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Guy Francon, had stood the test of years very well. It is, thought Guy Francon,

touching; it was I who built this annex and this very hall, twenty years ago;

and here I am.

The hall was packed with bodies and faces, so tightly that one could not

distinguish at a glance which faces belonged to which bodies. It was like a

soft, shivering aspic made of mixed arms, shoulders, chests and stomachs. One of

the heads, pale, dark haired and beautiful, belonged to Peter Keating.

He sat, well in front, trying to keep his eyes on the platform, because he knew

that many people were looking at him and would look at him later. He did not

glance back, but the consciousness of those centered glances never left him. His

eyes were dark, alert, intelligent. His mouth, a small upturned crescent

faultlessly traced, was gentle and generous, and warm with the faint promise of

a smile. His head had a certain classical perfection in the shape of the skull,

in the natural wave of black ringlets about finely hollowed temples. He held his

head in the manner of one who takes his beauty for granted, but knows that

others do not. He was Peter Keating, star student of Stanton, president of the

student body, captain of the track team, member of the most important

fraternity, voted the most popular man on the campus.

The crowd was there, thought Peter Keating, to see him graduate, and he tried to

estimate the capacity of the hall. They knew of his scholastic record and no one

would beat his record today. Oh, well, there was Shlinker. Shlinker had given

him stiff competition, but he had beaten Shlinker this last year. He had worked

like a dog, because he had wanted to beat Shlinker. He had no rivals

today....Then he felt suddenly as if something had fallen down, inside his

throat, to his stomach, something cold and empty, a blank hole rolling down and

leaving that feeling on its way: not a thought, just the hint of a question

asking him whether he was really as great as this day would proclaim him to be.

He looked for Shlinker in the crowd; he saw his yellow face and gold-rimmed

glasses. He stared at Shlinker warmly, in relief, in reassurance, in gratitude.

It was obvious that Shlinker could never hope to equal his own appearance or

ability; he had nothing to doubt; he would always beat Shlinker and all the

Shlinkers of the world; he would let no one achieve what he could not achieve.

Let them all watch him. He would give them good reason to stare. He felt the hot

breaths about him and the expectation, like a tonic. It was wonderful, thought

Peter Keating, to be alive.

His head was beginning to reel a little. It was a pleasant feeling. The feeling

carried him, unresisting and unremembering, to the platform in front of all

those faces. He stood--slender, trim, athletic--and let the deluge break upon

his head. He gathered from its roar that he had graduated with honors, that the

Architects’ Guild of America had presented him with a gold medal and that he had

been awarded the Prix de Paris by the Society for Architectural Enlightenment of

the U.S.A.--a four-year scholarship at the école des Beaux Arts in Paris.

19

Then he was shaking hands, scratching the perspiration off his face with the end

of a rolled parchment, nodding, smiling, suffocating in his black gown and

hoping that people would not notice his mother sobbing with her arms about him.

The President of the Institute shook his hand, booming: "Stanton will be proud

of you, my boy." The Dean shook his hand, repeating: "...a glorious future...a

glorious future...a glorious future..." Professor Peterkin shook his hand, and

patted his shoulder, saying: "...and you’ll find it absolutely essential; for

example, I had the experience when I built the Peabody Post Office..." Keating

did not listen to the rest, because he had heard the story of the Peabody Post

Office many times. It was the only structure anyone had ever known Professor

Peterkin to have erected, before he sacrificed his practice to the

responsibilities of teaching. A great deal was said about Keating’s final

project--a Palace of Fine Arts. For the life of him, Keating could not remember

at the moment what that project was.

Through all this, his eyes held the vision of Guy Francon shaking his hand, and

his ears held the sounds of Francon’s mellow voice: "...as I have told you, it

is still open, my boy. Of course, now that you have this scholarship...you will

have to decide...a Beaux-Arts diploma is very important to a young man...but I

should be delighted to have you in our office...."

The banquet of the Class of ’22 was long and solemn. Keating listened to the

speeches with interest; when he heard the endless sentences about "young men as

the hope of American Architecture" and "the future opening its golden gates," he

knew that he was the hope and his was the future, and it was pleasant to hear

this confirmation from so many eminent lips. He looked at the gray-haired

orators and thought of how much younger he would be when he reached their

positions, theirs and beyond them.

Then he thought suddenly of Howard Roark. He was surprised to find that the

flash of that name in his memory gave him a sharp little twinge of pleasure,

before he could know why. Then he remembered: Howard Roark had been expelled

this morning. He reproached himself silently; he made a determined effort to

feel sorry. But the secret glow came back, whenever he thought of that

expulsion. The event proved conclusively that he had been a fool to imagine

Roark a dangerous rival; at one time, he had worried about Roark more than about

Shlinker, even though Roark was two years younger and one class below him. If he

had ever entertained any doubts on their respective gifts, hadn’t this day

settled it all? And, he remembered, Roark had been very nice to him, helping him

whenever he was stuck on a problem...not stuck, really, just did not have the

time to think it out, a plan or something. Christ! how Roark could untangle a

plan, like pulling a string and it was open...well, what if he could? What did

it get him? He was done for now. And knowing this, Peter Keating experienced at

last a satisfying pang of sympathy for Howard Roark.

When Keating was called upon to speak, he rose confidently. He could not show

that he was terrified. He had nothing to say about architecture. But he spoke,

his head high, as an equal among equals, just subtly diffident, so that no great

name present could take offense. He remembered saying: "Architecture is a great

art...with our eyes to the future and the reverence of the past in our

hearts...of all the crafts, the most important one sociologically...and, as the

man who is an inspiration to us all has said today, the three eternal entities

are: Truth, Love and Beauty...."

