Wittenberg, etc.
Martin Luther
In the castle at Lützen Kohlhaas, who did not believe the notice that had gone up in the villages saying that Junker Wenzel was in Dresden (for it bore no signature at all, let alone that of the city council as he had demanded), was just turning over in his tormented heart a new plan for setting fire to Leipzig, when to their great dismay Sternbald and Waldmann saw Luther’s proclamation, which had been nailed to the castle gate during the night. Not wanting to approach him about it themselves, they waited several days in vain for Kohlhaas to notice it. He was gloomy and turned in upon himself, and although he would appear in the evenings it was only to give brief instructions, and he saw nothing. So when, one morning, he was about to hang two men who had been out plundering in the district in violation of his orders, they resolved to draw his attention to it. He was just returning from the place of execution in the ceremonious manner which had become customary with him since he had issued his latest writ: a great archangelic sword on a red leather cushion, decorated with gold tassels, was borne in front of him, twelve men with burning torches followed, and the crowd timorously made way for him on either side. At that moment Sternbald and Waldmann, carrying their swords under their arms in a manner intended to attract his attention, stepped round the pillar to which the proclamation was nailed. As Kohlhaas came through the gateway, deep in thought and with his hands clasped behind his back, he raised his eyes and stopped short; the two men deferentially stood aside on seeing him, and he, glancing at them with a preoccupied air, strode quickly up to the pillar. But who shall describe the tumult of his mind when he saw the proclamation, its text accusing him of injustice, and its signature the dearest and most venerable name known to him, that of Martin Luther! His face flushed deep crimson and, removing his helmet, he read it through twice from beginning to end. Turning back to his men with a look of uncertainty on his face, he made as if to speak but said nothing; he removed the notice from the pillar, perused it yet again, then shouted: ‘Waldmann! saddle my horse!’ and ‘Sternbald, come with me to the castle!’ and vanished. Those few words had sufficed to disarm him in an instant, so low had he sunk. He quickly disguised himself as a Thuringian farmer, informed Sternbald that a matter of great importance obliged him to go to Wittenberg, entrusted him in the presence of some of his best men with the command of the forces he was to leave behind in Lützen, and assuring them that he would be back in three days, during which time there was no fear of an attack, he left for Wittenberg.
He put up at an inn under an assumed name and as soon as night fell, wearing a cloak and carrying a pair of pistols he had taken as booty from Tronka Castle, he entered Luther’s room. Luther, who was sitting at his desk over papers and books when he saw this unknown and strange-looking man open the door and bolt it behind him, asked who he was and what he wanted. No sooner had the man, holding his hat respectfully in his hand and diffidently sensing the alarm he was about to cause, answered that he was Michael Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, than Luther shouted: ‘Leave this place!’, adding, as he hastily rose from his desk to ring the bell, ‘Your breath is pestilent and your presence perdition!’ Without stirring from the spot Kohlhaas drew his pistol and said, ‘Your Reverence, if you touch that bell this pistol will stretch me lifeless at your feet! Be seated and listen to me. You are as safe with me as with the angels whose psalms you write down.’ Returning to his chair, Luther asked, ‘What do you want?’ Kohlhaas replied: ‘To prove that you are wrong in thinking me an unjust man! In your proclamation you say that my sovereign knows nothing of my case: very well then, get me a safe conduct to Dresden and I shall go there and put my case before him.’ ‘You impious and terrible man!’ cried Luther, whom these words had both bewildered and reassured, ‘who gave you the right to attack Junker von Tronka in pursuance of decrees issued on no authority but your own, and when you could not find him in his castle to come down with fire and sword on the whole community that gave him shelter?’ ‘No one, your Reverence,’ replied Kohlhaas, ‘from this moment on! Information I received from Dresden deceived me and led me astray! The war I am waging against human society becomes a crime if this assurance you give me is true and society had not cast me out!’ ‘Cast you out!’ cried Luther, staring at him. ‘What mad idea has taken possession of you? Who do you say has cast you out from the community of the state in which you have lived? Has there ever, so long as states have existed, been a case of anyone, no matter who, becoming an outcast from society?’ ‘I call that man an outcast,’ answered Kohlhaas, clenching his fist, ‘who is denied the protection of the law! For I need that protection if my peaceful trade is to prosper; indeed it is for the sake of that protection that I take refuge, with all the goods I have acquired, in that community. Whoever withholds it from me drives me out into the wilderness among savages. It is he – how can you deny it? – who puts into my hands the club I am wielding to defend myself.’ ‘Who refused you the protection of the law?’ cried Luther. ‘Did I not write to you that the petition you delivered has not been seen by the sovereign to whom you delivered it? If state officials suppress lawsuits behind his back or make a mockery of his otherwise sacred name without his knowledge, who but God can call him to account for appointing such servants? Is a cursed wretch like you entitled to judge him for it?’ ‘Very well,’ replied Kohlhaas, ‘if my sovereign has not cast me out from the community he protects, then I will return to it. I say again, get me a safe conduct to Dresden and I will disperse the troops I have assembled at Lützen Castle; then I shall go to the Saxon High Court and reopen my case which it dismissed.’ Luther, with an expression of annoyance, pushed papers to and fro on his desk and said nothing. He was angered by the defiant attitude this strange man adopted towards the state, and thinking of the writ which he had served on the Junker from Kohlhaasenbrück, he asked him what he expected of the Dresden court. Kohlhaas answered: ‘Punishment of the Junker according to the law; the restoration of the horses to their former state; and damages for what I and my groom Herse, who fell at Mühlberg, suffered from the violence that was done to us.’ ‘Damages!’ cried Luther. ‘You have borrowed sums running into thousands, against bills and securities, from Jews and Christians alike, to pay for your savage personal revenge. Will you add them to your account as well when the reckoning is made?’ ‘God forbid!’ retorted Kohlhaas, ‘I do not ask for the return of my home and estate and the wealth I enjoyed, any more than the cost of my wife’s funeral! Herse’s old mother will claim the expenses of his medical treatment and produce an itemized statement of the property her son lost at Tronka Castle; and as for the loss I suffered through not selling the blacks, the government can have that valued by a qualified person.’ ‘You insane, incomprehensible, terrible man!’ exclaimed Luther, staring at him. ‘You have already taken with your sword the grimmest imaginable revenge on the Junker; what then still makes you insist on a court judgement against him which, even when it is finally pronounced, will only be of quite trivial severity?’ With a tear rolling down his cheek Kohlhaas answered: ‘Your Reverence, that judgement will have cost me my wife; Kohlhaas means to prove to the world that she did not die in an unjust cause. Let me have my will thus far and let the court deliver judgement; in all other points of dispute that may arise I will defer to you.’
‘Well then,’ said Luther, ‘if the circumstances really are as public opinion has it, then what you demand is just. If you had succeeded in presenting your case to the sovereign for his decision before you arbitrarily took revenge into your own hands, I do not doubt that your demands would have been met point by point. But would you not, all things considered, have done better to forgive the Junker for your Redeemer’s sake, and take the horses away, thin and scraggy as they were, and ride back with them to Kohlhaasenbrück for fattening in your stables?’ ‘Maybe,’ said Kohlhaas, walking to the window, ‘maybe, or maybe not! If I had known that it would take the heart’s blood of my beloved wife to get them on their feet again, I might have done as your Re
