The Fountainhead (52 page)

John Erik Snyte testified modestly and unobtrusively that he had employed Roark in his office, that Roark had been an unreliable, disloyal and unscrupulous employee, and that Roark had started his career by stealing a client from him.

On the fourth day of the trial the plaintiff’s attorney called his last witness.

“Miss Dominique Francon,” he announced solemnly.

Mallory gasped, but no one heard it; Mike’s hand clamped down on his wrist and made him keep still.

The attorney had reserved Dominique for his climax, partly because he expected a great deal from her, and partly because he was worried: she was the only unrehearsed witness; she had refused to be coached. She had never mentioned the Stoddard Temple in her column; but he had looked up her earlier writings on Roark; and Ellsworth Toohey had advised him to call her.

Dominique stood for a moment on the elevation of the witness stand, looking slowly over the crowd. Her beauty was startling but too impersonal, as if it did not belong to her; it seemed present in the room as a separate entity. People thought of a vision that had not quite appeared, of a victim on a scaffold, of a person standing at night at the rail of an ocean liner.

“What is your name?”

“Dominique Francon.”

“And your occupation, Miss Francon?”

“Newspaper woman.”

“You are the author of the brilliant column ‘Your House’ appearing in the New York
Banner?”

“I am the author of ‘Your House.’ ”

“Your father is Guy Francon, the eminent architect?”

“Yes. My father was asked to come here to testify. He refused. He said he did not care for a building such as the Stoddard Temple, but he did not think that we were behaving like gentlemen.”

“Well, now, Miss Francon, shall we confine our answers to our questions? We are indeed fortunate to have you with us, since you are our only woman witness, and women have always had the purest sense of religious faith. Being, in addition, an outstanding authority on architecture, you are eminently qualified to give us what I shall call, with all deference, the feminine angle on this case. Will you tell us in your own words what you think of the Stoddard Temple?”

“I think that Mr. Stoddard has made a mistake. There would have been no doubt about the justice of his case if he had sued, not for alteration costs, but for demolition costs.”

The attorney looked relieved. “Will you explain your reasons, Miss Francon?”

“You have heard them from every witness at this trial.”

“Then I take it that you agree with the preceding testimony?”

“Completely. Even more completely than the persons who testified. They were very convincing witnesses.”

“Will you ... clarify that, Miss Francon? Just what do you mean?”

“What Mr. Toohey said: that this temple is a threat to all of us.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Mr. Toohey understood the issue so well. Shall I clarify it—in my own words?”

“By all means.”

“Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit. He saw man as strong, proud, clean, wise and fearless. He saw man as a heroic being. And he built a temple to that. A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation. He thought that exaltation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth and achieving it, of living up to one’s highest possibility, of knowing no shame and having no cause for shame, of being able to stand naked in full sunlight. He thought that exaltation means joy and that joy is man’s birthright. He thought that a place built as a setting for man is a sacred place. That is what Howard Roark thought of man and of exaltation. But Ellsworth Toohey said that this temple was a monument to a profound hatred of humanity. Ellsworth Toohey said that the essence of exaltation was to be scared out of your wits, to fall down and to grovel. Ellsworth Toohey said that man’s highest act was to realize his own worthlessness and to beg forgiveness. Ellsworth Toohey said it was depraved not to take for granted that man is something which needs to be forgiven. Ellsworth Toohey saw that this building was of man and of the earth—and Ellsworth Toohey said that this building had its belly in the mud. To glorify man, said Ellsworth Toohey, was to glorify the gross pleasures of the flesh, for the realm of the spirit is beyond the grasp of man. To enter that realm, said Ellsworth Toohey, man must come as a beggar, on his knees. Ellsworth Toohey is a lover of mankind.”

“Miss Francon, we are not really discussing Mr. Toohey, so if you will confine yourself to ...”

