ately to the ranger's garden, where you will be well received,
and all the past will seem a mere joke. As for Rascal--who has betrayed
you in order to pay his addresses to Minna--leave him to me; he is just
a fit subject for me."

I stood like one in a dream. "This day?" I considered again. He was
right--I had made a mistake of a day. I felt in my bosom for the purse.
He perceived my intention, and drew back.

"No, Count Peter; the purse is in good hands--pray keep it."

I gazed at him with looks of astonishment and inquiry.

"I only beg a trifle as a token of remembrance. Be so good as to sign
this memorandum." On the parchment, which he held out to me, were these
words:--"By virtue of this present, to which I have appended my
signature, I hereby bequeath my soul to the holder, after its natural
separation from my body."

I gazed in mute astonishment alternately at the paper and the grey
unknown. In the meantime he had dipped a new pen in a drop of blood
which was issuing from a scratch in my hand just made by a thorn. He
presented it to me.

"Who are you?" at last I exclaimed.

"What can it signify?" he answered; "do you not perceive who I am? A
poor devil--a sort of scholar and philosopher, who obtains but poor
thanks from his friends for his admirable arts, and whose only
amusement on earth consists of his small experiments. But just sign
this; to the right, exactly underneath--Peter Schlemihl."

I shook my head, and replied, "Excuse me, sir; I cannot sign that."

"Cannot!" he exclaimed; "and why not?"

"Because it appears to me a hazardous thing to exchange my soul for my
shadow."

"Hazardous!" he exclaimed, bursting into a loud laugh. "And, pray, may
I be allowed to inquire what sort of a thing your soul is?--have you
ever seen it?--and what do you mean to do with it after your death? You
ought to think yourself fortunate in meeting with a customer who during
your life, in exchange for this infinitely-minute quantity, this
galvanic principle, this polarised agency, or whatever other foolish
name you may give it, is willing to bestow on you something
substantial--in a word, your own identical shadow, by virtue of which
you will obtain your beloved Minna, and arrive at the accomplishment of
all your wishes; or do you prefer giving up the poor young girl to the
power of that contemptible scoundrel Rascal? Nay, you shall behold her
with your own eyes. Come here; I will lend you an invisible cap (he
drew