ain came to
pay him a visit, he showed him the letters which he had written to the
courts of Vienna and Berlin in the effort to prolong Kohlhaas' life
and thus at least gain time in which to get possession of the paper in
the latter's hands. The Chamberlain threw himself on his knees before
him and begged him by all that he held sacred and dear to tell him
what this paper contained. The Elector bade him bolt the doors of the
room and sit down on the bed beside him, and after he had grasped his
hand and, with a sigh, pressed it to his heart, he began as follows
"Your wife, as I hear, has already told you that the Elector of
Brandenburg and I, on the third day of the conference that we held at
Jueterbock, came upon a gipsy, and the Elector, lively as he is by
nature, determined to destroy by a jest in the presence of all the
people the fame of this fantastic woman, whose art had,
inappropriately enough, just been the topic of conversation at dinner.
He walked up to her table with his arms crossed and demanded from her
a sign--one that could be put to the test that very day--to prove the
truth of the fortune she was about to tell him, pretending that, even
if she were the Roman Sibyl herself, he could not believe her words
without it. The woman, hastily taking our measure from head to foot,
said that the sign would be that, even before we should leave, the big
horned roebuck which the gardener's son was raising in the park, would
come to meet us in the market-place where we were standing at that
moment. Now you must know that this roebuck, which was destined for
the Dresden kitchen, was kept behind lock and key in an inclosure
fenced in with high boards and shaded by the oak-trees of the park;
and since, moreover, on account of other smaller game and birds, the
park in general and also the garden leading to it, were kept carefully
locked, it was absolutely impossible to understand how the animal
could carry out this strange prediction and come to meet us in the
square where we were standing. Nevertheless the Elector, afraid that
some trick might be behind it and determined for the sake of the joke
to give the lie once and for all to everything else that she might
say, sent to the castle, after a short consultation with me, and
ordered that the roebuck be instantly killed and prepared for the
table within the next few days. Then he turned back to the woman
before whom this matter had been transacted aloud, and said, 'Well, g