Absorbed in his new ambition, Kleist found little in Paris to interest him. He felt the need of solitude for the maturing of his plans, and with the double object of seeking in idyllic pursuits the inspiration of Nature and of earning leisure for writing, he proposed to his betrothed that she join him secretly in establishing a home upon a small farm in Switzerland. When Wilhelmina found it impossible to accept this plan, Kleist coldly severed all relations with her. He journeyed to Switzerland in December, 1801, and in Bern became acquainted with a group of young authors, the novelist Heinrich Zschokke, the publisher Heinrich Gessner, and Ludwig Wieland, son of the famous author of _Oberon_. To these sympathetic friends he read his first tragedy, which, in its earlier draft, had a Spanish setting, as _The Thierrez Family_ or _The Ghonorez Family_, but which, on their advice, was given a German background. This drama Gessner published for Kleist, under the t.i.tle _The Schroffenstein Family_, in the winter of 1802-03. It had no sooner appeared than the author felt himself to have outgrown its youthful weaknesses of imitation and exaggeration.
Another dramatic production grew directly out of the discussions of this little circle. The friends agreed, on a wager, to put into literary form the story suggested by an engraving that hung in Zschokke"s room. By common consent the prize was awarded to Kleist"s production, his one comedy, _The Broken Jug_.
In April, 1802, Kleist realized his romantic dream by taking up his abode, in rural seclusion, on a little island at the outlet of the Lake of Thun, amid the majestic scenery of the Bernese Oberland. In this retreat, encouraged by the applause of his first confidants, he labored with joyous energy, recasting his _Schroffenstein Family_, working out the _Broken Jug_, meditating historical dramas on Leopold of Austria and Peter the Hermit, and expending the best of his untrained genius on the plan of a tragedy, _Robert Guiscard_, in which he strove to create a drama of a new type, combining the beauties of Greek cla.s.sical art and of Shakespeare; with his _Guiscard_ the young poet even dared hope to "s.n.a.t.c.h the laurel wreath from Goethe"s brow."
Two months of intense mental exertion in the seclusion of his island left Kleist exhausted, and he fell seriously ill; whereupon Ulrica, on receiving belated news of his plight, hastened to Bern to care for him. When a political revolution drove Ludwig Wieland from Bern, they followed the latter to Weimar, where the poet Wieland, the dean of the remarkable group of great authors gathered at Weimar, received Kleist kindly, and made him his guest at his country estate. With great difficulty Wieland succeeded in persuading his secretive visitor to reveal his literary plans; and when Kleist recited from memory some of the scenes of his unfinished _Guiscard_, the old poet was transported with enthusiasm; these fragments seemed to him worthy of the united genius of aeschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, and he was convinced that Kleist had the power to "fill the void in the history of the German drama that even Goethe and Schiller had not filled." But in spite of Wieland"s generous encouragement, Kleist found it impossible to complete this masterpiece, and his hopeless pursuit of the perfect ideal became an intolerable obsession to his ambitious and sensitive soul. He could not remain in Weimar. In Dresden old friends sought to cheer him in his desperate attempts to seize the elusive ideal; to more than one of them, in his despair, he proposed a joint suicide.
Again he was driven to seek solace and inspiration in travel, a friend accompanying him to Switzerland. Arrived at Geneva in October, 1803, Kleist fell into the deepest despondency, and wrote Ulrica a letter full of hopeless renunciation. Half crazed by disappointment and wounded pride, he rushed madly through France to Paris, broke with his friend, who had again repelled a joint suicide, burned his ma.n.u.script of _Guiscard_, and made secretly for Boulogne, hoping to find an honorable death in Napoleon"s projected invasion of England.
Fortunately he fell in with an acquaintance who saved him from the risk of being arrested as a spy, and started him back on his homeward way. He was detained at Mentz by serious illness, but finally, in June, 1804, reappeared in Potsdam. The poet"s spirit was broken, and he was glad to accept a petty civil post that took him to Konigsberg.
After a year of quiet work, he was enabled, by a small pension from Queen Louise, to resign his office and again devote himself to literature.
