in snowing winter and that of crushed flowers and pungent oil.
  
  I was touched by something hard, something made of wood or brass, only this thing moved 
as if it were organic. At last I opened my eyes and saw that a man held me, and these 
inhuman things, these things that felt so like stone or brass, were his white fingers, 
and he looked at me with eager, gentle blue eyes.
  
  "Amadeo," he said.
  
  He was dressed all in red velvet and splendidly tall. His blond hair was parted in the 
middle in a saintly fashion and combed richly down to his shoulders where it broke over 
his cloak in lustrous curls. He had a smooth forehead without a line to it, and high 
straight golden eyebrows dark enough to give his face a clear, determined look. His 
lashes curled like dark golden threads from his eyelids. And when he smiled, his lips 
were flushed suddenly with a pale immediate color that made their full careful shape all 
the more visible.
  
  I knew him. I spoke to him. I could have never seen such miracles in the face of anyone 
else.
  
  He smiled so kindly at me. His upper lip and chin were all clean shaven. I couldn't 
even see the scantest hair on him, and his nose was narrow and delicate though large 
enough to be in proportion to the other magnetic features of his face.
  
  "Not the Christ, my child," he said. "But one who comes with his own salvation. Come 
into my arms."
  
  "I'm dying, Master." What was my language? I can't say even now what it was. But he 
understood me.
  
  "No, little one, you're not dying. You're coming now into my protection, and perhaps if 
the stars are with us, if they are kind to us, you'll never die at all."
  
  "But you are the Christ. I know you!"
  
  He shook his head, and in the most common human way he lowered his eyes as he did, and 
he smiled. His generous lips parted, and I saw only a human's white teeth. He put his 
hands beneath my arms, lifted me and kissed my throat, and the shivers paralyzed me. I 
closed my eyes and felt his fingers on top of them, and heard him say into my ear, "Sleep 
as I take you home."
  
  When I awoke, we were in a huge bath. No Venetian ever had such a bath as this, I can 
tell you that now from all the things I saw later, but what did I know of the conventions 
of this place? This was a palace truly; I had seen palaces.
  
  I climbed up and out of the swaddling of velvet in which I lay-his red cloak if I'm not 
mistaken-and I saw a great curtained bed to my right and, beyond, the deep oval basin of 
the bath itself. Water poured from a shell held by angels into the basin, and steam rose 
from the broad surface, and in the steam my Master stood. His white chest was naked and 
the nipples faintly pink, and his hair, pushed back from his smooth straight forehead, 
looked even thicker and more beautifully blond than it had before.
  
  He beckoned to me.
  
  I was afraid of the water. I knelt at the edge and put my hand into it.
  
  With amazing speed and grace, he reached for me and brought me down into the warm pool, 
pushing me until the water covered my shoulders and then tilting back my head.
  
  Again I looked up at him. Beyond him the bright-blue ceiling was covered in startlingly 
vivid angels with giant white feathery wings. I had never seen such brilliant and curly 
angels, leaping as they did, out of all restraint and style, to flaunt their human beauty 
in muscled limbs and swirling garments, in flying locks. It seemed a bit of madness this, 
these robust and romping figures, this riot of celestial play above me to which the steam 
ascended, evaporating in a golden light.
  
  I looked at my Master. His face was right before me. Kiss me again, yes, do it, that 
shiver, kiss-. But he was of the same ilk as those painted beings, one of them, and this 
some form of heathen Heaven, a pagan place of Soldiers' gods where all is wine, and 
fruit, and flesh. I had come to the wrong place.
  
  He threw back his head. He gave way to ringing laughter. He lifted a handful of water 
again and let it spill down my chest. He opened his mouth and for a moment I saw the 
flash of something very wrong and dangerous, teeth such as a wolf might have. But these 
were gone, and only his lips sucked at my throat, then at my shoulder. Only his lips 
sucked at the nipple as I sought too late to cover it.
  
  I groaned for all this. I sank against him in the warm water, and his lips went down my 
chest to my belly. He sucked tenderly at the skin as if he were sucking up the salt and 
the heat from it, and even his forehead nudging my shoulder filled me with warm thrilling 
sensations. I put my arm around him, and when he found the sin itself, I felt it go off 
as if an arrow had been shot from it, and it were a crossbow; I felt it go, this arrow, 
this thrust, and I cried out.
  
  He let me lie for a while against him. He bathed me slowly. He had a soft gathered 
cloth with which he wiped my face. He dipped me back to wash my hair.
  
  And then when he thought I had rested enough, we began the kisses again.
  
  Before dawn, I woke against his pillow. I sat up and saw him as he put on his big cloak 
and covered his head. The room was full of boys again, but these were not the sad, 
emaciated tutors of the brothel. These boys were handsome, well fed, smiling and sweet, 
as they gathered around the bed.
  
  They wore brightly colored tunics of effervescent colors, with fabrics carefully 
pleated and tight belts that gave them a girlish grace. All wore long luxuriant hair.
  
  My Master looked at me and in a tongue I knew, I knew perfectly, he said that I was his 
only child, and he would come again that night, and by such time as that I would have 
seen a new world.