The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Giulietta to Fauriel, 7 July: ‘Next week we set off for Genoa, Leghorn and Florence; seeing Mama is still in such poor health, and moreover that the freshwater bathing has brought her some relief, the doctors have urged my parents to go to Leghorn for her to try sea-bathing. I think Mama will take about fifteen baths, and immediately after we will go to Florence, where I think we will stay to the end of October, or thereabouts. . .’ They were all going except Filippino; fearing the journey in the hot weather would make him ill, they had decided to leave him at Brusuglio with the servants. ‘He will be well cared for, the little darling; he’s walking and saying a few words, and seems even more lovable these last few days as if to make us even sorrier, or perhaps it is we who are making more fuss of him! His nurse is leaving him tomorrow so that he can gradually get used to being without the people who are most dear to him. Mama had been a bit better just recently, but the day before yesterday she went out when she was hot, and as it’s natural for the rheumatism to go to the weakest parts, one of her eyes is all swollen and redder than usual; she has put an ointment on it today. . . Bonne Maman has not been very well for some time either, she feels very weak almost every morning, as if she were going to faint. . . The children are all very pleased that they are going to see somewhere new and be out of doors a bit. Pietro especially is as happy as a sandboy. So I am going to see another part of our beautiful Italy, more beautiful than the part I know, but it couldn’t be more dear! not as dear, for sure! I won’t tell you how much your stubborn silence hurts us. . . I have been quite ill, and for quite a long time. I’ve been able to get up for the last fortnight but I still don’t feel very well; for more than ten days I had quite a high temperature and a very swollen cheek, for a week I could only drink because I couldn’t open my mouth properly, I think it was partly because of a big tooth coming through. . . I’ve just been to Papa, who is there doing corrections in the midst of all those gentlemen [she probably meant the usual friends], he says he hasn’t time to tell me even half the things he’d like me to write to you; that’s how he always is! ... I must say that we have been delighted with the success of Papa’s book, it really has surpassed not only our expectations but even our hopes; in less than twenty days six hundred copies have been sold, it’s a real furore, everyone is talking about it; they queue up to be sure of buying a copy. Papa is besieged by men and letters of every kind and every class, there have also been very favourable articles, and more are expected.’

  They set out in mid-July, thirteen of them in two carriages, pausing at Pavia where they had luncheon with Bishop Tosi. As they continued their journey, they were caught by the rain. They had an accident: the carriage the children were in was overturned. Grandmother Giulia wrote to the Bishop from Genoa: ‘First of all, please accept our most affectionate and respectful thanks for all the kindness and cordiality you showed us in that happy half-day we spent with you. You are and always will be our dear Father. After leaving Il Gravelone, we crossed the Po and those endless Sabbioni, and, because it was getting rather late and still raining, we were obliged to stop at Casteggio in a horrid inn, and to sleep badly, or rather not at all because of the bedbugs that were more in charge of our wretched beds than we were; we set off at 5 o’clock, but it was still raining, and when we got to Torrona there was a storm. We stopped quite a while to allow it to pass over, and to have something to eat. The postillions are enough to make you wild, they keep making us pay for ten fresh horses. After Arquato it was raining quite a lot, and as we were coming down along the edge of a precipice in La Scrivia, the harness of the children’s carriage broke, I heard shouts, Giulietta looked out and saw the carriage completely overturned. You can imagine our terror. It was a matter of a moment, four steps and they would all have been lost, but the good God, the Blessed Virgin, the angels and saints we invoked caused the carriage to overturn just in a sort of cleft in the precipice which was full of mud. So it stopped, the horses in front, the postillion, Giuseppino, Enrico and all of them underneath. Giuseppino extricated himself, took Enrico and tossed him up on a mound nearby. . . all the others got out of the carriage, safe and quite unhurt apart from the terrible fright. You will see just how the good God helped us: they had difficulty in righting the carriage which was quite undamaged. Truly it was by the grace and the dear charity of the Lord, his Holy Mother, and our intercessors. I repeat, two steps further, and then. . . Oh, thank the Lord for us! the boys didn’t want to get back in the carriage, Enrichetta had to go with them. We continued our journey safely, and at 7 we arrived in Genoa. We are well housed at the albergo delle quattro nazioni, we have a terrace overlooking the harbour. We were supposed to leave the day before yesterday, but we were put off by the heat, the uncertainty of finding proper accommodation in Leghorn where we know nobody, the need of rest after such a shock, my need of purging, finding sea-bathing here without being obliged to go on up there, and such a cordial welcome from everyone, and from so many acquaintances, all this decided us to do our bathing here, and in fact Enrichetta is really enjoying the first one, I think. I’m sure we are doing the right thing; it’s true that we are hearing Genovese instead of the beautiful Tuscan dialect, but we must be patient: 15 to 20 days, and then we’ll leave for Leghorn and Florence, if we can find a good coachman, we would prefer it to the stage-coach. . . the purpose of the journey is for us to see the lovely Tuscan towns more comfortably, and for Alessandro at last to hear the beautiful language of the peasants that he believes to be the “non plus ultra”.’

