A man knocked at his friend’s door to ask him a favour:
“I want you to lend me four thousand dinars because I have a debt to pay. Can you do that for me?”
The friend asked his wife to gather together everything they had of value, but even so it was not enough. They had to go out and borrow money from the neighbours until they managed to get the full amount.
When the man left, the woman noticed that her husband was crying.
“Why are you sad? Now that we’ve got ourselves in debt with our neighbours, are you afraid we won’t be able to repay them?”
“Nothing of the sort! I’m crying because he is someone I like so much, but even so I had no idea he was in need. I only remembered him when he had to knock on my door to ask me for a loan.”
Paulo Coelho
