Ellsworth Toohey, sitting on the floor, scratched his spine against a chair leg and yawned. Gus Webb, stretched out on his stomach in the middle of the room, rolled over on his back. Lancelot Clokey, the foreign correspondent, reached for his highball glass and finished it off. Jules Fougler, the new drama critic of the Banner, sat without moving; he had not moved for two hours. Lois Cook, hostess, raised her arms, twisting them, stretching, and said:
"Jesus, Ike, it's awful."
Lancelot Clokey drawled, "Lois, my girl, where do you keep your gin? Don't be such a damn miser. You're the worst hostess I know."
Gus Webb said, "I don't understand literature. It's nonproductive and a waste of time. Authors will be liquidated."
Ike laughed shrilly. "A stinker, huh?" He waved his script. "A real super-stinker. What do you think I wrote it for? Just show me anyone who can write a bigger flop. Worst play you'll ever hear in your life."
It was not a formal meeting of the Council of American Writers, but an unofficial gathering. Ike had asked a few of his friends to listen to his latest work. At twenty-six he had written eleven plays, but had never had one produced.
"You'd better give up the theater, Ike," said Lancelot Clokey. "Writing is a serious business and not for any stray bastard that wants to try it." Lancelot Clokey's first book--an account of his personal adventures in foreign countries--was in its tenth week on the best-seller list.
"Why, isn't it, Lance?" Toohey drawled sweetly.
"All right," snapped Clokey, "all right. Give me a drink."
"It's awful," said Lois Cook, her head lolling wearily from side to side. "It's perfectly awful. It's so awful it's wonderful."
"Balls," said Gus Webb. "Why do I ever come here?"
Ike flung his script at the fireplace, it struck against the wire screen and landed, face down, open, the thin pages crushed.
"If Ibsen can write plays, why can't I?" he asked. "He's good and I'm lousy, but that's not a sufficient reason."
"Not in the cosmic sense," said Lancelot Clokey. "Still, you're lousy."
"You don't have to say it. I said so first."
"This is a great play," said a voice.
The voice was slow, nasal and bored. It had spoken for the first time that evening, and they all turned to Jules Fougler. A cartoonist had once drawn a famous picture of him; it consisted of two sagging circles, a large one and a small one: the large one was his stomach, the small one--his lower lip. He wore a suit, beautifully tailored, of a color to which he referred as "merde d'oie." He kept his gloves on at all times and he carried a cane. He was an eminent drama critic.
Jules Fougler stretched out his cane, caught the playscript with the hook of the handle and dragged it across the floor to his feet. He did not pick it up, but he repeated, looking at it:
"This is a great play."
"Why?" asked Lancelot Clokey.
"Because I say so," said Jules Fougler.
"Is that a gag, Jules?" asked Lois Cook.
"I never gag," said Jules Fougler. "It is vulgar."
"Send me a coupla seats to the opening," sneered Lancelot Clokey.
"Eight-eighty for two seats to the opening," said Jules Fougler. "It will be the biggest hit of the season."
Jules Fougler turned and saw Toohey looking at him. Toohey smiled but the smile was not light or careless; it was an approving commentary upon something he considered as very serious indeed. Fougler's glance was contemptuous when turned to the others, but it relaxed for a moment of understanding when it rested on Toohey.
"Why don't you join the Council of American Writers, Jules?" asked Toohey.
"I am an individualist," said Fougler. "I don't believe in organizations. Besides, is it necessary?"
"No, not necessary at all," said Toohey cheerfully. "Not for you, Jules. There's nothing I can teach you."
"What I like about you, Ellsworth, is that it's never necessary to explain myself to you."
"Hell, why explain anything here? We're six of a kind."
"Five," said Fougler. "I don't like Gus Webb."
"Why don't you?" asked Gus. He was not offended.
"Because he doesn't wash his ears," answered Fougler, as if the question had been asked by a third party.
"Oh, that," said Gus.
Ike had risen and stood staring at Fougler, not quite certain whether he should breathe.
"You like my play, Mr. Fougler?" he asked at last, his voice small.
"I haven't said I like it," Fougler answered coldly. "I think it smells. That is why it's great."
