thecontraspeaks. I have now entered into Christianity so decisively, have
presented much of it so stringently and earnestly, that there are certainly
people who have been influenced by this. These people might almost find
it offensive if they heard that I had written about an actress in the popular
press. And one indeed does have responsibilities to such people.... Further-
more, at the moment I do not have any religious writing ready that could
appear at the same time. Therefore it must not be published. My situation
is too serious, a little dietary indiscretion could cause irreparable damage.”
At the end of the entry Kierkegaard wrote “N.B. ”and then removed a page
from his journal, which is often an indication of a fairly serious crisis; the
surviving fragments of the entry have a tremulous, abbreviated quality: “it
to Giødwad—and then I let it be and I became so ill during the afternoon—
Alas, I would rather write a folio than publish a page.”
Three journal entries later, however, Kierkegaard had reversed his deci-
sion: “No, no, the little article must come out. ”Giødwad had asked for it
yet again, which could be a “hint from Governance. ”And since Kierke-
gaard had been able to defend “before God ”his having written the article,
he could certainly also allow himself to publish it, especially if, as a pious
fraud, he dated it in its original year of composition.
And that was that.The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actresswas carried
as a serialized article in four issues ofFædrelandet, from July 24 to July 27,
1848, and was signed “Inter et Inter. ”Kierkegaard could breathe more
easily: “It was a good thing I followed up on my intention, and phooey on
me for having needed to be reminded like that, for having got so bloated
with the melancholic dropsy of reflection. But in the end I was not allowed
to be free of it before I did what I ought to do. I would have had a thousand
regrets if I hadn’t done it. ”He was now completely convinced that if he
had died without having published “that little article, ”people would proba-
bly have “spread the sort of nonsense—typical of the terribly irresponsible
conceptual confusion of our times—to the effect that I was an apostle. Great
God, instead of having had a beneficial effect and upholding Christianity, I
would have ruined it. ”As so often happened, Kierkegaard’s notion of the
contemporary interest in his literary housekeeping was a bit out of propor-
tion. Thus, a few journal entries later, when Kierkegaard gives Rasmus
Nielsen a drubbing for not having grasped thatThe Crisiswas a reversed
indirect communication, we have a clear case of violence against an inno-
cent bystander.
If we read the little article, whose twenty pages had practically killed its
author, it might be difficult to see what is so aesthetically alarming. For just
as Kierkegaard had earlier used his review of Mrs. Gyllembourg’s work as
a vehicle for enunciating his own critique of his times, inThe Crisishe
romina
(Romina)
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