                           20020131.00
Laugh, but don't laugh

     I have previously cited a poem from the Diapsalmata of
Either-Or, Part 1. Samlede Vaerker I 24, as evidence for my
interpretation to the effect that "A", the pseudo- nym whose
writing are published by the victorious hermit, Victor Eremita,
in turn a pseudonym for Kierkegaard himself, that "A" considered
himself a good person who was misunderstood and misrepresented as
a bad person, by mankind in general, and by Wilhelm in
particular, by Wilhelm the avuncular, Polonius-like father-figure
whose "This above all, to thine own self be true" pieties I
interpret to be profound expressions of Kierkegaard's sense of
irony.

    Aldrig har jeg vaeret glad;
    og dog har det altid seet ud
    som om Glaeden var i mit F/olgeskab,
    som om Glaedens lette Genier dandsede omkring mig,
    usynlige for Andre, men ikke for mig,
    hvis /Oie straalede af Fryd.

    Naar jeg da gaaer Menneskene forbi
    saa lykkelig og glad som en Gud,
    og de misunde mig min Lykke, da leer jeg;
    thi jeg foragter Menneskene, og jeg haevner mig.

    Aldrig har jeg /onsket at gj/ore noget Menneske Uret,
    men altid givet det Udseende af, at ethvert Menneske,
    der kom i min Naerhed, blev kraenket og forurettet.

    Naar jeg da h/orer Andre rose for deres Trofasthed,
    deres Retskaffenhed, da leer jeg;
    thi jeg foragter Menneskene, og jeg haevner mig.

    Aldrig har mit Hjerte vaeret forhaerdet mod noget Menneske,
    men altid, netop naar jeg var meest bevaeget,
    har jeg givet det Udseende af,
    at mit Hjerte var lukket og fremmedt for enhver F/olelse.

    Naar jeg da h/orer Andre ber/omme for deres gode Hjerte,
    seer dem elskede for deres dybe rige F/olelse, da leer jeg;
    thi jeg foragter Menneskene og haevner mig.

    Naar jeg seer mig selv forbandet, afskyet,
    hadet for min Kulde og Hjertel/oshed:
    da leer jeg, da maettes min Vrede.

    Dersom nemlig de gode Mennesker kunde bringe mig til
    virkelig at have Uret, til virkelig at gj/ore Uret -
    ja, da havde jeg tabt.

                =====

    "I have never been happy;
    and yet it has always seemed to me
    as if happiness were in my train,
    as if glad fairies danced around me,
    invisible to others but not to me,
    whose eyes gleamed with joy.
    And when I go among men,
    happy and glad as a god,
    and they envy me my happiness,
    then I laugh; for I disdain men
    and I avenge myself.

    I have never in my heart wished to wrong any man,
    but I have always, when I am most moved,
    given the appearance
    that everyone who came near me
    was wronged and injured.
    And when I hear others praised
    for their faithfulness and integrity,
    then I laugh; for I disdain men
    and I avenge myself.

    My heart has never been hardened
    against any human being,
    but always, just when I was most affected,
    I have given the impression
    that my heart was closed and alien
    to every human feeling. ****
    And when I hear others praised
    for their goodness of heart
    and see them loved for the depth
    and wealth of their feeling,
    then I laugh;
    for I disdain men and I avenge myself.

    When I see myself cursed, abominated, hated,
    for my coldness and heartlessness:
    then I laugh and my anger is satisfied.

    If virtuous men could bring me to the point
    of actually being in the wrong,
    if they could actually make me do wrong - well,
    then I should have lost."
                        Either/Or, Diapsalmata
    (adapted from Swenson and Swenson's translation)


The refrain:

                      ... da leer jeg;
    thi jeg foragter Menneskene, og jeg haevner mig.

                      ... then I laugh;
    for I disdain men and I avenge myself.

is susceptible to three interpretations:

     1. an individual who boasts that he laughs, that he disdains
men and avenges himself on them certifies himself as destructive
and truly evil.

     2. an individual who claims to laugh, claims to disdain men
and claims to avenge himself, for the purpose of giving the
appearance of being evil, in order to reassure himself that the
love which he feels for men is unalloyed with self-interest,
destroys, if anything, only himself as a sacrifice to his being
truly good.

     3. an individual who finds himself in the predicament that
his virtue appears wicked, that, for example, his love is
condemned as lust, has discovered laughter, by virtue of its
lightness and buoyancy, as his life-preserver in an ocean of
grief. In this context, that the individual disdains (foragter)
men might mean not that he looks down upon men, but merely that
he overlooks them. In this context also, consider whether, if
revenge is unavoidable, to avenge oneself with nothing more than
laughter is not a convincing expression of love.

     These considerations also aid in the interpretation of the
last of the Diapsalmata where the narrator describes his fantasy
of an Olympian council which grants him his highest wish: always
to have laughter on his side.

                            * * * * *