The Fountainhead by Rand, Ayn

The guests moved in two broad, changing currents that drew them all, sooner or later, toward two whirlpools; at the center of one stood Ellsworth Toohey, of the other–Peter Keating. Evening clothes were not becoming to Ellsworth Toohey; the rectangle of white shirt front prolonged his face, stretching him out into two dimensions; the wings of his tie made his thin neck look like that of a plucked chicken, pale, bluish and ready to be twisted by a single movement of some strong fist. But he wore his clothes better than any man present. He wore them with the careless impertinence of utter ease in the unbecoming, and the very grotesqueness of his appearance became a declaration of his superiority, a superiority great enough to warrant disregard of so much ungainliness.

He was saying to a somber young female who wore glasses and a low-cut evening gown: “My dear, you will never be more than a dilettante of the intellect, unless you submerge yourself in some cause greater than yourself.”

He was saying to an obese gentlemen with a face turning purple in the heat of an argument: “But, my friend, I might not like it either. I merely said that such happens to be the inevitable course of history. And who are you or I to oppose the course of history?”

He was saying to an unhappy young architect: “No, my boy, what I have against you is not the bad building you designed, but the bad taste you exhibited in whining about my criticism of it. You should be careful. Someone might say that you can neither dish it out nor take it.”

He was saying to a millionaire’s widow: “Yes, I do think it would be a good idea if you made a contribution to the Workshop of Social Study. It would be a way of taking part in the great human stream of cultural achievement, without upsetting your routine or your digestion.”

Those around him were saying: “Isn’t he witty? And such courage!”

Peter Keating smiled radiantly. He felt the attention and admiration flowing toward him from every part of the ballroom. He looked at the people, all these trim, perfumed, silk-rustling people lacquered with light, dripping with light, as they had all been dripping with shower water a few hours ago, getting ready to come here and stand in homage before a man named Peter Keating. There were moments when he forgot that he was Peter Keating and he glanced at a mirror, at his own figure, he wanted to join in the general admiration for it.

Once the current left him face to face with Ellsworth Toohey. Keating smiled like a boy emerging from a stream on a summer day, glowing, invigorated, restless with energy. Toohey stood looking at him; Toohey’s hands had slipped negligently into his trouser pockets, making his jacket flare out over his thin hips; he seemed to teeter faintly on his small feet; his eyes were attentive in enigmatic appraisal.

“Now this, Ellsworth…this…isn’t it a wonderful evening?” said Keating, like a child to a mother who would understand, and a little like a drunk.

“Being happy, Peter? You’re quite the sensation tonight. Little Peter seems to have crossed the line into a big celebrity. It happens like this, one can never tell exactly when or why…There’s someone here, though, who seems to be ignoring you quite flagrantly, doesn’t she?”

Keating winced. He wondered when and how Toohey had had the time to notice that.

“Oh, well,” said Toohey, “the exception proves the rule. Regrettable, however. I’ve always had the absurd idea that it would take a most unusual man to attract Dominique Francon. So of course I thought of you. Just an idle thought. Still, you know, the man who’ll get her will have something you won’t be able to match. He’ll beat you there.”

“No one’s got her,” snapped Keating.

“No, undoubtedly not. Not yet. That’s rather astonishing. Oh, I suppose it will take an extraordinary kind of man.”

“Look here, what in hell are you doing? You don’t like Dominique Francon. Do you?”

“I never said I did.”

A little later Keating heard Toohey saying solemnly in the midst of some earnest discussion: “Happiness? But that is so middle-class. What is happiness? There are so many things in life so much more important than happiness.”

Keating made his way slowly toward Dominique. She stood leaning back, as if the air were a support solid enough for her thin, naked shoulder blades. Her evening gown was the color of glass. He had the feeling that he should be able to see the wall behind her, through her body. She seemed too fragile to exist; and that very fragility spoke of some frightening strength which held her anchored to existence with a body insufficient for reality.

When he approached, she made no effort to ignore him; she turned to him, she answered; but the monotonous precision of her answers stopped him, made him helpless, made him leave her in a few moments.

When Roark and Heller entered, Kiki Holcombe met them at the door. Heller presented Roark to her, and she spoke as she always did, her voice like a shrill rocket sweeping all opposition aside by sheer speed.

“Oh, Mr. Roark, I’ve been so eager to meet you! We’ve all heard so much about you! Now I must warn you that my husband doesn’t approve of you–oh, purely on artistic grounds, you understand–but don’t let that worry you, you have an ally in this household, an enthusiastic ally!”

“It’s very kind, Mrs. Holcombe,” said Roark. “And perhaps unnecessary.”

“Oh, I adore your Enright House! Of course, I can’t say that it represents my own esthetic convictions, but people of culture must keep their minds open to anything, I mean, to include any viewpoint in creative art, we must be broad-minded above all, don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know,” said Roark. “I’ve never been broad-minded.”

She was certain that he intended no insolence; it was not in his voice nor his manner; but insolence had been her first impression of him. He wore evening clothes and they looked well on his tall, thin figure, but somehow it seemed that he did not belong in them; the orange hair looked preposterous with formal dress; besides, she did not like his face; that face suited a work gang or an army, it had no place in her drawing room. She said:

“We’ve all been so interested in your work. Your first building?”

“My fifth.”

“Oh, indeed? Of course. How interesting.”

She clasped her hands, and turned to greet a new arrival. Heller said:

“Whom do you want to meet first?…There’s Dominique Francon looking at us. Come on.”

Roark turned; he saw Dominique standing alone across the room. There was no expression on her face, not even an effort to avoid expression; it was strange to see a human face presenting a bone structure and an arrangement of muscles, but no meaning, a face as a simple anatomical feature, like a shoulder or an arm, not a mirror of sensate perception any longer. She looked at them as they approached. Her feet stood posed oddly, two small triangles pointed straight and parallel, as if there were no floor around her but the few square inches under her soles and she were safe so long as she did not move or look down. He felt a violent pleasure, because she seemed too fragile to stand the brutality of what he was doing; and because she stood it so well.

“Miss Francon, may I present Howard Roark?” said Heller.

He had not raised his voice to pronounce the name; he wondered why it had sounded so stressed; then he thought that the silence had caught the name and held it still; but there had been no silence: Roark’s face was politely blank and Dominique was saying correctly:

“How do you do, Mr. Roark.”

Roark bowed: “How do you do, Miss Francon.”

She said: “The Enright House…”

She said it as if she had not wanted to pronounce these three words; and as if they named, not a house, but many things beyond it.

Roark said: “Yes, Miss Francon.”

Then she smiled, the correct, perfunctory smile with which one greets an introduction. She said:

“I know Roger Enright. He is almost a friend of the family.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting many friends of Mr. Enright.”

“I remember once Father invited him to dinner. It was a miserable dinner. Father is called a brilliant conversationalist, but he couldn’t bring a sound out of Mr. Enright. Roger just sat there. One must know Father to realize what a defeat it was for him.”

“I have worked for your father”–her hand had been moving and it stopped in midair–“a few years ago, as a draftsman.”

Her hand dropped. “Then you can see that Father couldn’t possibly get along with Roger Enright.”

“No. He couldn’t.”

“I think Roger almost liked me, though, but he’s never forgiven me for working on a Wynand paper.”

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