The strangest part of the whole experience was that I woke up an entirely new man. I found myself engrossed in abstruse calculations, loosely knit together, it is true, but very intense, with regard to an idea which had not entered my mind for months. I was working out in my mind a plan for constructing a helicopter, the invention of which had occupied me deeply when I was out of a job. It had been driven completely out of my mind by my becoming heir to Uncle Mortimer’s estate.
As I regained full wakefulness, I found myself extremely puzzled by my surroundings. In fact, I could not remember who I was. The question seemed in some extraordinary way to lack meaning. The more I regained consciousness of myself, of Telepylus, and of the immediate past, the more these things became unreal. The true “I” was the mathematician and engineer working on the helicopter, and the interval had been an elaborate nightmare.
I threw it all off like a retriever coming out of a pond with a stick in his mouth, and bent myself to my work. I was disturbed by some person or persons unknown kissing me on the back of my neck, and putting a tray with my breakfast at my side. I was aware of a vague subconscious annoyance that the food was cold.
When the tom-tom sounded for the noonday Adoration, I got up and stretched myself; my brain was completely fagged out. I joined the little party on the terrace at the salutation to the sun.
“Hail unto thee who art Ahathor in thy triumphing, even unto thee who art Ahathor in thy beauty; that travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the mid-career of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in his splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto thee from the abodes of morning!”
One of the party made a very singular impression on me. There was something indefinably Mongolian about her face. The planes were flat; the cheek-bones high; the eyes oblique; the nose wide, short, and vital; the mouth a long, thin, rippling curve like a mad sunset. The eyes were tiny and green with a piquant elfin expression. Her hair was curiously colourless; it was very abundant; she had wound great ropes about her head. It reminded me of the armature of a dynamo. It produced a weird effect – this mingling of the savage Mongol with the savage Norseman type. Her strange hair fascinated me. It was that delicate flaxen hue – so fine. The face was extraordinarily young and fresh, all radiant with smiles and blushes.
“Peter, my boy,” I said to myself, “you’d better get busy and finish that helicopter and make some money, because that’s the girl you’re going to marry –”
This conviction seized me with the force of a revelation; for the girl was mysteriously familiar. It seemed as if I had seen her in a dream or something like that. I was very annoyed to find an arm familiarly slipped through mine, while a voice said in my ear:
“We may as well walk over to the refectory for lunch. You haven’t answered my question about how you came to take up flying.”
“When you asked me, I wasn’t at all clear in my mind, but the chain of causes is sufficiently obvious now.”
I had never taken kindly to medicine. Its unscientific procedure, its arrogance, its snobbishness, and its empiricism all combined to disgust me. I had simply gone to the hospital because my father was bent on it, and wouldn’t put up the money for anything else. I wanted to be an engineer. I was keen as mustard on bicycles and automobiles. Even as a boy I had had a sort of workshop of my own. The greatest pleasure of my childhood had been the rare visits to my mother’s father, who in his time had been a great inventor and done an immense amount of work relative to the mechanical perfection of railway travelling.
When the war broke out I had gone straight to the engineering shops; and I became a flying man rather against my will, on account of my weight and the dearth of pilots.
I broke off in my enthusiastic harangue, because King Lamus had stopped on the crest of the ridge which divided the strangers’ house at the Abbey from the main buildings.
“The climb has put you out of breath,” he said.
“Take a sniff of this; it will put you all right in a second.”
I pushed the man’s hand away impatiently, and the little heap of powder fell to the ground.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” said Basil laughing.
I realised how rude I had been, and began to apologise.
“That’s all right,” he said. “But, of course, you aren’t going to get out of it as easily as that. You don’t give up eating mutton because you ate too much one day and got indigestion. You’ll find heroin pretty useful when you know how to use it. However, your gesture just now was automatic. It was evidence that your unconscious or true will objects to your taking heroin. So far so good for the negative side. But the question is, what does your true will actually want you to do in a positive way?”
“Confound the fellow and his eternal metaphysics,” I thought.
“I haven’t the least idea,” I answered sharply, “and what’s more, I’ve no time to waste on this occult stuff of yours. Don’t think I’m rude. I’m very grateful for all you’ve done for me.”
Strangely enough, the memory of the last few months had just returned to my mind. Yet it was merely the background of the burning flame of thought that filled my consciousness.
Basil did not answer, and as we walked down the hill together I began to explain my ideas about the new helicopter. Almost without knowing it, we had reached the door of the large house which the Abbey used for a refectory, and we sat down on the stone seats which lined its north-eastern wall, and gazed over the marvellous prospect.
