Lights up and awakens the other houses in the neighborhood.
It’s creating a small gathering of useless and curious people who want to know.
Even Mary Jane comes down and the guy comes up; he who switches off the street lamps with its long iron
now abandoned on the ground.
Oh God! How little is he!
Mary Jane shouted astonished, bringing her little hands on her cheeks.
Surely he was abandoned; let's get him out of the cold into the house!
Mary Jane’s stepmother falsely
ordered the housekeeper.
While she invited the priest to enter the house, looking at him with watchful and vile eyes.
Leaving out the rest of nosy neighbors.
The snow kept falling in large flakes.
Now, in the enlightened hall of the villa there were three people plus the priest and the little cradle.
They were all standing still, waiting for someone to start speaking, a task that was quickly acquitted by Madam Tussauds, resourceful and dictator, but also very scenic and theatrical.
- Insolent peasants! They creep even into
our homes to bring the evil fruit
of their sins! It’s incredible!
Isn’t it, Reverend? They have fun and then
they wash their hands!
Good lord! ... Peasants and poor people are convinced that your money can free them from their mortal sin!
Rev. Dumas said with his hands clasped in a vain prayer.
Mary Jane became all red with anger.
Don’t you think that poor people, the peasants
are just hungry? And they hope that here we could nourish and grow their son?
And who knows why and how much pain they had on abandoning him!
Mary Jane blurted out, nearly in tears,
imploring her stepmother with shining eyes,
who, however, was absorbed by a silent whisper with the priest and had not seen
nor heard the words of her stupid and hated niece, now her
little desired adoptive daughter.
In the meantime, outside it was getting snowed
stronger and the snow was coming down like a white blanket around the chatter of the curious...
It was coming down on the heads and hats of people asking information to the coachmen of the parked cab,
in that rough night out, near Ladurée House.
In the meantime in the glittering salon,
Madame Tussauds and Rev. Dumas
had already decided on where and how
little Jean Baptiste
would spend his first Christmas.
- The orphanage?! ... Oh my God, Madame! ... And you, Mr. Reverend! ... Christ! ... That's a terrible place!
Mary Jane had so voiced her anger, which was now unstoppable.
You should tell your daughter she ought to not use the Lord's name in vain!
Rev. Dumas promptly replied with
this catchphrase.
And you, Reverend Father... Shouldn’t you do good deeds?
The beautiful and brave little girl said with a trembling and fearful voice.
Mary Jane, shut up! Go to your room! Nooooow!!!
Madame Tussauds blurted out, possibly becoming more
ugly than usual and red as a pepper.
Mary Jane, although little, was well acquainted with the nastiness and pettiness of the adoptive Stepmother...
So in a heartbeat, she grabbed the cradle
and ran out!
She ran breathless as fast as she could,
towards the light of the Full Moon.
She ran a long time, without knowing
where to go and not knowing what to do,
nor why she had done
that gesture so clumsy and stupid.
The snow was still falling in white and quilted big flakes, as dancers for a music box overturned in the sky.
Dancers who, with their skirts, cover and swell
of a kind of bridal white
all the roofs and the streets of Paris.
So, in this story, in this long night,
there are still white flakes of white snow falling incessantly and creating an unbreakable and inexplicable connection
between Mary Jane’s and
Jane Baptist’s hearts.
Exactly this connection, which arises from
a past lived at the orphanage for her,
and a future snatched to the orphanage for Jean Baptiste.
Exactly this connection set out
under the light snowflakes
shortly before Christmas in Paris.
This unique and unspoken connection,
this embrace as fugitives.
Like a flake
tightened in this strange story,
it was author of a great little miracle.
On that night like two fugitives,
they found shelter in a barn, a stable,
among
