The Fountainhead (85 page)

It left her free to be conscious of nothing but small matters, and to feel careless and ... unserious, she thought; so completely unserious. It was a kind of clarity, being more normal than normal, as crystal is more transparent than empty air. Just small matters: the thin silk of her short, black dress and the way it was pulled over her knee, the flexing of her toes inside her pump when she moved her foot, “Danny’s Diner” in gold letters on a dark window that flashed past.

She had been very gay at the dinner given by the wife of some banker, important friends of Gail’s, whose names she could not quite remember now. It had been a wonderful dinner in a huge Long Island mansion. They had been so glad to see her and so sorry that Gail could not come. She had eaten everything she had seen placed before her. She had had a splendid appetite—as on rare occasions of her childhood when she came running home after a day spent in the woods and her mother was so pleased, because her mother was afraid that she might grow up to be anemic.

She had entertained the guests at the dinner table with stories of her childhood, she had made them laugh, and it had been the gayest dinner party her hosts could remember. Afterward, in the drawing room, with the windows open wide to a dark sky—a moonless sky that stretched out beyond the trees, beyond the towns, all the way to the banks of the East River—she had laughed and talked, she had smiled at the people around her with a warmth that made them all speak freely of the things dearest to them, she had loved those people, and they had known they were loved, she had loved every person anywhere on earth, and some woman had said: “Dominique, I didn’t know you could be so wonderful!” and she had answered: “I haven’t a care in the world.”

But she had really noticed nothing except the watch on her wrist and that she must be out of that house by 10:50. She had no idea of what she would say to take her leave, but by 10:45 it had been said, correctly and convincingly, and by 10: 50 her foot was on the accelerator.

It was a closed roadster, black with red leather upholstery. She thought how nicely John, the chauffeur, had kept that red leather polished. There would be nothing left of the car, and it was proper that it should look its best for its last ride. Like a woman on her first night. I never dressed for my first night—I had no first night—only something ripped off me and the taste of quarry dust in my teeth.

When she saw black vertical strips with dots of light filling the glass of the car’s side window, she wondered what had happened to the glass. Then she realized that she was driving along the East River and that this was New York, on the other side. She laughed and thought: No, this is not New York, this is a private picture pasted to the window of my car, all of it, here, on one small pane, under my hand, I own it, it’s mine now—she ran one hand across the buildings from the Battery to Queensborough Bridge—Roark, it’s mine and I’m giving it to you.

The figure of the night watchman was now fifteen inches tall in the distance. When it gets to be ten inches, I’ll start, thought Dominique. She stood by the side of her car and wished the watchman would walk faster.

The building was a black mass that propped the sky in one spot. The rest of the sky sagged, intimately low over a flat stretch of ground. The closest streets and houses were years away, far on the rim of space, irregular little dents, like the teeth of a broken saw.

She felt a large pebble under the sole of her pump; it was uncomfortable, but she would not move her foot; it would make a sound. She was not alone. She knew that he was somewhere in that building, the width of a street away from her. There was no sound and no light in the building; only white crosses on black windows. He would need no light; he knew every hall, every stairwell.

The watchman had shrunk away. She jerked the door of her car open. She threw her hat and bag inside, and flung the door shut. She heard the slam of sound when she was across the road, running over the empty tract, away from the building.

She felt the silk of her dress clinging to her legs, and it served as a tangible purpose of flight, to push against that, to tear past that barrier as fast as she could. There were pits and dry stubble on the ground. She fell once, but she noticed it only when she was running again.

She saw the trench in the darkness. Then she was on her knees, at the bottom, and then stretched flat on her stomach, face down, her mouth pressed to the earth.

She felt the pounding in her thighs and she twisted her body once in a long convulsion, to feel the earth with her legs, her breasts, the skin of her arms. It was like lying in Roark’s bed.

The sound was the crack of a fist on the back of her head. She felt the thrust of the earth against her, flinging her up, to her feet, to the edge of the trench. The upper part of the Cortlandt building had tilted and hung still while a broken streak of sky grew slowly across it. As if the sky were slicing the building in half. Then the streak became turquoise blue light. Then there was no upper part, but only window frames and girders flying through the air, the building spreading over the sky, a long, thin tongue of red shooting from the center, another blow of a fist, and then another, a blinding flash and the glass panes of the skyscrapers across the river glittering like spangles.

