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Page 1 of 41922 · PDF PAGE 111
…avoyard had taught us wisdom. We were getting stronger on the wing every hour. That chap Coué is a piker, as they say in America. “Every day, in every way, I get better and better,” indeed? The man must simply have been carried away by the rhyme. Why wait for aday? We had got to the stage where every minute counted. As the Scotchman said to his son, half-way through the ten-mile walk to kirk, when the boy said, “It’s a braw day the day.” “Is this a day to be ta’king 0’ days?” Thinking of days makes you think of years, and thinking of years make…
1922 · PDF PAGE 382
…me that we did not even dare to dream how far it soared above us. Our business was to climb from crag to crag, with caution and courage, day after day, life after life. Not ours to speculate about the goal of our Going. Enough for us to Go. We knew our way, having found our will, and for the means, had we not love? ‘“‘ Love is the law, love under will.” The words were neither on our lips nor in our hearts. They were implicit in every idea, and in every impression. We went from the court up the steps, through the open glass doors, into the vault…
1922 · PDF PAGE 31
…aying— “That’s all right, that’s all right, that’s exactly what I do. You come and see my new group. I'll do another sketch of you—-same day, same time. That’s all right.” Somebody introduced the new-comer—Mr. King Lamus—and murmured our names. “ Sit down right here,” said Owen, ‘‘ what you need is a drink. I know you perfectly well; I’ve known you for years and years and years, and I know you've done a good day’s work, and you've earned a drink. Sit right down and I’ll get the waiter.” I looked at Lamus, who had not uttered a word since his or…
1922 · PDF PAGE 104
go The Diary of a Drug Fiend a phase of babbling, both talking at once at the top of our voices, making plans for the day, each one as it bubbled in our brains the source of ecstatic excite- ment and inextinguishable laughter. We had just decided to spend the morning shopping when a card was brought up to the room. I had a momentary amazement as I read that our visitor was the confidential clerk of Mr. Wolfe. “Oh, bother the fellow,” said I, and then remem- bered my telegram of the day before. I had a swift pang of alarm. Could something be wro…
1922 · PDF PAGE 126
…en minutes later than we did, and breakfast was a perfect poem, and we had a box for the opera and our passages booked for the following day for Capri, where a suite was reserved for us at the Caligula. We saw the Museum in the morning and automobiled out to Pompeii in the afternoon, and yet M. Laroche had managed everything for us so miraculously well that even this very full day left us perfectly fresh, murmuring through half-closed lips the magic sentence :— “ Dolce far niente.” The majority of people seem to stumble through this world witho…
1922 · PDF PAGE 352
…is eye compelled me. I wrote the word, and broke out as I did so into a spasm of internal fury. I re- collected a story from my hospital days, of a man who had committed suicide when it was proved to him that he couldn't move his upper jaw. Meanwhile Lamus was looking at my average. I had got down to less than two doses daily. But the rest of the twenty-four hours was spent in waiting for the time when I could indulge. I knew that Lou was ahead of me. She had gone on what Basil called his third class. She was taking one dose a day; but every da…
1922 · PDF PAGE 321
…s salute. A man in that country could earn double wages if he could do without sleep, for they work much the same by night as they do by day.’ ‘That was written three thousand years ago, and even the name of the woman who wrote that poem, albeit it is one of the most famous poems in the world, is lost. But there are the shepherds saluting each other to-day as they did then. MANTA PEI said Heracleitus, ‘all things flow.’ And everything that tries to escape that law, that relies on its strength, that becomes nigid, that endeavours to calla halt, …
1922 · PDF PAGE 160
…can see she dopes too hard. Of course, the trouble with her is she hasn’t got a man. She has a lot of men round her. She could marry any day she liked. We talked about it a bit. She hasn’t got the energy, she said, and the idea of men disgusts her. She wears the most wonderful boots. She has a new pair almost every day, and hardly ever puts the same pair on twice. I think she’s a little bit crazy. ... London. seems different somehow. I used to be interested in every funny little detail. I want to get. back to myself. Drugs help me to get almost…
1922 · PDF PAGE 241
… even know what year it is. The leaves in the park tell me it is autumn, and the nights are getting longer. The night is better than the day; there is less to irritate. We don’t sleep, of course, we fall into a torpor. Basil told me about it once. He called it the dark night of the soul. One has to go through it on the way to the Great Light. The light of day is torture. Every sense is an in- strument of the most devilish pain. There is no flesh on our bones. This perpetual craving for H! Our minds are utterly empty of everything else. Rushing …
1922 · PDF PAGE 132
…ngth in a minute. Take the case of an eagle. What is it as long as it’s in the egg? Nothing but an egg with possibilities. And the first day it’s hatched you don’t expect it to fly to Neptune and back. Certainly not ! But every day, in every way, it gets better and better. And if I was ever tempted to flop and remember my base origin as a forked radish, why all I needed was a kiss from Lou, or a sniff of cocaine to put me back in Paradise. , I can’t tell you about those next twenty-four hours. Suffice it to say that all world’s records were bro…
1922 · PDF PAGE 322
308 The Diary of a Drug Fiend action. Compare the soft-flowing winds with the inflexible rock. We breath those winds into our lungs to-day—the air is as fresh as ever. But see how those temples and strongholds, nay, the very crags themselves, have been worn down by the languorous caresses of this invigorating breeze. That is one of the reasons why I came to live here, though one hardly needs support after one glance at the incomparable beauty of the place; a beauty which varies every day and never tires. Look at the sunset every night. It is go…
1922 · PDF PAGE 265
…e ground that he has had so much influence on my life and thought. “Even a mediocrity like yourself, Sir Peter,” he said to me the other day, “ dull as you are, cannot be trusted in my neighbourhood. Your brain unconsciously soaks up the highly charged particles of my atmosphere. And before you know where you are, instead of expres- sing yourself—what little self you have to express—you will be repeating, in a debased currency, the words of wisdom that from time to time have dropped from my refined lips.”’ There was a time when I should have re…
1922 · PDF PAGE 96
… ‘the know’— they’d simply snap the whole thing up for themselves. By the way, that reminds me of a very good thing I heard of the other day——’”’ and he rattled off an amusing story which had no connection with what he had been saying before. I didn’t listen to what it was. My brain was working very fast with the champagne on top of the other things. His talk had brought to my mind that I should have to wire for another thousand to-day or to-morrow.
