第 99 页

They’re so big, so promiscuously public. A small house is the true luxury. A

residence for two people only--for my wife and me. It won’t be necessary to

allow for a family, we don’t intend to have children. Nor for visitors, we don’t

intend to entertain. One guest room--in case we should need it--but not more

than that. Living room, dining room, library, two studies, one bedroom.

Servants’ quarters, garage. That’s the general idea. I’ll give you the details

later. The cost--whatever you need. The appearance--" He smiled, shrugging.

"I’ve seen your buildings. The man who wants to tell you what a house should

look like must either be able to design it better--or shut up. I’ll say only

that I want my house to have the Roark quality."

"What is that?"

"I think you understand."

"I want to hear you explain it."

"I think some buildings are cheap show-offs, all front, and some are cowards,

apologizing for themselves in every brick, and some are the eternal unfit,

botched, malicious and false. Your buildings have one sense above all--a sense

of joy. Not a placid joy. A difficult, demanding kind of joy. The kind that

makes one feel as if it were an achievement to experience it. One looks and

thinks: I’m a better person if I can feel that."

Roark said slowly, not in the tone of an answer:

"I suppose it was inevitable."

"What?"

"That you would see that."

"Why do you say it as if you...regretted my being able to see it?"

"I don’t regret it."

"Listen, don’t hold it against me--the things I’ve built before."

"I don’t."

"It’s all those Stoneridges and Noyes-Belmont Hotels--and Wynand papers--that

made it possible for me to have a house by you. Isn’t that a luxury worth

achieving? Does it matter how? They were the means. You’re the end."

"You don’t have to justify yourself to me."

"I wasn’t jus...Yes, I think that’s what I was doing."

459

"You don’t need to. I wasn’t thinking of what you’ve built."

"What were you thinking?"

"That I’m helpless against anyone who sees what you saw in my buildings."

"You felt you wanted help against me?"

"No. Only I don’t feel helpless as a rule."

"I’m not prompted to justify myself as a rule, either. Then--it’s all right,

isn’t it?"

"Yes."

"I must tell you much more about the house I want. I suppose an architect is

like a father confessor--he must know everything about the people who are to

live in his house, since what he gives them is more personal than their clothes

or food. Please consider it in that spirit--and forgive me if you notice that

this is difficult for me to say--I’ve never gone to confession. You see, I want

this house because I’m very desperately in love with my wife....What’s the

matter? Do you think it’s an irrelevant statement?"

"No. Go on."

"I can’t stand to see my wife among other people. It’s not jealousy. It’s much

more and much worse. I can’t stand to see her walking down the streets of a

city. I can’t share her, not even with shops, theaters, taxicabs or sidewalks. I

must take her away. I must put her out of reach--where nothing can touch her,

not in any sense. This house is to be a fortress. My architect is to be my

guard."

Roark sat looking straight at him. He had to keep his eyes on Wynand in order to

be able to listen. Wynand felt the effort in that glance; he did not recognize

it as effort, only as strength; he felt himself supported by the glance; he

found that nothing was hard to confess.

"This house is to be a prison. No, not quite that. A treasury--a vault to guard

things too precious for sight. But it must be more. It must be a separate world,

so beautiful that we’ll never miss the one we left. A prison only by the power

of its own perfection. Not bars and ramparts--but your talent standing as a wall

between us and the world. That’s what I want of you. And more. Have you ever

built a temple?"

For a moment, Roark had no strength to answer; but he saw that the question was

genuine; Wynand didn’t know.

"Yes," said Roark.

"Then think of this commission as you would think of a temple. A, temple to

Dominique Wynand....I want you to meet her before you design it."

"I met Mrs. Wynand some years ago."

"You have? Then you understand."

"I do."

