第 18 页

Rosa therefore applied herself most diligently to readingpoor Cornelius de Witt's Bible, on the second fly leaf ofwhich the last will of Cornelius van Baerle was written.

"Alas!" she muttered, when perusing again this document,which she never finished without a tear, the pearl of love,rolling from her limpid eyes on her pale cheeks -- "alas! atthat time I thought for one moment he loved me."

Poor Rosa! she was mistaken. Never had the love of theprisoner been more sincere than at the time at which we arenow arrived, when in the contest between the black tulip andRosa the tulip had had to yield to her the first andforemost place in Cornelius's heart.

But Rosa was not aware of it.

Having finished reading, she took her pen, and began with aslaudable diligence the by far more difficult task ofwriting.

As, however, Rosa was already able to write a legible handwhen Cornelius so uncautiously opened his heart, she did notdespair of progressing quickly enough to write, after eightdays at the latest, to the prisoner an account of his tulip.

She had not forgotten one word of the directions given toher by Cornelius, whose speeches she treasured in her heart,even when they did not take the shape of directions.

He, on his part, awoke deeper in love than ever. The tulip,indeed, was still a luminous and prominent object in hismind; but he no longer looked upon it as a treasure to whichhe ought to sacrifice everything, and even Rosa, but as amarvellous combination of nature and art with which he wouldhave been happy to adorn the bosom of his beloved one.

Yet during the whole of that day he was haunted with a vagueuneasiness, at the bottom of which was the fear lest Rosashould not come in the evening to pay him her usual visit.This thought took more and more hold of him, until at theapproach of evening his whole mind was absorbed in it.

How his heart beat when darkness closed in! The words whichhe had said to Rosa on the evening before and which had sodeeply afflicted her, now came back to his mind more vividlythan ever, and he asked himself how he could have told hisgentle comforter to sacrifice him to his tulip, -- that isto say, to give up seeing him, if need be, -- whereas to himthe sight of Rosa had become a condition of life.

In Cornelius's cell one heard the chimes of the clock of thefortress. It struck seven, it struck eight, it struck nine.Never did the metal voice vibrate more forcibly through theheart of any man than did the last stroke, marking the ninthhour, through the heart of Cornelius.

All was then silent again. Cornelius put his hand on hisheart, to repress as it were its violent palpitation, andlistened.

The noise of her footstep, the rustling of her gown on thestaircase, were so familiar to his ear, that she had nosooner mounted one step than he used to say to himself, --

"Here comes Rosa."

This evening none of those little noises broke the silenceof the lobby, the clock struck nine, and a quarter; thehalf-hour, then a quarter to ten, and at last its deep toneannounced, not only to the inmates of the fortress, but alsoto all the inhabitants of Loewestein, that it was ten.

This was the hour at which Rosa generally used to leaveCornelius. The hour had struck, but Rosa had not come.

Thus then his foreboding had not deceived him; Rosa, beingvexed, shut herself up in her room and left him to himself.

"Alas!" he thought, "I have deserved all this. She will comeno more, and she is right in staying away; in her place Ishould do just the same."

Yet notwithstanding all this, Cornelius listened, waited,and hoped until midnight, then he threw himself upon thebed, with his clothes on.

It was a long and sad night for him, and the day brought nohope to the prisoner.

At eight in the morning, the door of his cell opened; butCornelius did not even turn his head; he had heard the heavystep of Gryphus in the lobby, but this step had perfectlysatisfied the prisoner that his jailer was coming alone.

Thus Cornelius did not even look at Gryphus.

And yet he would have been so glad to draw him out, and toinquire about Rosa. He even very nearly made this inquiry,strange as it would needs have appeared to her father. Totell the truth, there was in all this some selfish hope tohear from Gryphus that his daughter was ill.

Except on extraordinary occasions, Rosa never came duringthe day. Cornelius therefore did not really expect her aslong as the day lasted. Yet his sudden starts, his listeningat the door, his rapid glances at every little noise towardsthe grated window, showed clearly that the prisonerentertained some latent hope that Rosa would, somehow orother, break her rule.

At the second visit of Gryphus, Cornelius, contrary to allhis former habits, asked the old jailer, with the mostwinning voice, about her health; but Gryphus contentedhimself with giving the laconical answer, --

"All's well."

