The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Thus sang the twelve little boys; these were the ‘Strofe per la prima comunione’, which Manzoni wrote at that time for Enrico’s first communion. The Rector was Giulio Ratti, formerly canon at San Babila, and now rector at San Fedele.

  From Brusuglio, Enrichetta to Vittoria, in June:

  ‘Matilde is so happy to be at Brusú. We have a girl to look after her during the day, as your Nanny has to go to Milan with your brothers all the time. Poor little Matilde is so good and so reasonable, and accepts with such good grace all the changes we keep having to make! . . . She gives us nothing but pleasure and is no trouble at all: she sends you a gweat bid tiss. ’

  From Uncle Giulio Beccaria’s villa at Gessate, Enrichetta to Vittoria towards the end of June:

  ‘Goodbye now, my darling little daughter, be good and strive zealously to do your duty. Cristina and Sofia hug you and send you all their love. Your Papa and Grandmama hold you close to their hearts. Everyone here sends loving greetings. Your Mama has no need to talk of her love for you. . .’

  No other letters from Enrichetta to Vittoria were found, this is the last; she must have written again in the ensuing months, but any later letters have been lost.

  The Manzonis often went to Gessate, to Uncle Giulio Beecaria’s villa. He had married when he was no longer young; his wife was called Antonietta Curioni de’ Civati, and was usually called ‘la zietta’ in the family, ‘little Aunt’. The Manzonis were very fond of him and his wife.

  Cousin Giacomo saw Enrichetta at Brusuglio when she got back from Gessate. He wrote to Uncle Beccaria: ‘She seemed to me much diminished. However, the doctors have not given up hope of a cure. ’

  In August, Giulietta and Massimo came to Brusuglio. Giulietta’s mother-in-law, the Marchesa Cristina, came for a few days too. Enrichetta was very ill and could not get up. Manzoni wrote to Vittoria:

  ‘You will have heard from Sofia that your dear Mama had to be bled twice. To cure the inflammation (which, however, was never very bad) two more bleedings were necessary: now things have taken a much better turn; and I can tell you to be cheerful, as we all are.’

  And to Cattaneo who had asked for news, from the region of Canzo where he was spending the summer.

  ‘Enrichetta scolds me because I have been so long giving you news or her: she knows perfectly well how much you love her, the minx! But I delayed on purpose, as we were going through some ups and downs, and I was certain that it would all turn out well, so I didn’t want to upset you with gloomy news. Now things have taken a turn for the better: there’s no more talk of fever; the cough has not gone altogether, but it gets better from day to day, and soon it will be just a matter of building up her strength again. ’

  To Cattaneo again, a few weeks later:

  ‘The condition of my — and to you I can say our — Enrichetta continues to improve, very slowly it is true, but definitely to improve.

  ‘I wish you better weather because I can see from my hill that the horns of Canzo are all shrouded in clouds. ’

  However, they thought fit to leave Brusuglio and take the invalid to Milan. In September, after nine bleedings, she seemed convalescent. But her fever returned. Her - breathing was laboured, she had a cough, and convulsions. Cousin Giacomo wrote to Uncle Giulio Beccaria almost every day with news: ‘Yesterday Enrichetta was feverish, and as it was the eve of the feast-days, she wanted to observe her devotions and to take the Eucharist, which made the family very sad. But today she is a little better, and Alessandro, Giulia and the children are less distressed. If things improve, as the doctors flatter themselves, by the administration of muriate of barytes, we may still hope to see her restored.’ ‘She is responding well to the muriate of barytes and can tolerate it in large doses, having taken 32 grams.’ ‘The course of the illness seems to be intermittent, that is, one bad day and the next calm. Doctor Casanova, who had moved to Milan and was staying in the Manzoni house, the better to supervise Enrichetta’s treatment, has fallen ill himself. You see this is another misfortune for the patient, and a trouble for the family. . . The doctors cannot hold out much hope. ’

  Before that summer, writing to Vittoria, or cousin Carlotta, or Costanza Arconati, Enrichetta had always spoken joyfully of Giulietta’s great happiness. Perhaps she was trying to persuade herself. That summer, during her illness, she probably saw how unhappy her daughter was.

