88 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
at the same time he. couldn’t risk pulling off the coup
of his life in case there was a hitch, so he would get
@ move on and see if he couldn’t raise five thousand
on his own somewhere else, in which case he’d let me
have some of his own stock anyway. He wanted me
‘in the deal if it was only for a sovereign, simply because
of my luck.
_ So off he ran in a great hurry. Lou and I got a car
and spent the afternoon in the Bois du Boulogne. It
seemed as if the cocaine had taken hold of us with
new force, or else it was the addition of the heroin.
We were living at the same terrific speed as on that
first wild night. The intensity was even more extra-
ordinary ; but we were not being carried away by it.
In one sense, each hour lasted a fraction of a second,
and yet, in another sense, every second lasted a life-
time. We were able to appreciate the minutest details
of life to the full.
I want to explain this very thoroughly.
“ William the Conqueror, 1066, William Rufus, 1087.”
One can sum up the whole period of the reign of the
Duke of Normandy in a phrase. At the same time,
an historian who had made a special study
of that part
of English History might be able to write ten volumes
of details, and he might, in a sense, have both aspects
of his knowledge present to his mind at the same moment.
_We were in a similar condition. The hours flashed
by like so many streaks of lightning, yet each dis-
charge illuminated every detail of the landscape; we
could grasp everything at once. It was as if we had
acquired a totally new mental faculty as superior to
the normal course of thought as the all-comprehending
brain of a great man of science is to that of a savage,
though the two men are both looking with the same
optical instruments at the same blackbeetle.
It is impossible to convey, to any one who has not
experienced it, the overwhelming rapture of -this
condition. |
Another extraordinary feature of the situation was