Soren Kierkegaard

father,” and, he added, “Søren was surely touched not a little by this.”
Maria quite literally brought an entirely new tone to the household: She
could play the piano and sing as she played .Peter Christian’s account book
reveals that at Christmas he spent an entire rixdollar on “fifteen ballads by
Ingemann.”
Nonetheless, Peter Christian was not the type of person to transform his
life completely overnight just because he had fallen in love .When Maria
and her family went to Jutland for their summer vacation, Peter Christian
was so lost in his work that he scarcely had time to reply to her emotion-
laden letters .But one night, her mother Nanna crept out of bed and went
downstairs to write Peter Christian a letter in which she pleaded with him
to pay Maria at least a brief little visit .The letter ends: “Take care of yourself
and come soon to your Maria, who is full of longing.” Not even Peter
Christian could resist such a request, and in early July he packed up his
suitcase and departed for a belated summer vacation .The pages of his diary
for the subsequent period are more or less blank, and this is usually a sign
of happiness.
Soon he was back in Copenhagen, however, and resumed his worrying
and his preoccupation with himself .The heat in the city was stifling, he
could get no work done, and when he finally recovered a bit of his work
rhythm he had to spend the entire month of September helping Pastor
Georg Holger Waage improve the amateurish Latin in which the pastor
had written his dissertation on the descent into the kingdom of the dead.
But on October 21, 1836, Peter Christian and Maria went at last to Hol-
mens Church, where this very same Pastor Waage, of all people, invoking
the whole of his authority, declared them proper married people .Once the
couple had installed themselves on the ground floor of the family home on
Nytorv, Peter’s diary entry betrayed his sense of impatience: “The three
days following [the wedding] were spent on receiving visitors who wanted
to convey their congratulations, and several more days were spent finishing
the process of moving in, arranging books, etc.” Now came the time to
practice the art of being a family man, but Peter Christian preferred not
to .During the spring of 1837, when there had been a big commotion in
connection with a visit from his mother-in-law and her entourage, Peter
Christian made this depressed entry in his diary: “Naturally, a bit of distur-
bance in my work and in my domestic arrangements was unavoidable, but
so far I have got off better than I had expected.” In May, “extensive repara-
tions” were an additional source of disturbance to the entire Kierkegaard
family, including the youngest and oldest members, both of whom lived on
the second floor.