Too late in sad verity! What had a philosopher of forty year to do
with love?
Back in his room he took up a lens, but soon found himself re-reading
his aphorism on Marriage. "It is plain that Marriage is in accordance
with Reason, if the desire is engendered not merely by external form,
but by a love of begetting children and wisely educating them; and if,
in addition, the love both of the husband and wife has for its cause
not external form merely, but chiefly liberty of mind." Assuredly, so
far as he was concerned, the desire of children, who might be more
rationally and happily nurtured than himself, had some part in his
rare day-dreams, and it was not merely the noble form but also the
noble soul he divined in Klaartje van den Ende that had stirred his
pulses and was now soliciting him to a joy which like all joys would
mark the passage to a greater perfection, a fuller reality. And in
sooth how holy was this love of woman he allowed himself to feel for a
moment, how easily passing over into the greater joy--the higher
perfection--the love of God!
Why should he not marry? Means were easily to hand! He had only to
accept from his rich disciples what was really the wage of tuition,
though hitherto like the old Rabbis he had preferred to teach for
Truth's sole sake. After all Carl Ludwig offered him ample freedom in
philosophizing.
But he beat down the tempting images and sought relief in the problem
posited by Leibnitz. In vain: his manuscript still lay open,
Proposition xxxv. was under his eye.
"If I imagine that an object beloved by me is united to another person
by the same, or by a closer bond of friendship than that by which I
myself alone held the object, I shall be affected with hatred towards
the beloved object itself and shall envy that other person."
Who was the young man?
He clenched his teeth: he had, then, not yet developed into the free
man, redeemed by Reason from the bondage of the affects whose mechanic
workings he had analyzed so exhaustively. He was, then, still as far
from liberty of mind as the peasant who has never taken to pieces the
passions that automatically possess him. If this fever did not leave
him, he must try blood-letting on himself, as though in a tertian. He
returned resolutely to his work. But when he had ground and polished
for half an hour, and felt soothed, "Why should I not go to
Scheveningen all the same?" he asked himself. Why should he miss the
smallest chance of seeing his old friends who had taken the trouble to
call on him twice?
Yes, he would walk to the hamlet and ponder the optical problem, and
the terms in which to refuse the Elector Palatine's offer. He set out
at once, forgetting the dangers of the streets and in reality lulling
suspicion by his fearless demeanor. The afternoon was closing somewhat
mistily, and an occasional fit of coughing reminded him he should have
had more than a falling collar round his throat and a thicker doublet
than his velvet. He thought of going back for his camelot cloak, but
he was now outside the north-west gate, so, lighting his pipe, he
trudged along the pleasant new-paved road that led betwixt the
avenues of oak and lime to Scheveningen. He had little eye for the
beautiful play of color-shades among the glooming green perspectives
on either hand, scarcely noted the comely peasant-women with their
scarlet-lined cloaks and glittering "head-irons," who rattled by,
packed picturesquely in carts. Half-way to the hamlet the brooding
pedestrian was startled to find his hand in the cordial grip of the
very man he had gone out to see.
"Salve, O Benedicte," joyously cried the fiery-eyed veteran. "I had
despaired of ever setting eyes again on thy black curls!" Van den
Ende's own hair tossed under his wide-brimmed tapering hat as wildly
as ever, though it was now as white as his ruff, his blood seemed to
beat as boisterously, and a few minutes' conversation sufficed to show
Spinoza that the old pedagogue's soul was even more unchanged than his
body. The same hilarious atheism, the same dogmatic disbelief, the
same conviction of human folly combined as illogically, as of yore,
with schemes of perfect states: time seemed to have mellowed no
opinion, toned down no crudity. He was coming, he said, to make a last
hopeless call on his famous pupil, the others were working. The
others--he explained--were his little Klaartje and his newest pupil,
Kerkkrinck, a rich and stupid youth, but honest and good-hearted
withal. He had practically turned him over to Klaartje, who was as
good a guide to the Humanities as himself--more especially for the
stupid. "She was too young in thy time, Benedict," concluded the old
man jocosely.
Benedict thought that she was too young now to be left instructing
good-hearted young men, but he only said, "Yes, I daresay I was
stupid. One should cut one's teeth on Latin conjugations, and I was
already fourteen with a full Rabbinical diploma before I was even
aware there was such a person as Cicero in history."
"And now thou writest Ciceronian Latin. Shake not thy head--'tis a
compliment to myself, not to thee. What if thou art sometimes more
exact than elegant--fancy what a coil of Hebrew cobwebs I had to sweep
out of that brain-pan of thine ere I transformed thee from Baruch to
Benedict."
"Nay, some of the webs were of silk. I see now how much Benedict owes
to Baruch. The Rabbinical gymnastic is no ill-training, though
unmethodic. Maimonides de-anthropomorphises God, the Cabalah grapples,
if confusedly, with the problem of philosophy."
"Thou didst not always speak so leniently of thy ancient learning.
Methinks thou hast forgotten thy sufferings and the catalogue of
curses. I would shut thee up a week with Moses Zacut, and punish you
both with each other's society. The room should be four cubits square,
so that he should be forced to disobey the Ban and be within four
cubits of thee."
"Thou forgettest to reckon with the mathematics," laughed Spinoza. "We
should fly to opposite ends of the diagonal and achieve five and two
third cubits of separation."
"Ah, fuzzle me not with thy square roots. I was never a calculator."
"But Moses Zacut was not so unbearable. I mind me he also learnt Latin
under thee."
"Ay, and now spits out to see me. Fasted forty days for his sin in
learning the devil's language."
"What converted him?"
"That Turkish mountebank, I imagine."
"Sabbata Zevi?"
"Yes; he still clings to him though the Messiah has turned Mohammedan.
