Nathaniel Hawthorne/Nathaniel Hawthorne.iso/pc/articles/a1/t0032

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delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon
the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind, when an appropriate adjustment of
events would seem to summon his appearance. So was it now with
Giovanni. Day after day, his pulses had throbbed with feverish blood, at the
improbable idea of an interview with Beatrice, and of standing with her,
face to face, in this very garden, basking in the Oriental sunshine of her
beauty, and snatching from her full gaze the mystery which he deemed the
riddle of his own existence. But now there was a singular and untimely
equanimity within his breast. He threw a glance around the garden to
discover if Beatrice or her father were present, and perceiving that he was
alone, began a critical observation of the plants.
     The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their gorgeousness
seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. There was hardly an
individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by himself through a forest,
would not have been startled to find growing wild, as if an unearthly face
had glared at him out of the thicket. Several, also, would have shocked a
delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness, indicating that there had
been such commixture, and, as it were, adultery of various vegetable
species, that the production was no longer of God's making, but the
monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy, glowing with only an evil
mockery of beauty. They were probably the result of experiment, which, in
one or two cases, had succeeded in mingling plants individually lovely into
a compound possessing the questionable and ominous character that
distinguished the whole growth of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized
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but two or three plants in the collection, and those of a kind that he well
knew to be poisonous. While busy with these contemplations, he heard the
rustling of a silken garment, and turning, beheld Beatrice emerging from
beneath the sculptured portal.
     Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his
deportment; whether he should apologize for his intrusion into the garden,
or assume that he was there with the privity, at least, if not by the desire, of
Doctor Rappaccini or his daughter. But Beatrice's manner placed him at his
ease, though leaving him still in doubt by what agency he had gained
admittance. She came lightly along the path, and met him near the broken
fountain. There was surprise in her face, but brightened by a simple and
kind expression of pleasure.
     "You are a connoisseur in flowers, Signor," said Beatrice with a smile,
alluding to the bouquet which he had flung her from the window. "It is no
marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father's rare collection has tempted you
to take a nearer view. If he were here, he could tell you many strange and
interesting facts as to the nature and habits of these shrubs, for he has spent
a life-time in such studies, and this garden is his world."
     "And yourself, lady"--observed Giovanni--"if fame says true--you,
likewise, are deeply skilled in the virtues indicated by these rich blossoms,
and these spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my instructress, I should
prove an apter scholar than if taught by Signor Rappaccini himself."
     "Are there such idle rumors?" asked Beatrice, with the music of a
pleasant laugh. "Do people say that I am skilled in my father's science of
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plants? What a jest is there! No; though I have grown up among these
flowers, I know no more of them than their hues and perfume; and
sometimes, methinks I would fain rid myself of even that small knowledge.
There are many flowers here, and those not the least brilliant, that shock and
offend me, when they meet my eye. But, pray, Signor, do not believe these
stories about my science. Believe nothing of me save what you see with
your own eyes."
     "And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?" asked
Giovanni pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made him
shrink. "No, Signora, you demand too little of me. Bid me believe nothing,
save what comes from your own lips."
     It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep flush to
her check; but she looked full into Giovanni's eyes, and responded to his
gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queen-like haughtiness.
     "I do so bid you, Signor!" she replied. "Forget whatever you may have
fancied in regard to me. If true to the outward senses, still it may be false in
its essence. But the words of Beatrice Rappaccini's lips are true from the
depths of the heart outward. Those you may believe!"
     A fervor glowed in her whole aspect, and beamed upon Giovanni's
consciousness like the light of truth itself. But while she spoke, there was a
fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, though
evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable reluctance,
scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It might be the odor of the flowers.
Could it be Beatrice's breath, which thus embalmed her words with a
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strange richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? A faintness passed like
a shadow over Giovanni, and flitted away; he seemed to gaze through the
beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent soul, and felt no more doubt or
fear.
     The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice's manner vanished; she
became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion
with the youth, not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have
felt, conversing with a voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her
experience of life had been confined within the limits of that garden. She
talked now about matters as simple as the day-light or summer-clouds, and
now asked questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni's distant home,
his friends, his mother, and his sisters; questions indicating such seclusion,
and such lack of familiarity with modes and forms, that Giovanni responded
as if to an infant. Her spirit gushed out before him like a fresh rill, that
was just catching its first glimpse of the sunlight, and wondering at the
reflections of earth and sky which were flung into its bosom. There came
thoughts, too, from a deep source, and fantasies of a gem-like brilliancy, as
if diamonds and rubies sparkled upward among the bubbles of the fountain.
