Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist

by Heinrich von Kleist

  Then he told Lisbeth, his wife, how the whole thing had transpired and the interconnected links of the story, declared that he was determined to seek justice, and was pleased to see that she supported him with all her heart in this endeavor. For she said that some other travelers, perhaps less patient than he, would pass that castle; that it would be a godly deed to put an end to mischief of this sort; and that she would manage to muster up the funds needed to pursue such a juridical process. Kohlhaas called her his valiant wife, enjoyed that day and the next in her and his children’s company, and as soon as he’d settled his affairs, set out for Dresden to take his case to court.

  Here, with the aid of a solicitor of his acquaintance, he drafted a complaint, in which, following a detailed account of the crimes committed by Junker Wenzel von Tronka against him and his stable hand Herse, he demanded legal redress, the return of his horses in their previous condition and compensation for the damages which he as well as his hired hand had suffered. The legality of his case was clear. The fact that the horses had been illegally held cast a favorable light on all the rest; and even if it were supposed that the horses had fallen ill by mere happenstance, the horse trader’s demand that they be restored to him in their former healthy condition would still be justified. Nor did Kohlhaas lack for friends in Dresden who promised to support his case; his far-flung horse trade had brought him in contact with the most important men thereabouts, and the honesty with which he went about his business earned him their goodwill. He dined on several occasions with his lawyer, himself a respected man; left him the money to cover court costs; and a few weeks later, assured by the latter of the positive outcome of his case, rode back to rejoin his wife Lisbeth in Kohlhaasenbrück. But months went by, and the year was about to end, and he had still had no word in Saxony concerning the course of the suit he himself had set in motion in Dresden, let alone its resolution. Following repeated petitions to the tribunal, he inquired of his solicitor in a confidential letter as to the cause of such an inordinate delay; and learned that, following the intercession of influential parties, his case had been altogether quashed in the Dresden court of justice. Following the astonished response of the horse trader as to the reason, his lawyer informed him that Junker Wenzel von Tronka happened to be related to two young gentlemen, Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, one of whom was cupbearer to the Lord High Counselor and the other served as his chamberlain. The lawyer advised him to forego any further legal proceedings, but to try to retrieve his horses at Tronkenburg; gave him to understand that the Junker, who now lived in the capital, appears to have instructed his people to return them to him; and concluded with the request that, should this not satisfy him, that he hereafter spare him any further communications in pursuit of this matter.

  Kohlhaas happened to be in Brandenburg when the captain of the guard, Heinrich von Geusau, whose legal jurisdiction included Kohlhaasenbrück, was engaged in the assignment of considerable funds from the city coffers that had become available to various benevolent institutions for the sick and the poor. The captain took particular pains to facilitate public access to a source of mineral water in a nearby village, the restorative qualities of which were thought at the time to have greater promise than the future confirmed; and since Kohlhaas was acquainted with the man on account of some business they’d engaged in when the captain served at court, the latter permitted the horse trader’s stable hand Herse – who, ever since that dark day at Tronkenbug, suffered pains while breathing – to try the healing water at its source, which the captain had had fitted with a roof and a tap. It so happened that the captain of the guard was present, busying himself with various arrangements, at the rim of the basin in which Kohlhaas had laid the poor man, at the very moment when a messenger sent by the horse trader’s wife handed him the dispiriting letter from his lawyer in Dresden. The captain, who was conversing with a physician, noticed that Kohlhaas shed a tear on the letter he’d opened and let fall, approached him in a warm and friendly manner and asked what misfortune had befallen him. And since the horse trader handed him the letter without saying a word, this worthy gentleman, who was apprised of the scandalous injustice Kohlhaas had endured at Tronkenburg Castle, the consequences of which had caused Herse’s dire, and perhaps lifelong, infirmities, tapped Kohlhaas on the shoulder