My boots began to be worn out. My slender means made me decide to buy a strong pair that had already been used; new ones were too dear. I put them on at once, and walked out of the village, scarcely noticing the way, since I was thinking deeply of the mine I hoped to reach the same night, and of the manner in which I was to obtain employment. I had scarcely walked two hundred steps, when I noticed that I had lost the road. I was in a wild virginal forest. Another few steps and I was on an endless ice-field. The cold was unbearable, and I had to hasten my steps. I ran for a few minutes, and found myself in rice-fields where Chinese labourers were working. There could be no doubt; I had seven-league boots on my feet!
I fell on my knees, shedding tears of gratitude. Now my future was clear. Excluded from society, study and science were to be my future strength and hope. I wandered through the whole world from east to west, from north to south, comparing the fauna and flora of the different regions. To reduce the speed of my progress, I found I had only to pull a pair of slippers over my boots. When I wanted money, I just took an ivory tusk to sell in London. And finally I made a home in the ancient caves of the desert near Thebes.
Once in the far north I encountered a polar bear. Throwing off my slippers, I wanted to step upon an island facing me. I firmly placed my foot on it, but on the other side I fell into the sea, as the slipper had not come off my boot. I saved my life and hurried to the Libyan desert to cure my cold in the sun; but the heat made me ill. I lost consciousness, and when I awoke again I was in a comfortable bed among other beds, and on the wall facing me I saw inscribed in golden letters my own name.
To cut things short--the institution which had received me had been founded by Bendel and the widowed Mina with my money, and in my honour had been called the Schlemihlium. As soon as I felt strong enough, I returned to my desert cave, and thus I live to this day.
You, my dear Chamisso, are to be the keeper of my strange history, which may contain useful advice for many. You, if you will live among men, honour first the shadow, then the money. But, if you live only for your better self, you will need no advice.
[CHATEAUBRIAND]
[Atala]
Francois René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, born on September 4, 1768, at St. Malo, Brittany, was as distinguished for his extraordinary and romantic career as for the versatility of his genius. At the height of the Revolution (1791) he left for America with the intention of discovering the North-West passage, but in two years returned to fight on the royalist side, and was wounded at the siege of Thionville. Emigrating to England, he remained in London for eight years, supporting himself with difficulty by translating and teaching and writing. Returning to France, Chateaubriand was appointed by Napoleon secretary to the embassy in Rome, but the execution of the Duke d'Enghien so repelled him that he resigned and set out on a long Oriental journey. Living in privacy till the fall of Napoleon, he then returned to his native land, and from 1822 to 1824 was ambassador to the British Court. His whole political career was eccentric and uncertain, and he himself declared that he was by heredity and honour a Bourbonist, by conviction a Monarchist, but by temperament a Republican. He died on July 4, 1848. "Atala," which appeared in 1801, formed the first part of a prose epic, "The Natchez," on the wild and picturesque life of the Red Indians, the idea for which Chateaubriand had conceived while wandering about America. It at once raised its author to the highest position in the French literary world of the age of Napoleon. In 1802, Chateaubriand published a work of still greater importance--at least, from a social point of view--"The Genius of Christianity"--which magnificent and gorgeous piece of rhetoric produced a profound change in the general attitude of Frenchmen in regard to religion, undid to some extent the destructive work of Voltaire, and was instrumental in inducing Napoleon to come to terms with the Pope. But it is on "Atala" that Chateaubriand's title to be one of the greatest masters of French prose literature depends.