Fairy Tales

THE SHADOW

THE SUN REALLY BURNS in the warm countries! People become quite mahogany brown there, and actually in the warmest countries they burn completely black. Now it was to one of these warm countries that a scholar had come from a cold one. He thought that he could run around there like he did at home, but that habit soon changed. He and all other sensible people had to remain indoors. The window shutters and doors had to be closed the entire day. It seemed as if everyone was sleeping, or no one was at home. The small street with the high houses where he lived was built so that the sun shone on it from morning till night. It was really intolerable! The scholar from the cold country—he was a young man, a smart man—felt like he was sitting in a red-hot oven. The heat really took a lot out of him. He became quite thin, and even his shadow shrank. It became much smaller than it was at home. The sun was hard on it as well. The man and his shadow didn’t perk up until evening, after the sun had set.

It was really a pleasure to watch: as soon as the light was brought into the living room, the shadow stretched way up the wall, even onto the ceiling. It had to stretch way out like that to regain its strength. The scholar went out onto the balcony to stretch there, and as the stars came out in the beautiful clear sky, it was as if he came to life again. People came out on all the balconies on the street—and in the warm countries every window has a balcony—because they had to have air even if they were used to being mahogany brown! What life there was up and down the street! Shoemakers and tailors, all the people flowed out into the street. They set up tables and chairs and lit candles, over a thousand candles, and one person talked and another one sang, and people walked about. Coaches went by, the donkeys walked: cling-a-ling-a-ling because they wore bells. Hymns were sung for funerals, the street urchins shot fire crackers, and the church bells rang. Oh yes, there was plenty of life down in the street. Only one house, straight across from where the scholar lived, was completely quiet. But someone did live there because there were flowers on the balcony. They grew so beautifully in the hot sun and couldn’t have done that unless they had been watered, and someone had to do that. There had to be people there. The balcony door was partly open during the evening, but it was dark in there, at least in the first room. From further inside you could hear music. The foreign scholar thought it was quite incredible, but perhaps he was imagining things because he found everything incredible there in the warm countries. If only it hadn’t been for that sun! The foreigner’s landlord said that he didn’t know who had rented the neighbor’s house. You never saw anyone, and as far as the music was concerned, he thought it was terribly boring. “It’s as if someone is practicing a piece he can’t master, and all the time it’s the same one. ‘I’ll get it,’ he is probably saying, but he won’t get it no matter how long he plays!”

One night the foreigner woke up. He was sleeping by the open balcony door, and the curtain in front of it was fluttering in the wind. It seemed to him that a remarkable radiance was coming from the neighbor’s balcony. All the flowers were shining like flames in the most beautiful colors, and in the middle of the flowers stood a slender, lovely young woman. It was as if she was shining too. It actually hurt his eyes, and then he opened them wide and woke up. He leaped to the floor and slowly moved behind the curtain, but the maiden was gone—the radiance was gone. The flowers weren’t shining at all but stood as they always had. The door was ajar and from deep inside the music played so softly and beautifully that it could really sweep you into sweet dreams. It was almost like magic—but who lived there? Where was the entrance? The entire ground floor was just shops, and people couldn’t constantly be running through them.

One evening the foreigner was sitting on his balcony. In the room behind him the light was burning, so naturally his shadow fell on the neighbor’s wall. It was sitting right in between the flowers on the balcony. And when the foreigner moved, the shadow moved too, because that’s what shadows do.

“I believe my shadow is the only living thing over there,” said the scholar. “See how nicely it’s sitting amongst the flowers. The door is ajar—now my shadow should be kind enough to go inside, look around, and then come tell me what it’s seen. You should make yourself useful!” he said jokingly. “Please step inside! Well, are you going?” and he nodded at the shadow, and the shadow nodded back. “Ok, go but don’t get lost.” The foreigner got up, and his shadow that was cast on the neighbor’s balcony got up too. The foreigner turned around and the shadow turned around too. And if someone had paid close attention to it, he would clearly have seen that the shadow went into the partly opened balcony door at the neighbor’s, just as the foreigner went into his room and let the long curtain fall down behind him.

