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    Master Kierkegaard: Summer 1847: A Novella
    Master Kierkegaard: Summer 1847: A Novella
    Master Kierkegaard: Summer 1847: A Novella
    Ebook127 pages2 hours

    Master Kierkegaard: Summer 1847: A Novella

    By Ellen Brown

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    About this ebook

    Master Kierkegaard is a diary kept by a fictional servant in the house of Soren Kierkegaard. The strong-willed but faithful Magda, a well-educated and "fallen" woman from Berlin, considers herself fortunate to have found domestic work in Copenhagen and yet is plagued by her own demons. Two journals set in the summer of 1847, while Kierkegaard wrote his Works of Love, record Magda's reflections on Scripture, literature, and life, focusing on her sporadic yet intimate interactions with her master, Denmark's premier writer, theologian, and philosopher.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCascade Books
    Release dateMar 23, 2011
    ISBN9781621890270
    Master Kierkegaard: Summer 1847: A Novella
    Author

    Ellen Brown

    Ellen Brown is a 30-year veteran foodie. She is the author of more than 30 cookbooks, including several Complete Idiot's guides. She is the founding food editor of USA Today. Her writing has been featured in major publications including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Bon Appetit, Art Culinaire, and The San Francisco Chronicle, and she has a weekly column in the Providence Journal. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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      Master Kierkegaard - Ellen Brown

      Translator’s Preface

      To my reader is owed an explanation of the circumstances under which the work at hand came to light. I have a fondness for used furniture and a constant need for more bookcases. So when I learned of the death of a colleague of mine at the seminary where we both had taught, and, subsequently, the sale of a few remaining household items not taken possession of by his heirs, a mixture of affection, curiosity, and opportunism impelled me to attend.

      One bookcase in particular drew my interest. A simple, almost rickety affair—weakened by much moving about the country for fellowships and teaching posts, no doubt—it held itself together by a series of crosses. Not being a woodworker, I can only give a layman’s description of its construction. Each shelf had two tabs of wood projecting from each end, and these extended through holes cut in the side panels. Likewise, each tab had a hole cut in it, and through these, square dowels had been wedged, thus securing the side panels to the shelves. This simple but ingenious portable design was barely adequate to unify the structure of the whole—it had a tendency to lean to one side or the other—without its accustomed weight of books, nearly all of which had by this time been given away, sold, or thrown out.

      A single volume remained, printed in the German script known as Fraktur, a rune-like font tiresome even to native German readers, but especially trying for those coming to the language later in life. Thus the little book lay pale and neglected on the bottom shelf. Most likely, the executor of my colleague’s estate (a nephew, I believe), intimidated by the mystery of its gothic typeface, had been reluctant to merely toss it into the dumpster. The appeal of Fraktur, commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian and banned during the Third Reich, faded altogether after the Second World War. It was still much in vogue in the nineteenth century, however, which is when this modest and decaying little book, cloth-bound and sewn, is likely to have been produced. No date is given by the publisher, a house in Berlin of no particular reputation engaged in publishing authors of similar stature. The author’s family name is also withheld.

      What follows is an annotated translation of that volume, containing the journals of a woman of feeling and intellect. I will not forecast her circumstances, which are both affecting and instructive, as premature disclosure would weaken their influence upon the reader. To whom this solitary and thoughtful creature may be compared in the history of female writers is a speculation I will not venture upon. Perhaps Kierkegaard himself overstated the case when he wrote that all comparison injures. Yes, it is evil,² but one senses he was not far from the truth.

      I would just add that our author was evidently a student of theology—informally, of course—in her own right, being an attentive reader of the Gospels as conveyed by Martin Luther. Not having access to the same editions against which to compare and correct her extracts and paraphrases, I have translated them as she gave them to us, which is, I like to think, doing justice to her, who had made them her own.

      Evagrius Brooks, Th.D.

      Princeton, New Jersey

      Abbreviations

      1. Kierkegaard, Repetition, 183.

      2. Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart, 208.

