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Various - "The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction"

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The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV by Editor in Chief: Kuno Francke

E >> Editor in Chief: Kuno Francke >> The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV




Whatever may have been Kleist's personal peculiarities, his works give
evidence of the finest artistic sanity and conscience. His acute sense
of literary form sets him off from the whole generation of
Romanticists, who held the author's personal caprice to be the supreme
law of poetry, and most of whose important works were either medleys
or fragments. He was his own severest critic, and labored over his
productions, as he did over his own education, with untiring energy
and intense concentration. A less scrupulous author would not have
destroyed the manuscript of _Robert Guiscard_ because he could not
keep throughout its action the splendid promise of the first act. His
works are usually marked by rare logical and artistic consistency.
Seldom is there any interruption of the unity and simple directness of
his actions by sub-plots or episodes, and he scorned the easy
theatrical devices by which the successful playwrights of his day
gained their effects. Whether in drama or story, his action grows
naturally out of the characters and the situations. Hence the
marvelous fact that his dramas can be performed with hardly an
alteration, though the author, never having seen any of them on the
stage, lacked the practical experience by which most dramatists learn
the technique of their art.

Kleist evidently studied the models of classical art with care. His
unerring sense of form, his artistic restraint in a day when caprice
was the ruling fashion, and the conciseness of his expression, are
doubtless due to classical influence. But, at the same time, he was an
innovator, one of the first forerunners of modern realism. He
describes and characterizes with careful, often microscopic detail;
his psychological analysis is remarkably exact and incisive; and he
fearlessly uses the ugly or the trivial when either better serves his
purpose.

In all the varied volume of Kleist's works, there is very little that
is mediocre or negligible. The _Schroffenstein Family_, to be sure, is
prentice work, but it can bear comparison with the first plays of the
greatest dramatists. The fragment of _Robert Guiscard_ is masterly in
its rapid cumulative exposition, representing the hero, idolized by
his troops, as stricken with the plague when the crowning glory of his
military career seems to be within his grasp; while the discord
between Guiscard's son and nephew presages an irrepressible family
conflict. The style, as Wieland felt when he listened with rapture to
the author's recital, is a blend of classical and Elizabethan art. The
opening chorus of the people, the formal balanced speeches, the
analytical action, beginning on the verge of the catastrophe, are
traits borrowed from Greek tragedy. On the other hand, there is much
realistic characterization and a Shakespearian variety and freedom of
tone. _The Broken Jug_, too, is analytical in its conduct. Almost from
the first it is evident that Adam, the village judge, is himself the
culprit in the case at trial in his court, and the comic efforts of
the arch-rascal to squirm out of the inevitable discovery only serve
to make his guilt the surer. In this comedy the blank verse adapts
itself to all the turns of familiar humorous dialogue, and the effect
of the Dutch genre-paintings of Teniers or Jan Steen is admirably
reproduced in dramatic form. The slowly moving action, constantly
reverting to past incidents, makes a successful performance difficult;
the fate of this work on the stage has depended upon finding an actor
capable of bringing out all the possibilities in the part of Adam, who
is a masterpiece of comic self-characterization.

_Penthesilea_ is a work apart. Passionate, headlong, almost savage, is
the character of the queen of the Amazons, yet wonderfully sweet in
its gentler moods and glorified with the golden glow of high poetry.
Nothing could be further removed from the pseudo-classical manner of
the eighteenth century than this modern and individual interpretation
of the old mythical story of Penthesilea and Achilles, between whom
love breaks forth in the midst of mortal combat. The clash of passions
creates scenes in this drama that transcend the humanly and
dramatically permissible. Yet there is a wealth of imaginative beauty
and emotional melody in this tragedy beyond anything in Kleist's other
works. It was written with his heart's blood; in it he uttered all the
yearning and frenzy of his first passion for the unattainable and
ruined masterpiece _Guiscard_.

_Kitty of Heilbronn_ stands almost at the opposite pole from
_Penthesilea_. The pathos of Griselda's unquestioning self-abnegation
is her portion; she is the extreme expression of the docile quality
that Kleist sought in his betrothed. Instead of the fabled scenes of
Homeric combat, we have here as a setting the richly romantic and
colorful life of the age of chivalry. The form, too, is far freer and
more expansive, with an unconventional mingling of verse and prose.

