Hashish, Wine, Opium Page 4

  Already, several hashish-eaters at the end of their tether had rolled onto the ground with the relaxed dead weight of intoxication which removes the danger from falls. Exclamations intersected, mingled and were confused: “God how happy I am! What bliss! I’m in ecstasy! In Paradise! I’m diving into abysses of delight!”

  Raucous cries burst from oppressed bosoms; arms stretched out distractedly towards some fugitive vision; heels and heads beat a tattoo against the floorboards. It was high time to let a drop of cold water fall onto the scalding steam, if the boiler was not to burst.

  The human integument which has so little potential for pleasure and so much for pain could not have endured a greater pressure of joy.

  At this point, one of the club members who had not taken part in the voluptuous intoxication so that he might keep an eye on the fantasia and prevent those who imagined themselves endowed with wings from jumping out of the window, rose to his feet, opened the piano-lid and sat down to play. Both his hands fell together on the ivory of the keyboard and a superb resounding chord silenced every other sound and changed the course of the intoxication.

  6

  Kief

  The piece he had started to play was, I believe, Agatha’s aria from the Freischutz; the heavenly melody soon dispersed , like a gust of wind sweeping away misshapen clouds, all the absurd visions that had obsessed me. The grimacing phantoms crawled away under the armchairs or hid between the folds of the curtains, where they continued to utter little stifled sighs, and once more I seemed to be alone in the drawing room.

  The colossal organ in Freiburg assuredly does not produce a greater volume of sound than that piano touched by the “Seer” (the name given to the initiate who remains sober). The notes quivered with such power that they pierced my breast like incandescent arrows; presently, the air that was being played seemed to be emanating from myself: my fingers moved over an invisible keyboard; the sounds gushed forth blue and red in a shower of electric sparks; Weber’s soul had been reincarnated in me.

  When the piece came to an end, I continued to play improvisations in my mind, in the style of the German maestro: pity that some magical stenography could not record those inspired melodies heard only by myself and that I do not hesitate, in all modesty, to rank above the masterpieces of Rossini, Meyerbeer and Félicien David.

  Oh Pillet and Vatel! Just one of the thirty operas that I composed in the space of ten minutes would have made your fortune in six months.

  The somewhat compulsive gaiety of the outset had been succeeded by an indefinable well-being, a calm that knew no limit.

  I was in the happy stage of hashish that Orientals call kief. I could no longer feel my body; the bonds of matter and spirit had been untied: I moved by sheer willpower in a medium which offered no resistance at all.

  Thus I think must our souls float in the aromal world of the after-life.

  Bluish vapour, Elysian light, reflections of an azure grotto combined to form the atmosphere of the room in which I saw all contours soften and tremble vaguely; the atmosphere at once fresh and relaxing, humid and perfumed, enveloped me like the water of a bath in a kiss of enervating sweetness; when I moved, the caressing air eddied voluptuously about me; a delicious languor took possession of my senses and flung me onto a sofa where I collapsed like a discarded article of clothing.

  At that moment I understood the pleasures tasted by spirits and angels according to their degree of perfection, as they traverse the ether and the heavens, and what might be the pastime of Eternity in paradise.

  No trace of materiality mingled with this ecstasy, no earthly desire impaired its purity. Indeed, love itself could not have added to it, a hashish-eating Romeo would have forgotten his Juliet. She, poor thing, stooping amidst the jasmine, would in vain from her balcony have stretched out into the night her beautiful arms of alabaster; Romeo would not have stirred from the foot of the silken ladder and though I madly love the angel of youth and beauty created by Shakespeare, I must admit that the loveliest girl in the Verona would not, for a hashish-eater, have been worth the trouble of putting himself out.

  Thus, though I felt their charm, I cast a placid gaze on the garland of ideally beautiful women crowning the frieze with their divine nudity: I saw their satin shoulders glow, their silvery breasts sparkle, the insteps of their dainty feet flush rose, their opulent hips undulate, without experiencing the slightest temptation. The delightful spectres that troubled St Anthony would have had no power over me.

  By a strange prodigy, after a few minutes of contemplation, I would melt into the object gazed at and was myself transformed into that object.

  Thus I found myself metamorphosed into the nymph Syrinx, because the fresco did in fact show the daughter of Ladon being pursued by Pan.

