He smiled at my consternation, and continued, without giving me time to speak: “Let us, true to the custom of the world, be united for a while by the reciprocal advantages to be derived from such a union; we have time enough to separate later on. This road which you are taking happens to be my road also. I see you turn pale before the rising sun. I will lend you your shadow for the time of our companionship, and in return I will ask you to tolerate me at your side. You have lost your servant Bendel; I will yield you as good service. You do not look upon me with favour; this I greatly regret. I can be of service to you, nevertheless. The devil is not as black as he is painted. It is true you offended me yesterday; to-day I bear you no ill-will, and I have shortened the way for you so far, as you yourself must confess. Will you not give your shadow a trial?”
The sun had risen, early wayfarers came along the road; however distasteful it might be, I accepted his proposal. Smiling, he allowed my shadow to glide upon the ground. It fell into place on the shadow of my horse, and cheerily trotted along beside me. Strange feelings took possession of me. I rode past a group of country people, who, with uncovered head, respectfully made room for a person of quality. I rode on, and looked with greedy eyes and a beating heart down from my horse upon the shadow that once was mine, and which I had now borrowed from a stranger, ay, from an enemy.
The latter walked unconcernedly beside me, whistling a tune—he on foot, I on horseback! A tremor seized me; the temptation was too great; I suddenly turned my horse’s head, gave him the spurs, and off I went in a full canter down a byway; but I did not succeed in bringing the shadow with me; as the horse turned it slipped down, and awaited its lawful master in the road. There was nothing for it but a shamefaced admission of defeat. I rode back, and the man in grey, first finishing the tune he was whistling, laughed at me, pulled my shadow straight again, and informed me that it would not stick to me, and be content to stay with me, until it was once more my lawful property. “I hold you by your shadow,” he added; “and you will not escape me. A rich man like you cannot get on without a shadow. You are to be blamed in so far as you did not find that out before.”
“OFF I WENT IN A FULL CANTER.”
A. von Chamisso (1781-1838).
THE GHOST OF DR. ASCHER.
THE night I spent at Goslar something very remarkable occurred. Terror seizes me even now as I think back. I am not timid by nature, but I have a mortal terror of ghosts. What is fear? Is it a product of the understanding or of the soul? About this question I had many a discussion with Dr. Saul Ascher in Berlin when we met in the Café Royal, where I used to dine. He would have it that we fear a thing because our reason recognises therein due cause for terror. While I was eating and drinking to my satisfaction he was fond of constantly demonstrating the fine qualities of Reason. Toward the end of his demonstration he would look at his watch, and he always ended with: “Reason is the highest principle!” Reason! When I so much as hear the word I see before me Dr. Ascher with his abstract legs, his tight waistcoat of transcendental grey, and his harsh bitter-cold face, which might have served as a title-vignette to a book on geometry. The man was a straight line personified. In his search after the Positive the poor man had philosophised all grandeur out of life, all sunbeams, all faith, and all flowers, and all that remained to him was a cold, positive grave. He cherished a pet aversion for the Apollo of Belvedere and for Christianity. He even went so far as to write a pamphlet about the latter, proving it to be unreasonable and untenable. Indeed he wrote a host of books, in each of which Reason brags of its own excellence. The poor Doctor was serious enough about it, and in this respect they deserve esteem. But it was just this which was the best joke of all—that he would put on so fatuously serious a mien when he could not understand what every child understands by very reason of its childhood. I called upon this reasonable Doctor in his own house once or twice, and I found beautiful women there, for Reason does not forbid sensuality. Once when I intended to call upon him his servant said: “The Doctor has just died.” It did not impress me any more strongly than if he had said: “The Doctor is gone out.”
But to return to Goslar. “The highest principle is Reason!” I said consolingly to myself as I got into bed. It did not answer the purpose, however. I had just been reading that horrible story in Varnhagen von Ense’s Deutsche Erzählungen, which I had brought with me from Clansthal, how a son, whose father intended to murder him, was warned at night by his mother’s ghost. The marvellous effectiveness of the story caused me to shiver with horror while reading. Then, too, ghost stories excite the most uncanny sensations when read on a journey, and especially at night in a town, in a house, in a room where one has never been. How many horrible things may have happened upon this very spot where I am now lying? One cannot refrain from conjecturing. Moreover, the moon shone so doubtfully into the room; all sorts of uncalled-for shadows were moving along the wall, and when I raised myself in bed to look closer, I saw——