Book Cover  •  Table of Contents  •  < PREV Chapter  •  NEXT Chapter >

CHAPTER 13

The Deadline

      DECEMBER WAS a miserable month. Gutenberg recovered slowly, the wet cold continued, and illness remained in the city. For all these reasons, the printing work went slowly.

      Because the air was always damp, the paper absorbed its moisture. The sheets lay heavy and limp on the press, seeming actually to blot up the ink, until the type no longer left a crisp impression, and the letters looked fuzzy on the page. To correct the problem, they tried adding more oil to the ink, but the new mixture was slow to dry, and the printed work smeared easily. Many dozens of pages had to be discarded, increasing waste and causing more delay.

      And time was running out. As the days crawled by, Peter added more workmen, some of whom stayed late into the evening, to work by candle light. In the middle of the month, he decided that he could not spare the time to go home for Christmas.

      But it was hard to break the news to his family. He wrote to his sister:

      My dearest Ilse,
I grieve that we will miss our wonderful holiday together, and I long to be with you, and father, and mother. Please beg Albrecht and his sweet wife to forgive me once again. But be patient for this one more season and help the others to understand. Because I simply cannot leave the work — not even for a day! We must complete the Great Bible by the last day of January, and there are still hundreds of pages to be set in type. And when that's done, I have to get them all printed — somehow.
But if we can't take the completed volumes to Johann Fust by the appointed day, I know he'll foreclose, and all our years of work will have been in vain . . ."

      At this point Peter fell asleep, and when the gray morning woke him, he was still at his desk with the half-written letter beside him. There was a smudge across his cheek, where his cheek had touched the inky quill pen he had been using for a pen.

      He glanced over the letter, shook his head, and scribbled an affectionate line to end it. Then he went to wash. There was no time to write more.

      Christmas passed and the New Year began with a heavy snowfall. The roads were impassable for almost ten days, and their next shipment of metal could not get through. Without metal to cast for more type, the work ceased.

      Day after day went by, and the wait was maddening. Peter had to send the workmen home for an enforced rest.

      Meanwhile, he was too impatient to remain idle. He cleaned and oiled the great press. He ordered more paper. He noticed that the artists who were painting the ornamented borders of each page had fallen behind the printing schedule. "I can solve that," he said, and went out to search the town for additional artists. After all, he thought, even if we cannot print, at least the hand work can continue.

      Johann Gutenberg was restless too. He prowled the half-deserted shop like an old lion. "At least, that skinflint Fust is out of town," he muttered to nobody in particular. "If the metal can't get into Mainz — he can't get at us either, and we don't have to listen to him rave and scold. What a blessing! He would be intolerable over this delay."

      Peter nodded grimly, but in his heart, he thought the delay itself was worse than any bad temper Johann Fust might have shown.

      At last, in the middle of January, the weather broke and the roads were open again. Cartloads of metal appeared at their door. Gutenberg and Mentelin set to work casting more type, the workmen returned to the shop, and everything hummed with activity once more.

      Peter, alone, remained quiet. He looked around at the busy workplace and sighed. He had counted the days that remained until Fust's contract came due, and as he calculated the work that still needed to be done, he feared it was too late.

      Indeed, Peter thought to himself, it had been foolish of him even to hope that they could be ready. There were hundred of pages still to be set and printed. And when those pages were printed and dried, they would still need to be decorated by the artists.

      He walked through the shop, stopping a moment to watch the men who were setting the type. Their fingers flew, lifting the tiny pieces of metal type from the lower cases, taking up the small "E"s and "A"s, each vowel from its own box, plucking the larger capitals from the upper cases where they were kept separate. The typesetters rarely made mistakes now. He had trained them well.

      Gutenberg and Mentelin had just finished casting a fresh batch of type, and the air was heavy with the smell hot metal. It mixed pleasantly with the scent of the ink that always pervaded the whole shop. Rows of drying printed pages hung across one end of the long room like wash, and beyond them, he could hear the press thump and sigh, thump and sigh.

      Peter shook his head. Did all this really have to end? Why had Fust set a date that was so difficult to meet? In only had a few more months, they could have finished it.

      Only a few more months . . .

      Peter came to a decision.

      "No," he muttered between clenched teeth. "Now that we've come so far, we must be allowed to finish,"

      He caught up his cloak and strode out into the street. Once outdoors, he turned left, and walked purposefully away.

      He was heading for the home of Johann Fust!

Cover  •  Contents  •  < PREV Chapter  •  NEXT Chapter >  •  Page Top