“My love for Søren Kierkegaard was a spiritual love.”
REGINE OLSEN
“I cannot quite understand the purely erotic impact she made on me.”
SØREN KIERKEGAARD
Every morning Regina woke up and felt like her heart was being torn in two. Part of her longed to leap out of bed, dress quickly and find Søren, and the other half wanted to stay holed up at home to avoid Fritz. She knew that he’d heard the news by now. Olga had seen him the day after the engagement and reported that he’d barely greeted her.
Regina had no idea how to behave. The easy way would be to pretend that there had never been anything between her and Fritz, that they were just good friends, and he was consequently delighted for her. The truth was that with every breath he had spoken of his life as it would be lived at her side.
One week after the engagement, Marie and Johan took Søren and Regina on a picnic. The two couples faced each other in an open surrey driven by Johan’s coachman. They headed to the forest, passing meadows studded with gracious oaks. Sunlight liquified the greens and browns into a medley of stippled, speckled colors.
The surrey swayed, the horses snorted, and Søren’s blacktrousered leg was so close to Regina’s that she could feel the heat emanating from him. She shifted her legs beneath her dark blue, high-waisted, sprigged muslin gown. A gentle breeze rippled the fringe of her blue brocade shawl and the ostrich feathers on her bonnet, and a thousand kisses rippled on the edges of her imagination.
Beside her, Søren stared blankly at the scenery.
“Our uncle wants to give you two an engagement party,” Marie said. Søren bowed his chin over steeple fingers. The thick white points of his stocks pierced his cheeks.
“Don’t make such a face, Søren,” Regina said.
“Poor Søren,” Johan said, tugging on the velvet trim of his greatcoat. “It’s all over for you now. Your life is no longer your own.” He laughed.
“What color dress will you have made up for the party, Regina?” Marie asked quickly.
“Green, I think,” Regina said, leaning forward, her eyes gleaming. “With a new green cape.”
“What about you Søren?” Johan said. “Organizing new outfits? Consulting your tailor?”
“I shall wear black to both my engagement party and my wedding. As will my bride.”
“Not this bride,” Regina said.
Johan’s chins wobbled. He slapped his knee. “No white wedding for you, eh, Kierkegaard?”
“White should be worn only to funerals,” Søren said. His eyes gleamed.
“Stop trying to impress Johan,” Regina said. Søren grinned as if delighted at being caught. “Will your brother come to our party?” she asked him.
“Parties are too frivolous for Peter Christian,” Søren said, pursing his lips.
Regina laughed. “Oh! And you’ll never guess who Mother’s already asked to do my engagement portrait.”
“I give up,” Søren said.
“Mr. Baerentzen!”
“Lucky you,” Marie said. “He was too busy to do mine even though next door.”
“He’s coming round in a week or two,” Regina said, “once the dress is ready. Now, Søren, you can’t escape me by cracking jokes. Who do you want to invite to our party?”
“You,” Søren said. “Only you.”
Johan laughed again, and Regina caught a glimpse of another quick grin creasing Søren’s face. Marie gave Regina a sympathetic smile.
“Please, Søren,” Regina said. “What about your other relatives?”
“Most of my relatives are too depressed to get out of bed.” Søren smiled as he watched the alarmed expression on her face. “But fear not. A few will rally round. You’d better do the lion’s share of the inviting. Is this what it is to be engaged? To make laundry lists?”
“Oh, no! Not at all! Not. At. All. Are you bored? You are! You’re bored to tears. I’m sorry. I so love my ring.” She stripped off her glove and held her hand out for Marie and Johan to admire. “We exchanged rings yesterday,” she said. She glanced toward Søren, but he sat on his ringed hand and did not seem to get the hint.
“Argh! All those diamonds are blinding me,” Johan said, shutting his eyes in mock pain.
“Look,” Marie said, as adept in the art of distraction as Regina herself. “We’re here.” She pointed to the tall, stately beech and spruce trees growing alongside the road. A pathway led into the forest. Johan called out to his coachman, and the surrey turned off the road and then shuddered to a halt.
