Part 1

________________________________________________
_ Michael Kohlhaas [1]

[Note 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.]

On the banks of the Hafel, about the middle of the sixteenth century, lived a horse-dealer, named Michael Kohlhaas. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and was one of the most honest, while at the same time he was one of the most terrible persons of his period. Till his thirtieth year this extraordinary man might have passed as a pattern of a good citizen. In a village, which still bears his name, he held a farm, on which, by means of his business, he was enabled to live quietly. The children whom his wife bore him, he brought up in the fear of God to honesty and industry; and there was not one among his neighbours who had not felt the benefit of his kindness or his sense of justice. In short, the world might have blessed his memory had he not carried one virtue to too great an extreme. The feeling of justice made him a robber and a murderer.

He was once riding abroad, with a string of young horses, all sleek and well-fed, and was calculating how he should expend the profit which he hoped to make in the markets--apportioning part, like a good manager, to gain further profit, and part to present enjoyment--when he came to the Elbe, and found, by a stately castle in the Saxon dominion, a toll-bar, which he had never seen on this road. He at once stopped with his horses, while the rain was pouring down, and called to the toll-taker, who soon, with a very cross face, peeped out of window. The horse-dealer asked him to open the road. "What new fashion is this?" said he, when, after a considerable time, the collector came out of his house. "A sovereign privilege," was his reply, as he unlocked the bar, "granted to the Squire[2] Wenzel von Tronka." "So," said Kohlhaas, "Wenzel's the squire's name, is it?"--and he looked at the castle, which, with its glittering battlements, peered over the field. "Is the old master dead?" "Of an apoplexy," answered the collector, as he lifted up the bar. "That's a pity!" said Kohlhaas. "He was a worthy old gentleman, who took delight in the intercourse of men, and helped business when he could. Aye, once he had a dam built of stone, because a mare of mine broke her leg yonder, where the way leads to the village. Now, how much?" he asked, and with difficulty drew out from his mantle, which fluttered in the wind, the groschen required by the collector. "Aye, old man," said he, as the other muttered, "make haste," and cursed the weather.--"If the tree from which this bar was fashioned had remained in the wood, it would have been better for both of us." Having paid the money, he would have pursued his journey, but scarcely had he passed the bar than he heard behind him a new voice calling from the tower:

[Footnote 2: "Squire" is used as an equivalent for "Junker." "Castellan" is put for "Burgvoigt" and "Schlossvoigt."]

"Ho, there, horse-dealer!" and saw the castellan shut the window, and hasten down to him. "Now, something else new!" said Kohlhaas to himself, stopping with his horses. The castellan, buttoning a waistcoat over his spacious stomach, came, and standing aslant against the rain, asked for his passport. "Passport!" cried Kohlhaas; adding, a little puzzled, that he had not one about him, to his knowledge; but that he should like to be told what sort of a thing it was as he might perchance be provided with one, notwithstanding. The castellan, eyeing him askance, remarked, that without a written permission no horse-dealer, with horses, would be allowed to pass the border. The horse-dealer asserted that he had crossed the border seventeen times in the course of his life without any such paper; that he knew perfectly all the seignorial privileges which belonged to his business; that this would only prove a mistake, and that he, therefore, hoped he might be allowed to think it over; and, as his journey was long, not be detained thus uselessly any further. The castellan answered that he would not escape the eighteenth time; that the regulation had but lately appeared, and that he must either take a passport here or return whence he had come. The horse-dealer, who began to be nettled at these illegal exactions, dismounted from his horse, after reflecting for a while, and said he would speak to the Squire von Tronka himself. He accordingly went up to the castle, followed by the castellan, who muttered something about stingy money-scrapers, and the utility of bleeding them, and both, measuring each other with their looks, entered the hall.

The squire, as it happened, was drinking with some boon companions, and they all burst out into a ceaseless fit of laughter at some jest, when Kohlhaas approached to state his grievance. The squire asked him what he wanted, while the knights, eyeing the stranger, remained still; yet hardly had he begun his request concerning the horses, than the whole company cried out--"Horses! where are they?" and ran to the window to see them. No sooner had they set eyes on the sleek lot than, on the motion of the squire, down they flew into the court-yard. The rain had ceased; castellan, bailiff and servants, were collected around, and all surveyed the animals. One praised the sorrel with the white spot on his forehead, another liked the chesnut, a third patted the dappled one with tawney spots, and agreed that the horses were like so many stags, and that none better could be reared in the country. Kohlhaas, in high spirits, replied that the horses were no better than the knights who should ride them, and asked them to make a purchase. The squire, who was greatly taken with the strong sorrel stallion, asked the price, while the bailiff pressed him to buy a pair of blacks which he thought might be usefully employed on the estate; but when the horse-dealer named his terms, the knights found them too high, and the squire said that he might ride to the round table and find King Arthur if he fixed such prices as these. Kohlhaas, who saw the castellan and the bailiff whisper together, as they cast most significant glances on the blacks, left nothing undone, actuated as he was by some dark foreboding, to make them take the horses.

"See sir," he said to the squire, "I bought the blacks for five-and-twenty gold crowns, six months ago. Give me thirty and they are yours."

Two of the knights, who stood near the squire, said plainly enough that the horses were well worth the money; but the squire thought that he might buy the sorrel, while he objected to take the blacks, and made preparations to depart, when Kohlhaas, saying that they would conclude a bargain the next time he went that way with his horses, bade farewell to the squire, and took his horse's bridle to ride off. At this moment the castellan stepped forward from the rest, and said that he had told him he could not travel without a passport. Kohlhaas, turning round, asked the squire whether this really was the case, adding that it would prove the utter destruction of his business. The squire, somewhat confused, answered as he withdrew,

"Yes, Kohlhaas, you must have a pass; speak about it with the castellan, and go your way." Kohlhaas assured him that he had no notion of evading such regulations as might be made respecting the conveyance of horses, promised, in his way through Dresden, to get a pass from the secretary's office, and begged that he might, on this occasion, be allowed to go on, as he knew nothing of the requisition. "Well," said the squire, while the storm broke out anew and rattled against his thin limbs, "Let the fellow go. Come," said he to his knights, and moving round, he was proceeding to the castle. The castellan, however, turning to him said that Kohlhaas must at least leave some pledge that he would get the passport. The squire, upon this, remained standing at the castle-gate, while Kohlhaas asked what security in money or in kind he should leave on account of the black horses. The bailiff mumbled out that he thought the horses themselves might as well be left. "Certainly," said the castellan, "That is the best plan. When he has got the pass he can take them away at any time."

Kohlhaas, astounded at so impudent a proposition, told the squire, who was shivering and holding his waistcoat tight to his body, that he should like to sell him the blacks; but the latter, as a gust of wind drove a world of rain through the gate, cried out, to cut the matter short, "If he won't leave his horses pitch him over the bar back again!" and so saying, left the spot. The horse-dealer, who saw that he must give way to force, resolved, as he could not do otherwise, to comply with the request, so he unfastened the blacks, and conducted them to a stable which the castellan showed him, left a servant behind, gave him money, told him to take care of the blacks till his return, and doubting whether, on account of the advances made in breeding, there might not be such a law in Saxony, he continued his journey with the rest of his horses to Leipzig, where he wished to attend the fair.

