Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday

by Italo Calvino

  “Can’t you answer me that?” asked the Princess.

  “That was part of my nursery lessons,” said the Shadow. “I really believe my shadow there behind the door can answer that.”

  “Your shadow?” said the Princess. “That would be most remarkable.”

  “Well, I don’t say for certain that he can,” said the Shadow, “but I think it, seeing he has been following me and listening to me all these years—I do think it. But your Royal Highness will permit me to call your attention to the fact that he takes such pride in passing for a man, that if he’s to be in the right temper (as he must be to answer properly), he must be treated exactly like a man.” “I’m perfectly agreeable to that,” said the Princess. So she went across to the learned man at the door and talked to him about the sun and the moon, and about human nature, both outward and inward, and he answered her most wisely and well.

  “What a man must he be who has so wise a shadow!” thought she. “It would be a real blessing for my people and my realm if I chose him for my consort. I will!”

  And very soon they were agreed, the Princess and the Shadow, but no one was to know of it till she got back to her own kingdom.

  “No one, not even my shadow,” said the Shadow, who had his own thoughts about the matter.

  And now they were in the country over which the Princess ruled when she was at home.

  “Listen, my good friend,” said the Shadow to the learned man. “I am now become as fortunate and as powerful as anyone can be, and now I will do something special for you. You shall always live with me in the palace, and drive out with me in my royal coach, and you shall have a hundred thousand rix-dollars a year. But you must allow yourself to be called a shadow by everyone, you must never say that you were at one time a man, and once a year, when I sit on the balcony in the sunshine and allow myself to be looked at, you must lie at my feet as a shadow ought to do. I may as well tell you that I am going to marry the Princess. The wedding is to take place this evening.”

  “No, no! That is really too much,” said the learned man. “I won’t allow it. I won’t do it! It’s deceiving the whole country and the Princess too. I shall tell the whole story—that I am the man and you are the shadow; you’re only dressed up.”

  “Nobody will believe it,” said the Shadow. “Do be reasonable, or I shall call the guard.”

  “I shall go straight to the Princess,” said the learned man. “But I shall go first,” said the Shadow, “and you’ll go to prison.” And there he had to go, for the sentries obeyed the one whom they knew the Princess was to marry.

  “You are all in a tremble,” said the Princess, when the Shadow came into her room. “Has anything happened? You mustn’t be ill tonight; we’re going to be married.”

  “I have had the most terrible experience that can occur to anyone,” said the Shadow. “Only think of it—to be sure, a poor shadow’s brain isn’t equal to the strain—only think, my shadow has gone mad! He believes that he is the man and that I—just think of it—am his shadow!”

  “That is awful,” said the Princess; “I hope he is shut up?”

  “Indeed he is. I’m afraid he’ll never get the better of it.”

  “Poor shadow,” said the Princess; “it’s most unfortunate for him. It would really be a kindness to rid him of his little bit of life: indeed, when I come to think of it, I do believe it is essential that he should be quite quietly put out of the way.”

  “It’s really very hard!” said the Shadow. “He was a faithful servant to me,” and with that he seemed to sigh.

  “You are a noble character,” said the Princess.

  That evening the whole town was illuminated, and the cannons went off “Boom!” And the soldiers presented arms. It was a wedding, to be sure! The Princess and the Shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves and receive one last “Hurrah!”

  The learned man heard nothing of all this, for he had already been executed.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  The Signal-Man

  (1866)

  Charles Dickens (1812–1870) published his fantastic tales in small magazines (for which he was often both editor and primary contributor) that printed serialized novels and short stories. His best story in the genre, “The Signal-Man,” appeared in 1866 in All the Year Round. It is an extremely dense and compact tale; the action takes place amid rails and train noises, with sunsets over the desolate landscape of railheads and figures glimpsed just beyond the embankments. The industrial world as the setting now enters literature: we find ourselves far away from the visions of the first half of the century. The fantastic becomes a professional nightmare.

  HALLOA! Below there!”

  When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled around its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but, instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.

  “Halloa! Below!”

  From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

  “Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?”

  He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapor as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by.

  I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, “All right!” and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

  The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

  When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

  I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky: the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.

  Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he st
epped back one step, and lifted his hand.

  This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.

  He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel’s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me.

  That light was part of his charge—was it not?

  He answered in a low voice, “Don’t you know it is?”

  The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated, since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.

  In my turn I stepped back. But, in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight.

  “You look at me,” I said, forcing a smile, “as if you had a dread of me.”

  “I was doubtful,” he returned, “whether I had seen you before.”

  “Where?”

  He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

  “There?” I said.

  Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), “Yes.”

  “My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear.”

  “I think I may,” he rejoined. “Yes. I am sure I may.”

  His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work—manual labor—he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here, if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.

  He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut, he scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make another.

  All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the word, “Sir,” from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth, as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done.

  In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen color, turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder.

  Said I, when I rose to leave him, “You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man.”

  (I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)

  “I believe I used to be so,” he rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken; “but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled.”

  He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly.

  “With what? What is your trouble?”

  “It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you.”

  “But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall it be?”

  “I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten tomorrow night, sir.”

  “I will come at eleven.”

  He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. “I’ll show my white light, sir,” he said, in his peculiar low voice, “till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don’t call out! And when you are at the top, don’t call out!”

  His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, “Very well.”

  “And when you come down to-morrow night, don’t call out! Let me ask you a parting question. What made you cry, ‘Halloa! Below there!’ to-night?”

  “Heaven knows,” said I. “I cried something to that effect—”

  “Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them well.”

  “Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below.”

  “For no other reason?”

  “What other reason could I possibly have?”

  “You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way?”

  “No.”

  He wished me good-night, and held up his light. I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure.

  Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zigzag next night as the distant clocks were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. “I have not called out,” I said, when we came close together; “may I speak now?” “By all means, sir.” “Good-night, then, and here’s my hand.” “Goodnight, sir, and here’s mine.” With that we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the fire.

  “I have made up my mind, sir,” he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, “that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That trou
bles me.”

  “That mistake?”

  “No. That some one else.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Like me?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved, violently waved. This way.”

  I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating with the utmost passion and vehemence, “For God’s sake clear the way!”

  “One moonlight night,” said the man, “I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, ‘Halloa! Below there!’ I started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ‘Look out! Look out!’ And then again, ‘Halloa! Below there! Look out!’ I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, ‘What’s wrong? What has happened? Where?’ It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone.”

  “Into the tunnel,” said I.