The Manzoni Family (26 page)

Stefano loved going to Lesa. The Caccia-piattis were still there, but now they were inoffensive; the villa belonged to Stefano; the Caccia-piattis were relegated to a small apartment and caused no annoyance. Sometimes they were asked by Teresa to keep an eye on Stefano. In the summer when Stefano was far away, which was almost always the case, Teresa was consumed with apprehension, and her worries and her low spirits weighed upon the whole family. Alessandro had more than ever to surround her with attentions, distract her and console her. Giulia thought Stefano was given too much freedom. Moreover, in all his comings and goings, she had to see to his dirty linen, and she complained about it. Teresa decided to put an end to these tedious complaints: henceforth Stefano would make his own arrangements for his linen. Or rather his valet, Francesco, would see to it. If he came to Brusuglio, Francesco would go to dine ‘at his own house, or at the small ale-house'. Teresa wrote to Stefano: ‘Write to tell Patrizio you are resolved to ask only for room and firewood at home; you should have done so already.' Antonio Patrizio administered the property of Teresa and Stefano. Cousin Beccaria, the Councillor, was also informed of all this. He helped Giulia with the household management.

Teresa's father, Cesare Borri, had died in 1837, the year she married Manzoni.

When Stefano was away at Lesa, or Torricella, or Morosolo, Teresa urged him not to forget, in his letters, ‘his compliments to the grandmother'. But Stefano sent Giulia neither compliments nor greetings; and to avoid sending them to Giulia, he did not even send them to Manzoni. Yet Stefano was fond of Manzoni. ‘I do not send my greetings,' Manzoni once wrote to him at the bottom of one of Teresa's letters, and she added: ‘No, Papa is not obliged, not only to greet you, but even to state he does not greet you! Unworthy as you are of the good wishes that he feels for you, and that he has sent you! not even once to say: give Papa my love and best wishes. – Shame on you! shameful and shameless as you are; I am not joking, I am in earnest. I hope and believe it is because of a certain recommendation Papa told me he made to you, and which I did not hear about until today, but if you did not choose to obey, you could have sent him love and kisses and said
I ask your pardon on my knees,
without it being or seeming a jest, you could have done anything, even disobeyed him, but surely you could not have forgotten the noble brow and hair of that divine Alessandro who is so fond of you.' This was Alessandro's recommendation: as Stefano was about to leave, Manzoni had whispered to him jokingly: ‘greet the person you don't want to', that is, remember always to put a greeting for Giulia in your letters. These joking words, whispered in his stepson's ear, show how far Manzoni now was from his mother, so far as to joke about her anger. Indeed, Giulia's anger could seem petty – dirty linen, absence of greetings – but they came from very real and bitter suffering, for which the boy Stefano was not to blame. Giulia knew that Alessandro had moved away from her, to stand, with Stefano and Teresa, on another shore.

In 1838 d'Azeglio's mother, the Marchesa Cristina, died. D'Azeglio hastily sold his houses in Turin, as well as the castle of d'Azeglio. He found a governess for little Rina, called Emilia Luti. He came to see the Manzonis at Brusuglio, with the little girl and the governess. Giulia was more cheerful when she had little Rina with her.

Emilia Luti was a Florentine. She supplied Manzoni with invaluable suggestions about the Tuscan language, and was a great help to him in his revision of
I promessi sposi.

Teresa wrote to Stefano, preaching the Tuscan language to him:

‘Note that Papa says
novamente
and not
nuovamente
as you are so fond of saying with the
u:
you're always saying
buonissimo viaggio,
for example, which is quite unsuitable; the
u
is hardly ever said or written. Have you seen that
finir gli anni
is said for
compir gli anni?
and
dar una capata
for
fare una scappata?
We have noted and learnt this from signora Emilia Luti, together with many other fine things. . . do remember that
cosicché
is not Tuscan; they say
sicché, di modo che,
but not
cosicché. . .
Papa is here and greets you.' ‘I certainly do! Do you know who it is?' Manzoni added in dialect. ‘I embrace you most affectionately. Without saying who! . . .'

A young man called Cristoforo Baroggi, son of a solicitor, had fallen in love with Cristina, and she with him. They wanted to get married, but the Baroggi family were hostile to the marriage. Cristoforo's father, lawyer Ignazio, thought that Cristoforo, who enjoyed spending money, should marry a girl with a large dowry, and that Cristina's dowry was insufficient. He felt he could not help his son from his own income, which was why he opposed the marriage.

