DRAMATIC LICENSE — the three prior refusals (the sources record a single conversation); Katharina's scenes; the three children in the courtyard (Magdalena (Flick), Martin (Deacon) and Margarethe (Sam) are real, their ages those of summer 1539 per the standard biographies, e.g. Brecht, Martin Luther; their business in the scene is invented); the connective dialogue; Lufft as the printers' spokesman (the real delegation is anonymous); Wolf's errand; John Frederick standing in for both Electors. Luther's refusal speeches are adapted from the Tischreden, not invented. LANGUAGE — Wittenberg 1539 is a two-language town; line 91 marks the seam between the shop floor and the masters' table, and Lufft's Upper German coloring is conjecture rather than record. Reasoning, citations and speaker assignment: resources/pronunciation-guide.md §3.13. Revision history: shots-morning.md, shots-evening.md.
FADE IN:
TITLE CARD: WITTENBERG, 1539
EXT. WITTENBERG - TOWN GATE - DAY
Feet, running.
A YOUNG PRINTER pounds in through the gate, a letter in his fist, dodging the morning's carts.
INT. WITTENBERG PRINT SHOP - DAY
CLOSE ON: a fresh-printed sheet, ink still wet, peeled off the press and held up to the light.
An ordinary working morning. One press pounds its steady rhythm. A second stands idle, its ink-balls hung up dry.
The shop talks to itself under the noise -- "Paper!" -- "Coming up" -- a boy threading between the presses with a wetted ream on his shoulder.
At the counting desk, the OLD PRINTER runs a finger down a ledger. Short columns. He closes it.
EXT. WITTENBERG - ALLEY - DAY
A shortcut. He takes the corner without slowing, scattering hens.
INT. WITTENBERG PRINT SHOP - DAY
The bar comes over; the platen bites. A pressman peels the sheet and hangs it to dry among a hundred brothers.
At the working press the PULLER and BEATER keep their two-man rhythm, trading the day's small grievances -- the morning's beer was thin, somebody's dog was in the yard again.
At a type case, an APPRENTICE sets a line, lips moving, letters backward.
EXT. WITTENBERG - PRINTERS' LANE - DAY
The runner turns into the lane. Faces at a window follow him -- a running man means news, and news has not been good.
INT. WITTENBERG PRINT SHOP - DAY
The street door BANGS open. The Young Printer -- out of breath, the letter crushed in his fist.
The press finishes its pull and is allowed to stop. The talk dies with it. Quiet. Every face turns.
He drops the letter on the long oak table.
YOUNG PRINTER
Frankfurt is gone. Basel too. Leipzig undercut us on both.
No one gasps. No one is even surprised. That is the worst of it.
OLD PRINTER
(quietly)
Two orders in one day. Next it will be the whole trade.
INT. WITTENBERG PRINT SHOP - EVENING
The shop dim, the presses silent. A single candle burns on the long table; beside it lies the morning's crumpled letter. The MASTERS of the shop sit around the table. At the head, HANS LUFFT -- mid-forties, dark beard, ink to the elbows. Wittenberg's master printer.
LUFFT
Then we ask him again.
A low groan runs around the table.
YOUNG PRINTER
Again? You know he has refused us three times.
OLD PRINTER
And he'll refuse a fourth. He has never taken a gulden for God's work. Not once in twenty years. He gives his books away.
YOUNG PRINTER
(counting off on his fingers)
The first time he laughed at us. The second time he preached at us. The third time he would not so much as lay down his pen.
YOUNG PRINTER
A man who hands his manuscripts to whomever he pleases. As though they were nothing. As though they were not the whole trade of this town.
YOUNG PRINTER
(rising heat)
And Leipzig thanks him for it. We buy the paper, we cut the type, we pay the men -- while he gives it away, and Leipzig grows fat selling what should rightfully belong to Wittenberg.
LUFFT
(evenly)
Mind what you say of him.
YOUNG PRINTER
The men are gone home -- why should I, when he minds nothing we say, to his face or behind it!
No one speaks. The candle flame leans and rights itself.
OLD PRINTER
(to Lufft, almost gently)
He stood before the Emperor himself and would not recant one word. All the princes of Germany in one hall could not bend him. And you would bend him with a purse?
LUFFT
And if we do not try? Frankfurt is gone. Basel is gone. Come the autumn, Leipzig will set our own Bible and sell it under our windows. Our presses will stand cold by winter -- tell me which of the men I am to send home first.
He nods toward the darkened shop behind them -- the silent presses, the aprons hung in a row.
Silence.
YOUNG PRINTER
He will refuse. He will say what he always says -- that he will not sell God's Word.
