She caught his hand, and drew it back with the whole
force of her slender figure. Giovanni felt her touch thrilling through
his fibres.
"Touch it not!" exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. "Not for thy
life! It is fatal!"
Then, hiding her face, she fled from him, and vanished beneath
the sculptured portal. As Giovanni followed her with his eyes, he
beheld the emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Doctor
Rappaccini, who had been watching the scene, he knew not how long,
within the shadow of the entrance.
No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber, than the image of
Beatrice came back to his passionate musings, invested with all the
witchery that had been gathering around it ever since his first
glimpse of her, and now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of
girlish womanhood. She was human: her nature was endowed with all
gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she
was capable, surely, on her part, of the height and heroism of love.
Those tokens, which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a
frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral system, were now
either forgotten, or, by the subtle sophistry of passion, transmuted
into a golden crown of enchantment, rendering Beatrice the more
admirable, by so much as she was the more unique.
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