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Then weeks passed without a visitation Daniel vacillated between terror and strange expectation, doubting his very sanity again But there was Ar for hiht in Boston, Ar room of the Copley when Daniel came in Daniel's dinner was already ordered Please sit down Did Daniel know that Intervieith the Vampire was in the bookstores?
"I must confess I enjoy this small measure of notoriety," Armand had said with exquisite politeness and a vicious smile "What puzzles me is that you do not want notoriety! You did not list yourself as the 'author,' which means that you are either very modest or a coward Either explanation would be very dull "
"I'et out of here," Daniel had answered weakly Yet suddenly dish after dish was being placed on the table; everyone was staring
"I didn't knohat you wanted," Ar absolutely ecstatic "So I ordered everything that they had "
"You think you can drive me crazy, don't you?" Daniel had snarled "Well, you can't Let me tell you Every time I lay eyes on you, I realize that I didn't invent you, and that I', lustily, furiously-a little fish, a little beef, a little veal, a little sweetbreads, a little cheese, a little everything, put it all together, what did he care, and Ar like a schoolboy as he sat watching, with folded arms It was the first tihter So seductive He got drunk as fast as he could
Thehts becaed Daniel out of bed in New Orleans and shouted at him: "That telephone, I want you to dial Paris, I want to see if it can really talk to Paris "
"Goddamn it, do it yourself," Daniel had roared "You're five hundred years old and you can't use a telephone? Read the directions What are you, an i!"
How surprised Armand had looked
"All right, I'll call Paris for you But you pay the bill "
"But of course," Armand had said innocently He had drawn dozens of hundred-dollar bills out of his coat, sprinkling them on Daniel's bed
More andDaniel out of a theater in Rome, Armand had asked what did Daniel really think that death was? People ere still living knew things like that! Did Daniel knohat Armand truly feared?
As it was past ht and Daniel was drunk and exhausted and had been sound asleep in the theater before Armand found him, he did not care
"I'll tell you what I fear," Ar student "That it's chaos after you die, that it's a drea half in and out of consciousness, trying vainly to re forever for the lost clarity of the living "
It had frightened Daniel So true Weren't there tales ofwith incoherent yet powerful presences? He didn't kno in hell could he know? Maybe when you died there was flat out nothing That terrified Armand, no effort expended to conceal the misery
"You don't think it terrifies ure beside hi at me? Tell me "