The Manzoni Family (27 page)

Manzoni wanted very much to go to Lesa that autumn, but it was not possible, first because Teresa was ill with a ‘phlogosis' in the head, and feared ‘to encounter rude air' on the journey; then in October Pietro became seriously ill. Teresa wrote to Stefano: ‘After various lapses due to his excessive and unfortunate drinking, Pietro is in bed with severe inflammation of the brain and the intestines, which causes delirium night and day. . . imagine poor Alessandro, who had begged and prayed, coaxed and constrained him to give up that drinking!' And Manzoni to Cattaneo: ‘At last I can take up my pen to tell you of a danger, which, thank Heaven, has passed over. My Pietro had succumbed to a violent attack of meningitis, and after sixty hours of delirium, has now recovered, thanks to the prudent but determined application of bleeding and of tartarate of tin. Yesterday morning the deadly symptoms began to diminish; during the day he improved steadily; finally last night of blessed memory, at about two o'clock he went into a wholesome sleep. . . the doctors are very pleased, so you can imagine our feelings.' Teresa to Stefano: ‘In four days they bled him profusely nine times, applied 24 leeches, and administered a load of emetic tartar.' But Manzoni was always an optimist: in November Pietro was ill again, and ‘they had to go back to the bleedings, leeches and three blister-papers'.

When Pietro recovered, there followed a brief spell of peace; Giulia was in a good mood, pleased about Pietro's recovery; Cristina too, although very thin and pale, seemed better. Enrico had come home. Giulia finally agreed to taste the Lesa wine; ‘All in all, I might call it a
honeymoon,
please God it may last!' Teresa told Stefano, ‘not for me, but for Alessandro, who was losing his health, his studies, and years of life!. . . Poor Alessandro. . .
It's true that even before, if the conductor was different, the music was the same.
[By which Teresa meant that even with Enrichetta, Giulia must have been unbearable.] We hope that now that deadly orchestra will cease or hold its peace somewhat! Who knows if God, or time and her 77 years may partly change her, at least in the ways most necessary to Alessandro! As I've never written so explicitly about this matter, you would do well to burn this letter, after reading it, I mean. . .' Stefano did not burn it.

I promessi sposi
began to appear in instalments, in the new revised and illustrated edition. Teresa exulted in it. But it very soon became apparent that things were not going too well. The printer Guglielmini proved to be untrustworthy. Subscriptions rapidly declined. Unsold copies piled up in the rooms of via del Morone. Giulia and cousin Giacomo had sensed that the undertaking would prove ruinous. They were right.

Teresa's brother, Giuseppe, came to stay at via del Morone that winter. Giulia did not speak to him. There had never been any sympathy between them; and now Teresa's family – and of course above all Teresa herself – seemed to her most to blame for that unfortunate publishing operation: they had strongly urged Manzoni to become his own publisher. This visit of Giuseppe Borri to Manzoni made her more than usually gloomy. Giuseppe made this comment on his visit: ‘His mother was reading, and went on reading, or at least turning the pages of her book, all evening.'

A page which Tommaseo wrote many years later tells about Manzoni and this edition, and the facts that preceded and ensued, in a few rapid, dry words:

‘He was correcting, even recasting proofs, and, regretfully, reprinting sheets. And one day when he had some spread out to dry in his room, he said to me with a smile: “You see I too have something in the sun.” Indeed, he had estates in the sun; Carlo Imbonati's legacy had enriched his mother, who had her friend's body dragged from Paris and from Milan, but she diminished that inheritance by many charitable works and by the troubles impatiently borne, inflicted by the second daughter-in-law, made all the more grievous to her by the memory of the first, a lady of incomparable gentleness. And the mother herself had chosen this second wife for her son, who took her almost unknown, and did not know how to keep peace between the two ladies, and was always so resigned as to seem unconcerned. But then his sons' irregularities diminished his wealth; and his writings, which outside Italy would have enriched him, not only brought him no profit, but financial damage in the end. Self-inflicted harm, more or less asked for, because he decided to reprint the novel with vignettes, as if such reading needed such distractions; and they brought an artist from Paris, and spent time and money and trouble; and the printer secretly produced extra copies and sold them at reduced prices, perhaps to make up for the trouble of having to alter the proofs all the time with fresh corrections, and hold up a sheet until he had recast it in his own way.'

