Chapter 8

"She was an extraordinary artist and her life was more extraordinary," said Dr. Kimball. "I heard her début at the Opéra Comique. For ten years her name was the gossip of all Europe. Then all at once she meets a man whom no one knows, falls in love, and is transformed. These women are really extraordinary examples of hysteria. Each time I know one it makes me understand the scientific phenomenon of Mary Magdalene. It is really a case of nerve reaction. The moral fever that is the fiercest burns itself out the quickest and seems to leave no trace behind. In this case love came also as a religious conversion. I should say the phenomena were identical."

"She was happy," said the curé, turning to go.

"Yes, it was a great romance."

"A rare one. She adored him. Love is a tide that cleanses all."

"Yet she was of the stage up to the last. You know she would not have her husband in the room at the end."

"She had a great heart," said the curé quietly. "She wished to spare him that suffering."

"She had an extraordinary will," said the doctor, glancing at him quickly. He added, tentatively: "She asked two questions that were curious enough."

"Indeed," said the curé, lingering a moment with his hand on the gate.

"She wanted to know whether persons in a delirium talked of the past and if after death the face returned to its calm."

"What did you say to her about the effects of delirium?" said the curé with his blank face.

"That it was a point difficult to decide," said the doctor slowly. "Undoubtedly, in a delirium, everything is mixed, the real and the imagined, the memory and the fantasy, actual experience and the inner dream-life of the mind which is so difficult to classify. It was after that, that she made her husband promise to see her only when she was conscious and to remain away at the last."

"It is easily understood," said the curé quietly, without change of expression on his face that held the secrets of a thousand confessionals. "As you say, for ten years she had lived a different life. She was afraid that in her delirium some reference to that time might wound unnecessarily the man who had made over her life. She had a great courage. Peace be with her soul."

"Still,"--Doctor Kimball hesitated, as though considering the phrasing of a delicate question; but Father François, making a little amical sign of adieu, passed out of the garden, and for a moment his blank face was illumined by one of those rare smiles, such as one sees on the faces of holy men; smiles that seem in perfect faith to look upon the mysteries of the world to come.

EVEN THREES

I

Ever since the historic day when a visiting clergyman accomplished the feat of pulling a ball from the tenth tee at an angle of two hundred and twenty-five degrees into the river that is the rightful receptacle for the eighth tee, the Stockbridge golf-course has had seventeen out of the eighteen holes that are punctuated with possible water hazards. The charming course itself lies in the flat of the sunken meadows which the Housatonic, in the few thousand years which are necessary for the proper preparation of a golf-course, has obligingly eaten out of the high, accompanying bluffs. The river, which goes wriggling on its way as though convulsed with merriment, is garnished with luxurious elms and willows, which occasionally deflect to the difficult putting-greens the random slices of certain notorious amateurs.

From the spectacular bluffs of the educated village of Stockbridge nothing can be imagined more charming than the panorama that the course presents on a busy day. Across the soft, green stretches, diminutive caddies may be seen scampering with long buckling-nets, while from the river-banks numerous recklessly exposed legs wave in the air as the more socially presentable portions hang frantically over the swirling current. Occasionally an enthusiastic golfer, driving from the eighth or ninth tees, may be seen to start immediately in headlong pursuit of a diverted ball, the swing of the club and the intuitive leap of the legs forward forming so continuous a movement that the main purpose of the game often becomes obscured to the mere spectator. Nearer, in the numerous languid swales that nature has generously provided to protect the interests of the manufacturers, or in the rippling patches of unmown grass, that in the later hours will be populated by enthusiastic caddies, desperate groups linger in botanizing attitudes.

Every morning lawyers who are neglecting their clients, doctors who have forgotten their patients, business men who have sacrificed their affairs, even ministers of the gospel who have forsaken their churches, gather in the noisy dressing-room and listen with servile attention while some unscrubbed boy who goes around under eighty imparts a little of his miraculous knowledge.

