"Hans Phaall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

their 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 long duration. In good time came to my
rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and struggles, I
jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length, clutching with a
vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it,
and fell headlong and shuddering within the car.
It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then,
however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my great relief,
uninjured. My implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost
neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I had so well secured them
in their places, that such an accident was entirely out of the
question. Looking at my watch, I found it six o'clock. I was still
rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave a present altitude of three
and three-quarter miles. Immediately beneath me in the ocean, lay a
small black object, slightly oblong in shape, seemingly about the
size, and in every way bearing a great resemblance to one of those
childish toys called a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon
it, I plainly discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship,
close-hauled, and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the
W.S.W. Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and
the sun, which had long arisen.
It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the
object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind that
distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length driven me to the
resolution of committing suicide. It was not, however, that to life
itself I had any, positive disgust, but that I was harassed beyond
endurance by the adventitious miseries attending my situation. In this
state of mind, wishing to live, yet wearied with life, the treatise at
the stall of the bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I
then finally made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet live- to
leave the world, yet continue to exist- in short, to drop enigmas, I
resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could, to the
moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than I
actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the considerations
which led me to believe that an achievement of this nature, although
without doubt difficult, and incontestably full of danger, was not
absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond the confines of the possible.
The moon's actual distance from the earth was the first thing to
be attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the
centres of the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth's equatorial radii,
or only about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average interval. But
it must be borne in mind that the form of the moon's orbit being an
ellipse of eccentricity amounting to no less than 0.05484 of the major
semi-axis of the ellipse itself, and the earth's centre being situated
in its focus, if I could, in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as
it were, in its perigee, the above mentioned distance would be
materially diminished. But, to say nothing at present of this