Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist (24 page)

highest civic authority, felt compelled to pursue the prosecution of this case before the House of Brandenburg; to which end the Court Assessor Franz Müller had already left for Berlin in his capacity as imperial advocate to bring justice to bear on Kohlhaas for cross-border incursions and transgression of the peace, wherefore Saxony's official complaint could no longer be revoked and the matter would have to be followed through to its end according to the laws of the realm. This written reply greatly distressed the Elector; and since, shortly thereafter, a confidential letter arrived from Berlin, announcing the start of the legal proceedings in the State Supreme Court, and noting that despite all the efforts of the attorney assigned to Kohlhaas to press his defense, he would likely end up on the gallows – the disconsolate Elector decided to make one last attempt to intercede, and sent a personal appeal to the Elector of Brandenburg asking him to spare the horse trader's life. He pretended that the amnesty granted this man effectively precluded his execution; assured His Lordship that, despite the seeming stringency of Saxony's pursuit of the case against him, it was never his intention to let him die; and emphasized how distressed he would be if Brandenburg's assurance of Kohlhaas' protection made in support of their call for his extradition for judgment in Berlin were, by an unexpected turn of events, to prove more detrimental than had the case been decided according to Saxon law. The Elector of Brandenburg, to whom this statement of the Saxon head of state seemed somewhat ambiguous and unclear, replied that, in accordance with the dictates of imperial law, the emphatic nature of the case as presented by His Imperial Majesty's attorney made it absolutely impossible for him to grant His Lordship's wish to deviate from the severity of judgment.
He remarked that the concern expressed by His Lordship struck him as inconsistent with the fact that the case against Kohlhaas for crimes committed during his amnesty had, after all, not been pursued by the same authority that accorded the amnesty, but rather by His Imperial Majesty, who could by no means be held accountable to its terms at the State Supreme Court in Berlin. He furthermore impressed upon him the absolute necessity of a public execution as exemplary deterrent, given the continuation of Nagelschmidt's cross-border atrocities, perpetrated with ever more brazen audacity, some on Brandenburg soil, and bid His Lordship, should he nevertheless not wish to take into account all of the aforementioned factors, appeal directly to His Imperial Majesty, since a peremptory order of a pardon for Kohlhaas could only come from him. Overcome by grief and anger at all of these failed attempts, the Elector of Saxony once again fell sick; and when the Lord Chamberlain visited him one morning, the ailing Elector showed him the letters he had had sent to the Viennese and Berlin courts to try and keep Kohlhaas alive at least long enough for him to get his hands on the slip of paper. Falling to his knees before His Lordship, the Lord Chamberlain begged, in the name of everything sacred and dear to him, that he tell him what was written on it. The Elector said to lock the door and sit down on the bed; and, after reaching for his hand and pressing it to his heart with a sigh, he began: “Your wife, I believe, has already told you that on the third day of my meeting with the Elector of Brandenburg in Jüterbock, he and I happened upon an old gypsy woman; and since in discussion at the midday table jesting mention was made of this strange woman's reputation, the Elector of Brandenburg, enlightened as he is by nature, decided to show her
up for a fraud by means of a public prank: with this in mind he walked up to her table at the marketplace with folded arms and demanded as a proof of the verity of the fortune she was about to tell him, a sign to be tested this very day, professing that, even if she were the Roman Sybil herself, he would not otherwise believe her words. Measuring us with a quick look from head to foot, the woman said: ‘The sign will be that the big horned roe-buck the gardener's son raised in the park will come bounding toward us in the marketplace before you leave.' Now you must know that this fine buck destined for my table in Dresden was kept under lock and key in a high, gated enclosure in the castle park shaded by oak trees, and that, moreover, on account of the other smaller game and fowl stocked there too, the park as well as the garden leading to it were always kept locked tight, consequently it was absolutely inconceivable that this creature would, as foretold, come charging toward us at the spot where we stood; nevertheless, concerned lest the gypsy pull a fast one behind our backs, the Elector after briefly conferring with me, firmly resolved, for the sake of a lark, to upstage any of her tricks, and sent word to the castle ordering that the roe-buck be slaughtered on the spot and dressed for our dinner table the next day. Hereupon he turned back to the woman, in front of whom the entire matter was loudly discussed, and said: ‘Now then! What can you reveal about my future?' Peering at his palm, the woman said: ‘Hail, my Lord Elector! Your Grace will reign for a long time, the house from which you come will long endure, and your descendants will be great and splendid to look upon, and will grow mighty before all princes and lords of this world!' After a moment of silence, during which he cast a thoughtful look at the woman, he muttered, taking a step toward me, that he
