The Devil—"The sun never goes to sleep!"
Antony is not startled by this voice. It appears to him an echo of his thought—a response of his memory.
Meanwhile, the earth takes the form of a ball, and he perceives it in the midst of the azure turning on its poles while it winds around the sun.
The Devil—"So, then, it is not the centre of the world? Pride of man, humble thyself!"
Antony—"I can scarcely distinguish it now. It is intermingled with the other fires. The firmament is but a tissue of stars."
They continue to ascend.
"No noise! not even the crying of the eagles! Nothing! ... and I bend down to listen to the music of the spheres."
The Devil—"You cannot hear them! No longer will you see the antichthon of Plato, the focus of Philolaüs, the spheres of Aristotle, or the seven heavens of the Jews with the great waters above the vault of crystal!"
Antony—"From below it appeared as solid as a wall. But now, on the contrary, I am penetrating it; I am plunging into it!"
And he arrives in front of the moon—which is like a piece of ice, quite round, filled with a motionless light.