The next morning the scholar went out to drink coffee and read the papers. “What’s this?” he asked when he got out into the sunshine. “I don’t have a shadow! So it really went over there last night and hasn’t come back. This is really awkward!”

It annoyed him, but not so much because the shadow was gone, but because he knew that there was another story about a man without a shadow.¹ Everyone at home in the cold countries knew the story, and if he were now to show up and tell his, then everyone would say that he was just a copy-cat, and he didn’t need that. He just wouldn’t talk about it, and that was sensible of him.

In the evening he went out on his balcony again. He had quite rightly set the light behind him because he knew that the shadow always wants his master for a screen, but he couldn’t coax it out. He made himself short, he made himself tall, but there was no shadow. No shadow at all! “Hm, hm!” he said, but that didn’t help.

It was irritating, but in the warm countries everything grows so quickly, and after a week went by he noticed to his great pleasure that a new shadow was growing out from his legs when he was in the sunshine. The root must have remained behind. After three weeks he had a quite passable shadow that, when he traveled home to the cold countries, grew more and more on the trip so that at last it was too tall and too big by half.

So the scholar went home, and he wrote books about what was true in the world, and about what was good and what was beautiful. And days and years went by. Many years passed.

One evening he was sitting in his study when he heard a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called, but no one came. He opened the door, and there in front of him stood an extraordinarily skinny person. It made him feel quite odd. For that matter the person was very well dressed, evidently a distinguished man.

“Whom do I have the honor of addressing?” asked the scholar.

“Just as I thought!” said the elegant gentleman. “You don’t recognize me! I have become so solid. I really have flesh—and clothes too. You probably never expected to see me so well off. Don’t you recognize your old shadow? Well, you probably didn’t think that I would come back. Things have gone very well for me since I was last with you. I have in all respects become very well-off. If I’m to buy my freedom, I can do so!” And he shook a whole bundle of valuable seals that were hanging by his pocket watch, and he thrust his hand into the thick golden chain that hung around his neck. My, how all his fingers were dazzling with diamond rings! And everything was real.

“I can’t fathom any of this,” said the scholar, “What’s going on here?”

“Well, it is extraordinary,” said the shadow, “but you yourself aren’t ordinary either, and you know perfectly well that I have followed in your footsteps ever since childhood. As soon as you felt I was mature enough to be alone in the world, I went my own way. I am in the most brilliant of circumstances now, but a kind of longing came over me to see you once again before you die. You will die of course! I also wanted to see these parts again because one always cares about one’s fatherland. I know you have another shadow now. Do I owe him something or owe you something? Please just tell me if I do.”

“Is it really you?” said the scholar. “This is most remarkable! I never thought that one’s old shadow could return as a human being!”

“Tell me what I owe,” said the shadow, “because I don’t want to be in debt to anyone.”

“How can you talk like that?” asked the scholar. “What debt is there to talk about? You are as free as anyone, and I’m very happy about your success. Sit down, my old friend, and tell me a little about how things have happened, and what you saw over at the neighbor’s place in that warm country.”

“Yes, I’ll tell you about it,” said the shadow and sat down, “but you must promise me that you won’t tell anyone here in town, if you meet me, that I used to be your shadow! I have a mind to get engaged. I can support more than one family.”

“Don’t worry,” the scholar said, “I won’t tell anyone who you really are. Here’s my hand on it. I promise, and a man is as good as his word.”

“And a word’s as good as its shadow,” said the shadow. He had to talk like that.

Otherwise, it was really very remarkable how human the shadow was. He was dressed all in black made of the very best black cloth with patent leather boots and a hat that could be collapsed to only the crown and the shadowing brim, not to mention the seals, gold necklace, and diamond rings mentioned before. The shadow was indeed very well dressed, and it was just this that made him so very human.

