SCENE FOURTEEN: ALEXANDRIA — A COURTYARD GARDEN
Establishing Photograph: A courtyard garden of a small house in Alexandria.
(LESTAT returns from etching his message to the garden of their house. GABRIELLE holds a package.)
[Gabrielle:]
Eleni has sent a package this time.
(She hands the package to LESTAT who holds it with trepidation. GABRIELLE reads the letter to herself. She looks up with a solemn expression.)
Nicolas has gone into the fire. It was his own choice… They could not prevent it.
(LESTAT opens the package and takes out NICOLAS' violin.)
[Lestat:]
I should have returned to Paris. I told him I would. Why didn't I go back? I could have stopped him!
[Gabrielle:]
Lestat, he was destined to go into the fire. You knew that.
[Lestat:]
[anguished] I knew that. And I couldn't bear to watch it happen. Forgive me, Nicolas.
(He sings a melancholy reprise of «In Paris».)
Song: In Paris (Reprise)
[Lestat:]
In Paris we'll search for fame
In Paris we'll be born again
And though the streets aren't paved with gold
In Paris we'll put our trust
For Paris she was made for us
Paris she was made for us
In Paris we will liberate our souls
[Gabrielle:]
What can I do for you?
[Lestat:]
Tell my why I've never felt that kind of despair?
[Gabrielle:]
It is not in your nature to despair. Each of us must find our own way of living with what we've become. My way is to be free of mankind.
[Lestat:]
What is my way?
[Gabrielle:]
My beautiful Lestat. You cling to your old belief in goodness at the same time you hunt and kill without mercy. You face eternity without blinking an eye. Your way is not merely to survive… it is to thrive.
[Lestat:]
I don't know how else to go about it.
[Gabrielle:]
Come into Africa with me… into the jungle.
[Lestat:]
No. l'm too close to finding Marius.
[Gabrielle:]
I am asking you to try, only once, to move through the world as I do.
Song: The Crimson Kiss
[Gabrielle:]
For so many years we've shared this path together
Kindred spirits in search of history
For you the Holy Grail is where we come from
But it's a different road I crave these days for me
You dwell so on the dawn of our creation
And search for ghosts of our mythology
But for now the wonders that the world can offer
Mean more to me than ancient family trees
To hear the waves pound the timbers of a schooner
Fighting off the coastline of Cape Horn
To travel in the shadow of the long boats
To where the giants of the arctic ice were born
Or the mystery of the deep dark Congo river
Where the crocodile hunts and the python strikes
To watch another predator in action
Could rejuvenate some meaning in my life
With the well spring of my strength unrestricted
There's so little I could fail to endure
I could face a trek across the Himalayas
Survive the freezing mists of Scottish moors
My need to go is hard to fight
I want to gaze upon this world
Just like the northern lights
And of all the things about you
That I'm going to miss
Is the bond we've formed together
Through this crimson kiss
My son, my dear, the world's out there
History calls and I can't resist
But you and me have memories
Bound together by the crimson kiss
[Lestat:]
I did not give you the Dark Gift so you could turn and walk away from me!
[Gabrielle:]
I gave you the gift of life… knowing that you would someday walk away from me.
I would read of czarist Russia and St. Petersburg
When I was sick and human long ago
Now there burns in me a passion for adventure
A need to wake where savage trumpets blow
The thrill to hunt in such exotic places
I can almost taste those beauties in Siam
The brown skinned boys of Mikonos and Rangoon
The shy Chinese behind their painted fans
My need to go is hard to fight
I want to gaze upon this world
Just like the northern lights
And of all the things about you
That I'm going to miss
Is the bond we've formed together
Through this crimson kiss
My son, so dear, the world's out there
History calls and I can't resist
But you and me have memories
Bound together by the crimson kiss
My son, so dear, the world's out there
History calls and I can't resist
But you and me have memories
Bound together by the crimson kiss
[Lestat:]
Please, I can't endure the loneliness. Stay with me.
[Gabrielle:]
I cannot… any more than you can stay with me.
[Lestat:]
How will we ever find each other again?
(In answer she strokes his hair and holds his face as if to memorize it forever.)
[Gabrielle:]
I love you, my son.
(He clings to her. After a moment, she pulls back.)
Promise me you will never seek to end it without us coming together again.
[Lestat:]
I will never seek to end it.
(She kisses him on the lips and then she moves away.)
Gabrielle!
(But she is already gone. Clutching NICOLAS' violin he drops his head and weeps. Long moments pass. The stage brightens slightly as if illuminated by the first rays of the rising sun. LESTAT turns his head toward the light.)
I will never seek to end it.
Song: The Thirst (Reprise)
[Lestat:]
What have I done have I become
A curse to those I love?
I've made them mine then drove them out
Just cast off like a glove
No longer can I bear this pain
This hex I hang in's like a noose
The prophecy from Armand's tongue
Mocks my failure with the truth
For must I face eternity
Each second like a dying breath
No mate to share this shadowland
Tears the heart from out my chest
My body aches to feel the earth
This soft damp ground could bring release
I need to hide from my own self
And feel the healing power of sleep
(As LESTAT sings, he «sinks» into the ground. A scrim rises from the floor depicting the dark soil. Through the scrim, we see LESTAT «suspended» in the darkness of the deep earth. Time passes. Above him, the green palm trees, the bougainvillea, the tropical plants dry up and blow away in a hot wind. Clouds scud across the sky above. A thousand voices in the streets of the city. A babble of foreign tongues. Laughter. The garden walls crack and crumble. Deep in the earth, there is only darkness and the Thirst. Then high above… billowing red clouds… flowing fabric … which part to reveal a vampire suspended above as if floating in the air. THE VAMPIRE MARIUS. He reaches a hand out of the red cloud down toward LESTAT.)
[Marius:]
Come.
(From deep in the earth, LESTAT hears the command and reaches his hand up toward MARIUS. He shoots upward out of the earth into the sky as THE LIGHTS BLACK OUT. CURTAINS.)
END OF ACT ONE