LUFFT
Then we will make the refusing hard.
He draws a blank contract to himself and writes. The page is angled away -- we never see the words.
He turns the paper and holds it up to the room. To them, not to us. We see only the back of the sheet.
Eyebrows shoot up. A low whistle. Lufft and the Old Printer exchange a look -- are we really doing this?
YOUNG PRINTER
Is there so much in all Wittenberg?
LUFFT
We have it. I have been through the ledgers twice.
YOUNG PRINTER
It is more than the Elector pays him -- and you would pay it every year. Who in Germany has ever paid such a sum?
LUFFT
Can we bear Leipzig?
No answer. He folds the paper, once, twice, creases it with his thumbnail and sets it in the center of the table.
LUFFT
Every shop bears its share, or it cannot be done.
He looks around the table, face by face.
LUFFT
Glass in your windows. Silk and velvet in your chests. A tile roof on your house. His pen paid for every bit of it.
(to the Old Printer)
And your wife is among the finest dressed in the church every Sunday.
(to the room again)
And if Leipzig takes the work from us, you lose all of it.
No one meets his eye.
LUFFT
It is decided.
A long beat. Then chairs push back. A hat comes off a peg. The meeting is over because he has ended it.
Lufft takes the folded contract off the table. The Young Printer reaches over and pinches out the candle.
OLD PRINTER
He will refuse, and refuse again. What will you do then?
LUFFT
His wife keeps his accounts. She will understand what he will not.
No one speaks.
CUT TO:
INT. LUTHER'S STUDY - THE BLACK CLOISTER - DAY
A quiet room in the old monastery Luther calls home. Shelves of books, a broad worktable strewn with proofs, a large worn Bible open on a reading desk. MARTIN LUTHER -- mid-fifties, heavyset, clean-shaven under a black scholar's cap -- reads proofs at the worktable.
The door. The printers file in, hats in hand. Lufft carries the folded contract like something fragile.
Luther looks up. A faint smile.
LUTHER
Three times you have come to me with this.
LUFFT
Never like this, Doctor. The sum on this paper is more than we have ever dared offer any man. This town lives by your books -- and Leipzig is circling. First access. That is all we ask.
Luther sets down his pen. Studies them. Almost amused.
LUTHER
Explain it to me once more. If I sign this -- other men may still print my books?
LUFFT
Of course. Once a book is sold in the market, any press in Germany may set it and copy it. No law forbids them.
LUTHER
But each new work would come to you first.
LUFFT
To us first. Leipzig may copy what all of Germany has already bought.
The printers lean in -- he is listening. Hope kindles around the room.
Lufft sets the folded contract on the worktable and slides it across.
Luther looks at it. Doesn't touch it. Then pushes it back with two fingers, unopened.
LUTHER
Everything I have, God gave freely -- without payment. I will not sell His gift of grace.
YOUNG PRINTER
No one asks you to sell grace, Doctor. It is a contract -- honest business, nothing more.
Lufft shoots the young man a warning look -- too late for it.
Luther holds the young man's gaze. Says nothing. The silence does the answering.
Lufft picks the contract off the table and holds it out. Almost a plea.
LUFFT
At least look at what you are refusing.
A beat. Luther takes it.
He does not unfold it. He weighs it in his hand a moment -- paper and a fold, nothing more. The printers watch, waiting for him to open it.
He doesn't. He rises, the folded paper still in his hand, crosses to the reading desk and rests a hand on the worn Bible.
LUTHER
Do you know how God has dealt with me? He led me wondrously against that loathsome worm, the pope. They have scratched me well enough -- but the pope has not carried off a whole skin either. He took blows enough himself.
He looks down at the open Bible.
LUTHER
And through it all, God raised me in a fatherly way -- me and my whole household. God be praised: He gave me a wife and children, a most beautiful blessing. I have quite enough, and I am satisfied. When I married, I had resolved to lecture for a fee. God forestalled me -- by way of the Elector.
OLD PRINTER
Forestalled you, Doctor? How?
LUTHER
(turning back to them)
A salary. Unasked. The year I married, Prince John Frederick doubled it. My table has not lacked since.
LUFFT
And no man begrudges it, Doctor. But a second purse never yet harmed a household. I think, if you will only look at what --
LUTHER
(over him)
In all my life I have never sold a single copy, nor held a lecture for a fee -- and that boast I mean to carry into the grave, God willing. Having food and clothing, I shall be content.
He sets the folded paper, still unopened, on the table between them.
The printers' shoulders drop. Lufft gathers the contract -- then stops. One more card.
