by Ayn Rand
"I didn't expect you to understand that," she said simply.
"You want--men do that sometimes, not women--to express through the sexual act your utter contempt for me."
"No, Mr. Wynand. For myself."
The thin line of his mouth moved faintly, as if his lips had caught the first hint of a personal revelation--an involuntary one and, therefore, a weakness--and were holding it tight while he spoke:
"Most people go to very great length in order to convince themselves of their self-respect."
"Yes."
"And, of course, a quest for self-respect is proof of its lack."
"Yes."
"Do you see the meaning of a quest for self-contempt?"
"That I lack it?"
"And that you'll never achieve it."
"I didn't expect you to understand that either."
"I won't say anything else--or I'll stop being the person before last in the world and I'll become unsuitable to your purpose." He rose. "Shall I tell you formally that I accept your offer?"
She inclined her head in agreement.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I don't care whom I choose to build Stoneridge. I've never hired a good architect for any of the things I've built. I give the public what it wants. I was stuck for a choice this time, because I'm tired of the bunglers who've worked for me, and it's hard to decide without standards or reason. I'm sure you don't mind my saying this. I'm really grateful to you for giving me a much better motive than any I could hope to find."
"I'm glad you didn't say that you've always admired the work of Peter Keating."
"You didn't tell me how glad you were to join the distinguished list of Gail Wynand's mistresses."
"You may enjoy my admitting it, if you wish, but I think we'll get along very well together."
"Quite likely. At least, you've given me a new experience: to do what I've always done--but honestly. Shall I now begin to give you my orders? I won't pretend they're anything else."
"If you wish."
"You'll go with me for a two months' cruise on my yacht. We'll sail in ten days. When we come back, you'll be free to return to your husband -with the contract for Stoneridge."
"Very well."
"I should like to meet your husband. Will you both have dinner with me Monday night?"
"Yes, if you wish."
When she rose to leave, he asked:
"Shall I tell you the difference between you and your statue?"
"No."
"But I want to. It's startling to see the same elements used in two compositions with opposite themes. Everything about you in that statue is the theme of exaltation. But your own theme is suffering."
"Suffering? I'm not conscious of having shown that."
"You haven't. That's what I meant. No happy person can be quite so impervious to pain."
Wynand telephoned his art dealer and asked him to arrange a private showing of Steven Mallory's work. He refused to meet Mallory in person; he never met those whose work he liked. The art dealer executed the order in great haste. Wynand bought five of the pieces he saw--and paid more than the dealer had hoped to ask. "Mr. Mallory would like to know," said the dealer, "what brought him to your attention." "I saw one of his works." "Which one?" "It doesn't matter."
Toohey had expected Wynand to call for him after the interview with Dominique. Wynand had not called. But a few days later, meeting Toohey by chance in the city room, Wynand asked aloud:
"Mr. Toohey, have so many people tried to kill you that you can't remember their names?"
Toohey smiled and said: "I'm sure quite so many would like to."
"You flatter your fellow men," said Wynand, walking away.
Peter Keating stared at the brilliant room of the restaurant. It was the most exclusive place in town, and the most expensive. Keating gloated, chewing the thought that he was here as the guest of Gail Wynand.
He tried not to stare at the gracious elegance of Wynand's figure across the table. He blessed Wynand for having chosen to give this dinner in a public place. People were gaping at Wynand--discreetly and with practiced camouflage, but gaping nevertheless--and their attention included the two guests at Wynand's table.
Dominique sat between the two men. She wore a white silk dress with long sleeves and a cowl neck, a nun's garment that acquired the startling effect of an evening gown only by being so flagrantly unsuited to that purpose. She wore no jewelry. Her gold hair looked like a hood. The dull white silk moved in angular planes with the movements of her body, revealing it in a manner of cold innocence, the body of a sacrificial object publicly offered, beyond the need of concealment or desire. Keating found it unattractive. He noticed that Wynand seemed to admire it.
