Short Fiction · Chapter
An X-Ray Fable explained
A man with a Cathode Ray travels the country revealing people's true thoughts for a fee.
What happens
A man with a Cathode Ray travels the country revealing people's true thoughts for a fee. In a certain town, sweethearts Reuben and Ruth each secretly hire him to discover whom the other truly loves. The man takes X-ray photographs of their heads and later gives them slips of paper showing each other's names, leading to joy. However, he omits that the photographs actually revealed Reuben's deep love for himself and Ruth's passionate self-love, suggesting the proprietor knew his business.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
This excerpt marks the dramatic climax because it captures the precise moment the protagonist’s humor shifts f…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Deception and Appearance vs. Reality
The X-ray man deceives Reuben and Ruth by giving them the names they want to see, while hiding the self-centered truth revealed by his photographs.
- Humor and Irony
The ironic twist that the lovers actually love themselves most, and the X-ray man's clever omission, provides a humorous moral about self-interest and business sense.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The narrator tells the fable in a biblical style, describing the events and the moral.
- Mr. Peters
The man with the Cathode Ray who takes X-ray photographs for a fee, revealing people's thoughts but withholding the full truth.
Key passages
“And it came to pass that a man with a Cathode Ray went about the country finding out and showing the people, for a consideration, the insides of folks’ heads and what they were thinking about.”
A man traveled around using a Cathode Ray device to reveal people's inner thoughts for a fee.
Introduces the X-ray man and his service.
“But the man with the Ray neglected to mention the fact that the photographs he had taken showed that Reuben’s head was full of deep and abiding love for Reuben and Ruth’s showed her to be passionately enamored of Ruth.”
The X-ray man did not tell them that the photos actually showed Reuben loved himself and Ruth loved herself.
Reveals the ironic deception at the heart of the fable.
