 | Mosses from an old manse |  |
RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER.
A Young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago,
from the more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at
the University of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply
of gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy
chamber of an old edifice, which looked not unworthy to have
been the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited
over its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since
extinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great
poem of his country, recollected that one of the ancestors of this
family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had been
pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his
Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with the
tendency to heart-break natural to a young man for the first time
out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily, as he
looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment.
“Holy Virgin, signor,” cried old dame Lisabetta, who, won
by the youth's remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring
to give the chamber a habitable air, “what a sigh was
that to come out of a young man's heart! Do you find this old
mansion gloomy? For the love of heaven, then, put your head
out of the window, and you will see as bright sunshine as you
have left in Naples.”
Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but
could not quite agree with her that the Lombard sunshine was as
cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however,
influences on a variety of plants, which seemed to have been
cultivated with exceeding care.
“Does this garden belong to the house?” asked Giovanni.
“Heaven forbid, signor!—unless it were fruitful of better potherbs
than any that grow there now,” answered old Lisabetta.
“No: that garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo
Rappaccini, the famous Doctor, who, I warrant him, has been
heard of as far as Naples. It is said that he distils these plants
into medicines that are as potent as a charm. Oftentimes you
may see the signor Doctor at work, and perchance the signora
his daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers that grow in the
garden.”
The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of
the chamber, and, commending the young man to the protection
of the saints, took her departure.
Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down
into the garden beneath his window. From its appearance, he
judged it to be one of those botanic gardens, which were of earlier
date in Padua than elsewhere in Italy, or in the world. Or, not
improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of an
opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in
the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so wofully shattered that
it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of
remaining fragments. The water, however, continued to gush
and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. A little
gurgling sound ascended to the young man's window, and made
him feel as if a fountain were an immortal spirit, that sung its
song unceasingly, and without heeding the vicissitudes around it;
while one century embodied it in marble, and another scattered
the perishable garniture on the soil. All about the pool into
which the water subsided, grew various plants, that seemed to
require a plentiful supply of moisture for the nourishment of
There was one shrub in particular, set in a marble
vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms,
each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem; and
the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed
enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine.
Every portion of the soil was peopled with plants and
herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care;
as if all had their individual virtues, known to the scientific mind
that fostered them. Some were placed in urns, rich with old
carving, and others in common garden-pots; some crept serpent-like
along the ground, or climbed on high, using whatever means
of ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed itself round
a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled and shrouded
in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged that it might
have served a sculptor for a study.
While Giovanni stood at the window, he heard a rustling behind
a screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work
in the garden. His figure soon emerged into view, and showed
itself to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow,
and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar's garb of black.
He was beyond the middle term of life, with grey hair, a thin
grey beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and cultivation,
but which could never, even in his more youthful days,
have expressed much warmth of heart.
Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific
gardener examined every shrub which grew in his path; it seemed
as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making observations
in regard to their creative essence, and discovering why one leaf
grew in this shape, and another in that, and wherefore such
and such flowers differed among themselves in hue and perfume.
Nevertheless, in spite of the deep intelligence on his part, there
was no approach to intimacy between himself and these vegetable
the direct inhaling of their odors, with a caution that impressed
Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man's demeanor was that of
one walking among malignant influences, such as savage beasts,
or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one
moment of license, would wreak upon him some terrible fatality.
It was strangely frightful to the young man's imagination, to see
this air of insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most
simple and innocent of human toils, and which had been alike the
joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the race. Was this
garden, then, the Eden of the present world?—and this man,
with such a perception of harm in what his own hands caused to
grow, was he the Adam?
The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves
or pruning the too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his
hands with a pair of thick gloves. Nor were these his only
armor. When, in his walk through the garden, he came to the
magnificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble
fountain, he placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as
if all this beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice. But finding
his task still too dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask, and
called loudly, but in the infirm voice of a person affected with
inward disease:
“Beatrice!—Beatrice!”
“Here am I, my father! What would you?” cried a rich
and youthful voice from the window of the opposite house; a
voice as rich as a tropical sunset, and which made Giovanni,
though he knew not why, think of deep hues of purple or crimson,
and of perfumes heavily delectable—“Are you in the
garden!”
