Shades (Prus, tr. Kasparek)

by Bolesław Prus

Shades

As the sun's rays die away in the sky, twilight emerges from the earth. Twilight – a great army of the night, with thousands of invisible columns and billions of soldiers. A mighty army that from time immemorial has been contending with light, has been scattering with each dawn, has been victorious with each evening, has been holding sway from sunset to sunrise, and in the daytime, scattered, has been hiding and waiting.

Waiting in mountain fastnesses and in urban cellars, in forest thickets and in deeps of gloomy lakes. Waiting in ageless caverns, in mines, in ditches, in corners of homes, in niches of walls. Scattered and ostensibly not there, yet it fills every nook and cranny. It is in every crevice of tree bark, in the folds of people's clothing; it lies beneath the smallest grain of sand, clings to the finest spider's thread, and waits. Flushed from one spot, in the twinkling of an eye it shifts to another, taking any opportunity to return whence it had been driven out, to seize vacant positions and to flood the earth.

As the sun fades, a twilight army moves out in serried ranks from its retreats, silent and wary. It fills the corridors, entrance halls, and poorly lit stairways of buildings; from beneath wardrobes and tables it creeps out into the middle of the room and assails the curtains; through cellar air vents and window panes it moves out into the streets, storms in dead silence the walls and roofs and, lurking on the rooftops, patiently waits for the rosy clouds to fade in the west.

Another moment, and there will suddenly erupt a huge explosion of darkness reaching from earth to heaven. Animals will hide in their lairs, people will run home; life, like a plant without water, will contract and start to wither. Colors and shapes will dissolve into nothingness; fear, errancy, and crime will take their sway over the world.

At that moment, on the near-empty streets of Warsaw there appears the curious figure of a man with a small flame over his head. He dashes down the sidewalk as if chased by the dark, stops a moment at each lamppost, kindles a cheery light, then vanishes like a shade.

And so, every day of the year. Whether, in the fields, spring breathes a fragrance of blossoms, or a July storm rages; whether, in the streets, wild autumn winds hurl clouds of dust, or winter snows billow through the air – always, as soon as evening comes, he runs down the city sidewalks with his little flame, kindles light, then disappears like a shade.

Where do you come from, O man, and where do you keep yourself, that we know not your features nor hear your voice? Have you wife or mother who awaits your return? Or children who set your torch in the corner and climb to your lap and embrace your neck? Have you friends whom you tell your joys and sorrows, or acquaintances with whom you can talk of the day's events?

Have you, indeed, a home where you may be found? a name by which you may be called? needs and feelings that make you a man like us? Or are you in fact a formless, silent, intangible being that appears only at twilight, kindles light, then disappears like a shade?

I was told that he was actually a man, and I was even given his address. I went to the tenement and asked the porter:

"Does the man who lights the street lamps live here?"

"Yes, he does."

"Where, exactly?"

"In that little room."

The little room was locked. I looked in at the window, but I saw only a couch next to the wall and beside it, on a tall staff, a torch. The lamplighter wasn't in.

"Tell me, at least, what he looks like."

"Who knows?" shrugged the porter. "I don't rightly know him," he added, "because he's never in by day."

Half a year later, I went there again.

"Is the lamplighter in today?"

"Oh, no!" said the porter, "he isn't, and he's not going to be. Yesterday they buried him. He died."

The porter mused.

After asking about a few details, I rode to the cemetery.

"Gravedigger, show me where the lamplighter was buried yesterday."

"Lamplighter?" he said. "Who knows! There were thirty passengers came in yesterday."

"He was buried in the paupers' section."

"There were twenty-five of those."

"He lay in an unpainted coffin."

"They brought in sixteen like that."

So I never did set eyes on his face or get to know his name, or even see his grave. And he remained in death what he had been in life: a being visible only at twilight, silent and intangible as a shade.

Amid the murk of life, where hapless mankind gropes its way along, where some persons smash into obstacles, and others fall into a chasm, and where no one knows a sure path, where superstition-beset man is prey to ill fortune, misery, and hatred – still, in those dark trackless places in life, lamplighters bustle. Each carries a little flame over his head, each kindles light along his path, lives unknown, labors inestimable, then vanishes like a shade...