The Volcano Lover

by Susan Sontag

  As chocolate!

  And inside it was all white, with caves and labyrinths and—

  Was it cold inside, interrupted the King. If it’s hot the chocolate will melt.

  It’s cold, said the Cavaliere, wiping his brow with a silk handkerchief soaked in essence of tuberose.

  Is it like a city? A whole world?

  Yes.

  But a little world. Very cozy. I wouldn’t need so many servants. I’d like a little world with people, maybe the people would be little too, who would do everything I wanted.

  So they do already, observed the Cavaliere.

  Not so, protested the King. You know how I’m ordered about by the Queen, by Tanucci, by everyone except you, my good dear friend. I need a chocolate world, yes! That’s my world. Everything I want. All the women, whenever I wanted. And they could be chocolate too and I would eat them. Don’t you ever imagine what it would be like to eat people?

  He licked his fat white hand. Umm, mine is salty! Slipping the hand in his armpit, he continued: And it would have a big kitchen. And the Queen would help me cook, she would hate that. She would peel the garlic, millions of shiny cloves, and I would stick them inside her, and then we’d have garlic babies. And the people would run after me, begging me to feed them, I would throw food at them, I’d make them eat.

  Frowning, he let his head loll. A roulade of spluttering noises climaxed in a deep cavernous exhalation of the bowels.

  That was good, the King said. He reached out and thwacked the Cavaliere’s lean rump. The Cavaliere nodded and felt his own bowels churn. But this is the life of a courtier, is it not. The Cavaliere was not one of the rulers of this world.

  Help me, said the King to the Master of the Royal Bedchamber at the open door. He was having trouble getting to his feet, he is that fat.

  The Cavaliere considered the span of human reactions to the disgusting. At one extreme, Catherine, who was appalled by the manic vulgarity of the King as by so much else at the court. At the other, the King, for whom the disgusting was a source of delight. And himself in the middle, where a courtier must be, neither indignant nor insensible. To be indignant would itself be vulgar, a sign of weakness, of lack of breeding. Eccentric habits in great ones must be borne. (Had not the Cavaliere been the childhood playmate, older by seven years, of another king who sometimes exhibited signs of outright lunacy?) There’s no changing the way people are. No one changes, everyone knows that.

  * * *

  The ungainly King is easily impressed, almost as much by the thin English knight’s imperturbability as by the cleverness of the Hapsburg wife imported for him from Vienna when he was seventeen, who since the birth of their first son sits on the Council of State and is the real ruler of the kingdom. How agreeable if, instead of that formidable, supercilious, gloomy man on the throne in Madrid, someone like the Cavaliere had been his father. The Cavaliere loves music, doesn’t he? So does the King; it is, for him, like food. Is not the Cavaliere a sportsman, too? Besides always clambering up that beastly mountain, he loves to fish, ride, hunt. And hunting is the King’s ruling passion, which he practices by excluding the exertion, difficulty, and occasional danger that limits and is thought to give zest and legitimacy to slaughtering animals. The beaters corraled endless columns of wild boar, deer, and hare, and then drove them past the King, who stood in a roofless sentry box of solid masonry in the park at his country palace or on a horse in the middle of a field. Out of a hundred shots, he never missed more than one. Then he descended and went to work, sleeves rolled to his elbows, carving up the steaming, bloody bodies.

  The King relished the smell of the blood rising from the carcasses, of tripe or macaroni thickening in the cauldron, of his own excretory labors or those of his brood of young children, of pine trees and the intoxication of jasmine. The long bulbous organ that had earned him the nickname of King Big Nose was imperious as well as startlingly ugly. Hot smells drew him: peppery food, barely dead animals, a yielding moist woman. But also the smell of his terrifying father, the odor of melancholy. (He can just barely smell it on the Cavaliere, on whom it is much fainter, repressed.) The reassuringly animal-like odor of his wife would draw him into her body, but afterward, as he was falling asleep, another odor (or a dream of an odor) would wake him. The pungent molecules caressed the inside of his thick nostrils, flew to his brain. He liked everything that is formless, abundant. Odors focus, distract. Odors cling, follow. They extend, diffuse. A world of odors is ungovernable—one does not dominate an odor, it dominates you—and the King did not really like governing. Oh, for a tiny kingdom!

