The Fountainhead | Part 3, Chapters 5–6 : Gail Wynand | Summary

Summary

Part 3, Chapter 5

Upon return from her excursion with Wynand on his yacht, Dominique refuses to answer Keating's questions. She simply tells him that Wynand will outline the details of his conditions when Keating meets him in Wynand's office. Keating finds he has no choice but to give up Dominique so that Wynand can marry her in exchange for the Stoneridge commission. Dominique pays a visit to Mallory and he tells her Roark is in Clayton, working on a building there. Dominique leaves Keating without saying goodbye, and he attempts to carry on with his work.

However, Keating feels a need to pay a visit to Toohey. He gives Toohey a check and tells him to donate the money to a worthy cause. When Toohey asks where the money came from, Keating says, "I sold Dominique." Toohey is shocked when Keating tells him Wynand will marry her. Toohey turns to Scarret for support because he sees the union of Dominique and Wynand as a direct threat to the unity of the Banner. Scarret attempts to reason with his boss to reinstate Dominique on the Banner, but Wynand has a different approach in mind. He instructs Scarret to notify everyone that any and all references to Dominique, including any photographs of her must be destroyed. He says, "When the proper time comes, you will have an announcement of my marriage appear in all our papers." He warns, "It's any man's job, yours included, if this is disobeyed."

Dominique takes the train to Clayton and meets with Roark, telling him she is divorcing Keating so that she can marry Wynand. She begs him to stop her, but he won't, telling her she must go her own way without any interference from him. As he tells her, "Until you stop hating all this, stop being afraid of it, learn not to notice it." He will not even let her keep a newspaper she picked up from the ground to take with her as he puts her on the train to Reno.

Part 3, Chapter 6

The Council of American Writers Toohey organized but does not lead meets over a new play at Lois Cook's home. Each artist present tries to outdo another with clever wit. Keating shows up, pleased to see Toohey and is welcomed into the circle. To Keating, "they all seemed remote and pure, far above him in the safety of their knowledge." Toohey publishes an article subtitled "I Swim with the Current." In the article, he describes the virtues of modern architecture and cites a small building "designed by Augustus Webb, a young architect of great promise." This praise for a modern architect does not sit well with Keating. He petulantly reminds Toohey that he himself has done many modern buildings. Keating expects to be happy with having gotten the commission to design Stoneridge, but it feels like too much for him. He turns it over to other draftsmen to do, changing only a few rooflines and windows. Francon retires, leaving the business to Keating's sole control. Keating chooses the least ambitious and competitive partner he can find to help him run it.

Analysis

Wynand doesn't want Dominique as a mistress. He wants her as his wife. To that end, he requires complete possession of her such that he will allow her no public presence at all. This is the exact opposite of Keating, who (at least at first) paraded his ownership of his wife in a very public way. Dominique will have a more difficult time of it to provide Wynand with the same mirror of himself as she successfully provided Keating. Wynand is much more her match than Keating has been. The question will be: How will she keep Roark out of the mix?

Roark will allow Dominique no part of himself—not even a newspaper from the town in which he is working. He knows she has to play this track she has set for herself in leaving Keating for Wynand out to its last degree. Otherwise, she cannot break free of all attachments to anything that happens either to him or to her.

Keating feels some guilt over having "sold" Dominique to Wynand. He hopes he can make up for it by handing over the money Wynand has given him to design the project to Toohey. He instructs Toohey to put it to a good cause. The quickness with which he took the money is an ugly picture he hopes to erase with an anonymous gesture of charity Toohey would endorse. Although Keating has an increasingly fractured sense of himself, he is still not up to letting go of all investment the way Toohey has. The meeting of intellectuals that Toohey manages makes Keating believe he is in the presence of greatness and idealism among recognized artists. What Keating seems incapable of realizing is that all these splendid people are seriously engaged in seeing just how far they can push the public. The performance playing out in his presences delights Toohey no end. The more Keating is given to do, the less confidence in himself he has to do it. Now not even the soothing murmurings of Toohey give him temporary ease. Toohey, once secure in the knowledge that Keating is firmly stuck to him, has moved on to his next victim in Webb.