Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard 99

meaner offer her a flask of smelling salts and with my ador- ation assuage her agitation ; now, she strikes after me play- fully; now, she drops her handkerchief and, without as much as a single motion, lets her relaxed arm remain in its pendent position, whilst I bend down low to pick it up and return it to her, receiving a little patronizing nod as a reward. These are the ways of a lady of fashion when in my shop. Whether Diogenes** made any impression on the woman who was praying in a somewhat unbecoming pos- ture, when he asked her whether she did not believe the gods could see her from behind — ^that I do not know; but this I do know, that if I should say to her ladyship kneeling down in church: "The folds of your gown do not fall ac- cording to fashion," she would be more alarmed than if she had given offense to the gods. Woe to the outcast, the male Cinderella, who has not comprehended this! Pro dii im- mortales,*^ what, pray, is a woman who is not in fashion; per deos obsecro,*^ and what when she is in fashion!

Whether all this is true? Well, make trial of it: let the swain, when his beloved one sinks rapturously on his breast, whispering unintelligibly: "thine forever," and hides her head on his bosom — let him but say to her : "My sweet Kitty, your coiffure is not at all in fashion." — Possibly, men don't give thought to this ; but he who knows it, and has the rep- utation of knowing it, he is the most dangerous man in the kingdom. What blissful hours the lover passes with his sweetheart before marriage I do not know ; but of the bliss- ful hours she spends in my shop he hasn't the slightest ink- ling, either. Without my special license and sanction a marriage is null and void, anyway — or else an entirely ple- beian affair. Let it be the very moment when they are to meet before the altar, let her step forward with the very l)est conscience in the world that everything was bought in my shop and tried on there — and now, if I were to rush up and exclaim: "But mercy! gracious lady, your myrtle wreath is all awry" — ^why, the whole ceremony might be

♦*See Diogenes Laertios, VI, 37.

'"'By the immortal gods.

♦^I adjure you by the gods.