“Forgive my impertinence, sir, but during the short time I have had the happiness to be near you I have been able to look with indescribable admiration upon that beautiful shadow of yours, which you throw from you contemptuously, as it were.  Pardon me, but would you feel inclined to sell it?”

I thought he was mad.  “Is your own shadow not enough for you?  What a strange bargain!”

“No price is too high for this invaluable shadow.  I have many a precious thing in my pocket, which you may choose—­a mandrake, the dish-cloth of Roland’s page, Fortunati’s purse——­”

“What!  Fortunati’s purse?”

“Will you condescend to try it?” he said, handing me a money-bag of moderate size, from which I drew ten gold pieces, and another ten, and yet another ten.

I extended my hand, and exclaimed, “A bargain!  For this purse you can have my shadow.”  He seized my hand, knelt down, cleverly detached my shadow from the lawn, rolled it up, folded it, and put it in his pocket.  Then he bowed and retired behind the rose-hedge, chuckling gently.

I hurried back to my inn, after having tied the bag around my neck, under my waistcoat.  As I went along the sunny street, I heard an old woman’s voice, “Heigh, young man, you have lost your shadow!”

“Thank you,” I said, threw her a gold piece, and sought the shade of the trees.  But I had to cross a broad street again, just as a group of boys were leaving school.  They shouted at me, jeered, and threw mud at me.  To keep them away I threw a handful of gold among them, and jumped into a carriage.  Now I began to feel what I had sacrificed.  What was to become of me?

At the inn I sent for my things, and then made the driver take me to the best hotel, where I engaged the state rooms and locked myself up.  And what, my dear Chamisso, do you think I did then?  I pulled masses of gold out of the bag, covered the floor of the room with ducats, threw myself upon them, made them tinkle, rolled over them, buried my hands in them, until I was exhausted and fell to sleep.  Next morning I had to cart all these coins into a cupboard, leaving only just a few handfuls.  Then, with the help of the host, I engaged some servants, a certain Bendel, a good, faithful soul, being specially recommended to me as a valet.  I spent the whole day with tailors, bootmakers, jewellers, merchants, and bought a heap of precious things, just to get rid of the heaps of gold.

I never ventured out in daytime; and even at night when I happened to step out into the moonlight, I had to suffer untold anguish from the contemptuous sneers of men, the deep pity of women, the shuddering fear of fair maidens.  Then I sent Bendel to search for the grey man, giving him every possible indication.  He came back late, and told me that none of Mr. John’s servants or guests remembered the stranger, and that he could find no trace of him.  “By the way,” he concluded, “a gentleman whom I met just as I went out, bid me tell you that he was on the point of leaving the country, and that in a year and a day he would call on you to propose new business.  He said you would know who he was.”