The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin Read Free Book Online Page B

enter one of those places that we’ve heard described a thousand times, a fear that I sought to avoid through my aimless wanderings. But if I had believed that I would enter a dark crypt, then I was duly punished for my snobbishness. Not only was the room that I entered, the sacristy, whitewashed and illuminated by the bright light from its upper windows; it was filled with a tour group, whom the sexton regaled for the hundredth or thousandth time with one of those stories whose every word resounds with the ringing of copper coins, which he raked in each of the hundred or thousand times he told it. There he stood, pompous and rotund, beside a pedestal upon which the attention of his listeners was fixed. An apparently ancient, yet exceedingly well-preserved early Gothic capital was attached to it with iron clamps. In his hands, the speaker held a handkerchief. One might have assumed that it was because of the heat. Indeed, sweat was streaming from his forehead. But far from using it to dry himself, he just absent-mindedly wiped it across the stone block, like a maid who habitually runs a dust cloth over shelves and console tables during an awkward conversation with her masters. The self-tormenting disposition, known to all those who travel alone, regained the upper hand and I let his explanations beat about my ears.
    â€˜â€œUntil two years ago” – this was the gist, though not the exact wording of his sluggish disclosure – “there was among the townspeople a man whose utterly ridiculous outburst of blasphemy and mad love had put the town on the tip of everyone’s tongue for some time. He spent the rest of his life making amends for his transgression, atoning for it even when the affected party – God himself – had possibly long since forgiven him. He was a stonemason. After ten years of being involved in the restoration of the cathedral, he advanced through his skilfulness to become the leader of the entire project. He was a man in the prime of life, an imperious character without family or attachments, when he got caught in the web of the most beautiful, most shameless cocotte that had ever been seen in the neighbouring seaside resort. The tender and unyielding nature of this man may have made an impression on her. At any rate, nobody knew that she graced someone else in the area with her favour. And nobody suspected at the time at what cost. Nor would it ever have come to light were it not for the unexpected visit of the team of building inspectors from Rome, who came to see the renowned restoration works. Among them was a young, impertinent, but knowledgeable archaeologist who had made the study of Trecento capitals his specialty. He was in the process of enriching his forthcoming monumental publication by adding a ‘Treatise on a Capital on the Pulpit in the Cathedral at V…’ and had announced his visit to the director of the Opera del Duomo. The director, more than ten years past his prime, lived in deep seclusion. His time to shine and be daring was long gone. But what the young scholar took home from this meeting was anything but art historical insight. Rather, it was a scheme which he could scarcely keep to himself and which finally resulted in the following being reported to the authorities: the love thatthe cocotte had bestowed upon her suitor had been no obstacle to her, but rather an incentive to charge a satanic price for her affections. For she wanted to see her nom de guerre – the trademark name that women of her métier customarily assume – chiselled in stone in the cathedral, this holiest of sites. The lover resisted, but his powers had limits and one day, in the presence of the whore herself, he began working on the early Gothic capital which replaced an older, more weathered exemplar, until it landed as a corpus delicti on a table in front of the ecclesiastical judges. Before that, however, some years had passed, and by the time that all the