In margin: * How would anyone have suspected that such a young girl could go about nursing such ideas. Then, too, it was a very immature and merely vain idea, as the future showed; for if the constituents had actually been present, then the manner in which I broke the engagement would have been absolutely [IV A 107 43] decisive. Precisely such things must give a kind of elasticity. But so A 107 my girl was—first coy and beside herself with pride and arrogance, then cowardly.
[A page removed from the journal ]
it would surely have happened. But with respect to marriage it is not true here that everything is sold in the condition “as is” when the hammer falls; here it is a matter of a little honesty about the past. Here again my chivalry is obvious. If I had not honored her higher than myself as my future wife, if I had not been prouder of her honor than of my own, then I would have remained silent and fulfilled her wish and mine—I would have married her—there are so many marriages which conceal little stories. That I did not want, then she would have become my concubine; I would rather have murdered her. —But if I were to have explained myself, I would have had to initiate her into terrible things, my relationship to my father, his depression, the eternal night brooding within me, my going astray, my lusts and debauchery, which, however, in the eyes of God are perhaps not so glaring; for it was, after all, anxiety which brought me to go astray, and where was I to seek a safe stronghold when I knew or suspected that the only man I had admired13 for his strength and power was tottering.—JP V 5664 (Pap. IV A 107) May 17, 1843
See 232:24:
I am going to try to get rid of the gloomy thoughts and black moods that still live in me by writing something which will be called:
A Leper’s Self-Contemplation.14
—JP V 5666 (Pap. IV A 110) n.d., 1843
In margin of Pap. IV A 110:
It will be a scene between two lepers—the one is compassionate and does not wish to be seen lest he disquiet people; the other wants to revenge himself by horrifying people. The one has brothers and has discovered only recently that they are in the same situation, that the whole family had incurred leprosy.15—JPV 5667 (Pap. IV A 111) n.d.
See 250:30-252:22:
I must get at my Antigone again. The task will be a psychological development and motivation of the presentiment of guilt. With that in mind I have been thinking of Solomon and David, of the relation of Solomon’s youth to David, for no doubt both Solomon’s intellect (dominant in the relationship) and his sensuousness are the results of David’s greatness. He had had earlier intimations of David’s deep agitation without realizing what guilt might rest upon him, and yet he had seen this profoundly God-fearing man give such an ethical expression to his repentance, for it would have been a quite different matter if David had been a mystic. These ideas, these presentiments, smother energies (except in the form of imagination), arouse the intellect, and this combination of imagination and intellect, where the factor of the will is lacking, is sensuousness proper.—JP V 5669 (Pap. IV A 114) n.d., 1843
See 360:9:
Idea:
Recollections of My Life
by
Nebuchadnezzar
Formerly Emperor, Recently an Ox
Published
by
Nicolaus Notabene16
—JP V 5671 (Pap. IV A 119) n.d., 1843
See 280:24-32:
Pages From the Notebook of a Street Commissioner17
Under this title I would like to describe particular districts of the city that have a certain poetic atmosphere about them, such as Kultorvet (this is the marketplace with the most atmosphere), street scenes, a gutter plank, etc., fishing boats. What splendid contrasts—at one moment have his thoughts sweep that boundless view over the water at Knippelsbro, the next become immersed in contemplation of cod and flounder in a tank. Characters would constantly be thrown in—love stories, maidservants, etc. On the whole, it is remarkable what a healthy sense of humor is often to be found in maidservants, especially when they are criticizing the frippery of elegant ladies.
