The Tale of the Body Thief (1992) / Interview With The Vampire (2022)
Lestat and his constant protectiveness/worry over Louis in the books
I saw Gabrielle break through the side door before the car hit the ground. And she and I were both rolling over on the grassy slope as the car capsized and exploded with a deafening roar.“
Louis!” I shouted. I scrambled towards the blaze. I would have gone right into it after him: But the glass of the back portal splintered as he came through it. He hit the embankment just as I reached him. And with my cape I beat at his smoking garments, Gabrielle ripping off her jacket to do the same. - The Vampire Lestat
What was she doing? Assessing their power? Looking from one to the other, and then back to me. A stranger looking down from some lofty height. And so now the fire comes, Lestat. Don’t dare to look at Gabrielle or Louis, lest she turn it that way. Die first, like a coward, and then you don’t have to see them die. - The Queen of the Damned
“Ah, Louis, forgive me.” The dark neglected hallway. I shuddered. “I came here because I was so concerned . . . about you.”
“No need,” he said considerately. “It was just a little pilgrimage I had to make.”
I touched his face with my fingers; so warm from the kill.
“She’s not here, Louis,” I said. “It was something Jesse imagined.”
“Yes, so it seems,” he said.
“We live forever; but they don’t come back.” - The Queen of the Damned
“All right,” he said despairingly. “I hope you discover the man’s seduced you with a pack of lies, that all he wants is the Dark Blood, and that you send him straight to hell. Once more, let me warn you, if I see him, if he threatens me, I shall kill him. I haven’t your strength. I depend upon my anonymity, that my little memoir, as you always call it, was so very far removed from the world of this century that no one took it as fact.”
“I won’t let him harm you, Louis,” I said. I turned and threw an evil glance at him. “I would never ever have let anyone harm you.”
And with this I left.
Of course, this was an accusation, and he felt the keen edge of it, I’d seen that to my satisfaction, before I turned again and went out. - The Tale of the Body Thief
Oh, yes, I had asked for it, as mortals so often declare. And I had done this despicable thing of letting loose the Body Thief with my powers. True. Guilty again of spectacular blunders and experiments. But had I ever dreamed of what it would truly mean to be stripped utterly of my powers and on the outside looking in? The others knew; they must know. And they had let Marius come to render the judgment, to let me know that for what I had done, I was cast out!
But Louis, my beautiful Louis, how could he have spurned me! I would have defied heaven to help Louis! I had so counted upon Louis, I had so counted upon waking this night with the old blood running powerful and true in my veins. - The Tale of the Body Thief
I thought then of Louis’s rejection, and that I would very soon see him again, and an evil satisfaction rilled me. Ah, he would be so very surprised. Then a little fear came over me. How would I forgive him? How would I keep my precious temper from exploding like a great wanton flame? - The Tale of the Body Thief
No scent of a mortal signaled an intruder. In fact, I knew the step that was approaching. I had heard it so many times in my life both mortal and preternatural. Yet I didn’t dare to believe in such a rescue from my misery, until the unheralded figure appeared in the courtyard, his velvet coat dusty, his yellow hair tangled, his violet eyes looking at once to the grim and appalling visage of Louis:
It was Lestat.
With an awkward step, as though his body, so long unused, revolted against him, he made his way closer to Merrick, who turned her tearstained face to him as if she too were seeing a Savior come in answer to her directionless prayers. - Merrick
Lestat seemed to be considering these things. How could he not? Once, he himself had gone into the sunlight in a distant desert place, and, having been burnt again and again, without release, he came back. His skin was still golden from this hurtful and terrible disaster. He would carry that imprint of the sun’s power for many years to come.
Straightaway, he stepped in front of Merrick, and as both of us watched, he knelt down beside the coffin, and he moved very close to the figure, and then he drew back. With his fingers, quite as delicately as she had done it, he touched the blackened hands, and he left no mark. Slowly, lightly, he touched the forehead, and once more, he left no mark.
