LESTAT
Your mama's left you with us. She wants you to be happy.
LOUIS(WHISPER)
You are the devil! You are the instrument of Satan!
LESTAT
Shhhh! Do you want to frighten our little daughter?
CLAUDIA
I'm not your daughter.
LESTAT
Yes you are, my dearest. You are mine and Louis' daughter. You see Louis
was going to leave us. He was going to go away.
But now he's not. He's going to stay and make you happy.
Claudia runs over to him. She smiles at him.
CLAUDIA
Lou...eee...
Louis is conflicted. He cannot leave her. He touches her cheeks, her
hair. Same as his. Vampire skin and hair. He
draws in his breath, shocked by her beauty, then he embraces her as
a father might a daughter. He looks over her
shoulder to Lestat.
LOUIS
You fiend. You monster.
Lestat smiles
LESTAT
One happy family.
INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO.
Malloy is open mouthed.
MALLOY
A child vampire!
He sees the tape has run out. He rapidly and clumsily sticks in another.
LOUIS
Shall we go on?
MALLOY
He did it to make you stay with him!
LOUIS
Perhaps. He knew me. He knew I would love her more than the waking world.
But there was more to it than that. Perhaps in
the end he did it -- to show me that he could. For he lavished affection
on her, there was no doubt about that. Life was very
different with madame Claudia, as you can imagine...
EXT. NEW SPANISH TOWNHOUSE. (RUE ROYALE, NEW ORLEANS)
Two husky movers bring in furniture through the back courtyard, past
the fountain and the banana trees, up the back
stairs and into ---
INT FLAT
Striped wallpaper gives way to flowers in the bedrooms. Huge four-poster
beds in the bedrooms, and large chests, as
big as coffins standing against the wall. Everywhere there are candles
and pretty Louis XVI furniture. Lestat gives
instructions to the movers.
WE MOVE INTO --
A DIMLY LIT PARLOUR
We see Claudia draped in lace standing on a petit point chair as a DRESSMAKER measure out a garment.
Louis can be seen, in an inner room.
DRESSMAKER
Monsuier, I need more light. I shall go slind if you do not bring me a lamp, or let me fit this child during the day. Ouch!
She has pricked her hand. A spot of blood appears on her finger Claudia takes her hand.
CLAUDIA
Let me kiss it better...
Claudia brings the hand to her lips. The dressmaker abruptly pulls her finger away, in pain again.
CU her finger - two holes showing.
LOUIS (VO)
A little child she was, but also a fierce killer, now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child's demanding.
Lestat walks through - sees the dressmaker lying dead at Claudia's feet,
Claudia still on the chair in the half-finished
dress.
LESTAT
Claudia, Claudia, will you never learn? Who will we get now to finish your dress? A little practicality, cherie...
INT. LOUIS' BEDROOM. NIGHT.
LOUIS (VO)
She would sleep in my coffin, daily, curl her child's fingers round my hair as she dreamt of I know not what...
Claudia and Louis, sleeping in a coffin together, Claudia's fingers curling his hair.
INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM.
Claudia playing with dolls, each as perfect and beautifully dressed as she is.
LOUIS (VO)
Mute and beautiful, she played with dolls, dressing them and undressing them by the hour.
INT. PARLOUR. NIGHT.
Claudia tinkling with her child's hands on the piano, picking out a hesitant tune.
LOUIS (VO)
Mute and beautiful, she killed. And to watch her kill was chilling.
EXT. SQUARE. NIGHT.
The tinkling of Claudia's piano is heard, over -
A well-dressed lady, walking through a square lit by gaslight. The lady hears a child's sobbing and stops, turns.
POV --
Claudia, the picture of lost innocence, sitting on a bench and crying.
WOMAN
Why are you crying, child?
The woman, all solicitude, goes to Claudia.
WOMAN
Are you lost, my love?
CLAUDIA
Mama...
WOMAN
Hush now, don't cry, We'll find her...
CLAUDIA
Mama...
The woman takes Claudia in her arms. Claudia nestles her head in her shoulder, her teeth near her neck.