She did not remember that he had ordered her to lie flat, that she was standing, that glass and twisted iron were raining around her. In the flash when the walls rose outward and a building opened like a sunburst, she thought of him there, somewhere beyond, the builder who had to destroy, who knew every crucial point of that structure, who had made the delicate balance of stress and support; she thought of him selecting these key spots, placing the blast, a doctor turned murderer, expertly cracking heart, brain and lungs at once. He was there, he saw it and what it did to him was worse than what it did to the building. But he was there and he welcomed it.

She saw the city enveloped in the light for half a second, she could see window ledges and cornices miles away, she thought of dark rooms and ceilings licked by this fire, she saw the peaks of towers lighted against the sky, her city now and his. “Roark!” she screamed. “Roark! Roark!” She did not know she screamed. She could not hear her voice in the blast.

Then she was running across the field to the smoking ruin, running over broken glass, planting her feet down full with each step, because she enjoyed the pain. There was no pain left ever to be felt by her again. A spread of dust stood over the field like an awning. She heard the shriek of sirens starting far away.

It was still a car, though the rear wheels were crushed under a piece of furnace machinery, and an elevator door lay over the hood. She crawled to the seat. She had to look as if she had not moved from here. She gathered handfuls of glass off the floor and poured it over her lap, over her hair. She took a sharp splinter and slashed the skin of her neck, her legs, her arms. What she felt was not pain. She saw blood shooting out of her arm, running down on her lap, soaking the black silk, trickling between her thighs. Her head fell back, mouth open, panting. She did not want to stop. She was free. She was invulnerable. She did not know she had cut an artery. She felt so light. She was laughing at the law of gravity.

When she was found by the men of the first police car to reach the scene, she was unconscious, a few minutes’ worth of life left in her body.

XIII

D
OMINIQUE GLANCED ABOUT THE BEDROOM OF THE PENTHOUSE. IT was her first contact with surroundings she was ready to recognize. She knew she had been brought here after many days in a hospital. The bedroom seemed lacquered with light. It’s that clarity of crystal over everything, she thought; that has remained; it will remain forever. She saw Wynand standing by her bed. He was watching her. He looked amused.

She remembered seeing him at the hospital. He had not looked amused then. She knew the doctor had told him she would not survive, that first night. She had wanted to tell them all that she would, that she had no choice now but to live; only it did not seem important to tell people anything, ever.

Now she was back. She could feel bandages on her throat, her legs, her left arm. But her hands lay before her on the blanket, and the gauze had been removed; there were only a few thin red scars left.

“You blasted little fool!” said Wynand happily. “Why did you have to make such a good job of it?”

Lying on the white pillow, with her smooth gold hair and a white, high-necked hospital gown, she looked younger than she had ever looked as a child. She had the quiet radiance presumed and never found in childhood: the full consciousness of certainty, of innocence, of peace.

“I ran out of gas,” she said, “and I was waiting there in my car when suddenly ...”

“I’ve already told that story to the police. So has the night watchman. But didn’t you know that glass must be handled with discretion?”

Gail looks rested, she thought, and very confident. It has changed everything for him, too; in the same way.

“It didn’t hurt,” she said.

“Next time you want to play the innocent bystander, let me coach you.”

“They believe it though, don’t they?”

“Oh yes, they believe it. They have to. You almost died. I don’t see why he had to save the watchman’s life and almost take yours.”

“Who?”

“Howard, my dear. Howard Roark.”

“What has he to do with it?”

“Darling, you’re not being questioned by the police. You will be, though, and you’ll have to be more convincing than that. However, I’m sure you’ll succeed. They won’t think of the Stoddard trial.”

“Oh.”

“You did it then and you’ll always do it. Whatever you think of him, you’ll always feel what I feel about his work.”

“Gail, you’re glad I did it?”

“Yes.”

She saw him looking down at her hand that lay on the edge of the bed. Then he was on his knees, his lips pressed to her hand, not raising it, not touching it with his fingers, only with his mouth. That was the sole confession he would permit himself of what her days in the hospital had cost him. She lifted her other hand and moved it over his hair. She thought: It will be worse for you than if I had died, Gail, but it will be all right, it won’t hurt you, there’s no pain left in the world, nothing to compare with the fact that we exist: he, you and I—you’ve understood all that matters, though you don’t know you’ve lost me.

He lifted his head and got up.

“I didn’t intend to reproach you in any way. Forgive me.”

“I won’t die, Gail. I feel wonderful.”

“You look it.”

“Have they arrested him?”

“He’s out on bail.”

“You’re happy?”

“I’m glad you did it and that it was for him. I’m glad he did it. He had to.”

