Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles 1)

“No,” the boy said quickly. “I know better than to ask you any more questions. You’ll tell me everything in your own time.” And his mouth settled, and he looked at the vampire as though he were ready for him to begin again.

There was a sound then from far off. It came from somewhere in the old Victorian building around them, the first such sound they’d heard. The boy looked up towards the hallway door. It was as if he’d forgotten the building existed. Someone walked heavily on the old boards. But the vampire was undisturbed. He looked away as if he were again disengaging himself from the present.

“That village. I can’t tell you the name of it; the name’s gone. I remember it was miles from the coast, however, and we’d been traveling alone by carriage. And such a carriage! It was Claudia’s doing, that carriage, and I should have expected it; but then, things are always taking me unawares. From the first moment we arrived in Varna, I had perceived certain changes in her which made me at once aware she was Lestat’s daughter as well as my own. From me she had learned the value of money, but from Lestat she had inherited a passion for spending it; and she wasn’t to leave without the most luxurious black coach we could manage, outfitted with leather seats that might have accommodated a band of travelers, let alone a man and a child who used the magnificent compartment only for the transportation of an ornately carved oak chest. To the back were strapped two trunks of the finest clothes the shops there could provide; and we went speeding along, those light enormous wheels and fine springs carrying that bulk with a frightening ease over the mountain roads. There was a thrill to that when there was nothing else in this strange country, those horses at a gallop and the gentle listing of that carriage.

“And it was strange country. Lonely, dark, as rural country is always dark, its castles and ruins often obscured when the moon passed behind the clouds, so that I felt an anxiety during those hours I’d never quite experienced in New Orleans. And the people themselves were no relief. We were naked and lost in their tiny hamlets, and conscious always that amongst them we were in grave danger.

“Never in New Orleans had the kill to be disguised. The ravages of fever, plague, crime — these things competed with us always there, and outdid us. But here we had to go to great lengths to make the kill unnoticed. Because these simple country people, who might have found the crowded streets of New Orleans terrifying, believed completely that the dead did walk and did drink the blood of the living. They knew our names: vampire, devil. And we, who were on the lookout for the slightest rumor, wanted under no circumstances to create rumor ourselves.

“We traveled alone and fast and lavishly amongst them, struggling to be safe within our ostentation, finding talk of vampires all too cheap by the inn fires, where, my daughter sleeping peacefully against my chest, I invariably found someone amongst the peasants or guests who spoke enough German or, at times, even French to discuss with me the familiar legends.

“But finally we came to that village which was to be the turning point in our travels. I savor nothing about that journey, not the freshness of the air, the coolness of the nights. I don’t talk of it without a vague tremor even now.

“We had been at a farmhouse the night before, and so no news prepared us — only the desolate appearance of the place: because it wasn’t late when we reached it, not late enough for all the shutters of the little street to be bolted or for a darkened lantern to be swinging from the broad archway of the inn.

“Refuse was collected in the doorways. And there were other signs that something was wrong. A small box of withered flowers beneath a shuttered shop window. A barrel rolling back and forth in the center of the inn yard. The place had the aspect of a town under siege by the plague.

“But even as I w

as setting Claudia down on the packed earth beside the carriage, I saw the crack of light beneath the inn door. ‘Put the hood of your cape up,’ she said quickly. ‘They’re coming.’ Someone inside was pulling back the latch.

“At first all I saw was the light behind the figure in the very narrow margin she allowed. Then the light from the carriage lanterns glinted in her eye.

“ ‘A room for the night!’ I said in German. ‘And my horses need tending, badly!’

“ ‘The night’s no time for traveling…’ she said to me in a peculiar, flat voice. ‘And with a child.’ As she said this, I noticed others in the room behind her. I could hear their murmurings and see the flickering of a fire. From what I could see there were mostly peasants gathered around it, except for one man who was dressed much like myself in a tailored coat, with an overcoat over his shoulders; but his clothes were neglected and shabby. His red hair gleamed in the firelight. He was a foreigner, like ourselves, and he was the only one not looking at us. His head wagged slightly as if he were drunk.

“ ‘My daughter’s tired,’ I said to the woman. ‘we’ve no place to stay but here.’ And now I took Claudia into my arms. She turned her face towards me, and I heard her whisper, ‘Louis, the garlic, the crucifix above the door.’

