The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter V.

       Towards Madness

       Table of Contents

      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 flat in Park Mansions. I knew she would stand for anything, and keep her mouth shut.

      She was in, thank goodness. I don't know what tale I told her. I don't know why I was stupid enough to trouble my head to invent one. She's a real good sport, Maisie, and doesn't care what you do as long as you don't interfere with her.

      She had some white silk, and we sewed up the H. in little packets, and stitched them in the flounces of my dress. I kept about half, and put it in an old envelope she had. That was to make my peace with Peter. But I needed two or three good goes on the spot.

      I had a fit of hysterical crying and trembling. I must have fainted for a bit. I found myself on the sofa with Maisie kneeling by me and holding a glass of champagne to my lips.

      She didn't ask any questions. It wasn't her business if my story was all lies.

      I felt a bit better after a while. She began to talk about King Lamus. She had fallen for him the first time she met him, about a year ago, and had become an enthusiastic pupil. She could do what she liked; she was free, plenty of money of her own, no one to interfere.

      In a way, I hated her for her independence. It was really envy of her freedom.

      I felt that Basil was the only man that mattered, and I had missed my chance with him through not being worthy. I had ended by losing him altogether ; and the irony of it was terrible, for I had lost him through loyalty to Peter at the very moment when I thoroughly loathed and despised him.

      Yet I knew that Basil would admire and love me for that very loyalty itself. It was the first thing that I had ever had to show him. My only asset had made me bankrupt for ever !

      Maisie had been talking quietly while I was thinking these things. I slid out of my concentration to hear her voice once more. She was in the middle of an explanation of her relations with Basil.

      " He claims to be utterly selfish," vibrated her tense tones, " because he includes every individual in his idea of himself. He can't feel free as long as there are slaves about. Of course, there are some people whose nature it is to be slaves ; they must be left to serve. But there are lots of us who are kings and don't know it ; who suffer from the delusion that they ought to bow to public opinion, all sorts of alien domination. He spends his life fighting to emancipate people in this false subjection, because they are parts of himself. He has no ideas about morality. His sense of honour, even, means nothing to him as such. It is simply that he happened to be born a gentleman. 'If I were a dog,' he said to me once, 'I should bark. If I were an owl, I should hoot. There's nothing in either which is good or bad in itself. The only question is, what is the natural gesture ?' He thinks it his mission in the world to establish this Law of Thelema."

      She saw my puzzled look.

      " Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,' she quoted merrily. " You must have heard those words before ! "

      I admitted it. We laughed together over our friend's eccentricity.

      " He says that to every one he meets," she explained, not only to influence them, but to remind himself of his mission and prevent himself wasting his time on anything else. He's not a fanatic ; and in the year that I have known him, I've certainly got on more with my music than I ever did in any five years before. He proved to me-or, rather, showed me how to prove to my own satisfaction-that my true Will was to be a singer. We began by going through all the facts of my life from my race and parentage to my personal qualities, such as my ear and my voice being physiologically superior to that of the average musician, and my circumstances enabling me to devote myself entirely to training myself to develop my powers to the best advantage. Even things like my guardian being a great composer ! He won't admit that was an accident."

      " He claims that the coincidence of so many circumstances affords evidence of design ; and as so many of these are beyond the control of any human intelligence, it leads one to suppose that there is some individual at work somewhere beyond our limitations of sense who has made me a singer instead of a milliner."

      " Oh, yes, Maisie," I interrupted, " but that's the old argument that the design of the Universe proves the existence of God ; and people have stopped believing in God chiefly because the design was shown to be incompatible with a consistent character."

      " Oh, certainly," she admitted without a qualm. "The evidence goes to show that there are many different gods, each with his own aim and his own method. Whether their conflicting ambitions can be reconciled (as seems necessary from a philosophical point of view) is practically beyond the scope of our present means of research. Basil implored me not to bother my СКАЧАТЬ