He drew back, kneeling up, and, lifting his right hand to his mouth, he gashed his wrist with his own teeth before either Merrick or I knew what he meant to do.
At once a thick stream of blood poured down onto the perfectly molded face of the figure in the coffin, and as the vein sought to heal itself, again Lestat gashed it and let the blood flow. - Merrick
“Come now, enough of these ‘things,’ ” he said with a tone of remarkable weariness. “New Orleans waits. Louis waits. And if he hasn’t come down to New Orleans as you asked, I say we go to New York and get him.”
He had mentioned Louis countless times in the last six months, but the strange thing was, I didn’t trust him with all these mentions of how I needed Louis, and ought to write to Louis, and ought to pick up one of the many telephones around me and call Louis. I had some deep fear that he was in fact jealous of Louis, but I was ashamed of that feeling. Now he was saying, Let’s go, let’s find Louis.
[…]
This troubled me, and I wasn’t sure quite why. What if he suddenly wanted to hurt Louis? What if he became jealous of Louis—of my affection for Louis?
“Nonsense, go to him,” he said. Calm voice. Manly voice. “Am I jealous of your son, Viktor? Am I jealous of your beloved daughter, Rose? You need Louis and you know it, and he’s ready now to surrender. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
And so it was done. Louis was putting on his jacket and scarf. I was unhappy. I watched him pulling on his gloves. I couldn’t imagine how this could end productively or happily. I didn’t want Louis to be humiliated, but what could Fareed and Seth say to talk of the silver cord? If they became impatient and short with him, I’d be furious. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
I knew that the monster had other resources. We all do, the clever ones, who don’t wish to move through eternity like tramps. He had gold and jewels in hiding places. He had wealth undreamt of and unrecorded. And dwellings perhaps of which no one knew.
And now he had taken my Louis, my helpless Louis. Penetrated our most fortified refuge, and taken Louis away.
[…]
Again, I was not thinking. I was merely knowing—and knowing that Louis, Louis the most vulnerable of us all, was in the grip of that monster—or already dead. - Blood Communion
“In all these centuries,” said Cyril, “never have we known one whom we could see as our champion. You can’t really know, boss, just what you are now to the others. You think you know, but you don’t, and that’s why I’ll be right outside your door again sleeping in the passage, sleeping here so nothing and no one can get at you or hurt you—as long as I live and breathe.”
Then I was alone in the chilling darkness—with the villain Armand despised, and the son who had not protected his mother, and the lover who had never protected Louis from himself or others, and the miserable pupil of Marius who had so misjudged Rhoshamandes that now Marius was dead. - Blood Communion
Louis and his constant worry over Lestat in the books
“Lestat, don’t go on the stage tomorrow night,” he said. “Let the films and the book do what you want. But protect yourself. Let us come together and let us talk together. Let us have each other in this century the way we never did in the past. And I do mean all of us.” - The Vampire Lestat
Louis, the watcher, the patient one, was there on account of love pure and simple. The two had found each other only last night, and theirs had been an extraordinary reunion. Louis would go where Lestat led him. Louis would perish if Lestat perished. But their fears and hopes for this night were heartbreakingly human. - The Queen of the Damned
“Now we can go home,” he said.
Home. I smiled. I reached out and touched the graves on either side of me; I looked up again at the soft glow of the city lights against the ruffled clouds.
“You’re not going to leave us, are you?” he asked suddenly, voice sharpened with distress. - The Queen of the Damned
For a moment, I couldn’t understand the expression of horror on his face as he stared at me, or why he suddenly rose and came towards me and bent down and touched my face. Then I remembered. My sun-darkened skin.
“What have you done?” he whispered. He knelt down and looked up at me, resting his hand lightly on my shoulder. Lovely intimacy, but I wasn’t going to admit it. I remained composed in the chair.
