Word: pietro
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...even though he was rich by the standards of Roghudi, Mayor Nucera, a landholder and the nephew of the local archpriest, could not afford those three cigarettes a day. And in the end it proved in vain. Francesca passed by all the smoke rings with a preoccupied eye. Pietro raced off once again to Reggio and bought himself a book on how to write love letters. Francesca left his best efforts unanswered...
Sorry! Spring came; the teacher left the village, and when she returned again, she brought along a sister and a large, protective aunt. "Ah," said the villagers with wise glances, "she has brought a chaperone. Now what will he do?" For a year Pietro did nothing. Then he approached bluntly and announced: "I have decided I want to marry you." "I am sorry," said Francesca. "It cannot be." Stupefied, the mayor went to his uncle the priest. "I don't understand," he said. "How could any girl refuse?" The old priest inhaled a vast nostrilful of snuff. "Women...
...years after that, Pietro Nucera never spoke a civil word to Francesca. As mayor, he barred her from her classroom of children and set her to work teaching a roomful of illiterate louts, many of them her senior in years. At last Francesca let it be known that she was leaving the village forever. On the night before her departure, the mayor set himself up in a room just across the street from her house. All night, as the girl huddled in bed with her sister and aunt, Pietro paced back and forth. Suddenly he opened his window and shot...
...Women! Pietro's uncle the priest gave his blessing as the women started out, and when they reached the bridge, nine members of Francesca's class of illiterates were on hand-but not to bid her goodbye. "Stop!" one of them ordered, "or we shoot." Francesca leaped toward the bridge, but one of the men caught her arm and dragged her back. The other women tried to free her, but could not. While three of the attackers stood with leveled guns, two of the bullies dragged the schoolteacher into the wood. Six days later, the carabinieri found...
...story was not ended yet. Last week, when the happy wedding party arrived in Reggio Calabria to make their final plans, Francesca the bride slipped away from her husband-to-be, ran to the police, retracted all her former statements, and accused Pietro of rape. "They will kill me now, I suppose," she said as the police took the mayor into custody, "but I would rather die than marry...