The two years spent in Konigsberg were years of remarkable development in Kleist"s literary power. Warned by the catastrophe of the earlier attempt to reach the heights at a single bound, he now schooled himself with simpler tasks: adaptations, from the French, of La Fontaine"s poem, _The two Pigeons_, and of Moliere"s comedy, _Amphitryon_--both so altered in the interpretation that they seem more like originals than translations; prose tales that are admirable examples of this form--_The Marquise of O._, _The Earthquake in Chili_, and the first part of the masterly short story _Michael Kohlhaas_; and the recasting of the unique comedy _The Broken Jug_.
Finally he attempted another great drama in verse, _Penthesilea_, embodying in the old cla.s.sical story the tragedy of his own desperate struggle for _Guiscard_, and his crushing defeat.
Meanwhile the clouds were gathering about his beloved country, and in October, 1806, the thunderbolt fell in the rout of the Prussian army at Jena. Napoleon"s victorious troops pressed on to Berlin and the Prussian court retreated with the tide of fugitives to Konigsberg.
Kleist was overwhelmed by the misery of this cataclysm, which, however, he had clearly foreseen and foretold. With a group of friends he started on foot for Dresden, but was arrested as a spy at the gates of Berlin and held for months as a prisoner in French fortresses, before the energetic efforts of Ulrica and others procured his release.
Late in July, 1807, he finally arrived in Dresden, where he remained until April, 1809. These were the happiest and the most prolific months of his fragmentary life. The best literary and social circles of the Saxon capital were open to him, his talent was recognized by the leading men of the city, a laurel wreath was placed upon his brow by "the prettiest hands in Dresden;" at last he found all his hopes being realized. With three friends he embarked on an ambitious publishing enterprise, which included the issuing of a sumptuous literary and artistic monthly, the _Phoebus_. This venture was foredoomed to failure by the inexperience of its projectors and by the unsettled condition of a time full of political upheaval and most unfavorable to any literary enterprise. Kleist"s own contributions to this periodical were of the highest value; here appeared first in print generous portions of _Penthesilea, The Broken Jug_, and the new drama _Kitty of Heilbronn_, the first act of the ill-fated _Robert Guiscard_, evidently reproduced from memory, _The Marquise of O._, and part of _Michael Kohlhaas_. If we add to these works the great patriotic drama, _Arminius_ (_Die Hermannsschlacht_), two tales, _The Betrothal in San Domingo_ and _The Foundling_, and lyric and narrative poems, the production of the brief period in Dresden is seen to bulk very large.
In the stress of the times and in spite of the most strenuous efforts, the _Phoebus_ went under with the first volume, and the publishing business was a total wreck. Kleist"s joy at the acceptance of _The Broken Jug_ by Goethe for the Weimar theatre was turned to bitterness when, because of unintelligent acting and stage management, this brilliant comedy failed wretchedly; the disappointed author held Goethe responsible for this fiasco and foolishly attacked him in a series of spiteful epigrams. He longed to have his _Arminius_ performed at Vienna, but the Austrian authorities were too timid to risk the production of a play that openly preached German unity and a war of revenge against the "Roman tyranny" of Napoleon. Kleist then turned to lyric poetry and polemic tirades for the expression of his patriotic ardor. When Austria rose against Napoleon, he started for the seat of war and was soon the happy eye-witness of the Austrian victory at Aspern, in May, 1809. In Prague, with the support of the commandant, he planned a patriotic journal, for which he immediately wrote a series of glowing articles, mostly in the form of political satires. This plan was wrecked by the decisive defeat of the Austrians at Wagram in July.
