Held captive by a band of unspeakable ruffians, the Marquise of O— is rescued before they can subject her to a fate worse than death. So, how, some months later, can it be that she finds herself pregnant? Believing herself fully innocent, although failing to convince her prudish family of her honor, she places an advertisement asking the perpetrator to identify himself. Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811) is the first of the great dramatists of 19th–century German literature.