I am a stranger, traveling through the desert to Damascus. Now I am hot and tired, and I have come to rest in the shadow of a castle. A maiden in the window calls to me softly. Are you a man or a ghost? she asks.

I answer, “I am a man, and a better one, too, than your father or your grandfather.”

The Stranger in Dschemil and Dschemila, The Grey Fairy Book. Painting “Temptations of Jesus” by James Tissot.