The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  It seems Enrico was an excellent employee, hard-working, scrupulous, conscientious. Which leads one to think that, if it had not been for the silk-worms, the legacy from Giulia, the villa of Renate, the desire to cut a dash in the eyes of his father and brothers, Enrico might have led a normal life.

  In 1876 Matildina came out of the Conservatorio di Sant’ Anna, where she had been for nine years. She had copper-coloured hair and a pale complexion, and when she went to her first ball, with a taffeta dress with fine blue and white stripes, she looked so much like Matilde that Vittoria was disturbed.

  ‘Babbo’ Gaetano had died in Florence in 1874. His wife, Signora Carolina, the one who was mad and moved from house to house, had also died two years later.

  Bista and Vittoria decided to settle in Rome. Bista took a house and arranged the removal. They set off in December 1877. Vittoria and Matildina had never seen Rome. They arrived in the evening and saw a great expanse of light. ‘Rome,’ said Bista.

  The house was in via Cavour. Enrico came to call on them. He had arranged to be transferred, and was now an assistant at the National Library of Rome. He was living with his son Alessandro, who had a wife and small children. It was a great pleasure for Vittoria to be with Enrico again. They had not met for such a long time. And now they were the only two remaining of the nine children. They had so many things to talk about! Enrico got in the habit of coming to see her often with Alessandro, his wife, the wife’s sisters, and the children. But Bista was not so pleased with these visits. He did not like Enrico. He said he had caused his father so much suffering and he could not forget this. Whether Enrico asked them for money, whether he talked to them of Pietro in the obscure, tortuous way he did to Stefano, Vittoria does not say in her memoirs.

  Enrico died in Rome in 1881, attended by his son Alessandro and family. He had lost his reason. He said il Caleotto was his again, and the property at Lecco, and all the places named in I promessi sposi.

  In 1878 Stefano painted two pictures: Emanuele Filiberto, lost on a hunt, asks the way of a mountaineer, and Beech Wood. They were enormous paintings. He maintained he was more successful with large than small paintings. He wanted to show them at the Brera, but first he wanted an opinion of the Beech Wood from Couture, a French painter he had once met on his visit to Paris ten years before. He wrote to Couture, asking his permission to send him for his comment a painting, with which he would include some bottles of wine. Couture replied coldly that he did not give opinions of other people’s works, he only judged his own. He should keep the picture and just send the wine. However, he could if he liked wrap the bottle in one of his studies, ‘which would be sufficient for me to judge your talent and tell you all the truths I found in the bottom of my glass. Yours, Couture.’ Stefano sent him the wine, ‘the bottles of Lacrimacristi you wished to sample,’ and in the crate he put a tiny Beech Wood, done during his stay in Paris. ‘I beg you to tell me if it has verdure, light, truth. . . On the other hand, if you think it is an abominable crust, tell me frankly all the same, I shall still be grateful for I love truth above all things. . . Believe me your most humble and obedient servant.’

  Matildina got married in 1880. She went to live at Modena with her husband, Roberto Schiff, a professor of chemistry.

  Bista and Vittoria wanted their son Giorgino to take up a military career. He did not want to. At twenty-seven, he left the army. Bista had a marble quarry at Massa Carrara; Giorgino decided to take charge of it.

  In 1881 Bista and Vittoria left Rome and settled at Montagnoso. Vittoria did not like it, especially in the winter, but resigned herself to it. She began to write, with great difficulty because her sight was so bad; she wrote poetry, and her memoirs. As for Bista, he was never bored; like his father and grandfather, he had a weakness for mortar: he had dams, walls, houses built; the walls he had built along the mountain streams were always collapsing and having to be rebuilt; she thought all those wretched little houses spoiled the view.

  In 1882 Stefano brought out a book of philosophical and religious writings, called Il numero infinito. It did not bear his name, only his initials, S. S.

  He sent one of the first copies to Antonio Stoppani, the great scientist and geologist, priest of liberal ideas, a student of Rosmini. Stefano knew him only by sight. Stoppani replied: ‘I have dipped into your book, and in general it seems to me an excellent work, worthy of a Rosminian. But why did you not put your name to it? When I read a book by an anonymous author, I feel as if I am listening to someone speaking through a keyhole. I am always keen to look people who talk to me in the face. . . I believe you are a priest, like me, and perhaps not unknown to me.’