and told him not to be downhearted, that he would help him seek redress. That evening, following the captain’s counsel, the horse trader presented himself at his castle, where the captain informed him that all he had to do was to draft a petition with a brief presentation of the case addressed to the Elector of Brandenburg, include the lawyer’s letter, and given the outrage committed against him on Saxon territory, appeal for sovereign protection. He promised to personally pass Kohlhaas’ appeal, along with another packet he had ready for delivery, into the hands of the Elector, who, for his part, at a propitious moment, would surely take up the matter with the Elector of Saxony; this was all that was needed to bring the case to the attention of the Tribunal in Dresden, where, the wiles of the Junker and his entourage notwithstanding, justice would be done. Much relieved, Kohlhaas warmly thanked the captain of the guard for this new proof of his goodwill; said he only regretted that, instead of bothering with Dresden, he had not taken his case directly to Berlin; and after having his complaint drafted in the court clerk’s office of the municipal court, according to the captain’s specifications, and passing it on to him, more reassured than ever about the outcome of his case, he rode back to Kohlhaasenbrück. But a few weeks later, he was distressed to learn from a court official dispatched to Potsdam on business for the captain of the guard, that the Elector had passed on his petition to his chancellor, Count Kallheim, and that the latter had not, as one might have expected, immediately presented the petition at court in Dresden, calling for a judicial inquiry and punishment of the perpetrator, but rather, had, provisionally, passed the petition to Junker von Tronka for further consideration. When asked why things had proceeded in this way, the court officer, who had pulled up in his carriage before Kohlhaas’ house, and had apparently been instructed to convey this notification concerning the horse trader’s case, could not offer a satisfactory answer. He added that the captain of the guard said he’d best be patient; seemed impatient to get a move on; and only at the conclusion of this brief interchange revealed to Kohlhaas in a few casual remarks that Count Kallheim was related by marriage to the von Tronkas. Kohlhaas, who no longer took pleasure in breeding horses, in his house and grounds, and hardly even in his wife and children, waited out the next month with a dark premonition; and just as he suspected, when the time elapsed, Herse, whom the baths had helped a bit, returned from Brandenburg with a note from the captain of the guard accompanying a more detailed reply, in sum that: He regretted that he could do nothing on his behalf; he enclosed a resolution drafted by the state chancellery concerning his case, and advised him to retrieve the horses he’d left at Tronkenbug Castle, and let the matter rest. The resolution stated: “In the judgment of the Dresden Tribunal he is a groundless litigant; that the Junker in whose care he left his horses in no ways prevented him from recovering them; that he should send word back to the castle and pick them up, or at least let the Junker know where to send them; but that he should heretofore, in any case, not trouble the State Chancellery with such paltry and pitiful affairs.” Having read the letter, Kohlhaas, for whom it was not a matter of the horses – he’d have felt the same pain had he forfeited two dogs – seethed with anger. Whenever he heard a sound in the yard, he looked toward the gate with the greatest dread that had ever weighed on his heart, expecting at any moment the Junker’s stable hands to come riding up, perhaps even with an apology, bringing back his harried and haggard horses; it was the only time in his life in which his world-tempered soul prepared for an outcome of which he did not wholeheartedly approve. But shortly thereafter he heard from an acquaintance who traveled the same road that his nags continued to be used, along with the Junker’s other horses, for fieldwork at Tronkenburg Castle; and grip