LUFFT
Then speak with Katharina. That boast of yours is fed from her kitchen. You are content, Doctor -- ask her what your contentment costs.
Luther sighs -- exasperation, not temptation. He takes the folded paper off the table.
LUTHER
Good day to you, masters.
Nobody moves.
LUTHER
Out.
They file out, hats in hand. Lufft, last, opens his mouth for one more word -- Luther's look ends it. The door shuts.
Alone, Luther looks at the folded paper a long moment. Then he opens the door and calls down the corridor.
LUTHER
(calling)
Wolf! Ask my wife to come out to the courtyard.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE BLACK CLOISTER - COURTYARD - LATE AFTERNOON
Golden light. In a corner of the courtyard, a low fire burns under the wash kettle, Katharina's work laid out beside it.
MAGDALENA (Flick) sits on the bench by the wall with a book open on her knees, reading, deaf to the noise. MARTIN (Deacon) and MARGARETHE (Sam) are chasing a hen round the well, the little one shrieking.
Luther comes out through the heavy door, the folded paper in his hand.
Margarethe (Sam) runs to him and clamps onto his leg. He rests a hand on her head without looking down, and she runs off again after the hen.
He stops in the middle of the courtyard. Looks down at it.
He unfolds the paper. We stay on his face -- the back of the sheet to us. His eyes cross the writing once.
A long silence.
His face gives nothing away. No reaction at all.
He folds the paper back up.
The door again. Drying her hands on her apron: KATHARINA VON BORA -- about forty, linen coif, a ring of household keys at her belt.
LUTHER
(calm -- a thing already settled)
The printers came again.
KATHARINA
And you told them --
LUTHER
What I have always told them. The Elector -- Prince John Frederick -- already gives me two hundred gulden a year, more than I ever asked of any man. What use have I for their sum?
KATHARINA
(mild, drying her hands)
Two hundred is generous -- from a prince to a professor. And it is more generous still of you, to keep half Wittenberg fed on it.
He waves this off -- an old argument, long lost.
Martin (Deacon) and Margarethe (Sam) tear past between them after the hen. Katharina steps aside for them without breaking off.
KATHARINA
It is no charity to say so. Sixteen at table tonight, and boarders' beds to air. The maltster has waited since Easter for his money. The orchard wall is down -- the pigs have found it twice this week -- and the roof over the north cells will not stand another winter unless silver goes into it.
LUTHER
God has kept this house through leaner years.
KATHARINA
He has.
(then)
How much did they offer?
He turns the folded paper over once in his hand. He does not need to look at it.
LUTHER
It makes no difference.
He flicks the folded paper toward the fire -- carelessly, a thing already dismissed.
It strikes the rim of the kettle and drops onto the stones beside the flames. He doesn't look to see where it landed.
LUTHER
They said I should speak with you. So -- we have spoken.
A small smile passes between them -- an old marriage's shorthand.
He scoops Margarethe (Sam) up on his way past and calls the other two in after him. Magdalena (Flick) gets up and follows without lifting her eyes from the page, still reading as she goes in; Martin (Deacon) comes last, looking back at the hen. The heavy door thuds shut.
Katharina stands alone in the courtyard. The folded paper lies on the stones, a hand's breadth from the fire. Meant for it. Missed.
She turns to her work. Her eyes keep coming back to it.
KATHARINA
(to herself)
Twenty-five gulden a year.
She picks it up. Turns it over. Doesn't open it.
KATHARINA
Fifty.
She sets it back down where it fell. Steps away. Stops.
KATHARINA
A hundred a year -- if they have gone mad.
The paper just lies there, the firelight moving on it. He meant it to burn. It hasn't.
She comes back. She unfolds it -- its face to her, its back to us -- and reads.
INSERT - THE PAPER
A clerk's careful hand, close-set contract lines. Buried mid-clause, yet unmistakable, the figure:
400 Gulden jährlich.
BACK ON KATHARINA
She keeps this household's accounts; the arithmetic takes her a heartbeat. Her hand finds the ring of keys at her belt. Her eyes widen -- pure astonishment.
Then, slowly, a smile.
She glances at the closed door. The smile stays.
She folds the paper back up. Holds it out over the flames.
And hesitates. A long moment -- the paper in her fingers, the fire waiting.
She lets it fall.
The paper catches, curls, blackens. The number is the last thing to burn.
CUT TO BLACK.
TITLE CARD: "We are commanded to teach, console, and absolve all who receive and believe; and they all receive from us freely, according to the saying: 'Freely you have received; freely give.'" -- Luther, Lectures on Genesis
FADE OUT.