This was proof positive; this separation of the polypi into two receptacles gave me a clearer understanding of the connection which, joining the animal and the vegetable, makes man akin to the blade of grass. At this meeting-place of the two organized kingdoms, the creatures on the left--active--were at the foot of their scale, and those on the right--inactive--at the top of theirs; the former were on the way to becoming beasts, the latter had finished being plants. Thus, the gulf which seems to separate those two extreme poles in the world is reduced, as far as structure goes, to slight divergences, almost invisible--a less striking difference than that between the wolf and the fox which are, however, brothers. Now, this infinitesimal difference in organization which Science, however, regards as unsurmountable, since it separates _inertia_ from spontaneous movement--this difference Lerne had bridged! In the basin at the end of the room, _the two species were grafted on to one another_. I noted there a gelatinous sort of leaf of the immobile order, grafted on to a mobile stem, and now moving about too. The grafts adopted the condition of the plant into which they were inserted; penetrated with a life-giving juice, their indifference changed to animation, and the activity of the other was paralyzed through sucking in the _ankylosis_. I would willingly have passed in review the various applications of this principle; but a _medusa_ tied with a hundred knots to some seaweed or other struggled violently in its mossy net, and I turned away in disgust. This last stage in grafting in spite of difficulties completed the profanation in my eyes, and I looked away into the blue shadow for less disagreeable sights. The Professor’s apparatus stood ready for him. There was a whole chemist’s shop on a dresser. Four tables with clear glass tops alternated with the aquariums, and bore on them an arsenal of knives, pincers and tweezers. No! Lerne had no right to do this! It was as infamous as a butchery! More so indeed! And his odious performances on virgin Nature offered at one and the same time the horror of a murder and the ignominy of a violation! As I was yielding to this righteous indignation, a noise arose. Some one was knocking. Ah! my hell beyond the grave will be to hear that little insignificant tapping. In a flash I felt every nerve in my body. Some one was knocking! In a bound I was in the rotunda, and my face must have been terrible to see, for instinctively the dread of an adversary made me assume a look of ferocity. Nobody on the doorstep--nobody in the park--I went in again. The noise began once more. It was coming from the yet unexplored wing. Losing my head, I dashed towards it without realizing my rashness, or the risk of finding myself face to face with the danger, and so excited, that I banged my head against the door, as I opened it with a violent pull.