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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
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