It should be remembered,
however, that when I fell in the first instance, 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,- I say it
may be readily conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I
should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now
accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans Phaall would have
been utterly lost to posterity, 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
whatsoever, and in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.
But this feeling did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
succeeded horror, and dismay, and a chilling sense of utter
helplessness and ruin.
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