Diary of a Drug Fiend

50 The Diary of a Drug Fiend some reason or no reason, I was irritated. I didn’t want to hear from people like that at all. I didn’t like or trust her. “‘ Queer fish,” I said rather snappily. It wasn’t my own voice; it was, I fancy, some deep instinct of self-preservation speaking within me. Lou, however, was radiant about it. I wish I could give you an idea of the sparkling quality of everything she said and did. Her eyes glittered, her lips twittered, her cheeks glowed like fresh blown buds in spring. She was the spirit of cocaine incarnate ; cocaine made flesh. Her mere existence made the Universe infinitely exciting. Say, if you like, she was possessed of the devil ! . Any good person, so-called, would have been shocked and scared at her appearance. She represented the siren, the vampire, Melusine, the dangerous, delicious devil that cowards have invented to explain their lack of manliness. Nothing would suit her mood but that we should dine up there in the room, so that she could wear the new kimono and dance for me at dinner. We ate gray caviare, spoonful by spoonful. Who cared that it was worth three times its weight in gold ? It’s no use calling me extravagant; if you want to blame any one, blame the Kaiser. He started the whole fuss ; and when I feel like eating gray caviare, I'm going to eat gray caviare. We wolfed it down. It’s silly to think that things matter. Lou danced like a delirious demon between the courses. It pleased her to assume the psychology of the Oriental pleasure-making woman. I was her Pasha- with-three-tails, her Samurai warrior, her gorgeous Maharaja, with a scimitar across my knee, ready to cut her head off at the first excuse. She was the Ouled Nail with tatooed cheeks and chin, with painted antimony eyebrows, and red smeared lips. I was the masked Toureg, the brigand from the desert, who had captured her.