I had been warned that Vittorio Cordero was a dangerous man. A mobster, a Tzimisce, once close to the Sabbat. The kind of person whose interests you are advised never to cross, especially if you wish to retain your anatomy's original shape.
I have heard more reassuring introductions.
Yet when you meet Vittorio, brutality is not what strikes you first. It is his confidence. The confidence of a man who has spent long enough in command that he no longer feels the need to keep reminding everyone of his authority.
He readily discusses strategy, organisation, competence and responsibility. He despises amateurs, braggarts and those who confuse violence with power. His conception of honour obviously has little in common with that of a knight in a novel. It began in the streets of Naples, took shape in the Marseille underworld and adapted, not without difficulty, to Kindred society.
Vittorio believes in commitments. He thinks a leader must earn his place. He prefers fear to pain, respect to terror, and considers power an obligation upon whoever holds it.
He has also abandoned men who were counting on him.
That is among the things he now agrees to discuss, although it soon becomes clear that he would rather talk about anything else.
I suggested meeting for an interview. He agreed.
I suspect he had prepared his answers.
Fortunately, I had not prepared all my questions.
“My men call me don Vittorio.”
Babyface Good evening, Vittorio. Or should I say don Vittorio?
Vittorio My men call me don Vittorio. I appreciate that form of address. The title expresses respect; the first name brings a certain familiarity. The two go very well together.
Babyface So you like your men to respect you, but also to feel close to you?
Vittorio Authority does not require permanent distance. Everyone simply needs to know their place.
Babyface And is there a name you no longer wish to hear?
Vittorio Gospod' skorbey. Lord of Sorrows, in Russian. My sire called me that when she was trying to draw me into the Sabbat.
Babyface Very theatrical.
Vittorio Far too much so. The first idiot who thought he could use that nickname to mock me ended up in torpor. It complicated my relations with certain individuals and made me pull away from them and their circle sooner. An excellent thing, in the end.
Babyface So you resolved a communication problem by putting someone into torpor?
Vittorio I resolved a problem of respect.
Babyface I note the distinction. Three words to describe yourself?
Vittorio Professional. Honourable. Calculating.
Babyface Honourable in the traditional sense?
Vittorio In the Mafia sense. Let's not pretend we mean the same thing.
Babyface And professional?
Vittorio Amateurism will get us killed. You have to think before acting, prepare whatever can be prepared, and take responsibility for your decisions. Spontaneity is for Mickey Mouse operators.
Babyface You know some people appreciate spontaneity?
Vittorio Some people are mainly fortunate that others repair their mistakes.
I smile. He has a particular way of expressing a debatable opinion with the confidence of a man who has merely stated the obvious.
“Someone showed me I could become somebody.”
Babyface Let's talk about Naples. You weren't always a leader.
Vittorio Obviously. I started like many street kids. A band of teenagers trying to survive, earn a little respect and find a place in the underworld.
Babyface Were you already dreaming of becoming a godfather?
Vittorio I dreamed of being a gang leader. At the time, that was the highest ambition I could imagine.
Babyface What is your happiest memory of mortal life?
Vittorio The day I took control of don Storenze's gang in Marseille. I overthrew an incompetent boss who thought he could solve every problem by breaking his opponents' knees.
Babyface You don't seem very impressed by his methods.
Vittorio Systematic violence is often a sign of a lack of imagination. Storenze could not understand that fear, properly employed, is far more effective than pain.
Babyface Yet that isn't the day you would choose to relive.
Vittorio No. I would return to Naples. To the day don Federico Costello came for me.
Babyface Who was he?
Vittorio My mentor. The man who gave me my first real chance.
Babyface Why him?
Vittorio Because he saw something in me that others hadn't noticed. I was a street kid, with no lineage, connections or support. To the people in that world, I amounted to very little. Costello gave me a place and showed me what I could become if I was willing to work.
Babyface He gave you ambition?
Vittorio I already had ambition. He gave it a direction.
Babyface And if you could see him again today?
Vittorio I would gladly do so. I owe him a great deal.
Babyface It is rare to hear you speak of someone with so much gratitude.
Vittorio I have never claimed to have built myself alone. You simply need to recognise those to whom you owe something.
Babyface That almost sounds like modesty.
Vittorio Let's not exaggerate.
“Fear works for you.”
Babyface You have mentioned fear several times. Do you really consider it your greatest talent?
