Ayn Rand: The Early Ayn Rand

"Jesus!" said the superintendent, frightened and delighted. "It's never been done that way before."

"You're going to do it."

"It'll hold," said Darrow, studying the sketch. "We may have to check some of these beams of yours... this business here, for instance... but it'll hold."

"The owners won't like it," said the superintendent, as a regretful afterthought.

"They'll take it and keep their damn mouths shut," said Roark. "Give me another board. Now look. Here's what you do on the two floors below." He went on drawing for a long time, throwing words over his shoulder once in a while.

"Yes," whispered the superintendent. "But... but what'll I say if someone asks if..."

"Say I gave the orders. Now keep these and get started." He turned to Darrow. "I'll draw up the plans and you'll have them this afternoon to check, and let him have them as soon

as possible." He turned to the superintendent. "Now go ahead."

"Yes, sir," said the superintendent. He said it respectfully.

They went down silently in the elevator. The superintendent was studying the drawings, Darrow was studying Roark, Roark was looking at the building.

They reached the ground below and Roark went back to Cameron. He took Cameron's elbows and helped him slowly to his feet. The estimator had disappeared.

"I'll take you home, Mr. Cameron," Roark said gently.

"Huh?" muttered Cameron. "Yes... oh, yes..." He nodded vaguely, in assent to nothing comprehensible.

Roark led him away. Then Cameron shook off the hands holding him, tottered and turned around. He stood, looking up at the steel skeleton, his head thrown back. He flung his arms out wide, and stood still, only his fingers moving weakly, uselessly, as if reaching for something. His lips moved; he wanted to speak; he said nothing.

"Look..." he whispered at last. "Look..." His voice was soft, choked, pleading, pleading desperately for the words he could not find. "Look..." He had so much to say. "Look..." he muttered hopelessly.

When Roark took his arm again, he did not resist. Roark led him to a cab and they drove to Cameron's home. Roark knew Cameron's address, but had never been inside his one stuffy, unkempt furnished room that bore on its walls, as its single distinction, framed photographs of his buildings. The bed stood untouched, unused the night before. Cameron had followed docilely up the stairs. But the sight of his room seemed to awaken something in his brain. He jerked loose suddenly; he whirled upon Roark, and his face was white with rage.

"What are you doing here?" he screamed, choking, his voice gulping in his throat. "What are you following me for? I hate you, whoever you are. I know what's the matter with me. It's because I can't bear the sight of you. There you stand reproaching me!"

"I don't," whispered Roark.

"God damn you! That's what's been following me. You're the one who's making me miserable. Everything else's all right, but you're the one who's putting me through hell. You're out to kill me, you..." And then there followed a torrent of such blasphemy as Roark had never heard on any waterfront, in any construction gang. Roark stood silently, waiting.

"Get out!" roared Cameron, lurching toward him. "Get out of here! Get out of my sight! Get out!"

Roark did not move. Cameron raised his hand and struck him across the mouth.

Roark fell back against a bedstand, but caught his balance, his feet steady, his body huddled against the stand, his hands behind him, pressed to its sides. He looked at Cameron. The sound of the blow had knocked Cameron into a sudden, lucid, sober pause of consciousness. He stared at Roark, his mouth half-open, his eyes dull, blank, frightened, but focused.

"Howard..." he muttered- "Howard, what are you doing here?"

His hand went across his wet forehead, trying vainly to remember.

"Howard, what was it? What happened?"

"Nothing, Mr. Cameron," Roark whispered, his handkerchief hidden in his hand, pressed to his mouth, swiftly wiping off the blood. "Nothing."

"Something's happened. Are you all right, Howard?"

"I'm all right, Mr. Cameron. But you'd better go to bed. I'll help you."

The old man did not resist, his legs giving way under him, his eyes empty, while Roark undressed him and pulled the blanket over him.

"Howard," he whispered, his face white on the pillow, his eyes closed, "I never wanted you to see it. But now you've seen it. Now you know."

"Try to sleep, Mr. Cameron."

"An honor..." Cameron whispered, without opening his eyes, "an honor that I could not have deserved... Who said that?"

"Go to sleep, Mr. Cameron. You'll be all right tomorrow."

"You hate me now," said Cameron, raising his head, looking at Roark, a soft, lost, unexpecting smile in his eyes, "don't you?"

"No," said Roark. "But I hate everyone else in the world."

Cameron's head fell back on the pillow. He lay still, his hands small, drawn, and yellow on the white bed-cloth. Then he was asleep.

There was no one to call. Roark asked the sleepy, indifferent landlady to look after Cameron, and returned to the office.

He went straight to his table, noticing no one. He pulled a sheet of paper forward and went to work silently.

"Well?" asked Loomis. "What happened down there?" asked Simpson.

"Penthouse floor arches," Roark answered without raising his head.

"Jesus!" gasped Simpson. "Now what?"

"It will be all right," said Roark. "You'll take these down to Huston Street when I finish, Loomis."

"Yes," said Loomis, his mouth hanging open.

That afternoon, Trager came into the drafting room, his glance directed, fixed upon a definite object.

"There's a Mr. Mead outside," he said. "He had an appointment with Mr. Cameron about that hotel down in Connecticut. What shall I tell him, Mr. Roark?"

Roark jerked his thumb at the door of Cameron's office.

"Send him in," said Roark. "I'll see him."

On a day when the [Heller] house was nearing completion, Roark noticed, driving

towards it one morning, an old, hunched figure standing at the foot of the hill, alone on the rocky shore, ignored by the cars flying past and by the noisy activity of the workers above. He knew the broad, bent back of that figure, but what it appeared to be was incredible. He stopped his car with a violent screech of brakes, and leaped out, and ran forward, frightened. He saw the heavy cane and the two hands leaning agonizingly upon its handle, the old body braced in supreme effort against one steady shaft, grinding its tip into the earth.

Roark stood before him and opened his mouth and said nothing.

"Well?" asked Cameron. "What are you staring at?"

Roark couldn't answer.

"Now you're not going to say anything," Cameron snapped. "Why the hell did you have to come here today? I didn't want you to know."

"How... how could Miss Cameron let you..."

"She didn't let me," said Cameron triumphantly. "I escaped." His eyes twinkled slyly, with the boasting of a boy playing hookey. "I just sneaked out of the house when she went to church. I can hire taxis and get on trains just like anybody else. I'll slap your face if you go on standing there with that stupid look proclaiming to the world that it's so unusual for me to crawl out of the grave. Really, you know, you're more of a fool than I thought you were. You should have expected me here someday." The cane staggered and he caught at Roark's arm for support. He added softly: "Do you know what Victor Hugo said? Victor Hugo said that there may be indifferent fathers, but there can't be indifferent grandfathers. Help me up the hill."

"No!" said Roark. "You can't!"

"I said help me up the hill," Cameron pronounced slowly, icily, with the tone of addressing an insolent draftsman.

Roark had to obey. His hands closed about Cameron's elbows, and he pulled the old body gently, tightly against his own, and they went forward slowly. Cameron's feet stepped with long, deliberate precision, each step — a purpose begun and carried on and completed consciously, his mind concentrated upon each step. The cane left a long, zigzagging string of dots stamped on the earth behind them. Cameron barely felt the pressure of Roark's hands on his elbows, but the hands led him, held him in tight safety, as if some fluid energy of motion flowed from these hands through his body, as if Cameron were carried forward not by his feet, but by Roark's hands. They stopped frequently, upon each ledge they reached, and stood silently, Cameron trying to hide the gasps of his breath, and looked up. Then they went on.