Broken by these successive disasters, Kleist again fell seriously ill; for four months his friends had no word from him, and reports of his death were current. In November, 1809, he came to Frankfort-on-the-Oder to dispose of his share in the family home as a last means of raising funds, and again disappeared. In January, 1810, he pa.s.sed through Frankfort on the way to Berlin, to which the Prussian court, now subservient to Napoleon, had returned. He found many old friends in Berlin, and even had prospects of recognition from the court, as the brave and beautiful Queen Louise was very kindly disposed toward him. Again he turned to dramatic production, and in the patriotic Prussian play, _Prince Frederick of Homburg_, created his masterpiece. Fortune seemed once more to be smiling upon the dramatist; the _Prince of Homburg_ was to be dedicated to Queen Louise, and performed privately at the palace of Prince Radziwill, before being given at the National Theatre. But again the cup of success was dashed from the poet"s lips. With the death of Queen Louise, in July, 1810, he lost his only powerful friend at court, and now found it impossible to get a hearing for his drama.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SARCOPHAGUS OF QUEEN LOUISE IN THE MAUSOLEUM AT CHARLOTTENBURG _Sculptor, Christian Rauch_]
Other disappointments came in rapid succession. _Kitty of Heilbronn_, performed after many delays at Vienna, was not a success, and Iffland, the popular dramatist and director of the Berlin Theatre, rejected this play, while accepting all manner of commonplace works by inferior authors. The famous publisher Cotta did print _Penthesilea_, but was so displeased with it that he made no effort to sell the edition, and _Kitty of Heilbronn_, declined by Cotta, fell flat when it was printed in Berlin. Two volumes of tales, including some masterpieces in this form, hardly fared better; the new numbers in this collection were _The Duel, The Beggar Woman of Locarno_, and _Saint Cecilia_. Again the much-tried poet turned to journalism. From October, 1810, until March, 1811, with the a.s.sistance of the popular philosopher Adam Muller and the well-known romantic authors Arnim, Brentano, and Fouque, he published a politico-literary journal appearing five times a week. The enterprise began well, and aroused a great deal of interest. Gradually, however, the censorship of a government that was at once timid and tyrannical limited the scope and destroyed the effectiveness of the paper, and Kleist spent himself in vain efforts to keep it alive. The poet now found himself in a desperate predicament, financially ruined by the failure of all his enterprises, and discredited with the government, from which he vainly sought some reparation for the violence done to his journal; worst of all, he found himself without honor at home, where he was looked upon as a ne"er-do-well and a disgrace to the reputation of a fine old military family. As a last resort he applied for reinstatement in the army, it being a time when Prussia seemed to be girding herself for another struggle with Napoleon. But the attempt to borrow enough money for his military equipment failed, and he found no sympathy or support on a final visit to his family in Frankfort. In October, 1811, the patriotic men who had been quietly preparing for the inevitable war of liberation were horrified by the movement of the Prussian government toward another alliance with Napoleon; and Kleist felt it impossible to enter an army that might at any moment be ordered to support the arch-enemy of his country. His case had become utterly hopeless.
At this juncture the unfortunate poet found what he had so often sought in his crises of despair--a companion in suicide. Through Adam Muller he had become acquainted with Henrietta Vogel, an intelligent woman of romantic temperament, who was doomed by an incurable disease to a life of suffering. She listened eagerly to Kleist"s suggestions of an escape together from the intolerable ills of life. The two drove from Berlin to a solitary inn on the sh.o.r.e of the Wannsee, near Potsdam; here Kleist wrote a touching farewell letter to his sister, and, on the afternoon of November 21, 1811, after the most deliberate preparations, the companions strolled into the silent pine woods, where Kleist took Henrietta"s life and then his own. In the same lonely place his grave was dug, and here the greatest Prussian poet lay forgotten, after the brief, though violent, sensation of his tragic end; half a century elapsed before a Prussian prince set up a simple granite monument to mark the grave. Ten years pa.s.sed after Kleist"s death before his last great dramas, _Arminius_ and the _Prince of Homburg_, were published, edited by the eminent poet and critic Ludwig Tieck, who also brought out, in 1826, the first collection of Kleist"s works. Long before this time, the patriotic uprising for which he had labored with desperate zeal in his later works, had brought liberation to Germany; it was on the thirty-sixth anniversary of Kleist"s birth that Napoleon"s power was shaken by the decisive Battle of Leipzig.
