The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume V Part 35

And all for a shadow! And this shadow a pen-stroke could have obtained for me! I thought over the strange proposition and my refusal. All was chaos in me. I had no longer either discernment or faculty of comprehension.

The day went along. I stilled my hunger with wild fruits, my thirst in the nearest mountain stream. The night fell; I lay down beneath a tree. The damp morning awoke me out of a heavy sleep in which I heard myself rattle in the throat as in death. Bendel must have lost all trace of me, and it rejoiced me to think so. I would not return again amongst men before whom I fled in terror, like the timid game of the mountains. Thus I lived through three weary days.

On the fourth morning I found myself on a sandy plain bright with the sun, and sat on a rock in its beams, for I loved now to enjoy its long-withheld countenance. I silently fed my heart with its despair. A light rustle startled me. Ready for flight I threw round me a hurried glance; I saw no one, but in the sunny sand there glided past me a human shadow, not unlike my own, which, wandering there alone, seemed to have escaped from its possessor. There awoke in me a mighty yearning. "Shadow," said I, "dost thou seek thy master? I will be he,"

and I sprang forward to seize it. I thought that if I succeeded in treading on it so that its feet touched mine, it probably would remain hanging there, and in time accommodate itself to me.

The shadow, on my moving, fled before me, and I was compelled to begin a strenuous chase of the light fugitive, for which the thought of rescuing myself from my fearful condition could alone have endowed me with the requisite vigor. It flew toward a wood, at a great distance, in which I must, of necessity, have lost it. I perceived this--a horror convulsed my heart, inflamed my desire, added wings to my speed; I gained evidently on the shadow, I came continually nearer, I must certainly reach it. Suddenly it stopped, and turned toward me.

Like a lion on its prey, I shot with a mighty spring forward to make seizure of it--and dashed unexpectedly against a hard and bodily object. Invisibly I received the most unprecedented blows on the ribs that mortal man probably ever received.

The effect of the terror in me was convulsively to close my arms, and firmly to inclose that which stood unseen before me. In the rapid transaction I plunged forward to the ground, but backward and under me was a man whom I had embraced and who now first became visible.

The whole occurrence then became very naturally explicable to me. The man must have carried the invisible bird's nest which renders him who holds it, but not his shadow, imperceptible, and had now cast it away.

I glanced round, soon discovered the shadow of the invisible nest itself, leaped up and toward it, and did not miss the precious prize.

Invisible and shadowless, I held the nest in my hand.

The man swiftly springing up, gazing round instantly after his fortunate conqueror, descried on the wide sunny plain neither him nor his shadow, for which he sought with especial avidity. For that I was myself entirely shadowless he had no leisure to remark, nor could he imagine such a thing. Having convinced himself that every trace had vanished, he turned his hand against himself and tore his hair in great despair. To me, however, the acquired treasure had given the power and desire to mix again amongst men. I did not want for self-satisfying palliatives for my base robbery, or, rather, I had no need of them; and to escape from every thought of the kind, I hastened away, not even looking round at the unhappy one, whose deploring voice I long heard resounding behind me. Thus, at least, appeared to me the circ.u.mstances at the time.

I was on fire to proceed to the Forester's garden, and there myself to discern the truth of what the Detested One had told me. I knew not, however, where I was. I climbed the next hill, in order to look round over the country, and perceived from its summit the near city and the Forester's garden lying at my feet. My heart beat violently, and tears of another kind than what I had till now shed rushed into my eyes. I should see her again! Anxious desire hastened my steps down the most direct path. I pa.s.sed unseen some peasants who came out of the city.

They were talking of me, of Rascal, and the Forest-master; I would hear nothing--I hurried past.

I entered the garden, all the tremor of expectation in my bosom. I seemed to hear laughter near me. I shuddered, threw a rapid glance round me, but could discover n.o.body. I advanced farther. I seemed to perceive a sound as of man's steps near me, but there was nothing to be seen. I believed myself deceived by my ear. It was yet early, no one in Count Peter's arbor, the garden still empty. I traversed the well-known paths. I penetrated to the very front of the dwelling.