"Oh," said Ike. He laughed. He seemed relieved. His glance went around the faces in the room, a glance of sly triumph.
"Yes," said Fougler, "my approach to its criticism is the same as your approach to its writing. Our motives are identical."
"You're a grand guy, Jules."
"Mr. Fougler, please."
"You're a grand guy and the swellest bastard on earth, Mr. Fougler."
Fougler turned the pages of the script at his feet with the tip of his cane.
"Your typing is atrocious, Ike," he said.
"Hell, I'm not a stenographer. I'm a creative artist."
"You will be able to afford a secretary after this show opens. I shall be obliged to praise it--if for no other reason than to prevent any further abuse of a typewriter, such as this. The typewriter is a splendid instrument, not to be outraged."
"All right, Jules," said Lancelot Clokey, "it's all very witty and smart and you're sophisticated and brilliant as all get-out-but what do you actually want to praise that crap for?"
"Because it is--as you put it--crap."
"You're not logical, Lance," said Ike. "Not in the cosmic sense you aren't. To write a good play and to have it praised is nothing. Anybody can do that. Anybody with talent--and talent is only a glandular accident. But to write a piece of crap and have it praised--well, you match that."
"He has," said Toohey.
"That's a matter of opinion," said Lancelot Clokey. He upturned his empty glass over his mouth and sucked at a last piece of ice.
"Ike understands things much better than you do, Lance," said Jules Fougler. "He has just proved himself to be a real thinker--in that little speech of his. Which, incidentally, was better than his whole play."
"I'll write my next play about that," said Ike.
"Ike has stated his reasons," Fougler continued. "And mine. And also yours, Lance. Examine my case, if you wish. What achievement is there for a critic in praising a good play? None whatever. The critic is then nothing but a kind of glorified messenger boy between author and public. What's there in that for me? I'm sick of it. I have a right to wish to impress my own personality upon people. Otherwise I shall become frustrated--and I do not believe in frustration. But if a critic is able to put over a perfectly worthless play--ah, you do perceive the difference! Therefore, I shall make a hit out of--what's the name of your play, Ike?"
"No skin off your ass," said Ike.
"I beg your pardon?"
"That's the title."
"Oh, I see. Therefore, I shall make a hit out of No Skin Off Your Ass."
Lois Cook laughed loudly.
"You all make too damn much fuss about everything," said Gus Webb, lying flat, his hands entwined under his head.
"Now if you wish to consider your own case, Lance," Fougler went on. "What satisfaction is there for a correspondent in reporting on world events? The public reads about all sorts of international crises and you're lucky if they even notice your by-line. But you're every bit as good as any general, admiral or ambassador. You have a right to make people conscious of yourself. So you've done the wise thing. You've written a remarkable collection of bilge--yes, bilge--but morally justified. A clever book. World catastrophes used as a backdrop for your own nasty little personality. How Lancelot Clokey got drunk at an international conference. What beauties slept with Lancelot Clokey during an invasion. How Lancelot Clokey got dysentery in a land of famine. Well, why not, Lance? It w
ent over, didn't it? Ellsworth put it over, didn't he?"
"The public appreciates good human-interest stuff," said Lancelot Clokey, looking angrily into his glass.
"Oh, can the crap, Lance!" cried Lois Cook. "Who're you acting for here? You know damn well it wasn't any kind of a human interest, but plain Ellsworth Toohey."
"I don't forget what I owe Ellsworth," said Clokey sullenly. "Ellsworth's my best friend. Still, he couldn't have done it if he didn't have a good book to do it with."
Eight months ago Lancelot Clokey had stood with a manuscript in his hand before Ellsworth Toohey, as Ike stood before Fougler now, not believing it when Toohey told him that his book would top the best-seller list. But two hundred thousand copies sold had made it impossible for Clokey ever to recognize any truth again in any form.
"Well, he did it with The Gallant Gallstone," said Lois Cook placidly, "and a worse piece of trash never was put down on paper. I ought to know. But he did it."
"And almost lost my job doing it," said Toohey indifferently.
"What do you do with your liquor, Lois?" snapped Clokey. "Save it to take a bath in?"
"All right, blotter," said Lois Cook, rising lazily.
