"Shades" (Polish: "Cienie") is one of Bolesław Prus' shortest micro-stories. Written in 1885, it comes from a several years' period of pessimism in the author's life caused partly by the 1883 failure of Nowiny (News), a Warsaw daily that he had been editing less than a year. Prus, the "lamplighter" who had striven to dispel darkness and its attendant "fear, errancy, and crime," had failed to sufficiently interest the public in his "observatory of societal facts," Nowiny.[1]
"Shades" is one of several micro-stories by Bolesław Prus that were inspired partly by 19th-century French prose poetry.[2]
Prus scholar Zygmunt Szweykowski writes:
Prus's micro-story "Shades" comprises two parts. The first half evokes the above-described atmosphere of dread, via Prus's description of an eternal contest between light and darkness. The second half of the micro-story pictures the efforts of one of a number of nameless lamplighters to dispel the darkness, for as long as his limited lifespan permits.