Read Online In America by Susan Sontag - Free Book Online Page B

added, “with myself.”
    â€œYou mustn’t—”
    â€œIt’s good to be happy, but it’s vulgar to want to be happy. And if you are happy, it’s vulgar to know it. It makes you complacent. What’s important is self-respect, which will be yours only as long as you stay true to your ideals. It’s so easy to compromise, once you’ve known a modicum of success.”
    *   *   *
    â€œ OF COURSE I am not fanatical,” she said, “but perhaps I am too fastidious. For instance, I can’t help thinking a person who sneezes in an absurd way is also lacking in self-respect. Why else consent to something so unattractive? It ought to be a matter of concentration and resolve to sneeze gracefully, candidly. Like a handshake. I remember a conversation with someone I’ve known for years, a subtle man, a doctor, whose friendship I cherish, when, in the middle of a sentence, we were talking about Fourier’s theory of the twelve radical passions, he seemed suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. He made a sharp shrieking sound and then said ‘Kissh’—said it twice and closed his eyes. What did he say, I wondered, staring at his mottled face. I understood when I saw him groping for his handkerchief. But it was difficult to continue with Ideal Harmony and the Calculus of Attraction after that!”
    *   *   *
    â€œ I THINK ,” she started off grandly.
    And then she stopped.
    What nonsense it all is!
    â€œGo on,” said Bogdan.
    Yes, nonsense to feel what she was feeling. Or perhaps not. How awful to impose this unhappiness, if that’s what it was, on Bogdan, who took whatever she said so literally. Why did she always feel like saying something that would crease his brow and tighten his jaw? “I’m thinking how good you are to me,” she said, pressing her face against his throat, seeking the comfort and forgiveness of his body.
    *   *   *
    SHE FROWNED. “Yes, I hate to complain, but…”
    â€œBut?” It was Ryszard speaking.
    â€œI do love to show off.” She clapped her hand to her forehead, moaned “Oh, oh, oh!” then smiled slyly.
    The young man looked stricken. (Yes she’d been ill. All her friends said it.)
    â€œAm I showing off?” she said, her eyes glittering. “You tell me, faithful cavalier.”
    Ryszard didn’t answer.
    â€œAnd if I am,” she continued relentlessly, “why?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œDon’t be alarmed. Aren’t you going to say, Because you’re an actress.”
    â€œYes, a great actress,” he answered.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œI’ve said something stupid. Forgive me.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “Maybe it’s not showing off. Even if I can’t control it.”
    *   *   *
    â€œ I DO TRY to master my feelings, believe me!”
    â€œMaster your feelings?” cried the critic, a very friendly critic. “Whatever for, dear lady? It’s the profusion of your feelings that delights the public.”
    â€œI’ve always needed to identify myself with each of the tragic heroines I play. I suffer with them, I weep real tears, which often I can’t stop after the curtain goes down, and have to lie motionless in my dressing room until my strength returns. Throughout my whole career I’ve never succeeded in giving a performance without feeling my character’s agonies.” She grimaced. “I consider this a weakness.”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œWhat would my public say if I decided to play comic roles? Comedy”—she laughed—“isn’t thought to be my strong point.”
    â€œWhat comic roles?” said the critic cautiously.
    *   *   *
    START TOO HIGH , and you have nowhere to go.
    â€œI remember”—she was confiding this to Ryszard—“I remember once when I lost