460

Wynand saw Roark’s hand lying on the edge of his desk, the long fingers pressed

to the glass, next to the proofs of the Banner. The proofs were folded

carelessly; he saw the heading "One Small Voice" inside the page. He looked at

Roark’s hand. He thought he would like to have a bronze paperweight made of it

and how beautiful it would look on his desk.

"Now you know what I want. Go ahead. Start at once. Drop anything else you’re

doing. I’ll pay whatever you wish. I want that house by summer....Oh, forgive

me. Too much association with bad architects. I haven’t asked whether you want

to do it."

Roark’s hand moved first; he took it off the desk.

"Yes," said Roark. "I’ll do it."

Wynand saw the prints of the fingers left on the glass, distinct as if the skin

had cut grooves in the surface and the grooves were

wet.

"How long will it take you?" Wynand asked.

"You’ll have it by July."

"Of course you must see the site. I want to show it to you myself. Shall I drive

you down there tomorrow morning?"

"If you wish."

"Be here at nine."

"Yes."

"Do you want me to draw up a contract? I have no idea how you prefer to work. As

a rule, before I deal with a man in any matter, I make it a point to know

everything about him from the day of his birth or earlier. I’ve never checked up

on you. I simply forgot. It didn’t seem necessary."

"I can answer any question you wish."

Wynand smiled and shook his head:

"No. There’s nothing I need to ask you. Except about the business arrangements."

"I never make any conditions, except one: if you accept the preliminary drawings

of the house, it is to be built as I designed it, without any alterations of any

kind."

"Certainly. That’s understood. I’ve heard you don’t work otherwise. But will you

mind if I don’t give you any publicity on this house? I know it would help you

professionally, but I want this building kept out of the newspapers."

"I won’t mind that."

"Will you promise not to release pictures of it for publication?"

"I promise."

"Thank you. I’ll make up for it. You may consider the Wynand papers as your

461

personal press service. I’ll give you all the plugging you wish on any other

work of yours."

"I don’t want any plugging."

Wynand laughed aloud. "What a thing to say in what a place! I don’t think you

have any idea how your fellow architects would have conducted this interview. I

don’t believe you were actually conscious at any time that you were speaking to

Gail Wynand."

"I was," said Roark.

"This was my way of thanking you. I don’t always like being Gail Wynand."

"I know that."

"I’m going to change my mind and ask you a personal question. You said you’d

answer anything."

"I will."

"Have you always liked being Howard Roark?"

Roark smiled. The smile was amused, astonished, involuntarily contemptuous.

"You’ve answered," said Wynand.

Then he rose and said: "Nine o’clock tomorrow morning," extending his hand.

When Roark had gone, Wynand sat behind his desk, smiling. He moved his hand

toward one of the plastic buttons--and stopped. He realized that he had to

assume a different manner, his usual manner, that he could not speak as he had

spoken in the last half-hour. Then he understood what had been strange about the

interview: for the first time in his life he had spoken to a man without feeling

the reluctance, the sense of pressure, the need of disguise he had always

experienced when he spoke to people; there had been no strain and no need of

strain; as if he had spoken to himself.

He pressed the button and said to his secretary:

"Tell the morgue to send me everything they have on Howard Roark."

#

"Guess what," said Alvah Scarret, his voice begging to be begged for his

information.

Ellsworth Toohey waved a hand impatiently in a brushing-off motion, not raising

his eyes from his desk.

"Go ’way, Alvah. I’m busy."

"No, but this is interesting, Ellsworth. Really, it’s interesting. I know you’ll

want to know."

Toohey lifted his head and looked at him, the faint contraction of boredom in

the corners of his eyes letting Scarret understand that this moment of attention

was a favor; he drawled in a tone of emphasized patience:

"All right. What is it?"

462

Scarret saw nothing to resent in Toohey’s manner. Toohey had treated him like

that for the last year or longer. Scarret had not noticed the change, it was too

late to resent it--it had become normal to them both.

Scarret smiled like a bright pupil who expects the teacher to praise him for

discovering an error in the teacher’s own textbook.

