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


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