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"Don't condemn yourself for it. Do you think human beings are meant to know the bitterness and loneliness I knew in my last mortal years? I don't think so. Like all creatures, we're made to live until our prime. All the rest is spiritual and physical disaster. Of that I'm convinced. "
"I can't agree with you," he said modestly. "What tribe on earth has not had elders? How much of our art and our knowledge comes from those who've lived into old age? You sound like Lestat when you say such things, speaking of his Savage Garden. The world has never seemed a hopelessly savage place to me. "
I smiled.
"You believe so many things," I said. "One has only to press you to discover them, yet you deny the value of everything you've learned, in your constant melancholy. You do, you know. "
He nodded. "I can't make sense of things, David," he said.
"Maybe we're not meant to, any of us, whether we're old or very young. "
"Possibly so," he said. "But what's very important now is that we both make a solemn vow. We will not injure this vital and unique woman. Her strength won't blind us. We will feed her curiosity and be just to her, and protective of her, but we will not bring her any harm. "
I nodded. I knew his meaning quite plainly. Oh, how I knew it.
"Would that I could say," he whispered, "that we would withdraw our request. Would that I could endure without Merrick's magic. Would that I could leave this world without ever seeing Claudia's ghost. "
"Don't talk of ending it, please, I can't listen to it," I hastened to say.
"Oh, but I must talk of it. It's all I think about. "
"Then think of those words I spoke to the spirit in the cave. Life belongs to those who are alive. You are alive. "
"At such a price," he said.
"Louis, we are both of us desperate to live," I said. "We look to Merrick's magic for consolation. We dream of looking through the mask ourselves, don't we? We want to see something that does make it all come together, is that not so?"
"I don't know that I'm so deliberate, David," he responded. His face was dark with worry, heavy with fine lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, lines that vanished whenever his face was still. "I don't know what I want," he confessed. "Oh, but to see spirits as Merrick has seen them, as you've seen them. Oh, if only I could hear the ghostly harpsichord that others hear in this place. Oh, if I could talk to a spirit with the strength of Honey in the Sunshine, what that would mean to me. "
"Louis, what can make you want to continue?" I asked. "What could make you see that we are privileged witnesses of what the world has to offer on all sides?"
He laughed, a short polite but contemptuous laugh.
"A clear conscience, David," he replied. "What else?"
"Then take the blood I have to give," I said to him. "Take the blood Lestat has offered you more than once. Take the blood that you've refused so many times, and be strong enough to live by the 'little drink' and push death out of your way. "
I was a bit surprised at the vehemence with which I recommended this, because before this conversation¡ªbefore this long night of storytelling¡ªI had thought his decision to refuse the powerful blood to be very wise.
As I've stated in this narrative, he was weak enough that the sun might easily destroy him, and in that lay an immense consolation which Lestat and I did not share.
Now, he studied me with a look of interest. I saw no condemnation in his eyes.
I rose and walked slowly about the room. Once again, I looked at the bright and confident painting by Monet. All my life seemed close to me suddenly; all my determination was to live.
"No, I can't die by my own will," I murmured, "not even if it's as simple as going into the sunlight. That I cannot do. I want to know what happens! I want to know when and if Lestat wakes from his dreamy sleep. I want to know what will become of Merrick! I want to know what will become of Armand. That I can live forever? Oh, how I cherish it! I cannot pretend to be the mortal who once refused Lestat. I cannot reach back and claim that being's unimaginative heart. "
I turned and it seemed the room was pulsing violently around me, all its color coalescing, as though Monet's spirit had infected the very fabric of the solid matter and the air. All the objects of the room seemed arbitrary and symbolic. And beyond lay the savage night¡ªLestat's Savage Garden¡ªand random unanswerable stars.
As for Louis, he was captivated as only he can become, yielding as men almost never yield, no matter in what shape or form the male spirit may be clothed.
"You're all so very strong," he said in a low, reverent, and sad voice. "All so very strong. "
"But we'll make that vow, old friend," I said, "with regard to Merrick. There will come a time when Merrick will want this magic and reproach us with our selfishness, that we have begged for hers while refusing her our own. "
Louis seemed almost on the edge of tears.
"Don't underestimate her, David," he said in a raw voice. "Perhaps she's quite as invincible as you were, in her own way. Perhaps she has shocks in store for us, of which we're unaware. "
