The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  ‘When I have the good fortune to be with you, and something painful occurs, you know what a relief it is to tell you: I am suffering. . . Although this is denied me at the moment, I still find it some relief to mention to you what is grieving me. So forgive me if I tell you I have been and am still disturbed by a letter from that person. . . he proposes I should become involved, and as you know, I cannot and must not do so; but the problem does not go away, and seems to instil a drop of poison into the holiday period, from which I thought all gloomy thoughts should be, if not extinguished, at least partly eclipsed. But these are laments, whereas I ought only to beg you to help me accept everything from the hand of God, especially as you show me the way. In any case (and this too comes from His hand, but His all-merciful hand) seeing you again will afford quite different comfort from this poor writing. . . I want you to burn this letter, as I do not wish to leave any lasting trace of my feelings about this grievous business. . .

  Teresa did not burn the letter, but she cut out some sentences where he spoke of ‘that person’: a creditor, or perhaps Enrico himself.

  In 1857 Enrico was thirty-eight. He and his wife and children still lived in the splendid villa of Renate, with its park, orchard, kitchen-garden, and winter garden. He had seven children. The oldest, Enrichetta, was thirteen; then came Sandrino, Matilde, Sofia, Lucia, Eugenio; and that year Bianca was born. Enrico, according to Vittoria in her memoirs, had an inflated idea of himself; he thought whatever he undertook would succeed. He had flung himself into business without knowing a thing about it. His wife approved and abetted him. By now he was completely ruined. He had entirely devoured even his wife’s rich inheritance. He and his wife had remained calm for a long time; that is, they had continued to spend immoderately. The creditors who were writing to his father were not just business creditors, but furniture and carpet sellers, shoe-makers and tailors. Enrico and his wife knew the splendid villa they lived in was quite lost, and that they would soon have to leave it. Swiftly, in the space of a few months, Enrico’s complicated, intricate situation became extremely simple: he had nothing left.

  As he left for Lesa in August, Manzoni knew that one of the creditors had started legal proceedings, and there was the risk he might draw the whole troop behind him; but at Lesa he received a reassuring letter from Pietro: the legal proceedings had been suspended. Manzoni to Pietro:

  ‘You can imagine what a relief it was to read of the suspension. . . And as I assume from what you say that this was your doing, I thank you on my own behalf, since, as for the person directly involved, and his innocent children, your heart must have inspired you to it.’

  Enrico to his father:

  ‘My brother Pietro has made a sacrifice that only a heart like his could make. I do not speak of the delicate means he adopted to help me. These are things I can’t possibly describe in this letter. Yes, dear Papa, I have asked God’s pardon. . . Dear Papa, accept my assurance that if, sadly, circumstances may condemn us, when these circumstances are known I am sure we will obtain forbearance. . . Our whole lives will henceforth be dedicated to righting the wrong that has been done, and by the grace of God which I continually implore, I feel we will succeed. . . Forgive me, dear Papa, for writing so badly. I realize I have failed to tell you all my poor heart feels.’

  That spring Teresa had made another will. Terrified by Enrico’s doings, she had apparently sought to defend her own son against these financial landslips. In this will she cancelled the arrangements regarding her dowry; this time Manzoni was absolutely obliged to restore the dowry to Stefano on her death, immediately and in its entirety. ‘To my most beloved husband Alessandro Manzoni,’ she still left her ‘gold repeater’, that is, a watch, as she had already declared in the previous will. Stefano was the sole heir, and was absolved from any obligations ‘that may have been indicated by me elsewhere’.

  As she was once again preoccupied with death at that time, she grieved that Stefano, who was now thirty-eight – the same age as Enrico – was still unmarried. Years before he seemed to have been attracted by a beautiful girl from a wealthy family at Lesa: but in no time it had all come to nothing. ‘Your most aff. Mama would dearly love to become a grandmother to a little Stefanello,’ she wrote at the bottom of every letter, or ‘The Lord Himself said: it is not good that a man should be alone. ‘ Stefano, however, remained completely deaf to these exhortations. From time to time he started up some half-hearted matrimonial negotiations, to satisfy her: but it would all fade away quite quickly.

