gaard decided to speak than Bang came by, but even though this coinci-
dence of events might seem to bear a perfect resemblance to “Governance,”
Kierkegaard nonetheless avoided mentioning the subject—“it is too sudden
for me.” But he did want to talk, absolutely. On Easter Monday, however,
his mood had changed completely. Once again, after two large “N.B.’s” he
wrote: “No, no, my self-enclosedness cannot be lifted, not now, at least.
The idea of wanting to lift it has become such a constant preoccupation for
me that it merely becomes more and more fixed.”
Nonetheless, prompted by the sudden reversal at Eastertime, Kierkegaard
decided to consult Bang after all, and this in itself had a sedative effect even
though (or perhaps preciselybecause) he spoke “to” and not “with” his phy-
sician: “But I do take consolation in having spoken to my physician. I have
often feared that I might be too proud to speak to anyone. But as I did it
earlier, so I have done it again now. And what does the physician really
have to say? Nothing....Icertainly believe in the forgiveness of sins, but
I understand it, as I always have, to mean that I must bear my punishment
throughout my life, remaining in the painful prison of this self-enclosedness,
distant in the deeper sense from the society of other people—though miti-
gated by the thought that God has forgiven me,... and so indescribably
happy or blessed in the spiritual activity that God has so generously and
graciously granted me.”
Neither this journal entry nor any later ones contain so much as a hint
about what the conversation between doctor and patient was about. On
that occasion as well, Kierkegaard had evidently wished to preserve the
“secret” that his suffering stood in the most intimate imaginable connec-
tion to his creativity. And thus he left it to posterity to piece together a
medical diagnosis.
“For I Have Loved My Melancholia”
It is difficult to come up with a plausible critique of Kierkegaard that he
himself did not anticipate in his analyses of the Kierkegaard phenomenon.
Few psychologists have assigned such central importance to resistance to
recovery, and to anxiety about the good, as did Kierkegaard. He could of
course hide behind the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis, but he could never
run away from the profound personal experiences without whichThe Con-
cept of Anxietycould never have seen the light of day. True, the work was
not a psychological autobiography in any ordinary sense, but the mere fact
that Kierkegaard was practically speaking the first person to produce a