The Hour Of Triumph - 2

The Hour Of Triumph - 2

 What a return for the man who three years before had been pointed at and laughed to

scorn in this same brilliant society! The crowds pressed so closely that the procession

could hardly get through the streets; the whole population was there to witness it; and the

windows and balconies and roofs of the houses, as well as the streets themselves, were

thronged with a gaily dressed and wildly excited crowd. At length the procession reaches

the presence of the King and Queen and, crowning and unprecedented honour! as the

Admiral comes before them Ferdinand and Isabella rise to greet him. Under their own

royal canopy a seat is waiting for him; and when he has made his ceremonial greeting he

is invited to sit in their presence and give an account of his voyage.

He is fully equal to the situation; settles down to do himself and his subject justice;

begins, we may be sure, with a preamble about the providence of God and its wisdom and

consistency in preserving the narrator and preparing his life for this great deed; putting in

a deal of scientific talk which had in truth nothing to do with the event, but was always

applied to it in Columbus's writings from this date onwards; and going on to describe the

voyage, the sea of weeds, the landfall, his intercourse with the natives, their aptitude for

labour and Christianity, and the hopes he has of their early conversion to the Catholic

Church. And then follows a long description of the wonderful climate, "like May in

Andalusia," the noble rivers, and gorgeous scenery, the trees and fruits and flowers and

singing birds; the spices and the cotton; and chief of all, the vast stores of gold and pearls

of which the Admiral had brought home specimens. At various stages in his narrative he

produces illustrations; now a root of rhubarb or allspice; now a raw nugget of gold; now a

piece of gold laboured into a mask or belt; now a native decorated with the barbaric

ornaments that were the fashion in Espanola. These things, says Columbus, are mere

first-fruits of the harvest that is to come; the things which he, like the dove that had flown

across the sea from the Ark and brought back an olive leaf in its mouth, has brought back

across the stormy seas to that Ark of civilisation from which he had flown forth.

It was to Columbus an opportunity of stretching his visionary wings and creating with

pompous words and images a great halo round himself of dignity and wonder and divine

distinction,—an opportunity such as he loved, and such as he never failed to make use of.

The Sovereigns were delighted and profoundly impressed. Columbus wound up his

address with an eloquent peroration concerning the glory to Christendom of these new

discoveries; and there followed an impressive silence, during which the Sovereigns sank

on their knees and raised hands and tearful eyes to heaven, an example in which they

were followed by the whole of the assembly; and an appropriate gesture enough, seeing

what was to come of it all. The choir of the Chapel Royal sang a solemn Te Deum on the

spot; and the Sovereigns and nobles, bishops, archbishops, grandees, hidalgos,

chamberlains, treasurers, chancellors and other courtiers, being exhausted by these

emotions, retired to dinner.

During his stay at Barcelona Columbus was the guest of the Cardinal-Archbishop of

Toledo, and moved thus in an atmosphere of combined temporal and spiritual dignity

such as his soul loved. Very agreeable indeed to him was the honour shown to him at this

time. Deep down in his heart there was a secret nerve of pride and vanity which

throughout his life hitherto had been continually mortified and wounded; but he was able

now to indulge his appetite for outward pomp and honour as much as he pleased. When

King Ferdinand went out to ride Columbus would be seen riding on one side of him, the

young Prince John riding on the other side; and everywhere, when he moved among the

respectful and admiring throng, his grave face was seen to be wreathed in complacent

smiles. His hair, which had turned white soon after he was thirty, gave him a dignified

and almost venerable appearance, although he was only in his forty-third year; and

combined with his handsome and commanding presence to excite immense enthusiasm

among the Spaniards. They forgot for the moment what they had formerly remembered

and were to remember again—that he was a foreigner, an Italian, a man of no family and

of poor origin. They saw in him the figure-head of a new empire and a new glory, an

emblem of power and riches, of the dominion which their proud souls loved; and so there

beamed upon him the brief fickle sunshine of their smiles and favour, which he in his

delusion regarded as an earnest of their permanent honour and esteem.

It is almost always thus with a man not born to such dignities, and who comes by them

through his own efforts and labours. No one would grudge him the short-lived happiness

of these summer weeks; but although he believed himself to be as happy as a man can be,

he appears to quietly contemplating eyes less happy and fortunate than when he stood

alone on the deck of his ship, surrounded by an untrustworthy crew, prevailing by his

own unaided efforts over the difficulties and dangers with which he was surrounded.

Court functions and processions, and the companionship of kings and cardinals, are

indeed no suitable reward for the kind of work that he did. Courtly dignities are suited to

courtly services; but they are no suitable crown for rough labour and hardship at sea, or

for the fulfilment of a man's self by lights within him; no suitable crown for any solitary

labour whatsoever, which must always be its own and only reward.

It is to this period of splendour that the story of the egg, which is to some people the only

familiar incident in Columbian biography, is attributed. The story is that at a banquet

given by the Cardinal-Arch bishop the conversation ran, as it always did in those days

when he was present, on the subject of the Admiral's discoveries; and that one of the

guests remarked that it was all very well for Columbus to have done what he did, but that

in a country like Spain, where there were so many men learned in science and

cosmography, and many able mariners besides, some one else would certainly have been

found who would have done the same thing. Whereupon Columbus, calling for an egg,

laid a wager that none of the company but him self could make it stand on its end without

support. The egg was brought and passed round, and every one tried to make it stand on

end, but without success. When it came to Columbus he cracked the shell at one end,

making a flat surface on which the egg stood upright; thus demonstrating that a thing

might be wonderful, not because it was difficult or impossible, but merely because no one

had ever thought of doing it before. A sufficiently inane story, and by no means certainly

true; but there is enough character in this little feat, ponderous, deliberate, pompous,

ostentatious, and at bottom a trick and deceitful quibble, to make it accord with the

grandiloquent public manner of Columbus, and to make it easily believable of one who

chose to show himself in his speech and writings so much more meanly and pretentiously

than he showed himself in the true acts and business of his life.