"Roark before I met you, I had always been afraid of seeing someone like you, because I knew that I'd also have to see what I saw on witness stand and I'd have to do what I did in tha courtroom. I hated doing it, because it was an insult to you to defend you - and it was an insult to myself that you had to be defended... Roark, I can anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the halfway, the almost, the just-about, the in-between. They have their justifications. I don't know. I don't care to inquire. I know that it is the one thing not given me to understand. When I think of what you are, I can't accept any reality except a world of your kind. Or at least a world in which you have a fighting chance and fight on your own terms. That does not exist. And I can't live a life torn between that which exists - and you, It would mean to struggle against things and men who don't deserve to be your opponents. Your fight using your methods- and that's too horrible a desecration. It would mean doing for you what I did for Peter Keating: lie, flatter, evade, compromise, pander to every ineptitude- in order to beg of them a chance for you, beg them to let you live, to let you function, to beg them, Toark, not to laugh at thhem but to tremble because they hold the power to hurt you. Am i too weak because I can't do this? I dont't know which is the greater strength: to accept all this for you- or to love you so much that the rest is beyond acceptance. I don't know. I love you too much.
You're not aware of them. I am. I can't help it. I love you. The contrast is too great. Roark, you won't win, they'll destroy you, but I won't be there to see it happen. I will have destroyed myself first. That's the only gesture of protest open to me. What else could I offer you? The things people sacrifice are so little. I'll give you my marriage to Peter. I'll refuse to permit myself happiness in their world. I'll take suffering. That will be my answer to them, and my gift to you, I shall probably never see you again. I shall try not to. I shamll probably never see you again. I shall try not to. But I will live for ou, through every minute and every shameful act I take. I will live for you in my own way, in the only way I can."
Roark Replied:
"You'd rather hear it now? But I want you to hear it. We never need to say anything to each other when we're together. This is - for the time we won't be together. I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breath fo rmy own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I've given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wished to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want you yourself- and so you would not love me long. To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say 'I'. The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I'd destroy you. That's why I won't stop you. I'll let you go to your husband. I don't know how I'll live through tonight, but I will. I want you as a whole, as I am, as you'll remain in the battle you've chosen, A battle is never selfless.
You must learn not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom. I must let you learn it. I can't help you. You must find your own way. When you have, you'll come back to me. They won't destroy me, Dominique. And they won't destroy you. You'll win, because you've chosen the hardest way of fighting for your freedom from the world. I'll wait for you. I love you. I'm saying this now for all the years we'll have to wait. I love you, Dominique."
"It's good to suffer. Don't complain. Bear, bow, accept - and be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy. If you don't understand this, don't try to understand. Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand. So if you didn't get passing grades, be glad of it. It means that you are better than the smart boys who think too much and too easily."