The refectory was set on a steep slope. The ground fell sharply away from below our feet. On the left, the great rock towered even more tremendously than on the other side; and on the right, the hills above the coast-line danced away into dim purple. In front was a strange jagged headland crowned with a fantastic cluster of rocks, and beyond this the great sea stretched away, in masses of greens and blues and violets, to where a number of volcanic islands slumbered dimly on the horizon.
Basil annoyed me intensely by interpolating remarks about the beauty of the scenery. I couldn’t seem to interest him in the helicopter at all. Was I really talking such rubbish?
“I’m too old to be snubbed, Sir Peter,” (Oh, yes, I was Sir Peter now! Of course I was.) he interjected, shaking me gently by the shoulder.
I had paused to clear up a point in my mind about one of the gauges.
“And I must remind you that you are a gentleman; and that when you came to this Abbey the first thing you did was to sign a pledge-form.”
He repeated the words:
“I do solemnly declare that I accept the Law of Thelema, that I will devote myself to discover my True Will, and to do it.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” I said hurriedly. “I’m not trying to get out of it; but really, I am at the moment most frightfully preoccupied with this idea about the helicopter.”
“Thank you, that will do,” said King Lamus briskly. “The meeting will now adjourn.”
I felt a little irritation at his offhand manner, but I followed him in to lunch. He stood at the end of the table, facing Sister Athena at the other.
“There will be champagne,” he said, “for lunch today.”
The remark was received with a hilarity which seemed positively indecent, and altogether out of proportion to the good news announced. The whole Abbey seemed to have gone wild with delight.
Following the example of the Big Lion, every one pointed a forefinger downwards to the left, swung it sharply across to the right. This gesture was repeated three times and accompanied by the words:
“Evoe Ho! Evoe Ho! Evoe Ho!”
They began to clap hands but checked the movement before contact and only allowed the clash to take place on the third syllable of the great cry:
I A O
This was followed by very rapid clapping three times three, in silence.
I was entirely bewildered by this demonstratio
n, but had no opportunity to make inquiries, for Sister Cypris immediately said “Will” with Hermes, and lunch began in the invariable silence, a silence somewhat modified by the exuberant hilarity of the entire assembly.
The champagne would not account for it all. The unrestrained glee reminded me of my early days with cocaine. However, I had something better to think about. The question was how to reduce W to an indefinitely small quantity in the formula
Confound it, what was the use of making a rule of silence at meals when everybody was breaking it in the spirit if not in the letter? I got hot and red behind the ears. Everybody from Big Lion with his tumbler full of champagne to Dionysus with his liqueur glass of the same was holding it out to me as if drinking to my health. I availed myself of the rule which permits us to leave the table without ceremony. I would go back to the other house and work.
But a sudden thought struck me just as I got outside the door. I sat down again on the stone seats, whipped out a note-book and began my calculations. I saw my way to a solution, jotted down my idea, and snapped the book to in triumph.
It was then that I became aware that Big Lion was putting a cigar in my mouth, and that everybody was crowding around me and shaking hands. Was this another of the buffoon’s stupid jokes?
“To what end?” said Big Lion, as he lighted my cigar.
I had sunk back in the bench in a sort of lazy triumph. Nothing bothered me now. I could see my way to solve my problem.
“You must say ‘attomplish great wort’.” said Dionysus, in a tone of dignified reproach.
“Confound the Great Work!” I replied pettishly, and then became sorry for myself.
I picked up my Pagan friend, took him on my knee, and began to stroke his head. He snuggled up to me delightfully.
“You must excuse us,” said Hermes very seriously, “but we’re all so glad.”
Chapter VII
LOVE UNDER WILL
I began to laugh despite myself.
“Well,” I said, puffing at my cigar, “I do really wish you’d let me know what this is all about. Has Lloyd George resigned?”
“No,” 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; and the Law, after all, is nothing but the plainest common sense. Do you remember my asking you before tiffin what was your true will?”
“Yes,” I said, “I do. And I told you then, and I tell you again now, that I haven’t the time to think about things like that.”
“That fact,” he retorted, “was quite enough to assure me that you had discovered it.”
“Look here,” I said, “you’re a good sort and all that, but you are really a bit queer, and half the time I don’t know what you are driving at. Can’t you put it in plain English?”
