Lelia Camin and Girolamo Camin's father-daughter relationship

The relationship between Lelia Camin and her biological father, Girolamo Camin, is a contest between formal kinship and profound estrangement. Their connection becomes consequential when Marcello Trento’s will makes Lelia his universal heir: Girolamo asserts his paternity and presses for contact, but Lelia’s response is rigid refusal. His efforts to approach her are entangled with his plans for her inheritance, while her dread of living in his household makes the bond not merely distant but, in her own view, morally dangerous.

Recognition and Inheritance

After Marcello Trento’s death, an agent reported that a telegram had arrived from Padua, signed by Girolamo da Camin. It expressed condolences, declared him to be Lelia’s father, described her as a minor, and announced his expected arrival that evening. The agent’s account also recorded that Lelia acknowledged the relationship but said she was twenty and a few months old; the deceased had believed her older. The will had been opened before the magistrate in Schio, and named Lelia universal heir. These details make recognition a matter of more than family feeling: it arrives alongside the disclosure of her inheritance and a dispute, at least in the agent’s account, about her age.

Girolamo’s biological claim is therefore acknowledged, but it does not produce filial confidence. He approaches Lelia through others and through financial arrangements, while she treats the relationship as an unwanted obligation rather than a source of security. The difference between his assertion of fatherhood and her guarded recognition of it remains central to their later encounters.

Paternal Claims and Financial Calculation

The narration presents Girolamo’s approach to his daughter as cautious, but not disinterested. He intends to recover as much as possible of the estate’s movable property during the remaining months of his authority, behave humbly so that Lelia might grant him a substantial allowance once she came of age, and secure favorable terms from his creditors. He understands that Francesco Molesin wants Lelia under her father’s roof in order to control her, prevent a marriage, and thereby gain practical control over the Trento fortune. Girolamo’s own ambitions are more limited, but they still make his relationship with Lelia inseparable from the question of who will command her property.

His domestic circumstances also constrain what he is willing to ask of her. He believes he cannot keep Lelia and Carolina Gorlago in the same house: he expects Lelia to leave, yet considers dismissing Carolina even less possible. He and Carolina are not faithful to one another, and their quarrels can be severe, but the narration says that, in their own fashion, they remain attached. Girolamo’s reluctance to give up that household helps explain why his desire to bring Lelia home stops short of a clean break with the life she rejects.

The Visit to Villino delle Rose

Girolamo goes to Villino delle Rose hoping to suggest that Lelia live with him, while taking care not to seem insistent. He also wants to remain agreeable to Donna Fedele, whom he regards as Lelia’s adviser. Before he sees his daughter, he appears stiff and uncertain, speaks in broken phrases, and repeatedly thanks Donna Fedele without making his meaning clear. The narration characterizes his nervousness as genuine, while also observing that it serves as a useful cover for the subtlety of his designs.

Donna Fedele understands that his hesitant request is, in effect, a formal appeal to see Lelia. She warns him that Lelia may refuse, then arranges the meeting because she had previously pressed the young woman to receive her father if he asked. Lelia stands to meet him, grave and unmoving. Girolamo approaches with repeated questions about her health and kisses both her cheeks; she shivers but lets him, remaining rigid and declining to invite him to sit. His physical gesture of affection meets no reciprocal warmth.

He praises her proposed journey to Turin, then gives her a packet of ten-lire notes, explaining that Donna Fedele had written about the trip. He says the money is hers and that he will account for it in a few months. Lelia dismisses the need for an account with contempt. When he asks whether she will come home after returning from Turin, she refuses. He wants to take his leave with another kiss but does not dare; instead, he asks whether she will write. The encounter ends without reconciliation: his offerings and professions of solicitude cannot overcome her refusal to enter his household.

Fear of Living Together

Lelia’s resistance has already been expressed to Teresina. She said that being forced to live with her father would make her ill; in her account, sharing his home would mean hating him intensely and losing her moral sense. She connected this anticipated illness to obedience to God, not to contempt for divine law. Donna Fedele interprets the idea as a distorted religious conception, shaped by ignorance, intellectual anomalies, poor instruction, and bad examples. The relationship thus becomes bound up with Lelia’s religious reasoning as well as her aversion: she presents life with her father as a threat to her moral self, not simply an unpleasant domestic arrangement.

That fear sharpens when Girolamo later revokes permission for Lelia to travel with Donna Fedele. His letter says that Teresina and the governess have both left, that his health is worsening, and that Lelia’s return is absolutely necessary. A separate appeal from the archpriest urges Lelia to help a poor family in Lago di Velo, but neither Lelia nor Donna Fedele suspects a connection between the two letters. The paternal demand leaves Lelia in tears. Donna Fedele counsels her to consider what good she might do in her father’s home, while promising protection if scandals made it impossible for her to stay. Lelia also confides that, once of age, she intends to refuse Marcello Trento’s inheritance; Donna Fedele reproaches her for what she sees as unreasonable pride. The inheritance and the father-daughter conflict are therefore linked again, but Lelia’s wish to reject the estate is her own stated decision, not a settlement between them.

A Relationship Without Reconciliation

On another encounter, Girolamo timidly asks Lelia whether she has come from Donna Fedele’s villa and seems to suspect an improper meeting. Her brusque, challenging reply makes him blink. He speaks of the priests, indicating that they disapprove of Lelia’s friendship with Donna Fedele and advising her to accommodate them, though he does not press the matter further. His manner suggests a man trying to negotiate between clerical influence and his daughter’s independence, rather than openly enforcing either side’s wishes.

Much later, while Lelia is in Valsolda, Massimo Alberti tells Donna Fedele that Lelia has written to her father and is waiting for his reply. Donna Fedele initially expects a refusal, but allows that the answer may not be negative. She considers leaving Lelia with her cousin in Santhià, if Girolamo permits it. After discussion, she decides to proceed with the arrangement herself, relying in part on Girolamo’s habitual deference to her and on the safety of the household. No reply from him is given in this episode. His possible consent remains a practical consideration, not evidence that trust or affection has been restored.

Across these encounters, the relationship repeatedly separates outward forms from inward feeling: a father claims his daughter, offers money, kisses her, and asks her to return, while she remains physically rigid and refuses his home. Girolamo’s awkwardness may be real, but it coexists with calculations about property and household control. Lelia’s refusal, in turn, is not presented as a simple rejection of biological kinship; she acknowledges him as her father, yet experiences life with him as a threat to her moral well-being. The bond persists as a source of pressure and negotiation, without a scene of reconciliation to resolve its central estrangement.