Лучшие любовные истории / The Best Love Stories - стр. 3
“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 a chance 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 she already can fill a professor’s chair. Perhaps her father is preparing her for mine!”
Guasconti returned to his lodgings a little heated with the wine he had drunk, and which caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies about Dr. Rappaccini and the beautiful Beatrice. On his way he bought a bouquet of flowers.
Going up to his room, he seated himself near the window, so that he could look down into the garden with little risk of being discovered. In the sunshine, the strange plants were now and then nodding gently to one another. In the middle, by the shattered fountain, grew the magnificent shrub, with its purple flowers all over it; they looked back again out of the pool. At first there was nobody in the garden. Soon, however, – as Giovanni had half hoped, half feared – a figure appeared beneath the portal, and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling their various perfumes as if she were one of those beings of an old tale that lived upon sweet odors. On seeing Beatrice again, the young man was startled how much her beauty exceeded his recollection of it; so brilliant, its character was so vivid. Seeing her face better than on the former occasion, he was struck by its sweetness. He observed, or imagined, an analogy between the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its wonderful flowers over the fountain, – probably due to the color of her dress.
Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, and embraced its branches.
“Give me your breath, my sister,” exclaimed Beatrice; “for I am faint with common air. And give me this flower of yours, which I shall place 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.[13] But now a singular incident occurred. A small orange-colored lizard was running along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni, – but, at the distance from which he looked, he could scarcely see anything so small, – it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower fell upon the lizard’s head. For an instant the lizard started violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this remarkable phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did she hesitate to fasten the fatal flower in her bosom. Giovanni shrank back and trembled.
“Am I awake? Am I sane?” said he to himself. “What is this being? Shall I call her beautiful or terrible?”
Beatrice now walked through the garden, approaching closer beneath Giovanni’s window, so that he could see her quite well. At this moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it had, perhaps, been attracted from the city by the heavy perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini’s shrubs. Without sitting on the flowers, it flew to Beatrice, and lingered in the air above her head. Now, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; it was dead – from no cause that he could see, unless it was the atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead insect.