Two hours later, for every ten that have gone out so blithely, two return crushed and despondent, denouncing and renouncing the game, once and for all, absolutely and finally, until the afternoon, when they return like thieves in the night and venture out in a desperate hope; two more come stamping back in even more offensive enthusiasm; and the remainder straggle home moody and disillusioned, reviving their sunken spirits by impossible tales of past accomplishments.

There is something about these twilight gatherings that suggests the degeneracy of a rugged race; nor is the contamination of merely local significance. There are those who lie consciously, with a certain frank, commendable, whole-hearted plunge into iniquity. Such men return to their worldly callings with intellectual vigor unimpaired and a natural reaction toward the decalogue. Others of more casuistical temperament, unable all at once to throw over the traditions of a New England conscience to the exigencies of the game, do not burst at once into falsehood, but by a confusing process weaken their memories and corrupt their imaginations. They never lie of the events of the day. Rather they return to some jumbled happening of the week before and delude themselves with only a lingering qualm, until from habit they can create what is really a form of paranoia, the delusion of greatness, or the exaggerated ego. Such men, inoculated with self-deception, return to the outer world, to deceive others, lower the standards of business morality, contaminate politics, and threaten the vigor of the republic. R.N. Booverman, the Treasurer, and Theobald Pickings, the unenvied Secretary of an unenvied hoard, arrived at the first tee at precisely ten o'clock on a certain favorable morning in early August to begin the thirty-six holes which six times a week, six months of the year, they played together as sympathetic and well-matched adversaries. Their intimacy had arisen primarily from the fact that Pickings was the only man willing to listen to Booverman's restless dissertations on the malignant fates which seemed to pursue him even to the neglect of their international duties, while Booverman, in fair exchange, suffered Pickings to enlarge ad libitum on his theory of the rolling versus the flat putting-greens.

Pickings was one of those correctly fashioned and punctilious golfers whose stance was modeled on classic lines, whose drive, though it averaged only twenty-five yards over the hundred, was always a well-oiled and graceful exhibition of the Royal St. Andrew's swing, the left sole thrown up, the eyeballs bulging with the last muscular tension, the club carried back until the whole body was contorted into the first position of the traditional hoop-snake preparing to descend a hill. He used the interlocking grip, carried a bag with a spoon driver, an aluminium cleek, three abnormal putters, and wore one chamois glove with air-holes on the back. He never accomplished the course in less than eighty five and never exceeded ninety four, but, having aimed to set a correct example rather than to strive vulgarly for professional records, was always in a state of offensive optimism due to a complete sartorial satisfaction.

Booverman, on the contrary, had been hailed in his first years as a coming champion. With three holes eliminated, he could turn in a card distinguished for its fours and threes; but unfortunately these sad lapses inevitably occurred. As Booverman himself admitted, his appearance on the golf-links was the signal for the capricious imps of chance who stir up politicians to indiscreet truths and keep the Balkan pot of discord bubbling, to forsake immediately these prime duties, and enjoy a little relaxation at his expense.

Now, for the first three years Booverman responded in a manner to delight imp and devil. When standing thirty-four for the first six holes, he sliced into the jungle, and, after twenty minutes of frantic beating of the bush, was forced to acknowledge a lost ball and no score, he promptly sat down, tore large clutches of grass from the sod, and expressed himself to the admiring delight of the caddies, who favorably compared his flow of impulsive expletives to the choice moments of their own home life. At other times he would take an offending club firmly in his big hands and break it into four pieces, which he would drive into the ground, hurling the head itself, with a last diabolical gesture, into the Housatonic River, which, as may be repeated, wriggles its way through the course as though convulsed with merriment.