Vittorio Yes. Pain has its limits. Fear has far fewer.
Babyface Explain.
Vittorio A man in pain knows what he is enduring. A frightened man imagines what he might endure. And his imagination will almost always do a far better job than his tormentor.
Babyface So you prefer to let your opponents torture themselves?
Vittorio I prefer them to hesitate, make mistakes and abandon their plans before I even have to act. Fear is a remarkable strategic tool.
Babyface You don't consider yourself cruel?
Vittorio No. People take me for a sadist because I am a Tzimisce mobster. That is intellectual laziness. I have never taken any particular pleasure in making someone suffer. I use the means necessary to obtain a result.
Babyface You will admit that the distinction can be rather thin from the victim's perspective.
Vittorio I am not claiming my victims appreciate my methods. I am simply saying that their suffering is not my objective.
Babyface So you distinguish cruelty from effectiveness.
Vittorio Obviously. And I find it regrettable that so many vampires cannot understand that nuance.
Babyface Perhaps because the person deciding where the boundary lies is also the one inflicting the punishment.
Vittorio That is precisely why a leader must be competent.
He does not deny the violence of his existence. He merely refuses to let it be gratuitous. I do not know whether that distinction makes him more reassuring. It certainly makes him harder to judge.
“Pistachio.”
Babyface I'd like to ask something more personal. Is there a smell or sensation that immediately takes you back to your youth?
Vittorio Pistachio.
Babyface Pistachio?
Vittorio Yes.
Babyface I must admit I wasn't expecting that answer.
Vittorio I was young. I was eating pistachio ice cream with friends. A stray bullet struck one of them in the head.
Babyface I'm sorry.
Vittorio His skull exploded. I felt his blood run over my ice cream.
He recounts it without trying to make an impression.
Babyface Do you still remember that scene precisely?
Vittorio Yes. Blood, ice cream and fear. Intense fear. It is one of the events that set me on the path I subsequently followed.
Babyface So you were terrified.
Vittorio Of course. I have never said I did not know fear.
Babyface Was that when you wanted to become the one who inflicts it rather than the one who endures it?
Vittorio That would probably be a rather simple summary. But I suppose it contributed.
Babyface Do you know what strikes me? You have spent your existence turning an emotion that marked your childhood into an instrument of power.
Vittorio We often learn more from unpleasant experiences than from pleasant ones.
Babyface Yes. Provided we don't end up inflicting them on everyone else.
“Oh, shit!”
Babyface Your first thought after the Embrace?
Vittorio Oh, shit!
I burst out laughing.
Babyface At least that is a perfectly honest reaction.
Vittorio I had just discovered that vampires really existed. Can you imagine what that implies? If a legend like that is true, how many others are true as well?
Babyface So you immediately began reconsidering your understanding of the world?
Vittorio Exactly. It called into question a host of certainties I had considered perfectly reasonable.
Babyface In the end, you find our condition interesting?
Vittorio Intellectually, yes. The human criminal underworld has a certain complexity, but its mechanisms become predictable once you know them well enough. The Kindred world adds considerable depth.
Babyface And what do you hate about us?
Vittorio Superficiality.
Babyface We are superficial?
Vittorio Often more so than mortals. Many vampires have lived for centuries without developing anything beyond their supposed importance. They accumulate titles, appearances and mannerisms. When you look behind them, sometimes very little remains.
Babyface Yet you are a man rather attached to his own title.
Vittorio A title must mean something. Otherwise it is worthless.
Babyface And your first hunt? Do you remember it fondly?
Vittorio An excellent lesson, above all.
Babyface Which lesson?
Vittorio Never let yourself be seen while hunting. I learned that to my cost. It is the only time I have fed in the street.
Babyface At least you have that virtue: you remember your mistakes.
Vittorio They generally cost too much for us to afford to forget them.
“Vicissitude is an art.”
Babyface Let's discuss your clan. You are Tzimisce, and you have a particular relationship with Vicissitude.
Vittorio I would like to master it completely. Not merely its most obvious applications, but to understand its true nature.
Babyface You consider it an art?
Vittorio Yes. Reducing it to a tool for butchery is a mistake. Altering flesh requires understanding its structures, possibilities and limits. It is an infinitely subtler discipline than most people imagine.
Babyface Yet your clan's reputation doesn't always encourage people to entrust it with their faces.
