Soren Kierkegaard

subsequent identification) Rasmus Nielsen himself. In any case, Martensen
is extremely eager to enter “into the heavenly Jerusalem with full pomp,”
and since he would like to have company, he is compelled to beat his own
drum a little. So he asks, “Do you know what I am?” “No, Good Lord,
how should I know that?” Nielsen replies impertinently. This irritates Mar-
tensen so much that he completely loses control: “Now, listen here, and I
will tell you in direct communication. I am, in my view, dogmatics incar-
nate, objective, essential churchmanship.”
Nielsen “the rag” still does not understand all this dogmatic hocus-pocus,
but he unhesitatingly proposes that the two recognize one another: “Now,
understand me well. You are a hero, I am a rag. You are a great hero, I am
a great rag. You are great in your field, I am great in mine. Shouldn’t we
two great men agree to recognize one another?” Martensen does not feel
tempted to participate in this sort of dialectic of recognition, and Nielsen
therefore provides assurances that he has always been hardworking and that
deep down he is “full of ferment.” Indeed, he confesses, “even though I
have never found repose in any abiding form, I have nonetheless continually
searched after some contents.” This is rather bluntly put, but Nielsen goes
a step further in the painful genre of confessions, telling Martensen that no
matter what he wrote or when he wrote it, “experts were immediately able
to see that I am a tiresome imitator, and every literary huckster congratu-
lated me on my talents as a copycat.”
Terrified at this display of penitence, Martensen wants to know how
things went for Nielsen in the underworld. So Nielsen recounts how,
shortly after his death, he came to a “great, wide, deep river that I ultimately
had to cross. Finally, when I could not find any way for a person to get
across, I cried out for help. A man who stood on the other side...”“Was
it someone with a cap?” Martensen interrupts rather frantically. But Nielsen
doesn’t know, he remembers only that someone called out in a demanding
voice, “Soul, what are you?” to which Nielsen humbly replied: “Lord, in the
world I was nothing and am nothing to God. Have mercy upon me and
help me across the river.” The man on the other side of the river com-
manded Nielsen to remove his clothes and jump into the river; then he
would be received with open arms. But Nielsen hesitated. The river was
deep and wide, and when he dipped his fingertips into the water, flames
flared up, completely covering his hand. “Then I whimpered and begged
the man please to have mercy upon me, because I could not do it and I did
not dare to throw myself into such a stream of fire.”
Martensen supposes that the man became annoyed and chased Nielsen
away, but no, Nielsen replies, he did not: “He threw a bridge across the
river and ordered to me to come as I was. And I did so, profoundly grateful