water.  The Forest-master went agitatedly to and fro, a written paper in his hand, and appeared to force down many things in himself which painted themselves with rapidly alternating flushes and paleness on his otherwise immovable countenance.  He came up to me as I entered, and with frequently choked words begged to speak with me alone.  The path in which he invited me to follow him, led us toward an open, sunny part of the garden.  I sank speechless on a seat, and then followed a long silence which even the good mother dared not interrupt.

The Forest-master raged continually with unequal steps to and fro in the arbor, and, suddenly halting before me, glanced on the paper which he held, and demanded of me with a searching look—­

“May not, Count, a certain Peter Schlemihl be not quite unknown to you?” I was silent.  “A man of superior character and singular attainments—­” He paused for an answer.

“And suppose I were the same man?”

“Who,” added he vehemently—­“has, by some means, lost his shadow!”

“Oh, my foreboding, my foreboding!” exclaimed Mina.  “Yes, I have long known it, he has no shadow;” and she flung herself into the arms of her mother, who, terrified, clasped her convulsively, and upbraided her that to her own hurt she had kept to herself such a secret.  But she, like Arethusa, was changed into a fountain of tears, which at the sound of my voice flowed still more copiously and at my approach burst forth in torrents.

“And you,” again grimly began the Forest-master, “and you, with unparalleled impudence, have made no scruple to deceive these and myself, and you give out that you love her whom you brought into this predicament.  See, there, how she weeps and writhes!  Oh, horrible! horrible!”

I had to such a degree lost my composure that, talking like one crazed, I began—­“And, after all, a shadow is nothing but a shadow; one can do very well without that, and it is not worth while to make such a riot about it.”  But I felt so sharply the baselessness of what I was saying that I stopped of myself, without his deigning me an answer, and I then added—­“What one has lost at one time may be found again at another!”

He fiercely rebuked me “Confess to me, sir, confess to me, how became you deprived of your shadow!”

I was compelled again to lie.  “A rude fellow one day trod so heavily on my shadow that he rent a great hole in it.  I have only sent it to be mended, for money can do much, and I was to have received it back yesterday.”

“Good, sir, very good!” replied the Forest-master.  “You solicit my daughter’s hand; others do the same.  I have, as her father, to care for her.  I give you three days in which you may seek for a shadow.  If you appear before me within these three days with a good, well-fitting shadow, you shall be welcome to me; but on the fourth day—­I tell you plainly—­my daughter is the wife of another.”

I would yet attempt to speak a word to Mina, but she clung, sobbing violently, only closer to her mother’s breast, who silently motioned me to withdraw.  I reeled away, and the world seemed to close itself behind me.