University of Virginia Library

Scene III

Rappaccini's Garden. Sunset.
Enter into the corridor Guasconti, a bunch of lilies in his hand.
Guas.
I voyage still between two worlds of dream,
Myself a dream! In Padua streets to-day
Men were as ghosts to me; and they, I felt,
Looked on me with scared eyes, as on a ghost.
It is almost the hour.

Enter Ruffini
Ruff.
Giovanni!

Guas.
Ha!
Celio! how com'st thou here?

Ruff.
Why, like thyself,
By the secret stair.

Guas.
Hence, on thy peril!

Ruff.
No;
I come to save thee, and by heaven I will,
Spite of that hoary devil, Rappaccini,
And his witch-daughter.

Guas.
Thou blasphem'st a saint

Ruff.
A saint? O madman in an opium dream
Besotted by the drug that poisons thee!

Guas.
Never so rich in health as I am now.

Ruff.
So say they all. It is the gravest mark
Of thy disease. Hast ever heard the tale
Of the fair woman whom an Indian prince
Sent as a gift to conquering Alexander?

Guas.
Spare me the tale, for it concerns me not.

Ruff.
Nay, listen! listen! She was fair as dawn,
She was arrayed like sunset; and her breath
Sweeter than spiced Arabian winds.

Guas.
Her breath?

Ruff.
Intoxicating perfume, richer, mark me,
Than Persian roses breathe in Gulistan.

Guas.
Intoxicating perfume?

Ruff.
Rarest jars
By Orient craft wrought from earth's finest clay,
To hold the absolute essence of the rose,
Shame not the pottery of a peasant's wheel
As she the journey-work of Nature's hand.

Guas.
Thou art no Hafiz, Celio, and her charms
Grow fulsome on thy tongue. A loftier strain;
Oh, she would tempt an amorous conqueror
To lose the world for her, and think it—pshaw!
Come to the moral but—but this rare creature
Was—what?

Ruff.
As dangerous as the poisoned rose
Sent by a Borgia to some honoured friend

Guas.
Yet Alexander died not.

Ruff.
Alexander
Had a most sage physician in his train,
And took his timely warning, shunned the witch
As Death's twin sister; else she had dumbed indeed
Earth's thunders round the car of Macedon,
Sooner than wine and fever.

Guas.
By what sign
Did this physician mark her down a witch?

Ruff.
Even by her breath.

Guas.
Her breath?

Ruff.
She had been fed
On poisons from her birth, until to her
Poison was elemental in her blood,
Her kisses death. She was a poison flower.

Guas.
This is mere fable.

Ruff.
Fable? So thought I,
Until I saw—
[Rappaccini crosses the garden.
Look there!

Guas.
'Tis Rappaccini.

Ruff.
This garden is a purlieu of that cell
I told thee of; here, as on some poor dog,
Some captive thing that whines and licks the hand
That dooms him death, he practises on thee
Some damned experiment.

Guas.
On me?

[Exit Rappaccini L.
Ruff.
Ay, thee.
Thou didst not note, but I did, how his gaze
Was bent on thee as thou didst walk to-day
Across the market-place, with such a look
As he might fix upon a mouse whose blood
Held poison from his limbecs.

Guas.
Idle dreams!

Ruff.
His eyes were scalpels, cutting to the soul,
And on his thin lips gleamed a passing smile
Of inward triumph.

Guas.
'Tis thy fantasy.

Ruff.
My conquering Alexander, trust me, no.
This garden is thy India, and in me
Hear thy physician. O my dear Giovanni,
I am here at deadly peril to myself
For love of thee! This Rappaccini's daughter
Is such a poison-flower, as beautiful
And deadly as that witch of classic tale.

Guas.
[Turning angrily.]
'Tis false! I am not poisoned by her breath.

Ruff.
[Recoiling.]
Far worse. Changed by its hellish alchemy,
That subtle perfume which so drugs the air,
I faint in a voluptuous lethargy—
It is not from the garden. 'Tis thy breath,
Thy poisonous breath.

Guas.
[Horrified.]
My poisonous breath? O God!
It is not true.

Ruff.
Here, put it to the proof.
See this foul spider, sitting in her maze;
Breathe on her.
[Guasconti breathes on the spider.
See, she fiercely agitates
The web and grows invisible. Again!
[He breathes again.
She drops suddenly dead. Art thou still doubtful?

Guas.
[Laughing hysterically.]
Ha! ha! Can I kill thus? I'll rage like death
On all mankind.

Ruff.
[Avoiding him.]
Oh, this is terrible!

[Guasconti looks at the flowers in his hand.
Guas.
These flowers? Dead! dead!—all blasted by my touch!
[He flings them away into the garden.
There, let her take this bridal gift from me.

Ruff.
Listen, Giovanni; does this Beatrice
Return thy love?

Guas.
I did believe so. Fool!
Yet, yet—Oh, innocence dwells in her face,
Like the sweet sky in crystal water, Celio!

