I would like to dedicate to you, brothers and sisters, dearly loved, who are here, and to those who watch this by means of theirs screen, I would like to dedicate this beautiful, true story to you, the most beautiful story I know; I dedicate this story to you, Paola and Albert, Nicole and Nicolas, Maria, Henri, to all those who love eachother, to those who have succeeded in trying to cope with fidelity and finally to those who, with this advice, have left eachother, have divorced and … remarried. There is so much suffering in today´s world people go through. So to all those women, all those men, I dedicate this story, the story of the white handkerchiefs.
An adult man of twenty years old had blemished the name of his parents, an affair which more or less had ruined the reputation of his parents. The father had told John who had blemished his family´s fame: ´John, leave this place and never again return to this house.´ So, John, with a heavy soul, left his home. A little later he told himself: ´I am really a piece of ****, a scoundrel, so I am going to ask my father to forgive me.´ But he was so afraid of his father that he thought that he would throw him out of the house for ever. Then he wrote him a letter: ´Father, I really have been a disgrace to you, I ask your forgiveness, I would so much like to come home again, I am writing to you now, I don´t even tell you my address, because I am so afraid that you will say ´no´ to me. If you forgive me, put a white handkerchief, I beg you, on an apple-tree in front of the house, on the big alley leading to the house, on the last apple-tree.´ Then a little later he said to his brother and friend Mark: ´I beg you Mark, I beg you, accompany me, we are going to do the following. I will take you to the house. At 500 m distance from the house, you will drive me. Then I will take the passenger´s seat, I will close my eyes. Slowly you will drive along the alley with the apple-trees, you will stop. If there is a white handkerchief we will drive on to the house. If there isn´t any I will never return to the house.´ As said, so done. At 100 m John changed seat with Mark, he sat on the passenger´s seat, he closed his eyes and slowly the car drove along the grand alley with the apple-trees up till the last apple-tree before the house and John, with his eyes closed, said to Mark: ´I beg you, Mark, did my father put a white handkerchief on the apple-tree in front of the house?´ Mark said to him: ´No, John, there is no handkerchief in the apple-tree in front of the house, but there are hundreds of them all along the alley which leads to the house!´
