The Fountainhead Page #9

You said once that you...

For all the years we'll have to wait.

Roark, I know...

...that you've known

what I felt all these years.

We can never change it,

neither one of us.

I'm going to leave Gail.

You may refuse to see me again,

but I'm going to leave him.

Before you leave him will you help me

with a problem of my own?

- Yes.

- Will you do it without asking questions?

Yes, Roark, anything you want.

You've seen Cortlandt Homes?

Yes. I know what they've

done to your work.

Next Monday night, I want you to drive up

to the side of Cortlandt.

You must be alone in your car.

You must make it appear

you were an innocent bystander...

Roark, I know

what you're going to do.

This is a test, isn't it?

Can I equal your courage,

am I still afraid for you...

...can I help you take the most

terrible chance you've ever...?

You can guess anything you wish.

Just listen. When I finish don't tell me

whether you will help me or not.

If you decide to do it, say nothing...

...but let me see you do it.

All right. Go on.

Drive up to Cortlandt

Monday night at 11:30.

I ran out of gas.

May I use your telephone, please?

I'm sorry, ma'am,

but our phone's gone dead tonight.

Where is the nearest garage?

Way down the road.

Would you mind going there

and getting somebody to help me?

Sure will, young lady. Glad to.

What do you know

about this?

Arrest me. I'll talk at the trial.

We don't have to wait for the trial

to convict him.

Howard Roark is guilty

by his very nature.

It is whispered

that he designed Cortlandt.

- What if he did?

- Society needed a housing project.

It was his duty to sacrifice

his own desires...

...and to contribute any ideas we demanded

of him on any terms we chose.

Who is society?

We are.

Man can be permitted to exist

only in order to serve others.

He must be nothing but a tool

for the satisfaction of their needs.

Self-sacrifice is the law of our age.

The man who refuses to submit

and to serve...

Howard Roark, the supreme egoist...

Is a man who must be destroyed!

We have never learned to understand

what is greatness in man.

Self-sacrifice, we drool,

is the ultimate virtue.

Let's stop and think.

Can a man sacrifice his integrity

his rights, his freedom...

...his convictions, the honesty of his

feeling, the independence of his thought?

These are a man's supreme possessions.

To what must he sacrifice them?

To whom?

Self-sacrifice?

But it is precisely the self that cannot

and must not be sacrificed.

A man's self is his spirit.

It is the unsacrificed self

that we must respect in man above all...

...and where do we find it?

In a man like Howard Roark.

Have that run off and set up

on tomorrow's front page.

Yes, Mr. Wynand.

Gail, are you out of your mind,

defending that...?

Keep still or I'll bash your teeth in.

The whole city is against him.

An unpopular cause

is dangerous business for anyone.

For a popular newspaper,

it's suicide!

- Public opinion is responsible...

- Public opinion is what I make it.

For once, I'll fight for what I believe.

You'll stand alone against everybody

for the first time in your life?

Yes, for the first time in my life.

You fool, why did you have

to make such a good job of it?

Didn't you know broken glass is

dangerous?

- It didn't hurt.

- The next time you wanna play...

...the innocent bystander

let me coach you.

You didn't have to cut an artery.

Do the police believe that I was only

an innocent bystander?

Yes, they believe it.

They have to. You almost died.

They don't know that

you'd risk your life for him.

- For whom?

- Howard.

Haven't you always fought

for his work?

I'm glad you did it

and that it was for him.

I'm glad he did it.

- He had to.

- Yes.

- Have they arrested him?

- He's out on bail.

- What's he told them?

- Nothing.

He's refused to make any

statement.

They all say he's guilty,

but they can find no motive.

They think he designed Cortlandt...

...but they can't prove it.

- Is the public against him?

It's the worst storm of public fury

I've ever seen.

- Are all the newspapers against him?

- Except one.

Gail, if you'll stand by him today...

Don't offer me bribes.

It's a battle I've waited for all my life.

I know how much I have to redeem.

This will be my redemption.

This time, the Banner

is serving a crusade.

I was waiting for you to come.

- Do you want to ask me any questions now?

- No.

I may be sent to the penitentiary for years.

Does that frighten you?

No. I'll share whatever they do to you.

I failed you once

because I was afraid to see you suffer.

Now I'll stand by you openly.

I'll take the disgrace, the scandal,

the smears, anything.

Darling.

Yes.

You're Mrs. Gail Wynand.

You're above suspicion.

Everybody believes you were

at the scene by accident.

If you let it be known

what we mean to each other...

...it'll be a confession

that I did it.

Is that why you asked me to help you?

In order to stop me

from joining you now?

Yes.

Dominique, if I'm convicted...

...I want you to remain with Gail.

And you must not tell him about us...

...because he and you

will need each other.

All right, if that's what you want...

...but if you're acquitted?

We can't speak of that now.

You'll be acquitted.

That's not what I wanted

to hear you say.

If they convict you...

...if they lock you in jail, if they

never let you design another building...

...if they never let me see you again...

...it won't break me.

I know how to fight it.

I'm not afraid of them any longer.

That's what I wanted

to hear all these years.

- Who designed Cortlandt?

- Let me alone.

- It's too late, Peter.

- Let me go!

- Who designed Cortlandt?

- Why do you want to kill Roark?

I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail,

behind bars, locked, strapped, beaten.

He'll move as he's told.

He'll work as he's told.

- He'll obey. He'll take orders.

- Ellsworth, what are you after?

Power. What do you think is power?

Whips? Guns? Money?

You can't turn men into slaves

unless you break their spirit.

Kill their capacity to think

and act on their own.

Tie them together, teach them to conform,

to unite, to agree, to obey.

That makes one neck

ready for one leash.

Ellsworth.

You've heard me preaching it for years

but you didn't have the wits...

...to know what you were hearing.

Why do you suppose I denounced

greatness and praised mediocrities like you?

Great men can't be ruled.

Why did I preach self-sacrifice?

If you kill a man's sense of personal value,

he'll submit.

Can you do that

to Howard Roark? No?

Then don't ask me

why I want to destroy him.

That's what they mean,

your noble ideals.

You believed in me.

Well, what's left of you now?

Come on.

Who designed Cortlandt?

Howard Roark.

On what condition?

That it must be built

as he designed it.

Write it down.

Write a full confession.

You're a great success, Peter.

You're my best achievement.

A totally selfless man.

Selfish? Is that what they call me?

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