Read Online The Dark Domain by Stefan Grabinski - Free Book Online

from even the most knowledgeable of the cognoscenti. The previously modest cemetery became, in a dozen years or so, a sepulchral masterpiece and the pride of Foscara, which in turn became the envy of other cities.
    From a ragged lazzarone , Tossati was transformed into a respected and wealthy citizen, a person of influence and prominence. Eventually he was elected chairman of the city council. Holding such a high office, he no longer personally dug graves, but now directed a large number of helpers, whom he taught in a truly novel manner. Tossati introduced into the burial trade a series of original improvements, cutting the work in half and quickening its tempo. He was no less faithful, though, to his old principles; he didn’t neglect any burial and personally supervised the affair. After the corpse had been lowered into the grave, Tossati himself shovelled the first lump of earth onto the coffin, leaving the rest of the work to his labourers. In this manner his gravedigging functions took on, to a certain extent, a symbolic character, eliciting a pleasing memory of his former role; and not for all the money in the world would he abandon this particular custom.
    Now, in general, Tossati was a strange person. His very appearance called attention to itself. Tall, broad-shouldered, his face wide and dreary, he was constantly smiling with a mysterious curl on his lips. His eyes were enigmatic, downcast. Maybe this downward gaze had adapted to his habit of bowing his head toward the ground, which he seemed to be carefully examining. The townspeople jokingly said that Tossati was sniffing for corpses.
    Despite the renown of the gifted sculptor, the gravedigger was, in truth, not liked. People feared him and got out of his way. A superstition even developed that a meeting with him at an early hour of the day was a bad omen.
    So, when after ten years in Foscara he decided to get married, none of the female inhabitants wanted to give him her hand. They were not tempted by Giovanni’s vast prosperity, nor were they enticed by the promise of a life of affluence. In the end, he married a poor workwoman from a neighbouring village, an orphan given as a favour for an unfavourable fate.
    But he didn’t find happiness in family life. After a year of marriage his wife gave him twins: the first was stillborn; the second had been strangely formed in its mother’s womb. This freak, dissimilar to any human baby, died on the third day after its birth. The broken-hearted woman disappeared one day, and all searches for her were in vain.
    From then on he lived alone next to the cemetery in his white brick-walled house, and saw the townspeople mostly at funerals. Yet his windows were lit up late into the night, and neighbours frequently heard drunken shouts of people emanating from his home.
    Nearly every night Tossati had some guests; but they were certainly not inhabitants of Foscara – at least no one in the city boasted of going there. Carriages drove up in front of the gravedigger’s house, sometimes lavish coaches; strange people from unknown places would get out and go inside. At other times, heavy, usually empty wagons rolled in, creaking through the entrance gate, on which were loaded boxes and heavily boarded-up crates, to be taken away to an unknown destination before daybreak.
    The city followed the sculptor’s secretive movements from a distance, not wanting to become involved in the affairs of a strange person who instilled fear in them.
    By then the gravedigger and his home were enveloped in gloomy legends that had grown with the years and cemetery tales filled with rotting corpses and the stench of decay. It was said that the dead were visiting John and carrying on secret talks with him through the night. That’s why no one was courageous enough to steal up to his brightly-lit windows and observe his guests.
    Tossati knew of the tales surrounding him and didn’t attempt to contradict them; on the contrary, it seemed as if he