No More Learning

Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay — (etc. )
1
1
But that's all shove be'ind me — long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year sodger tells:
« If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else. ”
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells!
On the road to Mandalay — (etc. )
I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Though I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin'-- but wot do they understand ?


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RUDYARD KIPLING
8663
1
Beefy face an' grubby 'and -
Law! wot do they understand ?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land !
On the road to Mandalay — (etc. )
1
1
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a
thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be -
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea —
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
Oh, the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
i
THE GALLEY-SLAVE
0"
H, GALLANT was our galley, from her carven steering-wheel
To her figure-head of silver and her beak of hammered steel;
The leg-bar chafed the ankle, and we gasped for cooler air,
But no galley on the water with our galley could compare !
Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in
gold,
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold;
The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,
As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.
ile
13
It was merry in the galley, for we reveled now and then
If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!
As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's
bliss,
And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lovers' kiss.
Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark;
They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark -
We heaved them to the fishes; but so fast the galley sped,
We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn, our dead.
Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we —
The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea!


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8664
RUDYARD KIPLING
By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and
sheered,
Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared ?
Was it storm ? Our fathers faced it, and a wilder never blew;
Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle
through.
Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death?
Nay, our very babes would mock you, had they time for idle breath.
But to-day I leave the galley, and another takes my place;
There's my name upon the deck-beam — let it stand a little space.
I am free — to watch my messmates beating out to open main,
Free of all that Life can offer — save to handle sweep again.
$
i
By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel,
By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal;
By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the brine,
I am paid in full for service — would that service still were mine!
Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth,
Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North.
When the niggers break the hatches, and the decks are gay with
gore,
And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore,
1
套
​She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare:
When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there.
Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by,
To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves
and die.
Ի
Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away —
Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day,
When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath,
And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their
teeth.
It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more
Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.
But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service, then ?
God be thanked — whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with
Men!


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8665
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
(1777-1811)
BY CHARLES HARVEY GENUNG
18*
.
EINRICH VON Kleist is a tragic figure; an unhappy man born
in an unhappy time. Endowed with supreme poetic powers
which in a more fortunate age might have made him chief
among the poets of Germany, he stood beneath the overmastering
shadow of Shakespeare; he was hampered by the dominating genius
of Goethe and Schiller; he was embittered by the neglect of his
contemporaries, and finally was crushed by the ignominy of national
disaster and disgrace. Born of a noble family, Kleist fell heir to all
the inconveniences of rank; he was poor,
but precluded by birth from any except a
military or an official career. At strife with
himself, richly gifted for one calling but
obliged to adopt another, he consumed the
energy of his younger years in an endeavor
to attain a clear intellectual vision.
It was
the same struggle that took Alfieri's youth-
ful strength, and caused Byron to bid fare-
well to his native land. But when at last
Kleist had almost worked out his spiritual
problem and had discovered the true sources
of his strength, his country's liberties were
crushed at Jena. “More deeply than most
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
of his contemporaries,” says Kuno Francke,
«did Kleist feel the agony of an age which saw the creation of cen-
turies sink into dust. » And national dishonor followed close upon
military defeat. Although the distant mutterings were already audible
of the storm which was to sweep the French from German soil, Kleist
was destined never to see the glorious outcome of that struggle.
Hopeless but resigned, he fell by his own hand before the national
uprising had taken shape. In less than two years after his death,
the ultimate triumph of Germany had become assured by the victory
at Leipsic. It was on the anniversary of Kleist's birthday that the
battle was won.
He would have been thirty-six years old.
The story of Kleist's life may be briefly told. He was born on
October 18th, 1777, at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. An orphan at eleven,



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8666
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
3
he was educated by a clergyman in Berlin, and at the age of sixteen
entered the guards and served in the Rhine campaign. When he
left the army he took up the study of law, and obtained a position in
the civil service which he lost after the battle of Jena. It was then
that his genius was developed, and the next five years were those of
his greatest productivity; but meanwhile an ignominious peace de-
stroyed all his hopes for Germany. The despair of the poet without
an audience, and of the patriot without a country, brought him to
his last act. With Henriette Vogel, the high-strung wife of a Berlin
merchant, he went to Potsdam; and in accordance with their romantic
agreement, on November 21st, 1811, he shot first her and then him-
self. A simple stone marks the spot where the greatest of Prussian
poets lies buried.
The works which Kleist has left behind are of the highest import-
ance in German literature. His dramas hold the stage to-day beside
those of Goethe, of Schiller, and of Lessing. The characters he has
created have become indispensable members of that immortal com-
pany which peoples the imagination of the German race. Potentially
he was the greatest dramatist that Germany has produced. Although
he grew up among the extravagances of the Romantic school, Kleist
was a realist. He had indeed sought in the realms of fancy, relief
from the oppressive reality, and so it is that upon his most real-
istic pictures there falls a ray of weird light from dreamland; but
as in all great works of art, realistic treatment is combined with ideal
thought, so in Kleist. Each figure; each event, embodied itself before
him in its actual material form; and what he saw he was able to
draw with a firm and sure hand. His characters move with heavy
tread; they are robust living creatures: but they pursue high aims,
are moved by noble impulses, and are significant of lofty thoughts
that can find expression only in symbols. If they are sometimes
lightly clad in romantic garb, these garments are but transparent
robes from the Erlking's chest, which only heighten the convincing
reality of the figures they enwrap.
Kleist's power of plastic present.
ation was not surpassed by either Goethe or Schiller. He painted
«the thing as he saw it, for the God of things as they are. "
Fate was the dominant note in Kleist's philosophy. The strands
of his destiny were woven by the Norns, and no effort of the will
could break the rope by which they had bound him. In all his
works this inevitable succession of events reappears.
as a force from without but as a power from within, placed there at
birth, relentless, from which there is no ultimate escape; even the
struggle against it is only a part of the predestined plan, foredoomed
to defeat. So Kleist struggled; so his characters struggle, but with
.
this difference: these win a spiritual triumph, none ends as he ended.
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03
211
It is fate not


