09 - Omega - The Last Days of the World by Camille Flammarion

Dive into Omega The Last Days of the World, a captivating science fiction novel written by Camille Flammarion in 1894. Set in the 25th century, this thought-provoking tale explores the impending threat of a carbonic-oxide comet on a collision course with Earth. Through its narrative, the novel delves into the philosophical and political ramifications of humanity facing its potential end. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section nine of Omega The Last Days of the World.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Omega The Last Days of the

(00:21):
World by Camille Flammarion, Part one, Chapter seven. Inexorably with
a fatality, no power could arrest, like a projectile speeding
from the mouth of a cannon toward the target. The
comet continued to advance, following its appointed path and hurrying

(00:42):
with an ever increasing velocity, toward the point in space
at which the Earth would be found on the night
of July fourteenth and fifteenth. The final calculations were absolutely
without error. These two heavenly bodies, the Earth and the comet,
were to meet like two trains, rushing headlong upon each

(01:05):
other with resistless momentum, as if impelled to mutual destruction
by an insatiable rage. But in the present instance, the
velocity of shock would be eight hundred sixty five times
that of two express trains, having each a speed of
one hundred kilometers per hour. During the night of July

(01:28):
thirteenth and fourteenth, the comet spread over nearly the entire sky,
and whirlwinds of fire could be seen by the naked eye,
eddying about an axis oblique to the zenith. The appearance
was that of an army of flaming meteors, in whose
midst the flashing lightning produced the effect of a furious combat.

(01:50):
The burning star had a revolution of its own, and
seemed to be convulsed with pain, like a living thing.
Immense jets of flame issued from various sense, some of
a greenish hue, others red as blood, while the most
brilliant were of a dazzling whiteness. It was evident that
the Sun was acting powerfully upon this whirlpool of gases,

(02:13):
decomposing certain of them, forming detonating compounds, electrifying the nearer portions,
and repelling the smoke from about the immense nucleus which
was bearing down upon the world. The comet itself emitted
a light far different from the sunlight reflected by the
enveloping vapors, and its flames, shooting forth in ever increasing volume,

(02:37):
gave it the appearance of a monster precipitating itself upon
the earth to devour it. Perhaps the most striking feature
of this spectacle was the absence of all sound. At
Paris as elsewhere during that eventful night, the crowd instinctively
maintained silence, spellbound by an indescribable fascination endeavor to catch

(03:00):
some echo of the celestial thunder. But not a sound
was heard. The moon rose full, showing green upon the
fiery background of the sky, but without brilliancy and casting
no shadows. The night was no more night, for the
stars had disappeared and the sky glowed with an intense light.

(03:22):
The comet was approaching the Earth with a velocity of
forty one thousand meters per second or two thousand, four
hundred sixty kilometers per minute, that is, one hundred and
forty seven thousand, six hundred kilometers per hour, and the
Earth was itself traveling through space from west to east

(03:42):
at the rate of twenty nine thousand meters per second
one thousand, seven hundred and forty kilometers per minute, or
one hundred four thousand, four hundred kilometers per hour, in
a direction oblique to the orbit of the comet, which
for any meridian a appeared at midnight in the northeast. Thus,

(04:03):
in virtue of their velocities, these two celestial bodies were
nearing each other at the rate of one hundred seventy
three thousand kilometers per hour. When observation, which was in
entire accord with the computations previously made, established the fact
that the nucleus of the comet was at a distance
no greater than that of the moon, every one knew

(04:26):
that two hours later the first phenomena of the coming
shock would begin. Contrary to all expectations, Friday and Saturday,
the thirteenth and fourteenth of July, were like the preceding days,
wonderfully beautiful. The sun shone in a cloudless sky. The
air was tranquil, the temperature rather high, but cooled by

(04:48):
a light, refreshing breeze. Nature was in a joyous mood.
The country was luxuriant with beauty. The streams murmured in
the valleys, the birds sang in the woods, but the
dwelling places of man were heartrendingly sad. Humanity was prostrated
with terror, and the impassable calm of nature stood over

(05:09):
against the agonizing fear of the human heart. In painful
and harrowing contrast, two millions of people had fled to
Australia from Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, Rome and Madrid.
As the day of collision approached, the Transatlantic Navigation Company
had been obliged to increase threefold, fourfold, and even tenfold

(05:34):
the number of airships, which settled like flocks of birds
upon San Francisco, Honolulu, New Maya, and the Australian cities
of Melbourne, Sydney and pax But this exodus of millions
represented only the fortunate minority, and their absence was scarcely
noticed in the towns and villages swarming with restless and

(05:57):
anxious life, haunted by the fear of unknown perils. For
several nights, no one had been able to close their eyes,
or even dared to go to bed. To do so
seemed to court for last sleep and to abandon all
hope of awakening again. Every face was livid with terror,
Every eye was sunken, the hair was disheveled, the countenance

(06:20):
haggard and stamped with the impress of the most frightful
anguish which had ever preyed upon the human soul. The
atmosphere was growing drier and warmer since the evening before.
No one had bethought himself of food and the stomach,
usually so imperious in its demands, craved for nothing. A

(06:41):
burning thirst was the first physiological effect of the dryness
of the atmosphere, and the most self restrained sought in
every possible way to quench it, though without success. Physical
pain had begun its work and was soon to dominate
mental suffering. Hour by our respiration became more difficult, more exhausting,

(07:03):
and more painful. Little children, in the presence of this
new suffering, appealed in tears to their mothers. At Paris, London, Rome,
and Saint Petersburg. In every capital, in every city, in
every village, the terrified population wandered about distractedly, like ants
when their habitations are disturbed. All the business of ordinary

(07:28):
life was neglected, abandoned, forgotten, Every project was set aside.
No one cared any longer for anything for his house,
his family, his life. There existed a moral prostration and
dejection more complete than even that which is produced by
sea sickness. Some few, abandoning themselves to the exaltation of love,

(07:51):
seemed to live only for each other, strangers to the
universal panic. Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish senegarugs, Greek chapels,
Mohammedan mosques, and Buddhist temples, the sanctuaries of the new
Gallican religion, in short, the places of assembly of every
sect into which the idiosyncrasies of belief had divided mankind

(08:15):
were thronged by the faithful on that memorable day of Friday,
July thirteenth, and even at Paris, the crowds besieging the
portals were such that no one could get near the churches,
within which were to be seen vast multitudes, all prostrate
upon the ground. Prayers were muttered in low tones, but

(08:36):
no chant, no organ, no bell was to be heard.
The confessionals were surrounded by penitents waiting their turn, As
in those early days of sincere and naive faith described
by the historians of the Middle Ages, everywhere on the
streets and on the boulevards, the same silence reigned. Not

(08:57):
a sound disturbed the hush. Nothing was so, no paper
was printed, Aviators, aeroplanes, dirrigible balloons were no more to
be seen. The only vehicles passing were the hearses bearing
to the crematories the first victims of the comet, already numerous.
The days of July thirteenth and fourteenth had passed without incident,

(09:20):
but with what anxiety the fateful night was awaited. Never, perhaps,
had there been so magnificent a sunset, never a sky
so pure. The orb of day seemed to go down
in a sea of gold and purple. Its red disc
disappeared below the horizon, but the stars did not rise,
and night did not come to the Daylight succeeded a

(09:43):
day of cometary and lunar splendor, illuminated by a dazzling
light recalling that of the Aurora borealis, but more intense,
emanating from an immense, blazing focus which had not been
visible during the day because it been below the horizon,
but which would certainly have rivaled the sun in brilliancy

(10:06):
amid the universal plaint of nature. This luminous scent arose
in the west, almost at the same time with the
full moon, which climbed the sky with it, like a
sacrificial victim, ascending the funeral pyre. The moon paled as
it mounted higher, but the comet increased in brightness as
the sun sank below the western horizon. And now, when

(10:28):
the hour of night had come, it rained supreme, a
vaporous scarlet sun with flames of yellow and green like
immense extended wings. To the terrified spectator, it seemed some
enormous giant taking sovereign possession of Earth and sky. Already
the cometary fringes had invaded the lunar orbit. At any

(10:50):
moment they would reach the rarer limits of the Earth's atmosphere,
only two hundred kilometers away. Then everyone beheld, as it were,
a vast conflagration kindled over the whole extent of the horizon,
throwing skyward little violet flames, and almost immediately the brilliancy
of the comet diminished, doubtless because just before touching the Earth,

(11:12):
it had entered into the shadow of the planet and
had lost that part of its light which came from
the Sun. This apparent decrease in brilliancy was chiefly due
to contrast, for when the eye less dazzled had become
accustomed to this new light, it seemed almost as intense
as the former, but of a sickly lurid supprocral hue.

