Devil Stories Part 22

XI

The great golfer began a new life. At first he enjoyed perfect happiness, which was increased by the certainty of its not ending for a hundred years. Thanks to his experience, he so well understood the management of his affairs that he could leave his mallet and shut up shop.[24]

[24] _Vivre a porte close._

He experienced, nevertheless, an annoyance he had not foreseen. His wonderful skill at golf ended by frightening the players whom he had at first delighted, and was the cause of his never finding any one who would play against him.

He therefore quitted the canton and set out on his travels over French Flanders, Belgium, and all the greens where the n.o.ble game of golf is held in honour. At the end of twenty years he returned to Coq to be admired by a new generation of golfers, after which he departed to return twenty years later.

Alas! in spite of its apparent charm, this existence before long became a burden to him. Besides that, it bored him to win on every occasion; he was tired of pa.s.sing like the Wandering Jew through generations, and of seeing the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of his friends grow old, and die out. He was constantly reduced to making new friends.h.i.+ps which were undone by the age or death of his fellows; all changed around him, he only did not change.

He grew impatient of this eternal youthfulness which condemned him to taste the same pleasures for ever, and he sometimes longed to know the calmer joys of old age. One day he caught himself at his looking-gla.s.s, examining whether his hair had not begun to grow white; nothing seemed so beautiful to him now as the snow on the forehead of the old.

XII

In addition to this, experience soon made him so wise that he was no longer amused at anything. If sometimes in the tavern he had a fancy for making use of his ap.r.o.n to pa.s.s the night at cards: "What is the good of this excess?" whispered experience; "it is not sufficient to be unable to shorten one's days, one must also avoid making oneself ill."

He reached the point of refusing himself the pleasure of drinking his pint and smoking his pipe. Why, indeed, plunge into dissipations which enervate the body and dull the brain?

_The wretch went further and gave up golf!_ Experience convinced him that the game is a dangerous one, which overheats one, and is eminently adapted to produce colds, catarrhs, rheumatism, and inflammation of the lungs.

Besides, what is the use, and what great glory is it to be reputed the first golfer in the world?

Of what use is glory itself? A vain hope, vain as the smoke of a pipe.

When experience had thus bereft him one by one of his delusions, the unhappy golfer became mortally weary. He saw that he had deceived himself, that delusion has its price, and that the greatest charm of youth is perhaps its inexperience.

He thus arrived at the term agreed on in the contract, and as he had not had a paradise here below, he sought through his hardly-acquired wisdom a clever way of conquering one above.

XIII

Death found him at Coq at work in his shop. Experience had at least taught him that work is the most lasting of pleasures.

"Are you ready?" said Death.

"I am."

He took his club, put a score of b.a.l.l.s in his pocket, threw his sack over his shoulder, and buckled his gaiters without taking off his ap.r.o.n.

"What do you want your club for?"

"Why, to golf in paradise with my patron St. Antony."

"Do you fancy, then, that I am going to conduct you to paradise?"

"You must, as I have half-a-dozen souls to carry there, that I once saved from the clutches of Belzebuth."

"Better have saved your own. _En route, cher Dumollet!_"

The great golfer saw that the old reaper bore him a grudge, and that he was going to conduct him to the paradise of the lost.[25]

[25] _Noires glaives._

Indeed a quarter of an hour later the two travellers knocked at the gate of h.e.l.l.

"Toc, toc!"

"Who is there?"

"The wheelwright of Coq," said the great golfer.

"Don't open the door," cried Belzebuth; "that rascal wins at every turn; he is capable of depopulating my empire."

Roger laughed in his sleeve.

"Oh! you are not saved," said Death. "I am going to take you where you won't be cold either."

Quicker than a beggar would have emptied a poor's box they were in purgatory.

"Toc--toc!"

"Who is there?"

"The wheelwright of Coq," said the great golfer.

"But he is in a state of mortal sin," cried the angel on duty. "Take him away from here--he can't come in."

"I cannot, all the same, let him linger between heaven and earth,"

said Death; "I shall shunt him back to Coq."

"Where they will take me for a ghost. Thank you! is there not still paradise?"

XIV

They were there at the end of a short hour.

"Toc, toc!"

"Who is there?"

"The wheelwright of Coq," said the great golfer.

"Ah! my lad," said St. Peter, half opening the door, "I am really grieved. St. Antony told you long ago you had better ask for the salvation of your soul."