The Earthly Paradise

C. S. Forester

Description

The protagonist Don Narciso Rich, accompanies the Christopher Columbus voyage to the New World.

Sujets

• Fiction
• Historical

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 23 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774644911
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in 1940.
This edition published by Rare Treasures.
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C. S. FORESTER



The Earthly Paradise

1
T HE learned Narciso Rich was washing his shirt. He haddropped a wooden bucket over the side on the end of arope, and, having filled it—with difficulty because of itstendency to float and the lack of motion of the ship—he hadswung it up to the fore deck. Although it was late afternoon,it was still stifling hot, and Rich endeavoured to stay as muchas possible in the shadow cast by the mast and sail, but thatwas not easy, because the ship was swinging about slowlyand aimlessly in the flat calm. The sun stung his bare skin,brown though the latter was, when it reached it. Yet Richcould not postpone what he was doing until nightfall, becausethe work in hand necessitated a good light—he was freeinghis shirt of the insect pests which swarmed in it.
There were grim thoughts running through his mind as hebent over his revolting task. Firstly, he knew by experiencethat his shirt was far easier to clean than the leather breecheswhich he wore, and on which he would have to start worknext. Next, he would not stay clean very long, not in thisship, where every man was alive with lice, and where the veryplanking swarmed with loathsome creatures which hastenedout at nightfall to suck human blood. At this very moment,when he stopped to think about it, he thought he coulddistinguish their hideous stench among the other stinks whichreached his nostrils. It was a strange piece of work for himto be doing. Not since his student days had he had to abasehimself in this fashion, and for the last five years he had hadservants to wait on him in his own house, after he had attainedeminence in his profession. Without immodesty he could lookon himself as in the first rank of jurisconsults in the triplekingdom of Arragon, and as certainly the second, and possiblythe first, authority on the universal maritime code of Catalonia.Merchant princes from Pisa and Florence and Marseille—thevery Doge of Venice, for that matter—had sent deputations,almost embassies, to request his judgment upon points indispute, and had listened attentively to his explanations of thelaw, and had paid in gold for them. Now he was washing hisown shirt under an equinoctial sun.
And—he admitted it to himself with all a lawyer’s realism—itwas his own fault. He need not have joined this expedition.The King had summoned him to consultation; a pretty tanglethey had got their affairs into, His Highness and the Admiral,as a result of not consulting expert legal opinion when drawingup their first agreement, which was exactly what alwayshappened when two laymen tried to save lawyer’s fees.Rich remembered His Highness’s inquiring glance; thesubject under discussion was as to which able-bodied younglawyer would be best suited to send out to the Indies to watchover the royal interests and to try to straighten out the legalmuddles there. A hot wave of recklessness had swept Richaway.
“I could go myself, Highness,” he said, with an appearanceof jesting.
At that moment he had felt weary of the dull round of alawyer’s life, of the dignified robes, of the solemn pretence toinfallibility, of the eternal weariness of explaining to muddledminds the petty points—often the same points over and overagain—which to him were clarity itself. He had suddenlyrealised that he was forty, and ageing, and that the twentyyears which had elapsed since his journey back to Barcelonafrom Padua had brought him nothing except the worldlysuccess which seemed to him, momentarily, of small account.With pitiless self-analysis Rich, sousing his shirt in the bucket,reminded himself that at that time the prospect of wearing asword at his side had made a definite appeal to him, as thoughhe had been a hare-brained boy to be attracted to toys.
His Highness’s lantern jaw had dropped a little in surprise.
“There is nothing we would like better,” he had said.
There had still been a chance of escape. Instant retractionwould have left him at peace in his quiet house in Barcelona,and yet he had thrown away the opportunity.
“There is no reason why I should not go, Highness,” hehad said, like a fool, and after that there was no chance ofwithdrawal save at the risk of royal displeasure, and thedispleasure of King Ferdinand was more perilous even thana voyage to the Indies.
