in your society.  You have no longer your Bendel with you, I will do you good service.  You do not like me, and I am sorry for it; but, notwithstanding, you can make use of me.  The devil is not so black as he is painted.  Yesterday you vexed me, it is true; I will not upbraid you with it today; and I have already shortened the way hither for you; that you must admit.  Only just take your shadow again awhile on trial.”

The sun had ascended; people appeared on the road; I accepted, though with internal repugnance, the proposal.  Smiling he let my shadow glide to the ground, which immediately took its place on that of the horse, and trotted gaily by my side.  I was in the strangest state of mind.  I rode past a group of country-people, who made way for a man of consequence, reverently, and with bared heads.  I rode on, and gazed with greedy eyes and a palpitating; heart on this my quondam shadow which I had now borrowed from a stranger, yes, from an enemy.

The man went carelessly near me, and even whistled a tune—­he on foot, I on horseback; a dizziness seized me; the temptation was too great; I suddenly turned the reins, clapped spurs to the horse, and struck at full speed into a side-path.  But I carried not off the shadow, which at the turning glided from the horse and awaited its lawful possessor on the high road.  I was compelled with shame to turn back.  The man in the gray coat, when he had calmly finished his tune, laughed at me, set the shadow right again for me and informed me that it would hang fast and remain with me only when I was disposed to become the rightful proprietor.  “I hold you,” continued he, “fast by the shadow, and you cannot escape me.  A rich man, like you, needs a shadow; it cannot be otherwise, and you only are to blame that you did not perceive that sooner.”

I continued my journey on the same road; the comforts and the splendor of life again surrounded me; I could move about free and conveniently, since I possessed a shadow, although only a borrowed one; and I everywhere inspired the respect which riches command.  But I carried death in my heart.  My strange companion, who gave himself out as the unworthy servant of the richest man in the world, possessed an extraordinary professional readiness, prompt and clever beyond comparison, the very model of a valet for a rich man, but he stirred not from my side, perpetually debating with me and ever manifesting his confidence that, at length, were it only to be rid of him, I would resolve to settle the affair of the shadow.  He had become as burdensome to me as he was hateful.  I was even in fear of him.  He had made me dependent on him.  He held me, after he had conducted me back into the glory of the world from which I had fled.  I was almost obliged to tolerate his eloquence, and felt that he was in the right.  A rich man must have a shadow, and, as I desired to command the rank which he had contrived again to make necessary to me, I saw but one issue.  By this, however, I stood fast:  after having sacrificed my love, after my life had been blighted, I would never sign away my soul to this creature, for all the shadows in the world.  I knew not how it would end.