was almost sorry to have sent a messenger to make light of this prophecy; and while the knights in his entourage poured money into the woman's lap, cheering all the while, he asked her, reaching into his own pocket and adding a gold piece to the pile, if the fortune she held in store for me had such a silvery jingle as his. After opening a box that stood beside her and painstakingly ordering the money by currency and denomination, and once again closing and locking the box, she shaded her face from the sun as if it were a burden to her, and looked me in the eye; and when I repeated the question, and jokingly whispered to the Elector as she studied my palm: ‘It looks to me like the old biddy has nothing pleasant to report!' she reached for her crutch, slowly raised herself from the stool, leaned close to me with curiously outstretched hands and whispered in my ear: ‘No!' ‘So,' I said, sorely upset, taking a step back, as she sank down onto the stool, flashing me a blank, cold, lifeless look, as though out of marble eyes, ‘From whence is my house threatened?' Taking up a lump of charcoal and a slip of paper and crossing her legs, she asked: ‘Shall I write it down?' And since, at a loss for words, and under the circumstances, not knowing what else to say, I replied: ‘Yes! Do that!' she countered: ‘Very well then! Three things I will write down for you: the name of the last reigning lord of your house, the year he will forfeit his realm, and the name of he who will take it from him by force of arms.' Having done so in full view of everyone, she rose from her stool, sealed the slip with lacquer which she wetted with her parched lips and pressed upon it a leaden signet ring she wore on her middle finger. And seeing how I, as you can well imagine, with a burning curiosity more powerful than words can describe, sought to grab that slip of paper from her hand, she said: ‘Not so fast,
Milord!' And, turning, she raised a crutch in the air and pointed: ‘From that man over there with the feathered hat, standing on the bench at the portal to the church behind the crowd, from him will you redeem that slip of paper, if it please, Sir.' And before I fathomed what she'd said, she left me standing there, stunned and speechless; no sooner had she shut the box behind her and hoisted it on her back, than she disappeared in the crowd that surrounded us. At that very moment, to my great relief, the knight whom the Elector had sent back to the castle returned and reported with a broad smile that the roe-buck had been slaughtered and in his presence carried by two hunters into the kitchen. Gaily grasping my arm with the intention of leading me away, His Lordship, the Elector of Brandenburg, said: ‘See there! So the old biddy's prophecy was nothing but a common swindle not worth the time and money it cost us!' But imagine our amazement, even as he uttered these words, when a cry rose around us in the marketplace, and all eyes turned to a huge hunting dog that came trotting toward us from the castle, where, in the kitchen, it had sunk its fangs into the roe-buck's neck, and, chased by servants and scullery maids, finally let go not more than three paces in front of us: such that the old woman's prophecy was, in fact, fulfilled, and although already dead, the roebuck had come bounding toward us. A bolt of lightning that strikes on a white winter day could have been no more devastating to me at that moment than the sight of that buck, and as soon as I'd broken free of the crowd my very first thought was to seek out the man with the feather hat whom the old woman had pointed out; but even after three days' search, none of my people managed to bring me back any word of his whereabouts; and now, friend Kunz, just a few weeks ago at the dairy farm in
Dahme I saw the man with my own eyes.” And with that, he let his Lord Chamberlain's hand drop; and wiping the sweat from his brow, sank back onto his pillow. Sir Kunz, who deemed it futile to try and fathom and confirm His Lordship's take on this incident, or to dissuade him from it, urged him to try by whatever means to acquire that slip of paper, and thereafter to leave the poor wretch to his fate; to which, however, the Elector replied that he simply could not think of any way to go about it, even though the very thought of foregoing this last chance and of seeing the secret disappear with the man brought him to the brink of madness and despair. In answer to his friend's question of whether he had made any attempts to find the old gypsy woman, the Elector replied that, pursuant to an order he had issued under false pretext, the constabulary had sought in vain to this very day to find either hide or hair of the woman anywhere in the land: whereby, for reasons he refused to elaborate, he doubted she could be tracked down anywhere in Saxony. Now it just so happened that the Lord Chamberlain expressed a sudden desire to travel to Berlin, with the express purpose of tending to several considerably large properties that his wife had recently inherited from the deposed and, shortly thereafter, deceased Arch-Chancellor, Count Kallheim; and seeing as he was indeed deeply devoted to the Elector, he asked him after a moment's reflection, if His Lordship would give him a free hand in this matter; whereupon the Elector pressed the Lord Chamberlain's hand to his heart and said: “Put yourself in my place and get me that slip of paper!” And so, after attending to a few pressing matters of business, he moved up the date of his departure and, leaving his wife behind, set off for Berlin accompanied only by a few servants.

