Vampire Chronicles 02 - The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Author:Anne Rice [Anne Rice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1985-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

GABRIELLE was murmuring to herself. She was walking back and forth and her cloak hung from one shoulder and she seemed almost to have forgotten we were there.

Armand watched her, and when she turned to him, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, she spoke aloud.

“You come to him and you say, ‘Take me with you.’ You say, ‘Love me,’ and you hint of superior knowledge, secrets, yet you give us nothing, either of us, except lies.”

“I showed my power to understand,” he answered in a soft murmur.

“No, you did tricks with your understanding,” she replied. “You made pictures. And rather childish pictures. You have done this all along. You lure Lestat in the Palais with the most gorgeous illusions only to attack him. And here, when there is a respite in the struggle, what do you do but try to sow dissension between us . . . ”

“Yes, illusions before, I admit it,” he answered. “But the things I’ve spoken here are true. Already you despise your son for his love of mortals, his need to be ever near them, his yielding to the violinist. You knew the Dark Gift would madden that one, and that it will finally destroy him. You do wish for your freedom, from all the Children of Darkness. You can’t hide that from me.”

“Ah, but you’re so simple,” she said. “You see, but you don’t see. How many mortal years did you live? Do you remember anything of them? What you’ve perceived is not the sum total of the passion I feel for my son. I have loved him as I have never loved any other being in creation. In my loneliness, my son is everything to me. How is it you can’t interpret what you see?”

“It’s you who fail to interpret,” he answered in the same soft manner. “If you had ever felt real longing for any other one, you would know that what you feel for your son is nothing at all.”

“This is futile,” I said, “to talk like this.”

“No,” she said to him without the slightest wavering. “My son and I are kin to each other in more ways than one. In fifty years of life, I’ve never known anyone as strong as myself, except my son. And what divides us we can always mend. But how are we to make you one of us when you use these things like wood for fire! But understand my larger point: what is it of yourself that you can give that we should want you?”

“My guidance is what you need,” he answered. “You’ve only begun your adventure and you have no beliefs to hold you. You cannot live without some guidance . . . ”

“Millions live without belief or guidance. It is you who cannot live without it,” she said.

Pain coming from him. Suffering.

But she went on, her voice so steady and without expression it was almost a monologue:

“I have my questions,” she asked. “There are things I must know. I cannot live without some embracing philosophy, but it has nothing to do with old beliefs in gods or devils.

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