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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: positions into which we may be brought by the slightest mistake in the
conduct of life! Augustine was like an Alpine cowherd surprised by an
avalanche; if he hesitates, if he listens to the shouts of his
comrades, he is almost certainly lost. In such a crisis the heart
steels itself or breaks.
Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to such agitation as it is
difficult to describe. Her conversation with the Duchesse de
Carigliano had roused in her mind a crowd of contradictory thoughts.
Like the sheep in the fable, full of courage in the wolf's absence,
she preached to herself, and laid down admirable plans of conduct; she
devised a thousand coquettish stratagems; she even talked to her
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