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 groane