Ever and anon, there gleamed across the young man's mind a sense of
wonder, that he should be walking side by side with the being who had so
wrought upon his imagination--whom he had idealized in such hues of
terror--in whom he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful
attributes--that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a brother, and
should find her so human and so maiden-like. But such reflections were
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only momentary; the effect of her character was too real, not to make itself
familiar at once.
     In this free intercourse, they had strayed through the garden, and now,
after many turns among its avenues, were come to the shattered fountain,
beside which grew the magnificent shrub with its treasury of glowing
blossoms. A fragrance was diffused from it, which Giovanni recognized as
identical with that which he had attributed to Beatrice's breath, but
incomparably more powerful. As her eyes fell upon it, Giovanni beheld her
press her hand to her bosom, as if her heart were throbbing suddenly and
painfully.
     "For the first time in my life," murmured she, addressing the shrub, "I
had forgotten thee!"
     "I remember, Signora," said Giovanni, "that you once promised to
reward me with one of these living gems for the bouquet, which I had the
happy boldness to fling to your feet. Permit me now to pluck it as a
memorial of this interview."
     He made a step towards the shrub, with extended hand. But Beatrice
darted forward, uttering a shriek that went through his heart like a dagger.
She caught his hand, and drew it back with the whole force of her slender
figure. Giovanni felt her touch thrilling through his fibres.
     "Touch it not!" exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. "Not for thy life! It is
fatal!"
     Then, hiding her face, she fled from him, and vanished beneath the
sculptured portal. As Giovanni followed her with his eyes, he beheld the
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emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Doctor Rappaccini, who had been
watching the scene, he knew not how long, within the shadow of the
entrance.
     No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber, than the image of
Beatrice came back to his passionate musings, invested with all the witchery
that had been gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her, and
now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She was
human: her nature was endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she
was worthiest to be worshipped; she was capable, surely, on her part, of
the height and heroism of love. Those tokens, which he had hitherto
considered as proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral
system, were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle sophistry of passion,
transmuted into a golden crown of enchantment, rendering Beatrice the
more admirable, by so much as she was the more unique. Whatever had
looked ugly, was now beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change, it stole
away and hid itself among those shapeless half-ideas, which throng the dim
region beyond the daylight of our perfect consciousness. Thus did he spend
the night, nor fell asleep, until the dawn had begun to awake the slumbering
flowers in Doctor Rappaccini's garden, whither Giovanni's dreams
doubtless led him. Up rose the sun in his due season, and flinging his
beams upon the young man's eyelids, awoke him to a sense of pain. When
thoroughly aroused, he became sensible of a burning and tingling agony in
his hand--in his right hand--the very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her
own, when he was on the point of plucking one of the gem-like flowers. On
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the back of that hand there was now a purple print, like that of four small
fingers, and the likeness of a slender thumb upon his wrist.
     Oh, how stubbornly does love--or even that cunning semblance of love
which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the
heart--how stubbornly does it hold its faith, until the moment come, when it
is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapt a handkerchief about his
hand, and wondered what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his
pain in a reverie of Beatrice.
     After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course of what
we call fate. A third; a fourth; and a meeting with Beatrice in the garden was
no longer an incident in Giovanni's daily life, but the whole space in which
he might be said to live; for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic hour
made up the remainder. Nor was it otherwise with the daughter of
Rappaccini. She watched for the youth's appearance, and flew to his side
with confidence as unreserved as if they had been playmates from early
infancy--as if they were such playmates still. If, by any unwonted chance,
he failed to come at the appointed moment, she stood beneath the window,
and sent up the rich sweetness of her tones to float around him in his
chamber, and echo and reverberate throughout his heart--"Giovanni!
Giovanni! Why tarriest thou? Come down!"--And down he hastened into
that Eden of poisonous flowers.
     But, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a reserve in
Beatrice's demeanor, so rigidly and invariably sustained, that the idea of
infringing it scarcely occurred to his imagination. By all appreciable signs,
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they loved; they had looked love, with eyes that conveyed the holy secret
from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too
sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love, in those
gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath, like
tongues of long-hidden flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no
clasp of hands, nor any slightest caress, such as love claims and hallows.