(11:34):
Never before had the Earth been bathed in such a light,
which at first seemed to be colorless, emitting lightning flashes
from its pale and wan depths, the dryness of the air,
hot as the breath of a furnace became intolerable, and
a horrible odor of sulfur, probably due to the supe
electrified ozone, poisoned the atmosphere. Every one believed his last

(11:57):
hour was at hand. A terrible cry dominated every other sound.
The Earth is on fire. The Earth is on fire. Indeed,
the entire horizon was now illuminated by a ring of
bluish flame, surrounding the earth like the flames of a
funeral pile. This, as had been predicted, was the carbonic oxide,

(12:17):
whose combustion in the air produced carbonic anhydride. Suddenly, as
the terrified specter gazed, silent and awe struck, holding his
very breath in a stupor of fear, the vault of
heaven seemed rent asunder from zenith to horizon. And from
this yawning chasm, as from enormous mouth, was vomited forth

(12:41):
jets of dazzling greenish flame, enveloping the earth in a
glare so blinding that all who had not already sought shelter,
men and women, the old and the young, the bold,
as well as the timid, All rushed with impetuosity of
an avalanche to the cellar ways already choked with people.
Many were crushed to death or succumbed to apoplexy, aneurysmal ruptures,

(13:07):
and wild delirium, resulting in brain fever. On the terraces
and in the observatories, however, astronomers had remained at their posts,
and several had succeeded in taking an uninterrupted series of
photographs of the sky changes and from this time, but
for a very brief interval, with the exception of a

(13:27):
few courageous spirits who dared to gaze upon this awful
spectacle from behind the windows of some upper apartment, they
were the sole witnesses of the collision. Computation had indicated
that the Earth would penetrate the heart of the comet
as a bullet would penetrate a cloud, and that the
transit reckoning from the first instant of contact of the

(13:49):
outer zones of the comet's atmosphere with those of the Earth,
would consume four and one half hours, a fact easily
established inasmuch as the comet, having a diameter almost sixty
five times that of the Earth, would be traversed, not centrally,
but at one quarter of the distance from the center,
with a velocity of about one hundred and seventy three

(14:11):
thousand kilometers per hour. Nearly forty minutes after the first
instant of contact, the heat of his incandescent furnace and
the horrible odor of sulfur became so suffocating that a
few moments more of such torture would have sufficed to
destroy every vestige of life. Even the astronomers crept painfully

(14:32):
from room to room within the observatories, which they had
endeavored to close hermetically, and sought shelter in the cellars.
And the young computer, whose acquaintance we have already made,
was the last to remain on the terrace at Paris
a few seconds only, but long enough to witness the
explosion of a formidable bull lide, which was rushing southward

(14:55):
with a velocity of lightning, but strength was lacking for
further rubs evations. One could breathe no longer. Besides the
heat and the dryness so destructive to every vital function,
there was the carbonic oxide, which was already beginning to
poison the atmosphere. The ears were filled with a dull, roaring,

(15:16):
sound the heart beat ever more and more violently, and
still this choking odor of sulfur. At the same time,
a fiery rain fell from every quarter of the sky,
a rain of shooting stars, the immense majority of which
did not reach the earth, although many fell upon the roofs,
and the fires which they kindled could be seen in

(15:36):
every direction. To these fires from heaven, the fires of
Earth now made answer, and the world was surrounded with
electric flashes, as by an army. Everyone, without thinking for
an instant of flight, had abandoned all hope, expecting every
moment to be buried in the ruins of the world,
And those who still clung to each other and whose

(15:59):
only consolation was that of dying together, clung closer in
a last embrace. But the main body of the celestial
army had passed, and a sort of rare faction, a
vacuum was produced in the atmosphere, perhaps as the result
of meteoric explosions, for suddenly the windows were shattered, blown outwards,

(16:20):
and the doors opened of themselves. A violent wind arose,
adding fury to the conflagration. Then the rain fell in torrents,
but reanimating. At the same time the extinguished hope of
life and waking mankind from its nightmare, the twenty fifth
century death of the Pope and all the bishops, fall

(16:41):
of the commedet wrong paper, Sir. Scarcely a half hour
had passed before people began to issue from their cellars,
feeling again the joy of living and recovering gradually from
their apathy. Even before one had really begun to take
any account of the fires which were still raging. Notwithstanding
the deluge or rain, the scream of the newsboy was

(17:02):
heard in the hardly awakened streets. Everywhere, at Paris, Marseilles, Brussels, London, Vienna,
Turin and Madrid, the same news was being shouted, and
before caring for the fires which were spreading on every side,
everyone bought the popular one cent sheet with its sixteen
illustrated pages fresh from the press, the Pope and the

(17:25):
cardinals crushed to death, the sacred college destroyed by the
Comet extra extra. The newsboys drove a busy trade, for
everyone was anxious to know the truth of these announcements,
and eagerly bought the great popular socialistic paper. This is
what had taken place the American Hebrew, to whom we've
already referred, and who on the preceding Tuesday had managed

(17:49):
to make several millions by the reopening of the Paris
and Chicago exchanges, had not for a moment yielded to despair,
And as in other days, the monasteries had accepted bees
made in view of the end of the world. So
our indefatigable speculator had thought best to remain at his telephone,
which he had caused to be taken down for ve nonce.