—At present I am making an effort to get every child I meet to smile.18—JP V 5678 (Pap. IV A 132) n.d., 1843
See 354:23-356:2:
19 . . . . . . her. If she but knew all my sufferings during the past year. She should never have discovered anything. But then my whole outlook is immediately changed. In the marriage ceremony I must take an oath—therefore I do not dare conceal anything. On the other hand there are things I cannot tell her. The fact that the divine enters into marriage is my ruin. If I do not let myself marry her, I offend her. If an unethical relationship can be justifiable—then I begin tomorrow. She has asked me, and for me that is enough. She can depend on me absolutely, but it is an unhappy existence. I am dancing upon a volcano and must let her dance along with me as long as it can last. This is why it is more humble of me to remain silent. That it humbles me I know all too well.—JP V 5680 (Pap. IV A 133) n.d., 1843
See 65:25-71:12:
He could turn out to be a fine dramatic character: a man with a profound sense of humor who has established himself as a fashion designer and exerted all his influence and financial resources in making women ridiculous, meanwhile being as insinuating as possible in relation to them, charming them with his flattery and conversation, not because he wanted any favors (he was much too intellectual for that) but in order to get them to dress as ridiculously as possible and thus satisfy his contempt for women, and especially when a fine lady like that found a man who was just as much a fool. —In order to chastise him it could be dramatically planned so that everybody actually considered his malevolently introduced styles to be in excellent taste so that he was the only one who laughed, and yet with perfect right. —Then he fell in love with a girl. He wants to make an exception of her, cannot bear to see her wear the ridiculous clothes he himself has made fashionable in order to prostitute the sex. But he cannot convince her and has to bear the sight of his beloved dressed just like the others.20—JPV 5681 (Pap. IV A 135) n.d., 1843
Addition to Pap. IV A 135:
He gets the women to want to indicate in their dress the group differences that distinguish their husbands; this wins their husbands’ approval and thus everything is prostituted.—JP V 5682 (Pap. IV A 136) n.d., 1843
In margin of Pap. IV A 135:
For example, he designs a new costume for women to wear to church in order to prostitute them there also.21—JP V 5683 (Pap. IV A 137) n.d., 1843
In margin of Pap. IV A 135:
Lines: what is everything in life but fashion—piety is a fashion as well as love and hoopskirts and rings in the noses of savages—I am different from the others only in that I have realized it and come to the aid of that sublime genius in every way until I roar with laughter at the most ridiculous of all animals—man. But there comes the Baroness von der Vüe; she probably will buy herself a new fool’s costume.22—JP V 5684 (Pap. IV A 138) n.d.
In margin of Pap. IV A 135:
I do not cheat my customers. I always use the best fabrics, pure gold, genuine Brussels lace. My only joy is to spoil everything in the cutting and to make something tasteless out of it, for I scorn gold and silver and genuine shawls as profoundly as I scorn the women who swaddle themselves therein.23—JP V 5685 (Pap. IV A 139) n.d.
See 279:28-280:14:
A mentally deranged person who went around scanning all children, for he believed that he had once made a girl pregnant but did not know what had become of her and now had but one concern—to find the child. No one could understand the indescribable concern with which he would look at a child.24—JP V 5691 (Pap. IV A 147) n.d., 1843
See 7, 15:20-31:15:
The Banquet, [IV A 170 63]
instead perhaps: In vino veritas 25
or: Evening
(The basic mood will be different according to the title.)
The narrator goes wandering at the Nook of Eight Paths26 seeking solitude. There he meets a friend, “although he had rather expected to fin
d a frightened bird.” He tells him all about the banquet. The contrast of the deep silence of the forest27 makes the story about the night of pandemonium better, more fantastic.
The talk on Eros.28
The characters:29 Johannes with the nickname The Seducer, Victor Eremita, Recollection’s Unhappy Lover, Constantin Constantius, and “a Young Man.” The last, a very young man, gives a talk in which he proves that erotic love and physical [IV A 170 64] desire are the most ludicrous of all (their frightful consequences30—getting children, plus the fact that a person deceives himself in this lust and merely serves existence). He uses an essay by Henr. Cornel. Agrippa, De nobilitate et praecelientia Foeminei sexus31 (which I have). By using its naivete a comic and humorous effect is assured.