There were certain trees into which he inevitably drove, certain waggish bends of the river where, no matter how he might face, he was sure to arrive. There was a space of exactly ten inches under the clubhouse where his balls alone could disappear. He never ran down a long put, but always hung on the rim of the cup. It was his adversary who executed phenomenal shots, approaches of eighty yards that dribbled home, sliced drives that hit a fence and bounded back on the course. Nothing of this agreeable sort had ever happened or could ever happen to him. Finally the conviction of a certain predestined damnation settled upon him. He no longer struggled; his once rollicking spirits settled into a moody despair. Nothing encouraged him or could trick him into a display of hope. If he achieved a four and two twos on the first holes, he would say vindictively:

"What's the use? I'll lose my ball on the fifth."

And when this happened, he no longer swore, but said gloomily with even a sense of satisfaction: "You can't get me excited. Didn't I know it would happen?"

Once in a while he had broken out, "If ever my luck changes, if it comes all at once--"

But he never ended the sentence, ashamed, as it were, to have indulged in such a childish fancy. Yet, as Providence moves in a mysterious way its wonders to perform, it was just this invincible pessimism that alone could have permitted Booverman to accomplish the incredible experience that befell him.

II

Topics of engrossing mental interests are bad form on the golf-links, since they leave a disturbing memory in the mind to divert it from that absolute intellectual concentration which the game demands. Therefore Pickings and Booverman, as they started toward the crowded first tee, remarked _de rigueur_:

"Good weather."

"A bit of a breeze."

"Not strong enough to affect the drives."

"The greens have baked out."

"Fast as I've seen them."

"Well, it won't help me."

"How do you know?" said Pickings, politely, for the hundredth time. "Perhaps this is the day you'll get your score."

Booverman ignored this set remark, laying his ball on the rack, where two predecessors were waiting, and settled beside Pickings at the foot of the elm which later, he knew, would rob him of a four on the home green.

Wessels and Pollock, literary representatives, were preparing to drive. They were converts of the summer, each sacrificing their season's output in a frantic effort to surpass the other. Pickings, the purist, did not approve of them in the least. They brought to the royal and ancient game a spirit of Bohemian irreverence and banter that offended his serious enthusiasm.

When Wessels made a convulsive stab at his ball and luckily achieved good distance, Pollock remarked behind his hand, "A good shot, damn it!"

Wessels stationed himself in a hopefully deprecatory attitude and watched Pollock build a monument of sand, balance his ball, and whistling nervously through his teeth, lunge successfully down. Whereupon, in defiance of etiquette, he swore with equal fervor, and they started off.

Pickings glanced at Booverman in a superior and critical way, but at this moment a thin, dyspeptic man with undisciplined whiskers broke in serenely without waiting for the answers to the questions he propounded:

"Ideal weather, eh? Came over from Norfolk this morning; ran over at fifty miles an hour. Some going, eh? They tell me you've quite a course here; record around seventy-one, isn't it? Good deal of water to keep out of? You gentlemen some of the cracks? Course pretty fast with all this dry weather? What do you think of the one-piece driver? My friend, Judge Weatherup. My name's Yancy--Cyrus P."

A ponderous person who looked as though he had been pumped up for the journey gravely saluted, while his feverish companion rolled on:

"Your course's rather short, isn't it? Imagine it's rather easy for a straight driver. What's your record? Seventy-one amateur? Rather high, isn't it? Do you get many cracks around here? Caddies seem scarce. Did either of you gentlemen ever reflect how surprising it is that better scores aren't made at this game? Now, take seventy-one; that's only one under fours, and I venture to say at least six of your holes are possible twos, and all the rest, sometime or other, have been made in three. Yet you never hear of phenomenal scores, do you, like a run of luck at roulette or poker? You get my idea?"

"I believe it is your turn, sir," said Pickings, both crushing and parliamentary. "There are several waiting."

Judge Weatherup drove a perfect ball into the long grass, where successful searches averaged ten minutes, while his voluble companion, with an immense expenditure of force, foozled into the swale to the left, which was both damp and retentive.

"Shall we play through?" said Pickings, with formal preciseness. He teed his ball, took exactly eight full practice swings, and drove one hundred and fifty yards as usual directly in the middle of the course.

"Well, it's straight; that's all can be said for it," he said, as he would say at the next seventeen tees.

