"Hast thou grown so poisonous, that this deadly insect perishes by thy
breath?"
At that moment, a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the
garden: "Giovanni! Giovanni! It is past the hour! Why tarriest thou!
Come down!"
"Yes," muttered Giovanni again. "She is the only being whom my
breath may not slay! Would that it might!"
He rushed down, and in an instant, was standing before the bright
and loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago, his wrath and despair had
been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither
her by a glance. But, with her actual presence, there came
influences which had too real an existence to be at once shaken off;
recollections of the delicate and benign power of her feminine nature,
which had so often enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of
many a holy and passionate outgush of her heart, when the pure
fountain had been unsealed from its depths, and made visible in its
transparency to his mental eye; recollections which, had Giovanni
known how to estimate them, would have assured him that all this
ugly mystery was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of
evil might seem to have gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a
heavenly angel.
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