Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/70

 68 University of Texas Bulletin

but not himself. If it be ridiculous to kiss an ugly girl, it is also ridiculous to kiss a pretty one ; and the notion that doing this in some particular way should entitle one to cast ridicule on another who does it differently, is but presump- tuousness and a conspiracy which does not, for all that, ex- empt such a snob from laying himself open to the ridicule which invariably results from the fact that no one is able to explain what this act of kissing signifies, whereas it is to signify all â€” to signify, indeed, that the lovers desire to be- long to each other in all eternity; aye, what is still more amusing, to render them certain that they will. Now, if a man should suddenly lay his head on one side, or shake it, or kick out with his leg and, upon my asking him why he did this, should answer "To be sure I don't know, myself, I just happened to do so, next time I may do something dif- ferent, for I did it unconsciously" â€” ah, then I would under- stand him quite well. But if he said, as the lovers say about their antics, that all bliss lay therein, how could I help finding it ridiculous â€” just as I thought that other man's motions ridiculous, to be sure in a different sense, until he restrained my laughter by declaring that they did not sig- nify anything. For by doing so he removed the contradic- tion which is the basic cause of the comical. It is not at all comical that the insignificant is declared to signify nothing, but it is very much so if it be asserted to signify all.

As regards involuntary actions, the contradiction arises at the very outset because involuntary actions are not looked for in a free rational being. Thus if one supposed that the Pope had a coughing spell the very moment he was to place the crown on Napoleon's head; or that bride and groom in the most solemn moment of the wedding ceremony should fall to sneezing â€” these would be examples of the comical. That is, the more a given action accentuates the free ra- tional being, the more comical are involuntary actions. Thie holds true also in respect of the erotic gesticulations, where the comical element appears a second time, owing to the circumstance that the lovers attempt to explain away the contradiction by attributing to their gesticulations an abso- lute value. As is well known, children have a keen sense