t--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
ser