“She switched aside the blind from a bow-window, to see whether the cockatoo. There were two of them. Stamping and striding around the tree. Her heart was beating. Sometimes the birds got so angry, she could hear them screeching through the glass. She wouldn’t have dared open the window: she might have frightened the cockatoos. Who tore at the lawn with furious beaks, or calming down, composed their crests along their heads, eyes tender with a wisdom which, like most wisdom, threatened to become obscure or irrelevant.”
(Patrick White)
THE CURE 