Søren Kierkegaard & Regina Olsen: For the love of God
DILEMMA
There is a rumor haunting the streets of Copenhagen. People have seen Regina Olsen in tears. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but the people of the capital cannot stop speculating. What could possibly have gone wrong? She seemed to have it all: youth, beauty, a respected family, and a wealthy fiancé who loved her dearly… didn’t he?
Could that be the cause? Perhaps the first fight between two young lovers? But when you think about it, what does she see in him, anyway? He is a peculiar character: an immature man with a pronounced limp and—let’s say it as it is—not necessarily the most gracious features. A contemporary described Søren Kierkegaard like this:
I found [his look] almost comical. (…) he had something quite irregular in his entire form and had a strong coiffure. His hair rose almost six inches above his forehead into a tousled crest that gave him a strange bewildered look.
On the contrary, Regina radiated grace and beauty. She could have charmed any man. In fact, she already had a formal suitor in the person of Frederick Schlegel, a reputable lawyer and future Governor General of the Danish West Indies. What was it that she found so attractive about Kierkegaard? He made her a promise to marry her, true, but so would have done any other bachelor with the intention of entering a respectable marriage—she didn’t lack options. Perhaps she was drawn to his intellect and wit, but that was only one side of him—he was also prone to depression and melancholy. Or was it precisely because of that? In the end, her dear father was equally suffering from reoccurring depression. Regina probably felt that she could help him, she would “save” the man. She was a young woman, but surely she could handle Kierkegaard. Regina was comfortable around him and she already knew that he could be a bit difficult sometimes. In one of his journals, Kierkegaard wrote about his own mood swings:
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, with whom, on the whole, I have a very formal relationship, I do have one intimate confidant—my melancholy, and in the midst of my work, she beckons to me, calls me aside, even though physically I remain on the spot. It is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I must be prepared to follow at any moment.
And where does this melancholy come from? In Kierkegaard's view, the defining feature of his era—the modernity and romanticism of the 19th century—is melancholy. This is because, with the rise of science and technology, we have lost our faith. The gods have faded from the earth, and with them, the comforting belief in a heavenly paradise or divine justice. Before Copernicus, the universe was limited and safe—and we were at its center—but now our perspective is very different: we are entirely irrelevant beings floating in infinite space and eternal time. This realisation generates a sense of melancholy in us—a yearning for a supposedly better past, or at least one more secure in its beliefs and values. For Kierkegaard, to live is to experience this profound sense of loss. However, he never intended to be a burden to Regina. As much as possible, he tried to hide his sorrow from others. As far as he could remember, his only joy was that nobody could discover how unhappy he felt. Regina certainly discovered this side of him; in fact, he warned her against himself—I am not good for you—, but she was a stubborn girl and wanted to marry Kierkegaard despite his dark and gloomy nature. To cheer him up, she often played pieces for him on the piano. While it wasn't a permanent cure it was a temporary remedy. This type of melancholy—which made him look older than his years—did not stop him from enjoying the luxuries his wealth allowed. Thanks to his father’s commercial success, he could spend his days strolling, debating at social gatherings, or visiting the city's most exclusive cafes. He wore elegant clothes, dined in fine restaurants, and lived at one of Copenhagen's most prestigious addresses without ever needing to pursue a profession. He was a member of the urban bourgeoisie, fully integrated into society and yet remaining an outsider. Kierkegaard was comfortable in this discomfort, but he knew he could be a burden to others, especially to Regina, the person with whom he was meant to share his life. From the start of their engagement, he began to doubt his suitability as a future husband, father and head of the household. Perhaps it was all too much for him; perhaps he had made a mistake in proposing. What if he was incapable of making her happy? What if he had condemned a sweet creature like Regina Olsen to a miserable life at his side? But Regina preferred being unhappy with him to being happy with someone else. Dark thoughts began to haunt Kierkegaard: would it not be wiser to cancel the engagement? Nonsense! He just needed a distraction to calm his nerves.