Booverman rarely employed that slogan. That straight and narrow path was not in his religious practice. He drove a long ball, and he drove a great many that did not return in his bag. He glanced resentfully to the right, where Judge Weatherup was straddling the fence, and to the left, where Yancy was annoying the bullfrogs.

"Darn them!" he said to himself. "Of course now I'll follow suit."

But whether or not the malignant force of suggestion was neutralized by the attraction in opposite directions, his drive went straight and far, a beautiful two hundred and forty yards.

"Tine shot, Mr. Booverman," said Frank, the professional, nodding his head, "free and easy, plenty of follow-through."

"You're on your drive to-day," said Pickings, cheerfully.

"Sure! When I get a good drive off the first tee," said Booverman discouraged, "I mess up all the rest. You'll see."

"Oh, come now," said Pickings, as a matter of form. He played his shot, which came methodically to the edge of the green.

Booverman took his mashy for the short running-up stroke to the pin, which seemed so near.

"I suppose I've tried this shot a thousand times," he said savagely. "Any one else would get a three once in five times--any one but Jonah's favorite brother."

He swung carelessly, and watched with a tolerant interest the white ball roll on to the green straight for the flag. All at once Wessels and Pollock, who were ahead, sprang into the air and began agitating their hats.

"By George! it's in!" said Pickings. "You've run it down. First hole in two! Well, what do you think of that?"

Booverman, unconvinced, approached the hole with suspicion, gingerly removing the pin. At the bottom, sure enough, lay his ball for a phenomenal two.

"That's the first bit of luck that has ever happened to me," he said furiously; "absolutely the first time in my whole career."

"I say, old man," said Pickings, in remonstrance, "you're not angry about it, are you?"

"Well, I don't know whether I am or not," said Booverman, obstinately. In fact, he felt rather defrauded. The integrity of his record was attacked. "See here, I play thirty-six holes a day, two hundred and sixteen a week, a thousand a month, six thousand a year; ten years, sixty thousand holes; and this is the first time a bit of luck has ever happened to me--once in sixty thousand times."

Pickings drew out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

"It may come all at once," he said faintly.

This mild hope only infuriated Booverman. He had already teed his ball for the second hole, which was poised on a rolling hill one hundred and thirty-five yards away. It is considered rather easy as golf-holes go. The only dangers are a matted wilderness of long grass in front of the tee, the certainty of landing out of bounds on the slightest slice, or of rolling down hill into a soggy substance on a pull. Also there is a tree to be hit and a sand-pit to be sampled.

"Now watch my little friend the apple-tree," said Booverman. "I'm going to play for it, because, if I slice, I lose my ball, and that knocks my whole game higher than a kite." He added between his teeth: "All I ask is to get around to the eighth hole before I lose my ball. I know I'll lose it there."

Due to the fact that his two on the first brought him not the slightest thrill of nervous joy, he made a perfect shot, the ball carrying the green straight and true.

"This is your day all right," said Pickings, stepping to the tee.

"Oh, there's never been anything the matter with my irons," said Booverman, darkly. "Just wait till we strike the fourth and fifth holes."

When they climbed the hill, Booverman's ball lay within three feet of the cup, which he easily putted out.

"Two down," said Pickings, inaudibly. "By George! what a glorious start!"

"Once in sixty thousand times," said Booverman to himself. The third hole lay two hundred and five yards below, backed by the road and trapped by ditches, where at that moment Pollock, true to his traditions as a war correspondent, was laboring in the trenches, to the unrestrained delight of Wessels, who had passed beyond.

"Theobald," said Booverman, selecting his cleek and speaking with inspired conviction, "I will tell you exactly what is going to happen. I will smite this little homeopathic pill, and it will land just where I want it. I will probably put out for another two. Three holes in twos would probably excite any other human being on the face of this globe. It doesn't excite me. I know too well what will follow on the fourth or fifth. Watch."

