Soren Kierkegaard

nowitwasopeninguptoscenesofabandonforwhichCopenhagenershad
longedfordecades.OutofregardforTivolirevelers,thegateatVesterport
wouldnow remainopen until late atnight. These werethe months when
Kierkegaardwasfinishingupthemanuscript ofFear and Tremblingandwas
abouttobeginhispreliminaryworkonThe Concept of Anxiety.
IfonelongedforsomepeaceandquietafteravisittoTivoli,onecould
stroll out to Frederiksberg, an idyllic rural spot with a couple of thousand
inhabitants. At Frederiksberg Gardens the greatest attraction was the royal
castle high up on Valby Hill. Until 1839 this was where the patriarchal
Frederick VI spent the entire summer portion of the year, and the great
popular entertainment of a Sunday afternoon was to see His Majesty clad
in anadmiral’s uniform, sailingwith hisfamily in abarge, a sortof broad-
beamed gondola, which he steered through the gardens’ artfully designed
canalsystemforanhourorso,afterwhichhelandedonanislandthathad
aChineseteahouse,whereoboistsplayedwithsuchdelicacyinthesummer
sunshinethatitseemedlikeafairytale.Afterwards,thebetter-offbourgeoi-
siewouldenjoycoffeeinthecozyestablishmentsonAlle ́gadeandPilealle ́.
Kierkegaardlovedthegardens;heoftensatthereabsorbedinhiscigarand
inthesightoftheservinggirls,whomhesketchedmasterfullyinalengthy
passage in “The Seducer’s Diary,” where the girls from Nyboder take top
honors because they are “buxom, voluptuous, fine-complexioned, merry,
cheerful, sprightly, talkative, a bit coquettish, and above all, bareheaded,”
wearing,atmost,somethingasendearingasa“saucylittlecap.”
By contrast, Christianshavn, the part of the city that lay between the
rest of Copenhagen and Amager, was quite un-idyllic, almost downright
unpleasant. Christianshavnhad beenfounded in theearly 1600sby Chris-
tianIV,whohaditmodeledonDutchcities,withcanalsandstreetsforming
arectilineargrid.AfterthelossoftheDanishnavalandmerchantfleets,the
position of Christianshavn had greatly deteriorated because the neighbor-
hood had lost its old mainstays of shipbuilding and the provisioning and
outfittingofvessels.Itistruethatthepopulationofthispartoftowngrew
duringthe1840s,butonlybecausetherewereplentyofpoorpeoplewho
migratedtotheareaforitslowrents.DuringhisperegrinationsKierkegaard
sensedthespecialatmospherethatlayoverthisthicklypopulatedanddismal
partof townwith itsempty warehouses.It wasanother world:“Langebro
[Danish: ‘long bridge’] has its name from its length. It is indeed long for a
bridge, but as a road the length of the bridge is not very considerable, as
oneeasilylearnsbywalkingitslength.Then,whenonestandsontheother
side, in Christianshavn, it again seems that the bridge must nonetheless be
long,becauseoneseemstobefar,veryfarawayfromCopenhagen.”