TE19 Iberian Adventure

Albert Bonjoch

The Butterfly Hunter

When the valleys turned rosy, a fledgling in the first flush of life, skinny muleteer of tender speech, went hunting for butterflies. Under the forest canopy he met them, in the pleasant mossy bed, like an expert bandit resting idly trusting that the shade would shelter them. And they came suddenly, suspicious of that den

where the scoundrel was hiding, but they were tempted by paradise. At the first sniffing gesture they sweetly stirred the breeze, and in their naïve and docile flight

were already stowaways fallen seawards. Without undoing the spell of the moment,

the hunter cast his net over them, and in a final brazen act of love,

demanded they become his eternal lover. He released only one winged maiden, impetuous and blazing sunburst with eyespots and skin like mosaic, crowned by heaven the most beautiful. He saw in her the tears of the plantation, tracery of an undying flight. 40

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