Kohlhaas, who in the meantime had already arrived in Berlin, was taken on the express orders of the Elector to a lordly prison where he and his five children were lodged as comfortably as possible. Immediately following the arrival of the imperial prosecutor from Vienna, he was brought before the dock of the State Supreme Court to face charges of violation of imperial peace; and whereas, according to the terms of the amnesty agreement issued by the Elector of Saxony at Lützen, he had already been freed of any responsibility for acts of violence perpetrated during his armed incursion into Saxony, he learned, to his surprise, that His Imperial Majesty, whose legal counselor argued the case against him here, could not take that agreement into consideration; he also soon learned, from an elaboration and explanation of Saxon court proceedings, that the Dresden court granted him full redress for damages and injuries in his case against Junker Wenzel von Tronka. It came to pass thereafter, on the very day the Lord Chamberlain arrived in Berlin, that judgment was passed and the verdict declared, and that Kohlhaas was condemned to be executed by beheading; which sentence, its relative mildness notwithstanding, no one believed would be enforced, given the knotty nature of the case, for all Berlin hoped that since the Elector was favorably disposed toward the accused, His Lordship would intercede and commute the sentence, at the very worst into a long and hard prison term. Still, the Lord Chamberlain, who immediately realized that there was no time to lose if he hoped to fulfill the charge given him by his liege lord, promptly got down to business, the following morning showing himself clearly in his courtly attire before the prison at the window of which Kohlhaas stood peering out at the passersby, making sure the prisoner took notice; and since,
from a sudden head movement, the Lord Chamberlain concluded that the horse trader had indeed seen him, and moreover had, with a look of great satisfaction, instinctively made a motion with his hand to the place on his breast where the tube dangled, Lord Kunz presumed that the sentiments harbored at that moment in the heart of the prisoner were preparation enough for him to advance with his planned attempt to acquire the slip of paper. He called to his chambers an old woman on crutches, a peddler of second-hand clothes whom he had seen in the company of others, haggling with the crowd over the price of rags, and who, by her age and attire, appeared to bear a striking resemblance to the gypsy woman the Elector had described; and presuming that Kohlhaas could not possibly have retained a clear impression of the face of the person who had in passing handed him the slip of paper, he decided to pass her off as the gypsy, and, if all went well, to have her impersonate her before the prisoner. To that end, to fully prepare her, he described in detail everything that had transpired between the Elector and said gypsy woman in Jüterbock, and, seeing as he did not know just how much the gypsy had revealed to Kohlhaas concerning that scrap of paper, he did not fail to impress upon her the nature of the three secrets contained in the message; and after taking pains to explain, in an awkward and abrupt fashion – this on account of the urgency to get hold of that paper by any means necessary, whether by deceit or violence, the acquisition of which was of exteme importance to the Saxon Court – just what she was to let slip to the prisoner, he suggested that she insist the prisoner let her take charge of the paper for a few fateful days, since it was no longer safe in his hands. Enticed by the promise of a sizable payment, part of which she demanded be
paid in advance, the rag woman promptly accepted the task; and since the mother of Kohlhaas' trusted servant Herse, the man who had fallen in battle at Mühlberg, occasionally visited the prisoner, with the permission of the authorities, and the two women had in recent months struck up an acquaintance, the rag woman managed within a few days, having bribed the turnkey, to gain entry to the horse trader's cell. As soon as the prisoner set eyes on the signet ring she wore on her hand and a coral necklace dangling from her neck, he was convinced that she was the old gypsy woman who had passed him the slip of paper in Jüterbock; and since probability is not always on the side of truth, it so happened that something occurred here which we will report, but which we are duty-bound to permit any reader so inclined to doubt: the Lord Chamberlain had made the most momentous mistake, for the rag woman whom he had dug up in the streets of Berlin to play the part of the gypsy was none other than the mysterious gypsy herself, the very person he wished to have impersonated. Leaning on