SOURCE: "Hobson's Choice: A Note on Peter Schlemihl," in Monatshefte: Für Deutschen Unterricht, Deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Vol. LXIX, No. 1, Spring, 1977, pp 5-16.

[In the following essay, Butler summarizes some critical assessments of Peter Schlemihl, observing that despite its ambiguities the work is finally a fairy tale in which the protagonist finds contentment apart from society.]

Als ich mich ins Fremdenbuch einschrieb und im Monat Juli blätterte, fand ich auch den vielteuern Namen Adelbert von Chamisso, den Biographen des unsterblichen Schlemihl. Der Wirt erzählte mir: dieser Herr sei in einem unbeschreibbar schlechten Wetter angekommen, und in einem eben so schlechten Wetter wieder abgereist.

—Heinrich Heine, Die Harzreise

Although many commentators have pronounced on Peter Schlemihl with confidence, any comparison of their several utterances soon reveals the peculiar intractability of a work which, like James' The Turn of the Screw, provides enough information of one kind or another for interpretations to be ventured but not quite enough to make them definitive. Thus, for example, following Chamisso's not altogether helpful "explanation" of the shadow in the preface to a much later French translation that "C'est donc de ce solide dont il est question … Mon imprudent ami a convoité l'argent dont il connaissait le prix et n'a pas songé au solide,"¹ Thomas Mann, clearly with his mind on his own problems, asserts that "Der Schatten ist im Peter Schlemihl zum Symbol aller bürgerlichen Solidität und menschlichen Zugehörigkeit geworden";² Josef Nadler, ever alert to the "gemeinvölkische Frage," tribalizes and particularizes this line of thought: "Der Schatten, den der Mensch wirft, wird durch das erzeugt, was ihn von außen her beleuchtet: Volkstum, Bekenntnis, Familie, Rang, Stand, Beziehungen, Ruf und Name";³ Benno von Wiese, in pursuit of "das soziale Ich," repeats Thomas Mann's point and concludes that "im Schatten geht es um das Zwischenmenschliche, das Verbindende, um die Kontaktstellen, um das Umgreifende im sozialen Dasein";⁴ and H. A. Korff, arguing for "die Macht der Imponderabilien, die den Menschen erst zum vollgewichtigen Gesellschaftswesen machen," sees in Peter Schlemihl "eine Satire auf die bürgerliche Welt" (in contrast to von Wiese: "die im Symbol des Schattens gefaßte Existenz als bürgerlich-soziales Ich und die Geltung der gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen wird voll anerkannt"), and, like Nadler, feels obliged to particularize: "Voile Wirklichkeit im bürgerlichen Sinne aber hat … um die Satire fortzuführen, nur wer 'aktenkundig' ist, einen Geburtsschein, beglaubigte Eltern, Heimatberechtigung und tausend andere Dinge hat."⁵ However, Korff is wise enough to add that none of these is actually mentioned ("Diese Imponderabilien, deren konkrete Form der Dichter klugerweise im Dunkeln läßt …"), and this is surely significant, for the "soziale Umwelt" (von Wiese) is so tenuously realized in the story that the question arises whether such phrases as "die Geltung der gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen (von Wiese) and "bürgerliche Wirklichkeit" (Korff), let alone lists of particulars of doubtful accreditation, are really à propos. Hermann Pongs, for instance, suggests that "Chamissos eigne Lebenstragik," in a much more diffuse and apparently Angst-ridden sense, is the focal point: "Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte hat ihre geniale Pointe in dem fehlenden Schatten, der, an sich ein Nichts, dennoch von unersetzlichem Wert ist, wenn man ihn nicht hat. Die phantastischsten Abenteuer bekommen von dieser Pointe her ihren tiefen, nie ganz auszudeutenden Sinn. Chamissos eigne Lebenstragik ist hier mit eingegangen und gibt dem märchenhaften Gebilde die sich immer wieder bewährende Wirklichkeit";⁶ Georg Lukács links Chamisso with Hoffmann and concludes that in Peter Schlemihl "dient die Realistik zur Steigerung der Unheimlichkeit, der Phantastik";⁷ Ernst Loeb is persuaded that the sale of the shadow signifies existential inauthenticity: "Eben nun dies ist der Schatten,—Verschattung und Dunkelseite des Lebens, ohne die allerdings auch das Licht seine Wesensbestimmung und Bedeutung verlöre … Uns scheint hier … Peters Vergehen offenkundig geworden,-ein Vergehen, das eben darin besteht, daß er das Licht ohne Schatten und damit das Leben zu einem Preis kaufen will, zu dem es nicht feil ist";⁸ and Stuart Atkins, while not offering an interpretation of the story as a whole, Fürther complicates the task for others by his well-argued contention that much of the heavy stuff in Peter Schlemihl is a deliberate parody of the sentimental excesses of contemporary writers.⁹

