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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 horses 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.
Arriving in Dresden, where in an outlying district he kept a house with stables as a base of operations from which to pursue his business with the smaller markets in the region, he went straight to the Privy Council, where, as he had suspected from the start, a counselor of his acquaintance confirmed that the business about the passport was a lot of bunk. With, upon his request, a written attestation in hand signed by the disgruntled counselor confirming the speciousness of the alleged ordinance, though he did not yet know what he planned to do about it, he smiled to himself at the wily Junker’s guile; and a few weeks later, having gotten a good price in Leipzig for the herd of horses he’d brought along, without a bitter thought, save for the misery he saw in the world, he rode back to the Tronkenburg castle. The overseer, to whom he presented the written attestation, merely shrugged, and in response to the horse trader’s request if he could now have his horses back, told him to go down into the yard and fetch them. But Kohlhaas, who had traversed the yard, had already heard the distressing news that, on account of his alleged misconduct, his stable hand had been horsewhipped and sent packing a few days after being left behind at Tronkenburg. Kohlhaas asked the local lad what his stable hand had done, and who, in the meantime, had looked after his horses? To which the lad replied that he did not know, whereupon, the horse trader’s heart already thumping with apprehension, the boy opened the stable door. How great was Kohlhaas’ dismay, when, instead of his two fine, well-fed black nags, he found a pair of haggard mares; their protruding bones, on which, like hooks, one could have hung things; their manes and hair all natty, untended and unkempt: the telling sign of misery in an animal’s appearance! Kohlhaas, whom the horses greeted with a feeble whinny, was deeply distressed and asked what had happened to them. The lad, who was standing there beside him, replied that no misfortune had befallen them, that they had been sufficiently fed, but that, given the dearth of workhorses, as it was harvest time, they had been used a bit in the fields. Kohlhaas fumed at this scandalous and underhanded outrage, but well aware of his powerlessness, he swallowed his anger, and since there was nothing else to be done, made ready to leave this den of thieves with his horses, when the overseer, apprised of the exchange of words, appeared and asked what the matter was. “What’s the matter?” Kohlhaas replied, “Who gave Junker von Tronka and his people permission to take the fine black nags I left here and use them for field work? Is this human?” he added, trying to gently rouse the poor exhausted creatures with a garden rake, and demonstrating how they refused to budge. After studying him a while with an insolent expression, the overseer replied: “You thieving lout, you ought to thank your lucky stars your damn mares are still alive. And since your stable boy ran off, who the hell was supposed to tend to them? Didn’t you get off cheaply, chum, to have your horses work off the feed in the fields? I won’t abide any fast ones here,” he concluded, “be off or I’ll call my dogs to clear the yard!” The horse trader’s heart beat hard against his chest. He had a mind to shove the no-good tub of lard into the dung heap and press a foot against his ruddy mug. But finely calibrated as it was, his innate sense of justice still wavered; he was not absolutely certain in his heart of hearts, the only court of law that counted for him, of the culpability of his adversary; and swallowing the insults, silently weighing the circumstances, and walking over to his horses to brush their manes, he asked in a quiet voice: “What did the stable hand do to be booted off the castle grounds?” The overseer replied: “Because the rascal was insolent in the yard! Because he resisted a necessary change of stable, and asked that, on account of his mares, the horses of two young lords who came to visit the castle spend the night out on the street!” Kohlhaas would have given the value of his horses to have had the stable hand present to compare his take on what happened with the words of that blabbering overseer. He stood there, straightening the horses’ bridles, pondering what a man in his situation could do, when the scene suddenly shifted, and Junker Wenzel von Tronka with a horde of knights, servants and dogs came storming into the castle courtyard on their way back from a hare hunt. When the Junker asked what happened, while from one side the dogs set to snarling at the sight of the stranger, and on the other side the knights tried to silence them, the overseer promptly launched into the most spiteful distortion of the facts, imputing that yon horse trader had kicked up a row just because his nags had been used a little. He added with a derisive laugh that the impudent lout declined to recognize the horses as his. Kohlhaas cried out: “Those are not my horses, gracious Sir! Those are not the horses I left that were worth thirty gold guldens a head! I want my well-fed and healthy horses back!” With a momentary pallor in his face, the Junker dismounted and said: “If the pig’s ass doesn’t want his horses back, then let him leave them. Come, Günther!” he cried, “Come, be quick!” patting the dust off his leggings; and “Fetch us some wine!” he called, as he stood with the knights in the doorway, and disappeared within. Kohlhaas said he’d sooner call for the croaker and have the carcasses flung to the vultures than bring these horses back to his stable in Kohlhaasenbrück. He left the haggard nags in the stall and without bothering anymore about them, once he’d assured himself that he’d take the matter into his own hands, swung himself in the saddle of his chestnut brown and rode off.
Riding along at a gallop to Dresden, he slowed to a trot at the thought of the stable hand and the accusation made against him at the castle, and before advancing another thousand paces, promptly turned his horse around and headed back to Kohlhaasenbrück to sound his man out, as seemed prudent and just. For should there be even a grain of truth in the overseer’s claim of the fellow’s culpability, an unfailing sense of the imperfect ways of the world made the horse trader inclined, despite the offenses he’d suffered, to accept the loss of his horses as a just consequence. On the other hand, he harbored an equally sharp presentiment, and one that took deeper and deeper root the farther he rode and the more stories he heard everywhere he stopped of the daily injustices done to travelers at Tronkenburg: that if, as in all likelihood appeared to be the case, the whole business had simply been trumped up, then it became his obligation to do everything in his power to demand redress for the offense he’d suffered and to insure the future safe passage of his fellow travelers.
Upon his return to Kohlhaasenbrück, no sooner had he embraced his faithful wife Lisbeth and kissed his children, whose hearts sang for joy at the sight of him, than he asked after Herse, his head stable hand, and if anyone had heard from him. “Yes, dearest Michael,” Lisbeth said, “Herse indeed! Can you imagine, about two weeks ago that poor unfortunate man, beaten within an inch of his life, hobbled back here, beaten so badly he had trouble breathing. We put him to bed, where he spit up globs of blood, and we heard, in answer to our repeated questions, a story that no one could fathom. How he’d been left behind at Tronkenburg with horses that had been refused the right of passage, how on account of the most abominable mistreatment, he was forced to leave the castle, and how he’d been prevented from taking the horses with him.” “I see,” said Kohlhaas, taking off his coat. “Has he recuperated?” “So-so,” she replied, “though he still spits up blood. I wanted to send another stable hand back to Tronkenburg to take care of the horses until your return. For since Herse has always been so honest and so faithful to us, like no one else, it never even occurred to me to doubt his word, substantiated as it was by so many scars, or to suspect that he might have disposed of the horses in some other manner. But he implored me not to make anyone else endure the same sufferings in that den of thieves, and to give up the horses, lest I wished to sacrifice a man in their place.” “Is he still bedridden?” Kohlhaas asked, unbinding his neckerchief. “For a few days now, he’s been back, hobbling round the yard. In short, you’ll see,” she continued, “his story’s true, and this incident is just one more of the brazen outrages committed against strangers of late at Tronkenburg Castle.” “I need to confirm this for myself. Call him for me, would you, Lisbeth, if he’s up and about?” With these words he sank into the easy chair; and pleased at his apparent calm, the lady of the house went to fetch the stable hand.
“What did you do in Tronkenburg Castle?” Kohlhaas asked, as Lisbeth entered the room with him. “I’m not pleased with you.” The stable hand, on whose pale face red splotches appeared at these words, remained silent a while. “You’re quite right, Sir!” he replied. “Hearing a child’s crying within, I tossed into the Elbe the match I happened, by God’s grace, to have with me, with which I’d intended to set afire that den of thieves, and thought to myself: Let God’s lightning strike, I can’t do it!” Whereupon, struck by the man’s reply, Kohlhaas said: “But what did you do to deserve to be booted out of the castle?” To which Herse replied: “By a bad trick, Sir,” and wiped the sweat from his brow. “But what’s done is done. I didn’t want to let the horses be worked to death in the field, so I said that they were young and hadn’t ever pulled a plough.” Trying to hide his mounting rage, Kohlhaas replied that the stable hand had not been altogether truthful here, since the horses had already taken a turn or two last Spring. “At the castle, where you were, after all, a sort of a guest,” the horse trader continued, “you should have pitched in at least once or even a couple of times if they were short-handed in harvesting.” “That I did, Sir,” said Herse. “I thought, since they gave me sorry looks, they wouldn’t work the horses too hard. On the third morning I hitched them up and we brought back three wagonloads of hay.” Kohlhaas, whose heart was pounding, cast his gaze at the ground and added: “Nobody told me about that, Herse!” Herse assured him it was so. “My only fault, Sir, was my refusal to hitch them up again at noon before the horses had a chance to eat their fill; and that, when the overseer and the estate manager offered to give them free feed, in exchange, if I stuck the money you left me for feed in their moneybag, I replied: “Not on your life!” turned around and walked away.” “But that alone could not possibly have caused your expulsion from Tronkenburg.” “God forbid,” cried the stable hand, “it was on account of another misdeed! That very evening two horses of two knights who came to visit the castle were taken into the stable and my two horses were tied to the gate outside. And when I took the reins from the overseer, who had himself taken the horses out, and asked him where my animals would spend the night, he pointed to a hog shed battened with boards to the castle wall.” “You mean,” interrupted Kohlhaas, “that it was such a paltry shelter for horses that it looked more like a hog shed than a stable.” “It was a hog shed, Sir,” replied Herse, “honestly and truly a hog shed, from which the pigs ran in and out and I couldn’t stand up straight.” “But maybe there was no other place to put the horses,” Kohlhaas interjected, “the knights’ steeds did, in a certain sense, take precedence.” “The space was tight, that I grant you,” said the stable hand, lowering his voice. “Seven knights in all were now housed in the castle. If it’d been you, Sir, I’m quite sure you’d’ve had the horses pushed a little closer together. I said I wanted to rent a stable in the village; but the overseer replied that he needed to keep an eye on these horses and that I’d better not take them out of the yard. “Hm!” said Kohlhaas. “What did you say to that?” “Since the manager said the two guests would just spend the night and ride on the next morning, I led the horses into the hog shed. But the next day the guests were still there; and on the third day I was told the gentlemen would be staying another couple of weeks.” “It wasn’t half as bad in the hog shed as it appeared when you first poked your nose in, now was it, Herse?” said Kohlhaas. “Right you are, Sir,” the former replied. “Once I’d swept up a little. I gave the servant girl a few coins to make her put the pigs someplace else. And during the day I managed to let the horses stand upright by prying the roof planks loose at dawn and replacing them at dusk. They peered out the roof like geese, longing for Kohlhaasenbrück or some other place where things were better.” “So then, why in heaven’s name did they run you out?” “I tell you, Sir,” the stable hand replied, “it’s because they wanted to be rid of me. Because as long as I was there, they couldn’t work the horses to death. Everywhere I went, in the yard and in the servants’ quarters, they gave me angry looks; and since I thought to myself: You can make faces at me till you dislocate a jaw, they finally managed to pick a quarrel and kick me out.” “But the cause!” cried Kohlhaas. “They must surely have had a cause!” “Indeed they did,” replied Herse, “and the most rightful cause at that. On the evening of the second day, which I’d spent in the hog shed, I took out the horses, the poor creatures all smeared with dung, to ride them to the watering hole to wash them off. And as soon as I reach the castle gate and turn around, I hear the overseer and the manager charging after me out of the servants’ quarters with their lackeys, dogs and whips, crying: ‘Halt, you thieving scoundrel! Halt, you gallows bird!’ like they were stark raving mad. The gatekeeper steps in my path; and when I ask him and the howling mob chasing after me: ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘The matter?’ says the overseer and grabs the horses by the bridle. ‘Where the hell are you headed with these horses?’ and grabs me by the shirt. ‘Where I’m headed?’ says I, ‘to the watering hole, for heaven’s sake! You think I wanted to . . .?’ ‘To the watering hole?’ shrieks the overseer. ‘I’ll toss you on the highroad to Kohlhaasenbrück and teach you how to swim in the dirt!’ So they drag me off my horse with a murderous heave, him and the manager who’s got me by the leg, and fling me flat out in the dung heap. ‘Hell’s bells!’ cry I, ‘I’ve got harnesses and horse blankets and a bundle of laundry back at the stable.’ But while the manager leads the horses away, the overseer and his lackeys pile on top of me, kicking and whipping and pummeling till I drop half-dead behind the gate. And when I protest: ‘You thieving dogs, where are you taking my horses?’ and raise myself upright – ‘Get the hell out of here!’ cries the overseer, and ‘Now, Kaiser! Up, Jäger! Get him, Spitz!’ and a pack of more than a dozen dogs attack. So I reach for whatever comes to hand and manage to break off a plank from the fence and lay three dogs flat dead; but the pain of my flesh wounds is more than I can bear, my head is swimming-the whistle blows, the dogs are yelping in the yard, the gate flies shut, the crossbar slid in, and me I sink unconscious out on the street. “But didn’t you want to get away, Herse?” Kohlhaas said, pale with horror, shamming a roguish grin. “Admit it,” the horse trader said, as the man looked down, all red in the face, “you didn’t like it in the hog shed, did you, better, you figured, to be safe and sound in a stable in Kohlhaasenbrück.” “May God strike me dead!” cried Herse. “I left harnesses and horse blankets and a bundle of laundry in the hog shed. Don’t you think I’d’ve taken the three guldens I left wrapped in a red silk neckerchief hidden behind the feed crib? Hell’s bells! When I hear you say that, I want to light up that match I tossed away and set the whole place on fire!” “Hold on!” said the horse trader, “I didn’t mean it badly! I believe everything you said, word for word, and I will take it up at the supper table. It pains me that you had to suffer all this in my service; go now, Herse, go to bed, and have them bring you a bottle of wine to drown your misery – You will have justice!” Whereupon the horse trader got up, completed an inventory of the things his head stable hand left behind in the hog shed; specified the value of each; even asked him to estimate the cost of his convalescence; and after shaking his hand one more time, let him take his leave.
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 gripped 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, and 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.
But of all the fruitless efforts he made to support his cause, this trip proved the most unfortunate. For but a few days later, Sternbald pulled back up into the yard, driving the carriage in which Lisbeth lay stretched out with a bad bruise on her breast. Kohlhaas, who rushed to the carriage, white in the face, was unable to elicit any coherent account of the cause of this misfortune. The Majordomo, as Sternbald related, was not at home when they got there; they were consequently obliged to spend the night in an inn not far from the castle; Lisbeth left the inn the following morning and instructed the servant to stay behind with the horses; and not before nightfall did she return in this sorry state. It seems she tried to boldly press her way forward to speak to the Elector in person, and through no fault of his, was driven back by an overzealous guard, who landed her a blow to the breast with the shaft of his lance. This at least is what bystanders said, who brought her back to the inn that evening, unconscious; for she herself was hardly able to speak, still gagging as she was on the blood that poured from her mouth. The appeal was later taken from her by a knight. Sternbald said that he had immediately wanted to leap on a horse and inform him of this terrible mishap; but Lisbeth insisted, despite the caution urged by a physician who’d tended to her wound, that she be taken back post haste to her husband in Kohlhaasenbrück without any advance warning. Her condition aggravated by the journey, Kohlhaas carried her to bed, where, painfully gasping for air, she lived a few days longer. Vain attempts were made to bring her back to consciousness to try and shed some light on what happened; she lay there in a daze, staring before her with a blank and broken expression, and did not say a word. Only moments before her death did she regain consciousness. By her bedside, reading to her in a loud, albeit sensitively solemn, voice from a chapter in the Bible, stood a priest of the Lutheran persuasion (to which faith, gaining ground at the time, she had converted, following her husband’s example); and all at once she looked up at the priest with a dark expression, grabbed the Bible out of his hands, as if to say there was nothing more in it for her, leafed and leafed through its pages, and seemed to be searching for something; and turning to Kohlhaas, who sat by her side, she pointed with her forefinger to a verse: “Forgive your enemies . . . do good to them that hate you.” She squeezed his hand with a deeply soulful look in her eyes, and died. Kohlhaas thought: “Let God never forgive me if I forgive the Junker!” and kissed her, the tears welling up, pressed her eyes shut, and left the room. He took the hundred gold guldens that the magistrate had already advanced for the stables in Dresden and ordered a funeral fit more, so it seemed, for a princess than for the wife of a horse trader; in an oaken casket with metal rims, fitted with silken pillows, with gold and silver tassels, in a grave dug eight yards deep, lined with fieldstones and limestone. He himself stood by the graveside, supervising the work, with his youngest child in his arms. On the burial day, the body lay white as snow in an open casket in a hall whose walls were covered with black cloth. The priest had just concluded a stirring sermon beside her bier when he received the Elector’s resolution in answer to the appeal presented by the deceased, which said, in sum: that he should go fetch his horses from Tronkenburg Castle, and at the risk of imprisonment, cease and desist from any future petitions in this matter. Kohlhaas put the letter in his pocket and had the casket brought to the hearse. As soon as the grave had been covered back up, the cross had been planted in it and the guests who’d been present at the funeral had departed, he threw himself one last time before her now empty bed, and promptly turned to the business of revenge. He sat himself down and drafted a final ultimatum, in which he demanded that within three days of receipt thereof, Junker Squire Wenzel von Tronka himself, by the power invested in him, lead the nags he took from him and worked half to death in his fields back to Kohlhaasenbrück and personally feed them their fill in his stables. He sent his demand via mounted messenger, and instructed the man to return to Kohlhaasenbrück immediately upon delivery. As the three days elapsed without delivery of the horses, he called for Herse; told him the final ultimatum he’d made to the young lord, that he personally bring back and feed his horses; asked Herse two things: first, if he would ride with him to Tronkenburg Castle to fetch the lord; and second, if the latter proved lax in the fulfillment of his demands in the stables of Kohlhaasenbrück, would Herse be prepared to use the whip? And as soon as Herse had grasped his meaning, and shouted for joy: “Yes Sir, I’m ready to ride today!” and hurling his cap in the air, swore he’d have a whip with ten knots braided to teach him how to care for a horse, Kohlhaas proceeded to sell his house, packed his children into a carriage and sent them across the border; and at nightfall, called his other men together, seven in number, every one of them sure as gold; fitted them with arms and a steed, and rode off to Tronkenburg Castle.