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HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8667
IH
ME
The poet saw the way, but the Prussian nobleman could not follow.
The characters in his dramas are involved without fault of their own
in their tragic situations. In Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (Kitty
of Heilbronn) it is love, represented as an irresistible possession of
the soul, that takes the form of fate. Not cruelty nor insult can
shake Käthchen in her childlike devotion. So in the wonderland of
Penthesilea,' in which the whole genius of Kleist is revealed, the
heroine is relentlessly impelled to kill the man she loves, for the
queen of the Amazons may not know love; then, by no act of vio-
lence but by a supreme effort of the will, she joins her lover in death.
In the Prince of Homburg' fate takes the form of military discipline
and obedience. The prince secures his spiritual triumph by recogniz-
ing at last the justice of the death sentence, and by urging its exe-
cution. It was the failure of this play to obtain a hearing that put
the last bitter drop into the poet's cup of sorrow.
This and the
Hermannsschlacht' (Hermann's Battle) were not published until after
Kleist's death, and they are his greatest works. The Battle of Her-
mann' is the embodiment of exuberant joy at the thought that now
all other considerations may be laid aside, and that pitiless ven-
geance may at last be exacted. Kleist firmly believed in the ultimate
overthrow of French domination, and he symbolized his belief in the
splendid figure of the old Teutonic hero who threw off the Roman
yoke. This is the most joyous note that Kleist ever struck. In all
else the tragedy of his own life threw its shadow upon his work.
Nothing in his external circumstances served to assist him in the
attainment of his true ambition. Only one of his plays ever received
so much as a respectful hearing during his lifetime; and for fifty
years he lay in a forgotten grave.
One comedy appears in the brief list of Kleist's works: Der
Zerbrochene Krug' (The Broken Jug). It is the most compact and
effective one-act comedy in German literature. This vivid picture of
a village judge sitting in judgment upon a crime which he has him-
self committed has been likened to a Dutch genre piece; its popu-
larity is undiminished to-day. In prose narration also Kleist showed
himself a supreme master; and his masterpiece is Michael Kohlhaas,'
a tale of popular rebellion in the sixteenth century. It moves before
the reader with the stern vividness of actual event. Kohlhaas's keen
sense of justice, at first a virtue and guaranty of good citizenship,
makes him at last a rebel and a scourge. It is a story of the most
substantial realism; but this ordinary horse-dealer is at heart an
idealist, carrying within him the picture of an impossible world in
which absolute justice reigns. His acts are the inevitable outgrowth
of this ideal. The tale is told with thrilling simplicity, objectivity,
and strength; there are no superfluous trappings of historical romance;
the characters triumph by their own force.
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8668
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
Slowly Kleist has won the place which he is destined to occupy in
German literature, and to which the aged Wieland long ago assigned
him,- beside Goethe whom he revered and Schiller from whom he
revolted. As in the case of Byron, the imagination cannot refrain
from the futile inquiry: What might he not have achieved, had he
lived past the crisis ? With the dawn of a happier time, Kleist's
genius might, so far at least as the drama is concerned, have made
good his audacious boast that he would one day tear the laurels from
Goethe's brow.
1
C
Chart Gunung
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS
the
A
distin-
a
書
​Translated by Francis Lloyd and William Newton
BOUT the middle of the sixteenth century there lived on
banks of the Havel a horse-dealer named Michael Kohl-
haas. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and was
guished as at once the most right-feeling and most terrible man
of his time. Up to his thirtieth year, he might have been selected
as the model of a perfect citizen. In the village in which he
dwelt, and which still bears his name, he possessed a farm, from
the produce of which, together with his business, he derived
tranquil subsistence; he had several children, whom he brought
up in the fear of God and the love of diligence and truth; and
there was not one among his neighbors who was not witness
either to his generosity or to his unswerving sense of justice. In
a word, had he not carried to excess one virtue, posterity wou
have blessed his memory. Unluckily, however, his love of just-
ice made him a robber and a murderer.
One day he started from home with a drove of young horses,
all in high condition, with which he hoped to do great things
at the fair he was about to visit; he rode on, thinking what use
he would make of his gains, both in future investments and in
little additions to the pleasures of the moment, and was lost in
thought as he came to that part of the road which runs parallel
with the Elbe: when just beneath a noble Saxon castle, his horse
shied at a turnpike which in his previous journeys he had never
encountered. He pulled up amid the pouring rain, and called
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HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8669
(
the pikeman, who soon presented his sulky visage at the win-
dow; the horse-dealer desired him to open.
“Where on earth has this rained from ? ” he asked, as the
man made his appearance after a leisurely delay.
“It is a royal patent,” the man replied as he opened the gate,
" lately granted to my Lord Wenzel von Tronka. ”
Indeed,” said Kohlhaas: “is Wenzel the name ? ) and with
that he gazed at the castle, whose glistening towers commanded
the plain.
« What! is the old lord dead ? ” he asked.
"Dead of apoplexy,” the pikeman answered, as he threw wide
the gate.
臺
​套
​11
1
19
“Well, well, it's a bad job,” Kohlhaas replied: "he was a fine
old fellow a man that loved to see business, and lent a help-
ing hand where it was needed. I remember he had a stone
causeway built outside the village, because a mare of mine slipped
there once and broke her leg. – Well, what's to pay ? ” he in-
quired, as he extracted the pence the old man demanded, from
beneath his storm-tossed mantle. “Ay, old man,” he added, as
he caught an exhortation to haste, 'mid curses against the weather,
"if the wood that gate is made of were still growing in the
forest, it would be better for both you and me. ” And therewith
he handed him the money, and essayed to proceed on his jour-
ney. He had but just passed the gate, when a loud cry of
" Hold hard there, you horse-dealer! ” came ringing from the
tower; turning, he saw the castellan hastily close a window and
hurry down the decline.
"Well, what's up now? ” thought Kohlhaas, checking his cav-
alcade; the steward did not leave him long in doubt, but but-
toning his vest over his ample person and thrusting his head
cornerwise against the wind, he inquired for his passport.
"Passport ? ” repeated Kohlhaas; as far as he knew he had no
idea that he had one, but if he would have the kindness to tell
him what on earth it was, he might perchance be provided with it.
The castellan eyed him askance, and gruffly replied that with-
out a government passport no horse-dealer could carry his cattle
over the frontier.
Kohlhaas assured him that he had already crossed the frontier
seventeen times without a line of writing by him, and that he
had taken the trouble to study every by-law that concerned his
business; further, that he was persuaded that there must be some
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8670
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
mistake. Then, with a polite gesture, he begged the man to
bethink himself, as he had a long day's journey before him and
did not wish to be frivolously delayed. The castellan grinned,
and said that if he had got through seventeen times he would
not find it so easy the eighteenth; adding, with a certain irony,
that the order had been issued to fit just this case.
To further
questioning, he answered that he must either buy the passport on
the spot or go where he came from. The horse-dealer, who be-
gan to be angry about these illegal exactions, after a little reflec-
tion dismounted, saying that he would himself have a talk with
my Lord of Tronka about the matter. He then betook himself
to the castle, whither the castellan followed him, mumbling about
skinflints and the good it did them to lighten their purses; and
they both entered the hall, each measuring the other with angry
glances.
It happened that my lord was feasting with sundry pleasant
friends, and that a roar of laughter, starting at the bidding of
some joke, met Kohlhaas as he pressed forward to prefer his
complaint. My lord leaned back and asked him what he wanted,
and the knights when they caught sight of the stranger held
their peace; but he had hardly got out a word or two of his
business when the whole gang shouted, “Horses! where
they ? And without further ado, they rose from their seats and
ran to the windows to see them.
Catching sight of the sleek-
coated drove, they needed not the proposal of my lord to betake
themselves with lightning speed into the court-yard below, where
castellan, steward, valet, and groom crowded around to survey
the animals. The rain had ceased, and they regarded them
their ease.
One praised the sorrel with the star, another admired
the chestnut brown, and a third petted the flea-bitten roan; and
all agreed that the brutes were lithe-limbed as stags, and that
none better had been bred in the country. Kohlhaas laughed
gayly, and said the horses were no better than the knights who
were to ride them; and with that he bade them make an offer
for them. My lord, who had taken a great fancy to the sorrel
stallion, inquired the price; and at the same time the steward
pressed him to purchase a pair of horses, as he was short of
cattle on the farm. But when the dealer named his terms, the
knights found that he wished to sell his wares too dear; and my
lord bade him seek out the Round Table and manage matters
with King Arthur, if he valued his stock so highly. Kohlhaas,
are
3
at
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HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8671
.
»
observing the castellan and the steward exchanging whispers,
the while they threw telling glances on the steeds, did his best
to drive a bargain. He had some vague presentiment; turning
to my lord he said, — "I bought these animals six months ago for
twenty-five gold florins: give me thirty and they are yours. ”
The knights, standing beside my lord, expressed their plain
opinion that the horses were worth so much at least: but the
nobleman hinted that he would give the money for the stallions
but not for the geldings; however, he turned his back and made
as though he would return to the castle. Kohlhaas took his
horse's bridle and called to him that perhaps the next time he
came that way they would manage the matter better; and with
a parting salute he was about to betake himself on his journey.
He had scarcely placed his foot in the stirrup, when the cas-
tellan stepped from the group and bade him heed what had been
intimated; namely, that he could not proceed without a passport.
Kohlhaas turned to his Lordship and asked if this were the
case, adding that if it were so, it would altogether break up his
business. The nobleman appeared put out and confused, but an-
swered, “Ay, Kohlhaas, you must get yourself a passport: talk it
over with the castellan, and get you gone. ”
And with this he turned on his heel as though it were no
concern of his. Kohlhaas replied that he was not the man to
play fast and loose with the law — that when he reached Dresden
he would get the passport at the government office; but that for
this once, having had no notice, he would beg to be allowed to
proceed.
“Well,” said my lord, as a fresh gust of wind buffeted his
meagre limbs, "let the poor devil pass.
Turning away, he called to his guests to accompany him; and
was about to re-enter the castle when the castellan, following him
up, insisted that the man should leave some pledge of his good
faith, either in money or goods. My lord stood in the doorway
and seemed to reflect. Kohlhaas inquired what sum would be
required of him, whereon the steward muttered something about
it being better that the horses themselves should be left. The
castellan caught the words and cried:-
“Yes! good! that's just to the purpose: when he gets his
passport he can return and fetch them at his leisure. ”
Kohlhaas, annoyed at so shameless a demand, reiterated that
the sole object of his journey was the sale of these very horses;
but the nobleman, who with chattering teeth and garments folded
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## p. 8672 (#284) ###########################################

