Excerpts from
Letters
By Jens Smærup Sørensen
My sincere thanks for your proposal concerning the purchase of my soul. It is already a week since I received it, and my failure to reply immediately must not be taken as an indication of anything other than that the question from my point of view, too, needs thorough consideration. In the following I shall take the liberty of setting out in detail the thoughts I have had on this matter; let me, however, first of all emphasise the fact that your kind suggestion was bound to be extraordinarily flattering to a man who considers himself to be no more than average in every respect, as I do. Irrespective of whether we manage to reach agreement on the conditions for the transaction proposed by you, you must appreciate that the mere possibility of entering into serious negotiations with a person of your indisputable standing without doubt will always stand for me as one of the crowning events in my life.
Had you found it opportune to contact me - let us say - ten or twelve years ago, or certainly fifteen to twenty years ago, then I am in no doubt that immediately and without any hesitation whatsoever I would have accepted your proposal. From this you should still not conclude that I am now, as it were a priori, more sceptical, let alone unsympathetic, towards such a transaction, but on the other hand it can perhaps hardly be denied that, with advancing years, one is more inclined to show rather more circumspection before concluding any agreement withuch far-reaching implications. In particular, I fear that in my case an unfortunate motor car transaction a few years ago has reinforced such a tendency, and I must therefore ask you to forgive me if certain of my comments and proposals relating to the drawing up of any contract might appear to be of a rather meticulous nature.
You concern yourself in your communication almost exclusively - as could only be reasonably expected of you - with the question of the price to be paid for the above-mentioned entailed property. I will, then, immediately devote myself to this matter, thereupon calling your attention to a number of further aspects which from my point of view are also of a certain interest.
Thus, you find yourself in a position to offer me recompense in the form of three different categories of benefit, and as you emphasise that the amount available in all three cases is infinite, any stance on priority must be considered superfluous. I shall therefore consider them in the order selected by you.
On the question of Women, I must at the outset confess that I am unlikely fully to take advantage of your generous favours. It must be admitted that the whole of womankind is naturally still the object of my unending appreciation, but the offer of "unrestricted access to all the women in the world", as you so grandly put it, no longer meets with a desire in me of the same absolute nature as it would doubtless have done in my younger days. At the present time, there are in fact scarcely more than three or four representatives of the above-mentioned sex who constitute serious objects of my desires. Three of these are 3 among my wife´s and my own closest circle of friends. The fourth, whom I will not leave out of consideration, is a well-known television announcer, but I dare not guarantee that, in the final analysis, I would not prefer to maintain the particular frictionless character of this relationship, resulting from its unilateral and partially anonymous nature. No such reservations, however, will in any sense apply to the three first-mentioned, though on the other hand a rather different one will appertain, particularly in the case of the one whom I would certainly visit first; for she is unfortunately married to the man whom for many years I have been able to call my best friend. It would thus be a matter of great relief to me if you yourself might be thought willing to assist me in fulfilling this relationship without his confidence in me being shaken as a result. For if not, respect for their teenage daughter, for whom I have always felt a pronounced tenderness, might emerge as a threat to my freedom of action. It may be that many divorces are to the advantage of the children as well as the parents, but nevertheless we know cases in which those children have felt themselves let down and perhaps as a result have adopted an attitude of indifference to everything; why, in this very neighbourhood we are at this moment witnessing such an instance in which soon after the breach between his parents, their son started earning such large sums of money that can surely only lead one to suspect that he has embarked on some serious criminal activity. You will presumably understand that I would be profoundly reluctant to see anything of this nature befall the daughter of my good friend and my intended mistress, though I would naturally also find it difficult to contradict you if you should be of the opinion that I am trying to assume a responsibility that does not rightly belong to anyone but the parents. On the other hand, it will perhaps please you to learn that no similar respect for my wife will give rise to any real reticence on my part. Over the years she has on various occasions expressed the desire to leave me, and, on the assumption that I shall be presented with other prospects, I shall not place any obstacles in the way of her finally fulfilling this desire.
It will perhaps now come as a surprise to you if I confess that my relative unpretentiousness applies not only to Women. I need scarcely say that I am both impressed and honoured by your quite unique generosity, but - do not take me wrongly - such riches as you propose: gold, landed property, mansions, tend to appear to me, unassuming and quite ordinary person as I fundamentally am, rather as a burden than the opposite. You see, it has been my experience for many years that my modest income has in every respect been appropriate to my needs. Now, however, after careful consideration of many things over the past few days, I have realised that my contentment stemmed partly from an illusion. In maintaining that I would never move from this house even if I were given another of twice the value, I have probably to some extent done so on the assumption that such an offer would probably never come my way. Something similar has doubtless contibuted to my frequent declarations that I would never forsake the place where we regularly spend our holidays, whereas in the case of the car my thoughts have furthermore been prompted by idealistic motives. Whenever the occasion has presented itself, I have defended its modest size and power with such vehemence that both at my place of work and in our circle of friends I have become almost renowned as a champion of the efforts to raise the environmental awareness of the individual citizen. It is only now, after receiving your communication, that I have realised the foolishness of my behaviour in thus seeing the salvation of the world as being dependent on a person of my own insignificance. In other words, I have been obliged to revise my needs. Today I regard a larger and more beautiful house in a better district as a reasonable goal provided that this does not imply thinking in ostentatious terms or considering a house that on account of an exaggeratedly luxurious appearance could be out of keeping with its nearest surroundings. Likewise, I have no desire to own one or more cars which simply because of their external appearance might give rise to envy, or perhaps even provoke vandalism, and I am able to inform you that a quick examination of the range of cars on offer has already enabled me to discover models which, to all but connoisseurs, can easily be confused with ordinary middle class cars. Nothing but their exquisite inner qualities justify their being sold at prices which hitherto have kept me in ignorance of their existence. Without entering into further details I nevertheless assume that the sum of my requirements will not have a negative effect on you. According to my interim calculations, a cash payment of four hundred thousand pounds and state bonds to a value of eight hundred thousand should cover my immediate requirements and, indeed, such future requirements as I can envisage. I thus also believe that, on the possible signing of this contract, you will not find it inconvenient to provide me with a banker´s draft for the afore-mentioned amount.
