see a little proof of how clever I am. That damned paper might get
the idea of including something about me and thereby making me
immortal, immortal inThe Corsair, my friend! I won’t have it. Do
you know what I have said in order to prevent it?’
Fædrelandet: ‘No, o indescribably great intellect!’
The Silent Brother: ‘You can say that again—you would never have
thought of this. I have added “Would that I might now appear in
The Corsair.” The thought experiment is this: Either I will now
appear inThe Corsair, or I will not appear there. If I appear there,
then it is something I myself have requested, and thusThe Corsairis
doing me a service. If I don’t appear there—then, hurrah! so I don’t
appear there—that is of course exactly what I want.’
Fædrelandet(with tears in its eyes): ‘Great, great man!’
The Silent Brother: ‘Sensible, tasteful journal!’
Fædrelandet(with a start): ‘But it occurs to me that you don’t need the
thought experiment! You have killedThe Corsairjust now.’
The Silent Brother: ‘Dammit, that’s right! In my haste I had almost
forgotten it.’
Fædrelandet: ‘This business makes me as happy as I would be if the
whole world were to eat horse meat this year on January 13th.’
The Silent Brother: ‘And I am as happy as I would be if Heiberg had
got one of my books stuck in his throat.’
Fædrelandet: ‘I think I will celebrate the occasion by taking a ride on a
provincial judge’s back.’
The Silent Brother: ‘I will do something for the poor. I will entertain
the idea of a thought experiment in which I have given a rixdollar
to a poor woman with five small children. Think of her happiness!
Think of the innocent little ones looking at a rixdollar!’
Fædrelandet: ‘You are a noble man!’
The Silent Brother: ‘I am in a good mood and therefore I am charitable.
I am happy. You are happy. We are happy.’
Both: ‘Hurrah!’ ”No sooner had Goldschmidt left the printer’s than fate—or the small size
of Copenhagen—willed that Goldschmidt and Kierkegaard would run into
one another. The editor wanted to know ifThe Corsairhad finally achieved
comic composition, but Kierkegaard replied with a long, drawn-out No-
o-o. The paper lacked respect, he said. “Respect for what?” Goldschmidt
asked. “For Frater Taciturnus’s higher right” replied Kierkegaard, after
which they parted in astonishment. It would be years before they again
spoke to one another.