There was no help for it, they had to turn back, the Universe had come to an end. But ended or not, how beautiful shone the firmament with its millions and millions of stars!
“What is that dazzling light shining above there, higher than all the constellations? Is it some nebula unknown to the astronomers of the earth?”
“A pretty nebula!” replied St. Thomas; “that is the celestial Jerusalem, from which we have just descended, and what is shining so are the diamond walls round the city of God.”
“So that those marvels related by Chateaubriand, and which I thought unworthy of a serious man...?”
“Are perfectly true, my friend. And now let us go and rest on that star passing below there, for i’ faith, I am tired of so much going backwards and forwards.”
“Gentlemen, I am not presentable,” said Pertinax; “I have not yet doffed my shroud, and the inhabitants of this star will laugh at such indecorous garb....”
The three Ciceroni of Heaven all burst out laughing together. Diogenes was the first to exclaim—
“Though I should lend you my lantern, you would not meet a living soul in that star, nor in any other star.”
“Of course,” added Job, very seriously, “there are no inhabitants except on the Earth; don’t talk such nonsense.”
“This I cannot believe!”