  Manzoni also told the episode of the carriage in a letter to Tommaso Grossi, written from Genoa: ‘The carriage with all our little chicks overturned on a bank, by God’s grace, because behind it was La Scrivia at the bottom of a cliff. And also by God’s good grace, no one was hurt, and it all ended in “puia” as, we understood from the speech of the good folk who ran up, that unhappy passion or sentiment, whichever you choose to say, is called in these parts. In the evening, or even somewhat before evening, we were in Genoa, no more, no less; and we are still here. And if you don’t know how this change in our plan came about, I am just going to tell you. Some old acquaintances we found here, and the new ones we’ve made, began to inspire in us such puia of Leghorn, and the heat there which they say is outrageous, and a certain kind of mosquito which can change the whole shape of your skin and give you a fever, and various other things, all of which they discuss with such courtesy, cordiality and charm that, between the fear of-going there and the attraction of staying here, we looked at each other and said: let’s do our bathing in Genoa.’

  The old and new acquaintances in Genoa were the Marchese Gian Carlo di Negro, brother-in-law of Ermes Visconti, who had a delightful little villa where they spent very pleasant evenings, Doctor Carlo Mojon and his wife, and the Marchese di Saint-Réal, an octogenarian, superintendent of the Sardinian navy, married to a sister of De Maistre. Grandmother Giulia wrote to Bishop Tosi: ‘You cannot imagine how the Piedmontese ladies and gentlemen lionize Alessandro, I think it is almost too much.’

  At last they decided to leave for Leghorn. Manzoni wrote to Rossari, on the eve of their departure: ‘My dearest fellow, between the noise of young and old, the former up to their pranks and the latter up to their packing, activities which may be dissimilar in their ultimate effects but which, above my head at this moment, produce a similar, even identical effect of irritation on my nerves, I take pen in hand to have a long chat with you on paper, a good bellyful of talk with my Noi. . . And now let’s imagine we are on my sofa by the fire, and let’s jest the time away. ‘ A young Genovese told him he had found in his novel ‘many expressions which he had hitherto thought were pure Genovese. I almost threw my arms round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks. Give Ferrario [the printer] my regards and tell him that this Signor Gravier [a bookseller] counted out the price of the 12 copies in so many shining new 5 franc pieces, one after another. And that it gives me quite foolish pleasure that there should be only 36 of those copies left, and I shall be even more f
oolishly pleased when those too are disposed of. . . I must not omit to tell you that my Pietro is a consummate swimmer; he plunges headfirst from the boat, dives under and surfaces again at will. . . ’

