Cornelius replied that undoubtedly his godfather could not have thought that there was any risk for the safety of his deposit, hidden as it was in a press which was looked upon as sacred as the tabernacle by the whole household of Van Baerle; and that consequently he had considered the certificate as useless. As to a letter, he certainly had some remembrance that some moments previous to his arrest, whilst he was absorbed in the contemplation of one of the rarest of his bulbs, John de Witt’s servant entered his dry-room, and handed to him a paper, but the whole was to him only like a vague dream; the servant had disappeared, and as to the paper, perhaps it might be found if a proper search were made.
As far as Craeke was concerned, it was impossible to find him, as he had left Holland.
The paper also was not very likely to be found, and no one gave himself the trouble to look for it.
Cornelius himself did not much press this point, since, even supposing that the paper should turn up, it could not have any direct connection with the correspondence which constituted the crime.
The judges wished to make it appear as though they wanted to urge Cornelius to make a better defence; they displayed that benevolent patience which is generally a sign of the magistrate’s being interested for the prisoner, or of a man’s having so completely got the better of his adversary that he needs no longer any oppressive means to ruin him.
Cornelius did not accept of this hypocritical protection, and in a last answer, which he set forth with the noble bearing of a martyr and the calm serenity of a righteous man, he said, —
“You ask me things, gentlemen, to which I can answer only the exact truth. Hear it. The parcel was put into my hands in the way I have described; I vow before God that I was, and am still, ignorant of its contents, and that it was not until my arrest that I learned that this deposit was the correspondence of the Grand Pensionary with the Marquis de Louvois. And lastly, I vow and protest that I do not understand how any one should have known that this parcel was in my house; and, above all, how I can be deemed criminal for having received what my illustrious and unfortunate godfather brought to my house.”
This was Van Baerle’s whole defence; after which the judges began to deliberate on the verdict.
They considered that every offshoot of civil discord is mischievous, because it revives the contest which it is the interest of all to put down.
One of them, who bore the character of a profound observer, laid down as his opinion that this young man, so phlegmatic in appearance, must in reality be very dangerous, as under this icy exterior he was sure to conceal an ardent desire to avenge his friends, the De Witts.
Another observed that the love of tulips agreed perfectly well with that of politics, and that it was proved in history that many very dangerous men were engaged in gardening, just as if it had been their profession, whilst really they occupied themselves with perfectly different concerns; witness Tarquin the Elder, who grew poppies at Gabii, and the Great Conde, who watered his carnations at the dungeon of Vincennes at the very moment when the former meditated his return to Rome, and the latter his escape from prison.
The judge summed up with the following dilemma: —
“Either Cornelius van Baerle is a great lover of tulips, or a great lover of politics; in either case, he has told us a falsehood; first, because his having occupied himself with politics is proved by the letters which were found at his house; and secondly, because his having occupied himself with tulips is proved by the bulbs which leave no doubt of the fact. And herein lies the enormity of the case. As Cornelius van Baerle was concerned in the growing of tulips and in the pursuit of politics at one and the same time, the prisoner is of hybrid character, of an amphibious organisation, working with equal ardour at politics and at tulips, which proves him to belong to the class of men most dangerous to public tranquillity, and shows a certain, or rather a complete, analogy between his character and that of those master minds of which Tarquin the Elder and the Great Conde have been felicitously quoted as examples.”
The upshot of all these reasonings was, that his Highness the Prince Stadtholder of Holland would feel infinitely obliged to the magistracy of the Hague if they simplified for him the government of the Seven Provinces by destroying even the least germ of conspiracy against his authority.
This argument capped all the others, and, in order so much the more effectually to destroy the germ of conspiracy, sentence of death was unanimously pronounced against Cornelius van Baerle, as being arraigned, and convicted, for having, under the innocent appearance of a tulip-fancier, participated in the detestable intrigues and abominable plots of the brothers De Witt against Dutch nationality and in their secret relations with their French enemy.
A supplementary clause was tacked to the sentence, to the effect that “the aforesaid Cornelius van Baerle should be led from the prison of the Buytenhof to the scaffold in the yard of the same name, where the public executioner would cut off his head.”
As this deliberation was a most serious affair, it lasted a full half-hour, during which the prisoner was remanded to his cell.
There the Recorder of the States came to read the sentence to him.
Master Gryphus was detained in bed by the fever caused by the fracture of his arm. His keys passed into the hands of one of his assistants. Behind this turnkey, who introduced the Recorder, Rosa, the fair Frisian maid, had slipped into the recess of the door, with a handkerchief to her mouth to stifle her sobs.
Cornelius listened to the sentence with an expression rather of surprise than sadness.
After the sentence was read, the Recorder asked him whether he had anything to answer.
“Indeed, I have not,” he replied. “Only I confess that, among all the causes of death against which a cautious man may guard, I should never have supposed this to be comprised.”
On this answer, the Recorder saluted Van Baerle with all that consideration which such functionaries generally bestow upon great criminals of every sort.
But whilst he was about to withdraw, Cornelius asked, “By the bye, Mr. Recorder, what day is the thing — you know what I mean — to take place?”
“Why, to-day,” answered the Recorder, a little surprised by the self-possession of the condemned man.
A sob was heard behind the door, and Cornelius turned round to look from whom it came; but Rosa, who had foreseen this movement, had fallen back.
“And,” continued Cornelius, “what hour is appointed?”
“Twelve o’clock, sir.”
“Indeed,” said Cornelius, “I think I heard the clock strike ten about twenty minutes ago; I have not much time to spare.”
“Indeed you have not, if you wish to make your peace with God,” said the Recorder, bowing to the ground. “You may ask for any clergyman you please.”
Saying these words he went out backwards, and the assistant turnkey was going to follow him, and to lock the door of Cornelius’s cell, when a white and trembling arm interposed between him and the heavy door.
Cornelius saw nothing but the golden brocade cap, tipped with lace, such as the Frisian girls wore; he heard nothing but some one whispering into the ear of the turnkey. But the latter put his heavy keys into the white hand which was stretched out to receive them, and, descending some steps, sat down on the staircase which was thus guarded above by himself, and below by the dog. The head-dress turned round, and Cornelius beheld the face of Rosa, blanched with grief, and her beautiful eyes streaming with tears.
She went up to Cornelius, crossing her arms on her heaving breast.
“Oh, sir, sir!” she said, but sobs choked her utterance.
“My good girl,” Cornelius replied with emotion, “what do you wish? I may tell you that my time on earth is short.”
“I come to ask a favour of you,” said Rosa, extending her arms partly towards him and partly towards heaven.
“Don’t weep so, Rosa,” said the prisoner, “for your tears go much more to my heart than my approaching fate, and you know, the less guilty a prisoner is, the more it is his duty to die calmly, and even joyfully, as he dies a martyr. Come, there’s a dear, don’t cry any more, and tell me what you want, my pretty Rosa.”
She fell on her knees. “Forgive my father,” she said.
“Your father, your father!” said Cornelius, astonished.
“Yes, he has been so harsh to you; but it is his nature, he is so to every one, and you are not the only one whom he has bullied.”
“He is punished, my dear Rosa, more than punished, by the accident that has befallen him, and I forgive him.”
“I thank you, sir,” said Rosa. “And now tell me — oh, tell me — can I do anything for you?”
“You can dry your beautiful eyes, my dear child,” answered Cornelius, with a good-tempered smile.
“But what can I do for you, — for you I mean?”
“A man who has only one hour longer to live must be a great Sybarite still to want anything, my dear Rosa.”
“The clergyman whom they have proposed to you?”
“I have worshipped God all my life, I have worshipped Him in His works, and praised Him in His decrees. I am at peace with Him and do not wish for a clergyman. The last thought which occupies my mind, however has reference to the glory of the Almighty, and, indeed, my dear, I should ask you to help me in carrying out this last thought.”
