get into the coffin?"
"I had no choice. I begged Lestat to let me stay in the closet, but he laughed, astonished.'Don't you know what you are?' he asked.'But is it magical? Must it have this shape?' I pleaded. Only to hear him laugh again. I couldn't bear the idea; but as we argued, I realized I had no real fear. It was a strange realization. All my life I'd feared closed places. Born and bred in French houses with lofty ceilings and floor-length windows, I had a dread of being enclosed. I felt uncomfortable even in the confessional in church. It was a normal enough fear. And now I realized as I protested to Lestat, I did not actually feel this anymore. I was simply remembering it. Hanging on to it from habit, from a deficiency of ability to recognize my present and exhilarating freedom.'You're carrying on badly,' Lestat said finally.'And it's almost dawn. I should let you die. You will die, you know. The sun will destroy the blood I've given you, in every tissue, every vein. But you shouldn't be feeling this fear at all. I think you're like a man who loses an arm or a leg and keeps insisting that he can feel pain where the arm or leg used to be.' Well, that was positively the most intelligent and useful thing Lestat ever said in my presence, and it brought me around at once.'Now, I'm getting into the coffin,' he finally said to me in his most disdainful tone,'and you will get in on top of me if you know what's good for you.' And I did. I lay face-down on him, utterly confused by my absence of dread and filled with a distaste for being so close to him, handsome and intriguing though he was. And he shut the lid. Then I asked him if I was .completely dead. My body was tingling and itching all over.'No, you're not then,' he said.'When you are, you'll only hear and see it changing and feel nothing. You should be dead by tonight. Go to sleep."'
"Was he right? Were you... dead when you woke up?"
"Yes, changed, I should say. As obviously I am alive. My body was dead. It was some time before it became absolutely cleansed of the fluids and matter it no longer needed, but it was dead. And with the realization of it came another stage in my divorce from human emotions. The first thing which became apparent to me, even while Lestat and I were loading the coffin into a hearse and stealing another coffin from a mortuary, was that I did not like Lestat at all. I was far from being his equal yet, but I was infinitely closer to him than I had been before the death of my body. I can't really make this clear to you for the obvious reason that you are now as I was before my body died.
You cannot understand. But before I died, Lestat was absolutely the most overwhelming experience I'd ever had. Your cigarette has become one long cylindrical ash."
"Oh!" The boy quickly ground the filter into the glass. "You mean that when the gap was closed between you, he lost his... spell?" he asked, his eyes quickly fixed on the vampire, his hands now producing a cigarette and match much more easily than before.
"Yes, that's correct," said the vampire with obvious pleasure. "The trip back to Pointe du Lac was thrilling. And the constant chatter of Lestat was positively the most boring and disheartening thing I experienced. Of course as I said, I was far from being his equal. I had my dead limbs to contend with... to use his comparison. And I learned that on that very night, when I had to make my first kill."
The vampire reached across the table now and gently brushed an ash from the boy's lapel, and the boy stared at his withdrawing hand in alarm. "Excuse me," said the vampire. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"Excuse me," said the boy. "I just got the impression suddenly that your arm was... abnormally long. You reach so far without moving!"
"No," said the vampire, resting his hands again on his crossed knees. "I moved forward much too fast for you to see. It was an illusion."
"You moved forward? But you didn't. You were sitting just as you are now, with your back against the chair."
"No," repeated the vampire firmly. "I moved forward as I told you. Here, I'll do