Soon Menippe dwindled to a point, and I saw her inhospitable inhabitant
no more. Then I watched the sun and the blazing firmament around, for
there was at the same time broad day and midnight for me. The sunlight,
being no longer diffused by an atmosphere, did not conceal the face of
the sky, and I could see the stars shining close to the orb of day. I
recognized the various planets much more easily than I had been
accustomed to do, and, with a twinge at my heart, saw the earth
traveling along in its distant orbit, splendid in the sunshine. I
thought of my wife sitting alone by the telescope in the darkness and
silence, wondering what had become of me. I asked myself, "How in the
world can I ever get back there again?" Then I smiled to think of the
ridiculous figure I cut, out here in space, exposed to the eyes of the
universe, a rotating, gyrating, circumambulating astronomer, an
animated teetotum lost in the sky. I saw no reason to hope that I should
not go on thus forever, revolving around the sun until my bones,
whitening among the stars, might be revealed to the superlative powers
of some future telescope, and become a subject of absorbing interest,
the topic of many a learned paper for the astronomers of a future age.
Afterward I was comforted by the reflection that in airless space,
although I might die and my body become desiccated, yet there could be
no real decay; even my garments would probably last forever. The
_savants_, after all, should never speculate on my bones.

I saw the ruddy disk of Mars, and the glinting of his icy poles, as the
beautiful planet rolled far below me. "If I could only get there," I
thought, "I should know what those canals of Schiaparelli are, and even
if I could never return to the earth, I should doubtless meet with a
warm welcome among the Martians. What a lion I should be!" I looked
longingly at the distant planet, the outlines of whose continents and
seas appeared most enticing, but when I tried to propel myself in that