Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist

by Heinrich von Kleist

  As soon as she’d stepped out, the commandant’s wife wiped the tears from her own eyes, and wondered if the extreme emotional upset she’d brought on in him might not after all be dangerous to his health, and if it might not be advisable to call for a doctor. She cooked up for his supper anything restorative and calming she could throw together in the kitchen, prepared and warmed his bed so as to promptly lead him to it as soon as he appeared hand in hand with their daughter. But since he hadn’t yet turned up and the table was already set, she slunk off to the marquise’s room to listen in on what transpiring. Laying her ear against the door, she discerned a soft fading whisper that seemed to be coming from the marquise; and peeking through the keyhole, Madame von G . . . observed her daughter seated on the commandant’s lap, which he had never before allowed. Finally opening the door, her heart leapt for joy at the sight of her daughter lying with her neck flung back and eyes shut tight in her father’s arms, while he, in his armchair, his eyes full of glimmering tears, pressed long, hot, parched kisses on her mouth, just like a lover! The daughter said nothing, he said nothing; he sat with his gaze bent over her, as though over the first love of his life, and pressed a comforting finger against her mouth and gently kissed her. The mother felt jubilant; unseen, standing behind a chair, she held back, not wanting to disturb the blessed sight of reconciliation that once again reigned in her house. She finally approached the father, and bending over the chair, saw from the side as once again with fingers and lips he brushed his daughter’s mouth in unspeakable bliss. Startled at the sight of her, the commandant immediately twisted his face back into a muddled look, and wanted to say something; but Madame cried: “Will you look at that!” and set things aright with a kiss of her own, her joking tone bringing all back down to earth. Whereupon she invited and led the two of them, like a newly wedded couple, to the dinner table, at which the commandant kept up his good humor, albeit letting out a sob from time to time, ate and spoke little, peering down at his plate, his hand playing with his daughter’s.

  Foremost on everyone’s mind upon waking the following day was the question: who in the world would present himself tomorrow at eleven o’clock? For tomorrow was the dreaded 3rd of the month. The father and mother, and brother too, who had in the meantime begged and received his sister’s forgiveness, were all in favor of a speedy wedding, if the person in question proved even halfway acceptable; everything possible should be done to make the marquise happy. However, should the circumstances of said person be such that, even with all good will and family support, he remained far inferior in means to the marquise, then the parents were against the marriage; in that case they decided, after all, to keep the marquise in their house and to adopt the child. The marquise, on the other hand, seemed willing, in any case, if the person were no vile reprobate, to hold to her word, and come what may, to fetch her child a father. That evening the mother asked how they planned to receive said person. The commandant was of the opinion that it would be most seemly to let the marquise receive him alone at eleven o’clock. But the marquise insisted that both parents and the brother be present, as she wished to share no secret confidences with this person. She also pointed out that, since, in his reply, said person had suggested the home of the commandant as the site of the requested rendezvous, this was his wish, a fact which, as she freely confessed, made this option particularly appealing. The mother pointed out the undignified nature of the roles the father and brother would be obliged to play, and bid her daughter to countenance the absence of the men, whereas she would be happy to respect her daughter’s wish and be there with her to receive the person in question. Following a brief reflection the daughter finally accepted the latter suggestion. And after a night of restless anticipation came the morning of the dreaded 3rd. As the clock struck eleven, the two women sat festively attired, as if for a betrothal, in the drawing room; their hearts beat so intensely that the sound would have been audible to all had the day’s noises gone silent. The 11th-hour gong still echoed in the room when Leopardo, the yeoman whom the father had fetched from the Tyrol, entered the room. The women turned pale at the sight of him. “Count F . . . ,” he said, “has just arrived and wishes to be announced.” “Count F . . . !” the two women cried out in unison, flung from one form of bewilderment to another. “Lock the doors! Tell him we’re not home!” the marquise cried, leapt up and herself rushed to latch the doors, intending to push back the yeoman who stood in her way, when the count strode in with sword and medals dangling, decked out in the very same uniform he’d worn the day he conquered the fort. Completely perturbed, the marquise felt as if the earth would sink beneath her feet; she reached for a kerchief she’d left lying on her chair and sought to escape into an adjoining room; but gripping her hand, Madame von G . . . cried: “Julietta!” – and suffocated, as it were, by conflicting thoughts, she found herself at a loss for words. With her eyes fixed on the count, she repeated, pulling her daughter toward her: “Julietta, I beg you! Who else were we expecting?” “For heaven’s sake, not him!” the marquise suddenly spun around, and like a ray of sunlight breaking through a storm cloud, her sparkling gaze struck that face, by whose deathly pallor she was blinded. The count fell to his knees before her; and with his right hand resting on his heart, and his head bowed over his breast, his eyes aglow, he peered at the ground in silence. “Who else,” cried the commandant’s wife with a catch in her throat, “who else, for the love of God, but him?” The marquise stood there dumbfounded and said: “Mother, I’m going mad!” “Foolish woman!” her mother replied, pulled her daughter toward her and whispered something in her ear. The marquise turned away and, with both hands clapped over her eyes, flung herself on the sofa. Her mother cried: “What’s gotten into you, my poor luckless child? Has anything happened for which you were not prepared?” The count did not budge; still on his knees, he grasped the hem of her gown and kissed it. “Dearest! Most gracious and praiseworthy woman!” he whispered, a tear running down his cheek. The commandant’s wife said: “Stand up, Sir Count, stand up! Comfort her, and we’ll all be reconciled, and all will be forgiven and forgotten.” The count stood up, weeping, then fell to his knees again before the marquise, grasping her hand in silence as if she were made of gold, and the smell of his own hand might disturb her. But she –: “Be gone! Be gone! Be gone!” she cried, rising to her feet. “I was ready for a dissolute lout, but not for . . . a devil!” she said, and slipped past him toward the door, as though eluding one infected with the plague. “Call for the commandant!” she cried. “Julietta!” cried her mother in amazement. The marquise flashed a mad look, now at the count, now at her mother; her chest heaved, her face was all aflame: no fury could have looked more terrible. The commandant and the forest warden appeared. “This man, Father, I cannot marry!” she muttered to them as they stood there in the doorway, reached into a basin of holy water fastened to the door, sprinkled father, mother and brother with a single swing of her hand and disappeared.