All through lunch, the forest trails kept beckoning to Regina, whispering to her of possibilities. The moment they cleared the dishes and placed the food back into the huge wicker basket, Regina sprang to her feet. “Who wants to go for a walk?”
“I don’t need to take walks in the forest anymore since I’m married,” Johan said, smirking.
The nerve of him.
“I suppose it would be dangerous for you to go alone,” Søren said, rising slowly to his feet. “All those ravenous squirrels and predatory chipmunks.”
“Don’t go too far,” Marie said.
Regina and Søren strolled along a narrow trail. She hesitated, then took his arm. Ferns carpeted the spaces between the trees. The rich scent of damp leaves thickened the air. The forest became denser; sunlight shot through only in glimmering patches. The colors receded into one.
Søren leaned closer to her. “You are beautiful, Regina,” he said. “I have been dreaming of you for years. And here you are, so close to me, so present, that I am transfigured.”
Inside her boots, she pointed her toes, stretching her body longer. She felt warmer, softer, prettier than she ever had before. The green of the leaves looked more vibrant, the trunks of the birch trees seemed whiter, the bark of the oak trees held more texture than she had ever noticed. And every fifty yards or so her eyes lit on a tree whose leaves had turned a fiery gold. The color seemed to match the burning feeling in her heart, as her heart hammered so wantonly beneath her loosely tied stays.
They reached a clearing, and the sky above shimmered with a hue of blue that seemed more intense a color than she had ever seen, let alone imagined.
Søren’s quick eyes darted here and there among the trees. His lips curved, as if he’d thought of something amusing, but he did not speak. He walked faster. Birds sang from trees all over the forest. The wind rustled leaves. Twigs crunched underfoot. And a strange noise came out of Søren’s mouth.
She glanced over at him.
“Listen to this,” he said with surprise. “I am humming.”
“Is that new?”
“I’ve never hummed before—oh!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Will it last? How can it? I am too melancholy to become a hummer.”
“Shhh,” she said, laying one finger to her lips. “Don’t think so much.”
“Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.”
“Stop! You’re not humming. You’re thinking.”
He grinned. “So are you, my dear. You can’t help it either.”
She glanced about the forest, looking for something to distract him. All around her, amid the trees and the sky, her love lay quivering before her like a pale, vulnerable thing.
“Tell me,” she said, “I must know. When did you first start to love me?”
“The moment I saw you sitting between those two overdone monkeys at the Rordams. I made up my mind then and there that I would have you.”
A smile coursed across her lips, her cheeks, her eyes. A chorus of winged angels seemed to cry out from the forest, singing joyful praises to the Lord God Almighty.
“And I was the first, Søren? The very first one you ever loved?”
He seemed to pause.
She wished she could suck the question back inside her.
He shrugged. “I once cared for Bolette Rordam, but only in a purely innocent, purely intellectual sense, of course.”
“Of course,” she said.
The angels seemed to sing less loudly.
Søren picked up his pace. She peeked sideways at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. His nose looked sharp beneath his tall black hat. His right shoulder jutted forward; his right hand clenched in a fist; his right elbow stuck out at a sharp angle. She longed to relax him, to draw him to her. She rehearsed in her head her questions about her dress, her portrait, her ring, her party, but each sounded like a parody of a newly engaged woman.
“Tell me about your thesis,” she finally said, frowning intently. “What did you say it was on? Irony?”
“Yes. Socratic irony.” He seemed to slow his pace, and she tried not to gloat.
“I wanted to write my thesis on suicide,” he added, “but for some reason the topic wasn’t well received.”
She laughed. “Why Socrates? What does he have to do with theology?”
“Socrates had one advantage over the rest of us.”
“Which was?”
“Socrates knew that he knew nothing.”
“I see,” she said. She watched with pleasure the way his hunched shoulders lowered slightly at her sarcasm. “And the rest of us foolishly believe we know something. No wonder you like the Greeks. Are they all such skeptics?”
He laughed. “Mostly.” His right elbow relaxed. “The thesis is on the underlying irony of life.”
“I see. But what underlies the irony?” she asked, wondering what underlay the clenching of his fingers, the jutting out of his jaw.
He shrugged.
