Diary of a Drug Fiend

CHAPTER III PHAETON Lou clung to me as I gripped the wheel. There was no need for us to speak. The trembling torrent of our passion swept us away. I had forgotten all about Lamus and his car. We were driving like the devil to Nowhere. A mad thought crossed my mind. It was thrown up by my “ Unconscious,” by the essential self of my being. Then some familiar object in the streets reminded me that I was not driving back to the studio. Some force in myself, of which I was not aware, had turned my face towards Kent. I was interpreting myself to myself. I knew what I was going to do. We were bound for Barley Grange; and then, oh, the wild moonlight ride to Paris! The idea had been determined in me without any intervention of my own. It had been, in a way, the solution of an equation of which the terms were: firstly, a sort of mad identification of Lou with all one’s romantic ideas of moonlight ; then my physical habit as a flying man ; and thirdly, the traditional connection of Paris with extravagant gaiety and luxuriant love. I was quite aware at the time that my moral sense and my mental sense had been thrown overboard for the moment; but my attitude was simply: “ Good- bye, Jonah!” For the first time in my life I was being absolutely myself, freed from all the inhibitions of body, intellect, and training which keep us, normally, in what we call sane courses of action. I seem to remember asking myself if I was insane, and answering, “ Of course I am—sanity is a com- promise. Sanity is the thing that keeps one back.”’ 37