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Page 1 of 41922 · PDF PAGE 214
… Diary of a Drug Fiend was Miss Laleham, but now I am Lady Pen- dragon.” “Dear, dear,” he said, ‘‘ where can I have been? ite out of the world, quite out of the world!” “Oh, I’m not quite such an important person as ‘that, and I only married Sir Peter in July.” “‘ Ah, that accounts for it,’’ said the doctor. ‘I’ve been away all the summer in the heather with the Marchioness of Eigg. Quite out of the world, quite out of the world. Well, I’m sure you're very happy, my dear Lady Pendragon.”’ He always mentioned a title with a noise like a child su…
1922 · PDF PAGE 306
…tent of wandering into the Trustee’s private account without his suspecting it had behaved in so erratic a manner. “You are a man of the world, Sir Peter,’”’ he declared, almost blubbering, “‘ and I feel sure you understand.” I am not altogether a man of the world, as a matter of fact ; but, whether helped by the cocaine or not, I really did think I understood fairly well what had happened. ““ But why not go to the City?” I repeated, “ they ought to fight like wolves over such a plump little doe as the Schneezug!”’ “My dear Sir Peter!’”’ He rai…
1922 · PDF PAGE 73
Au Pays de Cocaine 59 will go a bit further than that. I don’t believe the greatest artist in the world could invent what we felt, and if he could he couldn’t describe it. I’m trying to describe it myself, and I feel that I’m not making out very well. Come to think of it, the English language has its limitations. When mathemati- cians and men of science want to exchange thoughts, English isn’t much good. They've had to invent new words, new symbols. Look at Einstein’s equations. I knew a man once that knew James Hinton, who invented the fourth …
1922 · PDF PAGE 166
…wake! Awake as. one never is > While sleep is a possible end, Awake in the void, the abyss Whose thirst is an echo of this That martyrs, world without end, (World without end, Amen }) The man that falters and yields , For the proverb’s ‘“‘ month and an hour” To the lure of the snow-starred fields Where the opium poppy’s aflower. Only the prick of a needle Charged from a wizard well! Is this sufficient to wheedle A soul from heaven to hell? Was man’s spirit weaned From fear of its ghosts and gods To fawn at the feet of a fiend? Is it such terrib…
1922 · PDF PAGE 195
…t up behind him. I shook out my hair all over his face, and dug my nails into his scalp. We were living the heroin life, the life of the world of the soul. We had identified ourselves with the people of the poem. He was the poet, wreathed with poppies, with poisonous poppies that corrupted his blood, and I was the phantom of his delirium, the hideous vampire that obsessed him. Little drops of blood oozed from his scalp and clotted to black under my greedy nails. He spoke the next lines as if under some cruel compulsion. The words were wrenched …
1922 · PDF PAGE 188
174 The Diary of a Drug Fiend We sent out a boy and got in three dozen small bottles. September § The world is a pig. It keeps on putting its nose where it isn’t wanted. We are overdrawn at the bank. Cockie had to write to Mr. Wolfe. “It ought to be stopped,” he cried, “ it amounts to brawling in church |” A flash of the old Peter Pan! September 8 The woman says it’s Tuesday, and we're running awfully short. Why can’t people keep their promises ? I’m sure Mabel said Sunday.
1922 · PDF PAGE 46
…hat effect, Sir Peter.”’ How in the devil’s name did he know what I had been taking ? “Men who know things have no right to go about the world,’’ something said irritably inside myself. But something else obscurely answered it. “That accounts for what the world has always done —made martyrs of its pioneers.”’ I felt a little ashamed, to tell the truth; but Lamus put me at my ease. He waved his hand towards a huge arm-chair covered with Persian tapestries. He gave me a cigarette and lighted it for me. He poured out a drink of Benedictine into a …
1922 · PDF PAGE 302
288 The Diary of a Drug Fiend I couldn’t see the joke, but it was the biggest joke in the world. “It’s really awfully kind of you, my dear Mr. Platt,” I said with unction, feeling that I was cast for the star part in some stupendous comedy. “The obligation is entirely on my side,” returned my guest. ‘‘ You have no idea how your kind approval has set my mind at ease.” I took another sniff. I was fainting away into an inexpressible ecstasy. I re-corked the bottle and put it in my pocket, thanking Platt profusely. “ T can’t imagine your mind being…
1922 · PDF PAGE 230
…t, that come and burrow in one’s skin | I just feel the prick of the beak, and then it dis- appears. They were messengers from the other world. There is a little nest of them in my liver. It is very curious to hear them chirping when they want food. I don’t know what they’ll do so far away from their mother. | It is horrible not being able to sleep. That, too, must be a preparation for the new life. I wandered up all alone to the magic room, and sat with my hands on the table opposite the old man, trying to get him to talk. His lips move, but I…
1922 · PDF PAGE 240
…ht discover some of the secrets and ruin everything. There’s another trouble. I can only remember spiritual things clearly. The material world is fading out. It would be disaster if I forgot where I hid it. Basil would never forgive me. I will hide it in the chimney, then I can always look up where I put it.... Whatis dreadfulis the length of time. With H. or C. or both, there is never a dull moment; without them the hours, the very minutes, drag. It’s difficult to read or write. My eyes won’t focus properly. They have been open to the spiritua…
