Soren Kierkegaard

tory on Kronprinsensgade, to establish a steam bath, making use of the
surplus steam generated by the steam plant he used in the production of silk
hats. It is not known whether this was the place where Kierkegaard, having
finished writingWorks of Lovein 1847, embarked upon the bath cure he
termed “disgusting, ”but it is possible.
The poor state of public sanitation bore its share of the blame for the
high mortality rate that Professor Fenger investigated and charted statisti-
cally shortly before the outbreak of cholera in 1853. His tables demonstrate
that the average life expectancy for Copenhageners in the five-year period
from 1840 to 1844 was thirty-four for men and thirty-eight for women; in
the countryside the average life expectancy was greater than fifty for both
sexes, so no one could doubt that Copenhagen was not the place for tender
souls, not to mention frail bodies.
Other matters necessitated a more mental sort of mobilization. In 1849
Kierkegaard wrote retrospectively: “When I rented the apartment in Tor-
nebuskegade, my idea was to live there for half a year’s time, quietly re-
flecting on life, and then to seek a [pastoral] appointment. Then confusion
suddenly broke loose. For a couple of months there was a situation in which
I might perhaps have been penniless the next day and would literally be in
financial straits. That took a severe toll on me. ”The Slesvig-Holstein war
caused the money markets to fluctuate, and Kierkegaard lost close to seven
hundred rixdollars on his royal bonds, an investment that he very ruefully
called “the stupidest thing I have done ”and viewed as a genuine lesson.
The government’s plans to collect an income tax also did their best to depress
him. But Kierkegaard got away with nothing more than a scare. His tax bill
for the third quarter of 1850 amountedin totalto five (I repeat:five) rixdol-
lars, the “pastor, parish clerk, and sexton money ”that no one could escape.
At this time the outbreak of war meant that Anders was called up for
service—“they took Anders from me, ”he wrote unhappily in his journal.
“He is in realitymy body, ”Kierkegaard once said to Hans Brøchner. Anders,
who planned someday to become a police officer, was more than just a
useful factotum. In September 1847, when he asked his master for a recom-
mendation, he received the following testimonial: “The applicant has been
in my service since May 1844. Since that time he has satisfied even my
most fastidious demands so completely that I can truthfully and emphatically
recommend him in every respect. Sober, moral, always mentally alert, un-
conditionally dependable, used to keeping quiet, not without a certain de-
gree of intelligence, which enables one to allow him to take care of things
a bit on his own. He has been so indispensable to me that I would truly be
delighted to keep him in my service. To my way of thinking, that is the
highest recommendation I could give anyone. ”Kierkegaard’s recommen-