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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: ballads, Spanish /sequidillas/, and Neapolitan /canzonettes/.
Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of
the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of
cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can
convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris,
the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love
flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter,
impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the /Bambino/. One man
lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a
declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the
tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-
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