seeds for the spring. Once the physical needs of the family were satisfied, there were no other worries, and the people seemed to lead peaceful, even though monotonous lives.

Sentiments of love and hatred were usually manifested at the basic level. Maternal love was the only readily manifested feeling, from wet nursing to hugging and kissing. Conjugal affection was private and never publicly expressed. Hatred ran slow but deep. Dislikes or feuds often led to the refusal of talking to the adversary, sometimes for years and even for life. This went on even among relatives. The dialect expression for this condition was to be "annillit". This expression probably derives from the Latin "ad nihil", that is, to reduce to nothing, a sort of decision that the enemy does not exist any more. Often the cause of these quarrels was not important, at least by our standards. It may have been a single word of insult, a legal trick to gain possession of some useless piece of property, a dispute over land boundaries, a wrong done or so perceived.

There were two murders in Fallo ( three if we count the one committed by a man from another village). Both of them had taken place before I was born, but I clearly remember the two men who had already served long sentences for their crimes. One murder was caused by an insult, done in jest, about the virility of a friend whose wife was pregnant, and