shadow! So then, it has actually gone last night, and not come again.
It is really tiresome!"
This annoyed him: not so much because the shadow was gone, but because
he knew there was a story about a man without a shadow.* It was known
to everybody at home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now
came there and told his story, they would say that he was imitating
it, and that he had no need to do. He would, therefore, not talk about
it at all; and that was wisely thought.
------
* Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man.
------
In the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the
light directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always
have its master for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made
himself little; he made himself great: but no shadow came again. He
said, "Hem! hem!" but it was of no use.
It was vexatious; but in the warm lands every thing grows so quickly;
and after the lapse of eight days he observed, to his great joy, that
a new shadow came in the sunshine. In the course of three weeks he had
a very fair shadow, which, when he set out for his home in the
northern lands, grew more and more in the journey, so that at last it
was so long and so large, that it was more than sufficient.
The learned man then came home, and he wrote books about what was true
in the world, and about what was good and what was beautiful; and
there passed days and years,--yes! many years passed away.
One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle
knocking at the door.
"Come in!" said he; but no one came in; so he opened the door, and
there stood before him such an extremely lean man, that he felt quite
strange. As to the rest, the man was very finely dressed,--he must be
a gentleman.
"Whom have I the honor of speaking to?" asked the learned man.
"Yes! I thought as much," said the fine man. "I thought you would not
know me. I have got so much body. I have even got flesh and clothes.
You certainly never thought of seeing me so well off. Do you not know
your old shadow? You certainly thought I should never more return.
Things have gone on well with me since I was last with you. I have, in
all respects, become very well off. Shall I purchase my freedom from
service? If so, I can do it;" and then he rattled a whole bunch of
valuable seals that hung to his watch, and he stuck his hand in the
thick gold chain he wore around his neck;--nay! how all his fingers
glittered with diamond rings; and then all were pure gems.
"Nay; I cannot recover from my surprise!" said the learned man: "what
is the meaning of all this?"
"Something common, is it not," said the shadow: "but you yourself do
not belong to the common order; and I, as you know well, have from a
child followed in your footsteps, As soon as you found I was capable
to go out alone in the world, I went my own way. I am in the most
brilliant circumstances, but there came a sort of desire over me to
see you once more before you die; you will die, I suppose? I also
wished to see this land again,--for you know we always love our native
land. I know you have got another shadow again; have I anything to pay
to it or you? If so, you will oblige me by saying what it is."
"Nay, is it really thou?" said the learned man: "it is most
remarkable: I never imagined that one's old shadow could come again as
a man."
"Tell me what I have to pay," said the shadow; "for I don't like to be
in any sort of debt."
"How canst thou talk so?" said the learned man; "what debt is there to
talk about? Make thyself as free as any one else. I am extremely glad
to hear of thy good fortune: sit down, old friend, and tell me a
little how it has gone with thee, and what thou hast seen at our
opposite neighbor's there--in the warm lands."
"Yes, I will tell you all about it," said the shadow, and sat down:
"but then you must also promise me, that, wherever you may meet me,
you will never say to any one here in the town that I have been your
shadow. I intend to get betrothed, for I can provide for more than one
family."
"Be quite at thy ease about that," said the learned man; "I shall not
say to any one who thou actually art: here is my hand--I promise it,
and a man's bond is his word."
"A word is a shadow," said the shadow, "and as such it must speak."
It was really quite astonishing how much of a man it was. It was
dressed entirely in black, and of the very finest cloth; it had patent
leather boots, and a hat that could be folded together, so that it was
bare crown and brim; not to speak of what we already know it
had--seals, gold neck-chain, and diamond rings; yes, the shadow was
well-dressed, and it was just that which made it quite a man.
"Now I shall tell you my adventures," said the shadow; and then he
sat, with the polished boots, as heavily as he could, on the arm of
the learned man's new shadow, which lay like a poodle-dog at his feet.
Now this was perhaps from arrogance; and the shadow on the ground kept
itself so still and quiet, that it might hear all that passed: it
wished to know how it could get free, and work its way up, so as to
become its own master.