  Stefano wrote to him:

  ‘I confess I had the temerity to try to present my scribblings to you before they were printed. . . But this scheme failed. . . and I printed them à la grace de Dieu! . . . It is not because I lack the courage of my convictions that I appended only my initials to the volume, but for two reasons. The first is this. . . Accustomed since childhood to hearing home-truths not only without compliments, but also without regard, even harshly, accustomed to being taken seriously by nobody. . . in the course of time I grew accustomed to live completely unknown. . . so I calculated that, if the book were worthless, no one would speak of it. . . but if the book were considered to have any value, I could not bear the idea that I would not hear the same home truths as in the past, or of being treated with any greater regard than that accorded to any middle-class citizen: this is the reason for the initials, and I think you cannot altogether disapprove the second reason. If it should ever be true. . . that my book could do a little good to anyone, I tried by remaining anonymous to avoid the application of the fatal saying: you have already received your reward. . .1 had to smile at your error in imagining me to be a Priest! I am an artist; that is to say, a mediocre landscape painter who had some bent for music, some love of science, but no bent for philosophy, and still less for metaphysics, and none at all for poetry. Indeed, I devoted to the book only the winter hours of the evening, and of the morning by lamp-light. And if I had not feared falling into humbug, I would have put an inscription on the frontispiece Loisirs d’un artiste. . .’

  That summer Stefano wrote to Vittoria. He knew she was putting her father’s letters in order. He had not written to her for a long time and had thought of her with affection. He told her a little of himself, but only a little. He said he spent a lot of time at Torricella, and that he had with him someone she perhaps remembered, as this person had cared for Teresa in her last years.

  Vittoria replied:

  ‘My dearest Stefano,

  ‘Perhaps you won’t believe this, but the other day. . . when I was in my room, with poor Papa’s letters in my hand, I was just thinking of you, dear Stefano! and saying: if this is ever published, I will send it to Stefano myself, with these words: To dearest Stefano, her last surviving Brother, his poor affectionate sister Vittoria sends this sad and tender memory of times past. And I was so absorbed in these thoughts and this fond plan, that I heard my name called repeatedly without even thinking of answering. Then my Matildina (who will be a mother in a few days) came in saying they were calling me to give me a letter (which she had in her hand). I told her to read it, that it must be from such-and-such etc. “No,” she replied, “guess who?” And I went on to suggest such another etc. etc. “No, no,” she went on, “do you want to know? It’s from your brother Stefano!” And she began to laugh at my air of bewilderment, and asked me why ever this news should affect me like that! “Don’t you know,” I answered, “that I was just thinking of Stefano? . . . thinking back to so many things from the past, I was saying to myself that I now had only him to turn to and say: do you remember? It’s true that this thought has come to me many times (like so very many others from those happy days!) but today I couldn’t get it out of my mind. And just at that moment I receive a letter from him and have the comforting proof that he too has not altogether forgotten me!” Then reading this dear, good, affect
ionate letter, I saw, poor Stefano, not only that you had not forgotten me, but that you even remember the name you gave me! . . . Unfortunately le petit écureuil has changed into an old monkey! . . . Yes, dear Stefano, these memories of happy times appear to us now like a sweet dream, and make the sad reality of life appear more bitter. . . and perhaps you, poor Stefano, are the only survivor from that vast and terrible shipwreck! the only friend remaining from so many who had a little affection for me! I assure you that this thought, in the midst of so much grief, so many tremendous losses, has always been a comfort to me, and now I feel it still more strongly. . . Dear Stefano, in your first letter (if you will write me another) I should like you to tell me a bit more about yourself: if you are painting, if you are playing the piano, what sort of life you lead. I think so often of the furniture that surrounds you, and I see it so clearly!. . . Please tell me if the lady you speak of is Laura. If so, give her my affectionate regards. And you, my dearest Stefano, do think again some time of poor Vittoria. .

