Chapter 17. The First Bulb
On the following evening, as we have said, Rosa returned with the Bibleof Cornelius de Witt.
Then began between the master and the pupil one of those charming sceneswhich are the delight of the novelist who has to describe them.
The grated window, the only opening through which the two lovers wereable to communicate, was too high for conveniently reading a book,although it had been quite convenient for them to read each other'sfaces.
Rosa therefore had to press the open book against the grating edgewise,holding above it in her right hand the lamp, but Cornelius hit upon thelucky idea of fixing it to the bars, so as to afford her a littlerest. Rosa was then enabled to follow with her finger the lettersand syllables, which she was to spell for Cornelius, who with a strawpointed out the letters to his attentive pupil through the holes of thegrating.
The light of the lamp illuminated the rich complexion of Rosa, her blueliquid eyes, and her golden hair under her head-dress of gold brocade,with her fingers held up, and showing in the blood, as it floweddownwards in the veins that pale pink hue which shines before the lightowing to the living transparency of the flesh tint.
Rosa's intellect rapidly developed itself under the animating influenceof Cornelius, and when the difficulties seemed too arduous, the sympathyof two loving hearts seemed to smooth them away.
And Rosa, after having returned to her room, repeated in her solitudethe reading lessons, and at the same time recalled all the delight whichshe had felt whilst receiving them.
One evening she came half an hour later than usual. This was tooextraordinary an instance not to call forth at once Cornelius'sinquiries after its cause.
"Oh! do not be angry with me," she said, "it is not my fault. My fatherhas renewed an acquaintance with an old crony who used to visit him atthe Hague, and to ask him to let him see the prison. He is a good sortof fellow, fond of his bottle, tells funny stories, and moreover is veryfree with his money, so as always to be ready to stand a treat."
"You don't know anything further of him?" asked Cornelius, surprised.
"No," she answered; "it's only for about a fortnight that my father hastaken such a fancy to this friend who is so assiduous in visiting him."
"Ah, so," said Cornelius, shaking his head uneasily as every newincident seemed to him to forebode some catastrophe; "very likely somespy, one of those who are sent into jails to watch both prisoners andtheir keepers."
"I don't believe that," said Rosa, smiling; "if that worthy person isspying after any one, it is certainly not after my father."
"After whom, then?"
"Me, for instance."
"You?"
"Why not?" said Rosa, smiling.
"Ah, that's true," Cornelius observed, with a sigh. "You will not alwayshave suitors in vain; this man may become your husband."
"I don't say anything to the contrary."
"What cause have you to entertain such a happy prospect?"
"Rather say, this fear, Mynheer Cornelius."
"Thank you, Rosa, you are right; well, I will say then, this fear?"
"I have only this reason----"
"Tell me, I am anxious to hear."
"This man came several times before to the Buytenhof, at the Hague. Iremember now, it was just about the time when you were confined there.When I left, he left too; when I came here, he came after me. At theHague his pretext was that he wanted to see you."
"See me?"
"Yes, it must have undoubtedly been only a pretext for now, when hecould plead the same reason, as you are my father's prisoner again, hedoes not care any longer for you; quite the contrary,--I heard him sayto my father only yesterday that he did not know you."
"Go on, Rosa, pray do, that I may guess who that man is, and what hewants."
"Are you quite sure, Mynheer Cornelius, that none of your friends caninterest himself for you?"
"I have no friends, Rosa; I have only my old nurse, whom you know,and who knows you. Alas, poor Sue! she would come herself, and use noroundabout ways. She would at once say to your father, or to you, 'Mygood sir, or my good miss, my child is here; see how grieved I am; letme see him only for one hour, and I'll pray for you as long as I live.'No, no," continued Cornelius; "with the exception of my poor old Sue, Ihave no friends in this world."
"Then I come back to what I thought before; and the more so as lastevening at sunset, whilst I was arranging the border where I am toplant your bulb, I saw a shadow gliding between the alder trees and theaspens. I did not appear to see him, but it was this man. He concealedhimself and saw me digging the ground, and certainly it was me whom hefollowed, and me whom he was spying after. I could not move my rake, ortouch one atom of soil, without his noticing it."
