THE tricolored system had long since disappeared in our upward flight. We were passing through the neighborhood of a great many worlds which were very different from our Earth. Some of them appeared to be entirely covered with water, and peopled by aquatic beings; others, occupied entirely by plants. We stopped near several of them. What unimaginable variety! The inhabitants of one of them seemed to me especially beautiful. Urania apprised me of the fact that their organization was totally different from that of the children of Earth, and that those human beings could discern the physico-chemical operations which take place in the maintenance of the body. In our earthly organism we do not see, for example, how the food absorbed is assimilated,—how the blood, tissues, and bones renew themselves; all functions are fulfilled instinctively, without thought perceiving it. Thus man suffers from a thousand maladies whose origin is hidden, and often undiscoverable. There the human being feels the action of his vital nourishment as we feel pleasure or pain. A nerve starts from every particle of his body, so to speak, which transmits the different impressions it receives to the brain. If terrestrial man were endowed with such a nervous system, looking into his organism through the intermediary of the nerves, he would see how food transforms itself into chyle, the latter into blood, blood into flesh, muscular, nervous substance, etc.: he would see himself! But we are very far from that, the centre of our perceptions being obstructed by nerves, thickened by cerebral lobes and optic thalami.

On another globe which we crossed during the night—that is to say, on the side of its nocturnal hemisphere—human eyes are so constructed as to be luminous, and shine as though some phosphorescent emanation radiated from their strange centres. A night meeting comprising a large number of these persons presents an extremely fantastic appearance, because the brilliancy, as well as the color, of the eyes changes with the different passions by which they are swayed. More than that, the power of their glance is such that they exert an electric and magnetic influence of variable intensity, and which under certain conditions has the effect of lightning, causing the victim upon whom the force and energy of their will is fixed to fall dead.

A little farther away my celestial guide pointed out a world in which organisms enjoy a precious faculty: the soul may change its body without passing through the often disagreeable and always sad experience of death. A savant who has labored all his life for the instruction of mankind, and feels that his end is drawing near before he has been able to complete his noble undertaking, can change bodies with a youth, and begin a new life still more useful than the first. The young man's consent and the magnetic manipulation of a competent physician are sufficient for the transmigration. Sometimes it happens that two persons united by the sweet, strong ties of love effect such an exchange of bodies after a union of many years,—the husband's soul takes the wife's body, and conversely, for the rest of their existence. The inmost experience of life becomes incomparably more complete for each of them. Savants and historians desirous of living two centuries instead of one, are seen to fall into a long artificial winter's sleep, which suspends their lives for half of each year, and even more. Some even succeed in living three times longer than the normal life of centenarians.

A few seconds later, crossing another system, we met a kind of organism still more different from ours, and assuredly far superior. With the inhabitants of the planet we were then looking at,—a world lighted by a brilliant hydrogenized sun,—thought is not obliged to pass through speech to be understood. How many times has it not happened when a bright or transcendent idea came into our minds, and we wanted to utter it or write it out, that just as we were about to speak or write, we felt that it was slipping away, flying from us, confused or metamorphosed into something else? The inhabitants of this planet have a sixth sense, which might be called magneto-telegraphic, by virtue of which, when the author is not disinclined, the thought becomes outwardly manifest, and can be read upon a feature which occupies very much the same place as a forehead. These silent conversations are often the deepest and most enjoyable,—always the most sincere.

We are innocently disposed to believe that the human organism is perfect, and leaves nothing on earth to be desired; but for all that have we not often regretted being obliged to listen, in spite of ourselves, to disagreeable words, absurd speeches, a sermon verbose with emptiness, bad music, slander, or calumny? Our grammars vainly pretend that we can "close our ears" to these speeches; unfortunately there is no such thing. You cannot shut your ears as you can your eyes. I was very much surprised to find a planet where Nature had not forgotten this salutary provision. As we stopped there for an instant, Urania pointed out ears which closed like eyelids. "There is very much less anger and vexation here than with you," said she; "but the wranglings of political parties are much more sharp and vociferous, adversaries are unwilling to listen to disputes, and succeed effectually, notwithstanding the speakers may be most loquacious."

On another world, in which phosphorus plays a large part, whose atmosphere is constantly electrified, whose temperature is very high, and where the inhabitants have no sufficient reason for inventing wearing apparel, certain passions manifest themselves by the illumination of some part of the body. It is the same thing on a large scale that we see in our terrestrial meadows on a smaller one in mild summer evenings when glow-worms silently manifest themselves, and then waste away in a soft, amorous flame. It is very curious to observe the appearance of these luminous couples in the evening in populous cities. The color of the phosphorescence differs in the sexes, and its intensity varies with the age and temperament. The stronger sex burns with a more or less ardent red flame, and the gentler sex with a bluish light, sometimes pale and diaphanous. Our glow-worms, however, give but a very faint and rudimentary idea respecting the nature of the impressions experienced by these peculiar beings. I could not believe my eyes when we were passing through the atmosphere of this planet. But I was still more surprised on arriving at the satellite of this unique world. That was a solitary moon, lighted by a kind of twilight sun. A sombre valley lay before us. From the trees scattered on both slopes of the valley hung human beings enveloped in shrouds. They had tied themselves to the branches by their hair, and were sleeping in the deepest silence. What I had taken for grave-clothes was a covering formed from the growth of their bleached and tangled locks. As I was wondering at this marvellous spectacle Urania told me this was their usual mode of interment and resurrection. Yes, on this world human beings enjoyed the organic faculty of those insects which have the gift of going to sleep in a chrysalis state, and metamorphosing themselves into winged butterflies. It is like a double human race; and the beings in the first phase, even the coarsest and most material of them, need but to die to rise again in the most splendid of transformations. Each year in this world represents about two hundred terrestrial years. Two thirds of the year is lived in the lower condition, one third (winter) in the chrysalis state, and the following spring the sleepers feel life coming back to their transformed flesh; they stir, awaken, leave their fleecy coverings on the trees, and freeing themselves from them, fly away, wonderful winged creatures, to aerial regions, there to live for a new Phoenician year,—that is, for two hundred years of our swiftly moving planet.

We crossed a great number of planets in this way, and it seemed as though all eternity would not be long enough to admit of my enjoying these creations unknown to earth; but my guide barely left me time to realize this, and still new suns and new worlds were appearing. We were very near striking against some transparent comets in our rapid flight, that were wandering about like a breath from one system to another, and more than once I felt myself strongly attracted toward wonderful planets with fresh landscapes, whose occupants would have been new objects of study. And yet the celestial Muse bore me on without fatigue still higher, still farther away, until at last we came to what seemed to me the confines of the universe. The suns grew more rare, less luminous, paler; darkness was more intense between the stars; and we were soon in the midst of an actual desert, the thousands of millions of stars which constitute the universe visible from the Earth being far distant: everything had faded to a little, lonely Milky Way in empty infinity.

"At last we have reached the very limits of creation!" I cried.