The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Chapter 8, part 1 - Dasius, 1741

I will be honest with you, more than you yourself have been, I have been angry.

Here is my hand, which you have castigated me for withholding, please you set aside your warrant for it. I am not afraid of a pen.

What do I say to you now, Miriam? I have been angry that you have asked me for letters, for writing. What have you asked me for it, when there is nothing now to my thoughts but grief? Will you not let me alone and give to me what I ask for without price?

Ah, I understand, what I have done to you. Yes, that I know. But I will not dash it off. Charity, I have not known well in my life. This is not dramaticism, on my part. If you will be kind to me, should I be kind?

You are right of course that to make a letter through a scrivener is no true account. You will find that I know you like to be right. We are both actors, you and I, and I like my cloak of shadow, to speak through others' mouths and make a nice picture of my life.

I did not believe that you would do as you promised, and write to me of your making, and I did not expect that you would feel kindly towards me, and for that I will do what you ask, though you will never give me what I want. Will it make some difference to know that it is not for me I ask it? Those notes in Laurent's hand, they are precious to someone else who dare not ask himself. I know that this transaction will come to nothing. I know that those notes have been forcibly taken from you. What will we do about it?

So are we finished with nice pictures, then? I would wear the coat that touched your skin.

Quoi qu'il en soit commecons. You will not find answers here. If you wanted to know why I made you, you should have asked. You will think that between one and the other, there is something similar, but to say that you and he share a single feature would be comedy.

I found him in 1739. It seems so long ago, to be wondering on Leis as one of those living. When I think on it, I think of him as a delicate young man, very long, exquisite in a filthy sort of way. His hair was always something lank, and unwashed, and so in need of care that at times I could not know the color. They, the two of them, he and his mother, were so poor as to be wretched, and he grew slowly ill bathing in water poisoned by his mother's blood.

I saw this, that he was growing by the many evenings ill, and I could not stop him. There would be no beautiful resolution, even then, I knew it.

But que Dieu me garde, I wanted him. On my knees, I begged for some nice miracle. I asked my Lord help him, and guard him, who is chaste and clean, because he is rough beauty, a creature of soft voice. I knew him for a delicate touch, and in daylight, shut in my room, I thought of his fingers, that light touch on my skin, such that it made me weep.

Long fingers, I had seen them. He had spidery veins, which stood out the more and more pale he became, as his mother's illness took him.

Laurent in those days, what was he doing? He had in him a love of love affairs, a passion for young men in shimmering brocade. This is a foolish thing now, to think his want of young men in some way mad. He had a want of many mouths, and the pleasure of hearing them beg for the bite. Dispense with foolishness. He was as happy as he could possibly be, and he would come home to me in the early hours, and come into my room and ask me, "Wherefore are you weeping?" and rub tears from the corners of my eyes with the back of his thumb.

I might say, "Effleurez-moi, parce que je suis desesperee," touch me gently, because I am desperate.

And he would look at me so funny, head tilted, and say, "D'accord, d'accord, ne t'inquiete pas," Fine, fine, don't worry so. He would push me to bed, back me across the floor from my doorway, and push me down. He would lie with me, and help me undress, and walk his fingers over my aching skin. He would whisper in my ear that he loved me, ne t'inquiete pas. He worried for my head.