TALES FROM THE GERMAN. (continued 6)

When he was retiring to his lodging, he perceived that there was a great bustle in Spalanzani’s house. The doors were wide open, all sorts of utensils were being carried in, the windows of the first floor were being taken out, maid servants were going about sweeping and dusting with great hair-brooms, and carpenters and upholsterers were knocking and hammering within. Nathaniel remained standing in the street in a state of perfect wonder, when Sigismund came up to him, laughing, and said: “Now, what do you say to our old Spalanzani?” Nathaniel assured him that he could say nothing because he knew nothing about the professor, but on the contrary perceived with astonishment the mad proceedings in a house otherwise so quiet and gloomy. He then learnt from Sigismund that Spalanzani intended to give a grand festival on the following day,—a concert and ball—and that half the university was invited. It was generally reported that Spalanzani, who had so long kept his daughter most painfully from every human eye, would now let her appear for the first time.

Nathaniel found a card of invitation, and with heart beating highly went at the appointed hour to the professor’s, where the coaches were already rolling, and the lights were shining in the decorated saloons. The company was numerous and brilliant. Olympia appeared dressed with great richness and taste. Her beautifully turned face, her figure called for admiration. The somewhat strange bend of her back inwards, the wasp-like thinness of her waist, seemed to be produced by too tight lacing. In her step and deportment there was something measured and stiff, which struck many as unpleasant, but it was ascribed to the constraint produced by the company. The concert began, Olympia played the piano with great dexterity, and executed a bravura, with a voice, like the sound of a glass bell, clear, and almost cutting. Nathaniel was quite enraptured; he stood in the hindermost row, and could not perfectly recognise Olympia’s features in the dazzling light. He, therefore, quite unperceived, took out Coppola’s glass, and looked towards the fair Olympia. Ah! then he saw, with what a longing glance she looked towards him, how every tone first resolved itself plainly in the glance of love, which penetrated, in its glowing career, his inmost soul. The artistical roulades seemed to Nathaniel the exultation of a mind illuminated with love, and when, at last, after the cadence, the long trill sounded shrilly through the saloon, he felt as if grasped by glowing arms; he could no longer restrain himself, but with mingled pain and rapture shouted out, “Olympia!” All looked at him, and many laughed. The organist of the cathedral made a more gloomy face than usual, and simply said: “Well, well.” The concert had finished, the ball began. “To dance with her—with her!” That was the aim of all Nathaniel’s wishes, of all his efforts; but how to gain courage to ask her, the queen of the festival? Nevertheless—he himself did not know how it happened—no sooner had the dancing begun, than he was standing close to Olympia, who had not yet been asked to dance, and, scarcely able to stammer out a few words, had seized her hand. The hand of Olympia was as cold as ice; he felt a horrible deadly frost thrilling through him. He looked into her eye—that was beaming full of love and desire, and at the same time it seemed as though the pulse began to beat, and the stream of life to glow in the cold hand. And in the soul of Nathaniel the joy of love rose still higher; he clasped the beautiful Olympia, and with her flew through the dance. He thought that his dancing was usually correct as to time, but the peculiar rhythmical steadiness with which Olympia moved, and which often put him completely out, soon showed him, that his time was very defective. However, he would dance with no other lady, and would have liked to murder any one who approached Olympia for the purpose of asking her. But this only happened twice, and to his astonishment Olympia remained seated after every dance, when he lost no time in making her rise again. Had he been able to see any other object besides the fair Olympia, all sorts of unfortunate quarrels would have been inevitable, for the half-soft, scarcely-suppressed laughter, which arose among the young people in every corner, was manifestly directed to Olympia, whom they pursued with very curious glances—one could not tell why. Heated by the dance, and by the wine, of which he had freely partaken, Nathaniel had laid aside all his ordinary reserve. He sat by Olympia, with her hand in his, and, highly inflamed and inspired, told his passion, in words which no one understood—neither himself nor Olympia. Yet, perhaps, she did; for she looked immoveably in his face, and sighed several times, “Ah, ah!” Upon this, Nathaniel said, “Oh, thou splendid, heavenly lady! Thou ray from the promised land of love—thou deep soul, in winch all my being is reflected!” with much more stuff of the like kind; but Olympia merely went on sighing, “Ah—ah!” Professor Spalanzani occasionally passed the happy pair, and smiled on them, with a look of singular satisfaction. To Nathaniel, although he felt in quite another region, it seemed all at once as though Professor Spalanzani was growing considerably darker; he looked around, and, to his no small horror, perceived that the two last candles in the empty saloon had burned down to their sockets, and were just going out. Music and dancing had ceased long ago. “Separation—separation!” he cried, wildly, and in despair; he kissed Olympia’s hand, he bent towards her mouth, when his glowing lips were met by lips cold as ice! Just as when he touched Olympia’s cold hand, he felt himself overcome by horror; the legend of the dead bride darted suddenly through his mind, but Olympia pressed him fast, and her lips seemed to recover to life at his kiss. Professor Spalanzani strode through the empty hall, his steps caused a hollow echo, and his figure, round which a flickering shadow played, had a fearful, spectral appearance. “Dost thou love me, dost thou love me, Olympia? Only this word!—Dost thou love me?” So whispered Nathaniel; but Olympia, as she rose, only sighed, “Ah—ah!” “Yes, my gracious, my beautiful star of love,” said Nathaniel, “thou hast risen upon me, and thou wilt shine, ever illuminating my inmost soul.” “Ah—ah!” replied Olympia, going. Nathaniel followed her; they both stood before the professor.

“You have had a very animated conversation with my daughter,” said he, smiling; “so, dear Herr Nathaniel, if you have any taste for talking with a silly girl, your visits shall be welcome.”

Nathaniel departed, with a whole heaven beaming in his bosom. The next day Spalanzani’s festival was the subject of conversation. Notwithstanding the professor had done every thing to appear splendid, the wags had all sorts of incongruities and oddities to talk about, and were particularly hard upon the dumb, stiff Olympia, to whom, in spite of her beautiful exterior, they ascribed absolute stupidity, and were pleased to find therein the cause why Spalanzani kept her so long concealed. Nathaniel did not hear this without increased rage; but, nevertheless, he held his peace, for, thought he, “Is it worth while to convince these fellows that it is their own stupidity that prevents them from recognising Olympia’s deep, noble mind?”

One day Sigismund said to him: “Be kind enough, brother, to tell me how it was possible for a sensible fellow like you to fall in love with that wax face, that wooden doll up there?”

Nathaniel was about to fly out in a passion, but he quickly recollected himself, and retorted: “Tell me, Sigismund, how it is that Olympia’s heavenly charms could escape your glance, which generally perceives every thing so clearly—your active senses? But, for that very reason, Heaven be thanked, I have not you for my rival; otherwise, one of us must have fallen a bleeding corpse!”

Sigismund plainly perceived his friend’s condition, so he skilfully gave the conversation a turn, and added, after observing that in love-affairs there was no disputing about the object: “Nevertheless it is strange, that many of us think much the same about Olympia. To us—pray do not take it ill, brother,—she appears singularly stiff and soulless. Her shape is symmetrical—so is her face—that is true! She might pass for beautiful, if her glance were not so utterly without a ray of life—without the power of seeing. Her pace is strangely measured, every movement seems to depend on some wound-up clockwork. Her playing—her singing has the unpleasantly correct and spiritless measure of a singing machine, and the same may be said of her dancing. To us, this Olympia has been quite unpleasant; we wished to have nothing to do with her; it seems as if she acts like a living being, and yet has some strange peculiarity of her own.” Nathaniel did not completely yield to the bitter feeling, which was coming over him at these words of Sigismund; he mastered his indignation, and merely said, with great earnestness, “Well may Olympia appear awful to you, cold prosaic man. Only to the poetical mind does the similarly organised develop itself. To me alone was her glance of love revealed, beaming through mind and thought; only in the love of Olympia do I find myself again. It may not suit you, that she does not indulge in idle chit-chat like other shallow minds. She utters few words, it is true, but these few words appear as genuine hieroglyphics of the inner world, full of love and deep knowledge of the spiritual life in contemplation of the eternal yonder. But you have no sense for all this, and my words are wasted on you.” “God preserve you, brother,” said Sigismund very mildly, almost sorrowfully; “but it seems to me, that you are in an evil way. You may depend upon me, if all—no, no, I will not say any thing further.” All of a sudden it seemed to Nathaniel as if the cold prosaic Sigismund meant very well towards him, and, therefore, he shook the proffered hand very heartily.

Nathaniel had totally forgotten, that there was in the world a Clara, whom he had once loved;—his mother—Lothaire—all had vanished from his memory; he lived only for Olympia, with whom he sat for hours every day, uttering strange fantastical stuff about his love, about the sympathy that glowed to life, about the affinity of souls, to all of which Olympia listened with great devotion. From the very bottom of his desk, he drew out all that he had ever written. Poems, fantasies, visions, romances, tales—this stock was daily increased with all sorts of extravagant sonnets, stanzas, and canzone, and he read all to Olympia for hours in succession without fatigue. Never had he known such an admirable listener. She neither embroidered nor knitted, she never looked out of window, she fed no favourite bird, she played neither with lap-dog nor pet cat, she did not twist a slip of paper nor any thing else in her hand, she was not obliged to suppress a yawn by a gentle forced cough. In short, she sat for hours, looking straight into her lover’s eyes, without stirring, and her glance became more and more lively and animated. Only when Nathaniel rose at last, and kissed her hand and also her lips, she said “Ah, ah!” adding “good night, dearest!” “Oh deep, noble mind!” cried Nathaniel in his own room, “by thee, by thee, dear one, am I fully comprehended.” He trembled with inward transport, when he considered the wonderful accordance that was revealed more and more every day in his own mind, and that of Olympia, for it seemed to him as if Olympia had spoken concerning him and his poetical talent out of the depths of his own mind;—as if the voice had actually sounded from within himself. That must indeed have been the case, for Olympia never uttered any words whatever beyond those which have been already mentioned. Even when Nathaniel, in clear and sober moments, as for instance, when he had just woke in the morning, remembered Olympia’s utter passivity, and her paucity and scarcity of words, he said: “Words, words! The glance of her heavenly eye speaks more than any language here below. Can a child of heaven adapt herself to the narrow circle which a miserable earthly necessity has drawn?” Professor Spalanzani appeared highly delighted at the intimacy of his daughter with Nathaniel. To the latter he gave the most unequivocal signs of approbation, and when Nathaniel ventured at last to hint at an union with Olympia, he smiled with his white face, and thought “he would leave his daughter a free choice in the matter.” Encouraged by these words, and with burning passion in his heart, Nathaniel resolved to implore Olympia on the very next day, that she would say directly, in plain words, that which her kind glance had told him long ago; namely, that she loved him. He sought the ring which his mother had given him at parting, that he might give it to Olympia as a symbol of his devotion, of his life which budded forth and bloomed with her alone. Clara’s letters and Lothaire’s came into his hands during the search; but he flung them aside indifferently, found the ring, put it up and hastened over to Olympia. Already on the steps, in the hall he heard a strange noise, which seemed to proceed from Spalanzani’s room. There was a stamping, a clattering, a pushing, a hurling against the door, intermingled with curses and imprecations. “Let go, let go, rascal!—scoundrel! Body and soul ventured in it? Ha, ha, ha! that I never will consent to—I, I made the eyes, I the clockwork—stupid blockhead with your clockwork—accursed dog of a bungling watch-maker—off with you—Satan—stop, pipe-maker—infernal beast—hold—begone—let go!” These words were uttered by the voices of Spalanzani, and the hideous Coppelius, who was thus raging and clamoring. Nathaniel rushed in, overcome by the most inexpressible anguish. The professor held a female figure fast by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola grasped it by the feet, and thus they were tugging and pulling, this way and that, contending for the possession of it, with the utmost fury. Nathaniel started back with horror, when in the figure he recognised Olympia. Boiling with the wildest indignation, he was about to rescue his beloved from these infuriated men, but at that moment, Coppola, turning himself with the force of a giant, wrenched the figure from the professor’s hand, and then with the figure itself gave him a tremendous blow, which made him reel and fall backwards over the table, where vials, retorts, bottles, and glass cylinders were standing. All these were dashed to a thousand shivers. Now Coppola flung the figure across his shoulders, and, with frightful, yelling laughter, dashed down the stairs, so that the feet of the figure, which dangled in the ugliest manner, rattled with a wooden sound on every step. Nathaniel stood paralysed; he had seen but too plainly that Olympia’s waxen, deadly pale countenance had no eyes, but black holes instead—she was, indeed, a lifeless doll. Spalanzani was writhing on the floor; the pieces of glass had cut his head, heart, and arms, and the blood was spirting up, as from so many fountains. But he soon collected all his strength. “After him—after him—why do you pause? Coppelius, Coppelius, has robbed me of my best automaton—a work of twenty years—body and soul set upon it—the clock-work—the speech—the walk, mine; the eyes stolen from you. The infernal rascal—after him; fetch Olympia—there you have the eyes!”

And now Nathaniel saw how a pair of eyes, which lay upon the ground, were staring at him; these Spalanzani caught up, with the unwounded hand, and flung against his heart. At this, madness seized him with its burning claws, and clutched into his soul, tearing to pieces all his thoughts and senses. “Ho—ho—ho—a circle of fire! of fire!—turn thyself round, circle! merrily, merrily, ho, thou wooden doll—turn thyself, pretty doll!” With these words he flew at the professor and pressed in his throat. He would have strangled him, had not the noise attracted many people, who rushed in, forced open Nathaniel’s grasp, and thus saved the professor, whose wounds were bound immediately. Sigismund, strong as he was, was not able to master the mad Nathaniel, who with frightful voice kept crying out: “Turn thyself, wooden doll!” and struck around him with clenched fists. At last the combined force of many succeeded in overcoming him, in flinging him to the ground, and binding him. His words were merged into a hideous roar, like that of a brute, and raging in this insane condition he was taken to the mad-house.

Before, gentle reader, I proceed to tell thee what more befel the unfortunate Nathaniel, I can tell thee, in case thou takest an interest in the skilful optician and automaton-maker, Spalanzani, that he was completely healed of his wounds. He was, however, obliged to leave the university, because Nathaniel’s story had created a sensation, and it was universally deemed an unpardonable imposition to smuggle wooden dolls instead of living persons into respectable tea-parties—for such Olympia had visited with success. The lawyers called it a most subtle deception, and the more culpable, inasmuch as he had planned it so artfully against the public, that not a single soul—a few cunning students excepted—had detected it, although all now wished to play the acute, and referred to various facts, which appeared to them suspicious. Nothing very clever was revealed in this way. For instance, could it strike any one as so very suspicious, that Olympia, according to the expression of an elegant tea-ite, had, contrary to all usage, sneezed oftener than she had yawned? “The former,” remarked this elegant person, “was the self-winding-up of the concealed clockwork, which had, moreover, creaked audibly”—and so on. The professor of poetry and eloquence took a pinch of snuff, clapped first the lid of his box, cleared his throat, and said, solemnly, “Ladies and gentlemen, do you not perceive how the whole affair lies? It is all an allegory—a continued metaphor—you understand me—Sapienti sat.” But many were not satisfied with this; the story of the automaton had struck deep root into their souls, and, in fact, an abominable mistrust against human figures in general, began to creep in. Many lovers, to be quite convinced that they were not enamoured of wooden dolls, would request their mistress to sing and dance a little out of time, to embroider and knit, and play with their lap-dogs, while listening to reading, &c.; and, above all, not to listen merely, but also sometimes to talk, in such a manner as presupposed actual thought and feeling. With many did the bond of love become firmer, and more chaining, while others, on the contrary, slipped gently out of the noose. “One cannot really answer for this,” said some. At tea-parties, yawning prevailed to an incredible extent, and there was no sneezing at all, that all suspicion might be avoided. Spalanzani, as already stated, was obliged to decamp, to escape the criminal prosecution for fraudulently introducing an automaton into human society. Coppola had vanished also.

Nathaniel awakened as from a heavy, frightful dream; he opened his eyes, and felt an indescribable sensation of pleasure streaming through him, with soft heavenly warmth. He was in bed in his own room, in his father’s house, Clara was stooping over him, and Lothaire and his mother were standing near. “At last, at last, oh beloved Nathaniel, hast thou recovered from thy serious illness—now thou art again mine!” So spoke Clara, from the very depth of her soul, and clasped Nathaniel in her arms. But with mingled sorrow and delight did the brightly glowing tears fall from his eyes, and he deeply groaned forth: “My own—my own Clara!” Sigismund, who had faithfully remained with his friend in the hour of trouble, now entered. Nathaniel stretched out his hand to him. “And thou, faithful brother, hast not deserted me?” Every trace of Nathaniel’s madness had vanished, and he soon gained strength amid the care of his mother, his beloved, and his friends. Good fortune also had visited the house, for an old penurious uncle, of whom nothing had been expected, had died, and had left the mother, besides considerable property, an estate in a pleasant spot near the town. Thither Nathaniel, with his Clara, whom he now thought of marrying, his mother, and Lothaire, desired to go. Nathaniel had now grown milder and more docile than he had ever been, and he now understood, for the first time, the heavenly purity and the greatness of Clara’s mind. No one, by the slightest hint, reminded him of the past. Only, when Sigismund took leave of him, Nathaniel said: “Heavens, brother, I was in an evil way, but a good angel led me betimes to the path of light! Ah, that was Clara!” Sigismund did not let him carry the discourse further for fear that deeply wounding recollections might burst forth bright and flaming. It was about this time that the four happy persons thought of going to the estate. They were crossing, at noon, the streets of the city, where they had made several purchases, and the high steeple of the town-house already cast its gigantic shadow over the market-place. “Oh,” said Clara, “let us ascend it once more, and look at the distant mountains!” No sooner said than done. Nathaniel and Clara both ascended the steps, the mother returned home with the servant, and Lothaire, not inclined to clamber up so many steps, chose to remain below. The two lovers stood arm in arm in the highest gallery of the tower, and looked down upon the misty forests, behind which the blue mountains were rising like a gigantic city.

“Look there at that curious little gray bush, which actually seems as if it were striding towards us,” said Clara. Nathaniel mechanically put his hand into his breast pocket—he found Coppola’s telescope, and he looked on one side. Clara was before the glass. There was a convulsive movement in his pulse and veins,—pale as death, he stared at Clara, but soon streams of fire flashed and glared from his rolling eyes, and he roared frightfully, like a hunted beast. Then he sprang high into the air, and, in the intervals of a horrible laughter, shrieked out, in a piercing tone, “Wooden doll—turn thyself!” Seizing Clara with immense force he wished to hurl her down, but with the energy of a desperate death-struggle she clutched the railings. Lothaire heard the raging of the madman—he heard Clara’s shriek of agony—fearful forebodings darted through his mind, he ran up, the door of the second flight was fastened, and the shrieks of Clara became louder and louder. Frantic with rage and anxiety, he dashed against the door, which, at last, burst open. Clara’s voice became fainter and fainter. “Help—help—save me!”—with these words the voice seemed to die in the air. “She is gone—murdered by the madman!” cried Lothaire. The door of the gallery was also closed, but despair gave him a giant’s strength, and he burst it from the hinges. Heavens—Clara, grasped by the mad Nathaniel, was hanging in the air over the gallery,—only with one hand she still held one of the iron railings. Quick as lightning Lothaire caught his sister, drew her in, and, at the same moment, struck the madman in the face with his clenched fist, so that he reeled and let go his prey.

Lothaire ran down with his fainting sister in his arms. She was saved. Nathaniel went raging about the gallery and bounded high in the air, crying, “Fire circle turn thyself—turn thyself!” The people collected at the sound of the wild shriek, and among them, prominent by his gigantic stature, was the advocate Coppelius, who had just come to the town, and was proceeding straight to the market-place. Some wished to ascend and secure the madman, but Coppelius laughed, saying, “Ha, ha,—only wait—he will soon come down of his own accord,” and looked up like the rest. Nathaniel suddenly stood still as if petrified; he stooped down, perceived Coppelius, and yelling out, “Ah, pretty eyes—pretty eyes!”—he sprang over the railing.

When Nathaniel lay on the stone pavement, with his head shattered, Coppelius had disappeared in the crowd.

Many years afterwards it is said that Clara was seen in a remote spot, sitting hand in hand with a kind-looking man before the door of a country house, while two lively boys played before her. From this it may be inferred that she at last found that quiet domestic happiness which suited her serene and cheerful mind, and which the morbid Nathaniel would never have given her.

J. O.

MICHAEL KOHLHAAS,[1]

BY HEINRICH VON KLEIST.

On the banks of the Hafel, about the middle of the sixteenth century, lived a horse-dealer, named Michael Kohlhaas. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and was one of the most honest, while at the same time he was one of the most terrible persons of his period. Till his thirtieth year this extraordinary man might have passed as a pattern of a good citizen. In a village, which still bears his name, he held a farm, on which, by means of his business, he was enabled to live quietly. The children whom his wife bore him, he brought up in the fear of God to honesty and industry; and there was not one among his neighbours who had not felt the benefit of his kindness or his sense of justice. In short, the world might have blessed his memory had he not carried one virtue to too great an extreme. The feeling of justice made him a robber and a murderer.

He was once riding abroad, with a string of young horses, all sleek and well-fed, and was calculating how he should expend the profit which he hoped to make in the markets—apportioning part, like a good manager, to gain further profit, and part to present enjoyment—when he came to the Elbe, and found, by a stately castle in the Saxon dominion, a toll-bar, which he had never seen on this road. He at once stopped with his horses, while the rain was pouring down, and called to the toll-taker, who soon, with a very cross face, peeped out of window. The horse-dealer asked him to open the road. “What new fashion is this?” said he, when, after a considerable time, the collector came out of his house. “A sovereign privilege,” was his reply, as he unlocked the bar, “granted to the Squire[2] Wenzel von Tronka.” “So,” said Kohlhaas, “Wenzel’s the squire’s name, is it?”—and he looked at the castle, which, with its glittering battlements, peered over the field. “Is the old master dead?” “Of an apoplexy,” answered the collector, as he lifted up the bar. “That’s a pity!” said Kohlhaas. “He was a worthy old gentleman, who took delight in the intercourse of men, and helped business when he could. Aye, once he had a dam built of stone, because a mare of mine broke her leg yonder, where the way leads to the village. Now, how much?” he asked, and with difficulty drew out from his mantle, which fluttered in the wind, the groschen required by the collector. “Aye, old man,” said he, as the other muttered, “make haste,” and cursed the weather.—“If the tree from which this bar was fashioned had remained in the wood, it would have been better for both of us.” Having paid the money, he would have pursued his journey, but scarcely had he passed the bar than he heard behind him a new voice calling from the tower:

“Ho, there, horse-dealer!” and saw the castellan shut the window, and hasten down to him. “Now, something else new!” said Kohlhaas to himself, stopping with his horses. The castellan, buttoning a waistcoat over his spacious stomach, came, and standing aslant against the rain, asked for his passport. “Passport!” cried Kohlhaas; adding, a little puzzled, that he had not one about him, to his knowledge; but that he should like to be told what sort of a thing it was as he might perchance be provided with one, notwithstanding. The castellan, eyeing him askance, remarked, that without a written permission no horse-dealer, with horses, would be allowed to pass the border. The horse-dealer asserted that he had crossed the border seventeen times in the course of his life without any such paper; that he knew perfectly all the seignorial privileges which belonged to his business; that this would only prove a mistake, and that he, therefore, hoped he might be allowed to think it over; and, as his journey was long, not be detained thus uselessly any further. The castellan answered that he would not escape the eighteenth time; that the regulation had but lately appeared, and that he must either take a passport here or return whence he had come. The horse-dealer, who began to be nettled at these illegal exactions, dismounted from his horse, after reflecting for a while, and said he would speak to the Squire von Tronka himself. He accordingly went up to the castle, followed by the castellan, who muttered something about stingy money-scrapers, and the utility of bleeding them, and both, measuring each other with their looks, entered the hall.

The squire, as it happened, was drinking with some boon companions, and they all burst out into a ceaseless fit of laughter at some jest, when Kohlhaas approached to state his grievance. The squire asked him what he wanted, while the knights, eyeing the stranger, remained still; yet hardly had he begun his request concerning the horses, than the whole company cried out—“Horses! where are they?” and ran to the window to see them. No sooner had they set eyes on the sleek lot than, on the motion of the squire, down they flew into the court-yard. The rain had ceased; castellan, bailiff and servants, were collected around, and all surveyed the animals. One praised the sorrel with the white spot on his forehead, another liked the chesnut, a third patted the dappled one with tawney spots, and agreed that the horses were like so many stags, and that none better could be reared in the country. Kohlhaas, in high spirits, replied that the horses were no better than the knights who should ride them, and asked them to make a purchase. The squire, who was greatly taken with the strong sorrel stallion, asked the price, while the bailiff pressed him to buy a pair of blacks which he thought might be usefully employed on the estate; but when the horse-dealer named his terms, the knights found them too high, and the squire said that he might ride to the round table and find King Arthur if he fixed such prices as these. Kohlhaas, who saw the castellan and the bailiff whisper together, as they cast most significant glances on the blacks, left nothing undone, actuated as he was by some dark foreboding, to make them take the horses.

“See sir,” he said to the squire, “I bought the blacks for five-and-twenty gold crowns, six months ago. Give me thirty and they are yours.”

Two of the knights, who stood near the squire, said plainly enough that the horses were well worth the money; but the squire thought that he might buy the sorrel, while he objected to take the blacks, and made preparations to depart, when Kohlhaas, saying that they would conclude a bargain the next time he went that way with his horses, bade farewell to the squire, and took his horse’s bridle to ride off. At this moment the castellan stepped forward from the rest, and said that he had told him he could not travel without a passport. Kohlhaas, turning round, asked the squire whether this really was the case, adding that it would prove the utter destruction of his business. The squire, somewhat confused, answered as he withdrew,

“Yes, Kohlhaas, you must have a pass; speak about it with the castellan, and go your way.” Kohlhaas assured him that he had no notion of evading such regulations as might be made respecting the conveyance of horses, promised, in his way through Dresden, to get a pass from the secretary’s office, and begged that he might, on this occasion, be allowed to go on, as he knew nothing of the requisition. “Well,” said the squire, while the storm broke out anew and rattled against his thin limbs, “Let the fellow go. Come,” said he to his knights, and moving round, he was proceeding to the castle. The castellan, however, turning to him said that Kohlhaas must at least leave some pledge that he would get the passport. The squire, upon this, remained standing at the castle-gate, while Kohlhaas asked what security in money or in kind he should leave on account of the black horses. The bailiff mumbled out that he thought the horses themselves might as well be left. “Certainly,” said the castellan, “That is the best plan. When he has got the pass he can take them away at any time.”

Kohlhaas, astounded at so impudent a proposition, told the squire, who was shivering and holding his waistcoat tight to his body, that he should like to sell him the blacks; but the latter, as a gust of wind drove a world of rain through the gate, cried out, to cut the matter short, “If he won’t leave his horses pitch him over the bar back again!” and so saying, left the spot. The horse-dealer, who saw that he must give way to force, resolved, as he could not do otherwise, to comply with the request, so he unfastened the blacks, and conducted them to a stable which the castellan showed him, left a servant behind, gave him money, told him to take care of the blacks till his return, and doubting whether, on account of the advances made in breeding, there might not be such a law in Saxony, he continued his journey with the rest of his horses to Leipzig, where he wished to attend the fair.

As soon as he reached Dresden, where, in one of the suburbs he had a house with stables, being in the habit of carrying on his trade from thence with the lesser markets of the country, he went to the secretary’s office, and there learned from the councillors, some of whom he knew, what he had expected at first—namely, that the story about the passport was a mere fable. The displeased councillors having, at the request of Kohlhaas, given him a certificate as to the nullity of the requisition, he laughed at the thin squire’s jest, though he did not exactly see the purport of it; and, having in a few weeks sold his horses to his satisfaction, he returned to the Tronkenburg without any bitter feeling beyond that at the general troubles of the world. The castellan, to whom he showed the certificate, gave no sort of explanation, but merely said, in answer to the question of the horse-dealer, whether he might have the horses back again, that he might go and fetch them. Already, as he crossed the court-yard, Kohlhaas heard the unpleasant news that his servant, on account of improper conduct, as they said, had been beaten and sent off a few days after he had been left at the Tronkenburg. He asked the young man who gave him this intelligence, what the servant had done, and who had attended the horses in the meanwhile. He replied that he did not know, and opened the stall in which they were kept to the horse-dealer, whose heart already swelled with dark misgivings. How great was his astonishment when, instead of his sleek, well-fed blacks, he saw a couple of skinny, jaded creatures, with bones on which things might have been hung, as on hooks, and manes entangled from want of care; in a word, a true picture of animal misery. Kohlhaas, to whom the horses neighed with a slight movement, was indignant in the highest degree, and asked what had befallen the creatures? The servant answered, that no particular misfortune had befallen them, but that, as there had been a want of draught-cattle, they had been used a little in the fields. Kohlhaas cursed this shameful and preconcerted act of arbitrary power; but, feeling his own weakness, suppressed his rage, and, as there was nothing else to be done, prepared to leave the robber’s nest with his horses, when the castellan, attracted by the conversation, made his appearance, and asked what was the matter.

“Matter!” said Kohlhaas, “who allowed Squire Von Tronka and his people to work in the fields the horses that I left?” He asked if this was humanity, tried to rouse the exhausted beasts by a stroke with a switch, and showed him that they could not move. The castellan, after he had looked at him for awhile, insolently enough said, “Now, there’s an ill-mannered clown! Why does not the fellow thank his God that his beasts are still living?” He asked whose business it was to take care of them when the boy had run away, and whether it was not fair that the horses should earn in the fields the food that was given them, and concluded by telling him to cease jabbering, or he would call out the dogs, and get some quiet that way at any rate.

The horse-dealer’s heart beat strongly against his waistcoat, he felt strongly inclined to fling the good-for-nothing mass of fat into the mud, and set his foot on his brazen countenance. Yet his feeling of right, which was accurate as a gold balance, still wavered; before the tribunal of his own heart, he was still uncertain whether his adversary was in the wrong; and, while pocketing the affronts, he went to his horses and smoothed down their manes. Silently weighing the circumstances, he asked, in a subdued voice, on what account the servant had been sent away from the castle. The castellan answered that it was because the rascal had been impudent. He had resisted a necessary change of stables, and had desired that the horses of two young noblemen, who had come to Tronkenburg, should remain out all night in the high road. Kohlhaas would have given the value of the horses to have had the servant by him, and to have compared his statement with that of the thick-lipped castellan. He stood awhile and smoothed the tangles out of the manes, bethinking himself what was to be done in his situation, when suddenly the scene changed, and the Squire Von Tronka, with a host of knights, servants, and dogs, returning from a hare-hunt galloped into the castle-court. The castellan, when the squire asked what had happened, took care to speak first; and, while the dogs at the sight of the stranger were barking at him on one side, with the utmost fury, and the knights on the other side were trying to silence them, he set forth, distorting the matter as much as possible, the disturbance that the horse-dealer had created, because his horses had been used a little. Laughing scornfully, he added that he had refused to acknowledge them as his own. “They are not my horses, your worship!” cried Kohlhaas; “these are not the horses that were worth thirty golden crowns! I will have my sound and well-fed horses.” The squire, whose face became pale for a moment, alighted and said, “If the rascal will not take his horses, why let him leave them. Come Gunther, come Hans,” cried he, as he brushed the dust from his breeches with his hand. “And, ho! wine there!” he called, as he crossed the threshold with the knights and entered his dwelling. Kohlhaas said that he would rather send for the knacker and have the horses knocked on the head, than he would take them in such a condition to his stable at Kohlhaasenbrück. He left them standing where they were, without troubling himself further about them, and vowing that he would have justice, flung himself on his brown horse, and rode off.

He was just setting off full speed for Dresden, when, at the thought of the servant, and at the complaint that had been made against him at the castle, he began to walk slowly, turned his horse’s head before he had gone a thousand paces, and took the road to Kohlhaasenbrück, that, in accordance with his notions of prudence and justice, he might first hear the servant’s account of the matter. For a correct feeling, well inured to the defective ways of the world, inclined him, in spite of the affronts he had received, to pass over the loss of his horses, as an equitable result; if, indeed, as the castellan had maintained, it could be proved that his servant was in the wrong. On the other hand, a feeling equally honourable, which gained ground as he rode further, and heard, wherever he stopped, of the wrongs that travellers had to endure every day at the Tronkenburg, told him, that if the whole affair was a concerted scheme—as, indeed, it seemed to be—it was his duty to use every effort to obtain satisfaction for the affronts he had endured, and to secure his fellow-citizens for the future.

As soon as, on his arrival at Kohlhaasenbrück, he had embraced his good wife Lisbeth, and kissed his children, who sported about his knees, he inquired after his head servant, Herse, and whether any thing had been heard of him.

“Yes, dearest Michael,” said Lisbeth, “and only think—that unfortunate Herse came here about a fortnight ago, beaten most barbarously—aye, so beaten, that he could scarcely breathe. We took him to bed, when he spat a good deal of blood, and, in answer to our repeated questions, told a story which none of us could understand;—how he was left behind by you at the Tronkenburg with the horses, which were not allowed to pass, how he was forced, by the most shameful ill-usage, to leave the castle, and how he was unable to bring the horses with him.”

“Indeed!” said Kohlhaas, putting off his mantle, “is he recovered now?”

“Tolerably,” she answered, “with the exception of the spitting of blood. I wished immediately to send a servant to the Tronkenburg, to take care of the horses till you went there, for Herse has always been so honest, indeed so much more faithful to us than any one else, that I never thought of doubting a statement supported by so many evident signs of truth, or of believing that he had lost the horses in any other way. Yet he entreated me not to counsel any one to show himself in that robber’s nest, and to give up the horses, if I would not sacrifice a human being.”

“Is he still in bed?” asked Kohlhaas, loosening his neckcloth.

“For the last few days he has gone about in the court,” she answered—“in short, you will see that all is true enough, and that this affair is one of the atrocities which the people at the Tronkenburg have lately perpetrated against strangers.”

“That I must look into,” said Kohlhaas. “Call him here, Lisbeth, if he is up.” With these words he sat himself down, while the housewife, who was pleased to see him so forbearing, went and fetched the servant.

“What have you been doing at the Tronkenburg?” asked Kohlhaas, as Lisbeth entered the room with him. “I am not well pleased with you.” The servant, in whose pale face a spot of red appeared at these words, was silent for a while, and then said—

“You are right, master, for I flung into the Elbe a match, which, by God’s providence, I had with me, to set on fire the robber’s nest, from which I was driven, as I heard a child crying within, and thought to myself—‘God’s lightning may consume it, but I will not.’”

“But what did you do to be sent away from the Tronkenburg?” said Kohlhaas, much struck.

“It was on account of a bad piece of business,” said Herse, wiping the perspiration from his forehead; “but no matter, ‘what can’t be cured must be endured.’ I would not allow the horses to be ruined by field work, and told them they were still young, and had never been used for drawing.”

Kohlhaas, endeavouring to conceal the perturbation of his mind, observed, that Herse had not quite told the truth in this instance, as the horses had been in harness a little during the preceding spring. “As you were a kind of guest at the castle, you might have obliged them once or twice, when they were forced to get in their harvest as quickly as they could.”

“So I did, master,” replied Herse, “I thought, as they began to make wry faces, that it would not cost us the horses, at all events. On the third morning I put them too, and brought in three loads of corn.”

Kohlhaas, whose heart swelled, fixed his eyes on the ground, and said, “They told me nothing of that, Herse.”

The man, however, assured him that it was so. “My incivility,” he said, “consisted in this: that I would not allow the horses to be yoked again, when they had scarcely taken their feed at noon, and that when the castellan and the bailiff told me to take fodder gratis, and to pocket the money which had been given me, I gave them a short answer, turned on my heel, and walked off.”

“But,” said Kohlhaas, “it was not for this incivility that you were sent away from the Tronkenburg.”

“God forbid!” said the man, “it was on account of a rascally piece of injustice. For in the evening, the horses of two knights, who had come to the Tronkenburg, were put in the stable, and mine were tied to the stable-door. And when I took the horses out of the hand of the castellan, and asked him where they were to be kept, he showed me a pigsty, built with boards and laths against the castle wall.”

“You mean,” interrupted Kohlhaas, “that it was such a bad place for horses, that it was more like a pigsty than a stable.”

“I mean a pigsty, master,” said Herse, “really and truly a pigsty, where the pigs ran in and out, and in which I could not stand upright.”

“Perhaps there was no other place for the horses,” observed Kohlhaas, “and those of the knights had, in some measure, the preference.”

“The place,” answered the servant, dropping his voice, “was indeed narrow. Seven knights in all were stopping at the castle; but if it had been you—you would have put the horses a little closer together. I said that I would try to hire a stable in the village, but the castellan objected that he must have the horses under his own eye, and that I must not venture to move them from the yard.”

“Hem!” said Kohlhaas, “what did you do then?”

“Why, as the bailiff told me that the two guests would only stop over the night, and would leave the next morning, I led the horses into the sty. But the next day passed, and nothing of the kind took place; and when the third came, I heard the visitors would remain at the castle for some weeks.”

“Then, in the end,” said Kohlhaas, “it was not so bad in the pigsty, as it seemed, when first you looked into it.”

“True,” replied Herse, “when I had swept the place a bit, it was passable. Then I gave the girl a groschen to put the pigs somewhere else, and during the day, at least, I managed to let the horses stand upright, for I took off the boards at the top, when the morning dawned, and put them on again in the evening. They peeped out of the roof like so many geese, and looked after Kohlhaasenbrück, or some place at any rate, where they would be better off.”

“But now,” said Kohlhaas, “why in the world did they send you away?”

“Because, master,” replied the man, “they wanted to get rid of me; because, as long as I was there, they could not ruin the horses. In the yard, and in the servants’ room, they always made queer faces at me, and because I thought ‘you may twist your mouths out of joint, if you like,’ they managed to find a pretext, and turned me out of the yard.”

“But the reason,” said Kohlhaas, “they must have had some reason.”

“Oh, certainly,” replied Herse, “and a very good one too. On the evening of the second day which I had passed in the sty, I took the horses, which had become dirty, and was going to ride them out to water. When I was just at the gate, and was about to turn, I heard the castellan and the bailiff, with servants, dogs, and sticks, rush upon me from the servants’ room, and shout out ‘Stop the thief, stop the hangdog!’ as if they were all possessed. The gate-keeper intercepted my passage, and when I asked him and the uproarious mob what was the matter, the castellan, seizing the bridle of the two horses, cried, ‘Matter, indeed! Where are you going with the horses?’ and so saying, seized me by the collar. Why, where should I be going?’ said I, ‘I am going to water the horses.’ ‘Oh, to water!’ cried the castellan, ‘I’ll water you! I’ll teach you to swim on the high road all the way to Kohlhaasenbrück.’ Upon this, he and the bailiff, who had laid hold of my leg, flung me treacherously from the horse, so that I lay full length in the mud. ‘Murder!’ shouted I, ‘There are the harness, and the horse-cloths, and a bundle of linen belonging to me in the stable.’ But the castellan and the servants, while the bailiff led off the horses, belaboured me with whips, and cudgels, and kicks, till I fell down, half dead, at the gate. And when I said, ‘Where are the thievish rogues taking the horses?’ and got up, ‘Out of the castle-yard!’ cried the castellan. ‘Ho, there, Cæsar!—Ho, Touzer!—Ho, Pincher!’ and straight more than a dozen dogs flew at me. At this I broke a stick or something from the fence, and lay three of the dogs dead at my feet; but when, tortured by their fangs, I was forced to give way, ‘Phew!’ went a pipe—the dogs were in the yard—bang went the gate—the bolt was drawn, and down in the road I fell, quite exhausted.”

Kohlhaas, though his face was white, affected a jocose style, and said, “Now, did not you wish to abscond, Herse?” and when the man, colouring, looked on the ground, he added, “Now confess, you did not like the pigsty, you thought the stable in Kohlhaasenbrück much better—did you not?” “Thunder of Heaven!” exclaimed Herse, “I left the harness and horse-cloths, and the bundle of linen in the sty. Should I not have secured the three crowns which I left in the red silk neckerchief, hid behind the manger? Death and the devil!—When you talk so, you make me wish to light that match again which I threw away;” “Nay, nay,” said Kohlhaas, “I did not mean so ill with you, I believe every word you have spoken, and if there is any talk about it, I will take the sacrament upon it; I am only sorry that you fared no better in my service. Go to bed, Herse; go to bed. Take a flask of wine and comfort yourself—you shall have justice.” He then rose, asked for a list of the things which the man had left in the sty, specified their value; asked him the expenses of curing his hurt, and, after shaking hands with him, let him go.

He then told his wife, Lisbeth, the whole particulars of the affair; said that he was resolved to claim public justice, and was pleased to see that in this design she fully agreed with him. For she said that many other travellers, probably less forbearing than he, would go by that castle, that it would be a pious work to stop disorders like these, and that she would soon collect enough for the expenses of the suit. Kohlhaas called her a dear woman, passed this and the following day with her and his children, and, as soon as business allowed, went to Dresden to make his complaint before the tribunal.

Then with the help of a lawyer of his acquaintance he drew up a petition, in which, after a circumstantial statement of the wrong which the Squire Wenzel von Tronka had done both to him, and his servant Herse, he claimed that he should be punished according to law, that his horses should be restored to their former condition, and that compensation should be awarded for the wrong which he and his servant had suffered. The case was clear enough, the fact that the horses had been illegally detained threw a light on all the rest, and even if it were assumed that they had been injured merely by chance, the claim of their owner to have them back in a healthy condition, was nevertheless just. Besides Kohlhaas had plenty of good friends at Dresden, who promised heartily to support his cause, his extensive trade in horses had gained him a numerous acquaintance, and the honesty of his dealings had acquired him the good will of the most important men in the country. He frequently dined with his advocate, who was himself a man of consequence, gave him a sum to defray the law expenses, and being fully satisfied by him as to the issue of the suit, returned, after a few weeks to his wife at Kohlhaasenbrück. However months passed on, and the year was nearly at an end, and he had not yet got from Saxony even a statement concerning his suit, much less the decision itself. After he had applied to the tribunal several times anew he asked his legal assistant in a confidential letter, what could be the cause of this monstrous delay, and learned that his suit had been entirely set aside in consequence of a high application to the supreme court at Dresden. In answer to another letter from the horse-dealer, couched in terms of high dissatisfaction, and asking a reason for all this, the jurist replied, that the Squire Wenzel von Tronka was related to two young gentlemen, Herrn Henry and Conrad von Tronka, one of whom was attached to the lord cup-bearer, while the other was chamberlain. He advised him, without proceeding further in the suit, to try to get his horses back from the Tronkenburg, gave him to understand that the squire, who was now in the capital, had ordered his people to return them, and finally entreated him, if he would not be satisfied, at any-rate not to give him (the writer) any further commissions relative to the matter.

At this time, Kohlhaas happened to be in Brandenburg, where the town-governor (Stadt-hauptmann) Heinrich von Geusau, to whose jurisdiction Kohlhaasenbrück belonged, was occupied in founding several charitable institutions for the poor and sick, a considerable sum, which had come into the possession of the city, being appropriated for that purpose. Above all he was endeavouring to convert a mineral spring, the source of which was in a neighbouring village, and concerning the virtues of which higher expectations were raised than were fulfilled by the parties, to the use of invalids, and as Kohlhaas, in consequence of many transactions he had had with him, during his sojourn at the court, was well known to him, he allowed the servant Herse, who had not been able to breathe without a pain in the chest since the unlucky day at Tronkenburg, to try the little spring, which was now enclosed and roofed over. Now it chanced that the governor was standing by the bath, in which Herse was laid by Kohlhaas, to make certain arrangements, when the horse-dealer received by a messenger, sent by his wife, the disheartening letter from his advocate at Dresden. The governor, who while he was talking with the physician, saw Kohlhaas drop a tear on the letter he had just received and opened, went up to him in a kind manner, and asked him what misfortune had happened; and when the horse-dealer, instead of answering, put the letter in his hand, this worthy man, to whom the abominable wrong, which had been done at the Tronkenburg, and in consequence of which Herse lay ill before him, perhaps for life, was well known, slapped him on the shoulder, and bid him not to be disheartened, as he would aid him to obtain justice. In the evening, when the horse-dealer, in compliance with his instructions, called upon him at his castle, he told him that he need only draw up a petition to the Elector of Brandenburg, with a short statement of facts, attach to it the advocate’s letter, and claim seignorial protection on account of the violence he had suffered in the Saxon territory. He promised to enclose the petition in a packet, which lay ready at hand, and thus to put it into the hands of the elector, who would certainly, on his own account, apply to the Elector of Saxony, as soon as circumstances permitted. Such a step was all that was wanted to obtain justice from the tribunal at Dresden, in spite of the tricks of Squire von Tronka and his adherents. Kohlhaas, highly delighted, thanked the governor most heartily, for this new proof of kindness, told him he was only sorry that he had not at once commenced proceedings at Berlin, without taking any steps at Dresden, and after he had duly prepared the petition in the secretary’s office, and had handed it over to the governor, he returned to Kohlhaasenbrück better satisfied than ever as to the prospects of the affair. In a few weeks, however, he had the mortification of learning, through a judge, who was going to Potsdam, about some affairs of the governor, that the elector had handed over the petition to his chancellor, Count Kallheim, and that the latter, instead of going immediately to the court at Dresden to examine the matter and inflict punishment, as seemed to be his duty, had first applied for information to Squire von Tronka himself. The judge,[3] who stopped in his carriage before Kohlhaas’s door, and who seemed to have been expressly commissioned to make this communication, could give no satisfactory answer to the question of his surprise: “But why did they act in this way?” he merely said, that the governor had sent word, begging him to be patient, appeared anxious to pursue his journey, and it was not till the end of a short conversation, that Kohlhaas learned by a few stray words, that Count Kallheim was related by marriage to the von Tronka’s. Kohlhaas, who no longer took any delight in attending his horses, or in his house and farm—scarcely in his wife and children—waited the arrival of the following month with the gloomiest misgivings, and it was quite in accordance with his expectations, that when the interval was passed, Herse, who had been in some measure relieved by the bath, returned from Brandenburg with a letter from the governor, accompanying a paper of larger dimensions. The letter was to the effect that the writer was sorry he could do nothing for him, but that he sent him a decree of the chancery, and advised him to take away the horses, which he had left at Tronkenburg, and let the whole matter drop. According to the decree, “he was a vexatious litigant, on the information of the tribunal at Dresden; the squire with whom he had left the horses did nothing to detain them; he might send to the castle and fetch them, or at any rate let the squire know where he was to send them, and at all events he was to abstain from troubling the court with such wranglings.” Kohlhaas, to whom the horses were not the chief object—had it been a couple of dogs he would have been equally mortified—literally foamed with rage when he had received this letter. Whenever there was a noise in his farm, he looked with the sickening sensation which had even stirred his heart towards the gate, expecting to see the squire’s servants, with his horses starved and worn out; this was the only case in which his mind, otherwise well-trained by the world, could find nothing that exactly corresponded with his feelings. Shortly afterwards he learned by means of an acquaintance, who had travelled that way, that the horses were still used with the squire’s at Tronkenburg for field labour, and in the midst of his pain at seeing the world in such a state of disorder, there arose a feeling of inner contentment as he found there was at least something like order in his own heart. He invited the proprietor[4] of the neighbouring lands, who had long entertained the notion of increasing his possessions by purchasing the pieces of ground adjoining, and asked him, when he had taken a seat, what he would give him for his estates in Brandenburg and Saxony, taking house and farm all in the lump, with or without fixtures. His wife Lisbeth turned pale as she heard these words. Turning round she took up the youngest child, who was sporting on the floor behind her, and darted at the horse-dealer, and a paper which he held in his hand, glances, in which doubt was depicted, and which passed across the red cheeks of the boy, who was playing with the ribbons on her neck. The farmer, who observed his confused manner, asked him what had put so strange a thought all at once into his head. Kohlhaas, with as much cheerfulness as he could assume, replied that the notion of selling his farm on the banks of the Havel was not quite new, that they had both often discussed this matter already, that his house in the suburbs of Dresden was comparatively a mere appendage, not to be considered, and finally that if he would comply with his offer and take both estates, he was quite ready to conclude the contract. He added, with a kind of forced levity, that Kohlhaasenbrück was not the world; that there might be purposes, in comparison with which that of presiding over one’s household, like an orderly father, was trivial and subordinate, and that in short his mind, as he was bound to say, was set upon great matters, of which perhaps the farmer would soon hear. The farmer satisfied with this explanation, said merrily to the wife, who kissed her child again and again: “He won’t want immediate payment, will he?” and then laying upon the table the hat and stick he had hitherto carried between his knees, he took the paper which Kohlhaas had in his hand to read it. Kohlhaas moving closer to him, explained that this was a conditional contract which he had drawn up, and which would become absolute in four weeks; showed that nothing was required but the signatures and the filling in of the two sums, namely, the purchase-money and the price of redemption, in case he should return within the four weeks, and again asked him in a cheerful tone to make an offer, assuring him that he would be reasonable, and would not hesitate about trifles. The wife walked up and down in the room, her heart palpitating to such a degree that her handkerchief, at which the child was pulling, seemed ready to fall from her shoulders. The farmer said that he had no means of estimating the value of the Dresden property, whereupon Kohlhaas, pushing to him the documents that had been exchanged when he had purchased it, replied that he valued it at one hundred gold crowns, although it appeared clearly enough from the documents themselves, that it cost him almost half as much again. The farmer, who read the contract over once more, and found that on his side also the liberty of retracting was specially provided, said, already half determined, that he could not make use of the stud that was in the stables; but when Kohlhaas replied that he did not wish to part with the horses, and that he also wished to keep some weapons that hung in the gun-room, he hemmed and hesitated for a while, and at last repeated an offer which, half in jest, half in earnest, he had made in the course of a walk, and which was as nothing compared to the value of the property. Kohlhaas pushed pen and ink towards him that he might write, and when the farmer, who could not trust his senses, asked the horse-dealer if he was really serious, and the horse-dealer somewhat sharply asked the farmer if he thought he could be in jest, the latter, with a somewhat scrupulous countenance, took up the pen and wrote. He struck out the part relating to the sum to be paid, in case the vendor should repent his bargain, bound himself to a loan of one hundred crowns on the security of the Dresden property, which he would on no account consent to purchase, and left Kohlhaas full liberty to recede from his contract within two months. The horse-dealer, touched by this handsome conduct, shook the farmer’s hand very heartily, and after they had agreed on the chief condition, which was that a fourth of the purchase-money should be paid in cash down, and the rest at the Hamburg bank three months afterwards, he called for wine, that they might make merry over a bargain so happily concluded. He told the servant-maid, who entered with bottles, that his man Sternbald was to saddle the chesnut horse, saying that he must ride to the city, where he had business to transact, and hinting that when he returned he would speak more openly about that which he must now keep secret. Then filling the glasses he asked about the Poles and the Turks, who were then at war with each other, entangled the farmer into all sorts of political conjectures on the subject, and finally took a parting glass to the success of their bargain, and dismissed him.

No sooner had the farmer left the room, than Lisbeth fell on her knees before her husband. “If,” she cried, “you still retain any feeling for me, and for the children which I bore you; if we are not already cast off—for what cause I know not—tell me what is the meaning of these frightful preparations?”

“Nothing, dearest wife, that can trouble you, as matters stand,” answered Kohlhaas. “I have received a decree, in which I am told that my proceeding against Squire von Tronka is mere vexatious wrangling; and because there must be some misunderstanding in this matter, I have determined to commence my suit once more, personally, with the sovereign of the country himself.”

“But why sell your house?” she exclaimed, as she rose from the ground in confusion.

The horse-dealer, gently embracing her, replied: “Because, dearest Lisbeth, I will not abide in a country in which my rights are not protected. If I am to be trampled under foot, I would rather be a dog than a man. I am certain that, on this point, my wife thinks with me.”

“But how do you know,” she asked, wildly, “that they will not protect you in your rights? If you approach our sovereign as modestly as you ought, with your petition, how do you know that it will be cast aside, or answered with a refusal to hear you?”

“Well then,” answered Kohlhaas, “if my fear turns out to be groundless, my house, at any rate, is yet unsold. Our sovereign himself, I know, is just; and if I can succeed in approaching his person, through the people who surround him, I have no doubt I can obtain my rights, and before the week has passed, can return gladly to you and my old business back again. May I then,” he added, as he kissed her, “remain with you till the end of my life! However,” he continued, “it is advisable that I should be prepared for every event, and hence I wish you to leave this place for a time, if possible, and to go, with your children, to your aunt at Schwerin, whom you have been long anxious to visit?”

“How,” cried the wife. “I go to Schwerin?—I cross the border with my children, to go to my aunt at Schwerin?” And her voice was stifled with horror.

“Certainly,” replied Kohlhaas, “and, if possible, immediately, that I may not be impeded in the steps I am about to take in this matter.”

“Oh, I understand you,” she exclaimed. “You want nothing but weapons and horses; the rest any one may take who will.” And so saying, she threw herself down upon a seat and wept.

Kohlhaas, much perplexed, said: “Dearest Lisbeth, what are you doing? God has blessed me with wife, children, and property; shall I wish, for the first time, that it was otherwise?” And he sat down by her in a kindly mood, while she, at these words, fell blushing on his neck. “Tell me,” he said, moving the curls from her forehead, “what I am to do? Shall I give up my cause? Shall I go to Tronkenburg, and ask the knight for my horses, mount them, and then ride home to you?”

Lisbeth did not venture to answer “Yes;” she shook her head, weeping, clasped him fervently, and covered his breast with burning kisses.

“Good!” cried Kohlhaas. “Then, if you feel that I must have justice, if I am to carry on my business, grant me the liberty which is necessary to attain it.” Upon this he rose up, and said to the servant, who told him that his chestnut horse was saddled, that the horses must be put in harness the following day, to take his wife to Schwerin. Suddenly Lisbeth saying that a thought had struck her, raised herself, wiped the tears from her eyes, and asked him, as he sat down at a desk, whether he could not give her the petition, and let her go to Dresden instead of him, to present it to the sovereign.

Kohlhaas, struck by this sudden turn, for more reasons than one, drew her to him, and said: “Dearest wife, that is impossible! The sovereign is surrounded by many obstacles, and to many annoyances is the person exposed who ventures to approach him.”

Lisbeth replied that the approach would be a thousand times easier for a woman than for a man. “Give me the petition,” she repeated; “and if you wish nothing more than to know that it is in his hands, I will vouch for it.”

Kohlhaas, who had frequently known instances of her courage as well as of her prudence, asked her how she intended to set about it. Upon which she told him, hanging down her head abashed, that the castellan of the electoral castle had formerly courted her, when she served at Schwerin; that it was true he was now married, and had many children, but that she might still not be quite forgotten—in short, she asked him leave to take advantage of this and other circumstances, which it would be superfluous to name. Kohlhaas kissed her right joyously, told her that he accepted her proposition, and that nothing more was wanted than for her to stay with the castellan’s wife, to secure an interview with the sovereign, gave her the petition, had the brown horses harnessed, and sent her off, safely stowed under the care of his faithful servant, Sternbald.

