SHORT STORY – TITIVILLUS
TITIVILLUS
Automatic translation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
May 2022
Miguel, sitting in front of his laptop, is writing the last lines of his novel. He is a writer who, in addition to being creative and imaginative, is extremely neat and demanding in his work.
He knows that his publisher will correct the texts, but he does not want his stories to contain spelling errors or basic stylistic nonsense.
Right after putting the last point of his work, he goes to the first word of the novel to start correcting possible mistakes. He though he brags that he doesn’t usually find any.
Upon reaching the sixth page, he is surprised to see with astonishment, in the sixth word of the sixth paragraph, that a malevolent “v” has crept in where a precise “b” should appear and he cannot repress a resounding: “I shit on Titivillus …”
Immediately his face changes from an expression of anger to a loud laugh as he realizes the influence of his grandfather in the phrase he had just released.
When he was little, his grandfather, now deceased, had told him that in the Middle Ages it was said that a devil named Titivillus confused the scribes who made the bibles, so that the word of God would be distorted. Besides if he could damn the soul of the unhappy scribe that he had erred.
According to what he had told him on the pages where there could be errors, the scribe used to indicate at the bottom that if there were, they were the fault of the perfidious Titivillus.
July 1453
Hans, a prestigious scribe from Mainz, is about to finish a large Bible on which he has been working since May 1452. More than a year of painstaking work, written in perfect Gothic script, captured in a very good and neat style.
He is writing with great care, so as not to make mistakes, the last letters of this mammoth work… Just then, when Hans thinks that the only thing left to do are the borders and borders of the pages in which he has not yet done so, so inexplicably, without knowing how, a surreptitious “v” escapes him instead of the correct “b”…
Realizing this, tears well up in his eyes. He doesn’t know what to do; because he knows that his soul is at stake, that soul that Titivillus intends to tear from God. He uneasily wrings his fingers trying to find a solution. A good part of his work has already been paid for, but he is convinced that the only solution is to make the work disappear. He will say that it has been stolen.
He guesses how he makes the work disappear without being traced. In his mint he forges the solution. There is a small chapel in the cathedral of Mainz where under the altar there is a hatch in the floor that has not been opened for years. He will put it there… in this way he will offer the work to God, as a way to achieve his forgiveness.
Two hours later
Two hours later, that Bible, with the error duly corrected, rests, Hans waits “in eternum”, under the hatch of the small cathedral chapel, as an inert offering to God in search of his Divine forgiveness.
Days go by and those who had commissioned the work proceed against Hans so that he reimburses them the money they have already paid him. The scribe offers to do the job again, but his creditors do not accept it, with which Hans is expropriated of his assets and condemned to disgrace…
A short time later, also abandoned by his family, Hans dies in fear of eternal punishment, of heart failure.
June 1566
Heinrich von Stockheim during an inspection of the various nooks and crannies of Mainz Cathedral, lifting the small trapdoor below the altar of a tiny chapel, finds the Giant Bible that Hans hid there more than a century ago.
Thinking that someone carelessly took it out of the library and left it under the altar, he picks it up and takes it to the cathedral library.
He puts it on one of the lecterns and looks over the two enormous volumes of 57.6 x 40.5 cm that compose it. After admiring it for a long time, when he reaches the last page he notices that in the last word there is a corrected letter, specifically a letter “b” and he thinks: the scribe who did this work was very good. A single error in all 458 pages is an extraordinary piece of work. He closes it, puts it on one of the shelves, and returns to his work.
May 2022
Miguel takes the manuscript on paper and also in “pdf” format to his editor. Although he knows that she is an asshole, he feels a certain fear that that anomalous spelling mistake that he had, will bring him bad luck and they will not accept it.
When he arrives, he talks for a while with the editor and leaves him the job… he tells him: I’ll read it quietly and at the beginning of June I’ll tell you something.
June 2022
Miguel’s cell phone rings, he looks at the screen and immediately answers the call, he knows he’s Lorenzo, his editor.
-Hello Lorenzo. Have you read it? What do you think?
-Without a doubt it is the best thing you have written. It’s really good. Come by tomorrow and we’ll sign the papers. “Okay,” Miguel replies happily, while he thinks: that fucking Titivillus hasn’t misbehaved… I’ll never shit on him again… and he bursts out laughing as he thinks he sees his grandfather laughing at the same time.
Titivillus – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés