own passion. "Why did he go into the sun? How could such a thing kill Lestat's reason and 
will? Veronica. Did they know the very name means Vera Ikon, that there was never any 
such person, that she could not be found by one drawn back to ancient Jerusalem on the 
day Christ carried his cross; she was a concoction of Priests. Didn't they know?"
  I think I had taken the two notebooks in hand, for I looked down and I saw that I did 
indeed hold them. In fact, I clutched both of them to my breast and examined one of the 
pens.
  "Reason," I whispered. "Oh, precious reason! And consciousness within a void." I shook 
my head, smiling kindly at you, "And vampires who speak now with spirits! Humans who can 
travel from body to body."
  I went on with a wholly unfamiliar energy.
  "A lively fashionable modern cult of angels, devotion thriving everywhere. And people 
rising from operating tables to speak of life after death, a tunnel, an embracing love! 
Oh, you have been created perhaps in an auspicious time! I don't know what to make of it."
  You were obviously quite impressed by these words, or rather the way that my 
perspective had been drawn from me. So was I.
  "I've only started," you said, "and will keep company alike with brilliant Children of 
the Millennia and street-corner fortune tellers who deal out the cards of the Tarot. I'm 
eager to gaze into crystal balls and darkened mirrors. I'll search now among those whom 
others dismiss as mad, or among us - among those like you, who have looked on something 
that they do not believe they should share! That's it, isn't it? But I ask you to share 
it. I'm finished with the ordinary human soul. I am finished with science and psychology, 
with microscopes and perhaps even with the telescopes aimed at the stars."
  I was quite enthralled. How strongly you meant it. I could feel my face so warm with 
feeling for you as I looked at you. I think my mouth was slack with wonder.
  "I am a miracle unto myself," you said. "I am immortal, and I want to learn about us! 
You have a tale to tell, you are ancient, and deeply broken. I feel love for you and 
cherish that it is what it is and nothing more."
  "What a strange thing to say!"
  "Love." You shrugged your shoulders. You looked up and then back at me for emphasis. 
"And it rained and it rained for millions of years, and the volcanoes boiled and the 
oceans cooled, and then there was love?" You shrugged to make a mock of the absurdity.
  I couldn't help but laugh at your little gest. Too perfect, I thought. But I was 
suddenly so torn.
  "This is very unexpected," I said. "Because if I do have a story, a very small story -"
  "Yes?"
  "Well, my story - if I have one - is very much to the point. It's linked to the very 
points you've made."
  Suddenly something came over me. I laughed again softly.
  "I understand you." I said. "Oh, not that you can see spirits, for that is a great 
subject unto itself.
  "But I see now the source of your strength. You have lived an entire human life. Unlike 
Marius, unlike me, you weren't taken in your prime. You were taken near the moment of 
your natural death, and you will not settle for the adventures and faults of the 
earthbound! You are determined to forge ahead with the courage of one who has died of old 
age and then finds himself risen from the grave. You've kicked aside the funeral wreaths. 
You are ready for Mount Olympus, aren't you?"
  "Or for Osiris in the depths 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 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 cafe.
  And now you see it has begun, David.
  And now you see, David, l have made our meeting the introduction to the story you asked 
me to tell.
  
  
  2
  
  PANDORA'S STORY
  
  I 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