The Fountainhead (79 page)

This was it, thought Keating; now there was no retreat. He could not admit to himself that he was afraid of asking Ellsworth Toohey.

“No,” he said, his voice dull, “I’m not afraid, Neil. I’ll ... All right, Neil. I’ll speak to Ellsworth.”

Ellsworth Toohey sat spread out on a couch, wearing a dressing gown. His body had the shape of a sloppy letter X—arms stretched over his head, along the edge of the back pillows, legs open in a wide fork. The dressing gown was made of silk bearing the trademarked pattern of Coty’s face powder, white puffs on an orange background; it looked daring and gay, supremely elegant through sheer silliness. Under the gown, Toohey wore sleeping pyjamas of pistachio-green linen, crumpled. The trousers floated about the thin sticks of his ankles.

This was just like Toohey, thought Keating; this pose amidst the severe fastidiousness of his living room; a single canvas by a famous artist on the wall behind him—and the rest of the room unobtrusive like a monk’s cell; no, thought Keating, like the retreat of a king in exile, scornful of material display.

Toohey’s eyes were warm, amused, encouraging. Toohey had answered the telephone in person; Toohey had granted him the appointment at once. Keating thought: It’s good to be received like this, informally. What was I afraid of? What did I doubt? We’re old friends.

“Oh dear me,” said Toohey, yawning, “one gets so tired! There comes a moment into every man’s day when he gets the urge to relax like a stumble bum. I got home and just felt I couldn’t keep my clothes on another minute. Felt like a damn peasant—just plain itchy—and had to get out. You don’t mind, do you, Peter? With some people it’s necessary to be stiff and formal, but with you it’s not necessary at all.”

“No, of course not.”

“Think I’ll take a bath after a while. There’s nothing like a good hot bath to make one feel like a parasite. Do you like hot baths, Peter?”

“Why ... yes ... I guess so ...”

“You’re gaining weight, Peter. Pretty soon you’ll look revolting in a bathtub. You’re gaining weight and you look peaked. That’s a bad combination. Absolutely wrong esthetically. Fat people should be happy and jolly.”

“I ... I’m all right, Ellsworth. It’s only that ...”

“You used to have a nice disposition. You mustn’t lose that. People will get bored with you.”

“I haven’t changed, Ellsworth.” Suddenly he stressed the words. “I haven’t really changed at all. I’m just what I was when I designed the Cosmo-Slotnick Building.”

He looked at Toohey hopefully. He thought this was a hint crude enough for Toohey to understand; Toohey understood things much more delicate than that. He waited to be helped out. Toohey went on looking at him, his eyes sweet and blank.

“Why, Peter, that’s an unphilosophical statement. Change is the basic principle of the universe. Everything changes. Seasons, leaves, flowers, birds, morals, men and buildings. The dialectic process, Peter.”

“Yes, of course. Things change, so fast, in such a funny way. You don’t even notice how, and suddenly one morning there it is. Remember, just a few years ago, Lois Cook and Gordon Prescott and Ike and Lance—they were nobody at all. And now—why, Ellsworth, they’re on top and they’re all yours. Anywhere I look, any big name I hear—it’s one of your boys. You’re amazing, Ellsworth. How anybody can do that—in just a few years—”

“It’s much simpler than it appears to you, Peter. That’s because you think in terms of personalities. You think it’s done piecemeal. But dear me, the lifetimes of a hundred press agents wouldn’t be enough. It can be done much faster. This is the age of time-saving devices. If you want something to grow, you don’t nurture each seed separately. You just spread a certain fertilizer. Nature will do the rest. I believe you think I’m the only one responsible. But I’m not. Goodness, no. I’m just one figure out of many, one lever in a very vast movement. Very vast and very ancient. It just so happened that I chose the field that interests you—the field of art—because I thought that it focused the decisive factors in the task we had to accomplish.”

“Yes, of course, but I mean, I think you were so clever. I mean, that you could pick young people who had talent, who had a future. Damned if I know how you guessed in advance. Remember the awful loft we had for the Council of American Builders? And nobody took us seriously. And people used to laugh at you for wasting time on all kinds of silly organizations.”

