Mosses from an old manse
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 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
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 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!”