The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: vainly called to his hostler, the two young men entered the public
room of the inn. Thick white clouds exhaled by a numerous company of
smokers prevented them from at first recognizing the persons with whom
they were thrown; but after sitting awhile near the table, with the
patience practised by philosophical travellers who know the inutility
of making a fuss, they distinguished through the vapors of tobacco the
inevitable accessories of a German inn: the stove, the clock, the pots
of beer, the long pipes, and here and there the eccentric
physiognomies of Jews, or Germans, and the weather-beaten faces of
mariners. The epaulets of several French officers were glittering
through the mist, and the clank of spurs and sabres echoed incessantly
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