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With his scarlet wings and emerald body, it was really the image of Loulou. Having bought the picture, she hung it near the one of the Comte d'Artois so that she could take them in at one glance. They associated in her mind, the parrot becoming sanctified through the neighbourhood of the Holy Ghost, and the latter becoming more lifelike in her eyes, and more comprehensible.
Often in the letter there was a flower, or a piece of wild thyme, which betrayed an undercurrent of feeling beneath the shallowness of the words, and once she sent him her photograph with the words "Loulou to her dearest Wilhelm." So he gathered from her frivolous letters much that was unspoken, and through signs and indications believed that her feeling for him was there and gained strength.
I think it is very nice of him to leave you in freedom for the whole season." "I am not free, however." "I mean before the world, dear child. You are both so young that it would not matter if you did not take the cares of marriage upon you for another year." And to Loulou that was evident. All over Germany the corn stood high in the fields, ripe for the sickle.
Frau Ellrich had sent Wilhelm two tickets, hoping that he would make use of them. Dr. Schrotter wished to see the spectacle, so Wilhelm asked his new friend to go with him. Near where they sat was the platform for the ladies who were to crown the victors with wreaths. Among them was Loulou. All the emotions and force of character of which she was capable had been brought out by her position.
Loulou wore beautiful frocks, which made her much admired; the people were formal, and tolerated nothing that was not ultra polite and polished, in short, it was impossible to be true and natural as things had been in the forest, where the birds and the happy little squirrels served for playfellows.
Loulou was not wanting in heart, and she had as much feeling as it is proper for an educated German girl to show. By an involuntary movement, she held out her hand, which Wilhelm caught and kissed. They both grew very red, and she looked wistfully at him with her eyes wet. Had he understood the look, and been of a bold nature, he would have clasped the girl to his breast and kissed her.
Félicité, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off his chain and let him walk all over the house. When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat.
He lived over again in thought the last few months, and, as often happened lately, he lapsed into painful meditation on his relations to Loulou. After her departure from Hornberg she had not written to him for eight days. Then came a letter from Ostend, in which she called Wilhelm "Sie."
They held conversations together, Loulou repeating the three phrases of his repertory over and over, Felicite replying by words that had no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her feelings. In her isolation, the parrot was almost a son, a love.
Nevertheless, things became suspiciously different after the breach between Wilhelm and Loulou. In Malvine's somewhat narrow but well-regulated mind a brave romance had been mistakenly built up. Now Wilhelm was free: now she need have no feeling of duty on account of that superficial, pleasure-seeking Loulou, who had never been worthy of him.
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