  I felt all the terrors of the poor fugitive and I sought to hide myself behind fantastic reeds to escape the goat-footed monster.

  7

  Kief into Nightmare

  In the course of my ecstasy, Daucus-Carota had returned.

  Squatting like a tailor or a pasha on his inextricably twisted roots, he gazed at me with his flaming eyes: the sardonic way in which his beak chattered, the mocking air of triumph emanating from his small, misshapen person, made me tremble in spite of myself.

  Divining my fear, he redoubled his contortions and grimaces, closing on me as he hopped like a wounded spider or a legless cripple on his wooden trencher.

  Then I felt a cold breath at my ear and a voice, whose accents I knew well though I could not think to whom they belonged, said:

  “That wretched Daucus-Carota who sold his legs for drink has filched your head and replaced it, not with an ass’s head as Puck served Bottom, but with the head of an elephant!”

  Most intrigued, I went straight to the mirror and saw that the information was not incorrect.

  You could have mistaken me for a Hindu or Javanese idol: my brow had risen and my nose, elongated into a trunk, was coiled over my chest, my ears swept my shoulders and, to top it all, I was the colour of indigo, like Shiva the Blue God.

  Furious with rage, I started to pursue Daucus-Carota who leapt and screamed, showing every sign of extreme terror; I managed to catch him and hit him so violently against the table that in the end he returned my head which he had wrapped in his handkerchief.

  Satisfied with this victory, I returned to my place on the sofa; however, the same little voice I couldn’t place said to me: “Beware, you are surrounded by enemies; unseen powers are attempting to lure and hold you. You are a prisoner here: try to leave and you’ll see!”

  The scales fell from my eyes and it became clear to me that the members of the club were none other than cabbalists and magicians bent on dragging me to my doom.

  8

  Treadmill

  I rose to my feet with great difficulty and made for the drawing-room door, which I reached only after a considerable time, some unknown force obliging me to retreat one step in three. According to my reckoning I took a decade to complete the journey. Daucus-Carota followed me, sneering and mumbling with a hypocritical air of commiseration: “Walking at that rate, he’ll be an old man when he gets there.”

  However, I did manage to get to the adjacent room, but its dimensions seemed to have changed and I didn’t recognize it. The room was elongating the whole time – indefinitely. The light twinkling at one end of it seemed as distant as a fixed star.

  I was seized with despondency and was about to stop when the little voice said to me, almost brushing me with its lips: “Courage! She’ll be waiting for you at eleven.”

  Making a desperate appeal to my spiritual forces, I succeeded by a tremendous effort of will in raising my feet which were fettered to the ground; I had to tear them up by the roots like tree trunks. The monster with his mandrake legs accompanied me, parodying my efforts all the while and chanting in imitation of the psalms: “The marble is gaining g
round! The marble is gaining ground!”

  I could, in fact, feel my extremities petrifying and a sheath of marble enveloping me as far as the hips just like the Daphne in the Tuileries; I had become a statue up to my waist like the enchanted princes of the Arabian Nights. My stony heels resounded formidably against the floorboards: I could have played the Commendatore in Don Juan.

  Nevertheless, I had reached the landing on the staircase which I was about to descend: only half lit, it assumed in my dreamlike state, cyclopean and gigantic proportions. Its ends were drowned in gloom and seemed to penetrate the gulfs of heaven and hell; looking up I could barely see, in frightening perspective, an endless succession of landings and flights to be ascended as if to reach the summit of the tower of Lylacq; looking down, I saw abysses of stairs, whirlpools of spirals, fainting-fits of circumvolutions.

  “This staircase must pierce the earth from end to end,” I said to myself as I continued my mechanical descent. “I shall get to the bottom the day after the Last Judgement.”

  The figures in the pictures looked at me with a pitying air, some even making painful efforts to move, like mutes striving to make an important communication on a supreme occasion. One would have said they were trying to warn me of a trap to be avoided, but some dismal inert force led me on; the steps were flabby and sank under me like the mysterious ladders in the ordeals of the Freemasons. The slimy and flaccid walls collapsed like the belly of a toad; more landings, more steps appeared before my resigned feet as those I had traversed replaced themselves of their own accord in front of me.

  The process seemed to last a thousand years.