When we look at the formal descriptions the work has accumulated, we find a similar collective uncertainty. Thomas Mann opts for a "Fabel," Nadler a "Märchen," as does Korff; Pongs prefers an "allegorische Stimmungsnovelle," Loeb a "Märchennovelle," which, however, should be seen more as symbolical than allegorical;¹⁰ Werner Feudel ("Was jedoch unter der Hand des Dichters entstand … [war] zu sehr dem Bereich der modernen Wirklichkeit verhaftet, um der Gattung des Märchens eingeordnet werden zu können") concurs in Mann's second shot, a "phantastische Novelle";" von Wiese speaks of "diese in ein Märchen verkleidete Novelle" and comes to prefer "Märchennovelle" to "Novellenmärchen"; and Chamisso himself progressed from "Abenteuer" through "Schicksale" to "wundersame Geschichte."¹² This is more than a terminological quibble, for the choice of genre (or mixture of genres) implies not only the areas of human experience the author is interested in (morals, imagination, society, Angst, parody or whatever) but also the degree to which he is able to comprehend them and consequently to treat them appropriately. Benno von Wiese comes to see an explanation of the mixed mode of Peter Schlemihl in the time in which it was written: "Solche Vorwegnahme [des neuen bürgerlichen Bewußtseins des Realismus] mußte im Jahre 1813 noch mit einer Erzählform bezahlt werden, die nicht eindeutig sein konnte, sondern sich schwebend zwischen Märchen und Novelle, zwischen Allegorie und Symbol bewegte." "Schwebend" may well be no more than a rhetorical flourish, for von Wiese's essay is nothing if not clear in its distinctions and seems to depart from the proposition that this clarity is justified by the text. Yet "schwebend" is perhaps after all the right word, not in the service of a "Weltdeutung als vage durchzuspürender Sinn" as Pongs would have it, but (what von Wiese seems not to have had in mind) as indicative of a failure on Chamisso's part to come to grips with his own material in a way which goes beyond the implied literary-historical determinism of von Wiese's remark. The claims of the imagination, consolidated during the previous decade and a half as one of the finest of human capabilities, clearly lie beyond both Chamisso's competence and allegiance; yet a residual hankering after the fantastic seems to prevent a realistic form from emerging entire. Does this bespeak confusion, or is a mixed mode exactly right? Ulrich Baumgartner claims "daß die Konzeption der Geschichte in eine Zeit fiel, als für den Dichter die Problematik (das Verhältnis Ich—Welt) in ihrem vollen Unfang noch bestand, während die Fassung, wie sie uns vorliegt, das Werk einer Zeit ist, in der sich der Dichter von diesem Druck der Unlösbarkeit befreit hatte."¹³ This allows him to argue, correctly I think, that everything in the story is subordinated to the "Endsituation," which, again correctly, he regards as a consolation. But by confining himself rigorously to "die seelische Entwicklung des Dichters," Baumgartner falls securely into a trap of his own making: an absence of critical perspective. Since, however, Baumgartner is by no means alone in this, it would seem useful to attempt to supply the difference.