ped by pain at the thought of such flagrant injustice, a determination welled up in his breast to right this wrong. He invited his neighbor to drop by, a local magistrate who had long coveted his abutting land, by the purchase of which he hoped to enlarge his own estate, and upon his arrival, asked him how much he would pay for his entire holdings in Brandenburg and Saxony, his house and yard, lock, stock and barrel, the grounds and everything on it? His wife, Lisbeth, went white in the face at these words. She turned and picked up her youngest, who had been playing on the floor behind her, and peering past the boy’s rosy cheeks, past his fingers that played with her necklaces, spied the face of death in the horse trader’s mien as he crumpled and tossed a letter to the ground. Astonished, the magistrate asked what had suddenly brought on such strange ideas; whereupon the former, with as much merriment as he could muster, replied: “The thought of selling my homestead on the banks of the Havel is not new at all; you and I have often talked about it; whereas my house just outside Dresden is a mere afterthought hardly worth mentioning; in short, should you concur with my proposal and take both properties off my hands, I am prepared to sign a contract.” And he added with a somewhat strained wit that leaving Kohlahaasenbrück was after all not the end of the world; that there were other objectives in life, in contrast to which the discharge of his duties as father and head of his household seemed secondary and downright contemptible; in short, he confessed, his soul was committed to greater things, concerning which he would perhaps soon be informed. Appeased by these words, the magistrate said in jest, turning to the wife, who kept planting kiss after kiss on the child: “You won’t expect immediate payment, I presume?” lay on the table hat and stick, which he’d held clasped between his knees, and took the contract the horse trader held out to read through it. Kohlhaas moved closer, explaining to him that it was a contract he himself had drafted with four weeks till closing; showed him that the only missing elements were the signatures and the payment of the stipulated sums, which, in addition to the sales price, also included the forfeit, by which was meant the penalty to which all parties agreed, should either back off from the deal in the four-week period; and the horse trader once again encouraged the magistrate in a right friendly manner to make a first bid, assuring him that he wouldn’t ask for much, nor would he attach any special conditions to the deal. His wife, meanwhile, paced up and down the room, her breast heaving, so that the shawl on which the boy plucked threatened to fall from her shoulders. The magistrate said that he was not at all in a position to appraise the value of the Dresden property; whereupon, pushing across the table the official correspondence exchanged at the time of his purchase, Kohlhaas replied that he would sell it for 100 gold guldens; even though, he added, it had cost him almost half as much more. The magistrate, who read through the contract again and noted the inclusion of an extraordinary stipulation that he, too, had the right to back out, already half-inclined to sign, remarked that he had no use for the stud-horses in the stables. But when Kohlhaas replied that he had no intention of selling the horses and that he also intended to keep some weapons that hung in the arms depot, the latter still hesitated and hesitated, finally repeating a half-jesting, half-serious offer far underestimating the value of the estate, an offer he had already made not long ago on a stroll they’d taken together, Kohlhaas shoved ink and pen toward him to put it in writing. And since the magistrate, who did not trust his ears, asked him again: “Are you quite serious?” and the horse trader replied, a bit peeved, “Do you think I’m just pulling your leg?” – with a puzzled look on his face, the man picked up the pen and wrote out his offer and signed; crossed out the part that specified the right of refusal, should the buyer regret the arrangement; committed himself to a down payment of a hundred gold guldens, with a mortgage on the Dresden property, which he had no interest in acquiring, as collateral; and accorded the seller the full right within a two-month period to withdraw from the deal. Moved by the magistrate’s gesture, the horse trader shook his hand right heartily; and after they agreed upon a key stipulation, that a fourth part of the total sales price would be deposited without fail, and the remainder within three months, in the Hamburger Bank, he called for wine to celebrate such an amicably concluded transaction. He bid the maid who brought the bottles tell his servant Sternbald to saddle Fuchs; he had, he said, to ride to the capital to take care of some business; and announced that shortly, upon his return, he would reveal just what he still intended to keep for himself. Hereupon, after filling the glasses, he asked about the Poles and the Turks, who were at the time engaged in a bitter struggle, soliciting the magistrate’s political conjectures on the matter, once again toasted the success of their transaction, and bid him farewell. As soon as the magistrate left the room, Lisbeth fell to her knees before him. “If you still have any feelings in your heart for me and the children I bore you; if we have not already been banished for a reason unknown to me, then tell me the purpose of these terrible arrangements.” “My dearly beloved wife,” said Kohlhaas, “as matters