pearance, because by having done so he had risked letting Kierkegaard’s
“well-deserved punishment make him into a martyr in his own imagination
andeo ipsointo a ‘witness to the truth’ in that same imagination.” It was
thus not sympathy but tactical considerations that induced Ingemann to
counsel Martensen to tread more softly. As for Kierkegaard, Ingemann con-
tinued as follows: “He is a hollow, dialectical sleight-of-hand artist, who
permits the truth to show itself and then disappear under a rigid monk’s
cowl, which is really a clown’s hat. In my view, unbounded pride and vanity
and a great deal of other baseness peep out through the aesthetic rags and
holes with which he adorns himself—and meanwhile he deepens and deep-
ens the gulf between himself (as well as his admirers) and the Christianity
he preaches.”
Ingemann was capable of other and greater accomplishments than writing
the saccharine hymns for which he is so well-known. Putting the truth in
the mouth of a clown directs us forward in time, towardder tolle Mensch,
the mad person, whom Nietzsche, less than a generation later, would send
staggering around, bearing a lantern in broad daylight, proclaiming the
death of God.
Virginie and Regine—to Lose What Is Most Precious
In the midst of all these goings-on, far away in a tiny corner of history,
Gude became the father of a little daughter, Emma Dorothea. On February
2, Martensen sent his congratulations and added a couple of remarks con-
cerning Kierkegaard’s article about the two newest witnesses to the truth:
“You may perhaps not have had occasion to read Kierkegaard’s latest fanati-
cal article, written with vulgar vehemence. It is the sort of thing that makes
one concerned for his mental state. What is certain is that the Kingdom of
God does not approach us by such means....Iwould hope that people
might now leave him entirely to himself and not get involved with him.”
When Martensen wrote again two weeks later, it was—in marked con-
trast to the many matters of principle that flew back and forth between these
intransigent men—about a profoundly personal matter: “I hereby share
with you the sad news that our little Virginie, who was now half-a-year old,
died yesterday from convulsions and pneumonia. This event has especially
caused much mental grief for my wife. God grant us the strength to bear
this and every cross that God wills us to bear!”
While the Bishop was getting ready for the burial and the grave digger
hacked away at the frozen earth so that the child’s coffin could be lowered