“Now I’ll tell you all about it,” said the shadow, and he put his legs with the patent leather boots down as hard as he could on the sleeve of the scholar’s new shadow that was lying like a poodle by its master’s feet. Maybe it was from arrogance, or maybe he wanted him to stick, and the lying shadow stayed so quiet and calm, in order to listen. It undoubtedly wanted to know how it could get free and earn its way to independence.

“Do you know who lived in the neighbor’s house across the street?” asked the shadow. “It was the most beautiful of all things. It was Poetry! I was there for three weeks, and that had the same effect as living for three thousand years and reading everything that has been written. This I say, and it’s true. I’ve seen everything, and I know everything!”

“Poetry!” exclaimed the scholar. “Well, well—she is often a recluse in big cities! Poetry! Well, I saw her for just a short moment, but sleep was in my eyes. She stood on the balcony shining like the northern lights do. Tell me more! Go on! You were on the balcony, you went through the door, and then—”

“I was in the vestibule,” said the shadow. “You were always sitting and looking over at the vestibule. There wasn’t any light there, just a kind of twilight, but one door after another stood open in a long row of rooms and halls. And in those there was lots of light. I would have been killed by the radiance if I had gone all the way to her room. But I was cool-headed. I took my time, as one should do.”

“And what did you see then?” asked the scholar.

“I saw everything, and I’m going to tell you about it, but—it isn’t a matter of pride for me, but—as a free man and with the knowledge I have, not to mention my good position and my excellent circumstances—I really wish you would address me formally! ”²

“Oh, excuse me!” said the scholar, “it’s just an old habit, and I can’t get rid of it all that easily. But you’re completely right. And I’ll remember it! But now tell me everything that you saw.”

“Everything!” said the shadow, “because I saw everything, and I know everything!”

“What did it look like in the innermost room?” asked the scholar. “Was it like being in the fresh forest? Was it like a holy church? Were the halls like the clear starry sky when one stands on a mountain?”

“Everything was there,” the shadow said. “I didn’t go completely in, you know. I stayed in the vestibule in the twilight, but I had a good position there. I saw everything, and I know everything! I have been to the vestibule of Poetry’s court.”

“But what did you see? Did all the ancient gods walk through the great halls? Did the old heroes do battle there? Were sweet children playing and telling their dreams?”

“I tell you, I was there and believe me, I saw everything that there was to see! If you had gone over there, you would not have become human, but I did! And I got to know my inner nature as well, my innate qualities, the relationship I had to Poetry. I didn’t think about it when I was with you, but you know, whenever the sun came up or the sun set, I always became so strangely large. In moonlight I was almost easier to see than you. I didn’t understand my nature at that time, but in the vestibule it became clear to me, and I became human! I came out of there fully developed, but you weren’t in the warm country any longer. I was ashamed as a human being to walk around like I was. I needed boots, clothes, all the human veneer that makes a person recognizable. I found a way, well I can tell you—you won’t write it in any book—I hid under the baker woman’s skirts. The woman had no idea what she was hiding, and I didn’t come out until evening. I ran around on the street in the moonlight and stretched myself tall against a wall that tickled my back so beautifully. I ran up and down, peeked into the highest windows, into rooms and on the roof. I peeked where no one else could, and I saw what no others saw, what no one should see! All things considered, it’s a mean world. I wouldn’t want to be human, if it weren’t considered the thing to be! I saw the most unbelievable things in the wives and husbands, in parents and in the sweet exceptional children. I saw,” said the shadow, “what people shouldn’t know, but what all people want to know: their neighbor’s dirty laundry. If I had published everything I saw in a newspaper, it would have been read, let me tell you! But I wrote to the people themselves, and that caused consternation in all the towns I visited. They were so afraid of me! And they were so fond of me! The professors made me a professor. The tailors gave me new threads, so that I’m well turned out. The master of the mint made money for me, and the women said I was so handsome! And so I became the man I am! And now I’ll say farewell. Here’s my card. I live on the sunny side of the street, and I’m always home when it rains.” And then the shadow went away.

“How very odd,” said the scholar.

