Donna Fedele Abandons Her Turin Surgery Trip and Rushes to Valsolda

Donna Fedele Abandons Her Turin Surgery Trip and Rushes to Valsolda marks a decisive reversal: a woman preparing to travel to Torino for treatment instead turns toward Valsolda after discovering that Lelia Camin has secretly gone to seek Massimo Alberti. The change is both practical and spiritual. Donna Fedele postpones the operation, travels without her cousin, and accepts the journey as an offering of her own life for the safety and reconciliation of two people she believes have moved away from God.

The planned journey and its interruption

Donna Fedele had been preparing to go to Torino for an operation. The arrangements were advanced: the Ospedale Mauriziano had a room ready, and a professor was to examine her the morning after her arrival. Her agent in Torino had repeated the arrangements and asked her to telegraph when she departed from Arsiero. Her cousin, Cugina Eufemia, was helping with the preparations, including the luggage.

A letter from Lelia abruptly changed the purpose of the journey. Donna Fedele initially failed to recognize the handwriting on its address; before reading the contents, she checked the signature. Lelia wrote that she was about to board a train from Vicenza toward Dasio. She meant to tell Massimo that she had been at fault and foolish, and that, if he wanted her, she would be his forever. The letter also disclosed that Lelia had kept her plan from her father and had pretended to act as his legitimate daughter in order to carry it out. She asked Donna Fedele’s forgiveness and blessing, describing her decision as an act of love, humility, and justice.

A private decision of sacrifice

The news first left Donna Fedele visibly shaken: she widened her eyes, sat upright, reread the letter, and let it fall into her lap. After Cugina Eufemia withdrew for the night, she stood in the window opening, silhouetted against the starry sky, with her face bent over her joined hands as if in prayer. She then dictated two telegrams for the following morning. One instructed that young man to be a Christian and a gentleman; the other told her Torino agent to notify the hospital that, because of unforeseen circumstances, she was postponing her arrival.

Alone, Donna Fedele allowed herself two tears she had concealed from her cousin. In her meditation she imagined offering her life to God so that two souls who had drawn away from Him might return. She especially hoped that Lelia, who had reverently honored Marcello Trento’s memory of his dead son, would emerge unharmed from the dangerous trial ahead. Donna Fedele believed the operation would not certainly cure her, and the thought of giving her life for this purpose brought her a happiness she had not expected. Her decision thus carries a grave awareness of her illness, but the text presents it as a willing religious offering, not as a claim that she knows what the journey will cost.

Setting out alone

Donna Fedele first considered taking Cugina Eufemia with her to Valsolda, then decided instead to send her cousin to Santhià and make the journey alone. She imagined that her arrival, alone and in her weakened condition, would make a stronger impression on Lelia and Massimo. The practical arrangements were correspondingly altered: the cousin could take Donna Fedele’s trunk, while Donna Fedele herself needed only a valise and a bag. She instructed Cugina Eufemia to attend to the telegrams and to arrange a carriage at Arsiero for two o’clock.

The decision also brings into view the family pressures surrounding Lelia’s flight. After Marcello’s handwritten will was opened, Lelia was identified as universal heir, while her father, Girolamo da Camin, announced his paternity and arrival. He had described her as a minor, but Lelia stated that she was twenty years and a few months old; Marcello had believed her older. When Girolamo later came to the Villino delle Rose, he asked Donna Fedele to arrange a meeting and brought Lelia a packet of ten-lira notes, saying he would render an account when the remaining months had passed. Lelia’s letter makes clear that she is concealing her immediate journey from him. Donna Fedele’s intervention therefore answers not only a love crisis but a precarious conflict over Lelia’s independence and her father’s claim upon her.

Arrival and the continuing intervention

Donna Fedele’s decision leads her to Valsolda, where she finds Lelia and Massimo together. Though she is ill, she refuses to make a doctor her first concern, saying that she must herself act as the doctor for both of them, though not yet. After hearing that Lelia has written to her father and is awaiting his answer, Donna Fedele judges that a refusal is certain; Massimo gives her reason to think otherwise, and she accepts that the answer may not be negative. He also hopes to obtain a position as the local doctor in Valsolda.

Even so, Donna Fedele insists that Lelia cannot remain there. She proposes taking the young woman to Torino and, if Girolamo permits, leaving her for a time with her cousins in Santhià. After discussion, they settle on a plan: Donna Fedele will rest that day, be examined by a doctor the next morning, and, if authorized, travel with Lelia to Torino. Cugina Eufemia will continue with them after arranging to meet Lelia at Santhià, and letters sent for Lelia to San Mamette will be forwarded there. Donna Fedele yields on the question of paternal permission because the cousins’ home seems safe and Lelia abhors returning to Velo. Her journey does not erase the limits placed on Lelia; it creates a route through them, balancing protection, propriety, illness, and the young woman’s urgent wish not to go home.