blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins
with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and
deadly a creature as thyself--a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity!
Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others,
let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!"

"What has befallen me?" murmured Beatrice, with a low moan out of her
heart. "Holy Virgin, pity me, a poor heart-broken child!"

"Thou,--dost thou pray?" cried Giovanni, still with the same fiendish
scorn. "Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the
atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip
our fingers in the holy water at the portal! They that come after us
will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign crosses in the air! It will
be scattering curses abroad in the likeness of holy symbols!"

"Giovanni," said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond passion,
"why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it
is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me. But thou,--what hast
thou to do, save with one other shudder at my hideous misery to go
forth out of the garden and mingle with thy race, and forget there ever
crawled on earth such a monster as poor Beatrice?"

"Dost thou pretend ignorance?" asked Giovanni, scowling upon her.
"Behold! this power have I gained from the pure daughter of Rappaccini."

There was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in search
of the food promised by the flower odors of the fatal garden. They
circled round Giovanni's head, and were evidently attracted towards him
by the same influence which had drawn them for an instant within the
sphere of several of the shrubs. He sent forth a breath among them, and
smiled bitterly at Beatrice as at least a score of the insects fell
dead upon the ground.

"I see it! I see it!" shrieked Beatrice. "It is my father's fatal
science! No, no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never! never! I dreamed only
to love thee and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass
away, leaving but thine image in mine heart; for, Giovanni, believe it,
though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is God's creature,
and craves love as its daily food. But my father,--he has united us in
this fearful sympathy. Yes; spurn me, tread upon me, kill me! Oh, what
is death after such words as thine? But it was not I. Not for a world
of bliss would I have done it."

Giovanni's passion had exh