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Anne Rice: The
feast of all saints - Cry to heaven - Beauty's Punishment - Lestat
the vampire - Belinda - Pandora
- Merrick – Blood and gold -
Vampire Companion
"But you love that
man, don't you?" he whispered, the lips barely moving, the flesh as smooth
as wax. And the eyes alone radiated feeling, brilliant as blue eyes so often
are, brilliant as two lights. "I've never in my life stopped loving anyone
once I started," she answered. She ;pwered her lids and raised them again
slowly, oddly awar of their effect. "I don't guess I ever will stop
loving... once I've started... wether it was yesterday or a long time
ago".
(Página 632)
Cry to heaven:
1982
Don't weep in front of these strangers. Swallow it down. Don't weep in front of
these strangers! Cry to heaven, cry to heaven, cry to heaven.
(Página 179)
Always he would be
divided. Always there would be pain. Pain and pleasure, intermingling and
working him this way and that, and shaping him, but one never really
vanquishing the other; there would never be peace.
(Página 297)
Beauty's Punishment: 1984 (Anne Rice writing as Anne Roquelaure)
Nicolas's Bedchamber
Tristan:
He urged me back gently and with his left hand he lifted his balls and his
cock. I dropped down and kissed his balls immediately. I ran my tongue over
them as I had been taught to do with hte ponies in the stable, mouthing them
and feeling them tenderly with my teeth, and then I took the cook in my mouth
and pulled hard on it, little startled by its thickness. It was no thicker than
the large phallus, I thought. No just that thick, and the dizzying thought came
to me that he had prepared me for himself, and when I thought of him entering
me that way himselfI became almost uncontrollably excited. I sucked and licked
at the cock, tasting it, and thinking this is the Master and no one of the
other slaves, this is the man who has all day silently commanded me,
subjugating me, defeating me, and I felt my legs slide apart and my belly dip
down and my buttocks rise in a spontaneous motion as I sucked, groaning softly.
I almost wept when he lifted my face. He pointed to a small jar on a little
shelf in the paneled wall. At once I opened it. The cream in it was thick and
pure white. He pointed to his cock and at once I took some of the cream on my
fingers. But before I applied it, I kissed the tip and tasted a little trace of
moisture. I dabbed my tongue into the tiny hole, gathering all that was there
of the clear fluid.
Then I rubbed in the cream well, even creaming the balls and smoothing the
thick curly white hair with the cream until it was glistening. the cock was
dark red now, and shuddering. The Master put out his hands to me. Tentatively I
dabbed more cream onto his fingers. He gestured for more, and I applied it.
"Turn around," he said. I did so, my heart racing. I felt the cream
in my anus, rubbed deep and thick, and then his hands wrapped around me, the
left scooping my balls up and biding the loose flesh to my cock so that my
balls were pushed forward. I gave a short desperate imploring cry as I felt his
organ slide into me. It found no resistance. I was lanced again as surely as I
had been by the phallus, and with hard slapping thrusts I felt it jab deeper
and deeper. The hand around my cock forced it out straight, and I felt the
Master's right hand surrounding the tip, the cream slepping around the tortured
flesh and then the hand tightening and riding the cock up and down in rhythm
with me thrusts into my backside. My loud goans echoed through the room. All my
pent-up passion jetted out, my hips rocking violently back and forth, the cock
splitting me open, and my own organ shot its fluids in wild spurts out of me.
...
A quarter of an hour passed perhaps. The candles gave a lovely dim gloden
light, and Y leaned forward and kissed my Master's shoulder. He did not stop
me. I kissed the small of his back and then I kissed his buttocks. Smooth, free
of all welts and red marks, virginal, the buttocks of a Master in the village,
a Lord or Sovereign at the castle.
I felt him stir under me, but he didn't speak. and I kissed the crack between
his buttocks and darted my tongue down to the pink circle of his anus. I felt
him quicken sleghtly. He moved his legs ever so slightly apart, and I pushed
the buttocks a little wider. I lapped at the little pink mouth, tasting its
strange sourness. I bit at it with my teeth. My own cock swelled against the
sheet. I inched down in the bed and moved gently on top of his legs, crouching
over him, and I pressed my cock against his legs as I licked at the little pink
mouth and stabbed my tongue into it. Softly I heard him say, "You may take
me if you like".