She shuffled across the room, picked somebody's unfinished drink off the floor, drank the remnant, walked out and came back with an assortment of expensive bottles. Clokey and Ike hurried to help themselves.
"I think you're unfair to Lance, Lois," said Toohey. "Why shouldn't he write an autobiography?"
"Because his life wasn't worth living, let alone recording."
"Ah, but that is precisely why I made it a best-seller."
"You're telling me?"
"I like to tell someone."
There were many comfortable chairs around him, but Toohey preferred to remain on the floor. He rolled over to his stomach, propping his torso upright on his elbows, and he lolled pleasurably, switching his weight from elbow to elbow, his legs spread out in a wide fork on the carpet. He seemed to enjoy unrestraint.
"I like to tell someone. Next month I'm pushing the autobiography of a small-town dentist who's really a remarkable person--because there's not a single remarkable day in his life nor sentence in his book. You'll like it, Lois. Can you imagine a solid bromide undressing his soul as if it were a revelation?"
"The little people," said Ike tenderly. "I love the little people. We must love the little people of this earth."
"Save that for your next play," said Toohey.
"I can't," said Ike. "It's in this one."
"What's the big idea, Ellsworth?" snapped Clokey.
"Why, it's simple, Lance. When the fact that one is a total nonentity who's done nothing more outstanding than eating, sleeping and chatting with neighbors becomes a fact worthy of pride, of announcement to the world and of diligent study by millions of readers--the fact that one has built a cathedral becomes unrecordable and unannounceable. A matter of perspectives and relativity. The distance permissible between the extremes of any particular capacity is limited. The sound perception of an ant does not include thunder."
"You talk like a decadent bourgeois, Ellsworth," said Gus Webb.
"Pipe down, Sweetie-pie," said Toohey without resentment.
"It's all very wonderful," said Lois Cook, "except that you're doing too well, Ellsworth. You'll run me out of business. Pretty soon if I still want to be noticed, I'll have to write something that's actually good."
"Not in this century, Lois," said Toohey. "And perhaps not in the next. It's later than you think."
"But you haven't said ... !" Ike cried suddenly, worried.
"What haven't I said?"
"You haven't said who's going to produce my play!"
"Leave that to me," said Jules Fougler.
"I forgot to thank you, Ellsworth," said Ike solemnly. "So now I thank you. There are lots of bum plays, but you picked mine. You and Mr. Fougler."
"Your bumness is serviceable, Ike."
"Well, that's something."
"It's a great deal."
"How--for instance?"
"Don't talk too much, Ellsworth," said Gus Webb. "You've got a talking jag."
"Shut your face, Kewpie-doll. I like to talk. For instance, Ike? Well, for instance, suppose I didn't like Ibsen----"
"Ibsen is good," said Ike.
"Sure he's good, but suppose I didn't like him. Suppose I wanted to stop people from seeing his plays. It would do me no good whatever to tell them so. But if I sold them the idea that you're just as great as Ibsen--pretty soon they wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
"Jesus, can you?"
"It's only an example, Ike."
"But it would be wonderful!"
"Yes. It would be wonderful. And then it wouldn't matter what they went to see at all. Then nothing would matter--neither the writers nor those for whom they wrote."
"How's that, Ellsworth?"
"Look, Ike, there's no room in the theater for both Ibsen and you. You do understand that, don't you?"
"In a manner of speaking--yes."
"Well, you do want me to make room for you, don't you?"
"All of this useless discussion has been covered before and much better," said Gus Webb. "Shorter. I believe in functional economy."
"Where's it covered, Gus?" asked Lois Cook.
" 'Who had been nothing shall be all,' sister."
"Gus is crude, but deep," said Ike. "I like him."
"Go to hell," said Gus.
Lois Cook's butler entered the room. He was a stately, elderly man and he wore full-dress evening clothes. He announced Peter Keating.
"Pete?" said Lois Cook gaily. "Why, sure, shove him in, shove him right in."
Keating entered and stopped, startled, when he saw the gathering.
"Oh ... hello, everybody," he said bleakly. "I didn't know you had company, Lois."
"That's not company. Come in, Pete, sit down, grab yourself a drink, you know everybody."
