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Before I ever left Greece, I’d been hearing disturbing news frolish and French travelers of the troubles at home And when I reached the European hostelry in Ankara there was a large packet of letters waiting for et had n banks "Youto Paris," he wrote "I have advised your father and your brothers to keep out of all controversy It is not the climate for monarchists here"

Eleni’s letters spoke in their oay of the sas:

Audiences want to see the aristocracya clumsy queen puppet, who is trampled mercilessly by the mindless troop of puppet soldiers whohter and screay is also ripe for derision: In another little draroup of dancing-girl marionettes for their indecent conduct But alas, their dancing master, who is in fact a redhorned devil, turns the unfortunate cleric into a ho ends his days kept by the laughing girls in a golden cage

All this is the genius of Our Divine Violinist, but wemoment To force him to write we tie him to the chair We put ink and paper in front of him And if this fails, we make him dictate as rite down the plays

In the streets he would accost the passers-by and tell them passionately there are horrors in this world of which they do not drea paht have undone us all by now

Our Oldest Friend becoht

Of course I wrote to her at once, begging her to be patient with Nicki, to try to help hih these first years "Surely he can be influenced," I said And for the first tis if I were to return?" I stared at the words for a long ti Then I sealed the letter and posted it at once

How could I go back? Lonely as I was, I couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Paris, of seeing that little theater again And ould I do for Nicolas when I got there? Aro admonition was a din in my ears

In fact, it seemed no matter where I was that Ars and predictions, and Nicolas taunting me with the little miracle of love turned into hate

I had never needed Gabrielle as I did now But she had gone ahead on our journey long ago Now and then I remembered the way it had been before we ever left Paris But I didn’t expect anything from her any for est that perhaps he should go to you, he laughs and laughs I tell you these things not to haunt you but to let you know that we do our utmost to protect this child who should never have been Born to Darkness He is overwhelmed by his powers, dazzled and maddened by his vision We have seen it all and its sorry finish before

Yet he has written his greatest play this last s for this one, are, in the flower of their youth, struck down by a pestilence and laid beneath tombstones and floreaths to rest The priest weeps over theician comes to the cemetery And by means of his music makes them rise As vampires dressed all in black silk ruffles and black satin ribbons, they co merrily as they follow the violinist towards Paris, a beautifully rendered painting on the scrim The crowd positively roars I tell you we could feast onit all the most novel illusion, would only cheer

There was also a frightening letter frorip of revolutionary nize the National Asseainst hier south to see my family and try to determine the revolutionary mood in the countryside for himself

I answered both letters with all the predictable concern and all the predictable feeling of helplessness

But as I sent s on to Cairo, I had the dread that all those things upon which I depended were in danger Outwardly, I was unchanged as I continued entleman; inwardly the demon hunter of the crooked back streets was silently and secretly lost

Of course I told ypt was a land of ancient grandeur and tiet the things happening in Paris which I was powerless to change

But there was a connection in ypt, more than any other land the world over, was a place in love with death

Finally Gabrielle caether we set sail

It was almost a s waiting for e there

I recognized Eleni’s writing immediately, but I could not think why she would sendfor a full quarter of an hour, my mind as blank as it had ever been

There was not a word froet written to e? Why is it here?

At last I realized that for an hour I had been sitting in a roo at a package and that Gabrielle, who had not seen fit to vanish yet, was o out?" I whispered

"If you wish," she said

It was important to open this, yes, to open it and find out what it was Yet it seemed just as iine that it was a roone

"I had a dreae "I dreaether, you and I, and ere both serene and strong I dreamed we fed on the evildoer as Marius had done, and as we looked about ourselves we felt awe and sorrow at the o on forever And we talked `Our conversation’ went on and on"

I tore back the wrapping and saw the case of the Stradivarius violin

I went to say soain, just to myself, but my throat closed And my mind couldn’t carry out the words on its own I reached for the letter which had slipped to one side over the polished wood

It has come to the worst, as I feared Our Oldest Friend, maddened by the excesses of Our Violinist, finally ih his violin was given him in his cell, his hands were taken away

But understand that with us, such appendages can always be restored And the appendages in question were kept safe by Our Oldest Friend, who allowed our wounded one no sustenance for rave nights

Finally, after the entire troupe had prevailed upon Our Oldest Friend to release N and give back to him all that was his, it was done

But N, maddened by the pain and the starvation, for this can alter the temperament completely, slipped into unbreakable silence and reth of time

