Soren Kierkegaard

remedies were needed: “He prescribed leeches for the head, dough plasters
for the calves. And Nutzhorn, who came back, doubled the number of
leeches and prescribed plasters for under his feet as well as a Spanish fly on
his neck, though none of this had any discernible effect. He continued to lay
there, his breathing occasionally blocked by mucus but otherwise coughing
violently, and more and more he breathed as though he were in a real death
struggle. Our hopes that he would regain some sort of consciousness, at
least for a day or perhaps a bit longer, were utterly unfulfilled, as Nutzhorn
had predicted all along. Even at the moment of death he merely gasped a
couple of powerful sighs and then gave up the ghost. It was on the 9th at
two o’clock in the morning, and along with Søren I was called down right
away, but it was no use, because it was all over.”
There was a tragicomic aspect to this scene: a dying merchant, whom
desperate physicians plied with leeches on his head, dough plasters around
his calves, and—as a bizarre and final humiliation—a Spanish fly on his
neck! A dried fly of this sort would have been included in most properly
equipped physician’s bags, stuffed firmly into a tightly corked bottle, be-
cause the fly—which was about the size of an ordinary housefly but was of
a metallic greenish-gold color—had a disgusting smell, probably because of
the high ammonia content that caused it to be viewed as “beneficial.” The
father had died at two o’clock in the morning, and on the afternoon of that
same day the people from the probate court showed up. On Tuesday, Au-
gust 14, he was buried at Assistens Cemetery. In accordance with his wishes
the old man was laid to rest next to his oldest daughter, Maren Kirstine.
That day theAdresseavisencarried the following item in its obituary column:
“Thursday, August 9th, after two days’ illness, our dear father and father-
in-law, M. P. Kierkegaard, formerly a hosier here in the city, in his eighty-
second year, died in the Lord; this is hereby announced to grieving relatives
and friends by his surviving sons and sons-in-law.” We note the epithet
“formerly a hosier here in the city,” which, as the years went on, the youngest
son would employ almost every time he dedicated his edifying discourses
to the deceased. Thus the formulation might indicate that it was he, rather
than Peter Christian, who was the author of the obituary.
But it was Michael Kierkegaard himself who had left written instructions
concerning the appearance of the marble tablet which he wished placed at
the grave site, over his wife and himself. Apart from a couple of spellings
in the Jutlandic dialect, he got his way, and the stone, which survives to
this day, reads: “ANNEKIERKEGAARD/ bornLUND/ went home to the Lord /
July 31, 1834 / in the 67th year of her life / loved and missed by / her
surviving children / relatives and friends / but especially by her old husband,
MICHAELPEDERSENKIERKEGAARD/ who on August 9, 1838 / followed her /
into eternal life / in his 82nd year.”