196 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
the greater are his possibilities. But he must refuse
to surrender to his passions; he must make them
serve him. “ Dienen! Dienen!”
Who would kill a horse because he was afraid to
ride him? It is better to mount, and dare the brute
to bolt.
After the man is thrown, we pick him up and nurse
him, but we don’t adore him. Most men are like that.
But what every woman is looking for is the man with
the most spirited horse and the most complete mastery
of him. That’s most symbolic in The Garden of Allah,
where the monk who cannot ride takes a stallion out
into the desert, determined to fight the thing out to a
finish.
Basil was not moved by the savage spite of Peter.
He refused to be provoked. Whenever he got a chance
to put a word in, he simply asserted the purpose of his
visit. He did not even take the trouble to deny the
main accusation.
It tired Peter to dash himself so uselessly against the
cliff of Basil’s contempt. I don’t mean that it was
contempt, either, but his calm kindness was bound to
be felt as contempt because Peter couldn’t help knowing
how well he deserved disdain. He was aware of the
fact that his abuse became weaker and emptier with
every outburst. He simply pulled himself together
with a last effort of animosity toward the friend who
could have saved us, and ordered him out of the house.
He made himself more ridiculous by posing as an
outraged husband.
Lofty morality is the last refuge when one feels
oneself to be hopelessly in the wrong.
It was the first time I had ever known Peter play
the hypocrite. His professions of propriety were
simply the measure of his indignity.
There was nothing for Basil to do but to go. Peter
pretended to have scored a triumph. It would not
have deceived anybody, but—if there had been a
chance—he cut away the pulpit from under his own