city stifles what is highest, it nonetheless also has its good side—it contains a
continual corrective that hinders extravagances.”
The extravagance of being eccentric, for example.
“The School of Abuse”
So Kierkegaard remained in Copenhagen in the expectation that his literary
productivity must now become “identical with being at the mercy of mock-
ery and scorn.” His expectations were more than fulfilled. Copenhagen had
previously offered him a daily “people bath,” a diverting mental health
measure that provided him with positive psychological side effects. Now
Copenhagen was no longer the capital of Denmark but “a closed-in little
hole par excellence, a rotting swamp” populated by a howling mob whose
stupid stares and giddy giggles followed Kierkegaard everywhere he went.
He was “deprived of ordinary human rights, was abused with indignities
every day,” and felt himself to be a “wretched plaything for the amusement
even of schoolchildren.” He could no longer breathe in the streets but took
the air in his journals, which teem with little reports of various predica-
ments: “Every butcher boy believes that he is almost entitled to insult me
on orders issued byThe Corsair; the young university students grin and
giggle and are happy that a prominent person is trampled down; the profes-
sors are envious and secretly sympathize with the attacks, repeating them,
though of course they add that it is a shame. The least thing I do, even if
I merely pay a visit to someone, is mendaciously distorted and repeated
everywhere. IfThe Corsairlearns of it, it prints it, and it is read by the entire
population.” The consequences were terrible: “The man I have visited is
thus put in an embarrassing situation. He almost becomes angry with me,
and he really cannot be blamed for this. In the end I will have to withdraw
and associate only with people I don’t like, for it’s almost a sin to associate
with the others.” It was not just the city that had shrunk, the entire nation
seemed to have been reduced: “Denmark is a very small and petty country
where everyone knows one another, where fear of man is the highest God,
where being seen as ridiculous (whether justifiably or not) is what is most
feared. These ratios spell the country’s ruin: Denmark is subsumed under
Copenhagen; Copenhagen becomes a provincial town.” That was probably
the way things always will be, but Kierkegaard dreamed back to days of
yore, forgetful both of historical and geographical proportions: “Poor Den-
mark, from having had a great name as a European state, you have now
sunk into insignificance, finally to being a provincial town—that’s all.” Or,