The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: man, of competent knowledge and intelligence, might hope to pay off
the capital in ten years, paying interest and living respectably in
the meantime--if he could command confidence. But I as the seventh
child of a small tradesman at Noyon, I had not a sou to my name, nor
personal knowledge of any capitalist but Daddy Gobseck. An ambitious
idea, and an indefinable glimmer of hope, put heart into me. To
Gobseck I betook myself, and slowly one evening I made my way to the
Rue des Gres. My heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the
gloomy house. I recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at
a time when I myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the
anguish awaiting those who crossed his threshold. Now it was I who was
 Gobseck |