Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist

by Heinrich von Kleist

  The following morning, Luther drafted a letter to the Prince Elector of Saxony, in which, following a bitter interjection concerning Messrs. Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, his chamberlain and cupbearer, who had, as was common knowledge, suppressed Kohlhaas’ complaint, he told the Lord straight out, as was his wont, that under such troublesome circumstances, he had no choice but to accept the horse trader’s proposition, and to accord him amnesty to pursue his legal case. Public opinion, Luther remarked, had turned dangerously in this man’s favor, such that even in the thrice-torched Wittenberg there were those who defended his cause; and since he would most assuredly bring his appeal to the public’s attention in the most hateful terms, should it be denied, the whole business could easily flare up to such a degree that the forces of law and order would no longer be able to hold him in check. Luther concluded that, in this extraordinary case, one had to overlook the dangerous risk of dealing with a citizen who had taken up arms; that the man in question had indeed, in a certain sense, on account of the measures taken against him, been cast out of the social contract; in short, so as to get ourselves out of this bind, we must view him as an invading foreign power – which is how, as a foreigner, he qualifies his own tenuous status – rather than as a rebel rising up against the throne. The Prince Elector received the letter just as Prince Christiern von Meissen, High Commander of the Reich, uncle of Prince Friedrich von Meissen, the latter beaten by Kohlhaas at Mühlberg and still suffering from his wounds; Count Wrede, the Lord High Chancellor of the Tribunal; Count Kallheim, president of the State Chancellery; and the aforementioned Messrs. Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, the former chamberlain, the latter cupbearer, childhood friends and confidants of His Lordship, all happened to be present at his castle. The Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who, in the capacity of a Privy Councilor, saw to the Elector’s private correspondence with the authority to use his name and seal, was the first to speak up, and after once again establishing at length that he had indeed submitted the horse trader’s complaint against the Junker, his cousin, to the tribunal, noted that he would certainly never have taken it upon himself to suppress it by injunction, had he not, misled by false assertions, taken it to be a wholly groundless and capricious attempt at extortion, whereupon he came to the current state of affairs. He remarked furthermore that, simply because of this regrettable blunder, neither divine nor human laws justified that the horse trader resort to the kind of inconceivable acts of revenge he had committed; he warned that to enter into negotiations with him as a legitimate warring power would bleach the dark stain of his standing in the public eye; and the consequent dishonor to the hallowed person of the Prince Elector would be so intolerable that, all things considered, he could sooner conceive, as worst case scenario, a verdict favoring the raging rebel, wherein the Junker, his cousin, were obliged to go to Kohlhaasenbrück and personally feed his nags, rather than an acceptance of Doctor Luther’s recommendation. Half-turned toward the chamberlain, the Lord High Chancellor of the Tribunal, Count Wrede, expressed his regret that the mindful consideration his colleague now displayed for the reputation of the Prince Elector in the resolution of this admittedly awkward matter had not been taken right from the start. He presented his position that the Elector would be obliged to enlist the supreme power of the state to enforce a patently unjust measure; remarked, with a telling look, on the horse trader’s continuing popularity in the country, that under these circumstances the trail of enormities threatened to go on without end, and concluded that only a simple act of justice, an immediate and unstinting restitution for the wrongs done him could make him stop and extricate the administration from this sordid tit for tat. In answer to the Elector’s question as to what he made of the matter, Prince Chistiern von Meissen turned with reverence to face the Lord High Chancellor: “I have the greatest respect for the high-minded views espoused by my esteemed colleague, in wishing to see Kohlhaas find justice, however, the Lord High Chancellor does not take into consideration all the damage the horse trader himself has done in Wittenberg and Leipzig and in the entire country while seeking redress or at least punishment for the injustice he suffered. The state of law and order in the land has been so disrupted by this man that in holding to a high-minded principle of jurisprudence we would be hard-pressed to repair the damage. Therefore, concurring with the views of the chamberlain, I would urge that all necessary military measures be taken, that an army be gathered of sufficient size to arrest or crush the horse trader, now holed up in Lützen.” Dragging chairs from against the wall for himself and the Prince Elector and setting them ceremoniously in the room, the chamberlain said he was glad that a man of such integrity and such a discerning mind shared his view of the way to settle this dubious matter. Grabbing hold of the proffered chair without sitting down, the Prince looked at his chamberlain and assured him that he had absolutely no reason to rejoice, since legal protocol necessarily demanded that a warrant for his arrest be issued first and that he be brought to trial for misuse of my name and title. For if necessity demanded that the veil be lowered before the throne of justice to cover up a series of outrages that followed ineluctably one after the other, the bar of justice would not be long enough to encompass them all, nor would the person who provoked these outrages be exempt from judgment; and the state would first have to seek the horse trader’s indictment for capital crimes before being empowered to crush a man whose cause was, after all, as everyone knew, a just one, and into whose hands the sword he wielded had been thrust. At these words, the Prince Elector, whom the Junker regarded with a pained expression, turned red in the face and strode to the window. Following a long disconcerted silence in the room, Count Kallheim remarked that such a course of action would not get them out of the vicious circle in which they were caught. “By the same logic,” he said, “one would be likewise obliged to bring my nephew, Prince Friedrich, to trial, for he, too, in the curious campaign he waged against Kohlhaas, had more than once overstepped the bounds of his orders; such that if one were to seek out the growing group of those responsible for the predicament in which we now find ourselves, he too would have to be included among them, and be called by the Elector to account for what happened at Mühlberg.” While the prince cast uncertain glances at his worktable, his cupbearer, Sir Hinz von Tronka, cleared his throat and declared: “I cannot fathom how the obvious state solution could have eluded men as astute as those gathered here. In exchange for safe passage to Dresden and the reopening of his legal case, the horse trader has, to my knowledge, promised to dissolve the army with which he has terrorized this land. It did not, however, necessarily follow that he would have to be granted amnesty for his vengeful acts”: two legal premises which both Dr. Luther and the Lord High Chancellor appeared to have confused. “Even if,” he continued, with a finger touching his nose, “the Dresden Tribunal were to recognize his rightful claim regarding the treatment of the nags, this would not preclude locking up Kohlhaas for his murderous rampage and pillaging” – an expedient take on the situation that combined the benefits of the views of both of the aforementioned statesmen and would surely be applauded by the people and by posterity. Seeing as Prince von Meissen and the Lord High Chancellor responded with nothing but a blank look to the cupbearer’s recommendation, and, consequently, the parley appeared to have come to an end, the Elector said: “I will mull over the various opinions presented here until the next state council meeting.” It seemed that the preliminary disciplinary measure mentioned by the count so touched the heart of the Elector, a heart prone to friendship, that it dispelled his desire to send out the military force he had already amassed to fight Kohlhaas. Thanking all the others, he only asked the Lord High Chancellor, Count Wrede, whose opinion seemed to him to be the most expedient, to remain; and since the latter showed him dispatches reporting that the horse trader’s force had, in fact, already grown to four hundred men, and that, moreover, given the public displeasure at the unseemly comportment of the chamberlain, one could count on that force soon doubling or tripling in size
– the Elector decided without any further delay to accept the advice of Dr. Luther. Whereupon he put Count Wrede in charge of the entire matter concerning Kohlhaas; and shortly thereafter, a placard was posted in public places, the essential details of which were as follows:

