Interview With the Vampire

Louis and Claudia leave America on the ship Mariana. Louis worries, believing Lestat survived the fire. He knows he may never feel safe again. Claudia hates the trip, feeling uncomfortable and cooped up as she listens to Louis’s ruminations on good, evil, and the nature of vampires. He says, “It struck me suddenly what consolation it would be to know Satan, to look upon his face, no matter how terrible that countenance was, to know that I belonged to him totally, and thus put to rest forever the torment of this ignorance” (163).

They discuss how Lestat might have survived. Louis is worried that Lestat is immortal, but Claudia says this is why they must find other vampires: they need teachers. He wants to know why any God would allow such suffering.

They travel by extravagant carriage after the ship, and Louis finds rural Europe lonely and dark. They reach a small village inn with garlic hanging above the door. Inside, there is more garlic, and a large group of frantic people. An Englishman shows him a dead woman lying on a table. He shows Louis two puncture wounds on her neck and tells Louis his story.

His name is Morgan, and he is a painter. He and his wife Emily had encountered a procession at the cemetery outside town. There were many fresh graves. A horse stopped on top of a young woman’s grave. This was a sign for the villagers to dig up the body, which had been dead for six months. They put a stake in her heart and cut off her head with a shovel. Morgan says they intend to do the same thing with Emily, who is the woman on the table.

A woman tells Louis they hunt vampires by day in “the ruins” (182). He makes her tell him where the ruins are. She gives him a crucifix. At the ruins, Louis and Claudia hear a vampire approach, but it is unlike them. It is a shambling, mindless creature that is little more than an animated corpse. Louis sees that it is carrying Morgan. They fight the vampire and kill it, and then Claudia feeds on Morgan. They return to the inn as the sun rises.

They visit several old countries and only find similar vampires. Louis worries that Lestat was the only vampire like them. Claudia wants to know why the old vampires lack minds. She wonders if this would have happened to any vampire who went mad with starvation. They talk about what it would take to make another vampire like them. Claudia then decides that she wants to go to Paris.