The Benefactor

by Susan Sontag

  It was on one of these walks that I tried to break the silence that bound me closer and closer to Frau Anders, seeking to say something that would define our relationship. Her forgiveness, her mood of expectancy, was strangling me.

  “You know my father has died,” I began.

  “I know.”

  “Do you remember I promised you something after his death?”

  “I am waiting,” she said.

  “Well, I can’t tell you all that I plan, for I want you to be surprised, but I will tell you this much. My father has left me a splendid house here in the city, which I want you to occupy when I have prepared it for you.”

  She made a crooked smile with her face, but said nothing. “It’s to replace the house which I burned down,” I added.

  “And more than that, I hope,” she said.

  “Much more,” I replied reassuringly. I was thinking of the wonderful plans I had for this house, which would not be just an ordinary dwelling but a gift of my imagination—a palace of seclusion and rehabilitation.

  Work on the house was already well underway at the time of this conversation. The site was in a quiet neighborhood near the large river which bisects the city; the house was an old three-storied hôtel particulier. For a while I thought of demolishing the building and erecting something entirely new in its place, but after examining the house carefully I decided that, with some few structural changes, it could be preserved. It was essential to my idea of it that it have a marked and very special unity. But I determined that this unity would not come from a dominant room, such as a ballroom or library. Neither, since I was working with an old and complex structure, would I impose on it my fondness for a given material, such as brick or glass or wood or marble. The house was to be unified only by its purpose. That was what I had to supply. What would Frau Anders want with this house? Privacy was my answer. Privacy from her old life to conceal the ravages of the new. Privacy from the life from which she had escaped. Privacy from me: her shadow, judge, accomplice, master of ceremonies, and victim. Privacy from her body, cruelly ravaged, to educate her soul.

  My problem was how to impose this requirement of privacy upon a building which already had a certain traditional structure. The house which I had inherited was symmetrical and almost two hundred years old. It consisted of a court which faced, but was screened off by an iron fence from, the street; two small wings, on the right and the left, formerly offices and stables; the principal part of the house at the back; and in the rear a small garden. My first alteration was with the court, which I did not want thus exposed to the street. In place of the iron fence I had a wall built which joined the two wings and enclosed the courtyard, thus making the structure entirely rectangular. So that from the street view the house would present a wholly conventional appearance, as if this brick wall actually gave on to a set of rooms, I had wooden shutters affixed to the wall in the places where passers-by would expect windows. The second alteration was to cut the two wings off from access to the main part of the house. The basement and ground floor of the corps de logis were left intact, except that I converted several ante-chambers and closets into secret rooms by disguising the doors.

  In the old house there were two more stories, but I had the second story demolished. The first story, whose alterations were more extensive than on the ground floor, was divided into four large rooms, each surrounded on all sides by corridor. These rooms on the first floor were windowless and, to secure the maximum amount of privacy, they could be reached by an outside staircase from the garden at the back of the house.

  When the work of remodelling was nearing completion (I went every day to oversee the labor of the construction company I had engaged), I turned my attention to the furnishings. This was in many ways the more important task, since a house is truly unified not by its exterior but by what it contains. I asked Jean-Jacques to assist me, since I am not a collector or a browser. You will recall that I had for some years lived with a minimum of furniture and possessions. Naturally, I did not aim at imposing my own sparse tastes on Frau Anders, who had been used to a comfortable life before she left the capital. Neither did I want to share with her any of the images of dwellings which were presented to me in my dreams. Thus I worried that there was some resemblance between this house and the mansion of the tobacco millionaire R. in my “dream of an elderly patron,” but I could detect none except the size and luxurious scale of both houses. And one of the purposes served by my enlisting the aid of Jean-Jacques was that I could be sure that no two rooms would be furnished exactly alike, as in my first dream, “the dream of the two rooms.”