At the third visit of the day, Cornelius changed his formerinquiry: --

"I hope nobody is ill at Loewestein?"

"Nobody," replied, even more laconically, the jailer,shutting the door before the nose of the prisoner.

Gryphus, being little used to this sort of civility on thepart of Cornelius, began to suspect that his prisoner wasabout to try and bribe him.

Cornelius was now alone once more; it was seven o'clock inthe evening, and the anxiety of yesterday returned withincreased intensity.

But another time the hours passed away without bringing thesweet vision which lighted up, through the grated window,the cell of poor Cornelius, and which, in retiring, leftlight enough in his heart to last until it came back again.

Van Baerle passed the night in an agony of despair. On thefollowing day Gryphus appeared to him even more hideous,brutal, and hateful than usual; in his mind, or rather inhis heart, there had been some hope that it was the old manwho prevented his daughter from coming.

In his wrath he would have strangled Gryphus, but would notthis have separated him for ever from Rosa?

The evening closing in, his despair changed into melancholy,which was the more gloomy as, involuntarily, Van Baerlemixed up with it the thought of his poor tulip. It was nowjust that week in April which the most experienced gardenerspoint out as the precise time when tulips ought to beplanted. He had said to Rosa, --

"I shall tell you the day when you are to put the bulb inthe ground."

He had intended to fix, at the vainly hoped for interview,the following day as the time for that momentous operation.The weather was propitious; the air, though still damp,began to be tempered by those pale rays of the April sunwhich, being the first, appear so congenial, although sopale. How if Rosa allowed the right moment for planting thebulb to pass by, -- if, in addition to the grief of seeingher no more, he should have to deplore the misfortune ofseeing his tulip fail on account of its having been plantedtoo late, or of its not having been planted at all!

These two vexations combined might well make him leave offeating and drinking.

This was the case on the fourth day.

It was pitiful to see Cornelius, dumb with grief, and palefrom utter prostration, stretch out his head through theiron bars of his window, at the risk of not being able todraw it back again, to try and get a glimpse of the gardenon the left spoken of by Rosa, who had told him that itsparapet overlooked the river. He hoped that perhaps he mightsee, in the light of the April sun, Rosa or the tulip, thetwo lost objects of his love.

In the evening, Gryphus took away the breakfast and dinnerof Cornelius, who had scarcely touched them.

On the following day he did not touch them at all, andGryphus carried the dishes away just as he had brought them.

Cornelius had remained in bed the whole day.

"Well," said Gryphus, coming down from the last visit, "Ithink we shall soon get rid of our scholar."

Rosa was startled.

"Nonsense!" said Jacob. "What do you mean?"

"He doesn't drink, he doesn't eat, he doesn't leave his bed.He will get out of it, like Mynheer Grotius, in a chest,only the chest will be a coffin."

Rosa grew pale as death.

"Ah!" she said to herself, "he is uneasy about his tulip."

And, rising with a heavy heart, she returned to her chamber,where she took a pen and paper, and during the whole of thatnight busied herself with tracing letters.

On the following morning, when Cornelius got up to draghimself to the window, he perceived a paper which had beenslipped under the door.

He pounced upon it, opened it, and read the following words,in a handwriting which he could scarcely have recognized asthat of Rosa, so much had she improved during her shortabsence of seven days, --

"Be easy; your tulip is going on well."

Although these few words of Rosa's somewhat soothed thegrief of Cornelius, yet he felt not the less the irony whichwas at the bottom of them. Rosa, then, was not ill, she wasoffended; she had not been forcibly prevented from coming,but had voluntarily stayed away. Thus Rosa, being atliberty, found in her own will the force not to come and seehim, who was dying with grief at not having seen her.

Cornelius had paper and a pencil which Rosa had brought tohim. He guessed that she expected an answer, but that shewould not come before the evening to fetch it. He thereforewrote on a piece of paper, similar to that which he hadreceived, --

"It was not my anxiety about the tulip that has made me ill,but the grief at not seeing you."

After Gryphus had made his last visit of the day, anddarkness had set in, he slipped the paper under the door,and listened with the most intense attention, but he neitherheard Rosa's footsteps nor the rustling of her gown.