8672
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
closely about him was caught by a gust that drove a whole
deluge of rain and hail through the arched entrance, beat a
hasty retreat, crying, “Let him leave the horses if he will; but if
not, back through the turnpike with him, in God's name. ”
The horse-dealer, seeing that it was a case of might against
right, determined to give way; and detaching from the rest the
pair of geldings, led them to a stable pointed out by the castel-
lan. Leaving his groom Herse in charge, he bade him take
good care of them; and accompanying his instructions with a
well-filled purse, he resumed his journey with the rest of the
drove. Reflecting as he jogged along towards Leipsic (where
he was minded to be present at the fair), it struck him that per-
haps after all the Saxon government had forbidden the import of
horses, with a view to encourage breeding within the frontier.
Having transacted his business in Leipsic, he rode on to
Dresden, where in one of the suburbs he possessed a house
which he made his headquarters whenever he visited the petty
markets in the neighborhood. Almost on the first moment of his
arrival he hurried to the chancellor's office; where one of the
counselors (of whom, by-the-by, he knew several) at once con-
firmed his first instinctive suspicion, giving his word that there
was not the faintest foundation for the story he had been told.
Kohlhaas laughed heartily at what he called the practical joke
of my lord-of-skin-and-bone; and having obtained a certificate
from the counselors, who seemed only half pleased, he turned his
attention to other matters. After a while, having disposed satis-
factorily of what horses he had with him, he started in the best
of humors for Castle Tronka, without any bitterer feeling than
that of the sorrow common to all mortals. Arrived at the front-
ier, the castellan examined his certificate, but made no comment;
and in answer to the dealer's inquiry as to whether he could now
have his horses, he grunted that he might go into the court-yard
and fetch them himself. Crossing the yard, Kohlhaas was sadly
grieved to learn that for sundry misdemeanors his servant Herse
had been first flogged and then fairly hunted from the castle: he
asked the lad who told him what these misdemeanors had been,
and who had looked after the geldings meanwhile; but could get
nothing out of him, but “Do' know sir; do’ know, sir. ”
his heart full of an evil presentiment, he went and opened the
stable to which he was directed: but what was his amazement at
finding, instead of two sleek, well-fed animals, a yoke of jades of
no more value than so much carrion; creatures with bones like
3
1
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1
With


