Love is an existential thing by David Pownall Copenhagen, the summer of 1837.The father of existentialism, then young man about town, has been to a get-together.
who joined the action as remembered by Regine in the immediate aftermath of the impression he made.
Not that I was counting the minutes, but afterwards I realized Soren Kierkegaard had talked non-stop for three hours.Everyone at the party appeared spellbound, standing around him, not wanting to miss a word.
But his figure, it has to be said, is unfortunate.Spindly legs, a slight hunchback, and a big strange head which might have been torn from an ancient temple. This unfortunate aspect of him faded away.
Immediately he fixed his pleading but piercing eye on me and said, Young lady, to help me illustrate truth for truth's sake, tell me how old you are.
From his crooked smile I guessed it was possibly a flirtatious question.I was half inclined not to answer.But people said, tell him, tell him, for the fun of it, tell him.Fourteen, if you must know.
Let's consider the clock that has told the passing of your time.There's the one on the mantelpiece and the one inside you.That clock is superior.It can say this hour is important, the next one isn't.
Well, if I've got one of those, what is it saying right now?
It's your clock, your face, your hands, you tell me.Here we go again.A clock that winds itself up and puts itself right.
Is there any reason this moment shouldn't be the beginning of time? Everything that went before could be a memory we invent.The two elements needed for a completely new universe could be you and me.What do you say to that?I know it isn't.
Bravo, Miss Olsen.That's put him in his place.Silence, Hans.It's 14 o'clock.She strikes.We're a game we play in the unknown. I nearly didn't come to this party, then nothing would have changed and it would still be ten past five.
Is that the time?Gracious, I must go.
Gracious, you must go.How could you proceed otherwise?I have a feeling you've been lying to us.In fact, you're thousands of years old.
Something in your eyes.You already have a knowledge men may only guess at or aspire to.Stay.Don't break up the party.
Oh, stop teasing me. Pick on someone else.Any volunteers?
There.No one.It has to be you.I was on devastating form.Did you have a productive and pleasant time, Hans?
Oh, yes.Not getting a word in edgeways and laughing in all the right places.I was showing off.
Oh, I hate myself when I do it.Later on, I want to kill myself.Oh, don't bother.
Showing off isn't much of a sin, really.Why do I need the adulation?Tell me, please.To compensate.For what?All the things you know that are wrong with you.Like wanting to seduce all mortal minds, for instance.
You say true, like the good, honest man that you are.But something valuable did emerge from my exhibitionism.There was a girl.Yes.I noticed your effect on her.The impact was upon myself.I fell in love. I think I did.I fell in love.Just like that?Yes.
Well, having fallen in love, what do I do now?
Suffer and groan, that kind of thing.
Three quarters, actually.Read your Byron.You know, I can't remember a thing I said.Nothing?Really?Weaving your web like the hungry spider you are.But a brilliant web, eh?Fly-worthy?Only a certain type of girl would be impressed.
Many others would be put off. They'd find you too clever by half.But not her.
How can I be sure that I haven't fallen in love with her purely because she was so impressed?That's up to your conscience.I'd better be careful.I could be making a mistake here.Bowling over a child is no great achievement.
Besides, tomorrow morning she'll wake up with a hole in her memory where I should be and play with her dolls instead.
It would be better that way.Then I can call on her with a couple of fairy stories and bowl her over again.Do so.
I have decided to fall out of love.Will you inform her of the significance in my life she so nearly enjoyed?
For two years, he fished for me.Sending me books with notes referring to certain passages.Coming to the house whenever he could, but always when he was in company.
He behaved like someone who had once taught me in school and didn't want that connection to be broken. Then, one day, he came to the house alone.As it happened, we met on the pavement as I returned from a walk.
Miss Olsen.How are you?I'm just on my way to call.
Would you like to go for a walk?
We stood alone in the sitting room. I asked her to play the piano for me.That wasn't a success.Then, I suddenly snatched the music book off the stand and threw it on the floor.Not without some violence.What do I care about music?
It is you I have been seeking these two years.Well?
There's something you should know.One of my teachers at school, Mr. Schlegel, has been paying me attention.