The last two plays were born of the spirit that brought forth the War
of Liberation. In them Kleist gave undying expression to his ardent
patriotism; it was his deepest grief that these martial dramas were
not permitted to sound their trumpet-call to a humbled nation yearning
to be free. _Arminius_ is a great dramatized philippic. The ancient
Germanic chiefs Marbod and Arminius, representing in Kleist's
intention the Austria and Prussia of his day, are animated by one
common patriotic impulse, rising far above their mutual rivalries, to
cast off the hateful and oppressive yoke of Rome; and after the
decisive victory over Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, each of these
strong chiefs is ready in devoted self-denial to yield the primacy to
the other, in order that all Germans may stand together against the
common foe. _Prince Frederick of Homburg_ is a dramatic glorification
of the Prussian virtues of discipline and obedience. But the finely
drawn characters of this play are by no means rigid martinets. They
are largely, frankly, generously human, confessing the right of
feeling as well as reason to direct the will. Never has there been a
more sympathetic literary exposition of the soldierly character than
this last tribute of a devoted patriot to his beloved Brandenburg.

The narrative works of Kleist maintain the same high level as his
dramas. _Michael Kohlhaas_ is a good example of this excellent
narrative art, for which Kleist found no models in German literature.
Unity is a striking characteristic; the action can usually be summed
up in a few words, such as the formula for this story, given expressly
on its first page: "His sense of justice made him a robber and a
murderer." There is no leisurely exposition of time, place, or
situation; all the necessary elements are given concisely in the first
sentences. The action develops logically, with effective use of
retardation and climax, but without disturbing episodes; and the
reader is never permitted to forget the central theme. The descriptive
element is realistic, with only pertinent details swiftly presented,
often in parentheses, while the action moves on. The characterization
is skilfully indirect, through unconscious action and speech. The
author does not shun the trivial or even the repulsive in detail, nor
does he fear the most tragic catastrophes. He is scrupulously
objective, and, in an age of expansive lyric expression, he is most
chary of comment. The sentence structure, as in the dramas, is often
intricate, but never lax. The whole work in all its parts is firmly
and finely forged by a master workman.

Kleist has remained a solitary figure in German literature. Owing
little to the dominant literary influences of his day, he has also
found few imitators. Two generations passed before he began to come
into his heritage of legitimate fame. Now that a full century has
elapsed since his tragic death, his place is well assured among the
greatest dramatic and narrative authors of Germany. A brave man
struggling desperately against hopeless odds, a patriot expending his
genius with lavish unselfishness for the service of his country in her
darkest days, he has been found worthy by posterity to stand as the
most famous son of a faithful Prussian family of soldiers.




MICHAEL KOHLHAAS (1808)

A Tale from an Old Chronicle

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES A. KING


Toward the middle of the sixteenth century there lived on the banks of
the river Havel a horse-dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas, the
son of a school-master, one of the most upright and, at the same time,
one of the most terrible men of his day. Up to his thirtieth year this
extraordinary man would have been considered the model of a good
citizen. In a village which still bears his name, he owned a farmstead
on which he quietly supported himself by plying his trade. The
children with whom his wife presented him were brought up in the fear
of God, and taught to be industrious and honest; nor was there one
among his neighbors who had not enjoyed the benefit of his kindness or
his justice. In short, the world would have had every reason to bless
his memory if he had not carried to excess one virtue--his sense of
justice, which made of him a robber and a murderer.

He rode abroad once with a string of young horses, all well fed and
glossy-coated, and was turning over in his mind how he would employ
the profit that he hoped to make from them at the fairs; part of it,
as is the way with good managers, he would use to gain future profits,
but he would also spend part of it in the enjoyment of the present.
While thus engaged he reached the Elbe, and near a stately castle,
situated on Saxon territory, he came upon a toll-bar which he had
never found on this road before. Just in the midst of a heavy shower
he halted with his horses and called to the toll-gate keeper, who
soon after showed his surly face at the window. The horse-dealer told
him to open the gate. "What new arrangement is this?" he asked, when
the toll-gatherer, after some time, finally came out of the house.

"Seignorial privilege" answered the latter, unlocking the gate,
"conferred by the sovereign upon Squire Wenzel Tronka."

