They say he was first seen in Le Boulou, but we didn't want to give it any credence, close to the border, rubbing his shoulder, a long, dark coat, scarf around his neck, his fringe in the wind, with, as the phrase here goes, light in his eyes and strength in his arm. Immediately, innumerable whispers started around the whole of the country and the Spains, abundant testimonies given in secret, like a trail of gunpowder with a thousand branches which fatally had to end up in fiery explosions, burning some, leaving others terrified to the point of panic, to the point of flight. Yes, yes, he's back. He'd been glimpsed during the day but also at night, close to Sants Màrtirs church in Sant Julià de Ramis like a ghost, he'd raced through Borrassà, through Palau-saverdera, past Quim Monzó's house in Maçanet de Cabrenys and close to Foixà's main gate, he'd been identified by a local with a good memory for faces whilst he ate queso blanco in Fonteta, that he was closely followed by discrete faithful or maybe travelling alone, perhaps just with a single Catalan police officer to travel quicker and continue slipping through, to continue doing stretches of the dangerous road to Barcelona to open the iron Parliament door. That he'd managed to outsmart both the civil guards in Figueres and the soldiers in Sant Climent Sescebes and also the secret agents dressed as farmers in the marshes, dressed as anchovy fishermen at Escala, dressed as millworkers in overalls, dressed as staff at a Galp service station, dressed the part in brothels or outside, on the side of roads where drivers sometimes "happen to get lost".
Early this morning, there have already been sightings of republican groups to discretely receive the president, to shake his hand, to greet him with applause, to offer him coca to eat and hot chocolate, to have him touch children's heads, but above all to protect him if necessary. The president renounced the republic with it barely proclaimed to avoid a bloodbath, to protect the public and now it's the public that wants to protect him and is looking for him to acclaim him. Because he's a man who represents, who embodies Catalonia's faith in itself in a way no other president had embodied it before. They are not abandoning the hope of finding him on some road, the legitimate president. And if, perhaps, before he reaches Barcelona, he's arrested, imprisoned, if by chance he's eliminated from the political scene by the repressive apparatus of the Spanish state, after the mourning will come another, another president. And then another, and another. And another. If he isn't coming on this road, he must be coming on that other one over there. Or the other one. That's the thing about ghosts, about illusions, convictions: they're indestructible. Spain will end up leaving Catalonia. And, in contrast with the surprise of those people, those people, "so conceited and so arrogant", of the Catalan anthem here is, once more, the joy of the revolution of smiles, once more the revolt of the Catalans. The president is here. Puigdemont is back.