As Related by Michael Hamburger

from

STRING OF BEGINNINGS: Intermittent Memoirs 1924-1954

Skoob Books Publishing, 1991

(page 174)

At some time that summer [1946], probably in August, I went home for ten days' leave, bringing back presents for Manya. During that leave a friend took me to see Aleister Crowley at Hastings. He was in a relatively genial mood and put no curse on me—as he did on my sister-in-law-to-be when the same friend took her to see him—even though we were in competition over Baudelaire [Charles Baudelaire], having both translated prose poems by him. Crowley disappeared from time to time behind a screen to inject himself with heroin. He was also drinking whisky or brandy. We talked about Baudelaire and other things. I was less impressed by his intellect or his 'wickedness' than by the sheer physical stamina that kept him not only alive but active and vigorous, after excesses that would have killed a whole stableful of horses. He didn't seem to notice the incongruity of his last retreat, a boarding house that seemed deserted and remote, though quite comfortable. Even if he put no curse on me something rather sinister happened years later, when I was living in a Campden Hill Gardens flat. In the corner of the book-case that contained a few of his books and John Symond's biography of him, giant fungi appeared. Before these had been diagnosed as dry-rot—they didn't look dry to me—the rot had eaten through several books on either side, leaving his intact. I began to wonder whether he hadn't cursed my, under his breath.