Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [16]
Lucia was especially happy to receive a warm letter from Chiara, Alvise’s mother, who had remained in the background all this time and about whom Lucia had heard only good things. Chiara wrote:
My dear child, if I could have listened only to the voice of my feelings, I would have explained long ago to you, my lovable Luciettina, the pleasure and happiness I felt upon first hearing that you might become my daughter…Now that I bring together at last my love for you as a mother with the interests of the family, I have not allowed a moment to pass before assuring you of my jubilation…and the sheer joy of expressing to you my feelings…Consider me your mother for I shall always look upon you as my daughter.48
These tender, heart-felt words were what Lucia had secretly hoped for. She yearned to find in her future mother-in-law some of that maternal love she had lost as a little girl, when her mother had died so suddenly. Chiara had wanted to let Lucia know she understood that yearning. “Surely your unequalled mother will take the place of mine,” Lucia confided to Alvise. She went even further, fantasising about how her marriage to Alvise, which had caused such bad feelings, would help bring the fractious Mocenigo family together. Was it too much to hope that they could all live together?
How wonderful it would be if the family lived under the same roof, ate at the same table…I’ll say no more. The skies have cleared and heaven is now clement with me, and I hope it will not abandon me.49
In her letters to Alvise, Lucia had always made a point of reminding him, delicately, that until matters were settled, her father remained her only guide. After receiving Sebastiano’s letter, she began in earnest her journey into the sphere of influence of the Mocenigos. “I shall do everything my husband asks me to do,” she now promised Alvise. “You will be my guide in everything.” Barely sixteen years old, she was ready “to become a true Moceniga.” She may well have felt a voluptuous pleasure in finally giving herself over to Alvise. His age and experience added to her sense of security. “The fact that you are ten years older than me,” she admitted, “is another good fortune.”50
Alvise encouraged her to think ahead about their life together in Venice. The idea of living with his parents, which Lucia had broached in a moment of enthusiasm, did not appeal to him at all. Besides, there was plenty of space in Palazzo Mocenigo for the young couple to have their own, comfortable apartment. Renovations would soon be under way, Alvise informed her, and she should send him her ideas about their living arrangements, as well as any special request she might have. Lucia, unused to this kind of responsibility, was embarrassed by all the fuss. “Apropos palaces and apartments,” she wrote back, “I tell you with the greatest sincerity that I would suffer to see too much being done for my sake.” Besides, she would always be more interested in the people living in the house “rather than in all the beautiful furniture.”51 But since Alvise had asked, she thought she might put in at least one request that was sure to make her life more comfortable: “All I really wish is to have a few small rooms de retraite just off the main bedroom, where I might write or paint without fear of messing up or dirtying [the apartment].”52
The journey back to Venice was delayed until after the summer. The Senate instructed Memmo to wait