Heinrich von Kleist

“ Luther, eyeing him keenly, said after a short reflection: “Yes, Kohlhaas, I will do it. But recollect that the Lord, whose body thou desirest, forgave his enemy. Wilt thou,” he added, as Kohlhaas looked confused, “likewise forgive the squire who offended thee, go to the Tronkenburg, set thyself upon thy horses, and ride home to fatten them at Kohlhaasenbrück?”
“Reverend sir,” said Kohlhaas, cooling as he grasped his hand, “Even the Lord did not forgive all his enemies. ”

“ As soon as Wenzel, in the presence of his cousin, the chamberlain, heard an indistinct rumour that a man with two black horses, saved from the flames at the Tronkenburg, had come into the city, they both set off attended by some servants, whom they had hastily gathered together to the castle-yard, where he was, that in case the horses should turn out to be Kohlhaas’s they might pay the expenses and take them home. But how surprised were they when they saw a multitude, which increased every moment, attracted by the spectacle, and assembled about the cart to which the horses were fastened. ”

“ The chamberlain, who did not know what in the world he should do with the horses, which the swineherd of Hainichen had, as it seemed, sold to the knacker of Döbbeln, unless indeed they were the horses on which the devil rode through Saxony, asked the squire to put in a word, and when his kinsman, with pale trembling lips, answered that the most advisable plan would be to buy them, whether they belonged to Kohlhaas or not, he wrapped his mantle round him, and not knowing what to do, retired from the crowd, cursing the father and mother who had given him birth. ”

“ In 1809, on the news of the outbreak of war in Austria, Dahlmann, together with the poet Heinrich von Kleist, whom he had met in Dresden, went to Bohemia, and was afterwards with the Imperial army, up till the battle of Aspern, with the somewhat vague object of trying to convert the Austrian war into a German one. ”

“ The governor, who while he was talking with the physician, saw Kohlhaas drop a tear on the letter he had just received and opened, went up to him in a kind manner, and asked him what misfortune had happened; and when the horse-dealer, instead of answering, put the letter in his hand, this worthy man, to whom the abominable wrong, which had been done at the Tronkenburg, and in consequence of which Herse lay ill before him, perhaps for life, was well known, slapped him on the shoulder, and bid him not to be disheartened, as he would aid him to obtain justice. ”

“ I will have my sound and well-fed horses.” The squire, whose face became pale for a moment, alighted and said, “If the rascal will not take his horses, why let him leave them. Come Gunther, come Hans,” cried he, as he brushed the dust from his breeches with his hand. “And, ho! wine there!” he called, as he crossed the threshold with the knights and entered his dwelling. Kohlhaas said that he would rather send for the knacker and have the horses knocked on the head, than he would take them in such a condition to his stable at Kohlhaasenbrück. ”

“ The intelligence that the destroying angel was there, who pursued the oppressors of the people with fire and sword, had set all Dresden, city and suburbs, in motion. It was found necessary to bolt the door against the pressure of the anxious multitude, and the youngsters clambered up to the window to see the incendiary, who was at breakfast. As soon as the prince, with the assistance of the guard, who forced a passage for him, had pressed forward into the house, and had entered Kohlhaas’s room, he asked him, as he stood half-undressed at a table, “Whether he was Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer?” ”

“ Your wife, as I understand, has already told you that the Elector of Brandenburg and I, on the third day of the meeting, which we had in Jüterboch, met a gipsy. When the elector, who is of sportive disposition, resolved by a jest to demolish in the sight of the people the fame of this extraordinary woman, whose art had been the subject of unseemly conversation at table, and asked her, on account of the prophecy which she was about to utter, to give him a sign that might be tested that very day, alleging that he could not otherwise believe what she said, were she the Roman sybil herself. ”

