Benedetto’s death in Roma closes his withdrawal from the world and becomes the beginning of two linked reckonings: the telling of his last hours and the later return of his body to Oria. Massimo recounts the death to Marcello Trento and Lelia Camin, including Jeanne’s role, while the temporary burial at Campo Verano leaves open the question of where Benedetto will finally rest. At his eventual funeral in Oria, public prayer and Massimo’s grief make the loss a decisive moment in Massimo’s return to faith.

The final hours in Roma

Massimo’s account places Benedetto’s death in the gardener’s cottage at Villa Mayda. It begins earlier, with Benedetto’s disappearance from his home in Oria and his departure from the world in order to give himself to God, then follows the course of his final hours. Massimo also explains the part Jeanne played in those hours, making her presence part of the story of Benedetto’s death rather than a detail that can be separated from it.

The account is delivered during a conversation with Marcello Trento and Lelia Camin. Massimo has begun speaking over the fruit course; by the time he finishes, dusk has fallen, and nobody has thought to serve coffee or light the lamps. The story’s close is marked by this stillness: Marcello and Lelia say nothing, and Massimo’s narration leaves them with the unanswered weight of Benedetto’s death.

Jeanne and the limits of what Massimo knows

Lelia asks whether Massimo knew Jeanne. He says that he saw her only briefly, in an entrance hall at Villa Mayda, on a night when heavy rain and the poor light made it impossible for him to judge her appearance. He remembers an elegant figure, but cannot say whether she was beautiful. Asked what became of her, he can offer no answer: nobody knows.

This uncertainty sits beside Massimo’s account of Jeanne’s involvement in Benedetto’s last hours. He can describe the role she played, yet the brief encounter and the absence of later news leave her subsequent life unresolved. Lelia’s questions draw a boundary around his knowledge: the death can be recounted, but not every person who touched its final scene can be traced beyond it.

Burial and the estate

When Lelia asks where Benedetto is buried, Massimo hesitates before answering that, for the time being, he lies at Campo Verano. His qualification surprises both Lelia and Marcello Trento, who ask what he means; Massimo does not explain. The temporary resting place therefore anticipates the later transfer of Benedetto’s body to Oria, while the conversation itself withholds that outcome.

Benedetto’s death also sets an inheritance in motion. After his handwritten will is opened before the magistrate of Schio, Lelia Camin is named universal heir; Teresina Scotz receives a daily legacy of five lire, exempt from tax. A telegram from Girolamo da Camin arrives with condolences, a declaration that he is Lelia’s father, and notice of his expected arrival that evening. The will and the telegram bring questions of property and family into the aftermath of Benedetto’s death, even as the first account of his burial remains incomplete.

The return to Oria

Benedetto’s body is eventually brought back to Oria for his funeral. The coffin travels by steamer in a public procession lit by torches and candles, accompanied by Don Aurelio, Massimo, and young followers who have come from Roma. At the funeral, the crowd answers the priest’s prayers, while Massimo and a veiled woman pray on their knees. The woman’s identity is suspected by Massimo and Don Aurelio but left unspoken.

At the graveside, Don Aurelio refuses to pronounce on Benedetto’s holiness. He instead stresses human frailty, the inscrutability of divine judgment, and the duty to pray and forgive rather than condemn. The coffin is lowered near Elisa Maironi’s grave. For Massimo, the funeral also exposes his own separation from the faith and from Benedetto’s memory: overcome by grief and remorse during the voyage, he weeps below deck and resolves to return to Christ and the Church. Benedetto’s death thus reaches beyond the loss of one man, joining private mourning to a communal rite and to Massimo’s spiritual reversal.