EXCERPTS Table of Contents Translator/Editor Notes Cover Page p.25   p.35  p.88  p.94  p.151  p.190  ITALY: PART ONE HER LANGUAGE OPENS THE DOOR          190       Another year, in Padua, I was out early one Sunday morning to visit the famous Basilica, when I noticed an extra-shiny sidewalk in front of a shop where the curtain was lowered. I took one step, slipped, and sprawled with a second step. I was in front of an olive oil merchant, whose shop window had been broken, and the spilt merchandise had not been cleaned up.       All I could do was ask for help at the bakery next door, the only store on the street that was open. The baker woman called the Italian police and, at her request, I stayed in the bake house in my under-shorts while she tried over and over to soak up the oil on my trousers with talcum powder.       A pair of policemen arrived soon to take my deposition and arrange for the errand boy of a nearby tailor to bring me some pants to choose from. I took the least ugly one, whose stripes the color of goose poop gave me the air of a local fashion plate. Then I swore before witnesses that I considered that my damages had been compensated.       The baker lady brought back my partially de-greased pants, and the grinning cops declared: "It's a miracle of St. Anthony, that you arrived with one pair of pants and leave with two!"       My new outfit seemed to put off the illicit street vendors of fake Parker pens and fake Rolex watches. Indeed, other foreigners were approached in the street by these vendors, who greeted them on the spot and spoke to them directly in their language, to suggest buying their wares. I marveled at how they could guess the nationality of a foreigner without having heard him speak. I learned that it was by their shoes and clothing that they recognized where their hoped-for victims came from, because Italian fashion hadn't yet reached all of Europe.