Soren Kierkegaard

and openness. When they first met one morning at the Heibergs’ hotel,
Martensen was received with great friendliness, and soon afterward they
were exchanging views on Hegel, whom Heiberg (according to Mar-
tensen), “as is well known, had introduced to Denmark.” Twenty-four-
year-old Luise listened attentively, occasionally asking questions that kept
the conversation animated and caused her husband’s refined spirits to glow.
Time flew. They became hungry, so they left for the Palais Royal and
settled in at the Vefours restaurant: “We dined marvelously, and Heiberg
did not skimp on the champagne.” The philosophical discussions continued
during dinner, but they also touched on aesthetic subjects, including Shake-
speare’s poetry, which Martensen admired, though Heiberg found it much
too bombastic. After the delightful dinner the three strolled in the gardens
of the Palais Royal, where they first discussed the theater of the day and then
spoke of Danish poetry, a subject that especially pulled at the heartstrings of
these expatriates. As they strolled around a fountain Luise sang “On a Sum-
mer’s Day I Went Out to Listen.” Martensen had never heard the song
before, but with Luise’s hel phe learned it. Back at the hotel the discussion
turned to Bellman’s songs, which consist of an ingenious combination of
exuberant gaiety and the most profound sadness. Martensen had only rudi-
mentary knowledge of Bellman, so Heiberg took u phis “guitar” and played
some melodies in order that Martensen might hear what he was supposed
to understand in what they were talking about. And indeed, Luise sang that
little summer song again and so beautifully that Martensen was compelled
to break down and confess, “I was transported.”
That unforgettable day in Paris was the beginning of a friendshi pthat
lasted many years and for Martensen was of such far-reaching “significance
for the whole of my humanistic and in particular my aesthetic education”
that he was utterly unable to calculate the extent of its significance and
therefore called it “incalculable.” With all its ambiguity this was a well-
chosen term, for in actual fact the influences were quite mutual. Martensen
indeed had a profound and long-lasting influence on Heiberg, who had
originally been quite liberal in his views, but who came to swing toward
the Hegelian Right and in the direction of the political conservatism affili-
ated with that philosophical position. This conservatism appealed to Jakob
Peter Mynster and to Mynster’s son-in-law, Just Paulli, who from the be-
ginning of the 1840s became a regular at the Heibergs’ home. The Heiberg-
Martensen alliance made the intellectual milieu, if possible, even narrower
than it already was, indeed almost mafia-like: Thus, shortly after his return
to Denmark, Martensen published in theLiterary Monthlya very positive
review of Heiberg’sIntroductory Lecture to the Logic Course Begun in November
1834 at the Royal Military College, while on July 12, 1837, Heiberg served
as an elegant opponentex auditoriowhen Martensen defended his theology