|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: "So--it was at--at Madame Marneffe's that you dined--and not--not with
Chanor?" said she, "yesterday--and Wenceslas--and he----"
Stidmann, without knowing what mischief he had done, saw that he had
blundered.
The Countess did not finish her sentence; she simply fainted away. The
artist rang, and the maid came in. When Louise tried to get her
mistress into her bedroom, a serious nervous attack came on, with
violent hysterics. Stidmann, like any man who by an involuntary
indiscretion has overthrown the structure built on a husband's lie to
his wife, could not conceive that his words should produce such an
effect; he supposed that the Countess was in such delicate health that
|
