My body was now inclined toward the side of the car at an angle of about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was therefore only forty-five degrees below the [v]perpendicular. So far from it, I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon, for the change of position which I had acquired had forced the bottom of the car considerably outward from my position, which was accordingly one of the most extreme peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I fell from the car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from it as it actually was--or if, in the second place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car--in either of these cases, I should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now accomplished. I had therefore every reason to be grateful, although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be anything at all, and hung for perhaps a quarter of an hour in that extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion, and in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. This feeling, however, did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto succeeded horror and dismay, and a sense of utter helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with delirium, had now begun to retire within its proper channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to deprive me of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness was, luckily for me, of no very great duration. In good time came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and with frantic cries and struggles, I jerked my body upward, till, at length, clutching with a vice-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it and fell headlong and shuddering within the car. When I had recovered from the weakness caused by being so long in that position and the horror from which I had suffered, I found that all my implements were in place and that neither ballast nor provisions had been lost. It is now high time that I should explain the object of my voyage. I had been harassed for long by poverty and creditors. In this state of mind, wishing to live and yet wearied with life, my deep studies in astronomy opened a resource to my imagination. I determined to depart, yet live--to leave the world, yet continue to exist--in short, to be plain, I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the moon.