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Page 27
Having disembarked unobserved amid the usual bustle of the
city, Craeke at once directed his steps towards the house
which we have just described, and which -- white, trim, and
tidy, even more cleanly scoured and more carefully waxed in
the hidden corners than in the places which were exposed to
view -- enclosed a truly happy mortal.
This happy mortal, rara avis, was Dr. van Baerle, the godson
of Cornelius de Witt. He had inhabited the same house ever
since his childhood, for it was the house in which his
father and grandfather, old established princely merchants
of the princely city of Dort, were born.
Mynheer van Baerle the father had amassed in the Indian
trade three or four hundred thousand guilders, which Mynheer
van Baerle the son, at the death of his dear and worthy
parents, found still quite new, although one set of them
bore the date of coinage of 1640, and the other that of
1610, a fact which proved that they were guilders of Van
Baerle the father and of Van Baerle the grandfather; but we
will inform the reader at once that these three or four
hundred thousand guilders were only the pocket money, or
sort of purse, for Cornelius van Baerle, the hero of this
story, as his landed property in the province yielded him an
income of about ten thousand guilders a year.
When the worthy citizen, the father of Cornelius, passed
from time into eternity, three months after having buried
his wife, who seemed to have departed first to smooth for
him the path of death as she had smoothed for him the path
of life, he said to his son, as he embraced him for the last
time, --
"Eat, drink, and spend your money, if you wish to know what
life really is, for as to toiling from morn to evening on a
wooden stool, or a leathern chair, in a counting-house or a
laboratory, that certainly is not living. Your time to die
will also come; and if you are not then so fortunate as to
have a son, you will let my name grow extinct, and my
guilders, which no one has ever fingered but my father,
myself, and the coiner, will have the surprise of passing to
an unknown master. And least of all, imitate the example of
your godfather, Cornelius de Witt, who has plunged into
politics, the most ungrateful of all careers, and who will
certainly come to an untimely end."
Having given utterance to this paternal advice, the worthy
Mynheer van Baerle died, to the intense grief of his son
Cornelius, who cared very little for the guilders, and very
much for his father.
Cornelius then remained alone in his large house. In vain
his godfather offered to him a place in the public service,
-- in vain did he try to give him a taste for glory, --
although Cornelius, to gratify his godfather, did embark
with De Ruyter upon "The Seven Provinces," the flagship of a
fleet of one hundred and thirty-nine sail, with which the
famous admiral set out to contend singlehanded against the
combined forces of France and England. When, guided by the
pilot Leger, he had come within musket-shot of the "Prince,"
with the Duke of York (the English king's brother) aboard,
upon which De Ruyter, his mentor, made so sharp and well
directed an attack that the Duke, perceiving that his vessel
would soon have to strike, made the best of his way aboard
the "Saint Michael"; when he had seen the "Saint Michael,"
riddled and shattered by the Dutch broadside, drift out of
the line; when he had witnessed the sinking of the "Earl of
Sandwich," and the death by fire or drowning of four hundred
sailors; when he realized that the result of all this
destruction -- after twenty ships had been blown to pieces,
three thousand men killed and five thousand injured -- was
that nothing was decided, that both sides claimed the
victory, that the fighting would soon begin again, and that
just one more name, that of Southwold Bay, had been added to
the list of battles; when he had estimated how much time is
lost simply in shutting his eyes and ears by a man who likes
to use his reflective powers even while his fellow creatures
are cannonading one another; -- Cornelius bade farewell to
De Ruyter, to the Ruart de Pulten, and to glory, kissed the
knees of the Grand Pensionary, for whom he entertained the
deepest veneration, and retired to his house at Dort, rich
in his well-earned repose, his twenty-eight years, an iron
constitution and keen perceptions, and his capital of more
than four hundred thousands of florins and income of ten
thousand, convinced that a man is always endowed by Heaven
with too much for his own happiness, and just enough to make
him miserable.
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