The Argosy | Page 4

forgotten what De Quincey has to say on that score. But whether they are pleasant or the contrary, I accept them as so much experience, and in so far I am satisfied. You look incredulous, but I tell you, sir, that what I see, and what I undergo--subjectively--while under the influence of drashkil make up for me an experience as real, that dwells as vividly in my memory and that can be brought to mind like any other set of recollections, as if it were built up brick by brick, fact by fact, out of the incidents of everyday life. And all such experiences are valuable in this wise: that whatever I see while under the influence of drashkil I see, as it were, with the eyes of genius. I breathe a keener atmosphere; I have finer intuitions; the brain is no longer clogged with that part of me which is mortal; in whatever imaginary scenes I assist, whether actor or spectator, matters not; I seem to discern the underlying meaning of things--I hear the low faint beating of the hidden pulses of the world. To come back from this enchanted realm to the dull realities of everyday life is like depriving some hero of fairyland of his magic gifts and reducing him to the level of common humanity."
"At which pleasant level I pray ever to be kept," said Ducie; "I have no desire to soar into those regions of romance where you seem so thoroughly at home."
"So be it," said Platzoff drily. "The intellects of you English have been nourished on beef and beer for so many generations that there is no such thing as spiritual insight left among you. We must not expect too much." This was said not ill-naturedly, but in that quiet jeering tone which was almost habitual with Platzoff.
Ducie maintained a judicious silence and went on puffing gravely at his meerschaum. Platzoff touched the gong and Cleon entered, for this conversation took place before the illness of the latter. The Russian held up two fingers, and Cleon bowed. Then Cleon opened a mahogany box in one corner of the room, and took out of it a pipe-bowl of red clay, into which he fitted a flexible tube five or six yards in length and tipped with amber. The bowl was then fixed into a stand of black oak about a foot high and there held securely, and the mouthpiece handed to Platzoff. Cleon next opened an inlaid box, and by means of a tiny silver spatula he cut out a small block of some black, greasy-looking mixture, which he proceeded to fit into the bowl of the pipe. On the top of this he sprinkled a little aromatic Turkish tobacco, and then applied an allumette. When he saw that the pipe was fairly alight, he bowed and withdrew.
While these preparations were going on Platzoff had not been silent. "I have spoken to you of what I am about to smoke, both as opium and drashkil," he said. "It is not by any means pure opium. With that great drug are mixed two or three others that modify and influence the chief ingredient materially. I had the secret of the preparation from a Hindoo gentleman while I was in India. It was imparted to me as an immense favour, it being a secret even there. The enthusiastic terms in which he spoke of it have been fully justified by the result, as you would discover for yourself if you could only be persuaded to try it. You shake your head. Eh bien! mon ami; the loss is yours, not mine."
"Some of what you have termed your 'experiences' are no doubt very singular ones?" said Ducie, interrogatively.
"They are--very singular," answered Platzoff. "In my last drashkil-dream, for instance, I believed myself to be an Indian fakir, and I seemed to realise to the full the strange life of one of those strange beings. I was stationed in the shade of a large tree just without the gate of some great city where all who came and went could see me. On the ground, a little way in front of me, was a wooden bowl for the reception of the offerings of the charitable. I had kept both my hands close shut for so many years that the nails had grown into the flesh, and the muscles had hardened so that I could no longer open them; and I was looked upon as a very holy man. The words of the passers-by were sweet in my ears, but I never spoke to them in return. Silent and immovable, I stood there through the livelong day--and in my vision it was always day. I had the power of looking back, and I knew that, in the first instance, I had