Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

Question 36: Where did Karen Blixen get syphilis?

Q. I saw a suggestion in one book that she perhaps did not get syphilis from Bror.  The supporting argument was that no other woman was said to have gotten it from him, and that perhaps he didn't actually have it himself.  The suggestion was that she might have gotten it from someone else, a secret relationship. Perhaps you could comment on this.

A. Karen Blixen's Letters from Africa paint a picture of her personality which reveals a Victorian attitude toward sexual relationships outside marriage. She struggled against it and overcame it somewhat in her relationship with Denys Finch Hatton. But her brother Thomas called her "reactionary" where it came to sexual relationships (she refers to this twice). The letters also reveal how deeply she loved Bror. The idea that she would be unfaithful to him in their first year of marriage sounds like a writer who knows little about her (or is trying to discredit her); such a notion suggests the writer has little understanding of human nature--or Karen Blixen's nature.

Syphilis is one of the infectious diseases (malaria and TB are others) that relies on the genetic and immune system of the victim for its virulence. According to medical studies, two-thirds of those with syphilis get over it in a few weeks, as with the common cold, without further symptoms. Bror Blixen was one of these. (He and Karen also had malaria early in their stay in Kenya, and he recovered much faster.)

Copyright © 2001 by Linda Donelson MD. All rights reserved