Lelia’s attempted suicide becomes a turning point that others interpret as evidence of her rejection of the future being arranged for her. The attempt is not narrated directly in the available scenes; instead, it shapes Don Emanuele’s plans for her and colors later observations of her sudden interest in religious practice. Those competing interpretations make the crisis consequential beyond the act itself: it becomes both a warning of Lelia’s distress and an opening through which others try to direct her life.

Background and Significance

Don Emanuele understands the attempted suicide in the context of Donna Fedele’s hope for a marriage between the Camin and Alberti families. He takes Lelia’s continued aversion to that match as proven by her attempt, and regards the crisis as evidence of the disgust with the world that had driven her toward self-destruction. His response is not to endorse the marriage, but to imagine that the same despair might be redirected into religious commitment.

The attempted suicide thus carries a meaning beyond the immediate danger it represents. For Don Emanuele, it suggests that Lelia might be persuaded to leave ordinary life altogether; for the narrative, his interpretation exposes how readily other people turn her suffering into a plan for her future. His proposed remedy rests on his own judgment of what kind of life suits her, rather than on any clear declaration from Lelia that she has a vocation.

Competing Interpretations

Don Emanuele hopes first to bend Lelia toward God and then to offer her health and peace through religious life. He rejects the idea of placing her in a community devoted to teaching, caring for children, or nursing the sick, and instead privately concludes that she belongs in a contemplative order. The plan is bound up with his expectation that Donna Fedele will be away for an operation and a long convalescence, leaving an opportunity to influence Lelia while her usual companion is absent.

The archpriest takes a different view. He considers Lelia religiously ignorant and erratic, but believes that once she returns to the Church she can be entrusted to divine paternal indulgence. He is satisfied that she might go to the sacraments and does not share Don Emanuele’s hope of making a nun of her. The contrast matters: the same suicide attempt can be read as an invitation to impose a permanent religious vocation or as a sign of distress that calls for patience rather than a rigid plan.

Aftermath and Signs of Change

Later, Teresina describes a Lelia who seems altered by the prospect of a religious journey. Lelia packs pious books and sacred images that had previously left her indifferent, obtains a railway timetable, and studies it closely. While being dressed, she asks whether Teresina would mind if her hair were cut, then explains that it might be taken to be sold; soon afterward she asks whether Teresina has ever considered becoming a nun. Teresina dismisses these signs as a feverish excitement and insists that Lelia has no vocation, while Siora Bettina Fantuzzo is troubled by the implications of the journey and the concealed purpose behind it.

These details do not establish that Lelia has chosen religious life, nor do they disclose the circumstances of the suicide attempt itself. They show instead how the crisis continues to be read through gestures, objects, and plans: religious books and images, the railway timetable, and the question about cutting her hair. The attempt remains a measure of Lelia’s resistance and vulnerability, but the evidence leaves unresolved whether her new religious preoccupations express conviction or a passing disturbance.