"Is that so?" queried Kohlhaas; "the Squire's name is now Wenzel?" and
gazed at the castle, the glittering battlements of which looked out
over the field. "Is the old gentleman dead?"

"Died of apoplexy," answered the gate keeper, as he raised the
toll-bar.

"Hum! Too bad!" rejoined Kohlhaas. "An estimable old gentleman he was,
who liked to watch people come and go, and helped along trade and
traffic wherever he could. He once had a causeway built because a mare
of mine had broken her leg out there on the road leading to the
village. Well, how much is it?" he asked, and with some trouble got
out the few groschen demanded by the gate keeper from under his cloak,
which was fluttering in the wind. "Yes, old man," he added, picking up
the leading reins as the latter muttered "Quick, quick!" and cursed
the weather; "if this tree had remained standing in the forest it
would have been better for me and for you." With this he gave him the
money, and started to ride on.

He had hardly passed under the toll-bar, however, when a new voice
cried out from the tower behind him, "Stop there, horse-dealer!" and
he saw the castellan close a window and come hurrying down to him.
"Well, I wonder what he wants!" Kohlhaas asked himself, and halted
with his horses. Buttoning another waistcoat over his ample body, the
castellan came up to him and, standing with his back to the storm,
demanded his passport.

"My passport?" queried Kohlhaas. Somewhat disconcerted, he replied
that he had none, so far as he knew, but that, if some one would just
describe to him what in the name of goodness this was, perhaps he
might accidentally happen to have one about him. The castellan, eying
him askance, retorted that without an official permit no horse-dealer
was allowed to cross the border with horses. The horse-dealer assured
him that seventeen times in his life he had crossed the border without
such a permit; that he was well acquainted with all the official
regulations which applied to his trade; that this would probably prove
to be only a mistake; the castellan would please consider the matter
and, since he had a long day's journey before him, not detain him here
unnecessarily any longer. But the castellan answered that he was not
going to slip through the eighteenth time, that the ordinance
concerning this matter had been only recently issued, and that he must
either procure the passport here or go back to the place from which he
had come. After a moment's reflection, the horse-dealer, who was
beginning to feel bitter, got down from his horse, turned it over to a
groom, and said that he would speak to Squire Tronka himself on the
subject. He really did walk toward the castle; the castellan followed
him, muttering something about niggardly money-grubbers, and what a
good thing it was to bleed them; and, measuring each other with their
glances, the two entered the castle-hall.

It happened that the Squire was sitting over his wine with some merry
friends, and a joke had caused them all to break into uproarious
laughter just as Kohlhaas approached him to make his complaint. The
Squire asked what he wanted; the young nobles, at sight of the
stranger, became silent; but no sooner had the latter broached his
request concerning the horses, than the whole group cried out,
"Horses! Where are they?" and hurried over to the window to look at
them. When they saw the glossy string, they all followed the
suggestion of the Squire and flew down into the courtyard. The rain
had ceased; the castellan, the steward, and the servant gathered round
them and all scanned the horses. One praised a bright bay with a
white star on its forehead, another preferred a chestnut, a third
patted the dappled horse with tawny spots; and all were of the opinion
that the horses were like deer, and that no finer were raised in the
country. Kohlhaas answered cheerily that the horses were no better
than the knights who were to ride them, and invited the men to buy.
The Squire, who eagerly desired the big bay stallion, went so far as
to ask its price, and the steward urged him to buy a pair of black
horses, which he thought he could use on the farm, as they were short
of horses. But when the horse-dealer had named his price the young
knights thought it too high, and the Squire said that Kohlhaas would
have to ride in search of the Round Table and King Arthur if he put
such a high value on his horses. Kohlhaas noticed that the castellan
and the steward were whispering together and casting significant
glances at the black horses the while, and, moved by a vague
presentiment, made every effort to sell them the horses. He said to
the Squire, "Sir, I bought those black horses six months ago for
twenty-five gold gulden; give me thirty and you shall have them." Two
of the young noblemen who were standing beside the Squire declared
quite audibly that the horses were probably worth that much; but the
Squire said that while he might be willing to pay out money for the
bay stallion he really should hardly care to do so for the pair of
blacks, and prepared to go in. Whereupon Kohlhaas, saying that the
next time he came that way with his horses they might perhaps strike a
bargain, took leave of the Squire and, seizing the reins of his horse,
started to ride away.

