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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




The official answered in a pleasant, joking way that the danger was
certainly not very great, adding that the soldiers were not to
incommode him in any way. Kohlhaas replied, seriously, that on his
arrival in Dresden the Prince of Meissen had left it to his own choice
whether he would make use of the guard or not, and as the clerk seemed
surprised at this circumstance and with carefully chosen phrases
reminded him that he had employed the guard during the whole time of
his presence in the city, the horse-dealer related to him the incident
which had led to the placing of the soldiers in his house. The clerk
assured him that the orders of the Governor of the Palace, Baron Wenk,
who was at that moment head of the police force, made it his duty to
watch over Kohlhaas' person continually, and begged him, if he would
not consent to the escort, to go to the Government Office himself so
as to correct the mistake which must exist in the matter. Kohlhaas
threw a significant glance at the clerk and, determined to put an end
to the matter by hook or by crook, said that he would do so. With a
beating heart he got down from the wagon, had the porter carry the
children back into the corridor, and while his servant remained before
the house with the wagon, Kohlhaas went off to the Government Office,
accompanied by the clerk and his guard.

It happened that the Governor of the Palace, Baron Wenk, was busy at
the moment inspecting a band of Nagelschmidt's followers who had been
captured in the neighborhood of Leipzig and brought to Dresden the
previous evening. The knights who were with the Governor were just
questioning the fellows about a great many things which the government
was anxious to learn from them, when the horse-dealer entered the room
with his escort. The Baron, as soon as he caught sight of Kohlhaas,
went up to him and asked him what he wanted, while the knights grew
suddenly silent and interrupted the interrogation of the prisoners.
When Kohlhaas had respectfully submitted to him his purpose of going
to dine with the steward at Lockwitz, and expressed the wish to be
allowed to leave behind the soldiers of whom he had no need, the
Baron, changing color and seeming to swallow some words of a different
nature, answered that Kohlhaas would do well to stay quietly at home
and to postpone for the present the feast at the Lockwitz steward's.
With that he turned to the clerk, thus cutting short the whole
conversation, and told him that the order which he had given him with
regard to this man held good, and that the latter must not leave the
city unless accompanied by six mounted soldiers.

Kohlhaas asked whether he were a prisoner, and whether he should
consider that the amnesty which had been solemnly promised to him
before the eyes of the whole world had been broken. At which the
Baron, his face turning suddenly a fiery red, wheeled around and,
stepping close up to him and looking him in the eyes, answered, "Yes!
Yes! Yes!" Then he turned his back upon him and, leaving Kohlhaas
standing there, returned to Nagelschmidt's followers.

At this Kohlhaas left the room, and although he realized that the
steps he had taken had rendered much more difficult the only means of
rescue that remained, namely, flight, he nevertheless was glad he had
done as he had, since he was now, on his part, likewise released from
obligation to observe the conditions of the amnesty. When he reached
home he had the horses unharnessed, and, very sad and shaken, went to
his room accompanied by the government clerk. While this man, in a way
which aroused the horse-dealer's disgust, assured him that it must all
be due to a misunderstanding which would shortly be cleared up, the
constables, at a sign from him, bolted all the exits which led from
the house into the courtyard. At the same time the clerk assured
Kohlhaas that the main entrance at the front of the house still
remained open and that he could use it as he pleased.

Nagelschmidt, meanwhile, had been so hard pushed on all sides by
constables and soldiers in the woods of the Ore Mountains, that,
entirely deprived, as he was, of the necessary means of carrying
through a role of the kind which he had undertaken, he hit upon the
idea of inducing Kohlhaas to take sides with him in reality. As a
traveler passing that way had informed him fairly accurately of the
status of Kohlhaas' lawsuit in Dresden, he believed that, in spite of
the open enmity which existed between them, he could persuade the
horse-dealer to enter into a new alliance with him. He therefore sent
off one of his men to him with a letter, written in almost unreadable
German, to the effect that if he would come to Altenburg and resume
command of the band which had gathered there from the remnants of his
former troops who had been dispersed, he, Nagelschmidt, was ready to
assist him to escape from his imprisonment in Dresden by furnishing
him with horses, men, and money. At the same time he promised Kohlhaas
that, in the future, he would be more obedient and in general better
and more orderly than he had been before; and to prove his
faithfulness and devotion he pledged himself to come in person to the
outskirts of Dresden in order to effect Kohlhaas' deliverance from his
prison.

The fellow charged with delivering this letter had the bad luck, in a
village close to Dresden, to be seized with a violent fit, such as he
had been subject to from childhood. In this situation, the letter
which he was carrying in his vest was found by the persons who came to
his assistance; the man himself, as soon as he had recovered, was
arrested and transported to the Government Office under guard,
accompanied by a large crowd of people. As soon as the Governor of the
Palace, Wenk, had read this letter, he went immediately to the palace
to see the Elector; here he found present also the President of the
Chancery of State, Count Kallheim, and the lords Kunz and Hinz, the
former of whom had recovered from his wounds. These gentlemen were of
the opinion that Kohlhaas should be arrested without delay and brought
to trial on the charge of secret complicity with Nagelschmidt. They
went on to demonstrate that such a letter could not have been written
unless there had been preceding letters written by the horse-dealer,
too, and that it would inevitably result in a wicked and criminal
union of their forces for the purpose of plotting fresh iniquities.

The Elector steadfastly refused to violate, merely on the ground of
this letter, the safe-conduct he had solemnly promised to Kohlhaas. He
was more inclined to believe that Nagelschmidt's letter made it rather
probable that no previous connection had existed between them, and all
he would do to clear up the matter was to assent, though only after
long hesitation, to the President's proposition to have the letter
delivered to Kohlhaas by the man whom Nagelschmidt had sent, just as
though he had not been arrested, and see whether Kohlhaas would answer
it. In accordance with this plan the man, who had been thrown into
prison, was taken to the Government Office the next morning. The
Governor of the Palace gave him back the letter and, promising him
freedom and the remission of the punishment which he had incurred,
commanded him to deliver the letter to the horse-dealer as though
nothing had happened. As was to be expected, the fellow lent himself
to this low trick without hesitation. In apparently mysterious fashion
he gained admission to Kohlhaas' room under the pretext of having
crabs to sell, with which, in reality, the government clerk had
supplied him in the market. Kohlhaas, who read the letter while the
children were playing with the crabs, would certainly have seized the
imposter by the collar and handed him over to the soldiers standing
before his door, had the circumstances been other than they were. But
since, in the existing state of men's minds, even this step was
likewise capable of an equivocal interpretation, and as he was fully
convinced that nothing in the world could rescue him from the affair
in which he was entangled, be gazed sadly into the familiar face of
the fellow, asked him where he lived, and bade him return in a few
hours' time, when he would inform him of his decision in regard to his
master. He told Sternbald, who happened to enter the door, to buy some
crabs from the man in the room, and when this business was concluded
and both men had gone away without recognizing each other, Kohlhaas
sat down and wrote a letter to Nagelschmidt to the following effect:
"First, that he accepted his proposition concerning the leadership of
his band in Altenburg, and that accordingly, in order to free him from
the present arrest in which he was held with his five children,
Nagelschmidt should send him a wagon with two horses to Neustadt near
Dresden. Also that, to facilitate progress, he would need another team
of two horses on the road to Wittenberg, which way, though roundabout,
was the only one he could take to come to him, for reasons which it
would require too much time to explain. He thought that he would be
able to win over by bribery the soldiers who were guarding him, but in
case force were necessary he would like to know that he could count on
the presence of a couple of stout-hearted, capable, and well-armed men
in the suburb of Neustadt. To defray the expenses connected with all
these preparations, he was sending Nagelschmidt by his follower a roll
of twenty gold crowns concerning the expenditure of which he would
settle with him after the affair was concluded. For the rest,
Nagelschmidt's presence being unnecessary, he would ask him not to
come in person to Dresden to assist at his rescue--nay, rather, he
gave him the definite order to remain behind in Altenburg in
provisional command of the band which could not be left without a
leader."

When the man returned toward evening, he delivered this letter to him,
rewarded him liberally, and impressed upon him that he must take good
care of it.

Kohlhaas' intention was to go to Hamburg with his five children and
there to take ship for the Levant, the East Indies, or the most
distant land where the blue sky stretched above people other than
those he knew. For his heart, bowed down by grief, had renounced the
hope of ever seeing the black horses fattened, even apart from the
reluctance that he felt in making common cause with Nagelschmidt to
that end.

