man; this can be seen from the many works he cites in his dissertation. And
yet it can also be seen from the dissertation that he must have read still more
works—for example,Fear and Trembling,Anxiety,Either/Or—which he
does not cite.” There was even a kleptomaniac in his immediate family:
WhenPeterChristianbegantowriteforandtoedittheecclesiasticaljournal
Continuations from Pedersborg, the younger brother ascertained to his horror
that Peter Christian “is borrowing a bit from me,” and it irritated Søren
Aabye that he was the only one who noticed it, inasmuch as Peter Christian
was of course viewed as a Grundtvigian. “They have treated me in shabby,
disgusting fashion; a national crime has been committed against me, treason
bythe contemporarygeneration,” Kierkegaardwrotein hisjournal in1848.
He had no one to whom he could turn for understanding, and he had
become a more or less superfluous person. All the while, however, other
authors were plundering him and publishing the stolen property in various
pieces that were reviewed and praised, though no one would dream of
mentioning the name of the man who was the source of their ideas: “My
name is never mentioned. Of all the authors now living, I am the only one
without any significance, the only one who is not the source of a new
trend—because the others are.”
One of these others was Magnus Eiriksson, who presented his daffy deft-
ness in a work with a lengthy title that was typical of this Icelander:Is
Faith a Paradox “by Virtue of the Absurd”? A Question Occasioned by “Fear and
Trembling, by Johannes de silentio,” Answered with the Assistance of the Confiden-
tial Communications of a Knight of Faith, for the Common Edification of Jews,
Christians, and Mohammedans, by the Brother of the Aforementioned Knight of
Faith, Theophilus Nicolaus. Kierkegaard quite correctly sensed that even in
thetitleEirikssonhadproducedanastybitofkitsch,insinuatinghimselfinto
Kierkegaard’s style : “See, this is what happens when such clumsy bungling
ventures an opinion on a work of art....Alas, how sad it is to live in such
petty circumstances, where there is virtually no one who really has an eye
for an authentically executed work of art. Keeping track of all the strands
in that subtle design—something that has cost me days of assiduous work,
enormous effort, an almost sleepless dialectical perseverance: For other peo-
ple, this does not exist at all. I am simply identified with my pseudonyms.”
Moving Days
On April 18, 1850, Kierkegaard left his expensive apartment on Rosenborg-
gade and moved to Nørregade, where he had also lived in the early 1840s.
This time, however, he was on the opposite side of the street, in number