“I do not condemn Ellsworth Toohey. I condemn Howard Roark. A building, they say, must be part of its site. In what kind of world did Roark build his temple? For what kind of men? Look around you. Can you see a shrine becoming sacred by serving as a setting for Mr. Hopton Stoddard? For Mr. Ralston Holcombe? For Mr. Peter Keating? When you look at them all, do you hate Ellsworth Toohey—or do you damn Howard Roark for the unspeakable indignity which he did commit? Ellsworth Toohey is right, that temple is a sacrilege, though not in the sense he meant. I think Mr. Toohey knows that, however. When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return—it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck and to let them become the occasion for a whole concert of grunting, transcribed by the court stenographer.”

“Miss Francon, I hardly think that this line of testimony is relevant or admissible ...”

“The witness must be allowed to testify,” the judge declared unexpectedly. He had been bored and he liked to watch Dominique’s figure. Besides, he knew that the audience was enjoying it, in the sheer excitement of scandal, even though their sympathies were with Hopton Stoddard.

“Your Honor, some misunderstanding seems to have occurred,” said the attorney. “Miss Francon, for whom are you testifying? For Mr. Roark or Mr. Stoddard?”

“For Mr. Stoddard, of course. I am stating the reasons why Mr. Stoddard should win this case. I have sworn to tell the truth.”

“Proceed,” said the judge.

“All the witnesses have told the truth. But not the whole truth. I am merely filling in the omissions. They spoke of a threat and of hatred. They were right. The Stoddard Temple is a threat to many things. If it were allowed to exist, nobody would dare to look at himself in the mirror. And that is a cruel thing to do to men. Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don’t ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul. Well, they know best. They must have their reasons. They won’t say, of course, that they hate you. They will say that you hate them. It’s near enough, I suppose. They know the emotion involved. Such are men as they are. So what is the use of being a martyr to the impossible? What is the use of building for a world that does not exist?”

“Your Honor, I don’t see what possible bearing this can have on ...”

“I am proving your case for you. I am proving why you must go with Ellsworth Toohey, as you will anyway. The Stoddard Temple must be destroyed. Not to save men from it, but to save it from men. What’s the difference, however? Mr. Stoddard wins. I am in full agreement with everything that’s being done here, except for one point. I didn’t think we should be allowed to get away with that point. Let us destroy, but don’t let us pretend that we are committing an act of virtue. Let us say that we are moles and we object to mountain peaks. Or, perhaps, that we are lemmings, the animals who cannot help swimming out to self-destruction. I realize fully that at this moment I am as futile as Howard Roark.
This
is my Stoddard Temple—my first and my last.” She inclined her head to the judge. “That is all, Your Honor.”

“Your witness,” the attorney snapped to Roark.

“No questions,” said Roark.

Dominique left the stand.

The attorney bowed to the bench and said: “The plaintiff rests.”

The judge turned to Roark and made a vague gesture, inviting him to proceed.

Roark got up and walked to the bench, the brown envelope in hand. He took out of the envelope ten photographs of the Stoddard Temple and laid them on the judge’s desk. He said:

“The defense rests.”

XIII

H
OPTON STODDARD WON THE SUIT. Ellsworth Toohey wrote in his column: “Mr. Roark pulled a Phryne in court and didn’t get away with it. We never believed that story in the first place.”

Roark was instructed to pay the costs of the Temple’s alterations. He said that he would not appeal the case. Hopton Stoddard announced that the Temple would be remodeled into the Hopton Stoddard Home for Subnormal Children.

On the day after the end of the trial Alvah Scarret gasped when he glanced at the proofs of “Your House” delivered to his desk: the column contained most of Dominique’s testimony in court. Her testimony had been quoted in the newspaper accounts of the case but only in harmless excerpts. Alvah Scarret hurried to Dominique’s office.

“Darling, darling, darling,” he said, “we can’t print that.”

She looked at him blankly and said nothing.

“Dominique, sweetheart, be reasonable. Quite apart from some of the language you use and some of your utterly unprintable ideas, you know very well the stand this paper has taken on the case. You know the campaign we’ve conducted. You’ve read my editorial this morning—‘A Victory for Decency.’ We can’t have one writer running against our whole policy.”

