are both fighting like men! Judge only by our two causes, and give the
victory to that which is the more just. If Thou shouldst call me before
Thy supreme tribunal, I know very well that I should appear burdened
with an eternal malediction; and indeed it is not upon myself that I
reckon but upon the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
"Come what may, be praised and blessed, O my God!
"My dear parents, brothers, and friends, I commend you to the protection
of God."
Sand waited in vain for two hours next day: his adversary did not come
to the meeting place.
The loss of Dittmar, however, by no means produced the result upon Sand
that might have been expected, and that he himself seems to indicate in
the regrets he expressed for him. Deprived of that strong soul upon
which he rested, Sand understood that it was his task by redoubled
energy to make the death of Dittmar less fatal to his party. And indeed
he continued singly the work of drawing in recruits which they had been
carrying on together, and the patriotic conspiracy was not for a moment
impeded.
The holidays came, and Sand left Erlangen to return no more. From
Wonsiedel he was to proceed to Jena, in order to complete his
theological studies there. After some days spent with his family, and
indicated in his journal as happy, Sand went to his new place of abode,
where he arrived some time before the festival of the Wartburg. This
festival, established to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of
Leipzig, was regarded as a solemnity throughout Germany, and although
the princes well knew that it was a centre for the annual renewal of
affiliation to the various societies, they dared not forbid it. Indeed,
the manifesto of the Teutonic Association was exhibited at this festival
and signed by more than two thousand deputies from different
universities in Germany. This was a day of joy for Sand; for he found in
the midst of new friends a great number of old ones.
The Government, however, which had not 'dared to attack the Association
by force, resolved to undermine it by opinion. M. de Stauren published a
terrible document, attacking the societies, and founded, it was said,
upon information furnished by Kotzebue. This publication made a great
stir, not only at Jena, but throughout all Germany. Here is the trace of
this event that we find in Sand's journal:--
24th November "Today, after working with much ease and assiduity, I went
out about four with E. As we crossed the market-place we heard
Kotzebue's new and venomous insult read. By what a fury that man is
possessed against the Burschen and against all who love Germany!"
Thus far the first time and in these terms Sand's journal presents the
name of the man who, eighteen months later, he was to slay.
The Government, however, which had not 'dared to attack the Association
by force, resolved to undermine it by opinion. M. de Stauren published a
terrible document, attacking the societies, and founded, it was said,
upon information furnished by Kotzebue. This publication made a great
stir, not only at Jena, but throughout all Germany. Here is the trace of
this event that we find in Sand's journal:
24th November
"To-day, after working with much ease and assiduity, I went out about
four with E. As we crossed the market-place we heard Kotzebue's new and
venomous insult read. By what a fury that man is possessed against the
Burschen and against all who love Germany!"
Thus for the first time and in these terms Sand's journal presents the
name of the man who, eighteen months later, he was to slay.
On the 29th, in the evening, Sand writes again:
"To-morrow I shall set out courageously and joyfully from this place for
a pilgrimage to Wonsiedel; there I shall find my large-hearted mother
and my tender sister Julia; there I shall cool my head and warm my
heart. Probably I shall be present at my good Fritz's marriage with
Louisa, and at the baptism of my very dear Durchmith's first-born. God,
O my Father, as Thou hast been with me during my sad course, be with me
still on my happy road."
This journey did in fact greatly cheer Sand. Since Dittmar's death his
attacks of hypochondria had disappeared. While Dittmar lived he might
die; Dittmar being dead, it was his part to live.
On the 11th of December he left Wonsiedel, to return to Jena, and on the
31st of the same month he wrote this prayer in his journal.
"O merciful Saviour! I began this year with prayer, and in these last
days I have been subject to distraction and ill-disposed. When I look
backward, I find, alas! that I have not become better; but I have
entered more profoundly into life, and, should occasion present, I now
feel strength to act.
"It is because Thou hast always been with me, Lord, even when I was not
with Thee."
