Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu/323

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PROSELYTES.
301

near the weighing-house quite dead. He had been with his betrothed the evening before. The well was on the way to his own house."

"Had he thrown himself in?"

Olympia nodded assent; she forbore to assent in words.

"He certainly killed himself," Oldenburg remarked; "but it is incomprehensible to me how he could hold fast to Tesselschade for so many long years, and at last, when they were both grown old, take such a desperate step because he could not marry her."

"Why could he not?"

"She was Catholic and he was Protestant; indeed, he had formerly suffered much persecution as a Remonstrant. His whole thoughts were borrowed from the ancient Greek and Roman world, and yet he could not make up his mind for love of Tesselschade to change his form of faith."

"It is ridiculous," added Van den Ende, taking up his daughter's words; "he sang all the stories of the Old and New Testaments, with all the Greek and Roman mythology, and Arcadian pastorals; he could not say a word without parading the whole Olympus; he translated even his own love into the language of Horace."

"It seems to me, dear father," said Olympia, "that Barläus was obliged to translate all his thoughts into Latin in order to understand them