W. Somerset Maugham (1933) — a servant flees Death across the desert, and arrives exactly where Death is waiting
Easier version available: read this lesson at A2/B1 level →
Maugham tells the whole of fate in about two hundred words. That brevity is the point — there is nowhere for the servant to hide, and nowhere for the reader to look away. One detail to hold as you read: the narrator is Death herself. Every line is spoken by the figure the servant is running from. Read each part, pause for the discussion box, then continue.
There was a merchant in Baghdad 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 Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."
Ten words from the tale, each chosen because it travels well beyond a marketplace in Baghdad. Tap to reveal meaning and a usable example.
The tale is almost nothing but technique. Notice how much weight each device is asked to carry when there is so little text to hide behind.
| Device | What it does here | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Personification | Death is not an idea but a character — a woman in the crowd who speaks, and who narrates the whole tale. | "it was Death that jostled me" / "I said" — the narrator is Death |
| Dramatic irony | By the final line we understand what the servant never will: his escape was the appointment. | "I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra." |
| Extreme compression | A lifetime, a flight across a desert, and the whole logic of fate are delivered in a single page — nothing is explained, only shown. | The entire tale; the turn rests on one place name |
This tale is built on the grammar of things that must happen. English has a rich set of forms for fate, prediction and the future seen from the past — and Maugham's ending is, grammatically, a perfect specimen of future-in-the-past: "I had an appointment … tonight." Three patterns to master.
Use was/were going to for a plan or expectation held in the past, and was/were to for something arranged by fate or authority — often with a sense of destiny. "He did not know that he was to die that night."
1. He thought he (escape) Death by going to Samarra.
2. He did not know that he (be) to die that very night.
3. As he galloped off, the servant believed he (outrun) his fate.
1. was going to escape (a plan / expectation held in the past)
2. was ("was to die" — fate arranged in advance; the classic future-in-the-past)
3. was going to outrun (his belief about the future, seen from the past)
For things that cannot be avoided, English reaches for bound to + infinitive ("It was bound to happen"), there was no escaping (it), and was inevitable. These are the forms that turn a single event into a law of the universe.
1. It was to happen — there was no escaping it.
2. However fast he rode, he was to meet Death in the end.
3. There was no the appointment; it had been fixed long before.
1. bound ("bound to happen" = certain, unavoidable)
2. bound ("bound to meet" — inevitability of the outcome)
3. escaping ("there was no escaping the appointment")
The servant says "Death will not find me" — a confident prediction. But Death, narrating from after the fact, would naturally use would: the future as seen from a past that already knows how it ends. This is the quiet engine of dramatic irony.
1. The servant was sure that Death (not / find) him in Samarra.
2. Neither of them guessed that the road to safety (lead) straight to the appointment.
1. would not find (prediction reported from the past — "will" → "would")
2. would lead (future-in-the-past; the narrator already knows the outcome)
Keep them sorted by certainty and viewpoint: was going to = a past expectation (it may or may not have come true); was to = fate or arrangement, viewed from before the event; bound to / no escaping / inevitable = full certainty, no way out; would = the future reported or remembered from a past standpoint. The chill of Maugham's ending comes from the collision of two of these: the servant's confident "will", and Death's quiet "I had an appointment".
Four moves to spot. Each one is doing an extraordinary amount of work, because there are so few words for it to hide behind.
Death is not a force or a shadow here; she is a woman in a crowd with a startled face, and she tells the story herself. By making the abstract concrete — and then handing it the narration — Maugham elevates an old folk motif into something intimate and almost polite. We are not told about Death; we are introduced to her.
The servant runs to Samarra because Death is in Baghdad — not knowing Death's diary already has him down for Samarra that night. His escape is the mechanism of his death. Maugham ironises the very act of self-preservation: the running does not delay the appointment, it keeps it.
The threat the servant thinks he sees sends him fleeing along the one road that delivers him on time. The fear of the outcome produces the outcome. Maugham recasts free will as the hidden servant of fate: every choice the man makes to save himself is the choice fate needed him to make.
There is no description, no psychology, no scenery beyond a marketplace and a horse. Maugham compresses an entire philosophy of destiny into a single page and distils it to one place name. The brevity is not a limitation; it is the argument — fate, the form says, needs no elaboration.
Now move to the next tab. The technique work above feeds directly into the three speaking tasks.
Do all four. Each one builds on the last. The timer is for your benefit — it forces you to fill the time rather than escape it. Use the fate grammar (was to / was going to / bound to / would) and the effect verbs from the previous tabs.
Before we discuss it, tell the story back to me as if I had never read it — in your own words, not line by line. Aim for about eight to ten sentences.
As you go, use at least five words from the Vocabulary tab and keep the events in order, talking about fate with was to / was going to / bound to from the Grammar tab. These beats will help you: a merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to market · the servant returns terrified, says Death jostled and threatened him · he borrows the merchant's horse to flee to Samarra · the merchant goes to the market and asks Death about the threatening gesture · Death says it was surprise, not threat (the turn: "I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra").
Tell me about a time someone tried hard to avoid something — a conversation, a decision, a risk, a person — and the very effort to escape it carried them straight into it. This can be your own experience, someone you know, or a character or public figure. Describe three things, in order:
Use at least one "was going to" / "was to" form ("I was going to slip away unnoticed…") and at least one inevitability form ("it was bound to…", "there was no escaping…").
The tale insists the appointment was already made — the servant's choices only carried him to it on time. Argue your own position: is the future fixed, or do we make it?
Speak for ninety seconds for the idea that some things are bound to happen whatever we do; then ninety seconds against it, for the idea that we write our own ending. Use would and was to as you describe how a life might have turned out differently.
Now tell a short fate-or-irony story of your own — true or invented. It can be a single page of a life, like Maugham's: someone who got exactly the thing they fled, or lost the thing they grasped at too tightly.
Keep it compressed — no scenery you don't need. Land it on one final line that reframes everything before it, the way "Samarra" does. Use the fate grammar throughout, and name the technique you used when you finish ("I personified…", "the ending ironises…").