I can remember the days onstage. Traveling from place to place. I can even still remember some of the bits from the old Comedia troupe. I can remember the fights with Isabella, and the making up. I can remember the grin on Vincenzo's face when we would do the rapier fight. I can remember some of the palaces we performed in. and a few of the dives that i wish i could forget.

I remember Dulcinea.

I was home. It was winter and Gremio was sick. Too sick for the road. He never rose from his bed again and we were the poorer for it. He had been Lelio in his time and as time had passed he had become Pantalone the miser. And a finer mind you could not ask for. I think he knew the end was coming. He put on a brave face, but you could see it in his eyes when he coughed. It makes me sad to think of it.

So, we found ourselves in Venice, We were fresh from the road and had a bit of cash. At the time, Isabella and I were not speaking to one another.

I was not speaking to her or maybe she was not speaking to me. I don't recall exactly. I found myself alone in the city of my birth. I was staying with my brother Dominic.

I found myself lonely.

So I went looking for "Companionship". I admit, a generally good Catholic boy like I was, sinned in seeking out pleasures of the flesh. But as I say, I was lonely, and the presence of the Lord can only comfort a man so much.

I went to a place I knew. It didn't really have a name. and there is where I met Dulcinea. She was a courtesan. She took me upstairs and gave me a night of pleasure that left me weak for days. She was tall, perfectly proportioned and her eyes were blue and calm like a lake in winter. Her hair was like a coppery fire and you could see a similar fire within her. Her every move was poetry. Her every utterance was music.

Some have moved me to desire.

Few have moved me to greater virtue.

Only one has moved me to poetry.

I became obsessed. This was not helpful, When I went back to the place I found her, she was not there.

More strangely, no one seemed to remember her. This made me furious as, well... How could you forget a woman like that? I became upset of course. and naturally got myself thrown out of the place.

I became even more obsessed. I looked high and low for her. Isabella was not going to be enough for me. I turned her away for good and spent my free time asking questions. I paid bribes. I went broke doing so and as I looked, the leads dried up. I spent 3 years looking.

Finally, I could bear no more. Nor could my family. I drank too much and got into trouble on occasion with the law. Thankfully, my brother Anselmo had a bit of pull with them, so it never amounted to much. But he and my other brothers set me firmly down and gave me no other choices.

So, I stopped drinking, got back into some shape and set about forming a new troupe of actors, so that I could leave Venice and earn some money. And as I set myself on this path, I felt that maybe I should forget about the woman. She was a dream, a phantom, a ghost perhaps.

The troupe and I set about trying to find some work in the city prior to leaving for the road. We played a few places and I could feel the old energy seeping back into me. I began to feel more myself. I even slept with our lead actress a number of times. I seemed to be back on track.

We got a gig to play a palazzo. A lady had heard of us and requested us to play for a party of hers.

Imagine her consternation and mine when I realized that the lady of the house was in fact the courtesan I had fallen in love with. I was in shock of course, and knowing what I know now, I can only imagine the storm that must have raged through her mind as she dealt with her Invictus guests.

In any event, I took the stage, and in the darkness of my mind, there was only one bright thought. "I must give the performance of my life tonight."

I held tight to this thought. I took the stage and indeed gave the very best performance of my life. My soon to be ended life.

When the show had finished, I sought out the lady of the house, as the head of my troupe, for payment.

After excusing herself from her guests, she took me aside to her office. She pretended not to know me. And I could contain myself no longer.

I told her I knew she was the one I had been with. I became incensed at her refusal to acknowledge the truth and i attempted to grab her roughly and show her my passion. I kissed her hard.

That was my last mistake on this earthly plane. The only thing saving me from utter destruction being that I had walked in here and been seen by too many people. She grabbed me and flung me across the room as if I were a child's toy...and then she was on me. Enraged at me. and yet, as she told me in later years, also excited by me. In many ways, Dulcinea was as impulsive as I.

In any event, she told me after she taken my blood, and given me her dark nourishment, that if I wanted to forget her and live out the rest of my life as a man, with the soul of a man, then when the sun rose in the morning, I would remember nothing of this dark sharing I had experienced. But if I would be the man who had chased a shadow for years, If I would accept her dark embrace and live as a creature of the night. If I would accept damnation and obscurity as the price for an undying passion. Then I would dissolve my links to my past that very night and I would return to her.

And that is what I did. I remember the shocked faces of my troupe as I told them they would have to push on without me. I remember the concern on my brother's faces when I returned home and told them a story of gambling debts and an upset creditor. When I disappeared, they would draw certain conclusions and go on with their lives.

I remember the look of unadulterated pleasure on Dulcinea's face when I returned to her island. She took me in her arms, and made me into a creature of the night. A man animated only by the blood of the living and eternal passion. Her childe. Her lover. Her Knight.

In later years, I asked her why we had met at a brothel, Had she sought me there and haunted my life as she had done with other childer? In this, she was unwilling to answer fully. She simply told me that she had been a courtesan in life. and that although she had grown in power and wisdom over countless years, she still spent one night every few years or so as a courtesan. She said it was to remind her of who she had been and where she had come from. To remind her of the taste of humility. Meeting me was a pleasant bonus of that ritual.

Dulcinea had been as lonely as I that night, I think.