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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: avoided the annoyance of supper by taking tea in the houses of friends
with whom he spent his evenings. In this way he seldom saw his
landlady except at dinner; but he always came down to that meal a few
minutes in advance of the hour. During this visit of courtesy, as it
may be called, he talked to her, for the twelve years he had lived
under her roof, on nearly the same topics, receiving from her the same
answers. How she had slept, her breakfast, the trivial domestic
events, her looks, her health, the weather, the time the church
services had lasted, the incidents of the mass, the health of such or
such a priest,--these were the subjects of their daily conversation.
During dinner he invariably paid her certain indirect compliments; the
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