Chapter 39 Summary & Analysis: Chapter I
Spoiler Notice
This page contains major spoilers for Chapter 39 of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. If you have not yet read through this chapter, proceed with caution.
Summary
The chapter opens in Venice, 1709, where Sabine, Matteo, and Alessandro have built an unconventional family within the palazzo. Years pass marked by shifting artistic styles and Alessandro's gradual aging. Though Sabine sometimes ventures to Tuscany or Rome seeking freedom, she discovers she now craves the prolonged tension of the hunt rather than quick, easy kills — a change she refuses to admit to Matteo.
Alessandro's health declines. His hair pales, his skin thins, and he leans increasingly on a cane. Throughout his deterioration, he steadfastly refuses Matteo's pleas to be planted in the midnight soil, insisting life is meant to end. Sabine finds herself unexpectedly caring about the mortal's fate, which fills her with fury rather than sadness. In his final week, Alessandro sits in the courtyard catching sunlight. Sabine visits him there, calling him a fool for his choice; he smiles and agrees. She is absent the night he dies, walking the streets to avoid hearing his heartbeat slow. She knows the moment she returns, sensing Matteo's anguish saturating the house. The physician removes the body, and Alessandro is buried in his family plot at age fifty-nine.
Matteo unravels. He stops eating, stops sleeping, moves from room to room, and ignores all visitors. Sabine tries cajoling him, then berates him cruelly, accusing him of having chosen this grief by loving a mortal and refusing to change him. When he remains unresponsive, she leaves for Verona. Upon returning months later, she finds the palazzo restored — windows lit, courtyard swept — and in Alessandro's former studio, a young blond figure reading on the sofa. It appears to be Alessandro restored to youth, but the stranger's mannerisms are entirely different: louder, more erratic, his thoughts a messy spill of hunger and amusement. Matteo appears in the doorway, restored to his polished former self, and introduces Giovanni — Gio — his new vampire. The chapter closes as the three prepare to venture out together, Giovanni looping an arm through Sabine's and complaining about Matteo's rules while Sabine and Matteo exchange an almost-smile.
Key Events
- Years pass in the palazzo as Sabine, Matteo, and Alessandro form a novel kind of family.
- Sabine begins taking solo trips but finds quick kills unsatisfying compared to the prolonged hunt.
- Alessandro ages visibly, his health declining while Matteo remains unchanged.
- Alessandro refuses Matteo's repeated pleas to become a vampire, insisting life is meant to end.
- Sabine realizes she has come to care for Alessandro, and the impending loss makes her furious.
- In his final week, Alessandro spends every moment catching sunlight in the courtyard.
- Sabine confronts Alessandro there, calling him a fool; he agrees peacefully.
- Alessandro dies while Sabine walks the streets, unable to bear hearing his heart slow.
- Matteo's grief saturates the house; he retreats into two days of isolation before the physician removes the body.
- Matteo falls into a months-long depression, refusing food, sleep, and visitors.
- Sabine cruelly berates him for choosing to love a mortal and then being undone by the inevitable loss.
- Sabine leaves for Verona to escape Matteo's suffocating sorrow.
- She returns to find the palazzo restored and encounters Giovanni, a new vampire who physically resembles a young Alessandro.
- Matteo introduces Giovanni with a hollow performance of affection, dressing him and kissing his shoulder as he once did Alessandro.
- The trio prepares to go out together, establishing a new, uneasy dynamic.
Character Development
Sabine: This chapter reveals significant evolution in Sabine's character. She has formed genuine attachments — to the palazzo as home, to Alessandro as a friend, and to the peculiar family unit they have constructed. Her fury at Alessandro's impending death surprises her; she did not want to care about him, but she does, and the vulnerability enrages her. Her response to grief is action and anger rather than paralysis. She considers forcibly turning Alessandro against his will, then restrains herself. When Matteo calcifies in sorrow, she lashes out with deliberate cruelty, perhaps to rouse him, perhaps to purge her own pain. Her departure for Verona and eventual return demonstrate both her limits and her loyalty.
Matteo: The chapter exposes the devastating consequences of Matteo's choice to love a mortal who refuses immortality. Despite years of insisting he had made peace with Alessandro's decision, his grief proves catastrophic. He becomes a specter in his own home, unable to eat, sleep, or function. His eventual "recovery" — grooming himself, restoring the palazzo, and creating Giovanni — reads as deeply hollow. The kiss he plants on Giovanni's shoulder mimics the gesture he once gave Alessandro, but the text notes it has the quality of performance, suggesting Matteo has not healed so much as constructed a facade. His choice to turn someone who physically resembles Alessandro raises troubling questions about his emotional state.
Alessandro Contarini: Though he dies in this chapter, Alessandro's consistency of character remains striking. He faces death with the same quiet resolve he showed in life. His insistence that life is meant to end, that it is not for man to decide when, holds firm even as Matteo begs. His final week spent in sunlight, his peaceful acceptance of Sabine calling him a fool — these moments crystallize his mortal dignity. His artist's gaze, still trying to capture Sabine after a dozen failed attempts, persists until the end.