The man has good taste. I must speak to your father and tell him what I've said.I'm terribly concerned at the strong impression I might have made upon you.
I'm flattered.Very flattered.But I don't understand why you'd want to bother with me.
My friend Hans Christian Andersen believes there can never be a reason to fall in love.If one is found, then the love is somehow spurious.That's his theory anyway.
There might be something in that.
Not that he knows much about it.I don't think he's all that experienced.Before we go any further, I think you should know I occasionally have to endure severe bouts of melancholy.
Wouldn't you say we Danes are generally a melancholy race?
Compared to this particular Dane, the rest are a joyous tribe.Regine, honesty is more important to me than anything else. I intend to transform the way the world is seen.I will wrench human thought out of its socket and reset its alignment.
I'll help you.No, no, thank you.A disciple is the greatest of all calamities.Oh, Regine, think again before it is too late.Perhaps a young girl should only wish herself to lie upon a sofa and be enchanted.
I've done all that.I want to move on, to live.
Our relationship will have to be pondered.Then let's ponder it.My family, my background, there's a darkness there, a sadness, originating probably in great previous poverty from which we have since risen.
There was a time we were so poor we couldn't even afford to have a surname.You may laugh, but I don't want to initiate you into terrible things. The dreadful night that broods in the innermost depths.My wildness, lust, and excesses.
Oh, that'll be all right.
I don't want to drag you out into the current of my despair, which comes with some tides.
Sorin, we all have bad days.But mine, mine!
God!You've no idea what I go through.
In those times, love cannot thrive.It cannot breathe.You will hate me.Then you will have to forgive me.
Then that is what I will do.
God, you fill me with too much hope.I must go.My heart is too full.Come back before too long.I leave you with this.My sins are singular and one in particular involving your sex is disgusting. But we won't talk about it now.Very well.
Also, there are hereditary factors from my father which trouble me.Not his wealth, surely.Having never been in love before, I find it difficult to choose what to express and what to leave out.
You've said enough for today, I think.Thank you very much.
Hans is the best possible chaperone, aren't you?His imagination is always going off half-cock.
What do you mean?I think he's got a lovely imagination.
Take no notice of him.This is provocation, pure and simple.Every time I look at you, Regine, I'm reminded of the First Commandment. Is that all?He's setting a trap for you.Don't fall into it.
I might want to fall into it.
Very well, then.Carry on.How can I love you the way I do and obey the first commandment?Driver, stop here, will you?I'd like to look out over the sea.
Thou shalt have no other god but me.How can I possibly promise to do that?I'm going for a walk, you two.
Don't go far.Stay where I can still see you.
Everything sweet and good, everything beautiful, everything that uplifts and inspires, everything powerful comes from you.Isn't this godlike?
And what have you done to deserve this great power?Nothing. You are what you are, a pretty middle class girl.
Do you mean a word of all this?
Why should I struggle with the problem alone?You're the one who caused it.Am I to blame?Oh yes!I was a free and independent man, now I'm in bondage.I have to obey inner orders, important things lie neglected while I study tangential issues.
Smiles?Gifts?Compliments?
What are they?Are these compliments I'm getting?
This Schlegel fellow, your old teacher and admirer... He's not that old.Has he declared his love for you?
He's much too polite for that.We should go back now.
You have conquered me completely.
I don't believe that.Why?I'm not sure.It might be because sometimes I think you're laughing at me. Hans!Come back!We have to go!
Coming!Laughing at you?Am I laughing at you?
Oh, you've missed him, Hans.They've gone to the theatre.They're supposed to be going with them, Mr Kierkegaard.Well, hurry along then.You've got time to catch them up with your long legs.I don't think I'll bother.Playing gooseberry isn't much fun.
And I hear the play's not very good. And what are you writing at the moment?A novel, called Only a Fiddler.That will pluck at my heartstrings, no doubt.Oh yes, well, that's the idea.What do you think of this girl Soren's pursuing?
Well, she's not what I imagined Soren might choose, but then what kind of a creature would be best for him?People say she's rather ordinary.