"Ellsworth, your private F.B.I. is slipping."

"What are you talking about?"

"Bet you don’t know what Gail’s been doing--and you always make such a point of

keeping yourself informed."

"What don’t I know?"

"Guess who was in his office today."

"My dear Alvah, I have no time for quiz games."

"You wouldn’t guess in a thousand years."

"Very well, since the only way to get rid of you is to play the vaudeville

stooge, I shall ask the proper question: Who was in dear Gail’s office today?"

"Howard Roark."

Toohey turned to him full face, forgetting to dole out his attention, and said

incredulously:

"No!"

"Yes!" said Scarret, proud of the effect.

"Well!" said Toohey and burst out laughing.

Scarret half smiled tentatively, puzzled, anxious to join in, but not quite

certain of the cause for amusement.

"Yes, it’s funny. But...just exactly why, Ellsworth?"

"Oh, Alvah, it would take so long to tell you!"

"I had an idea it might..."

"Haven’t you any sense of the spectacular, Alvah? Don’t you like fireworks? If

you want to know what to expect, just think that the worst wars are religious

wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the

same race."

"I don’t quite follow you."

"Oh, dear, I have so many followers. I brush them out of my hair."

"Well, I’m glad you’re so cheerful about it, but I thought it’s

bad."

463

"Of course it’s bad. But not for us."

"But look: you know bow we’ve gone out on a limb, you particularly, on how this

Roark is just about the worst architect in town, and if now our own boss hires

him--isn’t it going to be embarrassing?"

"Oh that?...Oh, maybe..."

"Well, I’m glad you take it that way."

"What was he doing in Wynand’s office? Is it a commission?"

"That’s what I don’t know. Can’t find out. Nobody knows."

"Have you heard of Mr. Wynand planning to build anything lately?"

"No. Have you?"

"No. I guess my F.B.I. is slipping. Oh, well, one does the best one can."

"But you know, Ellsworth, I had an idea. I had an idea where this might be very

helpful to us indeed."

"What idea?"

"Ellsworth, Gail’s been impossible lately."

Scarret uttered it solemnly, with the air of imparting a discovery. Toohey sat

half smiling.

"Well, of course, you predicted it, Ellsworth. You were right. You’re always

right. I’ll be damned if I can figure out just what’s happening to him, whether

it’s Dominique or some sort of a change of life or what, but something’s

happening. Why does he get fits suddenly and start reading every damn line of

every damn edition and raise hell for the silliest reasons? He’s killed three of

my best editorials lately--and he’s never done that to me before. Never. You

know what he said to me? He said: ’Motherhood is wonderful, Alvah, but for God’s

sake go easy on the bilge. There’s a limit even for intellectual depravity.’

What depravity? That was the sweetest Mother’s Day editorial I ever put

together. Honest, I was touched myself. Since when has he learned to talk about

depravity? The other day, he called Jules Fougler a bargain-basement mind, right

to his face, and threw his Sunday piece into the wastebasket. A swell piece,

too--on the Workers’ Theater. Jules Fougler, our best writer! No wonder Gail

hasn’t got a friend left in the place. If they hated his guts before, you ought

to hear them now!"

"I’ve heard them."

"He’s losing his grip, Ellsworth. I don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for you

and the swell bunch of people you picked. They’re practically our whole actual

working staff, those youngsters of yours, not our old sacred cows who’re writing

themselves out anyway. Those bright kids will keep the Banner going. But

Gail...Listen, last week he fired Dwight Carson. Now you know, I think that was

significant. Of course Dwight was just a deadweight and a damn nuisance, but he

was the first one of those special pets of Gail’s, the boys who sold their

souls. So, in a way, you see, I liked having Dwight around, it was all right, it

was healthy, it was a relic of Gail’s best days. I always said it was Gail’s

safety valve. And when he suddenly let Carson go--I didn’t like it, Ellsworth. I