KSRK: Guilty?/Not Guilty? (January 11. Morning.)

This is the fourth of the six posts so far that have begun with some version of the words 'A year ago today'. In this post he writes in the next sentence, 'It really is exhausting, almost too much for me to keep my soul at the peak of resolution.,' which is disconcerting for the reader (this reader, anyway), because it seemed rather that he was being drawn into a state of near-panic unwillingly. It's helpful to keep in mind that however much this might appear to be a straight confession from Kierkegaard himself, it was in fact a portrait composed by him. It's worth considering what influence Quidam's Diary may have had on the many unreliable narrators that have followed him in literary history.

In any case, Quidam then launches into an extended metaphor about a woodcutter with an axe:

In the same way a woodcutter swings his ax over his head and this posture multiplies the force many times; with all his might, he sets himself, as it were, in opposition, every muscle quivers in the effort. But just for one moment. Oh, that these moments might be shortened! Oh that I do not make a false step! If in this potentiation in the service of a new reflection turns against me, then I am exhausted, perhaps demolished forever.

It seems to me that there are a number of problems with this analogy. First is the description of the woodcutter's swing; from my own woodcutting experience, it isn't true that 'with all his might, he sets himself ... every muscle quivers in the effort.' It IS true that the posture (at that moment when the upper arms are extended almost directly upward from his shoulders) multiplies the force many times, but to say that this in itself requires great effort is a little misleading. The point is in fact the opposite: the experienced woodcutter will expend as little effort as possible during this stroke, rather letting the weight of the axe head do the work by means of the centrifugal force, thus saving his effort for the presumably large number of logs that need to be split. And while Quidam may wish that the analogous moment is shortened as much as possible, the moment before the axe is brought down on the wood is really quite short. I'm not sure (assuming that they are problems) to what extent Kierkegaard understood them as such (thus emphasizing the unreliability of Quidam).

However easily this might be attributed to Quidam, there are other difficulties which strike me as characteristic of Kierkegaard on the whole. The words potentiation, actuality and reflection, though certainly used elsewhere, here seem especially opaque, perhaps because they are used in the first sentence after the extended metaphor. It doesn't help that in the next sentences he cries out to time itself and the nature of man, and then compares his strength to that of a Greek god. What is certain is that he does, in fact, seem exhausted.

What follows is a description of a meeting with his beloved while visiting a family known to them both. The details are interesting because it isn't a metaphor and the straight narration comes as something of a relief and the psychological tension of the passage is demonstrated in his history of the event. The preceding abstractions have created a kind of narrative vacuum that this account is quickly drawn into. It's also interesting to read here proper names: 'Kronprindsesse Street' and 'Juliane' give us something more, or at least different, to hold on to than 'Quidam,' 'father', and 'beloved.'

However welcome this paragraph may have been, the next seems designed to give us further fits:

Am I, then, not perfidious; is ther enot something calculated in everything I undertake? Good God, if I use my sagacity precisely out of concern for he, what more can I do? The words spoken could now remain a secret between her and me; no one, not a soul could suspect that a moment such as this was used in this way; if it so pleased her, the words spoken could be as null and void as if they were never spoken. The situation was precisely such that it prevented her from saying anything - if in her agitation she might otherwise have uttered a word to someone, a word that she perhaps would bitterly regret.

What perfidy is he referring to in the first sentence? In exactly what way was the moment used? In the next paragraph he writes, "and the coversation began - it had worked out as planned." and yet the propitiousness of the moment seemed to rest entirely in the fact that the entire episode was unplanned.

Certainly some of the difficulty in reading this passage comes from ocean of difference in social mores concerning the relations between elgible young men and women between 1846 (or 17something) and today. A young man and a young woman left alone in a room together wouldn't make for quite so much consternation (or outrage) today as it would have then.

The next paragraph includes a description of Quidam's trip to his beloved's father, with special attention to silence, the crucial moment, and the desire to create just the right impression. "Without art, without guile" to my mind points again towards some idea of authenticity. Interesting that it should come as his mood commands 'the full power of silent passion.' Human behavior is at its best when acted through passion and even mood, rather than thought.

The final paragraph is interesting for the fact that it ends in a question, especially since that question is answered in the first part of that same paragraph. Or it certainly seemed that way when I read it.