In the summer of 1833, just before Enrichetta fell ill, they had received a visit at Brusuglio from Henri Falquet-Planta, son of Euphrosine and Sebastian Falquet-Planta; he had fallen in love with Cristina and wanted to marry her. Euphrosine would have been pleased, but grandmother Giulia was not taken with the idea of Cristina marrying this Henri, and had opposed the idea. Henri lived in France, which was too far away. Cristina was still so young.

Years later, she received a proposal from a merchant in Cremona, twice a widower. She rejected it.

In love with Cristoforo, she was hurt to find herself repulsed by his family. Uncle Beccaria and Cousin Giacomo intervened to persuade Lawyer Baroggi, but the latter refused to hear of the marriage. Cristoforo and Cristina prepared to marry in spite of this. There was a lengthy correspondence between Manzoni, Uncle Giulio and the cousin. Finally, after a long period of uncertainty, the lawyer yielded and gave his consent. In September 1838 Cristoforo Baroggi came to the Manzoni house as a fiancé.

In October of that year Sofia married Lodovico Trotti, brother of Costanza Trotti Arconati, Marietta, and Margherita. He had been a captain of the Uhlans in Moravia and Bohemia, but had resigned from the army and returned to Italy a few years before. Teresa wrote to Stefano, who was at Lesa as usual:

‘Papa has asked me if I have written to you about Sofia's marriage. Lodovico Trotti will be much better off than we thought; and he's so good, affectionate, brave, proud and gentle that Sofia really is a lucky girl; as you know, he's a very good-looking young man, strong but kind, and all his relatives are such excellent people, respectable and respected that it's a great joy to Alessandro to have them related to his daughter. The father, the Marchese. . . is delighted with this marriage, like all the Trotti family. . . Poor Cristina, too, has had a chance to show her affection for me; Pietro and Enrico are making a fuss of me. . .' Pietro and Enrico behaved cordially towards her.

Cristina and Cristoforo got married in May 1839.

In June 1839 Enrico set off for Lyons, where he spent a year, to gain experience of the breeding of silk-worms and of the silk trade. Cristoforo Baroggi had recommended him to his acquaintances in the town; he had founded a bank there. ‘My dear Enrico,' Manzoni wrote to his son, ‘you can imagine what comfort I got from your letter, and from the intentions it conveyed. . . My satisfaction in you, as in all of you, depends upon your well-being. So continue to prosper; indeed, go swiftly from strength to strength in the career you have embarked on, in which your father will do all he can to help you. Always bear in mind that fine maxim, the truth of which you must already have learnt from experience, that to go to sleep happy one must say, not: I've done what I wanted today, but: I've done what I had to do. Work and boredom are the choice before us in this world; the first, apart from the other reasons for embracing it, brings its own reward: in the second all is punishment. But you know that even good things are not entirely so, unless they are subordinated and directed to the one absolute good. Think often, dear Enrico, of the angelic mother from whom you chiefly learned this lesson. . .'

Writing to Stefano, Teresa continued to complain not only that his letters never contained a greeting for the grandmother, but even greetings for Manzoni or the rest of the family. This absence of greetings was deeply distressing to her. ‘Your letter. . . without a shadow of affection, thought or greeting for Alessandro has left me quite turned to stone, but to stone burning with shame. . . Papa who was there said (we were alone)
oh well, if that's the
way
it is, and the
young
lord doesn't send his regards, I won't go to Lesa any more. . . he was such a good friend, and all of a sudden he doesn't remember, doesn't even bother to send his greetings.
Think how this pierced my heart for your sake! it seems impossible just because he said to you:
greet the person you don't want to. . .
If he had said just as you were leaving, remember to greet the guinea-fowl in your letters and the geese and ganders, you ought to greet the fowl and the geese and the ganders, and then greet him. I know you don't like the person he asked you to remember; and I know it's just because of the suffering she costs him; if she adored him, you would love her from the heart, I know; but he not only accords this person who is his mother the respect required by human and divine law, but he also lavishes upon her the feelings that can only spring from a heart like his. . . and then how improper not to send your regards to Enrico, who always mentions you in his letters from Lyons; nor to don Giovanni [Ghianda] who called specially to greet you the morning you left; nor Cristina, who always remembers to send her regards to you and ask for news of you when you're away!'

