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"Do you deny that this will put an end to war, to rape, to violence?"

"But the point"

"No, answer my question Do you deny that it will put an end to war, to rape, and to violence?" "Killing everyone would put an end to those things!" "Don't play games with me Answer my question "

"Isn't that a game? The price is unacceptable It's ainst nature "

"Quiet yourself- None of what you say is true What is natural is simply what has been done And don't you think the peoples of this earth have limited in the past their female children? Don't you think they have killed them by the millions, because they wanted only o to war? Oh, you cannot is have been done

"And so now they will choose female over male and there will be no war And what of the other criainst women? If there were any nation on earth which had coainst another nation, would it not be hout this earth these crimes are perpetrated without end "

"All right, that's true Undoubtedly that's true But is your solution any better? It's unspeakable, the slaughter of all things male Surely if you want to rule-" But even this to ht of Marius's old words, spoken long ago to s and satin slippers-that the old religion, Christianity, was dying, and ion would rise:

"Maybe so more wonderful will take place," Marius had said, "the world will truly oddesses, past all devils and angels"

Wasn't that the destiny of this world, really? The destiny to which it waswithout our intervention?

"Ah, you are a dreamer, my beautiful one," she said harshly "How you pick and choose your illusions! Look to the eastern countries, where the desert tribes, now rich on the oil they have pulled up from beneath the sands, kill each other by the thousands in the naion is not dead on this earth; it never will be You and Marius, what chess players you are; your ideas are nothing but chess pieces And you cannot see beyond the board on which you place them in this or that pattern as suits your small ethical souls "

"You're wrong," I said angrily "Not about us perhaps We don't un You're wrong "

"No, I a," she said "And there is no one who can stop me, male or female And we shall see for the first time since man lifted the club to strike down his brother, the world that women would make and oht, will they be allowed to run free aain!"

"There , a weak thing, a thing no better than ue for their lives now I couldn't defend , I' you to turn away from this, this wholesale murder-"

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"You speak to me of murder? Tell me the value of one human life, Lestat Is it not infinite? And how rave? We have blood on our hands, all of us, just as we have it in our veins "