Diary of a Drug Fiend

Short Commons 147 August 19 We got back from Bond Street bored and stupefied. We went off unexpectedly to sleep ; and when we woke it was this morning. I can’t understand why a long sleep like that doesn’t refresh one. We're both absolutely fagged. Cockie said a meal would put us right, and he rang down for breakfast in bed. But when it came, we couldn’t either of us eat it. I remember what Haidée said about the spiritual life. We were being prepared to take our places in the new order of Humanity. It’s perfectly right that one should have to undergo a certain amount of dis- comfort. You couldn’t expect anything else. It’s nature’s way. ... We picked ourselves up with five or six goes of heroin. It’s no use taking cocaine unless you're feeling pretty good already... . The supply is really awfully small. Confound this silly holiday habit. It really isn’t fair of Gretel to let us down like this. We went to the Café Wisteria. Somebody introduced us to somebody that said he could get all he wanted. But now there was a new nuisance. The police find it troublesome and dangerous to attend to the crime wave. Besides they’re too busy enforcing regulations. England’s altogether different since the war. You never know where you are. Nobody takes any interest in politics in the way they used to, and nobody bothers any more about the big ideas. I was taught about Magna Charta and the liberty of the individual, and freedom slowly broadening down from precedent to precedent, and so on and so forth. All sorts of stupid interference with the rights of the citizen gets passed under our noses without our knowing what it is. For all I know, it may be a crime to wear a green hat with a pink dress. Well, it would be a crime; but I don’t think it’s the business of the police.