38 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
It would be quite useless to attempt to describe the
drive to Barley Grange. It lasted barely half a second.
It lasted age-less cons.
Any doubts that I might have had about myself
were stamped under foot by the undeniable facts. I
had never driven better in my life. I got out the sea-
plane as another man might get out a cigarette from his
case. She started like an eagle. With the whirr of
the engine came Lou’s soft smooth voice in exquisite
antiphony :—
“O Thou trembling breast of the night, that
gleamest with a rosary of moons! I adore Thee,
Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O!”
We soared towards the dawn. I went straight to
over three thousand. I could hear the beat of
my heart. It was one with the beat of the
engine.
I took the pure unsullied air into my lungs. It was
an octave to cocaine; the same invigorating spiritual
force expressed in other terms. ,
The magnificently melodious words of Sieveking
sprang into my mind. I repeated them rapturously.
It is the beat of the British engine. :
“Deep lungfuls! Deep mouthfuls! Deep, deep
mental mouthfuls ! ”
The wind of our speed abolished all my familiar
bodily sensations. The cocaine combined with it to
anesthetise them. I was disembodied; an eternal
spirit ; a Thing supreme, apart.
“Lou, sweetheart! Lou, sweetheart! Lou, Lou,
perfect sweetheart | ”’
I must have shouted the refrain. Even amid the
roar, I heard her singing back.
“OQ Thou summer softness of lips, that glow
hot with the scarlet of passion! I adore Thee,
Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O!”