“Oh, Mynheer Cornelius, speak, speak!” exclaimed Rosa, still bathed in tears.
“Give me your hand, and promise me not to laugh, my dear child.”
“Laugh,” exclaimed Rosa, frantic with grief, “laugh at this moment! do you not see my tears?”
“Rosa, you are no stranger to me. I have not seen much of you, but that little is enough to make me appreciate your character. I have never seen a woman more fair or more pure than you are, and if from this moment I take no more notice of you, forgive me; it is only because, on leaving this world, I do not wish to have any further regret.”
Rosa felt a shudder creeping over her frame, for, whilst the prisoner pronounced these words, the belfry clock of the Buytenhof struck eleven.
Cornelius understood her. “Yes, yes, let us make haste,” he said, “you are right, Rosa.”
Then, taking the paper with the three suckers from his breast, where he had again put it, since he had no longer any fear of being searched, he said: “My dear girl, I have been very fond of flowers. That was at a time when I did not know that there was anything else to be loved. Don’t blush, Rosa, nor turn away; and even if I were making you a declaration of love, alas! poor dear, it would be of no more consequence. Down there in the yard, there is an instrument of steel, which in sixty minutes will put an end to my boldness. Well, Rosa, I loved flowers dearly, and I have found, or at least I believe so, the secret of the great black tulip, which it has been considered impossible to grow, and for which, as you know, or may not know, a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has been offered by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem. These hundred thousand guilders — and Heaven knows I do not regret them — these hundred thousand guilders I have here in this paper, for they are won by the three bulbs wrapped up in it, which you may take, Rosa, as I make you a present of them.”
“Mynheer Cornelius!”
“Yes, yes, Rosa, you may take them; you are not wronging any one, my child. I am alone in this world; my parents are dead; I never had a sister or a brother. I have never had a thought of loving any one with what is called love, and if any one has loved me, I have not known it. However, you see well, Rosa, that I am abandoned by everybody, as in this sad hour you alone are with me in my prison, consoling and assisting me.”
“But, sir, a hundred thousand guilders!”
“Well, let us talk seriously, my dear child: those hundred thousand guilders will be a nice marriage portion, with your pretty face; you shall have them, Rosa, dear Rosa, and I ask nothing in return but your promise that you will marry a fine young man, whom you love, and who will love you, as dearly as I loved my flowers. Don’t interrupt me, Rosa dear, I have only a few minutes more.”
The poor girl was nearly choking with her sobs.
Cornelius took her by the hand.
“Listen to me,” he continued: “I’ll tell you how to manage it. Go to Dort and ask Butruysheim, my gardener, for soil from my border number six, fill a deep box with it, and plant in it these three bulbs. They will flower next May, that is to say, in seven months; and, when you see the flower forming on the stem, be careful at night to protect them from the wind, and by day to screen them from the sun. They will flower black, I am quite sure of it. You are then to apprise the President of the Haarlem Society. He will cause the color of the flower to be proved before a committee and these hundred thousand guilders will be paid to you.”
Rosa heaved a deep sigh.
“And now,” continued Cornelius, — wiping away a tear which was glistening in his eye, and which was shed much more for that marvellous black tulip which he was not to see than for the life which he was about to lose, — “I have no wish left, except that the tulip should be called Rosa Barlaensis, that is to say, that its name should combine yours and mine; and as, of course, you do not understand Latin, and might therefore forget this name, try to get for me pencil and paper, that I may write it down for you.”
Rosa sobbed afresh, and handed to him a book, bound in shagreen, which bore the initials C. W.
“What is this?” asked the prisoner.
“Alas!” replied Rosa, “it is the Bible of your poor godfather, Cornelius de Witt. From it he derived strength to endure the torture, and to bear his sentence without flinching. I found it in this cell, after the death of the martyr, and have preserved it as a relic. To-day I brought it to you, for it seemed to me that this book must possess in itself a divine power. Write in it what you have to write, Mynheer Cornelius; and though, unfortunately, I am not able to read, I will take care that what you write shall be accomplished.”
Cornelius took the Bible, and kissed it reverently.
“With what shall I write?” asked Cornelius.
“There is a pencil in the Bible,” said Rosa.
This was the pencil which John de Witt had lent to his brother, and which he had forgotten to take away with him.
Cornelius took it, and on the second fly leaf (for it will be remembered that the first was torn out), drawing near his end like his godfather, he wrote with a no less firm hand: —
“On this day, the 23d of August, 1672, being on the point of rendering, although innocent, my soul to God on the scaffold, I bequeath to Rosa Gryphus the only worldly goods which remain to me of all that I have possessed in this world, the rest having been confiscated; I bequeath, I say, to Rosa Gryphus three bulbs, which I am convinced must produce, in the next May, the Grand Black Tulip for which a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has been offered by the Haarlem Society, requesting that she may be paid the same sum in my stead, as my sole heiress, under the only condition of her marrying a respectable young man of about my age, who loves her, and whom she loves, and of her giving the black tulip, which will constitute a new species, the name of Rosa Barlaensis, that is to say, hers and mine combined.
“So may God grant me mercy, and to her health and long life!
“Cornelius van Baerle.”
The prisoner then, giving the Bible to Rosa, said, —
“Read.”
“Alas!” she answered, “I have already told you I cannot read.”
Cornelius then read to Rosa the testament that he had just made.
The agony of the poor girl almost overpowered her.
“Do you accept my conditions?” asked the prisoner, with a melancholy smile, kissing the trembling hands of the afflicted girl.
“Oh, I don’t know, sir,” she stammered.
“You don’t know, child, and why not?”
“Because there is one condition which I am afraid I cannot keep.”
“Which? I should have thought that all was settled between us.”
“You give me the hundred thousand guilders as a marriage portion, don’t you?
“And under the condition of my marrying a man whom I love?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, then, sir, this money cannot belong to me. I shall never love any one; neither shall I marry.”
And, after having with difficulty uttered these words, Rosa almost swooned away in the violence of her grief.
Cornelius, frightened at seeing her so pale and sinking, was going to take her in his arms, when a heavy step, followed by other dismal sounds, was heard on the staircase, amidst the continued barking of the dog.
“They are coming to fetch you. Oh God! Oh God!” cried Rosa, wringing her hands. “And have you nothing more to tell me?”
She fell on her knees with her face buried in her hands and became almost senseless.
“I have only to say, that I wish you to preserve these bulbs as a most precious treasure, and carefully to treat them according to the directions I have given you. Do it for my sake, and now farewell, Rosa.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, without raising her head, “I will do anything you bid me, except marrying,” she added, in a low voice, “for that, oh! that is impossible for me.”
She then put the cherished treasure next her beating heart.
The noise on the staircase which Cornelius and Rosa had heard was caused by the Recorder, who was coming for the prisoner. He was followed by the executioner, by the soldiers who were to form the guard round the scaffold, and by some curious hangers-on of the prison.
Cornelius, without showing any weakness, but likewise without any bravado, received them rather as friends than as persecutors, and quietly submitted to all those preparations which these men were obliged to make in performance of their duty.
Then, casting a glance into the yard through the narrow iron-barred window of his cell, he perceived the scaffold, and, at twenty paces distant from it, the gibbet, from which, by order of the Stadtholder, the outraged remains of the two brothers De Witt had been taken down.
When the moment came to descend in order to follow the guards, Cornelius sought with his eyes the angelic look of Rosa, but he saw, behind the swords and halberds, only a form lying outstretched near a wooden bench, and a deathlike face half covered with long golden locks.
But Rosa, whilst falling down senseless, still obeying her friend, had pressed her hand on her velvet bodice and, forgetting everything in the world besides, instinctively grasped the precious deposit which Cornelius had intrusted to her care.