1922 · PDF PAGE 299
…ting it ; if he imagines that most of the people he meets are also sawdust-eaters, and above all, if he thinks that the salvation of the world depends entirely upon making laws to compel people to eat sawdust, whether they like it or not, then it is fair to say that his mind is unbalanced on the subject ; and that, further, the practice itself, however innocent it may appear, is in that particular case perverse. Sanity consists in the proper equilibrium of ideas in general. Thatis the only sense in which it is true that genius is connected with…
1922 · PDF PAGE 125
…dle of the most fascinating in- trigues of the most mysterious kind. And all that on the top of the most wonderful love there was in the world, and heroin and cocaine to help us make the most of the tiniest details. ‘** Well,” said I to Feccles, ‘‘ this suits me down to the ground. I’m trying to forget what you said about my brain, because it isn’t good for a young man to be puffed up with intellectual vanity. But I certainly am the luckiest man in the world.” M. Hector Laroche gave us a delightful hour, telling of some of his past exploits in …
1922 · PDF PAGE 132
… be humoured. But it’s a long way between that and admitting that their hallucinations have any basis in fact. I had been in their silly world of sense a million years or so ago, when I was Peter Pendragon. But why recall the painful past? Of course, one doesn’t come to one’s full strength 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 an…
1922 · PDF PAGE 266
…s become impossible to form a coherent plan. King Lamus is trying to train a number of selected people to act as a sort of brain for the world in its present state of cerebral collapse. He is teaching them to co-ordinate the facts in a higher synthesis. The suggestion is that of his old teacher, Prof. Henry Mauds- ley, with whom he studied insanity. Herbert Spencer, too, had a similar idea. But King Lamus is the first to endeavour to make a practical effort to embody this conception in a practical way. I seem to have wandered a long way from ou…
1922 · PDF PAGE 237
…tion. The reason why he couldn’t live with me as my husband was that my angel had told me that I was going to bring the Messiah into the world. We went into a heated argument. I don’t remember what happened; but as usual, it turned into a quarrel. One must be concentrated on the spiritual life, so the slightest interruption from the senses, if it’s only the wind in the trees, is a terribly irritating thing. “* Satan is the prince of the power of the air,” it says in the Bible, so he sends these noises in the air to disturb my mind. How can I gi…
1922 · PDF PAGE 247
…ould scream and scream and scream and never stop. The wind is howling like that. The summer has died suddenly—without a warning, and the world is scream- ing in agony. It is only the echo of the wailing for my own lost soul. The angels never come to me now. Have I forfeited my position? I am conscious of nothing but this tearing, stabbing, gnawing pain, this restless raging trembling of the body, this malignant groping of a mad surgeon in the open wound of my soul. I am so bitter, bitter cold. Yet I can’t stand the room. Peter is lying helpless…
1922 · PDF PAGE 107
The Ghiter on the Snow 93 the most beautiful woman in the world for my wife, and that could only be done in the regular way by showing her off in the best dresses and the most wonder- ful jewellery. It was my duty to her as my wife, and I could afford it perfectly well because I was a tolerably rich man to start with anyhow, and besides, the five thousand I was putting into Feccles’ business would mean something like a quarter of a million at least, on the most conservative calculations, as I had seen with my own eyes. And that was all clear pr…
1922 · PDF PAGE 99
… so direct a compliment from a man who was so evidently in the know, a man who was holding his own with the brightest minds all over the world. But in my present mood I took it as perfectly natural. Lou laughed in my ear. ‘ That’s right, Cockie, dear,” she chirruped. ‘“ This is where you go right in and win. I’ve really got to have those pearls, you know.” _ “She’s quite right,’ agreed Feccles. “‘ When you're through with this honeymoon, come round with me, and we'll take our coats off and get into the game for all we’re worth and a bit more, a…
1922 · PDF PAGE 218
… every one and everything. I didn’t know where I was going. I hated Peter from the depths of my soul. I would have given anything in the world—except the heroin—to be able never to see him again. But he had the money, why shouldn’t we enjoy our abject ruin as we had enjoyed our romance? Why not wallow in the moist, warm mire?
1922 · PDF PAGE 234
…all I can put down is that we Ahad a complete success. The Devil, of course, needs a human interpreter if he is to communicate with this world, and so he took possession of Peter. He has been preparing Peter to represent him. He will make Peter pope, and I am to be in the Vatican disguised, to help him because he can’t do without me. , My own spiritual guide is named Keletiel. She is a wonderful being, wears peacock blues and greens. She has white wings like a swan, and carries a sheaf of many-coloured flowers. She has long, loose, black curlin…