My immediate reaction was to renounce entirely the third element in your proposal for payment, for I cannot recall that Fame has ever exerted any noticeable attraction on me since I was a boy. However, I dare no longer exclude the possibility that here, too, some feeling of resentment such as that indicated above might have restrained the unprejudiced realisation of my true proclivities. Nevertheless, it would not be correct to suggest that I have found it easy to answer the question of what use I would make of such a benefit in practice. I have even, though admittedly perhaps mistakenly, had a suspicion that it could be a burden in my everyday life. Very well, I do not wish to leave it completely untried, any more than I would wish to give you the impression that I had in any way spurned the various forms of compensation which you are so generously offering me. My proposal is that I should become famous in some clearly defined area in Africa, where, when this has been established, I will also be prepared to set up my holiday home. I would, however, appreciate it if my fame could be of the kind that can only be achieved by dint of great mental effort, perhaps also associated with a certain element of altruism, for I can well imagine that the unambiguous respect that this would ensure me from those around me would provide my vacations with just that little extra that will give them the perfect character of amnesia towards everyday life. Being completely ignorant of the possibilities that may be to hand, I must leave it to you entirely to decide exactly what epoch-making contribution I am to be famed for. Should it prove impossible for the honour preferred by you to be transferred to my person without at the same time depriving someone else to whom it rightly belongs, I must ask you as far as possible to undertake the expropriation in accordance with this third party´s own views concerning his own advantage.
With this I have already touched on a subject which, naturally enough, you have found it unnecessary to include in your proposal for negotiations, that is to say the question of my personal moral standing. In no way do I wish to make myself out to be better than I am, even less do I wish to present myself as a paragon of virtue, and yet it is not possible for me to ignore the fact that in the process of effecting the proposals under the headings of Women and Riches, actions may well be undertaken which scarcely conform to with what I have hitherto considered right and proper in this world. I admit that my feelings on these concepts scarcely allow of rational justification, and likewise I naturally well understand that after we have definitively entered into the contract they will lose that aspect of validity which they may still seem to me to possess. In other words, there is merely a question of transition, but nevertheless I feel that you should be aware that I look forward to it with a certain disquiet, indeed the thought of it fills me with an inexplicable anxiety which I can only control for a few seconds at a time, and I believe, to be frank, that there might be reason to fear that at the decisive moment my mental state might prevent the successful completion of the compact. In order to avoid such a situation, I would therefor ask you whether by chance you possess any means of easing this psychological process. Naturally, I am not here thinking of alcohol, medicine or such like, which in this significant context could only be regarded as base. What I seek is something of a far more subtle nature: it would, for instance, be of the greatest interest to me if you knew of some argument that, though in conflict with immediate appearances, would manifestly demonstrate that, at least in the longer term, the step I am taking would be to the general good of mankind.
If, finally, I could be allowed to draw your attention to yet another issue, a closer definition of the conditions governing a possible rescinding of the agreement is one of my preoccupations. You are known and admired for your unswerving adherence to both the spirit and the letter of agreements made, a principle which, in all modesty, I myself have always followed, and it is therefore inconceivable that at any time after the signing of the contract I should ask you to consider a revision of it. As, in addition, the usual conditions governing reanimation, if the desire for such in my case at any time should arise, would confront me with such enormous demands that, on the basis of a sober evaluation of my abilities and my character, I would not have any credible chance of fulfilling such conditions, it appears to me that I could quite rightly expose myself to the reproach of lack of forethought and responsibility if I did not now, before the signing, raise the question of adding a clause of rather less absolute nature. A different and perhaps more attractive variant might be to base the entire contract on the principle of leasing, whereby you were accorded the full and unrestricted right of use for a specie number of years. I do not know, of course, whether you are prepared to embark on a modern commercial practice of this kind, but in this connection I must remind you that, particularly with respect to the price quoted, I have myself shown myself to be more than usually obliging.
All that now remains for me is the almost irresistible temptation to put, as it were, a purely personal question to you. You are, of course, perfectly entitled to believe that the answer is of no concern to me, and consequently, I shall be all the more grateful to you if, as a special sign of your favour, you would put me in the way of solving this - I almost said: mystery: Why have you specifically selected me as the recipient of your offer? What do you want specifically with my soul? I am quite convinced that, in good time before taking up contact with me, you must have undertaken a thorough study of it, and so I can scarcely be revealing any remarkable degree of honesty in openly admitting to you that in my own estimation it does not demonstrate any qualities that differentiate it from millions of others. Admittedly, the designation can perhaps be justified after a fashion: it is a soul, but that is all that can be said of it - a soul, mine as it happens, and like me, average in every respect. Indeed, I put the question to you: Why?
Awaiting your reply in the hope that some mutually satisfactory agreement may be reached, I remain, Yours faithfully.
Translated by W. Glyn Jones
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