Resumo de What A Courage - Otakar Batlicka

Otakar Batlicka was invited to visit the estate if Diez Valencia. Mrs. Valencia is welcoming every guest with the same degree of cordiality. Her husband has promised that he would not return without his friend, the famous Christobaldo Barrera ? the hunter of snakes. The party was passing long hours waiting on the veranda.
The town councillors of Rio de Janeiro called the hunter of snakes to rid the region of poisonous snakes. In one month he managed to catch thousands of snakes. And since he has done this job there was only a step for him to become the government hunter and the supplier of European zoological gardens.

Mrs. Valencia?s husband arrived but without Barrera. Everyone was disappointed and kept asking Diez Valencia why he did not manage to persuade his good friend ? the hunter of snakes to come back with him. But the truth was, Barrera was dead. This is how Diez recounts the story.

A week ago I arrived in Sao Paolo. It was not difficult to find Christobaldo Barrera. On each corner one can spot posters, inviting to meet the famous hunter. Each afternoon at three?o clock one can sight him in Tropical Park. I said to myself that I am going to joing the visitors and surprise my old friend.
And a performance starts, the sequences of which follow one another very briefly, interrupted by explosions of clapping and excited shouts. First a bit of frolicking with quite harmless non-poisonous snakes. Then an encounter follows with some more dangerous ones. With a stick in his hand Barrera is walking with his bare legs ? among the snakes? bodies. He is circumspectedly provoking the reptiles till one of them bites angrily into the stick. He is bringing the stick nearer to the earth ? another snake is attacking. Then Barrera swayed his arms. The snakes bodies flew away and the stick is breaking the spines of the poisonous beasts with accurate smashes. A duel follows with anacondas which are as fast as a lightning. More than the dexterous pieces I am admiring the hard work Barrera has to put into catching all the reptiles, because all performances finish with their death.
Two Barrera?s helpers are shaking out of a box two Brazilian rattle-snakes. Do you know them men, two metre spotted devils, with a flattened head and a horrible organism at the end of their tales. The rattle snakes have wound up into a ball, only their heads are towering.
At a distance I cannot see their angry swinging, but I can hear known warning signs of the gchr in the permanent silence.
Christobaldo Carrera is intently provoking the reptiles. He is throwing stones at them, he is scaring them with vehement movements. At that moment one ball unwound. The snake?s body is flying straight ahead, it missed Barrera. Presently the hunter pressed the rattle snake behind his head towards the floor. He is lifting the trophy on top of his head. Now the second rattle snake attacked. But something unusual happened. The spectators who were standing most nearby screamed out.
Barrera is briskly stepping on the neck of the second and third rattle snake.
While the spectators were clapping the performance is being hurriedly finished.
People are leaving the park and I am walking towards the organiser?s tent. Christobaldo is lying there on a blanket.
Bloody wounds are glowing on top of Christobaldo?s knee, his helpers already ran off to fetch a doctor. Christobaldo is taking long sips of brandy with pepper from a bottle which is meant to work as a medicine.
There were only two rattle-snakes in the box. Barrera is always only working with two. The third snake was local, from the park, nesting in some kind of a hole. Barrera became very pale and is breathing with difficulty.
Christobaldo sank into unconsciousness and his pulse weakened. The brandy with pepper was not working. Suddenly a knife appeared in his hand which he lay next to the wound. Christobaldo closedhis eyes. Before anybody could prevent him he cut a piece of flesh out of his leg and fell on his back on the blanket.
Two hours later a doctor came who managed to stop the bleeding. He did not, however, manage to inject a serum because the last ampoules in his suitcase were broken.
Finally the doctor came back and gave Barrera an injection. He was horrified when he spotted a blue strip which extended from the knee to the hip. He ordered for Barrera to be taken quickly to hospital.
Next day he died in hospital. The poison from the snake was associated with blood poisoning, caused by a dirty knife. Barrera was not really interested in public show-off, it was his aunt who brought him up who wamted gratitude and money.
He died as a man, well balanced, bravely.?
?His last words were: I am a hunter of snakes. I love danger. I would count with another snake in the primeval forest. With lots more snakes. Here I was just a bad actor. Clapping. Spectators. Pay for entrance tickets now? I have to pay!?

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