Italian Escapades, part 5

Part five of six of Ulla Bjerne's story from her youth, as told on Finnish radio 1957. The picture is from Venice, 1920.

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Italian Escapades

5.

At the same trattoria a couple of elderly spinsters also dined and they too were renting rooms from signora Gallina. The first evening we spoke French but it turned out that they were both Finns (Swedish-speaking; translator's note): the painter Ellen Thesleff and her sister Gerda, the ceramist.

An acquiantance of theirs from Helsinki, Therese Wuorenheimo, appeared one evening and showed up every night from then on. She was a 50-year old spinster, slender and lively with kind blue eyes. A tactful creature who with some astonishment observed how fast the wine in my carafe diminished and at the same time she was amused and giggled at all the rubbish I talked about.

I asked the Thesleffs who she really was and they told me about her father, formerly a senator in Finland and that she was doing social work and owned a big orphanage in Sörnäs. These pieces of information didn't say much to me in those days, however they reinforced my assumption that she was a kind soul.

One evening when there happened to be a delightful moonlight and the white crown of Mount Etna shimmered in the far distance we took a long walk and suddenly Therese asked me why I drank so much wine.

Now how do you answer a question like that?

I blamed my need for warmth inside before I crawled into my cold, damp bed. But it wasn't healthy to drink so much wine every evening, Therese said, apart from it causing a stir. In some ways you seem rather lonely, she added worriedly. What I could use was a real man who looked after me a little bit and loved me in the right way.

Of course, I said ironically, and there are so many of those.

Therese stayed quiet, but after a moment she said thoughtfully:

I know one who would suit you.

Where is he, I replied both astounded and amused.

In Finland. He is a chief physician at a hospital in a small town called Lovisa.

For heaven's sake no, some kind of farmer's doctor in a one-horse town!

He is not at all a farmer's doctor, Therese said, but a very well known physician and a skillful and appreciated surgeon. Besides, he's a Frenchman. His father was a senior lecturer at the university in Helsinki. He is a somewhat peculiar and original man. A real he-man, with his own views. I think the two of you would go well together.

Du you know him? I said suspiciously.

She did. During summers when she had spent her spa cures in Lovisa she had met him in several companies. I listened and thought she was moving. I had stumbled upon a good-hearted and naive person who apparently wanted to save my soul as she thought I was in danger. Maybe she was right. But I also knew that in this case, nobody could help me except myself.