1922 · PDF PAGE 296
…. Lamus had advised us to take Turkish baths if we felt unduly depressed. We had found them very useful. We had got down to three goes a day two days running, chiefly by following his advice to take one of the white tablets instead of the heroin whenever the craving became irresistible. He made rather a point of that, by the way. . It was a bad thing, he said, to yield to stress. It wasn’t nearly so harmful to take the heroin when one didn’t feel so badly in need of it. Even after all this time I hadn’t quite got on to the peculiarities of the …
1922 · PDF PAGE 294
CHAPTER III THE VOICE OF VIRTUE Basi had gone out of town ; but he turned up on the fifth day at eleven o'clock in the morning, and he came in his most serious professional manner. After a very brief greeting, he went straight to the charts and in- spected them attentively. Lou and I both felt very uncomfortable. He noticed it at once. “You've still got heroin on the brain, I see,” he remarked severely. ‘‘ You insist on considering your- selves as naughty children instead of as pioneers of humanity undertaking a desperate adventure for the good…
1922 · PDF PAGE 249
CHAPTER VII THE FINAL PLUNGE Sunday THE church bells tell me the day. I have been through another terrible ordeal. I don’t know how long ago since I came down from the north tower. The noise was really a shot. I found Peter on the floor with the pistol by his side, and blood pouring from a wound in his breast. I understood immediately what I had to do. It was impossible to send for a doctor. The scandal of the suicide would make life impossible ever after, and he would immediately discover that it was due to dope. The burden must be on my own s…
1922 · PDF PAGE 17
CHAPTER I A KNIGHT OUT Yes, I certainly was feeling depressed. I don’t think that this was altogether the reaction of the day. Of course, there always is a reaction after the excitement of a flight; but the effect is more physical than moral. One doesn’t talk. One lies about and smokes and drinks champagne. No, I was feeling quite a different kind of rotten. I looked at my mind, as the better class of flying man soon learns to do, and I really felt ashamed of myself. Take me for all in all, I was one of the luckiest men alive. War is like a wav…
1922 · PDF PAGE 360
…him in to lunch. He stood at the end of the table, facing Sister Athena at the other. “There will be champagne,’ he said, “‘for lunch to-day.” The remark was received with a hilarity which seemed positively indecent, and altogether out of pro- portion to the good news announced. The whole Abbey seemed to have gone wild with delight. Following the example of the Big Lion, every one pointed a forefinger downwards to the left, swung it sharply across to the right. This gesture was repeated three times and accompanied by the words :— “ Evoe Ho! Evo…
1922 · PDF PAGE 261
…TERVENES It is only three months ago; but it seems a lifetime. My memory is now very good, and I remember more details of the past every day. I am writing this account of the past three months, partly because my best friend tells me that it will strengthen it if I exercise it by putting down what has occurred in sequence. And you know, even a month ago, I couldn’t have recalled anything at all with regard to certain periods. My friend tells me that memory fails me in part because nature mercifully wishes to hide from us things which are painful…
1922 · PDF PAGE 129
…TO FRITTO Ir was about the end of the third week, I discover from Lou’s Diary (I had lost all count of time myself), that he came in one day with a smile of subtle triumph in his eyes. “ T’ve got on to the ropes,” he said, ‘‘ but I think I ought in fairness to warn you that the Gatto Fritto is a pretty hot place. I wouldn’t mind taking you as long as you go in disguise and have a gun in your pocket, ~but I really can’t take it on my conscience to have Lady Pendragon along.”’ I was so full up with cocaine I hardly knew what he was saying. It was…