Soren Kierkegaard

outside of the envelope, “To Mr.Cand.Levin / by my hand,” and in the
message itself he decreed: “All immortalization of the handwriting is strictly
forbidden.” This was a private and humorous little apology, and on January
17, 1846, Levin’s album was published; it later found its way to Kierke-
gaard’s bookshelf—though without a dedication from the author!
From the many notes that survive we can see that Levin generally came
to Kierkegaard’s in the morning, at half past ten or half past eleven, or in
the afternoon, at a quarter past or half past three .He served as Kierkegaard’s
secretary from 1844 until 1850 and was involved in the work onStages on
Life’s Wayas well as with the proofreading ofThree Discourses on Imagined
Occasions,Concluding Unscientific Postscript,The Lily of the Field and the Bird
of the Air, and to some extent alsoPractice in Christianity .The situation on
one “Tuesday morning” of uncertain date gives us an impression of the
hectic circumstances under which book production took place: “Dear Sir!
They are waiting at the printer’s .I am standing here at the printer’s—
waiting .I am leaving here and waiting—and I expect that you will make
haste .Your stylistic exactitude prevents me from worrying about overhasti-
ness .So haste is of the essence—every day is precious to me .Yours
respectfully / S .Kierkegaard .” Not even when he was busy could Kierke-
gaard refrain from dialectics.
During the busy and work-filled years from 1844 to 1846, Levin could
become almost a regular part of the household: “At times I spent up to eight
hours a day with him .Once I ate at his house every day for five weeks.
Merely providing nourishment for his hungry spirit was also a source of
unending bother .Every day we had soup, frightfully strong, then fish and
a piece of melon, accompanied by a glass of fine sherry; then the coffee was
brought in: two silver pots, two cream pitchers and a bag of sugar which
was filled up every day.” This was different from lounging about at the
Student Association, drinking oneself into oblivion and talking oneself
hoarse! But then came one of the moments Levin hated .No sooner was
the coffee brought in than Kierkegaard went over and opened up a cup-
board “in which he had at least fifty sets of cups and saucers, but only one
of each sort.” Levin thought the cups revealed signs of a strange mania for
collecting things, and he was similarly unable to understand why Kierke-
gaard had assembled such an “astounding number of walking sticks” which
merely stood out in the entryway, taking up space .“Well, which cup and
saucer do you want today?” Kierkegaard asked, standing in front of the
cupboard .Levin could not have cared less and merely pointed wearily into
the mass of china, but this sort of arbitrariness was not tolerated—Kierke-
gaard wanted an explanation .So Levin had to search his soul in order to
justify his choice.