Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist

by Heinrich von Kleist

  Under these circumstances, Dr. Martin Luther, given the respect in which he was held by all, took it upon himself to press Kohlhaas with mollifying words back into the social order; appealing to a soundness he sensed in the incendiary’s heart, he had a placard with the following contents posted in all cities and far-flung corners of Saxony:

  Kohlhaas, you who pretend to have been sent by Him on high to wield the sword of justice, by what right do you, in your audacity and the madness of blind fury, dare disseminate the very injustice you claim to oppose, but which you yourself embody from head to toe? Simply because the Prince Elector, to whom you are subservient, denied your appeal in a dispute concerning a paltry possession, you rise up, desperate man, with sword and fire, and like a wolf in the desert, attack the peaceful community he is sworn to protect. You, who with your crafty and fraudulent declaration lead the people astray: misguided sinner, do you really think that you will get away with it before God on that fateful day we all dread in our hearts? How can you maintain that you were denied your right, you, who, after your first frivolous attempts to seek redress came to naught, just dropped everything and, egged on in your seething breast, gave yourself over heart and soul to the base urge for revenge? Do you bow to the authority of a docket full of court clerks and constables who intercept a letter of appeal or withhold a verdict in a case brought before them? And must I tell you, ungodly man, that your true liege lord knows nothing of your case! Nay, man, that the Elector against whom you have taken up arms has no idea who you are, so that, on the day when you step before God’s throne intending to plead your case against him, he will reply with a puzzled expression: To that man, Lord, I did no wrong, for he is a total stranger to me! Know ye that the sword you wield is the sword of plunder and bloodthirstiness! You’re a rebel and no warrior of God! Your earthly destination is the rack and the gallows and eternal damnation in the great beyond for your godless misdeeds.

  Wittenberg, etc.

  Martin Luther.

  Holed up in his stronghold at Lützen Castle, Kohlhaas was just then mulling over in his seething breast a plan to burn Leipzig to the ground – for he gave no credence to the placards posted in villages maintaining that Junker Wenzel was in Dresden, since they were anonymous, lacking, in particular, the signature of the town magistrate, as he had demanded – when, altogether taken aback, Sternbald and Waldmann discovered the placard that had been nailed at the entrance to the castle compound in the dead of night. In vain did they hope for several days that Kohlhaas, to whom they preferred not to broach the matter, would see it himself; but brooding and preoccupied, he appeared every evening to issue his brief orders and noticed nothing; so finally, one morning, when he intended to string up a couple of his men who had been plundering in the region against his orders, the two decided to bring it to his attention. He had just returned from the place of execution, as the crowd of hangers-on he’d attracted ever since the last mandate timidly made way, parting to left and right; a great cherub-bedecked sword on a red leather pillow adorned with golden tassels was presented to him, and twelve men with flaming torches followed him, when Sternbald and Waldmann, clasping their swords under their arms in a manner that must have seemed strange to him, circled the pillar to which Luther’s placard was attached. Hands folded behind his back, lost in thought, Kohlhaas passed under the portal, looked up and stopped short; and when, at the sight of him, the two men respectfully stepped aside, he absently gazed in their direction, and with a few swift steps approached the pillar. But who can describe his state of mind when he caught sight of the placard whose contents accused him of acts of injustice, signed by the man he held in greatest esteem and reverence, Martin Luther! His face flushed a dark red; removing his helmet, he read it through twice from beginning to end; he turned around and looked at his men with a wavering expression, as though he wanted to say something, and said nothing; he took the sheet down from the wall and read it through again, and cried out: “Waldmann! Saddle my horse!” And thereafter: “Sternbald, come with me into the castle!” Whereupon he disappeared. It did not take more than these few words for him to suddenly feel utterly disarmed by the direness of his situation. He donned the disguise of a Thuringian tenant farmer, told Sternbald that a business matter of pressing importance compelled him to go to Wittenberg, entrusted him, in the presence of some of his most stout-hearted men, with the command of the force left behind in Lützen; and with the assurance that he’d be back in three days, during which time no attack was to be feared, he rode off to Wittenberg.

