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If you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you see three, then your luck is magnificent and you have to swallow your saliva three times; on the other hand, if you see a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must spit on the ground to keep away the jettatura. Three priests together is a very good sign.
If he wishes you buon viaggio, abandon the journey, if you would return alive. Nor be deceived by his good manners and kind heart. It is of no avail that he is amiable and good in all his intentions, his jettatura is without and beyond his will, nay, worse, is contrary to it; for all jettatura goes like dreams, by contraries. Therefore shudder when he wishes you well, for he can do no worse thing.
My daughters were engaged to ride with a large party, and the meet was at our house. A Roman, who happened to go out first, saw a friar, and rushed in again laughing, and waited till he was out of sight. Soon after they set off, this gentleman was thrown from his horse and ducked in a pool; so the "Jettatura" was fulfilled.
Another tale Hawthorne might have told me, the tale of an excellent man, whose very virtues, by some baneful moral chemistry, corrupt and ruin the people with whom he comes in contact. I do not mean by goading them into the opposite extremes, but rather something like a moral jettatura. This needs a great deal of subtlety, and what is to become of the hero?
Things have, indeed, somewhat changed since the days of Didymus, in this respect, that men are now thought to be more potent for evil jettatura than women; but his general views still coincide with those entertained at the present time in Italy.
If Pietrapertosa and Cibo had ceased since morning to believe in the jettatura of the "some one" whom neither had named, it must be acknowledged that they were very unjust, for the good fortune of having gained something wherewith to swell their Parisian purses was surely naught by the side of this to have to discuss with the Cavals, the Machaults and other professionals the case, almost unprecedented, in which they were participants.
If Pietrapertosa and Cibo had ceased since morning to believe in the jettatura of the "some one" whom neither had named, it must be acknowledged that they were very unjust, for the good fortune of having gained something wherewith to swell their Parisian purses was surely naught by the side of this to have to discuss with the Cavals, the Machaults and other professionals the case, almost unprecedented, in which they were participants.
Near where this occurred there is a house with the inscription "Casa Dei Spiriti"; but I do not think the Italians believe in either ghosts or witches; their chief superstition seems to be the "Jettatura" or evil eye, which they have inherited from the early Romans, and, I believe, Etruscans. They consider it a bad omen to meet a monk or priest on first going out in the morning.
Story's "Roba di Roma" knows what a terrible power it is which the owner of the evil eye exercises. It can blight and destroy whatever it falls upon. No person's life or limb is safe if the jettatura, the withering glance of the deadly organ, falls upon him.
If he who takes tobacco is not more to be feared than he who wears spectacles? and if spectacles, peruke, and snuff-box combined do not triple the force of the jettatura? If the woman jettatrice is more to be feared when she is enceinte? If there is still more to be feared from her when she is certain that she is not enceinte?
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