Il mio tesoro ...
" ... 'I never meant those words that way, vampire eyes,' I said to her. 'It has a different ring when you say it. ... ' She was tugging at me, trying to make me look at her, 'Come,' I said to her, 'I've something to show you. ...' And quickly I led her down the passage and down the spiral stairs through the dark courtyard. But I no more knew what I had to show her, really, than I knew where I was going. Only that I had to move toward it with a sublime and doomed instinct."
Anne Rice, Interview With a Vampire (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), p. 114.
This story is for Anne Rice.
I can feel the night coming. I sense strength building in my being, power, knowledge and connection with all of the creatures and forces sharing the night with me. I can no longer remember all of the centuries that have passed. Armies, nations, empires and kings have come and gone. My languages are too many and strange to count. Languages are easy for me, like dressing in silks. They seem to emanate from a common source in human nature. I am among the oldest of my kind. My power has become very great. I drift as a mist through the streets of this city, unperceived by humans. My presence is sometimes sensed by another of my kind with fear or respect. They turn away from me. I still walk among men and women. Their thoughts are ... slow and predictable. I am unconcerned and unreachable by them.
Priests are rare. Genuine priests have always been rare. They no longer matter. People have forgotten the old ways and the gods. Despite materializing in bodily form men and women cannot see my protean essence. I am accustomed to my solitariness. There are few persons I miss -- one in particular who is always with me. Many centuries have passed since I last saw her. Still my pain lingers, as a sharp ache at my side, at the place where I held her. She placed her arm around me, burning my ghostly flesh. My wound is unhealed after all of these years. My existence unfolds in a realm of darkness, coldness, emptiness and immense distances from other minds.
I wonder whether even priests believe anything any more? I doubt it.
I visit museums to be reminded of a world filled with enchantments and magic, lit by candles, when life was short. Everything was more important and real, especially erotic passions and fears. These emotions were closely aligned for men and women of earlier centuries. Romance often resulted in death. My existence as a creature of the night may symbolize this "coupling" of eros and thanatos.
Was it Nina Auerbach who said this?
I am beguiled by the puzzles of philosophy, for they are as ancient and inscrutable as I have become. I am paradoxical and unknown even to myself, a mystery in search of a solution. I do not know whether there is a God. I am sure, however, that there is evil and beings that feed on evil. I have seen such monstrosities as would defy description. Evils to threaten the sanity of good persons, even in the telling. Few things surprise me. The continuing existence of goodness is one of them.
I rise from my coffin kept in the upstairs room in this townhouse on Park Avenue, naked, as delicious darkness engulfs me. I was twenty-six when I entered the night. I will appear twenty-six forever, unless I choose a disguise. I can make you see me as anything that I wish you to see. My hair is jet black, cut short. I am five feet, eight inches tall. My figure is slim, shapely, and my eyes are brown. My skin is pale like porcelain from China. I was born female. My taste is for women. I have sometimes been a man. I dress in men's clothes. I prefer them. Armani suits -- black, of course -- and polished shoes. Italian shoes are the best. I also like hats. I have kept some hats from the twenties and thirties. There is enough wealth from the sale of some old paintings and things to last for several lifetimes. Money is not a problem. I stay well informed concerning my investments. Never trust lawyers.
Dalla sua Pace.
Tonight I will be attending a gala performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera. I have an extra ticket. Do you care to join me? I have felt your presence for some time. You have been following me. You are also an ancient one. You have been both male and female. You prefer evil. I do not. You need not make yourself known. I am aware of where and who you are. I feel your curiosity and desire for ... power. We will wander among these creatures. I will not hurt them. You may do as you please.
I am called "Carmilla." I have worn many names. Have you read Montague Summers? Sheridan Le Fanu? There was a dreadful professor in Germany who followed me around all the time asking for information. His name was Michael Ranft. Eventually, this awful little man published a book entitled De Masticatione Mortuourum in Tumulis Liber around 1728, in Leipzig. The book was scholarly, but the interpretations suffered from the author's lack of imagination. Ranft was afflicted with an unforgettable form of halitosis. I much preferred the kindly letters of Professor Gottleib Heinrich Voigts and his splendid opus: Kurtzes Bedencken von des Relationen wegen des Vampyren. Yes, that was about 1732. Stoker was a fool, of course, and Robert Southey was willing to sacrifice authenticity for a rhyme:
A night of darkness and of storms!
