The Fountainhead (11 page)

VI

S
ERMONS IN STONE
BY ELLSWORTH M. TOOHEY WAS PUBLISHED IN January of the year 1925.

It had a fastidious jacket of midnight blue with plain silver letters and a silver pyramid in one corner. It was subtitled “Architecture for Everybody” and its success was sensational. It presented the entire history of architecture, from mud hut to skyscraper, in the terms of the man in the street, but it made these terms appear scientific. Its author stated in his preface that it was an attempt “to bring architecture where it belongs—to the people.” He stated further that he wished to see the average man “think and speak of architecture as he speaks of baseball.” He did not bore his readers with the technicalities of the Five Orders, the post and lintel, the flying buttress or reinforced concrete. He filled his pages with homey accounts of the daily life of the Egyptian housekeeper, the Roman shoe-cobbler, the mistress of Louis XIV, what they ate, how they washed, where they shopped and what effect their buildings had upon their existence. But he gave his readers the impression that they were learning all they had to know about the Five Orders and the reinforced concrete. He gave his readers the impression that there were no problems, no achievements, no reaches of thought beyond the common daily routine of people nameless in the past as they were in the present; that science had no goal and no expression beyond its influence on this routine; that merely by living through their own obscure days his readers were representing and achieving all the highest objectives of any civilization. His scientific precision was impeccable and his erudition astounding; no one could refute him on the cooking utensils of Babylon or the doormats of Byzantium. He wrote with the flash and the color of a first-hand observer. He did not plod laboriously through the centuries; he danced, said the critics, down the road of the ages, as a jester, a friend and a prophet.

He said that architecture was truly the greatest of the arts, because it was anonymous, as all greatness. He said that the world had many famous buildings, but few renowned builders, which was as it should be, since no one man had ever created anything of importance in architecture, or elsewhere, for that matter. The few whose names had lived were really impostors, expropriating the glory of the people as others expropriated its wealth. “When we gaze at the magnificence of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, we are guilty of spiritual embezzlement. We forget the army of craftsmen, unknown and unsung, who preceded him in the darkness of the ages, who toiled humbly—all heroism is humble—each contributing his small share to the common treasure of his time. A great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people.”

He explained that the decadence of architecture had come when private property replaced the communal spirit of the Middle Ages, and that the selfishness of individual owners—who built for no purpose save to satisfy their own bad taste, “all claim to an individual taste is bad taste”—had ruined the planned effect of cities. He demonstrated that there was no such thing as free will, since men’s creative impulses were determined, as all else, by the economic structure of the epoch in which they lived. He expressed admiration for all the great historical styles, but admonished against their wanton mixture. He dismissed modern architecture, stating that: “So far, it has represented nothing but the whim of isolated individuals, has borne no relation to any great, spontaneous mass movement, and as such is of no consequence.” He predicted a better world to come, where all men would be brothers and their buildings would become harmonious and all alike, in the great tradition of Greece, “the Mother of Democracy.” When he wrote this, he managed to convey—with no tangible break in the detached calm of his style—that the words now seen in ordered print had been blurred in manuscript by a hand unsteady with emotion. He called upon architects to abandon their selfish quest for individual glory and dedicate themselves to the embodiment of the mood of their people. “Architects are servants, not leaders. They are not to assert their little egos, but to express the soul of their country and the rhythm of their time. They are not to follow the delusions of their personal fancy, but to seek the common denominator, which will bring their work close to the heart of the masses. Architects -ah, my friends, theirs is not to reason why. Theirs is not to command, but to be commanded.”

The advertisements for
Sermons in Stone
carried quotations from critics: “Magnificent!” “A stupendous achievement!” “Unequaled in all art history!” “Your chance to get acquainted with a charming man and a profound thinker.” “Mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to the title of intellectual.”

