Tulip Fever Read Online Free PDF Page A

people from all ranks—turf cutters and barge skippers, butchers and bakers. Maybe painters too.”
    “Not me,” replies the painter. “I know nothing of business.”
    “Ah, nor do they. But great fortunes have been made and lost. These new hybrids that they have been growing—they fetch the most astonishing prices. Thousands of florins, if you know when to buy and sell.” Cornelis’s voice rises with excitement; he, too, has greatly profited from this tulipomania. “Why, one Semper Augustus bulb—they are the most beautiful and the most valuable—one bulb was sold last week for six fine horses, three oxheads of wine, a dozen sheep, two dozen silver goblets and a seascape by Esaias van de Velde!”
    The painter raises his eyebrows and carries on working. A petal drops, like a shed skirt, from one of the tulips. It lies on the table. Sweep . . . sweep . . . goes Maria’s broom. They can hear her humming.
    There is a drowsy, drugged atmosphere in the room. Cornelis suddenly feels alone, as if he is traveling in a coach and everyone else has fallen asleep. Why doesn’t his wife respond?
    “It is not a native plant, of course—it comes from Turkey. When I was a young man the tulip was known only to the cognoscenti —aristocrats and horticulturalists. But we are a green-fingered, resourceful people, are we not? And, nourished by our rich soil the humble bulb has been developed into ever richer and more spectacular varieties. No wonder people have been losing grip of their senses, for even in death a tulip is beautiful. Your own colleagues have immortalized them on canvas—the Bosschaert brothers, Jan Davidsz de Heem—pictures of astonishing realism, which, unlike the flowers they depict, will continue to bloom for generations to come—”
    “Please stop talking,” says Jan. “I’m trying to paint your mouth.”
    Sophia makes a snuffling sound. She is laughing. She stops, quickly.
    Cornelis’s skin stings, as if he has been slapped. Where is the respect? He has so much to teach his wife, so many years of experience in the world. Sometimes he suspects that her attention is wandering. She is so young—such a pretty creature, but her head is full of nonsense. He suddenly misses his first wife, Hendrijke. How solid and reliable she was. Hendrijke never set his blood on fire, he never felt for her what he feels for Sophia, but she was a true companion. Sophia is so moody—one minute loving, the next distracted and skittish. For the past few days she has been acting quite strangely.
    He sets his face in a stern expression. He puffs out his chest and grips his cane. He is not entirely sure that he likes this fellow. Sophia herself had voiced her doubts. But they have started; they had better go through with it.

8

    The Painting
How may paintings have preserved the image of a divine beauty which in its natural manifestation has been rapidly overtaken by time or death. Thus, the work of the painter is nobler than that of nature, its mistress.
    —LEONARDO DA VINCI, Notebooks
    Jan van Loos is not painting the old man’s mouth. He is painting Sophia’s lips. He mixes pink on his palette— ocher, gray and carmine—and strokes the paint lovingly on the canvas. She is gazing at him. For a moment, when the old man was talking, her lips curved into a smile—a smile of complicity. He paints the ghost of this, though it is now gone.
    There is no sound in the house. The painting, when it is finished, will look the most tranquil of scenes. Downstairs, Maria has fallen asleep. Exhausted by love, she snoozes on a chair in the kitchen. Willem crept into her bed, the night before, and crept out at dawn. As she sleeps, the tomcat drags a plaice across the floor. He, too, does this noiselessly. This small theft is detected by nobody.
    Upstairs, something else is being stolen. Cornelis, too, is drowsy. Sunshine pours through the library window. There is a stone chimneypiece here, supported by caryatids. The sun bathes their