A New England tradition
Chapter 10 of Our Lady of Brattle Street, copyright (c) 2026 by Richard Smoley
10
A New England Tradition
The aftermath of the visit to Dr. Bouwsma resembled the aftermath of the Lady’s appearances in certain respects, especially in a certain calmness that settled over things that had troubled Artemus. The first time around, it had been his life problems; this time, it was the appearances themselves.
Events continued uneventfully in the following months. Even Rosenzweig seemed to have regained his old equilibrium. Artemus was inclined to let his experiences fall into a drowsy slumber at the back of his mind, but this turned out not to be possible.
That January, Artemus got a phone call from John Staub, who announced that he would soon be paying a visit to Massachusetts.
“Of course,” said Artemus. “Why not? Irresistible: Cambridge in February. Cambridge—the Aruba of Middlesex County.”
“I have an estate I’m thinking of buying. It’s in Shelburne.”
Artemus, like Staub, knew vaguely where that was. It was not far away.
“Well,” said Artemus, “you’re staying with us. We have three extra bedrooms, and I won’t hear otherwise.”
The evening of Staub’s arrival, it was deemed hospitable to have him to dinner, meaning that both of the Rostrums would be present.
Nancy Rostrum was about eight years younger than her husband. She was full-figured, as she had always been, in a sexy way. She had brown, curly hair and a pretty, girlish face that was marred only by a permanent smirk that she had worn to the point where it indelibly shaped her mouth.
Nancy invited her friend Dana to round out the company. Dana was a little younger than Nancy, and like her, full-figured, but much prettier, with blond hair, olive eyes, and (most in contrast with her friend) a sweet expression on her face. Her occupation was marriage to a Boston superlawyer, although they were separated.
Artemus had always had a little crush on Dana, but that was as far as it would go. People who have extramarital affairs generally do so to complicate their lives, whether they know it or not. Artemus did not want any more complications—certainly none that involved lawyer husbands.
Nancy Rostrum believed that she was a marvelous cook, but she was wrong. She announced that in honor of Staub’s visit, she would make a “feast.” This amounted to underdone roast chicken, undercooked rice, and string beans whose shade of infantry green indicated that they had suffered the opposite fate. In the interests of hospitality, Artemus had bought some California sauvignon blanc that cost five times as much as his Mezzacorona but was no better and in fact not all that different.
It was all in the true local tradition, Artemus thought: the food was not that good. The hallmark of true New England cuisine.
Nancy was on her best behavior that night. Her chief feature was an incessant urge to prattle about the only subject that interested her: herself. This included little vexations of the day, her daughter’s ingratitude, the inconveniences of urban life, and complaints about work. A human resources manager at Massachusetts General Hospital, she had an assistant who was rude, incompetent, and, because of bureaucratic procedures that Nancy herself had been hired to implement, impossible to fire—as Artemus had already heard endlessly.
On evenings when the Rostrums entertained, Nancy was prone to rattling on and on about these and other issues nonstop throughout the meal, with everybody nodding politely and asking the occasional question to pretend to be paying attention. When the guests were leaving, she would compliment them on what wonderful conversationalists they were.
Tonight, however, Nancy was not that bad. Staub, whom she knew to be cantankerous, was an inhibiting factor. Consequently, she was far from silent but restricted herself to an appropriate portion of the conversation. It went to the usual topics: the astonishing cost of real estate (a common point between San Francisco and Boston), current politics (dreadful as always), and the health care system, about which the gathering unanimously agreed that it was not about healing people anymore, it was about profits. The question of Dana’s marriage was tactfully raised, but she merely shook her head and looked down at her lap.
Sometime while they were eating the chicken (which had many parts that were pink but were not supposed to be pink), the subject changed to Staub and his business.
“I’m amazed that you’re still surviving as an independent bookseller,” Dana said.
“I survive because I’m stingy. I’m stingy about everything. I’m stingy with the clerks and stingy with myself. I’ve had to skip my own paychecks more than a couple of times. Of course I’m ashamed. Sometimes one of the employees will ask for a raise. I tell them: ‘You have this choice: you can get this raise, but you will lose your job in three months because I have to close down. Or you can stay at your current level and keep your job for the time being.’
“They usually stay, but not for long: a year or two is the most that I can expect, and I don’t blame them. They’re young, they’re making their way in the city, and their dirt-poor lives are part of the price. Sooner or later they move on, sometimes to another shitty job that pays a little better. Sometimes they get religion: they find that Certain Special Someone, so they have to figure out a way to make lots more money, or they go back to school. Some bookstores have employees that are real old-timers, but I don’t have any of those. I think it would depress me too much.”
“Artemus said you came out here to look at an estate,” said Nancy.
“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. By ‘estate,’ I mean the huge book collection of a dead old man. He was a Mason, and most of the books are about Masonry.”
“My father was a Mason,” said Dana, “but he never talked about it, and he never went to any of the meetings.”
“That’s one kind of Mason. Guess what? They don’t buy Masonic books. Then there’s the other kind: they already own all the Masonic books. So who exactly is going to buy these?
