The Surprises of Life

It may be that you knew Mokoubamba who became famous in Passy for his labours as a reseater of rush-bottomed chairs, weaver of mats, of baskets and hampers, mender of all things breakable, teller of tales, entertainer of the passerby, lover of all haunts where poor mortality resorts to eat and drink. He was an old Negro from the coast of Guinea, very black as to skin, wholly white as to hair, with great velvety black eyes and the jaws of a crocodile whence issued childlike laughter. He used to honour me with his visits on his way home at evening when he had not sold quite all his wares.

With abundance of words and gestures, he would explain to me how fortunate I was to need precisely the article of which by an unforeseen and kindly chance he was the owner. And as he saw that I delighted in his talk, he gave free rein to that spirited eloquence which never failed to bring him more or less remuneration.

Our latest "reformers" having put intoxication by the juice of the grape within reach of all, Mokoubamba died on the fourteenth of last July, from having too copiously celebrated the taking of the Bastille. No more will Passy see Mokoubamba, with his white burnous, his scarlet chechia, his green boots, and his drum-major's staff. A genuine loss to the truly Parisian picturesqueness of this quarter. As for me, how should I not miss the rare companion who had seen so many lands, consorted with so many sages, and collected so many strange teachings?

"Mokoubamba knows the whole earth," he was wont to say, candidly adding: "Mokoubamba knows everything that man can know."

And the generosity of this primitive nature will be seen in the fact of his not keeping his hoard of knowledge to himself, but lavishing it upon all comers. He was equally willing to announce what the weather would be on the morrow and what it had been on the day before. By means of cabalistic signs on a very grimy bit of parchment he foretold any man's destiny: a choice destiny, indeed, of whose felicities he was never known to be niggardly.

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."

I nodded in assent, and Mokoubamba, taking possession of my verandah, squatted upon one of his own mats, inhaled the perfume of Arabia, exhaled three puffs of curly blue smoke, and seemed to lose himself in the search for a starting point.

"What was your first occupation?" I asked by way of helping him on.

"The easiest of all," said he, with a shamefaced air. "I began by being a minister."

"Minister!" I cried in high surprise. "Minister to whom? Minister of what?"

"Minister to the great King Matori. Down there-down there-beyond the Niger."

"Truly! My compliments to His Excellency! And you say the profession seemed an easy one to you? Your colleagues up here would scarcely agree with you."

"I speak of what I have seen. In my country those who are the masters are always in the right. Tell me if you know of a place on earth where it is any different? I did not know how to do anything. I could not even have braided a mat in those days. Well, then, all that I said was admirable, and as soon as I had given an order it was considered the best in the world. I was myself a Fetish, my mother having given me birth on a day of rain after a long drought which had reduced our villages to famine."

"And what were your functions?"

"The same as elsewhere. I was purveyor of provisions to the royal household and I reserved a just share for myself. Matori loved me very much. But I had enemies. They persuaded him that my Fetish was stronger than his, and as he feared my power, he sold me to an English trader who needed carriers for his ivory. It was a long journey to the coast. If a man fell he was gently dispatched on the spot, so that he might not be eaten alive by the beasts, and his load was distributed among the rest of us. Without my Fetish I should have been left behind. I may add that being beaten with a stick helped to keep up my courage."

"And what is your Fetish?"

"At that time I did not know, but I felt it without knowing. In time we arrived among the English. I was not a slave. Oh, no! but I had been 'engaged,' and in order that I might better fill my 'engagement' they fastened me, with many others, to the wall of a courtyard, by an iron chain."

"Poor Mokoubamba!"

"I was not unhappy, for they fed me very well. They wished to have us in good condition so as to get rid of us. It was there that I learned the art of weaving reeds and rattan, and carving curious designs upon wood. My neighbour, the man chained beside me, was a great sorcerer in his own land. He could carve bamboo, he could cook; he was skilled in hammering red-hot iron, in stitching leather, in dancing; he could call up spirits. They took very good care of him. They did not sell him, of course, since there existed no slavery, but they bartered him for two dozen bottles of French brandy. There was a price for you! Matori had handed me over for a single calabash of rum and a copper trumpet."