verence suggests, and not made a fuss of a bushel of oats! But now that they have come to cost me so dear, I think the matter should take its course. Let judgement be passed, as is my due, and let the Junker fatten my blacks for me.’ With many thoughts passing through his mind, Luther picked up his papers again and told Kohlhaas that he would negotiate on his behalf with the Elector. In the meantime he should remain quietly in the castle at Lützen. If the sovereign granted him safe conduct he would be told of it by public proclamation. ‘But,’ he continued as Kohlhaas bent to kiss his hand, ‘I do not know whether the Elector will show mercy. I have heard that he has assembled an army and is on the point of joining battle with you at Lützen Castle. However, as I have said, I shall spare no efforts.’ With these words he stood up as if to dismiss him. Kohlhaas remarked that he felt no apprehensions on that score with Luther as his advocate, whereupon the latter held out his hand; but the horse-dealer fell on one knee before him and said that he had another favour to beg. At Whitsun, when he usually received Communion, he had failed to go to church, owing to his military activities. Would Luther do him the kindness, without further preparation, of hearing his confession and in return granting him the benefit of the holy sacrament? Luther, after a moment of reflection, looked at him sharply and said: ‘Yes, Kohlhaas, I will. But the Lord, of whose body you wish to partake, forgave his enemy.’ And when Kohlhaas, taken aback, stared at him, he added: ‘Will you likewise forgive the Junker who wronged you, go to Tronka Castle, mount your two blacks and ride them back to Kohlhaasenbrück for fattening?’ ‘Your Reverence,’ said Kohlhaas, flushing and grasping his hand. ‘Well?’ ‘– even the Lord did not forgive all his enemies. Let me forgive the Electors, my two sovereigns, the warden and the steward, the lords Hinz and Kunz and whoever else has done me wrong in this affair; but, if it is possible, let the Junker be compelled to fatten my blacks for me again.’ At these words Luther turned his back on him with a look of displeasure, and rang the bell. Kohlhaas stood up in confusion, wiping his eyes, as an assistant entered the anteroom with a lamp in response to this summons; and since Luther had sat down again to his papers and the assistant was trying vainly to open the bolted door, Kohlhaas opened it for him. Luther glanced across at the stranger and told his assistant to light him out; whereupon the man, somewhat disconcerted by the sight of the visitor, unhooked a house-key from the wall and, waiting for him to follow, moved back towards the half-open door of the room. Kohlhaas, holding his hat in both hands, said with some emotion: ‘Then, your Reverence, am I not to have the comfort of making my peace, as I asked of you?’ Luther replied curtly: ‘With your Saviour, no; with your sovereign – that depends on the efforts I have promised you to make!’ And with that he motioned to the assistant to carry out his duty without further delay. With a look of sorrow Kohlhaas crossed both his hands over his heart, followed the man who lighted him down the stair, and disappeared.
The next morning Luther sent off a letter to the Elector of Saxony. After a caustic passing allusion to the lords Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, the Chamberlain and Cupbearer who attended on His Highness’s person and who, as was generally known, had suppressed Kohlhaas’s lawsuit, he advised the Elector with characteristic candour that under such unfortunate circumstances there was no other course open but to accept the horse-dealer’s proposal and grant him an amnesty for what had occurred so that he might reopen his case. Public opinion, he noted, was on the man’s side in a highly dangerous degree, so that even in Wittenberg, which he had set on fire three times, there were those who spoke in his favour; and since if this present proposal were rejected he would undoubtedly, with malevolent animadversions, make it known to the people, the latter might easily be so far won over that the authority of the state would become powerless against him. He concluded that in so extraordinary a case any scruples about entering into negotiation with a subject who had taken up arms must be set aside; that the means used against him had in fact, in a certain sense, placed him outside society and its laws; and in short, that the situation would best be remedied if Kohlhaas were treated not so much as a rebel in revolt against the crown but rather as a foreign invading power, for which status, indeed, the fact that he was not a Saxon subject to some extent qualified him.
When the Elector received this letter there were present at the palace Prince Christiern of Meissen, the Imperial Marshal and an uncle of Prince Friedrich of Meissen who had been defeated at Mühlberg and was still laid up with his wounds; the Grand Chancellor of the High Court, Count Wrede; Count Kallheim, President of the State Chancellery; and the lords Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, respectively Cupbearer and Chamberlain, both of them childhood friends and intimates of the sovereign. The Chamberlain, Lord Kunz, who, in his capacity as a privy councillor looked after the Elector’s privy correspondence and had authority to use his name and seal, was the first to speak. He explained at length that he would never have decided on his own responsibility to dismiss the case brought to the High Court by the horse-dealer against his cousin the Junker, had he not been deceived by false information into regarding it as a wholly groundless and idle piece of trouble-making. Coming to the present situation, he observed that no law either of God or of man authorized the horse-dealer to exact, as he was presuming to do, such monstrous personal vengeance for this judicial error. It would, he insisted, lend prestige to this accursed reprobate if they were to treat with him as with a lawful belligerent. The disgrace that would thereby be reflected upon the sacred person of the Elector was, he added in a burst of eloquence, so intolerable to him that he would rather bear the worst and see his cousin the Junker taken to Kohlhaasenbrück to fatten the blacks, in accordance with the mad rebel’s decree, than have Dr Luther’s proposal accepted. The Grand Chancellor of the High Court, Count Wrede, half turning to him, expressed his regret that the Chamberlain had not shown the same delicate solicitude for his sovereign’s reputation when this unquestionably embarrassing matter first arose as he was now showing when it had become necessary to clear it up. He indicated to the Elector the reservations he felt about invoking the power of the state to enforce an obvious injustice. He alluded significantly to the horse-dealer’s ever-increasing following in Saxony, pointed out that this thread of violence threatened to spin itself out indefinitely, and declared that there was no way to sever it and extricate the government from this ugly situation except plain fair dealing: they must immediately and without further scruple make good the wrong that had been done. When asked by the Elector what he thought of this, Prince Christiern of Meissen turned deferentially to the Chancellor and submitted that while the latter’s attitude filled him with all due respect, his suggestion that Kohlhaas’s wrongs should be righted left out of account the interests of Wittenberg and Leipzig and indeed the whole of the country ravaged by the horse-dealer, and prejudiced its just claim for compensation or at least for retribution. The order of the state had, he considered, been so disrupted on account of this man that it could hardly now be set to rights by principles of jurisprudence. He therefore supported the Chamberlain’s view that they should employ the means appropriate in such cases, assemble an army of sufficient size, attack Kohlhaas in his entrenchment at Lützen and either capture or destroy him. The Chamberlain, bringing over two chairs from the wall and politely placing them in the room for the Prince and the Elector, said he was glad to find that a man of the Prince’s integrity and perspicacity agreed with him on the question of how best to settle this perplexing affair. Holding the chair without sitting down, the Prince looked straight at him and said that he had no reason at all to be glad, since the proposed course of action inevitably entailed that as a preliminary measure he, Kunz von Tronka, should be arrested and put on trial for misuse of the sovereign’s name. For although it might be necessary to draw a veil, before the seat of justice, over a whole series of crimes which had proliferated until they were simply too numerous to be called to account, this did not apply to the first of them, which had led to all the rest; and not until the Chamberlain was arrai
gned on this capital charge would the state be entitled to suppress the horse-dealer, whose grievances, as they well knew, were perfectly just; they themselves had put into his hand the sword he was now wielding. At these words the Junker looked in dismay at the Elector, who turned away, blushing deeply, and moved over to the window. After an embarrassed silence on all sides, Count Kallheim remarked that by such means they would never break out of the charmed circle in which they were caught. On such grounds it would be equally justifiable to put the Prince’s nephew Friedrich on trial, for during the special expedition that he had led against Kohlhaas he had exceeded his instructions in a number of ways; thus if there was to be a reckoning with all those who had caused the present embarrassment, Prince Friedrich would also have to be included among them and called upon by the sovereign to answer for what had happened at Mühlberg. At this point, as the Elector crossed to his desk with a look of perplexity, the Cupbearer Hinz von Tronka spoke in his turn, saying that he could not understand how the decision that should be taken could have escaped men of such wisdom as were assembled here. As he understood it, the horse-dealer had undertaken to disband his men and cease his attacks in return merely for a safe-conduct to Dresden and a renewed examination of his case. But it did not follow that he would have to be granted an amnesty for his criminal acts of vengeance: there were two legal concepts which both Dr Luther and this council of state seemed to have confused. ‘When,’ he continued, placing his finger along his nose, ‘the High Court in Dresden has passed judgement in the matter of the horses, then whichever way that judgement falls there is nothing to prevent us locking up Kohlhaas on charges of arson and robbery. This would be a politically expedient solution, combining the advantages of both the views expressed in our council, and it would I am sure commend itself both to present public opinion and to posterity.’
The Marquise of O and Other Stories Page 16