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Tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and other bulbs were entirely out of bloom, but the earlier herbaceous borders had come into flower, and he passed through masses of pink and ivory-tinted peonies huge, heavy, double blossoms, fragrant and delicate as roses.
In one, a lovely study of ivy crept over a rotten branch upon the ground. A crimson toadstool relieved the heavy green, and suggested that the year was drawing to a close. Beneath it was written, "Charity." "Thus," said my great-grandfather, "one covers up and hides the defects of one he loves." A study of gaudy summer tulips stood as may be guessed for Pride.
The palace, my boy, stood in a huge garden, in which there grew oranges, you know . . . bergamots, cherries . . . tulips, roses, and lilies-of-the-valley were in flower in it, and birds of different colours sang there. . . . Yes. . . . On the trees there hung little glass bells, and, when the wind blew, they rang so sweetly that one was never tired of hearing them.
There is a great wind here; the spring has not begun properly yet, but we go about without our goloshes and fur caps. The tulips will soon be out. I have a nice garden but it is untidy, moss-grown a dilettante garden. Gorky is here. He is warm in his praises of you and your theatre. I will introduce you to him. Oh dear! Someone has arrived. A visitor has come in. Good-bye for now, actress!
All at once he perceived furrows and little mounds of earth on the beds which only the evening before had been as smooth as a mirror, all at once he perceived the symmetrical rows of his tulips to be completely disordered, like the pikes of a battalion in the midst of which a shell has fallen. He ran up to them with blanched cheek. Boxtel trembled with joy.
Mrs Forsyth and Beatrice now reaped the benefit of their work in the garden, for the tulips, the various arias and otises made the borders resplendent, while the delicious scent of the wallflowers was almost oppressive. The May blossom was full out on the hedge which bounded the little domain, and the apple-trees in that part devoted to fruit and vegetables were one mass of pink and white.
How often did Boxtel, in the midst of tortures which no pen is able fully to describe, how often did he feel an inclination to jump down into the garden during the night, to destroy the plants, to tear the bulbs with his teeth, and to sacrifice to his wrath the owner himself, if he should venture to stand up for the defence of his tulips!
The judge summed up with the following dilemma: "Either Cornelius van Baerle is a great lover of tulips, or a great lover of politics; in either case, he has told us a falsehood; first, because his having occupied himself with politics is proved by the letters which were found at his house; and secondly, because his having occupied himself with tulips is proved by the bulbs which leave no doubt of the fact.
He wanted to be out again, and he had a tantalizing remembrance of the ease with which the tender juicy stalks of the tulips went snap, snap, in that new place of amusement he had discovered. Thomasina looked into the kitchen and went away again. When she had gone, John Broom went away also. He went both faster and steadier on his bare feet.
In the corners of the room were immense red flowers, such as hang among the crawling green jungles of the West Indies. They gleamed, like flames, amid a shower of cunningly arranged green leaves, and palms sheltered them from the electric rays of the ceiling. The tentroom was a maze of tulips, in vases, in pots, in china bowls that hung by thin chains from the sloping green roof.
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