Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/77

 Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard 75

woman who found love comical (as but gods and men can, for which reason woman is a temptation luring them to become ridiculous) would both betray a suspicious amount of previous experience and understand me least. But a woman who comprehended the terror of love would have lost her loveliness and still fail to understand me â€” she would be annihilated; which is in nowise my case, so long as my thought saves me.

Is there no one ready to laugh? When I began by want- ing to speak about the comical element in love you perhaps expected to be made to laugh, for it is easy to make you laugh, and I myself am a friend of laughter; and still you did not laugh, I believe. The effect of my speech was a different one, and yet precisely this proves that I have spoken about the comical. If there be no one who laughs at my speech â€” well, then laugh a little at me, dear fellow- banqueters, and I shall not w^onder ; for I do not understand what I have occasionally heard you say about love. Very probably, though, you are among the initiated as I am not.

Thereupon the Young Person seated himself. He had become more beautiful, almost, than before the meal. Now he sat quietly, looking down before him, unconcerned about the others. John the Seducer desired at once to urge some objections against the Young Person's speech but was in- terrupted by Constantin who warned against discussions and ruled that on this occasion only speeches were in order. John said if that was the case, he would stipulate that he should be allowed to be the last speaker. This again gave rise to a discussion as to the order in which they were to speak, which Constantin closed by offering to speak forth- with, against their recognizing his authority to appoint the speakers in their turn.

(Constantin's Speech)

Constantin spoke as follows:

There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak,^^

2fiEccles. 3, 7.