ce any longer.

I had half dressed myself. I angrily flung the door open, and called out
to Rascal, "What dost want, thou scoundrel?" He retreated two paces, and
answered with perfect coldness,

"Humbly to request, may it please your lordship, for once to show me your
shadow; the sun is shining so beautifully in the court."

I felt as if scathed by a thunderbolt, and it was long before I could
utter a word: "How can a servant presume against his master that--" He
interrupted me with provoking calmness: "A servant may be a very honest
man, and yet refuse to serve a shadowless master--I must have my
discharge." I tried another weapon.

"But, Rascal, my dear Rascal, who has put this wild notion into your
head? How can you imagine--" But he continued in the same tone, "There
are people who assert you have no shadow; so, in a word, either show me
your shadow, or give me my discharge!"

Bendel, pale and trembling, but more discreet than I, made me a sign to
seek a resource in the silence-imposing gold--but it had lost its power;
Rascal flung it at my feet: "I will take nothing from a shadowless
being." He turned his back upon me, put his hat on his head, and went
slowly out of the apartment whistling a tune. I stood there like a
petrifaction--looking after him, vacant and motionless.

Heavy and melancholy, with a deathlike feeling within me, I prepared to
redeem my promise, and, like a criminal before his judges, to show myself
in the forester's garden. I ascended to the dark arbour which had been
called by my name, where an appointment had been made to meet me. Mina's
mother came forwards toward me, gay, and free from care. Mina was seated
there, pale and lovely, as the earliest snow when it kisses the last
autumnal flower, and soon dissolves into bitter drops. The
forest-master, with a written sheet in his hand, wandered in violent
agitation from side to side, seemingly overcome with internal feelings,
which painted his usually unvarying countenance with constantly changing
paleness and scarlet. He came towards me as I entered, and with broken
accents requested to speak to me alone. The path through which he
invited me to follow him led to an open sunny part of the garden. I
seated myself down without uttering a word; a long silence followed,
which even our good mother dared not interrupt.

With irregular steps the forest-master paced the arbour backwards and
forwards; he stood for a moment before me,