Hardly had the fellow delivered this answer of the horse-dealer's to
the Governor of the Palace when the Lord High Chancellor was deposed,
the President, Count Kallheim, was appointed Chief Justice of the
Tribunal in his stead, and Kohlhaas was arrested by a special order of
the Elector, heavily loaded with chains, and thrown into the city
tower. He was brought to trial upon the basis of this letter, which
was posted at every street-corner of the city. When a councilor held
it up before Kohlhaas at the bar of the Tribunal and asked whether he
acknowledged the handwriting, he answered, "Yes;" but to the question
as to whether he had anything to say in his defense, he looked down at
the ground and replied, "No." He was therefore condemned to be
tortured with red-hot pincers by knacker's men, to be drawn and
quartered, and his body to be burned between the wheel and the
gallows.

Thus stood matters with poor Kohlhaas in Dresden when the Elector of
Brandenburg appeared to rescue him from the clutches of arbitrary,
superior power, and, in a note laid before the Chancery of State in
Dresden, claimed him as a subject of Brandenburg. For the honest City
Governor, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, during a walk on the banks of the
Spree, had acquainted the Elector with the story of this strange and
irreprehensible man, on which occasion, pressed by the questions of
the astonished sovereign, he could not avoid mentioning the blame
which lay heavy upon the latter's own person through the unwarranted
actions of his Arch-Chancellor, Count Siegfried von Kallheim. The
Elector was extremely indignant about the matter and after he had
called the Arch-Chancellor to account and found that the relationship
which he bore to the house of the Tronkas was to blame for it all, he
deposed Count Kallheim at once, with more than one token of his
displeasure, and appointed Sir Heinrich von Geusau to be
Arch-Chancellor in his stead.

Now it so happened that, just at that time, the King of Poland, being
at odds with the House of Saxony, for what occasion we do not know,
approached the Elector of Brandenburg with repeated and urgent
arguments to induce him to make common cause with them against the
House of Saxony, and, in consequence of this, the Arch-Chancellor, Sir
Geusau, who was not unskilful in such matters, might very well hope
that, without imperiling the peace of the whole state to a greater
extent than consideration for an individual warrants, he would now be
able to fulfil his sovereign's desire to secure justice for Kohlhaas
at any cost whatever.

Therefore the Arch-Chancellor did not content himself with demanding,
on the score of wholly arbitrary procedure, displeasing to God and
man, that Kohlhaas should be unconditionally and immediately surrendered,
so that, if guilty of a crime, he might be tried according to the laws
of Brandenburg on charges which the Dresden Court might bring against him
through an attorney at Berlin; but Sir Heinrich von Geusau even went so
far as himself to demand passports for an attorney whom the Elector of
Brandenburg wished to send to Dresden in order to secure justice for
Kohlhaas against Squire Wenzel Tronka on account of the black horses
which had been taken from him on Saxon territory and other flagrant
instances of ill-usage and acts of violence. The Chamberlain, Sir Kunz,
in the shifting of public offices in Saxony, had been appointed President
of the State Chancery, and, hard pressed as he was, desired, for a
variety of reasons, not to offend the Court of Berlin. He therefore
answered in the name of his sovereign, who had been very greatly cast
down by the note he had received, that they wondered at the unfriendliness
and unreasonableness which had prompted the government of Brandenburg to
contest the right of the Dresden Court to judge Kohlhaas according to
their laws for the crimes which he had committed in the land, as it was
known to all the world that the latter owned a considerable piece of
property in the capital, and he did not himself dispute his qualification
as a Saxon citizen.

But as the King of Poland was already assembling an army of five
thousand men on the frontier of Saxony to fight for his claims, and as
the Arch-Chancellor, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, declared that
Kohlhaasenbrueck, the place after which the horse-dealer was named, was
situated in Brandenburg, and that they would consider the execution of
the sentence of death which had been pronounced upon him to be a
violation of international law, the Elector of Saxony, upon the advice
of the Chamberlain, Sir Kunz himself, who wished to back out of the
affair, summoned Prince Christiern of Meissen from his estate, and
decided, after a few words with this sagacious nobleman, to surrender
Kohlhaas to the Court of Berlin in accordance with their demand.