Vittorio The Tzimisce's reputation rests largely on their most spectacular uses of it. That does not mean those are the most interesting.
Babyface So you seek understanding as much as mastery.
Vittorio The two are inseparable. You can truly master only what you understand.
Babyface That reminds me of your literary choice. Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive.
Vittorio An excellent series. One of its most interesting themes is the difference between what individuals appear to be and their true nature. Certain forms of power rest precisely on that gap.
Babyface So you like masks?
Vittorio I prefer to understand what lies behind them.
Babyface Yet you specialise in transforming appearances.
Vittorio Precisely.
“My men are not accessories.”
Babyface If I offered you an entire night without obligations, danger or responsibility, how would you spend it?
Vittorio With my soldati.
Babyface Your men?
Vittorio Yes.
Babyface You could do absolutely anything, and you would choose to spend the night with them?
Vittorio Why not? They are my men. I know them, I trained some of them, and we have built something together.
Babyface You seem very attached to them.
Vittorio A leader must know the worth of the people who work for him.
Babyface That isn't exactly what I just said.
Vittorio No, but it is not incompatible.
Babyface What do you expect of a friend?
Vittorio To be there when I need him. A true friend protects you when things go wrong, even without being asked.
Babyface So you place great importance on loyalty.
Vittorio On commitments. Loyalty is a word used far too easily. What matters is doing what you promised.
Babyface And if someone breaks their word?
Vittorio They lose all credibility. You can forgive someone for not helping when they never committed to it. But betraying a promise is something else.
Babyface Would you go so far as to kill for that?
Vittorio Deliberate betrayal can certainly deserve death.
Babyface Your conception of friendship is rather demanding.
Vittorio That of the world in which I grew up.
Babyface Yet you have abandoned men who were counting on you.
He knows perfectly well what I mean.
“I left them behind.”
Vittorio Yes.
Babyface Your first gang, in Naples.
Vittorio When Costello enabled me to join a real organisation, I seized the opportunity. I took a few companions with me, the closest and most promising. The others stayed behind.
Babyface And you didn't help them?
Vittorio Not as I should have. I was young. Before me was an opportunity I thought would never come again. I chose to advance.
Babyface Do you regret it today?
Vittorio Yes. I could have acted differently. I did not need to choose so brutally between my future and those who had started out with me.
Babyface Yet you became exactly what you wanted to be.
Vittorio That does not erase the consequences of my decisions.
Babyface You subsequently left Naples for Marseille.
Vittorio Yes. And this time, it was precisely to save a man.
Babyface The last survivor of your old gang?
Vittorio Exactly. At the time, I was consigliere to a local Cosa Nostra godfather. I had an important role, status, a position many would have envied.
Babyface And you gave it all up?
Vittorio The alternative was simple: leave, or let that man die in terrible suffering.
Babyface So you sacrificed what you had spent years building to save someone from your past.
Vittorio Yes.
Babyface Without calculation?
Vittorio There were certainly calculations to make. But the result was obvious.
Babyface So you are not willing to sacrifice your men to retain your power.
Vittorio Not systematically. A leader who is never willing to lose something for his men does not necessarily deserve to command them.
I think again of don Federico Costello, of that street kid finally given a chance. Vittorio seems to have spent much of his existence trying to become the man his mentor saw in him.
I wonder whether, ever since, he has also been trying to repair the man he had been before.
“Love was a luxury I could not afford.”
Babyface Do you believe in love?
Vittorio I didn't really believe in it even when I was alive. It was a luxury I could not afford.
Babyface And now?
Vittorio Things haven't changed much. In the underworld, emotional attachments quickly become leverage. The people you love are potential targets.
Babyface Yet you are willing to give up an important position to protect someone.
Vittorio That has nothing to do with a romantic relationship.
Babyface I didn't say otherwise.
Vittorio You implied it.
Babyface Me? Never.
He is right, of course. But I find it curious that a man capable of acknowledging his debts, sacrificing his career to save a companion and carrying decades of regret for the people he abandoned still regards affection as a needless luxury.
Babyface And within your coterie? What do you admire in your companions?
Vittorio Their ability to remain true to themselves despite what happens to them.
Babyface A surprisingly generous answer.
Vittorio I don't see why.
Babyface You are so critical of incompetence, amateurism and errors of judgement that I expected a far less flattering list.