As soon as he reached Dresden, where, in one of the suburbs he had a house with stables, being in the habit of carrying on his trade from thence with the lesser markets of the country, he went to the secretary's office, and there learned from the councillors, some of whom he knew, what he had expected at first--namely, that the story about the passport was a mere fable. The displeased councillors having, at the request of Kohlhaas, given him a certificate as to the nullity of the requisition, he laughed at the thin squire's jest, though he did not exactly see the purport of it; and, having in a few weeks sold his horses to his satisfaction, he returned to the Tronkenburg without any bitter feeling beyond that at the general troubles of the world. The castellan, to whom he showed the certificate, gave no sort of explanation, but merely said, in answer to the question of the horse-dealer, whether he might have the horses back again, that he might go and fetch them. Already, as he crossed the court-yard, Kohlhaas heard the unpleasant news that his servant, on account of improper conduct, as they said, had been beaten and sent off a few days after he had been left at the Tronkenburg. He asked the young man who gave him this intelligence, what the servant had done, and who had attended the horses in the meanwhile. He replied that he did not know, and opened the stall in which they were kept to the horse-dealer, whose heart already swelled with dark misgivings. How great was his astonishment when, instead of his sleek, well-fed blacks, he saw a couple of skinny, jaded creatures, with bones on which things might have been hung, as on hooks, and manes entangled from want of care; in a word, a true picture of animal misery. Kohlhaas, to whom the horses neighed with a slight movement, was indignant in the highest degree, and asked what had befallen the creatures? The servant answered, that no particular misfortune had befallen them, but that, as there had been a want of draught-cattle, they had been used a little in the fields. Kohlhaas cursed this shameful and preconcerted act of arbitrary power; but, feeling his own weakness, suppressed his rage, and, as there was nothing else to be done, prepared to leave the robber's nest with his horses, when the castellan, attracted by the conversation, made his appearance, and asked what was the matter.

"Matter!" said Kohlhaas, "who allowed Squire Von Tronka and his people to work in the fields the horses that I left?" He asked if this was humanity, tried to rouse the exhausted beasts by a stroke with a switch, and showed him that they could not move. The castellan, after he had looked at him for awhile, insolently enough said, "Now, there's an ill-mannered clown! Why does not the fellow thank his God that his beasts are still living?" He asked whose business it was to take care of them when the boy had run away, and whether it was not fair that the horses should earn in the fields the food that was given them, and concluded by telling him to cease jabbering, or he would call out the dogs, and get some quiet that way at any rate.

The horse-dealer's heart beat strongly against his waistcoat, he felt strongly inclined to fling the good-for-nothing mass of fat into the mud, and set his foot on his brazen countenance. Yet his feeling of right, which was accurate as a gold balance, still wavered; before the tribunal of his own heart, he was still uncertain whether his adversary was in the wrong; and, while pocketing the affronts, he went to his horses and smoothed down their manes. Silently weighing the circumstances, he asked, in a subdued voice, on what account the servant had been sent away from the castle. The castellan answered that it was because the rascal had been impudent. He had resisted a necessary change of stables, and had desired that the horses of two young noblemen, who had come to Tronkenburg, should remain out all night in the high road. Kohlhaas would have given the value of the horses to have had the servant by him, and to have compared his statement with that of the thick-lipped castellan. He stood awhile and smoothed the tangles out of the manes, bethinking himself what was to be done in his situation, when suddenly the scene changed, and the Squire Von Tronka, with a host of knights, servants, and dogs, returning from a hare-hunt galloped into the castle-court. The castellan, when the squire asked what had happened, took care to speak first; and, while the dogs at the sight of the stranger were barking at him on one side, with the utmost fury, and the knights on the other side were trying to silence them, he set forth, distorting the matter as much as possible, the disturbance that the horse-dealer had created, because his horses had been used a little. Laughing scornfully, he added that he had refused to acknowledge them as his own. "They are not my horses, your worship!" cried Kohlhaas; "these are not the horses that were worth thirty golden crowns! I will have my sound and well-fed horses." The squire, whose face became pale for a moment, alighted and said, "If the rascal will not take his horses, why let him leave them. Come Gunther, come Hans," cried he, as he brushed the dust from his breeches with his hand. "And, ho! wine there!" he called, as he crossed the threshold with the knights and entered his dwelling. Kohlhaas said that he would rather send for the knacker and have the horses knocked on the head, than he would take them in such a condition to his stable at Kohlhaasenbrueck. He left them standing where they were, without troubling himself further about them, and vowing that he would have justice, flung himself on his brown horse, and rode off.

