Chapter 3
Two years later, we were both grown boys, but my passion was still at its peak.
Rumours spread that Emil had managed to free a Sloe Emperor Moth from its chrysalis.
Today, if I heard that an acquaintance of mine had inherited a million marks, or that a lost book by the historian Livy had been found, I wouldn't be as excited as I was then.
None of us had yet caught a Sloe Emperor Moth.
I had only seen it in illustrations in an old butterfly book I had.
Of all the butterflies whose names I knew but didn't yet have in my box, I coveted none more fervently than the Sloe Emperor Moth.
Countless times I looked at that illustration in the book.
One friend told me:
"Whenever birds or other predators try to attack this auburn butterfly while it is resting on a tree trunk or rock, the butterfly simply unfolds its dark front wings, revealing its beautiful hind wings, with their large, shiny spots that give it such a strange and unexpected appearance that the birds are frightened away and stop trying."
