The Collected Prose Page 30

  On the other hand, we know the wild commerce in tulips caused the authorities to be seriously worried and alarmed. Orders were given to limit and curb, if not eliminate, this dangerous social phenomenon. But these did not help much; strictly speaking their effect was the opposite of what was intended. The elements cannot be calmed by gentle persuasion.

  The country lived in fever. Whoever remembers war knows very well that the most fantastic, unverified information is capable of pulling people from the bottom of despair and transporting them to towering heights of optimism, of illusory hopes. A similar thing happened in our case. News of sudden fortunes achieved because of the tulips spread with the speed of lightning. A citizen of Amsterdam who owned a small garden earned 60,000 florins in four months, a wealth not dreamed of by an average merchant even at the end of a laborious life. An Englishman who knew nothing about flowers managed to make five thousand pounds by ingenious speculations. One had to have a stoic character indeed to resist these temptations.

  Because the whole procedure was unofficial and even had the character of a forbidden game, it became more attractive for precisely this reason, drawing ever new participants. It was like a period of prohibition when those with only a moderate liking for intoxicants manifest their freedom by excessive consumption of alcohol.

  There are of course no statistics that show how many people were touched by tulipomania. But it is possible, even probable, that they numbered in the tens of thousands. What is particularly important, they cannot be assigned to any single, specific social group. Among them were the wealthy and the poor, merchants and weavers, butchers and students, painters and peasants, peat diggers and poets, city clerks and junk dealers, sailors and virtuous widows, persons generally respected and criminals. Even the followers of all twenty or more religious denominations took unanimous part in this race for fortune.

  The poor risked most of all—the poor risked everything. When we read that a criminal drawn into the whirlpool of speculations pawned his tools, we realize the full horror of the situation. Preachers thundered from their pulpits against wicked tulipomania, but the malicious maintained that they slipped away to other cities where they could succumb to the sinful craze without unwanted witnesses.

  But never mind the pastors. They will always find some excuse at the Last Judgment. What is worse, or frankly disgraceful, is that children were drawn into the action. Success in the game required among other things collecting the greatest possible amount of information—prices, places of transaction, fluctuations of the market. In simple language, to know which tulip bulbs the neighbor hid under his jacket and for how much he sold them in the tavern At the Braying Donkey, all of it had to be found out by a teenager performing the vile function of spy.

  Fever, raving, and sleeplessness. Sleeplessness, because many tulip transactions were sealed at night. Active participation in speculating often swallowed up many hours of the day, and could not be combined with other more productive occupations. Those who cultivated tulips lived like misers in a sack of gold. Ingenious systems of alarm bells were installed in gardens to rouse the owner to his feet if an uninvited guest approached his patch.

  The epidemic character of tulipomania explains its enormous geographic range. It touched not only the traditional garden districts—for instance the regions of Haarlem, but also Amsterdam, Alkmaar, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Utrecht, Rotterdam—that is, all the greater conglomerations in Holland. It is precisely there that the number of victims was the highest. The bacillus of tulipomania was everywhere in the air, and threatened everyone. How much easier it is to dispose of a visible enemy: the gates of the city are closed, the brave defenders go out onto the walls…

  But after all, something exists that we call the power of reason, and it is an effective weapon (not always) against unbridled irrational powers. We know that Holland was a country of people who liked to read, with wise authors, educated book-sellers, and enlightened publishers. Actual problems would meet a response in print very quickly; this was true not only of serious political and religious disputes. The affair of tulipomania, whose dimensions awoke understandable anxiety, also met with decisive resistance and protests from sober citizens. But the country was liberal; public opinion differentiated. Together with voices of reason, pamphlets appeared that were practical introductions to the principles of tulip speculation, prolegomena to insanity: teach-yourself manuals on how to become a madman.

  In all of it there was a method, and even a ritual. One author recommended that if someone succeeded in cultivating an unknown variety of tulip he should act as follows: immediately go to a professional gardener (time presses, because someone else might have managed a similar trick), not alone but accompanied by acquaintances, friends, even persons encountered by chance. The goal was evident: to give the greatest possible publicity to the event. A council took place at the gardener’s, each person present expressing his opinion about the botanical revelation—exactly like high church councils preoccupied with the problems of real and imaginary miracles.

  Now a very important step followed. We could call it comparative: the consideration of the new variety side by side with others that were already known. If it showed similarity to some famous “Admiral” but was less beautiful, it should be modestly called “General.” This ritual of baptism was incredibly important. The tulip became a personality, or to speak less grandiloquently and use stock-market terminology, a value admitted into circulation. In the end it was proper to offer a fine wine to all those present, because it was up to them to spread the news about the birth of a new variety, to praise its graces.

  Transactions with tulip bulbs would take place in the fumes of beer, gin, and lamb, in restaurants, inns, and taverns. Some of them had rooms specially designated for this purpose; they were a kind of club, or branches of a huge and well-concealed stock market. The fight for each precious variety of tulip must have been fierce. If several buyers competed for it, the one who wanted to outbid others would add to an already excessive price a carriage with a pair of horses.

