ers; countless venetian blinds, curtains, and sun blinds; one bottle eau de
cologne, ruler, paper press, scissors, stool, writing desk, desk chair, wicker
chair with embroidered seat, lacquered rocking chair, books of music, table
bell, clothes brush, gilded plaster figurines, bronzed ship’s eagle, fire tongs,
bellows, air cushion, walking sticks, lantern, funnel, thermometer, coffee
canister, stepladder, pink duvet cover, light duvet with striped cover, large
pillow, embroidered foot-warmer, cylindrical sofa cushions, sofa bolster,
wool socks, silk handkerchieves, black silk cravats, dickies with attached
collars, woolen underwear, checked dressing gown, morning cap, slippers,
cap, tin bucket, brass spittoon, folding fire screen with two wings, yellow-
painted table, washstand, flower trellis, tin savings bank, entry light, popover
pan, copper pudding form with cover, waffle iron, pan balance with
weights, water barrel, axe, clothes iron with heating elements, sack con-
taining three pounds of feathers. Hans Brøchner called this a “modest” col-
lection of household goods, but at the auction it fetched the quite tidy sum
of 1,004 rixdollars, 2 marks, and 15 shillings. Peter Christian purchased a
mahogany sofa, for 27 rixdollars and 3 marks, a bit high, but then—ac-
cording to the assurances given by Johan Christian Lund, who bid for him at
the auction—it had, after all “recently been generously stuffed with curled
horsehair and upholstered with woolen material, and was excellent to sleep
on in a pinch.”
Then, the next week, Kierkegaard’s books went under the gavel at an
auction that had been advertised with unusual diligence: InAdresseavisen
alone, there had been ten advertisements since the first week of March,
including a large advertisement on the front page of the paper on April 8,
the first of the three days the auction was to last. The auction was held in
Kierkegaard’s rooms, from which the furnishings had now been removed,
but people were nonetheless packed in quite tightly because attendance was
much greater than had been expected. Book dealer Lynge was flabbergasted
at the bids; everything went “for enormously high prices, especially his own
writings, which went for two or three times the bookstore price.” The total
of 2,748 books in Kierkegaard’s library brought in 1,730 rixdollars. Among
those who bid were A. P. Adler, Hans Brøchner, Henrik Lund, Andreas
Rudelbach, Christian Winther, the actor Frederik Ludvig Høedt, as well as
book dealer Lynge himself. People from the Royal Library also turned up,
acquiring about fifty books for their institution, almost all of which have
been preserved in their original bindings. A couple of weeks after the auc-
tion—a bit late, one might think—Morgenposten, the organ of the peasant
party, cleared almost its entire front page in order to play up the event.
After column upon column attacking the clergy, the paper stated: “But,
thank God, the auction... offered many important and welcome indica-
romina
(Romina)
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