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But you see, if a vampire leaves out details like clothes, the storydoesn't make sense. Even the most grandiose mythic characters?
if they are flesh and blood梔o have to worry about the latchets onsandals.
It struck me with full force that I was back from the realm whereclothes changed shape through the will of the clothed. That I wascovered in dirt and did have only one shoe.
I stood up, fully alert, removed the veil carefully without unfoldingit or chancing to look at it, though I thought I could see the darkimage through the cloth. I removed all my garments with care, andthen stacked them together on the blanket, so that not one pineneedle would be lost that didn't have to be lost. And then I went into thenearby bathroom梩he customary chamber of tile and ferocioussteam梐nd bathed like a man being baptized in the Jordan. Davidhad laid out for me all the requisite toys梒ombs, brushes, scissors.
Vampires need almost nothing else, really.
All the while I had the door of the bathroom open. Had anyonedared to step into the bedroom I would have leapt from the steamydownpour and ordered that person out.
At last I myself emerged, wet and clean, combed my hair, driedcarefully, and put on all of my own fresh garments from the insideout, that is from silk shorts and undershirt and black socks, to theclean wool pants, shirt, vest, and double-breasted blazer of a bluesuit.
Then I bent down and picked up the folded veil. I held it, notdaring to open it.
But I could see the darkness on the other side of the fabric. Thistime I was sure. I put the veil inside my vest, buttoning the vest tight.
I looked in the mirror. It was a madman in a Brooks Brothers suit,a demon with wild, frenzied blond locks, his collar open, staring withone horrible eye at himself in the mirror.
The eye, good God, the eye!
My fingers moved up to examine the empty socket, the slightlywrinkled lids that tried to close it off. What to do, what to do. If onlyI had a black patch, a gentleman's patch. But I didn't.
My face was desecrated by the missing eye. I realized I was shakingviolently. David had left for me one of my broad, scarflike ties, ofviolet silk, and this I wrapped around my collar, making it stand uplike a collar of old, very stiff, the scarf surrounding it with layer afterlayer as one might see in some portrait of Beethoven.
I tucked the tails of the scarf down into the vest. In the mirror, myeye burnt violet with the violet of the scarf. I saw the blackness on theleft side, made myself look at it, rather than simply compensate for it.
I slipped on my shoes, stared back at the ruined clothes, picked upa few bits of dust and dried leaf, and laid all that carefully on theblanket, so that as little as possible would be lost, and then I wentoutside into the hallway.
The flat was sweetly warm, and full of a popular but notoverpowering incense梥omething that made me think of Catholic churchesof old, when the altar boy swung the silver censer at the end of hischain.
As I came into the living room, I saw the three of them very distinctly,ranged about the cheerfully lighted space, the even illuminationmaking a mirror of the nightwalls beyond which the snowcontinued to descend upon New York. I wanted to see the snow. Iwalked past them and put my eye up against tne glass. The whole roofof St. Patrick's was white with fresh snow, the steep spires shaking offas much as they could, though every speck of ornament was decoratedin white. The street was an impassable valley of white. Had theyceased to plow it?
People of New York moved below. Were these only the living? Istared with my right eye. I could see only what seemed to be the living.
I scanned the roof of the church in a near panic, suddenly, expectingto see a gargoyle wound into the artwork and discover thatthe gargoyle was alive and watching me.
But I had no feeling of anyone except those in the room, whom Iloved, who were patiently waiting upon me and my melodramaticand self-indulgent silence.
I turned around. Armand had once again decked himself out inhigh-fashion velvet and embroidered lace, the kind of "romantic newlook" one could find at any of the shops in the deep crevasse belowus. His auburn hair was free and uncut and hung down in the way itused to do in ages long past, when as Satan's saint of the vampires ofParis, he would not have allowed himself the vanity to cut one lock ofit. Only it was clean, shining clean, auburn in the light, and againstthe dark blood-red of his coat. And there were his sad and alwaysyouthful eyes looking at me, the smooth boyish cheeks, the angel'smouth. He sat at the table, reserved, filled with love and curiosity,and even a vague kind of humility which seemed to say:
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