Kierkegaard

by Stephen Backhouse

  The good headmaster was certainly right to accredit Søren’s family more than his school for the forces which were shaping the man-to-be.

  CHAPTER 3

  Family Life

  Young Søren is asked what he wants to be when he grows up.

  “A fork.”

  “Why?”

  “Well then I could spear anything I wanted on the dinner table!”

  “What if we come after you?”

  “Then I’ll spear you.”

  Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born May 5, 1813. He joined mother Anne (aged forty-five), father Michael (fifty-six), sisters Maren (sixteen), Nicoline (thirteen), and Petrea (eleven) and brothers Søren Michael (seven), Niels Andreas (five), and Peter Christian (four). They all lived at Number 2, Nytorv (“New Square”), a solid and respectable house for a solid and respectable family. No. 2 was a ten-minute walk from the school, and five minutes down from the Church of Our Lady. The spacious plaza out front hosted Copenhagen’s principal meat market and was full of the bustle and pageantry of city life. To the right were the offices of the city hall and high courts. To the left a pharmacy, and further up, the Gammeltorv (“Old Square”) with its famous fountain where patriotic townsfolk would float golden apples on the King’s birthday.

  What might the atmosphere of the Kierkegaard family have felt like? Like any family, the tone of the Kierkegaard home was created by the striking of a few notes in repetition.

  Number 2 Nytorv, the Kierkegaard family home. Søren occupied rooms on the second floor. The house was located next to the city hall and a five minutes’ walk away from the Church of Our Lady. The building was torn down at the beginning of the twentieth century.

  One such note was that of money. The Kierkegaards were comfortably well-off, their security overseen by a frugal and serious man who had acquired his wealth through a mixture of hard work, canny investments, and sheer good fortune. Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard was born into a family of sheepherders in 1756. His family were bonded peasants, traditionally attached to church land in Sædling, a village on the moors of West Jutland (hence the name Kierkegaard, or “church yard”).

  When Michael was twelve years old he was sent to work for his uncle, a wool merchant in Copenhagen. The event saved the hardscrabble family another mouth to feed, just as it saved Michael from a life doomed to poverty. As a mark of his salvation he proudly kept amongst his possessions the document from the village priest releasing Michael from bonded servitude in 1777. In 1780 Michael obtained citizenship and five years later he set up shop with another hosier named Mads Røyen. The mercantile world of Copenhagen was highly regulated, and Mads and Michael had to fight in the courts for the right to sell all kinds of goods normally barred from merchants of their sphere. In 1788 Michael won another concession from the King, gaining Royal permission to deal in East Indian and Chinese textiles, and West Indian sugar, syrup, and coffee beans. Michael was fast becoming more than a humble hosier. In 1794 Michael married Mads’ sister, Kirstine Røyen. Kirstine died, childless, in 1796, as did Michael’s uncle, who left everything to him. Michael married again and began a family. For ten years Michael’s fortune seemed assured, but in 1807, world events caught up with the sleepy market town and its litigious merchants.

  Napoleon Bonaparte was striding across Europe. As part of his long war against England, Napoleon was seeking to close all European ports to British trade. For officially neutral Denmark, the pressure was mounting. The British, fearing Denmark’s prevarication and mistrustful of King Frederick VI’s ultimate allegiance, engaged in a controversial pre-emptive strike. In August 1807 the British Navy placed Copenhagen’s ports under embargo and demanded the surrender of the Danish fleet. No answer was forthcoming, and so the British Navy attacked, relishing the opportunity to try out their latest military technology—William Congreve’s rocket-propelled bombs. Copenhagen burned, many people died, and King Frederick was forced into a humiliating stand-down.

