'Phew!' said I, making the sign of the cross and
pointing both fingers, 'what ill-luck will happen now to some poor devil
that does not see him?' I watched him all down the street, however, and
nothing occurred; but this morning I hear, that, after turning the corner,
he spoke to a poor little boy, who was up in a tree gathering some fruit,
and no sooner was out of sight than smash! down fell the boy and broke his
arm." Even the Pope himself has the reputation of possessing the Evil Eye
to some extent. Ask a Roman how this is, and he will answer, as one did to
me the other day,--"_Si dice, e per me veramente mi pare di si_": "They say
so; and as for me, really it seems to me true. If he have not the
_jettatura_, it is very odd that everything he blesses makes _fiasco_. We
all did very well in the campaign of '48 against the Austrians. We were
winning battle after battle, and all was gayety and hope, when suddenly he
blesses the cause, and everything goes to the Devil at once. Nothing
succeeds with anybody or anything when he wishes well to them. See, here
the other day he went to Santa Agnese to have a great festival, and down
goes the floor, and the people are all smashed together. Then he visits the
column to the Madonna in the Piazza di Spagna, and blesses it and the
workmen, and of course one falls from the scaffolding the same day and
kills himself. A week or two ago he arranged to meet the King of Naples at
Porto d'Anzo, and up comes a violent storm and gale that lasts a week;
then another arrangement was made, and then the fracas about the ex-queen
of Spain.
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