“It’s nothing,” I said, “it’s finished. I went into a desert place, I wanted to see what would happen…”
“You wanted to see what would happen?” He stood up, took a step back, and glared at me. “You meant to destroy yourself, didn’t you?” - The Tale of the Body Thief
I came towards him, planted my hands on his desk and looked into his face. “I was so sure you would understand this. And by the way, I wasn’t born a monster! I was a born a mortal child, the same as you. Stronger than you! More will to live than you! That was cruel of you to say.”
“I know. It was wrong. Sometimes you frighten me so badly I hurl sticks and stones at you. It’s foolish. I’m glad to see you, though I dread admitting it. I shiver at the thought that you might have really brought an end to yourself in the desert! I can’t bear the thought of existence now without you! You infuriate me! Why don’t you laugh at me? You’ve done it before.”
- The Tale of the Body Thief
Dimly I thought I heard Louis’s gentle voice, protesting, pleading, arguing. I heard locks thrown, I heard nails going through wood. I heard Louis begging.
“For a while, just a little while.…” she said. “He is too powerful for us to do anything else. It is either that, or we do away with him.”
“No,” Louis cried. - Memnoch the Devil
I don’t live like our friend Louis, wandering from dusty corner to dusty corner, and then back to his flat in the Rue Royale when he’s convinced himself once more and for the thousandth time that no one can harm Lestat. - The Vampire Armand
All the faces were soon there, except for Louis and Rose and Viktor. But how could that be? I turned around. They stood only two feet away from me, huddled together, and down the pure whiteness of Louis’s face were two thin lines of blood tears. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
Louis had been gravely hurt that Lestat had gone off to meet Rhoshamandes alone. So Lestat had promised never to do such a thing again.
- Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
Lestat and Louis through the years
I wanted to forget him, and yet it seemed I thought of him always. It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow there was a disturbing comfort in that, and, despite myself, I’d envision his face - not as it had been the last night in the fire, but on other nights, that last evening he spent with us at home, his hand playing idly with the keys of the spinet, his head tilted to one side. A sickness rose in me more wretched than anguish when I saw what my dreams were doing. I wanted him alive! In the dark nights of eastern Europe, Lestat was the only vampire I’d found.
Interview With The Vampire (1976)
"But why, Lestat? “ he asked a little suspiciously. "Why the danger, the risk? After all, you have done it. You have come back. You’re stronger than ever. You have the old fire as if it had never been lost, and you know how precious this is, this will simply to go on. Why risk it immediately? Have you forgotten what it was like when we had the world all around us, and no one could hurt us except ourselves? ”
“Is this an offer, Louis? Have you come back to me, as lovers say?” His eyes darkened and he looked away from me.
“I’m not mocking you, Louis,” I said.
“You’ve come back to me, Lestat,” he said evenly, looking at me again. “When I heard the first whispers of you at Dracula’s Daughter, I felt something that I thought was gone forever- ” He paused. But I knew what he was talking about. He had already said it.
The Vampire Lestat (1985)
I smiled. I kissed him suddenly, thrilled by the warmth of him, the soft pliant feel of his near human skin. God, how I hated the whiteness of my fingers touching him, fingers that could have crushed him now effortlessly. I wondered if he even guessed.
There was so much I wanted to say to him, to ask him. Yet I couldn’t find the words really, or a way to begin. He had always had so many questions; and now he had his answers, more answers perhaps than he could ever have wanted; and what had this done to his soul? Stupidly I stared at him. How perfect he seemed to me as he stood there waiting with such kindness and such patience. And then, like a fool, I came out with it.
“Do you love me now?” I asked.
He smiled; oh, it was excruciating to see his face soften and brighten simultaneously when he smiled. “Yes,” he said.
The Queen of the Damned (1988)
He grew reflective again and very sad. It almost hurt me to look at him. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, but that would only have made him furious.
“I love you,” he said softly.
I was amazed.
