Part 20 - Teaching By Armand, Act 2

INT. LOUVRE. NIGHTS LATER.
It is already a museum by this time and Louis and Armand, fancily dressed and composed, walk through it. They stop by a Gericault - The Wreck of the Medusa.

L: You didn't even warn them, did you.
A: No.
L: And you knew what I would do.
A: I knew, I rescued you didn't I?
L: hum.
A: from the terriable dawn.
L: You where their leader, they trusted you.
A: (He looks at Louis affectionately.) You made me see their failures Louie, they where doomed, stuck in their decident time. They had forgottened the first lesson we must be, powerful, Beautiful and without regreate.
L: And you can teach me this.
A: Yes.
L: To be without regreat.
A: Yes.
L: Then what a pair we could make, but what if it's a leason I don't care to learn
A: What do you mean?
L: What if all I have is my suffering, my regreat.
 

A: Don't you want to loss it?
Armand and Louis walk slowly through the Louvre together. Camera follows them for a while, then comes to rest on a portrate in black of a girl's face in a dark hood, but with bright eyes.
L: So you can have that to, the heart that mornes her, her that you burnt to a cender.
A: Louie I swear it..
L: Ah...but I know you did...I know,You regreates nothing, You feels nothing, and if that's all I have left to learn I can do that one my own.
A: Louie.
L: yes.
A: I will die.
L: No you are dead, and you want me quicken you once more. And as much as your invitation might appeals to me, I must regreatfully decline.

(Music Plays in the background)
LV: For years I wondered, Italy, greece, all the acient lands.

LV: But the world was a tomb to me, a grave yard of broken statue, and each of those statues resimbled her face.

LV: Then out of curiousity bordem, who know what. I left the old world and came back to my America. And there a mechanical wonder, let me see the sun rise for the first time in two hundred years.
(On the screen, Murnau's SUNRISE, in black and white. We see a montage of sunrises, from a whole range of movies, in black and white.)
L :And what sunrises, seen as the human eyes can never see them, Silver at first then as the years progressed tones of purple red, and my long lost blue. (The SUNRISES continue, in colour now, and the backgrounds in them change to the fifties.)

The lights come up in a different theatre. Louis sitting there, alone, in a half empty theatre, dressed in the clothes of the fifties. He rises, exits with the others.

LV: In the spring of 1988, I returend to New Orlands. And As soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich almost sweet, like the fregrance of jasmine and roses around our old court yard. I walked the streets, savioring that long lost perfume. and Then on Pertania street, only blocks from the Lafiete cemetary, I caught the scent of death.

EXT. GARDEN DISTRICT. NIGHT.
Louis walks past the many Greek Revival Mansions. Louis sees rats darting across the street. They rush into a great overgrown garden surrounding a ruined mansion. No lights. Louis stops at a rusted gate. He forces it open and enters
-- A VERITABLE JUNGLE of overgrown rose and oak tree and wisteria. he sees a faint glimmer of light coming from a distant glass window of a huge Greek Revival house. He approaches then he sees -- OLD SHRIVELLED CORPSE of a man, long dead and dried up, snagged in the thorny rosevines. Louis sees dead rats lying near the steps.

LV: And it wasn't coming from the graves. The scent grew stronger as I walked, old death. A scent to faint for mortals to detect.
Louis treads carefully on the rotted steps. he moves along the porch. More dead rats. He sees through the floor-length window into rooms lined with stacked books. Virtually walled with them. Water seeps down from the ceiling, gleaming as it streaks over the books. The floors of the splendid rooms are bare, except for a rotten French chair by a dead fireplace. A single mirror reflecting the moon. Dead rats. He moves along the porch to the parlour windows. The candle flickers inside. He sees -- Lestat sitting in a chair. He is gaunt to near starvation. All his scars are gone, but he is almost a skeleton and his eyes are enormous in their sockets. His clothes are rags.

E: (Without turning his head, he speaks.) Louie, I'm so glad you are here. I have dreament of this moment, she never should have been one of use.
L: It's all past Lestat.
E: Yes past. (He turns and looks at Louis. Old, fearful, broken.) Still beautiful Louie. You always where the strong one.
L: Don't be frightened, I mean you no harm.
E: You've come home to me then? You rember how I was? The vampire that I was?
L: Yes I remember.
E: Oh, No one could refuse me, not even you.
L: I tried.
E: Yes you tried, and the more you tried the more I wanted you. (Louis shakes his head. A series of police sirens go by, piercing the night sky. A helicopter goes overhead. Red flashes illuminate his face. Lestat shivers, covers his ears. He's terrified. Louis touches him, calming him, until the lights pass over.) I can't stand Louie. Such lights. and that noise, make the night brighter then the day.
L: Lestat. It's false light, it can't harm you.
E: Yes. If you stay with me, I could venture out again, become the old Lestat.
L: (Louis shivers. He releases him.) I must leave now. (Louis walks slowly away from him.)

Lv: what ever happened to Lestat I do not know. I go on, night ever night. I feed on those who cross my path. But all my passion went with the golden hair, and all the spirit of preternatural flesh detatched, unchangeable empty.