  Taken aback by this odd behavior, the commandant asked what had happened; and turned pale when at that very moment he spied Count F . . . in the room. The mother took the count by the hand and said to her husband: “Don’t ask! This young man regrets from the bottom of his heart everything that has happened; just give your blessing, I beg you, and everything will turn out alright.” The count stood there as though struck dead. The commandant laid a heavy hand on him; his eyelids twitched, his lips were white as chalk. “May Heaven’s curse fall from this head!” he cried. “When do you intend to marry her?” “Tomorrow,” the mother replied on his behalf, for he could not utter a single word, “tomorrow or today, as you wish. Any hour will do for the count, who showed such laudable zeal in trying to make up for his offense.” “Then I have the pleasure of awaiting you tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock in the Church of the Augustines!” the commandant said, bowed, asked his wife and son to come with him to the marquise’s room, and left the count standing there alone.

  The family tried in vain to di
scover the reason for the marquise’s curious behavior; she lay in bed with a burning fever, would not hear of a wedding, and asked to be left alone. In answer to the question of why she suddenly changed her mind, and what made the count more hateful to her than anyone else, she gazed at her father with a wide-eyed and distracted look and wouldn’t say a word. The commandant’s wife said: “Have you forgotten that you are an expectant mother?” Whereupon she replied that in this case, she was obliged to think more of herself than of the child, and again, that she swore on all the angels and saints in Heaven that she would not marry. The father, who, seeing that she was clearly overwrought, declared that she was obliged to keep her word, left the room and, after conferring in writing with the count, made all arrangements for the wedding. He presented the latter with a marriage contract, in which he renounced all rights of a husband, but recognized all of the responsibilities that might be expected of him. The count signed and sent back the document soaked with his tears. The following morning, when the commandant handed the marquise this agreement, her mood had calmed down a bit. Sitting up in bed, she read through it several times, set it aside to think about it, opened it once more and read it through again; whereupon she declared that she would appear at eleven o’clock at the Church of the Augustines. She rose from bed, got dressed without a word, and when the clock struck the hour, climbed with the rest of her family into the carriage and drove to church.