Into the Chamber of the Tomb
Thalaba led the Old Man,
To roof him from the rain.
Swept through the moonless sky,
And moan'd among the pillar'd sepulchres;
And in the pauses if its sweep
They heard the heavy rain
Beat on the Monument above.
Thalaba -- another of my names -- was commenced on the 12th of July, 1799, then finished by the inebriated Mr. Southey at Cintra in July, 1800.
Mr. Summers was a magnificent scholar -- if somewhat bizarre sexually, a defrocked priest with a fondness for Satanic rituals and orgies. Naturally, Summers was an Oxford man. I believe that he received a "First" in Greats and reflects every credit on the university. A glance at The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (New York: University Books, 1960), pp. 278-79, should make professors' toes curl up with pleasure. I admire the scholarship of Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Academy or any translation, 1954). If you know French, try: De Zalmoris a Gengis Khan: Etudes comparatives sur les Religion et le folklore de L'Dacie et de L'Europe orientale (Paris: 1970).
Incidentally, that's very good versifying by Southey. Byron and Polidori were "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." About Ms. Rice and Mr. King, of course, one need only notice that they are Americans and all is forgiven. I knew a Baroness who lived in Africa who wrote some excellent Gothic Tales. One story concerned an artist living in a Parisian flat who discovers a skull and slowly comes to realize that it is the skull of his lost love.
The Russians and Germans take our adventures much too seriously. Florescu's and McNally's biography of Vlad the Impaler (Dracula, the name means "son of the dragon") is accurate, if somewhat dull. Vlad was a sadist. But otherwise, Vlad was a charming man. Terrific at chess. What a marvelous cook that man was ... or is? Vlad made the best Viennese pastries. Of course, one did not ask what (or whom) he put into those meat pastries. He always served them with tea.
Anyone seen "Sweeney Todd"?
I exit my townhouse and stroll towards Lincoln Center. I "live" not far from the Metropolitan Museum. I like old things and good art. We will walk through the park as a breeze stirs the leaves and caresses my flesh. The night is cool and dry. I feel things with infinitely greater intensity and duration than any human. I adore great sex. Music fills me with ecstasy. The curve of the hip in a Titian nude is a wonder to me after centuries of contemplation. Some of that Venetian painter's studies of women are amazing because of his understanding of how mortal women move balancing their weight, deliberately, with the stress falling on hips that speak volumes to those who listen. Listening to women's unspoken discourse is a lost art, especially among men.
Most of what is beautiful and timeless, sources of delight and awe all around men and women can not be seen by the busy fools searching for gold. The real treasure of fleeting impressions of all sorts, even life itself is ignored. You mortals waste the precious gifts of your condition -- gifts that are enhanced by mortality. How much more intense is even my pleasure in beauty when it is known to be transitory? One of the fortunate side effects of my condition is the power to prolong pleasure indefinitely. I have time on my hands and the infinite recesses of the collective mind to explore. I have become an archetype.
I do not feed on human lives. I take their "essences" by sharing some of mine. I am like a portrait painter or actor playing a "role" -- a role that is the life of another being. I live them; they live me. Truman Capote liked to gossip with me in Antibes. He said that writers are vampires. Perhaps this is true of all artists. They feed on the lives and secrets of friends, then lovingly betray their trust by placing others' lives on the page (or stage) with gleeful malice. Answered Prayers?
Actors must observe people to depict envy, greed, power-hunger and other human qualities with authenticity. A great actor is as much "played" by, as "playing," a character when he or she interprets a "part." Allow "Ophelia" to play you.
"When thou my music, music play'st ..."
You are the butterfly pinned to the page that is my heart.
One need not disregard privacy and yet still enter -- in an almost sexual way -- into the lives of others. The deepest sexual bliss is an exchange of essences, a mutual spiritual "feeding" that can be eternal, a now that is always and forever.
What we are doing at this instant is very similar. Communication. We meet in this strange place between worlds. We are the children of the night. Aesthetic encounter can be a kind of sex.