Vittorio I can disagree with someone's decisions while recognising their constancy.
Babyface And if your existence depended entirely on a member of your coterie?
Vittorio Rose, probably.
Babyface Why Rose?
Vittorio She sometimes shows a striking lack of self-control, which can be dangerous. But she has a good heart. I do not believe she could turn completely against those close to her without major provocation.
Babyface So you trust her despite her faults.
Vittorio I am not looking for someone perfect. I am looking for someone whose decisions I can anticipate in a critical situation.
Babyface You have almost defined friendship.
Vittorio Don't go too far.
“Power is a responsibility.”
Babyface You have spent your life winning positions of authority. What does power truly mean to you?
Vittorio A responsibility. And a temptation.
Babyface Both?
Vittorio Of course. We often seek power for what it allows us to achieve. But it can eventually become an end in itself. A fairly classic trap.
Babyface Have you ever fallen into it?
Vittorio I would not have reached my present position if I had never felt that temptation.
Babyface Would you rather be loved, respected or feared?
Vittorio Respected. Fear is useful, but it has limits. A desperate man can become unpredictable and extremely dangerous. As for love, it creates vulnerabilities our adversaries know perfectly well how to exploit.
Babyface So you favour respect because it lasts longer.
Vittorio Exactly.
Babyface And what would you change in Kindred society?
Vittorio This obsession with age and Blood Potency. Some Elders possess considerable authority simply because they are old or well-born, without having the skills necessary to govern.
Babyface You would prefer a society based on merit?
Vittorio On actual abilities. Age can bring experience, but it guarantees neither intelligence nor character.
Babyface Your opinion may displease a few members of the Court.
Vittorio That is no reason to consider it false.
Babyface And your great ambition, a hundred years from now?
Vittorio To understand more of the world we live in. There are too many variables, too many misleading appearances, too many things we do not know.
Babyface So you don't necessarily want to become Prince?
Vittorio Above all, I do not want to depend on a game whose rules I do not understand.
Babyface Do you like games?
Vittorio Those requiring thought and talent. Not those that depend on chance.
“Some mistakes cannot be erased.”
Babyface What lie do you tell yourself most often?
Vittorio That I have neither remorse nor regrets.
Babyface And that isn't true?
Vittorio Obviously. I simply prefer not to dwell on them.
Babyface Yet you have just discussed them with me at some length.
Vittorio You ask a lot of questions.
Babyface It's my job.
Vittorio I had noticed.
Babyface You also admitted committing monstrous acts in the belief that they would serve your organisation's interests.
Vittorio Yes. Like many people in the underworld. You make a decision, accept certain sacrifices, convince yourself that it will preserve something more important.
Babyface And then?
Vittorio Sometimes you discover you were wrong. That the consequences were worse than expected.
Babyface And sometimes?
Vittorio Sometimes you discover it was all for nothing.
He does not try to justify himself.
Babyface You seem to think remorse should not prevent action.
Vittorio In some circumstances, hesitation can doom more people than a bad decision. You must act, then take responsibility for what you have done.
Babyface Even if the act is unforgivable?
Vittorio You can always try to earn forgiveness. That does not mean you will receive it.
“I nearly joined the Sabbat.”
Babyface You mentioned your sire earlier. You told me she wanted you to join the Sabbat.
Vittorio Yes.
Babyface Did you seriously consider following her?
Vittorio I nearly did.
Babyface What stopped you?
Vittorio My pride, mainly. My first contact with that world was an idiot who fancied himself a great gangster. He thought he could treat me as a subordinate and mock me. Things ended rather badly for him.
Babyface I suppose we are talking about your famous Russian nickname?
Vittorio Among other things. The conflict that followed kept me from joining long enough for me to begin to understand what my sire really wanted to impose on me.
Babyface So you think you escaped the Sabbat by accident?
Vittorio Let's say my pride did me a considerable service.
Babyface And today?
Vittorio The Harbingers represent everything I have moved away from. I would gladly consider them my principal enemies if I absolutely had to name one.
Babyface Does it worry you that someone might discover how close you came to joining them?
Vittorio Some truths can be used against you even when they no longer reflect who you have become.
Babyface So you could have followed a radically different path.
Vittorio Yes. And I prefer not to think too much about how that might have turned out.
“My gangs are my Pokémon.”
Babyface Let's return to lighter subjects. Your favourite music?
