Every morning when she awoke, she saw
him in the dim light of dawn and recalled bygone days and the smallest
details of insignificant actions, without any sense of bitterness or
grief.
As she was unable to communicate with people, she lived in a sort of
somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day seemed to
wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for candlesticks and mats
so as to adorn the temporary altars in the street.
In church, she always gazed at the Holy Ghost, and noticed that there
was something about it that resembled a parrot. The likenesses appeared
even more striking on a coloured picture by Espinal, representing the
baptism of our Saviour. 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.
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