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a jettatore
259
VIII
a jettatore
In Catania there was once a man with the evil
eye, a jettatore. He was well nigh the most
frightful jettatore that had ever been found in Sicily. As
soon as he appeared on the street, the people
hastened to bend their fingers into the protecting
sign. But most frequently that did not help at all.
Any one who met him might as well prepare
himself for a wretched day. His food would be burned,
and the precious old jelly-dish broken, or he would
learn that his banker had suspended payment, and
that the little note he had written to his friend’s
wife had got into the wrong hands.
Usually a jettatore is a tall, gaunt fellow with
timid eyes and a long nose, which lies and pecks at
the upper lip. The parrot-nose is the characteristic
feature of the jettatore. Everything, however,
changes, nothing occurs permanently. This
jettatore was a little fellow with a nose like a San
Michale.
Hence it was that he did a great deal more harm
than a common jettatore. One is often pricked by
a rose but rarely burned by a nettle.
A jettatore ought never to grow up. Only as a
child is he happy. Then he still has his mother,
and she never sees the evil eye; she never understands
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