All sign of life had disappeared from the sea. In front of the ship, black ripplings of dolphins, more solid and rhythmical than the breaking of the foam against the prow, had gracefully preceded the white tips of the retreating waves; now no jet from a blower-dolphin cut across the horizon, nor was the sea any longer intensely blue and peopled by fleets of nautili, with their delicate mauve-and-pink membranes outstretched as sails. And, when we got far side of the oceanic depths, would all the marvels seen by the old navigators still be there to greet us? When the later travelled through these unexplored regions, they were less concerned with discovering a new world than with verifying the past of the old. They confirmed the existence of Adam and Ulysses. When Columbus landed on the coast of the West Indies after his first voyage, he may have thought that he had reached Japan, but he was still more certain of having rediscovered the earthly paradise. The four hundred years which had elapsed since then could never wipe out the tremendous time-gap which kept the New World outside the commotions of history during ten or twenty thousand years. Something would no doubt survive, but on a different level. I was soon to learn that, although South America was no longer the Eden before the Fall, thanks to its aura of mystery, it still remained a golden age, at least for those who had money. Its privileged position was beginning to melt away like snow in the sun. All that is left today was one small precious patch; at the same time as it has become accessible only to the privileged few, it has changed in character: from being eternal it has become historic; from being metaphysical it has become social. The earthly paradise glimpsed by Columbus was to be perpetuated, and at the same time debased, in a gracious life-style reserved solely for the rich.
