Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist

by Heinrich von Kleist

  Meanwhile, Nagelschmidt was so hemmed in on all sides by the police and troopers hot on his heels that, given his utter lack of provisions, compelled by the desperate situation and the role he had assumed, he suddenly thought of actually making contact with Kohlhaas; and having been well-informed by a passing traveler of the turn of his legal case in Dresden, the enmity between them notwithstanding, he felt quite certain he could convince the horse trader to once again join forces. Consequently, he sent one of his men with a message in barely legible German: “Should you wants to come to Altenburg and again take charge of the band of men what consists of stragglers from your former force who now find themselves in these parts, then I would be respectfully ready and willing to help you with horses, men and money, to break free of your captors in Dresden” – whereby he swore to henceforth be more obedient, upright and comport himself in a better manner than before, and as proof of his fidelity and devotion he pledged to personally come to Dresden to break him out of bondage. Unfortunately, the fellow entrusted with this note had the ill luck to collapse in a seizure of cramps he suffered since childhood in a village just outside Dresden; at which point the letter he carried in a pouch hung round his neck was found by the people who came to his assistance, he himself was arrested as soon as he’d recuperated, and brought by armed guards directly to police headquarters, with a considerable crowd trailing behind. As soon as the captain of the guard von Wenk had read this letter he hastened to the Elector’s palace, where he found their Lordships Kunz and Hinz, the former recovered from his wounds, as well as the President of the Chancellery Count Kallheim. The gentlemen were of the opinion that Kohlhaas should immediately be arrested and made to stand trial for his secret collusion with Nagelschmidt; in that, as they maintained, such a letter could not possibly have been written without prior contact initiated by the horse trader, and without there being a heinous and criminal connection between them in a plot to perpetrate new atrocities. The Elector adamantly refused, merely on account of this letter, to break the terms of the amnesty he had granted him; he was rather of the opinion that the letter appeared to suggest the great likelihood that no prior contact had been established between them; and all that he ultimately decided to do to clear things up, on the urging of the president, despite great hesitation, was to have the letter that had been carried by Nagelschmidt’s messenger passed on to him, as if the man had not been arrested, and see if Kohlhaas answered it. Consequently, the following morning, the man, who’d spent the night in jail, was taken to headquarters, where the captain of the guard gave him back the letter, and promising a full pardon and a reprieve from all punishment if he did as he was told, commanded him to hand it to the horse trader, as though nothing had happened; a malicious scheme with which the fellow readily agreed to comply, and in an apparently secretive manner, pretending to have crabs for sale, with which the captain’s men supplied him at market, he made his way to Kohlhaas’ house. Kohlhaas, who read the letter, while his children played with the crabs, would under other circumstances surely have grabbed the rascal by his collar and handed him over to the guards at the door; yet altogether disheartened as he was, even such a move seemed futile, and since he had completely convinced himself that nothing in the world could save him from the fix he was in, he cast a sad gaze on the knave’s all too familiar face, asked him where he was staying, and told him to return in a few hours, at which time he would pass on his decision to Nagelschmidt. He instructed Sternbald, who just happened to enter the room, to buy up the man’s stock of crabs; and once this business was done and the two, who did not know each other, had gone, sat himself down and drafted the following response to Nagelschmidt: “First of all, I accept your proposition that I take command of the band of men now gathered around Altenburg; further, pursuant thereto, I agree that you send a wagon with two horses to help me break out of the house in Neustadt near Dresden where I and my five children are currently being held prisoner; that, to speed my getaway, you also put at my disposal another rig with two horses on the road to Wittenberg, by which detour, for reasons too lengthy to go into, I alone will make my way to join you; that I believe I’ll be able to bribe the soldiers guarding me to turn a blind eye, but in the eventuality that force should be necessary, it would be good to know that a couple of stouthearted, shrewd and well-armed fellows were on hand nearby just in case; that to cover the costs of all these arrangements I will send my trusted servant with a pouch of twenty gold kronen, with which, if all goes well, you will be reimbursed; moreover, that I forbid you to be among my liberators in Dresden, since your presence there is not necessary, and indeed I order you to stay behind in Altenburg as the interim boss of the band, who can’t do without a headman.” When the man returned that evening Kohlhaas gave him this letter, rewarded him right generously and warned him to beware of Nagelschmidt. It was Kohlhaas’ intention to head with his children to Hamburg, thence he would ship off to the Levant or East India, or as far as the sky stayed blue over the heads of strangers; for aside from his reluctance to make common purpose with Nagelschmidt, the trouble that twisted his soul had made him fed up with the business of raising horses. No sooner had the traitorous lout brought his answer to the captain of the guard than the Lord High Chancellor was relieved of his office, Count Kallheim was appointed Chief of the Tribunal in his place and Kohlhaas was arrested by a cabinet decree from the Elector and led in chains to the tower. The letter, copies of which were posted in every corner of the city, was stuff enough for a trial; and since, at the prisoner’s dock, in response to the question, did he recognize the handwriting of said document, he replied “Yes!,” but in answer to the question, did he have anything to say in his defense, he peered at the ground and muttered “No!” and was condemned to be plucked apart by red hot pincers, thereafter drawn and quartered and his remains burnt between rack and gallows.