Peter Schlemihl is introduced to the reader and to the level of society with which he aspires to make contact as an obscure and impoverished young man arriving from a place or places unknown to solicit the assistance of Thomas John in gaining, it would appear, financial and social advancement. Why this new beginning has become necessary is not made clear, for we are told only that Schlemihl had previously sacrificed wealth to his conscience, though why the two should be mutually exclusive is divulged neither by means of direct explanation nor by a description of previously obtaining circumstances such as to allow appropriate inferences to be made. Nor is it clear whether John or some other person is to function as employer or benefactor, though since John and his associates are dubiously funded and happy to be so ("Er [John] selbst hatte sein Wohlgefallen daran, und ihn kümmerte es nicht, daß er nicht wisse, woher er sie habe"),¹⁴ one might expect, if "die Geltung der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung" is to be a real consideration, that a more representative account of both earned and unearned income would be provided, if not here, then elsewhere. That such an account is absent—by the time Schlemihl gets around to trying to earn a living, the magical loss of his shadow disqualifies him, and a career as a miner is rendered unnecessary by angelic intervention—suggests that the nature and consequences of social living, whether as the object of validation or of satire, are a priori not Chamisso's primary concern. This in turn both informs and vitiates such moralizing utterances as "Es mußte schon die Ahnung in mir aufsteigen, daß, um so viel das Gold auf Erden Verdienst und Tugend überwiegt, um so viel der Schatten höher als selbst das Gold geschätzt werde."¹⁵ The first part makes a proposition, the general as distinct from the particular truth of which is, by the very particularity of Chamisso's examples, impossible to judge, while the second obscures the moral dimension of the acquisition of wealth implied (with significant imprecision) in the first part by removing the issue to the personal psychology of the misfit. For if society esteems wealth more than moral integrity, then Schlemihl should have no more problems in finding acceptance than John; and if Chamisso had wanted to explore the issues of moral choice and adaptation entailed by living as a social being, he would not have removed Schlemihl from the outset. Thus the loss of the shadow, society being represented, albeit on the scantiest evidence, as being undiscriminating, indicates a radical and private sense of not-belonging (hence the attraction of the Schlemihl figure),¹⁶ to which society's structure, be it ex pressed either in moral terms ("Gold" / "Verdienst und Tugend") or in specific institutional terms à la Nadler and Korff, is largely irrelevant. That Chamisso sees fit to confine himself to a very diffuse and excluding "out there" suggests that the biography of Peter Schlemihl is to have a logic of its own. It remains to be seen why the Märchen is chosen as its dominant mode of expression.

Whatever may have gone awry in Schlemihl's earlier life, it is clear that what prompts him to sell his shadow is a strongly-felt need for social assimilation, to which he regards the acquisition of wealth as indispensable. Such demeaning phrases as "meine kleine Habseligkeit" and "der Hausknecht maß mich mit einem Blick und führte mich unters Dach"¹⁷ draw the attention not to a sense of dignity invulnerable to assault—there is no Resolution and Independence here—but to a sense of insecurity activated by conspicuous indigence. Indeed, during John's display of unlimited affluence and its concomitant of social prestige, Schlemihl falls over himself to concur in his own denigration: "Wer nicht Herr ist wenigstens einer Million,' warf er hinein, 'der ist, man verzeih' mir das Wort, ein Schuft!'—'O, wie wahr!' rief ich aus mit vollem, überströmendem Gefühl.";¹⁸ and it is his humiliating consignment to the obscure periphery of John's gathering which brings about his association with the Man in Grey ("man bekümmerte sich mcht mehr um den grauen Mann als um mich selber").¹⁹ Thus it is not surprising that, despite an instinctive but unclear Angst, Schlemihl should agree to barter his shadow not for an instrument of clear criminality like Wechselpfennige, nor for an everlasting supply of good eating, but for a guaranteed supply of money like John's. Yet why the shadow rather than something less visible? We know that the hypothesized loss of a shadow was the original inspiration of the story,²⁰ but such knowledge solves nothing. What needs to be explained is why the means by which Schlemihl seeks to secure social acceptance is precisely that which will ensure his permanent exclusion. The gravity and the irreversibility of the sale point psychologically to the parti pris of the outsider: the feeling of not belonging promotes a desire for acceptance, but that acceptance is felt in advance by the author and will be discovered by the protagonist to be in any case unobtainable. As Cruickshank well communicates in his illustrations for Bowring's English translation of 1823, there is a sense of the weird and unsettling to the idea of a lost shadow that has more to do with personality than with moral dereliction.²¹ Following the ostensible causality of the story, von Wiese contends that "die Schattenlosigkeit hat die Isolierung zur Folge." But it seems more accurate to maintain the reverse.

