Encouraging myself, therefore, with the belief that this was nothing but the print of one of my own feet, and that I might be truly said to start at my own shadow, I began to go abroad again, and went to my country house to milk my flock: but to see with what fear I went forward, how often I looked behind me, how I was ready every now and then to lay down my basket and run for my life, it would have made any one have thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had been lately most terribly frightened; and so, indeed, I had.
Fortalecido por la convicción de que la huella era la de mis propios pies, pues he de decir que tenía miedo hasta de mi sombra, me arriesgué a ir a mi casa de campo para ordeñar mi rebaño. Si alguien hubiese podido ver el miedo con el que avanzaba, mirando constantemente hacia atrás, a punto de soltar el cesto y echar a huir para salvarme, me habría tomado por un hombre acosado por la mala conciencia o que, recientemente, hubiera sufrido un susto terrible, lo cual, en efecto, era cierto.