The Fountainhead Read Online Free PDF Page A

quietly. “I owe you an apology. I don’t usually let things happen to me. I made a mistake this time. I shouldn’t have waited for you to throw me out. I should have left long ago.”
    “Now, now, don’t get discouraged. This is not the right attitude to take. Particularly in view of what I am going to tell you.”
    The Dean smiled and leaned forward confidentially, enjoying the overture to a good deed.
    “Here is the real purpose of our interview. I was anxious to let you know as soon as possible. I did not wish to leave you disheartened. Oh, I did, personally, take a chance with the President’s temper when I mentioned this to him, but ... Mind you, he did not commit himself, but ... Here is how things stand: now that you realize how serious it is, if you take a year off, to rest, to think it over—shall we say to grow up?—there might be a chance of our taking you back. Mind you, I cannot promise anything—this is strictly unomcial—it would be most unusual, but in view of the circumstances and of your brilliant record, there might be a very good chance.”
    Roark smiled. It was not a happy smile, it was not a grateful one. It was a simple, easy smile and it was amused.
    “I don’t think you understood me,” said Roark. “What made you suppose that I want to come back?”
    “Eh?”
    “I won’t be back. I have nothing further to learn here.”
    “I don’t understand you,” said the Dean stiffly.
    “Is there any point in explaining? It’s of no interest to you any longer.”
    “You will kindly explain yourself.”
    “If you wish. I want to be an architect, not an archeologist. I see no purpose in doing Renaissance villas. Why learn to design them, when I’ll never build them?”
    “My dear boy, the great style of the Renaissance is far from dead. Houses of that style are being erected every day.”
    “They are. And they will be. But not by me.”
    “Come, come, now, this is childish.”
    “I came here to learn about building. When I was given a project, its only value to me was to learn to solve it as I would solve a real one in the future. I did them the way I’ll build them. I’ve learned all I could learn here—in the structural sciences of which you don’t approve. One more year of drawing Italian post cards would give me nothing.”
    An hour ago the Dean had wished that this interview would proceed as calmly as possible. Now he wished that Roark would display some emotion; it seemed unnatural for him to be so quietly natural in the circumstances.
    “Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?”
    “Yes.”
    “My dear fellow, who will let you?”
    “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
    “Look here, this is serious. I am sorry that I haven’t had a long, earnest talk with you much earlier.... I know, I know, I know, don’t interrupt me, you’ve seen a modernistic building or two, and it gave you ideas. But do you realize what a passing fancy that whole so-called modern movement is? You must learn to understand—and it has been proved by all authorities—that everything beautiful in architecture has been done already. There is a treasure mine in every style of the past. We can only choose from the great masters. Who are we to improve upon them? We can only attempt, respectfully, to repeat.”
    “Why?” asked Howard Roark.
    No, thought the Dean, no, he hasn’t said anything else; it’s a perfectly innocent word; he’s not threatening me.
    “But it’s self-evident!” said the Dean.
    “Look,” said Roark evenly, and pointed at the window. “Can you see the campus and the town? Do you see how many men are walking and living down there? Well, I don’t give a damn what any or all of them think about architecture—or about anything else, for that matter. Why should I consider what their grandfathers thought of it?”
    “That is our sacred tradition.”
    “Why?”
    “For heaven’s