Free Mendel's Dwarf by Simon Mawer Page B

act?”
    “I will harvest the hybrid peas and plant them out. They will all be tall. The tall dominates the dwarf, you understand?”
    “If you know the result already, what’s the point?”
    “But when they self-pollinate and we get the hybrid generation, 3 then we shall see. I have a theory, you see? The dwarfs that have vanished in the first generation will reappear in the second, one dwarf for every three tall plants on average. It is all a question of probability. Just like the lottery. I used to play the lottery in Vienna, What is the chance of a winning ticket, eh? Pretty small. Here the probability of getting a dwarf factor or a tall factor from a hybrid parent is one-half. One-half multiplied by one-half gives one-quarter. The probability of being dwarf is one-quarter. It is no more than a matter of logic.”
    Bratranek seemed unimpressed. “Mathematics in botany? What on earth is it all about? And when do you expect all this?”
    “The first pods in a week’s time … and the hybrids planted out next year. Then I get the first hybrid generation the year after that. Oh, believe me, I would like some way of creating two crops per year, but …” Mendel shrugged. “That’s not the way with the pea.”
    A bell rang from beyond the monastery building. “Naturae enim non imperatur, nisi parendo,” said Bratranek.
    Mendel gathered up his things and followed his companion across the court. “ ‘Truly nature may not be commanded, except by obeying her.’ Have I got it right?”
    “More or less. Also Bacon; but Francis, not Roger.”
    “But the thing I don’t yet understand … one of the things, anyway … is where all these different varieties come from. Nobody thinks about this. They are just ordinary seeds available from any supplier in the town. They breed true, so they are stable; but do they arise in some manner? Sports, they call them. How do they arise? This surely has some bearing on the question of speciation. How do they arise?”
    Bratranek shrugged. “I really don’t see that it matters much. Would all this apply to animals? That’s the main point. Man, even. Would it apply to man? I mean, in man you have gradations of height, don’t you?” Bratranek opened the door into the building.
    Mendel muttered and fussed outside, kicking mud off against a stone. “You don’t, you know,” he said.
    “Don’t what?”
    “In man. You don’t have gradations of height. Not in this sense.”
    “What are you talking about? I’m taller than you by …” Bratranek drew himself up as though to measure the matter. “A few inches at any rate. And Pavel …”
    “Dwarfs, you fool, not you and me. Circus dwarfs.” Mendel pushed past him through the door. “Come. I’ll show you.”
    “You’re keeping circus dwarfs in your room?”
    “Don’t be an idiot.”
    They went up the back stairs, Mendel in his socks, Bratranek clumping up behind in muddy shoes. “You’ve got a hole in your heel,” Bratranek said, but Mendel ignored him. He was standing in front of the door to his room, searching for his key among the folds of his soutane. When he discovered it, he gave a small grunt of satisfaction, as though finding it were not always the case. As the door opened, a smell assaulted Bratranek, the warm and fusty smell of acetamide. “Those mice. No wonder the abbot complained.”
    “They don’t smell as bad as he does.”
    The room was spacious but full, full of desk and papers, a trunk, two upright chairs, a table with a brass microscope on it and a box of microscope slides, a wardrobe, a row of old and battered boots against the skirting board, some seedlings in a tray, and, beneath the window, a row of five wooden cages. Sawdust was strewn on the floor in front of them. The mice scrabbled at the wire grilles with tiny, exact claws. Behind the noise of their scrabbling, there was another sound, a small crying like the sound of nestling birds. Mendel crouched down in front of the