So here he was, eaten alive by vermin, and roasting undera tropical sun in a ship which seemed as though she wouldnever again feel a breath of wind, so long had she drifted inthese equatorial calms. He was indeed the only person onboard, of all the hundred and thirty who crowded her, whowas displaying any sign of activity. The Admiral and hisservants were invisible in the great after-cabin, and the rest ofthe horde were lying idly in the shade of the bulwarks and ofthe break of the fore-deck. They were more accustomed tofilth and vermin than he was; his fastidious nostrils coulddistinguish the reek of their dirty bodies and unwashedclothing as one strand of the tangled skein of stinks—saltedcod, not too well preserved, and rotting cheese, and fermentingbeans. The least unpleasing and most prevalent odour wasthe vinegary smell of spilt wine drying in the heat—the winebarrels in the waist had been badly coopered, and wine wascontinually sweating out between the staves, the supplydwindling daily, although to them it was of more value nowthan the gold they were seeking. The tremendous rainstorms,accompanied, alas, by hardly a breath of wind, of thelast few days, had brought them drinking water, but it wasdrinking water flavoured with sea salt and tar as a result ofhaving to be caught in sails before being run into the casks.It was vastly unattractive water, especially to Spaniards withtheir discriminating taste in drinking water; Rich suspectedthe water of being the cause of the bowel complaint whichwas beginning to plague them all.
His shirt was finished now, and he put it on, revelling inthe coolness of the wet material against his skin while hestripped off his breeches—it was repulsive and unpleasing to benaked. It was strange that among all the dangers and discomfortshe had expected—the fevers, the poisoned arrows, thefire-breathing dragons, the tempests and rocks, he had neveranticipated the vermin which now held so important a placein his thoughts. St. Francis of Assisi, of blessed memory,had spoken of lice as the pearls of poverty. Rich, bendingover his disgusting task, shuddered at the unorthodoxy ofdisapproving of anything St. Francis had said, until hereassured himself with the thought that divine Providencehad not blessed him with the Saint’s humility. There was awhiff of heresy about that, too, now he came to think aboutit. But he pulled himself together sturdily; his immortalsoul could not really be endangered by his cleansing the seamof his breeches. De minimis non curat lex. He could arguea good case with St. Peter on that point.
These breeches were fiendishly difficult to clean; coldseawater was not the most helpful medium in which toattempt it. Boiling water, if he could be sure of not hardeningthe leather, would be far more efficacious. Or a hot knife-blade,run along the seams. But there was no chance ofheating a knife-blade or of boiling water; the cooking fire onthe stone hearth in the waist was out, and had not been lightedfor—how many days? Five? Six?—the days had been somuch alike that he could not remember. The heat had beentoo great for the cooks to do their work, so the cooks hadsaid, and the Admiral had believed them. The Admiral didnot care whether his food was hot or cold, sweet or rotten;probably he did not even notice. Presumably he was not inhis great cabin, dreaming over his charts, revolving freshtheories. Rich pointed out to himself that the Admiral, evenif he were too gentle with the men, was hard enough onhimself, and even though he was grasping in his efforts toadhere to the letter of that absurd agreement with the Crown,he was at least prepared to devote every thought in his headand every breath in his body to the furtherance of the objectsof that agreement.
This southerly course which they were following now—orwould be following, if there was only a wind—would takethem into a region of burning sun and brilliant moon; it haddone so, for that matter, already. That would greatly increasetheir chances of obtaining precious metals. The golden gloryof the sun and the silver brightness of the moon must obviouslyengender and stimulate the growth of gold and silver.The soil should be thick with them in this climate, when theyreached land. The Portuguese had discovered more and moregold the farther south they pushed their exploration of Africa,which was a clear confirmation of the theory. Shiploads ofgold and silver would make Spain rich and powerful. Therewould be content and plenty in the land. There would bebread on the table of every peasant, and the court of TheirHighnesses would be the most brilliant in Christendom.
The Admiral saw this plainly enough. It would be a muchshorter cut than the tedious methods of trade. The otherIndian islands he had discovered had obviously been prettyclose to the dominions of the Grand Khan. That wealthyregion of Cibao that the natives of Española talked about mustmost probably be the island of Japan, often referred to asCipangu, which was known to lie adja