verses, resembling primitive party songs in their rhyme and rhythm, indicate
their posture of rebellion against the family tradition. Indeed, Høffding be-
lieved that the cause of Poul’s illness was to be found in the principles,
hostile to life itself, by which he had been raised as a child. A generation
earlier those principles had helped foster the genius of the uncle from whose
shadow Poul never succeeded in freeing himself. In one of his few lucid
moments, Poul wrote, “My uncle was Either-Or, my father Both-And, and
I am Neither-Nor.” And this was the person whose proud and hopeful
uncle, back in 1846, had called “the preserver of the family line.” It was
scarcely the cause of much rejoicing to Peter Christian when his nephew
Carl Lund proudly informed him, in a letter dated June 2, 1876, that Peter
Christian had once again become an “uncle”—this time to a baby boy,
whose name was to be Søren Aabye Kierkegaard Lund!
Just before Christmas 1875, when Peter Christian was about to prepare
a sermon, he suddenly became dizzy and fell over backwards. He could still
manage his job and preach at the poorhouse, however. But on March 3,
1876, just before he was supposed to take charge of “Bible readings on the
passion story,” his powers failed him. He was bedridden all that spring,
stricken with “pains on my left side, and near my heart, as well as at the
upper opening of my stomach,” and was plagued by severe religious scru-
ples. On April 23 of that year he tendered his resignation as bishop,not
because of illness but because he felt unworthy to hold ecclesiastical office.
Similarly, in 187 9he returned his royal decorations to the government, and
in 1884 he gave up his legal majority, voluntarily assuming the legal status
of a child. In a letter to the probate court from this period, he cited 1 John
3:15 as the explanation for why he also felt that he could no longer receive
communion. The biblical passage reads as follows: “Anyone who hates his
brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abid-
ing in him.”
One February night in 1888, this peculiar mixture of brilliant intellectu-
ality and the oppressive pietism of the common people, so characteristic of
the Kierkegaard family, finally released its grip on Peter Christian Kierke-
gaard, his soul totally broken.
Today, when you ask people in Aalborg where he lies buried, they don’t
know whom you are talking about.
The Woman among the Graves
His difficult younger brother, on the other hand, knew how to secure him-
self a more lasting place in history. On a loose, quarto-sized sheet of paper,
probably dating from early 1846, he carefully noted his plans, down to the