Diary of a Drug Fiend

by Aleister Crowley

  “Is the Countess at home?” asked Balloch, apparently in courtesy.

  “She’s on the Boulevard. Where else should she be, at this time of night?”

  It was the vilest thing charged against that vile parody of a man, his treatment of his wife, a young, beautiful, talented, and charming girl, the sister of a famous Professor at the Sorbonne. He had delighted to reduce her to the bedraggled street-walker that she now was. Nobody knew what Douglas did with his money. The contributions of his Lodge were large; blackmail and his wife’s earnings aided the exchequer; he had probably a dozen other sources of income. Yet he never extricated himself from his sordidness; and he was always in need of money. It was no feigned need, either; for he was sometimes short of whisky.

  The man’s knowledge of the minds of others was uncanny; he read Balloch at a gesture.

  “Grey never struck the Watcher,” he said; “it was not his style; who was it?”

  “Simon Iff.”

  “I shall see to that.”

  Balloch understood that, though S.R.M.D. feared Iff and loathed him, his great preoccupation was with Cyril Grey. He hated the young magician with a perfect hatred; he would never forget his ruin at those boyish hands. Also, he forgave nothing, from a kindness to an insult; he was malignant for the sake of malice.

  “They will have gone over to their house on Montmartre,” continued Douglas, in a voice of absolute certitude. “We must have the exits watched by Abdul Bey and his men. But I know what Grey will do as well as if he had told me; he will bolt somewhere warm for his damned honeymoon. You and Akbar watch the Gare de Lyon. Now, look here! with a bit of luck, we’ll finish off this game; I’m weary of it. Mark me well!”

  Douglas rose. The whisky he had drunk was impotent to affect him, head or legs. He went over to a small table on which were painted certain curious figures. He took a saucer, poured some whisky into it, and dropped a five-franc piece into the middle. Then he began to make weird gestures, and to utter a long conjuration, harsh-sounding, and apparently in gibberish. Lastly, he set fire to the whisky in the saucer. When it was nearly burnt through, he blew it out. He took the coin, wrapped it in a piece of dark-red silk, and gave it to his pupil.

  “When Grey boards a train,” he ordered, “go up to the engine-driver, give him this, and tell him to drive carefully. Let me know what the fellow looks like; get his name, if you can; say you want to drink his health. Then come straight here in a cab.”

  Balloch nodded. The type of magic proposed was familiar enough to him. He took the coin and made off.

  At the Sign of the Tranquil Father, Akbar was awaiting him with his son Abdul Bey. The latter was in charge of the Turkish Secret Service in Paris, and he did not hesitate to use the facilities thus at his disposal to his own magical advancement. All his resources were constantly at the service of Balloch. Now that S.R.M.D. himself was employing him, he was beside himself with pride and pleasure.

  Balloch gave his instructions. An hour later the house where Lisa was even then undergoing her ordeal would be surrounded by spies; additional men would be placed at all the big terminals of Paris; for Abdul Bey meant to do the thing thoroughly. He would not take a chance; for all his fanatical faith in Douglas, he thought it prudent to provide against the possibility of an error in the chief’s occult calculations. Also, his action would prove his zeal. Besides, Cyril might deliberately lay a false trail – was almost sure to play some trick of the sort.

  Balloch and Akbar Pasha were stationed in a restaurant facing the Gare de Lyon, ready to answer the telephone at any moment. “Now,” said Abdul, “Have you photographs of these people to show my men?”

  Balloch produced them.

  “I’ve seen this man Grey somewhere,” remarked the young Turk casually. And then he gave a sudden and terrible cry. In Lisa he recognised an unknown woman whom he had admired the year before at a dance – and whom he had craved ever since. “Tell S.R.M.D.,” he roared, “that I’m in this thing for life or death; but I ask the girl for a trophy.”

  “You’ll get that, or anything else,” said Balloch, “if you can put an end to the activities of Mr. Cyril Grey.”