"Straight to the pin," said Pickings in a loud whisper. "You've got a dead line on every shot to-day. Marvelous! When you get one of your streaks, there's certainly no use in my playing."

"Streak's the word," said Booverman, with a short, barking laugh. "Thank heaven, though, Pickings, I know it! Five years ago I'd have been shaking like a leaf. Now it only disgusts me. I've been fooled too often; I don't bite again."

In this same profoundly melancholic mood he approached his ball, which lay on the green, hole high, and put down a difficult put, a good three yards for his third two.

Pickings, despite all his classic conservatism, was so overcome with excitement that he twice putted over the hole for a shameful five.

Booverman's face as he walked to the fourth tee was as joyless as a London fog. He placed his ball carelessly, selected his driver, and turned on the fidgety Pickings with the gloomy solemnity of a father about to indulge in corporal punishment.

"Once in sixty thousand times, Picky. Do you realize what a start like this--three twos--would mean to a professional like Frank or even an amateur that hadn't offended every busy little fate and fury in the whole hoodooing business? Why, the blooming record would be knocked into the middle of next week."

"You'll do it," said Pickings in a loud whisper. "Play carefully."

Booverman glanced down the four-hundred-yard straightaway and murmured to himself:

"I wonder, little ball, whither will you fly? I wonder, little ball, have I bid you good-by? Will it be 'mid the prairies in the regions to the west? Will it be in the marshes where the pollywogs nest? Oh, tell me, little ball, is it ta-ta or good-by?"

He pronounced the last word with a settled conviction, and drove another long, straight drive. Pickings, thrilled at the possibility of another miracle, sliced badly.

"This is one of the most truly delightful holes of a picturesque course," said Booverman, taking out an approaching cleek for his second shot. "Nothing is more artistic than the tiny little patch of putting-green under the shaggy branches of the willows. The receptive graveyard to the right gives a certain pathos to it, a splendid, quiet note in contrast to the feeling of the swift, hungry river to the left, which will now receive and carry from my outstretched hand this little white floater that will float away from me. No matter; I say again the fourth green is a thing of ravishing beauty."

This second shot, low and long, rolled up in the same unvarying line.

"On the green," said Pickings.

"Short," said Booverman, who found, to his satisfaction, that he was right by a yard.

"Take your time," said Pickings, biting his nails.

"Rats! I'll play it for a five," said Booverman.

His approach ran up on the line, caught the rim of the cup, hesitated, and passed on a couple of feet.

"A four, anyway," said Pickings, with relief.

"I should have had a three," said Booverman, doggedly. "Any one else would have had a three, straight on the cup. You'd have had a three, Picky; you know you would."

Pickings did not answer. He was slowly going to pieces, forgetting the invincible stoicism that is the pride of the true golfer.

"I say, take your time, old chap," he said, his voice no longer under control. "Go slow! go slow!"

"Picky, for the first four years I played this course," said Booverman, angrily, "I never got better than a six on this simple three-hundred-and-fifty-yard hole. I lost my ball five times out of seven. There is something irresistibly alluring to me in the mosquito patches to my right. I think it is the fond hope that when I lose this nice new ball I may step inadvertently on one of its hundred brothers, which I may then bring home and give decent burial."

Pickings, who felt a mad and ungolfish desire to entreat him to caution, walked away to fight down his emotion.

"Well?" he said, after the click of the club had sounded.

"Well," said Booverman, without joy, "that ball is lying about two hundred and forty yards straight up the course, and by this time it has come quietly to a little cozy home in a nice, deep hoof track, just as I found it yesterday afternoon. Then I will have the exquisite pleasure of taking my niblick, and whanging it out for the loss of a stroke. That'll infuriate me, and I'll slice or pull. The best thing to do, I suppose, would be to play for a conservative six."

When, after four butchered shots, Pickings had advanced to where Booverman had driven, the ball lay in clear position just beyond the bumps and rills that ordinarily welcome a long shot. Booverman played a perfect mashy, which dropped clear on the green, and ran down a moderate put for a three.