I felt the same paralyzing astonishment I'd felt when he told me to get into the
bed. I kneaded and kissed his silky buttocks and then I shot up, covering him,
pressing my mouth to the nape of his neck and sliding my hands under him. I
found his cock already stiff and I held it in my left hand as I jutted my own
cock into him. It was tight and scratching and unspeakably luscious.
I knelt and put my hands
on his shoulders. I kisses his cheek. No human scent. No human warmth.
Sculpture of my Nicolas. "Play it," I whispered. "Play it here
just for us." Slowly he turned to face me, and for the first time since
the moment of the Dark Trick, he looked into my eyes. He made some tiny sound.
It was so strained it was as if he couldn't speak anymore. The organs of speech
had closed up. But then he ran his tongue along his lip, and low I scarcely
heard him, he said: "The devil's instrument."
(Página 226)
It became higher,
shriller, faster, yet the tone of each note was perfection. It was execution
without effort, virtuosity beyond mortal dreams. And the violin was talking,
not merely singing, the violin was insisting. The violin was telling a tale.
The music was a lamentation, a fugue of terror looping itself into hypnotic
dance rhythms, jerking Nicki even more wildly from side to side. His hair was a
glistening mop against the footlights. The blood sweat had broken out on him. I
could smell the blood. But I too was doubting over; i was backing away from
him, slumping down on the bench as if to cower from it, as once before in this
house terrified mortals had cowered before me. And I knwe, knew in some full
and simultaneous fashion, that the violin was telling everything that had
happened to Nicki. It was the darkness exploded, the darkness molten, and the
beauty of it was like the glow of smoldering coals; just enough illumination to
show how much darkness there really was.
(Página 227)
Lo que había estado
sintiendo durante los últimos tres meses era lo que la gente llama felicidad,
pura y dulce. De pronto me sorprendió que el sufrimiento de la noche anterior
igualara la intensidad de la felicidad que había conocido antes. Tales
sentimientos incluían un calor cauterizante opuesto al deseo que sentía por
ella. Se trataba de extremos que no habia sentido antes de conocerla.
(Página 313)
No puedo precisar cuando
empezaron a surgir las dudas. Pero ciertamente no fue durante aquellas primeras
semanas.
(Página 347)
Al irme con Marty yo
estaba muy nerviosa. Ahora, cuando pienso en ello, me doy cuenta de que la
atracción fisica que se siente por una persona puede hacer que creas que algo
importante va a suceder. Incluso puede hacerte vivir la ilusión de que nada más
en tu vida importa.
(Página 433)
Why, I demanded, must his
domination extend to every corner of our entire house and garden?
..."We are not matched in minds?" I demanded.
"Only you could ask that question!" came his reply.
(Página 307)
"All right," I
said. "I'tell you what I want. Love me, Marius, love me, but leave me
alone!" I cried out. I had not even thought. The words just came.
"Leave me alone, so that I may seek my own comforts, my own means to
remain alive, no matter how foolish or pointless these conforts appear to you.
Leave me alone!"
He was wounded, so uncomprehending, looking so innocent still. We had similar
arguments as te decades passed.
(Página 314).
These vampires... ah, I
mean, we ... we vampires, we love beauty, we feed on it. Our definition of
beauty expands enormously, you can't quite imagine how much. I don't care how
loving your soul, you can't know how much we find beautiful that mortals don't
find beautiful, but we do propagate by beauty, and this body has beauty which
I've used to evil advantage countless times".
(Página 31)
The pain I felt was
crushing. Moments passed in which I did nothing but allow myself to feel the
immensity of the injustice done to Aaron.
(Página 58)
I had been amazed at
Maharet's obvious displeasure. Nothing about Maharet is simple precisely
because everything is. By that I mean that she is so ancient as to be divorced
utterly from the common expression of tender emotions, excepts perhaps by
deliberate merciful design.