"Oh, yes, yes, he is in love with you," said Cornelius. "Is he young? Ishe handsome?"
Saying this he looked anxiously at Rosa, eagerly waiting for her answer.
"Young? handsome?" cried Rosa, bursting into a laugh. "He is hideous tolook at; crooked, nearly fifty years of age, and never dares to look mein the face, or to speak, except in an undertone."
"And his name?"
"Jacob Gisels."
"I don't know him."
"Then you see that, at all events, he does not come after you."
"At any rate, if he loves you, Rosa, which is very likely, as to see youis to love you, at least you don't love him."
"To be sure I don't."
"Then you wish me to keep my mind easy?"
"I should certainly ask you to do so."
"Well, then, now as you begin to know how to read you will read allthat I write to you of the pangs of jealousy and of absence, won't you,Rosa?"
"I shall read it, if you write with good big letters."
Then, as the turn which the conversation took began to make Rosa uneasy,she asked,--
"By the bye, how is your tulip going on?"
"Oh, Rosa, only imagine my joy, this morning I looked at it in the sun,and after having moved the soil aside which covers the bulb, I saw thefirst sprouting of the leaves. This small germ has caused me a muchgreater emotion than the order of his Highness which turned aside thesword already raised at the Buytenhof."
"You hope, then?" said Rosa, smiling.
"Yes, yes, I hope."
"And I, in my turn, when shall I plant my bulb?"
"Oh, the first favourable day I will tell you; but, whatever you do, letnobody help you, and don't confide your secret to any one in the world;do you see, a connoisseur by merely looking at the bulb would be able todistinguish its value; and so, my dearest Rosa, be careful in locking upthe third sucker which remains to you."
"It is still wrapped up in the same paper in which you put it, and justas you gave it me. I have laid it at the bottom of my chest under mypoint lace, which keeps it dry, without pressing upon it. But goodnight, my poor captive gentleman."
"How? already?"
"It must be, it must be."
"Coming so late and going so soon."
"My father might grow impatient not seeing me return, and that preciouslover might suspect a rival."
Here she listened uneasily.
"What is it?" asked Van Baerle. "I thought I heard something."
"What, then?"
"Something like a step, creaking on the staircase."
"Surely," said the prisoner, "that cannot be Master Gryphus, he isalways heard at a distance."
"No, it is not my father, I am quite sure, but----"
"But?"
"But it might be Mynheer Jacob."
Rosa rushed toward the staircase, and a door was really heard rapidly toclose before the young damsel had got down the first ten steps.
Cornelius was very uneasy about it, but it was after all only a preludeto greater anxieties.
The flowing day passed without any remarkable incident. Gryphus made histhree visits, and discovered nothing. He never came at the same hoursas he hoped thus to discover the secrets of the prisoner. Van Baerle
,therefore, had devised a contrivance, a sort of pulley, by means ofwhich he was able to lower or to raise his jug below the ledge of tilesand stone before his window. The strings by which this was effected hehad found means to cover with that moss which generally grows on tiles,or in the crannies of the walls.
Gryphus suspected nothing, and the device succeeded for eight days. Onemorning, however, when Cornelius, absorbed in the contemplation of hisbulb, from which a germ of vegetation was already peeping forth, had notheard old Gryphus coming upstairs as a gale of wind was blowing whichshook the whole tower, the door suddenly opened.
Gryphus, perceiving an unknown and consequently a forbidden object inthe hands of his prisoner, pounced upon it with the same rapidity as thehawk on its prey.
As ill luck would have it, his coarse, hard hand, the same which he hadbroken, and which Cornelius van Baerle had set so well, grasped at oncein the midst of the jug, on the spot where the bulb was lying in thesoil.
"What have you got here?" he roared. "Ah! have I caught you?" and withthis he grabbed in the soil.
"I? nothing, nothing," cried Cornelius, trembling.
"Ah! have I caught you? a jug and earth in it There is some criminalsecret at the bottom of all this."
"Oh, my good Master Gryphus," said Van Baerle, imploringly, and anxiousas the partridge robbed of her young by the reaper.
In fact, Gryphus was beginning to dig the soil with his crooked fingers.
