Don Carlos Evaña spent the afternoon, evening, and night of the 31st July shut in his own apartments, seeing no one, studying not at all, reading by fits and starts, and knowing nothing of what he read, thinking always. He could not sleep; before dawn he mounted to his azotea, hoping by exercise to weary himself to sleep. His house stood in the same block as that of Don Gregorio Lopez. As he looked round him he saw a stout figure wrapped up in a thick woollen poncho, standing on the azotea of Don Gregorio's house, he crossed two other houses and went up to him, it was Don Gregorio himself. "Buenos dias, Carlos," said Don Gregorio; "you are early abroad in spite of the cold." "Milagro!" replied Evaña; "it is a frequent custom of mine to pass the night in study, and then to breathe the morning air before I go to bed." "A most abominable custom, my friend," said Don Gregorio. "The night is made dark on purpose that men may sleep, when the sun shines then is the time for all work." "I find the quiet of night very favourable to study, one is not liable to interruption when all others are asleep." "That is one of the ideas you have brought with you from the Old World. Like many of your ideas it is out of place in the New." "My ideas are out of place solely because they are new," replied Evaña; "but the new will be old when their time comes." "True. Some day you will be as old as I am, Carlos; perhaps, I should say, for if you pass your nights without sleep continuously you will never reach my age. If you ever do, you will know by then that all rapid and violent changes are out of place, not only in the Old World but in the New also." "Violent changes are at times necessary, Don Gregorio. Without violence change is frequently impossible, and change is one of the conditions of our existence." "Change is one of the laws of Nature," replied Don Gregorio; "but the changes of Nature proceed gradually. Watch them in the trees; from bud to leaf, from leaf to flower, from flower to fruit, then fall the leaves and the tree rests for the winter. When spring comes again another series of change commences, and from year to year the tree increases in size and beauty." "Till the day comes," said Evaña, as Don Gregorio paused, "when a storm tears up the old tree by the roots and it gives place to younger trees. Your simile does not hold good, Don Gregorio; even Nature finds violence a necessity at times to remove some obstruction to her invariable law of progress. These fierce storms which at times sweep over our city cause great damage and suffering while they last, but without them neither trees nor men would flourish." "True, but Nature does not work blindly, she knows what will be the result of the storms she sends upon us. Do you know, Carlos, what will be the result of the storm you would fain raise amongst us?" "I do. The result will be the birth of a great nation."