Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864
. Rappaccini's Daughter
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RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER
[From the Writings of Aubépine.]
WE
do not remember to have seen any translated specimens of the
productions of M. de l'Aubépine -- a fact the less to be wondered at, as
his very name is unknown to many of his own countrymen as well as to
the student of foreign literature. As a writer, he seems to occupy an
unfortunate position between the Transcendentalists (who, under one name
or another, have their share in all the current literature of the
world) and the great body of pen-and-ink men who address the intellect
and sympathies of the multitude. If not too refined, at all events too
remote, too shadowy, and unsubstantial in his modes of development to
suit the taste of the latter class, and yet too popular to satisfy the
spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, he must
necessarily find himself without an audience, except here and there an
individual or possibly an isolated clique. His writings, to do them
justice, are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality; they
might have won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of
allegory, which is apt to invest his plots and characters with the
aspect of scenery and people in the clouds, and to steal away the human
warmth out of his conceptions. His fictions are sometimes historical,
sometimes of the present day, and sometimes, so far as can be
discovered, have little or no reference either to time or space. In any
case, he generally contents himself with a very slight embroidery of
outward manners, -- the faintest possible counterfeit of real life, --
and endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious peculiarity of
the subject. Occasionally a breath of Nature, a raindrop of pathos and
tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find its way into the midst of his
fantastic imagery, and make us feel as if, after all, we were yet
within the limits of our native earth. We will only add to this very
cursory notice that M. de l'Aubépine's productions, if the reader chance
to take them in precisely the proper point of view, may amuse a leisure
hour as well as those of a brighter man; if otherwise, they can hardly
fail to look excessively like nonsense.
Our author is
voluminous; he continues to write and publish with as much praiseworthy
and indefatigable prolixity as if his efforts were crowned with the
brilliant success that so justly attends those of Eugene Sue. His first
appearance was by a collection of stories in a long series of volumes
entitled ``Contes deux fois racontées.'' The titles of some of his more
recent works (we quote from memory) are as follows: ``Le Voyage Céleste à
Chemin de Fer,'' 3 tom., 1838; ``Le nouveau Père Adam et la nouvelle
Mère Eve,'' 2 tom., 1839; ``Roderic; ou le Serpent à l'estomac,'' 2
tom., 1840; ``Le Culte du Feu,'' a folio volume of ponderous research
into the religion and ritual of the old Persian Ghebers,
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published in 1841; ``La Soirée du Chateau en Espagne,'' 1 tom., 8vo,
1842; and ``L'Artiste du Beau; ou le Papillon Mécanique,'' 5 tom., 4to,
1843. Our somewhat wearisome perusal of this startling catalogue of
volumes has left behind it a certain personal affection and sympathy,
though by no means admiration, for M. de l'Aubépine; and we would fain
do the little in our power towards introducing him favorably to the
American public. The ensuing tale is a translation of his ``Beatrice; ou
la Belle Empoisonneuse,'' recently published in ``La Revue
Anti-Aristocratique.'' This journal, edited by the Comte de Bearhaven,
has for some years past led the defence of liberal principles and
popular rights with a faithfulness and ability worthy of all praise.
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
heartbreak 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 Paduan sunshine was as
cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell
upon a garden beneath the window and expended its fostering 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 pot herbs 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
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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 the
fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song unceasingly and
without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one century imbodied
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 gigantic leaves, and in some instances, flowers
gorgeously magnificent. 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 gray hair, a thin,
gray 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 this deep intelligence on his part,
there was no approach to intimacy between himself
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and these vegetable existences. On the contrary, he avoided their
actual touch or 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 of a young
girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the 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
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lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her arms
as if to embrace it. ``Yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be
Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with
thy kisses and perfumed 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 Dr. Rappaccini
had finished his labors in the garden, or that his watchful eye had
caught the stranger's face, he now 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 thoughtworn Dr. 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 kept the young man to dinner, and made himself very agreeable
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.
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``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 Dr. 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. ``And yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble spirit?
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
withal. 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 Dr. 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
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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 half a dozen have ever had the good
hap to see her face. I know 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 lachryma.''
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 Dr. 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, was its character, that she
glowed amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni whispered to himself,
positively illuminated the more shadowy intervals of the garden path.
Her face being now more revealed than on the former occasion, 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 gemlike 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.
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``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 charm which nothing
else in the world could have supplied. 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 or verdure among those antique haunts of men until
the heavy perfumes of Dr. 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 came
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forth as it were like a gush of music, and with a mirthful 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 Dr. Rappaccini's garden, as if something ugly and monstrous
would have blasted his eyesight 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 daylight view of Beatrice -- thus bringing her rigidly and
systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. Least of all,
while avoiding her sight, ought Giovanni to 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 possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath,
the affinity 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
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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, smiling,
but at the same time scrutinizing the youth 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 Dr. 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.
-1053-
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 Baglioni 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 about, as if an
inanimate thing should start into feverish life. ``A private entrance
into Dr. 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 Dr. Rappaccini was involving him. But
such a suspicion, though it disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to
restrain him. The instant that 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
-1054-
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 tendrils over the hidden
entrance, stood beneath his own window in the open area of Dr.
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 possessing the questionable and ominous character that
distinguished 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 Dr.
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
-1055-
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 lifetime 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 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 cheek; but she looked full into Giovanni's eyes, and responded to
his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike 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 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
-1056-
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 daylight 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 gemlike 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 maidenlike. 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 Dr. 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
-1057-
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 transmitted 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 Dr. 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 gemlike 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 comes
when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapped 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 my
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 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
-1058-
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 by,'' said the professor, looking
uneasily about him, ``what singular fragrance is this in your apartment?
Is it the perfume of your
-1059-
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.''
``Ay; 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 woe 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 gray 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, will hesitate at nothing.''
``It is a dream,'' muttered Giovanni to himself; ``surely it is a dream.''
-1060-
``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 vial 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 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
-1068-
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 recrossing 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 artisan. 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
-1062-
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 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 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
thunderstruck.
``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
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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 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? O, weak, and selfish, and unworthy
spirit, that could dream of an earthly union and earthly happiness
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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
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 vial 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 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
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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
thunderstricken man of science, --
``Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is
this the upshot of your experiment!''
