her features and her
hands--with fingers still shapely and beautiful--and especially the
use she made of them when speaking, remind him vividly of Lisbeth; he
even noticed on her neck a mole like one with which his wife's neck
was marked. With his thoughts in a strange whirl he urged the gipsy to
sit down on a chair and asked what it could possibly be that brought
her to him on business for the Chamberlain.

While Kohlhaas' old dog snuffed around her knees and wagged his tail
as she gently patted his head, the Woman answered that she had been
commissioned by the Chamberlain to inform him what the three questions
of importance for the Court of Saxony were, to which the paper
contained the mysterious answer; to warn him of a messenger who was
then in Berlin for the purpose of gaining possession of it; and to
demand the paper from him on the pretext that it was no longer safe
next his heart where he was carrying it. She said that the real
purpose for which she had come, however, was to tell him that the
threat to get the paper away from him by strategy or by force was an
absurd and empty fraud; that under the protection of the Elector of
Brandenburg, in whose custody he was, he need not have the least fear
for its safety; that the paper was indeed much safer with him than
with her, and that he should take good care not to lose possession of
it by giving it up to any one, no matter on what pretext.
Nevertheless, she concluded, she considered it would be wise to use
the paper for the purpose for which she had given it to him at the
fair in Jueterbock, to lend a favorable ear to the offer which had been
made to him on the frontier through Squire Stein, and in return for
life and liberty to surrender the paper, which could be of no further
use to him, to the Elector of Saxony.

Kohlhaas, who was exulting over the power which was thus afforded him
to wound the heel of his enemy mortally at the very moment when it was
treading him in the dust, made answer, "Not for the world, grandam,
not for the world!" He pressed the old woman's hand warmly and only
asked to know what sort of answers to the tremendous questions were
contained in the paper. Taking on her lap the youngest child, who had
crouched at her feet, the woman said, "Not for the world, Kohlhaas the
horse-dealer, but for this pretty, fair-haired little lad!" and with
that she laughed softly at the child, petted and kissed him while he
stared at her in wide-eyed surprise