  From Leghorn, Manzoni to Grossi: ‘Oh what a dear letter, what a dear, sweet, honeyed letter I have received from my Grossi! Just the letter to make up for such a long silence, and I take up my pen to reply without delay - and you must be prepared for me to talk of almost nothing but my affairs, what we are doing and seeing, how we are and suchlike, for this is the way of travellers. I think I have just discovered (unless others had discovered and said it before me) why travellers usually speak ill of the people they meet and the places they visit; it is because they do not find the rooms, the furniture or anything they are accustomed to, and what is worse they don’t find their friends; they have to think of packing and unpacking, always with their purse in hand, and, in order to lighten it as little as possible, they have to argue with people who would like to empty it altogether, and so on. . . But I have also observed that this annoyance and ill humour is extreme at first, but then gradually diminishes. . . So that if I had written to you from Genoa the day after our arrival, that is, after the fatigue and tedium of wandering from room to room to work out how best to fit in six or seven or eight beds, and after spending the first night on those beds and not our own, my style would have been that of a veteran of the Moscow campaign; but because I have delayed a little, you now find a certain note of festivity in my letter. . . now I can tell you that in Genoa we spent three weeks that were as happy as may be (for us) away from home, and that we were really sorry to leave. . . After leaving a week Tuesday, as I said in my letter to Rossari, we took four days to move or be moved here. On the first we passed continually from one beauty to another, with an almost constant view of the sea and of beautiful mountains, through groves of oranges, laurels, olives, figs, vines and charming villages, a real delight. And we thoroughly enjoyed it; although there were places — I won’t say dangerous, but calculated to alarm my mother, who, as you know, is afraid of plunging over the edge at points where someone intending to commit suicide would be hard put to it to find a spot, yet even she enjoyed it, because for love of us she kept her fears to herself, and fear, when it cannot speak, gets bored and goes away.’ On the second day, ‘horrid mountains, with nothing beautiful to be seen, far or near, and with worse precipices’; on the third they arrived at Pietrasanta, ‘the first patch of Tuscan soil you reach on that side, and there began the pleasure of hearing with my own ears this language which was a delight to me then, as it is here in Leghorn; so what will it be to hear it in Florence? I will write from there to tell you how wonderful it is.’ During the journey, when they stopped at an inn for a meal, they were served a vegetable they called cornetti [beans] in Lombardy: ‘so I turned to the waiter politely, and taking care not to stammer [Manzoni stammered], I asked: What is this dish? not as one who does not know the name, but who does not know what thing it is. Fagiolini, sir, pronounced this academic with the napkin over his arm. . .’ On the fourth day they stopped for an hour or two at Lucca, and again at Pisa, where they intended to return; and at last they were at Leghorn. They found there was no room at the hotel that had been suggested to them and they had to look for another, it was dark by now; the hotel they finally found was dreadful, ‘and when we woke the sleeping children, who were probably dreaming of food, to give them a meal, some began to grumble and some to cry. . . In short, next morning we decided to go in search of another hotel since, with the best will in the world on the part of the owners, we could not stay in that one without considerable discomfort; we called on Monsieur Guébhard, a banker, to whom we were recommended by my cousin [Enrico Blondel]; and this was a real change of scene: off with the wild wood and on with the beautiful drawing-room; away with all problems. . . The hotel they found with the help of the banker was good, even excellent ‘as far as bed and board were concerned’, but it overlooked the main street of Leghorn, via Ferdinanda, also called via Grande, which was always crowded and noisy. ‘But you will say: do all your rooms overlook the street? No; in part they overlook an enclosed space that you would call in writing a “cortiletto” and in speaking “on cortinett”; but do you know what goes on there? Below here is the El Greco Café, the best in the town, and the courtyard is part of it, and for much of the day and all the evening, there are adventurers from every nation, and they talk and shout and smoke and read, in fact it’s like a magic lantern show. And then above us we have Goodness knows whom getting up to Goodness knows what when we are in bed; Pietro’s guess, and I don’t think he’s far wrong, is that they play at jumping from one chair to another ten feet away; and winning this game must be a matter for great pride and joy from the row they make.’

  At Leghorn they met Antonio Benci, a Tuscan litterateur and an acquaintance of Fauriel; Benci wrote to his friend Vieusseux in Florence: ‘Manzoni has been here for some days now; I have read his novel, and it was a great pleasure to meet him again: he suffers with his nerves, pays no calls, and has no wish to do so: he is travelling with his mother (daughter of the famous Beccaria), his wife (from Vevey) and six children; he will spend two months in Florence: he may be leaving here tomorrow [it was the 25th August], the health of one of his daughters permitting, and will spend a day or two at Pisa.’ The daughter who was unwell was Sofia; she had taken to bed shortly after their arrival at Leghorn.

