Dahme to warn the magistracy there to make the horse-dealer pass on
immediately; but as the knight had declared his wish of passing the
night in the place, on the plea that the day had already advanced too
far to allow of further travel, they were obliged to bring him without
noise to a farm which belonged to the magistracy, and which stood by
the road-side concealed by bushes.
Towards evening, when the elector’s party had forgotten the whole
affair, their thoughts having been dissipated by the wine, and the
pleasures of a luxurious supper, the seneschal proposed that they
should once more start for a herd of deer which had made its
appearance. The whole party seized on the proposal with delight, and
armed with their rifles went in pairs over hedges and ditches into the
adjoining forest, and the consequence was that the elector and the Lady
Heloise, who hung on his arm to witness the spectacle, were to their
surprise immediately conducted by a messenger, who had been appointed
to attend them, through the court of the very house at which Kohlhaas
and the Brandenburg troops were stopping.
The lady, when she heard this, said: “Come, gracious sovereign, come!”
adding, as she playfully concealed in his doublet the chain which hung
from his neck, “let us slip into the farm, before our troop comes up,
and see the strange man who is passing the night there.”
The elector, changing colour, seized her hand and said: “Heloise, what
notion has possessed you?” But when, perceiving his surprise, she
answered that no one would recognise him in his hunting dress, and
also, at the very same moment, two hunting attendants, who had already
satisfied their curiosity, came out of the house and said, that in
consequence of an arrangement of the seneschals, neither the knight nor
the horse-dealer knew of whom consisted the party assembled near Dahme,
the elector, smiling, pressed his hat over his eyes, and said: “Folly,
thou rulest the world, and thy throne is the mouth of a pretty woman.”
Kohlhaas was sitting on a heap of straw, with his back against the
wall, feeding the child that had fallen sick at Herzberg, with rolls
and milk, when his noble visitors entered the farm-house. The lady, to
introduce the conversation, asked him who he was, what was the matter
with the child, what crime he had committed, and whither they were
conducting him under such an escort. He doffed his leather cap, and,
without ceasing from his occupation, gave her a short, but satisfactory
answer.
The elector, who stood behind the huntsman, and observed a little
leaden case that hung from Michael’s neck by a silken thread, asked
him, as there was nothing better to talk about, what this meant, and
what was kept in it.
“Ah, your worship,” said Kohlhaas, detaching it from his neck, opening
it, and taking out a little slip of paper fastened with a wafer, “there
is something very peculiar about this case. It is about seven months
ago, on the very day after my wife’s burial, when I had set out from
Kohlhaasenbrück, as perhaps you know, to seize the person of Squire von
Tronka, who had done me much wrong, that for some negotiation, unknown
to me, the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg had a meeting in
Jüterboch, a market town, through which my way led me. When they had
settled every thing according to their wishes, they went through the
streets of the town, conversing in a friendly manner, that they might
see the fair, which was held with due merriment. Presently they came
to a gipsy woman, who sat upon a stool, and uttered prophesies to the
people who surrounded her, out of an almanack.
“This woman they asked, jestingly, whether she had any thing pleasant
to tell them. I, who had put up at an inn, with all my band, and
chanced to be present at the spot when this occurrence took place,
standing at the entrance to the church, could not hear, through the
crowd, what the strange woman said to the electors. When the people
whispered, laughingly, in each other’s ears, that she would not
communicate her science to any body, and crowded thickly together on
account of the spectacle that was preparing, I got upon a bench, which
had been hewn out in the entrance to the church, not so much because I
was curious myself, as because I would make way for those that were.
Scarcely had I, from this elevation, taken a full survey of the
electors and the woman, who sat before them on the stool, and seemed to
be scribbling something, than she suddenly raised herself on her
crutches, and, looking round the people, fixed her eyes upon me, who
had not spoken a single word to her, and had never cared for such
sciences in my life.
“Pressing towards me, through the dense crowd, she said: ‘Ah, if the
gentleman wishes to know, he had better ask you.’ Then, your worship,
with her dry, bony hands she gave me this slip. All the people turned
round to me, and I said, perfectly astonished, ‘Why, mother--what sort
of a present is this?’ After all sorts of unintelligible stuff, among
which, to my great surprise, I heard my own name, she replied, ‘It is
an amulet, thou horse-dealer, Kohlhaas, keep it well, it will one day
save thy life.’ And so saying, she vanished. Now!” continued
Kohlhaas, good humouredly, “to tell the truth, sharply as matters have
been going on in Dresden, they have not cost me my life; and as for
Berlin, the future will show me how I get on there, and whether I shall
come off well.”
