Mendel, on the other hand, was the product of the nineteenth century. During the time he had been alive, European culture, driven by the intellectual ferment bubbling out of England, had been revolutionized in more ways than one. In France the old nobility had been overthrown by sans culottes who had in turn been over thrown by an ambitious Corsican. In England old ideas about the way the world worked had been overthrown by vigorous new ideas that grew out of the discoveries of science and technology. Neither country would ever be the same.
Hola Teplicka was the product of both older cultures and was not yet ready to relinquish the safety of tradition for the excitement and uncertainty of innovation.
"I don't like it either," was his final closing argument.
"But," Mendel insisted, "once the bacteria are dead we will be able to encourage the yeast to grow once more and revive the wine." It was frustrating not to have his ideas, which seemed so clear and so reasonable, not accepted at once.
"You see," Klacel said, "it is all to do with energy." This statement received a blank stare. "Energy comes in many forms, and the sugar in grape juice is just another form of energy."
"Potential energy," Mendel added helpfully.
"Exactly," Klacel continued with a side long look at his friend. "The yeast are like little machines, they take the potential energy from the sugar and use it for growth and fermentation. We think that, just like you put wood into this stove so that it will burn and heat your water, sugar burns in the yeast cells so they can produce the alcohol and the gas that bubbles out of a good fermentation."
"I've never seen any of these things going on in my wines," Teplicka said scornfully, he was beginning to regret telling his master about Abbot Napp and monkish scientists. He had only understood one word in five of Brother Matthew's explanation, and he didn't believe those words he did understand. Burning yeasts in wine, indeed, what next?
"These are events that take place at a microscopic level," said Brother Gregory, "you cannot even see single yeast cells with the naked eye, and you certainly cannot see the chemical reactions taking place which perform these transformations, even with the strongest microscope."
"Then how do you know they are taking place at all," said Teplicka in triumph. He knew he was right. If you could not see it, then it did not exist as far as he was concerned.
"Then you do not believe in God," Brother Matthew responded. "You have never seen Him, so, if you are right, there must be no God."
This was more than the wine maker was prepared to admit. "You are trying to trick me," he said, "I never said anything about God, I'm a true Christian so don't you go saying I'm not."
"Of course you are a true Christian," Mendel rushed to reassure him, "Brother Matthew was just making the point that you don't have to see God to believe in him and in the same way you don't have to see chemical reactions taking place to believe in them. In both cases you conclude that God and chemical reactions exist because you can see their effects. In our case you see the results of the yeasts carrying out chemical reactions by the products they form; alcohol and gas."
"You are still not adding the Devils Sulfur to my wine," Teplicka was adamant. Tricky priests and monks were not to be trusted. "The Master would never agree." For him that was the final argument.
"Then we had better ask him," said Brother Matthew with equal force. "It is his wine and his livelihood. If he wants to have this burcak ready for Holy Saturday he must take our advice and try out our ideas, or let it rot and go sour the way it is doing now."
"He'll never agree, I know him," said Teplicka, sure of his Master and his extreme conservatism. Never in all the time he had known him had Herr Druer consented to any type of change, either in the way his wines were treated or the clothes he wore everyday. Consistency was his watchword and so long as you tried nothing new, nothing could go wrong.
But today was different, and Hola Teplicka, unaware of how his master had spent the previous evening, was in for a surprise.