Perhaps this should be pursued a little Further. To succumb to the blandishments of wealth and position, particularly if not motivated by congenital cupidity but by a sense of exclusion compounded by inexperience ("und in mir war noch keine Besinnung"), is of itself not such a terrible thing as Chamisso makes out: it all depends on its consequences. In Middlemarch, for example, Fred Vincy is in a very similar position to Schlemihl when the former speculates on old Featherstone's will (the realist equivalent of the "Fortunati Säckelchen") to shore up his lofty materialism. Yet even though he does some damage, he is allowed to retrieve the situation by signing up with Caleb Garth (not the Devil!) and to reorganize his life in accordance with a revised set of values. In Adam Bede, however, Arthur Donnithorne goes too far, and a new and commensurately unsatisfactory situation ensues. By making Schlemihl's mistake irrevocable from the outset—there is never any suggestion that the shadow will be restored except on terms which are known to be unacceptable—Chamisso ensures that Schlemihl will remain an outsider irrespective of what may happen subsequently. The false absolute of the Märchen—irrevocability in excess of the occasion—abrogates the realist notions of choice and consequences by foreclosing ab initio all other options than exclusion; which was the given condition to begin with.

The loss of the shadow, then, both symbolizes and confirms in practice Schlemihl's not-belonging, but as long as he does not realize this, he will involve himself in a series of incidents which mark the pre-ordained futility of his situation. One of the first people to challenge him is the "Schildwacht," representative and sentinel of social order; and the children of the place are quick to point out that "Ordentliche Leute pflegten ihren Schatten mit sich zu nehmen, wenn sie in die Sonne gingen!"²² What social satire there is in this story emerges here: "ordentliche Leute" are apparently meant to be seen as morally undiscriminating provided appearances are right, and the frustration of Schlemihl's situation is intensified by the sardonic reflection that he has to bear not only "den Hohn der Jugend" but also "die hochmütige Verachtung der Männer, besonders solcher dicken, wohlbeleibten, die selbst einen breiten Schatten warfen."²³ However, that he is rejected by the pure and impure alike also strengthens the contention that the loss of the shadow means that Schlemihl is not intended to gain acceptance on any terms, moral or otherwise, and that this is then less a reflection on society than on himself. Feeling "von allem Leben abgeschnitten" (the generalization is significant), he tries to fake integration by seeking to acquire a painted shadow and is prepared to tell lies about the loss of the original, sensitive though he is to the untenability of his situation; and eventually he contrives "eine Rolle in der Welt zu spielen" by means of a false identity (Graf Peter) and an equally false modus vivendi (in society but out of the light). Clearly a better state of affairs would be for him to be out of society and in the light, and this is what the end of the story amounts to. To that extent, the intervenient episode with Mina is supererogatory, for Schlemihl's fate is sealed before he ever meets her. It does, however, raise in acute fashion the degree to which Chamisso was able to handle the consequences of the situation he has created and for that reason needs looking at in some detail.

That Mina is intended to be the antithesis of the worldly Fanny is obvious enough. Schlemihl's half-hearted, or better, no-hearted, attempt to enter upon an affaire with the latter is represented as a competition of vanities, in accordance with the principle well established by now that a mistaken sense of values conduces to mistaken endeavors ("Ich war nur eitel darauf, sie über mich eitel zu machen, und konnte mir, selbst mit dem besten Willen, nicht den Rausch aus dem Kopf ins Herz zwingen"),²⁴ whereas the relationship with Mina, clearly of considerable moral potential, is signalled by the apostrophe "O mein guter Chamisso, ich will hoffen, du habest noch nicht vergessen, was Liebe sei!"²⁵ (one notes the anticipatory past tense, which serves, as we shall see, less to record past events than to write them off: though Chamisso uses the more elegant terms of "Schicksal" and "weise Fügung.") Like Esther Lyon, Emma Bovary, Nettchen of "Kleider machen Leute" (of whom more in a moment) and many another post-Romantic impressionable young lady, Mina is given to thinking in terms of a literary image of "the hero" which is out of true with prosaic reality: "Sie war indes weit entfernt, meine Worte richtig zu deuten; sie ahnte nun in mir irgend einen Fürsten, den ein schwerer Bann getroffen, irgend ein hohes, geächtetes Haupt, und ihre Einbildungskraft malte sich geschäftig unter heroischen Bildern den Geliebten herrlich aus."²⁶ At this level her immaturity, indicated by her high-flown imagination, and Schlemihl's, indicated by his imposture, complement each other. But since one is also intended to descry a fundament of good in both on which a lasting relationship might well be built, provided that it has the opportunity to come into being, one is compelled to consider whether the ostensible impediments to their eventual union are wholly persuasive.

