She is the daughter of my stepsister and her husband, the infamous Count Ladurée.
My sister died of a strange and unknown debilitating illness.
Her beauty faded day by day,
she slowly went out,
as if carried away by the wind.
About the Count, I guess, you well know
the story of his diabolical madness.
The Little Girl was brought to the orphanage.
I still did not live here and when I came back, I immediately had the good heart to take the baby with me.
Madame Tussauds said, while Reverend Dumas nodded with his hands clasped in a monotonous prayer.
I'm not completely informed about this nasty story, please Madame, would you tell it to me?
And so saying the commissioner C. Monet
moved his chair and sat in wait
to hear this strange story.
- It all began with the slow death
of my adoptive stepsister.
The Count had gone a little mad, he began
doing strange and meaningless things.
He did not want to bury his great love,
he embalmed her, saying that he would keep her close forever.
I remember that in those days the Count was as crazy or invaded, perhaps demeaned or who knows what.
He was studying all day and all nights,
then he wrote; he wrote millions of formulas
which for me have no meaning.
Oh! But me, Commissioner, I am a smart woman and I understand things.
I know what the Count was studying! He was studying
the Magic... The Dark Magic, Commissioner!
More and more the Count Ladurée
lived in a straight-up fantasyland,
an impalpable world made up of visions.
He talked to his wife, as if she was still alive, but she was motionless, embalmed, a stuffed puppet! He talked to plants and animals! He no longer talked to people! He didnt say any other word! He didn't say a word!
We are one of the wealthiest families in Paris, Mr. Monet, and we cannot afford certain rumors on our behalf.
We cant! Its trashy!
Oh! But me... I am a woman of high society, of great nobility and I know well certain things! So, I took my fur and my puppy dressed for the occasion and went to Reverend Dumas to denounce the facts and confess everything to God!
Then I went to the police with Count Ladurées documents and denounced him for his magic rituals and his heresies.
Thus, Count Ladurée had to take all of his stuff and run away from Paris, otherwise people would pilloried him as a heretic and / or Satan's follower!
Reading through his things I think he has fled to some distant or exotic country,
bringing the embalmed body of his beloved wife with him.
So he disappeared in a flash leaving their only beautiful daughter
in a shelter for orphans.
My adoption papers are all in the parish of Reverend Dumas.
Anyway,
what Count Ladurée left before escape his properly punishment, is all in his office; you can visit it whenever you want!
I left it as it was to facilitate the course of the investigation and now it is still as it was at the time.
Madame Tussauds said looking at
Dumas with a cunning glance.
Its not a great story! ... Its not a great story at all!
Commissioner Monet mumbled
beneath his long black mustaches,
while he was a long way off from hearing.
Her voice was too irritating for his ears. As a music that does not sound good. A scratched disc that stops the pin and blows up ruining
the melody of things.
Would you like something to drink?
A brandy or some coffee? Maybe some tea?
The waitress said to all
the guests in the salon.
In that night of shock-white snow
on the windows steamed up.
In this strange story, full of
unsolved mysteries.
It seemed that everyone, listening to the story about Count Ladurée, they had completely forgotten why they were there.
At that late hour in a night
a few days before Christmas.
They had completely forgotten about
Mary Jane and little Jean Baptiste.
They drank and had conversations again, about this and that, they talked about the weather changes and Madame Tussauds was a very good host. Then they drank a toast again,
making wishes each other.
Meanwhile, a few kilometers from there,
the two children slept with the animals in the warmth of the stable, dreaming of a happy Christmas.
Only after all the unnecessary pleasantries Commissioner C. Monet,
seemed to get away from the group, pursuing a quick thought that
it seemed to fly away and be unreachable.
Then, calling his Gendarme, he said:
Unleashed the dogs and look for the little girl and the baby boy all over Paris!
Arrest anyone who has not reported
the facts and protects the two fugitives!
Madame Tussauds and the Rev. Dumas nodded, as if Commissioner Monet
had addressed directly to them.
Unfortunately for the Gendarmerie and fortunately for the two children,
the next morning it looked like spring and
the snow melting fast,
hid all traces at sniffer dogs.
Sniffer dogs that, under the shining sun
of that morning, they found themselves in rivers
of running water to smell in vain.
Water followed its paths,
made of descents and slopes,
curves or recesses, and then puddles,
small ponds and canals.
Water, as was its mission,
besides the fact of irrigating the ground and
nourishing plants and all living things,
it was hiding with careful parsimony
the smell of the two fugitives.
It seemed that all Nature somehow protected the two children.
As if they were her first children or
a precious gift for everyone.
A miraculous harvest of fields
that had to be nourished with great care.
A fruit ... A red apple
given to all men and women
so that they may also know other truths.
The Sun rose and replaced the Moon.
The same thing happened even in the barn,
but here all the animals
saw it happen.
Not because they had nothing else to look at
but because the birth of a day,
like the growth of a child,
is the most important thing in the world.
A single ray of light passed
through the slit of the stable.
On the side where the children were sleeping, it lit up
Mary Janes face; she stretched herself and leaned in unison with Thomas the cat,
which, licking its private parts, soon after her, greeted the Sun with a giant yawning.
You look like the characters in that small village that humans call nativity scene!
Thomas the cat said pointing at the children,
the cows and the hay all around them.
Look out! The Farmer is coming! Help! Find some cover!
Bernhard said coming out quickly from his hole and running wildly.
We should moo all together!
