(ebook) Anne Rice - Interview With The Vampire (1)

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Interview With The Vampire

Anne Rice

" SENSUOUS, THRILLING, WONDERFUL " SENSUOUS,

THRILLING, WONDERFUL! " Houston Chronicle

" SENSATIONAL AND FANTASTIC... WOVEN WITH UNCANNY

MAGIC . . . hypnotically poetic in tone, rich in sensory imagery and

dense with the darkness that lies behind the veil of human thought. "

St. Luis Post-Dispatch

" UNUSUALLY MOVING. " Miami Herald

" Anne Rice is a writer who follows a hidden path... into an

unfamiliar world. But if you surrender and go with her on her eerie

journey, you will find that you have surrendered to enchantment, as if

in a voluptuous dream. " The Boston Globe

" A MASTERFUL SUSPENSE STORY... From the beginning we are

seduced, hypnotized by the voice of the vampire .... plumbs the

deepest recesses of human sensuality: " Chicago Tribune

" A BONAFIDE BLOCKBUSTER . . . AUDACIOUS, EROTIC,

AND UNFORGETTABLE . . . An unmitigated terror trip not meant

for the weak of heart. Seldom before has this mythical being been so

explored and exposed. The imaginative plot plunges you into the

world of the undead and leads you on a journey that begins in the New

Orleans of 200 years ago. The author's . . . vampire gives a first

person account of his past. His ghastly initiation into the netherworld

is as mesmeric as is the discovery he is not alone in the nightly search

for warm fresh blood. " The Cincinnati Enquirer

PART I

" I see . . .' said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked

across the room towards the window. For a long time he stood there

against the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of

traffic. The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly

now, the round oak table, the chairs. A wash basin hung on one wall

with a mirror. He set his brief case on the table and waited.

" But how much tape do you have with you? " asked the vampire,

turning now so the boy could see his profile. " Enough for the story of

a life? "

" Sure, if it's a good life. Sometimes I interview as many as three or

four people a night if I'm lucky. But it has to be a good story. That's

only fair, isn't it? "

" Admirably fair, " the vampire answered. " I would like to tell you

the story of my life, then. I would like to do that very much. "

" Great, " said the boy. And quickly he removed the small tape

recorder from his brief case, making a check of the cassette and the

batteries. " I'm really anxious to hear why you believe this, why you . .

. "

" No, " said the vampire abruptly. " We can't begin that way. Is your

equipment ready? "

" Yes, " said the boy.

" Then sit down. I'm going to turn on the overhead light. "

" But I thought vampires didn't like light, " said the boy. " If you

think the dark adds to the atmosphere. "

" But then he stopped. The vampire was watching him with his back

to the window. The boy could make out nothing of his face now, and

something about the still figure there distracted him. He started to say

something again but he said nothing. And then he sighed with relief

when the vampire moved towards the table and reached for the

overhead cord. At once the room was flooded with a harsh yellow

light. And the boy, staring up at the vampire, could not repress a gasp.

His fingers danced backwards on the table to grasp the edge. " Dear

God! " he whispered, and then he gazed, speechless, at the vampire.

The vampire was utterly white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from

bleached bone, and his face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue,

except for two brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently

like flames in a skull. But then the vampire smiled almost wistfully,

and the smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely

flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon. " Do you see? " he asked

softly. The boy shuddered, lifting his hand as if to shield himself from

a powerful light. His eyes moved slowly over the finely tailored black

coat he'd only glimpsed in the bar, the long folds of the cape, the black

silk tie knotted at the throat, and the gleam of the white collar that was

as white as the vampire's flesh. He stared at the vampire's full black

hair, the waves that were combed back over the tips of the ears, the

curls that barely touched the edge of the white collar.

" Now, do you still want the interview? " the vampire asked. The

boy's mouth was open before the sound came out. He was nodding.

Then he said, " Yes. " The vampire sat down slowly opposite him and,

leaning forward, said gently, confidentially, " Don't be afraid. Just

start the tape. " And then he reached out over the length of the table.