“With all the pleasure in life,” he returned. “Just look at the facts for a moment. Fact one: Your maternal grandfather is a mechanical genius. Fact two: From your earliest childhood, subjects of this sort have exercised the strongest fascination for you. Fact three: Whenever you get off those subjects, you are unhappy, unsuccessful, and get into various kinds of mess. Fact four: The moment the war gives you your opportunity, you throw up medicine and go back to engineering. Fact five: You graduate reluctantly from the bench to the pilot’s seat, and your squad commander himself sees that it’s a case of a square peg in a round hole. Fact six: As soon as the Armistice throws you on your beam ends, you get busy again with the idea of the helicopter. Fact seven: You are swept off your feet by coming into a fortune and immediately go astray with drugs – clear evidence that you have missed your road. Fact eight: As soon as your mind is cleansed by the boredom of Telepylus of all its artificial ideas, it returns to its natural bent. The idea of the helicopter comes back with such a rush that you let your breakfast get cold, you don’t know your wife when she brings it, and you can talk about nothing else. For the first time in your life your self-consciousness is obliterated. You even start to explain your ideas to me, though I know nothing whatever of the subject. It doesn’t require any particular genius to see that you have discovered your true will. And that accounts for the champagne and applause at lunch.”
I scratched my head, still hardly comprehending. But one clause in the Big Lion’s roar had struck me with appalling force. I looked round the circle of faces.
“Yes, I’ve discovered my will, all right,” I said, “I know now what I’m good for. I understand why I came to this silly planet. I’m an engineer. But you said ‘my wife.’ That doesn’t fit in at all. Where is she?”
“Well, you know,” returned Big Lion, with a grin, “you mustn’t imagine me to be a cold storage warehouse for other people’s wives. If I might hazard a guess, however, your wife’s discovered what her own will is, and has gone off to do it.”
“Oh, damnation,” said I. “Here, you know, I say I can’t allow that sort of thing!”
The Big Lion turned his sternest gaze upon me. “Now, Sir Peter,” he said incisively, “pull yourself together. You’ve only just discovered your own will, and you naturally want to be let alone to do it. And yet, at the very first opportunity, you butt in and want to interfere with your own wife doing hers. Let me tell you point-blank that it’s none of your business what she chooses to do. Haven’t you seen enough harm come from people meddling with other people’s business? Why, hang it, man, your first duty to your wife is to protect her.”
“Another of your paradoxes,” I growled.
As a matter of fact, I was torn between two attitudes. Lou had been an ideal companion in debauchery of all sorts. A woman like that was bound to be the ruin of a hard-working engineer. At the same time I was madly in love with her, especially after seeing her for the first time that morning; and she belonged to me.
It was only too clear to me what he meant by saying she had discovered her true will. She had shown that plainly enough when she had begged him to take her away. He had simply worked one of his devilish tricks on me, and got rid of me, as he thought, by getting me absorbed in my helicopter.
I was to be the complacent husband, and allow my wife to go off with another man right under my nose, while I was busy with my calculations. I was to be the mari complaisant, was I?
Well, the fiend was ingenious, but he had calculated wrong for once. I got up and deliberately slapped him in the face.
“Before breakfast,” he said to Sister Athena, “we shall require pistols for two and coffee for one. But while we are waiting for the fatal rendezvous,” he added, turning to me with one of his inscrutable grins, “I must continue to keep my oath, As it happens, one of the brethren here is himself a mechanic. That little house on the headland (he pointed as he spoke) is fitted up as a fairly complete workshop. We might stroll down together and see you started. There will probably be a lot of things that you need which we haven’t got and you can make a list of them, and we’ll telegraph Lala to buy them in London and bring them down here. She is coming in three days’ time. I will also ask her to stop in Paris for one of those nice iron wreaths with enamelled flowers to put on my nameless grave.”
The man’s nonchalance made me suddenly furiously ashamed of myself. I had to spit out between my teeth that he was an unutterable scoundrel.
“That’s right, Sir Peter,” retorted the Big Lion, “reassure yourself, by all means. ‘The unspeakable Lamus’ is the classical express
ion, and it is customary to give a slight shudder; but perhaps a genius like yourself is justified in inventing new terms of abuse.”
I was disconcerted abominably by the attitude of the audience, whose faces were fixed in broad grins, with the exception of Dionysus, who came straight up to me and said:
“Sonna mabitch,” and hit me in the eye. “If you shoot my Bid Lion,” he added, “I’ll shoot you.”
The entire company broke into screams of uncontrollable laughter. Lamus rose with assumed indignation, and observed ferociously –
“Is this your idea of doing your wills, you wasters? Did you come to this planet to turn the most serious subjects into mockery? You ought all to be weeping, considering that within twenty-four hours you will have to bury your beloved Big Lion or our esteemed guest, who has endeared himself to all of us by his unconscious humour. Come along, Sir Peter,” and he slipped his arm through mine. “We have no time to waste with these footlers. As to Unlimited Lou. . . .”(he began to sing):
“Has any one seen my Mary?
Has any one seen my Jane?
Diary of a Drug Fiend Page 34