At these words the elector seated himself on a bench, and, although to
the inquiry of the astonished lady, what was the matter with him, he
answered, “Nothing, nothing at all”--he, nevertheless, fell senseless
upon the ground, before she had time to run up to him and catch him in
her arms.
The Knight von Malzahn, who, on some business or other, entered the
room at this moment, said: “Good God, what ails the gentleman?” while
the lady cried out, “Water, bring water!”
The huntsmen raised the elector from the ground and carried him to a
bed in an adjoining room, and the consternation of all reached its
height, when the chamberlain, who had been fetched by a page, declared,
after many futile endeavours to restore the elector to his senses, that
there were all the signs of apoplexy.
The seneschal, while the cup-bearer sent a messenger on horseback to
Luckau to fetch a physician, caused the elector to be placed in a
vehicle, as soon as he opened his eyes, and to be taken, slowly, to his
hunting castle in the neighbourhood. The consequence of this journey
was two fainting fits after his arrival at the castle, and it was late
on the following morning, when the physician from Luckau had arrived,
that he recovered in some degree, still with the decided symptoms of an
impending nervous fever. As soon as he had regained his senses he
raised himself in his bed, and his first inquiry was for Kohlhaas.
The chamberlain, who misunderstood his question, said, seizing his
hand, that he need no longer trouble himself about this terrible man,
since, as had been designed, he had remained at the farm at Dahme,
guarded by the Brandenburg escort, after the sudden and
incomprehensible mischance which had occurred. Assuring him of his
warmest sympathy, and also that he had reproached his wife most
bitterly for her unwarrantable heedlessness in bringing him in contact
with the man, he asked what there was so strange and monstrous in the
conversation to strike him thus.
The elector said he could only confess that the sight of a worthless
slip of paper, worn by the man in a leaden case, had been the cause of
the unpleasant occurrence. In explanation of this circumstance he
uttered much which the chamberlain did not understand, suddenly assured
him, as he pressed his hand, that the possession of this slip would be
of the utmost importance, and finally entreated him to mount on
horseback without delay, to ride to Dalheim, and to purchase the slip
from Kohlhaas at any price.
The chamberlain, who had difficulty in concealing his embarrassment,
represented to him, that if this slip was of any value to him, it would
be absolutely necessary to conceal the fact from Kohlhaas, since, if he
got a hint of it through any heedless expression, all the wealth of the
elector would be insufficient to get it out of the hands of a fellow so
insatiable in his vengeance. To calm him, he added that some other
means must be devised, and that perhaps it would be possible to gain
the slip to which he attached so much importance, by cunning and
through the medium of a third indifferent party, as the criminal did
not set any value on it.
The elector, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, asked whether
it would not be possible with this intent to send to Dahme, and to
delay the further transport of the horse-dealer until the slip, in some
way or other, was secured.
The chamberlain, who could not trust his senses, replied that in all
probability the horse-dealer had unfortunately left Dahme already, and
was already over the boundary and on Brandenburg soil, where every
endeavour to impede his progress, or to turn him back, must lead to the
most unpleasant and lengthened difficulties--such difficulties, indeed,
as it might be impossible to get over.
When the elector, with a gesture of utter despair, threw himself back
on his cushion in silence, the chamberlain asked him what it was that
the slip contained, and by what strange and inexplicable chance he knew
that the contents concerned him.
Casting equivocal glances at the chamberlain, whose willingness to
oblige him he doubted, the elector made no answer, but lay quite stiff,
yet with heart uneasily beating, while his eyes were fixed on the
corner of the handkerchief, which, immersed in thought, he held in his
hands. All at once he ordered him to call into the chamber the
hunting-page (_Jagd-junker_) Von Stein, an active and sharp-witted
young gentleman, whom he had often employed on secret affairs, on the
pretext that he had business to settle with him of quite a different
nature.
After he had set forth the whole affair to this page, and had informed
him of the importance of the slip, now in the possession of Kohlhaas,
he asked him whether he was willing to earn an eternal claim to his
friendship by getting this slip before Kohlhaas reached Berlin.
