Soon Svevo was a prominent literary figure, or rather a “case,” debated at length in papers and in literary cafés. On one occasion, when Svevo was to pass through Milan en route to Trieste during a return trip from abroad, Montale arranged for a group of young writers to gather at the Milan train station and pay him homage. Svevo was also feted by Florentine literary circles, and in Trieste he was now a respected member of the Caffè Garibaldi intellectual group.

The official literary establishment still regarded him with some suspicion and belittled his foreign fame, but that fame was undeniable. Translations of his works were already in progress. After his death an acquaintance, A. R. Ferrarm, recalled and quoted some remarks of his at this time:

“Until last year I was the… least ambitious old man in the world,” Svevo said. “Now I am overcome by ambition. I have become eager for praise. I now live only to manage my own glory. I went to Paris … and all I could see was Italo Svevo: Italo Svevo among the treasures of the Louvre; Italo Svevo on the stage of the fifty-some Parisian theaters. Italo Svevo on the Elysées, and Italo Svevo at Versailles… The ville lumière… seemed to exist only as a function of my glory.”

Svevo, in the last, satisfying years of his life, often visited Milan and frequented the literary salons there. In 1926 he gave a lecture on Joyce at the offices of// convegno, an important review that also sponsored a club and a theater. Though Svevo, who had never spoken in public before, had grave misgivings, the occasion went well and reinforced his relationship with the review, which published some of his stories.

In the flush of excitement at his fame, he was not only writing stories but contemplating a sequel to La coscienza di Zeno. In the winter of 1927 a social event crowned this happy phase: Grémieux organized a dinner in Paris to honor Svevo, its guests including Isaak Babel, Ilya Ehrenburg, and other illustrious Paris residents, with Jules Romains presiding. Ehrenburg’s account of the dinner emphasized the bad food and marveled at Svevo’s incessant smoking.

His fame could not dispel an increasing pessimism. His conversation and his writing now contained frequent premonitions of death; his concern with old age—his “senilità” which had been a spiritual more than a physical state—was now real. He had to cut down on his eating, for he had developed a heart condition. Nevertheless he continued to go to the office and, in good moments, to write. He did not give up smoking.

In late August of 1928, Ettore and Livia decided to spend some time at the Alpine spa Bormio, where he had previously taken a cure. They traveled by motorcar, their chauffeur at the wheel, and took with them their six-year-old grandson, Paolo. Having set out on 11 September, they broke the trip overnight and on the twelfth resumed the journey despite pouring rain.

As the car was crossing a bridge not far from Motta di Livenza, it skidded and crashed into a tree. Only Svevo seemed badly hurt, though Livia and Paolo were also bleeding.

Svevo had a broken leg, some cuts and bruises, but he was also suffering from severe shock; the doctor quickly realized that the injured man was dying. Letizia and her husband arrived the next morning. At a certain point one of his visitors was smoking, and Svevo asked him for a cigarette. It was refused. Svevo replied: “That really would have been the last cigarette.” He died that afternoon at half past two.

Livia survived him for almost thirty years and became the alert custodian of his fame. His death was the first of many family tragedies. In March of 1943 Letizia’s two eldest sons died as prisoners of war in Russia. Another son, Sergio, was killed in partisan street fighting in Trieste in 1945. Earlier that year the Villa Veneziani and the factory had been destroyed in an Allied bombing.

Livia herself spent much of the war hiding from the Nazis.