Lucia (11 page)

Von Kempelen was an intriguing character, a talented inventor with a bit of the prankster in him. He had already wowed the world with a mechanical chess-playing machine—a small cabinet on wheels containing a tiny wooden man wearing a turban, known as the Turk. In reality, a dwarf chess wizard controlled the movements of the Turk from inside the cabinet, but the trick was not discovered until many years later and von Kempelen’s machine went on baffling chess players the world over. The Talking Machine, on the other hand, was a legitimate contraption. All Vienna rushed to see it, and Lucia did not want to miss out on the great event. What she saw, as she struggled among the pressing crowd, was an elongated object that looked like a bellows with a keyboard. Inside was an elaborate machine made up of tubes, reeds, wires and a small mechanical device described as a “resonator.” The room went silent, von Kempelen sat down to play his Talking Machine, and Lucia was amazed to hear a series of human-like utterances, each connected to the other, and modulated at will by the inventor of this primitive form of synthetic speech.

Despite her escapade, Lucia reached the end of her first three months of pregnancy in fine shape. She now faced a choice: stay in Vienna until she delivered the child, as Doctor Vespa insisted, or risk it and travel home, as she felt inclined to do. Vespa’s recommendation made sense to Alvise. And it certainly made sense to Alvise’s mother, Chiara, who immediately wrote to her daughter-in-law that she “endlessly applauded” the illustrious obstetrician’s advice. “The displeasure in not seeing you sooner,” she added, “will be amply compensated by the sheer jubilation I shall feel at the thought of you being solidly and firmly pregnant, without the slightest fear of some ruinous development.”
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But it was not enough to sway Lucia. She wanted to be near her father. And she wanted to be near her sister, whose pregnancy was only one month ahead of hers. Lucia could think of nothing sweeter than the two of them keeping each other company as their bellies swelled, and later nursing their babies together.

It had been some time since the sisters, who had been inseparable during the earlier part of their life, had felt so close. In the past few years, as she coped with her miserable string of miscarriages, Lucia had seen Paolina drift away from her, into her own new family circle. It was easy enough to understand: she had been separated from her beloved older sister at fourteen, she had spent nearly three years locked up in a convent, she had emerged from Celestia to marry a man she became devoted to, and immediately had a daughter on whom she doted. Still, Lucia had counted on more sympathy and attention from Paolina during her difficult times, and she now told her frankly how much she had been hurt when “you did not show me the same tenderness as in the past.”
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Just as frankly, Paolina replied that she too had suffered to see Lucia behave so coldly when Cattina, her little baby girl, was born. To which a miffed Lucia reacted as a first-born would, rejecting with indignation “the injury you do to my heart, which loved the niece from the very start.”

Their correspondence over the summer did much to clear the air and re-establish their old familiarity. “Thank God those endless recriminations are over,” Lucia declared, adding with mock pomposity: “My dearest, I’m rather pleased by the new direction you have taken with regard to your affection for me.”
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Their sisterly love, so long neglected, filled them with warmth and joy. “The faith your heart has in my love for you touches me deeply. My greatest pleasure here is to spend my time in your company, writing letters to you.”

At the end of October Lucia’s mind was made up: she would make the trip to Venice, regardless of what Doctor Vespa thought. “How could I possibly leave you alone in your circumstances? And not to see Papa after such a long illness! Alvise, whose duty calls him back to Venice, would also be far away from me if I stayed…I simply cannot resist the temptation any more.” She understood what “a risky gamble” she was taking by ignoring Vespa’s advice: “If fate wills it, I could well have to renounce for ever the longed for succession. I must do everything in my power to make this family happy, and I would only have myself to blame if it were left without an heir.”
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She knew what was expected of her; the pressure was considerable. Yet she decided to follow her instinct and do what she felt was best for her, which included “having the assistance of the people I love and by whom I am loved during the most interesting moment in my life.”
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It was all set: she fixed her departure for 20 November and assured Doctor Vespa she would take every precaution during the trip. Once home she would spend as much time as possible in the country, leading a very tranquil life. Doctor Vespa grumbled and growled like an old bear, but as Lucia was adamant he shrugged his shoulders and prescribed bloodletting sessions before the trip. Lucia went shopping for warm clothes she would need during the journey across the Alps. But on 15 November Vespa came to check on her again and showed great alarm. Her pregnancy, he warned, was suddenly at risk again; and she was also very weak. In all conscience he could not allow her to make the voyage back home.

Lucia was crushed. Was Doctor Vespa acting in good faith? Perhaps, but it is at least plausible he made up some medical excuse to prevent her from leaving, possibly in connivance with Alvise. In her letters to Paolina, Lucia never mentioned any pain or any complications. On the contrary, she wrote over and over again how healthy she felt and how well the pregnancy was proceeding and how excited she was to be going home. “I cannot begin to tell you about this new situation,” she wrote to her sister with resignation. “Only you can imagine how I feel.”
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Alvise returned to Venice, leaving Lucia to spend the winter in her isolated cocoon on the Kohlmarkt. As the freezing Viennese temperatures set in, she retreated to her warm apartment above the street bustle, seldom venturing outside and drifting into a dreamy world of her own where she was free to conjure up her sister’s presence. “I spend my time pleasantly building castles in the air with my imagination,” she wrote tenderly. “I walk around the house hoping to see you suddenly appear…sometimes I imagine you watching over me…I know your feelings for me, my dear, and I can assure you mine are the same for you.”
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Lucia admired Paolina’s moral fibre and the goodness of her heart, and she was a little in awe of the depth of her spirituality. She remembered her sister having a strong religious sensibility as a young girl. Her long stay at Celestia had no doubt strengthened it. Paolina yearned to devote her life to the poor and the ill. She composed prayers for Lucia, slipping them in the envelope she addressed every week to Vienna. Lucia’s religious sentiment was not as deep as her sister’s and she did not compose prayers for her, but she sent other tokens of her love that were just as touching. When Alvise headed for Venice, for example, Lucia gave him an envelope for Paolina containing her favourite earrings. “They are not new but are the latest fashion here,” she explained to her sister. “I’ve often used them and it will give me pleasure to think of you putting them to your ears at the same time as I, by sheer force of habit, would think of putting them to mine.”
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The small staff in the house, a maid and a cook, spoke only German, a language with which Lucia was having a good deal of difficulty. Communications were limited to the bare necessities, thereby increasing Lucia’s sense of isolation. The one person who came in and out was Doctor Vespa. He was Lucia’s link to the outside world; a benign, avuncular presence. He came by every day to check on how the pregnancy was proceeding, answer questions about what she was going to go through during delivery and illustrate his theories about nursing. The subject matter was endless and Lucia was an eager questioner. But the two also chatted and gossiped, and Doctor Vespa never failed to fill her in with the latest on the state of Empress Maria Theresa’s pregnancy. He was happy to dispense medical advice of all kinds, prescribing laurel oil baths for Paolina’s frequent blood discharges and aromatic tisanes to reduce her flatulence, special unguents for Alvise’s haemorrhoids and balls of opium to ease poor Memmo’s pain and give him a chance to rest. Lucia told Paolina:

Doctor Vespa says opium is the most effective remedy in such cases. Giving him just enough to doze off won’t do, I’m afraid. He needs a ball of opium every four hours for it to work. Make sure his swollen parts are kept moist and soft with the proper creams. And remember Doctor Vespa also advises he should be taking a few spoonfuls of China salt. My dearest sister, I know how much you love [our father] and how much you love me, and therefore I beg you to follow these instructions carefully.
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It broke her heart not to be with her father.

Hug Papa for me very, very tightly, and tell him not to worry because otherwise I shall not cease to worry myself. Above all, protect him from ordinary balsams that will only cause more inflammation and prevent other pernicious steps by all those so-called professors who have already been the cause of so many unhappy errors.