Heinrich von Kleist was born into a generation that was dominated by the spirit of Romanticism. Tieck and the Schlegels were a few years older, Fouque was of the same age as he, and Arnim and Brentano somewhat younger. His acquaintance was largely with the authors who represented this tendency. In his own works, however, Kleist was singularly independent of the romantic influence. This is the more remarkable inasmuch as his character had many traits in common with the ardent spirits of the Romantic group. His uncompromising individualism and overweening ambition, his love of travel, his enthusiastic acceptance of Rousseau"s gospel of Nature, are characteristically Romantic, and so, we may say, is his pa.s.sionate patriotism. Eccentricities he had in plenty; there was something morbid in his excessive reserve, his exaggerated secretiveness about the most important interests of his life, as there surely was in his moroseness, which deepened at times into black despair. Goethe was most unpleasantly impressed by this abnormal quality of Kleist"s personality, and said of the younger poet: "In spite of my honest desire to sympathize with him, I could not avoid a feeling of horror and loathing, as of a body beautifully endowed by nature, but infected with an incurable disease." That this judgment was unduly harsh is evident enough from the confidence and affection that Kleist inspired in many of the best men of his time.
Whatever may have been Kleist"s personal peculiarities, his works give evidence of the finest artistic sanity and conscience. His acute sense of literary form sets him off from the whole generation of Romanticists, who held the author"s personal caprice to be the supreme law of poetry, and most of whose important works were either medleys or fragments. He was his own severest critic, and labored over his productions, as he did over his own education, with untiring energy and intense concentration. A less scrupulous author would not have destroyed the ma.n.u.script of _Robert Guiscard_ because he could not keep throughout its action the splendid promise of the first act. His works are usually marked by rare logical and artistic consistency.
Seldom is there any interruption of the unity and simple directness of his actions by sub-plots or episodes, and he scorned the easy theatrical devices by which the successful playwrights of his day gained their effects. Whether in drama or story, his action grows naturally out of the characters and the situations. Hence the marvelous fact that his dramas can be performed with hardly an alteration, though the author, never having seen any of them on the stage, lacked the practical experience by which most dramatists learn the technique of their art.
Kleist evidently studied the models of cla.s.sical art with care. His unerring sense of form, his artistic restraint in a day when caprice was the ruling fashion, and the conciseness of his expression, are doubtless due to cla.s.sical influence. But, at the same time, he was an innovator, one of the first forerunners of modern realism. He describes and characterizes with careful, often microscopic detail; his psychological a.n.a.lysis is remarkably exact and incisive; and he fearlessly uses the ugly or the trivial when either better serves his purpose.
In all the varied volume of Kleist"s works, there is very little that is mediocre or negligible. The _Schroffenstein Family_, to be sure, is prentice work, but it can bear comparison with the first plays of the greatest dramatists. The fragment of _Robert Guiscard_ is masterly in its rapid c.u.mulative exposition, representing the hero, idolized by his troops, as stricken with the plague when the crowning glory of his military career seems to be within his grasp; while the discord between Guiscard"s son and nephew presages an irrepressible family conflict. The style, as Wieland felt when he listened with rapture to the author"s recital, is a blend of cla.s.sical and Elizabethan art. The opening chorus of the people, the formal balanced speeches, the a.n.a.lytical action, beginning on the verge of the catastrophe, are traits borrowed from Greek tragedy. On the other hand, there is much realistic characterization and a Shakespearian variety and freedom of tone. _The Broken Jug_, too, is a.n.a.lytical in its conduct. Almost from the first it is evident that Adam, the village judge, is himself the culprit in the case at trial in his court, and the comic efforts of the arch-rascal to squirm out of the inevitable discovery only serve to make his guilt the surer. In this comedy the blank verse adapts itself to all the turns of familiar humorous dialogue, and the effect of the Dutch genre-paintings of Teniers or Jan Steen is admirably reproduced in dramatic form. The slowly moving action, constantly reverting to past incidents, makes a successful performance difficult; the fate of this work on the stage has depended upon finding an actor capable of bringing out all the possibilities in the part of Adam, who is a masterpiece of comic self-characterization.
