Diary of a Drug Fiend

fA Knight Out II absurd and ridiculous joke—that these two eyes belonged to a girl’s face. Across the moaning body of the blackmaier, I was looking at the face of a girl that I had never seen before. And I said to myself, “‘ Well, that’s all right, I’ve known you all my life.” And when I said to myself “my life,” I didn’t in the least mean my life as Peter Pendragon, I didn’t even mean a life extending through the centuries, I meant a different kind of life—some- thing with which centuries have nothing whatever to do. And then Peter Pendragon came wholly back to himself with a start, and wondered whether he had not perhaps looked a little rudely at what his common sense assured him was quite an ordinary and not a particularly attractive girl. My mind was immediately troubled. I went hastily back to my table. And then it seemed to me as if it were hours while the waiters were persuading the earl to his feet. I sipped my drink automatically. When I looked up the girl had disappeared. It is a trivial observation enough which I am going to make. I hope at least it will help to clear any one’s mind of any idea that I may be an abnormal man. As a matter of fact, every man is ultimately abnormal, because he is unique. But we can class man in a few series without bothering ourselves much about what _ each one of them is in himself. I hope, then, that it will be clearly understood that I am very much like a hundred thousand other young men of my age. I also make the remark, because the essential bearing of it is practically the whole story of this book. And the remark is this, after that great flourish of trumpets : although I was personally entirely uninterested in what I had witnessed, the depression had vanished from my mind. As the French say, “Un clou chasse l'autre.”