第 60 页

"Aw hell, you know very well what I mean: regular."

"Thompson says that Mrs. Pritchett says that she knows for certain because Mr.

Macy told her that if..."

"Well, boys, I don’t give a damn what anybody says, I make up my own mind, and

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I’m here to tell you that I think this Roark is lousy. I don’t like the Enright

House."

"Why?"

"I don’t know why. I just don’t like it, and that’s that. Haven’t I got a right

to an opinion of my own?"

The battle lasted for weeks. Everybody had his say, except Roark. Lansing told

him: "It’s all right. Lay off. Don’t do anything. Let me do the talking. There’s

nothing you can do. When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is

to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say. It’s taken for

granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in

advance as prejudiced--since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker.

It’s so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in

hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain

is more than I’ll ever understand. However, that’s how it’s done. You see,

reasons require scales to weigh them. And scales are not made of cotton. And

cotton is what the human spirit is made of--you know, the stuff that keeps no

shape and offers no resistance and can be twisted forward and backward and into

a pretzel. You could tell them why they should hire you so very much better than

I could. But they won’t listen to you and they’ll listen to me. Because I’m the

middleman. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line--it’s

a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter. Such is the psychology of a

pretzel."

"Why are you fighting for me like that?" Roark asked.

"Why are you a good architect? Because you have certain standards of what is

good, and they’re your own, and you stand by them. I want a good hotel, and I

have certain standards of what is good, and they’re my own, and you’re the one

who can give me what I want. And when I fight for you, I’m doing--on my side of

it--just what you’re doing when you design a building. Do you think integrity is

the monopoly of the artist? And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is?

The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor’s pocket? No, it’s not as

easy as that. If that were all, I’d say ninety-five percent of humanity were

honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren’t. Integrity is the ability

to stand by an idea. That presupposes the ability to think. Thinking is

something one doesn’t borrow or pawn. And yet, if I were asked to choose a

symbol for humanity as we know it, I wouldn’t choose a cross nor an eagle nor a

lion and unicorn. I’d choose three gilded balls."

And as Roark looked at him, he added: "Don’t worry. They’re all against me. But

I have one advantage: they don’t know what they want. I do."

At the end of July, Roark signed a contract to build the Aquitania.

#

Ellsworth Toohey sat in his office, looking at a newspaper spread out on his

desk, at the item announcing the Aquitania contract. He smoked, holding a

cigarette propped in the corner of his mouth, supported by two straight fingers;

one finger tapped against the cigarette, slowly, rhythmically, for a long time.

He heard the sound of his door thrown open, and he glanced up to see Dominique

standing there, leaning against the doorjamb, her arms crossed on her chest. Her

face looked interested, nothing more, but it was alarming to see an expression

of actual interest on her face.

"My dear," he said, rising, "this is the first time you’ve taken the trouble to

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enter my office--in the four years that we’ve worked in the same building. This

is really an occasion."

She said nothing, but smiled gently, which was still more alarming. He added,

his voice pleasant: "My little speech, of course, was the equivalent of a

question. Or don’t we understand each other any longer?"

"I suppose we don’t--if you find it necessary to ask what brought me here. But

you know it, Ellsworth, you know it; there it is on your desk." She walked to

the desk and flipped a comer of the newspaper. She laughed. "Do you wish you had

it hidden somewhere? Of course you didn’t expect me to come. Not that it makes

any difference. But I just like to see you being obvious for once. Right on your

desk, like that. Open at the real-estate page, too."

"You sound as if that little piece of news had made you happy."

"It did, Ellsworth. It does."

"I thought you had worked hard to prevent that contract."

"I had."

"If you think this is an act you’re putting on right now, Dominique, you’re

fooling yourself. This isn’t an act."

"No, Ellsworth. This isn’t."

"You’re happy that Roark got it?"

"I’m so happy. I could sleep with this Kent Lansing, whoever he is, if I ever

met him and if he asked me."

"Then the pact is off?"

"By no means. I shall try to stop any job that comes his way. I shall continue

trying. It’s not going to be so easy as it was, though. The Enright House, the

Cord Building--and this. Not so easy for me--and for you. He’s beating you,

Ellsworth. Ellsworth, what if we were wrong about the world, you and I?"

"You’ve always been, my dear. Do forgive me. I should have known better than to

be astonished. It would make you happy, of course, that he got it. I don’t even

mind admitting that it doesn’t make me happy at all. There, you see? Now your

visit to my office has been a complete success. So we shall just write the

Aquitania off as a major defeat, forget all about it and continue as we were."

"Certainly, Ellsworth. Just as we were. I’m cinching a beautiful new hospital

for Peter Keating at a dinner party tonight."

Ellsworth Toohey went home and spent the evening thinking about Hopton Stoddard.

Hopton Stoddard was a little man worth twenty million dollars. Three

inheritances had contributed to that sum, and seventy-two years of a busy life

devoted to the purpose of making money. Hopton Stoddard had a genius for

investment; he invested in everything--houses of ill fame, Broadway spectacles

on the grand scale, preferably of a religious nature, factories, farm mortgages

and contraceptives. He was small and bent. His face was not disfigured; people

merely thought it was, because it had a single expression: he smiled. His little

mouth was shaped like a v in eternal good cheer; his eyebrows were tiny v’s

inverted over round, blue eyes; his hair, rich, white and waved, looked like a

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wig, but was real.

