A SUPPOSITION
“Let us suppose ourselves, my friends, in the heart of a desert country, left to shift for ourselves, without any of the resources that come with civilization. To defend life and procure food are our constant great care. Around us extend endless dark woods where roar, howl, bellow a thousand ferocious animals that would tear us to pieces with their claws or quarter us with their horns if they took us by surprise. To shelter ourselves from their attack, we have to choose between the refuge of a grotto, the mouth of which we close with fragments of rock rolled painfully into place, and the hollow trunk of an old tree, or, better, its large branches, if we can manage to climb up to them.”
“It is the story of Robinson Crusoe on his Island,” Emile interrupted.
“Not quite. I am supposing our state much worse than his. Robinson Crusoe had at his disposal a quantity of things saved from the shipwreck—tools of all kinds, formidable weapons, guns, powder, and shot. We have nothing, absolutely nothing but our ten fingers.”
“Not even a knife to cut a stick with?” asked Emile. [[159]]
“Not even a knife.”
“Rather an unpleasant situation,” remarked Louis; “and all the more so as we couldn’t stay shut up all the time. We should have to leave our grotto to procure food, and then beware of the wolves and all the dangerous creatures in the wood.”
“Nothing imparts courage like the terrible need of food. We should start out, then, armed with some stones and with a stick clumsily broken off with our hands. If the wild beast runs at us we shall do our best to knock it down.”
“But what if we don’t succeed?” was Emile’s query.
“In that case we are done for: we shall become its prey.”