Donna Fedele's serious illness

Donna Fedele’s serious illness is a concealed, worsening condition that reshapes her obligations to Lelia and ultimately brings her to the threshold of death. For more than a year she avoids medical examination, even as pain and weakness accumulate. When she finally accepts the need for care, her decisions are governed not only by medical advice but also by conscience, religious belief, and a growing commitment to protect Lelia. Her body increasingly restricts what she can do; her choices, however, remain directed toward others.

Course and Medical Uncertainty

Donna Fedele tells Lelia that she has been ill for over a year, suffers greatly, and fears that it may already be too late for treatment. She has long found the prospect of being examined repugnant. The narrative does not establish a precise diagnosis at this point, and her own expectation that she may die soon is not initially the result of a complete medical assessment. Her condition is known to her principally through prolonged suffering and a sense of physical decline.

The illness also has a moral dimension for her. She describes her distress as more than physical, and later understands her suffering as a form of expiation for sins of thought from her youth. This interpretation does not make the symptoms less real or the medical uncertainty disappear. Rather, it becomes one of the ways she gives meaning to pain whose extent and outcome she cannot confidently control.

After Lelia’s nighttime crisis, Donna Fedele is herself feverish and in pain. She nevertheless remains beside the young woman, conceals what she suspects about the attempted suicide, and arranges for a doctor to be called when Lelia’s fever rises. When the doctor visits, she explains the circumstances while asking him to preserve the story that Lelia had been sleepwalking. The doctor is not told everything, and the account emphasizes that Donna Fedele’s suffering is as yet unexplained to him and to others. Her care for Lelia thus proceeds alongside an illness that she continues to keep private.

Treatment, Duty, and Delayed Departure

A doctor who examines her at Arsiero recommends absolute rest, considering it necessary if she is to undertake the journey to Turin for surgery. He suggests Padua as a nearer alternative, but Donna Fedele insists on Turin. Although the operation may be postponed for a few days, it cannot be put off indefinitely. These instructions make the conflict plain: travel and treatment require her to conserve strength, while her concern for Lelia repeatedly draws her into demanding action.

The choice to seek treatment comes only after she has begun to believe that conscience obliges her to do so. In the letter she receives from Lelia’s father, she has already been resting in an armchair to save her strength for the journey. She expects that the operation may succeed, yet doubts that she herself has enough strength left to live for many more months. Her outlook is therefore not simply a refusal of medical hope: she is prepared to undergo surgery, but anticipates that her body may fail soon afterward.

The plan changes when Lelia runs away toward Valsolda. Donna Fedele abandons the journey to Turin and decides to go after her instead, judging that surgery would not have cured her and offering her own life to God for the sake of two people she believes have become estranged from Him. She sends Eufemia Magis elsewhere and chooses to travel alone, believing that her arrival in her weakened state will make a stronger impression. The decision turns a medical journey into an act of self-offering, while also placing her already fragile health under further strain.

Caregiving and Relationships

Donna Fedele’s illness does not remove her from the work of caring for Lelia; it makes that work more costly. After Lelia’s crisis, she sleeps in the adjoining bed, stays alert to her fever and distress, and tries to spare her the humiliation of knowing that others suspect what she intended. She even asks Lelia to promise that she will seek treatment, while bargaining for a promise in return. Their exchange links Donna Fedele’s hope for her own care to her effort to keep Lelia safe, without making the young woman responsible for curing her.

In Valsolda, she continues to act as Lelia’s protector and adviser despite her own worsening condition. She tells Massimo Alberti that Lelia cannot remain there and works out a plan for the young woman to travel with her to Turin, then stay with Eufemia Magis at Santhià if Lelia’s father permits it. She accepts that the father’s answer may not be negative, and agrees that Lelia should avoid returning to Velo. The practical arrangements—medical review, telegrams, luggage, and redirected letters—show how her remaining strength is spent organizing Lelia’s next steps.

Her concern also reaches beyond Lelia. A letter from Don Aurelio reports that he hopes to visit Massimo in Valsolda and help him through a depression of spirit. Donna Fedele has told him that Lelia loves Massimo but is resisting love out of pride, and fears that she cannot offer him spiritual support. Her own illness gives these concerns urgency: she imagines her remaining time as an opportunity to guide others back toward faith, even while her capacity to travel and intervene is diminishing.

Final Decline and Religious Preparation

At Valsolda, pain becomes severe enough to interrupt Donna Fedele during a conversation with Massimo. She cannot read the prayers for Mass; her prayer book slips from her hand, and the pain only subsides shortly before Lelia and Eufemia Magis return from church. She does not disclose the extent of the episode, instead receiving them calmly and saying that she feels better. The effort to maintain reassurance contrasts with the physical evidence of her declining strength.

A doctor later finds her heart very weak and fears for her life. His examination remains incomplete because Donna Fedele will not permit the full examination he says is necessary to understand her condition. She nevertheless discusses the proposed operation and says she intends to leave for Turin the next morning, subject to the doctor’s permission. The plan persists, but it is now shadowed by an explicit medical warning and by the uncertainty created when the examination cannot be completed.

After a period of apparent quiet, her condition worsens abruptly. A very high fever leads the doctor to conclude that a general infection has begun and that nothing more can be attempted; he expects death soon. Fully conscious of her state, Donna Fedele asks for a priest and the viaticum. The prevost of San Mamette administers the last rites that afternoon. Even after receiving these religious consolations, she repeatedly asks when Massimo will return from Porto Ceresio, hoping to speak with him before it is too late.

Significance

The illness is both a continuing physical crisis and a measure of the limits within which Donna Fedele’s generosity operates. Her reluctance to be examined delays clinical knowledge, while her eventual plans for surgery show that religious acceptance of suffering does not amount to a simple rejection of treatment. She seeks medical authorization for travel and tries to make arrangements for care, even as she believes her life may be near its end.

The contrast between bodily incapacity and practical resolve structures her final actions. Rest is prescribed, but she spends her strength on Lelia; surgery is planned, but she gives it up to pursue her friend; prayer remains central, yet the final scenes also depend on doctors, travel arrangements, and the uncertain return of Massimo Alberti. Her illness makes time feel scarce without reducing her to a passive patient. As her body loses the power to resist, she continues to make decisions about care, faith, and the people she hopes to leave better supported than she found them.