At daybreak of the third night, he and his little band of men fell upon the toll collector and the gatekeeper, who stood chatting at the gate, and trampled them under, galloping into the castle yard. And having set fire to the barracks and guardroom, while Herse hurried up the winding stairway to the castellan’s tower, where he found the manager and the overseer half-dressed, playing dice, and promptly cut them down, Kohlhaas rushed into the castle to seek out Junker Wenzel. So the angel of justice descended from heaven: the Junker, who had just then been reading aloud the horse trader’s ultimatum to a group of young friends visiting at the time, his friends responding with laughter, when he heard its author calling out in the yard, turned pale in the face, and cried out to his guests: ‘Brothers, save yourselves!’ and promptly disappeared. Bursting into the hall, Kohlhaas grabbed by the collar a Junker Hans von Tronka who came toward him and hurled him so hard against the wall he cracked his skull, and while the horse trader’s men overpowered and scattered the remaining knights who’d reached for their arms, Kohlhaas asked where Wenzel von Tronka was. Furious at the silence of the stunned guests, Kohlhaas kicked open the doors to two passageways that led to wings of the castle, and after scouring every corner of the far-flung premises and finding no one, cursing, he stormed back down to the castle yard to patrol any possible escape route. Meanwhile, the castle itself having caught fire from the barracks, thick columns of smoke rising now from every structure on the castle grounds, as Sternbald and three diligent companions dragged out everything that wasn’t nailed down and hauled it along as booty, along with the horses, a jubilant Herse hurled the corpses of the manager and the overseer, as well as their wives and children, out the open window. On his way down the castle steps, Kohlhaas encountered the Junker’s palsied old housekeeper, who flung herself at his feet. Pausing, he asked her where Junker Wenzel von Tronka was. With a weak and trembling voice, she replied that she thought he’d taken refuge in the chapel; whereupon Kohlhaas called two of his men, and lacking keys, had them break their way in with gunpowder and crowbars, overturned altars and benches, but to his anger and dismay, did not find the Junker. It so happened that at the same time Kohlhaas came back out of the chapel, a young stable boy in the Junker’s service ambled over to a stone stable threatened by the flames to save the Junker’s warhorses. Kohlhaas, who, that very moment, spotted his nags in a little straw-roofed shed, asked the boy why he didn’t save the nags. And when, thrusting the key into the lock of the stable door, the boy replied that the shed was already on fire, Kohlhaas tore the key out of the lock and tossed it over the wall, and, raining blows on the boy with the flat side of his sword, drove him into the burning shed, amidst the terrible laughter of his men, and forced him to save the nags. But when the boy emerged, pale with terror, leading the horses by the reins, and the stall collapsed behind him moments later, Kohlhaas was gone; and when the boy went to join the other stable hands in the castle yard and asked the horse trader, who kept his back turned to him: ‘What shall I do with these broken-down beasts?’ – with a fearful grimace, the latter drew back his boot and let loose a kick that would have killed him if he hadn’t dodged it, and without a word, mounted his chestnut brown steed, and from the castle gate watched in silence as his men went about their business.
By daybreak, the entire castle, walls and all, had burnt to the ground, and no one but Kohlhaas and his seven men still stood within. He climbed down from the saddle and once again, in broad daylight, searched through every nook and cranny of the ruins now laid bare to the naked eye; and since, as painful as it was, he needed to confirm for himself that his action had failed, with a heaving breast he sent Herse and a few of his men to find out the direction in which the Junker had fled. He had his eye, in particular, on a well-endowed convent school named Erlabrunn located on the banks of the Mulde, whose abbess, Antonia von Tronka, was well-known in the region as a pious, charitable and holy woman; for it seemed all too likely to the unhappy horse trader that, stripped as he was of worldly possessions, the Junker would have taken refuge here, since the abbess was his aunt and the woman who had raised him. After learning of this eventuality, Kohlhaas climbed what was left of the overseer’s tower, a single room of which remained intact, and drafted the so-called “Kohlhaas Mandate,” in which he called upon the country to give no quarter to said Junker Wenzel von Tronka, with whom he was engaged in a just conflict, putting its people, the Junker’s relatives and friends included, under obligation, at the risk of bodily harm and death and unavoidable destruction of all their holdings and worldly possessions, to surrender this man unto him. He had word of this declaration dispersed throughout the land by passing travelers and strangers; indeed, he gave his man, Waldmann, a copy of the mandate with the aforementioned demand to deliver it in person to Antonia in Erlabrunn. Hereupon he spoke with several erstwhile servants of Tronkenburg Castle, who had been unhappy with the Junker, and who, enticed by the prospect of booty, wished to join his band; armed them as foot soldiers with crossbows and daggers, and instructed them to march behind his mounted troops; and after liquidating all the spoils his men had amassed and dispersing the money among them, he took a few hours’ rest from his woeful business under the castle gate.
Herse returned at noon and confirmed what Kohlhaas’ heart, forever riddled with dark forebodings, had already told him: namely, that the Junker had indeed taken refuge in the convent at Erlabrunn, where he was welcomed by his aunt, the old abbess Antonia von Tronka. It appears that he escaped through a hidden door in the rear wall of the castle that opened onto a narrow stone stairway and led to a little covered dock, where several skiffs were attached, one of which he managed to commandeer down a moat that ran into the Elbe. At least Herse established for certain that he had pulled in around midnight in a skiff without rudder or oars to a village on the Elbe, to the surprise of the villagers who had assembled outside on account of the fire at Tronkenburg Castle; and that he had driven on in a donkey cart to Erlabrunn. Kohlhaas took a deep sigh at this news; he asked if the horses had been fed; and being told that they had, rallied his men, and three hours later stood before Erlabrunn. At the rumble of a distant thunderstorm that flashed on the horizon, with torches he’d ignited on the spot, he and his band entered the cloister yard, and Waldmann, his servant, who came striding toward him, reported that the mandate had been delivered, just when he spotted the abbess and the convent caretaker engaged in a troubled exchange stepping out under the gate. And while the caretaker, a little, old, white-haired man, cast angry glances at Kohlhaas, he had himself armored up, and boldly called to the servants who surrounded him to ring the bell – the abbess, pale as a sheet, with a silver effigy of the crucified savior in hand, flung herself, along with all the young girls in her charge, before Kohlhaas’ horse. While Herse and Sternbald easily overpowered the caretaker, who had no sword in hand, and led him as a prisoner in between the horses, Kohlhaas asked her: “Where is the Junker Wenzel von Tronka?” “In Wittenberg, Kohlhaas, my good man!” she replied, loosening a ring of keys from her belt, and with a trembling voice, added: “Fear God and do no wrong!” Then thrust back into the hell of his unsatisfied thirst for vengeance, he was about to cry: Set fire!, when a powerful bolt of lightning struck the ground at his feet. Turning his rattled horse back to her, he asked: “Did you receive my mandate?” And in a hushed, hardly audible voice, the woman replied: “Just now!” “When?” “Two hours, as God is my witness, after my nephew, the Junker, had already gone.” And when Waldmann, to whom Kohlhaas turned with a angry look, confirmed this fact in a nervous stutter, and told him that the waters of the Mulde, swollen by the rain, had prevented him from reporting back before now, Kohlhaas regained his composure; a sudden violent downpour that struck the flagstones of the yard and put out the torches, stilled the pain in his unhappy breast; tipping his hat to the lady, he turned his horse around, dug in with his heels, and with the words: “Follow me, brothers. The Junker is in Wittenberg!” rode out of the cloister.
At nightfall, he stopped at an inn on the highway, where he had to rest for a day on account of the great fatigue of his horses, and recognizing that with a band of ten men (for such was now their number), he could not storm such a place as Wittenberg. And so he drafted a second mandate, wherein, following a brief account of what had befallen him, he called upon “every good Christian,” as he put it, in exchange for a modest payment and other spoils of war, “to take up his cause against the Junker von Tronka, as the common enemy of all good Christians.” In yet another mandate that followed soon thereafter, he called himself “a man free of worldly and imperial ties, beholden only to the Lord God,” a hot-headed and ill-conceived rallying cry that won him, as it were, along with the jingle of coins and the prospect of booty, the allegiance of a rabble that swelled in number after the peace treaty with Poland took the bread out of their mouths: such that he now counted thirty and some followers that gathered with him on the right bank of the Elbe preparing to burn Wittenberg to the ground. He camped with his horses and men under the roof of a broken-down old brick shed in the heart of a dark forest that surrounded the city at the time, and no sooner was he informed by Sternbald, whom he’d sent on ahead in disguise with the mandate in hand, that they were already familiar with it there, than on the holy eve of Whitsuntide, he and his band launched an attack, and while the townspeople lay fast asleep, they simultaneously set fire to several corners of the city. And while his men plundered on the outskirts of town, he fixed a paper to the doorposts of a church wherein he declared: “I, Kohlhaas, set your city on fire, and if the Junker is not handed over to me, will burn it to the ground, so that,” as he put it, “I won’t have to look behind any wall to find him.” The townspeople’s horror at this outrage was indescribable; and hardly had the flames – which on this, fortunately, rather windless summer night, had only destroyed nineteen buildings, including a church – been smothered, when the old Lord Governor Otto von Gorgas sent out a battalion of some fifty guards to capture this barbarian. But the captain of the guards, a man named Gerstenberg, failed so miserably in this engagement that, instead of toppling Kohlhaas, it rather raised his fearsome reputation as an extremely dangerous combatant; for since the captain divided his men into several smaller squadrons to surround and subdue the enemy, Kohlhaas responded by holding his troops together and striking out and badly beating them back at several points, such that, by the evening of the following day, not a single member of the captain’s battalion, in whom the locals placed their trust, was still standing. Kohlhaas, who lost a few men in these skirmishes, once again set fire to the city on the following morning, and his murderous efforts were so effective that, once again, a slew of houses as well as all the barns on the outskirts of town were burnt to the ground. While so engaged he tacked up another mandate, this time on the corners of the city hall, including word of the fate of Captain von Gerstenberg sent out by the Lord Governor and duly cut down. Whereupon the Lord Governor, infuriated by this defiance, himself took the lead of a company of some 150 men, including a number of knights. At the Junker Wenzel von Tronka’s written request, he gave him an armed guard to protect him from the anger of the townspeople, who were dead-set on chasing him out of town; and after having placed guard details in all the outlying villages and also stationed sentries round the city wall to protect against attack, the Lord Governor set out on St. Gervasius’ Day to capture the dragon laying waste to his land. But the horse trader was smart enough to elude this army; and once, through shrewd strategy, he’d lured the Lord Governor five miles outside the city, and given him to believe by various maneuvers that, chastened by the superiority of the opposing force, he had fallen back to neighboring Brandenburg – he suddenly turned his men around at nightfall of the third day and once again attacked Wittenberg, a third time setting the city afire. Herse, who slipped into the city in disguise, brought off this terrible trick; and on account of a fiercely gusting north wind, the raging flames were so ruinous and all-consuming that in less than three hours forty-two houses, two churches, several cloisters and schools and the Governor’s residence itself had been reduced to ruins. At daybreak, learning what had happened, the Lord Governor, who thought his opponent was in Brandenburg, staggered back, bewildered, to find the city in an uproar; the crowd gathered by the thousands in front of the Junker’s house that was barricaded up with beams and stakes, and hollered and howled their demand that he be driven out of town. Two mayors named Jenkins and Otto who, dressed in their official robes, were present at the head of the entire town council, declared in vain that they were obliged to await the return of an express courier sent to the president of the state chancellery to request permission to be allowed to take the Junker to Dresden, where, for various unspecified reasons, he himself wished to go; the unruly crowd, armed with pikes and crowbars, put no store in these words, and roughing up a few officials who had called for emergency measures, was in the process of storming the Junker’s house, just when the Lord Governor Otto von Gorgas came riding up with his army of knights. As some consolation, as it were, for the failed mission from which he returned, this worthy gentleman, who, by his mere presence, was accustomed to instilling respect and obedience in the people, succeeded in capturing two routed members of the deadly firebrand’s band directly in front of the gates of the city; and leading these louts in chains before the crowd, while offering assurances in a well-crafted speech to the members of the town council that, hot as he was on the bandit’s trail, he would soon bring back Kohlhaas himself in shackles – he managed, by the strength of all these mollifying circumstances, to defuse the fear of the gathered throng and to somewhat assuage their fury, convincing them to wait for the return of the express courier from Dresden. Surrounded by several knights, he dismounted, and after clearing away the barricade of beams and stakes, entered the house, where he found the Junker in the hands of two physicians doing their best with essences and irritants to rouse him back to life from a faint into which he had fallen; and Sir Otto von Gorgas felt indeed that this was not the right moment to bring up the question of his well-deserved expulsion from the city; so, with a look of quiet contempt, he merely told him to get dressed and to follow him to the prison for his own protection. As soon as they had dressed the Junker in a doublet and put a helmet on his head, and because he was still gasping for air, left his shirt half open, in which condition he appeared on the street, held under one arm by the Lord Governor and under the other by his brother-in-law, Count von Gerschau, a flurry of obscene and frightful curses rang out from every throat. Held back with great difficulty by armed troopers, the crowd called him a contemptible bloodsucker, a pestilent plague on the land and blight on humanity, the lowdown bane of the city of Wittenberg and the undoing of Saxony; and following a miserable march through the ruins of the city, several times during which he lost his helmet, without missing it, and a knight placed it back on his head, they finally reached the prison, where he was whisked into a tower and held there under the protection of an armed guard. In the meantime, the return of the express courier with the Elector’s reply gave the city new cause for concern. For the state government, which shortly before had received a pressing petition from the citizens of Dresden, declined the Junker’s request for sanctuary until the bloody villain Kohlhaas had been caught, but ordered the Lord Governor to hold and protect him with the force at his disposal wherever he was, since he had to be somewhere; the good city of Wittenberg was, however, informed, to dispel any lingering concern, that an army of some five hundred men under the leadership of Prince Friedrich von Meissen was on its way to protect them from any further attacks. But the Lord Governor knew full well that a resolution of this sort would by no means calm the people’s fears; for not only had the horse trader gained the upper hand in many small ways, but dire rumors also spread of his growing strength; the war he waged with disguised henchmen in the dark of night, with pitch and straw and flammable gunpowder, inconceivable and unprecedented as it was, could well overpower a far bigger army than the one with which the Prince of Meissen was drawing near. So, after brief consideration, the Lord Governor decided to suppress the gist of the resolution he’d received. He merely posted at the edge of town the letter which the Prince of Meissen had sent announcing his imminent arrival; a covered wagon that rumbled out of the courtyard of the Herrenzwinger Castle at dawn the next day, accompanied by six heavily armed men on horseback, was bound for Leipzig, though the mounted guards dropped hints along the way that they were bound for Pleissenburg; and since the people were so relieved to be rid of the wretched Junker, whom they associated with fire and sword, the Lord Governor himself subsequently set out with an army of three hundred men to join forces with Prince Friedrich of Meissen. In the meantime, given the reputation that Kohlhaas had acquired for himself, his forces grew to 109; and since he also managed to gather a stock of weapons in Jassen and therewith armed his troops to the teeth, informed of the two storm fronts blowing his way, he decided to ride like the wind and head off the threat before it fell upon him. So, the very next day, he lead an attack by night on the Prince of Meissen’s force stationed at Mühlenberg; in which skirmish, to his deep regret, he lost Herse, the first man to fall at his side; but embittered by this loss, in the course of the three-hour-long battle that ensued, Kohlhaas fought so fiercely with the Prince that the latter, caught unawares, having suffered several heavy wounds and given the disarray of his army, was compelled to beat a retreat to Dresden. Emboldened by this victory, before the Lord Governor could possibly have been informed of what had transpired, Kohlhaas turned his force around and led an attack on this second front in broad daylight in an open field in the village of Damerow, and although suffering heavy losses, fought on till nightfall, here too gaining the upper hand. Indeed, he would surely have resumed the attack with the rest of his men the following day, had not the Lord Governor, who had holed up in the churchyard at Damerow, received word of the defeat of the Prince at Mühlberg, and so deemed it wiser to wait for a more auspicious moment and returned post haste to Wittenberg. Five days after the defeat of these two armies, Kohlhaas stood before the gates of Leipzig and set the city on fire on three sides. In a mandate that he distributed on that occasion, he called himself “an emissary of the Archangel Michael come to punish all those with sword and fire who sided with the Junker in this dispute, and thereby to cleanse the world of the sorry state it had fallen into.” Meanwhile, from the Lützen Castle, which he had taken by surprise and where he and his men held up, he called out to the people to join him in his fight for a better world order; and concluded the mandate, with a hint of megalomania, as “proclaimed at the site of our provisional world government, the arrant castle at Lützen.” As luck would have it for the citizens of Leipzig, a persistent downpour kept the fire from spreading, so that, thanks to the rapidity of the local fire brigades, only a few shops around the Pleissenburg went up in flames. Nevertheless, the city’s dismay was unspeakable in the face of the raging incendiary and his fury at the fact that the Junker was in Leipzig; and since a force of a hundred and eighty stalwarts sent out to fight had returned defeated, not wanting to jeopardize the city’s fortune, the local magistrate had no other recourse but to lock the city gates and have its citizens keep watch night and day outside the walls. To no avail did the magistrate have placards put up in villages in the outlying district assuring the population that the Junker was not in the Pleissenburg; the horse trader insisted in similar placards that he was in the Pleissenburg, and gave his own assurance that, even if the Junker were not there, he, Kohlhaas, would respond as if he were, and act accordingly, until he was furnished with the name of the place where he was being held. Informed by an express messenger of the danger faced by the city of Leipzig, the Prince Elector declared that he would presently assemble an army of two thousand men with himself in the lead to capture Kohlhaas. He issued a sharp rebuke to Sir Otto von Gorgas, chiding him for the duplicitous and injudicious cunning he applied to lure the murderer away from the environs of Wittenberg; and no one can describe the outrage that took hold of all of Saxony, and especially of the capital city, when word spread there that in the villages around Leipzig a declaration had been put up, it was not known by whom, addressed to Kohlhaas, the contents of which read: “Junker Wenzel is with his cousins Hinz and Kunz in Dresden.”
