The Appointment in Samarra

Is faith unavoidable?

Can we flee our faith?

Babylonian myth

The Appointment in Samarra"
(as retold by W. Somerset Maugham [1933])
The speaker is Death

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

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Der Titel des Romans verweist auf eine alte arabische Anekdote. O’Hara stellt sie seinem Roman als Epigraph in der Version W. Somerset Maughams voran: Der Diener eines Haendlers sieht auf dem Marktplatz von Bagdad den Tod. Der Tod winkt ihm bedrohlich zu, doch flieht der Diener zu Pferde nach Samarra. Der Haendler macht dem Tod darauf Vorwuerfe, er habe seinen Diener verschreckt, doch der Tod antwortet, er habe ihn nicht verschrecken wollen: er sei lediglich ueberrascht gewesen, den Diener in Bagdad anzutreffen, denn er habe heute Abend eine Verabredung mit ihm in Samarra.