_Penthesilea_ is a work apart. Pa.s.sionate, headlong, almost savage, is the character of the queen of the Amazons, yet wonderfully sweet in its gentler moods and glorified with the golden glow of high poetry.
Nothing could be further removed from the pseudo-cla.s.sical manner of the eighteenth century than this modern and individual interpretation of the old mythical story of Penthesilea and Achilles, between whom love breaks forth in the midst of mortal combat. The clash of pa.s.sions creates scenes in this drama that transcend the humanly and dramatically permissible. Yet there is a wealth of imaginative beauty and emotional melody in this tragedy beyond anything in Kleist"s other works. It was written with his heart"s blood; in it he uttered all the yearning and frenzy of his first pa.s.sion for the unattainable and ruined masterpiece _Guiscard_.
_Kitty of Heilbronn_ stands almost at the opposite pole from _Penthesilea_. The pathos of Griselda"s unquestioning self-abnegation is her portion; she is the extreme expression of the docile quality that Kleist sought in his betrothed. Instead of the fabled scenes of Homeric combat, we have here as a setting the richly romantic and colorful life of the age of chivalry. The form, too, is far freer and more expansive, with an unconventional mingling of verse and prose.
The last two plays were born of the spirit that brought forth the War of Liberation. In them Kleist gave undying expression to his ardent patriotism; it was his deepest grief that these martial dramas were not permitted to sound their trumpet-call to a humbled nation yearning to be free. _Arminius_ is a great dramatized philippic. The ancient Germanic chiefs Marbod and Arminius, representing in Kleist"s intention the Austria and Prussia of his day, are animated by one common patriotic impulse, rising far above their mutual rivalries, to cast off the hateful and oppressive yoke of Rome; and after the decisive victory over Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, each of these strong chiefs is ready in devoted self-denial to yield the primacy to the other, in order that all Germans may stand together against the common foe. _Prince Frederick of Homburg_ is a dramatic glorification of the Prussian virtues of discipline and obedience. But the finely drawn characters of this play are by no means rigid martinets. They are largely, frankly, generously human, confessing the right of feeling as well as reason to direct the will. Never has there been a more sympathetic literary exposition of the soldierly character than this last tribute of a devoted patriot to his beloved Brandenburg.
The narrative works of Kleist maintain the same high level as his dramas. _Michael Kohlhaas_ is a good example of this excellent narrative art, for which Kleist found no models in German literature.
Unity is a striking characteristic; the action can usually be summed up in a few words, such as the formula for this story, given expressly on its first page: "His sense of justice made him a robber and a murderer." There is no leisurely exposition of time, place, or situation; all the necessary elements are given concisely in the first sentences. The action develops logically, with effective use of r.e.t.a.r.dation and climax, but without disturbing episodes; and the reader is never permitted to forget the central theme. The descriptive element is realistic, with only pertinent details swiftly presented, often in parentheses, while the action moves on. The characterization is skilfully indirect, through unconscious action and speech. The author does not shun the trivial or even the repulsive in detail, nor does he fear the most tragic catastrophes. He is scrupulously objective, and, in an age of expansive lyric expression, he is most chary of comment. The sentence structure, as in the dramas, is often intricate, but never lax. The whole work in all its parts is firmly and finely forged by a master workman.
Kleist has remained a solitary figure in German literature. Owing little to the dominant literary influences of his day, he has also found few imitators. Two generations pa.s.sed before he began to come into his heritage of legitimate fame. Now that a full century has elapsed since his tragic death, his place is well a.s.sured among the greatest dramatic and narrative authors of Germany. A brave man struggling desperately against hopeless odds, a patriot expending his genius with lavish unselfishness for the service of his country in her darkest days, he has been found worthy by posterity to stand as the most famous son of a faithful Prussian family of soldiers.
