Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist Read online

  SELECTED PROSE OF

  HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  SELECTED, TRANSLATED,

  AND WITH AN AFTERWORD

  BY PETER WORTSMAN

  archipelago books

  English translation copyright © 2010 Peter Wortsman

  First Archipelago Books edition, 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted

  in any form without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kleist, Heinrich von, 1777–1811.

  [Selections. English. 2010]

  Selected prose of Heinrich von Kleist / by Heinrich von Kleist ;

  selected, translated, and with an afterword by Peter Wortsman.

  p. cm.

  1. Kleist, Heinrich von, 1777–1811 – Translations into English.

  I. Wortsman, Peter. II. Title.

  PT2378.A2E5 2010 838’.609 – dc22

  2009012080

  ISBN 978-0-9819557-2-8

  Archipelago Books

  Third St. #A111

  Brooklyn, NY 11215

  www.archipelagobooks.org

  Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

  www.cbsd.com

  Cover Art: Paul Klee, Landschaft im Paukenton (Landscape

  at the Sound of a Kettle-Drum), 1920.

  This publication was made possible with support from Lannan Foundation,

  The National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council

  on the Arts, a state agency.

  Pour Claudie, toujours entre mes mots

  P.W.

  CONTENTS

  Fragments

  The Earthquake in Chile

  The Betrothal in Santo Domingo

  Saint Cecilia, or the Power of Music

  The Beggar Woman of Locarno

  The Marquise of O . . .

  Michael Kohlhaas

  On the Gradual Formulation of Thoughts While Speaking

  On the Theater of Marionettes

  All Fall Down: The House of Cards of Heinrich von Kleist (an afterword)

  For it is not we who know,

  but rather a certain state of mind in us that knows.

  HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  SELECTED PROSE OF

  HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  FRAGMENTS

  · · ·

  I.

  There are certain errors that demand a greater outlay of intellect than the truth itself. Tycho’s* renown is based entirely, and rightfully so, on an error, and if Kepler† had not explained the cosmic system he would have become famous solely on account of his delusion and on account of the keenly reasoned arguments on which he based that delusion, namely that the moon does not turn on its axis.

  2.

  One could divide humanity into two classes: 1) those who master a metaphor, and 2) those who hold by a formula. Those with a bent for both are far too few, they do not comprise a class.

  * Tycho Brahe, alchemist and astronomer (1546–1601)

  † Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571–1630)

  THE EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE

  · · ·

  In Santiago, the capital of the Kingdom of Chile, at the very moment when the great earth tremors of the year 1647 struck, in the wake of which many thousands found their doom, a young Spaniard by the name of Jeronimo Rugera, accused of a crime, stood beside a pillar in the prison where he’d been incarcerated and intended to hang himself. Don Henrico Asteron, one of the wealthiest noblemen in town, had about a year before chased him out of his house, where he was at the time employed as a tutor, because he had been found to have a tender entanglement with Donna Josephe, Don Henrico’s only daughter. The old Don, who had expressly warned his daughter, was enraged to such an extent by the secret denunciation conveyed to him by his crafty, proud, eavesdropping son, that he himself had his daughter sent off to the Carmelite Cloister of Our Beloved Lady of the Mountain.

  By a fortuitous coincidence, Jeronimo had managed to reestablish contact with her there and on a silent night made the cloister garden the scene of his consummated bliss. It was on Corpus Christi Day, and the festive procession of nuns, followed by the novices, had just got started, when, at the tolling of the bells, the unfortunate Josephe collapsed in labor on the steps of the cathedral.

  This occurrence caused quite a scene; the young sinner was immediately hauled off to prison, without consideration for her condition, and hardly had she given birth when, on the express orders of the archbishop, she was made to undergo the most grueling trial. The entire city spoke with such indignation of the scandal, and lashed out so vehemently against the entire cloister in which the scandal took place, that neither the pleas of the Asteron family nor even the wishes of the abbess herself, who, on account of the girl’s otherwise impeccable behavior, had taken a liking to her, could attenuate the severity of punishment ordained by the law of the sacred order. All that could be done was that, by an edict of the viceroy, the death by fire to which she was condemned was commuted to death by beheading, this to the great disgruntlement of the matrons and young girls of Santiago.

  Viewing windows were rented out along the street on which the condemned was to pass in a cart, the rooftops were cleared, and the pious daughters of the city invited their girlfriends to stand at their sisterly side to enjoy together the spectacle of God’s wrath.

  Jeronimo, who had in the meantime likewise been incarcerated, almost lost consciousness upon learning of the dreadful turn of events. To no avail did he try to come up with an escape plan; wherever the wings of his most audacious ideas drew him they struck against lock and wall, and an attempt to file through the window grill, as soon as it was discovered, led to his transfer to a still more narrow cell. He flung himself down before the picture of the holy mother of God and prayed to her with boundless fervor as the only one who could still save him.

