consequences of divorce (“which God forbid”), but were this to happen
Anewas nowguaranteedtwice asmuchannually aspreviously,while ifthe
husband were to die she would now inherit one-third of his fortune, with
the remainder divided among the children. In that same year Kierkegaard
bought two houses in Hillerød with his former brother-in-law Mads
Røyen. The names of the properties give an idea of their proportions:
Røyen took up residence in “Peter’s Castle,” while the Kierkegaard family
moved into “The Palace Inn,” which had a splendid garden that inclined
down to a lake. When the first boy, Peter Christian, came into the world
on July 6, 1805, the family moved back to Copenhagen and settled into an
apartment on Østergade, where Ane became pregnant with another son,
Søren Michael, who was born March 23, 1807. Then, after Niels Andreas
made his entre ́e on April 30, 1809, the family moved in the late summer
of that year to a house on Nytorv located between the corner house at
Frederiksberggade and the building that served both as a courthouse and as
thecityhall.Thehouseat2NytorvprovidedthebackdropfortheKierkeg-
aard family for almost forty years. This was where they lived and died.
And this was where Søren Aabye Kierkegaard’s life had one of its many
beginnings.
The Little Fork
Michael Kierkegaard was fifty-six and Ane was forty-five when their sev-
enth child entered the world on Wednesday, May 5, 1813, so it was a
well-experienced married couple who held their late-born child over the
baptismal font on Thursday, June 3, at a private baptismal service in Holy
Spirit Church. The family pastor, resident curate J.E.G. Bull, blessed the
former serving girl’s youngest son and baptized him Søren Aabye Kierke-
gaard—Søren,justlikehismother’smerryfather,andAabyeafterarecently
deceased distant relative whose widow, Abelone Aabye, was a member of
the baptismal party.
Michael, a merchant, could look back upon some turbulent years. King
FrederickVIhadjoinedNapoleoninadoomedallianceagainsttheEnglish,
who bombarded Copenhagen mercilessly in September 1807 and trans-
formed large areas near Nytorv into ghost towns. In October of the same
year, the English sailed out of the harbor with the captured Danish fleet,
andanerainthehistoryofDanishtradeandnavigationended.Thecountry
was short of money, so Finance Minister Ernst Schimmelman set the print-
ing presses at full speed, putting into circulation more and more banknotes
for which therewas no backing. Exactly four monthsbefore Søren Aabye’s
{1813–1834} 7