Is that not what we feel and call genius that comes across the footlights or is captured on screen -- an irresistible erotic invitation and power associated with some artists?
The revelation of the human condition in all of its glory and pathos is seen in any brilliant stage performance. John Giulgud's "Hamlet" still makes me weep.
I will slither under your covers at night. Together, we will create an Opera.
I see that you have materialized. A blond, curves ... yes, beautiful. You have taken this image from my mind. Her name was "Laura." Le Fanu got the names right. The rest was nonsense, of course. You are wearing something from ... the thirties? French? Excellent. The earrings are splendid. Perfect for New York at this time of the year. I agree with your choices -- pearls, bracelet and watch, dress shoes. I love the clutch bag, studded with precious stones, light green dress for a perfect night.
I will call you, "Laura."
The original Laura was equally beautiful and brilliant, vanished one night many centuries ago.
We will approach Central Park West, then glide towards Lincoln Center with plenty of time before the curtain rises. So little energy is expended in our movements. Dom Perignon? We seem to attract the stares of admirers of every gender and description. If this is annoying, for you I can wave them away? No, fine. Do you enjoy Opera? Yes. Wonderful. Really? A soprano, at La Fenice? Marvelous. Puccini. Yes, I've heard. Hands all over you, eh? I am not surprised. The lust is everywhere in his Operas, of course, along with lyricism and poetry.
The fountain is lovely and provides a kind of symphony. My favorite New York fountain is in Columbus Circle. They modeled this space at Lincoln Center on the Piazza Navone in Rome, with its famous Bernini fountain and sculptures. I recall strolling through that piazza in the eternal city during the seventeenth century when princes of the church with a fondness for young boys solicited for them, with astonishing commercial shrewdness, in that sleazy territory. Earlier the Romans used the neighborhood for exotic brothels where slaves from the farthest reaches of the empire -- like Britania -- were available for a small fee. The most costly women were French imports.
Shall we leave our coats downstairs?
I always tip before heading into the theater. This way I can be sure that my coat will be handy and first to be reached when I exit the theater.
You are partial to the Bard? I couldn't agree more. Really? Did you? Both Shakespeare and his Dark Lady! You are insatiable, my dear. Treading the Boards? Oh, not this century. Yes, the movies have ruined everything. It is like mirrors. We do not appear on screen. For some reason we can't be photographed. In order to appear on magazine covers, I have to "enter" one of those obnoxious British actresses. Kate? Catherine? Something like that. You look a bit like her, as a matter of fact. She was so unpleasant about it. My goodness, I only needed her body for a little while. I explained that she wouldn't feel a thing. In exchange I offered all kinds of opportunities for professional advancement. An Oscar even! Would you believe not one card during the holiday season? Typical. Actors are so narcissistic. Don't you agree? Except for Opera Divas, of course. No wonder she didn't win for so many years. Bitch.
Have your program? Good. No, the singers are new. I like young voices, especially in Mozart. No, I never met him. Really? Well, I am not surprised. Not even a little symphony for you? Nothing. Men are pigs. Yes, these seats are excellent. There is our conductor. German. Very thorough. I love that silence, excitement, and anticipation when a conductor raises his or her baton, the electricity in the air before the arrival and presence of divinity. Musica. The music will enter us tonight. We will live it together. Later, ... well, let us improvise.
Vedrai, carino.
Darkness and music are my natural habitat. I am transported by the sounds. You mention Bernard Shaw and the Devil's dialogue with Don Juan. I see that you are of the "Devil's party." You are not a humanist. You see little to admire in these creatures. How does Shaw express it through his character?
THE DEVIL: " ... I tell you in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasant of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. ..."
You say that this lovely ocean of sound -- these voices with their plaintive and rich yearnings -- are exceptional to a race of monkeys delighted by domination and cruelty. Humans are brutal, selfish, violent, sexual animals. We should feed on them as they feed on birds and swine. They think little of the lives sacrificed for their horrifying double burgers, why should we hesitate to end their "miserable existences." What possible difference can they make to the universe? Most are stupid and hideous, you say?
