"You're saying all the things that--since I can remember--since I began to see and think--have been ..." She stopped.
"Have been torturing you. Of course. One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name. It's one or the other. One doesn't love God and sacrilege impartially. Except when one doesn't know that sacrilege has been committed. Because one doesn't know God."
"What will you say if I give you the answer people usually give me--that love is forgiveness?"
"I'll say it's an indecency of which you're not capable--even though you think you're an expert in such matters."
"Or that love is pity."
"Oh, keep still. It's bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting--even as a joke."
"What's your answer?"
"That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don't know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it--the total passion for the total height--you're incapable of anything less."
"As--you and I--know it?"
"It's what we feel when we look at a thing like your statue. There's no forgiveness in that, and no pity. And I'd want to kill the man who claims that there should be. But, you see, when he looks at your statue--he feels nothing. That--or a dog with a broken paw--it's all the same to him. He even feels that he's done something nobler by bandaging the dog's paw than by looking at your statue. So if you seek a glimpse of greatness, if you want exaltation, if you ask for God and refuse to accept the washing of wounds as substitute--you're called a hater of humanity, Mrs. Keating, because you've committed the crime of knowing a love humanity has not learned to deserve."
"Mr. Wynand, have you read what I got fired for?"
"No. I didn't then. I don't dare to now."
"Why?"
He ignored the question. He said, smiling: "And so, you came to me and said 'You're the vilest person on earth--take me so that I'll learn self-contempt. I lack that which most people live by. They find life endurable, while I can't.' Do you see now what you've shown?"
"I didn't expect it to be seen."
"No. Not by the publisher of the New York Banner, of course. That's all right. I expected a beautiful slut who was a friend of Ellsworth Toohey."
They laughed together. She thought it was strange that they could talk without strain--as if he had forgotten the purpose of this journey. His calm had become a contagious sense of peace between them.
She watched the unobtrusively gracious way their dinner was served, she looked at the white tablecloth against the deep red of the mahogany walls. Everything on the yacht had an air that made her think it was the first truly luxurious place she had ever entered: the luxury was secondary, a background so proper to him that it could be ignored. The man humbled his own wealth. She had seen people of wealth, stiff and awed before that which represented their ultimate goal. The splendor of this place was not the aim, not the final achievement of the man who leaned casually across the table. She wondered what his aim had been.
"This ship is becoming to you," she said.
She saw a look of pleasure in his eyes--and of gratitude.
"Thank you.... Is the art gallery?"
"Yes. Only that's less excusable."
"I don't want you to make excuses for me." He said it simply, without reproach.
They had finished dinner. She waited for the inevitable invitation. It did not come. He sat smoking, talking about the yacht and the ocean.
Her hand came to rest accidentally on the tablecloth, close to his. She saw him looking at it. She wanted to jerk her hand away, but forced herself to let it lie still. Now, she thought.
He got up. "Let's go on deck," he said.
They stood at the rail and looked at a black void. Space was not to be seen, only felt by the quality of the air against their faces. A few stars gave reality to the empty sky. A few sparks of white fire in the water gave life to the ocean.
He stood, slouched carelessly, one arm raised, grasping a stanchion. She saw the sparks flowing, forming the edges of waves, framed by the curve of his body. That, too, was becoming to him.
She said:
"May I name another vicious bromide you've never felt?"
"Which one?"
"You've never felt how small you were when looking at the ocean."
He laughed. "Never. Nor looking at the planets. Nor at mountain peaks. Nor at the Grand Canyon. Why should I? When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man. I think of man's magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks, I think of tunnels and dynamite. When I look at the planets, I think of airplanes."
"Yes. And that particular sense of sacred rapture men say they experience in contemplating nature--I've never received it from nature, only from ..." She stopped.
"From what?"
"Buildings," she whispered. "Skyscrapers."
"Why didn't you want to say that?"
"I ... don't know."
"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window--no, I don't feel how small I am--but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body."
"Gail, I don't know whether I'm listening to you or to myself."
"Did you hear yourself just now?"
She smiled. "Actually not. But I won't take it back, Gail."
"Thank you--Dominique." His voice was soft and amused. "But we weren't talking about you or me. We were talking about other people." He leaned with both forearms on the rail, he spoke watching the sparks in the water. "It's interesting to speculate on the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves. As in that idea of feeling small before nature. It's not a bromide, it's practically an institution. Have you noticed how self-righteous a man sounds when he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I'm so glad to be a pigmy, that's how virtuous I am. Have you heard with what delight people quote some great celebrity who's proclaimed that he's not so great when he looks at Niagara Falls? It's as if they were smacking their lips in sheer glee that their best is dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if they were sprawling on all fours, rubbing their foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. But that's not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, electricity, that crossed oceans in sailing sloops, that built airplanes and dams ... and skyscrapers. What is it they fear? What is it they hate so much, those who love to crawl? And why?"
