A Game of Chess

The short days rush past me and so quickly melt into the sallow, yellow-grey haze of the past, and I am become quite entirely certain that I must, indeed, be a sterling example of Dr. Kraepelin's dementia paranoides. Forgive my weakness of character, dear Father surrogate. But I have turned once more to the blessings of the pharmacopoeia, the unfailing tincture of opium — which is to say, the damned laudanum — in an effort to calm my nerves and pray forget now the things I saw in the Imperial and above the absinthe house and in that small shed upon Sunrise Island. Whatever such sights might or might not have meant, I know I want no more part of them. I would, rather, believe that I only imagine connextions where none exist. Let that be some other's nightmare, some other's drama, and none at all of mine. Whatever the late and unlamented Alexander Eliot did, whatever he did not do, I only want not to think upon it anymore. Let it be lost. Let it be forgotten. Let that corpse rot away to only bones and dust, and I will struggle not to think upon it ever again.

And as for the new lycanthrope, that is none of my concern, either. I push these things away. I am here, and what has been done has been done — fait accompli.

And then there is Miss Molly Underwood, a young woman from the Row, newly arrived in Babbage. She asked yesterday if ever I have known comfort, true comfort, and I would not lie (though I have lied so many times before). I told her no, I have not. I passed several hours in her company yesterday, and no doubt spoke many things which should have remained unspoken between us, if only so that I would not know that I have drawn another into the web of my madness and, perhaps, if there be more here than mere madness, fixed upon another the blistering, flensing gaze of the one who watches me. It is still there, she is still there, always, at the edges of my perception and waiting in my dreams, hardly even daunted by the laudanum and alcohol. She is still there, always, calling me home. I told Molly Underwood a fairy tale. I told her some dim shade of the truth, what only a lunatic would take for the truth. The sight of Miss Underwood raises inexplicable, conflicting emotions in me, and I feel my strength that much more diminished.

I have not seen Capt. Susenko and Miss Maertens in many days. He has fallen ill and is convalescing, and she is away, traveling. Miss Paine is here with me, and I know that it should soothe the white fire seething behind my eyes to have her so near. But, Father, I feel there is some vast blackness laid between us now, a bitter void, something I would place squarely at the feet of that bastard Lucius Sin.

I have removed the last of my belongs from the flat above Ruby Flanagan's, and we are installed now above the Gallery.