CHAPTER II.

Of what use were wings to a man fast bound in chains of iron?  They would but increase the horror of his despair.  Like the dragon guarding his treasure, I remained cut off from all human intercourse, and starving amidst my very gold, for it gave me no pleasure:  I anathematised it as the source of all my wretchedness.

Sole depository of my fearful secret, I trembled before the meanest of my attendants, whom, at the same time, I envied; for he possessed a shadow, and could venture to go out in the daytime; while I shut myself up in my room day and night, and indulged in all the bitterness of grief.

One individual, however, was daily pining away before my eyes—­my faithful Bendel, who was the victim of silent self-reproach, tormenting himself with the idea that he had betrayed the confidence reposed in him by a good master, in failing to recognise the individual in quest of whom he had been sent, and with whom he had been led to believe that my melancholy fate was closely connected.  Still, I had nothing to accuse him with, as I recognised in the occurrence the mysterious character of the unknown.

In order to leave no means untried, I one day despatched Bendel with a costly ring to the most celebrated artist in the town, desiring him to wait upon me.  He came; and, dismissing the attendants, I secured the door, placing myself opposite to him, and, after extolling his art, with a heavy heart came to the point, first enjoining the strictest secrecy.

“For a person,” said I, “who most unfortunately has lost his shadow, could you paint a false one?”

“Do you speak of the natural shadow?”

“Precisely so.”

“But,” he asked, “by what awkward negligence can a man have lost his shadow?”

“How it occurred,” I answered, “is of no consequence; but it was in this manner”—­(and here I uttered an unblushing falsehood)—­“he was travelling in Russia last winter, and one bitterly cold day it froze so intensely, that his shadow remained so fixed to the ground, that it was found impossible to remove it.”

“The false shadow that I might paint,” said the artist, “would be liable to be lost on the slightest movement, particularly in a person who, from your account, cares so little about his shadow.  A person without a shadow should keep out of the sun, that is the only safe and rational plan.”

He rose and took his leave, casting so penetrating a look at me that I shrunk from it.  I sank back in my chair, and hid my face in my hands.

In this attitude Bendel found me, and was about to withdraw silently and respectfully on seeing me in such a state of grief:  looking up, overwhelmed with my sorrows, I felt that I must communicate them to him.  “Bendel,” I exclaimed, “Bendel, thou the only being who seest and respectest my grief too much to inquire into its cause—­thou who seemest silently and sincerely to sympathise with