  After the birth of their baby girl, Massimo and Giulietta had left the house in via del Durino to move to an apartment in via del Marino in what had once been the Palazzo Imbonati and which had then been bought by the Blondels. Enrico Blondel had died in an apartment in that same palazzo. His widow, Louise Maumary, or tante Louise as the Manzonis called her, lived there now. She was still young and very beautiful, slender, with black hair. Giulietta was jealous of her. Her relations with her husband deteriorated. In fact, they had never been either simple or serene. That radiant conjugal felicity had existed only in the words of the family and in Enrichetta’s letters. Perhaps he found her cold. Perhaps she found him fatuous. At any rate, their relationship became embittered in the new house, where jealousy was added to it.

  In October Giulietta received a long letter from her mother-in-law, the Marchesa Cristina. After the first conventional smiles, there had been no love lost between them. This letter, which arrived when her mother was ill and when she was already wretchedly unhappy, must have hurt her cruelly. In any case it was a pitilessly cruel letter. We do not know if Giulietta answered it.

  ‘My dear Giulia,’ wrote her mother-in-law, ‘This letter won’t reach you very quickly; no matter, if you accept it willingly I shall have achieved my purpose.

  ‘In the first letter you wrote me before you married Mass., you said such nice things, that you were so pleased to have him, that you would think only of making him happy, and thus of pleasing me, for you knew that Mass. meant everything to me: you said flattering things to me too, which I certainly do not deserve: that you would always look on me as a mother, you begged me to help you with advice etc. Then before coming to Turin, you repeated all this, and begged me not to judge your heart by a cold exterior etc. etc. : I leave out the rest which is unimportant.

  ‘Giulia, my daughter, you must not take it amiss if I dwell a little on what you wrote then. You had and have good reason to love Mass. and to esteem him: never mind that he’s my son; you know as well as I do how much he is loved by his friends, by your father and all the family, in short by anyone who really knows him; you love him in a way, but do you make him happy? The first days we spent in Azeglio, from the 31st, I doubted it but said nothing; the second summer my doubts increased, but I forced myself to be silent; but hardly had I got to Milan this year than I felt confirmed in this heart-breaking thought; Mass. is not happy. . . the three months in Cernobio (apart from a few days in August) and then in Brusú. When I got there I would have taken the mail-coach and left at once, if the pain of abandoning Mass. had not robbed me of my courage. The hope of supporting my son made me drain drop by drop the bitter chalice you prepared for me. Sadly this is the simple truth. I never spoke to you because you were then in such poor health that I preferred to remain silent, rather than harm you or that dear little creature; I resolved then to write to you at length, and to avoid painful discussion which would have achieved nothing, persuaded as you are that you are always right.

  ‘There are many kinds of lawful love established in God’s order, the love of a wife is very different from that of a mother, brother, etc., however, all these loves demand sacrifices, sometimes greater, sometimes lesser. To be strong and constant, the love between husband and wife must be based on mutual esteem (and this you have) and requires a continual sacrifice of will and temperament, in order to establish that fine harmony, that true and solid love that consoles us in every circumstance, a love that lasts.

  ’If love is shown only in kisses and simpering etc. etc. it’s like a baby who if you refuse him the breast, turns from sweetness to rage, sulks, makes faces, etc., and all
this is purely and simply egoism; we may accept it in babies, but at the age of reason, no. Mass. has faults, who has not? I did tell you he was a lamb, and very patient, but in the long run the lamb will turn into a lion, and who makes him do so? He is not God, he’s a man, but such a man that, if for your part you did only what was reasonable, he would be in a position to envy nobody. If the beaker overflows when one drop is added to it, who is to blame?