If our readers have followed with some attention the different extracts
from the journal that we have placed before them, they must have seen
Sand's resolution gradually growing stronger and his brain becoming
excited. From the beginning of the year 1818, one feels his view, which
long was timid and wandering, taking in a wider horizon and fixing
itself on a nobler aim. He is no longer ambitious of the pastor's simple
life or of the narrow influence which he might gain in a little
community, and which, in his juvenile modesty, had seemed the height of
good fortune and happiness; it is now his native land, his German
people, nay, all humanity, which he embraces in his gigantic plans of
political regeneration. Thus, on the flyleaf of his journal for the year
1818, he writes:
"Lord, let me strengthen myself in the idea that I have conceived of the
deliverance of humanity by the holy sacrifice of Thy Son. Grant that I
may be a Christ of Germany, and that, like and through Jesus, I may be
strong and patient in suffering."
But the anti-republican pamphlets of Kotzebue increased in number and
gained a fatal influence upon the minds of rulers. Nearly all the
persons who were attacked in these pamphlets were known and esteemed at
Jena; and it may easily be comprehended what effects were produced by
such insults upon these young heads and noble hearts, which carried
conviction to the paint of blindness and enthusiasm to that of
fanaticism.
Thus, here is what Sand wrote in his diary on the 5th of May.
"Lord, what causes this melancholy anguish which has again taken
possession of me? But a firm and constant will surmounts everything, and
the idea of the country gives joy and courage to the saddest and the
weakest. When I think of that, I am always amazed that there is none
among us found courageous enough to drive a knife into the breast of
Kotzebue or of any other traitor."
Still dominated by the same thought, he continues thus on the 18th of
May:--
"A man is nothing in comparison with a nation; he is a unity compared
with millions, a minute compared with a century. A man, whom nothing
precedes and nothing follows, is born, lives, and dies in a longer or
shorter time, which, relatively to eternity, hardly equals the duration
of a lightning flash. A nation, on the contrary, is immortal."
From time to time, however, amid these thoughts that bear the impress of
that political fatality which was driving him towards the deed of
bloodshed, the kindly and joyous youth reappears. On the 24th of June he
writes to his mother:--
"I have received your long and beautiful letter, accompanied by the very
complete and well-chosen outfit which you send me. The sight of this
fine linen gave me back one of the joys of my childhood. These are fresh
benefits. My prayers never remain unfulfilled, and I have continual
cause to thank you and God. I receive, all at once, shirts, two pairs of
fine sheets, a present of your work, and of Julia's and Caroline's work,
dainties and sweetmeats, so that I am still jumping with joy and I
turned three times on my heels when I opened the little parcel. Receive
the thanks of my heart, and share, as giver, in the joy of him who has
received.
"Today, however, is a very serious day, the last day of spring and the
anniversary of that on which I lost my noble and good Dittmar. I am a
prey to a thousand different and confused feelings; but I have only two
passions left in me which remain upright and like two pillars of brass
support this whole chaos--the thought of God and the love of my
country."
During all this time Sand's life remains apparently calm and equal; the
inward storm is calmed; he rejoices in his application to work and his
cheerful temper. However, from time to time, he makes great complaints
to himself of his propensity to love dainty food, which he does not
always find it possible to conquer. Then, in his self-contempt, he calls
himself "fig-stomach" or "cake-stomach." But amid all this the religious
and political exaltation and visits all the battlefields near to the
road that he follows. On the 18th of October he is back at Jena, where
he resumes his studies with more application than ever. It is among such
university studies that the year 1818 closes far him, and we should
hardly suspect the terrible resolution which he has taken, were it not
that we find in his journal this last note, dated the 31st of December:
"I finish the last day of this year 1818, then, in a serious and solemn
mood, and I have decided that the Christmas feast which has just gone by
will be the last Christmas feast that I shall celebrate. If anything is
to come of our efforts, if the cause of humanity is to assume the upper
hand in our country, if in this faithless epoch any noble feelings can
spring up afresh and make way, it can only happen if the wretch, the
traitor, the seducer of youth, the infamous Kotzebue, falls! I am fully
convinced of this, and until I have accomplished the work upon which I
have resolved, I shall have no rest. Lord, Thou who knowest that I have
devoted my life to this great action, I only need, now that it is fixed
in my mind, to beg of Thee true firmness and courage of soul."
