Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

form lying outstretched near a wooden bench, and a deathlike

face half covered with long golden locks.

But Rosa, whilst falling down senseless, still obeying her

friend, had pressed her hand on her velvet bodice and,

forgetting everything in the world besides, instinctively

grasped the precious deposit which Cornelius had intrusted

to her care.

Leaving the cell, the young man could still see in the

convulsively clinched fingers of Rosa the yellowish leaf

from that Bible on which Cornelius de Witt had with such

difficulty and pain written these few lines, which, if Van

Baerle had read them, would undoubtedly have been the saving

of a man and a tulip.

Chapter 12

The Execution

Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the

prison to reach the foot of the scaffold. At the bottom of

the staircase, the dog quietly looked at him whilst he was

passing; Cornelius even fancied he saw in the eyes of the

monster a certain expression as it were of compassion.

The dog perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit

those who left as free men.

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The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot

of the scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was crowded

with curious people.

These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which

they had shed three days before, were now craving for a new

victim.

And scarcely had Cornelius made his appearance than a fierce

groan ran through the whole street, spreading all over the

yard, and re-echoing from the streets which led to the

scaffold, and which were likewise crowded with spectators.

The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence

of several rivers.

In the midst of these threats, groans, and yells, Cornelius,

very likely in order not to hear them, had buried himself in

his own thoughts.

And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?

Neither of his enemies, nor of his judges, nor of his

executioners.

He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from

heaven above, at Ceylon, or Bengal, or elsewhere, when he

would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John

and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered for having thought

too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was

about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.

“It is only one stroke of the axe,” said the philosopher to

himself, “and my beautiful dream will begin to be realised.”

Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened

before to M. de Chalais, to M. de Thou, and other slovenly

executed people, that the headsman might inflict more than

one stroke, that is to say, more than one martyrdom, on the

poor tulip-fancier.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, Van Baerle mounted the

scaffold not the less resolutely, proud of having been the

friend of that illustrious John, and godson of that noble

Cornelius de Witt, whom the ruffians, who were now crowding

to witness his own doom, had torn to pieces and burnt three

days before.

He knelt down, said his prayers, and observed, not without a

feeling of sincere joy, that, laying his head on the block,

and keeping his eyes open, he would be able to his last

moment to see the grated window of the Buytenhof.

At length the fatal moment arrived, and Cornelius placed his

chin on the cold damp block. But at this moment his eyes

closed involuntarily, to receive more resolutely the

terrible avalanche which was about to fall on his head, and

to engulf his life.

A gleam like that of lightning passed across the scaffold:

it was the executioner raising his sword.

Van Baerle bade farewell to the great black tulip, certain

of awaking in another world full of light and glorious

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tints.

Three times he felt, with a shudder, the cold current of air

from the knife near his neck, but what a surprise! he felt

neither pain nor shock.

He saw no change in the colour of the sky, or of the world

around him.