  He registered with a false name at an inn, from whence, come nightfall, sheathed with a coat and armed with a pair of pistols he’d taken from Tronkenburg Castle, he made his way to Luther’s house. Luther, who sat at his writing table surrounded by papers and books, and observed the door being opened and locked again behind a stranger, an oddly dressed man, asked him who he was and what he wanted. And no sooner had the latter, respectfully holding his hat in his hands, and well aware of the terror his words would arouse, quietly replied: “I am Michael Kohlhaas, the horse trader,” then Luther cried out: “Be gone from here!” and leaping up from his table, reaching for a bell, added: “Your breath is the plague and your proximity rack and ruin!” Without budging from the spot, Kohlhaas pulled out a pistol and said: “Most honored Sir, this pistol, should you touch the bell, will lay me dead at your feet! Be seated and please listen to me; for you are no safer among the angels, whose psalms you record, than you are with me.” Sitting himself back down, Luther asked: “What do you want?” Kohlhaas replied: “Only to refute the opinion you hold of me, that I am an unjust man! You said on your placard that my liege lord knows naught of my dispute: Very well then, assure me safe passage and I will go to Dresden to present my case to him.” “You desperate and depraved man!” cried Luther, both disconcerted and calmed by his own words: “Who gave you the right to attack Junker von Tronka in pursuit of your own judgment, and not finding him at his castle, to comb with sword and fire the entire region for hide or hair of him?” Kohlhaas replied: “Honored Sir, no one from this day forth! Misinformation I received from Dresden lead me in the wrong direction! The war I wage with society would indeed be a misdeed, were I not, as you have just assured me, cast out of it!” “Cast out!” cried Luther, peering at him. “What madness took hold of your mind? Who would have cast you out of the collectivity of the country in which you live? Tell me a single case, as long as countries have existed, of a man, whoever he may be, cast out of his country?” “I call him an outcast,” Kohlhaas replied, pressing his hands together, “who’s been deprived of the protection of the law! Since I depend on this protection for the peaceful pursuit of my trade; for its sake alone do I put myself and all that I’ve earned in society’s safe haven; and whosoever denies me that legal recourse casts me out to live among the beasts of the wild; he puts the cudgel in my hand with which I must protect myself.” “Who in God’s name denied you the protection of the law?” cried Luther. “Did I not tell you in writing that the complaint you filed is unknown to the Elector? If civil servants suppress legal proceedings behind his back or in some other way dishonor his hallowed name behind his back, who else but God dare call him to account for the selection of such servants, and are you, you damned and terrible man, entitled to pass judgment over him?” “So be it,” replied Kohlhaas, “if the Elector has not cast me out, then I will return to the social order he is sworn to protect. Get me, I repeat, safe passage to Dresden, and I will dissolve the army I’ve gathered at the castle at Lützen, and once again bring the rejected complaint before the High Tribunal.” With a vexed expression, Luther flung the papers on his desk one on top of another and fell silent. The defiant stance this strange man took to the state annoyed him; and as to the judgment he passed from Kohlhaasenbrück on the Junker, Luther inquired: “What do you expect of the tribunal in Dresden?” Kohlhaas replied: “Punishment of the Junker, according to the law; return of my horses in their former condition; and compensation for the injuries tha
t I, as well as my stable hand Herse, who died at Mühlenberg, suffered from the violence done to us.” Luther cried out: “Compensation for the damages! What of the damages in the thousands that you incurred in trade and pledges from Jews and Christians alike in wreaking your wild revenge! Will you add these damages to the bill at the inquiry?” “God forbid!” replied Kohlhaas. “I’m not asking to have my house and lands back, or the good life I once led, far less the cost of my wife’s funeral! Herse’s old mother will calculate the cost of his care and convalescence and prepare a tally of his losses at Tronkenburg Castle, and the state can have an expert calculate the damages I suffered from not being able to sell the horses.” Luther looked him in the eye and said: “You mad, unfathomable and terrible man! Now that your sword has taken the fiercest revenge one could