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"Yes," he said at once.

"But don't you see, the color of wine in a crystal glass can be spiritual," I continued. `"The look in a face, the music of a violin. A Paris theater can be infused with the spiritual for all its solidity. There's nothing in it that hasn't been shaped by the power of those who possessed spiritual visions of what it could be. "

Something quickened in him, but he pushed it away.

"Seduce the public with voluptuousness," Gabrielle said. "For God's sake, and the devil's, use the power of the theater as you will. "

"Weren't the paintings of your master spiritual?" I asked. I could feel a warming in myself now at the thought of it. "Can anyone look on the great works of that time and not call them spiritual?"

"I have asked myself that question," Armand answered, "many times. Was it spiritual or was it voluptuous? Was the angel painted on the triptych caught in the material, or was the material transformed?"

"No matter what they did to you after, you never doubted the beauty and the value of his work," I said. "I know you didn't. And it was the material transformed. It ceased to be paint and it became magic, just as in the kill the blood ceases to be blood and becomes life. "

His eyes misted, but no visions came from him. Whatever road he traveled back in his thoughts, he traveled alone.

"The carnal and the spiritual," Gabrielle said, "come together in the theater as they do in the paintings. Sensual fiends we are by our very nature. Take this as your key. "

He closed his eyes for a moment as if he would shut us out.

"Go to them and listen to the music that Nicki makes," she said. "Make art with them in the Theater of the Vampires. You have to pass away from what failed you into what can sustain you. Otherwise -- there is no hope. "

I wished she had not said it so abruptly, brought it so to the point.

But he nodded and his lips pressed together in a bitter smile.

"The only thing really important for you," she said slowly, "is that you go to an extreme. "

He stared at her blankly. He could not possibly understand what she meant by this. And I thought it too brutal a truth to say. But he didn't resist it. His face became thoughtful and smooth and childlike again.

For a long time he looked at the fire. Then he spoke:

"But why must you go at all?" he asked. "No one is at war with you now. No one is trying to drive you out. Why can't you build it with me, this little enterprise?"

Did that mean he would do it, go to the others and become part of the theater in the boulevard?

He didn't contradict me. He was asking again why couldn't I create the imitation of life, if that was what I wanted to call it, right in the boulevard?

But he was also giving up. He knew I couldn't endure the sight of the theater, or the sight of Nicolas. I couldn't even really urge him towards it. Gabrielle had done that. And he knew that it was too late to press us anymore.

Finally Gabrielle said:

"We can't live among our own kind, Armand. "

And I thought, yes, that is the truest answer of all, and I don't know why I couldn't speak it aloud.

"The Devil's Road is what we want," she said. "And we are enough for each other now. Maybe years and years into the future, when we've been a thousand places and seen a thousand things, we'll come back. We'll talk then together as we have tonight. "

This came as no real shock to him. But it was impossible now to know what he thought.

For a long time we didn't speak. I don't know how long we remained quiet together in the room.

I tried not to think of Marius anymore, or of Nicolas either. All sense of danger was gone now, but I was afraid of the parting, of the sadness of it, of the feeling that I had taken from this creature his astonishing story and given him precious little for it in return.

It was Gabrielle who finally broke the quiet. She rose and moved gracefully to the bench beside him.

"Armand," she said. "We are going. If I have my way we'll be miles from Paris before midnight tomorrow night. "

He looked at her with calm and acceptance. Impossible to know now what he chose to conceal.