## p. 8673 (#285) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8673
(
or
***
!
31
hat-pegs, with mane and tail twisted into ropes, with in fact all
that could go to make up an epitome of brute suffering. The
wretched animals greeted Kohlhaas with a faint neigh; and he,
roused to the fiercest passion, demanded loudly how this had come
about; the lad, who was standing near, replied that it was all
right, that they had been fed regularly, but that as it was harvest-
time and they were short of draught-horses, they had taken a
turn with the others in the fields. Kohlhaas vented a string of
curses against what he called “planned villainy”; but bethinking
himself of his helplessness, he swallowed his wrath, and prepared
to leave the castle with the horses. The castellan, however, who
had heard him at a distance, came forward and asked what was
the matter.
“Matter! ” roared Kohlhaas: “who gave my Lord of Tronka
permission to use my geldings in his fields ? Look here,” he
added, vainly trying with his whip to arouse some sign of life in
the worn-out animals, was it a man a beast that brought
them to this ? »
The castellan, with arms akimbo, stared him impudently in the
face.
"You blackguard, you; you twopenny rascal! thank God you
have the jades there at all with their legs under them. ” Who
was to tend them when his groom had taken leg-bail ? he should
like to know; or was it likely his master was going to find keep
and stabling for nothing? Then raising his voice, he wound up
with — “Make no bones about it; take the brutes and march, or
I'll turn the dogs loose and make matters smooth in no time.
”
The dealer's heart beat hard against his doublet, impelling
him to roll the pot-bellied scoundrel in the mud, that he might
grind his brazen face under his heel. He was not yet satisfied,
however; the balance wavered, for his sense of justice, delicate
as a jeweler's scale, weighed right and wrong to the uttermost
atom. Nevertheless, he gulped down both wrath and railing
together, and — passing his fingers through the tangled manes of
the poor creatures — he asked with softened voice for what fault
his groom had been dismissed the castle. The castellan answered,
because the fellow had given himself airs in the stable-yard: had
objected to a necessary change of stables, and had insisted that
the steeds of two noblemen who came a visit to the castle
should pass the night on the high-road, while his horses were
snugly housed within.
on
XV-543


## p. 8674 (#286) ###########################################

8674
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
1
1
1
Kohlhaas would have given the value of the horses to have
had his man at hand, to compare his tale with that of the brag-
gart castellan.
He stood there in a brown study, mechanically
disentangling each hair, when suddenly the scene changed, and
Lord Wenzel of Tronka dashed in hot from the chase, followed
by a cavalcade of knights, hounds, and horse-boys. The dogs set
up so fierce a howl when they caught sight of the stranger that
they were hardly silenced by the whips of the knights. My
lord reined in and asked what the matter might be; where.
upon the castellan took up his parable, and — while maliciously
distorting the facts — began complaining of the uproar the dealer
had made because his horses had been put to work a little on
the farm, adding with scornful glee that the fellow had even
refused to acknowledge them as his own.
“Those, most noble lord, are not my horses,” broke in Kohl-
haas. « Those are not the horses I left here worth thirty gold
florins apiece. I demand back my steeds sound and well-condi-
tioned. ”
My lord paled before his glance; but recovering, sprang from
the saddle and said, “If the cursed rogue won't take 'em as they
are, he may leave 'em! Hey, Hans! hey, Gunther! he cried,
as he beat the dust out of his breeches, "get up some wine, you
lazy Oafs;” and then ascended the stairs with the whole party.
Kohlhaas said he would rather call a knacker and leave the
pair to rot on a dunghill than take them to Kohlhaasenbrück
as they were; and there he left them without once looking back,
and swinging himself into the saddle, he took the road with a
parting assurance that he would soon find a way to get justice
done.
He had already struck spurs for Dresden, when the thought
of the accusation that had been brought against his groom at the
castle made him draw rein and ride at a foot-pace: and he had
not gone half a mile before it grew upon him so much that he
turned his horse's head and made for Kohlhaasenbrück, minded
first to hear his servant's account of the matter; for experience
whispered in his ear that he knew the world too well to expect
perfection in anybody. He reflected that possibly the man had
gone wrong somehow, and in that case it would be better to
put up with the loss as a proper consequence of his folly; but
another voice, as loud as, but more emphatic than, that of expe-
rience, kept saying to him that if the thing should prove to be a
2
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## p. 8675 (#287) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8675
Potteet
(
planned trick, it was his duty to strive with his whole strength
for redress of his own wrong and for the future security of oth-
ers. As he rode along and heard at every wayside inn of the
villanies constantly practiced against those whose ill fate led them
by the Castle of Tronka, this latter thought absorbed him more
and more fully, so as almost to shut out entirely that noble doubt
which still prompted hesitation.
On arriving at Kohlhaasenbrück, he had no sooner embraced
his faithful wife and kissed the crowing children that clung around
him, than he inquired after his groom Herse, asking whether
anything had been seen of him.
Mercy on us! ” his wife cried: "only think, it's but a fort-
night since he came back to us in a fearful plight, with scarcely
a sound place in his body, and hardly able to draw breath for
his wounds; we got him to bed and there he lay spitting blood:
and when we inquired the why and wherefore, he told us a story
of which none of us could make head or tail;— how he had been
left at Castle Tronka with some horses, had been shamefully mal-
treated and compelled to fly the place; that the nags were still
there, for they would not let him lay a finger upon them. ”
"Indeed? ” said Kohlhaas, laying aside his mantle; "and is he
all right again now ? ”
«He spits blood yet,” she answered; but he is getting
stronger. I was just going to send a man to the castle to look
after the horses till you came,- for I knew Herse too well to
doubt his word, especially as he has so much to show for it, and
I could not think for a moment that he had done anything with
his charge, - but the poor fellow begged and prayed me not to
risk any one in that den of thieves, saying it was better to lose
the horses altogether than sacrifice a life for them. ”
Is he in bed still ? asked Kohlhaas, leisurely divesting him-
self of his neckcloth.
“No: he manages now to get about the yard a bit in the day-
time," she answered. «You will see that the man has not lied:
not a day passes but we hear of some wanton outrage or other
on those whose way lies by Castle Tronka, and this is one of
them. ”
"I must inquire further before I agree with you,” Kohlhaas
replied. «Go, Lizzy: bring him here if he's up. ”
He sat down in his arm-chair; while his wife, delighted with
calmness she so little expected, made haste to fetch the groom.
11***
(
(
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## p. 8676 (#288) ###########################################