LOUIS (VO)
They found death fast in those days, before she lernt to play with the, to delay the moment till she had taken what she wanted...
INT. PARLOUR. NIGHT.
A stern, stiff piano-teacher (male) beating time with a ruler as Claudia
picks out scales on the piano. He raps her on
the knuckles.
PIANO-TEACHER
The thumb girl! Mind the thumb!
Claudia glares at him, then returns to playing, improving rapidly.
INT. DOLL-SHOP. NIGHT.
Piano music over. Mozart, now well played.
Claudia staring at a glass case, inside of which are an array of eighteenth
century dolls. An old doll-maker looks down
on her.
DOLLMAKER
They are expensive, my dear. Maybe too expensive for a young girl like you...
EXT. STREET. NIGHT.
Claudia walking along, clutching the doll.
INT. DOLL-SHOP. NIGHT.
The dollmaker lying dead, two puncture marks in his throat, his dolls scattered all around him.
EXT. UNDERTAKER'S. NIGHT.
Claudia and Louis looking through the window at a display of coffins. Claudia point at the smallest one.
LOUIS (VO)
She grew, yet stayed the same. She wanted a bed of her own, yet would climb back into mine.
INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.
The child's coffin on the floor. The lid lifts. Claudia emerges, yawning, wanders through the flat into. -
LOUIS' BEDROOM
Where his coffin sits. She slides the lid off, and curls in beside him.
INT. PARLOUR. NIGHT.
Claudia playing the piano, now with remarkable dexterity. The piano-teacher
sits mute beside her. As she plays, he
topples over and falls to the ground. We see the puncture-marks in
his neck. Lestat, hearing the noise, comes in.
LESTAT
Claudia, Claudia! Didn't I tell you, never in the house!
Claudia smiles to herself, keeps playing.
INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.
CANARIES sing in a cage, above a child's coffin.
Claudia is writing at a secretaire. She is writing in a diary with a
quill pen in an adult hand. She murmurs the date as
she writes.
CLAUDIA
September 21st, one hour after sunset. The sky is still violet, the
way Louis loves and as always Lestat was gone when we
rose.
She looks up and sees Louis in the doorway, watching her.
LOUIS
How did you learn to write, Claudia?
CLAUDIA
The way I learn everything. By watching you.
She closes the diary.
CLAUDIA
But you never let me see you kill, Louis.
LOUIS
Lestat taught you all you need to know about that.
CLAUDIA
Infant death, he calls me. Sweet daughter death. You know what he calls you? Merciful death.
& nbsp; LOUIS
He jests.
CLAUDIA
Why does he call you that?
LOUIS
Hush, Claudia don't talk about such things. Show me your book.
She opens it. Inside there is a beautiful pen and ink portrait of Louis.
LOUIS
Claudia! You did that?
CLAUDIA
Sit still. It's not finished -
She begins to fill in the sketch.
LOUIS (VO)
Time can pass fast for mortals when they're happy. With us it was the same.
EXT. RUE ROYALE. NIGHT (1800'S)
Street lamps are oil at this period. Houses are now tall two-story Spanish
style. Streets are flagstone. Passing carriages
are black.
LOUIS (VO)
It was a very different life. And a new century was beginning. what
had once been a small godforsaken French colony was
growing into a great port, giving us an endless train of magnificent
strangers...
Claudia, Louis and Lestat, dressed in the same clothes walking through
a racuous carnival with sideshows. Crowd
milling around, sailors, whores, children, thieves, freed slaves, Indians.
They pass a Wild West display, jugglers,
fire-eaters, three-card tricksters...
LOUIS (VO)
All human life was here, for the taking. And we took, all three of us, in our different ways...
They come to a raised platform where a troupe of perfectly-formed midgets do a burleque show.
Claudia stops. She stares, at these small, perfect creatures like herself, intrigued and troubled.
Louis and Lestat walk on, not noticing as --
CLAUDIA
Circles the troupe. She comes to a small tent, behind it. At the entrance stands a midget youth.
YOUTH
You want to come inside, lovely?
CLAUDIA walks up to him.
YOUTH
Ever been kissed?
