The Antichrist by Joseph Roth, Richard Panchyk Page B

and hopes are directed towards catching a glimpse of, speaking to, embracing or applauding the
doppelgängers
of the shadows they adore. These worshippers are unaware that the originators of the shadows are only
doppelgängers.
The worshippers believe that the actors are yet masters of themselves and of their shadows. And just as many lovers of books and literature have a yearning to see the authors of their favourite works in the flesh, so the shadow-worshipper also wants to see, hear and touch the supposedly living actors. However, they merely encounter the shadows of the famous and beloved shadows.
    None the less, even those who are only the shadows of the celebrated and beloved shadows imagine that they are quite alive, like all other people. They are so maintained and strengthened in this conceit by the adoration of their worshippers that a
doppelgängers
of his beloved shadow becomes very unhappy if he is not greeted as he was the day before or if one of his colleagues is greeted more cordially than he.
    This vanity and this jealousy nearly led me to believe that these shadows of shadows are somehow human.
    On other occasions, however, I was persuaded that they are very different from the rest of mankind.
    For example, I saw that women who were pregnant were forbidden to sell their shadows any more.
    So they left the shadow-factory, without a word. This seemed to them quite natural.
    When pregnant women are shown in films, they are played by non-pregnant women who place a pillow under their clothes and over their wombs. And, as the manmade and moveable palms are preferred to the genuine and rooted palms, the padding is preferred to the pregnant womb.
    It is, by the way, wondrous that the
doppelgängers
of a shadow should still possess the natural ability to become pregnant, sometimes even from the embrace of the
doppelgängers
of another shadow
    In this, however, let us recognize the immeasurable goodness of God.
    His unfathomable benevolence calls the female shadow to the life of motherhood. Because she has become a living person, because of what is, in her case, the twofold wonder of motherhood, she can no longer play a role – in the actual sense of this word – in the world of shadows. And they chase her out of the gates of the shadow-factory.
    I will take this opportunity to mention that in all the countries of the world that are viewed as civilized, the laws of humanity and religion forbid a woman to have the ripening fruit of her body removed.
    If I had the power, in the name of divine or earthly justice, to issue decrees, I would outlaw the shadow-factories of Hollywood, if only because they compel women to have the ripening fruit extracted from their bodies.
    It grievously astonishes me that ecclesiastical and secular legislators do not know, or do not notice, the inhuman laws of the shadow-factories.
    In all the countries of this civilized world a hungry beggar woman is thrown in prison if she has an abortion.
    A shadow-manufacturer, however, who causes pregnant women to get abortions, is not sent to prison.
    God sees all this. And He will judge the lawmakers as He will judge the shadow-manufacturers. But He will not judge the beggar women.
    The Lord will not judge the poor. Nor will He, unlike the law-makers of this world, in any way judge the destitute who sneak into houses, into strangers’ houses.
    Such poor I have seen in Hollywood, too. There the poor also sell their shadows. Only there they are not called poor but ‘extras’.
    And it happens that for one shadow-show or another, many shadow-people are wanted, for example to dwell in a wonderful palace.
    They aren’t allowed to live in the palace as real people but only as people’s shadows or shadow-people.
    Once their shadows have been sold they cannot stay in the palace any longer.
    It happens that many of the poor who are extras in Hollywood have no shelter for the night.
    And, although they have sold their shadows