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.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25