I was on the point of cutting the cord that suspended me between heaven and earth... and measured with my eye the vast space that separated me from the rest of the human race... I felt myself precipitated with a velocity that was checked by the sudden unfolding of my parachute.

In this first-person account, Garnerin conveys the psychological threshold between controlled ascent and the terrifying autonomy of free fall. The “cord” functions as a literal tether to the balloon and a metaphorical link to safety, society, and ordinary human limits; cutting it becomes an act of deliberate self-exposure to risk in the name of experiment and spectacle. The “vast space” and separation from “the rest of the human race” emphasize isolation at altitude and the sense of becoming singular—almost inhuman—in the air. The sudden “unfolding” of the parachute marks the return of technology as salvation: a moment when invention interrupts fatal velocity and converts peril into a survivable descent.