Leaving the cell, the young man could still see in the convulsively clinched fingers of Rosa the yellowish leaf from that Bible on which Cornelius de Witt had with such difficulty and pain written these few lines, which, if Van Baerle had read them, would undoubtedly have been the saving of a man and a tulip.
Chapter 12
The Execution
Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the prison to reach the foot of the scaffold. At the bottom of the staircase, the dog quietly looked at him whilst he was passing; Cornelius even fancied he saw in the eyes of the monster a certain expression as it were of compassion.
The dog perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit those who left as free men.
The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot of the scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was crowded with curious people.
These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which they had shed three days before, were now craving for a new victim.
And scarcely had Cornelius made his appearance than a fierce groan ran through the whole street, spreading all over the yard, and re-echoing from the streets which led to the scaffold, and which were likewise crowded with spectators.
The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence of several rivers.
In the midst of these threats, groans, and yells, Cornelius, very likely in order not to hear them, had buried himself in his own thoughts.
And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?
Neither of his enemies, nor of his judges, nor of his executioners.
He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from heaven above, at Ceylon, or Bengal, or elsewhere, when he would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered for having thought too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.
“It is only one stroke of the axe,” said the philosopher to himself, “and my beautiful dream will begin to be realised.”
Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened before to M. de Chalais, to M. de Thou, and other slovenly executed people, that the headsman might inflict more than one stroke, that is to say, more than one martyrdom, on the poor tulip-fancier.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, Van Baerle mounted the scaffold not the less resolutely, proud of having been the friend of that illustrious John, and godson of that noble Cornelius de Witt, whom the ruffians, who were now crowding to witness his own doom, had torn to pieces and burnt three days before.
He knelt down, said his prayers, and observed, not without a feeling of sincere joy, that, laying his head on the block, and keeping his eyes open, he would be able to his last moment to see the grated window of the Buytenhof.
At length the fatal moment arrived, and Cornelius placed his chin on the cold damp block. But at this moment his eyes closed involuntarily, to receive more resolutely the terrible avalanche which was about to fall on his head, and to engulf his life.
A gleam like that of lightning passed across the scaffold: it was the executioner raising his sword.
Van Baerle bade farewell to the great black tulip, certain of awaking in another world full of light and glorious tints.
Three times he felt, with a shudder, the cold current of air from the knife near his neck, but what a surprise! he felt neither pain nor shock.
He saw no change in the colour of the sky, or of the world around him.
Then suddenly Van Baerle felt gentle hands raising him, and soon stood on his feet again, although trembling a little.
He looked around him. There was some one by his side, reading a large parchment, sealed with a huge seal of red wax.
And the same sun, yellow and pale, as it behooves a Dutch sun to be, was shining in the skies; and the same grated window looked down upon him from the Buytenhof; and the same rabble, no longer yelling, but completely thunderstruck, were staring at him from the streets below.
Van Baerle began to be sensible to what was going on around him.
His Highness, William, Prince of Orange, very likely afraid that Van Baerle’s blood would turn the scale of judgment against him, had compassionately taken into consideration his good character, and the apparent proofs of his innocence.
His Highness, accordingly, had granted him his life.
Cornelius at first hoped that the pardon would be complete, and that he would be restored to his full liberty and to his flower borders at Dort.
But Cornelius was mistaken. To use an expression of Madame de Sevigne, who wrote about the same time, “there was a postscript to the letter;” and the most important part of the letter was contained in the postscript.
In this postscript, William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, condemned Cornelius van Baerle to imprisonment for life. He was not sufficiently guilty to suffer death, but he was too much so to be set at liberty.
Cornelius heard this clause, but, the first feeling of vexation and disappointment over, he said to himself, —
“Never mind, all this is not lost yet; there is some good in this perpetual imprisonment; Rosa will be there, and also my three bulbs of the black tulip are there.”
But Cornelius forgot that the Seven Provinces had seven prisons, one for each, and that the board of the prisoner is anywhere else less expensive than at the Hague, which is a capital.
His Highness, who, as it seems, did not possess the means to feed Van Baerle at the Hague, sent him to undergo his perpetual imprisonment at the fortress of Loewestein, very near Dort, but, alas! also very far from it; for Loewestein, as the geographers tell us, is situated at the point of the islet which is formed by the confluence of the Waal and the Meuse, opposite Gorcum.
Van Baerle was sufficiently versed in the history of his country to know that the celebrated Grotius was confined in that castle after the death of Barneveldt; and that the States, in their generosity to the illustrious publicist, jurist, historian, poet, and divine, had granted to him for his daily maintenance the sum of twenty-four stivers.
“I,” said Van Baerle to himself, “I am worth much less than Grotius. They will hardly give me twelve stivers, and I shall live miserably; but never mind, at all events I shall live.”
Then suddenly a terrible thought struck him.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “how damp and misty that part of the country is, and the soil so bad for the tulips! And then Rosa will not be at Loewestein!”
Chapter 13
What was going on all this Time in the Mind of one of the Spectators
Whilst Cornelius was engaged with his own thoughts, a coach had driven up to the scaffold. This vehicle was for the prisoner. He was invited to enter it, and he obeyed.
His last look was towards the Buytenhof. He hoped to see at the window the face of Rosa, brightening up again.
But the coach was drawn by good horses, who soon carried Van Baerle away from among the shouts which the rabble roared in honour of the most magnanimous Stadtholder, mixing with it a spice of abuse against the brothers De Witt and the godson of Cornelius, who had just now been saved from death.
This reprieve suggested to the worthy spectators remarks such as the following: —
“It’s very fortunate that we used such speed in having justice done to that great villain John, and to that little rogue Cornelius, otherwise his Highness might have snatched them from us, just as he has done this fellow.”
Among all the spectators whom Van Baerle’s execution had attracted to the Buytenhof, and whom the sudden turn of affairs had disagreeably surprised, undoubtedly the one most disappointed was a certain respectably dressed burgher, who from early morning had made such a good use of his feet and elbows that he at last was separated from the scaffold only by the file of soldiers which surrounded it.
Many had shown themselves eager to see the perfidious blood of the guilty Cornelius flow, but not one had shown such a keen anxiety as the individual just alluded to.
The most furious had come to the Buytenhof at daybreak, to secure a better place; but he, outdoing even them, had passed the night at the threshold of the prison, from whence, as we have already said, he had advanced to the very foremost rank, unguibus et rostro, — that is to say, coaxing some, and kicking the others.
And when the executioner had conducted the prisoner to the scaffold, the burgher, who had mounted on the stone of the pump the better to see and be seen, made to the executioner a sign which meant, —
“It’s a bargain, isn’t it?”
The executioner answered by another sign, which was meant to say, —
“Be quiet, it’s all right.”
This burgher was no other than Mynheer Isaac Boxtel, who since the arrest of Cornelius had come to the Hague to try if he could not get hold of the three bulbs of the black tulip.
Boxtel had at first tried to gain over Gryphus to his interest, but the jailer had not only the snarling fierceness, but likewise the fidelity, of a dog. He had therefore bristled up at Boxtel’s hatred, whom he had suspected to be a warm friend of the prisoner, making trifling inquiries to contrive with the more certainty some means of escape for him.
Thus to the very first proposals which Boxtel made to Gryphus to filch the bulbs which Cornelius van Baerle must be supposed to conceal, if not in his breast, at least in some corner of his cell, the surly jailer had only answered by kicking Mynheer Isaac out, and setting the dog at him.
The piece which the mastiff had torn from his hose did not discourage Boxtel. He came back to the charge, but this time Gryphus was in bed, feverish, and with a broken arm. He therefore was not able to admit the petitioner, who then addressed himself to Rosa, offering to buy her a head-dress of pure gold if she would get the bulbs for him. On this, the generous girl, although not yet knowing the value of the object of the robbery, which was to be so well remunerated, had directed the tempter to the executioner, as the heir of the prisoner.
