The Miniaturist

Nella’s father had an alcohol addiction and left his family with debts when he died two years earlier. Nella’s mother told her daughter she must marry a wealthy man and arranged her introduction to 39-year-old merchant Johannes Brandt. The couple met only once before marrying, and Johannes left on business immediately after the wedding. The marriage is still unconsummated, and Nella is eager for their married life to begin.

In the early hours of the morning, Nella hears Johannes return with his whippets, Rezeki and Dhana, and ventures downstairs to see her husband. Johannes kisses Nella’s hand and speaks kindly to her but retreats into his study. Frustrated, Nella returns to bed.

Cornelia wakes Nella for breakfast. Nella notes that the maid’s lack of subservience borders on impudence. Johannes has bought Nella a beautiful gown, but it is far too big.

Breakfast is a frugal meal of herring. Nella feels out of her depth as Marin knowledgeably questions her brother about his business interests. To pass the time, Nella imagines Johannes naked. Marin insists that Johannes must sell a consignment of sugar stored in his warehouse. The sugar belongs to a woman called Agnes Meermans. Johannes seems reluctant, and the siblings squabble over whether Otto would approve of them trading in sugar. Marin tells her brother that the burgomasters (the city’s heads of government) recently had three men drowned with weights around their necks. Johannes excuses himself, claiming he has business to attend to. Marin follows him out, and Nella overhears Marin pointedly reminding Johannes that he has a wife.

Nella is surprised to find Peebo in the “best kitchen”—a clean, bright space full of china from Johannes’s travels. The room has a trompe-l'œil painted on the ceiling, creating the illusion of a domed roof arching to the sky. Otto is polishing the silver, and Nella asks about her husband’s business interests. Otto says that Johannes’s wealth continues to grow. However, he predicts that once Johannes reaches the peak of success, “Things will spill over” (37). The conversation is interrupted by Marin, who rebukes Nella for disturbing Otto’s work. Otto warns Nella not to unnecessarily provoke Marin. He also advises her to keep Peebo’s cage shut.

For two nights, Nella waits in vain for Johannes to visit her bedroom. She hears doors open and close, and someone leaves the house, returning early the next morning. During the day, Nella explores the house, and Marin scolds her for touching one of Johannes’s lutes. Nella is angry that Marin still assumes the role of “mistress” of the house. She is also surprised that Marin, not Johannes, reads aloud to the household from the Bible.

On the third day, Nella interrupts Marin while she is working on the household ledgers. When Nella says she wants to visit Johannes at work, Marin advises against this and suggests her expectations of marriage are unrealistic.

Johannes has a cabinet delivered as Nella’s wedding gift. Inside is a replica of the house’s rooms in miniature. Marin is furious when she learns that the cabinet cost 3,000 guilders. However, Johannes insists the miniature house will be educational for Nella. Nella feels insulted at receiving a gift more suitable for a child. When Marin storms out, Nella sneaks upstairs to investigate her sister-in-law’s room.

Nella expects Marin’s room to be an austere space. Instead, it smells of rich spices and is crammed with exotic items such as birds’ feathers and pinned butterflies. On the wall is an annotated map of Africa, and controversial books line Marin’s shelves, including The Unfortunate Voyage of the Ship Batavia by Heinsius. As Nella finds a note written by Marin’s lover, Marin surprises her and roughly ejects her. In the early hours of the morning, Nella moves Peebo’s cage to her room, scared of Marin’s retribution.

Nella lets Peebo fly round her room and is surprised when Marin does not protest. Giving Nella a copy of Smit’s List (a directory of Amsterdam craftsmen) and a book of promissory notes to spend, Marin suggests Nella should furnish her cabinet. Nella writes to a miniaturist from Bergen who works on the Kalverstraat. She commissions a lute, a wedding cup, and a box of marzipan.

Cornelia gives Nella a buttered roll in the kitchen and asks if Marin hurt Nella’s arm when she threw her out of the bedroom. Cornelia claims that, although Marin always wears black, her plain dresses are lined with fur and other luxurious fabrics. When Nella says she is going to the Kalverstraat to deliver a letter, Cornelia says she will accompany her.

Nella plans to track down the miniaturist on the Kalverstraat, a shopping street in Amsterdam. When Cornelia asks why Nella wants to visit that area of the city, Nella deflects, saying only that she wants to deliver a “message” to “a craftsman.” As the two of them head toward their destination, Cornelia reveals that Otto leaves the house as little as possible because people stare at him in Amsterdam (Johannes bought Otto from a Portuguese slave ship, and Otto and Cornelia joined the Brandt household at the same time). The two women also drop by to see Cornelia’s friend, Hanna, who is married to the confectioner Arnoud Maakvrede. Nella feels envious of the close friendship between the women.

After visiting Hanna, Nella finds the miniaturist’s premises under a sign of the sun—a stone plaque displaying the celestial body, laid into the brick wall. No one answers her knock, so she slips her letter under the door. Suddenly, Nella is aware that Cornelia has disappeared, and a fair-haired woman is staring at her intently. Nella tries to follow the woman but loses her when she sees Cornelia angrily kicking the door of an orphanage. Cornelia explains she lived there before Johannes took her in when she was 12.

Nella goes home to find the cabinet installed in her room. The smell of lilies is overpowering, and Marin claims the men who moved the cabinet knocked over her perfume.