listened to my songs; one of the idealistic lovelies who wrote me fan letters on scented 
paper, during that brief period of ill-fated glory, talking of poetry and the power of 
illusion, saying she wished I was real; I dream of stealing into her darkened room, where 
maybe my book lies on a bedside table, with a pretty velvet marker in it, and I dream of 
touching her shoulder and smiling as our eyes meet. "Lestat! I always believed in you. I 
always knew you would come!"
  
  I clasp her face in both hands as I bend to kiss her. "Yes, darling," I answer, "and 
you don't know how I need you, how I love you, how I always have."
  
  Maybe she would find me more charming on account of what's befallen me-the unexpected 
horror I've seen, the inevitable pain Pve endured. It's an awful truth that suffering can 
deepen us, give a greater luster to our colors, a richer resonance to our words. That is, 
if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the 
capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.
  
  Please forgive me if I sound bitter.
  
  I don't have any right to be. I started the whole thing; and I got out in one piece, as 
they say. And so many of our kind did not. Then there were the mortals who suffered. That 
part was inexcusable. And surely I shall always pay for that.
  
  But you see, I still don't really fully understand what happened. I don't know whether 
or not it was a tragedy, or merely a meaningless venture. Or whether or not something 
absolutely magnificent might have been born of my blundering, something that could have 
lifted me right out of irrelevance and nightmare and into the burning light of redemption 
after all.
  
  I may never know, either. The point is, it's over. And our world-our little private 
realm-is smaller and darker and safer than ever. It will never again be what it was.
  
  It's a wonder that I didn't foresee the cataclysm, but then I never really envision the 
finish of anything that I start. It's the risk that fascinates, the moment of infinite 
possibility. It lures me through eternity when all other charms fail.
  
  After all, I was like that when I was alive two hundred years ago-the restless one, the 
impatient one, the one who was always spoiling for love and a good brawl. When I set out 
for Paris in the 17805 to be an actor, all I dreamed of were beginnings-the moment each 
night when the curtain went up.
  
  Maybe the old ones are right. I refer now to the true immortals-the blood drinkers 
who've survived the millennia-who say that none of us really changes over time; we only 
become more fully what we are.
  
  To put it another way, you do get wiser when you live for hundreds of years; but you 
also have more time to turn out as badly as your enemies always said you might.
  
  And I'm the same devil I always was, the young man who would have center stage, where 
you can best see me, and maybe love me. One's no good without the other. And I want so 
much to amuse you, to enthrall you, to make you forgive me everything. ... Random moments 
of secret contact and recognition will never be enough, I'm afraid. But I'm jumping ahead 
now, aren't I? If you've read my autobiography then you want to know what I'm talking 
about. What was this disaster of which I speak?
  
  Well, let's review, shall we? As I've said, I wrote the book and made the album because 
I wanted to be visible, to be seen for what I am, even if only in symbolic terms.
  
  As to the risk that mortals might really catch on, that they might realize I was 
exactly what I said I was-I was rather excited by that possibility as well. Let them hunt 
us down, let them destroy us, that was in a way my fondest wish. We don't deserve to 
exist; they ought to kill us. And think of the battles! Ah, fighting those who really 
know what I am. But I never really expected such a confrontation; and the rockmusician 
persona, it was too marvelous a cover for a fiend like me.
  
  It was my own kind who took me literally, who decided to punish me for what I had done. 
And of course I'd counted on that too.
  
  After all, I'd told our history in my autobiography; I'd told our deepest secrets, 
things I'd been sworn never to reveal. And I was strutting before the hot lights and the 
camera lenses. And what if some scientist had gotten hold of me, or more likely a zealous 
police officer on a minor traffic violation five minutes before sunup, and somehow I'd 
been incarcerated, inspected, identified, and classified-all during the daylight hours 
while I lay helpless-to the satisfaction of the worst mortal skeptics worldwide?
  
  Granted, that wasn't very likely. Still isn't. (Though it could be such fun, it really 
could!)
  
  Yet it was inevitable that my own kind should be infuriated by the risks I was taking, 
that they would try to burn me alive, or chop me up in little immortal pieces. Most of 
the young ones, they were too stupid to realize how safe we were.
  
  And as the night of the concert approached, I'd found myself dreaming of those battles, 
too. Such a pleasure it was going to be to destroy those who were as evil as I was; to 
cut a swathe through the guilty; to cut down my own image again and again.
  
  Yet, you know, the sheer joy of being out there, making music, making theater, making 
magic!-that's what it was all about in the end. I wanted to be alive, finally. I wanted 
to be simply human. The mortal actor who'd gone to Paris two hundred years ago and met 
death on the boulevard, would have his moment at test.
  
  But to continue with the review-the concert was a success. I had my moment of triumph 
before fifteen thousand screaming mortal fans; and two of my greatest immortal loves were 
there with me-Gabrielle and Louis-my fledglings, my paramours, from whom I'd been 
separated for too many dark years.
  
  Before the night was over, we licked the pesty vampires who tried to punish me for what 
I was doing. But we'd had an invisible ally in these little skirmishes; our enemies burst 
into flames before they could do us harm.
  
  As morning approached, I was too elated by the whole night Ib take the question of