Читать книгу The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley - Aleister Crowley - Страница 65

Table of Contents

We went out gritting our teeth with Mingled rage and dejection. We walked on aimlessly in silence. A taxi offered itself. We climbed into it listlessly and drove back here. We threw ourselves on our beds. The idea of lunch was disgusting. We were too weak and too annoyed to do anything. We could not trust ourselves to speak; we should have quarrelled. I fell into a state of sleepless agony. Our visit to the studio had burnt itself into my mind. I imagined the flesh of my soul sizzling beneath the white hot branding iron of Lamus's Will.

I reached out my hands for this diary. It has relieved me to write it down in all this detail.

I found myself on fire with passionate determination to fight H. and C. to a finish; and my hands were tied behind my back, my feet were fettered by a chain and ball. I wouldn't be made to stop by that beast. We'd get it despite him. We wouldn't be treated like children ; we'd get as much as we wanted and we'd take it all the time, if it killed us.

The conflict in myself raged all the afternoon. Cockie had gone to sleep. He snored and groaned. He was like one's idea of a convict. He hadn't shaved for two days. My own nails were black. I felt sticky and clammy all over. I hadn't dressed myself. I had thrown my clothes on carelessly.

Cockie woke about dinner-time. We couldn't go down as we were. We were suddenly stung by the realisation that we were making durselves conspicuous in the hotel. We had a horrible fear of being found out. They might do something. It was all the worse that we didn't quite know what. And we felt so helpless, almost too weak to move a finger.

Oh, couldn't we find some anywhere I...

My God ! what a bit of luck. What a fool I am. There was one packet of H. in the pocket of my travelling dress. We crawled towards each other and shared it. After the long abstention, the effect was miraculous.

Cockie picked himself up almost fiercely. The desperate anguish of our necessity drove him to swift resolute action. He sent for the barber and the waiter. We had the maid pack our things. We paid the bill and left our heavy trunks in the hotel, explaining that we had been called away suddenly on business. We put our dressing cases into a taxi and said, " Euston, main line."

Cockie stopped the man at Cambridge Circus. " Look here," he said in an eager whisper, " we want some rooms in Soho. Some French or Italian place."

The man was equal to the problem. He found us a dirty dark little room on the ground floor in Greek Street. The landlady was some kind of Southerner with a dash of black blood. Her face told us that she was exactly the kind of woman we wanted.

We paid the taxi. Cockie was very restless. He wanted to get the man to do what we wanted. He was itching all over, but he was afraid. We sat down on the bed, and began to make plans.

August 21

I don't remember anything. I must have gone off suddenly to sleep as I was. Cockie is out....

He has been going round town all night ; the clubs and that. He got two sniffs from Mabel Black ; but she was shy herself. He and Dick Wickham went down to Limehouse. No luck I They nearly got into a row with some sailors....

Madame Bellini has brought breakfast. Horrible, beastly food. We must eat some ; I'm so weak....

She came in to clear it away and do the room. I got her talking about her life. She has been in England nearly thirty years, I worked round to the interesting subject. She doesn't know much about it. She thinks she can help. One of the women lodgers injects. She asked could we pay. It's really rather comic. Eight thousand a year and one of the most beautiful houses near London. And here we are in this filthy hole being asked "can we pay!" by a hag that never saw a sovereign in her life unless she stole it from some drunken client.

Cockie seems to have lost his sense. He flashed a fifty-pound note in her face. It was because he was angry at her attitude. She rather shut up. Either she thinks we're police spies or she's made up her mind to rob us.

The sight of the cash knocked her out of time ! It destroyed her sense of proportion. It put all her ideas of straight dealing out of her mind. Her manner changed. She went off.

Pete told me to go and see the dope girl myself. It's the first time he ever spoke to me like that. All sexual feeling is dead between us. We've tried to work up the old passion. It was artificial, horrible, repulsive ; a degradation and a blasphemy. Why is it ? The snow intensified love beyond every possibility. Yet I love him more than ever. He's my boy. I think he must be ill. I wish I weren't so tired. I'm not looking after him properly, and I can't think about anything except getting H. I don't seem to mind so much about C. I never liked C. much. It made me dizzy and ill.

We have no amusements now. We get through the day in a dark, dreary dream. I can't fix my mind on anything. The more I want H. the less I am able to think and act as I should to get anything else I wanted.

Cockie went out slamming the door. It swung open again.

I couldn't go to the woman like this. I've written this to try to keep from crying.

But I am crying, only the tears won't come.

I'm snivelling like a woman I once saw when I visited the hospital.