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS (1808)
A Tale from an Old Chronicle
TRANSLATED BY FRANCES A. KING
Toward the middle of the sixteenth century there lived on the banks of the river Havel a horse-dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas, the son of a school-master, one of the most upright and, at the same time, one of the most terrible men of his day. Up to his thirtieth year this extraordinary man would have been considered the model of a good citizen. In a village which still bears his name, he owned a farmstead on which he quietly supported himself by plying his trade. The children with whom his wife presented him were brought up in the fear of G.o.d, and taught to be industrious and honest; nor was there one among his neighbors who had not enjoyed the benefit of his kindness or his justice. In short, the world would have had every reason to bless his memory if he had not carried to excess one virtue--his sense of justice, which made of him a robber and a murderer.
He rode abroad once with a string of young horses, all well fed and glossy-coated, and was turning over in his mind how he would employ the profit that he hoped to make from them at the fairs; part of it, as is the way with good managers, he would use to gain future profits, but he would also spend part of it in the enjoyment of the present.
While thus engaged he reached the Elbe, and near a stately castle, situated on Saxon territory, he came upon a toll-bar which he had never found on this road before. Just in the midst of a heavy shower he halted with his horses and called to the toll-gate keeper, who soon after showed his surly face at the window. The horse-dealer told him to open the gate. "What new arrangement is this?" he asked, when the toll-gatherer, after some time, finally came out of the house.
"Seignorial privilege" answered the latter, unlocking the gate, "conferred by the sovereign upon Squire Wenzel Tronka."
"Is that so?" queried Kohlhaas; "the Squire"s name is now Wenzel?" and gazed at the castle, the glittering battlements of which looked out over the field. "Is the old gentleman dead?"
"Died of apoplexy," answered the gate keeper, as he raised the toll-bar.
"Hum! Too bad!" rejoined Kohlhaas. "An estimable old gentleman he was, who liked to watch people come and go, and helped along trade and traffic wherever he could. He once had a causeway built because a mare of mine had broken her leg out there on the road leading to the village. Well, how much is it?" he asked, and with some trouble got out the few groschen demanded by the gate keeper from under his cloak, which was fluttering in the wind. "Yes, old man," he added, picking up the leading reins as the latter muttered "Quick, quick!" and cursed the weather; "if this tree had remained standing in the forest it would have been better for me and for you." With this he gave him the money, and started to ride on.
He had hardly pa.s.sed under the toll-bar, however, when a new voice cried out from the tower behind him, "Stop there, horse-dealer!" and he saw the castellan close a window and come hurrying down to him.
"Well, I wonder what he wants!" Kohlhaas asked himself, and halted with his horses. b.u.t.toning another waistcoat over his ample body, the castellan came up to him and, standing with his back to the storm, demanded his pa.s.sport.
"My pa.s.sport?" queried Kohlhaas. Somewhat disconcerted, he replied that he had none, so far as he knew, but that, if some one would just describe to him what in the name of goodness this was, perhaps he might accidentally happen to have one about him. The castellan, eying him askance, retorted that without an official permit no horse-dealer was allowed to cross the border with horses. The horse-dealer a.s.sured him that seventeen times in his life he had crossed the border without such a permit; that he was well acquainted with all the official regulations which applied to his trade; that this would probably prove to be only a mistake; the castellan would please consider the matter and, since he had a long day"s journey before him, not detain him here unnecessarily any longer. But the castellan answered that he was not going to slip through the eighteenth time, that the ordinance concerning this matter had been only recently issued, and that he must either procure the pa.s.sport here or go back to the place from which he had come. After a moment"s reflection, the horse-dealer, who was beginning to feel bitter, got down from his horse, turned it over to a groom, and said that he would speak to Squire Tronka himself on the subject. He really did walk toward the castle; the castellan followed him, muttering something about n.i.g.g.ardly money-grubbers, and what a good thing it was to bleed them; and, measuring each other with their glances, the two entered the castle-hall.
