Diary of a Drug Fiend

The Grinding of the Brakes 179 Something inside me screamed. “ But I must see her,” I cried insanely, feeling the ground cut suddenly from under my feet. ‘‘ I’m afraid it’s impossible, madame,’’ he said, mis- understanding me altogether. “‘ She was buried yester- day morning.” So that was why she hadn’t sent the stuff! I stood as if I wasinatrance. I heard him explaining, mechani- cally. I did not take in what he was saying. It was like a record being made on a gramophone. ‘“‘ She was only ill two days,” the man said. ‘ The doctors called it septic pneumonia.” I suppose I thanked him, and went away automati- cally. I found myself at home without knowing how I got here. Something told me that the real cause of her death was heroin, though, as a matter of fact, septic pheumonia can happen to any one at any moment. I’ve known two or three people go off like that. As my Uncle John used to say, conscience makes cowards of us all. King Lamus was always saying that as long as one has any emotion about any thing, love or fear or any- thing else, one can’t observe things correctly. That’s why a doctor won't attend his own family, and I can see coldly and clearly like a drowning man that when- ever the idea of H. comes into my mind, I begin to think hysterically and come to the most idiotic con- clusions; and heroin has twined itself about my life so closely that everything is connected with it one way or another. My mind is obsessed by the thought of the drug. Sometimes it’s a weird ecstasy, sometimes a dreadful misgiving. “Not thirst in the brain black-bitten In the soul more sorely smitten ! One dare not think of the worst! Beyond the raging and raving Hell of the physical craving,