In the meanwhile the sentence had been pronounced. Thus Isaac had no more time to bribe any one. He therefore clung to the idea which Rosa had suggested: he went to the executioner.
Isaac had not the least doubt that Cornelius would die with the bulbs on his heart.
But there were two things which Boxtel did not calculate upon: —
Rosa, that is to say, love;
William of Orange, that is to say, clemency.
But for Rosa and William, the calculations of the envious neighbour would have been correct.
But for William, Cornelius would have died.
But for Rosa, Cornelius would have died with his bulbs on his heart.
Mynheer Boxtel went to the headsman, to whom he gave himself out as a great friend of the condemned man; and from whom he bought all the clothes of the dead man that was to be, for one hundred guilders; rather an exorbitant sum, as he engaged to leave all the trinkets of gold and silver to the executioner.
But what was the sum of a hundred guilders to a man who was all but sure to buy with it the prize of the Haarlem Society?
It was money lent at a thousand per cent., which, as nobody will deny, was a very handsome investment.
The headsman, on the other hand, had scarcely anything to do to earn his hundred guilders. He needed only, as soon as the execution was over, to allow Mynheer Boxtel to ascend the scaffold with his servants, to remove the inanimate remains of his friend.
The thing was, moreover, quite customary among the “faithful brethren,” when one of their masters died a public death in the yard of the Buytenhof.
A fanatic like Cornelius might very easily have found another fanatic who would give a hundred guilders for his remains.
The executioner also readily acquiesced in the proposal, making only one condition, — that of being paid in advance.
Boxtel, like the people who enter a show at a fair, might be disappointed, and refuse to pay on going out.
Boxtel paid in advance, and waited.
After this, the reader may imagine how excited Boxtel was; with what anxiety he watched the guards, the Recorder, and the executioner; and with what intense interest he surveyed the movements of Van Baerle. How would he place himself on the block? how would he fall? and would he not, in falling, crush those inestimable bulbs? had not he at least taken care to enclose them in a golden box, — as gold is the hardest of all metals?
Every trifling delay irritated him. Why did that stupid executioner thus lose time in brandishing his sword over the head of Cornelius, instead of cutting that head off?
But when he saw the Recorder take the hand of the condemned, and raise him, whilst drawing forth the parchment from his pocket, — when he heard the pardon of the Stadtholder publicly read out, — then Boxtel was no more like a human being; the rage and malice of the tiger, of the hyena, and of the serpent glistened in his eyes, and vented itself in his yell and his movements. Had he been able to get at Van Baerle, he would have pounced upon him and strangled him.
And so, then, Cornelius was to live, and was to go with him to Loewestein, and thither to his prison he would take with him his bulbs; and perhaps he would even find a garden where the black tulip would flower for him.
Boxtel, quite overcome by his frenzy, fell from the stone upon some Orangemen, who, like him, were sorely vexed at the turn which affairs had taken. They, mistaking the frantic cries of Mynheer Isaac for demonstrations of joy, began to belabour him with kicks and cuffs, such as could not have been administered in better style by any prize-fighter on the other side of the Channel.
Blows were, however, nothing to him. He wanted to run after the coach which was carrying away Cornelius with his bulbs. But in his hurry he overlooked a paving-stone in his way, stumbled, lost his centre of gravity, rolled over to a distance of some yards, and only rose again, bruised and begrimed, after the whole rabble of the Hague, with their muddy feet, had passed over him.
One would think that this was enough for one day, but Mynheer Boxtel did not seem to think so, as, in addition to having his clothes torn, his back bruised, and his hands scratched, he inflicted upon himself the further punishment of tearing out his hair by handfuls, as an offering to that goddess of envy who, as mythology teaches us, wears a head-dress of serpents.
Chapter 14
The Pigeons of Dort
It was indeed in itself a great honour for Cornelius van Baerle to be confined in the same prison which had once received the learned master Grotius.
But on arriving at the prison he met with an honour even greater. As chance would have it, the cell formerly inhabited by the illustrious Barneveldt happened to be vacant, when the clemency of the Prince of Orange sent the tulip-fancier Van Baerle there.
The cell had a very bad character at the castle since the time when Grotius, by means of the device of his wife, made escape from it in that famous book-chest which the jailers forgot to examine.
On the other hand, it seemed to Van Baerle an auspicious omen that this very cell was assigned to him, for according to his ideas, a jailer ought never to have given to a second pigeon the cage from which the first had so easily flown.
The cell had an historical character. We will only state here that, with the exception of an alcove which was contrived there for the use of Madame Grotius, it differed in no respect from the other cells of the prison; only, perhaps, it was a little higher, and had a splendid view from the grated window.
Cornelius felt himself perfectly indifferent as to the place where he had to lead an existence which was little more than vegetation. There were only two things now for which he cared, and the possession of which was a happiness enjoyed only in imagination.
A flower, and a woman; both of them, as he conceived, lost to him for ever.
Fortunately the good doctor was mistaken. In his prison cell the most adventurous life which ever fell to the lot of any tulip-fancier was reserved for him.
One morning, whilst at his window inhaling the fresh air which came from the river, and casting a longing look to the windmills of his dear old city Dort, which were looming in the distance behind a forest of chimneys, he saw flocks of pigeons coming from that quarter to perch fluttering on the pointed gables of Loewestein.
These pigeons, Van Baerle said to himself, are coming from Dort, and consequently may return there. By fastening a little note to the wing of one of these pigeons, one might have a chance to send a message there. Then, after a few moments’ consideration, he exclaimed, —
“I will do it.”
A man grows very patient who is twenty-eight years of age, and condemned to a prison for life, — that is to say, to something like twenty-two or twenty-three thousand days of captivity.
Van Baerle, from whose thoughts the three bulbs were never absent, made a snare for catching the pigeons, baiting the birds with all the resources of his kitchen, such as it was for eight slivers (sixpence English) a day; and, after a month of unsuccessful attempts, he at last caught a female bird.
It cost him two more months to catch a male bird; he then shut them up together, and having about the beginning of the year 1673 obtained some eggs from them, he released the female, which, leaving the male behind to hatch the eggs in her stead, flew joyously to Dort, with the note under her wing.
She returned in the evening. She had preserved the note.
Thus it went on for fifteen days, at first to the disappointment, and then to the great grief, of Van Baerle.
On the sixteenth day, at last, she came back without it.
Van Baerle had addressed it to his nurse, the old Frisian woman; and implored any charitable soul who might find it to convey it to her as safely and as speedily as possible.
In this letter there was a little note enclosed for Rosa.
Van Baerle’s nurse had received the letter in the following way.
Leaving Dort, Mynheer Isaac Boxtel had abandoned, not only his house, his servants, his observatory, and his telescope, but also his pigeons.
The servant, having been left without wages, first lived on his little savings, and then on his master’s pigeons.
Seeing this, the pigeons emigrated from the roof of Isaac Boxtel to that of Cornelius van Baerle.
The nurse was a kind-hearted woman, who could not live without something to love. She conceived an affection for the pigeons which had thrown themselves on her hospitality; and when Boxtel’s servant reclaimed them with culinary intentions, having eaten the first fifteen already, and now wishing to eat the other fifteen, she offered to buy them from him for a consideration of six stivers per head.
This being just double their value, the man was very glad to close the bargain, and the nurse found herself in undisputed possession of the pigeons of her master’s envious neighbour.
In the course of their wanderings, these pigeons with others visited the Hague, Loewestein, and Rotterdam, seeking variety, doubtless, in the flavour of their wheat or hempseed.
Chance, or rather God, for we can see the hand of God in everything, had willed that Cornelius van Baerle should happen to hit upon one of these very pigeons.
