The Manzoni Family (10 page)

‘I put off writing to you after the misfortune that overwhelmed me,' said a letter from Fauriel. Almost three months had gone by. He was answering a letter Manzoni had finally written to him. ‘I don't think I have been weak in my misfortune; at least I have tried not to be; I have tried not to exaggerate my loss; but the riches I have lost are not such as can be named on earth, such as can be sought and found: and this knowledge makes my tears flow more freely perhaps than if my grief were more vulgar and easily expressed. I weep for something heavenly and pure. . . My heart is not dead to life's interests or to human affections; but alas! even if I should still find some happiness or remnant of happiness along the road that lies before me, I shall never forget that Heaven has taken from me a greater treasure than I deserved, and which I am no longer allowed even to desire. Forgive me, dear friend — dear friends, since I am writing to you all; I weep with all of you; forgive me this slight and fleeting effusion of a grief that words cannot express, and which you will understand better than I am able to describe it; it is a grief that deserves your grieving, it has nothing at all to do with those feelings that humanity condemns, and this I dare to testify by that supreme power before which man is as nothing. . . There is much I could tell you about my present situation, but so little can be said in a letter, especially things of this nature. I will just say that all the family of this angel who has gone from me have proffered every comfort and attention I could wish; and if I have suffered at the hands of
one person,
at least there was no personal motive involved. My friends, too, have done everything that could be done for a fellow human being in such circumstances, in particular Thierry [the historian Augustin Thierry, then twenty-seven, and very close to Fauriel], and Cousin, who chose to spend the first week of my distress with me in the country. So I lack neither friendship, nor comfort, nor attention; neither do I lack the means to lead a peaceful and independent little life. But the fact is that, by some unhappy concatenation of chance circumstances and events, my life becomes more bitter and disturbed every day. . . . There are very bitter particulars in my general misery: at present I feel quite incapable of finding distraction in any serious work, and disinclined to seek distraction outside my usual habits; which all combines to leave such scope for memories, laments, comparisons between what remains and what I have lost that I would fall into a state of discouragement and despair, if I did not create for myself a perspective which gives me strength to bear my present situation for a time, on condition that I may change it soon, or as soon as possible. I feel a pressing need, both moral and physical, to temper my shattered being in a new atmosphere, among old friends and new objects. Do you know where I have found this perspective? You will have guessed, I hope, dear friends: in your midst. To come to you, spend some time with you, find you all unchanged, and love you even more than I have done till now, work with my dear Alessandro, and at his side try to create something worthy of him, this has been for three months my fondest dream, the only one which satisfies every present need of my heart. This project, then, is the refuge and dwelling-place of my hopes. Do you approve of my plan, dear friends? you have no objections? does it appeal to you at all? The sooner you reply, the better, for in my present state my sick heart and mind need some secure resting-place. Once I have received your reply, I can discuss in more detail this delightful dream which today I can only mention in passing.'

The phrase ‘if I have suffered at the hands of one person' refers perhaps to Sophie de Condorcet's daughter, Eliza, or to her husband, General O'Connor; perhaps they showed some coldness to Fauriel, or hurt his feelings in some way. Eliza had always found it hard to accept that her mother lived with Fauriel, and now that her mother was dead, perhaps a long-standing resentment erupted. Fauriel's relations with Sophie's family deteriorated thereafter, the ‘comfort' and ‘attentions' did not last long. Certainly when Sophie died Fauriel found himself in a difficult and delicate situation, made more difficult by the fact that he had no money. In all this his susceptibilities suffered. He left
La Maisonnette
at once and moved to a small apartment in Paris, in rue des Vieilles Tuileries, and it was from there that he was writing.

Manzoni wrote back telling him to set off at once. Everybody was waiting for him. The house in via del Morone was in a state of confusion as they had had to bring in workmen to do repairs, but Fauriel could share the confusion with them. Besides, they were thinking of a trip to Tuscany in the spring, recommended by the doctors for Enrichetta, because the air was better there, and Fauriel could go with them. However, a year passed and Fauriel had still not stirred from Paris. In any case, the Manzonis too had put off the trip to Tuscany, either because they wanted to go with Fauriel, or because, as Manzoni wrote to Fauriel, ‘mon
ennuyeux fatras',
my tedious scribbling, in other words the novel, was occupying him a great deal, and he felt he could neither abandon it at that point, nor take it with him.