Here Sand's diary ends; he had begun it to strengthen himself; he had
reached his aim; he needed nothing more. From this moment he was
occupied by nothing but this single idea, and he continued slowly to
mature the plan in his head in order to familiarise himself with its
execution; but all the impressions arising from this thought remained in
his own mind, and none was manifested on the surface. To everyone else
he was the same; but for some little time past, a complete and unaltered
serenity, accompanied by a visible and cheerful return of inclination
towards life, had been noticed in him. He had made no charge in the
hours or the duration of his studies; but he had begun to attend the
anatomical classes very assiduously. One day he was seen to give even
more than his customary attention to a lesson in which the professor was
demonstrating the various functions of the heart; he examined with the
greatest care the place occupied by it in the chest, asking to have some
of the demonstrations repeated two or three times, and when he went out,
questioning some of the young men who were following the medical
courses, about the susceptibility of the organ, which cannot receive
ever so slight a blow without death ensuing from that blow: all this
with so perfect an indifference and calmness that no one about him
conceived any suspicion.
Another day, A. S., one of his friends, came into his room. Sand, who
had heard him coming up, was standing by the table, with a paper-knife
in his hand, waiting for him; directly the visitor came in, Sand flung
himself upon him, struck him lightly on the forehead; and then, as he
put up his hands to ward off the blow, struck him rather more violently
in the chest; then, satisfied with this experiment, said:--
"You see, when you want to kill a man, that is the way to do it; you
threaten the face, he puts up his hands, and while he does so you thrust
a dagger into his heart."
The two young men laughed heartily over this murderous demonstration,
and A. S. related it that evening at the wine-shop as one of the
peculiarities of character that were common in his friend. After the
event, the pantomime explained itself.
The month of March arrived. Sand became day by day calmer, more
affectionate, and kinder; it might be thought that in the moment of
leaving his friends for ever he wished to leave them an ineffaceable
remembrance of him. At last he announced that on account of several
family affairs he was about to undertake a little journey, and set about
all his preparations with his usual care, but with a serenity never
previously seen in him. Up to that time he had continued to work as
usual, not relaxing for an instant; for there was a possibility that
Kotzebue might die or be killed by somebody else before the term that
Sand had fixed to himself, and in that case he did not wish to have lost
time. On the 7th of March he invited all his friends to spend the
evening with him, and announced his departure for the next day but one,
the 9th. All of them then proposed to him to escort him for some
leagues, but Sand refused; he feared lest this demonstration, innocent
though it were, might compromise them later on. He set forth alone,
therefore, after having hired his lodgings for another half-year, in
order to obviate any suspicion, and went by way of Erfurt and Eisenach,
in order to visit the Wartburg. From that place he went to Frankfort,
where he slept on the 17th, and on the morrow he continued his journey
by way of Darmstadt. At last, on the 23rd, at nine in the morning, he
arrived at the top of the little hill where we found him at the
beginning of this narrative. Throughout the journey he had been the
amiable and happy young man whom no one could see without liking.
Having reached Mannheim, he took a room at the Weinberg, and wrote his
name as "Henry" in the visitors' list. He immediately inquired where
Kotzebue lived. The councillor dwelt near the church of the Jesuits; his
house was at the corner of a street, and though Sand's informants could
not tell him exactly the letter, they assured him it was not possible to
mistake the house. [At Mannheim houses are marked by letters, not by
numbers.]
