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sports,” Søren especially targeted the bigger, taller, and more powerful boys and had a knack for making them look ridiculous. When his classmate Hans (he of the Danish homework help) attempted to read his poetry aloud in his halting schoolboy manner “ SK was always one of the first to interrupt his reading by throwing a book at his head.” Besides suggesting an early and highly attuned appreciation for poetry, the incident reinforces the idea that Søren was adept at exploiting weak points to get the best of a room. Søren’s teasing sometimes caused boys to cry. Once, when a teacher heard about this, he said to the bigger boy, “So what? You could easily put him in your pocket.”
    Søren may have been a stranger in a strange land, but he did not enjoy diplomatic immunity. His language was “annoying and provocative, and he was aware that this had this effect even though he was often the one who paid for it.” He would pull faces and give nicknames to other boys “even though it often earned him a beating.” One day, some of the boys decided to teach this strange little upstart a lesson. Throwing him over a desk, two held down his legs while others pinned Søren’s thrashing arms. Then they set to his britches “with rulers, book straps, etc.”
    They were not stylish britches. All Barfod’s sources agreed that Søren’s wiry frame sported a deeply old-fashioned rough tweed jacket with short tails, shoes, and knee-high woollen stockings. “Never boots” like all the other boys wore. “Søren Sock” he was called, or “Choir Boy,” in connection to his anachronistic uniform and his hosier father.
    In a roundabout way this leads to the main reason for Professor Nielsen’s appreciation. Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard was a notoriously sensible man, tight with money and stern in outlook. Although one of Copenhagen’s most successful merchants, and an importer of wool, linen, and silk to boot, he did not permit any of his seven children to dress with panache. His daughters were shabby. His sons utilitarian. Although a leading public figure in commerce and religious circles, Michael only allowed himself to turn his reversible coat inside out when the original side was fully worn out. The strict stance against spending money on frippery spoke of a serious man, heading up a home of true civic virtue. Thus it is that Prof. Nielsen’s school leaver’s report appears to be less about Kierkegaard and more about the Kierkegaards :
From the very beginning [Søren] was steeped in his parents’ seriousness and in the good example of their strong sense of religious reverence, devotion to God, and moral responsibility, and this was subsequently nourished in early childhood with instruction provided by teachers who had been carefully chosen with this goal in mind. . . . One may certainly hope that he will be his brother’s equal, since he is his equal in talent.
    The root of these virtues is the pure devotion to God that was implanted in his character from the very beginning of his life. Indeed, his father has conducted his business in accordance with the precepts of philosophy, and he has united his business life with the reading of works of theology, philosophy and literature. . . . Because his father’s home is thus such a model . . . and is arranged in conformity with the principles by which children are trained in virtue and in the wisdom which is given by God, he has enjoined his son to view all things in the light of the fear of God and a sense of duty . . . And he has done everything to awaken the boy’s love for scholarly culture, which is the foundation of all praiseworthy endeavours.
    The good headmaster was certainly right to accredit Søren’s family more than his school for the forces which were shaping the man-to-be.

CHAPTER 3
Family Life
Young Søren is asked what he wants to be when he grows up.
    “A fork.”
    “Why?”
    “Well then I could spear anything I wanted on the dinner