"Do you know who lived in our opposite neighbor's house?" said the
shadow; "it was the most charming of all beings, it was Poesy! I was
there for three weeks, and that has as much effect as if one had lived
three thousand years, and read all that was composed and written; that
is what I say, and it is right. I have seen everything and I know
everything!"
"Poesy!" cried the learned man; "yes, yes, she often dwells a recluse
in large cities! Poesy! yes, I have seen her,--a single short moment,
but sleep came into my eyes! She stood on the balcony and shone as the
aurora borealis shines. Go on, go on!--thou wert on the balcony, and
went through the doorway, and then------"
"Then I was in the antechamber," said the shadow. "You always sat and
looked over to the antechamber. There was no light; there was a sort
of twilight, but the one door stood open directly opposite the other
through a long row of rooms and saloons, and there it was lighted up.
I should have been completely killed if I had gone over to the maiden;
but I was circumspect, I took time to think, and that one must always
do."
"And what didst thou then see?" asked the learned man.
"I saw everything, and I shall tell all to you: but,--it is no pride
on my part,--as a free man, and with the knowledge I have, not to
speak of my position in life, my excellent circumstances,--I certainly
wish that you would say _you_* to me!"
------
* It is the custom in Denmark for intimate acquaintances to use the
second person singular, "Du," (thou) when speaking to each other. When
a friendship is formed between men, they generally affirm it, when
occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to each
other and exclaiming, "_thy health_," at the same time striking their
glasses together.--This is called drinking "_Duus_:"--they are then,
"_Duus Brodre_," (thou brothers,) and ever afterwards use the pronoun
"_thou_," to each other, it being regarded as more familiar than "De,"
(you). Father and mother, sister and brother, say _thou_ to one
another--without regard to age or rank. Master and mistress say _thou_
to their servants--the superior to the inferior. But servants and
inferiors do not use the same term to their masters, or superiors--nor
is it ever used when speaking to a stranger, or any one with whom they
are but slightly acquainted--they then say as in English--_you._
------
"I beg your pardon," said the learned man; "it is an old habit with
me. _You_ are perfectly right, and I shall remember it; but now _you_
must tell me all _you_ saw!"
"Everything!" said the shadow, "for I saw everything, and I know
everything!"
"How did it look in the furthest saloon?" asked the learned man. "Was
it there as in the fresh woods? Was it there as in a holy church? Were
the saloons like the starlit firmament when we stand on the high
mountains?"
"Everything was there!" said the shadow. "I did not go quite in, I
remained in the foremost room, in the twilight, but I stood there
quite well; I saw everything, and I know everything! I have been in
the antechamber at the court of Poesy."
"But _what did_ you see? Did all the gods of the olden times pass
through the large saloons? Did the old heroes combat there? Did sweet
children play there, and relate their dreams?"
"I tell you I was there, and you can conceive that I saw everything
there was to be seen. Had you come over there, you would not have been
a man; but I became so! And besides, I learned to know my inward
nature, my innate qualities, the relationship I had with Poesy. At the
time I was with you, I thought not of that, but always--you know it
well--when the sun rose, and when the sun went down, I became so
strangely great; in the moonlight I was very near being more distinct
than yourself; at that time I did not understand my nature; it was
revealed to me in the antechamber! I became a man!--I came out
matured; but you were no longer in the warm lands;--as a man I was
ashamed to go as I did. I was in want of boots, of clothes, of the
whole human varnish that makes a man perceptible. I took my way--I
tell it to you, but you will not put it in any book--I took my way to
the cake woman--I hid myself behind her; the woman didn't think how
much she concealed. I went out first in the evening; I ran about the
streets in the moonlight; I made myself long up the walls--it tickles
the back so delightfully! I ran up, and ran down, peeped into the
highest windows, into the saloons, and on the roofs, I peeped in where
no one could peep, and I saw what no one else saw, what no one else
should see! This is, in fact, a base world! I would not be a man if it
were not now once accepted and regarded as something to be so! I saw
the most unimaginable things with the women, with the men, with
parents, and with the sweet, matchless children; I saw," said the
shadow "what no human being must know, but what they would all so
willingly know--what is bad in their neighbor. Had I written a
newspaper, it would have been read! but I wrote direct to the persons
themselves, and there was consternation in all the towns where I came.
They were so afraid of me, and yet they were so excessively fond of
me. The professors made a professor of me; the tailors gave me new
clothes--I am well furnished; the master of the mint struck new coin
for me, and the women said I was so handsome! and so I became the man
I am. And I now bid you farewell;--here is my card--I live on the
sunny side of the street, and am always at home in rainy weather!" And
so away went the shadow.
"That was most extraordinary!" said the learned man.
Years and days passed away, then the shadow came again.
"How goes it?" said the shadow.
"Alas!" said the learned man, "I write about the true, and the good,
and the beautiful, but no one cares to hear such things; I am quite
desperate, for I take it so much to heart!"
"But I don't!" said the shadow, "I become fat, and it is that one
wants to become! You do not understand the world. You will become ill
by it. You must travel! I shall make a tour this summer; will you go
with me?--I should like to have a travelling companion! will you go
with me, as shadow? It will be a great pleasure for me to have you
with me; I shall pay the travelling expenses!"
"Nay, this is too much!" said the learned man.
"It is just as one takes it!"--said the shadow. "It will do you much
good to travel!--will you be my shadow?--you shall have everything
free on the journey!"
"Nay, that is too bad!" said the learned man.
"But it is just so with the world!" said the shadow,--"and so it will
be!"--and away it went again.
The learned man was not at all in the most enviable state; grief and
torment followed him, and what he said about the true, and the good,
and the beautiful, was, to most persons, like roses for a cow!--he was
quite ill at last.
"You really look like a shadow!" said his friends to him; and the
learned man trembled, for he thought of it.
"You must go to a watering-place!" said the shadow, who came and
visited him; "there is nothing else for it! I will take you with me
for old acquaintance' sake; I will pay the travelling expenses, and
you write the descriptions--and if they are a little amusing for me on
the way! I will go to a watering-place,--my beard does not grow out as
it ought--that is also a sickness--and one must have a beard! Now you
be wise and accept the offer; we shall travel as comrades!"
And so they travelled; the shadow was master, and the master was the
shadow; they drove with each other, they rode and walked together,
side by side, before and behind, just as the sun was; the shadow
always took care to keep itself in the master's place. Now the learned
man didn't think much about that; he was a very kind-hearted man, and
particularly mild and friendly, and so he said one day to the shadow:
"As we have now become companions, and in this way have grown up
together from childhood, shall we not drink '_thou_' together, it is
more familiar?"
"You are right," said the shadow, who was now the proper master. "It
is said in a very straight-forward and well-meant manner. You, as a
learned man, certainly know how strange nature is. Some persons cannot
bear to touch grey paper, or they become ill; others shiver in every
limb if one rub a pane of glass with a nail: I have just such a
feeling on hearing you say _thou_ to me; I feel myself as if pressed
to the earth in my first situation with you. You see that it is a
feeling; that it is not pride: I cannot allow you to say _thou_ to me,
but I will willingly say _thou_ to you, so it is half done!"
So the shadow said _thou_ to its former master.
"This is rather too bad," thought he, that I must say _you_ and he say
"thou," but he was now obliged to put up with it.
So they came to a watering-place where there were many strangers, and
amongst them was a princess, who was troubled with seeing too well;
and that was so alarming!
She directly observed that the stranger who had just come was quite a
different sort of person to all the others;--"He has come here in
order to get his beard to grow, they say, but I see the real cause, he
cannot cast a shadow."
She had become inquisitive; and so she entered into conversation
directly with the strange gentleman, on their promenades. As the
daughter of a king, she needed not to stand upon trifles, so she said,
"Your complaint is, that you cannot cast a shadow?"
