Soren Kierkegaard

wide and locked arm in arm, that headed for Christiansborg Castle where
the deputation, with Hvidt as its spokesman, had gone inside with the ad-
dress. The crowd was quiet and the wait seemed an eternity, but at last
Hvidt emerged, his long hair all awry, and proclaimed the king’s reply:
“The ministry is dissolved!” Only those standing nearby could hear his weak
voice, but when they understood what had happened they immediately
cried “Long live the king!”—after which everyone in the square and the
adjoining streets joined in the cheer. The king did not come out on the
balcony to receive the homage of the people, however, so the square in
front of the castle quickly emptied out, with many following Hvidt back
to the city hall where he again announced the king’s reply. Then Hvidt
went, as was his wont, to the Stock Exchange for an hour and from there
to the National Bank to take care of his job as director of the bank. That
evening he dined at the Ørsteds’. So there was no more revolution that
day, and it could hardly have come off more peacefully!
The next day, March 22, a temporary “March ministry” was formed and
absolutism had thus been de facto replaced by constitutional government.
As the minister for church and educational affairs they named D. G. Mon-
rad, who was brought to the capital from his parsonage down on the island
of Lolland, where he had been pottering away at a translation of the1,001
Nights. He could forget all about that, however, because now he was “Cul-
tus Minister.”
From the windows in his apartment at 2 Nytorv, Kierkegaard had been
able to observe the teeming masses of people, but he intelligently remained
inside the house. Nor was Grundtvig, the darling of the people—who him-
self had done so much to make the event possible—having any of it. He
remained in his apartment at the corner of Vimmelskaftet and Knabro-
stræde. And indeed, the majority of the established intellectuals did the same
thing—they stayed home. All day long Kierkegaard heard noises that
made him uneasy and he noted the following in his journal: “Every move-
ment and change that takes place with the help of 100,000 or 10,000 or
1,000 noisy, grumbling, rumbling, and yodeling people (everything just like
the grumbling and wind of the belly) iseo ipsountruth, a fake, a retrogres-
sion. For God is present here only in a very confused fashion or perhaps
not at all, perhaps it is rather the Devil.... Amediocre ruler is a much
better constitution than this abstraction, 100,000 rumbling nonhumans.”
When rebellion broke out in Holstein on March 23, Kierkegaard was not
slow to see the connection: “The unfortunate thing right now is that the
new ministry needs a war in order to stay in power, it needs all possible
agitation of nationalistic sentiments.” Then Kierkegaard broadened his view
to the world-historical stage and passed a judgment that would have made