“I had not seen these things. It was a small crucifix, with the body of Christ in bronze fixed to the wood, and the garlic was wreathed around it, a fresh garland entwined with an old one, in which the buds were withered and dried. The woman’s eye followed my eyes, and then she looked at me sharply and I could see how exhausted she was, how red were her pupils, and how the hand which clutched at the shawl at her breast trembled. Her black hair was completely disheveled. I pressed nearer until I was almost at the threshold, and she opened the door wide suddenly as if she’d only just decided to let us in. She said a prayer as I passed her, I was sure of it, though I couldn’t understand the Slavic words.

“The small, low-beamed room was filled with people, men and women along the rough, paneled walls, on benches and even on the floor. It was as if the entire village were gathered there. A child slept in a woman’s lap and another slept on the staircase, bundled in blankets, his knees tucked in against one step, his arms making a pillow for his head on the next. And everywhere there was the garlic hanging from nails and hooks, along with the cooking pots and flagons. The fire was the only light, and it threw distorting shadows on the still faces as they watched us.

“No one motioned for us to sit or offered us anything, and finally the woman told me in German I might take the horses into the stable if I liked. She was staring at me with those slightly wild, red-rimmed eyes, and then her face softened. She told me she’d stand at the inn door for me with a lantern, but I must hurry and leave the child here.

“But something else had distracted me, a scent I detected beneath the heavy fragrance of burning wood and the wine. It was the scent of death. I could feel Claudia’s hand press my chest, and I saw her tiny finger pointing to a door at the foot of the stairs. The scent came from there.

“The woman had a cup of wine waiting when I returned, and a bowl of broth. I sat down, Claudia on my knee, her head turned away from the fire towards that mysterious door. All eyes were fixed on us as before, except for the foreigner. I could see his profile now clearly. He was much younger than I’d thought, his haggard appearance stemming from emotion. He had a lean but very pleasant face actually, his light, freckled skin making him seem like a boy. His wide, blue eyes were fixed on the fire as though he were talking to it, and his eyelashes and eyebrows were golden in the light, which gave him a very innocent, open expression. But he was miserable, disturbed, drunk. Suddenly he turned to me, and I saw he’d been crying. ‘Do you speak English?’ he said, his voice booming in the silence.

“ ‘Yes, I do,’ I said to him. And he glanced at the others, triumphantly. They stared at him stonily.

“ ‘You speak English!’ he cried, his lips stretching into a bitter smile, his eyes moving around the ceiling and then fixing on mine. ‘Get out of this country,’ he said. ‘Get out of it now. Take your carriage, your horses, drive them till they drop, but get out of it!’ Then his shoulders convulsed as if he were sick. He put his hand to his mouth. The woman who stood against the wall now, her arms folded over her soiled apron, said calmly in German, ‘At dawn you can go. At dawn.’

“ ‘But what is it?’ I whispered to her; and then I looked to him. He was watching me, his eyes glassy and red. No one spoke. A log fell heavily in the fire.

“ ‘Won’t you tell me?’ I asked the Englishman gently. He stood up. For a moment I thought he was going to fall. He loomed over me, a much taller man than myself, his head pitching forward, then backward, before he righted himself and put his hands on the edge of the table. His black coat was stained with wine, and so was his shirt cuff. ‘You want to see?’ he gasped as he peered into my eyes. ‘Do you want to see for yourself?’ There was a soft, pathetic tone to his voice as he spoke these words.

“ ‘Leave the child!’ said the woman abruptly, with a quick, imperious gesture.

“ ‘She’s sleeping,’ I said. And, rising, I followed the Englishman to the door at the foot of the stairs.

“There was a slight commotion as those nearest the door moved away from it. And we entered a small parlor together.

“Only one candle burned on the sideboard, and the first thing I saw was a row of delicately painted plates on a shelf. There were curtains on the small window, and a gleaming picture of the Virgin Mary and Christ child on the wall. But the walls and chairs barely enclosed a great oak table, and on that table lay the body of a young woman, her white hands folded on her breast, her auburn hair mussed and tucked about her thin, white throat and under her shoulders. Her pretty face was already hard with death. Amber rosary beads gleamed around her wrist and down the side of her dark wool skirt. And beside her lay a very pretty red felt hat with a wide, soft brim and a veil, and a pair of dark gloves. It was all laid there as if she would very soon rise and put these things on. And the Englishman patted the hat carefully now as he drew close to her. He was on the verge of breaking down altogether. He’d drawn a large handkerchief out of his coat, and he had put it to his face. ‘Do you know what they want to do with her?’ he whispered as he looked at me. ‘Do you have any idea?’

“The woman came in behind us and reached for his arm, but he roughly shook her off. ‘Do you know?’ he demanded of me with his eyes fierce. ‘Savages!’

“ ‘You stop now! she said under her breath.