Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [41]
Von Kempelen was an intriguing character, a talented inventor with a bit of the prankster in him. He had already wowed the world with a mechanical chess-playing machine—a small cabinet on wheels containing a tiny wooden man wearing a turban, known as the Turk. In reality, a dwarf chess wizard controlled the movements of the Turk from inside the cabinet, but the trick was not discovered until many years later and von Kempelen’s machine went on baffling chess players the world over. The Talking Machine, on the other hand, was a legitimate contraption. All Vienna rushed to see it, and Lucia did not want to miss out on the great event. What she saw, as she struggled among the pressing crowd, was an elongated object that looked like a bellows with a keyboard. Inside was an elaborate machine made up of tubes, reeds, wires and a small mechanical device described as a “resonator.” The room went silent, von Kempelen sat down to play his Talking Machine, and Lucia was amazed to hear a series of human-like utterances, each connected to the other, and modulated at will by the inventor of this primitive form of synthetic speech.
Despite her escapade, Lucia reached the end of her first three months of pregnancy in fine shape. She now faced a choice: stay in Vienna until she delivered the child, as Doctor Vespa insisted, or risk it and travel home, as she felt inclined to do. Vespa’s recommendation made sense to Alvise. And it certainly made sense to Alvise’s mother, Chiara, who immediately wrote to her daughter-in-law that she “endlessly applauded” the illustrious obstetrician’s advice. “The displeasure in not seeing you sooner,” she added, “will be amply compensated by the sheer jubilation I shall feel at the thought of you being solidly and firmly pregnant, without the slightest fear of some ruinous development.”11 But it was not enough to sway Lucia. She wanted to be near her father. And she wanted to be near her sister, whose pregnancy was only one month ahead of hers. Lucia could think of nothing sweeter than the two of them keeping each other company as their bellies swelled, and later nursing their babies together.
It had been some time since the sisters, who had been inseparable during the earlier part of their life, had felt so close. In the past few years, as she coped with her miserable string of miscarriages, Lucia had seen Paolina drift away from her, into her own new family circle. It was easy enough to understand: she had been separated from her beloved older sister at fourteen, she had spent nearly three years locked up in a convent, she had emerged from Celestia to marry a man she became devoted to, and immediately had a daughter on whom she doted. Still, Lucia had counted on more sympathy and attention from Paolina during her difficult times, and she now told her frankly how much she had been hurt when “you did not show me the same tenderness as in the past.”12 Just as frankly, Paolina replied that she too had suffered to see Lucia behave so coldly when Cattina, her little baby girl, was born. To which a miffed Lucia reacted as a first-born would, rejecting with indignation “the injury you do to my heart, which loved the niece from the very start.”
Their correspondence over the summer did much to clear the air and re-establish their old familiarity. “Thank God those endless recriminations are over,” Lucia declared, adding with mock pomposity: “My dearest, I’m rather pleased by the new direction you have taken with regard to your affection for me.”13 Their sisterly love, so long neglected, filled them with warmth and joy. “The faith your heart has in my love for you touches me deeply. My greatest pleasure here is to spend my time in your company, writing letters