The lights are coming on for intermission. Ah, yes ... You are now a man. Handsome. Beautiful suit. Brooks Brothers? Fifties? We make a fine pair. These misanthropic opinions you express better "suit" a man. "Gender is costume," Judith Butler should have said.
At Carnegie Hall, between acts there was exquisite coffee and genuine Viennese pastries were available such as I have not tasted since before the last war. Yes, the events of that war converted me to your views -- for a while. How could creatures of the night frighten a world that had seen humans bring about the death of millions? We became quaint. Charming, like gingerbread men. We were transformed into relics of a simpler time when evil bore a human form, as it now resembles something that has escaped from a laboratory, inhuman, mechanical. Evil is the assistant director in the mass deportations office, third door on the left, in charge of genocide from Monday-to-Friday. Evil is the person who disfigures a great sculpture or painting, or removes a letter from a literary text. Murder, torture, theft, rape -- all of these monstrous crimes have become "nothing personal" for the criminals and routine events in the chronicles of human history.
And yet. Use of the word "yet" commits us to hope. Yet there is beauty and striving for something higher, nobler, along with the possibility of self-giving, crystalized in the act of love as opposed to brutal animal satisfactions of appetites.
You glance at me with affection. Have we met before? Eros over mere sex. There is something familiar about you. Do you recall the response of Don Juan?
DON JUAN: "Were I not possessed with a purpose beyond my own I had better be a ploughman than a philosopher; for the ploughman lives as long as the philosopher, eats more, sleeps better, and rejoices in the wife of his bosom with less misgiving. This is because the philosopher is in the grip of the Life Force. ..."
Shaw had been poring over Hegel and Bergson:
DON JUAN: " ... This Life Force says to him 'I have done a thousand wonderful things unconsciously by merely willing to live and following the line of least resistance: now I want to know myself and my destination, and choose my path; so I have made a special brain -- a philosopher's brain -- to grasp this knowledge for me as the husbandsman's hand grasps the plough for me. And this' says the Life Force to the philosopher 'must thou strive to do for me until thou diest, when I will make another brain and another philosopher to carry on the work.' ..."
This challenge of deciphering or creating meaning that some of us cannot escape -- even after the events of the last century -- is not one that can be discharged without passion or enthusiasm, ideas and images demand both from their adherents. We must feel. We must ... interpret. This includes scientists. The spiritual life of men and women feeds on ideas and images. Both are in this glorious music, along with colors and sexual invitations. Mozart must have been a horny bastard. We tip our Champagne glasses. We exchange particles, willingly. The stardust that makes us up must be shared. We partake of the centuries together -- like all of you who read these words.
Let us return to our seats for the final act? Splendid.
Non mi dir.
This finale, the drawing of Don Giovanni into hell -- for what? a little lust? -- and the orchestral underlining for the thick-headed audience members is Mozart's cue to death. I do not believe that things will be so terrible at my death. If death comes after all of these centuries it will be a welcome surprise. I sometimes feel that I have lived so much already. There is something exquisite and tempting about death's embrace.
The lights are coming up ... Ah, you've returned to the feminine form. I am now a man. Let us stroll together to my humble little place after a visit to some favorite late night cabarets. We will beguile each other with stories of our adventures.
We have been engaged in an act of love, haven't we?
Let us "consummate" the adventure.
Seduction is a matter of poetry and music. What better introduction to eternity in one hour -- or two or three hours! -- than Wolfgang's sumptuous sounds. I will arrange for the drawing of silk sheets before we return to my place of rest. You will admire the carvings on that coffin. They are baroque. They were a little favor from Signor Bernini. My home will be lit only by candles. There will be soft music playing for us. Do not ask where it is coming from ... let it guide you to our place of safety during the hours when ordinary people take possession of the earth.
We will return to the company of mortals only as night descends, once again, in dreams and forms emerging from the province of collective darkness where we must dwell.
I will slither over your body investigating its twists and turns. I will taste of your essence, drink in your soul, and open my veins for you. I will enter you, blend my being with yours, inhabit your dreams and hopes as you sleep. These words will live in you. I will season my being with the salts and scents of your skin. I will kiss your hands and your neck. We will become one ...
