The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne Du Maurier

Author:Daphne Du Maurier [Maurier, Daphne Du]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Classics, Historical, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense, Fiction / Mystery & Detective - General
ISBN: 9780316253536
Google: z-X8V6Iw1rsC
Goodreads: 18869977
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 1965-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

13

The doors of the theater were to be opened at nine. We had dinner first with the Silvanis, and set out at a quarter to the hour. The piazza della Vita was already crammed with students, converging upon the square from their various lodgings up and down the city, and now turning in a body down the narrow via del Teatro to the theater itself. I soon lost sight of Gino and his companions, but the Pasquales held on to me firmly, one on either side, and I felt like a puppet, almost swung from my feet. The theater in my father’s day had never been much used. Concerts and oratorios were given at certain times, and occasionally there was a recitation by a visiting literary celebrity; otherwise it remained an edifice of architectural splendor, little known to the passing tourist or indeed to the citizens of Ruffano themselves. Today, so the Pasquales told me, all was changed. Thanks to the Rector of the university and the Director of the Arts Council, the theater was in use throughout the year. Lectures, plays, concerts, films, exhibitions, even dances, all took place within its august walls.

We arrived to find a solid block of students waiting to pass in. Paolo, with a determined face, pushed and squeezed his way among them, Caterina and I hanging on behind. They were a good-natured crowd, laughing and chattering, pushing us in turn, and I wondered why the ugly mood of earlier on had changed, until I remembered that here there were no opponents—the students in this milling crowd were all C and E.

A great shout went up as the doors were opened, and Paolo, tightening his grip upon my arm, dragged little Caterina and me bodily through the entrance. “First come, first served,” called some fellow at the door. “Those who are in first seize a seat and cling to it.”

The auditorium was already filling rapidly, the crashing of seats as the flaps went down ricocheting to the roof, but this was drowned in turn by a group of students on the stage. Equipped with guitars, drums, and every conceivable form of rattle, they were singing the hit songs of the day, to tremendous applause from the surprised and delighted audience.

“What’s on?” Paolo inquired of a student who was jiving in the aisle beside us. “Isn’t anyone going to speak?”

“Don’t ask me,” replied the youth, shaking happily. “We’re invited, that’s all I know.”

“Who cares? Let’s make the most of it,” laughed Caterina, and, taking up her stance in front of me, tapped and twisted with unexpected grace.

I should be thirty-two next birthday and I felt my age. As a student in Turin I had samba’d to perfection, but that was over eleven years ago. A courier gets no practice in the finer arts. I swayed to and fro, not to lose face before the present company, but I knew the figure that I cut was tame. The uproar was tremendous. Nobody seemed to care. I thought,

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