Lelia Camin and Massimo Alberti

Lelia Camin and Massimo Alberti are drawn together through a relationship in which desire first appears as resistance: Lelia believes that loving again would betray Andrea Trento and her obligations to Marcello Trento, while Massimo reads her reserve as deliberate hostility. Their attachment develops through physical signs and misread encounters—an involuntary tremor, a glance, Schumann at the piano, a flower left behind—before it becomes a matter of practical choices. Grief and social constraint do not simply delay a conventional courtship; they shape what either can acknowledge, and whether Lelia can choose freely at all.

The past that governs their first meeting

Years after Andrea’s death, Massimo has stopped visiting Montanina, though he remembers Marcello Trento affectionately on anniversaries and at New Year. Lelia dislikes hearing Massimo’s name praised. She associates her growing aversion with the fading image of Andrea and with emotional and bodily stirrings she cannot comfortably explain. She concludes that she must never love again: that is a duty to Andrea’s memory, to Marcello, who has tacitly accepted her as a living relic of the dead, and to her own ideal of a purity set apart from her dishonored parents. When Marcello tells her that Massimo is coming as a guest, she shivers, then rebukes herself for pretending that his arrival means nothing. Before bed, she kisses Andrea’s portrait in her locket and the small ring he gave her after a serious quarrel, then turns to the wall and weeps.

That inheritance of mourning governs the first encounter. As Massimo descends the stairs, Lelia sits at her desk with her back to him, trying not to admit her keen curiosity or the force of her racing heart. Introduced as Marcello’s daughter, she gives Massimo only a slight greeting. He sees a young woman receiving her dead fiancé’s friend: in his first impression, she belongs wholly to love that has ended and to death. Her sober, gray-and-black dress and composed bearing seem appropriate to that identity, and he finds her nearly beautiful. When Marcello praises her for having sacrificed herself for him and his late wife, Lelia rebukes him and rushes from the room. His attempt to explain her only makes her retreat more emphatic.

Attraction expressed as resistance

The first change in their understanding comes through a glance. During a conversation in which Don Aurelio teases Massimo, Massimo catches a flash from Lelia’s eyes that pierces him and momentarily clouds his sight. He later recalls the look as a flash of fire, but cannot make it fit her behavior. On a narrow path, Lelia steps aside and waits with her eyes lowered; Massimo passes without looking at her, fretting that her manner suggests she assumes he intends to court her. He considers whether Don Aurelio has imagined a match between them, but finds no clear reason for Lelia’s hostility. The scene leaves him aware of an attraction he cannot explain and a resistance he does not know how to answer.

Music makes that contradiction harder to dismiss. When Massimo says he may not leave after all, Lelia is hurt by his slight smile. She opens the piano and plays a piece from Schumann’s Carnival too nervously and without sweetness. Massimo notices how her questions at dinner, her interest in his stories, her response to his irony, and her choice of a passionate piece all complicate the impression of indifference. He also recognizes that Marcello has brought them together and then withdrawn, leaving them to manage an intimacy neither has named.

Later, after Lelia has said goodnight with unexpected gentleness, Massimo remains on the terrace, unsettled by Marcello’s confidential talk and by the sweetness and discomfort he feels at hearing Lelia’s steps. He goes toward the piano almost unconsciously. A flower of memory—apparently fallen from Lelia’s sash—lies on the seat. He bends to pick it up, draws back, and goes upstairs instead. In his room he regrets not taking it, thinking that he would have placed it beside Andrea’s photograph. The small, unclaimed flower brings his loyalty to the dead and his emerging attachment to Lelia into the same image.

Conflicting interpretations and outside pressures

Donna Fedele Vayla watches their closeness with concern rather than certainty. She sees Massimo becoming more deeply involved, Marcello uneasy, and Lelia frighteningly enigmatic, apparently struggling with herself. From Teresina she hears about flowers and closed windows—signs that she considers suggestive but not conclusive. Teresina believes Lelia is in love and ashamed of it, holding herself to the memory of Andrea and to Marcello’s trust. Donna Fedele suspects a conflict between feeling and pride, and doubts that attempts to influence Lelia would help. The relationship is therefore legible to an attentive observer before it is safely speakable between the two people involved.

In Velo d’Astico, gossip makes that uncertainty more dangerous. Don Tita Fantuzzo tells Bettina Pagan and Don Emanuele Costi de Villata that Massimo, whom he associates with the priest of Lago, has been involved in Milan with a married woman. He then speculates that Massimo may have designs on Lelia, who is staying with the older Trento. The allegations are presented as rumor, not established fact, but their circulation casts the possibility of a relationship as a source of scandal and suspicion. Donna Fedele has already heard that her own villa is being called a den because of Carnesecca; when she goes to confront the clergy, she carries both personal resentment and a deliberate store of sharp arguments. The social atmosphere surrounding Massimo and Lelia is thus shaped by insinuation as much as by their actual conduct.

Their private uncertainty also unfolds amid Lelia’s dependence and estrangement from her family. After Marcello’s death, his will makes her universal heir and leaves Teresina a small daily annuity; a telegram from Girolamo da Camin announces that he is Lelia’s father and intends to arrive. The agent reports that Lelia says she is twenty and a few months old, although Marcello believed her older. The evidence does not make this inheritance the cause of her feelings for Massimo, but it clarifies why her ability to choose a home or future is precarious. Her father’s later behavior confirms the material stakes: he comes to Donna Fedele’s villa hoping to secure his position with Lelia and her inheritance, while planning to take as much movable property as possible before his remaining months in office end. Lelia receives him rigidly and does not invite him to sit. Affection between her and Massimo must contend with a family structure in which money, residence, and paternal authority constrain her freedom.

A tentative understanding in Valsolda

When Massimo and Lelia are together in Valsolda, Donna Fedele refuses to treat their immediate wishes as the only consideration. Though seriously ill, she says the doctor’s role is hers, for both of them, and asks what they intend to do. Massimo explains Lelia’s letter to her father and says he hopes to obtain a position as a district doctor in Valsolda. Donna Fedele accepts that the father’s answer may not be negative, but insists that Lelia cannot remain there and must leave with her. Massimo acknowledges the necessity, although he thinks it will be difficult to persuade Lelia.

Lelia protests when Donna Fedele summons her. She hopes Donna Fedele will rest in Valsolda and later accompany her to Turin; returning to Velo fills her with horror, and only months remain before she becomes her own legal authority. Donna Fedele points out that Lelia would be entirely without support in Turin. They consider sending her to Santhià, to Donna Fedele’s cousin, if her father permits it. After discussion, they agree that Donna Fedele will rest that day, see the doctor the next morning, and—if cleared to travel—go with Lelia to Turin. A telegram will summon the cousin to meet Lelia at Santhià; Eufemia will continue with her, and letters arriving for Lelia at San Mamette will be forwarded. Donna Fedele eventually yields on the question of paternal permission, judging the cousin’s home safe and Lelia’s dread of Velo decisive.

Before they separate, Donna Fedele asks Massimo to return to Dasio and to see Lelia between six and seven that evening, in her presence. She feels responsible for Lelia’s flight and conscious that the maternal role she has chosen for herself does not give her the freedom of a true mother. Lelia resists the instruction, but Massimo addresses her tenderly and she calms at once, accepting his wish. Donna Fedele is astonished by the force of this response. The moment suggests that Massimo can reach Lelia in a way others cannot; it does not resolve the practical question of where she will live or establish a settled future for the pair. Their relationship remains an emerging bond tested by grief, reputation, family authority, and Lelia’s need for protection.