When the farmer arrives... and the sheep bleating, the rooster crowing, not to let him hear
the child's weeping! Ismael the bull said.
All for one! ... It continued.
one for all! ... All the animals replied.
And it was a choir! The barn was immense in the daylight and the animals were many, so many.
Mary Jane was well hidden from the view of the farmer and she looked from beneath the udders and listened astonished, as if she was still dreaming ... A cool dreaming!
3
Upon his arrival, the farmer found the animals very, very agitated.
Cows and calves were mooing, horses were neighing, the rooster was crowing incessantly,
the cat was meowing, the donkey was braying and the sheep were bleating.
In seeing that confusion, the farmer feared that an Earthquake, or a Storm, perhaps a Hurricane was coming.
Since animals feel disasters and earthquakes first.
The farmer hurried to take them out to the pasture, and got his family
out of the house.
He looked at the sky, but everything looked serene. It was the cold sky of a rigid December, but clear and light blue, a nice cool winter sky.
While the farmer was heading grazing absorbed in a thousand questions,
animals suddenly stopped pawing, making verses and various bellows.
As if everything had passed and
the coming storm had become
flat calm of that sky so blue.
Mary Jane and Jean Baptiste remained hidden in a floor packed with straw,
together with Bernhard the mouse and Thomas the cat.
You're Thomas the cat, right?
Mary Jane said
At your service, Mademoiselle!
Why, can you talk?
I've always been a big talker!
Do not be silly! It drives me mad being here!
It's a fortune, dont you think?
Thomas answer me, please,
Why can you talk?
If anything... why can you hear me?
Right? ... Why can I hear you?
It's a meaningless conversation
Mary Jane thought;
she thought she was going crazy or
to be still dreaming cool.
You can hear us thank to your father,
the brilliant Count Ladurée.
Bernhard was a lab rat,
you know? ... And he told me about things.
That rat's got the scoop on!
Now... the mouse can talk, too?
No! Mademoiselle is you, who can listen to us!
Bernhard the mouse said, almost annoyed.
Ok! Alright! Hear, listen, talk! I don't care! Mouse, tell me about my father! Mary Jane said, more annoyed than him.
First of all, my name is Bernhard Blues! ... Not Mouse! ... Secondly, I do not want to tell you anything!
And so telling Bernhard sneaked away, inside his small hole.
Seen! ... You've offended him! ... Good!
Thomas said, shaking his head.
With the help of time perhaps Mary Jane would understand the personality of every single animal.
She could finally take advantage of this mysterious bond, to face the future and to understand the past that no one
had never told her.
She did not really know
how and who her Father was;
she did not even know about her Mother or
remembered many things; sometimes
their faces also disappeared from her memory.
So, she would have to wait
to grow and develop to the best
this immense power which
now it seemed nothing to her.
Mary Jane was a bright child,
there are no doubts about this.
Of her father, she only remembered slowness and
light caresses on her cheeks
with the back of his rough hand.
Of the rest she remembered little or perhaps nothing.
Mary Jane knew to wait!
Just like her father! And like the seasons.
That was why she was smart.
She ... was not in a hurry.
She was not at all.
So, with the slowness of things
even the sundown arrived, on that first day
as fugitives.
The sun was setting at the same time as the slow return of animals from pasture.
She saw them coming in the distance, like the platoon of a large army, from the crack in the barn wood.
Where she could see the Moon and the Sun, too.
The animals approaching the stable began to get nervous again, without any apparent reason.
They began mooing, braying, bleating and stamping their feet, as if they had entered a
Wild West Rodeo.
With the farmer's astonishment,
even his faithful dog Faust, who had accompanied them serenely to the pasture and to the way home,
he began to bark loudly, spin out of control, as if to bite its own tail.
The farmer closed the stable.
Asking to himself a million and more questions.
Then he headed home.
Thinking that the following day
he would have to call the veterinarian,
among all the things he had to do.
To let somebody that knows things better
control his animals.
For those absurd oddities
of their latest behaviors.
Behaviors that
he couldn't explain by himself.
The captain of the gendarmerie, coming back
at Ladurées residence, he informed the Commissioner
C. Monet, of his first defeat.
Commissioner! No trace of the children!
Captain?! They couldn't have gone
that far!
Commissioner C. Monet replied, rolling his long mustaches.
We looked all over Paris!
Checked everywhere, inquired of anyone! Mr. Commissioner! Nothing!
Call for reinforcements! Get our people on it!
That's an order!
Commissioner C. Monet snorted bored and shouted loudly.
The captain of the gendarmerie,
as embalmed, frozen by that sudden anger,
he clicked his heels with
an empty and blank look.
He greeted the commissioner, putting his hand outstretched above his right eye
and executed orders received.
Do you think Madame Tussauds
is still sleeping?
Commissioner C. Monet asked
the vain maid.
I think yes! Mr. Commissioner.
She ordered not to be bothered by anyone! Madame Tussauds does not feel very well ... In the meantime, would you like something? Can I get you some coffee?
Yes, please! No sugar.
If you let me, I'll take a look
at Count Ladurées studio ...
Can you tell me which way?
Sure, follow me upstairs.
The bimbo maid said
getting the long stairs.
Madame Tussauds, actually,
was not bad or even sleeping.
Those were just the orders given to the maid, so that they would not know
where she was gone.
Madame Tussauds had snuck out of the service door to go to Reverend Dumas.
She had to hand over
secrets and important documents.
She had to hand them over the Reverend
so as he could keep them safe in a safe place.