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 circumstances 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 passed 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 nobody. 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 space 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 documents, 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 assure 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."