'His melancholy, rather than his talent, made him exceptional', says one commentator on Kierkegaard, 'and his talent purified his melancholy'. And our melancholy?, we wonder, as we wander round the lake in Leazes park. Ah, but we're not really melancholy, W. says. Sometimes we're a little sad, W. says. A little down, but these reflect only the disappointments of mediocre men.
Sometimes, it is true, he does feel he is in the grip of something – that he has some sense of the world-sadness Kierkegaard describes. Of a sadness that belongs to existence, to human life in its fleetingness, in its ignominy. But this is only after spending a few days drinking with me – only after late nights and early mornings, after eating rubbish and spending too much - and he soon cheers up.
He is a man of hope, W. says, just as I, too, am a man of hope. It's in hope that we set forth in the morning on one of our expeditions, just as it is in hope we stay up until dawn, discussing our findings. But isn't our hope only a sign of our shallowness? That we can rise again, each morning, full of hope, despite all that happened the day before, despite ourselves, despite the mediocrity of our achievements; that we can take stock, each night, of the adventures of our day having forgotten that every one of our adventures is like any other, i.e. a failed adventure, is a sign only of our imposture, and of how far we are from Kierkegaard's melancholy.
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