“I wrestled with myself about it. Finally, I gave the widow a lowball offer, which she accepted. Even so I could lose money. If all goes well—and it may not—I may find three or four gems that will pay for the price of the collection. Then I have to figure out what to do with the rest. I’d give them to a Masonic library, but they have all those books too.”
“You have chosen a perilous trade,” said Artemus.
“I keep hearing about Freemasonry,” said Nancy, “but I don’t really know what it is. Except that it’s a fraternal lodge.”
“If I were going to join a fraternal lodge,” said Artemus, “I would choose the Odd Fellows, just because of the funny name.”
“To take your question seriously,” said Staub, “how much do you want to hear? It’s an order that goes back to the stonemasons of medieval times, the ones who built the great cathedrals. It was a guild, and they had their trade secrets. They had other secrets that were more of an esoteric nature—about the principles underlying the universe and the nature of man—but these were never taught in words. It was all done in their rituals, which in some cases go back for centuries. Each Mason is free to interpret them in his own way, but no Mason’s interpretation is authoritative. All the other rubbish about world conspiracies and fabulous hidden treasures—that’s what it is: rubbish.”
“Are you a Mason?” asked Nancy.
“No.”
“What do you mean about the secrets of the universe?” asked Dana. “Do you mean metaphysics?”
“Metaphysics has a lot of meanings, some of them contradictory. But yes—something like that.”
“For example?”
“The relation between spirit and matter.”
As intended, this utterance killed further discussion on the topic.
As the dinner ended, the company broke up, the women to go into the kitchen and gossip while cleaning up, the men into Artemus’s (of course) book-lined study. Artemus brought in a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a hammered pewter bucket full of ice, and two crystal tumblers.
“You are as always the perfect host,” commented Staub.
“I’m sorry,” said Artemus when the door was closed. “I hope it wasn’t too much of a trial for you. I know Nancy is a terrible cook. And I think she was trying to fix you up with Dana.”
“‘Another girl’s arousing my—ma-ale curiosity . . .’” (this old song was one of their standing jokes). “It’s all right. She’s pretty and she’s nice—but someone going through a divorce? Three thousand miles away?”
“Sometimes love’s dart strikes in an instant.”
“So it may, but it didn’t happen tonight. Anyway, how did it all go with Dr. Bouwsma? He told me a little, but not much. You told me a couple of things on the phone and in emails, but why don’t you give me the whole story?”
Artemus complied.
When he was done, Staub said, “It sounds like you had an initiation.”
“Just like that? In a few minutes?”
“Sure. I think it happens that way more often than not. The Masons do their initiations with elaborate rituals and symbols and robes, and my impression is that if it’s done right, it can be very powerful. But it doesn’t always work that way.”
“Don’t you have to go through all sorts of tests before initiation?”
“Maybe you have.”
“When?”
“You avoided the temptation of carnality when the lolli sat on your lap.”
“She wasn’t very pretty.”
“A man in thrall to his desires wouldn’t have cared. Besides, your wife has been cheating on you for a long time, and you haven’t been tempted to reciprocate. And you resisted the temptation of power by not wanting to take over as department head.”
“Being head of the Harvard history department is not exactly what I would call power.”
“A power-mad man would have jumped at it.”
“Anyway, what he told me—that’s the secret of the universe?”
“In a nutshell. As it were. Or better yet, as he told you, a seed. You can find what Dr. Bouwsma said anywhere you like in the Upanishads. Or the Bhagavad Gita. Stated explicitly. The Gospels are a bit more cagey about it. As he told you, it is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. It was awakened in you as a seed. Of course, it is always present—you can never get rid of it, and it will outlast the personal Artemus Rostrum. Initiation is merely a way of connecting the rest of the mind with it. It will develop now as it will, regardless of what you do: the wind bloweth as it listeth. But it will change you in ways that you can’t anticipate, and neither can I.”
“So you have gone through the same thing.”
“Yes, senior year in college, when I was going to that group. In a manner that was like yours in some ways, different in others; that hardly matters.”
“How did it change you?”
“I will give you one example. I doubt I told you about it at the time. I had gone to visit Dr. Bouwsma in New York and was coming back to Boston on the Amtrak train. I was reading a book—Hatha Yoga, by Theos Bernard—and I came to an irrevocable decision.” Staub paused a long time, deliberating whether he would go on. Finally: “I decided what I wanted out of life. Supreme enlightenment. Illumination. Of course I didn’t know what that was and in many ways I still don’t. But it shaped the rest of my life.
“I suppose this had something to do with deciding to move to San Francisco, although not consciously. I’m from Connecticut, so Harvard, then what—New York? You see what happened to our old friends who went to New York when they graduated. Most of them did very well—certainly better than me. But they turned into characters out of New Yorker cartoons. I told you then that I didn’t want to be just another Harvard graduate kicking around New York. I didn’t think I’d stay this long, and I’m not entirely happy I did, but it gave me a perspective I never could have had any other way.”
“And has that given you all you wanted?”
“‘The road less traveled.’ Have you ever really read it? Everyone has, or thinks they have. Frost called it a tricky poem, and it is, because practically everyone who reads it gets it wrong.