The boy recoiled, sweat running down the sides of his face. The

vampire clamped a hand on the boy's shoulder and said, " Believe me,

I won't hurt you. I want this opportunity. It's more important to me

than you can realize now. I want you to begin. " And he withdrew his

hand and sat collected, waiting. It took a moment for the boy to wipe

his forehead and his lips with a handkerchief, to stammer that the

microphone was in the machine, to press the button, to say that the

machine was on.

" You weren't always a vampire, were you? " he began.

" No, " answered the vampire. " I was a twenty-five year-old man

when I became a vampire, and the year was seventeen ninety-one. "

The boy was startled by the preciseness of the date and he repeated it

before he asked, " How did it come about? "

" There's a simple answer to that. I don't believe I want to give

simple answers, " said the vampire. " I think I want to tell the real

story. . . '

" Yes, " the boy said quickly. He was folding his handkerchief over

and over and wiping his lips now with it again.

" There was a tragedy . . . " the vampire started. " It was my

younger brother . . . . He died. " And then he stopped, so that the

boy cleared his throat and wiped at his face again before stuffing the

handkerchief almost impatiently into his pocket.

" It's not painful, is it? " he asked timidly.

" Does it seem so? " asked the vampire. " No. " He shook his head. "

It's simply that I've only told this story to one other person. And that

was so long ago. No, it's not pa'

" We were living. in Louisiana then. We'd received a land grant and

settled two indigo plantations on the Mississippi very near New

Orleans . . . . "

" Ah, that's the accent . . . " the boy said softly. For a moment the

vampire stared blankly. " I have an accent? " He began to laugh. And

the boy, flustered, answered quickly. " I noticed it in the bar when I

asked you what you did for a living. It's just a slight sharpness to the

consonants, that's all. I never guessed it was French. "

" It's all right, " the vampire assured him. " ran not as shocked as I

pretend to be. It's only that I forget it from time to time. But let me

go on. . . . '

" Please . . " said the boy.

" I was talking about the plantations. They had a great deal to do

with it, really, my becoming a vampire. But I'll come to that. Our life

there was both luxurious and primitive. And we ourselves found it

extremely attractive. You see, we lived far better there than we could

have ever lived in France. Perhaps the sheer wilderness of Louisiana

only made it seem so, but seeming so, it was. I remember the

imported furniture that cluttered the house. " The vampire smiled.

" And the harpsichord; that was lovely. My sister used to play it. On

summer evenings, she would sit at the keys with her back to the open

French windows. And I can still remember that thin, rapid music and

the vision of the swamp rising beyond her, the moss-hung cypresses

floating against the sky. And there were the sounds of the swamp, a

chorus of creatures, the cry of the birds. I think we loved it. It made

the rosewood furniture all the more precious, the music more delicate

and desirable. Even when the wisteria tore the shutters oft the attic

windows and worked its tendrils right into the whitewashed brick in

less than a year . . . . Yes, we loved it. All except my brother. I don't

think I ever heard him complain of anything, but I knew how he felt.

My father was dead then, and I was head of the family and I had to

defend him constantly from my mother and sister. They wanted to

take him visiting, and to New Orleans for parties, but he hated these

things. I think he stopped going altogether before he was twelve:

Prayer was what mattered to him, prayer and his leather-bound lives

of the saints.

" Finally I built him an oratory removed from the house, and he

began to spend most of every day there and often the early evening. It

was ironic, really. He was so different from us, so different from

everyone, and I was so regular! There was nothing extraordinary

about me whatsoever. " The vampire smiled.

" Sometimes in the evening I would go out to him and find him in

the garden near the oratory, sitting absolutely composed on a stone

bench there, and I'd tell him my troubles, the difficulties I had with the

slaves, how I distrusted the overseer or the weather or my brokers . . .

all the problems that made up the length and breadth of my existence.

And he would listen, making only a few comments, always

sympathetic, so that when I left him I had the distinct impression he

bad solved everything for me. I didn't think I could deny him

anything, and I vowed that no matter how it would break my heart to

lose him, he could enter the priesthood when the time came. Of

course, I was wrong. " The vampire stopped. For a moment the boy

only gazed at him and then he started as if awakened from deep

thought, and he floundered, as if he could not find the right words. "

Ali . he didn't want to be a priest? " the boy asked. The vampire

studied him as if trying to discern the meaning of his expression. Then

he said:

" I meant that I was wrong about myself, about my not denying him

anything. " His eyes moved over the far wall and fixed on the panes of

the window. " He began to see visions. "

" Real visions? " the boy asked, but again there was hesitation, as if

he were thinking of something else.