Sand went at once to Kotzebue's house: it was about ten o'clock; he was
told that the councillor went to walk for an hour or two every morning
in the park of Mannheim. Sand inquired about the path in which he
generally walked, and about the clothes he wore, for never having seen
him he could only recognise him by the description. Kotzebue chanced to
take another path. Sand walked about the park for an hour, but seeing no
one who corresponded to the description given him, went back to the
house.
Kotzebue had come in, but was at breakfast and could not see him.
Sand went back to the Weinberg, and sat down to the midday table d'hote,
where he dined with an appearance of such calmness, and even of such
happiness, that his conversation, which was now lively, now simple, and
now dignified, was remarked by everybody. At five in the afternoon he
returned a third time to the house of Kotzebue, who was giving a great
dinner that day; but orders had been given to admit Sand. He was shown
into a little room opening out of the anteroom, and a moment after,
Kotzebue came in.
Sand then performed the drama which he had rehearsed upon his friend A.
S. Kotzebue, finding his face threatened, put his hands up to it, and
left his breast exposed; Sand at once stabbed him to the heart; Kotzebue
gave one cry, staggered, and fell back into an arm-chair: he was dead.
At the cry a little girl of six years old ran in, one of those charming
German children, with the faces of cherubs, blue-eyed, with long flowing
hair. She flung herself upon the body of Kotzebue, calling her father
with piercing cries. Sand, standing at the door, could not endure this
sight, and without going farther, he thrust the dagger, still covered
with Kotzebue's blood, up to the hilt into his own breast. Then, seeing
to his surprise that notwithstanding the terrible wound--he had just
given himself he did not feel the approach of death, and not wishing to
fall alive into the hands of the servants who were running in, he rushed
to the staircase. The persons who were invited were just coming in;
they, seeing a young man, pale and bleeding with a knife in his breast,
uttered loud cries, and stood aside, instead of stopping him. Sand
therefore passed down the staircase and reached the street below; ten
paces off, a patrol was passing, on the way to relieve the sentinels at
the castle; Sand thought these men had been summoned by the cries that
followed him; he threw himself on his knees in the middle of the street,
and said, "Father, receive my soul!"
Then, drawing the knife from the wound, he gave himself a second blow
below the former, and fell insensible.
Sand was carried to the hospital and guarded with the utmost strictness;
the wounds were serious, but, thanks to the skill of the physicians who
were called in, were not mortal; one of them even healed eventually; but
as to the second, the blade having gone between the costal pleura and
the pulmonary pleura, an effusion of blood occurred between the two
layers, so that, instead of closing the wound, it was kept carefully
open, in order that the blood extravasated during the night might be
drawn off every morning by means of a pump, as is done in the operation
for empyaemia.
Notwithstanding these cares, Sand was for three months between life and
death.
When, on the 26th of March, the news of Kotzebue's assassination came
from Mannheim to Jena, the academic senate caused Sand's room to be
opened, and found two letters--one addressed to his friends of the
Burschenschaft, in which he declared that he no longer belonged to their
society, since he did not wish that their brotherhood should include a
man about to die an the scaffold. The other letter, which bore this
superscription, "To my nearest and dearest," was an exact account of
what he meant to do, and the motives which had made him determine upon
this act. Though the letter is a little long, it is so solemn and so
antique in spirit, that we do not hesitate to present it in its entirety
to our readers:--
"To all my own "Loyal and eternally cherished souls
"Why add still further to your sadness? I asked myself, and I hesitated
to write to you; but my silence would have wounded the religion of the
heart; and the deeper a grief the more it needs, before it can be
blotted out, to drain to the dregs its cup of bitterness. Forth from my
agonised breast, then; forth, long and cruel torment of a last
conversation, which alone, however, when sincere, can alleviate the pain
of parting.
"This letter brings you the last farewell of your son and your brother.
