The woman set the child down on the floor again and said that in many respects he was right, and that he could do or leave undone what he wished; and with that she took up her crutches again and started to go. Kohlhaas repeated his question regarding the contents of the wonderful paper; she answered hastily that, of course, he could open it, although it would be pure curiosity on his part. He wished to find out about a thousand other things yet, before she left him—who she really was, how she came by the knowledge resident within her, why she had refused to give the magic paper to the Elector for whom it had been written after all, and among so many thousand people had handed it precisely to him, Kohlhaas, who had never consulted her art.
Now it happened that, just at that moment, a noise was heard, caused by several police officials who were mounting the stairway, so that the woman, seized with sudden apprehension at being found by them in these quarters, exclaimed, "Good-by for the present, Kohlhaas, good-by for the present. When we meet again you shall not lack information concerning all these things." With that she turned toward the door, crying, "Farewell, children, farewell!" Then she kissed the little folks one after the other, and went off.
In the mean time the Elector of Saxony, abandoned to his wretched thoughts, had called in two astrologers, Oldenholm and Olearius by name, who at that time enjoyed a great reputation in Saxony, and had asked their advice concerning the mysterious paper which was of such importance to him and all his descendants. After making a profound investigation of several days' duration in the tower of the Dresden palace, the men could not agree as to whether the prophecy referred to remote centuries or, perhaps, to the present time, with a possible reference to the King of Poland, with whom the relations were still of a very warlike nature. The disquietude, not to say the despair, in which the unhappy sovereign was plunged, was only increased by such learned disputes, and finally was so intensified as to seem to his soul wholly intolerable. In addition, just at this time the Chamberlain charged his wife that before she left for Berlin, whither she was about to follow him, she should adroitly inform the Elector, that, after the failure of an attempt, which he had made with the help of an old woman who had kept out of sight ever since, there was but slight hope of securing the paper in Kohlhaas' possession, inasmuch as the death sentence pronounced against the horse-dealer had now at last been signed by the Elector of Brandenburg after a minute examination of all the legal documents, and the day of execution already set for the Monday after Palm Sunday. At this news the Elector, his heart torn by grief and remorse, shut himself up in his room like a man in utter despair and, tired of life, refused for two days to take food; on the third day he suddenly disappeared from Dresden after sending a short communication to the Government Office with word that he was going to the Prince of Dessau's to hunt. Where he actually did go and whether he did wend his way toward Dessau, we shall not undertake to say, as the chronicles—which we have diligently compared before reporting events—at this point contradict and offset one another in a very peculiar manner. So much is certain: the Prince of Dessau was incapable of hunting, as he was at this time lying ill in Brunswick at the residence of his uncle, Duke Henry, and it is also certain that Lady Heloise on the evening of the following day arrived in Berlin at the house of her husband, Sir Kunz, the Chamberlain, in the company of a certain Count von Königstein whom she gave out to be her cousin.
In the mean time, on the order of the Elector of Brandenburg, the death sentence was read to Kohlhaas, his chains were removed, and the papers concerning his property, to which papers his right had been denied in Dresden, were returned to him. When the councilors whom the court had dispatched to him asked what disposition he wished to have made of his property after his death, with the help of a notary he made out a will in favor of his children and appointed his honest friend, the bailiff at Kohlhaasenbrück, to be their guardian. After that, nothing could match the peace and contentment of his last days. For in consequence of a singular decree extraordinary issued by the Elector, the prison in which he was kept was soon after thrown open and free entrance was allowed day and night to all his friends, of whom he possessed a great many in the city. He even had the further satisfaction of seeing the theologian, Jacob Freising, enter his prison as a messenger from Dr. Luther, with a letter from the latter's own hand—without doubt a very remarkable document which, however, has since been lost—and of receiving the blessed Holy Communion at the hands of this reverend gentleman in the presence of two deans of Brandenburg, who assisted him in administering it.
Amid general commotion in the city, which could not even yet be weaned from the hope of seeing him saved by an electoral rescript, there now dawned the fateful Monday after Palm Sunday, on which Kohlhaas was to make atonement to the world for the all-too-rash attempt to procure justice for himself within it. Accompanied by a strong guard and conducted by the theologian, Jacob Freising, he was just leaving the gate of his prison with his two lads in his arms—for this favor he had expressly requested at the bar of the court—when among a sorrowful throng of acquaintances, who were pressing his hands in farewell, there stepped up to him, with haggard face, the castellan of the Elector's palace, and gave him a paper which he said an old woman had put in his hands for him. The latter, looking in surprise at the man, whom he scarcely knew, opened the paper. The seal pressed upon the wafer had reminded him at once of the frequently mentioned gipsy-woman, but who can describe the astonishment which filled him when he found the following information contained in it: "Kohlhaas, the Elector of Saxony is in Berlin; he has already preceded you to the place of execution, and, if you care to know, can be recognized by a hat with blue and white plumes. The purpose for which he comes I do not need to tell you. He intends, as soon as you are buried, to have the locket dug up and the paper in it opened and read. Your Lisbeth."
