Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist (9 page)

This and much more was recounted by the draper Gotthelf Veit, the bulk of whose statement we have decided to withhold, as, in our view, enough has already been said to serve our examination of the context of what happened; whereupon he once again enjoined the woman to under no circumstances involve him in the event of a legal investigation into the matter.

Three days thereafter, still deeply shaken by this account and
with the aid of a lady friend who held her arm, as the weather was nice, the woman went out to visit the cloister with the sad intention of seeing for herself the place where God had, as though with invisible bolts of lightning, laid her sons low; the two women, however, found the entrance to the cathedral all boarded up, on account of construction work, and could only with great pains, standing on tiptoes and peeking through a gap in the planks, make out the splendid sparkling stained-glass rose window in the rear of the church. Many hundreds of workers, singing merry songs, were engaged within, standing on narrow, intricately interlaced scaffolding, which added a good third to the height of the steeples, and decking the rooftops and spires, theretofore covered only with slate, with sturdy sheets of copper that shimmered in the bright rays of sunlight. Deep black storm clouds rimmed by a golden glimmer hung overhead, framing the building; the thunderstorm had already played itself out over Aachen and the surrounding region, and after flinging a last few feeble bolts of lightning in the direction of the cathedral, it sank with a dissatisfied grumbling in the east, dissolving into a mist. And it so happened that, just as the women, deeply preoccupied by their thoughts, descended the steps of the large cloister building in which the sisters lived, perceiving this double drama in the sky, a passing sister chanced to learn the identity of the woman standing under the portal; whereupon the abbess, informed of a letter in the latter's possession concerning the planned acts on Corpus Christi Day, promptly sent a sister down to bid the Dutch woman come up to see her. Though momentarily a bit taken aback, the latter, no less honorably inclined in her comportment, resolved to accept the request; and while her friend waited in an antechamber next door, the folding
doors to the lovely loft itself were flung open before the Dutch woman as she climbed the steps. There she found the abbess, a noble woman of serene royal bearing, seated in a chair, her foot resting on a footstool with legs in the shape of dragon's claws; beside her on a writing table lay a musical score. After ordering a chair for the visitor, the abbess told her that she had been informed by the mayor of her arrival in the city; and after asking her in a kindly fashion as to the welfare of her unfortunate sons, and forthwith encouraging her to try to accept the fate that befell them, as it could not be altered – she expressed her wish to see the letter that the preacher had written to his friend, the schoolteacher in Antwerp. The Dutch woman, who was savvy enough to fathom what possible consequences this might have for her sons, was momentarily nonplussed by this request; but since the honorable face of the abbess instilled immediate confidence, and gave no cause to believe that it was her intention to make public use of its contents, the visitor, after a brief hesitation, pulled the letter out from between her breasts and handed it to the noble lady, then fervently kissed her hand. As the abbess read through the letter, the woman cast a fleeting glance at the musical score carelessly left open on the desk; and since, in light of the draper's account, she suspected that it might well have been the powerful effect of the music that on that awful day troubled and twisted the minds of her poor sons, turning around in her chair, she timidly inquired of the sister who stood behind her: “Was this perchance the musical work performed in the cathedral on the morning of that curious Corpus Christi Day celebration?” Upon the young sister's reply – “Yes!” she remembered hearing about it, and that, when not in use, it tended to lie open in the room of the honorable abbess – the woman leapt
up out of her chair, clearly agitated, and with all sorts of thoughts running through her mind, leaned over the desk. She gazed at the unknown musical notations, wherewith a terrible spirit appeared to secretly trace a circle, and when her eyes fell on the
Gloria in excelsis
, she suddenly felt as if the earth sank beneath her feet. She felt as though the total shock of the musical art that had destroyed her sons now passed in a swell over her head; she feared that, from the sheer sight of it, she was losing her mind, and after quickly pressing the page to her lips with a boundless stirring of humility and submission before the omnipotence of God, she sat back down in the chair again. Meanwhile, the abbess had finished reading through the letter and said as she folded it up: “God himself shielded the cloister on that wondrous day from the insolence of your sadly misguided sons. Whatever tool he employed may be immaterial to you, as a Protestant. You would also find it hard to believe what I could tell you about it. For you must know that not a living soul can tell just who it was seated at the organ bench at that terrible hour, serenely directing the musical work that you find flung open there, as the riot of destruction threatened to break out in our midst. According to testimony taken on the morning of the following day in the presence of the cloister caretaker and several other men and duly deposited in the archive, it has been established that Sister Antonia, the only person able to direct that work, lay ailing, unconscious, her limbs motionless, in a corner of her cloister cell throughout the time of the entire performance; a sister, who, as a relative, was assigned to attend to her physical care, never left her bed the whole morning on which Corpus Christi Day was celebrated in the cathedral. Indeed, Sister Antonia herself would doubtless have confirmed and verified
the fact that it was not she who suddenly appeared at the organ in so strange and astonishing a manner, if her altogether immobile state had permitted her to be questioned, and the poor sick sister were not laid low on the evening of that same day by the nervous fever, a condition not previously deemed life-threatening, but from which she died. And having been informed of this incident, the archbishop of Trier has already made the declaration that alone can explain it, namely that Saint Cecilia herself performed this at the same time terrible and wondrous miracle; and I have just received a brief from the pope in which he confirmed its veracity.” Whereupon, she gave the woman back the letter, which she had merely asked to see to get a more detailed account of what she already knew, with the promise that she would make no further use of it; and after asking the mother if there was any hope of her sons' recovery, and if perchance she could help with money or some other means of support, a prospect which the woman, kissing the hem of her gown, tearfully declined, the abbess offered her hand in friendship and bid her farewell.

