He glared at me furiously and disappeared instantly.
III.--The Wanderer
Left now without shadow and without money, save for the few gold pieces still in my pocket, I could almost have been happy, had it not been for the loss of my love. My horse was down below at the inn; I decided to leave it there and to wander on on foot. In the forest I encountered a peasant, from whom I obtained information about the district and its inhabitants. He was an intelligent man, and I quite enjoyed the talk. When we approached the wide bed of a mountain stream, I made him walk in front, but he turned round to speak to me. Suddenly he broke off--"But how is that? You have no shadow!"
"Unfortunately!" I said, with a sigh. "During an illness I lost my hair, nails, and shadow. The hair and nails have grown again, but the shadow won't."
"That must have been a bad illness," said the peasant, and walked on in silence till we reached the nearest side-road, when he turned off without saying another word. I wept bitter tears, and my good spirits had vanished. And so I wandered on sadly, avoiding all villages till nightfall, and often waiting for hours to pass a sunny patch unobserved. I wanted to find work in a mine to save me from my thoughts.
My boots began to be worn out. My slender means made me decide to buy a strong pair that had already been used; new ones were too dear. I put them on at once, and walked out of the village, scarcely noticing the way, since I was thinking deeply of the mine I hoped to reach the same night, and of the manner in which I was to obtain employment. I had scarcely walked two hundred steps, when I noticed that I had lost the road. I was in a wild virginal forest. Another few steps and I was on an endless ice-field. The cold was unbearable, and I had to hasten my steps. I ran for a few minutes, and found myself in rice-fields where Chinese labourers were working. There could be no doubt; I had seven-league boots on my feet!
I fell on my knees, shedding tears of gratitude. Now my future was clear. Excluded from society, study and science were to be my future strength and hope. I wandered through the whole world from east to west, from north to south, comparing the fauna and flora of the different regions. To reduce the speed of my progress, I found I had only to pull a pair of slippers over my boots. When I wanted money, I just took an ivory tusk to sell in London. And finally I made a home in the ancient caves of the desert near Thebes.
Once in the far north I encountered a polar bear. Throwing off my slippers, I wanted to step upon an island facing me. I firmly placed my foot on it, but on the other side I fell into the sea, as the slipper had not come off my boot. I saved my life and hurried to the Libyan desert to cure my cold in the sun; but the heat made me ill. I lost consciousness, and when I awoke again I was in a comfortable bed among other beds, and on the wall facing me I saw inscribed in golden letters my own name.
To cut things short--the institution which had received me had been founded by Bendel and the widowed Mina with my money, and in my honour had been called the Schlemihlium. As soon as I felt strong enough, I returned to my desert cave, and thus I live to this day.
You, my dear Chamisso, are to be the keeper of my strange history, which may contain useful advice for many. You, if you will live among men, honour first the shadow, then the money. But, if you live only for your better self, you will need no advice.
CHATEAUBRIAND
Atala
Francois René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, born on September 4, 1768, at St. Malo, Brittany, was as distinguished for his extraordinary and romantic career as for the versatility of his genius. At the height of the Revolution (1791) he left for America with the intention of discovering the North-West passage, but in two years returned to fight on the royalist side, and was wounded at the siege of Thionville. Emigrating to England, he remained in London for eight years, supporting himself with difficulty by translating and teaching and writing. Returning to France, Chateaubriand was appointed by Napoleon secretary to the embassy in Rome, but the execution of the Duke d'Enghien so repelled him that he resigned and set out on a long Oriental journey. Living in privacy till the fall of Napoleon, he then returned to his native land, and from 1822 to 1824 was ambassador to the British Court. His whole political career was eccentric and uncertain, and he himself declared that he was by heredity and honour a Bourbonist, by conviction a Monarchist, but by temperament a Republican. He died on July 4, 1848. "Atala," which appeared in 1801, formed the first part of a prose epic, "The Natchez," on the wild and picturesque life of the Red Indians, the idea for which Chateaubriand had conceived while wandering about America. It at once raised its author to the highest position in the French literary world of the age of Napoleon. In 1802, Chateaubriand published a work of still greater importance--at least, from a social point of view--"The Genius of Christianity"--which magnificent and gorgeous piece of rhetoric produced a profound change in the general attitude of Frenchmen in regard to religion, undid to some extent the destructive work of Voltaire, and was instrumental in inducing Napoleon to come to terms with the Pope. But it is on "Atala" that Chateaubriand's title to be one of the greatest masters of French prose literature depends.
I.--The Song of Death
"It is surely a singular fate," said the old, blind Red Indian chief to the young Frenchman, "which has brought us together from the ends of the earth. I see in you a civilised man, who, for some strange reason, wishes to become a savage. You see in me a savage, who, also for some strange reason, has tried to become a civilised man. Though we have entered on life from two opposite points, here we are, sitting side by side. And I, a childless man, have sworn to be a father to you, and you, a fatherless boy, have sworn to be a son to me."
Chactas, the chief of the Natchez, and René, the Frenchman, whom he had adopted into his tribe, were sitting at the prow of a pirogue, which, with its sail of sewn skins outstretched to the night wind, was gliding down the moonlit waters of the Ohio, amid the magnificent desert of Kentucky. Behind them was a fleet of pirogues, which René was piloting on a hunting foray. Seeing that all the Indians were sleeping, Chactas went on talking to his adopted son.
"How little, even now, we know of each other, René. You never told me what it was that made you leave France in 1725, and come to Louisiana, and ask to be admitted to our tribe. I have never told you why I have not married and got children to succeed me, and help me in my old age to govern my people.
"It is now seventy-three years since my mother brought me into the world on the banks of the Mississippi. In 1652 there were a few Spaniards settled in the bay of Pensacola, but no white man was then seen in Louisiana. I was scarcely seventeen years old when I fought with my father, the famous warrior Outalissi, against the Creeks of Florida. We were then allied with the Spaniards, but, in spite of the help they gave us, we were defeated. My father was killed, and I was grievously wounded. Oh, why did I then not descend into the land of the dead? Happy indeed should I have been had I thus escaped from the fate which was waiting for me on earth!
"But one of our allies, an old Castilian, named Lopez, moved by my youth and simplicity, rescued me in the battle and led me to the town of St. Augustin, which his countrymen had recently built. My benefactor took me to his home, and he and his sister adopted me as their son, and tried to teach me their knowledge and religion. But after passing thirteen months at St. Augustin I was seized with a disgust for town life. The city seemed to me a prison, and I longed to get back to the wild life of my fathers. At last I resolved to return to my tribe, and one morning I came to Lopez, clad in the dress of the Natchez, with bow and arrows in one hand, and a tomahawk in the other.