I sought to relieve
myself by rapid motion, and ran with swift, uncertain steps, from west
to east, from east to west. I found myself now in the day, now in the
night; now in summer, now in the winter's cold.
I know not how long I thus reeled about on the earth. A burning fever
glowed in my veins; with deepest distress I felt my senses forsaking
me. As mischief would have it, in my incautious career, I now trod on
some one's foot; I must have hurt him; I received a heavy blow, and
fell to the ground.
When I again returned to consciousness, I lay comfortably in a good
bed, which stood amongst many other beds in a handsome hall. Some one
sat at my head; people went through the hall from one bed to another.
They came to mine, and spoke together about me. They styled me _Number
Twelve_; and on the wall at my feet stood--yes, certainly it was no
delusion, I could distinctly read on a black tablet of marble in great
golden letters, quite correctly written, my name--
PETER SCHLEMIHL.
On the tablet beneath my name were two other rows of letters, but I
was too weak to put them together. I again closed my eyes.
I heard something of which the subject was Peter Schlemihl read aloud,
and articulately, but I could not collect the sense. I saw a friendly
man, and a very lovely woman in black dress appear at my bedside. The
forms were not strange to me, and yet I could not recognize them.
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