(18:10):
Into a vast subterranean gallery, hermetically closed, controlling special wires
uniting Paris with the principal cities of the world. He
was in constant communications with them. The nucleus of the
comet had contained, within its mass of incandescent gas, a
certain number of solid uranolites, some of which measured several

(18:33):
kilometers in diameter. One of these masses had struck the
Earth not far from Rome, and the Roman correspondent had
sent the following news by phonogram. All the cardinals and
prelates of the Council were assembled in solemn fate under
the Dome of Saint Peter, in this grandest temple of Christendom,

(18:53):
splendidly illuminated at this solemn hour of midnight, amid the
pious invocations of the chanting brother hoods, the altars smoking
with a perfumed incense, and the organs filling the recesses
of the immense church with their tones of thunder. The Pope,
seated upon his throne, saw prostrate at his feet his

(19:14):
faithful people from every quarter of the world. But as
he rose to pronounce the final benediction, a mass of iron,
half as large as the city itself, falling from the
sky with the rapidity of lightning, crushed the assembled multitudes,
precipitating them into an abyss of unknown depth, a veritable

(19:35):
pit of hell. All Italy was shaken, and the roar
of the thunder was heard at Marseilles. The bull light
had been seen in every city throughout Italy. Through the
showers of meteorites and burning atmosphere. It had illumined the
earth like a new sun with a brilliant red light,
and a terrible rending had followed its fall, as if

(19:56):
the sky had really been split from top to bottom.
This the bull eyed, which the young calculator of the
Observatory of Paris had observed, when in spite of her zeal.
The suffocating fumes had driven her from the terrace. Seated
at his telephone, our speculator received his dispatches and gave
his orders dictating sensational news to his journal, which was

(20:20):
printed simultaneously in all the principal cities of the world.
A quarter of an hour later, these despatches appeared on
the first page of the twenty fifth Century in New York,
Saint Petersburg, and Melbourne, as also in the capitals nearer Paris.
An hour after the first edition, a second was announced
Paris in flames, the cities of Europe destroyed Roman ashes.

(20:44):
Here's your twenty fifth century second edition. And in this
new second edition there was very closely written article from
the pen of an accomplished correspondent dealing with the consequences
of the destruction of the Sacred College. Twenty fourth edition,
New Volcano in Italy, Revolution in Naples paper, Sir. The

(21:06):
second had been followed by the fourth edition, without any
regard to a third. It told how a bow eyed
weighing ten thousand tons or perhaps more, had fallen with
a velocity above stated upon the Sulfatara of Paswoli, penetrating
and breaking in the light and hollow crusts of the

(21:26):
ancient crater. The flames below had burst forth in a
new volcano, which, with Vesuvius, illuminated the Alesian fields. Twenty
fifth century, sixth edition. New Island in the Mediterranean Conquests
of England. A fragment of the head of the Comet
had fallen into the Mediterranean to the west of Rome,

(21:48):
forming an irregular island fifteen hundred meters in length by
seven hundred in width, with an altitude of about two
hundred meters. The sea had boiled about it, and huge
tidal waves had swept the shores. But there happened to
be an Englishman near by, whose first thought was to
land in a creek of the newly formed island and

(22:09):
scaling a rock to plant the British flag upon its
highest peak. Millions of copies of the Journal of the
Famous Speculator were distributed broadcast over the world during this
night of July fourteenth, with accounts of the disaster dictated
by telephone from the office of its director, who had
taken measures to monopolize every item of news everywhere. These

(22:33):
editions were eagerly read even before the necessary precautions were
taken to extinguish the conflagrations still raging from the outset.
The rain had afforded unexpected succor, yet the material losses
were immense, notwithstanding the prevailing use of iron in building construction.
Twenty fifth Century, tenth edition, Great Miracle at Rome. What miracle?

