Part 33

He, therefore, called to him an old rag-woman, who was hobbling about on crutches, and whom he had observed in the streets of Berlin among a host of others, who were trafficking in the same commodity. This woman, in age and attire seemed to bear a pretty close resemblance to the one whom his elector had described, and as he thought that Kohlhaas would have no clear recollection of the features of the gipsy, who had only appeared for a moment when she gave him the case, he resolved to pass off this old woman for the other one, and if possible to let her take the part of the gipsy before Kohlhaas. To put her in a proper position to play this part, he informed her, circumstantially, of all that had passed between the two electors and the gipsy at Jüterboch, not forgetting to tell her the three mysterious articles contained in the paper, as he did not know how far the gipsy might have gone in her explanations to Kohlhaas. After explaining to her what she must let fall in an incoherent or unintelligible manner, for the sake of certain plans that had been devised to obtain the paper, either by force or stratagem--a matter of great importance to the Saxon court--he charged her to ask Kohlhaas for it, under the pretext of keeping it for a few eventful days, as it was no longer safe in his possession. The woman, on the promise of a considerable reward, part of which the chamberlain, at her request, was forced to give beforehand, at once undertook to perform the required office; and as the mother of the man, Herse, who had fallen at Mühlberg, sometimes visited Kohlhaas, with the permission of the government, and this woman had been acquainted with her for some months, she succeeded in visiting Kohlhaas at an early day, with the help of a small present to the gaoler.

Kohlhaas, as soon as she entered, thought that by the seal-ring, which she wore on her finger, and the coral chain which hung from her neck, he recognised the old gipsy who had given him the can at Jüterboch. Indeed, as probability is not always on the side of truth, so was it here; for something happened which we certainly record, but which every one who chooses is at liberty to doubt. The fact is, the chamberlain had committed the most monstrous blunder, the old woman whom he had picked up in the streets of Berlin to imitate the gipsy, being no other than the mysterious gipsy herself whom he wished to be imitated. The woman leaning on her crutches, and patting the cheeks of the children, who, struck by her strange aspect, clung to their father, told him that she had for some time left Saxony for Brandenburg, and in consequence of a heedless question asked by the chamberlain in the streets of Berlin, about the gipsy who was in Jüterboch in the spring of the past year, had at once hurried to him, and under a false name had offered herself for the office which he wished to see fulfilled.

The horse-dealer remarked a singular likeness between this woman and his deceased wife Lisbeth: indeed he could almost have asked her if she were not her grandmother; for not only did her features, her hands, which, bony as they were, were still beautiful, and especially the use which she made of these while talking, remind him of Lisbeth most forcibly, but even a mole by which his wife’s neck was marked, was on the gipsy’s neck also.

Hence, amid strangely conflicting thoughts, he compelled her to take a seat, and asked her what possible business of the chamberlain’s could bring her to him.

The woman, while Kohlhaas’s old dog went sniffing about her knees, and wagged his tail while she patted him, announced that the commission which the chamberlain had given her, was to tell him how the paper contained a mysterious answer to three questions of the utmost importance to the Saxon court, to warn him against an emissary who was at Berlin, with the design of taking it, and to ask for the paper herself, under the pretext that it was no more safe in his own bosom. The real design of her coming was, however, to tell him that the threat of depriving him of the paper, by force or cunning, was completely idle, that he had not the least cause to feel any apprehension about it, under the protection of the Elector of Brandenburg--nay, that the paper was much safer with him than with her, and that he should take great care not to lose it, by delivering it to any one under any pretext whatever. However, she added by saying, that she thought it prudent to use the paper for the purpose for which she had given it to him at the Jüterboch fair, to listen to the offer which had been made to him on the borders by the page, von Stein, and to give the paper, which could be of no further use to him, to the Elector of Saxony, in exchange for life and liberty.

Kohlhaas, who exulted in the power which was given him, of mortally wounding his enemy’s heel, at the very moment when it trampled him in the dust, replied, “Not for the world, good mother; not for the world!” and pressing the old woman’s hand, only desired to know, what were the answers to the important questions contained in the paper.

The woman, taking in her lap the youngest child, who was crouching down at her feet, said, “No--not for the world, Kohlhaas the horse-dealer; but for the sake of this pretty little fair-haired boy.” So saying, she smiled at him, embraced him, and kissed him; while he stared at her with all his might, and gave him with her dry hands an apple, which she carried in her pocket.

Kohlhaas said, in some confusion, that even the children, if they were old enough, would commend him for what he had done, and that he could not do any thing more serviceable for them and their posterity than keep the paper. He asked, besides, who, after the experience he had already made, would secure him against fresh deception, and whether he might not sacrifice the paper to the elector, just as uselessly, as he had formerly sacrificed the troop which he collected at Lützen. “With him who has once broken his word,” said he, “I have nothing more to do, and nothing, good mother, but your demand, definitively and unequivocally expressed, will cause me to part with the slip by which, in such a remarkable manner, satisfaction is given me for all that I have suffered.”

The woman, setting the child down upon the ground, said, that he was right in many respects, and could do and suffer what he pleased; and, taking her crutch again in her hand, prepared to go.

Kohlhaas repeated his question respecting the contents of the strange paper; and when she answered him hastily, that he might open it, if only out of curiosity, he wished to be informed about a thousand things more before she quitted him; such as who she was; how she acquired her science; why she had refused to give the wonderful paper to the elector, for whom it was written, and had just selected him, who had never cared about her science, among so many thousand persons.

At this very moment a noise was heard, made by some police officers, who were coming up stairs, and the woman, who seemed suddenly afraid lest she should be found by them in these apartments, answered: “Farewell till we meet again, Kohlhaas! When we meet again, you shall have knowledge of all this.” Turning towards the door, she cried, “Good-bye, children, good-bye!” and kissing the little folks one after the other, she departed.

In the meanwhile the Elector of Saxony, entirely given up to his melancholy thoughts, had summoned two astrologers named Oldenholm and Olearius, who then stood in high repute in Saxony, and had consulted them as to the contents of the mysterious paper, which was of such high import to himself and the whole race of his posterity. When these men, after a deep inquiry, which had continued for three days in the castle at Dresden, could not agree whether the prophecy referred to distant ages or to the present time, while perhaps the crown of Poland, the relations with which were so warlike, might be pointed at,--the uneasiness, not to say the despair of the unhappy prince, far from being lessened by the learned dispute, was rendered more acute, and that to a degree perfectly insupportable. About the same time, the chamberlain charged his wife, who was on the point of following him to Berlin, to point out to the elector before her departure, how doubtful, after the failure of the attempt he had made with the old woman, whom he had never seen since--how doubtful was the hope of obtaining the paper now in the possession of Kohlhaas, since the sentence of death had already been signed by the Elector of Brandenburg after a careful examination of the documents, and the execution was already appointed for the Monday after Palm-Sunday.

At this intelligence, the Elector of Saxony, whose heart was rent with grief and remorse, shut himself up in his room for two days, during which, being weary of his life, he tasted no food. On the third day, he suddenly disappeared from Dresden, giving a short notice to the Gubernium that he was going to the Prince of Dessau to hunt. Where he actually went, and whether he did turn to Dessau, we must leave undecided, since the chronicles from the comparison of which we obtain our information, are singularly contradictory upon this point. So much is certain, that the Prince of Dessau, unable to hunt, lay sick at this time, with his uncle, Duke Henry, in Brunswick, and that the Lady Heloise on the evening of the following day, accompanied by a Count Königstein, whom she called her cousin, entered the room of her husband, the chamberlain.

In the meantime, the sentence of death was read to Kohlhaas at the elector’s request, and the papers relating to his property, which had been refused him at Dresden, were restored to him. When the councillors, whom the tribunal had sent to him, asked him how his property should be disposed of after his death, he prepared a will in favour of his children, with the assistance of a notary, and appointed his good friend the farmer at Kohlhaasenbrück their guardian. Nothing could equal the peace and contentment of his last days, for by a special order of the elector, the prison in which he was kept was thrown open, and a free approach to him was granted to all his friends, of whom many resided in the city. He had the further satisfaction of seeing the divine, Jacob Freysing, as a delegate from Doctor Luther, enter his dungeon, with a letter in Luther’s own hand (which was doubtless very remarkable, but has since been lost), and of receiving the holy sacrament from the hands of this reverend gentleman, in the presence of two deans of Brandenburg.