  Together, Jean-Jacques and I spent a month in shopping forays. We did not neglect the newest and most vulgar department stores of the city. But we found more of what I wanted in used furniture stores and on the grounds of the Marché aux P——, treasurehouse of old jewelry, armor, antique furniture, hardware, discarded clothes, and musical instruments. Here, even before we selected one item for the house, Jean-Jacques made some purchases for himself: a ring made of three coral roses set in gold leaves, and a sailor’s uniform.

  I must explain to you how I proposed to furnish the house, so that you will understand how my sombre ideas of Frau Anders’ rehabilitation and Jean-Jacques’ precious and perverse taste could, in this one instance, work in tandem.

  One room, where Frau Anders could re-enact her captivity, was to be furnished in the Moorish style. There was to be sand on the floor, the odor of camel dung, a potted palm, a portrait of the Prophet, a divan, a deck of cards.

  Another room was walled entirely with mirrors, even on the ceiling, though there were no mirrors elsewhere in the house. Here Frau Anders could survey the ruins of her beauty. In this room, furnished with special gusto by Jean-Jacques, was a dressing table, cosmetics, fans, a wardrobe of elegant clothes—all the appurtenances of vanity. It was a room such as I imagined might have been occupied by one of those dissolute ladies of society in eighteenth-century novels who are punished for their profligacy by smallpox, and spend the rest of their lives cloistered and pining for their sins.

  One of the rooms on the first floor was a chapel, which I planned to have consecrated. Besides the usual altar and crucifix, it was decorated with various paintings of martyr saints: the boy transfixed with arrows, the woman bearing her breasts on a plate, the man (the patron saint of the capital) carrying his head in his arm. The odor of incense in this room would provide a welcome refreshment from the desert smells of the Moorish room.

  There was also a room on this floor for the expression of strong emotions. This room contained photographs of Frau Anders’ husband, her daughter, and me; darts; a swing; a tool chest with hammers, saws, scissors, and the like; a chest of counterfeit money; and a good deal of ornate furniture which I imagined it would be a pleasure to abuse.

  Another room upstairs was for sexual purposes. I installed in it a sunken bath tub in the center of the floor, a comfortable rocking chair, a fur rug, candles, chains on the wall, obscene books and pictures, and a metronome.

  Another room, on the ground floor, was a salon in the style of two centuries ago, furnished in the taste which Frau Anders’ former house had lacked. Her old reception room was disfigured with abstract paintings, indirect lighting, and a white telephone. This room had slim chairs, tapestries, snuffboxes, and candelabra. There were two or three more rooms on the ground floor, which I furnished according to my fancy…. I know the house was large for one person, and that there appears no sequence between the rooms. But I felt, at the time, that a house is either one room or an indefinite number of rooms. It is either a single cell or one of those organisms to which chambers can be added indefinitely, as long as one has something to put in them—like a brothel or a museum. This house for Frau Anders was to have the latter character. It was to be both a museum of her past and the whorehouse from which she could select the pleasures of her future.

  In furnishing the rooms in this way, I tried as far as possible to blend the imag
inative with the obvious, in order to accommodate to Frau Anders’ limited vision. I had even decided not to tell her what the rooms were for, hoping she might discover their uses for herself. Yet, even with these precautions I worried that I was allowing my fancy too free a play. After all, I had no access to Frau Anders’ dreams. Nor could I imagine that she was capable of taking her dreams seriously. (Her fantasies, her day-dreams, yes; but not the disgraceful, unflattering scenes that were thrust upon her, unbidden, in her defenceless sleep.) I hoped, since Frau Anders considered herself a lady of the modern school, she might accept what I had selected for her out of gratitude that I conceived her taste to be so advanced. But I could not be sure of this. For all I knew, she might be displeased with what I had done, and I still dreaded the outbreak of her violent temper. Thus I was not entirely reassured when I described to her, one day when we met in a secluded corner of the Zoological Gardens, the progress of the house, and she replied that she hoped to be satisfied with whatever I might do.