  His sensuality was the only intelligence he possessed; deliberately left almost illiterate by his father, he had been designed as a weak ruler. Because of his taste for fraternizing with the city’s immense tribe of layabouts, he was also nicknamed the Beggar King, but his superstitions were those shared by everyone here, not only the uneducated. His amusements were a bit more original. Besides nasty pranks and the killing sports, which he practiced at a uniquely wholesale rate, the occupations of servants diverted him from the constraints of royal mummery. Arriving at the grandiose palace at Caserta, the Cavaliere had once found the King busy taking down lamps from the walls and cleaning them. When a crack regiment was stationed on the grounds of the palace at Portici, the King set up a tavern in the encampment and sold wine to the soldiers.

  The King doesn’t act like a king (how disappointing!), he doesn’t enact his pure difference from others: no wit, no grandeur, no distance. Only coarseness and appetite. But Naples often shocked, even as it bewitched. That good Catholic from provincial, relentlessly clerical Salzburg, Leopold Mozart, was appalled by the pagan superstitions of the nobility and by the rank idolatry of Church ceremony. English travelers became indignant over the indecent wall paintings and phallic objects at Pompeii. Everyone was scornful of the caprices of the juvenile King. And where everyone is shocked is a place where everyone tells stories.

  * * *

  Like every foreign diplomat, the Cavaliere had his much-polished store of tales of how outrageous the King could be with which to regale distinguished visitors. It is not the King’s scatological humor that makes him unusual, the Cavaliere might start by saying. Jokes about defecation are common in most Italian courts, I am told. Really, his auditor would say.

  If the Cavaliere began with a version of his accompanying the King to the privy, he might move on to another story in which chocolate plays a role.

  This story, which he had told many visitors, concerned events that happened three years after his arrival as envoy. Charles III of Spain, who is the Neapolitan king’s father, and Maria Theresa of Austria having concluded their negotiations for an alliance of the two dynasties, the empress having selected one of her many daughters, the acre’s worth of trousseau having been assembled, and the tearful bride and her vast retinue having been readied for the departure—and in Naples, the ultra-pomp of a royal wedding having reached an advanced state of planning (the dressing of public spaces, the designing of allegorical fireworks and pastries, the composing of music for processions and balls), and the nobles and the diplomatic colony having girded themselves for the extra expenses of banquets and new finery … no one was prepared for the black-garbed emissary from the Hapsburg court who arrived with the deflating message that on the very eve of her departure the fifteen-year-old archduchess had succumbed to the smallpox then raging in Vienna, which had nearly carried off the empress as well.

  Learning the news that same morning, the Cavaliere put on his court regalia and set out in his best carriage to perform the offering of condolences. Upon entering the palace, he asked to be escorted to the King and was brought not to the royal apartments but to an alcove inside the high archway opening onto a great gallery, some three hundred feet long and lined with pictures of the hunt, where the Prince of San ***, the King’s tutor, stood musing. No, not musing. Fuming. Far down the gallery a noisy, aromatic, gilded procession, illuminated by torches and tapers, was advanc
ing toward them.

  I have come to express my sincere—

  The prince’s scornful eye.

  As you see, His Majesty’s grief knows no bounds, said the prince.

  Advancing toward them, six young men carried a coffin draped in crimson velvet on their shoulders. A priest was keeping step, waving a censer. Two pretty servants bore gold vases filled with flowers. The sixteen-year-old King followed, swathed in black, with a black handkerchief to his face.

  (You know what people here make of funerals, the Cavaliere would interject, ever eager to share information. No show of grief is too excessive.)

  The procession neared the Cavaliere. Put her down, said the King.

  He bounded over to the Cavaliere and seized his hand. Come, you can be one of the mourners.

  Majesty!

  Come! bellowed the King. I am not allowed to hunt, they won’t let me take my boat out to fish—

  For one day only, interrupted the old prince, furious.

  All day—the King stamped his foot—I have to stay indoors. We were playing leapfrog for a while and then wrestling, but this is better. Much better.

