Diary of a Drug Fiend

First Aid 275 our despair could be sung by no nightingale. Could even the carrion buzzard give any idea of the hoarse and horrible discord of our disenchantment? The shreds of our souls were torn by filthy fish-hooks, and their shrieks were outside the gamut of merely human anguish. Was it still possible to return? Had we forfeited for ever our inheritance “ for a mess of beastlier pottage than ever Esau guzzled ? ” Lamus had been watching us intently while Maisie sang. lLou’s eyes were full of tears. They ran down her thin, worn face. She made no effort to wipe them away. I do not know whether she felt them. Heroin dulls all physical sensation, leaving only the dull in- tolerable craving, the acrid irritation, to break in upon the formless stupor which represents the height of well-being. But I had no inclination to weep; mine was the bitter black remorse of Judas. I had sold my master, my True Will, for thirty pieces of poisonous copper, smeared with the slime of quicksilver. And all I had bought was a field of blood in which I might hang myself and—all my bowels gushed out. King Lamus rose from the piano with a heavy sigh. “ Forgive me for nagging,” he said slowly, ‘ but you spoilt your enjoyment of the song by being ashamed to put yourself in the proper condition to do so by taking the heroin that you need. How often must I tell you that there is nothing to be ashamed of, and everything to be proud of ? You know yourself that you are running a greater risk than you ever did when you flew over the Boche lines. I don’t want you to swank about it, of course; but you certainly don't want to act like a schoolboy puffing his first cigarette behind a hedge. For God’s sake, man, can’t you see that half the danger of this business lies in the secrecy and duplicity which go with it ? ‘“‘ Suppose we made all the fuss about eating that we do about drinking and loving, can’t you see what