never first; that honor was reserved for Anger, who remembered Bind-
esbøll’s comment from their last year at school: “Kierkegaard is really
annoying, because he is ready with an answer before he has got the ques-
tion.” With the pettiness of a valedictorian, Anger also recalled how Søren
Aabye, fro mearly on, had shown a special talent for cheating—or “peek-
ing,” as they called it in school—particularly in the subjects of history and
geography.
This cheating was also recalled by F. P. Welding (a baker’s son and the
fatboyintheclass),whoaccordingtotheheadmaster’saccountwasextraor-
dinarily phlegmatic and mediocre. Of all the pupils, Welding, who later
became archdeacon at Viborg Cathedral, had the best memory and gave
the most detailed report. Welding remembered Søren Aabye as an odd sort
of boy fro ma strict, strange ho me that was shrouded in an oppressive dark-
ness. Welding continued: “He was a skinny boy, always on the run, and he
could never keep fro mgiving free rein to his whi msy and fro mteasing
others, using nicknames he had heard, or laughter, or funny faces, even
though this often earned hi ma serious beating. I do not recall that his lan-
guagewasevergenuinelywittyorcutting,butitwasannoyingandprovoc-
ative, and he was aware that it had this effect even though he was often the
onewhohadtopayforit.Theseoutburstsofhispassionforteasingseemed
to be absolutely unconnected with the rest of his otherwise silent and un-
speakingexistenceamongus,withthewithdrawnandintrovertedcharacter
hedisplayedtherestofthetime.Duringtheseoutburstshismostremarkable
talent was the ability to make his target appear ridiculous, and it was espe-
cially the big, tall, and powerfully built boys he chose as the objects of his
derision....Asaboy, he did not bear the least trace of the great poetic
gifts he later developed. Now and then, when our classmate, H. P. Holst,
would read us his attempts at poetry or a Danish composition, Søren Kier-
kegaard was always one of the first to interrupt his reading by throwing a
book at his head.”
The school day did not exactly summon up glorious poetry: It started at
nineinthemorningandlasteduntilsevenintheevening,withabreakfrom
one to three o’clock so that pupils could go home to a bowl of buckwheat
porridge or similar fare. There was no school on Wednesday afternoons.
Afterthepreparatoryyearthereweresixgrades, whichwerecountedback-
wards, starting with the sixth and ending with the first. The two highest
gradeseachlastedtwoyears,andwhenthediscipleshadmaturedsufficiently,
they matriculated into the university in the month of September and were
subjected to entrance examinations by the professors there. In the higher
grades, there were forty-five hours of instruction each week, comprising
two hours of Danish, two of French, two of German, three of religion,
{1813–1834} 21