I haven't got a handkerchief.

I can't bring myself to wash in that dirty cracked basin. We've brought no soap. The towel's soiled and torn. I must have some H....

I've just been to see Lillie Fitzroy. How can men give her money ? Her hair is gray, crudely dyed. She has wrinkles and rotten teeth. She was in bed, of course. I shook her roughly to wake her. I've lost every feeling for others, and people see it, and it spoils my own game. I must pretend to have the kindness and gentleness which I used to have so much; which used to make people think me an amiable fool.

Some one told me once that adjectives spoilt nouns in literature, and you can certainly cut out that one.

She's a good sort, all the same, poor flabby old thing. She only takes M., and only gets that in solution ready to inject. She saw I was all in, and gave me a dose in the thigh. It doesn't touch the spot like H., but it stops the worst of the suffering. She never gets up till tea-time. I left her a fiver. She promised to see what she could do that night with the man who gets it for her.

She got very affectionate in a sentimental, motherly style, told me the story of her life, and so on, for ever it seemed. Of course, I had to pretend to be interested to keep her in good humour. Everything might depend on that.

But it was awful to have to let her kiss me when I went away. I wonder if I should get like that if I went on with dope.

What absolute nonsense ! For all I know, it may have prevented her going faster still. She must have had a beastly rotten life. The way she clawed at that five quid was the clue to her troubles ; that and her ignorance of everything but the nastiest kind of vice and the meanest kind of crime.

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 pedlar he met in the Wisteria. It's absolutely straight stuff. Pulled him round in a second. There are two of them in it ; the man with the dope and the sentry. They talk business in the lavatory, and if another man comes in, the pedlar disappears. In case of real danger, he gets rid of his sample in a flash beyond any possibility of being traced. The loss is trifling ; they can buy the stuff at a few shillings an ounce and sell it for I don't know how many times its weight in gold.

We shall have a great night to-night !

August 22 A hellish night !

Cockie kept his date with the pedlar, got ten pounds' worth of H. and fifteen of C., and the H. was nothing at all and the C., so adulterated that we took the whole lot and it was hardly worth talking about.

What filthy mean beasts people are !.

How can men take advantage of the bitter needs of others ? It was the same in the war with the profiteers. It's always been the same.

I am writing this in a Turkish bath. I couldn't stand that loathsome house any more. It has done me lots of good. The massage has calmed my nerves. I slept for a long while, and a cup of tea has revived me.

I tried to read a paper, but every line opens the wound. They seem to have gone mad about dope....

I suppose it's really quite natural. I remember my father telling me once that the inequality of wealth and all the trickery of commerce arose from artificial restriction.

Last night's swindle was made possible by the great philanthropist jabez Platt. His Diabolical Dope Act has created the traffic which he was trying to suppress. It didn't exist before except in his rotten imagination....

I get such sudden spells of utter weariness. Dope would put me right. Nothing else has any effect. Everything that happens makes me want a sniff ; and every sniff makes something happen. One can't get away from the cage, but the complexity makes me... there, I can't think what I started to say. My mind stops suddenly. It's like dropping a vanity bag. You stop to pick it up and the things are all over the place and it always seems as if something were missing. One can never remember what it is, but the feeling of annoyance is acute. It's mixed up with a vague fear. I've often forgotten things before--every one does all the time, but it doesn't bother one.

But now, every time that I remember that I've forgotten something, I wonder whether it's H. or C. or mixing the two that is messing up my mind.

My mind keeps on running back to that American nigger we met in Naples. He said snow made people " flighty and sceptical." It was such a queer expression. By sceptical he meant suspicious, I think. Anyhow, I've got that way. Flighty-I can't keep my mind on things like I could, except, of course, the one thing. And even that is confused. It's not a clear thought. It's an ache and a fear and a pain-and a sinister rapture. And I am suspicious of everybody I see.

I wonder if they think I'm taking it, and if they can do something horrid. I'm always on the look-out for people to play me some dirty trick, but that isn't a delusion at all. I've seen more meanness and treachery since the night I met Cockie than I knew in the rest of my life.

We seem to have got into a bad set somehow. And yet, my oldest friends-I can't trust them like I did. They're all alike. I wonder if that's a delusion ? How can I tell ? They do act funnily. I'm unsettled. How can one be sure of anything ? One can't. The more one thinks of it, the more one sees it must be so.

Look how Feccles let us down. For all I know, there may be some motive at the back of even a really nice woman like Gretel-or Mabel Black. I'm really suspicious of myself. I think that's it.

I must go home. I hope to God Cockie's found some somewhere !