  Only at the portal of the church was the count permitted to accompany the family. Throughout the ceremony the marquise stared blankly at the altarpiece; she did not exchange so much as a fleeting look with the man with whom she exchanged rings. Once the wedding was over, the count offered her his arm; but as soon as they’d left the church, the newlywed countess bowed to him; the commandant inquired if he might have the honor to see the count from time to time in his daughter’s rooms, whereupon the count muttered something that no one understood, doffed his hat and disappeared. He took an apartment in M . . . , in which he spent several months without even setting foot in the commandant’s house, where the countess still resided. It was only thanks to his gentle, respectful and altogether exemplary behavior in all his dealings with the family whenever they came in contact, that, following the countess’ subsequent delivery, at which she gave birth to a son, he was invited to be present at the boy’s baptism. The countess, who sat, covered with throw rugs in her birthing bed, only looked at him once when he crossed the threshold and respectfully greeted her from afar. He flung two sheets of paper on the cradle among the gifts with which the guests greeted the newborn, the one, as it proved upon his departure, being a gift of 20,000 rubles to the boy, and the other a testament in which, in the eventuality of his death, he deeded his entire fortune to the mother. From that day forward he was invited more often, on the express orders of Madame von G . . . ; he was now a welcome guest, and soon there was not an evening on which he was not present. Sensing that he had been pardoned by all, if only for appearance sake in the testy tidewater of worldly matters, he began again to court the countess, his wife, and once a year had elapsed, received a second yes from her, and a second wedding was celebrated, this one merrier than the first, following which the entire family moved to V . . . . In time, a slew of little Russians joined their brother; and when, at a happy hour, the count once inquired of his wife why on that dread 3rd of the month, since she was prepared for any Tom, Dick, or Harry, she repelled him as though he were a devil, she replied, wrapping him in a tender embrace: “You would not have appeared to me like a devil that day, had you not, when I first set eyes on you, looked like an angel.”

  MICHAEL KOHLHAAS

  (FROM AN OLD CHRONICLE)

  · · ·

  On the banks of the Havel, around the middle of the sixteenth century, there lived a horse trader named Michael Kohlhaas, the son of a schoolteacher, one of the most upright and at the same time terrible men of his time. Until his thirtieth year, this extraordinary man would surely have been held as the epitome of a model citizen. In a village that still bears his name he owned a horse farm, on which he quietly earned a living in the practice of his trade; he raised the children his wife bore him in the fear of God, to be diligent and honest; there wasn’t a single one of his neighbors who did not benefit from his benevolence and fairness; in short, the world would have had to bless his memory had he not gone too far in one virtue. His sense of justice turned him into a thief and a murderer.