Vittorio Beautiful Liar, by Monsta X.
Babyface The K-pop group?
Vittorio Yes. Do you have a problem with that?
Babyface None whatsoever. I'm simply trying to imagine your men discovering your playlist.
Vittorio They probably have more important things to do.
Babyface Why that song?
Vittorio It is about a toxic relationship in which you constantly find new justifications for sinking further. The musical structure itself subverts the listener's expectations. It is rather intelligent.
Babyface So you like songs that manipulate their audience?
Vittorio I appreciate well-designed constructions. Several of the group's songs play on double meanings between seduction and criminality.
Babyface You certainly have a very professional way of listening to music.
Vittorio You can't change who you are.
Babyface Your favourite place in Paris?
Vittorio La Cour des Miracles.
Babyface Why?
Vittorio To remind me where I come from. And where I could fall back to.
Babyface Are you still afraid of losing everything?
Vittorio A leader who forgets he can fall generally ends up finding out.
Babyface And your greatest happiness?
Vittorio Turning my enemies into carpets and trampling them with studded boots.
I look at him.
Vittorio It's a Tzimisce joke. Why does everyone take it seriously?
Babyface Because you are a Tzimisce, Vittorio. That slightly complicates how certain jokes are received.
Vittorio You lack a sense of humour.
Babyface I'll try to improve. Your real happiness?
Vittorio Taking control of a new gang. It is always satisfying. My organisations are rather like my Pokémon. I'd like to complete the collection.
Babyface You compare your criminal networks to collectable creatures?
Vittorio It is an image. But a rather apt one.
Babyface I simply hope you don't keep them all in little balls.
Vittorio The logistics would indeed be simpler.
“Dying with dignity.”
Babyface Your hero?
Vittorio Lucky Luciano.
Babyface Of course.
Vittorio He helped transform organised crime into a structured, lasting system capable of overcoming individual rivalries. One can debate his methods, but hardly his historical importance.
Babyface You admire organisers more than conquerors.
Vittorio Building something that lasts takes more talent than destroying what exists.
Babyface Would you risk your final destruction for a cause?
Vittorio Perhaps. I cannot know until I face that decision.
Babyface You don't seem fond of grand heroic oaths.
Vittorio Grand oaths cost nothing until someone asks you to honour them.
Babyface And your idea of an ideal death?
Vittorio A death in glory and light.
Babyface Really?
Vittorio If I must disappear, I would at least like it to serve as an example to my soldati. Leave with dignity. Perhaps as a hero.
Babyface For someone who doesn't put much faith in feelings, you would like your men to remember you.
Vittorio Above all, I would like them to gain something from my disappearance. An example, a lesson, a reason to continue.
Babyface What sentence would you like to leave behind?
Vittorio “He died with the same dignity with which he lived.”
I think this is the first time since our conversation began that he has expressed a wish involving neither victory, nor power, nor even success. Only how he will be remembered.
The last question
I consult my notes one last time.
Vittorio has told me about his rise in the Neapolitan underworld, his admiration for a man who gave him a chance, his first responsibilities and his successes. He has spoken of his men, his ambitions, his fascination with complex games and his desire to understand a world he still finds too unpredictable.
He has also mentioned the companions he abandoned.
That memory seems to weigh more heavily than any defeat he might have suffered.
Babyface One last question, Vittorio. Which question were you secretly hoping I would not ask?
Vittorio That one, precisely.
Babyface I'm sorry to disappoint you.
Vittorio I expected it. Let's say I would rather avoid certain questions about my past in the Mafia.
Babyface Yet we have discussed it at length.
Vittorio Not all of it. I served some unsavoury capi. I did things I do not like to remember. And there are also the things I did not do.
Babyface Things you should have done?
Vittorio Yes. Sometimes I could have overthrown certain superiors. I had the means, the skills, perhaps even the opportunity. But I preferred to play safe. I obeyed.
Babyface Do you regret obeying more than committing certain acts?
Vittorio There are circumstances in which obedience becomes a convenient way of giving up responsibility. Nuremberg reminded us that following orders is not enough to excuse what we do. Obviously I am not claiming to have committed crimes on that scale, but the principle remains valid.
Babyface Yet you were already ambitious. Why didn't you take the risk?
Vittorio Because I had something to lose. My status. My position. Perhaps my life. And because it is always easier to convince yourself you will do better once you are in command.
