Soren Kierkegaard

walks. Kierkegaard had been there, but had had to stand there, watching
the grass grow. And if Nielsen didnotwant the subjects that interested him
dealt with on a walk, he ought in all decency to have informed Kierkegaard
of thisin writingandin advance. Besides, Kierkegaard in fact preferred for
them to meet during walks rather than privately—encounters of the former
sort are implicitly not nearly as binding as the latter sort.
It was not easy to be Nielsen. In a journal entry from mid-July 1848—
thus only a few months after their first real conversation—Kierkegaard pro-
vides an example of irony in practice; it might very well have been inspired
by an encounter with Nielsen: “People generally have no idea of...what
itmeanstoputoneselfintoacharacter....Ihaveattemptedthiswithirony.
I have told a person that there is always something ironic about me. And
what then? Then we had come to an understanding with each other; I had
revealed myself. But then, at the very moment that I assumed the character,
he was bewildered. At that instant all direct communication had been cut
off; my entire posture, my gaze, my remarks were sheer question marks.
Then he said, ‘Aha, it’s irony.’ He of course expected that I would answer
yes or no—that is, that I would communicate directly. But the moment I
assume a character, I strive to be completely true to it. Now, it was impossi-
ble for him to come to certainty about whether it was irony—precisely this
was irony.” In a journal entry like this, we can almost see Nielsen’s eyes
darting here and there in desperation.
Still, the situation became one of involuntary irony when, in no time at
all, Nielsen—who was supposed to have been Kierkegaard’s helper, perhaps
even his heir—developed into a problem of considerable dimensions. For
many months Kierkegaard would now have to put up with this clumsy
“copier,” who had read and absorbed so much of the pseudonymous writ-
ings that every minute or two he would unconsciously come up with meta-
phors and observations that stemmed from Kierkegaard’s pen. Kierkegaard
could clearly see where it was all headed: “Now Nielsen will probably stir
up a sensation with material he essentially owes to me.” Or as Kierkegaard,
not exactly self-effacingly, put it: “Thus, what is present in me, in the ex-
traordinary fullness of its originality, is something I have served with equally
rare selflessness and sacrifice—to excess, indeed, almost to the point of mad-
ness. And, when it’s R. N.’s turn to serve up this same brew, things will be
extraordinary! Still, R. N., in being great, is little enough to be great in
Denmark.”
Kierkegaard was unsure about the situation. On the night of August 23–
24, 1848, he had left Nielsen out of his prayers, but he immediately regret-
ted it as a “terrible sin,” and therefore brought him back into his “God
relationship.” And Kierkegaard knew from experience that once someone