Diary of a Drug Fiend

42 The Diary of a Drug Fiend particularly wrong with us except youth and enthusiasm, and he was very sorry that it would take three weeks to turn us off. The good old boy explained the law. “Oh, that’s easy,”” we said in a breath. ‘“ Let’s get the first train to London.” There are no incidents to record. We were both completely anzsthetised. Nothing bothered us. We didn’t mind the waiting on the platform, or the way the old train lumbered up to London. Everything was part of the plan. Everything was perfect pleasure. We were living above ourselves, living at a tremendous pace. The speed of the ‘plane became merely a symbol, a physical projection of our spiritual sublimity. The next two days passed like pantomime. We were married in a dirty little office by a dirty little man. We took back his car to Lamus. I was amused to discover that I had left it standing in the open half over the edge of the lake. I made a million arrangements in a kind of whirling wisdom. Before forty-eight hours had passed we were packed and off for Paris. I did not remember anything in detail. All events were so many base metals fused into an alloy whose name was Excitement. During the whole time we only slept once, and then we slept well and woke fresh, without one trace of fatigue. We had called on Gretel and obtained a supply of cocaine. She wouldn’t accept any money from her dear Sir Peter, and she was so happy to see Lou Lady Pendragon, and wouldn’t we come and see her after the honeymoon ? That call is the one thing that sticks in my mind. I suppose I realised obscurely somehow that the woman was in reality the mainspring of the whole manceuvre. She introduced us to her husband, a heavy, pursy old man with a paunch and a beard, a reputation for righteousness, and an unctuous way of saying the