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

by Unknown

The chamberlain seeing at once that no time was to be lost, if he would fulfil his sovereign’s commission, went to work, by appearing one morning, sedulously attired in his usual court-dress, before Kohlhaas, who was innocently watching the passers-by from the window of his prison. Concluding, from a sudden movement of his head, that the horse-dealer had perceived him, and particularly observing, with great delight, how the latter clutched, involuntarily, at the part of his breast, where the case was situated, he judged, that what had passed in the mind of Kohlhaas at that moment, was a sufficient preparation to advance one step further in the attempt to gain possession of the paper.

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.