Anne Rice - Memnoch the Devil

WHAT GOD DID NOT PLAN ON

Sleep well,
Weep well,
Go to the deep well
As often as possible.
Bring back the water,
Jostling and gleaming.
God did not plan on consciousness
Developing so
Well. Well,
Tell Him our
Pail is full
And He can
Go to Hell.

Stan Rice
24 June 93

THE OFFERING

To the somethingness
Which prevents the nothingness
Like Homers wild boar
From thrashing this way and that
Its white tusks
Through human beings
Like crackling stalks
And to nothing less
I offer this suffering of my father

Stan Rice
16 Oct 93

DUET ON IBERVILLE STREET

The man in black leather
Buying a rat to feed his python
Does not dwell on particulars.
Any rat will do.
While walking back from the pet store
I see a man in a hotel garage
Carving a swan in a block of ice
With a chain saw.

Stan Rice
30 Jan 94

L ESTAT HERE. YOU know who I am? Then skip the next few paragraphs. For those whom I have not met before, I want this to be love at first sight.

Behold: your hero for the duration, a perfect imitation of a blond, blue-eyed, six-foot Anglo-Saxon male. A vampire, and one of the strongest youll ever encounter. My fangs are too small to be noticed unless I want them to be; but theyre very sharp, and I cannot go for more than a few hours without wanting human blood.

Of course, I dont need it that often. And just how often I do need it, I dont know, because Ive never put it to the test.

Im monstrously strong. I can take to the air. I can hear people talking on the other side of the city or even the globe. I can read minds; I can bind with spells.

Im immortal. Ive been virtually ageless since 1789.

Am I unique? By no means. There are some twenty other vampires in the world of whom I know. Half of these I know intimately; one half of those I love.

Add to this twenty a good two hundred vagabonds and strangers of whom I know nothing but now and then hear something; and for good measure another thousand secretive immortals, roaming about in human guise.

Men, women, childrenany human being can become a vampire. All it takes is a vampire willing to bring you into it, to suck out most of your blood, and then let you take it back, mixed with his or her own. Its not all that simple; but if you survive, youll live forever. While youre young, youll thirst unbearably, probably have to kill each night. By the time youre a thousand years old, youll look and sound wise, even if you were a kid when you started, and you will drink and kill because you cannot resist it, whether you need it anymore or not.

If you live longer than that, and some do, who knows? Youll get tougher, whiter, ever more monstrous. Youll know so much about suffering that you will go through rapid cycles of cruelty and kindness, insight and maniacal blindness. Youll probably go mad. Then youll be sane again. Then you may forget who you are.

I myself combine the best of vampiric youth and old age. Only two hundred years old, I have been for various reasons granted the strength of the ancients. I have a modern sensibility but a dead aristocrats impeccable taste. I know exactly who I am. I am rich. I am beautiful. I can see my reflection in mirrors. And in shopwindows. I love to sing and to dance.

What do I do? Anything that I please.

Think about it. Is it enough to make you want to read my story? Have you perhaps read my stories of the vampires before?

Heres the catch: it doesnt matter here that Im a vampire. It is not central to the tale. Its just a given, like my innocent smile and soft, purring French-accented voice and graceful way of sauntering down the street. It comes with the package. But what happened here could have happened to a human being; indeed, it surely has happened to humans, and it will happen to them again.

We have souls, you and I. We want to know things; we share the same earth, rich and verdant and fraught with perils. We donteither of usknow what it means to die, no matter what we might say to the contrary. Its a cinch that if we did, I wouldnt be writing and you wouldnt be reading this book.

What does matter very much, as we go into this story together, is that I have set for myself the task of being a hero in this world. I maintain myself as morally complex, spiritually tough, and aesthetically relevanta being of blazing insight and impact, a guy with things to say to you.

So if you read this, read it for that reasonthat Lestat is talking again, that he is frightened, that he is searching desperately for the lesson and for the song and for the raison dtre, that he wants to understand his own story and he wants you to understand it, and that it is the very best story he has right now to tell.

If thats not enough, read something else.

If it is, then read on. In chains, to my friend and my scribe, I dictated these words. Come with me. Just listen to me. Dont leave me alone.

I SAW HIM when he came through the front doors. Tall, solidly built, dark brown hair and eyes, skin still fairly dark because it had been dark when Id made him a vampire. Walking a little too fast, but basically passing for a human being. My beloved David.

I was on the stairway. The grand stairway, one might say. It was one of those very opulent old hotels, divinely overdone, full of crimson and gold, and rather pleasant. My victim had picked it. I hadnt. My victim was dining with his daughter. And Id picked up from my victims mind that this was where he always met his daughter in New York, for the simple reason that St. Patricks Cathedral was across the street.

David saw me at oncea slouching, blond, long-haired youth, bronze face and hands, the usual deep violet sunglasses over my eyes, hair presentably combed for once, body tricked out in a dark-blue, double-breasted Brooks Brothers suit.

I saw him smile before he could stop himself. He knew my vanity, and he probably knew that in the early nineties of the twentieth century, Italian fashion had flooded the market with so much shapeless, hangy, bulky, formless attire that one of the most erotic and flattering garments a man could choose was the well-tailored navy-blue Brooks Brothers suit.

Besides, a mop of flowing hair and expert tailoring are always a potent combination. Who knows that better than I?

I didnt mean to harp on the clothes! To hell with the clothes. Its just I was so proud of myself for being spiffed up and full of gorgeous contradictionsa picture of long locks, the impeccable tailoring, and a regal manner of slumping against the railing and sort of blocking the stairs.

He came up to me at once. He smelled like the deep winter outside, where people were slipping in the frozen streets, and snow had turned to filth in the gutters. His face had the subtle preternatural gleam which only I could detect, and love, and properly appreciate, and eventually kiss.