Kierkegaard (7 page)

As a child
, I was rigorously and earnestly brought up in Christianity, insanely brought up, humanly speaking—already in earliest childhood I had overstrained myself under the impression that the depressed old man, who had laid upon me, was himself sinking under—a child attired, how insane, as a depressed old man. Frightful! No wonder, then, that there were times when Christianity seemed to me the most inhuman cruelty, although I never, even when I was furthest away from it, gave up my veneration for it . . .

It is no wonder that as a young man Søren would prove to be so ambivalent about his theological studies and the expectation that he would take his rightful place in society as a serious man.

Stefan and David are drinking coffee at the A Porta cafe, watching the world bustle by Kongens Nytorv. The King's New Square is one of Copenhagen's main plazas, a place to see and be seen. Prominently situated on the square, A Porta is an excellent location for both activities. The men are too venerable to promenade now, but as long as young ladies are pretty and young men are cocky, looking at others will never lose its appeal. Stefan has just spotted one such lad now, a fine figure of a tall man with broad shoulders, making his way across the square.

“Ah, you take young Kierkegaard there,” he says, jabbing his coffee spoon emphatically to prove the point, “a credit to his father's ideals. I've said it before, my friend, and I'll say it again. No man is fully grown till he leaves Copenhagen. This city's too small to form people properly. Look at that chap now—lived in Paris during the riots, Berlin, Utrecht, who knows where else? Now he's back from Germany, and with a doctorate to boot!”

David has heard this line before. Having never left the market town himself, he can't help bristling. “I don't know, Stefan. I hear he's arrogant. Always arguing—they call him the ‘devil debater.' And do you know he turned down a perfectly good church appointment in Jutland, and for what? Ambition, pure and simple,
I
think. A country parish isn't good enough for the likes of
him
.”

Stefan is quick to defend his champion. “Arrogant? Maybe. But who can blame him? He's clever. Sped through his finals. There's a line as long as this street of parents hoping to get him to tutor their sons.
He's got a good position at the university, and he's got friends in high places—”

With a tap of his hand, David stops his companion mid-flow. A young lady has just honed into view. It's the daughter of old Bishop Boiesen. With a shy smile, the girl waits while the man makes his way purposefully towards her.

“You mark my words,” says Stefan, his spoon clattering into the cup with a ring of triumph, “that young Kierkegaard is going places.”

“Aye,” David concedes, “we certainly have not heard the last of Peter Christian.”

Gammeltorv Square and the King's New Square, Copenhagen, from a lithograph by Danish artist Emil Bærentzen. The Kierkegaard family lived in the building just to the right of the archway on the left.

Stefan and David were so intent on watching Peter stride towards his respectable and serious life, they missed the other of Michael Kierkegaard's sons striding, no less purposefully, the other direction into their cafe. So it was they failed to notice the young man who, with his
“strange, confused look”
and hair in a “tousled crest” almost six inches
over his forehead, was sometimes mistaken for a shop clerk in the wrong place at the wrong time. They did not see the
“witty, somewhat sarcastic face”
with its “fresh colour,” perched above shoulders “hunched forward a bit” with eyes
“intelligent, lively and superior”
with a “mixture of good nature and malice.”

They did not see Søren coming, but as this odd man lurched by their table, arm outstretched to order his third coffee of the day to go with his fourth cigar, they would have been jostled. Unlike his older brother, this Kierkegaard was no sportsman with easy grace. Built lopsided, he never could seem to walk in a straight line. Companions were always being pushed one way or the other when
walking with Søren
, and they were forever having to slip round to his other side to steer him back on course, ducking under his wildly gesticulating arms as they did so. Undoubtedly, the old men would have been annoyed by this awkward adolescent, but they probably would not have recognised him. Unlike Peter, Søren was not making a name for himself amongst their kinds of circles.

When piecing together the story of the young Søren Kierkegaard, it is worth considering in what sorts of circles Søren
was
becoming known and in which ones he was
not
. One public sphere that did not see much of Søren was the Divinity Faculty. Søren entered the University of Copenhagen to read theology in 1830. He was eighteen. When Peter had entered the same department at the same age, he had passed easily, taking the degree in four years to great acclaim. Yet by 1835, when his contemporaries were graduating and finding jobs, Søren had yet to take his final exams, and his name is often absent from attendance registers. Søren's life has many mysteries. The reason for this failure to graduate is not one of them. Søren was bored. In 1835 he wrote to his brother-in-law, “
As far as little annoyances are concerned
, I will say only that I am starting to study for the theological examination, a pursuit that does not interest me in the least and that therefore does not get done very fast.” To the utter consternation of his family it would be almost
another five years from this point before Søren would think about taking his exams. Far from pursuing the serious life of a pastor-in-training, in the 1830s Søren was a dandy, working hard on cultivating the aura of a man-about-town. Upon leaving high school, “Søren Sock” had become, in his own words, “
a man dressed in modern clothes
, wearing spectacles, and smoking a cigar.”