He had never touched one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garment--
so marked was the physical barrier between them--had never been waved
against him by a breeze. On the few occasions when Giovanni had seemed
tempted to overstep the limit, Beatrice grew so sad, so stern, and withal
wore such a look of desolate separation, shuddering at itself, that not a
spoken word was requisite to repel him. At such times, he was startled at
the horrible suspicions that rose, monster-like, out of the caverns of his
heart, and stared him in the face; his love grew thin and faint as the
morning-mist; his doubts alone had substance. But when Beatrice's face
brightened again, after the momentary shadow, she was transformed at once
from the mysterious, questionable being, whom he had watched with so
much awe and horror; she was now the beautiful and unsophisticated girl,
whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty beyond all other
knowledge.
     A considerable time had now passed since Giovanni's last meeting with
Baglioni. One morning, however, he was disagreeably surprised by a visit
from the Professor, whom he had scarcely thought of for whole weeks, and
would willingly have forgotten still longer. Given up, as he had long been,
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to a pervading excitement, he could tolerate no companions, except upon
condition of their perfect sympathy with his present state of feeling. Such
sympathy was not to be expected from Professor Baglioni.
     The visitor chatted carelessly, for a few moments, about the gossip of
the city and the University, and then took up another topic.
     "I have been reading an old classic author lately," said he, "and met with
a story that strangely interested me. Possibly you may remember it. It is of
an Indian prince, who sent a beautiful woman as a present to Alexander the
Great. She was as lovely as the dawn, and gorgeous as the sunset; but what
especially distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath--richer
than a garden of Persian roses. Alexander, as was natural to a youthful
conqueror, fell in love at first sight with this magnificent stranger. But a
certain sage physician, happening to be present, discovered a terrible secret
in regard to her."
     "And what was that?" asked Giovanni, turning his eyes downward to
avoid those of the Professor.
     "That this lovely woman," continued Baglioni, with emphasis, "had
been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature
was so imbued with them, that she herself had become the deadliest poison
in existence. Poison was her element of life. With that rich perfume of her
breath, she blasted the very air. Her love would have been poison!--her
embrace death! Is not this a marvelous tale?"
     "A childish fable," answered Giovanni, nervously starting from his
chair. "I marvel how your worship finds time to read such nonsense,
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among your graver studies."
     "By the bye," said the Professor, looking uneasily about him, "what
singular fragrance is this in your apartment? Is it the perfume of your
gloves? It is faint, but delicious, and yet, after all, by no means agreeable.
Were I to breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill. It is like the breath
of a flower--but I see no flowers in the chamber."
     "Nor are there any," replied Giovanni, who had turned pale as the
Professor spoke; "nor, I think, is there any fragrance, except in your
worship's imagination. Odors, being a sort of element combined of the
sensual and the spiritual, are apt to deceive us in this manner. The
recollection of a perfume--the bare idea of it--may easily be mistaken for a
present reality."
     "Aye; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks," said
Baglioni; "and were I to fancy any kind of odor, it would be that of some
vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are likely enough to be imbued.
Our worshipful friend Rappaccini, as I have heard, tinctures his
medicaments with odors richer than those of Araby. Doubtless, likewise,
the fair and learned Signora Beatrice would minister to her patients with
draughts as sweet as a maiden's breath. But wo to him that sips them!"
     Giovanni's face evinced many contending emotions. The tone in which
the Professor alluded to the pure and lovely daughter of Rappaccini was a
torture to his soul; and yet, the intimation of a view of her character,
opposite to his own, gave instantaneous distinctness to a thousand dim
suspicions, which now grinned at him like so many demons. But he strove
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hard to quell them, and to respond to Baglioni with a true lover’s perfect
faith.
     "Signor Professor," said he, "you were my father’s friend--perchance,
too, it is your purpose to act a friendly part towards his son. I would fain
feel nothing towards you, save respect and deference. But I pray you to
observe, Signor, that there is one subject on which we must not speak. You
know not the Signora Beatrice. You cannot, therefore, estimate the wrong--
the blasphemy, I may even say--that is offered to her character by a light or
injurious word."
     "Giovanni!--my poor Giovanni!" answered the Professor, with a
calm expression of pity, "I know this wretched girl far better than yourself.
You shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner Rappaccini, and his
poisonous daughter. Yes; poisonous as she is beautiful! Listen; for even
should you do violence to my grey hairs, it shall not silence me. That old
fable of the Indian woman has become a truth, by the deep and deadly
science of Rappaccini, and in the person of the lovely Beatrice!"
     Giovanni groaned and hid his face.
     "Her father," continued Baglioni, "was not restrained by natural
affection from offering up his child, in this horrible manner, as the victim of
his insane zeal for science. For--let us do him justice--he is as true a man of
science as ever distilled his own heart in an alembic. What, then, will be
your fate? Beyond a doubt, you are selected as the material of some new
experiment. Perhaps the result is to be death--perhaps a fate more awful
still! Rappaccini, with what he calls the interest of science before his eyes,
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will hesitate at nothing."
     "It is a dream!" muttered Giovanni to himself, "surely it is a dream!"
     "But," resumed the Professor, "be of good cheer, son of my friend! It is
not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly, we may even succeed in bringing
back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary nature, from which
her father's madness has estranged her. Behold this little silver vase! It was
wrought by the hands of the renowned Benvenuto Cellini, and is well
worthy to be love-gift to the fairest dame in Italy. But its contents are
invaluable. One little sip of this antidote would have rendered the most
virulent poisons of the Borgias innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as
efficacious against those of Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and the precious
liquid within it, on your Beatrice, and hopefully await the result."
     Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver phial on the table, and
withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young
man's mind.
     "We will thwart Rappaccini yet!" thought he, chuckling to himself, as he
descended the stairs. "But, let us confess the truth of him, he is a wonderful
man! --a wonderful man indeed! A vile empiric, however, in his practice,
and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of
the medical profession!"
     Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had
occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her
character. Yet, so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a simple,
natural, most affectionate and guileless creature, that the image now held up
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by Professor Baglioni, looked as strange and incredible, as if it were not in
accordance with his own original conception. True, there were ugly
recollections connected with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could
not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that
perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency, save the fragrance of
her breath. These incidents, however, dissolving in the pure light of her
character, had no longer the efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as
mistaken fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they might appear
to be substantiated. There is something truer and more real, than what we
can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger. On such better evidence,
had Giovanni founded his confidence in Beatrice, though rather by the
necessary force of her high attributes, than by any deep and generous faith,
on his part. But, now, his spirit was incapable of sustaining itself at the
height to which the early enthusiasm of passion had exalted it; he fell down,
grovelling among earthly doubts, and defiled therewith the pure whiteness
of Beatrice's image. Not that he gave her up; he did but distrust. He
resolved to institute some decisive test that should satisfy him, once for all,
whether there were those dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature, which
could not be supposed to exist without some corresponding monstrosity of
soul. His eyes, gazing down afar, might have deceived him as to the lizard,
the insect, and the flowers. But if he could witness, at the distance of a few
paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and healthful flower in Beatrice's
hand, there would be room for no further question. With this idea, he
hastened to the florist's, and purchased a bouquet that was still gemmed
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with the morning dew-drops.
     It was now the customary hour of his daily interview with Beatrice.
Before descending into the garden, Giovanni failed not to look at his figure
in the mirror; a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young man, yet, as
displaying itself at that troubled and feverish moment, the token of a certain
shallowness of feeling and insincerity of character. He did gaze, however,
and said to himself, that his features had never before possessed so rich a
grace, nor his eyes such vivacity, nor his cheeks so warm a hue of
superabundant life.
     "At least," thought he, "her poison has not yet insinuated itself into my
system. I am no flower to perish in her grasp!"
     With that thought, he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had
never once laid aside from his hand. A thrill of indefinable horror shot
through his frame, on perceiving that those dewy flowers were already
beginning to droop; they wore the aspect of things that had been fresh and
lovely, yesterday. Giovanni grew white as marble, and stood motionless
before the mirror, staring at his own reflection there, as at the likeness of
something frightful. He remembered Baglioni's remark about the fragrance
that seemed to pervade the chamber. It must have been the poison in his
breath! Then he shuddered--shuddered at himself! Recovering from his
stupor, he began to watch, with curious eye, a spider that was busily at
work, hanging its web from the antique cornice of the apartment, crossing
and re-crossing the artful system of interwoven lines, as vigorous and active
a spider as ever dangled from an old ceiling. Giovanni bent towards the
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insect, and emitted a deep, long breath. The spider suddenly ceased its toil;
the web vibrated with a tremor originating in the body of the small artizan.
