A
nd the Invisible One, stricken with anguish, found himself once again in the piazza of Saint Peter’s . . . (By his side, sullen and hurried, passed the seminarian of the Lipsonotec, mumbling: “Never a day of rest here. No sooner am I finished with Columbus than they think of beatifying Joan of Arc, whose bones are also lost, since her ashes were scattered by the winds of Rouen . . . And I’ll have to convince the chief clerk of that, since he thinks Joan of Arc was strangled in the Tower of London . . . What a job, my God! . . .” ) Soon another Invisible One joined the first—visible to him—his chest bare, carrying the trident of Poseidon, as he appeared to posterity in the famous portrait by Bronzino. Thus the Grand Admiral of Isabella and Ferdinand met, for the first time, his countryman and his near contemporary—give or take a few years—Andrea Doria, the Grand Admiral of Venice and Genoa. Both admirals, both Genoans, they began to converse amiably in their peculiar dialect. “I got bored in my sepulcher in the Church of San Mateo, so I came to take the air in this plaza,” Andrea said. ‘Along the way I picked up a wad of tobacco. Care for a chew? No? That’s funny, considering that you’re more or less responsible for so many people snorting snufX smoking pipes, and firing up Havanas in this country. Without you, we never would have known about tobacco.” ‘Amerigo Vespucci would have acquainted people with it anyway,” said Christopher, bitterly. “How did you get here from Genoa?” “By train. The Ventimiglia express.” “And they let you get on the car like that—like that, practically naked, like Neptune in a mythological allegory?” “Don’t forget that you and I dwell in the realm of the Invisibles. We’re the Transparent Ones. There are many like us, who, because of their fame, because people keep talking about them, cannot disappear into their transparency, removed from this screwed-up world where they put up statues of us, where new historians knock themselves out trying to bring to light the worst secrets of our private lives.” “You’re telling me!” “Sure. Lots of people don’t know that we often travel by train or ship, with the Greek Aspasia, the knight Roland, Fra Angelico, or the Marquis of Santillana.” “All those who have died become invisible.” “But if they are cited and talked about for what they did and what they were, the Invisible Ones ‘are made man,’ as they say, and they begin to talk with those who call their names. Of course, there are, as always, different levels according to different degrees of demand. There are the Class A Invisibles, like Charlemagne or Philip II; Class B, like the Princess of Eboli or the knight Bayard; and there are the occasionals, much less solicited, like that unfortunate Visigoth king, Favila, mentioned in the Chronicle of Alfonso III, of whom all that is known is that he ruled for two years and died when he was eaten by a bear, or, speaking of your world, that Bartolomé Cornejo who in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with the consent of three bishops, opened the First Continental whorehouse, on August 4,1526—a memorable date, which today is celebrated as the Día de la Raza, because the girls who worked there had been brought from the peninsula, since the Indians, who had never practiced that trade, lacked the skills that you and I were acquainted with . . . isn’t that right, sailor?” “In the history of America—which I consider mine, even though it bears the name of another—there were gentlemen of greater merit than Bartolomé Cornejo,” said the Invisible Discoverer, offended. “I mean, after all, Sahagún, Motolinía, Fra Pedro de Game . . “ “Who’s arguing! And there was Simón Bolívar too!” The invisible simulacrum of the Invisible Christopher twitched invisibly. “I would rather that you not mention Simón Bolívar.” “Excuse me!” said Doria. “I know that name gives you little pleasure, since he undid what you had accomplished.” “But if you think about it, if the discovery of America had been directed by Henry of England, Simón Bolívar would have been named Smith or Brown . . .” “And by the same token, if Anne of Britanny had accepted your offer, instead of Spanish they’d be speaking some barbaric Morbihan dialect today” “Let me remind you,” said Christopher, annoyed, “that before you went to battle in the service of Carlos V, you blissfully served King Francis I of France, who was his enemy. We Genoans know each other.” “Sure, sure, sure, so well that we all know who is the admiral of battles and who the admiral of excursions. Where were your wars?” “Over there,” said the navigator of Isabella and