Peter Schlemihl

by Adelbert von Chamisso

  The old lady now joined us and the happy parents begged me to spend the evening with them. But I dared not stay a moment longer. Already the moon was rising and my time was up.

  The next evening I returned to the game warden’s garden. I had wrapped myself in a dark cloak and my hat was slouched over my eyes. I walked towards Mina: as she raised her eyes and looked at me, I thought I saw her shudder. The terrible night in which I had been seen shadowless in the moonlight returned vividly to my mind. It was Mina, right enough; but did she, too, have an inkling of what I really was? She remained thoughtful and silent as we sat together. My heart was heavy. I rose to go. She threw herself speechless into my arms. I left her.

  But now I often found her in tears; my own soul grew more and more oppressed; only the old people were blissfully happy. The fatal day drew nearer, heavy and ominous like a thundercloud. When at last the eve arrived, I could hardly breathe. I had taken the precaution of filling some chests with gold. I sat up waiting for midnight. It struck.

  All day I sat, my eyes riveted to the hands of the clock. The minutes, as they ticked past, smote me like the blows of a dagger. At every sound I sprang to my feet. Day dawned. The leaden hours crowded one on another; it was morning – then evening, night. The hands of the clock moved slowly on and hope was dying. Eleven struck and no one appeared. The last minutes of the last hour slipped away and still no one. The first stroke and then the last stroke of twelve sounded. I sank on my bed in an agony of despair. Tomorrow – shadowless for ever – I must ask for the hand of my love. Towards morning I fell into a heavy sleep.

  5

  IT WAS STILL EARLY when I was woken by voices in my antechamber raised in furious dispute. I listened: Bendel was refusing entry to my room. Rascal swore loudly that he would take no orders from a fellow servant and dared him to stop him if he could. The kindly Bendel warned that such language, if it reached my ears, might easily lose him a good place; but Rascal threatened to lay violent hands upon him if he impeded his entrance any longer.

  I was already half-dressed and now flung the door open angrily.

  “What do you want, scoundrel?” I called out to Rascal.

  He drew back a couple of steps.

  “May it please your lordship,” he said, with cool effrontery, “to show me for once your shadow; it is such a beautiful, sunny day outside.”

  I felt as if I had been struck by lightning and for a long time was unable to speak.

  “How dare a servant presume such a thing of his master—” I began.

  “A servant may be an honest man,” he said with irritating calmness, “and yet refuse to serve a shadowless master – I demand my discharge.”

  I tried another tactic. “My dear Rascal,” I said, “Who has put this disastrous idea into your head? How can you imagine—”

  “People say,” he continued in the same tone, “that you have no shadow; in short, either show me your shadow or let me go.”

  Bendel, pale and trembling but more in control of himself than I, made me a quick sign to seek refuge in the usual price of silence – a heavy bribe. Rascal flung the gold at my feet.

  “I will take nothing,” he cried, “from a shadowless man.” He turned his back on me, put his hat on his head and strode slowly out of the room, whistling a tune. I stood as if turned to stone, watching him go, my mind empty and numb.

  Heavy and melancholy and with death in my heart, I prepared to keep my promise and, less like a suitor than a criminal before his judges, to show myself in the game warden’s garden. I drove to the shady arbour which had been called after me, where as usual we had arranged to meet. Mina’s mother came forwards to greet me, gay and carefree. Mina was sitting there, pale and lovely like the first snow of autumn that falls on summer’s last flower, soon to dissolve into bitter drops. The game warden, holding a letter in his hand, was pacing up and down in a state of violent agitation which, as the colour came and went in his cheeks, he tried in vain to conceal. He came towards me as I entered and in an unsteady voice asked to speak to me alone. The path where he wanted me to follow him led to an open, sunny part of the garden. I sat down without a word. There was a long silence which even the good mother dared not break.

  The game warden continued to pace up and down the arbour. Finally he stood before me, glanced at the paper in his hand and fixed me with a penetrating look.

  “Count Peter,” he said, “Have you never heard of one Peter Schlemihl?” I was speechless. “A man,” he continued, “of excellent character and great accomplishments.” He waited for my answer.

  “Supposing I told you I were he?”

  “A man,” he cried violently, “who has somehow lost his shadow.”

  “Oh,” cried Mina, “my fears had told me. I knew long ago that he had no shadow.” She threw herself into the arms of her mother who, holding her close, tenderly reproached her for having kept such a fatal suspicion from her. But she, poor girl, like Arethusa, was dissolved into a fountain of tears, which flowed abundantly at the sound of my voice and at my approach tempestuously burst forth.

  “And so,” cried the game warden furiously, “with incredible impudence you tried to deceive us – and you pretended to love her! – that poor girl whom you have so tricked and humiliated. Look at her now – her tears and the misery to which you have reduced her. What a terrible thing to have done!”

  I was so completely overcome that I hardly knew what I said.

  “After all,” I muttered, “it’s only a matter of a shadow – nothing but a shadow and surely one can do without that? No need to make such a fuss about it.” But even as I spoke the words seemed so meaningless that I stopped. He did not deign to answer and I managed to add: “What a man has lost today, he may find again tomorrow.”

  “Tell me one thing,” he said angrily, “just explain how you came to lose your shadow.”

  “Some boorish rascal” – I was driven again to clumsy lying – “trod so rudely on my shadow that he tore a great hole in it. I sent it to be mended – money can do most things, you know. I should have got it back yesterday.”

  “Very well, sir, very well,” he replied. “You want to marry my daughter – others do, too. As her father I must take care of her interest. I give you three days which you may spend in getting hold of a shadow. If in that time you show up with a properly fitting shadow, you will be welcome; but if not, on the fourth day, I may as well tell you, my daughter shall be married to someone else.”

  I tried to get a word with Mina but, drenched in tears, she clung closer to her mother who, with a silent gesture, bid me to go. I slunk away as if the gates of life had closed behind me.

  Throwing off Bendel’s kindly guardianship, I wandered aimlessly in my distraction through the fields and woods. Sweat poured down my face, wild cries broke from my lips. I was nearly insane.

  I don’t know how long I wandered in this state when suddenly, in a sunny meadow, I felt someone’s hand on my sleeve. I stopped and looked round – and there stood the man in the grey coat. He seemed to have been running after me, for he was out of breath.

  “I had an appointment with you today,” he began immediately. “You seem not to have been able to wait for me; but no harm is done yet – you will take my advice: redeem your shadow again; I have it here waiting for you, and then go back at once. The game warden will receive you with open arms. The whole business was just a joke. Rascal, who has betrayed you and who is courting your sweetheart, I will take care of – he’s ripe for it.”

  I stood there as in a dream.

  “Due today?” I reckoned the time over again; he was right. I had been a day out in my calculations. I put my hand on the bag in my breast pocket; he guessed my meaning and drew back a step or two.

  “No, no, sir,” he said, “you keep that,” I stared at him questioningly as he went on: “I just ask for one little thing as a memento. Please be good enough to sign this note.” On the scrap of parchment which he held out I read the following words:

 
“I hereby undertake to deliver over my soul to the bearer after its natural separation from my body; in witness whereof my signature is affixed.”

  I looked with dumb amazement from the piece of writing to the unknown man in grey. In the meantime, he dipped a newly cut quill in a drop of my blood, which was flowing from a scratch made by a thorn in my hand. He handed the quill to me.

  “But who are you?” I brought out at last.

  “Never you mind,” he answered. “Can’t you see I’m a poor devil; a kind of scientist or physician, you might say, who gets small thanks for the great favours he confers on his friends; and whose sole pleasure on earth is to experiment a little. But please, just sign your name – there at the bottom, on the right. Peter Schlemihl.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, sir. I will not sign.”

  “What!” he cried, with seeming surprise. “Why ever not?”

  “It seems to me rather a weighty matter to give my soul in exchange for my shadow.”

  “Weighty!” he repeated after me and burst out laughing. “And what, may I ask, do you imagine your soul is? Have you ever seen it? And what do you intend doing with it once you are dead? Thank your stars that you have found a collector sufficiently interested to wish to buy, even during your lifetime, the reversion of this quantity X, this galvanic force, this polarized potential, or whatever we may like to call this illusive something; and to be willing to pay for it with something really tangible – your very own shadow, which will give you the hand of your sweetheart and the fulfilment of everything you want. Or would you rather hand over the innocent young girl to that despicable schemer, Mr Rascal? Come and see for yourself. I’ll lend you the cap of invisibility” (he drew something out of his pocket) “and we’ll make a little pilgrimage unseen to the game warden’s garden.”

  I admit I hated to be made fun of by this fellow. I loathed him from the bottom of my heart; and I believe that, more than principles and prejudices, this violent personal antipathy prevented me from giving him my signature for my shadow, desperately as I needed it. The thought of going to the game warden’s garden in such company was almost unbearable. That this sneaking scoundrel, this scornful, irritating imp, should put himself between me and my darling in the hour of our distress, revolted my deepest feelings. I looked on what had passed as fate and regarded my misery as inevitable. I turned upon the man and said:

  “Sir, I sold you my shadow for this admittedly priceless bag. I have been sorry enough for it; if the bargain can be undone, in God’s name, let us

  undo it.”

  His face darkened and he shook his head.

  “I have nothing more I will sell you,” I went on, “even though you offer my shadow as the price. Nor will I put my name to anything. One cannot help thinking that the little jaunt you are proposing to me would be more entertaining for you than for me. I’m sorry, but that’s all there is to it. Let us go our own ways.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr Schlemihl,” he said, “that you so lightly turn down the favours that out of the goodness of my heart I’m trying to do you; but another time I may have better luck. Goodbye till we meet again! By the by, allow me to show you that I do not let my purchases fall into disrepair; on the contrary, I know how to appreciate and take care of them.”

  With these words, he drew my shadow out of his pocket and, with a dexterous fling, unrolled and spread it out on the heath on the sunny side of his feet, so that he stood between the two attendant shadows, mine and his. He took a few steps to show me; my shadow seemed to belong to him as much as his own faithfully following him and conforming to all his movements.

  At the sight of my poor shadow, from which I had been parted so long and which was being put to such use at the very moment when its owner was in such a bitter predicament for its sake, I felt as if my heart would break and tears started to my eyes. The loathsome wretch paraded up and down with his spoil and insolently renewed his proposals.

  “You can have it still,” he said, “for the stroke of a pen. One stroke that will also rescue the poor, unfortunate Mina from the arms of that scoundrel and restore her to your lordship’s honourable embrace.” Overcome by anger and misery, I could not speak; I turned away and motioned to him to go.

  Meanwhile, Bendel had been anxiously looking for me and now appeared on the scene. The good soul, seeing my distress and noticing my shadow, which he could hardly mistake, bound to the figure of the strange man in grey, immediately set about trying to restore my property to me by force. Not being able to get a firm hold on something so frail and elusive, he ordered the man in a peremptory tone, to abandon what did not belong to him. This latter, in reply merely turned his back on the well-meaning fellow and walked away. Bendel followed him closely and, lifting up the stout blackthorn cudgel which he carried, commanded the man to give up my shadow, reinforcing his argument with a shower of pitiless blows. The man in grey, accustomed no doubt to this kind of treatment, merely bent his head, arched his shoulders and continued silently on his way, taking with him my shadow and my faithful man. For a long time the dull thud of blows echoed over the heath. It faded at last in the distance. I was alone with my misery once more.

  6

  ALONE ON THE DREARY HEATH, I gave vent to my misery, which seemed to relieve me a little from the burden of my intolerable grief. But I could see no bounds, no end and no way out of my overwhelming anguish. I dwelt with a kind of wild fascination on the iniquitous suggestions with which the mysterious grey man had rubbed salt into my wounds. I remembered Mina, and her tender and lovely figure rose before me, pale and tearful as I had seen her last in the hour of my cruel humiliation; then the sinister shade of Rascal seemed to rise mockingly between us. I covered my face, I fled across the heath but the ghastly vision still pursued me. I sank at last breathless to the ground with tears of exhaustion and despair.

  And all this for the sake of a shadow! A shadow which the stroke of a pen would have given back to me! I brooded again on the strange deal which had been proposed to me. I had neither argument nor reason left to support my refusal.

  The day wore on. I stilled my hunger with wild berries and my thirst from the nearest stream. Night fell. I lay down under a tree. The dew woke me next morning from a restless sleep, broken by my own bitter moaning. Bendel must have lost track of me and I was glad of it. I had no desire to return to the haunts of man; I shunned them, feeling like a wild beast of the mountains. For three anxious days I lived like this.

  On the morning of the fourth day I found myself on a sandy plain, where the sun was shining brightly. I sat down on an outcrop of rock in the sunshine, rejoicing for a while in its long forbidden warmth. My heart still fed on its own despair. Suddenly I was disturbed by a gentle rustling. I looked round in alarm, ready to escape – no one was in sight. But on the sunny sand beside me a human shadow passed, not unlike my own and apparently straying about without an owner.

  A mighty urge rose within me. Shadow, I thought, are you seeking a master? I will be your master. And I sprang forwards to seize it. I imagined that if I could only step on the shadow so that its feet met mine it would attach itself to me and in time grow used to my company.

  As I moved forwards the shadow fled and I was forced to give chase to the light-footed fugitive. The longing to be delivered from my predicament lent me unaccustomed speed. The shadow made for a distant wood, in the darkness of which I would have lost it at once. Spurred by this fear I redoubled my efforts and began to gain on the shadow. I came closer and closer – now it was within reach. Suddenly it stopped and turned to face me. Like a lion on his prey, I sprang upon it with a mighty effort to hold it fast. To my amazement, I found I had thrown myself against something which offered a powerful physical resistance; from an unseen hand I received the most violent blows imaginable. The sudden shock of fear made me struggle desperately to hold down the invisible opponent. I plunged forwards and fell to the ground; beneath me on his back was a man whom I held fast, who now was visible.

  The whol
e affair now could be easily explained. The man must have been holding the magic bird’s nest which makes its owner – though not that owner’s shadow – invisible, and under the impact of my attack had thrown it away. I looked round and immediately saw the shadow of the invisible bird’s nest. I sprang up and seized this shadow and, in so doing, found myself, unseen as well as shadowless, with the charm itself in my hand.

  The man rose quickly. He looked anxiously for his successful assailant but could not see either him or his shadow on the broad, sunny plain. The absence of the shadow seemed to alarm him most for he had had no time to observe nor reason to suspect that I was the shadowless man.

  As soon as he realized that every trace of me and the magic bird’s nest had completely vanished, he threw up his hands and began to tear his hair in desperation. But as for me, the treasure which I had stolen gave me the means and the desire to mingle with my kind once more. It was not hard to find an excuse for this despicable theft: indeed, it seemed to me that no excuse was needed. To escape any possible pangs of conscience, I hurried away without even looking back at my wretched victim, whose miserable cries followed after me. This, at least, is how I saw it at the time.

  I longed to return to the game warden’s garden, to see for myself whether, what the man in grey had told me, was true. I had no idea, however, where I was and in order to get my bearings, I climbed the nearest hill, from the top of which I saw the little town and the game warden’s house and garden spread out at my feet. My heart pounded with excitement and my eyes were wet with tears of joy. I was going to see her again! Eager longing sped my anxious footsteps down the shortest path. I passed a crowd of peasants leaving the town. They talked of me and Rascal and the game warden. I did not stop to listen; I hurried on.

  I entered the garden, full of trepidation. I thought I heard a laugh beside me; with a start I looked round but could see nothing. I walked on and human footsteps seemed to be pacing beside me. Still nothing in sight – I thought my ears had deceived me. It was early, no one was in the arbour, the garden was empty. I wandered through the familiar paths until I came to the house. The same sound followed me – more distinctly this time. I sat dejectedly on a seat in the sunshine, immediately opposite the front door. I seemed to hear my invisible tormentor laugh insultingly as he sat down beside me.