Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist

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.
PT
2378.
A
2
E
5 2010           838'.609 – dc22
2009012080

ISBN
978-0-9819557-2-8

Archipelago Books
Third St. #
A
111
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
.

H
EINRICH VON
K
LEIST

SELECTED PROSE OF
HEINRICH VON KLEIST

· · ·

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)

· · ·

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 from 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!