San Giorgio Cemetery is a visible landmark in the landscape around Donna Fedele’s window and, in one pivotal scene, the point her gaze passes over as she confronts grief and spiritual doubt. The cemetery’s significance is intimate rather than descriptive: its presence draws the dead into the same field of thought as the threatened home and the living woman Donna Fedele hopes to protect.

Setting and View

From her window, Donna Fedele looks east across the open landscape, between two wings of mountains stretching toward the plain. Her gaze passes above San Giorgio Cemetery. The view connects the cemetery to the nearby world of the house without describing its grounds or identifying any particular grave.

Grief and Spiritual Doubt

The sight of the cemetery turns Donna Fedele’s thoughts toward her poor old friend, now powerless and excluded from the home that is passing into another man’s hands. She tries to draw reassurance from her faith: that he rests in peace, and that the apparent disorder of events belongs to an order directed toward an eternal good. But she fears another eclipse of faith and chooses not to keep thinking about the cemetery. Its presence makes loss tangible while exposing the limits of the comfort she can summon.

Narrative Significance

The cemetery enters the scene through a change of attention: Donna Fedele looks out, thinks of the dead, and then redirects her thoughts toward a practical plan for Lelia. She resolves to ask Lelia’s father for permission to take the young woman to Piedmont, hoping to spare her, at least temporarily, the strain of living with him. The cemetery thus stands at the intersection of mourning and care, while the scene’s movement away from it shows Donna Fedele turning from a grief she cannot remedy toward an action she still hopes to take.