February 9, 1954, Saigon
After dinner at the Arc-en-Ciel, to the fumerie [opium den] opposite the Casino above the school. I had only five pipes, but that night was very dopey. First I had a nightmare, then I was haunted by squares--architectural squares which reminded me of Angkor, equal distances, etc., and then mathematical squares--people's income, etc., square after square after square which seemed to go on all night. At last I woke and when I slept again I had a strange complete dream such I have experienced only after opium. I was coming down the steps of a club in St. James's Street and on the steps I met the Devil who was wearing a tweed motoring coat and a deerstalker cap. He had long black Edwardian moustaches. In the street a girl, with whom I was apparently living, was waiting for me in a car. The Devil stopped me and asked whether I would like to have a year to live again or to skip a year and see what would be happening to me two years from now. I told him I had no wish to live over any year again and I would like to have a glimpse of two years ahead. Immediately the Devil vanished and I was holding in my hands a letter. I opened the letter--it was from some girl whom I knew only slightly. It was a very tender letter, and a letter of farewell. Obviously during that missing year we had reached a relationship which she was now ending. Looking down at the woman in the car I thought, "I must not show her the letter, for how absurd it would be if she were to be jealous of a girl I don't yet know." I went into my room (I was no longer in the club) and tore the letter into small pieces, but at the bottom of the envelope were some beads which must have had sentimental significance. I was unwilling to destroy these and opening a drawer put them in and locked the drawer. As I did so it suddenly occurred to me, "In two years' time I shall be doing just this, opening a drawer, putting away the beads, and finding the beads are already in the drawer." Then I woke.
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