“You’ll have to print it.”

“But, sweetheart ...”

“Or I’ll have to quit.”

“Oh, go on, go on, go on, don’t be silly. Now don’t get ridiculous. You know better than that. We can’t get along without you. We can’t ...”

“You’ll have to choose, Alvah.”

Scarret knew that he would get hell from Gail Wynand if he printed the thing, and might get hell if he lost Dominique Francon whose column was popular. Wynand had not returned from his cruise. Scarret cabled him in Bali, explaining the situation.

Within a few hours Scarret received an answer. It was in Wynand’s private code. Translated it read: FIRE THE BITCH. G. W.

Scarret stared at the cable, crushed. It was an order that allowed no alternative, even if Dominique surrendered. He hoped she would resign. He could not face the thought of having to fire her.

Through an office boy whom he had recommended for the job, Toohey obtained the decoded copy of Wynand’s cable. He put it in his pocket and went to Dominique’s office. He had not seen her since the trial. He found her engaged in emptying the drawers of her desk.

“Hello,” he said curtly. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting to hear from Alvah Scarret.”

“Meaning?”

“Waiting to hear whether I’ll have to resign.”

“Feel like talking about the trial?”

“No.”

“I do. I think I owe you the courtesy of admitting that you’ve done what no one has ever done before: you proved me wrong.” He spoke coldly; his face looked flat; his eyes had no trace of kindness. “I had not expected you to do what you did on the stand. It was a scurvy trick. Though up to your usual standard. I simply miscalculated the direction of your malice. However, you did have the good sense to admit that your act was futile. Of course, you made your point. And mine. As a token of appreciation, I have a present for you.”

He laid the cable on her desk.

She read it and stood holding it in her hand.

“You can’t even resign, my dear,” he said. “You can’t make that sacrifice to your pearl-casting hero. Remembering that you attach such great importance to not being beaten except by your own hand, I thought you would enjoy this.”

She folded the cable and slipped it into her purse.

“Thank you, Ellsworth.”

“If you’re going to fight me, my dear, it will take more than speeches.”

“Haven’t I always?”

“Yes. Yes, of course you have. Quite right. You’re correcting me again. You have always fought me—and the only time you broke down and screamed for mercy was on that witness stand.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s where I miscalculated.”

“Yes.”

He bowed formally and left the room.

She made a package of the things she wanted to take home. Then she went to Scarret’s office. She showed him the cable in her hand, but she did not give it to him.

“Okay, Alvah,” she said.

“Dominique, I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t help it, it was—How the hell did you get that?”

“It’s all right, Alvah. No, I won’t give it back to you. I want to keep it.” She put the cable back in her bag. “Mail me my check and anything else that has to be discussed.”

“You ... you
were
going to resign anyway, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was. But I like it better—being fired.”

“Dominique, if you knew how awful I feel about it. I can’t believe it. I simply can’t believe it.”

“So you people made a martyr out of me, after all. And that is the one thing I’ve tried all my life not to be. It’s so graceless, being a martyr. It’s honoring your adversaries too much. But I’ll tell you this, Alvah—I’ll tell it to you, because I couldn’t find a less appropriate person to hear it: nothing that you do to me—or to him—will be worse than what I’ll do myself. If you think I can’t take the Stoddard Temple, wait till you see what I can take.”

On an evening three days after the trial Ellsworth Toohey sat in his room, listening to the radio. He did not feel like working and he allowed himself a rest, relaxing luxuriously in an armchair, letting his fingers follow the rhythm of a complicated symphony. He heard a knock at his door. “Co-ome in,” he drawled.

Catherine came in. She glanced at the radio by way of apology for her entrance.

“I knew you weren’t working, Uncle Ellsworth. I want to speak to you.”

She stood slumped, her body thin and curveless. She wore a skirt of expensive tweed, unpressed. She had smeared some make-up on her face; the skin showed lifeless under the patches of powder. At twenty-six she looked like a woman trying to hide the fact of being over thirty.

