Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction, French -- Translations into English; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
At length my Love for my Country took me off of the desire and thoughts
I had of staying there; I minded nothing now but to be gone; but I saw
so much impossibility in the matter, that it made me quite peevish and
melancholick. My Spirit observed it, and having asked me, What was
the reason that my Humor was so much altered? I frankly told him the
Cause of my Melancholy; but he made me such fair Promises concerning my
Return, that I relied wholly upon him. I acquainted the Council with my
design; who sent for me, and made me take an Oath, that I should relate
in our World, all that I had seen in that. My Passports then were
expeded, and my Spirit having made necessary Provisions for so long
a Voyage, asked me, What part of my Country I desired to light in? I
told him, that since most of the Rich Youths of _Paris_, once in their
life time, made a Journey to _Rome_; imagining after that that there
remained no more worth the doing or seeing; I prayed him to be so good
as to let me imitate them.
"But withal," said I, "in what Machine shall we perform the Voyage, and
what Orders do you think the Mathematician, who talked t'other day of
joyning this Globe to ours, will give me?" "As to the Mathematician,"
said he, "let that be no hinderance to you; for he is a Man who
promises much, and performs little or nothing. And as to the Machine
that's to carry you back, it shall be the same which brought you to
Court." "How," said I, "will the Air become as solid as the Earth, to
bear your steps? I cannot believe that." "And it is strange," replied
he, "that you should believe, and not believe. Pray why should the
Witches of your World, who march in the Air, and conduct whole Armies
of Hail, Snow, Rain, and other Meteors, from one Province into another,
have more Power than we? Pray have a little better opinion of me, than
to think I would impose upon you." "The truth is," said I, "I have
received so many good Offices from you, as well as _Socrates_, and the
rest, for whom you have [had] so great kindness, that I dare trust my
self in your hands, as now I do, resigning my self heartily up to you."
I had no sooner said the word, but he rose like a Whirlwind, and
holding me between his Arms, without the least uneasiness he made me
pass that vast space which Astronomers reckon betwixt the Moon and
us, in a day and a halfs time; which convinced me that they tell a
Lye who say that a Millstone would be Three Hundred Threescore, and
I know not how many years more, in falling from Heaven, since I was
so short a while in dropping down from the Globe of the Moon upon
this. At length, about the beginning of the Second day, I perceived I
was drawing near our World; since I could already distinguish Europe
from Africa, and both from Asia; when I smelt Brimstone which I saw
steaming out of a very high Mountain,[1] that incommoded me so much
that I fainted away upon it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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