  This is how matters stood for poor Kohlhaas in Dresden when the Elector of Brandenburg interceded on his behalf to save him from the caprice of the powerful, and in an official objection filed with the State Chancellery of Saxony asserted the horse trader’s rights as a subject of Brandenburg. For the valiant captain of the Brandenburg guard, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, had informed the Elector of the fate of this extraordinary and falsely maligned man in the course of a stroll the two took together on the banks of the Spree, on which occasion, pressed by the flurry of questions of his startled liege lord, Sir Heinrich could not refrain from impressing upon him the culpability that fell to his own royal person as a consequence of the unseemly behavior of his Arch-Chancellor Count Siegfried von Kallheim. Whereupon the greatly vexed Elector, after demanding an explanation from Count von Kallheim, and discovering that the Count’s familial ties to the House of von Tronka were at the root of all this chicanery, expressed his displeasure in no uncertain terms and fired him forthwith from his post, installing in his stead as Arch-Chancellor Sir Heinrich von Geusau.

  It so happened, however, that for reasons unknown to us, the Polish Crown was at that very moment engaged in a quarrel with the House of Saxony, and in urgent and repeated appeals for help, called upon the Elector of Brandenburg to make common cause against Saxony; such that, the Arch-Chancellor Sir von Geusau, an able man in such matters, had reason to be optimistic in pressing His Lordship’s call for justice for Kohlhaas, come what may, without unduly jeopardizing the common good for the sake of one man. Consequently, citing not only the altogether arbitrary subversion of the laws of God and man, the Arch-Chancellor demanded the immediate and undisputable extradition of Kohlhaas to Brandenburg, and if he be deemed blameworthy, to have him stand trial according to the tenets of Brandenburg law, according to which the Dresden court could send a barrister to bring suit in Berlin; he furthermore requested the free right of passage for a lawyer whom the Brandenburg Elector wished to send to Dresden to seek justice for Kohlhaas for the nags unlawfully taken from him and for all the unconscionable mistreatments and acts of violence done him on Saxon soil by Junker Wenzel von Tronka. The
Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who had meanwhile, in the government shuffle in Saxony, acceded to the presidency of the State Chancellery, and who, given his present plight and for many other reasons, did not wish to offend the Berlin court, replied in the name of His Lordship, the Elector of Saxony, much taken aback at Brandenburg’s demand for extradition: “His Lordship is surprised at the incivility and unfairness of Berlin’s denial of Dresden’s right to try Kohlhaas for crimes committed on Saxon soil, according to Saxon law, since it is common knowledge that the defendant owns considerable land in the capital and does not deny his Saxon citizenship.” But since the Polish Crown had already amassed an army of five thousand men at the border with Saxony, prepared to defend its claims, and the Arch-Chancellor Sir Heinrich von Geusau declared: “that Kohlhaasenbrück, the place after which Kohlhaas was named, is located within the sovereign territory of Brandenburg, and that his state would deem his execution as a breach of international law,” the Elector of Saxony, on the urging of his Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who sought to disentangle himself from this whole affair, bid Prince Christiern von Meissen return from his country estate, and decided, after conferring briefly with that savvy gentleman, to respect Berlin’s wishes and extradite Kohlhaas. Though hardly pleased with all the improprieties that had transpired, the Prince, who was compelled to take charge of the Kohlhaas case on the express wishes of his hard-pressed lord, asked: “On what charges does your Lordship wish the horse trader tried at the Berlin high court?” And since, given the ambiguous and shady circumstances under which that confounded letter to Nagelschmidt was written, one could not very well present it as evidence, nor could one mention the previous plundering and arson on account of the decree of amnesty by which he was pardoned, the Elector decided to present a report on Kohlhaas’ armed raids in Saxony to His Majesty the Emperor in Vienna, to lodge an official complaint concerning this unlawful cross-border incursion and the resultant disturbance of the peace, a charge not bound by the terms of any amnesty, and consequently, to request that an imperial prosecutor pursue the case against Kohlhaas at the Berlin high court. Eight days later, still in shackles, the horse trader, along with his five children whom he had asked to have retrieved from the foundling homes and orphanages to which they’d been sent, were loaded onto a cart and conducted by the Baronet Sir Friedrich von Malzahn, whom the Elector of Brandenburg had sent from Dresden along with six