Venetian Life

CHAPTER I.

VENICE IN VENICE.

One night at the little theatre in Padua, the ticket-seller gave us the stage-box (of which he made a great merit), and so we saw the play and the byplay. The prompter, as noted from our point of view, bore a chief

part in the drama (as indeed the prompter always does in the Italian

theatre), and the scene-shifters appeared as prom...