  However, she did not want to see him again, and they never met. She said the taverns in their valley were uncomfortable, and they could not put him up in their house, which they were sharing with a brother of Bista’s.

  That summer, at Montignoso, Matildina had a baby boy, who was called Ruggero. Two years later, at Modena, she had another boy, Alessandro. This second child died of typhus. Matildina spent another winter at Modena, but it was a sad winter for her, and she was ill all the time; the cold climate at Modena did not suit her. She came back to her mother. They spent a few months at Massarosa and a few at Montagnoso. Matildina’s husband came to live at Massa Carrara; he had asked for leave of absence from the university, and busied himself with a tram-line going from the quarries to the sea.

  In 1883, when the monument to Manzoni was inaugurated, very many articles appeared about him, and some said things that Stefano thought false and senseless; he wrote letters to La Perseveranza denying them. Vittoria laughed with him about them. Someone had written that Manzoni had tried to kill himself when Enrichetta died. That his mother put two lire in his hand every week and Manzoni put them in the little pocket of his waistcoat. That his son Pietro threw a bucket of water over his door every evening so that Manzoni, who hated walking on a wet floor, would not come out of his room and wake him up. ‘And isn’t that one about the scales stupid?’ Vittoria wrote to Stefano. They had said Manzoni had a barometer and a scales in his room, and every morning he would look at the barometer and weigh out on the scales according to the weather the clothes he would put on. Vittoria: ‘As if a garment of coarse cloth were not heavier than a warmer one of cashmere! In any case, who ever saw him do such things? certainly not I!’

  In 1885 Stefano published a book of memories and testimonies of the years he had spent close to Manzoni. He still put his initials, not his name. The book was in the third person, and he spoke of himself as ‘the stepson’. He was especially concerned to combat what Cantú had written of Manzoni in his Reminiscenze. He kept quoting Cantú’s statements, and opposing his own reflections or memories. But the reader often feels Cantú is right and Stefano wrong; there is a forced ring about Stefano’s statements that is not at all convincing.

  Vittoria read the book with irritation. There was an extract from a letter she had written to Stefano the year before; just a few sentences, affectionate about Teresa, but alluding to malicious rumours; and a footnote said ‘there follow intimate thoughts’; Vittoria thought it indelicate of Stefano to publish an extract from her letter without asking her, and found the footnote indelicate too. And he spoke of her sister Cristina in a way that seemed to her brusque and rough. And what of Pietro? he was hardly mentioned. However, Vittoria was pleased that Cantú should be opposed, for she detested him; and all in all, with many reservations, she liked this book of Stefano’s.

  In 1887 Stefano got married. He had been living with Elisa for many years. She had a lot of relatives at Campolungo; they were all Stefano’s peasants, as he had inherited the land from his Uncle Giuseppe. They were flabbergasted.

  The same year he brought out another book, Il simbolo ros-miniano.

  In 1888 the Holy Office condemned the Forty Propositions of Antonio Rosmini. Violent disputes broke out. A periodical appeared, Il Rosmini, edited by Stoppani. It included an article by Abbé Paoli, ‘Le opinione di Antonio Rosmini’. Stefano was writing to him continually. Abbé Paoli was eighty The condemnation had disturbed him profoundly. It was clear that the Jesuits were determined to attack the Istituto della Carità.

  Cristina, one of Filippo’s daughters, wrote to Stefano asking him either for money, or for a picture, a portrait she knew Stefano had done of her father long ago. Stefano sent her both money and painting. Cristina had married a cousin, a son of Enrico’s called Eugenio. They had both started off poor, and in marrying they became even poorer. Stefano helped them. Eugenio was an assistant at the Brera National Library, as Enrico once had been. He lost his job. His wife wrote to Stefano again. ‘Would you, Count, be so generous and courteous and kind as to supply me with 50 lire?’ She undertook to return it to him in five months, at ten lire a month. This time Stefano refused. ‘I am not rich enough to be able frequently to provide sums that are asked of me.’ He also replied in the negative to Enrico’s widow, Emilia Radaelli, who was asking him for money. He had been told she was getting help from relatives on her mother’s side.

