“Armand was atop a wall now, his arm against the overhanging bough of a tree, his hand reaching for me; and in an instant I stood beside him, the wet foliage brushing any face. Above, I could see story after story rising to a lone tower that barely emerged from the dark, teeming rain. ‘Listen to me; we are going to climb to the tower,’ Armand was saying.
“ ‘I cannot… it’s impassible…’
“ ‘You don’t begin to know your own powers. You can climb easily. Remember, if you fall you will not be injured. Do as I do. But note this. The inhabitants of this house have known me far a hundred years and think me a spirit; so if by chance they see you, or you see them through those windows, remember what they believe you to be and show no consciousness of them lest you disappoint them or confuse them. Do you hear? You are perfectly safe.’
“I wasn’t sure what frightened me more, the climb itself or the notion of being seen as a ghost; but I had no time for comforting witticisms, even to myself. Armand had begun, his boots finding the crack between the stones, his hands sure as claws in the crevices; and I was moving after him, tight to the wall, not daring to look down, clinging for a moment’s rest to the thick, carved arch over a window, glimpsing inside, over a licking fire, a dark shoulder, a hand stroking with a poker, some figure that moved completely without knowledge that it was watched. Gone. Higher and higher we climbed, until we had reached the window of the tower itself, which Armand quickly wrenched open, his long legs disappearing over the sill; and I rose up after him, feeling his arm out around my shoulders.
“I sighed despite myself, as I stood in the room, rubbing the backs of my arms, looking around this wet, strange place. The rooftops were silver below, turrets rising here and there through the huge, rustling treetops; and far off glimmered the broken chain of a lighted boulevard. The room seemed as damp as the night outside. Armand was making a fire.
“From a molding pile of furniture he was picking chairs, breaking them into wood easily despite the thickness of their rungs. There was something grotesque about him, sharpened by his grace and the imperturbable calm of his white face. He did what any vampire could do, cracking these thick pieces of wood into splinters, yet he did what only a vampire could do. And there seemed nothing human about him; even his handsome features and dark hair became the attributes of a terrible angel who shared with the rest of us only a superficial resemblance. The tailored coat was a mirage. And though I felt drawn to him, more strongly perhaps than I’d ever been drawn to any living creature save Claudia, he excited me in other ways which resembled fear. I was not surprised that, when he finished, he set a heavy oak chair down for me, but retired himself to the marble mantelpiece and sat there warming his hands over the fire, the flames throwing red shadows into his face.
“ ‘I can hear the inhabitants of the house,’ I said to him. The warmth was good. I could feel the leather of my boots drying, feel the warmth in my fingers.
“ ‘Then you know that I can hear them,’ he said softly; and though this didn’t contain a hint of reproach, I realized the implications of my own words.
“ ‘And if they come?’ I insisted, studying him.
“ ‘Can’t you tell by my manner that they won’t come?’ he asked. ‘We could sit here all night, and never speak of them. I want you to know that if we speak of them it is because you want to do so.’ And when I said nothing, and perhaps I looked a little defeated, he said gently that they had long ago sealed off this tower and left it undisturbed; and if in fact they saw the smoke from the chimney or the light in the window, none of them would venture up until tomorrow.
“I could see now there were several shelves of books at one side of the fireplace, and a writing table. The pages on top were wilted, but there was an inkstand and several pens. I could imagine the room a very comfortable place when it was not storming, as it was now, or after the fire had dried out the air.
“ ‘You see,’ Armand said, ‘you really have no need of the rooms you have at the hotel. You really have need of very little. But each of us must decide how much he wants. These people in this house have a name for me; encounters with me cause talk for twenty years. They are only isolated instants in my time which mean nothing. They cannot hurt me, and I use their house to be alone. No one of the Theatre des Vampires knows of my coming here. This is my secret.’
“I had watched him intently as he was speaking, and thoughts which had occurred to me in the cell at the theater occurred to me again. Vampires do not age, and I wondered how his youthful face and manner might differ now from what he had been a century before or a century before that; for his face, though not deepened by the lessons of maturity, was certainly no mask. It seemed powerfully expressive as was his unobtrusive voice, and I was at a loss finally to fully anatomize why. I knew only I was as powerfully drawn to him as before; and to some extent the words I spoke now were a subterfuge. ‘But what holds you to the Theatre des Vampires?’ I asked.
“ ‘A need, naturally. But I’ve found what I need,’ he said. ‘Why do you shun me?’
“ ‘I never shunned you,’ I said, trying to hide the excitement these words produced in me. ‘You understand I have to protect Claudia, that she has no one but me. Or at least she had no one until…’
“ ‘Until Madeleine came to live with you…’
“ ‘Yes…’ I said.
“ But now Claudia has released you, yet still you stay with her, and stay bound to her as your paramour,’ he said.
“ ‘No, she’s no paramour of mine; you don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Rather, she’s my child, and I don’t know that she can release me…’ These were thoughts I’d gone over and over in my mind. ‘I don’t know if the child possesses the power to release the parent. I don’t know that I won’t be bound to her for as long as she…’
“I stopped. I was going to say, ‘for as long as she lives.’ But I realized it was a hollow mortal cliché. She would live forever, as I would live forever. But wasn’t it so for mortal fathers? Their daughters live forever because these fathers die first. I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened: that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on everything said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to assert an understanding of something before the thought was finished, or to argue with a swift, irresistible impulse — the things which often make dialogue impossible.
“And after a long interval he said, ‘I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.’
“For a moment I doubted what I’d heard. It struck me as unbelievable. And I was hopelessly disarmed by it, and the wordless vision of our living together expanded and obliterated every other consideration in my mind.
“ ‘I said that I want you. I want you more than anything in the world,’ he repeated, with only a subtle change of expression. And then he sat waiting, watching. His face was as tranquil as always, his smooth, white forehead beneath the shock of his auburn hair without a trace of care, his large eyes reflecting on me, his lips still.
“ ‘You want this of me, yet you don’t come to me,’ he said: ‘There are things you want to know, and you don’t ask. You see Claudia slipping away from you, yet you seem powerless to prevent it, and then you would hasten it, and yet you do nothing!
“ ‘I don’t understand my own feelings. Perhaps they are clearer to you than they are to me…’
“ ‘You don’t begin to know what a mystery you are!’ he said.