Part 3 — CHAPTER XIV THE PORT OF COLUMBUS

The Scene is a bare height over a little town, white huddled with shard roofs. Coppery, the río Tinto widens and swirls through sands into the Gulf of Cádiz. Upon the height, stand two old men, bare-headed. They are clad in the gentility of their days. But the cloth is thread, the brocade is dim, the velvet shines and yellow is the lace. The one is tall. He holds behind his back, martially, an arm with a crippled hand. He is erect. His features are hard and large: only his mouth, too delicate and his eyes, tender and dark as a womb, belie the warrior. The second man is short. Beaked is his nose, and the eyes have a watery gleam. His hair is silken white above the swarthy skin. The tall man speaks:

CERVANTES—Why did you ask that I should meet you here?

COLUMBUS—This is Palos de la Frontera. [There is a pause in which with a hard hand he wipes his watery eyes.] From here the first time we sailed. Here, seven months later, we returned. Bringing back——

CERVANTES—A world.

COLUMBUS—Nay. Bringing back a Grave.

CERVANTES—[Regarding the town and not COLUMBUS’ words.]—Here, now, is nothing.

COLUMBUS—Look beyond the fat sands of the Gulf. Look beyond the sea.

[They stand in silence toward the west. The low sun swims above the brooding water, vaults the hard roofs, and lights the shabbiness of the watchers.]

COLUMBUS—[Nervously.] Well? Are you looking? Tell me what you see.

CERVANTES—I see America.

COLUMBUS—[Rubbing his hands in ironic satisfaction.] They robbed it of my name, because they thought I did not know what I had found. They robbed me of my kingdom, because they thought I aspired to be a king. Because my eyes kept watch, they are dim.

CERVANTES—I shall tell you, friend, what I see.

COLUMBUS—Be careful of your eyes!

CERVANTES—A City of White Towers! The men who live in it are little motes. Yet they uphold these Towers! And in their hand, they wield a golden weapon making them the world’s master.

COLUMBUS—Look sharp.

CERVANTES—They are not masters of themselves. They are full of chaos——

COLUMBUS—Spain?

CERVANTES—Within this serried, glittering Order—Chaos! Chaos of races, traditions, dreams. They are uneasy. They build the Towers higher. The Towers are high, in order to enclose them safely from their chaos. Towers of stone, machines of subtle iron—to shut out bloods, dreams, words, making this Confusion which they hate.

COLUMBUS—[Smiling shrewdly.] Are you looking at America, or Spain?

CERVANTES—They have lost sight of the True God. Yet they are full of God-hunger, of God-search. To their own works they turn—and worship God in these.

COLUMBUS—Look beyond: beyond the Towers.

CERVANTES—[Heeding only what he sees.] They ban new pioneers! Lusting for Unity they crush what is not One. They shut out thoughts which might rise loftier than the highest Towers.

COLUMBUS—[Chuckling.] Leap from your Spain, I tell you. Beyond the Towers——?

CERVANTES—Continents!

COLUMBUS—Now you hold me!

CERVANTES—What childish peoples, there! Beyond the Towers one can see them clearer, although they are the same as those beneath the Towers. Savages, who can not even speak, who can not even think—who spin about in quaint machines.

COLUMBUS—Where do you see them?

CERVANTES—Everywhere. Upon two Continents I see them, like an Itch on the rugose World. Yet within them, there is a world of Desire. I can hear their clamor; though they use words English, Spanish, Portuguese, I cannot read their reason. They are dumb as children.

COLUMBUS—They have their Inquisition, I suppose? They drive out the Infidel? They go to their Cathedrals, and would bind all men in Christ?

CERVANTES—Their names for these are different. And unlike Spain, I see that they have not succeeded.

COLUMBUS—[Quickened.] There is my hope! If I could go and tell them: therein is their hope! They shall not, like Spain, succeed.

CERVANTES—[Not turning.] Your voice rings glad?

COLUMBUS—Why should I not be glad? The New World is in them, underneath the Towers. When they have learned that they can not succeed: that all the Towers and all the machines and all the gold on earth can not crush down this unborn need in them for a true New World—then it will arise.

CERVANTES—[turns and looks at COLUMBUS.] You speak in Parables.

COLUMBUS—I am a practical man.

CERVANTES—I am sick of parables and stories.

COLUMBUS—Good. You want history? The Book of Moses—is that history enough for your hard sense? Well, do you recall how the Lord led the children of Israel out of Egypt? They too crossed a Sea. But did they come into their promised land, their new world flowing with milk and honey, when they had crossed the sea?

CERVANTES—Yes. After forty years.

COLUMBUS—You are a shallow reader. Not one came into the Promised Land—not even Moses! They went into the wilderness, and they died. From Marah to the wilderness of Sin, from Horeb to the wilderness of Moab—they roamed, and rotted, and were dead forever! Not Aaron the Priest, not Miriam the mother, not Moses the Prophet came to the Promised Land. For it is written that the Seed shall die, ere Life may be reborn.