Technically, the difficulty is the absence of Schlemihl's shadow, which one is tempted to understand as his manifest lack of social legitimacy, for as far as Mina's father is concerned, "erscheinen Sie binnen drei Tagen vor mir mit einem wohlangepaßten Schatten, so sollen Sie mir willkommen sein," an assurance which is echoed by the Man in Grey when, in trying to induce Schlemihl to sell his soul, he remarks "Sie sollen in dem Förstergarten willkommen sein, und alles ist nur ein Scherz gewesen."²⁷ Accordingly, it could be argued that an eminently suitable relationship is simply the victim of a social sanction (appearances), the dubiety of which is confirmed by Mina's subsequent betrothal to Raskal; and that Schlemihl is pari passu being punished for generally attempting to exploit a morally indefensible position (his false identity), and particularly for involving Mina. Certainly, this is Schlemihl's own retrospective assessment of the situation: "Wer leichtsinning nur den Fuß aus der geraden Straße setzt, der wird unversehens in andere Pfade abgeführt, die abwärts und immer abwärts ihn ziehen; er sieht dann umsonst die Leitsterne am Himmel schimmern, ihm bleibt keine Wahl, er muß unaufhaltsam den Abhang hinab und sich selbst der Nemesis opfern";²⁸ and it is true that had not Schlemihl entered into his initial agreement with the Man in Grey, he would not have been handicapped in this manner, he would not have met Mina, and the present predicament would not then have ensued. But this only serves to bring us back to the false absolute of the loss of the shadow.

In "Kleider machen Leute," Keller was later to treat an exactly similar theme: two immature people, the one attracted to glamorous figures, both living and literary, the other falsely representing himself as such, in a social environment which is equally ready to be swayed by appearances. In that story Nettchen's accession to self-possession in the moment of crisis ("Keine Romane mehr!") leads to a recognition of Strapinski's sustaining qualities and, for all the irony of the ending, to a new beginning being made possible. But that is precisely what Chamisso is not prepared to envisage, neither at this point in his story, when it might be argued that Mina does not have Nettchen's freedom of action and Schlemihl is unable to rise to the consequences of his situation (he faints), nor at the end, when both are older and wiser and yet a new beginning is eschewed. Had Schlemihl been seeking to profit from his spurious ennoblement in a nefarious manner—there is, after all, a distant echo of Faust and Gretchen in all this—that would have been understandable, although a resumption of relations on a new and better footing (one thinks in this respect of "Die Marquise von O") would not even then have been entirely out of the question. But there is no doubt that Schlemihl's affection for Mina and his desire to establish a proper relationship with her are beyond reproach. For all that he indulges in some doubtful magicking on the side, a maneuver on Chamisso's part which secures the narrative within the constraints of the Märchen; his refusal to barter away his soul for the wherewithal to achieve hymeneal bliss bears adequate testimony to the unimpaired presence of his "besseres Selbst," and it is an odd contrivance on Chamisso's part that it should be precisely that which separates him from Mina—unless, of course, Chamisso was intent upon introducing a love story that was in any case incapable of fulfilment. Ernst Loeb, who maintains that "der Versuchung, die Erzählung durch das zusätzliche Motiv des Liebesopfers zu komplizieren, weicht der Dichter aus" (without saying why), argues that the issue here is that of preserving Schlemihl's essential integrity: "Wird er, dem mit einer äug?eren Luge zu leben so bitter schwer wurde, diese nun gegen eine innere eintauschen, die seinen menschlichen Wert zerstört?"²⁹ The important thing, apparently, is to keep Schlemihl's "besseres Selbst" intact (hence the fainting) like caviar in a bottle for the great moral decision which is to come later ("Indem er den Beutel von sich schleudert und in Einsamkeit und Armut geht, nimmt er sein Schicksal bewußt in eigene Hände und führt die große Wende herbei").³⁰ This, however, begs the question of why later and not now, which is after all an authorial decision, and to rest one's case on the exigencies of a contrived situation, even if one secularizes the soul by calling it "der Wert des Lebens," is to fall prey to a curious kind of literal-mindedness; for "der Wert des Lebens" is not of itself an absolute, no more than is "Lebensmeisterung," which Loeb in the same essay sees as Schlemihl's eventual achievement: both have to be, or should be, defined by their context. The context ensures that both exclude Mina or any other comparable relationship, which brings us back to the question of why, and to answer it on Chamisso's terms is merely to recommence the circle.

