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How exquisite here to die of happiness after being so long miserable and alone. How exquisite to see this triumph of form and color after having studied with bitter sacrifice so many forms I could not understand.

There is no despair in me anymore. There is only joy, continuous restless joy.

Is that possible?

Only reluctantly did I leave this painting of the springtime garden. Only reluctantly did I leave behind its dark flower-rich grass and overhanging orange trees. Only reluctantly did I move on to find more of Botticelli where I could.

I might have staggered around Florence for nights on end, drunk on what I'd seen in this painting. But there was more, much more, for me to see.

Mark, all this time, as I slipped into churches to see more works by the Master, as I crept into a palazzo to see a famed painting by the Master of the irresistible god Mars sleeping helplessly on the grass beside a patient and watchful Venus, as I went about clasping my hands to my lips so as not to cry out crazily, I did not return to the workshop of the genius. I held myself back.

"You cannot interfere in his life," I told myself. "You cannot come in with gold and draw him from his paintings. His is a mortal destiny. Already the entire city knows of him. Rome knows of him. His paintings will endure. He is not someone you need save from a gutter. He is the talk of Florence. He is the talk of the Pope's Palace in Rome. Leave him alone. "

And so I did not go back, though I was starving just to look at him, just to talk to him, just to tell him that the marvelous painting of the Three Graces and the other goddesses in the springtime garden was as glorious as anything that he had done.

I would have paid him just to allow me to sit in his shop in the evening, and to watch him at his work. But this was wrong, all of it.

I went back to the Church of San Paolino, and I stayed for a long time, staring at The Lamentation.

It was far more stiff than his "pagan" paintings. Indeed, he had seldom done something quite this severe. And there was much darkness to the painting, in the deeply colored robes of the various figures, and in the shadowy recesses of the open tomb. But even in this severity there was a tenderness, a loveliness. And the two faces¡ªthat of Mary and Christ¡ªwhich were pressed together¡ªdrew me and would not let me look away.

Ah, Botticelli. How does one explain his gift? His figures though perfect were always slightly elongated, even the faces were elongated, and the expressions on the faces were sleepy and perhaps even ever so slightly unhappy, it is so difficult to say. All the figures of any one painting seemed lost in a communal dream.

As for the paint he used¡ªthe paint used by so many in Florence¡ªit was far superior to anything we had had in the ancient days of Rome, in that it mixed simple egg yolk and ground pigment to achieve the colors and the glazes and the varnishes to make an application of unsurpassed brilliance and endurance. In other words, the works had a gloss that seemed miraculous to my eyes.

So fascinated was I by this paint that I sent my mortal servant to procure all the available pigments for me, and the eggs, and to bring me by night an old apprentice who might mix up the colors for me, exactly to the right thickness, so I might paint a bit of work in my rented rooms.

It was only an idle experiment, but I found myself working furiously and soon covering every bit of prepared wood and canvas which my apprentice and my servant had bought.

They were, of course, shocked by my speed, which gave me pause. I had to be clever, not fantastical. Hadn't I learnt that long years ago when I'd painted my banquet room as my guests cheered me on?

I sent them away with plenty of gold, telling them to come back to me with more materials. As for what I had painted? It was some poor imitation of Botticelli, for even with my immortal blood I could not capture what he had captured. I could not make faces like those he had rendered, no, not by a very long way. There was something brittle and hopeless in what I painted. I could not look at my own work. I loathed it. There was something flat and Accusatory in the faces I had created. There was something ominous in the expressions that looked back at me from the walls.

I went out into the night, re

stless, hearing those other blood drinkers, a young pair, fearful of me and rightly so, yet very attentive to what I did, for what reason I was unsure. I sent a silent message to all the immortal trash that might perturb me: Do not come near me for I am in a grand passion and will not tolerate being interrupted now.

I crept into the Church of San Padirio and knelt down as I looked at The Lamentation, I ran my tongue against my sharp teeth. I hungered for blood as the beauty of the figures filled me. I could have taken a victim in the very church.

And then the most evil idea came to me. It was purely evil just as the painting was purely religious. The idea came to me unbidden as if there really were a Satan in the world and that Satan had come crawling along the stone floor towards me and put the idea in my mind.

"You love him, Marius," said this Satan. "Well, bring him over to you. Give Botticelli the Blood. "

I shivered quietly in the church. I slipped down, sitting against the stone wall. Again I felt the thirst. I was horrified that I had even thought of it yet I saw myself taking Botticelli in my arms. I saw myself sinking my teeth into Botticelli's throat. The blood of Botticelli. I thought of it. And my blood, my Hood given to him.

"Think how you have waited, Marius," said the evil voice of Satan. "All these long centuries you have never given your blood to anyone. But you can give it to Botticelli! You can take Botticelli now. "

He would go on painting; he would have the Blood and his painting would be unparalleled. He would live forever with his talent¡ªthis humble man of some forty years who was grateful for a mere purse of gold¡ªthis humble man who had done the exquisite Christ I stared at, his head thrown back in the hand of Mary, whose eyes were pressed to his mouth.

This was not something that would be done. No, this must never be done. I could not do it. I would not do it.

Yet I rose slowly to my feet and I left the church and began walking through the dark narrow street, towards Botticelli's house.

I could hear my heart inside me. And my mind seemed curiously empty, and my body light and predatory and full of evil, an evil which I freely admitted and totally understood. A high excitement filled me. Take Botticelli in your arms. Forever in your arms.

And though I heard those other blood drinkers, those two young ones who followed me, I did not pay it any mind. They were far too fearful of me to come close to me. On I went for what I would choose to do.

It was no more than a few blocks and I was there at Sandro's door and the lights were burning inside, and I had a purse of gold. Drifting, dreaming, thirsting, I knocked as I had the first time.