He has published _Five Evidences of the Faith_, expounding that his
Redeemer's design is to bring over the Mohammedans to Judaism. Ha!
ha! What a lesson in the genesis of religions! The elders who
excommunicated thee have all been bitten--a delicious revenge for
thee. Ho! ho! What fools these mortals be, as the English poet says. I
long to shake our Christians and cry, 'Nincompoops, Jack-puddings,
feather-heads, look in the eyes of these Jews and see your own silly
selves.'"
"'Tis not the way to help or uplift mankind," said Spinoza mildly.
"Men should be imbued with a sense of their strength, not of their
weakness."
"In other words," laughed the doctor, "the way to uplift men is to
appeal to the virtues they do not possess."
"Even so," assented Spinoza, unmoved. "The virtues they may come to
possess. Men should be taught to look on noble patterns, not on mean."
"And what good will that do? Moses Zacut had me and thee to look on,"
chuckled the old man. "No, Benedict, I believe with Solomon, 'Answer a
fool according to his folly,' Thou art too half-hearted--thou deniest
God like a serving-man who says his master is out--thou leavest a hope
he may be there all the while. One should play bowls with the holy
idols."
Spinoza perceived it was useless to make the old man understand how
little their ideas coincided. "I would rather uplift than overturn,"
he said mildly.
The old sceptic laughed: "A wonder thou art not subscribing to uplift
the Third Temple," he cried. "So they call this new synagogue they are
building in Amsterdam with such to-do."
"Indeed? I had not heard of it. If I could hope it were indeed the
Third Temple," and a mystic light shone in his eyes, "I would
subscribe all I had."
"Thou art the only Christian I have ever known!" said van den Ende,
half mockingly, half tenderly. "And thou art a Jew."
"So was Christ."
"True, one forgets that. But the rôles are becoming nicely reversed.
Thou forgivest thine enemies, and in Amsterdam 'tis the Jews who are
going to the Christians to borrow money for this synagogue of theirs!"
"How is the young _juffrouw_?" asked Spinoza at last.
"Klaartje! She blooms like a Jan de Heem flowerpiece. This rude air
has made a rose of my lily. Her cheeks might have convinced the
imbeciles who took away their practice from poor old Dr. Harvey. One
can _see_ her blood circulating. By the way, thy old crony, Dr. Ludwig
Meyer, bade me give thee his love."
"Dost think she will remember me?"
"Remember thee, Benedict? Did she not send me to thee to-day? Thy name
is ever on those rosy lips of hers--to lash dull pupils withal. How
thou didst acquire half the tongues of Europe in less time that they
master +tuptô+." Spinoza allowed his standing desire to cough to find
satisfaction. He turned his head aside and held his hand before his
mouth. "We quarrel about thy _Tractatus_--she and I--for of course she
recognized thine olden argumentations just as I recognized my tricks
of style."
"She reads me then?"
"As a Lutheran his Bible. 'Twas partially her hope of threshing out
certain difficulties with thee that decided us on Scheveningen. I do
not say that the forest which poor Paul Potter painted was not a rival
attraction."
A joy beyond the bounds of Reason was swelling the philosopher's
breast. Unconsciously his step quickened. He encouraged his companion
to chatter more about his daughter, how van Ter Borch had made of her
one of his masterpieces in white satin, how she herself dabbled
daintily in all the fine arts, but the old man diverged irrevocably
into politics, breathed fire and fury against the French, spoke of his
near visit to Paris on a diplomatic errand, and, growing more
confidential, hinted of a great scheme, an insurrection in Normandy,
Admiral Tromp to swoop down on Quilleboeuf, a Platonic republic to be
reared on the ruins of the French monarchy. Had Spinoza seen the
shadow of a shameful death hovering over the spirited veteran, had he
foreknown that the poor old gentleman--tool of two desperate _roués_
and a _femme galante_,--was to be executed in Paris for this very
conspiracy, the words that sounded so tediously in his ear would have
taken on a tragic dignity.
They approached the village, whose huts loomed solemnly between the
woods and the dunes in the softening twilight. The van den Endes were
lodged with the captain of a fishing-smack in a long, narrow wooden
house with sloping mossy tiles and small-paned windows. The old man
threw open the door of the little shell-decorated parlor and peered
in. "Klaartje!" his voice rang out. A parrot from the Brazils
screamed, but Spinoza only heard the soft "Yes, father," that came
sweetly from some upper region.
"Guess whom I've brought thee?"
"Benedict!" She flew down, a vision of loveliness and shimmering silk
and white pearls. Spinoza's hand trembled in hers that gleamed snowily
from the ruffled half-sleeve; the soft warmth burnt away philosophy.
They exchanged the commonplaces of the situation.
"But where is Kerkkrinck?" said the doctor.
"At his toilette." She exchanged a half-smile with Spinoza, who
thrilled deliciously.
"Then I'll go make mine," cried her father. "We sup in half an hour,
Benedict. Thou'lt stay, we go to-morrow. 'Tis the last supper." And,
laughing as if he had achieved a blasphemy, and unconscious of the
shadow of doom, the gay old freethinker disappeared.
As Klaartje spoke of his book with sparkling eyes, and discussed
points in a low, musical voice, something crude and elemental flamed
in the philosopher, something called to him to fuse himself with the
universal life more tangibly than through the intellect. His doubts
and vacillations fled: he must speak now, or the hour and the mood
would never recur. If he could only drag the conversation from the
philosophical. By a side door it escaped of itself into the personal;
her father did not care to take her with him to Paris, spoke of
possible dangers, and hinted it was time she was off his hands. There
seemed a confession trembling in her laughing eye. It gave him courage
to seize her fingers, to falter a request that she would come to
_him_--to Heidelberg! The brightness died suddenly out of her face: it
looked drawn and white.