The Shadow
* 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 anyone 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 traveling 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 traveling 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 traveling 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 traveled; 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 gray 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.