The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Manzoni and Stefano remained on affectionate terms, but they did not see each other often. When he wanted to tell him something, Manzoni would write to Rossari: ‘As I don’t know where to find that vagabond Stefano. .

  If he wrote to Stefano, he signed himself: ‘as ‘twere, your father’.

  The rule his mother had taught him about the u was impressed on Stefano’s mind for ever: you must not say buono or cuore, but bono and core. As long as they lived, Manzoni, Stefano and Teresa never forgot it. All the others, Vittoria, Bista, Pietro, Enrico, Filippo – all put the u.

  However, Enrico wrote core once or twice, perhaps by chance. He read of Teresa’s death in the newspaper. His father had not written to him, because he was still angry with him about the story of the innkeeper at Bizzarone.

  Enrico then wrote to his father:

  ‘My dearest Father,

  ‘Only from yesterday’s paper have I been able to find out today of the misfortune which has recently stricken your heart, and our family, with the loss of poor Mama. My heart [core] shares your grief, and I accept as a punishment that I should have been informed only by the gazette, as if I were a stranger to the family. Yet you must believe, dear Papa, that nothing that moves you can be indifferent to me, my heart suffers with you. May the Lord mitigate the extremity of your grief with the thought that after so much suffering She now enjoys the bliss of the Blessed. My whole family respectfully begs you to accept this expression of our grief.’

  In 1862 Enrico and family left Casatenovo and came to live in Milan. They encamped in a small apartment in via San Vittore, with a long gallery common to all the tenants overlooking the courtyard, on the third and top floor of a building with a cook-shop on the ground floor. The tenant on the first floor, one Santamaria, later described to some friends all he could remember of this Manzoni family who had come to live above him: a large family with children of all ages, living in considerable discomfort. The father, ‘a man of fairly short stature, with a top hat, almost always with a long cigar in his mouth’, had no occupation and spent his days on the bridge, ‘as if he were on guard’, motionless, staring at the waters of the Naviglio. The mother had distinguished manners and modest clothes. She was always busy, as she had no maid. There were two slender girls who looked alike, and on Sundays they went one at a time to mass, because they had only one overcoat and one best coat between them. Often one of the girls would knock on a neighbour’s door to ask for a bit of bacon or butter, with the excuse that the shops were shut. Then one of the girls got married. It was the eldest, Enrichetta, who was then twenty-one. She married one Preti from Casatenovo, an elementary schoolteacher, town clerk and organist. The tenant observed that it was a ‘marriage worth having’ in their conditions. Word went round among the tenants in the building and the neighbours that the famous Alessandro Manzoni, grandfather of the bride, was coming to the wedding. So they all drew up in serried ranks on the stairs, and watched ‘the great, admired old man, pass by with slow step, somewhat bowed’. Then he left and there was a great dinner at the eating-house on the ground floor. The tenant went on to relate that when the meal was over, the bride was not there. They called vociferously for her; she ran downstairs shouting in dialect: ‘What a hurry you’re in, all of you! Now you’ve eaten and drunk. . . just have a pause and draw breath!’ To the poor girl who never had enough to eat, that meal must have seemed the most important part of the day.

  When she went back to live in Casatenovo with her husband, she wrote to her grandfather saying she was very happy. He replied that this news afforded him ‘real and solid consolation’. In the past, when she was a little girl, he had sent her a copy of Ipromessi sposi with a dedication which said. :

  ‘Enrichetta! a sweet, sacred and blessed name to all who were permitted to know the one you were named after; a name signifying faith, purity, wisdom, love of her family, benevolence to all, sacrifice, humility, all that is holy, all that is lovable. May this name, by the grace of God, be to you a perpetual counsellor and living example.’

  He transcribed the same words in a letter to Cristina’s daughter, Enrichetta Baroggi. The two Enrichettas had become friends. Enrichetta Baroggi, who had grown up in the Garavaglia family, relatives of the Baroggis, was very sorry for these cousins who were so poor, and tried to help them with presents and her cast-off clothes.

