I looked across at Pepper. He was sleeping peacefully. Gradually, the whirring noise decreased, and there came a long silence. All at once, a glow lit up the end window, which protrudes far out from
the side of the house, so that, from it, one may look both East and
West. I felt puzzled, and, after a moment's hesitation, walked across
the room, and pulled aside the blind. As I did so, I saw the Sun rise,
from behind the horizon. It rose with a steady, perceptible movement. I
could see it travel upward. In a minute, it seemed, it had reached the
tops of the trees, through which I had watched it. Up, up--It was broad
daylight now. Behind me, I was conscious of a sharp, mosquito-like
buzzing. I glanced 'round, and knew that it came from the clock. Even as
I looked, it marked off an hour. The minute hand was moving 'round the
dial, faster than an ordinary second-hand. The hour hand moved quickly
from space to space. I had a numb sense of astonishment. A moment later,
so it seemed, the two candles went out, almost together. I turned
swiftly back to the window; for I had seen the shadow of the
window-frames, traveling along the floor toward me, as though a great
lamp had been carried up past the window. I saw now, that the sun had risen high into the heavens, and was still
visibly moving. It passed above the house, with an extraordinary sailing
kind of motion. As the window came into shadow, I saw another
extraordinary thing. The fine-weather clouds were not passing, easily,
across the sky--they were scampering, as though a hundred-mile-an-hour
wind blew. As they passed, they changed their shapes a thousand times a
minute, as though writhing with a strange life; and so were gone. And,
presently, others came, and whisked away likewise. To the West, I saw the sun, drop with an incredible, smooth, swift
motion. Eastward, the shadows of every seen thing crept toward the
coming greyness. And the movement of the shadows was visible to me--a
stealthy, writhing creep of the shadows of the wind-stirred trees. It
was a strange sight. Quickly, the room began to darken. The sun slid down to the horizon,
and seemed, as it were, to disappear from my sight, almost with a jerk. Through the greyness of the swift evening, I saw the silver crescent of
the moon, falling out of the Southern sky, toward the West. The evening
seemed to merge into an almost instant night. Above me, the many
constellations passed in a strange, 'noiseless' circling, Westward. The
moon fell through that last thousand fathoms of the night-gulf, and
there was only the starlight....

About this time, the buzzing in the corner ceased; telling me that the
clock had run down. A few minutes passed, and I saw the Eastward sky
lighten. A grey, sullen morning spread through all the darkness, and hid
the march of the stars. Overhead, there moved, with a heavy, everlasting
rolling, a vast, seamless sky of grey clouds--a cloud-sky that would
have seemed motionless, through all the length of an ordinary earth-day. The sun was hidden from me; but, from moment to moment, the world would
brighten and darken, brighten and darken, beneath waves of subtle light
and shadow.... The light shifted ever Westward, and the night fell upon the earth. A
vast rain seemed to come with it, and a wind of a most extraordinary
loudness--as though the howling of a nightlong gale, were packed into
the space of no more than a minute. This noise passed, almost immediately, and the clouds broke; so that,
once more, I could see the sky. The stars were flying Westward, with
astounding speed. It came to me now, for the first time, that, though
the noise of the wind had passed, yet a constant 'blurred' sound was in
my ears. Now that I noticed it, I was aware that it had been with me all
the time. It was the world-noise. And then, even as I grasped at so much comprehension, there came the
Eastward light. No more than a few heartbeats, and the sun rose,
swiftly. Through the trees, I saw it, and then it was above the trees. Up--up, it soared and all the world was light. It passed, with a swift,
steady swing to its highest altitude, and fell thence, Westward. I saw
the day roll visibly over my head. A few light clouds flittered
Northward, and vanished. The sun went down with one swift, clear plunge,
and there was about me, for a few seconds, the darker growing grey of
the gloaming. Southward and Westward, the moon was sinking rapidly. The night had
come, already. A minute it seemed, and the moon fell those remaining
fathoms of dark sky. Another minute, or so, and the Eastward sky glowed
with the coming dawn. The sun leapt upon me with a frightening
abruptness, and soared ever more swiftly toward the zenith. Then,
suddenly, a fresh thing came to my sight. A black thundercloud rushed up
out of the South, and seemed to leap all the arc of the sky, in a single
instant. As it came, I saw that its advancing edge flapped, like a
monstrous black cloth in the heaven, twirling and undulating rapidly,
with a horrid suggestiveness. In an instant, all the air was full of
rain, and a hundred lightning flashes seemed to flood downward, as it
were in one great shower. In the same second of time, the world-noise
was drowned in the roar of the wind, and then my ears ached, under the
stunning impact of the thunder. And, in the midst of this storm, the night came; and then, within the
space of another minute, the storm had passed, and there was only the
constant 'blur' of the world-noise on my hearing. Overhead, the stars
were sliding quickly Westward; and something, mayhaps the particular
speed to which they had attained, brought home to me, for the first
time, a keen realization of the knowledge that it was the world that
revolved. I seemed to see, suddenly, the world--a vast, dark
mass--revolving visibly against the stars. The dawn and the sun seemed to come together, so greatly had the speed
of the world-revolution increased. The sun drove up, in one long, steady
curve; passed its highest point, and swept down into the Western sky,
and disappeared. I was scarcely conscious of evening, so brief was it. Then I was watching the flying constellations, and the Westward
hastening moon. In but a space of seconds, so it seemed, it was sliding
swiftly downward through the night-blue, and then was gone. And, almost
directly, came the morning. And now there seemed to come a strange acceleration. The sun made one
clean, clear sweep through the sky, and disappeared behind the Westward
horizon, and the night came and went with a like haste. As the succeeding day, opened and closed upon the world, I was aware of
a sweat of snow, suddenly upon the earth. The night came, and, almost
immediately, the day. In the brief leap of the sun, I saw that the snow
had vanished; and then, once more, it was night. Thus matters were; and, even after the many incredible things that I
have seen, I experienced all the time a most profound awe.