Someone at a distant table stared in their direction insistently, someone tall and bulky. Then the big shape rose to its feet--and Keating recognized Ralston Holcombe hurrying toward them.
"Peter, my boy, so glad to see you," boomed Holcombe, shaking his hand, bowing to Dominique, conspicuously ignoring Wynand. "Where have you been hiding? Why don't we see you around any more?" They had had luncheon together three days ago.
Wynand had risen and stood leaning forward a little, courteously. Keating hesitated; then, with obvious reluctance, said:
"Mr. Wynand--Mr. Holcombe."
"Not Mr. Gail Wynand?" said Holcombe, with splendid innocence.
"Mr. Holcombe, if you saw one of the cough-drop Smith brothers in real life, would you recognize him?" asked Wynand.
"Why--I guess so," said Holcombe, blinking.
"My face, Mr. Holcombe, is just as much of a public bromide."
Holcombe muttered a few benevolent generalities and escaped.
Wynand smiled affectionately. "You didn't have to be afraid of introducing Mr. Holcombe to me, Mr. Keating, even though he is an architect."
"Afraid, Mr. Wynand?"
"Unnecessarily, since it's all settled. Hasn't Mrs. Keating told you that Stoneridge is yours?"
"I ... no, she hasn't told me ... I didn't know...." Wynand was smiling, but the smile remained fixed, and Keating felt compelled to go on talking until some sign stopped him. "I hadn't quite hoped ... not so soon ... of course, I thought this dinner might be a sign ... help you to decide ..." He blurted out involuntarily: "Do you always throw surprises like that--just like that?"
"Whenever I can," said Wynand gravely.
"I shall do my best to deserve this honor and live up to your expectations, Mr. Wynand."
"I have no doubt about that," said Wynand.
He had said little to Dominique tonight. His full attention seemed centered on Keating.
"The public has been kind to my past endeavors," said Keating, "but I shall make Stoneridge my best achievement."
"That is quite a promise, considering the distinguished list of your works."
"I had not hoped that my works were of sufficient importance to attract your attention, Mr. Wynand."
"But I know them quite well. The Cosmo-Slotnick Building, which is pure Michelangelo." Keating's face spread in incredulous pleasure; he knew that Wynand was a great authority on art and would not make such comparisons lightly. "The Prudential Bank Building, which is genuine Palladio. The Slottern Department Store, which is snitched Christopher Wren." Keating's face had changed. "Look what an illustrious company I get for the price of one. Isn't it quite a bargain?"
Keating smiled, his face tight, and said:
"I've heard about your brilliant sense of humor, Mr. Wynand."
"Have you heard about my descriptive style?"
"What do you mean?"
Wynand half turned in his chair and looked at Dominique, as if he were inspecting an inanimate object.
"Your wife has a lovely body, Mr. Keating. Her shoulders are too thin, but admirably in scale with the rest of her. Her legs are too long, but that gives her the elegance of line you'll find in a good yacht. Her breasts are beautiful, don't you think?"
"Architecture is a crude profession, Mr. Wyna
nd," Keating tried to laugh. "It doesn't prepare one for the superior sort of sophistication."
"You don't understand me, Mr. Keating?"
"If I didn't know you were a perfect gentleman, I might misunderstand it, but you can't fool me."
"That is just what I am trying not to do."
"I appreciate compliments, Mr. Wynand, but I'm not conceited enough to think that we must talk about my wife."
"Why not, Mr. Keating? It is considered good form to talk of the things one has--or will have--in common."
"Mr. Wynand, I ... I don't understand."
"Shall I be more explicit?"
"No, I..."
"No? Shall we drop the subject of Stoneridge?"
"Oh, let's talk about Stoneridge! I ..."
"But we are, Mr. Keating."
Keating looked at the room about them. He thought that things like this could not be done in such a place; the fastidious magnificence made it monstrous; he wished it were a dank cellar. He thought: blood on paving stones--all right, but not blood on a drawing-room rug....
