that it might have served a sculptor for a study.

While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a
screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in
the garden. His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself
to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow,
and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar's garb of black. He
was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin, gray
beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and
cultivation, but which could never, even in his more youthful
days, have expressed much warmth of heart.

Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific
gardener examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed
as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making
observations in regard to their creative essence, and discovering
why one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, and
wherefore such and such flowers differed among themselves in hue
and perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep intelligence on
his part, there was no approach to intimacy between himself and
these vegetable existences. On the contrary, he avoided their
actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors 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. It was strangely frightful to the young man's
imagination to see this air of insecurity in a person cultivating
a garden, that most simple and innocent of human toils, and which
had been alike the joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the