Kohlhaas turned to the castellan in the utmost astonishment and asked him if he knew the marvelous woman who had given him the note. But just as the castellan started to answer "Kohlhaas, the woman—" and then hesitated strangely in the middle of his sentence, the horse-dealer was borne away by the procession which moved on again at that moment, and could not make out what the man, who seemed to be trembling in every limb, finally uttered.
When Kohlhaas arrived at the place of execution he found there the Elector of Brandenburg and his suite, among whom was the Arch-Chancellor, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, halting on horseback, in the midst of an innumerable crowd of people. On the sovereign's right was the Imperial attorney, Franz Müller, with a copy of the death sentence in his hand; on his left was his own attorney, the jurist Anton Zäuner, with the decree of the Court Tribunal at Dresden. In the middle of the half circle formed by the people stood a herald with a bundle of articles, and the two black horses, fat and glossy, pawing the ground impatiently. For the Arch-Chancellor, Sir Heinrich, had won the suit instituted at Dresden in the name of his master without yielding a single point to Squire Wenzel Tronka. After the horses had been made honorable once more by having a banner waved over their heads, and taken from the knacker, who was feeding them, they had been fattened by the Squire's servants and then, in the market-place in Dresden, had been turned over to the attorney in the presence of a specially appointed commission. Accordingly when Kohlhaas, accompanied by his guard, advanced to the mound where the Elector was awaiting him, the latter said, "Well, Kohlhaas, this is the day on which you receive justice that is your due. Look, I here deliver to you all that was taken from you by force at the Tronka Castle which I, as your sovereign, was bound to procure for you again; here are the black horses, the neck-cloth, the gold gulden, the linen—everything down to the very amount of the bill for medical attention furnished your groom, Herse, who fell at Mühlberg. Are you satisfied with me?"
Kohlhaas set the two children whom he was carrying in his arms down on the ground beside him, and with eyes sparkling with astonished pleasure read the decree which was handed to him at a sign from the Arch-Chancellor. When he also found in it a clause condemning Squire Wenzel Tronka to a punishment of two years' imprisonment, his feelings completely overcame him and he sank down on his knees at some distance from the Elector, with his hands folded across his breast. Rising and laying his hand on the knee of the Arch-Chancellor, he joyfully assured him that his dearest wish on earth had been fulfilled; then he walked over to the horses, examined them and patted their plump necks, and, coming back to the Chancellor, declared with a smile that he was going to present them to his two sons, Henry and Leopold!
The Chancellor, Sir Heinrich von Geusau, looking graciously down upon him from his horse, promised him in the name of the Elector that his last wish should be held sacred and asked him also to dispose of the other articles contained in the bundle, as seemed good to him. Whereupon Kohlhaas called out from the crowd Herse's old mother, whom he had caught sight of in the square, and, giving her the things, said, "Here, grandmother, these belong to you!" The indemnity for the loss of Herse was with the money in the bundle, and this he presented to her also, as a gift to provide care and comfort for her old age. The Elector cried, "Well, Kohlhaas the horse-dealer, now that satisfaction has been rendered you in such fashion, do you, for your part, prepare to give satisfaction to His Majesty the Emperor, whose attorney is standing here, for the violation of the peace he had proclaimed!" Taking off his hat and throwing it on the ground Kohlhaas said that he was ready to do so. He lifted the children once more from the ground and pressed them to his breast; then he gave them over to the bailiff of Kohlhaasenbrück, and while the latter, weeping quietly, led them away from the square, Kohlhaas advanced to the block.
He was just removing his neck-cloth and baring his chest when, throwing a hasty glance around the circle formed by the crowd, he caught sight of the familiar face of the man with blue and white plumes, who was standing quite near him between two knights whose bodies half hid him from view. With a sudden stride which surprised the guard surrounding him, Kohlhaas walked close up to the man, untying the locket from around his neck as he did so. He took out the paper, unsealed it, and read it through; then, without moving his eyes from the man with blue and white plumes, who was already beginning to indulge in sweet hopes, he stuck the paper in his mouth and swallowed it. At this sight the man with blue and white plumes was seized with convulsions and sank down unconscious. While his companions bent over him in consternation and raised him from the ground, Kohlhaas turned toward the scaffold, where his head fell under the axe of the executioner.