It happened that the Governor of the Palace, Baron Wenk, was busy at the moment inspecting a band of Nagelschmidt’s followers who had been captured in the neighborhood of Leipzig and brought to Dresden the previous evening.  The knights who were with the Governor were just questioning the fellows about a great many things which the government was anxious to learn from them, when the horse-dealer entered the room with his escort.  The Baron, as soon as he caught sight of Kohlhaas, went up to him and asked him what he wanted, while the knights grew suddenly silent and interrupted the interrogation of the prisoners.  When Kohlhaas had respectfully submitted to him his purpose of going to dine with the steward at Lockwitz, and expressed the wish to be allowed to leave behind the soldiers of whom he had no need, the Baron, changing color and seeming to swallow some words of a different nature, answered that Kohlhaas would do well to stay quietly at home and to postpone for the present the feast at the Lockwitz steward’s.  With that he turned to the clerk, thus cutting short the whole conversation, and told him that the order which he had given him with regard to this man held good, and that the latter must not leave the city unless accompanied by six mounted soldiers.

Kohlhaas asked whether he were a prisoner, and whether he should consider that the amnesty which had been solemnly promised to him before the eyes of the whole world had been broken.  At which the Baron, his face turning suddenly a fiery red, wheeled around and, stepping close up to him and looking him in the eyes, answered, “Yes!  Yes!  Yes!” Then he turned his back upon him and, leaving Kohlhaas standing there, returned to Nagelschmidt’s followers.

At this Kohlhaas left the room, and although he realized that the steps he had taken had rendered much more difficult the only means of rescue that remained, namely, flight, he nevertheless was glad he had done as he had, since he was now, on his part, likewise released from obligation to observe the conditions of the amnesty.  When he reached home he had the horses unharnessed, and, very sad and shaken, went to his room accompanied by the government clerk.  While this man, in a way which aroused the horse-dealer’s disgust, assured him that it must all be due to a misunderstanding which would shortly be cleared up, the constables, at a sign from him, bolted all the exits which led from the house into the courtyard.  At the same time the clerk assured Kohlhaas that the main entrance at the front of the house still remained open and that he could use it as he pleased.