Лучшие любовные истории / The Best Love Stories - стр. 4
An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. There she saw the beautiful head of the young man – rather a Grecian than an Italian head, with regular features, and golden hair – gazing down upon her. Scarcely knowing what he did, Giovanni threw down the bouquet which he had held in his hand.
“Signora,” said he, “Wear them for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti.”
“Thanks, signor,” replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that sounded like music. “I accept your gift, and would reward you with this precious purple flower; but if I throw it into the air it will not reach you. So Signor Guasconti must content himself with my thanks.”
She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then passed through the garden. But few as the moments were,[14] it seemed to Giovanni, when she was entering the portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to fade in her hand.
For many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that looked into Dr. Rappaccini’s garden, as if he could see something ugly and monstrous there. The wisest thing to do would be, if his heart were in any real danger, to leave his lodgings and Padua at once. But Guasconti had not a deep heart; but he had a quick fancy, and a southern temperament, which rose every instant to a higher pitch. Whether or no Beatrice possessed that fatal breath, that Giovanni had witnessed, she had got a fierce poison into his system. It was not love, although her rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror; but a wild mixture of both love and horror. Giovanni did not know what to fear; still less did he know what to hope; yet hope and fear kept a warfare in his heart.
Sometimes he had a walk through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates. One day he felt his arm seized by a person, who had recognized the young man.
“Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!” cried he. “Have you forgotten me? That might happen if I were as much changed as you are.”
It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first meeting, fearing that the professor would look too deeply into his secrets.
“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 watching the young man closely. “Didn’t 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.”
Now, while they were speaking there came a man in black along the street, moving like a person in poor health. His face wore an expression of such active intellect that an observer might easily overlook his physical weakness and see only this wonderful energy. As he passed, this person exchanged a cold salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his eyes upon[15] Giovanni. Nevertheless, his look did not show any 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![16]” said Baglioni. “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 as he bends over a bird, a mouse, or a butterfly, which, in 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, you are the subject of one of Rappaccini’s experiments!”