the purse. He perceived my intention, and drew back.

"No, Count Peter; the purse is in good hands--pray keep it." I
gazed at him with looks of astonishment and inquiry. "I only beg a
trifle as a token of remembrance. Be so good as to sign this
memorandum." On the parchment, which he held out to me, were these
words: --"By virtue of this present, to which I have appended my
signature, I hereby bequeath my soul to the holder, after its
natural separation from my body."

I gazed in mute astonishment alternately at the paper and the grey
unknown. In the meantime he had dipped a new pen in a drop of blood
which was issuing from a scratch in my hand just made by a thorn.
He presented it to me. "Who are you?" at last I exclaimed. "What
can it signify?" he answered; "do you not perceive who I am? A poor
devil--a sort of scholar and philosopher, who obtains but poor
thanks from his friends for his admirable arts, and whose only
amusement on earth consists in his small experiments. But just sign
this; to the right, exactly underneath--Peter Schlemihl."

I shook my head, and replied, "Excuse me, sir; I cannot sign that."

"Cannot!" he exclaimed; "and why not?"

"Because it appears to me a hazardous thing to exchange my soul for
my shadow."

"Hazardous!" he exclaimed, bursting into a loud laugh. "And, pray,
may I be allowed to inquire what sort of a thing your soul is?--have
you ever seen it?--and what do you mean to do with it after your