Chapter 18 18

18 Gabriel Aubert caught his eye, and she happily confirmed Randall's unspoken thoughts. "Yes," she said, almost singing, "in less than a month, Henry and I will be We have our first child." Randall hitchhiked out of Paris at 11 p.m. and boarded an evening train to Frankfurt.In his private cell, the bed was already made.He fell asleep quickly after undressing and going to bed.At 7:15 a.m., a buzzer buzzer, followed by a loud knock on the door woke him up.The conductor of the sleeping car brought him a cup of hot tea.Bread and butter, and a bill for two francs.At the same time, the passport and train ticket were also returned to him.

After Randall put on his clothes, he opened the curtains.For the next 15 minutes, colorful moving images flew before his eyes—green forests.Wide highways, tall buildings, and then, the railway tracks are getting denser and denser.A row of red trains are starting to leave, and it turns out that Frankfurt Railway Station has arrived. Randall exchanged the traveler's checks into Deutsche marks at a counter in the train station, got into a taxi, and headed for the Frankfurt Hotel.After registering at the hotel, I asked the waiter behind the counter to see if there was any letter from him, and then bought another newspaper of the day.Then, the waiter led him to the suite that had been booked for him long ago.Randall didn't care about taking a break, so he took a look at the residence first - a bedroom with a balcony, beautiful flower pots on the stone railings, and a tall French window in the living room next to it.Looking out of the window, you can see the names of many shops.

Right now, he has arrived in Germany. Yes, he traveled more than 50 hours from Amsterdam to Milan, then to Paris, and then to Frankfurt. This trip is really a bit dizzy. It is now 8:15, and in 40 minutes the car sent by Herr Karl Henning to take him to Mainz will arrive.Randall ordered a hearty breakfast from the hotel, had his clothes ironed, read the papers, reread the promotional documents about Hull Karl Henning, and gave them to Amsterdam Lori Cook called and asked her to help Angela Monty get a security pass and office space ready.Then it was ascertained whether Dr. Knight and Dr. Jeffries had traveled from London to Amsterdam.Once these things are done, it's time to go.

It took 50 minutes to drive from noisy Frankfurt to quieter Mainz.The older German driver, smoking a cigar, followed the signs and entered the four-lane highway.I saw many people with heavy backpacks standing on both sides of the highway, who wanted to hitchhike.Occasionally, tarpaulin-covered trucks and motorcycles carrying policemen in silver helmets can be seen speeding by.From the car window, Randall also saw a lush forest and a gas station painted in sky blue.Orange street signs with black arrows pointing to rural villages.After passing several airports, farms, and smoking factories, I finally saw a road sign with "Mainz" written on it.They drove the car down a slope, over a brick bridge over railway tracks, over a long bridge over the Rhine, and finally reached Mainz.

Five minutes later, their car pulled up in front of a six-story, fairly modern office building with two revolving doors. It's finally here, Randall thought.Now, he will see the last rehearsal of the "International New Testament" before it officially meets the audience.How he wished that Professor Monty or Angela - actually Angela - was here with him to see how the dream of Ostia Antica became reality in modern Mainz, Germany of. Randall thanked Henning's driver and opened the rear door. Just as he was about to get out, he saw a familiar figure walking out of the revolving door in the distance.The fellow, greasy and lanky, paused for a breath of air and pulled a cigarette from a gold case.Randall still maintains a half body in the car, half body outside the car posture.He tried to remember the face, the fair skin, the ferret eyes.When the man brought the cigarette to his lips, showing his protruding teeth, Randall immediately remembered who he was.He immediately backed into the car and hid in the back seat.

The man was Plummer, a reporter for the London Daily Express. Randall waited as if frozen.Plummer exhaled a puff of smoke, without looking sideways, and strutted onto the sidewalk.The red light came on, he waited for a moment, crossed the street, and disappeared from Randall's view shortly afterwards. Plummer arrived in Mainz, just out of the protective fortress of the bible, out of the general headquarters of its printing and production. What exactly does this mean? Randall didn't delay at all, hurried into Henning's office building, and showed his ID to two reception ladies in blue dresses.One of them led him up an elevator and down a wide marble corridor to Henning's private office.

The air in the office is as clean as if it had been transported intact from the Scandinavian mountains.Hull Karl Henning welcomed him with a handshake that nearly crushed his bones. "In German first! willkommen! Schon dass Sie da sind!" said Henning in a raspy voice, "and now in English! Welcome! Glad to have you here - this city that changed the face of the earth, soon, Hull? Karl Henning is going to change it again." His voice was deep and piercing, shaking the listener's eardrums. Henning looked like a muscular gladiator, with a particularly large head that was out of proportion to his body, short Prussian hair, and a red face that seemed to have changed after being hit by a big fist. It looks like it's sunken.Sunken eye sockets, bulbous nose, black and yellow teeth, dry chapped lips, and a neck so short that it is almost invisible.He really looked like a squat gladiator in a rich gray silk suit.He welcomed Randall, not only because Randall and he were colleagues in this secret project, but also because Randall was an American.He had a penchant for Americans, especially smart American businessmen.He prides himself on being able to speak American English without a German accent rather than British English, although he has rarely had the opportunity to use his standard American English these days.

"Sit down, please," he said, first in German and then in English, as he roughly pushed Randall into a comfortable leather chair between his desk and the wall.The entire office wall is covered with a huge map of Mainz, surrounded by a silver frame with the words: Anno Domini 1933betMeriar.After finishing a sentence of German in a rough pronunciation, he walked to an oak chest of drawers.Opening the door reveals a wine cooler and a microfridge.He poured Randall a scotch on the rocks, poured himself a glass, and sat down in the giant office chair behind his desk.Randall also quickly turned on the tape recorder.

"My father started the company because he was pissed off by the stupidity of German printers," Henning said. The envelopes were not good enough for me, so my father made a lot of money making both paper and envelopes. When he died—and he was just starting to print books—I took over his business. I never printed Paper and envelopes, and I put all my machinery into printing books. Today, I have 500 workers. Hey, I can say, Hull Carl Henning is doing a good job, a pretty good job." Randall tried to look admiring. "Fortunately, and I think that's why Dr. Deckhard insisted on me taking on the task, I used to be serious about Bible printing," Henning continued, "most of the German Bibles It's printed near Stuttgart. I'm away from there and live in Mainz. Americanz is a good place to go from Mainz to Hamburg and Munich, so it's quick and cheap to ship the goods everywhere. Also , my printers are veterans, they love what they do, their ancestors were in printing, printing runs in their blood. We have experience printing Bibles, we have printed several handmade Bibles ", just didn't make any money, so we gave up. Therefore, we have enough confidence to print the "International New Testament."

"How long will it take to print this International New Testament?" Henning smacked his lips. "Let me think about it. Well, let me calculate it this way, the International New Testament is a pretty big tome. If you take the whole book—the Old Testament and the New Testament bound together— — about 775,000 words need to be printed. This is equivalent to the capacity of six or seven ordinary books. Well, if you don’t work overtime, it will take about a year to design the typeface and book layout of the entire book; typesetting and proofreading It will take two years; printing and binding will take 1 year, and it will take 4 years in total, but that is the whole volume. Now we only need to print the "New Testament", which is not a lot of capacity, and it will not be very time-consuming. It is just that we have to Strive to be careful and artistic. Other than that, at the moment, we are only printing a limited portion.”