It happened that the Squire was sitting over his wine with some merry friends, and a joke had caused them all to break into uproarious laughter just as Kohlhaas approached him to make his complaint. The Squire asked what he wanted; the young n.o.bles, at sight of the stranger, became silent; but no sooner had the latter broached his request concerning the horses, than the whole group cried out, "Horses! Where are they?" and hurried over to the window to look at them. When they saw the glossy string, they all followed the suggestion of the Squire and flew down into the courtyard. The rain had ceased; the castellan, the steward, and the servant gathered round them and all scanned the horses. One praised a bright bay with a white star on its forehead, another preferred a chestnut, a third patted the dappled horse with tawny spots; and all were of the opinion that the horses were like deer, and that no finer were raised in the country. Kohlhaas answered cheerily that the horses were no better than the knights who were to ride them, and invited the men to buy.
The Squire, who eagerly desired the big bay stallion, went so far as to ask its price, and the steward urged him to buy a pair of black horses, which he thought he could use on the farm, as they were short of horses. But when the horse-dealer had named his price the young knights thought it too high, and the Squire said that Kohlhaas would have to ride in search of the Round Table and King Arthur if he put such a high value on his horses. Kohlhaas noticed that the castellan and the steward were whispering together and casting significant glances at the black horses the while, and, moved by a vague presentiment, made every effort to sell them the horses. He said to the Squire, "Sir, I bought those black horses six months ago for twenty-five gold gulden; give me thirty and you shall have them." Two of the young n.o.blemen who were standing beside the Squire declared quite audibly that the horses were probably worth that much; but the Squire said that while he might be willing to pay out money for the bay stallion he really should hardly care to do so for the pair of blacks, and prepared to go in. Whereupon Kohlhaas, saying that the next time he came that way with his horses they might perhaps strike a bargain, took leave of the Squire and, seizing the reins of his horse, started to ride away.
At this moment the castellan stepped forth from the crowd and reminded him that he would not be allowed to leave without a pa.s.sport. Kohlhaas turned around and inquired of the Squire whether this statement, which meant the ruin of his whole trade, were indeed correct. The Squire, as he went off, answered with an embarra.s.sed air, "Yes, Kohlhaas, you must get a pa.s.sport. Speak to the castellan about it, and go your way." Kohlhaas a.s.sured him that he had not the least intention of evading the ordinances which might be in force concerning the exportation of horses. He promised that when he went through Dresden he would take out the pa.s.sport at the chancery, and begged to be allowed to go on, this time, as he had known nothing whatever about this requirement. "Well!" said the Squire, as the storm at that moment began to rage again and the wind bl.u.s.tered about his scrawny legs; "let the wretch go. Come!" he added to the young knights, and, turning around, started toward the door. The castellan, facing about toward the Squire, said that Kohlhaas must at least leave behind some pledge as security that he would obtain the pa.s.sport. The Squire stopped again under the castle gate. Kohlhaas asked how much security for the black horses in money or in articles of value he would be expected to leave. The steward muttered in his beard that he might just as well leave the blacks themselves.
"To be sure," said the castellan; "that is the best plan; as soon as he has taken out the pa.s.sport he can come and get them again at any time." Kohlhaas, amazed at such a shameless demand, told the Squire, who was holding the skirts of his doublet about him for warmth, that what he wanted to do was to sell the blacks; but as a gust of wind just then blew a torrent of rain and hail through the gate, the Squire, in order to put an end to the matter, called out, "If he won"t give up the horses, throw him back again over the toll-bar;" and with that he went off.
The horse-dealer, who saw clearly that on this occasion he would have to yield to superior force, made up his mind to comply with the demand, since there really was no other way out of it. He unhitched the black horses and led them into a stable which the castellan pointed out to him. He left a groom in charge of them, provided him with money, warned him to take good care of the horses until he came back, and with the rest of the string continued his journey to Leipzig, where he purposed to go to the fair. As he rode along he wondered, in half uncertainty, whether after all such a law might not have been pa.s.sed in Saxony for the protection of the newly started industry of horse-raising.
