hension, but who forgot that other people also have eyes to see with .Just
a single look at this lopsided runt with his too-high shoulders and his skinny
legs would be enough to convince anyone that the contrite confessions
about a “prodigal youth” and other debauchery that he mixed into his ver-
bal lava flows were nothing but empty fantasies or mere peccadilloes, moti-
vated only by his shame at not really having anything to be ashamed about!
But when Kierkegaard then began to congratulate Levin on his “good for-
tune,” as a Jew, in being “free of Christ,” which meant that he could therefore
“enjoy life and make himself comfortable,” Levin had had enough, more
than enough .He excused himself, found his coat from among Kierkegaard’s
many walking sticks, and went back to his little apartment on Farvergade.
Despite the fact that he saw Kierkegaard on a daily basis, Levin’s inability
to tell us more about the man behind the man has annoyed and surprised
some people, who have complained about Levin’s “benighted and pedantic
shallowness.” And it is true that Levin would have done posterity a favor
by setting aside a bit more than the four hours he spent in the middle of
December 1869 conversing with August Wolff, a first lieutenant of artillery
who was ardently interested in Kierkegaard and who subsequently wrote
down the principal contents of Levin’s crotchety monologues .At the time,
Levin was dissatisfied because H .P .Barfod had not contacted him in con-
nection with the publication of Kierkegaard’s posthumous papers .“He has
a chronic sense of having been pushed aside, overlooked, used, and then
kicked away,” Wolff wrote to Barfod after calling on Levin, whom he had
attempted to persuade to write Kierkegaard’s “Life.” Levin objected that
over the years he had “slaved enough for others without recognition,” and
in any case he was not eager to “deal with this semi-inscrutable person.”
Nonetheless, Wolff finally succeeded in getting Levin to promise that he
would write something about Kierkegaard at a later date, which, however,
he never got around to doing, perhaps because he had no wish to go down
in history as Kierkegaard’s secretary.
But he did anyway .At his death, Levin left a collection of 150,000 note
cards, the preliminary work for a dictionary; these cards constituted an im-
portant part of the foundation of the twenty-six-volumeDictionary of the
Danish Language, in which the frequent citations of Kierkegaard are thus on
a solid historical foundation.
“Come Over and See Me for a Bit”
For long periods of time Kierkegaard’s extreme industriousness isolated him
from his surroundings, but since he had no friends there was no one to miss
him—except Emil Boesen .A little stack of undated notes and short letters