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Because your figures are the heroic in man. And so I didn’t come here to do you

a favor or because I felt sorry for you or because you need a job pretty badly.

I came for a simple, selfish reason--the same reason that makes a man choose the

cleanest food he can find. It’s a law of survival, isn’t it?--to seek the best.

I didn’t come for your sake. I came for mine."

Mallory jerked himself away from him, and dropped face down on the bed, his two

arms stretched out, one on each side of his head, hands closed into fists. The

thin trembling of the shirt cloth on his back showed that he was sobbing; the

shirt cloth and the fists that twisted slowly, digging into the pillow. Roark

knew that he was looking at a man who had never cried before. He sat down on the

side of the bed and could not take his eyes off the twisting wrists, even though

the sight was hard to bear.

After a while Mallory sat up. He looked at Roark and saw the calmest, kindest

face--a face without a hint of pity. It did not look like the countenance of men

who watch the agony of another with a secret pleasure, uplifted by the sight of

a beggar who needs their compassion; it did not bear the cast of the hungry soul

that feeds upon another’s humiliation. Roark’s face seemed tired, drawn at the

temples, as if he had just taken a beating. But his eyes were serene and they

looked at Mallory quietly, a hard, clean glance of understanding--and respect.

"Lie down now," said Roar. "Lie still for a while."

"How did they ever let you survive?"

"Lie down. Rest. We’ll talk afterward."

Mallory got up. Roark took him by the shoulders, forced him down, lifted his

legs off the floor, lowered his head on the pillow. The boy did not resist.

Stepping back, Roark brushed against a table loaded with junk. Something

clattered to the floor. Mallory jerked forward, trying to reach it first. Roark

pushed his arm aside and picked up the object.

It was a small plaster plaque, the kind sold in cheap gift shops. It represented

a baby sprawled on its stomach, dimpled rear forward, peeking coyly over its

shoulder. A few lines, the structure of a few muscles showed a magnificent

talent that could not be hidden, that broke fiercely through the rest; the rest

was a deliberate attempt to be obvious, vulgar and trite, a clumsy effort,

unconvincing and tortured. It was an object that belonged in a chamber of

horrors.

Mallory saw Roark’s hand begin to shake. Then Roark’s arm went back and up, over

his head, slowly, as if gathering the weight of air in the crook of his elbow;

it was only a flash, but it seemed to last for minutes, the arm stood lifted and

still--then it slashed forward, the plaque shot across the room and burst to

pieces against the wall. It was the only time anyone had ever seen Roark

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murderously angry.

"Roark."

"Yes?"

"Roark, I wish I’d met you before you had a job to give me." He spoke without

expression, his head lying back on the pillow, his eyes closed. "So that there

would be no other reason mixed in. Because, you see, I’m very grateful to you.

Not for giving me a job. Not for coming here. Not for anything you’ll ever do

for me. Just for what you are."

Then he lay without moving, straight and limp, like a man long past the stage of

suffering. Roark stood at the window, looking at the wrenched room and at the

boy on the bed. He wondered why he felt as if he were waiting. He was waiting

for an explosion over their heads. It seemed senseless. Then he understood. He

thought, this is how men feel, trapped in a shell hole; this room is not an

accident of poverty, it’s the footprint of a war; it’s the devastation torn by

explosives more vicious than any stored in the arsenals of the world. A

war...against?...The enemy had no name and no face. But this boy was a

comrade-in-arms, hurt in battle, and Roark stood over him, feeling a strange new

thing, a desire to lift him in his arms and carry him to safety...Only the hell

and the safety had no known designations...He kept thinking of Kent Lansing,

trying to remember something Kent Lansing had said...

Then Mallory opened his eyes, and lifted himself up on one elbow. Roark pulled

the chair over to the bed and sat down.

"Now," he said, "talk. Talk about the things you really want said. Don’t tell me

about your family, your childhood, your friends or your feelings. Tell me about

the things you think."