On his arrival in Dresden, where, in one of the suburbs of the city, he owned a house and stable--this being the headquarters from which he usually conducted his business at the smaller fairs around the country--he went immediately to the chancery. And here he learned from the councilors, some of whom he knew, that indeed, as his first instinct had already told him, the story of the pa.s.sport was only made up. At Kohlhaas"s request, the annoyed councilors gave him a written certificate of its baselessness, and the horse-dealer smiled at the lean Squire"s joke, although he did not quite see what purpose he could have had in view. A few weeks later, having sold to his satisfaction the string of horses he had with him, Kohlhaas returned to Tronka Castle harboring no other resentment save that caused by the general misery of the world.
The castellan, to whom he showed the certificate, made no comment upon it, and to the horse-dealer"s question as to whether he could now have his horses back, replied that he need only go down to the stable and get them. But even while crossing the courtyard, Kohlhaas learned with dismay that for alleged insolence his groom had been cudgeled and dismissed in disgrace a few days after being left behind at Tronka Castle. Of the boy who informed him of this he inquired what in the world the groom had done, and who had taken care of the horses in the mean time; to this the boy answered that he did not know, and then opened to the horse-dealer, whose heart was already full of misgivings, the door of the stable in which the horses stood. How great, though, was his astonishment when, instead of his two glossy, well-fed blacks, he spied a pair of lean, worn-out jades, with bones on which one could have hung things as if on pegs, and with mane and hair matted together from lack of care and attention--in short, the very picture of utter misery in the animal kingdom! Kohlhaas, at the sight of whom the horses neighed and moved feebly, was extremely indignant, and asked what had happened to his horses. The boy, who was standing beside him, answered that they had not suffered any harm, and that they had had proper feed too, but, as it had been harvest time, they had been used a bit in the fields because there weren"t draught animals enough. Kohlhaas cursed over the shameful, preconcerted outrage; but realizing that he was powerless he suppressed his rage, and, as no other course lay open to him, was preparing to leave this den of thieves again with his horses when the castellan, attracted by the altercation, appeared and asked what was the matter.
"What"s the matter?" echoed Kohlhaas. "Who gave Squire Tronka and his people permission to use for work in the fields the black horses that I left behind with him?" He added, "Do you call that humane?" and trying to rouse the exhausted nags with a switch, he showed him that they did not move. The castellan, after he had watched him for a while with an expression of defiance, broke out, "Look at the ruffian! Ought not the churl to thank G.o.d that the jades are still alive?" He asked who would have been expected to take care of them when the groom had run away, and whether it were not just that the horses should have worked in the fields for their feed. He concluded by saying that Kohlhaas had better not make a rumpus or he would call the dogs and with them would manage to restore order in the courtyard.
The horse-dealer"s heart thumped against his doublet. He felt a strong desire to throw the good-for-nothing, pot-bellied scoundrel into the mud and set his foot on his copper-colored face. But his sense of justice, which was as delicate as a gold-balance, still wavered; he was not yet quite sure before the bar of his own conscience whether his adversary were really guilty of a crime. And so, swallowing the abusive words and going over to the horses, he silently pondered the circ.u.mstances while arranging their manes, and asked in a subdued voice for what fault the groom had been turned out of the castle. The castellan replied, "Because the rascal was insolent in the courtyard; because he opposed a necessary change of stables and demanded that the horses of two young n.o.blemen, who came to the castle, should, for the sake of his nags, be left out on the open high-road over night."
Kohlhaas would have given the value of the horses if he could have had the groom at hand to compare his statement with that of this thick-lipped castellan. He was still standing, straightening the tangled manes of the black horses, and wondering what could be done in the situation in which he found himself, when suddenly the scene changed, and Squire Wenzel Tronka, returning from hare-hunting, dashed into the courtyard, followed by a swarm of knights, grooms, and dogs.
The castellan, when asked what had happened, immediately began to speak, and while, on the one hand, the dogs set up a murderous howl at the sight of the stranger, and, on the other, the knights sought to quiet them, he gave the Squire a maliciously garbled account of the turmoil the horse-dealer was making because his black horses had been used a little. He said, with a scornful laugh, that the horse-dealer refused to recognize the horses as his own.
Kohlhaas cried, "Your worship, those are not my horses. Those are not the horses which were worth thirty gold gulden! I want my well-fed, sound horses back again!"