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 rushing in fury, dashed in the windows, and gave full play to their lust 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 assumed 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.