REGINA
Kierkegaard and Regina were part of the same upper-class Danish society, so their first meeting was hardly a matter of chance. What is revealing, however, is the circumstances under which they met. Kierkegaard was originally interested in meeting the sisters of his university classmate, Peter Rørdam. The three sisters—Elisabeth, Emma, and Bolette—all lived in the same house with their parents and brother. As they were all of "marriageable age," Kierkegaard did not miss the opportunity to establishing relations with them. He found himself particularly drawn to Bolette and was seriously considering her as a potential wife. However, a fifteen-year-old girl named Regina Olsen frequently spent her afternoons at the Rørdam house. It was there that Søren Kierkegaard and Regina Olsen met for the first time. He was twenty-four, and she was little more than a child, easily impressed by this young man who talked constantly and whom she found fascinating. Many years later, she would confess that in those first meetings she felt a mixture of attraction, respect, and fear.
Although Regina may at first have gone unnoticed, Kierkegaard soon began to pay attention to her beauty and personality. Was he falling for her? He was surprised to find himself considering her as a potential wife. It seemed impossible; she was still so young. For three years, Kierkegaard approached and distanced himself from Regina on several occasions, torn between his passion for her and his religious anxieties. He was torn between his love for Regina and his devotion to God. The recent death of his father had made him question everything. He felt he hadn't been the son his father wanted; perhaps it was time to change that. Kierkegaard was tormented by one question in particular: how to be an authentic Christian in a world full of temptations?
Regina was also confused by Kierkegaard's hot-and-cold attitude. If only she knew how he felt! He would sometimes sit in a café across from where she took piano lessons just to catch a glimpse of her through the window. He was in love, and there was no turning back—or so he thought. On September 8, 1840, amidst constant doubt and shortly after finishing his theology degree, he decided to speak with her.
He made their meeting on the street, right outside her front door, seem like a coincidence. They greeted each other formally to keep up appearances in public. When she mentioned that no one was home, Kierkegaard took it as an invitation, and they entered the Olsen residence with his heart in his mouth. They stood in the living room for a moment, unsure of what to say, until Kierkegaard asked her to play the piano: play something for me, Regina, I am rather agitated—he would asked. Suddenly, seized by nerves, Kierkegaard grabbed the sheet of music she was playing and abruptly slammed it shut. Then, without further ceremony, he declared his love for her:
Oh, what do I care for music, it’s you I want, I have wanted you for two years.
Regina remained silent, not really knowing what to say or how to react. Kierkegaard had sent her so many mixed signals that she was unsure of his real feelings. Why had he taken so long to declare his love? Why hadn’t he mentioned his feelings before? Did he not realize that a young woman like her had other suitors and that, in the absence of clarity on his part, she had already given her word to Friedrich Schlegel? Kierkegaard did not hesitate for a moment and replied:
Let that relationship be a parenthesis, for I have first priority.
Regina was so embarrassed and nervous that Kierkegaard decided to leave, fearing that someone might find the two of them alone. Upon leaving the house, Kierkegaard went directly to find Regina's father to formally request his daughter's hand in marriage. He would later describe the event with these words:
Her father didn't say yes or no, but it was easy to see he was well enough disposed. I asked for an appointment and got one for the afternoon of the 10th. Not a single word did I say to persuade her - she said yes.
CHANGE OF HEART
It was the beginning of a new chapter in his life. He had completed his studies and secured his engagement to a beautiful, sweet young woman with whom he was deeply in love. Furthermore, his father had left him an inheritance that would allow the couple to live in considerable comfort. He should have been happy, shouldn't he? He was in an enviable position. People probably assumed he had an easy existence and winning at the difficult game of life—but he wasn’t. Once again, he fell into a state of anxiety and melancholy. Now that he was engaged, there was no turning back, and the weight of responsibility felt enormous. Was he prepared for it? Was he mature enough? He began to doubt his competence as a husband. Oh no, he had made a mistake! Was it irreversible?
