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

severe pain in the head, especially about the ears- still, however,
breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat and pigeons seemed to suffer
no inconvenience whatsoever.
At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long series of
dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging my
condensing apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to be sure,
a singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible that a cloud
of this nature could be sustained at so great an elevation. I
thought it best, however, to throw out two five-pound pieces of
ballast, reserving still a weight of one hundred and sixty-five
pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above the difficulty, and perceived
immediately, that I had obtained a great increase in my rate of
ascent. In a few seconds after my leaving the cloud, a flash of
vivid lightning shot from one end of it to the other, and caused it to
kindle up, throughout its vast extent, like a mass of ignited and
glowing charcoal. This, it must be remembered, was in the broad
light of day. No fancy may picture the sublimity which might have been
exhibited by a similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of
the night. Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even
as it was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and stalk
about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and red ghastly
chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had indeed made a
narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very short while longer
within the cloud- that is to say- had not the inconvenience of getting
wet, determined me to discharge the ballast, inevitable ruin would
have been the consequence. Such perils, although little considered,
are perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in balloons. I
had by this time, however, attained too great an elevation to be any
longer uneasy on this head.
I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer
indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began
to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was
excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a moisture about
my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood, which was oozing
quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes, also, gave me great
uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them they seemed to have
protruded from their sockets in no inconsiderable degree; and all
objects in the car, and even the balloon itself, appeared distorted to
my vision. These symptoms were more than I had expected, and
occasioned me some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently, and
without consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound
pieces of ballast. The accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained,
carried me too rapidly, and without sufficient gradation, into a
highly rarefied stratum of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly
proved fatal to my expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized
with a spasm which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
this, in a measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
intervals, and in a gasping manner- bleeding all the while copiously
at the nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The pigeons