“Yes.” He drops a quick kiss on the tip of my nose. “Like us. But with more dead horses.”

I think for a minute. “Do you suppose drawing would help my anatomical studies?” I feel a real tingle of enthusiasm at this.

“I don’t see why not,” Ben replies. “Anatomical study made Stubbs a better painter; drawing might make you a better scientist. Worth a try, anyway. Why don’t you find a suitable subject and see where it takes you?”

While Ben continues with his painting I go off on a hunt for subject matter. While not squeamish about dissection, I don’t like the idea of killing anything just for the sake of a drawing; but about forty minutes later, I find a beautiful and categorically dead Lucanus cervus in one of the flowerbeds. Cradling the stag beetle carefully in my hand I return to find Ben hard at work.

Sitting down on the blanket that we have brought with us, I pull a sketch pad and pencil from Ben’s bag and set to work, carefully trying to capture the insect on the page. Looking so carefully at the insect is revealing an intricate world of minute detail that I haven’t really seen before. I try to remember what Ben has said about form and perspective, and though the drawing I create is far from perfect it is, at least, recognizably a beetle. I feel a huge sense of satisfaction at having observed so much, having learned so much, about the creature itself.

I look up when Ben comes to sit beside me. “Nice.” He gestures to the drawing.

“Thank you,” I say. “I haven’t got the maxillary palps quite right.”

“What exactly is a maxillary palp?” Ben asks, leaning over.

“These bits here.” I point to the small feelers between the beetle’s large, horn-like jaws. “They’re sensory organs for tasting food. I never noticed how wonderfully complicated the whole jaw was before.”

“Seems like sketching could be helpful for a natural historian.” Ben leans back on his elbows. “Perhaps you can go to Vienna and draw those man-eating plants at the end of the summer.”

“The plants are carnivorous, not man-eating,” I say automatically, but my head is buzzing. No one has called me a natural historian before and it leaves me feeling a bit breathless. It sounds so serious somehow, as if he’s taking me seriously. “And I’m not a natural historian,” I say. “I just enjoy studying it. I’m completely self-taught.”

Ben shrugs. “So are lots of experts.”

“I suppose,” I say. “But to be able to study properly, to learn from true specialists and to attend lectures and demonstrations…” I feel something leap in my chest. “Well, that would be a dream.”

There is a brief silence. I realize that I am bracing myself, holding my body taut as I wait for the dismissal, the cold water thrown over my enthusiasm.