At this moment the castellan stepped forth from the crowd and reminded
him that he would not be allowed to leave without a passport. Kohlhaas
turned around and inquired of the Squire whether this statement, which
meant the ruin of his whole trade, were indeed correct. The Squire, as
he went off, answered with an embarrassed air, "Yes, Kohlhaas, you
must get a passport. Speak to the castellan about it, and go your
way." Kohlhaas assured him that he had not the least intention of
evading the ordinances which might be in force concerning the
exportation of horses. He promised that when he went through Dresden
he would take out the passport at the chancery, and begged to be
allowed to go on, this time, as he had known nothing whatever about
this requirement. "Well!" said the Squire, as the storm at that moment
began to rage again and the wind blustered about his scrawny legs;
"let the wretch go. Come!" he added to the young knights, and, turning
around, started toward the door. The castellan, facing about toward
the Squire, said that Kohlhaas must at least leave behind some pledge
as security that he would obtain the passport. The Squire stopped
again under the castle gate. Kohlhaas asked how much security for the
black horses in money or in articles of value he would be expected to
leave. The steward muttered in his beard that he might just as well
leave the blacks themselves.

"To be sure," said the castellan; "that is the best plan; as soon as
he has taken out the passport he can come and get them again at any
time." Kohlhaas, amazed at such a shameless demand, told the Squire,
who was holding the skirts of his doublet about him for warmth, that
what he wanted to do was to sell the blacks; but as a gust of wind
just then blew a torrent of rain and hail through the gate, the
Squire, in order to put an end to the matter, called out, "If he won't
give up the horses, throw him back again over the toll-bar;" and with
that he went off.

The horse-dealer, who saw clearly that on this occasion he would have
to yield to superior force, made up his mind to comply with the
demand, since there really was no other way out of it. He unhitched
the black horses and led them into a stable which the castellan
pointed out to him. He left a groom in charge of them, provided him
with money, warned him to take good care of the horses until he came
back, and with the rest of the string continued his journey to
Leipzig, where he purposed to go to the fair. As he rode along he
wondered, in half uncertainty, whether after all such a law might not
have been passed in Saxony for the protection of the newly started
industry of horse-raising.

On his arrival in Dresden, where, in one of the suburbs of the city,
he owned a house and stable--this being the headquarters from which he
usually conducted his business at the smaller fairs around the
country--he went immediately to the chancery. And here he learned from
the councilors, some of whom he knew, that indeed, as his first
instinct had already told him, the story of the passport was only made
up. At Kohlhaas's request, the annoyed councilors gave him a written
certificate of its baselessness, and the horse-dealer smiled at the
lean Squire's joke, although he did not quite see what purpose he
could have had in view. A few weeks later, having sold to his
satisfaction the string of horses he had with him, Kohlhaas returned
to Tronka Castle harboring no other resentment save that caused by the
general misery of the world.

The castellan, to whom he showed the certificate, made no comment upon
it, and to the horse-dealer's question as to whether he could now have
his horses back, replied that he need only go down to the stable and
get them. But even while crossing the courtyard, Kohlhaas learned with
dismay that for alleged insolence his groom had been cudgeled and
dismissed in disgrace a few days after being left behind at Tronka
Castle. Of the boy who informed him of this he inquired what in the
world the groom had done, and who had taken care of the horses in the
mean time; to this the boy answered that he did not know, and then
opened to the horse-dealer, whose heart was already full of
misgivings, the door of the stable in which the horses stood. How
great, though, was his astonishment when, instead of his two glossy,
well-fed blacks, he spied a pair of lean, worn-out jades, with bones
on which one could have hung things as if on pegs, and with mane and
hair matted together from lack of care and attention--in short, the
very picture of utter misery in the animal kingdom! Kohlhaas, at the
sight of whom the horses neighed and moved feebly, was extremely
indignant, and asked what had happened to his horses. The boy, who was
standing beside him, answered that they had not suffered any harm, and
that they had had proper feed too, but, as it had been harvest time,
they had been used a bit in the fields because there weren't draught
animals enough. Kohlhaas cursed over the shameful, preconcerted
outrage; but realizing that he was powerless he suppressed his rage,
and, as no other course lay open to him, was preparing to leave this
den of thieves again with his horses when the castellan, attracted by
the altercation, appeared and asked what was the matter.

