Fairy Tales

“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.