Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/86

 University of Texas Bulletin

ing characters to be met with in life. Strange that more use is not made of him on the stage, for in life he is seen, now and then. When you come to think of it, even one who has only been seemingly dead is a comical figure; but one who was really dead certainly contributes to our entertain- ment all one can reasonably expect of a man. All depends on whether one is attentive. I myself had my attention called to it, one day, as I was walking with one of my ac- quaintances. A couple passed us. I judged from the ex- pression on his face that he knew them and asked whether that was the case. "Why, yes," he answered, "I know them very well, and especially the lady, for she is my departed one." â€” "What departed one ?" I asked. â€” "Why, my departed first love," he answered. "Indeed, this is a strange affair. She said : I shall die. And that very same moment she de- parted, naturally enough, by death â€” else one might have insured her beforehand in the widow's insurance. Too late! Dead she was and dead she remained; and now I wander about, as says the poet, vainly seeking the grave of my lady- love that I may shed my tears thereon." Thus this broken- hearted man who remained alone in the world, though it consoled him to find her pretty far along with some other man.

It is a good thing for the girls, thought I, that they don't have to be buried, every time they die; for if parents have hitherto considered a boy-child to be the more expensive, the girls might become even more so!

A simple case of infidelity is not as amusing, by far. I mean, if a girl should fall in love with some one else and should say to her lover: "I cannot help it, save me from myself!" But to die from sorrow because she cannot en- dure being separated from her lover by his journey to the West Indies, to have put up with his departure, however, â€” and then, at his return, be not only not dead, but attached to some one else for all time â€” that certainly is a strange fate for a lover to undergo. No wonder, then, that the heart-broken man at times consoled himself with the burthen of an old song which runs : "Hurrah for you and me, I say, we never shall forget that day!"