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His calculations were already finished. In a small white phial there
still remained a little of the drug that had kept him awake and active for
four long nights. Each day, serene, explicit, patient as ever, he had
given his lecture to his students, and then had come back at once to this
momentous calculation. His face was grave, a little drawn and hectic from
his drugged activity. For some time he seemed lost in thought. Then he
went to the window, and the blind went up with a click. Half-way up the
sky, over the clustering roofs, chimneys, and steeples of the city, hung
the star.
He looked at it as one might look into the eyes of a brave enemy. "You may
kill me," he said after a silence. "But I can hold you--and all the
universe for that matter--in the grip of this small brain. I would not
change. Even now."
He looked at the little phial. "There will be no need of sleep again," he
said. The next day at noon, punctual to the minute, he entered his lecture
theatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and
carefully selected a large piece of chalk.


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