It might sound odd to you, sir, but I think an actress, a flamboyant, colourful actress, something extravagant, you know, larger than life, would suit him better. Is that why he goes to the theatre so much?To look for someone like that?Perhaps.
Even though he doesn't realise it.And he takes this girl along with him to compare?That could be it.He looks at her.He looks at the stage.At ordinariness.At extraordinariness.But real life doesn't interest him.
That innocent child sitting there is... What?Any more than a symbol?A touchstone.A reminder of the world he will never live in.
I don't care what you say, Mother.
This isn't worth listening to anymore.Do you mind if I read?
You can't see in this light.
It's a text I know my way around.St.Augustine.
I told you not to leave now.
Oh, do be quiet, bloody actors.
I think she's going to get murdered shortly.
Good.Your father's becoming embarrassed. My difficulty is, for the love of my life, a bad play merely reminds how humanity gets everything wrong.Why didn't we take pleasure in that?
I told you she'd get murdered.
No more than she deserved for such an appalling performance.Oh, thank God for the interval.
Why is my father getting embarrassed?
He isn't sure of me. Am I going to treat his daughter properly?Should he do something?Put his foot down.Hans, you've come.Well done.Regine will tell you what happened in the first half.
I'm sorry I wasn't here for Courtenard, but I got talking to your father.
He's worried about you.It's obviously a night of fathers.The one in the play is having terrible problems, but one of them was satisfactorily resolved just before the interval when his daughter was slaughtered.
And my father wants Soren for a son-in-law.
For all the wrong reasons.Should we go to the bar? I could do with a drink.Hans, I have a confession to try out on you before I make it to her.Oh, God.You know me very well.No, I don't.All right, let's say you know what there is of me to know.
I won't agree to that either. I don't know you at all.Oh, am I such a mystery?A maniac.Although innocence is relative, Regine is as innocent as a girl her age can be.How do you know?She's been properly brought up, but all this is by the by.
My confession is to a sin that makes our future together impossible.You've told me all this before.How do you know?
I haven't said anything yet.Every young man, every student in Copenhagen goes with a prostitute at one time or another.
You're very good at taking the wind out of my sails.It's in me a lot of good. It was so awful, I'll never do it again.
A regime doesn't have to know about something so wretched and ordinary.Are you proud of it in your own perverse way and must tell it?Steady on.Get back on your chair and stop being such an ass.
Well, let the ass put a case to you.It's obvious. that my life's work is... is everything!Damn it!Blood!Nothing is excluded!Nothing!
Oh, come on, Soren.You're abominably drunk.
Isn't that part of my life's work?Of course.
Will you stand up for me now?
Falling in love. has shown me what I must do.Take my hand.Thank you.Another thought I've just had.In the beginning, was it alcohol that gave philosophy a head start in the walk?I'd rather dance, but you insist on being so pedestrian.
Regine!Regine!Will you fellows give me a hand with him? Please!Oh, Regine!
This Regine, this young woman, this very, very young woman, though I'm not well, we should talk about her.A girl, I'd say, no more than a girl, still partly a child.Are you sure you're strong enough, Father?
Does cradle-snatching strike you as a good idea?Completely the opposite.So, you're toying with this child?No, Father, it's a very serious matter.I am in fact
Why are you taking her at all seriously?When a man is enthralled like this, can he think?He can go for a swim in the Baltic.Can he work out an argument?He can go to Paris or Berlin.What can he do?Truly, Father, what can he do?
Pray to have the cup taken from his lips.
I've done that, but my prayer has not been answered.Few of us are fit to share our lives with anyone. scheme of things, men of my age.Benefit from my mistakes, father.We are very different people.Are we?
I sometimes think there's only one person and we're all it.We all eat, we all drink, we all sleep, we all make the same mistakes.Make an exception of yourself, my son.One of several reservations I have is
If I became a father, what would stop me developing a sense of sin like yours?Putting my objections to this juvenile trollop to one side, I'd say you never suffer a sense of sin like mine.It's unique.
