’s asked me to recommend an

architect. I’m certain that it will take a person like you to understand a

person like Lois. I’m going to give her your name--if you’re interested in what

is to be a small, though quite costly, residence."

"But of course! That’s...very kind of you, Ellsworth! You know, I thought when

you said...and when I read your note, that you wanted--well, some favor from me,

you know, a good turn for a good turn, and here you’re..."

"My dear Peter, how naive you are!"

"Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t have said that! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend

you, I..."

"I don’t mind. You must learn to know me better. Strange as it may sound, a

totally selfless interest in one’s fellow men is possible in this world, Peter."

Then they talked about Lois Cook and her three published works--"Novels? No,

Peter, not exactly novels....No, not collections of stories either...that’s just

it, just Lois Cook--a new form of literature entirely..."--about the fortune she

had inherited from a long line of successful tradesmen, and about the house she

planned to build.

It was only when Toohey had risen to escort Keating to the door--and Keating

noted how precariously erect he stood on his very small feet--that Toohey paused

suddenly to say:

"Incidentally, it seems to me as if I should remember some personal connection

between us, though for the life of me I can’t quite place...oh, yes, of course.

My niece. Little Catherine."

Keating felt his face tighten, and knew he must not allow this to be discussed,

but smiled awkwardly instead of protesting.

"I understand you’re engaged to her?"

"Yes."

"Charming," said Toohey. "Very charming. Should enjoy being your uncle. You love

her very much?"

"Yes," said Keating. "Very much."

The absence of stress in his voice made the answer solemn. It was, laid before

Toohey, the first bit of sincerity and of importance within Keating’s being.

"How pretty," said Toohey. "Young love. Spring and dawn and heaven and drugstore

chocolates at a dollar and a quarter a box. The prerogative of the gods and of

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the movies....Oh, I do approve, Peter. I think it’s lovely. You couldn’t have

made a better choice than Catherine. She’s just the kind for whom the world is

well lost--the world with all its problems and all its opportunities for

greatness--oh, yes, well lost because she’s innocent and sweet and pretty and

anemic."

"If you’re going to..." Keating began, but Toohey smiled with a luminous sort of

kindliness.

"Oh, Peter, of course I understand. And I approve. I’m a realist. Man has always

insisted on making an ass of himself. Oh, come now, we must never lose our sense

of humor. Nothing’s really sacred but a sense of humor. Still, I’ve always loved

the tale of Tristan and Isolde. It’s the most beautiful story ever told--next to

that of Mickey and Minnie Mouse."

4.

"...TOOTHBRUSH in the jaw toothbrush brush brush tooth jaw foam dome in the foam

Roman dome come home home in the jaw Rome dome tooth toothbrush toothpick

pickpocket socket rocket..."

Peter Keating squinted his eyes, his glance unfocused as for a great distance,

but put the book down. The book was thin and black, with scarlet letters

forming: Clouds and Shrouds by Lois Cook. The jacket said that it was a record

of Miss Cook’s travels around the world.

Keating leaned back with a sense of warmth and well-being. He liked this book.

It had made the routine of his Sunday morning breakfast a profound spiritual

experience; he was certain that it was profound, because he didn’t understand

it.

Peter Keating had never felt the need to formulate abstract convictions. But he

had a working substitute. "A thing is not high if one can reach it; it is not

great if one can reason about it; it is not deep if one can see its

bottom"--this had always been his credo, unstated and unquestioned. This spared

him any attempt to reach, reason or see; and it cast a nice reflection of scorn

on those who made the attempt. So he was able to enjoy the work of Lois Cook. He

felt uplifted by the knowledge of his own capacity to respond to the abstract,

the profound, the ideal. Toohey had said: "That’s just it, sound as sound, the

poetry of words as words, style as a revolt against style. But only the fines’

spirit can appreciate it, Peter." Keating thought he could talk of this book to

his friends, and if they did not understand he would know that he was superior

to them. He would not need to explain that superiority--that’s just it,

"superiority as superiority"--automatically denied to those who asked for

explanations. He loved the book.

He reached for another piece of toast. He saw, at the end of the table, left

there for him by his mother, the heavy pile of the Sunday paper. He picked it

up, feeling strong enough, in this moment, in the confidence of his secret

spiritual grandeur, to face the whole world contained in that pile. He pulled

out the rotogravure section. He stopped. He saw the reproduction of a drawing:

the Enright House by Howard Roark.

