Before Giovanni meets Beatrice, what does he see, or think he sees, that makes him fear her? Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter"

When Giovanni
Guasconti came to Padua in order
to attend the university, he takes lodgings in tall, gloomy
room of an old
building which has a coat of arms over the doorway.  An old woman instructs

Giovanni to look out the window in order to dispel his gloom.  As he does so, he notices
that
the sun falls upon a resplendent garden.  One plant has winds itself
around a statue of
Vertumnus, the vegetarian god who wins Paomona's love and
takes her away.  Then he espies a
sallow and sickly old man emerge.  This
"scientific gardener" studies the plants, yet
he avoids their touch and he
avoids inhaling their odors.

The
"distrustful gardener"
wears thick gloves and a mask upon his mouth as he stops by a
magnificent
plant that possess a profusion of purple blossoms.  Giovanni observes the man
call
to his daughter Beatrice, charging her with its care.  But, rather than
fearing this plant,
Beatrice, who "looks redundant with life, health, and
energy" embraces it.  Perceiving
her as much like a flower herself, Giovanni
becomes rather apprehensive about her powers with
such a plant, but he is
intriguesd with her inexpressible beauty.  So taken is he that he falls
in
love with Beatrice who creates both intrigue and danger. Or, as Hawthorne
writes,

...yet hope and dread kept a
continual warfare in his
breast.

Giovanni, struck by the beauty of Beatrice who
could well be
the sister of any of the resplendent plants, is at the same time anxious
about
being near the beauty who can withstand the poison of such plants.  It
is a mixture of love and
horror that Giovanni Guasconti
senses.