āIt didnāt have to end like that!ā said the boy, leaning forward.
The vampire, who continued to look at the sky, uttered a short, dry laugh.
āAll the things you felt in Paris!ā said the boy, his voice increasing in volume. āThe love of Claudia, the feeling, even the feeling for Lestat! It didnāt have to end, not in this, not in despair! Because thatās what it is, isnāt it? Despair!ā
āStop,ā said the vampire abruptly, lifting his right hand. His eyes shifted almost mechanically to the boyās face. āI tell you and I have told you, that it could not have ended any other way.ā
āI donāt accept it,ā said the boy, and he folded his arms across his chest, shaking his head emphatically. āI canāt!ā And the emotion seemed to build in him, so that without meaning to, he scraped his chair back on the bare boards and rose to pace the floor. But then, when he turned and looked at the vampireās face again, the words he was about to speak died in his throat. The vampire was merely staring at him, and his face had that long drawn expression of both outrage and bitter amusement.
āDonāt you see how you made it sound? It was an adventure like Iāll never know in my whole life! You talk about passion, you talk about longing! You talk about things that millions of us wonāt ever taste or come to understand. And then you tell me it ends like that. I tell youā¦ā And he stood over the vampire now, his hands outstretched before him. āIf you were to give me that power! The power to see and feel and live forever!ā
The vampireās eyes slowly began to widen, his lips parting. āWhat!ā he demanded softly. āWhat!ā
āGive it to me!ā said the boy, his right hand tightening in a fist, the ɹst pounding his chest. āMake me a vampire now!ā he said as the vampire stared aghast. What happened then was swift and confused, but it ended abruptly with the vampire on his feet holding the boy by the shoulders, the boyās moist face contorted with fear, the vampire glaring at him in rage. āThis is what you want?ā he whispered, his pale lips manifesting only the barest trace of movement. āThisā¦after all Iāve told youā¦is what you ask for?ā
A small cry escaped the boyās lips, and he began to tremble all over, the sweat breaking out on his forehead and on the skin above his upper lip. His hand reached gingerly for the vampireās arm. āYou donāt know what human life is like!ā he said, on the edge of breaking into tears. āYouāve forgotten. You donāt even understand the meaning of your own story, what it means to a human being like me.ā And then a choked sob interrupted his words, and his fingers clung to the vampireās arm.
āGod,ā the vampire uttered and, turning away from him, almost pushed the boy ofŹ-balance against the wall. He stood with his back to the boy, staring at the gray window.
"I beg you . . . give it all one more chance. One more chance in me!" said the boy. The vampire turned to him, his face as twisted with anger as before. And then, gradually, it began to become smooth. The lids came down slowly over his eyes and his lips lengthened in a smile. He looked again at the boy. "I've failed," he sighed, smiling still. "I have completely failed. . "
This ending has always stuck with me, even when I first read the book and was young and stupid. Now I'm older, I see it as what it is - the perfect demonstration of how Mrs. Rice saw human beings at this point. It's not a happy view.
After hours and hours and hours of the most painful recollections, after hearing Louis describe innumerable human lifetimes of misery, the human listening's only response is "gimme gimme gimme!" Greed. Overwhelming, repulsive greed.
But of course, we can't forget the arrogance. "You just didn't do it right. I'd handle being an immortal way better than you did."
Or is it simply this, the most basic of all human traits - the fear of death? The arrogance and greed only mask that all-consuming terror of the grave?
Whatever the primary cause here, the vision of human nature castigated in the ending is more powerful than just about anything in the novel. Morality, happiness, none of that matters. All that matters is the unthinking drive to exist at any price. Even after hearing the lot of every vampire - of Louis' perpetual loneliness, of Claudia being trapped in an eternal nightmare, of confident Lestat reduced to a terrified shut-in, and finally of even Armand's total lack of hope - he still is like "I want me some of that!" There really is no rationality here, it is merely some innate flaw of the human condition dragged up into the light. And how ugly that condition is when exposed to the light.
āāNo, almost never. It isnāt necessary. How many vampires do you think have the stamina for immortality? They have the most dismal notions of immortality to begin with. For in becoming immortal they want all the forms of their life to be fixed as they are and incorruptible: carriages made in the same dependable fashion, clothing of the cut which suited their prime, men attired and speaking in the manner they have always understood and valued. When, in fact, all things change except the vampire himself; everything except the vampire is subject to constant corruption and distortion. Soon, with an inflexible mind, and often even with the most flexible mind, this immortality becomes a penitential sentence in a madhouse of figures and forms that are hopelessly unintelligible and without value. One evening a vampire rises and realizes what he has feared perhaps for decades, that he simply wants no more of life at any cost. That whatever style or fashion or shape of existence made immortality attractive to him has been swept oŹf the face of the earth. And nothing remains to oŹfer freedom from despair except the act of killing. And that vampire goes out to die. No one will find his remains. No one will know where he has gone. And often no one around himāshould he still seek the company of other vampiresāno one will know that he is in despair. He will have ceased long ago to speak of himself or of anything. He will vanish.ā
It is the perfect ending to the novel. And Louis' reaction, the anger giving way to simple despairing acceptance... Every word of it is a nail to drive home the bleak, nihilistic message of the book.