  He pulled the Cavaliere over to the coffin, in which lay a young man in a lace-trimmed white gown, eyes with velvety lashes shut firmly, his rosy cheeks and his hands, folded over his chest, dotted with tiny lumps of creamy brown.

  (The youngest of the chamberlains, often teased by the others because of his girlish good looks, who had been conscripted to play the dead archduchess, annotates the Cavaliere. Pause. And the drops of chocolate … you can divine what they signify. Actually not, says his auditor. These, explains the Cavaliere, were the pustules of smallpox.)

  The boy’s chest gently rose and fell.

  Look, look, just like life!

  The King seized a torch from one of the attendants and struck an operatic pose. Oh, my love. My bride is dead!

  The pallbearers snickered.

  No, you mustn’t laugh. The light of my life! The joy of my heart! So young. Still a virgin, at least I hope so. And dead! With beautiful white hands I would have kissed, beautiful white hands she would have put here—he showed, on his anatomy, where.

  (The Cavaliere does not add that he had already had more than one viewing of the royal groin—of the King’s own very white skin, spotted with herpes, which his doctor considered a sign of good health.)

  Don’t you feel sorry for me, the King shouted to the Cavaliere.

  (Neither does the Cavaliere relate how he finally extricated himself, but he does mention that throughout this farce a dwarflike priest continued to recite the Mass for the Dead. Not a real priest, his auditor would say. Surely another chamberlain, got up in the garb of a priest. Considering the nonsense that priests lend themselves to here, the Cavaliere would reply, it could well have been a real priest.)

  The youth in the coffin was perspiring and the chocolate drops beginning to melt. The King, trying not to laugh, put his fingers to his lips. I shall commission an opera on the subject, he exclaimed.

  &c, &c, &c, concludes the Cavaliere.

  And perhaps the word opera reminds the Cavaliere of a scene he witnessed recently at the San Carlo with Catherine, during the premiere of a new work by Paisiello. It was the last night of Carnival. Two boxes away was the King, who came regularly to watch and hum and shout and eat; rather than sit in the royal box he would often commandeer any of the upper boxes, whose regular subscribers considered it an honor to be so displaced. That night the King had ordered a dish of macaroni brought to him, first imposing the aromas of oil, cheese, garlic, and beef gravy upon those in his vicinity. Then the King leaned over the parapet and started throwing the scalding-hot food with both hands into the pit below.

  (The Cavaliere pauses, waiting for a reaction. What did the wretched spectators do then, asks his auditor. You might think they would mind, says the Cavaliere, but everyone here seems to enjoy the King’s waggery.)

  While a few appeared discomfited by the blossoming of greasy stains on their best apparel—their efforts to clean themselves made the King roar with laughter—many treated the shower of pasta as a mark of royal favor and, rather than dodging it, pushed each other aside to retrieve some of it to eat.

  (How astonishing, his auditor would say. It is like Carnival year round here. But quite harmless, I suppose.)

  And let me tell you, the Cavaliere might continue, about another scramble for food incited by the King which is somewhat less comic. It took place the year after the mock burial I have described to you, when the younger sister of the dead fiancée designated as her replacement, who wept even more copiously than had her older sister upon learning to whom she had been affianced, had been dispatched from Vienna; happily, this archduchess arrived intact, and the days of wedding followed. Now what I must explain, explains the Cavaliere, is that all important court celebrations here include the building of an artificial mountain laden with food.

  (A mountain? his auditor would ask.)

  Yes, a mountain. A gigantic pyramidal scaffolding of beams and boards erected by teams of carpenters in the middle of the great square in front of the palace, which was then draped and sculpted into a very creditable small park with iron fencing and a pair of allegorical statues guarding the gate.

  (May I inquire how high? I am not certain, says the Cavaliere. At least forty feet.)