" I didn't think so, " the vampire answered. It happened when he was

fifteen. He was very handsome then. He had the smoothest skin and

the largest blue eyes. He was robust, not thin as I am now and was

then . . . but his eyes . . . it was as if when I looked into his eyes I

was standing alone on the edge of the world . . . on a windswept

ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves. Well, "

he said, his eyes still fixed on the window panes, " he began to see

visions. He only hinted at this at first, and he stopped taking his meals

altogether. He lived in the oratory. At any hour of day or night, I

could find him on the bare flagstones kneeling before the altar. And

the oratory itself was neglected. He stopped tending the candles or

changing the altar cloths or even sweeping out the leaves. One night I

became really alarmed when I stood in the rose arbor watching him for

one solid hour, during which he never moved from his knees and

never once lowered his arms, which he held outstretched in the form

of a cross. The slaves all thought he was mad. " The vampire raised his

eyebrows in wonder. " I was convinced that he was only. . .

overzealous. That in his love for God, he had perhaps gone too far.

Then he told me about the visions. Both St. Dominic and the Blessed

Virgin Mary had come to him in the oratory. They had told him he

was to sell all our property in Louisiana, everything we owned, and use

the money to do God's work in France. My brother was to be a great

religious leader, to return the country to its former fervor, to turn the

tide against atheism and the Revolution. Of course, he had no money

of his own. I was to sell the plantations and our town houses in New

Orleans and give the money to him. " Again the vampire stopped.

And the boy sat motionless regarding him, astonished.

" Ali . . . excuse me, " he whispered. " What did you say? Did you

sell the plantations? "

" No, " said the vampire, his face calm as it had been from the start. "

I laughed at him. And he . . . he became incensed. He insisted his

command came from the Virgin herself. Who was I to disregard it?

Who indeed? " he asked softly, as if he were thinking of this again. "

Who indeed? And the more he tried to convince me, the more I

laughed. It was nonsense, I told him, the product of an immature and

even morbid mind. The oratory was a mistake, I said to him; I would

have it torn down at once. He would go to school in New Orleans and

get such inane notions out of his head. I don't remember all that I

said. But I remember the feeling. Behind all this contemptuous

dismissal on my part was a smoldering anger and a disappointment. I

was bitterly disappointed. I didn't believe him at all. "

" But that's understandable, " said the boy quickly when the vampire

paused, his expression of astonishment softening. " I mean, would

anyone have believed him? "

" Is it so understandable? " The vampire looked at the boy. " I think

perhaps it was vicious egotism. Let me explain. I loved my brother, as

I told you, and at times I believed him to be a living saint. I

encouraged him in his prayer and meditations, as I said, and I was

willing to give him up to the priesthood. And if someone had told me

of a saint in Arles or Lourdes who saw visions, I would have believed

it. I was a Catholic; I believed in saints. I lit tapers before their marble

statues in churches; I knew their pictures, their symbols, their names.

But I didn't, couldn't believe my brother. Not only did I not believe he

saw visions, I couldn't entertain the notion for a moment. Now, why?

Because he was my brother. Holy he might be, peculiar most

definitely; but Francis of Assisi, no. Not my brother. No brother of

mine could be such. That is egotism. Do you see? " The boy thought

about it before he answered and then he nodded and said that yes, he

thought that he did.

" Perhaps he saw the visions, " said the vampire.

" Then you . . . you don't claim to know . . . now . . . whether he

did not? "

" No, but I do know that he never wavered in his conviction for a

second. That I know now and knew then the night he left my room

crazed and grieved. He never wavered for an instant. And within

minutes, he was dead. "

" How? " the boy asked.

" He simply w out of the French doors onto the gallery and stood for

a moment at the head of the brick stairs. And then he fell. He was

dead when I reached the bottom, his neck broken. " The vampire

shook his head in consternation, but his face was still serene.