Claudia shakes her head. He kisses her. Claudia allow her to be kissed,
then bites his tongue. he youth struggles, as
Claudia holds him and drains him. She lets him go as Louis appears
behind her.
CLAUDIA
She's like me, Louis. Small and yet not small at all. Like me.
Louis hurriedly draws her away.
LOUIS (VO)
I watched her grow yet stay the same, her doll-like face possessed of adult eyes, eery, powerful, seductive...
INT. FLAT NIGHT.
Claudia playing the piano, now like a demonic Liszt. Louis writing.
Lestat appears in the doorway. He has a big box in his arms.
CLAUDIA
Another doll? I have ten, you realise.
FOCUS ON early 19th Century French dolls -- wood, glass, wax, bisque
-- all around the bedroom, on chairs, on the
bed. Some newish, some tattered old.
LESTAT
Well, I thought you could use another.
He hands her the box. It is a fine Parisian Jumeau doll. She likes it and stokes its face.
CLAUDIA
Why always on this night?
LESTAT
What night? What do you mean?
CLAUDIA
You always give me the doll on the same night of the year.
LESTAT
I didn't realise.
CLAUDIA
Is this my birthday?
He examines the other dolls.
LESTAT
Some of these are so old and tattered. You should throw them away.
CLAUDIA
I have. Or there would be twice as many.
LESTAT
But you're the fairest by far.
CLAUDIA
You dress me like a doll. You make my hair like a doll. Why?
Lestat doesn't answer. Claudia stands up quickly, and strides out into the -
PARLOUR, where Louis is reading by the window. She walks to a mirrored
cabinet, takes out a scissors and begins
cutting her hair.
CLAUDIA
You want me to be a doll forever?
LOUIS
Claudia - don't -
CLAUDIA
Why not?
She continues cutting. She sees Lestat emerge from her bedroom in the
mirror behind her then turns to him, an angelic
little boy's face now with soft curls around her face.
CLAUDIA
Can't I change, like everybody else?
She walks past him, back into her bedroom and slams the door.
A beat. Louis looks from the mass of blonde hair on the floor to Lestat.
Then a HORRID SCREAM pierces the silence.
More screams, which become roars.
INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM.
She stands before the dressing-table, all her long hair grown back over
her shoulders. She holds it with both hands,
screaming and screaming. Lestat and Louis come through the door.
CLAUDIA
Which of you did it? Which of you made me the way I am?
LESTAT
What you are? You would be something other than you are?
CLAUDIA
And if I cut my hair again?
LESTAT
It will grow back again!
CLAUDIA
But it wasn't always so! I had a mother once! And Louis - he had a wife! He was mortal the same as she! And so was I!
LOUIS
Claudia -
She turns on Lestat.
CLAUDIA
You made us what we are, didn't you?
LESTAT
Stop her Louis!
CLAUDIA
DID YOU DO IT TO ME????
She runs at him with the scissors, scoring his face. The cut heals.
She scores it again. It heals again. She stares at him
in horror.
CLAUDIA (WHISPERING)
How did you do it?
LESTAT
And why should I tell you? It's in my power.
CLAUDIA
Why yours alone? Tell me how it was done!!!!
LESTAT
Be glad I made you what you are! You'd be dead not if I hadn't.
He storms out. Louis goes to Claudia and picks her up in his arms.
LOUIS (TENDERLY)
We're immortal. You've always known that.
CLAUDIA
Tell me why...you've got to tell me...
Louis carries her outside, onto the porch. There is an old flower-seller going by.
&nbs p; LOUIS
You see the old woman? That will never happen to you. You'll never grow old. You will never die.
CLAUDIA
And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never, ever grow up.
She clutches Louis desperately.
CLAUDIA
I hate him. But I cannot bear to lose you. You're the only companion
I have, forever. You taught me everything I know. Please
tell me Louis. Tell me how it came to be that I am this... thing...
Louis strokes her beautiful face, her hair.
LOUIS
Come... I've something to show you...
EXT. NEW ORLEANS STREETS. NIGHT.
Louis walking, holding Claudia as if he was about to lose her.