Teresa often spoke of Filippo in her letters to Stefano; she thought he looked like Alessandro; he was her favourite stepchild at that time. ‘Filippo wanted to add a few words at the end of this; he gets more and more attached to me; he doesn't come into my room out of discretion, which he had to learn at school, but he makes up for it with his caresses, and his pretty ways, and affectionate expressions for you and me; he urged me in his open, insistent way to send you all his love:
you will send him my regards, mama; don't forget to tell him that I love him very much and that
I
always remember him; that I hope he's well and having a good time; but do you think that he'll remember me? is it really true that he sends me his regards?'
Filippo must have been full of admiration for Stefano; he saw him coming and going, free, cheerful, having a good time, with his palettes and brushes; Stefano had money, independence, a mother to scold and love him, and everything he did not have. As for Stefano, always so miserly with his greetings, who knows if he really remembered to send his regards to this little boy, entrusted to a priest, whom he occasionally met in the avenues of Brusuglio or at table.

Teresa and Alessandro went to Lesa in the summer of 1839; Stefano was there and greeted them very effusively; they planned to return in the autumn, although the thought of the Caccia-piattis bothered them a bit. Stefano wanted to meet the expenses of this first visit to Lesa by Alessandro; he was twenty now and the court allowed him control of his own income; but he was not yet allowed to buy or sell, or to incur debts. Teresa felt well at Lesa, all her indispositions vanished; whereas, in the heat of Brusuglio the summer months seemed tedious and heavy; but they had to spend the summer and a good part of the autumn there, none the less, to take care of the estate. ‘You'll see how well I am!' Teresa wrote as she left Lesa, to Stefano who was still there. ‘It's Lesa, Lesa all the time, Lesa which delights Alessandro, who is still talking about it with his mouth watering.' It must have been painful for Giulia to hear them talking of the wonders of Lesa, to see at table the wine from Lesa that Alessandro liked, and see Alessandro and Teresa setting off for Lesa, while she remained alone at hot, despised Brusuglio, with Filippo and don Ghianda and the others who were excluded from Lesa.

In 1839 Sofia had her first baby, Antonio. In 1840 Lodovico's father, the Marchese Antonio Trotti Bentivoglio, died. When the will was read out, Lodovico discovered that his share of the inheritance was much less than his brothers'. His father had been angry with him when he had abandoned his military career, and had chosen to punish him in this way. Manzoni wrote a bitter letter to Costanza Arconati, Lodovico's sister, asking her to intervene with the older brother to make the terms of the will more favourable to Lodovico, ‘husband and father'.

In 1840 Cristina had a baby, Enrichetta. Then she became ill. She developed a sort of erythema on the face. In the summer, at Brusuglio, her condition was very bad. She was bled. Teresa wrote to Stefano at Voltri (where he had fallen ill himself and Teresa, in a panic, wanted to join him, but they had soothed her, and in fact it was nothing serious): ‘Cristina, after being bled three times and cruelly bitten by leeches several times, and put on a very strict diet, silence, darkness, etc., after having lost a lot of weight and all her colour as a result of the remedies, has now been sent to Doctor Casanova, who has taken the precaution of making her husband the first recipient of his diagnosis, adding that it would soon be over, but that in the few days that remained to her they must remove lots and lots more blood. You can imagine the laments of poor Cristoforo who had never dreamed, not only of taking a black, but even a cloudy view. They immediately went to Piantanida, who changed the treatment together with the name of the illness, which is no longer a “slow-fast inflammation”, but shingles, as Caramella said last year when she saw the tremendous eruption she had in the face. Just think of shingles being treated all winter and spring and half the summer with sulphur baths, morphine and opium in those quantities! So, no more bleedings, no more opium, she has been put on a simple diet, but with meat, and encouraged to get up; which she did at once and post haste to Milan, away from that doctor who would have it his own way, in spite of the result of the consultation. Now she's been in Milan for three days and made great progress, because she gets up, eats, receives friends in the drawing-room, and is doing very nicely; apart from that pain she has [in the temples] which has come back dreadfully and continues, sometimes more, sometimes less, but by what her doctor says, who is now Piantanida, she shouldn't take any more remedies for it, as unfortunately there aren't any.' According to Piantanida she was in no danger. ‘So as far as that's concerned dear Alessandro can breathe again. . .'