I was silent, my head in a whirl. What was I to make of this strange request to buy my shadow? He must be crazy, I thought, and in a tone that contrasted forcibly with the humility of his own I answered:
“Come, come, my good friend, will not your own shadow do? This seems a deal of a most unusual kind.”
He quickly continued. “I have,” he said, “in my pocket many things which might not appear unacceptable to the gentleman; for this invaluable shadow no price can be high enough.”
A chill crept up my spine because that sinister pocket came to my mind and I could not think why I had addressed him as my good friend. I spoke again and tried to get out of my predicament with exquisite politeness.
“Sir, if you will forgive your most humble servant I am not able to grasp the meaning of your proposal; how could I possibly part with my shadow—”
He interrupted me. “I only crave for your permission to lift up your noble shadow right here and to put it into my pocket; how I do it is my own affair. In return, and as a token of my profound gratitude to the gentleman, I will leave him to make his choice among all the treasures which I carry in my pocket. The genuine mandrake root, magic pennies, robber’s ducat, the magic napkin of Roland’s Knights, the gallows mandrake; but all this may not be of sufficient interest to you. I have something much better: Fortunatus’ wishing cap restored as new and also a lucky purse exactly like the one he possessed.”
“Fortunatus’ lucky purse!” I interrupted, for, great as had been my fear, his words captured my imagination. I felt quite dizzy and double ducats sparkled before my eyes.
“Will the gentleman deign to inspect and try out this purse.” He put his hand into his pocket and produced a firmly stitched leather purse of moderate size with two strong leather strings and handed it to me. I dipped into it and took out ten pieces of gold and ten more, ten more and yet another ten. I quickly held out my hand to him and said:
“Done, the deal is on. For this purse you may have my shadow.”
We shook hands on it, he knelt down and I watched him as, with astounding dexterity, he silently detached my shadow from head to foot from the lawn. He lifted it up, carefully folded it and finally put it into his pocket. He then stood up, bowed deeply and withdrew to the rose grove. I thought I heard him softly laughing to himself. I firmly held the purse by its strings – the sun was shining brightly around me – as I stood there dazed by what had happened.
2
WHEN AT LAST I had recovered my senses I hastened away from the place, wishing to be rid of it once and for all. I filled my pockets with the gold and concealed the purse under my coat, fastening the strings firmly round my neck. I left the park unnoticed, reached the highroad and made my way to the city. Engrossed in my own thoughts, I approached the gates, when I heard someone calling behind me.
“Young man! Hey, young man, listen to me!” I turned round and saw an old woman shouting after me. “Look out, sir, you have lost your shadow.”
“Many thanks, my good woman.” I replied, throwing a gold piece for the well-meant cautioning, and stepped into the shade of the trees.
At the gate the sentry challenged me: “Where has the gentleman left his shadow?” and immediately afterwards a couple of women exclaimed: “Good Heavens, the poor fellow has no shadow.” I began to be annoyed and I carefully avoided walking in the sun. This, unfortunately, I could not do all the time; for instance, not when crossing the High Street which, as ill luck would have it, I had to do at the very moment when the boys were coming out of school. One of them, a cheeky, hunchbacked little rascal, immediately saw that my shadow was missing. With much hilarity, he informed the whole gang of young hooligans, who now gave chase, making fun and throwing mud at me. “Decent people take their shadows with them when walking in the sun!” they shouted. Finally, I had to scatter handfuls of gold among them to get rid of them and jumped into a hackney carriage with the help of some charitable onlookers. As soon as I found myself alone in the cab, I burst into tears. It was already beginning to dawn upon me that even as gold on this earth is more highly esteemed than merit and virtue, so the shadow might be more highly esteemed even than gold; and that as I had previously held my conscience higher than wealth, I had now given up my shadow for the sake of gold; what on earth could, what ought to become of me?
I was still greatly upset when the carriage set me down at my old inn. I could not bear the idea of returning to my miserable garret. I had my things brought down, received my pitiful bundle with a gesture of contempt, threw down a few ducats on the counter and then ordered the carriage to take me to the best hotel in town. It faced north, so I had nothing to fear from the sun. I dismissed the driver with gold, selected the best front room and shut myself up in it immediately.
And what do you think I did? Oh, my dear Chamisso, it makes me blush to confess it even to you. I pulled out the cursed purse from underneath my coat and in a kind of frenzy, which burned me up like a conflagration, I extracted gold from it; more and more gold, which I scattered over the floor. I trampled on it, making it tinkle and feasting my senses on its glitter and sound; I piled gold upon gold till I sank exhausted onto my luxurious bed, wallowing in a yellow flood. Thus the day went by and the evening. I did not open my door, and when night finally came, I fell asleep embedded in gold.
Then I dreamt of you. I dreamt I was standing outside the glass door of your little study and saw you sitting at your desk between a skeleton and a bunch of dried plants. Before you, volumes of Haller, Humboldt and Linée lay open on the desk, and on the sofa there was a volume of Goethe and the Magic Ring. I looked at you for a long time and looked at every object in the room; you did not move, you did not breathe; it seemed as if you were dead.
I awoke. It was early in the morning. My watch had stopped, I felt completely exhausted. I was thirsty and hungry, for I had not eaten anything since the previous morning. With weariness and disgust, I pushed away the gold which but a little time before had delighted my foolish heart; now in my perplexity I was completely at a loss what to do with it. I could not leave it lying about. I tried to put it back into the purse – no, impossible. None of my windows opened onto the sea, so with immense effort I gathered it from all over the room and stored it in a large cupboard which stood in a recess. I only left a few handfuls lying about. When I had accomplished this task, I sat down exhausted in an armchair and waited until the house began to stir. Then I had breakfast brought up to me and sent for the landlord.
I told him that I intended setting up house and sought his advice on how to proceed. He recommended as personal servant a man named Bendel, whose honest and intelligent countenance immediately appealed to me. It is he who, from that day forwards, has stood by my side with deepest devotion in all my miseries and has shared with me my gloomy destiny. I spent the entire day in my room engaging servants, talking to tailors, shoemakers and tradesmen, organizing my household, purchasing large quantities of precious objects and jewels only in order to get rid of some of my stocks of gold, but it seemed as though it would never diminish.
All the time I was beset by anxious qualms. I dared not leave my room and before dusk I had forty wax candles lit so as to illuminate the room from all sides before I emerged from the dark. I thought with apprehension of the ugly scene with the schoolboys and decided, however hardly it taxed my courage, to test public opinion once more. The moon was very bright during those nights. Late one evening, I put on a large cloak and a wide-brimmed hat, which I pulled down over my eyes. Trembling like a criminal, I left the house by stealth. Having reached a remote square in the city I stepped out of the protecting shadow of the houses into the moonlight, prepared to learn my destiny from the lips of passers-by.
Spare me, dear friend, the details of the painful experiences which I had to undergo. The women mostly gave vent to expressions of pity; it was no less wounding than the derision of the young or the contempt of the men, especially of those who were fat and portly and who themselves boasted a large shadow
. A beautiful young girl, who followed her parents demurely and modestly, casting her eyes down, suddenly glanced at me with a glowing look; then, startled at perceiving my predicament, hid her beautiful face behind her veil and silently went on her way. I could bear it no longer. Tears streamed down my face and with a broken heart I hurried back into the dark. I groped my way along the houses unsteadily and slowly went back to my hotel.
I could not sleep at all that night. The next morning I had but one concern: to find the man in grey. Perhaps I might be lucky enough to find him and to discover that he also regretted our foolish bargain. I sent for Bendel – he seemed a competent and capable fellow – and gave him a minute description of the man who, as I told him, had in his possession a treasure without which my life was not worth living. I told him the time and the place where I had met him, described the people who had been present, and gave him some added clues: he should enquire after a telescope, a Turkish carpet, a sumptuous tent and three black horses which were all connected in some way with the strange man to whom nobody had paid much attention and who had robbed me of my happiness and peace of mind. When I had finished I brought out as much gold as I was able to carry and added jewels and precious stones to the pile.
“Bendel,” I said, “this opens many doors and makes the impossible possible. Don’t be sparing with it – you know I am not; but go and bring back to me those tidings on which alone rest my hopes.”
He left, and late in the evening he returned, dejected and sad. None of the servants of Mr John, not any of his guests whom he had interviewed, remembered anything about the man in the grey coat. The new telescope was there but no one knew where it had come from; so were the carpet and the tent – no one had yet removed them from the hill. The lackeys boasted of their master’s riches but none of them could say when or where these things had come from. The Squire seemed to like them but did not bother about them much, and as to the horses, he had given them to the young gentlemen who had been riding them and who were delighted with his generosity. Such was Bendel’s exhaustive report; I could not help praising his zeal and intelligent conduct, despite the negative result of his search. I dismissed him gloomily and asked him to leave me alone. He continued, however.
“I have,” he said, “reported to my master on the matter which seemed to him the most important, but there is also a message I was asked to deliver by someone I met this morning at the door when I set out on my unsuccessful quest. Here it is, in the man’s own words: ‘Tell Mr Peter Schlemihl that he will not find me here any more. I have to go overseas and a favourable wind calls me to the port. But in a year and a day I shall have the honour to call on him to propose to him what I believe to be a most acceptable bargain. Convey my most respectful compliments and thanks to your master.’ I asked for his name but he said you knew him well.”
“What did he look like?” I exclaimed, full of forebodings. Bendel described the man in grey feature by feature, word by word, precisely as he had described him to the others when enquiring about him.
“Miserable fool!” I cried in despair, “that is the very man whom I had asked you to search for.” Bendel looked like a man who had suddenly recovered his sight.
“It must have been he!” he exclaimed, “and I, silly deluded fool that I am, did not recognize him and have betrayed my trust.”
He broke into a flood of bitter self-reproaches and his despair was such that I felt sorry for him. I tried to comfort him, assuring him that I did not doubt his loyalty, and then sent him off to the port to try, if possible, to trace the strange man. But that very morning many ships which had been port-bound by unfavourable winds, had put to sea to other lands and distant shores and the man in grey had vanished like a shadow, leaving no trace behind.
3
WHAT USE WOULD WINGS BE to a man bound in iron fetters? They would only drive him to even greater despair. There I was, like Fafner in his lair, out of reach of human help, starving as it were in the midst of riches. My gold gave me no joy; I cursed it, for it had cut me off from all that I treasured in life. Carrying my sinister secret in my heart, I was afraid of the meanest of my servants, whom I could not but envy, for he had his shadow and could show himself in the sun. Alone in my apartments I pined away the days and nights eating out my heart with sorrow.
My faithful servant Bendel reproached himself ceaselessly for having, as he thought, betrayed his master’s confidence by failing to recognize the man he had been sent out to find and who, he understood, was responsible for my sad condition. I myself could not blame him for I recognized only too well that behind this strange event stood the uncanny figure of the man in grey. But to leave nothing untried I sent Bendel one day with a costly diamond ring to the City’s most famous portrait painter to invite him to come and see me. On his arrival, I sent my servants away, locked the door behind me, and after praising the painter’s work I enjoined him to strictest secrecy and broached the subject which was such a load on my mind.
“Sir,” I began, “would you consent to provide a shadow for an individual who, in circumstances which are most deplorable and unfortunate, has been deprived of his own?”
“Do you mean you want me to paint a shadow for this unfortunate friend of yours?”
“Precisely that.” I replied.
“May I ask by what act of clumsiness or negligence your friend has lost his shadow?”
“That is immaterial now; but if I remember rightly,” I lied insolently, “during a winter journey last year in Russia it was so cold that his shadow froze to the ground so fast that he could not re-
move it.”
“The false shadow which I could provide in paint,” the artist replied coldly, “would be of a kind which would be lost at the slightest movement, especially in the case of a man who, judging by your story, showed such feeble attachment to his own shadow. The safest and most sensible thing for a man to do who has lost his shadow, is to avoid walking in the sun.” He got up, and casting a piercing glance at me which I could not meet, he left the room. Disconsolate, I sank back into my chair hiding my face in my hands.
Thus Bendel found me when he entered the room. Seeing the state I was in, he wanted to withdraw quietly and respectfully. I looked up and, unable to bear my sorrow any longer, decided to tell him
about it.
“Bendel,” I said, “you alone see and respect my suffering without wishing to probe into it, yet sharing it with me; come close to me now – I will take you into my confidence. As I have not withheld from you the abundance of my gold, so I shall not withhold from you the weight of my sorrow. Bendel, don’t leave me. Here am I – rich, generous,
kind-hearted – and you would think that the world should honour me. Yet you see me shun the world, for the world has judged me and rejected me and you, too, will reject me when you have learnt of my dreadful secret. I am rich, generous and kind but – Oh, God! I have no shadow.”
“No shadow?” repeated the good fellow, as tears welled into his eyes, “and that it should be my fate to serve a gentleman who has no shadow!” He lapsed into a gloomy silence and I sat there hiding my face in my hands.
“Bendel,” I resumed at last, tremblingly, “now I have told you the worst, I am in your hands and you can go and bear witness against me.”
He seemed to struggle with himself but finally he threw himself at my feet and, taking my hand, bathed it with his tears.
“No,” he said, “Let the world say what it likes, I will not leave my gracious master for the sake of a shadow. I will do what is right, not what seems expedient. I shall lend you my shadow and help you in any way I can; and when I cannot, at least I will share your sorrow.”
I embraced him, overcome by such devotion, for I was convinced that he was not doing this for the sake of my gold. From that day on, my whole way of life changed; it is impossible for me to describe with what care and circumspection Bendel covered up my defect. He was ever in front of me or by my side, anticipating everything, providing for every contingency
that might suddenly arise, and covering me with his shadow when necessary, for he was fortunately taller and broader than myself.
Thus I ventured out once again to play my part in society. Circumstances forced me to act the role of a man of whims and fancies; but these are readily accepted and, in fact, expected of a rich man. As long as my true condition remained unknown, I enjoyed all the honour and esteem that went with riches. I looked forward with tranquillity to the end of the period of one year and one day when I would receive the visit of the mysterious man in grey. I was well aware that I ought not to remain too long in this place where I had already been seen without a shadow and might therefore be betrayed; also the thought and memory of my first visit to Mr John’s was somewhat depressing. I told myself that what I was doing here was merely a kind of rehearsal which would enable me later on to behave with greater sureness and self-confidence. Yet, what held me was the most powerful anchor of all: it was vanity which made me stay when I should have left.
The beautiful Fanny, whom I had met again and who did not remember having seen me before, paid some attention to me, for now I also had wit and intelligence. When I talked, people listened, and I myself could not think how I had acquired the art of easy and brilliant conversation. Having made the impression on her which I desired I, of course, became exactly what she wanted: a fool who ran after her – which I did against great odds, for I could pursue her only in the shade or in the dusk. It was my ambition to play upon her own vanity – but try as I might, my heart was not in the game.
Peter Schlemihl Page 2