hind him; and thus it was quite natural that his shadow
should fall on his opposite neighbor's wall. Yes! there it sat,
directly opposite, between the flowers on the balcony; and when the
stranger moved, the shadow also moved: for that it always does.

"I think my shadow is the only living thing one sees over there," said
the learned man. "See! how nicely it sits between the flowers. The
door stands half-open: now the shadow should be cunning, and go into
the room, look about, and then come and tell me what it had seen.
Come, now! be useful, and do me a service," said he, in jest. "Have
the kindness to step in. Now! art thou going?" and then he nodded to
the shadow, and the shadow nodded again. "Well then, go! but don't
stay away."

The stranger rose, and his shadow on the opposite neighbor's balcony
rose also; the stranger turned round and the shadow also turned round.
Yes! if any one had paid particular attention to it, they would have
seen, quite distinctly, that the shadow went in through the half-open
balcony-door of their opposite neighbor, just as the stranger went
into his own room, and let the long curtain fall down after him.

Next morning, the learned man went out to drink coffee and read the
newspapers.

"What is that?" said he, as he came out into the sunshine. "I have no
shadow! So then, it has actually gone last night, and not come again.
It is really tiresome!"

This annoyed him: not so much because the shadow was gone, but because
he knew there was a story about a man without a shadow.* It was known
to everybody at home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now
came there and told his story, they would say that he was imitating
it, and that he had no need to do. He would, therefore, not talk about
it at all; and that was wisely thought.

------

* Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man.

------

In the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the
light directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always
have its master for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made
himself little; he made himself great: but no shadow came again. He
said, "Hem! hem!" but it was of no use.

It was vexatious; but in the warm lands every thing grows so quickly;
and after the lapse of eight days he observed, to his great joy, that
a new shadow came in the sunshine. In the course of three weeks he had
a very fair shadow, which, when he set out for his home in the
northern lands, gre