Again Giovanni sent forth a breath, deeper, longer, and imbued with a
venomous feeling out of his heart; he knew not whether he were wicked or
only desperate. The spider made a convulsive gripe with his limbs, and
hung dead across the window.
     "Accursed! Accursed!" muttered Giovanni, addressing himself. "Hast
thou grown so poisonous, that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath?"
     At that moment, a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the garden:--
     "Giovanni! Giovanni! It is past the hour! Why tarriest thou! Come
down!"
     "Yes," muttered Giovanni again. "She is the only being whom my breath
may not slay! Would that it might!"
     He rushed down, and in an instant, was standing before the bright
and loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago, his wrath and despair had been
so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a
glance. But, with her actual presence, there came influences which had too
real an existence to be at once shaken off; recollections of the delicate and
benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often enveloped him in
a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgush of her
heart, when the pure fountain had been unsealed from its depths, and made
visible in its transparency to his mental eye; recollections which, had
Giovanni known how to estimate them, would have assured him that all this
ugly mystery was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil
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might seem to have gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a heavenly
angel. Incapable as he was of such high faith, still her presence had not
utterly lost its magic. Giovanni's rage was quelled into an aspect of sullen
insensibility. Beatrice, with a quick spiritual sense, immediately felt that
there was a gulf of blackness between them, which neither he nor she could
pass. They walked on together, sad and silent, and came thus to the marble
fountain, and to its pool of water on the ground, in the midst of which grew
the shrub that bore gem-like blossoms. Giovanni was affrighted at the eager
enjoyment--the appetite, as it were--with which he found himself inhaling
the fragrance of the flowers.
     "Beatrice," asked he abruptly, "whence came this shrub?"
     "My father created it," answered she, with simplicity.
     "Created it! created it!" repeated Giovanni. "What mean you, Beatrice?"
     "He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of nature," replied
Beatrice; "and, at the hour when I first drew breath, this plant sprang from
the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I was but his
earthly child. Approach it not!" continued she, observing with terror that
Giovanni was drawing nearer to the shrub. "It has qualities that you little
dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni,--I grew up and blossomed with the
plant, and was nourished with its breath. It was my sister, and I loved it
with a human affection: for--alas! hast thou not suspected it? there was an
awful doom."
     Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that Beatrice paused and
trembled. But her faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made her blush
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that she had doubted for an instant.
     "There was an awful doom," she continued,--"the effect of my father's
fatal love of science--which estranged me from all society of my kind. Until
Heaven sent thee, dearest Giovanni, Oh! how lonely was thy poor
Beatrice!"
     "Was it a hard doom?" asked Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her.
     "Only of late have I known how hard it was," answered she tenderly.
"Oh, yes; but my heart was torpid, and therefore quiet."
     Giovanni's rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightning-flash
out of a dark cloud.
     "Accursed one!" cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. "And finding
thy solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me, likewise, from all the
warmth of life, and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror!"
     "Giovanni!" exclaimed Beatrice, turning her large bright eyes upon his
face. The force of his words had not found its way into her mind; she was
merely thunder-struck.
     "Yes, poisonous thing!" repeated Giovanni, beside himself with
passion. "Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my
veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and
deadly a creature as thyself,--a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity!
Now--if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others--let us
join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!"
     "What has befallen me?" murmured Beatrice, with a low moan out of her
heart. "Holy Virgin pity me, a poor heart-broken child!"
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     "Thou! Dost thou pray?" cried Giovanni, still with the same fiendish
scorn. "Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the atmosphere
with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church, and dip our fingers in
the holy water at the portal! They that come after us will perish as by a
pestilence. Let us sign crosses in the air! It will be scattering curses abroad
in the likeness of holy symbols!"
     "Giovanni," said Beatrice calmly, for her grief was beyond passion,
"why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it is
true, am the horrible thing thou namest me. But thou!--what hast thou to do,
save with one other shudder at my hideous misery, to go forth out of the
garden and mingle with thy race, and forget that there ever crawled on earth
such a monster as poor Beatrice?"
     "Dost thou pretend ignorance?" asked Giovanni, scowling upon her.
"Behold! This power have I gained from the pure daughter of Rappaccini!"
