Soren Kierkegaard

recalling episodes from the traumatic times when the boys at the Borgerdyd
School taunted him for his unusual attire, calling him “Søren Sock.” It is
not very far from socks to trousers, and if Møller, who was a close friend
of Klæstrup’s, had known of the schoolyard gibes, it would have been typi-
cal of him to have made use of them. Nor had Goldschmidt forgotten that
day on Vimmelskaftet when Kierkegaard had teased him about his elegant
new coat and had told him to dress like other people. There was a lot of
gloating in the editorial offices ofThe Corsair.
Already the very next day, January 10,Fædrelandetran a contribution
by Kierkegaard, who continued to sign himself “Frater Taciturnus.” The
rejoinder, entitled “The Dialectical Result of a Literary Police Investiga-
tion,” was his second and final public reply in the conflict. In the piece,
which fairly trembles with moral indignation, Kierkegaard ironically noted
that one could apparently “hireThe Corsairto abuse someone, just as one
hires an organ-grinder to make music.” The paper ought to be ignored,
just as one politely walks past a “prostitute”—a remark that was repeated
on the next page and was apparently intended to imply that editor Møller
in fact walked home with prostitutes more frequently than he walked past
them. Kierkegaard ended his contribution by repeating, “may I request that
I be abused. It is just too terrible to experience the insult of being immortal-
ized byThe Corsair.”
These lines had an instantaneous effect on the two editors. Goldschmidt
burst into laughter, but Møller went white as a sheet: “You can laugh at
what you please! I would never have had this disastrous business, this mixing
of myGæawithThe Corsair, if I had not got involved with you.”
The Corsaircontinued its attacks on Kierkegaard unabated, however. The
issue dated January 16 carried a letter to “Mr. Michael Leonard Nathanson,
Horse Dealer,” a half-mad person who had fumed againstThe Corsairin his
own mediocre news organ. This Nathanson was a well-known figure who
had purchased the failing weeklyPolitivennen, which he rechristenedThe
Corvetteand used as a platform for attacking the editor ofBerlingske Tidende,
who was also named Nathanson. Kierkegaard and mad Nathanson had no
connection whatever with each other and were united only in the pages of
The Corsairbecause Nathanson was a notoriously half-mad person. The
letterThe Corsairaddressed to Nathanson begged a thousand pardons be-
cause the editorial staff had failed to recognize Nathanson under the name
Frater Taciturnus, but had erroneously assumed that it was a cover name
for Søren Kierkegaard.
Klæstrup was kept very busy. In addition to his caricature of Nathanson,
he had also been supplied with a number of short passages from Kierke-
gaard’s works, on the basis of which he was to supply a good many distorted