"Hello, Ellsworth," said Keating, his eyes resting on Toohey for support.
Toohey waved his hand, scrambled to his feet and settled down in an armchair, crossing his legs gracefully. Everybody in the room adjusted himself automatically to a sudden control: to sit straighter, to bring knees together, to pull in a relaxed mouth. Only Gus Webb remained stretched as before.
Keating looked cool and handsome, bringing into the unventilated room the freshness of a walk through cold streets. But he was pale and his movements were slow, tired.
"Sorry if I intrude, Lois," he said. "Had nothing to do and felt so damn lonely, thought I'd drop in." He slurred over the word "lonely," throwing it away with a self-deprecatory smile. "Damn tired of Neil Dumont and the bunch. Wanted more uplifting company--sort of spiritual food, huh?"
"I'm a genius," said Ike. "I'll have a play on Broadway. Me and Ibsen. Ellsworth said so."
"Ike has just read his new play to us," said Toohey. "A magnificent piece of work."
"You'll love it, Peter," said Lancelot Clokey. "It's really great."
"It is a masterpiece," said Jules Fougler. "I hope you will prove yourself worthy of it, Peter. It is the kind of play that depends upon what the members of the audience are capable of bringing with them into the theater. If you are one of those literal-minded people, with a dry soul and a limited imagination, it is not for you. But if you are a real human being with a big, big heart full of laughter, who has preserved the uncorrupted capacity of his childhood for pure emotion--you will find it an unforgettable experience."
"Except as ye become as little children ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven," said Ellsworth Toohey.
"Thanks, Ellsworth," said Jules Fougler. "That will be the lead of my review."
Keating looked at Ike, at the others, his eyes eager. They all seemed remote and pure, far above him in the safety of their knowledge, but their faces had hints of smiling warmth, a benevolent invitation extended downward.
Keating drank the sense of their greatness, the spiritual food he sought
in coming here, and felt himself rising through them. They saw their greatness made real by him. A circuit was established in the room and the circle closed. Everybody was conscious of that, except Peter Keating.
Ellsworth Toohey came out in support of the cause of modern architecture.
In the past ten years, while most of the new residences continued to be built as faithful historical copies, the principles of Henry Cameron had won the field of commercial structures: the factories, the office buildings, the skyscrapers. It was a pale, distorted victory; a reluctant compromise that consisted of omitting columns and pediments, allowing a few stretches of wall to remain naked, apologizing for a shape--good through accident--by finishing it off with an edge of simplified Grecian volutes. Many stole Cameron's forms; few understood his thinking. The sole part of his argument irresistible to the owners of new structures was financial economy; he won to that extent.
In the countries of Europe, most prominently in Germany, a new school of building had been growing for a long time: it consisted of putting up four walls and a flat top over them, with a few openings. This was called new architecture. The freedom from arbitrary rules, for which Cameron had fought, the freedom that imposed a great new responsibility on the creative builder, became a mere elimination of all effort, even the effort of mastering historical styles. It became a rigid set of new rules--the discipline of conscious incompetence, creative poverty made into a system, mediocrity boastfully confessed.
"A building creates its own beauty, and its ornament is derived from the rules of its theme and its structure," Cameron had said. "A building needs no beauty, no ornament and no theme," said the new architects. It was safe to say it. Cameron and a few men had broken the path and paved it with their lives. Other men, of whom there were greater numbers, the men who had been safe in copying the Parthenon, saw the danger and found a way to security: to walk Cameron's path and make it lead them to a new Parthenon, an easier Parthenon in the shape of a packing crate of glass and concrete. The palm tree had broken through; the fungus came to feed on it, to deform it, to hide, to pull it back into the common jungle.
The jungle found its words.
In "One Small Voice," sub-titled "I Swim with the Current," Ellsworth Toohey wrote:
"We have hesitated for a long time to acknowledge the powerful phenomenon known as Modern Architecture. Such caution is requisite in anyone who stands in the position of mentor to the public taste. Too often, isolated manifestations of anomaly can be mistaken for a broad popular movement, and one should be careful not to ascribe to them a significance they do not deserve. But Modem Architecture has stood the test of time, has answered a demand of the masses, and we are glad to salute it.