"Now I know this is a joke, Mr. Wynand," he said.
"It is my turn to admire your sense of humor, Mr. Keating."
"Things like ... like this aren't being done ..."
"That's not what you mean at all, Mr. Keating. You mean, they're being done all the time, but not talked about."
"I didn't think ..."
"You thought it before you came here. You didn't mind. I grant you I'm behaving abominably. I'm breaking all the rules of charity. It's extremely cruel to be honest."
"Please, Mr. Wynand, let's ... drop it. I don't know what ... I'm supposed to do."
"That's simple. You're supposed to slap my face." Keating giggled. "You were supposed to do that several minutes ago."
Keating noticed that his palms were wet and that he was trying to support his weight by holding on to the napkin on his lap. Wynand and Dominique were eating, slowly and graciously, as if they were at another table. Keating thought that they were not human bodies, either one of them; something had vanished; the light of the crystal fixtures in the room was the radiance of X-rays that ate through, not to the bones, but deeper; they were souls, he thought, sitting at a dinner table, souls held within evening clothes, lacking the intermediate shape of flesh, terrifying in naked revelation--terrifying, because he expected to see torturers, but saw a great innocence. He wondered what they saw, what his own clothes contained if his physical shape had gone.
"No?" said Wynand. "You don't want to do that, Mr. Keating? But of course you don't have to. Just say that you don't want any of it. I won't mind. There's Mr. Ralston Holcombe across the room. He can build Stoneridge as well as you could."
"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Wynand," whispered Keating. His eyes were fixed upon the tomato aspic on his salad plate; it was soft and shivering; it made him sick.
Wynand turned to Dominique.
"Do you remember our conversation about a certain quest, Mrs. Keating? I said it was a quest at which you would never succeed. Look at your husband. He's an expert--without effort. That is the way to go about it. Match that, sometime. Don't bother to tell me that you can't. I know it. You're an amateur, my dear."
Keating thought that he must speak again, but he couldn't, not as long as that salad was there before him. The terror came from that plate, not from the fastidious monster across the table; the rest of the room was warm and safe. He lurched forward and his elbow swept the plate off the table.
He made a kind of sound expressing regrets. Somebody's shape came up, there were polite voices of apology, and the mess vanished from the carpet.
Keating heard a voice saying: "Why are you doing this?" saw two faces turned to him and knew that he had said it.
"Mr. Wynand is not doing it to torture you, Peter," said Dominique calmly. "He's doing it for me. To see how much I can take."
"That's true, Mrs. Keating," said Wynand. "Partly true. The other part is: to justify myself."
"In whose eyes?"
"Yours. And my own, perhaps."
"Do you need to?"
"Sometimes. The Banner is a contemptible paper, isn't it? Well, I have paid with my honor for the privilege of holding a position where I can amuse myself by observing how honor operates in other men."
His own clothes, thought Keating, contained nothing now, because the two faces did not notice him any longer. He was safe; his place at that table was empty. He wondered, from a great, indifferent distance, why the two were looking at each other quietly, not like enemies, not like fellow executioners, but like comrades.
Two days before they were to sail, Wynand telephoned Dominique late in the evening.
"Could you come over right now?" he asked, and hearing a moment's silence, added: "Oh, not what you're thinking. I live up to my agreements. You'll be quite safe. I just would like to see you tonight."
"All right," she said, and was astonished to hear a quiet: "Thank you."
When the elevator door slid open in the private lobby of his penthouse, he was waiting there, but did not let her step out. He joined her in the elevator.
"I don't want you to enter my house," he said. "We're going to the floor below."
The elevator operator looked at him, amazed.
The car stopped and opened before a locked door. Wynand unlocked it and let her step out first, following her into the art gallery. She remembered that this was the place no outsider ever entered. She said nothing. He offered no explanation.