Early in the spring of 1841 Cristina became ill again. It was the same illness and nobody knew how to treat it. Violent headaches, and that eruption on the face. They stuffed her with opium again. Her face was swollen, deformed, unrecognizable. Once she had been pretty.
Ma
petite noiraude,
Enrichetta used to call her. She was the only one in the family with black hair.

The course of the illness was rapid and terrible. Soon they all realized she was lost. Her husband tended her lovingly. She lived to the end of May. She did not want to die. She had a little baby girl, a happy marriage. She thought death was unjust and rebelled against it, refusing the sacraments. Her father had to intervene. ‘(6 o'clock, after dinner) I lie awake at night,' Teresa wrote to Stefano, ‘thinking of poor Cristina. . . at that moment they came to call poor, adorable, broken-hearted Alessandro to poor Cristina, who cannot overcome her shrinking from the sacred oil; her confessor cannot convince her, she will only believe her father. . . Poor Alessandro! It has fallen to him to prepare her for confession and the last rites; now. . . Oh, God, what a cup my poor Alessandro has to drink!' And later: ‘Alessandro returned broken with grief, after preparing Cristina for extreme unction: so that she told him to go, for she was content; then, when he had gone, she called Cristoforo, embraced him and said:
I
am content.
You see how she will be in Heaven. Oh Lord! Put some black crêpe on your hat.'

Teresa to Stefano again, after the funeral:

‘Sofia looked quite dreadful; Thursday evening you had to feel very sorry for her; now she's a little better, but her face is horribly drawn; I mean, it makes you fear for her health. Vittorina will come out of the convent to go to Bellagio with Sofia; you can imagine her state, too. Poor Alessandro couldn't even go to Brusú, because yesterday evening they were taking poor Cristina there; she was received by peasant schoolchildren with lighted candles, and they insisted on carrying her on their shoulders with great solemnity to the cemetery, where she was placed beside her mother and her sister! I am in a very weak state. . .'

This is the epitaph her father wrote for Cristina's tomb:

‘For Cristina Baroggi Manzoni / who, with uplifting patience / through a long and painful illness / with Christian resignation / crowned an immaculate / pious and charitable life / and a death precious in the sight of God / offering to Him in sacrifice / a beloved baby girl and husband, / her sorrowing relations / implore your prayers / and His divine mercy.'

Filippo to Stefano:

‘My dearest Stefano, oh! you will say, what has happened to Mammina that she is getting Filippo to write to me? Nothing has happened to her. She is not writing because she is sitting chatting to Papa on the sofa; forgive her for being so frivolous as to chat instead of writing to you; she is excusable because Papa has only just returned from Bellagio where he accompanied Sofia and Vittoria. The next time you write to her, give her a good
refilé
[scolding], because it's a shame the way she always trembles for fear of thieves, though the roads Papa was using are quite safe. But she's a woman, after all! We are all indebted to you for sharing in our grief for the loss of poor Cristina! It was truly a very hard blow for Papa, but Mammina is always there to console him with her gentle words. I am plagued with rather bad toothache; I shall have to have two out. Brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law all send you boundless greetings and thanks for your kind thoughts. Papa tells me to give you all his very best regards; you know how fond he is of you. . . Goodbye, dearest Stefano, remember you have in
Filippo
a brother who loves you like a precious friend.'

Cristina's baby had been taken to Verano, to the villa of the Trottis.

Teresa had commissioned a portrait of Manzoni from Francesco Hayez. Writing to Stefano, she expressed her disappointment that she was too weak to accompany her husband to every sitting: ‘I should say that I am recovering from my weakness by eating two beef-steaks a day, and tasty broths; but the improvement is so slight that I am scarcely aware of it, and I despair of being able to accompany Alessandro to Hayez tomorrow, even in the carriage. This time, however, I am not writing from bed, but from my magnificent table, which Cecchina contemplated with great admiration yesterday; together with my little bookcase. I get the impression that Grossi is not feeling too well these days, but he came to take Papa for a walk; I think he works too hard, poor Grossi. It upsets me to see him so thin. For a Grossi to be reduced to working as a solicitor! Oh! it is a disgrace to the Italians in general and the Milanese in particular.'