  But the dreaded day came, and with it the absolute certainty of the complete hopelessness of his situation. The bells that were to accompany Josephe to the place of execution began to toll, and desperation overwhelmed his soul. Life seemed hateful and he decided to seek death by means of a cord that chance had left him. As already mentioned, he was at that time stationed beside a pillar, and was in the process of fastening the cord that was to wrest him free of this wretched world to an iron hook at the level of the cornice, when, suddenly, the greater part of the city collapsed with a crash, as if the firmament caved in, and all that breathed life was buried under its ruins. Jeronimo Rugera was numb with horror; and now, as if his entire consciousness had been shattered, he held on for dear life to the pillar from which he was to have dangled, so as to keep from falling. The floor shook beneath his feet, all the walls of the prison cracked, the entire structure leaned toward the street, about to come crashing down, and only the slow collapse of the building across the way, bracing the prison’s collapse in an accidental buttress, prevented it from completely caving in. Trembling, with hair on end and knees about to buckle under, Jeronimo slid across the slanting floor toward the opening that the collision of the two buildings had rent in the front wall of the prison.

  He had hardly managed to escape outdoors, when, in the wake of a second tremor, the entire, already shattered street completely caved in. With no thought as to how he would save himself from this general destruction, he scampered over rubble and fallen beams as death lunged for him from all sides, fleeing toward the nearest gates of the city. But another house collapsed in his path, its tumbling ruins flying in all directions, forcing him down a side street; here the flames already soared, flashing through billowing clouds of smoke fr
om the gabled rooftops, driving him in terror down yet another street, where the Mapocho River, flooding its bed, caught him in its current and swept him, screaming, down a third street. Here lay a heap of the slaughtered, here a lone voice groaned, buried under the rubble, here people shrieked from burning rooftops, here man and beast battled with the flood, here a brave soul tried to help; here stood another, pale as death, stretching his trembling hands in silence to the heavens. When Jeronimo reached the gate and managed to crawl to the top of a hill just outside the city, he collapsed unconscious.

  He may have lain there for a good quarter hour or so, in the deepest sleep, when he finally reawakened, and with his back to the city, raised himself half-upright on the ground. Touching his brow and breast, not knowing what to make of his present state, he was seized by a boundless sense of rapture as a west wind wafting from the sea fanned the feeling of returning life, and his eye flitted every which way, taking in nature’s blossoming splendor around Santiago. But the wretched heaps of fallen humanity everywhere he looked tore at his heart; he could not fathom what had driven them all to this state, and it was only when he turned around and saw the city lying in ruins behind him that he remembered the terrible moments he had lived through. He bowed so low his brow touched the ground to thank God for his miraculous delivery; and forthwith, as if that one terrible impression that engraved itself in his mind’s eye had driven out all previous impressions, he cried for joy that dear life in all its brilliant emanations was still his to savor.

  Whereupon, perceiving a ring on his finger, he suddenly remembered Josephe; and with her, his incarceration, the bell he had heard and the moments that preceded the prison’s collapse. A bottomless sadness once again filled his breast; he began to repent of his prayer, and the force that held sway above seemed abominable to him. He mingled with the crowds pouring out of the city gates, people primarily engaged in saving their possessions, and timidly dared inquire after the daughter of Asteron and if her execution had been carried out; but no one was able to give him a conclusive account. A woman, almost weighted all the way down to the ground with a colossal load of household implements and two children hanging from the scruff of her neck, said in passing, as though she’d witnessed it herself, that the girl had been beheaded. Jeronimo turned around; and since, considering the time elapsed, he could not himself doubt that the execution had taken place, he sat himself down in a lonely wood and yielded to the full extent of his pain. He wished that the destructive force of nature would once again erupt upon him. He could not fathom why he had escaped the fate that his miserable soul had sought in those awful moments, since death seemed to advance unbidden to his rescue from every direction. He firmly resolved not to budge from the spot, even if here and now the mighty oaks were to be uprooted and the treetops were to tumble down upon him. Whereupon, having cried his heart out, and hope having been rekindled amidst the hottest tears, he stood up and set out to traverse the surrounding terrain in every direction. He scoured every mountaintop on which people had assembled; on every path on which the flood of humanity still flowed he sought them out; his trembling foot carried him to wherever he saw a woman’s garment fluttering in the wind – yet beneath none of these garments did he find the beloved daughter of Asteron. The sun sank low in the sky, and with it his hope once again began to sink, as he clambered up to the edge of a cliff, and his gaze fell upon a wide valley in which but a handful of people could be seen. He passed in haste through the individual groups of people he found there, uncertain of what to do next, and was about to turn around again, when he suddenly spotted a young woman seated by a wellspring whose water ran down into the gorge, busily washing a child in its stream. And his heart leapt at this sight: he hastened in a fury down into the ravine and cried out: “Oh holy mother of God!” as he recognized Josephe, who, roused by the sound, meekly looked up. Saved by a heavenly miracle, with what boundless joy did these poor unfortunates fall into each other’s arms!

