xcitement of mind, exhaustion of
physical strength (for during the last few days I had scarcely tasted
anything), or the antipathy I felt to the society of my fiendish
companion; but just as I was about to sign the fatal paper, I fell into
a deep swoon, and remained for a long time as if dead. The first sounds
which greeted my ear on recovering my consciousness were those of
cursing and imprecation; I opened my eyes--it was dusk; my hateful
companion was overwhelming me with reproaches. "Is not this behaving
like an old woman? Come, rise up, and finish quickly what you were
going to do; or perhaps you have changed your determination, and prefer
to lie groaning there?"

I raised myself with difficulty from the ground, and gazed around me,
without speaking a word. It was late in the evening, and I heard
strains of festive music proceeding from the ranger's brilliantly
illuminated house; groups of company were lounging about the gardens;
two persons approached, and seating themselves on the bench I had
lately occupied, began to converse on the subject of the marriage which
had taken place that morning between the wealthy Mr. Rascal and Minna.
All was then over.

I tore off the cap which rendered me invisible; and my companion having
disappeared, I plunged in silence into the thickest gloom of the grove,
rapidly passed Count Peter's bower towards the entrance-gate; but my
tormentor still haunted me, and loaded me with reproaches. "And is this
all the gratitude I am to expect from you, Mr. Schlemihl--you, whom I
have been watching all the weary day, until you should recover from
your nervous attack? What a fool's part I have been enacting! It is of
no use flying from me, Mr. Perverse--we are inseparable--you have my
gold, I have your shadow; this exchange deprives us both of peace. Did
you ever hear of a man's shadow leaving him?--yours follows me until
you receive it again into favour, and thus free me from it. Disgust and
weariness sooner or later will compel you to do what you should have
done gladly at first. In vain you strive with fate!"

He continued unceasingly in the same tone, uttering constant sarcasms
about the gold and the shadow, till I was completely bewildered. To fly
from him was impossible. I had pursued my way through the empty streets
towards my own house, which I could scarcely recognise--the windows
were broken to pieces, no light was visible, the doors were shut, and
the bustle of domestics had ceas