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Show 138 Chapter 20 Where could I go? I had to get away from Hamelin as quickly as possible, but where? In all my life I had known only two places, Hamelin and the convent of Saint Gervase, but Saint Gervase was twenty-four miles away. I was half naked and in pain, and I was not even sure that I could find my way back to the convent. And even if I could, would any of the nuns still be alive to take me in? They had all been so old when I left there six years earlier. Yet in the wretched state that I found myself, the convent seemed my only hope. I would have to travel through the forest, coming out onto the roads only after dark when no one could see me. I stumbled through the trees, stopping often to try to catch my breath because I had such difficulty getting air past my swollen throat. As the afternoon wore on the sky began to clear and I was able to tell direction by the lowering sun. Southward, keep southward. My knees buckled and I had to rest often. The high, thick growth of the forest prevented the weak sunlight from warming me and I shook from the damp chill, yet after a while I became thirsty from exertion. I knelt beside a small stream and tried to swallow water but the pain was so searing that I rolled on the ground and pounded the earth in agony. Night fell and I did not know where I was. I dug a shallow shelter in a bed of fallen pine needles and covered myself with some leafy branches. In spite of the pain and the cold I was so exhausted that I slept. |