Then, in the corridors outside, in the noisy confusion of leave-taking, a boy

had thrown an arm about Keating’s shoulders and whispered: "Run on home and get

out of the soup-and-fish, Pete, and it’s Boston for us tonight, just our own

gang; I’ll pick you up in an hour." Ted Shlinker had urged: "Of course you’re

20

coming, Pete. No fun without you. And, by the way, congratulations and all that

sort of thing. No hard feelings. May the best man win." Keating had thrown his

arm about Shlinker’s shoulders; Keating’s eyes had glowed with an insistent kind

of warmth, as if Shlinker were his most precious friend; Keating’s eyes glowed

like that on everybody. He had said: "Thanks, Ted, old man. I really do feel

awful about the A.G.A. medal--I think you were the one for it, but you never can

tell what possesses those old fogies." And now Keating was on his way home

through the soft darkness, wondering how to get away from his mother for the

night.

His mother, he thought, had done a great deal for him. As she pointed out

frequently, she was a lady and had graduated from high school; yet she had

worked hard, had taken boarders into their home, a concession unprecedented in

her family.

His father had owned a stationery store in Stanton. Changing times had ended the

business and a hernia had ended Peter Keating, Sr., twelve years ago. Louisa

Keating had been left with the home that stood at the end of a respectable

street, an annuity from an insurance kept up accurately--she had seen to

that--and her son. The annuity was a modest one, but with the help of the

boarders and of a tenacious purpose Mrs. Keating had managed. In the summers her

son helped, clerking in hotels or posing for hat advertisements. Her son, Mrs.

Keating had decided, would assume his rightful place in the world, and she had

clung to this as softly, as inexorably as a leech....It’s funny, Keating

remembered, at one time he had wanted to be an artist. It was his mother who had

chosen a better field in which to exercise his talent for drawing.

"Architecture," she had said, "is such a respectable profession. Besides, you

meet the best people in it." She had pushed him into his career, he had never

known when or how. It’s funny, thought Keating, he had not remembered that

youthful ambition of his for years. It’s funny that it should hurt him now--to

remember. Well, this was the night to remember it--and to forget it forever.

Architects, he thought, always made brilliant careers. And once on top, did they

ever fail? Suddenly, he recalled Henry Cameron; builder of skyscrapers twenty

years ago; old drunkard with offices on some waterfront today. Keating shuddered

and walked faster.

He wondered, as he walked, whether people were looking at him. He watched the

rectangles of lighted windows; when a curtain fluttered and a head leaned out,

he tried to guess whether it had leaned to watch his passing; if it hadn’t, some

day it would; some day, they all would.

Howard Roark was sitting on the porch steps when Keating approached the house.

He was leaning back against the steps, propped up on his elbows, his long legs

stretched out. A morning-glory climbed over the porch pillars, as a curtain

between the house and the light of a lamppost on the corner.

It was strange to see an electric globe in the air of a spring night. It made

the street darker and softer; it hung alone, like a gap, and left nothing to be

seen but a few branches heavy with leaves, standing still at the gap’s edges.

The small hint became immense, as if the darkness held nothing but a flood of

leaves. The mechanical ball of glass made the leaves seem more living; it took

away their color and gave the promise that in daylight they would be a brighter

green than had ever existed; it took away one’s sight and left a new sense

instead, neither smell nor touch, yet both, a sense of spring and space.

Keating stopped when he recognized the preposterous orange hair in the darkness

of the porch. It was the one person whom he had wanted to see tonight. He was

glad to find Roark alone, and a little afraid of it.

21

"Congratulations, Peter," said Roark.

"Oh...Oh, thanks...." Keating was surprised to find that he felt more pleasure

than from any other compliment he had received today. He was timidly glad that

Roark approved, and he called himself inwardly a fool for it. "...I mean...do

you know or..." He added sharply: "Has mother been telling you?"

"She has."

"She shouldn’t have!"

"Why not?"

"Look, Howard, you know that I’m terribly sorry about your being..."

Roark threw his head back and looked up at him.

"Forget it," said Roark.

"I...there’s something I want to speak to you about, Howard, to ask your advice.

Mind if I sit down?"

"What is it?"

Keating sat down on the steps beside him. There was no part that he could ever

play in Roark’s presence. Besides, he did not feel like playing a part now. He

heard a leaf rustling in its fall to the earth; it was a thin, glassy, spring

sound.

He knew, for the moment, that he felt affection for Roark; an affection that

held pain, astonishment and helplessness.

"You won’t think," said Keating gently, in complete sincerity, "that it’s awful

of me to be asking about my business, when you’ve just been...?"

"I said forget about that. What is it?"

"You know," said Keating honestly and unexpectedly even to himself, "I’ve often

thought that you’re crazy. But I know that you know many things about

it--architecture, I mean--which those fools never knew. And I know that you love

it as they never will."

"Well?"

"Well, I don’t know why I should come to you, but--Howard, I’ve never said it

before, but you see, I’d rather have your opinion on things than the Dean’s--I’d

probably follow the Dean’s, but it’s just that yours means more to me myself, I

don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m saying this, either."

Roark turned over on his side, looked at him, and laughed. It was a young, kind,

friendly laughter, a thing so rare to hear from Roark that Keating felt as if

someone had taken his hand in reassurance; and he forgot that he had a party in

Boston waiting for him.

"Come on," said Roark, "you’re not being afraid of me, are you? What do you want

to ask about?"

"It’s about my scholarship. The Paris prize I got."

22

"Yes?"

"It’s for four years. But, on the other hand, Guy Francon offered me a job with

him some time ago. Today he said it’s still open. And I don’t know which to

take."

Roark looked at him; Roark’s fingers moved in slow rotation, beating against the

steps.

"If you want my advice, Peter," he said at last, "you’ve made a mistake already.

By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you

know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?"

"You see, that’s what I admire about you, Howard. You always know."