This, then, was the fall of Lucifer like the Star of Morning from the sky-an angel begging for the Sons and Daughters of Men that they had now the countenances and hearts of angels.
"Give them Paradise, Lord, give it to them when they have learnt in my school how to love all that you have created. "
Oh, a book has been filled with this adventure. Memnoch the Devil cannot be condensed here in these few unjust paragraphs.
But this was the sum of what fell on my ears as I sat in this chilly New York room, gazing now and then past Lestat's frantic, pacing figure at the white sky of ever falling snow, shutting out beneath his roaring narrative the rumble of the city far below, and struggling with the awful fear in myself that I must at the climax of his tale disappoint him. That I must remind him that he had done no more than shape the mystic journey of a thousand saints in a new and palatable fashion.
So it is a school that replaces those rings of eternal fire which the poet Dante described in such degree as to sicken the reader, and even the tender Fra Angelico felt compelled to paint, where naked mortals bathed in flame were meant to suffer for eternity.
A school, a place of hope, a promise of redemption great enough perhaps to welcome even us, the Children of the Night, who counted murders among their sins as numerous as those of ancient Huns or Mongols.
Oh, this was very sweet, this picture of the life hereafter, the horrors of the natural world laid off upon a wise but distant God, and the Devil's folly rendered with such keen intelligence.
Would that it were true, would that all the poems and paintings of the world were but a mirror of such hopeful splendor.
It might have saddened me; it might have broken me down to where I hung my head and couldn't look at him.
But a single incident from his tale, one which to him had been a passing encounter, loomed large for me beyond all the rest and locked itself to my thoughts, so that as he went on and on, I couldn't banish this from my mind: that he, Lestat, had drunk the very blood of Christ on the road to Calvary. That he, Lestat, had spoken to this God Incarnate, who by His own will had walked towards this horrible Death on Golgotha. That he, Lestat, a fearful and trembling witness had been made to stand in the narrow dusty streets of ancient Jerusalem to see Our Lord pass, and that this Lord, Our Living Lord, had, with the crossbeam of the crucifix strapped to His shoulders, offered His throat to Lestat, the chosen pupil.
Ah, such fancy, this madness, such fancy. I had not expected to be so hurt by anything in this tale. I had not expected this to make a burning in my chest, a tightness in my throat from which no words could escape. I had not wanted this. The only salvation of my wounded heart was to think how quaint and foolish it was that such a tableau- Jerusalem, the dusty street, the angry crowds, the bleeding God, now scourged and limping beneath His wooden weight-should include a legend old and sweet of a woman with a Veil outstretched to wipe the bloody Face of Christ in comfort, and thereby to receive for all time His Image.
It does not take a scholar, David, to know such saints were made by other saints in centuries to come as actors and actresses chosen for a Passion Play in a country village. Veronica! Veronica, whose very name means True Ikon.
And our hero, our Lestat, our Prometheus, with that Veil given him by the very hand of God, had fled this great and ghastly realm of Heaven and Hell and the Stations of the Cross, crying No! and I will not! and come back, breathless, running like a madman through the snows of New York, seeking only to be with us, turning his back on all of it.
My head swam. There was a war inside of me. I couldn't look at him.
On and on he went, going over it, talking again of the sapphiric Heavens and the angels' song, arguing with himself and with you and with Dora, and the conversation seemed like so much shattered glass. I couldn't bear it.
The Blood of Christ inside him? The Blood of Christ passing his lips, his unclean lips, his Undead lips, the Blood of Christ making of him a monstrous Ciborium? The Blood of Christ?
"Let me drink!" I cried out suddenly. "Lestat, let me drink, from you, let me drink your blood that has His blood inside it!" I couldn't believe my own earnestness, my own wild desperation. "Lestat, let me drink. Let me look for the blood with my tongue and my heart. Let me drink, please; you can't deny me that one moment of intimacy. And if it was Christ. . . if it was . . . " I couldn't finish it.
"Oh, mad and foolish child," he said. "All you'll know if you sink your teeth into me is what we learn from the visions we see with all our victims. You'll learn what I think I saw. You'll learn what I think was made known to me. You'll learn that my blood runs in my veins, which you know now. You'll learn that I believe it was Christ, but no more than that. "
He shook his head in disappointment as he glared at me.
"No, I'll know," I said. I rose from the table, my hands quivering. "Lestat, give me this one embrace and I'll never ask another thing of you for all eternity. Let me put my lips to your throat, Lestat, let me test the tale, let me do it!"
"You break my heart, you little fool," he said with tears welling. "You always did. "
"Don't judge me!" I cried.
He went on, speaking to me alone, from his mind as much as with his voice. I couldn't tell if anyone else there could even hear him. But I heard him. I would not forget a single word.
"And what if it was the Blood of God, Armand," he asked, "and not part and parcel of some titanic lie, what would you find in me? Go out to the early morning Mass and snatch your victims from those just come from the Communion Rail! What a pretty game that would be, Armand, to feed forever only on Holy Communicants! You can have your Blood of Christ from any one of them. I tell you, I do not believe these spirits, God, Memnoch, these liars; I tell you, I refuse! I wouldn't stay, I fled their damned school, I lost my eye as I battled them, they snatched it from me, wicked angels clawing at me when I ran away from them! You want the Blood of Christ, then go down now in the dark church to the fisherman's Mass and knock the sleepy priest aside from the Altar, if you will, and grab the Chalice from his consecrated hands. Go ahead, do it!
"Blood of Christ!" he continued, his face one great eye fixing me in its merciless beam. "If it was ever in me, this sacred blood, then my body has dissolved it and burnt it up like candle wax devours the wick. You know this. What's left of Christ in the belly of His faithful when they leave the church?"
"No," I said. "No, but we are not humans!" I whispered, seeking somehow in softness to drown out his angry vehemence. "Lestat, I'll know! It was His blood, not transubstantiated bread and wine! His blood, Lestat, and I'll know if it's inside of you. Oh, let me drink, I beg you. Let me drink so I can forget every damned thing you've told us, let me drink!"
I could scarcely keep myself from laying hands on him, from forcing him to my will, never mind his legendary strength, his gruesome temper. I'd lay hold of him and make him submit. I'd take the blood-.
But these thoughts were foolish and vain. His whole
tale was foolish and vain, and yet I turned around, and in a fury I spit the words at him:
"Why didn't you accept? Why didn't you go with Memnoch if he could have taken you from this awful living Hell we share, why didn't you?"