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 that 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.
The following morning, Luther drafted a letter to the Prince Elector of Saxony, in which, following a bitter interjection concerning Messrs. Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, his chamberlain and cupbearer, who had, as was common knowledge, suppressed Kohlhaas’ complaint, he told the Lord straight out, as was his wont, that under such troublesome circumstances, he had no choice but to accept the horse trader’s proposition, and to accord him amnesty to pursue his legal case. Public opinion, Luther remarked, had turned dangerously in this man’s favor, such that even in the thrice-torched Wittenberg there were those who defended his cause; and since he would most assuredly bring his appeal to the public’s attention in the most hateful terms, should it be denied, the whole business could easily flare up to such a degree that the forces of law and order would no longer be able to hold him in check. Luther concluded that, in this extraordinary case, one had to overlook the dangerous risk of dealing with a citizen who had taken up arms; that the man in question had indeed, in a certain sense, on account of the measures taken against him, been cast out of the social contract; in short, so as to get ourselves out of this bind, we must view him as an invading foreign power – which is how, as a foreigner, he qualifies his own tenuous status – rather than as a rebel rising up against the throne. The Prince Elector received the letter just as Prince Christiern von Meissen, High Commander of the Reich, uncle of Prince Friedrich von Meissen, the latter beaten by Kohlhaas at Mühlberg and still suffering from his wounds; Count Wrede, the Lord High Chancellor of the Tribunal; Count Kallheim, president of the State Chancellery; and the aforementioned Messrs. Hinz and Kunz von Tronka, the former chamberlain, the latter cupbearer, childhood friends and confidants of His Lordship, all happened to be present at his castle. The Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who, in the capacity of a Privy Councilor, saw to the Elector’s private correspondence with the authority to use his name and seal, was the first to speak up, and after once again establishing at length that he had indeed submitted the horse trader’s complaint against the Junker, his cousin, to the tribunal, noted that he would certainly never have taken it upon himself to suppress it by injunction, had he not, misled by false assertions, taken it to be a wholly groundless and capricious attempt at extortion, whereupon he came to the current state of affairs. He remarked furthermore that, simply because of this regrettable blunder, neither divine nor human laws justified that the horse trader resort to the kind of inconceivable acts of revenge he had committed; he warned that to enter into negotiations with him as a legitimate warring power would bleach the dark stain of his standing in the public eye; and the consequent dishonor to the hallowed person of the Prince Elector would be so intolerable that, all things considered, he could sooner conceive, as worst case scenario, a verdict favoring the raging rebel, wherein the Junker, his cousin, were obliged to go to Kohlhaasenbrück and personally feed his nags, rather than an acceptance of Doctor Luther’s recommendation. Half-turned toward the chamberlain, the Lord High Chancellor of the Tribunal, Count Wrede, expressed his regret that the mindful consideration his colleague now displayed for the reputation of the Prince Elector in the resolution of this admittedly awkward matter had not been taken right from the start. He presented his position that the Elector would be obliged to enlist the supreme power of the state to enforce a patently unjust measure; remarked, with a telling look, on the horse trader’s continuing popularity in the country, that under these circumstances the trail of enormities threatened to go on without end, and concluded that only a simple act of justice, an immediate and unstinting restitution for the wrongs done him could make him stop and extricate the administration from this sordid tit for tat. In answer to the Elector’s question as to what he made of the matter, Prince Chistiern von Meissen turned with reverence to face the Lord High Chancellor: “I have the greatest respect for the high-minded views espoused by my esteemed colleague, in wishing to see Kohlhaas find justice, however, the Lord High Chancellor does not take into consideration all the damage the horse trader himself has done in Wittenberg and Leipzig and in the entire country while seeking redress or at least punishment for the injustice he suffered. The state of law and order in the land has been so disrupted by this man that in holding to a high-minded principle of jurisprudence we would be hard-pressed to repair the damage. Therefore, concurring with the views of the chamberlain, I would urge that all necessary military measures be taken, that an army be gathered of sufficient size to arrest or crush the horse trader, now holed up in Lützen.” Dragging chairs from against the wall for himself and the Prince Elector and setting them ceremoniously in the room, the chamberlain said he was glad that a man of such integrity and such a discerning mind shared his view of the way to settle this dubious matter. Grabbing hold of the proffered chair without sitting down, the Prince looked at his chamberlain and assured him that he had absolutely no reason to rejoice, since legal protocol necessarily demanded that a warrant for his arrest be issued first and that he be brought to trial for misuse of my name and title. For if necessity demanded that the veil be lowered before the throne of justice to cover up a series of outrages that followed ineluctably one after the other, the bar of justice would not be long enough to encompass them all, nor would the person who provoked these outrages be exempt from judgment; and the state would first have to seek the horse trader’s indictment for capital crimes before being empowered to crush a man whose cause was, after all, as everyone knew, a just one, and into whose hands the sword he wielded had been thrust. At these words, the Prince Elector, whom the Junker regarded with a pained expression, turned red in the face and strode to the window. Following a long disconcerted silence in the room, Count Kallheim remarked that such a course of action would not get them out of the vicious circle in which they were caught. “By the same logic,” he said, “one would be likewise obliged to bring my nephew, Prince Friedrich, to trial, for he, too, in the curious campaign he waged against Kohlhaas, had more than once overstepped the bounds of his orders; such that if one were to seek out the growing group of those responsible for the predicament in which we now find ourselves, he too would have to be included among them, and be called by the Elector to account for what happened at Mühlberg.” While the prince cast uncertain glances at his worktable, his cupbearer, Sir Hinz von Tronka, cleared his throat and declared: “I cannot fathom how the obvious state solution could have eluded men as astute as those gathered here. In exchange for safe passage to Dresden and the reopening of his legal case, the horse trader has, to my knowledge, promised to dissolve the army with which he has terrorized this land. It did not, however, necessarily follow that he would have to be granted amnesty for his vengeful acts”: two legal premises which both Dr. Luther and the Lord High Chancellor appeared to have confused. “Even if,” he continued, with a finger touching his nose, “the Dresden Tribunal were to recognize his rightful claim regarding the treatment of the nags, this would not preclude locking up Kohlhaas for his murderous rampage and pillaging” – an expedient take on the situation that combined the benefits of the views of both of the aforementioned statesmen and would surely be applauded by the people and by posterity. Seeing as Prince von Meissen and the Lord High Chancellor responded with nothing but a blank look to the cupbearer’s recommendation, and, consequently, the parley appeared to have come to an end, the Elector said: “I will mull over the various opinions presented here until the next state council meeting.” It seemed that the preliminary disciplinary measure mentioned by the count so touched the heart of the Elector, a heart prone to friendship, that it dispelled his desire to send out the military force he had already amassed to fight Kohlhaas. Thanking all the others, he only asked the Lord High Chancellor, Count Wrede, whose opinion seemed to him to be the most expedient, to remain; and since the latter showed him dispatches reporting that the horse trader’s force had, in fact, already grown to four hundred men, and that, moreover, given the public displeasure at the unseemly comportment of the chamberlain, one could count on that force soon doubling or tripling in size – the Elector decided without any further delay to accept the advice of Dr. Luther. Whereupon he put Count Wrede in charge of the entire matter concerning Kohlhaas; and shortly thereafter, a placard was posted in public places, the essential details of which were as follows:
We, etc. etc., Elector of Saxony, in exceptional merciful consideration of the recommendation made to us by Dr. Luther, herewith grant Michael Kohlhaas, horse trader from Brandenburg, within three days following his laying down of the arms he took up, and our sight thereof, safe passage to Dresden in order to pursue his legal case; with, however, the restriction, in the unlikely eventuality that his suit concerning the nags should be turned down by the Dresden Tribunal, that, on account of his rash actions, wherein he took the law into his own hands, he be made to face justice according to the full severity of the law; conversely, however, should his suit be sustained, let it be so decided that he and his entire force be mercifully granted complete amnesty for the violent acts perpetrated by them in Saxony.
No sooner had Kohlhaas received from Dr. Luther a copy of this placard posted in all public places in the country, as conditional as the terms herein enumerated were, than he called together his entire army, and showering them with gifts, expressions of his profound gratitude and pointed warnings, promptly disbanded them. He deposited all that he had amassed in the way of money, weapons and implements, declaring it the Elector’s property at the court of law in Lützen; and after sending Waldmann with letters of inquiry to the magistrate in Kohlhaasenbrück regarding the reacquisition of his dairy farm, should that be possible, and sending Sternbald to Schwerin to fetch his children whom he once again wished to have by his side, he left the castle at Lützen and traveled incognito to Dresden with the rest of his meager fortune, comprising mostly documents and deeds.
It was daybreak and the entire city was still asleep when he knocked on the door of the small property he still retained, thanks to the integrity of the magistrate, in the outlying district of Pirnais, and said to Thomas, the old superintendent in charge of its upkeep, who opened the door, in stunned amazement: “Please inform Prince von Meissen in the commander’s palace that Kohlhaas the horse trader is here.” Hearing the news, Prince von Meissen, who deemed it advisable to immediately inquire into the agreement that had been made with this man, and soon thereafter came riding up the street with a retinue of knights and foot soldiers, found a considerable crowd of people already gathered in front of the house. The news of the arrival of the avenging angel, the man who had fought the people’s oppressors with fire and sword, brought all of Dresden, the city and its suburbs, to its knees; the horse trader’s front door had to be bolted in the face of this throng of curious spectators, and youths climbed up to the window ledge to catch a glimpse of the famous killer in the flesh having his breakfast. As soon as the prince had, with the aid of a guard, pressed his way through the crowd into the house and entered Kohlhaas’ room, he asked the man seated, bare-chested, at table: “Are you Kohlhaas, the horse trader?” Whereupon, removing from under his belt a satchel of papers relating to his case and respectfully passing them to the prince, the latter said: “Yes!” And added: “After dissolving my army, compliant with the terms of the Elector’s right of passage, I am here in Dresden to plead my case against Junker Wenzel von Tronka in the matter of the nags.” With a fleeting glance that took the man in from head to foot, the prince flipped through the papers; asked him to explain the pertinence of an attestation issued by the court of Lützen concerning his deposition regarding objects of value belonging to the Elector; and after sounding him out with questions regarding his children, his possessions and the lifestyle he henceforth intended to follow, and being satisfied that there was nothing more to fear from him, he returned his satchel and said: “Nothing stands in the way of your legal proceedings. Permit me then without further ado to personally accompany you to the Lord High Chancellor Count Wrede.” And after a pause, during which he strode to the window and took in the crowd that had gathered outside, the prince added: “You will have to accept a guard for at least the first few days to protect you at home and when you go out!” Kohlhaas cast a dejected look at the floor and remained silent. “In any case,” said the prince, stepping away from the window, “come what may, you have yourself to blame”; whereupon he turned back to the door, intending to take his leave. Pulling himself together, Kohlhaas spoke: “Most gracious Sir, do with me what you will! If you will give me your word that you will withdraw the guard when I so wish, then I have no objection to this precautionary measure!” The prince replied: “That goes without saying.” And after telling the three armed men assigned to this detail that the man at whose house they stood guard was not a prisoner, and that they were only to follow him when he went out for his own protection, he bid the horse trader farewell with a wave of the hand and walked out the door.
Toward noon Kohlhaas set out in the company of the three armed guards to see the Lord High Chancelor Count Wrede; they were followed by an immense crowd, but no one dared harm the horse trader, having been warned by the police. The Lord High Chancellor, who graciously and kindly received him in his antechamber, conversed with him for a full two hours, and after being fully informed of the entire matter from beginning to end, immediately directed him to a famous barrister to prepare and file his complaint. Kohlhaas proceeded post haste to the barrister’s office, and as soon as the suit was drafted true to the trader’s account, calling for the punishment of the Junker as specified by the law, the reinstatement of Kohlhaas’ horses in their original condition, and compensation for damages, as well as for the injuries incurred by his stable hand Herse who fell at Mühlberg, the money to be paid to his old mother, he made his way back home, still followed by the gaping crowd, having resolved not to leave the house again, save for some pressing matter.
