The Benefactor

by Susan Sontag

  While looking about for someone suitable, I tried to clear my mind of any fixed or preconceived ideas of whom I would like—either in age, station, or personal appearance. It would not matter whether she was older or younger than myself; whether beautiful or ugly, according to the world’s standards; whether virgin or twice widowed; whether whore or aristocrat or matron or shopgirl. My only requirement was that the woman I marry should arouse in me a strong and positive emotion, and that I should do the same in her.

  How would I recognize this feeling? Since I did not want to waste any time choosing a wife, it was important that I have some idea of what I should feel when I met her. In other words, I had to decide in advance what feelings on first acquaintance would be sufficient token that this woman was worth considering as a wife. I reviewed the various feelings I have had with women and decided that sexual attraction was not the one I should allow as decisive, since I have been attracted sexually to many women. For the same reason I ruled out intellectual attraction: I have been attracted to several women in my life for their skills in conversation and discussion, most recently to Frau Anders’ daughter, Lucrezia. The feeling I was looking for was to be one I had not experienced before and this was only logical, since I had never before thought of marrying.

  With this resolve, I renewed my relationship with several acquaintances from my student days, in the hope that they might have eligible sisters. While I found it interesting to learn the successes and failures of my ambitious comrades of a decade before, I did not find in these circles any woman who roused the nameless feeling which I was awaiting. At the same time, I took care not to neglect the daughter of the horse butcher at the corner, nor the concierge’s niece, nor any of my unmarried female neighbors, however harsh their voices. But in all these encounters I felt nothing that was distinctive.

  After several months I began to fear that, proceeding on this basis, I should never find a wife. Discouraged, I began to relapse into my unsociable bachelor habits. I had almost abandoned this worthy project when, one evening, something happened which accelerated my search. I had spent the afternoon with an old schoolfriend; I was still in a half-hearted way continuing my perfunctory search, for this friend had a divorced cousin. I came up the staircase in a meditative mood, thinking how difficult it was to accomplish anything, when I saw a dark figure, a woman with a black scarf around her head, seated on a little collapsible canvas stool in front of my door. Only one woman could be so silent, and so persistent; so I addressed her by name.

  “Yes, it is I,” replied Frau Anders. “May I visit you in your house?”

  “There is nothing here,” I said, as I unlocked the door and beckoned her to come in.

  “I have a plan for you. No, for us. It will solve the problem which I posed for you last year when I returned to the city—the problem you solved for me in such a rude, but unsuccessful manner.”

  “Your murder,” I said.

  “Yes. My dearest Hippolyte, you have proved yourself a bungler in crime. Your talents are adequate neither to enslavement nor to murder.”

  I bowed my head. It is bad enough to be belittled by one’s own conscience, but imagine the distastefulness of being condescended to by one’s intended victim. “What do you think I am suited for?” I asked.

  “You might make a good husband.”

  “Oh, my dear,” I replied ruefully. “It’s strange that you speak of that. Ever since I built that house for you my thoughts have turned, strenuously, toward domesticity. But if I may judge from the fruitlessness of my attempts to find a wife, I believe I should be less successful as a husband than as a slaver or a murderer.”

  “What of that benevolent young woman whom you were seeing when I returned?”

  “Married.”

  “And the others you have considered?”

  “I feel nothing.”

  “Well,” she said, “I have a candidate for you—a woman older than yourself, and in somewhat damaged physical condition. But, these liabilities aside, she is bound to you by ties of lengthy friendship and many joint spiritual ventures, and by an abiding affection for you.”

  “My dear friend!”

  “What obstacles are there to prevent our happy union?” she went on. “My husband has remarried. My daughter cares nothing for me, nor would I wish to mar her pursuit of pleasure with my ruined visage and insatiable longings.”

  “My dear friend,” I said more firmly. “What you propose is entirely out of the question. We know each other too well. Neither one could bring felicity to the other.”

  “I thought….” she trailed off.

  “I know, I know. But I can’t be other than I am.”

  I took Frau Anders home in a taxi. You might think that I was relieved that the issue had been brought into the open, and I had been direct with her. But I had every reason to feel that Frau Anders would not give up so easily. I redoubled my efforts at sociability, and was hardly ever at home.

  A week later, I was to spend the evening with my former mistress. I had been at another unrewarding reception, and arrived at the house in a mood of discouragement. Frau Anders came to the door. She was looking better, more vigorous that evening, and I told her so. She did not reply to my compliments and preceded me silently into the house. I realized something was wrong when she did not go to the salon, where we usually sat, but instead led me up the stairs to the room with the pictures, tools, and play equipment which I had designed for the expression of strong emotions.

  “I’d rather not go in here this evening,” I said. “I’m tired. I’ve had a discouraging day.”

  “I’d rather you did come in,” she replied. “I have a strong emotion to express, and I intend to do it with the means you have supplied. Have you the right to refuse me?”

  “No,” I murmured wearily. “Only the desire.”

  “Insufficient,” she said. “Enter.”

  We entered the room, which looked much used. I noted an ominous sign: my torn photograph lay scattered in several pieces on the floor.