“Yes. And it will be the Stoddard trial again.”

“Not quite.”

“You’ve wanted another chance, Gail? All these years?”

“Yes.”

“May I see the papers?”

“No. Not until you’re up.”

“Not even the
Banner?”

“Particularly not the Banner.”

“I love you, Gail. If you stick to the end ...”

“Don’t offer me any bribes. This is not between you and me. Not even between him and me.”

“But between you and God?”

“If you want to call it that. But we won’t discuss it. Not until after it’s over. You have a visitor waiting for you downstairs. He’s been here every day.”

“Who?”

“Your lover. Howard Roark. Want to let him thank you now?”

The gay mockery, the tone of uttering the most preposterous thing he could think of, told her how far he was from guessing the rest. She said:

“Yes. I want to see him. Gail, if I decide to make him my lover?”

“I’ll kill you both. Now don’t move, lie flat, the doctor said you must take it easy, you’ve got twenty-six assorted stitches all over you.”

He walked out and she heard him descending the stairs.

When the first policeman had reached the scene of the explosion, he had found, behind the building, on the shore of the river, the plunger that had set off the dynamite. Roark stood by the plunger, his hands in his pockets, looking at the remnants of Cortlandt.

“What do you know about this, buddy?” the policeman asked.

“You’d better arrest me,” said Roark. “I’ll talk at the trial.”

He had not added another word in reply to all the official questions that followed.

It was Wynand who got him released on bail, in the early hours of the morning. Wynand had been calm at the emergency hospital where he had seen Dominique’s wounds and had been told she would not live. He had been calm while he telephoned, got a county judge out of bed and arranged Roark’s bail. But when he stood in the warden’s office of a small county jail, he began to shake suddenly. “You bloody fools!” he said through his teeth and there followed every obscenity he had learned on the waterfront. He forgot all the aspects of the situation save one: Roark being held behind bars. He was Stretch Wynand of Hell’s Kitchen again and this was the kind of fury that had shattered him in sudden flashes in those days, the fury he had felt when standing behind a crumbling wall, waiting to be killed. Only now he knew that he was also Gail Wynand, the owner of an empire, and he couldn’t understand why some sort of legal procedure was necessary, why he didn’t smash this jail, with his fists or through his papers, it was all one to him at the moment, he wanted to kill, he had to kill, as that night behind the wall, in defense of his life.

He managed to sign papers, he managed to wait until Roark was brought out to him. They walked out together, Roark leading him by the wrist, and by the time they reached the car, Wynand was calm. In the car, Wynand asked:

“You did it, of course?”

“Of course.”

“We’ll fight it out together.”

“If you want to make it your battle.”

“At the present estimate, my personal fortune amounts to forty million dollars. That should be enough to hire any lawyer you wish or the whole profession.”

“I won’t use a lawyer.”

“Howard! You’re not going to submit photographs again?”

“No. Not this time.”

Roark entered the bedroom and sat down on a chair by the bed. Dominique lay still, looking at him. They smiled at each other. Nothing has to be said, not this time either, she thought.

She asked:

“You were in jail?”

“For a few hours.”

“What was it like?”

“Don’t start acting about it as Gail did.”

“Gail took it very badly?”

“Very.”

“I won’t.”

“I might have to go back to a cell for years. You knew that when you agreed to help me.”

“Yes. I knew that.”

“I’m counting on you to save Gail, if I go.”

“Counting on me?”

He looked at her and shook his head. “Dearest ...” It sounded like a reproach.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“Don’t you know by now that it was a trap I set for you?”

“How?”

“What would you do if I hadn’t asked you to help me?”

“I’d be with you, in your apartment, at the Enright House, right now, publicly and openly.”

“Yes. But now you can’t. You’re Mrs. Gail Wynand, you’re above suspicion, and everyone believes you were at the scene by accident. Just let it be known what we are to each other—and it will be a confession that I did it.”

“I see.”

“I want you to keep quiet. If you had any thoughts of wanting to share my fate, drop them. I won’t tell you what I intend to do, because that’s the only way I have of controlling you until the trial. Dominique, if I’m convicted, I want you to remain with Gail. I’m counting on that. I want you to remain with him, and never tell him about us, because he and you will need each other.”

“And if you’re acquitted?”

“Then ...” He glanced about the room, Wynand’s bedroom. “I don’t want to say it here. But you know it.”

“You love him very much?”

“Yes.”

“Enough to sacrifice ...”

