Diary of a Drug Fiend

60 The Diary of a Drug Fiend belonged to eternity in some indefinable way ; and that infinite silence blossoms inscrutably into embrace. The heroin had begun to take hold. We felt ourselves crowned with colossal calm. We were masters; we had budded from nothingness into existence! And now, existence slowly compelled us to action. There was a necessity in our own natures which demanded expression and after the first intense inter-penetration of our individualities, we had reached the resultant of all the forces that composed us. In one sense, it was that our happiness was so huge that we could not bear it; and we slid imperceptibly into conceding that the ineffable mysteries must be expressed by means of sacramental action. But all this took place at an immense distance from reality. A concealed chain of interpretation linked the truth with the obvious commonplace fact that this was a good time to go across to Montmartre and make a night of it. We dressed to go out with, I imagine, the very sort of feeling as a newly made bishop would have the first time he puts on his vestments. But none of this would have been intelligible to, or suspected by, anybody who had seen us. We laughed and sang and interchanged gay nothings while we dressed. When we went downstairs, we felt like gods descending upon earth, immeasurably beyond mortality. With the cocaine, we had noticed that people smiled rather strangely. Our enthusiasm was observed. We even felt a Jittle touch of annoyance at everybody not going at the same pace ; but this was perfectly different. The sense of our superiority to mankind was constantly present. We were dignified beyond all words to express. Our own voices sounded far, far off. We were perfectly convinced that the hotel porter realised that he was receiving the orders of Jupiter and Juno to get a taxi. We never doubted that the chauffeur knew himself to be the charioteer of the sun.