The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley
from my tongue.
" I am going to Basil, to see if he can't give me something to help us out."
I knew he didn't believe me, and I knew he didn't care where I went or what I did. He was not shocked at my lying to him-the first time I had ever done so.
I took a taxi round to the studio. My lie was half truth. I was going to ask him to help in the cure ; but my real object was to induce him, no matter how, to give me at least one dose. I didn't care how I got it. I would try pretending illness. I would appeal to our old relations, and I would look about slyly to see if I couldn't find some and steal it. And I didn't mean to let Peter know.
On the top of everything else was the torture of shame. I had always been proud of my pride. A subtle serenity made my brain swim when I got into the street. It delighted me to be alone-to have got rid of Peter. I felt him as a restraining influence, and I had shaken him off. I despised myself for having loved him. I wanted to go to the devil my own way.
I found Basil in, and alone. What luck ! That hateful tall thin girl was out of the way.
Basil received me with his usual greeting. It stung me to the quick like an insult. What right had he to reproach me ? And why should " Do what thou wilt " sound like a reproach ?
As a rule he added something to the phrase. He slid into ordinary conversation with a kind of sinuous grace. There was always something feline about him. He reminded me of a beautiful, terrible tiger winding his way through thick jungle.
But to-day, he stopped short with dour decision. It was as if he had fired a shot, and was waiting to see the effect. But he motioned me silently into my usual arm-chair, lit a cigarette for me and put it into mv mouth, switched in the electric kettle for tea, and sat on the corner of his big square table swinging his leg. His eyes were absolutely motionless ; yet I felt that they were devouring my body and soul inch by inch.
I wriggled on my chair as I used to do at school when I didn't feel sure whether I had been found out in something or not.
I tried to cover my confusion by starting a light conversation ; but I soon gave it up. He was taking no notice of my remarks. To him they were simply one of my symptoms.
I realised with frightful certitude that my plans were impossible. I couldn't fool this man, I couldn't play on his passions, I couldn't steal in his presence.
Despite myself, my lie had become the truth. I could only do what I said I was coming to do ; to ask him to help me out. No, not even that. I had not got rid of Peter after all.
With King Lamus, I found I couldn't think of myself. I had to think of Peter. I was absolutely sincere when I said with a break in my voice, " Cockie's in an awful mess."
I had it in my mind to add, " Can't you do something to help him ? " and then I changed it to " Won't you ? " and then I couldn't say it at all. I knew it was wasting words. I knew that he could and he would.
He came over and sat on the arm of my chair, and took down my hair, and began playing with the plaits. The action was as absolutely natural and innocent as a kitten playing with a skein of wool.
It stabbed my vanity to the heart for a second to realise that he could do a thing like that without mixing it up with sexual ideas. Yet it was that very superiority to human instincts that made me trust him.
" Sir Peter's not here," he said lightly and kindly,
I knew that it had pleased him that I had not mentioned my own troubles.
" But it's you, my dear girl, that I see in my wizard's spy-glass, on a lee shore with your masts all gone by the board, and the Union Jack upside down flying from a stump, and your wireless hero tapping out S.O.S."
He dropped my hair and lighted his pipe. Then he began to play with it again.
" And some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, they all came safe to land."
One's familiarity with the New Testament makes a quotation somehow significant, however little one may believe in the truth of the book.
I felt that his voice was the voice of a prophet. I felt myself already saved.
" You take some of this," he went on, bringing a white tablet from a little cedar cabinet, and a big glass of cold water. " Throw your head back, and get it well down, and drink all this right off. Here is another to take home to your husband, and don't forget the water. It will calm you down; your nerves have all gone west. I've got some people coming here in a few minutes. But this will help you through the night, and I'm coming round in the morning to see you. What's the address ? "
I told him. My face blazed with the disgrace. A house where the top social note was a fifth-rate musician in a jazz-band, and the bottom where we don't give it a name.
He jotted it down as if it had been the Ritz. But I could feel in my over-sensitive state the disgust in his mind. It was as if he had soiled his pencil.
The tablet made me feel better ; but I think that the atmosphere of the man did more than its share of the work. I felt nearly normal when I got up to go. I didn't want his friends to see me. I knew too well what I was looking like.
He stopped me at the door.
" You haven't any of that stuff, I take it ? " he said.
And I felt an inexpressible sense of relief. His tone implied that he had taken charge of us.
" No," I said, " we used up the last grain some time ago."
" I won't ask you to remember when," he replied.
I know too well how muddled one gets. And besides, when one starts this experiment, the clock doesn't tell one much, as you know."
My self-respect came back to me with a rush. He insisted on our regarding ourselves as pioneers of science and humanity. We were making an experiment; we were risking life and reason for the sake of mankind.
Of course, it wasn't true. And yet, who can tell the real root of one's motives ? If he chose to insist that we were doing what the leaders of thought have always done, how could I contradict him ?
A buoyant billow of bliss bounded in my brain. It might not be true; but, by God, we'd make it come true.
I suppose a light leapt in my eyes, and enabled him to read my thought.
Respice finem ! judge the end;
The man, and not the child, my friend !
he quoted gaily.
And then, to my absolute blank amazement, he took me back into the studio, got a bottle of heroin from the cedar cabinet and shook out a small quantity on to a scrap of paper. He twisted it up, and put it in my hand.
" Don't be surprised," he laughed, " your face tells me that it's all right. You hadn't got that look of a dying duck in a thunderstorm which shows that you're wholly enslaved. As Sir Peter very cleverly pointed out the other day, you can't stop unless you've got something to stop with. You're keeping your magical diary, of course."
" Oh, yes," I cried gladly, I knew how important he thought the record was.
He shook his head comically.
" Oh, no, Miss Unlimited Lou, not what I call a magical diary. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for not knowing the hours, minutes, and seconds since the last dose. Nous allons changer tout cela. You can take this if you like, and when you like. I merely put it up to you as a sort of sporting proposition that you should see how long you can manage to keep off it. But I trust you to make a note of the exact time when you decide on a sniff, and I trust you to tell me the truth. Get it out of your mind once for all that I disapprove of your taking it. It's entirely your business, not mine. But it's every one's business to be true to himself ; and you must regard me as a mere convenience, an old hand at the game whose experience may be of use to you in training for the fight."
I hurried home a different woman. I didn't want to save myself. I felt myself as a suit of armour made for the purpose of protecting Peter. My integrity was important not for my