Wynand and Dominique sat in the center of the fourth row, not looking at each other, listening to the play. The things being done on the stage were merely trite and crass; but the undercurrent made them frightening. There was an air about the ponderous inanities spoken, which the actors had absorbed like an infection; it was in their smirking faces, in the slyness of their voices; in their untidy gestures. It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations and insolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of innocent presumption, but of conscious effrontery; as if the author knew the nature of his work and boasted of his power to make it appear sublime in the minds of his audience and thus destroy the capacity for the sublime within them. The work justified the verdict of its sponsors: it brought laughs, it was amusing; it was an indecent joke, acted out not on the stage but in the audience. It was a pedestal from which a god had been torn, and in his place there stood, not Satan with a sword, but a corner lout sipping a bottle of Coca-Cola.
There was silence in the audience, puzzled and humble. When someone laughed, the rest joined in, with relief, glad to learn that they were enjoying themselves. Jules Fougler had not tried to influence anybody; he had merely made clear — well in advance and through many channels — that anyone unable to enjoy this play was, basically, a worthless human being. "It's no use asking for explanations," he had said. "Either you're fine enough to like it or you aren't."
In the intermission Wynand heard a stout woman saying: "It's wonderful. I don't understand it, but I have the feeling that it's something very important." Dominique asked him: "Do you wish to go, Gail?" He said: "No. We'll stay to the end."
He was silent in the car on their way home. When they entered their drawing room, he stood waiting, ready to hear and accept anything. For a moment she felt the desire to spare him. She felt empty and very tired. She did not want to hurt him; she wanted to seek his help.
Then she thought again what she had thought in the theater. She thought that this play was the creation of the Banner, this was what the Banner had forced into life, had fed, upheld, made to triumph. And it was the Banner that had begun and ended the destruction of the Stoddard Temple ... The New York Banner, November 2, 1930 — "One Small Voice" — "Sacrilege" by Ellsworth M. Toohey — "The Churches of our Childhood" by Alvah Scarret — "Are you happy, Mr. Superman?" ... And now that destruction was not an event long since past — this was not a comparison between two mutually unmeasurable entities, a building and a play — it was not an accident, nor a matter of persons, of Ike, Fougler, Toohey, herself ... and Roark. It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions, the thing that had created the building against the things that made the play possible — two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple statement — two forces that had fought since the world began — and every religion had known of them — and there had always been a God and a Devil — only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil — he was not single and big, he was many and smutty and small. The Banner had destroyed the Stoddard Temple in order to make room for this play — it could not do otherwise — there was no middle choice, no escape, no neutrality — it was one or the other — it had always been — and the contest had many symbols, but no name and no statement ... Roark, she heard herself screaming inside, Roark ... Roark ... Roark ...
"Dominique ... what's the matter?"
She heard Wynand's voice. It was soft and anxious. He had never allowed himself to betray anxiety. She grasped the sound as a reflection of her own face, of what he had seen in her face.
She stood straight, and sure of herself, and very silent inside.
"I'm thinking of you, Gail," she said.
He waited.
"Well, Gail? The total passion for the total height?" She laughed, letting her arms swing sloppily in the manner of the actors they had seen. "Say, Gail, have you got a two-cent stamp with a picture of George Washington on it? ... How old are you, Gail? How hard have you worked? Your life is more than half over, but you've seen your reward tonight. Your crowning achievement. Of course, no man is ever quite equal to his highest passion. Now if you strive and make a great effort, some day you'll rise to the level of that play!"
He stood quietly, hearing it, accepting.
"I think you should take a manuscript of that play and place it on a stand in the center of your gallery downstairs. I think you should rechristen your yacht and call her No Skin Off Your Nose. I think you should take me — "
"Keep still."
" — and put me in the cast and make me play the role of Mary every evening. Mary who adopts the homeless muskrat and ... "
"Dominique, keep still."
"Then talk. I want to hear you talk."
"I've never justified myself to anyone."
"Well, boast then. That would do just as well."
"If you want to hear it, it made me sick, that play. As you knew it would. That was worse than the Bronx housewife."
"Much worse."
"But I can think of something worse still. Writing a great play and offering it for tonight's audience to laugh at. Letting oneself be martyred by the kind of people we saw frolicking tonight."
He saw that something had reached her; he could not tell whether it was an answer of surprise or of anger. He did not know how well she recognized these words. He went on:
"It did make me sick. But so have a great many things which the Banner has done. It was worse tonight, because there was a quality about it that went beyond the usual. A special kind of malice. But if this is popular with fools, it's the Banner's legitimate province. The Banner was created for the benefit of fools. What else do you want me to admit?"
"What you felt tonight."
"A minor kind of hell. Because you sat there with me. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? To make me feel the contrast. Still, you miscalculated. I looked at the stage and I thought, this is what people are like, such are their spirits, but I — I've found you, I have you — and the contrast was worth the pain. I did suffer tonight, as you wanted, but it was a pain that went only down to a certain point and then ... "
"Shut up!" she screamed. "Shut up, God damn you!"
They stood for a moment, both astonished. He moved first; he knew she needed his help; he grasped her shoulders. She tore herself away. She walked across the room, to the window; she stood looking at the city, at the great buildings spread in black and fire below her.
After a while she said, her voice toneless:
"I'm sorry, Gail."
He did not answer.
"I had no right to say those things to you." She did not turn, her arms raised, holding the frame of the window. "We're even, Gail. I'm paid back, if that will make it better for you. I broke first."
"I don't want you to be paid back." He spoke quietly. "Dominique, what was it?"
"Nothing."
"What did I make you think of? It wasn't what I said. It was something else. What did the words mean to you?"
"Nothing."
"A pain that went only down to a certain point. It was that sentence. Why?" She was looking at the city. In the distance she could see the shaft of the Cord Building. "Dominique, I've seen what you can take. It must be something very terrible if it could do that to you. I must know. There's nothing impossible. I can help you against it, whatever it is." She did not answer. "At the theater, it was not just that fool play. There was something else for you tonight. I saw your face. And then it was the same thing again here. What is it?"
"Gail," she said softly, "will you forgive me?"
He let a moment pass; he had not been prepared for that.
"What have I to forgive you?"
"Everything. And tonight."