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“But so I had already been aware of ht to lay down my soul, to find some transcendent pleasure that would obliterate pain and et even myself I’d been upheld in this As I stood on the sidewalk before the doors of the hotel waiting for the carriage that would take me to meet Armand, I saw the people alked there — the restless boulevard crowd of well-dressed ladies and gentlee, the drivers of carriages — all these in a new light Before, all art had held forof the hurate it I sis of the Louvre were not for me intimately connected with the hands that had painted them They were cut loose and dead like children turned to stone Like Claudia, severed froold Like Madeleine’s dolls And of course, like Claudia and Madeleine and myself, they could all be reduced to ashes”

PART IV

“And that is the end of the story, really

“Of course, I know you wonder what happened to us afterwards What becao? What did I do? But I tell you nothing really happened Nothing that wasn’t h the Louvre that last night I’ve described to you, that was merely prophetic

“I never changed after that I sought for nothing in the one great source of change which is humanity And even in ht to learn nothing that could be given back to humanity I drank of the be

auty of the world as a vampire drinks I was satisfied I was filled to the brieless The story ended in Paris, as I’ve said

“For a long tiht that Claudia’s death had been the cause of the end of things That if I had seen Madeleine and Claudia leave Paris safely, things ht have loved again and desired again, and sought some semblance of h unnatural But now I have come to see that was false Even if Claudia had not died, even if I had not despised Ar her die, it would have all turned out the sa catapulted into it… was all the sa better, I closed up like a spider in the flame of a match And even Armand as reat distance fro things, a veil which was a form of shroud

“But I know you are eager to hear what becaht is almost ended I want to tell you this because it is very important The story is incomplete without it

“We traveled the world after we left Paris, as I’ve told you; first Egypt, then Greece, then Italy, Asia Minor — wherever I chose to lead us, really, and wherever ful basis during these years, and I was often absorbed in very si in a le beautiful statue — for long periods of time

“But all during these years I had a vague but persistent desire to return to New Orleans I never forgot New Orleans And ere in tropical places and places of those flowers and trees that grow in Louisiana, I would think of it acutely and I would feel foroutside my endless pursuit of art And, from time to ti aware in a gentlemanlyperiods without really speaking to hi him out, wanted to do this because he asked ue fear that I ain the pale shadow ofBut I put it off Perhaps the fear was stronger than I knew We ca tiedhe’d concealed from me since the time ere in Paris

“Lestat had not died in the Theatre des Vampires I had believed him to be dead, and when I asked Armand about those vampires, he told me they all had perished But he told me now that this wasn’t so Lestat had left the theater the night I had run away froht out the cemetery in Montmartre Two vampires who had been made with Lestat by the sae to New Orleans

“I cannot convey to you the feeling that came over me when I heard this Of course, Ar that I would not undertake a long journey e, a journey that would have caused rief at the tiht of Lestat at all the night I’d torched the theater I’d thought of Santiago and Celeste and the others who had destroyed Claudia Lestat, in fact, had aroused in s which I hadn’t wished to confide in anyone, feelings I’d wished to forget, despite Claudia’s death Hatred had not been one of them

“But when I heard this now from Armand it was as if the veil that protectedbetween h it Lestat, and that I wanted to see hi me on, we returned to New Orleans

“It was late spring of this year And as soon as I eed from the railway station, I knew that I had indeed come home It was as if the very air were perfumed and peculiar there, and I felt an extraordinary ease walking on those war to the ceaseless vibrant living sounds of the night

“Of course, New Orleans was changed But far frorateful for what seemed still the same I could find in the uptown Garden District, which had been inSt Marie, one of the stately old mansions that dated back to those ti out in the nolia trees, I knew the same sweetness and peace I’d known in the old days; not only in the dark, narrow streets of the Vieux Carre but in the wilderness of Pointe du Lac There were the honeysuckle and the roses, and the gliainst the stars; and outside the gate were drearace