Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [142]
After some grumbling, Alvisettto relented and watched the archduke’s cortège from a safe place, with Vérand at his side.
Spring turned into summer on a hopeful note. The rain that year did not spoil the wheat and corn, and the harvest season looked more promising than it had in a long time. Then, in early July Alvise received the news he had been hoping for: the payment of property taxes on Alvisopoli was suspended, pending the completion of a new cadastral survey ordered by the government. It was a huge relief. Perhaps the worst was over; if there were no more rains during the rest of the summer Alvisopoli might yet be saved. Lucia urged her son to “pray that Heaven hold back the scourge that will otherwise cause famine and disease.”9
Heaven, it turned out, struck in a wholly unexpected way.
In late August Alvise was suddenly ill, with terrible pains in his stomach. His condition deteriorated very rapidly. He was rushed back to Venice and the best doctors were called in to see him, but nothing seemed to stop or even slow down the disease—probably a tumour. Alvise felt life slipping away from him: he called in the family notary and asked that he take down a new will. He was so weak he hardly had the strength to sign his name. Quite mysteriously and to everyone’s relief, he suddenly recovered and was soon back on his feet—a pale wraith with lingering pains, but so surprised to be alive as to be in relatively good spirits.
Alvise made a triumphant return to Alvisopoli, and Lucia was genuinely moved by the display of affection shown to him by the alvisopolitani. She reported to Paolina:
His carriage was escorted into town by a large crowd amid cries of hooray. The throng of cheering labourers was led by Alvisetto on horseback. The town itself looked lovely, as everyone had put flowerpots and festoons at their windows. At the big house, Alvise was greeted with bouquets and sonnets. Mass was held in the small, beautifully decorated church. A few verses on his recovery were recited with a musical arrangement. Alvise sat in the front pew with Alvisetto, while I was seated to the side. After the Te Deum, Alvise walked out into the cheering crowd. A big lunch was served at the house. Alvise ordered that another table be laid out for twenty-six poor people, and Alvisetto served them food and gave each one a few coins. There were fireworks in the evening and the alvisopolitani danced late into the night.10
Although Alvise diligently took the ounce of quinine the doctors prescribed him, the pains never really left him and soon increased, especially in the middle of the day. He returned to Venice towards the end of the autumn, in time for Emperor Francis’s first official visit. But he was too ill to participate in the many functions and festivities. He was especially disappointed not to be in Saint Mark’s Square to witness the return of the four bronze horses taken to Paris by Napoleon. In December the illness spread again very quickly and this time there was nothing much to be done. Alvise died on Christmas Eve 1815. His body was taken to Alvisopoli. He had wanted a small, private ceremony at his estate rather than a grand funeral in Venice. On a cold and bleak winter morning, family and close friends gathered in the little church. The town square was filled with a silent and stunned crowd of alvisopolitani who had come out to mourn the estate’s founding father.
Alvise’s will was unsealed two days after his death. He urged Lucia “to forget all the displeasures I may have caused [you] and for which I am truly sorry.” Henceforth and until her death, she was to receive a generous monthly stipend from his estate. As a proof of his affection and esteem, he named her sole guardian of Alvisetto, “my most beloved only child, universal heir of all my movable and immovable properties, stores, capitals, credits, moneys and stocks.”11 In writing his signature at the bottom of the page, Alvise had scratched the paper so weakly with his