The Black Tulip

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.