“You can’t go on poking holes forever,” she said, keeping a careful eye on the claw-like cast of his fingers. “That’s like say ing everything is a metaphor. Eventually you have to say
there’s something behind it all.”
“Why?”
“Well, because there is.” Because the Holy Spirit testifies in my heart, she thought, telling me the truth of the Bible every time I open it up. But I can’t prove it. I can’t even speak it out loud without sounding sanctimonious.
“Prove it,” he said.
“You know I can’t. But if you don’t acknowledge it, your professors might burn you at the stake,” she said. And my father will get out his pistols and drive you off.
“Let them,” Søren said, his voice becoming grandiose, his elbow jutting out even further as her spirit sank. “Let them smear me with honey so insects will eat me. I’m not afraid of martyrdom.”
No, she thought, her heart pinging about in her chest. You’re just looking for an excuse to do away with yourself. She grasped a stalk of foxglove and waved the flowers upside down while they walked. He had taken her to the end of her logic. He had taken her to the end of her rope.
She pursed her lips and spoke in her sweetest voice. “If you say everything’s ironic, aren’t you worried your professors will fail you on the grounds you haven’t said anything at all?”
“My dear Regina. If I were to elicit that much understanding from my readers, I would rejoice in my failing grade.”
“Of course. For a whole second.”
He laughed. “How you see through me.” The fingers of his right hand uncurled.
The thrill of victory shot through her face. She had untwisted him. She bit her lower lip, trying to hide the way her mouth twisted upward into a victorious smile. She was so pleased with herself, she felt like humming.
“Your thesis is really that all truth is ironic except Søren Kierkegaard’s, isn’t it?” She let herself smile now, playfully, triumphantly.
“No, no, of course not. Absolutely not.” He clenched his right hand into a fist again, and shook it in front of him.
Her stomach thudded. Anxiety coursed along the same pathway that pride had only moments before. Quick, make him happy again. “Are you leading me down the garden path of philosophy, Mr. Søren Kierkegaard?” She opened her eyes wide and fluttered her lashes.
“I like leading you down garden paths,” he said, running his finger along the side of her cheek so softly she shivered. “You are so charming. So sweet. So perfectly ignorant. I talk of only the most simple things with you.”
She withdrew her hand from his arm. “I’m not ignorant. I know perfectly well that there’s something wrong with your saying everything’s ironic.”
Unleashed, he walked a few paces without her. Then he stopped and turned. In that moment of transition, a hardness came into his face, followed swiftly by softness, and she suddenly saw it all. He was afraid. He was afraid to be vulnerable, afraid of intimacy. All this blustering about irony and subjectivity was to cover over his doubt.
Søren must doubt that God was really strong enough to heal him of his depression. He must doubt that God could bind up the wounds left by the loss of all but one of his beloved family. He must doubt that God could forgive his doubt.
Yet God is at work healing him this very moment. If only he knew. The depth and certainty of her perception gave Regina a feeling of superiority—the kind of superiority that every woman likes to feel over the man she loves. She took his arm and motioned with her chin. They resumed walking in silence. How could she convey God’s power and goodness to him? How?
The wind rose. The leaves rustled. Branches cracked. She lifted her free hand to her eyes to shield them from the unsettled dust. She looked around at the stippled bark of the beech trees, the wildflowers, the broken twigs. It was all so real, so palpable, so God-made. God’s love—His gentle care and concern, His artistry, His intimate, individual attention— spoke to her from every graceful curve of every sunlit tree.
“Don’t you ever look at the ocean,” she said, “especially during a storm, and think how sad it would be if the ocean were just an ocean, the waves were just waves, and the power of it didn’t make you admire and wonder and fear its creator?”
“The ocean scares you, too?” He turned his head and stared at her.
She dropped his arm. They stood still. She had been speaking of faith, but he had heard her doubt.
“Sometimes,” she whispered. An image of the ocean’s powerful, depthless waves beating on the shore loomed in front of her. The shriek and power of the storm, the dark, opaque swells, seemed so random and menacing.
