The Fountainhead: Ellsworth M. Toohey: 8

Ding-dong. Gentleman caller for Miss Dominique Francon. It's Ellsworth Toohey!

—Good evening, my dear. (Bring me a liqueur, please.) It is time to reveal that I am a supervillain! Bwa-ha-ha! Thank you for steering business away from Howard Roark and into the hands of your father's partner, Peter Keating. You please me very much! There is a pottery manufacturer, Gilbert Colton, who wants to build a factory here, in the modern style. It will be a plum job. Make sure Roark doesn't get the commission. And now I will get philosophical, because all the best villains are philosophers. Look at the great city! It is said that all the inventions of civilization arise from the genius of twelve men. Without them we would be living in caves. Is this good or bad? On the one hand, we get the benefits of all their cleverness. On the other hand, we the mediocre multitudes are surrounded with objects that remind us how inferior we are to those twelve geniuses; how can we stand the constant humiliation? Think about it.

So Dominique continues her campaign, becoming a social butterfly and tearing into Roark's reputation by day. And then she and Roark get together at night, at her place or his, and tear into one another in a very different way, hubba hubba! And sure enough, she steers the Colton factory job to Keating, and when she asks Roark if he wanted that job badly, he answers yes, badly, and then more hubba hubba.

Austen Heller is angry at Dominique for trashing Roark.

One day Roger Enright shows up at Dominique's office and enlists her in an impromptu trip to the site where the Enright House is going up. She is transfixed; the site oozes Roark's genius. She writes a column saying someone should drop a bomb on the site, because when it is built no human being will be worthy to live in it. But almost everyone who reads the column thinks she is just hatin' on Roark some more, which is what she intended.

Everyone thinks Dominique is in love with Keating, because of all the business she is steering his way. That is, everyone but Keating, who has his doubts.

Keating attends a meeting of the Council of American Builders. Gordon Prescott speechifies: We architects are actually the shapers and arrangers of empty space. So, clearly, emptiness is superior to substance; nothingness is superior to somethingness. Extending the logic, the beautiful are inferior to the ugly, the rich are inferior to the poor, the gifted are inferior to the inept.

After the meeting Toohey and Keating chat. Kindness is the highest value, says Toohey; we must always be kind and loving. That's why I criticize things that are not kind. Are you feeling the love?

This is crazypants.