(Página 63)
Louis had been twenty-four
when he had struck his bargain with lestat for the Dark Blood. How much can a
man learn in that time, and how much can he later forget?
(Página 83)
I thought of how much I
loved Louis, and had ever since I had become Lestat's fledgling. I thought of
how deeply I depend upon him, and what I would do for him. It was the love of
Louis which I had at times crippled Lestat, and enslaved Armand. Louis need
have no consciousness of his own beauty, of his own obvious and natural charm.
(Página 142)
I detested the feeling of
fear which had been so uncommon in me in my youth. Old age had taught me to
respect danger. As I said, I hated it.
(Página 160)
What mysteries we are,
human, vampire, monster, mortal, that we can love and hate simultaneously, and
that emotions of all sorts might not parade for what they are not. I look at
Louis and I despise him totally for the making of me, and yet I do love him.
But then I love Lestat every bit as well.
Perhaps in the court of my heart, I hold Louis far more accountable for my
present state than ever I could blame my impulsive and simple Lestat. The fact
is, one must die for this or the pain in me will never be sealed off, and
immortality is but a monstrous measurement of what I shall suffer till the
world revolves to its ultimate end. One must die so that the other will become
ever more dependent upon me, ever more completely my slave.
(Página 224)
"Why have you called
me, Louis?" it asked with heartbreaking sincerity. "Why have you
roused me from my wandering sleep for your own consolation? Why wasn't memory
enough?"
(Página 243)
I held him to myself and
kissed him as men might do with other men when they are alone. I kissed his
dark black hair and kissed his eyes, and then I kissed his lips.
(Página 259)
And now -being the
romantic fool I have allways been, being the champion of questionable actions
and little endurance, being quite unable as always to live with the price of my
will and my desires, i bequeath to you this exquisite fledgling, Merrick, whom
I know you will love with an educated heart.
(Página 279)
"I've lost so much
time," Lestat remarked in his habitual energetic fashion, eyes moving
about the room. "There are so many books I mean to read, and things I mean
to see. The world's around me again. I'm where I belong."
(Página 298)
An awareness had come over
him that he wasn´t going to die. Loneliness in itself could not destroy hi.
Neglect was insufficient. And so he slept.
(Page 4)
Why could he not serve
only what was good? Why could he not live for what was pleasurable? But that
had never been his way.No matter, it was important to keep that secret to
himself for now. Why trouble his friend with dark thoughts? Why trouble himself
with guilty confessions?
(Page 21)
Marius nodded. "I
listen with my whole soul." He gave a little sigh and he looked out
through the immense glass. "I´m weary of being alone, my friend," he
said. "I cannot bear the company of those whom I know most intimately. And
they cannot bear mine on account of things I´ve done."
(Pages 23-24)
"Yes, there is
something brutal and hurt inside of me, and I wander alone, refusing the cup of
angerm choosing silence rather than angry words. And I come upon you in the
North land, and you´re a stranger to me, and I can bare my soul to you.
(Page 48)
I don´t know. I know only
that a terrible anger and pain divides us just as it did so many years ago. I
cannot admit how much I have wronged her. I cannot admit how much I have lied
about my love of her and my need of her. And this need, perhaps this need is
the thing which keeps me at a distance, where I am safe from the scrutiny of
her soft and wise brown eyes.
(Pages 54-55)
I left the only creature
in the world who could have patience wuth me, who could give me understandin,
and who had done so, no matter how often or how hard we had fought.
I left the only being who knew what I was!
(Page 57)
"I believe nothing. I
consider it wise. I believed nothing when U was mortal. I believe nothing
now."
(Page 69)
I should go after them
both. I should implore them to remain with me. We had so much more to say to
one another. I needed them as they needed each other. As I needed Pandora.
But I lived the lie. I lived it out of anger. This is what I´m trying to tell
you. I have lived lies. I have done it again and again. I live lies because I
cannot endure the weakness of anger, and I cannot admit the irrationality of
love.
Oh, the lies that I have told myself and others. I knew it yet I didn´t know.
(Pages 77-78)
I should have rememberd.