"When I find the answer to that," she said, "I'll make my peace with the world."
He went on talking--of his travels, of the continents beyond the darkness around them, the darkness that made of space a soft curtain pressed against their eyelids. She waited. She stopped answering. She gave him a chance to use the brief silences for ending this, for saying the words she expected. He would not say them.
"Are you tired, my dear?" he asked.
"No."
"I'll get you a deck chair, if you want to sit down."
"No, I like standing here."
"It's a little cold. But by tomorrow we'll be far south and then you'll see the ocean on fire, at night. It's very beautiful."
He was silent. She heard the s
hip's speed in the sound of the water, the rustling moan of protest against the thing that cut a long wound across the water's surface.
"When are we going below?" she asked.
"We're not going below."
He had said it quietly, with an odd kind of simplicity, as if he were standing helpless before a fact he could not alter.
"Will you marry me?" he asked.
She could not hide the shock; he had seen it in advance, he was smiling quietly, understanding.
"It would be best to say nothing else." He spoke carefully. "But you prefer to hear it stated--because that kind of silence between us is more than I have a right to expect. You don't want to tell me much, but I've spoken for you tonight, so let me speak for you again. You've chosen me as the symbol of your contempt for men. You don't love me. You wish to grant me nothing. I'm only your tool of self-destruction. I know all that, I accept it and I want you to marry me. If you wish to commit an unspeakable act as your revenge against the world, such an act is not to sell yourself to your enemy, but to marry him. Not to match your worst against his worst, but your worst against his best. You've tried that once, but your victim wasn't worthy of your purpose. You see, I'm pleading my case in your own terms. What mine are, what I want to find in that marriage is of no importance to you and I shall regard it in that manner. You don't have to know about it. You don't have to consider it. I exact no promises and impose no obligations on you. You'll be free to leave me whenever you wish. Incidentally--since it is of no concern to you--I love you."
She stood, one arm stretched behind her, finger tips pressed to the rail. She said:
"I did not want that."
"I know. But if you're curious about it, I'll tell you that you've made a mistake. You let me see the cleanest person I've ever seen."
"Isn't that ridiculous, after the way we met?"
"Dominique, I've spent my life pulling the strings of the world. I've seen all of it. Do you think I could believe any purity--unless it came to me twisted in some such dreadful shape as the one you chose? But what I feel must not affect your decision."
She stood looking at him, looking incredulously at all the hours past. Her mouth had the shape of gentleness. He saw it. She thought that every word he said today had been of her language, that this offer and the form he gave it were of her own world--and that he had destroyed his purpose by it, taken away from her the motive he suggested, made it impossible to seek degradation with a man who spoke as he did. She wanted suddenly to reach for him, to tell him everything, to find a moment's release in his understanding, then ask him never to see her again.
Then she remembered.
He noticed the movement of her hand. Her fingers were not leaning tensely against the rail, betraying a need of support, giving importance to the moment; they relaxed and closed about the rail; as if she had taken hold of some reins, carelessly, because the occasion required no earnest effort any longer.
She remembered the Stoddard Temple. She thought of the man before her, who spoke about the total passion for the total height and about protecting skyscrapers with his body--and she saw a picture on a page of the New York Banner, the picture of Howard Roark looking up at the Enright House, and the caption: "Are you happy, Mr. Superman?"
She raised her face to him. She asked:
"To marry you? To become Mrs. Wynand-Papers?"
She heard the effort in his voice as he answered: "If you wish to call it that--yes."
"I will marry you."
"Thank you, Dominique."
She waited indifferently.
When he turned to her, he spoke as he had spoken all day, a calm voice with an edge of gaiety.
"We'll cut the cruise short. We'll take just a week--I want to have you here for a while. You'll leave for Reno the day after we return. I'll take care of your husband. He can have Stoneridge and anything else he wants and may God damn him. We'll be married the day you come back."
"Yes, Gail. Now let's go below."
"Do you want it?"
"No. But I don't want our marriage to be important."
"I want it to be important, Dominique. That's why I won't touch you tonight. Not until we're married. I know it's a senseless gesture. I know that a wedding ceremony has no significance for either one of us. But to be conventional is the only abnormality possible between us. That's why I want it. I have no other way of making an exception."
"As you wish, Gail."
Then he pulled her to him and he kissed her mouth. It was the completion of his words, the finished statement, a statement of such intensity that she tried to stiffen her body, not to respond, and felt her body responding, forced to forget everything but the physical fact of a man who held her.
He let her go. She knew he had noticed. He smiled and said:
"You're tired, Dominique. Shall I say good night? I want to remain here for a while."
She turned obediently and walked alone down to her cabin.
