Thus left behind on the dreary heath, I gave vent to countless tears, which seemed to lighten my bosom of its intolerable weight. But I saw no bounds, no outlet, no term to my terrible misery, and with wild impatience I sucked in the poison which the mysterious being had poured into my wounds. When I recalled the image of Mina, her soft and lovely form appeared pale and weeping before me, as I had seen her in my hour of ignominy; and the shade of Rascal impudently and contumaciously seemed to step between us. I veiled my face, I fled across the waste; but the ghastly vision still pursued me; I ran--it was close to me. I sank breathless to the ground, and watered it with renewed springs of tears. And all about a shadow! a shadow which a stroke of the pen would have restored to me! I mused again on the strange proposal and my refusal. All was dark and desolate within me; I had neither argument nor reason left. The day rolled by. I calmed my hunger with wild fruits; my thirst with the nearest mountain stream. Night approached; I stretched myself under a tree. The damp dawn awaked me from a heavy sleep, in which I had heard myself groan, as if struggling with death. Bendel had surely lost my traces, and I rejoiced to think so. I determined to return no more among men, from whom I fled like the shy beasts of the mountain. Thus I existed through three weary days. On the morning of the fourth I found myself on a shady plain, where the sun was shining brightly. I sat down there on the fragment of rock in its beam, for I enjoyed to bask again in its long-forbidden glance. I nourished my heart with its own despair. But I was alarmed by a gentle rustling. I looked eagerly round me preparing to fly--I saw no one; but there passed by on the sunny sand a man's shadow not unlike my own, wandering about alone, and which appeared straying from its owner. A mighty impulse was roused within me. Shadow, thought I, art thou seeking thy master. I will be he; and I sprang forward to possess myself of it. I imagined that if I were lucky enough to get into its track, I could so arrange that its feet should just meet mine; it would even attach and accommodate itself to me. {Schlemihl chasing his shadow: p78.jpg}