The Fountainhead: Part 4: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Wynand takes Roark to look at the land in Connecticut the next morning. After they decide where exactly the house should be built, Wynand asks Roark if he doesn’t hate him because of the Stoddard Temple. Wynand admits he read the Banner’s clippings on Roark after meeting him the previous day. Roark says he can’t pretend to be angry when he doesn’t feel it, so he asks Wynand to stop torturing himself about it. He says he knows Wynand feels bad that he has hurt Roark and wishes he hadn’t done it, but that “there’s something which frightens [Wynand] more,” which is the “knowledge that [Roark hasn’t] suffered at all.” Roark is simply “indifferent,” and he is through with the Stoddard Temple while Wynand is not. 

Wynand admits that Roark is right about all of it, and says that Roark’s words are like “a beating,” and that it is unusual for Wynand to accept it. Roark says that Wynand now wants to hear how he’s made Roark happy, and he admits that he usually doesn’t care what people think of him, but he is glad that Wynand likes him.

The two of them talk about their humble origins and agree that neither of them really minded being “homeless and starving,” but they hated seeing “ineptitude around.” Wynand says that it made him want to rule “all people and everything around,” while Roark says he never wanted power. He only wants to do his “own work in [his] own way and let [himself] be torn to pieces if necessary.” Wynand asks him if he has been torn, and Roark says, “Not in any way that counts.” They head back to the city, and Wynand tells Roark to come see him only after he has his first drawings ready.

A month later, Roark goes to see Wynand with the drawings. Wynand greets him formally, and tells him he likes the drawings. He then says he will hire Roark and build the house as he has designed it only if he will agree to be Wynand’s personal architect and work only on projects for the Wynand companies.  He says if Roark refuses his conditions, he will ensure that he gets no employment in the future, even in the granite quarry he worked in before. He says that after Wynand’s house, Roark will design every other building for Wynand to match “the taste of the people.”

Roark agrees “gaily” and quickly redesigns Wynand’s house with traditional flourishes, including Colonial porches and a gambrel roof. Wynand gasps that he does not want it. “Then shut up,” Roark tells him, asking him to never again give him any architectural suggestions. Wynand begins to laugh, and wonders that Roark took such a gamble since Wynand had meant every word. Roark says he knew he could trust Wynand’s integrity, and Wynand says he is wrong about that. He invites Roark to dinner at his house that night so he can show the drawings of the house to Dominique.