"A limited portion?" "Yes, of course it is a part. What I am printing now is called the advance edition. It is printed in 4 languages, but in limited quantities. It is only used by the clergy, the press and government officials, and critics. It only accounts for a small part of the public. Once this edition is finished, each publisher can find a printer in their own country to print a cheaper edition for the general public, and I myself only print the popular German edition. So far, hey, I've spent at least a year on the design. years, the actual printing and binding will not exceed 6 months." "What's the biggest problem you have?" "Paper. The Bible is so long, even this section of the New Testament is very long, and you can't use normal paper. You have to find a paper that is light and thin, but not too thin. The words between the pages cannot be printed. The paper must be durable, and some people want to keep the "Bible" for a lifetime. At the same time, the cost should not be too high, but for the first edition, we used the best Indian paper." "When will this pre-release be finished?" "A fortnight. I hope so." "What about the security measures?" Randall asked as if casually. "In Amsterdam, the work of secrecy and security is done very well. But how do you prevent outsiders from spying here?" Henning couldn't help frowning, "It's not easy, it's not easy, it's really tricky," he muttered, "Security is a big problem, and I spent a lot of money on it. Now put all I have Let me tell you what I did. I have several printing factories, all of which are a few steps away from here. I took out the largest factory building to divide it into two parts, and use half of the space to print "International New Testament" , and this half is completely isolated from the other half and other factories, and guards are sent at the same time. Naturally, the workers here are not only the best skilled, but also some old people. I even gathered these workers and their families into two apartments There are many guards and informants in the house and there. We have had our moments of nervousness in the past, but it was only a false alarm. We have been tight-lipped about this work, and we have never heard of it. Leak. Steve, do you mind if I call you that? My vigilance pays off so not a single person outside knows what we're doing." "Not even a single one?" Randall asked mildly. Henning couldn't help being startled for a moment, and said with a sullen face, "What do you mean by that?" "I mean Plummer," said Randall. "I saw him walking out of here just as I was going in." Henning was visibly disturbed. "Plummer? Do you know him?" "He tried to bribe me the first day I arrived in Amsterdam. He wanted me to get him a copy of the Bible. He wanted to reveal it to the world before we made it public, and it was in his interest. act, which would do us great harm." Henning, who had kept his composure so far, protested impulsively and loudly: "That's another matter entirely. He's the only one on the outside who knows what we're doing. But believe me, that brat Never take a copy from me. I can swear on my ancestors' graves of that." "He came here just now." Randall said stubbornly. "He was not called, nor was he received by anyone in charge," said Henning angrily. "Of course, Plummer wanted a copy, as some other outsiders in Germany did. Called me three times from Amsterdam. I also saw the report of his visit to Frumi published in the Frankfurt newspaper. I did not answer his call. Yesterday he called for the fourth time, and this time I was in person I told him on the phone not to disturb me. He wanted to visit me, and I warned him that if he came within 10 kilometers of Mainz, I would call him dead without a burial. However, he came silently. When my secretary told me that he was standing in front of her desk, I couldn't help but get so annoyed. I really wanted to go out and beat him to death. Don't worry, I'm not that confused. I told my secretary to send him away Yes. I turned him down straight. I didn't let that bastard into my office, so in the end he had no choice but to leave. Trust me, Steve." He spun around in the chair, reached for a frame with a photo on the TV stand, then stood up and left the table. "Suffice it to say that of all the people involved in this project, no one has sacrificed as much as I have done to make this Bible a success. Do you see this picture?" What Randall saw was a photo of a pretty star-like woman, probably around twenty-seven or eight years old.In the lower right corner of the photo, there are two lines of beautiful handwriting, "Mr. Henning lives in memory!" The signature below is "Haijia? Holman". "Recognize who this face is?" asked Henning. Randall thought he recognized it.After he had switched the recorder on, he asked: "She's not a German film star who has acted in..." "Exactly," said Henning. "She's been in a lot of movies. She's Miss Heika Holman." Henning turned and put the frame back in place, and stood admiring it carefully. "I'm a bachelor. This is the only woman I want to marry. I've been with her on and off for two years. I thought she was too career-minded