Caesar or Nothing Part 62

"No."

"Well, then, how are you to understand anything?"

"All right, then; explain it to me."

"There's no difficulty. You know that the natural tendency of the market is to rise."

"To rise and to fall," interrupted Alzugaray.

"No, only to rise."

"I don't see it."

"The general tendency of the market is to rise, because having to fall eighty _centimos_, the value of the coupon, every quarter, if the market didn't rise to offset that loss, shares would reach zero...."

"I don't understand," said Alzugaray.

"Imagine a man on a stairway; if you oblige him to go down one step every so often, in order to keep in the same place as before he will necessarily have to go up again, because if he didn't do so, he would be constantly approaching the front door."

"Yes, surely." "Well, this man on the stairway is the quotation, and the mechanical task of constantly making up for the quarterly loss is what is called the reintegration of the coupon."

"You do not convince me."

Alzugaray didn't like listening to these explanations. He had formed an opinion that had not much foundation, but he would not admit that Caesar, by reasoning, could arrive at the glimmering of an inductive and deductive method, where others saw no more than chance.

CaeSAR BEGINS HIS TASK

With the money he made on the market, Caesar was making himself the master of Castro Duro. He constantly a.s.sumed a more Liberal att.i.tude in the Chamber, and was in a position to abandon the Conservative majority, on any pretext.

His plan of campaign at Castro Duro corresponded to this political position of his: he had rehabilitated the Workmen's Club and paid its debts. The Club had been founded by the workmen of a thread factory, now shut. The number of members was very small and the labourers and employees of the railway and some weavers were its princ.i.p.al support.

On learning that it was about to be closed for lack of funds, Caesar promised to support it. He thought of endowing the Club with a library, and installing a school in the country. On seeing that the Deputy was patronizing the Club, a lot of labourers of all kinds joined it. A new governing board was named, of which Caesar was honourary president, and the Workmen's Club re-arose from its ashes. The Republicans and the little group of Socialists, almost all weavers, were on Caesar's side and promised to vote for him in the coming election.

Various Republicans who went to Madrid to call on Caesar, told him he ought to come out as a Republican. They would vote for him with enthusiasm.

"No; why should I?" Caesar used to answer. "Are we going to do any more at Castro by my being a Republican than when I am not one? Besides the fact that I should not be elected on that ticket and should thus have no further influence, to me the forms of a government are indifferent; I don't even care whether it has a true ideal or a false one. What I do want is for the town to progress; whether by means of a dream or by means of a reality. A politician should seek for efficiency before asking anything else, and at present the Republican dream would not be efficient at Castro."

Most of the Republicans did not go away very well satisfied with what Caesar had said; and after leaving him, they would say:

"He is a very curious person, but he favours us and we'll have to follow him."

The reopening of the Workmen's Club in Castro was the chance for an event. Caesar was in favour of inaugurating the Club without any celebration, without attracting the attention of the Clericals; but the members of the Club, on the contrary, wished to give the reactionaries a dose to swallow, and Caesar could not but promise his partic.i.p.ation in the inauguration.

"Would you like to come to Castro?" Caesar said to Alzugaray.

"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 reinst.i.tuted, 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."