mounted men to bring the prisoner to Berlin. Now it came to pass that the Chief Magistrate Count Aloysius von Kallheim, who at the time had extensive land holdings at the border with Saxony, invited the Elector of Saxony, along with his Lord Chamberlain Sir Kunz, the latter’s wife Lady Heloise, daughter of the Chief Magistrate and sister of the President of the State Chancellery, not to mention the various other illustrious lords and ladies, country Junkers and courtiers who happened to be on hand, to come to Dahme to take part in a stag hunt arranged to cheer up the dejected Elector; such that the entire company, still covered with the dust of the hunt, serenaded by a band playing under an oak tree, and served hand and foot by pages and footmen, were seated at table making merry in bright bannered tents pitched on a hilltop blocking the way, when the horse trader and his mounted guards came riding up on the road from Dresden to Berlin. For the illness of one of Kohlhaas’ delicate little ones compelled the Baronet von Malzahn, who accompanied them, to hold up for three days in Herzberg; concerning which precaution, solely accountable as he was to His Lordship, he did not deem it necessary to inform the authorities in Dresden. The Elector of Saxony, who sat with half-open shirt, his hat festooned with evergreen branches, hunter style, beside Lady Heloise, who had been his first love way back when, cheered by the infectious charms of the occasion, said: “Let us go and give the poor unfortunate, whoever he may be, this cup of wine!” Casting a tenderhearted look at him, Lady Heloise promptly leapt up from her chair and, reaching across the table, filled a silver dish a page handed her with fruit, cake, and bread; no sooner had the entire party followed her lead, swarming out of the tent loaded down with all sorts of refreshments, than the Chief Magistrate approached them with an embarrassed look and bid them return to their seats. In answer to the Elector’s startled question: “What in heaven’s name happened to make you so upset?” the Chief Magistrate stuttered, eyeing the Lord Chamberlain: “It’s K . . . K . . . Kohlhaas in the cart!” Whereupon the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, greatly surprised like everyone since it was common knowledge that the horse trader had left Dresden six days ago, gripped his cup of wine and, with a backwards toss, emptied its contents onto the sand. Turning red from ear to ear, the Elector set his cup on a plate a page held out to him, on a wink from the Lord Chamberlain; and while the Baronet Friedrich von Malzahn slowly made his way through the line of tents pitched helter-skelter across the road, extending his respectful greetings to the gathered group, none of whom he knew, ordering the cart to drive on to Dahme, the befuddled ladies and gentlemen followed the advice of the Chief Magistrate to think no more about it and return to the tents. As soon as the Elector had settled back into his chair, the Chief Magistrate sent surreptitious word on to the Magistrate of Dahme to assure that the horse trader be hustled along without any further interruptions; but given the late hour of their arrival, and the Baronet’s expressed desire to hole up there for the night, the local authorities were obliged to quietly put them up in a farm house belonging to the town magistrate, hidden behind a hedge by the side of the road. Now it just so happened that, come evening, the celebrants distracted by the wine they’d drunk and the sweet dessert they’d consumed, and having by now completely forgotten the incident, the Chief Magistrate, hearing that another herd of deer had been spotted in the vicinity, proposed that they once again set out in pursuit; of this proposition the entire company heartily approved, and, after filling their powder boxes and grabbing for their flintlocks, they bounded two by two over ditches and hedges into the nearby forest; and as chance would have it, the Elector and Lady Heloise, who, not wanting to miss all the fun, hanging on to His Lordship’s arm, were led by an assigned guide to the yard of the very house in which Kohlhaas and the Brandenburg guards were put up. Upon hearing this, the lady said: “Come, my gracious Lord, come!” and with a sly wink, plucked the gold chain that hung from his Lordship’s neck and hid it under his silken sash. “Let’s slip into the farmhouse before the others get here and catch a peek at the splendid gent!” Turning red, the Elector grasped her hand and said: “Heloise, what’s got into you?” But when, with a pout, she replied: “Nobody’d ever recognize you in your hunting get-up!” and dragged him along after her; and at that very moment a couple of country Junkers slipped out of the house, having already satisfied their own curiosity, assuring them that neither the Baronet nor the horse trader had the slightest idea of the highfalutin company the Chief Magistrate had gathered for a shindig just outside Dahme; the Elector pressed his hat down over his eyes and, grinning, whispered: “Folly, you rule the world, and your throne is a lovely woman’s mouth!”