Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
"In this case," said the officer, "the person whom you know has found it, for the thing which the whole of Haarlem is looking at at this moment is neither more nor less than the black tulip." "The black tulip!" replied Van Baerle, thrusting half his body out of the carriage window. "Where is it? where is it?" "Down there on the throne, don't you see?" "I do see it."
"It will lead, if he lives and dies in prison, to my aiding him in life and in death." "And would you accept the lot of being the wife of a prisoner?" "As the wife of Mynheer van Baerle, I should, under any circumstances, be the proudest and happiest woman in the world; but " "But what?" "I dare not say, Monseigneur." "There is something like hope in your tone; what do you hope?"
Gryphus, not having received any tidings of Rosa or of Jacob, persuaded himself that all that had happened was the devil's work, and that Dr. Cornelius van Baerle had been sent on earth by Satan. The result of it was, that, one fine morning, the third after the disappearance of Jacob and Rosa, he went up to the cell of Cornelius in even a greater rage than usual.
The chagrin of his rival was to pay for all the inconvenience which he incurred himself. At the earliest dawn the door of the white house opened, and Van Baerle made his appearance, approaching the flower-beds with the smile of a man who has passed the night comfortably in his bed, and has had happy dreams.
Van Baerle was known to be fond of everything that pleases the eye. He studied Nature in all her aspects for the benefit of his paintings, which were as minutely finished as those of Gerard Dow, his master, and of Mieris, his friend. Was it not possible, that, having to paint the interior of a tulip-grower's, he had collected in his new studio all the accessories of decoration?
Now in that night Boxtel would climb over the wall and, as he knew the position of the bulb which was to produce the grand black tulip, he would filch it; and instead of flowering for Cornelius, it would flower for him, Isaac; he also, instead of Van Baerle, would have the prize of a hundred thousand guilders, not to speak of the sublime honour of calling the new flower Tulipa nigra Boxtellensis, a result which would satisfy not only his vengeance, but also his cupidity and his ambition.
It might be one o'clock in the morning when Van Baerle went up to his laboratory, into the glazed cabinet whither Boxtel's telescope had such an easy access; and here, as soon as the lamp illuminated the walls and windows, Boxtel saw the inventive genius of his rival at work. He beheld him sifting his seeds, and soaking them in liquids which were destined to modify or to deepen their colours.
On the one hand, separation became inevitable, Gryphus having at the same time surprised the secret of their love and of their secret meetings. On the other hand, all the hopes on the fulfilment of which Cornelius van Baerle had rested his ambition for the last seven years were now crushed.
The reader cannot but have recognized in Jacob our old friend, or rather enemy, Isaac Boxtel, and has guessed, no doubt, that this worthy had followed from the Buytenhof to Loewestein the object of his love and the object of his hatred, the black tulip and Cornelius van Baerle.
Boxtel sank quite paralyzed on that very table, and on that very spot where, some hours before, the unfortunate Van Baerle had so leisurely, and with such intense delight, contemplated his darling bulbs. "Well, then, after all," said the envious Boxtel, raising his livid face from his hands in which it had been buried "if he has them, he can keep them only as long as he lives, and "
Word Of The Day
Others Looking