"But in G.o.d"s name!" exclaimed I in my trepidation, "what can I do for a man who--" we both started, and, as I believe, reddened.
After a moment"s silence, he again resumed: "During the short time that I had the happiness to find myself near you, I have, sir, many times--allow me to say it to you--really contemplated with inexpressible admiration, the beautiful, beautiful, shadow which, as it were, with a certain n.o.ble disdain, and without yourself remarking it, you cast from you in the sunshine. The n.o.ble shadow at your feet there. Pardon me the bold supposition, but possibly you might not be indisposed to make this shadow over to me."
He was silent, and a mill-wheel seemed to whirl round in my head. What was I to make of this singular proposition to sell my own shadow?
He must be mad, thought I, and with an altered tone which was more a.s.similated to that of his own humility, I answered thus:
"Ha! ha! good friend, have not you then enough of your own shadow? I take this for a business of a very singular sort--"
He hastily interrupted me--"I have many things in my pocket which, sir, might not appear worthless to you, and for this inestimable shadow I hold the very highest price too small."
It struck cold through me again as I was reminded of the pocket.
I knew not how I could have called him good friend. I resumed the conversation, and sought, if possible, to set all right again by excessive politeness.
"But, sir, pardon your most humble servant; I do not understand your meaning. How indeed could my shadow"--he interrupted me--
"I beg your permission only here on the spot to be allowed to take up this n.o.ble shadow and put it in my pocket; how I shall do that, be my care. On the other hand, as a testimony of my grateful acknowledgment to you, I give you the choice of all the treasures which I carry in my pocket--the genuine Spring-root, the Mandrake-root, the Change-penny, the Rob-dollar, the Napkin of Roland"s Page, a Mandrake-man, at your own price. But these probably don"t interest you--rather Fortunatus"
Wishing-cap newly and stoutly repaired, and a lucky-bag such as he had!"
"The Luck-purse of Fortunatus!" I exclaimed, interrupting him; and great as my anxiety was, with that one word he had taken my whole mind captive. A dizziness seized me, and double ducats seemed to glitter before my eyes.
"Honored Sir, will you do me the favor to view, and to make trial of this purse?" He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew out a tolerably large, well-sewed purse of stout Corduan leather, with two strong strings, and handed it to me. I plunged my hand into it, and drew out ten gold pieces, and again ten, and again ten, and again ten.
I extended him eagerly my hand "Agreed! the business is done; for the purse you have my shadow!"
He closed with me; kneeled instantly down before me, and I beheld him, with an admirable dexterity, gently loosen my shadow from top to toe from the gra.s.s, lift it up, roll it together, fold it, and, finally, pocket it. He arose, made me another obeisance, and retreated toward the rosary. I fancied that I heard him there softly laughing to himself; but I held the purse fast by the strings; all round me lay the clear sunshine, and within me was yet no power of reflection.
CHAPTER II
At length I came to myself, and hastened to quit the place where I had nothing more to expect. In the first place I filled my pockets with gold; then I secured the strings of the purse fast round my neck, and concealed the purse itself in my bosom. I pa.s.sed un.o.bserved out of the park, reached the highway and took the road to the city. As, sunk in thought, I approached the gate, I heard a cry behind me--"Young gentleman! eh! young gentleman! hear you!" I looked round, an old woman called after me. "Do take care, sir, you have lost your shadow!"
"Thank you, good mother!" I threw her a gold piece for her well-meant information, and stopped under the trees.
At the city gate I was compelled to hear again from the sentinel--"Where has the gentleman left his shadow?" And immediately again from some women--"Jesus Maria! the poor fellow has no shadow!"
That began to irritate me, and I became especially careful not to walk in the sun. This could not, however, be accomplished everywhere--for instance, over the broad street which I next must cross, actually, as mischief would have it, at the very moment that the boys came out of school. A cursed hunch-backed rogue, I see him yet, spied out instantly that I had no shadow. He proclaimed the fact with a loud outcry to the whole a.s.sembled literary street youth of the suburb, who began forthwith to criticise me, and to pelt me with mud. "Decent people are accustomed to take their shadows with them, when they go into the sunshine." To defend myself from them I threw whole handfuls of gold amongst them and sprang into a hackney-coach, which some compa.s.sionate soul procured for me.
As soon as I found myself alone in the rolling carriage I began to weep bitterly. The presentiment must already have arisen in me that, far as gold on earth transcends in estimation merit and virtue, so much higher than gold itself is the shadow valued; and as I had earlier sacrificed wealth to conscience, I had now thrown away the shadow for mere gold. What in the world could and would become of me!
I was still greatly discomposed as the carriage stopped before my old inn. I was horrified at the bare idea of entering that wretched c.o.c.k-loft. I ordered my things to be brought down; received my miserable bundle with contempt, threw down some gold pieces, and ordered the coachman to drive to the most fashionable hotel. The house faced the north, and I had not the sun to fear. I dismissed the driver with gold; caused the best front rooms to be a.s.signed me, and shut myself up in them as quickly as I could!
What thinkest thou I now began? Oh, my dear Chamisso, to confess it even to thee makes me blush. I drew the unlucky purse from my bosom, and with a kind of rage which, like a rushing conflagration, grew in me with self-increasing growth, I extracted gold, and gold, and gold, and ever more gold, and strewed it on the floor, and strode amongst it, and made it ring again, and, feeding my poor heart on the splendor and the sound, flung continually more metal to metal, till in my weariness I sank down on the rich heap, and, rioting thereon, rolled and reveled upon it. So pa.s.sed the day, the evening. I opened not my door; the night found me lying on my gold, and then sleep overcame me.
I dreamed of thee. I seemed to stand behind the gla.s.s-door of thy little room, and to see thee sitting then at thy work-table, between a skeleton and a bundle of dried plants. Before thee lay open Haller, Humboldt, and Linnaeus; on thy sofa a volume of Goethe and "The Magic Ring." I regarded thee long, and everything in thy room, and then thee again. Thou didst not move, thou drewest no breath--thou wert dead!
I awoke. It appeared still to be very early. My watch stood. I was sore all over; thirsty and hungry too; I had taken nothing since the morning before. I pushed from me with loathing and indignation the gold on which I had before sated my foolish heart. In my vexation I knew not what I should do with it. It must not lie there. I tried whether the purse would swallow it again--but no! None of my windows opened upon the sea. I found myself compelled laboriously to drag it to a great cupboard which stood in a cabinet, and there to pile it. I left only some handfuls of it lying. When I had finished the work, I threw myself exhausted into an easy chair, and waited for the stirring of the people in the house. As soon as possible I ordered food to be brought, and the landlord to come to me.
I fixed in consultation with this man the future arrangements of my house. He recommended for the services about my person a certain Bendel, whose honest and intelligent physiognomy immediately captivated me. He it was whose attachment has since accompanied me consolingly through the wretchedness of life, and has helped me to support my gloomy lot. I spent the whole day in my room among masterless servants, shoemakers, tailors, and tradespeople. I fitted myself out, and purchased besides a great many jewels and valuables for the sake of getting rid of some of the vast heap of h.o.a.rded-up gold; but it seemed to me as if it were impossible to diminish it.
In the meantime I brooded over my situation in the most agonizing doubts. I dared not venture a step out of my doors, and at evening I caused forty waxlights to be lit in my room before I issued from the shade. I thought with horror on the terrible scene with the schoolboys, yet I resolved, much courage as it demanded, once more to make a trial of public opinion. The nights were then moonlight. Late in the evening I threw on a wide cloak, pressed my hat over my eyes, and stole, trembling like a criminal, out of the house. I stepped first out of the shade in whose protection I had arrived so far, in a remote square, into the full moonlight, determined to learn my fate out of the mouths of the pa.s.sers-by.
Spare me, dear friend, the painful repet.i.tion of all that I had to endure. The women often testified the deepest compa.s.sion with which I inspired them, declarations which no less transpierced me than the mockery of the youth and the proud contempt of the men, especially of those fat, well fed fellows, who themselves cast a broad shadow.
A lovely and sweet girl, who, as it seemed, accompanied her parents, while these discreetly only looked before their feet, turned by chance her flashing eyes upon me. She was obviously terrified; she observed my want of a shadow, let fall her veil over her beautiful countenance, and dropping her head, pa.s.sed in silence.
I could bear it no longer. Briny streams started from my eyes, and, cut to the heart, I staggered back into the shade. I was obliged to support myself against the houses to steady my steps and wearily and late reached my dwelling.
I spent a sleepless night. The next morning it was my first care to have the man in the gray coat everywhere sought after. Possibly I might succeed in finding him again, and how joyful if he repented of the foolish bargain as heartily as I did! I ordered Bendel to me, for he appeared to possess address and tact; I described to him exactly the man in whose possession lay a treasure without which my life was only a misery. I told him the time, the place in which I had seen him; I described to him all who had been present, and added, moreover, this token: he should particularly inquire after a Dollond"s telescope; after a gold interwoven Turkish carpet; after a splendid pleasure-tent; and, finally, after the black chargers, whose story, we knew not how, was connected with that of the mysterious man, who seemed of no consideration amongst them, and whose appearance had destroyed the quiet and happiness of my life.
When I had done speaking I fetched out gold, such a load that I was scarcely able to carry it, and added thereto precious stones and jewels of a far greater value. "Bendel," said I, "these level many ways, and make easy many things which appeared quite impossible; don"t be stingy with it, as I am not, but go and rejoice thy master with the intelligence on which his only hope depends."
He went. He returned late and sorrowful. None of the people of Mr.
John, none of his guests, and he had spoken with all, were able, in the remotest degree, to recollect the man in the gray coat. The new telescope was there, and no one knew whence it had come; the carpet, the tent were still there spread and pitched on the selfsame hill; the servants boasted of the affluence of their master, and no one knew whence these new valuables had come to him. He himself took his pleasure in them, and did not trouble himself because he did not know whence he had them. The young gentlemen had the horses, which they had ridden, in their stables, and they praised the liberality of Mr. John who on that day made them a present of them. Thus much was clear from the circ.u.mstantial relation of Bendel, whose active zeal and able proceeding, although with such fruitless result, received from me their merited commendation. I gloomily motioned him to leave me alone.
"I have," began he again, "given my master an account of the matter which was most important to him. I have yet a message to deliver which a person gave me whom I met at the door as I went out on the business in which I have been so unfortunate. The very words of the man were these: "Tell Mr. Peter Schlemihl he will not see me here again, as I am going over sea, and a favorable wind calls me at this moment to the harbor. But in a year and a day I will have the honor to seek him myself, and then to propose to him another and probably to him agreeable transaction. Present my most humble compliments to him, and a.s.sure him of my thanks." I asked him who he was, but he replied that your honor knew him already."
"What was the man"s appearance?" cried I, filled with foreboding, and Bendel sketched me the man in the gray coat, trait by trait, word for word, as he had accurately described in his former relation the man after whom he had inquired.
"Unhappy one!" I exclaimed, wringing my hands--"that was the very man!" and there fell, as it were, scales from his eyes.
"Yes! it was he, it was, positively!" cried he in horror, "and I, blind and imbecile wretch, have not recognized him, have not recognized him, and have betrayed my master!"
He broke out into violent weeping; heaped the bitterest reproaches on himself, and the despair in which he was inspired even me with compa.s.sion. I spoke comfort to him, a.s.sured him repeatedly that I entertained not the slightest doubt of his fidelity, and sent him instantly to the port, if possible to follow the traces of this singular man. But in the morning a great number of ships which the contrary winds had detained in the harbor, had run out, bound to different climes and different sh.o.r.es, and the gray man had vanished as tracelessly as a dream.
CHAPTER III
Of what avail are wings to him who is fast bound in iron fetters? He is compelled only the more fearfully to despair. I lay, like Faffner by his treasure, far from every consolation, starving in the midst of my gold. But my heart was not in it; on the contrary, I cursed it, because I saw myself through it cut off from all life. Brooding over my gloomy secret alone, I trembled before the meanest of my servants, whom at the same time I was forced to envy, for he had a shadow; he might show himself in the sun. I wore away days and nights in solitary sorrow in my chamber, and anguish gnawed at my heart.
There was another who pined away before my eyes; my faithful Bendel never ceased to torture himself with silent reproaches, that he had betrayed the trust reposed in him by his master, and had not recognized him after whom he was dispatched, and with whom he must believe that my sorrowful fate was intimately interwoven. I could not lay the fault to his charge; I recognized in the event the mysterious nature of the Unknown.
That I might leave nothing untried, I one time sent Bendel with a valuable brilliant ring to the most celebrated painter of the city, and begged that he would pay me a visit. He came. I ordered my people to retire, closed the door, seated myself by the man, and, after I had praised his art, I came with a heavy heart to the business, causing him before that to promise the strictest secrecy.
"Mr. Professor," said I, "could not you, think you, paint a false shadow for one who, by the most unlucky chance in the world, has become deprived of his own?"
"You mean a personal shadow?"
"That is precisely my meaning"--
"But," continued he, "through what awkwardness, through what negligence, could he then lose his proper shadow?"
"How it happened," replied I, "is now of very little consequence, but thus far I may say," added I, lying shamelessly to him; "in Russia, whither he made a journey last winter, in an extraordinary cold his shadow froze so fast to the ground that he could by no means loose it again."
"The false shadow that I could paint him," replied the professor, "would only be such a one as by the slightest movement he might lose again, especially a person, who, as appears by your relation, has so little adhesion to his own native shadow. He who has no shadow, let him keep out of the sunshine--that is the safest and most sensible thing for him." He arose and withdrew, casting at me a trans-piercing glance which mine could not support. I sunk back in my seat, and covered my face with my hands.
Thus Bendel found me, as he at length entered. He saw the grief of his master, and was desirous silently and reverently to withdraw. I looked up, I succ.u.mbed under the burden of my trouble; I must communicate it.