" 'Did you see him fall? " asked the boy. " Did he lose his footing? "

" No, but two of the servants saw it happen. They said that he had

looked up as if he had just seen something in the air. Then his entire

body moved forward as if being swept by a wind. One of them said he

was about to say something when he fell. I thought that he was about

to say something too, but it was at that moment I turned away from

the window. My back was turned when I heard the noise. " He

glanced at the tape recorder. " I could not forgive myself. I felt

responsible for his death, " he said. " And everyone else seemed to

think I was responsible also. "

" But how could they? You said they saw him fall "

" It wasn't a direct accusation. They simply knew that something had

passed between us that was unpleasant. That we had argued minutes

before the fall.

" The servants had heard us, my mother had heard us. My mother

would not stop asking me what had happened and why my brother,

who was so quiet, had been shouting. Then my sister joined in, and of

course I refused to say. I was so bitterly shocked and miserable that I

had no patience with anyone, only the vague determination they

would not know about his `visions.' They would not know that he had

become, finally, not a saint, but only a . . fanatic. My sister went to

bed rather than face the funeral, and my mother told everyone in. the

parish that something horrible had happened in my room which I

would not reveal; and even the police questioned me, on the word of

my own mother. Finally the priest came to see me and demanded to

know what had gone on. I told no one. It was only a discussion, I

said: I was not on the gallery when he fell, I protested, and they all

stared at me as if rd killed him. And I felt that I'd killed him. I sat in

the parlor beside his coffin for two days thinking, I have killed him. I

stared at his face until spots appeared before my eyes and I nearly

fainted. The back of his skull had been shattered on the pavement,

and his head had the wrong shape on the pillow. I forced myself to

stare at it, to study it simply because I could hardly endure the pain

and the smell (r)f decay, and I was tempted over and over to try to

open his eyes. All these were mad thoughts, mad impulses. The main

thought was this: I had laughed at him; I had not believed him; I had

not been kind to him. He had fallen because of me. "

" This really happened, didn't it? " the boy whispered. " You're

telling me something . .that's true. "

" Yes, " said the vampire, looking at him without surprise. " I want to

go on telling you. " But as his eyes passed over the boy and returned to

the window, he showed only faint interest in the boy, who seemed

engaged in some silent inner struggle.

" But you said you didn't know about the visions, that you, a vampire

. . . didn't know for certain whether . .

" I want to take things in order, " said the vampire, " I want to go on

telling you things as they happened.

" No, I don't know about the visions. To this day. " And again he

waited until the boy said.

" Yes, please, please go on. "

" Well, I wanted to sell the plantations. I never wanted to see the

house or the oratory again. I leased them finally to an agency which

would work them for me and manage things so I need never go there,

and I moved my mother and sister to one of the town houses in New

Orleans. Of course, I did not escape my brother for a moment. I

could think of nothing but his body rotting in the ground. He was

buried in the St. Louis cemetery in New Orleans, and I did everything

to avoid passing those gates; but still I thought of him constantly. .

Drunk or sober, I saw his body rotting in the coin, and I couldn't bear

it. Over and over I dreamed that he was at the head of the steps and I

was holding his arm, talking kindly to him, urging him back into the

bedroom, telling him gently that I did believe him, that he must pray

for me to have faith. Meantime, the slaves on Pointe du Lac (that was

my plantation) had begun to talk of seeing his ghost on the gallery,

and the overseer couldn't keep order. People in society asked my sister

offensive questions about the whole incident, and she became an

hysteric. She wasn't really an hysteric. She simply thought she ought

to react that way, so she did. I drank all the time and was at home as

little as possible. I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no

courage to do it himself. I walked black streets and alleys alone; I

passed out in cabarets. I backed out of two duels more from apathy

than cowardice and truly wished to be murdered. And then I was

attacked. It might have been anyone-and my invitation was open to

sailors, thieves, maniacs, anyone. But it was a vampire. He caught me

lust a few steps from my door one night and left me for dead, or so I

thought. "

" You mean . . . he sucked your, blood? " the boy asked.

" Yes, " the vampire laughed. " He sucked my blood. That is the way

it's done. "

" But you lived, " said the young man. " You said he left you for

dead. "

" Well, he drained me almost to the point of death, which was for

him sufficient. I was put to bed as soon as I was found, confused and

really unaware of what had happened to me. I suppose I thought that

drink had finally caused a stroke. I expected to die now and had no

interest in eating of drinking or talking to the doctor. My mother sent

for the priest. I was feverish by then and I told the priest everything,

all about my brother's visions and what I had done. I remember I

clung to his arm, making him swear over and over he would tell no

one. `I know I didn't kill him,' I said to the priest finally. `It's that I

cannot live now that he's dead. Not after the way I treated him.'

