506 – The Lady, or the Tiger?

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Hey, my name is Otis Gray, and you're listening to Sleepy.

A podcast where I read old books to help you get to sleep.

And this is a midweek short story for you.

Well, this week, the short story is, it's a fable, and it's kind of a age-old dilemma,

kind of a philosophy problem or human problem, I guess you might say, regardless, it makes

for a really good short story, which I think you're going to like.

And before we get to this bedtime short story, I just want to profoundly thank all of our

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And as always, the music you're hearing is by my good friend, James Lebkowski, and the

cover of Sleepy.

It's by Gracie Canaan.

So tonight's short story is by Frank Richard Stockton, and it is called The Lady or The Tiger.

This is a particularly philosophical story in that it ends pretty open and it leaves

you with plenty to think about.

In fact, the author even guides you in a little bit of a thought experiment at the end,

which I'm hoping you don't get to because I'm hoping that you're very deep asleep by

that.

But regardless, the story is, first of all, it's very kind of melodic and old school and

it's telling very medieval.

And by the end, you've got quite a little interesting predicament on your hands.

It's something that you might keep thinking about afterwards.

And we've read some Frank Richard Stockton on the show before, and he's doing really brilliant

writer.

I think it speaks to his writing how classic and fresh it still kind of feels while still

having a vintage aesthetic to it.

Regardless, this is a really great book to doze off to, or short story.

So tonight, I hope you can sleep so soundly to this short story, The Lady or The Tiger

by Frank Richard Stockton.

And now is the time for you to fluff up your pillow just how you like it.

Feel yourself, melt into your bed, get real comfortable, close your eyes, and let me

retune.

The Lady or The Tiger.

In the very olden time, where lived a semi-barbaric king whose ideas, though somewhat polished,

and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large

floored and untrammeled, as became the half of him, which was barbaric.

He was a man of exuberant fancy, and with all love and authority so irresistible that

at his will he turned his varied fancies into facts.

He was greatly given the self-commuting, and when he and himself agreed upon anything,

the thing was done.

When every member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly in its appointed course,

his nature was bland and genial.

But whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs got out of their orbits,

he was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the

crooked straight and crush down on even places.

Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the public

arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects

were refined and cultured.

But even here, the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself.

The arena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity of hearing the

rapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to view the inevitable conclusion of

a conflict between religious opinions and hungry jaws, but for the purposes far better

adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the people.

This vast amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its

unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded

by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.

When a subject was accused of a crime, of sufficient importance to interest the king, public

notice was given that on an appointed day, the fate of the accused person would be decided

in the king's arena, a structure which well deserved its name, for although its form

and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man,

who, every barley corned king, knew no tradition to which he owed more legions than pleases fancy,

and who engrafted on every adopted form of human thought, the action, the rich growth

of his barbaric idealism.

When all the people had assembled in the galleries and the king, surrounded by his core, sat

high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door

beneath him opened, and the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater.

Directly opposite to him, on the other side of the enclosed space, were two doors, exactly

alike, and side by side.

It was the duty and the privilege of the person on trial to walk directly to these doors,

and open one of them.

He could open either door, he pleased, he was subject to no guidance or influence, but

that of the aforementioned and impartial and incorruptible chance.

If he opened the one, there came out of him, a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel

that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces as

a punishment for his guilt.

The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanked.

Great whales went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and

the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, went it slowly their homeward

way.

Morning greatly, that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have married

it so dire of ae.

But if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it, a lady.

The most suitable to his ears, and station, that his majesty could select upon his fair

subjects.

And to this lady, he was immediately married as a reward of his innocence.

It matter not that he might already possess a wife and a family, or that his affections

might be engaged upon an object of his own selection.

The king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution

and reward.

The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately and in the arena.

The door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers and dancing

maidens, blowing joyous airs and golden horns, and treading an epithomic measure, advanced

to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding was promptly and cheerily solenized.

And the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peels, and the people of shouted, glad

are raws, and the innocent man, preceded by children, stroing flowers on his path, that

is bright to his home.

This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice.

His perfect fairness is obvious.

The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady.

He opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant,

he was to be devoured or married.

On some occasions, the tiger came out of one door, and on some, out of the other.

The decisions of this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively determined.

The accused person was instantly punished, if he found himself guilty, and if innocent,

he was rewarded on the spa, whether he liked it or not.

There was no escape from the judgments of the king's arena.

The institution was a very popular one.

When the people gathered together on one side of the great trial days, they never knew whether

they were to witness a bloody slaughter or hilarious wedding.

This element of uncertainty lent an interest to the occasion which you cannot otherwise

have attained.

Thus, the masses were entertained and pleased, and the thinking part of the community could

bring no charge of unfairness against his plan, for did not the accused person have the

whole matter in his own hands.

The semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most floored fancies, and with the

soul as fervent and imperious as his own.

As as usual, in such cases, she was the apple of his eye, and was loved by him, above

all humanity.

Among his courteers was a young man of that fineness of blood and loneliness of stationed

common to the conventional heroes of romance, who love royal maidens.

This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave,

to a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom.

And she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly

warm and strong.

This love affair moved on happily for many months until one day the king happened to discover

its existence.

She did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duties and the premises.

The youth was immediately cast into prison, and the day was appointed for his trial and

the king's arena.

This of course, was an especially important occasion, and his majesty, as well as all the

people, was greatly interested in the workings and development of this trial.

Before before that such a case occurred, never before had a subject dared to love the daughter

of the king.

In after years such things became commonplace enough, but then there were no slight degree

novel and startling.

The tiger cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts,

from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena.

And the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent

judges in order that the young man may have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine

for him a different destiny.

Of course, everybody knew that the deed with which the accused was charged had been done.

He had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor anyone else thought of denying the fact.

But the king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the

workings of the tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction.

No matter how the affair turned out, the youth would be disposed of, and the king would

take an aesthetic pleasure in watching the course of events, which would determine whether

or not the young man had done wrong in allowing himself to love the princess.

The appointed day arrived and thronged the great galleries of the arena and crowds unable

to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls.

The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors, those fateful portals,

so terrible in their similarity.

Always ready, the signal was given, a door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover

of the princess walked into the arena.

All beautiful, fair, this appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety.

Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them.

No wonder the princess loved him, what a terrible thing for him to be there.

As the youth advanced into the arena, he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king,

but he did not think at all of that royal personage.

His eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father.

Had it not been for the moody of barbarism in her nature, it is probable the lady would

not have been there.

Without her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent, on an occasion in

which she was so terribly interested.

From the moment that the decree had gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in

the king's arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the

various subjects connected with it.

Excessed of more power influenced and force of character than anyone who had ever before

been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done.

She had possessed herself of the secret of the doors.

She knew in which of the two rooms that lay behind those doors stood the cage of the

tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady.

Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside.

It was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within to the person who

should approach to raise the latch of one of them.

At gold, and the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess.

And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing

and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was.

It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the corps, who had been selected,

as the reward of the accused you, should he be proved innocent of the crime, of aspiring

to one so far above her, and the princess hated her.

Often as she seen, or imagined that she had seen this fair creature throwing glances of

admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were

perceived, and even returned.

Now and then, she had seen them talking together.

It was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space, and may have been

on most unimportant topics, but how could she know that?

The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess,

and with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of

holy barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent

door.

When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eyes met her as she sat there, paler

and whiter than anyone in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw by that

power of quick perception, which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew

behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady.

He had expected her to know it, he understood her nature, and his soul was assured that

she would never rest until she made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other

lookers on, even the king.

The only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon

the success of the princess in discovering this mystery, and the moment he looked upon

her, he saw she had succeeded, as in his soul he knew she would succeed.

Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question, which it was as plain

to her as if he shouted it from where he stood.

There was not an instant to be lost, the question was asked in a flash, it must be answered

in another.

Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her, she raised her hand, and made a slight

quick movement to the right.

No one but her lover saw her, every eye by his was fixed on the man in the arena.

He turned, and with a firm and rapid step, he walked across the empty space.

Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed and movably

upon that man, without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right and opened

it.

Now, the point of the story is this, did the tiger come out of that door or did the lady?

The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer, it involves a study

of the human heart, which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is

difficult to find our way.

Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but

upon the hot blooded semi-barbaric princess.

Her soul, that a white he beneath combined fires of despair and jealousy.

She had lost him, but who should have him?

How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, that she started in wild horror and covered

her face with her hands as she thought of her lover, opening the door on the other side

of which weighed the cruel fangs of the tiger.

But how much often her, as she seen him at the other door?

How, in her grievous reveries, as she gnashed her teeth and torn her hair when she saw his

star of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady?

Her soul had burned an agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her

flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph.

When she had seen him, leader-fourth, his whole frame kindled with joy of recovered life.

When she heard the glad shouts in the multitude and the wild ringing of the happy bells.

When she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advanced to the couple and make

the man and wife before her very eyes.

And when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the

tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude in which her one despairing shriek was lost

and drowned.

She would not be better for him to die at once and go to waver in the blessed regions

of semi-barbaric futurity.

And yet that awful tiger, those shrieks that blood, her decision had been indicated in

an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguish deliberation.

She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and without

the slightest hesitation she had moved her hand to the right.

The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for

me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it.

And so I leave it with all of you, which came out of the open door, the lady or the tiger.

Thank you for listening to Sleepy, goodnight.