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.