The Shadow: Of all that you have enunciated, nothing pleased me more than one promise: “Ye want again to be good neighbours to the most familiar things.” This will be to the advantage of us poor shadows too. For do but confess that you have hitherto been only too fond of reviling us.

The Wanderer: Reviling? But why did you never defend yourselves? After all, you were very close to our ears.

The Shadow: It seemed to us that we were too near you to have a right to talk of ourselves.

The Wanderer: What delicacy! Ah, you shadows are “better men”30 than we, I can see that.

The Shadow: And yet you called us “importunate”—us, who know one thing at least extremely well: how to be silent and to wait—no Englishman knows it better. It is true we are very, very often in the retinue of men, but never as their bondsmen. When man shuns light, we shun man—so far, at least, we are free.

The Wanderer: Ah, light shuns man far oftener, and then also you abandon him.

The Shadow: It has often pained me to leave you. I am eager for knowledge, and much in man has remained obscure to me, because I cannot always be in his company. At the price of complete knowledge of man I would gladly be your slave.

The Wanderer: Do you know, do I know, whether you would not then unwittingly become master instead [pg 365] of slave? Or would remain a slave indeed, but would lead a life of humiliation and disgust because you despised your master? Let us both be content with freedom such as you have enjoyed up to now—you and I! For the sight of a being not free would embitter my greatest joys; all that is best would be repugnant to me if any one had to share it with me—I will not hear of any slaves about me. That is why I do not care for the dog, that lazy, tail-wagging parasite, who first became “doggish” as the slave of man, and of whom they still say that he is loyal to his master and follows him like——

The Shadow: Like his shadow, they say. Perhaps I have already followed you too long to-day? It has been the longest day, but we are nearing the end; be patient a little more! The grass is damp; I am feeling chilly.

The Wanderer: Oh, is it already time to part? And I had to hurt you in the end—I saw you became darker.

The Shadow: I blushed the only colour I have at command. I remembered that I had often lain at your feet like a dog, and that you then——

The Wanderer: Can I not with all speed do something to please you? Have you no wish?

The Shadow: None, except perhaps the wish that the philosophic “dog”31 expressed to Alexander the Great—just move a little out of my light; I feel cold.

The Wanderer: What am I to do?