  Teresa had not written to Vittoria after the death of Luisina. She wrote:

  ‘Dear, dear Vittoria – I can hardly pluck up the courage to say anything but poor dear Vittoria! – Oh, how I wish I were near you, to hold your hand in mine, and squeeze it and kiss it, trying but not daring to say a word about the angel you have given back to God. . . Please forgive my silence, dear Vittoria! it is not the silence of the heart. . . I embrace you with a love that you can imagine, and I beg you not to write a word in reply so that you can rest your eyes. Have courage, dear good Vittoria! your Luisina is in an ocean of joy, in the arms of your saintly mother, praying to the Lord for you and all your dear people.’

  Vittoria stayed in Florence for a long time with Babbo Gaetano. She returned to Siena early in 1858.

  Since her adolescence she had never been very strong: she was always having headaches, backache, and she had trouble with her weak eyes. Grief made her still weaker. She could not see at all well. She was not to tire her eyes. Babbo Gaetano used to read aloud to her.

  Matilde had told her, if she died, to burn the notebooks and albums in which she used to note down her impressions and thoughts. Vittoria obeyed.

  However, a few pages survived, between January and March, in a diary Matilde had kept in 1851. Obviously Vittoria did not want to burn them. They were found many years later among Bista’s papers.

  When she was writing that diary in 1851, Matilde was not very ill. She had friends, amusements, pastimes. Yet she never stopped thinking of death.

  Her mother’s face which she could not remember; her sister’s little girl who was growing up beside her, and who was as dear to her as if she were her own child; a few fleeting moments of happiness which she immediately thought of as a chance, fleeting light that her eyes would never see again. This was Matilde’s youth, as she wrote.

  ‘My dear saintly mother had to leave me when I was only two. . . Oh mamma mia! why could you not live to know my heart?

  ‘This morning my Luisina woke me with her kisses: I put on my dressing-gown as fast as I could and ran into the sitting-room, to see the presents the Befana (white witch) had brought. The little darling squealed with delight to see her stockings bulging, but wouldn’t touch anything until Bista got up too, to take part in her happiness. Later I was so happy too, seeing the portrait of Papa that Stefano has sent Vittoria [it was the Hayez painting, in a copy by Stefano]. Oh! if only Papa could come to Pisa too! What joy it would be to be near him, without having to leave Vittorina, Bista, and their little pet! – By now I am too attached to them, and I can’t contemplate the remotest possibility of separation, without shivering all over!

  ‘Last night a dance in casa Abudarham. . . I quite enjoyed it. I had a white dress with blue spots and three volants [flounces], little blue flowers in my hair, my berthe di blonde [flat hair-piece worn across top of hair] and a broad white and blue bow at my waist: my simple toilette was much admired. I wore poor Nonna’s rivière of opals round my neck; and several people said the opals were the same colour as my eyes: that means eyes with no brightness, used to looking at dead things. . .

  ‘Here I am, parted from Luisa, for goodness knows now many days! [Luisa Lovatelli, her best friend]. Her brother has German measles, and I must exile myself totally from casa Lovatelli, not to risk bringing it to Luisina. Oh! how I love the little pet! When she is grown up and I am no more, she will forget me, and she’ll never guess how I loved her like a mother!’

  Massimo d’Az
eglio recalled a saying of Luisina’s. When Manzoni and Pietro came to Viareggio that summer which was to be Luisina’s last, and d’Azeglio was there too, one day they were all standing on the jetty looking at the sea. They were talking about Matilde. Luisina was listening. Someone said to her: ‘Your poor aunt, who has left us for ever.’ Luisina said: ‘Ever begins after – in this world we are just birds of passage – aren’t we, grandpapa?’

  In 1858, about the middle of May, Manzoni became seriously ill. It all began with a simple inflammation of the throat. But it soon became clear that it was serious. Teresa was terrified. Soon the whole town knew; people took up their stand beneath the windows. Prayers were said in every church. He was bled eighteen times. Two months later he was quite well, and went driving in the carriage with Pietro.

