Soren Kierkegaard

About the time of the wedding, a party had been arranged at the home
of the merchant Kierkegaard’s cousin, M .A .Kierkegaard, a wholesaler who
resided in a large apartment at 45 Købmagergade .Hans Brøchner was a resi-
dent theological student at Regensen College in 1836; in later years he would
take up lodgings with this same M .A .Kierkegaard, but at the time the
seventeen-year-old Brøchner was still only a curious explorer in this world,
and therefore very observant .Years afterwards Brøchner would recall that
evening’s party: “I saw Søren Kierkegaard there without knowing what he
was; I had only been told that he was Dr .Kierkegaard’s brother .He spoke
very little that evening; he primarily played the role of observer .My only
definite impression was of his appearance, which I found almost comical .He
was then twenty-three years old; he had something quite irregular in his
entire form and had a strange coiffure .His hair rose almost six inches above
his forehead into a tousled crest that gave him a strange, bewildered look.
Without quite knowing how, I got the impression that he was a shop assis-
tant—perhaps because the family were merchants—and I immediately added
to this, from my impression of his strange appearance, that he must work in
a dry goods shop .Later on I have often laughed heartily at my perspicacity .”
For the rest of 1836, Peter Christian was very busy with a great many
teaching responsibilities .On New Year’s Eve young Mrs .Kierkegaard
wrote to her beloved Nanna that Christmas in her new surroundings had
“passed in great quiet and solitude” and that Christmas Eve itself had been
spent with her father-in-law .“The day after Christmas we took commu-
nion .That was at nine o’clock in the morning, and the weather was terribly
cold and windy .It was three hours before we got home, though God helped
us here again, inasmuch as no one caught cold.” Yet perhaps the church
had been too cold after all, because Maria started the new year with an
influenza that kept her housebound until the beginning of February .She
passed the time by writing letters to her mother about her distracted hus-
band who had so many tutorials and lectures at the university that she was
often alone for the entire day .He had by no means forgotten her: As she
pointed out, he had given her a night lamp, a footstool, and a volume of
romances .“Marie indeed liked to get out a bit and let her light shine among
other people,” her sister-in-law Eline Boisen explained, but alas, she contin-
ued, her husband “preferred that she sing for him alone—even though he
had no sense whatever either for singing or for music.”
Close to the first anniversary of that unforgettable summer in Jutland,
Peter Christian’s diary reports: “On the first [of July 1837] Marie had to
take to bed.” The evening before, the couple had been out for a walk on
the city ramparts, but as they entered town via the Royal Gardens and were
about to cut over to Nytorv they were surprised by a violent shower .Maria