to think about marriage, at least not now. But she once asked I made it clear that under certain circumstances, she will live with me." Henning looked at the photo reluctantly. "Unfortunately, movie stars are very expensive. Her dream is to have a villa and a yacht on the beach. She doesn't have the money herself. In fact, if I can make her get what I want, what will I do? She will say yes." His sunken cheeks twisted, "It may not sound like love to you, but it's almost enough for me. I don't take too much emotion. It was my greatest wish in life to get this woman, that is, before this Bible was printed. But in the end, I still failed to achieve it. I chose empty fame, that is, I decided to Linked my name to the "International New Testament". I can't say why, maybe it was to explain to my father, anyway, he has passed away. Or maybe it was said that someone went to leave a name Influence. But no matter what, for this "International New Testament", I have spared no expense, including Haijia." "Wouldn't she want to wait for you?" Randall asked. "No way. Maybe someone in Berlin or Hamburg will get her what she wants. We'll have to wait and see. Steve, the point with all of my explanations is that once I decide to print this book in History When I read the most important and sensational Bible, I was determined to defend it from harm. Of course I would not leak the contents to the public just to get a little publicity or attention. People like Plummer. Do you believe what I say?" "I believe you." "I hope that you don't use that trouble to record this private matter of mine just now." Randall nodded. "It's turned off." "You and I will hit it off," Henning grumbled. "Let's go, and I'll show you our main printing house, which is the one that's printing our Bibles and that's also under cover. The Thunberg Museum is not far from here, and we have a little time before lunch." They left Henning's office in silence.Once outside the gate, Randall looked around alertly to see if Plummer was still lurking outside in case he wanted to talk to him.Fortunately, there was no sign of Plummer, so they started to move forward.Don't look at Henning's short legs and short steps, but he walks as fast as the wind.After walking two streets, Randall was already sweating. When they came to the courtyard of a very modern three-story building, Henning slowed down and looked at his watch at the same time. "We still have time to take a look inside, Mr. Randall, please come in." "What is this place?" Randall wanted to know. "Oh, sorry, forgot to tell you, this is the Gutenberg Museum. I spent a lot of time here asking. You can turn on the tape recorder again. I can give you some useful information." In the open courtyard, there is a bronze bust.The bronze statue reveals a calm, morose Guttenberg with a thick beard and hair. Henning pointed dismissively at the bronze statue with his stubby hand. "It's pointless. It's just for tourists to pay their respects. No one knows what he looked like. There are no photos of him at that time. The most recent one I received is a portrait of him, which is now in Paris, or after his death." It was painted in the last 16 years. That portrait is different from this one. That one looks like him with an angry face and a long beard, as if he was influenced by ancient Chinese sages and sages. We know that he has been unsuccessful, but he is unyielding .on one occasion, because the city owed him some money, he took violence against a city clerk and put him in jail at the same time. We have confirmed that. But other than that, we know Very few." They walked to the entrance, opened a glass door, and walked in.Henning greeted the conductor behind the counter and was saluted by the guard in a blue uniform with a red armband on the sleeve. "My lord is one of the trustees of this museum," Henning explained, "and is also a donor. I like to collect rare Bibles, you know? I have a 42-line Bible of one kind in existence. If you put It's sold, it's worth more than a million dollars, and it's enough to buy Haijia anything. But I don't want to do that, hey, look here." He took Randall to a large world map. Below the map was a wooden board with seven buttons, each marked with a year. 1450, 1470, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, 1973. "You can press the button for any year on the top." Henning said, "the map will show how many printing factories there are in the world in that year." He pressed the button for "1450" and only the a lamp. "Look, only Mainz." He pressed the "1470" button, and several lights came on. "Printing is moving fast," he said contentedly, "and now I'll click on this year, you see." The lights on the map shone like an overlit Christmas tree. "One of the reasons why printing was late was that there was so much illiteracy. But since the Renaissance, necessity has been the mother of all inventions in printing. Once printing was available, there was an endless supply of books. First, the Printed Bibles, then dictionaries and histories. It was much cheaper than hand-copying depictions, and made some money at the same time. However, after he started