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was saying aloud: "Of course not. I’m glad to have an evening with my wife all

to myself."

He felt a dim instinct telling him that he must solve this problem, must learn

to make their moments together endurable, that he dare not run from it, for his

own sake more than hers.

"What would you like to do tonight, Dominique?"

"Anything you wish."

"Want to go to a movie?"

"Do you?"

"Oh, I don’t know. It kills time."

"All right. Let’s kill time.’"

"No. Why should we? That sounds awful."

"Does it?"

"Why should we run from our own home? Let’s stay here."

"Yes, Peter."

He waited. But the silence, he thought, is a flight too, a worse kind of flight.

"Want to play a hand of Russian Bank?" he asked.

"Do you like Russian Bank?"

"Oh, it kills ti--" He stopped. She smiled.

"Dominique," he said, looking at her, "you’re so beautiful. You’re always

so...so utterly beautiful. I always want to tell you how I feel about it."

"I’d like to hear how you feel about it. Peter."

"I love to look at you. I always think of what Gordon Prescott said. He said

that you are God’s perfect exercise in structural mathematics. And Vincent

Knowlton said you’re a spring morning. And Ellsworth--Ellsworth said you’re a

reproach to every other female shape on earth."

"And Ralston Holcombe?" she asked.

"Oh, never mind!" he snapped, and turned back to the fire.

I know why I can’t stand the silence, he thought. It’s because it makes no

difference to her at all whether I speak or not; as if I didn’t exist and never

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had existed...the thing more inconceivable than one’s death--never to have been

born....He felt a sudden, desperate desire which he could identify--a desire to

be real to her.

"Dominique, do you know what I’ve been thinking?" he asked eagerly.

"No. What have you been thinking?"

"I’ve thought of it for some time--all by myself--I haven’t mentioned it to

anyone. And nobody suggested it. It’s my own idea."

"Why, that’s fine. What is it?"

"I think I’d like to move to the country and build a house of our own. Would you

like that?"

"I’d like it very much. Just as you would. You want to design a home for

yourself?"

"Hell, no. Bennett will dash one off for me. He does all our country homes. He’s

a whiz at it."

"Will you like commuting?"

"No, I think that will be quite an awful nuisance. But you know, everybody

that’s anybody commutes nowadays. I always feel like a damn proletarian when I

have to admit that I live in the city."

"Will you like to see trees and a garden and the earth around you?"

"Oh, that’s a lot of nonsense. When will I have the time? A tree’s a tree. When

you’ve seen a newsreel of the woods in spring, you’ve seen it all."

"Will you like to do some gardening? People say it’s very nice, working the soil

yourself."

"Good God, no! What kind of grounds do you think we’d have? We can afford a

gardener, and a good one--so the place will be something for the neighbors to

admire."

"Will you like to take up some sport?"

"Yes, I’ll like that."

"Which one?"

"I think I’ll do better with my golf. You know, belonging to a country club

right where you’re one of the leading citizens in the community is different

from occasional week ends. And the people you meet are different. Much higher

class. And the contacts you make..." He caught himself, and added angrily:

"Also, I’ll take up horseback riding."

"I like horseback riding. Do you?"

"I’ve never had much time for it. Well, it does shake your insides unmercifully.

But who the hell is Gordon Prescott to think he’s the only he-man on earth and

plaster his photo in riding clothes right in his reception room?"

"I suppose you will want to find some privacy?"

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"Well, I don’t believe in that desert-island stuff. I think the house should

stand in sight of a major highway, so people would point out, you know, the

Keating estate. Who the hell is Claude Stengel to have a country home while I

live in a rented flat? He started out about the same time I did, and look where

he is and where I am, why, he’s lucky if two and a half men ever heard of him,

so why should he park himself in Westchester and..."

And he stopped. She sat looking at him, her face serene.

"Oh God damn it!" he cried. "If you don’t want to move to the country, why don’t

you just say so?"

"I want very much to do anything you want, Peter. To follow any idea you get all

by yourself."

He remained silent for a long time.

"What do we do tomorrow night?" he asked, before he could stop himself.

She rose, walked to a desk and picked up her calendar.

"We have the Palmers for dinner tomorrow night," she said.

"Oh, Christ!" he moaned. "They’re such awful bores! Why do we have to have

them?"

She stood holding the calendar forward between the tips of her fingers, as if

she were a photograph with the focus on the calendar and her own figure blurred

in its background.

"We have to have the Palmers," she said, "so that we can get the commission for

their new store building. We have to get that commission so that we can

entertain the Eddingtons for dinner on Saturday. The Eddingtons have no

commissions to give, but they’re in the Social Register. The Palmers bore you

and the Eddingtons snub you. But you have to flatter people whom you despise in

order to impress other people who despise you."

"Why do you have to say things like that?"

"Would you like to look at this calendar, Peter?"

"Well, that’s what everybody does. That’s what everybody lives for."

"Yes, Peter. Almost everybody."

"If you don’t approve, why don’t you say so?"

"Have I said anything about not approving?"

He thought back carefully. "No," he admitted. "No, you haven’t....But it’s the

way you put things."

"Would you rather I put it in a more involved way--as I did about Vincent

Knowlton?"

"I’d rather..." Then he cried: "I’d rather you’d express an opinion, God damn

it, just once!"

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She asked, in the same level monotone: "Whose opinion, Peter? Gordon Prescott’s?

Ralston Holcombe’s? Ellsworth Toohey’s?"

He turned to her, leaning on the arm of his chair, half rising, suddenly tense.

The thing between them was beginning to take shape. He had a first hint of words

that would name it.

"Dominique," he said softly, reasonably, "that’s it. Now I know. I know what’s

been the matter all the time."