  ‘Everyone is born with particular inclinations, good, bad, indolent, gentle or fierce, etc., a good upbringing modifies these defects; as the reason develops one understands things better. . . . If, with the capacity for thought God gave you, you had persevered when Mass. sought you out, you would already be what you ought. You would have subdued your lofty pride, the egoism which seeks to bend everyone to your will and makes you sulk if you fail. You would have simpler and more solid tastes which would be more pleasing to your husband who sacrifices everything to satisfy them, but without ever managing to please you. As he told you, he is not rich, but you see how his true love strives to content you, and his only reward, when I was there, was to be upbraided by you when he had been 4 or 5 hours in the sun, panting and weary, and then more than once (I heard this in casa Manzoni) to be told you had moved into his house to be worse off. Oh Heavens! I shall never forget the pain I felt.

  ‘Giulia dear, I have had no reason to complain of your procédés towards me (even if it happened once, the next time it did not touch me) but have I not more reason to complain since you have hurt me by your behaviour towards one who is the light of his mother’s life? I who have done everything for you, yes, for you - since for Mass. I have done less than was necessary -neglecting no opportunity to give you a nice present, etc. and this is how you have rewarded me! but I repeat, if Mass. were happy, I would even accept blows from you. Oh dear Giulia, how many times did my heart reach out to you with love, then this idea would loom before me, this woman is torturing my Mass., and I felt a stab of bitter pain.

  ‘I could say more on this matter, but I do not want to be overly tedious. I pass to the matter of filial affection and at once I ask, would you be content if your daughter at 24 displayed the same affection as you do to your parents and grandmother? The latter, you say, with her excessive and ill-conceived love was the cause, etc., etc. Admitting that she spoiled you (and I must agree), do you therefore have to make her pay for it, now that perhaps she weeps for it in her old age? Unfortunately she sees everything and feels acutely. And what can I say of your mother? I assure you I should not like to be treated like that by my daughter, or by my Mass. How half-heartedly you have assisted her in all the time that I have been an onlooker. You were in the next bedroom, yet you were capable of staying away for hours, without putting in an appearance for a moment? Good God! she saw, watched, felt profoundly, I can tell you: perhaps her illness is partly due to your behaviour, and you? you were content with four or five hasty visits. They did not want us to talk, I know, but I went 10 or 12 times just to look at her, rejoice if there was any improvement, etc., and she is not my mother. . . Cristina was quite jealous. . . a kind word can win her round. There is no excuse; it was quite simply negligence, and nothing else; when the spirit is willing, everything is possible. Remember, my daughter, this is bread cast upon the waters, pray Heaven you are not thus treated by your own children. I have not observed any particular negligence towards your father; certainly you are not very demonstrative towards him, but he seems not to think much about it, luckily.

  ‘And what is the cause of all this? I’ll tell you. It comes from having almost abandoned the good practices you told me you observed as a girl. You go to Church like Protestants to their chapel, once on Sunday and that’s all: I’ve seen it in Azeglio, in Milan, in Cernobio. All good things come from God. If we do not pray, He is not obliged to grant us that higher grace to practise virtue. If you had an irreligious husband I would say to you, just do what is prescribed, refrain from anything further to avoid upsetting him; but this is not your case: why not attend holy communion sometimes, or a short act of worship if you can’t get to Mass: why stay away from the sacred fount of every grace for 4 or 5 months? At least for the chief festivals: pause to consider what you read, the society you surround yourself with every evening at your home, which J entirely disapprove of; the cutting things I have so often heard you utter. You waste so much time, when you could be cultivating the talents you have, to your husband’s great satisfaction, and acquire a store of sound instruction for your daughter.

  ‘I told your family you were a good housekeeper, but to you I can say you have not been so this year. I have observed what has been spent in the house, and it is far too much. Enough furniture to fill two more rooms: a carpet that couldn’t have cost less than 500 or 600 francs, when a clean drugget would have been sufficient: then all those trinkets on the tables, they must be yours, why not save your money for more solid things? When you showed me your account books, I saw one said liveries; and 25 lire or francs for 5 little dresses for the baby, I never dreamed I would see such a thing in an account-book. The material must be bought but made up at home. Lenin has other things to do. . . but you can sew very well, my dear; instead of spending so much time at your embroidery frame making costly things that damage your health, busy yourself doing what a woman does best. I have calculated roughly what you have had this year - certainly far more than I from tenants at Cal.na - and now I don’t know how you stand. You have certainly put nothing aside. And since we are on this subject I warn you you can expect little from me, with all the expenses I have; so you would really be advised to be sensible. I give you this advice regarding your budget.

