"Herbert George Wells. The War of the Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора

I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met
Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was
immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feel-
ings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a
scrutiny of the red planet.

In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember
that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory,
the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor
in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the tele-
scope, the little slit in the roof--an oblong profundity with
the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible
but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle
of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the
field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and
still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly
flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so
silvery warm--a pin's-head of light! It was as if it quivered,
but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity
of the clockwork that kept the planet in view.

As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller
and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye
was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from us--more than
forty millions of miles of void. Few people realise the im-
mensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe
swims.

Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of
light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around
it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know
how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a tele-
scope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because
it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards
me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every min-
ute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were
sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and
calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then
as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring
missile.

That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from
the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the
slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer
struck midnight; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my
place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went
stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the dark-
ness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy
exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us.