“Take care! Hold fast! Look out for
your heads!”
We pass over them. Then a strong shock shakes
us. The anchor has taken hold.
“Look out! Take a good hold! Raise
yourselves by your wrists. We are going to touch
ground.”
The basket does indeed strike the earth. Then
it flies up again. Once more it falls and bounds
upward again, and at last it settles on the ground,
while the balloon struggles madly, like a wounded beast.
Peasants run toward us, but they do not dare approach.
They were a long time before they decided to come
and deliver us, for one cannot set foot on the ground
until the bag is almost completely deflated.
Then, almost at the same time as the bewildered men,
some of whom showed their astonishment by jumping,
with the wild gestures of savages, all the cows that
were grazing along the coast came toward us, surrounding
our balloon with a strange and comical circle of horns,
big eyes and blowing nostrils.
With the help of the accommodating and hospitable
Belgian peasants, we were able in a short time to
pack up all our material and carry it to the station
at Heyst, where at twenty minutes past eight we took
the train for Paris.
The descent occurred at three-fifteen in the morning,
preceding by only a few seconds the torrent of rain
and the blinding lightning of the storm which had
been chasing us before it.
Thanks to Captain Jovis, of whom I had heard much
from my colleague, Paul Ginisty—for both
of them had fallen together and voluntarily into the
sea opposite Mentone—thanks to this brave
man, we were able to see, in a single night, from
far up in the sky, the setting of the sun, the rising
of the moon and the dawn of day and to go from Paris
to the mouth of the Scheldt through the skies.
[This story appeared in “Figaro”
on July 16, 1887, under the title:
“From Paris to Heyst.”]
The two friends were getting near the end of their
dinner. Through the cafe windows they could see
the Boulevard, crowded with people. They could
feel the gentle breezes which are wafted over Paris
on warm summer evenings and make you feel like going
out somewhere, you care not where, under the trees,
and make you dream of moonlit rivers, of fireflies
and of larks.
One of the two, Henri Simon, heaved a deep sigh and
said:
“Ah! I am growing old. It’s
sad. Formerly, on evenings like this, I felt
full of life. Now, I only feel regrets. Life
is short!”
He was perhaps forty-five years old, very bald and
already growing stout.
The other, Pierre Carnier, a trifle older, but thin
and lively, answered:
“Well, my boy, I have grown old without noticing
it in the least. I have always been merry, healthy,
vigorous and all the rest. As one sees oneself
in the mirror every day, one does not realize the work
of age, for it is slow, regular, and it modifies the
countenance so gently that the changes are unnoticeable.
It is for this reason alone that we do not die of
sorrow after two or three years of excitement.
For we cannot understand the alterations which time
produces. In order to appreciate them one would
have to remain six months without seeing one’s
own face —then, oh, what a shock!
