Thank you for your very kind words. The gypsies are a very odd part of the story, I find, especially seen from our age today, with a hopefully less racist view on the Roma and Sinti.

As for the drabble's central thought, I found this quote from "The Speckled Band" intriguing: Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics.