come to the resolution of making her appearance at the
grated window no more.
But as she knew with what ardent desire Cornelius looked
forward to the news about his tulip; and as, notwithstanding
her determination not to see any more a man her pity for
whose fate was fast growing into love, she did not, on the
other hand, wish to drive him to despair, she resolved to
continue by herself the reading and writing lessons; and,
fortunately, she had made sufficient progress to dispense
with the help of a master when the master was not to be
Cornelius.
Rosa therefore applied herself most diligently to reading
poor Cornelius de Witt’s Bible, on the second fly leaf of
which the last will of Cornelius van Baerle was written.
“Alas!” she muttered, when perusing again this document,
which she never finished without a tear, the pearl of love,
rolling from her limpid eyes on her pale cheeks — “alas! at
that time I thought for one moment he loved me.”
Poor Rosa! she was mistaken. Never had the love of the
prisoner been more sincere than at the time at which we are
now arrived, when in the contest between the black tulip and
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
Rosa the tulip had had to yield to her the first and
foremost place in Cornelius’s heart.
But Rosa was not aware of it.
Having finished reading, she took her pen, and began with as
laudable diligence the by far more difficult task of
writing.
As, however, Rosa was already able to write a legible hand
when Cornelius so uncautiously opened his heart, she did not
despair of progressing quickly enough to write, after eight
days at the latest, to the prisoner an account of his tulip.
She had not forgotten one word of the directions given to
her by Cornelius, whose speeches she treasured in her heart,
even when they did not take the shape of directions.
He, on his part, awoke deeper in love than ever. The tulip,
indeed, was still a luminous and prominent object in his
mind; but he no longer looked upon it as a treasure to which
he ought to sacrifice everything, and even Rosa, but as a
marvellous combination of nature and art with which he would
have been happy to adorn the bosom of his beloved one.
Yet during the whole of that day he was haunted with a vague
uneasiness, at the bottom of which was the fear lest Rosa
should not come in the evening to pay him her usual visit.
This thought took more and more hold of him, until at the
approach of evening his whole mind was absorbed in it.
How his heart beat when darkness closed in! The words which
he had said to Rosa on the evening before and which had so
deeply afflicted her, now came back to his mind more vividly
than ever, and he asked himself how he could have told his
gentle comforter to sacrifice him to his tulip, — that is
to say, to give up seeing him, if need be, — whereas to him
the sight of Rosa had become a condition of life.
In Cornelius’s cell one heard the chimes of the clock of the
fortress. It struck seven, it struck eight, it struck nine.
Never did the metal voice vibrate more forcibly through the
heart of any man than did the last stroke, marking the ninth
hour, through the heart of Cornelius.
All was then silent again. Cornelius put his hand on his
heart, to repress as it were its violent palpitation, and
listened.
The noise of her footstep, the rustling of her gown on the
staircase, were so familiar to his ear, that she had no
sooner mounted one step than he used to say to himself, —
“Here comes Rosa.”
This evening none of those little noises broke the silence
of the lobby, the clock struck nine, and a quarter; the
half-hour, then a quarter to ten, and at last its deep tone
announced, not only to the inmates of the fortress, but also
to all the inhabitants of Loewestein, that it was ten.