Part of the process of recovering from my long sickness was to find
delight in little things, in things unconnected with books and problems,
in play, in games of tag in the swimming pool, in flying kites, in
fooling with horses, in working out mechanical puzzles. As a result, I
grew tired of the city. On the ranch, in the Valley of the Moon, I found
my paradise. I gave up living in cities. All the cities held for me
were music, the theatre, and Turkish baths.
And all went well with me. I worked hard, played hard, and was very
happy. I read more fiction and less fact. I did not study a tithe as
much as I had studied in the past. I still took an interest in the
fundamental problems of existence, but it was a very cautious interest;
for I had burned my fingers that time I clutched at the veils of Truth
and wrested them from her. There was a bit of lie in this attitude of
mine, a bit of hypocrisy; but the lie and the hypocrisy were those of a
man desiring to live. I deliberately blinded myself to what I took to be
the savage interpretation of biological fact. After all, I was merely
forswearing a bad habit, forgoing a bad frame of mind. And I repeat, I
was very happy. And I add, that in all my days, measuring them with
cold, considerative judgment, this was, far and away beyond all other
periods, the happiest period of my life.
But the time was at hand, rhymeless and reasonless so far as I can see,
when I was to begin to pay for my score of years of dallying with John
Barleycorn. Occasionally guests journeyed to the ranch and remained a
few days. Some did not drink. But to those who did drink, the absence
of all alcohol on the ranch was a hardship. I could not violate my sense
of hospitality by compelling them to endure this hardship. I ordered in
a stock--for my guests.
I was never interested enough in cocktails to know how they were made.
So I got a bar-keeper in Oakland to make them in bulk and ship them to
me. When I had no guests I didn't drink. But I began to notice, when I
finished my morning's work, that I was glad if there were a guest, for
then I could drink a cocktail with him.
Now I was so clean of alcohol that even a single cocktail was provocative
of pitch. A single cocktail would glow the mind and tickle a laugh for
the few minutes prior to sitting down to table and starting the
delightful process of eating. On the other hand, such was the strength
of my stomach, of my alcoholic resistance, that the single cocktail was
only the glimmer of a glow, the faintest tickle of a laugh. One day, a
friend frankly and shamelessly suggested a second cocktail. I drank the
second one with him. The glow was appreciably longer and warmer, the
laughter deeper and more resonant. One does not forget such experiences.
Sometimes I almost think that it was because I was so very happy that I
started on my real drinking.
I remember one day Charmian and I took a long ride over the mountains on
our horses. The servants had been dismissed for the day, and we returned
late at night to a jolly chafing-dish supper. Oh, it was good to be
alive that night while the supper was preparing, the two of us alone in
the kitchen. I, personally, was at the top of life. Such things as the
books and ultimate truth did not exist. My body was gloriously healthy,
and healthily tired from the long ride. It had been a splendid day. The
night was splendid. I was with the woman who was my mate, picnicking in
gleeful abandon. I had no troubles. The bills were all paid, and a
surplus of money was rolling in on me. The future ever-widened before
me. And right there, in the kitchen, delicious things bubbled in the
chafing-dish, our laughter bubbled, and my stomach was keen with a most
delicious edge of appetite.
I felt so good, that somehow, somewhere, in me arose an insatiable greed
to feel better. I was so happy that I wanted to pitch my happiness even
higher. And I knew the way. Ten thousand contacts with John Barleycorn
had taught me. Several times I wandered out of the kitchen to the
cocktail bottle, and each time I left it diminished by one man's size
cocktail. The result was splendid. I wasn't jingled, I wasn't lighted
up; but I was warmed, I glowed, my happiness was pyramided. Munificent
as life was to me, I added to that munificence. It was a great hour--one
of my greatest. But I paid for it, long afterwards, as you will see.
One does not forget such experiences, and, in human stupidity, cannot be
brought to realise that there is no immutable law which decrees that same
things shall produce same results. For they don't, else would the
thousandth pipe of opium be provocative of similar delights to the first,
else would one cocktail, instead of several, produce an equivalent glow
after a year of cocktails.
One day, just before I ate midday dinner, after my morning's writing was
done, when I had no guest, I took a cocktail by myself. Thereafter, when
there were no guests, I took this daily pre-dinner cocktail. And right
there John Barleycorn had me. I was beginning to drink regularly. I was
beginning to drink alone. And I was beginning to drink, not for
hospitality's sake, not for the sake of the taste, but for the effect of
the drink.
I WANTED that daily pre-dinner cocktail. And it never crossed my mind
that there was any reason I should not have it. I paid for it. I could
pay for a thousand cocktails each day if I wanted. And what was a
cocktail--one cocktail--to me who on so many occasions for so many years
had drunk inordinate quantities of stiffer stuff and been unharmed?
The programme of my ranch life was as follows: Each morning, at
eight-thirty, having been reading or correcting proofs in bed since four
or five, I went to my desk. Odds and ends of correspondence and notes
occupied me till nine, and at nine sharp, invariably, I began my writing.
By eleven, sometimes a few minutes earlier or later, my thousand words
were finished. Another half-hour at cleaning up my desk, and my day's
work was done, so that at eleven-thirty I got into a hammock under the
trees with my mail-bag and the morning newspaper. At twelve-thirty I ate
dinner and in the afternoon I swam and rode.
One morning, at eleven-thirty, before I got into the hammock, I took a
cocktail. I repeated this on subsequent mornings, of course, taking
another cocktail just before I ate at twelve-thirty. Soon I found
myself, seated at my desk in the midst of my thousand words, looking
forward to that eleven-thirty cocktail.
At last, now, I was thoroughly conscious that I desired alcohol. But
what of it? I wasn't afraid of John Barleycorn. I had associated with
him too long. I was wise in the matter of drink. I was discreet. Never
again would I drink to excess. I knew the dangers and the pitfalls of
John Barleycorn, the various ways by which he had tried to kill me in the
past. But all that was past, long past. Never again would I drink
myself to stupefaction. Never again would I get drunk. All I wanted,
and all I would take, was just enough to glow and warm me, to kick
geniality alive in me and put laughter in my throat and stir the maggots
of imagination slightly in my brain. Oh, I was thoroughly master of
myself, and of John Barleycorn.