The Fountainhead

by Ayn Rand

  He lay still across the bed, away from her, his head hanging back over the edge. She heard the slow, ending gasps of his breath. She lay on her back, as he had left her, not moving, her mouth open. She felt empty, light and flat.

  She saw him get up. She saw his silhouette against the window. He went out, without a word or a glance at her. She noticed that, but it did not matter. She listened blankly to the sound of his steps moving away in the garden.

  She lay still for a long time. Then she moved her tongue in her open mouth. She heard a sound that came from somewhere within her, and it was the dry, short, sickening sound of a sob, but she was not crying, her eyes were held paralyzed, dry and open. The sound became motion, a jolt running down her throat to her stomach. It flung her up, she stood awkwardly, bent over, her forearms pressed to her stomach. She heard the small table by the bed rattling in the darkness, and she looked at it, in empty astonishment that a table should move without reason. Then she understood that she was shaking. She was not frightened; it seemed foolish to shake like that, in short, separate jerks, like soundless hiccoughs. She thought she must take a bath. The need was unbearable, as if she had felt it for a long time. Nothing mattered, if only she would take a bath. She dragged her feet slowly to the door of her bathroom.

  She turned the light on in the bathroom. She saw herself in a tall mirror. She saw the purple bruises left on her body by his mouth. She heard a moan muffled in her throat, not very loud. It was not the sight, but the sudden flash of knowledge. She knew that she would not take a bath. She knew that she wanted to keep the feeling of his body, the traces of his body on hers, knowing also what such a desire implied. She fell on her knees, clasping the edge of the bathtub. She could not make herself crawl over that edge. Her hands slipped, she lay still on the floor. The tiles were hard and cold under her body. She lay there till morning.

  Roark awakened in the morning and thought that last night had been like a point reached, like a stop in the movement of his life. He was moving forward for the sake of such stops; like the moments when he had walked through the half-finished Heller house; like last night. In some unstated way, last night had been what building was to him; in some quality of reaction within him, in what it gave to his consciousness of existence.

  They had been united in an understanding beyond the violence, beyond the deliberate obscenity of his action; had she meant less to him, he would not have taken her as he did; had he meant less to her, she would not have fought so desperately. The unrepeatable exaltation was in knowing that they both understood this.

  He went to the quarry and he worked that day as usual. She did not come to the quarry and he did not expect her to come. But the thought of her remained. He watched it with curiosity. It was strange to be conscious of another person's existence, to feel it as a close, urgent necessity; a necessity without qualifications, neither pleasant nor painful, merely final like an ultimatum. It was important to know that she existed in the world; it was important to think of her, of how she had awakened this morning, of how she moved, with her body still his, now his forever, of what she thought.

  That evening, at dinner in the sooted kitchen, he opened a newspaper and saw the name of Roger Enright in the lines of a gossip column. He read the short paragraph:

  "It looks like another grand project on its way to the wastebasket. Roger Enright, the oil king, seems to be stumped this time. He'll have to call a halt to his latest pipe dream of an Enright House. Architect trouble, we are told. Seems as if half a dozen of the big building boys have been shown the gate by the unsatisfiable Mr. Enright. Top-notch-ers, all of them."

  Roark felt the wrench he had tried so often to fight, not to let it hurt him too much: the wrench of helplessness before the vision of what he could do, what should have been possible and was closed to him. Then, without reason, he thought of Dominique Francon. She had no relation to the things in his mind; he was shocked only to know that she could remain present even among these things.

  A week passed. Then, one evening, he found a letter waiting for him at home. It had been forwarded from his former office to his last New York address, from there to Mike, from Mike to Connecticut. The engraved address of an oil company on the envelope meant nothing to him. He opened the letter. He read:

  "Dear Mr. Roark,

  "I have been endeavoring for some time to get in touch with you, but have been unable to locate you. Please communicate with me at your earliest convenience. I should like to discuss with you my proposed Enright House, if you are the man who built the Fargo Store.

  "Sincerely yours,

  "Roger Enright."

  Half an hour later Roark was on a train. When the train started moving, he remembered Dominique and that he was leaving her behind. The thought seemed distant and unimportant. He was astonished only to know that he still thought of her, even now.

  She could accept, thought Dominique, and come to forget in time everything that had happened to her, save one memory: that she had found pleasure in the thing which had happened, that he had known it, and more: that he had known it before he came to her and that he would not have come but for that knowledge. She had not given him the one answer that would have saved her: an answer of simple revulsion--she had found joy in her revulsion, in her terror and in his strength. That was the degradation she had wanted and she hated him for it.

  She found a letter one morning, waiting for her on the breakfast table. It was from Alvah Scarret. "... When are you coming back, Dominique? I can't tell you how much we miss you here. You're not a comfortable person to have around, I'm actually scared of you, but I might as well inflate your inflated ego some more, at a distance, and confess that we're all waiting for you impatiently. It will be like the homecoming of an Empress."

  She read it and smiled. She thought, if they knew ... those people ... that old life and that awed reverence before her person ... I've been raped.... I've been raped by some redheaded hoodlum from a stone quarry.... I, Dominique Francon.... Through the fierce sense of humiliation, the words gave her the same kind of pleasure she had felt in his arms.

