"The Mysterious Stranger" is a novella by the American author Mark Twain. Twain wrote multiple versions of the story; each involves a supernatural character called "Satan" or "No. 44".
In 1590, three boys, Theodor, Seppi, and Nikolaus, live relatively happy simple lives in a remote Austrian village called Eseldorf. One day, a handsome teenage boy named Satan appears in the village. He explains that he is an angel and the nephew of the fallen angel whose name he shares. In the village and in other places around the world where Satan transports them magically, the boys witness religious fanaticism, witch trials, burnings, hangings, deaths and mass hysteria. Finally, Satan vanishes after explaining:
Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! There is no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
The mysterious stranger, and other stories
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