e. We sound our siren as we pass over inhabited
places; and the peasants, terrified in their beds, must surely tremble
and ask themselves if the Angel Gabriel is not passing by.

A strong and continuous odor of gas can be plainly observed. We must have
encountered a current of warm air, and the balloon expands, losing its
invisible blood by the escape-valve, which is called the appendix, and
which closes of itself as soon as the expansion ceases.

We are rising. The earth no longer gives back the echo of our trumpets;
we have risen almost two thousand feet. It is not light enough for us to
consult the instruments; we only know that the rice paper falls from us
like dead butterflies, that we are rising, always rising. We can no
longer see the earth; a light mist separates us from it; and above our
head twinkles a world of stars.

A silvery light appears before us and makes the sky turn pale, and
suddenly, as if it were rising from unknown depths behind the horizon
below us rises the moon on the edge of a cloud. It seems to be coming
from below, while we are looking down upon it from a great height,
leaning on the edge of our basket like an audience on a balcony. Clear
and round, it emerges from the clouds and slowly rises in the sky.

The earth no longer seems to exist, it is buried in milky vapors that
resemble a sea. We are now alone in space with the moon, which looks like
another balloon travelling opposite us; and our balloon, which shines in
the air, appears like another, larger moon, a world wandering in the sky
amid the stars, through infinity. We no longer speak, think nor live; we
float along through space in delicious inertia. The air which is bearing
us up has made of us all beings which resemble itself, silent, joyous,
irresponsible beings, intoxicated by this stupendous flight, peculiarly
alert, although motionless. One is no longer conscious of one's flesh or
one's bones; one's heart seems to have ceased beating; we have become
something indescribable, birds who do not even have to flap their wings.

All memory has disappeared from our minds, all trouble from our thoughts;
we have no more regrets, plans nor hopes. We look, we feel, we wildly
enjoy this fantastic journey; nothing in the sky but the moon and
ourselves! We are a wandering, travelling world, like our sisters, the
planets; and this little world carries five men who have left the earth
and who have almost forgotten it. We can now see as plain