The shadow man
Clouds, 2005 - Kumi Yamashita - Permanent Collection Stellar Place Sapporo JR Tower, Hokkaido, Japan.
What sort of a man was I then? The shadow of a man! And what kind of life was mine? As long as I was content to remain shut up in myself and watch others live, yes, then I could prolong the illusion that I was living a new life.
Mattia sees his new identity as the shadow of his former identity. At the same time, his former identity ‘Mattia Pascal’ haunts his new identity as Adriano Meis as a shadow that he wants to get rid of and forget. However, his old shadow and identity are still very much a part of him:
_I looked around; then my eyes fell on the shadow of my body, and I stood there for a while, contemplating it. I raised my foot over it angrily. But no, I couldn’t trample on my shadow. Which of us was more of a shadow? It, or I? Two Shadows!.
As Adriano Meis tries to trample his own shadow, he sees the duality. Who is the real shadow? The literal shadow that represents his old, but real life and identity? Or his new persona Adriano Meis, who is but a construction made by Mattia Pascal? He then tries to get rid of his shadow by letting it be trampled by wagons and feet as he tries to run away from it. He turns around and sees his shadow is still following him and he starts to feel guilty
Then I felt that my shadow was a living thing, and I felt its pain, as if the horse and the wagon’s wheels and the feet of the passers-by had really crushed it.
Regret hits Adriano Meis as he sees how much he has hurt and neglected his old identity. He tries to reboot his old life, so he ‘kills’ Adriano Meis by faking his suicide and returning to his old home
And now, after two years of roaming like a shadow in that illusion of life beyond death, I saw myself being forced bodily to carry out the sentence they had passed. They had really killed me! And they, they alone, were freed of me… (…) That shadow of a life, born from a macabre lie, would end worthily, like this, in another macabre lie! And I would settle everything!
When he arrives in his old town and lets everybody know that Mattia Pascal has returned, he finds out that his old life and identity are gone. His wife has taken his old friend as her new husband and together they are raising a child. If Mattia Pascal would legally return to life, the second marriage of his wife would be annulled. And so Mattia Pascal ‘dies’ for a third time and lives the rest of his life as a shadow of his former self. While standing by his grave and contemplating his life, a passer-by asks him about his identity, whereupon our protagonist says: “Ah my dear friend… I am the late Mattia Pascal.”