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Ying Lan has recorded this story. Perhaps we can arrange to have the recording placed on the Internet - Vance
Hi My friends
I read this short story today...
It is very short....... just like
the beginning of a novel.
But it is a brief story written by W. Somerset
Maugham in 1933.
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Death speaks: 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
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 was astonished
to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
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(p.s. Samarra, by the way, is a city sixty miles from Bagded.)
Do you have any ideas about the story? The servant went to Samarra to avoid meeting Death. But he did not understand he was on his way to meet Death in Samarra. Nobody can avoid his fate, can he?
When I was a student in elementary school, I often read stories about people having to work hard to be successful. But the truth is, if you want to be successful, only working hard it is not enough to get it. There is something inside .. and we don't know what it is. Maybe it is fate.
Do you think you can fight with your fate? Or do you let fate decide your life?
I don't know... I just want to be happy for the rest of my life. That's all.
Ying Lan, July 15, 2000
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