that even Miguel blushed to hear it.
Among the brokers and speculators, black suits such as Miguel always wore remained the height of Dutch fashion. Here was perhaps the height of the austere influence of the Calvinist divines. The preachers of the Reformed Church ruled that gaudy fashions and bright colors only indulged vanity, and thus the men of Amsterdam dressed in modest black but spiced their dark ensembles with fine cloth, expensive lace, silk collars, and costly hats. The sea of black occasionally sparkled with an Iberian Jew in red or blue or yellow or perhaps a defiant Dutch Catholic who dressed in what colors he liked. In other lands the locals would gawk at foreign dress, but there were so many aliens in the city that strange clothes were admired more often than ridiculed. Miguel believed the Dutch the most curious of all races—the perfect blend of Protestant faith and business ambition.
As Miguel gazed out at the crowd he noticed a desperate-looking fellow moving directly toward him. He thought the man might be a petty tradesman, perhaps in the midst of a dispute with a customer, but as he stepped aside the ruffian continued to fix his gaze on Miguel.
The fellow stopped and flashed a mouth full of wretched teeth. “You don’t know me, Lienzo?”
The sound of the voice steadied him. Miguel saw that he did indeed know the man: Joachim Waagenaar. Joachim, who had once dressed like a gentleman in velvet suits and fine lace, now wore the close-fitting leather cap of a farmer, a stained doublet of rough cloth, and torn, baggy breeches. Once a man to wear perfume and trim his mustache just so, Joachim now smelled of piss and sweat like a beggar.
“Joachim,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t recall you at first.”
“I suppose not.” He unfurled another strained grimace. He’d always had unhealthy teeth, but several that had been broken before were now gone, and along the bottom they were all cracked and had the rough edges of gravel. “Times haven’t gone well with me.”
“I was sorry to hear of your losses,” Miguel answered, speaking so quickly that his Dutch sounded garbled even to his own ears. “I lost greatly too,” he added hastily, in answer to unspoken charges. He had, after all, urged Joachim to put his fortune in Miguel’s failing sugar futures, believing that if he found enough investors he could keep the price of sugar buoyant, but these efforts were like sandbags set against the force of a flood, and the price had tumbled all the same. Joachim had not lost nearly as much as Miguel, but his fortune had been much smaller, so he had fallen fast and hard.
“Those are fine clothes you have upon your back.” Joachim looked him up and down and ran a hand along his own face, which was rough with a beard that grew in a great diversity of lengths, as though he had taken to shaving by hacking at himself with a dull blade. “They did not take your clothes,” he said. “They took my clothes. They forced me to sell them.”
Who might
they
be—creditors, pawnbrokers? Miguel had been abducted and taken to taverns where he was held prisoner until he agreed to pay bills. He had suffered the humiliation of having his hat knocked into the mud by a particularly angry wine merchant. He had been threatened and insulted and angered beyond all reason. But he’d never been made to sell his clothes.
Who could say what might happen to an odd fellow like Joachim. The son of a fishmonger who had profited in the tulipomania thirty years before, Joachim had come of age believing that only fools labored for their money when they might buy and sell for it instead. Even so, he seemed to know nothing of the Exchange but which taverns were closest, and he always depended on brokers to do his thinking. But for a man who was little more than a drunk with money, he was remarkably anxious about holdings, and he’d always fretted over a stuiver lost here and there, suspicious of the very means by which he
Among the brokers and speculators, black suits such as Miguel always wore remained the height of Dutch fashion. Here was perhaps the height of the austere influence of the Calvinist divines. The preachers of the Reformed Church ruled that gaudy fashions and bright colors only indulged vanity, and thus the men of Amsterdam dressed in modest black but spiced their dark ensembles with fine cloth, expensive lace, silk collars, and costly hats. The sea of black occasionally sparkled with an Iberian Jew in red or blue or yellow or perhaps a defiant Dutch Catholic who dressed in what colors he liked. In other lands the locals would gawk at foreign dress, but there were so many aliens in the city that strange clothes were admired more often than ridiculed. Miguel believed the Dutch the most curious of all races—the perfect blend of Protestant faith and business ambition.
As Miguel gazed out at the crowd he noticed a desperate-looking fellow moving directly toward him. He thought the man might be a petty tradesman, perhaps in the midst of a dispute with a customer, but as he stepped aside the ruffian continued to fix his gaze on Miguel.
The fellow stopped and flashed a mouth full of wretched teeth. “You don’t know me, Lienzo?”
The sound of the voice steadied him. Miguel saw that he did indeed know the man: Joachim Waagenaar. Joachim, who had once dressed like a gentleman in velvet suits and fine lace, now wore the close-fitting leather cap of a farmer, a stained doublet of rough cloth, and torn, baggy breeches. Once a man to wear perfume and trim his mustache just so, Joachim now smelled of piss and sweat like a beggar.
“Joachim,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t recall you at first.”
“I suppose not.” He unfurled another strained grimace. He’d always had unhealthy teeth, but several that had been broken before were now gone, and along the bottom they were all cracked and had the rough edges of gravel. “Times haven’t gone well with me.”
“I was sorry to hear of your losses,” Miguel answered, speaking so quickly that his Dutch sounded garbled even to his own ears. “I lost greatly too,” he added hastily, in answer to unspoken charges. He had, after all, urged Joachim to put his fortune in Miguel’s failing sugar futures, believing that if he found enough investors he could keep the price of sugar buoyant, but these efforts were like sandbags set against the force of a flood, and the price had tumbled all the same. Joachim had not lost nearly as much as Miguel, but his fortune had been much smaller, so he had fallen fast and hard.
“Those are fine clothes you have upon your back.” Joachim looked him up and down and ran a hand along his own face, which was rough with a beard that grew in a great diversity of lengths, as though he had taken to shaving by hacking at himself with a dull blade. “They did not take your clothes,” he said. “They took my clothes. They forced me to sell them.”
Who might
they
be—creditors, pawnbrokers? Miguel had been abducted and taken to taverns where he was held prisoner until he agreed to pay bills. He had suffered the humiliation of having his hat knocked into the mud by a particularly angry wine merchant. He had been threatened and insulted and angered beyond all reason. But he’d never been made to sell his clothes.
Who could say what might happen to an odd fellow like Joachim. The son of a fishmonger who had profited in the tulipomania thirty years before, Joachim had come of age believing that only fools labored for their money when they might buy and sell for it instead. Even so, he seemed to know nothing of the Exchange but which taverns were closest, and he always depended on brokers to do his thinking. But for a man who was little more than a drunk with money, he was remarkably anxious about holdings, and he’d always fretted over a stuiver lost here and there, suspicious of the very means by which he
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