Diary of a Drug Fiend

236 The Diary of a Drug Fiend the first time I was glad of the war. My Red-Cross training made all the difference. There was a little fever, due to his intense weakness, and occasionally he had delirium. The obsession of the poem still enthralled him. While I was dressing the wounds he said feebly and dreamily :— “She it is, she, that found me ‘In the morphia honeymoon ; With silk and steel she bound me; In her poisonous milk she drowned me, Even now her arms surround me.” “Yes,” I said, “‘ but it’s your wife who loves you and is going to nurse you through this trouble, and we're going to live happy ever afterwards.” He smiled very faintly and sweetly and dozed off... . Wednesday I count the days now. We are having an Indian summer. Nature is lovely. I go out for little walks when Peter is asleep. Friday There have been no complications, or I should have had to get a doctorin at whatever risk. What troubles me is that as he gets stronger, the delusions of perse- cution have begun to return. J know now how deeply I was myself obsessed by ideas of grandeur, and how my need to be a mother determined their form. But is it a delusion that I should be thinking con- stantly of Basil? I seem to hear him saying that I was cured from the moment that I forgot myself altogetherin the absorption of my love for Peter; the work of bringing him back to life. And now that I have ceased to look at myself and feel for myself, I have. become able to see him and feel for him with absolute clearness. There is not the slightest possibility of error.