Soren Kierkegaard

happy with him .But this girl is an instrument he does not know how to
play .She is capable of sounds that [only] I knew how to summon forth .”
Kierkegaard thus had no reason to be “covetous.” Indeed, he protests in
plain terms that Regine’s marriage is to him “a matter of the greatest indif-
ference; I am concerned only about whether it is possible that this will make
her happy and her life more beautiful.” For these same reasons he was un-
able to free himself from Regine, and in his journal entry about his dialec-
tical emotional life, he revealingly called this “the final word, for now.”
Regine had married well .Fritz, as his friends called him, was born January
22, 1817, and thus celebrated his birthday the day before Regine’s—she
was born on January 23, 1822 .So it had practically been written in the stars
that they would end up together! Regine’s spouse was the son of a bureau
chief in the Finance Ministry .He matriculated into the university from the
Metropolitan School in 1833 and took his law degree in 1838 .Then he
rose quickly through the ranks of government .In 1842 he was a trainee in
the Finance Ministry, where he became an office head in 1847, and the
next year he was appointed chief of the Colonial Office, which is roughly
the same as being a department head in the Finance Ministry today .He
could subsequently deck himself out with titles such as supreme president
(in the Copenhagen city government) and privy councillor .Fritz was not
merely a diplomat by profession, he was a diplomatic being, an understand-
ing man who continued to love where Kierkegaard had broken off .During
their engagement Fritz and Regine had read aloud to each other from Kier-
kegaard’s writings, and Fritz, who was interested in literature, was most
definitely not blind to the greatness of those writings .In 1875, when he
called on a certain Inspector Ottesen, who had portraits of Grundtvig and
Kierkegaard hanging side by side on the wall, he said “Long after Grundt-
vig’s influence is over and done, Kierkegaard’s will still be alive!” He was
also a connoisseur of art, and at his death he left a valuable collection of
etchings and engravings and, as previously mentioned, a substantial library.
Schlegel was practically the exact opposite of Kierkegaard: stable, harmo-
nious, healthy, un-ironic, and patient; he was thus made for marriage, the
incarnation of Judge William—though probably more boring .As a part of
his discussion of covetousness inWorks of Love, Kierkegaard described how
habit could creep into love so that it loses “its ardor, its joy, its pleasure, its
originality, its freshness of life.” What is said between the lines is that habit
constitutes a special danger for the erotic intensity of a shared marital life,
and in dramatic tones Kierkegaard continued: “There is a beast of prey
known for its cunning, that sneaks up and attacks those who are asleep.
Then, while it sucks the blood out of the sleeping person, it wafts a cool
breeze upon him, making his sleep even lovelier .This is what habit is like—