His gasping, uncontrollable laughter rose above the dying reverberations of the titan thunder blast. He dragged open the window, pulled a bridge lamp up to it, jerked the cover from the lamp so its light flooded outward.
"Look, Tansy!" he called, his words mixed with the manic laughter. "Look, what those crazy students have done!" She must be made to think it was a joke. "Those frat men, I bet, I kidded in class. Look what they dragged down from campus and stuck in our front yard. Of all the crazy things—we'll have to call Buildings & Grounds to take it away tomorrow."
Rain splattered in his face. There was a sulphurous, metallic odor. Her hand touched his shoulder. She stared out blankly, her eyes still asleep.
It stood there, propped against the wall, solid and inert as only the inorganic can be. In some places the cement was darkened and fused.
"And of all mad coincidences," he gasped, "the lightning had to go and strike it!"
On an impulse, he reached out his hand, and touched it. At the feel of the rough, unyielding surface, still hot from the lightning flash, his laughter died, and a grim lucidity flooded his mind.
"Eppur si muove," he murmured to himself, so low that even Tansy, standing beside him, might not have heard. "Eppur si muove."
VII.
Next day he went around campus like a man in a daze. He had had a long and heavy sleep, but he looked as if he were stupefied by weariness. Even Harold Gunnison remarked on it.