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Page 1 of 51922 · PDF PAGE 214
…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 sucking a…
1922 · PDF PAGE 43
…against me, sliding so serpent-like about the bounds of space. Of course, it was really the taxi— but I didn’t know it then, and I’m not quite sure of it now. “T wish to God,” I said to myself in a fury, “ I had one more sniff of that Snow. I’d show her!” At that moment she threw me off as if I had been a feather. I felt myself all of a sudden no more good. Quite unaccountably I had collapsed, and I found myself, to my amazement, knocking out a little pile of cocaine from a ten-gramme bottle which had been in my trousers’ pocket, on to my “and,…
1922 · PDF PAGE 362
…” said Big Lion, “it’s just you!” “What about me?” I retorted. “Why, your success, of course,” said Sister Cypris. Something, of course, quite obvious to them was hidden from my dull understanding. I turned on Basil point-blank. “What success ?”’ I said. “It’s true I do see my way through a formula that’s been bothering me. But I don’t see how you know about it. Do Hermes and Dionysus comprise a knowledge of the differential calculus in their attainments? ” “It’s very simple,” said the Big Lion. “ It involves a knowledge of nothing but the Law;…
1922 · PDF PAGE 37
… with the personality of King Lamus. Gretel Webster understood. She insinuated another dose of venom. _ “Oh yes, Mr. Basil King Lamus is quite the ladies’ man. He fascinates them with a thousand different tricks. Lou is dreadfully in love with him.” Once again the woman had made a mistake. I resented her reference to Lou. I don’t remember what I answered. Part of it was to the effect that Lou didn’t seem to have been very much injured. Mrs. Webster smiled her subtlest smile. “T quite agree,”’ she said silkily, ‘“‘ Lou is the most beautiful woma…
1922 · PDF PAGE 339
…ed to nowhere in particular. The words of Lewis Carroll came into my mind :— ‘* A wise fish never goes anywhere without a porpoise.” And quite inconsequentially my brain took up the tune :-— “Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, Won't you join the dance? ” When I woke it was, I suppose, about midnight. Rugs had been thrown over me where I lay. I was quite warm, despite the breeze that came in through the open door. It struck me as very strange that it should be open. The country was notoriously infested with brigands. _ King Lamus was sitt…
1922 · PDF PAGE 307
…n at once and have our lunch in the city. Bless my soul,” he interrupted himself, ‘I shall never forgive myself for being so rude. I had quite forgotten Lady Pen- dragon and Mrs. Webster.” ““Oh, they'll be delighted,” I tittered. ‘“ They'll have a horrible lunch on cream buns and watercress and mince pies and champagne and go shopping after- wards like good little millionairesses.”’ “ Yes, indeed,” said Platt heartily and quite genuinely, “they’re that all right. As for us, we'll lunch at Sweeting’s on oysters and stout and drink to the prosper…
1922 · PDF PAGE 20
…sed by mis- fortune; but the prosperous young man about town was a much inferior creature. Everything more or less bored him, and he was quite definitely irritated by an overdone cutlet. The night I met Lou, I turned into the Café Wisteria in a sort of dull, angry stupor. Yet the only irritating incident of the day had been a letter from the lawyers which I had found at my club after flying from Norfolk to Barley Grange and motoring up to town. Mr. Wolfe had very sensibly advised me to make a settlement of a part of the estate, as against the e…
1922 · PDF PAGE 18
… that I was sole heir to his five or six thousand a year, and the owner of Barley Grange; which is really an awfully nice place in Kent, quite near enough to be convenient for the prosperous young man about town which I had become; and for the best of it, a piece of artificial water quite large enough for me to use for a waterdrome for my seaplane. I may not have the instinct for flying, as Cartwright said; but it’s the only sport I care about. Golf? When one has flown over a golf course, those people do look such appalling rotters | Such pigmy…
1922 · PDF PAGE 239
…rock, and went to get it. It was on the floor in a corner of the drawing-room. It was all shrunk and rumpled and dirty, and it was still quite wet. I suppose I must have gone a long walk in the rain, though I don’t remember anything about it. All the heroin was washed away. There wasn’t a grain left. Peter came in and found me crying. He understood at once what had happened. All he said was :— “ You'll have to go back to McCall.” I couldn’t even be angry. Men are too grossly animal to understand. How could I do such a thing, seeing who I was? H…
1922 · PDF PAGE 93
…was, right on the table, or rather, under the table, because the table was on top of it. When we got the table on its legs again, we saw quite plainly that the cigarette case had been under it, and therefore must have been on top of it before it was overturned. Feccles laughed heartily at the humorous character of the incident. I suppose it was funny in a sort of way. On the other hand, I don’t think it was quite the thing to call attention to. However, I suppose the fellow had to have his cigarette case, and after all, when you do find a table…
1922 · PDF PAGE 180
166 The Diary of a Drug Fiend The morphine has certainly done me a world of good. I am quite myself. I feel it by the way I am writing this entry. I have a quiet impersonal point of view. I have got back my sense of proportion. I can think of things consecutively and I feel physically much stronger, but I’ve got very sleepy again... . Joy! Cockie has just come in full of good news. He looks fine—as fine as he feels. He had a sample from a pediar he met in the Wisteria. It’s absolutely straight stuff. Pulled him round in a second. There are two …
1922 · PDF PAGE 271
… The man was really uncanny. I must confess it put me off, being hit every time like that when I wasn’t expecting it. But Lou took it in quite a different way. She was glad to be so thoroughly understood. She clapped her hands. I was amazed. It was the first time in months that I had ever seen her make the slightest movement that wasn’t absolutely necessary. “You're quite right,”’ she said. “ We said nothing to each other about it, and I hadn’t the slightest con- scious intention of doing what I did. But the moment I got to London I drove to th…
1922 · PDF PAGE 286
…ere seems a very long gap here—fifteen hours—g to 12, that’s right, isn’t it?” He turned to Maisie for confirmation. He was, so he said, quite unable to trust himself to calculate. Maisie entered into the spirit of the absurdity and counted it solemnly out on her fingers. The tone of his voice had been mournful, as if his plans had been seriously disconcerted. That was another trick of his that put people off. It was Lou’s sparkling eyes that told me what he meant. And then I was brought up with a tremendous shock to realise what it meant to me…
1922 · PDF PAGE 39
…ttracted me. The sheer bright infinite beauty of the stuff! I had seen it before of course, often enough, at the hospital ; but this was quite a different thing. It was set off by its environment as a diamond is by its setting. It seemed alive. It sparkled intensely. It was like nothing else in Nature, unless it be those feathery crystals, wind-blown, that glisten on the lips of crevasses. What followed sticks in my memory as if it were a conjurer’s trick. I don’t know by what gesture she constrained me. But her hand slowly rose not quite to th…
1922 · PDF PAGE 254
…y with Peter. My memory is fright- fully bad. I don’t seem able to fix things at all. Peter got stronger all the time. He is practically quite well now, and took me out and taught me to shoot pheasants this morning. It was terribly exciting. I actually got one, my very first day. I got a man and wife and their daughter to come in and do for us, so we're really very comfortable, in a countrified way. I couldn’t have any one while Peter was raving. The waiter from the inn is a Swiss. He kept his mouth shut ; and I saw to it that he had no reason …
1922 · PDF PAGE 296
…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 man’s mind. I had never reached the stage where I could be sure what he could say next. One day we were talking about Lou’s Chinese appearance; and he said quite seriously that he must have some Chinese blood in him or was the reincarnation of a Chinese philosopher. Ko Yuen, I think he said the name was. He said that he owed it to his European reason to explain categori…
1922 · PDF PAGE 47
…tion of her chant :— ‘“O Thou naked virgin of love, that art caught in a net of wild roses! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O!” ‘‘ Quite so,” agreed King Lamus cheerfully. “ You'll excuse me, I know, if I ask whether you have any great experience of the effects of cocaine.” Lou glowered at him. I preferred to meet him frankly. I deliberately put a large dose on the back of my hand and sniffed it up. Before I had finished, the effect had occurred. I felt myself any man’s master. “Well, as a matter of fact,’’ I said superciliously, “ to-nig…
1922 · PDF PAGE 77
…Paris. The night was delicious. Nowhere but in Paris does one experience that soft suave hush ; the heat is dry, the air is light, it is quite unlike anything one ever gets in England. A very gentle breeze, to which our fancy attributed the redolence of the South, streamed up from the Seine. Paris itself was a blur of misty blue; the Pantheon and the Eiffel Tower leapt from its folds. They seemed like symbols of the history of mankind; the noble, solid past and the mechanical efficient future. I leant upon the parapet entranced. Lou's arm was a…
1922 · PDF PAGE 294
…ldren instead of as pioneers of humanity undertaking a desperate adventure for the good of the race.” I began a-sort of apology; I don’t quite know for what. “Nonsense,” he interrupted. “I know perfectly well why you’re ashamed of yourself. You’ve had what you call a relapse. After getting down to five, six and seven doses, you’ve suddenly gone back. Yesterday, I see, Lou had fourteen and you sixteen—more than you were taking ever since you have been in this place. You think that’s a bad sign. I don't. “To begin with, you’ve been honest with yo…
1922 · PDF PAGE 52
38 The Diary of a Drug Fiend It would be quite useless to attempt to describe the drive to Barley Grange. It lasted barely half a second. It lasted age-less cons. Any doubts that I might have had about myself were stamped under foot by the undeniable facts. I had never driven better in my life. I got out the sea- plane as another man might get out a cigarette from his case. She started like an eagle. With the whirr of the engine came Lou’s soft smooth voice in exquisite antiphony :— “O Thou trembling breast of the night, that gleamest with a ro…