8676
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
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1
"Now tell me, pray,” said Kohlhaas, when his wife re-entered
with the man, “what mischief you were up to at the castle.
I have reason to be not over well pleased with you. ”
The servant's pallid face flushed hotly at these words, and he
remained silent for a moment.
“You are right, master,” he said at last: «for as Providence
would have it, I had a tinder-box with me with which I was
going to burn out the thieves; but just as I was striking the
flint, I heard the cry of a child within, and threw the match into
the Elbe. May God's lightning blast them, methought: 'tis his
business, not mine. ”
Kohlhaas looked at him with amazement, and said, “But tell
me, how did you manage to get turned out of the castle ? »
"All on account of a foolish trick of mine,” the man answered,
wiping the sweat from his brow; “but it's no use crying over
spilt milk.
I would not have the horses racked to death at field-
work; I said they were too young, and had never been trained
to go in the traces. ”
Kohlhaas, concealing his confusion as he might, corrected him
in this, reminding him that they had been awhile in harness last
spring, and added:- “As you were a sort of guest at the castle,
it was your duty to do what lay in your power to satisfy them,
and you might well have lent a helping hand when they were
hard pressed to get in the harvest. ”
« That is just what I did, master,” Herse answered. ( When
I saw what wry faces they made, I thought after all it would not
kill the nags; and so, on the third morning, I harnessed them
and brought in three loads of wheat. ”
Kohlhaas, whose heart was in his mouth, looked down and
said, “I heard no account of that, Herse;" but the latter assured
him it was true.
«What they took in such bad part was that I wouldn't put
the horses in again at midday before they had had their feed;
and besides that, I wouldn't listen to the castellan and the stew-
ard, who wished me to give up the nags to them, and pocket for
myself the money you gave me for their expenses. I turned my
back on them and told them they might go further afield. ”
« But this,” said Kohlhaas, was not the reason
drove you from the castle ? ”
“God forbid! ” the man cried, "I did worse.
two knights came on a visit, and when I found their horses in
1
1
1
why they
(c
One evening


## p. 8677 (#289) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8677
»
Tironell
»
(
the stable, and mine tethered to the rail outside, I asked the
castellan where I should house them: he pointed to a pig-sty, a
filthy hovel of mud and wattles, built up against the inner wall. ”
“You mean," broke in Kohlhaas, “that it was a stable in such
a wretched condition that it looked more like a pig-sty. ”
“It was a pig-sty, master! ” Herse answered; “nothing more
and nothing less. I could hardly stand upright in it, and the
pigs ran in and out between my legs. ”
"Perhaps,” said Kohlhaas, "there was no room elsewhere;
and of course, a knight's steed has a right to be the better
housed. ”
« The stable was a trifle small,” the groom answered, lowering
his voice; "there were altogether seven knights at the castle:
but if you had been master there, you would have made room
by packing the steeds a little closer. I said I should go into the
village and hire a stable; but the steward said he would not let
the nags out of his sight, and bade me on my life not attempt
to move them from the yard. ”
“Well,” said Kohlhaas, “what did you do then? ”
"As the steward told me the two knights were only passing
visitors, and would be gone in the morning, I led the horses into
the pig-sty; but the next day went by and they were still there,
and the day following I heard that the gentlemen thought of
staying several weeks. ”
"I daresay,” said Kohlhaas, "the pig-sty wasn't so bad as you
fancied it was when you first put your nose in. ”
That's true,” the man answered: “when I had swept it out and
put it to rights a bit, it was so-so, and I gave the girl a groschen
to shift for the pigs elsewhere. I managed to let the nags stand
upright in the daytime by taking off the loose boards, and of a
night, you know, I put them on again: the poor things stuck
their necks through the roof like a pair of geese, and looked
about for home or some other place where they would be better
off. ”
"Well now,” said Kohlhaas, “why on earth did they drive you
from the castle ? »
"Master, I'll tell you plainly,” the groom answered: “because
they would be rid of me; for so long as I was by they couldn't
have their will with the brutes and worry 'em to death. In
the servants' hall, the court-yard, and everywhere, they made wry
faces at me; and as I took no heed, but let them twist their jaws
st
f
(
11
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## p. 8678 (#290) ###########################################