It has already been implied that it is necessary to Chamisso's intentions that the Märchen element of his story be taken au pied de la lettre. After Schlemihl sells his shadow he has to function as a shadowless man who is seen as such: no change of heart will redeem, it, not even his taking "sein Schicksal bewußt in eigene Hände," for the absent shadow is an integral part of that fate. Similarly here. We have to accept that the only way Schlemihl can secure Mina is literally by selling his soul, for otherwise (as Keller saw, and appropriately expressed in a realist mode, in which real choices may be made) the possibility of marriage and integrity would be entailed; whereas for Schlemihl the issue is unconditional: marriage or integrity, union or solitude; and, clearly, solitude it then has to be, albeit of a torch-bearing kind. Now, given that it is unthinkable that Schlemihl should sell his soul (it is an indication of Chamisso's inadequacy here that it is impossible to imagine what kind of relationship would have obtained had he done so), no decision is then necessary, or thinkable for that matter; and so "Notwendigkeit … eine weise Fügung" is invoked (in itself difficult to square with the eventual possibility of free moral choice—"authorial direction" makes more sense), Schlemihl faints ("ein Ereignis an der Stelle einer Tat"),³¹ and his moment of decision is postponed until its terms are more manageable. As the ending reveals, the same "weise Fügung" will take care of Mina and Bendel, thus saving Schlemihl the trouble.

In virtue of the dictates of Chamisso's preferred mode—having neither the flexibility of Realism nor the painful responsibility of tragedy—the issue of self-sacrifice has been trivialized in favor of the issue of self-preservation. This self, "sein wahres Selbst" according to Korff, who speaks more truly than he knows, might best be described as non-extensible, either into society or into a significant human relationship. Fully acknowledged and appropriately cast, this could give rise to a work of particular poignancy expressive of the disjunction between genuine human needs and the possibility of their fulfilment, and is in fact the origin of what pathos there is in Peter Schlemihl. Yet the full force of this situation is vitiated by Chamisso's refusal to bring Schlemihl's non-extensible self and life "unter den Menschen" into a sufficiently pregnant juxtaposition, as is the related dilemma of "Gold" and "das Gewissen"; and again the reality of the situation is subverted by Chamisso's reliance on the Märchen.

In the aftermath of his first frenzied indulgence of his tainted money, Schlemihl has a dream. He sees Chamisso sitting in an enclosed space ("dein kleines Zimmer") at his desk, surrounded by items of particular personal significance: botanical specimens, a medical student's skeleton, a volume of Goethe, a copy of his friend Fouqué's Der Zauberring, and botanical studies by Haller, Alexander von Humboldt, and Linnaeus. The principal elements of this dream are enclosure, solitude, repleteness, and an easy death. That all of these are unavailable to Schlemihl at the moment of dreaming should not be allowed to conceal the fact that this is the glimpse of an ideal which will eventually be substantially realized once the appropriate rectifications have been made. Following his rejection of the Man in Grey, which allows him to keep both his soul and some of his money (a curate's egg of a situation if ever there was one), he again has a dream, which is worth quoting in full:

Anmutige Bilder verwoben sich mir im luftigen Tanze zu einem gefälligen Traum. Mina, einen Blumenkranz in den Haaren, schwebte an mir vorüber und lächelte mich freundlich an. Auch der ehrliche Bendel war mit Blumen bekränzt und eilte mit freundlichem Gruße vorüber. Viele sah ich noch, und wie mich dünkt, auch dich, Chamisso, im fernen Gewühl; ein helles Licht schien, es hatte aber keiner einen Schatten, und was seltsamer ist, es sah nicht übel aus—Blumen und Lieder, Liebe und Freude, unter Palmenhainen.³²

Schlemihl is unable to interpret this dream, but it seems straightforward enough. It takes place in a world which is removed from the hardships of common reality, and the relationships in it are transformed accordingly; it generates a cosy emotional fog; a shadow is no longer important; economic reality is excluded; and all is forgiven. The way is set for life on a new footing.