Therefore, if the envious wretch had not left Dort to follow his rival to the Hague in the first place, and then to Gorcum or to Loewestein, — for the two places are separated only by the confluence of the Waal and the Meuse, — Van Baerle’s letter would have fallen into his hands and not the nurse’s: in which event the poor prisoner, like the raven of the Roman cobbler, would have thrown away his time, his trouble, and, instead of having to relate the series of exciting events which are about to flow from beneath our pen like the varied hues of a many coloured tapestry, we should have naught to describe but a weary waste of days, dull and melancholy and gloomy as night’s dark mantle.
The note, as we have said, had reached Van Baerle’s nurse.
And also it came to pass, that one evening in the beginning of February, just when the stars were beginning to twinkle, Cornelius heard on the staircase of the little turret a voice which thrilled through him.
He put his hand on his heart, and listened.
It was the sweet harmonious voice of Rosa.
Let us confess it, Cornelius was not so stupefied with surprise, or so beyond himself with joy, as he would have been but for the pigeon, which, in answer to his letter, had brought back hope to him under her empty wing; and, knowing Rosa, he expected, if the note had ever reached her, to hear of her whom he loved, and also of his three darling bulbs.
He rose, listened once more, and bent forward towards the door.
Yes, they were indeed the accents which had fallen so sweetly on his heart at the Hague.
The question now was, whether Rosa, who had made the journey from the Hague to Loewestein, and who — Cornelius did not understand how — had succeeded even in penetrating into the prison, would also be fortunate enough in penetrating to the prisoner himself.
Whilst Cornelius, debating this point within himself, was building all sorts of castles in the air, and was struggling between hope and fear, the shutter of the grating in the door opened, and Rosa, beaming with joy, and beautiful in her pretty national costume — but still more beautiful from the grief which for the last five months had blanched her cheeks — pressed her little face against the wire grating of the window, saying to him, —
“Oh, sir, sir! here I am!”
Cornelius stretched out his arms, and, looking to heaven, uttered a cry of joy, —
“Oh, Rosa, Rosa!”
“Hush! let us speak low: my father follows on my heels,” said the girl.
“Your father?”
“Yes, he is in the courtyard at the bottom of the staircase, receiving the instructions of the Governor; he will presently come up.”
“The instructions of the Governor?”
“Listen to me, I’ll try to tell you all in a few words. The Stadtholder has a country-house, one league distant from Leyden, properly speaking a kind of large dairy, and my aunt, who was his nurse, has the management of it. As soon as I received your letter, which, alas! I could not read myself, but which your housekeeper read to me, I hastened to my aunt; there I remained until the Prince should come to the dairy; and when he came, I asked him as a favour to allow my father to exchange his post at the prison of the Hague with the jailer of the fortress of Loewestein. The Prince could not have suspected my object; had he known it, he would have refused my request, but as it is he granted it.”
“And so you are here?”
“As you see.”
“And thus I shall see you every day?”
“As often as I can manage it.”
“Oh, Rosa, my beautiful Rosa, do you love me a little?”
“A little?” she said, “you make no great pretensions, Mynheer Cornelius.”
Cornelius tenderly stretched out his hands towards her, but they were only able to touch each other with the tips of their fingers through the wire grating.
“Here is my father,” said she.
Rosa then abruptly drew back from the door, and ran to meet old Gryphus, who made his appearance at the top of the staircase.
Chapter 15
The Little Grated Window
Gryphus was followed by the mastiff.
The turnkey took the animal round the jail, so that, if needs be, he might recognize the prisoners.
“Father,” said Rosa, “here is the famous prison from which Mynheer Grotius escaped. You know Mynheer Grotius?”
“Oh, yes, that rogue Grotius, a friend of that villain Barneveldt, whom I saw executed when I was a child. Ah! so Grotius; and that’s the chamber from which he escaped. Well, I’ll answer for it that no one shall escape after him in my time.”
And thus opening the door, he began in the dark to talk to the prisoner.
The dog, on his part, went up to the prisoner, and, growling, smelled about his legs just as though to ask him what right he had still to be alive, after having left the prison in the company of the Recorder and the executioner.
But the fair Rosa called him to her side.
“Well, my master,” said Gryphus, holding up his lantern to throw a little light around, “you see in me your new jailer. I am head turnkey, and have all the cells under my care. I am not vicious, but I’m not to be trifled with, as far as discipline goes.”
“My good Master Gryphus, I know you perfectly well,” said the prisoner, approaching within the circle of light cast around by the lantern.
“Halloa! that’s you, Mynheer van Baerle,” said Gryphus. “That’s you; well, I declare, it’s astonishing how people do meet.”
“Oh, yes; and it’s really a great pleasure to me, good Master Gryphus, to see that your arm is doing well, as you are able to hold your lantern with it.”
Gryphus knitted his brow. “Now, that’s just it,” he said, “people always make blunders in politics. His Highness has granted you your life; I’m sure I should never have done so.”
“Don’t say so,” replied Cornelius; “why not?”
“Because you are the very man to conspire again. You learned people have dealings with the devil.”
“Nonsense, Master Gryphus. Are you dissatisfied with the manner in which I have set your arm, or with the price that I asked you?” said Cornelius, laughing.
“On the contrary,” growled the jailer, “you have set it only too well. There is some witchcraft in this. After six weeks, I was able to use it as if nothing had happened, so much so, that the doctor of the Buytenhof, who knows his trade well, wanted to break it again, to set it in the regular way, and promised me that I should have my blessed three months for my money before I should be able to move it.”
“And you did not want that?”
“I said, ‘Nay, as long as I can make the sign of the cross with that arm’ (Gryphus was a Roman Catholic), ‘I laugh at the devil.'”
“But if you laugh at the devil, Master Gryphus, you ought with so much more reason to laugh at learned people.”
“Ah, learned people, learned people! Why, I would rather have to guard ten soldiers than one scholar. The soldiers smoke, guzzle, and get drunk; they are gentle as lambs if you only give them brandy or Moselle, but scholars, and drink, smoke, and fuddle — ah, yes, that’s altogether different. They keep sober, spend nothing, and have their heads always clear to make conspiracies. But I tell you, at the very outset, it won’t be such an easy matter for you to conspire. First of all, you will have no books, no paper, and no conjuring book. It’s books that helped Mynheer Grotius to get off.”
“I assure you, Master Gryphus,” replied Van Baerle, “that if I have entertained the idea of escaping, I most decidedly have it no longer.”
“Well, well,” said Gryphus, “just look sharp: that’s what I shall do also. But, for all that, I say his Highness has made a great mistake.”
“Not to have cut off my head? thank you, Master Gryphus.”
“Just so, look whether the Mynheer de Witt don’t keep very quiet now.”
“That’s very shocking what you say now, Master Gryphus,” cried Van Baerle, turning away his head to conceal his disgust. “You forget that one of those unfortunate gentlemen was my friend, and the other my second father.”
“Yes, but I also remember that the one, as well as the other, was a conspirator. And, moreover, I am speaking from Christian charity.”
“Oh, indeed! explain that a little to me, my good Master Gryphus. I do not quite understand it.”
“Well, then, if you had remained on the block of Master Harbruck —- “
“What?”
“You would not suffer any longer; whereas, I will not disguise it from you, I shall lead you a sad life of it.”
“Thank you for the promise, Master Gryphus.”
And whilst the prisoner smiled ironically at the old jailer, Rosa, from the outside, answered by a bright smile, which carried sweet consolation to the heart of Van Baerle.
Gryphus stepped towards the window.
It was still light enough to see, although indistinctly, through the gray haze of the evening, the vast expanse of the horizon.
“What view has one from here?” asked Gryphus.
“Why, a very fine and pleasant one,” said Cornelius, looking at Rosa.
“Yes, yes, too much of a view, too much.”
And at this moment the two pigeons, scared by the sight and especially by the voice of the stranger, left their nest, and disappeared, quite frightened in the evening mist.
“Halloa! what’s this?” cried Gryphus.
“My pigeons,” answered Cornelius.
“Your pigeons,” cried the jailer, “your pigeons! has a prisoner anything of his own?”
“Why, then,” said Cornelius, “the pigeons which a merciful Father in Heaven has lent to me.”
“So, here we have a breach of the rules already,” replied Gryphus. “Pigeons! ah, young man, young man! I’ll tell you one thing, that before to-morrow is over, your pigeons will boil in my pot.”
“First of all you should catch them, Master Gryphus. You won’t allow these pigeons to be mine! Well, I vow they are even less yours than mine.”
“Omittance is no acquittance,” growled the jailer, “and I shall certainly wring their necks before twenty-four hours are over: you may be sure of that.”
Whilst giving utterance to this ill-natured promise, Gryphus put his head out of the window to examine the nest. This gave Van Baerle time to run to the door, and squeeze the hand of Rosa, who whispered to him, —
“At nine o’clock this evening.”
Gryphus, quite taken up with the desire of catching the pigeons next day, as he had promised he would do, saw and heard nothing of this short interlude; and, after having closed the window, he took the arm of his daughter, left the cell, turned the key twice, drew the bolts, and went off to make the same kind promise to the other prisoners.
He had scarcely withdrawn, when Cornelius went to the door to listen to the sound of his footsteps, and, as soon as they had died away, he ran to the window, and completely demolished the nest of the pigeons.
Rather than expose them to the tender mercies of his bullying jailer, he drove away for ever those gentle messengers to whom he owed the happiness of having seen Rosa again.
This visit of the jailer, his brutal threats, and the gloomy prospect of the harshness with which, as he had before experienced, Gryphus watched his prisoners, — all this was unable to extinguish in Cornelius the sweet thoughts, and especially the sweet hope, which the presence of Rosa had reawakened in his heart.
He waited eagerly to hear the clock of the tower of Loewestein strike nine.
The last chime was still vibrating through the air, when Cornelius heard on the staircase the light step and the rustle of the flowing dress of the fair Frisian maid, and soon after a light appeared at the little grated window in the door, on which the prisoner fixed his earnest gaze.
The shutter opened on the outside.
“Here I am,” said Rosa, out of breath from running up the stairs, “here I am.”
“Oh, my good Rosa.”
“You are then glad to see me?”
“Can you ask? But how did you contrive to get here? tell me.”
“Now listen to me. My father falls asleep every evening almost immediately after his supper; I then make him lie down, a little stupefied with his gin. Don’t say anything about it, because, thanks to this nap, I shall be able to come every evening and chat for an hour with you.”
“Oh, I thank you, Rosa, dear Rosa.”
Saying these words, Cornelius put his face so near the little window that Rosa withdrew hers.
“I have brought back to you your bulbs.”
Cornelius’s heart leaped with joy. He had not yet dared to ask Rosa what she had done with the precious treasure which he had intrusted to her.
“Oh, you have preserved them, then?”
“Did you not give them to me as a thing which was dear to you?”
“Yes, but as I have given them to you, it seems to me that they belong to you.”
“They would have belonged to me after your death, but, fortunately, you are alive now. Oh how I blessed his Highness in my heart! If God grants to him all the happiness that I have wished him, certainly Prince William will be the happiest man on earth. When I looked at the Bible of your godfather Cornelius, I was resolved to bring back to you your bulbs, only I did not know how to accomplish it. I had, however, already formed the plan of going to the Stadtholder, to ask from him for my father the appointment of jailer of Loewestein, when your housekeeper brought me your letter. Oh, how we wept together! But your letter only confirmed me the more in my resolution. I then left for Leyden, and the rest you know.”
“What, my dear Rosa, you thought, even before receiving my letter, of coming to meet me again?”
“If I thought of it,” said Rosa, allowing her love to get the better of her bashfulness, “I thought of nothing else.”
And, saying these words, Rosa looked so exceedingly pretty, that for the second time Cornelius placed his forehead and lips against the wire grating; of course, we must presume with the laudable desire to thank the young lady.
Rosa, however, drew back as before.
“In truth,” she said, with that coquetry which somehow or other is in the heart of every young girl, “I have often been sorry that I am not able to read, but never so much so as when your housekeeper brought me your letter. I kept the paper in my hands, which spoke to other people, and which was dumb to poor stupid me.”
“So you have often regretted not being able to read,” said Cornelius. “I should just like to know on what occasions.”
“Troth,” she said, laughing, “to read all the letters which were written to me.”
“Oh, you received letters, Rosa?”
“By hundreds.”
“But who wrote to you?”
“Who! why, in the first place, all the students who passed over the Buytenhof, all the officers who went to parade, all the clerks, and even the merchants who saw me at my little window.”
“And what did you do with all these notes, my dear Rosa?”
“Formerly,” she answered, “I got some friend to read them to me, which was capital fun, but since a certain time — well, what use is it to attend to all this nonsense? — since a certain time I have burnt them.”
“Since a certain time!” exclaimed Cornelius, with a look beaming with love and joy.
Rosa cast down her eyes, blushing. In her sweet confusion, she did not observe the lips of Cornelius, which, alas! only met the cold wire-grating. Yet, in spite of this obstacle, they communicated to the lips of the young girl the glowing breath of the most tender kiss.
At this sudden outburst of tenderness, Rosa grew very pale, — perhaps paler than she had been on the day of the execution. She uttered a plaintive sob, closed her fine eyes, and fled, trying in vain to still the beating of her heart.
And thus Cornelius was again alone.
Rosa had fled so precipitately, that she completely forgot to return to Cornelius the three bulbs of the Black Tulip.
Chapter 16
Master and Pupil
The worthy Master Gryphus, as the reader may have seen, was far from sharing the kindly feeling of his daughter for the godson of Cornelius de Witt.
There being only five prisoners at Loewestein, the post of turnkey was not a very onerous one, but rather a sort of sinecure, given after a long period of service.
But the worthy jailer, in his zeal, had magnified with all the power of his imagination the importance of his office. To him Cornelius had swelled to the gigantic proportions of a criminal of the first order. He looked upon him, therefore, as the most dangerous of all his prisoners. He watched all his steps, and always spoke to him with an angry countenance; punishing him for what he called his dreadful rebellion against such a clement prince as the Stadtholder.
Three times a day he entered Van Baerle’s cell, expecting to find him trespassing; but Cornelius had ceased to correspond, since his correspondent was at hand. It is even probable that, if Cornelius had obtained his full liberty, with permission to go wherever he liked, the prison, with Rosa and his bulbs, would have appeared to him preferable to any other habitation in the world without Rosa and his bulbs.
Rosa, in fact, had promised to come and see him every evening, and from the first evening she had kept her word.
On the following evening she went up as before, with the same mysteriousness and the same precaution. Only she had this time resolved within herself not to approach too near the grating. In order, however, to engage Van Baerle in a conversation from the very first which would seriously occupy his attention, she tendered to him through the grating the three bulbs, which were still wrapped up in the same paper.
But to the great astonishment of Rosa, Van Baerle pushed back her white hand with the tips of his fingers.
The young man had been considering about the matter.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I think we should risk too much by embarking our whole fortune in one ship. Only think, my dear Rosa, that the question is to carry out an enterprise which until now has been considered impossible, namely, that of making the great black tulip flower. Let us, therefore, take every possible precaution, so that in case of a failure we may not have anything to reproach ourselves with. I will now tell you the way I have traced out for us.”
Rosa was all attention to what he would say, much more on account of the importance which the unfortunate tulip-fancier attached to it, than that she felt interested in the matter herself.
“I will explain to you, Rosa,” he said. “I dare say you have in this fortress a small garden, or some courtyard, or, if not that, at least some terrace.”
“We have a very fine garden,” said Rosa, “it runs along the edge of the Waal, and is full of fine old trees.”
“Could you bring me some soil from the garden, that I may judge?”
“I will do so to-morrow.”