Kierkegaard's fickle character is also reflected in his correspondence with Regina. He could be poetic and sweet:
Know that every time you repeat that you love me from the deepest recesses of your soul, it is as though I heard it for the first time, and just as a man who owned the whole world would need a lifetime to survey its splendors, so I also seem to need a lifetime to contemplate all the riches contained in your love. Know that every time you solemnly assure me that you always love me equally well, both when I am happy and when I am sad -most when I am sad- because you know that sorrow is divine nostalgia and that everything good in a man is sorrow's child—know that then you are rescuing a soul from Purgatory.
On other occasions, he was more severe and paternalistic with her. He censured the spontaneous displays of sensuality of a young Regina totally devoted to her future husband, such as when she wrote to him quoting from a contemporary operetta:
And if my arm doth give such pleasure
such comfort and such ease
then handsome man, hasten;
come take them both -Oh, pleasure!
In his weekly letters, usually received on Wednesdays, Kierkegaard included small gifts for his beloved Regina. However, as his doubts increased, he became increasingly distant and ambiguous in his messages. Marriage was an ethical commitment, entirely respectable and appropriate, but one for which Kierkegaard felt ill-suited. He was not a Casanova, nor was he trying to seduce other women; he was not an unscrupulous “lothario” seeking hedonistic pleasures. Rather, he felt inside a calling greater than marriage—he wanted to leap from an ethical life to a religious one. There was one major obstacle, however: he had to renounce Regina to fulfil this higher calling. It was a dramatic turn of events, and he knew there would be tears—many tears in fact.
Kierkegaard believed he had to “sacrifice” Regina in the same way that Abraham, the "Father of Faith," was prepared to give up his son when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham did not hesitate for a second—but for Kierkegaard it wasn’t that easy. At the last moment, as he raised the knife, God stopped the hand that would have killed Isaac. Years before Kierkegaard, the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant had condemned Abraham’s actions as reckless and unethical, arguing that Abraham should have questioned the divine command—after all, what kind of good God would demand such a sacrifice? Kierkegaard, on the other hand, viewed Abraham as a "knight of faith" who would stop at nothing, setting aside even children or fiancées. Years later, in his book Fear and Trembling (1843), Kierkegaard would explain this situation in detail as a theological framework to rationalise his decision to abandon Regina.
Regina, suspecting nothing, thought this was just another episode of melancholy from which he would soon recover. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and she had always been understanding. However, this time was different. Her unconditional devotion was becoming uncomfortable for him. They were in love with an ideal—an image of each other that was not real. Kierkegaard was painfully aware of this; he knew that, once married, it would be difficult not to disappoint her or be disappointed himself.
He considered the consequences of breaking the engagement, knowing it would be a devastating blow. Furthermore, conservative Danish society would have something to say. It would be regarded as an offence against the girl and her family. It would be on everyone's lips; all of Copenhagen would gossip, portraying him—rightly so—as a trickster and a heartbreaker who had destroyed the life of a virtuous young woman. Kierkegaard felt dizzy just thinking about it, immediately experiencing that "fear and trembling."
And yet, the decision was made. He thought of explaining everything to Regina and her family, hoping they might understand—he quickly realised that was a far-fetched hope. He remained plagued by doubt, but in the summer of 1841, after intentionally staying away from her, he gathered the strength to act. In August, after dropping hints in his letters, Kierkegaard went to speak to her in person. It was a harrowing encounter. She begged him: Don't do it, please! Don't do it, for you will destroy me! It was painful to witness.