stand, it’s nothing for you to worry about. I received a court resolution in which I was told that my complaint against Junker Wenzel von Tronka was a frivolous affair. And since there must have been some misunderstanding here, I have resolved to personally bring my complaint again to the attention of the Elector.” “But why do you want to sell your house?” she cried, rising with a troubled look in her eyes. Pressing her tenderly to his breast, he replied: “Because I do not wish to remain in a land, dear Lisbeth, where my rights are not protected. Better to be a dog than a man, if I’m to be kicked around! I am quite certain that my wife feels the same about this as I do.” “What makes you think,” she asked, wild-eyed, “that your rights will not be protected? If you present your appeal to the Elector in an even-tempered tone, as is your wont, what makes you think that it will be rejected out of hand or answered with a refusal to hear your case?” “Indeed,” replied Kohlhaas, “if my suspicion is unfounded, my house is not yet sold. His Lordship the Elector himself, I know, to be a just man; and if only I succeed in getting past the people who surround him and manage to plead my case to him in person, I have no doubt that justice will be done, and before the week is over, I’ll return to you and to my affairs in good cheer. In which case,” he added, kissing her, “may I spend the rest of my days by your side! But expedience demands,” he continued, “that I prepare for all eventualities; and so I ask that you go away for a while and that, if possible, you and the children stay with your aunt in Schwerin, whom you’ve been wanting to visit for quite some time.” “What?” cried his wife. “You want me to go to Schwerin? To cross the border with the children and visit with my aunt in Schwerin?” Horror choked back her words. “Precisely,” replied Kohlhaas, “and if at all possible, right away, so that I can take the steps I deem necessary without being hampered by any precautions.” “Oh, I understand now!” she cried. “You no longer need anything but weapons and horses; and the devil take the rest!” Whereupon she turned away, flung herself into a chair and wept. Upset, Kohlhaas said: “Dearest Lisbeth, what are you doing? God blessed me with wife and children and possessions; should I wish today for the first time in my life that it were not so?” He sat himself down beside her, his heart bursting with emotion, and blushing, she embraced him. “Tell me, dearest,” he said, gently brushing back the curls from her forehead, “what should I do? Should I let it all drop? Should I ride to Tronkenburg Castle and ask the lord to return my horses, climb back in my saddle and ride them back to you?” Lisbeth dared not say: “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Weeping, she shook her head, she pressed him to her in a tender embrace and covered him with kisses. “So then,” cried Kohlhaas, “if you feel, as I do, that for me to continue in my trade, I must have justice, then grant me the freedom I need to achieve it!” Whereupon he stood up, and told the servant who strode in to report that Fuchs was saddled: “Tomorrow the chestnut browns must be harnessed up to take my wife to Schwerin.” Lisbeth said she had an idea. She rose to her feet, wiped the tears from her eyes, a
nd as he sat himself down to his desk, asked if he’d give her the appeal, and let her go to Berlin in his place to hand the appeal to the Lord Elector. Greatly stirred by her offer for more than one reason, Kohlhaas pulled her onto his lap and said: “My dearest wife, that is simply not possible! The sovereign prince is surrounded by countless hangers-on, and whosoever would approach him is exposed to some unpleasant treatment. Lisbeth replied that it was a thousand times easier for a woman to approach him than a man. “Give me the appeal,” she repeated; “and if your sole wish is to get it into his hands, I promise you he will get it!” Kohlhaas, who had ample proof of her courage as well as her wisdom, asked her how she envisioned doing it; whereupon, looking down, a bit ashamed, she replied that in former times, while serving in Schwerin, the Majordomo of the Prince’s castle had courted her; that he was now married, with several children; that she was quite sure that she would, nevertheless, not have been completely forgotten; in short that, for this and other reasons, the enumeration of which would take too long, he should leave it to her to take advantage of her contacts. Kohlhaas kissed her with great joy, said that he accepted her suggestion, instructed her that all she had to do was to gain access to his lordship’s wife’s chambers to encounter the Elector in his castle, gave her the appeal, had the chestnut browns harnessed to a carriage and sent her on her way, well fitted for the trip, along with Sternbald, his trusted servant.