  The same day, 25th August, Giulietta was writing to Fauriel for the first time since their journey began. ‘I am writing all in the dark, not knowing if my letter will reach you, not knowing if you are in Paris, or if you are inclined to receive it.’ As usual, Fauriel had not written for a long time. ‘We have been told that you too are thinking of travelling this summer. . . Mama has done some sea-bathing, but had to give up because of some boils that developed under her arms. Papa is continuing to bathe. . . We were intending to leave Leghorn today, we’ve been here sixteen days and Bonne Maman can’t stand the din, the confusion, the continual crowds below our balcony, the endless traffic; but our poor Sofia has been seriously ill these last days with a bilious fever, and it’s only today that her temperature has gone down; the poor little thing is very run down. However, the doctor says that if things proceed as he expects, we can leave next Tuesday, 28th. . .’ They had met the De Maistres who lived in the country outside Pisa; they had gone to call on them with a letter of introduction from their relative Saint-Réal. Giulietta had liked them: she had read De Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma Chambre and other books. ‘I am sending this letter to Paris, and Heaven knows where you are! In a month and a half Papa has sold the whole edition. . . This success has really exceeded all expectations.’

  When they reached Florence at the beginning of September, Sofia’s fever returned. Manzoni was invited to the house of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who said he was delighted to meet him; he received the following note: ‘The Marchese Corsi presents his compliments to Count Manzoni, and has the honour to inform him that tomorrow morning, Thursday, at eleven o’clock he will call to accompany him to the residence of H.R.H. the Grand Duke, who will receive him without any sort of protocol, and therefore he is asked to come in frock-coat, trousers and top hat as the writer will be, and to bring his son.’ The Grand Duke had heard that he always had his son beside him. So Manzoni went with Pietro.

  Then he wrote to Tommaso Grossi: ‘I am half ashamed, and I’m afraid you will think vanity has turned my head to have wished to be presented to the Grand Duke. Oh, now the cat’s out of the bag. But I must say it was not an impulse of vanity on my part, but an excess of kindness on his. . . Suffice it to say that in the end I had almost lost all sense of embarrassment, and felt free to enjoy the conversation of a most cultured and amiable man, of excellent understanding and heart. His Highness spoke of you and of your Ildegonda and the Crusades with great esteem. . . I know that those who speak with princes always exalt their genius and their heart, especially their kindness, because this suggests one wa
s well received. But what is that to me? That’s just how it was. . . I have said nothing yet of the health of the family. Sofia, who had had a relapse, is convalescent again, thank Heaven, and this time we feel more confident that she is making a real recovery. But you can imagine how the poor little thing has enjoyed Florence. My mother is not at all pleased with the effects of this climate: she has lost her appetite, and feels that sort of vague indisposition that is everywhere and nowhere in particular, in short she longs for Milan; and to see her like this, as you can well believe, greatly diminishes the satisfaction the youngsters and I get from our stay. Poor Enrichetta has gained nothing from it, at least as regards her most obvious trouble, unfortunately her eyes are in the same state as they were, and sometimes she says they give her even more trouble. . .’ Meanwhile he was revising his novel, which consisted of seventy-one great folio sheets; at his side as advisers on points of language were Gaetano Cioni, a Florentine, ‘a learned, amiable man, author of those novellas which were thought to be sixteenth-century works’, and Giovanni Battista Niccolini, from Pisa, author of many tragedies. ‘You know how I am occupied; I have seventy-one sheets to launder, and I wouldn’t find water like the Arno or washer-women like Cioni and Niccolini anywhere but here. ’

  Cattaneo wrote, complaining that Manzoni did not write to him. ‘If I began to count up all the miles I’ve covered to get your news from the various people who have the privilege of receiving it, they would perhaps come to such a total that it would have paid me to come to Tuscany myself to get it. But I am not complaining of the distance I’ve walked: I would go ten times the distance on such an errand. I am bemoaning the fact that I never hear: All are well and send their love. The persistence of Enrichetta’s trouble; that intrusive gastric fever of poor little Sofia; the gloominess that seems to underlie dearest Giulietta’s last letter to Giacomino, such things are not at all calculated to reassure those who love you - I almost said: more than you deserve. You will say that I too have my good share of gloom. In truth, I have no great reason to be cheerful, with the foolish life I lead. With constant lumbago into the bargain, accompanied by a delightful sore throat etc. and goodness knows what else, you will see I deserve your sympathy if I seem a bit morbid today.’