“My dear Peter, people go by so many erroneous assumptions. For instance, that old one—divide and conquer. Well, it has its applications. But it remained for our century to discover a much more potent formula. Unite and rule.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing that you could possibly grasp. And I must not overtax your strength. You don’t look as if you had much to spare.”

“Oh, I’m all right. I might look a little worried, because ...”

“Worry is a waste of emotional reserves. Very foolish. Unworthy of an enlightened person. Since we are merely the creatures of our chemical metabolism and of the economic factors of our background, there’s not a damn thing we can do about anything whatever. So why worry? There are, of course, apparent exceptions. Merely apparent. When circumstances delude us into thinking that free action is indicated. Such, for instance, as your coming here to talk about Cortlandt Homes.”

Keating blinked, then smiled gratefully. He thought it was just like Toohey to guess and spare him the embarrassing preliminaries.

“That’s right, Ellsworth. That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. You’re wonderful. You know me like a book.”

“What kind of a book, Peter? A dime novel? A love story? A crime thriller? Or just a plagiarized manuscript? No, let’s say: like a serial. A good, long, exciting serial—with the last installment missing. The last installment got mislaid somewhere. There won’t be any last installment. Unless, of course, it’s Cortlandt Homes. Yes, that would be a fitting closing chapter.” Keating waited, eyes intent and naked, forgetting to think of shame, of pleading that should be concealed. “A tremendous project, Cortlandt Homes. Bigger than Stoneridge. Do you remember Stoneridge, Peter?”

He’s just relaxed with me, thought Keating, he’s tired, he can’t be tactful all the time, he doesn’t realize what he ...

“Stoneridge. The great residential development by Gail Wynand. Have you ever thought of Gail Wynand’s career, Peter? From wharf rat to Stoneridge—do you know what a step like that means? Would you care to compute the effort, the energy, the suffering with which Gail Wynand has paid for every step of his way? And here I am, and I hold a project much bigger than Stoneridge in the palm of my hand, without any effort at all.” He dropped his hand and added: “If I do hold it. Might be only a figure of speech. Don’t take me literally, Peter.”

“I hate Wynand,” said Keating, looking down at the floor, his voice thick. “I hate him more than any man living.”

“Wynand? He’s a very naïve person. He’s naive enough to think that men are motivated primarily by money.”

“You aren’t, Ellsworth. You’re a man of integrity. That’s why I believe in you. It’s all I’ve got. If I stopped believing in you, there would be nothing ... anywhere.”

“Thank you, Peter. That’s sweet of you. Hysterical, but sweet.”

“Ellsworth ... you know how I feel about you.”

“I have a fair idea.”

“You see, that’s why I can’t understand.”

“What?”

He had to say it. He had decided, above all, never to say it, but he had to.

“Ellsworth, why have you dropped me? Why don’t you ever write anything about me any more? Why is it always—in your column and everywhere—and on any commission you have a chance to swing—why is it always Gus Webb?”

“But, Peter, why shouldn’t it be?”

“But... I...”

“I’m sorry to see that you haven’t understood me at all. In all these years, you’ve learned nothing of my principles. I don’t believe in individualism, Peter. I don’t believe that any one man is any one thing which everybody else can’t be. I believe we’re all equal and interchangeable. A position you hold today can be held by anybody and everybody tomorrow. Equalitarian rotation. Haven’t I always preached that to you? Why do you suppose I chose you? Why did I put you where you were? To protect the field from men who would become irreplaceable. To leave a chance for the Gus Webbs of this world. Why do you suppose I fought against—for instance—Howard Roark?”

Keating’s mind was a bruise. He thought it would be a bruise, because it felt as if something flat and heavy had smashed against it, and it would be black and blue and swollen later; now he felt nothing, except a sweetish numbness. Such chips of thought as he could distinguish told him that the ideas he heard were of a high moral order, the ones he had always accepted, and therefore no evil could come to him from that, no evil could be intended. Toohey’s eyes looked straight at him, dark, gentle, benevolent. Maybe later ... he would know later ... But one thing had pierced through and remained caught on some fragment of his brain. He had understood that. The name.

And while his sole hope of grace rested in Toohey, something inexplicable twisted within him, he leaned forward, knowing that this would hurt, wishing it to hurt Toohey, and his lips curled incredibly into a smile, baring his teeth and gums:

“You failed there, didn’t you, Ellsworth? Look where he is now—Howard Roark.”

