"Locked together in hatred," was how Claudia described their trio, and Louis felt despair towards all this. Claudia had nowhere to go, and it seemed like he felt neither did he. Living alone as a mortal, in one's twilight years, awaiting death in a home for the aged... we are familiar with this in this century. Sad this image might be, but something the society has come to expect. But to live alone for all eternity?
Louis and Claudia did not yet know that there were other vampires besides them. And they were stuck with Lestat, their enigmatic, charismatic, and villainous maker. I wish I can quote in full here what Claudia said to Louis, for it was so insightful, and important regarding Louis's character and nature, and elegantly written. But I would not. I would rather that you read the novel alongside me. That you even read deeper into it, farther than my own slovenly pace, and admire it on your own. All of this beautiful insight to Louis's character amidst the image of the skull and lavender petals.
At this point it is revealed what Claudia's vampire age was: sixty-five years old, trapped forever in a young child's body. And now she connives with Louis to leave Lestat, something that Louis had often dreamed of but never thought possible.
While I feel sorry for Lestat, I side with Claudia in this. I think everyone in an abusive relationship, where one deems to make himself master and of his equals his slaves, should leave. No one deserves to be abused and used. I live in the Philippines, probably the only country in the world today where the Catholic Church holds the bastion over the government. We have no divorce laws, and "annulment" laws are only for the rich. So many abused wives (or husbands) are stuck in marriages that are better ended. But to be locked together in hatred is to be in hell on earth.
This is never an easy decision, of course. The price of liberation. But to do that, one must be free first in his own mind. Louis had always seen himself as trapped, fated unto Lestat. Claudia saw different. Claudia had a plan.
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