Two husky movers bring in furniture through the back courtyard, past the fountain and the banana trees, up the back stairs and into ---
INT FLAT
Striped wallpaper gives way to flowers in the bedrooms. Huge four-poster
beds in the bedrooms, and large chests, as big as coffins standing against
the wall. Everywhere there are candles and pretty Louis XVI furniture.
Lestat gives instructions to the movers.
A DIMLY LIT PARLOUR
We see Claudia draped in lace standing on a petit point chair as a
DRESSMAKER measure out a garment.
Seamstress: Mousier I need more light. I shall go blind if you do not
bring me another lamp. Or let me see this child during the day.
E: I'm afraid madam my days are sacrosanct.
LV: A little child she was, but also a fierce killer, now capable of
the ruthless pursuit of blood With all a child's demanding. (Dress maker
has pricked her hand. A spot of blood appears on her finger Claudia takes
her hand.)
C: let me kiss it better. (Claudia brings the hand to her lips. The
dressmaker abruptly pulls her finger away, in pain again.)
E: (Lestat walks through - sees the dressmaker lying dead at Claudia's
feet, Claudia still on the chair in the half-finished dress.) Claudia,Claudia
now who will we get to finish your dress. The practicality,( Lestat taps
claudia's hand lightly in punishment.) remember never in the home.
INT. LOUIS' BEDROOM. NIGHT.
Claudia and Louis, sleeping in a coffin together, Claudia's fingers
curling his hair.
LV: She slept in my coffin at first, curling her little fingers around
my hair, until the day came when she wanted one of her own.
INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.
The child's coffin on the floor. The lid lifts. Claudia emerges, yawning,
wanders through the flat into. - LOUIS' BEDROOM
Where his coffin sits. She slides the lid off, and curls in beside
him.
LV: But still when ever she awoke she would crawl into mine. They found
out fast in those days, before she learned to play with them, to delay
the moment till she had taken what she wanted.
EXT. SQUARE. NIGHT.
A well-dressed lady, walking through a square lit by gaslight. The
lady hears a child's sobbing and stops, turns. Claudia, the picture of
lost innocence, sitting on a bench and crying.
Large Lady: Ma chere petite fille, why are you crying child? Are you
lost my love? (The woman, all solicitude, goes to Claudia. )
C: Mama.
Large Lady: ah shush, hush now, don't cry, will find her. Ah monshere
(The woman takes Claudia in her arms. Claudia nestles her head in her shoulder,
her teeth near her neck.)
INT. PARLOUR. NIGHT.
Claudia tinkling with her child's hands on the piano, picking out a
hesitant tune. A stern, stiff piano-teacher (male) beating time with a
ruler as Claudia picks out scales on the piano. He raps her on the knuckles.
Piano Teacher: Miser thumb girl, miser thumb Exact little digit.
(Claudia glares at him, then returns to playing, improving rapidly.
)
INT. DOLL-SHOP. NIGHT.
Piano music over. Mozart, now well played. Claudia staring at a glass
case, inside of which are an array of eighteenth century dolls. An old
doll-maker looks down on her.
Doll Maker: Their expensive my dear, maybe to expensive for a young
girl like you.
(Claudia looks over at the Doll Maker with an evil gleam in her eye.)
EXT. STREET. NIGHT.
Claudia walking along, clutching the doll.
INT. PARLOUR. NIGHT.
Claudia playing the piano, now with remarkable dexterity. The piano-teacher
sits mute beside her.)
(As she plays, he topples over and falls to the ground. We see the
puncture-marks in his neck. Lestat, hearing the noise, comes in.
E: Claudia what have we told you.
C: (Claudia fakes distress) Never in the house.
E: Give me some room. (Claudia moves over the Corpse falls off the
stool, Lestat starts keeping time to Claudia's playing.)
LV: To me she was a child, but to Lestat a pupil An infant prodigy,
with a lust for killing that match his own. Together they finished off
whole families.
(Family Scene)
E: Wonderful, wonderful. Now try something on a more somber note.
LV: Time can past quickly for mortals when their happy. With us it
was the same, the years flew by like minutes. the city around us grew.
Sailboats gave way to steam ships. disgorging an endless menu of magnificent
strangers, A new world had sprung up around us, And we where all American’s
now.
EXT. RUE ROYALE. NIGHT (1800'S)
Street lamps are oil at this period. Houses are now tall two-story
Spanish style. Streets are flagstone. Passing carriages are black. Claudia,
Louis and Lestat, dressed in the same clothes walking through a raucous
carnival with sideshows. Crowd milling around, sailors, whores, children,
thieves, freed slaves, Indians.
E: Ah. What I wouldn't give for a drop of good old-fashioned Creole
blood.
L: Yankees are not your taste?
E: Their democratic flavor doesn't suit my palate, Louie.
Creole: (Singing)
E: Now that is pure Creole, trust Claudie to have found her. What,
don't you want her?
C: I want to be her. Can I Louie? Be like her one day.
E: Oh, Mon Dieu! More melancholy nonsense, I swear you grow more like
Louie every day. Soon you'll be eating rats.
C: Rats? When did you eat rat's Louie?
L: It was a long long time ago, before you where born (Slurp) And I
don't recommend them.
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