XXXIX
I was lifting my right foot, in order to get off, when I felt myself rather roughly struck on the shoulder. It would be untrue to say that I was not frightened by this accident, and this is a good opportunity to explain and prove to the reader, without incurring the reproach of vanity, how very difficult it would be for anybody but myself to undertake a journey like mine. Even if another traveller had a thousand times the means and power of observation that I have, could he reasonably expect to meet with adventures as striking and as numerous as those which happened to me in the space of four hours, and in which the finger of destiny was so clearly visible? If anyone doubts this, let him try and guess who it was that struck me.
In my first distress, not reflecting on my real position, I fancied that my horse had kicked me or crushed me against a tree. Heaven knows how many dismal thoughts passed through my mind in the short space of time occupied in turning my head so as to look into my room. As often happens when things seem most extraordinary the cause of my alarm was a very natural one. The same gust of wind which at the beginning of my journey had blown open my window and banged too my door as it passed, and part of which rustled amongst the curtains of my bed, had just reentered my room, making a mighty bustle. It rudely flung open the door and rushed out of the window, pushing the casement against my shoulder, and that it was which gave me the alarm of which I have just spoken.
You will remember that it was that same gust of wind which invited me to leave my bed. The blow I now received was clearly an invitation to return thither, and I found myself at once compelled to accede to it.
How grand it is to be on a familiar footing with the night, the heavens, and the meteors, and to be in a position to benefit by their influence! Alas, the relations we are compelled to hold with men are much more dangerous.
How often have I been duped by my trust in them? Here I was about to say something on this point, in a note which I have suppressed, because it was longer than all the text put together, and would have ruined the just proportions of my journey, whose brevity is its greatest merit.