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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Wilfred Talbot Smith
55 Avenue de Suffren. Paris VII.
16 Dec 28
C∴F∴
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for your letter of November 26th. Your account of Mrs Reynolds [Rosa Reynolds] corresponds with remarkable accuracy to my estimate. At the same time I am terribly depressed at the amount of insanity which is outside the walls of asylums. I suppose the only thing to do is to make use of it somehow. Why not tell her that you are in communication with a great Red Indian Chief (or Squaw) who belongs to the 77th Circle, and that unless she hands out a million dollars she will perish miserably?
I am really so, so tired, that I could cuddle up to a rattlesnake instead of having to do with human beings. It takes away all one's moral stamina to feel that justice and decency and common sense meet with nothing but ravings, and that you have only got to disguise yourself as something incredible to bring home the bacon!
I have to tell you the truth about Kasimira [Kasimira Bass]. It is not a final truth, because everything is still in the balance; but you had better know the facts as far as we have them, and act accordingly as far as is possible.
I believe, and her lawyer believes, that there is something wrong with her mind.
The arrangement was that we were to combine our forces. This went on very well up to a certain point. On August 26th, we were in Gap—which you can find on the map and while we had plenty of money to live on in Gap, we could not go on to Paris because of having no clothes etc. She then volunteered to put up 10,000 dollars which she said was owed by a Mr Saiger, or some such name, and Mrs Reynolds was collecting it for her. She therefore wrote to Mr. Yorke [Gerald Yorke] to say that she would put up the money and would he kindly authorize the expenditure of the money, that we already had for the purpose of the general fund, to buy her clothes and all sorts of things, and install her in a flat in Paris. He said "yes". She wrote him a promissory note for 1,000 dollars as well as signing contract letters, and recapitulating here statement before witnesses. By these manouevres she obtained more money, and she then disappeared secretly. She is still in hiding, but those who hide from men can't hide from the Gods, and she is a pretty sick woman, I also think she is completely crazy. The last letter of hers that I received is that of an animal in pain, and the whole trouble is her own stupidity. The worst of the whole business is that she appears before the world as a prostitute, swindler and blackmailer, and she is nothing of the sort. I am backing my judgement of her against all the facts. But it is going to be quite impossible for her to go back to California until she honours her signature in every respect, and if it turns out she had no 10,000 dollars at all, she is most assuredly going to prison, and there is no corner of the world where she can hide herself. In her ignorance of French law, she has done things which condemn her infallibly in the eyes of French justice.
I have not in the least changed my views about her, and I am doing everything I can to protect her, but naturally the people she has done out of their money are as mad as hornets, and at any moment the claws may catch her by the part which you know as well as I do—at least I suppose so.
She is really a most stupid person. You send me a letter in which you tell me, as plainly as anything can possibly do, that she has been your mistress. She presents me this letter and imagines that I will not understand anything by it, and dismiss the whole thing for weeks and months, until, in a burst of confidence, the cat comes out of the bag. I am now looking like Diogenes, with a lantern of much greater power, to find somebody whose mistress she had not been. Why women should make such asses of themselves, I cannot tell. But they are all the same, and if it were not for the assassination of Mr Herman Goldschmidt I should say that it would be much better to make one's Bible of the Bagh-i-Muattar.
I congratulate you on the affair with M. James Branch Cabell said that a thing done has an end, or words to that effect. You say you are going to find another lady. But, good heavens, what is the matter with Mrs Reynolds? Divide her age by two, take away the number you first thought of, and what is the matter with her? The only trouble is that you may lose one or two per cent of that 100% physical well being.
Chapter 76 [of the Book of Lies] is of great importance, but in your painful position, I think I should look at Chapter 61, "Death to all fishes".
I really wish, quite seriously, that you would do what you can. I don't care in the least by what means, to straighten out this matter of our lady friend by putting one over on this crazy old codfish, Mrs Reynolds.
Love is the law, love under will.
666
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