human
I said, I _will_ do this, and to do it, to overcome the inertia of this dull body, I resorted to drugs. Great God, I've had enough of drugs! I don't know if _you_ feel the heavy inconvenience of the body, its exasperating demand of time from the mind--time--life! Live! We only live in patches. We have to eat, and then comes the dull digestive complacencies--or irritations. We have to take the air or else our thoughts grow sluggish, stupid, run into gulfs and blind alleys. A thousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comes drowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man's day is his own--even at the best! And then come those false friends, those Thug helpers, the alkaloids that stifle natural fatigue and kill rest--black coffee, cocaine--
gpt
I see,
human
I did my work,
gpt
And this is the price?
human
Yes.
gpt
You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel--a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady-- He paused.
human
Towards the gulf.
gpt
You must sleep, said Isbister decisively, and with an air of a remedy discovered.
human
Certainly you must sleep.
gpt
My mind is perfectly lucid. It was never clearer. But I know I am drawing towards the vortex. Presently--
human
Yes?
gpt
You have seen things go down an eddy? Out of the light of the day, out of this sweet world of sanity--down--
human
But,
gpt
I shall kill myself. If in no other way--at the foot of yonder dark precipice there, where the waves are green, and the white surge lifts and falls, and that little thread of water trembles down. There at any rate is ... sleep.
human
That's unreasonable, said Isbister, startled at the man's hysterical gust of emotion.
gpt
Drugs are better than that.
human
There at any rate is sleep,
gpt
It's not a cert, you know, he remarked.
human
There's a cliff like that at Lulworth Cove--as high, anyhow--and a little girl fell from top to bottom. And lives to-day--sound and well.
gpt
But those rocks there?
human
One might lie on them rather dismally through a cold night, broken bones grating as one shivered, chill water splashing over you. Eh?
gpt
Sorry to upset your ideals, said Isbister with a sense of devil-may-careish brilliance.
human
But a suicide over that cliff (or any cliff for the matter of that), really, as an artist-- He laughed.
gpt
It's so damned amateurish.
human
But the other thing, said the sleepless man irritably,
gpt
Have you been walking along this coast alone?
human
Yes.
gpt
Silly sort of thing to do. If you'll excuse my saying so. Alone! As you say; body fag is no cure for brain fag. Who told you to? No wonder; walking! And the sun on your head, heat, fag, solitude, all the day long, and then, I suppose, you go to bed and try very hard--eh?
human
Look at these rocks! cried the seated man with a sudden force of gesture.
gpt
Look at that sea that has shone and quivered there for ever! See the white spume rush into darkness under that great cliff. And this blue vault, with the blinding sun pouring from the dome of it. It is your world. You accept it, you rejoice in it. It warms and supports and delights you. And for me--
human
It is the garment of my misery. The whole world ... is the garment of my misery.
gpt
You get a night's sleep, he said,