8678
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
I
il
(
4
1
out of joint if they chose, they picked a quarrel with me on pur-
pose and drove me out. ”
“But why ? ” said Kohlhaas; “they must have had some cause
for what they did. ”
“Of course they had, master," answered Herse, “and a most
righteous one too. On the second evening of their stay in the
pig-sty the horses were in a pretty pickle; so I mounted one and
was taking them to the pond, when just as I got through the gate
and was turning into the road, I heard a great noise from the
servants' hall, and out marched castellan, steward, dogs, and
servants all together, yelling and shouting like mad. Stop the
scoundrel! ' cried one; Have at the thief! ' shrieked another: and
when the gate-keeper placed himself in my path, I asked him
and the wild pack that came howling around me, what the
devil was up? 'Up! ' roared the castellan, seizing my horse's
bridle: 'where are you taking those brutes, you rascal ? ' and with
that he gripped me by the throat. I replied, Why, in the name
of all that's holy, to the pond of course. Do you think that
I-? ' 'To the pond, eh ? ' the fellow cried: "I'll teach you, you
thief, to go swimming along the road to Kohlhaasenbrück! ' and
thereupon he and the steward, with a savage wrench, tore me
from the saddle, and I measured my whole length in the mud.
I got up cursing them body and soul.
I had left harness and
horse-cloths and a bundle of linen of my own in the stable, but
they did not mind that; and while the steward led the horses
back, the castellan and servants laid on me with whips and cudg-
els, and beat me till I fell half dead beneath the archway. When
I came to myself a bit and called out, “You thieving dogs, what
have you done with my horses ? ) the castellan shouted, Out of
the place with you! ' and calling the hounds by name, he set a
round dozen of them yelping and tearing at me.
I broke a pale
or something from the fence, and laid three of them dead at my
feet; but just as I was giving way from loss of blood and the
fearful agony, a shrill whistle called the hounds back into the
court-yard, the wings of the gates flew to, the bolts were drawn,
and I sank down fainting on the high-road. ”
Kohlhaas, who had grown very pale, said with a kind of
forced humor, “I fancy after all, Herse, it wasn't so much against
the grain with thee to leave the place ; » and seeing that his
servant remained silent, with downcast look and Aushed face he
continued, “Come, let's have the truth : methinks the pig-sty didn't
1


## p. 8679 (#291) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8679
suit you; you had a sneaking preference for the stable here at
home ? "
“Damnation ! » cried Herse. “Why, the harness-cloths and
linen are there in the sty now: don't you think if I had wanted
to run for it, I would have brought with me the three rix-florins
I hid behind the manger wrapped in a red silk handkerchief?
By God! to hear you talk so makes me long to have in my hand
again the tinder-box I threw away. ”
“Never mind that," answered the dealer: "I am not against
thee; look here, I believe word for word all that you've said, and
I'd take the sacrament on each syllable; I am sorry too that you
have had such hard measure in my service. Come, get you to
bed, Herse; ask for a bottle of wine and make yourself easy, for
I will undertake to procure you justice. ”
He rose from his seat, and going to his desk, made out a
list of the articles left behind by the groom in the sty, specify-
ing their value and adding the man's estimate of the expenses
attendant on his illness; this done, he gave him his hand and
dismissed him to his rest.
He talked over the whole matter with his wife Elizabeth, and
made no secret of his intention to strain every nerve to obtain
full redress; and when he had put the matter in a clear light,
he was overjoyed to find that she heartily agreed with him. She
said indeed that some day, perhaps, travelers less gifted with
forbearance than he might happen upon the castle; that it was
a good work before God and man to put a speedy end to such
villainies; and that she herself would know where to find the
costs of the suit if her husband would take immediate action.
Kohlhaas told her she was his own brave wife, and together with
the children they passed that day and the next in the quiet
enjoyment of their love; but on the following morning --hay-
ing dispatched all necessary business - he started for Dresden to
bring his case before the tribunals.
[Kohlhaas seeks to obtain redress by every means known to the law, and
patiently awaits its slow process. After many disappointments, he discovers
that the real impediment is Baron Tronka's interest at court; and his lawyer
refuses to compromise his own position further by conducting the dealer's
case. Unwilling to dwell longer in a land which denies to its inhabitants the
protection of its laws, Kohlhaas sells his house and farm to one of his neigh-
bors. His wife, however, with tearful entreaties induces him to allow her to
make a last appeal to the Elector himself. ]


