From Rome to Palermo, swear at a man if you please, call him by bad names, and he will laugh at you.
But curse his dead relations or their souls, and you had better keep beyond the reach of his knife, or of his hands if he have no weapon.

So the old woman was careful that Pietro Casale should not hear her.
"Managgia l'anima di chi t' e morto!" she muttered, as she hobbled away.
Everything in the room where Carmela died belonged to Don Pietro, and he took everything.

He found the two boys standing together, looking across the fence of the cabbage garden down at the distant valley and over at the height opposite, beyond which the sea was hidden.
"Eh! You good-for-nothings!" he called out to them.

"Is nothing done to-day because the mother is dead?
No bread to-night, then--you know that." "We will not work for you any more," answered Ruggiero, the elder, as both turned round.
Don Pietro went up to them.

He had a short stout stick in his hand, tough and black with age, and he lifted it as though to drive them to work.