  Abdul Bey rushed off without another word spoken; and Balloch and the Pasha went to the rendezvous appointed. They passed that night and the next day in alternate bouts of drink and sleep. About half-past eight on the following evening the telephone rang. Douglas had judged rightly; the lovers had arrived at the Gare de Lyon.

  Balloch and his pupil sprang to life – fresh and vigorous at the prick of the summons to action.

  It was easy to mark the tall figure of the magician, with the lovely girl upon his arm; at the barrier their distinction touched the humanity of the collector. Tickets through to Rome – and no luggage! Most evidently an elopement!

  With romantic sympathy, the kind man determined to oppose the passage of Balloch, whom he supposed to be an angry father or an outraged husband. But the manner of the Englishman disarmed him; besides, he had a ticket to Dijon.

  Concealing himself as best he could, the doctor walked rapidly to the head of the train. There, assuming the character of a timid old man, he implored the driver, with the gift of the bewitched “cart-wheel”, to be sure to drive carefully. He would drink the good fellow’s health, to be sure – what name? Oh! Marcel Dufour. “Of the furnace – that is appropriate!” laughed the genial passenger, apparently reassured as to his security.

  But he did not enter the train. He dashed out of the station, and into a motor-cab, overjoyed to return to Douglas with so clean a record of work accomplished.

  He never gave the Turk another thought.

  But Akbar Pasha had had an idea. Balloch had taken a ticket for Dijon – he would take one, too. And he would go – he would retrieve his error of yesterday. He was not in the least afraid of that cub Grey, when Simon Iff was not there to back him. It would go hard, but he should get a drop of Lisa’s blood – if he had to bribe the wagon-lit man. Then – who knows? – there might even be a chance to kill Grey. He waited till the last moment before he boarded the train.

  The train would stop at Moret-les-Sablons; by that time the beds would be made up; he would have plenty of time to act; he could go on to Rome if necessary.

  Cyril Grey, away from the influence of Simon Iff, had become the sarcastic sphinx once more. He was wearing a travelling suit with knickerbockers, but he still affected the ultra-pontifical diplomatist.

  “The upholstery of these cars is revolting,” he said to Lisa, with a glance of disgust. And he suddenly opened the door away from the platform and lifted her on to the permanent way; thence into a stuffy compartment in the train that was standing at the next “Voie”.

  “A frosty moonlight night like this,” he said, pulling a large black pipe from his pocket and filling it, “indicates (to romantic lovers like ourselves) the propriety of a descent at Moret, a walk to Barbizon through the forest, a return to Moret by a similar route in a day or so, and the pursuance of our journey to Naples. See Naples and die!” he added musingly, “Decidedly a superior programme.”

  Lisa would have listened to a proposition to begin their travels by swimming the Seine, on the ground that the day after tomorrow would be Friday; so she raised no objection. But she could not help saying that they would have reached Moret more quickly by the rapide.

  “My infant child!” he returned; “the celebrated Latin poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus has observed, for our edification and behoof, ‘Festina lente.’ This epigram has been translated by a famous Spanish author, ‘manana.’ Dante adds his testimony to truth in his grandiose outburst, ‘Domani.’ Also, an Arab philosopher, whom I personally revere, remarks, if we may trust the assertion of Sir Richard Francis Burton, K.C.M.G. – and why should we not? – ‘Conceal thy tenets, thy treasure, and thy travelling!’ This I do. More so,” he concluded cryptically, “than you imagine!”

  They were s
till waiting for their local funeral (which the French grandiloquently describe as a train) to start when Dr. Balloch returned radiant to the Rue Quincampoix.

  Douglas was on the alert to receive him. The news took only a second to communicate.

  “Marcel Dufour!” cried S.R.M.D. “We shall drink for him, as he may not drink on duty.”

  He carefully opened two bottles of whisky, mixed the stale spirit in the magic saucer with their contents, and bade Balloch join him at the table.

  “Your very good health, Marcel Dufour!” cried Douglas. “And mind you drive carefully!” Balloch and he now set to work steadily to drain the two bottles – a stiff nip every minute – but the stuff had no effect on them. It was far otherwise with the man on the engine.