“Yes, Beatrice,” answered the gardener, “and I need your
help.”
Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure
most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a
bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too
much. She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all
of which attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were,
and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone. Yet
Giovanni's fancy must have grown morbid, while he looked down
into the garden; for the impression which the fair stranger
made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human
sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they—more beautiful
than the richest of them—but still to be touched only with a
glove, nor to be approached without a mask. As Beatrice came
down the garden-path, it was observable that she handled and
inhaled the odor of several of the plants, which her father had
most sedulously avoided.
“Here, Beatrice,” said the latter,—“see how many needful
offices require to be done to our chief treasure. Yet, shattered
as I am, my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely
as circumstances demand. Henceforth, I fear, this plant must be
consigned to your sole charge.”
“And gladly will I undertake it,” cried again the rich tones
of the young lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant, and
opened her arms as if to embrace it. “Yes, my sister, my
splendor, it shall be Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; and
thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfume breath, which
to her is as the breath of life!”
Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly
expressed in her words, she busied herself with such attentions
as the plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty
window, rubbed his eyes, and almost doubted whether it were a
girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the
duties of affection to another. The scene soon terminated.
Whether Doctor Rappaccini had finished his labors in the garden,
took his daughter's arm and retired. Night was already closing
in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the plants, and
steal upward past the open window; and Giovanni, closing the
lattice, went to his couch, and dreamed of a rich flower and
beautiful girl. Flower and maiden were different and yet the
same, and fraught with some strange peril in either shape.
But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to
rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may
have incurred during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of
the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni's
first movement on starting from sleep, was to throw open the
window, and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had
made so fertile of mysteries. He was surprised, and a little
ashamed, to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to
be, in the first rays of the sun, which gilded the dew-drops that hung
upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to
each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary
experience. The young man rejoiced, that, in the heart of the
barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely
and luxuriant vegetation. It would serve, he said to himself, as
a symbolic language, to keep him in communion with nature.
Neither the sickly and thought-worn Doctor Giacomo Rappaccini,
it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that
Giovanni could not determine how much of the singularity which
he attributed to both, was due to their own qualities, and how
much to his wonder-working fancy. But he was inclined to take
a most rational view of the whole matter.
In the course of the day, he paid his respects to Signor Pietro
Baglioni, professor of medicine in the University, a physician of
eminent repute, to whom Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction.
The professor was an elderly personage, apparently of
genial nature, and habits that might almost be called jovial; he
by the freedom and liveliness of his conversation, especially when
warmed by a flask or two of Tuscan wine. Giovanni, conceiving
that men of science, inhabitants of the same city, must needs be
on familiar terms with one another, took an opportunity to mention
the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the professor did not
respond with so much cordiality as he had anticipated.
“Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine,”
said Professor Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a question of Giovanni,
“to withhold due and well-considered praise of a physician so
eminently skilled as Rappaccini. But, on the other hand, I should
answer it but scantily to my conscience, were I to permit a worthy
youth like yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend,
to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter
chance to hold your life and death in his hands. The truth is,
our worshipful Doctor Rappaccini has as much science as any
member of the faculty—with perhaps one single exception—in
Padua, or all Italy. But there are certain grave objections to his
professional character.”
“And what are they?” asked the young man.
“Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that
he is so inquisitive about physicians?” said the Professor, with
a smile. “But as for Rappaccini, it is said of him—and
I, who know the man well, can answer for its truth—that he
cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients
are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment.
He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever
else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a
grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated
knowledge.”
“Methinks he is an awful man, indeed,” remarked Guasconti,
mentally recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of Rappaccini.
Are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of science?”
“God forbid,” answered the Professor, somewhat testily—“at
least, unless they take sounder views of the healing art than those
adopted by Rappaccini. It is his theory, that all medicinal virtues
are comprised within those substances which we term vegetable
poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is
said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly
deleterious than Nature, without the assistance of this learned
person, would ever have plagued the world with. That the Signor
Doctor does less mischief than might be expected, with such dangerous
substances, is undeniable. Now and then, it must be
owned, he has effected—or seemed to effect—a marvellous cure.
But, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should receive
little credit for such instances of success—they being probably
the work of chance—but should be held strictly accountable
for his failures, which may justly be considered his own
work.”