To bear the responsibility for a life other than your own is a crushing burden.No, no, that part is easy. It's what you do against God and women that matters and women can be avoided and God can't.I might have a daughter.Imagine if you had.
Oh, I shudder to think.Doubtless the worst would have come of it.All I can say is thank God my children were all of the masculine gender.How fraught parenthood is, always so unsatisfactory.How can I convey this to her?To her face.
Don't write anything down. or her daddy will sue.And if you ever have a household of your own, obdure female servants, especially when they're on their knees laying a fire.Father, you're rambling.Exactly!
If you want to get free of this indiscretion, tell her that your father not only murdered your mother by marrying her, but the vile old sinner also cursed God simply because he was poor and cold and lonely. I was.Have I told you that story before?
One last thing.May we discuss my inheritance?I was her age when I cursed God.Does that help?Talking to you has always helped.Now, when I die, you'll get this house and enough invested capital to give you a substantial private income.
I'm sure this isn't why she loves you, but Daddy will have guessed at it. Do you know how I'll use my inheritance?When you complete your theological studies, I'll make your special subject the sins of the Father, and you become pastor of the church.
The money will supplement your pitiful stipend.If you die before I pass my examinations, I will not become a pastor.But if you remain alive after I qualify, I will become a pastor until you do die.
There is no expectation that I will carry on the family business in any way?Oh, certainly not.Your mind is far too good for making stockings.Bless you, Father.I will write books.What about?
Oh, that men will fall away from their faith by the millions.The fact that Christianity doesn't really exist.Oh, you know how to comfort an old man, I must say.Christ exists.Christianity doesn't.
We've never understood what is going on, what we live through.You're going to put us all right, is that it?Who else?My experience is as valid as anyone else's.I am the judge of everything, as you are.Oh, you tire me out.
Tell her, if she's got any sense, to leave you alone, for the sake of both your souls.Let us exchange forgiveness. Thank you for my life, Father.
Oh, good, good.That's something anyhow.And I forgive you for whatever it is you do that stems from my sins.Goodbye.Goodbye.Sleep well. My father's death has made me think differently about you.My fortune means I can do what I like.
I heard the news.I'm sorry for your loss.
He's made me a free man.Should I choose to enjoy myself, there's all the time in the world in which to do it.
To my father, love was a torment.He was too old-fashioned, too medieval to understand what inspires me.
I would like to think that had your father lived, we would have had his blessing.
He gave me his blessing for anything I might decide to do.We forgave each other, made each other free.That left him all the room he needed to expiate his extraordinary sins.
What was so extraordinary about them?
When you're much older, maybe the mother of children, strong in your faith, I might tell you.
Yes. In themselves they form the core of what I must make my life's work.
Won't that be distressing?
The truth does not always heal, but it always illuminates.Are you able to perceive the effect that you have on me?
Well, there's some guesswork.You dodge about a lot.
Dodge about?What can you mean?
You haven't described in full detail what you feel for me.
and i haven't told you what i feel i suppose would you like me to send you a card it's not fair to tease me when i'm trying so hard to be honest i stand amazed and overcome this is an achievement of mine these glorious brilliant tears let me kiss them away no get off i'm very annoyed with you would you say the way you treat me is cruel what i can say is this
one way or another.Having entered my life, you will never leave it.
How can you possibly say that?I might die or something.
That would only confirm your immortality in my heart.There.How many people receive an offer of afterlife at your age?While you're so happy, there is a question I've got to ask you.On May the 19th at 10.30am, I experienced an indescribable joy
Not a joy over this or that, but full jubilation, unaccountable, wonderful, unexpected.Why weren't you there?What would I have been able to... Don't bother to make excuses.Next time it happens, if ever it happens again, be there.
Thank you for explaining what a coward you are.You've succeeded in ruining my afternoon.
For the rest of my life, I'll be devoted to you, but from a distance.
In case I interfere with your precious, oh, so important work.
My feelings towards you are unaltered and sacred to me.
You make me wonder whether drowning is better than to be so horribly, horribly misunderstood. Why should you think I would ever stop you writing a book?