  Almost before he had well left Paris behind him, he began to fret about the furnace, and told his fireman to keep up the fullest head of steam. At Melun the train should have slackened speed; instead, it increased it. The signalman at Fontainebleau was amazed to see the rapide rush through the station, eight minutes ahead of time, against the signals. He saw the driver grappling with the fireman, who was thrown from the footplate a moment after, but escaped with a broken leg.

  “My mate went suddenly mad,” the injured man explained later. “He held up a five-franc piece which some old gentleman had given him, and swore that the devil had promised him another if he made Dijon in two hours. (And, as you know, it is five, what horror!)”

  He grew afraid, saw the signals set at danger, and sprang to the lever. Then that poor crazed Dufour had thrown him off the train.

  The guard was new to that section of the line, and so, no doubt, too timid to take the initiative; he certainly should have applied the brakes, even at Melun.

  An hour later Cyril Grey and Lisa and all their fellow passengers were turned out at Fontainebleau. There had been a terrible disaster to the Paris-Rome rapide at Moret. The line would be blocked all night.

  “This contretemps,” said Cyril, as if he had heard of a change of programme at a theatre, “will add appreciably to the length and, may I add, to the romance – of our proposed walk.

  When they reached Moret more than three hours later, they found the rapide inextricably tangled with a heavy freight train. It had left the line at the curve and crashed into the slower train. Cyril Grey had still a surprise in store. He produced a paper of some sort from his pocket, which the officer of the police cordon received in the manner of the infant Samuel when overwhelmed by the gift of prophecy. He made way for them with proud deference.

  They had not to walk far before the magician found what he was seeking. Beneath the ruins of the rear compartment were the remains of the late Akbar Pasha.

  “I wonder how that happened,” he said. “However, here is a guess at your epitaph: ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing.’ I think, Lisa, that we should sup at the Cheval Blanc before we start our walk to Barbizon. It is a long way, especially at night, and we want to cut away to the west so as to avoid Fontainebleau, for the sake of the romance of the thing.”

  Lisa did not mind whether she supped at the White Horse, or on one. She realised that she had hold of a man of strength, wisdom, and foresight, far more than a match for their enemies.

  He stopped to speak to the officer in charge of the cordon as they passed him. “Among the dead: Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Grey. English people. No flowers. Service of the minister.”

  The officer promised to record the lie officially. His deference was amazing.

  Lisa perceived that her lover had been at the pains to arm himself with more than one kind of weapon. Lisa pressed his arm, and murmured her appreciation of his cleverness.

  “It won’t deceive Douglas for two minutes, if he be, as I suspect, the immediate Hound of the Baskervilles, but he may waste some time rejoicing over my being such an ass as to try it; and that’s always a gain.”

  Lisa began to wonder whether her best chance of ever saying the right thing would not be to choose the wrong. His point of view was always round the corner of her street!

  Chapter X

  HOW THEY GATHERED THE SILK

  FOR THE WEAVING OF THE BUTTERFLY-NET

  CYRIL GREY made the midnight invocation to the Sun-God, Khephra, the Winged Beetle, upon the crest of the Long Rocher; and he made the morning invocation to the Sun-God, Ra, the Hawk, upon the heights that overlooked the hamlet of Barbizon.

  Thence, like Chanticleer himself, he woke the people of the Inn, who, in memory of the days Stevenson had spent with them, honour his ashes by emulating the morality of Long John Silver.

  They were prepared for the breakfast order; but Cyril’s requirement, a long-distance call to Paris, struck them as unseasonable and calculated to disturb the balance of the Republic. They asked themselves if the Dreyfus case were come again. However, Cyril got his call, and Simon Iff his information, before seven o’clock. Long before Douglas, who had waited until midnight for the news of his triumph, had recovered from the sleep following its celebration, Iff in his fastest automobile had picked up the lovers at an agreed spot in the forest, the Croix du Grand Maitre, whirled them to Dijon, and put them into the train for Marseilles. There they took ship, and came to Naples by sea, without adventure.

  The enemy, in one way or another, had been thrown utterly off the track. It was early in the morning when they landed; at three o’clock they had visited such local deities as commanded their more urgent piety; the Museum, Vergil’s Tomb, also Michaelsen the bookseller and vendor of images of the Ineffable. At four they started, hand in hand, along the shore, towards their new home.

  An hour’s walk brought them to the foot of a long stairway, damp stonework, narrow, between high walls, that led vertical and steep to the very crest of Posilippo. One could see the old church amid its cluster of houses. Cyril pointed to a house a couple of hundred yards north of the church. It was the most attractive building on the hillside.

  The house itself was not large, but it was built like a toy imitation of one of those old castles that one sees everywhere on difficult heights, throughout most of Southern and even Central Europe; in a word, like a castle in a fairy-story. It looked from below, owing to foreshortening, as if it were built over a sheer rampart, like the Potala at Lhassa; but this was only the effect of merging a series of walls which divided the garden by terraces.

  “Is that the Butterfly-net?” cried Lisa, slapping her hands with delight.

  “That,” he dissented, “is The Net.”

  Once again Lisa felt a pang of something like distrust. His trick of saying the simplest things as if they bore a second meaning, hidden from her, annoyed her. He had been strangely silent on the voyage, and wholly aloof from her on those planes where she most needed him; that was a necessary condition of the experiment, of course; but none the less it tended to disturb her happiness. Such talks as they had had were either purely educative, Magick in Six Easy Lessons, he called it, or Magick without Tears, or else they were conventional lover’s chats, which she felt sure he despised. He would tell her that her eyes were like the stars; and she would think that he meant: “What am I to say to this piece of wood?” Even nature seemed to stir his contempt in some way. One night she had noticed him rapt in a poetic trance leaning over the bows watching the foam. For a long while he remained motionless, his breast rising quickly and falling, his lips trembling with passion – and then he turned to her and said in cold blood: “Ought that to be used to advertise a dentifrice or a shaving soap?” She was sure that he had rehearsed the whole scene merely to work her up in order to have the fun of dropping her again. Only the next morning she woke early, to find a pencilled sonnet on his table, a poem so spiritual, so profound, and of such jewelcraft, that she knew why the few people whom he had allowed to read his work thought him the match of Milton. So apt were the similes that there could be no doubt that he had thought it out line by line, in that trance which he had marred
, for her, by his brutal anti-climax.

  She had asked him about it.

  “Some people,” he had said quite seriously, “have one brain; some have two. I have two.” A minute later: “Oh, I forgot. Some have none.”

  She had refused to be snubbed. “What do you mean by your having two brains?”

  “I really have. It seems as if; in order to grasp anything, I were obliged to take its extremes. I see both the sublime and the ridiculous at once, and I can’t imagine one existing apart from the other, any more than you can have a stick with only one end. So I use one point of view to overbalance the other, like a child starting to swing itself. I am never happy until I have identified an idea with its opposite. I take the idea of murder – just a plain, horrid idea. But I don’t stop there. I multiply that murder, and intensify it a millionfold, and then a millionfold again. Suddenly one comes out into the sublime idea of the Opening of the Eye of Shiva, when the Universe is annihilated in an instant. Then I swing back, and make the whole thing comic by having the hero chloroform Shiva in the nick of time, so that he can marry the beautiful American heiress.

  “Until I have been all round the clock like that, I don’t feel that I have the idea at all. If you had only let me go on about the shaving soap, I should have made it into something lovely again – and all the time I should have perceived the absolute identity of even the two contradictory phases.”

  But it was beyond her still, in each case as it came up “That is the Net!” A riddle? It might mean a thousand things; and to a woman of her positive and prosaic temperament (which she had, for all her hysteria and romanticism) doubt was torture. Love itself always torments women of this type; they want their lovers under lock and key. They would like love itself to be a more substantial commodity, a thing that one could buy by the pound, and store in a safe or an ice-chest.