on occasion, he did not push it to the same extreme as man yother young
“devotees of scholarship.” After these authoritative remarks followed a dis-
cussion of the two discourses. The reviewer found the first discourse much
more successful than the second, but this was not necessaril ymuch in the
wa yof praise, because the second of the discourses must probabl ybe desig-
nated a failure: “There are a number of unfortunate expressions in the dis-
course, an unusuall ylarge number of interrogative sentences, and a much
too generous use of direct address. Similarly, the affectedly exquisite lan-
guage is often more worldl ythan churchl y.”
There was more substance, for example, in the work of Mr. Branner, a
fellow from the provincial town of Nakskov who was reviewed on the same
page and received the following evaluation: “In this sermon, based on the
last portion of the [Gospel] text for the da y(Matthew 8:1–13), the author
has treated the relationship of the head of the household to his servants in
an instructive and sensible manner.”
Here was something a person could understand, and it is not likel ythat
Mr. Branner’s book was burdened with much in the wa yof affectedl yex-
quisite language.
Regine’s Nod
After returning from Berlin, Kierkegaard was not onl yoccupied with the
completion ofEither/Or; there was also the matter of seeing Regine again.
Unplanned, but nonetheless b ysome miraculous coincidence, the yhad a
wordless encounter ever yMonda ymorning between nine and ten o’clock
along the short stretch of street on which their regular routines in the city
overlapped. In mid-April this ritual coexistence took a dramatic turn: “At
the Church of Our Lad yduring vespers on Easter Sunda y(during M ynster’s
sermon) she nodded to me. I don’t know whether it was beseechingl yor
in forgiveness, but in an ycase so affectionatel y. I had sat in an out-of-the-
wa yplace, but she discovered me. Would to God she hadn’t. Now a year
and a half’s sufferings are wasted, all m yenormous effort. She doesn’t believe
that I was a deceiver after all, she has faith in me. What ordeals now await
her! The next will be that I am a hypocrite. The farther up we go, the more
terrible it will be. That a person with m yinwardness, m yreligiosit y, could
behave in such a manner!”
Kierkegaard subsequentl yobscured this journal entr ywith wav ylines of
ink; about halfwa ythrough, the entr ytouched on the Monda yencounters
and thus apparentl ybecame so private that posterit ywas not to be permitted
to read it. But in 1849 he returned to the subject of Regine’s nod during