He smiled. “You’ve been afraid of that ever since I came here for the first time?”

“Yes.”

He looked straight at her. “Did you think that possible?”

“No.”

“Not my work nor you, Dominique. Not ever. But I can do this much for him: I can leave it to him if I have to go.”

“You’ll be acquitted.”

“That’s not what I want to hear you say.”

“If they convict you—if they lock you in jail or put you in a chain gang—if they smear your name in every filthy headline—if they never let you design another building—if they never let me see you again—it will not matter. Not too much. Only down to a certain point.”

“That’s what I’ve waited to hear for seven years, Dominique.”

He took her hand, he raised it and held it to his lips, and she felt his lips where Wynand’s had been. Then he got up.

“I’ll wait,” she said. “I’ll keep quiet. I won’t come near you. I promise.”

He smiled and nodded. Then he left.

“It happens, upon rare occasions, that world forces too great to comprehend become focused in a single event, like rays gathered by a lens to one point of superlative brightness, for all of us to see. Such an event is the outrage of Cortlandt. Here, in a microcosm, we can observe the evil that has crushed our poor planet from the day of its birth in cosmic ooze. One man’s Ego against all the concepts of mercy, humanity and brotherhood. One man destroying the future home of the disinherited. One man condemning thousands to the horror of the slums, to filth, disease and death. When an awakening society, with a new sense of humanitarian duty, made a mighty effort to rescue the underprivileged, when the best talents of society united to create a decent home for them—the egotism of one man blew the achievement of others to pieces. And for what? For some vague matter of personal vanity, for some empty conceit. I regret that the laws of our state allow nothing more than a prison sentence for this crime. That man should forfeit his life. Society needs the right to rid itself of men such as Howard Roark.”

Thus spoke Ellsworth M. Toohey in the pages of the New
Frontiers.

Echoes answered him from all over the country. The explosion of Cortlandt had lasted half a minute. The explosion of public fury went on and on, with a cloud of powdered plaster filling the air, with glass, rust and refuse raining out of the cloud.

Roark had been indicted by a grand jury, had pleaded “Not guilty” and had refused to make any other statement. He had been released on a bond furnished by Gail Wynand, and he awaited trial.

There were many speculations on his motive. Some said it was professional jealousy. Others declared that there was a certain similarity between the design of Cortlandt and Roark’s style of building, that Keating, Prescott and Webb might have borrowed a little from Roark—“a legitimate adaptation”—“there’s no property rights on ideas”—“in a democracy, art belongs to all the people”—and that Roark had been prompted by the vengeance lust of an artist who had believed himself plagiarized.

None of it was too clear, but nobody cared too much about the motive. The issue was simple: one man against many. He had no right to a motive.

A home, built in charity, for the poor. Built upon ten thousand years in which men had been taught that charity and self-sacrifice are an absolute not to be questioned, the touchstone of virtue, the ultimate ideal. Ten thousand years of voices speaking of service and sacrifice—sacrifice is the prime rule of life—serve or be served—crush or get crushed—sacrince is noble—make what you can of it, at the one end or the other—serve and sacrifice—serve and serve and serve ...

Against that—one man who wished neither to serve nor to rule. And had thereby committed the only unforgivable crime.

It was a sensational scandal, and there was the usual noise and the usual lust of righteous anger, such as is proper to all lynchings. But there was a fierce, personal quality in the indignation of every person who spoke about it.

“He’s just an egomaniac devoid of all moral sense”—

—said the society woman dressing for a charity bazaar, who dared not contemplate what means of self-expression would be left to her and how she could impose her ostentation on her friends, if charity were not the all-excusing virtue—

—said the social worker who had found no aim in life and could generate no aim from within the sterility of his soul, but basked in virtue and held an unearned respect from all, by grace of his fingers on the wounds of others—

—said the novelist who had nothing to say if the subject of service and sacrifice were to be taken away from him, who sobbed in the hearing of attentive thousands that he loved them and loved them and would they please love him a little in return—

—said the lady columnist who had just bought a country mansion because she wrote so tenderly about the little people-

-said all the little people who wanted to hear of love, the great love, the unfastidious love, the love that embraced everything, forgave everything and permitted them everything—

—said every second-hander who could not exist except as a leech on the souls of others.

Ellsworth Toohey sat back, watched, listened and smiled.

Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb were entertained at dinners and cocktail parties; they were treated with tender, curious solicitude, like survivors of disaster. They said that they could not understand what possible motive Roark could have had, and they demanded justice.