Towards the end of June, after fourteen sittings, the portrait was finished. At that time, Giulia took to her bed. Teresa to Stefano: ‘The Nonna is very ill, and I am very distressed for her (you will think I am exaggerating! but it's true) and for Alessandro. Just think! that another blow should strike him after the last. However, I hope not, but I am afraid, because she has a sharp pain; yesterday she went to bed, and was bled at once, and twice today. . . If only I could write to rejoice in the successful portrait of Alessandro! . . . Oh Heavens, how I wish for my sake and Papa's that you were in Milan, if the Nonna, poor lady, should get worse! Worse, you must understand, means,
fatally.
Papa does not know how bad she is, and I don't know what to do. I feel that if you were here we could change the subject a bit, and relieve the gloom; and to tell the truth, reluctant as I am to suggest it, if things went badly, you could do a great deal for us; enough! even I don't know what to say! ... I assure you I am as distressed about her condition as if she had never once upset me. . .' Stefano did not come. He answered: ‘I'm sorry about the Nonna too, for her, for Papa and for the family; but what good would it do you to have me in Milan, if she got worse? What good could I do? I have no idea how to comfort people, I can only keep them cheerful when they want to be. . . So! . . . Enough, please write at once, and if I really could do any good, tell me straight out, and I'll come to Milan to do what I can; in any case, if you wanted to go to Lesa, I could go and arrange the passports.' Passports were required to go to Lesa, as it was in the kingdom of Carlo Alberto.

Sofia, her husband, Vittoria and Emilia Luti were at Giulia's bedside. On 28 June Teresa wrote to Stefano:

‘She was given the sacraments in great haste; she was almost given the holy oil at once, and none of the doctors thought she would live to the morning; all yesterday evening and all night they were praying for her soul and nobody imagined she would see the light today; but in the night she roused herself and this morning she greeted Alessandro and recited, in a laboured way, it's true, but quite intelligibly, part of his hymn which tells of the Blessed Virgin going to Saint Elizabeth; because today is, in fact, the day of the Visitation; and she sent them all to mass for her, including Alessandro; poor woman, how lucid she is! But she wants to die because she is suffering too much, but you would hardly know except by her face. I've been twice to receive her blessing and her pardon, poor woman! However, this morning there's a faint hope in the quinine, seeing her miraculous resistance to her illness, and the miraculous waking, speaking and being aware of the slightest thing. All this so upset me yesterday and the day before that I can't eat or walk, but I get up a bit.' The next day: ‘That poor woman sent for Alessandro last night, and he flung himself down on the bed to ask her forgiveness, and she blessed him, and asked after me, saying: “And your wife. . . my daughter-in-law. . . where is she? Tell her I commend the children to her. “ Imagine how upset I've felt last night and this morning, not to be able to get up and go upstairs! My heart would not and will not allow it. I am keeping to a strict diet; I am drinking a lot of fresh water; and since yesterday I've been taking laurocerasus water every two hours, which has steadied my heart and given me a bit more strength. . . The other evening Pietro came and hugged me tight, crying, and so did all the others.' The 6th July: ‘The Nonna is still alive but in such a wretched state that all the time she is longing for the end. . . Just think how many days and nights she has been in extremis. Three times her soul had been commended, poor woman! Oh Heavens! to see poor Papa, who can't stay still for five minutes; up and down, up and down, from the top of the house to the bottom all day, and in the night!. . . Nobody can speak of yesterday, because it already seems far, far away, with so many ups and downs, so many things said, given, things to be done, things done, said again, thought again. . . Sofia and Vittoria sleep upstairs and are at her bedside every moment, they look like ghosts as you can imagine. That this should happen to Papa a month after the shock of poor Cristina, and so long drawn-out, yet so short! . . . God forbid he should fall ill! Please pray to Him! and pray for the Nonna, for your Papa, Stefano, and for poor Cristina, invoke that very Father Cristoforo [of
I promessi
sposi],
who is, after all, our Alessandro, as well as once being called Lodovico. . . This morning the poor Nonna wished to be bled again. . .'

Giulia died in the night between the 7th and 8th of July. She was buried at Brusuglio. Manzoni and his family went to Verano to stay with the Trottis.