“I suppose there’s no reason why you should do it for me,” he concluded. “If you can solve their problem, you can go to them and do it on your own.”
Roark smiled. “Do you think I could get past Toohey?”
“No. No, I don’t think you could.”
“Who told you I was interested in housing projects?”
“What architect isn’t?”
“Well, I am. But not in the way you think.”
He got up. It was a swift movement, impatient and tense. Keating allowed himself his first opinion: he thought it was strange to see suppressed excitement in Roark.
“Let me think this over. Peter. Leave that here. Come to my house tomorrow night. I’ll tell you then.”
“You’re not…turning me down?”
“Not yet.”
“You might…after everything that’s happened…?”
“To hell with that.”
“You’re going to consider…”
“I can’t say anything now, Peter. I must think it over. Don’t count on it. I might want to demand something impossible of you.”
“Anything you ask, Howard. Anything.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Howard, I…how can I try to thank you, even for…”
“Don’t thank me. If I do it, I’ll have my own purpose. I’ll expect to gain as much as you will. Probably more. Just remember that I don’t do things on any other terms.”
Keating came to Roark’s house on the following evening. He could not say whether he had waited impatiently or not. The bruise had spread. He could act; he could weigh nothing.
He stood in the middle of Roark’s room and looked about slowly. He had been grateful for all the things Roark had not said to him. But he gave voice to the things himself when he asked:
“This is the Enright House, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You built it?”
Roark nodded, and said: “Sit down, Peter,” understanding too well.
Keating had brought his briefcase; he put it down on the floor, propping it against his chair. The briefcase bulged and looked heavy; he handled it cautiously. Then he spread his hands out and forgot the gesture, holding it, asking:
“Well?”
“Peter, can you think for a moment that you’re alone in the world?”
“I’ve been thinking that for three days.”
“No. That’s not what I mean. Can you forget what you’ve been taught to repeat, and think, think hard, with your own brain? There are things I’ll want you to understand. It’s my first condition. I’m going to tell you what I want. If you think of it as most people do, you’ll say it’s nothing. But if you say that, I won’t be able to do it. Not unless you understand completely, with your whole mind, how important it is.”
“I’ll try, Howard. I was…honest with you yesterday.”
“Yes. If you hadn’t been, I would have turned you down yesterday. Now I think you might be able to understand and do your part of it.”
“You want to do it?”
“I might. If you offer me enough.”
“Howard–anything you ask. Anything. I’d sell my soul…”
“That’s the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul–would you understand why that’s much harder?”
“Yes…Yes, I think so.”
“Well? Go on. I want you to give me a reason why I should wish to design Cortlandt. I want you to make me an offer.”
“You can have all the money they pay me. I don’t need it. You can have twice the money. I’ll double their fee.”
“You know better than that, Peter. Is that what you wish to tempt me with?”
“You would save my life.”
“Can you think of any reason why I should want to save your life?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“It’s a great public project, Howard. A humanitarian undertaking. Think of the poor people who live in slums. If you can give them decent comfort within their means, you’ll have the satisfaction of performing a noble deed.”
“Peter, you were more honest than that yesterday.”
His eyes dropped, his voice low, Keating said:
“You will love designing it.”
“Yes, Peter. Now you’re speaking my language.”
“What do you want?”
“Now listen to me. I’ve been working on the problem of low-rent housing for years. I never thought of the poor people in slums. I thought of the potentialities of our modern world. The new materials, the means, the chances to take and use. There are so many products of man’s genius around us today. There are such great possibilities to exploit. To build cheaply, simply, intelligently. I’ve had a lot of time to study. I didn’t have much to do after the Stoddard Temple. I didn’t expect results. I worked because I can’t look at any material without thinking: What could be done with it? And the moment I think that, I’ve got to do it. To find the answer, to break the thing. I’ve worked on it for years. I loved it. I worked because it was a problem I wanted to solve. You wish to know how to build a unit to rent for fifteen dollars a month? I’ll show you how to build it for ten.” Keating made an involuntary movement forward. “But first, I want you to think and tell me what made me give years to this work. Money? Fame? Charity? Altruism?” Keating shook his head slowly. “All right. You’re beginning to understand. So whatever we do, don’t let’s talk about the poor people in the slums. They have nothing to do with it, though I wouldn’t envy anyone the job of trying to explain that to fools. You see, I’m never concerned with my clients, only with their architectural requirements. I consider these as part of my building’s theme and problem, as my building’s material–just as I consider bricks and steel. Bricks and steel are not my motive. Neither are the clients. Both are only the means of my work. Peter, before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity. I’ll be glad if people who need it find a better manner of living in a house I designed. But that’s not the motive of my work. Nor my reason. Nor my reward.”
He walked to a window and stood looking out at the lights of the city trembling in the dark river.
“You said yesterday: What architect isn’t interested in housing? I hate the whole blasted idea of it. I think it’s a worthy undertaking–to provide a decent apartment for a man who earns fifteen dollars a week. But not at the expense of other men. Not if it raises the taxes, raises all the other rents and makes the man who earns forty live in a rat hole. That’s what’s happening in New York. Nobody can afford a modern apartment–except the very rich and the paupers. Have you seen the converted brownstones in which the average self-supporting couple has to live? Have you seen their closet kitchens and their plumbing? They’re forced to live like that–because they’re not incompetent enough. They make forty dollars a week and wouldn’t be allowed into a housing project. But they’re the ones who provide the money for the damn project. They pay the taxes. And the taxes raise their own rent. And they have to move from a converted brownstone into an unconverted one and from that into a railroad flat. I’d have no desire to penalize a man because he’s worth only fifteen dollars a week. But I’ll be damned if I can see why a man worth forty must be penalized–and penalized in favor of the one who’s less competent. Sure, there are a lot of theories on the subject and volumes of discussion. But just look at the results. Still, architects are all for government housing. And have you ever seen an architect who wasn’t screaming for planned cities? I’d like to ask him how he can be so sure that the plan adopted will be his own. And if it is, what right has he to impose it on the others? And if it isn’t, what happens to his work? I suppose he’ll say that he wants neither. He wants a council, a conference, co-operation and collaboration. And the result will be “The March of the Centuries.’ Peter, every single one of you on that committee has done better work alone than the eight of you produced collectively. Ask yourself why, sometime.”
“I think I know it…But Cortlandt…”
“Yes. Cortlandt. Well, I’ve told you all the things in which I don’t believe, so that you’ll understand what I want and what right I have to want it. I don’t believe in government housing. I don’t want to hear anything about its noble purposes. I don’t think they’re noble. But that, too, doesn’t matter. That’s not my first concern. Not who lives in the house nor who orders it built. Only the house itself. If it has to be built, it might as well be built right.”