Diary of a Drug Fiend

208 The Diary of a Drug Fiend that I was a singer, would I kindly refrain from meddling with other affairs e” ‘I know,” I put in, “as the captain said when the first officer interrupted him, ‘‘ What I want from you, Mr. Mate, is silence, and precious damned little of that !’” Again we found ourselves laughing together. It was really very extraordinary the way in which talking to Basil or his pupils exhilarated the mind. I began to see why he was so distrusted and disliked. People always pretend to want to be lifted out of themselves, but in reality they’re terribly afraid of anything happening to them. And Basil always strikes at the root of one’s spiritual oak. He wants one to be oneself, and the price of that is to abandon the false ideas that one has of oneself. People like the sham teachers that soothe them with narcotic platitudes. ° They dread having to face realityin any form. That is the real reason for persecuting prophets. Of course, I was full of H., but Maisie had made me forget all about it for a moment. “Who’s that thin girl that’s always there?” I asked her. It was an automatic spurt of jealousy. “Oh, Lala,” said Maisie, ‘‘she’s rather a dear. She’s a queer girl, one of the queerest ever. Swiss or something, I fancy. He’s trained her for the last three years. He met her, I don’t know how, and asked her to pose for him. She told me once how startled she was at the reason he gave. ‘Did you write that psalm,’ he asked her, ‘*’ I can tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me?’”’’ You know the girl hasn’t got an ounce of flesh on her body. She’s perfectly healthy ; she’s just a freak of nature. And while he sketched her he asked her to suggest a title for the picture. ‘ Paint me as a dead soul,’ she answered. He caught up the phrase with fiery enthusiasm, and began to work on an enormous screen, a triptych with the strangest beasts and birds and faces, all arranged to lead up to