[Jude is sat at the piano in the new place, but playing is exercise in distraction, the inevitability of being swept up in frozen moments and hurled into someone else's life is set to Twinkle Twinkle, over and over. He is sat and when he braces, the sour taste of fear on his tongue and the rigidity of bearing in and under for the haul.
It is pleasant surprise. His head is a muddle of languages and he's never acquired French to fluency but it is high society, a whirligig of champagne and period dress and mad, outrageous costume. It feels distilled to happiness, as distinctive as champagne and when Jude is left on the piano stool once more, it is a wash of emotion that lingers and lasts, warm as candle-flame.]