In the meantime, the Junker was released from house arrest in Wittenberg, and after recuperating from a foot infection caused by the prick of a rose bush, was issued a peremptory summons by the provincial court to be judged in Dresden in the suit brought against him by the horse trader Kohlhaas in the matter of his confiscated and ravaged nags. The brothers Lord Chamberlain and Cupbearer von Tronka, cousins bound by blood ties to the Junker, in whose house he stopped off, received him with the greatest resentment and contempt; they called him a miserable cur and wastrel who had brought scandal and dishonor upon the entire family, informed him, furthermore, that he would surely lose his trial, and pressed him to immediately fetch the nags which he would be condemned to feed their fill in the face of public ridicule. The Junker replied with a feeble and trembling voice that he was the most pitiable man in the world. He swore that he had little knowledge of the whole accursed business that had brought his ruin and that the overseer and the manager of his estate were guilty of everything, in that they used the horses for the harvest without his knowledge and accord, and had worn them down with excessive work, some on their own fields. Having said this, he sat down, and begged his cousins not to willfully fling him back with their insults and ill-chosen words into the sorry state from which he’d just emerged. The next day, at their cousin, Junker Wenzel’s request, having no other choice, Messrs. Hinz and Kunz, who themselves had land holdings in the vicinity of the besieged Tronkenburg Castle, sent word to their foremen and tenant farmers inquiring as to the whereabouts of the nags that had been lost on that unhappy day and never found again. But all that they could find out in the wake of the total leveling of castle and the slaughter of its inhabitants was that a stable hand had saved them from the burning stall in which they stood, rescuing them from the murderer’s savage onslaught, yet in answer to the question of where he had lead them and what he had done with them, the truculent lout responded with a swift kick. The Junker’s aged, gout-plagued housekeeper, who had fled to Meissen, swore in response to a written query that on the morning after that terrible night the stable hand took the horses with him across the border into Brandenburg; yet all subsequent cross-border inquiries were in vain, and the housekeeper’s testimony seemed to be based on an error, for the Junker had no stable hand who lived in or on the way to Brandenburg. Residents of Dresden who had been in Wilsdruff a few days after the burning of Tronkenburg Castle testified that at the said moment a stable hand arrived leading two horses by the halter, and because they were in miserable condition and could not be made to walk any farther, had left them in the cowshed of a shepherd who wanted to keep them. It appeared for various reasons very likely that these were the nags in question; but as other people who had been there since assured, the shepherd from Wilsdruff had resold them, though to whom they did not know; and according to a third rumor, the source of which remained unidentified, the horses had since given up the ghost and were buried in the boneyard in Wilsdruff. Messrs. Hinz and Kunz, for whom, as one can readily understand, this was the most welcome explanation, in that, given their cousin Junker Wenzel’s lack of a stall, it spared them the necessity of feeding the nags in their own, wished to confirm for certain that this was indeed what happened. Consequently, Sir Wenzel von Tronka, in his capacity as rightful feudal heir and lord of the manor, sent word to the court in Wilsdruff, wherein, following a precise description of the nags, which, as he put it, were entrusted to him and accidentally lost, he called for an official inquiry into the circumstances of their stay and their current whereabouts, and demanded that their owner, whoever he may be, and whom he promised to generously compensate for all expenses, return them forthwith to the stables of the Lord High Chamberlain Sir Kunz in Dresden. Whereupon, a few days later, the man to whom the shepherd had sold them in Wilsdruff did indeed lead them, tied to his oxcart, spindly and tottering as they were, to the city’s market square; but unfortunately for Sir Wenzel, and better than the honest Kohlhaas could have wished for, the man who brought them was none other than the horse skinner of Döbbeln.
As soon as Sir Wenzel, in the presence of his cousin, the Lord Chamberlain, got wind of an uncertain rumor that a man with two black horses saved from the fire at Tronkenburg Castle had arrived in town, the two men, accompanied by a hastily gathered group of Sir Kunz’s manservants, hurried to the square to meet him, and should the horses prove to be those belonging to Kohlhaas, to reimburse the cost of their care and bring them home. But imagine their embarrassment when, on their way there, the two noblemen saw an ever growing crowd attracted by the spectacle of the pitiful creatures tied to a two-wheel oxcart, the spectators snickering to each other that the horses tottered in readiness for the skinner’s knife. The Junker who circled the oxcart, eyeing the miserable beasts that looked like they might at any moment drop dead, muttered, greatly disconcerted, that these were not the horses Kohlhaas had left in his care; but Sir Kunz, the Chamberlain, casting at him a look of anger beyond words, which, were it fashioned in iron, would have torn him to shreds, strode forward to the horse skinner, opening his coat to reveal the insignia of his office dangling from a chain, and asked: “Are these the nags that the shepherd of Wilsdrufff gave you and which Junker Wenzel von Tronka, to whom they belong, requisitioned in court?” To which the horse skinner, who at that moment was busy, with a bucket of water in hand, giving the strong and healthy workhorse that pulled his cart a drink, replied: “You mean the black ones?” He set down the bucket, and removed the bit from the workhorse’s mouth, and continued: “The swineherd from Hainichen sold me them black nags. Couldn’t say where he got them, or if they belonged to the shepherd from Wilsdrufff. I was ordered by a court clerk back in Wilsdruff,” he said, picking up the bucket again and resting it between carriage shaft and knee, “to bring them to Dresden to the house of the von Tronkas, but the Junker I’m supposed to see is called Kunz.” And with these words, he turned away with the rest of the water the horse had left in the bucket and emptied it out on the cobblestones. Ringed by the jeering mob, the Chamberlain, who could not manage to make the horse skinner look at him, consumed as he was with a senseless zeal by the tasks at hand, cleared his throat and spoke up: “I am the Lord Chamberlain, Kunz von Tronka, but the nags must surely be those belonging to my cousin, Junker Wenzel, the ones a stable hand saved from the fire at Tronkenbug Castle and sold to the shepherd from Wilsdruff, the very same horses that originally belonged to the horse trader Kohlhaas!” He asked the fellow who stood there with legs spread wide, hoisting up his pants: “Don’t you know anything about it?” And: “Mark my words, my good man, for this is the important part. Might they not be the very same horses that the swineherd from Hainichen bought from the shepherd from Wilsdruff, or from some third party who bought them from the shepherd?” Leaning against the cart, having knocked the last drops of water out of the bucket, the horse skinner said: “All’s I was told was to bring them horses to Dresden to the house of the von Tronkas, who’d pay me money. Damned if I know a thing about the rest, who they belonged to before the swineherd from Hainichen, to Peter or Paul or the shepherd from Wilsdrufff, it don’t make a difference, since, far as I know, nobody stole ‘em.” And with those words, the horsewhip resting round his broad shoulders, he strode off to a tavern on the square, hungry as he was for breakfast. The Chamberlain who did not for the life of him know what to do with horses that the swineherd of Hainichen sold to the horse skinner of Döbbeln, if it wasn’t those on which the devil himself rode through Saxony, pressed the Junker to say something; but when the latter replied with pale, trembling lips: “We’d best buy them, whether they belonged to Kohlhaas or not!” – the Chamberlain backed away from the snickering crowd, buttoning up his coat, cursing the father and mother who put him on this earth, with not the slightest idea of what to do or not do. He called to the Baron von Wenk, an acquaintance of his who just happened to be crossing the street. And determined as he was not to leave the square, precisely on account of the sneering mob, who seemed to be awaiting his departure with handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths to burst out laughing, he asked him to stop by the home of Lord High Chancellor, Count Wrede, to bid him bring Kohlhaas by to inspect the horses. It just so happened that Kohlhaas, fetched by a court clerk, was already there in the Chancellor’s chambers, no doubt to furnish a clarification requested of him regarding the deposition in Lützen, at the very moment when, with the aforementioned purpose, the Baron entered the room; and while the Chancellor rose from his chair with a look of consternation, and bid the horse trader, whom the newcomer had never met, step aside with the papers in hand, the Baron informed him of the embarrassing predicament in which Sir von Tronka found himself. It appeared that, due to an erroneous requisition from the Wilsdruff tribunal, the horse skinner from Döbbeln had shown up in town with horses in such a miserable condition that Junker Wenzel had to hold off recognizing them as those belonging to Kohlhaas; furthermore, that should his cousin, Junker Wenzel, and he, nevertheless, decide to accept them from the horse skinner and take them into his, the Lord High Chamberlain’s stables, and attempt to fortify and return them to their former state, a personal identification by Kohlhaas would be necessary to resolve the situation beyond a shadow of a doubt. “Please be so kind,” he concluded, “as to send a guard to fetch the horse trader from his house and have him brought to the market square where the horses are tied up.” Removing the spectacles from his nose, the Lord High Chancellor replied that the Baron was twice mistaken: first, if he believed that said situation could not be resolved, save by Kohlhaas’ personal identification; and second, if he imagined that he, the Chancellor, was empowered, via the intermediary of a guard, to dispatch Kohlhaas wherever the Junker pleased. Whereupon he presented the horse trader, standing right there behind him, and sitting down again and replacing the spectacles on his nose, bid the Baron address himself directly to Kohlhaas. With no indication in his expression of the tumult in his soul, Kohlhaas said that he was willing to follow him to the market place to inspect the nags the horse skinner had brought to town. While the Baron spun around with a disconcerted look, Kohlhaas returned to the Chancellor’s writing table, and after searching through the papers in his briefcase and handing him a few more relating to the deposition in Lützen, bid him farewell. Meanwhile, the Baron, who strode to the window all red in the face, likewise took his leave; and the two men, accompanied by the three guards assigned by the Prince of Meissen, and trailed by a crowd of townspeople, made their way to the market square. Contrary to the advice of numerous friends who had in the meantime gathered around him, the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, had stubbornly remained standing there face to face with the horse skinner from Döbbeln, and as soon as the Baron appeared with the horse trader, approached the latter and clutching his sword under his arm with all the pride and dignity he could muster, inquired if the horses standing behind the cart belonged to him. Doffing his hat in a reserved salute to the unknown man who’d asked him the question, and without answering, the horse trader approached the skinner’s cart, accompanied by all the highborn gentlemen in attendance, and stopping at a distance of twelve paces, cast a fleeting glance at the creatures standing there on trembling legs, heads bowed, not even strong enough to eat the hay the skinner had set before them. “Most gracious Sir,” he turned back to the Lord Chamberlain, “the horse skinner is absolutely right; the horses tied to his cart are mine!” Whereupon, gazing around at the circle of gentlemen surrounding him, he once again doffed his hat, and left the Junker with the guards following after him. At these words, the Lord Chamberlain rushed toward the horse skinner with a pace that ruffled the plumes on his helmet, and flung him a pouch of money; and while the latter, money in hand, combed back hair from his forehead with a leaden comb, all the while peering at the money, the former ordered a servant to untie the horses and lead them back to his stable. The servant, who, following his master’s orders, left a circle of friends and relatives in the crowd, and indeed, himself a bit red in the face, stepped over a huge heap of dung toward the beasts that had produced it; but no sooner had he reached for their halters to tie them loose than a certain Master Himboldt, his cousin, grabbed his arm and tugged him away from the cart, crying: “Don’t lay a hand on those sorry jades!” And clambering with uncertain steps over the dung heap toward the Chamberlain, who stood there, speechless, said: “Go hire yourself a flayer’s lackey to do your sordid business!” Seething with rage, the befuddled Chamberlain eyed Master Himboldt a moment, then turned and called over the heads of the lords surrounding him to the guard. And as soon as an officer emerged from the castle with several of the Prince Elector’s gentlemen at arms, at the request of Baron von Wenk, and after offering a brief summation of the scandalous rabblerousing of the townspeople, the Chamberlain ordered them to arrest the ringleader Master Himboldt. Grabbing him by his collar, the Lord Chamberlain accused him of shoving aside and manhandling his servant, who was in the process of untying the horses from the cart. Master Himboldt, who managed with a deft move to break free of his grip, declared: “Most gracious Sir, to tell a twenty-year-old boy what to do is not rabblerousing! Just ask him if, contrary to custom and decorum, he wants to deal with the horses bound to the cart; if he wishes to do so after what I’ve said, then, for heaven’s sake, let him butcher and skin them!” At these words, the Chamberlain turned to his servant and asked him if he had any objections to following his orders and untying the horses that belong to Kohlhaas and leading them to his stable. And when the lad, mingling with the crowd, replied: “The horses have got to be put out of their misery before I touch ’em!” the Chamberlain overtook him from behind, tore off his hat on which was emblazoned the family crest, stomped on it, and with furious swings of his sword chased the lad from the square and duly dispatched him from his service. Master Himboldt cried out: “Tackle the murdering tyrant!” And when, all fired up at the sight of this, the townspeople gathered together and pushed back the guards, Master Himboldt caught hold of the Chamberlain from behind, tore off his coat, collar and helmet, wrestled the sword out of his hand and hurled it with a mighty toss far across the square. To no avail did Junker Wenzel, who’d managed to break free of the tumult, cry out to the knights to come to his cousin’s aid; before they could take a single step they were already scattered by the press of the mob, such that the Chamberlain, who’d injured his head in falling, had to face the raging fury of the crowd. Nothing but the appearance of a troop of armed men on horseback that happened to be passing at that moment and which the commanding officer of the Prince Elector’s men had dispatched could save the Chamberlain. After managing to scatter the rabble, the officer grabbed hold of the fuming Master Himboldt, and while a handful of guards dragged the man off to prison, two of the Chamberlain’s friends picked up the poor bloodied fellow from the ground and brought him home. Such was the unfortunate conclusion to this well-intended and sincere attempt to obtain redress for the injustice that had been done to the horse trader. Once the crowd started to disperse, the horse skinner from Döbbeln, his task having been accomplished and seeing no further cause to stick around, hitched the nags to a lamppost. There they remained standing all day, and since nobody took care of them, they were the butt of street urchins’ and hooligans’ pranks; consequently, abandoned as the poor beasts were, the police had to take charge of them, and come nightfall, called for the horse skinner of Dresden to take them in until further notice.
This incident, though the horse trader was hardly to blame for it, nevertheless aroused, even among the more moderate and well-intentioned folk, a dark mood that did not bode well for the outcome of his case. His comportment with regard to the state was deemed altogether unacceptable, and behind closed doors and in the marketplace growing public opinion maintained that it would be better to do him an outright injustice and once again suppress the entire matter than to do the right thing by him in what was, after all, such an inconsequential matter, and thereby vindicate acts of violence, just to satisfy his pigheaded obstinacy. Alas for poor Kohlhaas, it was felt that the Lord High Chancellor himself would have to support and promote this position out of a heightened sense of justice, and despite the hatred for the von Tronka family it would surely arouse.
It was highly unlikely that the horses now cared for by the horse skinner of Dresden could ever be restored to the healthy condition they enjoyed when they emerged from the stable in Kohlhaasenbrück; but supposing that it were possible, through attentive and sustained care, to nurse the poor beasts back to health, under the present circumstances the shame that would consequently fall on the Junker’s kin was so great that, given their standing as one of the most respected and noblest families in the region, it seemed far less costly and more expedient to instead propose a monetary compensation. Nevertheless, in response to a letter addressed to the Lord High Chancellor, drafted several days later by Count Kallheim, president of the State Chancellery, on behalf of the Lord Chamberlain – who was too indisposed by ill health to do so himself – in which the Count proposed just that, the Chancellor sent word to Kohlhaas admonishing him not to scorn such an offer if it were made; whereas in a short and noncommittal reply to the Count, he asked henceforth to be spared further private appeals in this matter, and enjoined the Lord Chamberlain to directly address the horse trader, whom he described as a very reasonable and modest man. Heeding the Lord High Chancellor’s advice, the horse trader, whose will had indeed been broken by the incident at the marketplace, and who was ready and willing to forgive and put the entire matter behind him, merely waited for an opening offer on the part of the Junker or his next of kin to come to an agreement; but the proud von Tronkas could not bring themselves to do just that; embittered by the Lord High Chancellor’s written reply, they showed it to the Prince Elector, who visited the wounded Lord Chamberlain in his sick bed on the morning of the following day. With a feeble and stirring voice, the effect of which was enhanced by his sorry state, the Chamberlain asked the Prince if, after having risked his life just to settle this matter as he saw fit, a gentleman of his standing should be expected to likewise risk having his honor dragged through the mud by begging forgiveness and seeking reconciliation of a man who had brought every conceivable insult and disgrace upon him and his family. After reading the Chancellor’s letter, a bit taken aback, the Prince asked Count Kallheim: “Supposing the horses could not be restored to their former condition, is the court not empowered, without any further consultation with Kohlhaas, to act as if they were dead and simply call for the horse trader’s indemnification for their cash value?” The Count replied: “Most gracious Sire, they are already dead, from a legal standpoint, since they no longer have any value, and will surely be physically dead before they ever make it from the horse skinner’s stall to the Lords’ stables.” Whereupon, after pocketing the letter, the Prince assured Sir Kunz that he would have a word with the Lord High Chancellor; greatly relieved, the Chamberlain raised himself half upright and grasped His Lordship’s outstretched hand with profound gratitude; and after the Prince urged the wounded man to take good care of himself, wishing him a speedy betterment, he rose from his chair in a most dignified manner and left the room.