In summer 1823, Fanny, the Manzonis' French maid, went to Paris to the help of her sick mother. She took a letter to Fauriel. ‘My dear, and ever dearer friend, here is an unexpected messenger, but misfortunes make travellers almost as much as boredom', Manzoni wrote to Fauriel. The
Adelchi
had meanwhile appeared in France, in Fauriel's translation and with an introduction by him. ‘Oh, my friend! what have you done? what have you said?' wrote Manzoni. ‘I am quite confused; I do not speak of the pleasure it has given me to see my sketchy thought so well rendered, or rather developed and perfected by your style: I anticipated this pleasure. But once again, what have you said of your poor author! You make me blush, and I hardly dare raise my head. Let's speak of something else, and above all of this journey conceived so joyfully but constantly delayed. My dear friend, we cannot possibly leave here before the winter. The inconveniences arising from the work on our house in Milan have taken up the time which should have been spent on preparations essential for a large family. . . At the same time we have had preoccupations in which inconveniences were certainly the least painful of our problems.' Clara, the last but one of the children, had died. ‘Pietro, Cristina and Sofia have had measles which proved to be quite a long, painful illness for them, but from which they have happily recovered. I cannot say the same of our poor dear little Clara, who was just two years old; after seeing her suffer for a long time, we lost her. And so we found ourselves close to the time when we had hoped to begin that blessed journey. We have been obliged to put the plan off again until next spring, and even then with some doubts arising from a host of possible and predictable obstacles, and also, when all's said and done, from our tendency to give in to them too easily.' Then he talks of the
fatras,
the novel: All I can say is that I have tried to achieve a precise knowledge of the time and place in which I have set my story, and to depict it faithfully. There is no shortage of material: everything that shows men in a wretched light is there in abundance: confident ignorance, pretentious folly, bare-faced corruption, were, alas, among others of the same kind perhaps the most striking characteristics of the period. Fortunately there were also men and traits which did honour to the human race, characters endowed with strong virtue, outstanding in proportion to the obstacles and opposition they encountered, and by their resistance, or sometimes their submission to conventional ideas. I've put in peasants, nobles, monks, nuns, priests, magistrates, scholars, war, famine. . . [here the page is torn and the phrase is illegible], which means it's quite a book!'

In 1823 Canon Tosi was appointed bishop at Pavia, so he left them. ‘I need hardly repeat how warmly you are remembered in our family,' Manzoni wrote to him, ‘. . . I would not have presumed to ask you to write to me sometimes in the little spare time that will remain to you; but since you have deigned to promise to do so, I remember your promise with the sincerest gratitude. Meanwhile, the hope of seeing you again, after a long interval, is one of the thoughts I turn to in those moments when physical and mental labours make me feel the need of some living, tranquil consolation.' Canon, now Bishop, Tosi displayed some anxiety about the work on which Manzoni was engaged. He wrote: ‘I cannot refrain from an urgent personal plea that you curb this tendency to throw yourself so whole-heartedly into all the writing schemes you dream up. I observe that your health suffers from occupations that involve you in too intense meditation. Moreover, I see that the fruit of such labour must be very slight, for the interest of the world will be short, and the dissension, malignity and envy of the literati may cause you grave anxiety. My son, if you must consume yourself, let it be for things that bear real fruit. And what is this real fruit, other than the reward you can expect from the Lord?' Canon, now Bishop, Tosi was still hoping Manzoni would resume his
Morale cattolica.
Manzoni replied: ‘Since you have deigned to show some anxiety for the ill effects which the work on which I am at present engaged may produce on my health and my peace of mind, I will admit, as for the first, that the research I am absorbed in is indeed somewhat fatiguing, but I try to combine work and rest so that the former shall cause me no serious indisposition, and indeed for some time, apart from the occasional grey day, I have been keeping quite well. As for literary hostility, I think I can rest assured that the publication of my scribblings will provoke none. Since I trace ideas as carefully as possible and commit them faithfully to paper as I find them, it is true I find myself in opposition to many people, but not in league with any party. . . My lone, dispassionate opinions may seem exravagant or foolish, but not provocative; and the poor author may perhaps inspire scornful pity, but, I hope and think, no anger. '

‘I still don't know how I'll set out, ' Fauriel wrote in October. ‘They want to embark me with a great Russian gentleman whom I don't know, and who, they say, would be very pleased to take me to Italy, where he is going. I will see him, but I don't think I'll accept this mode of travel, however convenient it may seem. On the other hand, I have promised two English ladies, who are at present in Switzerland preparing to go on to Italy, to pick them up if I should happen to travel at the same time as them; I don't quite know what detour or delay this promise might involve; in short, it's not certain whether I will descend, like Hannibal, from Mont Cenis, or, like so many others, from the Simplon. If we discount the Russian, it seems likely that I'll set out with Fanny. '

Fauriel arrived in Milan, at via del Morone, a month later. The two English ladies were with him, so he had stopped in Switzerland, and probably always intended to do so. The two English ladies took lodgings at the
Pension Suisse.
They were a mother and daughter called Clarke; with the daughter, Mary Clarke, Fauriel was having an amorous relationship which had begun a few months before Sophie died.

Mary Clarke was then twenty-nine. She was born in London, her mother in Scotland; the mother, a captain's widow, had settled in France with her two daughters when her husband died. Mary Clarke had brown curly hair, and was small and graceful though very slightly hunch-backed; she was attractive rather than beautiful. She painted; she loved paintings and music, and liked to travel and to meet artists.

This is how the relationship between Mary Clarke and Fauriel had begun; she had written to Fauriel asking him to pose for her; she intended to give the portrait to Augustin Thierry: ‘You are more dear to him than anyone, and nothing could please him more.  She had had a relationship with Augustin Thierry which she wanted to bring to an end. Fauriel wrote agreeing to the proposal; he was not happy about this portrait, because he did not like the idea that his picture should be a farewell present for poor Thierry: ‘But if I am to have only one opportunity in my life of obeying you, I shall obey you sadly, but with all my heart.'

Fauriel posed for Mary Clarke, and the portrait was completed; then she left for England and a steady exchange of letters began between them.
Mon
ange,
she wrote to him;
ma
chère douce amie,
he wrote to her. At first he said nothing of Sophie, as if she did not exist. He mentioned her later, in August; for weeks Mary had heard nothing from him and he begged her pardon:
‘chère douce amie,'
he wrote, ‘dear, sweet friend, the last time I wrote to you, I promised to write at least a few lines every day. . . I made this promise from the heart, or rather I felt such joy in promising it to myself that you would have loved me at that moment. And yet I have not written, dear friend; indeed I chose not to write to you: for if I had written then, either I would not have told you what I felt, which is inconceivable, or I would have upset and saddened you, which I did not want. The fact is, I have spent the saddest month I could ever have imagined. Madame de Condorcet has been extremely ill, in a way that has worried her family and friends, and me more than anyone. This anxiety was so overwhelming that for some days I suffered physically more than I could say or reveal. In this sad space of time every sort of anguish came thick and fast upon me: the memory of you and hope of a letter from you were my only consolation. I resume this letter, which was interrupted this morning, as I return from my evening walk, which I almost always take alone, and which I enjoy only if I am alone. Only then can I think of you at my ease, immerse myself in memories of the time when you were here, and in sweeter dreams of the day when I shall see you again. I think a great deal about that day, but the past and absence are strong, and I do not want to struggle too much against them; there is no bitterness in the sadness they can cause me and which may sometimes appear in my letters, as they do on my face and in my manner: for me one idea and one feeling dominate all others, the idea and the feeling that I am loved by you, only I tremble slightly at the thought that you may not be sufficiently convinced of all you mean to me: and when I hear you say that I don't love you enough, I feel a spasm of fear that this means I am incapable of making you happy: oh! how could I prove to you that my heart has never known such enchantment as you have created for me? I could not resume this letter after I broke off. I have not been feeling very well in the meantime, and have been acutely distressed, since my usual anxiety for the sick friend I spoke of has redoubled. . . But whether I write a lot or a little, briefly or at length, I implore you not to forget, my dearest, that I see you and speak to you every moment, and at every moment seek your voice and your image. . . Goodbye for today,
my sweet hope
[in English in original]; goodbye, be near me a while in spirit, and let me hear you say it to me.' Mary Clarke replied angrily: ‘What on earth is this Madame de Condorcet? I didn't know the illness of any lady could be enough to make you ill: what on earth is a lady to you, that her illness should be more distressing to you than to her own family? to the extent of preventing your writing to me? ... I wrote back the day your letter arrived, in all the bitterness of my first reaction, but thank Heaven I put aside that letter and after reading it the next day before posting it, I decided not to send it, but however I may control myself, I cannot pretend. . . Just imagine if I wrote to you like that and spoke to you of a man whose name you had never heard me pronounce before? ... I have some sort of confused notion about this Madame de Condorcet that is painful to me, but I can't remember what it was, how I came by it or what it relates to; I've never heard you mention her, and I don't even remember who did, unless it was Amédée Thierry, brother of Augustin – ... I thought I would not speak my mind, partly because I don't want to upset you, but I couldn't help it and a slight squall is better than perpetual clouds. ' This letter was dated 3 September: Sophie de Condorcet died the next day.