At last the portentous Monday arrived, on which he was to atone to the world for his too hasty attempt to procure justice, and still the city was in general commotion, not being able to give up the hope that some decree would yet come to save him. Accompanied by a strong guard, and with his two boys in his arms--a favour he had expressly asked at the bar of the tribunal--he was stepping from the gate of his prison, led by Jacob Freysing, when, through the midst of a mournful throng of acquaintance who shook hands with him and bade him farewell, the castellan of the electoral castle pressed forward to him with a disturbed countenance, and gave him a note which he said he had received from an old woman. Kohlhaas, while he looked upon the man, who was little known to him, with astonishment, opened the note, the seal of which, impressed on a wafer, reminded him of the well-known gipsy. Who can describe his astonishment when he read as follows:

“KOHLHAAS,--The Elector of Saxony is in Berlin. He is gone before thee to the place of execution; and thou mayest know him, if, indeed, it concerns thee, by a hat with blue and white feathers. I need not tell thee the purpose for which he comes. As soon as thou art buried, he will dig up the case, and have the paper opened which it contains.

“THY ELIZABETH.”

Kohlhaas, turning to the castellan in the greatest astonishment, asked him if he knew the wonderful woman who had given him the note.

The castellan began to answer: “Kohlhaas, the woman----” but he stopped short in the middle of his speech; and Kohlhaas, being carried along by the train, which proceeded at this moment, could not hear what the man, who seemed to tremble in every limb, was saying to him. When he came to the place of execution, he found the Elector of Brandenburg on horseback there, with his train, among whom was the Chancellor Heinrich von Geusau, in the midst of an immense concourse of people. To the right of the elector stood the imperial advocate, Franz Müller, with a copy of the sentence in his hand, while on his left, with the decree of the Dresden Court chamber, was his own advocate, the jurist Anton Zäuner. In the midst of the half-open circle formed by the people, was a herald with a bundle of things and the two horses, now sleek and in good condition, beating the ground with their hoofs. For the Chancellor Henry had carried every point of the suit, which, in the name of his master, he had commenced at Dresden against Squire Wenzel von Tronka; and consequently the horses, after they had been restored to honour by the ceremony of waving a flag over their heads, had been taken out of the hands of the flayer, and, having been fattened by the squire’s men, had been handed over to the advocate in the Dresden market, in the presence of a commission appointed for the purpose. Therefore, the elector, when Kohlhaas, attended by the guard, ascended the court to him, said: “Now, Kohlhaas, this is the day on which you have justice. Here I give you back all which you were forced to lose at the Tronkenburg, your horses, handkerchief, money, linen, and the expenses for medical attendance on your man, Herse, who fell at Mühlberg. Are you content with me?”

Kohlhaas, while with open, sparkling eyes, he read over the decree which was put into his hands, at a hint from the chancellor, put down the two children whom he carried, and when he found in it an article, by which Squire Wenzel was condemned to be imprisoned for two years, quite overcome by his feelings, he threw himself down before the elector, with his hands crossed on his breast. Joyfully assuring the chancellor, as he arose, and laid his hand on his bosom, that his highest wish on earth was fulfilled, he went up to the horses, examined them, and patted their fat necks, cheerfully telling the chancellor, as he returned to him, that he made a present of them to his two sons, Henry and Leopold.

The chancellor, Henry von Geusau, bending down to him from his horse with a friendly aspect, promised him in the name of the elector, that his last bequest should be held sacred, and requested him to dispose of the other things in the bundle according to his pleasure. Upon this Kohlhaas called out of the mob Herse’s old mother, whom he perceived in the square, and giving her the things, said, “Here, mother, this belongs to you,” adding, at the same time, the sum which was in the bundle, to pay damages, as a comfort for her old days.

The elector then cried, “Now, Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, thou to whom satisfaction has been thus accorded, prepare to give satisfaction thyself for the breach of the public peace.”

Kohlhaas, taking off his hat, and throwing it down, said, that he was ready, and giving the children, after he had once more lifted them up and pressed them to his heart, to the farmer of Kohlhaasenbrück, he stepped up to the block, while the farmer, silently weeping, led the children from the place. He then took the handkerchief from his neck, and opened his doublet, when taking a cursory glance at the circle of people, he perceived at a short distance from himself, between two knights, who nearly concealed him, the well-known man with the blue and white plumes. Kohlhaas, bringing himself close to him by a sudden step, which astonished the surrounding guard, took the case from his breast. Taking the paper out, he opened it, read it, and fixing his eye on the man with the plume, who began to entertain hopes, put it into his mouth and swallowed it. At this sight, the man with the blue and white feathers fell down in convulsions. Kohlhaas, while the man’s astonished attendants stooped down and raised him from the ground, turned to the scaffold, where his head fell beneath the axe of the executioner. Thus ends the history of Kohlhaas.

The corpse was put into a coffin, amid the general lamentations of the people. While the bearers were raising it to bury it decently in the suburban church-yard, the elector called to him the sons of the deceased, and dubbed them knights, declaring to the chancellor, that they should be brought up in his school of pages. The Elector of Saxony, wounded in mind and body, soon returned to Dresden, and the rest concerning him must be sought in his history. As for Kohlhaas, some of his descendants, brave, joyous people, were living in Mecklenburg in the last century.

[1] On one point the translator of this tale solicits the indulgence of his critical readers. A great number of official names and legal terms occur, the technical meaning of which could not properly be defined by any one but a German jurist. As these names have no exact equivalents in English, the names into which they are here translated may appear arbitrary. The translator can only say that, where exactitude was impossible, he has done his best.

[2] “Squire” is used as an equivalent for “Junker.” “Castellan” is put for “Burgvoigt” and “Schlossvoigt.”

[3] “Gerichtsherr” means lord of the manor with right of judicature.

[4] “Amtmann” means here a farmer of crown-lands.

[5] That is a subject of another state, here Brandenburg.

THE KLAUSENBURG.

BY LUDWIG TIECK.

[The following Gespenster-Geschichte, or Ghost Story, as Tieck himself has called it, is related to a circle of friends by a gentleman, Baron Blamberg, who was a friend of the unfortunate subject of the story. The ruins of the Klausenburg are, according to the words of the narrator, near the house where they are assembled. The story is often interrupted by the company, but their conversation has no connection with it, and has therefore been omitted.--C. A. F.]

It is about fifty years since that a rich family lived among the mountains a short distance off, in a castle, of which only the ruins are now to be seen, since it was partly destroyed by thunder and lightning, and the remainder was demolished in war. It is now only occasionally visited by huntsmen and travellers who have lost their way, and it is called the ruins of the Klausenburg. Proceeding up the solitary footpath through the pine wood, and then climbing the pathless crag, you stand facing its entrance, which is cut out of the living rock and secured by an ancient and strongly barred gate. On the outside is an iron rod with a handle apparently communicating with a bell on the inside. Having once wandered there while hunting, I pulled this handle, but received no answer to my summons from within. As this spot can only be approached with much difficulty, and it is almost impossible to climb the chasms and rocks on the other side, there are many legends and tales current among the vulgar about this singular Klausenburg the remains of which present an almost spectral appearance.

Among other stories, it is reported that more than a century ago, there resided within its walls a very wealthy, benevolent, and industrious man, who was much beloved by his friends and tenants. He had early in life retired from the state service to devote himself to the management of his estates, of which he possessed many, including mines, and glass and iron foundries which he was able to work to great advantage, having abundant fuel from his extensive forests. Although beloved by his tenants, he was yet hated and envied by many of his equals, the more reasonable of whom disliked him because he avoided them, and they readily perceived that he despised them for their want of industry; while the more foolish believed, and even openly declared, that Count Moritz was in league with Satan, and was therefore successful beyond expectation in all he undertook.

However absurd the report, it was calculated at this early period to injure the character of this persevering man; as it was not many years after the time when people were burnt at the stake for witchcraft and for being in league with the evil one. Hence it was that the count in disgust retired from the world to the solitary castle of Klausenburg, and was only happy when conversing on his affairs with intelligent miners, machine makers, and learned men. Knowing the distrust with which he was looked upon by the old priests who held the livings in his different parishes, he but rarely appeared at church, a circumstance which but little contributed to raise his reputation in the neighbourhood.

It happened once that a band of gipsies, who at that time roved about in Germany with little molestation, came to these parts. The nobles of the country as well as the government were undecided and dilatory in checking this nuisance, and the boundaries of several states meeting here, the tribe could carry on their depredations with impunity and even unnoticed. Where they did not receive any thing, they robbed; where they were resisted they came at night and burnt the barns; and in this manner the fire on one occasion rapidly spreading, two villages were burnt to the ground. Count Moritz was induced by this circumstance to unite with some resolute neighbours, and to pursue and punish, on his own authority, the lawless tribe. Imprisonment, scourging, flogging, and starvation, were awarded by him without reference to any authority, and only some who were convicted of arson were sent to the town for what was called the gipsy trial, and were then legally condemned to suffer capital punishment.