Ruff.
Well, grant her innocent; but her vile father
Plots for thy ruin. He would hold thee here
An alien from the world, to be her mate.

Guas.
Is this the gulf, O God, is this the gulf
That I would overpass?

Ruff.
But if she love thee
Thou mayst redeem her to the wholesome world.

Guas.
How? how?

Ruff.
Baglioni sends thee by my hand
This antidote, so potent it can quell
All Rappaccini's poisons, like the snakes
Swallowed by Aaron's rod.

[Beatrice appears in the garden.
Bea.
Giovanni!

Ruff.
Hark!

Guas.
It is her voice; the garden's ancient spell,
Which fascinates and kills, rich in its flute.

Ruff.
[Gives the phial.]
This delicate piece of goldsmith's artistry
Is but the precious rind which holds immured
A juice more precious. Take it, drink with her,
Or, if she drink not, slay her with thy sword.

Bea.
Giovanni! Come, the hour is overpast,
My love, I wait for thee.

Guas.
I'll go to her
With eyes unsealed, thanks, Celio, eyes unsealed,
And prove her love by this, thy talisman.

Ruff.
Go, in God's name. I dare no longer bide.

[Exit Ruffini. Guasconti enters the garden.
Bea.
Giovanni! Oh, 'tis thou? Late, late, my love!
How I have waited for this holy hour.

Guas.
Well, it has come.

[They pace in silence, side by side.
Bea.
[Shivering.]
How cold the sunset falls!

Guas.
Yes; it is cold.

Bea.
My heart is full of love,
And yet I have no words.

Guas.
[Bitterly.]
What, not a word,
Though for thy sake I have outswum Leander
And passed the gulf?

Bea.
The gulf?

Guas.
[With fierce irony.]
Ay, my sweet bride,
Let us make merry. Deck with flowers the charnel,
Set forth our wedding banquet, let us quaff
Healths to each other out of brimming skulls,
Deep healths in wolfsbane and mandragora.
[He inhales the odour of the flowers.
For see with what a craving appetite
I pasture on thy poisons.

Bea.
Dear Giovanni,
Jest not so wildly.

Guas.
[Approaches the poison flower.]
Now, my queen of flowers,
The secret of the garden. I demand
My last initiation. What strange sin
Gave this bright horror birth?

Bea.
No sin, but love.
A human spirit, sister to my own,
Lives in its life. It is my father's child
Sprung from my mother's tomb.

Guas.
[With horror.]
That tale is true!
O womb of earth! I have seen battlefields
Where men long sown revisited the sun
As melancholy weeds: but in this garden
There's magical husbandry. Thy father's child?

Bea.
Reverence in her creation's mystery,
Which he hath fathomed as no man before.

Guas.
The sweat of awe is cold upon my body,
Yet all my blood cries out in wild desire
For but one flower.

Bea.
I know not if I dare.

[Rappaccini steps out from behind the fountain.
Rappa.
Yes, Beatrice, hear the bridegroom's voice;
Give him the flower, for he may wear it now.
[Beatrice plucks a flower and places it in his breast. He stands entranced.
The hour is come, the blood weds with the fire!

[He extends his arms over them, as in blessing, then exit into the house.
Guas.
[Recovering.]
Ashtaroth! Ashtaroth!

Bea.
What means that cry?

Guas.
What part had I in these unhallowed rites?
Her blood is in my veins, leavens my blood
With poisonous fire. I am accurst, accurst!

Bea.
Giovanni! Speak to me, one word to me!

Guas.
Dost thou not see me hang on the world's cross,
Cast out, accurst, alone?

Bea.
Nay, I am with thee.

Guas.
Mock, then: I am the scapegoat of the world,
Yet work no man's redemption through my pangs,
Like the poor thief, who went the devil's way,
Who gave him pity?

Bea.
Would I might understand.
I knew there dwelt a doom within the flower:
But deemed that love—

Guas.
[Laughing.]
Thou canst not understand!
There yawns the gulf again, as deep as hell.

Bea.
There is no gulf love cannot overpass.
Kiss me, Giovanni. We are made one through love.

Guas.
Kiss thee! O thou she-Judas! Can thy kiss
Sunder me more from the fair world of men,
Than all this poisonous change thy arts have wrought?

Bea.
Giovanni!

[She recoils and seems about to weep.
Guas.
Wilt thou weep? Have sirens tears?
Can those who trade in shipwreck pity the drowned?

Bea.
O Virgin Mother, look on me, thy child;
All thy seven deadly swords are in my heart!

Guas.
Ha! canst thou pray? Thou witch whose very prayers
Infect the winds with poison! Ay, let us pray,
Let us to church and dip our tainted hands
In holy water, set our deadly lips
To sacred chalices, our orisons
Like muttered spells infect the blessed bread,
That heavenly offices work fiery death!

Bea.
O God! O God!