One of the public arenas particularly affected by Søren's gentrification was the marketplace. Tobacconists, restaurateurs, grocers, theatre operators, baristas, booksellers, and tailors all benefited from Kierkegaard's lifestyle choice. When they could collect on the bills, that is. By 1837 receipts reveal that Søren owed a tea shop 235 r.d., the tailor 280 r.d., and almost 400 r.d. to bookshops. The Student Union of the university threatened to ban Søren until he paid his dues. The family account books reveal other debts of various magnitudes. One entry from this time shows a repayment of
1262 r.d.
These are enormous bills that the feckless Søren could not possibly pay. It was Michael Kierkegaard who was prevailed upon to meet the costs, and again and again that is what he dutifully did. We can only speculate what he would have thought when paying these bills.

Actually, speculation about Michael's attitude is not too hard to fathom. Michael's celebrated financial acumen did not magically desert him when looking over the eye-watering sums. It would not have escaped his notice, for example, that Søren's 1837 bookseller's tab alone amounted to double the yearly amount Michael had apportioned to his wife Anne in their first marriage contract. Michael was an assiduous bookkeeper, moral as well as financial. The ledgers that record his payments are sometimes accompanied by handwritten notes from Søren. These are
aide memoirs
of shame, such as the entry for the 1262 r.d. which reads: “
In this way my father
has helped me out of financial embarrassment, for which I give my thanks.”

The old man managed the paradoxical feat of being indulgent and grudging at the same time. The indulgence led to resentfulness at
home. Michael, frugal and self-made, resented paying. Peter, ever the dutiful brother, resented the apparent favour shown to this prodigal son. Søren resented the straightjacket life and constant comparisons with his brother. His journals contain multiple ruminations on the family dynamic: “
Peter has always regarded himself as better
than I and pettily [regarded me] as the prodigal brother. He is right in so thinking, for he has always been more upright than I. His relation to Father, for example, was that of an upright son—mine, on the other hand, was often blameworthy: ah, but yet Peter has never loved Father as I did.” The three were often not on speaking terms with each other. This was true of the brothers especially. Their silent feuds prompted Michael to comment with exasperation more than once that he simply did not know what was the matter with Søren.

One window into the family relationship at this time comes from another public arena, that of the church. Here, attendance records reveal how often—or how little—the three attended Communion together. There is record of father and sons attending separately, and occasionally in pairs. Peter especially is conspicuous by his absence. He often suffered bouts of depression, which he linked in his mind to various religious crises. In
March 1834
, for example, Peter withdrew from communion, giving as his reason Matthew 5:23–34: “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement.” The adult Søren would come to admire a man who takes seriously the commands of Jesus in the New Testament. However, as an adolescent, Søren felt he suffered on account of his brother at these times,
“when he became morbidly religious.”

The dynamics were to change again when Peter introduced Marie into the mix. The daughter of a recently deceased bishop and a keen singer, Marie Boiesen accepted Peter's proposal in June 1836. They were wed in October of that year. Rather than take this event as an opportunity to flee the family homestead, Peter brought Marie to live at 2 Nytorv. He later recalled how she brought a note of happiness to the
home. It would be a fleeting note however. By July 1837, weakened by a bout of influenza and afflicted with gastric fever, Marie was dead.

Søren's journals at this time make no direct reference to the death. This is in fact typical for his entries, which are often less like daily diaries and more like “thought experiments.” However, around this time there are numerous allusions to sadness, tragedy, and the pointlessness of petit-bourgeois life. True to form, Peter's diary is more prosaic and informative: “
Søren these days
is perhaps more than ever before weighed down with brooding, almost more than his health can stand . . . A recreational trip he began the very day of the funeral had to be cut short towards the end once it went wrong, it didn't help at all.” Marie's passing evidently did nothing to bring the Kierkegaards closer together. In the same month as her funeral, another of Søren's notes appears in Michael's account book. Next to yet one more of Michael's repayments on his son's behalf, Søren is forced to write: “
Since from the coming first of September
1837 I will leave my father's house and cease to be a participant in his household, he has promised me 500 r.d. / year for my subsistence.” Five hundred a year was not much, especially in light of Søren's profligate lifestyle. To supplement his income, Søren took work teaching Latin for Professor Nielsen at the old School for Civic Virtue.

Søren's leaving home in 1837 obviously marks a turning point of sorts. Yet for the roving gadabout, the wrench could not have been too great. In any case Søren was rarely at his father's home. The enormous restaurant bills are testament to that. Instead of conducting morally improving discussions about politics and theology with Peter and Michael over a sensible supper, Søren at this time was seeking out less salubrious company.

One such person was Jørgen Jørgensen, ten years Søren's senior. Jørgen had a reputation for living off the wealth of others, getting them to stand for his drinks and cigars. In return, Jørgen would ply them with stories from his days on the police force. He was a well-known raconteur, and Søren retained an acquaintance with him for some years, evidently
enjoying the worldly atmosphere that Jørgen supplied. It all seems to have been fodder for Søren's written thought experiments. Although there was some ambiguity over the matter (thanks to a handful of typically cryptic comments in the journals), it is doubtful that Søren actually accompanied Jørgen on any of his drunken escapades to the bars and brothels of Copenhagen's seedier districts. There is no record of this, which there would have been for a public figure like Søren in the goldfish bowl that was Copenhagen. Even if Søren kept quiet in his diaries, his contemporaries certainly would not have. They were not shy of gossiping about each other's comings and goings.