The immediate trouble arose from his loyalty. He had followed the King's
example; he had become a total abstainer and, in addition, on his own
account he had ceased to smoke. And his digestion, which Princhester
had first made sensitive, was deranged. He was suffering chemically,
suffering one of those nameless sequences of maladjustments that still
defy our ordinary medical science. It was afflicting him with a general
malaise, it was affecting his energy, his temper, all the balance and
comfort of his nerves. All day he was weary; all night he was wakeful.
He was estranged from his body. He was distressed by a sense of
detachment from the things about him, by a curious intimation of
unreality in everything he experienced. And with that went this levity
of conscience, a heaviness of soul and a levity of conscience, that
could make him talk as though the Creeds did not matter--as though
nothing mattered....
If only he could smoke!
He was persuaded that a couple of Egyptian cigarettes, or three at the
outside, a day, would do wonders in restoring his nervous calm. That,
and just a weak whisky and soda at lunch and dinner.
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