[pg 181]


Part II. The Wanderer And His Shadow.

The Shadow: It is so long since I heard you speak that I should like to give you an opportunity of talking.

The Wanderer: I hear a voice—where? whose? I almost fancied that I heard myself speaking, but with a voice yet weaker than my own.

The Shadow (after a pause): Are you not glad to have an opportunity of speaking?

The Wanderer: By God and everything else in which I disbelieve, it is my shadow that speaks. I hear it, but I do not believe it.

The Shadow: Let us assume that it exists, and think no more about it. In another hour all will be over.

The Wanderer: That is just what I thought when in a forest near Pisa I saw first two and then five camels.