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Fro, my life ith Nicolas and "our conversation"

Spring was approaching, theback to life And Nicolas and I were always together

We took long walks up the rocky slopes, had our bread and wine in the sun on the grass, roa about in my rooms or sometimes climbed to the battlements And ent back to our room at the inn ere too drunk and too loud to be tolerated by others

And as the weeks passed we revealed more and more of ourselves to each other Nicolas told me about his childhood at school, the little disappointments of his early years, those whom he had known and loved

And I started to tell hirace of running off with the Italian players

It caain, and ere drunk as usual In fact ere at that moment of drunkenness that the two of us had co made sense We always tried to stretch out that moment, and then inevitably one of us would confess, "I can’t follow anymore, I think the Golden Mo out theat the moon over the mountains, I said that at the Golden Moment it was not so terrible that eren’t in Paris, that eren’t at the Opera or the Co for the curtain to rise

"You and the theaters of Paris," he said toit back to the theaters and the actors -- ’

His brown eyes were very big and trusting And even drunk as he was, he looked spruce in his red velvet Paris frock coat

"Actors and actresses e; they invent; they create"

"Wait until you see the sweat streahts," he answered

"Ah, there you go again," I said "And you, the one who gave up everything to play the violin"

He got terribly serious suddenly, looking off as if he eary of his own struggles

"That I did," he confessed

Even now the whole village knear between hio back to school in Paris

"Youfroood happen And that is blessed to me"

"I make ood about that?"

I waved it away as I always did his cynicis those who create nothing and change nothing," I said "Actors and musicians -- they’re saints to me"

"Saints?" he asked "Blessedness? Goodness? Lestat, your language baffles me"

I smiled and shook my head

"You don’t understand I’s, not what they believe in I’ of those on’t accept a useless lie, just because they were born to it Ibetter They work, they sacrifice, they do things"

He was moved by this, and I was a little surprised that I’d said it Yet I felt I had hurt him somehow

"There is blessedness in that," I said "There’s sanctity And God or no God, there is goodness in it I know this the way I know the mountains are out there, that the stars shine"

He looked sad for me And he looked hurt still But for theof the conversation I had had with ood and defy

As if he could read my mind, he asked:

"But do you really believe those things?"

"Maybe yes Maybe no," I said I couldn’t bear to see him look so sad

And I thinkelse I told him the whole story of how I’d run off with the players I told him what I’d never told anyone, not even iven ood," I asked, "to give and receive such happiness? We brought to life that toe put on our play Magic, I tell you It could heal the sick, it could"

He shook his head And I knew there were things he wanted to say which out of respect forto silence

"You don’t understand, do you?" I asked

"Lestat, sin always feels good," he said gravely "Don’t you see that? Why do you think the Church has always condeod, that the theater caod that drove e because it was abandoned and lewd -- the age-old service of the god of the grape -- and you were having a high ti your father -- ’

"No, Nicki No, a thousand times no"

"Lestat, we’re partners in sin," he said, s finally

"We’ve always been We’ve both behaved badly, both been utterly disreputable It’s what binds us together"

Noas one beyond reprieve -- unless so neas to happen

"Coo off somewhere in the woods where the music won’t wake up anybody We’ll see if there isn’t sooodness in it"

"You’re a rabbed the unopened bottle by the neck and headed for the door iht behind him

When he came out of his house with the violin, he said:

"Let’s go to the witches’ place! Look, it’s a half ht We’ll do the devil’s dance and play for the spirits of the witches"

I laughed I had to be drunk to go along with that "We’ll reconsecrate the spot," I insisted, "with good and pure music"

It had been years and years since I’d walked in the witches’ place

The h, as he’d said, to see the charred stakes in their grirew even one hundred years after the burnings The new saplings of the forest kept their distance And so the wind struck the clearing, and above, clinging to the rocky slope, the village hovered in darkness

A faint chill passed over uish I’d felt as a child when I’d heard those aords "roasted alive," when I had i

Nicki’s white lace shoes shone in the pale light, and he struck up a gypsy song at once and danced round in a circle as he played it

I sat on a broad burned stu feeling came as it always did with the ht, except to live out my life in this awful place? And pretty soon I was silently and unobtrusively crying

Though it see me We sat side by side and he told me that the world was full of inequities and that ere prisoners, he and I, of this awful corner of France, and soht of h up the mountain, and the sadness numbed ain, telling

Yes, that’s what it could make you do, I wanted to say Is that sin? How can it be evil? I went after hi up and out of the violin as if they wereI danced round and round him now and he saay into a deeper and s of the fur lined cape and threw back my head to look at the moon The music rose all around me like smoke, and the witches’ place was nodown to the mountains

We were closer for all this in the days that followed