A day or two later a typewritten letter, obviously for family reading, came to Gorgas, containing the simple statement that he thought the Leverings might be interested in the enclosed bit of writing.
A PARABLE OF IGNORANCE
His turban was a strange purple, and his gown was the orange of the dust of the road; and in his hand he bore no staff but a branch of wild grape. Although he had travelled far, yet was his face white; white like those hermits that dwell apart in caves; white was he as the live white of the growing lily, as the pallor of the moon in daylight; and the men and women of the city marvelled, for they were a dark people that worked in the furrows of the earth and lived daily in the sun.
Now the stranger would have passed on, but they came out from the gates of their city to gaze upon him. Some stood in the way and hindered, some touched reverently the hem of his robe, and many besought him to enter into their houses and stay with them.
But he said unto them, A wanderer have I been all the days of my manhood and must fare alone; although best of all things I love friends and companionship. And he would have turned back, even at the gate of the city, but they pressed him to come among them, if only for a little while. Friends, they cried, thou shalt have an abundance; for here everyone worketh with his hands in the fields, and each is neighbor to another. And he hearkened to them and said no word, but looked upon them as one with great longing. So he tarried with them.
And straightway some among them began to toil less in the heat of the day, and some wove coverings of straw to keep their faces from the light of the sun; and they said to one another in the market-place, How beautiful is the whiteness of the face and the hands of him that stooped to come among us. We are a rough people, dark of skin; from of old have we toiled with our hands and have lifted up our faces daily to the burning heavens, and see what it hath profited us. Would that we were as the holy man is.
Then went some to him in the night and told of their great desire to be as he. And one who was nearest him said unto him, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy comeliness lieth and wherewith we might be as thou art. And when they one and all pressed upon him to say wherewith they might be as he, he smiled and regarded them with great tenderness.
Yet he passed his hands over the faces of those whom he loved, and blessed them, and, behold, they lost their roughness and became smooth and fair and of the whiteness of the clouds of heaven.
And one by one to each as he asked he laid his hands upon the brow and upon the cheek and upon the lips and upon the strong limbs, and blessed them, and they became as the Wanderer was, and went away rejoicing at the miracle wrought upon their bodies.
Much honor, they offered him, even silver and jewels; but none of these would he have save the daily bread and wine, claiming only their friendliness.