“I wanted you to know that I did it, so there won’t be any tactical contradictions. No one else knows it or is to know it. I trust you to remember that.”
She asked, her lips moving tightly: “What are you after?”
He smiled. He said:
“I’m going to make him famous.”
Roark sat in Hopton Stoddard’s office and listened, stupefied. Hopton Stoddard spoke slowly; it sounded earnest and impressive, but was due to the fact that he had memorized his speeches almost verbatim. His baby eyes looked at Roark with an ingratiating plea. For once, Roark almost forgot architecture and placed the human element first; he wanted to get up and get out of the office; he could not stand the man. But the words he heard held him; the words did not match the man’s face or voice.
“So you see, Mr. Roark, though it is to be a religious edifice, it is also more than that. You notice that we call it the Temple of the Human Spirit. We want to capture–in stone, as others capture in music–not some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. And what is the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit toward the highest, the noblest, the best. The human spirit as the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great life-giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit. That is your assignment, Mr. Roark.”
Roark rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, helplessly. It was not possible. It simply was not possible. That could not be what the man wanted; not that man. It seemed horrible to hear him say that.
“Mr. Stoddard, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake,” he said, his voice slow and tired. “I don’t think I’m the man you want. I don’t think it would be right for me to undertake it. I don’t believe in God.”
He was astonished to see Hopton Stoddard’s expression of delight and triumph. Hopton Stoddard glowed in appreciation–in appreciation of the clairvoyant wisdom of Ellsworth Toohey who was always right. He drew himself up with new confidence, and he said firmly, for the first time in the tone of an old man addressing a youth, wise and gently patronizing:
“That doesn’t matter. You’re a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark–in your own way. I can see that in your buildings.”
He wondered why Roark stared at him like that, without moving, for such a long time.
“That’s true,” said Roark. It was almost a whisper.
That he should learn something about himself, about his buildings, from this man who had seen it and known it before he knew it, that this man should say it with that air of tolerant confidence implying full understanding–removed Roark’s doubts. He told himself that he did not really understand people; that an impression could be deceptive; that Hopton Stoddard would be far on another continent away; that nothing mattered in the face of such an assignment; that nothing could matter when a human voice–even Hopton Stoddard’s–was going on, saying:
“I wish to call it God. You may choose any other name. But what I want in that building is your spirit. Your spirit, Mr. Roark. Give me the best of that–and you will have done your job, as I shall have done mine. Do not worry about the meaning I wish conveyed. Let it be your spirit in the shape of a building–and it will have that meaning, whether you know it or not.”
And so Roark agreed to build the Stoddard Temple of the Human Spirit.
11.
IN DECEMBER the Cosmo-Slotnick Building was opened with great ceremony. There were celebrities, flower horseshoes, newsreel cameras, revolving searchlights and three hours of speeches, all alike.
I should be happy, Peter Keating told himself–and wasn’t. He watched from a window the solid spread of faces filling Broadway from curb to curb. He tried to talk himself into joy. He felt nothing. He had to admit that he was bored. But he smiled and shook hands and let himself be photographed. The Cosmo-Slotnick Building rose ponderously over the street, like a big white bromide.
After the ceremonies Ellsworth Toohey took Keating away to the retreat of a pale-orchid booth in a quiet, expensive restaurant. Many brilliant parties were being given in honor of the opening, but Keating grasped Toohey’s offer and declined all the other invitations. Toohey watched him as he seized his drink and slumped in his seat.
“Wasn’t it grand?” said Toohey. ‘That, Peter, is the climax of what you can expect from life.” He lifted his glass delicately. “Here’s to the hope that you shall have many triumphs such as this. Such as tonight.”
“Thanks,” said Keating, and reached for his glass hastily, without looking, and lifted it, to find it empty.
“Don’t you feel proud, Peter?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“That’s good. That’s how I like to see you. You looked extremely handsome tonight. You’ll be splendid in those newsreels.”
A flicker of interest snapped in Keating’s eyes. “Well, I sure hope so.”
“It’s too bad you’re not married, Peter. A wife would have been most decorative tonight. Goes well with the public. With the movie audiences, too.”
“Katie doesn’t photograph well.”
“Oh, that’s right, you’re engaged to Katie. So stupid of me. I keep forgetting it. No, Katie doesn’t photograph well at all. Also, for the life of me, I can’t imagine Katie being very effective at a social function. There are a great many nice adjectives one could use about Katie, but ‘poised’ and ‘distinguished’ are not among them. You must forgive me, Peter. I let my imagination run away with me. Dealing with art as much as I do, I’m inclined to see things purely from the viewpoint of artistic fitness. And looking at you tonight, I couldn’t help thinking of the woman who would have made such a perfect picture by your side.”
“Who?”
“Oh, don’t pay attention to me. It’s only an esthetic fancy. Life is never as perfect as that. People have too much to envy you for. You couldn’t add that to your other achievements.”
“Who?”
“Drop it, Peter. You can’t get her. Nobody can get her. You’re good, but you’re not good enough for that.”
“Who?”
“Dominique Francon, of course.”
Keating sat up straight and Toohey saw wariness in his eyes, rebellion, actual hostility. Toohey held his glance calmly. It was Keating who gave in; he slumped again and he said, pleading:
“Oh, God, Ellsworth, I don’t love her.”
“I never thought you did. But I do keep forgetting the exaggerated importance which the average man attaches to love–sexual love.”
“I’m not an average man,” said Keating wearily; it was an automatic protest–without fire.
“Sit up, Peter. You don’t look like a hero, slumped that way.”
Keating jerked himself up–anxious and angry. He said:
“I’ve always felt that you wanted me to marry Dominique. Why? What’s it to you?”
“You’ve answered your own question, Peter. What could it possibly be to me? But we were speaking of love. Sexual love, Peter, is a profoundly selfish emotion. And selfish emotions are not the ones that lead to happiness. Are they? Take tonight for instance. That was an evening to swell an egotist’s heart. Were you happy, Peter? Don’t bother, my dear, no answer is required. The point I wish to make is only that one must mistrust one’s most personal impulses. What one desires is actually of so little importance! One can’t expect to find happiness until one realizes this completely. Think of tonight for a moment. You, my dear Peter, were the least important person there. Which is as it should be. It is not the doer that counts but those for whom things are done. But you were not able to accept that–and so you didn’t feel the great elation that should have been yours.”
“That’s true,” whispered Keating. He would not have admitted it to anyone else.
“You missed the beautiful pride of utter selflessness. Only when you learn to deny your ego, completely, only when you learn to be amused by such piddling sentimentalities as your little sex urges–only then will you achieve the greatness which I have always expected of you.”
“You…you believe that about me, Ellsworth? You really do?”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t. But to come back to love. Personal love, Peter, is a great evil–as everything personal. And it always leads to misery. Don’t you see why? Personal love is an act of discrimination, of preference. It is an act of injustice–to every human being on earth whom you rob of the affection arbitrarily granted to one. You must love all men equally. But you cannot achieve so noble an emotion if you don’t kill your selfish little choices. They are vicious and futile–since they contradict the first cosmic law–the basic equality of all men.”
“You mean,” said Keating, suddenly interested, “that in a…in a philosophical way, deep down, I mean, we’re all equal? All of us?”