SCENE THIRTEEN: EUROPE — TEN YEARS ON THE DEVIL'S ROAD
Establishing Photograph: An Eighteenth-Century Map of Europe and Africa
(As LESTAT and GABRIELLE travel together, we see images of the places they've visited: Prague, Leipzig, St. Petersburg, Vienna. LESTAT stops to etch a message into the wall:
«Marius, the ancient one: Lestat is searching for you! It is the month of May in the year 1780 and I go south from St Petersburg to Vienna. Please make yourself known to me»)
[Gabrielle:]
[handing him a letter] A letter from Paris.
(LESTAT opens it, reading it to himself. ELENI appears in a different part of the stage speaking the words he reads.)
[Eleni:]
My dearest Lestat… your little theatre has become the rage of Paris. It seems our particular kind of irreverent entertainment has struck a chord with the common people. On a more personal note, our Monsieur Lenfent seems to be slipping further and further away from us. I fear for our beloved violinist. I fear he should never have been born to darkness at all.
(LESTAT crumbles the letter, filled with self-recrimination.)
[Lestat:]
I knew better. I could have let him go on with his life. But I wanted him with me. So I took him!..
[Gabrielle:]
You did not take him. You gave in to him. He was suffering, Lestat. He begged you to do it.
[Lestat:]
I should have held out. I should have been stronger.
[Gabrielle:]
Yes. And what's done is done. [a beat] Do you wish to return to Paris?
[Lestat:]
What could I do for him? Haven't I done enough? I made him what he was and then I left him there.
(The set transforms into a travel montage.)
[Gabrielle:]
Do you wish to return?
[Lestat:]
No.
(The images transforms they continue their journey: Florence, Venice, Rome, Pompeii. In Athens, LESTAT reads another letter from ELENI. She speaks from a different part of the stage.)
[Eleni:]
There are riots all over France. They've destroyed the monarchy. They're beheading anyone with royal blood. Fortunately, we are very popular with the revolutionaries. Our little theatre on the boulevard is safe at least for now. As for Nicolas, he never touches the violin anymore. He rarely moves at all. We do not know how to help him. Armand has generously agreed to take him in and he makes sure that all of his «needs» are met. Armand is much changed. You would hardly know him. We eagerly look forward to your return.
(GABRIELLE enters. She's disheveled, clothes dirty, hair tangled.)
[Lestat:]
This is a surprise. I haven't seen you for over a month. Where have you been?
[Gabrielle:]
Wandering in the wild places.
[Lestat:]
But how do you hunt? Where do you sleep?
[Gabrielle:]
I hunt the animals of the forest. I sleep in the raw earth itself.
[Lestat:]
What are you looking for out there?
[Gabrielle:]
A way to live outside of civilization. Lestat, it is as I have always believed. Good and evil are concepts created by man.
[Lestat:]
[mocking] This is what you discovered in the forest? You were told this by the trees?
[Gabrielle:]
[ignoring that] Nature is indifferent to human morality. There is no sympathy for the victim… no judgment placed on the predator.
[Lestat:]
But mankind is better than that. If man did create good and evil… it is to protect the innocent and punish the guilty.
[Gabrielle:]
In nature, there are no innocent… no guilty. There is only the savage beauty of it all.
[Lestat:]
But man strives to rise above his savage nature. He created civilization to make order from chaos.
[Gabrielle:]
And that is the very thing I want to escape.
(They lapse into silence. They both know there is no end to this debate.)
[Lestat:]
I've received another letter from Eleni. France has gone mad. They're beheading anyone with royal blood.
[Gabrielle:]
A revolution. Yes. It was inevitable.
[Lestat:]
Should we send money to provide passage for our family out of France?
[Gabrielle:]
Why? We're free of them.
[Lestat:]
I cannot simply forget about my family or the coven. I need to know how they're getting along. That is what life is to me.
[Gabrielle:]
Walk with me in the forest tonight. Let me show you what life is to me.
[Lestat:]
I have no interest in the currents of the wind or the pattern of the falling leaves!
[Gabrielle:]
And I have no interest in your futile search for a mythic figure who has certainly passed from the earth!
[Lestat:]
Marius is alive. I feel it. In eighteen hundred years or so, he has not gone into the fire. I need to find him. He can tell me how to move through time. He can show me how to survive eternity.
[Gabrielle:]
[the difficult question] Did Eleni mention Nicolas?
[Lestat:]
He's stopped playing the violin. Armand has taken him in.
[Gabrielle:]
Do you wish to return to Paris?
[Lestat:]
[struggling with himself] No.
[Gabrielle:]
Then we should go south to Egypt.
[Lestat:]
A land in love with death. Yes. We should definitely set out for Egypt.
(Images change to Egypt: the Nile, Cairo, the Sphinx, Luxor, the Temple of Ramses, the Colossi of Memnon where LESTAT etches another message into the ancient stone:
«Marius… Lestat searches for you in the year 1789. I go south to Alexandria. Make yourself known to me.»)