The Volcano Lover (54 page)

I went on reading, writing, translating, studying. I had a stipend from the court for my literary activities. My translation from Latin into Italian of a history of papal influence in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was dedicated to the King when it was published in 1790. I became a republican and broke with my royal patrons. Shall I recite my Ode to Liberty—the one for which I was jailed? No. I was no more than a conventionally gifted poet. My strongest poems were written years earlier—sonnets on the death of my child, Francesco, only eight months old.

The revolution exploded and I exploded with it. I created the principal newspaper of our five-month-long republic. I wrote many articles. Though hardly unaware of practical economic and political problems, I do not think I was wrong to consider education the most imperative task. What is a revolution if it does not change hearts and minds? I know I talk like a woman, though not like every woman. I know I talk like a woman of my class. I had read and admired Mary Wollstonecraft's book when it was published in Naples in 1794, but I did not, in my newspaper, ever raise the issue of the rights of women. I was independent. I had not sacrificed my mind to some trivial idea of my sex. Indeed I did not think of myself as a woman first of all. I thought of our just cause. I was glad to forget I was only a woman. It was easy to forget that I was, at many of our meetings, the only woman. I wanted to be pure flame.

You cannot imagine the wickedness of life in that kingdom. The depravity of the court, the distress of the people, the falsity of manners. Oh, do not say it was splendid then. It was splendid only for the rich, it was gratifying only if one did not reflect on the lives of the poor.

I was born into that world, I belonged to that class, I experienced the charms of that very agreeable life, I rejoiced in its unlimited vistas of knowledge and skill. How naturally human beings adapt to abjection, to lies, and to unearned prerogatives. Those whom birth or appropriate forms of ambition have placed inside the circle of privilege would have to be dedicated misfits—disablingly sanctimonious or bent on self-deprivation—
not
to enjoy themselves. But those whom birth or revolt have cast outside, where most beings on this earth live, would have to be obtuse or slavish in temperament not to see how disgraceful it is that so few monopolize both wealth and refinement, and inflict such suffering on others.

I was earnest, I was ecstatic, I did not understand cynicism, I wanted things to be better for more than a few. I was willing to give up my privileges. I was not nostalgic about the past. I believed in the future. I sang my song and my throat was cut. I saw beauty and my eyes were put out. Perhaps I was naïve. But I did not give myself to infatuation. I did not drown in the love of a single person.

I will not deign to speak of my hatred and contempt for the warrior, champion of British imperial power and savior of the Bourbon monarchy, who killed my friends. But I will speak of his friends, who were also so pleased with themselves.

Who was the esteemed Sir William Hamilton but an upper-class dilettante enjoying the many opportunities afforded in a poor and corrupt and interesting country to pilfer the art and make a living out of it and to get himself known as a connoisseur. Did he ever have an original thought, or subject himself to the discipline of writing a poem, or discover or invent something useful to humanity, or burn with zeal for anything except his own pleasures and the privileges annexed to his station? He knew enough to appreciate what the picturesque natives had left, in the way of art and ruins, lying about the ground. He condescended to admire our volcano. His friends at home must have been struck by his fearlessness.

Who was his wife but another talented, overwrought woman who thought herself valuable because men she could admire loved her. Unlike her husband and her lover, she had no genuine convictions. She was an enthusiast, and would have enlisted herself with the same ardor in the cause of whomever she loved. I can easily imagine Emma Hamilton, had her nationality been different, as a republican heroine, who might have ended most courageously at the foot of some gallows. That is the nullity of women like her.

I will not allow that I was moved by justice rather than love, for justice is also a form of love. I did know about power, I did see how this world was ruled, but I did not accept it. I wanted to set an example. I wanted not to disappoint myself. But I was afraid as well as angry, in ways I felt too powerless to admit. So I did not speak of my fears but rather of my hopes. I was afraid my anger would offend others, and they would destroy me. For all my certitude, I feared I would never be strong enough to understand what would allow me to protect myself. Sometimes I had to forget that I was a woman to accomplish the best of which I was capable. Or I would lie to myself about how complicated it is to be a woman. Thus do all women, including the author of this book. But I cannot forgive those who did not care about more than their own glory or well-being. They thought they were civilized. They were despicable. Damn them all.

By Susan Sontag

FICTION

The Benefactor

Death Kit

I, etcetera

The Way We Live Now

In America

 

ESSAYS

Against Interpretation

Styles of Radical Will

On Photography

Illness As Metaphor

Under the Sign of Saturn

AIDS and Its Metaphors

Where the Stress Falls

Regarding the Pain of Others

 

FILM SCRIPTS

Duet for Cannibals

Brother Carl

 

PLAY

Alice in Bed

 

A Susan Sontag Reader

THE VOLCANO LOVER
. Copyright © 1992 by Susan Sontag. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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The images reproduced in this book are, with one exception, taken from plates in Sir William Hamilton's
Campi Phlegraei, Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies.
2 Vols. Naples, 1776. Supplement, 1779. The artist was Pietro Fabris. The image
here
is the dedication plate in the first volume of
Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of Hon. Wm. Hamilton
by D'Hancarville (Pierre François Hugues). 4 Vols. Naples, 1766–7.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sontag, Susan.

The volcano lover / Susan Sontag.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-42007-2

EAN 978-0312-42007-9

1. Nelson, Horatio Nelson, Viscount, 1758–1805—Fiction. 2. Hamilton, William, Sir, 1730–1803—Fiction. 3. Hamilton, Emma, Lady, 1765–1815—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.O6547V6  1992

813'.54—dc20

92-71738

First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

eISBN 9781466853607

First eBook edition: October 2013