Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

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