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“Yes Lestat could kill and drink like a bolt of lightning But I had saved only Babette’s physical life I was not to know that until later
“In an hour and a half Lestat and I were in New Orleans, the horses nearly dead froe parked on a side street a block from a new Spanish hotel Lestat had an oldfifty dollars into his hand ‘Get us a suite,’ he directed hientlemen, and pay in advance And when you co for you, I wager’ His glea eyes held the man in thrall I knew he’d kill him as soon as he returned with the hotel roo wearily as the reeaker and weaker and finally died, his body collapsing like a sack of rocks in a doorway as Lestat let hiht, sweet prince,’ said Lestat ‘and here’s your fifty dollars’ And he shoved the money into his pocket as if it were a capital joke
“Noe slipped in the courtyard doors of the hotel and went up to the lavish parlor of our suite Chalasses stood on the silver tray I knew Lestat would fill one glass and sit there staring at the pale yellow color And I, aat hi he could do ht It would be sweet to die, I thought Yes, die I wanted to die before Noish to die I saith such sweet clarity, such dead calm
“ ‘You’re being morbid!’ Lestat said suddenly ‘It’s almost dawn’ He pulled the lace curtains back, and I could see the rooftops under the dark blue sky, and above, the great constellation Orion ‘Go kill!’ said Lestat, sliding up the glass He stepped out of the sill, and I heard his feet land softly on the rooftop beside the hotel He was going for the coffins, or at least one My thirst rose in me like fever, and I followed hiht in the mind, devoid of emotion Yet I needed to feed I’ve indicated to you I would not then kill people Ithe rooftop in search of rats”
“But why… you’ve said Lestat shouldn’t have made you start with people Did you mean… do you mean for you it was an aesthetic choice, not a moral one?”
“Had you asked me then, I would have told you it was aesthetic, that I wished to understand death in stages That the death of an animal yielded such pleasure and experience to un to understand it, and wished to save the experience of hu But it was moral Because all aesthetic decisions are moral, really”
“I don’t understand,” said the boy “I thought aesthetic decisions could be completely immoral What about the cliché of the artist who leaves his wife and children so he can paint? Or Nero playing the harp while Rome burned?”
“Both were ood, in the mind of the artist The conflict lies between the morals of the artist and the morals of society, not between aesthetics and morality But often this isn’t understood; and here co paints froines himself to have made an inevitable but irace; what follows is despair and petty irresponsibility, as if lass world which can be utterly shattered by one act But this was not s then I believed I killed anireat moral question of whether or not by my very nature I was damned
“Because, you see, though Lestat had never said anything about devils or hell to me, I believed I was damned when I went over to him, just as Judas must have believed it when he put the noose around his neck You understand?”
The boy said nothing He started to speak but didn’t
The color burned for a moment in blotches on his cheeks “Were you?” he whispered
The va, a sht The boy was staring at hi him for the first time
“Perhaps…” said the vas “…we should take things one at a tio on with my story”
“Yes, please…” said the boy
“I was agitated that night, as I told you I had hedged against this question as a vampire and now it completely overwhelmed me, and in that state I had no desire to live Well, this produced infor that which will satisfy at least physical desire I think I used it as an excuse I have told you what the kill ine from what I’ve said the difference between a rat and a man