t
abandoning me. Misfortune would have it that I should carelessly tread
on a traveller's heel; I must have hurt him, for I received a violent
blow; I staggered, and fell.

When I recovered my senses I was comfortably stretched on an excellent
bed, which stood among many others in a roomy and handsome apartment.
Somebody was sitting near my pillow; many persons passed through the
hall, going from one bed to another. They stood before mine, and I was
the subject of their conversation. They called me _Number Twelve_; and
on the wall at the foot of my bed that number certainly stood--it was no
illusion, for I could read it most distinctly: there was a black marble
slab, on which was inscribed in large golden letters, my name,

Peter Schlemihl,

quite correctly written. On the slab, and under my name, were two lines
of letters, but I was too weak to connect them, and closed my eyes again.

I heard something of which Peter Schlemihl was the subject, loudly and
distinctly uttered, but I could not collect the meaning. I saw a
friendly man and a beautiful woman in black apparel, standing before my
bed. Their forms were not strangers to me, though I could not recognize
them.

Some time passed by, and I gradually gathered strength. I was called No.
12, and No. 12, by virtue of his long beard, passed off for a Jew, but
was not the less attended to on that account. Nobody seemed to notice
that he had no shadow. My boots were, as I was assured, to be found,
with everything else that had been discovered with me, in good and safe
keeping, and ready to be delivered to me on my recovery. The place in
which I lay ill was called the _Schlemihlium_; and there was a daily
exhortation to pray for Peter Schlemihl, as the founder and benefactor of
the hospital. The friendly man whom I had seen at my bedside was Bendel;
the lovely woman was Mina.

I lived peaceably in the _Schlemihlium_, quite unknown; but I discovered
that I was in Bendel's native place, and that he had built this hospital
with the remainder of my once-unhallowed gold. The unfortunate blessed
me daily, for he had built it in my name, and conducted it wholly under
his own inspection. Mina was a widow: an unlucky criminal process had
cost Mr. Rascal his life, and taken from her the greater part of her
property. Her parents were no more. She dwelt here like a pious widow,
and dedicated herself to works of charity.

She was once conversing with Mr. Bendel ne