  After the marriage of the oldest daughter, conditions did not improve for Enrico’s family, but became still more disastrous. Enrico sent a succession of letters to his father with thanks and requests. ‘For several days now I’ve been without wood and only with difficulty have I been able to keep a little fire alight. . . I owe three months to the laundress. . . if you could let me have something tomorrow, father dear. . . While you have been in the country I have only received the rice twice. . . and for some time now we’ve had none at all. – I hardly know what I suffer at having to write to you all the time, and certainly for annoying you. – Also for need of a hat, at least for Alessandro, who could not appear at the Institute tomorrow with the one he has without incurring humiliating observations. For myself, I can have patience and wait for a better moment, but I exhort you not to leave Alessandro in this state. . . Just as I was taking up my pen to thank you for the beautiful basket of fruit you sent yesterday, I received some superb apples, three pullets and some potatoes. Dear Papa, my heartfelt thanks, and double thanks for the good things you provide and for the good it does my heart to know that in your great kindness you do not forget your poor Enrico and his family. Unfortunately, in spite of the vigorous measures we have taken, the tertian fever has not left us yet. . .’In 1863, Erminia, their last baby, was born. ‘With great delight I can give you exellent news of our dear, good Emilia who a few moments ago gave birth to a little girl, who is a real angel. . . You can’t imagine how my hand shakes after such prolonged agitation and such joy.’ At last he had a small post in Customs and Excise. But he earned very little and there were so many of them: and this small salary changed nothing.

  Manzoni was reconciled with Filippo in summer 1862. All year he had been receiving dramatic letters from him.

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death. . . Clemente has seen my abject poverty, so he can tell you it is no pretence. I have no shoes for my feet, if I don’t pay for the room I can’t sleep, I don’t know where to lay down my head. I’m living on soup and potatoes. . . if you could kindly see your way to not counting the 30 francs you’ve already given me, I would thank you with tears in my eyes. . .’

  A few months later he was asking for five hundred francs to settle his debts in Milan, and a delay in the monthly deductions from his allowance to meet advances. He went to Turin to look for a job.

  From Turin:

  ‘I would like to ask you, if it does not seem too bold, to be so kind as to help me with something to buy a little wood for the winter, which is usually a fairly harsh season in Turin, so that I can at least take refuge in my little room; I beg this favour of you, because if I had to make this provision myself it would so unbalance my little Budget of about 3 and a half lire a day, that it would be quite impossible for me to proceed without embarrassment in this town, where board and food are quite a bit dearer than in Milan. .

  He left Turin and went to Genoa, but he found no work there either. He ran into debt. Manzoni received a letter from a creditor in Genoa. He replied in the usual way:

  ‘With sincere regret I am obliged to state that I cannot accept responsibility for my son Filippo’s commitment towards you.

  ‘The said son left Genoa provided with sufficient money to have no need to beg. .

  After Genoa he returned to Milan, where he had probably left his wife and children, but he made no mention of them in letters to his father. In 1862 he was thirty-eight. He had four children: Giulio, Massimiliano, Cristina, Paola. It seems that Manzoni occasionally sent the children presents through the Nanny, or the valet Clemente.

  When he got back to Milan, Filippo fell ill. He wrote to his father: />
  ‘I take the liberty of writing to you, appealing with most heartfelt prayers to your good will, that you will not abandon me in the deplorable state of health to which I am reduced. The presence of gravel increases each day, and yesterday again, after the most acute spasms, I passed a piece of a quite considerable volume; vesicular erythema is appearing on my skin, and a continuous itching torment, both of which indicate a corruption in the blood. . . The wretched state of health in which I was carried away as a hostage, in spite of various treatments I have taken since which always proved imperfect, is now producing its fatal effects.’ A certain Doctor Viberti had recommended seabathing. ‘Your heart, always so kind and generous, even in far less important and serious circumstances of my life than this, will not remain closed to the imploring voice of a son who is suffering and appealing to you for aid. . .’

  His father came to his help. Filippo met Pietro, with whom he had broken off relations so many years ago.

