“Whoever he was – and of
course I knew who he had to be – he did not give a damn that I was there! He
had not even stopped to take a breath… It was Armand, of course. Yet I was hardly prepared for the
sight he presented here.
“Candle wax dripped
down the marble bust of Caesar, flowed over the brightly painted countries of
the world globe. And the books, they lay in mountains on the carpet, save for
those of the very last shelf in the corner when he stood, in his old rags
still, hair full of dust, ignoring me as he ran his hand over page after page,
his eyes intent on the words before him, his lips half open, his expression
like that of an insect in its concentration as it chews through a leaf.
Perfectly horrible he looked, actually. He was sucking everything out of the
books! …
But his manner wasn’t
the entire horror. It was the havoc he was leaving behind him, the utter disregard
of everything he used. And his utter disregard of me.
“…His auburn hair shimmered despite the dirt in it; his eyes
burned like two lights. Grotesque he seemed, among all the candles and the swimming
colors of the flat, this filthy waif of the netherworld, and yet his beauty
held sway. He hadn’t needed the shadows of Notre Dame or the torchlight of the
crypt to flatter him. And there was a fierceness in him in this bright light
that I hadn’t seen before.” – Lestat re: Armand, The Vampire Lestat
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