The youth might have taken Baglioni's opinions with many
grains of allowance, had he known that there was a professional
warfare of long continuance between him and Doctor Rappaccini,
in which the latter was generally thought to have gained the advantage.
If the reader be inclined to judge for himself, we refer
him to certain black-letter tracts on both sides, preserved in the
medical department of the University of Padua.
“I know not, most learned Professor,” returned Giovanni, after
musing on what had been said of Rappaccini's exclusive zeal for
science—“I know not how dearly this physician may love his
art; but surely there is one object more dear to him. He has a
daughter.”
“Aha!” cried the Professor with a laugh. “So now our
friend Giovanni's secret is out. You have heard of this daughter,
whom all the young men in Padua are wild about, though not
little of the Signora Beatrice, save that Rappaccini is said to have
instructed her deeply in his science, and that, young and beautiful
as fame reports her, she is already qualified to fill a professor's
chair. Perchance her father destines her for mine! Other absurd
rumors there be, not worth talking about, or listening to. So
now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of Lacryma.”
Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the
wine he had quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with
strange fantasies in reference to Doctor Rappaccini and the beautiful
Beatrice. On his way, happening to pass by a florist's, he
bought a fresh bouquet of flowers.
Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window,
but within the shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he
could look down into the garden with little risk of being discovered.
All beneath his eye was a solitude. The strange plants
were basking in the sunshine, and now and then nodding gently
to one another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and kindred.
In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew the magnificent
shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; they glowed
in the air, and gleamed back again out of the depths of the pool,
which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance from the
rich reflection that was steeped in it. At first, as we have said,
the garden was a solitude. Soon, however,—as Giovanni had
half-hoped, half-feared, would be the case,—a figure appeared
beneath the antique sculptured portal, and came down between
the rows of plants, inhaling their various perfumes, as if she were
one of those beings of old classic fable, that lived upon sweet
odors. On again beholding Beatrice, the young man was even
startled to perceive how much her beauty exceeded his recollection
of it; so brilliant, so vivid in its character, that she glowed
amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni whispered to himself, positively
illuminated the more shadowy intervals of the garden path.
he was struck by its expression of simplicity and sweetness;
qualities that had not entered into his idea of her character, and
which made him ask anew, what manner of mortal she might be.
Nor did he fail again to observe, or imagine, an analogy between
the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its gem-like
flowers over the fountain; a resemblance which Beatrice seemed
to have indulged a fantastic humor in heightening, both by the
arrangement of her dress and the selection of its hues.
Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a
passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace;
so intimate, that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom, and
her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the flowers.
“Give me thy breath, my sister,” exclaimed Beatrice; “for
I am faint with common air! And give me this flower of thine,
which I separate with gentlest fingers from the stem, and place
it close beside my heart.”
With these words, the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked
one of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten
it in her bosom. But now, unless Giovanni's draughts of wine
had bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred. A small
orange-colored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced
to be creeping along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It
appeared to Giovanni—but, at the distance from which he gazed,
he could scarcely have seen anything so minute—it appeared to
him, however, that a drop or two of moisture from the broken
stem of the flower descended upon the lizard's head. For an
instant, the reptile contorted itself violently, and then lay motionless
in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this remarkable phenomenon,
and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did
she therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her bosom.
There it blushed, and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect
of a precious stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one appropriate
But Giovanni, out of the shadow of his window, bent forward and
shrank back, and murmured and trembled.
“Am I awake? Have I my senses?” said he to himself.
“What is this being?—beautiful, shall I call her?—or inexpressibly
terrible?”
Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching
closer beneath Giovanni's window, so that he was compelled
to thrust his head quite out of its concealment, in order to gratify
the intense and painful curiosity which she excited. At this
moment, there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it
had perhaps wandered through the city and found no flowers nor
verdure among those antique haunts of men, until the heavy perfumes
of Doctor Rappaccini's shrubs had lured it from afar.
Without alighting on the flowers, this winged brightness seemed
to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and fluttered
about her head. Now here it could not be but that Giovanni
Guasconti's eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied
that while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight,
it grew faint and fell at her feet!—its bright wings shivered! it
was dead!—from no cause that he could discern, unless it were
the atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and
sighed heavily, as she bent over the dead insect.
An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window.