"Poor Mokoubamba!"

"Yes, you are right! It was a paltry price. I was humiliated by it for a long time. But as my new master used to say, I must learn to overcome the demon of pride."

"Your new master used to say that?"

"It was like this. I was quietly sitting at my chain one day, making a large basket, when a man dressed in black, with an edge of white around his neck, came near me and said: 'My brother, what have you done with your soul?' I had learned a few words of English on the journey. However, I asked my visitor to repeat his question. He repeated it again and again, and I finally understood that he was talking about my Fetish, and that he wished to know what I had done with it. I answered that it was a sacred thing, and that I had it with me, but that I would willingly employ it in his service if he would acquire me for a sum of money. My answer had the good fortune to please him, it seems, for on that very evening the excellent Reverend Ebenezer Jones installed me in his parsonage. He taught me about his great Fetish, who did not much differ from Matori's. Is not a Fetish always something that we do not know and that works us either good or evil? We ask it for good, and it does not always grant it. But as I was just saying, we go on expecting it, and that keeps us in patience.

"Ebenezer Jones told me beautiful tales full of marvels, and he always ended with the question: 'Dost thou believe?'

"How should I not have believed him? So good a man, who daily let me have soup with meat in it. I was baptized by him with a fine ceremony. Before long he was so pleased with me that he made me his sexton. I was the edification of the faithful, everyone brought me gifts, and I was able, unknown to the Right Reverend, to treat myself to a superior brand of tafia.

"Ebenezer Jones travelled about the country preaching his Fetish, and I accompanied him. I had ended by knowing his discourses by heart, and often at gatherings I recited portions of them after he had finished speaking. People understood me better than they did him, which was not to be wondered at. My 'spiritual guide' owed to me most of the success that made him famous in his own country. This lasted for nearly ten years.

"One day, Ebenezer having been called back to London proposed that I should follow him. I did it joyfully, and I must say that the six weeks I spent in that capital were one long-drawn-out feast. I was exhibited at the Missionary Society as a model among converts. At dessert I would rise and speak of my complete happiness, which was but natural after so good a meal. People wept with emotion, and so did I myself. In that country the religious fervour of elderly gentlewomen is extraordinary. Between puddings and mince pies, it was one stream of gifts of food. Never have I eaten so well or drunk so much.

"There, however, I was surprised to find that the English no more than the Negroes are all of one mind with regard to their Fetishes, which I ought to have expected. In Africa, at a six days' journey from our church, there was a Catholic Mission. I was careful never to go near it, since Ebenezer had warned me that they worked evil spells there upon the poor Negroes who let themselves be deceived.

"But one afternoon in London, I was accosted by a big devil of an Irish priest who had heard of my religious zeal. He was greatly perturbed by the glory which the Missionary Society owed to me. He had determined to snatch me away from Ebenezer Jones. I let him take me home with him, where I found a table abundantly spread. Meat, pies, and preserves, and liqueurs, oh, such liqueurs! I was deeply shaken, and could not disguise the fact from my new friend, Father Joseph O'Meara. He increased his efforts, and so successfully explained to me the superiority of his Fetishes over Ebenezer's that I was obliged to agree he was right. No sooner had I uttered the word than he baptized me on the spot, gave me a good bed to sleep in, and on the morrow celebrated my reconversion with a ceremony even finer than the former one. There were Fetishes everywhere surrounded by lights. Joseph O'Meara wept for joy and so did I. That evening there was a magnificent banquet, ... just like the others. They had taught me a speech, but as the generous potations had slightly clouded my memory, I was able to utter but one sentence: 'Mokoubamba is very happy, very happy.'

"And that was no lie.

