The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister CrowleyЧитать онлайн книгу.
his desk, and drew up a little tapestried stool close to mine.
" I see, I see," he muttered confidentially, taking my hand and beginning to stroke it gently, " but you know, it's very hard to get."
" It is for us poor outsiders," I lamented, " but not for you."
He rolled back my sleeve, and moved his hand up and down inside of my forearm. I resented the familiarity acutely. The snobbishness of the man reminded me that he was the son of a small shopkeeper in a lowland village-a fact which I shouldn't have thought of for a second but for his own unctuous insistence on Debrett.
He got up and went to a little wall safe behind my back. I could hear him open and shut it. He returned and leant over the back of my chair, stretching out his left arm so that I could see what was in his hand.
It was a sealed ten-gramme bottle labelled " Heroin Hydrochlorid," with the quantity and the maker's name. The sight of it drove me almost insane with desire
Within a yard of my face was the symbol of victory. Cockie, Basil, the law, my own physical pangs:they were all in my power from the moment my fingers closed over the bottle.
I put out my hand; but the beroin had disappeared in the manner of a conjuring trick.
McCall leant his weight on the back of my chair and tilted it slightly. His ugly shrewd false face was within a foot of mine.
Will you' really let me have that ? " I faltered. Sir Peter's very rich. We can afford to pay the price, whatever it is."
He gave a funny little laugh. I shrank from the long wolf-like mouth hanging over me greedily open, with its bared two white rows of sharp, long fangs.
I was nauseated by the stale whisky in his breath.
He understood immediately; let my chair back to its normal position, and went back to his desk. He sat there and watched me eagerly like a man stalking game. As if inadvertently, he took out the bottle and played with it aimlessly.
In his smooth varnished voice he began to tell me what he called the romance of his life. The first time he saw me he had fallen passionately in love with me; but he was a married man, and his sense of honour prevented his yielding to his passion. He had, of course, no love for his wife, who didn't understand him at all. He had married her out of pity ; but for all that he was bound by his sense of right feeling, and above all by realising that to give rein to his passion, God-given though it was, would mean social ruin for me, for the woman he loved.
He went on to talk about affinities and soul-mates and love at first sight. He reproached himself for having told me the truth, even now, but it had been too strong for him. The irony of fate ! The tragic absurdity of social restrictions !
At the same time, he would feel a certain secret pleasure if he knew that I, on my part, had had something of the same feeling for him. And all the time, he went on playing with the heroin. Once or twice he nearly dropped it in his nervous emotion.
It made me jump to think of the danger to that precious powder. But there was clearly only one thing to be done to get it : to fall in with the old fellow's humour.
I let my head fall on my breast and looked at him sideways out of the corners of my eyes.
" You can't expect a young girl to confess everything she has felt," I whispered with a deep sigh, " especially when she has had to kill it out of her heart. It does no good to talk of these things," I went on. " I ought really not to have come. But how could I guess that you, a great doctor like you, had taken any notice of a silly kid like me ? "
He jumped to his feet excitedly.
" No, no," I said sadly, with a gesture which made him sit down again, very uneasily. " I should never have come. It was absolutely weakness on my part. The heroin was only my excuse. Oh, don't make me feel so ashamed. But I simply must tell you the truth. The real motive was that-I wanted to see you. Now, let's talk about something else. Will you let me have that heroin, and how much will it cost ? "
" One doesn't charge one's friends for such slight services," he answered loftily. " The only doubt in my mind is whether it's right for me to let you have it."
He took it out again and read the label. He rolled the bottle between his palms.
" It's terribly dangerous stuff," he continued very seriously. " I'm not at all sure if I should be justified in giving it to you."
What absolute rubbish and waste of time, this social comedy I Every one in London knew McCall's hobby for intrigues with ladies of title. He had invented the silly story of love at first sight on the spur of the moment. It was just a gambit.
And as for me, I loathed the sight of the man, and he knew it. And he knew, too, that I wanted that heroin desperately badly. The real nature of the transaction was as plain as a prison plum-pudding.
But I suppose it does amuse one in a sort of way to ape various affected attitudes. He knew that my modesty and confusion and blushes were put on like so much paint on the cheeks of a Piccadilly street walker. It didn't even hurt his vanity to know that I thought him an offensive old ogre. He had the thing I wanted, I had the thing he wanted, and he didn't care if I drugged myself to death to-morrow, provided I had paid his price to-day.
The callous cynicism on both sides had one good effect from the moral point of view. It prevented me wasting my time in trying to cheat him.
He went on with his gambit. He explained that my marriage made a great difference. With reasonable caution, for which we had every facility, there was not the slightest risk of scandal.
Only one thing stuck in my conscience, and fought the corrosive attack of the heroin-hunger. After King Lamus had gone this morning, Peter and I had quarrelled bitterly. I had given up Basil, I had given up all idea of living a decent life, I had embraced the monster in whose arms I was struggling, gone with my eyes wide open into his dungeon, devoted myself to drugs, and why ? I was Sir Peter's wife. The loss of my virtue, independence, self-respect, were demanded by my loyalty to him. And already that loyalty demanded disloyalty of another kind.
It was a filthy paradox. Peter had sent me to McCall with perfect foresight. I knew well enough what he expected of me, and I gloried in my infamy-partly for its own sake, but partly, unless I am lying to myself, because my degradation proved my devotion to him.
I no longer heard what McCall was saying, but I saw that he had taken a little pocket-knife and cut the string of the bottle. He had levered out the cork, and dipped the knife into the powder. He measured out a dose with a queer cunning questioning smile in his eyes.
My breath was coming quickly and shallowly. I gave a hurried little nod. I seemed to hear myself saying, " A little bit more." At least, he added to the heap.
" A little mild stimulant is indicated," he said, with an imitation of his bedside manner. He was kneeling in front of my chair, and held up his hand like a priest making an offering to his goddess.
The next thing I remember is that I was walking feverishly, almost running, up Sloane Street. I had a feeling of being pursued. Was it true, that old Greek fable of the Furies ? What had I done ? What had I done ?
My fingers worked spasmodically on the little amber-tinted bottle of poison. I wanted to get away from every one and everything. I didn't know where I was going. I hated Peter from the depths of my soul. I would have given anything in the world-except the heroin-to be able never to see him again. But he had the money, why shouldn't we enjoy our abject ruin as we had enjoyed our romance ? Why not wallow in the moist, warm mire ?
Chapter V.
Towards Madness
I found I was attracting attention in the street by my nervous behaviour. I shuddered at the sight of a policeman. Suppose I were arrested, and they took it away from me ?
And then I remembered how silly I was. Maisie Jacobs had a