The same noise more distinctly followed me. I seated myself with an agonized heart on a bench which stood in the sunny s.p.a.ce before the house-door. It seemed as if I had heard the unseen kobold, laughing in mockery, seat himself near me. The key turned in the door, it opened, and the Forest-master issued forth with papers in his hand. A mist seemed to envelop my head. I looked up, and--horror! the man in the gray coat sat by me, gazing on me with a satanic leer. He had drawn his magic-cap at once over his head and mine; at his feet lay his and my shadow peaceably by each other. He played negligently with the well-known parchment which he held in his hand, and as the Forest-master, busied with his doc.u.ments, went to and fro in the shadow of the arbor, he stooped familiarly to my ear and whispered in it these words--"So then you have, notwithstanding, accepted my invitation, and here sit we for once, two heads under one cap. All right! all right! But now give me my bird's nest again; you have no further need of it, and are too honest a man to wish to withhold it from me; but there needs no thanks; I a.s.sure you that I have lent it you with the most hearty good will." He took it unceremoniously out of my hand, put it in his pocket, and laughed at me again, and that so loud that the Forest-master himself looked round at the noise. I sat there as if changed to stone.

"But you must admit," continued he, "that such a cap is much more convenient. It covers not only your person but your shadow at the same time, and as many others as you have a mind to take with you. See you again today. I conduct two of them"--he laughed again. "Mark this, Schlemihl; what we at first won't do with a good will, that will we in the end be compelled to. I still fancy you will buy that thing from me, take back the bride (for it is yet time), and we leave Rascal dangling on the gallows, an easy thing for us so long as rope is to be had. Hear you--I will give you also my cap into the bargain."

The mother came forth, and the conversation began. "How goes it with Mina?"

"She weeps."

"Silly child! it cannot be altered!"

"Certainly not; but to give her to another so soon? Oh, man! thou art cruel to thy own child."

"No, mother, that thou quite mistakest. When she, even before she has wept out her childish tears, finds herself the wife of a very rich and honorable man, she will awake comforted out of her trouble as out of a dream, and thank G.o.d and us--that shalt thou see!"

"G.o.d grant it!"

"She possesses now, indeed, a very respectable property; but after the stir that this unlucky affair with the adventurer has made, canst thou believe that a partner so suitable as Mr. Rascal could be readily found for her? Dost thou know what a fortune Mr. Rascal possesses? He has paid six millions for estates here in the country, free from all debts. I have had the t.i.tle deeds in my own hands! He it was who everywhere had the start of me; and, besides this, has in his possession bills on Thomas John for about three and a half millions."

"He must have stolen enormously!"

"What talk is that again! He has wisely saved what would otherwise have been lavished away."

"A man that has worn livery--"

"Stupid stuff! He has, however, an unblemished shadow."

"Thou art right, but--"

The man in the gray coat laughed and looked at me. The door opened and Mina came forth. She supported herself on the arm of a chambermaid, silent tears rolling down her lovely pale cheeks. She seated herself on a stool which was placed for her under the lime trees, and her father took a chair by her. He tenderly took her hand, and addressed her with tender words, while she began violently to weep.

"Thou art my good, dear child, and thou wilt be reasonable, wilt not wish to distress thy old father, who seeks only thy happiness. I can well conceive it, dear heart, that it has sadly shaken thee. Thou art wonderfully escaped from thy misfortunes! Before we discovered the scandalous imposition, thou hadst loved this unworthy one greatly; see, Mina, I know it, and upbraid thee not for it. I myself, dear child, also loved him so long as I looked upon him as a great gentleman. But now thou seest how different all has turned out. What!

every poodle has his own shadow, and should my dear child have a husband--no! thou thinkest, indeed, no more about him. Listen, Mina!

Now a man solicits thy hand, who does not shun the suns.h.i.+ne, an honorable man, who truly is no prince, but who possesses ten millions, ten times more than thou; a man who will make my dear child happy.