(22:57):
It was easy enough to explain. In the latest edition,
the twenty fifth century announced that its correspondent at Rome
had given circulation to a rumor which proved to be
without foundation. That the bow light had not destroyed Rome
at all, but had fallen quite a distance outside the city.
Saint Peter and the Vatican had been miraculously preserved, but

(23:20):
hundreds of millions of copies were sold in every country
of the world. It was an excellent stroke of business.
The crisis had passed, little by little, men recovered their
self possession, rejoicing in the mere fact of living. Throughout
the night, the sky overhead was illuminated by the lurid
light of the comet, and by the meteorites, which still

(23:43):
fell in showers, kindled on every side new conflagrations. When
day came about half past three in the morning, more
than three hours had passed since the head of the
comet had collided with the Earth, The nucleus had passed
in a southwesterly direction, and the Earth was ill entirely
buried in the tail. The shock had taken place at

(24:05):
eighteen minutes after midnight, that is to say, fifty eight
minutes after midnight Paris time, exactly as predicted by the
president of the Astronomical Society of France, whose statement our
readers may remember. Although at the instant of collision, the
greater part of the hemisphere on the side of the
comet had been affected by the constricting dryness, the suffocating heat,

(24:29):
and the poisonous sulfurous odors, as well as by deadening
stupor due to the resistance encountered by the comet in
traversing the atmosphere, the supersaturation of the ozone with electricity,
and the mixture of nitrogen protoxide with the upper air.
The other hemisphere had experienced no other disturbance than that

(24:50):
which followed inevitably from the destroyed atmospheric equilibrium. Fortunately, the
comet had only skimmed the Earth, and the shock had
in central Doubtless, also, the attraction of the Earth had
had much to do with the fall of the Bolides
in Italy and the Mediterranean. At all events, the orbit

(25:10):
of the comet had been entirely altered by this perturbation,
while the Earth and the Moon continued tranquility on their
way about the Sun, as if nothing had happened. The
orbit of the comet had been changed by the Earth's
attraction from a parabola to an ellipse, its Aphelian being
situated near the ecliptic. When later statistics of the comet's

(25:34):
victims were obtained, it was found that the number of
dead was one fortieth of the population of Europe. In
Paris alone, which extended over a part of the departments
formerly known as the Sane and Sane it was, and
which contained nine million inhabitants, there was more than two
hundred thousand deaths. Prior to the fatal week, the mortality

(25:57):
had increased threefold, and on them the tenth fourfold. This
rate of increase had been arrested by the confidence produced
by the sessions of the Institute, and had even diminished
sensibly during Wednesday. Unfortunately, as the threatening star drew near,
the panic had resumed its way. On the following Thursday,

(26:19):
the normal mortality rate had increased fivefold, and those of
weak constitution had succumbed on Friday the thirteenth, the day
before the disaster, owing to privations of every kind, the
absence of food and sleep, the heat and feverish condition
which it induced, the effect of the excitement upon the

(26:41):
heart and brain. The mortality at Paris had reached the
hitherto unheard of figure of ten thousand on the eventful
night of the fourteenth, owing to the crowded conditions of
the cellars, the vitiation of the atmosphere by the carbonic
oxide gas, and suffocation due to the drying up of

(27:01):
the lining membrane of the throat, pulmonary congestion, anesthesia and
arrest of the circulation. The victims were more numerous than
those of the battles of former times, the total for
that day reaching the enormous sum of more than one
hundred thousand. Some of those mortally affected lived until the

(27:22):
following day, and a certain number survived longer, but in
a hopeless condition, not until a week had elapsed, when
the normal death rate re established. During this disastrous month,
seventeen thousand, five hundred children were born at Paris, but
nearly all died. Medical statistics subtracting from the general total

(27:45):
the normal mean based upon a death rate of twenty
for every one thousand inhabitants, that is, four hundred ninety
two per day or fifteen thousand, two hundred fifty two
for the month, which represents the number of those who
would have died independently of the comet ascribed to the latter.
The difference between these two numbers, namely, two hundred twenty

(28:09):
two thousand, six hundred thirty three. Of these more than
one half or more than one hundred thousand died of
fear by syncope, aneurysms, or cerebral congestions. But this cataclysm
did not bring about the end of the world. The
losses were made good by an apparent increase in human vitality,

(28:31):
such as had been observed formerly after destructive wars. The
Earth continued to revolve in the light of the sun,
and humanity to advance toward a still higher destiny. The
comet had, above all, been the pretext for the discussion
of every possible phase of this great and important subject,

(28:53):
The end of the world. End of Chapter seven