"Your Royal Highness must be improving considerably," said the
shadow,--"I know your complaint is, that you see too clearly, but it
has decreased, you are cured. I just happen to have a very unusual
shadow! Do you not see that person who always goes with me? Other
persons have a common shadow, but I do not like what is common to all.
We give our servants finer cloth for their livery than we ourselves
use, and so I had my shadow trimmed up into a man: yes, you see I have
even given him a shadow. It is somewhat expensive, but I like to have
something for myself!"
"What!" thought the princess, "should I really be cured! These baths
are the first in the world! In our time water has wonderful powers.
But I shall not leave the place, for it now begins to be amusing here.
I am extremely fond of that stranger: would that his beard should not
grow! for in that case he will leave us."
In the evening, the princess and the shadow danced together in the
large ball-room. She was light, but he was still lighter; she had
never had such a partner in the dance. She told him from what land she
came, and he knew that land; he had been there, but then she was not
at home; he had peeped in at the window, above and below--he had seen
both the one and the other, and so he could answer the princess, and
make insinuations, so that she was quite astonished; he must be the
wisest man in the whole world! she felt such respect for what he knew!
So that when they again danced together she fell in love with him; and
that the shadow could remark, for she almost pierced him through with
her eyes. So they danced once more together; and she was about to
declare herself, but she was discreet; she thought of her country and
kingdom, and of the many persons she would have to reign over.
"He is a wise man," said she to herself--"It is well; and he dances
delightfully--that is also good; but has he solid knowledge?--that is
just as important!--he must be examined."
So she began, by degrees, to question him about the most difficult
things she could think of, and which she herself could not have
answered; so that the shadow made a strange face.
"You cannot answer these questions?" said the princess.
"They belong to my childhood's learning," said the shadow. "I really
believe my shadow, by the door there, can answer them!"
"Your shadow!" said the princess; "that would indeed be marvellous!"
"I will not say for a certainty that he can," said the shadow, "but I
think so; he has now followed me for so many years, and listened to my
conversation--I should think it possible. But your royal highness will
permit me to observe, that he is so proud of passing himself off for a
man, that when he is to be in a proper humor--and he must be so to
answer well--he must be treated quite like a man."
"Oh! I like that!" said the princess.
So she went to the learned man by the door, and she spoke to him about
the sun and the moon, and about persons out of and in the world, and
he answered with wisdom and prudence.
"What a man that must be who has so wise a shadow!" thought she; "It
will be a real blessing to my people and kingdom if I choose him for
my consort--I will do it!"
They were soon agreed, both the princess and the shadow; but no one
was to know about it before she arrived in her own kingdom.
"No one--not even my shadow!" said the shadow, and he had his own
thoughts about it!
Now they were in the country where the princess reigned when she was
at home.
"Listen, my good friend," said the shadow to the learned man. "I have
now become as happy and mighty as any one can be; I will, therefore,
do something particular for thee! Thou shalt always live with me in
the palace, drive with me in my royal carriage, and have ten thousand
pounds a year; but then thou must submit to be called shadow by all
and every one; thou must not say that thou hast ever been a man; and
once a-year, when I sit on the balcony in the sunshine, thou must lie
at my feet, as a shadow shall do! I must tell thee: I am going to
marry the king's daughter, and the nuptials are to take place this
evening!"
"Nay, this is going too far!" said the learned man; "I will not have
it; I will not do it! it is to deceive the whole country and the
princess too! I will tell every thing!--that I am a man, and that thou
art a shadow--thou art only dressed up!"
"There is no one who will believe it!" said the shadow; "be
reasonable, or I will call the guard!"
"I will go directly to the princess!" said the learned man.
"But I will go first!" said the shadow, "and thou wilt go to prison!"
and that he was obliged to do--for the sentinels obeyed him whom they
knew the king's daughter was to marry.
"You tremble!" said the princess, as the shadow came into her chamber;
"has anything happened? You must not be unwell this evening, now that
we are to have our nuptials celebrated."
