In the next issue ofThe Corsair, Kierkegaard was named by his real name
for the first time. This was in an article titled “The New Planet” in which
there was a conversation amongThe Corsair, Kierkegaard, Heiberg, and a
professor of astronomy named Olufsen. They comment on a mysterious
planet that had suddenly appeared in the vault of heaven. Kierkegaard be-
lieves that it must be a case of a “tramp, a bothersome fellow, a vagrant.”
Invoking his special status in the city, Kierkegaard says he will contact the
police, and he finally threatens to write nineteen edifying discourses to
drive the shameless planet away! Heiberg, on the other hand, bids the
planet welcome and takes it as visible proof of the efficacy of his powers as
an astronomical prophet, which he immediately takes the opportunity to
demonstrate:
a. Prophesied: 2 stars — appeared 1
b. Prophesied: 0 stars — appeared 1
Total: Prophesied 2 — appeared 2.Then it is Olufsen’s turn, and no one can fool him, the astral phenomenon
is a comet, neither more nor less, period. That can’t be, exclaims Kierke-
gaard, it has no tail. “It has no tail?” Olufsen inquires harshly, “You have
no tail either, and yet you are a comet.” What, in fact, is a comet? “It is,”
Kierkegaard replies, like some sort of schoolboy, “an eccentric, illuminated
body which exhibits itself to us mortals at irregular intervals....”“Well,
aren’t you a comet, then?” replies Olufsen. “Aren’t you also an illuminated
body, a light?” Kierkegaard has to grant him the point: he is a light. But
also eccentric, remarks Olufsen, who suddenly abandons the starry heavens
and asks about Kierkegaard’s tailor. It turns out that the tailor is named
Ibsen. “Are you telling me that Ibsen has followed his own head in sewing
your trousers?” Olufsen asks in unbelief. “No, he followed my legs,” Kier-
kegaard replies, repeating an old joke. But it doesn’t help him, and Olufsen
counters with an astronomically brilliant bit of wit: “No, little man, I also
have Ibsen for my tailor. But dammit, the one trouser leg is always just as
long as the other one unless I expressly request it otherwise in order to look
like a genius. Of course you are a comet.”
At this point, about halfway through the article, Heiberg finds that Oluf-
sen has become altogether too personal, and he therefore redirects attention
upwards, toward the distant planet, and there is no more talk of trousers.
But there were other people who continued to speak of the trousers, not
least because the caricaturist Peter Klæstrup had depicted the philosopher
with one trouser leg a little longer than the other—or a little shorter, if you
will, it all amounts to the same thing. At the sight of himself in Klæstrup’s
wicked depiction, it would have been difficult for Kierkegaard to avoid