338 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
Basil saw my perplexity.
“The fact is,” he said, ‘that you're taking this
stuff as the majority of people go to church. It’s a
meaningless habit.”
I hated to put that down on my paper. It was
confessing that I was an automaton. But something
in his eye compelled me. I wrote the word, and broke
out as I did so into a spasm of internal fury. I re-
collected a story from my hospital days, of a man who
had committed suicide when it was proved to him that
he couldn't move his upper jaw.
Meanwhile Lamus was looking at my average. I
had got down to less than two doses daily. But the
rest of the twenty-four hours was spent in waiting for
the time when I could indulge.
I knew that Lou was ahead of me. She had gone on
what Basil called his third class. She was taking one
dose a day; but every day she was taking it later
and later. She had about an hour of real craving to
get through, and Sister Athena or Sister Cypris, or
Sister some one would always intervene, as if by
accident, and take some active steps to keep her mind
off the subject during those critical minutes.
As soon as one had reached an interval of forty-eight
hours between doses, one entered class four and stopped
altogether unless some particular occasion arose for
taking a dose.
I was very annoyed that Lou should have got on
faster than myself. Basil told me he thought I needed ©
more active exercise, though already I had begun to
take some interest in the sports of the place. I had
even got through a whole game of Thelema without
having to sit down and gasp.
But there was still an obscure hankering after the
drug life. It had been burnt into me that normal
interests were not worth while.
King Lamus had taken me out climbing several times ;
but while I experienced profound physical satisfaction,
I could not overcome the moral attitude which is