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.”