Giovanni (Gio): Introduced in the chapter's final pages, Giovanni is Matteo's new vampire creation. He physically resembles a young Alessandro, with blond curls and startling blue eyes, but his temperament is markedly different — manic, impulsive, hungry, and heedless of rules. He treats Matteo's careful guidance with childish impatience and seems unaware of the emotional weight he carries as a replacement. His eagerness for Sabine's company and his complaints about Matteo's restrictions establish him as the new disruptive element in the household.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Mortality and the Refusal of Immortality: Alessandro's unwavering stance — that life is meant to end — provides the chapter's moral fulcrum. His choice contrasts sharply with the vampires' unchanging existence and raises questions about what is lost when death is refused. Sabine's thought that she would not want to be old if she did not want to be young forever underscores the philosophical divide between mortal and immortal perspectives.
Grief and Its Many Forms: The chapter presents a spectrum of grief responses. Sabine's grief manifests as fury and cruelty. Matteo's arrives as cataclysmic paralysis, a near-death state that renders him spectral. Both responses isolate them from each other and from the world, suggesting that even centuries-old vampires possess no immunity to loss.
Replacement and Performance: Giovanni's introduction is the chapter's most unsettling element. His physical resemblance to Alessandro combined with his entirely different personality creates a dissonance that Sabine immediately registers. Matteo's behavior toward Giovanni — dressing him, kissing his shoulder — reads as theatrical, an actor going through his marks rather than genuine affection. The chapter asks whether love can be transferred to a surrogate, or whether the attempt is itself a form of denial.
Home and Family: The chapter opens by establishing that home is not walls and windows but the people within them. The family Sabine, Matteo, and Alessandro built is destroyed not by external forces but by time itself. Sabine's realization that she will always be welcomed back, and her eventual return, suggest that the palazzo retains its gravitational pull even as its inhabitants change.
The Hunt as Metaphor: Sabine's discovery that she now craves the drawn-out tension of the hunt rather than quick kills parallels the emotional arc of the chapter. Just as the prelude to pleasure has become essential to her, the years of living alongside Alessandro have made his loss meaningful in a way that a stranger's death would not be.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 39 marks a pivotal structural turn. It closes the long arc of Alessandro's mortal life, which has defined the Venetian section of the novel, and inaugurates a new dynamic with Giovanni's arrival. The chapter demonstrates that vampires, for all their power and permanence, are not insulated from devastating loss — Matteo's collapse proves that immortality offers no protection against grief.
More crucially, the chapter challenges any romantic notions about vampire companionship. Matteo's refusal to turn Alessandro was framed as respect for mortal autonomy, yet his immediate replacement of Alessandro with a lookalike suggests something closer to an inability to be alone. Giovanni is not Alessandro reincarnated; he is a different person wearing a familiar face, and the dissonance promises future conflict.
Sabine's arc here is equally significant. Her anger at caring, her cruel honesty with Matteo, and her eventual return all demonstrate that she is no longer a detached observer but fully entangled in this strange family's fate. The almost-smile she shares with Matteo at Giovanni's antics hints at a shared understanding that, for better or worse, they are bound together.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Sabine react to Alessandro's death with fury rather than sadness?
Sabine's fury stems from the vulnerability she never wanted to feel. She prides herself on detachment, but she has come to consider Alessandro a friend, and caring about someone doomed to die feels like being slowly poisoned. Anger is a more manageable emotion than grief — it allows her to blame Alessandro for his choice, Matteo for his folly, and herself for failing to remain indifferent. Her fury also reflects a vampire's frustration with mortal limitations: she could save him against his will, but his autonomy prevents her, and that powerlessness is maddening.
2. What does Matteo's creation of Giovanni reveal about his psychological state after Alessandro's death?
Matteo's turning of Giovanni — a man who physically resembles Alessandro — suggests profound denial rather than recovery. Though Matteo appears restored to his former polished self, his behavior toward Giovanni is described as performance, hollow motions mimicking the love he showed Alessandro. Creating a replacement who shares Alessandro's features but not his quiet, steady temperament indicates Matteo cannot bear to be alone and cannot face his grief directly. Giovanni is a bandage over a wound that has not healed, and the mismatch between appearance and personality promises that this solution will ultimately fail.
3. How does the chapter contrast Sabine's and Matteo's methods of coping with loss?
Sabine copes through anger, confrontation, and eventual physical departure. She berates Matteo viciously, perhaps to shock him out of his stupor, then removes herself entirely, spending a winter in Verona shaking off his grief. Matteo copes through complete shutdown — he stops eating, stops sleeping, and becomes a specter haunting his own home. When he does emerge, it is through the creation of a substitute, a form of avoidance dressed as moving forward. Sabine processes externally and explosively; Matteo implodes and then constructs a fragile facade. Neither method appears fully successful, suggesting that immortality offers no shortcut through mourning.