"I had," he began, immediately, "appointed this day; but your impatience anticipated it. All, however, may yet be right. Take my advice,--redeem your shadow, which is at your command, and return immediately to the ranger's garden, where you will be well received, and all the past will seem a mere joke. As for Rascal--who has betrayed you in order to pay his addresses to Minna--leave him to me; he is just a fit subject for me."
I stood like one in a dream. "This day?" I considered again. He was right--I had made a mistake of a day. I felt in my bosom for the purse. He perceived my intention, and drew back.
"No, Count Peter; the purse is in good hands--pray keep it."
I gazed at him with looks of astonishment and inquiry.
"I only beg a trifle as a token of remembrance. Be so good as to sign this memorandum." On the parchment, which he held out to me, were these words:--"By virtue of this present, to which I have appended my signature, I hereby bequeath my soul to the holder, after its natural separation from my body."
I gazed in mute astonishment alternately at the paper and the grey unknown. In the meantime he had dipped a new pen in a drop of blood which was issuing from a scratch in my hand just made by a thorn. He presented it to me.
"Who are you?" at last I exclaimed.
"What can it signify?" he answered; "do you not perceive who I am? 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 of 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?"