The Prince, who, although very much displeased with the unseemly
blunders which had been committed, was forced to take over the conduct
of the Kohlhaas affair at the wish of his hard-pressed master, asked
the Elector what charge he now wished to have lodged against the
horse-dealer in the Supreme Court at Berlin. As they could not refer
to Kohlhaas' fatal letter to Nagelschmidt because of the questionable
and obscure circumstances under which it had been written, nor
mention the former plundering and burning because of the edict in
which the same had been pardoned, the Elector determined to lay before
the Emperor's Majesty at Vienna a report concerning the armed invasion
of Saxony by Kohlhaas, to make complaint concerning the violation of
the public peace established by the Emperor, and to solicit His
Majesty, since he was of course not bound by any amnesty, to call
Kohlhaas to account therefor before the Court Tribunal at Berlin
through an attorney of the Empire.

A week later the horse-dealer, still in chains, was packed into a
wagon by the Knight Friedrich of Malzahn, whom the Elector of
Brandenburg had sent to Dresden at the head of six troopers; and,
together with his five children, who at his request had been collected
from various foundling hospitals and orphan asylums, was transported
to Berlin.

It so happened that the Elector of Saxony, accompanied by the
Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, and his wife, Lady Heloise, daughter of the
High Bailiff and sister of the President, not to mention other
brilliant ladies and gentlemen, hunting-pages and courtiers, had gone
to Dahme at the invitation of the High Bailiff, Count Aloysius of
Kallheim, who at that time possessed a large estate on the border of
Saxony, and, to entertain the Elector, had organized a large stag-hunt
there. Under the shelter of tents gaily decorated with pennons,
erected on a hill over against the highroad, the whole company, still
covered with the dust of the hunt, was sitting at table, served by
pages, while lively music sounded from the trunk of an oak-tree, when
Kohlhaas with his escort of troopers came riding slowly along the road
from Dresden. The sudden illness of one of Kohlhaas' delicate young
children had obliged the Knight of Malzahn, who was his escort, to
delay three whole days in Herzberg. Having to answer for this act only
to the Prince whom he served, the Knight had not thought it necessary
to inform the government of Saxony of the delay. The Elector, with
throat half bare, his plumed hat decorated with sprigs of fir, as is
the way of hunters, was seated beside Lady Heloise, who had been the
first love of his early youth. The charm of the fete which surrounded
him having put him in good humor, he said, "Let us go and offer this
goblet of wine to the unfortunate man, whoever he may be."

Lady Heloise, casting an entrancing glance at him, got up at once,
and, plundering the whole table, filled a silver dish which a page
handed her with fruit, cakes, and bread. The entire company had
already left the tent in a body, carrying refreshments of every kind,
when the High Bailiff came toward them and with an embarrassed air
begged them to remain where they were. In answer to the Elector's
disconcerted question as to what had happened that he should show such
confusion, the High Bailiff turned toward the Chamberlain and
answered, stammering, that it was Kohlhaas who was in the wagon. At
this piece of news, which none of the company could understand, as it
was well known that the horse-dealer had set out six days before, the
Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, turning back toward the tent, poured out his
glass of wine on the ground. The Elector, flushing scarlet, set his
glass down on a plate which a page, at a sign from the Chamberlain,
held out to him for this purpose, and while the Knight, Friedrich von
Malzahn, respectfully saluting the company, who were unknown to him,
passed slowly under the tent ropes that were stretched across the
highroad and continued on his way to Dahme, the lords and ladies, at
the invitation of the High Bailiff, returned to the tent without
taking any further notice of the party. As soon as the Elector had sat
down again, the High Bailiff dispatched a messenger secretly to Dahme
intending to have the magistrate of that place see to it that the
horse-dealer continued his journey immediately; but since the Knight
of Malzahn declared positively that, as the day was too far gone, he
intended to spend the night in the place, they had to be content to
lodge Kohlhaas quietly at a farm-house belonging to the magistrate,
which lay off the main road, hidden away among the bushes.