      Journal One

      (May 29–July 13, 1847)

      May 29

      I, Magda, a servant in the house of Kierkegaard, answer to the younger living son, who is my master. As I am slight of build and not raised up to do the work of a charwoman, my household duties are light, though not supervisory in nature. Mrs. H. holds the keys. I would be a mere chambermaid had my master not taken an interest in my peculiar circumstances and temperament. His inquisitiveness into these matters is most surprising for two reasons. Before coming to work here three months ago, I had heard unkind things said about him in particular, who is known to have a razor-like tongue, while the whole family, though quite wealthy, seems to have lived and died under a curse of some sort. Copenhagen is not so large and sophisticated a town as not to indulge itself in village gossip of a superstitious and petty nature. I know better than to trust entirely in such reports, therefore. More surprising is my master’s capacity for taking an interest in one such as me, not the most unfortunate of women, but fallen in rank and esteem sufficiently to have suffered rudeness and indifference from previous masters. An afflicted person (particularly an unmarried woman) becomes an easy target for those enamored of their little bit of power, but for those possessing both wealth and nobility of mind, a stinting meanness holds no appeal. He is more generous in every way than most people realize. And more kind.

      My own pride and memory of my former prospects impel me to make plain the fact that I have not sought the sympathy of my master. He has found me out, not through embarrassing questions that might cause me to dissemble, but through sheer attentiveness—no, I mean attention. He has a way of looking at me that feels as though he is looking through me, though not beyond me as in a vacant stare, but with a piercing gaze that picks up my essence and drives it deeper within, yet also out into the light, where I may see it for what it is, without boasting or shame. I hear he is a terrific critic of others, however, especially intellectuals who pretend to lead the elect to enlightenment by means of the catchphrases¹ of the day. I am not surprised. The sharpness of his tongue (or pen) is matched only by the sharpness of his gaze, which cuts through me quite painlessly. But enough of that.

      Tonight’s Holy Scripture² is Matt 13:24–30. Allowing the weeds to grow alongside the wheat until the harvest—what patience this requires! One of my favorite activities is helping the gardener pull weeds. Imagine if we house servants were to let the dirt run its course—alongside the cleanliness?—what nonsense! The weeds, like the dirt, will overtake everything. But I suppose patience looks like foolishness, imprudence, naiveté, to the impatient. The last parable was about a sower sowing seeds. That is my master. This parable is about the servants tending the crop. This is I. And yet we are the seeds and the crop as well. Blessed be God forever!

      May 30

      Moving about the house today, accomplishing little, wanting to be out of doors, I finally told Mrs. H. I would go for a walk. She consented of course, not being my jailor, but with a worried look. Too much freedom for a servant leads to no good, she has told me before in dark tones. I have heard gossip—not from Mrs. H., who is all discretion, as a person in her position must be—that the freedom of a servant was the cause of this family’s supposed curse. I do not subscribe to primitive notions of cause and effect, though I think if there had been any grievous wrongdoing, the personal guilt attached to it could bring about any manner of unhappiness, illness, even death. Humanity is so deeply moral that it finds ways to punish itself one might not think possible. My master seems bent on some form of penance, though for whose sins is not quite clear to me. And yet he never takes the tone of a preacher with regard to either morality or religion—he is quite clear on the difference between the two. He seems to believe God could command a person to behave immorally and that person would have no choice but to comply. Such thinking frightens me, I confess. I believe my master takes Holy Scripture to heart in a manner most of us would never dare to do, the Old as much as the New Testament, maybe even more so.

      Matt 13:31–32. Birds sheltering in the tree that grows from the tiniest of seeds, the mustard. The kingdom of heaven is not the tree, but the seed. Our souls are the birds. Our souls are the fruition of our bodies, in the same way that the tree is the fruition of the seed. When our bodies complete themselves, they will be at ease in the sky. The man who plants the seed is our Lord Jesus Christ. He grows a home for our souls that is rooted in the earth.

      I sometimes help the gardener plant seeds and wonder how something that looks so dead could bring forth life. The gardener tells me the seed contains within it not only the pattern of its future life but also all the food it needs until it can take in the nutrients of soil, water, and light. I imagine what it would be like to be the seed, buried in the ground, straining

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