“Take some from a sunny spot, and some from a shady, so that I may judge of its properties in a dry and in a moist state.”
“Be assured I shall.”
“After having chosen the soil, and, if it be necessary, modified it, we will divide our three bulbs; you will take one and plant it, on the day that I will tell you, in the soil chosen by me. It is sure to flower, if you tend it according to my directions.”
“I will not lose sight of it for a minute.”
“You will give me another, which I will try to grow here in my cell, and which will help me to beguile those long weary hours when I cannot see you. I confess to you I have very little hope for the latter one, and I look beforehand on this unfortunate bulb as sacrificed to my selfishness. However, the sun sometimes visits me. I will, besides, try to convert everything into an artificial help, even the heat and the ashes of my pipe, and lastly, we, or rather you, will keep in reserve the third sucker as our last resource, in case our first two experiments should prove a failure. In this manner, my dear Rosa, it is impossible that we should not succeed in gaining the hundred thousand guilders for your marriage portion; and how dearly shall we enjoy that supreme happiness of seeing our work brought to a successful issue!”
“I know it all now,” said Rosa. “I will bring you the soil to-morrow, and you will choose it for your bulb and for mine. As to that in which yours is to grow, I shall have several journeys to convey it to you, as I cannot bring much at a time.”
“There is no hurry for it, dear Rosa; our tulips need not be put into the ground for a month at least. So you see we have plenty of time before us. Only I hope that, in planting your bulb, you will strictly follow all my instructions.”
“I promise you I will.”
“And when you have once planted it, you will communicate to me all the circumstances which may interest our nursling; such as change of weather, footprints on the walks, or footprints in the borders. You will listen at night whether our garden is not resorted to by cats. A couple of those untoward animals laid waste two of my borders at Dort.”
“I will listen.”
“On moonlight nights have you ever looked at your garden, my dear child?”
“The window of my sleeping-room overlooks it.”
“Well, on moonlight nights you will observe whether any rats come out from the holes in the wall. The rats are most mischievous by their gnawing everything; and I have heard unfortunate tulip-growers complain most bitterly of Noah for having put a couple of rats in the ark.”
“I will observe, and if there are cats or rats —- “
“You will apprise me of it, — that’s right. And, moreover,” Van Baerle, having become mistrustful in his captivity, continued, “there is an animal much more to be feared than even the cat or the rat.”
“What animal?”
“Man. You comprehend, my dear Rosa, a man may steal a guilder, and risk the prison for such a trifle, and, consequently, it is much more likely that some one might steal a hundred thousand guilders.”
“No one ever enters the garden but myself.”
“Thank you, thank you, my dear Rosa. All the joy of my life has still to come from you.”
And as the lips of Van Baerle approached the grating with the same ardor as the day before, and as, moreover, the hour for retiring had struck, Rosa drew back her head, and stretched out her hand.
In this pretty little hand, of which the coquettish damsel was particularly proud, was the bulb.
Cornelius kissed most tenderly the tips of her fingers. Did he do so because the hand kept one of the bulbs of the great black tulip, or because this hand was Rosa’s? We shall leave this point to the decision of wiser heads than ours.
Rosa withdrew with the other two suckers, pressing them to her heart.
Did she press them to her heart because they were the bulbs of the great black tulip, or because she had them from Cornelius?
This point, we believe, might be more readily decided than the other.
However that may have been, from that moment life became sweet, and again full of interest to the prisoner.
Rosa, as we have seen, had returned to him one of the suckers.
Every evening she brought to him, handful by handful, a quantity of soil from that part of the garden which he had found to be the best, and which, indeed, was excellent.
A large jug, which Cornelius had skilfully broken, did service as a flower-pot. He half filled it, and mixed the earth of the garden with a small portion of dried river mud, a mixture which formed an excellent soil.
Then, at the beginning of April, he planted his first sucker in that jug.
Not a day passed on which Rosa did not come to have her chat with Cornelius.
The tulips, concerning whose cultivation Rosa was taught all the mysteries of the art, formed the principal topic of the conversation; but, interesting as the subject was, people cannot always talk about tulips.
They therefore began to chat also about other things, and the tulip-fancier found out to his great astonishment what a vast range of subjects a conversation may comprise.
Only Rosa had made it a habit to keep her pretty face invariably six inches distant from the grating, having perhaps become distrustful of herself.
There was one thing especially which gave Cornelius almost as much anxiety as his bulbs — a subject to which he always returned — the dependence of Rosa on her father.
Indeed, Van Baerle’s happiness depended on the whim of this man. He might one day find Loewestein dull, or the air of the place unhealthy, or the gin bad, and leave the fortress, and take his daughter with him, when Cornelius and Rosa would again be separated.
“Of what use would the carrier pigeons then be?” said Cornelius to Rosa, “as you, my dear girl, would not be able to read what I should write to you, nor to write to me your thoughts in return.”
“Well,” answered Rosa, who in her heart was as much afraid of a separation as Cornelius himself, “we have one hour every evening, let us make good use of it.”
“I don’t think we make such a bad use of it as it is.”
“Let us employ it even better,” said Rosa, smiling. “Teach me to read and write. I shall make the best of your lessons, believe me; and, in this way, we shall never be separated any more, except by our own will.”
“Oh, then, we have an eternity before us,” said Cornelius.
Rosa smiled, and quietly shrugged her shoulders.
“Will you remain for ever in prison?” she said, “and after having granted you your life, will not his Highness also grant you your liberty? And will you not then recover your fortune, and be a rich man, and then, when you are driving in your own coach, riding your own horse, will you still look at poor Rosa, the daughter of a jailer, scarcely better than a hangman?”
Cornelius tried to contradict her, and certainly he would have done so with all his heart, and with all the sincerity of a soul full of love.
She, however, smilingly interrupted him, saying, “How is your tulip going on?”
To speak to Cornelius of his tulip was an expedient resorted to by her to make him forget everything, even Rosa herself.
“Very well, indeed,” he said, “the coat is growing black, the sprouting has commenced, the veins of the bulb are swelling, in eight days hence, and perhaps sooner, we may distinguish the first buds of the leaves protruding. And yours Rosa?”
“Oh, I have done things on a large scale, and according to your directions.”
“Now, let me hear, Rosa, what you have done,” said Cornelius, with as tender an anxiety as he had lately shown to herself.
“Well,” she said, smiling, for in her own heart she could not help studying this double love of the prisoner for herself and for the black tulip, “I have done things on a large scale; I have prepared a bed as you described it to me, on a clear spot, far from trees and walls, in a soil slightly mixed with sand, rather moist than dry without a fragment of stone or pebble.”
“Well done, Rosa, well done.”
“I am now only waiting for your further orders to put in the bulb, you know that I must be behindhand with you, as I have in my favour all the chances of good air, of the sun, and abundance of moisture.”
“All true, all true,” exclaimed Cornelius, clapping his hands with joy, “you are a good pupil, Rosa, and you are sure to gain your hundred thousand guilders.”
“Don’t forget,” said Rosa, smiling, “that your pupil, as you call me, has still other things to learn besides the cultivation of tulips.”
“Yes, yes, and I am as anxious as you are, Rosa, that you should learn to read.”
“When shall we begin?”
“At once.”
“No, to-morrow.”
“Why to-morrow?”
“Because to-day our hour is expired, and I must leave you.”
“Already? But what shall we read?”
“Oh,” said Rosa, “I have a book, — a book which I hope will bring us luck.”
“To-morrow, then.”
“Yes, to-morrow.”
On the following evening Rosa returned with the Bible of Cornelius de Witt.
Chapter 17
The First Bulb
On the following evening, as we have said, Rosa returned with the Bible of Cornelius de Witt.
Then began between the master and the pupil one of those charming scenes which are the delight of the novelist who has to describe them.
