Free Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist by Heinrich von Kleist Page A

other dragged himself with a bad bullet wound out into the corridor. The brothers, the elder of whom had suffered a light wound to the thigh, untied their dear kinsman; they hugged and kissed him, and handing him pistols and a sword, jubilantly urged him to follow them to the front room, in which, seeing as the battle was won, Monsieur Strömli was calling them all to fall back. Raising himself half-upright in bed, Gustav pressed their hands and smiled without a word; but his mind was clearly elsewhere and instead of reaching for the pistols they held out to him he raised his right hand and stroked his forehead with an expression of unspeakable grief. Sitting themselves down beside him, the youths asked: “What’s the matter?” But no sooner did Gustav wrap his arms around them and silently rest his head on Gottfried’s shoulder, prompting Adelbert, fearing that his cousin was about tofaint, to think of fetching him a drink of water, than Toni entered the room with Seppy in her arms, led by Monsieur Strömli. At the sight of her, Gustav went white in the face; rising from bed, he gripped his cousins’ shoulders as though he were about to fall; and before the youths fathomed what he intended to do with the pistol that he now took from their hands, seething with rage, he had already pressed the trigger and sent a bullet flying at Toni. The shot struck her square in the breast; and with a broken syllable of pain, she managed to take several steps forward, and handing the boy to Monsieur Strömli, sank to her knees before him; he hurled the pistol at her and shoved her away with his foot, calling her a filthy whore, then fell back down in bed. “You madman!” Monsieur Strömli and his two sons cried out in unison. The youths rushed to the girl, and picking her up, called for one of the old servants, who on several previous desperate occasions in the course of their journey had already delivered first aid; but with one hand pressed to the mortal wound, the girl gently pushed them from her, and stammered with a rattle in her throat: “Tell him . . . !” pointing to the one who shot her, and again: “Tell him . . . !” “What should we tell him?” asked Monsieur Strömli, as the effort of dying robbed her of the strength to speak. Adelbert and Gottfried leapt up and cried out to the inconceivably miserable murderer: “Do you know that this girl saved your life; that she loves you and that it had been her intention to forsake family, house and home, and escape with you to Port au Prince?” They howled in his ears “Gustav!” and asked: “Can’t you hear us?” and shook him and grabbed his hair, as he lay still and unresponsive on the bed. Then he sat up. He cast a look at the girl rolling in the blood he’d spilled; and the anger that had sparked this terrible act naturally gave wayto compassion. Soaking his handkerchief with a flood of hot tears, Monsieur Strömli asked: “Oh, you poor miserable man, why did you do it?” Once again rising from bed, wiping the sweat from his brow, eying the girl, Gustav replied: “The vixen, she tied me up at night and handed me over to the Negro Hoango!” “Dear God,” cried Toni, reaching her hand out to him with an indescribable expression on her face, “I tied you, my best beloved, because . . . !” But she could neither finish the sentence nor reach him with her hand; drained of all strength, she suddenly fell back into Monsieur Strömli’s lap. “Why?” asked Gustav, kneeling before her, pale as death. After a long while, interrupted only by the rattle in Toni’s throat, during which they waited in vain for a word from her lips, Monsieur Strömli spoke up: “Because, upon Hoango’s return there was no other way to save you, you poor unfortunate man; because she wanted to avoid the mortal combat that you would surely have started; because she