But if I am not brave, at least I am prudent; so that where
I lack one virtue I may lay claim to possessing another almost to
excess. On a previous occasion they wanted to hang me for sedition.
Should I have stayed to be hanged? This time they may want to
hang me for several things, including murder; for I do not know
whether that scoundrel Binet be alive or dead from the dose of
lead I pumped into his fat paunch. Nor can I say that I very
greatly care. If I have a hope at all in the matter it is that he
is dead - and damned. But I am really indifferent. My own concerns
are troubling me enough. I have all but spent the little money that
I contrived to conceal about me before I fled from Nantes on that
dreadful night; and both of the only two professions of which I can
claim to know anything - the law and the stage - are closed to me,
since I cannot find employment in either without revealing myself
as a fellow who is urgently wanted by the hangman. As things are
it is very possible that I may die of hunger, especially considering
the present price of victuals in this ravenous city.
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