THE WHITE BUTTERFLY
By Jose Selgas
Translated by Mary J. Serrano.


THE WHITE BUTTERFLY

Berta has just completed her seventeenth year. Blissful age in which Love
first whispers his tender secrets to a maiden's heart! But cruel Love, who
for every secret he reveals draws forth a sigh! But here is Berta, and
beside her is a mirror, toward which she turns her eyes; she looks at
herself in it for a moment and sighs, and then she smiles. And good reason
she has to smile, for the mirror reveals to her the loveliest face
imaginable; whatever disquiet Love may have awakened in her heart, the
image which she sees in the mirror is enchanting enough to dispel it.

And why should it not? Let us see. "What has her heart told her?" "It has
told her that it is sad." "Sad! and why?" "Oh, for a very simple reason!
Because it thrills in response to a new, strange feeling, never known
before. It fancies--curious caprice!--that it has changed owners." "And
why is that?" "The fact is, that it has learned, it knows not where, that
men are ungrateful and inconstant, and this is the reason why Berta
sighs." "Ah! And what does the mirror tell her to console her?" "Why, the
mirror tells her that she is beautiful." "Yes?" "Yes; that her eyes are
dark and lustrous, her eyebrows magnificent, her cheeks fresh and rosy."
"And what then?" "It is plain; her heart is filled with hope, and
therefore it is that Berta smiles."

This is the condition of mind in which we find her. Up to the present she
has passed her life without thinking of anything more serious than the