1848
Extravagance in the Service of the Idea
“Then an apartment at the corner of Tornebuskegade became vacant, an
apartment I had been infatuated with ever since the place was built. ”The
new house which had set Kierkegaard’s heart aflutter was at the corner of
Tornebuskegade [Danish: “Thornbush Street”] and Rosenborggade [Dan-
ish: “Rose Castle Street”] and belonged to J. J. Gram, owner of a tannery
firm. It was built in the late classical-revival style, four stories high, with
four windows facing the street. It had become available for occupancy in
the summer of 1847.
Kierkegaard had agreed to Easter Day 1848 as the day he would vacate
the apartment in “the southern half of the second story ”of the old family
home on Nytorv. At this time Kierkegaard had plans of stopping writing
(“ever so softly to work my way into the idea of halting the productivity”),
using some of the 2,200 rixdollars he had received from the sale of his father’s
house on a two-year trip abroad, and then seeking a position as a pastor.
“But then the thought occurred to me: You want to travel abroad, but why?
To break off your productivity and get some recreation. But don’t you
know from experience that you are never as productive as when you are
abroad, in the enormous isolation in which you live there, so that you will
return home after a two-year stay with an enormous pile of manuscripts?”
So instead he invested some of the money in royal bonds and in shares in a
fire insurance firm, and at the end of January 1848 he signed a lease for the
splendid apartment with its four windows facing Rosenborggade and no
fewer than six fronting on Tornebuskegade. He moved into the place in
mid-April and was responsible for a rent of 295 rixdollars a year.
Several months later, philosophy professor Rasmus Nielsen, who came
to town from his vacation place in Ta ̊rbæk, attempted in vain to call on
Kierkegaard in his new apartment and instead ended up sending the new
occupant a letter containing a first-class description of the house—and its
resident: “The angular corner named in the address makes an excellent im-
pression. This address is really a very fitting description (you see that clearly
if you stand in the right place with your back to the Reformed Church). But
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