Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

"Where is he?" I said, in some alarm, to the woman, who still sat

reading.

"There, on the floor, behind you," she said, pointing with her arm

half-outstretched, but not lifting her eyes. I turned and looked, but

saw nothing. Then with a feeling that there was yet something behind me,

I looked round over my shoulder; and there, on the ground, lay a black

shadow, the size of a man. It was so dark, that I could see it in the

dim light of the lamp, which shone full upon it, apparently without

thinning at all the intensity of its hue.

"I told you," said the woman, "you had better not look into that

closet."

"What is it?" I said, with a growing sense of horror.

"It is only your shadow that has found you," she replied. "Everybody's

shadow is ranging up and down looking for him. I believe you call it by

a different name in your world: yours has found you, as every person's

is almost certain to do who looks into that closet, especially after

meeting one in the forest, whom I dare say you have met."

Here, for the first time, she lifted her head, and looked full at me:

her mouth was full of long, white, shining teeth; and I knew that I was

in the house of the ogre. I could not speak, but turned and left the

house, with the shadow at my heels. "A nice sort of valet to have," I

said to myself bitterly, as I stepped into the sunshine, and, looking

over my shoulder, saw that it lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the

sunlight. Indeed, only when I stood between it and the sun, was the

blackness at all diminished. I was so bewildered--stunned--both by the

event itself and its suddenness, that I could not at all realise to

myself what it would be to have such a constant and strange attendance;

but with a dim conviction that my present dislike would soon grow to

loathing, I took my dreary way through the wood.