Vespa was one of the best-known doctors in Europe and Lucia, quite understandably, fell very much under his spell. Less so Paolina, who often stood her ground in her long-distance disputes with him. The discussion could turn quite heated, with Lucia stepping in to find some middle ground, especially when it touched issues related to childbirth—a field about which Paolina, already a mother, felt women knew more than men ever would, even if they were eminent doctors. Which was the best way to bring a child to life? Doctor Vespa wanted Lucia to deliver lying down in bed “since he strongly feels that it is the safer and more comfortable position.” Paolina argued that it was much more natural to deliver “in the chair,” that is sitting in a specially designed armchair with a large hole in the seat, and pushing downwards. This way the weight of gravity did much of the work, and the mother had only to help things along. It was, she argued, the more “natural” way to give birth. Vespa replied, through Lucia, that if Paolina wanted nature to do its work properly, it made “more sense to let the baby do most of the effort to come out, instead of making the mother exert herself on the chair, forcing a process that nature might not want to precipitate.” Paolina was not swayed, so Vespa took on a more scientific tone to make his point more forcefully. “Child delivery occurs as a result of the contractions of the uterus,” he expounded with impatience. If the mother is sitting, she will accelerate the delivery “and the weight of the baby will end up tearing at the uterus.” Bottom line: he never, ever, gave the go-ahead to “accelerated deliveries” such as the one Paolina was defending. Paolina insisted that delivering “in the chair” might be increasingly frowned upon in the medical community, but it suited her because it reduced the heavy discharges that had been such a problem the first time around. Not so, interjected Lucia, who valued Paolina’s experience but felt she was not in a position to contradict Doctor Vespa. “What do you think was the cause of so much discharge in your case? Precisely the fact that you gave birth in the chair,” she told her sister. “It seems obvious to me that all the effort one has to make in that position is likely to produce more consequences than if one is lying horizontally, on a bed.”
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When the doctor was away attending to his imperial duties an eerie silence filled the house. Lucia heard from time to time the jingle of the sleds swishing below her windows and the muffled tolling of the bells at Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. It was freezing cold outside. “Fourteen degrees below zero,” she informed Paolina, “and it doesn’t look as if the rest of the winter will be any better. The Court is organising sled races all the way out to Schönbrunn.”
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Writing rambling letters to her sister would have provided a comforting distraction had it not been for the anguished thoughts about her father that inevitably found their way into them. Paolina worried about Lucia being alone; Lucia, in turn, worried about the “agitation” Paolina felt “in seeing Papa so ill.” According to Vespa, that very agitation was the cause of the “heat rushes” Paolina often complained about. He suggested soothing infusions of sorrel, violets and chicory. “You can water down the herbal solution or even mix it with broth if you like,” Lucia added. “And be sure to take it for fifteen to twenty days. It will certainly freshen up your blood.”
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Vespa offered solace but not much hope for Memmo’s condition. The opium he prescribed was a painkiller, not a cure. In December, Lucia’s father sounded a little perkier, and was even fantasising, probably just for the benefit of his oldest daughter, that he might be well enough to travel north to see the newborn as soon as the weather improved. “In the spring, dearest Papa, come and enjoy the dry climate of Vienna,” she urged him, keeping the fantasy alive. “I cannot tell you how happy I would be if such a project came true. The little baby living inside me returns your greetings by way of kicks and turns.”
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To Paolina she confessed more soberly that being so far away from her father at this time was “the heaviest burden” and she saw “as a gift from heaven” the possibility of the three of them being together again.
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Having to rely on the mail for news of her father was tricky. If, for some reason, Paolina’s letter from home did not arrive with the weekly post, Lucia had to content herself “with what my imagination will provide,” which was seldom reassuring. She asked her sister to write down her father’s condition every evening, so she could have a day-by-day progress report when the mail arrived. “It will only take you a minute at the end of the day and you will be doing the most charitable work, I assure you.”
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At Christmas Lucia was alone, save for a brief visit from trusty old Vespa. It was too cold to go to midnight mass, the doctor told her. She stayed home, holding her growing belly as she stood by the window and watched the snow falling on Kohlmarkt. Her thoughts were fixed on her father. On Boxing Day she wrote to Paolina that the last thing she wanted was for him to tire himself in his effort to reassure her: