Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) (15 page)

This business was beginning to get on my nerves, so I took pains to avoid sunny places. This, however, was not always possible – not, for instance, when traversing a wide street, which I was obliged to cross, and, unfortunately for me, at the
very hour when boys were coming out of school. A cursed little hunchbacked rogue – I can still see him now – immediately noticed that I was missing a shadow. This fact he revealed at the top of his lungs to all the children of the neighbourhood, who in turn proceeded on the spot to hurl lumps of dirt and deride me: ‘Honest people don a shadow when they step out into the sun.’ To get rid of them I tossed handfuls of gold among them and leapt into a carriage, with the assistance of a few sympathetic souls.

I was still quite upset when the carriage pulled up to my old lodgings; the very idea of once again setting foot in my miserable garret was more than I could bear. I had my things brought down, accepted the pathetic bundle with revulsion, scattered a few gold coins and had the driver take me to the best hotel in town. The establishment faced north; I did not have to fear the effects of sunlight here. I paid the coachman in gold coin, had the hotel prepare its best suite of rooms, and as soon as they were ready I dashed upstairs and locked myself in.

What do you think I did then? Oh my dear friend Chamisso, I am ashamed to admit it even to you of all people. I pulled out that hapless purse from under my shirt and, with a fury that flared up in me like a raging fire, I kept plucking out gold and gold and gold and ever more gold, and spread it out over the cold stone floor and trampled through it and let it tinkle underfoot, and kept dropping more and more of it, my poor heart feasting on the glitter and the jingle, piling ever more precious metal on metal – until in a fit of exhaustion I myself sank onto that priceless mattress and, revelling in my riches, I tossed and wallowed in it. This is how I spent the entire day and the evening. I never unlocked my door; by nightfall I was still lying in my gold, and that was where sleep overcame me.

You appeared to me in a dream; it was as if I were standing behind the glass door of your little room and caught a glimpse of you seated there at your desk between a skeleton and a sheaf of dried plants; fat tomes by Haller, Humboldt and Linnaeus were spread open before you, and on your sofa lay a volume of Goethe and the
Magic Ring
. I looked at you a long while, then at every object in the room, and then at you again; but you
remained perfectly still, not drawing a single breath; you were dead.

I awakened. It seemed to me to be very still. My watch had stopped. I felt completely exhausted, and thirsty and hungry too at the same time; I hadn’t eaten since the previous morning. Sated, and somewhat revolted at the sight of all that gold on which just a little while ago I had gorged my heart, I shoved it aside; now all of a sudden, to my great annoyance, I didn’t know what to do with it. I could hardly leave it in full view on the floor; I tried to see if the purse would gobble it back up. Nothing doing. None of my windows opened out onto the sea. I had to make do as best I could; with great effort, sweat dripping from my brow, I managed to lug it over to a huge closet in an adjoining cubicle and temporarily stored it there. I left only a few handfuls lying around.

Once I was done, I dropped, exhausted, into an armchair and waited for the sounds of movement in the house. As soon as it seemed possible, I ordered food and asked to see the hotel manager. With him I discussed my future affairs – how, for instance, I might go about furnishing a house. He recommended for my personal needs the service of a certain Bendel, whose loyal and compassionate face immediately won me over. He was to be the helpmate whose devotion and sympathetic company have since helped me weather and endure the heavy burden of my dour fate. I spent the entire day in my rooms interviewing prospective servants and dealing with shoemakers, tailors and merchants. I acquired a wardrobe for myself and bought all manner of valuables and precious stones, just to get rid of a small portion of my store of gold; and yet it seemed as if I could not even make a dent in the heap.

All the while I wavered in a terrible state of the greatest anxiety. I did not dare set foot outside my door, and in the evening I had forty candles lit in my room before I emerged from my dark corner. I remembered with dread that awful encounter with the schoolchildren. Finally I resolved, my fear notwithstanding, once again to test public opinion. It was that time of the month when the moon lights up the night sky. Late in the evening I draped a greatcoat over my shoulders, pulled my hat
down low over my eyes and slipped out into the street, shivering like a common criminal. I sought out a very remote part of town before emerging into the moonlight from the shadow of the houses whose protective darkness had heretofore afforded me refuge; I was prepared to accept the verdict on my fate from the mouths of passing strangers.

Spare me, dear friend, the pain of recounting all that I had to endure. The women, in particular, often voiced the pity with which my condition suffused their hearts; their remarks cut me to the quick just as much as the jeering of the children and the disdainful scorn of the men, particularly those well-dressed burghers who themselves cast such a broad and imposing shadow. A lovely and gracious girl, who, so it seemed, was out for an evening stroll with her parents, her glance modestly directed downwards as was theirs, looked up and cast a bright eye at me; visibly startled upon noticing my shadow-less state, she buried her beautiful face in her veil, let her head sink down and walked on in silence.

I could not bear it any longer. Salty torrents streamed from my eyes and, reeling with a shattered heart, I withdrew again into darkness. I was obliged to hug the sides of the houses for safety’s sake, and, proceeding slowly, I finally arrived very late at my lodgings.

I spent a long, sleepless night. The next day, my first concern was to seek out the man in the grey coat. Who knew? I might succeed in finding him again, and how fortunate it would be if, like myself, he too regretted our ill-considered swap. I called for Bendel – he seemed clever and adroit; I described in detail the features of the man who possessed a treasure without which my life would be nothing but an ordeal. I told him the time and the place where I had seen him last, described all the other people who were present and added the following details: he should ask after the telescope, the Turkish carpet interwoven with strands of gold, a magnificent tent and finally the black stallions, all of which, I implied, were related in some way – though I did not specify just how – to the mysterious stranger, of whom no one else at that fateful garden party where I met him appeared to have taken notice, yet who had shattered the peace and joy of my life.

As soon as I had finished speaking, I hauled out as much gold as I could carry, adding diamonds and jewels to the pile to top if off. ‘Bendel,’ I said, ‘money opens many doors and often facilitates the impossible; don’t be sparing in your spending, just as I am not, but go and gladden your master’s heart with tidings on which his future depends.’

He went on his way, returning, dejected, late that evening. None of Mr John’s servants, none of his guests – he had sought out and questioned each and every one – had the faintest recollection of the man in the grey coat. The new telescope was there, but no one could tell where it had come from; the carpet and the tent were still there, spread out on the same hilltop; and the servants lauded the wealth of their master, but none could recall the provenance of these latest acquisitions. Mr John himself took great pleasure in these new treasures and wasn’t troubled by the fact that he had no idea whatsoever where they had come from; the horses were tethered in the stables of the young men who had ridden them on that afternoon, and who were quick to praise Mr John for his generosity in giving them such fine steeds as gifts. This is what I learnt from Bendel’s detailed account, and despite the fruitlessness of his efforts, his zeal and adroitness elicited my praise. Sadly, then, I motioned for him to leave me alone with my misery.

‘Now that I have informed my master of those matters of greatest importance to him,’ Bendel continued, ‘I must still pass on a message. Early this morning, as I was rushing off to attend to the mission that, alas, I have failed to fulfil, a man stopped me at your doorstep and said, “Be so good as to tell Mr Peter Schlemiel that he will not see me hereabouts again soon, for I am off to sea, and a fortuitous wind bids me make haste to the harbour. But one year from today I will have the honour of once again looking him up, at which time I hope to offer an attractive business proposition. Please be so kind as to convey my humble respects and assure him of my gratitude.” I asked him his name, but he said you’d know who he was.’

‘What did he look like?’ I enquired apprehensively. And feature for feature, word for word, Bendel proceeded to describe the man in the grey coat, just as he had described him before in
his recounting of the unsuccessful search. ‘Oh unhappy man!’ I cried out, wringing my hands, ‘that was
him
!’ and the realization suddenly struck poor Bendel.

‘Yes, of course, it was him, in the flesh,’ he shrieked, ‘and I, a blind and dim-witted oaf, failed to recognize him, I failed to recognize him, and so have failed my master!’

He burst out weeping, heaping upon himself the bitterest reproaches, and his despair elicited pity from my heart. I comforted him, assured him repeatedly that I had no doubt about his faithfulness, and promptly sent him out to the harbour to hunt down any possible traces of that elusive gentleman. That very morning, however, many ships that had been held back by inauspicious winds set sail, each in a different direction, each bound for a far-flung coast, and the grey man had disappeared without a trace – like a shadow.

What good would wings do a man shackled in iron chains? He would have to suffer his bondage all the same, and all the more miserably. I lay like Fafner beside his hoard, far removed from the balm of any human consolation, fondling my gold, not lovingly but cursing it all the while – that wretched stuff for the sake of which I had cut myself off from life. Guarding my own dark secret, I feared the lowliest of my servants, whom I also envied; for he had his shadow, he could allow himself to be seen in broad daylight showered by the rays of the sun. Day and night I pined away alone in my rooms, and grief gnawed at my heart.

Meanwhile, another suffering soul ate his heart out before my eyes. My faithful servant Bendel would not stop castigating himself for having betrayed the trust of his good master in failing to recognize the man he had been sent out to find, with whom he believed my unhappy destiny to be bound. I, however, could hardly blame him, for I recognized in this cruel twist of fate the inscrutable nature of the unknown.

Having resolved not to pass up any possible solution to my problem, I sent Bendel with a costly diamond ring to the most
renowned portrait painter in town, whom I invited to call on me. Upon his arrival, I dismissed my servants from the room, locked the door, sat myself down beside him and, after praising his work, with a heavy heart I finally came to the point; but first I made him swear to keep what I was about to tell him a carefully guarded secret.

‘Master,’ I began, ‘might it be possible to paint a shadow for a man who tragically lost his own?’

‘An artificial shadow you mean?’

‘Precisely.’

‘But tell me,’ he asked, ‘through what clumsiness, through what negligence might the gentleman have lost his shadow?’

‘Just how it happened,’ I replied, ‘I know but little, or maybe too much.’ And I launched into the following shamefaced lie: ‘In Russia, where the gentleman went on business last winter, the cold was so bitter that one day his shadow froze to the ground and he was no longer able to pry it loose.’

‘Any artificial shadow that I might possibly be able to paint for the gentleman he would lose again the moment he makes a move; moreover, let me add that any man so little attached to the shadow he was born with as one must surmise from your sad account had best avoid the sun – that would be the most sensible and fool-proof solution.’ He rose from his chair and bid me farewell, while regarding me with a piercing look that I could not for the life of me endure. I sank back into my chair and buried my face in my hands.

This is how Bendel found me when he entered the room. He witnessed first-hand the pain of his master and wanted quietly, respectfully, to withdraw. I looked up. I felt overcome by the burden of my misery, I simply had to communicate it to someone. ‘Bendel,’ I cried out to him, ‘Bendel! You alone, who see and esteem my sufferings enough not to ask after their source, but appear rather to suffer them with me in silence – come to me, Bendel, and be my bosom friend! I have not hidden from you the storehouse of gold, nor will I hide from you my store of grief. Bendel, don’t leave me! Bendel, you see me as a man of wealth, generous, kind-hearted; you imagine that the world ought by rights to honour me, and yet you see me fleeing from
the world and locking myself away. Bendel, the world has passed judgment on me and cast me from its midst, and you too may turn away from me once you learn my terrible secret: Bendel, I am rich, generous, good-hearted, but – oh God! – I have no shadow!’

‘No shadow?’ the good fellow cried out in horror, and tears streamed from his eyes. ‘Oh, woe is me that I was ever born to serve a shadow-less master!’ He fell silent, and I held my face in my hands.

‘Bendel,’ I added in a trembling voice, ‘now that you have my trust you can betray it. Go and denounce me to the world!’ He appeared to be locked in a deep struggle with himself; finally he fell down on his knees before me and grasped my hand, which he showered with his tears.

‘No,’ he cried out, ‘whatever the world may think, I cannot and will not abandon my good master for a mere shadow’s sake. I will act justly and not wisely, I will stay with you, I will lend you my shadow, help you whenever I can, and when I cannot, I will weep with you.’ I wrapped my arms around his neck, astounded at such an uncommon nobility of spirit, fully convinced that he was not after my gold.