“Why did you do it?” he demanded. What a mask was this face. And then it flashed with anger as he spoke again. “Why did you do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. And don’t give me those tears! Why did you do it!”

“I tell you the truth. I don’t know. I could give you all the many reasons, but I don’t know. I did it because I wanted to do it, because I wanted to. Because I wanted to see what would happen if I did it, I wanted to … and I couldn’t not do it. I knew that when I went back to New Orleans. I … waited and I waited, but I couldn’t not do it. And now it’s done.”

“You miserable, lying bastard. You did it from cruelty and meanness! You did it because your little experiment with the Body Thief went wrong! And out of it came this miracle to me, this youth, this rebirth, and it infuriated you that such a thing could happen, that I should profit when you had suffered so!”

“Maybe that’s true!”

“It is true. Admit it. Admit the pettiness of it. Admit the meanness, that you couldn’t bear to let me slip into the future with this body which you hadn’t the courage to endure!”

“Perhaps so.”

He drew in close and tried to drag me to my feet with a firm, insistent grip on my arm. Nothing happened, of course. He could not move me an inch.

“You’re still not strong enough to play those games,” I said. “If you don’t stop, I’ll hit you and knock you flat on your back. You won’t like it. You’re too dignified to like it. So leave off with the cheap mortal fisticuffs, please.”

He turned his back on me, folding his arms, bowing his head. I could hear the small desperate noises that came from him, and I could almost feel the anguish. He walked away, and I buried my face again in my arm.

But then I heard him coming back.

“Why? I want something from you. I want an admission of some kind.”

“No,” I said.

He reached out and snatched at my hair, tangling his fingers in it, and jerking my head up as the pain shot over the surface of my scalp.

“You’re really pushing it, David,” I growled at him, pulling myself loose. “One more little trick like that and I’m going to drop you at the bottom of the cliff.”

But when I saw his face, when I saw the suffering in him, I grew quiet.

He went down on his knees before me so that we were almost eye-to-eye.

“Why, Lestat?” he asked, and his voice was torn and sad, and it broke my heart.

Overcome with shame, overcome with misery, I pressed my closed eyes again on my right arm, and brought up my left to cover my head. And nothing, not all his pleas or curses or cries against me or his final quiet departure, could make me look up again.