In the last few years, with her uncle’s help, she had become an able social worker. She held a paid job in a settlement house, she had a small bank account of her own; she took her friends out to lunch, older women of her profession, and they talked about the problems of unwed mothers, self-expression for the children of the poor and the evils of industrial corporations.

In the last few years Toohey seemed to have forgotten her existence. But he knew that she was enormously aware of him in her silent, self-effacing way. He was seldom first to speak to her. But she came to him continuously for minor advice. She was like a small motor running on his energy, and she had to stop for refueling once in a while. She would not go to the theater without consulting him about the play. She would not attend a lecture course without asking his opinion. Once she developed a friendship with a girl who was intelligent, capable, gay and loved the poor, though a social worker. Toohey did not approve of the girl. Catherine dropped her.

When she needed advice, she asked for it briefly, in passing, anxious not to delay him: between the courses of a meal, at the elevator door on his way out, in the living room when some important broadcast stopped for station identification. She made it a point to show that she would presume to claim nothing but the waste scraps of his time.

So Toohey looked at her, surprised, when she entered his study. He said:

“Certainly, pet. I’m not busy. I’m never too busy for you, anyway. Turn the thing down a bit, will you?”

She softened the volume of the radio, and she slumped down in an armchair facing him. Her movements were awkward and contradictory, like an adolescent’s: she had lost the habit of moving with assurance, and yet, at times, a gesture, a jerk of her head, would show a dry, overbearing impatience which she was beginning to develop.

She looked at her uncle. Behind her glasses, her eyes were still and tense, but unrevealing. She said:

“What have you been doing, Uncle Ellsworth? I saw something in the papers about winning some big lawsuit that you were connected with. I was glad. I haven’t read the papers for months. I’ve been so busy ... No, that’s not quite true. I’ve had the time, but when I came home I just couldn’t make myself do anything, I just fell in bed and went to sleep. Uncle Ellsworth, do people sleep a lot because they’re tired or because they want to escape from something?”

“Now, my dear, this doesn’t sound like you at all. None of it.”

She shook her head helplessly: “I know.”

“What is the matter?”

She said, looking at the toes of her shoes, her lips moving with effort:

“I guess I’m no good, Uncle Ellsworth.” She raised her eyes to him. “I’m so terribly unhappy.”

He looked at her silently, his face earnest, his eyes gentle. She whispered:

“You understand?” He nodded. “You’re not angry at me? You don’t despise me?”

“My dear, how could I?”

“I didn’t want to say it. Not even to myself. It’s not just tonight, it’s for a long time back. Just let me say everything, don’t be shocked, I’ve got to tell it. It’s like going to confession as I used to—oh, don’t think I’m returning to that, I know religion is only a ... a device of class exploitation, don’t think I’d let you down after you explained it all so well. I don’t miss going to church. But it’s just—it’s just that I’ve got to have somebody listen.”

“Katie, darling, first of all, why are you so frightened? You mustn’t be. Certainly not of speaking to me. Just relax, be yourself and tell me what happened.”

She looked at him gratefully. “You’re ... so sensitive, Uncle Ellsworth. That’s one thing I didn’t want to say, but you guessed. I
am
frightened. Because—well, you see, you just said, be yourself. And what I’m afraid of most is of being myself. Because I’m vicious.”

He laughed, not offensively, but warmly, the sound destroying her statement. But she did not smile.

“No, Uncle Ellsworth, it’s true. I’ll try to explain. You see, always, since I was a child, I wanted to do right. I used to think everybody did, but now I don’t think so. Some people try their best, even if they do make mistakes, and others just don’t care. I’ve always cared. I took it very seriously. Of course I knew that I’m not a brilliant person and that it’s a very big subject, good and evil. But I felt that whatever is the good—as much as it would be possible for me to know—I would do my honest best to live up to it. Which is all anybody can try, isn’t it? This probably sounds terribly childish to you.”

“No, Katie, it doesn’t. Go on, my dear.”