But memory is desperate to leave us. Memory knows that we cannot endure its
company. Memory would reduce us to fools. Ah, listen to old mortals when they
hae nothing but memories of childhood. How they go on mistaking those around
them for persons long dead, and no one listens. How often I have eavesdropped
on them in their misery. How often I have wondered at their long uninterrupted
conversations with ghosts in empty rooms.
(Page 111)
"You can do anything
now," I told her. "Merely think on it. You can be male. You can be
female. You can me neither. Seek the Evil Doer as I do and you will never choke
on death. But allways, whatever your joys, whatever your misery, don´t put
yourself in danger of the judgment of others. Measure your strength and take
care."
(Page 199)
"We have never been
foolish. We do the work of God as we serve Satan. Without Satan, how could
there have been the Christ?"
(Page 218)
I could hear the secret
thoughts of those who sought to cheat me or those who loved the mere sight of
me. And the later was a dangerous thing.
Why dangerous, you might ask? The answer is that I was now more than ever
susceptible to love, and when seen with loving eyes I knew it and I slowed my
place.
(Page 244)
I loved him instantly and
impossibly. He was fifteen years old at the most when I took him out of the
brothel that night and brought him to live in the palazzo with my boys.
(Page 264)
I brought him quickly to
know the pleasures which he had never allowed himself before. He was dazed and
silent; but his prayers for deliverance were no more.
(Page 265)
No matter how long we
exist, we have our memories -points in time which time itself cannot erase.
Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories
will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard
as gems.
(Page 312)
"You love her still,
this woman," she said.
"Yes, but you see, I never stop loving anyone. I will never stop loving
you."
"Are you certain of it?"
"Completely," I answered. "I loved you when first I saw you.
Haven't I told you?"
"In all these years, you´ve never stopped thinking of her?"
"No, never stopped loving her. Impossible to stop thinking of her or
loving her. Even the details of her remain with me. Loneliness and solitude
have imprinted her most strongly on my mind. I see her. I hear her voice. SHe
had a lovely clear voice." I mused. I went on.
(Page 369)
"Don´t leave me
again," I said. "No matter what is said between us tonight. Don´t
leave me."
"Marius, it was you who left me," she said, and I heard a tremor in
her voice which frightened me. "Marius, that was so long ago," she
said sadly. "Marius, I wandered so far and wide searching for you."
(Page 434)
"You can´t do such a
thing," she said sharply. "Marius, I´ve been with him for hundreds of
years. You think you can simply come between us?"
"I want you, Pandora. I shall settle for nothing else. And if such a time
comes that you want to leave me-."
"Yes, and what if it does come," She said angrily, "then what
shall I do when there is no Arjun on account of you!"
I fell silent. I was in a rage. She was staring at me intently. Her face was
full of feeling. Her breast heaved under the tight satin.
"Do you love me?" I demanded.
"Completely," she said in her angry voice.
"Then you are coming with me!"
I took her by the hand.
No one moved to stop us as we left the palace.
As soon as I had her in the carriage, I kissed her wantonly as mortals kiss and
wanted to sink my teeth into her throat but she forbade it.
"Let me have that intimacy!". I begged, "For the love of Heaven,
Pandora, it´s Marius who is speaking to you. Listen to me. Let us share blood
and blood."
"Don´t you think I want to?" she asked. "I´m afraid."
"Afraid of what?" I demanded. "Tell me what you fear. I´ll make
it vanish."
The carriage rolled on out of Dresden and through the forest towards my palace.
"Oh, but you won´t," she replied. "You can´t. Don´t you
understand, Marius, you´re the same being you were in those times when we were
first together. You´re strong and spirited as you were then, and I´m not.
Marius, he takes care of me."
(Page 436)
"Marius, don´t you
see what I´m trying to tell you. I havenñt the courage to leave Arjun. I
haven´t the courage to see the Mother and the Father. Marius, I don´t have the
courage to love you anymore. The very sound of your angry voice frightens me. I
don´t have the courage to meet your Bianca. The very thought that you might
love her more than me frightens me. I am frightened of it all, don´t you see?