  Uncle Giulio Beccaria had died in the February of that year. Manzoni received an annuity of four thousand lire a year; their uncle’s wife, ‘la zietta’, said it had been the wish of the deceased to appoint this annual sum for him, but it seems it was, in fact, her idea.

  In the summer Stefano fell ill; he had gone to Munich for an exhibition; he had to stop at Lindau, as he had a high temperature. Teresa heard and was terrified. She wanted to send her administrator Patrizio, Provost Ratti and Doctor Pogliaghi to Bavaria. In the end, she just sent Doctor Pogliaghi. But when he got to Lindau, Stefano had recovered.

  So that was a year of terrors for Teresa. Then she became ill herself, not with an imaginary illness, as was so often the case: this time she was really ill.

  She had been living the life of an invalid for years, so her life did not change. For years she had claimed that she ate very little. Nevertheless, she dedicated enormous attention to her meals. She used to describe them minutely to Stefano: ‘Yesterday I ate a lot of fried brains, a little morsel of beef with onions, and two morsels of roast, with a small rice broth, and a small loaf of fine flour: afterwards I felt hungrier than before. — Now I’ve taken the two mouthfuls of Cassia and Tamarind I should have taken yesterday. . .’ When they were at Lesa, Manzoni had to write and ask Pietro to send at once ‘a large three or four pound loaf’, ‘breakfast for Teresa who, apart from her persistent lack of appetite, is reduced also by the state of her teeth to putting no more than the indigestible soft part of the bread in her coffee in the morning. To my surprise, at Arona they only make it at Christmas.’ This time, however, perhaps she really lost her appetite: she really ate listlessly, but still with that supreme attention. For years she had lavished infinite attention upon her own health and she continued to do so. ‘Castor oil! sunshine of invalids!’ she wrote to her son in the solemn but jubilant tone she used to speak of medicines and purgatives; she was sure castor oil cured head colds. But no doubt her husband and son realised that something in her had changed and that she had suddenly become a real invalid.

  She had a ‘rheumatic pain’ in her spine, which gave her no rest. She treated it with applications of taffeta material, leeches, opodeldoch rubs. She treated it by sitting in the garden with her back to the sun, while her chambermaid Laura shaded her head with one umbrella while she did the same with another. Stefano suggested they pour cold water on her spine from a watering can, seeing that she said this ‘rheumatic pain’ required cold water. Then she felt a great weakness ‘in my legs, my thighs and stomach’. She went for little walks with Laura every day from via del Morone to the Case Rotte, near the Church of San Fedele, ‘because it’s absolutely essential to set those legs and thighs in motion: otherwise I’ll lose the use of them’. But every now and then one of her legs gave way beneath her. She thought it was her age: she was fifty-eight. She had four chambermaids simply to look after her: Laura; Signora Teresina; a certain Luisa from Bruzzano; and Elisa Cermelli, from a quondam noble family from Campolungo. She was not satisfied with the one from Bruzzano: ‘we’ll be patient, we’ll punish her, then if she doesn’t improve, we’ll turn her face towards Bruzzano again’. Each had a particular task: comb her hair, dress her, put her stockings on, carry out the suggestions of Doctor Pogliaghi and Stefano. To Stefano, who escaped to Lesa whenever he could, she regularly sent minute descriptions of her nights and her meals. She had abandoned Boario water in favour of Recoaro water. She was taking an electuary, a paste or powder sweetened with honey. ‘Recoaro, electuary – always. Cutlet, soup and chocolate – always. A tiny drop of wine, very, very little but very good, white, 30 years old, that poor Sogni gave me. . . my legs and feet are not so swollen. But there’s still that pain, though not so violent, in the middle of my shoulders and spine that demands cold water. . .’

  In March 1859, as war appeared imminent, Bista wrote to Manzoni that he thought he should leave Milan. Bista and Vittoria feared Manzoni might be taken hostage, as Filippo had been. Bista offered to come and accompany him to Tuscany.