her crutches and stroking the cheeks of the children who, frightened by her strange appearance, sought refuge in their father's arms, she told him how for quite a while now she had been back in Brandenburg, and how, overhearing the Lord Chamberlain incautiously asking in the streets of Berlin after the gypsy who had plied her trade in Jüterbock the previous spring, she immediately approached him, and giving a false name, had accepted the task he sought to have carried out. The horse trader detected an uncanny resemblance between her and his late wife Lisbeth, so much so that he was tempted to ask if she were her grandmother: for not only did the features of her face remind him of his wife, but so did her hands, still lovely in their angular shape, of which, just like
Lisbeth, she made animated use when speaking; and noticing the necklace, just like the one his wife wore round her neck, consumed by a jumble of thoughts swirling round his brain, the horse trader bid her be seated on a stool, and asked what in the world had brought her to him on the Lord Chamberlain's business. And while Kohlhaas' old dog sniffed at her knees, wagging his tail, contented at the touch of her hand, she replied: “The task the Lord Chamberlain gave me was to find out for him the three mysterious answers on the slip of paper, answers to questions of interest to the Saxon Court; to warn you of an emissary sent to Berlin to get the paper, under the pretense that it was no longer safe on your breast where you wear it. But my real intention was to tell you that the supposed threat to snatch it by guile or by force is an absurd and empty lie; that being under the protection of the Elector of Brandenburg, in whose safe custody you are, you have no cause to fear for that paper; indeed, that it is much safer in your care than in mine, and that you should take heed not to let anyone convince you to hand it over, for whatever reason. Nevertheless,” she concluded, “I deem it wise for you to make use of that paper for the same purpose I passed it to you at the marketplace in Jüterbock, and urge you to consider the proposition made by Junker von Stein at the Brandenburg border, to give it to the Elector of Saxony in exchange for your freedom and your life.” “Not for anything in this world, little mother, not for anything in this world!” Kohlhaas replied, pressing her old hand in his, exalting at the power he'd been given to strike his enemy in the heel and inflict a mortal wound at the very moment when they trampled him underfoot. “But tell me, if I may know, the answers to those terrible questions that the paper contains!” To which, after lifting onto her
lap the youngest child who had knelt down at her feet, the woman laughed: “Not for anything in this world, Kohlhaas the horse trader; but for the sake of this handsome little blond boy!” The child peered at her with his big eyes, whereupon she smiled back, cuddled and kissed him, and with her haggard hands gave him an apple she pulled out of her pocket. Flustered, Kohlhaas said that the children would honor him for his resolve when they grew up and that he could do nothing more beneficial for them and their grandchildren than to keep that slip of paper. Furthermore, he asked, who could assure him against another swindle, who could swear that he'd come out with nothing in the end for the slip of paper, just as he had for dissolving his army in Lützen. “Whoever breaks his word once,” he said, “won't have another word from me; and only if you demanded it outright and in no uncertain terms, my good little mother, would I ever part with that paper, the sole redress granted me in such a wondrous way for all that I have suffered.” Setting the child back on the floor, the woman allowed that in some ways he was right and that he should do as he saw fit. Whereupon she reached for her crutches and got up to leave. Kohlhaas repeated his question as to the gist of the message on that wondrous slip of paper; and after she replied in haste: “Go ahead and open it for yourself, if you're so curious!” He pressed her to reveal a thousand other things before leaving: who she really was, how she came to know the things she knew, why she refused to give the Elector the paper since it was after all written for him, and why among the thousands present at the marketplace that day did she hand it to him of all people who had never sought her out? Now it so happened that at that very moment they heard the sound of several police officers climbing the steps; such that, afraid of being
found here with him, the woman hastily replied: “Fare thee well, Kohlhaas, fare thee well! You will have all your answers when next we meet!” And turning to the door, she cried: “Goodbye, my little ones, goodbye!” kissed them all one after another, and rushed off.