  As soon as the mountain was finished, tribes of purveyors and their assistants began ascending and descending. Bakers on the foothills were stacking huge logs of bread. Farmers were hauling up bins of watermelon and pears and oranges. Poulterers were nailing live chickens, geese, capons, ducks, and pigeons by their wings to wooden fences along the paths that led to the top. And thousands of people arrived to camp in the square while the mountain was heaped with its hierarchies of foods, festooned with garlands of flowers and pennons, and guarded round the clock by a ring of armed soldiers mounted on nervous horses. By the second day of banqueting inside the palace, the crowd had multiplied tenfold, and their knives, daggers, axes, and scissors were in plain view. Around noon a roar went up when the butchers entered the square, dragging the procession of oxen, sheep, goats, calves, and pigs. As they tied the animals by halters to the base of the mountain, a murmuring hush fell on the crowd.

  (I see I must fortify myself for what comes next, says his auditor, after the Cavaliere paused for effect.)

  Then the King, holding his bride’s hand, stepped out on the balcony. Another roar went up, not so different from the one that greeted the procession of animals. As the King acknowledged the cheers and vivas of the crowd, the other balconies and the upper windows of the palace quickly filled with the leading members of the court, some of the more important nobles, members of the diplomatic corps most in favor—

  (I have heard no one is more in favor with the King than you, interrupts the auditor. Yes, says the Cavaliere, I was there.)

  Then the cannon sounded from the top of the fortress of Sant’Elmo, signaling that the assault could begin. The famished crowd gave an answering howl and broke through the ring of soldiers, who rode their rearing horses to the safety of the palace wall. Elbowing, kneeing, punching, shoving one another, the most able-bodied boys and young men pulled ahead and started to scale the mountain, which was soon aswarm with people, some clambering higher, some descending with their booty, others perched at mid-point carving up the fowl and eating it raw or throwing pieces to the outstretched arms of their womenfolk and children below. Meanwhile, others drove their knives into the animals tethered at the base of the mountain. It would be hard to say which of one’s sensory organs were being more forcefully assaulted: one’s nose, by the smell of blood and the excrement of the terrified animals; one’s ears, by the cries of the animals being slaughtered and the screams of people falling or being pushed from some part of the mountain; or one’s eyes, by the sight of the poor beasts thrashing about in their agony or of some wretch who, brought to frenzy by all these sensations, to which must be added the applause and shouts
of encouragement from the windows and balconies, instead of plunging his knife into the belly of a pig or a goat, had plunged it into his neighbor’s neck.

  (I trust I am not making you think too ill of the lower orders here, interjects the Cavaliere. They are in most circumstances quite amiable. Indeed, exclaims his auditor—and, musing on human savagery rather than injustice, said no more.)

  You would be surprised, the Cavaliere continues, how little time it took to pillage the mountain. It goes even more quickly now. For that was the last year in which the animals were dismembered live. Our young Austrian queen was revolted by the spectacle and entreated the King to put some limits on the barbarity of this custom. The King decreed that the oxen and calves and pigs would be killed first by the butchers and hung already quartered on the fence. And so it is done to this day. As you see, he would conclude, there is progress even here, in this city.

  * * *

  How can the Cavaliere communicate to an auditor how disgusting the King is. Impossible to describe. He cannot bottle the fetid odors the King emits and waft them under his auditors’ noses, or post them to his friends in England whom he regales with his stories, as he does the sulphurs and salts from the volcano he sent back regularly to the Royal Society. He cannot call the servants to bring a bucket of blood and demonstrate, by dipping his own arms in it to the elbows, the spectacle of the King carving up hundreds of animals himself after a day’s slaughter he calls hunting. He will not mime the King standing in the harbor marketplace at sunset selling his day’s catch of swordfish. (He sells his catch? Yes, and haggles over the price. But it must be added, said the Cavaliere, that he throws his earnings to the suite of layabouts who always follow him.) Though a courtier, the Cavaliere is not an actor. He cannot become the King, even for a moment, to demonstrate or to show. That is not a virile activity. He only relates, and in the relating, the sheer odiousness of it dwindles into a tale, nothing to get wrought up over. In this kingdom of the immoderate, of excess, of overflow, the King is just one item. Since he has only words to tell, then he can explain (the dumbed-down education of the King, the benighted superstitions of the nobles), he can condescend, he can ironize. He can have an opinion (he cannot describe without taking a stand about what he is describing) and that opinion will already have shown itself superior to the facts of the senses, bleached them, muffled their din, deodorized them.