"What are you going to do there?"

"We are going to open a Club."

"Are you going to speak?"

"Yes."

"All right. Let's go, so that I can hear you. Probably you will do it
badly enough."

"It's possible."

"And what you say won't please anybody."

"That's possible, too. But that makes no difference. You will come?"

"Yes. Will there be picturesque speakers?"

"There are some, but they are not going to speak. There is one, Uncle
Chinaman, who is a marvel. In describing the actual condition of Spain,
he once uttered this authoritative phrase: 'Clericalism in the zenith,
immorality in high places, the debt floating more every day,...'"

"That's very good." "It certainly is. He made another happy phrase,
criticizing the Spanish administration. 'For what reason do they write
so many useless papers?' he said. 'So that rats, the obscene reptiles,
can go on eating them....'"

"That's very good too."

"He is a man without any education, but very intelligent. So you are
going to come?"

"Yes."

"Then we will meet at the station."

CAN ONE CHANGE OR NOT?

They took the train at night and they chatted as they went along in it.
Caesar explained to Alzugaray the difficulties he had had to overcome
in order that the Workmen's Club could be reinstituted, and went on
detailing his projects for the future.

"Do you believe the town is going to be transformed?" asked Alzugaray.

"Yes, certainly!" said Caesar, staring at his friend.

"So then, you, a Darwinist who hold it as a scientific doctrine
that only the slow action of environment can transform species and
individuals, believe that a poor worn-out, jog-trotting race is going
to revive suddenly, in a few years! Can a Darwinist believe in a
revolutionizing miracle?"

"Previously, no; but now he can."

"My dear fellow! How so?"

"Haven't you read anything about the experiments of the Dutch botanist
Hugo de Vries?"

"No."

"Well, his experiments have proved that there are certain vegetable
species which, all at once, without any preparation, without anything
to make you expect it, change type absolutely and take on other
characters."

"The devil! That really is extraordinary."

"Vries verified this rapid transformation first in a plant named
OEnotheria Lamarckiana, which, all of a sudden, with no influence from
the environment, with nothing to justify it, at times changes and
metamorphosizes itself into a different plant."

"But this transform