I met Mabel Black coming out of the Burlington Arcade. She looked fine, all over smiles, a very short, white skirt and a new pair of patent leather boots almost up to her knees. She must find them frightfully hot. She rushed me into a tea place, awfully smart with rose-shaded lights reflected up to a blue ceiling the combination made a most marvellous purple.

We got an alcove shut off by canary-coloured curtains and a set of the loveliest cushions I ever saw. Two big basket chairs and a low table. They have the most delightful tea in egg-shell china and Dolly cigarettes with rose leaves.

Mabel talked a hundred miles a minute. She has struck the biggest kind of oil-a romantic boy of sixty-five. He had bought her a riding crop with a carved ivory handle ; the head of a race horse with ruby eyes and a gold collar.

I asked her laughingly if it was to keep him in order. But what she was really keen on was H. She had got a whole bottle and gave me quite a lot in an envelope.

The first go, oh, what joy ! And then-how strange we all are ! The minute I had it in my bag-in my blood-my mind began to work freely. The irritating stupefaction passed off like waking from a nightmare

-a nightmare of suffocation-and it came to me with the force of a blow that the effect was not due to the H. at all, or hardly at all. When we got it again in Naples, it didn't do us much good.

Why was I translated into heaven this afternoon ? Why had I found my wings ?

The answer came as quick as the question. It's he atmosphere of Mabel and the relief of my worry. With that came a rational fear of the drug. I asked her if she hadn't had any troubles from taking it.

" You can't sleep without it," she said, but not as if it mattered much, " and it rather gets on one's nerves now and then."

She bad to rush off to meet her beau for dinner. I went back to our dirty little den, brimming over with joy. I found Cockie sprawling on the bed in the depth of dejection. He did not move when I came in. I ran to him and covered him with kisses. His eyes were heavy and swollen and his nose was running.

I gave him my handkerchief and pulled him up. His clothes were all rumpled and of course he hadn't shaved. I couldn't resist the temptation of teasing my darling. My love had come back in flood. I tingled with the pain of feeling that he did not respond. I hugged the pain to my heart. My blood beat hard with the joy of power. I held him in my hand. One dainty act, and he was mine. I hadn't the strength to enjoy myself to the full. Pity and tenderness brought the tears to my eyes. I shook out a dose of the dull white wizardry.

He sniffed it up with stupid lethargy like a man who has lost hope of life, yet still takes his medicine as a routine. He came up gradually, but was hardly himself till after the third dose.

I took one, too, to keep him company, not because I needed it. I sent him out to get shaved and buy clean linen.

I take a curious delight in writing this diary. I know now why it is and it has rather startled me. It's just that chance phrase of King Lamus: " Your magical diary."

I have flirted a lot with Lamus, but it was mostly swank. I dislike the man in many ways.

By Jove, I know why that is, too. It's because I feel that he despises me intellectually, and because I respect him. Despite my dislike, I am eager to show him that I am not such a rotter after all.

One of his fads is to make his pupils keep these magical diaries. I feel that I've gone in for a competition; that I have to produce something more interesting than,anything they do, whoever they are.

Here comes Peter Pan. He hasn't grown old after all....

We had a gorgeous feed at the dear old cafe. King Lamus came up to our table but he only said a few words.

" So you got it, I see."

Cockie gave him one back.

" I hate to injure your reputation as a prophet, Mr.

Lamus, but it isn't stopping when you have to stop. I've got it, as you say, and now, with your kind permission, I'm going to show you that we can stop."

Lamus changed his manner like a flash. His contemptuous smile became like sunrise in spring.

" That's talking," he said. " I'm glad you've got the idea. Don't think I'm trying to put you off, but if you should find it more difficult than you imagine, don't be too proud to come to me ! I really do know some fairly good tips."

I was glad that Peter took it in good part. Being in good form, he realised, I suppose, that it was a serious business. We might strike a snag.

August 23 The night has been a miracle !

We went on taking H. pretty steadily. I think the C. spoils it. Our love bloomed afresh as if it was a new creation. We were lapsed in boundless bliss !

" Awake, for ever awake! Awake as one never is

While sleep is a possible end, Awake in the void, the abyss."

But not in the unutterable anguish of which the poet was writing. It is a formless calm. But love I We had never loved like this before. We had defiled love with the grossness of the body.

The body is an instrument of infinite pleasure; but excitement and desire sully its sublimity. We were conscious of every nerve to the tiniest filament ; and for this one must be ineffably aloof from movement.

