uintin Chivas  (September 1961)

At eleven he was the leader of a gang of child thieves in teeming fifteenth-century Naples. Tough and relentless and shrewd, he had the face of an angel and the morals of a tomcat. Wise beyond his years, and wholly without scruples, he had already set his goals--nothing short of the full trappings of a gentleman: wealth, a wife who could bring him social acceptance, leisure to pursue the arts. Nor did he care how he attained them. There were only two kinds of people--those at the top who could reach down to give him a hand up, and those at the bottom who were convenient stepping stones. Both kinds he understood perfectly. But neither understood him--until it was too late!"

There I was, bound hand and foot, bloodied and on my way to prison...

The road was now swarming with people relishing the free entertainment. For them it was carnival day and they made the best of it, shouting and jeering at us as if we were monkeys on a pole. Genoveffa lay facedown on the donkey with her behind turned up. She was an altogether different person from the fair, gray-eyed Florentine girl with whose wealthy family I had thought to be united.
Then I spotted Poultice Petrulla among the crowd. "Petrulla, you hag, you obscene crone!" I shouted, "You sold me! Damn your insides, you sold me! You filthy sow! Maggoty bag of indecency! May your bones rot before you die!"