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Updated: June 16, 2025
But, whether from a feeling of shame or from craven weakness, Isaac Boxtel did not venture that day to point his telescope either at the garden, or at the laboratory, or at the dry-room. He knew too well what was about to happen in the house of the poor doctor to feel any desire to look into it.
There could not be a doubt that Van Baerle had become a tulip-grower. Boxtel at once pictured to himself this learned man, with a capital of four hundred thousand and a yearly income of ten thousand guilders, devoting all his intellectual and financial resources to the cultivation of the tulip.
A feature of "The Black Tulip" is that in it is the bulb, and not a human being, that is the real centre of interest. The fate of the bulb is made of first importance, and the fortunes of Cornelius van Baerle, the tulip fancier, of Boxtel, and of Rosa, the gaoler's daughter, exciting though they are, take second place. I. Mob Vengeance
"And who is that prisoner to whom you allude as the lover of this young woman?" Rosa nearly swooned, for Cornelius was designated as a dangerous prisoner, and recommended by the Prince to the especial surveillance of the jailer. Nothing could have been more agreeable to Boxtel than this question.
Yet Van Baerle made such progress in the noble science of growing tulips, which he seemed to master with the true instinct of genius, that Boxtel at last was maddened to such a degree as to think of throwing stones and sticks into the flower-stands of his neighbour.
At the mere mention of the dry-room, therefore, the servants who were carrying the lights respectfully fell back. Cornelius, taking the candlestick from the hands of the foremost, conducted his godfather into that room, which was no other than that very cabinet with a glass front into which Boxtel was continually prying with his telescope. The envious spy was watching more intently than ever.
What no one but a tulip-fancier, and an envious tulip-fancier, could have discovered, the existence of the bulbs and the endeavours of the prisoner, jealousy had enabled Boxtel, if not to discover, at least to guess.
"Sir, the black tulip has been stolen from me," said Rosa. "But I only saw it two hours ago!" replied the president. "You saw it where?" "Why, at your master's! Are you not in the service of Mynheer Isaac Boxtel?" "I, sir? Certainly not! But this Isaac Boxtel, is he a thin, bald-headed, bow-legged, crook-backed, haggard-looking man?" "You have described him exactly."
The fame of Mynheer van Baerle's tulips soon spread in the district, and while Cornelius de Witt had roused deadly hatred by sowing the seeds of political passion, Van Baerle with his tulips won general goodwill. Yet, all unknowingly, Van Baerle had made an enemy, an implacable, relentless enemy. This was his neighbour, Isaac Boxtel, who lived next door to him in Dordrecht.
About nine o'clock he heard a great noise in the street which made him tremble, at this moment he was paler than a real invalid, and shook more violently than a man in the height of fever. His servant entered the room; Boxtel hid himself under the counterpane.
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