  He began to fear that he was no longer rich at all. He wrote to Vittoria complaining of the anxious, laborious life he led, visiting his estates, and of all the new claims advanced by the peasants. Vittoria: ‘Poor dear Stefano! What tribulations you too are experiencing! . . . What trials and tribulations, poor Stefano! Once at least there were not all these strikes! Alas. . . they may well say the world is not what it was in our day! It is true, there has always been evil! But now evil is good; and men are no longer responsible beings! but let’s leave it there, because one could say so much!’ She was writing from Massarosa. ‘You won’t remember that Papa was here at Massarosa in the autumn of ‘52 with poor Pietro. I was expecting my Giorgio who is now 37 going on 38. He is always involved in business, which means involved in vexations. At the moment he is at Massa where he has his office for the marble trade. Of course, it’s called trade, though it’s selling marble from our estate. He also has a tram-line at Massa, going from the sea to the quarries. . . Please give my affectionate regards to your excellent wife, and thank her from me for the real and respectful love she bears you which makes me feel more at ease about you, poor Stefano, in the midst of all the woes that surround you! Oh! if only one day we could be together in the Kingdom which is not of this world! I do not deserve it, but. . . the Lord will help me’

  Vittoria and Stefano exchanged opinions about medicines. Stefano had always been obsessed with medicines, like his mother, and now Vittoria had the same obsession. ‘I take the lithia in wafer-powder. . . I’ve had to take it in water because it was upsetting my stomach. . . as soon as I can, I shall start taking it again between February and March, because in the spring, and even between February and March, I am worse. But it’s not the arthritis that’s worse, it’s my general condition. . . the- lithia usually slowly dissolves the deposits that form in my joints; It facilitates and clarifies the water; and in every way it’s the king of remedies for arthritis.’ She was writing again from Massarosa. They had spent the summer at Montignoso. ‘Bista and I have been here since the fourth of this month [it was November], and our life is solitary and monotonous. But as far as I’m concerned it is my good habit never to be bored when I’m alone! my daughter Matilde is not far away.’ She was at Massa Carrara with her husband and little boy. ‘. . . I come here in a closed carriage, a couple of hours drive, and I’m at home. What about you? are you in Milan? what are you doing? how do you feel in health and spirits? do you really not play the piano any more? You paint, or not even that any more? . . . And now goodbye, dear Stefano. My eyes are getting appreciably worse! My best regards to your w
ife. . . What is your wife’s name? Which year did she come to us? You did say I knew her. But you also said it wasn’t Laura. I’ve wondered this so often, so do tell me.’

  That was Vittoria’s last letter to Stefano.

  He heard, from a letter from Matildina, that Vittoria had died of pneumonia two months later, on 15 January 1892.

  That year Stefano published another book: Let us combat atheism – Reflections by S. S.

  He settled at Torricella. He subscribed to the Nuovo Risorgimento, a periodical that came out in Turin, and maintained a lengthy correspondence with its director, Lorenzo Michelangelo Billia, whom he had known for many years. Abbé Paoli was dead, as was Antonio Stoppani, and there were few Rosminians now. But the Istituto della Carità and the Pio Istituto della Provvidenza still existed at Milan.

  He used to go for long walks in the fields and woods, looking for places he would like to paint. Elisa would follow him, carrying his easel and brushes.

  If he met the Torricella doctor, Cesare Sala, he would stop to talk to him. His wife would pull at his jacket, ‘Steven! Steven!’ to get him to go home.

  Enrichetta Garavaglia Baroggi wrote to him. She was one of the ‘two Enrichettas’ and daughter of Cristina and Cristoforo Baroggi. She had grown up in the Garavaglia family and married a relative of theirs. She had lost a little boy of five, Tognino, in 1869, and Manzoni had written an epitaph for him. All those years later she still wept for this little boy, who was gifted with extraordinary, precocious intelligence, according to the epitaph. She had come to call on Stefano at Milan and failed to find him. She wanted to see him, simply because she jealously preserved the affections of her childhood’ and knew how ‘close to my poor Mama’ Stefano had been. In fact, Stefano had not been particularly close to Cristina but now that whole vanishing world seemed to him radiant and precious.