![]() ![]() ![]() Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture 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 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. 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. ![]() 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 market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. The story is so brilliant - like a finely crafted jewel - that I thought to share it here. It’s like the epigraph in John O’Hara’s “Appointment at Samarra.” You can run from fate, but fate will be waiting in the next town, at the next marketplace. Suffice to say that my li'l exploration led me to this wonderful short story by Somerset Maugham. Afterwards, I went to that line again and then went to the fount of all knowledge - google. Today while reading Maureen Dowd's hilarious take on Mitt Romney's disastrous London visit, in the run up to the Olympics, a particular line made me pause. ![]()
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