Soren Kierkegaard

Producingthe interesting situationrequires combining intimacy and dis-
tance, practicing the art of controlled self-abandonment, so that one never
allows oneself to be carried away, but always merely notes the passions
murmuring just under the surface, all the while observing them as they leave
their mark on the woman one is confronting .In the interesting situation,
theoretical incompatibles such as nature and intellect are brought together,
producing a hybrid form which in its tension-filled union of opposites is
pretty near the closest one can come to avisualizedparadox .And at one
point, revealing a peculiar lasciviousness, Johannes is able to demonstrate
that it is now possible to “produce [in Cordelia] the indescribable, captivat-
ing anxiety that makes her beauty interesting.”
If the maneuver is to succeed, however, a markedlyindirect methodmust
be employed .Indeed, various sorts of evidence—including the recurrent
depictions in Johannes’s diary of extremely detailed and well-drawn erotic
situations—confirm that it is theindirector theambiguousthat is the very
formula of the situation .In one of these depictions we see him on the way
down Østergade when a “little miss” suddenly decides to rush right into
his field of vision, which gives rise to the following monologue: “If one
cocks one’s head a bit to the side it might be possible to penetrate under
the veil or the lace .Beware, a gaze from below such as this is more danger-
ous than a straight-ahead gaze... .Undaunted, she walks on, fearless and
flawless .But beware, here comes someone: Lower the veil, don’t let your-
self be sullied by his profane gaze .You have no idea—for a long time, it
might perhaps be impossible for you to forget the repulsive anxiety with
which it affected you.”
As the observer of another observer who is observing the “little miss,”
Johannes finds himself in a position from which he can offer expert com-
mentary on the choreography of the interesting situation: The girl only just
barely escapes from being subjected to a dangerous gaze of the sort that
comes “from below,” a gaze that normally—Johannes knows this—causes
“repulsive anxiety,” because it peeks in, as it were, on dormant desire .On
the other hand, just prior to this, Johannes himself was actively implicated
when he (very appropriately) found himself at a “public exhibit of fancy
goods,” where he spied on a flashy young woman whom he is firmly deter-
mined to meet again: “My sidelong glance is not so easily forgotten.” And
why not? Because the sidelong glance contains an ambiguity that corre-
sponds to the ambivalence or the “sympathetic antipathy” that typifies all
anxiety .One wants to and yet does not want to.
Johannes will use some of these specialized techniques in order to maneu-
ver Cordelia to where he wants her .And his first strategic move is thus
quite special .For he opens the campaign by conjuring up an awkward suitor