Let's
set the stage for the significance of this line, which can only be understood knowing what has
occurred before and what occurs after. Giovanni is a young student who takes lodgings in rooms
that were the top floor of what appears to be a gloomy old mansion. An old woman, Lisabetta, who
may be a servant, a concierge, or Giovanni's landlady (this is not clear), points out to
Giovanni the view from his window, which is a magnificent and flourishing garden, the garden of
Doctor Rappacini, who, Lisabetta tells Giovanni, is said to create potent medicines from what he
grows. She also tells Giovanni that Rappacini has a daughter, whom he might see from time to
time in the garden.
Giovanni continues to look at the garden as time goes
on and one day observes an elderly man tending the garden. He notices that the man avoids any
direct with anything growing in the garden,
...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
(para. 9).
Giovanni finds this odd and even frightening
as he thinks to himself that this garden is a perversion of the original Eden and the old man a
very odd sort of Adam.
As he is contemplating this, he sees the old man
approach a plant and place a mask on his face, with which he is apparently not satisfied. The
old man calls "Beatrice," who appears in the garden, a beautiful young woman who is
the old man's daughter. She is able to approach this plant and even to embrace it, clearly
without risk of harm.
Giovanni dreams of the girl and the garden, and the
next day, when he visits a professor of medicine from his university, Professor Baglioni, he
learns that Doctor Rappacini has the reputation of caring far more for the pursuit of knowledge
than he cares for anything else, willing to sacrifice human life in the name of science.
Giovanni also learns that having been trained by Rappacini, Beatrice is as brilliant as she is
beautiful, and all the young men are in pursuit of her.
Intrigued and
infatuated already, Giovanni buys a bouquet of flowers for Beatrice, and he lingers at his
window, hoping to see her. He observes Beatrice moving freely amongst the flowers, finally
plucking one and pressing it to her bosom, not only with no ill effects, but also seeming to
bring her energy and health.
This is when Giovanni sees the drops fall upon
the lizard. And then he sees that,
For an instant, the
reptile contorted itself violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine (para.
32).
A few minutes later, he observes an insect flying
into the garden, also to die, at Beatrice's feet. And his bouquet, which he tosses to her,
starts to wither as she goes back into the house.
These are all warnings to
Giovanni, Rappacini's avoidance of the plants, the cautions of Professor Baglioni, the death of
the lizard, the death of the insect, and finally, the death of his bouquet. And in the midst of
all that toxicity and death, Beatrice is clearly thriving.
All of these
warnings are a form offor the reader, who understands, quite likely before Giovanni does, that
Professor Rappacini has done something to his daughter to allow her to be in this garden, with
the suggestion that not only can she coexist with these plants, but also that they somehow
nurture her.
As the story unfolds, we see this is what has happened.
Giovanni becomes embroiled in Dr. Rappacini's machinations as he falls more and more deeply in
love with Beatrice. She attempts to protect him from the poisonous garden, and Professor
Baglioni tries to warn him of the danger of his love, for because of Rappicini's
"experiments," Beatrice herself is poisonous. Giovanni, with the help of a potion
from Professor Baglioni, plans to "cure" Beatrice and rescue her from her father. He
sees that he himself has become toxic, killing off ordinary flowers in his own presence, and he
grows more determined now to rescue both of them. As Beatrice takes the potion, Rappacini
appears, appearing to lament the loss of his work, rather than the loss of his daughter.
Beatrice dies at the feet of her father and Giovanni, from the potion, which releases her from
the evil her father has wrought, and we are left to imagine Giovanni going on, a sadder but
wiser young man.
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