I love books.It's not that you would stop me writing books, but the sort of books I would write.Mine must be wrought from original observation arising from an absolutely independent consciousness.If we got married, I'd be much too happy.
I'd be lost in happiness, quite lost.We would inevitably share everything and by doing that become the same person.My investigations are entirely self-centred.You mean selfish? What being yourself involves would be a better way of putting it.
Did you never have that thought as a child?What it is like to be someone else?Mine is only an extension of that.What it is like to be truly yourself.
And you don't believe I can possibly help and support you in this?
The more help and support you gave, the less chance I would have of success.I must be solely responsible for every thought, every impulse, every action, free of influence wherever possible.
Oh, so I'm a bad influence, am I?
You're a delight.You will never stop being so.
And this is my punishment?
I will always be there.Always.
We should become engaged.When you're used to me, and I'm a bit older, we should get married.If we have children, they will not be allowed to get under your feet or disturb you at work.You will have a separate place, away from the house.
I will guard your privacy.
Oh, Regine. Queen of my heart.
I will never put a single thought into your head.I promise.
My decision lies in pieces on the ocean floor, sunk without a trace.I wonder, if our roles were reversed, would I have the same power to change your mind?
Do you remember the day I met you?You talked me out of one world and into another. I'd like to go back now.I'm starting to get cold.
Sir, you lost the argument.Yes, she routed me.Take a little more off the sides, but not too much.
Sorrow Kierkegaard lost an argument.What's the world coming to? Aren't you the one who demolished Hegel with a few words uttered in a beer cellar?
You may laugh, but my defeat was very painful.I wasn't beaten by logic.I was demolished by a pair of blue, blue eyes.That little girl could accomplish all of this.How formidable she is.I felt quite frightened for you.We are engaged.What?
When she's a bit older, we are to marry, come what may. Can I be the best man?The children will not be allowed to be a nuisance while I'm working.To make a first-class wife.
Oh, that word, that word, it makes my blood run cold.Concubine, then.Legalized concubine.Does that make you feel more manly?Hans, what am I going to do?As you're told, by the sound of it.Having your hair cut has made you look younger.
Perhaps the magic scissors have made you the same age as she is. Romeo and Juliet.
Well, you know how that ended.Regine, we must talk.I'm very worried about the future.Are you sure of your feelings for me?
Does it make you feel safer if you have soldiers near?
Their lives are severely ordered. With the example of their disciplined obedience before me, perhaps I can rediscover myself.Oh, it's not working, dear girl.It's not working at all.
I really don't know what you expected.Do you mind if we find somewhere more sheltered?And may we at least sit on the steps behind the wall?I'm freezing.
Because I'm thinking about you all the time, I hardly notice the conditions around me.
If it's not, whose fault is it?
You wanted to know my feelings.
Oh, how sad.Why are they playing that?
They're rehearsing a funeral.
I wonder whose it is.Obviously, I have been going over the matter in my mind a lot since you let me know how seriously, how deeply you love me.Well, I can say I do love you.
But because of my tender years, it may be that someone else will come along who will do just as well.If you're getting bored, that is.What?I'm very inexperienced.
It's not easy to try to decide what these feelings are, how much to take notice of them.My father has told me many times that girls of my age can be very stupid, vain and shallow.Shouldn't I have said that?
Since you've started saying the first thing that comes into your head, you might as well carry on.
What I wonder is whether, in the long term, you'll be good for me.
Well, you seem to make life very complicated.Who said it was simple?
What have I done to you?Oh, they're taking him away.Or, I suppose, what they're practicing with away.If our conversation is making you feel ill, it could be jealousy. What?
As far as I understand it, do correct me if I'm wrong, a normal man would be jealous of even the thought that the woman he loved might consider someone else.It would drive him mad.
Magine, what am I going to do about you?
Marry me while you've got the chance.It will turn out all right, I promise.Will it?
Admittedly, our innocence is just about equal.
I don't know about that.Whereas I'm a virgin, I've no doubt you've been with common women like all men do when they're growing up.Well, haven't you?
I wonder if they give me a lift inside that coffin?
You can tell me all about it, if that will help.
