Immortal Beloved
By: Lisa
March 2000


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My flesh is stone cold and without color as I sit here in my room. Sybelle's feverish pounding of the Apassionata are beginning to wear on me. Armand loves this one, and I have given my word to keep her safe, but I fear she knows I am weakening.

She begs me with each sounding of the Grandfather clock to give her the gift. This mortal child yearns for immortality more than any being I have ever met. Benji has also approached me, but so far he has been much easier to dissuade. However, Sybelle seems to derive pleasure out of tormenting me with her mortality. Each time that Pandora leaves the room the mortal child is touching me, offering herself to me. I am repulsed and excited at the same time. Needless to say, I am infuriated with myself.

And then she plays the damned piano... The Appassionata of all pieces... She plays the piece with a flawless, insane brilliance and a feverish intensity that makes my blood race through my ancient veins with a fiery passion that leaves me dizzy at times. The child is in danger with me, I know this, and yet, I cannot keep her away from me. And now the melody is playing again, faster it seems. She plays the piece just as he did. I am feeling sensations that I haven't experienced for nearly 200 years, since the night I heard Beethoven begin his work on the Appassionata.

He was 34, the night his frenzied melodies first attracted my attention. I was walking the streets of Vienna late at night. All of the homes were dark and quiet, save for one. I could hear a man's crazed rantings followed by the most intricate, passionate piano melodies, unlike anything I had heard since the death of young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Intrigued, I followed the sound and quickly located it's source.

In the upper room of a modest home, I saw flickering candlelight illuminating through the window, and in the shadows cast against the walls, I saw the form of what seemed to be a mad man. Silently willing my body into the air, I peered through the upper window. Inside I found two pianos, and a wild-eyed man sitting on the floor between them. The legs of the pianos had been sawed off so that the huge instruments were resting on the floor as he banged fiercely at the keys only to follow the action with hurried scribbling of musical notations on crumpled parchment.

I remember that night as if it were yesterday! I hovered in the dark night for hours watching this mortal genius at work. His thoughts were as scattered as his hair when I attempted to read them. His mind was full of passion and anger, while his heart was full of love and divinely inspired music, or so he believed. I watched him each night for a week as he worked for countless hours composing his Appassionata, until I couldn't stand to observe from a distance any longer. I arranged to meet the man I had been secretly watching. I was completely intrigued with the genius that was Ludwig Von Beethoven.

I quickly found that my mortal companion was completely deaf, which was the reason for the pianos to rest on the floor. He explained to me that he could "feel" the music through the vibrations he felt while sitting between them. I was fascinated that a man could write such difficult, intricate, and passionate music without being able to hear a note. Of course I could send my voice past his ears and directly into his mind which frightened him at first, but eventually he came to love my silent voice. When I finally revealed my true nature to him, he was only more intrigued, wanting to know about past civilizations that had long since died, and wondering if I had ever seen the face of his God.

We debated the true meaning of life and the existence of his Christian God for hours on end. Days turned to weeks and weeks into months when I realized that I loved the crazed mortal composer. His music spoke to me in ways that words could not, and his fiery passionate spirit ignited my immortal heart with a new zeal for life.

After a few years, I could see that my beloved Beethoven's health was beginning to fail. I could hear it in his fluttering erratic heartbeat. I began to worry for him each sunrise when I laid to rest. Would my beloved friend & composer still be alive when I awoke? Mortality is such a fragile gift... I begged him to accept eternal life, to drink of my blood and live forever, but of course he would not. He was still devoted to his "God". He was convinced, regardless of what I told him to the contrary, that his music was a divine gift from his maker. If he were to become a vampire he was certain that he would lose his music, and without that he saw no reason for living.

I respected his wishes and was lucky enough to enjoy his company for nearly 20 years. During that time, he composed some of the most brilliant music I have ever heard. His ninth symphony can still move me to tears. I was away from him for a year while I moved Those Who Must Be Kept. We kept in touch through letters, wonderful letters that expressed a love that we never discussed orally.

He was beginning his 10th symphony when his liver began to fail. He continued to refuse my offer of immortality. It was relentlessly painful for me to stand by and watch my beloved Beethoven suffer. Our last night together I cradled my beloved friend, kindred spirit, love of my soul, and held him close to my heart. He could barely whisper, but his mind spoke vividly as I read his thoughts. He told me to go. He begged me to remember him as the man he was and not the invalid he had become. Tearfully he asked me to never forget him. I wept for my dear Beethoven, but I respected his wishes. I spoke of undying love to his mind, promising to remember the Appassionata that brought us together 20 years before. He drew me close and tenderly kissed my lips. I met his eyes as he whispered, "ever thine, ever mine, ever ours..My Immortal Beloved..."

And now Sybelle sits in my home playing my beloved Beethoven's fiery passion on the piano. His florid Appassionata once again filling my ears and burning into my soul. For nearly 200 years there has been speculation about the identity of Beethoven's secret love, his "Immortal Beloved" from his letters. Never would anyone guess that his love still walked this earth, that the immortal love he described was an ancient Roman vampire.

Damn that child! Will she never stop her playing?

Pandora has just left our home to tend to Lestat and see that Armand and David are getting along civilly, and already Sybelle is calling to me... She no longer calls to me with her voice, but with her music. I cannot stand the pain, temptation and passion much longer.

Will no one come to my aid?

My beloved Beethoven would have approved of this wounded child's interpretation of his masterpiece. She plays his Appassionata with the same combination of blind anger and carnal passion that he had in his soul when he composed the piece nearly 200 years ago.

I cannot stand to hide away any longer. I must go listen, and pray that listening is all that I do.

Standing in the doorway, watching Sybelle play, I can't help but wonder if it is really Sybelle that I hear? The longer I listen, the more I see my beloved Beethoven, sitting on the floor of his upper room with candles flickering around him.

This is madness! Surely my beloved composer's spirit cannot live again inside of this tormented mortal girl's body... Or could I be wrong? Perhaps that is the reason behind her insistent playing. Could my Beethoven be calling me to him, to save him, to free his soul?

Her heartbeat is pounding in my ears, the scent of mortal blood teasing my senses as I move closer. I can hear the piano bench crashing over onto the floor, as I pull my beloved back from the piano keys. I can feel my ancient body warming now as I drink deeply, quickly taking Sybelle's life, for sadly this is not my beloved composer. I know this now. This is simply a tortured, angry child on the edge of madness, and I am about to give her eternal life!

Her eyes are dead as her lips search blindly for my open vein. I must let her drink or she will die. But immortality will not save this one from death. She is not strong enough to withstand endless night, but she cannot die this night. This child is Armand's treasure. He loves this child...

Sybelle is pulling at my heart now. Drinking deeply of the life in my veins with a voracious appetite. My decision has been made. I can only scream out a silent prayer to a fledgling who, I know, will never be able to hear me.

~~Forgive me, Amadeo. Please forgive me...~~

FINITO