The grated window, the only opening through which the two lovers were able to communicate, was too high for conveniently reading a book, although it had been quite convenient for them to read each other’s faces.
Rosa therefore had to press the open book against the grating edgewise, holding above it in her right hand the lamp, but Cornelius hit upon the lucky idea of fixing it to the bars, so as to afford her a little rest. Rosa was then enabled to follow with her finger the letters and syllables, which she was to spell for Cornelius, who with a straw pointed out the letters to his attentive pupil through the holes of the grating.
The light of the lamp illuminated the rich complexion of Rosa, her blue liquid eyes, and her golden hair under her head-dress of gold brocade, with her fingers held up, and showing in the blood, as it flowed downwards in the veins that pale pink hue which shines before the light owing to the living transparency of the flesh tint.
Rosa’s intellect rapidly developed itself under the animating influence of Cornelius, and when the difficulties seemed too arduous, the sympathy of two loving hearts seemed to smooth them away.
And Rosa, after having returned to her room, repeated in her solitude the reading lessons, and at the same time recalled all the delight which she had felt whilst receiving them.
One evening she came half an hour later than usual. This was too extraordinary an instance not to call forth at once Cornelius’s inquiries after its cause.
“Oh! do not be angry with me,” she said, “it is not my fault. My father has renewed an acquaintance with an old crony who used to visit him at the Hague, and to ask him to let him see the prison. He is a good sort of fellow, fond of his bottle, tells funny stories, and moreover is very free with his money, so as always to be ready to stand a treat.”
“You don’t know anything further of him?” asked Cornelius, surprised.
“No,” she answered; “it’s only for about a fortnight that my father has taken such a fancy to this friend who is so assiduous in visiting him.”
“Ah, so,” said Cornelius, shaking his head uneasily as every new incident seemed to him to forebode some catastrophe; “very likely some spy, one of those who are sent into jails to watch both prisoners and their keepers.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Rosa, smiling; “if that worthy person is spying after any one, it is certainly not after my father.”
“After whom, then?”
“Me, for instance.”
“You?”
“Why not?” said Rosa, smiling.
“Ah, that’s true,” Cornelius observed, with a sigh. “You will not always have suitors in vain; this man may become your husband.”
“I don’t say anything to the contrary.”
“What cause have you to entertain such a happy prospect?”
“Rather say, this fear, Mynheer Cornelius.”
“Thank you, Rosa, you are right; well, I will say then, this fear?”
“I have only this reason —- “
“Tell me, I am anxious to hear.”
“This man came several times before to the Buytenhof, at the Hague. I remember now, it was just about the time when you were confined there. When I left, he left too; when I came here, he came after me. At the Hague his pretext was that he wanted to see you.”
“See me?”
“Yes, it must have undoubtedly been only a pretext for now, when he could plead the same reason, as you are my father’s prisoner again, he does not care any longer for you; quite the contrary, — I heard him say to my father only yesterday that he did not know you.”
“Go on, Rosa, pray do, that I may guess who that man is, and what he wants.”
“Are you quite sure, Mynheer Cornelius, that none of your friends can interest himself for you?”
“I have no friends, Rosa; I have only my old nurse, whom you know, and who knows you. Alas, poor Sue! she would come herself, and use no roundabout ways. She would at once say to your father, or to you, ‘My good sir, or my good miss, my child is here; see how grieved I am; let me see him only for one hour, and I’ll pray for you as long as I live.’ No, no,” continued Cornelius; “with the exception of my poor old Sue, I have no friends in this world.”
“Then I come back to what I thought before; and the more so as last evening at sunset, whilst I was arranging the border where I am to plant your bulb, I saw a shadow gliding between the alder trees and the aspens. I did not appear to see him, but it was this man. He concealed himself and saw me digging the ground, and certainly it was me whom he followed, and me whom he was spying after. I could not move my rake, or touch one atom of soil, without his noticing it.”
“Oh, yes, yes, he is in love with you,” said Cornelius. “Is he young? Is he handsome?”
Saying this he looked anxiously at Rosa, eagerly waiting for her answer.
“Young? handsome?” cried Rosa, bursting into a laugh. “He is hideous to look at; crooked, nearly fifty years of age, and never dares to look me in the face, or to speak, except in an undertone.”
“And his name?”
“Jacob Gisels.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Then you see that, at all events, he does not come after you.”
“At any rate, if he loves you, Rosa, which is very likely, as to see you is to love you, at least you don’t love him.”
“To be sure I don’t.”
“Then you wish me to keep my mind easy?”
“I should certainly ask you to do so.”
“Well, then, now as you begin to know how to read you will read all that I write to you of the pangs of jealousy and of absence, won’t you, Rosa?”
“I shall read it, if you write with good big letters.”
Then, as the turn which the conversation took began to make Rosa uneasy, she asked, —
“By the bye, how is your tulip going on?”
“Oh, Rosa, only imagine my joy, this morning I looked at it in the sun, and after having moved the soil aside which covers the bulb, I saw the first sprouting of the leaves. This small germ has caused me a much greater emotion than the order of his Highness which turned aside the sword already raised at the Buytenhof.”
“You hope, then?” said Rosa, smiling.
“Yes, yes, I hope.”
“And I, in my turn, when shall I plant my bulb?”
“Oh, the first favourable day I will tell you; but, whatever you do, let nobody help you, and don’t confide your secret to any one in the world; do you see, a connoisseur by merely looking at the bulb would be able to distinguish its value; and so, my dearest Rosa, be careful in locking up the third sucker which remains to you.”
“It is still wrapped up in the same paper in which you put it, and just as you gave it me. I have laid it at the bottom of my chest under my point lace, which keeps it dry, without pressing upon it. But good night, my poor captive gentleman.”
“How? already?”
“It must be, it must be.”
“Coming so late and going so soon.”
“My father might grow impatient not seeing me return, and that precious lover might suspect a rival.”
Here she listened uneasily.
“What is it?” asked Van Baerle. “I thought I heard something.”
“What, then?”
“Something like a step, creaking on the staircase.”
“Surely,” said the prisoner, “that cannot be Master Gryphus, he is always heard at a distance”
“No, it is not my father, I am quite sure, but —- “
“But?”
“But it might be Mynheer Jacob.”
Rosa rushed toward the staircase, and a door was really heard rapidly to close before the young damsel had got down the first ten steps.
Cornelius was very uneasy about it, but it was after all only a prelude to greater anxieties.
The flowing day passed without any remarkable incident. Gryphus made his three visits, and discovered nothing. He never came at the same hours as he hoped thus to discover the secrets of the prisoner. Van Baerle, therefore, had devised a contrivance, a sort of pulley, by means of which he was able to lower or to raise his jug below the ledge of tiles and stone before his window. The strings by which this was effected he had found means to cover with that moss which generally grows on tiles, or in the crannies of the walls.
Gryphus suspected nothing, and the device succeeded for eight days. One morning, however, when Cornelius, absorbed in the contemplation of his bulb, from which a germ of vegetation was already peeping forth, had not heard old Gryphus coming upstairs as a gale of wind was blowing which shook the whole tower, the door suddenly opened.
Gryphus, perceiving an unknown and consequently a forbidden object in the hands of his prisoner, pounced upon it with the same rapidity as the hawk on its prey.
As ill luck would have it, his coarse, hard hand, the same which he had broken, and which Cornelius van Baerle had set so well, grasped at once in the midst of the jug, on the spot where the bulb was lying in the soil.
“What have you got here?” he roared. “Ah! have I caught you?” and with this he grabbed in the soil.
“I? nothing, nothing,” cried Cornelius, trembling.
“Ah! have I caught you? a jug and earth in it There is some criminal secret at the bottom of all this.”
“Oh, my good Master Gryphus,” said Van Baerle, imploringly, and anxious as the partridge robbed of her young by the reaper.
In fact, Gryphus was beginning to dig the soil with his