“A party [was] held some time after the engagement for a group of young people, mostly Kierkegaard’s nieces and nephews.”
HENRIETTE (“JETTA”) LUND
“Do you ever get bored at parties, Regina?” Søren whispered to her. His voice was, as it had been for the last six weeks, intimate and mocking at the same time. Regina’s new green dress made a soft rustling whisper as the two of them stole into the room where the Jorgensens were soon to hold their party. The room had a subterranean feeling to it. It had a low ceiling and one leaded-glass window, but the earth had been tunneled through to reach up to the November sky. Frost crept along the edges of the window pane. Heavy, carved oak furniture crowded the room, making it seem even smaller and darker than it was. The light of three lit candles danced from a wall sconce, creating an intimacy that drew Søren and Regina closer together in the darkness.
“No, I don’t plan on being bored at my own engagement party,” she whispered back. “You will be nice to everybody, including my elderly grandparents.”
“I am especially adept at handling elderly grandparents.”
“Good. Why do you ask if I’ll be bored?”
“Because I always feel restless at parties,” he said.
“Why?”
“It comes from ignoring the infinite inside of me.”
Not that again.
“Maybe you’re just shy,” she said. “Or bored because not every conversation centers on you.”
He laughed. “Do you really think me so very selfish?”
She nodded. “Yes. I know you, because I’m the same. Everyone is.”
Søren seemed not to hear her. He wandered over to inspect the wooden carvings on the doors of a tall oak chest. The upper panel held the initials and coat of arms of her uncle’s ancestors. Each of the lower panels depicted a different biblical scene in bas relief: Jacob wrestling with the angel; Jesus healing a sick woman; Boaz embracing Ruth, who leaned away but looked happy.
Søren was riveted on the panel that showed Abraham tying Isaac to the altar. Isaac’s mouth was twisted in anguish; Abraham’s eyes were lifted to heaven. There was no sign of the ram caught in the thicket. Søren traced his fingers along the wooden carving of Abraham.
Regina wished he would trace the curves of her face instead.
“I can’t stop thinking about Abraham,” Søren said, now caressing the thick ropes around Isaac.
“I can’t stop thinking about our party.” Regina twisted her mouth into the shape of Isaac’s. “What if no one comes?”
“I long for that sort of order from God,” Søren said. “To kill my most beloved thing. It would strengthen my faith.”
“You would want God to tell you to kill the person you most loved in all the world? That’s ridiculous,” Regina said. She placed her hand along the triangular panel on the front of her green dress. The narrow band of lace etched a line across her chest.
“Yes, precisely! It is faith in the ridiculous. Faith in the absurd. Faith in the unethical. A leap into the unknown. It is believing that even if you renounced the thing you most loved, you’d get it back, just as Abraham got Isaac back from the dead, as it were.”
“Really? Then what are you going to renounce?”
“Prunes.”
She laughed. “Do you think Peter Christian will change his mind tonight and come anyway?” She spoke in her most distracting, most beguiling voice.
“I long to become so absorbed in the service of the spirit that it would never even occur to me to obtain food or drink,” Søren said, pointing to the long tables laden with goose liver, smoked mackerel, and herring with onion.
“You wouldn’t last very long,” Regina said. “About three days maximum, I think. The thirst would do you in first.”
“If I had been Abraham,” Søren went on, “I would never have told Isaac that God had commanded me to sacrifice him. I’d rather Isaac think me a monster than that he hate God.”
“Of course you would have told him,” Regina said. “I know you. You couldn’t have helped yourself. Even if you didn’t tell him up front, you’d have dropped hints for the rest of your life.”
Søren finally turned to her and grinned. “Aren’t you supposed to be agreeing with everything I say? Or did all that fly out the window when I asked to have you?”
“It flew out the window,” Regina said.
He laughed. He looked so handsome when he laughed like that. She wished her grandparents would arrive now, so they’d see him at his best.
Søren touched her cheek. His fingers felt so soft against her skin that she wondered if his fingers had been made for that very thing, if they’d been carved by God for the express purpose of caressing her cheek.
Regina’s gangly uncle walked into the room and then stopped, making all three of them conscious that he had interrupted something. The apology in his smile seemed to say, “Ah, I remember what it was like to be in love.”
“Your first guests have arrived,” he said as a maid bustled in to light the rest of the candles.
Excitement shot through Regina. The widow Rordam floated in, swaddled in a huge black brocade dress. She was followed by her four daughters and her son-in-law. Regina watched the ironic smile twisting Søren’s face when he greeted Bolette and her husband. Then Mrs. Olsen wandered in with her parents. The sight of her tall, handsome grandfather and her petite, beautiful grandmother always made Regina smile. Nothing could go wrong when they were around. The Councilor strode in next. He took one look at the crowd and headed for the schnapps. Søren’s cousins arrived. Emil Boesen, one of Søren’s few friends, inched into the room, his spectacles gleaming. Everyone greeted Regina, congratulated her, and then cornered Søren. Søren shot helpless looks at Regina every few minutes, and she had to cover her mouth to hide her laughter.
As the party progressed, Regina watched to make sure everyone was happy. She spotted Søren’s young nephew and niece, Henrik and Jetta Lund, cowering in a corner and she dispatched herself to their rescue. Despite her short skirts and the two braids that hung down her back, Jetta spoke with the seriousness of an adult. She could not talk enough about her uncle Søren—his fine expressive eyes, his kindness, his playfulness and sense of humor. Jetta had a thin, sharp face, but it softened when she discussed her uncle. She’d even adopted many of Søren’s speech patterns. “I suffer from melancholy, too, just as he does,” she suddenly confessed.
“Surely not, Jetta,” Regina said, turning her back on the girl. “Henrik,” she said, “tell me about yourself.” She asked him gentle questions. Was he a student? How often did he see his uncle Søren? What were his favorite memories of his uncle? Henrik blossomed under her attention. He, too, seemed to idolize his uncle and told her stories of Søren’s kindness to him and his sisters when they were younger. Basking in a rosy glow of mutual appreciation, Regina surveyed the scene with pride. This was her very own engagement party, and everything was going better than she could have imagined.
“What a lovely group of friends,” her grandmother was saying to Søren. “And everyone looks so happy!”
“Yes,” Søren said, “man is always happiest in a herd.” Her grandmother laughed.
Søren began to cough. He became convulsed by coughing. Regina stopped talking, mid-sentence, and stared. Her grandmother pulled out an embroidered handkerchief. Søren rammed it to his lips. The handkerchief turned dark red, a black red. Regina screamed. Everyone stopped talking. Henrik rushed to Søren’s side. The Councilor stormed over. Søren coughed some more. He doubled over, giving himself up to the coughs, and reached for his own handkerchief. As he removed the embroidered one from his mouth, blood spilled on the dark wooden floor, black on black.
“Father,” Regina cried.
“I’m fine,” Søren muttered. He coughed up more blood.
“I’ll take him,” Henrik said. The Councilor put a hand on Søren’s arm, but Søren shook him off.
“Let Henrik,” Søren started to say, then he sputtered. Bent over, without looking at Regina, Søren crept out gripping Henrik’s arm. The Councilor followed at a distance, then returned.
Hushed silence gripped the room. “We should call the doctor for him,” Regina said. “We must call the surgeon.” She said it so many times that her father left and sought out the surgeon himself. The guests drifted away one by one, whispering solicitude, pressing their hands to hers and assuring her that her fiancé would recover. Her father returned an hour later to say that the surgeon’s services had not been required. Søren already had his own doctor.