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* Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man. In the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the light directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always have its master for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made himself little; he made himself great: but no shadow came again. He said, "Hem! hem!" but it was of no use.
"May not, Count, a certain Peter Schlemihl be not quite unknown to you?" I was silent. "A man of superior character and singular attainments " He paused for an answer. "And suppose I were the same man?" "Who," added he vehemently "has, by some means, lost his shadow!" "Oh, my foreboding, my foreboding!" exclaimed Mina.
"You cannot endure me, Mr Schlemihl you hate me I am aware of it but why? is it, perhaps, because you attacked me on the open plain, in order to rob me of my invisible bird's nest? or is it because you thievishly endeavoured to seduce away the shadow with which I had entrusted you my own property confiding implicitly in your honour! I, for my part, have no dislike to you.
Sometimes it happened that he caught only his shadow, and in that case the man who had been nimble enough to do what Goethe pronounces impossible, became the most profound magician of his year. Hence our proverb of the Devil take the hindmost, and Chamisso's story of Peter Schlemihl. There is no end of such stories.
I loved him, however: and to this very Schlemihl, of whom for many years I had wholly lost sight, I am indebted for the little volume which I communicate to you, Edward, my most intimate friend, my second self, from whom I have no secrets; to you, and of course our Fouque, I commit them, who like you is intimately entwined about my dearest affections, to him I communicate them only as a friend, but not as a poet; for you can easily imagine how unpleasant it would be if a secret confided to me by an honest man, relying implicitly on my friendship and honour, were to be exposed to the public in a poem.
"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?"
There was a sinister air about the young engineer, and she would be bound to follow submissively anyone breathing the military ozone. Under all these unsettling circumstances, Kirtley's uncertain attachment for the German language did not increase by Peter Schlemihl strides. Besides, his regular teacher was something like a wild boar. He had proceeded to dragoon Gard as if he were a lad.
"Peter Schlemihl," one of the pleasantest fancies of the days when Germany delighted in romance, was first published in 1814, and was especially naturalised in England by association with the genius of George Cruikshank, who enriched a translation of it with some of his happiest work as an illustrator.
The place in which I lay was called the SCHLEMIHLIUM. What was daily read aloud concerning Peter Schlemihl was an exhortation to pray for him as the Founder and Benefactor of this institution. The friendly man whom I had seen by my bed was Bendel; the lovely woman was Mina.
He kept twirling in his hand the well-known parchment with an air of indifference; and while the ranger, absorbed in thought, and intent upon his paper, paced up and down the arbor, my tormentor confidentially leaned towards me, and whispered: "So, Mr. Schlemihl, you have at length accepted my invitation; and here we sit, two heads under one hood, as the saying is. Well, well, all in good time.
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