## p. 8680 (#292) ###########################################

8680
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
1
#
11
1
1
snail's pace.
Kohlhaas had already proved that his wife possessed foresight
and determination alike; he inquired what plan she had formed
as to her conduct. With downcast eyes and blushing cheeks she
replied that the castellan of the electoral palace, when on duty
years ago in Schwerin, had known and wooed her; true, he was
now married and the father of a family, but she had reason
to believe he had not quite forgotten her: indeed, she thought
her husband had better content himself with simple trust, as she
hoped to turn to account several matters of which it would take
too long to tell. Kohlhaas was radiant with joy; he kissed his
wife, and told her to do as she would, and that she only needed
to be received by the castellan's wife to have at any moment the
opportunity she sought. He then had the brown geldings put in;
and commending her to the care of his faithful groom Sternbald,
he handed the petition into the carriage and bade them God-
speed.
Of all the unsuccessful efforts he had made to further his
cause, this turned out the most disastrous. A few days later on
he saw Stern bald enter the yard on foot, leading the horses at a
Kohlhaas rushed out, pale as death, and found his
wife lying in the carriage and suffering greatly from a bruise on
the right breast. From the man he could get no plain account
of what had happened: but it appeared that the castellan was
not at home when they arrived, and that they had been obliged
to take up their quarters in the neighborhood of the palace,
whence next morning Elizabeth started, leaving orders for Stern-
bald to stay and tend the horses; and he had seen nothing
more of her till the evening, when she was brought back in the
condition he saw. He had heard that she had pushed her way
boldly towards the presence of his Highness, and that one of the
guards, impelled only by rude zeal for his master, had — without
order -- struck her with the shaft of his lance.
Sternbald had been told by the people who bore her unconscious
to the inn; for she had not as yet been able to speak since, for
the blood that gushed from her mouth. The petition, it seemed,
had been afterwards taken from her by one of the knights in
attendance. Sternbald wanted to saddle a horse and ride back
with the news at once; but in spite of all the surgeon could
urge, she had insisted upon being taken back immediately to
her husband, and had forbidden them to give him any warning.
Kohlhaas got her to bed: the journey had completely broken her
1
11
This at least


## p. 8681 (#293) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8681
(
»
strength, and her whole frame quivered every time she drew
breath; but still he contrived to keep life in her for the space of
several days.
They tried in vain to bring her to herself, that they might
get out the truth of what had befallen: but she lay there with
eyes fixed and glassy and spoke no word; only in the presence
of death did she recover consciousness. A Lutheran clergyman
(to which rising sect she, following her husband's example, had
adhered) had called; and sitting by her bedside, was reading with
loud and solemn voice a chapter in the Bible, when she suddenly
raised her head, and throwing upon him a glance of sad mean-
ing, took the book from his hands as though she would not have
it read, and passing her fingers through it, began searching leaf
by leaf until at last she found what she wanted. With a sign to
Kohlhaas, who sat by the bed, she pointed to the verse, "Love
your enemies — do good to those that hate you;” she pressed his
hand, and with a long look of passionate love she passed away.
Kohlhaas thought, “If I forgive Lord Wenzel, so may not
God forgive me! ” He bent over the corpse and kissed it, bath-
ing the face with a torrent of tears; then, closing the eyes of her
he loved, he quitted the room. With the advance of the hundred
florins which he had already received from the farmer on his
Dresden property, he prepared for Elizabeth's interment on a
scale rather befitting a princess than the wife of a simple trader:
he had an oak coffin made, studded with massive brass nails
and bound with the same metal, and therein he placed a silken
cushion with tassels of silver and gold thread; the grave was
eight yards deep, walled within with masonry: and he himself
overlooked the work, standing on the brink with his youngest
infant on his arm. When the day of the funeral came round,
the body was robed in pure white and placed in the chief room
covered with a black pall.
The minister had just finished an eloquent address beside the
coffin, when Kohlhaas received the royal answer to the petition
which the dead woman had borne: it was to the effect that he
should fetch his horses from Castle Tronka, and not trouble the
State any further in the matter on pain of instant imprisonment.
When the grave had been filled in and the cross planted thereon,
he dismissed those who had been present to render the last
offices, and returned home. Once more he threw himself on his
knees beside the bed of the departed, and then betook himself to
a
1


## p. 8682 (#294) ###########################################

8682
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
>
(
the business of revenge.
He sat down and drew up a decree,
wherein, by virtue of the authority native to him, he condemned
Lord Wenzel of Tronka to present himself, with the horses which
had been reduced to such evil plight in his fields, within three
days at Kohlhaasenbrück, there to serve in person about them
till they should be restored to their former condition: this decree
he dispatched to the castle by a mounted messenger, with in-
structions to deliver it and then make the best of his way back
without losing a moment.
When the three days' grace had elapsed without anything hav-
ing been seen or heard of the horses, he summoned Herse and
explained to him the commands he had laid upon Lord Wenzel
as to the tending of the animals, and inquired whether Herse
had a mind to strike spurs with him for the castle and haul his
lordship thence by force; he further asked whether, when they
had taken him and set him to work in the stables at Kohlhaasen-
brück, Herse felt able and willing to correct with a cut of his
whip any occasional tendency to laziness. When Herse caught
the import of his words, he shouted, “This very day, if you will,
master. "
He swore he would plait a thong ten strands thick to
teach the rascal how to use the curry-comb.
Kohlhaas said no more, but went and gave up possession of
the house, dispatching the children ere evening beyond the front-
ier to the care of his relations in Schwerin: and when night fell
he gathered his servants together, seven in number, each true as
steel, and bound to him for life and death; he armed and mounted
them, and with them sallied forth towards Castle Tronka.
At dusk of the third day, he and his little band rode beneath
the walls. The toll collector and the gate-keeper were standing
talking together under the archway when the eight dashed in,
overthrowing them in their course; they spurred into the church-
yard, and while some set fire to the sheds and other woodwork,
Herse made his way up the winding staircase to the castellan's
He found his man playing cards with the steward
partly undressed — and fell upon the twain, cut and thrust, spar-
ing nothing. At the same time Kohlhaas 'sped to the great hall
of the castle. His coming was like the judgment of God.
lord was just stirring the laughter of a knot of young friends by
a recital of the summons the horse-dealer had served upon him;
but while reading it he caught the harsh tones of his enemy in
the court below. Pallid as a corpse, he threw down the paper,
rooms.
- both
My


