Twenty-five wasn't so far off from when Don Juan had started experimenting with these sorts of things, though in his case there was no noble, medicinal purpose. Someone had just said it would be fun and would feel good, and that was enough for him at the time. Back then he hadn't seen any of the fallout from it. Everyone in his circle of friends did it, and it was always casual. Don Juan had been able to maintain the illusion that it was only casual until around 1891, after he'd returned from Spain. After a year and a half abroad his usual friend group had splintered; some married, or took more serious careers, or had the law laid down by stricter parents than Don Juan had; they quit. And the ones who didn't — well, there was no longer a pretense that anything was casual about their habits. They became the sorts of people one never invited to parties but could always reliably find insensible in an opium den. Unsavory types. Don Juan hadn't slipped quite that far, but Griffith's words about cutting back and then finding himself once more in the throes of it hit close to home.

Destroying him at thirty-two, he said. Don Juan grimaced and turned his attention to the shirt, turning away from Griffith while he put it on.

"I'm thirty-one," he remarked, and he thought he meant it as a joke, though wasn't sure what the implied punchline was. Thirty-one, so clearly not destroyed yet? Thirty-one, and thus destroying himself more efficiently than Griffith had done?

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