Niki's violin

Nicki’s violin is the instrument around which Nicolas’s life as a performer and Lestat’s memories of him repeatedly converge. It opens evenings at the Paris theater, is returned to Lestat after Nicolas’s death, and remains with Lestat as a tangible link to the friend whose music endures after his silence and departure.

Identity and Use

The violin is identified as a Stradivarius and belongs to Nicolas, whom Lestat calls Nicki. In the Paris troupe, it is not merely a personal possession: Nicolas’s playing helps shape the company’s performances, and his violin often sounds at the beginning of the evening’s program. Its music is associated with the troupe’s public craft as well as with Lestat’s private recollection of Nicolas.

That public role is especially clear in the description of the vampire theater’s performances. The troupe’s music is compared to the sounds of country fairs, and Nicolas is named as its director; his violin frequently opens the evening. The instrument thus connects his musicianship to the theater’s collective work, while preserving his distinct place within it.

The Theater and Nicolas’s Farewell

Nicolas’s history with the violin turns toward tragedy when the troupe’s letter reports that the Oldest Friend imprisoned him and that his hands were taken from him. The letter says that the hands could be restored and had been kept safe, but Nicolas was also deprived of sustenance. After the troupe pleaded for his release and the return of what had been taken, Nicolas emerged profoundly altered by pain and starvation, and remained silent for a considerable time.

When Nicolas finally spoke, he said he had arranged his affairs and left the troupe a stack of new plays. He also required that they convene the ancient Sabbat in the countryside, with its customary fire. The troupe gathered in fine clothes and black, ruffled vampire dancing costumes, formed the circle, and sang the old chants. Nicolas gave Lestat the violin and asked that it be sent to his maker; as the company danced, Nicolas entered the flames. The instrument was therefore entrusted to Lestat at the point of Nicolas’s death, in the midst of a farewell that joined theatrical performance, the troupe’s ritual, and personal loss.

Return to Lestat

Later, a package brings the violin back into Lestat’s life. Before opening it, he describes a dream in which he and Nicolas travel together, feed on evildoers, contemplate what they encounter, and continue talking. When Lestat tears away the wrapping, he finds the Stradivarius case. The package turns the imagined companionship of the dream into a painful encounter with a real object that has survived their separation.

The violin appears again among Lestat’s few remaining belongings as he prepares to leave Alexandria by ship. The house has been emptied and the trunks sent ahead; his small valise and the violin are what remain with him. Lestat later worries about the instrument left in the house where he had lived, and considers giving it to young mortal musicians. These details show that he treats it not only as a keepsake but as an instrument that might still pass into other hands and be played.

Memory and Significance

When Lestat reaches the room prepared for him by Marius, he finds that Marius and the sack have disappeared, but the violin and his valise have been placed on a stone table. The sight brings him both sadness and relief: he had feared the violin was lost. Its return gives material form to a bond that the narrative repeatedly presents through music, conversation, and memory, rather than resolving the separation between Lestat and Nicolas.

The violin’s significance shifts with its circumstances. In the theater it announces Nicolas’s artistry and belongs to a shared performance; at the countryside gathering it passes from Nicolas to Lestat as Nicolas prepares to die; afterward it becomes an object Lestat carries, fears losing, and imagines giving onward. Its continued presence does not restore the companionship Lestat dreams of, but it preserves a connection to Nicolas across silence, death, and the long interval that follows.