Gerasimos met Theodora one summer in Pieria, when she was only twelve years old and he was already twenty-seven. Theodora worked like all the girls her age. They were picking cotton. Her family was poor and needed every extra day's wage that came into their little hut with seven mouths to feed.
Gerasimos came from a good family and when he was born, no one could imagine that he would be their only child, since his mother died in childbirth and his father never remarried. Fortunately for the baby, an aunt was found to raise him, because his father, a harsh and strict man by nature, became even worse after his wife's death.
The boy grew rapidly and became the most handsome young man in the area and the tallest. Many girls' hearts beat for him, but all he did was break them and leave. At twenty-five, his reputation with women was such that mothers gathered their daughters when he passed by. Everyone knew about his adventures and, as if that were not enough, there was also the story about the girl from the neighboring village who had fallen off a cliff, and it was whispered that she did it for his sake.