Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors

by Unknown

When the elector, with a gesture of utter despair, threw himself back on his cushion in silence, the chamberlain asked him what it was that the slip contained, and by what strange and inexplicable chance he knew that the contents concerned him.

Casting equivocal glances at the chamberlain, whose willingness to oblige him he doubted, the elector made no answer, but lay quite stiff, yet with heart uneasily beating, while his eyes were fixed on the corner of the handkerchief, which, immersed in thought, he held in his hands. All at once he ordered him to call into the chamber the hunting-page (Jagd-junker) Von Stein, an active and sharp-witted young gentleman, whom he had often employed on secret affairs, on the pretext that he had business to settle with him of quite a different nature.

After he had set forth the whole affair to this page, and had informed him of the importance of the slip, now in the possession of Kohlhaas, he asked him whether he was willing to earn an eternal claim to his friendship by getting this slip before Kohlhaas reached Berlin.

The page as soon as he, in some degree, understood the affair, strange as it was, declared that all his powers were at the service of the elector, whereupon the latter commissioned him to ride after Kohlhaas, and in case money would not suffice, as probably it would not, to offer him in a prudently managed discourse, life and liberty as the price of the slip; nay, if he insisted upon it, to supply him at once, though cautiously, with horses, people, and money, to assist him in escaping from the hands of the Brandenburg troopers who escorted him. The page, having obtained from the elector a written authority in his own hand, set off with some attendants, and not allowing his horses any breathing time, he had the good luck to overtake Kohlhaas at a village on the border, where, with the Knight von Malzahn and his five children, he was partaking of a dinner, that was spread before the door of a house in the open air. The Knight von Malzahn, to whom the page introduced himself as a foreigner, who wished to see the remarkable man on his journey, even anticipated his wishes, as he compelled him to sit down to the meal, at the same time introducing him to Kohlhaas. As the knight had affairs to mind, which caused him to absent himself every now and then, and the troopers were dining at a table on the other side of the house, the page soon found an opportunity of telling the horse-dealer who he was, and explaining the particular object of his mission.

The horse-dealer, who had already learned the name and rank of the person who had fainted in the farm-house at Dahme at the sight of the case, and who wanted nothing more to complete the astonishment which the discovery had caused, than an insight into the secrets of the case, which for many reasons he had determined not to open out of mere curiosity,—the horse-dealer, we say, mindful of the unhandsome and unprincely treatment which he had experienced at Dresden, in spite of his readiness to make every possible sacrifice, declared that he intended to keep the case. To the question of the page, what could induce him to utter so singular a refusal, when nothing less than life and liberty was offered him, Kohlhaas replied:

“Sir, if your sovereign came here in person and said to me, ‘I will destroy myself with the troop of those who help to wield the sceptre;’ although such destruction is the dearest wish of my soul—I would still refuse him the case, which is even more valuable to him than existence, and would say, ‘to the scaffold you can bring me, but I can injure you, and I will.’” And immediately, with death in his face, he called for one of the troopers, ordering him to take a good portion of the repast which still remained in the dish. For the remainder of the hour, which he passed in the village, he never turned towards the page, but treated him, although he sat at the table, as if he was not present, until, when he ascended the cart, he turned round and gave him a farewell look.

The situation of the elector, when he learned the news, grew worse and worse; indeed to such a degree, that the physician, during three portentous days, was in the greatest anxiety for his life, which seemed attacked from more sides than one. However, by the force of his naturally strong constitution, after keeping his bed for several painfully passed weeks, he recovered sufficiently to be removed to a carriage, and thus, with an ample store of cushions and coverlets, to be conveyed to Dresden to the affairs of his government. As soon as he had reached the city he sent for Prince Christian of Misnia, and asked him how matters were going on with respect to the mission of the Councillor Eibenmeyer, who was to be sent to Vienna as attorney in the Kohlhaas affair, to complain to the emperor of the breach of the imperial peace. The prince told him that this councillor had set off to Vienna, in conformity with the instructions, which he had left when he went to Dahme, immediately after the arrival of the Jurist Zäuner, whom the Elector of Brandenburg had sent as attorney to Dresden, to prosecute the suit about the horses against the Squire Wenzel von Tronka.

The elector, who, deeply colouring, withdrew to his writing-table, expressed his astonishment at this haste, since he had, to his knowledge, declared that the departure of Eibenmeyer was to wait for nearer and more definite instructions, a reference to Dr. Luther, who had procured the amnesty for Kohlhaas, being first necessary. With an expression of suppressed anger, he turned over and over the documents that lay upon the table. The prince, after staring at him for some time in silence, said, that he should be sorry if he had not conducted this affair to the satisfaction of his sovereign, adding, that in the state-council not a word had been said about a reference to Dr. Luther; and that although perhaps at an earlier part of the proceedings it would have been proper to refer to this reverend gentleman, on account of his intercession for Kohlhaas, it was now no longer requisite, since the amnesty had already been broken in the eyes of the whole world, and Kohlhaas had been arrested, and delivered up to the Brandenburg tribunal for judgment and execution.

The elector admitted that the mistake in sending Eibenmeyer was not so great, but expressed his wish that he should not appear at Vienna in his official capacity of prosecutor till he had received further instructions, and told the prince to communicate this to him accordingly through an express. The prince replied that this command came unfortunately a day too late, since Eibenmeyer, according to a notice which had arrived that very day, had appeared in the quality of attorney, and had proceeded to bring the complaint before the state-chancery in Vienna.

When the elector asked with astonishment how this was possible in so short a time, he answered, that three weeks had already elapsed since Eibenmeyer’s departure, and that by the instructions which he had received, it was incumbent upon him to despatch the business as soon as possible after his arrival at Vienna. The prince further remarked, that a delay would, under the circumstances, be so much the more unjustifiable, as the Brandenburg representative, Zäuner, was proceeding against Squire Wenzel von Tronka with the boldest energy, and had already moved the court, that the horses, as a preliminary measure, should be taken out of the hands of the flayer, with a view to their future recovery, and had succeeded in carrying this point in spite of all the objections of the opposite party.