(that is, so excessively fine)--is
derived.

One night the stranger awoke--he slept with the doors of the balcony
open--the curtain before it was raised by the wind, and he thought
that a strange lustre came from the opposite neighbor's house; all the
flowers shone like flames, in the most beautiful colors, and in the
midst of the flowers stood a slender, graceful maiden--it was as if she
also shone; the light really hurt his eyes. He now opened them quite
wide--yes, he was quite awake; with one spring he was on the floor; he
crept gently behind the curtain, but the maiden was gone; the flowers
shone no longer, but there they stood, fresh and blooming as ever;
the door was ajar, and, far within, the music sounded so soft and
delightful, one could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it. Yet
it was like a piece of enchantment. And who lived there? Where was the
actual entrance? The whole of the ground-floor was a row of shops, and
there people could not always be running through.

One evening the stranger sat out on the balcony. The light burnt in the
room behind 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 anyone 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