Confronted by a totally distraught Regine, he decided not to break off the engagement immediately, opting instead to change his strategy. Maybe if he acted rudely and inappropriately, she could see for herself that he would not make a good husband, perhaps—he hoped—she would be the one to call it off. He soon began acting like a complete idiot. He feigned disinterest in her and tried to belittle his fiancé:
I went there and made her see reason. She asked me: Will you never marry? I answered: Yes, in ten years' time, when I have had my fling, I will need a lusty girl to rejuvenate me. It was a necessary cruelty. Then she said to me: Forgive me for what I have done to you. I answered: It is I, after all, who should be asking that. She said: Promise to think of me. I did so. She said: Kiss me. I did — but without passion — Merciful God! […] I spent the nights crying in my bed, but in the daytime was my usual self, even more flippant and witty than called for. My brother told me he would go to the family and prove to them that I was no cad. I said: If you do that I’ll blow your brains out. The best proof of how deeply concerned I was.
Regina did not give up on her efforts. Kierkegaard was in awe of her strength and he had to admit that:
She fought like a lioness: If I had not believed there was a divine opposition to the commitment she would have won.
Realising his calculated cruelty had failed, he directly asked Regina to be the one to break the engagement, hoping to spare her the social stigma of being the jilted party. But that was nonsense; she loved him and was prepared to fight until the end. The situation could not continue indefinitely, however. It was not fair to her, and Kierkegaard felt his own strength failing. On October 11, 1841, he officially terminated the engagement.
Seeing his daughter devastated by the news, Regine's father humbly asked Kierkegaard to reconsider. After witnessing such a respectable man begging him to keep his word, Kierkegaard hesitated, but he remained firm. He asked the father for permission to visit Regina one last time to explain his reasons personally. It was a difficult meeting, ending with Regina exclaiming:
So after all, you have played a terrible game with me.
Regina was so distressed and angry that she became physically ill and even threatened to take her own life. She had been deceived by a charlatan, a man who had played with her heart. She did not deserve this—and she was right. Yet, during those days, Kierkegaard admitted he was equally torn, crying every night in his solitude. They both returned their engagement rings, but Kierkegaard had his modified into the shape of a cross. He wore it for the rest of his life as a reminder of his mistakes—a personal cross he was forced to bear. For Kierkegaard, life as a Christian was synonymous with infinite resignation; it was not the easy and comfortable life most people imagined. To him, being a true Christian was a daunting privilege, not a right.
Kierkegaard promised to Regina—and he actually honoured the oath—that he would never marry or have a relationship with another woman until the day he died. This was not enough comfort for a nineteen-year-old girl who had been publicly humiliated by the man she loved. Who would seek the hand of a repudiated woman? How could she possibly rebuild her life?
Doubts would assail him once again; he had renounced the life of a married gentleman in a wealthy, conservative society, but for what? To become a writer? To be a solitary man living off his father’s inheritance? To be an outsider? Yes, an outsider is exactly what he became—a Don Quixote of the Christian faith, fighting for an ideal even if it cost him what he loved most. Thus, two weeks after breaking with Regina, he took a train to Berlin with the intention of disappearing for a long time and focusing on writing.
The Berlin winter is notoriously unforgiving, and Kierkegaard suffered through it with the heavy knowledge that he had destroyed Regina's reputation. He constantly badgered his friend, Emil Boesen, for news of her. The wound was still open and would remain so until his dying day. He felt guilty—actually, he was guilty and he knew it. The only solace he found was in his work. During those months in Berlin, he wrote incessantly, so much so that when he returned to Copenhagen six months later, he brought with him the enormous manuscript that would become his celebrated book, Either/Or:
This winter in Berlin will always have great significance for me (...) I have done a lot of work. I have had three or four hours of lectures every day, a daily language class, and have still written so much, and have read a lot, I can not complain. And then all my suffering, all my monologues.
The book was not published until 1843, but it caused a sensation from the start, especially because one section featured a novella titled The Seducer’s Diary. In it, the protagonist is a bon vivant who manages to seduce young Cordelia through deception and artifice. She eventually accepts his marriage proposal, unaware that he is manipulating her into canceling their engagement. His sole intent is to play with poor Cordelia, to have fun seducing her without any regard for the consequences.
