Diary of a Drug Fiend

CHAPTER IV AU PAYS DE COCAINE I can’T remember any details of our first week in Paris. Details had ceased to exist. We whirled from pleasure to pleasure in one inexhaustible rush. We took everything in our stride. I cannot begin to de- scribe the blind, boundless beatitude of love. Every incident was equally exquisite. Of course, Paris lays herself out especially to deal with people in just that state of mind. We were living at ten times the normal voltage. This was true in more senses than one. I had taken a thousand pounds in cash from London, thinking as I did so how jolly it was to be reckless. We were going to have a good time, and damn the expense! I thought of a thousand pounds as enough to paint Paris every colour of the spectrum for a quite in- definitely long period; but at the end of the week the thousand pounds was gone, and so was another thousand pounds for which I had cabled to London; and we had absolutely nothing to show for it except a couple of dresses for Lou, and a few not very expensive pieces of jewellery. We felt that we were very economical. We were too happy to need to spend money. For one thing, love never needs more than a pittance, and I had never before known what love could mean. What I may call the honeymoon part of the honey- moon seemed to occupy the whole of our waking hours. It left us no time to haunt Montmartre. We hardly troubled to eat, we hardly knew we were eating. We didn’t seem to need sleep. We never got tired. The first hint of fatigue sent one’s hand to one’s 46