At last he came to us and spoke only to tell us that in the manner of a mortal he had put in order his business affairs A stack of freshly written plays was ours to have And we ether for him somewhere in the countryside the ancient Sabbat with its customary blaze If we did not, then he would make the theater his funeral pyre

Our Oldest Friend soleranted his wish and you have never seen such a Sabbat as this, for I think we looked all the s and fine clothes, our black ruffled va with an actor’s bravado the old chants

"We should have done it on the boulevard," he said "But here, send this on to an to dance, all of us, to induce the customary frenzy, and I think ere never more moved, never more in terror, never more sad He went into the flames

I kno this neill affect you But understand we did all that we could to prevent what occurred Our Oldest Friend was bitter and grieved And I think you should know that e returned to Paris, we discovered that N had ordered the theater to be named officially the Theater of the Vampires and these words had already been painted on the front As his best plays have always included vampires and olves and other such supernatural creatures, the public thinks the new title very ae it It is merely clever in the Paris of these times

Hours later when I finally went down the stairs into the street, I saw a pale and lovely ghost in the shadows -- i French explorer in soiled white linen and brown leather boots, straw hat down over the eyes

I kneho she was, of course, and that we had once loved each other, she and I, but it see I could scarce remember, or truly believe

I think I wanted to say so mean to her, to wound her and drive her away But when she ca I ave the letter to her so that we didn’t have to talk And she read it and put it away, and then she had her aro, and alking together through the black streets

Sypt smell Smell of a place that has been the same for six thousand years

"What can I do for you, ," I said

It was I who did it, I who seduced him, made him what he was, and left hiht have taken And so in dark obscurity, removed from its human course, it comes to this

Later she stood silent as I wrote e to Marius on an ancient temple wall I told about the end of Nicolas, the violinist of the Theater of the Vayptian craftsht have done Epitaph for Nicki, a ht ever read or understand

It was strange to have her there Strange to have her staying with o back to France, will you?" she asked o back on account of what he’s done?"

"The hands?" I asked her "The cutting off of the hands?"

She looked at me and her face smoothed out as if some shock had robbed it of expression But she knew She had read the letter What shocked her? The way I said it perhaps

"You thought I would go back to get revenge?"

She nodded uncertainly She didn’t want to put the idea in my head

"How could I do that?" I said "It would be hypocrisy, wouldn’t it, when I left Nicolas there counting on thees in her face were too subtle to describe I didn’t like to see her feel so much It wasn’t like her

"The fact is, the littleto help when he did it, don’t you think, when he cut off the hands It must have been a lot of trouble to him, really, when he could have burnt up Nicki so easily without a backward glance"

She nodded, but she looked miserable, and as luck would have it, beautiful, too "I rather thought so," she said "But I didn’t think you would agree"

"Oh, I’h to understand it," I said "Do you reo, before we ever left home? You said it the very day that he caive ry with hi to break his hands Do you think we find our destiny somehow, no matter what happens? I mean, do you think that even as immortals we follow some path that was already ine it, the coven master cut off his hands"

It was clear in the nights that followed that she didn’t want to leave me alone And I sensed that she would have stayed on account of Nicki’s death, no matter where ere But it ypt It helped that she loved these ruins and these monuments as she had loved none before

Maybe people had to be dead six thousand years for her to love the her with it a little, but the thought merely came and went These monuments were as old as the ination of man since the dawn of recorded tiether, we cliiant Sphinx We pored over inscriptions of ancient stone fragments We studied the mummies one could buy frolass We let the water of the river ers, and we hunted the tiny streets of Cairo together, and ent into the brothels to sit back on the pillows and watch the boys dance and hear the musicians play a heated erotic music that drowned out for a little while the sound of a violin that was always inwildly to these exotic sounds, ied me on, as I lost all sense of ti of the lutes

Gabrielle sat still, s, with the brim of her soiled white straw hat over her eyes We did not talk to each other anyed with dirt, who drifted through the endless night at my side Her coat cinched by a thick leather belt, her hair in a braid down her back, she walked with a queen’s posture and a vauor, the curve of her cheek luminous in the darkness, her sain, no doubt

Yet she re, once the house of a Maeously tiled floors and elaborate tentwork hanging fros She even helped ainvillea and palms and every kind of tropical plant until it was a verdant little jungle She brought in the caged parrots and finches and brilliant canaries herself

She even nodded now and then sympathetically when I murmured there were no letters from Paris, and I was frantic for news