symbolism,rainpoureddownalmostwithoutinterruptionfortwomonths.
Peter Christian could not decide whether to apply for a vacant position at
the university; he finally did so, but no sooner had he got it than a position
at Sorø Academy seemed more attractive to him, and he was once again
compelled to endure “a harsh reprimand” from Mynster. In the course of
thespringhisrelationswithhisyoungerbrotherseemtohavebecomemore
strained, and in his diary he repeatedly noted his attempts to become “truly
reconciled with Søren.” But despite the fact that the two brothers lived in
adjacent rooms, the distance between them was apparently too great.
After the wet winter, hot weather took hold, and during the course of
the summer the city became a virtual oven, unendurable for everyone, in-
cludingthe family’slittle petbird, whosedeath PeterChristian commemo-
rated with an elegant little cross in his diary entry of July 23, 1834. He was
convinced that the bird’s death was an ill omen. His mother had lain ill
with fever for a number of weeks and was still quite sick. Everything was
drooping fro mthe heat, and anyone with money was getting out of town.
Among this group was Søren Aabye, who on July 26 took off for Gilleleje,
a little fishing village on the north coast of Zealand, “in order to spend two
weeks there for the sake of his health,” as his older brother, stuck in the
city, noted tartly in his diary. Four days later this same diary reports: “On
the morning of Wednesday the 30th things were significantly worse with
Mother, so that I feared a stroke. One of Johan Christian Lund’s office
employees was sent to Gilleleje after Søren Aabye, but he could only come
home the next morning.” And by then it was too late. During the night
Anehadpassedawayafteralong,mostlysilentdeathstruggle.Atonepoint,
however, she did mention Søren Michael, who had died fifteen years be-
fore, though not Niels Andreas despite the fact that he had apparently been
quite close to her. The burial certificate lists the cause of death as “nerve
fever,” perhaps caused by the typhus which the family physician D. A. von
Nutzhorn had spoken of several weeks earlier. On Saturday, August 2 the
Adresseavisencarried the following notice, signed by M. P. Kierkegaard,
under “Deaths”: “Onbehalf of myself andof our children, noticeis hereby
given to absent relatives and friends that during the night of July 30–31 my
precious wife, Anne Kierkegaard, ne ́e Lund, age sixty-seven, passed away
peacefully, after almost thirty-eight years of marriage.”
OnMonday,August4,MynsterburiedheratAssistensCemetery.After-
wards he movingly expressed his sympathy to Michael Kierkegaard, who
took in Mynster’s words and then replied: “Your Reverence, should we
not go into the next roo mand drink a glass of wine?” Hans Brøchner
explains that this might sound insensitive but that Mynster who of course
knew Kierkegaard, understood the remark as an expression of emotional
{1813–1834} 45