分节阅读_115

  my own expression, but something in it made
  him grow somber. his hao his side aood very still,
  his eyes i ohe silehened. his features were
  immobile as stone.
  ”what is it?” i whispered, toug his frozen face.
  his faed under my hand, and he sighed. ”i keep waiting for it to
  happen.”
  ”for en?”
  ”i knooiell you or something you see is
  goioo mud then you'll run away fr as you
  go.” he smiled half a smile, but his eyes were serious. ”i won't stop
  you. i want this to happe you to be safe. a, i
  wah you. the two desires are impossible to recile…” he
  trailed at my fag.
  ”i'm n anywhere,” i promised.
  ”we'll see,” he said, smiling again.
  i frow him. ”so, go on — carlisle was swimming to france.”
  he paused, getting bato his story. reflexively, his eyes flickered
  to aure — the most all, the most ornately
  framed, a; it ide as the d
  to. the vas overflowed with bright figures in swirlihing
  around long pillars and off marbled balies. i 't tell if it
  represehology, or if the characters floating in the clouds
  above were meant to be biblical.
  ”carlisle swam to frand ued h europe, to the
  uhere. by udied musice, medid
  found his g, his pe, in saving human lives.” his
  expression became awed, almost reverent. ”i 't adequately describe the
  struggle; it took carlisle two turies of torturous effort to perfect
  his self-ow he is all but immu of human blood,
  and he is able to do the work he loves without agony. he fi
  deal of peace there, at the hospital…” edward stared off into space for a
  lo. suddeo recall his purpose. he tapped his
  fi the huge painting in front of us.
  ”he was studying in italy when he discovered the others there. they were
  much more civilized ahe wraiths of the london sewers.”
  he touparatively sedate quartet of figures paihe
  highest baly, looking down ayhem below them. i examined
  the grouping carefully ah a startled laugh, that i
  reized the golden-haired man.
  ”solimely inspired by carlisle's frieen painted
  them as gods,” edward chuckled. ”aro, marcus, caius,” he said, indig
  the other three, two black-haired, one sime patrons of
  the arts.”
  ”ehem?” i wondered aloud, my fiip h a
  timeter from the figures on the vas.
  ”they're still there.” he shrugged. ”as they have been for
  many millennia. carlisle stayed with them only for a short time, just a
  few decades. he greatly admired their civility, their refi
  they persisted in trying to cure his aversion to 'his natural food
  source,' as they called it. they tried to persuade him, ao
  persuade them, to no avail. at that point, carlisle decided to try the
  new world. he dreamed of finding others like himself. he was very lonely,
  you see.
  ”he didn't find any time. but, as mohe stuff
  of fairy tales, he found he terasuspeg humans as if
  he were ohem. he began prag medie. but the panionship
  he craved evaded him; he 't risk familiarity.
  ”when the influe, he was whts in a hospital in
  chicago. he'd been turning over an idea in his mind for several years,
  and he had almost decided to ace he 't find a panion, he
  would e. he wasn't absolutely sure how his own transformation
  had occurred, so he was hesitah to steal anyone's life
  the way his had bee was in that frame of mind that he found
  me. there e for me; i was left in a ward with the dying. he had
  nursed my parents, and knew i was aloo try…”
  his voiearly a whisper now, tr