  The entire country was covered by a network of more or less known, secret, or almost open gambling “dens” for tulips. It did not involve any demonic power but the simple rule of every “big game,” every powerful addiction—to draw in and entrap the greatest possible number of people. Because madness cannot be logically justified, it is necessary to have strong statistics in one’s defense. This is what everybody does, or almost everybody, including politicians: to eliminate or substantially decrease the number of those who stand aside, who look on or observe critically and spoil the game. The world of tulipomaniacs strove to become a total world.

  How did it happen in practice? A document exists, literary to be sure but trustworthy, which provides precious information about the means of capturing new enthusiasts. A dialogue takes place between two friends. The first, Pieter, is an expert speculator; the second, Jan, plays the role of a novice in this conversation:

  PIETER: I like you very much. This is why I want to propose to you this advantageous transaction. I do it without any self-interest, and out of pure friendship.

  JAN: I am listening carefully, my dear friend.

  PIETER: I have a bulb of the tulip “Harlequin.” It is a very beautiful variety, and in addition much sought after on the market.

  JAN: But I never had anything to do with flowers in my whole life. I don’t even have a garden.

  PIETER: You don’t understand a thing. Please listen to me; don’t interrupt because who knows, maybe today a great fortune is knocking at your door. Can I go on?

  JAN: Yes, yes, of course.

  PIETER: Well, the “Harlequin” bulb is worth a hundred florins, and maybe even more. In the name of our unblemished (as I said) friendship, I will let you have it for fifty florins. Still today, without any effort, you can make quite a lot of money.

  JAN: This is indeed a splendid proposition. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Only tell me, please, what am I to do with this “Har
lequin”? After all, I will not stand at the street corner…

  PIETER: I will tell you the whole secret. But note it down well in your memory. Why are you fidgeting?

  JAN: I am listening, only I am a bit dizzy.

  PIETER: Do exactly as I say. Go to the inn At the Lion. Ask the innkeeper where the tulip vendors meet. You will enter the room he indicates. Then someone will say in a very thick voice (but don’t you be put off by it): “A stranger has come in.” In answer to that, cluck like a chicken. From that moment on you will be included in the community of vendors.

  May God protect Jan’s Calvinist soul! We part with him on the threshold of farce and a step away from tragedy. Darkness covers his future fate. It is not even known whether he managed to cluck in an appropriate and persuasive manner at the decisive moment. On the basis of this tale there is little hope he would become a shark of the tulip stock market. It seems he was assigned the role of victim.

  One more detail merits our attention. This introduction to the trade of the tulipomaniacs reminds us of patterns known from other areas. Keeping all proportions in mind, it recalls the ritual of initiation. Of course the Masonic lodges arranged it with greater pomp and better knowledge of esoteric science.

  Mania is an elevated state of mind. Those who have not experienced it at least once are the poorer for it. Besides, in certain conditions it brings advantages. An ordinary man who was unknown to anyone—he was neither a poet nor painter nor statesman—recalled with genuine sentiment the times of the tulipomania. His name was Waermondt9; he held office always in the same tavern, and his function was that of broker. Between one transaction and another, “I ate fried meat and fish, chicken and hare, even delicate pâtés. I also drank wine and beer from early morning till three or four at night. I always carried more money away at night than I had at the beginning of the day.” A true Shlarafia10, land of laziness and plenty.

  3

  “La maladie infectueuse tend à la fois à se perpétuer et, pour assurer cette perpétuité, à se modifier suivant les circonstances11.”

  —CHARLES NICOLLE

  THE GREATEST INTENSITY OF tulipomania fell during the years 1634 to 1637. The great crash took place in the winter of 1637—the whole imaginary world fell apart. If someone managed to reproduce “the curve of the tulip fever,” it would closely resemble the temperature chart of a patient with a serious infectious disease. The line rises fast, continues for some time on a very high level, and at the end falls rapidly.

  A question comes to mind, however: What fate, or implacable logic of events, caused it to happen exactly in the winter of 1637? There are many answers.

  Some believe that the victory over the tulip epidemic was the merit of the healthy portion of Dutch society. It created a sanitary belt that blocked the spread of the illness. There were those who actively opposed tulipomania; the opposition must have been quite strong since a number of brochures, magazines, pamphlets, satires, and cartoons from those times—they have been preserved until today—pitilessly make fun of the unfortunate maniacs. In colloquial language they were called “the hooded ones” or madmen; in those times the mentally ill wore hoods drawn over their faces, a peculiar device for “visual” protection of the healthy part of the nation.

  Henry Pot12, a painter of collective portraits, religious and genre pictures, represented the mania afflicting his country under a veil of transparent allegory in his work “The Cart of Madmen.” On this cart we recognize Flora holding in her hand three of the most precious varieties of tulip: “Semper Augustus,” “General Bol,” and “Admiral Hoorn.” Behind the patron of nature there are five symbolic figures: Good-for-Nothing, Wealth-Craver, the Drunkard, and two ladies, Vain Hope and Poverty. A huge crowd of people runs after the cart calling, “We too want to sell our tulips.”