  She thought of it when she walked through the countryside, when she passed people on the road and the people bowed to her, the chatelaine of the town. She wanted to scream it to the hearing of all.

  She was not conscious of the days that passed. She felt content in a strange detachment, alone with the words she kept repeating to herself. Then, one morning, standing on the lawn in her garden, she understood that a week had passed and that she had not seen him for a week. She turned and walked rapidly across the lawn to the road. She was going to the quarry.

  She walked the miles to the quarry, down the road, bareheaded in the sun. She did not hurry. It was not necessary to hurry. It was inevitable. To see him again.... She had no purpose. The need was too great to name a purpose.... Afterward ... There were other things, hideous, important things behind her and rising vaguely in her mind, but first, above all, just one thing: to see him again ...

  She came to the quarry and she looked slowly, carefully, stupidly about her, stupidly because the enormity of what she saw would not penetrate her brain: she saw at once that he was not there. The work was in full swing, the sun was high over the busiest hour of the day, there was not an idle man in sight, but he was not among the men. She stood, waiting numbly, for a long time.

  Then she saw the foreman and she motioned for him to approach.

  "Good afternoon, Miss Francon.... Lovely day, Miss Francon, isn't it? Just like the middle of summer again and yet fall's not far away, yes, fall's coming, look at the leaves, Miss Francon."

  She asked:

  "There was a man you had here ... a man with very bright orange hair ... where is he?"

  "Oh yes. That one. He's gone."

  "Gone?"

  "Quit. Left for New York, I think. Very suddenly too."

  "When? A week ago?"

  "Why, no. Just yesterday."

  "Who was ..."

  Then she stopped
. She was going to ask: "Who was he?" She asked instead:

  "Who was working here so late last night? I heard blasting."

  "That was for a special order for Mr. Francon's building. The Cosmo-Slotnick Building, you know. A rush job."

  "Yes ... I see...."

  "Sorry it disturbed you, Miss Francon."

  "Oh, not at all...."

  She walked away. She would not ask for his name. It was her last chance of freedom.

  She walked swiftly, easily, in sudden relief. She wondered why she had never noticed that she did not know his name and why she had never asked him. Perhaps because she had known everything she had to know about him from that first glance. She thought, one could not find some nameless worker in the city of New York. She was safe. If she knew his name, she would be on her way to New York now.

  The future was simple. She had nothing to do except never to ask for his name. She had a reprieve. She had a chance to fight. She would break it--or it would break her. If it did, she would ask for his name.

  III

  WHEN PETER KEATING ENTERED THE OFFICE, THE OPENING OF the door sounded like a single high blast on a trumpet. The door flew forward as if it had opened of itself to the approach of a man before whom all doors were to open in such manner.

  His day in the office began with the newspapers. There was a neat pile of them waiting, stacked on his desk by his secretary. He liked to see what new mentions appeared in print about the progress of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building or the firm of Francon & Keating.

  There were no mentions in the papers this morning, and Keating frowned. He saw, however, a story about Ellsworth M. Toohey. It was a startling story. Thomas L. Foster, noted philanthropist, had died and had left, among larger bequests, the modest sum of one hundred thousand dollars to Ellsworth M. Toohey, "my friend and spiritual guide--in appreciation of his noble mind and true devotion to humanity." Ellsworth M. Toohey had accepted the legacy and had turned it over, intact, to the "Workshop of Social Study," a progressive institute of learning where he held the post of lecturer on "Art as a Social Symptom." He had given the simple explanation that he "did not believe in the institution of private inheritance." He had refused all further comment. "No, my friends," he had said, "not about this." And had added, with his charming knack for destroying the earnestness of his own moment: "I like to indulge in the luxury of commenting solely upon interesting subjects. I do not consider myself one of these."

  Peter Keating read the story. And because he knew that it was an action which he would never have committed, he admired it tremendously.

  Then he thought, with a familiar twinge of annoyance, that he had not been able to meet Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey had left on a lecture tour shortly after the award in the Cosmo-Slotnick competition, and the brilliant gatherings Keating had attended ever since were made empty by the absence of the one man he'd been most eager to meet. No mention of Keating's name had appeared in Toohey's column. Keating turned hopefully, as he did each morning, to "One Small Voice" in the Banner. But "One Small Voice" was subtitled "Songs and Things" today, and was devoted to proving the superiority of folk songs over any other form of musical art, and of choral singing over any other manner of musical rendition.

  Keating dropped the Banner. He got up and paced viciously across the office, because he had to turn now to a disturbing problem. He had been postponing it for several mornings. It was the matter of choosing a sculptor for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. Months ago the commission for the giant statue of "Industry" to stand in the main lobby of the building had been awarded--tentatively--to Steven Mallory. The award had puzzled Keating, but it had been made by Mr. Slotnick, so Keating had approved of it. He had interviewed Mallory and said: "... in recognition of your unusual ability ... of course you have no name, but you will have, after a commission like this ... they don't come every day like this building of mine."