Because you're a well brought up girl, you won't have heard of the way certain diseases are transmitted.
No, I wouldn't say that.What?I keep my ears open.I'm appalled!
Then you'll be aware that such a sin is passed on.
If the sickness was there in the first place, was it ever diagnosed by a doctor?
From man to woman.From father to son.It drives people mad.It kills them.
And if it's all in their imagination?
My father might have, even without my own vile and stupid transgression, he might have contaminated my blood.Any children I had would be in danger.Everyone who is born is in danger.
Now, shall we discuss my sins?My terrible transgressions?No.
That seems hardly fair.Has someone been tutoring you on how to deal with me?No.One of my friends, or your own friends, hasn't said, talk to him this way or that if you want to get under his skin.
Certainly not.And if they had, I'd have told them not to be so disrespectful.
You did make me jealous.My heart shrank. Then he became a ball of fire.
It troubles me that I can respond that way to such offhand provocation.
You can do that to me any time you want.
What does jealous mean exactly? It's not the same as envious, is it?
No, it's not the same as envious.
Ever since I was taught the Ten Commandments, I've wondered, for I, thy Lord, am a jealous God.But it's a sin, jealousy.God can't sin.
I must be the only one.I must fill your life.There must be no one else.Nothing else.I must be everything.If you don't meet those conditions, jealousy will rise up and destroy.
There never could be anyone else. If you don't marry me, I'll die an old maid.
You think that would please me?
I'm yours forever, like it or not.
Hans, forgive me for calling at your lodgings, but I need your help.
Regine, you'd better have my chair.It's the only one.
Oh, you were writing.There's no point in talking to anyone else.They can't possibly understand him.There's only you.
To claim that I have a special insight would be telling an untruth. If there were other closer friends, I'd recommend them, but he knows everyone and no one.Speak to him for me.What would you like me to say?That I love him.
Well, he'd rather hear that directly from you, I'm sure.Haven't you ever told him?
Yes, I have.I have.Honestly.But he must make his mind up.I can't give any more explanations.
once upon a time there was a young man who wanted to know everything from within to be absolutely honest from within to be completely fearless from within Then, one day, when he was at a party, he met this very pretty girl.
And did this young man have a big head and spindly legs?
As usual, he was very full of himself, talking twenty to the dozen, dazzling everyone with his wit.Showing off madly.
However, while he was so busy entertaining everyone with the public side of himself as he saw it, the other side, the secret side, was being stolen away from him by this very pretty girl. He's been trying to get it back ever since.
I don't like the end of your story.If it was the end, you wouldn't be here.But, Regine, I can't think of anyone, including yours truly, who can conceive the way Soren views himself.All I can say is it frightens me.Why?What's so terrible?
Such intensity, such integrity, such power. Such effort.I wonder if the human heart can stand the strain.Then he does need me.There's no one on earth can persuade that man to do anything.Then what must I do?Leave him to decide.
But it's my life as well as his.You're so much younger.It's the only way, believe me.He cannot be controlled.He's a kind of internal anarchist with a bomb under his coat.I thought you might be able to help me.
He's my dear friend, but that didn't stop him tearing my recently published novel to pieces in a review.Very cruel, very honest.When it comes to a choice between love and truth, well, he has no choice.
I thought only a fiddler was a good book.
You shouldn't have done.It was a disaster.
up here on the heath is where my father, although only a simple shepherd lad, was wiser than at any other time in his life.My boots are hurting.He cursed God.A strange kind of wisdom, even for your old dad.
What he cursed was the idea of God that had been planted in his mind.Instinctively, he knew it was wrong.Standing on the same spot, I seek that same instinct of truth.Should I marry Regine?It's going to rain.If I don't, I'll never escape from her.
If I do, what I won't escape from will be someone other than what she is now, the wife and mother she'll become.If I break the engagement, I'll keep her.We're gonna get soaked.She will never grow old.Routine will never dull my feelings for her.