Of all the unsuccessful steps which he had taken in the affair this journey proved the most unlucky. For, in a few days, Sternbald returned to the farm, leading slowly along the vehicle in which Lisbeth lay stretched, with a dangerous bruise on her breast. Kohlhaas, who approached it pale and terrified, could learn nothing connected as to the cause of this calamity. The castellan, according to the servant’s account, had not been at home, they had, therefore, been obliged to put up at an inn in the vicinity of the castle; this inn Lisbeth had left on the following morning, and had told the man to remain with the horses; it was not till the evening that she returned, in the condition in which she was seen. It appeared that she had pressed forward too boldly towards the sovereign, and that, without any fault on his part, she had received a blow on the breast, from the shaft of a lance, through the rude zeal of one of the guards who surrounded him. At least so said the people who, in the evening, brought her to the inn in a state of insensibility, for she herself could speak but little, being prevented by the blood that flowed from her mouth. The petition was afterwards taken from her by a knight. Sternbald said that he had wished immediately to set out on horseback and inform his master of the misfortune that had happened, but that, in spite of all the representations of the surgeon who had been called, she had insisted on being conveyed to her husband at Kohlhaasenbrück. The journey had quite exhausted her, and Kohlhaas put her in a bed, where she laid some days striving with difficulty to draw her breath. Vain were all endeavours to restore her to consciousness, that she might throw some light on the events; she lay with her eyes fixed, and already glazed, and returned no answer. Only once, just before her death did she recover her senses. For, as a minister of the Lutheran religion (to which newly springing faith she had attached herself, through the example of her husband) was standing at her bed-side, and with a loud and solemn voice was reading to her a chapter out of the bible, she looked at him suddenly, with a dark expression, took the bible out of his hand, as if there were nothing in it to be read to her, turned the leaves over and over, as if she were looking for something, and at last pointed out to Kohlhaas, who sat by the bed, the verse: “Forgive thine enemies—do good unto them that hate thee!” She then pressed his hand, with a most significant glance, and expired. “May God never forgive me as I forgive the squire,” thought Kohlhaas—and he kissed her, while his tears were flowing fast, closed her eyes and rushed out of the room. The hundred golden crowns, which the farmer had already advanced him on the Dresden stables he took, and bespoke a funeral which seemed less fitted for Lisbeth than for a princess. The coffin was of oak, strongly cased with metal, the cushions were of silk with gold and silver tassels, and the grave, which was eight ells deep, was lined with stones and lime. He himself, with his youngest child in his arms, stood by the grave, and watched the progress of the work. When the day of burial came the corpse was laid out, as white as snow, in a room, which he had lined with black cloth. The minister had just finished a touching discourse by the bier, when the sovereign’s decree in answer to the petition, which the deceased had presented, was put in the hands of Kohlhaas. The purport was, that he should fetch the horses from the Tronkenburg, and make no further applications in this matter under pain of imprisonment. Kohlhaas put up the letter, and ordered the coffin to be placed on the bier. As soon as the mound was raised, the cross was set upon it, and the guests, who had assisted at the funeral had been dismissed, he threw himself down once more before his wife’s deserted bed, and then commenced the work of revenge. Taking a seat, he drew up a decree, in which, by virtue of his innate power, he condemned the Squire Wenzel von Tronka, within three days after the sight thereof, to bring back to Kohlhaasenbrück the horses which he had taken, and which he had spoiled by field-work, and to feed them in person in his stables until they were restored to their good condition. This paper he conveyed by a messenger on horseback, whom he instructed to return to Kohlhaasenbrück immediately after he had delivered it. The three days having passed and no horses having been delivered, he called Herse to him, informed him of the notice he had given to the squire concerning the feeding, and asked him which of two things he would do: whether he would go with him to the Tronkenburg and fetch the squire, or whether, when he was brought him, he would hold the whip over him, in case he should prove lazy in obeying the decree in the Kohlhaasenbrück stables. Herse shouted out, “Let us begin to-day, master,” and flinging his cap into the air swore that he would have a thong twisted into ten knots to teach the art of currying. Kohlhaas sold his house, sent his children in a vehicle over the border, called, in addition to Herse, the rest of his servants, seven in number, and all as true as steel, at the approach of night, armed them, mounted them, and set off for the Tronkenburg.

The third night was advancing, when with his little band, riding over the toll-taker and the gate-keeper, who stood conversing by the gate, he fell upon the Tronkenburg. While, amid the crackling of the outbuildings, which the men set on fire, Herse flew up the winding staircase to the castellan’s tower, and cut and thrust at the castellan and the bailiff, who were at play, half undressed. Kohlhaas rushed into the castle to find Squire Wenzel. So does the angel of judgment descend from Heaven, and the squire, who, amid peals of laughter, was reading to a party of young friends, the decree, which the horse-dealer had sent him, no sooner heard his voice in the yard, than he cried to the rest, pale as death, “Save yourselves, brothers!” and vanished immediately. Kohlhaas, who, on entering the hall, seized by the breast and flung into the corner, one Squire Hans von Tronka, who was advancing towards him, so that his brains were scattered on the stones, asked, while his servants overpowered and dispersed the other knights, who had taken up their weapons: “Where is Squire von Tronka?” And when, as the astounded knights professed their ignorance, he had, with a blow of his foot, burst open the doors of two rooms, which led into the wings of the castle, and after searching the spacious building in all directions, still found nobody, he went, cursing down into the yard, that he might guard every egress. In the meanwhile, ignited by the flames of the outbuildings, the castle itself, with all its wings, took fire, and threw volumes of black smoke to the skies, and while Sternbald, with three active fellows, dragged together all they could lay hold of, and flung it upon their horses as lawful prize, the dead bodies of the castellan and the bailiff, with their wives and children, flew out of the upper window, accompanied by the shouts of Herse. Kohlhaas, at whose feet, as he descended the stairs, the squire’s gouty old housekeeper threw herself, asked her, as he paused on one of the steps: “Where is Squire von Tronka?” When, with a weak trembling voice, she answered, that she thought he had fled to the chapel; he called for two servants with torches, broke open an entrance with crow-bars and hatchets, for want of a key, and turned upside down the altars and benches. Still no squire was found, to the great grief of Kohlhaas. It happened, just as he was leaving the chapel, that a boy—one of the servants at the Tronkenburg—hurried by to take the squire’s coursers out of a large stone stall, that was threatened by the flames. Kohlhaas, who at this moment saw his own two black horses in a little thatched shed, asked the boy, why he did not save them, and when the latter, as he put the key in the stable-door, answered that the shed was already in flames, he tore the key out of the door, flung it over the wall, and driving the boy with a shower of blows from the flat of his sword, into the blazing shed, compelled him to save the horses amid the frightful laughter of the bystanders. When, in a few moments, the boy, pale as death, came with the horses out of the shed that fell behind him, Kohlhaas was no longer there, and when he joined the servants in the yard, and then asked the horse-dealer what he was to do with the animals, Kohlhaas raised his foot with such violence, that it would have been fatal had it reached him, leaped upon his brown horse without giving any answer, went under the castle-gate, and while his men carried on their work, quietly awaited the dawn of day. When morning broke, the whole castle was burned, with the exception of the bare walls, and no one was on the spot but Kohlhaas and his men. He alighted from his horse once more in the bright rays of the sun, searched every corner of the place, and when, hard as it was to be convinced, he saw that his enterprise at the castle had failed, his heart swelling with grief and pain, he sent out Herse with some of the others to obtain intelligence about the direction which the squire had taken in flight. A rich convent, called Erlabrunn, which was situated on the banks of the Mulde, and the abbess of which, Antonia von Tronka, was well known on the spot as a pious and benevolent lady, rendered him particularly uneasy, for it seemed to him but too probable that the squire, deprived as he was of every necessary of life, had taken refuge in this asylum, since the abbess was his aunt, and had educated him in his earliest years. Kohlhaas being informed of this circumstance, ascended the castellan’s tower, within which he found a room that was still habitable, and prepared what he called “Kohlhaasisch Mandate,” in which he desired the whole country to give no assistance whatever to Squire von Tronka, with whom he was engaged in lawful war, and bound every inhabitant, not excepting his friends and relations, to deliver up to him the aforesaid squire, under the penalty of life and limb, and conflagration of all that could be called property. This declaration he distributed through the country round, by means of travellers and strangers. To his servant, Waldmann, he gave a copy with the special charge that it was to be put into the hands of the Lady Antonia at Erlabrunn. He afterwards gained over some of the Tronkenburg servants, who were discontented with the squire, and tempted by the prospect of booty, wished to enter his service. These he armed after the fashion of infantry with daggers and cross-bars, teaching them to sit behind the servants on horseback. After having turned into money all that the troops had raked together, and divided the money among them, he rested from his sad occupation for some hours, under the gate of the castle.

Herse returned about noon, and confirmed the gloomy suspicions, which he had already felt in his heart, namely, that the squire was in the convent at Erlabrunn, with his aunt, the lady Antonia von Tronka. He had, it appeared, slipped through a door at the back of the castle, which led into the open air, and gone down a narrow flight of stone steps, which, under a little roof, went down to some boats in the Elbe. At least Herse told him that about midnight he reached a village on the Elbe in a boat without a rudder, to the astonishment of the people, who were collected together on account of the fire at the Tronkenburg, and that he had proceeded to Erlabrunn in a waggon. Kohlhaas sighed deeply at this intelligence; he asked whether the horses had had their feed, and when his men answered in the affirmative, he ordered the whole troop to mount, and in three hours was before Erlabrunn. While a distant storm was murmuring in the horizon, he entered the convent yard with his band, lighted by torches, which he had kindled before the place. The servant, Waldmann, who met him, told him that he had given the copy of the mandate, when he saw the abbess and the beadle of the convent talking in an agitated manner beneath the portal. The latter, a little old man, with hair as white as snow, darting fierce glances at Kohlhaas, ordered his armour to be put on, and with a bold voice told the servants who stood round him to ring the alarm bell, while the abbess with a silver crucifix in her hand, descended, white as her own garment, from the landing-place, and with all her maidens, threw herself before Kohlhaas’s horses. Kohlhaas, himself, while Herse and Sternbald overcame the beadle, who had no sword, and were leading him off away to the horses as a prisoner, asked her: “Where is Squire von Tronka?” When, drawing from her girdle a large bunch of keys, she answered: “At Wittenberg, worthy man,” and in a trembling voice, added: “Fear God, and do no wrong,” the horse-dealer, cast back into the hell of disappointed revenge, turned about his horse, and was on the point of shouting out: “Set alight!” when a monstrous thunder-bolt fell to the earth at his feet. Kohlhaas, again turning his horse to her, asked if she had received his mandate, and when with a weak and scarcely audible voice, she said: “Only just now, about two hours after my nephew had departed,”—and Waldmann, on whom Kohlhaas cast suspicious glances, stammered out a confirmation of the statement, saying, that the water of the Mulde had been swelled by the rain, and had hindered him from arriving sooner, he collected himself. A sudden fall of rain, which extinguished the torches, and rattled on the stones, seemed to ease the anguish of his wretched heart; he once more turned round, touching his hat to the lady, and crying out: “Brothers, follow me,—the Squire is in Wittenberg,” clapped spurs to his horse and left the convent.

