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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 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!"
Andersen's Fairy Tales 74/87
Andersen's Fairy Tales
"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!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]