Here ends this legend. The woman, whose ongoing presence in Aachen was completely pointless, after leaving the court a small sum of money for the care of her poor sons, returned to The Hague, where, the following year, deeply moved by all that had happened, she forthwith returned to the lap of the Catholic church; her sons, for their part, gave up the ghost at a ripe old age, succumbing to a serene and joyous death after having, as was their wont, sung the
Gloria in excelsis
yet again.

· · ·

At the foot of the Alps, near Locarno in northern Italy, at the descent of the St. Gotthard, stood an old castle belonging to a marquis, which nowadays the traveler finds lying in rack and ruin, a castle with high-ceilinged and spacious rooms, in which a sick old woman found begging at the gate was once bedded down in straw by the merciful lady of the house. Returning from the hunt, the marquis, who happened to enter the room in which he was wont to store his powder box, demanded that the woman rise against her will from where she lay and move herself behind the oven. Standing upright with the aid of a crutch, she promptly slipped on the slick floor and seriously injured herself in the small of the back; she was so badly hurt that, making an unspeakable effort, she managed to get up again, and as commanded by the marquis, crossed the room to the oven, but collapsed there, moaning and groaning, and died.

Many years later, his financial circumstances strained by war and crop failure, the marquis welcomed a Florentine cavalier who wished to buy the castle from him on account of its splendid site. The marquis, who set much store by this transaction, bid his wife put up the stranger in the aforementioned, now empty, room, which was quite lovely and lavishly appointed. How taken aback was the couple, when, in the middle of the night, the cavalier came stumbling down, troubled and pale, swearing on his honor that the room was haunted, that something invisible to the naked eye arose in a corner, with a sound as though it had been lying in straw, and with clearly audible steps, slow and tottering, crossed the room and dropped itself down behind the oven, moaning and groaning.

Frightened for reasons he could not tell, the marquis laughed at the cavalier with feigned amusement, and declared that he would get up then and there, to put his mind at rest, and spend the night in the room with him. But the cavalier begged leave to spend the night on an easy chair in their bedroom, and in the morning had his horses bridled, bid farewell and rode off.