Now it came about toward evening, when all recollection of the
incident had been driven from the minds of the lords and ladies by the
wine and the abundant dessert they had enjoyed, that the High Bailiff
proposed they should again lie in wait for a herd of stags which had
shown itself in the vicinity. The whole company took up the suggestion
joyfully, and after they had provided themselves with guns went off in
pairs, over ditches and hedges, into the near-by forest. Thus it was
that the Elector and Lady Heloise, who was hanging on his arm in order
to watch the sport, were, to their great astonishment, led by a
messenger who had been placed at their service, directly across the
court of the house in which Kohlhaas and the Brandenburg troopers were
lodged. When Lady Heloise was informed of this she cried, "Your
Highness, come!" and playfully concealing inside his silken vest the
chain which hung around his neck she added, "Before the crowd follows
us let us slip into the farm-house and have a look at the singular man
who is spending the night here." The Elector blushed and seized her
hand exclaiming, "Heloise! What are you thinking of?" But as she,
looking at him with amazement, pulled him along and assured him that
no one would ever recognize him in the hunting-costume he had on, and
as, moreover, at this very moment a couple of hunting-pages who had
already satisfied their curiosity came out of the house, and announced
that in truth, on account of an arrangement made by the High Bailiff,
neither the Knight nor the horse-dealer knew what company was
assembled in the neighborhood of Dahme, the Elector pulled his hat
down over his eyes with a smile and said, "Folly, thou rulest the
world, and thy throne is a beautiful woman's mouth!"

Kohlhaas was sitting just then on a bundle of straw with his back
against the wall, feeding bread and milk to his child who had been
taken ill at Herzberg, when Lady Heloise and the Elector entered the
farm-house to visit him. To start the conversation, Lady Heloise asked
him who he was and what was the matter with the child; also what
crime he had committed and where they were taking him with such an
escort. Kohlhaas doffed his leather cap to her and, continuing his
occupation, made laconic but satisfactory answers to all these
questions. The Elector, who was standing behind the hunting-pages,
remarked a little leaden locket hanging on a silk string around the
horse-dealer's neck, and, since no better topic of conversation
offered itself, he asked him what it signified and what was in it.
Kohlhaas answered, "Oh, yes, worshipful Sir, this locket!" and with
that he slipped it from his neck, opened it, and took out a little
piece of paper with writing on it, sealed with a wafer. "There is a
strange tale connected with this locket. It may be some seven months
ago, on the very day after my wife's funeral--and, as you perhaps
know, I had left Kohlhaasenbrueck in order to get possession of Squire
Tronka, who had done me great wrong--that in the market-town of
Jueterbock, through which my expedition led me, the Elector of Saxony
and the Elector of Brandenburg had met to discuss I know not what
matter. As they had settled it to their liking shortly before evening,
they were walking in friendly conversation through the streets of the
town in order to take a look at the annual fair which was just being
held there with much merry-making. They came upon a gipsy who was
sitting on a stool, telling from the calendar the fortunes of the
crowd that surrounded her. The two sovereigns asked her jokingly if
she did not have something pleasing to reveal to them too? I had just
dismounted with my troop at an inn, and happened to be present in the
square where this incident occurred, but as I was standing at the
entrance of a church, behind all the people, I could not hear what the
strange woman said to the two lords. The people began to whisper to
one another laughingly that she did not impart her knowledge to every
one, and to crowd together to see the spectacle which was preparing,
so that I, really more to make room for the curious than out of
curiosity on my part, climbed on a bench behind me which was carved
in the entrance of the church. From this point of vantage I could see
with perfect ease the two sovereigns and the old woman, who was
sitting on the stool before them apparently scribbling something down.
But hardly had I caught sight of them, when suddenly she got up,
leaning on her crutches, and, gazing around at the people, fixed her
eye on me, who had never exchanged a word with her nor ever in all my
life consulted her art. Pushing her way over to me through the dense
crowd, she said, 'There! If the gentleman wishes to know his fortune,
he may ask you about it!' And with these words, your Worship, she
stretched out her thin bony hands to me and gave me this paper. All
the people turned around in my direction, as I said, amazed, 'Grandam,
what in the world is this you are giving me?' After mumbling a lot of
inaudible nonsense, amid which, however, to my great surprise, I made
out my own name, she answered, 'An amulet, Kohlhaas the horse-dealer;
take good care of it; some day it will save your life!'--and vanished.
Well," Kohlhaas continued good-naturedly, "to tell the truth, close as
was the call in Dresden, I did not lose my life; but how I shall fare
in Berlin and whether the charm will help me out there too, the future
must show."