     There was a swarm of summer-insects flitting through the air, in search
of the food promised by the flower-odors of the fatal garden. They circled
round Giovanni's head, and were evidently attracted towards him by the
same influence which had drawn them, for an instant, within the sphere of
several of the shrubs. He sent forth a breath among them, and smiled
bitterly at Beatrice, as at least a score of the insects fell dead upon the
ground.
     "I see it! I see it!" shrieked Beatrice. "It is my father's fatal science! No,
no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never, never! I dreamed only to love thee, and
be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass away, leaving but thine
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image in mine heart. For, Giovanni--believe it--though my body be
nourished with poison, my spirit is God's creature, and craves love as its
daily food. But my father!--he has united us in this fearful sympathy. Yes;
spurn me!--tread upon me!--kill me! Oh, what is death, after such words as
thine? But it was not I! Not for a world of bliss would I have done it!"
     Giovanni's passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips.
There now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without tenderness,
of the intimate and peculiar relationship between Beatrice and himself. They
stood, as it were, in an utter solitude, which would be made none the less
solitary by the densest throng of human life. Ought not, then, the desert of
humanity around them to press this insulated pair closer together? If they
should be cruel to one another, who was there to be kind to them? Besides,
thought Giovanni, might there not still be a hope of his returning within the
limits of ordinary nature, and leading Beatrice--the redeemed Beatrice--by
the hand? Oh, weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of
an earthly union and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love had
been so bitterly wronged as was Beatrice's love by Giovanni's blighting
words! No, no; there could be no such hope. She must pass heavily, with
that broken heart, across the borders of Time--she must bathe her hurts in
some fount of Paradise, and forget her grief in the light of immortality--and
there be well!
     But Giovanni did not know it.
     "Dear Beatrice," said he, approaching her, while she shrank away, as
always at his approach, but now with a different impulse--"dearest Beatrice,
                                           Rappaccini's Daughter                                     41

our fate is not yet so desperate. Behold! There is a medicine, potent, as a
wise physician has assured me, and almost divine in its efficacy. It is
composed of ingredients the most opposite to those by which thy awful
father has brought this calamity upon thee and me. It is distilled of blessed
herbs. Shall we not quaff it together, and thus be purified from evil?"
     "Give it me!" said Beatrice, extending her hand to receive the little silver
phial which Giovanni took from his bosom. She added, with a peculiar
emphasis: "I will drink--but do thou await the result."
     She put Baglioni's antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, the
figure of Rappaccini emerged from the portal, and came slowly towards the
marble fountain. As he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to gaze
with a triumphant expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as might an
artist who should spend his life in achieving a picture or a group of statuary,
and finally be satisfied with his success. He paused--his bent form grew
erect with conscious power, he spread out his hands over them, in the
attitude of a father imploring a blessing upon his children. But those were
the same hands that had thrown poison into the stream of their lives!
Giovanni trembled. Beatrice shuddered nervously, and pressed her hand
upon her heart.
     "My daughter," said Rappaccini, "thou art no longer lonely in the world!
Pluck one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub, and bid thy
bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm him now! My science,
and the sympathy between thee and him, have so wrought within his
system, that he now stands apart from common men, as thou dost, daughter
                                           Rappaccini's Daughter                                     42

of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women. Pass on, then, through the
world, most dear to one another, and dreadful to all besides!"
     "My father," said Beatrice, feebly--and still, as she spoke, she kept her
hand upon her heart--"wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom upon
thy child?"
     "Miserable!" exclaimed Rappaccini. "What mean you, foolish girl? Dost
thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts, against which no
power nor strength could avail an enemy? Misery, to be able to quell the
mightiest with a breath? Misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful?
Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman,
exposed to all evil, and capable of none?"
     "I would fain have been loved, not feared," murmured Beatrice, sinking
down upon the ground.--"But now it matters not; I am going, father, where
the evil, which thou hast striven to mingle with my being, will pass away
like a dream--like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no
longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden. Farewell, Giovanni! Thy
words of hatred are like lead within my heart--but they, too, will fall away
as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature
than in mine?"
     To Beatrice--so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by
Rappaccini's skill--as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was
death. And thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity and of thwarted nature,
and of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted wisdom, perished
there, at the feet of her father and Giovanni. Just at that moment, Professor
                                           Rappaccini's Daughter                                     43

Pietro Baglioni looked forth from the window, and called loudly, in a tone
of triumph mixed with horror, to the thunder-stricken man of science:
     "Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment?"