Guas.
Well said! Blaspheme his name,
Sign crosses in the air, let our foul plague
Light in redemption's symbol on men's heads,
Smite Padua like a curse, heap every street
With festering corpses!

Bea.
Oh, what have I done
That thou appall'st me with such words of hate?

Guas.
What hast thou done? Made me even as thou art,
A thing more deadly than the basilisk.

Bea.
But not to thee—I am not this to thee!
And yet some sudden horror frights thy love
Into abhorrence. Thou hast stabbed my heart
More cruelly than with swords. Oh, leave me now,
To die with my dead hopes—go thou thy way.

Guas.
I leave thee! I! Art thou so innocent?
Behold! These gnats that spring and sink again,
A cloud of rhythmic life over the fountain,
Be as a city of men within whose walls.
We two walk like the pestilence. Behold!

[He breathes upon the gnats.
Bea.
Slain by thy breath! Oh, doomsday shoots a glare
Of light into my soul! My father's art!

Guas.
Ay, his black magic that hath made us two
The things we are; outcast beyond the ban
Of lepers' cells.

Bea.
I knew not what I did.
Ah me! I was so lonely in this garden!

Guas.
So thou didst lure me here, as flies by flowers
Are caught with poisonous honey. Well, thou art
Alone no longer.

Bea.
Never so alone!
My poor Giovanni, I begin to fear
Thy heart holds deadlier poison than this garden
Ever brought forth.

Guas.
My heart?

Bea.
The black mistrust
That is love's bane. Woe's me! With what pure faith
I trusted in thy faith. I dreamed thy love
Would clasp me all the closer, though the flames
Of hell should roar and rage against that faith.

Guas.
Am I a god to bear such things and blench not?

Bea.
I knew men were not gods, yet saw the god
In just the one man out of all the world,
Thee, thee, mine own! Now thou hast killed my heart,
Kill then this wretched body. Give thy hate
Full wing to swoop in any fierce revenge
It craves to assuage it. Only let my blood
Break this foul spell. It can, and set thee free.
Go back into the world, dwell with thy kind,
And keep no soil of my forgotten love.

Guas.
[Kneeling.]
If in this fiery trial of my faith
I have reproached thee for thy father's sin,
Forgive me, Beatrice, for my love
Assoils thee of that sin.

Bea.
Too late, too late!
Alas! forgiveness is a bitter sweet.
Bruise but a butterfly's soft feathery wings,
It pines an alien in the sunny air;
Never glad flight again. So pines my soul.
Yet it is sweet, Giovanni, from thy love,
Not from thy hate, I may demand my death.

Guas.
Death, death! Thy words are mad. Could I transcend
The faltering virtue of our mortal nature?
I love thee still.

Bea.
As men love captive things.
I must be free.

Guas.
O yet there is a way
To life, love, happiness. I had nigh forgot
This phial. Here I hold a precious juice,
Sent me by old Baglioni, which can make
Thy father's poisons tame.

Bea.
Doubt my own father?
That's little now. [Smiling.]
Baglioni's antidote?
I dreamed, fond I, love was the antidote
For the most virulent poison of the world.
Must I drink this, Giovanni?

Guas.
For my sake,
In earnest of thy love. Oh, we will drink
Together, thou and I, and go forth healed
Into the world!

Bea.
To love, then, and thy health!

[Music to the end of the scene. Beatrice drinks and hands Guasconti the phial.
Guas.
And this to thee, to thee!

[He drinks.
Bea.
Ave atque vale!

Guas.
No funeral words. Await our happy change.

Bea.
It comes, Giovanni. Here, here, in thine arms,
One moment close to thee, let me dream out
The foolish happy dream. Yes, thou and I
Have stretched our longing arms across the gulf,
And touched, touched once. Ah! could love do no more?
I fear I have wronged a noble heart in thine.
No time to weep all well!

[She frees herself and stands a moment her hand pressed to her heart.
Guas.
What ails thee?

Bea.
Death.
So poison casts out poison.

[She reels suddenly and falls.
Guas.
What have I done?

Bea.
Made thy face but a memory: for mine eyes
See only night, and lose thee evermore.
Thy hand, reach me thy hand.

Guas.
[Kneeling beside her and taking her hand.]
My love! My love!

Bea.
Oh, I am swept away from thee, away
Into the vast.

Guas.
Fool! Fool! Mock me, ye fiends.
Beatrice!

Bea.
O farewell! We two may meet—
Perchance—long ages hence—

[She dies.
Guas.
Wilt thou escape me?
Through life's dark postern slip into the void?
See, I plunge after, and will follow thee,
Æons on Æons, till my flaming feet
Bear me to thy pure presence. Speed me, God!
[Crosses himself.
Sweet, let me sip from thy untasted lips
Death's drowsy wine.
[He kisses her.
Lend me thy breast, my love,
To pillow my last sleep. I come, I come!
The moth dies in the star.

[He dies. Rappaccini appears behind in the garden.
Rappa.
The wedding banquet waits. Come in, my children.