The poor were informed that a rich inheritance awaited them, the rich saw their fortunes increased by unlooked-for events, love knocked at the door of the young, children came into the world who were to be the pride of their families, the old, beloved for their own sakes, saw their lives stretch out indefinitely: Mokoubamba kept a Paradise shop.
One day I made bold to call him to account for this, claiming that life held in store for us disappointments, here and there, for the purpose of giving an edge to our pleasures, and that there must from time to time be a discrepancy between the sovereign bliss of which he so freely held out the hope and the sum of realized joys.
"Life," replied the wise Mokoubamba, "is a procession of delights. As soon as one has disappeared, another has started upon its way. It may be a more or less long time in arriving, but no one will begrudge waiting for it, and the waiting is often the best a man gets out of it."
For a chairmender this saying seemed to me fairly profound.
"Who taught you this?" I asked.
"A fakir from Benares from whom the heavens withheld no secrets."
"You have been in India?"
"I have been everywhere."
"Mokoubamba, my friend, yours is no ordinary life. Will you not tell me something of it? The past interests me more than the future."
"If you will order them to give me coffee and cigarettes, and if I may drink and smoke as long as I talk, you shall have my entire history."