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To many who stared at it that night until their eyes ached, it seemed
that it was visibly approaching. And that night, too, the weather
changed, and the frost that had gripped all Central Europe and France
and England softened towards a thaw.
But you must not imagine because I have spoken of people praying through
the night and people going aboard ships and people fleeing towards
mountainous country that the whole world was already in a terror because
of the star. As a matter of fact, use and wont still ruled the world,
and save for the talk of idle moments and the splendour of the night,
nine human beings out of ten were still busy at their common
occupations. In all the cities the shops, save one here and there,
opened and closed at their proper hours, the doctor and the undertaker
plied their trades, the workers gathered in the factories, soldiers
drilled, scholars studied, lovers sought one another, thieves lurked and
fled, politicians planned their schemes. The presses of the newspapers
roared through the nights, and many a priest of this church and that
would not open his holy building to further what he considered a foolish
panic. The newspapers insisted on the lesson of the year 1000--for then,
too, people had anticipated the end. The star was no star--mere gas--a
comet; and were it a star it could not possibly strike the earth. There
was no precedent for such a thing. Common sense was sturdy everywhere,
scornful, jesting, a little inclined to persecute the obdurate fearful.
That night, at seven-fifteen by Greenwich time, the star would be at its
nearest to Jupiter. Then the world would see the turn things would take.
The master mathematician's grim warnings were treated by many as so much
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