Home > Work > Rappaccini's Daughter
1 " There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger. "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne , Rappaccini's Daughter
2 " How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and evenly coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! "
3 " By all appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love, with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love, in those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath, like tongues of long-hidden flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any slightest caress, such as love claims and hallows. "
4 " Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two thatproduces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions. "
5 " But there is an influence in the light of the morning that tends to rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. "
6 " 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! "
7 " Oh, how stubbornly does love,—or even that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the heart,—how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! "
8 " En cuanto a Rappaccini, se dice de él que cuida más a la ciencia que a la humanidad, y yo, que le conozco bien, puedo responder de la verdad que tal afirmación. "
9 " Por todos los signos que se podían apreciar, se amaban; habían mirado el amor con ojos que transmitían el santo secreto de las profundidades de un alma a las profundidades de la otra, como si fuera algo demasiado sagrado siquiera para ser sususurrado incluso habían hablado de amor en esas efusiones de pasión, cuando sus espíritus afloraban en el aliento elocuente, como lenguas de una llama durante mucho tiempo escondida; y, sin embargo, ese amor nunca había sido sellado por sus labios, ni se habían tomado de las manos, ni había existido la más ligera caricia como las que el amor demanda y reverencia. "
10 " Ahora, si tu aliento es por fortuna tan fatal para nosotros como para todos los demás, unamos nuestros labios en un beso de odio inexpresable, ¡y muramos así! "
11 " ¡O, espíritu débil, egoísta, indigno, que aún podía soñar con una unión y felicidad terrenales depués de haber agraviado con tan amargas e injustas palabras el profundo amor que por él sentía Beatrice. "
12 " Ella debía pasar dolorosamente, con su corazón destrozado, a través de las fronteras del tiempo; debía lavar sus heridas en alguna fuene del Paraíso, y olvidar su pena en la luz de la inmortalidad; ¡y allí estaría a salvo! "
13 " Habría querido ser amada, no temida - murmuró Beatrice, desplomándose en el suelo-. Pero ahora y no importa. "
14 " These reminiscences and associations, together with the tendency to heart-break natural to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily[.] "
15 " How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! "
16 " They had looked love with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered. "