Søren’s eyes blackened. She encircled his pale hand in her gloved one. “But even when I doubt,” she said, “I know that it’s just a moment of doubt. I know that deep down, I love God. I believe in Him. Ultimately, the power I see in the waves points me to the source of that power.”
“How?” he asked. “How?”
The forest faded and the image of her salvation rose before her. It had happened a few months before she’d met Søren. She sat on her bed, dusk falling, tears falling, mourning her sin and convinced of God’s love. Conviction, repentance, and unconditional love rolled through her in a succession of waves. After that, peace. A peace that made every detail of the moment—of her room, the skin of her hand, the printed words on the thin page of her open Bible—stand out in sharper detail than ever before. One moment of perfect clarity. One moment leaping out amidst all the dimmer memories of her life.
“Did you take a leap?” Søren asked, turning over her hand. “Of faith?”
She nodded. She had been so restless, so unhappy, that she had begged God for faith, begged Him, and He had given it.
“You, in your short life? Already?” He turned to her, looking more interested than he had all day.
“Yes.”
“You grasped Christianity inwardly, passionately, with both of your tiny hands, and held on, not letting go?”
She cocked her head to one side. It had only been a moment, after all. “I did once. I can’t say that I’ve held on so tight ever since.”
“No, of course not,” he said. “You couldn’t have. You haven’t suffered enough. You haven’t reached bottom yet.”
“There have been moments,” she said, picturing the vein throbbing on her father’s neck, his mouth an angry gash.
Søren waved his hand dismissively. “No, no. You can’t have real faith until you recognize that at bottom your life is a dark pit, a deep abyss, an emptiness.”
“Mine isn’t.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re not really a Christian.”
She was furious. Her chest heaved. Her breath came in quick bursts.
He grinned. “Not yet anyway,” he said.
“Let’s go back,” she said, turning away. How dare he? Didn’t he know that ever since she had repented and believed, the Holy Spirit had entered her heart, that she was sealed as Christ’s own, forever?
“I may not be a very mature Christian,” she said. “But I am a Christian. Unlike some other people I know.”
He raised one eyebrow high above the other. “Don’t be angry with me. I can help you with your problem.” He took a step closer.
She frowned. “What problem?”
“I can help you suffer. I can help you suffer so much that you will sing.”
“That is the sweetest offer,” she said. “But—no.”
He laughed. His face became pensive. “I learned about that from Peter Christian’s first wife. I lived in the same house with her and Peter Christian the summer she died. She lay in bed, going from weak to weaker. But the more she suffered, the more sweetly she sang. I used to joke with her: ‘Please suffer some more so that I can hear you sing.’”
Søren spoke so tenderly of this woman that Regina wanted, then and there, to be a memory in Søren’s head. “I hope she understood your irony,” she said.
He nodded. “She was lovely, like you. You always understand me. Better than anyone else I have ever met in my life.”
Probably not, Regina thought. I’m just nicer to you, that’s all, because I enjoy making you happy.
Søren reached inside her cape and slipped his pale hands around her waist—the waist now trembling with anticipation. “You have the tiniest waist. My hands can almost meet each other.”
Two more inches and he could encircle her. She sucked in her stomach. Why hadn’t she tightened her corset properly this morning?
Søren closed his eyes and shifted his head from side to side as if smelling the sweetest of flowers.
Something unloosened inside of her. He seemed to sense her moving toward him even before she did, and he swept her in close. He kissed her face and her neck. He pulled off her gloves, one by one, and kissed the tips of her fingers, the palms of her hands, and the softest part of her wrists. He kissed her until her toes curled and her knees buckled and such powerful, depthless waves beat upon the shore of her heart that she wanted to lie upon a bed of fiery gold leaves and succumb to him.
“That was what you wanted all along, wasn’t it,” he said when he pulled away.
“Of course not!”
How did he know?
“We’d better hurry,” he said, grinning. “Your sister will think I’ve ravished you by now.”
“She trusts me,” Regina said, crinkling up her nose. But anxiety beat a frenetic pattern in her stomach, and she picked up her pace. She didn’t have a peaceful moment until she returned to the security of the clearing, her clothes neat, her forty muslin-covered buttons untouched.