It is well past midnight. I am walking home from one of the few watering holes in town. It is quiet. Eerily quiet, in fact. Not a peep from hundreds upon hundreds of truffle dogs quartered in cages everywhere around. This is how I know I have been accepted at last. Motovun is mine. The dogs are in the know.

Addendum (January 26, 2015)

“The first phase,” I chuckle to myself as I read this piece twice in a row (“The Three Phases,” December 16, 2002). Remembering Ivo Vrtarić, I pucker my lips. It will be three years this summer (“Ivo Vrtarić,” July 13, 2012). Returning to my piece, it is really amazing how enthralled with Motovun I was a couple of months after my move from Reading. Back then, I felt accepted even by the dogs. It was but a mirage, to be sure, but it took me a couple of years to discover it. At any rate, the third phase is comfortable enough. As for the dogs, they are eminently practical creatures. Having heard my steps over and over again, they just know there is no reason to bark when they hear them one more time. Acceptance is an entirely different matter, though.