All the inhabitants of Amsterdam, indeed of the United Netherlands, gave a tender, and in some cases, remorseful thought to the departed. Many indeed maintained that the doctor wished to enjoy his greatest good wholesale; he wanted to laugh in chorus with all Europe at Louis XIV. driven hither and thither over the world's stage. But the undertaking of Van den Ende, and his self-sacrificing death, were too grave and impressive not to cut short such an explanation.
Spinoza tried to explain to himself this astonishing turn in his teacher's life. That a lightly living nature might also be a lightly dying one is easily admissible; and even this neck-risking setting of his formerly squandered life on a single cast might be traceable to Van den Ende's character and theories. Still something remained inexplicable. Spinoza had mentally to excuse himself to his teacher; he had not expected so much from him.
He felt obliged to offer Olympia his condolences. In the expression of his grief and recognition of the bold deed must lie his reparation.
He examined himself severely, and felt he could say that only pure participation in the grief of his former love moved him to it; and in the evening he took the once familiar way to Van den Ende's dwelling. The house was silent and deserted, and he learned from a neighbor that Olympia had accompanied her husband to Hamburg.
