"Je sais bien qu' à la fin vous me mettrez à bas;
N'importe! je me bats, je me bats, je me bats!"
We are proud of printing for the first time in any edition of the Voyage to the Moon, at least a part of what had been cut out; and of being able to indicate for the first time what must have been the substance of the other lost passages, and what is the sense of the fragments preserved.
[2] The Apple of the Tree of Life.
[3] The translation is not fully adequate here; the French means: "... was fully satisfied, and left me in its place only a slight memory of having lost it."
[4] This beautiful Nature-description, the like of which cannot be found in all seventeenth-century French literature outside of Cyrano's works, was apparently his favorite passage, since it is the only one he has used twice. Cf. his Lettre XI., "D'une maison de campagne."
[5] In the literal sense, full of delight, delighted.