One afternoon, however, after Monsalvat's complete recovery, Ruiz de Castro and Torres called on him. They sat in the garden, talking and for the first time since his illness, touched on the forbidden subject. Monsalvat had perhaps led them on, by confiding to them his curious sensation of having just come to life, as fresh and new as a new-born baby. With a view to determining his friend's actual state of mind, Torres observed:
"So you see how useless all those efforts of yours really are...."
"Not at all," Monsalvat declared. "It is never useless to try to help people."
"Granted that you help others," de Castro broke in, "just the same, you did yourself a lot of harm!"
"You are quite mistaken. I have done myself a great deal of good—so much good that today I am not the discontented, dejected man I was a year ago. I don't know what I shall do tomorrow; but I know that if I am really a different man, I shall owe the transformation to my idealistic view of life."
"So you're going right on with that fool business!" Torres exclaimed. "I fail to see the new man in you. On the contrary, I should say your trouble is that life doesn't teach you anything. After a year of failure—failure in every sense of the word—you are still planning to reform the world, and all by yourself!"
Monsalvat was silent a moment. Then he answered calmly:
"It is life—not my failures, because I didn't fail—that has taught me how powerless individual effort is. I believe now that not only would I fail to reform the world, but also that a million men setting about it each on his own hook, as I did, would fail too."
"Well, at last!" exclaimed Ruiz de Castro. "It's about time you became convinced that the world can't be changed."
"I didn't say that. On the contrary I consider it more capable of reform now than ever it was. But I also know that a program is necessary, and a method, and training! I know now that the idealism of one individual, the action of one man, does not help much to bring about ultimate success. But I do not go back on individual ideals, individual accomplishment; because it is the individual who provides the impulse, the forward push, the motive power, if you like, without which nothing can move. The only trouble is that all these energies are isolated, uncoordinated.... However, you see my point: before you can have action to accomplish a purpose, you must have a vision of what the purpose is. The ideal precedes and accompanies the accomplishment of reform—that you understand! The world must be reformed, must be built up again rather, from its foundations. We must go about such a matter slowly—but not too slowly—and so, little by little...! But every so often the idealist, the dreamer, the madman and the fool, all those who fight the great battle with their hearts, must give a vigorous thrust forward!"