The means to this are, significantly, the magic seven-league boots, purchased from a convenient angel with money provided by the Man in Grey. Since, however, according to the plot the original transaction also cost Schlemihl his social legitimacy, which in turn cost him Mina, it follows post hoc, ergo propter hoc that Mina's real worth was a pair of boots (albeit this pair of boots in this situation), a conclusion which Chamisso implicitly endorses:

denn klar stand plötzlich meine Zukunft vor meiner Seele. Durch frühe Schuld von der menschlichen Gesellschaft ausgeschlossen, ward ich zum Ersatz an die Natur, die ich stets geliebt, gewiesen, die Erde mir zu einem reichen Garten gegeben, das Studium zur Richtung und Kraft meines Lebens, zu ihrem Ziel die Wissenschaft.³³

The mode of the Märchen has its advantages as well as disadvantages. To feel that the earth is a rich garden and a present at that is altogether more comforting than to feel that it is a complex of difficulties, and it is then easy to understand the attractions of the bachelor life of the private scholar for the man who has been shown to be incapable of anything else. Schlemihl's choice of habitation is apposite: a tomb-like Theban cave, where a dog provides companionship, and nicotine smoothes over the rough patches. It may not be perfect ("O mein Adelbert, was ist es doch um die Bemühungen der Menschen!"),³⁴ but it is the best available in the circumstances.

Thomas Mann sees this voluntary limitation on the powers of magic symbolized by Schlemihl's "Hemmschuhe" as a sign of Chamisso's underlying sense of reality ("Indem hier der geläufige Begriff der Hemmschuhe ohne weiteres und mit der unschuldigsten Miene auf die Pantoffeln übertragen wird … erhält das ganze Wunder einen Charakter bürgerlicher Wirklichkeit, den es im Märchen niemals desaß."),³⁵ and it is true that insofar as Schlemihl's suffering disposition is accommodated rather than replaced, Chamisso avoids an obvious temptation. But in doing so, he succumbs to another: that of allowing the Märchen to solve all his other problems. The Schlemihlium remains financed by magic means, thus absolving Schlemihl of the need actually to do anything for Mina and Bendel. This in turn consolidates the allededly irretrievable consequences of his "frühe Schuld," which allows him to love and suffer at a distance to the disadvantage of nobody else; for they are consequences of no consequence save for himself, Mina and Bendel having meanwhile found "das stille, innerliche Glück":

" … seit ich meinen langen Traum ausgeträumt habe und in mir selber erwacht bin, geht es mir wohl; seitdem wünsche ich nicht mehr und fürchte nicht mehr den Tod. Seitdem denke ich heiter an Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Ist es nicht auch mit stillem innerlichen Glück, daß Sie jetzt auf so gottsehge Weise Ihrem Herrn und Freunde dienen?"—"Sei Gott gedankt, ja, edle Frau. Es ist uns doch wundersam ergangen; wir haben viel Wohl und bitteres Weh unbedachtsam aus dem vollen Becher geschlürft. Nun ist er leer; nun möchte einer meinen, das sei alles nur die Probe gewesen, und, mit kluger Einsicht gerüstet, den wirklichen Anfang erwarten. Ein anderer ist nun der wirkliche Anfang, und man wünscht das erste Gaukelspiel nicht zurück und ist dennoch im ganzen froh, es, wie es war, gelebt zu haben."³⁶

So it was, after all, a fairy tale, a provisional rehersal for a life which is simultaneously incipient and already set for its close. Responsibility is admitted, yet Schlemihl's "besseres Selbst" is directed to other things, damage is done, but a "weise Fügung" picks up the pieces. There is little point in talking of "das soziale Ich" where its entailments are so rigorously ignored; and there is as little point in trumpeting "Lebensmeisterung" when, to the very end, "unter den Menschen" and one's "besseres Selbst" are kept categorically apart.³⁷

Notes

¹ Quoted in Adalbert von Chamisso, Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, ed. James Boyd (Oxford, 1956), p. xxvii and dated November 1837.

² Thomas Mann, "Chamisso" (1911), Gesammelte Werke, IX, 2., durchgesehene Auflage, (Frankfurt, 1974), p. 56. For a discussion of Mann's obvious identification with Chamisso and Schlemihl see Arthur Burkhard, "Thomas Mann's Appraisal of the Poet," Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XLVI (1931), 913.

³ Josef Nadler, Die Berliner Romantik 1800-1814 (Berlin, 1921), p. 122. Nadler continues: "In Peter Schlemihl aber schrieb er, vom Tragischen ins Tragikomische gewendet, die Geschichte jener ungezählten Fremden, die ihren Schatten verloren, als sie Deutsche wurden" (pp. 124-125).

⁴ Benno von Wiese, Die deutsche Novelle (Düsseldorf, 1963), p. 110.

