The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04 / Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes

by Unknown

At this moment the castellan stepped forth from the crowd and reminded him that he would not be allowed to leave without a passport. Kohlhaas turned around and inquired of the Squire whether this statement, which meant the ruin of his whole trade, were indeed correct. The Squire, as he went off, answered with an embarrassed air, "Yes, Kohlhaas, you must get a passport. Speak to the castellan about it, and go your way." Kohlhaas assured him that he had not the least intention of evading the ordinances which might be in force concerning the exportation of horses. He promised that when he went through Dresden he would take out the passport at the chancery, and begged to be allowed to go on, this time, as he had known nothing whatever about this requirement. "Well!" said the Squire, as the storm at that moment began to rage again and the wind blustered about his scrawny legs; "let the wretch go. Come!" he added to the young knights, and, turning around, started toward the door. The castellan, facing about toward the Squire, said that Kohlhaas must at least leave behind some pledge as security that he would obtain the passport. The Squire stopped again under the castle gate. Kohlhaas asked how much security for the black horses in money or in articles of value he would be expected to leave. The steward muttered in his beard that he might just as well leave the blacks themselves.

"To be sure," said the castellan; "that is the best plan; as soon as he has taken out the passport he can come and get them again at any time." Kohlhaas, amazed at such a shameless demand, told the Squire, who was holding the skirts of his doublet about him for warmth, that what he wanted to do was to sell the blacks; but as a gust of wind just then blew a torrent of rain and hail through the gate, the Squire, in order to put an end to the matter, called out, "If he won't give up the horses, throw him back again over the toll-bar;" and with that he went off.

The horse-dealer, who saw clearly that on this occasion he would have to yield to superior force, made up his mind to comply with the demand, since there really was no other way out of it. He unhitched the black horses and led them into a stable which the castellan pointed out to him. He left a groom in charge of them, provided him with money, warned him to take good care of the horses until he came back, and with the rest of the string continued his journey to Leipzig, where he purposed to go to the fair. As he rode along he wondered, in half uncertainty, whether after all such a law might not have been passed in Saxony for the protection of the newly started industry of horse-raising.

On his arrival in Dresden, where, in one of the suburbs of the city, he owned a house and stable—this being the headquarters from which he usually conducted his business at the smaller fairs around the country—he went immediately to the chancery. And here he learned from the councilors, some of whom he knew, that indeed, as his first instinct had already told him, the story of the passport was only made up. At Kohlhaas's request, the annoyed councilors gave him a written certificate of its baselessness, and the horse-dealer smiled at the lean Squire's joke, although he did not quite see what purpose he could have had in view. A few weeks later, having sold to his satisfaction the string of horses he had with him, Kohlhaas returned to Tronka Castle harboring no other resentment save that caused by the general misery of the world.

The castellan, to whom he showed the certificate, made no comment upon it, and to the horse-dealer's question as to whether he could now have his horses back, replied that he need only go down to the stable and get them. But even while crossing the courtyard, Kohlhaas learned with dismay that for alleged insolence his groom had been cudgeled and dismissed in disgrace a few days after being left behind at Tronka Castle. Of the boy who informed him of this he inquired what in the world the groom had done, and who had taken care of the horses in the mean time; to this the boy answered that he did not know, and then opened to the horse-dealer, whose heart was already full of misgivings, the door of the stable in which the horses stood. How great, though, was his astonishment when, instead of his two glossy, well-fed blacks, he spied a pair of lean, worn-out jades, with bones on which one could have hung things as if on pegs, and with mane and hair matted together from lack of care and attention—in short, the very picture of utter misery in the animal kingdom! Kohlhaas, at the sight of whom the horses neighed and moved feebly, was extremely indignant, and asked what had happened to his horses. The boy, who was standing beside him, answered that they had not suffered any harm, and that they had had proper feed too, but, as it had been harvest time, they had been used a bit in the fields because there weren't draught animals enough. Kohlhaas cursed over the shameful, preconcerted outrage; but realizing that he was powerless he suppressed his rage, and, as no other course lay open to him, was preparing to leave this den of thieves again with his horses when the castellan, attracted by the altercation, appeared and asked what was the matter.

"What's the matter?" echoed Kohlhaas. "Who gave Squire Tronka and his people permission to use for work in the fields the black horses that I left behind with him?" He added, "Do you call that humane?" and trying to rouse the exhausted nags with a switch, he showed him that they did not move. The castellan, after he had watched him for a while with an expression of defiance, broke out, "Look at the ruffian! Ought not the churl to thank God that the jades are still alive?" He asked who would have been expected to take care of them when the groom had run away, and whether it were not just that the horses should have worked in the fields for their feed. He concluded by saying that Kohlhaas had better not make a rumpus or he would call the dogs and with them would manage to restore order in the courtyard.

The horse-dealer's heart thumped against his doublet. He felt a strong desire to throw the good-for-nothing, pot-bellied scoundrel into the mud and set his foot on his copper-colored face. But his sense of justice, which was as delicate as a gold-balance, still wavered; he was not yet quite sure before the bar of his own conscience whether his adversary were really guilty of a crime. And so, swallowing the abusive words and going over to the horses, he silently pondered the circumstances while arranging their manes, and asked in a subdued voice for what fault the groom had been turned out of the castle. The castellan replied, "Because the rascal was insolent in the courtyard; because he opposed a necessary change of stables and demanded that the horses of two young noblemen, who came to the castle, should, for the sake of his nags, be left out on the open high-road over night."

Kohlhaas would have given the value of the horses if he could have had the groom at hand to compare his statement with that of this thick-lipped castellan. He was still standing, straightening the tangled manes of the black horses, and wondering what could be done in the situation in which he found himself, when suddenly the scene changed, and Squire Wenzel Tronka, returning from hare-hunting, dashed into the courtyard, followed by a swarm of knights, grooms, and dogs. The castellan, when asked what had happened, immediately began to speak, and while, on the one hand, the dogs set up a murderous howl at the sight of the stranger, and, on the other, the knights sought to quiet them, he gave the Squire a maliciously garbled account of the turmoil the horse-dealer was making because his black horses had been used a little. He said, with a scornful laugh, that the horse-dealer refused to recognize the horses as his own.

Kohlhaas cried, "Your worship, those are not my horses. Those are not the horses which were worth thirty gold gulden! I want my well-fed, sound horses back again!"

The Squire, whose face grew momentarily pale, got down from his horse and said, "If the d——d scoundrel doesn't want to take the horses back, let him leave them here. Come, Gunther!" he called; "Hans, come!" He brushed the dust off his breeches with his hand and, just as he reached the door with the young knights, called "Bring wine!" and strode into the house.