The Five of Pentacles traditionally reflects hardship, but Umberto Eco paints a different sort of picture of "people who live on the credulity of others ... false paralytics who lie at church doors ... rascals who pretend to be weak in one of their limbs, carrying unnecessary crutches and imitating the falling sickness ... to wrest food or money from the frightened people who recalled the church fathers' exhortations to give alms" (The Name of the Rose).