Answer me not, make no opposition, be my good, dutiful daughter, let thy loving father care for thee, and dry thy tears. Promise me to give thy hand to Mr. Rascal. Say, wilt thou promise me this?"

She answered with a faint voice--"I have no will, no wish further upon earth. Happen with me what my father will."

At this moment Mr. Rascal was announced, and stepped impudently into the circle. Mina lay in a swoon. My detested companion glanced angrily at me, and whispered in hurried words--"And that can you endure? What then flows instead of blood in your veins?" He scratched with a hasty movement a slight wound in my hand, blood flowed, and he continued--"Actually red blood!--So sign then!" I had the parchment and the pen in my hand.

CHAPTER VII

My wish, dear Chamisso, is merely to submit myself to thy judgment, not to endeavor to bias it. I have long pa.s.sed the severest sentence on myself, for I have nourished the tormenting worm in my heart. It hovered during this solemn moment of my life incessantly before my soul, and I could only lift my eyes to it with a doubting glance, with humility and contrition. Dear friend, he who in levity only sets his foot out of the right road, is unawares conducted into other paths, which draw him downward and ever downward; he then sees in vain the guiding stars glitter in heaven; there remains to him no choice; he must descend unpausingly the declivity and become a voluntary sacrifice to Nemesis. After the hasty false step which had laid the curse upon me, I had, sinning through love, forced myself into the fortunes of another being, and what remained for me but that, where I had sowed destruction, where speedy salvation was demanded of me, I should blindly rush forward to the rescue?--for the last hour struck!

Think not so meanly of me, my Adelbert, as to imagine that I should have regarded any price that was demanded as too high, that I should have begrudged anything that was mine even more than my gold. No, Adelbert! but my soul was possessed with the most unconquerable hatred of this mysterious sneaker along crooked paths. I might do him injustice, but every degree of a.s.sociation with him revolted me. And here stepped forth, as so frequently in my life, and as in general so often in the history of the world, an event instead of an action.

Since then I have achieved reconciliation with myself. I have learned, in the first place, to reverence necessity; and what is more than the action performed, the event accomplished--her propriety. Then I have learned to venerate this necessity as a wise Providence, which lives through that great collective machine in which we officiate simply as cooperating, impelling, and impelled wheels. What shall be, must be; what should be, happened, and not without that Providence, which I ultimately learned to reverence in my own fate and in the fate of those on whom mine thus impinged.

I know not whether I shall ascribe it to the excitement of my soul under the impulse of such mighty sensations; or to the exhaustion of my physical strength, which during the last days such unwonted privations had enfeebled; or whether, finally, to the desolating commotion which the presence of this gray fiend excited in my whole nature--be that as it may, as I was on the point of signing I fell into a deep swoon and lay a long time as in the arms of death.

Stamping of feet and curses were the first sounds which struck my ear as I returned to consciousness. I opened my eyes; it was dark; my detested attendant was busied scolding me. "Is not that to behave like an old woman? Up with you, man, and complete off-hand what you have resolved on, if you have not taken another thought and had rather blubber!" I raised myself with difficulty from the ground and gazed in silence around. It was late in the evening; festive music resounded from the brightly illuminated Forester's house; various groups of people wandered through the garden walks. One couple came near in conversation, and seated themselves on the bench which I had just quitted. They talked of the union this morning solemnized between the rich Mr. Rascal and the daughter of the house. So, then, it had taken place!

I tore the magic-cap of the already vanished unknown from my head, and hastened in brooding silence toward the garden gate, plunging myself into the deepest night of the thicket and striking along the path past Count Peter's arbor. But invisibly my tormenting spirit accompanied me, pursuing me with keenest reproaches. "These then are one's thanks for the pains which one has taken to support Monsieur, who has weak nerves, through the long precious day. And one shall act the fool in the play. Good, Mr. Wronghead, fly you from me if you please, but we are, nevertheless, inseparable. You have my gold and I your shadow, and this will allow us no repose. Did anybody ever hear of a shadow forsaking its master? Your's draws me after you till you take it back again graciously, and I get rid of it. What you have hesitated to do out of fresh pleasure, will you, only too late, be compelled to seek through new weariness and disgust. One cannot escape one's fate." He continued speaking in the same tone. I fled in vain; he relaxed not, but, ever present, mockingly talked of gold and shadow. I could come to no single thought of my own.

