But the words of Beatrice Rappaccini's
lips are true from 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.
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