Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,10

of the darkness,” you said. “Or for the shades in Hades. Certainly I am ready for the spirits, for the vampires, for those who see the future and claim to know past lives, for you who have a stunning intellect encased beautifully, to endure for so many years, an intellect which has perhaps all but destroyed your heart.”

I gasped.

“Forgive me. That was not proper of me,” you said.

“No, explain your meaning.”

“You always take the hearts from the victims, isn’t it so? You want the heart.”

“Perhaps. Don’t expect wisdom from me as it might come from Marius, or the ancient twins.”

“You draw me to you,” you said.

“Why?”

“Because you do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written—behind your silence and your suffering.”

“You are too romantic, friend,” I said.

You waited patiently. I think you could feel the tumult in me, the shivering of my soul in the face of so much new emotion.

“It’s such a small story,” I said. I saw images, memories, moments, the stuff that can incite souls to action and creation. I saw the very faintest possibility of faith.

I think you already knew the answer.

You knew what I would do when I did not.

You smiled discreetly, but you were eager and waiting.

I looked at you and thought of trying to write it, write it all out . . .

“You want me to leave now, don’t you?” you said. You rose, collected your rain-spattered coat and bent over gracefully to kiss my hand.

My hands were clutching the notebooks.

“No,” I said, “I can’t do it.”

You made no immediate judgment.

“Come back in two nights,” I said. “I promise you I will have your two notebooks for you, even if they are completely empty or only contain a better explanation of why I can’t retrieve my lost life. I won’t disappoint you. But expect nothing, except that I will come and I will put these books in your hands.”

“Two nights,” you said, “and we meet here again.”

In silence I watched you leave the Café.

And now you see it has begun, David.

And now you see, David, I have made our meeting the introduction to the story you asked me to tell.

2

PANDORA’S STORY

WAS born in Rome, during the reign of Augustus Caesar, in the year that you now reckon to have been 15 B.C., or fifteen years “before Christ.” All the Roman history and Roman names I give here are accurate; I have not falsified them or made up stories or created false political events. Everything bears upon my ultimate fate and the fate of Marius. Nothing is included for love of the past.

I have omitted my family name. I did this because my family has a history, and I cannot bring myself to connect their ancient reputations, deeds, epitaphs to this tale. Also Marius, when he confided in Lestat, did not give the full name of his Roman family. And I respect this and that also is not revealed.

Augustus had been Emperor for over ten years, and it was a marvelous time to be an educated woman in Rome, women had immense freedom, and I had a rich Senator for a father, five prosperous brothers, and grew up Motherless but cherished by teams of Greek tutors and nurses who gave me everything I wanted.

Now, if I really wanted to make this difficult for you, David, I’d write it in classical Latin. But I won’t. And I must tell you that, unlike you, I came by my education in English haphazardly, and certainly I never learnt it from Shakespeare’s plays.

Indeed I have passed through many stages of the English language in my wanderings and in my reading, but the great majority of my true acquaintance with it has been in this century, and I am writing for you in colloquial English.

There’s another reason for this, which I’m sure you’ll understand if you’ve read the modern translation of Petronius’s Satyricon or Juvenal’s satires. Very modern English is a really true equivalent to the Latin of my time.

The formal letters of Imperial Rome won’t tell you this. But the graffiti scratched on the walls of Pompeii will make it obvious. We had a sophisticated tongue, countless clever verbal shortcuts and common expressions.

I’m going to write, therefore, in the English which feels equivalent and natural to me.

Let me say here quickly—while the action is at a halt—that I was never, as Marius said, a Greek Courtesan. I was living with such a pretense when Marius gave me the Dark Gift, and perhaps out of consideration for