I struck through empty streets toward my house. When I stood before it, and gazed at it, I could scarcely recognize it. No light shone through the dashed-in windows. The doors were closed; no throng of servants was moving therein. There was a laugh near me. "Ha! ha! so goes it! But you'll probably find your Bendel at home, for he was the other day providently sent back so weary that he has most likely kept his bed since." He laughed again. "He will have a story to tell! Well then, for the present, good night! We meet again speedily!"

I had rung the bell repeatedly; light appeared; Bendel demanded from within who rung. When the good man recognized my voice, he could scarcely restrain his joy. The door flew open and we stood weeping in each other's arms. I found him greatly changed, weak and ill; but for me--my hair had become quite gray!

He conducted me through the desolated rooms to an inner apartment which had been spared. He brought food and wine, and we seated ourselves, and he again began to weep. He related to me that he the other day had cudgeled the gray-clad man whom he had encountered with my shadow, so long and so far that he had lost all trace of me and had sunk to the earth in utter fatigue; that after this, as he could not find me, he returned home, whither presently the mob, at Rascal's instigation, came rus.h.i.+ng in fury, dashed in the windows, and gave full play to their l.u.s.t of demolition. Thus did they to their benefactor. The servants had fled various ways. The police had ordered me, as a suspicious person, to quit the city, and had allowed only four-and-twenty hours in which to evacuate their jurisdiction. To that which I already knew of Rascal's affluence and marriage, he had yet much to add. This scoundrel, from whom all had proceeded that had been done against me, must, from the beginning, have been in possession of my secret. It appeared that, attracted by gold, he had contrived to thrust himself upon me, and at the very first had procured a key to the gold cupboard, where he had laid the foundation of that fortune whose augmentation he could now afford to despise.

All this Bendel narrated to me with abundant tears, and then wept for joy that he again beheld me, again had me; and that after he had long doubted whither this misfortune might have led me, he saw me bear it so calmly and collectedly; for such an aspect had despair now a.s.sumed in me. My misery stood before me in its enormity and unchangeableness.

I had wept my last tear; not another cry could be extorted from my heart; I presented to my fate my bare head with chill indifference.

"Bendel," I said, "thou knowest my lot. Not without earlier blame has my heavy punishment befallen me. Thou, innocent man, shalt no longer bind thy destiny to mine. I do not desire it. I leave this very night; saddle me a horse; I ride alone; thou remainest; it is my will. Here still must remain some chests of gold; that retain thou; but I will alone wander unsteadily through the world. But if ever a happier hour should smile upon me, and fortune look on me with reconciled eyes, then will I remember thee, for I have wept upon thy firmly faithful bosom in heavy and agonizing hours."

With a broken heart was this honest man compelled to obey this last command of his master, at which his soul shrunk with terror. I was deaf to his prayers, to his representations; blind to his tears. He brought me out my steed. Once more I pressed the weeping man to my bosom, sprang into the saddle, and under the shroud of night hastened from the grave of my existence, regardless which way my horse conducted me, since I had longer on earth no aim, no wish, no hope.

CHAPTER VIII

A pedestrian soon joined me, who begged, after he had walked for some time by the side of my horse, that, as we went the same way, he might be allowed to lay a cloak which he carried, on the steed behind me.

I permitted it in silence. He thanked me with easy politeness for the trifling service; praised my horse; and thence took occasion to extol the happiness and power of the rich, and let himself, I know not how, fall into a kind of monologue, in which he had me now merely for a listener.

He unfolded his views of life and of the world, and came very soon upon metaphysics, whose task is to discover the Word that should solve all riddles. He stated his thesis with great clearness and proceeded onward to the proofs.