"I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't been human for 200 years. Please, how shall I put you at ease? Shall we begin like David Copperfield? 'I am born... I grew up.' Or shall we begin when I was born to darkness, as I call it? That's really where we should start, don't you think?... 1791 was the year it happened. I was 24. Younger than you are now. But times were different then. I was a man at that age. The master of a large plantation, just south of New Orleans. I had lost my wife in childbirth. She and the infant had been buried less than half a year. I would've been happy to join them. I couldn't bear the pain of their loss. I longed to be released from it. I wanted to lose it all: my wealth, my estate, my sanity....Most of all, I longed for death. I know that now. I invited it. A release from the pain of living. My invitation was open to anyone. To the whore at my side. To the pimp that followed. But it was a vampire that accepted."