绝望后的希望：黑色郁金香_大学英语阅读

绝望后的希望：黑色郁金香

黑色郁金香是他精心栽培的稀有品种，即便在花茎都要当食物来果腹的极度匮乏时期，也依然珍存着它们。后来他曾一度伤心至极，以为四处劫掠的德国士兵偷走了它们……而某天，在房屋残垣断壁的缝隙中，他发现了黑色郁金香的嫩芽。

When I was a child growing up in The Netherlands[1], I often begged my mother to tell me this story about an experience her family had at the end of World War II.

During the terrible last winter of the German occupation, food was very scarce in The Netherlands. People were so desperately hungry they began to eat small animals and many things not normally considered edible, including tulip bulbs.[2] People discovered the bulbs could be cooked like potatoes or turnips, or even eaten raw.[3]

For centuries, my mother’s family, the Van der Veldes, had owned a highly successful tulip business, which provided jobs for many in our village of Ridderkerk. Their bulbs were popular throughout Europe and abroad, and the family name was known far and wide[4]. But the war shut their business down, and during the winter of hunger, my grandfather, Arnoldus, donated all his tulip bulbs to feed the hungriest villagers.

All, that is, except for a few irreplaceable[5] bulbs. For years, Arnoldus had been trying to cultivate[6] a black tulip, something no gardener had ever been able to do. He was now very close. By careful selection, he had created a dark-purple tulip. These few bulbs he guarded vigorously to prevent people from stealing them for food. He did not even give them to his family to eat, because they would make just one meager meal, and eating them would destroy his chance of restarting his business and restoring his village after the war.[7]