Babyface You waited until you were powerful enough to act on your principles.
Vittorio In a way.
Babyface But some people couldn't wait with you.
He does not answer immediately.
Vittorio No.
Babyface Do you know what strikes me about your story? You have spent your existence explaining that a leader must take responsibility for his decisions. Yet your greatest regret seems to concern the moments when you chose to let someone else decide.
Vittorio That is one possible reading.
Babyface And today, if you found yourself in that situation again?
Vittorio I would like to believe I would act differently.
Babyface You aren't certain?
Vittorio I distrust people who claim to know what they will do in situations they have not yet experienced. I have enough experience to know the difference between an intention and a decision.
Babyface At least you have learned something.
Vittorio Several things, I hope.
I close my notebook.
Babyface One very last thing, don Vittorio.
Vittorio Again?
Babyface You began this interview by telling me amateurism would get us killed. You have spent much of your existence seeking competence, authority and respect.
But if the young Vittorio from Naples met you today, do you think he would be proud of the man you have become?
This time, he takes time to think.
Vittorio He would certainly be impressed by what I have achieved.
Babyface That wasn't quite my question.
Vittorio I know.
A silence settles.
Vittorio There are probably things I would need to explain to him.
Babyface Then I hope you get the chance.
End of the interview.
Babyface's perspective
I had imagined meeting an arrogant mobster, a Tzimisce certain of his superiority, probably delighted to describe how he had crushed his adversaries over the decades.
I was not entirely wrong.
Vittorio likes power. He likes commanding, organising, conquering new positions and contemplating the results of his strategies. He has a pronounced contempt for incompetence and a confidence in his own abilities that leaves little room for modesty.
But that is not what I will remember from our conversation.
What strikes me is the importance he places on others, even when he tries to present that attachment as a mere professional obligation.
He speaks of don Federico Costello with sincere gratitude. That man gave a chance to a boy with no connections, status or assured future. Decades later, Vittorio still seems to measure his successes against that initial trust.
He loves his men, although he would probably not use that word.
He devotes his time to them, worries about their future and accepts the possibility of losing his power to save one of them. He even imagines his disappearance as a final lesson for those who outlive him.
And yet his greatest regret is abandoning some of his earliest companions when the opportunity to succeed arose.
I think that contradiction tells a great deal of his story.
Vittorio wants to be a leader worthy of the name. Not merely a man who holds power, but someone who deserves it and takes responsibility for how he uses it.
He has understood perfectly that authority entails responsibility.
He simply understood it too late for some people.
His relationship with cruelty is equally revealing. He claims to prefer fear to pain and to take no pleasure in making others suffer. I am willing to believe him. But the absence of pleasure does not erase the suffering inflicted, and effectiveness is not sufficient moral justification.
I do not think he truly seeks to be innocent.
He seeks, rather, to be responsible.
The distinction matters.
I was also surprised by his ambition to understand Vicissitude as an art. Among many Tzimisce, the transformation of flesh is presented as an expression of absolute domination. For Vittorio, it also seems to answer an intellectual need: to understand what exists, discover what it might become and master the mechanisms of that transformation.
Perhaps the same curiosity leads him to admire great organisers, appreciate complex musical constructions and dream of a world where competence matters more than age.
But what will remain of our interview is neither his ambitions nor his theories of power.
It is this sentence: “I obeyed.”
For a man who has devoted his existence to winning his independence, that admission carries particular weight.
He served men he sometimes despised. He accepted certain decisions out of caution. He let opportunities to intervene pass because the risk seemed too great.
Today, he knows that obedience does not erase responsibility.
I wonder whether his entire conception of honour was built around that discovery.
He cannot go back. He cannot revisit every decision, save everyone he left behind or erase the consequences of the orders he carried out.
He can, however, decide what kind of leader he wishes to be from now on.
That is probably why he prefers to be respected rather than feared. Fear secures obedience. Respect requires someone to recognise the worth of the person they choose to follow.
And Vittorio seems to need that recognition.
He would like his men to be able to say one day that he died with the same dignity with which he lived.
I do not know whether he will achieve it.
I only know that he continues to measure the distance separating him from that ideal.
As for his humour, I grant him a certain talent. But I would personally advise against joking with a Tzimisce about turning his adversaries into carpets.
He might have far too literal a sense of interior decoration.
Babyface
The Midnight Confessions, Paris la Nuit.