There she beheld the beautiful head of the young man—
rather a Grecian than an Italian head, with fair, regular features,
and a glistening of gold among his ringlets—gazing down upon
her like a being that hovered in mid-air. Scarcely knowing what
he did, Giovanni threw down the bouquet which he had hitherto
held in his hand.
“Signora,” said he, “there are pure and healthful flowers.
Wear them for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti!”
“Thanks, Signor,” replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that
expression half childish and half woman-like. “I accept your
gift, and would fain recompense it with this precious purple
flower; but if I toss it into the air, it will not reach you. So
Signor Guasconti must even content himself with my thanks.”
She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then as if inwardly
ashamed at having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to
respond to a stranger's greeting, passed swiftly homeward through
the garden. But, few as the moments were, it seemed to Giovanni
when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured
portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to
wither in her grasp. It was an idle thought; there could be no
possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one, at so
great a distance.
For many days after this incident, the young man avoided the
window that looked into Doctor Rappaccini's garden, as if something
ugly and monstrous would have blasted his eye-sight, had
he been betrayed into a glance. He felt conscious of having put
himself, to a certain extent, within the influence of an unintelligible
power, by the communication which he had opened with
Beatrice. The wisest course would have been, if his heart were
in any real danger, to quit his lodgings and Padua itself, at once;
the next wiser, to have accustomed himself, as far as possible, to
the familiar and day-light view of Beatrice; thus bringing her
rigidly and systematically within the limits of ordinary experience.
Least of all, while avoiding her sight, should Giovanni
have remained so near this extraordinary being, that the proximity
and possibility even of intercourse, should give a kind of substance
and reality to the wild vagaries which his imagination ran
riot continually in producing. Guasconti had not a deep heart—
or at all events, its depths were not sounded now—but he had a
quick fancy, and an ardent southern temperament, which rose
every instant to a higher fever-pitch. Whether or no Beatrice
with those so beautiful and deadly flowers—which were indicated
by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce
and subtle poison into his system. It was not love, although her
rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror, even while he
fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence
that seemed to pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring
of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned like
one and shivered like the other. Giovanni knew not what to
dread; still less did he know what to hope; yet hope and dread
kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing
one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. Blessed
are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid
intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the
infernal regions.
Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a
rapid walk through the streets of Padua, or beyond its gates; his
footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the
walk was apt to accelerate itself to a race. One day, he found
himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly personage who
had turned back on recognizing the young man, and expended
much breath in overtaking him.
“Signor Giovanni!—stay, my young friend!” cried he.
“Have you forgotten me? That might well be the case, if I
were as much altered as yourself.”
It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided, ever since their
first meeting, from a doubt that the professor's sagacity would
look too deeply into his secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself,
he stared forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one, and
spoke like a man in a dream.
“Yes; I am Giovanni Guasconti. You are Professor Pietro
Baglioni. Now let me pass!”
“Not yet—not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti,” said the Professor,
with an earnest glance.—“What; did I grow up side by side
with your father, and shall his son pass me like a stranger, in
these old streets of Padua? Stand still, Signor Giovanni; for
we must have a word or two before we part.”
“Speedily, then, most worshipful Professor, speedily!” said
Giovanni, with feverish impatience. “Does not your worship see
that I am in haste?”
Now, while he was speaking, there came a man in black along
the street, stooping and moving feebly, like a person in inferior
health. His face was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow
hue, but yet so pervaded with an expression of piercing and
active intellect, that an observer might easily have overlooked the
merely physical attributes, and have seen only this wonderful
energy. As he passed, this person exchanged a cold and distant
salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his eyes upon Giovanni with an
intentness that seemed to bring out whatever was within him
worthy of notice. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar quietness in
the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human interest,
in the young man.
“It is Doctor Rappaccini!” whispered the Professor, when the
stranger had passed.—“Has he ever seen your face before?”
“Not that I know,” answered Giovanni, starting at the name.
“He has seen you!—he must have seen you!” said Baglioni,
hastily. “For some purpose or other, this man of science is
making a study of you. I know that look of his! It is the same
that coldly illuminates his face, as he bends over a bird, a mouse,
or a butterfly, which, in pursuance of some experiment, he has
killed by the perfume of a flower;—a look as deep as nature itself,
but without nature's warmth of love. Signor Giovanni, I will
stake my life upon it, you are the subject of one of Rappaccini's
experiments!”