⁵ H.A. Korff, Geist der Goethezeit, IV (Leipzig, 1953), p. 349.

⁶ Hermann Pongs, Das Bild in der Dichtung, II, 2. Auflage (Marburg, 1963), p. 177.

⁷ Georg Lukács, Deutsche Realisten des 19. Jahrhunderts (Bern, 1951), p. 59.

⁸ Ernst Loeb, "Symbol und Wirlichkeit des Schattens in Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl," Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, Neue Folge, XV (1965), 402-403.

⁹ Stuart Atkins, "Peter Schlemihl in Relation to the Popular Novel of the Romantic Period," The Germanic Review, XXI (1946), 19-208.

¹⁰ In Die deutsche Literatur in Text und Darstellung: Romantik II, ed. Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (Stuttgart, 1974), p. 125; and "Symbol und Wirklichkeit des Schattens," p. 398.

¹¹ "Werner Feudel, Adalbert von Chamisso: Leben und Werk (Leipzig, 1971), pp. 71-72.

¹² Boyd, p. xxiii.

¹³ Ulrich Baumgartner, Adalbert von Chamissos Peter Schlemihl (Frauenfeld/Leipzig), 1944, p. 51.

¹⁴ Boyd, p. 13.

¹⁵ Boyd, p. 9.

¹⁶ Chamisso to his French translator in 1821 : "Schlemihl oder besser Schlemiel ist ein hebräischer Name und bedeutet Gottlieb, Theophil oder aimé de Dieu. Dies ist in der gewöhnlichen Sprache der Juden die Benennung von ungeschickten oder unglücklichen Leuten, denen nichts in der Welt gelingt … Der Name ist beizubehalten." Quoted in Max Zeldner, "A Note on 'Schlemiel'", The German Quarterly, XXVI (1953), 116-117.

¹⁷ Boyd, p. 1.

¹⁸ Boyd, p. 2.

¹⁹ Boyd, p. 3.

²⁰ Chamisso to K.B. von Trinius, 1829: "Ich hatte auf einer Reise Hut, Mantelsack, Handschuhe, Schnupftuch und mein ganzes bewegliches Gut verloren; Fouqué frug: ob ich nicht meinen Schatten verloren habe? und wir malten uns das Unglück aus." Quoted in Boyd, p. xxiv, who also records the variant wherein Chamisso, who was walking in the sun next to his shorter friend Fouqué, is said to have horrified the latter by exclaiming, "Sieh, Fouqué, wenn ich dir nun deinen Schatten aufrollte und du ohne Schatten neben mir wandern müßtest!"

²¹ Bowring robustly insists, however, that "the story is a moral one. I leave its development to my readers. It would be little flattering to them to suspect they required my assistance, in order to discover the obvious lessons it conveys." Peter Schlemihl, tr. Sir John Bowring, 3rd edition (London, 1861), p. 5.

²² Boyd, p. 9.

²³ Boyd, p. 12.

²⁴ Boyd, p. 18.

²⁵ Boyd, p. 25.

²⁶ Boyd, p. 28.

²⁷ Boyd, pp. 33 and 34.

²⁸ Boyd, p. 45.

²⁹ "Symbol und Wirklichkeit des Schattens," p. 406.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 407. Cf. Ralph Flores, "The Lost Shadow of Peter Schlemihl," The German Quarterly, XLVII (1974), 572: "When Peter exchanges his shadow for the magical money bag … he is not in full possession of 'himself … But passive though he may be in the early parts of the story, Peter Schlemihl … takes a resolute stand in finally banishing the gray man once and for all." But not the swag!

³¹ Boyd, p. 46.

³² Boyd, pp. 56-57.

³³ Boyd, p. 60.

³⁴ Boyd, p. 63.

³⁵ "Chamisso," p. 52.

³⁶ Boyd, p. 67.

³⁷ Cf. the concluding stanza of "An meinen alten Freund Peter Schlemihl" (1834):

Wir geben uns die Hand darauf, Schlemihl,
Wir schreiten zu und lassen es beim alten:
Wir kümmern uns um alle Welt nicht viel,
Es desto fester mit uns selbst zu halten.
Wir gleiten so schon näher unserm Ziel,
Ob jene lachten, ob die andern schalten;
Nach alien Stürmen wollen wir im Hafen
Doch ungestört gesunden Schlafes schlafen.

Quoted in Boyd, p. xli (my italics).