死神的约会……什么的
关键词：威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆；约翰·奥哈拉；塔木德；死神
忘了怎么想起来要去查这个故事的，也不知道有没有人总结过。总之目前资料就这么一点，具体不整理了。故事还是有点意思的：
"The Appointment in Samarra" 来源 (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.
即John O'Hara的这部小说标题解释：Appointment in Samarra
这个维基页面提到这个故事的一个古老版本可见于塔木德（Talmud），所以日记的标题也没有单纯写成“萨马拉之约”。犹太教法典什么的是一窍不通的了，这部分的英译倒是可以贴一下（在这个网站定位Sukkah 53a即可）：
There were once two Cushites9 who attended on Solomon, and these were Elihoreph and Ahyah, the sons of Shisha, scribes,10 of Solomon. One day Solomon observed that the Angel of Death was sad. ‘Why’, he said to him, ‘art thou sad?’ — ‘Because’, he answered him, ‘they11 have demanded from me the two Cushites who sit here’.12 [Solomon thereupon] gave them in charge of the spirits13 and sent them to the district of Luz.14 When, however, they reached the district of Luz15 they died. On the following day he observed that the Angel of Death was in cheerful spirits. ‘Why’, he said to him, ‘art thou cheerful?’ — ‘To the place’, the other replied, ‘where they expected them from me, thither didst thou send them!’16 Solomon thereupon uttered the saying, ‘A man's feet are responsible for him; they lead him to the place where he is wanted’.
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注释：
(9) ‘Ethiopians’ or (with Rashi) ‘handsome men’, as the Rabbis render the noun in Num. XII, 1. (10) I Kings IV, 3. (11) In heaven. (12) Sc. death has been decreed against them. (13) Over whom Solomon had dominion (cf. Meg. 11b, on I Chron. XXIX, 23). (14) To save them from death. V. Gen. XXVIII, 19 and Judg. I, 23. Owing probably to the identification of this word with the one meaning ‘the indestructible bone of the vertebra’ (Lev. R., XVIII) tradition says that the Angel of Death had no power in Luz (v. Sot. 46b). (15) And were still at the gate. (16) It was decreed that they should die at the gate of Luz.
电影《梅子鸡之味》里也有类似的故事，这简直是我至今仍记得这部电影名字的唯一理由了……等等，似乎女主长得也不错，不过不想看第二遍了。
