ark and desolate within me; I had neither argument nor reason
left.

The day rolled by. I calmed my hunger with wild fruits; my thirst with
the nearest mountain stream. Night approached; I stretched myself under
a tree. The damp dawn awaked me from a heavy sleep, in which I had heard
myself groan, as if struggling with death. Bendel had surely lost my
traces, and I rejoiced to think so. I determined to return no more among
men, from whom I fled like the shy beasts of the mountain. Thus I
existed through three weary days.

On the morning of the fourth I found myself on a shady plain, where the
sun was shining brightly. I sat down there on the fragment of rock in
its beam, for I enjoyed to bask again in its long-forbidden glance. I
nourished my heart with its own despair. But I was alarmed by a gentle
rustling. I looked eagerly round me preparing to fly--I saw no one; but
there passed by on the sunny sand a man's shadow not unlike my own,
wandering about alone, and which appeared straying from its owner.

A mighty impulse was roused within me. Shadow, thought I, art thou
seeking thy master. I will be he; and I sprang forward to possess myself
of it. I imagined that if I were lucky enough to get into its track, I
could so arrange that its feet should just meet mine; it would even
attach and accommodate itself to me.

{Schlemihl chasing his shadow: p78.jpg}

The shadow on my moving fled before me, and I was compelled to begin an
active chase after the unsubstantial wanderer. The eager desire to be
released from the perplexities in which I stood armed me with unusual
strength. It fled to a distant wood, in whose obscurity it necessarily
would have been immediately lost. I saw it--a terror pierced my heart,
kindled my burning desire, and gave wings to my feet. I gained on the
shadow, approached it nearer and nearer,--I was within reach of it. It
stopped suddenly and turned round towards me; like the lion pouncing on
its prey, I sprang forward upon it with a mighty effort to take
possession. I felt most unexpectedly that I had dashed against something
which made a bodily resistance--I received from an unseen power the most
violent thrust which a human being ever felt. The working of terror was
acting dreadfully within me; its effect was to close my arms as in a
spasm, to seize on what stood unseen before me. I staggered onwards, and
fell prostrate on the ground; beneath me on his back was a man whom I