This is how matters stood in Dresden when another serious storm broke in Lützen, which the crafty von Tronkas were shrewd enough to turn to poor Kohlhaas’ disadvantage. Namely, a certain Johann Nagelschmidt, one of the men the horse trader had brought together and subsequently, following the Prince Elector’s amnesty, disbanded, had taken it upon himself a few weeks thereafter to regather a band of that shiftless rabble at the Bohemian border to recommence the rowdy business Kohlhaas had begun. In part to intimidate the armed guard hot on his heels, in part by a tried and true ruse to inveigle the locals to join in his villainy, this churlish lout dubbed himself Kohlhaas’ lieutenant; with a tactical adeptness learned from his erstwhile commander, he spread the word that the amnesty allegedly granted to many of the men who had peacefully returned to their homes was not being respected, indeed that Kohlhaas himself had been shamelessly betrayed, arrested and put under armed guard upon his arrival in Dresden; consequently, on placards that bore a striking resemblance to those that Kohlhaas had disseminated, Nagelschmidt portrayed his murderous rabble as an honorbound army of God assembled to enforce the Prince Elector’s precious amnesty; all of which, needless to say, had nothing whatsoever to do with Godliness or any loyalty to Kohlhaas, about whom they didn’t give a hoot, but rather, under the guise of noble purpose, to pursue their burning and plundering with all the more impunity and ease. As soon as word of Nagelschmidt’s mischief reached Dresden, the von Tronkas could hardly contain their glee about this turn of events that put their cause in a whole new light. With sidelong disgruntled “I-told-you so” looks, they reminded whomever they spoke with of the amnesty that had been granted, despite their dire and repeated warnings, as though it had been the state’s misguided intention to thereby give the go-ahead to rogues of every description inclined to follow in the horse trader’s footsteps; and not content to merely lend credence to Nagelschmidt’s supposed purpose of having taken up arms to protect and defend his wronged commander, they went so far as to maintain with certainty that this entire business was nothing but a ruse instigated by Kohlhaas to intimidate the authorities and, true to his pigheaded ways, to push through and expedite his lawsuit. Indeed, the Cupbearer, Lord Hinz, went so far as to imply to the huntsmen and courtiers gathered round the Prince Elector in his sitting room after dinner that the dissolution of Kohlhaas’ band of thieves in Lützen was nothing but a cunning bluff; and poking fun at the Lord High Chancellor’s lofty sense of justice, he cited a drolly assembled set of circumstances as proof that the bulk of the band still lurked in the forests awaiting a signal from the horse trader to break out anew with fire and sword. Sorely displeased at this turn of events that threatened to put an insidious stain on his Lord’s reputation, Prince Christiern von Meissen immediately rode out to the latter’s castle; and seeing through the von Tronkas’ patent scheme of sabotaging Kohlhaas’ legal case, if possible, by linking him to these new trespasses, he begged the Lord Chancellor’s leave to immediately schedule a hearing concerning the horse trader’s case. Led by a bailiff, Kohlhaas caused something of a stir when he appeared in court with his two little sons, Heinrich and Leopold, in his arms; for just the day before his faithful man Sternbald had brought them back to him from Mecklenburg where they had been staying with relatives, and prompted by a train of thought that would be too long to elaborate here, when, believing that the bailiff had come to arrest their father and showering him with childish tears, the boys leapt into his arms, he decided to take them along to the hearing. Seeing the children seated beside their father, the Prince gave them a kindly look, and after graciously inquiring after their ages and names, he told Kohlhaas what Nagelschmidt, his former confederate, had been up to in the valleys of the Erzgebirge; and handing him Nagelschmidt’s so-called mandates, he bid him testify against the latter, and say what he had to say in his own defense. Stunned as he was by these scandalous and perfidious documents, the horse trader, nevertheless, had little trouble convincing a man as honest and upstanding as Prince von Meissen of the groundlessness beyond the shadow of a doubt of false accusations imputing his involvement. Not only did Kohlhaas give convincing testimony on his own behalf, affirming that, as matters stood, given the steady progress of his legal case, he needed no third party to help bring it to judgment; but several letters he brought with him and which he presented to the Prince even confirmed the unlikelihood that Nagelschmidt would be in the slightest well disposed toward him and, therefore, inclined to help his cause, since, in light of rapes and other brazen villainies perpetrated by the lout, Kohlhaas had wanted to have him strung up before dissolving his band; such that only the Elector’s decree of amnesty that abrogated his order had saved him from the gallows, and the two had parted as mortal enemies the very next day. On the Prince’s recommendation, Kohlhaas sat himself down and drafted a letter to Nagelschmidt in which he declared the latter’s allegation that he had taken up arms to enforce the terms of the broken amnesty a scandalous and despicable lie; he confirmed, furthermore, that upon his arrival in Dresden he had neither been arrested nor put under guard, and also that his legal case was moving forward as he wished; and finally, he issued a warning that the burning, looting and killing perpetrated by Nagelschmidt and his ragtag band of hooligans subsequent to the issuance of the amnesty in the Erzgebirge would bring down upon their heads the fierce retribution of the law. To the letter Kohlhaas attached several excerpts of the court record of criminal proceedings which he had already brought against the knave at the castle at Lützen in the matter of the aforementioned atrocities, the horse trader’s intention being to enlighten the public as to the reprehensible character of a scoundrel already condemned to hang, and who, as already mentioned, was only saved from the gallows by the Elector’s amnesty. Pursuant to this writing, the Prince reassured the horse trader concerning the suspicion of guilt which, given the current circumstances, the court was compelled to voice at this hearing; he assured him that as long as he, Kohlhaas, remained in Dresden, the amnesty granted him would in no way be revoked; he offered the two boys his hand to shake, while presenting them with fruit from his table, bid Kohlhaas farewell and sent him on his way. The Lord High Chancellor, who likewise recognized the danger that threatened the horse trader, did his best to bring his case to a speedy conclusion before any further incidents further muddled matters; but this precisely was the express purpose of the wily von Tronkas, and instead of tacitly acknowledging their guilt, as they had done before, restricting their opposition to an appeal for leniency, they now began to categorically deny their guilt in crafty and cunning misstatements. At times they maintained that Kohlhaas’ nags had been detained at Tronkenburg Castle on the arbitrary orders of the overseer and the estate manager, of which the Junker was not at all, or insufficiently, informed; at other times they swore that the animals had already been sick with an acute and dangerous cough at the time of their arrival, and called to witness individuals whom they bribed; and after having these spurious arguments shot full of holes following extensive investigations and interrogations, they even cited a princely edict, wherein, in view of an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease, the introduction of horses from Brandenburg into Saxony was expressly forbidden: this as crystal clear justification, not only for the Junker’s authorization, but for his obligation to detain the horses Kohlhaas had brought across the border.
Kohlhaas, who had in the meantime reacquired his homestead in Kohlhaasenbrück from the gracious magistrate in exchange for a modest compensation for damages incurred, wished, so it seems, to absent himself from Dresden for a few days and ride home to conclude this transaction; a decision, which, no doubt, had less to do with said business per se, as pressing as it was, given the need to lay in a store of winter wheat, but was rather driven more by a desire to weigh his options in light of the curious and dubious goings on – in addition to which other motives may well have come into play, motives which we will leave to every reader with a beating heart in his breast to divine. Consequently, leaving behind the guard who had been assigned to protect him, he went straight to the Lord High Chancellor, with the magistrate’s letters in hand, to inform him of his intention of leaving town, if, as it seemed, his presence was not required at court, promising to return promptly following the eight to twelve days it would take him to wrap up his business in Brandenburg. Peering down at the ground with a vexed and quizzical look, the Chancellor replied: “Good God, man, you must know that your presence is more necessary now than ever before to testify and defend yourself against the malicious and devious moves of your opponents in a thousand unforeseeable maneuvers.” But since Kohlhaas referred him to his barrister who, he assured him, was well informed of his case, and with a quiet insistence held to his request, promising to restrict his absence to eight days, the Chancellor replied after a brief pause: “I trust you will solicit a passport from Prince Christiern von Meissen.” Grasping full well what the Chancellor was driving at, yet nevertheless stubborn in his resolve, Kohlhaas sat himself down then and there and wrote to the Prince of Meissen, in his capacity as commander of the castle guards, requesting an eight day pass to Kohlhaasenbrück and back, without giving any reason for the trip. In response to this letter he received an official resolution signed by the captain of the castle guard, Baron Siegfried von Wenk, to wit: “Your request for travel papers to Kohlhaasenbrück will be passed onto his Serene Highness the Elector, pending whose approval, as soon as it is received, you will be sent the necessary papers.” Upon Kohlhaas’ written inquiry to his lawyer, in which he informed him that the resolution was signed by a certain Baron Siegfried von Wenk, and not by Prince Christiern von Meissen, to whom he had addressed his request, the latter replied that the Prince had left for his country estate three days before, and in his absence all governmental business was to be handled by the captain of the castle guard Baron Siegfried von Wenk, a cousin of the aforementioned gentleman of the same name. Kohlhaas, whose heart beat with a restive flutter, waited a few more days for the Prince’s reply to his request which seemed to have such an astonishingly hard time reaching its addressee; but a week went by and then a few more days, during which the Prince’s decision was not forthcoming, nor was the speedy judgment he’d been promised at court. Consequently, on the twelfth day, regardless of the State’s attitude toward him, whatever it might be, he sat himself down and drafted another pressing appeal for the requested travel papers. But picture his distress when, come nightfall the following day, with still no reply from the Prince, musing on his situation, particularly in light of the amnesty Doctor Luther had procured for him, he cast a thoughtful look out his back window onto the annex to his house and could not find the guard Prince von Meissen had assigned to watch over him upon his arrival in town. Thomas, the old attendant whom he called to and asked what to make of all this, replied with a sigh: “Sir, things are not all as they should be; at nightfall, the armed guards, more of whom there are today than usual, circled the house; two are stationed with shield and spear at the front entrance to the street; two at the back gate leading to the garden; and two more are lying in a heap of straw in the entrance hall, and say that they’re going to sleep there.” Kohlhaas, who went white in the face, turned and replied: “It’s just as well, as long as they’re here; fetch them some light so that they can see.” After having opened the front window a crack, under the guise of emptying out a pot of water, and confirming for himself the truth of the situation as the old man had described it – for the guard had just been changed in silence, a measure not heretofore deemed necessary – he lay down in bed, though hardly desirous of sleep, firm in his resolve for the following day. For nothing angered him more about this government that he had dealt with in good faith than the sham appearance of justice, while, in fact, they broke the promise of amnesty they’d made him; and if he were indeed a prisoner, of which there was no more doubt, he wanted to force them to declare it openly and outright. To that end, at daybreak the next day, he had his man Sternbald harness his horses and ready the rig, declaring his intention to drive out to Lockewitz to visit the magistrate, an old acquaintance whom he had run into in Dresden a few days ago and who had invited him to drop by one day with his children. Unsure of what to do, given all the commotion in the house, the armed guards secretly sent a man into town, whereupon, in a matter of minutes, an officer along with several bailiffs appeared, and pretending to have business in the house across the street, went in. Well aware of these maneuvers, and awaiting their completion while pretending to be oblivious to them, Kohlhaas, who was busy dressing his boys, and who had deliberately left the wagon waiting longer than necessary in front of his house, promptly stepped outside; and informing the bewildered guards stationed in front of his door that they did not need to follow him, he lifted his sons into the carriage and kissed and comforted his crying little girls, who, according to his instructions, were to stay behind with the daughter of the attendant. No sooner did he himself climb into the wagon than the officer and his men came storming out of the house across the street and asked him where he was going. Kohlhaas replied: “I would like to drive out to visit a friend, the magistrate at Lockewitz, whom I happened to run into a few days ago and who invited me and my boys to pay him a visit.” To which the officer replied that, in that case, he would have to wait a few minutes for a couple of his mounted guards to prepare to accompany him, on orders of the Prince of Meissen. Smiling down from the rig, Kohlhaas asked: “Do you think I won’t be safe in the home of a friend who invited me to come dine with him?” The officer responded in a jovial and pleasant manner, that the danger was indeed not acute; to which he added that the guards would be no bother at all. To which Kohlhaas, in turn, responded with a grave expression: “Upon my arrival in Dresden, the Prince of Meissen gave me leave to avail myself or dispense with the guards as I saw fit.” And since the officer evinced surprise at this, and the whole time he was standing there, beating around the bush with carefully selected phrases, the horse trader recalled the circumstances that first led to the stationing of the guards in his house. The officer assured him that he was sworn to protect and assure his safety from harm, on the express orders of the captain of the castle guard, Baron von Wenk, in his current capacity as chief of police; and bid him, should the accompaniment of the guards not be to his liking, to come down to headquarters himself to correct the regrettable error that had surely been made. Giving the officer a telling look, resolved to test out the truth, come what may, Kohlhaas replied: “That’s just what I intend to do!” And with a fast-beating heart he climbed down from the wagon, bid the attendant bring the children back into the house, while his man Sternbald took the reins, and proceeded with the officer and his men to the station house. It so happened that the captain of the castle guard, Baron von Wenk, was in the process of interrogating some of Nagelschmidt’s men who had been captured the night before in the area around Leipzig, and the troopers in the Baron’s entourage were busy eliciting the desired information at the very moment when Kohlhaas entered the room along with the men guarding him. As soon as the Baron set eyes on the horse trader, he approached him, and while the troopers suddenly went silent, halting their interrogation, the Baron asked what he wanted, and when Kohlhaas respectfully related his intention of having lunch with the magistrate in Lockewitz, and expressed his desire to be allowed to leave behind the guards whose presence he did not deem necessary, the Baron went red in the face, and straining to modulate his tone, replied that he would do better to sit tight in his house and postpone his luncheon engagement with the Lockewitz magistrate. And cutting the conversation short, he turned to the officer and said: “You have my orders concerning this man, stick to them; he may not leave town except in the company of six mounted guards.” To which Kohlhaas retorted: “Am I a prisoner then? And am I to understand that the promise of amnesty publicly accorded me is now null and void?” Whereupon the Baron, his face flushed a bright red, turned and strode right up to him, looked him in the eye and sputtered: “Yes! Yes! Yes!” then turned his back, left him standing there and returned to his interrogation of Nagelschmidt’s men. Hereupon Kohlhaas left the room, and while fathoming that by the steps he had taken he had rendered all the more difficult the one option still open to him, namely escape, he nevertheless was glad at what he’d done, since for his part he now viewed himself as henceforth freed from the terms of the amnesty. Once home, he had the horses unharnessed, and accompanied by the officer in charge returned to his room, deeply shaken and dejected, and while the latter assured him in a manner that revolted Kohlhaas that all this was surely based on a misunderstanding that would soon be resolved, with a furtive wink from their superior the guards promptly sealed off all exits from the house into the yard; whereby the officer assured him that he would still be free to come and go through the main door.