Toohey had known Hopton Stoddard for many years and exercised a strong influence

upon him. Hopton Stoddard had never married, had no relatives and no friends; he

distrusted people, believing that they were always after his money. But he felt

a tremendous respect for Ellsworth Toohey, because Toohey represented the exact

opposite of his own life; Toohey had no concern whatever for worldly wealth; by

the mere fact of this contrast, he considered Toohey the personification of

virtue; what this estimate implied in regard to his own life never quite

occurred to him. He was not easy in his mind about his life, and the uneasiness

grew with the years, with the certainty of an approaching end. He found relief

in religion--in the form of a bribe. He experimented with several different

creeds, attended services, donated large sums and switched to another faith. As

the years passed, the tempo of his quest accelerated; it had the tone of panic.

Toohey’s indifference to religion was the only flaw that disturbed him in the

person of his friend and mentor. But everything Toohey preached seemed in line

with God’s law: charity, sacrifice, help to the poor. Hopton Stoddard felt safe

whenever he followed Toohey’s advice. He donated handsomely to the institutions

recommended by Toohey, without much prompting. In matters of the spirit he

regarded Toohey upon earth somewhat as he expected to regard God in heaven.

But this summer Toohey met defeat with Hopton Stoddard for the first time.

Hopton Stoddard decided to realize a dream which he had been planning slyly and

cautiously, like all his other investments, for several years: he decided to

build a temple. It was not to be the temple of any particular creed, but an

interdenominational, non-sectarian monument to religion, a cathedral of faith,

open to all. Hopton Stoddard wanted to play safe.

He felt crushed when Ellsworth Toohey advised him against the project. Toohey

wanted a building to house a new home for subnormal children; he had an

organization set up, a distinguished committee of sponsors, an endowment for

operating expenses--but no building and no funds to erect one. If Hopton

Stoddard wished a worthy memorial to his name, a grand climax of his generosity,

to what nobler purpose could he dedicate his money than to the Hopton Stoddard

Home for Subnormal Children, Toohey pointed out to him emphatically; to the poor

little blighted ones for whom nobody cared. But Hopton Stoddard could not be

aroused to any enthusiasm for a Home nor for any mundane institution. It had to

be "The Hopton Stoddard Temple of the Human Spirit."

He could offer no arguments against Toohey’s brilliant array; he could say

nothing except: "No, Ellsworth, no, it’s not right, not right." The matter was

left unsettled. Hopton Stoddard would not budge, but Toohey’s disapproval made

him uncomfortable and he postponed his decision from day to day. He knew only

that he would have to decide by the end of summer, because in the fall he was to

depart on a long journey, a world tour of the holy shrines of all faiths, from

Lourdes to Jerusalem to Mecca to Benares.

A few days after the announcement of the Aquitania contract Toohey came to see

Hopton Stoddard, in the evening, in the privacy of Stoddard’s vast, overstuffed

apartment on Riverside Drive.

"Hopton," he said cheerfully, "I was wrong. You were right about that temple."

"No!" said Hopton Stoddard, aghast.

"Yes," said Toohey, "you were right. Nothing else would be quite fitting. You

must build a temple. A Temple of the Human Spirit."

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Hopton Stoddard swallowed, and his blue eyes became moist. He felt that he must

have progressed far upon the path of righteousness if he had been able to teach

a point of virtue to his teacher. After that, nothing else mattered; he sat,

like a meek, wrinkled baby, listening to Ellsworth Toohey, nodding, agreeing to

everything.

"It’s an ambitious undertaking, Hopton, and if you do it, you must do it right.

It’s a little presumptuous, you know--offering a present to God--and unless you

do it in the best way possible, it will be offensive, not reverent."

"Yes, of course. It must be right. It must be right. It must be the best. You’ll

help me, won’t you, Ellsworth? You know all about buildings and art and

everything--it must be right."

"I’ll be glad to help you, if you really want me to."

"If I want you to! What do you mean--if I want...! Goodness gracious, what would

I do without you? I don’t know anything about...about anything like that. And it

must be right."

"If you want it right, will you do exactly as I say?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes, of course."

"First of all, the architect. That’s very important."

"Yes, indeed."

"You don’t want one of those satin-lined commercial boys with the dollar sign

all over them. You want a man who believes in his work as--as you believe in

God."

"That’s right. That’s absolutely right."

"You must take the one I name."

"Certainly. Who’s that?"

"Howard Roark."

"Huh?" Hopton Stoddard looked blank. "Who’s he?"

"He’s the man who’s going to build the Temple of the Human Spirit."

"Is he any good?"

Ellsworth Toohey turned and looked straight into his eyes.

"By my immortal soul, Hopton," he said slowly, "he’s the best there is."

"Oh!..."

"But he’s difficult to get. He doesn’t work except on certain conditions. You

must observe them scrupulously. You must give him complete freedom. Tell him

what you want and how much you want to spend, and leave the rest up to him. Let

him design it and build it as he wishes. He won’t work otherwise. Just tell him

frankly that you know nothing about architecture and that you chose him because

you felt he was the only one who could be trusted to do it right without advice

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or interference."

"Okay, if you vouch for him."

"I vouch for him."

"That’s fine. And I don’t care how much it costs me."

"But you must be careful about approaching him. I think he will refuse to do it,

at first. He will tell you that he doesn’t believe in God."

"What!"

"Don’t believe him. He’s a profoundly religious man--in his own way. You can see

that in his buildings."

"Oh."

"But he doesn’t belong to any established church. So you won’t appear partial.

You won’t offend anyone."

"That’s good."

"Now, when you deal in matters of faith, you must be the first one to have

faith. Is that right?"

"That’s right."

"Don’t wait to see his drawings. They will take some time--and you mustn’t delay

your trip. Just hire him--don’t sign a contract, it’s not necessary--make

arrangements for your bank to take care of the financial end and let him do the

rest. You don’t have to pay him his fee until you return. In a year or so, when

you come back after seeing all those great temples, you’ll have a better one of

your own, waiting here for you."