"What's the matter?" echoed Kohlhaas. "Who gave Squire Tronka and his
people permission to use for work in the fields the black horses that
I left behind with him?" He added, "Do you call that humane?" and
trying to rouse the exhausted nags with a switch, he showed him that
they did not move. The castellan, after he had watched him for a while
with an expression of defiance, broke out, "Look at the ruffian! Ought
not the churl to thank God that the jades are still alive?" He asked
who would have been expected to take care of them when the groom had
run away, and whether it were not just that the horses should have
worked in the fields for their feed. He concluded by saying that
Kohlhaas had better not make a rumpus or he would call the dogs and
with them would manage to restore order in the courtyard.

The horse-dealer's heart thumped against his doublet. He felt a strong
desire to throw the good-for-nothing, pot-bellied scoundrel into the
mud and set his foot on his copper-colored face. But his sense of
justice, which was as delicate as a gold-balance, still wavered; he
was not yet quite sure before the bar of his own conscience whether
his adversary were really guilty of a crime. And so, swallowing the
abusive words and going over to the horses, he silently pondered the
circumstances while arranging their manes, and asked in a subdued
voice for what fault the groom had been turned out of the castle. The
castellan replied, "Because the rascal was insolent in the courtyard;
because he opposed a necessary change of stables and demanded that the
horses of two young noblemen, who came to the castle, should, for the
sake of his nags, be left out on the open high-road over night."

Kohlhaas would have given the value of the horses if he could have had
the groom at hand to compare his statement with that of this
thick-lipped castellan. He was still standing, straightening the
tangled manes of the black horses, and wondering what could be done in
the situation in which he found himself, when suddenly the scene
changed, and Squire Wenzel Tronka, returning from hare-hunting, dashed
into the courtyard, followed by a swarm of knights, grooms, and dogs.
The castellan, when asked what had happened, immediately began to
speak, and while, on the one hand, the dogs set up a murderous howl at
the sight of the stranger, and, on the other, the knights sought to
quiet them, he gave the Squire a maliciously garbled account of the
turmoil the horse-dealer was making because his black horses had been
used a little. He said, with a scornful laugh, that the horse-dealer
refused to recognize the horses as his own.

Kohlhaas cried, "Your worship, those are not my horses. Those are not
the horses which were worth thirty gold gulden! I want my well-fed,
sound horses back again!"

The Squire, whose face grew momentarily pale, got down from his horse
and said, "If the d----d scoundrel doesn't want to take the horses
back, let him leave them here. Come, Gunther!" he called; "Hans,
come!" He brushed the dust off his breeches with his hand and, just as
he reached the door with the young knights, called "Bring wine!" and
strode into the house.

Kohlhaas said that he would rather call the knacker and have his
horses thrown into the carrion pit than lead them back, in that
condition, to his stable at Kohlhaasenbrueck. Without bothering himself
further about the nags, he left them standing where they were, and,
declaring that he should know how to get his rights, mounted his bay
horse and rode away.

He was already galloping at full speed on the road to Dresden when, at
the thought of the groom and of the complaint which had been made
against him at the castle, he slowed down to a walk, and, before he
had gone a thousand paces farther, turned his horse around again and
took the road toward Kohlhaasenbrueck, in order, as seemed to him wise
and just, to hear first what the groom had to say. For in spite of the
injuries he had suffered, a correct instinct, already familiar with
the imperfect organization of the world, inclined him to put up with
the loss of the horses and to regard it as a just consequence of the
groom's misconduct in case there really could be imputed to the latter
any such fault as the castellan charged. On the other hand, an equally
admirable feeling took deeper and deeper root the farther he rode,
hearing at every stop of the outrages perpetrated daily upon travelers
at Tronka Castle; this instinct told him that if, as seemed probable,
the whole incident proved to be a preconcerted plot, it was his duty
to the world to make every effort to obtain for himself satisfaction
for the injury suffered, and for his fellow-countrymen a guarantee
against similar injuries in the future.