He was just setting off full speed for Dresden, when, at the thought of the servant, and at the complaint that had been made against him at the castle, he began to walk slowly, turned his horse's head before he had gone a thousand paces, and took the road to Kohlhaasenbrueck, that, in accordance with his notions of prudence and justice, he might first hear the servant's account of the matter. For a correct feeling, well inured to the defective ways of the world, inclined him, in spite of the affronts he had received, to pass over the loss of his horses, as an equitable result; if, indeed, as the castellan had maintained, it could be proved that his servant was in the wrong. On the other hand, a feeling equally honourable, which gained ground as he rode further, and heard, wherever he stopped, of the wrongs that travellers had to endure every day at the Tronkenburg, told him, that if the whole affair was a concerted scheme--as, indeed, it seemed to be--it was his duty to use every effort to obtain satisfaction for the affronts he had endured, and to secure his fellow-citizens for the future.

As soon as, on his arrival at Kohlhaasenbrueck, he had embraced his good wife Lisbeth, and kissed his children, who sported about his knees, he inquired after his head servant, Herse, and whether any thing had been heard of him.

"Yes, dearest Michael," said Lisbeth, "and only think--that unfortunate Herse came here about a fortnight ago, beaten most barbarously--aye, so beaten, that he could scarcely breathe. We took him to bed, when he spat a good deal of blood, and, in answer to our repeated questions, told a story which none of us could understand;--how he was left behind by you at the Tronkenburg with the horses, which were not allowed to pass, how he was forced, by the most shameful ill-usage, to leave the castle, and how he was unable to bring the horses with him."

"Indeed!" said Kohlhaas, putting off his mantle, "is he recovered now?"

"Tolerably," she answered, "with the exception of the spitting of blood. I wished immediately to send a servant to the Tronkenburg, to take care of the horses till you went there, for Herse has always been so honest, indeed so much more faithful to us than any one else, that I never thought of doubting a statement supported by so many evident signs of truth, or of believing that he had lost the horses in any other way. Yet he entreated me not to counsel any one to show himself in that robber's nest, and to give up the horses, if I would not sacrifice a human being."

"Is he still in bed?" asked Kohlhaas, loosening his neckcloth.

"For the last few days he has gone about in the court," she answered--"in short, you will see that all is true enough, and that this affair is one of the atrocities which the people at the Tronkenburg have lately perpetrated against strangers."

"That I must look into," said Kohlhaas. "Call him here, Lisbeth, if he is up." With these words he sat himself down, while the housewife, who was pleased to see him so forbearing, went and fetched the servant.

"What have you been doing at the Tronkenburg?" asked Kohlhaas, as Lisbeth entered the room with him. "I am not well pleased with you." The servant, in whose pale face a spot of red appeared at these words, was silent for a while, and then said--

"You are right, master, for I flung into the Elbe a match, which, by God's providence, I had with me, to set on fire the robber's nest, from which I was driven, as I heard a child crying within, and thought to myself--'God's lightning may consume it, but I will not.'"

"But what did you do to be sent away from the Tronkenburg?" said Kohlhaas, much struck.

"It was on account of a bad piece of business," said Herse, wiping the perspiration from his forehead; "but no matter, 'what can't be cured must be endured.' I would not allow the horses to be ruined by field work, and told them they were still young, and had never been used for drawing."

Kohlhaas, endeavouring to conceal the perturbation of his mind, observed, that Herse had not quite told the truth in this instance, as the horses had been in harness a little during the preceding spring. "As you were a kind of guest at the castle, you might have obliged them once or twice, when they were forced to get in their harvest as quickly as they could."

"So I did, master," replied Herse, "I thought, as they began to make wry faces, that it would not cost us the horses, at all events. On the third morning I put them too, and brought in three loads of corn."

