Gutenberg's Apprentice Read Online Free PDF

metal he has never seen, and all that he can say is it’s not bad!” When those dark eyes returned to Peter’s face, he felt his neck hairs raise.
    “What else then, boy?”
    “I did not come here to find fault.”
    “Why not? If it’s your trade?”
    All guilds put trainees on the spot. The goldsmiths made up coins as false as any the dishonest man might pass. The jewelers gave them gemstones made of paste that shattered underneath their knives. Peter glanced at Fust; his father gave the barest nod. Warily he raised the sheet again. He let his eyes unfix, groping with his inner vision for the larger, more aesthetic shape. The whole displayed a lumpiness, a lack of grace.
    “The ink is pale in parts, too dark in others.”
    “Exactly right.” The master snatched it back. “It is a Calvary, God knows, to file and plane each bugger so it stands at the same height.”
    He’d passed. Peter felt a little stab of pride—then horror. For from the workbench he could hear the loudest silence. He cast a smile, apologetic, toward the smiths. Too late: they both looked sour. Keffer—it was Heinrich Keffer, after all, all grown up now and burly—scratched his yellow beard and raised one eyebrow. The old one, Hans, was scowling. Peter’s stomach turned. He looked back at their master, staring at the sheet still, mouth drawn down. What kind of man was this—what kind of master?—who treated his own men no better than a pair of senseless tools?
    His father’s voice came low in Peter’s ear. “I’d be obliged if you would come. We’ve still some business to discuss.” And so they left the shed and trooped into a little room in the main house that Peter took to be the master’s study. The hearth was piled with ashes from the winter past; heaps of paper on the table had been shoved aside to make room for plates. The room was chill, the furnishings unvarnished and crude.
    “You see how I have spent it all,” their host said, waving carelessly about. Indeed, the home hardly seemed to be one of means. Yet they ate well and drank a quantity of Spätburgunder. Perhaps what lacked was just a woman’s touch, Peter thought with a little nod to Grede. There seemed to be no wife nor kin: Frau Beildeck, wife of the manservant, was as rough and chapped as any fishwife.
    “I was rich once.” Their host was more expansive once he’d downed a jug or two. “But as you see, I spent it all—and more I’ve begged from here and there these thirty years.” He turned amused, sharp eyes on Peter. “I’d plundered all my kin before your father came—some more than once—to carry on this work.”
    “It is an honor,” Fust said, “to be sure.” He took a square of linen from his vest and blotted at his lips. The only question in his mind, he said, was which book they should print first.
    “I’m sure the scribe has some idea.” The master’s tone, though dry, was far less cutting than before. He drained his cup and slapped it down. “The training fee is ten guilders every annum.”
    Johann Fust—smoothly, oh so smoothly—smiled. If he was startled, he did not let on. He only chuckled. “You wouldn’t ask for payment now, Herr Gensfleisch? Not after everything I’ve lent?”
    “Gutenberg. I go by Gutenberg.” The printer glowered, started speaking once or twice, thought better of it. Finally it burst out. “You moneymen! You’re all alike. There’s nothing you won’t trade or give a price. Yet if a poor man tries to sell his skill, you balk.” He spread his hands in a queer parody of supplication. “You seem to think a man should give up his life’s work for nothing.”
    “Eight hundred guilders are not nothing.”
    Peter struggled to control his shock. Eight hundred guilders! Holy Christ. The sum was staggering, enormous even for a man of Fust’s ambitions. Enough to buy eight houses or several farms. He felt the blood drain from his face.
    “I don’t have time to waste in holding hands.”
    “Those hands