Soren Kierkegaard

naturallyhypochondriacalmakeup.”Itwasnotsomucha“bitternessagainst
the world,” he explained, but rather an elusive “I know not what,” that
could seize hold of him without warning and infuse its “wormwood drops
into every goblet of joy.”
Jakob Peter was consumed by a love that was unhappy because it had
never been embodied and was thus without a history. He remained what
he and Ole termed a platonic “polygamist” and recognized his situation as
the fleeting phenomenon Jean Paul had called “simultaneous love.” When
he looked back on it, Mynster was absolutely unable to “remember a time
when I had not been in love.” At one moment it would be a female cousin
with a sweet smile, who lived in the city; then it would be a Norwegian
girl who, without even being asked, cut off a lock of her brown hair and
presented it to her embarrassed admirer—and who after so many years still
had it tucked away. Sometimes the infatuation would be more profound,
as in the case of Sophie Gaarder, who had certainly been one of those
women everyone fell in love with and who then suddenly disappeared.
Steffens had been of the opinion that she had a brilliant intellect, but Myn-
ster disagreed: “She had neither real brilliance nor wit, nor was she really
much of a beauty; she was almost too blonde. But when she stood there,
straight-backed and with unaffected grace, her fine complexion and gentle
eyes expressing all that was stirring within her, she was really breathtaking,
and every word from her lips was full of meaning. I have never heard more
beautiful words of praise than those she uttered upon having heard that a
friend of hers had acted honorably: She folded her hands across her breast,
raised her eyes upward, and said the simple words, ‘God, that was fine.’ ”
As the point approached when Adam Vilhelm would take his university
entrance examinations, thus rendering a private tutor no longer necessary,
the position of parish pastor in the village of Spjellerup in southern Zealand
fell vacant. Mynster had his doubts. “Am I really going to take up arms
against the fulfillment of all my plans and wishes, entrenching myself behind
a pulpit and an altar rail?” he wrote emotionally to Ole, but what Ole
thought did not matter. The decision was in fact the count’s to make, and
he believed that Mynster ought to spend one more year at Bregentved and
then become pastor of Spjellerup. This sounded almost like a prison sen-
tence to Mynster, and he would serve ten years—in solitary confinement,
surroundedonlybyroughfarmboys,simplegirls,andaninsufferablehouse-
keeper who got into wrangles with everyone and about everything; her
bitterness seeped like gall into the everyday affairs of life.
Nonetheless Mynster was happy finally to have a place of his own. The
parsonage was spacious and in good condition, even if it had suffered a little
from neglect. As time went by, Mynster managed to put one of the two