Soren Kierkegaard

lose themselves, breezing along in their shared gaze, “she suddenly averted
hereyes.”Kierkegaardwonderedatthisbuttheexplanationcameimmedi-
ately thereafter. Regine had seen someone behind Kierkegaard, ap-
proaching on horseback, and had therefore looked away. On the anniver-
sary of their engagement the encounter was more successful, though not
entirely so: “So today she looked at me, but she did not nod in greeting,
nor did she speak to me. Ah, perhaps she had expected that I would do so.
My God, how very much I would like to do that and do everything for
her. But I dare not assume that responsibility; she herself must ask that I do
so. But I have very much wanted to do so this year.” All in all it may have
beenagoodthingthattheirencounterhadbeenthwarted.Kierkegaardwas
not about to “deck her out with celebrity” and become a success. Regine
was not the person who had “first priority” in his life, because, as he re-
minded himself, that person was God. But it was a dialectical affair: “My
engagement to her and the breaking of our engagement are actually my
relationshiptoGod;theyare,Idaresay,religiouslyunderstood,myengage-
ment to God.”
The encounter on Christmas Day in the Church of Our Lady, where
Mynster preached at the vesper service, was unusually intense. They had
encountered each other here during previous Christmas services, but this
year, 1852, there were cryptic circumstances. Kierkegaard had of course
occasionally received letters—via the postal delivery office—from anony-
mous women who had enclosed little gifts, and the thought occurred to
him that among these letters there might perhaps be one from Regine.
Then on Christmas Eve a “little gift” suddenly arrived. “I don’t know how
it happened, but it occurred to me that it might be possible that she could
have done it.” He tells us nothing about the nature of the gift in question.
We are told only that it had some connection to the preface ofEdifying
Discourses in Various Spirits, “but also, unless I am very much mistaken, also
totheprefaceofthoseTwo Edifying Discoursesfrom1843.”Intheprefaceof
thosediscoursesKierkegaardhadaddressedhimselfto“thatsingleindividual
whomIwithjoyandgratitudecallmyreader”—who,ofcourse,hadorigi-
nally been Regine. There are no items among the few surviving letters and
notes that Kierkegaard received around Christmastime in 1852 that could
be linked to Regine, but there must have beensomething.
When he went to vespers at the Church of Our Lady, he had forgotten
about the “little gift,” but when he was about to enter the nave of the
church,justasheturnedintothecorridorontheright,therestoodRegine.
“She was standing there. She was not walking, she was standing there, ap-
parently waiting for someone, whoever it was. There was no one there. I
looked at her. Then she went toward the side door through which I was