CHURCH OF SANT' ANTONIO.
Oh horror! there comes sister Katharine! Blessed Virgin, help us to escape before she sees us, or there will be no peace in the house for a week. Come, nurse! quick! And Bianca flutters off in affright, and is lost in the crowd.
There she comes, bonny Kate—a small, slight consequential person, dressed in a robe of that brilliant green of the northern Italian painters. She wants no nurse—not she! She would go from Padua to the farthest country on Fra Paolo's map on the strength of her biting tongue and her snapping green eyes. "Make way," she orders, "you low, vile brutes!" and the peasants draw back and look askance at her, and the women mutter under their breath, and the girls laugh a low laugh. See her kiss her hand and lay it on the marble. She will not touch her lips to it for fear of contamination. She hurls an angry oath at the market-woman standing near with her hens tied up in her kerchief, because she crowds so close that the hungry birds peck at the silver galloon of her sleeve. Ay, pretty Kate, you are arrogant now. But wait a little. Here comes Petruchio, a most unwholesome sight for a summer's day. Get thee gone in haste, fair Kate!
See how he stalks on through the crowd, with his riding-whip in his hand, now cutting good-humoredly at a small boy's legs, now playfully throttling a ruddy peasant-girl with the long lash. His clothes are torn and muddy. He wears a new hat and an old jerkin, and a pair of old breeches, thrice turned. He has ridden into town on the sorriest nag ever bred on the plains of Lombardy. See him stride up to the shrine of Sant' Antonio. Do you think he will kiss that filthy stone, with the impress of so many foul mouths upon it? He cuts at it with his whip until the people start back in affright and the wind blows half the lamps out, and the priest would gladly launch a malediction at his head, but that he knows his man, for Petruchio's pranks with the clergy are the talk of all Padua.
He is the delight of the university lads, this mad fellow from Verona. See how they crowd about him as he stalks down the nave, and crave a look or a salute from their bully hero! They lay bets in lecture-hours as to whether he will succeed in taming that young shrew, Baptista's daughter.
Be sure the Moorish prince and he of Arragon stopped with their trains to ask the saint's protection when they went to woo fair Portia. And the lady herself, after that good deed done in Venice, when she went praying about at holy crosses, craved the saint's blessing on her lord, Bassanio. He too, I wager, meditated here on his lady and his friend. They crowd, a shadowy multitude, about the gleaming sepulchre under the crimson glow of the silver lamps.
We wandered on, past the carved chapel-gates, the wrought bronze lamps, the incense-clouds and the silver-white lilies, out into the tomb-filled cloisters. There they lie, cheek by jowl—old professors from the university in cap and gown, high up under the arches; old warriors in armor, with their griffins and lions at their feet, and slaves bearing scrolls with their names and exploits registered thereon. Old councillors and syndics in robe and ruff, noble women in veil and coif, lie side by side with some brave young heart that shed its life's blood for united Italy.
PADUAN CAFFÉ.