I finally opened my eyes; the sun stood still high in the heavens, but in the east; I had slept through the night.  I took it for a sign that I should not return to the inn.  I gave up readily as lost what I yet possessed there, and determined to strike on foot into a branch road, which led along the wood-grown feet of the mountains, leaving it to fate to fulfil what it had yet in store for me.  I looked not behind me, and thought not even of applying to Bendel, whom I left rich behind me, and which I could readily have done.  I considered the new character which I should support in the world.  My dress was very modest.  I had on an old black polonaise, which I had already worn in Berlin, and which, I know not how, had first come again into my hands for this journey.  I had also a traveling cap on my head, a pair of old boots on my feet.  I arose, and cut me on the spot a knotty stick as a memorial, and pursued my wandering.

I met in the wood an old peasant who, friendly, greeted me, and with whom I entered into conversation.  I inquired, like an inquisitive traveler, first the way, then about the country and its inhabitants, the productions of the mountains, and many such things.  He answered my questions sensibly and loquaciously.  We came to the bed of a mountain torrent, which had spread its devastations over a wide tract of the forest.  I shuddered involuntarily at the sun-bright space, and allowed the countryman to go first; but in the midst of this dangerous spot, he stood still, and turned to relate to me the history of this desolation.  He saw immediately my defect, and paused in the midst of his discourse.

“But how does that happen—­the gentleman has actually no shadow!”

“Alas! alas!” replied I, sighing, “during a long and severe illness, my hair, nails, and shadow fell off.  See, father, at my age, my hair, which is renewed again, is quite white, the nails very short, and the shadow—­that will not grow again.”

“Ay! ay!” responded the old man, shaking his head—­“no shadow, that is bad!  That was a bad illness that the gentleman had.”  But he did not continue his narrative, and at the next cross-way which presented itself left me without saying a word.  Bitter tears trembled anew upon my cheeks, and my cheerfulness was gone.

I pursued my way with a sorrowful heart, and sought no further the society of men.  I kept myself in the darkest wood, and was many a time compelled, in order to pass over a space where the sun shone, to wait for whole hours, lest some human eye should forbid me the transit.  In the evening I sought shelter in the villages.  I went particularly in quest of a mine in the mountains where I hoped to get work under the earth; since, besides that my present situation made it imperative that I should provide for my support, I had discovered that the most active labor alone could protect me from my own annihilating thoughts.