Who is Rosso Malpelo from the collection, Italian Stories = Novelle Italiane?

Rosso Malpelo is a poor boy who works long, difficult hours in a mine. He is notorious among his fellow miners and the townspeople in general for his unpleasant, even hostile temperament. He hardly talks to anyone and when he does, he usually only has insults. He frequently pulls mean-spirited pranks on people he works with for no reason other than malice. He is such a malicious child that some suspect that he has been possessed by a demon.

Despite his exterior coarseness, however, there is still a soft spot in his heart, however small. When another young boy, Ranocchio, comes to work in the mine, Malpelo adopts him, so to speak. He tries to teach the quiet and passive Ranocchio lessons about surviving in the world. His lessons are generally taught through extreme harshness and he frequently hits and yells at Ranocchio to make his points. One day, Ranocchio becomes very sick and, after Malpelo strikes him, he starts to cough up blood. In the most transparently tender moment in the story, Malpelo tries to reason that his blow could not possibly have caused Ranocchio to cough up blood; he cannot bear the thought that he might have seriously injured his only friend in the world.