  At last I reached the hall where another and no less terrible persecution was awaiting me.

  The Chimera which carried a candle in its paws and which I had remarked on entering, now barred my passage with his obviously hostile intentions; its greenish eyes were sparkling with irony; its sly mouth was laughing wickedly; it came towards me, almost crawling on its belly, dragging its bronze caparison in the dust, but not by way of submission; ferocious tremors made its lioness’s hindquarters quiver and Daucus-Carota was urging it on like a dog to the attack: “Bite him! Bite him! Marble meat for a bronze muzzle is a noble feast.”

  Without betraying any fear of the dreadful beast, I went on my way. A blast of cold air struck me in the face and the windswept night sky suddenly came into view. A vivarium of stars dusted the veins of that great block of lapis-lazuli with gold.

  I was in the courtyard.

  To render the effect produced on me by the sombre architecture, I should require the engraver which Piranesi hatched the black varnish of his marvellous copperplates: the courtyard had assumed the proportions of the Champ de Mars and, in the space of a few hours, had surrounded itself with great edifices which outlined on the horizon an indentation of spires, cupolas, towers, gables and pyramids, worthy of Rome or Babylon.

  My surprise was great. Never had I suspected the Ile Saint-Louis of containing so many architectural splendours, sufficient, be it said in passing, to cover its true area twenty times over, and I pondered, not without apprehension, on the power of the magicians who were capable of erecting such constructions in the course of a single evening.

  “You are the dupe of empty illusions: the courtyard is very small,” murmured the voice, “it is twenty-seven paces by twenty-five.”

  “Yes, indeed,” muttered the bifurcated abortion, “pace it in Seven-League Boots! You’ll never get there by eleven o’clock; it’s fifteen hundred years since you set out. Half of your hair is already grey. Go back up there, it’s the wisest thing to do.”

  As I would not obey, the hateful monstrosity enfolded me in the toils of his legs and, employing his hands as crampons, dragged me off notwithstanding my resistance, forced me to remount the staircase on which I had suffered such anguish and reinstalled me, to my infinite despair, in the drawing room from which I had taken such pains to escape.

  Then vertigo took complete possession of me: I went off my head and started to rave.

  Daucus-Carota cut capers as high as the ceiling, as he shouted at me: “Idiot! I did return your head but I scraped out your brains with a spoon first!”

  My heart sank into fearful despair for, on raising my hand to the top of my head, I found that it was open; I lost consciousness.

  9

  Don’t Trust Chronometers

  On coming round, I saw the room was full of gentlemen dressed in black, greeting each other sadly and shaking hands with a melancholy friendliness like those afflicted by a common sorrow.

  They were saying: “Time is dead. Henceforth there will be no years or months or hours. Time is dead and we are going to his funeral.”

  “It’s a fact that he was pretty well on in years but I did not expect it. He was remarkably healthy for his age,” added one of the mourners whom I recognized as a painter friend of mine.

  “Eternity was used up, it had to end,” rejoined another.

  “Great Heavens,” I exclaimed as an idea struck me, “if Time is no more, when can it be eleven o’clock?”

  “Never…” cried Daucus-Carota in a voice of thunder as he threw his nose into my face and revealed himself in his true character, “Never… it will be a quarter past nine for ever! The clock-hand will stay at the minute when Time ceased to be and your torment will consist of going to look at the motionless hand and returning to your chair only to recommence your quest until you are walking on the bones of your heels.”

  Driven by a superior power, I began the journey, carrying it out four or five hundred times and questioning the clock face with a hideous disquiet.

  Daucus-Carota sat astride the clock and cut horrific grimaces at me.

  The hand would not budge.

  “Wretch! You’ve stopped the pendulum,” I cried, mad with rage.

  “Not at all. It is swinging as usual, but suns will crumble into dust before this steel arrowhead advances by a millionth of a millimetre.”

  “Come, I see we shall have to exorcize the evil spirits, we are getting splenetic,” announced the Seer. “Let’s have some music. This time David’s harp will be replaced by an Erard Piano.”

  And, sitting down on the piano stool, he played tunes in quick tempo and in gay mood.

  This seemed greatly to vex the man-mandrake who began to diminish, flatten out and fade in colour, uttering inarticulate groans all the while, until he lost all human appearance and rolled over the parquet in the form of a salsify on two stalks.

