Free Cocaine by Pitigrilli

Bolivian powder that produces hallucinations. And by common accord they decide to try it. Thus dens of cocaine addicts form overnight in ordinary households, and men and women invite one another to cocaine parties as they invite one another to lunch. In some families the contagion spreads from children of fifteen to grandpas of seventy, and addiction à deux, the addiction of man and wife, is frequent; if it did not produce impotence in the male and frigidity in the female, I believe that the newborn babies of such couples would need the white powder immediately, just as the children of morphine addicts have to be given an immediate injection of morphine. The alcoholic retains the ability to condemn his addiction and advise those not subject to it to avoid succumbing to the liquid poison. But the cocaine addict likes proselytizing; thus, instead of constituting a tangible warning, every victim of the drug acts as a source of infection.

4
    Madame Kalantan Ter-Gregorianz’s villa was completely white, as white as an ossuary and as round as an ancient Greek temple. At the side there was a small triangular evergreen garden that looked like a leaf attached to a bridal bouquet.
    The villa might have been the garçonnière of a fairy who has not yet made her appearance in current fairy stories, but ought unquestionably to do so: that is, the fairy Libertine.
    Tito Arnaudi and Pietro Nocera arrived there in the evening in an open taxicab. A ribbon-shaped cloud extended from the perfectly round moon, resembling an arm holding a lamp. Clusters of stars twinkled untidily here and there in the sky, looking like wind-scattered platinum filings.
    Between the pergola and the euonymus hedges rectangular shirt fronts framed by evening dress stood out in the darkness of the garden under the moon. The air was full of the fragrance of night, that always young and beautiful cocotte. The two men in evening dress got out of the taxi.
    The entrance hall was in Roman style. The walls were adorned with mythological frescoes against a bright red background, like those of Pompeii, which prudish and virginal English misses consider shocking. The temperature was that of a tepidarium.
    The two Italians handed over their top hats and, preceded by a flunkey wearing more braid than a Turkish admiral, advanced down a corridor that was semi-circular like those in a theater and were shown into a big room.
    This was the penguin room. There were big mirrors all round it, and on them were painted polar landscapes, vast expanses of snow, blocks of ice, and huge icebergs that acted as platforms for assemblies of penguins. And since only the lower part of the mirrors was painted, the higher, unpainted part provided an infinity of reflections of the landscapes facing them.
    The penguins looked like gentlemen in evening dress with their hands behind their back.
    A huge carpet covered with white, green and blue hieroglyphics covered the whole floor. Tiger skins and brocade cushions lay on semi-circular divans. There were no lamps and no windows, but a misty light from invisible colored lamps filtered through the light blue glass ceiling.
    “We were admiring the sorceress’s cave,” Tito said, going up to Kalantan, who came in holding out one hand to him and the other to his companion.
    “We’re the first. Are we too early?”
    “Not at all. Someone has to be first.”
    A fur as shaggy as a royal mantle acted as door curtain. No sooner had the flunkey dropped it than he had to raise it again to announce three names, preceded by three titles.
    Three gentlemen came in.
    One of them was tall, thin, clean-shaven and white-haired; his white sidechops gave him the austere appearance of a maître d’hôtel.
    Kalantan introduced him: “Professor Cassiopea, astronomer, in charge of the world’s most powerful telescope.”
    Bows. She then introduced the two Italians. “Dr Chiaro di Luna, Professor Où Fleurit l’Oranger, both journalists on a Paris newspaper.”
    More