He did not need to see the caption or the brusque signature in the corner of the

sketch; he knew that no one else had conceived that house and he knew the manner

of drawing, serene and violent at once, the pencil lines like high-tension wires

on the paper, slender and innocent to see, but not to be touched. It was a

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structure on a broad space by the East River. He did not grasp it as a building,

at first glance, but as a rising mass of rock crystal. There was the same

severe, mathematical order holding together a free, fantastic growth; straight

lines and clean angles, space slashed with a knife, yet in a harmony of

formation as delicate as the work of a jeweler; an incredible variety of shapes,

each separate unit unrepeated, but leading inevitably to the next one and to the

whole; so that the future inhabitants were to have, not a square cage out of a

square pile of cages, but each a single house held to the other houses like a

single crystal to the side of a rock. Keating looked at the sketch. He had known

for a long time that Howard Roark had been chosen to build the Enright House. He

had seen a few mentions of Roark’s name in the papers; not much, all of it to be

summed up only as "some young architect chosen by Mr. Enright for some reason,

probably an interesting young architect." The caption under the drawing

announced that the construction of the project was to begin at once. Well,

thought Keating, and dropped the paper, so what? The paper fell beside the black

and scarlet book. He looked at both. He felt dimly as if Lois Cook were his

defense against Howard Roark. "What’s that, Petey?" his mother’s voice asked

behind him. He handed the paper to her over his shoulder. The paper fell past

him back to the table in a second. "Oh," shrugged Mrs. Keating. "Huh..." She

stood beside him. Her trim silk dress was fitted too tightly, revealing the

solid rigidity of her corset; a small pin glittered at her throat, small enough

to display ostentatiously that it was made of real diamonds. She was like the

new apartment into which they had moved: conspicuously expensive. The

apartment’s decoration had been Keating’s first professional job for himself. It

had been furnished in fresh, new mid-Victorian. It was conservative and stately.

Over the fireplace in the drawing room hung a large old painting of what was not

but looked like an illustrious ancestor.

"Petey sweetheart, I do hate to rush you on a Sunday morning, but isn’t it time

to dress up? I’ve got to run now and I’d hate you to forget the time and be

late, it’s so nice of Mr. Toohey asking you to his house!"

"Yes, Mother."

"Any famous guests coming too?"

"No. No guests. But there will be one other person there. Not famous." She

looked at him expectantly. He added: "Katie will be there."

The name seemed to have no effect on her whatever. A strange assurance had

coated her lately, like a layer of fat through which that particular question

could penetrate no longer.

"Just a family tea," he emphasized. "That’s what he said."

"Very nice of him. I’m sure Mr. Toohey is a very intelligent man."

"Yes, Mother."

He rose impatiently and went to his room.

#

It was Keating’s first visit to the distinguished residential hotel where

Catherine and her uncle had moved recently. He did not notice much about the

apartment, beyond remembering that it was simple, very clean and smartly modest,

that it contained a great number of books and very few pictures, but these

authentic and precious. One never remembered the apartment of Ellsworth Toohey,

only its host. The host, on this Sunday afternoon, wore a dark gray suit,

correct as a uniform, and bedroom slippers of black patent leather trimmed with

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red; the slippers mocked the severe elegance of the suit, yet completed the

elegance as an audacious anticlimax. He sat in a broad, low chair and his face

wore an expression of cautious gentleness, so cautious that Keating and

Catherine felt, at times, as if they were insignificant soap bubbles.

Keating did not like the way Catherine sat on the edge of a chair, hunched, her

legs drawn awkwardly together. He wished she would not wear the same suit for

the third season, but she did. She kept her eyes on one point somewhere in the

middle of the carpet. She seldom looked at Keating. She never looked at her

uncle. Keating found no trace of that joyous admiration with which she had

always spoken of Toohey, which he had expected to see her display in his

presence. There was something heavy and colorless about Catherine, and very

tired.

Toohey’s valet brought in the tea tray.

"You will pour, won’t you please, my dear?" said Toohey to Catherine. "Ah,

there’s nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses,

historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to

civilization--this tea ritual and the detective novel. Catherine, my dear, do

you have to grasp that pot handle as if it were a meat axe? But never mind, it’s

charming, it’s really what we love you for, Peter and I, we wouldn’t love you if

you were graceful as a duchess--who wants a duchess nowadays?"

Catherine poured the tea and spilled it on the glass table top, which she had

never done before.

"I did want to see you two together for once," said Toohey, holding a delicate

cup balanced nonchalantly. "Perfectly silly of me, isn’t it? There’s really

nothing to make an occasion of, but then I’m silly and sentimental at times,

like all of us. My compliments on your choice, Catherine. I owe you an apology,

I never suspected you of such good taste. You and Peter make a wonderful couple.

You’ll do a great deal for him. You’ll cook his Cream of Wheat, launder his

handkerchiefs and bear his children, though of course the children will all have

measles at one time or another, which is a nuisance."

"But, after all, you...you do approve of it?" Keating asked anxiously.

"Approve of it? Of what, Peter?"

"Of our marriage...eventually."

"What a superfluous question, Peter! Of course, I approve of it. But how young

you are! That’s the way of young people--they make an issue where none exists.

You asked that as if the whole thing were important enough to disapprove of."

"Katie and I met seven years ago," said Keating defensively. "And it was love at