"Take care, sir, take care," said Cornelius, growing quite pale.
"Care of what? Zounds! of what?" roared the jailer.
"Take care, I say, you will crush it, Master Gryphus."
And with a rapid and almost frantic movement he snatched the jug fromthe hands of Gryphus, and hid it like a treasure under his arms.
But Gryphus, obstinate, like an old man, and more and more convincedthat he was discovering here a conspiracy against the Prince of Orange,rushed up to his prisoner, raising his stick; seeing, however, theimpassible resolution of the captive to protect his flower-pot he wasconvinced that Cornelius trembled much less for his head than for hisjug.
He therefore tried to wrest it from him by force.
"Halloa!" said the jailer, furious, "here, you see, you are rebelling."
"Leave me my tulip," cried Van Baerle.
"Ah, yes, tulip," replied the old man, "we know well the shifts ofprisoners."
"But I vow to you----"
"Let go," repeated Gryphus, stamping his foot, "let go, or I shall callthe guard."
"Call whoever you like, but you shall not have this flower except withmy life."
Gryphus, exasperated, plunged his finger a second time into the soil,and now he drew out the bulb, which certainly looked quite black; andwhilst Van Baerle, quite happy to have saved the vessel, did not suspectthat the adversary had possessed himself of its precious contents,Gryphus hurled the softened bulb with all his force on the flags, wherealmost immediately after it was crushed to atoms under his heavy shoe.
Van Baerle saw the work of destruction, got a glimpse of the juicyremains of his darling bulb, and, guessing the cause of the ferociousjoy of Gryphus, uttered a cry of agony, which would have meltedthe heart even of that ruthless jailer who some years before killedPelisson's spider.
The idea of striking down this spiteful bully passed like lightningthrough the brain of the tulip-fancier. The blood rushed to his brow,and seemed like fire in his eyes, which blinded him, and he raisedin his two hands the heavy jug with all the now useless earth whichremained in it. One instant more, and he would have flung it on the baldhead of old Gryphus.
But a cry stopped him; a cry of agony, uttered by poor Rosa, who,trembling and pale, with her arms raised to heaven, made her appearancebehind the grated window, and thus interposed between her father and herfriend.
Gryphus then understood the danger with which he had been threatened,and he broke out in a volley of the most terrible abuse.
"Indeed," said Cornelius to him, "you must be a very mean and spitefulfellow to rob a poor prisoner of his only consolation, a tulip bulb."
"For shame, my father," Rosa chimed in, "it is indeed a crime you havecommitted here."
"Ah, is that you, my little chatter-box?" the old man cried, boilingwith rage and turning towards her; "don't you meddle with what don'tconcern you, but go down as quickly as possible."
"Unfortunate me," continued Cornelius, overwhelmed with grief.
"After all, it is but a tulip," Gryphus resumed, as he began to be alittle ashamed of himself. "You may have as many tulips as you like: Ihave three hundred of them in my loft."
"To the devil with your tulips!" cried Cornelius; "you are worthy ofeach other: had I a hundred thousand millions of them, I would gladlygive them for the one which you have just destroyed."
"Oh, so!" Gryphus said, in a tone of triumph; "now there we have it.It was not your tulip you cared for. There was in that false bulb somewitchcraft, perhaps some means of correspondence with conspiratorsagainst his Highness who has granted you your life. I always said theywere wrong in not cutting your head off."
"Father, father!" cried Rosa.
"Yes, yes! it is better as it is now," repeated Gryphus, growing warm;"I have destroyed it, and I'll do the same again, as often as you repeatthe trick. Didn't I tell you, my fine fellow, that I would make yourlife a hard one?"
"A curse on you!" Cornelius exclaimed, quite beyond himself withdespair, as he gathered, with his trembling fingers, the remnants ofthat bulb on which he had rested so many joys and so many hopes.
"We shall plant the other to-morrow, my dear Mynheer Cornelius,"said Rosa, in a low voice, who understood the intense grief of theunfortunate tulip-fancier, and who, with the pure sacred love of herinnocent heart, poured these kind words, like a drop of balm, on thebleeding wounds of Cornelius.