Kohlhaas, whose heart swelled, fixed his eyes on the ground, and said, "They told me nothing of that, Herse."

The man, however, assured him that it was so. "My incivility," he said, "consisted in this: that I would not allow the horses to be yoked again, when they had scarcely taken their feed at noon, and that when the castellan and the bailiff told me to take fodder gratis, and to pocket the money which had been given me, I gave them a short answer, turned on my heel, and walked off."

"But," said Kohlhaas, "it was not for this incivility that you were sent away from the Tronkenburg."

"God forbid!" said the man, "it was on account of a rascally piece of injustice. For in the evening, the horses of two knights, who had come to the Tronkenburg, were put in the stable, and mine were tied to the stable-door. And when I took the horses out of the hand of the castellan, and asked him where they were to be kept, he showed me a pigsty, built with boards and laths against the castle wall."

"You mean," interrupted Kohlhaas, "that it was such a bad place for horses, that it was more like a pigsty than a stable."

"I mean a pigsty, master," said Herse, "really and truly a pigsty, where the pigs ran in and out, and in which I could not stand upright."

"Perhaps there was no other place for the horses," observed Kohlhaas, "and those of the knights had, in some measure, the preference."

"The place," answered the servant, dropping his voice, "was indeed narrow. Seven knights in all were stopping at the castle; but if it had been you--you would have put the horses a little closer together. I said that I would try to hire a stable in the village, but the castellan objected that he must have the horses under his own eye, and that I must not venture to move them from the yard."

"Hem!" said Kohlhaas, "what did you do then?"

"Why, as the bailiff told me that the two guests would only stop over the night, and would leave the next morning, I led the horses into the sty. But the next day passed, and nothing of the kind took place; and when the third came, I heard the visitors would remain at the castle for some weeks."

"Then, in the end," said Kohlhaas, "it was not so bad in the pigsty, as it seemed, when first you looked into it."

"True," replied Herse, "when I had swept the place a bit, it was passable. Then I gave the girl a groschen to put the pigs somewhere else, and during the day, at least, I managed to let the horses stand upright, for I took off the boards at the top, when the morning dawned, and put them on again in the evening. They peeped out of the roof like so many geese, and looked after Kohlhaasenbrueck, or some place at any rate, where they would be better off."

"But now," said Kohlhaas, "why in the world did they send you away?"

"Because, master," replied the man, "they wanted to get rid of me; because, as long as I was there, they could not ruin the horses. In the yard, and in the servants' room, they always made queer faces at me, and because I thought 'you may twist your mouths out of joint, if you like,' they managed to find a pretext, and turned me out of the yard."

"But the reason," said Kohlhaas, "they must have had some reason."

"Oh, certainly," replied Herse, "and a very good one too. On the evening of the second day which I had passed in the sty, I took the horses, which had become dirty, and was going to ride them out to water. When I was just at the gate, and was about to turn, I heard the castellan and the bailiff, with servants, dogs, and sticks, rush upon me from the servants' room, and shout out 'Stop the thief, stop the hangdog!' as if they were all possessed. The gate-keeper intercepted my passage, and when I asked him and the uproarious mob what was the matter, the castellan, seizing the bridle of the two horses, cried, 'Matter, indeed! Where are you going with the horses?' and so saying, seized me by the collar. Why, where should I be going?' said I, 'I am going to water the horses.' 'Oh, to water!' cried the castellan, 'I'll water you! I'll teach you to swim on the high road all the way to Kohlhaasenbrueck.' Upon this, he and the bailiff, who had laid hold of my leg, flung me treacherously from the horse, so that I lay full length in the mud. 'Murder!' shouted I, 'There are the harness, and the horse-cloths, and a bundle of linen belonging to me in the stable.' But the castellan and the servants, while the bailiff led off the horses, belaboured me with whips, and cudgels, and kicks, till I fell down, half dead, at the gate. And when I said, 'Where are the thievish rogues taking the horses?' and got up, 'Out of the castle-yard!' cried the castellan. 'Ho, there, Caesar!--Ho, Touzer!--Ho, Pincher!' and straight more than a dozen dogs flew at me. At this I broke a stick or something from the fence, and lay three of the dogs dead at my feet; but when, tortured by their fangs, I was forced to give way, 'Phew!' went a pipe--the dogs were in the yard--bang went the gate--the bolt was drawn, and down in the road I fell, quite exhausted."