  Josephe had been on her way to death, already very close to the place of execution, when the entire apparatus was suddenly smashed to pieces in the crashing collapse of buildings. Her first panic-stricken steps thereupon carried her toward the nearest gate; but she soon returned to her senses and turned around to head back to the cloister where her helpless little boy had been left behind. She found the entire cloister already in flames, and the abbess, who, in those moments that were to have been her last, had offered succor to the newborn, crying outside the gate for someone to help save the boy. Josephe staggered undaunted through the burst of smoke that blew toward her, into the building already collapsing all around her, and just as if all the angels in heaven stood guard over her she safely reemerged with him from the portal. She wanted to fall into the arms of the abbess, who had clasped her hands over her head in joy, when the saintly lady, together with almost all the other sisters, was killed in a most ignominious way by a falling gable. Josephe fell back in horror at the terrible sight; she hastened to press the abbess’ eyes shut and fled, altogether consumed with fright, to save from the teeth of death the precious boy that heaven had given back to her.

  She had only taken a few steps when she encountered the crushed corpse of the archbishop that had just been dragged out of the rubble of the cathedral. The palace of the viceroy had been leveled, the court of law in which she had been condemned to death stood in flames, and at the site where her father’s house had been a lake now bubbled over, spewing a red hot steam. Josephe pulled herself together to keep going. She bravely strode with her precious booty from street to street, chasing the misery from her breast, and was already almost at the city gate when she spotted the ruins of the prison where Jeronimo had been held. At the sight of this she tottered, about to fall unconscious in a corner; but at that selfsame moment the collapse of another building behind her that had been damaged by the tremors drove her upright again; fortified by her fright, she kissed the child, wiped the tears from her eyes and staggered to the gate, blind to the horror that surrounded her on every side. Once she’d made it out into the open, she soon concluded that not every resident of a fallen building was necessarily killed in its collapse.

  At the next crossroads she stopped dead in her tracks and waited to see if a certain someone, after little Philip the dearest to her in the world, might yet appear. But since that person did not turn up and the fleeing mass of humanity grew from moment to moment, she continued on her way, then turned again and waited; and shedding bitter tears, she slunk into a dark valley shaded by stone-pines to pray for his soul which she believed to be departed; and it was here in the valley that she found this beloved person, and so found bliss, as if it were the Valley of Eden.

  All this she now told Jeronimo with great emotion, and once she’d finished speaking, handed him the boy to kiss. Jeronimo took him in his arms and hugged him with immeasurable fatherly love, and weeping over the unfamiliar little face, sealed his lips with unending kisses. Meanwhile, the loveliest night had fallen, a wondrously mild, scented night, so silvery and still as only a poet could have dreamed up. Everywhere along the riverbed, in the shimmer of the moonlight, people had set up camp and were in the process of preparing soft beds of moss and leaves to rest their weary bones after the torturous day. And since the poor wretches were still weeping – one over the loss of his house, another over wife and child, and a third over the loss of everything – Jeronimo and Josephe slipped off into a dense thicket so as to sadden no one with the sound of the secret jubilation of their rejoicing souls. They found a splendid pomegranate tree, its branches spreading wide, covered with fragrant fruit; and on its topmost branch a nightingale piped its voluptuous song. Here beside its trunk Jeronimo sat down to rest, with Josephe on his lap and Philip on hers, all under the cover of his coat. Scattered lights filtered through the tree; its shadow brushed past them and the moon faded in the dawn before they fell asleep. For they had countless things to tell each other of cloister garden and cold prison cell, and how they had each suffered for the othe
r; and they were deeply stirred when they fathomed how much misery the world had had to suffer to permit their happiness!

  They decided, as soon as the tremors stopped, to make their way to La Concepción, where Josephe had a trusted girlfriend from whom they hoped to procure a small loan, and thence to ship off to Spain, where Jeronimo had relatives on his mother’s side and where they planned to live out their days. Hereupon, after showering each other with kisses, they finally fell asleep.

  When they awakened, the sun had already risen high in the sky and they noticed several families nearby engaged in preparing themselves a modest breakfast over an open fire. Jeronimo himself was just then pondering how he would go about finding sustenance for his own when a well-dressed man with a child in his arms walked up to Josephe and asked her discreetly: would she be willing to briefly give her breast to suckle this poor little creature whose mother lay injured beneath yonder trees? Josephe was a bit bewildered when she recognized him as an acquaintance; but when, misconstruing her bewilderment, he continued: “It would only be for a few minutes, Donna Josephe, and this child has not been nourished since that terrible hour that made us all miserable,” she replied: “I was silent for another reason, Don Fernando; in these terrible times, no one would hesitate to share what’s his”; and handing her own child to the father, she took the little stranger to her breast. Don Fernando was very grateful for this kindness and asked if she would join the little group that was just then gathered round the fire preparing a small breakfast. Josephe replied that she would be delighted to accept, and since Jeronimo had no objections, followed the man to his family where she was most warmly and graciously received by Don Fernando’s two sisters-in-law, whom she recognized as two very distinguished young ladies.