“Are you sure you want to visit Cecelia?” Gennaro asked. 

“Yes, I’m very certain that I want to see her. I want to know something.” 

Gennaro nodded before bringing him to her rooms and waiting outside. He had to talk to his sister about it. He hoped she wasn’t busy. 

“Usually Cecelia would chase you away, but it’s been a while, so she’ll indulge you.” The maid that attended to her was a woman a few years older, with a soft smile. And always seemed to understand her best. 

He hasn’t visited her the regular way, and the maid opened the door for him as he entered inside. 

Cecelia sat upon an armchair next to a table, free for anyone to join her. I often translated her favourites works, novels that came from the continent. She noticed, before she invited him to a seat. 

He followed, as Gennaro helped by bringing in things. 

“You can go. I’ll go back on my own.” He wanted to give Gennaro sometime to himself. 

Besides, this conversation would take time, he was sure of it. 

“What brings you here?” Cecelia asked. She didn’t seem to have the same perkiness that she always had. Or rather, a desperation to enjoy what she still had as a girl, with a father and a brother, to indulge her whims. 

“Something inevitable,” he said. 

“Marriage,” she sighed. “She told you about what you’re expected to do.” 

Lorenzo nodded. “Too soon?” 

“I don’t know. Mama told me about her worries about you. After you told Papa.” 

“Is it really that difficult?” He asked. “I’m just admitting that I think the world is flawed. And I want to see it change, I want to change it.” 

Cecelia, always more sensible than he was. “No wonder why Mama’s afraid, and Papa seems both proud of being apprehensive of your ambitions. But you seem the happiest that you’ve been since you stepped inside here again. The last time was before you left.” 

Lorenzo looked at her.  

“But why not just accept this as your reality? You have what most people will envy you for, the head of family, heir to an estate and never worry about money,” she said. “You can always do it at the side.”

“Yes, but to me, that’s not enough. I don’t wish to settle for it,” he said. “I realised that, that I don’t want to divide my attention. If I were to give my life to studying, it will be my complete self. It’s only a dream now.” 

“But you’re still doing it?” 

"Yes, I still am.” He stopped. “But that’s not why I’m here today. It’s about marriage. I want to know whether it is what you want.” 

“Why does it matter?” Cecelia looked at him with eyes. 

He had to pierce them. “It does matter, because you’re my sister.” 

“Isn’t it easier to not hear my dreams and desires so that it would be easy to take care of me by finding me a husband?” she said. “Why do you feel the need to give me hope that never existed?” 

She begged him. 

“It’s not hope, it’s just you admitting your desires. So that you never forget it, that whether you’re married, or you’re a mother, who you are.” He looked to her. 

She gave a laugh. “It’s so much easier to pretend it never existed.”

“But I think that’s the most painful of them all, to have never acknowledged it. And to never pursue them.” 

“Marriage is the end of childhood and whims for all girls. After that, their life is not their own. They’re meant to serve, to obey, to care for others.” She recounted it to him, almost unwilling to meet his eyes. 

“But you don’t want it?” 

“Who wants to be dictated to? Even for a woman, to say that we enjoy being lorded over, that’s untrue.” 

“No one does, no one wishes to be forced into it,” he said. “And yet you’ve already done so when you refused to tell me anything. You have desires, dreams about your poems, do you not?” 

“Yes,” she said. “If there is anything that I want, I hope to publish things. And the only way I can do that, in this reality, is to marry. Taking the veil would make things even more restrictive for me, mentally. You’re expected to serve, to ponder about God. That is unlike me in every word.” Her voice lowered. “And if they take my imagination from me, then I will have no reason to exist anymore.” 

Lorenzo didn’t disagree. He didn’t have any fondness for religions. It all started from his childhood, when his tutor shut his questions down. It had been a tutor that tutored him along with his brother, and prevented him from questioning. So much that his father gave up and found a philosopher instead. 

So Cecelia only had marriage as an option. Her poems often brought them all to life. The beauty of nature, of travel, of wonders, of awe. Things that they may find blasphemous or question her piety on. 

“I know, you and I, we’re similar that way. We seek to be free mentally, that they can take everything, but not our soul or our minds.” 

“I wonder whether we doomed Rico to be like us.” 

“I hope not, but whatever the case, I want him to be happy.” He gave a sigh. However, he wanted to give Cecelia the option.  

“What if I tell you I can provide for you?” He asked. 

“Not now, when you’re free and single, but later when you’re married with children, I may become a burden,” she said. “Better for me to find someone so that it never comes. It’s the practical thing to do if I want to survive.”  

“A governess.” 

“All our families will ask whether I’ve been disgraced or we’re down on money. Besides, it’s restraining on its own, too. Mama said it’s easier to find a husband who will tolerate this if I know how to look.” 

“Why not someone who admires you?” 

“Will you tolerate that in a wife?” Cecelia asked. 

“Perhaps, but I’ll see. I’m not sure what I’ll seek, but I want someone who is true to me, someone that I can admire and be a friend to.” He looked. 

“It’s not that bad,” she said. “Besides, the sooner this begins, the more I can ponder and think.”

But he still hasn’t heard it. He and Cecelia found it easy to speak on a totally different tangent on their own. 

“You still haven’t told me,” he said. 

"I want to publish a single poem in a newspaper somewhere. To tell the world that I existed as a poetess before, even if it’s a wish.” 

“Or a beginning.” Lorenzo looked at her. “It can always be a door for you.” 

“Mama tells me that marriage will open the doors if I can convince my husband to tolerate it,” she said. 

But there was a pained look in her eyes. As though she almost didn’t want it to happen. 

“Why not?” He asked. “I’ve admitted it. I don’t think it has done so much.” 

“A man can do it, but I will only jeopardize my chance for marriage.” She stopped. 

Lorenzo knew that deep down, it brought her great excitement, joy even. She was hesitant to tell her. 

“How about you’ll be selfish one more time?” He asked. “And a man who is chased away by that may as well be a suitor best avoided. I promise that you’ll only marry when you want to.” 

“Don’t say things you cannot completely confirm,” she laughed. “But I want to do it. Except I can’t have anyone carry it out for me. I need someone to help me post it. I have a poem that I think can be published. Could you take it to the publisher or an editor, see what they tell you?” 

“Of course, it isn’t too much of a hassle. I’m going to Parma, anyway.” He smiled. 

“Yes, it doesn’t matter to me whether I get recognised. But that achievement, that brings me joy,” she said. “That will remind me, even after I’ve left my youth behind.” 

She seemed more settled, relaxed at the thought.

Lorenzo smiled. “I wondered that despite you being so resigned that you were so quick to indulge in everything.” 

“I know that it’s the case, that I can’t run. I want to enjoy it. But with this, I would have achieved something, and it makes me happy.” 

“It may not be necessary. Don’t count yourself out,” he said. 

She looked up. “I’m glad to have such a considerate brother.” 

“But you know why this comes from.” 

“Yes, had you been anyone else? Would you have been so kind?” She asked. “I don’t know. Maybe they would have been like all the others and never asked me. And only tell me what to do. Mama, Papa, Zia Letizia, Zio Antonio. All of them tell me what’s expected of me, but not you. Only you asked me whether this was what I wanted.” 

But he felt as though he had failed at anything. But perhaps helping his sister with this would be the start of something, and show her another path.