Peter Schlemihl

I WAS now left equally without gold and without shadow; but a heavy load was taken from my breast, and I felt cheerful. Had not my Minna been irrecoverably lost to me, or even h...

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 a...

IT was yet early, when I was suddenly awoke by voices in hot dispute in my antechamber. I listened. Bendel was forbidding Rascal to enter my room, who swore he would receive no...

AFTER a prosperous, but to me very wearisome, voyage, we came at last into port. Immediately on landing I got together my few effects; and, squeezing myself through the crowd, w...

AND the Child was become happy and joyful, and breathed freely again, and thought no more of returning to his hut, for he saw that nothing returned inwards, but rather that all...

I SUBMIT myself to thy judgment, my dear Chamisso; I do not seek to bias it. I have long been a rigid censor of myself, and nourished at my heart the worm of remorse. This criti...

THE Child walked forth alone upon the fresh dewy cornfield. A thousand little suns glittered in his eyes, and a lark soared warbling above his head. And the lark proclaimed the...

BUT the stars went on their course, and left their glittering picture only a little while before the Child’s eyes. Even this faded, and then vanished quite away. And he was begi...

THE Child started up, and, to recover himself from his fright, went into the little flower-garden behind his cottage, where the beds were surrounded by ancient palm-trees, and w...

THERE was once a Child who lived in a little hut, and in the hut there was nothing but a little bed and a looking-glass which hung in a dark corner. Now the Child cared nothing...

BUT the Child went away from the place; and as he hung down his head thoughtfully, he did not observe that he took the wrong path, nor see how the flowers on either side bowed t...

DURING this conversation the dragon-fly had been preparing a bed for her host. The moss upon which the Child sat had grown a foot high behind his back, out of pure joy; but the...

BUT the Child was only sunk into a dream of delight, and was wishing _he_ were a sunbeam or a moonbeam; and he would have been glad to hear more and more, and for ever. But at l...

SOFTLY and soundly he slept till the rosy morning clouds stood upon the mountain, and announced the coming of their lord, the sun. But as soon as the tidings spread over field a...

AND as the Child sat there, a little Mouse rustled from among the dry leaves of the former year, and a Lizard half glided from a crevice in the rock, and both of them fixed thei...

BUT the Dragon-fly was fleet, and gratitude strengthened her wings to pay her host the honour she owed him. And truly, in the dim twilight good counsel and guidance were scarce....

BUT in the hut he stayed not long, all was so gloomy, close, and silent within, and abroad everything seemed to smile, and to exult in the clear and unbounded space. Therefore t...

THE Child did not very well know what to think of all this: he went thoughtfully home and laid himself on his little bed; and all night long he was wandering about on the ocean,...

AND when he had eaten his fill, he sat down on the soft moss, crossed one little leg over the other, and began to gossip with the Fire-flies. And as he so often thought on his u...