Unsurprisingly, Danish society drew parallels with his own relationship with Regina Olsen and was scandalised by the perceived immorality of the story. However, the book as a whole was an attempt to justify his decision to sever his engagement with Regina (an ethical commitment) in favor of a transcendental religious calling (a religious commitment). In one of his letters to Emil Boesen, he wrote:
A person with my eccentricity should have his freedom until he meets a force in life that can bind him.
For Kierkegaard, that force was not Regina Olsen; it was God. While public sympathy in Copenhagen lay firmly with her, Kierkegaard became a successful author. Surprisingly, his works were especially popular with women; he could, at times, be a truly romantic figure. Regina had once confided to him that she would be happy if she could only live in a cabinet in his house. After the breakup, moved by her words, he commissioned a rosewood cabinet where he kept two copies of Either/Or, for he wanted to have "one for her and one for me." It was a symbolic way of living together despite their separation.
Kierkegaard and Regina Olsen encountered each other on the streets of Copenhagen several times while walking, and on certain occasions, they saw each other in church during mass. While most of these run-ins were accidental, some seemed more deliberate. However, although they exchanged glances or silent greetings, they never spoke. Kierkegaard was haunted by his actions and longed for Regina's forgiveness; throughout his writings, we see a constant effort to justify his decision to her.
And yet, life moved on, and Regina rebuilt hers. She resumed her relationship with Schlegel, and they married in 1847 when she was twenty-five years old. This did not stop Kierkegaard from writing about their relationship and making constant references to her. Both Schlegel and Regina read Kierkegaard's works carefully, and although Schlegel was an admirer of the philosopher’s writing, it was not easy to see his wife’s past life so publicly exposed.
Two years after her marriage to Schlegel, in 1849, Kierkegaard—determined to clear the air—wrote a letter to Regina. However, he first needed her husband's permission if he wanted to meet her in person. Friedrich Schlegel, offended by the proposal, rejected it out of hand. The long-awaited conversation between the former lovers never took place, but eventually, something happened that gave Kierkegaard a glimmer of hope.
Regina's husband was appointed Governor-General of the Danish West Indies, meaning the couple had to set sail for the Caribbean. On the day of her departure, March 17, 1855, Regina resolved to seek out Kierkegaard to say goodbye. They would no longer meet on the streets of Copenhagen or exchange furtive glances in church. Regina went to the city center where she knew she could find Kierkegaard and, upon seeing him, she broke a silence that had endured for fourteen years. She approached him and, in a soft voice, said:
God bless you. May good things happen to you—then she left.
It wasn't the conversation they both needed to have, but at least Kierkegaard understood that Regina had forgiven him, or at least she had understood his reasons. This was a profound relief to him; incidentally, it would be the last time they ever saw each other.
A few months after she embarked for the Danish West Indies, Kierkegaard collapsed in the street. He remained in the hospital for several weeks until he finally died on November 11, 1855. He was only 42 years old, and it is speculated that he may have died of a form of spinal tuberculosis. As he lay dying, Kierkegaard wanted to make one final gesture toward the person to whom he felt most indebted: he left his entire inheritance to Regina Olsen.
It is, of course, my will that my former fiancée, Mrs. Regina Schlegel, should unconditionally inherit whatever little I may leave behind. If she herself refuses to accept it, it is to be offered to her on the condition that she distributes it to the poor. What I wish to express is that for me an engagement was, and is, just as binding as marriage, and that therefore my estate is to revert to her in exactly the same manner as if I had been married to her.
Unsurprisingly, Regina did not accept the inheritance, but she did receive several diaries from Kierkegaard's nephew in which the author detailed their relationship. These writings had a profound emotional impact on her, leading Regina to express regret that the situation had not been resolved differently. She had hoped that when they were both old, they might finally sit down and talk calmly about everything that had happened. Kierkegaard never reached that age, but she lived a long life, eventually passing away in 1902.
