The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      I got the vision for the first time in my life of the power that wealth confers, and I realised equally for the first time how vast were my real ambitions.

      The man was right, too, clearly enough, about my being lucky. My luck in the war had been prodigious. Then there was this inheritance, and Lou on the top of that ; and here I'd met old Feccles by a piece of absolute chance, and there was this brilliant investment. That was the word-he was careful to point out that it was not a speculation, strictly speaking-absolutely waiting for me.

      We were so overjoyed that we could hardly grasp the practical details. The amount required was four thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds.

      Of course, there was no difficulty in getting a trifle like that, but as I told Feccles, it would mean my selling out some beastly stock or something which might take two or three days. There was no time to lose ; because the option would lapse if it weren't taken up within the week, and it was now Wednesday.

      However, Feccles helped me to draft a wire to Wolfe to explain the urgency, and Feccles was to call on Saturday at nine o'clock with the papers.

      Meanwhile, of course, he wouldn't let me down, but at the same time he couldn't risk pulling off the coup of his life in case there was a hitch, so he would get a move on and see if he couldn't raise five thousand on his own somewhere else, in which case he'd let me have some of his own stock anyway. He wanted me in the deal if it was only for a sovereign, simply because of my luck.

      So off he ran in a great hurry. Lou and I got a car and spent the afternoon in the Bois du Boulogne. It seemed as if the cocaine had taken hold of us with new force, or else it was the addition of the heroin.

      We were living at the same terrific speed as on that first wild night. The intensity was even more extraordinary; but we were not being carried away by it.

      In one sense, each hour lasted a fraction of a second, and yet, in another sense, every second lasted a lifetime. We were able to appreciate the minutest details of life to the full.

      I want to explain this very thoroughly.

      " William the Conqueror, 1066, William Rufus, 1087."

      One can sum up the whole period of the reign of the Duke of Normandy in a phrase. At the same time, an historian who had made a special study of that part of English History might be able to write ten volumes of details, and he might, in a sense, have both aspects of his knowledge present to his mind at the same moment.

      We were in a similar condition. The hours flashed by like so many streaks of lightning, yet each discharge illuminated every detail of the landscape ; we could grasp everything at once. It was as if we had acquired a totally new mental faculty as superior to the normal course of thought as the all-comprehending brain of a great man of science is to that of a savage, though the two men are both looking with the same optical instruments at the same blackbeetle.

      It is impossible to convey, to any one who has not experienced it, the overwhelming rapture of this condition.

      Another extraordinary feature of the situation was this; that we seemed to be endowed with what I must call the power of telepathy, for want of a better word. We didn't need to explain ourselves to each other. Our minds worked together like those of two first-class three-quarters who are accustomed to play together.

      Part of the enjoyment, moreover, came from the knowledge that we were infinitely superior to anything we might happen to meet. The mere fact that we had so much more time to think than other people assured us of this.

      We were like a leash of greyhounds, and the rest of the world so many hares, but the disproportion of speed was immensely increased. It was the airman against the wagoner.

      We went to bed early that night. We had already got a little tired of Paris. The pace was too slow for us. It was rather like sitting at a Wagner opera. There were some thrilling moments, of course, but most of the time we were bored with long and monotonous passages like the dialogue between Wotan and Erde. We wanted to be by ourselves; no one else could keep up with the rush.

      The difference between sleep and waking, again, was diminished, no, almost abolished. The period of sleep was simply like a brief distraction of attention, and even our dreams continued the exaltation of our love.

      The importance of any incident was negligible. In the ordinary way one's actions are to a certain extent inhibited. As the phrase goes, one thinks twice before doing so and so. We weren't thinking twice any more. Desire was transformed into action without the slightest check. Fatigue, too, had been completely banished.

      We woke the next morning with the sun. We stood on the balcony in our dressing-gowns and watched him rise. We felt ourselves one with him, as fresh and as fervent as he. Inexhaustible energy !

      We danced and sang through breakfast. We had a phase of babbling, both talking at once at the top of our voices, making plans for the day, each one as it bubbled in our brains the source of ecstatic excitement and inextinguishable laughter.

      We had just decided to spend the morning shopping when a card was brought up to the room.

      I had a momentary amazement as I read that our visitor was the confidential clerk of Mr. Wolfe.

      " Oh, bother the fellow," said I, and then remembered my telegram of the day before.

      I had a swift pang of alarm. Could something be wrong ? But the cocaine assured me that everything was all right.

      " I'll have to see the fellow, I suppose," I said, and told the hall-boy to send him upstairs.

      " Don't let him keep you long," said Lou, with a petulant pout, and ran into the bedroom after a swift embrace, so violent that it disarranged my new Charvet necktie.

      The man came up. I was a little bored by the gravity of his manner, and rather disgusted by its solemn deference. Of course, one likes being treated as a kind of toy emperor in a way, but that sort of thing doesn't go with Paris. Still less does it go with cocaine.

      It annoyed me that the fellow was so obviously ill at ease, and also that he was so obviously proud of himself for having been sent to Paris on important business with a real live knight.

      If there's one thing flying teaches one more than another, it is to hate snobbery. Even the Garter becomes imperceptible when one is flying above the clouds.

      I couldn't possibly talk to the man till he was a little more human. I made him sit down and have a drink and cigarette before I would let him tell me his business.

      Of course, everything was perfectly in order. The point was simply this, that the six thousand pounds wasn't immediately available, so, as I needed it urgently, it was necessary for me to sign certain papers which Mr. Wolfe had drawn up at once, on reccipt of my wire, and it would be better to have it done at the consulate.

      "Why, of course, get a taxi," I said; " I'll be down in a minute."

      He went downstairs. I ran in to Lou and told her that I had to go to the consul on business : I'd be back in an hour and we could do our shopping.

      We took a big sniff of snow and kissed good-bye as if I were starting on a three years' expedition to the South Pole. Then I caught up my hat, gloves, and cane, and found my young man at the door.

      The drink and the air of Paris had given him a sense of his own dignity. Instead of СКАЧАТЬ