Soren Kierkegaard

when, in the next sentence, Søren Aabye wrote “that” instead of
“whether”: “Therefore, let me know that you are satisfied by return mail.”
With the assistance of an attorney by the name of Kraft, the property was
transferred to Christiane Elisabeth Bu ̈tzow, who was a stockbroker’s widow
and therefore quite well-heeled. The sale price was 22,000 rixdollars, of
which 10,000 was to be paid in cash and the rest in mortgages at four percent
per annum in the amounts of 5,000 and 7,000 rixdollars, to be held by
Søren Aabye and Peter Christian, respectively. The younger brother thus
made a nice profit on the house during the four years he owned it—he
himself put the figure at 2,200 rixdollars. The sources do not tell us what
Peter Christian thought of his net yield on the transaction, but shortly after
the brothers met in connection with the sale of the house, Søren Aabye
made one of his first genuinely bitter journal entries concerning Peter
Christian, whose “pettiness and envy” was emphasized so much that we
may assume that Peter Christian had blurted out a couple of remarks to the
little brother who had shown himself to be a bit too deft in economic
matters. Peter Christian had apparently lost 1,000 rixdollars in the deal.
This was the not the first time the two brothers had had financial dealings
with each other. At times the thrifty older brother had apparently served as
an interest-free credit institution. On March 26, 1839, Søren Aabye bor-
rowed 300 rixdollars from Peter Christian, who noted it in his account
book: “To my brother Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, to be subtracted from his
share of this year’s income from the house... 300 rixdollars.” On October
20 the outstanding balance of the loan was brought down to 150 rixdollars,
but on December 13 it was up to 450, and Peter Christian noted: “Instead
of his entire debt of 450 rixdollars, on the 14th of the month he transferred
to me three shares in the General Fire Insurance Company... which I
purchased for 150 rixdollars apiece.” When the debt-encumbered aesthete
apparently was unable to raise the money to repurchase his three shares,
Peter Christian sold them in mid-September 1840 and remitted to Søren
Aabye the portion of the sale price that exceeded 450 rixdollars. According
to Peter Christian’s account book, earlier in the year, on January 20, 1840,
Søren Aabye had borrowed the sum of 200 rixdollars, and on February 26
he had in addition borrowed twice that amount, this latter sum in order to
cover onlysomeof the debts the big-spending dandy’s creditors were press-
ing him to pay. Similar transactions between the two brothers took place
in 1841 and 1842, but they seem to have come to a halt after that time, and
from 1843 to 1848 Søren Aabye would borrow money from the National
Bank, where he usually put up his stocks and bonds as collateral.