Meanwhile, Nagelschmidt was so hemmed in on all sides by the police and troopers hot on his heels that, given his utter lack of provisions, compelled by the desperate situation and the role he had assumed, he suddenly thought of actually making contact with Kohlhaas; and having been well-informed by a passing traveler of the turn of his legal case in Dresden, the enmity between them notwithstanding, he felt quite certain he could convince the horse trader to once again join forces. Consequently, he sent one of his men with a message in barely legible German: “Should you wants to come to Altenburg and again take charge of the band of men what consists of stragglers from your former force who now find themselves in these parts, then I would be respectfully ready and willing to help you with horses, men and money, to break free of your captors in Dresden” – whereby he swore to henceforth be more obedient, upright and comport himself in a better manner than before, and as proof of his fidelity and devotion he pledged to personally come to Dresden to break him out of bondage. Unfortunately, the fellow entrusted with this note had the ill luck to collapse in a seizure of cramps he suffered since childhood in a village just outside Dresden; at which point the letter he carried in a pouch hung round his neck was found by the people who came to his assistance, he himself was arrested as soon as he’d recuperated, and brought by armed guards directly to police headquarters, with a considerable crowd trailing behind. As soon as the captain of the guard von Wenk had read this letter he hastened to the Elector’s palace, where he found their Lordships Kunz and Hinz, the former recovered from his wounds, as well as the President of the Chancellery Count Kallheim. The gentlemen were of the opinion that Kohlhaas should immediately be arrested and made to stand trial for his secret collusion with Nagelschmidt; in that, as they maintained, such a letter could not possibly have been written without prior contact initiated by the horse trader, and without there being a heinous and criminal connection between them in a plot to perpetrate new atrocities. The Elector adamantly refused, merely on account of this letter, to break the terms of the amnesty he had granted him; he was rather of the opinion that the letter appeared to suggest the great likelihood that no prior contact had been established between them; and all that he ultimately decided to do to clear things up, on the urging of the president, despite great hesitation, was to have the letter that had been carried by Nagelschmidt’s messenger passed on to him, as if the man had not been arrested, and see if Kohlhaas answered it. Consequently, the following morning, the man, who’d spent the night in jail, was taken to headquarters, where the captain of the guard gave him back the letter, and promising a full pardon and a reprieve from all punishment if he did as he was told, commanded him to hand it to the horse trader, as though nothing had happened; a malicious scheme with which the fellow readily agreed to comply, and in an apparently secretive manner, pretending to have crabs for sale, with which the captain’s men supplied him at market, he made his way to Kohlhaas’ house. Kohlhaas, who read the letter, while his children played with the crabs, would under other circumstances surely have grabbed the rascal by his collar and handed him over to the guards at the door; yet altogether disheartened as he was, even such a move seemed futile, and since he had completely convinced himself that nothing in the world could save him from the fix he was in, he cast a sad gaze on the knave’s all too familiar face, asked him where he was staying, and told him to return in a few hours, at which time he would pass on his decision to Nagelschmidt. He instructed Sternbald, who just happened to enter the room, to buy up the man’s stock of crabs; and once this business was done and the two, who did not know each other, had gone, sat himself down and drafted the following response to Nagelschmidt: “First of all, I accept your proposition that I take command of the band of men now gathered around Altenburg; further, pursuant thereto, I agree that you send a wagon with two horses to help me break out of the house in Neustadt near Dresden where I and my five children are currently being held prisoner; that, to speed my getaway, you also put at my disposal another rig with two horses on the road to Wittenberg, by which detour, for reasons too lengthy to go into, I alone will make my way to join you; that I believe I’ll be able to bribe the soldiers guarding me to turn a blind eye, but in the eventuality that force should be necessary, it would be good to know that a couple of stouthearted, shrewd and well-armed fellows were on hand nearby just in case; that to cover the costs of all these arrangements I will send my trusted servant with a pouch of twenty gold kronen, with which, if all goes well, you will be reimbursed; moreover, that I forbid you to be among my liberators in Dresden, since your presence there is not necessary, and indeed I order you to stay behind in Altenburg as the interim boss of the band, who can’t do without a headman.” When the man returned that evening Kohlhaas gave him this letter, rewarded him right generously and warned him to beware of Nagelschmidt. It was Kohlhaas’ intention to head with his children to Hamburg, thence he would ship off to the Levant or East India, or as far as the sky stayed blue over the heads of strangers; for aside from his reluctance to make common purpose with Nagelschmidt, the trouble that twisted his soul had made him fed up with the business of raising horses. No sooner had the traitorous lout brought his answer to the captain of the guard than the Lord High Chancellor was relieved of his office, Count Kallheim was appointed Chief of the Tribunal in his place and Kohlhaas was arrested by a cabinet decree from the Elector and led in chains to the tower. The letter, copies of which were posted in every corner of the city, was stuff enough for a trial; and since, at the prisoner’s dock, in response to the question, did he recognize the handwriting of said document, he replied “Yes!,” but in answer to the question, did he have anything to say in his defense, he peered at the ground and muttered “No!” and was condemned to be plucked apart by red hot pincers, thereafter drawn and quartered and his remains burnt between rack and gallows.
This is how matters stood for poor Kohlhaas in Dresden when the Elector of Brandenburg interceded on his behalf to save him from the caprice of the powerful, and in an official objection filed with the State Chancellery of Saxony asserted the horse trader’s rights as a subject of Brandenburg. For the valiant captain of the Brandenburg guard, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, had informed the Elector of the fate of this extraordinary and falsely maligned man in the course of a stroll the two took together on the banks of the Spree, on which occasion, pressed by the flurry of questions of his startled liege lord, Sir Heinrich could not refrain from impressing upon him the culpability that fell to his own royal person as a consequence of the unseemly behavior of his Arch-Chancellor Count Siegfried von Kallheim. Whereupon the greatly vexed Elector, after demanding an explanation from Count von Kallheim, and discovering that the Count’s familial ties to the House of von Tronka were at the root of all this chicanery, expressed his displeasure in no uncertain terms and fired him forthwith from his post, installing in his stead as Arch-Chancellor Sir Heinrich von Geusau.
It so happened, however, that for reasons unknown to us, the Polish Crown was at that very moment engaged in a quarrel with the House of Saxony, and in urgent and repeated appeals for help, called upon the Elector of Brandenburg to make common cause against Saxony; such that, the Arch-Chancellor Sir von Geusau, an able man in such matters, had reason to be optimistic in pressing His Lordship’s call for justice for Kohlhaas, come what may, without unduly jeopardizing the common good for the sake of one man. Consequently, citing not only the altogether arbitrary subversion of the laws of God and man, the Arch-Chancellor demanded the immediate and undisputable extradition of Kohlhaas to Brandenburg, and if he be deemed blameworthy, to have him stand trial according to the tenets of Brandenburg law, according to which the Dresden court could send a barrister to bring suit in Berlin; he furthermore requested the free right of passage for a lawyer whom the Brandenburg Elector wished to send to Dresden to seek justice for Kohlhaas for the nags unlawfully taken from him and for all the unconscionable mistreatments and acts of violence done him on Saxon soil by Junker Wenzel von Tronka. The Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who had meanwhile, in the government shuffle in Saxony, acceded to the presidency of the State Chancellery, and who, given his present plight and for many other reasons, did not wish to offend the Berlin court, replied in the name of His Lordship, the Elector of Saxony, much taken aback at Brandenburg’s demand for extradition: “His Lordship is surprised at the incivility and unfairness of Berlin’s denial of Dresden’s right to try Kohlhaas for crimes committed on Saxon soil, according to Saxon law, since it is common knowledge that the defendant owns considerable land in the capital and does not deny his Saxon citizenship.” But since the Polish Crown had already amassed an army of five thousand men at the border with Saxony, prepared to defend its claims, and the Arch-Chancellor Sir Heinrich von Geusau declared: “that Kohlhaasenbrück, the place after which Kohlhaas was named, is located within the sovereign territory of Brandenburg, and that his state would deem his execution as a breach of international law,” the Elector of Saxony, on the urging of his Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who sought to disentangle himself from this whole affair, bid Prince Christiern von Meissen return from his country estate, and decided, after conferring briefly with that savvy gentleman, to respect Berlin’s wishes and extradite Kohlhaas. Though hardly pleased with all the improprieties that had transpired, the Prince, who was compelled to take charge of the Kohlhaas case on the express wishes of his hard-pressed lord, asked: “On what charges does your Lordship wish the horse trader tried at the Berlin high court?” And since, given the ambiguous and shady circumstances under which that confounded letter to Nagelschmidt was written, one could not very well present it as evidence, nor could one mention the previous plundering and arson on account of the decree of amnesty by which he was pardoned, the Elector decided to present a report on Kohlhaas’ armed raids in Saxony to His Majesty the Emperor in Vienna, to lodge an official complaint concerning this unlawful cross-border incursion and the resultant disturbance of the peace, a charge not bound by the terms of any amnesty, and consequently, to request that an imperial prosecutor pursue the case against Kohlhaas at the Berlin high court. Eight days later, still in shackles, the horse trader, along with his five children whom he had asked to have retrieved from the foundling homes and orphanages to which they’d been sent, were loaded onto a cart and conducted by the Baronet Sir Friedrich von Malzahn, whom the Elector of Brandenburg had sent from Dresden along with six mounted men to bring the prisoner to Berlin. Now it came to pass that the Chief Magistrate Count Aloysius von Kallheim, who at the time had extensive land holdings at the border with Saxony, invited the Elector of Saxony, along with his Lord Chamberlain Sir Kunz, the latter’s wife Lady Heloise, daughter of the Chief Magistrate and sister of the President of the State Chancellery, not to mention the various other illustrious lords and ladies, country Junkers and courtiers who happened to be on hand, to come to Dahme to take part in a stag hunt arranged to cheer up the dejected Elector; such that the entire company, still covered with the dust of the hunt, serenaded by a band playing under an oak tree, and served hand and foot by pages and footmen, were seated at table making merry in bright bannered tents pitched on a hilltop blocking the way, when the horse trader and his mounted guards came riding up on the road from Dresden to Berlin. For the illness of one of Kohlhaas’ delicate little ones compelled the Baronet von Malzahn, who accompanied them, to hold up for three days in Herzberg; concerning which precaution, solely accountable as he was to His Lordship, he did not deem it necessary to inform the authorities in Dresden. The Elector of Saxony, who sat with half-open shirt, his hat festooned with evergreen branches, hunter style, beside Lady Heloise, who had been his first love way back when, cheered by the infectious charms of the occasion, said: “Let us go and give the poor unfortunate, whoever he may be, this cup of wine!” Casting a tenderhearted look at him, Lady Heloise promptly leapt up from her chair and, reaching across the table, filled a silver dish a page handed her with fruit, cake, and bread; no sooner had the entire party followed her lead, swarming out of the tent loaded down with all sorts of refreshments, than the Chief Magistrate approached them with an embarrassed look and bid them return to their seats. In answer to the Elector’s startled question: “What in heaven’s name happened to make you so upset?” the Chief Magistrate stuttered, eyeing the Lord Chamberlain: “It’s K . . . K . . . Kohlhaas in the cart!” Whereupon the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, greatly surprised like everyone since it was common knowledge that the horse trader had left Dresden six days ago, gripped his cup of wine and, with a backwards toss, emptied its contents onto the sand. Turning red from ear to ear, the Elector set his cup on a plate a page held out to him, on a wink from the Lord Chamberlain; and while the Baronet Friedrich von Malzahn slowly made his way through the line of tents pitched helter-skelter across the road, extending his respectful greetings to the gathered group, none of whom he knew, ordering the cart to drive on to Dahme, the befuddled ladies and gentlemen followed the advice of the Chief Magistrate to think no more about it and return to the tents. As soon as the Elector had settled back into his chair, the Chief Magistrate sent surreptitious word on to the Magistrate of Dahme to assure that the horse trader be hustled along without any further interruptions; but given the late hour of their arrival, and the Baronet’s expressed desire to hole up there for the night, the local authorities were obliged to quietly put them up in a farm house belonging to the town magistrate, hidden behind a hedge by the side of the road. Now it just so happened that, come evening, the celebrants distracted by the wine they’d drunk and the sweet dessert they’d consumed, and having by now completely forgotten the incident, the Chief Magistrate, hearing that another herd of deer had been spotted in the vicinity, proposed that they once again set out in pursuit; of this proposition the entire company heartily approved, and, after filling their powder boxes and grabbing for their flintlocks, they bounded two by two over ditches and hedges into the nearby forest; and as chance would have it, the Elector and Lady Heloise, who, not wanting to miss all the fun, hanging on to His Lordship’s arm, were led by an assigned guide to the yard of the very house in which Kohlhaas and the Brandenburg guards were put up. Upon hearing this, the lady said: “Come, my gracious Lord, come!” and with a sly wink, plucked the gold chain that hung from his Lordship’s neck and hid it under his silken sash. “Let’s slip into the farmhouse before the others get here and catch a peek at the splendid gent!” Turning red, the Elector grasped her hand and said: “Heloise, what’s got into you?” But when, with a pout, she replied: “Nobody’d ever recognize you in your hunting get-up!” and dragged him along after her; and at that very moment a couple of country Junkers slipped out of the house, having already satisfied their own curiosity, assuring them that neither the Baronet nor the horse trader had the slightest idea of the highfalutin company the Chief Magistrate had gathered for a shindig just outside Dahme; the Elector pressed his hat down over his eyes and, grinning, whispered: “Folly, you rule the world, and your throne is a lovely woman’s mouth!”
Kohlhaas happened to be seated on a bale of hay with his back to the wall, feeding the child that had fallen ill in Herzberg with a roll and milk, when the highborn guests dropped by the dairy farm to pay him a visit. To initiate a conversation, the lady inquired: Who was he? What ailed the child? What crime had he committed? And where was he being taken with such an armed escort? In response to this he respectfully doffed his leather cap, and, while going about his business, offered terse but satisfactory answers. Standing behind the huntsmen and noticing a small lead tube dangling from a silken thread round the horse trader’s neck, the Elector at a loss for anything else to say, asked him why he wore it and what the tube contained. To which Kohlhaas replied:
“This tube, yes, gracious Sir” – plucking the object from round his neck, screwing it open, and removing and unrolling a note bearing a lacquer seal – “this tube has a very special meaning for me! It has been just about seven months to the day since my dear wife’s funeral; whereupon, as you perhaps already know, I rode forth from Kohlhaasenbrück to lay my hands on Junker von Tronka, who had done me great injustices, when, for reasons unknown to me, the Elector of Saxony and the Elector of Brandenburg happened to have arranged a meeting on the market square in Jüterbock, through which my journey took me. And since, toward evening, the two lords had completed their business, they went strolling through town together, engaged in friendly conversation, to catch a glimpse of the fair in full swing at the time. There they chanced upon a gypsy woman seated on a footstool telling fortunes to the crowd, and inquired of her in jest if she did not have a jolly tidbit to reveal to them. I, who had stopped off with my men at an inn and happened to be present on the square at that moment, pressed as I was behind the crowd at the entrance to a church, unable to make out what that inscrutable woman said to the gentlemen, stepped back and climbed onto a stone bench at the church portal, less, I must admit, out of curiosity than to make way for the curious, who laughingly whispered to each other that the old biddy didn’t spill the beans for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and shoved their way forward to be present at the spectacle. No sooner had I caught sight from this unobstructed vantage point of the gentlemen and the gypsy woman seated on the stool before them scribbling something on a scrap of paper than she suddenly stood up and, leaning on her crutches, scanned the crowd; and though we had never exchanged a word nor had I ever in my life solicited her wisdom, she looked me right in the eye, pressed her way through the mob toward me and said: ‘Here! If Milord would like to know what lies ahead, let him ask you!’ And thereupon, gracious Sir, with her bony fingers she handed me this note. And when, taken aback, with all eyes upon me, I said: ‘Little mother, with what gift do you honor me?’ she replied, following much incomprehensible muttering, among which, to my great amazement, I heard my name: ‘It’s an amulet, Kohlhaas the horse trader, preserve it well for it will one day save your life!’ whereupon she disappeared. Now then!” Kohlhaas continued in a genial tone of voice, “if truth be told, as close as I came to my end in Dresden, I came away with my life; and how things turn out for me in Berlin, and if I come away alive and kicking, only the future will tell.” At these words the Elector sank down on a bench; and though in answer to the lady’s concerned question: “What’s the matter?” he answered: “Nothing, nothing at all!” he then fell unconscious to the floor before she had time to catch him in her arms. The Baronet von Malzahn, who at that very moment happened to enter the room attending to some other business, cried: “Dear God! What ails Milord?” The lady cried back: “Bring him water!” The huntsmen picked him up and carried him into a bed in the room next door; and the general stupefaction came to a head when the Lord Chamberlain, whom a page had rushed to inform, declared after several fruitless attempts to revive him: “He gives every appearance of having suffered a stroke!” While the cupbearer promptly sent a mounted messenger to Luckau to fetch a physician, the Chief Magistrate, seeing that the ailing Lord batted an eye, had him carried to a cart and slowly rolled to a nearby hunting lodge; but the effort caused him to twice more lose consciousness en route, such that he only managed to recover somewhat from the unmistakable symptoms of a nervous fever late the next morning when the physician arrived from Luckau. As soon as he came to, he sat up halfway in bed and the first question on his lips was: “Where is Kohlhaas?” Misconstruing his meaning, the Lord Chamberlain gripped his hand and said: “Milord need worry no more about that awful man, who, following the strange and incomprehensible incident, I ordered held under Brandenburg guard in the dairy farm at Dahme.” And while assuring him of his most heartfelt concern and that he had bitterly reproached his wife for her unconscionable folly in having brought Milord in contact with this man, he asked him what strange and monstrous words in the scoundrel’s conversation had so taken him aback. The Elector replied: “All I can tell you is that this whole unpleasant business was provoked by the sight of a mere scrap of paper which the man kept in a tube around his neck.” He added certain details which the Lord Chamberlain did not understand; and suddenly, gripping the latter’s hand tightly, assured him that it was of the utmost importance that he gain possession of that scrap of paper; and, sitting up straight, bid him promptly ride to Dahme and acquire that paper from the prisoner for whatever price. Hard pressed to hide his fluster, the Lord High Chamberlain assured the Elector that if this slip of paper held the slightest importance for him it was of the utmost importance not to let Kohlhaas know it, since, should he get wind of it from a careless utterance, all the riches of the realm would not suffice to make that truculent lout, hell-bent on revenge, part with it. He added, to allay his fears, that they would have to find a different way, perhaps resorting to a ruse, soliciting the help of a third impartial party, to get him to give up that scrap, which, in all likelihood, he did not even care much about, but which His Lordship so desired. Wiping the sweat from his brow, the Elector asked: “Might it not in that case be advisable to immediately send word to Dahme to have the horse trader’s further transport held up temporarily, until you manage, by whatever means, to get hold of that paper.” The Lord Chamberlain, who could hardly believe his ears, replied: “Unfortunately, in all likelihood, Milord, the horse trader has already left Dahme and is now on the far side of the border in Brandenburg, where any attempt to hinder his advance or to make him return would provoke the most unpleasant and complex repercussions, indeed such difficulties that we might not be able to resolve.” Seeing as the Elector lay his head back down on the pillow in silence with a look of utter hopelessness, the Lord Chamberlain asked: “What in heaven’s name does it say on that slip of paper? And by what strange and inexplicable coincidence did you discover that it had anything to do with you?” To which, however, casting suspicious glances at the Lord Chamberlain, whose discretion in this case he doubted, the Elector made no reply; he lay there stiffly with a fast-beating heart, staring down at the tip of the handkerchief he held in a trembling grip; and suddenly bid him go fetch the Huntsman von Stein, a hale and hearty, clever young fellow, whom he had often called upon to attend to covert business, pretending that he had some other matter to discuss with him. After explaining the matter to the Huntsman and assuring him of the importance of procuring that slip of paper now in Kohlhaas’ possession, he asked him if he thought that he could get it from Kohlhaas before he reached Berlin, and thereby earn his lifelong friendship and gratitude. And as soon as the young gentleman grasped the importance of this matter, as odd as it seemed, he assured His Lordship that he would do everything in his power to serve him. Whereupon the Elector charged him to ride after Kohlhaas, and since the latter could probably not be swayed with money, to rather in a secretly arranged meeting offer him his freedom and his life in exchange; indeed, if he asked, to furnish him with horses, men, and money to help him, albeit with great prudence, to break free of the armed detail from Brandenburg and make his escape. After requesting and receiving a written attestation signed and sealed by the Elector, Sir von Stein immediately set out with several servants, and, spurring on the horses, had the good fortune to catch up with Kohlhaas at a border hamlet, where he, the Baronet von Malzahn, and the horse trader’s five children were taking their midday meal outside in a courtyard. The Huntsman introduced himself to the Baronet von Malzahn as a passing stranger who wished to see the extraordinary man in his charge, and the Baronet immediately obliged, introducing him to Kohlhaas, and urging him to join them at table; and since the Baronet came and went, preparing for their departure, while the guards sat apart at a table on the other side of the house, the occasion soon presented itself for the Huntsman to reveal his true identity and the purpose of his mission to the horse trader. Upon learning the name and title of the man who had fallen unconscious at the sight of the tube at the dairy in Dahme, and being informed that to relieve the dizziness caused by the sight of it, said gentle man sought nothing more than some insight into the secrets of that slip of paper it contained, which, for various reasons, the horse trader resolved not to reveal, the latter responded that, given the ignoble and ungentlemanly treatment he had been forced to suffer in Dresden, despite his complete willingness to comply with all demands made of him, “I wish to retain that slip of paper.” In answer to the Huntsman’s baffled question as to the reason for such a strange reluctance to part with it, given that he was being offered in exchange nothing less than his freedom and his life, Kohlhaas replied: “Noble Sir! If your sovereign prince came to me and said, I will slay myself and the legions of those who support my claim to the scepter – slay myself and them, you understand, which would satisfy my deepest desire – I would still refuse to part with that slip of paper more dear to him than life itself, and I would say to him: You can make me mount the scaffold, but I can get you where it hurts, and that is exactly what I want.” And with these words, in the face of death, he called a guard over to finish off a tender tidbit left in the serving bowl; and for the rest of the hour he spent at table beside the Huntsman, he acted as if he were not there, and only turned to him again as he climbed back into the wagon with a wave of farewell. Upon being informed of this, the Elector’s condition worsened to such a degree that the physician spent three fretful days profoundly concerned for His Lordship’s life, threatened as it was from all sides. Nevertheless, by the strength of his natural constitution, after spending several difficult weeks in his sick bed, he got better; and was at least strong enough to be transported by carriage, with pillows and blankets, back to Dresden to attend to matters of state. Immediately upon his arrival, he called for Prince Christiern von Meissen and asked him how things stood with the preparations of Court Counselor Eibenmayer, whom they had decided to send to Vienna to plead their case against Kohlhaas before His Imperial Majesty for cross-border incursions and transgression of the peace on Saxon soil. The Prince replied that, in compliance with the orders His Lordship left upon his departure for Dahme, upon the arrival of the jurist Zäuner whom the Elector of Brandenburg had sent to Dresden to pursue Kohlhaas’ lawsuit against Junker Wenzel von Tronka in the matter of the nags, Court Counselor Eibenmayer had left for Vienna. Turning red in the face and rushing to his desk, the Elector expressed his surprise at such undue haste, in that, according to his recollection, he had expressly instructed that Eibenmayer’s departure be held up until further notice, pending prior necessary consultation with Dr. Luther, who had procured the amnesty for Kohlhaas. Meanwhile, knitting his brow, he shuffled through a pile of official correspondence and documents that lay on his desk. After a moment’s pause, the Prince replied with a puzzled expression that he was very sorry if he unwittingly aroused His Lordship’s displeasure in this matter; but he would be happy to show him the Privy Council’s decision, wherein it stated that he was duty-bound to send the barrister to Vienna at the aforementioned time. He added that no mention had been made in the Privy Council of the need for a consultation with Dr. Luther; that it may very well have previously been expedient to confer with that man of the cloth, given his intercession on Kohlhaas’ behalf, but not now, after having publicly broken the amnesty, having him arrested, and extraditing him for judgment and execution by the Brandenburg High Court of Law. To which the Elector replied that the Prince’s blunder in having sent off Eibenmayer was, in fact, not so serious. In the meantime, he asked that the barrister hold off until further notice on taking any action in his capacity as prosecutor in Vienna, and he, therefore, bid the Prince immediately dispatch a messenger to Vienna to communicate his wishes. To which the Prince replied that this order, alas, came one day too late, in that, according to a report received this very day, Eibenmayer had already appeared in court and proceeded with the presentation of his case before the Vienna State Chancellery. In answer to the Elector’s stunned question as to how all this could have happened in such a short time, the Prince added that three weeks had already transpired since Eibenmayer’s departure, and that the jurist had followed his orders not to tarry but to press his case promptly upon his arrival in Vienna. “A delay,” the Prince pointed out, “would in this instance have been all the more embarrassing, since the Brandenburg barrister Zäuner had proved all the more emphatic in pressing charges against Junker Wenzel von Tronka, and had already filed a motion calling for the provisional retrieval of the nags from the horse skinner for the purpose of their restitution, and, all objections notwithstanding, had already had the motion sustained. Pulling the bell to call for his servant, the Elector said: “It’s just as well! No matter!” And after plying the Prince with seemingly nonchalant questions: “How do things stand in Dresden otherwise? What happened in my absence?” with a wave of the hand he bid him take his leave, unable to hide his inner turmoil any longer. Later that same day, under the pretense of wanting to weigh the matter himself on account of its political implications, he asked for the entire dossier concerning Kohlhaas; and since he could not bear the thought of hastening the demise of the one individual able to reveal the secret of that slip, he drafted a personal appeal to the Emperor in which he begged him in an emotional and urgent tone, for pressing reasons he would perhaps elaborate upon shortly, to be allowed until further notice to withdraw the suit which Eibenmayer brought on Saxony’s behalf against Kohlhaas. In a note drafted by the State Chancellery, the Emperor replied that the Elector’s seeming sudden change of heart surprised him greatly; that the report made to him by Saxony had turned the matter of Kohlhaas into an affair of concern to the entire Holy Roman Empire; that, therefore, he, the Emperor, as the highest civic authority, felt compelled to pursue the prosecution of this case before the House of Brandenburg; to which end the Court Assessor Franz Müller had already left for Berlin in his capacity as imperial advocate to bring justice to bear on Kohlhaas for cross-border incursions and transgression of the peace, wherefore Saxony’s official complaint could no longer be revoked and the matter would have to be followed through to its end according to the laws of the realm. This written reply greatly distressed the Elector; and since, shortly thereafter, a confidential letter arrived from Berlin, announcing the start of the legal proceedings in the State Supreme Court, and noting that despite all the efforts of the attorney assigned to Kohlhaas to press his defense, he would likely end up on the gallows – the disconsolate Elector decided to make one last attempt to intercede, and sent a personal appeal to the Elector of Brandenburg asking him to spare the horse trader’s life. He pretended that the amnesty granted this man effectively precluded his execution; assured His Lordship that, despite the seeming stringency of Saxony’s pursuit of the case against him, it was never his intention to let him die; and emphasized how distressed he would be if Brandenburg’s assurance of Kohlhaas’ protection made in support of their call for his extradition for judgment in Berlin were, by an unexpected turn of events, to prove more detrimental than had the case been decided according to Saxon law. The Elector of Brandenburg, to whom this statement of the Saxon head of state seemed somewhat ambiguous and unclear, replied that, in accordance with the dictates of imperial law, the emphatic nature of the case as presented by His Imperial Majesty’s attorney made it absolutely impossible for him to grant His Lordship’s wish to deviate from the severity of judgment. He remarked that the concern expressed by His Lordship struck him as inconsistent with the fact that the case against Kohlhaas for crimes committed during his amnesty had, after all, not been pursued by the same authority that accorded the amnesty, but rather by His Imperial Majesty, who could by no means be held accountable to its terms at the State Supreme Court in Berlin. He furthermore impressed upon him the absolute necessity of a public execution as exemplary deterrent, given the continuation of Nagelschmidt’s cross-border atrocities, perpetrated with ever more brazen audacity, some on Brandenburg soil, and bid His Lordship, should he nevertheless not wish to take into account all of the aforementioned factors, appeal directly to His Imperial Majesty, since a peremptory order of a pardon for Kohlhaas could only come from him. Overcome by grief and anger at all of these failed attempts, the Elector of Saxony once again fell sick; and when the Lord Chamberlain visited him one morning, the ailing Elector showed him the letters he had had sent to the Viennese and Berlin courts to try and keep Kohlhaas alive at least long enough for him to get his hands on the slip of paper. Falling to his knees before His Lordship, the Lord Chamberlain begged, in the name of everything sacred and dear to him, that he tell him what was written on it. The Elector said to lock the door and sit down on the bed; and, after reaching for his hand and pressing it to his heart with a sigh, he began: “Your wife, I believe, has already told you that on the third day of my meeting with the Elector of Brandenburg in Jüterbock, he and I happened upon an old gypsy woman; and since in discussion at the midday table jesting mention was made of this strange woman’s reputation, the Elector of Brandenburg, enlightened as he is by nature, decided to show her up for a fraud by means of a public prank: with this in mind he walked up to her table at the marketplace with folded arms and demanded as a proof of the verity of the fortune she was about to tell him, a sign to be tested this very day, professing that, even if she were the Roman Sybil herself, he would not otherwise believe her words. Measuring us with a quick look from head to foot, the woman said: ‘The sign will be that the big horned roe-buck the gardener’s son raised in the park will come bounding toward us in the marketplace before you leave.’ Now you must know that this fine buck destined for my table in Dresden was kept under lock and key in a high, gated enclosure in the castle park shaded by oak trees, and that, moreover, on account of the other smaller game and fowl stocked there too, the park as well as the garden leading to it were always kept locked tight, consequently it was absolutely inconceivable that this creature would, as foretold, come charging toward us at the spot where we stood; nevertheless, concerned lest the gypsy pull a fast one behind our backs, the Elector after briefly conferring with me, firmly resolved, for the sake of a lark, to upstage any of her tricks, and sent word to the castle ordering that the roe-buck be slaughtered on the spot and dressed for our dinner table the next day. Hereupon he turned back to the woman, in front of whom the entire matter was loudly discussed, and said: ‘Now then! What can you reveal about my future?’ Peering at his palm, the woman said: ‘Hail, my Lord Elector! Your Grace will reign for a long time, the house from which you come will long endure, and your descendants will be great and splendid to look upon, and will grow mighty before all princes and lords of this world!’ After a moment of silence, during which he cast a thoughtful look at the woman, he muttered, taking a step toward me, that he was almost sorry to have sent a messenger to make light of this prophecy; and while the knights in his entourage poured money into the woman’s lap, cheering all the while, he asked her, reaching into his own pocket and adding a gold piece to the pile, if the fortune she held in store for me had such a silvery jingle as his. After opening a box that stood beside her and painstakingly ordering the money by currency and denomination, and once again closing and locking the box, she shaded her face from the sun as if it were a burden to her, and looked me in the eye; and when I repeated the question, and jokingly whispered to the Elector as she studied my palm: ‘It looks to me like the old biddy has nothing pleasant to report!’ she reached for her crutch, slowly raised herself from the stool, leaned close to me with curiously outstretched hands and whispered in my ear: ‘No!’ ‘So,’ I said, sorely upset, taking a step back, as she sank down onto the stool, flashing me a blank, cold, lifeless look, as though out of marble eyes, ‘From whence is my house threatened?’ Taking up a lump of charcoal and a slip of paper and crossing her legs, she asked: ‘Shall I write it down?’ And since, at a loss for words, and under the circumstances, not knowing what else to say, I replied: ‘Yes! Do that!’ she countered: ‘Very well then! Three things I will write down for you: the name of the last reigning lord of your house, the year he will forfeit his realm, and the name of he who will take it from him by force of arms.’ Having done so in full view of everyone, she rose from her stool, sealed the slip with lacquer which she wetted with her parched lips and pressed upon it a leaden signet ring she wore on her middle finger. And seeing how I, as you can well imagine, with a burning curiosity more powerful than words can describe, sought to grab that slip of paper from her hand, she said: ‘Not so fast, Milord!’ And, turning, she raised a crutch in the air and pointed: ‘From that man over there with the feathered hat, standing on the bench at the portal to the church behind the crowd, from him will you redeem that slip of paper, if it please, Sir.’ And before I fathomed what she’d said, she left me standing there, stunned and speechless; no sooner had she shut the box behind her and hoisted it on her back, than she disappeared in the crowd that surrounded us. At that very moment, to my great relief, the knight whom the Elector had sent back to the castle returned and reported with a broad smile that the roe-buck had been slaughtered and in his presence carried by two hunters into the kitchen. Gaily grasping my arm with the intention of leading me away, His Lordship, the Elector of Brandenburg, said: ‘See there! So the old biddy’s prophecy was nothing but a common swindle not worth the time and money it cost us!’ But imagine our amazement, even as he uttered these words, when a cry rose around us in the marketplace, and all eyes turned to a huge hunting dog that came trotting toward us from the castle, where, in the kitchen, it had sunk its fangs into the roe-buck’s neck, and, chased by servants and scullery maids, finally let go not more than three paces in front of us: such that the old woman’s prophecy was, in fact, fulfilled, and although already dead, the roebuck had come bounding toward us. A bolt of lightning that strikes on a white winter day could have been no more devastating to me at that moment than the sight of that buck, and as soon as I’d broken free of the crowd my very first thought was to seek out the man with the feather hat whom the old woman had pointed out; but even after three days’ search, none of my people managed to bring me back any word of his whereabouts; and now, friend Kunz, just a few weeks ago at the dairy farm in Dahme I saw the man with my own eyes.” And with that, he let his Lord Chamberlain’s hand drop; and wiping the sweat from his brow, sank back onto his pillow. Sir Kunz, who deemed it futile to try and fathom and confirm His Lordship’s take on this incident, or to dissuade him from it, urged him to try by whatever means to acquire that slip of paper, and thereafter to leave the poor wretch to his fate; to which, however, the Elector replied that he simply could not think of any way to go about it, even though the very thought of foregoing this last chance and of seeing the secret disappear with the man brought him to the brink of madness and despair. In answer to his friend’s question of whether he had made any attempts to find the old gypsy woman, the Elector replied that, pursuant to an order he had issued under false pretext, the constabulary had sought in vain to this very day to find either hide or hair of the woman anywhere in the land: whereby, for reasons he refused to elaborate, he doubted she could be tracked down anywhere in Saxony. Now it just so happened that the Lord Chamberlain expressed a sudden desire to travel to Berlin, with the express purpose of tending to several considerably large properties that his wife had recently inherited from the deposed and, shortly thereafter, deceased Arch-Chancellor, Count Kallheim; and seeing as he was indeed deeply devoted to the Elector, he asked him after a moment’s reflection, if His Lordship would give him a free hand in this matter; whereupon the Elector pressed the Lord Chamberlain’s hand to his heart and said: “Put yourself in my place and get me that slip of paper!” And so, after attending to a few pressing matters of business, he moved up the date of his departure and, leaving his wife behind, set off for Berlin accompanied only by a few servants.
