CHAPTER XI
As I once scotched my boots on the shores of the north and gathered lichens and sea-weed, an ice-bear came unawares upon me round the corner of a rock. Flinging off my slippers, I would step over to an opposite island, to which a naked crag which protruded midway from the waves offered me a passage. I stepped with one foot firmly on the rock, and plunged over on the other side into the sea, one of my slippers having unobserved remained fast on the foot.
The excessive cold seized on me; I with difficulty rescued my life from this danger; and the moment I reached land, I ran with the utmost speed to the Lybyan desert in order to dry myself in the sun, but, as I was here exposed, it burned me so furiously on the head that I staggered back again very ill toward the north. I sought to relieve myself by rapid motion, and ran with swift, uncertain steps, from west to east, from east to west. I found myself now in the day, now in the night; now in summer, now in the winter's cold.
I know not how long I thus reeled about on the earth. A burning fever glowed in my veins; with deepest distress I felt my senses forsaking me. As mischief would have it, in my incautious career, I now trod on some one's foot; I must have hurt him; I received a heavy blow, and fell to the ground.
When I again returned to consciousness, I lay comfortably in a good bed, which stood amongst many other beds in a handsome hall. Some one sat at my head; people went through the hall from one bed to another. They came to mine, and spoke together about me. They styled me Number Twelve; and on the wall at my feet stood—yes, certainly it was no delusion, I could distinctly read on a black tablet of marble in great golden letters, quite correctly written, my name—
PETER SCHLEMIHL.
On the tablet beneath my name were two other rows of letters, but I was too weak to put them together. I again closed my eyes.
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. I was called Number Twelve; and Number Twelve, on account of his long beard, passed for a Jew, on which account, however, he was not at all the less carefully treated. That he had no shadow appeared to have been unobserved. My boots, as I was assured, were, with all that I had brought hither, in good keeping, in order to be restored to me on my recovery. 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.
I recovered unrecognized in the Schlemihlium; and learned yet further that I was in Bendel's native city, where, with the remains of my otherwise unblessed gold, he had in my name founded this Hospital, where the unhappy blessed me, and himself maintained its superintendence. Mina was a widow. An unhappy criminal process had cost Mr. Rascal his life, and her the greater part of her property. Her parents were no more. She lived here as a pious widow, and practised works of mercy.
Once she conversed with Mr. Bendel at the bedside of Number Twelve. "Why, noble lady, will you so often expose yourself to the bad atmosphere which prevails here? Does fate then deal so hardly with you that you wish to die?"
"No, Mr. Bendel, since I have dreamed out my long dream, and have awoke in myself, all is well with me; since then I crave not, and fear not, death. Since then, I reflect calmly on the past and the future. Is it not also with a still inward happiness that you now, in so devout a manner, serve your master and friend?"
"Thank God, yes, noble lady. But we have seen wonderful things; we have unwarily drunk much good, and bitter woes, out of the full cup. Now it is empty, and we may believe that the whole has been only a trial, and, armed with wise discernment, awaits the real beginning. The real beginning is of another fashion; and we wish not back the first jugglery, and are on the whole glad, such as it was, to have lived through it. I feel also within me a confidence that it must now be better than formerly with our old friend."
"Within me too," replied the lovely widow, and then passed on.
The conversation left a deep impression upon me, but I was undecided in myself whether I should make myself known or depart hence unrecognized. I took my resolve. I requested paper and pencil, and wrote these words—"It is indeed better with your old friend now than formerly, and if he does penance it is the penance of reconciliation."
Hereupon I desired to dress myself, as I found myself stronger. The key of the small wardrobe which stood near my bed was brought, and I found therein all that belonged to me. I put on my clothes, suspended my botanical case, in which I rejoiced still to find my northern lichens, round my black polonaise, drew on my boots, laid the written paper on my bed, and, as the door opened, I was already far on the way to the Thebais.
As I took the way along the Syrian coast, on which I for the last time had wandered from home, I perceived my poor Figaro coming toward me. This excellent poodle, which had long expected his master at home, seemed to desire to trace him out. I stood still and called to him. He sprang barking toward me, with a thousand moving assurances of his inmost and most extravagant joy. I took him up under my arm, for in truth he could not follow me, and brought him with me home again.
I found all in its old order, and returned gradually, as my strength was recruited, to my former employment and mode of life, except that I kept myself for a whole year out of the, to me, wholly insupportable polar cold. And thus, my dear Chamisso, I live to this day. My boots are no worse for the wear, as that very learned work of the celebrated Tieckius, De Rebus Gestis Pollicilli, at first led me to fear. Their force remains unimpaired, my strength only decays; yet I have the comfort to have exerted it in a continuous and not fruitless pursuit of one object. I have, so far as my boots could carry me, become more fundamentally acquainted than any man before me with the earth, its shape, its elevations, its temperatures, the changes of its atmosphere, the exhibitions of its magnetic power, and the life upon it, especially in the vegetable world. The facts I have recorded with the greatest possible exactness and in perspicuous order in several works, and stated my deductions and views briefly in several treatises. I have settled the geography of the interior of Africa, and of the northern polar regions; of the interior of Asia, and its eastern shores. My Historia Stirpium Plantarum Utriusque Orbis stands as a grand fragment of the Flora Universalis Terrae, and as a branch of my Systema Naturae. I believe that I have therein not merely augmented, at a moderate calculation, the amount of known species, more than one-third, but have done something for the Natural System, and for the Geography of Plants. I shall labor diligently at my Fauna. I shall take care that, before my death, my works shall be deposited in the Berlin University.
And thee, my dear Chamisso, have I selected as the preserver of my singular history, which, perhaps, when I have vanished from the earth, may afford valuable instruction to many of its inhabitants. But thou, my friend, if thou wilt live among men, learn before all things to reverence the shadow, and then the gold. Wishest thou to live only for thyself and for thy better self—oh, then!—thou needest no counsel.