The Fountainhead by Rand, Ayn

“Yes?”

“…I even thought, so often, when drawing, is this the kind of building that Ellsworth Toohey would say is good? I tried to see it like that, through your eyes…I…I’ve…” Toohey listened watchfully. “I’ve always wanted to meet you because you’re such a profound thinker and a man of such cultural distinc–”

“Now,” said Toohey, his voice kindly but a little impatient; his interest had dropped on that last sentence. “None of that. I don’t mean to be ungracious, but we’ll dispense with that sort of thing, shall we? Unnatural as this may sound, I really don’t like to hear personal praise.”

It was Toohey’s eyes, thought Keating, that put him at ease. There was such a vast understanding in Toohey’s eyes and such an unfastidious kindness–no, what a word to think of–such an unlimited kindness. It was as if one could hide nothing from him, but it was not necessary to hide it, because he would forgive anything. They were the most unaccusing eyes that Keating had ever seen.

“But, Mr. Toohey,” he muttered, “I did want to…”

“You wanted to thank me for my article,” said Toohey and made a little grimace of gay despair. “And here I’ve been trying so hard to prevent you from doing it. Do let me get away with it, won’t you? There’s no reason why you should thank me. If you happened to deserve the things I said–well, the credit belongs to you, not to me. Doesn’t it?”

“But I was so happy that you thought I’m…”

“…a great architect? But surely, my boy, you knew that. Or weren’t you quite sure? Never quite sure of it?”

“Well, I…”

It was only a second’s pause. And it seemed to Keating that this pause was all Toohey had wanted to hear from him; Toohey did not wait for the rest, but spoke as if he had received a full answer, and an answer that pleased him.

“And as for the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, who can deny that it’s an extraordinary achievement? You know, I was greatly intrigued by its plan. It’s a most ingenious plan. A brilliant plan. Very unusual. Quite different from what I have observed in your previous work. Isn’t it?”

“Naturally,” said Keating, his voice clear and hard for the first time, “the problem was different from anything I’d done before, so I worked out that plan to fit the particular requirements of the problem.”

“Of course,” said Toohey gently. “A beautiful piece of work. You should be proud of it.”

Keating noticed that Toohey’s eyes stood centered in the middle of the lenses and the lenses stood focused straight on his pupils, and Keating knew suddenly that Toohey knew he had not designed the plan of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. This did not frighten him. What frightened him was that he saw approval in Toohey’s eyes.

“If you must feel–no, not gratitude, gratitude is such an embarrassing word–but, shall we say, appreciation?” Toohey continued, and his voice had grown softer, as if Keating were a fellow conspirator who would know that the words used were to be, from now on, a code for a private meaning, “you might thank me for understanding the symbolic implications of your building and for stating them in words as you stated them in marble. Since, of course, you are not just a common mason, but a thinker in stone.”

“Yes,” said Keating, “that was my abstract theme, when I designed the building–the great masses and the flowers of culture. I’ve always believed that true culture springs from the common man. But I had no hope that anyone would ever understand me.”

Toohey smiled. His thin lips slid open, his teeth showed. He was not looking at Keating. He was looking down at his own hand, the long, slender, sensitive hand of a concert pianist, moving a sheet of paper on the desk. Then he said: “Perhaps we’re brothers of the spirit, Keating. The human spirit. That is all that matters in life”–not looking at Keating, but past him, the lenses raised flagrantly to a line over Keating’s face.

And Keating knew that Toohey knew he had never thought of any abstract theme until he’d read that article, and more: that Toohey approved again. When the lenses moved slowly to Keating’s face, the eyes were sweet with affection, an affection very cold and very real. Then Keating felt as if the walls of the room were moving gently in upon him, pushing him into a terrible intimacy, not with Toohey, but with some unknown guilt. He wanted to leap to his feet and run. He sat still, his mouth half open.