  A countless number of stories, anecdotes, and jokes show that tulipomania was answered with a decided tulipophobia, an unrelenting hostility to what was, after all, an innocent plant. In fact it deserved neither frantic adoration nor boundless spite, but we are speaking of times rocked by passions. It was said that a professor of Leyden University, Fortius13, not a theologian but a professor of botany, attacked a tulip whenever he saw one, destroying it with his cane. In this unrefined manner he transformed himself from scholar into inquisitor and moralist.

  Fortius’s cane did not possess magic power, and even the most vicious pamphlets could not tame the insanity. Some maintain that the mortal blow to tulipomania was dealt by the authorities, with their wise orders and decrees. They realized the situation was serious and could not be looked at passively, because limitless speculation threatens the foundations of a national economy.

  A number of institutions, from the florists’ guild all the way up to the Estates General, or parliament, decided to oppose the folly. Instructions and resolutions poured from them, at first hesitant and inefficient but continuing all the way to the drastic decree of the Estates in April 1637, that annulled all speculative agreements and established a maximum value for a tulip bulb. It was 50 florins. “Semper Augustus” was now worth one-hundredth of its recent market price. This happened quickly and unexpectedly, like a palace revolution, like the dethronement of an emperor.

  The authorities’ efforts to overcome tulipomania, their concern about the fate and wealth of the citizens, are worthy of praise and of course should be fully appreciated. It seems, however, that the majority of scholars are mistaken when they ascribe to them a decisive role. We know from experience that all bans and prohibitions in cases of acute narcomania bring results that are the opposite of those intended. Ever since Paradise, the fruit that is forbidden is the most desired.

  The decision of the Estates General was made late, very late, when the mania was already dying out. It was, therefore, a council gathered at the bed of a patient who was hopelessly ill, or to use an expression taken from the lexicon of tauromachy a coup de grâce. Indeed, nothing could be saved any longer.

  In our opinion, tulipomania was killed by its own madness. Proofs supporting the thesis are provided by an analysis of the changing moods of the tulip market. In the period of euphoria the profits of the speculators were huge; however, they were not always expressed in negotiable currency or liquid money, but in credit. The owner of the variety “Semper Augustus” was universally considered to be a wealthy man; consequently he could borrow large amounts, and this is what he did most of the time. The crazy turnover of the market became more and more abstract. What was sold was no longer the bulbs (their value was absolutely arbitrary, further and further removed from reality and common sense), but the names of bulbs. Like shares, they often changed owners ten times a day.

  Prices rose. It was expected that they would grow endlessly, because such is the logic of mania. A large number of the wary accumulated “values” in order to throw them on the market at the most propitious moment. It was precisely these cautious ones—as usually happens with greedy people entangled in the nets of gambling—who suffered the most painful defeat. Faith in the bright future of tulipomania broke down already in 1636. The edifice of trust and rampant illusions caved in. The supply of tulips was larger and larger, the demand frightfully diminishing; at the end everyone wanted to sell, but there were no bold risk takers any longer. Henry Pot represented this phase of tulipomania accurately: the desperate cry of the crowd running after Flora’s vehicle becomes quite clear in this context.

  Thus the crisis had far outpaced the intervention of the authorities. On the third of January 1637, four months before the decree of the Estates General, an Amsterdam gardener bought a precious tulip bulb for a bargain price of 1,250 florins. At first happy, he soon found that he could not sell it for even half or even one-tenth of his own cost. For a sharp drop had now begun, and the game was not to make money but lose as little as possible. The entire story of this unfortunate affair extends between two poles—a long, desperate assault upon fortune, and a sudden wild panic.

  We are parting thus with tulipomania, a
nd it is a separation full of tears, curses, and moans. The statement that it could not have happened otherwise is small consolation for the victims.

  What was the outcome? Because everything took place secretly, on the margins—in dark corridors and in the underground of official life—it is difficult to evaluate the dimensions of the catastrophe in measurable terms. But the outcome was without any doubt tragic: thousands of ruined estates, tens of thousands of people without work and, in addition, threatened by trials. Bankruptcy was punished, as a rule, with severe prison sentences. There were legions who had lightheartedly gone into debt. Finally—no statistics account for it—a long list of innocent families deprived of means of existence, children doomed to poverty or public charity, broken careers, destroyed reputations and dignity. The bankrupts did not have many ways out: joining the merchant marine and navy, which required certain qualifications, or begging, which did not require any special talents.

  It does not need to be argued that it was an “exclusively” bourgeois tragedy. But the scale of the passions of the flower speculators equaled the scale of a heroic tenor in an opera. The aria of the stockbrokers was loud and trivial, that is evident. If we are to drag this theatrical analogy out by the hair even further, it was played without sword or blood, even without poison. Why on earth, then, does it move the imagination?

  Throughout all the periods of tulipomania, not only during its fatal epilogue but during the days of its victorious euphoria, small and great human dramas were occurring. Among the many that memory has preserved we select one, a theme that might be taken straight from Chekhov’s stories.