sweet, and again full of interest to the prisoner.
Rosa, as we have seen, had returned to him one of the
suckers.
Every evening she brought to him, handful by handful, a
quantity of soil from that part of the garden which he had
found to be the best, and which, indeed, was excellent.
A large jug, which Cornelius had skilfully broken, did
service as a flower-pot. He half filled it, and mixed the
earth of the garden with a small portion of dried river mud,
a mixture which formed an excellent soil.
Then, at the beginning of April, he planted his first sucker
in that jug.
Not a day passed on which Rosa did not come to have her chat
with Cornelius.
The tulips, concerning whose cultivation Rosa was taught all
the mysteries of the art, formed the principal topic of the
conversation; but, interesting as the subject was, people
cannot always talk about tulips.
They therefore began to chat also about other things, and
the tulip-fancier found out to his great astonishment what a
vast range of subjects a conversation may comprise.
Only Rosa had made it a habit to keep her pretty face
invariably six inches distant from the grating, having
perhaps become distrustful of herself.
There was one thing especially which gave Cornelius almost
as much anxiety as his bulbs — a subject to which he always
returned — the dependence of Rosa on her father.
Indeed, Van Baerle’s happiness depended on the whim of this
man. He might one day find Loewestein dull, or the air of
the place unhealthy, or the gin bad, and leave the fortress,
and take his daughter with him, when Cornelius and Rosa
would again be separated.
“Of what use would the carrier pigeons then be?” said
Cornelius to Rosa, “as you, my dear girl, would not be able
to read what I should write to you, nor to write to me your
thoughts in return.”
“Well,” answered Rosa, who in her heart was as much afraid
of a separation as Cornelius himself, “we have one hour
every evening, let us make good use of it.”
“I don’t think we make such a bad use of it as it is.”
“Let us employ it even better,” said Rosa, smiling. “Teach
me to read and write. I shall make the best of your lessons,
believe me; and, in this way, we shall never be separated
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
any more, except by our own will.”
“Oh, then, we have an eternity before us,” said Cornelius.
Rosa smiled, and quietly shrugged her shoulders.
“Will you remain for ever in prison?” she said, “and after
having granted you your life, will not his Highness also
grant you your liberty? And will you not then recover your
fortune, and be a rich man, and then, when you are driving
in your own coach, riding your own horse, will you still
look at poor Rosa, the daughter of a jailer, scarcely better
than a hangman?”
Cornelius tried to contradict her, and certainly he would
have done so with all his heart, and with all the sincerity
of a soul full of love.
She, however, smilingly interrupted him, saying, “How is
your tulip going on?”
To speak to Cornelius of his tulip was an expedient resorted
to by her to make him forget everything, even Rosa herself.
“Very well, indeed,” he said, “the coat is growing black,
the sprouting has commenced, the veins of the bulb are
swelling, in eight days hence, and perhaps sooner, we may
distinguish the first buds of the leaves protruding. And
yours Rosa?”
“Oh, I have done things on a large scale, and according to
your directions.”
“Now, let me hear, Rosa, what you have done,” said
Cornelius, with as tender an anxiety as he had lately shown
to herself.
“Well,” she said, smiling, for in her own heart she could
not help studying this double love of the prisoner for
herself and for the black tulip, “I have done things on a
large scale; I have prepared a bed as you described it to
me, on a clear spot, far from trees and walls, in a soil