stand behind a counter in a shop,” his friend Peter Munthe Bruun wrote
angrily, adding that the family simply treated him like a “black sheep.”
Nor was Niels Andreas a part of the family group in the Church of Our
LadywhenMr.andMrs.Kierkegaard,togetherwiththeirsonsPeterChris-
tian and Søren Aabye, received communion on July 6, 1832. Precisely a
month later, on Monday, August 6, he ordered a copy of his birth certifi-
cate, which was a required document if one wished to apply for a passport.
On Friday, August 17, he received communion alone; in the communion
register the sexton wrote “Mr. Niels Andreas Kierkegaard, Clerk.” The
followingWednesday,August22,hereadalittleadvertisementintheAdres-
seavisen, informing the public that in the course of the next week Captain
Isaac S. Gibbs intended to sail fro mCopenhagen to “Boston in North
America,forwhichvoyageheisacceptingfreightandpassengers.”Twenty-
three-year-old Niels Andreas was no longer in doubt. He wanted to go to
America, the sooner, the better. The official version was that he wanted to
seekhisfortune. Inalllikelihood—andinPeterMunthe Bruun’sversion—
the truth was that “he could not endure his family situation.”
There is no evidence of how the merchant Kierkegaard reacted to his
son’s decision, but the lure of the unknown and of limitless possibility was
not foreign to him. Indeed, in his own day, he had left the blasted heath of
Jutlandfortheflourishinglifeofthecapital.Still,thedifferenceswerestrik-
ing.The costof aone-way ticketacross theAtlantic wasitself inthe neigh-
borhoodofonehundredtoonehundredfiftyrixdollars.Thatwasconsider-
ably more money than Niels Andreas had at his disposal. Thus he could
only flee to America by borrowing money from the man he was fleeing
from. On Saturday, August 18, 1832, he signed two contracts. The first
document detailed a rather stiff and loveless arrangement concerning Niels
Andreas’sinheritancerightsifAneKierkegaardweretopredeceaseherhus-
band. The second contract listed the amounts his father had advanced him
in connection with his coming journey, point by point: 312 rixdollars and
50 shillings for books, clothing, and other necessities; 300 rixdollars for
freight and passage; and 400 rixdollars in cash and letters of credit; all in all,
1,012rixdollarsand50shillings.Thecontractswerealsosignedbytwolegal
witnesses:PeterChristian,whowasfouryearsolderthanNielsAndreas,and
Søren Aabye, four years younger.
On Wednesday, August 29, 1832, Niels Andreas went aboard the brig
Massasoit of Plymouth. The ship did not sail directly to Boston, however, as
Captain Gibbs decided to sail to Gothenburg in hopes of picking up addi-
tional passengers. As a symbolic augury of Niels Andreas’s fate, the next
day, August 30, Nicoline Christine gave birth to a stillborn son. Not quite
a week later her condition was so critical that they sent to the Borgerdyd38 {1813–1834}