Chamisso was often pestered with questions respecting what he really meant by the story of Schlemihl. These questions amused as well as annoyed him. The truth is, that his intention in writing it was perhaps scarcely of so precise a nature as to admit of his giving a formal account of it. The story sprang into being of itself, like every work of genius, prompted by a self-creating power. In a letter which he wrote to Trinius, Councillor at St. Petersburg in 1829, Chamisso says: "When I write I rarely have anything in view; I am, if you like, a nightingale, a singing bird, and not a reasoning man." And when he had just commenced the book he wrote to Hitzig as follows: "A book was the last thing you would have expected from me! Place it before your wife this evening, if you have time; should she be desirous to know Schlemihl's further adventures, and particularly who the man in the grey cloak is--send me back the MS. immediately, that I may continue the story; but if you do not return it, I shall know the meaning of the signal perfectly." "One day," Chamisso further relates, "I had lost my hat, portmanteau, gloves and all my luggage, and Fouqué asked me jestingly whether I had also lost my shadow. We then amused ourselves imagining such a calamity. I conceived the idea of Peter Schlemihl, and as I had leisure in the country I wrote the story." In the preface to a French translation (which appeared in 1838) of this story, Chamisso amuses himself over the prying curiosity of those who want to know what was his real object in writing this tale:--"The present story," he says, "has fallen into the hands of thoughtful people, who, being accustomed to read only for instruction's sake, have been at a loss to know what the shadow signifies. On this point several have formed curious hypotheses; others, who do me the honour to believe that I am more learned than I really am, have addressed themselves to me for the solution of their doubts. The questions with which they have besieged me have made me blush on account of my ignorance. I have therefore been induced to devote myself to the investigation of a matter not hitherto the subject of my studies; and I now beg to submit to the world the result of my learned researches: "'_Concerning Shadows._--A dark body can only be partially illuminated by a bright one. The dark space which lies in the direction of the un-illuminated part is what we call a _shadow_. Properly speaking, shadow signifies a bodily space, the form of which depends upon the form of the illuminating body, and upon their opposite position with regard to each other. The shadow thrown on a surface situated before the shadow-projecting body is therefore nothing else than the intersection of this surface by the bodily space [in French, _le solide_, on which word _solid_ the whole force of the humour turns], which we before designated by the word shadow.'