He had been a sailor in his youth.
"Who did that to you ?" he asked, when he had thus devoted the unknown offender to everlasting perdition.
"Give me some water, please," said Zorzi, instead of answering the question.
"Water! Oh yes!" Pasquale went to the earthen jar.

"Water! Every devil in hell, old and young, will jump and laugh for joy when that man asks for water and has to drink flames!" Zorzi drank eagerly, though the water was tepid.
"Drink, my son," said Pasquale, holding his head up very tenderly with one of his rough hands.

"I will put more within reach for you to drink, while I go and get help." "They have sent for a surgeon," answered Zorzi.
"A surgeon?
No surgeon shall come here.

A surgeon will divide you into lengths, fore and aft, and kill you by inches, a length each day, and for every day he takes to kill you, he will ask a piece of silver of the master! If a surgeon comes here I will throw him out into the canal.
This is a burn, and it needs an old woman to dress it.

Women are evil beings, a chastisement sent upon us for our sins.