ing, I cannot complain.” But he did so anyway: “I really cannot conceive
how I have been able to endure this servitude here in Berlin for so long.
FreetimeonlyonSundays,noexcursions,notmuchentertainment.Thanks
anyway, but no! I am Sunday’s child, and that means that I should have six
days off and work only one day a week.” So now the exiled millionaire
wanted to return home: “I miss my hired coachman, my manservant, my
comfortable landau, my easy tours through the lovely regions of our
Zealand, the cheerful smiles of the young girls, which I knew how to turn
to my advantage without doing them any harm.”
Four days before his departure he sent the last of his seven letters to
Boesen: “As you well understand, however, I am not leaving Berlin and
rushing to Copenhagen in order to be bound by new ties. No, I need my
freedom. I feel that now more than ever. A person with my eccentricity
ought to have his freedom until he encounters a power that has it in itself
to bind him. I am coming to Copenhagen to completeEither/Or. This is
my most cherished idea and I live for it. You will see that this idea is not
to be made light of. My life should in no way be seen as completed at this
point; I feel that I still have great internal assets.” These were perhaps rather
grandiose words for February, but in fact Kierkegaard had not overstated
his case. Indeed, on March 6, 1842, when the steamshipChristian VIII
docked at Copenhagen, the twenty-nine-year-old magister was able to
saunter down the gangplank with the bulk of the manuscript ofEither/Or
in his suitcase.
Thecomposition ofthe varioussectionswas essentiallycompleted, andin
the following sequence: “The First Love,” “The Tragic in Ancient Drama
ReflectedintheTragicinModernDrama,”plusatleasthalfof“TheSeduc-
er’s Diary,” were completed by April 14, 1842. A couple of months later,
June 13, he was finished with “The Immediate Erotic Stages,” while “Sil-
houettes” and “The Unhappiest One,” were finished later the same month.
“Rotation of Crops” had existed in outline form even before his departure
forBerlin.Thiswas alsothecasewith“TheAesthetic ValidityofMarriage,”
whichhaditssourceinamanuscripttitled“AnAttempttoRescueMarriage
Aesthetically.” “The Balance between the Aesthetic and the Ethical in the
Development of the Personality” was presumably completed in September
- The outlines of the “Ultimatum” are to be found in a draft from
Kierkegaard’sdaysatthepastoralseminary,whilemostofthe“Diapsalmata”
stem from his own journals.
When Kierkegaard later replied to the suspicion thatEither/Orwork was
merely “a collection of loose papers I had lying in my desk” and insisted
that the book had been written “lock, stock, and barrel in eleven months,
at most only a page (of the Diapsalmata) was already in existence,” it was