Abstain  

The most rebarbative, stubborn of this particular
audience are the morphine, cocaine, ether addicts!
...those guys are really obtuse, ugly, uncivilized...
epileptics of crime!...they hate you for making
them laugh...they aim for you with murder on their
minds...the puny bastards - with the strength of
Hercules - their jug right at your puss! and craack!
smithereens! they miss you by a whisker!...and
then later they have a go at themselves under the
covers gashing away with the shards!...you
wonder what the fuck they're fucking!...they're
slashing their veins!...gluttons for funishment!
...Their mattress a blood soaked sponge!...but
it's my job after all...an MD's an MD, after
all!...no particular merit in that, the afflicted,
the desperate, there my vocation!

From Céline's
Fable for Another Time
Translation Mary Hudson