“Well, to begin with, I knew that it was evil to be selfish. That much I was sure of. So I tried never to demand anything for myself. When Peter would disappear for months ... No, I don’t think you approve of that.”

“Of what, my dear?”

“Of Peter and me. So I won’t talk about that. It’s not important anyway. Well, you can see why I was so happy when I came to live with you. You’re as close to the ideal of unselfishness as anyone can be. I tried to follow you the best I could. That’s how I chose the work I’m doing. You never actually said that I should choose it, but I came to feel that you thought so. Don’t ask me how I came to feel it—it was nothing tangible, just little things you said. I felt very confident when I started. I knew that unhappiness comes from selfishness, and that one can find true happiness only in dedicating oneself to others. You said that. So many people have said that. Why, all the greatest men in history have been saying that for centuries.”

“And?”

“Well, look at me.”

His face remained motionless for a moment, then he smiled gaily and said:

“What’s wrong with you, pet? Apart from the fact that your stockings don’t match and that you could be more careful about your make-up?”

“Don’t laugh, Uncle Ellsworth. Please don’t laugh. I know you say we must be able to laugh at everything, particularly at ourselves. Only—I can’t.”

“I won’t laugh, Katie. But what is the matter?”

“I’m unhappy. I’m unhappy in such a horrible, nasty, undignified way. In a way that seems ... unclean. And dishonest. I go for days, afraid to think, to look at myself. And that’s wrong. It’s ... becoming a hypocrite. I always wanted to be honest with myself. But I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!”

“Hold on, my dear. Don’t shout. The neighbors will hear you.”

She brushed the back of her hand against her forehead. She shook her head. She whispered:

“I’m sorry.... I’ll be all right....”

“Just why are you unhappy, my dear?”

“I don’t know. I can’t understand it. For instance, it was I who arranged to have the classes in prenatal care down at the Clifford House —it was my idea-I raised the money—I found the teacher. The classes are doing very well. I tell myself that I should be happy about it. But I’m not. It doesn’t seem to make any difference to me. I sit down and I tell myself: It was you who arranged to have Marie Gonzales’ baby adopted into a nice family—now, be happy. But I’m not. I feel nothing. When I’m honest with myself, I know that the only emotion I’ve felt for years is being tired. Not physically tired. Just tired. It’s as if ... as if there were nobody there to feel any more.”

She took off her glasses, as if the double barrier of her glasses and his prevented her from reaching him. She spoke, her voice lower, the words coming with greater effort:

“But that’s not all. There’s something much worse. It’s doing something horrible to me. I’m beginning to hate people, Uncle Ellsworth. I’m beginning to be cruel and mean and petty in a way I’ve never been before. I expect people to be grateful to me. I ... I
demand
gratitude. I find myself pleased when slum people bow and scrape and fawn over me. I find myself liking only those who are servile. Once ... once I told a woman that she didn’t appreciate what people like us did for trash like her. I cried for hours afterward, I was so ashamed. I begin to resent it when people argue with me. I feel that they have no right to minds of their own, that I know best, that I’m the final authority for them. There was a girl we were worried about, because she was running around with a very handsome boy who had a bad reputation. I tortured her for weeks about it, telling her how he’d get her in trouble and that she should drop him. Well, they got married and they’re the happiest couple in the district. Do you think I’m glad? No, I’m furious and I’m barely civil to the girl when I meet her. Then there was a girl who needed a job desperately—it was really a ghastly situation in her home, and I promised that I’d get her one. Before I could find it, she got a good job all by herself. I wasn’t pleased. I was sore as hell that somebody got out of a bad hole without
my
help. Yesterday, I was speaking to a boy who wanted to go to college and I was discouraging him, telling him to get a good job, instead. I was quite angry, too. And suddenly I realized that it was because I had wanted so much to go to college—you remember, you wouldn’t let me—and so I wasn’t going to let that kid do it either.... Uncle Ellsworth, don’t you see? I’m becoming
selfish.
I’m becoming selfish in a way that’s much more horrible than if I were some petty chiseler pinching pennies off these people’s wages in a sweatshop!”