“ Heinrich von Kleist's novels and stories, on the other hand, belong among the best that German literature possesses. Almost all the narratives of our writers, with the exception of a few productions by Hoffmann and Tieck, suffer, if I may say so, from the monstrousness of the subjects chosen, if they do indeed rise at all above mediocrity. There is, however, no very deep psychological insight needed in order to know how the whole man will be affected by an event which sweeps down upon him like a stormwind, and very ordinary talents may safely attempt tasks of this kind ”

“ Kohlhaas, though his face was white, affected a jocose style, and said, “Now, did not you wish to abscond, Herse?” and when the man, colouring, looked on the ground, he added, “Now confess, you did not like the pigsty, you thought the stable in Kohlhaasenbrück much better—did you not?” “Thunder of Heaven!” exclaimed Herse, “I left the harness and horse-cloths, and the bundle of linen in the sty. ”

“ The servant, Waldmann, who met him, told him that he had given the copy of the mandate, when he saw the abbess and the beadle of the convent talking in an agitated manner beneath the portal. The latter, a little old man, with hair as white as snow, darting fierce glances at Kohlhaas, ordered his armour to be put on, and with a bold voice told the servants who stood round him to ring the alarm bell, while the abbess with a silver crucifix in her hand, descended, white as her own garment, from the landing-place, and with all her maidens, threw herself before Kohlhaas’s horses. ”

“ The horse-dealer was cunning enough to avoid this troop, and after he had, by his clever retreats, lured away the governor five miles from the city, and had made him believe by various preparations that if pressed by numbers he would throw himself into the Brandenburg territory, he suddenly faced about at the approach of the third night, and galloping back to Wittenberg for the third time to set it on fire. ”

“ But when, perceiving his surprise, she answered that no one would recognise him in his hunting dress, and also, at the very same moment, two hunting attendants, who had already satisfied their curiosity, came out of the house and said, that in consequence of an arrangement of the seneschals, neither the knight nor the horse-dealer knew of whom consisted the party assembled near Dahme, the elector, smiling, pressed his hat over his eyes, and said: “Folly, thou rulest the world, and thy throne is the mouth of a pretty woman.” ”

“ Kohlhaas, while he looked upon the man, who was little known to him, with astonishment, opened the note, the seal of which, impressed on a wafer, reminded him of the well-known gipsy. Who can describe his astonishment when he read as follows:
“Kohlhaas,—The Elector of Saxony is in Berlin. He is gone before thee to the place of execution; and thou mayest know him, if, indeed, it concerns thee, by a hat with blue and white feathers. I need not tell thee the purpose for which he comes. As soon as thou art buried, he will dig up the case, and have the paper opened which it contains. ”

“ Already, as he crossed the court-yard, Kohlhaas heard the unpleasant news that his servant, on account of improper conduct, as they said, had been beaten and sent off a few days after he had been left at the Tronkenburg. He asked the young man who gave him this intelligence, what the servant had done, and who had attended the horses in the meanwhile. He replied that he did not know, and opened the stall in which they were kept to the horse-dealer, whose heart already swelled with dark misgivings. ”

“ This worthless fellow, partly to frighten the officers by whom he was pursued, partly to induce the peasantry after the ordinary fashion to take part in his misdeeds, called himself vicegerent to Kohlhaas, and spread a report with the cunning he had learned from his master, that the amnesty had not been kept with many men, who had returned quietly to their homes—nay that Kohlhaas himself, by a shameful violation of faith, had been imprisoned immediately on his arrival at Dresden, and had been consigned to the care of a guard. ”

“ Reasons of another kind, which we leave to the surmise of every one who knows the secrets of his own heart, might also have operated. He therefore went to the high-chancellor, without the guard, and having the farmer’s letters in his hand, stated that if his presence at the court could be dispensed with, as indeed seemed to be the case, he wished to leave the city and go to Brandenburg for eight days or a fortnight, promising to return within that time. ”

“ While, amid the crackling of the outbuildings, which the men set on fire, Herse flew up the winding staircase to the castellan’s tower, and cut and thrust at the castellan and the bailiff, who were at play, half undressed. Kohlhaas rushed into the castle to find Squire Wenzel. So does the angel of judgment descend from Heaven, and the squire, who, amid peals of laughter, was reading to a party of young friends, the decree, which the horse-dealer had sent him, no sooner heard his voice in the yard, than he cried to the rest, pale as death, “Save yourselves, brothers!” ”

“ Suddenly Lisbeth saying that a thought had struck her, raised herself, wiped the tears from her eyes, and asked him, as he sat down at a desk, whether he could not give her the petition, and let her go to Dresden instead of him, to present it to the sovereign.
Kohlhaas, struck by this sudden turn, for more reasons than one, drew her to him, and said: “Dearest wife, that is impossible! The sovereign is surrounded by many obstacles, and to many annoyances is the person exposed who ventures to approach him.” ”

“ The horse-dealer, who saw that he must give way to force, resolved, as he could not do otherwise, to comply with the request, so he unfastened the blacks, and conducted them to a stable which the castellan showed him, left a servant behind, gave him money, told him to take care of the blacks till his return, and doubting whether, on account of the advances made in breeding, there might not be such a law in Saxony, he continued his journey with the rest of his horses to Leipzig, where he wished to attend the fair. ”

“ Nothing on the part of the government was more displeasing to him than the empty show of justice, while, in fact, the amnesty was broken; and in case he was a prisoner, about which there seemed to be no doubt, he wished to compel the government to declare it clearly and without ambiguity. Therefore, at the dawn of the following day, he had his vehicle brought up, and the horses put to it by Sternbald his servant, to go, as he said, to the farmer at Lockewitz, who had spoken to him a few days before at Dresden as an old acquaintance, and had invited him to pay him a visit with his children. ”

“ In the meanwhile, Nagelschmidt was so hampered on all sides by soldiers and officers of the law in the woods of the Erzgebirge, that being utterly destitute of means to carry out the part he had chosen, he hit upon the thought of really drawing Kohlhaas into his interest. He had learned with tolerable accuracy, through a traveller who passed on the road, the state of the suit at Dresden, and was of opinion, that in spite of the open hostility which existed between them, it would be possible to induce the horse-dealer to enter into a new alliance with him. ”

“ Of all that the German Romanticists produced, little will endure—some masterly translations by A. W. Schlegel, a few of Tieck's productions, a handful of Hardenberg's and another of Eichendorff's lyrics, some of Friedrich Schlegel's essays, a few of Arnim's and Brentano's smaller works, a select number of Hoffmann's tales, and some very remarkable dramas and tales from the pen of that eccentric but real genius, Heinrich von Kleist. The rest of the life-work of the Romanticists has disappeared from the memory of the present generation. ”

“ The elector said he could only confess that the sight of a worthless slip of paper, worn by the man in a leaden case, had been the cause of the unpleasant occurrence. In explanation of this circumstance he uttered much which the chamberlain did not understand, suddenly assured him, as he pressed his hand, that the possession of this slip would be of the utmost importance, and finally entreated him to mount on horseback without delay, to ride to Dalheim, and to purchase the slip from Kohlhaas at any price. ”

“ A new responsibility was placed upon the shoulders of the German poet, which rested heavily on men like Otto Ludwig, and on account of which writers like Hebbel or Richard Wagner thought themselves justified in claiming the royal privileges of the favorites of the gods.
An entirely new method of poetic study began, which perhaps originated with Heinrich von Kleist: a passionate endeavor to place the whole of life at the service of observation or to spend it in the study of technique. ”

“ He pretended that the amnesty which had been promised to the man, would render improper the fulfilment of a capital sentence; assured him, that in spite of the apparent severity of the proceedings against Kohlhaas, it had never been his intention to put him to death; and stated how inconsolable he should be if the protection which seemed to be granted him from Berlin, should by an unexpected turn prove more to his disadvantage than if he had remained in Dresden, and the affair had been decided according to Saxon law. ”