blood at the improbable idea of an interview with Beatrice, and
of standing with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking
in the Oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from her
full gaze the mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own
existence. But now there was a singular and untimely equanimity
within his breast. He threw a glance around the garden to
discover if Beatrice or her father were present, and, perceiving
that he was alone, began a critical observation of the plants.

The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their
gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. There
was hardly an individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by
himself through a forest, would not have been startled to find
growing wild, as if an unearthly face had glared at him out of
the thicket. Several also would have shocked a delicate instinct
by an appearance of artificialness indicating that there had been
such commixture, and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable
species, that the production was no longer of God's making, but
the monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy, glowing with
only an evil mockery of beauty. They were probably the result of
experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in mingling
plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the
questionable and ominous character that distinguished the whole
growth of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized but two or
three plants in the collection, and those of a kind that he well
knew to be poisonous. While busy with these contemplations he
heard the rustling of a silken garment, and, turning, beheld
Beatrice emerging from beneath the sculptured portal.

Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his