  “Now,” she said, seating herself on a swing which hung from the ceiling. She began to pump herself on the swing. “I want to tell you that I hate you. You have broken my life, as a naughty child hurls a clock to the floor, and I cannot repair it.”

  What could I answer to these words? I waited a moment in suspense.

  “Repair me,” she said imperiously.

  When I didn’t move, she repeated her command. I had to do something, so I went to the tool chest, picked out hammer, saw, and nails, and advanced toward her. But I couldn’t approach closely, for fear of being hit by the swing or by her feet which repeatedly lunged at and then withdrew from my face.

  “Not those,” she laughed, as she rode past me. Then she brought the swing to a halt, and stood up. “Like this. Put your arms around me.” She put her arms around me. I dropped the saw with a clatter, but I still held the hammer clenched in my left hand. “Drop the hammer,” she said. I obeyed, either out of fear or deference. She parted her veil and whispered, “Kiss me.”

  I don’t know what possessed me then. I was seized by an erotic fury such as I had never experienced. The room swayed in my vision. I clawed at Frau Anders’ garments. There seemed to be so many layers of clothing, I think I half expected not to find a body underneath. Layer after layer I stripped off and flung on the floor, until she stood there naked and more desirable to my eyes than ever.

  “The house has healed you,” I cried in delight. It was not only her face, the remarkable restoration of which she had already revealed to me, and which was none of my doing or the house’s. Her body as I saw it at that moment was intact, without blemish, the same smooth over-ripe body I had known in the past, before my inexplicable crimes had separated us. I seemed to recall that she said something about make-up, cosmetics, a disguise to win my pity. Is it possible? I was certainly not in my right mind, and I know that I became utterly incoherent. “My horse,” I called her, caressing her robust thighs. “My little lame horse.�
�� I called her my swan, my queen, my angel, muse of my dreams. At that moment she slipped from my grasp—we were already rolling and grappling on the floor—and ran into the corridor. I followed her, calling “my queen” and “eternal tenant of my heart,” and saw her disappear into the room which I had thought would be set aside for sexual purposes. I flung myself at the door, and found it locked.

  “Marry me,” she called from the inside, laughing.

  I banged in fury on the door.

  “I’m in the bath tub, Hippolyte. Waiting for you,” she called out. I banged harder, and yelled at her to open. “No,” she shouted, “I am at the wall—remember your dream?—my wrists are encircled with chains. The metronome is marking the rhythm of my desire for you.”

  “How can I?” I groaned. “I can’t marry you, my queen.”

  “In the chapel,” she called back. “You can marry me in the chapel down the hall.” I had forgotten about the chapel. Why had I installed a chapel in the first place?

  “No priest,” I shouted back. There was silence. I leaned my head against the wall; tears of rage and frustration came to my eyes. She opened the door and peeped out.

  “Are you ready, my dear?” she said sweetly.

  I nodded dumbly. She emerged, wearing a white bathrobe, and took my arm. We went into the chapel and knelt before the altar. She muttered some words to herself, then said to me, “In the eyes of Cod, you have always been mine. Since I first saw you, a shy young student with your head full of books and dreams—”

  “The dreams came after,” I interrupted.

  “Oh, those dreams. But didn’t they begin after you knew me, and desired me?” she inquired triumphantly.

  “No,” I answered, “the dreams have nothing to do with you. I should never have told you about them.”

  The thought of my dreams gave me courage, and seemed to restore me to myself. What was I doing with this insatiable woman, kneeling on the floor before an altar? I feared her sufferings had unhinged her mind. Certainly they had affected me only a few moments earlier, when I’d been under the delusion that I desired her.

  “You must pardon me,” I said as I rose to my feet “I can’t marry you. I have told you so before. I am resolved to marry someone else, whoever that might be.”

  “But I’ve been waiting for you,” she sobbed. “I and the house are waiting. You made us what we are. Without you we are empty.”

  “No, no,” I cried, backing away. “You must be in peace. You musn’t pursue me any longer. I can’t help you.”

  “Don’t go,” she said. Strange that until then, I had not thought of going, had not thought myself capable of it. Then at that instant I realized that I could go, that I was free—free to move, as long as I acknowledge to myself that I was in flight.

  Do we only move when someone pursues us? Is all motion running away? It seemed to me that I had never run, never even walked before in my life until that moment, when I fled the house which I had given Frau Anders, and the angry woman within.

  TWELVE

  Fearing that Frau Anders would follow me to my apartment, I took a room in a hotel in another quarter of the city, where I stayed for a week. At last I was in hiding for my murder, though pursued not by the police but only by my victim. And she wanted not to kill me in return, but to many me. Of course, one solution to my problem was to kill her again, this time successfully. But I preferred to go on with the solution I had already chosen—to marry someone else.

  I had only to determine the means, for on the basis of my recent efforts I feared I should never find a wife. It is difficult to make a choice without standards for choosing. But now there was a new urgency to my search for a wife, the urgency of terror, and to my aid came a visitation: not the knock on the door which betokened the dreaded arrival of Frau Anders, but the soundless visitation, during a restless nap, of a terrifying but fortunate dream.

