Paula Fox on Heinrich von Kleist
In 1811, the German writer Heinrich von Kleist shot the woman he loved and then himself in a murder-suicide pact.
His beloved Henriette Vogel was dying of uterine cancer and Von Kleist, though just 34, had long questioned the purpose of life. In his final letter, to his sister, he wrote: “The truth is, nothing on earth can help me. And now good-bye: may Heaven send you a death even half equal to mine in joy and unutterable bliss: that is the most heart-felt and profoundest wish that I can think of for you.”