"I have lived to see the most cruel thing that any one can live to
see!" said the shadow. "Only imagine--yes, it is true, such a poor
shadow-skull cannot bear much--only think, my shadow has become mad;
he thinks that he is a man, and that I--now only think--that I am his
shadow!"
"It is terrible!" said the princess; "but he is confined, is he not?"
"That he is. I am afraid that he will never recover."
"Poor shadow!" said the princess, "he is very unfortunate; it would be
a real work of charity to deliver him from the little life he has,
and, when I think properly over the matter, I am of opinion that it
will be necessary to do away with him in all stillness!"
"It is certainly hard!" said the shadow, "for he was a faithful
servant!" and then he gave a sort of sigh.
"You are a noble character!" said the princess.
The whole city was illuminated in the evening, and the cannons went
off with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a
marriage! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show
themselves, and get another hurrah!
The learned man heard nothing of all this--for they had deprived him
of life.
------------
THE OLD STREET-LAMP.
Have you heard the story about the old street lamp? It is not so very
amusing, but one may very well hear it once. It was such a decent old
street-lamp, that had done its duty for many, many years, but now it
was to be condemned. It was the last evening,--it sat there on the
post and lighted the street; and it was in just such a humor as an old
figurante in a ballet, who dances for the last evening, and knows that
she is to be put on the shelf to-morrow. The lamp had such a fear of
the coming day, for it knew that it should then be carried to the
town-hall for the first time, and examined by the authorities of the
city, who should decide if it could be used or not. It would then be
determined whether it should be sent out to one of the suburbs, or in
to the country to a manufactory; perhaps it would be sent direct to
the ironfounder's and be re-cast; in that case it could certainly be
all sorts of things: but it pained it not to know whether it would
then retain the remembrance of its having been a street-lamp.
However it might be, whether it went into the country or not, it would
be separated from the watchman and his wife, whom it regarded as its
family. It became a street-lamp when he became watchman. His wife was
a very fine woman at that time; it was only in the evening when she
went past the lamp that she looked at it, but never in the daytime.
Now, on the contrary, of late years, as they had all three grown
old,--the watchman, his wife, and the lamp,--the wife had always
attended to it, polished it up, and put oil in it. They were honest
folks that married couple, they had not cheated the lamp of a single
drop. It was its last evening in the street, and to-morrow it was to
be taken to the town-hall; these were two dark thoughts in the lamp,
and so one can know how it burnt. But other thoughts also passed
through it; there was so much it had seen, so much it had a desire
for, perhaps just as much as the whole of the city authorities; but it
didn't say so, for it was a well-behaved old lamp--it would not insult
any one, least of all its superiors. It remembered so much, and now
and then the flames within it blazed up,--it was as if it had a
feeling of--yes, they will also remember me! There was now that
handsome young man--but that is many years since,--he came with a
letter, it was on rose-colored paper; so fine--so fine! and with a
gilt edge; it was so neatly written, it was a lady's hand; he read it
twice, and he kissed it, and he looked up to me with his two bright
eyes--they said, "I am the happiest of men!" Yes, only he and I knew
what stood in that first letter from his beloved.
I also remember two other eyes--it is strange how one's thoughts fly
about!--there was a grand funeral here in the street, the beautiful
young wife lay in the coffin on the velvet-covered funeral car; there
were so many flowers and wreaths, there were so many torches burning,
that I was quite forgotten--out of sight; the whole footpath was
filled with persons; they all followed in the procession; but when the
torches were out of sight, and I looked about, there stood one who
leaned against my post and wept. I shall never forget those two
sorrowful eyes that looked into me. Thus there passed many thoughts
through the old street-lamp, which this evening burnt for the last
time. The sentinel who is relieved from his post knows his successor,
and can say a few words to him, but the lamp knew not its successor;
and yet it could have given him a hint about rain and drizzle, and how
far the moon shone on the footpath, and from what corner the wind
blew.