  He had not liked Mallory. Mallory's eyes were like black holes left after a fire not quite put out, and Mallory had not smiled once. He was twenty-four years old, had had one show of his work, but not many commissions. His work was strange and too violent. Keating remembered that Ellsworth Toohey had said once, long ago, in "One Small Voice": "Mr. Mallory's human figures would have been very fine were it not for the hypothesis that God created the world and the human form. Had Mr. Mallory been entrusted with the job, he might, perhaps, have done better than the Almighty, if we are to judge by what he passes as human bodies in stone. Or would he?"

  Keating had been baffled by Mr. Slotnick's choice, until he heard that Dimples Williams had once lived in the same Greenwich Village tenement with Steven Mallory, and Mr. Slotnick could refuse nothing to Dimples Williams at the moment. Mallory had been hired, had worked and had submitted a model of his statue of "Industry." When he saw it, Keating knew that the statue would look like a raw gash, like a smear of fire in the neat elegance of his lobby. It was the slender naked body of a man who looked as if he coud break through the steel plate of a battleship and through any barrier whatever. It stood like a challenge. It left a strange stamp on one's eyes. It made the people around it seem smaller and sadder than usual. For the first time in his life, looking at that statue, Keating thought he understood what was meant by the word "heroic."

  He said nothing. But the model was sent on to Mr. Slotnick and many people said, with indignation, what Keating had felt. Mr. Slotnick asked him to select another sculptor and left the choice in his hands.

  Keating flopped down in an armchair, leaned back and clicked his tongue against his palate. He wondered whether he should give the commission to Bronson, the sculptor who was a friend of Mrs. Shupe, wife of the president of Cosmo; or to Palmer, who had been recommended by Mr. Huseby who was planning the erection of a new five-million dollar cosmetic factory. Keating discovered that he liked this process of hesitation; he held the fate of two men and of many potential others; their fate, their work, their hope, perhaps even the amount of food in their stomachs. He could choose as he pleased, for any reason, without reasons; he could flip a coin, he could count them off on the buttons of his vest. He was a great man--by the grace of those who depended on him.

  Then he noticed the envelope.

  It lay on top of a pile of letters on his desk. It was a plain, thin, narrow envelope, but it bore the small masthead of the Banner in one corner. He reached for it hastily. It contained no letter; only a strip of proofs for tomorrow's Banner. He saw the familiar "One Small Voice" by Ellsworth M. Toohey, and under it a single word as subtitle, in large, spaced letters, a single word, blatant in its singleness, a salute by dint of omission: "KEATING"

  He dropped the paper strip and seized it again and read, choking upon great unchewed hunks of sentences, the paper trembling in his hand, the skin on his forehead drawing into tight pink spots. Toohey had written:

  "Greatness is an exaggeration, and like all exaggerations of dimension it connotes at once the necessary corollary of emptiness. One thinks of an inflated toy balloon, does one not? There are, however, occasions when we are forced to acknowledge the promise of an approach--brilliantly close--to what we designate loosely by the term of greatness. Such a promise is looming on our architectural horizon in the person of a mere boy named Peter Keating.

  "We have heard a great deal--and with justice--about the superb Cosmo-Slotnick Building which he has designed. Let us glance, for once, beyond the building, at the man whose personality is stamped upon it.

  "There is no personality stamped upon that building--and in this, my friends, lies the greatness of the personality. It is the greatness of a selfless young spirit that assimilates all things and returns them to the world from which they came, enriched by the gentle brilliance of its own talent. Thus a single man comes to represent, not a lone freak, but the multitude of all men together, to embody the reach of all aspirations in his own....

  "... Those gifted with discrimination will be able to hear the message which Peter Keating addresses to us in the shape of the Cosmo-Slotn
ick Building, to see that the three simple, massive ground floors are the solid bulk of our working classes which support all of society; that the rows of identical windows offering their panes to the sun are the souls of the common people, of the countless anonymous ones alike in the uniformity of brotherhood, reaching for the light; that the graceful pilasters rising from their firm base in the ground floors and bursting into the gay effervescence of their Corinthian capitals, are the flowers of Culture which blossom only when rooted in the rich soil of the broad masses....

  "... In answer to those who consider all critics as fiends devoted solely to the destruction of sensitive talent, this column wishes to thank Peter Keating for affording us the rare--oh, so rare!--opportunity to prove our delight in our true mission, which is to discover young talent -when it is there to be discovered. And if Peter Keating should chance to read these lines, we expect no gratitude from him. The gratitude is ours."

  It was when Keating began to read the article for the third time that he noticed a few lines written in red pencil across the space by its title:

  "Dear Peter Keating,

  "Drop in to see me at my office one of these days. Would love to discover what you look like.

  "E.M.T."

  He let the clipping flutter down to his desk, and he stood over it, running a strand of hair between his fingers, in a kind of happy stupor. Then he whirled around to his drawing of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, that hung on the wall between a huge photograph of the Parthenon and one of the Louvre. He looked at the pilasters of his building. He had never thought of them as Culture flowering from out of the broad masses, but he decided that one could very well think that and all the rest of the beautiful stuff.