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“ ‘I like to do it,’ he said ‘I enjoy it’ He looked at me ‘I don’t say that you have to enjoy it Take your aesthete’s tastes to purer things Kill them swiftly if you will, but do it! Learn that you’re a killer! Ah!’ He threw up his hands in disgust The girl had stopped screaed chair beside the coffin and, crossing his legs, he looked at the coffin lid His was a black varnished coffin, not a pure rectangular box as they are now, but tapered at both ends and widest where the corpse ested the huirl sat up astonished, wild-eyed, her lips blue and tre ‘Lie down, love,’ he said to her, and pushed her back; and she lay, near-hysterical, staring up at him ‘You’re dead, love,’ he said to her; and she screamed and turned desperately in the coffin like a fish, as if her body could escape through the sides, through the bottom ‘It’s a coffin, a coffin!’ she cried ‘Let me out’

“ ‘But we all must lie in coffins, eventually,’ he said to her ‘Lie still, love This is your coffin Most of us never get to knohat it feels like You knohat it feels like!’ he said to her I couldn’t tell whether she was listening or not, or just going wild But she sawat Lestat and then at me ‘Help me!’ she said to me

“Lestat looked at s instinctually, as I did,’ he said When I gave you that first kill, I thought you would hunger for the next and the next, that you would go to each human life as if to a full cup, the way I had But you didn’t And all this ti you out because you were best weaker I’d watch you playing shadow in the night, staring at the falling rain, and I’d think, He’s easy to e, he’s simple But you’re weak, Louis You’re awith Babette has exposed us both It’s as if you want us both to be destroyed’

“ ‘I can’t stand to watch what you’re doing,’ I said, turningintoat me

“ ‘You can stand it!’ he said ‘I saw you last night with that child You’re a vampire, the same as I am!’

“He stood up and caain and he turned to shove her down ‘Do you think we should make her a vampire? Share our lives with her?’ he asked Instantly I said, ‘No!’

“ ‘Why, because she’s nothing but a whore?’ he asked ‘A damned expensive whore at that,’ he said

“ ‘Can she live now? Or has she lost too much?’ I asked him

“ ‘Touching!” he said ‘She can’t live’

“ ‘Then kill her’ She began to screa, and the girl had turned her face to the satin and was sobbing Her reason had al She was praying to the Virgin to save her, her hands over her face no over her head, the wrist s blood in her hair and on the satin I bent over the coffin She was dying, it was true; her eyes were burning, but the tissue around them was already bluish and now she smiled ‘You won’t let me die, will you?’ she whispered ‘You’ll save me’ Lestat reached over and took her wrist ‘But it’s too late, love,’ he said ‘Look at your wrist, your breast’ And then he touched the wound in her throat She put her hands to her throat and gasped, her led I stared at Lestat I could not understand why he did this His face was as smooth as mine is now, more animated for the blood, but cold and without emotion

“He did not leer like a stage villain, nor hunger for her suffering as if the cruelty fed him He si ‘I only did what I had to do You won’t let this happen to o I can’t die like this, I can’t!’ She was sobbing, the sobs dry and thin ‘You’ll let o’ ‘ButAs if he’d just thought of it as a joke ‘This is your funeral, dear You see, you were at a dinner party and you died But God has given you another chance to be absolved Don’t you see? Tell him your sins’

“She shook her head at first, and then she looked ateyes ‘Is it true?’ she whispered ‘Well,’ said Lestat, ‘I suppose you’re not contrite, dear I shall have to shut the lid!’

“ ‘Stop this, Lestat!’ I shouted at hiht of it any longer I bent down to her and took her hand ‘I can’t re at her wrist, resolved to kill her ‘You mustn’t try Tell God only that you are sorry,’ I said, ‘and then you’ll die and it will be over’ She lay back, and her eyes shut I sank an to suck her dry She stirred once as if drea and said a name; and then, when I felt her heartbeat reach that hypnotic slowness, I drew back fro for the door fralared in the corner ofutterly still And Lestat sat composed beside her, like a mourner His face was still ‘Louis,’ he said to me ‘Don’t you understand? Peace will only coht of your life There is nothing else But this is everything!’ His voice was almost tender as he spoke, and he rose and put both his hands onaway froh to push him off ‘Come with h Let led it, left too much to nature Come!’

?

? ‘I can’t bear it, Lestat,’ I said to him ‘You chose your companion badly’