There seemed to be a great many aspiring to that title. Readers acquired erudition without study, authority without cost, judgment without effort. It was pleasant to look at buildings and criticize them with a professional manner and with the memory of page 439; to hold artistic discussions and exchange the same sentences from the same paragraphs. In distinguished drawing rooms one could soon hear it said: “Architecture? Oh, yes, Ellsworth Toohey.”

According to his principles, Ellsworth M. Toohey listed no architect by name in the text of his book—“the myth-building, hero-worshiping method of historical research has always been obnoxious to me.” The names appeared only in footnotes. Several of these referred to Guy Francon, “who has a tendency to the overornate, but must be commended for his loyalty to the strict tradition of Classicism.” One note referred to Henry Cameron, “prominent once as one of the fathers of the so-called modern school of architecture and relegated since to a well-deserved oblivion.
Vox populi vox dei.”

In February of 1925 Henry Cameron retired from practice.

For a year, he had known that the day would come. He had not spoken of it to Roark, but they both knew and went on, expecting nothing save to go on as long as it was still possible. A few commissions had dribbled into their office in the past year, country cottages, garages, remodeling of old buildings. They took anything. But the drops stopped. The pipes were dry. The water had been turned off by a society to whom Cameron had never paid his bill.

Simpson and the old man in the reception room had been dismissed long ago. Only Roark remained, to sit still through the winter evenings and look at Cameron’s body slumped over his desk, arms flung out, head on arms, a bottle glistening under the lamp.

Then, one day in February, when Cameron had touched no alcohol for weeks, he reached for a book on a shelf and collapsed at Roark’s feet, suddenly, simply, finally. Roark took him home and the doctor stated that an attempt to leave his bed would be all the death sentence Cameron needed. Cameron knew it. He lay still on his pillow, his hands dropped obediently one at each side of his body, his eyes unblinking and empty. Then he said:

“You’ll close the office for me, Howard, will you?”

“Yes,” said Roark.

Cameron closed his eyes, and would say nothing else, and Roark sat all night by his bed, not knowing whether the old man slept or not.

A sister of Cameron’s appeared from somewhere in New Jersey. She was a meek little old lady with white hair, trembling hands and a face one could never remember, quiet, resigned and gently hopeless. She had a meager little income and she assumed the responsibility of taking her brother to her home in New Jersey; she had never married and had no one else in the world; she was neither glad nor sorry of the burden; she had lost all capacity for emotion many years ago.

On the day of his departure Cameron handed to Roark a letter he had written in the night, written painfully, an old drawing board on his knees, a pillow propping his back. The letter was addressed to a prominent architect; it was Roark’s introduction to a job. Roark read it and, looking at Cameron, not at his own hands, tore the letter across, folded the pieces and tore it again.

“No,” said Roark. “You’re not going to ask them for anything. Don’t worry about me.”

Cameron nodded and kept silent for a long time.

Then he said:

“You’ll close up the office, Howard. You’ll let them keep the furniture for their rent. But you’ll take the drawing that’s on the wall in my room there and you’ll ship it to me. Only that. You’ll burn everything else. All the papers, the files, the drawings, the contracts, everything.”

“Yes,” said Roark.

Miss Cameron came with the orderlies and the stretcher, and they rode in an ambulance to the ferry. At the entrance to the ferry, Cameron said to Roark:

“You’re going back now.” He added: “You’ll come to see me, Howard.... Not too often ...”

Roark turned and walked away, while they were carrying Cameron to the pier. It was a gray morning and there was the cold, rotting smell of the sea in the air. A gull dipped low over the street, gray like a floating piece of newspaper, against a corner of damp, streaked stone.

That evening, Roark went to Cameron’s closed office. He did not turn on the lights. He made a fire in the Franklin heater in Cameron’s room, and emptied drawer after drawer into the fire, not looking down at them. The papers rustled dryly in the silence, a thin odor of mold rose through the dark room, and the fire hissed, crackling, leaping in bright streaks. At times a white flake with charred edges would flutter out of the flames. He pushed it back with the end of a steel ruler.