“The speaker tells us that he took the road less traveled, and ‘that has made all the difference.’ Everyone takes him at his word, with all kinds of idiotic conclusions. But look at the poem closer. He says he takes the one that was less traveled, although ‘the passing there had worn them really about the same.’
“The paths were identical; neither one was more or less traveled than the other. The speaker just convinces himself that one of them was.”
“I’d never thought of that. What do you make of it all?”
“You choose one life direction, although you have no idea of whether it’s better or worse than another. But you’re never going back to the crossroads; it’s too late. Certainly for men our age. You chose one route, you succeeded beyond all expectation, and yet you’re dissatisfied. I chose another—which, statistically speaking, is no doubt the one less traveled by—and here we are: the same age, the same dissatisfaction.
“There is no easy road,” Staub added portentously.
There was a soft knock on the door. Nancy and Dana came in.
“Hi!” said Nancy. “We don’t want to bother you. Dana is leaving, and she just wanted to say goodnight.”
Dana held out her hand to Artemus and Staub in turn. To Staub, she said with especial sweetness, “It was so nice meeting you. I hope we’ll run into each other again.”
“Definitely. I hope so,” said Staub noncommittally.
The two women exchanged glances. “Well, we’ll let you get back to your important discussion.” With that, they left and closed the door, toward which Artemus made a gesture.
“There you are. Maybe it’s not too late to come back.”
“You must be joking. I told you that I don’t love Ellen”—this was his girlfriend—“and I don’t. But we see as much of each other as we can stand. Or I can stand. Because she is a bit of a chatterbox herself, although if it came down to a duel, I think Nancy would win.”
“But you can’t think of anything better.”
“The marketers come up with all sorts of categorizations of people for the purpose of foisting on them things they don’t need. One is ‘maximizer’ versus ‘satisficer.’ When the maximizer buys a new car, he goes through all the reviews, evaluates each model in regard to quality—in short, carries out thorough research to make sure he makes the best possible decision. The satisficer doesn’t. The satisficer doesn’t bother with all that, as long as the car satisfies the basic purpose. Two different types of character, even though they may end up buying the same car.
“In my ordinary life, I am a satisficer. I like books, so I may as well be around them. It’s not a road to riches, but I can satisfy my basic needs, even if I have to skip an occasional paycheck. I thought about this once: what is my favorite thing to do? Lie on my sofa, looking out at the trees in the backyard, listening to some inoffensive music, and reading and dozing. Suppose I were a billionaire. I would still do that. Of course the sofa would be more luxurious, the stereo system more elaborate, and the view more stunning, but that, to my mind, is not worth the trouble of building a financial powerhouse.”
“The ones that do it do it because they like it.”
“Of course.”
“Maybe this is the cause of today’s inequities,” mused Artemus. “Billionaires make money because they like making money and are good at it. They may not enjoy anything else. So they go on making money—much more than they could spend in a lifetime; even their heirs won’t be able to waste it all. Since money makes money—presto! Society today. Billionaires and people living in the sewers of Las Vegas.”
“Do they?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” said Artemus. “Those desert areas have flash floods, so Sin City has had to build underground sewers to deal with them. People live in them—whole communities. Of course they get washed out from time to time, but that’s just a part of the life they’ve grown used to.”
“The ultimate satisficers.”
“Just so,” said Artemus. “Of course, when it comes to supreme enlightenment, you are the exact opposite: you are a maximizer. It’s different from getting a car, though. Once you’ve gotten the car, assuming you’re happy with it, you don’t think about it any more. But enlightenment—correct me if I’m wrong—is a constantly receding target.”
“It is. Unless you make the horrible mistake of deciding that you’re enlightened and know it all right now. You’ve heard of those cases. The ones who accumulate crowds of followers are the most pathetic. Sometimes they’re brought down by their own stupidity; otherwise, they have a prestigious and well-paying job for life.”
“I suppose you have what is called divine dissatisfaction.”
“Possibly, but that term is usually applied to people who have succeeded in life but still think something is missing—people kind of like you. What if you decide that the search itself is not all that it’s cracked up to be?”
“As I said, it may not be too late to go back to the crossroads.”
“Of course it is. It’s not just a matter of age. The journey transforms you.”
“In what ways?”
“You’ve already had a glimpse of it. What you’ve learned already—whether you admit it or not—makes it impossible to take seriously things you took seriously as little as a year ago.”
By now much of the whiskey was gone.
“But,” Staub continued, “why lie to myself. Yes, I’m stagnant. I’m stagnant because I decided—without even thinking about it—that any number of things were not consistent with my supreme goal, and now I’m in a box of my own making.”
“The mystics write about the dark night of the soul,” said Artemus.
“So they do, and they write about it. Volumes. Only somehow the descriptions in the books never look that much like one’s own experience. Why should they? I’m not a Spanish monk of the sixteenth century.”
“If Ellen is unsatisfactory,” Artemus remarked, “there are lots of Danas in the Bay Area, and I’ve been told that single heterosexual men are at a premium out that way.”
“Spare me the dating apps,” muttered Staub. “Anyway, it’s getting late. We’ve drunk a lot and I’ve had a long day. If you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”