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.