  ‘It remains to say a word about the servants. The nurse is not what she was; more than once I’ve seen her up to unseemly tricks. At Cernobio she gave the baby to someone else, then escaped to the kitchen or to the harbour to chatter with boatmen, and I feel she has too much to say for herself in the house; I am not saying she is vicious, but too frivolous, which won’t do at all when Sandrine is 4. Too much gossip arises from her chatter, and you encourage her.

  ‘My dear Giulia, I have touched upon all the main points I had chosen. I have spoken the truth, I have tried to speak frankly, but not in a spirit of offence, but the truth is often painful; I hope its effect on you will not be sad or unavailing, but that it will serve to make you examine yourself, and profit by the advice of a mother who truly loves you and is not afraid to make painful incisions for your good, and for the good of our Massimo.

  ‘If this letter arrives when you are in a disturbed state of mind, postpone reading it so that it may be as medicine to you, and not poison; this is the wish of one who writes to you with painful effort. If it does you good, if God blesses my words, all else is as nothing. Keep this paper, perhaps it will be the last so prolix and from a heart so full. I have not long to live, but I shall have the consolation of having given you this proof of my sincerity and love. ’

  Together with the preaching, moral judgements, recollections full of bitter rancour, angry reflections about expenditure, and furious rage at the idea that her beloved son should have to live with a woman ‘who does not make him happy’, the Marchesa Cristina’s letter also reflects, albeit painted in the acrid colours of anger, the figure of Giulietta as she then was. No longer the melancholy girl who wrote tender letters to Cousin Giacomo who did not take much notice of her, or tender letters to Fauriel who never answered. No longer the melancholy girl in the Grigioni, consumed with home-sickness for her sisters and brothers, her mother, her home. No longer melancholy, but desperate. She listened to the gossip of the nurse which may have touched on tante Louise and her jealousy. She was buying furniture frenziedly. Apparently she demanded to be called Marchesa (though the only true marchesa was her mother-in-law). She despised her husband’s relatives (‘la cousinaille she called them in a letter home, written in a scrawl that was almost entirely indecipherable) and felt humiliated and that she had come down many degrees to an ambience inferior to
her own. But above all, she saw nothing around her resembling her girlhood dreams. She fled from her sick mother’s room, and would not stay and nurse her like the others; she fled because she knew this time her mother would not survive the winter, and her own unhappiness was too great to stand this approaching separation. She fled so that her dying mother should be spared the sight of her unhappiness and the evident failure of her marriage.

  Massimo must have been, like her, disappointed in the marriage, and found their life together extremely uncomfortable; but perhaps this did not completely destroy his happiness as it did hers; he had other resources, work, friends, and probably other women (whether or not it really was already a question of tante Louise, as Giulietta thought, we cannot know). His relations with his wife’s family, however, remained warm and affectionate. In the winter he wrote to his cousin Cesare Balbo, telling him about Enrichetta’s illness:

  ‘Poor Manzoni faces the likelihood of losing his wife soon; she seems to be wasting away. You would have to know, as I have done, their hearts and their life together, the love they have borne each other for twenty-five years, the angelic life they have spent together, to have any idea of the blow of this separation. Moreover, when you think that three boys, two little girls, and two girls of marriageable age will remain motherless, the whole family without a guide, that the grandmother is turned seventy and not fit to run the house; because of his health and his habitual way of life, Papa is more in need of others to look after him than the reverse: you see how many misfortunes greater than words can tell are contained in this one. I wish you could see Papa these days. I thought I knew what man he was, but I did not know: I have discovered that his talents are as nothing to his life. If you heard the things he has uttered! The other evening, for example, when all the family were gathered together in a moment of terrible stress, he said to the children: let us say an Ave Maria for your mother. When they had said it: let us say another for the people who have hurt us most, so God will more gladly accept our prayers.’