The present paper is a reading of Kant and Kleist that aims at analysing the notion of negative presentation as it is developed under the terms of "sublime," "Geist," the "fantastic," and "unbegreifliches Geräusch." The study of those notions is developed through a reading of Kleist's "Das Bettelweib von Locarno" that shows how it explores the figure of the third in ways that rewrite Kant's notion, in the Critique of Pure Reason, of the "schema."