In truth, the story of the few remaining years is but a record of stroke after stroke. On August 7th, 1661, the faithful Hendrickje was so seriously ill, that, in spite of its being a Sunday, she made her will, leaving, as was but right, all her property to Cornelia, but with the stipulation that, in case of her death, Titus was to inherit, though his father was to enjoy the income as long as he lived. That she recovered at that time we know from her appearance on October 27th, as a witness in the case of the drunken man already referred to; but the recovery must have been only temporary, for, after this last appearance, we hear of her no more, though we do not know the exact date of her death. There is, however, M. Michel believes, a reason for supposing it to have occurred in the autumn of 1662. On October 27th in that year Rembrandt sold the vault he had purchased in the Oudekerk, which was no longer his parish church. It was, nevertheless, an odd thing to do, since poor little Saskia lay there; and M. Michel, in seeking an explanation, conjectures that he was at that time under the necessity of providing for the burial of Hendrickje in the Westerkerk, and that the sale was a sheer necessity. There is, at any rate, no portrait of her known to have been painted after 1662, and the conjecture that she died that year is at least a plausible one.
In the course of the same year, we hear of the last pupil coming to Rembrandt, Aert de Gelder, whose youthful enthusiasm may have brought some brightness, we may hope, into the life of the poor broken old man. Meanwhile, the echoes of the law courts still rumbled in his ears, for, on December 22nd, Isaac Van Heertsbeeck, who had evidently not complied with the previous order of the Court in 1660, was again commanded to refund the 4200 florins, and again appealed.
Rembrandt had by then so completely dropped out of public ken, that we only get dim and fleeting glimpses of him. In 1664, we hear of him moving to the Lauriergracht, still farther to the south-east, and it is not until affairs draw him from seclusion that we learn more of him, and then only indirectly. We may, perhaps, conclude, however, from the scarcity of his works during these last years, that his eyes, and possibly general health, were getting ever worse.