w groaning convulsed my bosom, madness raged within me.

I know not how long this had continued, when, on a sunny heath, I felt
myself plucked by the sleeve. I stood still and looked round--it was
the man in the gray coat, who seemed to have run himself quite out of
breath in pursuit of me. He immediately began:

"I had announced myself for today, but you could not wait the time.
There is nothing amiss, however, yet. You consider the matter, receive
your shadow again in exchange, which is at your service, and turn
immediately back. You shall be welcome in the Forest-master's garden;
the whole has been only a joke. Rascal, who has betrayed you, and who
seeks the hand of your bride, I will take charge of; the fellow is
ripe."

I stood there as if in a dream. "Announced for today?" I counted over
again the time--he was right. I had constantly miscalculated a day.
I sought with the right hand in my bosom for my purse; he guessed my
meaning, and stepped two paces backwards.

"No, Count, that is in too good hands, keep you that." I stared at
him with eyes of inquiring wonder, and he proceeded: "I request only a
trifle, as memento. You be so good as to set your name to this paper."
On the parchment stood the words:

"By virtue of this my signature, I make over my soul to the holder of
this, after its natural separation from the body."

I gazed with speechless amazement, alternately at the writing and the
gray unknown. Meanwhile, with a new-cut quill he had taken up a
drop of blood which flowed from a fresh thorn-scratch on my hand and
presented it to me.

"Who are you, after all?" at length I asked him.

"What does it matter?" he replied. "And is it not plainly written on
me? A poor devil, a sort of learned man and doctor, who, in return
for precious arts, receives from his friends poor thanks, and, for
himself, has no other amusement on earth but to make his little
experiments.--But, however, sign. To the right there--PETER
SCHLEMIHL."

I shook my head, and said: "Pardon me, sir, I do not sign that."

"Not?" replied he, in amaze; "and why not?"

"It seems to me to a certain degree serious to stake my soul on a
shadow."

"So, so," repeated he, "serious!" and he laughed almost in my face.
"And, if I might venture to ask, what sort of a thing is that soul of
yours? Have you ever seen it? And what do you think of doing with it
when you are dead? Be glad that you have found an amateur who in your
lifetime is willin