  The cost of rebuilding the city after the bombardment was expensive enough, but combined with punitive measures arising from the King’s continued association with Napoleon, Denmark was plunged into economic chaos. Increasing inflation led the National Bank to declare bankruptcy and in 1813 the Danish “rixdollar” (r.d.) was drastically devalued. In adult life, Søren was clearly aware of the pall that money matters cast over his own identity and that of his family:

  I was born in 1813, in that bad fiscal year when so many other bad banknotes were put in circulation, and my life seems most comparable to one of them. There is a suggestion of greatness in me, but because of the bad conditions of the times I am not worth very much. A banknote like that sometimes becomes a family’s misfortune.

  There is, however, layer upon layer of irony here, as Søren knew full well. For the Kierkegaard family’s misfortune was not monetary.

  Through clever investments and good luck, Michael actually emerged from this time of financial chaos in fine fettle. It was announced that the Royal Bonds that he had invested in would not become “bad banknotes” like the rest of Danish currency. Spared from the effects of inflation, the Kierkegaard family was not forced into poverty in 1813. Indeed the money would go on to become the foundation for Søren’s inheritance, underwriting his literary career and attack upon the Establishment. Michael was wealthier than ever, the Kierkegaards were supported, and, much to his family’s future chagrin, Søren was set up to lob a different kind of rocket-propelled bomb at the sleepy citizens of Copenhagen.

  The constant awareness of money in the family took the form of frugality, which itself was inextricable from the note of tight paternal control that pervaded the home. Henriette Lund remembered of her grandfather: “Obedience was for him not merely a thing of great importance … it was the main prop of his life.” A servant recalled how Michael “was not to be trifled with when he became angry. Not that he shouted or used abusive language, but the seriousness with which his reproaches were uttered made them sink more deeply than if he had made a scene.” Once, when sister Nicoline dropped an expensive soup tureen, Michael did not say a word. He did not need to. His silent disapproval was keenly felt. If he had flown into a rage, it might have been easier to deal with—easily mollified, soon dissipated, quickly forgotten. That this apparently trifling instance survived as a family anecdote long after the principal members had died is testament to the power Michael’s stern silence had over the children. More serious is the story of Søren’s elder brother Niels Andreas. Niels was a bookish lad who was keen to go to university. Michael decided instead that another Kierkegaard was needed to go into business. The two clashed. Niels lost to his implacable father and spent a few dutiful years trying his hand at Copenhagen trade. Niels was unhappy and unsuccessful, and he soon left to seek his fortune in America. The breach with his father was never healed.

  Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, Søren’s father

  Niels’ story is especially sad because, in fact, Michael also loved reading and sported a keen intellect. Thus another dominant family note was that of lively debate, learned discussion, and constant discourse. In other words, the Kierkegaards liked to talk. A lot.

  When Søren set about crafting an intellectual autobiography of sorts in 1842 he had his pseudonymous standin, “Johannes Climacus,” recall the formative times the young lad had with his father. He was “a very strict man, seemingly dry and prosaic, but beneath this rough homespun cloak he concealed a glowing imagination that not even his advanced age managed to dim.” Johannes asks to go out to play, but the father offers an imaginative conversation instead. Taking his son by the hand, the old man walks around and around the room. “While they walked up and down the floor, his father would tell about everything they saw. They greeted the passers-by; the carriages rumbled past, drowning out his father’s voice; the pastry woman’s fruits were more tempting than ever.” Is the story true? In later life, Søren’s family acquaintances affirmed that it could be, one friend recounting Michael proudly stating: “When I can’t s
leep I lie down and I talk with my boys, and there is no better conversation here in Copenhagen.”

  Michael Kierkegaard was not only a canny businessman, he was also a self-made scholar. Michael was justly proud of his literary accomplishments and was often seen book in hand. He favoured German and had taught himself the language, advising his sons not to become too attached to their native tongue lest they become small-minded and provincial. Michael would faithfully work his way through the latest philosophical systems or religious treatise. Unlike much of what passed for intelligent discourse amongst Copenhagen’s chattering class, Michael actually understood what he was reading and could defend his informed opinions. In the Kierkegaard household, articulation was a highly prized commodity. The young Kierkegaard brothers would often sit at their father’s feet while Michael entertained a guest, engaging him in conversation about some latest theological innovation or other. In his unpublished autobiographical account, Søren relates how his heart thrilled at his father’s mastery of argument. Michael, calmly and seriously, would allow the visitor his say, giving him time to build up his case. It was a trap! Just when it seemed that the visitor had created an unassailable fortress, with a few deft questions Michael would bring the whole edifice crashing down. “My father,” said Peter Christian, “was the most gifted man I have ever known.”

  The note struck by the gifted Kierkegaard family conversations was strictly male. Michael did not value educating his three daughters and did not include them in the salon environments he had created at home. Neither did Søren’s mother, Anne, enter into the intellectual cut and thrust of family conversations. Indeed, she was probably illiterate, if the guided pen used on the few official documents she had to sign is any indication.

  Anne Sørensdatter Lund was born in 1768. A distant cousin of Michael’s, she too was of peasant stock. She first properly entered the Kierkegaard sphere when, in 1794, she was hired as housemaid to Michael’s first wife, Kirstine. In 1796 Kirstine died of pneumonia, childless. Within the year Anne and Michael were married and the Kierkegaard clan began. Her one surviving portrait reveals a double chin and a satisfied smile. Anne’s grandchildren remember a genial woman who loved to fuss over her sons and was especially pleased when they fell ill so she could care for them without competing with their father’s witty repartee. Anne lived in her family’s shadow, and it is likely she retained something of the servant in their attitude towards her. Perhaps not even that. Michael did the daily shopping and did not entrust the household accounts to her. Anne was not relied upon to educate their sons, and Michael enlisted the assistance of another woman to train up their daughters. Nevertheless, the union was evidentially successful to a certain degree. Anne and Michael’s marriage was long, peaceful, and fruitful with children. When Anne died, Michael arranged for an ostentatious funeral cortege to take her to her final resting place. Anne’s graveyard memorial (where Michael too would be buried four years later) reads:

  Anne Kierkegaard, born Lund, went home to the Lord July 31, 1834, in the 67th year of her life, loved and missed by her surviving children, relatives and friends, but especially by her old husband, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, who on August 9, 1838 followed her into eternal life in his 82nd year.

  Anne Sørensdatter Kierkegaard, neé Lund, Søren’s mother

  We must hope that she was loved and missed. We do not know if this is the case because the most significant thing about her, from the point of view of a biography of Søren Kierkegaard, is that in the thousands of pages of his copious journals, diaries, articles, and books, Søren Kierkegaard does not directly mention her once.

  People seeking any morsel of Søren’s allusion to his mother must remain satisfied with this thin gruel: in Sickness Unto Death, there is passing mention of a “deeply humbled” wife of an “earnest and holy man” who despairs of forgiveness. The woman must be Anne because the man is certainly Michael Pedersen.

  If Søren was Fremmed to his school friends, then the word most used to describe his father was Tungsind. Melancholy. Weighed down with a heaviness (tung) of spirit (Sind). Throughout his writings Søren often reflects on the note of guilt repeatedly struck in the melancholy Kierkegaard home.

  It is appalling to think even for one single moment about the dark background of my life right from its earliest beginning. The anxiety with which my father filled my soul, his own frightful depression, a lot of which I cannot even write down.

  That their father’s heavy spirit pervaded the family is not in question. Where it came from will always remain a matter of conjecture. What burden did Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard bear? The question is one upon which many people have wondered, not least Søren himself. In a famous diary entry, set apart from the rest of the entries, Søren wrote the following lines:

  Then it was that the great earthquake occurred, the frightful upheaval which suddenly drove me to a new infallible principle for interpreting all the phenomena. Then I surmised that my father’s old-age was not a divine blessing, but rather a curse, that our family’s exceptional intellectual capacities were only for mutually harrowing one another; then I felt the stillness of death deepen around me, when I saw in my father an unhappy man who would survive us all, a memorial cross on the grave of all his personal hopes. A guilt must rest upon the entire family, a punishment of God must be upon it: it was supposed to disappear, obliterated by the mighty hand of God, erased like a mistake, and only at times did I find a little relief in the thought that my father had been given the heavy duty of reassuring us all with the consolation of religion, telling us that a better world stands open for us even if we lost this one, even if the punishment the Jews always called down on their enemies should strike us: that remembrance of us would be completely obliterated, that there would be no trace of us.

