But not, I imagine, to the peacock. Nor, in truth, have I; but I did exchange words with the peahen.

When I first got to Assisi a friend sent me an article about the peacock on the lam from the Central Park Zoo back in NYC. I mentioned it at dinner and was told a peacock resides in Assisi, too. No one had seen it but a couple of people said they'd heard it. I set out on a mission. That was days ago. I looked around and asked around and had just about decided there was no such bird, and that the people who claimed to have heard it had actually heard the jackdaws. They have an abrasive scream that could be mistaken for a peacock's cry. This morning, though, on my usual morning walk, I decided to go around the town on the ring road outside. And what should be pecking in an olive grove near the Convent of the Swedish Sisters of St. Bridget but a peahen? Unmistakeable, although like the black cat on the pink cushion I'd seen about half an hour earlier, the peahen peered at me and then, in a decisive flash, ran away when I lifted the camera. But there's no earthly reason to keep a peahen, a fairly unattractive bird, unless you've also got a peacock. It must be there; and for all I know, just over the rise was a flock of pea-chicks, too. So my cynicism proves premature, once again.