Dr. Kierkegaard. To be opened after my death.” The only difference be-
tween the two envelopes was the color of the wax seal on each; one was
black, the other red. When Peter Christian broke the black seal he gained
access to the following text, which turned out to be his younger brother’s
will: “Dear Brother! It is, of course, my will that my former fiance ́e, Mrs.
Regine Schlegel, should inherit unconditionally whatever little I may leave
behind. If she herself refuses to accept it, it is to be offered to her on the
condition that she distribute it to the poor. What I wish to express is that
for me an engagement was and is just as binding as a marriage, and that
therefore my estate is to revert to her in exactly the same manner as if I had
been married to her. Your brother, S. Kierkegaard.” This letter was un-
dated, though perhaps it had been written at the same time as the message
in the envelope with the red seal, which was dated August 1851 and had
the following text: “‘The unnamed person, whose name will one day be
named,’ to whom the entirety of my authorial activity is dedicated, is my
former fiance ́e, Mrs. Regine Schlegel.” Period. Levin recounted that after
having read the two letters, Peter Christian had had to sit down on a chair
for a few minutes to catch his breath before he was himself again. He had
hoped for a reconciliation, merely a word or two. After all, both letters had
been addressed to him, but they dealt only with Regine, whom Søren
Aabye had apparently regarded as his lawfully wedded wife and had there-
fore made his sole heir. Peter Christian now had the dubious honor of
having to inform the governor on Saint Croix that he was married to a
bigamist!
Quite understandably, Peter Christian shrank from this task, and it was
only a number of days later, after Johan Christian Lund had expressly en-
joined him to inform the Schlegels of the testamentary wishes of the de-
ceased, that he began to think about writing a letter that—at length—was
ready for posting on November 23. The letter reached Saint Croix on New
Year’s Day 1856, and Governor Schlegel, proper as ever, used the next
departing “steam packet” to send Peter Christian his reply, dated January
- After thanking him for the discretion observed by those involved in this
“matter, that, for many reasons, we do not wish to be an object of public
discussion,” Schlegel explained that at first his wife had been in some doubt
concerning the extent to which the aforementioned “declaration of the will
of the deceased” contained a last wish, for in that case it would necessarily
have been her “obligation to fulfill it.” Regine, however, as the husband’s
bureaucratese informed the reader, no longer entertained such doubts, and
she therefore requested that Peter Christian and his coheirs “proceed en-
tirely as if the above-mentioned will did not exist.” She wished only that
she might have “some letters and several small items found among the prop-