"You're mad, you've always been mad! " he shouted. "Get out of this house! You'll drive us all crazy. " He stood up, which was hard for him, being crippled and blind, and he tried to throw his goblet at me and naturally he missed. I couldn't look at my mother. I couldn't be near her. I didn't want to make her suffer with my questions. I went down to the inn. I couldn't bear to think of the witches' place. I would not have walked to that end of the village for anything! I put my hands over my ears and shut my eyes.
"Go away! " I said at the thought of those who'd died like that without ever, ever understanding anything. The second day it was no better. And it wasn't any better by the end of the week either. I ate, drank, slept, but every waking moment was pure panic and pure pain.
I went to the village priest and demanded did he really believe the Body of Christ was present on the altar at the Consecration. And after hearing his stammered answers, and seeing the fear in his eyes, I went away more desperate than before.
"But how do you live, how do you go on breathing and moving and doing things when you know there is no explanation? " I was raving finally. And then Nicolas said maybe the music would make me feel better. He would play the violin.
I was afraid of the intensity of it. But we went to the orchard and in the sunshine Nicolas played every song he knew. I sat there with my arms folded and my knees drawn up, my teeth chattering though we were right in the hot sun, and the sun was glaring off the little polished violin, and I watched Nicolas swaying into the music as he stood before me, the raw pure sounds swelling magically to fill the orchard and tile valley, though it wasn't magic, and Nicolas put his arms around me finally and we just sat there silent, and then he said very softly, "Lestat, believe me, this will pass. "
"Play again, " I said. "The music is innocent. " Nicolas smiled and nodded. Pamper the madman. And I knew it wasn't going to pass, and nothing for the moment could make me forget, but what I felt was inexpressible gratitude for the music, that in this horror there could be something as beautiful as that. You couldn't understand anything; and you couldn't change anything. But you could make music like that. And I felt the same gratitude when I saw the village children dancing, when I saw their arms raised and their knees bent, and their bodies turning to the rhythm of the songs they sang. I started to cry watching them. I wandered into the church and on my knees I leaned against the wall and I looked at the ancient statues and I felt the same gratitude looking at the finely carved fingers and the noses and the ears and the expressions on their faces and the deep folds in their garments, and I couldn't stop myself from crying. At least we had these beautiful things, I said. Such goodness. But nothing natural seemed beautiful to me now! The very sight of a great tree standing alone in a field could make me tremble and cry out. Fill the orchard with music. And let me tell you a little secret. It never did pass, really.
6
What caused it? Was it the late night drinking and talking, or did it have to do with my mother and her saying she was going to die? Did the wolves have something to do with it? Was it a spell cast upon the imagination by the witches' place? I don't know. It had come like something visited upon me from outside. One minute it was an idea, and the next it was real. I think you can invite that sort of thing, but you can't make it come. Of course it was to slacken. But the sky was never quite the same shade of blue again. I mean the world looked different forever after, and even in moments of exquisite happiness there was the darkness lurking, the sense of our frailty and our hopelessness. Maybe it was a presentiment. But I don't think so. It was more important than that, and frankly I don't believe in presentiments. But to return to the story, during all this misery I kept away from my mother. I wasn't going to say these monstrous things about death and chaos to her. But she heard from everyone else that I'd lost my reason. And finally, on the first Sunday night of Lent, she came to me. I was alone in my room and the whole household had gone down to the village at twilight for the big bonfire that was the custom every year on this evening. I had always hated the celebration. It had a ghastly aspect to it-the roaring flames, the dancing and singing, the peasants going afterwards through the orchards with their torches to the tune of their strange chanting. We had had a priest for a little while who called it pagan. But they got rid of him fast enough. The farmers of our mountains kept to their old rituals. It was to make the trees bear and the crops grow, all this. And on this occasion, more than any other, I felt I saw the kind of men and women who could burn witches. In my present frame of mind, it struck terror. I sat by my own little fire, trying to resist the urge to go to the window and look down on the big fire that drew me as strongly as it scared me. My mother came in, closed the door behind her, and told me that she must talk to me. Her whole manner was tenderness.
"Is it on account of my dying, what's come over you? " she asked. "Tell me if it is. And put your hands in mine. " She even kissed me. She was frail in her faded dressing gown, and her hair was undone. I couldn't stand to see the streaks of gray in it. She looked starved. But I told her the truth. I didn't know, and then I explained some of what had happened in the inn. I tried not to convey the horror of it, the strange logic of it. I tried not to make it so absolute. She listened and then she said, "You're such a fighter, my son. You never accept. Not even when it's the fate of all mankind, will you accept it. "
"I can't! " I said miserably.
"I love you for it, " she said. "It's all too like you that you should see this in a tiny bedroom in the inn late at night when you're drinking wine. And it's entirely like you to rage against it the way you rage against everything else. " I started to cry again though I knew she wasn't condemning me. And then she took out a handkerchief and opened it to reveal several gold coins.
"You'll get over this, " she said. "For the moment, death is spoiling life for you, that's all. But life is more important than death. You'll realize it soon enough. Now listen to what I have to say. I've had the doctor here and the old woman in the village who knows more about healing than he knows. Both agree with me I won't live too long. "
"Stop, Mother, " I said, aware of how selfish I was being, but unable to hold back. "And this time there'll be no gifts. Put the money away.
"Sit down, " she said. She pointed to the bench near the hearth. Reluctantly I did as I was told. She sat beside me.
"I know, " she said, "that you and Nicolas are talking of running away. "
"I won't go, Mother. . . "
"What, until I'm dead? " I didn't answer her. I can't convey to you the frame of mind. I was still raw, trembling, and we had to talk about the fact that this living, breathing woman was going to stop living and breathing and start to putrefy and rot away, that her soul would spin into an abyss, that everything she had suffered in life, including the end of it, would come to nothing at all. Her little face was like something painted on a veil. And from the distant village came the thinnest sound of the singing villagers.
"I want you to go to Paris, Lestat, " she said. "I want you to take this money, which is all I have left from my family. I want to know you're in Paris, Lestat, when my-time comes. I want to die knowing you are in Paris. " I was startled. I remembered her stricken expression years ago when they'd brought me back from the Italian troupe. I looked at her for a long moment. She sounded almost angry in her persuasiveness.
"I'm terrified of dying, " she said. Her voice went almost dry. "And I swear I will go mad if I don't know you're in Paris and you're free when it finally comes. " I questioned her with my eyes. I was asking her with my eyes, "Do you really mean this? "