The page as soon as he, in some degree, understood the affair, strange
as it was, declared that all his powers were at the service of the
elector, whereupon the latter commissioned him to ride after Kohlhaas,
and in case money would not suffice, as probably it would not, to offer
him in a prudently managed discourse, life and liberty as the price of
the slip; nay, if he insisted upon it, to supply him at once, though
cautiously, with horses, people, and money, to assist him in escaping
from the hands of the Brandenburg troopers who escorted him. The page,
having obtained from the elector a written authority in his own hand,
set off with some attendants, and not allowing his horses any breathing
time, he had the good luck to overtake Kohlhaas at a village on the
border, where, with the Knight von Malzahn and his five children, he
was partaking of a dinner, that was spread before the door of a house
in the open air. The Knight von Malzahn, to whom the page introduced
himself as a foreigner, who wished to see the remarkable man on his
journey, even anticipated his wishes, as he compelled him to sit down
to the meal, at the same time introducing him to Kohlhaas. As the
knight had affairs to mind, which caused him to absent himself every
now and then, and the troopers were dining at a table on the other side
of the house, the page soon found an opportunity of telling the
horse-dealer who he was, and explaining the particular object of his
mission.
The horse-dealer, who had already learned the name and rank of the
person who had fainted in the farm-house at Dahme at the sight of the
case, and who wanted nothing more to complete the astonishment which
the discovery had caused, than an insight into the secrets of the case,
which for many reasons he had determined not to open out of mere
curiosity,--the horse-dealer, we say, mindful of the unhandsome and
unprincely treatment which he had experienced at Dresden, in spite of
his readiness to make every possible sacrifice, declared that he
intended to keep the case. To the question of the page, what could
induce him to utter so singular a refusal, when nothing less than life
and liberty was offered him, Kohlhaas replied:
“Sir, if your sovereign came here in person and said to me, ‘I will
destroy myself with the troop of those who help to wield the sceptre;’
although such destruction is the dearest wish of my soul--I would still
refuse him the case, which is even more valuable to him than existence,
and would say, ‘to the scaffold you can bring me, but I can injure you,
and I will.’” And immediately, with death in his face, he called for
one of the troopers, ordering him to take a good portion of the repast
which still remained in the dish. For the remainder of the hour, which
he passed in the village, he never turned towards the page, but treated
him, although he sat at the table, as if he was not present, until,
when he ascended the cart, he turned round and gave him a farewell look.
The situation of the elector, when he learned the news, grew worse and
worse; indeed to such a degree, that the physician, during three
portentous days, was in the greatest anxiety for his life, which seemed
attacked from more sides than one. However, by the force of his
naturally strong constitution, after keeping his bed for several
painfully passed weeks, he recovered sufficiently to be removed to a
carriage, and thus, with an ample store of cushions and coverlets, to
be conveyed to Dresden to the affairs of his government. As soon as he
had reached the city he sent for Prince Christian of Misnia, and asked
him how matters were going on with respect to the mission of the
Councillor Eibenmeyer, who was to be sent to Vienna as attorney in the
Kohlhaas affair, to complain to the emperor of the breach of the
imperial peace. The prince told him that this councillor had set off
to Vienna, in conformity with the instructions, which he had left when
he went to Dahme, immediately after the arrival of the Jurist Zäuner,
whom the Elector of Brandenburg had sent as attorney to Dresden, to
prosecute the suit about the horses against the Squire Wenzel von
Tronka.
The elector, who, deeply colouring, withdrew to his writing-table,
expressed his astonishment at this haste, since he had, to his
knowledge, declared that the departure of Eibenmeyer was to wait for
nearer and more definite instructions, a reference to Dr. Luther, who
had procured the amnesty for Kohlhaas, being first necessary. With an
expression of suppressed anger, he turned over and over the documents
that lay upon the table. The prince, after staring at him for some
time in silence, said, that he should be sorry if he had not conducted
this affair to the satisfaction of his sovereign, adding, that in the
state-council not a word had been said about a reference to Dr. Luther;
and that although perhaps at an earlier part of the proceedings it
would have been proper to refer to this reverend gentleman, on account
of his intercession for Kohlhaas, it was now no longer requisite, since
the amnesty had already been broken in the eyes of the whole world, and
Kohlhaas had been arrested, and delivered up to the Brandenburg
tribunal for judgment and execution.
The elector admitted that the mistake in sending Eibenmeyer was not so
great, but expressed his wish that he should not appear at Vienna in
his official capacity of prosecutor till he had received further
instructions, and told the prince to communicate this to him
accordingly through an express. The prince replied that this command
came unfortunately a day too late, since Eibenmeyer, according to a
notice which had arrived that very day, had appeared in the quality of
attorney, and had proceeded to bring the complaint before the
state-chancery in Vienna.