A long time passed, and then the shadow came again.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Alas!” said the scholar. “I write about truth and about the good and about the beautiful, but no one wants to hear about that. I’m really in despair because I take it too much to heart.”

“But I don’t!” said the shadow. “I’m getting fat, and that’s what one ought to do. You don’t understand the world, and it’s making you sick. You should take a trip! I’m taking a trip this summer. Do you want to come with me? I’d like to have a traveling companion. Would you like to come along as my shadow? It would really be a great pleasure for me to have you along, and I’ll pay for the trip!”

“That’s going too far!” said the scholar.

“It depends on how you look at it,” said the shadow. “It would be really good for you to take a trip. If you’ll be my shadow, you’ll get everything on the trip for free!”

“That’s really too much!” said the scholar.

“But that’s how the world is,” said the shadow, “and how it will remain.” And then the shadow went away.

Things went badly for the scholar. He was plagued by sorrow and troubles, and what he said about truth, goodness, and the beautiful was for most people like giving roses to a cow. Finally he was really ill.

“You look like a shadow,” people told him, and it made the scholar shudder when he thought about it.

“You should go to a spa,” said the shadow, who had come to visit him. “That’s the clear ticket. I’ll take you along for old time’s sake. I’ll pay for the trip, and you can write and talk about it, and amuse me on the trip. I want to get to a spa because my beard isn’t growing the way it should, and that’s an illness. You have to have a beard, you know! Be sensible now and accept my offer. We’ll travel as friends, of course.”

And so they went. The shadow was the master now, and the master was the shadow. They drove together, they rode and walked together, side by side, in front or back of each other, depending on the sun. The shadow was always careful to be on the controlling side, and the scholar didn’t think much about it at all. He had a very kind heart, was gentle and friendly, and one day he said to the shadow, “Now that we’ve become traveling companions as we are, and since we’ve grown up together from childhood, shouldn’t we say ‘du’ to each other? It’s more intimate.”

“There’s something in what you say,” said the shadow, who was now really the master. “What you say is very frank and well meant, and I will be just as straight-forward and well meaning. You know, as an educated man, how strange nature is. Some people can’t tolerate touching grey paper; they get sick from it. Others get a shiver up their spine from hearing a nail scratch glass. I get the same feeling when you say ‘du’ to me. I feel as if I’m pressed flat to the ground as in my first position with you. It’s a feeling, you see, it’s not pride. I can’t let you say ‘du’ to me, but I’ll gladly say ‘du’ to you. I’ll meet you halfway.”

And then the shadow started addressing his former master with “du.”

“This really is the limit,” thought the scholar, “that I have to say ‘De’ and he says ’du,’” but he couldn’t do anything about it.

Then they came to the spa where there were many foreigners and among them a lovely princess, who was afflicted by a sickness that caused her to see too sharply, and it was very worrying to her.

Right away she noticed that the man who had just arrived was a quite different kind of person than anyone else. “They say he’s here to get his beard to grow, but I see the real reason: He can’t cast a shadow.”

She had become curious, and so she immediately engaged him in conversation while on her walk. As a princess, she didn’t need to stand on ceremony, so she said, “Your illness is that you can’t cast a shadow.”

“Your royal majesty must be much improved,” said the shadow. “I know that your failing is that you see too well, but you’re improving. You must be cured. I just happen to have a very unusual shadow. Do you see that person who is always with me? Other people have an ordinary shadow, but I don’t go in for ordinary things. Often you give your servants better clothes for uniforms than you wear yourself, and I have had my shadow dressed up like a human being. You can see that I have even given him a shadow. It’s very expensive, but I like having something unique.”

“What?” the princess thought. “Have I really gotten better? This spa is the best in the world! The waters certainly have quite remarkable powers these days. But I won’t leave, because now it’s going to be amusing here. I think a lot of this stranger, and I just hope his beard doesn’t grow because then he’ll leave.”