  Søren’s “Earthquake” has joined the ranks of the great literary mysteries of the ages. He deliberately suppressed the details, but two stories especially come to the fore.

  “How appalling for the man who, as a lad watching sheep on the Jutland heath, suffering painfully, hungry and exhausted, once stood on a hill and cursed God—and the man was unable to forget it when he was eighty-two years old.” So wrote Søren in a diary entry in 1846. It has the artistic flourish of one of Søren’s many thought experiments. Yet when Barfod found the entry going through Søren’s papers, he showed it to brother Peter. Yes, confirmed the last of the Kierkegaards, weeping. That is father’s story, “and ours too.” There was enough truth in the story at least that out of respect for the family, Barfod suppressed its publication.

  The second story was less obscure, and more socially sensitive. Søren was not illegitimate, but his sister almost was. The upstanding citizen Michael Kierkegaard married Anne Lund a year after the death of his first wife. That Anne was a cousin and an illiterate housekeeper would have been enough to raise Copenhagen’s collective eyebrow. To make matters worse, their first child, Maren, was born only five months after the hasty wedding. Michael was aware of the impropriety of the union, formalising his reticence in the marriage contract itself. A strange, idiosyncratic document, the contract needed special dispensation from the royal courts to confirm its legality. It explicitly mentions the possibility that it may be that “the temperaments cannot be united” between man and wife. In this case, a specific sum was set apart for Anne to go her separate way, and the contract went out of its way to deny her the rights and status of a normal wife. The agreement spelled out the exact amount she would receive in case of death or divorce but denied her the usual rights of inheritance. A yearly amount of 200 r.d. was apportioned to her—equivalent to the yearly wage of an apprentice craftsman.

  Michael would later amend his will to include his wife, and clearly love and affection grew in the marriage. Yet that inauspicious start of his family, coupled with the youthful rebellion of the deeply pious man must have contributed to Michael’s melancholy. Far from dissipating the cloud of doom, Michael’s financial success and his growing family seems to have had th
e opposite effect. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  For people already predisposed to melancholy, the sense of a looming day of reckoning was not wildly implausible: another note struck repeatedly in the Kierkegaard family was that of accident and death. As a young boy, Søren Aabye fell from a tree, landing hard on his back. His family were understandably alarmed and attributed Søren’s ensuing health problems to this event. Much worse, on September 14, 1819, the twelve-year-old Søren Michael died of bleeding in the head after a schoolyard accident when he crashed into another boy on the playground. The sudden death traumatised the family. Three years later on March 15, 1822, Maren died as a result of convulsions. She was twenty-four, the eldest child and the offspring of Michael and Anne’s ill-judged union. Maren had never been well and her death was not a surprise. Middle sister Nicoline died of a fever on September 10, 1832, a few weeks after giving birth to a stillborn son. It was Michael who arranged to tell his beloved daughter straight of her fatal condition. The doctor had wanted to soften the blow but the father insisted. “No, my children have not been brought up like that.” She left behind her husband, Johan Christian Lund, Henrik (aged seven), Michael (six), Sophie (five), and Carl (two).

  Upon breaking with the family, brother Niels Andreas had immigrated to America. Less than a year later, after moving from Boston to Providence, and then to New York, he eventually tried his fortune in Paterson, New Jersey. It was there Niels succumbed to “galloping consumption” (tuberculosis) on September 21, 1833. News of his death struck the family hard, the news made even worse by the apparent omission of his father in Niels’ deathbed utterances. Michael was convinced that the slight was deliberate and was plunged into inconsolable grief.