Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

honour was offered to him, readily enough, in the name of

the city.

After having thanked his fellow citizens, Cornelius

proceeded to his old paternal house, and gave directions for

some repairs, which he wished to have executed before the

arrival of his wife and children; and thence he wended his

way to the house of his godson, who perhaps was the only

person in Dort as yet unacquainted with the presence of

Cornelius in the town.

In the same degree as Cornelius de Witt had excited the

hatred of the people by sowing those evil seeds which are

called political passions, Van Baerle had gained the

affections of his fellow citizens by completely shunning the

pursuit of politics, absorbed as he was in the peaceful

pursuit of cultivating tulips.

Van Baerle was truly beloved by his servants and labourers;

nor had he any conception that there was in this world a man

who wished ill to another.

And yet it must be said, to the disgrace of mankind, that

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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

Cornelius van Baerle, without being aware of the fact, had a

much more ferocious, fierce, and implacable enemy than the

Grand Pensionary and his brother had among the Orange party,

who were most hostile to the devoted brothers, who had never

been sundered by the least misunderstanding during their

lives, and by their mutual devotion in the face of death

made sure the existence of their brotherly affection beyond

the grave.

At the time when Cornelius van Baerle began to devote

himself to tulip-growing, expending on this hobby his yearly

revenue and the guilders of his father, there was at Dort,

living next door to him, a citizen of the name of Isaac

Boxtel who from the age when he was able to think for

himself had indulged the same fancy, and who was in

ecstasies at the mere mention of the word “tulban,” which

(as we are assured by the “Floriste Francaise,” the most

highly considered authority in matters relating to this

flower) is the first word in the Cingalese tongue which was

ever used to designate that masterpiece of floriculture

which is now called the tulip.

Boxtel had not the good fortune of being rich, like Van

Baerle. He had therefore, with great care and patience, and

by dint of strenuous exertions, laid out near his house at

Dort a garden fit for the culture of his cherished flower;

he had mixed the soil according to the most approved

prescriptions, and given to his hotbeds just as much heat

and fresh air as the strictest rules of horticulture exact.

Isaac knew the temperature of his frames to the twentieth

part of a degree. He knew the strength of the current of

air, and tempered it so as to adapt it to the wave of the

stems of his flowers. His productions also began to meet

with the favour of the public. They were beautiful, nay,

distinguished. Several fanciers had come to see Boxtel’s

tulips. At last he had even started amongst all the

Linnaeuses and Tourneforts a tulip which bore his name, and

which, after having travelled all through France, had found

its way into Spain, and penetrated as far as Portugal; and

the King, Don Alfonso VI. — who, being expelled from

Lisbon, had retired to the island of Terceira, where he

amused himself, not, like the great Conde, with watering his

carnations, but with growing tulips — had, on seeing the

Boxtel tulip, exclaimed, “Not so bad, by any means!”

All at once, Cornelius van Baerle, who, after all his

learned pursuits, had been seized with the tulipomania, made

some changes in his house at Dort, which, as we have stated,

was next door to that of Boxtel. He raised a certain

building in his court-yard by a story, which shutting out

the sun, took half a degree of warmth from Boxtel’s garden,

and, on the other hand, added half a degree of cold in

winter; not to mention that it cut the wind, and disturbed

all the horticultural calculations and arrangements of his

neighbour.

After all, this mishap appeared to Boxtel of no great

consequence. Van Baerle was but a painter, a sort of fool