BACKWARDS
Throughout his life, Kierkegaard was a man tormented by constant doubts and recurring questions. Those seeking to understand the motives behind his behaviour toward Regina will find themselves with countless questions of their own. After all, it was Kierkegaard who stated that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. So, what do we find in Kierkegaard’s life if we look backward?
His father was a wealthy merchant from rural Denmark, but he did not come from a rich family. He was a prime example of the emerging bourgeois mentality, where one could prosper through hard work. His father represented the success of a new class of European citizens—not aristocrats who inherited their status, but self-made individuals. It was the dawn of capitalism, and commerce was seen as a respectable pursuit.
Everything in Kierkegaard’s life was permeated by a strict religious mentality, which had a profound influence on him as a child. He was regularly dressed in clothes considered old-fashioned, which made other children laugh and poke fun at his strange appearance. He was the last of seven children born to his father and his second wife. They named him Søren, which means "stern" or "severe." His surname referred to the profession of his grandfather, who tended the churchyard (kirkegård). When he was born, his mother was already forty-four, a very advanced age for the time. She had been a servant in his father's house until he became a widower. Consequently, she lacked a formal education and could not read or write properly, even though her husband became very wealthy. Nonetheless, she was, by all accounts, a loving and nurturing mother.
His father, however, was a looming presence—an authority figure respected for his severe and austere character. He was also prone to depression, which instilled a sense of terror and anxiety in the household. Søren found his father’s character oppressive, like a big black cloud filling the house. On one occasion, when Kierkegaard’s father was young, he had dared to curse the name of God and lived his entire life tormented by it. Furthermore, because his second wife had become pregnant before their marriage, he lived with a constant sense of sin. He believed God would punish him cruelly during his lifetime. For some reason, he was convinced God would teach him a lesson by making all his children die before him. This anguish was transmitted directly to Kierkegaard, who lived with the fear of dying young. The father was almost right; only Søren and his brother Peter outlived him. This prospect was a source of terror for the young Kierkegaard, something he described as "the great earthquake" of his youth.
His mother died when he was twenty-one, a blow that was incredibly hard to bear, as he adored her. On the other hand, he saw his father as an emotionally unavailable man. For those inclined toward psychological explanations, Kierkegaard exhibited signs of abandonment syndrome in adulthood, appearing unable to maintain meaningful relationships with a partner. He equated love—and live—with pain and suffering. Ultimately, Kierkegaard chose a relationship with God (the abstract) over a relationship with Regina (the concrete and individual). In many ways, this contradicted his own ideas as he was a fierce critic of philosophers like Hegel and Schelling. He accused them of being too abstract and failing to focus on the real existence of individuals. It is because of this criticism that many consider Kierkegaard the father of existentialism. Later, postmodern philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries admired him for his rejection of objective truth and his insistence on subjectivity.
The other element that accounts for Kierkegaard's life and philosophy is the intellectual environment of his time: Romanticism. During the previous era—the Enlightenment—there was excessive optimism in the explanatory powers of science and reason. Romantic authors, by contrast, valued feelings and subjectivity. It was a return to Blaise Pascal’s idea that the heart has reasons that reason does not understand. Through religious sentiment—rather than cold logic—Kierkegaard made the hardest decision of his life to break his engagement to Regina. This choice would be extremely difficult to justify through rational explanation. And if this were not enough, there was always the cynical side of Kierkegaard:
Marry or do not marry, you will regret either way... Laugh at the stupidities of the world or weep over them, you will regret it either way... Trust a girl or do not trust her, you will regret it either way… Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. This, gentlemen, is the quintessence of all the wisdom of life.
This chapter belongs to the book In Love & Pain: Exploring the turbulent Romantic Lives of Great Thinkers
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