At nightfall he put up at an inn on the road, where he had to rest a day on account of the great fatigue of his horses, and as he plainly saw, that with a troop of ten men (such was his force now), he could not attack a place like Wittenberg, he drew up a second mandate, in which, after strictly narrating what had happened to him, he called, to use his own words, “Upon every good Christian to espouse his cause against Squire von Tronka, the common enemy of all Christians, with the promise of a sum of money down, and other advantages of war.” In a third mandate he called himself a “Sovereign, free from the empire and the world, subject to God alone;” a morbid and disgusting piece of fanaticism, which nevertheless accompanied as it was with the chink of money and the hope of prey, procured an accession to his numbers from the rabble, whom the peace with Poland had deprived of a livelihood. Indeed his band amounted to upwards of thirty, when he turned back to the left bank of the Elbe to lay Wittenberg in ashes. With his men and horses he took shelter under the roof of an old ruined shed in the depth of a gloomy wood, that in those days surrounded the place, and he no sooner learned from Sternbald, that the mandate, with which he had sent him into the town disguised, had been made known, than he set off with his band—it was Whitsun eve,—and while the inhabitants lay fast asleep, set a-light to the place at many corners. He then, with his men, plundered the suburbs, affixed a paper to the door-post of a church, in which he said that “He, Kohlhaas, had set the city on fire, and that if the squire was not given up to him, he would lay it in ashes in such sort, that he would not have to look behind a wall to find him.” The terror of the inhabitants at this unparalleled atrocity was indescribable, and the flames, which in a particularly calm summer’s night, had not consumed more than nineteen houses, including a church, being extinguished in some measure about day-break, the old governor (Landvoigt), Otto von Gorgas, sent out a company of about fifty men, to capture the fearful invader. The captain of this company, whose name was Gerstenberg, managed so badly, that the expedition, instead of defeating Kohlhaas, rather helped him to a very dangerous military reputation; for while he separated his men into several divisions, that he might, as he thought, surround and curb Kohlhaas, he was attacked by the latter, who kept his men close together at the different isolated points, and was so beaten, that on the evening of the following day, not a single man of the whole band was left to face the aggressor, although on that band rested all the hopes of the country. Kohlhaas, who had lost none of his own men in the encounter, fired the town anew on the following morning, and his criminal plans were so well laid that a number of houses, and nearly all the barns of the suburbs were reduced to ashes. He then again posted up his decree, and that in the corners of the town-house, adding an account of the fate of Captain von Gerstenberg, whom the governor had sent out against him, and whom he had demolished. The governor, greatly enraged at this defiance, placed himself with several knights at the head of a band of a hundred and fifty men. To Squire von Tronka, who had sent him a written petition, he gave a guard, to protect him from the violence of the people, who wished him to be turned out of the city without more ado, and after he had posted guards in all the villages around, and also had garrisoned the walls of the city to defend it from a surprise, he set out on St. Gervas’s day, to capture the dragon that was thus laying waste the country. The horse-dealer was cunning enough to avoid this troop, and after he had, by his clever retreats, lured away the governor five miles from the city, and had made him believe by various preparations that if pressed by numbers he would throw himself into the Brandenburg territory, he suddenly faced about at the approach of the third night, and galloping back to Wittenberg for the third time to set it on fire. This frightful act of audacity was achieved by Herse, who had entered the city disguised, and the conflagration, through the action of a sharp north wind was so destructive, and extended its ravages so far that in less than three hours, two-and-forty houses, two churches, several schools and convents, and the governor’s residence were levelled with the ground. The governor, who believed that his adversary was in Brandenburg, at break of day, found the city in a general uproar, when having been informed of what had passed, he returned by forced marches. The people had assembled by thousands before the house of Squire von Tronka, which was fortified with boards and palisades, and with the voices of maniacs were demanding that he should be sent out of the city. In vain did two burgomasters, named Jenkens and Otto, who appeared at the head of the whole magistracy, clad in robes of office, show the necessity of waiting for the return of a courier who had been sent to the chancery to ask permission to send the squire to Dresden, whither he himself, for many reasons, wished to be removed; the mob, deaf to reason, and armed with pikes and staves would hear nothing, and they not only ill-used some members of the council, who were urging too severe measures, but they were on the point of tearing down the squire’s house, when the governor, Otto von Gorgas, appeared in the city at the head of his troop of horse. This venerable nobleman, whose presence alone had usually awed the people to respect and obedience, had succeeded in capturing three stragglers from the incendiary’s band at the very gates of the city, as if by way of compensation for the failure of his enterprise; and as, while these fellows were loaded with chains in sight of the people, he assured the magistrates, in a seasonable address, that he thought he was in a fair way to capture Kohlhaas himself, and in a short time to bring him in, also enchained, he succeeded in disarming the rage of the assembled multitude, and in appeasing them, in some measure, as to the squire’s remaining among them, till the return of the courier from Dresden. He alighted from horseback, and with some of his knights, the palisades being removed, he entered the house, where he found the squire, who was continually fainting, in the hands of two physicians, who, by the aid of essences and stimulants, were endeavouring to restore him to consciousness. Herr Otto von Gorgas, feeling that this was not the moment to bandy words with the squire about his bad conduct, merely told him, with a look of silent contempt, to dress himself, and for his own security, to follow him to apartments in the prison. When they had put him on a doublet, and set a helmet on his head, and he appeared in the street with his breast half open for want of air, leaning on the arm of the governor and his brother-in-law, Count von Gerschau, the most frightful imprecations ascended to the skies. The mob, kept back with difficulty by the soldiers, called him a blood-sucker, a miserable pest to the country, the curse of the city of Wittenberg, and the destruction of Saxony. After a melancholy procession through the ruins, during which the squire often let the helmet drop from his head without missing it, and a knight as often set it on again from behind him, he reached the prison, and vanished into a town under the protection of a strong guard. In the meanwhile, the city was thrown into new alarm by the return of the courier with the electoral decree. For the government, having listened to the applications of the citizens of Dresden, would not hear of the squire taking up his abode in this the chief city, till the incendiary was conquered; but charged the governor to protect him, wherever he might be, and remember he must be content with such forces as he had. He, however, informed the good city of Wittenberg, to allay uneasiness, that a troop of five hundred strong, under the command of Prince Frederic, of Misnia, was advancing to protect it from further molestations by Kohlhaas. The governor plainly saw that a decree of this kind would by no means satisfy the people, since not only had the many little advantages which the horse-dealer had gained at different points before the city, caused most alarming reports to be spread as to his increase of strength, but the war which he carried on in the darkness of night, with pitch, straw, and brimstone, aided by a rabble in disguise, might, unexampled as it was, completely frustrate a greater protective force than that which was coming with the Prince of Misnia. Therefore, after a short reflection, the governor resolved to suppress the decree. He merely posted up against the corners of the city, a letter, in which the Prince of Misnia announced his arrival. A covered cart, which left the prison-yard at break of day, accompanied by four guards on horse-back, heavily armed, passed along the street to Leipzig, the guards causing it to be vaguely reported that it was going to the Pleissenburg. The people being thus appeased as to the ill-fated squire, to whose presence fire and sword were bound, the governor himself set off with a troop of three hundred men, to join Prince Frederic of Misnia. In the meanwhile, Kohlhaas, by the singular position he had taken in the world, had increased his force to a hundred and ten persons; and as he had procured a good store of arms at Jessen, and had armed his band in the most perfect manner, he was no sooner informed of the double storm, than he resolved to meet it with all possible speed, before it should break over him. Therefore, on the following night he attacked the Prince of Misnia, by Mühlberg, in which encounter, to his great grief, he lost Herse, who fell by his side on the first fire. However, enraged at this loss, he so defeated the prince, who was unable to collect his force together, in a three hours contest, that at break of day, on account of several wounds, and likewise of the total disorder of his men, he was forced to retreat to Dresden. Emboldened by this advantage Kohlhaas turned back upon the governor, before he could have received intelligence of the event, fell upon him in an open field near the village of Damerow in broad daylight, and fought with fury till nightfall, suffering terrible loss, but still with equal advantage. The next morning unquestionably, with the remainder of his force, he would have again attacked the governor, who had thrown himself into the church-yard at Damerow, if the latter had not been informed of the prince’s defeat by Mühlberg, and therefore held it advisable once more to return to Wittenberg, and await a better opportunity. Five days after the dispersion of these two forces, Kohlhaas was before Leipzig, and fired the city on three sides. In the mandate which he distributed on this occasion he called himself, “Vicegerent of Michael the Archangel who had come to avenge, with fire and sword, the villany into which the whole world had fallen, on all who had taken the squire’s part in this struggle.” At the same time from the Lützen Castle, of which he had taken possession, and in which he had established himself, he called upon the people to join him, and bring about a better order of things. The mandate was signed, as if by a sort of madness: “Given at the suit of our provisional world-government,—the Castle of Lützen.” Fortunately for the inhabitants of Leipzig, the fire did not catch on account of the continual rain, and moreover the means of extinguishing being used with great promptness, only a few shops about the Pleissenburg burst into flames. Nevertheless the alarm of the city at the presence of the violent incendiary, and his notion that the squire was at Leipzig, was indescribable; and when a body of a hundred and eighty troopers, who had been sent out against him, returned to the city in confusion, the magistracy, who did not wish to endanger the property of the place, had no other course left them but to close the gates, and set the citizens to watch day and night outside the walls. In vain did they post up declarations in the surrounding villages, that the squire was not in the Pleissenburg; the horse-dealer in similar papers affirmed the contrary, and declared that even if the squire was not in the Pleissenburg, he would nevertheless proceed just in the same manner, until they informed him where he actually was. The elector, instructed by a courier of the peril in which the city of Leipzig stood, stated that he was collecting a force of two thousand men, and that he would put himself at the head of it, to capture Kohlhaas. He severely reproved Otto von Gorgas for the indiscreet stratagem he had employed to remove the incendiary from the neighbourhood of Wittenberg, and no one can describe the alarm which arose in Saxony in general, and in the capital in particular, when the inhabitants learned that an unknown hand had posted up in the villages near Leipzig, a declaration that Squire Wenzel was with his armies at Dresden.