LOUIS (VO)
Though everything was changed, through the years had warped the contours
of the streets, I found my way there, aware that
I'd always known where it was and avoided it, not wanting to pass the
doorway where I'd first heard Claudia cry.
Louis back in the same street, outside the same house. He stands with
Claudia at the window. There is a family inside,
a picture of domestic tranquility.
LOUIS
I heard you crying. You were there in a room with your mother. You were
hugging her for warmth, crying pitifully as you had
been for days. Because your mother was dead...
Claudia stares at him, suddenly very cold, very alert.
LOUIS
I opened the shutters... I came into the room... I felt pity for you. Pity, but something else.
He can't go on. Claudia's eyes are remoreseless.
CLAUDIA
You... fed on me?
LOUIS
And he found me with you. I ran, sickened at what I'd done. Then he
cut his wrist and fed you from him. I tried to stop him, but
you were a vampire then. And have been every night hereafter.
CLAUDIA
You both did it?
LOUIS
I took your life. He gave you another one.
Claudia speaks through indrawn breath.
CLAUDIA
And here it is. And I hate you both.
She runs.
INT. ROOM SAN FRANCISCO.
Malloy and Louis.
MALLOY
But why did you tell her?
LOUIS
How could I not? She had to know.
MALLOY
And did you lose her? Did she go?
LOUIS
Where would she have gone? She was a child, and beautiful, heartbreaking merciless child. And I had made her that...
EXT. STREETS. NIGHT.
Louis, walking the streets, shivering.
LOUIS
I walked all night. I walked as I walked years before when my mind swam
with guilt at the thought of killing. I found myself at
the Cathedral.
A cathedral rising out of the mist, the doors open.
LOUIS
I thought of all the things I had done and couldn't undo. And I longed for one second's peace...
Louis walks towards the doors, inside.
INT. CATHEDRAL. NIGHT.
Louis enters. The dim lights of candles. A sacristan tending the altar, an old woman praying -- otherwise empty.
LOUIS
I had no fear. If anything I longed for something to happen, for the stones to tremble as I entered the foyer.
Louis walking down the nave of the church. He stops by the alter.
LOUIS
I almost genuflected from old habit. I almost prayed.
Louis sits in a pew.
LOUIS
And then it struck me.
Louis' POV - the cross, the statues, the tabernacle.
LOUIS
What if the statues gave an image to nothing? What if I was the supernatural
in this cathedral? The only immortal under this
roof. And I felt nothing but loneliness. Loneliness to the point of
madness.
Suddenly a hand is laid on his shoulder. Louis almost jumps. He turns and sees the face of a grey-haired priest.
PRIEST
You wish to go to confession? I was about to lock up the church.
Louis stares at him, tears in his eyes.
PRIEST
You are troubled, aren't you? Can I help?
LOUIS
It's too late, too late -
PREIST
No, it's never too late. Come...
The priest gestures to the confessional. Louis rises, slowly.
INT. CONFESSIONAL.
Louis, kneeling in the darkness. The hatch slides back.
LOUIS
Bless me father for I have sinned so often and so long, I don't know how to change nor beg for forgiveness.
PRIEST
Son, God is infinite in his capacity to forgive. Tell him from your heart.
LOUIS
Murders, father, death after death. The woman who died two nights ago
in Jackson Square, I killed her. And thousands of
others before her. I have walked the streets of New Orleans like the
Grim reaper. And fed on human life for my own. I am a
vampire, father, and have turned the one I love most of all into on
too --
The hatch slams down. Louis rises, confused, and the door is flung open, the priest stands there.
PRIEST
Do you know the meaning of sacrilege?
Louis rises. Walks out.
LOUIS
Then there is no mercy.
His face comes into the light. The priest steps back, open-mouthed.
LOUIS
You talk of sacrilege. Why if God exists does he suffer me to exist?
He bares his fangs. The priest runs, screaming. Gets to the bellrope, begins to ring the bell. Louis swoops on him.
LOUIS
Why does he suffer me to live?
Louis takes him, lifting him from the floor, till his feet stop kicking.