y.

I know not how long it had lasted, when on a sunny heath I found myself
held by the sleeve--I stood still, and looked around me. It was the grey-
coated stranger; he seemed to have followed me till he was out of breath.
He instantly began:

"I had announced myself for to-day; you have hardly been able to wait so
long--but all is well--you will take good counsel: exchange your shadow
again; it only waits your commands, and then turn back. You will be
welcome in the forester's garden; it was but a jest. Rascal, who has
betrayed you, and who is a suitor to your betrothed, I will dispose
of--the fellow is ripe."

{Schlemihl offered the parchment: p72.jpg}

I stood there still, as if I were asleep--"Announced for to-day?"--I
reckoned the time over again; it was so. I had erred in my calculations.
I put my right hand on the bag in my bosom; he discovered my meaning, and
drew back two paces.

"No, Sir Count, that is in good hands; that you may retain." I looked on
him with staring and inquiring eyes. He spoke: "May I ask for a trifling
memento? Be so good as to sign this note." The following words were on
the parchment he held:

"I hereby promise to deliver over my soul to the bearer after its
natural separation from my body."

I looked with dumb astonishment, now on the grey unknown, and now on the
writing. In the mean time he had dipped a new pen in a drop of my blood,
which was flowing from a scratch made by a thorn in my hand. He handed
the pen to me.

"Who are you, then?" I at last inquired.

"What does that matter?" he answered. "Don't you see what I am?--a poor
devil; a sort of philosopher or alchemist, who receives spare thanks for
great favours he confers on his friends; one who has no enjoyment in this
world, except a little _experimentializing_:--but sign, I pray--ay, just
there on the right, _Peter Schlemihl_."

I shook my head. "Forgive me, sir, for I will not sign."--"Not!" replied
he, with seeming surprise, "why not?"

"'Tis an affair that requires some consideration--to add my soul to my
shadow in the bargain."--"Oh, oh!" he exclaimed, "consideration!" and
burst into a loud laugh. "May I then be allowed to ask, what sort of a
thing is your soul? Have you ever seen it? Do you know what will become
of it when you are once departed? Rejoice that you have found somebody
to take notice of it; to buy, even during your lifetime, the reversion of
this X, this galvanic power, this