windmills. He saw the fine red brick houses, mortared in
white lines, standing on the edge of the water, and their
balconies, open towards the river, decked out with silk
tapestry embroidered with gold flowers, the wonderful
manufacture of India and China; and near these brilliant
stuffs, large lines set to catch the voracious eels, which
are attracted towards the houses by the garbage thrown every
day from the kitchens into the river.
Craeke, standing on the deck of the boat, saw, across the
moving sails of the windmills, on the slope of the hill, the
red and pink house which was the goal of his errand. The
outlines of its roof were merging in the yellow foliage of a
curtain of poplar trees, the whole habitation having for
background a dark grove of gigantic elms. The mansion was
situated in such a way that the sun, falling on it as into a
funnel, dried up, warmed, and fertilised the mist which the
verdant screen could not prevent the river wind from
carrying there every morning and evening.
Having disembarked unobserved amid the usual bustle of the
city, Craeke at once directed his steps towards the house
which we have just described, and which — white, trim, and
tidy, even more cleanly scoured and more carefully waxed in
the hidden corners than in the places which were exposed to
view — enclosed a truly happy mortal.
This happy mortal, rara avis, was Dr. van Baerle, the godson
of Cornelius de Witt. He had inhabited the same house ever
since his childhood, for it was the house in which his
father and grandfather, old established princely merchants
of the princely city of Dort, were born.
Mynheer van Baerle the father had amassed in the Indian
trade three or four hundred thousand guilders, which Mynheer
van Baerle the son, at the death of his dear and worthy
parents, found still quite new, although one set of them
bore the date of coinage of 1640, and the other that of
1610, a fact which proved that they were guilders of Van
Baerle the father and of Van Baerle the grandfather; but we
will inform the reader at once that these three or four
hundred thousand guilders were only the pocket money, or
sort of purse, for Cornelius van Baerle, the hero of this
story, as his landed property in the province yielded him an
income of about ten thousand guilders a year.
When the worthy citizen, the father of Cornelius, passed
from time into eternity, three months after having buried
his wife, who seemed to have departed first to smooth for
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
him the path of death as she had smoothed for him the path
of life, he said to his son, as he embraced him for the last
time, —
“Eat, drink, and spend your money, if you wish to know what
life really is, for as to toiling from morn to evening on a
wooden stool, or a leathern chair, in a counting-house or a
laboratory, that certainly is not living. Your time to die
will also come; and if you are not then so fortunate as to
have a son, you will let my name grow extinct, and my
guilders, which no one has ever fingered but my father,
myself, and the coiner, will have the surprise of passing to
an unknown master. And least of all, imitate the example of
your godfather, Cornelius de Witt, who has plunged into
politics, the most ungrateful of all careers, and who will
certainly come to an untimely end.”
Having given utterance to this paternal advice, the worthy
Mynheer van Baerle died, to the intense grief of his son
Cornelius, who cared very little for the guilders, and very
much for his father.
Cornelius then remained alone in his large house. In vain
his godfather offered to him a place in the public service,
— in vain did he try to give him a taste for glory, —
although Cornelius, to gratify his godfather, did embark
with De Ruyter upon “The Seven Provinces,” the flagship of a
fleet of one hundred and thirty-nine sail, with which the