  Victoria’s baby, Matildina, was growing into a sweet, healthy child; ‘rosy lips’ Manzoni used to call her in his letters; she was a great comfort to Vittoria. Giorgino, too, was growing up, a healthy, alert boy. But Vittoria was always ill. She contracted a deforming arthritis. She felt she had become ugly; she searched in the mirror for signs of the illness on her face and her person. Moreover, she suffered from Bista’s long absences, always travelling on political commitments, summoned to a thousand and one duties.

  She recalled in her memoirs:

  ‘One morning when Bista had left for Turin, I found on my desk these verses, written by him:

  O dolce amica dei miei di che furo.

  E dei prosperi casi e dei dolenti,

  Perché tremando interroghi il futuro

  E ti tormenti?

  Quel che ci aspetta, investigare è vano,

  Ma sempre il mio cammin, qual ch’egli sia,

  Mi sarà lieve infin che la tua mano

  stringa la mia.

  [O sweet companion of my days that were, / In moments of prosperity and pain, / Why tremble as you search the future years, / and thus torment yourself in vain?

  For vain it is to question what’s in store, / I know my path, whatever may betide, / Will be an easy one for ever more, / so long as you are at my side.]

  ‘“My dear Bista,” I thought, “Yes, life is easy for you! even joyful for you, as you are feted, applauded, in the House, in groups of friends, in ladies’ drawing-rooms – but me?” and I fell into one of those moments of proud distress, by which I was often assailed in those days. But God had mercy on me – I soon found myself again – and from these brief struggles I emerged stronger and more serene, because I was clinging more tightly to the Cross. . .’

  She did not write to her father. She had been told not to tire her eyes. Her father did not write to her either, but he wrote very often to Bista. They were working together on the Vocabulário della lingua italiana, which Manzoni had planned with Gino Capponi years before at Varramista.

  In spring 1864 Manzoni went to Tuscany; he travelled with Bista, and Giovannina, Pietro’s wife. He stayed at Pisa for a few weeks with Vittoria and the children; and then at Florence as the guest of Gino Capponi. He saw Tommaseo whom he had not seen for many years. He spent a month in Tuscany.

  In December he and Bista went to Turin. Manzoni wished to cast his vote for the transferring of the capital to Florence, which for him meant getting one step nearer the possibility of Rome soon being the capital. The Arconatis and Massimo d’Azeglio had seen Bista in Turin where the Arconatis now lived – and had asked him to get Manzoni to stay where he was, as they were strongly opposed to the transferring of the capital, and wanted Manzoni to abstain from voting. Pietro was afraid his father would catch cold in the train, and he called Doctor Pogliaghi to dissuade him from travelling. But Manzoni was determined to go, and set off with Bista at dawn. ‘It’s obvious these gentlemen don’t know Papa,’ Bista wrote to Vittoria from Turin, ‘not I, nor Donna Costanza, nor any other would be capable of making him change his mind; the idée fixe of Rome is rooted more firmly than ever in his head. . . I will look up Massimo, for I am sure he won’t fail to come and meet Papa. Addio.’

  Massimo, on the contrary, did not come to see Papa, and Manzoni and Bista went to call on him: but they did not touch on the burning topic of the capital at Florence, and Massimo spoke only of his current passion, spiritualism; he had begun to conduct experiments, and believed he was in close communication with the world of the dead.

  Massimo was almost always at his villa at Cànnero, on Lake Maggiore at that time. A nephew whom he loved like a son, Emanuel, had become an ambassador. But he felt he had been left out of Italian political life, and said that, after the death of Cavour, who had sometimes asked his opinion, nobody ever asked him anything now. He was tired and disillusioned. He suffered from his old war-wound in the knee, which had never healed properly. He spent long spells at Cànnero. In spring 1865 he came to Pisa and saw Bista and Vittoria; they found him changed, and very much older; he spent hours drawing and making little toys to amuse the children. He went back to Cànnero, and from there wrote to tante Louise:

  ‘I don’t know why people suppose I have retired altogether. Certainly, I can’t ride, or play the assiduous minister, or even senator, because my age and health make me unfit for it. But it seems to me I have always worked, and published; and that I have been sufficiently scorned and abused to have no wish to woo the populace. Close to my seventies, with the life I’ve led, and not being strong, it’s understandable I should find it difficult to do much more! As far as I’m concerned, I have no regrets. I wish you good bathing.’

