Soren Kierkegaard

“She was in despair. For the first time in my life I scolded. It was the only
thin gto do.” He went directly from 66 Børs gade to the Royal Theater
because he wanted to speak to Emil Boesen. “(This was the basis for the
story that was told around town at the time, to the effect that I supposedly
took out my watch and said to the family that if they had anythin gmore
to say, they had better hurry because I had to be at the theater.)” When the
act was over and Kierkegaard left his seat in an upper box, Regine’s father,
Terkild Olsen, showed up from the lower boxes, went over to Kierkegaard
and asked to talk with him, whereupon the two men walked back to 66
Børsgade together. “He said: It will be the death of her; she is in total
despair. I said: I will try to calm her down, but the matter is settled. He
said: I am a proud man; this is hard, but I be gyou not to break off your
engagement to her. He was truly grand; I was shaken by him. But I stood
my ground. I dined with the family that evening. Spoke with her when I
left.” The next mornin gKierke gaard received a letter from Terkild Olsen,
who said that Regine had not slept at all the previous night and asked Kier-
kegaard to come and visit her. Kierkegaard did so: “I went there and made
her see reason. She asked me, ‘Will you never marry?’ I answered: ‘Well,
yes, in ten years, when I have begun to simmer down and I need a lusty
youn gmiss to rejuvenate me.’ Necessary cruelty. Then she said: ‘For give
me for what I have done to you.’ I replied: ‘It is really I who ought to ask
for that.’ She said: ‘Promise to think of me.’ I did so. She said: ‘Kiss me.’ I
did so, but without passion. Merciful God....Then we separated....I
spent the nights crying in my bed. But by day I was my usual self, wittier
and more flippant than ever; it was necessary.” When Peter Christian said
that he would try to explain to the Olsen family that his younger brother
was not the “villain” he seemed to be, the younger brother promptly pro-
tested: “I said: Do that, and I’ll put a bullet through your head. The best
proof of how deeply the matter engaged me.”
In the margin, opposite the point in the journal entry where he had
written “Merciful God,” Kierkegaard added that Regine had had the cus-
tom of carryin gin her “bosom” a “little note on which were some words
from me.” What those words were no one knows, for Regine drew out
the note, slowly tore it into tiny pieces, and, starin gstrai ght ahead, she said
quietly: “So you have played a terrible game with me.” This little gesture
was a decisive act: Regine freed herself from the writing; she had given up
bein ga Re gine of words on paper and had returned to reality. She herself
recalled that at their final partin gshe had said: “Now I can bear it no lon ger;
kiss me one last time and then have your freedom!”
In his journal for October 1841, Peter Christian wrote: “On the 10th
(?), after a long period of struggle and dejection, Søren broke off his connec-