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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: Gazonal observed one stair of pine wood, the lowest no doubt of the
staircase which led to the loft. He took in these minor details at a
glance, with a sense of nausea. It was all quite otherwise alarming
than the romantic tales and scenes of German drama lead one to expect;
here was suffocating actuality. The air diffused a sort of dizzy
heaviness, the dim light rasped the nerves. When the Southerner,
impelled by a species of self-assertion, gazed firmly at the toad, he
felt a sort of emetic heat at the pit of his stomach, and was
conscious of a terror like that a criminal might feel in presence of a
gendarme. He endeavoured to brace himself by looking at Madame
Fontaine; but there he encountered two almost white eyes, the
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