Mallory looked at him incredulously and whispered:

"How did you know that?"

Roark smiled and said nothing.

"How did you know what’s been killing me? Slowly, for years, driving me to hate

people when I don’t want to hate....Have you felt it, too? Have you seen how

your best friends love everything about you--except the things that count? And

your most important is nothing to them, nothing, not even a sound they can

recognize. You mean, you want to hear? You want to know what I do and why I do

it, you want to know what I think! It’s not boring to you? It’s important?"

"Go ahead," said Roark.

Then he sat for hours, listening, while Mallory spoke of his work, of the

thoughts behind his work, of the thoughts that shaped his life, spoke

gluttonously, like a drowning man flung out to shore, getting drunk on huge,

clean snatches of air.

#

Mallory came to Roark’s office on the following morning, and Roark showed him

the sketches of the Temple. When he stood at a drafting table, with a problem to

consider, Mallory changed; there was no uncertainty in him, no remembrance of

pain; the gesture of his hand taking the drawing was sharp and sure, like that

of a soldier on duty. The gesture said that nothing ever done to him could alter

the function of the thing within him that was now called into action. He had an

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unyielding, impersonal confidence; he faced Roark as an equal.

He studied the drawings for a long time, then raised his head. Everything about

his face was controlled, except his eyes.

"Like it?" Roark asked.

"Don’t use stupid words."

He held one of the drawings, walked to the window, stood looking down the sketch

to the street to Roark’s face and back again.

"It doesn’t seem possible," he said. "Not this--and that." He waved the sketch

at the street.

There was a poolroom on the corner of the street below; a rooming house with a

Corinthian portico; a billboard advertising a Broadway musical; a line of

pink-gray underwear fluttering on a roof.

"Not in the same city. Not on the same earth," said Mallory. "But you made it

happen. It’s possible....I’ll never be afraid again."

"Of what?"

Mallory put the sketch down on the table, cautiously. He answered:

"You said something yesterday about a first law. A law demanding that man seek

the best....It was funny....The unrecognized genius--that’s an old story. Have

you ever thought of a much worse one--the genius recognized too well?...That a

great many men are poor fools who can’t see the best--that’s nothing. One can’t

get angry at that. But do you understand about the men who see it and don’t want

it?"

"No."

"No. You wouldn’t. I spent all night thinking about you. I didn’t sleep at all.

Do you know what your secret is? It’s your terrible innocence."

Roark laughed aloud, looking at the boyish face.

"No," said Mallory, "it’s not funny. I know what I’m talking about--and you

don’t. You can’t know. It’s because of that absolute health of yours. You’re so

healthy that you can’t conceive of disease. You know of it. But you don’t really

believe it. I do. I’m wiser than you are about some things, because I’m weaker.

I understand--the other side. That’s what did it to me...what you saw

yesterday."

"That’s over."

"Probably. But not quite. I’m not afraid any more. But I know that the terror

exists. I know the kind of terror it is. You can’t conceive of that kind.

Listen, what’s the most horrible experience you can imagine? To me--it’s being

left, unarmed, in a sealed cell with a drooling beast of prey or a maniac who’s

had some disease that’s eaten his brain out. You’d have nothing then but your

voice--your voice and your thought. You’d scream to that creature why it should

not touch you, you’d have the most eloquent words, the unanswerable words, you’d

become the vessel of the absolute truth. And you’d see living eyes watching you

and you’d know that the thing can’t hear you, that it can’t be reached, not

reached, not in any way, yet it’s breathing and moving there before you with a

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purpose of its own. That’s horror. Well, that’s what’s hanging over the world,

prowling somewhere through mankind, that same thing, something closed, mindless,

utterly wanton, but something with an aim and a cunning of its own. I don’t

think I’m a coward, but I’m afraid of it. And that’s all I know--only that it

exists. I don’t know its purpose, I don’t know its nature."

"The principle behind the Dean," said Roark.

"What?"

