excite my pity. I ministered consolation to him; assured him again and again that I did not doubt his fidelity, and sent him instantly to the haven, to follow the strange man’s steps if possible. But, on that very morning, many vessels which had been kept by contrary winds back in port, had put to sea, all destined to distant lands and other climes; the grey man had disappeared trackless as a shade.

   Of what use would wings be to him who is fast bound in iron fetters? He must still despair, and despair with deeper melancholy. I lay like Taffner by his stronghold, far removed from any earthly consolation, starving in the midst of riches. They gave me no enjoyment; I cursed them; they had cut me off from mankind. Concealing my gloomy secret within me, I trembled before the meanest of my servants, whom I could not but envy: for he had his shadow, and could show himself in the sun. Alone in my apartments, I mourned through harassing days and nights, and anguish fed upon my heart.

   One individual was constantly sorrowing under my eyes. My faithful Bendel ceased not to torment himself with silent reproaches that he had deceived the confidence of his generous master, and had not recognized him whom he was sent to seek, and with whom my mournful fate seemed strongly intertwined. I could not blame him: I recognized too well in that

   event the mysterious nature of the unknown being.

   But, to leave nothing untried, I sent Bendel with a costly brilliant ring to the most celebrated painter in the city, requesting he would pay me a visit. He came—I ordered away my servants—locked the door—sat myself by him; and after praising his art, I came with a troubled spirit to the great disclosure, having first enjoined on him the strictest secresy.

   “Mr. Professor,” I began, “can you paint a false shadow for one, who in the most luckless way in the world has lost his own?” “You mean a reflected shadow?”—“To be sure.” “But,” he added, “through what awkwardness, or what negligence, could he lose his own shadow?”—“How it happened,” replied I, “that does not matter, but—” I impudently began again with a lie,—“last winter, when he was travelling in Russia, it froze so severely, during the extraordinary cold, that his shadow was frozen to the ground, and it was impossible for him to get it free.”

   “And I,” said the professor, “could only make him a sheet shadow, which he would be apt to lose again on the slightest motion; especially for one whose genuine shadow was so badly fixed, as 

 Prev. P 19/56 next