That evening the princess and the shadow danced in the big ballroom. She was light on her feet, but he was even lighter. She had never had such a dancing partner. She told him what country she was from, and he was familiar with that land. He had been there, but she hadn’t been at home then. He had peeked through the windows above and below and had seen both this and that so he could answer the princess and throw out hints so that she was quite surprised. He must be the world’s wisest man! She gained such a respect for his knowledge, and when they danced again, she fell in love with him. The shadow noticed this because she almost looked through him with her gaze. Then they danced once again, and she almost told him, but she was cautious. She thought about her country and kingdom and about the many people she would rule over. “He’s a wise man,” she said to herself, “and that’s good. And he’s a wonderful dancer, and that’s also good, but I wonder if he’s truly very knowledgeable. That’s just as important! He must be tested.” And so she started ever so gradually to ask him about some of the most difficult things she couldn’t have answered herself, and an odd expression came to his face.

“You can’t answer that!” said the princess.

“I learned that as a child,” said the shadow. “I think even my shadow over there by the door could answer that!”

“Your shadow!” exclaimed the princess. “That would really be extraordinary!”

“Well, I’m not saying that he can for sure,” said the shadow, “but I should think so. He has followed me and listened for so many years—I would think so. But your royal highness must allow me to remind you that since he is so proud of passing as a human, he must be in a good mood in order to answer well for himself. He has to be treated as a human being.”

“That’s fine,” said the princess.

She went over to the scholar by the door and talked to him about the sun and the moon, and about people, both their insides and out, and he answered everything so cleverly and well.

“What a man he must be to have a shadow like that!” she thought. “It would be a true blessing for my people and kingdom if I were to choose him as my husband—I’ll do it!”

And they soon agreed upon it, both the princess and the shadow, but no one was to know about it before she was back in her own kingdom.

“No one, not even my shadow,” said the shadow, and he had his own reason for that!

And then they arrived in the country where the princess reigned when she was home.

“Listen to this, my good friend,” said the shadow to the scholar. “Now I have become as happy and as powerful as anyone can be, and I want to do something special for you. You’ll always live with me at the castle, drive in my royal coach with me, and have a hundred thousand dollars a year. But you must allow yourself to be called shadow by each and all. You mustn’t tell anyone that you were ever a human being, and once a year when I sit on the balcony in the sunshine to be admired, you must lie by my feet as a shadow does. I’ll tell you: I am going to marry the princess. The wedding will be this evening.”

“No, this is really over the top!” said the scholar. “I don’t want to do that, and I won’t do that. It would be deceiving the whole kingdom, as well as the princess. I’ll reveal everything! That I’m the human being and that you are the shadow. You’re only dressed up as a man.”

“No one will believe that,” said the shadow. “Be sensible, or I’ll call the guard.”

“I’m going right to the princess,” the scholar said. “But I’m going first,” said the shadow, “and you’ll be arrested.” And so he was because the sentries obeyed the man the princess was going to marry.

“You’re shaking,” said the princess when the shadow came to her room. “Has something happened? You mustn’t get sick tonight, when we’re having the wedding.”

“I’ve been through the most terrible experience possible!” said the shadow. “Just think! The poor mind of a shadow can’t bear much! Imagine! My shadow has gone insane. He thinks he’s a human being and that I’m—imagine this—that I’m his shadow!”

“That’s dreadful!” said the princess. “He’s locked up, right?”

“Yes, he is. I’m afraid he’ll never recover.”

“Poor shadow,” said the princess. “He’s very unfortunate. It would truly be a good deed to free him from the little life that he still has, and when I really think it over, I believe it’ll be necessary to dispose of him quietly.”

“But it’s very hard,” said the shadow, “because he’s been a faithful servant,” and he gave what sounded like a sigh.

“You have such a noble nature,” said the princess.

That night the whole town was illuminated, the cannons were fired—boom!—and the soldiers presented arms. It was quite a wedding! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to be seen by the people and to receive yet another “hurrah!”

But the scholar heard nothing of it, for his life had been taken.

NOTES

1 Reference to Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (1814; The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl), by Adelbert von Chamisso.

2 “I really wish you would address me formally!” Here the shadow is asking his former master to use the Danish formal form of address.