Youth (M. Radnoti)

When Columbus stepped onto the noisy beach trailed by his drunken sailors, a fragrant wind started to blow, a nest fell at his feet, a green monkey, shaking its fists, ran up to him. He felt he knew how eternity begins. His large eyes twinkled, his tired eyelids itched. He shrugged and whispered something over his shoulder. (translated from the Hungarian by Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, and S.J. Marks)