The condition is that each one is to base his talk on a definite and personal experience of love.32 —The young man, however, declares that he cannot provide anything like that since he has always been smart enough to stay clear of it. “One can make a fool of oneself by joining up with a girl who by nature is always a silly flirt.” If one is to have anything to do with them, one must only seduce!
The banquet begins with a situation.33 They are assembled in a festively illuminated hall where dinner music (from Don Juan) is being played; they themselves are dressed to the hilt and each one has a personal waiter. While the dinner music is being played, Victor Eremita rises and proposes that they first sing the ditty:
My Brimming Glass and the Lusty Sound of Song.34
This has an immediate effect upon the gentlemen present, who readily perceive the humor in the singing of a drinking song by such a company of dinner guests, so thoroughly out of keeping with the drinking song period.—JP V 5699 (Pap. IV A 170) n.d., 1843
[V A 33 15] See 199:25-200:25:
Quiet Despair35
A Narrative
In his early years the Englishman Swift established an insane asylum, which he himself entered in his old age.36 Here he is said to have observed himself frequently in a mirror and to have exclaimed: Poor old man!37
[V A 33 16] There were a father and a son. Both were highly endowed intellectually and both were witty, especially the father. Everyone who knew their home was certain to find a visit very entertaining. Usually they discussed only between themselves and entertained each other as two good minds without the distinction between father and son. On one rare occasion when the father looked at the son and saw that he was very troubled, he stood quietly before him and said: Poor child, you live in quiet despair. But he never questioned him more closely—alas, he could not, for he, too, lived in quiet despair. Beyond this not a word was exchanged on the subject. But the father and the son were perhaps two of the most melancholy human beings who ever lived in the memory of man.
From this originates the phrase: quiet despair. It is never used otherwise, for generally people have a different conception of despair. Whenever the son merely said these words to himself, quiet despair, he always broke into tears, partly because it was so inexplicably moving, and partly because he was reminded of his father’s agitated voice, since like all melancholies he was laconic but also had the pithiness of the melancholic.
And the father believed that he was responsible for his son’s melancholy, and the son believed that he was responsible for his father’s melancholy; therefore they never raised the subject. That outburst by the father was an outburst of his own melancholy; therefore when he said this, he spoke more to himself than to the son.—JPI 745 (Pap. V A 33) n.d., 1844
See 360:22:
These days I suffer very much from a mute disquietude of thought. I am enveloped in an anxiety; I cannot even say what it is that I cannot understand. Like Nebuchadnezzar, I must ask not only for an explanation of the dream but that someone tell me what it was I dreamed.38—JP V 5743 (Pap. V A 71) n.d., 1843
See 7-86:
Much of the content of “ ‘In vino veritas’ ”39 will no doubt seem to be terribly sensuous; already I hear an outcry and yet what is this compared with Goethe, for example, Philine in Wilhelm Meister.—JP V 5745 (Pap. V A 82) n.d., 1844
See 71:26:
The Seducer’s talk40 is like what is called shower clouds.
—JP V 5747 (Pap. V A 87) n.d., 1844
See 395:16:
In connection with what I read in Rötscher about the accent on the ethical,41 it occurs to me that in my personal life I, too, used it properly, as both a poet and a speaker, inasmuch as I said with reference to my relation to Regine and breaking the engagement and her certain death: She chooses the scream, I the pain.42 Now I can say that she did choose the scream and I did choose the pain.—JP V 5748 (Pap. V A 88) n.d., 1844
See 183:38:
Lines by an Individual
“As a girl my wife taught me to write short sentences, for at times she sat with me and promised me a kiss at the end of each sentence. Then when I had learned to write short sentences, for which my critic commended me, I was married, and then my wife taught me that writing books was not worth the trouble.”
