altogether before he was twelve: Prayer was what mattered to him, prayer and his 
leather-bound lives of the saints.
  "Finally I built him an oratory removed from the house, and he began to spend most of 
every day there and often the early evening. It was ironic, really. He was so different 
from us, so different from everyone, and I was so regular! There was nothing 
extraordinary about me whatsoever." The vampire smiled.
  "Sometimes in the evening I would go out to him and find him in the garden near the 
oratory, sitting absolutely composed on a stone bench there, and I'd tell him my 
troubles, the difficulties I had with the slaves, how I distrusted the overseer or the 
weather or my brokers . . . all the problems that made up the length and breadth of my 
existence. And he would listen, making only a few comments, always sympathetic, so that 
when I left him I had the distinct impression he bad solved everything for me. I didn't 
think I could deny him anything, and I vowed that no matter how it would break my heart 
to lose him, he could enter the priesthood when the time came. Of course, I was wrong." 
The vampire stopped.
  For a moment the boy only gazed at him and then he started as if awakened from deep 
thought, and he floundered, as if he could not find the right words. "Ali . he didn't 
want to be a priest?" the boy asked. The vampire studied him as if trying to discern the 
meaning of his expression. Then he said:
  "I meant that I was wrong about myself, about my not denying him anything." His eyes 
moved over the far wall and fixed on the panes of the window. "He began to see visions."
  "Real visions?" the boy asked, but again there was hesitation, as if he were thinking 
of something else.
  "I didn't think so," the vampire answered. It happened when he was fifteen. He was very 
handsome then. He had the smoothest skin and the largest blue eyes. He was robust, not 
thin as I am now and was then . . . but his eyes . . . it was as if when I looked into 
his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world . . . on a windswept ocean beach. 
There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves. Well," he said, his eyes still fixed on 
the window panes, "he began to see visions. He only hinted at this at first, and he 
stopped taking his meals altogether. He lived in the oratory. At any hour of day or 
night, I could find him on the bare flagstones kneeling before the altar. And the oratory 
itself was neglected. He stopped tending the candles or changing the altar cloths or even 
sweeping out the leaves. One night I became really alarmed when I stood in the rose arbor 
watching him for one solid hour, during which he never moved from his knees and never 
once lowered his arms, which he held outstretched in the form of a cross. The slaves all 
thought he was mad." The vampire raised his eyebrows in wonder. "I was convinced that he 
was only. . . overzealous. That in his love for God, he had perhaps gone too far. Then he 
told me about the visions. Both St. Dominic and the Blessed Virgin Mary had come to him 
in the oratory. They had told him he was to sell all our property in Louisiana, 
everything we owned, and use the money to do God's work in France. My brother was to be a 
great religious leader, to return the country to its former fervor, to turn the tide 
against atheism and the Revolution. Of course, he had no money of his own. I was to sell 
the plantations and our town houses in New Orleans and give the money to him."
  Again the vampire stopped. And the boy sat motionless regarding him, astonished. "Ali . 
. . excuse me," he whispered. "What did you say? Did you sell the plantations?"
  "No," said the vampire, his face calm as it had been from the start. "I laughed at him. 
And he . . . he became incensed. He insisted his command came from the Virgin herself. 
Who was I to disregard it? Who indeed?" he asked softly, as if he were thinking of this 
again. "Who indeed? And the more he tried to convince me, the more I laughed. It was 
nonsense, I told him, the product of an immature and even morbid mind. The oratory was a 
mistake, I said to him; I would have it torn down at once. He would go to school in New 
Orleans and get such inane notions out of his head. I don't remember all that I said. But 
I remember the feeling. Behind all this contemptuous dismissal on my part was a 
smoldering anger and a disappointment. I was bitterly disappointed. I didn't believe him 
at all."
  "But that's understandable," said the boy quickly when the vampire paused, his 
expression of astonishment softening. "I mean, would anyone have believed him?"
  "Is it so understandable?" The vampire looked at the boy. "I think perhaps it was 
vicious egotism. Let me explain. I loved my brother, as I told you, and at times I 
believed him to be a living saint. I encouraged him in his prayer and meditations, as I 
said, and I was willing to give him up to the priesthood. And if someone had told me of a 
saint in Arles or Lourdes who saw visions, I would have believed it. I was a Catholic; I 
believed in saints. I lit tapers before their marble statues in churches; I knew their 
pictures, their symbols, their names. But I didn't, couldn't believe my brother. Not only 
did I not believe he saw visions, I couldn't entertain the notion for a moment. Now, why? 
Because he was my brother. Holy he might be, peculiar most definitely; but Francis of 
Assisi, no. Not my brother. No brother of mine could be such. That is egotism. Do you 
see?"
  The boy thought about it before he answered and then he nodded and said that yes, he 
thought that he did.
  "Perhaps he saw the visions," said the vampire.
  "Then you . . . you don't claim to know . . . now . . . whether he did not?"
  "No, but I do know that he never wavered in his conviction for a second. That I know 
now and knew then the night he left my room crazed and grieved. He never wavered for an 
instant. And within minutes, he was dead."
  "How?" the boy asked.
  "He simply w out of the French doors onto the gallery and stood for a moment at the 
head of the brick stairs. And then he fell. He was dead when I reached the bottom, his 
neck broken." The vampire shook his head in consternation, but his face was still serene.
  "'Did you see him fall?" asked the boy. "Did he lose his footing?"
  "No, but two of the servants saw it happen. They said that he had looked up as if he 
had just seen something in the air. Then his entire body moved forward as if being swept 
by a wind. One of them said he was about to say something when he fell. I thought that he 
was about to say something too, but it was at that moment I turned away from the window. 
My back was turned when I heard the noise." He glanced at the tape recorder. "I could not 
forgive myself. I felt responsible for his death," he said. "And everyone else seemed to 
think I was responsible also."
  "But how could they? You said they saw him fall"
  "It wasn't a direct accusation. They simply knew that something had passed between us 
that was unpleasant. That we had argued minutes before the fall.
  "The servants had heard us, my mother had heard us. My mother would not stop asking me 
what had happened and why my brother, who was so quiet, had been shouting. Then my sister 
joined in, and of course I refused to say. I was so bitterly shocked and miserable that I 
had no patience with anyone, only the vague determination they would not know about his 
`visions.' They would not know that he had become, finally, not a saint, but only a . . 
fanatic. My sister went to bed rather than face the funeral, and my mother told everyone 
in. the parish that something horrible had happened in my room which I would not reveal; 
and even the police questioned me, on the word of my own mother. Finally the priest came 
to see me and demanded to know what had gone on. I told no one. It was only a discussion, 
I said: I was not on the gallery when he fell, I protested, and they all stared at me as