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The lightest Death Penalty     (Die leichteste Todesstrafe)     1811

People thought it was the guillotine. But no! A man who had otherwise rendered many services to his country and was well regarded by the prince was sentenced to death for a crime he had committed in the heat of passion. Pleading and praying did not help. But because he was otherwise well regarded by the prince, the latter gave him the choice of how he would prefer to die, for whatever manner of death he chose, that was to be his. So the chief clerk came to him in the tower and said, "The duke wants to show you mercy. If you want to be broken on the wheel, he will have you broken on the wheel; if you want to be hanged, he will have you hanged; there are already two hanging on the gallows, but as you know, it has three places. But if you would rather eat rat poison, the apothecary has some. For whatever manner of death you choose, says the duke, shall be yours. But you must die, that much you know.‘ Then the malefactor said: ’If I must die after all, breaking on the wheel is a flexible death, and hanging, especially when the wind is blowing, a mobile one. But you do not quite understand. For my part, I have always believed that death from old age is the gentlest, and that is what I will choose, because the duke gives me the choice and no other,‘ and he stuck to his decision and would not be dissuaded.So he had to be let go again and allowed to live until he died of old age. For the duke said, ‘I have given my word, and I will not break it.’

This little piece is about the mother-in-law, who no one likes to see perish if she can save him.