  One day he rode out with a herd of young horses, all well-fed and groomed, pondering how he would invest the profit which he hoped to make off them at market: a part of it he would, according to good business practice, put back into new stock, but with the rest he would enjoy life in the present – on this he mused as he arrived at the Elbe, where, in front of a stately castle, on Saxon territory, he found a turn pike blocking his path that had not been there before. He paused a moment with his herd in a heavy downpour, and called to the toll collector, who peered out his window with a sour face. The horse trader bid him raise the pike. “What’s this here?” he asked, when, after a considerable while, the agent came out of his house. “Landlord’s privilege,” the latter replied, preparing to raise the pike, “the license was acquired by Junker Wenzel von Tronka.” “I see,” said Kohlhaas. “Wenzel is the Junker’s name?” And he peered up at the castle whose glimmering battlements overlooked the field. “Is the old lord dead?” “Died of apoplexy,” the agent replied, lifting the barrier. “Hmm! What a shame!” replied Kohlhaas. “A worthy old gent, who took pleasure in seeing tradespeople and common folk passing, footloose and fancy free, and helped however he could, and once even had the road paved on the way to the village when a mare of mine broke a leg. Well, so how much do I owe you?” he asked; and plucked the few coins that the agent asked for with some difficulty out of his purse, his coattails flapping in the wind. “Just a moment,” he added when the agent muttered: “Hurry up! Hurry up!” and cursed the weather. “It would have been better for you and me both if that tree trunk you use for a pike had been left standing upright in the forest.” Whereupon he handed over the money and prepared to ride on, when another voice called out from the tower behind him: “Halt there, horse trader!” and he saw the overseer slam a window shut and hasten down to him. “What now?” Kohlhaas asked himself, holding on to his horses’ reins. Buttoning another jacket over his ample belly, the overseer came and, leaning away from the pouring rain, inquired after his passport. Kohlhaas asked: “My passport?” and added, a bit taken aback, that as far as he knew he did not possess one; but that the overseer had best describe what sort of a newfangled thing it was and he’d see if he could, maybe, shake one loose. The overseer replied with a sidelong look that without a permit of passage from the local lord no horse trader with his herd would be permitted to cross the border. The horse trader assured him that he had already crossed the border without a permit seventeen times in his life; that he well knew all local ordinances concerning his trade; that this must be a mistake, which he bid the overseer consider, and that, since he still had a long ride ahead of him, he asked that he not be unnecessarily held up any longer. But the overseer replied that he would not be allowed to slip through an eighteenth time, that the ordinance was just recently passed, and that he must either purchase a passport here and now or else turn back to where he came from. The horse trader, who began to be annoyed by these unwarranted threats, dismounted after a while, handed his horse to one of his men and said that he would have a word himself with the Junker von Tronka. He walked toward the castle; the overseer followed, muttering about the trader’s stingy, money-grubbing and cutthroat schemes; and both walked into the reception hall, sizing each other up with their looks. It so happened that the Junker was seated at table drinking with a few merry friends, and a joke having been told, laughter erupted as Kohlhaas approached to voice his complaint. The Junker asked him what he wanted; the gallant guests grew still as they eyed the stranger; but no sooner did he make mention of the matter concerning his horse
s than the whole crew cried out: “Horses? Where?” and rushed to the window to admire them. And upon laying eyes on the handsome herd, on the Junker’s suggestion, they all stormed down to the yard; the rain had stopped; the bailiff and the estate manager and the Junker’s men all gathered round and examined the animals. The one praised the sorrel with the blaze on his head, another liked the chestnut brown, a third one stroked the dappled steed with the black and yellow spots; and all agreed that these horses looked as fleet as bucks, and no finer ones could be found in all the land. Kohlhaas replied that the horses were no better than their riders, and encouraged them to buy. Very much enticed by the sorrel stallion, the Junker asked after the price; the manager urged him to buy a pair of black nags, which, he argued, given the scarcity of good horses, were needed to work the land; but once the horse trader stated his price, the table cavaliers found it too high, and the Junker said he’d have to ride out to find King Arthur and the roundtable if the horse trader struck such a hard deal. With a sense of dark foreboding, noticing the bailiff and the manager whispering with one another as they cast telling looks at the black mares, Kohlhaas promptly decided to let them have the workhorses for next to nothing. “Sir,” he said to the Junker, “I bought the black nags six months ago for twenty-five gold guldens; give me thirty and you can have them.” Two cavaliers standing beside the Junker remarked that the horses were indeed worth that much; but the Junker insisted that he would gladly pay good money for the sorrel, but not for the black nags, and turned to leave; whereupon Kohlhaas said that perhaps he’d make a deal the next time he came by with his nags; bid the Junker adieu, and grabbed the bridle of his horse to ride off. At that moment, the bailiff strode forward and reminded him that without a passport he could not travel on. Kohlhaas turned around and asked the Junker if, in fact, he concurred with this condition, which hamstrung the horse trader’s business. About to dash off with a vexed expression, the Junker called back: “Yes, Kohlhaas, you’ll have to pay to pass. Work it out with my overseer and be gone!” Kohlhaas assured him that it was not at all his intention to try to avoid payment of any legal toll he might incur in conjunction with the transport of his horses; promised, upon his passage through Dresden, to pay for the passport at the government office; and requested that he be permitted to pass this once, since he had not previously been informed of this regulation. “Very well then,” said the Junker, as the storm broke again and the rain doused his brittle bones, “let the poor wretch pass. Let’s go!” he said to his table guests, turned around and wanted to return to the castle. But facing the Junker, his overseer argued that the horse trader ought to at least leave a security payment as a pledge of his intent of paying for the passport. The Junker stopped at the castle gate. Kohlhaas asked what value, in money or stock, he wished him to leave for the mares? Muttering in his beard, the estate manager said he might as well leave the nags. “Capital idea,” said the overseer, “it’s the most expedient solution; once he gets himself a passport, he can come pick them up at any time.” Taken aback at such a shameless proposal, Kohlhaas said to the Junker, who clasped his doublet before him, shivering with cold, that he had, after all, offered to sell him the nags; but the latter, at that very moment driven back by a downpour of rain and hail, intent on being done with the matter, yelled back: “If he refuses to leave the horses then fling him back over the toll post!” and stormed off. Fathoming then and there that he had no other recourse to avoid the threatened violence, he decided to fulfill the demand; he unharnessed the horses and led them to a stall the overseer indicated. He left behind a stable hand, gave him some money, bid him take good care of the horses until his return, and continued on his way to Leipzig with the rest of the herd, where he intended to sell them at market, half-doubting that such a protective measure could have been passed in Saxony, on account of the burgeoning horse breeding business.