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Updated: May 6, 2025
It was his wish that the lesson which he had paid for so dearly should be turned to our profit; and his bitter experience calls to us with a loud voice, Think on the solid- -the substantial!" So far Chamisso. "Peter Schlemihl" has been translated into almost all the languages of Europe. Of the Dutch, Spanish, and Russian translations we do not possess any copies.
Think not so meanly of me, Chamisso, as to imagine that I would have shrunk from any sacrifice on my part. In such a case it would have been but a poor ransom. No, Chamisso; but my whole soul was filled with unconquerable hatred to the cringing knave and his crooked ways. I might be doing him injustice; but I shuddered at the bare idea of entering into any fresh compact with him.
If it mean the former, Schlemihl then becomes a Theophilus, that medieval Faust who also made a compact with the devil; if the latter, one who breaks his finger when sticking it into a custard pie; then Schlemihl is Chamisso himself, "that dean of Schlemihls," feeling himself at a loss in any environment.
There I found everything exactly in the order in which I had left it; and returned by degrees, as my increasing strength allowed me, to my old occupations and usual mode of life, from which I was kept back a whole year by my fall into the Polar Ocean. And this, dear Chamisso, is the life I am still leading.
An account of the book and its author is here reprinted at the end of the tale, as originally given by the translator. To this account one or two notes may be added. Louis Charles Adelaide de Chamisso de Boncourt was born on the 27th of January, 1781, at the Chateau of Boncourt, in Champagne, which he made the subject of one of his most beautiful lyrics.
Buckland to Beechey's Voyage; also the writings of Chamisso in Kotzebue's Voyage. "A number of these animals had some time since entered the town, in a body, to possess themselves of the wells, not being able to procure any water in the country.
Surrounded by a circle of attached and admiring friends, Chamisso continued thus entirely engaged till his death, in 1839, leaving behind him a name and works which posterity "will not willingly let perish." We should take care, my dear Edward, not to expose the history of poor Schlemihl to eyes unfit to look upon it. That would be a bad experiment.
The girls there are particularly handsome, and we had some suspicion of an affair of the heart, from the sudden change in his previous determination to accompany us to Russia, which took place immediately after an excursion he had made with Mr. Chamisso to Ormed.
That grave man, with his long locks and honest eyes, opened the door to me himself, read the letter, and I know not how it was, but we understood each other immediately. I felt perfect confidence in him, and told him so, though it was in bad German. Chamisso understood Danish; I gave him my poems, and he was the first who translated any of them, and thus introduced me into Germany.
As for thee, Chamisso, if thou wouldst live amongst thy fellow-creatures, learn to value thy shadow more than gold; if thou wouldst only live to thyself and thy nobler part in this thou needest no counsel. The origin of "Peter Schlemihl" is to be ascribed in a great degree to circumstances that occurred in the life of the writer.
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