As the great Shah was taking the air one morning, a favorite page ran up breathless, panting and threw himself at the monarch’s feet, begging for the swiftest horses, the very swiftest, to take him to Baghdad. He had just seen the Angel of Death who had made a menacing gesture. The horses were saddled and the beautiful page hastened away. The Shah continued his walk. He, too, encountered the Angel of Death and he spoke to him saying: “How naughty of you to have frightened my little page out of his wits.” “I?” said the Angel of Death. “I only lifted my hands in wonder to find him here, seeing I had an appointment with him at Baghdad.”

From Jean Cocteau’s apologue as recounted in Bernad Berenson’s Rumor and Reflection, London: Icon Books, 1963 (first published in 1952), pp. 49-50.