Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/94

 movement the two shadows cut a more and more ridiculous figure. When at last we moved on, and came to a place where the incline grew less steep and the wood had been allowed to spread, the shadows again began to play their funny tricks; now lying over the green turf, then jumping from trunk to trunk, and bounding directly from a tree close to us to one lit up far away in the density.

"Do you know?" said Minna, "what a good thing it is that you are not Peter Schlemihl, for in that case you would now be discovered!"

"Without doubt I should be, and what then?"

"Well, then—? Anyhow, I should not like it at all."

Her little ear had turned quite red, and this could not have been due to transparency, as the sun was behind us. My heart danced with joy, for I could not doubt that she thought of the place in the immortal book, where the poor shadowless man, Schlemihl, walks at night in the garden with his beloved, and suddenly comes to a spot where the moon shines, and where only her shadow is to be seen stretching out before their feet. She had also instantly understood that my—apparently—very simple "and what then?" was more bold than stupid, for she herself had lately lent me the book—a volume of those classical periodicals of which she had spoken.

Yes, suppose my shadow had not been visible, then she would have fallen into a faint, and I should have been obliged to leave her for ever; but now, being perfectly alive and playing hide-and-seek with her shadow in the forest, suffused by the evening glow, what obstacle was there in my way? Sure enough, I had no inexhaustible purse in my pocket, but my shadow was complete enough. Did it not stand just now on the sloping stone surface, black and white, as an indisputable proof that I was an honest