Kohlhaas, though his face was white, affected a jocose style, and said, "Now, did not you wish to abscond, Herse?" and when the man, colouring, looked on the ground, he added, "Now confess, you did not like the pigsty, you thought the stable in Kohlhaasenbrueck much better--did you not?" "Thunder of Heaven!" exclaimed Herse, "I left the harness and horse-cloths, and the bundle of linen in the sty. Should I not have secured the three crowns which I left in the red silk neckerchief, hid behind the manger? Death and the devil!--When you talk so, you make me wish to light that match again which I threw away;" "Nay, nay," said Kohlhaas, "I did not mean so ill with you, I believe every word you have spoken, and if there is any talk about it, I will take the sacrament upon it; I am only sorry that you fared no better in my service. Go to bed, Herse; go to bed. Take a flask of wine and comfort yourself--you shall have justice." He then rose, asked for a list of the things which the man had left in the sty, specified their value; asked him the expenses of curing his hurt, and, after shaking hands with him, let him go.

He then told his wife, Lisbeth, the whole particulars of the affair; said that he was resolved to claim public justice, and was pleased to see that in this design she fully agreed with him. For she said that many other travellers, probably less forbearing than he, would go by that castle, that it would be a pious work to stop disorders like these, and that she would soon collect enough for the expenses of the suit. Kohlhaas called her a dear woman, passed this and the following day with her and his children, and, as soon as business allowed, went to Dresden to make his complaint before the tribunal.

Then with the help of a lawyer of his acquaintance he drew up a petition, in which, after a circumstantial statement of the wrong which the Squire Wenzel von Tronka had done both to him, and his servant Herse, he claimed that he should be punished according to law, that his horses should be restored to their former condition, and that compensation should be awarded for the wrong which he and his servant had suffered. The case was clear enough, the fact that the horses had been illegally detained threw a light on all the rest, and even if it were assumed that they had been injured merely by chance, the claim of their owner to have them back in a healthy condition, was nevertheless just. Besides Kohlhaas had plenty of good friends at Dresden, who promised heartily to support his cause, his extensive trade in horses had gained him a numerous acquaintance, and the honesty of his dealings had acquired him the good will of the most important men in the country. He frequently dined with his advocate, who was himself a man of consequence, gave him a sum to defray the law expenses, and being fully satisfied by him as to the issue of the suit, returned, after a few weeks to his wife at Kohlhaasenbrueck. However months passed on, and the year was nearly at an end, and he had not yet got from Saxony even a statement concerning his suit, much less the decision itself. After he had applied to the tribunal several times anew he asked his legal assistant in a confidential letter, what could be the cause of this monstrous delay, and learned that his suit had been entirely set aside in consequence of a high application to the supreme court at Dresden. In answer to another letter from the horse-dealer, couched in terms of high dissatisfaction, and asking a reason for all this, the jurist replied, that the Squire Wenzel von Tronka was related to two young gentlemen, Herrn Henry and Conrad von Tronka, one of whom was attached to the lord cup-bearer, while the other was chamberlain. He advised him, without proceeding further in the suit, to try to get his horses back from the Tronkenburg, gave him to understand that the squire, who was now in the capital, had ordered his people to return them, and finally entreated him, if he would not be satisfied, at any-rate not to give him (the writer) any further commissions relative to the matter. _

Read next: Part 2


Table of content of Michael Kohlhaas


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book