Ferdinand, pointing to the west. “Mine were here, in the Mediterranean. The difference is, while you used your lombard cannons to terrorize a few poor naked Indians with no more than a few rude spears that were quite ineffective against even one of our poorest ox-prods, I was for years the scourge of the Turk’s fleet of ships.” The conversation was turning sour. Andrea Doria changed the subject. “So how did things go for you in there?” (pointing to the great door of the basilica). “They turned me down.” “Of course. You’re a sailor and a Genoan.” And elevating his tone he recited some verses from the Divine Comedy: Ah, Genoans! People strange to all good custom, full of vice . . . Why are you not driven from the earth? “They turned me down,” repeated Christo-phoros in a sad voice. “You, Andrea, were a Grand Admiral and I only want to honor your memory as the memory of a Grand Admiral . . . I was also a Grand Admiral but because I wanted to be too grand I lost my stature as Grand Admiral.” “You can console yourself with the knowledge that many statues have been raised in your honor throughout the world.” “And not a one looks like me, because I came from mystery and I returned to mystery without leaving a painted or drawn trace of my human image. Besides, man does not live by statues alone. Today, because I was admired too much, some friends of mine screwed me.” “Of course. You’re a sailor and a Genoan.” “They screwed me,” repeated the other, almost in tears. Andrea Doria put an invisible hand on his companion’s invisible shoulder, and said consolingly: “And who the hell got the idea that a sailor could ever be canonized? There isn’t a single sailor in the whole assembly of saints! And that’s because no sailor was born without sin.” There was a long pause. The two Invisible Ones had no more to say to each other. “Ciao, Columbus.” “Ciao, Doria . . .” And the man-who-was-condemned-to-be-a-man-like-all-the-others remained in the precise spot in the plaza where, when you looked at Bernini’s columns, the one in front hid the other three perfectly, so that all four appeared to be one. ‘An optical illusion,” he thought. ‘An optical illusion, like the West Indies were for me. One day, on the coast of Cuba at a place I called the Alpha-Omega, I said that one world ended there and another began: another Something, another thing, that I myself could not manage to make out . . . I had rent the veil of the unknown and entered a new reality that surpassed my understanding, for there are discoveries so momentous—though possible—that by their very immensity they annihilate any mortal who dares to enter them.” And then the Invisible One recalled Seneca, whose Medea had long been his inspiration; he had identified with Tiphys, the helmsman of the Argonaut, in the well-known verses that now seemed charged with prophetic significance: Tiphys dared to spread his venturous sail, the hidden lessons of the breezes learning. . . . The seas subdued, the victor’s law obeys, no vessel needs a goddess’s art in framing, nor oars in heroes’ hands, the ocean taming: the frailest craft now dares the roughest waves. Now, every bound removed, new cities rise in lands remote, their ancient walls removing. . . . Where men no more shall unknown courses measure, for round the world no ‘farthest land” shall be. . . . Then, as the bells began to ring clearly, that afternoon in Rome, he recited verses that seemed to allude to his own destiny: Tiphys, tamer of the deep, abandoned to an untrained hand his vessel’s helm. On a foreign shore, far from his native land he died; and now within a common tomb, ‘midst unknown ghosts, he lies at rest. . . . And in the precise spot in the plaza where the four columns of the circular colonnades merged into one, the Invisible One evaporated into the air that enveloped and passed through him, and he became one with the transparent ether.
10 September 1978
Notes
[←1]
“His Most Eminent Prince Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, made clear, four years ago, the vener
ation of the faithful for Christopher Columbus, servant of God, earnestly beseeching that the cause of that illustrious personage be advanced by special procedure.” (Appendix C in the Postulatum published at the end of The Revealer of the Globe by Leon Bloy)
[←2]
According to a document published by the Apostolic Nunciature of Chile (1952).
[←3]
Columbus’s visit to Iceland is “possible though uncertain,” according to Menéndez Pidal.
[←4]
Leon Bloy, The Revealer of the Globe, chapter 10.
[←5]
”The most beautiful statue in the world,” said Onega y Gasset.
The Harp and the Shadow Page 16