He only heard a voice as feeble as a breath, and gentle likea caress, which whispered through the grated little windowin the door the word, --

"To-morrow!"

Now to-morrow was the eighth day. For eight days Corneliusand Rosa had not seen each other.

Chapter 20

The Events which took place during those Eight Days

On the following evening, at the usual hour, Van Baerleheard some one scratch at the grated little window, just asRosa had been in the habit of doing in the heyday of theirfriendship.

Cornelius being, as may easily be imagined, not far off fromthe door, perceived Rosa, who at last was waiting again forhim with her lamp in her hand.

Seeing him so sad and pale, she was startled, and said, --

"You are ill, Mynheer Cornelius?"

"Yes, I am," he answered, as indeed he was suffering in mindand in body.

"I saw that you did not eat," said Rosa; "my father told methat you remained in bed all day. I then wrote to calm youruneasiness concerning the fate of the most precious objectof your anxiety."

"And I," said Cornelius, "I have answered. Seeing yourreturn, my dear Rosa, I thought you had received my letter."

"It is true; I have received it."

"You cannot this time excuse yourself with not being able toread. Not only do you read very fluently, but also you havemade marvellous progress in writing."

"Indeed, I have not only received, but also read your note.Accordingly I am come to see whether there might not be someremedy to restore you to health."

"Restore me to health?" cried Cornelius; "but have you anygood news to communicate to me?"

Saying this, the poor prisoner looked at Rosa, his eyessparkling with hope.

Whether she did not, or would not, understand this look,Rosa answered gravely, --

"I have only to speak to you about your tulip, which, as Iwell know, is the object uppermost in your mind."

Rosa pronounced those few words in a freezing tone, whichcut deeply into the heart of Cornelius. He did not suspectwhat lay hidden under this appearance of indifference withwhich the poor girl affected to speak of her rival, theblack tulip.

"Oh!" muttered Cornelius, "again! again! Have I not toldyou, Rosa, that I thought but of you? that it was you alonewhom I regretted, you whom I missed, you whose absence Ifelt more than the loss of liberty and of life itself?"

Rosa smiled with a melancholy air.

"Ah!" she said, "your tulip has been in such danger."

Cornelius trembled involuntarily, and showed himself clearlyto be caught in the trap, if ever the remark was meant assuch.

"Danger!" he cried, quite alarmed; "what danger?"

Rosa looked at him with gentle compassion; she felt thatwhat she wished was beyond the power of this man, and thathe must be taken as he was, with his little foible.

"Yes," she said, "you have guessed the truth; that suitorand amorous swain, Jacob, did not come on my account."

"And what did he come for?" Cornelius anxiously asked.

"He came for the sake of the tulip."

"Alas!" said Cornelius, growing even paler at this piece ofinformation than he had been when Rosa, a fortnight before,had told him that Jacob was coming for her sake.

Rosa saw this alarm, and Cornelius guessed, from theexpression of her face, in what direction her thoughts wererunning.

"Oh, pardon me, Rosa!" he said, "I know you, and I am wellaware of the kindness and sincerity of your heart. To youGod has given the thought and strength for defendingyourself; but to my poor tulip, when it is in danger, Godhas given nothing of the sort."

Rosa, without replying to this excuse of the prisoner,continued, --

"From the moment when I first knew that you were uneasy onaccount of the man who followed me, and in whom I hadrecognized Jacob, I was even more uneasy myself. On the day,therefore, after that on which I saw you last, and on whichyou said -- "

Cornelius interrupted her.

"Once more, pardon me, Rosa!" he cried. "I was wrong insaying to you what I said. I have asked your pardon for thatunfortunate speech before. I ask it again: shall I alwaysask it in vain?"

"On the following day," Rosa continued, "remembering whatyou had told me about the stratagem which I was to employ toascertain whether that odious man was after the tulip, orafter me ---- "

"Yes, yes, odious. Tell me," he said, "do you hate thatman?"

"I do hate him," said Rosa, "as he is the cause of all theunhappiness I have suffered these eight days."

"You, too, have been unhappy, Rosa? I thank you a thousandtimes for this kind confession."