Kohlhaas, who in the meantime had already arrived in Berlin, was taken on the express orders of the Elector to a lordly prison where he and his five children were lodged as comfortably as possible. Immediately following the arrival of the imperial prosecutor from Vienna, he was brought before the dock of the State Supreme Court to face charges of violation of imperial peace; and whereas, according to the terms of the amnesty agreement issued by the Elector of Saxony at Lützen, he had already been freed of any responsibility for acts of violence perpetrated during his armed incursion into Saxony, he learned, to his surprise, that His Imperial Majesty, whose legal counselor argued the case against him here, could not take that agreement into consideration; he also soon learned, from an elaboration and explanation of Saxon court proceedings, that the Dresden court granted him full redress for damages and injuries in his case against Junker Wenzel von Tronka. It came to pass thereafter, on the very day the Lord Chamberlain arrived in Berlin, that judgment was passed and the verdict declared, and that Kohlhaas was condemned to be executed by beheading; which sentence, its relative mildness notwithstanding, no one believed would be enforced, given the knotty nature of the case, for all Berlin hoped that since the Elector was favorably disposed toward the accused, His Lordship would intercede and commute the sentence, at the very worst into a long and hard prison term. Still, the Lord Chamberlain, who immediately realized that there was no time to lose if he hoped to fulfill the charge given him by his liege lord, promptly got down to business, the following morning showing himself clearly in his courtly attire before the prison at the window of which Kohlhaas stood peering out at the passersby, making sure the prisoner took notice; and since, from a sudden head movement, the Lord Chamberlain concluded that the horse trader had indeed seen him, and moreover had, with a look of great satisfaction, instinctively made a motion with his hand to the place on his breast where the tube dangled, Lord Kunz presumed that the sentiments harbored at that moment in the heart of the prisoner were preparation enough for him to advance with his planned attempt to acquire the slip of paper. He called to his chambers an old woman on crutches, a peddler of second-hand clothes whom he had seen in the company of others, haggling with the crowd over the price of rags, and who, by her age and attire, appeared to bear a striking resemblance to the gypsy woman the Elector had described; and presuming that Kohlhaas could not possibly have retained a clear impression of the face of the person who had in passing handed him the slip of paper, he decided to pass her off as the gypsy, and, if all went well, to have her impersonate her before the prisoner. To that end, to fully prepare her, he described in detail everything that had transpired between the Elector and said gypsy woman in Jüterbock, and, seeing as he did not know just how much the gypsy had revealed to Kohlhaas concerning that scrap of paper, he did not fail to impress upon her the nature of the three secrets contained in the message; and after taking pains to explain, in an awkward and abrupt fashion – this on account of the urgency to get hold of that paper by any means necessary, whether by deceit or violence, the acquisition of which was of exteme importance to the Saxon Court – just what she was to let slip to the prisoner, he suggested that she insist the prisoner let her take charge of the paper for a few fateful days, since it was no longer safe in his hands. Enticed by the promise of a sizable payment, part of which she demanded be paid in advance, the rag woman promptly accepted the task; and since the mother of Kohlhaas’ trusted servant Herse, the man who had fallen in battle at Mühlberg, occasionally visited the prisoner, with the permission of the authorities, and the two women had in recent months struck up an acquaintance, the rag woman managed within a few days, having bribed the turnkey, to gain entry to the horse trader’s cell. As soon as the prisoner set eyes on the signet ring she wore on her hand and a coral necklace dangling from her neck, he was convinced that she was the old gypsy woman who had passed him the slip of paper in Jüterbock; and since probability is not always on the side of truth, it so happened that something occurred here which we will report, but which we are duty-bound to permit any reader so inclined to doubt: the Lord Chamberlain had made the most momentous mistake, for the rag woman whom he had dug up in the streets of Berlin to play the part of the gypsy was none other than the mysterious gypsy herself, the very person he wished to have impersonated. Leaning on her crutches and stroking the cheeks of the children who, frightened by her strange appearance, sought refuge in their father’s arms, she told him how for quite a while now she had been back in Brandenburg, and how, overhearing the Lord Chamberlain incautiously asking in the streets of Berlin after the gypsy who had plied her trade in Jüterbock the previous spring, she immediately approached him, and giving a false name, had accepted the task he sought to have carried out. The horse trader detected an uncanny resemblance between her and his late wife Lisbeth, so much so that he was tempted to ask if she were her grandmother: for not only did the features of her face remind him of his wife, but so did her hands, still lovely in their angular shape, of which, just like Lisbeth, she made animated use when speaking; and noticing the necklace, just like the one his wife wore round her neck, consumed by a jumble of thoughts swirling round his brain, the horse trader bid her be seated on a stool, and asked what in the world had brought her to him on the Lord Chamberlain’s business. And while Kohlhaas’ old dog sniffed at her knees, wagging his tail, contented at the touch of her hand, she replied: “The task the Lord Chamberlain gave me was to find out for him the three mysterious answers on the slip of paper, answers to questions of interest to the Saxon Court; to warn you of an emissary sent to Berlin to get the paper, under the pretense that it was no longer safe on your breast where you wear it. But my real intention was to tell you that the supposed threat to snatch it by guile or by force is an absurd and empty lie; that being under the protection of the Elector of Brandenburg, in whose safe custody you are, you have no cause to fear for that paper; indeed, that it is much safer in your care than in mine, and that you should take heed not to let anyone convince you to hand it over, for whatever reason. Nevertheless,” she concluded, “I deem it wise for you to make use of that paper for the same purpose I passed it to you at the marketplace in Jüterbock, and urge you to consider the proposition made by Junker von Stein at the Brandenburg border, to give it to the Elector of Saxony in exchange for your freedom and your life.” “Not for anything in this world, little mother, not for anything in this world!” Kohlhaas replied, pressing her old hand in his, exalting at the power he’d been given to strike his enemy in the heel and inflict a mortal wound at the very moment when they trampled him underfoot. “But tell me, if I may know, the answers to those terrible questions that the paper contains!” To which, after lifting onto her lap the youngest child who had knelt down at her feet, the woman laughed: “Not for anything in this world, Kohlhaas the horse trader; but for the sake of this handsome little blond boy!” The child peered at her with his big eyes, whereupon she smiled back, cuddled and kissed him, and with her haggard hands gave him an apple she pulled out of her pocket. Flustered, Kohlhaas said that the children would honor him for his resolve when they grew up and that he could do nothing more beneficial for them and their grandchildren than to keep that slip of paper. Furthermore, he asked, who could assure him against another swindle, who could swear that he’d come out with nothing in the end for the slip of paper, just as he had for dissolving his army in Lützen. “Whoever breaks his word once,” he said, “won’t have another word from me; and only if you demanded it outright and in no uncertain terms, my good little mother, would I ever part with that paper, the sole redress granted me in such a wondrous way for all that I have suffered.” Setting the child back on the floor, the woman allowed that in some ways he was right and that he should do as he saw fit. Whereupon she reached for her crutches and got up to leave. Kohlhaas repeated his question as to the gist of the message on that wondrous slip of paper; and after she replied in haste: “Go ahead and open it for yourself, if you’re so curious!” He pressed her to reveal a thousand other things before leaving: who she really was, how she came to know the things she knew, why she refused to give the Elector the paper since it was after all written for him, and why among the thousands present at the marketplace that day did she hand it to him of all people who had never sought her out? Now it so happened that at that very moment they heard the sound of several police officers climbing the steps; such that, afraid of being found here with him, the woman hastily replied: “Fare thee well, Kohlhaas, fare thee well! You will have all your answers when next we meet!” And turning to the door, she cried: “Goodbye, my little ones, goodbye!” kissed them all one after another, and rushed off.
In the meantime, the Elector of Saxony, still prey to his obsessive thoughts, called for two astrologers, Oldenholm and Olearius, at the time highly respected in Saxony, and asked them to advise him concerning the secret contents of that slip of paper that mattered so much to him and to future generations of his line; and since, after several days of concerted stargazing in the tower of his Dresden castle, the two could not come to a consensus as to whether the prophecy applied to his distant descendants in centuries to come or to the present moment, concluding that it perhaps referred to his still quite bellicose relations with the Polish Crown, instead of easing His Lordship’s malaise, not to mention his despair, all this learned disputation merely served to aggravate his frenzied state of mind to an almost unbearable degree. To make matters worse, at around the same time, the Lord High Chamberlain instructed his wife, who was preparing to follow him to Berlin, to inform the Elector prior to her departure in as delicate a manner as possible of his failed attempt to do His Lordship’s bidding, due to the disappearance of an old woman he’d entrusted with the task, and consequently, that there was little hope left of his acquiring the slip of paper in Kohlhaas’ possession, insofar as, at this late date, following a thorough scrutiny of the case, the death sentence had already been signed by the Elector of Brandenburg and the date of execution had been set for the Monday following Palm Sunday. The news tore at the Elector’s heart, and like a lost soul he locked himself in his room for two days, taking no meals, tired of living, and, on the third day, after abruptly informing the government officials at court that he was going on a hunting trip with the Prince of Dessau, suddenly disappeared from Dresden. Where he was actually headed, and if Dessau was indeed his destination, we cannot confirm, since, curiously enough, the various chronicles upon which we have drawn for our account contradict and nullify each other in this regard. The one thing we know for certain is that at this time the Prince of Dessau lay sick in bed, in no shape to hunt, at the castle of his uncle, Duke Heinrich, and that on the following evening Lady Heloise turned up at the door of her husband, the Lord Chamberlain, accompanied by a certain Duke von Königstein, whom she gave out to be her cousin. In the meantime, on the orders of the Elector of Brandenburg, the death sentence was read to Kohlhaas, his chains were removed and the documents concerning his holdings that had been taken from him in Dresden were returned; and since the legal counselors assigned to him by the court asked how he wished to have his property dispersed following his death, he drafted a last will and testament with the aid of a solicitor, naming his children as benefactors and designating his faithful old friend, the Magistrate of Kohlhaasenbrück, their legal guardian. Thus his last days were the very picture of peace and contentment; following a special edict by the Elector, the Zwinger Castle, where he was imprisoned, was opened, and all his friends, of which there were many in Berlin, were granted free access to visit with him day and night. Indeed, he had the satisfaction of seeing the theologian Jakob Freising, an emissary sent by Dr. Luther, enter his cell carrying a doubtless quite extraordinary letter, which, alas, has since been lost, and from this man of the cloth, accompanied by two Brandenburg deacons, receiving the blessing of Holy Communion. Thereupon, notwithstanding public sentiment that never stopped hoping and praying for a pardon, came the fateful Monday following Palm Sunday on which he was to be reconciled with the world on account of his rash attempt to seek justice for himself. Thus did he step out the prison gates, surrounded by a heavy detail of armed guards, with his two boys in his arms (which special dispensation he had expressly requested and been granted by the court), lead by the theologian Jakob Freising, when the majordomo of the Elector’s palace pushed his way toward him through a mournful crowd of well-wishers who pressed his hands and took their leave, and with a troubled look the official passed him a message, which, as he said, came from an old woman. Staring, astonished, at the man he hardly knew, Kohlhaas unfolded the paper, which had been sealed in lacquer with a signet ring, whose mark he immediately recognized as that of the old gypsy woman. But who could describe the emotion that gripped his heart upon reading the following message: “Kohlhaas, the Elector of Saxony is in Berlin; he has already pushed his way forward to the executioner’s block, and is recognizable, should you be interested, by a hat festooned with blue and white feathers. I hardly need tell you his intention; as soon as you’ve been beheaded, he means to grab the tube and open the message rolled up in it. Your Elisabeth.” Profoundly agitated, Kohlhaas turned to the majordomo and asked if he knew the strange woman who gave him the message. To which the latter replied: “Kohlhaas, the woman . . .” and suddenly stopped mid-sentence, so that, dragged along by the crowd that now once again swarmed around him, the prisoner did not manage to decipher what the man, who started trembling all over, had uttered. Arriving at the place of execution, he found the Elector of Brandenburg already waiting there with his retinue, among whom he recognized the Arch-Chancellor Sir Heinrich von Geusau seated on horseback amidst an immense crowd of onlookers. To his right stood the Court Assessor Franz Müller with a copy of the death sentence in hand; to his left, his own counsel, the legal scholar Anton Zäuner, holding the verdict of the Dresden High Court; a herald standing before him in the center of the half-open circle of the crowd grasped a bundle and gripped the reins of his two hale and hardy nags, which stamped their feet with pleasure. For the Arch-Chancellor Sir Heinrich had, in the name of his liege, the Elector of Brandenburg, pursued and won his legal case against Junker Wenzel von Tronka point for point and without the slightest accommodation; consequently, after having a flag waved over their heads to denote their official restitution, the horses, which had been retrieved from the horse skinner and fed their fill and properly groomed by the Junker’s men, were returned, in the presence of a commission assembled for this express purpose, to Kohlhaas’ lawyer at the marketplace in Dresden. Whereupon, as Kohlhaas was led forward by the guards, the Elector of Brandenburg declared: “Well, Kohlhaas, today is the day you have gotten your just due! See here, I am delivering back to you all that you forfeited by force at Tronkenburg Castle, and what I, as your liege lord, was duty-bound to retrieve: horses, scarf, guldens, linen, including the cost of caring for your man Herse who fell at Mühlberg. Are you satisfied with me?” And upon reading through the entire decision of the Dresden court which the Arch-Chancellor handed him, his eyes aflutter, the horse trader set the two children he’d been holding in his arms on the ground beside him; and after finding in the decision a paragraph condemning Junker Wenzel to two years in prison, overcome with emotion, and with his hands crossed over his breast, he knelt down before the Elector. Smiling up at the Arch-Chancellor, rising then and placing a hand on the Elector’s lap, he assured him with heartfelt emotion that his greatest wish on earth had been fulfilled; he stepped toward the horses, looked them over and clapped a hand on their fat necks; and cheerfully declared to the Arch-Chancellor, stepping back to him: “I bequeath these horses to my sons Heinrich and Leopold!” Dismounting, the Arch-Chancellor, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, assured him, in the name of the Elector, that his last wishes would be faithfully followed, and urged him to distribute the other things gathered in the bundle as he saw fit. Hereupon, Kohlhaas called forth Herse’s old mother whom he spied in the crowd, and handing her his last possessions, said: “Here, little mother, they’re yours!” This included the sum of money for damages, which, he added, ought to help pay for her care and comfort in her old days. The Elector cried out: “Now then, Kohlhaas, the horse trader, you to whom justice has been done, prepare yourself to give your due to His Imperial Majesty, whose legal counselor stands here, and to pay the price for your cross-border disruptions of the peace!” Removing his hat and flinging it to the ground, Kohlhaas said he was ready, and, after once again picking up his children and pressing them to his breast, he handed them to the magistrate of Kohlhaasenbrück; and while the latter led them away, quietly weeping, he strode toward the execution block. No sooner had he unwound the kerchief from his neck and opened the pouch, than, with a fleeting glance at the circle of people that surrounded him, he spotted, in close proximity, the gentleman with the blue and white feathers in his hat standing between two knights who half-hid him from view. Taking a sudden stride forward, in a manner alarming to the guards, Kohlhaas untied the tube from around his neck; he removed the slip of paper, unsealed it, and read it through; and with his steady gaze glued to the man with the blue and white feathers in his hat, the latter looking on hopefully, he stuffed the paper in his mouth and swallowed it. At that very moment the man with the blue-and-white-feathered hat trembled and collapsed unconscious. But as his stunned companions bent down to him and lifted him up off the ground, Kohlhaas leaned over the block, where his head fell to the executioner’s axe. Here ends the story of Kohlhaas. Amidst a murmuring crowd, his body was laid in a coffin; and while they carried him for proper burial to the churchyard outside town, the Elector called for the sons of the deceased, and, turning to the Arch-Chancellor, proclaimed that they were to be raised in his page school at court and dubbed them knights. Soon thereafter, torn in body and soul, the Elector of Saxony returned to Dresden, where chronicles can be found that relate the rest of his story. But in Mecklenburg, in the previous century, there still lived a few happy and stouthearted descendants of Michael Kohlhaas.