"The greatest misfortune of life far any generous heart is to see the
cause of God stopped short in its developments by our fault; and the
most dishonouring infamy would be to suffer that the fine things
acquired bravely by thousands of men, and far which thousands of men
have joyfully sacrificed themselves, should be no more than a transient
dream, without real and positive consequences. The resurrection of our
German life was begun in these last twenty years, and particularly in
the sacred year 1813, with a courage inspired by God. But now the house
of our fathers is shaken from the summit to the base. Forward! let us
raise it, new and fair, and such as the true temple of the true God
should be.
"Small is the number of those who resist, and who wish to oppose
themselves as a dyke against the torrent of the progress of higher
humanity among the German people. Why should vast whole masses bow
beneath the yoke of a perverse minority? And why, scarcely healed,
should we fall back into a worse disease than that which we are leaving
behind?
"Many of these seducers, and those are the most infamous, are playing
the game of corruption with us; among them is Kotzebue, the most cunning
and the worst of all, a real talking machine emitting all sorts of
detestable speech and pernicious advice. His voice is skillful in
removing from us all anger and bitterness against the most unjust
measures, and is just such as kings require to put us to sleep again in
that old hazy slumber which is the death of nations. Every day he
odiously betrays his country, and nevertheless, despite his treason,
remains an idol for half Germany, which, dazzled by him, accepts
unresisting the poison poured out by him in his periodic pamphlets,
wrapped up and protected as he is by the seductive mantle of a great
poetic reputation. Incited by him, the princes of Germany, who have
forgotten their promises, will allow nothing free or good to be
accomplished; or if anything of the kind is accomplished in spite of
them, they will league themselves with the French to annihilate it. That
the history of our time may not be covered with eternal ignominy, it is
necessary that he should fall.
"I have always said that if we wish to find a great and supreme remedy
for the state of abasement in which we are, none must shrink from combat
nor from suffering; and the real liberty of the German people will only
be assured when the good citizen sets himself or some other stake upon
the game, and when every true son of the country, prepared for the
struggle for justice, despises the good things of this world, and only
desires those celestial good things which death holds in charge.
"Who then will strike this miserable hireling, this venal traitor?
"I have long been waiting in fear, in prayer, and in tears--I who am not
born for murder--for some other to be beforehand with me, to set me
free, and suffer me to continue my way along the sweet and peaceful path
that I had chosen for myself. Well, despite my prayers and my tears, he
who should strike does not present himself; indeed, every man, like
myself, has a right to count upon some other, and everyone thus
counting, every hour's delay, but makes our state worse; far at any
moment--and how deep a shame would that be for us! Kotzebue may leave
Germany, unpunished, and go to devour in Russia the treasures for which
he has exchanged his honour, his conscience, and his German name. Who
can preserve us from this shame, if every man, if I myself, do not feel
strength to make myself the chosen instrument of God's justice?
Therefore, forward! It shall be I who will courageously rush upon him
(do not be alarmed), on him, the loathsome seducer; it shall be I who
will kill the traitor, so that his misguiding voice, being extinguished,
shall cease to lead us astray from the lessons of history and from the
Spirit of God. An irresistible and solemn duty impels me to this deed,
ever since I have recognised to what high destinies the German; nation
may attain during this century, and ever since I have come to know the
dastard and hypocrite who alone prevents it from reaching them; for me,
as for every German who seeks the public good, this desire has became a
strict and binding necessity. May I, by this national vengeance,
indicate to all upright and loyal consciences where the true danger
lies, and save our vilified and calumniated societies from the imminent
danger that threatens them! May I, in short, spread terror among the
cowardly and wicked, and courage and faith among the good! Speeches and
writings lead to nothing; only actions work.
"I will act, therefore; and though driven violently away from my fair
dreams of the future, I am none the less full of trust in God; I even
experience a celestial joy, now that, like the Hebrews when they sought
the promised land, I see traced before me, through darkness and death,
that road at the end of which I shall have paid my debt to my country.