sparkling with wit, emotion, and thoughts .Once I said, ‘That was an excel-
lent outing, only it seemed to me to be too short .I wish I could repeat it .’
‘Done!’ said Kierkegaard, ‘See if the carriage is still there.’ But the carriage
had driven off .‘Then come again tomorrow at ——— o’clock .’ I came the
next morning .‘No, none of that today .’—‘But the enjoyment—I had been
looking forward to it .’ ‘Ah .You have had all the enjoyment .Pleasure resides
in the imagination .You were happy yesterday evening; you dreamed about
it last night; you were happy this morning on your way over here; you have
had enjoyment enough.’ ”
At the end of the day, when they returned home from their expedition,
the servants would have completely aired out the apartment and lit the
stove .“Kierkegaard walked back and forth in the room, waved his handker-
chief and looked at the thermometer,” for it had to read exactly sixty-three
degrees, “and goodness knows how they managed it, but it was always just
as it was supposed to be.” Before starting to work, Kierkegaard and Levin
each took a perfume flask of cologne and sprayed some of the precious
drops on the stove so that the scent filled the room and the ambience was
just right—for an edifying discourse!
Either and Or
On Sunday, October 3, 1847, Kierkegaard’s outing took him to Lyngby,
more specifically Sorgenfri Palace, where he was to call on King Christian
VIII .This was the third time that the mightiest man in the realm had wished
to converse with his remarkably gifted subject .Kierkegaard flinched a bit.
He had tried to get out of it by mentioning his delicate health, but the king
was unyielding, and when a king calls one does not send one’s regrets .By
now Kierkegaard had become a little more familiar with the entire ritual,
which he had bungled quite thoroughly during his first visit, in mid-March
of that year .On that occasion, he was granted an audience after a long
period of nervous waiting in the anteroom, after which, in his befuddle-
ment, he bowed at an entirely inappropriate time and subsequently made
as if to leave on three occasions, only to understand, too late, the king’s
mild reproof to effect that he, the king, had plenty of time .When that
audience ended, Kierkegaard had been unable to bring himself to kiss the
monarch’s outstretched hand and had to be satisfied with making yet an-
other awkward bow.
This time Kierkegaard brought along a copy ofWorks of Lovewhich,
with appropriate humility, he presented to the king, who glanced at the
table of contents and immediately commented on the book’s ingenious