Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction, French -- Translations into English; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
In the mean time I was extreamly troubled that I had no news of my
courteous Spirit; and the first night we came to our Inn, as I was
walking in the Court, expecting till Supper should be ready, a pretty
handsome young Man came smiling in my Face and cast his Two Fore-Legs
about my Neck. After I had a little considered him: "How!" said he in
_French_, "do you [not] know your Friend then?" I leave you to judge in
what case I was at that time; really, my surprise was so great, that I
began to imagine, that all the Globe of the Moon, all that had befallen
me, and all that I had seen, had only been Enchantment: And that
Beast-man, who was the same that had carried me all day, continued to
speak to me in this manner; "You promised me, that the good Offices I
did you should never be forgotten, and yet it seems you have never seen
me before;" but perceiving me still in amaze: "In fine," said he, "I am
that same Demon of Socrates, who diverted you during your Imprisonment,
and who, that I may still oblige you, took to my self a Body, on which
I carried you to day:" "But," said I interrupting him, "how can that
be, seeing that all Day you were of a very long Stature, and now you
are very short; that all day long you had a weak and broken Voice, and
now you have a clear and vigorous one; that, in short, all day long you
were a Grey-headed old Man, and are now a brisk young Blade: Is it then
that whereas in my Country, the Progress is from Life to Death; Animals
here go Retrograde from Death to Life, and by growing old become young
again."
"So soon as I had spoken to the Prince," said he, "and received orders
to bring you to Court, I went and found you out where you were, and
have brought you hither; but the Body I acted in was so tired out with
the Journey, that all its Organs refused me their ordinary Functions,
so that I enquired the way to the Hospital; where being come in I found
the Body of a young Man, just then expired by a very odd Accident, but
yet very common in this Country. I drew near him, pretending to find
motion in him still, and protesting to those who were present, that he
was not dead, and that what they thought to be the cause of his Death,
was no more but a bare Lethargy; so that without being perceived, I put
my Mouth to his, by which I entered as with a breath: Then down dropt
my old Carcass, and as if I had been that young Man, I rose and came to
look for you, leaving the Spectators crying a Miracle."
[Sidenote: The Manner of Eating]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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