was my desire to escape the theater then entirely, to find the streets of Paris and wander, letting the vast accumulation of shocks gradually wear away. But, as I groped along the stone passage of the lower cellar, I became confused. I was perhaps incapable of exerting my own will. It seemed more than ever absurd to me that Lestat should have died, if in fact he had; and looking back on him, as it seemed I was always doing, I saw him more kindly than before. Lost like the rest of us. Not the jealous protector of any knowledge he was afraid to share. He -knew nothing. There was nothing to know.
"Only, that was not quite the thought that was gradually coming clear to me. I had hated him for all the wrong reasons; yes, that was true. But I did not fully understand it yet. Confounded, I found myself sitting finally on those dark steps, the light from the ballroom throwing my own shadow on the rough floor, my hands holding my head, a weariness overcoming me. My mind said, Sleep. But more profoundly, my mind said, Bream. And yet I made no move to return to the Hotel Saint-Gabriel, which seemed a very secure and airy place to me now, a place of subtle and luxurious mortal consolation where I might lie in a chair of puce velvet, put one foot on an ottoman and watch the fire lick the marble tile, looking for all the world to myself in the long mirrors like a thoughtful human. Flee to that, I thought, flee all that is pulling you. And again came that thought: I have wronged Lestat, I have hated him for all the wrong reasons. I whispered it now, trying to withdraw it from the dark, inarticulate pool of my mind, and the whispering made a scratching sound in the stone vault of the stairs.
"But then a voice came softly to me on the air, too faint for mortals:'How is this so? How did you wrong him?'
"I turned round so sharp that my breath left me. A vampire sat near me, so near as to almost brush my shoulder with the tip of his boot, his legs drawn up close to him, his hands clasped around them. For -a moment I thought my eyes deceived me. It was the trickster vampire, whom Armand had called Santiago.
"Yet nothing in his manner indicated his former self, that devilish, hateful self that I had seen, even only a few hours ago when he had reached out for me and Armand had struck him. He was staring at me over his drawn-up knees, his hair disheveled, his mouth slack and without cunning.
"'It makes no difference to anyone else,' I said to him, the fear in me subsiding.
"'But you said a name; I heard you say a name,' he said.
" 'A name I don't want to say again,' I answered, looking away from him. I could see now how he'd fooled me, why his shadow had not fallen over mine; he crouched in my shadow. The vision of him slithering down those stone stairs to sit behind me was slightly disturbing. Everything about him was disturbing, and
I reminded myself that he could in no way be trusted. It seemed to me then that Armand, with his hypnotic power, aimed in some way for the maximum truth in presentation of himself: he lead drawn out of me without words my state of mind. But this vampire was a liar. And I could feel his power, a crude, pounding power that was almost as strong as Arm,-,P-Xs.
"'You come to Paris in search of us, and then you sit alone on. the stairs... : he said, in a conciliatory tone.'Why don't you come up with us? Why don't you speak to us and talk to us of this person whose name you spoke; I know who it was, I know the name.'
"'You don't know, couldn't know. It was a mortal,' I said now, more front instinct than conviction. Time thought of Lestat disturbed me, the thought that this creature should know of Lestat's death.
"'You care here to ponder mortals, justice done to mortals?' he asked; but there was no reproach or mockery in his tone.
"'I came to be alone, let me not offend you. It's a fact,' I murmured.
"'But alone in this frame of mind, when you don't even hear my steps.... I like you. I want you to come upstairs' And as he