"It’s something I wonder about once in a while....Mallory, why did you try to

shoot Ellsworth Toohey?" He saw the boy’s eyes, and he added: "You don’t have to

tell me if you don’t like to talk about it."

"I don’t like to talk about it," said Mallory, his voice tight. "But it was the

right question to ask."

"Sit down," said Roark. "We’ll talk about your commission."

Then Mallory listened attentively while Roark spoke of the building and of what

he wanted from the sculptor. He concluded:

"Just one figure. It will stand here." He pointed to a sketch. "The place is

built around it. The statue of a naked woman. If you understand the building,

you understand what the figure must be. The human spirit. The heroic in man. The

aspiration and the fulfillment, both. Uplifted in its quest--and uplifting by

its own essence. Seeking God--and finding itself. Showing that there is no

higher reach beyond its own form....You’re the only one who can do it for me."

"Yes."

"You’ll work as I work for my clients. You know what I want--the rest is up to

you. Do it any way you wish. I’d like to suggest the model, but if she doesn’t

fit your purpose, choose anyone you prefer."

"Who’s your choice?"

"Dominique Francon."

"Oh, God!"

"Know her?"

"I’ve seen her. If I could have her...Christ! there’s no other woman so right,

for this. She..." He stopped. He added, deflated: "She won’t pose. Certainly not

for you."

"She will."

#

Guy Francon tried to object when he heard of it.

"Listen, Dominique," he said angrily, "there is a limit. There really is a

limit--even for you. Why are you doing it? Why--for a building of Roark’s of all

things? After everything you’ve said and done against him--do you wonder people

are talking? Nobody’d care or notice if it were anyone else. But you--and Roark!

I can’t go anywhere without having somebody ask me about it. What am I to do?"

"Order yourself a reproduction of the statue, Father. It’s going to be

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beautiful."

Peter Keating refused to discuss it. But he met Dominique at a party and he

asked, having intended not to ask it:

"Is it true that you’re posing for a statue for Roark’s temple?"

"Yes."

"Dominique, I don’t like it."

"No?"

"Oh, I’m sorry. I know I have no right...It’s only...It’s only that of all

people, I don’t want to see you being friendly with Roark. Not Roark. Anybody

but Roark."

She looked interested: "Why?"

"I don’t know."

Her glance of curious study worried him.

"Maybe," he muttered, "maybe it’s because it has never seemed right that you

should have such contempt for his work. It made me very happy that you had,

but...but it never seemed right--for you."

"It didn’t, Peter?"

"No. But you don’t like him as a person, do you?"

"No, I don’t like him as a person."

Ellsworth Toohey was displeased. "It was most unwise of you, Dominique," he said

in the privacy of her office. His voice did not sound smooth.

"I know it was."

"Can’t you change your mind and refuse?"

"I won’t change my mind, Ellsworth."

He sat down, and shrugged; after a while he smiled. "All right, my dear, have it

your own way."

She ran a pencil through a line of copy and said nothing.

Toohey lighted a cigarette. "So he’s chosen Steven Mallory for the job," he

said.

"Yes. A funny coincidence, wasn’t it?"

"It’s no coincidence at all, my dear. Things like that are never a coincidence.

There’s a basic law behind it. Though I’m sure he doesn’t know it and nobody

helped him to choose."

"I believe you approve?"

"Wholeheartedly. It makes everything just right. Better than ever."

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"Ellsworth, why did Mallory try to kill you?"

"I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know. I think Mr. Roark does. Or should.

Incidentally, who selected you to pose for that statue? Roark or Mallory?"

"That’s none of your business, Ellsworth."

"I see. Roark."

"Incidentally, I’ve told Roark that it was you who made Hopton Stoddard hire

him."

He stopped his cigarette in midair; then moved again and placed it in his mouth.

"You did? Why?"

"I saw the drawings of the Temple."

"That good?"

"Better, Ellsworth."

"What did he say when you told him?"

"Nothing. He laughed."

"He did? Nice of him. I daresay many people will join him after a while."