And even now, I am desperate for Arjun that he may take me away from all of
this. With Arjun there is for me a great simplicity! Marius, please let me go
with your forgiveness."
(Page 440)
I thought of all the many
things she and I should have said to each other, all the many things I might
have said in a calmer spirit to persuade her. I told myself she wasn´t gone
beyond reach. I told myself that she knew where I was, and that she could write
to me. I told myself anything I neede to keep my sanity.
And I did not hear it when Bianca came into the room. I did not hear it when
she sat down in a large tapestried armchair quite near to me.
I saw her as if she were a vision when I looked up - a flawless young boy with
porcelain cheeks, her blond hair pulled back in a black ribbon, her frock coat
embroidered in gold, her shapely legs in spotless white hose, her feet in ruby
buckled shoes.
Oh, what a divine guise it was -Bianca as the young nobleman, known to the few
mortals who mattered as her own brother. And how sad were her peerless blue
eyes, as she looked at me.
"I feel sorry for you," she said quietly.
"Do you?" I asked. I said these words with my broken heart. "I
hope you do, my precious darling, because I love you, I love you more than I
have ever loved you, and I need you."
"But that´s just the point, you see," she said in a low compassionate
voice. "I heard the things you said to her. And I´m leaving you."
(Page 445)
Vampire Companion:
Abandonment: The fear of meing rejected or left alone without resources;
symbolic of death. The theme of abandonment portrays a psychological struggle
on the part of an individual, as his or her own inner power battles with the
compulsion to depend heavily on the will and the presence of others. In the
Chronicles, abandonment becomes an issue for several vampires. Louis is the
most prominent example, since he possesses the personality of a victim:
passive, blaming, weak, and resentful. Vulnerable to the ebb and flow of
circumstances, he wants others to make his life better. he craves someone to
dominate him. Althought he eventually comes to despise Lestat, he is so
frightened of being abandoned that he cleaves to Lestat for over half a
century. He can break away only if someone else fills Lestat's role for him.
So, when Claudia joins them, Louis becomes dependent on her. They Leave Lestat
and go to Paris, where Louis transfer his dependence to Armand. Claudia
believes that louis will leave her, so she demands that he make Madeleine a
vampire guardian for her. Yet he is wary of performing the requested task,
because he fears abandonment by her. This fear of abandonment is so pervasive
among vampires that Armand, perceiving that Louis might remain with Claudia
instead of joining with them, pressures him into mking Madeleine. Thus, the
triumvirate cling to one another in a symbiotic dependency that results in all
of them being abandoned in one tragic act: the destruction of Claudia.
Similary, in VL, Lestat fears being abandoned by Magnus when Magnus says he
will jump into the fire and annihilate himself. However, Lestat survives
Magnus's destruction and comes to rely on inner strenght rather than
dependence. Conquering the fear of abandonment is necessary to attain true
independence. Lestat shows he has Achieved this when he metaphorically abandons
Louis by refusing to be his teacher; he wants Louis to find answers throught
his own experience. For many characters, thought, the terror of being left
alone remains primal. It forces them to face their own vulnerability,
alienation, and emptiness. Drinking blood - the source of life- then becomes an
addiction, since it offers them warmth and the illusion of confort.
Love: ... Armand is
especially desperate for what he calls love, althought Lestat and Louis both
believe that what he really desires is to draw out the life force of others by
demanding that they dominate him; he wants to be a slave to some greater power
or person, but he also wants to control how the relationship evolves. Lestat
inmediately recognizes this no-win paradox and rejects Armand's plea to be
allowed to accompany Lestat. Armand had actually experienced an ecstatic love
once with Marius, but there had been little time to cultivate that relationship
because santino's coven had driven Marius away and forced Armand into their
practices. (VL292) As a result, Armand does not posses the skill for loving
deeply and sacrificially. In fact, he has learned best how to manipulate, and
althought both Lestat and Louis are immensely attracted to him, they both
resist for they realize that he cannot participate in a truly loving bond. He
is too dependent and too prone to using deception to control (VL 311)...