to unravel the events that led to her pregnancy. Because she is a widow and has not been intimate with anyone, how can she be pregnant? When did this happen? Although her doctor and her family believe that she has been sexually intimate—her pregnancy is proof of her illicit sexual relations—the marquise herself wonders, much like the Virgin Mary, how this conception took place. Kleist provides readers with a clue to the rape early in the story when the Russian officer watches over the marquise after she faints. A simple dash, “—,” in the text indicates the moment when the rape occurs.

The marquise places an advertisement in the paper announcing her pregnancy. She also asks that the man who would claim to be the father of her child step forward on a certain day and time. If this man does so, she will marry him—regardless of who he is—out of consideration for her family. The marquise finally solves the mystery of her pregnancy when the Russian officer appears at the announced time to reveal himself as the father of her child. Shock ripples through the marquise’s household. At that moment, the officer is not the angel who protected the marquise’s honor but a devil who has destroyed it. Eventually, the family arranges their marriage, although the marquise refuses to give the officer conjugal rights or to see him during their first year of marriage. In the meantime, the officer behaves properly toward his new wife. They eventually have a second, happier, wedding.

The central theme of The Marquise of O—— is order, a favorite Kleist theme, as he struggled himself to bring some kind of order to his own life. As the marquise’s life spirals out of control because of her pregnancy, she submits herself to the sacred and inexplicable order of the world as a way of dealing with this mystery. In the final scene of the story, the officer recognizes an imperfection in the order that allows him to be forgiven and to embark on a second wooing of the marquise. For these characters living on the border between order and chaos, the conflict provides new revelations about the nature of life and the nature of the world.

Michael Kohlhaas

Much like The Marquise of O——, Michael Kohlhaas takes its subject from a true story, in this case the story of a horse dealer named Hans Kohlhase. Kohlhase lived during Martin Luther’s time, received communion from Luther, and was tried and executed for crimes resembling those of which the protagonist of Kleist’s novella is accused.

Michael Kohlhaas resembles the Book of Job, in which an innocent man suffers inexplicably and cannot find an answer for these sufferings. Just as Job asks for an audience with the deity, the innocent Michael Kohlhaas asks for an audience with the officials who can explain to him the crimes of which he is accused and why he is being punished for crimes he has not committed. Like Job, Kohlhaas loses his wealth and his family, but he regains them at the end of the story. Unlike Job, Kohlhaas’s wife dies, but her double appears at the end of the story to help Kohlhaas in his quest for justice. Also unlike Job, Michael Kohlhaas does not have a happy ending. Job lives on with his health and wealth fully restored; although Kolhaas’s wealth and good name are restored, his children are orphaned and raised by the state, and he is executed.

Michael Kohlhaas also anticipates Franz Kafka’s Der Prozess (1925; The Trial, 1937). Kafka and Robert Walser, among others, spoke often of their admiration of Kleist. Like the character K in The Trial, Kohlhaas seeks to find justice from a number of bureaucratic types who can grant it. He is shuffled from one office to another, none of which is willing to grant Kohlhaas his innocence and all of which appear to have something against him.

One day, Kohlhaas, the country’s wealthiest and most successful horse trader, is traveling to Dresden with a string of horses. He is stopped at the border of a province by the wealthy baron living in the castle nearby. The baron requires Kohlhaas to produce an official license to pass through his lands, but Kohlhaas protests, arguing that he has just made this same trip and did not then need a license. The protests go unheeded. The baron holds two of Kohlhaas’s best horses until he returns with a pass. Kohlhaas discovers that the baron has tricked him and that he needs no pass. Upon his return, he finds his horses overworked and frail, mere shadows of their former selves. He demands that the baron restore his horses to health; when the baron refuses, Kohlhaas seeks justice in the courts, only to discover that the courts are run by corrupt officials in collusion with the baron.

Kohlhaas continues through various channels to seek justice, but his attempts are frustrated. He decides to pursue justice through illegal means. After pleading his case to bands of villagers and convincing them of his innocence, he and his little army burn villages and kill the followers of the baron in an effort to establish themselves as an alternate government. When Martin Luther writes a letter offering amnesty for Kohlhaas, it appears his case might be heard. Through another bizarre series of events, however, Kohlhaas is arrested and convicted for the uprising, even though he has remunerated the state for its losses. The baron is eventually forced to restore the two horses to their original health, but Kohlhaas is executed, much to the sadness of the crowds who still believe he is innocent.

Michael Kohlhaas raises several important questions about a person’s relationship to the political sphere: What is justice? What is the proper relationship between the individual and the state? What is the relationship between morality and law? What is the role of the established church in society, and why, for example, did Martin Luther’s letter in support of Kohlhaas carry such weight with the courts and the government? What is the nature of the social contract, and what kinds of obligations does each party have toward the other in such a contract? Should all people have free and equal access to the law? If people take the law into their own hands in order to seek justice, should they be punished? As with other great stories dealing with such issues, Michael Kohlhaas effectively confronts these questions even while raising others.