For hours she walked silently through the vast rooms, looking at the incredible treasures of beauty. There was a deep carpet and no sound of steps, no sounds from the city outside, no windows. He followed her, stopping when she stopped. His eyes went with hers from object to object. At times his glance moved to her face. She passed, without stopping, by the statue from the Stoddard Temple.
He did not urge her to stay nor to hurry, as if he had turned the place over to her. She decided when she wished to leave, and he followed her to the door. Then she asked:
"Why did you want me to see this? It won't make me think better of you. Worse, perhaps."
"Yes, I'd expect that," he said quietly, "if I had thought of it that way. But I didn't. I just wanted you to see it."
IV
THE SUN HAD SET WHEN THEY STEPPED OUT OF THE CAR. IN THE spread of sky and sea, a green sky over a sheet of mercury, tracings of fire remained at the edges of the clouds and in the brass fittings of the yacht. The yacht was like a white streak of motion, a sensitive body strained against the curb of stillness.
Dominique looked at the gold letters--I Do--on the delicate white bow.
"What does that name mean?" she asked.
"It's an answer," said Wynand, "to people long since dead. Though perhaps they are the only immortal ones. You see, the sentence I heard most often in my childhood was 'You don't run things around here.' "
She remembered hearing that he had never answered this question before. He had answered her at once; he had not seemed conscious of making an exception. She felt a sense of calm in his manner, strange and new to him, an air of quiet finality.
When they went aboard, the yacht started moving, almost as if Wynand's steps on deck had served as contact. He stood at the rail, not touching her, he looked at the long, brown shore that rose and fell against the sky, moving away from them. Then he turned to her. She saw no new recognition in his eyes, no beginning, but only the continuation of a glance--as if he had been looking at her all the time.
When they went below he walked with her into her cabin. He said: "Please let me know if there's anything you wish," and walked out through an inside door. She saw that it led to his bedroom. He closed the door and did not return.
She moved idly across the cabin. A smear of reflection followed her on the lustrous surfaces of the pale satinwood paneling. She stretched out in a low armchair, her ankles crossed, her arms thrown behind her head, and watched the porthole turning from green to a dark blue. She moved her h
and, switched on a light; the blue vanished and became a glazed black circle.
The steward announced dinner. Wynand knocked at her door and accompanied her to the dining salon. His manner puzzled her: it was gay, but the sense of calm in the gaiety suggested a peculiar earnestness.
She asked, when they were seated at the table:
"Why did you leave me alone?"
"I thought you might want to be alone."
"To get used to the idea?"
"If you wish to put it that way."
"I was used to it before I came to your office."
"Yes, of course. Forgive me for implying any weakness in you. I know better. By the way, you haven't asked me where we're going."
"That, too, would be weakness."
"True. I'm glad you don't care. Because I never have any definite destination. This ship is not for going to places, but for getting away from them. When I stop at a port, it's only for the sheer pleasure of leaving it. I always think: Here's one more spot that can't hold me."
"I used to travel a great deal. I always felt just like that. I've been told it's because I'm a hater of mankind."
"You're not foolish enough to believe that, are you?"
"I don't know."
"Surely you've seen through that particular stupidity. I mean the one that claims the pig is the symbol of love for humanity--the creature that accepts anything. As a matter of fact, the person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him."
"You mean the person who says that there's some good in the worst of us?"
"I mean the person who has the filthy insolence to claim that he loves equally the man who made that statue of you and the man who makes a Mickey Mouse balloon to sell on street corners. I mean the person who loves the men who prefer the Mickey Mouse to your statue--and there are many of that kind. I mean the person who loves Joan of Arc and the salesgirls in dress shops on Broadway--with an equal fervor. I mean the person who loves your beauty and the women he sees in a subway--the kind that can't cross their knees and show flesh hanging publicly over their garters--with the same sense of exaltation. I mean the person who loves the clean, steady, unfrightened eyes of man looking through a telescope and the white stare of an imbecile--equally. I mean quite a large, generous, magnanimous company. Is it you who hate mankind, Mrs. Keating?"