possibly imagine on the Junker, what in heaven’s name impels you to demand a judgment against him, the severity of which, should the punishment finally be enacted, would be light in comparison?” Kohlhaas replied, a tear running down his cheek: “Honored Sir, it cost me my wife; Kohlhaas will show the world that she did not die for an unjust cause. Yield to my will in this matter, and let the court decide; and in all other matters of dispute I will yield to your will.” Luther said: “Look here, had matters taken a different turn, and based on everything I’ve heard, what you demand would be right and just; and had you been wise enough to bring the entire matter to the Elector’s attention and let him decide the matter before taking it into your own hands and wreaking revenge, I don’t doubt that every single one of your demands would have been granted. But all things considered, would you not have done better, in the eyes of your Redeemer, to forgive the Junker and lead the nags, haggard and careworn as they were, back to your stable in Kohlhaasenbrück, where they could eat their fill?” Walking to the window, Kohlhaas replied: “That may be! And then again it might not! Had I known that those nags would cost me the lifeblood of my beloved wife, it may well be, honored Sir, that I would have done as you say, and not begrudged them a bushel of oats! But because I had to pay so dearly for those nags, let justice take its course: let the judgment I’m due be spoken, and let the Junker feed my nags.” Reaching again for his papers, mulling many things over in his mind, Luther said that he would take the matter up with the Elector. In the meantime, he bid Kohlhaas hold his peace at Lützen Castle; if His Lordship acceded to his request for safe passage then he would be informed of it by a posted placard to that effect. “However,” Luther continued, as Kohlhaas bent down to kiss his hand, “I do not know if the Elector will be favorably inclined to grant you a pardon under the present circumstances, since I have heard that he has amassed an army and stands ready to launch an assault on Lützen Castle. In the meantime, as I have already told you, the outcome won’t depend on my efforts.” At that, Luther got up from the table and bid him farewell. Kohlhaas said that he was altogether confident that his intercession would help, whereupon Luther waved goodbye, but the horse trader sank to one knee before him and said: “I have another heartfelt wish. On Pentecost, for which it had always been my custom to visit the altar of the Lord, my battles kept me from attending church; would you, Sir, without any further ado, have the kindness of hearing my confession, and thereafter grant me the blessing of the holy sacraments?” After a moment’s hesitation, Luther looked him in the eye and said: “Yes, Kohlhaas, I will do it. But the Lord, whose body you crave, forgave his enemy. Will you,” he added, as the latter responded with a startled look, “likewise forgive the Junker who offended you, go to Tronkenburg Castle, saddle your nags and ride them home to Kohlhaasenbrück to be fed?” “Most honored Sir,” said Kohlhaas, turning red in the face, reaching for Luther’s hand, “the Lord did not forgive all his enemies. Let me forgive the Elector, both the overseer and the manager, as well as Messrs. Hinz and Kunz, and whosoever else gave me offense in this matter-but let the Junker, if it please, be obliged to feed my nags.” At these words, Luther gave him an angry look, turned his back and rang the bell. In answer to the bell, a servant appeared with a light in the antechamber; Kohlhaas stood there, struck dumb, wiping the tears from his eyes; and since the servant fiddled with the door to no avail, it being locked, and Luther had returned to his writing table, Kohlhaas opened the door for him. “Light his way out!” Luther said with a nod in the stranger’s direction; whereupon, a bit befuddled by the presence of the visitor at this late hour, the man took the house-key down from the wall and turned it in the lock, and retreating behind the half-opened door, awaited the stranger’s departure. Fiddling with his hat in his hands, Kohlhaas said: “Am I then not to be accorded the kindness for which I asked, most noble Sir, the blessing of absolution?” Luther replied curtly: “Your Savior’s absolution, no! As to the Elector’s ruling, that will depend on his reaction to the propositions in my letter, as I promised. And thereupon, Luther motioned to his servant to do as he was told without any further delay. With a pained look, Kohlhaas lay both hands on his breast; followed the man, who lighted his way down the stairs, and disappeared.