In margin: Originally intended for the Judge in “The Wrong and the Right.”43—JP V 5750 (Pap. V A 92) n.d., 1844
See 24:19-21:
The stupidity of Grundtvig (who has now gone completely into vaudeville, toward which he has always had a leaning, for example, his featherbrained desire to be a prophet and seer without any intuition of how such a figure must be tempered in accordance with all the crises of Christianity) is that he always wants to have spiritual security. This accounts for his insipid outspokenness and wittiness à la Lars Mathiesen.44 Luckily he selected the words: “Ladies and Gentlemen,”45 strongly reminiscent of Dyrehavsbakken.46 Just like his wittiness are the Ohs! and Ahs! and Eees! of the barenecks, a bodyguard of interjections, the only class of people Grundtvig has won for himself. —He hopes to produce a great effect by talking, yes, particularly in the vein of the vague. But he perhaps could also produce an effect by standing on his head. Eventually the proof of a doctrine’s truth will be to sweat, knit one’s brow, thump one’s head, smile confidently, visibly swoon under the power of the spirit, etc. It is something like Helveg’s47 springing into the pulpit to the honor of Christianity, probably wanting to prove its truth by the fact that he could leap a foot in the air.—JP V 5752 (Pap. V A 94) n.d., 1844
Report
“ ‘In vino veritas’ ”48 is not going well. I am constantly rewriting parts of it, but it does not satisfy me. On the whole I feel that I have given far too much thought to the matter and thereby have gotten into an unproductive mood. I cannot write it here in the city; so I must take a journey.49 But perhaps it is hardly worth finishing. The idea of the comic as the erotic is hinted at in The Concept of Anxiety.50 The Fashion Designer is a very good figure, but the problem is whether by writing such things I am not deferring more important writing. In any case it must be written in a hurry. If such a moment does not come, I will not do it. At present the productivity has miscarried and makes me constantly write more than I want to write.—JP V 5744 (Pap. V A 109) August 27, 1844
The purpose of the five speakers in “ ‘In vino veritas’ ”51 all of whom are Karikaturen des Heiligsten [Caricatures of the Most Holy],52 is to illuminate women essentially but nevertheless falsely. The Young Man understands women solely from the point of view of the sex; Constantin Constantius considers the psychic aspect: faithlessness—that is, of frivolousness; Victor Eremita conceives of the female sex psychically as sex, its significance for the male, i.e., that there is none; the Fashion Designer considers the sensuous aspect, outside the essentially erotic, of the vanity that is more pronounced in a woman’s relationship to women, for as an author has said, women do not adorn themselves for men but for each other;53 Johannes the Seducer considers the purely sensuous factor with respect to the er[otic].—JP V 5755 (Pap. V A 110) n.d., 1844
Stages On Life’s Way.
Studies by Various Persons.
[deleted: stitched together] compiled, forwarded to the press
and
published
by
Hilarius Bookbinder.
(1) in vino veritas (2) about marriage in answer to
objections, by a married man
(3) Guilty?/Not Guilty?
—Pap. VI B 5 n.d., 1844
To the Typesetter:
The entire work is to be printed in large format, like that of Erslew’s Lexicon.54 Medium-sized type the size of that in the lexicon is to be used. The other prefaces found in the work are to be set in brevier. The preface to the entire book [is to be set in type] larger than that of the text.—JP V 5773 (Pap. VI B 8:1-2) January 1845
From draft; see 3:1-6:25:
[VI B 6 77] Aide-mémoire (in old style).
He had obtained it in this way. An old literatus had sent several books to him to be bound, among them these also—forgot them—he died.
[IV B 6 78] He himself had often read them for diversion, yet without understanding them, but because of the beautiful lettering and flourishes let his children practice their penmanship*—until a teachers-college graduate and university student, who was supposed to instruct the children in return for his dinner (and often preached—voice—well educated), made him aware how lucky he was**: that by the printing of such books one could not only contribute to the advancement of good and beneficial learning among the children of men in these days, when faith and money are becoming a rarity among people, but himself earn something and large profits, for which he promptly stipulated ten rix-dollars and a pint of wine on Sunday. He was of the opinion (my learned friend) that the books could not be by one author, but that that literatus had been the head of a fraternity or a society and therefore had preserved the files.
Stages on Life’s Way Page 58