printing books, he was always in debt." Henning looked around. “There are other exhibits on this floor to look at. Over there is a model of Guttenberg’s old hand-cranked printing press. We don’t know if it’s correct yet, though. Neither his original printing house nor his printing press remain. Come down, I think we needn't look at that one. We can't waste any more time, and we'll go upstairs and have a look now. There's something upstairs you must see, and keep the recorder off." They ascended the wide staircase to the second floor.Henning had a few words with a German guard at the foot of the stairs after he went upstairs and got his permission. "Okay," he said, "there are some tourists visiting there now, and a lady guide is explaining. I want you to have a look." Randall followed the printer into a dark but fairly spacious arcade.Through four windows embedded in one wall, Randall could see the Bible in manuscript, written stroke by stroke by priests before 1450.Henning lowered his voice and said, "It would take two scribes two years to complete these four Bibles. However, an early printer who used Gutenberg's printing method could do it in two months." Time to print 24,000 copies of the "New Testament." Henning led the way to the depths of the arcade.Ahead of them, Randall saw a pudgy young woman explaining to a group of about a dozen tourists in front of a glass case.After getting closer, Randall realized that it was the "Bible" printed by Guttenberg. By this time, the young lady had finished her introduction in German.Next, she looked at Randall, and began to introduce in orderly English: "The luxurious version of the Bible that you see through the glass window would take three or four years to copy manually, but Gutenberg printed 210 copies in three years. At present, there are 210 copies in the world. There are 47 of these Bibles scattered across New York, London, Vienna, Paris, Washington, D.C., Oxford, Harvard, and Yale. The Guttenberg Bible you see here is made of parchment The second part of the Bible, this is about 1 million Deutsche Marks or 250,000 dollars. That's a lot of money. A complete Bible like this made of parchment is worth about 4 million Deutsche marks or $1 million. This Bible has 42 lines per chapter, and this Bible has about two verses per page, or 84 lines. Guttenberg had also planned to write a book with 36 lines per verse. "Bible", but he did not realize his wish. It is also worth mentioning that in 1460, Guttenberg produced the world's first printed dictionary, which was printed in Latin from." At this time, she began to switch to French again, and Randall's attention had already shifted elsewhere. He was concentrating on observing the light blue ceiling and walnut walls. At the same time, he sensed that Henning was impatient. stomped his feet. Randall, accompanied by the German printer, walked out of the hall and onto the museum's bright first floor. "It's interesting," Randall said. "That's bullshit," Henning said through gritted teeth. "As we've learned, no one has actually been able to find hard evidence that Guttenberg or anyone else invented printing. In some From very reliable sources, we can speculate that Guttenberg may have invented this type of printing on the basis of some predecessors. I do not believe this statement, but I cannot prove it. From Guttenberg's time There are more than 30 corroborative documents that have come down, and only three of these materials involve him in connection with this kind of printing. And what will these materials tell us? Is your tape recorder still recording?" "Of course it's being recorded." "Great, because this information is of use to you. It shows that Guttenberg came from a prominent family. His father's name was Kings Fletcher, and he took his mother's last name by custom. Originally, Guttenberg was a Goldsmith, he came to Strasbourg from Mainz and lived there for 10 years. During that time, Guttenberg ordered printing equipment. Then he returned to Mainz, where he borrowed 2,000 dong to realize his dream, maybe he asked for help for the 42-line "Bible". There is obvious information here that he borrowed money to buy equipment for printing 'books'. But these 'books' printed , is it the 42-line Bible?" "That's what the young lady said in her explanation just now." "You'd better forget about her and just listen to Carl Henning. That lady's talk is not sure we know if Guttenberg actually printed the 42-line Bible and what does Guttenberg's name have to do with the Bible is not relevant. The Bible was probably printed at the expense of one of Guttenberg's financial backers, namely John Fast, and another printer's name was Peter Schaufer. For Guttenberg Thunberg, we understand that he died around 1467. A person who financed his printing of this Bible may have inherited his letters, equipment, or other things used to print books after his death. In fact, you only need Study the implications here, Steve, and you'll come to some kind of conclusion. There's no difference to Guttenberg as to the Jesus we knew before we discovered the International New Testament." "Assuming Guttenberg was indeed an