The Fountainhead: Novel Summary: Part II Chapters 6-10

Summary
Chapter 6
Back in New York, Roark reopens his office and hires the most talented draftsmen he can find to work on the Enright House. His friend Heller coaxes him into attending socialite Kiki Holcombe's cocktail party so he can get another commission. He refuses until he hears that Dominique will be there. Dressed in evening clothes, he lets Heller introduce him to Dominique who acts as if she had never met him: "he felt a violent pleasure, because she seemed too fragile to stand the brutality of what he was doing; and because she stood it so well?(258). Toohey's eyes never leave Roark.
Chapter 7
Dominique writes a scathing column about Roark's Enright House which on the surface appears as if she is denigrating the structure but in reality is praising it highly: "It will rise as a mockery to all structures of the city?(266). Dominique talks one of Roark's prospective clients into commissioning Keating instead. While Roark will design a beautiful original building, she says, Keating will give him something comfortable, something that others will praise. Dominique visits Roark at night and tells him that because she wants him so much, she herself will destroy him before the world's mediocre others. He reacts without emotion, in complete understanding.
Chapter 8
Dominique continues to generate commissions for a mystified Keating. He cannot understand her motivation because she refuses to see him. She and Toohey have a long conversation in which they decide to form "an alliance?dedicated to destroying Roark: "you're not a bitch,?Toohey tells her, "you're a saint . . . which shows you why saints are dangerous and undesirable?(279) Dominique and Roark continue their clandestine night-time trysts. Roger Enright goes to Dominique's office to escort her to visit the Enright House which is presently under construction. Dominique considers it perfect to herself, but writes a column in which she enigmatically declares "there is not a person in New York City who should be allowed to live in this building?(287). Dominique, as she puts it, continues to "pimp?for Keating by getting him more and more commissions.
Chapter 9
Toohey's hatred for brilliant people started in childhood. He tricked people into thinking he was pious and humble, but underneath this disguise he went to great lengths to denigrate or destroy anyone who showed talent of any sort. His aunt left enough money for him to go to Harvard where he continued his submissive act, calling for fair treatment of the poor and although he attracted a following of wealthy young people, he never gained much credence with the poor themselves. Later on, he excelled as a vocational advisor but always counseled young people not to follow their dreams, and advocated instead for them to pursue careers they were not suited for: "it is wiser to select a profession about which you can be calm . . . even if you hate it?(301). He also wrote columns that specialized in architectural criticism, and after the publication of his Sermons in Stone, he becomes a celebrity.
Chapter 10
The Enright House opens to high acclaim in 1929, and Roark subsequently receives more commissions. He builds an office building skyscraper in Manhattan, and gets the contract for Kent Lansing's Aquitania Hotel after much battling with the board of directors. One day, Hopton Stoddard visits Toohey to discuss building a temple which would welcome all religions. At first Toohey attempts to get him to fund a home for needy children but when Stoddard resists he tells him to hire Roark and not take no for an answer, even though it will appear that Roark doesn't believe in God. Stoddard, at Toohey's insistence, is to take a year-long trip to visit all the famous religious sites in the world and return to his own completed "temple to the human spirit.?Roark is to infuse it with his own spirit. He hesitates at first because he cannot stand Stoddard but then accepts the commission without knowing that Toohey is behind the whole scheme.
Analysis
Rand attempts to illustrate her philosophy by suggesting that real love requires submission of the ego. Dominique attempts to give Roark's commissions to Keating so as to strengthen Roark's resolve and to protect him. However, Dominique wants to be wrong about the world and desires her views to be corrected, but she must continue on her course of action to protect herself from ultimate disappointment. Roark and Dominique come together not out of any necessity or tenderness, which Rand would frown upon, but strictly out of intense sexual desire and vigorous intellectual engagement. Consider Keating's wishy-washy, bland relationship with Katie in contrast.
Toohey, who spends his life tearing down the exceptional and building up the mediocre, is the antithesis of Roark whose creative spirit knows no bounds. Disguised as what he calls a "humanitarian,?Toohey selects inferior writers, artists and architects and puts them in positions of power so that they in turn will favor lesser artists, and so on until ambitious and talented individuals are weeded out. His overweening sympathy for those less fortunate, and his expectation that those with talent should be shut out so as to be "kind?to those unfortunates, results in mediocrity which Toohey believes is the ultimate goal. The individual ego must be tamed for the greater good.