The treadmill will not be installed.I curse the treadmill.I curse the dullness.I want her to glow in my mind with the same intensity she did when I first saw her.We'd better find some shelter. There's a storm coming.There is no shelter.
uh... why should we have to lose out of finding moments all right i'll marry her then you'll be able to come and visit you could take her to the conservatory all over again whenever you like now do you mind if we start walking back the way we came there was a hot few miles back this is sacred ground hands for the time my father put his soul in peril squaring up to the almighty everything started improving for him come on man never look back oh i don't want to leave this magical spot
I can feel his presence, that shepherd lad.
Father, you were like David with his sling, facing God the Goliath, the brutal giant the church has made for us.But the true God may have been the strength of your arm and the accuracy of your eye.He was within you, perhaps.Wait for me, Hans.
I've finished here.I've finished. There's plenty of wood.We can make a fire and dry our clothes.An assumption is made that it is only through relationships that a purpose or meaning in life can emerge.Break the wood into smaller pieces for kindling.
This assumption is false.Relationships are not essential to the self.We do not exist only through relationships.The self is... Do you have any paper?
Only my notebook.Give me a few pages.It's full. We won't get a fire going without paper to start it.
Well, perhaps there are a few odd pages where the thought isn't worth all that much.Hmm.Oh, I'd forgotten about this one.Listen.Hurry up or we're both going to get pneumonia.From one of the times I was with my father in the last few days.
Why don't you burn pages from your own notebook?Oh, of course.Why didn't I think of that?Won't be anything of value.This is verbatim, mind you. I should never have brought children out of the silence of non-creation to bear witness to my sin.
It's that phenomenal!And real!I was flabbergasted!To my face, he said it, in concept, at that moment, he imagined me not being.In the mind of a dying man, where did a thought like that come from?What made him think such a thing?
Having you as a son, of course.
You mustn't marry that girl.
You're angry with me, Hans.
That's unusual for you.Soren, I have a premonition that you will give selfishness a whole new meaning.No woman in the world will be able to keep up with you.No man, either.But you're making a prison for yourself.Solitary.
Hans, my dear fellow, you don't understand.Exactly.And neither will she.I would guess that nine marriages out of ten are based on mutually agreed misunderstanding.Why would mine be any different?Release her.
Let her marry a normal, sane, respectable man.You have far too much to do bringing the world around to your way of thinking to have to bother with females.
I knew the answer would be here on the heath.Everything so bare, so stripped down.Poor little Regine.It will break her heart. Not very adept at waltzing, I'm afraid.Makes my head spin.
You caught the sun on your holiday.
That was a false impression.It rained a lot of the time.What a wild, strange place.If you want to track down the Elemental Dane, look for him on the heath.
Did you go there to think about me?
Would you mind if we sat down?I feel quite dizzy. Here's the paradox, the murderous paradox.I cannot marry you because you will endanger my life's work.
But the person who has taken this decision is someone I don't understand because understanding myself is my life's work.
You brought me here to listen to this nonsense.Do you want me to weep in front of all these people?
I want you to be light-hearted about it.You have been saved from a terrible life with me, a disaster of a life.
It is your duty. When you do marry, and you should do so soon, perhaps your husband will appreciate our need to be together occasionally.We can still see each other, talk, go to the theatre, exhibitions.
Down on my knees.I beg you.
Please don't break off our engagement.
Get up.Everyone's watching.
Please, please, don't humiliate yourself.
I'm not humiliated.This is my desire.This is what I want. Take me!Take me!
I can't.I won't stand up.
Then I'll accept my old teacher.I'll go back to the classroom.Damn you!You arrogant, conceited cripple!You selfish, insufferable, big-headed bastard!
silence 14 years pass at 42 death is breathing down my neck but all the books are written the thinking is done my flesh is exhausted my fortune likewise it is all over and I'm a happy man
There has been one constant, one cure for melancholy, one light.Not a day has passed without my mind seeking her.Her, the girl I saved from myself and for myself.
In Love is an Existential Thing by David Pannell.Roger Allum was Soren Kierkegaard and Georgie Alexander was Regine.Hans Christian Andersen was played by John McAndrew and Soren's father was John Wood.
Love is an Existential Thing was directed by Ono Callaghan and was a Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.