"Has anything been the matter?"

"Wait. This is terribly important. Dominique, you’ve never said, not once, what

you thought. Not about anything. You’ve never expressed a desire. Not of any

kind."

"What’s wrong about that?"

"But it’s...it’s like death. You’re not real. You’re only a body. Look,

Dominique, you don’t know it, I’ll try to explain. You understand what death is?

When a body can’t move any more, when it has no...no will, no meaning. You

understand? Nothing. The absolute nothing. Well, your body moves--but that’s

all. The other, the thing inside you, your--oh, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not

talking religion, but there’s no other word for it, so I’ll say: your soul--your

soul doesn’t exist. No will, no meaning. There’s no real you any more."

"What’s the real me?" she asked. For the first time, she looked attentive; not

compassionate; but, at least, attentive.

"What’s the real anyone?" he said, encouraged. "It’s not just the body.

It’s...it’s the soul."

"What is the soul?"

"It’s--you. The thing inside you."

"The thing that thinks and values and makes decisions?"

"Yes! Yes, that’s it. And the thing that feels. You’ve--you’ve given it up."

"So there are two things that one can’t give up: One’s thoughts and one’s

desires?"

"Yes! Oh, you do understand! So you see, you’re like a corpse to everybody

around you. A kind of walking death. That’s worse than any active crime.

It’s..."

"Negation?"

"Yes. Just blank negation. You’re not here. You’ve never been here. If you’d

tell me that the curtains in this room are ghastly and if you’d rip them off and

put up some you like--something of you would be real, here, in this room. But

you never have. You’ve never told the cook what dessert you liked for dinner.

You’re not here, Dominique. You’re not alive. Where’s your I?"

"Where’s yours, Peter?" she asked quietly.

He sat still, his eyes wide. She knew that his thoughts, in this moment, were

clear and immediate like visual perception, that the act of thinking was an act

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of seeing a procession of years behind him.

"It’s not true," he said at last, his voice hollow. "It’s not true."

"What is not true?"

"What you said."

"I’ve said nothing. I asked you a question."

His eyes were begging her to speak, to deny. She rose, stood before him, and the

taut erectness of her body was a sign of life, the life he had missed and begged

for, a positive quality of purpose, but the quality of a judge.

"You’re beginning to see, aren’t you, Peter? Shall I make it clearer. You’ve

never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want

to show it. You wanted an act to help your act--a beautiful, complicated act,

all twists, trimmings and words. All words. You didn’t like what I said about

Vincent Knowlton. You liked it when I said the same thing under cover of

virtuous sentiments. You didn’t want me to believe. You only wanted me to

convince you that I believed. My real soul, Peter? It’s real only when it’s

independent--you’ve discovered that, haven’t you? It’s real only when it chooses

curtains and desserts--you’re right about that--curtains, desserts and

religions, Peter, and the shapes of buildings. But you’ve never wanted that. You

wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them

while they’re reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from

two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. Usually in the more

vulgar kind of hotels. Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No

beginning and no end. No center and no purpose. I gave you what you wanted. I

became what you are, what your friends are, what most of humanity is so busy

being--only with the trimmings. I didn’t go around spouting book reviews to hide

my emptiness of judgment--I said I had no judgment. I didn’t borrow designs to

hide my creative impotence--I created nothing. I didn’t say that equality is a

noble conception and unity the chief goal of mankind--I just agreed with

everybody. You call it death, Peter? That kind of death--I’ve imposed it on you

and on everyone around us. But you--you haven’t done that. People are

comfortable with you, they like you, they enjoy your presence. You’ve spared

them the blank death. Because you’ve imposed it--on yourself."

He said nothing. She walked away from him, and sat down again, waiting.

He got up. He made a few steps toward her. He said: "Dominique..." Then he was

on his knees before her, clutching her, his head buried against her legs.

"Dominique, it’s not true--that I never loved you. I love you, I always have, it

was not...just to show the others--that was not all--I loved you. There were two

people--you and another person, a man, who always made me feel the same

thing--not fear exactly, but like a wall, a steep wall to climb--like a command

to rise--I don’t know where--but a feeling going up--I’ve always hated that

man--but you, I wanted you--always--that’s why I married you--when I knew you

despised me--so you should have forgiven me that marriage--you shouldn’t have

taken your revenge like this--not like this, Dominique--Dominique, I can’t fight

back, I--"

"Who is the man you hated, Peter?"

"It doesn’t matter."

"Who is he?"

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"Nobody. I..."

"Name him."

"Howard Roark."

She said nothing for a long time. Then she put her hand on his hair. The gesture

had the form of gentleness.

"I never wanted to take a revenge on you, Peter," she said softly.

"Then--why?"

"I married you for my own reasons. I acted as the world demands one should act.

Only I can do nothing halfway. Those who can, have a fissure somewhere inside.

Most people have many. They lie to themselves--not to know that. I’ve never lied

to myself. So I had to do what you all do--only consistently and completely.

I’ve probably destroyed you. If I could care, I’d say I’m sorry. That was not my

purpose."

"Dominique, I love you. But I’m afraid. Because you’ve changed something in me,

ever since our wedding, since I said yes to you--even if I were to lose you now,

I couldn’t go back to what I was before--you took something I had..."

"No. I took something you never had. I grant you that’s worse."

"What?"

"It’s said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect.

But that’s not true. Self-respect is something that can’t be killed. The worst

thing is to kill a man’s pretense at it."

"Dominique, I...I don’t want to talk."

She looked down at his face resting against her knees, and he saw pity in her

eyes, and for one moment he knew what a dreadful thing true pity is, but he kept