An impression received in his boyhood came back to him, in which he, among strange people in a foreign land, had been accustomed by his father to consider himself as an onlooker.

In Moscow he had often met aristocratic people, with as thick epaulettes, and more orders than these, but at the sight of them he had always thought, "They are only barbarous Russians, and I am a German, although I have no gold lace on my coat." From that time he had always in his mind connected the use of uniforms, as outward signs of bravery, with the conception of an ostentatious and showy barbarism which a civilized European might afford to laugh at.

He had gone further; he regarded rank and titles as only a kind of clothing of circumstances, which the State lends to certain persons for useful purposes, just as the wardrobe-keeper at a theater gives out costumes to the supers.

He was so convinced on this point that he felt sure it was only the stupid yokel at the back of the gallery who could look with any admiration on a human being merely because he struts about the stage in purple and gold tinsel.
Wilhelm did not give the impression of a man who was enjoying himself.
His discontented gaze persistently followed one dark head adorned with a yellow rose.
Loulou, for of course it was she, wore a cream-colored silk crepon dress.

Her little feet in pale yellow satin shoes played at hide-and-seek under her skirt.