The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley
But he must refuse to surrender to his passions; he must make them serve him. " Diemen ! Diemen ! "
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 feet when he swung back into the room and snapped with genuine feeling:
" God damn it, what a fool I am! Why didn't you tip me the wink ? We ought to have played up to him and got some heroin out of him...."
This morning has taken everything out of me. I don't care about saving myself. I know I can't save Peter. Why must a woman always have a man for her motive ? All I want is H. Both Cockie and I need it hellishly.
"Look here, Lou," he said with a cunning grin, such as I'd never seen before, quite out of keeping with his character. " You doll yourself up and try the doctors. A man told me last night that there were some who would give you a prescription if you paid them enough. A tener ought to do the trick."
He pulled some dirty crumpled notes out of his trousers' pocket.
" Here you are. For God's sake, don't be long."
I was as keen as he was. All the will to stop had been washed out of me when Basil went. My self-respect was annihilated.
Yet I think it was reluctance to go that kept me hanging about on the pretence of attending to my toilet.
Peter watched me with approval. There was a hateful gleam in his eye, and I loved it. We were both degraded through and through. We had reached the foul straw of the sty. There was something warm and comfortable about snuggling up to depravity. We had realised the ideal of our perversion....
I went to my own doctor. Peter had put me up to symptoms; but he wasn't taking any. He talked about change of climate and diet and the mixture to be taken three times a day. I saw at once it was no good by the way he jumped when I mentioned heroin first.
All I could do was to get out of the old fool's room without losing face....
I didn't know what to do next. I felt like Morris What's-his-name in The Wrong Box when he had to have a false death certificate, and wanted a " venal doctor."
It annoyed me that it was daylight, and I didn't know where to go. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there came the name and address of the man who had helped Billy Coleridge out of her scrape. It was a long way off, and I was horribly tired. I was hungry, but the thought of lunch made me sick. I felt that people were looking at me strangely. Was it the scar by my eye ?
I bought a thick veil. The girl looked surprised, I thought. I suppose it was rather funny in September, and might attract still more attention ; but it gave me a sense of protection, and it was a very pretty veil
-cream lace with embroidered zig-zags.
I took a taxi to the doctor's. Doctor Collins, it was, 61 or 71 Fairelange Street, Lambeth.
I found him at home; a horrid, snuffy old man with shabby clothes; a dingy grimy office as untidy as himself.
He seemed disappointed at my story. It wasn't his line, he said, and he didn't want to get into trouble. On the other hand, he was frightened of me because of what I knew about Billy. He promised to do what he could; but under the new law, he couldn't do more than prescribe ten doses of an eighth of a grain apiece. Four or five sniffs, the whole thing I And he wouldn't dare to repeat it in less than a week.
However, it was better than nothing. He told me where to get it made up.
I found a cloak-room where I could put the packets into one, and started.
The relief was immense. I went on, dose after dose. Cockie could get his own. I should tell him I had drawn blanks. I felt I could eat again, and had some light food and a couple of whiskies and sodas.
I felt so good that I drove straight back to Greek Street, and poured out a mournful tale of failure. It was delicious to deceive that brute after he'd struck me.
It was keen pleasure to see him in such pain ; to imitate his symptoms with minute mimicry; to mock at his misery. He was angry all the same, but his blows gave me infinite pleasure. They were the symbols of my triumph.
" Here, you get out of this," he said, " and don't come back without it. I know where you can get it. Andrew McCall is the man's name. I know him to the bottom of his rotten soul."
He gave me the address.
It was a magnificent house near Sloane Square. He had married a rich old woman, and lived on the fat of the land.
I had met him once myself in society. He was a self-made Scot, and thought evening dress de rigeur in Paradise.
Peter sent me off with a sly snigger. There was some insane idea at the back of his mind. Well, what did I care ?...
Dr. McCall was a man of fifty or so, very well preserved and very well dressed, with a gardenia in his buttonhole. He recognised me at once, and drew me by the hand into a comfortable arm-chair. He began to chatter about our previous meeting ; about the duchess of this and the countess of that.
I wasn't listening, I was watching. His tact told him that I wasn't interested. He stopped abruptly.
" Well, well, excuse me for running on like this about old times. The point is, what can I do for you to-day, Miss Laleham ? "
I instantly saw my advantage. I shook my head laughingly.
" Oh, no," I said, " it's not Miss Laleham." He begged my pardon profusely for the mistake.
" Can it be possible ? Two such beautiful girls so much alike ? "
" No," I smiled back, " it's not as bad as that. I was Miss Laleham, but now I am Lady Pendragon." " Dear, dear," he said, " where can I have been ? Quite 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 stick of barley sugar.
I saw at once the way to appeal to him.
"Well, of course, you know," I said, "in really smart circles one has to offer heroin and cocaine to people. It's only a passing fashion, of course, but while it's on, one's really out of it if one doesn't do the right thing."
McCall got out of the chair at