Ombre blanche de l'homme qui marche

Summary

In The Strange Story of Peter Schlemihl written in 1813 by Adelbert von Chamisso, out of necessity of money, the hero decides to sell his shadow to the devil; this shadow is of no use to him; as much as having money. But his life of a being without shade soon becomes unbearable; he is stigmatized as a being apart and is the laughing stock of everyone he crosses. Strange story of a being become strange. So he decides to re buy it back but for that will have to sell his soul to the devil. The shadow (black) is a double that never leaves the Being. The white shadow, negative of the previous one, is obtained by means of a china plate with bas-relief motifs and lit by the back. The expression "White Shadow" thanks to its poetic power became the title of a film by Flaherty, then the name of a bookstore, which was so flourishing that by consulting google today I could not find the origin of the word.