  From the priest at Casatenovo, don Saulle Miglio, Manzoni received a letter, written and sent to the priest by Emilia, Enrico’s wife. It was full of bitter resentment against Pietro. She accused Pietro of living at his ease while they were in abject poverty. She accused him of running them down to his father, and dissuading him from helping them. On the one hand she said she hoped for a reconciliation between the brothers, and on the other hinted at her intention to make it publicly known how things stood. Manzoni wrote back sadly to the priest, sending a list in minute detail of the sums sent to Enrico and expenses sustained on his behalf in the course of the year.

  Then one of Enrico’s daughters, Sofia, became seriously ill. She was fourteen. Enrico wrote to his father:

  ‘My daughter Sofia needs foods which I unfortunately cannot provide, after exhausting every possible human endeavour on her behalf these last three months; I should therefore like to beg you to send her a morsel of some of the dishes from your table, which would give her so much pleasure. Doctor Garavaglia insists I should take her to the country with the others, who are all more or less unwell all the time, and he wanted me to ask you to let me take them to Brusuglio for a few days, after which Sofia could go for a while to her sister, which is impossible at the moment. I wrote to suggest it to Pietro, so that he could tell me if you were delaying much longer going there, but I had no answer. If this is not possible I should have to find some sort of small house, as it is my sacred duty to provide what is required for Sofia’s health.

  ‘If you could see the poor girl’s exhausted condition, it would move you to pity. . . Sofia asked me to write all this to you, which strengthened my courage. She would like a little bar of chocolate, and, if it were possible, perhaps a pullet, such as you used to send some time ago, would be very nice. . .’

  It seemed that Sofia got better. But they did not move from Milan; and Enrico gave his father a fairly desolate picture of the family and himself. It was July, and he had to go to the office in his winter clothes: ‘and I assure you I am suffering because there are times when I feel I am stifling.’ He had had to borrow money from friends and ask for advances on his salary. ‘My children’s health is suffering because for six months and more they have not been able to leave the house as they have neither clothes nor shoes, and I am blamed for this; moreover I will soon have no more indoor clot
hes for them. . . Your cast-off clothes and linen would do very well for Eugenio and Lodovico. Unfortunately there are eleven of us, and you know how I was without anything from the time I arrived in Milan. . . Now I have to feed Sofia on chicken. . . and I have to make her soups almost like jelly, and your cook will tell you what they cost.

  ‘Oh Father, please take thought, allow me to trust in your goodness and mercy, as I kiss your hands, with a heart deeply moved. A son implores you at a moment of supreme need.’

  His father came to his aid. The family was sent to the country, not to Brusuglio but somewhere else. Enrico remained in Milan; his father sent Filippo to speak to him; he declared to Filippo that he would accept no intermediary in his dealings with his father. Then he told his father he was thinking of moving house; his father found him a place, paid the rent, and arranged to have some of his own furniture sent there. But Enrico left that apartment and took another that he preferred; he moved in with the furniture, and wrote to tell his father the new address when it was a fait accompli. His father:

  ‘You tell me you’ve found a new place to live, and send me the address as if it were the most natural thing in the world. . . You had asked me for wood, and, as usual, I had given orders that it should be sent to you; but I have cancelled the order, as it cannot be delivered tq your home, and I do not wish, by sending it elsewhere, to seem to condone this removal.’

  At the same time Sofia, who seemed to be recovering, fell ill again and died. Enrico’s oldest daughter and her cousin, the two Enrichettas, came to tell Manzoni. Manzoni sent money.

  Enrico:

  ‘My excellent and sacred Father,