  Manzoni wrote to him:

  ‘Fata obstant [The fates oppose it]. I could neither bring my wife who, after a sore throat that required bleeding, leeches, decubitus and diet, is dragging herself through a sadly slow convalescence, nor leave her here in this condition. And there are other minor obstacles I won’t talk about now. Moreover, I do not think that, even for an old man enfeebled by years and infirmities, Milan is likely to become dangerous. I know nothing about strategy, but I do know, in fact I remember, that the town has always remained outside the wars that have occurred in these parts.’

  Then he added a few sentences about Enrico. ‘In the midst of my painful worries, which have become more painful than ever (because the person who has so long been rushing towards extreme poverty has reached his goal, and I can only partly remedy his situation), the Lord has granted me a grace I could never have expected: that I can find, not relief but some sort of distraction in work. I have accustomed myself, in moments I might otherwise spend in useless affliction, to take my thoughts by the hair and fix them where there’s something to be done, if not useful, at least not painful. That is why I am asking you to find out if anything has been done on the Vocabulary of Cherubini.’

  However, he changed his mind about staying in Milan. He and Teresa set off with Stefano for Torricella d’Arcellasco. They would have had to request passports for Lesa. At Torricella, Teresa’s brother, Giuseppe Borri, was expecting them. They stayed a month, from 13 May to 14 June.

  On 20 May, the Franco-Piedmontese forces defeated the Austrians at Montebello, and again on 4 June at Magenta.

  On 8 June Vittorio Emanuele II and Napoleon III entered Milan, to the acclamation of the crowd.

  Manzoni returned to Milan the next week.

  Vittorio Emanuele, on a private visit to Milan in August, heard that Manzoni was in financial difficulties. It was decided to assign him a life pension of twelve thousand lire a year, as a reward from the nation.

  Enrico and family had left the villa of Renate, which no longer belonged to them. They went to Torricella di Barzanò, in Brianza. Having heard about his pension, Manzoni wanted to provide for Enrico’s children: he wrote to two Houses of Education arranging for the older children to be accepted there; he sent a seamstress to measure all the children and make them some clothes. Enrico thanked him. But he had taken offence at these paternal initiatives; he wrote to tell Pietro he had other plans for his children’s schooling and sent back the seamstress. Then they heard he had nominated a trustee for himself and a legal representative for the children. His relations with Pietro, which until then had been good, became very bad.

  His father wrote to him:

  ‘Enrico,

  ‘I could have overlooked the indelicacy and bad faith with which you responded to my charitable intentions towards you and your family, while it remained a matter between father and son. But now that you inform me you have, by a notarial deed, nominated a trustee for you and a representative for your children, thus changing a father’s charitable intention into a legal controversy, I declare that, obliged by an action so injurious to me as a father and as a grandfather reluctantly to follow you along this path, I too intend to n
ominate a procurator to represent me in legal matters. . . the state of affairs you have brought about makes this a duty for me to which I am irrevocably bound.’

  On 27 April Florence had risen in revolt. Bista was elected deputy in the Tuscan Council.

  On 20 August he introduced the law proclaiming the union of Tuscany and Piedmont. He took part in the commission which transmitted this vote to Vittorio Emanuele.

  In Milan, speaking from the balcony of La Scala, he was so tired and so excited that he fainted.

  He devoted himself entirely to politics. The faculty of law was restored to Pisa; he was given the chair of History of Law. So he and Vittoria left Siena and went back to live in Pisa. But he was almost always in Turin, and did not spend much time at Pisa.

  In Pisa Vittoria had many friends, and tante Louise and Babbo Gaetano. But her sight had grown worse and her health was poor. She spent long months at Montignoso.

  There she sometimes met Bista’s mother, Signora Carolina. She had been mad for years. She had not brought up her children, they had been brought up by their grandparents. For years she had been living on her own, here and there, in the various Giorgini houses. She was a bigot and lived surrounded by priests and nuns. She could not stand Vittoria. She said to her: