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I heard something of which the subject was Peter Schlemihl read aloud, and articulately, but I could not collect the sense. I saw a friendly man, and a very lovely woman in black dress appear at my bedside. The forms were not strange to me, and yet I could not recognize them. Some time went on, and I recovered my strength.
"The question in this wonderful history of Peter Schlemihl relates entirely to the last-mentioned quality, SOLIDITY. The science of finance instructs us sufficiently as to the value of money: the value of a shadow is less generally acknowledged. My thoughtless friend was covetous of money, of which he knew the value, and forgot to think on solid substance.
A poor devil a sort of scholar and philosopher, who obtains but poor thanks from his friends for his admirable arts, and whose only amusement on earth consists in his small experiments. But just sign this; to the right, exactly underneath Peter Schlemihl." I shook my head, and replied: "Excuse me, sir; I cannot sign that." "Cannot!" he exclaimed; "and why not?"
Chamisso thought, He will be bringing out next a coach and horses. Out of these hints came the fancy of "Peter Schlemihl, the Shadowless Man." In all thought that goes with invention of a poet, there are depths as well as shallows, and the reader may get now and then a peep into the depths.
Schlemihl you, whom I have been watching all the weary day, until you should recover from your nervous attack? What a fool's part I have been enacting! It is of no use flying from me, Mr. Perverse we are inseparable you have my gold, I have your shadow; this exchange deprives us both of peace.
"I've lost my purse," sobbed Esther, softened afresh by the sight of a friendly face. "Ah, thou Schlemihl! Thou art like thy father. How much was in it?" "Four and sevenpence halfpenny!" sobbed Esther. "Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" ejaculated Malka in horror. "Thou art the ruin of thy father."
In the “Temptation of Jesus” by Lucas van Leyden the devil is habited as a monk with a pointed cowl. In the comparison of a soul with a shadow there is a reminiscence of Adalbert von Chamisso, whose Peter Schlemihl sells his shadow to the devil. In his story The Fisherman and His Soul Oscar Wilde considers the shadow of the body as the body of the soul.
At last he stood still; and glancing over the paper he held in his hand, he said, addressing me with a penetrating look, "Count Peter, do you know one Peter Schlemihl?" I was silent. "A man," he continued, "of excellent character and extraordinary endowments." He paused for an answer. "And supposing I myself were that very man?" "You!" he exclaimed passionately; "he has lost his shadow!"
"Take notice, Schlemihl, that what a man refuses to do with a good grace in the first instance, he is always in the end compelled to do. As a mark of friendship I will give you my cap into the bargain." The mother now came out, and the following conversation took place: "What is Minna doing?" "She is weeping." "Silly child! what good can that do?"
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