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.