There were drawings of Cameron’s famous buildings and of buildings unbuilt; there were blueprints with the thin white lines that were girders still standing somewhere; there were contracts with famous signatures; and at times, from out of the red glow, there flashed a sum of seven figures written on yellowed paper, flashed and went down, in a thin burst of sparks.

From among the letters in an old folder, a newspaper clipping fluttered to the floor. Roark picked it up. It was dry, brittle and yellow, and it broke at the folds, in his fingers. It was an interview given by Henry Cameron, dated May 7, 1892. It said: “Architecture is not a business, not a career, but a crusade and a consecration to a joy that justifies the existence of the earth.” He dropped the clipping into the fire and reached for another folder.

He gathered every stub of pencil from Cameron’s desk and threw them in also.

He stood over the heater. He did not move, he did not look down; he felt the movement of the glow, a faint shudder at the edge of his vision. He looked at the drawing of the skyscraper that had never been built, hanging on the wall before him.

It was Peter Keating’s third year with the firm of Francon & Heyer. He carried his head high, his body erect with studied uprightness; he looked like the picture of a successful young man in advertisements for high-priced razors or medium-priced cars.

He dressed well and watched people noticing it. He had an apartment off Park Avenue, modest but fashionable, and he bought three valuable etchings as well as a first edition of a classic he had never read nor opened since. Occasionally, he escorted clients to the Metropolitan Opera. He appeared, once, at a fancy-dress Arts Ball and created a sensation by his costume of a medieval stonecutter, scarlet velvet and tights; he was mentioned in a society-page account of the event—the first mention of his name in print—and he saved the clipping.

He had forgotten his first building, and the fear and doubt of its birth. He had learned that it was so simple. His clients would accept anything, so long as he gave them an imposing façade, a majestic entrance and a regal drawing room, with which to astound their guests. It worked out to everyone’s satisfaction: Keating did not care so long as his clients were impressed, the clients did not care so long as their guests were impressed, and the guests did not care anyway.

Mrs. Keating rented her house in Stanton and came to live with him in New York. He did not want her; he could not refuse—because she was his mother and he was not expected to refuse. He met her with some eagerness; he could at least impress her by his rise in the world. She was not impressed; she inspected his rooms, his clothes, his bank books and said only: “It’ll do, Petey—for the time being.”

She made one visit to his office and departed within a half-hour. That evening he had to sit still, squeezing and cracking his knuckles, for an hour and a half, while she gave him advice. “That fellow Whithers had a much more expensive suit than yours, Petey. That won’t do. You’ve got to watch your prestige before those boys. The little one who brought in those blueprints—I didn’t like the way he spoke to you.... Oh, nothing, nothing, only I’d keep my eye on him.... The one with the long nose is no friend of yours.... Never mind, I just know.... Watch out for the one they called Bennett. I’d get rid of him if I were you. He’s ambitious. I know the signs....”

Then she asked:

“Guy Francon ... has he any children?”

“One daughter.”

“Oh ...” said Mrs. Keating. “What is she like?”

“I’ve never met her.”

“Really, Peter,” she said, “it’s downright rude to Mr. Francon if you’ve made no effort to meet his family.”

“She’s been away at college, Mother. I’ll meet her some day. It’s getting late, Mother, and I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow....”

But he thought of it that night and the following day. He had thought of it before and often. He knew that Francon’s daugher had graduated from college long ago and was now working on the Banner, where she wrote a small column on home decoration. He had been able to learn nothing else about her. No one in the office seemed to know her. Francon never spoke of her.

On that following day, at luncheon, Keating decided to face the subject.

“I hear such nice things about your daughter,” he said to Francon.

“Where
did you hear nice things about her?” Francon asked ominously.

“Oh, well, you know how it is, one hears things. And she writes brilliantly.”

“Yes, she writes brilliantly.” Francon’s mouth snapped shut.

“Really, Guy, I’d love to meet her.”