Read Through a Glass Darkly for Free Online

prosecco or the art.
    â€˜The wine’s excellent,’ he said, which was true: for this sort of show, it was good. Usually they served the sort of still red that came in large bottles, and instead of the thin glass he had in his hand, the wine was served in plastic cups.
    â€˜And those?’ she asked.
    â€˜I think I think they’re beautiful,’ he said and took another sip.
    â€˜Only
think
you think?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Brunetti confirmed. ‘They’re too unlike what I’m used to seeing in glass, so I need to think about them for a while before I decide.’
    â€˜You think about the things you see?’ the woman asked, sounding not a little surprised at this. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and had a faint Roman accent and a nose that looked as if it had the same origins. Her eyes were dark and bore no trace of makeup, though her mouth had been enlarged by dark red lipstick.
    â€˜It’s my job,’ he said. ‘I’m a policeman.’ He had no idea what imp of the perverse had made him say that. Perhaps it had been the sight of the people in the room, or the presence of Professoressa Amadori and her husband, the sort of lofty academics he had suffered under for so many years at university.
    He took another sip of prosecco and asked, ‘What do you do?’
    â€˜I teach at the university,’ she said.
    Paola had never mentioned anyone like this young woman, but that did not necessarily mean anything: Paola, if she discussed her work, usually talked about books rather than about her colleagues. ‘Teach what?’ Brunetti asked in what he hoped was a friendly manner.
    â€˜Applied Mathematics,’ she said, smiled, and added, ‘and you don’t have to ask. I find it interesting but few other people do.’
    He believed her and felt relieved of the burden of having to feign polite interest. He gestured with his glass toward the objects in the two lines of cases. ‘And these? Do you like them?’
    â€˜The rectangular ones, yes; and these,’ she said, ‘especially these last ones. I find them very . . . very peaceful, though I don’t know why I say that.’
    Brunetti talked with the young woman for a few minutes more, then, finding his glass empty, excused himself and went back to the bar. He searched the room for Paola and saw her on the other side, talking to someone who, had he been able to see him from the back, he might have been able to identify as Professore Amadori. Whether it was he or not, Brunetti could read Paola’s expression and made his way across the room to her side.
    â€˜Ah,’ she said as he came up, ‘here’s my husband. Guido, this is Professore Amadori, the husband of a colleague of mine.’
    The professor nodded to acknowledge Brunetti but did not bother to extend his hand. ‘As I was saying, Professoressa,’ he went on, ‘the chief burden of our society is the influx of people of other cultures. They have no understanding of our traditions, no respect for . . .’ Brunetti sipped at his wine, playing over in his memory the smooth surfaces of the first pieces he’d seen, marvelling at how harmonious they were. The professor, when Brunetti tuned back in, had moved on to Christian values, and Brunetti’s mind moved on to the second set of vases. There had been no prices, but there was sure to be a price list somewhere, placed in a discreet, dark-covered folder. The professor moved on to the Puritan ethic of work and respect for time, and Brunetti moved on to a consideration of where such a piece could be put in their house and how it could be displayed without their having to get an individual display case for it.
    Like a seal coming up to a hole in the ice to take a breath, Brunetti again tuned in to the monologue and heard ‘oppression of women’, and quickly pulled his head back under the water.
    Had the professor been a singer, he might well