H. makes one want to scratch, and scratching is infinite pleasure. But that is only a relic of animal appetite.

After a little while, one is able to enjoy the feeling that makes one want to scratch in itself. It is an impersonal bliss perfectly indescribable and indescribably perfect.

I cannot measure the majesty of my consciousness; but I can indicate the change in the whole character of my consciousness.

I am writing this in the mood of the recording angel. I am living in eternity, and temporal things have become tedious and stupid symbols. My words are veils of my truth. But I experience quite definite delight in this diary.

King Lamus is always at the root of my brain. He is Jupiter and I have sprung from his thought ; Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom !

The most tremendous events of life are unworthy trifles. The sublimity of my conceptions sweeps onward from nowhere to nowhere. Behind my articulate anthem is a stainless silence.

I am not writing for any reason, not even for myself to read ; the action is automatic.

I am the first-born child of King Lamus without a mother. I am the emanation of his essence.

I lay all night without moving a muscle. The nearness of my husband completed the magnetic field of our intimacy. Act, word, and thought were equally abolished. The elements of my consciousness did not represent me at all. They were sparks struck off from our Selves. Those Selves were one Self which was whole. Any positive expression of it was of necessity partial, incomplete, inadequate. The Stars are imperfection of Night ; but at least these thoughts are immeasurably faster and clearer than anything I have thought all my life.

If I were ever to wake up-it seems impossible that I ever should-this entry will probably be quite un-intelligible to me. It is not written with the purpose of being intelligible or any other purpose. The idea of having a purpose at all is beneath contempt. It is the sort of thing a human being would have.

How can a supreme being inhabiting eternity have a purpose ? The absolute, the all, cannot change; how then could it wish to change ? It acts in accordance with its nature ; but all such action is without effect. It is essentially illusion ; and the deeper one enters into one's self the less one is influenced by such illusions.

As the night went on, I found myself less and less disturbed by my own exquisite emotions. I felt myself dissolving deliciously into absence of interruption to the serenity of my soul....

I think writing this has reminded me of what I used to think was reality. It was time to go out and have lunch. The luxurious lethargy seems insuperable....

It isn't hunger ; it's habit. Some instinct, some obscure and obscene recollection of the lurking brute drives one to get up and go out. The dodge for doing this is to take three or four rather small sniffs in quick succession. C. would be much better, but we haven't got any.

September 1

What ages and ages have passed ! These filthy lodgings have been Eden without the snake. Our lives have been Innocence; no toil, no thought. We did not even eat, except the little food the woman brought in.

We scared her, by the way. She can't or won't get us any H. or C. The morphine girl has disappeared.

I'm not sure and it doesn't matter, but I think the landlady-I can never remember the woman's name, she reminds me of those dreadful days in Naples-told us that she stole some things from a shop and went to jail. It was a great nuisance, because I had to put my clothes on and call on Mabel. Luckily, she was in and had a whole lot of it.

We must have been increasing the dose very fast; but I can't be sure, because we don't keep track of it or of the days either. Counting things is so despicable. One feels so degraded. Surely that's the difference between spirit and matter. It's bestial to be bounded.

Cockie agrees with me about this. He thinks I'm writing rather wonderful things. But as soon as we come down to ordinary affairs, we quarrel all the time. We snap about nothing at all. The reason is evident.

Having to talk destroys the symphony of silence. It's hateful to be interrupted ; and it interrupts one to be asked to pass a cigarette.

I wasn't going to be bothered to go out again, so I made Mabel give me all she could spare. She promised to get some more and send it round next Sunday....

We're not very well, either of us. It must be this dark, dirty room and the bad atmosphere; and the street noises get on my nerves.

We could go to Barley Grange, but it's too much trouble. Besides, it might break the spell of our happiness. We're both a little afraid about that.

It happened once before, and we don't want to take any chances. It wants a lot of clever steering to keep the course. For instance, we took too much one night and made ourselves sick. It took three or four hours to get back, and that was absolute hell. My heart is a little fretful at times. It's certainly great, Peter Pan having medical knowledge. He went out and got some strychnine and put me right.

Champagne helps H. quite a lot. You mustn't drink it off. The thing to do is to sip it very slowly. It helps one to move one's hands.

We sent out a boy and got in three dozen small bottles.

September 5

The world is a pig. It keeps on putting its nose where it isn't wanted. We are overdrawn at the bank. Cockie had to write to Mr. Wolfe.

" It ought to be stopped," he cried, " it amounts to brawling in church ! "

A flash of the old Peter Pan !

September 8. The woman says it's Tuesday, and we're running awfully short. Why can't people keep their promises ? I'm sure Mabel said Sunday.