"The trouble was now that Ebenezer Jones, ashamed of having allowed Mokoubamba to be stolen from him, wished to get me back. But Joseph O'Meara was not the man to let any such trick be played upon him. I was treated like a prince, and kept well in sight for fifteen glorious days. Then it was explained to me that I must go to another country so as to escape from the machinations of the 'Evil One,' which was the name of Ebenezer's bad Fetish. I was consequently hurried off to a mission in Bombay where the religion was very different. Here were priests who fasted all day long. A moiety of rice, much dust, and as much warm water as I cared to consume. This did not suit me in the least. I wandered about the streets looking for some Fetish willing to take an interest in me. There are all manner of people out there. I questioned concerning their Fetishes a Parsee, a fire-worshipper who had nothing to cook in his dish, and a Chinaman who considering my appetite told me that I should be born again in the form of a shark. None of them showed any care to convert me. A Mahomedan alone seemed disposed to win me over to his Fetish, but he wished first to take from me a portion of something which I at that time considered very desirable. That ended it.

"I travelled, weaving baskets and mats, even as I do to-day. I lived very poorly. Everyone in that country cares above all things for his own Fetish, and will not change it. There is no work there for Ebenezer Jones or Joseph O'Meara. And yet their Fetishes leave the people in great misery. They let them starve by the hundred thousand, yet no one has the slightest idea of turning to those Fetishes through whom other peoples live in abundance.

"I laid this question before a fakir of Benares who was said to possess supreme wisdom. His Fetish was a wooden bowl behind which he squatted at the roadside by way of adoration. Looking at the thing casually, you would have seen in it nothing extraordinary. And yet that bowl had the property of attracting money because of the belief established by the fakir that it brought good luck to the giver. Indeed, I have found the same thing true here in your country. But the mendicant fakir class of India is here divided in two classes: the beggar by trade, to whom you give nothing because he is not 'respectable,' and the professional fakir to whom you give everything because your success may depend on his favour.

"The man of Benares knew this and much besides. He became my friend because of the very simplicity of my questions. At evening he would bestow on me the alms of a bowl of rice. Often he let me spread my litter in his reed hut. At night under the stars he taught me concerning the creation, and imparted to me his knowledge of all things. It was he who expounded to me the great mystery of Fetishes, since which I have lived without care for the morrow. Later, a Parsee, a great grain merchant, took me to your Algiers, and thence brought me here, where I have remained. But all that I have seen of the world has but confirmed my belief in the profound wisdom of the illustrious fakir of Benares."

"Good. But what did he tell you about Fetishes?"

"You see ... I have no more coffee...."

"There you are, and how about this little glass of brandy?"

"With pleasure. And anyway it can be summed up in one word. The fakir told me that the universe is but one huge agglomeration of Fetishes. There are as many as there are creatures alive. Some are strong and some are weak. It is a great battle as to which shall come out on top. The wicked are those who work evil on others to get the upper hand. The good are those who use gentleness, persuasion, art. One had better be on the side of the good unless one is stronger than they."

"I see. But was the fakir speaking of Fetishes or of men?"

"Ha-ha! You want to know all of it! Another little glass and you shall have your answer. Excellent! I can refuse you nothing. Well, then, the fakir affirmed that Fetish and man are one and the same thing, for every man makes his Fetish according to the strength of his interest in himself, and the will power he expends in satisfying it. That is why I am not deceiving when I foretell a happy fortune for people. It but strengthens their Fetish, their chance of happiness is increased, they enjoy it in anticipation."

"Then, Mokoubamba, under varying forms and shifting denominations, you maintain that the only Fetish to whom you have remained unalterably faithful, and which has rewarded your fidelity by pulling you through everything in the world--"

"Is Mokoubamba himself. There is the great secret. Meditate upon it, like the fakir--"

"I shall meditate upon it, have no fear. But do you suppose this great secret is known in Benares alone?"

"I have often asked myself that question. Judging by actions, everyone seems perfectly aware of what he is about. But I have never known any one except the fakir of Benares to state things as they are."

Thus spake Mokoubamba, reseater of rush-bottomed chairs in Passy, mender of all things breakable, entertainer of the passerby, teller of fanciful tales.

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