Diary of a Drug Fiend

Below the Brutes 203 silly story of love at first sight on the spur of the moment. It was just a gambit. And as for me, I loathed the sight of the man, and he knew it. And he knew, too, that I wanted that heroin desperately badly. The real nature of the transaction was as plain as a prison plum-pudding. But I suppose it does amuse one in a sort of way to ape various affected attitudes. He knew that my modesty and confusion and blushes were put on like so much paint on the cheeks of a Piccadilly street- walker. It didn’t even hurt his vanity to know that I thought him an offensive old ogre. He had the thing I wanted, I had the thing he wanted, and he didn’t care if I drugged myself to death to-morrow, provided I had paid his price to-day. The callous cynicism on both sides had one good effect from the moral point of view. It prevented me wasting my time in trying to cheat him. He went on with his gambit. He explained that my marriage made a great difference. With reasonable caution, for which we had every facility, there was not the slightest risk of scandal. Only one thing stuck in my conscience, and fought the corrosive attack of the heroin-hunger. After King Lamus had gone this morning, Peter and I had quar- relled bitterly. I had given up Basil, I had given up all idea of living a decent life, I had embraced the monster in whose arms I was struggling, gone with my eyes wide open into his dungeon, devoted myself to drugs, and why? I was Sir Peter’s wife. The loss of my virtue, independence, self-respect, were demanded by my loyalty to him. And already that loyalty demanded disloyalty of another kind. It was a filthy paradox. Peter had sent me to McCall with perfect foresight. I knew well enough what he expected of me, and I gloried in my infamy—partly for its own sake, but partly, unless I am lying to myself, .because my degradation proved my devotion to him. I no longer heard what McCall was saying, but I