" 'That's ridiculous,' he answered me. `Of course you can live.

There's nothing wrong with you but self-indulgence. Your mother

needs you, not to mention your sister. And as for this brother of

yours, he was possessed of the devil.' I was so stunned when he said

this I couldn't protest. The devil made the visions, he went on to

explain. The devil was rampant. The entire country of France was

under the influence of the devil, and. the Revolution had been his

greatest triumph. Nothing would have saved my brother but

exorcism, prayer, and fasting, men to hold him down while the devil

raged in his body and tried to throw him about. `The devil threw him

down the steps; it's perfectly obvious,' he declared. `You weren't

talking to your brother in that room, you were talking to the devil.'

Well, this enraged me. I believed before that I had been pushed to my

limits, but I had not. He went on talking about the devil, about

voodoo amongst the slaves and cases of possession in other parts of the

world. And I went wild. I wrecked the room in the process of nearly

killing him. "

" But your strength . . . the vampire . . .? " asked the boy.

" I was out of my mind, " the vampire explained. " I did things I

could not have done in perfect health. The scene is confused, pale,

fantastical now. But I do remember that I drove him out of the back

doors of the house, across the courtyard, and against the brick wall of

the kitchen, where I pounded his head until I nearly killed him. When

I was subdued finally, and exhausted then almost to the point of death,

they bled me. The fools. But I was going to say something else. It was

then that I conceived of my own egotism. Perhaps I'd seen it reflected

in the priest. His contemptuous attitude towards my brother reflected

my own; his immediate and shallow carping about the devil; his refusal

to even entertain the idea that sanctity had passed so close. "

" But he did believe in possession by the devil. "

" That is a much more mundane idea, " said the vampire

immediately. " People who cease to believe in God or goodness

altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed

know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.

But you must understand, possession is really another way of saying

someone is mad. I felt it was, for the priest. I'm sure he'd seen

madness. Perhaps he had stood right over raving madness and

pronounced it possession. You don't have to see Satan when he is

exorcised. But to stand in the presence of a saint . . . To believe that

the saint has seen a vision. No, it's egotism, our refusal to believe it

could occur in our midst. "

" I never thought of it in that way, " said the boy. " But what

happened to you? You said they bled you to cure you, and that must

have nearly killed you. " The vampire laughed. " Yes. It certainly did.

But the vampire came back that night. You see, he wanted Pointe du

Lac, my plantation.

" It was very late, after my sister had fallen asleep. I can remember it

as if it were yesterday. He came in from the courtyard, opening the

French doors without a sound, a tall fair-skinned man with a mass of

blond hair and a graceful, almost feline quality to his movements.

And gently, he draped a shawl over my sister's eyes and lowered the

wick of the lamp. She dozed there beside the basin and the cloth with

which she'd bathed my forehead, and she ,never once stirred under

that shawl until morning. But by that time I was greatly changed. "

" What was this change? " asked the boy. The vampire sighed. He

leaned back against the chair and looked at the walls.

" At first I thought he was another doctor, or someone summoned by

the family to try to reason with me. But this suspicion was removed at

once. He stepped close to my bed and leaned down so that his face

was in the lamplight, and I saw that he was no ordinary man at all. His

gray eyes burned with an incandescence, and the long white hands

which hung by his sides were not those of a human being. I think I

knew everything in that instant, and all that he told me was only

aftermath. What I mean is, the moment I saw him, saw his

extraordinary aura and knew him to be no creature I'd ever known, I

was reduced to nothing. That ego which could not accept the presence

of an extraordinary human being in its midst was crushed. All my

conceptions, even my guilt and wish to die, seemed utterly

unimportant. I completely forgot myself! " he said, now silently

touching his breast with his fist. " I forgot myself totally. And in the

same instant knew totally the meaning of possibility. From then on I

experienced only increasing wonder. As he talked to me and told me

of what I might become, of what his life had been and stood to be, my

past shrank to embers. I saw my life as if I stood apart from it, the

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