Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/290

294 at New Orleans, we could not have been more completely isolated, separated as we were from the rest of the world by countless leagues on every hand. Whither could we flee, in a land of which we knew nothing save that it was a lonely wilderness, inhabited, if at all, by ferocious beasts and by savages as inhuman as themselves?

I was esteemed by the townspeople, but I could not hope to stir up their sympathies in my behalf sufficiently to enable me to count upon their rendering me such assistance as would meet the exigencies of my case. To accomplish that, money was necessary; and I was poor. Moreover, the success of a popular uprising was more than doubtful, and, had fortune failed us in the attempt, we should have been irretrievably ruined.

All these thoughts passed in quick succession through my mind. Some of them I imparted to Manon, and then, without heeding her reply, plunged into a new train of reflection. No sooner had I come to one decision than I threw it aside to adopt another. I talked to myself, answering aloud the suggestions of my own mind, and, in short, was in a state of agitation which no comparison I can think of will help me to describe, so utterly did it