“Will you make a fool of me?” cried Giovanni, passionately.
“That, Signor Professor, were an untoward experiment.”
“Patience, patience!” replied the imperturbable Professor.
“I tell thee, my poor Giovanni, that Rappaccini has a scientific
interest in thee. Thou hast fallen into fearful hands! And the
Signora Beatrice? What part does she act in this mystery?”
But Guasconti, finding Baglioni's pertinacity intolerable, here
broke away, and was gone before the Professor could again seize
his arm. He looked after the young man intently, and shook his
head.
“This must not be,” said
Bagiloni to himself. “The youth is
the son of my old friend, and shall not come to any harm from
which the arcana of medical science can preserve him. Besides,
it is too insufferable an impertinence in Rappaccini thus to
snatch the lad out of my own hands, as I may say, and make use
of him for his infernal experiments. This daughter of his! It
shall be looked to. Perchance, most learned Rappaccini, I may
foil you where you little dream of it!”
Meanwhile, Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at
length found himself at the door of his lodgings. As he crossed
the threshold, he was met by old Lisabetta, who smirked and
smiled, and was evidently desirous to attract his attention;
vainly, however, as the ebullition of his feelings had momentarily
subsided into a cold and dull vacuity. He turned his eyes full
upon the withered face that was puckering itself into a smile, but
seemed to behold it not. The old dame, therefore, laid her grasp
upon his cloak.
“Signor!—Signor!” whispered she, still with a smile over the
whole breadth of her visage, so that it looked not unlike a grotesque
carving in wood, darkened by centuries—“Listen, Signor!
There is a private entrance into the garden!”
“What do you say?” exclaimed Giovanni, turning quickly
“A private entrance into Doctor Rappaccini's garden!”
“Hush! hush!—not so loud!” whispered Lisabetta, putting her
hand over his mouth. “Yes; into the worshipful Doctor's garden,
where you may see all his fine shrubbery. Many a young
man in Padua would give gold to be admitted among those
flowers.”
Giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand.
“Show me the way,” said he.
A surmise, probably excited by his conversation with Baglioni,
crossed his mind, that this interposition of old Lisabetta might
perchance be connected with the intrigue, whatever were its
nature, in which the Professor seemed to suppose that Doctor
Rappaccini was involving him. But such a suspicion, though it
disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to restrain him. The instant
he was aware of the possibility of approaching Beatrice, it seemed
an absolute necessity of his existence to do so. It mattered not
whether she were angel or demon; he was irrevocably within her
sphere, and must obey the law that whirled him onward, in
ever lessening circles, towards a result which he did not attempt
to foreshadow. And yet, strange to say, there came across him
a sudden doubt, whether this intense interest on his part were not
delusory—whether it were really of so deep and positive a nature
as to justify him in now thrusting himself into an incalculable
position—whether it were not merely the fantasy of a young
man's brain, only slightly, or not at all, connected with his
heart!
He paused—hesitated—turned half about—but again went on.
His withered guide led him along several obscure passages, and
finally undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came
the sight and sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine
glimmering among them. Giovanni stepped forth, and forcing
himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its
in the open area of Doctor Rappaccini's garden.
How often is it the case, that, when impossibilities have come
to pass, and dreams have condensed their misty substance into
tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed,
amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium
of joy or agony to anticipate! Fate 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
the whole growth of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized
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 in 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
under 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 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
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 cheek; 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 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 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
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 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 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 Giovanni spend the night, nor fell asleep, until the dawn
had begun to awake the slumbering flowers in Doctor Rappaccini's
garden, whither his 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,
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 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, they loved; they had looked love, with
eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul
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, 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 marvellous tale?”
“A childish fable,” answered Giovanni, nervously starting
from his chair. “I marvel how your worship finds time to read
such nonsense, 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
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 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
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, 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 a 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
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 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
hastened to the florist's, and purchased a bouquet that was still
gemmed 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 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
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 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
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 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.
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!”
“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 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
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, 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 hand 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 very 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
apart from common men, as thou dost, daughter 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 perferred 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 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?”
| Mosses from an old manse | |