And without knowing what prompted him, Keating heard his own voice in the silence:

“And I did want to say how glad I was that you escaped that maniac’s bullet yesterday, Mr. Toohey.”

“Oh?…Oh, thanks. That? Well! Don’t let it upset you. Just one of the minor penalties one pays for prominence in public life.”

“I’ve never liked Mallory. A strange sort of person. Too tense. I don’t like people who’re tense. I’ve never liked his work either.”

“Just an exhibitionist. Won’t amount to much.”

“It wasn’t my idea, of course, to give him a try. It was Mr. Slotnick’s. Pull, you know. But Mr. Slotnick knew better in the end.”

“Did Mallory ever mention my name to you?”

“No. Never.”

“I haven’t even met him, you know. Never saw him before. Why did he do it?”

And then it was Toohey who sat still, before what he saw on Keating’s face; Toohey, alert and insecure for the first time. This was it, thought Keating, this was the bond between them, and the bond was fear, and more, much more than that, but fear was the only recognizable name to give it. And he knew, with unreasoning finality, that he liked Toohey better than any man he had ever met.

“Well, you know how it is,” said Keating brightly, hoping that the commonplace he was about to utter would close the subject. “Mallory is an incompetent and knows it and he decided to take it out on you as a symbol of the great and the able.”

But instead of a smile, Keating saw the shot of Toohey’s sudden glance at him; it was not a glance, it was a fluoroscope, he thought he could feel it crawling searchingly inside his bones. Then Toohey’s face seemed to harden, drawing together again in composure, and Keating knew that Toohey had found relief somewhere, in his bones or in his gaping, bewildered face, that some hidden immensity of ignorance within him had given Toohey reassurance. Then Toohey said slowly, strangely, derisively:

“You and I, we’re going to be great friends, Peter.”

Keating let a moment pass before he caught himself to answer hastily:

“Oh, I hope so, Mr. Toohey!”

“Really, Peter! I’m not as old as all that, am I? ‘Ellsworth’ is the monument to my parents’ peculiar taste in nomenclature.”

“Yes…Ellsworth.”

“That’s better. I really don’t mind the name, when compared to some of the things I’ve been called privately–and publicly–these many years. Oh, well. Flattering. When one makes enemies one knows that one’s dangerous where it’s necessary to be dangerous. There are things that must be destroyed–or they’ll destroy us. We’ll see a great deal of each other, Peter.” The voice was smooth and sure now, with the finality of a decision tested and reached, with the certainty that never again would anything in Keating be a question mark to him. “For instance, I’ve been thinking for some time of getting together a few young architects–I know so many of them–just an informal little organization, to exchange ideas, you know, to develop a spirit of co-operation, to follow a common line of action for the common good of the profession if necessity arises. Nothing as stuffy as the A.G.A. Just a youth group. Think you’d be interested?”

“Why, of course! And you’d be the chairman?”

“Oh dear, no. I’m never chairman of anything, Peter. I dislike titles. No, I rather thought you’d make the right chairman for us, can’t think of anyone better.”

“Me?”

“You, Peter. Oh, well, it’s only a project–nothing definite–just an idea I’ve been toying with in odd moments. We’ll talk about it some other time. There’s something I’d like you to do–and that’s really one of the reasons why I wanted to meet you,”

“Oh, sure, Mr. Too–sure, Ellsworth. Anything I can do for you…”

“It’s not for me. Do you know Lois Cook?”

“Lois…who?”

“Cook. You don’t. But you will. That young woman is the greatest literary genius since Goethe. You must read her, Peter. I don’t suggest that as a rule except to the discriminating. She’s so much above the heads of the middle-class who love the obvious. She’s planning to build a house. A little private residence on the Bowery. Yes, on the Bowery. Just like Lois. She’s asked me to recommend an architect. I’m certain that it will take a person like you to understand a person like Lois. I’m going to give her your name–if you’re interested in what is to be a small, though quite costly, residence.”

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