that did not require an address or a title. He was explaining to them why he had been away the last few nights. He had gone into Egypt. And he had brought back gifts for them which he would soon bring. He would take them out to look at the sea very soon.
I started to calm down a little. But my mind was now anatomizing all that had come clear to me at the moment of shock. He cared for them. He had always cared for them. He made this chamber beautiful because they were staring at it, and they just might care about the beauty of the paintings and the flowers he brought.
But he didn't know. And all I had to do was look squarely at them again to feel horror, that they were alive and locked inside themselves!
"I can't bear this," I murmured. I knew, without his ever telling me, the reason that he kept them. He could not bury them deep in the earth somewhere because they were conscious. He would not burn them because they were helpless and could not give their consent. Oh, God, it was getting worse and worse.
But he kept them as the ancient pagans kept their gods in temples that were their houses. He brought them flowers.
And now as I watched, he was lighting incense for them, a small cake that he had taken out of a silk handkerchief. This he told them had come from Egypt. And he was putting it to burn in a small bronze dish.
My eyes began to tear. I actually began to cry.
When I looked up, he was standing with his back to them, and I could see them over his shoulder. He looked shockingly
like them, a statue dressed in fabric. And I felt maybe he was doing it deliberately, letting his face go blank.
"I've disappointed you, haven't I?" I whispered.
"No, not at all," he said kindly. "You have not."
"I'm sorry that I -- "
"No, you have not."
I drew a little closer. I felt I had been rude to Those Who Must Be Kept. I had been rude to him. He had revealed to me this secret and I had shown horror and recoiling. I had disappointed myself.
I moved even closer. I wanted to make up for what I'd done. He turned towards them again and he put his arm around me. The incense was intoxicating. Their dark eyes were full of the eerie movement of the flames of the lamps.
No ridge of vein anywhere in the white skin, no fold or crease. Not even the penstroke lines in the lips which even Marius still had. They did not move with the rise and fall of breath.
And listening in the stillness I heard no thought from them, no heartbeat, no movement of blood.
"But it's there, isn't it?" I whispered.
"Yes, it's there."
"And do you -- ?" Bring the victims to them, I wanted to ask.
"They no longer drink."
Even that was ghastly! They had not even that pleasure. And yet to imagine it -- how it would have been -- their firing with movement long enough to take the victim and lapsing back into stillness, ah! No, I should have been relieved. But I was not.
"Long, long ago, they still drank, but only once in a year. I would leave the victims in the sanctuary for them -- evildoers who were weak and close to death. I would come back and find that they had been taken, and Those Who Must Be Kept would be as they were before. Only the color of the flesh was a little different. Not a drop of blood had been spilt.
"It was at the full moon always that this was done, and usually in the spring. Other victims left were never taken. And then even this yearly feast stopped. I continued to bring victims now and then. And once after a decade had passed, they took another. Again, it was the time of the full moon. It was spring. And then no more for at least half a century. I lost count. I thought perhaps they had to see the moon, that they had to know the change of the seasons. But as it turned out, this did rot matter.
"They have drunk nothing since the time before I took them into Italy. That was three hundred years ago. Even in the warmth of Egypt they do not drink."
"But even when it happened, you never saw it with your own eyes?"
"No," he said.
"You've never