Figure 1 – Door in the shadows, the lady or the tiger?  Natick, Massachusetts, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Last Sunday I posted about the unusual sunlight during my morning walk at the mall. I wanted to share Figure 1 another IPhone photograph that I took that morning. This shows slanting shafts of sunlight and a hidden doorway buried in the shadows. It is kind of a tribute to the IPhone that it was able to pull off the necessary dynamic range for this photograph without my having to activate HDR. The door is just barely visible, but the lines of shadow draw our eyes first to it and then away from it.

Doors are intrinsically mysterious. They relate both to the famous logic problem of which door leads to freedom and the Edward R. Stockton’s famous short story “The Lady, or the Tiger?”

The story takes place in a land ruled by a king who practices “trial by ordeal,” where guilt or innocence is determined by giving the accused the choice of two doors, Behind one is a tiger. Opening that door, well, does not have a very positive outcome. Behind the other door is a lady whom the king has chosen for the accused. The king learns that his daughter has a lover and he is brought to trial by ordeal. The clever point is that the king has solved his problem either way. One door leads to the man’s death the other to marriage with someone other than the princess. The princess learns which door is which. When the man is brought to the arena, he looks to the princess for a hint as to which door to choose. She gives him a discreet signal.

Now herein lies the problem. Will she send him to his death or to the arms of a rival. Stockton in a famous tease doesn’t give us the answer. But instead leaves his reader with the words:

“And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door – the lady, or the tiger?”