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painted than in himself. " Confusion. Doesn't matter now, devils who
paint angels.
"Those are only metaphors, " I said. "And it does matter! If you are
to rebuild, if you are to find the Devil's Road again, it does matter!
There are ways for us to exist. If I could only imitate life, just find a
way. . .
"You say things that mean nothing to me. We are the abandoned of
God. " Gabrielle glanced at him suddenly. "Do you believe in God? "
she asked.
"Yes, always in God, " he answered. "It is Satan-our master-who is
the fiction and that is the fiction which has betrayed me. "
"Oh, then you are truly damned, " I said. "And you know full well
that your retreat into the fraternity of the Children of Darkness was a
retreat from a sin that was not a sin. " Anger.
"Your heart breaks for something you'll never have, " he countered,
his voice rising suddenly.
"You brought Gabrielle and Nicolas over the barrier to you, but you
could not go back. "
"Why is it you don't hearken to your own story? " I asked. "Is it that
you have never forgiven Marius for not warning you about them,
letting you fall into their hands? You will never take anything, not
example or inspiration, from Marius again? I am not Marius, but I tell
you since I set my feet on the Devil's Road, I have heard of only one
elder who could teach me anything, and that is Marius, your Venetian
master. He is talking to me now. He is saying something to me of a
way to be immortal. "
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 "Mockery. "
"No. It wasn't mockery! And you are the one whose heart breaks for
what he will never have: another body of belief, another spell. " No
answer.
"We cannot be Marius for you, " I said, "or the dark lord, Santino.
We are not artists with a great vision that will carry you forward. And
we are not evil coven masters with the conviction to condemn a legion
to perdition. And this domination-this glorious mandate-is what you
must have. " I had risen to my feet without meaning to. I had come
close to the fireplace and I was looking down at him. And I saw, out of
the comer of my eye, Gabrielle's subtle nod of approval, and the way
that she closed her eyes for a moment as if she were allowing herself a
sigh of relief. He was perfectly still.
"You have to suffer through this emptiness, " I said, "and find what
impels you to continue. If you come with us we will fail you and you
will destroy us. "
"How suffer through it? " He looked up at me and his eyebrows
came together in the most poignant frown. "How do I begin? You
move like the right hand of God! But for me the world, the real world
in which Marius lived, is beyond reach. I never lived in it. I push
against the glass. But how do I get in? "
"I can't tell you that, " I said.
"You have to study this age, " Gabrielle interrupted. Her voice was
calm but commanding. He looked towards her as she spoke.
"You have to understand the age, " she continued, "through its
literature and its music and its art. You have come up out of the earth,
as you yourself put it. Now live in the world. " No answer from him.
Flash of Nicki's ravaged flat with all its books on the floor. Western
civilization in heaps.
"And what better place is there than the center of things, the
boulevard and the theater? " Gabrielle asked. He frowned, his head
turning dismissively, but she pressed on.
"Your gift is for leading the coven, and your coven is still there. " He
made a soft despairing sound.
"Nicolas is a fledgling, " she said. "He can teach them much about
the world outside, but he cannot really lead them. The woman, Eleni,
is amazingly clever, but she will make way for you. "
"What is it to me, their games? " he whispered.
"It is a way to exist, " she said. "And that is all that matters to you
now. "
"The Theater of the Vampires! I should rather the fire. "
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 "Think of it, " she said. "There's a perfection in it you can't deny.
We are illusions of what is mortal, and the stage is an illusion of what
is real. "
"It's an abomination, " he said. "What did Lestat call it? Petty? "
"That was to Nicolas because Nicolas would build fantastical
philosophies upon it, " she said.
"You must live now without fantastical philosophies, the way you did
when you were Marius's apprentice. Live to learn the age. And Lestat
does not believe in the value of evil. But you do believe in it. I know
that you do. "
"I am evil, " he said half smiling. He almost laughed. "It's not a
matter of belief, is it? But do you think I could go from the spiritual [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]