## p. 8683 (#295) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8683
and warning all present to look to their lives, vanished from the
place. Kohlhaas, being confronted at the door by a certain Sir
Hans of Tronka, seized him by the throat and hurled him into a
corner, spattering his brains upon the walls; while his servants
made short work of the rest, who had armed themselves, by
securing them or forcing them to flight. But the dealer sought
Lord Wenzel in vain: no one had seen him, and finding that the
terrified prisoners could tell nothing, he burst open with a kick
the doors leading to the inner apartments, and sword in hand
essayed every possible hiding-place,-still in vain, however. At
last he came down, cursing, into the court-yard, and gave orders
to set a guard at every point by which he might escape.
Meanwhile smoke and flame broke forth on every side; the
fire, leaping from the sheds, had seized first upon the main build-
ing and then upon the wings. Sternbald and three more were
tearing everything that hand could move, and piling it for booty
in the yard. With loud shouts they greeted Herse when he
thrust his head from the window above, and hurled down the
dead bodies of the castellan and steward with those of their
wives and children. As Kohlhaas was descending the staircase,
an old rheumatic housekeeper of my lord's threw herself at his
feet whining for mercy; he asked where her master was, and she
replied with cracked and trembling voice that she thought he
had taken refuge in the chapel. Kohlhaas called two of his
men, for lack of keys broke in the door with axe and crowbar,
and overturning bench and altar, was maddened with the discov-
ery that his victim had fled.
Just as Kohlhaas was sallying from the chapel, it chanced that
a lad belonging to the castle came running to try and save his
lordship's chargers, which were stabled in a vast stone building
now threatened by the flames. Kohlhaas, who had just caught
sight of his two geldings, stopped him, and pointing to the
thatched shed in which they were secured, asked why he did not
bring them out; the lad replied that the place was on fire, and
taking the key, attempted to open the door of the stable. Kohl-
haas knocked him aside, and snatching the key savagely from
the door, threw it over the wall; then, amid the ruthless laughter
of his men, he so belabored the lad with the flat of his sword
that he was fain to rush into the burning shed and unloose the
brutes. He had barely seized their halters when the roof fell in,
and his face was corpse-like when he struggled forth out of the
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## p. 8684 (#296) ###########################################

8684
HEINRICH VON KLEIST
smoke into the yard. Kohlhaas no longer heeded him, and turned
his back upon him once and again; but the lad followed to where
he was standing with several of his servants, and when at last he
faced him and asked what he should now do with the horses,
Kohlhaas lifted his foot and launched at him so savage a kick
that had it taken him, it must have been his death. Then with
out deigning another syllable he mounted his brown steed, and
leaving his men to their unholy business, rode beneath the arch-
way and there awaited the dawn of day.
[Kohlhaas pursues Baron Tronka to the convent where he has taken refuge;
his band of malcontents increases; he forms a military organization, burns
villages, and terrorizes the entire country. The regular troops are called
out against him, and are defeated. Kohlhaas lays siege to Leipsic. At this
point Luther interposes with a proclamation against Kohlhaas, and the men
are shaken in their allegiance to their intrepid leader. He resolves to have
an interview with Luther, that he may convince him of the absolute justice of
his cause.
As a price is set upon his head, it is a perilous undertaking, and
he must go disguised. ]
Kohlhaas assumed the dress of a Thuringian peasant, and
summoning several of his most reliable men, he placed Stern bald
in command of the party assembled at Lützen; explaining that
business of importance called him to Wittenberg, and that
attack need be feared within three days, he then took his depart-
ure, promising to return within that time. Under an assumed
name, he took up his quarters in a little inn at Wittenberg, and
at nightfall — carrying beneath his cloak a pair of pistols which
he had captured at Castle Tronka - he made his way to Luther's
residence.
The doctor was sitting at his desk, engaged with a heap of
books and manuscripts; but seeing a stranger push open
door, enter, and then carefully bolt it behind him, he inquired
who he was, and what was his business.
With a half-fearful
consciousness of the terror he was causing, the man advanced,
and doffing his hat respectfully, said, “I am Michael Kohlhaas,
the horse-dealer. ”
Luther sprang from his chair and cried, «Get thee
hence, thou villain! thy breath is the plague, and the sight of
thee perdition. ” He was pushing past the table to where a bell
stood, when Kohlhaas, without stirring from the spot, drew a
pistol and said, “Most reverend sir, touch but that bell, and
this shall lay me dead at your feet: be seated and lend me
the
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from
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## p. 8685 (#297) ###########################################

HEINRICH VON KLEIST
8685
ear. Were you among the angels whose psalms you are inditing,
you would not be safer than with me. "
Luther resumed his seat and asked, “What would you with
me ? »
Kohlhaas replied, “I come to disprove your accusation that I
am an unjust man. In your epistle you declare that those in
authority wot not of my cause. Go to, then: procure me
safe-conduct to Dresden, and I will lay my suit before them in
a
person. ”
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These words at once puzzled the doctor and somewhat al-
layed his fears. “Godless and terrible evil-doer! ” he cried, “who
gave thee the right to set thyself up a judge and fall upon the
lord of Tronka ? Foiled at the castle, by whose authority didst
thou dare to carry fire and sword into the heart of the commu-
nity that shields him ? »
Kohlhaas answered, “By no one, most reverend sir, was this
authority granted to me: I was deceived and misled by infor-
mation I received from Dresden. The war I wage against the
community is a crime, if, as you have pledged your word, I was
never cast out from its midst. »
«Cast out! ” Luther exclaimed: « what mad idea hath seized
thee? Who could have cast thee out from the community in
which thou wast bred ? Nay, canst quote me one — be he who
he might — as long as nations have been on earth, who has thus
been cast out ? »
Kohlhaas answered, clenching his fist, “I call him an out-
cast to whom the protection of the law is denied. I need that
protection in the peaceful exercise of my calling; for that, and
that alone, I and mine seek security in the bosom of a
munity, and whoso denies it to me casts me out to the savages
of the wilderness, and — who will dispute it ? — himself places in
my hands the club that serves for my own defense. ”
“Who denied thee the protection of the law ? Did I not
write that thy plaint had never reached the ear of thy sovereign?
If his ministers bring not forward the suits that are preferred,
or abuse his hallowed name without his knowledge, who but God
can call him to account for the choice of such servants?