master thief feels that he is not understood by his contemporaries, and he
is so “displeased with the existing order” that he wants to violate “the rights
of others,” which naturally ends up putting him in conflict with “the public
authorities.” Buried deep down in these sketches do we catch a fleeting
glimpse of the outlines of an unconscious self-prophecy?
“Things seem to be going well with Søren, and with God’s help he will
bring joy to the old folks,” the Rudelbach sisters had written at the time
Søren Aabye passed his matriculation examinations. For the time being,
however, things were not going so well, nor did he bring the old folks much
in the way of joy. During the summer semester of 1833 he had attended
Professor F. C. Sibbern’s lectures on aesthetics and poetics, then he spent
the winter semester 1833–34 listening to the same man lecture on “the
philosophy of Christianity.” This was better than nothing, but far from suf-
ficient if one was to pass the examinations required for the theology degree.
Everyone could see that Søren Aabye needed a change of atmosphere
both mentally and physically. He had to get out of town.
The Summer of 1835 in Gilleleje
So on Wednesday, July 17, 1835, Søren Aabye traveled north to Gilleleje,
where he took up lodgings at the Gilleleje Inn, Christoffer G. J. Mentz and
his wife Birgitte Margrethe, proprietors. He remained there for more than
two months, too long a time for him to pass unnoticed, and sure enough,
the locals were soon calling him “the crazy student.” According to Israel
Levin, whose well-tuned ears were matched only by his gossipy mouth, the
local inhabitants could recall how the “chambermaids [had been] confused
and frightened by the way Søren Aabye looked at them when they entered
his room.” Apparently he was able to do something with his eyes.
He kept in contact with the family home by means of various little notes,
now lost, whose receipt Peter Christian registered in his diary. Presumably
it was also Peter Christian’s responsibility to see that, at regular intervals,
letters with cash, packages of cigars, and hampers of newly washed clothes
found their way to the university student in his splendid isolation. On July
4, his father—in the only surviving letter from his hand to Søren Aabye—
reported that everything was as usual, which unfortunately included his
colic and his continually “increasing difficulty in writing.” Displaying a
solicitude that far exceeded anything he ever showed Niels Andreas, the
father signed his short epistle in the trembling handwriting of an old man:
“Your deeply loving and utterly devoted father, M. P. Kierkegaard.”