“You’re always looking for a way to triumph,” he continued. “You never give in. But there is no way to triumph. This is purgatory we’re in, you and I. All we can be is thankful that it isn’t actually hell."
The Tale of The Body Thief (1992)
"Come home with me,” he said. Such a human voice. So kind. “There’s time to come here and reflect. Wouldn’t you rather be home, in the Quarter, amongst our things?”
If anything in the world could have truly comforted me, he would have been the thing—with just the beguiling tilt of his narrow head or the way that he kept looking at me, protecting me obviously with a confidential calm from what he must have feared for me, and for him, and perhaps for all of us.
My old familiar gentleman friend, my tender enduring pupil, educated as truly by Victorian ways of courtesy as ever by me in the ways of being a monster.
Memnoch the Devil (1995)
“I’ll spend the next few evenings with Lestat,” Louis said quietly. “I want to read to him. He doesn’t respond but he doesn’t stop me. You’ll know where to find me when Merrick returns.”
“Does he never say anything to you?” I asked, regarding Lestat.
“Sometimes he speaks, just a little. He’ll ask for Mozart perhaps, or that I read him some old poetry. But in the main, he’s as you see him yourself, unchanged.” He paused, then looked directly at the sky. “I want to be alone with him for a few nights, I suppose, before Merrick comes back.”
His tone had a finality to it, and a sadness that touched me to the quick. He was saying farewell to Lestat, that’s what he was doing, and I knew that Lestat’s slumber was so deep and so troubled, that even such a dreadful message from Louis might not rouse him at all.
Merrick (2000)
I
stopped. I put my arm around him. I held him close to me.
“I’m Lestat,” I said in a low voice. “Your Lestat. I’m the same Lestat
you’ve always known, and no matter how I’m changed, I’m still that same
being.”
“I know,” he said warmly.
I kissed him. I pressed my lips to his and I held this kiss for a long
silent moment. And then I gave in to a silent wave of feeling, and I
took him in my arms. I held him tight against me. I felt his
unmistakable silken skin, his soft shining black hair. I heard the blood throbbing in him, and time dissolved, and it seemed I was in some old
and secret place, some warm tropical grotto we’d once shared, ours alone
in some way, with the scent of sweet olive blossoms and the whisper of
moist breeze.
“I love you,” I whispered.
In a low intimate voice, he answered: “My heart is yours.”
Prince Lestat (2014)
“Very well,” Louis said.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged and smiled.
“I’ll come if you want me. I’ll come and I’ll stay and I’ll be your companion if you want. I don’t know why you want this or how long you’ll want it, or what it’s going to be like, being with you and watching all your antics up close, and trying to be of help and not knowing how to be of help, but I’ll come. I’m tired of fighting it; I give up; I’ll come.”
I couldn’t believe I’d heard right. I stared at him as helplessly as I had in the hallway of the townhouse when I’d first seen him, trying to grasp what he had said.
He leaned close to me, and he put his hand on my arm. “ ‘Wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people’; and because I have no other god and never will, you shall be my god.”
Prince Lestat and The Realms of Atlantis (2016)
“When I was finally led down the stairs, Louis came with me. In the
darkened passage before my resting place, he embraced me and held tight
to me, his lips pressed to my ear. I was aware of my hands moving over
his hair, embracing his neck, drawing him ever closer, in a way I had
never done in our long years in New Orleans. We joined in the posture of
lovers, brothers, fathers with sons.
“I love you with my whole soul, and I will always love you”, he confided
to me. “You are my life. I have hated you for that and love you now so
much that you’ve been my instructor in loving. And believe me when I say
you will survive because you always have and you always will.”
I couldn’t answer. I knew I loved him more than words could say, but I couldn’t respond.”
Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018)
13bels:
“But Louis, my
beautiful Louis, how could he have spurned me! I would have defied heaven to
help Louis!” Lestat—The
Tale of the Body Thief.
your very existence defies heaven,
take a seat, pendejo
