one o’clock in the morning
Boxtel allowed his bulbs to rot in the pits , his seedlings to dry up in their cases , and his tulips to wither in the borders and henceforward occupied himself with nothing else but the doings at Van Baerle 's . He breathed through the stalks of Van Baerle 's tulips , quenched his thirst with the water he sprinkled upon them , and feasted on the fine soft earth which his neighbour scattered upon his cherished bulbs . But the most curious part of the operations was not performed in the garden . It might be one o'clock in the morning when Van Baerle went up to his laboratory , into the glazed cabinet whither Boxtel 's telescope had such an easy access ; and here , as soon as the lamp illuminated the walls and windows , Boxtel saw the inventive genius of his rival at work . He beheld him sifting his seeds , and soaking them in liquids which were destined to modify or to deepen their colours . He knew what Cornelius meant when heating certain grains , then moistening them , then combining them with others by a sort of grafting , -- a minute and marvellously delicate manipulation , -- and when he shut up in darkness those which were expected to furnish the black colour , exposed to the sun or to the lamp those which were to produce red , and placed between the endless reflections of two water-mirrors those intended for white , the pure representation of the limpid element . This innocent magic , the fruit at the same time of child-like musings and of manly genius -- this patient untiring labour , of which Boxtel knew himself to be incapable -- made him , gnawed as he was with envy , centre all his life , all his thoughts , and all his hopes in his telescope .