"Mary Stewart - Madam will you talk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

I sat down by the half-shuttered window and began to think about where I
should go tomorrow.

Avignon Bridge, where one dances, of course; and after Avignon itself,
the Pont du Card--in spite of the fact that I, too, had seen Holborn
Viaduct. I picked up the Michelin Guide to Provence, and looked at the
sketch of the great aqueduct which is on the cover. .. .

To-morrow, I said to myself, I would take things easy, and wander round
the ramparts and the Popes' Palace. Then, the day after . . .

Then fate, in the shape of Nidhug, took a hand.

My cue had come. I had to enter the stage.

The first hint I had of it was the violent shaking of the shadows on the
balcony. The Chinese design wavered, broke, and dissolved into the image
of a ragged witch's besom, as the tree Yggdrasil vibrated and lurched
sharply under a weight it was never meant to bear. Then the ginger cat
shot on to my balcony, turned completely round on a space the size of a
sixpence, sent down on her assailant the look to end all looks, and sat
calmly down to wash. From below a rush and a volley of barking explained
everything.

Then came a crash, and the sound of running feet.

The cat yawned, tidied a whisker into place, swarmed in a bored manner
up an impossible drainpipe, and vanished on to the roof. I got up and
looked over the balcony railing.

The courtyard, formerly so empty and peaceful, seemed all of a sudden
remarkably full of a boy and a large, nondescript dog. The latter, with
his earnest gaze still on the balcony, was leaping futilely up and down,
pouring out rage, hatred and excitement, while the boy tried with one
hand to catch and quell him, and with the other to lift one of the
tables which had been knocked on to its side. It was, luckily, not one
of those which had been set for dinner.

The table, which was of iron, was very heavy, and the boy seemed to be
having some difficulty in raising it. Eventually he let go the dog, and
taking both hands to the job, succeeded in lifting the table almost
half-way. Then the dog, who appeared to be a little slow in the uptake,
but a sticker for all that,
10 MADAM, WILL YOU TALK?


realized that his prey was gone from the balcony and leaped madly in
several directions at once. He crashed into the boy. The table thudded
down again.