CERVANTES—[Incredulous.] If that is Death yonder across the sea, it is a death most stable and most splendid.

COLUMBUS—Death is the most sumptuous song. This golden-towered America is but the Grave of Europe.

CERVANTES—I do not understand.

COLUMBUS—What do you find there?

CERVANTES—Mighty stones——

COLUMBUS—Are not stones of Europe?

CERVANTES—Gold——

COLUMBUS—Is not gold a lust of the old world?

CERVANTES—Marvelous machines——

COLUMBUS—Did you, then, not know England, that you should think them new?

CERVANTES—Never with us were gold and stone and iron of so high a glory.

COLUMBUS—Does not Europe merit a high Sepulcher?

CERVANTES—Still you speak in parables, my friend.

COLUMBUS—[Testily.] What would you have me say? Teach me the words for the New World, if you have them! Since its gold and its stones and its machines are unknown to the Old, what words can the old tongues give us?

[CERVANTES looks in silence to the west, while the weak eyes of COLUMBUS watch him. Suddenly, CERVANTES clutches at the short man’s arm.]

CERVANTES—Look! Can’t you see?... No!... God, the Towers are falling!

COLUMBUS—Glory to Jehovah!

CERVANTES—They veer, they twist. They have sunk in this mire of men.

COLUMBUS—The Seed shall rot.

CERVANTES—They are a turmoil of blind maggots. Their world is become as were their souls—a quicksand. The gleaming Towers are gone!

COLUMBUS—Now shall be the birth of the World which I discovered.

CERVANTES—[Sternly gazes west in a deep silence. Then he turns to his friend.] Gone is the city. Continents of chaos. What shall rise?

COLUMBUS—The Dream of the Old World, at last—a New World!

CERVANTES—Spain?

COLUMBUS—Nay. Spain’s Grave is over there, with Europe’s.

CERVANTES—I shall believe your dim eyes. Tell me, mariner, what your dim eyes see.

COLUMBUS—[With a laugh.] Then keep your sharp eyes westward.

CERVANTES—[He turns again, complying, to the west.] It is easy to look away from Spain, when one has loved Spain.

COLUMBUS—You shall not be alone, in loving Spain.

CERVANTES—Prophetic Spain.

COLUMBUS—Spain which, creating life, has never lived.

CERVANTES—Her fields are shrunken and her eyes are hot.

COLUMBUS—God has begotten on her, and He has passed her by.

CERVANTES—She is a mother.

COLUMBUS—A mother of beginnings.

CERVANTES—Always the Seed in her—never the life itself?

COLUMBUS—It was ever so. When Rome lived, Spain did not live in Rome: she bore her Stoics and her Saints for Holy Rome. When Holy Rome was hale, Spain was not holy. She bore, with her Jews and Arabs, the death of Christ. When Holy Rome was dead and Modern Europe flourished, Spain was not modern and Spain was not Europe. She bore America.

CERVANTES—Europe has used my mother! Even you, landless mariner, have used her.

COLUMBUS—God has used her.

CERVANTES—Why then are her fields hungry?

COLUMBUS—All worlds have come in, unto her: of all worlds, she has begotten worlds. And she has lain untouched.

CERVANTES—My tragic mother.

COLUMBUS—[Suddenly remembering and exalted.] But the White Towers have toppled. Ready, Spain! You must stir again. You must give again. Europe has rotted at last into the Grave they called America. Your work is not quite done. You, most broken mother of all Europe, you have preserved a Seed.

... [CERVANTES has turned from the west, and facing inland, kneels. COLUMBUS does not heed him.]

COLUMBUS—Your spirit, Spain. They above all will need it, in the north: they whose speech is English and who have led in the building of the Towers which are the Grave of Europe. For it is written that these shall also lead in the birth of the true New World—the true America which I discovered. Let them see you, Spain; let them take from you, O mother. For their spirit is weak and childish. They are cowards, not masters, before life. But you, Spain, dared to be what you believed: you knew the wisdom of what small men call “madness.” You dared to make of life itself the Body of your Vision, the Word of your Prayer. You did not flinch, proud Spain, from being laughed at—from being wrong—from being right! Give to the New World now your spirit, that it may surpass you.

[There is a silence, Columbus still facing west, while his comrade kneels toward Spain.]

CERVANTES—[Still kneeling and praying.] I understand, my mother, why we have always loved Our Lady. What this man says is true. Unpossessed, you have borne a Word. And the Word, even as Christ unto His mother, has turned and has denied you.

COLUMBUS—[Lifting CERVANTES up.] Look again. You are sure? The White Towers—?

CERVANTES—[Rises and looks again westward, standing beside COLUMBUS.] The City of Towers is gone.

As they gaze in silence, CERVANTES seeing, COLUMBUS understanding, the sun goes down in the sea. And over their shoulders to the east, the sky is suddenly aflame with sunrise.

FINIS

1921-1925

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

Mckor Hayim=> Makor Hayim {pg 113}

Mekor Hayim=> Makor Hayim {pg 159}