  In early November, not far behind schedule, the house was more or less completed. I sent an invitation to Frau Anders, requesting her to come and view it the following day.

  That evening, I sought out Jean-Jacques in the cafés and on the quais but, as sometimes happened, my search was unsuccessful. Actually I was pleased when I didn’t find him. I had intended to tell him of Frau Anders’ visit, and to invite him to be present. But although Jean-Jacques had expressed great eagerness to see Frau Anders again and to witness her initial reaction to the house, I did not look forward to their meeting. It was not that I wished to deny a colleague his share of the credit. But I was afraid that Frau Anders, in her present unfortunate condition, might not understand Jean-Jacques’ style of perpetual levity and think, mistakenly, that she was being mocked.

  The next morning Frau Anders arrived in a chauffeured car in the company of a youthful red-haired woman whom I immediately recognized as the celebrated music-hall actress Genevieve. My former mistress was heavily veiled and wore only black but was more expensively dressed than the other times I had seen her since her return. “I am happy to see that you are prospering,” I ventured to say after the introductions were made.

  “This estimable lady has befriended me,” said Frau Anders solemnly. At that moment the actress turned away to remark on some feature of the house, and Frau Anders cast a broad, somewhat lewd wink in my direction. I was so startled that, quite involuntarily, I brought my index finger to my lips.

  “I have always a need for protégés Frau Anders continued, heedless of my warning and of whether she was overheard by her new friend. “At least in the absence of someone to protect me.” I bowed my head at this mild and thoroughly deserved reproach. “I am giving her the benefit of my incomparable and edifying experiences with the treachery of men and the brevity of beauty,” she concluded.

  “Shall we see the house?” I said.

  The two ladies followed me about for an hour, as I escorted them through all the rooms and explained something of the origin and meaning of my purchases. “What a magnificent gift,” Genevieve exclaimed several times. She appeared charmed with the house and complimented me profusely. But Frau Anders’ reaction, as I showed them about, was more noncommittal than I had expected.

  “Most imaginative, Hippolyte,” Frau Anders said finally as we stood in the large basement kitchen, the last stage of our tour. “I am flattered that you think I would appreciate the uses of….”

  “Of so honest and articulated a building,” I finished the sentence for her.

  “Well, yes. But why did you imagine that I would accept—”

  Again I interrupted. “Reparation is a delicate matter,” I said. “Therefore it’s imperative that you not think of this house as—I trust I may speak freely before your friend—in any sense reparation for the wrongs I have done you. It is simply a gift, more accurately, an act of homage to your good nature and your indestructibility. I do not dare to hope to settle any debts between us in this way. All accounts are left open, whether or not you live in this house.”

  “Surely they are,” Frau Anders replied, with a trace more malice in her voice than I thought called for in the circumstances.

  “Will you accept the house?” I asked, steeling myself for a refusal.

  “Do take it,” said Genevieve gaily. “You don’t need to use all the rooms, darling. I’ll invite Bernard and Jean-Marc and everyone from the theatre, and you’ll have wonderful, wonderful parties.”

  “I should like that,” Frau Anders murmured.

  “Don’t refuse,” I said hopefully.

  Frau Anders looked at both of us. I sensed the fretful, bewildered expression even through the heavy veil. “I don’t think I would like to live here alone,” she said.

  “Alone?” I said. “But you won’t be alone. You have new friends, you have Mlle. Genevieve, you have me. You’ll have constant visitors. Did I tell you that Jean-Jacques wishes to pay his respects? He would have been here today, if I had found him in time to let him know when you were coming.”

  “I don’t mean visitors,” Frau Anders continued obstinately. “I mean a husband. I want to marry again.”

  Neither Genevieve nor myself replied to this.

  Frau Anders went on, searching both our faces. “I’m not young any more, but I have a great deal to offer. I’m kind, forgiving, gay.” She paused, as if waiting for an answer. “I’m not as foolish or naive as I used to be—don’t demur, Hippolyte—and, look,” she said, removing her veil, “I’ve passed not only the summit of beauty but the peak of ugliness as well.” It was true. The treatments and surgery which I knew Frau Anders to be undergoing in the past year had worked wonders on her face. The large rectangular burn mark on her left cheek was barely detectible now, just a slight shadow, and the muscles around her left eye and mouth had been tightened so that only the faintest asymmetry remained.

  “Why do you remain veiled, my dear?” I cried, delighted at this happy restoration.

  “My husband shall unveil me,” she said.

  This urge for domesticity somewhat dismayed me. It was not this which I had envisaged for Frau Anders in the house which I had furnished for her rehabilitation—any more than I had anticipated parties with her new theatrical friends. But I could not object. All that mattered now was that she accept the house, and not render waste and void the effort I had put into it. I trusted its proper uses and benefits would be revealed to her after she had lived in it a while.

  “Will you accept the house?” I repeated.

  We walked upstairs and out to the car.

  “I will try,” she said simply. They offered to drive me wherever I liked, but I wanted them to be alone in the hope that Genevieve might assuage Frau Anders’ timidity about the house.

  “I will meet you tomorrow at four o’clock at the gorilla cage,” she said after we had embraced and Genevieve was already in the car.

  “You can wait for a husband in the house,” I called after her as the car pulled away from the curb.

  I went to report to Jean-Jacques the results of this inconclusive interview. I was not discouraged, even when Jean-Jacques said, “I didn’t think she would like it. Did you expect otherwise?”

  “But I did expect otherwise,” I protested. “I think I may have made a mistake in actually furnishing the house before she had learned to appreciate its use. Perhaps at this moment labelling the rooms and giving an itemized list of the proposed contents would have been enough. The rooms with their real furnishings do not allow Frau Anders the exercise of her own imagination.”

  “My friend,” Jean-Jacques replied, “Frau Anders could never imagine this house unless you set it before her in its completed form. Our former patronness is a woman of strong appetite and will, but she is also obstinate, literal-minded, and incapable of imagining anything. Such people can only be shocked, which is the dullard’s substitute for the pleasures of the imagination.”

  I told Jean-Jacques that I thought he underestimated Frau Ander
s’ spiritual capacities, but otherwise his answer pleased me. I would try not to be too disappointed if Frau Anders refused to occupy the house. I had no desire to force anything on her.

  The next day we met, she and I, at the gorilla’s cage.

  “I will wait for a while in your house,” she said gravely. “Don’t think I am ungrateful—if I want more.”

  “Oh, my dear friend,” I cried, deeply moved, and seized her trembling hands with mine.

  “Don’t fail me,” she said tearfully.

  “I will always serve and honor you,” I replied.

  Shortly after, Frau Anders moved into the house. When I went to call on her the first time, she seemed happy. While she chided me a little about the expenses I had incurred in remodelling and furnishing the house, I could see that she was not displeased at my extravagance since, like many rich or formerly rich people, she thought that caprice and waste were a necessary ornament to wealth.

  You may be sure that I was not unaware of Frau Anders’ further demands on me. I tried not to think of them, but gradually I could not put the idea out of my mind. There was really no gift I could make to repair the injury I had done her except the gift of myself which, as willing as I was to make reparation, I was unwilling to give. Why she should have wanted me, I cannot tell. But her hints were unmistakable, her persistence—whenever I came to call on her—unflagging.

  Finally I decided that there was only one way to put an end to Frau Anders’ embarrassing hopes, and that would be to many as quickly as possible. I believe this idea might have occurred to me even without Frau Anders’ prompting, for furnishing a house—albeit for a woman who, I presumed, would live in it alone—made me think of those who usually occupy houses: of the family, and the whole sanctified order of domestic relations. I thought, too, of my brother, whom I had always respected for marrying early and decisively. Most people remain unmarried in order to wait for the choicest mate. But I had stayed a bachelor out of apathy. I decided to exert myself and to marry.