“Oh dear me, how dull it is to discuss things with minds devoted to the obvious. You are utterly incapable of grasping principles, Peter. You think only in terms of persons. Do you really suppose that I have no mission in life save to worry over the specific fate of your Howard Roark? Mr. Roark is merely one detail out of many. I have dealt with him when it was convenient. I am still dealing with him—though not directly. I do grant you, however, that Mr. Howard Roark is a great temptation to me. At times I feel it would be a shame if I never came up against him personally again. But it might not be necessary at all. When you deal in principles, Peter, it saves you the trouble of individual encounters.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you can follow one of two procedures. You can devote your life to pulling out each single weed as it comes up—and then ten lifetimes won’t be enough for the job. Or you can prepare your soil in such a manner—by spreading a certain chemical, let us say—that it will be impossible for weeds to grow. This last is faster. I say ‘weed’ because it is the conventional symbolism and will not frighten you. The same technique, of course, holds true in the case of any other living plant you may wish to eliminate: buckwheat, potatoes, oranges, orchids or morning glories.”

“Ellsworth, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But of course you don’t. That’s my advantage. I say these things publicly every single day—and nobody knows what I’m talking about.”

“Have you heard that Howard Roark is doing a house, his own home, for Gail Wynand?”

“My dear Peter, did you think I had to wait to learn it from you?”

“Well, how do you like that?”

“Why should it concern me one way or another?”

“Have you heard that Roark and Wynand are the best of friends? And what friendship, from what I hear! Well? You know what Wynand can do. You know what he can make of Roark. Try and stop Roark now! Try and stop him! Try ...”

He choked on a gulp and kept still. He found himself staring at Toohey’s bare ankle between the pyjama trouser and the rich fur of a sheepskin-lined slipper. He had never visualized Toohey’s nudity; somehow, he had never thought of Toohey as possessing a physical body. There was something faintly indecent about that ankle: just skin, too bluish-white, stretched over bones that looked too brittle. It made him think of chicken bones left on a plate after dinner, dried out; if one touches them, it takes no effort at all, they just snap. He found himself wishing to reach out, to take that ankle between thumb and forefinger, and just twist the pads of his fingertips.

“Ellsworth, I came here to talk about Cortlandt Homes!” He could not take his eyes off the ankle. He hoped the words would release him.

“Don’t shout like that. What’s the matter? ... Cortlandt Homes? Well, what did you want to say about it?”

He had to lift his eyes now, in astonishment. Toohey waited innocently.

“I want to design Cortlandt Homes,” he said, his voice coming like a paste strained through a cloth. “I want you to give it to me.”

“Why should I give it to you?”

There was no answer. If he were to say now: Because you’ve written that I’m the greatest architect living, the reminder would prove that Toohey believed it no longer. He dared not face such proof, nor Toohey’s possible reply. He was staring at two long black hairs on the bluish knob of Toohey’s ankle; he could see them quite clearly: one straight, the other twisted into a curlicue. After a long time, he answered :

“Because I need it very badly, Ellsworth.”

“I know you do.”

There was nothing further to say. Toohey shifted his ankle, raised his foot and put it flat upon the arm of the couch, spreading his legs comfortably.

“Sit up, Peter. You look like a gargoyle.”

Keating did not move.

“What made you assume that the selection of an architect for Cortlandt Homes was up to me?”

Keating raised his head; it was a stab of relief. He had presumed too much and offended Toohey; that was the reason; that was the only reason.

“Why, I understand ... it’s being said ... I was told that you have a great deal of influence on this particular project ... with those people ... and in Washington ... and places ...”

“Strictly in an unofficial capacity. As something of an expert in architectural matters. Nothing else.”

“Yes, of course.... That’s ... what I meant.”

“I can recommend an architect. That’s all. I can guarantee nothing. My word is not final.”

“That’s all I wanted, Ellsworth. A word of recommendation from you...”

“But, Peter, if I recommend someone, I must give a reason. I can’t use such influence as I might have, just to push a friend, can I?”

Keating stared at the dressing gown, thinking: powder puffs, why powder puffs? That’s what’s wrong with me, if he’d only take the thing off.