V
"WHAT'S THE MATTER? DON'T I GET STONERIDGE?" SNAPPED Peter Keating.
Dominique walked into the living room. He followed, waiting in the open door. The elevator boy brought in her luggage, and left. She said, removing her gloves:
"You'll get Stoneridge, Peter. Mr. Wynand will tell you the rest himself. He wants to see you tonight. At eight-thirty. At his home."
"Why in hell?"
"He'll tell you."
She slapped her gloves softly against her palm, a small gesture of finality, like a period at the end of a sentence. She turned to leave the room. He stood in her way.
"I don't care," he said. "I don't give a damn. I can play it your way. You're great, aren't you?--because you act like truck drivers, you and Mr. Gail Wynand? To hell with decency, to hell with the other fellow's feelings? Well, I can do that too. I'll use you both and I'll get what I can out of it--and that's all I care. How do you like it? No point when the worm refuses to be hurt? Spoils the fun?"
"I think that's much better, Peter. I'm glad."
He found himself unable to preserve this attitude when he entered Wynand's study that evening. He could not escape the awe of being admitted into Gail Wynand's home. By the time he crossed the room to the seat facing the desk he felt nothing but a sense of weight, and he wondered whether his feet had left prints on the soft carpet; like the leaded feet of a deep-sea diver.
"What I have to tell you, Mr. Keating, should never have needed to be said or done," said Wynand. Keating had never heard a man speak in a manner so consciously controlled. He thought crazily that it sounded as if Wynand held his fist closed over his voice and directed each syllable. "Any extra word I speak will be offensive, so I shall be brief. I am going to marry your wife. She is leaving for Reno tomorrow. Here is the contract for Stoneridge. I have signed it. Attached is a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It is in addition to what you will receive for your work under the contract. I'll appreciate it if you will now make no comment of any kind. I realize that I could have had your consent for less, but I wish no discussion. It would be intolerable if we were to bargain about it. Therefore, will you please take this and consider the matter settled?"
He extended the contract across the desk. Keating saw the pale blue rectangle of the check held to the top of the page by a paper clip. The clip flashed silver in the light of the desk lamp.
Keating's hand did not reach to meet the paper. He said, his chin moving awkwardly to frame the words:
"I don't want it. You can have my consent for nothing."
He saw a look of astonishment--and almost of kindness--on Wynand's face.
"You don't want it? You don't want Stoneridge either?"
"I want Stoneridge!" Keating's hand rose and snatched the paper. "I want it all! Why should you get away with it? Why should I care?"
Wynand got up. He said, relief and regret in his voice:
"Right, Mr. Keating. For a moment, you had almost justified your marriage. Let it remain what it was. Good night."
&n
bsp; Keating did not go home. He walked to the apartment of Neil Dumont, his new designer and best friend. Neil Dumont was a lanky, anemic society youth, with shoulders stooped under the burden of too many illustrious ancestors. He was not a good designer, but he had connections; he was obsequious to Keating in the office, and Keating was obsequious to him after office hours.
He found Dumont at home. Together, they got Gordon Prescott and Vincent Knowlton, and started out to make a wild night of it. Keating did not drink much. He paid for everything. He paid more than necessary. He seemed anxious to find things to pay for. He gave exorbitant tips. He kept asking: "We're friends--aren't we friends?--aren't we?" He looked at the glasses around him and he watched the lights dancing in the liquid. He looked at the three pairs of eyes; they were blurred, but they turned upon him occasionally with contentment. They were soft and comforting.
That evening, her bags packed and ready in her room, Dominique went to see Steven Mallory.
She had not seen Roark for twenty months. She had called on Mallory once in a while. Mallory knew that these visits were breakdowns in a struggle she would not name; he knew that she did not want to come, that her rare evenings with him were time torn out of her life. He never asked any questions and he was always glad to see her. They talked quietly, with a feeling of companionship such as that of an old married couple; as if he had possessed her body, and the wonder of it had long since been consumed, and nothing remained but an untroubled intimacy. He had never touched her body, but he had possessed it in a deeper kind of ownership when he had done her statue, and they could not lose the special sense of each other it had given them.
He smiled when he opened the door and saw her.
"Hello, Dominique."
"Hello, Steve. Interrupting you?"
"No. Come in."
He had a studio, a huge, sloppy place in an old building. She noticed the change since her last visit. The room had an air of laughter, like a breath held too long and released. She saw second-hand furniture, an Oriental rug of rare texture and sensuous color, jade ash trays, pieces of sculpture that came from historical excavations, anything he had wished to seize, helped by the sudden fortune of Wynand's patronage. The walls looked strangely bare above the gay clutter. He had bought no paintings. A single sketch hung over his studio--Roark's original drawing of the Stoddard Temple.