Bettina Fantuzzo

Bettina Fantuzzo, known in Velo as the provost’s sister-in-law, is a devout and socially deferential woman whom Don Emanuele enlists in his dealings with Lelia. Her part in the story is modest but revealing: she is asked to serve both as a charitable visitor and as a religious influence, while her own unease, piety, and appetite for confidential talk complicate that assignment.

Identity and Position

Bettina belongs to the local clerical circle through her relationship to Don Tita, the provost, and through her association with Don Emanuele, the chaplain. She is not presented as a forceful organizer. When Don Emanuele asks her to undertake a task with Lelia, she turns red, protests that she is good for nothing, and looks at him with a pleading, humble expression. His calm gesture as her superior checks her objections; she remains seated and submits to the conversation. Her deference is visible in her body before it becomes agreement.

The narration also shows how carefully she manages her conduct around people whose regard matters to her. At Marcello’s funeral, she approaches Lelia with gentle manners and smiling officiousness, although sustaining that performance costs her effort. While waiting with Lelia in the rectory, she fills the silence by praising the ceremony’s dignity, Don Emanuele’s observance of ritual, and his capacity as a director of souls. She even compares the two priests to celebrated religious figures, with cautious qualifications. Lelia, absorbed in her own thoughts, does not take in a word. Bettina’s earnest tribute thus meets not rejection so much as complete inattention.

Charity and Don Emanuele’s Plan

Don Emanuele appoints Bettina and Lelia as visitors for a local charitable fund that provides assistance to poor mothers unable to work because of illness or childbirth. Complaints have arisen about the fund, and the chaplain has persuaded the Congregation of Charity to name two women to carry out visits. He asks them to coordinate their work and says he will prepare a list of mothers who need attention first. The task has a practical purpose: it concerns households in need, not merely a display of piety.

For Don Emanuele, however, the appointment also serves a separate purpose. He wants Bettina to take the place of Donna Fedele Vayla as Lelia’s friend and to exert a sound religious influence over her. The arrangement folds a private campaign into public charity. Bettina’s reluctance is genuine: she groans at the prospect of helping the poor face to face, though she is content to give from a distance. The evidence does not show her choosing this larger plan for herself; rather, she is drawn into it by the chaplain’s authority and by the prospect of acting alongside Lelia.

The limits of that arrangement become apparent at the rectory. Lelia says she may not be at the villa the next morning, because she intends to wait there for her cousin to arrive. Don Emanuele falls silent, uncertain how to proceed. Before Bettina and Lelia can settle their future visits, Don Tita arrives, speaks privately to the chaplain, and has Bettina leave the room. Her assigned partnership with Lelia is therefore proposed but not shown developing into sustained charitable work.

At Montanina with Teresina

Bettina later visits Montanina alone. Lelia is said to have a migraine, and Bettina is received by Teresina instead. With Lelia and her father out of sight, the two women welcome the chance to talk. Bettina likes Teresina because she does not feel intimidated by her: she regards the maid as sensible, devout, and knowledgeable, and enjoys hearing her stories. Teresina, in turn, likes Bettina because the older woman speaks to her respectfully. Their mutual ease rests partly on a shared religious outlook and partly on the difference in their social positions: each finds the other comfortable company.

Teresina shows Bettina around the villa, but not through Lelia’s rooms or the master’s rooms, which Lelia’s father has locked. Their conversation moves between pious assessments and gossip, which the two women exchange with the satisfaction of people who consider themselves prudent and God-fearing. When Bettina asks whether Lelia is a good Christian, Teresina answers affirmatively, though Bettina’s question and Teresina’s surprise make clear that the answer is not simply a report of what either woman has witnessed.

Questions About Lelia’s Faith

Bettina steers the conversation toward Lelia’s attempted suicide. Teresina says that Lelia tore up the revealing writing before she left and suggests that she may have abandoned her intention. Bettina then asks whether Lelia prays in the morning and evening and whether she owns devotional books. Teresina mentions the Gospels given to Lelia by Marcello, as well as a Filotea and a Via del Paradiso from her schooldays. Asked whether Lelia reads them, Teresina gives no clear assurance. The books are evidence of religious provision and inheritance, not proof of a settled devotional practice.

Bettina next reports that people at the rectory hope Lelia will soon go to confession after the events of that night, while Don Emanuele is especially worried that human considerations may keep her away. Bettina has not intended to lay a trap, but the appeal catches Teresina off guard. When the maid, who had expressed doubt about Lelia’s suicidal intention, responds with an involuntary, heartfelt affirmation that Lelia should confess, she reveals her own wish for the girl’s religious return. Bettina’s questions thus elicit more than information: they expose the gap between a stated uncertainty about Lelia and a sincere hope that she will seek the sacrament.

Bettina concludes that it might have been better if the Trento family had never taken Lelia in. In her view, grieving the death of her fiancé, Lelia might then have decided to leave the world by giving herself to God rather than attempting suicide. The remark makes plain how Bettina’s religious imagination interprets a crisis: the escape from life she fears can be recast as a vocation to religious life. Her concern may be sincere, but it also echoes Don Emanuele’s effort to steer Lelia toward the convent and away from Donna Fedele Vayla’s influence. Bettina’s brief appearances hold those impulses together—kindness and curiosity, practical charity and spiritual direction—without showing that she can resolve the conflict between them.