inventor," Randall said, "what did he invent?" "Simply put, he invented the type for making characters, which was made of copper. Mine is a more durable steel device. He carved the letters on the printing plate, and then hammered the words into words. , try to make the letters protrude on the surface of the board, and then paint the printing plate with ink, and then put it on the machine to print another paper with the same characters. Later, he updated this technology and made a new A generation of products has improved the quality and quantity of printing. It is because of him that you and I will meet now. Our Petronas and James will be marketed all over the world, and may change the destiny of the entire human race." As they left the museum and walked down the sunny street, Henning reminded Randall to keep his tape recorder on, "Before you visit my factory, I thought I'd better let you know about my factory." situation." Henning said as he walked forward.It is not far from the museum to the factory, and in a short while came to the security checkpoint.Fortunately, Randall did not forget the red pass for security checks and was able to pass through the checkpoint.After checking, they quickly walked towards the huge and noisy workshop.They climbed the spiral metal staircase leading to the workshop.There are 4 printing workshops and dozens of production workers in this large factory. Henning raised his voice and continued.This allowed his voice to be heard clearly over the din of machinery. "The two we saw were sheet-fed letter presses, and the two over there were screen presses, which were printing much faster. The other two were printing faster. These presses The "Bibles" that come out are used to preach in small churches. These papers are densely printed with letters, and then the printed papers are bound and stored in the warehouse. After the number is counted, these The bound books were distributed elsewhere, to large cities like New York, London, Paris, Munich, Milan, and many others." Henning squinted down and waved happily to a few elderly workers over there, and those old workers waved to him friendly when they saw him.Henning said to him excitedly: "They are all old workers, and they are a group of trustworthy people." He continued proudly, "The two printing presses below are printing the English version of the International New Testament, and the other two are printing the French version of the International New Testament. New Testament. Next door to this workshop, the International New Testament is still being printed in German and Italian". A logical question arose in Randall's mind, and he decided to speak out: "Carl, in two or three weeks, when we publish to the public, there will surely be millions of people who will want the International New Testament. If you and other printers print editions in so many languages ​​at the same time, you will be satisfied. Is there a demand from so many people?" "No problem, I haven't had time to tell you about this yet." Henning seemed confident. "To meet the needs of the general public, we will use all the printing presses to print popular copies day and night. But we cannot do this until you have officially announced it, because we cannot fully guarantee its safety. Therefore, printing the "International The days of the New Testament are the days that you officially proclaim. Right now, we're printing small bibles, using line type presses and labor. That would take a month or two. But We don't use this old method, we will use electronic and laser phototypesetting methods, so that the speed of printing can be increased. Using electronic technology, we can print the complete "Bible" by machine, and print a complete New Testament or Old The Bible only takes seven and a half hours, and the International New Testament is only a quarter of the thickness of the original Bible. It only takes 90 minutes with this electronic printing method. I will tell you, there is no need for one or two months. In one year, I can fill the bookcases of the major bookstores all over the world with my printed "International New Testament" before Christmas, and let millions of people read this book. I assure you, It will take less than a month. Come on, let me show you the other workshops. The other half of the workshops are printing non-Bible books, which are some of my daily business." They left the metal mezzanine, headed downstairs, and began looking at some small cars.They walked through the corridors, visiting from one workshop to another.As they walked forward, Randall gradually felt that something was wrong. There seemed to be a hostility in the air.When Henning beckoned to his young workers, they seemed slow and unsmiling.When Henning tried to speak to them, they all turned away, pretending to be too busy with their work.Even talking is listless, purely a coping.Moreover, once, when leaving a group of workers, Randall saw two of them behind Henning making a strange gesture, and he heard one of them say: "Henning, capitalist." Randall couldn't understand what they were saying, but he was sure it wouldn't be a compliment to Mr. Henning.