  We, etc. etc., Elector of Saxony, in exceptional merciful consideration of the recommendation made to us by Dr. Luther, herewith grant Michael Kohlhaas, horse trader from Brandenburg, within three days following his laying down of the arms he took up, and our sight thereof, safe passage to Dresden in order to pursue his legal case; with, however, the restriction, in the unlikely eventuality that his suit concerning the nags should be turned down by the Dresden Tribunal, that, on account of his rash actions, wherein he took the law into his own hands, he be made to face justice according to the full severity of the law; conversely, however, should his suit be sustained, let it be so decided that he and his entire force be mercifully granted complete amnesty for the violent acts perpetrated by them in Saxony.

  No sooner had Kohlhaas received from Dr. Luther a copy of this placard posted in all public places in the country, as conditional as the terms herein enumerated were, than he called together his entire army, and showering them with gifts, expressions of his profound gratitude and pointed warnings, promptly disbanded them. He deposited all that he had amassed in the way of money, weapons and implements, declaring it the Elector’s property at the court of law in Lützen; and after sending Waldmann with letters of inquiry to the magistrate in Kohlhaasenbrück regarding the reacquisition of his dairy farm, should that be possible, and sending Sternbald to Schwerin to fetch his children whom he once again wished to have by his side, he left the castle at Lützen and traveled incognito to Dresden with the rest of his meager fortune, comprising mostly documents and deeds.

  It was daybreak and the entire city was still asleep when he knocked on the door of the small property he still retained, thanks to the integrity of the magistrate, in the outlying district of Pirnais, and said to Thomas, the old superintendent in charge of its upkeep, who opened the door, in stunned amazement: “Please inform Prince von Meissen in the commander’s palace that Kohlhaas the horse trader is here.” Hearing the news, Prince von Meissen, who deemed it advisable to immediately inquire into the agreement that had been made with this man, and soon thereafter came riding up the street with a retinue of knights and foot soldiers, found a considerable crowd of people already gathered in front of the house. The news of the arrival of the avenging angel, the man who had fought the people’s oppressors with fire and sword, brought all of Dresden, the city and its suburbs, to its knees; the horse trader’s front door had to be bolted in the face of this throng of curious spectators, and youths climbed up to the window ledge to catch a glimpse of the famous killer in the flesh having his breakfast. As soon as the prince had, with the aid of a guard, pressed his way through the crowd into the house and entered Kohlhaas’ room, he asked the man seated, bare-chested, at table: “Are you Kohlhaas, the horse trader?” Whereupon, removing from under his belt a satchel of papers relating to his case and respectfully passing them to the prince, the latter said: “Yes!” And added: “After dissolving my army, compliant with the terms of the Elector’s right of passage, I am here in Dresden to plead my case against Junker Wenzel von Tronka in the matter of the nags.” With a fleeting glance that took the man in from head to foot, the prince flipped through the papers; asked him to explain the pertinence of an attestation issued by the court of Lützen concerning his deposition regarding objects of value belonging to the Elector; and after sounding him out with questions regarding his children, his possessions and the lifestyle he henceforth intended to follow, and being satisfied that there was nothing more to fear from him, he returned his satchel and said: “Nothing stands in the way of your legal proceedings. Permit me then without further ado to personally accompany you to the Lord High Chancellor Count Wrede.” And after a pause, during which he strode to the window and took in the crowd that had gathered outside, the prince added: “You will have to accept a guard for at least the first few days to protect you at home and when you go out!” Kohlhaas cast a dejected look at the floor and remained silent. “In any case,” said the prince, stepping away from the window, “come what may, you have yourself to blame”; whereupon he turned back to the door, intending to take his leave. Pulling himself together, Kohlhaas spoke: “Most gracious Sir, do with me what you will! If you will give me your word that you will withdraw the guard when I so wish, then I have no objection to this precautionary measure!” The prince replied: “That goes without saying.” And after telling the three armed men assigned to this detail that the man at whose house they stood guard was not a prisoner, and that they were only to follow him when he went out for his own protection, he bid the horse trader farewell with a wave of the hand and walked out the door.