Marcello proposes an inheritance arrangement and Lilia refuses

Marcello Trento’s proposed inheritance arrangement turns an intimate conversation about La Montanina into a conflict over grief, loyalty, and who may claim a place in the house. He means to secure Lelia Camin’s future while protecting Andrea Trento’s memory and the home he has made dear to Andrea. Lelia refuses before she knows the terms he hopes to discuss: accepting the estate, she fears, would make her seem to have sold herself for wealth and could bring her estranged parents into the house. The refusal interrupts Marcello’s careful plan, but does not prevent his will from later naming her his universal heir.

The Proposal and the House

Marcello begins with practical matters. If Lelia wants to remove the artificial rockeries beside the bridge and along Riderella, she may do so without scruple; he had once considered removing them himself, but says that after a period of sorrow he stopped caring about such things. He also tells her to buy the chestnut trees across the road if an opportunity arises, because she will be able to afford them. These suggestions are not merely instructions about landscaping and property. They are his tentative way of imagining Lelia as the person who will shape the estate after him.

The proposal emerges from Marcello’s consciousness of his age and uncertain health. He tells Lelia he may live for years, but that God might call him soon, and asks whether it should grieve him to depart with the hope he has. She answers by bending to kiss the hand she is holding. He then says that it is natural for them to speak together about such matters: La Montanina was dear to Andrea, and Marcello had done much to make it so. He hopes it will be dear to Lelia as well. His affectionate address and the practical details give the discussion the air of a family handover, even though no legal adoption has made her his daughter.

Why Lelia Refuses

Lelia has long suspected that Marcello means to make her his heir. The household staff, his dependants, and people in the village, she understands, already regard her as his adopted daughter because he has no known close relatives. Yet there has been no legal act establishing that relationship, and Lelia is resolved not to accept the Trento family’s considerable, though not vast, property. She believes she has given herself to Andrea’s parents in his memory; gratitude is appropriate, in her view, but further compensation is not. She also tells herself that Marcello could leave his property to the poor if he had no relatives.

That charitable reasoning does not exhaust her resistance. Lelia recoils from the possibility that others might judge her a flattering fortune-seeker. The inheritance could also bring her biological parents to La Montanina. Her father has repeatedly written ignoble letters asking her for money, and one has arrived that very evening. She imagines him descending on the house after Marcello’s death, attaching himself to the estate and intruding on the memory Marcello represents. She is not afraid of her father, but she feels disgust at the prospect of his presence. Her refusal therefore joins a question of principle to a concrete fear about who might follow her into the house.

When Marcello tells her that she is the person he has in mind, Lelia cries out in distress and begs him not to speak of the matter. She insists that she cannot be his heir, but will not initially explain why. Marcello is offended and presses her for a reason. She takes his arm and asks him to leave the subject alone at least for that evening. Teresina, listening from above, intervenes when Marcello raises his voice, calling Lelia away on the pretext of needing keys for the next morning. Lelia withdraws timidly; Marcello takes his lamp and leaves without saying goodbye.

Marcello’s Unfinished Plan

Alone, Marcello partly understands the fear behind her answer. He imagines her refusing because she cannot keep her parents away and knows their presence at La Montanina would be a mortal affront to his memory. The thought of them ruling his house darkens his mood. Yet he also recognizes that Lelia has interrupted the very subject he was trying to reach. He had struggled to devise a testamentary provision that would prevent her parents from setting foot in the villa. He believes she would reject an explicit public condition, and still more a penalty attached to it. His intended solution was to speak with her beforehand and obtain a promise; after her refusal, he can only plan to resume the conversation the next day.

That plan reflects a tension in Marcello’s motives. He wants to guard the house against Lelia’s parents, but does not want to bind her through a condition she would find unacceptable. He and his late wife had also discussed what the inheritance should mean if Lelia loved again. His wife expected that the young, intelligent woman might eventually marry and favored giving her income only until then. Marcello, by contrast, cherished the ideal of a sacrifice joined to Andrea’s spirit: Lelia might remain faithful to Andrea, or love another, while still blessing the memory of her first love. He therefore wanted her to receive the wealth offered by Andrea without prescribing a condition on her future affections. The protection he now seeks for La Montanina sits uneasily beside that earlier freedom.

The Will and the Inheritance’s Aftermath

Marcello dies without resolving the dispute with Lelia. When his holographic will is opened, the estate agent reports that Lelia Camin is the universal heir and that Teresina receives a tax-exempt bequest of five lire a day. The same notice reports a telegram from Girolamo da Camin, declaring himself Lelia’s father, calling her a minor, and announcing his arrival. Lelia acknowledges that he is her father but says she is twenty years and several months old; the agent adds that Marcello had believed her older. The notice thus brings the family relationship and the question of age into the very aftermath Marcello had feared: his estate passes to Lelia, while her biological father appears as a claimant to her attention.

Girolamo later visits Lelia at the Villino delle Rose, where she is staying with Donna Fedele. His private calculations include gaining control of movable assets and securing a generous allowance from Lelia when she comes of age. He brings her a packet of ten-lire notes and says that the money is hers, while promising to account for it later. Lelia receives him standing, rigid, and does not invite him to sit. The scene gives a material consequence to her earlier apprehension: inheritance is not simply a gift from Marcello, but a circumstance that places her wealth and independence in the orbit of a father from whom she has long felt estranged. Her initial refusal remains distinct from the later legal outcome: she rejects the arrangement Marcello tries to discuss, but his will makes her heir all the same.