When the elector asked with astonishment how this was possible in so
short a time, he answered, that three weeks had already elapsed since
Eibenmeyer’s departure, and that by the instructions which he had
received, it was incumbent upon him to despatch the business as soon as
possible after his arrival at Vienna. The prince further remarked,
that a delay would, under the circumstances, be so much the more
unjustifiable, as the Brandenburg representative, Zäuner, was
proceeding against Squire Wenzel von Tronka with the boldest energy,
and had already moved the court, that the horses, as a preliminary
measure, should be taken out of the hands of the flayer, with a view to
their future recovery, and had succeeded in carrying this point in
spite of all the objections of the opposite party.
The elector, ringing the bell, said, “Well, no matter!” and after
putting some indifferent questions to the prince, such as “how matters
stood in Dresden,” and “what had been going on in his absence,” he
shook hands with him, unable any longer to conceal the state of his
mind, and dismissed him. On the very same day he sent to him a written
request for all the documents relating to the Kohlhaas affair, under
the pretext that he would take the management of it into his own hands
on account of its political importance. The thought of destroying the
man from whom alone he could learn the mysteries of the slip was to him
insupportable, so he addressed to the emperor a letter in his own hand,
in which he requested him in the most pressing manner, for certain
important reasons, which he would perhaps explain more definitely in a
short time, to set aside the complaint which Eibenmeyer had brought
against Kohlhaas, until some further conclusion had been arrived at.
The emperor, in a note which he despatched through the state chancery,
replied that he was greatly astonished at the change in the elector’s
sentiments, which seemed to have occurred so suddenly, adding, that the
information laid before him on the part of Saxony, made the matter of
Kohlhaas an affair of the whole sacred Roman empire, that he, the
emperor, as the head of that empire, was bound to appear as prosecutor
in this suit with the House of Brandenburg; that now the
court-assessor, Franz Müller, had gone to Berlin as imperial attorney,
for the express purpose of bringing Kohlhaas to account there for a
violation of the imperial peace, it would be impossible to set aside
the complaint, and that therefore the affair must take its course
according to the laws. The elector was completely cast down by this
letter; and when, to his utter confusion, he shortly afterwards
received private letters from Berlin announcing the commencement of the
proceedings before the chamber-council, and stating that Kohlhaas, in
spite of all the endeavours of his advocate, would probably end his
days on a scaffold, the unhappy prince resolved to make one attempt
more, and he therefore wrote a letter himself to the Elector of
Brandenburg, begging for the horse-dealer’s life. He pretended that
the amnesty which had been promised to the man, would render improper
the fulfilment of a capital sentence; assured him, that in spite of the
apparent severity of the proceedings against Kohlhaas, it had never
been his intention to put him to death; and stated how inconsolable he
should be if the protection which seemed to be granted him from Berlin,
should by an unexpected turn prove more to his disadvantage than if he
had remained in Dresden, and the affair had been decided according to
Saxon law.
The Elector of Brandenburg, who perceived much that was obscure and
ambiguous in this request, replied by stating that the urgency with
which the imperial advocate proceeded would not allow him to depart
from the strict injunctions of the law to accede to his (Saxony’s)
wishes. At the same time he remarked that the anxiety of the Elector
of Saxony in this matter seemed to be carried too far, since the
complaint against Kohlhaas, which was now before the Berlin
chamber-council, and which concerned the crimes pardoned in the
amnesty, did not proceed from him who granted it, but from the head of
the empire, who was not in any manner bound by it. He also impressed
upon him how necessary it was to make a terrible example, seeing that
the outrages of Nagelschmidt still continued, and with unparalleled
audacity had advanced even to the borders of Brandenburg; and requested
him, if he would pay no regard to these reasons, to address himself to
his imperial majesty, since, if an edict was to be pronounced in favour
of Kohlhaas, it could come from that quarter alone.
The elector, extremely grieved and vexed at all these futile attempts,
fell into a new illness, and when one morning the chamberlain visited
him, he showed him the letters which he had addressed to the courts of
Vienna and Berlin, for the purpose of obtaining a reprieve for
Kohlhaas, and thus at least of gaining time to possess himself of the
slip which he had with him.
The chamberlain threw himself on his knees before him, and requested
him by all that was dear and sacred to tell him what this slip
contained.