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 gray 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 death? You ought to think
