“Take care!  Hold fast!  Look out for your heads!”

We pass over them.  Then a strong shock shakes us.  The anchor has taken hold.

“Look out!  Take a good hold!  Raise yourselves by your wrists.  We are going to touch ground.”

The basket does indeed strike the earth.  Then it flies up again.  Once more it falls and bounds upward again, and at last it settles on the ground, while the balloon struggles madly, like a wounded beast.

Peasants run toward us, but they do not dare approach.  They were a long time before they decided to come and deliver us, for one cannot set foot on the ground until the bag is almost completely deflated.

Then, almost at the same time as the bewildered men, some of whom showed their astonishment by jumping, with the wild gestures of savages, all the cows that were grazing along the coast came toward us, surrounding our balloon with a strange and comical circle of horns, big eyes and blowing nostrils.

With the help of the accommodating and hospitable Belgian peasants, we were able in a short time to pack up all our material and carry it to the station at Heyst, where at twenty minutes past eight we took the train for Paris.

The descent occurred at three-fifteen in the morning, preceding by only a few seconds the torrent of rain and the blinding lightning of the storm which had been chasing us before it.

Thanks to Captain Jovis, of whom I had heard much from my colleague, Paul Ginisty—­for both of them had fallen together and voluntarily into the sea opposite Mentone—­thanks to this brave man, we were able to see, in a single night, from far up in the sky, the setting of the sun, the rising of the moon and the dawn of day and to go from Paris to the mouth of the Scheldt through the skies.

   [This story appeared in “Figaro” on July 16, 1887, under the title: 
   “From Paris to Heyst.”]

FAREWELL!

The two friends were getting near the end of their dinner.  Through the cafe windows they could see the Boulevard, crowded with people.  They could feel the gentle breezes which are wafted over Paris on warm summer evenings and make you feel like going out somewhere, you care not where, under the trees, and make you dream of moonlit rivers, of fireflies and of larks.

One of the two, Henri Simon, heaved a deep sigh and said: 

“Ah!  I am growing old.  It’s sad.  Formerly, on evenings like this, I felt full of life.  Now, I only feel regrets.  Life is short!”

He was perhaps forty-five years old, very bald and already growing stout.

The other, Pierre Carnier, a trifle older, but thin and lively, answered: 

“Well, my boy, I have grown old without noticing it in the least.  I have always been merry, healthy, vigorous and all the rest.  As one sees oneself in the mirror every day, one does not realize the work of age, for it is slow, regular, and it modifies the countenance so gently that the changes are unnoticeable.  It is for this reason alone that we do not die of sorrow after two or three years of excitement.  For we cannot understand the alterations which time produces.  In order to appreciate them one would have to remain six months without seeing one’s own face —­then, oh, what a shock!