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 terrible 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 decadent time. They had forgotten
the first lesson we must be, powerful, Beautiful and without regret.
L: And you can teach me this.
A: Yes.
L: To be without regret.
A: Yes.
L: Then what a pair we could make, but what if it's a lesson I don't
care to learn
A: What do you mean?
L: What if all I have is my suffering, my regret.
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 portrait 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 mourns her, her that you
burnt to a cinder.
A: Louie I swear it..
L: Ah...but I know you did...I know, You regrets 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 regretfully decline.
(Music Plays in the background)
LV: For years I wondered, Italy, Greece, all the ancient lands.
LV: But the world was a tomb to me, a graveyard of broken statue, and each of those statues resembled her face.
LV: Then out of curiosity boredom, 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 color 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 returned to New Orlands. And As soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich almost sweet, like the fragrance of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume. and Then on Pertania street, only blocks from the Lafayette cemetery, 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 rose vines.
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 parlor 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 remember 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 detached, unchangeable
empty.
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