  The spell had been broken.

  “Hallelujah! Time is born again,” cried happy, childlike voices, “Let’s go and look at the clock!”

  The hand pointed to eleven.

  “Your carriage is waiting, sir,” the servant told me. The hashish-eaters went their ways, like the officers after Marlborough’s funeral.

  And I ran lightly down the staircase that had caused me so much torment, and some minutes later was back in my room and on the solid ground of reality; the last vapours raised by the hashish had dispersed.

  My reason had returned to me, or at least what I call my reason for want of a better expression.

  My lucidity of mind would have sufficed even to write an account of a pantomime or a vaudeville, or to indite a poem in triple rhymes.

  Hashish

  For some time now we have been hearing (without lending much credence to the reports) of the extraordinary effects produced by “hashish”. We were already aware of the hallucinations engendered by the smoking of opium, but hashish was known to us only by hearsay. Friends conversant with the Orient had repeatedly promised to afford us an opportunity of tasting the substance but, due perhaps to the difficulty of obtaining the precious paste, or for other reasons, the project had not yet been realized. Yesterday, at last, the experiment took place and the analysis of our sensations will replace the criticism of the plays that were not staged
.

  Orientals, to whom the use of wine is forbidden by their religion, have always sought to satisfy by various concoctions that need of intellectual stimulus common to all people, and which the races of the Occident assuage by means of spirits and fermented drink. The thirst of the Ideal is so strong in man that he must strive, as far as lies in his power , to relax the bonds that fetter the soul to the body, and as ecstasy is not within the reach of every nature, he will drink gaiety, smoke forgetfulness and eat madness in the form of wine, tobacco and hashish. What a strange paradox! A little red liquor, a puff of smoke, a teaspoonful of greenish paste and that impalpable essence, the soul, is transformed on the instant: serious people commit a thousand extravagances, a flood of words issues involuntarily from the mouths of the taciturn, the weeping philosopher Heraclitus bursts into laughter and the laughing Democritus into tears.

  Hashish is an extract of flowers of hemp, (Cannabis indica), cooked with butter, pistachio nuts, almonds and honey, to form a kind of jam very similar to apricot conserve and with a taste which is by no means unpleasant. It was hashish which was fed by the Old Man of the Mountain to the executioners of the victims designated by him, and from it is derived the word Assassin, i.e. , hashashin or eater of hashish.

  A dose of a teaspoonful suffices for those unaccustomed to this true believer’s feast. The hashish is washed down with a few cups of unsugared coffee in the Arab style and then one sits down to dinner as usual, as the spirit of the hemp takes some time to act. One of our company, Dr Moreau, who has made several lengthy journeys to the Orient and is an enthusiastic hashish eater, was the first to be affected as he had taken a stronger dose; he began to see stars in his plate and the firmament at the bottom of the soup tureen; he then turned his face to the wall, speaking to himself and laughing loudly, his eyes shining, and in a jubilant mood. Right to the end of dinner I felt perfectly calm, although the pupils of my other table companion began to sparkle strangely and to turn a quite remarkable turquoise blue. When the plates were removed, I was still perfectly normal and installed myself on the divan, making myself as comfortable as possible among the Moroccan cushions, to await the ecstasy. Some minutes later I was pervaded by a general stupor. My body seemed to be dissolving and becoming transparent. I could see perfectly clearly within my breast the hashish I had consumed, in the form of an emerald which was emitting millions of little sparks; my eyelashes had begun to grow indefinitely and were being wound like gold thread onto small ivory spools, spinning of their own accord at a vertiginous rate. Around me, precious stones of every colour were forming and sliding, arabesques and traceries formed and reformed, all of which could best be compared to the dissolving views of a kaleidoscope; I could still see my comrades now and then but they were disfigured, half man, half plant, with the pensive air of ibises standing on one leg, or of ostriches flapping such extraordinary wings that I doubled up with laughter in my corner, and in order to participate in the buffoonery of the spectacle I began to throw my cushions in the air, catching and twirling them with the dexterity of an Indian juggler. One of my friends harangued me in Italian which the hashish in its omnipotence transposed for me into Spanish. Our conversation, however, was almost rational and even touched on everyday matters, gossip of the theatre or of literature.