Love Stories That Time Forgot

I’ve been following a blog, Demon Vampire Horror, by Carole Gill, a writer I know and respect. I recently read a post, a comparative piece on Jane Eyre and The Twilight Saga that got me thinking. In the blog, the writer makes the comment, ‘Both [Jane Eyre and Twilight] are great romances and romance is romance,’ and like many others who commented on this post, this phrase struck me and it is the basis of this book review. This month’s ‘Frightening Fiction Review’ is a free choice and another review on another blog, Bloodleggers written by W.J. Howard and R.J. Robyn, entitled A Book we Have to Read More Than Once, inspired me to cross between the two and write this review.

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

 

For the purposes of this review, I am only looking at the love story within the novel, but any student of literature will tell you this story is so much more. ‘The Black Tulip’ is a tale of power, passion and the evil perpetrated by men. The story begins with the lynching of two brothers, Cornelius and John de Witt, by the angry mob. Alexander Dumas gives the reader no option but to read how barbaric human nature can be. One girl, the jailer’s daughter Rosa, uses her wit and natural understanding of human nature to try and save the brothers from the mob.

Cornelius Van Baerle, the godson of Cornelius de Wit and friend of his brother, John, is sent into the same prison. Cornelius is wrongly accused of treason and sentenced to death. This is the beginning of one of the most beautiful love stories ever written. I’ve never read this novel, telling the story of the relationship between Cornelius Van Baerle and Rosa the jailer’s daughter, without crying unashamedly at the purest of loves and the brilliance of the writing that can invoke such feeling.

When Cornelius is led away to be executed, he leaves Rosa three tulip bulbs and his last will and testament. In this she is to raise the bulbs and when they bloom she should present them, naming the variety Rosa Baerlensis and gain the prize as her dowry. Cornelius’s sentence is commuted by William of Orange to a life term in a prison for political prisoners and so the couple are separated. I am trying to write this review without giving too much of the plot away, but if you were looking for an inspirational couple to rival Romeo and Juliet or Cathy, her Heathcliffe or Jane and her beloved master Mr Rochester, then Rosa and Cornelius would be up there with the greats.

Rosa, although she is unable to read or write, manages to get her father the position as head jailer in the prison. Rosa is both clever and honest, but she is also faithful and has a deep and abiding love for Cornelius. She sees in him a purity and piety that is only marred by his obsession with growing a black tulip. Theirs is a strange courtship for any romance novel as it is conducted through the bars of Cornelius’s prison cell, but the love that blossoms between the couple, like the black tulip, grows, flowers and blooms, against all the odds.

The Black Tulip is a novel I read in my youth. In fact, until today I hadn’t read this novel for over twenty years and I regret this. Cornelius and Rosa’s story, like that of Romeo and Juliet, deserves a regular airing and to be discovered anew by every generation of readers and writers looking for inspiration. I’m just going to leave you with a short quote from the novel, because I think this speaks more eloquently than I ever could on the subject of love and romance.

“Ah! Dear, dear sweetheart,” cried Cornelius, “do you not see how my hand shakes and how pale I am? Can you not hear how my heart beats? Well, it is not because my black tulip smiles at me and calls me; no, it is because you smile at me, it is because you are near me; it is because – I do not know whether this is so or not – it is because it seems to me that your hands, though they avoid mine, are nevertheless inclined to stretch forth towards them; it is because I feel the warmth of your fair cheeks behind the cold grating. Rosa, my love, destroy the black tulip, destroy the hope of this flower, put out the light of this charming dream which I have grown so accustomed to. Be it so: no more beautiful flowers with their elegant grace and their divine caprices! – deprive me of all that, flower jealous of other flowers, deprive me of all that, but do not prevent me from hearing and seeing you, and from listening to your footstep on the dull staircase; do not deprive me of the light of your eyes in this gloomy corridor, or of the assurance of your love which unceasingly soothes my heart. Love me, Rosa, for I know well that I love you alone.”

Alexander Dumas