Lelia and Massimo's love relationship

Lelia and Massimo’s love relationship grows within a web of grief, reputation, and guardianship rather than in isolation. Its tenderness appears in small acts of trust—especially Lelia’s shy wish that Massimo accompany her farther on her journey—while its future remains uncertain: he hopes to establish himself in Valsolda, but Donna Fedele decides that Lelia must leave with her for Turin.

Origins and Constraints

Massimo enters Lelia’s life first within the orbit of the Trento family’s loss. He comes to Velo d’Astico to visit the curate of the Parish of Sant’Ubaldo, who cannot lodge him, so he is offered hospitality at Montanina. Marcello remembers him as Andrea’s beloved friend. This connection to the dead gives Massimo an early place in a household shaped by bereavement, before the surviving passages make his and Lelia’s own attachment explicit.

Their circumstances are also constrained by Lelia’s age and inheritance. The agent’s report of Marcello’s will identifies Lelia as the universal heir and records that she is twenty years and a few months old, although her biological father, Girolamo da Camin, declares her a minor in his telegram and announces that he will arrive. When Girolamo later approaches Lelia, he brings money and speaks of accounting for it, while privately calculating how to secure control of the Trento property and prevent a marriage that might frustrate his plans. The relationship therefore sits beside a contest over Lelia’s independence: affection between the young people does not itself remove the family and financial pressures surrounding her choices.

Rumor and Social Pressure

Their possible intimacy becomes a subject of clerical gossip before the evidence offers any basis for treating the gossip as truth. Don Tita Fantuzzo tells Bettina Pagan and Don Emanuele Costi de Villata that the young man from Milan at Montanina is involved with a married woman there, then wonders aloud whether he might also have designs on the girl staying with the old Trento. The scene shows suspicion being assembled and circulated, not an established account of Massimo’s conduct. Its insinuation nevertheless places his association with Lelia under a moral cloud and shows how quickly private feeling can become a public story in Velo.

Lelia’s father adds a more material kind of pressure. He wants her near him while trying to protect his own interests in the estate, and his visit leaves her stiff and visibly averse to his embrace. Donna Fedele, by contrast, acts as Lelia’s protector and intermediary. She makes Lelia receive him, but also prepares to take her away; the journey is thus shaped both by Lelia’s difficult family position and by the need for a respectable, secure arrangement while she remains dependent on others.

Affection in Acts of Care

At San Mamette, Massimo tells Donna Fedele that he hopes to obtain the post of district doctor in Valsolda. She is glad to hear it, but insists that Lelia must leave with her. Massimo accepts that this is necessary, though he expects that persuading Lelia will be difficult. The exchange makes his hopes concrete without turning them into a settled plan: a possible professional future in the same region as Lelia is weighed against her immediate safety and the propriety of her remaining there.

When Lelia is called in and hears that she must go, she turns pale and protests in a pleading rather than defiant tone. She hopes Donna Fedele will stay in Valsolda for several days and then take her to Turin; returning to Velo fills her with horror, and only months remain before she will be of age. Donna Fedele points out that Turin would leave her without support, then proposes a safer alternative: Lelia could stay with her cousin in Santhià if her father permits it. After discussion, Donna Fedele agrees to proceed without waiting for that permission. Lelia’s insistence on avoiding Velo and Massimo’s presence in the same conversation reveal the emotional stakes, even as the immediate decision is made by the older woman responsible for her.

The arrangements are precise. Donna Fedele will rest that day, see the doctor the next morning, and, if authorized to travel, leave with Lelia for Turin. A telegram will summon the cousin to meet Lelia at Santhià; Donna Fedele’s companion, Eufemia, will continue with her, and letters arriving for Lelia at San Mamette will be forwarded. Massimo is asked to return to Dasio and to see Lelia again between six and seven that evening, in Donna Fedele’s presence. That supervised meeting sets a boundary around the couple’s closeness, but also preserves a near-term opportunity for them to meet again.

Parting and Spiritual Stakes

Before the departure, Donna Fedele asks Massimo to write out the itinerary. The travelers are expected to leave San Mamette shortly after ten, reach Santhià at six in the afternoon, and arrive in Turin around half past seven. Massimo will accompany them as far as Porto Ceresio. Lelia then asks, timidly, whether he cannot come as far as Milan. Her question is a small but unmistakable expression of wanting more time with him; his refusal is logistical, not a declaration against her. A traveler coming from Rome with Benedetto’s body is due to reach Porto Ceresio from Milan shortly after their arrival from Lugano, and the special steamer must leave again for Oria.

At Porto Ceresio, Massimo waits for the delayed funeral party after the women have gone. The narrative gathers his attachments into three figures: Lelia, described as the ardent young woman he loves; Donna Fedele, whose care for both of them carries a different and more serene love; and Benedetto, at once loved and feared. As he waits, Massimo recalls Benedetto’s final religious instructions and recognizes that he had missed Sunday Mass the previous day, something he had never done before. His inner conflict over the Church sharpens as the funeral arrival approaches. The scene places his love for Lelia beside, rather than outside, his spiritual crisis: the relationship is emotionally vivid, but it does not resolve the question of the religious obligations that continue to govern his choices.