  I was in the luxurious private ballroom of a chateau, a room that I had never seen before though I knew in the dream exactly where I was and felt no surprise at being there. It was a large long room, furnished with velvet curtains, crystal chandeliers, gilt chairs, ancestral portraits, and a tall mirror.

  The first thing I remember is just standing in the middle of the room with my eyes tightly closed, trying to recall a name which I had forgotten. Whatever it was, I couldn’t remember it, so I relaxed my efforts of concentration and opened my eyes. I then thought that the most emphatic way of opening my eyes would be to go to the mirror and look at myself. I did this, and found there my own reflection which I began to study, as if it were a portrait whose authenticity I was examining. At moments it was a portrait of me and not a mirror. And when it was a mirror, the substance of it kept altering; at one moment, it was glass, at another moment, it had the look of polished metal, at another moment, of silvered wood. Besides all this, there was something odd about my reflection which, while it was no doubt mine, was, in some detail which I could not discriminate, unfamiliar to me.

  Then it occurred to me how to determine whether this really was a mirror, and my own reflection. I would remove the tuxedo I was wearing. I reasoned that the surface could not reflect my naked body if it were not truly a mirror, and further that I should be able to identify myself with certainty if I were naked—and in this way solve both problems. I undressed and placed my clothes on a chair beside the mirror. But when I saw myself naked, I still felt puzzled. “This is your only body,” I said aloud to myself.

  There was someone else near the mirror, a footman in livery. He was standing behind the mirror polishing the frame. Although I knew he could see me, I felt no embarrassment at my nakedness. Yet, having spoken aloud, I felt I owed him an explanation.

  “This is a naked mirror,” I said.

  He shook his head. “It’s you who are naked.”

  Upset by his failure to understand, I explained that it was of no importance that I looked at myself in this way. “This isn’t vanity,” I said. “You must understand that I have always regarded my body as if I were a potential amputee.”

  The clarity of this explanation pleased me, but he still looked at me with indifference, so with the idea of giving him further proof of my point, I took hold of my left leg with my hands, and broke it off.

  Immediately I was horrified at my recklessness. I knew I’d gone too far, that I could never grow another leg again. My eyes filled with tears.

  “There’s only one cure for you now,” the footman said. He left his post behind the mirror and crossed the room. I followed. While my walk was hobbled, I could almost keep up with him. I was surprised that it was not more difficult to walk with only one leg, but I took the absence of pain for granted.

  “Please don’t help me,” I said, mustering all the bravery at my command. I wanted to go where he was leading me, but I didn’t want his company.

  “I want to watch,” he said. “I love operations.” I implored him to remain behind. I became angry and wanted to stamp my foot, but this gesture was out of the question.

  Then we were standing outside a large auditorium. Before the door a functionary was collecting tickets. Having no ticket myself, I despaired of being allowed to enter, and hoped the footman might have two. At that moment I felt myself being shoved from the rear by others seeking admission, and in the confusion entered the auditorium alone, where I took the center aisle seat in the last row.

  The people seated near me were as dejected and restless as condemned prisoners. I don’t know whether I overheard this, or the idea simply occurred to me, but I suddenly knew that those gathered in this place were volunteers in a scientific experiment, who had agreed to allow their eyes to be put out. It seemed that, although everyone was here of his own free will, the management was aware that the volunteers might lose heart at the last moment, for, behind me, I could see the doors of the auditorium being shut, and an armed guard taking his station.

  I felt doubly tricked. I had come here with the idea that I would recover the leg which I had so impr
udently sacrificed. Instead I found that I would lose something more, my sight. I signalled to an usher who was standing in the aisle, explained my mistake to him, and asked his permission to leave. He told me curtly that I could not leave until “after.”

  I could scarcely believe my ill fortune, even when I saw the uniformed ushers with long knitting needles begin to move among those seated in the first row. The people submitted obediently, each making only a faint cry as his turn came. The ushers advanced inexorably, a row at a time. My possibilities of escape seemed nil. With my leg in this condition I could not run away; besides, the exit was guarded. Neither could I convince anyone that I was not one of the volunteers. The only chance I had, I reasoned, was to make an offer of myself even more generous than that of the others. I resolved to approach the man standing on the stage and try to strike a bargain with him. I would propose to donate my entire body, if he would return my leg and not blind me.

  Most of the people in the auditorium had now been operated on by the ushers with the needles. I left my seat and hobbled down the aisle. On the stage I saw the man in the black bathing suit who was shaking hands with a line of already blinded people who filed before him. I felt discouraged, for I thought I would have better luck with a stranger. Nevertheless, I took my place in the line and when my turn came, put out my hand, too.

  “Here he is again,” said the man in the black bathing suit.

  “Just once more,” I said bashfully. “Don’t be angry.”

  “Why should I be angry?” he replied:

  I cannot begin to describe the immense sensation of relief which I felt. All my ingenious proposals seemed unnecessary and irrevelant. I thought of how I might repay the bather for his kindness. “I will give you all my money, all that I possess,” I said. “You shall tell me what to do. I will obey you in everything. I will be your slave.”