This incident, which sparked a considerable stir, scared off many potential buyers and greatly vexed the marquis; indeed, so much so that, to still the rumor, however strange and incomprehensible, circulating among his own domestic servants, that something went walking around the room at midnight, and to once and for all put an end to this regrettable business, he decided to look into it himself the following night. Consequently, at sunset he had his servants make his bed in said room, and awaited midnight without shutting an eye. But imagine his dismay when, in fact, at the stroke of the witching hour, he heard the inconceivable sound; it was as if a person lifted
himself from the straw that crackled beneath him, traversed the room at a diagonal, and sank down behind the oven, rattling and groaning. The next morning the marquise inquired how the investigation had gone; and when, with fearful and uncertain glances, and after shutting and locking the door, he assured her that there was indeed a spook, she flinched as never before in her life and asked him, before making the matter public, to carry out another cold-blooded inspection in her company. But the following night they and a faithful servant whom they took with them did, indeed, hear the same inconceivable ghastly sound; and only the pressing desire to rid themselves of the castle, whatever the cost, enabled them to hide the horror with which they were gripped from their servant, ascribing the sound to some inconsequential and coincidental cause that would surely be established in due time. On the evening of the third day, when, with throbbing hearts, the two of them once again climbed the stairs to the guest quarters to get to the bottom of the matter, their unleashed dog scampered along to the door to said room; and since both of them, without admitting it to themselves, shared the instinctive desire to have yet a third living entity accompany them, they took the dog with them into the room.

At about eleven o'clock, the couple sits down, each on his and her own bed, the marquise not undressed, the marquis with dagger and pistols he'd taken from the closet beside him; and they try as best they can to distract themselves with conversation, while the dog lies down with head and legs folded in the middle of the room and falls asleep. Whereupon, at the stroke of midnight, the terrible sound is once again heard; someone invisible to the naked eye raised herself on crutches in the far corner; you could hear the sound of the straw
crinkling beneath her; and at the first footsteps: tap! tap!, the dog awakened, suddenly raised itself off the floor, with ears pricked up, and growling and barking, as though someone had approached, slipped back toward the oven. At the sight of this, with her hair standing on end, the marquise stormed out of the room; and while the marquis, grasping for his dagger, cried: “Who's there?” and receiving no reply, slashed the air in all directions, like a lunatic, she ordered the horses harnessed, determined to drive off post-haste to the city. But before she managed to pack a few things and rush out the door, she already saw the castle bursting into flame all around her. The marquis, numb with terror and weary of life, had taken a lit candle and with it set fire to the four wood-paneled walls of the room. To no avail, she sent people in to save the wretched man; he had already perished in the most miserable way, and to this very day his white bones, gathered by the country folk, lie in that corner of the room from which he had forced the beggar woman of Locarno to rise.

(Based on an actual occurrence, the scene of which has been
transposed from the north to the south
)

In M . . . , a major city in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O . . . , a woman of peerless reputation and the mother of two well-brought-up children, let it be known in the newspaper that she had, unbeknownst to her, been gotten in the family way; that the father of the child that she was about to bear had best make himself known; and that, for family considerations, she was resolved to marry him. The lady who, without the slightest hesitation, driven by unalterable circumstances, took such a singular initiative sure to arouse universal ridicule, was the daughter of Colonel von G . . . , the commandant of the Citadel at M . . . . About three years previously she had lost her husband, the Marquis of O . . . , to whom she had been deeply and dearly attached, on a trip he took to Paris on family business. Heeding the express wishes of Madame von G . . . , her worthy mother,
she left the country estate in V . . . , where she had lived until then, and moved back with her two children to her father's quarters in the commandant's residence. Here she had spent the next few years in the greatest seclusion, engaged in art, reading, the education of her children and the care of her parents, until, on account of the . . . War, the region was suddenly teeming with the troops of all the warring powers, including the Russians. Colonel von G . . . , who was in charge of the citadel's defense, ordered his wife and daughter to take refuge at the latter's country estate, or at that of his son, also in V . . . . But before considerations of the dangers of remaining in the fortress could be fully apprehended by female intuition and weighed against the atrocities they might face in the country, the citadel was surrounded by Russian troops and ordered to surrender. The colonel informed his family that he would now have to act as if they were not there, and replied to the Russians' demand with bullets and grenades. The enemy likewise bombarded the citadel. They set the arms depot on fire, scaled an outer wall, and when the commandant wavered in the face of a repeated call for capitulation, ordered an attack at nightfall and stormed the fortress.